Charlie's Travel

Wurzburg photos

2010-03-12T18:23:00.000+11:00

Here are some photos from Wurzburg in Germany. Some of the pictures have descriptions:

Wurzburg

London Photos

2010-03-12T09:08:00.000+11:00

Here are some photos from our weekend in London. I will go throughthe German ones a bit later:

London Weekend

Würzburg

2010-03-11T06:24:00.000+11:00

On Monday morning we left Kensington early for a flight to Frankfurt in Germany. When we arrived, we discovered that the travel agent had booked our hire car out of central Franfurt and not the Airport (despite saying otherwise on our voucher. Luckily we convinced the attendant to swap the booking and collected a large black E-Class Mercedes Benz. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but many of the places we are visiting are little medieval villages, and driving around in a large Mercedes can get quite a bit tight on the small streets/lanes! We got the GPs changed to English and headed onto the Autobahn to Würzburg. The Autobahn's are amazing and even though you can travel very fast, the roads are very well looked after, so it is very safe.

We arrived in Würzburg to find where we were staying (Hotel Würzburgerhof) was very central and we had a large apartment on the top floor. This was good and meant that we could have Charlotte in one room, while we slept in the other. Würzbirg is a town/city of around 130,000 people and has lots of old buildings to look at. The main attractions are "The Residenze" and The Fortress. We had a lovely traditional German (pub) meal on Monday night and didn't really do much else. On Tuesday we walked around the town and had a tour of The Residenz, some old churches, shops and up a very steep hill to the Fortress. It was again lovely blue skies, and below 5 degrees, but in the sun was nice and warm. When we got outside the Fortress on top of the hill we stepped into the wind and almost froze to death straight away! It was very lucky we had Charlotte wrapped up in multiple layers and protected from the wind by the stroller's rain cover!
After some more walking around, shopping, tasting local delights, and another nice German meal, headed back to the Hotel.

This morning we packed up and headed off to Dinkehbühl, which is a little fortified village and after walking around had some crepes in a lovely little cafe. We then drove over to Rothenburg ob de Tauber, where we are staying the night. This is another fortified town, that has large walls surrounding the old town. We unpacked our gear into the hotel and headed off around then the town, to look at things like the Christmas shop, the Stieffe bear shop, and climbed up, and walked around on top of the wall. I have plenty of photos that I will upload when I have the chance.

So far Charlotte has been amazing, either wrapped up all snug in her stroller protected from the cold with multiple layers, a snow suit and the rain cover (to block wind), or today in a backpack on my back. She has been enjoying the sights and slept (looking so cozy) in her strollers yesterday was enjoying the view from my back this afternoon. Everywhere we go, she manages to charm anyone we talk to, and whenever we sit down to have a meal, she looks around and starts flirting with any nearby people (especially old people!). Lots of smiles and raspberries!

Tomorrow we head to Schwangau where we will see the Nordschwanstein Castle (the castle that inspired the Disney castles). Hopefully I can find somewhere to upload some photos to show what a fun time we are having..

London Weekend

2010-03-11T06:03:00.000+11:00

I am sitting in a little cafe in Rothenburg ob de Tauber at the moment and they have an "Internet Kiosk" but you cannot use USB, so I cannot upload any pictures for the moment. As soon as we find somewhere with wireless, or a computer that I can plug in via USB, I will upload some more photos. I have taken too many in the last few days.

We spent the weekend in London and had a lovely time with blue skies, even though the temperature was below 5 degrees most of the time. On Saturday morning we had a leisurely breakfast with the Ogstons, before they left for their house in the country for the weekend. We then walked up to Notting Hill where we met up witn Frena, Andrew and Karina. We had a nice lunch at an Italian cafe and then went on the tube to Fortnum & Masons. There were lots of fancy looking things that we couldn't afford (like a "Gentlman's Cupboard with spots for cufflinks, ties, watches and belts), some nice food, and some strange things like purple carrots, and chocolate covered scorpions!

The ladies then headed off to afternoon tea at The Langham Hotel, while Andrew, Charlotte and I went on a shopping adventure to try and find a birthday present for Jo. Unfortunately the gift I wanted to buy was not in the shop we tried first and so we decided to walk to the official shop. This was a bit of an adventure and luckily we had Charlotte, as people are more forgiving when they see a baby and also more helpful with things like directions. Finally we managed to find the official shop and a nice present for Jo and headed off home to wait for the girls.
Meanwhile, the girls spent the afternoon dining on fancy Londond afternoon tea, with tasty delights like finger sandwiches, scones, cakes, lots of tea and a glass of champagne.

On Sunday, I had agreed to meet with my other uncle, after he played the organ at the local church. Unfortunately the service didn't start until 11am and so we had some time to waste in the morning, only to discover that London shops don't open until late on Sundays! We caught the last 10mins of the service and the music was very impressive, as it is a large organ, and some of the singers in the choir also sing for the London Opera. After a quick drink with mz uncle, we started off to Canary Wharf, where we were meeting Frena, Andrew and Karina for lunch.At the best of times this can take an hour, but London seems to do all work on the trains over the weekends, so we ended up getting stuck and taking a few detours and ended up at lunch an hour late. We had a fantastic English Pub roast lunch with Frena, Andrew and Karina (a lovely birthday gift from Frena and Andrew), and then walked to their apartment, where we spent the rest of the afternoon catching up with some Pimms and cheese and biscuits.

On Monday we flew into Germany for the next part of our trip.

English Village Life

2010-03-06T08:34:00.001+11:00

For the first four days of our trip we have been staying with my Aunt Elly in Watlington. Watlington is a lovely little village near Oxford. For the first 2 days we didn't really do much except recover from jet lag.

The weather was fantastic and sunny (although still cold at about 3-10 degrees C), so we went for walks around the fields and into Watlington. Charlie has been having a wonderful time and charmed both Elly and her husband Grant. Grant and Charlie soon had a conversation going, blowing raspberries at each other!

Elly's two dogs, Mtwarpa and Tatu seemed to accept Charlotte, and soon realised that food scraps would be available after Charlie's dinner.

On Tuesday we went to the nearby village of Cuxome (sounds more like cooksome) and had a lovely lunch in a nice pub with Elly, and then went for a drive around Oxfordshire looking at some of the other nice towns and villages.

