Slideshow of all photos on this Blogspot

Singapore Stopover

Flight - Paris - Singapore

Day 47 - Paris

Day 46 - Paris

Day 45 - Paris

Day 44 - Paris

Day 43 - Dijon

Day 42 - Dijon

Day 41 - Lyon

Day 40 - Provence

Day 39 - Provence

Day 38 - Provence

Day 37 - Puy-St-Vincent - Cote de Azure

Picture taken from the comfort of our apartment. If you look closely you can see Andrew in the red ski jacket digging our car out from under the snow so we can pack and depart. It took at least 1.5 hours. Really heavy snow and icy roads on the way out. So sad to leave! Drving down from out station at the resort throuh lower stations of Puy Saint Vincent.

On our drive from the ski resort to Menton on the Cote de Azur we stopped at this lovely little town of Tallard for lunch. The town of Tallard is host to a leg of the Tour de France. Really lovely shops and houses right up to the side of the road. You can imagine the people hanging out the windows and lining the streets.

Lunch here was a foot long baguette filled with pork and hot chips!

Great viewing spot for bike race. Central location in the heart of town.

Pont de la Reine Jeane. Lovely little bridge from main highway over the the otherside of the gorge for a farmer to access his property. Entreveaux Fortress. Magnificent little town. It was just on dusk and they had the castle and remparts all lit up.

Day 31 - Day 36 - Skiing at Puy-St-Vincent

We arrived in Puy Saint Vincent on Saturday. It snowed very heavily all day and all night and continued the next day. Great start. View from our balcony. Apartment is in the best spot of the whole resort at Station 1600m. There is a chair lift right outside our room and you can ski down or up to quads and sixes. The locker room is directly two floors below our apartment. Sitting on the couch, you can watch all the action, as all runs end outside our apartment! Inside shot of the apartment. Andrew resting on futon while playing computer games and watchng tv. Alexandra and I burning garlic bread (note white haze) in our compact kitchen. Stairs up in the hallway lead to bunk room, main bedroom, bathroom and toilet, then downstairs to exit apartment. View out the back of the resort from the main bedroom. Just down the valley is another ski resort, we also have passes to. This photo was taken after snow had thawed. Our car is bottom of photo, two along from left with snow on bonnet. The day before we were completely snowed in and you could not see the cars at all. View from our balcony looking right up the resort to information, ski school , ice skating and quad chair and more accommodation at station 1700m.

View from balcony looking left, just around the corner to quad and six chair. One of the snow ploughs busy early morning. Alexandra on the double chair ahead of Jeffrey and I.

Coffee break at one of the shops half way up. Looking back over mountains behind our apartment. Fresh chickens roasted and ready at midday each day! Jeffrey is the only person trustworthy or experienced enough to carry precious cargo back down mountain for lunch!

Ally and I sharing a Blanc Chocolate Magnum! It was very warm in the sun.

Looking back down to our apartment block from coffee shop.

Oops! Low speed crash in icey patch on way back to apartment for lunch. Andrew and Jeffrey were watching my not so graceful landing. I have enjoyed the rest of my week on the couch with ligament injury to knee and puffy ankle! Our apartments with shops and restaurants all along bottom. Andrew and Alexandra on the chair lift.

Alexandra ready to head off down to chair lift. They all leave at 9.00am when lifts open and are last off the mountain at 5.00pm with only a short break for lunch. Lunch on the balcony in the sun. Jeffrey and Alexandra ready to go again!

Andrew and Alexandra at the top of the mountain. Snow plow down the hill. My dude on his snow board.

Jeffrey at the top! These two would be quite happy to live here forever! Andrew thinks he would like the job of the local doctor at the resort. Doctor of Trauma of Sport Medicine on Snow. Doesn't take consultations between 10 and 2!

Hot Chocolate break in front of fire at their favourite haunt at the top fo the hill. Alexandra having a well earned break! Dude and Dudette cruising down the hill.

Day 30 - Torino - Puy-St-Vincent

Day 29 - Torino

Day 28 - Florence - Pisa - Portofino (Italian Riviera) - Torino

We called into Pisa on the way to Portofino. The bell tower of the cathedral in Pisa is definitely leaning. Looks really quirky against the cathedral building. Raining a little bit today but still enjoyable to walk around grounds. Andrew trying really hard to push the tower back straight! Alexandra leaning against the leaning tower of Pisa! I am so strong I can lift it with one hand!

