The UK

We're still playing the catch-up blogging game :-) Right now I'm writing from Hong Kong, which we're leaving later today for Bangkok, and there's a lot in between that's been going on!

Nik's last blog finished as we were leaving Paris for Bonny Ireland. We flew into Dublin and had a relaxing afternoon, braving the cold weather for a quick walk around town to buy some food for dinner and a pint in a pub, listening to live traditional Irish music. The following day we started a 5 night 6 day “Paddywagon” all Ireland tour – if it sounds rushed, it was! When I was traveling with Adam in 2005 we did another tour with this company and enjoyed it, so thought we'd use them again. Perhaps I'm getting older, I don't think I'd review them quite so well this time around!

Regardless, Ireland is an amazingly beautiful place, with a rich history and culture, all things we thoroughly enjoyed. The itinerary took us to Belfast first, where we were confronted by the history of the last 40 years. It feels weird for such a modern, western country such as England to be having a civil war in its own back yard, within our lifetime. The following day was on to The Giant's Causeway (an amazing place, our photos probably don't do it justice), then Derry, also in Northern Ireland for more history delivered by a Derry local, allbeit on a walking tour in the dark (at 4pm) and rain. I found it a fascinating place, full of pretense.

We continued in our anti-clockwise route to Galway, on the west coast. Each day usually involves half a dozen stops at sites (churches, monasteries, castles, natural wonders etc), lunch at a pub (the only thing better than an Irish Pub is an English Pub) then dossing at a hostel, all the while being entertained and educated by our crazy tour guide/driver Joe. Galway had Christmas markets (most places seem to :-P) and Nik bought some 6 euro ugg boots, the answer to days of cold feet :-)

The cliffs of Moher (aka cliffs of Insanity?!), and a cave tour were highlights for day 4, where we had 3 hours on a different tour because our bus broke down (5 buses in 6 days!). We stayed in a tiny little town called Annascaul in County Kerry where Carly & Nik opened the evening's karaoke proceedings. Day 5 was more exploring of County Kerry and the Dingle peninsula – very pretty with beautiful beaches and rolling hills. Our last night on tour was in Killarney where the girls did a horse and carriage ride through the National Park.

The day back to Dublin included a visit to Blarney Castle where we each kissed the Blarney stone, then had a bit of a drive back to the Guinness factory in Dublin. It really does taste better in Ireland, although Danika still isn't a fan, Carly less so :-) Dublin was covered in snow when we arrived back, all slushy and icy. Over all we really loved Ireland; its people, stories, scenery, culture, music, dancers (we saw some from the Riverdance troupe) Another night in Dublin before an early morning trip to the airport to fly to Glasgow.

We'd arranged a hire car for 10 days (cheap!) which we collected at the airport. The snow quickly set in as we drove north, apparently Glasgow airport was shut later in the afternoon. We were heading for a loch and castle near Crianlarich, somewhere we'd had recommended to us, but after driving for hours at 10 or 20 miles an hour, then sitting stationary for prolonged periods of time, we turned around and headed east instead. We enjoyed the amazing scenery all around as we went, it'd been snowing for weeks up there, so there was plenty of snow on the ground. We stayed in a little B&B above the Thistle Pub in Milnathort, a tiny little village 45 min from Edinburgh. The next day was clear and sunny (still minus three or 4), which made for stunning driving; unblemished fields covered in snow, avenues of frosty trees, empty laneways to idle down. Edinburgh was darker, colder and wetter, and with parking at £19.50 overnight... we almost wondered why we came! We did meet up for a couple of beers with Jonno, a mate from our Middle East trip who's studying over here at the moment.

On again for a long drive day, through Newcastle and Durham to Sheffield. Nik had found a great little B&B on some website – we stayed in a houseboat right in the middle of the town! It was cosy (warm and small :-P) and we enjoyed a night in eating in and watching TV under a doona. The following morning as we left there was a good 30 to 40 cm of snow that had fallen overnight! The little canal port we were moored in was nearly all frozen over, and we trudged to the car park with snow up to our knees :-) We headed to Norwich to stay with Pippa and her family, also an overland trip friend (from Africa). Carly was feeling pretty sick again (once she arrived home she discovered it was sinusitis) and it was so lovely to be in a big family home, being looked after. There was less snow as we drove south and east, but still enough ice on the roads to make things hazardous and slower than normal. We stayed two nights with Pippa, and visited a bit of Norwich during the day, then met John & Elizabeth Rayner in Bungay who are family friends of Danika's mum & dad. Adam and I also stayed with them in 2005 when we were here, it was lovely and odd to catch up again!

On the 3^rd we drove down to London to drop Carly off, but not before meeting Brent and Elizabeth Weightman in Hammersmith for lunch. It really is a small world :-) We continued on that night to Bristol (yes, zig zagging our way across the UK) and stayed with Clara, an Italian friend from our Africa trip and her Welsh boyfriend Vinnie. They took us out to see a bit of Bristol the next day before we kept on for a brief visit the Motherland (sort of): South Wales. I know Armidale's been pretty wet these last few months, so we have at least that in common with our namesake; miserable, damp, windy. We checked out Barry, the setting of Gavin & Stacey, a UK/Welsh TV show we've taken to this year, then drove back through Cardiff (and became thoroughly lost, even the GPS had trouble getting us where we wanted to go).

We had three nights with George & Ruben, 2 Kiwi friends who are working on a dairy farm in Wilcot, about an hour East of Bath. We had a great time reminiscing and catching up each evening over dinner, as well as being educated on X-Factor and Coronation Street (it's its 50 year anniversary this week, there's stuff on about it everywhere – and it's still terrible!!!). Nik & I did a day trip to Bath, which is a very pretty little town with great Christmas markets, but the main reason for going was to meet up with Ben & Linzi, two friends from our South America tour. They were being sneaky though, and also brought 5 other friends from the same trip: Josh & Hayley, Becky & Ed and Tommy Gun – it was such a nice surprise and we spent a good afternoon together and playing PUNO. A South America reunion of sorts!