Some photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/fergusm/Oxfordshire02

On Wednesday we drove back towards London and visited Windsor Castle. This is where the Queen spends most weekends and is the largest inhabited castle in the world. When we arrived, we could not find where to park and ended up driving through the town of Windsor and ended up finding the Windsor Castle Farm shop. This is where they sell some of the produce that is grown in the Castle grounds and has some amazing things to buy! We then managed to find our way to a suitable parking area and set off with Charlotte in the backpack and toured the Castle. We got a guided tour by ourselves, as no one else wanted to join in and then went to see the State Apartments. They are amazing with so many treasures and nicely decorated rooms. Charlotte was starting to get a bit bored so we grabbed some lunch and headed back to Watlington.

Photos from Windsor:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/fergusm/Windsor

We are now staying in Kensington, London with my uncle and will be doing things around London for the next few days. Today we went to Borough Markets and enjoyed some tasty food and then walked along the Thames and over the Millenium Bridge. Tomorrow we are catching up with Jo's best friend who is living and working in London. Should be good.

Our first 2 days in London:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/fergusm/Kensington

Very Long and Stressful Flight

2010-03-02T08:28:00.000+11:00

We are now in the UK after a long and stressful trip from Australia. We arrived at the airport in Canberra only to discover that our itinerary was so convoluted that Qantas could not figure out how to book us and all our luggage to London! After an hour we agreed to book to Sydney and then collect our luggage and book it back in to London there. When we got to Sydney we discovered the flaw in this plan. Once you leave to collect your luggage you then cannot catch the free transfer and we had to go by taxi to the international terminal.

Once we got our boarding passes for the next leg and our luggage booked through to London, we had a few drinks in the business class lounge (which was nice), and then boarded our plane. Business class is very nice and we were lucky enough to be sitting next to 2 brothers who allowed us to swap and we had a little area to ourselves with the bassinet for Charlie. This was a good flight to Bangkok, even though Charlie didn't sleep very long.

We got into Bangkok only to be told that our tickets to London had been cancelled!! You can imagine our delight at this news at 3am Canberra time (and after almost 12 hours travelling) with a 8 month old baby!
Luckily, after an hour of stress, the lady serving us managed to get us back on the plane we had been on, but without the bassinet for Charlotte. We were very relieved, but the next 12 hours was a long trip, taking turns holding Charlotte and trying to get her to sleep in our laps (not very successfully). Charlotte was amazing and only cried when we were coming in to land at Heathrow (probably the changing pressure in her ears). We had lots of compliments from our fellow travellers.

We are now in Oxfordshire with my Aunt Elly and her husband Grant, who a taking great care of us, and being very patient with our jetlag. Charlotte has been charming them with her smiles and we today the weather was actually sunny and blue skies! Tomorrow we are going to a nearby village for a nice hot pub lunch.

Preparing for a trip to Europe!

2010-01-03T09:22:00.001+11:00

As part of a sales competition at work HP is taking us to Europe business class!

We leave Australia on the 26th of Febraury 2010 and fly to London. From there we have a week in the UK, where Charlotte will meet her English relatives for the first time, and we will spend some time with Frena in London. We then head to Germany and drive down "The Romantic Road" and continue into Austria. It is going to be a massive adventure and we have a lot of planning to do to get Charlie ready for -5 degree temperatures!

Our first purchase was a couple of fleecy snow suits:

Lots of research and planning to do to make sure that we are all prepared for taking a 9 month old baby to Europe..

Singapore

2008-07-04T09:31:00.000+10:00

I have had several requests for me to write about the last part of our trip. We've been back in Australia for around three weeks now and it is no fun! Much rather being in Europe somewhere and relaxing.

We had a crazy time getting back from Santorini to Australia. First we had to fly from Santorini to Athens. We spent the night in a B&B that was close to the airport. The place we got was someone's granny flat where they had stuck up a few pictures to try and make it look more fancy (didn't work). They were also renovating the garage to make it into a guests lounge room, unfortunately it was still going ahead while we were there and didn't help the "ambience". That night we walked next door to the local taverna and had some Greek dinner. The Taverna was massive and had tables and chairs everywhere, unfortunately they were all empty and the waiter seemed to forget about us.
We woke up at 4am the next morning to catch a 7am flight to London. The flight was not too bad to London, but after that it was a brief stopover and then on to Singapore. Unfortunately this time we did not manage to get the exit seats. We were in the seat behind the exit seats and a pair of models were in the exit seats. This would have been fine, except the whole flight the flight attendants were pampering and spoiling the models! So pathetic! We were most pissed off, when at breakfast time we were supposed to be able to choose between muesli and some egg dish. We both wanted the muesli, so before the attendant started serving everyone else he offered the models some muesli and champagne! By the time they got to us (last I might add) there was no muesli left! So angry!!!

We arrived in Singapore very tired after being awake for close to 24 hours and made our way straight to our hotel. Unfortunately the check-in wasn't until 2pm (it was 10am when we got there), but if we paid extra they could upgrade us and we could have a room straight away. So by this time we didn't care about money just wanted a bed, so we paid the extra and got upgraded to the executive floor and went to bed for 4 hours.

When we woke up we found that I room was pretty nice and had an interesting view:

We decided to go shopping as I wanted to buy a fancy SLR camera. Outside the hotel we found where NOT to get our money changed:

We went into the city and found that there is shopping centres for everything. A complete mall just for electronics, one for camping gear, one for shoes and bags, etc.. was very interesting! Of course this was perfect for camera shopping as I could just compare prices in the one mall and be happy with a good deal! In the end I probably chose the worst place to buy the camera, as later we found a warning in one of our brochures against this particular shop! Ooops! Luckily I got a good deal and everything works well.
After that we wandered around some of the other malls and found our way to the Raffles Hotel:

We went in to have a look, but quickly got stopped because I was wearing shorts (it was stinking hot and very sticky!). So we only had a quick look and kept on going.
That night we decided to get out and try some local food (bad idea!). We found a massive market nearby that sold all sorts of clothes and watches and bags etc for very cheap. The clothes were s - xxxxxl. Trouble was the xxxxxl was only size 38 for men, and you weren't allowed to try anything on! So we continued on and found some food markets, they mostly looked pretty dodgy so we found the place with the biggest line and grabbed some roast duck:

The guy could chop through those ducks with his cleaver so fast! It was pretty tasty but possibly was the cause of our later problems! We awoke the next morning not feeling too good. We ended up spending most of the day inside. I did take some photos with my new camera:

This building next to ours I thought looked like something out of Batman's Gotham City. They also had a hot air balloon ride next to it:

That night we booked into the major event of our stay in Singapore, the night safari! Jo had read about this and we were both looking forward to it. So, still feeling a bit crook, we headed out to see it. It took about an hour to get there via train and bus. We headed off walking around the zoo. Very cool, lots of animals you wouldn't normally see and others you could see very close up. There was a tiger sitting close to a glass window that you could study what was in his teeth!
We caught a tram around after doing some walking and then grabbed some dinner (Jo ate more than me as I was still feeling crap). By this time we had to head back as otherwise we would miss the last train.
I took some photos but I forgot to take a tripod so they were all blurry:

The next day it decided to rain on us which was fun! We looked around a little bit and did some shopping at the crazy markets buying $5 watches and other trinkets. Then we decided that we were still feeling crap and so was the weather so we went and watched Indiana Jones at the movies. That was our stay in Singapore and we got home early on Sunday morning (on the Queen's birthday weekend).

We have both had a fantastic trip and can't wait to get overseas again. We'd like to thank all our friends and family that had us to stay and made our trip even better!
Now back to the real world.

Last night in Santorini

2008-06-03T18:43:00.000+10:00

We have now had our last night in Santorini. We were enjoying ourselves so much we got an extra night, but we had to change hotels.
Luckily the new hotel has a pool over looking the Caldera! Very nice!

We went for another look around Oia and then spent most of yesterday afternoon and night by the pool, reading, drinking cocktails and swimming. Now we are getting ready for the flights back home. Dammit! One night in Athens, then a long flight back to Singapore, where we will have 3 days to spend the rest of our holiday money and then home.

We both don't want to leave Santorini, but are looking forward to home (except work!).

Some more photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/fergusm/SantoriniDay5

Santorini Day 3 & 4

2008-06-01T17:55:00.000+10:00

Yesterday we hired a tiny little car so we could investigate the island. There are 2 main tourist beaches, the black beach and red beach, named from the sand colour. We drove to Perissa, and the black beach. The scenery was nice as we drove along dodging people riding 4 wheelers, scooters, motorbikes and buggies.

The beach has a nice setup (very tourist oriented) with permanent straw umbrellas, sun lounges and tables. You pick where you want to setup and then rent the umbrella for the day (7 euro). The sand gets really, really hot because of the colour, so you have to wear your thongs right to the waters edge.

The beach is nothing like Aussie beaches. So far we haven't seen any waves while in Europe. It's almost like swimming in a lake (actually I've seen lakes in Australia with bigger waves!). We didn't plan on staying very long, but lying on a nice lounge with waiters serving you drinks etc.. it became hard to leave! A group of people (Thai I think) walk around offering massages. Eventually we gave in and had one each (why not). Fantastic. We were so relaxed lying there reading we forgot about lunch until about 4:30pm! We got some tasty traditional Greek food brought over to our umbrella.

After some more swimming and relaxing we decided to explore the island some more and drove over to the red beach. It is less tourist oriented as you have to walk around a cliff from the car park to get there, but they still have lounges to hire.

We then drove to the opposite end of the island to Oia (30 mins or so). It has much more traditional buildings than Thira, and is well advertised as the best spot to watch the sunset. So we parked and then joined hundreds of tourists taking photos around the town and of the sunset. After a while walking around we found a seat at a bar to have a cocktail and watch/photo the sunset.

Once again I got carried away with too many photos.

We drove back after the sun had set (to the applause of the crowd) and sat on our balcony drinking a few too many gin & tonics.

Today we took things a little more slowly, and headed back to the beach, because it was so nice and relaxing! The bus only costs 2 euro to get to the beach and is actually a nice air conditioned coach. So all we've done all day is lie on sun lounges, read books, swim, eat and drink. Perfect!

More photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/fergusm/SantoriniDay3

More Santorini (Day 2)

2008-06-01T17:39:00.000+10:00

We've now been here 3 nights and love it here. I've been taking 1000's of photos. Too hard to choose which ones to show here, so I'm trying to upload them (1 day at a time).

On our first full day in Santorini we woke up to the lovely breakfast on our balcony. Then we went for a walk around Thira (pronounced Fira) and took lots of photos of the unique Greek Island architecture. There are so many churches/chapels with the domed roofs, either painted blue or white.

That afternoon we booked ourselves on a cruise on a sailboat. It took us out to the volcano (not active, but still smoking), and then for a 30 minute hike to the top. The loose rocks make going difficult. After the volcano they sailed round to a smaller island that has a hot spring for a swim off the boat. The hot spring wasn't very hot but the water was lovely anyway. I got a bit crazy and jumped off the high side of the boat. Lots of fun!

Then we sailed around looking at the other islands and towns, while eating some yummy greek snack food and drinking wine. After sailing over to the northern end of Santorini (Oia pronounced Ia) they raised the sails and turned off the motor so we could sail with the sunset behind us and one of the sailors got out his saxophone. Lovely!

As you can imagine I got a bit carried away taking lots of photos...

I'm just trying to upload 55 photos from the day:
http://picasaweb.google.com/fergusm/SantoriniDay2

Woke up to this...

2008-05-30T16:25:00.000+10:00

It's a hard life, but someone has got to do it...

couple more shots here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/fergusm/Santorini

Roma

2008-05-29T04:39:00.000+10:00

We are now in Rome staying with Kim (who I used to share an office with). He and his wife and daughter are over here on a posting. They have a nice apartment in a fairly quiet area.

We arrived on a slow train from Rome and made our way to Kim's apartment. That night we all went out for a nice dinner in a local restaurant and made our way home via one of the local gelatoria.

The next day Kim had organised us a tour of the excavations under St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It was a very interesting tour. The current St Peter's is the third major building on the site (all on top of each other). The excavations were made in the 1930's after the then Pope died and had requested to be buried as close to St Peter's grave as possible. The excavations found an old cemetery from the 1st century AD. The mausoleum's were mainly pagan buildings and were actual houses that the people created for the dead to "live" in the afterlife. We explored these and then were shown the "actual" burial place of St Peter in 64 AD. The tour guide built up the story as we went along and eventually showed us where they have the most proof of where he was buried.
After coming up from excavations we saw the burial of St John Paul II and various Pope's in the crypt of St Peter's and then made our way up into the actual Basilica.

