It’s Thursday so it must be Bratislava

Tom, now a little older has just finished his first year at Uni.. He has worked hard to good effect, made some money working in a clothes shop in the holidays and is presently touring Europe – mainly by train - with his girl friend. So far they have done Brussels, Amsterdam, Cologne, Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Bratislava. Today they go on to Budapest, Zagreb, Venice, Bologna, Rome, Milan, Zurich, Bern ,Geneva, Barcelona, Madrid and Lisbon which takes them to the 14^th of August.

But of course the highlight of the vacation will be later in August when he comes west to his doting grandmother’s in Somerset.

Amsterdam, Vienna, Venice, Bologna, Rome, Barcelona and Lisbon I have visited – the rest are all Greek to me. On my first visit to Rome I was with someone who knew Latin and insisted on translating every statue. It was very hot.

Below are photos taken by my son in 2003. The Pieta by Michelangelo is in St Peter’s in the Vatican. It is an incredibly moving sculpture and one of my old friends whose son had been killed in a car accident had to leave the cathedral when she saw it. It was too painful for her to look at.