Up at four bells and walking into the village square at half past four bells to get taxi to Pisa airport and sometimes I am not at my humorous best at this hour. We get into the taxi and I notice that there is already 17 odd euro on the meter. Me in my poor italian and he in his poor English have a non constructive discussion on said rip off occurring. With my general poor ability to zip it and his damn good luck as he runs into the local police doing rounds (at 4.45am!) the little prick flashes his lights and pulls them over. Seems home town advantage working well, looks like it is the lock up instead of the airport for me.

Not only can I feel the knives from the crew in the back seat but I also see the gun toters outside . The little prick says he has come from the next town to pick us up, I say lucky didn't come from Firenze! After a few nods from the plods I suck it up and at least get underway to the airport. Think I will let Donny deal with the little prick at the airport, he then takes off half the ripoff amount when Don pays. Thieving little prick I say.

Check in with our new not best friends RyanAir, we do not have a paper printout of our booking so they will not check us in, we have it on our electronic toys and they have it on theirs, we also have our seat allocations already but no paper so will not accept our baggage. They demand us to pay an extra 17.50 euro each - 85 euro to print out a piece of paper! At this point M-L gives me the death stare, little pricks and big pricks everywhere this morning all before 6 bells. I do mention in passing the fact that they are thieving outrageous bastards but the three very polite check in thieves know the game well and just stare through me and smile.

Flying into Alghero Sardinia all fine, blood pressure receding - then we pick up our hire car, all has been prepaid but not any insurance, we can have cover for broken windscreen and flat tyres at a premium of 9 euro a day or full cover for just another 40 euro a day so it's either 54 euro or 294 euro but he was such a nice thief - did some one tattoo silly not billy on my forehead this morning. Back into the wrong sided driving and then finding the abode when we arrive in Castelsardo driving on roads not wide enough for two ducks to pass each other. Not my idea of fun.

We are very lucky to be given the opportunity to stay at Deb and Kim's holiday apartment as it is truly spectacular set right on the headland at cliff edge that plunges down to rugged turquoise coloured seas. The general outlook is over the new part of the town and large marina which is where we head next as it is late morning and we are starving. Brunch overlooking the harbour and then wander to get fresh fish and general supplies for our stay. Afternoon bevvies with an early turn in as we are beat.

We took some body blows today but we keep getting up off the canvas as the wonders of travel in sheer paradise continue to spur us on. Bring it on I say.