After looking around the amazing interior we climbed up the stairs to the dome. It is an amazing dome and part of the tour includes walking around the roof of St Peter's.

It has been very hot here in Rome (30-35 degrees) so after climbing the stairs we were very hot! So we didn't really think we'd bother with photo's of ourselves in that state. We did find some Swiss Guards for the obligatory photo:

After that we wandered into the city and made our way to the Roman Pantheon. Just outside is a shop where you can buy your bishop outfits:

The Pantheon is very old and looks like a ruin from the outside, but is still very nice inside, including a massive dome with a hole in the middle.

After that we were both way too hot to do anything else so we made our way on packed hot buses back to the apartment. We rested and ended up playing with Lara (Kim's 6 year old daughter) for the rest of the night.

Yesterday Kim (our travel agent for Rome!) booked us into a tour of the Vatican gardens.

It was very interesting to walk around and see the amazing gardens and gave a really good opportunity to see the different buildings and places in the Vatican.

After the tour we went back to the Vatican Museum and walked through the massive buildings (Below is the gallery of maps)

eventually making our way to the Sistine Chapel and gazing at the amazing ceiling along with hundreds of others all squashed in together. After that, and being another hot day we again headed home (it was 4pm by then).

Today our travel agent had booked us into the Domus Aurea (Golden House), which was a massive house/city built by Nero in the 1st Century. To visit you head to a tunnel under a park just next to the Colosseum.

After two-thirds of Rome were destroyed by the great fire in 64 AD, Nero used this land as a site for his new palace. It was not really a house, more a series of buildings scattered over 70 hectares which included an artificial lake. After Nero died (suicide) the next Emporer wanted to remove anything that Nero had created, so not much is left. Luckily the ruins we visited were just filled in with soil and baths were built on the top. This means that once they removed the soil, things were left in pretty good condition. Of course all the valuable and useful materials (gold, marble, mosaics etc) were removed, but we saw traces of things on the walls. Very interesting.

After a nice lunch we headed off to see the Palatine Hill, the Forums and the Colosseum. There are so many ruins and it goes on forever!

So we spent hours looking around and then took a guided tour through the Colosseum. Some of the stories are very gruesome!

It was the biggest stadium/arena in ancient times and could hold 65,000 people. Underneath the arena is three levels where wild animals, gladiators and slaves were kept ready to go up through doors or winched up through special trapdoors ready for to be shown to the crowds.

Tomorrow we head off early to Greece and the Greek Island of Santorini for a relaxing week before heading home :(

Chianti Wine Tour

2008-05-28T01:24:00.000+10:00

On Saturday we went on a wine tour from Florence out into the Tuscan coutnryside (Chianti to be exact). We had tried to go the day before but the guide was sick so they recommended another tour. That day while we were waiting in line to see the Galleria dell'Accademia (Museum with Michelangelo's David), we got talking to girls in front of us and told them about the tour. The next morning after confirming our spots the girls turned up as well. The tours (Tuscan Trails) only take small groups out in a van, which is much better than a huge commercial tour (in my opinion).

First of all we headed to a lovely old castle that overlooked the surrounding countryside

In the courtyard of the castle

the guide told us all about the history of the winery and castle. Apparently it used to belong to the Pazzi family (pazzo means crazy in Italian) who were enemies of the famous Medici family of Florence. Below you can see the family crest (designed by Donatello)

We tasted some of their wine and some yummy olive oil.

From there we continued on through the countryside and made our way to a lovely Tuscan villa for lunch. We had a big lunch with 3 different types of pasta and some more wine.

The scenery in the area is really stunning and beautiful.

After lunch we headed to another old villa with another winery. They have made a new area where they age some of their wine in oak barrels. It was very interesting. The house is some 800 years old and they still have wines from 1947 in the cellar (unforunately we didn't try any of that).

We had a good day, but when we got back we were both stuffed. I think drinking wine in the middle of the day and having a big meal usually do that to you!

Firenze

2008-05-24T02:56:00.000+10:00

We headed out on our first day in Florence and came across the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens, just along the street from our B&B (the breakfast room actually looks out over the gardens). There is a complex ticket pricing structure and one ticket does not get you into both, so we decided since it was such a beautiful day that we would see the gardens and the costume museum (which came in one ticket). The gardens were beautiful, stretching out over a huge area and filled with statues,

fountains

and tree lined avenues.

The costume museum was amazing and has Italian clothes from the 1500's up to the present day all setup in some of the palace's rooms, that have elaborately decorated ceilings.

We then continued over the Ponte Vecchio, a bridge lined with overpriced tourist trap jewelery shops and swarming with tourists. We have been surprised at the number of tourists in Florence, it seems that they are everywhere, more than anywhere we have visited.

Florence also wins the prize for the smallest vehicles and large number of scooters. There are tiny buses:

3 wheeled trucks made by piaggio (the scooter brand):

and plenty of other tiny weird contraptions:

After pizza for lunch we went to the Duomo, which is the fourth largest cathedral in the world. The outside is lavishly decorated with marble and topped with a huge red dome.

The inside is not as exciting except the inside of the dome which is painted with a very strange comical mural, including skeletons, devils, angels and lots in between.

We climbed to the top of the dome and got a good view out over Florence.

We also started on the quest for a new handbag for Jo, trawling one area known for its leather and being offered all sorts of deals by hopeful store holders...

On Thursday we took our breakfast at a leisurely pace (who wouldn't with beautiful home made croissants) and decided to head to Pisa for the day. It really is amazing to see how much the tower actually leans and we took lots of the obligatory funny photos pushing the tower back up,

kicking it down etc etc.

The tower is open to climb, but unfortunately the only available time was after our train back to Florence (in time for our cooking course), so we had to make do from seeing it from the ground.

That night we had one thing planned that we had been really looking forward to...a cooking course followed by a home cooked dinner. Varina, the host at our B&B runs the course and we learned how to make pasta,

firstly ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta, and then taglitelli.

It was so much fun and we are planning to get a pasta machine when we get home to make some ourselves. We then went and sat down with a glass of wine while Varina completed the dinner...five amazing courses (including our two types of pasta, both cooked to perfection). It was the best dinner that we have had on our holiday so far, and it was only a very short stumble back to our bed!

