We preceded our visit to Chianti with a night in Florence. If there is one absolute must in this Medici heartland it is a visit to Michelangelo’s David in the Accademia (book ahead to avoid the longer queues). The iconic David's soft looming grandeur utters the mastery of it's creator. This can only be tangibly felt in the room. The revealing moment of being physically humbled by the scale, precision and honest materiality of David could never be paralleled in the imagination of even the most art savvy connoisseur. Akin to a spiritual pilgrimage, David succeeds to adjust an otherwise modern day need for instant gratification. That's not to say that the selfie sticks were not out selfing in full force, but those that allowed the quiet to permeate, were visibly brought to their knees. We recommend you go for a kneeling.

Not all of Lake Garda is like Gargnano.  The landscape is divided between a flat touristed area at the bottom of the lake, and the majestic narrower part on the North East.  Gargnano sits right where the majesty starts, just as the mountains get high in exactly the right proportions.  You will never forget the moment as you stare across the lake and the awesome presence of Monte Baldo starts to shape in the haze. That resounding uncompromising vista of mountain dropping into water, that sense of timelessness that comes when nature has reached perfection, that peace that descends when you are surrounded by something transcendent.

We didn’t gamble or shop for clothes in the smarter parts of San Remo, although there is plenty of that available. But early the next morning, we went to the San Remo indoor food market and had one of our most memorable morning espressos at the market café.  The stalls were all still opening revealing irresistible fresh ingredients, zuchinni flowers, all sorts of varieties of basil plants, fresh focaccia and pasta, melting gorgonzola dolce and buckets of bufallo mozarella.  We ran around quite overcome, the first customers of the morning, chatting to everyone.  It was our first morning in Italy and we felt it. 

To have a successful road trip you need a good map.  It’s all very well using sat-nav as you fly down highways from one city to another (listening to the American accented French pronunciation of the sat-nav-lady), or navigating your way to the hotel once you arrive in a big city. But if you want to explore the back streets of a region, to understand its hinterland, you have to get your hands on a good old fashioned, very large scale, map. 

The Luberon, like so much of Provence, is dry, hissing with heat and the electric sound of cycadas. It immediately evokes tension in the air, an excitement, which is matched by stark vegetation. Olive groves and vineyards whizzed past our roofless car, while white stone mountains and stone villages resting on hilltops framed the horizon view.  The golden triangle of the Luberon lies between three perched villages:  Menerbes, Lacoste and Bonnieux.  This is just about the prettiest place you will see in a very long time. 

Boussac has a feel of remoteness and peace, of otherworldliness which is often missing from the more touristed parts of France.  It is surrounded by lovely undulating landscape punctured with pretty villages, huge round bales of hay, and the white Charolais cows of the region. The village boast a beautiful castle perched and looking down at a gentle river, an old Church on a pretty square which could be used as a film set, and a number of well preserved historic houses. 

The iconography of postcard-pretty Paris runs deep. From architectural moments like the Eiffel Tower, to baguettes and berets, it’s a city that holds famous markers in our nostalgic sensibilities. Be it from books and films or from our Romantic fantasies of our 19th century selves, it’s hard not to hear Piaf on the boulevards before we even step foot outside.

By the time we opened the door to the apartment, we knew we were in a very special location. Lisbon has a proud awareness of it's old charm, and an impressive way of making it contemporary. While all beautiful cities have this dimension of height, in Lisbon the hills inside the centre roller coaster your experience as you swoop up and down and curve around buildings covered in azulejos shining in the evening light.