When in Rome

We hit the ground running in Rome. We arrived at the train station on friday morning, checked straight into the hotel and then hit the sights. The city sightseeing bus took us to all the usual places of interest like the colosseum and vatican city as well as amazing buildings and sights that we'd never heard of.

The travel books tell you "it takes a lifetime to know Rome" and that photos can't capture all of its beauty. Hate to go along with the crowd but its so true.

We crashed by saturday. Too tired to do too much after running all over the city in 35+ degree heat on the roof of a bus the day before. We did however check out villa borgese and castel st angleo, an old castle that the pope used as a fort if the city was being attacked.

Sunday was the full tour of the colosseum and palatine hill. The guided tour was certainly worth while allowing us to jump the long queue, but more importantly get a true insight to what the enormous "sporting" arena had to offer in its day. Again, photos can't really tell the full tale.

Palatine hill is usually the free add-on to your colosseum pass, but it was actually just as interesting and had many more stories to tell about the life of romans. After all it was that place rome was founded over 2500 years ago.

After seeing the great value of our colosseum tour, we decided to take the same tour company for the vatican city. Again, this is worth every cent. You could see the people walking through the museums un-guided having no idea what they're looking at or what they've missed. Walking through the old pope bedrooms looking at the amazing ceiling and wall paintings done by michaelangelo and rafael was hard to comprehend. The size of st peters basilica is decieving when you're inside. In fact most melbourne skyscrapers would fit inside!

All that and no mention yet of the spanish steps. We actally stayed in a lovely little (and I mean little) boutique hotel almost on the steps themselves! Couldn't have asked for a better location.

What we found strange about Rome was the location of some of the major attractions. On the first day we went looking for the Trevi fountain. We wandered down some narrow laneways of appartments and shops, turn a corner and there is this magnificent fountain on the side of a building. Then the Pantheon - right in the middle of ordinary streets. It amazed us that you could just turn a corner and stumble across such things.

So we're now on the plane heading to seville. If this post reaches the website then we've landed safely. We don't have many plans for seville other than doing what the locals do eating paella, tapas and staying up late having lots of drinks! Sounds like fun!

If you haven't checked out the photos recently I've uploaded stacks more of rome yesterday, click the link on the right to check them out.

Ciao now becomes Adios amigos!

For those concerned about Spanish airlines

In light of a recent plane crash in Madrid, we thought we would provide details of our next flights.

Tomorrow, the 27th, we fly from Rome to Seville with the Spanish airline Vueling. Flight V8749 departing Rome at 10.40 and arriving in Seville at 13.20.

On the 29th, we fly from Seville to Barcelona with the same airline. Flight V1053 departing Seville at 13.05 and arriving at 14.40 in Barcelona.

photos

just a quick blog to let you know we are in a cafe uploading some photos. click the links

Florence and Siena

Over the last few days, we have got to know Florence very well. We have walked around the city a fair bit and visited the several markets and shopping strips and sampled a lot of the food, wine and beer. The house wine here is fairly cheap and very nice to drink.

Yesterday we took one of those double decker bus tours of Florence. It was very worthwhile as it gave us a much more complete view of the city. The audio commentary was great, as the place is full of so much history. "Michaelangelo did this here", "Galileo lived here", "da Vinci tested his flying machine here" were just some of the famous names mentioned. We went on 2 routes during the day and went on the first route again after dark to see the city at night. It is a beautiful city.

On monday we went to Siena, a medieval town about 1 1/2 hours away by train. It doesn't look like it has changed since the 12th century. The city has retained most of it's walls that were used to defend the city for centuries and it is full of narrow laneways. We visited the last resting place of St Catherine of Siena (well at least her head and her thumb!) In a beautifully decorated sancutary.

Tomorrow we will head to Lucca, another city nearby, and then we are off to Rome on Friday.

Fatboy

I should have asked before I left and setup some betting action, but how much weight will russ put on during the 5 week holiday?!!

I've eaten that many pizzas, pastas, crepes, baguettes, and croissants to last me a lifetime! And that's not to mention those kebabs from yesterday or the bacon and eggs each morning!

Thankfully we're a little over the big meals and starting to order a little more wisely.... Sometimes!

Best kebab ever?

So what's your favourite ingredient of a kebab? Is it the meat? Garlic sauce? Cheese? Well my new all time MUST have ingredient is potato chips!! We just got back from a quick bite not far from the hotel at a little kebab shop and we were speechless! Amazing!

Chicken, chilli sauce, lettuce, tomato, coleslaw, onion, potato chips, yoghurt and to top it off a chick pea sauce.

Sensational!!!!!

P.S. that's now the second time we've had that kebab. Can't get enough!

Last day in Venice and on to Florence

On the last day we spent in Venice we went to the Murano glass factory on the island of Murano. Murano glass is absolutely beautiful and all made on the island. You can't learn how to make it unless it is handed down within the family. It is fortunate it is so hard to send home otherwise we would have spent a lot of money! We bought a few small pieces though.

