Day trip to France!

Uncle Alex rapped on the door nice and early at 6:30am and after a quick cuppa tea, we were off on the motorway towards Folkestone! We had 6 ppl in the car - Uncle Alex, Aunty Clem, Paula, Cheng Yee, Di and I! It was surprisingly not too cramped in the back!

We checked in at Eurotunnel and then had a quick look at the duty free shops before queuing up to board our train! Soon we had driven onto the train and were zooming under the English Channel!

We arrived in France around 9:15am or so and after putting our clocks forward an hour, we headed south towards the seaside town of Bologne! The drive didn’t take long but there was sufficient time to get a bit of shuteye in the backseat!

It was sunny and reasonably warm as we pulled into Bologne! After parking near the old part of town, we walked downhill to the markets which was bustling with locals! We had a look around at the stalls selling everything from fruit and veges to flowers to clothes! Next we headed down to the docks to check out the fishermen’s catch! They were mostly selling sole but we also saw some huge lobsters too!

We headed back to the car and grabbed our pre-made lunch of turkey rolls that Paula had made. We enjoyed the warm sun in the garden near the carpark as we gobbled down lunch. Then it was time to explore the old part of town surrounded by an ancient wall! We found the gate into town and walked up cobblestone streets to the main street lined with craft shops and cafes! There was this annoying African man who came up to us asking us where we were from and a few other questions. Uncle Alex pretended not to understand what he was asking and after a while just walked by. He presumably wanted money but we noticed him hassling every other tourist walking by! We found a nice café to sit at and grab a drink before deciding it was time to move on!

Back in the car, we headed north to the town of Dunkirk! Again I fell asleep but soon enough we were there! We parked near the pier and then walked into the town centre where we found a hub of activity going on! It turned out to be some sort of agricultural fair and there were animal exhibits and stores promoting organic foods. After checking it out briefly, we escaped the crowds and continued walking around town. It was nearing 5pm and we were feeling hungry so we started to keep an eye out for places to eat! I had my stomach set on moules fritte (mussels and fries!).

Eventually we found a few cafes by the sea and picked one advertising moules fritte! They didn’t really have much of a selection and it took a bit of guesswork to figure out what the other dishes on the menu were! Our French waitress was friendly enough but could not speak a word of English! In the end Uncle Alex, Di and I got the moules fritte, Aunty Clem got steak, Cheng Yee got this local specialty of cold chicken/pork, whilst Paula decided to just have cheese on toast with fries! The mussels were great! Uncle Alex’s provencal sauce was probably the best though!

Filled up, we left Dunkirk and drove to Calais to do some shopping before catching our 9:50pm train back to the UK. We managed to find the outlet centre near Cite Europe but it had just closed as we pulled into the parking lot at 7pm! Disappointed we headed over to Cite Europe and Uncle Alex, Aunty Clem, and Paula went crazy at Carrefour and Tesco buying a whole trolley full of booze! They got even more at the duty free store after we had checked in!

Our 9:50pm train ended up being full and we were first on the 10:10pm train. We finally reached UK soil around 9:30pm after putting back our clocks! The drive back to Paula’s place was about 30mins and Beng Kiet koko welcomed us back around 10pm! Paula reheated some of last night’s Indian food and mmm was it good! We also enjoyed some of the wine we had bought! The perfect end to a nice day out! Nite!

London to Dartford!

Got up early at 7am to have breakky with Fiona before she left for work. We cooked bacon, eggs, mushrooms, onions, and hash browns! We had a little accident with Fiona’s cast iron pot - the inner paintwork crackled and popped spoiling our mushrooms! Anyhow it was nice to have a big breakfast again!

We said farewell to Fiona as she left for work and then Di went back to sleep whilst I surfed the net. Around 11:30am we took our clothes which were still wet to the Laundromat to us the dryer. It did the trick! We skipped lunch and went to watch Iron Man at the local Empire cinema! Not bad!

After the movie we rushed back to Fiona’s place to finish packing our bags and then we were off to the train station to head to Dartford! We caught the underground to Embankment and walked to Charing Cross station to catch the southeastern train to Dartford. All up the journey took almost 2hrs! We arrived in Dartford at 6pm and Aunty Clem picked us up at the station. She called Beng Kiet koko who was on the train and he said he was only 10mins away so we decided to wait for him at the station. Twenty minutes later he turned up and explained that his train had been delayed cos some guy had jumped onto the tracks!

We got to Uncle Alex’s place and repacked our small luggage bag for our overnight stay at Paula’s! Around 7:30pm we drove to Maidstone, about a 20min drive away. We picked up Cheng Yee from Maidstone station and then headed to Paula’s place.

Paula’s place is a nice 2 storey semi detached place in a dead end street. It had a very homely feel about it! Paula welcomed us and took us on a tour! She has a living room, separate dining room, conservatory, downstairs and upstairs toilet, and 3 bedrooms, one with a shower ensuite! She also has a decent sized backyard and deck!

As soon as we entered, we could smell wafts of home cooked Indian cuisine! Mmmm said my stomach! We made ourselves at home and cracked open a bottle of wine whilst Paula finished preparing dinner and Aunty Clem her apple crumble dessert! Dinner was amazing! Tandoori chicken (spicy!), ginger chicken, baked salmon, curry chicken, and salad to cool things down! It was just really nice sitting down to a home cooked meal after being on the go for the last few weeks!
Ok better go to bed now cos it’s an early start for our trip to France tomorrow!

WICKED day in London!

Today was our rest day in London! Slept in till 11am and spent the remainder of the morning doing more laundry and surfing the net before deciding to go out for lunch around 1:30pm. We grabbed some noodles at Coco noodles (beef pho noodles) before doing some shopping at M & S and then getting some groceries for dinner and tomorrow’s breakky from Tesco.

Then we headed back to Fiona’s place and watched Sweeney Todd (sick movie man!) whilst preparing our home cooked dinner of fettucine bolognaise with aubergine and funghi! Man it was good! Meaty and chunks of veges! Yeah! I dare say better than all the pasta we had in Italy!

At 6pm we caught the metro to Victoria station to see Wicked at the Apollo Theatre! We had prebooked the tickets online at lastminute.com for GBP 40 per ticket. The show was awesome!!! For those who don’t know, Wicked is the prequel to the Wizard of Oz! The set was amazing, the music awesome, and the lighting/stage effects spectacular! We’d highly recommend it to anyone! Now showing in London, Los Angeles, and Broadway as far as we know!

Got back to Fiona’s place around 11pm and she had dessert ready since we had cooked dinner! We enjoyed apple crumble and Ben and Jerry’s icecream whilst listening to the Wicked soundtrack, which Fiona had! Night!

Amsterdam to Brugge to London!

Got up early for the last time and loaded up the coach! We left Amsterdam around 8:15am and headed towards Belgium!

Around 10:30am we stopped for a service stop and after watching Shawshank Redemption on the coach, we soon arrived in Brugge, Belgium around 1pm. We didn’t have long here cos we needed to make the ferry. Jaz rushed us into the main square and after giving a brief history of the place and some historical buildings of significance, she pointed out places to eat and places to shop and off we went!

We hurried to a chip stand cos apparently Belgium is famous for its chips with mayonnaise. Also got a hot dog. Thought both were rather ordinary actually! I guess we have good chips back home! We then looked around for Belgium’s other specialty, Belgian waffles! We walked back up the street we had come and found a take away waffle store. We each got a Belgian waffle with vanilla icecream and chocolate sauce. It came on basically 2 pieces of folded cardboard and was rather difficult to eat. We found a low lying section of wall alongside the street and sat down. The waffle was good but the icecream was rather disappointing!

The last thing we did there was check out the supermarket cos Jaz told us Belgian chocolate would be cheaper there. We didn’t find a huge range so we didn’t bother.

It was back on the bus at 2pm and we zoomed off towards Calais to board the ferry back to the UK. We arrived in Calais around 3:45pm to find that our ferry was running late due to strong winds across the channel. Our rescheduled departure time was 5:25pm! We spent the time passing through immigration, taking a last group photo, and checking out the dock. Jaz also revealed that she and Matty (our driver) are dating!

Our P&O ferry arrived around 4:30pm and we watched as cars, trucks, and buses from Dover were unloaded and then the batch going to Dover loaded. Our bus drove us onto the ferry to drop us off and we said farewell to Matty (he’s based in the Netherlands)!

