Greece/Italy

So after one of the best nights sleeps in recent weeks, we awoke to announcements throughout the ferry that we were about to arrive in Greece and to be ready for departure.

The hotel we stayed at was right on the beach, a good torpedo kick from the balcony might almost land one in the water. Greece is pretty laid back, and we were told everything here is in 'ish' time... so for example, when a shop says it opens at 10... it's tenish.

We headed into Corfu Town (the centre of the Island we stayed on), and walked around the streets and markets for a couple of hours. Every European city has been the same so far, with the amount of people on the street hassling you to buy stuff, but Corfu wasn't so bad.

The few days we spent in Corfu were really good to just to relax in the sense that there isn't a million buildings to see, or walking around to see heaps of sights and so on.








Corfu


After awaking the next day to a nearly empty hostel, we decided to lounge about, watching a few movies in between a stroll to the shops via the beach across the road. Unfortunately, because we weren't 21, we couldn't hire a car to drive around the island, as many others did.

For the evening, I went to a local Greek restaurant, complete with a wide assortment of Greek dancing and plate smashing. The cuisine was as expected, and included some nice feta triangles (no spinach and ricotta), and some of the best lamb I've tasted in a while. After getting in on a bit of dancing myself, I retreated back to the table for some watermelon, and we were on our way out.

The next day was spent on the boat of a middle aged Greek man as risque as he was round. The drive around Corfu on his boat, which was complete with incredibly satisfying tsaki, ham and salad, was interesting to say the least. George's ability to make seemingly normal things sound sexual, and collection of vulgar rhymes was enough to be amusing in a cringe-worthy fashion. But all part of the experience, I guess.

An early night back at the hotel prepared us for the ferry towards Venice, for which we had to get up at 4:45am to depart for. It also prepared us for Venice in general, and the abundance of mosquitoes encircling the place, as I awoke mid morning to discover my mosquito repellent I had bought the previous day as a result of a few bites, seemed to act in more of a 'add fuel to the fire' manner... and resulted in one of my arms resembling a cricket bat polka dotted with red cherries. Ahaha, so good.

Anyway, I was well prepared for the early wake-up and lack of sleep (LMC, yeow), and recovered in true 'Mark Style' by going to sleep as soon as I boarded the ferry, and sleeping until the middle of the afternoon. It appeared everyone else had the same idea, and as I woke up to get a late, late lunch, others started appearing from their slumber.

A few hours and a couple of meals later, and I had settled back into bed, prepared for the 7am ferry. Ferry cabins seem to be the best place to sleep of late, and this time was no exception, as I woke up extremely well rested and ready to continue on my travels.

I spent the day at a place in southern Italy called Gartaland, Italy's biggest theme park near the lake from which it takes its name Lake Garta. The entry fee was a bit steep, especially considering we had to depart by 2:30pm in order to make it to our next stop, Verona, on time.



Gartaland


Verona is the city in which Romeo and Juliet is set to be based, and one of the most interesting aspects of the city is the balcony from which Juliet is said to speak those famous words (Oh Romeo...). The entrance from the street towards this balcony down a laneway is littered with graffiti in the form of various love notes and so on.







Verona


After leaving Verona, a short bus ride later brought us to the campsite on the outskirts of Venice, and port of call for the next couple of days. Whilst the city centre consists of many canals, it was quite easy to navigate via foot, with the majority of the city being easily accessible via a series of footbridges.

After a suprisingly mosquito free night, I got up pretty early, and caught a small boat into the centre of Venice, for a day of exploring. After having a look at a glass making performance, I started to explore the rest of Venice. As I said earlier, the city itself is pretty easy to navigate by foot, and there was a fair bit to look at, amongst the network of small alleyways and markets. Stores selling pizza and gelato were aplenty, so my hunger was kept well at bay.

As the day rolled on, we made our way back to the Piazza San Marco, before making our way back across town for a gondola ride throughout the canals of Venice. The gondola ride was pretty much as one would expect, except the guy driving ours kept getting distracted by his mates and would continually come close to crashing our gondola into the sides of the canals.











Venice


Back at the campsite, and we demolished a few games of my newest and highly satisfying purchase Uno, before crashing into bed ahead of a mammoth bus trip to Vienna, Austria the next day.

