Beds. I like a soft bed. Supportive and not too soft. But not hard.

Pillows. I like a fairly firm pillow. Large, but not too large. Not thin and flat.

 A good hot and spacious shower, clean sheets, thick fluffy (but absorbent) towels, a nice view, thick walls, good heating and cooling, fast Wi-Fi… the list goes on.

Yes I am a little bit particular about hotel accommodation. Reading that list I might, it seems, be a bit of a snob. Ok, maybe I’m a lot fussy 😉

When we book holiday accommodation I try to alternate between excellent and average.  That way we can stay in some really nice places and the expense is offset by staying in somewhere a bit scabby.

Both our kids were a little concerned this holiday is using all of the family fortune. I did try to control myself, but 25 years of marriage and a bugger of a year with Dave’s cancer and it was harder than usual. But last night was the night. We paid 60 Euros for bed and breakfast. Yey us. Give me a clap.

But it will be the only night as it happens! My back now aches, I’ve had two or three hours sleep. I am cold. I had to sleep fully clothed so my skin didn’t touch the sheets. I know more about the people in the next room than I want to.

The end. My rant is over. I have done it tough. Please feel sorry for me.

Turin (or Torino in Italian) is nearly 600kms from Trieste. Dave and I make a great team. I do the city driving, he does the long miles on the open road.

We didn’t get lost. While I’d like to say that’s because I have incredible skills of navigation it has more to do with google maps than anything else. I worked out how to connect the phone to the car audio system and the maps, in broad Australian, told us where to go and when. I have to have a little brag about my driving though… I did a reverse park, in the rain, on the wrong side of the road,  in a manual car, into a tiny space 🙂

 Hasn’t technology helped travel! On our first day in Venice I purchased a SIM card for my iPhone. It was 30 euros and included 300 minutes of phone calls anywhere in the world and 4G of data. We even downloaded songs for our car trip yesterday. It will work right across Europe. We have talked to Grandma, Will and Victoria a couple of times. I can check Google anytime I need. When I am awake in the middle of the night I can research our next destinations. To top it off my (very) IT savvy father, set up Telstra air for me. So I can pick up mobile hot spots all over the country and use my data from my home connection. How cool is that! I don’t really understand how it works, but even now for instance I am connected via  Telstra 🙂

The main reason we came to Turin was to go to the Automobile Museum. Simon Cole you would have loved it. (No matter where we go in the world Dave will find an old Landy)

We wandered the streets and found an amazing trendy food shopping centre (EATILY)  which I could have spent hours in, but it was dinner time and we were hungry so we walked some more and found a nice place for dinner.

Dave had lamb chops and vegetables, I had a fantastic pasta with seafood which was finished by steaming in the pizza oven with a pizza crust. Yummo.

We also had a hot chocolate. It was more warm ganache really. The spoon did actually stand up by itself!

OK – time for a dodgy shower, equally dodgy breakfast and then we are off to Campione d’Italia, a small Italian exclave inside Switzerland.

5 stars (plus) tonight. I can’t wait 🙂

PS: To clarify yesterdays blog post. The left picture (where he looks good) is the NOW (after) picture. The other one was a month or so ago at the end of treatment. How much better does he look now xx