Meet Contiki Group & Stonehenge 27th May

Unsure why blog shows update as being 28th May, as it's definitely still Sunday 27th here!

London:

Temp: Top of 12, low of 6 overnight.
Rain: Lots
Price of fuel: Varies between £87.9 and £94.9 ($2 AUS per litre??)


Last night we met our new tour group and were amazed at how many people Contiki have crammed into one tour... 50 !!! 50 teenage Americans!!! OMG !!!! A massive culture shock after only having 12 Aussies (2 x Kiwis can count as Aussies!) in the Intrepid group. The meeting room was filled with the nasal twang of American teenage "Oooh my Gods" everywhere and Dunc and I suddenly longed to be anywhere BUT in that room..! I know, I know... you all warned us - but we very quickly felt like the grandparents of the group - and are the only non Americans on our tour!

After dinner we met up with Carla & Anthony, and we had a great night out catching up with them both! Thanks for the tips on places to check out guys... you're SO lucky to be living here!

Today, we all froze our asses off at Stonehenge - where it dropped to 8 degrees at the warmest part of the day with rain & wind testing our courage! After this, we bussed to the town of Bath to check out the ancient Roman Baths... This didn't take much time to get through, so spent the next 3 hours boosting Bath's economy by popping from one coffee shop to the next and ordering tea/coffee in order to stay out of the near freezing temperature!

Tomorrow is a free day, so we're going to head to the British Museum, Camden Markets (is there such a thing as "too much shopping"??? NEVER!!), Kensington Palace and Marks & Spencer (taking your advice MR by checking out their "smalls" department!!)

Tomorrow night we're off to West End to see the musical "Blood Brothers"... I wanted to see "The Lion King", but it's sold out.. I can't believe how many musicals one city can have on at any one time... Sensational !!!!!

Pics:
Top: Dude sitting outside Roman Baths in Bath. Can anyone explain this to us !?!?
Middle: CJ freezing her a$$ off in front of some big rocks...
Bottom: Catching up with some Aussie's after our dinner with teenage USA!!

London, Waterloo - Mind the Gap! 24/25/26 May

Well, despite the fact that I'm typing this update wearing not one but SEVEN layers of clothing, I can truly say that London has blown us away, and not just because of the cold wind! The weather here turned freezing midday yesterday, and the temp's sitting around a balmy 12-15 degrees!

24th & 25th May we stayed in a fabulous hotel right in the heart of all the London tourist action - Waterloo. Our hotel was located right under the famous London Eye and had incredible views to Westminster Abbey & Big Ben! We were in HEAVEN!

London has SO much to offer - it's like a 24hr art/theatre/activity mecca !

Friday we started our day with a Salvador Dalí exhibition.. it was a hard choice between this and a Starwars exhibit, but Salvador won out in the end... Sorry Pete! Dali is famous for his surrealist artwork and is responsible for pictures & sculptures of "melting clocks" to name but one example.

Following this, we popped onto a double decker bus tour of the city, cruised down the Thames from London Bridge to Westminster Abbey, sauntered past Buckingham Palace and said "hiya" to Lizzy, and blew my mind at Harrods! (it is here that I must show my ignorance - I thought Harrods was a quaint little English shop that sold tea and handbags.. man was I wrong!) Harrods is absolutely enormous with elaborate rooms filled with every kind of department store item! The window dressing was stunning! Very cool!

We also took a "flight" in the London Eye, visited Madame Tussauds wax museum (had our pictures taken with all the celebs - Dunc very happy to nab one with sexy sirens Christina & Brittney and me with Justin Timberlake, Morgan Freeman and Kylie!). We've walked up and down Piccadilly & Oxford Circus, and caught many a tube... We LOVE how convenient it is to get around here! For those who haven't yet made it over here, "Mind the Gap" is the message announced at each station the tube stops at.. This is because there's a ruddy great gap between the train and the station platform and it would be very easy to catch your foot/leg etc in the gap!

Photos:

Top: Dunc and his new girlfriend, Christina A !
Middle: Pic from top of London Eye over Westminster (showing another capsule)
Bottom: Kenny enjoying the London Bridge

London - Hampton Wick 23rd - 24th May

After some lengthy frustrations waiting for young girls ahead in the queue trying to check in overweight luggage and a very turbulant flight, we landed in London on Thursday afternoon to find an extremely hot 30 degree afternoon! We were delighted with this, until we hit the two hour long non-airconditioned bus to get to Damo & Tenilles... I think we've sweat more over here than in Oz!

