Danial-Evelyn

Athens - Frankfurt

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 10:30:00 +0000

Our packing was finished fairly late last night so we wouldn’t be rushed his morning for our early rise at 6:30am. We slept in to 7am so on our way down to breakfast at 7:30am we organised a taxi to take us to the airport. Ev was feeling worse than yesterday almost losing her voice. Dan had another full breakfast and Ev only had fruit. We have really loved our stay in Athens and would love to come back for a 2 week holiday, particularly to see the Greek Islands on a clearer day. We have been blown away by the structures and the love and pride the people have for their city. It is definitely a highlight on this trip for us.

Ev took some quick snaps of the fabulous fashion hotel before we raced down to the cab which was a little early. His fare was cheaper than we had expected. Check in was really easy, no queues and customs was also a breeze and we were ready for our 11:25am flight by 9:45am. The departure lounge had free wi-fi so Dan watched the NRL Grand Final while we waited, but half way through connection dropped out. Ev slept for most of the wait after keeping herself and Dan up most of the night coughing.

The flight was really good, as was the in-flight food of chicken and rice and a lemon desert. Ev’s favourite part of the flight was overlooking the scenery below at the small villages around Frankfurt before landing. From the sky they looked like patches of houses placed in multiple groups surrounded by farmland and forest areas. We have a good feeling about Germany and are very excited to organise some day trips. The Luggage collection was a fair distance from the gate but we eventually found our bags and headed for a taxi. We thought of organising a car at the airport but it’s probably best to see the city first on public transport then get a car in a couple of days time. Our cabbie dropped us off to the hotel and we were greeted by a nice girl who was tired of her job. This sounds a little like Rome... We took our bags up to the hotel and took our time to come down. We’ve discovered that the only English speaking channels are MTV and CNN. They have really good movies playing, but they’re dubbed and we can’t work out how to get English subtitles on.

After unpacking a little we went downstairs to look for a supermarket after asking for a map from reception. She said that most of the shops are closed on a Sunday. (What’s with that in European countries?) She then rethought and remembered that this Sunday we might find some open, then sat back down again. Okay?! We headed out in the direction of where she suggested and found ourselves in the mall where hundreds of people were. Frankfurt is having their annual Car Show today, and yes there are lots of shops open. Feeling relieved we had a German hotdog with mustard and ketchup, and it was probably the best sausage we’ve ever had. We walked through the car yard kind of quickly because cars really aren’t our thing, then looked for a supermarket but all we could find were fashion shops. Finally we came to a corner store which had a very limited selection but we got a few supplies and headed home to watch some German TV and read tourist brochures. Turns out that Frankfurt is the Financial capital of Germany and is the 7^th most liveable city in the world. It’s a beautiful place if you want to settle down but from what we can see there aren’t many touristy sights.

We’ve decided that 3 days in Munich just isn’t enough so we’ve booked a place just outside of the city so instead of staying in Frankfurt 4 nights we’ll just be here 2 nights. Tomorrow we’ll do the Frankfurt City Tour then the day after hire out a car and begin our drive along the ‘Romantic Road’ to Munich.

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Athens Rest day - Markets

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 13:43:00 +0000

Saturday 2^nd October

Ev is not feeling too good today so we’ve set time for some wind down today with a sleep-in and stroll to the markets down the road. We would love to experience Greek dining, but at the moment with our tight budget, we are eating from the hotel looking at the lovely restaurants. Someday, we will be back for a full dining experience. Feels disappointing to have lovely produce right at our door step but no means to properly cook our own Greek-style foods.

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Athens City Sights - Panathanaic Stadium, Arch of Hadrian, Temple of Zeus

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 13:48:00 +0000

Friday 1^st October

We’re heading into our 2^nd month of travel and we still have many countries to visit. We were hoping to have some rest days in Athens but after exploring yesterday we think we’re going to run out of time here and are really keen to see more of this vibrant city. Our hotel may also be influencing our perspective of the city, which by the way is one of the best fashion hotel fit-outs we have seen. There’s a hive of activity on the streets and major landmarks can be seen all around on the mountains.

