The hills are alive with the sound of... something.

After a short drive we had a stop in the city of Salzburg. We walked around for a few hours and managed to do many things. We skipped around the streets (yes we did, literally), we spent sometime in the dwarf garden (actually it is a garden of dwarf statues – I don’t think they can grow dwarves) naturally, we had some photos taken with them and you can be forgiven if you can’t pick me or Dan in some of the shots, particularly Dan, I know it can be a bit difficult, he fits in so well.

For the fans of The Sound of Music, Dan and Nicky skipped around the fountain while there was a wedding party having wedding shots. Oh well, we were on holidays and it gave them something to talk about. We didn’t see any lonely goat herds though, nor any lonely goat whores for that matter!

We took in a nice walk along the canal and walked past Mozart’s house (it is yellow). We found the yummiest doughnut-like balls of doughy goodness. They were great so we bought a bag of them – not quite as tasty as Millie’s Cookies though! We had thoughts of eating them on the bus to the next stop but our hedonistic need for instant gratification took over and we scoffed them all.

Our next stop was Vienna. We didn’t have anything organised so it was a very free and relaxing stay. We caught a classical music concert with ballet and some opera (talk about culture!) in a former palace which was excellent! Loads of pieces that we’ve all head a million times, played perfectly. We were so close that we could see everything and even hear the breathing of the oboe player. We also noticed he sweated a lot and the other people in the orchestra kept shooting him dirty looks. Perhaps he need not breathe so enthusiastically into the instrument. The opera singers were awesome particularly the lady, a buxom, voluptuous lady with the most amazing soprano. I could have listened to her for hours!

We had a lovely dinner at a Japanese restaurant in a backstreet and we kept on asking the waitress questions about the menu. We worked out most things but the whole entrée and chef special was a bit of a challenge. Half way thru she got a bit stroppy and (as I was asking questions from a different section of the menu (that was CLEARLY the lunch section) then as if a light globe suddenly was illuminated, she said, “oh sorry, you don’t speak German”. After that she was lovely and very attentive, actually going through and explaining every dish on the menu for us. Needless to say she got a nice tip.

One the first evening we spent the night in the amusement park, known for having the world’s oldest ferris wheel. We rode roller coasters, rides, and went on the Ecstasy. Well, it was about 4 minutes of insane, gravity defying terror. We spent what felt like an entire minute flying upside down, spinning to loud German techno, with disco lights, with a strobe and fake smoke. It was an awesome ride, but I did have to sit down for 15 minutes afterwards, I couldn’t walk, dizzy and feeling a bit sick. Think a massive octopus that spins, with four carriages on each tentacle that has 360 degree movement. Dan did take footage of the entire ride but that was with the photos that went missing. Bloody technology! For some reason 80 or so of our photos just disappeared, we hadn’t touched them between one day and the next and I went to back them up to PC and hard drive but they were not there (see learnings). Such is life!

We also saw a shitty flea market, a crappy Torture Museum but the day picked up with, coffee and cake at Café Diglas, which was a traditional Viennese coffee house. We also visited the Catacombs under St Stephen’s Church where we saw lots and lots of bones from the bodies thrown into mass graves at the time of the black plague.

The second night we went to some bars in the Gay guide – they were small and smoky. So smoky in fact that I had to leave early as I couldn’t keep my eyes open it was that thick. Cue the music, smoke gets in your eyes, Dan and Nicky stayed out clubbing till 2am.

The next stop was the cities of Buda and Pest or Budapest as we call it (pronounced Buda-pesht). What a great city. It is stunning by night and very easy to get around.

After getting a tour of the city with a local guide, who was most pleasing on the eye, we had a traditional gypsy dinner. We all had our photograph taken and had the opportunity to have them printed on plates. A flyer about this was handed to each person outlining what to do if you wanted it etc and we saw a great example of things getting lost in translation. The final 2 paragraphs of the flyer read:

“Please help us in trying to create something nice and lasting for the memory of the day.
A kind smile or a discreet hugging is of great assistance to me, and this way or joined efforts can be fruitful.”

Ahem. Needless to say, lots of discreet hugging went on throughout dinner and into the following day. It was most “fruitful”.

We finished of the night in a bar just down the road drinking way to much vodka, but hey, when in Budapest…

Our free day in Budapest was spent visiting some sights- Labyrinth Caves, markets and a few very relaxing hours at the thermal baths.