It was so lovely to see familiar faces in Damo & to meet the very charming Tenille. They totally spoilt us the whole time we were there... and live in a gorgeous apartment situated on the banks of the Thames and surrounded by their very own English Cottage Garden! Very tranquil! Tenille is the most sensational cook and hostess, and we thoroughly recommend staying at Chez Damo-Tenille when you're next in town! Hampton Wick, their suburb, has its own palace, some traditional Yea Old English Pubs (Dunc doesn't rate the "London Pride" Ale but is happy with the Guiness and Leffe!) and a park filled with wild deer and swans - all owned by the Queen herself!

Photo: View from Damo and Tenille's backyard

Venice... 22nd & 23rd (Wed & Thur) May

Venice is simply fabulous - even if it was 32degrees in the shade! As you walk out of the train station "BAM" the canal view smacks you in the face with its fabulousness!!!! Hey, travellers are allowed to make up words when no other word will suffice!

We wasted no time and immediately boarded a water bus to St Marks Cathedral to check out some areas where the latest James Bond flick was filmed and were most surprised that the infamous "stench of Venice" didn't make itself known to us once!

The Murano glasswork here is simply devine and it's fairly safe to say that I dragged Dunc into just about every store here to "ooh" and "ahh" over the amazing glass creations on our walk back to our apartment.

Such a quick stopover in Venice, but our new group of friends certainly ensured we all made the most of it! Nutella croissants, shopping followed by shopping and more nutella croissants! We're going to need a vacation when we come home - and a diet!! Thursday 24th was the last day of our Intrepid tour.. we've made some awesome mates!! Next stop, London!

Thanks for those who were concerned about the airline strikes, however luckily it didn't affect us as we flew with BMI.. a few from our group travelling with AlItalia were affected though.. :(

The photo's are all in Venice:

Top: Initial view from the train station
Middle: A random street on the way to dinner
Bottom: Us on the Rialto Bridge

Lake Como

Hey all,

I'm in a bar with a few beers again (becks) in a village called Bellagio in Lake Como. Apparently George Clooney is here but we haven't seen him. We saw a paper that said Brad and Angelina were here with Matt Damon on the 18th (2 days ago) so we still might see them too. You never know your luck. This bar has photo's of Clooney everywhere.

Anyway you won't, no way, believe what we did today. We caught a couple of ferries around the lake and thought it was all pretty cool (actually, really really cool), but we had some spare time, so we thought, you know... why not pop up to Switzerland?

So yeah, we paid the 9€ and caught the bus to Lugano which is just over the border of Italy. It was really really nice with friendly people and what not, and I'm starting to think I should just recommend this region to everyone that is going travelling. Oh and Rome of course. The roads here are almost as dangerous as Rome tho', because in some spots, between buildings mind you, they are bus-plus-maybe-two-inches wide.

Turls, the fuel here is 1.33€ a litre. As soon as you cross the Swiss border tho' it jumps to 1.80€ (fill up before you cross).

The craziest thing we saw today was a dog in a pram. Dogs have the best life in Italy, especially if you are are a miniature tiny dog.

Yep well, the more I drink the worse I type I need to wrap up - we have 2 days of this Intrepid tour to go... we head off for Venice at 8am tomorrow and over to London. We are staying with Damo and Tenille for the first night and Curro and Carla for the 2nd two nights then start our London, Paris, Amsterdam Contiki. It's a hard life. I hope I will catch an Origin replay in a London bar.

The photo's are (in random order)

Me on the roof of the Duomo
The Duomo in Milan
Kenny (the Koala) on the beach at Levanto

Keep warm

Dunc (and Carolyn)

Asti, Pierdmont & Milano!!

We've toured around Milan today and feel like we're about to melt as it's a balmy 29.5 degrees so are seeking some refuge in updating our blog while we wait for our train to Lake Como (about 20 minutes south of Switzerland).

Milan is awesome. It would be even more awesome if you had $10K to drop on a shopping spree! If we ever win the lotto, this is where we're heading to play!! Although, one couldn't help but giggle at the stark contrast of the very chique Milan to our chosen lunch location... McDonalds! Actually, Maccas made an awesome salad which we enjoyed... we're all a little pizza & pasta'd out !! Hard to believe, I know!

