Venice

09.01.2012 - Monday, day 21

On the Gondola

I love it! This place is amazingly beautiful. It is everything you hear about and so much more. The entire island is clean and harmonious and relaxing. There are little canals and bridges everywhere, so of course there are no cars only boats and gondolas! Expensive? YES! $10 for a Latte whilst sitting in the square and $15 for a toasted ham and cheese sandwich! But there is not much else to do here except sit and eat & drink! Oh and you can feed the pigeons and monstrous size seagulls that are like kamikaze’s flying at you from every direction!

For those of you that don’t know, I have a fear of birds so initially this for me was like being in hell! I got used to it though. I had no choice! Lol.

For our anniversary, I arrived in the hotel to find red roses, chocolates and champagne courtesy of my husband, and since our room is overlooking the canal we were able to have dinner at a canal side restaurant only a hop, skip and jump away.

This morning we had our own private water taxi from the hotel to Murano Island where you can watch them making glass products, and then they try to make you buy gifts which are way out of your price range! A good experience though, we literally stepped onto the boat from our hotel backdoor and it was nice having it all to ourselves to enjoy the view. We also went on a gondola ride this afternoon which was good, expensive (80 euro for 40mins) but I guess it’s something that when you are in Venice you just have to do. It’s nice to be able to stand at our hotel window and look down to see the gondola’s go past and hear the guys singing typical Italian love songs.

Tomorrow we are off to Salzburg in Austria for two nights. Good to speak to our Mum’s on Skype this morning, we are missing home and a healthy diet!

Take care of yourselves,

xxx

View from outside our hotel room window

On one of the foot bridges

The Grand Canal

Sunset at the Grand Canal

On our private water taxi

Feeding the Pigeons, see the one on his head and two on his arm?

Ostia Antica

7.01.2012 – Saturday, day 19

It was an absolutely gorgeous winter day today. The sky was blue, the sun shone high and there was not a cloud in the sky! Perfect day to head out to the suburbs and do some exploring, which is exactly what we did. We caught a couple of trains to Ostia Antica and headed to the old Port. Despite the right-ups on this place seeming only average, we managed to turn it into a really fun day and all for under 25 Euro!

We walked, climbed, jumped, ran, hid, stood and lazed around on the ruins of the old port at Ostia Antica. It was such a great day and it was really fun to just do whatever we wanted without getting in trouble. In most places in Rome you can’t touch anything or even have your flash on when taking pictures. It certainly wasn’t the case here…. Ads was climbing over everything like a kid on a new playground!

So after some lunch and a coffee with amazing views, we headed back to town for another spot of shopping, and this time we were successful!

We are leaving early tomorrow morning for Venice, which is about a 4 hour train ride. Rome has been great although it too is slowly being invaded by Indian’s trying to sell their souvenirs on every single street corner! They literally want to sell you everything.. when it’s cold they are selling scarves, when it rains out come the umbrellas and when the sun goes down out come the romantic roses and fluoro / flashing kids toys! At every monument they stand about 10 meters away from each other and try to flog you souvenirs, so in the space of 100mtrs you have been pestered by 10 of them already. Go Away! lol.

Will hopefully be able to get access to some decent WiFi in Venice to Skype everyone.

See you then! 

Me in charge of the map!? YIKES!

View from the top of the old theatre

In the Kitchen as usual!

Having lunch in Ostia Antica

I bet JetStar has never been here..!

Checklist complete!

Vittoriano Palace by night.

06.01.2012 – Friday, day 18

Mama Mia! What a busy day we have had today. First we jumped on board another “hop on / hop off bus tour” which was a bit of a flop really. Besides from being freezing sitting on the top deck, there was hardly any information provided about the city and it’s contents. What we did learn from this experience though is that Rome’s road rules are pretty much non existent! There are no lines marked on the roads and people drive and park anywhere they want. On top of this, people pretty much walk everywhere they want too without looking and, if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought I was on a bus driven by the

Grim Reaper himself! We nearly wiped out a dozen people!

Some things that we did that we enjoyed today were visiting Rome 3D-Rewind. Similar to the London Dungeon tour that we did except we were taken back into ancient Roman history and given a 3D experience of what it was like to be a Gladiator inside the Colosseum etc. Next we made our way to the Pantheon and then Piazza Novona which was absolutely packed with people as the Catholic Church was celebrating the solemnity of the Epiphany. There were all kinds of fete’s and market stalls set up here with yummy food, gifts and toys etc.

Tomorrow is our last day here in Rome so we are going to take it easy and jump on a train to the coast. Have had a great time so far but in need of a decent rest! We are officially over halfway of our trip, time has flown.