On board the ferry we found quite a number of services and facilities including a restaurant, bar, gaming area, duty free shop, and bureau de change. We sat with Jon and Erika in the restaurant for the 75min journey across the channel. It was nice reflecting on the good times we had had!

The journey was mostly smooth and we arrived in Dover around 6:15pm English time. We boarded an Excalibur coach to take us back to London with the other Topdeck group. The trip took almost 2hrs as The Da Vinci Code was played on the tv. What made the journey unpleasant though was the stench of urine coming from the coach’s toilet! Jaz tried cleaning it with Coke and using deodorant but the stench remained with us pretty much for the whole journey! We had to use Jaz’s scented wipes and Erika’s perfume to mask it!

We were only too glad to get off early at Victoria station! Jon and Erika and Barrett and Krista also got off here. At the underground we said farewell and took the district line to Ealing Broadway. We got to Fiona’s place around 9pm. She hadn’t had dinner yet so we headed to a nearby Mexican restaurant for dinner. It was Fiona’s treat and we got a 2 for 1 deal on the quesalladas. We shared some nachos for starters. Not bad!

Went back to Fiona’s place and Di put on scrubs! Ah…so nice to not have to wake up early tomorrow!!!

Final thoughts on the tour: Great 2 weeks!!! Got to see many places that we probably would not see on our own! Had a nice small group with people of similar age and life stages which was way better than it could’ve been if we had been stuck with double the number of 18 year olds! Good accommodation, alright food! Jaz was an awesome tour leader! She really looked after us and did everything she could to make our trip all the more enjoyable! Only downside was the early starts every day and some long driving days which meant we were quite tired much of the time. But hey we saw so much so it was worth it! Would recommend it to everyone!

Tour de Amsterdam!

Our day started today with a bicycle tour of Amsterdam! Matty dropped us off in the museum district and Jaz led us to Mike’s Bike Tours where we met our tour guide for the morning. Another Topdeck group was there (a hostel group I think) and they were being issued with their bikes. Apparently they hadn’t booked their tour until this morning and the bike company had to call in another tour guide leader. The other group arrived first so they got our leader and we got the guy who was called in after he was out till 4:30am last night!

Anyhow, we got our bikes and our sleepy and what turned out to be kiwi tour guide led us off! I was a bit shakey at first but picked up quickly! Had to remember to stay on the right side of the road, that cars give way to bikes here, and to stay in single file! Some of the things our guide showed us included Von Lippel park, Leidesplein, the yuppy area, and some museums. He pointed out this public monument funded by taxpayers that looked quite elegant, kinda like a toned down Brandenberg Gate. He was rather cynical in pointing out that the latin inscription on the monument translated to ‘People do not piss against the wind’. How meaningful!

Di really enjoyed the bike tour but it finished all too soon at around 10:30am. After returning our bikes we were left to our own devices until the farewell dinner this evening. We decided to check out some markets in the south part of the museum district. Here we found stands mostly extentions of the shops behind them. All kinds of things were on sale including fresh fruit, meat, and seafood, clothing, and other typical market junk. We got ourselves a gelato and also bought some mixed nuts for snacking.

Around midday our stomachs were telling us to look for lunch so we started keeping an eye out for places to eat. Apparently traditional dutch food basically consists of lots of fried things but other cuisines they have there that are done well include Indonesian and Chinese.

We started walking towards central station where we intended to catch a bus back to the hotel for an afternoon nap, hoping to grab a bite somewhere along the way. We visited the flower markets along the way but still couldn’t find any food that looked appealing!

We ended up in Dam square and remembered that we could catch a tram from there to the hotel. We eventually found the right tram stop and were soon on the number 14 tram back to Bos en Lommerplein! The ride took around 20mins and when we got back, we had our hearts set on KFC! It turned out to be just as good as back home and it hit spot! Yeah!

Di spent the afternoon napping whilst I surfed the net (free wifi at last!). We had intended to go to A./nne Frank’s house before heading to dinner but Di was sleeping so peacefully and looked so wasted I didn’t have the heart to wake her.

At 6:15pm, we met most of the group out front on the coach and Matty drove us into town for dinner. We parked near Central station and walked to Sea Palace Chinese restaurant for dinner! Man I had my reservations about this floating restaurant with mostly non-chinese waiters but the food turned out to be quite good. We got rice and noodles (more like spaghetti!) with mains of sweet and sour pork, szechuan chicken, and seasonal veges on a huge platter. Dessert was icecream and fruit.

After dinner we went with the group to a nearby pub. Most of the group stopped by first at the coffee shop next door for a last joint/space cake/muffin and then joined us later. It was nice hanging out one last time and seeing the effects of the hash on the others!

At 10pm Matty drove us back to the hotel for the last night of the tour!

Berlin, Germany to Amsterdam, Netherlands!

We found the lock this morning but not the sock! The lock turned out to be on the coach having fallen off my backpack. We set off around 7:45am, 15mins late after most of the tour group were trashed after their pubcrawl last night. Some had come back around 4am whilst some arrived back at the hotel just an hour before our departure time at 6:30am! Troy didn’t even make it back! Jaz left him instructions to catch a train from Berlin to Amsterdam.

We hit the highway (or should I say Autobahn) and drove west towards Amsterdam. We hit some traffic around 10am and here we are crawling our way towards Amsterdam!

After a lunch break at a roadside service station restaurant (we had an ok chicken schnitzel), we continued on watching Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers back to back on the coach! We finally reached Amsterdam at around 5:45pm after driving 670km in around 9hrs thanks to traffic! We were supposed to see a cheese and clog making demo but this was postponed to when we leave Amsterdam due to insufficient time today.

We checked into Best Western at Blue Tower which turned out to be just about our best accommodation so far! Nice clean accommodation with plasma tv, kettle and coffee/tea, but no fridge. One thing we’ve noticed throughout our trip in Europe is that when we boil water, there are often floaties in the water! Not sure if it’s the European water or our kettle! We tried the hotel’s kettle though and got the same result. Maybe it is something in the water…!

At 6:45pm we met up in foyer and Matty drove us to Central station. Then Jaz walked us to the Red Light District. Most of the group were seeing a live sex show at a place called Moulin Rouge but Jonathan, Erika, Di and I opted to just go for dinner and then a stroll afterwards. After walking around the huge Chinatown (conveniently situated in the red light district!), we ended up settling on an Indian restaurant since we’ll be having our farewell dinner tomorrow night at a floating Chinese restaurant.

The Indian waiter/owner was really really friendly! We ordered 2 curries and asked that he make them very hot and boy did he deliver! We were sweating and our noses were running and the red wine we ordered didn’t really help! The waiter stood there laughing at us!

After dinner we walked to Dam square to check out the National monument, the palace and a cathedral. Then we headed back to Moulin Rouge to meet up with the group for a nighttime tour of the red light district! Jaz led us through narrow passageways and down the infamous skinny alley. It was sad to see girls selling themselves in shop windows.

At around 10:30pm, the others went out for drinks, whilst Matty led us to the Central Station bus stop where we caught the number 21 bus back to our hotel! Nite!

Checking out Berlin!

Today was our free day to explore Berlin! Started out with a Third Reich walking tour of the historical sites around Berlin. We all caught the U-Bahn to Mohrenstrafze and met our tour guide Jakob there. He started by pointing out the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda and other historical buildings around Wilhelmplatz before walking us over to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. This memorial was designed by American architect Peter Eisenman and completed in 2005. The Germans rather than trying to forget the past have the attitude of wanting to accept responsibility as a nation for their history.

The memorial consisted of 2711 concrete rectangular blocks laid out over an entire town block. They stand at slightly different angles and heights, with the towering blocks concentrated in the centre. The idea is to walk through the memorial and as you reach the centre the blocks towering over you represent the peak of the Nazi oppression and persecution of the Jews.

Next Jakob led us a to the nearby site of Hitler’s underground bunker. It is no longer accessible today after collapsing but he described how it had super thick walls (3.6m concrete walls and 4.3m for the ceiling) and was where Hitler committed suicide on 30th April 1945. Now there’s an inconspicuous carpark situated over it so that people can’t make a shrine out of it.

We headed on to a remnant of the Berlin Wall and the Topography of Terrors outdoor exhibit. The exhibit basically details the operations of the SS and Gestapo security forces during WWII. We noticed that someone had graffitied Ben Lee on a part of the wall! Looks like I don’t have to do it myself!