We had planned to do a wine tour on Friday, but when we arrived we found out that the tour guide was a home sick in bed and there was no one else to run the tour, so we had to change plans (an put off wine tasting until Saturday). We decided to try our luck lining up to see David at the Accademia Gallery. We had been warned that getting into this gallery and the other big one in town (the Uffizi) can be difficult without pre-booking, but the line didn't look too bad, plus there were handbag shops in the street to entertain Jo while I stayed in line with my book. After about 45 minutes we were in (still no handbag) and had a quick look at one or two things before finding David.

After the gallery we stumbled across some more markets filled with handbags, wallets and leather jackets. Determined to find a handbag Jo visited every store and eventually found one that was just right for her, beautiful red leather with plenty of space inside. I tried some more bargaining, but only managed to get 20 euros off the ticket price, but it was too nice to let go for the sake of a few euros. I also found myself a nice leather wallet.

This evening we went for a walk up the hill to the Piazza Michelangelo, grabbed the compulsory gelato, and joined a crowd of other people watching a beautiful sunset over the city.

I think I took about 50 photos and ogled at other people's bigger and better cameras.

Ferrari

2008-05-22T02:16:00.000+10:00

Yesterday we made our way to Florence, but on the way I had been determined to stop via the Ferrari factory/museum in Maranello. I was going to include this in the Venice post, but I had so much of an adventure I think it deserves it's own post.

We caught the train from Venice and had to change trains in Bologna. The train to Modena was running late of course. We only had a little under 4 hours between trains, but the late train had made that even shorter! Jo decided that it probably wasn't worth her going, so she waited at the station while I went off on a crazy adventure.

I had to navigate 2 different buses to get from Modena to Maranello and then it started to rain again, so I got nice and wet walking from the bus stop to the museum.

Once in the museum I took plenty of photos to compensate for the short visit, there are around 20 different Ferrari's on display,

including last years F1 car,

an Enzo,

an F50, F40 and my childhood favourite the Testarossa.

In the end I had less than an hour at the museum as I had to get back for a 3:50 train. I found out from the front desk that the bus back to Modena left at 3:30 and took 30mins so I had to organise a taxi instead.

Crazy!

The taxi driver kept trying to talk to me, even though he knew hardly any English and I hardly any Italian! He did slow down as we drove past the Ferrari test track so I could try and spot any cars (I had heard an F1 car being tested earlier) but no luck.

Italian taxi drivers (or probably all Italians) drive a little crazily as though they are in an F1 race, and if anyone gets in the way or is not driving fast enough they beep the horn until they have gotten past. This guy took me the faster way than the bus had, which involved a freeway, and I'm sure we were going just as fast on the normal roads as on the freeway! In the end he did get me to the train on time so I was grateful.

What an experience!

Venezia

2008-05-22T01:33:00.000+10:00

The owners of the B&B where we were staying in Venice, had organised to meet us at a vaporeto (public transport boat) on the Grand Canal, and I'm glad she did as we would never had found the place otherwise! The "streets" in Venice are all tiny walkways and were deliberately made difficult to navigate as a defensive ploy. It works very well. If you don't have your wits about you, all the streets look the same, and one that looks like a dead end, could be a major thoroughfare!
Once at the B&B the owner, Esmeralda, sat us down and went through a session on navigating through the streets, the best sites to see, the best restaurants (not ripping off tourists) and marked it all out on a map. It was very good and helped for the rest of the stay, immensely. That night we headed out and found the Rialto Bridge, and then made our way to one of the recommended restaurants.

It must have been something similar to O-week on as a massive group of Uni aged people were wandering (stumbling) around with red shirts on seemingly on a bar crawl. It was pretty funny to watch the different stages of drunkenness go past.
The dinner was very nice and we had our first taste of Prosecco. It is a local cheap equivalent to champagne and goes down very easily, especially as it comes in 1 litre carafes.

The next morning we awoke to a nice big thunderstorm. Thinking it would probably only last a while, we put on our raincoats and headed out. Turns out we were wrong. It kept raining all day and seemed to get heavier and heavier. By the time we walked across town we were both absolutely soaked! Even though we had raincoats on, our legs were saturated and everything gradually got wet anyway.

Being the good little tourists we are, we didn't let it spoil our day and headed over to St Marco's Square where it was virtually empty as no one wanted to get wet!

We splashed around a bit in some large puddles like maniacs and everyone probably thought we were certifiable, then we headed to the Ducal/Doge's Palace.

It is a large complex and has some nicely decorated apartments, a cool armory, and after crossing the bridge of sighs, joins a nasty old prison. The prison would have been horrible, to get into the cells the doors are only about 1m high, but I guess once you were in your cell they probably didn't let you out very often!

After the palace, we walked around the streets a little, mainly to get away from the expensive square, and got some lunch. The ticket we had bought at the palace also allowed entry into a few other museums, so after lunch we headed back to the square and visited another museum (lewis carrol?). After that we decided we were probably wet enough for the moment and went back to the hotel to dry off and have a bit of a rest.
Later on we decided the best outfit to wear would be board shorts and thongs, as they dry easily, so we headed out in shorts, thongs and raincoats. We must have looked funny and I probably made it worse by saying "G'day" to people as we walked past, it just seemed like an outfit only an Aussie would think of!

We splashed around again in the rain and tried to do some shopping, but it is not very nice dripping through shops with beautiful Murano glass and nice masks. I did get some cheap ties and cuff links and even bargained 15 euro off the price, so I was happy with that.

After dinner and some more prosecco we found that the rain had finally stopped (Hurray!) and the was some blue sky. So we made the most of it (still in the boardies) and walked down to the Academia Bridge and back to St Marco's Square.

Luckily the good weather continued the next day so we got up early and went for a walk. At the Rialto bridge we decided we'd take advantage of being early and take some photo's without tourists. Seems that a photographer and model had the same thought:

It must have been the morning for models as later in the walk we saw these three!

We then caught the cheapest gondola in Venice (50 cents) which is actually just a ferry service crossing the canal.

After breakfast we caught a boat out to the islands. We skipped Murano (glass) and headed straight to Burano (lace). It is a lovely quaint little island village and they have a tradition of painting their houses in all different very bright colours.

