| Gubbio & Assisi |
[May. 14th, 2006|07:26 am] |
After Venice we caught a series of trains South to a little medievel town called Gubbio. This section of Italy we are doing is the Umbrian region. Gubbio, like many of the other cities of this vintage is a walled, medievel town. It has great restaurants and a cool atmosphere. This week they are preparing for a big festival for which tens of thousands of people flock to, so there was a good buzz about the place. We took a strange cable car to the top of the mountain that overlooks the area. It's like a birdcage that only 2 people get in and if you're not quick enough jumping in you could easily get left behind. Up there is a very old church which contains the remains of Saint Ubaldo. He is inside a glass coffin so you can see him and he is amazingly preserved, not a skeleton. I've never seen a dead body before and this one is over 800 years old. Very wierd indeed.
The Umbrian region is famous for Truffles, so there's truffle gnocchi, truffle spaghetti, trufle lasagna... you get the picture. We have taken it quite easy on this final leg of the trip, which is a nice pace. Just plodding along eating, drinking and enjoying the scenery. Gubbio also has a Roman amphitheatre which I got some nice pics of.
Likewise with Gubbio, Assisi is a small medievel town, further South towards Rome, and likewise we pretty much ate and drank and enjoyed the countryside. We had an awesome wine tasting and degustation day in a town called Spello, just outside Assisi. Here we sampled the wines and some bruschetta, olive oils and a 35 year old balsamic vinegar. Very nice but at 120Euro for a 100ml bottle I think we'll pass. We've been travelling with a small group. A Canadian, a kiwi and 2 Aussies. Very nice people and we have really enjoyed the small group and easy pace of this bit. It's been a good way to wind down before our trip hoime on Tuesday.
We are now in Rome and have hooked up with Andy Djemal and his mate Tony for a few days of sight seeing and, I guess, more eating and drinking. We've seen a lot of Rome by foot and now we'll head of to the Pantheon and Spanish steps for some day time photos.
So that would be it I guess. Heading back to Sydney on Tuesday night. Oh joy... |
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| Lake Como - Venice |
[May. 8th, 2006|05:38 pm] |
After a couple of nights in Asti (not a lot going on there. Mainly a stop to break up the journey) we arrived in Milan where we spent the rest of the day eating and visiting a photography exhibition of Helmut Newton. It was pretty good stuff. There are so many things to inspire taking photos over here. Then it was on to Lake Como. From here we caught a bus heading North up along the lake to a wonderful little village called Cadenabbia. So picturesque. Our little hotel was right on the lake and we scored a great room with a balcony looking out over to Bellagio and beyond to the snow capped mountains. Just amazing. We took the local ferries to the neighbouring villages the next day... Bellagio, Menaggio and Veranna. All had their own little sub culture and style. The mountains plunge right into the lake quite steeply with little churches and towns perched way up high from hundreds of years ago when the villages were based up in the mountains. Our hotel had a great little restaurant and pizzeria so we all ate there on both nights. We were sad to leave lake como as it meant that our first Intrepid tour was coming to an end.
We got into Venice in the afternoon and got straight onto a boat and headed for St Marc's Square and Basilica. Great weather for the afternoon so a few photos were taken here. I've been to Venice before but not really spent much time, so it's good to have a solid few days staying in the thick of it. The first night we met our next Intrepid group. A small one of only 6 people in total! Awesome. It's like travelling with a bunch of mates really. Day 2 we hung out with our new group and went back to St Marc's and then on to the Guggenheim art museum for a look at some Picasso's, Dali's and Pollock's. Personally I'm not a fan of Pollock, but there were some great works on display as well as a photo exhibition.
We have said goodbye to our fellow travellers and next head south to Gubbio and Assisi for some more foody highlights I'm told! |
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| Cinque Terre |
[May. 3rd, 2006|10:47 am] |
Well it turns out that the next destination was the stretch of coast in the North of Italy known as the "Cinque Terre". It's an amazing stretch of coast with 5 seaside towns scattered along it. It has beautiful clear blue water with steep hills/cliffs coming down into it. The towns are amazing to look at and perched on the side of the cliffs. They are connected by a walking track, trains and ferries. It's extremely popular for the hiking along the coast. You can hike between all 5 villages, or mix and match as we did. Walking the first half and on the train between towns for the 2nd half. It's definitely another big high light of this entire trip. We had great weather for it and I am getting a bit of a tan happening now after all this outdoor activity. As you could imagine it's great for photography too with all the landscapes and towns to look at. It's now a Unesco world heritage listed national park, so it should stay this way for a long time to come, which is great.