Our final stop was checkpoint Charlie, one of the 3 main border crossings between East and West Berlin during the cold war. After the tour we were left to our own devices. Di and I checked out some of the info boards around Checkpoint Charlie before deciding to look for lunch.

We walked up Friedrich St towards Under den linten St where some markets were marked out on the map. We didn’t end up finding the markets but we did find a small German pub in a backstreet where we had a yummy pork schnitzel and meatball with potato salad!

After lunch we checked out the Brandenburg gate before heading to the Reichstag (German Parliament House). We had a 30min wait in the hot sun before passing through security checks and ascending in a lift to the terrace level of the Reichstag. Up here we had a 360 view of the city and there was this glass dome with ramps around its walls that you could walk up to the peak of dome for an even better view! Inside the dome there was also information about the German Parliament’s history and we read that before walking up to the peak. At the top the roof was open and there was this circular bench that we reclined on to rest our weary legs! After a while it was too hot and time to look for a drink!

We left the Reichstag around 4pm and decided to check out the activities in the nearby park where the finish line of a cycling marathon was. We found a range of stores selling Brauwurst, Currywurst and every type of wurst etc before spotting one that sold slurpees! We quickly grabbed two and enjoyed them on a park bench near the Brandenburg Gate!

After this refreshment we spent the next 3 hours checking out the information centre at the Memorial for Murdered Jews and then the Topography of Terrors exhibit! Tired of reading signboards and sobered at the stuff we were reading about, we decided to get dinner around 7:30pm.

We bumped into Jonathan and Erika at Checkpoint Charlie who had just had dinner at a nearby Thai restaurant that they recommended! Since we were running out of time before our 8:45pm pickup, we decided to just go with that! We ordered red chicken curry which looked more green than red, and spicy fried beef with garlic and chillis which turned out to be fried duck in sweet and sour sauce! We couldn’t be bothered correcting the order and both dishes tasted good anyhow! Somehow we managed to finish the huge portions and afterwards I was so full I couldn’t lie down for a few hours!

Matty and the coach picked us up at Checkpoint Charlie at 8:50pm. The whole tour group was on their way to a pubcrawl that Di and I passed on cause we were already exhausted and stuffed! Got back to the hotel around 9:30pm and found that most of our laundry had dried save my jeans. We also realised that one lock and one sock was missing!!! Searched the entire hotel room and our backpacks and everything and couldn’t find them!!! Oh well! That takes our lost items tally to one travel adapter, one wedding ring, one lock and one sock! We’ll see if we can find em tomorrow morning!

Prague, Czech Republic to Berlin, Germany!

Another long driving day today as we headed from Prague to Berlin. We stopped off at Dresden after crossing the Czech/German border around 10:30am. We then had around 2hrs 30mins to explore the town and get lunch!

Dresden is supposedly a thousand year old town that was almost completely destroyed by allied bombing during WWII cos that’s where many of the supply factories for the Nazis were. Today many of the original buildings have been rebuilt almost to original form. We had cursory looks at the opera house and towering cathedrals before heading towards a restaurant/café area. We walked around the block once and after being tempted by dirty Chinese, settled on a reasonable looking Vietnamese restaurant. We were wary cos the whole area was kinda quiet (being around 11am on a Sunday morning) and it looked like the equivalent of Darling Harbour’s eating areas or King Street wharf minus the water. Lunch turned out to be rather good though! We had pho beef noodles and crispy chicken rice which were both decent sized and reasonable value for money.

Re-energised we spent the hour we had left in Dresden walking along the riverside and checking out the inside of one of the large cathedrals there. Notably, there was a statue of Martin Luther outside one of the cathedrals so perhaps he was from this town?!

At 1pm it was back on the bus as we continued on to Berlin. We rolled into the German capital around 4pm and had a bus tour of the city! Jaz provided commentary and pointed out the city’s famous sites including the Brandenburg Gate, museum island, checkpoint Charlie, the Jewish war memorial, the city’s tower, and its parliamentary building the Reichstag. She described how the city was divided into East and West Berlin after WWII and the differences between the two sides of the city. We had a photostop at the East Side Gallery where a 1.3km remains of the Berlin wall still stood. Then it was on to our hotel!

Our 3 star hotel was rather good I must say! All the essentials including tv, fridge, and radiator heater to dry our washing! No wireless internet but the owner downstairs was super nice and let us use his main reception computer! We had about 90mins till dinner at 7pm and most of the group was using the Laundromat at the corner of the street so we decided to look for a supermarket instead. We found a small one in the underground station and picked up some sweet strawberries, popcorn and coke!

At 7pm we met in the lobby and Matt drove us to near the Berlin zoo where we were having dinner. We ate at a place called Joe’s and it was huge! It was kinda like a big beer garden with plenty of locals! Dinner was tomato soup for entrée with brautwurst with sauerkraut and mashed potato for mains. Dessert was icecream! Tried a Diesel drink which is half beer half coke! Sounds wrong but it was quite good, especially seeing as I’m not a seasoned beer drinker yet!

After dinner Matt drove us back to the hotel and we managed to do a load of washing at the Laundromat. The dryer didn’t work that well and some people were using it 3-4 times to get their clothes dry but it was already closing time after one run so we’ve hung up our clothes around our hotel room to dry! Nite!

Exploring Prague!

Slept in till a luxurious 9am! Went down to breakfast to find a buffet that one might expect at lunchtime! Plenty of cold meats, cheeses, cocktail sausages and bread rolls were lain out in addition to cereal and oranges. Where were the bacon and eggs?! Ended up making hot dogs for breakky!

Di and I headed out around 10:30am for town! We caught the metro to Malostranska which got us out at the foot of the Prague Castle. We climbed the old castle steps (Stare zamecke schody) to the castle’s entrance and found swarms of tourists already there!!! Nuts!

There was a nice view of the city from the top of the castle steps and after taking it in, we battled our way against the hordes of tourists and through the narrow passageways and stairwells to the castle entrance! We found the ticket booth and with tickets in hand entered the Golden Lane. It’s basically a quaint little lane with a row of shops and an exhibition on weapons and armour from medieval times. Don’t really know what’s so golden bout it! Again we found ourselves in a river of tourists and with the drizzle that started, it was difficult to take our time and enjoy browsing the stores and exhibition. In the end, we were funneled through the exit at end of the lane!

We checked out Dalibor’s Tower next which used to be a prison and a torture chamber. Then we headed further inside the castle to St Goerge’s Square. We decided to check out the Old Royal Palace next. This turned out to be a stately hall with an adjoining chapel and throne room. Didn’t spend too long here again due the amount of ppl!

We headed out and around the corner to the spectacular St Vito’s Cathedral! We were dismayed to find a pretty long queue formed around the side of the cathedral but thankfully we only had to wait around 10-15mins to get in. Inside the most stunning thing were the colourful and intricate stain glassed windows! We walked around the many chapels before coming to a stairwell. We decided to climb it and 280 steps later up a spiral staircase we had reached the top of one of the church’s towers! Here we had an amazing view of Prague from all angles! Took plenty of photos and videos of the city’s famous buildings and the river with its many bridges. Afterwards it was all the way back down and out of the cathedral.

We checked out St George’s Basilica just because it was included in the ticket price but it turned out to be rather plain compared with St Vito’s Cathedral that we had just visited. Inside people were lining up to go down to a crypt which we think may have had a shrine or tomb dedicated to St George. In any case we were sick of lining up and our stomachs were grumbling so we left!

We headed back down the old castle steps to Malostranska and started looking for a place to eat. We ended up in Restaurace Malostranska which seemed reasonably priced with a traditional Czech menu. Di ordered roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut, and I had a pork schnitzel. Both were quite nice, though Di’s roast pork came in little lumps rather than a steak and the dumplings weren’t like Chinese dumplings, but rather like white bread cut out in circles!

After lunch we crossed the Charles bridge and saw the many statues alongside the bridge. Out numbering these statues were the stalls for tourists to buy their drawn self-portrait, jewelry, paintings and pictures of the city. We then checked out the Don Giovanni. Prague is famous for their puppet shows and this was one of the places which had 1 metre tall puppets. After finding out the price and that most of the show was singing and not in English we decided to keep heading along the street. We found a nice gelato shop where Ben had pistachio and I had caramel crème ice-cream. It was really nice.

Our next stop was the famous astronomical clock tower. We were there 5 minutes early and surrounded by tourists. On the hour, the skeletal statue rings a bell and begins to turn over an hourglass in its hand. There are windows further up which open and statues glide across them and face the crowd momentarily. The main bell then chimes (we think 17 times as it was 5pm) and the whole thing is over. The audience begins to applaud. I let out a big ‘is that it?!’ What a let down! It looked far more impressive than that performance!

