The past few weeks have taken us to four very different countries and through a myriad of landscapes, languages, football teams and socio-economic strata.

After all the rustic villages we have frequented of late, Cannes proved a quite refreshing change of pace (and a source of cheap Asian food which we have all been craving!) We joined the glamorous throng each evening strolling the Croisette (and walked it a couple of times in our cozzies and thongs!) We donned our silk scarves and big sunnies to drive the amazing coast road to Monaco and followed Ferraris around the Grand Prix track (several times in fact) looking for a parking spot in downtown Monte Carlo. We huddled beneath the moldering colonnades of the Place de Garibaldi in Nice, watching the city’s heaviest downpour of rain in decades, the very same rain that claimed the lives of 26 people that day, just a little to our north-west.

Then it was on to Italy, to a friendly homestay in a gelato coloured village high in the hills above the Ligurian town of Levanto. From here we did the famous cliff-top walk between the five villages of the Cinque Terre and enjoyed our last tranquil dip in the Mediterranean Sea. The real highlight for the kids - for all of us in fact - was John’s discovery of fireflies in the fields around our village. This proved one of the really magical moments of our trip, crouching in the darkness late at night, watching fireflies light up the olive groves around us like a thousand flashing fairy lights.

Making our way north to Switzerland, we stayed overnight in the lovely alpine town of St Vincent in Italy’s Aosta Valley where we sat in the midst of a crowd of raucous young Italians to watch New Zealand draw 1-1 with Italy in the football. We were the only Kiwis (and token Kiwis) present and we intended to keep a low profile but were quickly outed when New Zealand scored that first spectacular goal. Lawrence became quite apprehensive – the Italians were very full on - but I was (fairly) sure that they wouldn’t attack a mother and her children. We had John’s dad on the phone from New Zealand during the match – it was, without a doubt, the highlight of the Marychurch family’s World Cup!

The drive across the Alps next day was also unforgettable. We decided to avoid those awful long tunnels (which are no doubt very useful for people doing this drive every day), and drove over the top through the Grand St Bernard Pass. It was a bright blue day as we zigzagged up through the mountains - Mattahorn to your right,boys - Mt Blanc to your left. As we approached the border however, the weather suddenly closed in until we were romping about in icicles and snow (and – yes - a t-shirt in John’s case, of course!) Emerging from the clouds, we found ourselves in Switzerland - the complete chocolate box – meadows of flowers, chalets with geraniums and the hills alive with the sound of cowbells. It was so goddamn pretty, it was hard to believe it was real, sitting there in a high alpine meadow, munching on bread and fragrant Fontina cheese.

For me (Alison), Geneva was mostly about work. It was stressful but fantastic to finally meet with my UNHCR clients at Head Office and I had a really satisfying time there and secured some excellent interviews. Meanwhile, John took the kids to see the Large Hadron Collider (‘the LHC’ in nerd-speak) where the world’s physicists are gleefully slamming bits of atoms together in a tunnel 100 metres under Geneva (at a speed of 99.999999% the speed of light, Francis informs me) in an effort to discover new subatomic particles. In retrospect, it’s hard to say who should have been the more nervous that morning - John and the boys or me!

Once work obligations were behind me, we still had one day left to explore Geneva and its surrounds. We spent the morning touring the UN Palais des Nations which we all found very interesting, despite the fact that the main conference in session was the World Conference on the Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations! We then spent a beautiful warm afternoon out on Lake Geneva. We thought that taking the ferry would be a cost effective option but no - this is Switzerland – it cost us the equivalent of AUS $80 to go 1.5 hours each way! Food too is prohibitively expensive In Geneva even on (particularly on) the Alison Gibbs Writing Service business expense account! The most modest looking restaurant in town ended up being as dear as Assiette or Aria in Sydney and it was a good thing that we were staying in France and crossing the border every day.

We are back in France this evening and on the home straight now. We are spending our last five days in Strasbourg in Alsace, from where we will cross the Rhine to give the boys a brief taste of Germany.

As a result, this is likely to be our last blog entry. It has been a wonderful adventure – a real necklace of jewels - but I think we are all feeling ready to come home. We can’t believe we’ll find a new Prime Minister in The Lodge. Clearly we have some catching up to do on goings on in Australia!

Thanks to everyone who has followed our doings via the blog and kept in touch with us along the way. Until next week, a bientot!

Alison, John, Lawrence and Francis