Barcelona back to London

One last morning in Barcelona and then we had to catch the bus back to Girona to catch our plane back to London! Phew! Don't need to see the inside of a plane or airport for awhile after this holiday!!
We got to London late in the arvo and checked into our hotel in Kensington, just down from Kensington High Street. We were all excited because our room was one of those cool downstairs (below ground level) ones and it felt very English to be staying down at that level :o)
That night we had tickets to go and see Avenue Q (which is kinda a musical/puppet show for adults) in the Westend so we went for a bit of a walk around the local area and then headed towards the theatre. We decided to catch a cab because we left a bit late and didn't want to miss the start and ended up getting the coolest cabbie ever! His name was Jack and he chatted to us the whole way towards Picadilly Circus. He pointed out some sights, told us about local culture and we even talked about Aussie and UK soap operas (his wife and I are both addicts so she sounds awesome!!). Jack was about 70 years old and had been driving a cab for about 50 years. He was really proud coz his granddaughter was halfway through her year-long cabbie's course (Yep! You actually have to do a year's worth of qualifications to get your cabbie license over there!!) and was carrying on the family tradition! Said he wanted to visit Australia but it was too far away and "his Sheila" wasn't too well these days and probably couldn't handle such a long trip. But he knew a fair bit about Oz since his son had spent his gap year there and had loved it. Seriously one of the most entertaining cab rides we could have hoped for!
We got to the theatre on time and it was one of those awesomely decorated gorgeous old-school theatres. Very tres chic! The show was funny and the singers and music were really good but we were super tired so just headed straight home to bed afterwards! Still, I got my West End experience in! YAY!

Barcelona Day 3

*Caz's tip for travelling* Don't go to really awesome places like Barcelona at the end of your trip when you're totally buggered and can't necessarily make the most of it! ;o)
Day 3 in Barcelona was another exquisite day. Sun shining and about 23 degrees! YAY! We were being super lazy (just for a change!) so had a mad sleep in and then got up for some lunch. We asked the super lovely hotel reception dude where he would recommend that we go and he gave us the name of a nearby family-run restaurant which he and his family (who own the hotel) eat at a lot. Oh my god! Seriously one of the best meals we've ever had and all for less than 20 euro including a bottle of wine!! We found the restaurant and settled at one of the two outside tables in the sunshine. The menu was totally in Spanish so we decided just to pick our two courses each using the few words we recognised and boy were we rewarded for our efforts! The first course for me was a divine salad with fresh sardines. I've never really eaten sardines before but the fresh variety are delish! I ate every last bite! Matt had a cheese flan which was to die for and the wine was quite quoffable (don't know if that's how you spell it!) as well. Our second courses were pretty much tailor made for each of us! Matt had some sort of meat with bones in the middle (his fave!) in a delish sauce while I had a great piece of fish with a tomato ragout on top which is one of the best sauces I have ever had! All of this food was served by the lovely Spanish family that own the restaurant and we stayed their eating lazily for a couple of hours! Bliss!!!
After lunch, we just meandered around for awhile, trying to walk off our indulgent meal!
LOVE LOVE LOVE Barcelona! GO THERE OR BE SQUARE!!!!

Barcelona Day 2

A beautiful day dawned in Barcelona (well, I can't say that it dawned beautifully because we had a bit of a sleep in but it was bloody nice by the time we got up!!)
We decided to check out the markets up on Las Ramblas which had been recommended to us by the guy at Ryanair who checked us in for our flight to Gerona (and didn't charge us for our extra baggage wait! Go nice man go!). His mum lives in Barcelona so he goes to visit her about 6 times a year (glad my mum doesn't live in Barcelona because I don't think I'd be able to afford to visit her anywhere near that often!).
We walked down the big street near us (Paral-lel) towards the port and found ourselves down near the statue of Christopher Columbus. HUGE statue! I suppose he was a pretty cool and influential dude so probably deserves a mad big statue but I was pretty impressed by the sheer size of it! From there, we headed towards Las Ramblas which is the main shopping street. At the foot of it is a huge square which is THE spot for drug dealers/drug takers to hang out in Barcelona and do their business (no, I don't mean that they use the square as a loo or anything! They just buy and sell drugs!). Also, it's a fave haunt for pickpockets to pick on tourist pockets so we had been warned by the awesome guy at our hotel to be on the lookout for dodgy characters! We had wanted to make it up to the tapas bars at the markets for lunch but we were starving by the time we got to the square so found a bit of a touristica tapas bar there and sat down for some lunch. How freakin' great is the concept of tapas? You get to have small amounts of heaps of different foods so you don't have to be too picky about what you want (as in "oooh the chicken looks nice but maybe I feel like beef or lamb or fish or something?!), you just get a bit of everything! We settled down with a San Miguel beer each (YUMMO! Spanish Cerveza is the bomb!) and waited for the food. It was delish when it came and the square proved to be quite the sport for people watching entertainment! There was this one guy standing around near the tapas bar trying to look casual and inconspicuous! HAHAHAHAH! So not doing a good job of that one buddy!! He was pacing around and sending various signals to his crew so it took us about 5 seconds to work out that he was a dealer and waiting for his deal to go down! It didn't help when the his crew, consisting of about 6 people, all "bumped into" each other a few times in the space of 15 minutes to have a quick chat! Anyway, this guy was particularly interesting because he was a mad nose picker! YUCKO! Seriously, this man was mining for gold in the worst kind of way! I swear he was up to his elbow for awhile there and inspected the fruits of his labour quite regularly to see what sort of quality he was getting for his excavation investments! It was like a car crash situation, you don't want to look because its icky and ghoulish but you can't look away because its also strangely fascinating!!! Thank god we'd finished eating by then and were just finishing our beers or we might not have been able to keep the tapas down!!
We got the bill for our lunch and, not surprisingly, being a tourist joint, it was a bit overpriced, and headed up to the markets. Holy coolness Batman!!! Most awesome markets I've ever seen. There were lolly stalls, chocolate stalls, cheese stalls, olive stalls, meat stalls, fish stalls, you name it, it had a stall! There were people everywhere buying food for their dinner and there were all these awesome (and annoyingly well priced!) tapas bars everywhere selling divine smelling food and beer on tap. There were some freaky things for sale such as whole sheeps heads with eyes intact (EW EW EW! Pardon the pun!) and a fair amount of freaky offal but the colours and sights and smells of most of it were just awesome! Great place to wander around even if you don't intend to buy anything and I would definitely suggest you check it out next time you're in Barcelona (you know, for one of your 6 times a year visits to see mum or whatever!).
After the markets, we walked up the shopping part of Las Ramblas which was pretty crazy cool! People everywhere and lots of great shops with awesome prices. Didn't end up buying anything but that's only coz my backpack was getting pretty full and heavy by this stage of the trip! If I had a huge bag and unlimited luggage allowance, my credit card would be maxed out for sure!
After that, we caught the Metro back to our hotel for a bit of a read and rest break but headed back out in the late afternoon for a walk. We headed in the opposite direction from where we'd been exploring and ended up finding some less touristy spots. We found this awesome little bar where we stopped in to have a quick refresher of Vermouth and soda which was quite lovely. The waitress was super nice and gave us some lovely nibblies to have with our drinks. There was a businessman father with his gorgeous little girl in there having an arvo drink so we played with the lil cutie for awhile so he could enjoy his bevo. After our drink, we found this big hill and decided to walk up. At the top, we found this amazing park (which we had to walk up about 5 billion steps to get to) which had a fantastic view of the city. Unfortunately, we didn't take our camera with us so we can't share the awesomeness with you guys but just take our words for it! We just sat there for awhile, taking in the view and watching some cute dogs have a play (and missing our babies back home!) before we headed back to the bar (a glass of Cava for me and the same as before for Matt) which we enjoyed with more delish nibbles on sticks from the lovely waitress.
What a great day! Barcelona rocks!!

Beautiful Barcelona!!