Another day trip took us to Oxford with George & Ruben, where it was bitterly cold. We wandered the streets admiring the cool architecture before going on a self tour of Christ Church (masquerading as law students :-|) before taking shelter in the Eagle and Child, a pub JRR Tolkien & CS Lewis (amongst other writers) used to frequent. There's a letter on the wall from them to the publican saying they have “drunk to his health” - how quaint.

We also enjoyed walking around the farm with George, along the frozen canal and through frosty fields. On our way to London we went via Stonehenge (smaller than we anticipated) for a cheeky photo over the fence, and Salisbury to see the cathedral. Then on to Heathrow to drop off the car, before spending 2 nights at Beth and Cam's again. It felt like only yesterday that we were there in July, and yet so much has passed so we swapped travel stories for hours on end. Also had dinner with Hannah & Nick (boyfriend, not brother :-P), it was good to finally meet :-)

Then a day of catching up: Ben from our Africa trip for coffee (at Monmouth in Convent Garden: they have the best coffee I have had anywhere in the world – sorry Goldfish Bowl!), Shiona from South America for lunch and a beer at the Ye Old Cheshire Cheese pub (an interesting rabbit warren of a place!), then dinner with Mel, Tony & Lette from the Middle East tour. We crashed at Mel & Tony's for our last night in Europe, then we go for a brief visit to South East Asia!

So the UK for us was busy, with lots of catching up with friends, old and new. I added them up and came to meeting 24 existing friends, which would be an effort at home let alone half way around the world, we're crazy! It was a really nice way to end our backpacking though, at the same time as seeing some of the UK's beautiful countryside, lots of snow and a bit of history.

We're nearly home, it feels very real now. On the same day a few weeks ago Danika and I independently had the revelation that we really were ready to stop traveling for a while, so I think we've done about the perfect time for us. Not to say we don't have a million new places on our lifelong itinerary, but we're ready for some time at home! Not long now, see you then!

Al

Belfast

Giant's Causeway

Irish Coast

Driving in snowy Scotland

Houseboat in Sheffield

Wilcot

Awesome... but what is it?

Hi!
Paris seems a long time ago, but it was really only a couple of weeks ago.

We stayed with my Auntie Kerry and Uncle Greg, who looked after us extremely well. We got there by a very long train from Barcelona, and were greeted at the bustling Paris train station by Kerry. She took us home to a delicious meal of Beef Bourguignon and lots of swapping of stories.

We had some delicious French pastries for breakfast the next morning and headed off for a tour of the city. Kerry was our guide and we walked by most of the big sights and got hassled by most of the big scams. "Do you speak English?" means let me distract you long enough to pick your pocket, "you dropped this" means pay me and ill give this to you, or if you don't want it I'll distract you and try to pick your pocket, "can you sign this" means give me money, and if an old beggar woman is seen and looks like she may be on her death bed, she can often be seen having a wine with friends after a hard days work (and of course if she's good and makes a lot of money, she pays her taxes so she can get free medical). Everyone in Paris (maybe France?) who pays taxes gets these cool vouchers worth 8 Euro each, equaling five a week. This is because businessmen used to go home for lunch and they wanted people to stay in the city and support the restaurants (as if tourists don't do that enough) so they get 8 Euro toward their lunch every day! I wish...

The next day Ryan, Alex and I headed off to Bruges in Belgium for a night which you can read all about our adventures on the previous blog named Tyncot... We had a great couple of days.

We got back on Friday evening which is traditionally nibbles and champagne night in the Hunting household. So we had some real champagne from Champagne with a spread of all other delicacies and were glad that we would still be around for the next Friday's evening. Carly had a lovely girls time with Kerry wandering around looking at all things Art Nouveau, and getting over her cold by lying on the couch and reading.

Greg has the weekends off so it was nice to spend some time with him. Saturday morning we all headed off to the Museo D'orsay. It was full of lots of great work some very famous (Van Gough, Renoir, Monet, Manet and many, many more) and some not so famous but all really amazing. The museum is not huge (it was previously a train station) but it had such a concentration of great works. A quick coffee/hot chocolate finished up our time there and we were off home...

Just in time for the boys to sit down and watch Australia get beaten by England in the rugby, and the time trials at the F1 in Abu Dhabi. Greg had given up a very exclusive invitation to Abu Dhabi to be in on all the action so that he could spend time with us so we only thought it fair to at least let him watch it on TV, very kind of us isn't it :-)

Sunday was bacon and eggs (possibly the best bacon I have *ever* had) and we explored the Jewish quarter. We had Falafel and bought pastries and had a lovely meandering morning. The boys went back to catch the final Grand Prix. Carly and Kerry and I explored further looking in some art shops that we could never afford to purchase from but very much wanted to. Us girls got home to the sound of the Doppler Effect going over and over, very, very loudly, with the occasional sound of crumpling metal. We had tea and ate the pastries. Soon enough it was time for drinks and dinner, which was something delicious with lots and lots of cream...

Monday we fulfilled one of my life long dreams... to go to Disneyland! It was great! Just as I would have expected it, cartoon characters walking around and some really great rides and areas. Although I still think Australia does theme parks extremely well... the rides were fun but not really scary and your tummy didn't feel like it was about to come out your mouth very often. We had bad fish and chips for lunch, as you have to at these places and got home tired and exhausted but very excited. Alex had made delicious pumpkin soup for dinner so with more wine and fresh baguette it went down very well.

Greg told a story that when he was getting a medical for his job in Paris, he was asked by a Frenchman "do you drink alcohol?". He said yes, my wife and I will drink a bottle of wine between us most nights. The Frenchman repeated "do you drink alcohol?". Greg repeated and tried to be a bit clearer, yes most nights I drink about half a bottle of wine. The Frenchman looked at him and repeated "yes, but do you drink alcohol? Like whisky, rum, gin...". See in France wine is what everyone drinks, and everyone drinks A LOT, no matter what time of the day it is. It isn't rare to see two businessmen drinking wine over a meeting at 10 o'clock in the morning. This really is my sort of country!

