On my way to Europe, I stopped over in Singapore before flying to Beijing to take what was to be my first ride on the Lufthansa A380 Airbus from Beijing to Frankfurt. Alas, the introduction of the new plane was delayed a week, and I missed it.
I flew on to Dubrovnik, where ten old friends joined a 25-metre gulet in Dubrovnik to cruise amongst the islands off the Dalmatian coast for a week.
We needed to fill in a few days between the cruise and a stay in the Italian countryside. So, the green countryside of Bavaria and the Alps of the Austrian Tyrol appealed.
After that, four of us, good friends from my working days at AX, arranged for two weeks in a farmhouse in Umbria, just 20 minutes from Assisi.
Edmundo and I ended up in Rome for a spot of shopping, before I returned home via Bangkok.