Italy

The start of the trip into Italy wasn't as pleasant as planned, as I woke up in Antibes, before the bus trip to Florence feeling a bit under the weather. This general feeling of unwell progressed for the worse throughout the next 48 hours, as I spent about 44 of them sleeping either on the bus, or in bed at the campsite. After paying for a taxi far to and from a doctor in Florence, as well as the exorbitant consultation fee, a prescription for some antibiotics and two days and nights rest, I'm feeling on the mend.

In between the various ailments I had encountered, I've managed to travel through Pisa, to see their famous leaning tower. The hours worth of Florence I saw walking to the doctor's surgery looked pretty good, too.



Feeling sick at the Leaning Tower of Pisa...


After packing up from Florence, we headed south to the incredibly warm Rome, via the Vatican City. Had a look at the Sistine Chapel (can't take photos of it), but after a while all artwork from that era seems to look the same. Cool to say I've seen it though, I guess.





Vatican City


The heat in Rome rivals anything Australia has to offer. Once we arrived there, I managed to get a look at the Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, and a quick look at the Colosseum in the afternoon.



Trevi Fountain




Pantheon


The amount of people that hassle you on the street in Rome is insane. Random guys will go up to girls/women, offerring them a plastic rose from a bunch they have. Then, when the girl takes the rose, the men will refuse to take it back, and demand money for it. There's also men who have bedsheets laid down on the ground, covered in designer bags. Once the police come, they grab all four corners of the bag, and then run off, with their napsack of counterfeit goods.

The next day I was feeling considerably better than I had for the previous few days, and this came in handy as we had to spend a few hours in the searing Roman heat through our tours of firstly, the Roman Forum, the ruins of the 'city centre' of Rome from upwards of 2000 years ago, and secondly – a tour throughout the Colosseum. While the buildings themselves are pretty impressive, this is nothing in comparison to the knowledge that you're standing in the same arena, or same stairs that bloodthirsty Romans stood on 2000 years ago.





Colosseum


After departing the Colosseum, I caught the train over to the 'Spanish Steps', an elaborate set of steps with a fountain and so on, and bought a traditional margherita Italian pizza. Not bad at all.

Once back at the campsite, a failed attempt to use the internet there, and a mediocre dinner, I made my way to bed, in preparation for a 7:30am departure.

The next morning I set off on the bus south towards Pompeii, the city famously covered (and later uncovered) by ashes from nearby volcano Mt Vesuvius. Nothing like I had expected, the whole town is essentially still in tact – roads, houses, even a brothel, complete with 2000 year old pornography painted on the walls. Apparently the clientèle, who would not all speak Latin, would go into the brothel, and 'pick' what they wanted from the paintings on the wall... kind of like a menu.



Pompeii


After leaving Pompeii we had a lengthy drive to the south of Italy with a couple of Autogrille stops in between. Autogrille's are all through Europe, and they're basically like a super sized service station/road house. They're either hanging over the road – kind of like a bridge...like if you imagine the roads crossing over Mitchell Freeway had a huge roadhouse/service station spanning the length of it, you kind of get the idea.

Alternatively, there will just be one huge Autogrille on either side of the road, so no matter what direction you're traveling in, you don't have to cross to the other side of the road to get food/fuel/etc. All of the Autogrille's so far have had an abundance of food – some have like mini marts attached, and most have some sort of food court as well. Pretty cool.

Anyway, after getting to the southern end of mainland Italy, we boarded the overnight ferry for Corfu. We had cabins with beds and a shower, so this was a nice step up from the ferries I have caught in the last month or so.

France & Monaco

Bonjour,

The last few days have been pretty huge, although I think it's nothing in comparison to what awaits.

After departing from London, we headed down to Dover and caught the ferry across to Calais in France. The ferry ride was short, and the novelty had worn off as a result of my previous journeys to and from Ireland. My plan to queue up 'Stayin Alive' several times in a row on the provided jukebox failed miserably.

Once arrived in Dover, we embarked on one of the now common lengthy bus rides and tried to get a little bit of sleep. Several hours later, I had arrived at my accommodation in Paris and settled into my cabin. After the obligatory escargot (snails) and pink champagne before dinner, we left on an evening bus tour throughout Paris, which gave us a bit of insight into what we could look at the following day. But back to the snails – they taste like prawns, although somewhat more rubbery.