The rest of the week was filled up with climbing the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, Musee l'Orangerie, visiting Greg's office that overlooked Place de la Concorde, Saint Chaplle, Arch de Triumph, Champs Elysees, Montmatre, Sacre Coeur and wandering the lovely streets of the city.

We went out for a delicious dinner of duck one night (which had been soaked in its own fat for about 8 months and cooked for about 8 hours that day... no words to express just how good this meal was), and Thai another (at Kerry's favourite Thai Restaurant) and enjoyed eating fresh baguettes, cooking with lots of cream and drinking sometimes a bit too much wine, especially on my part!

It was a lovely 10 days or so and Paris is definitely a city I can see myself living in.

We left Ryan to catch a train to London where he was going to spend a few days and then fly home, and Alex, Carly and I left the city of love very early on Sunday morning with a few more souvenirs, a lot more memories, a desire to come back and live there one day and weighing a few more stone each, to catch our flight to Dublin... But more of that next time.

Au Revoir

Danika

The EIffel Tower

Being gargoyles outside Notre Dame


Kerry and I at Disneyland


The four of us atop the Eiffel tower


Stained glass window inside Notre Dame.

Tyncot

Didn't think I would ever decide that two days of our trip should be privileged to have a blog to itself but here goes...

Private Herbert Henry Soars... 2nd Bn, Australian Infantry, A.I.F., Killed in action 8 November 1917. Age 32. Son of Alfred and Elizabeth Soars, of Gloucester, New South Wales.

A man unknown to me whose grave my Dadda (Len Clapham) asked if I could visit. I was told his grave was at Tyncot Cemetery, Passchendaela, Flanders, Belgium.
I thought "Sure, that sounds easy"... We left the safety and warmth of Kerry and Greg’s Paris apartment at about 8 yesterday morning, intending to catch an 8.30 train to Brussels, stay the night in Brugge in Belgium and then visit Herbert Soars' memorial the next day. We went to the counter to reserve our ticket (as it should have been free on our 'Eurail' pass) but we were told that all the trains were either booked out or would cost us around 30 Euros each, as the train company wasn't compatible with our pass. After pressing and saying that we had booked accommodation and needed to get there we were told there was one possibility but it left at 12 midday and took about 5 and a half hours instead of 2.
Well we said sure if that's what it takes. The plan was to go to the cemetery the day after and then head back to Paris in the early afternoon. But on a whim we decided we should book the train for the next day in case the same thing happened... and it did, but the problem was that the only train we could get back to Paris was leaving at 11am. So this meant we would get to Belgium at 5.30 pm and have to leave again the next morning at 11am.
Well... we had already booked the first tickets so thought "why not spend 20 hours in Belgium" but it still meant we would not have enough time to visit Herbert Soars.

I was desperate to visit Herbert's grave not only for my dear Dadda but also for myself, so I started looking on the internet for a way to visit him and get back to Paris. And I found a way. It would take a while and be a bit of extra money but we booked it and all was well until...
We turned up at Ieper train station where it was necessary to catch a bus to get to Tyncot cemetery. The bus was there and just about to leave which was perfect, but you wouldn't believe that between the three of us (Alex, Ryan and myself) we didn't have enough money to pay the 3 euro fare each, and the next bus was an hour later. The bus left without us and we went to find an ATM. We now only had a turn around time of about 2 hours to get to the cemetery, find the tombstone and get back for our train. Angry, frustrated tears were flowing and ATM's were scarce, all the while the clouds had decided to erupt and we were getting soaked.
But... We got the next train got to Tyncot and started to look around with about half an hour to scour the hundreds of headstones for Herbert Soars. Luckily I had looked up a grave reference. I asked a man who appeared to be a school teacher if he knew how the numbering system worked. He said he had a map somewhere but not on him. Later he chased me down with a wet map in hand and said "Here I don't need this anymore, hope it helps". Oh the warmth one feels when someone is kind in a time of trouble!

Speed walking wildly around a cemetery isn't the most respectful of things and slipping on mud felt very un-lady-like, but i was determined that I had got this far and I was going to find and pay my respects to Mr Soars.
And you wouldn't believe it but we found him! Right near the front, emphasised by lovely yellow flowers. Although the rain was pouring my spirits were soaring as I looked at his name and the inscription under it:

"Too sadly missed and dearly loved to ever be forgotten"

I would hope that when I am alive I will be dearly loved and that when I am gone I will be sadly missed and never forgotten... But I suppose one day we will all be forgotten.
Yesterday was Remembrance Day. I remember being annoyed at school when we were interrupted and had to stand for a minutes silence. But a minute isn't much to remember those who fought for the freedom of their future generations and who gave their lives so that we might be free.

Today also helped me to remember and thank the One who gave his life for our freedom. Jesus. We are dearly loved by Him and we will never be forgotten by Him. No matter what it takes its important to remember that.

So today I thank Dadda and Herbert Henry Soars for these reminders. That it is important to be thankful, no matter how awful or frustrating or wet or cold or stressful a situation is.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

George Santayana.

Tyncot Cemetery

Herbert Henry Soars.

Cinque Terra to Paris

Hi!

The end of our trip is getting closer and closer! Today we are on our way to Paris which means we are almost to the end of our Europe adventures. But to go back a bit and fill you in on what we've been doing...

We left the cold, snowy landscape of Switzerland to have a lovely three night stay in Cinque Terre which is Italian for five lands or villages. It's a picturesque little area right on the ocean surrounded by a national park. The villages vary in size but average about 1000 people in each. The towns are linked by a train which makes it easy to get from one to the other or you can walk between them all which takes about five and a half hours. We stayed in Riomaggoire the southern most town out of the 5. We arrived late afternoon to our dorm/tiny apartment. It had the steepest set of stairs connecting the kitchen and room upstairs you felt like you needed a safety harness! After settling in we took a walk up the many tiny, winding, step filled streets to a little church overlooking the water. We made it just in time for an amazing sunset and then headed out to look for some dinner.

Being a little fishing town we we decided on a seafood restaurant who boasted “fresh off the boat” seafood. Carly got the Red mullet spaghetti (although we were hard pressed to find or taste any red mullet), I got the mussel spaghetti, and Ryan and Al both got the fried fish which came out as a massive bucket load of deep fried prawns, calamari, whole fish, and little octopus which Carly bravely tried for the first time, tenticles and all!

