France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Switzerland

As part of Judy's nine week visit, Peter organised a wonderful holiday for us all. Using as many methods of transport as possible, we have travelled through France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Switzerland.

It's a complicated trip, but to cut a long story short, I had to go to Spain for a week to attend a meeting in a town called Avila (100km west of Madrid).


While I was working, Peter and Judy spent four days driving our car across France, and met me in Spain. After the conference finished, we drove to Barcelona (600km), stopping along the way at a town called Lleida. A whirlwind tour of Barcelona followed (lots of Gaudi buildings), then we hopped on a ferry with our car, and travelled to Genoa, Italy.


From Genoa, which we won't talk about (horrible hotel), we had a quick visit of the lovely Cinque Terre National Park, then headed up to Milan, and flew to Athens.



Now we are in Greece, where it was straight down to the port and off to the beautiful island of Hydra (ee-dra). This was the main phase of our holiday, and we stopped there for seven nights.



Our traditional Greek summer house (Spiti Costandi) was absolutely gorgeous, with a fantastic view of the harbour (we have hundreds of photos to prove it). Food was great, weather lovely, and swimming in the Agean was wonderful.



After Hydra, we went back and spent 24 hours in Athens, where we checked out the Acropolis and the old town area.



Had a bit of trouble getting out of Athens due to a metro strike, protests, and a severe lack of taxis, but we eventually made it on to our EasyJet flight.

Then back to Milan, where our car was waiting for us at the airport.


With five days of holidays left, we drove up to Lugano in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. We spent our time there walking and checking out the lovely lakeside town.


After Lugano, it was off to Zermatt. We had the crispest, clearest day for our drive through the mountains, and once in Zermatt, the best view of the Matterhorn we've ever seen.


On the drive back to Geneva on Sunday, we visited the Leukerbad thermal baths, where we could refresh after our busy travels. Being a tourist is hard work!




There are many more nice photos of this trip available on Flickr (also as slideshow).


This week I'm back in the office, but not for long as we're going to Berlin for the weekend. Berlin is a city none of us have visited before, and we are once again taking advantage of cheap EasyJet flights. Having visitors is the perfect excuse to travel.