We made it! I’m currently sat outside our local bar (which I’ve already decided is one of my favourite) in the sunshine with a vino rosso. I can’t begin to convey how good it is to be here. There’s been so many times in the past year where I didn’t want to let myself believe it could happen. If I got my hopes up too much, got too carried away with the planning of it, just for it to be pulled from underneath me then I’d have been devastated. So it wasn’t until we crossed the border in to Italy that I allowed myself to believe it was finally happening.

We left home last Friday, today is Thursday and already it feels like so much has happened. It was looking like the journey might be doomed from the start and reaching our destination seemed an impossible task! I was driving the van (our VW Transporter called Murphy) round the M25 to the Dartford crossing when I said to Mr BND how hard it was to know whether the wind was pulling the steering wheel or the wheels were effected. He said, ‘Trust me, it’s the wind.’ As we took the next exit we discovered a flat tyre! The travel gods were working in our favour after that though as we crawled to a Kwik-Fit only 4 minutes away, where the chap had us back on the road within half an hour! Amazing!

That night we spent a very pleasant evening in Hearne Bay staying with family, which meant a short hop across to Folkstone for the Channel Tunnel the following morning. It was looking too good to be true when we were able to catch an earlier train and literally just drove straight on! We’ve queued for hours before!

We soon made good progress through France in to Belgium, across Belgium in to Germany where we stayed the night with friends of my Auntie. An absolutely lovely evening where we were fed and watered exceedingly well.

The next day we were headed for the mountains! The drive soon turned exceptionally picturesque as the windscreen was filled with views of the snow covered Alps. A night in Innsbruck was a little holiday in itself where we enjoyed walking round and taking in the sights; the fact that we ended up in an Italian restaurant for dinner cemented the country of destination for us!

The next day we left a wet and foggy Austria behind as we descended from the Brenner Pass in to the sun and blue skies of Italy. The landscape was a beautiful juxtaposition of old towns and squares mixed with harsh industrial buildings and factories all encompassed by the magnificent backdrop of the Dolomites. We were nearly there! The final spanner in the works came as we heard that morning about outbreaks of the Corona Virus in Northern Italy. Upon learning that places were in lock down we were concerned it would effect the journey. But luckily there was absolutely no sign of anything being amiss as we made our way South.

A couple of hours later we parked up in our new home town and as we were too early for the meet and greet we headed straight to the centre for a spot of lunch and a glass of the local fizzy red wine.

So after 6 countries, 1,147 miles, 2 podcasts and plenty of inane chat we had finally arrived. I don’t think there were two happier people in the world right at that moment!