The next day we bought a pass that allowed us to walk from town to town. We walked from Riomaggoire to Manarola, then caught a train to Corniglia (because the path was closed) and walked to Venazza exploring the three towns as we went. The next day we went to Monterosso and spent the day lazing on the beach and exploring the town. That night I made amazing risotto (if I may say so myself) and the next morning we were off! So pretty much it was a few days of sleep ins, gelati, foccacia, wine and soaking up the dwindling autumn sun.

We then set off to Nice where we spent 2 nights. We stayed at a really nice and backpacker friendly hostel, with cheap washing, massive included breakfast and beers for €1. It rained the *whole* time we were there! We walked down to the beach which was nice but would have been nicer in the sun and walked up to a lookout to get a good view over the city and ocean. We walked through a food and flower market and bought a very big slab of Brie for lunch for a very minimal price. We bought fresh baguettes and saw that Nice was very nice even though it was rainy. We also went to Monte Carlo, Monaco for a few hours. All we did there was visit the casinos and get the feeling that it really was an extremely rich country. We had Chinese take away for dinner (not very French but good :-)) and the next morning we were off again to...

Carcassonne. All we had was a flying visit, but it was good to see the old city that the game is named after. You can see the walled citadel from lots of places in the city (including our apartment window), it's huge and consequently impressive! Inside is just more of the town, although nearly 100% touristy – cafes, gift shops, accommodation, restaurants etc. We had an overpriced cappuccino (which apparently is a cup of very bad black coffee with cream on top) and then were off to the train station to go to Spain!

And isn't Spain wonderful! We stayed two nights in San Sebastian in a lovely clean hostel. We hired bikes for the day and biked all around the city and along the beachfront and Alex and I polished up and practiced some of the Spanish we learnt in South America. The tide was coming in when we were cycling and we all got very wet on separate occasions by the massive waves exploding over the sea wall. Everything is very cheap in Spain so we ate too much food for dinner. Carly and Ryan, tried sangria but both politely declined a glass, so Al and I had to finish off the 1.5L bottle by ourselves.

The next day we were up early to spend the whole day on a train to Seville in the south of Spain. A really nice city. And we stayed in a fun hostel for 2 nights. It was like a family and we were welcomed from the start by being asked to join some people upstairs for a free dinner. We made some good friends. In the morning we went to a little town half an hour away that Ryan was recommended and checked that out and in the afternoon we went on a free walking tour. It was 3 hours long and was really interesting. We found out a lot from our guide (some things true, some old myths) but we really enjoyed it all. We were invited by another of the guys from the hostel to participate in a dinner he was cooking for “just a few special people”. It cost €7 to cover costs and boy was it worth it! We started eating nibbles at about half 8 or nine and didn't finish eating until 12. The wine was flowing the whole time. We had bread and salsa and fried potato patties and pasta and fried vegetables and fresh battered and fried fish and prawns and whole squid and to top it all off ice cream! We had a lovely evening and went to bed very content indeed.

The next day we had half a day before the train so we went to a palace which was beautiful with massive gardens and rooms. As we were walking around we were planning what we would do with it if it were our house. After a few hours Al and I went to see an archive museum which had some old maps and things (some that Christopher Columbus drew) while the others shopped for dinner/lunch. Then we were on our way to Barcelona.

Barcelona was an amazing city! We spent 3 nights there and had a really good time. We saw parks and museums and just took in the wonderful culture the city has. I fell in love with Gaudi an artist from the early-mid 1900's who designed quite a few buildings and parks in the city as well as a church that has been getting built since the 1800's and is still in the process of being finished (they predict 2020). He has a great style and all his stuff reminds me of something out of Willy Wonka or Cat in the Hat. He also uses lots of mosaics.

I had seafood paella, a traditional rice dish and yesterday we ate at an all you can eat buffet... it turned out badly, but on the plus side that was at 3 yesterday afternoon and here we are at 11.30 the next day and I'm still not hungry :-) Last night we went to see a flamenco show which was really good and that brings me to now, sitting on a train to the city of love, Paris. We are staying with my aunty and uncle which will be really nice! More on that later but for now...

Adios amigos!

Nika

Cinque Terra

Vernazza

Nice

Carcassonne

San Sebastian!

Italy & Switzerland

Sooo... more length between blogs :-) Again it feels like forever ago that we were in Greece, and that we've had many adventures to share.

After arriving in Italy from Greece by ferry, we went straight across to the Amalfi Coast (West coast, south of Naples & Rome) to a little place perched up in the hills called Agerola. Getting there wasn't easy, but it's only a few km as the crow flies from Amalfi, about 700m above the sea. We were in a tiny chilled out little hostel, and enjoyed doing not much, especially when the rain set in on our 2^nd day. We did manage to walk down the 3000 steps to Amalfi one afternoon, our legs were complaining for days. Besides that, lots of Take 2, cards and catching up with a few people with Skype.

From there we went to Rome, where we stayed at a place on the outskirts in a camp ground (nice and cheap!). We met Amie, a friend from our Africa overland trip and explored Rome for 2 very full days. We happened to be there on a Wednesday, when the Pope makes his weekly public appearance – he arrived gliding through a sea of people, standing in his little Popemobile. We caught 2 minutes of the shenanigans before we cleared out of St Peter's Square and went to the Vatican Museum, where the queue had gone from around three corners of the block to nothing, so we went straight in. It's an amazing place, full of so much art you could live there and see something new every day. I guess that's what the popes did!? It's crazy when the ceilings of the hallways contain more amazing art than most small art galleries in Australia :-)

The rest of the afternoon was filled with wandering the Forum, walking to Trevi fountain where we tossed a coin in over our shoulder (apparently they make 3000 euros per day!) and then some backpacker-style shopping for a picnic-in-our-room dinner. Day 2 we woke up early, said goodbye to Amie, and went to St Peter's nice and early, arriving pretty much just as they opened, again missing the crowds. A big difference from yesterday when the Square was packed! St Peter's Basilica is remarkable, cavernous and full of artworks, sculptures and marble everything. Nearly all of the little chapels had some sort of service happening, we paused to observe a few.

