It was with a heavy heart that we said goodbye to beautiful St Felix. We dropped our car off at Toulouse airport, caught a transit bus to the railway station, and boarded a train to Nice. The train ride was only 6 hours but it felt much, much longer, perhaps in part because of our early start. When we finally pulled into Nice at 8.00pm we were really hot and tired. Luckily our hotel was very close by and after a quick check in, we were really keen to explore a little. Nice has grown up a lot since I last saw it 25 years ago and has become very glamorous. After trailing though the dodgy end of town we emerged into a beautiful boulevard full of trams and gorgeous stores. It was late, and they were all closed but there were crowds everywhere and soon we found a delightful fountain that looked like something out of Hollywood.

We walked down to the beach and listened to a man playing piano on the boardwalk and it felt quite magical.

The next morning we had time for a quick scoot around town in day light before catching a taxi to the aeroport to boards our bus heading for Milan. After the ordeal on the train the day before, and given the bus cost a quarter of the price of the train, we were bracing ourselves for a hard day. But much to our delight, the bus was very comfortable and the drive was beautiful as we drove past Monte Carlo, San Remo and broke the drive in Genoa. It felt amazing to be back in Italy but I was immediately struck by how run down it looked compared to France and compared with when I last saw it.

Eventually we pulled into Milan, jumped onto a metro train and ended up at a train station ready to head out to my friend Fiona’s house outside of Milan. Here began the tricky part! Our French SIM no longer worked and Fiona needed us to text her when we were on the train so that she could pick us up from the train station. Mmmm…..phone retailers closed, no public telephones in sight….it seemed my only option was to approach strangers and ask to use their phone which made me feel deeply uncomfortable. Armed with the tiny bit of Italian I had learnt while on the bus, I approached a lady and asked to use her phone. To my surprise she readily agreed – but as I was working out the Italian keyboard and the predictive text, her train arrived. I hit send anyway so Fiona received a message that read something like “Hi Fiona bahagdgdgshshdjdh”. I wasn’t sure if that was going to cut it, so I asked another lady if I could use her phone and again she readily agreed (aren’t Italians kind? ) this time I called Fiona but the phone rang out. I wasn’t too perturbed – I figured that Fiona would get the gist of the text or even call the lady whose phone I had used and learn that we were about to board the train. But when we arrived at Gallarate station there was no sign of her. Luckily there was a public call box across the road so I tried to call – but it kept spitting the money back at me and it wouldn’t accept my card. By now despair was starting to creep in at the edges and I was wondering how big a hike the local hotel would be, when Chris came up with the idea of putting his Australian SIM into his phone and using that. It would cost us $20 but who cared! She answered and it turned out that she had called the lady whose phone we used but was waiting at a different station (the one we were supposed to get off at) and within 5 minutes she as there, pulled into a taxi zone in typical Italian fashion, loading up our bags and we were off to meet her gorgeous sons William (8), Nicolas (5) and her lovely husband Carlo.

I haven’t seen Fiona in 15 years – many of those years she has been liviing in Italy. After 3 bottles of wine, sitting up until 2.00 in the morning it felt like no time since we had seen each other.

We slept so well but rose early the next morning to get into Milan and meet Hermione who had flown down from Belgium. The three of us hung out together through uni and had many, many naughty adventures. Hermione was my best friend in those important years between 18-22 and I was really looking forward to seeing her and meeting her two daughters, only 2 and 4 years old. We spent an amazing day exploring Milan, seeing the famous duomo and arcade and catching up on news in between attending to one child or others’ needs.

We finished the afternoon with an open top bus ride around the city.

Catching up with Fiona and Hermione was just fantastic!! Even though it had been so long, and so much had changed in our lives, we found ourselves in this city on the other side of the world from where we had met, still having so much in common and sliding into our old groove.

The next day we had planned to go to Como, but Fiona and Hermione suggested it could be a bit disappointing for us, so instead we spent the day in the sun by the pool – more chatting and catching up! It was just fantastic to see my two old friends – such a blessing really – and I sincerely hope we will see them again soon.