The tower isn't really that tall in real life! Not a good day to visit Portofino and Rapallo on the Italian Riviera. Nevertheless, we got the feel of the place and can imagine the scene in summer at this exclusive beach club by the sea. Restaurants and hotels just line the Corsa by the sea overlooking the yachts and cruisers. The villas obviously owned by the rich and famous are nestled up the hillsides around the bays. We all decided it would be a nice place to base yourself for a walk along the Cinque Terra which is just 10km down the road.

Just 30km on from Portofino driving into Genova the rain turned into heavy snow and just got heavier. Hard to imagine such heavy snow on the Italian Riviera. And just got heavier!

We decided to continue onto Torino rather than stay in Portofino. It was a slow trip as we pretty much followed snow ploughs all the way along one of the largest highways into the night.

Police blocked traffic in long tunnels to pull trucks off the road. The trucks were lined up for miles along the freeway in the tunnels. They were allowed to continue after putting on snow chains. The police light up the lanes to direct traffic with fire/flare sticks.

Even the petrol station was snow bound and it had a roof over the bowsers. After we filled up the tractor moved piles of snow! Even though this photo doesn't show it well, the snow was very heavy and being blown horizontal. Very cold filling up the petrol, or so it seemed watching the hired help from inside the car! We also made this a toilet, coffee and hot chocolate stop. The outdoor seating area would be very nice in summer I am sure.

We arrived in Torino with no accommodation booked at 7.30pm. Within half an hour we were having a beer in our hotel room because rather than doing three laps of the city looking for our booked hotel we just booked into the first one we found!

No mistake that we are in our plushiest digs yet. Alexandra and I picked the place for our chauffeur to stop and went in to check it out while the hired help and his copilot waited out front!

Day 27 - Florence

Florence!! There are some beautiful bridges over the River in central Florence and one of the most famous is Ponte Vecchio. It has a walkway through the middle of the Jewellers shops on either side. On the top of the shops on one side is an enclosed walkway that runs from a palace on one side of the river to a large office complex on the other side. This walkway was built and used by the Medici family to walk from home to office without having to walk with the public.

The Jewellers shops are just full of gold. Some of the designs are just absolutely amazing and some of the most original jewellery designs I have ever seen. We stopped on the bridge to read up on the history and a photo opportunity.

Sorry I keep forgetting to rotate photos before upload. This photo shows the cream walkway of the Medici family running above shops. The family were forced to build walkway out and around the brick tower when a rival family refused to demolish their tower! This is just one outside wall of the Medici Family residence. The majority of the building (yes you guessed it) was under scaffolding. Their orginal residence was on the other side of town near their offices. They purchased this one cheap when a banker called Pitti went bankrupt building this house for his family, trying to outdo the Medici family. The evidence of residences, art and sculpture once owned by the Medici family is almost sickening. Around 11 residences in Florence and another 13 villas in surrounding villages.

Alexandra purchased a couple of charms for her bracelet and the rest was window shopping! This is a photo of the real David in the Museum. Yes photos are banned as the rights are owned by some conglomerate, just as the rights to the Sistine Chapel are owned by Nikkon. A male took the photo and no it wasn't Jeffrey! If you ride a Vespa in Winter this is just the hat!

Here is the new version of the Fiat Bambino 500. A really cute car and just what you need to zip around Italy.

Alexandra checking out the inside of an old Fiat Bambino.

We booked online and stayed in a lovely 16th century palace in the centre of town. Over the years it has been used as an embassy residence. Our room was very large and the ceiling was at least 5 metres in height. Here is a photo of one corner of the sitting room. All for the bargain price of 90 Euros per night!

We were situated in a lovely area of Florence, just one street back from the river, the opera across the road and the embassies all around us. The short walk to the main streets was through the embassy areas which are blocked off to vehicle traffic and patrolled 24 hours by the carabaneiri, and then the Corsa of the designers. Alexandra and I were always along way behind the boys on the way home because we would stop at each window and choose our favourite, dresses, shoes, handbags, jewellery and decide on what occasion we would wear them. Incidentally patent shoes and boots of any colour are big time.