Then lots of walking over the remainder of the day – Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, a handful of churches including the one with the Month of Truth, Circus Maximus, then the Colosseum where we explored inside. Several more churches (one of which was the girls Rome highlight: the Capucin crypt which is decorated with bones from hundreds of human skeletons), the Spanish Steps, then a nice walk through the Borghesi park to the villa, which was shut for the installation of an exhibition. Piazza del Popolo was packed with some event honouring public servants, but we stopped at Santa Maria del Popolo to see 2 Caravaggio paintings before home for another cheap dinner.

We'd planned to go back to Gallaria Borghesi on our way to Bologna the next morning, but not being able to book tickets the day before meant we turned up without reservations and they were sold out. We instead went into town to the Capitoline museum for a quick walk through, seeing the famous Romulus & Remus suckling the she wolf, and Medusa. Then a wait at the train station for a train to Bolonga.

Bolonga will remind us of many good things, we really enjoyed our time there. We rented an apartment for a week, because it's central enough to be able to do day trips out on the train. That meant a place to ourselves to come home to every evening, home cooked meals and not lugging our bags around every day! We washed everything we had, including our backpacks – I didn't know mine was that white! Our first day trip was to Parma, a little place NW of Bolonga. The rain's still following us so it was a short trip, but nice to explore the historic centre, have a hot chocolate and buy some fresh bread. It was still raining on Sunday, and Ryan Ferguson was due to arrive at some point, so we stayed home – drinking tea, watching tv and doing more washing. Ryan's joining us until late Nov, it's been really good having him – amongst other things it rounds out our number for 500 :-)

Monday was a day trip to Venice – nothing in particular to note, just hours of wandering the canals, little streets and markets. It's really cool, everything you imagine plus a slightly unpleasant odour ;-) Tuesday we went to Verona. We didn't really know what to expect, but really liked it. It has an ancient arena in the middle of town, more intact (and maybe impressive!) than the Colosseum. We walked all over town, crossing the big river that winds its way through, then up to a lookout spot at some sort of palace where we ate out home made salad rolls for lunch :-) A gelato stop seems to work itself into our itinerary each day, not that we're complaining.

Wednesday was a briefer-than-expected trip to Florence. We left Bologna in the dark, not really knowing what the weather was doing, only to find cold drizzly rain in Florence. Arriving early did mean we didn't queue for long at the Uffuzi Gallery, where there's a huge collection of Renascence art – Michelangelo, Botticelli, Caravaggio to name a few. The Duomo is a massive cathedral topped with a big dome, which you can climb to the top of for views of town. The rain paused for 15 minutes while we were outside up the very top – by the time we were at the bottom it was raining again. We would have stayed longer and seen more but our flimsy umbrellas weren't the best, and we were happy with what we'd seen so we took a train back. Of course, as we pulled out of Florence the blue sky appeared through the now clearing clouds :-P

Seeing as we'd been in Bolonga for a week and hadn't really seen any of it, we put aside our last day to wander around, as well as to make final use of the valuable washing machine! Bolonga has a lovely centre – its famous covered walkways, beautiful old buildings, numerous squares and some big churches. The main basilica had an exhibition on the life of Mother Teresa – it was perhaps more interesting than it sounds :-P A last Italian coffee/hot chocolate (Ryan & Carly have rated their hot chocolates the best) then home to gather our stuff back into bags from all edges of the apartment.

We'd been in contact with a friend of a friend who has a chalet in Chateau d'Oex in Switzerland, who had kindly said we could stay. We took a train from Bolonga up through Milan to Montreaux on Lake Geneve, through some really beautiful areas with lakes and mountains. It's well and truly autumn, so all the trees are different shades and there's a decent amount of snow on the mountain tops. We had no idea what we were in for when we arrived at our “Chalet” - it was the most amazing house! 4 stories, 100% timber inside and out, countless bedrooms and bathrooms, furnished with quality everything - it was so nice. Then there's the location of Chateau d'Oex with plenty of snow-capped mountains surrounding it. In summer it's known for hot air ballooning, in winter it's packed with skiers, with access to the lifts from right in the centre of the tiny town. We were a 10 minute walk from the half-a-dozen shops that make up down-town, most of which were shut :-)

We had 5 days there, with mixed weather. We spent the first beautiful sunny day relaxing at home and looking around Chateau d'Oex. In the evening we went to a classical string group performance at the church - how very cultured of us, listening to classical music in the Swiss Alps! The following two days were unexpectedly wet, cold and rather miserable, but we still headed out. We caught the train up a few villages to Shönried, where we visited a local dairy farmer. On the way it started snowing, which was kinda cool, unfortunately in both senses of the word. Klaus showed us to a few of his 20 or so paddocks, which were just blocks of land randomly placed around town. We met some of his 80 cows, all of which are named, are super tame and spread around his different blocks. Rather different to Australian cattle or dairy farming! Due to the snow he had to move some back into the barn, so his wife took us up to their house and showed us the cheese they make, some of which we bought. 18 Swiss Francs for 900g (about A$18), but boy it was good! In summer they make about four 40 kilo wheels per day, not bad money!

Another day we went to Gstaad and took a bus to les Diableretes, in the hope to go up to Glacier 3000. The weather was pretty bad still (heaps of snow in the higher altitudes) so the view would have been of grey-nothingness, and the lift pass to the top was A$77 so not cheap :-P Our last day was mercifully sunny (still cold) and we went all the way to Speiz on lake Thun. That's a really pretty place, quiet now the summer lake crowd have left, with more impressive mountains surrounding it. Nik was not feeling so great so she and Carly went back home (after another hot chocolate) and Ryan and I waited for what turned out to be a non-existent ferry to Interlaken. We went instead by train for a quick trip, it seemed much larger, touristy and busy than the other places we've visted in Switzerland, but still beautiful. Other Swiss experiences for us were having fondue (cheese and chocolate), indoor fires, buying Swiss Army pocket knives, going to a traditional church service (in English), watching Dexter season 4 and attempting to speak French :-)

From there (about a week ago) we headed back south again to Italy, but I think that can wait for the next blog! We're currently in Spain and will be for a few more days before we head back to France. We're feeling like the end of our trip is close now, even though the reality of living back home again hasn't hit us. Still lots to look forward to before then though, and lots of reasons to want to get home too!