We left Marseille for Barcelona. It ended up being much cheaper to fly from France to London Gatwick and then take a flight 2 hours after we arrived there to Gerona, about an hour from Barcelona! Phew! What a day of travel! We made it to London with awhile to spare and checked in for our Ryanair flight to Gerona. However, we must have lost track of time or been tired from all the travelling because, whilst we were strolling casually towards our departure gate we hear "This is absolutely the final boarding call for all passengers travelling to Gerona Barcelona with Ryanair"! CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!! Cue to a ridiculous scene of Matt and I sprinting through the airport like crazy buggers towards the gate. Luckily, one of the ground staff was looking up the corridor and saw us sprinting so gave the word to the flight team. We finally made it out of breath and all of the staff were having a good giggle at us! But who cares! We're off to Spain baby yeah!!
We got to Gerona and it was really warm compared to what we were used to at about 22 degrees (at 7pm no less!!). We knew we had about an hour bus ride ahead of us and were starting to get a little bit tired but still excited to be somewhere new! YAY!
When we arrived at the Barcelona bus station we thought we'd be all types of good, save a bit of money as we'd done in a few places recently and catch public transport to our hotel. I asked the guy at the information booth and he said the Metro was the best way to go and gave us a map showing where we needed to walk after we got off at the right station. Cool! Looks easy enough! No worries right!!?? Hmmmmm..........Cue Matt and I walking around in the relative heat with our huge backpacks (both now well over 16kgs in weight!!!) and finding our street! YAY! That hadn't taken long. However, of course, when we got to the street, we went totally the wrong way! AAARRGGGHHH! We walked for about 15 minutes down this really long street before we worked out that the little numbers I'd scribbled down the bottom of the hotel address were actually the street number and we'd walked super far in the wrong direction! Eventually, dishevelled, buggered and a only talking in monosyllables, we got to the hotel and somehow managed to make enough sense to be able to check in! We walked up to our room and it was HUGE! Probably the same size as half of our bloody house! For some reason, we'd been lucky enough to get a four person room but we got it all to ourselves! WOOHOO! We could stretch out (however, I did double check with reception that it was all ours because we'd had a pretty tiring day and it'd be just our luck that some drunk 19 year old English blokes would stagger in at 4am or something!! ALL OURS! WOOHOO!!)
We had a bit of rest for awhile and then realised we were starving, having eaten bugger all that day! The surly but attractive guy at reception gave us a tip on a local restaurant that was awesome but when we got there, it was closed (it was a Monday so I forgive them!). So we headed back towards our hotel and went to one of the restaurants/beer bars on Paral-lel, which was right near our hotel.
SPAIN! TAPAS! YAY!!!!! We decided to get some delish looking mini spicy sausages and then Matt had a veal steak the size of his head while I had a great tuna salad! Busy and tiring day but ended well with a nice meal on a beautiful Spanish night!

Marseille

From Paris, we caught the train to Marseille so we could check out the South of France and say we'd been in Provence! Cool!
When we arrived in Marseille, we decided just to catch a taxi to our hotel as we were pretty sure we'd get lost if we tried to find our own way there using the Metro! Good choice in the end as we would have had buckleys of finding it on our own! However, I'd yet again landed us right smack bang in the middle of the shopping district! I must have some sort of retail ESP or something!
The first night in Marseille we just walked around our local area and checked out what was there. Great place! A bit gritty and dirty but so much to see and do! We walked down to the port and had a cup of tea and a beer and did some people watching (0ne of our fave passtimes!). Day two saw us getting up to more clear blue skies and lovely temperatures. We went for a walk up to St Nicholas Fort which was just amazing! Had to climb about 5 billion stairs to get up there but the remnants of the fort offered one of the best views I have ever seen! You could see out over the whole city and way down the coast and out to the ocean! We spent quite awhile just sitting there and taking in the view, as a few other people were doing also. I went shopping later in the arvo while Matt had a siesta (I was staying on the main shopping street so like I had a choice really!) and bought the coolest purple handbag for a bargain price. May not be a leather bag from Firenze but I love it!
Dinner that night was one of the most fantastic meals we have ever had! We had walked passed a restaurant which advertised rump steak for 2 with heaps of sides for $45 euro. Not super cheap but we thought we'd give it a go! Holy doolie! BEST STEAK EVER! Dad, you remember how good the steak was at Kingsleys in Sydney that time ages ago? Well this was even better!!!! AND HUGE! We must have had AT LEAST a kilo of top qual steak! I've never been so full in my life as I was after that but gee it was worth it! The waitress was this gorgeous chick who was studying in Marseille but was from South America and we chatted to her on and off all night which was lovely! Her English was excellent!
That night in Marseille was pretty interesting! There is a huge Algerian population in Marseille and there was a World Cup soccer qualifier between Algeria and Egypt on that night. The streets were full of Algerians in pre-celebration mode! They were going nuts! Singing, people doing crazy tricks on their motorbikes down the street, walking in parades down the street with flares! It was quite entertaining! Also, while we were having dinner near the port, a boat caught on fire and the fire spread to two other boats! Was a crazy scene but noone was hurt so alls well that ends well!
Our last day in Marseille was a Sunday. For those of you who have spent time in Europe, you'll know that Sunday is the day of nothingness! Nothing is open except a few random bakeries and all the tourist spots so we decided to have a pretty lazy day just walking around and seeing what was what. We ended up find our way into the Algerian and Muslim quarter which was AWESOME! People were all over the place, there were little shops selling random things everywhere and a real community spirit in the air! We walked around for awhile soaking it up! Everyone was really friendly to us and we had a great afternoon!
All in all, we enjoyed Marseille and were glad we made the trip down south! Next stop, Barcelona!!!!

Montmarte

For our last day in Paris, we were going to go to the Lourve but we really didn't feel like looking at art so we decided to catch the metro and check out Montmarte instead! Great choice! What a wonderful day!

We wandered around aimlessly for awhile, walking up incredibly steep hills, stopping to watch a cute puppy play fetch with his owner on one of the mega slopes! It was very cool!

We got to the artist's square which is full of cafes and artists who sit in the middle of the square and sell their artwork. A few of them were also painting while we were there and it was really great to watch them work. They'd all obviously done their fair share of Paris pics in the past and were quite efficient at getting a really great paining done relatively quickly! The smells of the cafes made our mouths water but we decided to wander on a bit further and find somewhere to stop! Glad we did because just down the road we found a wonderful little cafe and , since escargot was on the menu for a measly 7.50 euro, we decided to give them a go! We were a bit nervous while we were waiting and had also ordered some white wine to wash it down and give us a bit of dutch courage! The waiter brought the escargot out and it smelled DIVINE! Honestly one of the yummiest smelling things! They were cooked in a sauce laden with garlice and herbs which Matt kept saying he'd be happy to eat a bucket of on its own! Anyway, back to the snails! I went first and it was probably pretty comical watching me trying to get a good grip on the "slippery little sucker" to try and get the snail out of the shell! Finally I got it out and took a deep breath......Pretty good!! The sauce was amazing and the snails didn't taste like much at all so quite inoffensive!

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the shops in Montmarte and looking at all kinds of cool bohemian stuff! We loved it!

Paris Day 3 - Uber Tourists

On our 2 full day in Paris, we decided to be uber tourists and head for the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower and whatever else we could find in between!

We caught the metro to the stop right outside the Arc and got out. Wow! Crazy roundabout from hell or what?! The Arc itself was pretty impressive and cool to see but the roundabout amazed us! How were there no accidents when there didn't appear to be any lanes marked or any type of cohesion with the road rules?!

From the Arc, we walked up the Champs Elysee (which, as Art Vs Science proclaimed in their song, is indeed a very busy street!) and looked at all the cool clothes, cars and stuff that we can't afford to buy. We then headed down towards the Eiffel Tower. When we got there, it was about 1:30 in the arvo and we hadn't eaten yet. Thus, we decided to have some lunch before joining the mammoth line! Just accross the road from the Tower, we found a stall selling crepes etc so shared a fromage,oeuf and jamon crepe and a french style hotdog and a beer. They were quite delish although the number of pigeons that tried to beseige us was rather alarming!!!