I awoke the next day and prepared to spend the day trekking through Paris. Dropped off at the Eiffel tower, we decided to queue up as early as possible in order to avoid the length two hour queue's we had heard of. A cold, chilly French hour later, and we were on our way up to the summit of the tower. The views were as expected, unrivaled by anything I have ever seen previously, and it was an amazing start to the day.






After heading back down the tower, I wandered over to the Arc de Triomphe (Arches of Triumph), via a French eatery where I picked up some of the local cuisine – a croissant and quiche. The Arch de Triomphe, like Paris as a whole, is such a fanciful and attractive piece of architecture. In retrospect my amazement at the beauty of Dublin was nothing in comparison to that of France. It's almost as if every building on every street is worthy of a photograph.





We headed down the Champs Elysees, one of the worlds most famous streets/parades, to the Place De La Concorde and Obelisque, the location of Marie Antoinette's beheading. Napoleon Bonaparte and Hitler had both marched their soldiers down the same parade which houses many high end fashion houses including the unofficial home of Louis Vuitton.



Champs Elysees


Crossing over the River Sien momentarily, we walked past the Musee d'Orsay, before heading back over the river towards the Louvre. With it only just being past lunch time at this stage, we decided to enter the Louvre and try and find the Mona Lisa. Not being any sort of art buff at all – the two exhibits I had really heard of (Mona Lisa & Venus De Milo), were clearly well directed to – or so we thought. After seeing the incredibly underwhelming Mona Lisa we navigated our way through the labyrinth that is the Louvre to the similarly underwhelming Venus De Milo.



The Louvre



Inside the Louvre




People taking photos of...



... some painting


My next point of call was Notre Dame – a huge, gothic looking church, which was the last Parisian landmark I saw before heading back via Rue De Rivo (a huge shopping street) to the Louvre..



Notre Dame


I then headed to dinner up in the hills of Paris which included spectacular views of the city from up near a church called Sacre Coeur. The 3 course meal at the quaint little Parisian restaurant I went to was amazing, and topped off with camembert and cheesecake.

The cabaret performance at La Nouvelle, a local theatre, despite having several humorous and impressive moments, reminded me of a rock eisteddfod for adults. My lack of enthusiasm for wine did not help my cause however, as the tables were full of complimentary champagne.

The next day we headed on a bus to the Beaujolais wine region south of Paris, to stay at a French Chateaus, in a picturesque set of hills and vineyards. Slightly after arrival we were treated to another wine (arghh) tasting, but I was more keen on the complimentary cheese and crackers than the award-winning wine. The night consisted of a bit more socialising amongst the group, with a few drinks and dancing the night away France style. I don't even know what France Style is, but for the sake of this blog, I'll run with it anyway.



Beaujolais Wine Region

The next day in France was Bastille Day, the day that marks the anniversary of the French Revolution... it's basically the French version of Australia Day/Independence Day, so there's a lot of celebration going on around the place. Once we awoke, we headed up into the hills of the region for a relaxing walk which turned out to be more strenuous than one would have hoped, and gave us all memories of Edinburgh and climbing Arthur's seat.

After returning back from the walk and picnic lunch, everyone relaxed at the Chateaus before heading into the nearby village for Bastille Day celebrations, which included a parade of sorts, and then a mini dance festival at the nearby fire-station/sporting grounds. The bar was selling Kronenbourg stubbies for 1.5 Euros (About $2.50 Australian), so needless to say these were pretty popular.

As the night rolled on into the next day, a few of us decided to call it a night, and make our way back, sans street lights, torches, or any form of light other than the moon's, back to the Chateaus in order to get a well earned (haha...) sleep.

After waking up, cleaning up and packing up our gear, as well as treating ourselves to an elaborate continental breakfast, we once again left on a bus, heading further south in France and then eventually leading onto Italy. The weather has also been a bit better, after having been rather cool (if not cold) the previous couple of days.