We are staying in a quaint little hotel called Hotel Europa in a town called Levanto which is a beautiful little seaside town with a beach and more great views along the coast. I have to say that the food in Italy has also been the best of the trip. With the chance to taste many local, specialised dishes that are totally new to us. They don't seem to appear on any menus back home. I'm going pretty good with the language as well. It's got a lot of similarities to Spanish. French was the hard one for me.
We've had two days here and loved it. We catch the train to Asti today and then onto Milan and the lakes. |
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| Lucca |
[Apr. 30th, 2006|10:56 am] |
We've travelled a short train ride to Lucca and have a 3 night stay here. It's been a week now on this Italian Intrepid tour and I can safely say that it's hands-down the best style of tour I've ever done. The pace and places we stay are just great.
Lucca is another "walled city" and we are staying in great privately owned apartments in the centre of town. It has narrow, cobble stoned streets full of wine bars, deli's, pizzerias, cafes and restaurants. We just love it. Yesterday about 9 of us hired bikes and rode around the walls of the town and then out into the Tuscan country side and followed the river for about 25kms. Absolutely a highlight of the entire trip. The scenery and atmosphere was fantastic. It started raining on the way back to town, but it didn't bother anyone. In fact it just added to the experience to be honest. Then we hit town and had to dodge traffic and some crazy intersections for a little bit before getting back to the bike shop, but we made it.
Of course there has been more Tuscan food on offer! After the bike ride we all chipped in and got an awesome spread for lunch at one of the apartments. Salami's, bread, olive oil, cheeses and so on... you get the picture. So we down that with some wine and had a great afternoon as well. Today Simone is off looking at the leaning tower of Pisa. I sat it out as I've seen it before and I want to explore Lucca some more. I did however get locked inside the apartment after they left this morning and had to sing out to the street below until someone woud understand me. I tossed the keys down and they came and set me free. Took a while though and was bloody frustrating.
Tonight it's a Puccini concert in town. I'm not a fan of Opera but will go along and socialise with the group. Then we head off again tomorrow. Not sure where to yet, but will surely post something from there. Might be lake Como. |
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| Firenze |
[Apr. 28th, 2006|11:49 am] |
So we've been in Florence the past two days and really enjoying the pace. So far this tour is turning out to be a really good way to travel. The smaller group and flexibility of the itinerary is awesome. It's an intrepid tour and we don't have a "tour guide" as such, more of a group leader who just kind of helps out with things like transport and museum bookings and local advice etc. So we don't have a bus or anything like the other tours. We just get from city to city by Eurostar train. Not very long travel days either. Only 2 or 3 hours on the train rather than the 6 to 8 hour bus trips. Much nicer.
So the accommodation is different from the other tours as well. More family run little hotels and homestays etc. But it has been right in the middle of town, great locations. We've been dining at the local restaurants and having the dishes unique to the Tuscan region and Florence. Some great new dishes that we had never tried before such as "Mostardo" which is wedges of peccorino cheese with a hot chili jam-jelly salsa to put on it. Just awesome. Simone has already tracked down some jars of it for us to have when we get home. Another dish is "Ribollita". This is a Vege soup/stew kind of thing with bread mushed through it. It's difficult to describe but tastes wonderful! I will surely be making that one when I get back to Oz.
Yesterday we went to the Boboli Gardens in the morning for some panoramic views of the city and it's famous "Duomo" cathedral. (We are staying right at the Duomo). Then we went to the Academia Museum to see some of Michelangelo's sculptures with the centre piece being his "David". It has recently been cleaned for the first time ever and it is in pristine condition with the detail just amazing. We all just sat and looked at it for ages. Awesome.
Last night we all enjoyed another Tuscan dinner and then headed to our roof top terrace for some wine and sat and drank admiring the great views of the city while we chatted away.
Now we are off to Lucca for 3 days, don't know what to expect from there as I've never heard of it before but it is still in Tuscany. There we will be doing some bike riding, wine tasting and a pesto class. Hopefully in that order. |
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| Roma |
[Apr. 25th, 2006|06:01 pm] |
Well our first day in Rome was interesting. We landed at the airport only to find the trains into Rome weren't running... replaced by buses. So we bought tickets for the bus at 9 Euro a pop and loaded our own bags onto the bus storage. No one checked anyones tickets, we shouldn't have bothered buying one. So then we're barreling down the freeway at about 120km when Simone noticed that the luggage hatch sprung open and the bags started falling out onto the freeway with cars swerving all over the place to avoid them! Luckilly no one was killed. Then the driver pulled over, got out and went back to get the bags off the road. He managed to get all of them without getting hit. We were thankful that our bags weren't on the road, they didn't fall out.
