Leave nxt mth for 3.5mths, thanks for advice, the final plan (its long)
 

Leaving Brisbane at 2.30 to have a better arrival time into London (via s'pore & Dubai) get into London at about 7.30pm. Thanks to B/class tickets with Emirates transfers are included. We have 10 days in London at a lovely apartment http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk:80/p7035532hi.

This is where we will catch up with DD#1 who moved to the UK about a month ago. DH's aunty arrives on day 3, which we are thrilled about. Recently widowed and has never travelled, so we are thrilled to be her 'tour guides'. London will be all about seeing DD and helping auntyJ see the sites (this is our 3rd trip) I have emailed the Langham for a high tea booking for 'us girls'. And of course seeing some shows that we will sort out on arrival.

Then it goodbye 'again' to DD#1 and off on the Eurostar to Paris, with auntyJ. We have a week in Paris, again we have been to Paris, but thrilled to be going back. This time it’s all about food.........shopping at markets etc. and 'whipping' up some yummy dinners in our apartment. http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/p412345#wrapper

We say goodbye then to auntyJ and 'put her' back on the eurostar to London where she will spend the evening with DD#1 and then start her 15 day bus tour of Europe. We will have picked up the car by now that we have leased from Peugeot for 3months (89 days ;-) ) so we will have probably done a day trip or two outside of Paris with auntyJ. Now we head off on our driving France adventure. No set plans, just going to follow advice I've received here and Rick Steves books (I'm a new convert). We want to see the Australian war memorial in Villers-Bretonneux, go to Mont Saint-Michel and generally eat and drink our way through France. DH is so excited to go and drive the Suspension bridge a Milau, especially as he saw the "Top Gear" guys do it last night. :-)

We will then end up in Venice for 4 nights where we will be joined by our df's from Aus. Again all the usual sites but again lots of eating in out of the way places and I'd like to go to Burano. http://www.oikosvenice.com/i/orbi.html

Then the 4 of us pile in the car and head to Lake Como for 10 days. This is our down time, eating sleeping drinking walking, exploring the islands etc. We are thinking of a day trip by train to Lucerne. http://www.lakecomohomes.com/displayproperty.aspx?p=357

We will then drive to Refrancore about an hour south of Milan where we have found the most awesome accommodation. Through a friend here in Brisbane, who stayed there. It’s owned by a Brisbane couple. Our DF's will be leaving us here after 3 nights. We will be staying for 8, and DD#2 will be flying in from Australia on day 4 to spend the next 2 weeks with us. I will be so ready to see her by then. http://www.casaregina.info/

We will have 2 nights with nothing booked at this point and think we will leave it that way, just decide over there want we want to do.

Then its off to Cinque Terre for 3 nights to meet up with our other Df's from Aus, who will be with us now for a month. http://en.baranin.com/apartments-cinque-terre

Then we all head off (2 cars now) to Tuscany for 4 nights. www.agriturismoniccolai.it

Off to Rome next where we will drop DD#2 at the airport for her flight home. (gonna be some tears) Just 2 nights in Rome as we have all been before but wanted to go back for a quick visit. http://www.sleepinitaly.com/bb.php?id_bb=10

We then have 4 nights in a beautiful farm stay in between Positano & Sorrento http://www.letore.com/index.php We will drive to Pompeii one of these days.

We'll drive from there to Bari for our o'night ferry to Croatia, 5 nights Dubrovik an then about 10 days on the road with nothing booked. Just following our 'noses' as it were.

We will then say goodbye to our friends and have about 5 days to get back to Paris for our flight home. Somewhere amongst all that DD#1 will try and fly over to see us again. So what do you think, I'm really happy with it. I'd love to hear suggestions on place to see and stop.
As always I couldn't have done it without all of you.........thanks :-)

It sounds absolutely wonderful. Have a great time and a safe trip.
Write from the road if you can.

What an amazing adventure, please post a trip reports (or several). Thanks for sharing!

Thanks Not too sure what to do about a report. I am taking a little netbook with me and will be on line a lot. Maybe I'll try and do what 'bikerscott' did and do an ongoing blog. I think it will be too overwhelming to do it as on report on our return.

Woohoo!! What a wonderful adventure you've got planned. Your accommodations look great. Have fun, let us know the highlights. [And maybe the lowlights! :)]

Sounds like an amazing trip. I think posting as you go along sounds like a great idea and would certainly be easier for you than trying to get all your notes together once you get home. Everything will be fresh in your mind while you're on the road.