We browsed and bought some obligatory lace, and then headed to Torcello. Apparently Torcello was actually once the most populated island in the area hundreds of years ago, now it only has a couple of houses and a massive basilica.

We also found some cute goats while we were there, which seemed to like eating anything we gave them, even if it was the same grass they were eating. Always better if someone else picks it for you!

Jo then changed her mind and we went back to the glass making island of Murano. By this time, I was a bit buggered so sat around fiddling with colour settings on the camera while Jo went shopping.

As previously advised, the prices on the island are inflated for tourists, so we didn't end up buying anything and headed back to the hotel for a bit of a rest. Later that afternoon we went to the markets to try and bargain some good prices for some glass and gifts, only to discover that, either I'm crap at bargaining (probably), or they really don't like to negotiate in general. I only got a few euro off all the purchases, but the prices were still good so it didn't matter too much.

Last night we checked into our B&B in Florence. It is fairly close to town and the owners are a lovely couple, and we were welcomed with a glass of wine, exactly what was needed after a long day traveling. The lady does cooking classes, so we are going to book one in and we can't wait.

Some more pictures

2008-05-21T06:40:00.000+10:00

We have just checked into a lovely B&B in Florence and they have free Internet for us to use. So I thought I'd post some more pictures from Switzerland and Milano. I'll try and write about Venice (in the rain) tomorrow.

For now:
Montreux: http://picasaweb.google.com/fergusm/Montreux
Zermatt: http://picasaweb.google.com/fergusm/Zermatt
Milano: http://picasaweb.google.com/fergusm/Milano

Milano

2008-05-20T01:30:00.001+10:00

We left Zermatt on Thursday morning on the way to a night in Milan. The train station at Milano is a huge building that looks like it would be really nice, unfortunately at the moment it is getting refurbished. This meant that there were blocked paths everywhere and all the signs were confusing.
We got into a bit of a flap because first we couldn't find the tourist information and then we couldn't find an ATM to get money out! After a bit of a breakdown we both decided to catch a taxi to the hotel as we couldn't figure out, and didn't want to, the metro and then tram system that we would apparently need to catch with our heavy luggage. The taxi turned out to be good anyway, as the hotel seemed ages away, and the fare wasn't too bad.

Our hotel was a pretty nice place, but had some interesting decorating. The lift seemed to be made of different colour tinted metal (ie pink, blue and red) so that everytime you got in it, you felt like pulling some Saturday Night Fever moves.

After settling into the room and pulling out the rain coats again, we headed into town on the tram to see some of the sites. We decided to grab a gelati (yes they are still good even in the rain) and then headed up some more steps to the top of the Duomo.

Apparently it took 600 years to build the Duomo, and after climbing up you can see why.

Every surface seems to have elaborate decorations, even little angels on top of the roof that you can't see from the ground!

Crazy!
It was a bit hair raising walking around on the roof in the rain, worrying about slipping, but we got a good view of the city.

After looking through the Duomo we walked around a bit past all the big fashion names, we debated about having a Gucci coffee (only Gucci we could afford), but chose not to in the end. We then found a big department store where we went in to get out of the rain, and ended up finding one of the departments holding a party with free wine and canapes! Woohoo!

We ended up staying there for a while and then had an antipasto dinner at one of the other departments.

On the way home, we had to catch a metro and then tram, we got off the train and tried to find the tram when we accidently found an amazing gelati shop called Chocalat.

Of course we had to stop! They had the most amazing flavours (we had dark chocolate orange and cassata) we decided we would have to go back for sure!

The next morning we went to look at the famous Opera house Teatro Alla Scala. It is a very unassuming building outside, but inside is very beautiful and lush. Unfortunately there wasn't any opera on while we were in Milano. They had a museum exhibition that we looked around, with old props, costumes and paintings.
After that we headed to the Milano Science and Technology Museum and looked at some planes, boats, a submarine and a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition (Leonardo lived in Milano). Some interesting things, but probably better for/with kids similar to Questacon in Canberra.

On the way back to the hotel to pick up our bags we stopped off at Chocolat again and had another gelati each. Yum!
There was a very cute labrador there begging to share some of the delicious gelati.

We are now in Venice and preparing to spend a day getting lost in the crazy streets in the rain!

Zermatt

2008-05-16T06:37:00.001+10:00

From Montreux we caught trains up into the Swiss Alps. The train from Visp up to Zermatt was an amazing experience. The train has windows up high so that you can see the amazing mountains as they tower above.

We arrived in Zermatt a bit after lunch and the hotel picked us up from the station in a little electric bus, the town has had no cars for as long as anyone remembers, everyone drives around in these little electric golf buggy style buses and trucks.

The Hotel Simi is one of the most expensive places we are staying in during our holiday, but it has been worth it. The room is massive, with a lounge area, a balcony and a large bathroom. After we had dropped our bags off we headed to the tourist center and found that May is the month where all the major attractions are shut for maintainence!
Gah! There a workman and cranes everywhere. They also use helicopters as obviously you can't drive trucks up 4000 metre mountains. This morning we watched a helicopter flying back and forth (only about 100 metres up the hill) with buckets of concrete, a very strange site.

In the end we decided to take advantage of one of the only attractions that is still open, a train up to the top of the mountains (Gornergratt). It is some 3000 metres high and gave a spectacular view of the Matterhorn.

Some entrepreneurial photographer has a St Bernard dog that he takes up the mountain every day and then charges absorbent prices for him to take your picture with it. We sneaked a few photos from the side when he wasn't looking instead!

On the way up we spotted some Marmots, a little animal kind of like a beaver that inhabits the alps like rabbits. We had read about them in Montreux but had not seen any, and as you can imagine Jo was very excited! While we were up the mountain looking out over the cliff we also spotted 3 mountain goats! Someone obviously leaves feed for them as they were eating away and climbing around the rocks. Unfortunately I had run out of batteries on my camera by this time so only got a grainy photo.
That night we had fondue for dinner. We made the mistake of just ordering the normal plain cheese fondue, as it just came with bread. It was very yummy but after a while bread dipped in melted cheese gets a bit boring.
The next day, as had been the plan, I went skiing up the mountain! To get to the ski runs you have to take 2 gondolas that rapidly climb the mountain with spectacular views over the town and the surrounding mountains.