After this disappointing event we took a walk to the Jewish Ghetto to see what we could find. We found out that they charged 300 Kr to see a handful of synagogues and their cemetery. Considering how late it was we thought it was too expensive since we probably only had a few hours to go through it. Also, we were only really interested to see maybe 1 synagogue and the cemetery which apparently is very unordered. We walked around the Jewish Ghetto and were able to sneak a peak into the cemetery and the outside of the synagogue.

We left then for a wander. Not really knowing what to do at this stage. We ended up briefly at the Powder Tower which was famous for storing the gun powder during its day and then headed through the shops for dinner. Jaz had recommended a restaurant near our train station so we headed there.

Dinner was huge, and quite good. Very meaty though. We ordered the pork leg in beer sauce and the quarter duck with potato dumplings and red cabbage. Halfway through some other guys from our tour found us and also had similar dishes. The pub had an interesting myth attached to it.

A beautiful woman, married to a rope maker lived in Prague. Her husband would travel away as his skills were needed elsewhere. Being bored, the woman asked her husband if she could open a pub. Her husband, being innocent of any misconduct arranged it and so began the pub. However, her clientele were male and soon it became known that she offered drinks and other services. When news of this spread to her husband, he returned to see it for himself and strangled her to death via his rope. It is said that her ghost now remains in the pub where she is cursed to relieve those with a broken heart. To accompany this story is a portrait of her in the pub.

After dinner we wandered around to do some shopping and returned back to the hotel.

Salzburg, Austria to Prague, Czech Republic!

Getting into the routine now of our travel days! Early wake up, quickly get changed and pack rest of clothes, take backpacks to hotel lobby, chow down breakky, then get on bus! Breakky wasn’t too impressive today but managed to make a cheese and salami/ham/devon roll for lunch out of it.

We were on the bus and rolling towards Mauthausen concentration camp around 7:30am. Around 8am Di was observing how her hands were a little dry cos she hadn’t put on her lavender hand cream last night. Then she made a dreadful realisation. Her wedding ring wasn’t on her finger!!! My heart sunk. She quickly went through when she last had it and where she could’ve lost it. She remembered having it on last night when she went to bed so we concluded that it must’ve have fallen off somewhere in the Salzburg hotel room this morning. Jaz called up the hotel to see if they could check the room for the ring. Unfortunately when she called back 30mins later the reception guy hadn’t found it and was going to ask the cleaners to have another search and call Jaz back if they found it. So far today they haven’t called =(. We’ve resigned ourselves to the fact that they probably won’t find it or maybe someone will and they’ll just keep it. Oh well - Di will just have to get another ring after just 7 and a half weeks of being married! I told her that means she has less to spend in the US!

We arrived in Mauthausen around 9:30am in time for a 10am video presentation about the history of the concentration camp. Although the primary purpose of this camp was for the prisoners to work a quarry mine, it didn’t diminish the shock and tragedy of the many deaths that still occurred here. The camp did have a gas chamber and crematoriums that were in use and human experimentation and torture occurred there too. The prisoners included not just Jews but also political prisoners from the former Soviet Union, Austria, Poland, and Spain.

After the video we had some time to check out the camp itself. It was sobering to walk through the exact same gates the prisoners would’ve been shepherded through. We had a look at the barracks where prisoners were crammed into, the gas chambers, the crematoriums, and the numerous memorials there. We also saw the notorious death staircase where prisoners were forced to carry 40-50kg quarry stones up the stairs 11hrs a day.

We left Mauthausen with a somewhat heavy feeling in our stomachs at what had occurred there and at the other concentration camps. This was not helped by a stopover at Maccas for lunch!

After lunch we drove for almost 5hrs towards Prague, taking probably an hour and a half longer than it should’ve due to getting stuck in traffic due to roadworks. The countryside was rather similar to that of England’s with its rolling hills covered with the yellow flowering rapeseed plants.

We reached Hotel Olympik Tristar in Prague around 5:30pm and checked in and here we are resting in our hotel room before dinner at 7pm! Simpsons is showing in German on cable tv which is rather interesting to watch!

We had a nice dinner in the hotel restaurant which was a buffet of stewed pork, roast chicken, rice, veges, and sponge cakes for dessert. Then we set off for our walking tour of Prague around 8:30pm!

We all caught the metro from Invalidovna to Mustek station in Wenceslas Square. Jaz gave us some time to change money and we managed to change some AUD to Czech krowns at a rate of about 14.80. Jaz then led us the old town square (Staromestske nam) with its astronomical clock, then past the Tyn church to the Jewish quarters (pointing out the Jewish ghetto where Jews were kept during WWII), finishing up with a walk along the river towards the famous Charles bridge. As the sun started to set and the city’s lights came on, we had stunning views of Prague Castle across the river on a slight hill.

After the tour, we went with Jaz and most of the tour group to one of her favourite pubs, a pub beneath this restaurant! You go through this ordinary looking Czech restaurant and at the back is this little staircase leading down below. At the foot of the staircase is a small bar and then there are quite a few tables in what may have once been a cellar. Quite a few of the guys and girls tried the local specialty Absinth! It’s basically a 70% vol bright green drink, the one that Van Gogh was high on when he got his ear cut off, and the one the bohemians drank in Moulin Rouge. The way you drink it is to heat up some sugar in a spoon with a lighter, then stir the melted sugar into the shot before drinking it. We didn’t try it but the guys told us it was like drinking metho! We tried their local beer instead and afterwards decided to call it a night!

We caught the metro back to Invalidovna and our hotel easily enough just as a slight drizzle began to fall. Yay we get to sleep in tomorrow! Nite!

Ljubljana, Slovenia to Salzburg, Austria!

You don’t come to Europe for the food. You come for the sights, and today we got what we came for.

Breakfast was a sad buffet of sorry looking sausages, bread, fruit and cereal. We were disappointed after Croatia as the quality of food there was slightly better.

Our first destination was Lake Bled. It is a beautiful lake with an island (Bled Island) in the middle where a church is perched on top. Surrounding the lake are Alps with houses and one had a church on its slopes. A man in a row boat, rowed 7 of us to the island in the middle. It cost €10 a person for the ride to the island. Once off the boat, there was a large staircase before reaching the church on the island. We were told by Jaz, our tour guide, that legend has it that a husband was to carry his bride to the top of the stairs and ring a bell for a happy marriage. So 2 out of the 3 couples did this. Bonus for the boys was that the girl was to be silent, but I think that was the only up side.

Of course Ben didn’t carry me up the staircase! Are you kidding?!

When we reached the top it was a further €3 to enter the Church of Mary the Queen to ring the bell. Not a nice sounding bell, but it satisfied the tourists to ring it.
The island was very green. There were lots of healthy and lush looking trees and shrubs. The water was a distinct green colour but it blended in well with the surrounding Alps and lush forest. Although the weather was overcast it was really nice being on the island and also looking out.

We were accompanied by what seemed like 2 full bus loads of Japanese tourists, so you can imagine that the boat rowers were keen to get rid of us on the way back. So, being dropped a few metres further along the lake we walked back to our bus. We were met by a family of ducks. The ducklings were so cute! It was a complete family, Mummy duck, Daddy duck and 2 ducklings.

Next stop was Austria. However the ride getting into Austria as awesome! Huge mountain ranges with lush greenery and houses spotting the hillside. In the distance we saw some snow capped mountains. This is what I was waiting for. This was the scenery I had expected!

We arrived at Hotel Haunspergerhof at about 1:15pm. Our tour guide had arranged for us to join the Sound of Music tour at 2pm. So after having a quick lunch of an apple scroll and instant noodles we headed for the 4 hour bus tour.

Our tour guide, Beatrice, was a local Austrian who was proud of her country. She had a smile plastered on her face which Ben thought was quite scary. She told us about the real Von Trap family (yeah! I didn’t realize that either!) who ended up in America during the 2nd World War. The places from the movie we saw:

· Where they filmed the driveway to the Von Trap family’s house
· The original Gazebo
· The Baroness’ house and the lake beside it.
· The lake where they went for a bicycle ride.
· The church where the wedding scene was filmed
· Where they filmed the children in the trees when Captain Von Trap arrives home, and
· The area of which the helicopter shot the opening scenes (over one lake to another)

In the middle of the tour, Beatrice’s big surprise was a toboggan area where you could pay €4 to come down this hill. It was cold and we were wondering what relevance this had to the Sound of Music?! People did do it though. Beatrice tried to sell it by saying the original Maria Von Trap has ridden down this ride. Whatever!

