Italy: Corleto was beautiful, antique and picturesque, huddled against the side of the mountain, sinuous and perilous. Full of relations and food and wood smoke and no one spoke a word of English, but it was fun. Rome, on the other hand, was kinda grotty and insane and the hotel lost our booking for New Years Eve. I'd rather not even think about that again. But it all sorted out and the last two days were a blur of touristy joy, a casual plethora of ancient mementos. However, I was dying for a decent breakfast by the time we hit Britain.

UK: Land of the cooked breakfast, hallelujah. London was crammed full every moment with the Underground and things to see and people to meet and I loved it. I honestly adore that city. Our driving tour was, I think, a highlight of the trip, full of freedom and sidetrips, not to mention castles, and the odd bit of ice, snow, wind, rain and mud. The university towns were mental but entertaining, Cornwall was beautiful, Bath delightfully Austen, and Manchester full of wonderful people.

France: Back to bizarre breakfasting, not to mention weird trains. Normandy was full of weird weather - a day of tiny hail, for instance - and our host was a lovely if anime-mad girl. I got quite an education on William the Conquerer. Paris was... well, I know I'm supposed to love it because I'm a girl or something, but it didn't make that much of an impression. It all looks the same, because it was mostly all ordered built by the same guy. It's kinda dirty, and uninspired, and it probably didn't help that no matter what, I can't really wrap my mouth around French. But Versailles was stunningly gorgeous.

Then we came home. A day early, due to error, a little tired, a lot glad to be back. And that's the potted summary of six weeks.