Then we got to our hotel and we were knackered, so we went to have a sleep in our room. It was then that we discovered our room was right next to the elevator shaft and it was experiencing problems and causing so much noise everytime it moved. So after many complaints by Simone to the staff. She threw a bit of a tanty... and investing in some ear plugs we had our first nights rest... kind of.
On a better note, after Simone's tanty we have moved rooms and they sent a maintenance guy to fix the lift. We have now met our latest tour group too. It's an interpid tour so there is only a maximum of 12 people on it. They are a great bunch and our tour leader is excellent. Simone has already bonded with her as she is a food nut as well. It sounds like we're in for some good food on this trip. There are 10 Aussies and 2 americans from Seattle. They've had a bit of a bad start to things. He was sick for the first day and today she had her bag slashed and wallet stolen on the subway without anyone noticing! Sucks big time. She didn't notice until we got to the vatican.
Today we went to the Vatican and saw the Sistine Chapel and St Peters Basilica. Crowded as all get out! But this is shaping up to be a great journey. Tomorrow we head to Florence for a few days. It will be nice to get out of the chaos of such a big city for a while. |
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| Summer, Malta |
[Apr. 22nd, 2006|02:08 pm] |
Well today i the last day in Sunny Malta and it has been just like an Aussie summer really. Glorious warm weather... and it's only spring. Apparantly this is the best time of year to visit as summer is just too hot. A few quick facts about Malta: It was the world's first christian nation (40AD), it has ruins that pre-date the pyramids and stonhenge by a thousand years, didn't know that. And the food is absolutely awesome, up there with the best quality we've had anywhere in Europe.
We have been using the public transport system since we've been here and I must say that it's great. Again, cheap and easy. I can't help but compare it to Sydney all the time and wonder what tourists must think when they have to get from A to B in Sydney and want to do it chep and easy. No chance. So we've visited the capital Valetta and it was great. Visited the war museum, fortresses and harbour there.
Lots of movies get filmed here as it looks a lot like other places. It can be North Africa, Italy, Israel or many places in the middle east, as well as a mediterranean paradise. So it's no wonder that they film here, it's safe, clean, cheap and an english speaking nation... must be so much easier. So I'll have to watch Gladiator, Troy, Munich and a few others when I get back and try to pick the locations.
We also visited Mdina, the ancient capital and walled city in the middle of Malta. This was very cool and had fantastic views from the castle walls all around. We stopped there for some drinks and to soak it up a bit which was nice. They call it the silent city. It has narrrow winding streets that no traffic can fit in and it also dissipates the noise so it's very peaceful there.
Yesterday we took a bus to the northern most point of the island and then a ferry to the island of Gozo. From here we hired a car and drove around Gozo for a day. It's a very beautifu place too. Much smaller.. only about 8 by 6 kms or something. It's got a greener, leafier landscape and has the ancient ruins from 3000BC as well as a great Citadel atop a hill in the capital, Victoria, with great views of the whole island.
It's fun to be in a place that seamingly has prices from the 1970's. Quite nostalgic.
Coffee - 25c
Bus trip - 20c
Beer - 50c
Postcard 5c
Large Pizza 2.50
Rental car 10.00
But you have to remember that everything is x4 to get the Aussie dollar equivalent. Even then it's very cheap. So today we went to Sliemma and strolled the promenade back to Paceville where we are staying. Now it's home to pack and head to Rome tomorrow quite early. |
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| Paris - Malta |
[Apr. 19th, 2006|10:56 am] |
After Cannes we journeyed North to Paris for the final few days of our tour where we visited the museums and things that we didn't get to do before. Not without it's share of dramas though. When our coach was ready to leave the louvre from the car park underneath we got stuck behind a bus and couldn't get out. The reason being this absolute nut case of a coach driver in front was refusing to pay for the parking garage! He said he was only dropping passengers off and didn't park. So this went on for well over an hour and the cops were called to remove him. Meanwhile dozens of buses were all stuck behind us as he had blocked the exit for everyone, whith hundreds of people stuck there. Everyone wanted to punch him out. And then we found out that it was over only 10Euros!!! He wouldn't pay the ten bucks, nor would he accept it if anyone else paid it. It was the principal of the thing. What a knob!