We stopped in a town called Mondsee for an hour. Here was the church that their wedding was filmed in. We walked around a little and had an apple strudel which was recommended to us at a shop which had been open since the early 1600’s. It was really nice, perfect amount of sugars and cinnamon and the pastry was slightly crisp but not too much.

We arrived back in town at 6:15pm and took a walk through the main parts of town. It’s a similar town to Lublijana but it has it’s own history and character too. There is a fortress on top of the mountain (we did not have time to visit this) and a convent near it.

Dinner was provided by the tour. We had
· mixed vegetable soup
· Beef (I think) stew with some sort of pasta, and
· Ice-cream.

Not bad, pretty good compared to the last time they included dinner and it was at a restaurant!

All in all I had a good day! We go to Prague tomorrow!

Pag Island, Croatia to Ljubljana, Slovenia!

Another early start today! After our last buffet breakky at Hotel Loza, we loaded the coach and left Novalja after a nice 3 nights there! The weather looked threatening as menacingly dark clouds rolled in overhead. We arrived at the ferry dock around 8am, a good 30mins before our 8:30am ferry. We spent the half hour walking around the docks and taking note of the contrasts between the harsh barren landscape before us and the signboards advertising idyllic resorts on the other side of the island! Also noted the presence of what looked like a modern military bunker/fortification on the hill overlooking the dock! Some of the boys had bought BB guns and were shooting each other like schoolboys playing brandings! This stopped when a police car pulled up along side the coach to wait for the ferry to the mainland!

The sea was choppy as we crossed over but the ferry was surprisingly stable. Once on the mainland it was time to nap as Matty drove us towards Slovenia! Di’s passport was again taken off the coach to be checked at the Croatian/Slovenian border but it was returned with no dramas. We rolled on towards the Slovenian capital Ljubljana after a brief service stop. Di and I ate our salami and cheese rolls whilst watching Snatch on the coach’s dvd/tv - awesome movie man!!!

We drove into the outskirts of Ljubljana and our hotel for the night around 2:30pm. Our hotel was actually situated on a camping/caravan/cabin site. This warranted some apprehension at first but the hotel rooms themselves turned out to be really nice! They were 3 star rooms with clean bathroom, tv, mini bar fridge, and heaters!

After an hour’s rest (during which we did some hand washing), we all got back on the coach and Matty drove us into the Slovenian capital’s center for our walking tour of the town. I was curious to check out the town that our missionaries the Box family recently lived in! It took almost 30mins to reach Congress square due to peak hour traffic. Once there Jaz led us off the bus and took us on a brief tour of some of the city’s landmarks, ending in the old town square. We saw some monuments, some churches including a beautiful Franciscan one, and the city’s renowned Triple Bridge (basically one bridge built initially, then two smaller side bridges built on either side of the original).

There was some light drizzle on and off and it was rather chilly at 9 degrees or so as we set off by ourselves to explore the city before dinner at 6:30pm. We decided to visit Ljubljana castle, perched high atop a mountain. To get up there we found the ticket booth to a funicular railway to take us up. It cost a reasonable 5 euros for a return ticket on the railway and entrance into the castle and its tower and virtual museum. Soon a couple more ppl from our tour group joined us to visit the castle.

We all went up on the railway which had glass walls allowing for nice views of the city as we ascended. At the top we disembarked and headed straight for the castle’s tower. We climbed up a spiral staircase and emerged at the open rooftop with sweeping 360 views of Ljubljana and its surrounds! It was drizzling though so we quickly took a few photos and went back down. We hung around for the 5pm virtual museum presentation which was a 23 min 3D video about the castle and a brief summary of Ljubljana’s history. The 3D effects weren’t that great and quite frankly I was a bit zonked out during some of the dry factual bits. Anyhow, some parts were interesting such as how Slovenia became an independent state after a 10 day war with its original rulers Yugoslavia.

After the presentation we quickly checked out the castle wall, an exhibition, and the shop before heading back down on the funicular railway. We checked out the dragon bridge, so called because of the dragon statues perched on 4 posts at either end of the bridge. It was erected in 1901 to mark the 40th anniversary of the accession of the Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Josef when Slovenia was still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

We walked along the riverside and passed on some tempting gelato to save space for dinner! We met the others at 6pm at Sokol, a traditional Slovenian restaurant recommended by Jaz. Pretty much everyone was there! Most ppl ordered the game goulash but we tried the mushroom soup and game plate. The mushroom soup was nice and hearty and came in a bread bowl. The game mix took a while to come and when it did it wasn’t quite what we had imagined! There were medallions of deer, stag, and wild boar, each with a different type of sauce. They were accompanied by a dumpling type thing and polenta. We liked the stag and wild boar but the deer had a bit of a strong taste and the slight aftertaste of liver. I guess we took a gamble but at least we tried the local food!

After dinner we headed off to the supermarket to stock up on snacks and even found instant noodles in bowls! Got some pastries for lunch tomorrow too! Met the group back at Congress square at 8:30pm and Matty drove us back to our hotel! So that was our visit of Ljubljana! It was a nice mix of modern and historic elements and it’d actually be a nice place to live I reckon! It’s on to Austria tomorrow!

Day trip to Zadar, Croatia!

Enjoyed another nice buffet breakky today before ducking across the road to the supermarket to pick up some supplies! We met Haydee in the hotel foyer and headed for the bus stop to Zadar, about a 20min walk away. When we got there we met up with Santiago, Dan, Goran, Sarah and Gemma who were also heading to town for the day. We caught the 11:50am Antonio Tours bus which took around 1hr 40mins to reach Zadar after picking up passengers in Pag and some other small bus stops along the way.

We didn’t really know where to get off the bus and just followed the others when they got off the bus! Once off, we walked towards the harbour and asked for tourist information. We were directed over a bridge that took us into the old part of Zadar with its surrounding city wall. After walking past some markets we reached the small town square and got maps from the information desk.

We split up from the others and checked out the tourist points on the map including a number of churches and small town squares. We found some gardens which were rather nice and the remains of the roman fortification of the city from ancient times! We climbed one of the church bell towers for 10 kuna pp and enjoyed a stunning view of the city and surrounds! Following our tourist map we went from one end of town to the other, eventually coming to the sea. Here we found an attraction called a sea organ! It kinda looked like steps going down into the sea and on the sides of the steps were small slits. As water flowed into the steps, musical tones emerged from the slits and holes that sounded like someone blowing over partially filled glass bottles of water. It was pretty cool!

We enjoyed a rest in some nearby gardens and then decided to continue on with our tour of Zadar! We looked for the bus station to check where the bus back to Novalja was going to leave but couldn’t find it. Heading back to the town square we bumped into the other guys and Dan managed to find out that the bus back left from a bus station outside of the old town area.

With this settled, we agreed to meet at a restaurant for dinner and wandered off to kill the hour or so before dinner. Di and I found a supermarket and got some salami and cheese to make lunch for tomorrow. Also found some handy cutlery and freezer bags. We then wandered to a bakery we had spotted earlier and got some rolls and a jam filled donut for tomorrow.

At 6pm we met the others including Jaz, Matt, Troy and Bronwyn (who had gone to Bosnia for the day!). Heard about how they had visited a town just over the border that still had evidence of the recent conflicts such as bullet ridden buildings. It was a sobering reminder of what a scary part of the world we were in!!!

Dinner was rather nice at a traditional Croatian restaurant! Di and I shared a mixed grill plate, a seafood risotto, and a vegetarian dish! The mixed grill came with a steak, grilled chicken, a burger pattie, and pork kebab. Rather nice although the meats were a bit overcooked. The vegetarian dish was what Jaz thought was buckwheat with spinach and a piece of fried cheese. Weird!!!

After dinner we all headed for the bus station, about a 15 min walk away as a light drizzle started. We got on the bus with 15 mins to spare and found it half full already. Some school kids who were on the bus into town were on the return bus back and they proved to be rude and rowdy for the entire trip back! We were relieved when most of them got off around Pag.

We caught the yellow local bus back to our hotel and packed for another early start tomorrow!

Rest day on Pag Island, Croatia!