The ski slopes start at 3000 metres (which is almost 1km higher than Mt Kosciusko). There were 2 lifts open and even though it is nearly summer here the snow was surprisingly good (maybe a little icey). I skiied around a took lots of photos (I think I have 80 different angles of the Matterhorn), went down a half-pipe and tried to do a few tricks.

While I was having a short break a met another photographer and his St Bernard (Heidi) and got talking to him, apparently one of the other dogs up here is 115kg only 13kg off being the biggest in the world!

After a morning of Apres skiing, Jo met me up the mountain for some lunch. We had the obligatory Toblerone and then Jo lounged in a sun chair while I had a few last runs (the lifts close at 2pm). I was pretty tired after that, so we went back to the hotel for a rest.

This morning we decided to go for a hike! We walked through the village and then along a path up the mountain for about an hour to a tiny little village (just a couple of huts really) called Z'mutt.

It was really nice, if a bit tiring. We then took a tiny little goats track back the long way to Zermatt.

It lead around the mountains overlooking Zermatt, and along the way we saw a marmot, deer and some sheep with cow bells on!

Finally after an exhausting hike we made it back to Zermatt.
I decided to visit the "Coiffure" (Hair dresser) and had a fun experience trying to explain what I wanted to someone who only spoke German. Luckily it turned out fine. We did some more shopping and decided to send some of our souvenirs and gifts home so we headed down to the local post office and had some fun fitting as much in to boxes as we could.

Hopefully it will all make it home!

Montreux

2008-05-16T06:22:00.000+10:00

We arrived in Montreux after catching a TGV from Marseille to Lyon and then a regional train through some lovely scenic country.

Montreux is beautiful!

It is on the edge of Lake Geneva and is surrounded by tall snow covered alps.

Along the lakes edge is a lovely path with lots of pretty flowers.

As seems to be the case for most of our holiday, Sunday afternoon was mostly rainy again.

Luckily in the morning it was blue skies and beautiful.

We got up early and walked around the lakes edge to reach Chateux Chillon.

The Chateux is an old castle that is built on a little island on the edge of the lake.

It is a nice castle but most of the time we ended up looking at the scenery more than anything.

After looking through the Chateu we decided to take a boat trip on the lake.

We went past Villeneuve, Le Bouveret and St Gingolph, nearly making it around to Evian (where the water comes from) before heading back across the lake to Vevey (which is just a few km's from Montreux). After a nice lunch by the lake we headed back to Montreux.

Once again the afternoon gave us some intermittent showers.
Jo tried going shopping but discovered for some reason the shops in Montreux don't seem to open on Mondays!
We had a nice drink in the fancy hotel bar and had dinner in one of the only open restaurants and walked along the lakeside watching the sunset.

Tomorrow we head up into the alps to Zermatt and the Matterhorn.

Provence

2008-05-13T01:28:00.000+10:00

On Thursday we picked up our next hire car, Punty the Fiat Punto. To start with driving on the wrong side of the road was very scary, with Fergus attempting gear changes into the door and Jo just being petrified, but once we were on the motorway and through the complex (and very expensive) toll system we were both fine.
We made our way to Aix-en-Provence, on of the larger towns in Provence. Aix is called the city of fountains, as everywhere you turn there are fountains (with over 100 fountains in the town). A few particularly nice fountains were the rotund, in the centre of town,

and the moss fountain, which bubbles up water from a thermal spring and is covered in moss.

We went to visit the cathedral (another Notre-Dame) which combines architecture from the Roman times right up to the 1990s.

With the help of the tourist office we found a beautiful bed and breakfast nestled into the hillside in the nearby village of Cabrite. It was a little tricky to find, with tiny winding one-way streets, but eventually at the very top of the hill we found it. However, once we reached the top of the hill there was no parking and no where to turn around, so Fergus had to back Punty down the tiny street to the car park at the bottom of the hill.

On the recommendation of the owner of the bed and breakfast we headed to the next village for dinner. It was well worth the drive, with a beautiful meal. Fergus had chicken filled with cheese wrapped in bacon and Jo had duck. There was no English on the menu and the cheeky waiter who spoke English refused to help with the menu, so after referring to our lacking phrase book and hoping for the best we both ended up with great meals.

After a beautiful breakfast we headed out to explore the countryside. Once again the owner of the B&B recommended some villages to see, about an hour from our base. The first village we stopped at was Lourmarin. We went to visit a large chateaux that looks over the village.

We also visited on market day which was wonderful.

The large market was full of all different sorts of food, crafts, fabric, clothing, jewelery and there was also the cutest miniature piglet.

We looked through the markets and bought supplies for a picnic lunch.

There were also many winding streets lined with shops and cafes.

After traveling along winding roads and through the middle of a canyon we came to the village of Bonnieux, perched on the top of a hillside.

We stopped for a coffee at a cafe that looked out over the village and the surrounding countryside and then walked up the steep streets to an old run down church at the very top of the hill. There were beautiful views from the top.

The last village we visited was Lacoste, across the valley from Bonnieux. Once again there were tiny winding cobbled streets around the village, leading up to the ruins of a chateaux that looks like it is being restored.

We both had a really great day exploring Provence.

Nice & Monaco

2008-05-13T00:56:00.000+10:00

We arrived in Nice after seeing some great seaside towns from the train. After checking into our hotel we headed down to the beach to see what it was like. We weren't surprised to see that the beach was not like the beautiful beaches that we are used to in Australia, but with pebbles instead of sand and no waves at all (and very cold).

The next day we checked out the flower and produce markets in town which were full of glace
fruit (a local speciality), hand made soaps, pottery, fresh fruit and vegetables and masses of flowers.
We then headed up to some gardens at the end of the promenade, looking out over Nice and the ocean. This lead to Ville Nice, the old part of town, full of tiny winding streets lined with shops.
In the afternoon we hired Rollerblades and went all the way down the promenade and back (about 10km). Jo was very nervous as it was her first time on roller blades, but we both made it safely up and down the beach.

On Wednesday we caught the train from Nice to Monaco for the day. It really is the playground of the rich and famous, with fancy cars everywhere and a harbor full of huge yachts and helicopters.
We visited the royal palace and saw the changing of the guard.