After lunch, we joined the mad queue to get into the tower. It probably took about an hour but I was so excited that I didn't notice and Matt read his book to keep himself entertained! We finally got our tickets and got into the lift to go up to the 2nd floor where we had to change lifts for the top. It was a bit of a squoosh but we finally got up to the 2nd floor. The view was absolutely breathtaking!!! But we still had a ways to go yet and joined another queue to get up to floor number 3! Wow! When we got there I was like a kid in a candy shop! I LOVE HEIGHTS! And while Matt likes the view, he gets a bit of vertigo so is a bit more restrained! I ran around like a mad thing, leaning as far over the rails as I could and soaking up the view! I loved it!!!! Although it was exorbitantly expensive, we got a glass of champers each up there and toasted the great view and Paris. It was so much fun! Although, I can't imagine anyone ever actually proposing to someone up there! Even in the off season, it would be the two of you and your 400 closest strangers! Not super romantic!!!

I had a ball up there but it was getting late so we decided to head back to the hotel. We caught the metro and Matt also took some great photos of the tower at sunset! Beautiful! What a great day!!!!

Paris Days 1 and 2

Ah! Paris! They city of Romance! Or is it the city of crook tummies? We arrived in Paris with Matt having a bit of a crook gut and not feeling the best (you all know what I'm talking about! Don't make me spell it out!). We were supposed to be staying with some lovely friends of our French mate Martin's but, after a confusing phone call that morning (where Arlette spoke French, I spoke English and we understood maybe 10% of what the other person had said), we weren't really sure what was happening. We decided it might be a good idea to stay in a hotel so we didn't infect people with our germs but thought it might be easier to tell our potential hosts in person. We rock up at the address we had near Place d'Italie metro station and rang the bell. After awhile, Michel, Arlette's partner, worked out who we were. We had a glass of water with him and his son/friend/person and realised there was no way we could communicate. He ended up getting Arlette on the phone and apparently she thought we were coming about 10 days later! Argh! She was lovely enough to say we could still stay but all in all, we thought we should leave as they weren't prepared for us and Matt had a crook tummy.
We stayed in a hotel down the road that night and went to a divine Indian restaurant for dinner which was great.
The next day, we moved onto a hotel I had found near Garde du Nord railway station. It was on a fairly main street so a bit noisy but the room was lovely and it was quite central. We had a very lazy day that day and did bugger all which I think we needed! Had dinner at a random local restaurant and though we'd be all touristy the next day!

Venice Day 2

Day 2 in Venice was to be our day to explore, maybe have a gondola ride in the early evening and see the sights. Day 2 in Venice was also absolutely peeing down with rain! We set out to go exploring but even with an umbrella and our hooded jackets, our pants and shoes were soaked within about 15 minutes! We persisted and got to see some pretty sights as it is a beautiful town when it is raining but we didn't have the opportunity to see all the famous sights or have that gondola ride! Ah well!
Dripping wet, we decided to try the great local cafe/bar we'd had a sandwich at yesterday for lunch. When we got there, it looked as if it was closed but we got the door open. Matt asked if they were still doing lunch and the guy said “only drinks” so we started to leave. He must have taken pity on us two little Australian drowned rats because he said “oh no, actually, you can have food if you want!”. FANTASTICO! We went upstairs to a booth and looked through the menu but Matt already new what he was having. The day before, when we'd been there, they had some meat in the display cabinet which Matt liked the look of. The owner had told him that it was the shin of the animal (this was done mostly using sign language and it looked like lamb) and Matt went for it. I went for a pizza and we splurged on a bottle of proseco (Italian sparkling white! So yummo!). OH MY GOD! Yummest meal! The pizza was to die for and I think Matt may now have a permanent smile on his face due to the lamb! Plus the guy who owned the place and his waitress were really lovely and let us stay there for ages while we ate and drank, even after everyone else left. We got to talking to the waitress and it turns out that this is one of the places lots of Venetians go to eat. Therefore they have to thoroughly test all the specials before they offer them for sale so that they know they are good and won't disappoint. She said that was a great part of her job because she always got to eat good stuff that the boss had cooked!
It was a great way to spend a lazy afternoon and we even felt compelled to go for another quick walk in the storm after that.
Then there was dinner at a local restaurant just near a bridge. It was packed and we had to wait awhile for a table but it was worth it! The fish stew with polenta that I had was divine and we shared espresso and tiramisu for dessert! Wonderful!
Whilst we didn't get to do everything we wanted to in Venice and got lost for a good portion of our time time, we still really enjoyed ourselves and were glad we went!
Next stop: Paris!!!!!

Venezia (aka Land of Profound Confusion)

From Firenze, we headed to Venice which was our last Italian stop. Again, it was a pretty short and economical train trip and we were there in no time.
The weather was divine when we arrived there and everything felt great! We had a drink at the train station while Matt asked the lovely information people how we should get to our hotel. Apparently, the easiest thing to do was walk so we decided to go for it.
First thing to do was walk over one of the big ol' bridges spanning the Grand Canal. Our hotel was apparently “very close by and easy to find”. Well, it wasn't exactly that easy but in about 45 mins (for what should have been a 10 min trip!) we found our way there. We walked into reception and dumped our backpacks on the floor with glee.
“Hi!” I said (perhaps a little too enthusiastically because the reception dude looked slightly startled) “We've got a booking here for the next couple of nights”. I gave him my surname which he was unable to find. Eventually I was like “oh yeah, I booked on expedia.com”. Suddenly he was all types of helpful “Ah yes! Your booking has been cancelled!” he announced happily. “Ummmm what the?!” Apparently, they'd been unable to verify my credit card number so had cancelled my booking and had sold all the rooms about 2 hours earlier!!!!!!!!!! FU&&&&&KKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!! Thankfully, he was a super helpful man and found us a room at another nearby hotel. It was somewhat more expensive but by that stage we would have probably paid $350 a night just so we could dump our bloody bags somewhere!!!
So, with the promise from the hotel guy that Hotel Alex was only about 5 mins away, we put our pack back on and headed into the Venetian wilderness. Let's move forward to about 1 hour later. Whilst still in about the same square millimeter that we'd been in all freaking day, we'd managed to get lost 4000 times and NOT find our hotel! This called for some vino so we stopped at a bar to ask directions! Eventually, after another half hour, we stumbled numbly in what we thought was the wrong direction, only find our hotel!!!! Luckily, it was run by the nicest people ever and we had this big, beautifully decorated room which made it all seem ok! We dumped our stuff and realised that we hadn't had lunch yet so we went off for a bit of a reccie. Within about 2 mins we stumbled on the coolest bar ever! It was packed full of people speaking Italian and had a display case full of divine looking sandwiches and snacks. We shared a toastie and a beer and headed back out into the world feeling almost human again. We walked around some of the nearby narrow laneways and got a bit lost before returning to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
We went to a nearby restaurant which felt a bit touristy but the food smelled great and it was well priced. Whilst we were eating our Prima Piati (of delish pasta!) we realised that the people at the tables near us were Aussies. We got to talking a bit and two of them were from Bungendore and two were from Sydney and they'd met at the restaurant that night. By and by the Bungendore couple went home and the other couple came over to join us. They'd had a couple of bottles of red by then so were very chatty but such lovely people! Arthur and Kathy, while about 10 to 15 years older than us, were a total blast and we had a great night just sitting there chatting I think we really pissed the waiters off in the end coz we were there for so long! Heheheh Great night though!

Firenze Day 2

Day two in Florence saw us getting up and going for a nice big walk down towards the Ponte Vecchio. The walk there was lovely and we got to go past the Duomo (properly known as the Cattedrale Santa Maria del Fiore. We went into the chapel and it was honestly the most beautiful church I'd ever been in. Not as grand as St Peters in the Vatican but just a beautifully presented church that made you feel peaceful. I lit a candle on behalf of my bella mumma for my Grandad who passed away earlier this year.
After checking out the chapel, we walked towards the Ponte Vecchio which was a great walk in itself because there were so many cute streets to walk across. The Ponte itself afforded us a fantastic view of the river and city both bays and it was fun looking at all the chunky gold jewellery in the 5 billion shops which line the bridge. We walked back towards town and stopped at a local wine bar for a beer and some olives (yes folks! I've been converted! I love olives!!) which was really lovely. The nice chick there took a shine to us and we were asking her how to say Italian phrases properly. She was lovely and patiently explained things to us.
We went back to the markets as I'd seen a purple leather handbag and a red leather jacket the day before, both of which I was madly in love with! I tried on the leather jacket which had a price of 180 Euro on it. The man and Matt then started bargaining, Matt trying to get a bargain basement price of 40 Euro (which the man was slightly disgusted with). We talked him down to 85 in the end but I just couldn't justify the cost. The same happened with my purple handbag which was worth 85 euro and we couldn't bargain him down much so I let it go! Sigh Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all!!
Anyway, a great day was had by all!
PS. Hey Shaps! You know what goes well with Firenze?!