Panathanaic Stadium

We had a lot of fun imagining ourselves as patrons sitting on the marble seats and were victorious winners proudly walking down the tunnel to the grand entrance of the Panathanaic Stadium (or Panathinaiko Παναθηναϊκό στάδιο, also known as the Kallimarmaro (Καλλιμάρμαρο, meaning the "beautifully marbled").

The portable audio tours walked us around the stadium from the track to the highest seats which would have been made of wood back in 1896.

and yes we did have a pretend race... and real ceremonious award photos.

In neighbouring streets statues have been erected to honour past athletes.

Arch of Hadrian and Temple of Zeus

We admired the structural gate of the Arch of Hadrian.

With great anticipation our next sight was the magnificent Temple of Zeus. Construction began in 515 BC but the leaders were overthrown and construction resumed in marble in the 4^th Century BC but was devastatingly destroyed after invasion in the 3^rd century AD. It was eventually completed 131-132 BC. Of the original 104 columns deterioration set in the 5^th c. AD and was further ruined by earthquake and only 16 columns survived until 1852 when one of them toppled over in a storm and has been lying there ever since. Elements of the structure were later used throughout the city as building materials, so what still remains today truly is magnificent and remarkable. We could sense the history in the air as we slowly walked around the remaining structure.

We have truly been amazed by human capability throughout our trip. How were these huge pillar cells perfectly aligned without the technology or mathematics we use and know today?

Inspired we finished the city tour past the Library and Omonia Square to the train terminal then walked the mall streets to find a bustling eatery only a couple of short blocks from our hotel. The tour bus today impressed us with not only its rich historical stories and architecture, but it has a very young and modern culture through its mall streets and market places. Life is great today.

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Athens City Sights - Acropolis

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 10:00:00 +0000

We slept in until 10:00am. The dark curtains made it feel like it was only 6:00am.

Breakfast was scrummy. Hooray for hot breakfast!! Bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs with tomato seasoning and also scrambled eggs with bacon bits, toast, mushrooms, cereal and some beautiful fruit. There was also a table of pastries and cold cuts. Breakfast was also very big.

We were off to see the Parthenon today at the Acropolis. For those of you playing at home an acropolis is a citadel or elevated part of an ancient city, but in Greek literally means ‘City on the edge’. Our afternoon adventure began at 12:30pm. We walked down the street of Athinas toward the Acropolis and on the way stopped into a Greek shop that sold clothes and souvenirs. We were tempted to buy a pack of Greek Sex cards but thought better of it. We both bought a shirt each and a calendar. We walked up the back streets past a cafe and weren’t sure where we were going. We though we were walking up someone’s driveway then saw stairs which led on to a stoned pathway where other tourists were. We bought ticket at the front desk not realising it would give us access to all of the sights day. Well worth the 12 euro each. It was a warm day in the sun and we forgot to bring water with us so we asked at the drinks stand for a couple of bottles but they didn’t have water, only fresh lemonade, Gatorade and orange juice.

Ancient Agora

We climbed the Areopagus also known as ‘Mars Hill’ named after Mars, the Roman God of War. The jagged stairs of red, green and white marble were slippery to walk on especially in rubber thongs. The view from the top of the city was spectacular and we still had the view from up at the Parthenon to go. We took some treasured photos of the city of Athens and the Acropolis and a kind vendor sold us two bottles of frozen water which quenched our thirst. We stayed on the hill for a good fifteen minutes before coming back down past the ticket box.

On 'Mar Hill' with Parthenon in the background

Areopagus looking out to Athens

We made our way up the and the first thing we passed was the Odeon of Herodes Atticu which was built in 161 AD by Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife, Aspasia Annia Regilla. The amphitheatre seats around 5000 people and is still in use today for live concerts. Workers were packing up equipment from a concert held a few nights before. Andrea Bocelli performed there a couple of weeks earlier. We were in awe of the beautiful white etched stones stacked on top of each other, another perfect time for a photo.

Odeon of Herodes Atticus

As we climbed the marble stoned stairs to the pillared entrance we passed the temple of Athena Nike built in 420 BC and the Propylaea built in 437-432 BC which form the gateway of the Acropolis which led us to the great Parthenon. The Parthenon was built between 447 and 438 B.C. to honour the goddess Athena Parthenos. This structure truly took our breath away. Still standing after a couple of thousand years and so well preserved we enjoyed the view, observing the finely crafted statues in the walls and other traditional Greek patterns.