Yesterday we hit Asti & Pierdmont and enjoyed a tour of a local winery & a delicious lunch (pasta... just for something different! hehe) in the garden of a local farmhouse. Heaps of wine & cheese samples later we were all ready to party! As it turned out, Asti hosted a local rock competition, so we hung out with our new NZ mates Tracey & Luke and kicked back on one too many bourbon & cokes whilst soaking in the entertainment.

Man, these Italians go crazy when they make drinks.. they 1/2 filled our tall glasses with bourbon, leaving very little room for the coke...! One of the bands cranked out Bon Jovi's 'Living on a Prayer' which was all the encouragement Tracey & I needed to dance our butts off ! (Sar - you would have LOVED it babe!) This was followed by some Guns & Roses.. at which stage the boys joined in with the crazy dance fest. Needless to say a huge night was had by all with a 2am drop into bed this morning.. Our 6.30am rise was quite a challenge!!

We've decided to keep one of Mum & Dad's little koalas for ourselves and have declared him our tour mascot.. Keep an eye out for little 'Kenny's' appearances in future blogs.

Cinque pics from Cinque Terre...

Nutella, jam or custard filled croisants for breakfast, pizza for lunch and pasta for dinner, walking around town with alcoholic drinks in hand... We really could adjust quite easily to this lifestyle!!

Dunc forgot to mention a little something about Lucca that I wanted to share.. this is especially for my sister-in-law... When we arrived in Lucca, they were celebrating Puccini who grew up there and wrote many famous operas such as Madame Butterfly. Everyone in the group (except Dunc and Luke - a Kiwi version of Dunc on our tour!!) bought tickets to see opera singers performing arias from both Puccini & Mozart in a gorgeous medieval church with nothing but a piano to accompany them, no mikes. I was moved to tears it was so fabulous.. the accoustics were simply sensational! R, I have video footage.. we can cry together when I get back !!

Lucca was beautiful! Tree lined streets filled with lush, green everywhere you looked! We cycled around the city wall which was built in medieval times and surrounds the whole city from the days when strict defence structures were imperative.

After a 2 hr train ride from Lucca, we arrived in Levanto.. a little coastal town just one train ride stop from the famous Cinque Terre. We wasted no time and boarded a ferry to get an ocean view of the villages - again spectacular! After this, we signed up for a pesto making course... the flavours over here are so fresh.. I could gush all day!

Yesterday, we made the 6.5 hr trek through each one of the five, 'cinque', villages... An absolutely stunning stretch of coastline. I think I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.. (Today is our last day in Levanto, and we're catching a train to Asti tonight.. famous for their 'spumante'. Bring it on!!)

Lucca and Pisa

Hi all

Carolyn is sleeping, so you've got me for this message. Some of these keyboards over here are weird and it's a bit of a challenge to find some keys - particularly this one @, and this one '. It's like they've tried to hide them, but if you look hard enough, they are there somewhere.

I am right at the moment drinking Guiness off the tap (the other draught beers in this pub are a bit crap) in a cool little bar in Lucca. Lucca is nice and quiet and the locals are really nice, so who would want to be sleeping??

This morning we went to Pisa and climbed the leaning tower. I will be trying to attach some photo's. It's currently about 5 metres off vertical at the top and as you start climbing the stairs, it feels like you've had a few. You get to the top and can feel the slope, and can't help but hope that today isn't the day it falls over.

Tonight we are having a dinner at our apartment for everyone on the tour and tomorrow we head off for Cinque Terre.

Mum, I got your email, so you've got it working!

Turls, I haven't seen any fuel prices yet, but I am looking. Some people reckon it's dirt cheap in Dubai but I can't really remember the specifics (I think it was 25c a litre). I got your email too, and we fly back in at 7:30pm on the 26th of June so we'll miss out unfortunately.

The photo's seem to mix themselves up a bit so in no particular order we have:

• Dinner in Lucca at night
• Heading down the street towards the leaning tower
• View from the bottom
• Us at the top

Bye for now

Firenze, pretty one day, pretty average the next.

Happy Mothers Day to our lovely Mums !!

This is our second day in Florence, and although we have seen some wonderful historical monuments and pretty views, we will be glad to leave behind the confusing and overcrowded streets when we leave this afternoon.

