Arividerchi Italy - 'Ello England and good 'ole Yorkshire

So up early again and at 5.30am we leave for the Milan MAlpensa airport. We drop off the rental car and poor Rhonda who is still hobbling on her broken foot helps with the luggage into check in. LAst night we bought some fresh bread, a block of cheese and a length of salami and this will be our breakfast on the flight back to England. As we board the aircraft the skies open and monsoon rains fall - teehee we had brilliant sunshine for the past 4 days ! We fly over the alps and the sun is blinding as it reflects off the snow covered peaks.

At 0830am we land at London Gatwick airport where we grab our luggage and pick up a rental car - another Fiat but a posh version this time. Rhonda loves it as she can plug her iphone right into a socket on the dash and her music and phone is then controlled by voice command and the cars computer - kewl !! We drive north out of London and soon we are on the M1 motorway for a 3 hour drive up to Yorkshire. We are now driving on the left hand side of the road and Glen has to change gear with his left hand - a bit confusing at first but he soon gets used to it.

 The traffic goes so fast - we are doing 130kmh in the SLOW lane and cars in the fast lane are whizzing past - bloody hell says Glen. At noon we stop for lunch at a small village just off the motorway and we have fish and chips and Glen has a steak and ale pie with mash and peas and gravy. After lunch we have to fill the car as it is near empty - petrol is $2.45 a liter!!! the small car we have takes $95 to fill the small tank - grrrrr!

 An hour and a half later we arrive in YOrkshire and we leave the motorway to drive through the country villages to Doncaster. Every second field in England is planted with mustard and the fields are a brilliant yellow - looks amazing in the sunshine. We drive through industrial villages which used to be where people working in the coal mines lived. All the mines are now closed and the villages are really run down. Rows and rows of terraced houses.

 Then we drive through old, old villages with lovely 700 year old churches in every village and nice old stone houses. We stop by the River Don and look at the riverboats that chug up and down the river carrying goods and tourists. We arrive in DOncaster which is an industrial town in YOrkshire where Glen grew up - he cant beleive how much it has changed since his childhood.

GLens DAd lives here and his two sisters, Heather and Sue and we will be visiting them tomorrow. We find our hotel and check in. Then we go for a drive around the town and have supper at a nice pub sat next to an ancient fireplace. TOmorrow we will visit family then head off somewhere to explore.