Overall we enjoyed Venice. A great place to be when you're not lost.

We took the train to Florence yesterday which is only 2 1/2 hours from Venice. To start with Florence didn't look terribly exciting, but we had a good look around yesterday and today and have discovered it's beauty. Tuscany is as beautiful as the pictures suggest. We climbed to the top of the Duomo (cathedral) and the views were breathtaking. The Duomo itself was very interesting and beautifully painted. We visited Michaelangelo's David and crossed the Arno river on the Ponte Vecchio (bridge lined with Jewellery shops).

The shopping is as good as we expected. There are several street markets selling leather goods, scarves and clothes. Within 4 hours Audra had her leather jacket, and today we went back for more. There are a lot of retail stores as well.

Sundays are pretty quiet in Italy, everything is closed, at least for the morning if not the whole day. So we will have a quiet day and will head to Sienna on Monday.

Still no internet in the room so the photo's are building up ready for uploading.

Venice does it for Italy!

Well after the big let down that was milan, venice has done the job for the pride of italy. What a wonderful unique little city. Water taxi's, gondala rides, narrow paths that only leed to other narrow paths. Its fantastic.

You're always lost in venice. When you think you know where you are, you're either lying or completely mistaken. We took well over an hour to find our hotel last night and we only found it after asking 2 different hotels for directions. Again today we went for a 3 hour walk, only the first 20 mins and the last 5mins did we have any idea where we were.

But that doesn't take the gloss off the city, its just one of the many attractions and part of the fun.

Our hotel is nice and close to st mark's square so tonight we're trying our luck at getting a table in one of the nice resteraunts in the square.

We don't have internet access here at this hotel so we won't be uploading any photos for the next few days at least. But I'll keep the blog up to date when possible.

Milan is a ghost town...

... everyone has packed up and gone on holidays for August in Milan. It makes what is a pretty ordinary city to begin with even worse. There isn't much to see here, and shopping is the main attraction, but as most shops are shut, it's pretty boring. We had about 4 hours to look around, but after having lunch, wandering around, having gelati, and more wandering around, we were done in 3 hours. Back on the train now bound for Venice!

Au revoir France

the time has come to leave france. tomorrow we get up early and jump on the train to head to milan and venice. the last 4 days have been spent in the sun in Nice which is a very popular destination for locals and tourists to hit the pebble beach and soak up the sun (some of them with very little clothing ;) yesterday we took the short train trip accross to monaco. the money in that place is amazing with all sorts of cars buzzing around town, including ferrari's, lamborghini's, porche's. it made owning a BMW look second class! and the size of the boats in the port are just mind boggling!

today we hit the water and we decided we like the idea of the pebbled beach. its a lot easier to clean yourself before you jump in the car unlike sand! although its a little tough on your feet in the blazing sun!

we've updated our photos with final images from paris and photos from the last few days in nice and monaco. hopefully we have internet access at our next hotels so we can keep them coming! - Europe Photo's on Photo Blog

Crisis over

We only had to sit in the stair case for about 20mins. The ticket inspector found us a couple of seats to sit on until the first stop, then we had to run like buggery again to get to the right car. Finally we're now in our correct seats!!

Run!

As promised, I'm reporting in from the train from paris to nice. We made a slight blunder with our train time and had to pack and leave the hotel pronto! We managed to get to the station in time though.

So we looked around for a coffee and a bite to eat and before we knew it we had to board. Unfortunately we left that run a little late. We jumped on the 2nd car thinking we were on. Then to our amazement we realised we were on car 17. So we jumped off and ran as fast and as far as we could. However the doors started closing so we jumped on at about car 6. Passing our way through the cars as the train started moving wasn't the easiest of things to do. Eventually we got to car 8 where I'm standing right now. Unfortunately car 8 is a dead end and we're standing in a stair well for 3 hours until our first stop at which time we run like buggery! At least I have a baggette!

sorry to all my fans who've been hanging on a Paris update! it wont happen again**

we've just about finished in paris. tomorrow we hit the train en rout to nice. paris is a wonderful city. rich in history and culture etc. the sites are amazing and by now you've probably already seen our pics of the main sites. we've just got back from catacombes which is a 1.7km underground tunnel of bones! scary stuff. wouldn't want to be wondering around down there alone!

i'll report back from nice or perhaps during the train trip. remember to check out the album photo's of our trip - Europe Photo Album


** it will probably happen again

Now that's a way to travel!

We've finally arrived in Paris. Business class is certainly an exceptional way to fly overseas! Just to have the ability to be able to stretch right out makes it worth while. The only downside was having front row with the ability to see straight into first class. I did however manage to use their bathroom! ;)

We haven't had a good look around paris yet. We only got to the hotel at about 8.30pm local time. Tomorrow we're hitting the sights! Until then.....

Good news to start with

Our upgrade to business class has been accepted. We'll start the holiday in fine style!