My last holidays

Last summer my wife and I spent our holidays in several European countries. We did the journey by car.

FIRST we drove to Leon, in the north of Spain, about eight hundred
kilometres from here, to visit my mother, who celebrated her ninetieth birthday. A FEW DAYS LATER we drove more than a thousand kilometres in one day to France, the home country of my wife. We were tired but happy to see that the family were safe and sound. We arrived at the Loire Valley, the famous region of the castles and we stayed in an apartment. During three weeks we visited the principal sightseeings of several towns, such as Tours, the main town of the region, Amboise, with its royal castle and the “Clos Lucé”, the last mansion of Leonanrdo Da Vinci, gift of his friend Francis I, the King of France, and different castles like Azay-le-Rideau, Chambord or Cheverny.

THIS WAS SOME OF OUR DAILY ROUTINE THERE: we walked along Loire river, in the forest or rode on bike through the little towns in the Loire Valley. Every day or frequently in the week there were "light and sound" festivals at several castles in the region, groups of musicians playing on the
streets or in the squares in the evening. Single tourists or groups of them walked on
the streets or just sat at the restaurants and drank different kinds of drinks,
tee, coffee, wine, beer, … had lunch or a dinner, told things or just laughed...

AFTER THREE WEEKS we decided to go to Italy and to visit a little the north of it,
especially the region of Tuscany. The first day we drove nine hundred kilometres,
to the town of Turin, the second day to Milan, the third day we visit Bologne
and we drove later to Florence, where we stayed for three days and visited the most
important sightseeings, the cathedral and other churches, different palaces and
museums, Palazzo Vecchio, Uffizi, Piti, Medici,… and other very interesting places.

A FEW DAYS LATER we drove to Pisa, the town of Galileo Galilei, which is famous for its cathedral, baptistery and the world-famous leaning tower, after a day we left Pisa and left Italy and we arrived in Nice, in France, where we stayed only for one day. FINALLY we drove back to Spain again.

(Written by Ireneo Fernández)