Have a great time.
from another Aussie Dreamer
Kay

Happy and safe travels - and the blog sounds fun - and more relaxing than waiting until the end.

May you return with many wonderful and happy memories.

Thanks one and all, Kayf, did I read somewhere that you are living in the UK now? Loving skype, makes it a little more bearable with DD#1 (Bec) being so far away.

For your two weeks in Refrancore, I highly recommend that you buy a copy of the Cadogan guide to Piemonte & The Italian Riviera. This is the only guide book I can think of that includes all the interesting things to do in that area, which is seldom visited by tourists even though it is central to many attractions. In a radius around Refrancore, it is easy to reach some of the best rice country, hazlenut country and red wine country in Italy. I hope you will spend some time in Torino, one of Italy's most enjoyable and stylish cities.

I think you will enjoy will have an extended stay in such an undertouristed part of Italy and Europe. The Cadogon guide would be a tremendous asset, and also covers le Cinque Terre and all of the Riviera.

Love the look of the place in Manarola, I shall be looking forward to hearing about that!
Best wishes and safe travels to you - what an adventure!

Yet another Aussie Dreamer

Take rick Steves with a grain of salt, IMO, and don't limit yourself to his choices of places to go.
Have a great time!

Great, gorgeous, enviable, and so well-planned! Just one minor remark: with just 4 nights in Venice (which isn't much indeed), only go to Burano if you already know Venice really well. Otherwise, you'd waste time on a place that will quite certainly leave you disappointed. Burano is one of those villaged that wow you because they are unspoiled and undiscovered. Which means Burano wowed you how many? 20? 30? 40? years ago. Since the charm was its being unspoiled, it's not very charming any longer. And if you go, then hop over to close-by Torcello. This is the REAL sight in the northern lagoon.

You will be passing by somewhere after Millau and before Venice !

Peter

Sounds great..come back with lots of tales!

The Lake Como apt and the B&B in MassaLubrense are places I would especially love to visit! I do think that you should add more days to Venice, but it looks like a great trip is ahead!

Wow, enjoy! It all sounds great to me ;)

I agree with Franco about Burano. It photographs beautifully, but the reality is closer to Coney Island.

But Torcello is one of the most moving sights in the area.

Thanks as always, lovely to hear others thoughts. Thanks for the head up on Burano. I will save our time for soaking up Venice and eating as many 'cicchetti' as humanly possible in that time :-)
Thanks for the book suggestion zeppole, really excited about that stop.
AD

Have a fabulous time (how could you not?!?). If you wouldn't mind doing mini blogs on one thread, that would be wonderful and allow us to live vicariously, not that we haven't already!

Aw, come on!! Burano is great, IF you get away from the tourist hordes! But, I have to agree, with such a short time in Venice, it's probably OK to give it a miss.

Yet another Aussie. :)

I LOVE the rentals in Venice and Rome. We went to Burano in the evening after most people were gone and found it lovely. I bought a really pretty blouse with heavy lace (i.e., not delicate) on it and have had lots of compliments on it. I also fell in love with some sheets which I could not afford (and did not buy).

I'll be looking forward to hearing about your fabulous trip.

aussiedreamer. I would like to ask you if you had difficulty booking the Agritourismo Niccolai. It caught my eye as a friend has been trying to book a room there and she does not seem to be able to get them to answer her emails. So I told her I would post and ask you.
Thanks.

Hi aussiedreamer,
You will have a fabulous time. Your schedule is relaxed like ours was for our 96 day trip last year. There were a couple things we did during our trip that worked especially well.

Something that I'm glad I did was to take a notebook and when we were driving to our next location we would summarize our last area visited. In simple words and phrases we 'painted' a picture of our visit: vineyards climbing the hills, goat herd in the road, twisty narrow cobblestone roads, mint green walls in our room, red and yellow canoes.. and so on. A dozen or so for each place. I compiled these into a small book when I got home. I can go to any page and remember instantly how I felt while I was in that particular area. It all comes flooding back.

If you are bringing a laptop I would suggest journaling and downloading your pics every single day. As an example I would make a folder for the UK, subfolder Cotswolds, then Broadway, Chipping Campden etc and then I would download the days pics into the correct folder each day. It sounds like a lot of work but it worked great. The last thing you want is to get home, pull out a thousand pics and try to remember where they were from. It was a castle in ????????? This is a river in ???????? Ughhh.