Having only 2 days here, it's a race to fit in everything so we thought we'd share the first day between Uffizi Museum, the Accademia Gallery and shopping, and the second day climbing the Duomo and checking out more markets. Our thought was to get up early on the second day and climb the dome to avoid the crowds already waiting on day 1. We again walked for 7 hours straight so, despite eating large quantities of croissants and pizza, our pants are starting to fall off us!

We've found Florence quite confusing to get around and have managed to break our blog motto of 'not getting lost' on more than one occasion. As it's a weekend also, the narrow footpaths have been hideously crowded and we reckon it's similar to a day at the Big Day Out. Unfortunately, our tour guide also forgot to mention that the famous Florence Duomo is closed on Sundays.. so our plan to get up early today to climb the 400+ stairs did not come to fruition, and I'm particularly gutted about that as the views are said to be fabulous.

Luckily though, our group caught a bus up a hill that looks over Florence last night and shared a picnic together, so we were still able to capture some beautiful pics.

The stores here are filled with amazing clothes and awesome leather products all at very resonable prices.. Every window is filled with amazing fashion displays - even the mannequins are beautiful in Italy! Unfortunately, after walking into just about every single store, we came out empty handed which was totally depressing! All the clothes we thought looked amazing in windows, turned out either not for sale, or the wrong sizes etc... We also seemed to strike loads of cranky sales assistants who, despite our attempting to speak Italian, were quite rude and unhelpful. It must have been our day to strike rude people... bound to happen I guess.. so we're hoping we've now used up our 'rude people' quota for the trip!!

The museums were amazing and I especially enjoyed seeing works by Artemisia Gentileschi after reading a book depicting her life story, and Dunc especially enjoyed seeing both Botticeli & Da Vinci's works. The statue of David was also wonderful. The detail Michaelangelo managed to acquire out of a lump of marble is beyond comprehension! We sat next to David for a few minutes to admire. (and no, not to admire what you're thinking... all the statues present the ancients as a rather under-endowed lot... the boys in our group feel quite pleased with themselves by comparison!)

Today we head to Lucca, a medieval walled village with around 5000 residents...

Our last day in Roma!

***Added photo's on 13/05
Top: Colloseum (they are rebuilding part of the arena floor)
Bottom: Roman Forum

This morning is our last morning in Roma as we train it to Firenze (Florence) this afternoon.. Yesterday was the first day of our Intrepid trip and was our busiest and most exhausting day here so far...

We were led on a 'famous sites of Roma' walk which literally took us from one side of Rome to the other, and back again... up stairs, down stairs and every which way in between !!! All up our walk took 7 hours !!! Gym workouts, eat your heart out !

Our tour took us to the Spanish Steps (which is apparently renowned as a 'hot spot' to pick up - for all of you who might benefit from this knowledge).. Trevi Fountain (again, the size blew us away... so much bigger and more beautiful than pictures portray - yes we through in some coin which ensured we'd return to Rome one day!), Pantheon, Aurea Sacra - the senate building where Julius Caesar was murdered, Trajan's Forum, The Roman Forum and the Colosseum.

We were glad to have had our extra days here in which we'd already viewed many of these sites in detail - as this walk really skimmed over everything and didn't give everyone quite enough opportunity to appreciate these amazing areas.

Yesterday afternoon we decided to further explore the Vatican City, this time checking out the museum and the Sistine Chapel.

Let me just say this... you've got to be REALLY committed to seeing this divine chapel because getting through all the museum to get there is a MAMMOTH hour-upon-hour kinda walk! By the time we got there, the old brain was on 'museum artifact' overload and we'd stopped giving each of the million ancient pieces of art the true respect and time they deserved.. However, the Sistine Chapel really is an amazing prize awaiting those with enough stamina and commitment to get there. The roof and main fresco was painted by Michaelangelo, the former when he was in his early 30's and the latter in his 60's... Dunc could see the improvement in his painting style from the ceiling to the wall fresco's - but for a girl who can barely draw a stick-man, I thought the whole thing was pretty impressive! The colours in the main fresco are simply beautiful !

After such an exhausting day, we dined out last night to refuel and relax.. Dunc ate a mixed meats grill and I ate the best lasagne I've ever eaten in my life... and I've eaten some pretty tasty lasagne!! Vinos all around, then a very well earned crash into bed!