So anyway, we met up with Belinda and Claire while we were in Paris and had a great time. We used the Paris Metro Subway system a lot. It is so good. Cheap, safe and reliable. Very easy for anyone to get anywhere in the city. On our last day we went up the Eiffel tower for the great views of the city. Just a massive wait in queue after queue to get up and down it in stages. It was Easter weekend so probably a lot of people on holidays. One highlight of Paris was going into Notre Dame Cathedral. I had been in there before but this time we got to go in on Easter Sunday during the mass that was on. Absolutely fantastic to see and hear it in full swing. Beautiful choir, gregorian chants, the organ and the priest giving the service. Loads of candles and just an amazing atmosphere. All the cathedrals we've been in have been empty and quiet so it was good to see one being used for what it was designed for.
On the last night of the tour in Paris we were having a quiet drink with Belinda and Claire in our room unril about 11pm when the rest of the group arrived back to the hotel after a pissy farewell dinner. They found there way to our room and so began an almighty room party which I'm sure could have been heard from the other end of the city. These guys were all quite reserved during the tour and not really many drunk nights to speak of, but they were all cutting loose on the last night. Wine and crap spilled everywhere, about 20 people crammed in, a bit of wrestling and a lot of Aussie, Aussie , Aussie!
I absoluetly loved it! Quite partial to a party. Not sure if Simone, Belinda and Claire felt the same, but then again... they were sober. But all in all we made some great friends on this tour who we will be sure to keep in touch with.
We are now in Malta. We arrived yesterday and made our way to the Dragonara Resort which is just amazing and situated right on the sea with glorious views from our room. Very luxurious and this is our rest time before we hit Italy next week for the final leg of our journey. We are staying in the party area of Malta called Paceville. Right in the middle of all the pubs, clubs, cafe's and restaurants. Fantastic place. There is a music festival on all this week where they have live bands playing 24 hours a day for 7 days so it should be fun times. It's so much easier here as English is the official language. Even though there is also the Maltese language, everything like signs, menus etc is in English, which makes it a little quiker to figure things out. It's also very cheap here. Especially compared to Paris! I just had an English Brekky for 1 lira ($4 AUS), beer is about 0.60 Lira! so everything's about a third of the price compared to Australia it seems... or less!
We're heading into the capital, Valetta now to visit the war museum and do a walking tour. We will also be going to Gozo in a few days, which is where Simone's Gran is from. |
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| Sunny Cannes |
[Apr. 13th, 2006|12:51 pm] |
Well, we are now way down the South of France in Cannes and it's just glorious weather. A little taste of Summer, which is great. Before we got hear we came through Roccamadour, Carcasson, The Dordogne Vally and Avignon. All of which were amazing places. The medieval cities each have their own flavour and history so it's not monotonous. We also visited "Arles" where Vincent Van Gogh did some of his work. We got to have coffe in one of the cafe's featured in his paintings from well over a hundred years ago. Very cool indeed. We've been getting to know the tour group a bit more and they're a great bunch. There's always a few charachters though. We have an old bastard from Massachusetts(spelling??) who's a piece of work. 78 years old and quite cheeky with the 20 something year old ladies.
3 people on the tour all got food poisoning from one of the restaurants a few nights ago and the following day was a massive travel day on the bus. So they had to put up with spewing and bum gravy all day with only the toilet on the bus. What a nightmare for them! If anyone was going to have a bout of arse piss on the bus I would've thought it would be me... imodium is at the ready!!!
Last night we had a Lebanese feast at a local restaurant with an american girl named Linda, after downing that and a couple of bottles of red we went back to the hotel for some more drinks with the group. Everyone livens up after a few bevvies. I have no idea what the wine is over here but so far its all been good. I did see one brand at the bottle-o called "Pisse Dru" and was tempted to get that one, but when a drink is named after what it does to you, rather than what it is, it's probably not good quality.