We also went to visit the Musee Oceanographic (aquarium) which had a great display of tropical and Mediterranean fish and a shark tank.
After lunch we headed up to the Monte Carlo Casino. We would have caught a bus, but there was a bus strike that day, and on our way we passed all the bus drivers protesting and marching through the streets.
Monaco is also preparing for the grand prix, so there were fences to contend with everywhere. Up at the casino Fergus was very impressed with the cars.
That evening back in Nice Fergus braved the cold and went swimming!!

Sparkling, Bubbling Champagne!

2008-05-06T18:18:00.001+10:00

On Saturday morning we got up early, packed our bags, checked out of our hotel in Paris, and set off for Reims. Reims is one of the two major towns in the Champagne region of France where, of course, they make Champagne!

I think we had both expected a quaint little village with lots of Champagne houses ready to offer glasses of Champagne to weary travellers. Of course this is not the case. Reims is fairly large and the Champagne Houses are fairly wide apart.
We arrived by TGV (fast train) and found our B&B thanks to some good directions from the owner. The B&B was right behind the Notre Dame (Reims) Cathedral in the centre of town a few blocks away from the main restaurant area.

Jo had already booked us on a tour of Veuve Clicquot Possinard, so we dropped off our bags and headed to the Champagne House.

The tour was very interesting. They have been around since the late 17 hundreds (around the time Captain Cook was sailing around) and is located above 24km's of caves that are the cellars.

The whole area is primarily chalk and the caves were initially excavated by the Romans back in the 4th Century AD to make statues and buildings out of the chalk. Under the Champagne area there is a whopping 200km of caves! All of these now full of Champagne! To give an idea of the scale, roughly 1 million bottles of Champagne is stored per kilometre.

The chalky ground keeps the caves at an almost precise 10-13 degrees celsius all year round and are up to 20 metres under ground. We visited 3 Champagne houses over the weekend (Veuve Clicquot Possinard, Tattinger and GH Mumm) and went on a tour of each set of caves and sampled some bubbly at each one.

The tours were very interesting and we now know more than enough to start our own champagne house back in Australia. There is actually all sorts of laws in France concerning the creation of Champagne (only allowed to pick grapes by hand, only allowed to use 3 types of grapes, only allowed to use grapes from the region etc. etc.).
We also visited a car museum that had some great old French cars and found a movie in English (versione originale) before heading home.

On Sunday we hired some bikes to get around town...making it easier to get between Champagne Houses and also giving our tired feet a rest. It was a great sunny day and we saw heaps of the town, including the Cathedral, Basicalla, some Roman ruins and some nice gardens.

We're on train to Nice now, going past the countryside very fast, but getting a great view along the way.

Paris

2008-05-03T02:03:00.000+10:00

We left our base in Oxfordshire on Monday to fly over to Paris. We arrived at Terminal 5 very early (after easily finding our way to the rental car return and saying good bye to Chezky) and were surprisingly offered £200 each to take a later flight! I It was only an hour after our scheduled flight, so we took the great offer and spent the extra time checking out all the shops in the new terminal. I decided that I would like to buy a small laptop that I could use in hotels and on trains etc.. In the terminal we managed to find a computer shop that was selling exactly what I wanted (an Asus EeePC): It has been very useful and we have already used it to book our hotel in Champagne.

We arrived in Paris and quickly caught up with Lyndal and Nick who had spent the weekend in Paris and were heading back to London that evening. After they headed home we found some dinner in the rain. and wandered along the Seine, catching a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower light show:

and passed the Louvre:

On Tuesday morning we were met with horrible rainy weather, but we didn't let it deter us. Jo managed to order breakfast for us in French...we have become regulars at the Eric Kayser patisserie down the street, where there are so many yummy things to try! We headed out past the Pantheon, through the Luxembourg Gardens

and to the Eiffel Tower.

We climbed the 780 stairs to the second level and enjoyed the views across Paris. That evening we went to see a show at the Lido. It involved about 30 scantily clad dancers and hundreds of costume changes.....and even a ice rink and a real horse on stage. It was a really enjoyable evening.

On Wednesday we got up early (apparently not early enough) and headed to the Palace of Versailles. It seems that every tourist in Paris wanted to see the Palace and we spent a couple of hours in the rain waiting in line.

It was well worth the wait, as the Palace was beautiful and we spent a couple of hours going through the lavishly decorated rooms. The Hall of Mirrors was especially beautiful, a 70m long room lined with windows on one side and mirrors on the other.
We also wandered about the gardens of the Palace.

That evening we went to the Louvre. We avoided the queues by going to the late night opening, which not too many people seemed to know about. We did the requisite visit to the Mona Lisa and then just had a look around, seeing lots of sculptures, beautiful crown jewels and some Egyptian art

Yesterday was a public holiday in France (May Day) and nothing at all was open....except for Eric's patisserie and the markets around the corner, so we put together a picnic and headed off to find a park hoping that it wouldn't rain again. After much wandering and disappointment that EVERYTHNG was closed, we found a lovely park and enjoyed our picnic beside a fountain.

We then went for a cruise down the Seine, passing lots of landmarks (Notre Dame):
We went home to have a bit of a rest (since nothing was open) and then decided to go watch a movie (after researching that English movies are notated by VO or Versione Orignale). I forgot to write down the street name for the cinema, so after testing my French and asking for directions, we eventually found it, but too late! Go May Day! So we just wandered around town enjoying the atmosphere and people watching.

Today we finally got a sunny day in Paris! So we have been doing the traditional Parisian activity of shopping. Jo wanted to find a handbag shop called "Lollipop", but again we had forgotten to write down the address, so we wandered around the general area (near the Picasso Museum) and gave up, instead going to the famous Berthillon Glacier (Ice Creamery):
We then headed over to Champs Elysée to continue:
and then into town to 2 big shopping centres (La Fayette and Au Printemps) they are both massive (3 buildings each) and were packed full of people. It was horrible, but I'm sure Jo will tell you otherwise!
Earlier while hunting for the handbag shop Jo had messaged Annalise and her sister Alex to try and get the address of Lollipop, luckily for us Alex came through and we finally found the shop this afternoon. Jo didn't buy any handbags, but we found a nice shopping area and an Internet Cafe for me to sit in while she continues shopping. Perfect!

Tomorrow morning we leave Paris for the Champagne region and lots of cellar tours. Should be fun.

More photos (http://picasaweb.google.com/fergusm/Paris)