Anyway, off to Florence... Arrivederci !

xox

Some pics of our first 3 days in Rome

We thought yesterday's blog was wordy enough... today we're going to let the pictures do the talking... We start our Intrepid tour tomorrow, so are unsure when we'll next update..

Pic 1: Vino on our terrazo!

Pic 2: The jaw-dropping Pantheon... It's so much bigger in real life !

Pic 3: Signore & Signora Lynch, oh, and the Colosseo !

Pic 4: Heading towards St Peter's Basilica... We climbed to the top of the duomo (dome) yesterday morning and almost gave ourselves heart attacks !!!

Ciao for now... love to you all..

D & C xox

Ciao from Roma!!

Today is our second day in Rome. Let me just say... the pictures don't do the sites here justice!! We have been blown away by the age and sheer size of everything. From the Coloseo to the Citta Del Vaticano and everything in between this place has filled us with amazement and respect for early Roman builders !!

After a very long and very turbulant flight from Singapore, we thought we'd need some time to recover, however we were so excited when we arrived here yesterday morning that we head straight out.. well, after our accommodation check-in was sorted out!! BTW... no-one ever mentioned we'd need to catch a train from one part of the airport to the customs check-in, now there was a surprise!

Ok, back to Rome... Our accommodation is right next to the Roman Forum.. it's literally at the end of our street! **See the yellow building through the gap in the wall, to the right of the columns, that is our apartment block!! Our building is exactly what one imagines when you think of Rome apartments, with a main entrance door that locks the apartments off from the narrow cobbled street.. (every street in our area is cobbled), washing hanging from windows right along side of geraniums growing in terracotta pots.. Just bella ! The apartment is divine as it's been totally gutted inside and renovated to a modern finish.

We went walking straight away and as we turned left at the end of our street, we could see the Coloseum! The main street (Via Dei Fori Imperiali) was closed off to traffic as it was a Sunday. So we could just walk down the middle of the street. We took stacks of photo's of the Forum ruins and the Coloseum... but we're sure they just won't do them justice. It was overwhelming to view and touch such ancient monuments.. !!

Our Italian lessons have us in good stead, as we discovered when we were able to order Chianti vino, fresh bread, pesto, olives and formaggio (cheese) at a local deli !! We promptly took these back to our terrazo and fulfilled our dream of sitting up there, looking over the old terracotta rooftops of Roma and enjoying our sumptuous menu.

After this, we went for another walk, and stumbled upon the Pantheon.. Yes, not something we meant to see on the first day - but there you go. It's size was gigantic... so much bigger than we'd expected.. we were totally in awe!

Again with the 'awe-struck' today when we visited Vatican city... words cannot describe just how opulant and over-the-top it is.. Our highlight would have to have been climbing the Cuppola at St Peters Bascilica and enjoying the 360 degree view of Rome.. The stairs up were so narrow and steep, we were very happy to reach the top !

Ok, enough for now... more vino & pizza awaits !!!

Singapore!!

Well, we've just landed in Singapore airport and I don't know what to first tell you about.. We've only been on our adventure for 8 hrs and already we've flown above the throat of a volcano somewhere in Indonesia, watched the sun magnificently illuminating Timorese (we think) beaches whilst just behind these beaches the sun had already set on huge forested hills ... most of these things were pointed out by the eccentric lady sitting next us, who happened to be travelling to the UK to give several workshops about past lives, regression therapy etc etc... the people you meet on planes, hey?!

We felt like sun-chasers there for a bit.. and of course - watched heaps and heaps of movies !!! It's been quite a awesome experience and we're only 8 hrs in !!

And then, there is Singapore airport. I think it's safe to say you know you're not in the land of "Oz" anymore when the first thing you see upon arrival is 4 army dudes all decked out in full military machinery!!

Can't chat for long - we've got an airport to explore for the next 4 hrs and we want to cram in as much as we possibly can !!!!

Special thanks to Kate for telling us about the foot massaging chairs... we are still dribbling. This pic's just for you honey !!!

Our two puppies...

Ok, so they're not technically 'puppies', but they'll always be our babies!!!

Here's a pic of our pooches... it's not for you guys - but for us. I'm sure we're going to miss them like CRAZY - so wanted a little reminder of them to travel around Europe with us !!

This time tomorrow, we'll be in Singapore !!!!! OMG !!!!!

p.s Yes, we've packed !