Today we've been strolling the beach at Cannes and checking out the luxury boats at the marina, near where they have the film festival. What on earth does it take to get one of those? You can rent them out actually. I thought of having a whip 'round to see if anyone on tour was interested but the price of the 78 metre baby would be astronomical. I could probably afford the 16ft dinghy but you don't get your own personnal skipper with that one, so bugger it. I'll hire the peddle boats for 2 euros, get a 6 pack of Heini's and hoof it to St Tropez. |
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| Oh Bor-deaux is a claret... |
[Apr. 10th, 2006|12:56 pm] |
Okay, so it's been a bit quiet on the blog front. It's been difficult to get to the internet in France. We have started our Grand tour of France and it's just awesome. Many more youngsters on this trip, but still a varied age group. We've been making some great friends along the way. I'm really enjoying the amount of time we have in each country. We are seeing soooo much. So far since leaving Paris we have visited loads of Medieval towns, castles and chateaus. When I think of medieval I think of England. Didn't realise they had so much of it over here. So we visited where Joan of Arc burned at the stake as well as Leonardo Da Vinci's grave and the castle where he is buried. Many highlights so far including the Normandy beaches of the allied invasion in WW2. Such a historic place with so many stories. We visited all the significant points of the operation, including Omaha and Utah beaches and the American cemetary. Very interesting indeed. We have also been visiting places where they make wine, chanpagne and cognac and enjoying the samples along the way. Very educational info about the booze making. It never ceases to amaze me how much effort the human race goes to in order to get drunk. But, glad they made the effort.
Today we are in a medieval town called Sarlat after leaving Bordeaux this morning and now it's on to Toulouse for the night.
Alright better be off. |
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| San Sebastian to Paris |
[Apr. 3rd, 2006|12:32 pm] |
San Sebastian is a gorgeous resort town in the north of Spain on the atlantic side. Contrary to Kempy's post we are actually here and I'm not "blogging out my arse" as you so eloquently put it Kempy. We stayed in what the lonely planet decribed as the best hotel in town... hands down. And it was actually very nice. We stayed absolute beach front and have done quite a bit of walking around... loads of exercise which is great. We took a trip up the seaside mountain on the funicular for some amazing views of the coast and town. So many places in Spain worth coming back to. They are Rugby nuts here and there was a big game on, so all the fans from the neighbouring towns have flocked in to spread beer fuelled mayhem and have a party, so it's quite a good atmosphere.
After a short couple of nights in San Sebastian we caught the very fast train, TGV or as I like to call it, the FFT, North to Paris. Damn it was fast, quite a nice journey in fact. We had a few hiccups with the whole Eurail pass thing and it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. And quite expensive. Air travel was actually cheaper. So anyway we arrived in paris and were staying at a hotel a few tube stops from the centre of town, so a little further out than we had been staying. The hotel was situated above the world's largest science and technology museum. So when you come to Paris what to you do? Visit the Louvre, the eiffel tower etc etc... No, not us. We went to the Star Wars exhibition at the science museum. Awesome exhibit with guff from all 6 movies. Some very cool stuff. It's quite lucky actually, this day the Louvre was closed, as well as the next biggest art museum in Paris, as well as the eiffel tower! Lot's of strikes and industrial action going on. Quite a pain in the arse though. But we have 3 days in Paris at the end of our France tour so we hope to do all that stuff then. We did get to go up the Arc de Triomph though, so we did that and wandered the Champs Ellysee too.
Thanks to those who are reading and posting comments. Keep 'em coming.
Next is the big tour of France! |
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| Tweest & Shout and Chicks with dicks |
[Apr. 1st, 2006|10:14 am] |
Still in Barcelona, but just about to catch a train up to San Sebastian... a long 8 hour trip. Thankfully I have the iPod to help with boredom. The last couple of nights we've been out and about with Denise Mackay checking out the bars and we thought we'd try some local live music. It was a blues night at the London Tavern and a spanish band were playing Beatles covers. One of the more memorable songs was "Tweest and Shout", very amusing with the Spanish accent I must say. On our way home we have to go down some of the more colourful streets of Barcelona and after walking past a hooker we kind of looked at each other because something was a miss... It was confirmed on the next corner though when about 6 hookers were standing around, all of them men, dressed as women. I can't imagine the surprise a drunk tourist would have after stumbling out of a pub looking for some company, getting them home... drop trou.. and there's ya surprise! Very interesting.
We walked around the waterfront yesterday and checked out all the luxury motor yachts parked there. There was an Aussie one called Ilona and it was massive! We asked Meester Google who owned it and it is Frank Lowy, the Westfields guy. Awesome boat with it's own helicopter to boot. We also went to the Sagrada Familia, the famous Gaudi Cathedral that has never been completed. This looks amazing from the outside so we forked out the 8 Euros each to see what it was like inside, only to discover that it's a construction sight with absolutely nothing but scaffolding to look at. A total jip! They expect to be finished in another 20 years so maybe I'll see it then.