Parthenon

We moved toward the Erechtheion which was built in 420 BC and is a temple dedicated to Attica, Poseidon-Erechtheus and Athena then took more photos of Parthenon.

Erectheion

Not far from the building we stood near a wall in the open to take in the city on the south western side. We could see the ocean in the distance with the city in between. This gave us views of Philopappou and Lycabettus Hills.

We walked along Dion Areopagitou to a street vendor near the exit and bought a book on Athens and some postcards and gave some money to some buskers playing wonderful Greek music on guitar and violin. Going back the way we came we continue on to the Acropolis Museum which has glass floors at the entrance to show current excavation works underneath the Museum. One of the archeologists were working. We paid our 5 Euro for entry and left our cameras and backpacks in the cloakroom. The Museum was incredible with many statues, antique cups and plates, coins, and stuff and some other stuff. The place was huge and deserved more time than we could allow.

Acropolis Museum

Ancient Agora

Temple of Hephaestus

We went back into the Acropolis and sat on the stands of the Dionysus Theatre which was an amazing feeling to in the ruins of the same theatre that saw tragedies and comedies written by Sophocles and other playwrights. We admired the detail in the statues on the stage front.

Dionysus Theatre

Walked to Ancient Agora which was the centre of the Greek Government. Saw Temple of Hephaestus and the Stoa of Attalos.

Walked back to hotel exhausted and had KFC for linner at 5:30pm. Tomorrow we’re going to see the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Dan really with girled it up with Ev and watched ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’. Ev was pretty sure Dan had tears rolling down his porcelain like features at the end of the film. It’s a beautiful story of love and life in modern society which featured Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson and for some reason Justin Long as a ladies man. Sure, he provided comic relief in Die Hard 4, but a player?? C’mon!!...Dan’s words...True story.

Tonight news reports showed some footage that's making us reconsider our trip to the Galapagos Islands. Police are on strike and have taken over the airport and major streets are blocked from protesters. We are strongly recommended to ‘Reconsider our need to Travel’ by Trip Advisor and in other parts are advised ‘Not to Travel’ i.e. Peru. Good thing we have already cancelled the Inca Trail. Here is an excerpt from the website about Ecuador:

We advise you to reconsider your need to travel to Ecuador at this time because of civil unrest, the risk of crime, and the general threat of domestic terrorism.

A widespread strike and protest by police, including some military, is underway in Ecuador. The security situation, particularly in parts of the major cities, has deteriorated significantly as a result, with protestors seizing the airport and Congress in Quito. Currently the airports in Guayaquil, Quito and other major cities are closed. There is a high likelihood that the major transport routes into and out of the major cities will be blockaded by protesting police. There are reports that the land borders with Peru and Colombia have been closed. For more information see Civil Unrest/Political Tension below.

All in all, this does not sound good for Ecuador. If we don’t get to Galapagos, we’ll survive, but if we do and things work out very badly, well, we’d rather not take the risk.

