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It sounded simple. We’d hire a car in Florence and drive to the Tuscan countryside just a couple of hours away. Easy. We’d rent a satellite navigation system along with the car. With [...]

After a few days in Florence, getting lost wasn’t such a problem. The maze of streets and squares was almost familiar. With newfound confidence I started veering away from tour groups [...]

Here in beautiful Florence you can see so many churches and galleries you can develop something called Stendhal Syndrome. When the famous writer visited in 1817, he experienced a dramatic attack [...]

Strange how people wear colours to echo their surroundings. Born near the sea in New Zealand, I’m most comfortable in blues and greens. Mermaid colours, someone once remarked. But [...]

London’s on a para-Olympic high. Sun’s shining. Waiters are polite to the point of being almost friendly sometimes. The food’s more than passable (cross my heart it’s [...]

Who’d have believed we’d be organised enough to have 30 minutes left before the taxi arrives to take us to the airport? You know what that means. We must have forgotten something. [...]