The public transport system was quite good and we were very pleased to find that for once, our hotel had a metro stop right out the front! Most of our accommodation has been on the outskirts of the cities and often requiring tram or bus rides to the train station and then usually a couple of trains into the city heart so it was a nice change.

The caves were quite fun, 1200m series of caves carved by water and Turksm with original “cave paintings” in them. There was only limited lighting and sound effects used as well to create a very eerie (and very dark) atmosphere. Of course Dan couldn’t help himself but do some aboriginal dancing when the music sounded like something from a corroboree.

After that we took a walk through the markets and bought some souvenirs and spent some time looking at babushka dolls from Elvis and Marilyn to Madonna, Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela.
After a morning of walking around, we all wanted some rest and relaxation so we visited the thermal baths, a series of hot pools (all at differing temperatures, the coolest being 28c and the hottest being 38c) where hundreds of locals spend hours soaking their worries away. You could also get Thai massages (no happy endings) but we were too late for Dan to get one so we just enjoyed the pools and people watched instead. Lots of sunburnt people who had obviously been there all day and loads of very fat men in very small speedos.

Afterwards, we enjoyed a very nice dinner and took a walk down to the Danube to see Budapest by night which was beautiful.

We have been learning lots of local phrases, courtesy of a map we were given with a phrase section. Some of these are:

Egen, hall saga von = Yes, it smells like fish
Meg.foug hah tom AH pop-shit dat? = Please may I fondle your buttocks?
Meg mosh.tad oh k.zed? = Have you washed your hands?
Kem-e-neh-ben, yor,shaben, Mosht = Harder, Faster, Now.
Sok, talk eh. F ail-knee Ozz arshe shure randy? = Do you fuck on first dates?
Et sair, mash od sore, had mod sore. Edt Houdge = Once, twice, three times a lady

As you can imagine, we have had much practise and many opportunities to use these phrases while in Budapest.

Learnings:

• When in a city (Vienna for instance), always take the address of the hotel with you when you go out at night. It is very hard to get to your destination with no English, without knowing the street name and not really knowing the name of the hotel. We have learnt this the hard way. Every street looks the same at night, although I did know when the driver went around in circles (three times). Luckily in this instance, we knew our way just well enough from the Palace to get home!
• The dodgiest bars generally have the cheapest (and very nice) Vodka
• It is best to avoid restaurants that advertise on their door or menus, “we speak English”
• It is advisable to back up your photos every night, this won’t always be able to be done in the morning or on the bus.
• Always charge the camera at night while asleep so it is fully charged everyday
• Contrary to popular belief you can make friends with salad (particularly if you are lactose and gluten intolerant), and you can make yourself love fruit, even when you get it for dessert everytime you have a group dinner!

Somewhere over the rainbow

For those who haven’t been to Venice, it is a city surrounded by canals and water. We were told it was built on marsh land and is slowly sinking. It is a fascinating city with our senses working overtime!

The combination of rain, the full moon and a high tide brought an unexpected charm to the city. We marched through St Marks square sans shoes with water halfway up to our knees. Although we went for the shoeless option, many people were buying temporary Wellingtons (think big plastic socks. (soft if you ask me!). Functional but in no way fashionable.

So instead of seeing people waltz in the square to the classical music, it was more a case of wade through the square to sounds of splashing. It was quite funny watching water push itself upwards through the paving. Also I found fascinating that the church was at least 50 cm under water and they have on hand some temporary walkways so we don’t get any wetter walking around. Apparently St Marks floods regularly…

Of course we had our gondola ride but again the tide meant the internal canals were off limits as the gondola couldn’t fit under the many bridges. And what is a gondola ride without a song?

Punt, punt punt your gondola

Gently down the canal

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

Life is just so swell!

We shared a bottle of champagne on the gondola and afterwards, Dan recreated Madonna's Like A Virgin video and danced under the same bridge as she did!

That night we had a romantical dinner of mussels and a GREAT wine in one of the very nice restaurants overlooking the grand canal which was a very fitting end to a magic day in spite of the hideous weather.

