Making our way home now that its over!

23rd January – Farewell Provence

Snow-covered Alps from the airplane window.

We packed up our house on Provence and drove to the airport at Nice for our afternoon flight back to London.  Anthony, Max and Tom helped by driving with us, as we couldn’t fit all of our luggage in our car!  The Henry guys were going up the coast to Monte Carlo and then on a road trip up and around the coast road and down to Rome to drop off their hire car and then fly back to London for a week more (lucky ducks!).

It was a fairly uneventful trip, until Tim realized that he had left his wallet in the car AFTER he had returned it!  We discovered this as we were checking in at the British Airways counter!  A quick call was made to the car leasing place, and the guy kindly offered to drive back to the airport (it was only a 5 minute drive, luckily) and give Tim back his wallet – catastrophe averted!  It was then onto the plane for the flight back to London, and on the way saw some pretty snow-covered Alps.

We arrived in peak hour traffic for the considerable drive to Jem & Ians.  Once we arrived we relaxed and inflated some air-beds for the visitors (all 5 of ‘em!), and then went off to Jems favourite local pub – The Orange Tree – for a great dinner.  Then home for a catch up and wait for Ian to get home from his evening show.

24th January – Portabello Markets and Notting Hill

The crowds at Portabello Markets

After spending some time with Jem and Ian over breakfast, we bid them adieu and thanked them for their hospitality once again, and set off for our last few hours in London.  It is the last time we will see Jem and Ian in their London home, as they are excitedly planning their move to New York in the first half of this year… very exciting!  We caught the tube (with a few detours, due to track works and Tottenham Court Road station being closed!) to Notting Hill Gate and walked the Portabello Road markets with thousands of other tourists.  We then had a wander around Kensington and Chelsea until we found a nice English Pub to finish off our holiday in the UK. 

It has been a great adventure, with plenty of interesting things to see and experiences to have.  It has been great spending time with the Henrys and Jem & Ian.  For me the highlight was Italy…. A magnificent experience, but there are many other things that will stay with us for a long time.

As I am writing this from a café/bar in Heathrow airport, I realize that I have many more photos to load onto the blog – we had run out of space, so I had to buy some more.  We will load these over the next few days and send everyone a note when they are loaded.

Thankyou for coming on this journey with us by reading the blog.  We will soon be boarding and look forward to seeing you all very soon!

Latest comments

21.10 | 10:46

Times Square is a famous place to visit in New York. It is famous for its food chains, clubs, attractions, and bars. I explored this place and had a lovely time

28.09 | 11:01

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26.07 | 04:51

I love this trip and will try to enjoy it after taking the nyc trip by http://www.goldenbustours.com/.

17.07 | 09:15

Lovely Pictures. Times Square is a brilliant place which I explored during my https://www.goldenbustours.com/new-york-ny-tours/ to try walking, dining, shopping