23 August 2018
Just a few years back, we would have never thought of flying to Europe via Guangzhou. Our recent travels in China have changed a lot of our attitudes towards our now increasingly influential northern neighbour. We are quite comfortable with flying directly from Brisbane to Guangzhou, then on to Paris at a very reasonable price.
Our main motivation for this trip is to commemorate the centenary of the death of Janita's great uncle, Pte. William John Armstrong, 24th Btn, AIF., who was killed at the battle of Mont St Quentin, 31 August 1918. We will stay in Amiens in the centre of the Somme battlefields before moving on to southern England to follow William's journey to the front through his training on Salisbury Plains.
To finish our adventure, we plan to head off to 'old Yugoslavia,' an area we last visited when it actually was Yugoslavia, under Tito. Then through northern Italy and up into southern Germany, another area we haven't visited for some decades.