Fireze (Florence in Oz Talk) Day 1

After Roma, we caught the train (cheap as chips!) to Florence for 2 days there. We'd heard that it was a fantastic city, although, nowadays, very touristy. Both were true! It was wonderful and touristy so it was all good!
The train ride there was lovely as we got to check out a bit of the Italian countryside (for the 40% of the trip which we didn't spend going through tunnels!). It was a pretty quick trip and we ended up in Firenze and found a taxi. The guy had a bit of a giggle when we gave him the address of our hotel. It was like 2 streets over! But, having gotten lost for at least an hour with our now 17.5kg packs on our back within that small a distance, we decided that it was better to just pay the guy a few Euro to take us there! Was about a 3 minute trip but he was a nice bloke so we felt ok about it!
Got into the hotel and checked in and it looked pretty cool! There was a guy on the front desk whose hat was made out of flattened coke cans which was a bit random and cool! We had apparently booked a twin room accidentally but he cottoned onto the idea that we were a couple and offered us a room with a 'marital bed”! It took us awhile to work out that he was talking about a double bed though! Heheheh (don't get any crazy ideas folks at home! That's as close to marital talk as we got over there!!)
We got taken to our “marital bed” room and were both BUSTING to go to the loo so Matt ventured in first while I waited for another chick to bring us towels. OK, so my turn for the loo. Matt hadn't had to put the seat down for reasons which I'm sure are obvious to all so I put it down and noticed a bit of a scungy looking mark on it. I called Matt in who promptly pronounced that my worst fears had been founded, it was indeed poo. Matt went to ask coke can hat man if they were able to clean it for us. The poor bloke comes in, takes one look at it and actually says “Mama Mia!”!!! He apologised profusely and said that the cleaning team had done a pretty average job on the loo. Then he noticed that the whole room was a bit stinky. He told us that there seemed to be something wrong with the room's plumbing and it shouldn't smell like this so we got a new room which had a (thankfully!) clean bathroom and was just as massive as the last room! YAY! The room made me think of Kris and Sam as it had been painted in pink with a sponge to give it that “trendy” sponged effect! Looked just like the master bedroom in the Scott St house when you bought it but a different colour!!!
Anyway, after the poo seat room debacle had been solved, we decided to head out and check out a bit of Firenze. It turns out that we are right next to the cool daily markets (what is it with me and having a knack for finding us accommodation right near shopping?!). We had a nice wander through there before checking out our surrounds and finding somewhere for dinner. We were pretty buggered after a day of travelling and walking so we decided to get a take away pizza and salad with a couple of delish Italian beers and eat them in our room.
It was an interesting start to our stay in Firenze but we definitely like it here!!

The Vatican Part 2

We decided that, on our last full day in Rome, we would try to get back to the Vatican to check out the Sistine Chapel. The plan had been to get up early and go to these cool markets I'd read about which were on the way the catacombs, then head to the catacombs afterwards and then catch the bus/metro to the Vatican to check out the Musei Vaticano and the Sistine Chapel. Great in theory. Not so good in practice. To start off with, we forgot to set our alarm and didn't wake up until about 11. That meant that the markets were out of the picture so we decided to go the other way around and head to the Vatican first. We joined a mad long line to get our bags searched and then went in to buy tickets for the Musei. We were pretty excited as we thought we'd just be able to head straight to the Sistine Chapel, check it out, be in awe etc and then move on. Again, great in theory, not so good in practice!!! Anyone who has been to Musei Vaticano will know that the Sistine Chapel is RIGHT at the end of it all. Thus, even if you only have the most cursory look at everything else, it still takes you about 2 or 300 years to get to the Chapel. All this must be done whilst fighting your way through massive, clueless tour groups and loud crowds of Americanos! Fun si? NO!

After what felt like a good portion of our young lives, we finally got to where the Sistine Chapel was located and joined yet another line to get in. As soon as we got in there, you could barely move for the crowds and there were seriously a few guys there whose only job seemed to be to "Shhhhhh" all the stupid people who forgot this was actually a sacred place of worship!!! I don't think we were necessarily in the best headspace for viewing one of the most famous pieces of artwork in the world at this point because I looked up at the ceiling, turned to Matt, said "Pretty, where's the famous finger pointing bit?". He (pardon the pun) pointed it out to me with a grunt to which I said "pretty. Let's go!" We fought our way to the exit. After we got out into the next part of the Vaticano maze we looked at each other and burst out laughing. Hours of our life taken up for something we thought we "should" see that was, in reality, totally underwhelming! So there you have it parents, family and friends of ours, we are two massive Philistines who have no appreciation for the great things in this world! ;o)

Next on the plan was to head to the Catacombs but that's a bit out of town and we were a bit annoyed at the whole tourist thing by now so we decided to check out the Capuchin Crypt instead. This is right on the metro line and much closer than the Catacombs. The Crypt is probably one of the creepiest/coolest/freakiest things we've ever seen. It is a crypt which is entirely decorated using the bones of dead monks. There are about 5 or 6 small chambers that you walk through and each one has a bit of a theme and even the light fittings are made out of bones. As are the walls, the murals etc. The last chamber was the creepiest with a big mural of the grim reaper made out of monk bones. It felt as if we were on the set of an Indiana Jones movie or something!

The nun who was taking donations at the entrance had a good laugh at Matt when he walked out of the Crypt because of how he looked. His jaw was on the ground and he was possibly a little paler then when we had entered! I'll put up the photo of Matt just after we'd been in there so you can have a look at the expression on his little face! hehehehe The trip to the crypt certainly turned the arvo around for us.

For our last night night in Roma we decided to be a bit boring and just head back to our fave restaurant because we knew we'd get a great meal and a great bottle of wine! We were, of course, correct and headed back to the hotel feeling quite happy and totally in love with Roma!

Out and About in Roma

The next day in Rome we decided to wander around and try and see some of the more famous Roma sites. On our list we had the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and the Spanish Steps so we set out with our map and trusty compass to see what we could see.
In typical Matt and Caz fashion, we had picked a vague direction to head in rather than looking for street names or anything so became a bit lost rather quickly. Then of course, I decided that I was busting to go to the loo so we found the nearest pub and headed in. It was a cool Irish Pub with lovely Irish bar staff so it wasn't such a horrible thing in the end. While I pretty much ran towards the ladies room, Matt got us a couple of pints of Bulmers and started talking to the guy sitting next to him at the bar. Turned out he was this really cool dude who worked as an interpreter for the police. He knew about 10 languages fluently including Italian (his native tongue), French, German, Spanish, Dutch, English, a couple of Nordic languages and Chinese! He was a pretty interesing fella and we talked to him for awhile about different languages and the challenges we were having to remember even a few words in each different country we visited!
After our refreshment break, we headed back on and stumbled on some signs for the Pantheon which we found after about 5 minutes. What a beautiful building! This was one place where there didn't seem to be hordes of rude American tour groups so we were able to actually enjoy looking around and taking our time. I was just amazed by the dome and stared at that for a good 5 minutes until my neck started hurting!
After the Pantheon, we headed in the direction of the Trevi Fountain. We found it pretty quickly but had to fight for a photo op position with about 5 billion other people! Would hate to see how crowded it gets in the busy part of the tourist season!!! We tossed our coins in so we know we will definitely be back in Roma in the future! YAY! Its been my fave place so far!
After the Trevi, we headed towards the Spanish Steps which I thought would be really spectacular but, to my poor tired brain, they just looked like some steps. However, the view from the top was fantastic and we got to have some fun laughing at people posing for photos! heheheheh
For dinner that night, we just headed back to our fave restaurant for some pizza and pasta which was divine! They recognised us and were extra nice to us because we'd become sort of locals! Of course, I finished the meal with another espresso!
Another good day in Roma complete!