Disney fans read this: we went to Neuchswanstein castle, the castle that Walt Disney used as inspiration for Sleeping Beauty’s castle. It was even grander than I had imagined. We took a tour of the inside and walked around the exterior. King Ludwig III who had it created had some serious fascination with swans – they are everywhere. In the carvings, statues, paintings and even massive porcelain swans that double as vases. It was excessive opulence. One room took 4 master wood carvers 14 months to complete. Again Dan couldn’t help but sing Disney songs, and for once I actually didn’t mind. I even requested a song, but he politely said, “that isn’t a Disney song.” Obviously I need to spend more time on my research. Beauty and the Beast or Phantom of the Opera – it’s all the same to me!

We arrived in Munich late in the evening and had dinner in the hotel which was surprisingly good. The food is an experience, with lots of new flavours and dishes to experience. We are keen to try our hand at some of the new dishes we have tasted once we get home. We had a lovely beer soup with pancake strips in it. (Who would have thought?) As we had been told, in Europe strange things sometimes happen without warning and we found this out ourselves. for us it was a public holiday - seemingly out of nowhere (Corpus Christi Day) and it shut down the city.

Not to worry though, we enjoyed a much-needed sleep in and took ourselves off to the Modern Art Gallery. The only thing was, we didn’t read the info we had on it so what we thought was the Modern Art Gallery was actually the one with Rennaissance and Impressionist paintings at it. Upside was that we got to see one of Monet’s ‘Waterlillies’, some of Manet and Picasso’s sculptures and even saw Van Gogh’s ‘ Sunflowers”.

We went to a Bavarian beer hall for dinner and drank steins! It was a great night with me (G) being pull up on stage to do the traditional slapping dance. (think National Lampoon’s European vacation).

We do have this captured on video… I must say I did better than the local German boy they also pulled out of the audience; at one stage (and we have it captured on camera) that I was in time and doing the same move as the real traditional dancer (His name was Leo and he was quite the hit with Dan and most of the girls in the tour group)! A bit of history of the building the beer hall was in. Hitler used to do many of his speeches in the hall and underneath in the public bar was one of his famous drinking spots. If you look closely at the ceiling of the public bar you can see the original SS signs underneath the painting where they have attempted to blend with the new painting.

Learnings:

• When attempting to dry clothes, it is never a good idea to have them touching the actual lamp. I did (without noticing) but luckily Dan was on hand to remove the new polo shirt from the lamp, put out the flames and fan the smoke detector to prevent the alarm being activated and the hotel evacuated.

Observations:

• There is a Disney song for almost every occasion

You need to adopt different and distinct pedestrian styles in each city to survive:

• Italy – make your intention known and don’t change pace. This means you can walk out on busiest road and people will stop and drive around you
• Germany and Budapest – wait for the green man even if there is no cars anywhere on the road. This is due to the culture of following rules (I reckon communism or oppressive regimes had something to do with this)
• France – good luck – crazy drivers, no line markings and seeminly no road rules. God help us when we drive through France in a couple of weeks

Roma

Roma - the centre of Italian history, home to some of the most amazing structures we have ever seen and the first of our 3 night stays.

For our first full day there we made an early dash into the city so we could beat the crowds and the queues for The Colosseum. We were first in line and managed to get some great shots before the hordes took over.

From there we had a local guide show us around the city and saw some ruins and the monument of the unknown soldier and left the guide at the Pantheon. Our group then went off to explore the city and tracked down most of the other “must sees” – The fountain of youth (I bathed my face and filled our bottles to make our insides young too), tossed our 3 coins into The Trevi Fountain for luck and so we could return to Rome and enjoyed a gelati on the Spanish Steps.

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Oops, forgot to mention a rather important thing we did here too - visiting The Vatican. We spent a couple of hours here, walking through the endless halls filled with artworks, sculptures and tapestries but after seeing a couple of palaces already, I was a bit like Shania Twain - they didn't impress me much. A couple of breaks later and we finally got to the Sistine Chapel which again, was rather underwhelming. The famous ceiling that was painted by Michaelango is in fact a mosaic of dozens of small pictures, rather than the one big one I expected.

We walked through St Paul's Cathedral, looked at a bunch of Pope's corpses (they display their embalmed bodies in glass cabinets - how vulgar), we walked down through the big square where the Pope gives his speeches and had our own display.