We had a great dinner last night at a funky little cafe/bar/restaurant in the El Raval part of town. Lot's of wine and good food. As a side note I have noticed that many of the bars etc have quite rickety chairs, or they are already busted. This seems to be across the board. Funny how they can make a church stand for 800 years but a solid piece of furniture (muebles) is quite difficult to come by.
So we'll let you know about San Sebastian next. |
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| Barthelona |
[Mar. 30th, 2006|04:57 pm] |
We have now finished our tour part of Spain but are spending another week here travelling off our own bat. We jumped on a flight to Barcelona from Madrid and had a very easy trip here. 50 min flight. The weather in Barcelona has been great, just as it was in madrid. Barcelona is a bit more touristy and expensive though. We are in the Las Ramblas district which is right by the Gothic Quarter and in the thick of all the cool stuff... and some of the dodgy stuff too. Barcelona is much more colourful than Madrid in terms of it's style and a seemingly much younger crowd kicking about the place. We have met up with our friend Denise and so far have been visiting the sights by day and enjoying the bars and restaurants by night. Things really don't kick off until about 11pm here. We went to dinner at about 9:30 pm last night in an aweseome night club/restaurant and we were the only ones there. Shortly after a couple of other toursists followed us in though. I'm trying to work out how to get some pics up on the web and will hopefully have something to look at soon. I'm told flickr is the way to go. I'll let you know anyways. Barcelona is the home of Gaudi architecture and Salvador Dali and we are hoping to go see some of his art tomorrow. We are taking it fairly easy as we have 4 nights here. No rush.
I can't wait to tell you guys about some of the characters we had on our tour... Jesus. One of them was like Kel Night from Kath and Kim (Glen Robbins character). He wore acid wash jeans and a daggy tracksuit top zipped up. It was black, purple, grey and white. Pure 1980's Absolutely priceless. But a legend bloke, very nice indeed. He was from Perth. Him and his wife gave us a tube of Vegemite which we are using every breakfast. The other one was a racist pig from Chicago. Big Irish/American guy. He introduces himself "yeah, Bill Connors... Chicago." I knew straight away he would be a tool. I couldn't believe some of the racist shit that came out of his mouth straight off the bat, without knowing anyone. And we had a mixed race tour group. He was paranoid too. He wore his digital camera around his neck 24 hours a day, at every damn meal, probably in the shower too... in case a person of ethnic minority wanted to "roll him" for it. His description of a would-be perpetrator was more colourful but I won't repeat it here.
So needless to say, he didn't make any friends... |
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| Portugal |
[Mar. 24th, 2006|06:14 pm] |
As we drove into Portugal and on to our destination - Lisbon, morale was a little low. The weather really closed in and was shocking... wind and rain, we could barely see a thing. It did ease off enough for us to head out to a banquet dinner accross the river Tagas to sample some of the local cuisine. It was basically a seafood banquet but the few of us that don´t eat seafood were taken care of very well and the vino did flow. Portugal is famous for Port wine so we had a bit of that, followed by the obligatory rocket fuel type of piss that every country seems to have it´s own version of, be it grappa or whatever. I can´t remember the name of it but I certainly won´t forget the taste. I swear it was turpentine! As if we would know any better anyway. I´m sure these guys are having a laugh and just say ´here´s a bus load of tourists - let´s see if they´ll drink this´. So they tell us it´s a local delicacy and we suck it down.
Anyway, today the weather was much better and we had a good look around Lisbon and it really is a stunning city. Awesome architecture and an interesting history. Again the mix of Roman and Arabic culture provides for a real diversity in design and architecture. We then headed to the Atlantic coast for a day trip to a seaside town called Cascais. The difference in weather here was amazing. Beautiful weather, warm and sunny. It was here that I was able to have my first serve of Portugese chicken, which I love. Of course it´s a little different to what I was expecting, but actually much better. They give you this hot chili style Piri Piri olive oil and garlic etc to pour over the chicken. It´s also seasoned up when they charcoal grill it. They serve it up with fries and it´s an absolute winner!
From there we headed on to a mountain village called Sintra. Another fantastic place perched on a mountain surrounded in fog. It has it´s own micro climate, so when it was hot and sunny down in Cascais, it was cool and hazy up there. It has quite a mysterious feel to it. Apparantly this is what gives it it´s charm. So we visited the King of Portugal´s summer palace from the 1500´s to the 1800´s and had a look around the town and downed an espresso. I´ve been drinking a lot of those lately, they keep you going through the afternoon.
