The rain stopped in Genova as the sun set, so we wandered through the world heritage listed Garibaldi Street, rugged up against the near-freezing cold. This street was once home to the richest families in the land – a row of elegant palaces that were ready to host visiting dignitaries and other important guests of the city. As we walked across the marble paving, we could peek through the lit windows to see elaborate frescoes on the ceilings, and grand staircases leading up to inner courtyards. Five hundred years ago, this avenue would have been the finest in the land. Now, Genova is no longer the capital, and the money has drifted elsewhere.

The old town was an enthralling place to explore. We often found ourselves lost, wandering through winding alleyways to pop out and discover unusual Cattedrale di San Lorenzo or the old city gates. We found a wooden boat with a remarkable figurehead of Neptune moored in the old harbour. Soon it was time to pack up our belongings and board the MSC Fantasia for nine nights at sea, sailing to Casablanca and back again.

Our last days in Australia were spent in one of my favourite cities – Sydney, New South Wales. The weather was gorgeous. It was warm and sunny, and the sky was almost impossibly blue. We decided to begin the day by taking in a bird’s eye view of the city from Sydney Tower. Strangely, one can no longer simply purchase a ticket just to the observation deck, one must also take part in the OzTrek experience, “an amazing virtual reality ride across Australia”. The only amazing part of it was how terribly our culture was represented to foreigners. Firstly, we were seated in a rotating theatre that used holograms to bring to life four “iconic” scenes – the outback, the beach, the rain forest, and the city. Now, while I am a big fan of holograms, even that wasn’t quite enough to compensate for the superficial representation of our land. The indigenous Australians got nothing more than a passing mention.

The best was yet to come. We were herded into the next room for “the largest simulated ride in the southern hemisphere”. After we sat down on our seats, the lap bars lowered from above to lock us in. Three minutes into the show, Adrian nudged the lap bars up, activating the safety feature and the movie aborted. After ten minutes of fussing around, they began the movie again, but again three minutes in a German tourist accidentally activated the safety switch and aborted the film. While they were again resetting the system a the tourist pleaded just to be let out, and said that he really didn’t need to see the show a third time. However, his request was ignored, and for the third time we were told to “have a Captain Cook at this”. When the film neared its end, the audience cheered, though out of a sense of relief, rather than enjoyment. Finally, an hour after we entered the tower, we were able to actually go up to the viewing deck and look out upon Sydney. It was quite beautiful, and I was able to pose with the tallest working post box in the Southern Hemisphere. Everest base camp, Shanghai, and Toronto all claim to have the highest in the world – I will have to investigate this further.

In the afternoon, we caught the Manly Ferry across the spectacular harbour. The Harbour Bridge and the Opera House dazzled in the sunlight, and the water reflected the azure light of the sky. We enjoyed a coffee at Manly Beach before heading back to Circular Quay. We dined on the harbour, soaking up the final rays of the summer light. Luckily, my mother was able to join us for our last moments in Australia, before Adrian and I emigrate to Belgium. Then, it was time for us all to take our separate paths. John was able to tick off his sixth continent, and we farewelled him before he flew back to the icy winter of New York City. Then mum, in turn, waved us goodbye as we left the country of our birth to try our hand at living in Belgium, via a stop over in Dubai.

We took a day tour from Dubrovnik to explore the world’s newest country of Montenegro. We thought this would result in a new stamp in our passports, but all we had to do was hold up our passports while sitting in the bus, not the most stringent of border crossings.

We drove around the Kotor Bay with its numerous small settlements, then made a stop in the Medieval Kotor, a most beautiful, fortified town. Then proceeded up towards the mountains to visit Cetinje, which once used to be the center town of the Montenegrin rulers. It was quite a journey, 1200m elevation with around 25 hairpin bends in quite a large bus. We ended our tour with a stroll around in Budva, the ancient town which is today a lively tourist resort, before returning to Croatia and having a very eventful night.