Ancient Rome! Cool!

Day 3 in Roma and we decided to head for the Colosseum. It was literally a 7 min walk down the hill from our hotel so it was nice and easy to find! We came to one side of it and had to walk around to find where the ticket entrance was but, we were so busy dodging people trying to sell us umbrellas (yes, jut for a change, it was raining. Oh, if I haven't mentioned it, its been raining about 2/3 of the time we've been in Europe! hehehe) and tour company people that we ended up missing the ticket entrance and having to walk around the entire Colosseum again! Ah well, got for our ever increasing waistlines (the food is just too damn good!). We finally get to the entrance, pay our money and head upstairs. For the first hour, we were too entranced by this cool exhibition on the Flavian Emporers (yes Flavs, I did have a bit of a giggle about that!) to actually head outside to see the good bits! The exhibition had the history of the Flavian period and heaps of cool statues, artifacts etc that had been found in the area which helped to describe the time period! They were so freakin' old! Incredible!!!
Finally, we battled the rain to head out to check out the Colosseum itself. SOOOOO COOL! If you stopped to think about it, you could really actually imagine the animals being lifted up and down in their cages from the underground section and then some crazy dude fighting a rhino or whatever!! (Not that I'm a huge fan of the idea of killing innocent animals but I guess they didn't have much of an animal liberation movement back in those days!)
It was absolutely peeing down at the Colosseum so after we'd been suitably amazed, we decided to head to our fave restaurant for a snack and a glass of Pinot Grigio. Of course, this was a suitably lovely way to spend the afternoon and we just mooched around at the hotel eating our homebrand antipasto before we headed for dinner at another nearby restaurant (there were a few of them I tell ya!). Again, we had a great meal and I felt brave enough to try my first espresso! I'd never had a short black back home so I was a bit nervous but I AM SO HOOKED now! Even Matt had a sip and liked it! I have had about 500 more of them since then and absolutely love them! We got some gelati at the shop next door to eat on the walk home to the hotel so, all in all, it was an evening of gastronomic delights!

The Vatican

Day 2 in Roma and we decided to check out the Vatican. We were all types of proud of ourselves for working out how the Metro worked and heading in the right direction. The only annoying thing about catching the metro is that you can't move 4cms without a breast-feeding gypsy accosting you and loudly asking for money and then acting like you're an evil biyatch when you say no! If I gave 1 cent to all of the gypsies who have approached me, we'd have had to come home weeks ago!
Anyway, I digress! So we headed for the Vatican and there were convenient signposts telling us which way to head etc. Also convenient signposts telling us that, because it was a Sunday, the Sistine Chapel was closed for the day! D'oh! Well, we'll check out St Peter's Basilica anyway and see how we go!
The walk down was amusing because their were lots of African dudes selling fake designer handbags. But everytime a cop came anywhere nearby, they all had to pick up their stuff and pretend that they were just walking around with a bazillion handbags on their arms, as men obviously do in Roma! heheheheh
Heading down towards the Vatican we came across this cool little Sunday market. Lots of kitsch souveniers but also some really lovely jewellery, handbags etc. Matt bought a cool ring which he loves and it was a bargain 5euro!
We finally got to the Vatican and walked around for awhile (spinning out about how Angels & Demons/The Da Vinci Code it all was!) before joining the ever-present line to get into St Peters. HOLY DOOLIE! So worth the wait though!!!! That place is super mind-bogglingly awesome!!! I think we stayed in there for a good hour just slowly walking around and being amazed! The history of it, mixed in with the overwhelming grandeur and beauty of it all was all pretty full on but we were both so glad that we got to see it!
We went to the Vatican crypts which is where all the past popes are buried which was really interesting. Was quite sad walking past the spot where Pope John Paul II is buried because there was a huge crowd of people sitting there praying and some were crying. Always thought he seemed like a lovely man so I'm glad he gets lots of visitors. We wanted to climb up to the Cuppola for an awesome view over Roma but the line was insane so we didn't bother. We just slowly meandered back towards our hotel, stopping at the local supermarket to get some olives, cheese and salami so we could have our own, cut-price antipasto before dinner.
Dinner that evening was, as always, divine! Found a little restaurant close to the hotel because we were buggered. It was a bit touristy but we had some of the best Veal Saltimboca in the world so that made up for that!
All in all, a ripper of a day in Roma!

Bella Roma!!!!

From the UK, we headed towards Italia! We were both so excited as Rome was one of the places we both really wanted to go to and we were like little kids at Christmas on the plane on the way over! When we got to Rome we again took the Shuttle bus option from the airport and got to our hotel! OH MY GOD! SOOOOOOOOOOOOO LOVELY! Decorated with antiques and with a little chandelier around the light, it was absolutely fantastic! If you ever head to Roma, check out the Hotel Carravagio as Matt and I thought it was the bestest and it was only around $100AUD a night which is pretty good with your own bathroom, fridge and a huge room not far from the Colosseum. The first night we were there was the 31st of October so all the little Roman kiddies and their parents were out celebrating Halloween. We decided to go out for dinner and found what was to become our FAVE Roma food destination. There were only people speaking Italian there so we knew that we'd stumbled upon a local haunt (pardon the Halloween pun!) rather than a touristy place. We had the special of the day which was pork, roasted vegies and Foccacia. OH MY GOD! It was honestly the most divine foodd we'd eaten in so long! The pork was melt in your mouth good and the vegies (zuchinni, potato and eggplant) were perfectly grilled and so divine. We topped it off with a bottle of Pinot Grigio which is not normally what we would have chosen back home but is actually the nicest wine we've had on the trip so far! Thanks to the cute (older) Italian waiter for that tip! We had a really lovely meal, watching the kids and familes celebrate Halloween right near one of Rome's many fountains and it was one of my favourite nights ever! Pretty sure that's when Matt and I fell in love with Roma!!!

Back in the UK

After Prague, we flew back to London for 3 days. As we've already said, we both LOVE London and are finally able to appreciate why about 85% of our friends wanted to live there for at least some period of time! Last time, we'd stayed in Hounslow which was a bit out of the way but this time, armed with a bit more knowledge of what was where, we booked a cute little hotel in the Kengsington/Chelsea are, about 3 mins walk from the Earl's Court tube station.
There were a few things on our agenda for the UK this time and one of them, which Matt had always wanted to see, was the British Museum. As he puts it its full of "all the cool shit that Englad stole" and it really was pretty awesome. We headed towards there but, as usual, decided that we wanted to eat before we headed inside so we found a tiny outside table at a typical English pub and had a great pub lunch and a couple of pints of our much loved Bulmers Cider.
We then headed into the Museum and saw some really fantstic stuff! Their Egyptian collection is staggering and, although it seems a bit wrong to see it out of the sandy surrounds of Egypt, it was pretty cool seeing a huge collection of mummies and sarcophigi (no idea who to spell that one!!!). There were even fish, eagle and cat mummies (thought of you Flavs when I saw the cats! Glad Sam is a real cat and not a mummy!!!) and lots of artifacts from tombs. There was also an awesome collection of ancient Roman and Greek artifacts which were really cool and rooms full of random stuff that kept us entertained for hours.

The next day took us to The Tower of London. Apparently it was school holidays so it was packed with "charming" English kids (hehehhe) but we still had a great time. The line up to see the Crown Jewels looked horific but actually moved pretty fast and was worth the wait. I was mesmerized by the over the top nature of the crowns etc but what really got me was the SUPER HUGE gold punchbowl which was part of the coronation dinner ware! You could have had a swim in that puppy!!!
We really enjoyed seeing the different parts of history that had occurred in and around the Tower and even had a great (and not ridiculously priced!) meal of pie, mushy peas and mash in the cafe there. Gotta tell you, I thought the idea of mushy peas was freakin' disgusting but I'm now converted! Those things are divine!!! The Poms are onto something there!!!
Still are totally loving London and are glad we've got a couple more days there before we head home.