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During the afternoon the weather turned and we had the first afternoon of showers that would continue for the next few days. As planned, we wanted to have another picnic for dinner so after stopping at a deli for the essential wine, bread, cheese and antipasti, we found a lovely park in the city with big trees to shield us and lots of green grass everywhere. After setting up our picnic, we took a look around and realised that it wasn’t quite as nice as we thought it was. While the park in Annecy was peaceful and quiet and had a lovely canal running nearby, this time we had settled down to eat in a dog park and spent the next 20 mins fending off our dinner from marauding canines with a taste for smoked meats. Funny.

After dinner we ventured off to find the Mouth of Truth. We wandered. In circles. For an hour and a half. When we finally found it near the entrance to a church, the gates were closed. We sat down and finished off the wine from dinner then went to see the Colosseum by night before heading home to the hotel for sleep.

The next day we took a day trip to Pompeii, three hours south of Rome. Pompeii is the city that was buried by ash and volcanic rock when Mt Vesuvius erupted in 79AD. The city was (re)discovered in 1748 and has been slowly excavated the city since then and are still only 2/3’s completed. We had a tour of the site and saw the famous mummified remains of several Pompeiians, shielding their mouths from the ash and smoke and even saw the curled up remains of a dog. While there, we also walked through an ancient brothel, complete with stone beds and pictures above each doorway advertising what you could get inside the room, just like a menu. Those Pompeiians were a horny and creative bunch!!

We left Roma early the next morning, and began our journey to Venezia, stopping at a gorgeous hilltop town, Orvietto for a couple of hours to explore. Of course no day is without song with me around and Nicky and I spent much of our time singing in our best falsetto every time someone said the name of the town or we saw a sign. Sung to the tune of the French folk song ‘Alouette’.

“Orvietto, jaunty Orvietto, Orvietto jaunty aleeoo”

We stumbled across a great studio of an Italian painter and we all fell in love with his paintings and sculptures. There were prints available of a lot of his paintings so we bought several for home. Unfortunately the sculptures and original I loved the most were either not for sale (sculptures) or 900 Euro for the painting. Sadly, there were no prints for that one either :(

We grabbed a quick bite to eat, a macchiato to wash it down with and jumped back on the bus to continue our drive to Venezia and its famous canals.

Bellisima, Ciao Bella, Arrivederci!

For the last week we have been enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of Italy where we have found things to look at, yummy treats to eat (up to 3kg) and most importantly, things to pose in photos with!

September - Cry for you

After leaving Nice, we spent the day on the coach making our way towards Florence. On the way out of Nice, we stopped at a real French perfume factory and all left smelling like the proverbial French whores.

To break up a long day of driving, we stopped at Pisa to see the leaning tower. Needless to say there was hardly anyone doing a neutral stand posing with the tower and we saw some interesting ideas people had to make their photos fun. Here are a couple we came up with :

The next day in Florence we spent the day taking a group walking tour seeing everything Florence had to offer and statues. Lots and lots of statues. King Neptune. The statue of David. Life size replicas of the great artists and writers, Donatello, Michaelangelo, Leonardi Davinci, Dante, Machiavelli. Hercules. We climbed the Duomo (Thanks for the tip Charlie!), which is a big domed cathedral, and got some fab views of the city and surrounds. As we wandered the streets, we stopped for a macchiato and slice of pizza at this café here, a cappuccino and gelati at that little shop there and after 7 hrs of free time and both a little tired and grumpy, we met up with the group for dinner. The joys of group travel sometimes!



We have both had our moments where we have needed to get away from the little group of friends we have made but after a few hours on our own, we are ready to meet up with them again and continue exploring together.

Lunch the following day was at a winery in Tuscany, in a beautiful, tiny village called San Gimiano. As we enjoyed some antipasti, and then an amazing local soup called Ribollita, we tasted 4 of the winery’s wines and enjoyed the scenery.

It was a veggie soup with loads of cabbage, bread and yummy vegetable goodness.

Ribollita Soup

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus some for drizzling at the table
4 large cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium onion chopped
2 carrotts, peeled and diced
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 fresh laurel leaf or 1 dried bay leaf
Coarse saltand freshly ground black pepper
2 cans small white beans, such as cannellini beans
6 cups chicken stock or broth
2 cups tomato sauce
3 cups stale chewy Italian bread, crust removed and bread torn into pieces aboutt 1/2 a loaf
1 small white onion, thinly sliced or finely chopped, for garnish
1 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, for garnish

Looking out from San Gimi, it was surrounded by lovely green fields and has the honour of having the most towers in Italy with 76 in the town itself. Walking through the tiny streets was like stepping back in time as many of the buildings were a bit run down and you could see where bricks and walls had fallen away and then been repaired. Quite extraordinary. It was a great day and we were both looking forward to seeing loads of history as we continued our journey onwards to Rome.