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Athens Pharmacy

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 06:00:00 +0000

Today was a pretty quiet day of rest and recovery. We headed down for a delicious full breakfast then rested in the room while watched some TV. Ev was still not feeling well so around lunch time we went down to a Pharmacy to get more medication. She’d been putting it off for a couple of days because it was a very sensitive and embarrassing issue but her medication was running out. Ev decided that no cultural or language barrier would be too embarrassing if she spoke with a female Pharmacist. Deep breath!... As we walked into the small pharmacy a guy dressed in a t-shirt and shorts in his mid-20’s got up from the waiting seat and casually walked behind the counter with the four staff members in their late 50-60’s and a customer was already being served. There was one woman Pharmacist, few! We walked up to and counter and Ev asked the woman if she spoke English. She gestured no and called the young guy over. Inside Ev was shouting “Oh Shit. He’s not going to want to hear about this!! Shit!!” The young guy came over, so Ev took another deep breath and pulled out her existing medication and spoke about her ‘lady problem’ symptoms. As soon as Ev dropped the ‘V’ word, Dan was out the door and Ev was in it by herself. So the 20yr old was really helpful, but needed to consult one of the older gentlemen in Greek, who consulted with the older lady, who consulted with another older gentlemen who took a look at the medication Ev had shown to younger guy. It was so embarrassing! The ‘Team Meeting’ occurred as they all consulted their medication handbook then sifted through draws of medication boxes behind them and talking across the room with each other in Greek. That’s just Great! Now the other customer knows everything about Ev’s ‘V’ problem too! The younger guy translated that Ev hadn’t used the other medication properly and gave her some new stuff. She picked up the packet, looked at it and said “It’s all in Greek. How do I use it.” After satisfying her questions she bought the new medication and the 20yr old and put the box in a bag. The older gentleman gave Ev a warm smile hand handed her a 2011 Greek Diary and a couple of small tissue travel packets as a gift for her bravery. She kindly thanked the entire Pharmacy team and scraped Danial up from the seat he was well and truly sunken in to. Ev was really grateful the 20yr could translate but there is seriously nothing more embarrassing than having to explain personal issues to a 20yr old, let alone to an entire pharmacy team with a customer still in the store. Hopefully this will never happen again. Good new though, symptoms are less intense this afternoon.

ΕςΕΛΨΝ - Evelyn

Δανίαλ - Danial

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Greek Islands

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:00:00 +0000

We woke up at 6:00am and just as breakfast opened we put some food in a breakfast box then our ride was ready to take us to the ferry at 7:15am. Today we're excitedly off to the beautiful Greek Islands. It took us about an hour to collected the other passengers in the lovely bus. The seats were perfectly moulded for Ev and very comfortable. Upon arrival on the ferry a jolly photographer was ready for our mug shots for us to purchase after lunch. We headed straight up to the top level and found a table next to the side rails. We were both still pretty tired from our early start but were amused as busload after busload pulled up to the three level ferry. We were a little concerned it would be very crowded but actually it was comfortable. We went to three of the Greek Islands: Hydra, Poros then Aegina and will be home at 8:30pm.

We are not really big on cruises because we love to be busy and ‘doing’ things so being still on a ferry just enjoying the world go by was a little difficult for us at the start of the day and we were bored by 11:00am. The views however were very nice, although it would have been better if the sun wasn’t hiding all day. Also it rained so unfortunately no swimming for us either.

Before our first stop, all English speaking guests were invited to the lower deck for a briefing of the day. We were really excited to be on the islands and were surprised by the amount of cats walking the streets. The housing colours throughout were beautiful and we were given enough time to roam the shops.

At the third island, Aegina, there were two optional extras: The Monastery of St. Nectarios one of the most important places for Greek Christian worship, or, the Pistachio plantation tour. We were psyched for the Pistachio tour, but decided that neither of them were as thrilling as actually relaxing on the beach. We’ve always wondered what Pistachio nuts look like after they’re packaged, but now we’ll never know. Our briefing was followed by some entertainment of Greek dancing with the audience. The keyboardist/singer was very entertaining. The crew made all announcements in Greek, English, French and Chinese so we were all informed of when to leave and return to the ferry at each stop.

We were served lunch at 1pm on the ferry. A tuna salad, main course was a lovely marinated pork and potatoes and finally lemon custard tart for desert.

We did feel a little rushed to be able to explore the streets fully as it would have been great to walk a little higher to get a lovely 'Greek Islands' shot with the houses and water. Oh well, we still had a very relaxing time and was well worth the trip.

Back in the hotel, hot water and ice are free and best of all, no complaining about bringing it up. We’re watching Harry Potter 3 or 4, not sure, we haven’t really followed the movie series so we’re a bit confused about the game when Harry saves people from drowning. Maybe we should watch them all when we get back from our holiday.

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Rome-Athens

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 11:39:00 +0000

Dan woke really early today to repack all of our things and condensed the number of carry-on bags of souvenirs to 3 (we have bought way too much stuff!), plus our backpacks and day bags. We checked out and reception tried to charge Ev for hot water for tea we had organised last night, even though every other time it was delivered free of charge. We didn’t pay for that, but were happy to fix the bill for the internet. We have many movies now! But seriously, hotels should not charge for internet at all because they always get cheap rates and broadband downloads are unlimited throughout Europe so there is no download cap. Anyway, we ordered the cab for 7:00am and we were ready at 6:40am. We left as soon as taxi arrived. We couldn’t get out quick enough. The cabbie sped most of the way to the airport doing 80 in a 40 zone and 140 in a 100 zone, but hey, ‘When in Rome...’.