Prague Day 2 - WOW!!!!!!

Ok, so we did have a rocky start to our time in Prague but we are both so glad we went! Day 2 of our Czech adventure was one of the best days of our trip yet. We got up, had a great brekkie at the hotel (we both love a good full buffet brekkie but after a few, we're glad that most Europeans only have a nice light continental brekkie) and then headed off to explore! Thanks once again to the famous Uncle Dave and his magical compass, we headed in the right direction. We decided to cross the first bridge near our hotel and ended up taking a less touristy route towards the castle. This was actually pretty cool because we got to see quite a few local Czech fisherman doing their thing and one guy even caught a pretty big fish as we were walking past! Was really nice to watch someone doing something so normal for them but that was lovely for us to see!
We headed over towards the Charles Bridge in Prague which is this awesome old, heavily ornamented bridge which leads you back over the river towards the Prague Castle etc. The bridge itself was lovely but half of it was blocked off as, during non-tourist season, they do repairs and upgrades. But, there were still a few jazz bands playing away (Mumma, you would have loved it!!! I thought of you as we stopped to watch them play!) and lots of merchants selling cool jewellery and hand painted pictures of Prague scenery.
When we got to the other side of the bridge, we realised that it had been quite a few hours since we'd eaten so we stopped at cute little restaurant for a really reasonably priced lunch. The waiter was a typically Czech guy with chiselled features and the only tables left were in a whole seperate room where no one else was seated. This was kind of cool and we were able to be a bit raucous and touristy without bugging anyone! The waiter was also cool because everytime he came up to us to give us something (bread, our meal etc) he would say "yes please" which obviously meant "go ahead and eat" but it was a really cute "turn of phrase" and Matt and I had a great lunch there.
After lunch, we headed towards the Prague Castle. What they call "the castle" is actually a massive area with quite a few historic buildings and squares within it. You have to climb up about 4 billion stairs (well, it felt like that many!) to get to the top but the view was mesmerizing when you got there! Holy doolie!!!!
We pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around these historical areas and checking out the amazing castle and surrounds before heading back towards Old Town. Mum, we sent you a postcard from Prague so I hope you got it! I also hope you and Daddo get the opportunity to come here soon because its really lovely and I know you would adore it! The people are friendly, the setting is sublime and the prices are fantastic! The food is also pretty glorious!
We decided to head for a place that Uncle Dave had recommended for dinner. To be honest, we didn't really plan our route and only knew which direction we were supposted to head in so it actually took us about 1.5 hours to get there as we walked around like crazy things! But, the walking around was heaps of fun as there was lots to see and we did eventually find the restaurant! And it was certainly worth the effort! Matt had a steak that was absolutely divine and I had some of the most delish chicken I've ever encountered. The staff were really lovely and Matt coined one of the calls of the trip when he was asking the waiter for white wine to have with dinner. We didn't know the word for white in Czech (Carly, where are you when we need you! :o)) but Matt decided to say "White, you know, like me!" and pointed to his face. For some reason, this made the staff realise that we weren't American and they treated us like gold after this! We had a really lovely meal there, randomly chatting to the waiters and some local musicians that were sitting at the table next to us and dismantling what appeared to be both half a pig and an entire duck!!!
We headed towards the hotel after that and, hilariously enough, it took us about 15 minutes to walk back now that we'd oriented ourselves.
This was our only full day in Prague but we really really really enjoyed it and would recommend a minimum of 3 days in Prague to anyone who is headed for Europe. Don't miss it! It's fantastic!!

Prague Day 1, Part 2 - The Good Stuff

After we left our hotel from hell and got to the good bit of Prague, we were back to being in awe of the beauty! What a fantastic city! Everything is so old and the architecture is stunning! After our foray into the suburbs, we were pretty buggered and it was about 5pm so we just decided to explore the bit of Old Town around our hotel that evening. We went for a walk and found lots of lovely shops. There was this fantastic bookshop that had a lot of English language titles, particularly several by one of my new fave authors, Douglas Coupland, at really good prices so I picked up a couple of new books to read which was much needed!
Matt had a shot of Sambucca at an Australian bar (EW! That stuff is so foul! hehehe) and then we continued walking around through the lovely town. We found about 500 places that looked fantastic that we wanted to have dinner in and ended up not being able to decide. Thus, in typical Caz and Matt fashion, we got a take away pizza and salad and a bottle of wine and headed back to the hotel to eat! HOLY DOOLY! We weren't even in Italy yet and this pizza was better than anything we've eaten pizza-wise at home!! A nice relaxing evening to finish off what had started out as a pretty hectic day!
PS. So you think that we mention food A LOT? Well, yes! All of you that know us well know that Matt and I love our food and wine so a HUGE part of this trip for us has been sampling the local delicacies! Trust us, even on the days where all we've had the energy is go out and eat, we've had a fantastic time and this holiday has ROCKED!!!

Prague Day 1 - A City of Contrasts

Let me start by saying that two days in Prague is nowhere near enough but is most certainly better than nothing!!!!
We arrived at the airport and got in a shuttle bus thingie to go to our hotel. Did I see a faint sneer on the face of the shuttle driver when I showed him our hotel address? Surely not! Anyway, we drive from Prague airport into the city and are just stunned straight away by how utterly beautiful it is! I can see what all the fuss is about! We drop the first lot of people off at their hotel in Praha 1 (nice, right in the centre of things!). We drop the next lot of people off at Praha 3 (also nice and central!) Then we start driving.....we drive for awhile....past Praha 8, Praha 10 (for those of you who don't know, Prague is a bit like Paris in the way its central "suburbs" are numbered. The smaller the number, the closer you are to the centre of the city. I think it goes up to about Praha 12 or so). Anyway, it was then that I realised that we weren't even in numbered city sections anymore but that they had actual names instead...hmmmm....finally, we pull up to this huge dirty aqua coloured building and I'm thinking, "maybe we're picking up people for his trip back to the airport from their government subsidised housing estate?" (I know, what a snob!!!!) but, it turns out, yep you guessed it, this was our hotel. OK, so it looks a bit feral on the outside but I'm sure it will be fine! After all, I booked a room with a bathroom and the photos looked ok on the internet. I went inside to check in and it was really dark inside. The only light on in the MASSIVE lobby was a fluro over the reception desk. "Hmmm, maybe its all environmentally friendly and on sensors!" I thought to myself. But no, movement made no impact on the gloom I'm afraid! I bravely headed for the reception desk and told them we were checking in. The receptionists were nice enough and gave us our key and told us to go up in the A Block elevator to the 6th floor. We did. When we reached the 6th floor, no lights were on up there either. It was gloomy with hideous carpet and doors which all looked like people had tried to kick them in. We got into the room finally and noticed that the bathroom was a) outside our room and another room, b) kind of feral and c) clearly not just for our use! We got inside our inner door and the room had two short sheeted single beds and was really quite awful! Made most hostels look like 5 star hotels!!!
Anyway, I'd had a mad headache all day and had been looking forward to getting to the hotel, having a quick relax and feeling a bit better so we could explore. However, being 5000kms away from the city centre and in a grotty room, I just couldn't handle it broke down in tears and said to Matt "This must be where Communists go to die". Probably not the most PC thing I've ever said but it broke the mood and we laughed and decided to just find somewhere closer and nicer to stay. I spent an hour or so looking up places in the hotel lobby on the internet while Matt had a bit of a wander. Apparently there was nothing much around except another big grotty hotel and lots of graffiti! Luckily, the room had only cost $35AUD a night and we could get a refund for the second night so I found a lovely place in Praha 1 for about $60AUD a night and we got a cab and hightailed it out of there!
The new place was HEAVEN! Clean, pretty and right in the middle of old town with heaps of restaurants, shops etc around it! We'd gone from a shite-hole to awesomeness in 2 measly hours!
Alls well that ends well and it didn't cost us too much in the end to make that mistake! Since then, I've been much more careful about checking the location and reviews of places we've booked!!!!