Croatian tv programming I have to say is rather odd! Last night we were watching the Patriot and 2 things rather annoyed us! The first was the super long ad breaks! They just kept going on and on and on!!! Didn’t time them but let’s just say in one ad break I managed to have a shower and the show still hadn’t resumed yet! The second thing that annoyed us was how they broke the movie into 2 parts! Halfway through the movie, another show - Croatia’s Top Model - was shown! We had to wait until almost midnight to watch the second half of The Patriot! Hmmph!

Anyhow, cos of that today was a rest day! Slept in until around 9am when we had to get up to catch the end of breakky downstairs. The buffet breakfast was pretty good! There were croissants, bread with cheese and ham, sausages, omelettes, bacon, and yoghurt! We ate as much as we could in the hope of being full enough to skip lunch!

After breakky, Di was still tired so she went back to sleep whilst I flicked through our honeymoon photos selecting ones I’ll post up on the blog when we get good internet connection. Di slept till around 1pm and we called home before deciding to go out!

The weather wasn’t crash hot! There was a blistering wind and clouds overhead but we set out anyway. We walked around Novalja’s bay and around the head towards Strasko beach. Along the way we met Goran and Chris who had just done the walk. They warned us about the strong winds but that still didn’t fully prepare us for what we encountered around the corner! Away from the protection of the bay, the winds along the beach were gale force!!! I seriously thought a hurricane was coming or something! We could just about lean into the wind and it actually took effort to walk forwards against it! We continued along the beach, which wasn’t terribly impressive but maybe that was just because of the bad weather.

We found a path inland and took it to get away from the wind! We continued along the path and found a main road but later realised we had taken the long way back to town! Anyhow, it was a nice walk and we got to see the residential areas of town.

Back in town we checked out behind the main street but there wasn’t much. There was a sign pointing to the town ‘centar’ and that gave us hope that there might be a larger retail area nearby but we soon realised that the center of town was what we had already explored! As some rain drops began to fall, we quickly returned to our hotel around 5pm. We refreshed ourselves before dinner and I agreed to Di giving me a haircut! She cut it in the bathtub and spent almost an hour trimming my out of control hair! In the end it looked pretty good! It wasn’t super short but at least it was neater!

Dinner was in the hotel restaurant again. We were pleased to find a different menu on offer! We had roast pork with spaghetti Bolognese, penne, potato, and salad. Dessert was a fruit sponge cake. After dinner we went for a walk on the other side of the hotel, admiring the spectacular sunset over the bay! The skies were painted in wonderful hues of yellow, orange and red as we watched the glowing orange sun set!

Grabbed a gelato on the way back to the hotel and retired to our room to check out what else Croatian tv had to offer! Night!

Venice to Slovenia to Croatia!

The 6:30am start did indeed hurt as we hurried to get changed, chow down breakky and then get our luggage on the tour bus! We set off nice and early and were soon zooming down the highway towards Slovenia! Most ppl on the bus were catching up on sleep lost from the early start! Around an hour or so in, Jaz told us that we were approaching the Italian-Slovenian border and soon enough we were in Slovenia (no border checks required as Slovenia is an EU country).

We drove on through lush green Slovenian countryside until we reached the town of Postojna. We headed for the caves that the town is famous for and arrived around 10am. We had an hour before the cave tour was to start so we checked out the local stores there. We grabbed a gelato before lining up to go into the caves. There must’ve been over a hundred ppl queuing up for the 11am tour!

We started by boarding a small electric train that took us about 2km into the caves. The train went really fast through narrow passageways and sometimes the cave ceiling was so low you felt you had to duck! Di rather enjoyed it! It was almost like a rollercoaster ride! Along the way we could see beautiful stalactites and stalagmites illuminated by spotlights. It was freezing cold as the train rushed through the cave system!

We saw the “old cave”, “spaghetti cave”, “white cave”, “red cave” and the “concert hall”. Original names huh? In the concert hall they actually hold concerts as it can fit a few thousand people. There is a train station from this hall which brought us back to the entrance. When we left, there were photographs from when we were getting on the train and on the train. Rather silly actually as a lot of the photos were of people not looking at the camera as we weren’t given any warning that the photo was being taken! Plus, the train ride wasn’t particularly thrilling for a funny face to be taken. We thought it was a waste of their money, but on reflection it probably costs about $1 to make and they sell it for $12.

Our next destination was Croatia. The officer in Slovenia possibly had never heard of Malaysia as he took my passport and had to check something with his computer. Getting into Croatia was easy, she barely looked at my passport.

On the bus we enjoyed our lunch of prepackaged salad from the supermarket whilst watching The Good Shepherd. The drive through Croatia took around 4 hrs with one stop at a service station halfway. We drove along the seaside with spectacular views of the Adriatic sea and some of the many islands off the coast of Croatia!

We took a bus/car carrying ferry over to the island of Pag, enjoying the warm sunshine and views of the coast and mountains! When one first catches glimpse of Pag, it kinda looks like a barren desert island. You can’t see any vegetation or wildlife! That was kinda worrying given we were supposed to be staying at a ‘resort’! To our relief, when we drove onto the island and into the town of Novalja, we found a beautiful seaside town! The town isn’t big and is clearly touristy but what struck us was the beautifully clear blue/turquoise waters!

We unloaded our gear from the bus and checked into Hotel Loza around 5pm! It isn’t exactly a resort but it’s right on the harbour promenade and has a nice big room with clean amenities. After dumping our bags, we changed some money across the road (1 AUD buys 4.15 kuna). Then we went for a walk along the harbour promenade. We walked around the bay and enjoyed views of Novalja with the Croatian mountain range in the background!

At 7pm we met up with the rest the group in foyer before having a buffet dinner together in the hotel’s restaurant. The food included salad, grilled whole fish, roast chicken, rice and spaghetti! Not bad! Dessert was banana with what we thought was chocolate flavoured Yogo on top drizzled with chocolate sauce. Better than it sounds!

After dinner it was raining outside so we decided to have an early night so here we are typing this as we watch The Patriot on tv! Nite!

Welcome to Topdeck Tours! First stop Venice!

Today was the first day of our tour and we set out early to explore Venice! After a light continental breakky, our tour group caught a bus to Piazzale Roma in Venice proper. This Piazzale is as far as vehicles can go onto Venice, which is built on 117 small islands. We hopped off the bus and Jaz led us on a weaving path through the narrow streets and small bridges crossing some of Venice’s 150 canals. She showed us the market area before we crossed the famous Rialto bridge, one of the 3 bridges which cross Venice’s Grand Canal.

It was early but the city was bustling with tourists wandering every which way, stopping to check maps, and taking photos of the canals and gondolas. Jaz also showed us a shop selling some of the Carnivale masks that Venice is famous for before we arrived at St Mark’s Square. We found even more people here as we crossed the square! Many were feeding the hundreds of pigeons that populate Venice that the locals are actually fond of. The throwing of a handful of seeds would cause a flutter of pigeons to flock towards it. They aren’t afraid of humans and were swooping really low all over the place! One lady even had pigeons perched all over her and was getting her photo taken!

We met our local tourist guide who failed to introduce herself properly. We kinda got the impression that she was just doing her job and wasn’t really keen about it. As she told us about some of the history of Venice and some of its buildings, we just didn’t find it that inspiring or fascinating. Maybe it was the way she waffled on about some random facts in her heavily accented english that we didn’t find interesting or couldn’t relate to, or maybe it was just her disjointed narrative style. Either way we weren’t terribly impressed!

The tour ended up in a Venetian lace making school where an American lady (of all people!) explained to us the various types of lace making techniques before proceeding to try and sell us them! After this, we were left to our own devices for the rest of the day. Most of the group went on the optional gondola ride but we didn’t think it was worth it for 19 euro a head. Instead we decided to get lunch at one of our other favourite fast food joints - Burger King! After lunch we made our way towards the Accademia area of Venice, passing through some small piazzas before crossing the grand canal.

We decided to visit the Guggenheim Museum, named after Peggy Guggenheim. Basically as far as we could surmise, she was a lady who inherited fortunes from her parents and used it to build up an impressive collection of contemporary art by artists such as Picasso, Kandinsky, and Marini. Don’t worry - I hadn’t heard of the last 2 until today! We entered the attached Nasher Sculpture garden and visited Peggy Guggenheim’s grave and also a plaque dedicated to the 12 or so pet dogs she had had. Then we checked out the museum itself. I enjoyed viewing the contemporary abstract artworks, trying to picture or imagine what the artists had in mind. Di didn’t think much of the gallery, especially some of the works that looked like the artist had just splattered paint randomly onto a canvas.