Once we arrived in the coastal town of Antibes, the move further south had most definitely resulted in warmer temperatures, as everyone switched into more summer gear than they had been wearing for the last few days. Antibes is situated in the French Riviera (Cote D'Azure), between the rich an luxurious cities of Nice and Cannes. Both cities have amazing beaches and villa like houses covering the surrounding hills.

I got a pretty good view of Nice on the way to Monaco and the Monte Carlo Casino. Monaco is only a couple of square kilometres in area, and is essentially a town full of high rollers. Everything is incredibly well built and extravagant, and the streets are littered with Ferrari's and the like. I had a look around the place, and saw the home of the Monaco Royal Family and some spectacular beaches, before heading to the Casino. After playing a bit of Roulette and looking around the casino for a while, I headed back to the cabin and called it a night.







Monaco


I spent today exploring the nearby and aforementioned town of Nice. After arriving in the town centre, I slowly made my way down the main shopping district into 'Old Town', and the local markets. Being the incredibly hot place that Nice is, the markets were littered with fresh fruit and icecream stalls. After sampling some of the local cuisine, we made our way up to Le Chateaus, a huge hill/park/lookout type area that overlooks the beach and city.







Nice, France


After getting a few photos of the local beach and beach-side road strip 'Promenade Des Anglais', I made my down to the beach (which is pebbles, not sand... a weird and uncomfortable experience..), and wandered amongst the tanned and topless sun-baking locals before having a good swim.







Nice, France


Cooled and refreshed, I headed back up into the shopping district and looked through the various shops before picking up a Royal with Cheese from McDonalds. Awesome. I've never been so smug as I was ordering that burger. Complete with Vincent Vega accent.

We all made our way back to the local train station and then back to the cabins before settling in with a few drinks and a couple of games of pool.

Onwards to Italy next...

Au revoir,

Mark.

Onwards through Europe

So I decided to lash out and buy a laptop, and it is from this new toy that I bring you an update on our travels. It's an Asus EEE – a rather small, compact and cheap (therefore basic - 4GB hard-drive, for example) laptop, which when closed is slightly bigger than a DVD case. It 's in a hard case, has wireless, and will fit snuggly into my day bag, so breakage and security wise it's perfectly suited.

On the traveling side of things, we're currently checked into the rather nice (relative to where we've been staying previously, at least) Royal National Hotel. It is from here in which our tour departs tomorrow morning at 6:45am on to France. A nice, early start to kick off proceedings.

We spent all of day in Oxford and Regent Street picking up little things we needed for Contiki – locks and adapters and a few items of clothing and so on. Ben and myself also enjoyed Pizza Hut – all you can eat, something which we hadn't seen in a while. After we had all had a bit of a shop we walked over end checked into the Hotel.

Not much else to say, will keep you all updated... until next time, here are some recent pictures.



Kilkenny Castle









Playing footy at Kilkenny Castle...




Leicester Square

Back in London

So nearly 24 hours after we left Kilkenny, we're back in London, and all very tired, as we did the whole trip without any set accomodation, and picked up the odd hour or so sleep on the journey.

Kilkenny wasn't full of a great deal of sights or things to do, so we decided to see the one tourist attraction, in Kilkenny Castle. It was not what we expected at all - with no medieval suits of armour, tales of violence, or anything of the sort - more like an in real life version of Antique Roadshow, with an elderly lady talking about the restoration of the castle - and how such and such a table was from the 17th Century and the carpet was imported from Spain in the 18th century. Combine 40 minutes of that in with a complete run down of the trials and tribulations of the Irish Royal family and you have a group of four incredibly bored young Australians.

Dishevelled and still not satisfied with our day, we embarked on a short walk across the castle grounds to an incredibly lush field which resembled a golf fairway, and took out my earlier purchased rugby ball. The ensuing 'king of the pack' (haha, at a Castle, get it?!) - was more enjoyable than the preceding tour, and we were just about to wind up our game when we were told not to play on said field anymore. Taking this is as our queue to leave, we headed back to the hostel, and settled in to the hostel we ended up taking quite a liking to, and organising our trip back to the mother country.

