July 26th; Today is pretty much just a travel day. We jump on the coach and hit the road for a long time. We did have a stop on the way to Lyon though. Wine tasting in the Beaujolais region.

We got there and a hilarious dog, which I named Roberto, came up to greet us. It was a sort beagle looking sausagey dog. It was quite old. He just wanted to lie around. I gave him a scratch. We went looking for toilets, as often happens immediately after disembarking a bus. We found one, which a group of twenty or so people were lined up for. One of the reps of the place told us that they had more down the hallway. I followed them, with several people following me, to the end of a hallway. I don’t think they noticed, because they went into someone’s private room and shut the door.

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July 25th; It is our free day. I have a public transport pass. We seek out the dead first in the catacombes of Paris. They were once Roman limestone quarries that fell into the hands of the French and were filled with the bones of those who were crowding the cemeteries.

Others sought the dead that day too; my last sight of Ryan was looking baffled in face of a map. He wanted to find Jim Morrison’s grave. The catacombes themselves are wonderful. The stairs descend for what feel like many more than five floors into the earth, and from there empty tunnels stretch for many kilometres. In total there are some three hundred kilometres of these tunnels beneath the city, and over six million people buried within the catacombes, though only a stretch of these are open to the public. Kate was scaring Ben as we walked through the first tunnels. They dribble off almost endlessly into blind corners and then dribble on again. A few items of graffiti adorn the walls, though they are largely bare. And then some sculptures carved by a once-sailor, once-caretaker, now-dead man, of various ports he had visited in life. They were from memory.

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July 24th; today we visit Paris in the day. It start early morning, with breakfast and preparation as it shall do for the many days to come.

The city is quite beautiful, and the French make sure they remain so; gutters that flood and clean themselves, well pruned trees and an unseen mass of cleaners, canals clean enough to breath near (a long way from the foul muck of the Thames and Liffey), and as many parks and gardens as I remember of any city. The occasional cobbled street, wandering alleys and old, flowered buildings remind me of what I rememered London to be as a younger boy, albeit altogether more beautiful and, to a point, romantic.

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July 23rd; Our big tour starts today. Up bright and early, as is always the case with these things. I had bought my breakfast the day before. It was disapointing. The people who do amazing things with onions unfortunately can’t do it over the space and time of a day. I guess egg doesnt refrigerate too well.

On the tube, forty five minute ride to the middle-north of the city, checked in and on the bus. Had a quick chat with some of the other people on ours. I stocked up on sparkling water. From what I can tell nearly everyone on our bus is Australian. The tour manager, the cook, nearly every other person (there’s some Kiwis, an American, a Portugese fellow, some Irish… one or two others, probably) is Australian. We were driving for a fair while. Got on a ferry at the white cliffes of Dover, on the English Channel. Lots of things were brought to mind. Fossils, the Battle of Britain, Guitar Hero…

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Up to July 23rd; Man. That’s a big jump right there. I’ve been really lazy. Anyway, we take off from our second to last day in Dublin. We were on another day tour into the Irish Countryside.

Our tour guide this time was wicked. He knew what was going on. He had a sense of humour. He didn’t stop talking, and in a voice loud enough to hear. That’s all you need in a tour guide. If what he’s talking about is interesting enough to make you worried about sleeping on the bus, he’s good. The same goes if he is in fact a she. She wasn’t a she in this case. Is that right?

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