Afterwards we headed back to St Mark’s square to check out the basilica. The queue was much smaller than it had been in the morning and after we dumped our bags in the cloakroom, we entered. The inside was darker than other cathedrals we’ve been to and it was ornately decorated with real gold Catholic artworks. I think it reflects the wealth of the Venetians in the past as Venice was an important commercial hub.

We didn’t spend long inside before emerging into the daylight again. After being on our feet all day, we decided to start making our way back to our hotel. This is when things got interesting cos we had no idea where to go! We were trying to get back to the Rialto bridge to catch the Vaporreto (water bus) back to Piazzale Roma but after wandering the narrow streets for a good 30mins or so, we kept ending up in St Mark’s Square!

A piece of excitement was the fight that broke out while we were lost. We walked past 2 men outside a restaurant, speaking in each other’s face at about 5 cm away saying ‘Your food is sh*t’ and ‘No, you are sh*t’. We don’t know what the fight was about, but it was heated, very heated. The customer was American. The next minute we knew it, another man had pulled off his red t-shirt and thrown a punch at the man from the restaurant. It was a decent swing! They were quickly broken up by a woman, but I noticed that the man from the restaurant was wiping his face. He was facing away from us so we couldn’t see if there was blood.

My guess is that he either insulted the chef or didn’t pay a portion of his meal or something. However, these are all just guesses.

By some random turns and narrow lanes we found the Rialto bridge which has markets surrounding it. These are famous as it was the very reason why Venice was such a prosperous city so long ago. They are traders and these markets were where they would sell their foreign goods to whoever would buy it. We did not buy foreign products though as now they’re tourist traps with trinkets and other baits. Our guide told us to bargain in these markets, however our bargaining power was undermined by foolish (mainly American) tourists who paid full price for their products. They weren’t as desperate as the market owners in Florence. You can go somewhere else if you want that price… some other tourist will pay them the price they’re asking for.

We headed back to the main land of Venice. The boat we caught from Rialto Bridge along the Grand Canal back to where we may hop on a bus was called a Valporetto. It was a nice ride, although the boat sounded like it was struggling to move at times as the engine gurgled along the canal. It is dangerous business moving anywhere with a huge crowd. Like Asia, people pack into buses and ferries until you can’t help but touch someone else.

We caught the right bus back to our hotel, but we decided to stay on it as we were hoping to check out the Chinese food and supermarket on the way to the train station. Unfortunately our bus didn’t go down that street and since the bus was so full, we ended up getting off about 2 – 3 stops away from the intersection we wanted to turn at. The walk wasn’t too far and thankfully the supermarkets were open.

Interesting to note, there is a shortage of plastic forks in this area. Isn’t it uncanny that both supermarkets had all other utensils except for plastic forks! We started to wonder whether there was some sort of rule where you can’t sell forks off the shelf?

After this we headed to Ristorante Orientale where we devised plans on how we were going to swipe their take away chopsticks due to our inability to find plastic forks. We ate sweet and sour pork, flamingo beef and stir fried bean sprouts. Good for us, they served the dishes with serving spoons, so we easily swiped their wooden chopsticks. Heh heh. We’re going to look so asian tomorrow when we eat our supermarket salad with chopsticks!

Feeling full and smelling slightly of the Chinese restaurant we decided to catch a bus back to the hotel (we had a spare ticket which we wouldn’t be able to use another time). We sat at the closest bus stop waiting for a bus that would take us around the corner. After 2 buses had passed we agreed that we’d wait for one more bus and if that wasn’t it, we’d walk it.

What appeared to be a homeless guy approached us. In Italian and broken English we thought he was asking us for a cigarette. No, no that wasn’t it. Something about 20 Euros.. 2 Euros??? Sorry, ‘No Comprehende’ as Ben said to him. ‘Scuzy, scuzy, ciao’ he said as he departed. It was at this time Ben decided it was time to leave the bus stop.

At a somewhat quick pace and during the twilight we made our way back to the hotel. Overtaking us was the bus we had been waiting for. Darn it!

As we were walking away from the isolated bus stop where the homeless guy approached us, we agreed that we thought he was asking us for money. Twenty Euros? Got nothing to lose if you start high I suppose!

We have a 7am breakfast appointment tomorrow, which means a 6:30am start. This is going to hurt.

Florence to Venice!

Left Florence nice and early on the 8:38am Eurostar Italia train to Venice! No problems getting to the station but it took a while for the platform number to come up. The trip took about 2 hrs 30mins. We were both so sleepy from the early start that we nodded off on the train! We arrived in Venice Mestre station around 11:05am!

Using our google map we hiked about 15-20mins to Hotel Centrale where we’re staying for the first 2 nights of the tour. Along the way our first impressions of mainland Venice was that it was cleaner, more modern and less touristy than any of Italy that we had seen thus far! We also passed a whole row of asian supermarkets and Chinese restaurants!!! We checked out the menus and they seemed reasonable so who knows, might end up there tomorrow night or something!

At the hotel reception desk, we found we were too early for check in so we dumped our bags in their locker room and decided to wander around the area and grab some lunch. We checked out the local shopping centre, the first one we’ve seen in Italy! It wasn’t big and there wasn’t a food court so we kept on going. We noticed that this part of Venice seemed pretty dead as there were hardly any people around, let alone tourists. Perhaps it was siesta time for the locals. We ended up in a little Trattoria around the corner and had some pretty decent pasta with salmon and ravioli. As has often been the case, we were the first people in the restaurant and by the time we left we had drawn a few more tables of people into the restaurant!

We checked out the local supermarket and fresh fruit/seafood market before heading back to our hotel to check in. Our room turned out to be decent enough, similar in standard to our hostel except that they provide towels and shampoo etc. After napping the whole afternoon, we went down to the hotel lobby to meet our tour group at 6pm. There was only one other couple there - Nick and Toni. Around 6:45pm, the tour bus arrived (from Rome - we’re joining the tour mid way) and we met Jaz our tour leader and Matt our driver. After admin stuff, we returned to our rooms before meeting again at 8pm to go out for dinner together.

We met a lovely mixed couple - Jordan (Aussie) and Erica (HK) - from Perth and ended up sitting with them for dinner. Jordan’s in e-commerce and Erica does government work and both are kinda on a second honeymoon! Heard about how the tour’s been going so far and it sounds pretty hectic! Glad we’ve been taking it easy thus far!

Dinner was pretty good (according to tour dinner standards apparently) and we had lasagna, pizza and tiramisu. Afterwards it was time to get a good a night’s rest for the actual start of our tour tomorrow! Nite!

Flourishing Finish in Florence!

Today was our last full day in Florence! After a week now in Italy and 4 days in Florence, we went about our familiar routine today! Get up late, find a place for brunch/lunch, sight see in the afternoon, find a place for dinner, return to hostel to surf net/do laundry before bed!

For lunch today we tried an Italian fast food chain called Spizzica or something like that! We each got a quarter of a pizza and a side of salad or fruit salad. It was about the same price as Maccas and the quality was alright. After this we wandered towards the Uffizi gallery for our 2pm reserved entrance time. We got our tickets and then jumped the queue to enter the gallery. To our dismay, bottles and liquids of any kind weren’t allowed inside the gallery! After dumping them and passing through the security screen, we were in! We were about to proceed to the gallery proper when a lady told us ‘no backpacks!’ Man! We had to place our bags in the cloak room and take out all our valuables.

Finally we entered the gallery! We climbed some stairs to the second level and started wandering around appreciating the works of art. We had decided to skimp on the audioguide and guidebook figuring we’d just read the signboards (little did we know that a lot of them were in Italian, but we took the gamble as we are cheap). Without knowing what works in particular the Uffizi was famous for, we came across Catholic works from the 14th Century until the Renaissance by famous artists such as Boticelli, Caravaggio, and our favourite teenage mutant ninja turtles! Perhaps the most famous works there were Boticelli’s Birth of Venus and La Primavera. Besides being somewhat vaguely familiar, these paintings had glass screens over them and a continuous horde of people admiring them!

We noticed that a lot of the paintings were of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus. As pointed out by our St Peters tour guide, Jesus always looked like a little man sitting on a young woman’s lap. The people around them are either standing around them or visiting him close to when he was born. Another common paintings were of the holy trinity and the suggestion that Mary has been anointed or crowned by Jesus to be one of them. As expected as well, there are a lot of Jesus on the cross. However, a lot more of Mary and Jesus.