Dublin

Thank goodness Brad and Nicki came to Dublin with us! Not only did Nicki find a cheap as chips hotel that was awesome, but we had such a limited amount of time that they were able to show us all the best sites without us getting lost in between etc. (They used to live in Dublin so know what they're talking about!)
They took us to Trinity College which is just gorgeous, the Dublin Castle which is very impressive (remind us to tell you the story of the Justice Statue if you don't know it already!), to The Temple Bar in Temple Bar for an Irish Coffee and then to another pub for some drinks. We had traditional Irish Boxty for dinner that night (yummy potato pancake thingies with various fillings) which was ridiculously divine. A really lovely town and one that we'd definitely visit again! We said goodbye to Brad and Nicki that night and then headed, very early the next morning, to Prague!!!

Limerick!

Well, we drove to Limerick to stay for a couple of nights with our friends, Brad and Nicki. Limerick is another uni town but it has been hit REALLY hard by the global financial crisis and there were lots and lots and lots of people out of work. However, a really lovely town! Brad and Nicki have a great apartment which overlooks the river and has the most awesome view!! I will upload photos later! Their apartment was super schmick and right in the centre of town which was great. When Brad got home from work on the first night, we went to a pub where you can sit at tables that have their own Guiness and beer taps. Basically, you become your own beer wenches for the night! So much fun! Brad and Nicki taught us how to pour Guiness properly and Carlsberg beer! You basically just drink what you want and settle your bill at the end of the night. Some friends of Brad's from work joined us and we had a really gret evening! We went back to the apartment for fruit cider and chatting and had a great time!
The next morning, we slept in a bit and then all walked down to the Milk Market. This is basically a market that sells mainly fresh produce but other stuff as well. One of the main features (and the reason we went!!) is the pig on a spit that they roast every week! We got what Nicki calls a "piggy roll" which was divine! Fresh cooked pork, stuffing and apple sauce and honey mustard sauce for me (chilli sauce instead for Matt) all wrapped up in a tortilla! SO DIVINE!! We then headed to a tiny little Irish pub to have yummy Hoegaarden beer out of ridiculously big glasses! It was pouring rain so walking around was an adventure but I did buy a cute green dress as my Ireland souvenier!!
Nicki and Brad cooked us a delish dinner of curry that night and were so jealous that we were heading back to Dublin the next day that they decided to join us!

Omagh and Galway.

The next few days in Ireland were pretty lazy as poor Mattie got sick again and had to stay in bed for a couple of days. We made it as far as Omagh after visiting the Giant's Causeway and stopped for the night. Then it was onto Galway for 2 nights for Mattie to recover. The big plan out of Galway had been to visit Kylemore Abbey because Trace had said how amazing it was and I'd researched it and was so keen! Unfortunately, poor Mattie was really quite sick with fevers and vomiting so Galway was more like two days of recuperating. All good though! Just means we'll have to come back to Ireland in a couple of years time to check out the things we missed! Suits me just fine!
Galway is a lovely University town situated on Galway Bay which is really quite lovely. I got the chance to explore the city centre while Matt was snoozing and had a good time checking out the shops and the surrounds. The next day, we took Mattie to the doctor which was really not a bad experience! The receptionist at our hotel booked the appointment for Matt, it was a 5 min drive from our hotel, it didn't cost the earth (50 euros which I thought was ok for foreigners!) and the doctor was this extremely attractive Irish guy called Sean who had the loveliest accent! Also, he reassured us that Matt didn't have swine flu and wasn't about to kark it and gave him a script for antibiotics which would ultimately make him heaps better in no time! YAY!
We left Galway that day and headed for Limerick to visit our friends, Brad and Nicki! Small town is Limerick but a grea time was had by all!!!!

The Giant's Causeway

After we left Derry, we headed right up to the north of Northern Ireland to check out the Giant's Causeway. Thanks so much for suggesting it Trace! We were blown away! Such a dramatic coastline with some really wonderful rock formations (I'll stick in some piccies as its all a bit too hard to explain!), cliffs and the best ocean view ever!! You can catch a bus down to the end of the road (where all the cool stuff is) or you can walk, so we decided to walk and were very glad that we did! The air was so fresh and we kept stopping to look at things or listen to freaky sounding birds! It was awesome! Probably one of the steepest slopes I've had to walk down (or back up for that matter!!!!) but worth the effort!
The story of the causeway, for those of you who don't know, is actually really interesting and involves a giant named Finn McCool and a pretty clever act of trickery on the part of his wife! If you're interested in reading more, check out http://www.giantscausewayofficialguide.com/AbouttheCauseway/OnceUponAtime/tabid/79/Default.aspx
because the experts can explain it a lot better than I can! Its a really cool story!!
We spent a lovely afternoon walking around and then drove to Omagh (still Northern Ireland) to basically spend the night. Mattie had started feeling a bit sick again unfortunately so it was the start of a couple of lazy days were we just used the time to rest and recuperate in the beautiful surroundings of Galway Bay!

The Emerald Isle!

From London we moved onto.......IRELAND! Flew into Dublin and spent the evening there, just looking mooching around and having a pint in the local pub. It was a Sunday and, apparently, people in Europe actually do the old school "nothing's open and there's nothing to do" on a Sunday so there wasn't much to be done in our immediate area! We checked out our local discount supermarket and thus began my shameful addiction to trashy English magazines. We're talking the UK equivalents of Take 5 and That's Life. I absolutely love them! "True stories" about "real people"!!!! I'm an addict. (Am also sadly addicted to bad English soaps such as Emmerdale, Hollyoaks and Eastenders! But that's probably not so much of a surprise to all of you who know how much I love Neighbours and Home and Away!!!) I always think of Matt's dad, John, when I'm reading trashy mags as he was always "envious" of my Who magazines etc when Mattie was in hospital a few years ago!!

Next, we went to Derry (or Londonderry, depending on which side of the border you're from!) which is a really intersting town in Northern Ireland. There is a lot of history in this one little town. Originally, hundreds of years ago, some high powered head honcho dude built a big wall around the inner city and so Derry is still one of the best existing examples of a European walled city today. It was cool walking around the walls, checking out the cannon posts and stuff.

Derry is also one of the places where there was a lot of IRA activity back in the day so there is quite a history of violence in the area. We saw monuments which had been erected in memory of IRA members who had died in active duty in the area as well as the famous "You Are Now Entering Free Derry" sign.

Derry is also where the Bloody Sunday Massacre took place where several protesters were killed by the English Army. We saw the Bloody Sunday monument which was quite confronting and really made us take a step back and think about how lucky we have been in our own lives. The violence which occurred took place not that long before Matt and I were born so it really hit home that so many ordinary people were placed into such an extraordinary situation.

All in all, I would recommend a trip to Derry if you're in Northern Ireland/Ireland. Lots of history and really quite a lovely city.

Lunch with Vinnie and Lisa's Family.

Our third day in London saw us heading over to visit our friends, Vinnie and Lisa for lunch. For those of you who don't know Vinnie and Lisa, they have 5 kids (4 from Lisa's first marriage who Vinnie recently adopted and one baby together) and three of them, Nick, Belle and Charlie, were there for lunch. Nick and Belle are AWESOME kids. So much personality and fun to talk to and little 18 month old Charlie is a super cutie! Vinnie has known Matt for years and years but has been living in the UK for a number of years so we were really stoked to be able to go over to their house and see some friendly, familiar faces. They cooked up a feast for us of delish stew, homemade bread and vegies, accompanied by some lovely red for me and Lisa and a few beers for the (adult) boys.
The afternoon and evening were spent chatting happily and Vinnie even built a fire in the evening so we could hang out in the lounge room. Belle and Nick (who are only 7 and 9) played guitar and sang for us which was great. They both take part in a "School of Rock" which Lisa helps to teach as a vocal coach and they were really talented!
We had a wonderful day with them and, as a bonus, were able to use their washing machine and dryer to take care of our mound of dirty clothes!
We'll catch up with Vinnie and Lisa again when we're back in the UK and it looks like we've timed it perfectly to catch Lisa's band play a gig on the 20th of November! YAY!