Alex

The Amalfi Coast

With Amie in Rome, at the Trevi Fountain

The Pieta in St Peters

Venice

Chateau d'Oex

Munich to Greece

Hi!!!

Long time no write (again). I've been told we last updated after Copenhagen... that feels like ages ago.

Well, we took the rain with us from there to Munich to meet Carly. We stayed with her friend Amelie and her family (Carly had been there for two weeks) which was an absolute delight. We were made so welcome, arriving just after 7 in the morning on a Saturday and being picked up from the train station (Yes we had what Carly would call a “train station moment” when Carly and I ran toward each other and hugged). We had a traditional German breakfast and then were taken on a tour around some of the city, including going to the top of Olympic tower to take in the amazing view of Munich.

Home for lunch also traditional, funny white sausages and HUGE pretzels! We went down to see Oktoberfest by night, the next morning saw the Oktoberfest parade and went on to see Oktoberfest by day and have a good old stein... One litre of beer went down quicker than I thought it would!

After lunch we said goodbye, took Carly with us and took a train to Salzburg.

The train ride was short which was different to what Al and I had been experiencing and the hostel we stayed at was one of the best yet. Carly and I went to a palace (Al had already been last time he was in Salzburg) with lovely gardens and the all famous rotunda from Sound of Music. We then met up with Al and went to see the back of the Von Trap family house, a really big nice church that has nothing to do with The Sound of Music and Mirabella Platz, where some other part of the movie was filmed. It was a short but good time and then we were off to...

Bled, a tiny gem of a town with only 5000 people surrounded by the beautiful mountains of Slovenia. Slovenia by the way turns out to be a gorgeous country and if ever in the area visiting is a must! We only spent a night in Bled, and after waiting around for more than an hour late at night for our hostel to be opened for us we were happy to get to bed. The next day explored and took a walk around the massive lake. There is a little island in the middle of the lake with a church on and we hired a little row boat to go out to it. We caught a train that night to Ljubljana (the capital of Slovenia) and that night Carly had her first dorm room experience, loud snoring and very smelly!

We stayed here for two nights. A lovely city, we went on a free walking tour to learn some history and then went exploring ourselves. We climbed a very steep hill to a castle (every city in Europe seems to have its own castle) and walked through the food markets, buying deliciously fresh fruit and veg as went. The kitchen at the hostel was well equipped so we cooked for ourselves (such a treat from Kebabs and bread, ham and cheese) and enjoyed a bit too much ice cream! The day we left we strolled around a massive park and walked to the train station to change countries for the fourth time in about as many days.

To Croatia, another beautiful country. Zagreb was our first stop, the capital. Our hostel was nice but a bit out of the way, but the tram system was really good so it didn't matter too much. We stayed only one night here, but spent more money than we should have on things like sun glasses, watches, shoulder bags, earphones and chocolate with the brand name “Nika”. Although Carly did get a banana for free because the man didn't have change. We left very late that night for an overnight train (another first for Carly) and it had free water, croissants, soap and hand towelettes... The things that get us excited.

This train took us to Dubrovnik, Where we still had the pleasure of rain, although much more than before. Dubrovnik is a city set up the side of a very steep hill. So when the rain comes the city literally turns into a big waterfall. We arrived and called our hostel to ask them to pick us up, and got a very angry man on the other end telling us he had waited up until 1.30am the previous night for us to call him... for the first time we had accidentally booked the wrong night. He turned out be a very nice man after telling us 100 times how angry he was and how we should have called and us saying how sorry we were. He got us settled in and after realising we were nice people and really were sorry, he said sorry for the email he sent us, which we hadn't received because we had been on an overnight train. When Al checked his emails the email said that when we reserve somewhere we should actually turn up and ended with the line:

“You are not guests, you are.....”

So insert what you will, we thought up a few ideas but mainly just laughed, because he apologised a million times and told us how nice he thought we were.

Anywho, the city was nice but laden with tourists, who Alex will not associate himself with and tells me we are travellers not tourists! One lady even had a backpack for her dog...

We mainly just walked around read our books and ate ice cream. The man from the hostel, Ivan, took us down to the port, apologised one last time (except for the email he sent us after we left) and let us be on our way.

We had a very long night on a ferry with people screaming, and being sea sick, that took us to Bari, Italy, where we spent the day waiting for our next overnight ferry to Patra in Greece. This ferry was much nicer with escalators and all. We had a pretty good sleep to make up for he lack of the night before, and turned up tired in Patras to wait for our bus to Athens. While waiting at the train station Carly and I went to grab some food, and my small backpack with my shoulder bag inside was stolen. Not anything too bad stolen just some really annoying things. We spent that afternoon at the police getting a report and took the train the Athens for a short stay. We went to the Acropolis, not as impressive as some ruins I've seen and wandered around the big market.

Another ferry that night took us to Santorini, where we stayed four nights! We had a few troubles with the hotel but all in all it was lovely, walking around the little streets and hiring a scooter and quad bike to explore the whole island. Watched a beautiful sunset in Oia over beers (a smoothie for Carly) and had a lovely relaxing time. We ferried to another lovely island Paros, for three nights where we did pretty much he same thing but had a much nicer hotel, and hotel manager. Alex helped him install Skype and he made sure we had everything we need. He has the life; 6 months of the year in Greece over summer and the rest in the Philippines where his wife is from doing nothing! The rain only caught up with us on the last day in Paros so we had lovely blue skies, just like in all the movies and postcards! We took another ferry back to Athens last night, and tried to see Corinth today but with a mix up of trains it didn't work out.

So now I'm writing from another overnight ferry (the nice one) from Greece back to Italy, to start out Italian adventure. Who knows, Carly might find an Italian Stallion and Ryan Ferguson is meeting up with us in Bologna.