We also saw a few paintings of St Sebastian who was killed via arrows (as we gathered from the paintings). We don’t know anything about this guy. If you know we’d love for you to tell us!

We managed to cover most of the gallery in about 2 hours - 90 mins more than Carl and Clare! Feeling enlightened and rather cultured having spent the afternoon at a gallery, we decided to indulge ourselves with a gelato! Walking away from the gallery we stumbled upon a recommended gelateria on via dei nero. Mmm mmm!!! Authentic tasting gelato! Di tried their chocolate mousse and thought it may be close to the best she’s had!

Next stop was that handbag store we visited yesterday. Di had popped into a couple of other stores and checked out the markets and still the best value for quality she could find was at the Moretti store (On Via Giuseppe Verde which is a street off the Piazza Di Santa Croce). The elderly storekeeper recognized us and even remembered which bags Di was interested in! She ended up getting one for 48 euro, down from 56 euro. The storekeeper couldn’t speak much English but was really really sweet and in broken English and Italian asked us where we were from, where we were going etc. We were quite happy to give him the business!

We headed towards our predetermined restaurant for dinner, wandering through the San Lorenzo marketplace on the way. At one store there was this Indian fellow who wanted to sell us 2 belts for 35 euro initially, which Di then bargained down to 30 euro after threatening to walk away. I took forever to decide cos I actually wanted them for about 25 euro and when I finally asked for 28 euro, the guy must’ve been so fed up he just started putting the belts back onto his rack, giving up on us altogether! Hmmph! Man the bargaining game is tough! After checking out a few more stalls, I eventually bought 2 leather belts for 27 euro altogether from a bald Fabio that Di thought was rather good looking!

We had a really nice dinner at Il Giardino Trattoria restaurant near the main station. We enjoyed home made pasta with duck sauce and the famous Florentine steak, which is distinctively medium rare. Di and I thought it was similar to the restaurant cooked steaks we get back home - just as good! We also had a slice of tiramisu for dessert after being enticed by the nice African-Italiano waitress.

Having enjoyed a last nice meal in Florence, we headed back to our hostel to pack for our trip to Venice early tomorrow morning!

Florence's Naked Dude!

Today was another relaxing day in Florence! We hit the Renaissance city around 11:30pm and headed to our favourite restaurant starting with M for brunch! Afterwards we headed to Galleria Accademia ie. the home of the most famous naked dude ever carved - Michaelangelo’s David! When we arrived we found a huge queue so but we managed to join the shorter prebooked reservations line. We only waited 10mins or so and we were in! We took our time looking at the other works there, mostly Roman Catholic paintings of the cruxifixion and the virgin Mary. We also saw an exhibition of musical instruments including a Stradivarius violin and viola on display!

The piece de resistance of course was naked dude David, as in ‘David and Goliath’ David from the Old Testament. I must say he really was a masterpiece! He stood about 5 metres tall leaning back on his right foot with a pensive but frowned gaze to his left. What many guides were commenting on (as we eavesdropped!) were David’s big hands! Indeed they seemed out of proportion but they were beautifully sculpted with details such as tendon and veins readily apparent! We spent a good 15-20mins appreciating David before seeing the rest of the small gallery, the remainder of which was mostly a room a sculptures.

We emerged into the Florentine daylight again around 3pm and decided to go for a stroll! We walked through some piazzas and finally found a decent gelato place!!! Got my pistachio and nocciola fix and mmm man it was good! Nearby was a leather goods store and Di had her eyes on 2 handbags there! Decided not to jump into it and to shop around a bit (ie, my delay tactics for buying it for her straight away!)!!!

We walked across the river and up a hill to Piazzale Michaelangelo where we found a bronze replica of David. Here we had a sweeping view of Florence in all its glory! We could see the Duomo, the Palazzo Vechio and the river! There were way too many tourists and dodgy guys hawking their dodgy merchandise though which was kinda irritating and spoiling the atmostphere!

We walked back down and along the river towards the famous bridge the Ponte Vecchio. This bridge has actual shops lining both sides as it crosses the river! They were mostly expensive looking jewellery stores and we wondered who on earth would buy anything from them!

With our stomachs grumbling again, we decided to look for dinner. After walking around for about 30mins, we found a little Trattoria restaurant in a small street that had a fixed price menu of 12 euros for a first course, second course, veges, and wine/water. There were no printed menus once seated and instead the waitress told us the whole menu before taking our orders. This was somewhat off putting as we had to make our choices on the spot without being given the luxury of perousing a proper menu. I ended up choosing spicy macaroni and a fish dish with chips, whilst Di chose pesto pasta and chicken with salad. The house wine was reasonable and so were the entrees, despite Di’s pasta noodles looking and tasting exactly like Chinese Hokkien noodles! The mains were really ordinary! My fish turned out to be squid in a nasty tomato/spinach sauce and Di’s chicken was plain roast chicken. Ah well you win some you lose some!

Returned to our hostel and booked some USA accommodation whilst doing a load of washing/drying. Time to sleep now!

Day trip to Pisa!

When we look at foreign foods (such as Chinese or Japanese) in Italy it’s quite amusing to see how dishes are described so that Italians may understand what they’re eating. For example, fried noodles is spaghetti with chicken. The most interesting was Ha Gao (dumplings) which was described as Cantonese Ravioli. It reminded me of my Dad who often describes Italian foods by using Asian foods! I remember him describing spaghetti as hokkien mee.

I’ve noticed however, that Italy has some resemblances to a 3rd world Asian country. For example, in Asia, where the pedestrian walks and where a car travels is often the same both just needs to fight their way through. The same with Italy. In many cases, as the footpaths are too small pedestrians are often spilling into the narrow streets.

Further, crossing the road for the pedestrian is often a game of chicken with the oncoming traffic. There are zebra markings on the road. However, if there isn’t a traffic light for the pedestrian, the person must step out on the street and hope the on coming cars will stop for them to cross, after all they are meant to. There is no such courtesy where a car slows down where a pedestrian looks like they might cross. When we first arrived in Rome, we often followed a local as there was always going to be one crossing when we needed to. Now, we’re more seasoned and we often step out and watch for the cars as they stop for us.

Another observation was the smell of urine that seems to pop out of no where. You get this in Sydney as well, so lets just say this is a characteristic that’s just plain gross and not necessary like a 3rd world country! In Pisa today, we came across some fresh produce in some markets. Whilst I was looking at the fruit (which looked much better than what we saw in the supermarket might I add) I was met by the stench of urine! Who sets up a stall next to the smell of urine?! These Italians, or should I say Indians/Africans!

By this stage I was starting to wonder whether our 1.5 hour train ride from Florence to Pisa was worth it. My first impressions while crossing the river in Pisa was, ‘This place is a dump.’

We finally reached the famous leaning tower of Pisa where there were markets set up to catch the wide eyed tourist. I made a deal with Ben, if entry fee was €5 or less we would climb the tower. Lucky for me, the people of Italy love to rip off the tourist at a whopping €15 per entry per person!

It was good to see the tower in person. The cathedral next to it was quite nice from the outside as well. We didn’t pay to go in, I don’t think it was worth it after seeing St Peters in Rome, everything would be nothing in comparison.

We had gelato on our way to the train station. Actually, more like ice and watered down cream. I chose chocolate chip and menthe (suppose to be mint!) and Ben had Strawberry and pistachio. I thought mine was so bad I didn’t want to waste the calories on it, so I threw it out after about 4 spoons of it. My disappointment with Pisa only solidified at this point!

Time to get out of here, this place sucks.

After another 1.5 hours, we were back in Florence. I got another gelato which was ok, not as good as Rome but much better than Pisa.

We headed out for dinner. We went to the Italian restaurant next to the Chinese place we ate at last night. I had a Risotto with cheese and cabbage while Ben had a spicy pizza with salami and cheese. Both were great dishes and we were happy with it. Florence is far better than Pisa!

On the way out of the restaurant, Ben was slightly tipsy on the red wine we had over dinner. It was at this point that I realised I had lost my hostel card (key for the room). Wasn’t the end of the world as Ben had one, but we would have to fork out €5 for the lost card! In that case, we decided to retrace our steps to where I may have lost it and low and behold we found it. Ben was very proud as he was the one who found it on the floor.

So, that is the end of our Pisa/Florence adventure. Tomorrow we see the Academia Museum and a bit more of Florence.