X

A lot of the streets are decorated like this at night and packed with people!

Out the front of the Pantheon

Having a bit of fun

Hercules, Hercules!!

At the Piazza Novona

Vatican City

Vatican City (It's own country within Rome)

5.01.2012 – Thursday, day 17

Unreal! Now, I’m not the most spiritual person in the world, and I can confess that I have never actually voluntarily been to a church service in my entire life… BUT the Vatican Museums & the Sistine Chapel may have given me a new perspective on it all.

We pre-booked our history lesson through Viator Tours, and wow was it worth it. It is unbelievable how much these tour guides know about every detail… every painting, every canvas, every hallway, every room and everything in it! Our tour guide could recall every single little detail on what we were seeing… even to the point of why Michelangelo was featured as an outcast in one of Raphael’s paintings, the only one in clothes and boots (making a joke of him of course because they hated each other!). (Now you too have had a quick history lesson!)

This tour took just over three hours but is packed with so much quality information and we now feel that we know Rome and it’s history so much better. Did I mention that we skipped the three hour queue too! That in itself is worth paying extra for!

After this, we walked around St Peters Square, took a bus around town towards our hotel and stopped for a bite to eat and a much needed rest. The most important part of the day is next… SHOPPING!

We visited the main shopping precinct on Via del Corso but unfortunately walked away with nothing much except for a Vodafone Internet Card and a small Italian leather handbag. So unfortunately no new jeans for Adam which means his trusty and now holy pair are going to have to last a bit longer!!

Whilst we were out shopping we bumped into the Trinita ei Monti and the Piazza del Popolo, which has crossed a few more things off our list of things to do. Oh, and last night we went to the Trevi Fountain and had dinner there which is amazingly beautiful at night all lit up! Tomorrow we will give our feet a break and jump on board one of the bus tours (again) and on Saturday (our last day) we are hoping to do a day trip out somewhere.. Cortina? Ostia Antica? Along the coast? Not really sure.. If you have any suggestions let us know.

Ciao for now.

The Dome at Vatican City

Adam out the front of St Peters Bisilia

The view from Trinita ei Monti.. the staircase was packed full of people

Me at Trinita ei Monti... I "borrowed' the roses for the photo! (too tight to actually pay for them!)

The Trevi Fountain at night... I can't take credit for this pictures it's a postcard! There were too many people jumping in the way of our photos... damn tourists! ;-)

Ancient Rome

04.01.2012 – Wednesday, day 16

Wow what a great first day in Italy, 16 degrees and sunshine! Today we visited the Colosseum and the Roman Forum or Imperial Palaces on Palatine Hill. We did some research last night in preparation and thanks to the Lonely Planet Guide we managed to get straight in with no queues, and had a walking tour guide all day to tell us about the history of these amazing ancient ruins!

Here is what we have learned: You can purchase the “Roma Pass” from the train station which will get you free entry into most of the sites. From there you can use the pass for three days worth of free travel via train, bus or tram. We caught the tube straight to the Colosseum and since we didn’t need to purchase a ticket we joined a guided walking tour with “Gladiator Tours” for half the price (thanks to the Roma Pass). The guides were really good and reasonably priced too.

In about six hours we had walked several laps around the Colosseum, learned about the great fires of Rome and how the city was re-built using the remains of burnt out monuments; visited the imperial palaces (most of which is now either underground or completely gone); had a taste of Italy (Pizza!) and finished off by putting our feet up with some great Italian wine.

Tonight we are heading out for more Pasta and tomorrow we have another guided tour at Vatican City. We will also be doing a spot of shopping tomorrow afternoon since Adam has managed to tear a hole in his Jeans which have been stitched up twice already (thanks to Naughty Nanna!). 

Oh, we also managed to change rooms this morning to a Junior Suite which is much more to our liking… not that we are hotel snobs or anything, but we figure if we are going to be here a while then it’s worth paying a bit extra for some space and a decent spot to relax. Last night we had to sleep with earplugs in because the traffic was so loud!

We do not have WiFi access here so it is difficult to Skype and respond to messages, but we will try our best to update when we can.

Buonasera (or Buongiorno to those in Australia!) xxx

View of the stage (new of course) and the under-stage of he Colloseum

At the Colloseum

Palatine Hill (The Roman Forum)

The Roman Forum

Gelati... YUM!

Check out the massive bottle of wine we got for 3.99!

Buongiorno Italia!