We headed straight to the post office in the airport to send Mickey and his friends back to Australia, but it didn’t open until 8:00am. In Italy bills can only be paid at the post office, not over the internet so we found a cafe for breakfast close to the post office to watch if a line was going to build up. We had breakfast then joined the queue at 7:45am. Thankfully they sold boxes so we purchased the biggest one they had as we had our toys, books from the Scotland Castles, Paris Louvre, Rome, Vatican city etc. and magnets. Boy we have a lot of magnets now. We’re going to have to buy a second fridge just to have somewhere to put them all. We were able to pack everything so Ev joined the post office queue again to weigh the box. The post office didn’t have tape to secure the box (of course they didn’t?!!), so found a newsagent and bought sticky tape (they only had thin tape) and wrapped it around the box. We were both concerned that we it wouldn’t make it all the way home, but we really just wanted it gone, so Ev went back in the queue ready to send it but they only took cash. We didn’t have enough cash on us! We went to the nearest ATM at the other end of the airport on the floor but it was only a cash advance machine which neither of our cards could do. Not again!! Dan’s card doesn’t have a pin and Ev’s was only a savings card. Ev went back to the post office to babysit Mickey and the books while Dan looked for another machine. There was one upstairs but with the same machine and same system. Oh well, looks like the box will be on the plane to Athens with us. Who’s holding it? We checked our bags on the plane and took the 11kg box to the Additional Luggage area where we were warmly greeted by an arrogant prick who had to finish reading the last paragraph of his newspaper before sniffing to us and grunted. We asked if this was where we checked the box in and he pointed to the x-ray machine then carried on reading his paper. Another staff member came in the room and sat behind the computer screen and asked if he could help. He scanned the box and Ev asked if he could put more masking tape on and a fragile sticker on the box (Mickey is a delicate gift). That was a real effort to explain. Once he understood what we were asking for he smirked and said ok, ok. We were left dumbfounded that we had been treated so rudely. It’s hard to explain but we both have the feeling we may never see the box again.

Once finding our departure lounge we stood for half an hour as we were a little early, then continued to stand another half an hour in the line as there was a delay. We and the other passengers were a little concerned and beginning to be impatient. Finally gates were opened and we boarded the bus and waited another 10 minutes in the bus before it rolled out to the plane where again we waited 5 minutes standing right next to the plane before we could board. It was such an unprofessional procedure. The Captain announced in Italian that the wait was because there was a shortage of ground crew. The English announcement came five minutes after that. The taxiing was terrible and we slowly rolled on the road for 15 minutes and as we turned the corner ready to take off we couldn’t believe the queue of 13 planes behind us. Again, this was incredibly unprofessional. It seems it is always like this. This is definitely one place we can say we are happy to leave. We will not miss Italy a bit.

Lineup of 13 Planes waiting to leave Italy

Our flight was 1.5 hrs. The first thing we did was get cash out after our suitcases and the box were collected and we were relieved that Greece had started well. Finally we sent the parcel with Mickey in off to Australia without any dramas and sighed with relief. Ev asked for directions to the hotel. Unfortunately the train staff were on strike today and a taxi for a 20 minute ride was €61 so the public bus was in order for €3.50 each and would take about 95 minutes to the central train station then we’d work out the rest from there. The first bus we could have taken was jam packed so we waited 10 minutes and hurried on to get a seat to avoid standing the entire way. Ev had her suitcase on the floor at her feet and sat with her knees up to her chest most of the time while Dan cradled his luggage. It was comfortable but manageable. Athens seems fairly easy to drive in (We seem to have chosen the two most chaotic cities in Europe to try to drive in.) but thankfully we won’t be driving on this leg of the trip. We negotiated a cab fare to the hotel and it took him 15 minutes to drive there.

