A chilly wind doth blow

Our month is half over already. We are waiting for our flight from Paris to Venice and every time the terminal door opens a blast of arctic wind tainted with cigarette smoke hits us. I'm sure we are the only people here who dont smoke!

We have been quite lucky with the weather. Its very cold and we wear all our layers but no rain and the last 2 days in Paris were beautiful. A few spring bulbs are coming out and the trees are in bud so spring is not far away. Glad we aren't camping though.

Ghent and Bruges in Belgium are lovely medieval cities with picturesque buildings along the canals and ancient marketplaces.Both enjoyable.

We spent quite a bit of time in Flanders and the Somme at the WW1 cemeteries. There are dozens all over the area, all beautifully maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves and all with very sad stories of the tens of thousands of young men who died. We stayed one night at a B and B near Ypres in Belgium and were told about the neighbour who died recently when he was burning off and an unexploded bomb went off. There are still countless bombs buried in the fields.

Paris was great. Coincidently Lisa was here at the same time for work and Bev came with her to keep her company. We took Bev out for the day visiting lots of places by metro, a new experience for her as she hadn't been game to tackle it alone. We were able to catch up with Lisa for dinner which was lovely.
Robert and I covered a huge amount of territory visiting all the sights by a combination of bus, metro and on foot. Last night we went out again to see the main buildns lit up and it really was worth the effort. But that's enough of Paris and we look forward to Venice and then beautiful Austria....

The next week.
Venice was as good as all the pictures. The weather helps and it was a lovely day. We wandered all day along canals and through a maze of narrow streets, quite a navigational feat. There were hordes of people in the popular areas like St Marks Square, but noone in the tiny winding streets. It really is very picturesque with colourful boats on the canals, little bridges and many ornate touches on the old buildings.

We are now at Henndorf near Salzberg with Eva and Christian. Its always lovely here. There are only a few patches of snow around here but the distant high mountains are covered. Apart from a huge dump in December they have had less snow than usual.

Today we are going to Hinterstoder for a few days, then back here before flying to Amsterdam then home.
Hope all is well at home. See you soon.