03.01.2012 – Tuesday, Day 15

Today we began the long journey over to Italy from Nice. We caught the 7:26am train to Ventimigila then onto Genova and from there down to Rome where we safely arrived at about 4:45pm.

Thankfully we had allocated seats on this trip, although to our despair the first class carriage on the Ventimigila to Genova leg didn’t have any power going to it so we sat in the dark for a while until we were instructed to move back to a second class carriage. They are much the same anyway.

The view along the coastal road leaving Nice was stunning and we were sad to be leaving… it would have been great to stay an extra couple of nights or maybe one day come back during the summer.

Moving on, we arrived in Rome and walked a short distance (350 meters) to our hotel… Hotel Gioberti which from what we can gather is central to the train station and is surrounded by lots of Pizzarias and shoe shops (my sign of heaven), but is a little rough, and there is not much that the hotel offers. Everyone loves a free breakfast which we managed to get again, but there is no free WiFi and the internet is 7 Euro for one hour! To give you Aussie’s an idea of the prices, we had the traditional Spaghetti Bolognaise for tea plus a salad and a drink all for 8 Euro each… The meal was delicious by the way and well worth the wait, but I’m not so sure about this hotel. We are going to see if we can switch rooms tomorrow for something a bit bigger since Adam can only fit one leg in the shower without smashing into something!! Lol.

We have 5 nights here in Rome so we are hoping to see most things, but we only have two brochures on tours both for a company called Green Line Tours… they look rather expensive and typical so if anyone can recommend something different or can suggest somewhere for us to go visit please do so. We would love to see some of the countryside and smaller local areas rather than just the city and tourist areas. We can use the trains for free here as much as we like.

Grazie Mille, Buonasera.

French Riviera

02.01.2012 – Monday, day 14

Well it was a great evening bringing in the new year at the Eiffel Tower. We celebrated with a few drinks before heading out for a meal at a café only one stop away from the base of the tower. We were told to BYO bottle of Champagne and plastic glasses to watch the countdown which was a great idea. We got up nice and close and before we knew it the Eiffel Tower came a live with glittering lights. No fireworks which was disappointing, but beautiful none the less. We sat and watched for a while as people were everywhere and all frantically trying to get home.. some too drunk to realise where they were, and some girls trying to manage stiletto heels in the thick mud! Ha. We somehow managed to find our way home after walking to several different tube stations, one which was packed like sardines, and the other was in lockdown because there were far too many people. I could imagine being pushed down the stairs there and someone easily falling onto the tracks so I guess there was logic to their madness but it sure sent the locals crazy! There were fights everywhere!

None the less we had a good time, and started the first day of 2012 in first class on a train to Marseille. We had a platform change there and then it was like cattle class from Marseille to Nice! No allocated seats, no way to tell between first and second class, no seats left, not even anywhere for us to put our bags so we ended up standing in between two carriages until the first stop about an hour into the journey. Would have been ok if some people had stored their bags and their feet on the floor instead of taking up multiple chairs; and when we finally managed to get a seat it wasn’t for long.. some guy ended up getting sick and couldn’t make it to the bathroom on time so he proceeded to vomit 3 seats away from us on the floor… Yep… Welcome to Nice! NICE! Lol.

Anyway, we moved on from that, got to our destination after 9:30pm and pretty much went straight to sleep. Woke up early to see the sites of Nice on another bus tour which took all of about 90 minutes! It rained the whole time so we didn’t get off the bus, and decided since there was not much else to do we would book a private tour to Monaco.

On the tour we visited the old town of Moncao and saw the Cathedral and the Princes Palace where I had my photo taken with royalty.  We walked through the gardens which were amazing and bumped into some very cheeky and very large Seagulls. They must feed them entire loafs of bread because they are absolutely HUGE.

Then it was onto Monte Carlo where we visited the casino’s and drove along the Grand Prix track. Very posh and some very expensive cars parked out the front of these places. On the way back to Nice we visited the medieval town of Eite which is quaint and a little bit spooky! We went to a perfume factory and were shown how they make perfume (since the south of France is famous for it’s perfume), soaps and other lovely smelling products. Of course I took a couple of bottles away with me, they were absolutely amazing!

We had dinner in the central square of Nice and walked around the Christmas Village, and now we are home packing getting ready for our early morning train to Italy! VERY excited! We should arrive in Rome around 5pm after departing Nice at 7:55am so it will be a long day travelling but well worth it.

Au revoir France.. Ciao Italia!

Me with the Prince and Princess of Monaco

Monte Carlo Square and the Casino in the background

On the streets of Eite

The Medieval town of Eite! Spooky.