What ensued was probably one of the most stressful 12 hours of the tour so far, as we found out the original ferry we had planned on taking was no longer in operation, and we had to find an alternative route back to London, hopefully via Stonehenge. Six hours of internet searching, reviewing, reading and comparing later, we eventually worked out the best route (taking into account the cost, wait times, and so on) - would involve a near on 20 hour trip back to London and bypassing Stonehenge.

We ended up settling on catching a bus from Kilkenny (departing 5:50pm), via Waterford and Wexford to Rosslare Harbour - then catching a ferry to Northern Wales at 9:15pm, and arriving in Fishguard at 12:45am. Once we arrived at Fishguard, we had to wait until 1:50am, to catch a train to Swansea, which arrived at 3:45am.

From Swansea, we caught a train to Cardiff (Wales), at 4:00am - and this arrived at 4:55am. We had the option of going straight through from Cardiff to London at 5am - but this would have cost us approximately £60 each - a price we could get down to £30 each by waiting until 8:55am. Once departing Cardiff at 8:55am, we arrived at London just after 11am - and our tube station at just before 12pm. We arrived at the hostel where I'm typing this at about 12:30pm = about 26 hours since we checked out of our last hostel - and after nearly 20 hours of travel and about £80 lighter in the pocket. Rather expensive and tiresome, but we saved paying for a night of accommodation by travelling through the night - and we have been in three countries in less than a day. Every other route added considerable money to our journey (such as catching the train to London from Cardiff earlier - due to it being 'peak' time). Regardless, we're all glad to finally be in a hostel, and just need to wait for another hour or so until we can check into our room for a long awaited sleep and shower.

We're booked into a hotel tomorrow night - which should be a nice way to relax and get ourselves sorted before the tour starts the following day. The last 2 and a half weeks has gone pretty well - with no major hiccups, and its pretty comforting to know that we won't need to work out where we're staying, how to get to there, where everything is and so on, for the next month at least.

Anyway, I'm out.

Mark

Dublin/Kilkenny

I write this from what could best be described as some sort of loungeroom. The hostel we're staying at for the next two nights is definitely one of the more 'homely' places we haved stayed. I'm pretty sure the guy who runs the place lives here, and we're currently using his old PC. And I'm also pretty sure that half the food in the fridge in the 'communal' kitchen is probably his. The place is also less than half of what we were paying in Dublin, haha. Nevertheless, the beds and room we're in are clean, so I have no qualms with the place, besides a little bit of weirdness.

We rolled into Kilkenny this afternoon after a two hour bus drive, having finally left Dublin this morning. For our final day in Dublin, we decided to walk over to the Guinness Storehouse, to partake in the tour. The walk was a smart move on the way there, financially at least, despite what would be described as a brisk breeze. It was however, not so smart on the way back, as we were subjected to the ever fluctuating Irish weather, and drenched in rain. Claire had the foresight to pack a poncho, although the three of us may very well have not have opted to wear one anyway considering the looks and comments Claire got from us as well as passers by. Once we arrived at the Storehouse, we picked up our tickets we had ordered earlier, and we progressed throughout the self guided tour, maps in hand. The tour itself was pretty much all you can expect from a brewery, going through the history/process/advertising of Guinness, and concluded with a complimentary pint in the 'Gravity Bar' - the highest point of the Storehouse that had 360 degree views of Dublin. Not a bad place to have a drink.





Guinness Brewery




Claire with Emergency Poncho

After making dinner for the night, we got all dressed up (changed from shorts to jeans), and headed throughout the light drizzle back to the Temple Bar district. Our enthusiasm for the area waned when we realised the pub which promised so much was full of middle-aged Irish men and women, and loud, drunken women on hens nights. The mood was worsened amongst the girls when they were charged over 17 Euro (nearly $30 Australian!) for two vodka pineapples. Somewhat disheartened, we headed back via McDonalds to our hostel, to relax and mingle back at the hostel.

Kilkennny, is a smallish town, with a population of around 9000 or so, big enough to have traffic lights and a 'Supermacs' - an Irish competitor to McDonalds and Burger King, but not a great deal of other shops around the place. I think Ben and myself will get a bit of use out of the rugby ball I bought in Dublin (only because they don't sell AFL footballs anywhere..)



Kilkenny

Should be back in the UK by Wednesday, as we're hoping to go through Stonehenge on the way back to London...