Observations:

• I wasn’t aware before the trip but after watching Gareth eat an apple a day, I’ve noticed he gnaws on them like a little rat
  

On our way to France again

Lucky for us we got to practice some more of our French language skills in this next part of the trip. (Annecy and then Nice).

On our way to Annecy we were able to relax and take in the view of the Swiss/ French Alps. We had a stop at Geneva, the home of the UN and a really big fountain. Our only goal (you could say we set ourselves a challenge) in Geneva was to spend all our Swiss money, down to the last cent. I can say we succeeded with style. We walked through to the old town section and found a nice coffee shop which served panini and the usual fare. We ordered in French and with a drink we didn’t have enough money. I think the lady behind the counter felt sorry for us (we do very good puppy dog eyes) and she just kept on discounting our meal until the register matched the shrapnel we had in our hand!

From Geneva we arrived in Annecy, a great French city on the water with quite an extensive canal system. We grabbed a paddle boat and paddled on the lake. Lucky me, I was serenaded by Dan and 3 girls from the tour singing Disney tunes. Yes, lucky, lucky me. 25 minutes in to the paddle we were called in due to the rain and lightning. Probably a good thing too, it started pouring down as we got to shore. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the old town section (we seem to gravitate towards the old stuff). We had our first nutella crepe and Paula, you are right, it was awesome but we resisted the temptation to get a second one.

Rather than sit in a restaurant and eat and drink, we decided to do as the locals do and make ourselves a picnic and sit beside the canal for dinner. We walked the local streets and ordered some cheese, prosciutto (a special type - it was smoked too and lovely), some baguettes and of course wine and champagne made in the traditional method (fermented in the bottle). The canal we sat at was next door to a kids play area and you don’t need too much of an imagination to guess we made sure we had a go on every piece of equipment, even the cubby house!

Everything was beautiful and with the sun up until 9 pm it was a great evening where we, with a few other people on the tour, chatted, drank and watched the world go by. It would have to rate as one of the best nights we’ve had so far. We plan to do the same in Italy when we are there too!

In Nice, part of the French Riviera we scored big time… in a good way of course. Our hotel was on the promenade and we got an ocean frontage apartment room with it’s own kitchen, lounge area and a table. Nice was nice. (I just had the write that!) Dan and I went for a refreshing (ie freezing) dip in the Mediterranean and spent the night wandering around and had dinner in a cute little café filled with locals and not one word on the menu was in English! The food was good but the experience was awesome.

The next day we continued to roam the streets looking at and buying lots of clothes. At lunch Dan chalked up another first. He had Tartare De Boeuf (Steak Tartare) which is a local delicacy. It’s basically raw minced beef, with raw egg yolk, chopped capers and various sauces mixed through it. I tasted some and it was surprisingly quite yummy. I couldn’t have eaten the entire plate though Dan did well to get through it all.

We spent the night in Monaco and tried our hand in the grand casino. Dan managed to remain even but I lost €25. We sipped cocktails in the bar and watched an insane amount of money be thrown around. One guy we were near was gambling with 100,000K chips and betting three at a time! We also saw them setting up for the Monaco Grand Prix and even got to drive on part of the track for a while which was pretty cool.

Unfortunately during the night Dan started getting cramps and spent the night vomiting. We suspected it was the Tartare De Boeuf, but others have been getting 24 hr bugs on the bus so perhaps it was just that. Luckily though, after spending a lot of the next day on the bus sleeping and a good nights rest, he was back to normal the next day. Well, as normal as Dan can be anyway!

Observations:

• Dan has added another item to his lists of firsts - an alcohol free day, after 4 weeks travelling!
• It is not just a cliché, every second person in France actually does walk around with a baguette
• In France cars have a unique way of parking. They park with the handbrake off and cars just use the bumper bars on the cars to push their way into the spot. We have seen this many times. In Nice too they have another way of parking see pic below on right hand side
• There is dog poo everywhere