Also, we have started watching a show called United States of Tara, with Toni Collette. It is the most brilliant show and acting and we love watching each new episode.

So, for now Calamara (that means good morning but it's the only thing in Greek I could remember), and hope whoever is reading this is loving life on the other side of the world.

Much Love.

Nika

Prost


Carly having a taste of beer.


The back of the Sound of Music house.


Bled


View of Ljubljana from the castle


Sunset at Dubrovnik


Nika chocolate



Greek flag.


Santorini

Europe from South to North

Istanbul to Copenhagen – Europe from South to North!

We've had a whirlwind few weeks as we make our way to Munich to add Carly to our number :-) Lots of trains, not as much sleep as usual, but on top of it all we've been to some great places and enjoyed lots of experiences.

We took an overnight train from Istanbul to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, where we more or less had to stop there on our way North. The overnight trains are reasonable, especially if you get a sleeper – we did on this one, three bunks in a tiny little room. We stayed in Sofia a single night, where we took our selves on a walking tour of the city to see nothing super spectacular, just loads of old architecture, parks, statues etc. Free dinner and beer at the hostel, and breakfast in the morning, super friendly and helpful staff made this one of the best hostels we've stayed at.

On to Brasov in Romania the following day, a long day spent on the train. 12 hours or so and we were at Bucarest which we skipped in favour of the smaller medieval city of Brasov, another few hours up the line. Our train was late and after cruising through the empty city in a taxi we arrived at our hostel, only to get no response when we rang the bell and banged on the door – slightly alarming for 5 minutes until we finally roused someone! Again only one night here, but crammed a lot of stuff into the next day. We took a tour to Peles Castle, the summer residence of the Romanian royal family. We were impressed by it from the outside – and then we went in! Unfortunately it cost an extra 32 Levs (A$32) to pay for a photography permit inside, so we can't share it with you but it was unreal! Something like 160 rooms (30 of which were bathrooms), all decked out in amazing fashion – carved wood panels, tapestries, weapons decorating the walls, suits of armour in the hallways, beautiful furniture – it looked like a palace, I suppose because it was! When we came back into Brasov we walked around the centre and up to the Black & White towers that are ancient city defence points. There was a medieval festival on which we wandered around, unfortunately we missed the jousting :-P We also happened upon an APT Challenger tennis comp of which we watched a couple of sets whilst having a beer – these are the random unexpected things I love finding while you're travelling :-)

Later in the evening we headed back on the train, this time to Budapest. This was one of the least fun experiences on our trip. Due to a super full train and perhaps some misunderstanding at the ticket reservation office, we didn't have a sleeper ticket as we were under the impression we could get it from a conductor on the train. Not only were there no sleepers, there were no seats either – not the most exciting prospect for a 13 hour trip. We sat/lounged with our bags in the isle and attempted sleep fairly unsuccessfully until the wee hours of dawn, when a whole lot of people cleared out at a stop and we secured an empty seat for the last 6 hours. We were glad to see a bed in our hostel/apartment after stumbling out of the train station and around the surrounding streets trying to find it for half an hour! Not much more happened on our first day in Budapest, we left our exploring to the next when we took a great free walking tour for 3 hours. They gave a good historical overview of Hungary and Budapest, and took us around to or pointed out all the major sites. For lunch we went to one of the market halls, where we had a traditional Hungarian meal (no, not goulash); a kind of thick deep fried pancake with sour cream, cheese and ham on it – exceedingly fatty but yum! As it started raining we chilled out in a great little cafe with interesting décor (see the pics).

The following day we had a short trip to Austria. It was at that point the most expensive place we've visited so we changed our plans and cut our visit to one night instead of two. The rain followed us, but we still went out in it to have a look around Vienna. I didn't love it when I visited in 2005, and it still isn't our favourite city, but it is pretty impressive. So many great buildings with nice architecture on every corner, and parks aplenty. We wandered for hours and finished our afternoon with a coffee and cake at one of the traditional Vienna coffee houses, complete with a live pianist :-) We went out for breakfast the next morning, picking a random stop on the underground system. Nik had a schnitzel for lunch the day before, we'll need get a strudel when we go back to Saltzburg in a week or so with Carly in order to tick off traditional Austrian food :-)

Some friends from our Middle East trip had recommended a little place in the Czech Republic called Ceske Krumlov to us, so we altered our plans and skipped Prague in order to chill out for a few days in the much smaller Ceske Krumlov. It's a beautiful little town with only 15000 people, a medieval place with cobblestone streets, a winding river, a castle, church – everything a small tourist town wants! We stayed in a great little hostel right on the river in the middle of town. We loved just wandering the streets in search of something to eat (supermarket shut at 5:30 on week days and 11:30 on Saturday – forget Sunday!), or just looking around. We went around the castle; over the moat with the bears, up the tower for great views of the town, and up to the royal gardens – amazing! Again it was a bit wet off and on, we're fast running out of dry clothes. One morning we hiked out of town a few km in search of a chapel on a hill which was unsuccessful but nevertheless a nice couple of hours. Lunch in the park, naps in the sun, cheap pastries & ice cream. There was some sort of disability awareness event on one afternoon, we watched a jazz/funk/soul band for a while. More unexpected niceness.

We'd made another spur of the moment decision to change our plans again and go to Auschwitz Poland to visit the concentration camp. That meant an overnight train (3 actually) to the town, on which I managed to leave my phone when we left at 5 am in the morning. Including a few hours sitting at stations waiting for trains it took a good 14 hours before we arrived on a sleepy Sunday morning.

Everybody knows something about Auschwitz, concentration camps and the holocaust but it was still a very educative experience. Probably the most sombre, most awful place we'll ever visit, but also so memorable and important. Like everywhere we go, actually visiting somewhere replaces your imagination of it with reality, usually giving it context and making it feel more normal. What happened in Auschwitz was in no way normal but it gave us a feeling for the reality of the millions of lives that were lost. We had a tour of Auschwitz I where a maximum of 20000 prisoners were held at once. The Nazi's used existing Polish army brick barracks to house initially Polish political prisoners and then later anyone on their list of enemies of the state. The first gas chamber extermination experiments were carried out there and led to the construction of purpose built gas rooms and incinerators. Most of the buildings are still in good condition and house various displays and information. There are rooms full of thousands of kilos of human hair (the Nazi's wasted nothing except lives), prosthetic limbs, spectacles, dishes, shoes – and this is all only the stuff they didn't have time to distribute to where they could make use of it. Today Auschwitz I is right in the middle of a town, it feels bizarre.

