Some of my favorite pictures and more...

We have taken humdreds of photos.  These are just a few of my favorites...after all, one picture can speak a thousand words.

And one of Rocky's favorites:

So, this is our last night in Bratislava.  We spent the morning looking for second hand stores we had noticed last time we passed through.  We found several, and one was open.  The rest of the day was spent figuring out how to get to the train station, making Budapest reservations and packing and re-packing.

Our journey is about to come full circle...and there is one story we deliberately left out until now.  Having returned Michael's brother's car we can say now what we weren't able to stay before, not wanting George to worry for the majority of the time we had his car in our care.  We had just spent 2 lovely days in Gleisdorf Austria, and were heading for Italy,  All was well.  We were happy, relaxed and getting used to driving 120 km per hour (about 75 mph), while others whizzed past us at unthinkable speeds of at least 150 kmh.  We were on the Einbahn, Austria's fastest road, and I was driving, passing a very slow truck in the very slow right lane as we were going up an incline.  Suddenly, the car seemed to lose power.  I shifted down thinking I would be able to accelerate then, only to feel the car's power continue to fail.  "Shit, oh shit, oh fucking shit", I thought.  "What the hell is going on?"  Fortunately there was a merging lane coming onto the Einbahn that seemed little used and I managed to pull over and come to a stop out of the way of traffic.  When I did we noticed steam.  Oh that ugly steam that usually indicates an overheated engine (there was no engine heat indicator on the dashboard, which did seem strange now that I was thinking about it).  It was energetically pouring forth from the engine compartment.  "OMG...SHIT, SHIT, SHIT...the phone doesn't work!!!"  "No Vodafone service in Austria...Crap, Crap, CRAP."  There was, however, a police station down the road attached to the merge lane we were parked in and an Einbahn Administration building.  Rocky stayed with the car, I walked down to the police station, hoping that someone would speak English and that we hadn't blown up the fucking engine.  I was barely keeping the tears at bay.  But as I walked, someone had called the Austrian highway technicians, who were, AMAZING, based about 50 meters from the police station.  The police were very helpful and insisted on driving me back to the car, where our rescuers had already arrived.  They were actually prepared to fix the car if at all possible but they didn't have the right hose...it turned out that a radiator hose had sprung a leak.  They waited as the police called a tow truck, and we got towed away...

The moral of the story is Opels are great cars.  They have this electronic emergency sensor system that shuts the engine down as soon as it senses overheating, so that no engine damage is done.  The mechanics replaced the hose in a couple of hours, checked the engine out and gave us a cash payment discount.  Needless to say, though we were exhausted, we were elated at not having to pay for an engine rebuild (there are good reasons to rent, rather than borrow, a car...though all is well that ends well).  The next day, after an exhausted rest, we made for Italy...and that's when Rocky ran over my foot, and then broke his toe.

We have, however, continued to walk all over the place, while inhaling Ibuprofen (good stuff that).

The sights, and sounds and the good company soon dispelled the stress as we explored Venice, Florence, Pistoia and enjoyed the hospitality of an Tuscan B & B and watched the moon rise over Tuscany.

We do have more photos and some fun video footage to share when we get back.  And, course, a few more stories (particularly about the terrifying Swiss Alp roads...we recommend taking trains in Switzerland).

We are looking forward to being home.

Love to you all!!!

K