When I bought a souvenir for someone I would also get a postcard from that area to give with the gift. On the postcard I would write a little about the area or why I chose that gift for that person. I swear the postcards were as popular as the gifts.

I loved every minute of our trip. Just remember to have days where you do absolutely nothing...it allows you to have stamina for such a long trip. Congratulations, it's almost here.

Have fun,
Michele

Thanks Michele, great ideas. Another I always do is take a photo of the signs at sites I love, even if its only Lake 'something' or Castle ?....... cause its amazing how quickly we forget. I am taking a little netbook, and after dropping my camera in some rocks once (we did get it back after an hour of scrambling) I save my photos each evening.

sher, Hi yes I did have trouble getting them to answer my emails. But I had my heart set on staying there, so I rang, their english was great and I immediately got my confirmation after our conversation. Hope that helps.

aussiedreamer. Thank you. I did tell her to call or fax but she was under the impression that their English was not good.
I will let her know.

As a rule, never expect Italians to answer unsolicited emails. Yes, many of them do in the meantime, fortunately... but they're just adopting this custom, mostly from tourists, and slowly anyway. Many Italians still consider it either rude or suspicious if you make the initial contact by email - so if you want to be on the safe side, always call first, and send an email afterwards.

Wonderful trip...one suggestion. That last part of your plan, where you drive to Bari? You may be enroute through Puglia or Apullia which is one of Italy's last secrets. Very untouristed, but unique as to both its subtle beauty and architecture. Check out this webiste for references to Puglia. Or check out any of Lecce, Ostuni, Cisternino, Alberobello, Vieste on the Gargano if you have time...even Trani, Brindisi and Bari themselves, though rather rough working port cities (not all beautified like the Cinque Terre coast), have wonderful parts.

As Australians (my daughters in-laws are Aussies) you will be natural adventurers and, I would suspect, will really enjoy the under-touristed charms of Puglia.

Have a wonderful trip.

Hello aussiedreamer, so the final countdown has started! For me too. We fly on 21st July.
Can I just adjust your thinking here about, did you say netbook or notebook? I used a tiny little digital voice recorder made by Olympus. Being able to press the button and speak a few sentences saves trying to make notes later. Also we always take photos of signs: road, buildings, directions and especially when entering a town with its name on a nice board as you approach. If you miss it it appears usually at the other end (exit/entrance) so snap it there. Have the most awesome time and go with the flow - May The Force Be With You!

franco. I don't believe it was really quite unsolicited. She sent an inquiry through their website.
Why would they request contacting them that way if they have difficulty answering?
But it is a moot point as they finally did contact her and they have no vacancies.

Thanks LJ, sound like us, we will have 'all' day to get to Bari, as our ferry doesn't leave 'till 10pm.

Tod, I did say netbook........its a tiny little thing about the size of an A4 page folded in half. I love it, we looked at the ipad, but I love a proper key board and this has 4 USB ports, very handy. And it fits in my large-ish handbag.

Tod, I will go to your profile and remember where you are off to. DH is ready to move the flight forward, we both just want to GO!!!!

We're off to Paris then the National Parks in Canada - then back to Paris. 5 weeks away in all.

I must go and have a look at the Netbook - sounds like something just up my alley. I have recently been given an I-phone which has a digital keyboard but I don't think one can type notes - only sent text messages.?

Michelle I love your idea of purchasing a postcard to go with a gift.

Here's a funny image for you. My husband (who is not normally a geek or a nerd) discovered he could record his voice into his digital camera. So there were lots of time I would discover him speaking into his camera saying, for example "Arc du Triumphe after he had just taken a snap". Anyway, it worked a treat and there was no confusion with photographs. Lucky the children weren't with us they would have been mightily embarrassed. ;)

Aussiedreamer and tod - I hope to read posts from you as you travel.

'Promise'

(come on embarrassing the kids is our 'job')

aussiedreamer. don't wish the vacation to come soomer. Making plans just helps extend it because even for the time you have away(lucky dog) you will wonder where the time went when you return!

Cathies - No reporting while on holiday as I just wouldn't find the time! I'm a gal who forces the clock to give me 25hrs at least, out of 24!
But, I guess a trip report will be forthcoming and already I'm wondering how the hell I will condense it but still make it interesting! I have definitely overplanned so that NOTHING will be a disappointment as there will always be a Plan 'B', 'C' and even 'D, E, & F'!