Auschwitz II (Birkenau) is a much larger site (380 acres?) built after the “success” of Auschwitz I. A much smaller percentage of the buildings survived, mostly because as the Nazis deserted the camp days before it was liberated they destroyed a lot of evidence and buildings. There were rows upon rows of brick and timber huts with up to 130000 people crammed into the whole camp. Here were the two main gas chambers and incinerators, capable of burning 5000 to 7000 bodies per day. There were times when they couldn't cope so they just burnt bodies in the open. The ashes were poured into the nearby river or dumped into a pond. Here's where the trains with cattle cars with 100 people in each pulled up for people to begin their “new life”. 75% were deemed unfit upon sight and with the flick of a wrist were sent straight to the gas chambers after being stripped of all their belongings and later their clothes. Most of the remaining people eventually also died from over work, malnutrition, execution or the gas chamber. This was the oppression of people at an elite, professional level. Realising the reality and truth of Auschwitz was depressing, sick and harrowing, but also good for us I think. In the words of the memorial “Forever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women & children, mainly Jews, from various countries around Europe. Auschwitz – Birkenau 1940-1945”

We only spent until 4 or so in the town, and left on another overnight train to Berlin. Arriving in the morning we checked in and went straight on another 3.5 hour free walking tour. I'd done this when I was in Berlin in 2005 and remembered it was good, so the same this time plus more rain :-) We visted Pariser Platz,  the Brandenburg gate, the holocaust memorial, the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, various squares and important buildings, Museum Island, all the while being fed history and relevant information. Nik made the comment that we've learnt more history in the last 2 weeks than 2 years at school! The following day we ventured out again, still in the rain. We walked through the Tiergarden and around the fence of the zoo, getting some free glimpses :-) We arrived at the Reichhaus intending to go inside to climb into the big glass sphere that sits on top of their parliament. We did end up going in, but only after 1.5 hours standing in a queue in the blustery rain. That took us right up to the time we needed to be on our way, so a few quick trips on the subway had us to the hostel and back to the Hauptbanhof and on our way to Kiel.

In September last year we had someone contact us though a couch surfing group asking if she could stay at our place in Armidale for some time over the UNE mid semester break. Consequently we met Claudia and greatly enjoyed having her stay with us for a few days. Now she's back home in Germany and was kind enough to return the favour and have us stay with her in Kiel right in the North of Germany on the Baltic coast. She treated us very well, feeding us and taking us around town. In the evening we stopped at her little local pub on the corner around from her apartment for a beer and to watch a live band, that turned out to be from Sydney. They were really good and we were sad we only caught the end of their set. The next day before we continued heading North we headed into the centre for a bit of retail therapy. I also did a quick walk up to the harbour and yacht docks then back through some picturesque parks.

Next we were on to Copenhagen, in expensive Scandinavia :-) Our train was 5 hours, some of which was on a ferry where they drove the train on, we all hopped off, sailed for an hour or so then hopped back on and went on our merry way. Gives you an indication the size of the ferry! In Copenhagen we're staying with Anders, a friend we met on our Africa tour. We really liked the city; great architecture, lots of bicycles, parks, canals etc. We did our own walking tour from home to Tivoli (a famous fair/park), the town hall, the amazing university library (complete with sliding ladders), a couple of churches, Kings Park, the National Art Museum, an old fortress which is still a military baracks, past the “Little Mermaid” statue (although she's currently on display at the world expo in Beijing – along with 1 million litres of Danish sea water she's sitting in :-P), through the courtyard of the royal palace, around the colourful and often photographed Nyhaven, down to the houses of parliament (old royal palace) then back home for home cooked dinner; a long day! The rain's still following us, but we managed to do a few loads of washing and now have dry clean clothes again. We've been cracking out the warm stuff too, it's max 13 degrees some days. Perhaps our endless summer is coming to an end!

Out again the next day to do a tour by boat of the harbour and city. Everything here's expensive it seems, except this one tour which was only 30 Kronor (A$6) for an hour tour, the same price as a coffee. This tour was good, more sight seeing than informative, but we had a nice surprise when we were told the Royal yacht was out on the harbour and we had a chance of seeing the Queen. We were checking out the yacht when there was a commotion from the royal house and we saw the Queen coming out, down the red carpet and into her little transport boat, then sail across to the big royal yacht and board. Exciting! No sighting of Princess Mary though. We were hoping she'd take us fellow Aussies out for drinks, maybe next time.

We also went to the Church of Our Savior, which has an amazing tower you can climb inside and then later outside as a staircase winds around. It was super windy and the view over the city awesome. We went for a quick tour around Christiana, an infamous suburb where people took over some apartment buildings a few decades ago and turned the whole area into a big alternative scene. Little cafes and shops are dotted around, and there are plenty of musos, skaters etc making it feel like a cross between a ghetto and Bellingen. There's blatant drug dealing; shops that only sell marijuana which is freshly grown on the side of the streets. Different!

Back to Ander's place and then onto another overnight train to Munich, where Carly joins us on our travels :-) Looking forward to that!

We're having a great time, although this part of the trip with moving every few days and having to organise transport and accommodation is a little more straining. We knew that would be the case, but the amazing places we're seeing are far outweighing the cost!

Until next time,

Alex

Cathedral, Sofia - Bulgaria

Seles Castle, Brasov - Romania

Budapest - Hungary

Vienna

Ceske Krumlov - Czech Republic

Ceske Krumlov - Czech Republic

Auschwitz Birkenau - Poland

Holocaust memorial, Berlin - Germany

Visiting Claudia in Kiel

Copenhagen

Nyhaven, Copenhagen, Denmark