Caz's Rather Random Europe Observations: Part 1

• People drink beer at ALL times of the day! Feel like a beer with your brekkie? No worries! You can even pick one up from your local service station when you buy your petrol!
• German people like to wear leather! Lots of leather jackets, many of which were really lovely. However, also a disturbing number of leather skirts and pants (particularly on people who may not realise that leather is not the most forgiving of fabric!) which was not quite as encouraging!
• ALL chicks over here wear boots! Am so jealous as I didn't have room to pack my boots and am missing them!
• Clothes and shoe shops here are AWESOME! Thank god I only have a limited amount of space and have to lug everything I buy around, otherwise Matt and I would be out of money already! hehehe
• We pay way too much for EVERYTHING in Australia. Even after doing the conversion to Aussie dollars, many things like food and drink and toiletries are still way cheaper in Europe!!!
• Grass is, apparently, meant to be green and not that sort of dead brownish colour we're used to! ;o)
• Irish accents are SO fantastic!

The Queen's house looks a bit grubby.......

Day two in London and we catch the tube into Piccadilly Circus, feeling like absolute public transport gurus now!! After getting our first glimpse of the London city (so cool! Quite reminiscent of Sydney! Who would have thought?! ;o) )

We decided to head straight into tourist mode so bought a map and headed to Buckingham Palace. Once there, we discovered that we'd missed the changing of the guards by about an hour but amused ourselves by watching the army dudes marching around in the front yard. Huge big building but it actually looked a bit grey and dirty in real life! Ah well! The beautiful park across the road more than made up for that!

Next we decided to head towards Wesminster Abbey, taking in the oh-so-London sights as we walked in that direction. When we got to the Abbey, we couldn't decide if we wanted to pay the admission fee or not. So being a bit tight, we headed next door to St Margaret's which had free admission. Now, I'm such that the Abbey is just amazing (and we may go back and pay the fee for a squizz in a couple of weeks when we're back in London) but St Margaret's was staggering enough! So old and so much history! Beautiful stained glass and so many stories on the memorial stones around the walls! We loved it!!

Next, we decided just to wander towards the London Eye, trying to decide if we wanted to go on it that day. We didn't end up going for a ride but did love the walk past it and the aquarium, film museum etc. Then it was back across the Jubilee Bridge to find some food in the city. We ended up finding Trafalgar Square and Pall Mall (feels so much like Monopoly!) and loved just walking through all these places we'd only heard of before! It was about 4pm and we were starving so we got some delish sambos from one of our new fave (cheap!) places, Pret a Manger (or something like that!) and decided to head back on the tube before it got too crazy with commuters! We'll save the Tower of London, the bridge and the British Museum for next time!

You're where?! In England?!

So, we rock up to Berlin Schonenfeld airport to catch our flight to Paris, check in, get to the boarding gate and then hear "The EasyJet flight to Paris Orly has been postponed until 12 noon". Ok, slightly annoying as we'd dragged our butts out of bed nice and early to make the flight but not the end of the world. We'll just read our books while we wait......Twenty minutes later "The EasyJet flight to Paris Orly has been cancelled". Bollocks! Thus begins our wonderful day spent in the Berlin airport! First, we had to try and find our bags with(out) much help of the "extremely helpful" airport staff. Then we had to wait in line with every other bugger from the flight to try and rebook! Turns out the flight was cancelled because EasyJet were having a dispute with their ground staff in Paris and were witholding their pay. Needless to say, the ground staff went on strike so they couldn't guarantee that any Paris flights would leave Berlin that day or even that week! *Sigh* Not wanting to go through the same thing again the next day, we decided that bugger it, we'd go to London instead! So we booked ourselves on the flight the next morning, used the airport wireless internet and Jo and John's awesome little computer to book another night's accommodation in Berlin and headed back to the city on the bus.

We were a bit confused as to where our hotel was so we ended up getting a cab to the hotel from Alexanderplatz. Turned out to be an awesome decision as the cab driver took us through a route where we went past the last remaning section of the wall, checkpoint Charlie and a few other things we hadn't had time to see the day before! He was also a wonderful English speaker and quite the tour guide so it was a great cab trip!

So, the next day, our London adventures began! Got to the UK with no hassles (although, the chick at immigration asked me about 5 billion questions while Matt got straight through! I must look dodgy or something!!!) I had booked us a hotel in Hounslow, knowing it was a fair bit out of the city but not knowing what was close etc, so we headed towards there. I was a bit excited because that is where the movie "Bend it Like Beckham" is set so I felt a bit cool going there! Hehehehe we just walked around the shops at Hounslow that arvo and I bought a new hoodie because Berlin had been freakin' freezing and my jumpers had not proved adequately warm! We found a pub up the road and had dinner there from their amazing Indian menu that night. The fact that lots of Indian people were eating there seemed like a good indication that the food might be ok and we weren't disappointed!!

Next blog: London day 2 and 3!!!

PS Picture up top is a sign from Berlin airport. Being the total grownups that we are, Matt and I cacked ourselves the first time we saw this type of sign and continued to do so on our drive through Germany! I think it means "exit".

Berlin

Hey party people! After Munich, we drove to Berlin. Poor Matt was starting to get what would turn out to be a pretty bad flu so it was my turn to try driving on the wrong side of the road! After almost crashing into the barrier on the way out of the service station (in my defence, the hire car was about 200 times bigger than my Mazda!) and a bit of getting used to it all, I felt fine driving on the autobahn (got up to 170 at one stage which didn't even feel freaky! Mum, please ignore that bit and don't freak out!!). We arrived in Berlin and settled into the hostel that Matt's Uncle Dave had recommended. It was HUGE and right near some restaurants etc so that was very handy. We went and had some divine pizza that night and then the next two days were pretty much spent doing nothing as poor Mattie was sick as a dog and couldn't do much but sleep! We decided to stay 2 more nights in Berlin so we could actually see the place but the hostel was fully booked (except for dorm rooms and we felt a bit old and crusty for those!) so we moved to a hotel in a different area which was really lovely. It was across the road from this restaurant called Caruso's where you could get a salad and pizza lunch foor 5.50 euros. Pretty good deal we thought and then we saw the size of the pizzas! Literally about twice as big as a Dominos pizza but a really lovely thin crust so you could eat a fair bit without feeling like a piggy!

The next day we booked in for this awesome adventure......A SEGWAY TOUR OF BERLIN! Oh my god! So much fun!!! We had to learn how to use the segway first which was pretty funny and then we had this awesome chick from Manchester taking us around Berlin for a couple of hours. We saw lots of famous places and monuments including the Brandenburg Gate and the Jewish Monument. It was ridiculously cold (probably about 8 degrees but with mega windchill) so by the end of it, we couldn't feel our fingers or toes but it was so much fun!!

Then, then plan for the next day was to head to Paris but things were not to go as planned..........

CASTLEMANIA!!

Sorry for the delay in getting these stories to you guys! So, on the way from Stuttgart to Munich, we stopped in for a look at Neuschwanstein Castle just near the German/Austrian border. This was on the advice of our friends, Emmanuelle and Annika and all we can say is "THANK YOU!!!". Great advice Manu and Pan! We loved it! As soon as we parked in the carpark at the bottom of the hill, we were totally captivated! We took a bus up to the castle coz we were too buggered to walk and then had to wait about 30 mins in the pleasant misty rain taking in the view before our tour started. As per the pictures attached, the setting is just breathtaking! Then the castle itself was just amazing! So sad that it was never completed as the guy who commissioned it, King Ludwig, died in a mysterious drowning accident near Munich before it was finished and then his family put the kibosh on its completion. The interior rooms that were completed are absolutely stunning! So ornate and grand! You aren't allowed to take photos inside but we got a postcard book of piccies if anyone is interested in having a look. The castle even has an indoor fake cave! King Ludwig was a special dude!!!!

After finishing the castle tour, we continued back towards Munich for the night. Lovely city but we were buggered so just ended up having dinner in the restaurant at the bottom of our hotel (which was great thankfully!). After Munich, we were headed for Berlin which is the next blog!

PS. Coolest thing about driving from Stuttgart to the castle? We had to drive through Austria for about 5 mins! So we've officially been to Austria too! hehehe