This has certainly been the holiday for upgrades. After the extra seats and business class upgrade to Europe, we´ve had a couple of Hotel upgrades here. They always overbook and if they do that to you, they upgrade you to a 5 star hotel. I think we´ve spent about 5 or 6 nights in these types of places that cost upwards of 300 Euro per night! Awesome food at these places too. I still can´t get over how cheap it is here. I went for a nightcap in the hotel bar the other night and ordered a Drambuie on the rocks and received a brandy balloon half full of it! It was damn near a schooner for the price of a shot. Good times indeed.
Next we head to Fatima before going back into Madrid, Spain. |
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| Gibraltar & Seville |
[Mar. 22nd, 2006|02:34 pm] |
Since leaving the Costa Del Sol we have travelled to the Rock of Gibraltar. I had obviously heard of this before, but didn´t really know what it was. It is it´s own country, but a protectorate of Great Britain. It has about 30,000 people living on it and it´s quite an awesome sight. From the top you get views of North Africa and the striaghts of Gibraltar. Many caves and tunnels on there as well as some very cheeky apes that roam around freely. Overall it was very picturesque and we really enjoyed it.
We are now in Seville and have a couple of days here and I´d have to say that this is my favourite place in Espana so far. It´s a beautiful city and the weather is fine. We visited the Seville Cathedrall today and climbed the bell tower for some awesome views of the city. I love how the cities over here don´t have sky scrapers. They keep it old school and it´s not as claustrophobic as it would be as a concrete jungle. Seville is a big bull fighting town as with many of the cities in southern Spain, but no bull fights are on while we are here. They don´t sound all that pleasant though, I must say. I mentioned in an earlier post that I had the occasional language barrier problem. Not anymore. It´s only taken about a week here and I´m learning a lot of the language and can order drinks and ask for directions etc, which is very handy. We had a stroll around last night and found a good Taverna/Tapas bar which seemed to be very popular with the locals. Maybe we´ll eat there tonight.
This afternoon we are going to hit a few more monuments and then head out for some Tapas and Cervezas. I really like the lifestyle here. They pretty much have it right, I reckon. Very casual, relax, eat and drink and enjoy social life. That goes for the locals too... not just the tourists.
So after just over a week here I can highly recommend Spain, it´s very different to what I thought it would be. Although I knew very little about it. Such diverse landscape from rolling green hills, to beaches and the Sierra Nevada mountains - makes me think of Seattle actually. Only because It´s the name of the beer I drink when I´m there!
Speaking of which, I can feel the urge for a soothing ale coming on about now. No time for siesta today!
Next we head into Portugal. Looking forward to that too. |
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| Morocco... oh well |
[Mar. 20th, 2006|02:23 pm] |
We had our visit to Morocco today and it was an eye opener like nothing else I have experienced. I can´t say I enjoyed it too much. We visited Tetouan and the place is so poverty stricken. I knew that it was a poor country but when I saw it I thought it was completely different to anything I expected... mainly in terms of the look of it. It is a big country and I only saw some of it though. I expected mud hut kind of architecture and dessert type of landscape, but it was the opposite on both counts. It was absolutely filthy, smelly and in quite a shambles. I expected the hawkers and beggars etc, but these guys would not quit! With the European gypsies you can say ´no´and they pretty much leave you alone after that. In the group that we were in there was a couple who were harrassed by the same hawker for about 3 hours!!! He followed them everywhere. Holy shit these guys do NOT quit. Simone and I would say No thankyou in Arabic and they pretty much left us alone in comparison, but it was very annoying. We also had a not so good local guide who told us jack shit about the history or culture of the place and proceeded to take us around to his mates shops for them to flog us their wares. He would say, let´s go and see how the beautiful carpets are made´, and then we would just sit there and be given a sales pitch to buy the rugs.´ One funny thing was when the guy was showing us the quality of the persian carpets and he tried to set fire to it to prove how good it was. He held the lighter to it and said ´look, our carpets are magic!´. To which I responded - if he could make it fly then I would take two.
On top of this Simone was quite sick and ended up hurling in the bus on the way back to the Costa Del Sol where we are staying at the moment. Very embarrasing indeed. I´m still glad we did the Morocco trip though. A real eye opener. At least the weather fined up a bit today though. We have a tour group of mainly oldies as well. The tour we were originally booked on had to cancel and we got onto this one. It´s the only one running at this time of year. There is another young couple but the rest are quite old, but generally very nice people to be travelling with.
So after cleaning the cat shit from Tetouan out of my boots we hosed down and had dinner. Fairly low key tonight as everyone is knackered from the long day trip over to Morocco. 5.30 am start. I still managed to knock of the best part of a bottle of red with dinner and now I feel quite relaxed.
Anyway, time to go...
Next we are off to Gibraltar. |
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| Holy Toledo |
[Mar. 19th, 2006|05:05 pm] |
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Well we have since journeyed on from beautiful Madrid to Toledo. An ancient walled city famous for making steel things (swords, daggers etc) and it was amazing. Pretty much everything seems to be amazing in some way. It´s either the oldest, the biggest, the first etc etc. But we had a good look around the skinny little streets and amzing views of this roman style city. From there we headed south to Cordoba. It´s another ancient city with the highlight being a 1200 year old Mosque that is 4 acres in size. It´s now a cathedrall... or they call it a Cathedral since the Christians booted the Arabs out in 1492. But it´s so cool that they decided to keep it. I had no idea that Spain was a massive Arab settlement, so there´s loads of awesome Moorish castles and palaces to look at. Luckilly the Christians kept everything in tact. From Cordoba we headed to Granada and visited some Gypsy cave houses that are built into the side of a mountain overlooking the Alhambra palace. Another cool Arabian piece of architecture. Very historical significance to western civilisation as well. Learning quite a bit while I´m over here. The weather has turned a bit shitty though with cloud and rain today as we hit the Costa del Sol (coast of sun) on the Mediterranean sea. Tomorrow we head to North Africa (Morrocco) over the straights of Gibraltar. very excited about that one! Alright better head now. Going out for a massive Spanish piss up and banquet by the sea side. |
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| Good Value |
[Mar. 16th, 2006|10:11 am] |
Okay, now that I am in an internet cafe that works properly I can fill you in a bit better. We were kind of expecting Europe to be quite expensive, but so far Spain is very cheap indeed. I´m sure France will be a bit more expensive. We have been having awesome, huge brekkies consisting of egg fritatas, bacon, ham, camembert, fruit and it is keeping us going all day, which we need because we basically legged it all over the city (Madrid) yesterday. We have also been using public transport which is easy and cheap. The centennial park type set up I mentioned was Parque del buen Retiro which is smack in the middle of the city with a big lake full of people rowing boats etc and suurounded by beautiful gardens and sculptures. After that we headed for a Taverna called ´Viva Madrid´, which the lonely planet recommended. Very cool pub and once again, cheap drinks. Whenever I travel it makes me realise just how over priced alcohol and eating out is in Australia (whinge whinge). We get screwed!
Our Hotel is great and in a very good location, surrounded by Tavernas and Cafe´s. Did I mention it was cheap here? On the way home yesterday I decided to by a couple of beers for the hotel room. €0.90 each! for Amstel´s and Heini´s about $1.50 Aussie. Still getting over the jet lag, we had an early night and today we are heading back into the city centre to jump on the big red bus and have more of a look around.
Our tour group arrive this arvo and we get aquainted before heading South to Toledo and beyond tomorrow afternoon. |
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| Madrid |
[Mar. 15th, 2006|03:33 pm] |
Well we are finally in Madrid after what seems like an eternity! We had great luck with our flights from Sydney. On our first one to Japan, the flight was pretty empty so we had 3 seats for the 2 of us which made things so much more comfortable. Then we spent a night in Narita and just had a few drinks and relaxed. Then came the big one... the flight from Japan to Amsterdam. I was not looking forwardto this long haul flight, but it turned out alright afterall. Two words... SKY BED! Yeah baby we got upgraded to business class and had the luxury of a Sky bed for the long part of the trip. Sensational i must say.
So now we have been in Madrid for the past day. Quite warm here and the language barrier has been a bit of a hassle at times. Spain is apparantly the least english speaking country in Europe. But it´s beautiful weather and today we went to the Museum del Prado - art gallery. very cool and strolled around a massive centennial park type of set up. Got some good pics so far.
anyway, net time about to run out so signing off. Net cafe´s are hard to find so will write again soon.
See ya! |
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| 2 days to go |
[Mar. 9th, 2006|06:48 pm] |
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This is the first crack at blogs/livejournal etc. Just testing it out really. Simone and I have 2 days to go before we head off to Spain, with a quick stopover in Japan. We have both been so busy lately with work and haven't had much of a chance to psych up for the trip. Simone has been packed for 2 weeks though, which shows just how keen she is to get going. So we will try and update this whenever we can on our 2 month trip. Hopefully this won't be the only entry on the blog. |
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