Baby Grand Hotel

We were blown away The Baby Grand Hotel. It boasts to be the only Fashion Hotel in the world. The reception front desk is a custom made converted Beatle car to table, and the waiting/bar area has mirrors and funky retro coloured walls with soft ‘doof, doof’ dance music in the background. Our room was really nice as well. Every standard room is decorated and ours was no exception. Strange to describe the creatures on our wall; they’re kind of like blobs with eyes a mouth and hair. Some look like sea creatures, another looks like a tooth with a mouth, one is just an eye with arms, and others look like hair with three legs, oooh there’s one that’s like the ghosts in packman. The drapes are thick black and white vertical stripes. We have a CD player, TV, fridge and free internet. Free Internet!! So we’re pretty happy with this room. We were given an introductory pack to read, and a letter from the organisers of our Greek Island tour tomorrow confirming our collection time and they gave us extra information about Athens and its sights. How lovely. Ok that’s enough about the room.

Baby Grand Hotel, Athens

We were so hungry when we arrived to our hotel at 2:00pm so we asked for directions to the shops. We walked down the street for about 20 minutes and there were a lot of shops. Awesome fashionable clothes, very bright colours and the restaurants seemed very nice and well priced. We had a nice lunch at a cool cafe and we excitedly believe we are going to really enjoy our stay here in Athens. We were actually just looking for a grocery store but our afternoon stroll was still nice. We recognised a few sights by this point and realised we were closer to the train station than our cabbie made out and overcharged us. Oh well, it’s good to know we’re close. We had lunch at a nice cafe then headed back to the hotel looking for a supermarket. Turns out there is one right across the street our hotel. Cool.

Now that we have food, time for a bit of TV. Unlike Italy and France, the TV is in English and they just have Greek subtitles so we’re more at home than we’ve been for a couple of weeks. Sshhhh! Oceans 13 is on. Good night Athens.

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Rome City Sights - Villa Borghese

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 06:17:00 +0000

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Rome Rest Day2

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 03:14:00 +0000

Ev’s Achievement for today: With our crappy shower head, Ev has learnt that she can isolate one of the annoying powerful jet sprays to give her bottom teeth a high pressure clean like the dentist. She is yet to master how to clean her top teeth without spraying water up her nose. That can be tomorrow’s task.

As you can see we’re having another rest day. Ev dragged Dan out of bed for breakfast at 9:50am and he was not happy, but he went back for seconds so he must have got something out of it. We put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign up so Dan could sleep while Ev worked on the journal. At 1:30pm we received a call from Reception asking if we were ready for Room Service to clean our room. Aaaa, didn’t we put the sign up..?? Anyway, our bathroom was cleaned with us still in the room...Awkward! The Post Office closed at 1:00pm so Mickey and our toys from DisneyLand in Paris will be coming to the Airport with us.

Right this second we’ve split the laptop screened so Dan can watch live sport and Ev has an 1/8 of the screen available for typing this. Our computer is tiny and Dan is crushing Ev’s arm. He’s comfortable though, but ‘When in Rome...’. I don’t know what that even means. That doesn’t even make sense. Anyway, time to get back to the DisneyLand journal.

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Rome Rest Day

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 02:54:00 +0000

We’re having a rest day today and have had some time to reflect on our trip so far.

We’ve been thinking that we took some of our research advice about how to travel way too seriously. From our observations we shouldn’t have stressed about what to wear in Paris or Rome as people are wearing jeans all the time, and not just tourists. We have each already posted back zip off pants and Dan has bought some jeans. We also should have not bought so much Kathmandu clothing as well as we’ve only worn one pair of thermals a few times in Africa on the cold nights, and have posted them back already.

We’re really please we didn’t buy a money pouch or wallet because we haven’t felt the needed for it. For our day trips we are taking a back pack that has a lock, which we don’t use and often we don’t even take a bag, just Ev’s small handbag and the camera bag. We have been careful not to leave things in our pockets, just in case, but a specific money wallet we think is way over the top. Walking though the city streets of Paris and Rome with a money wallet is like walking through the nearest capital city back home with a money wallet, and a bumb bag and a huge akubra hat with a sign that says ‘Outback Tourist’. We’ve seen other 50-60 year old tourists, the kind with socks under their open shoes, and they definitely look like tourists. We don’t want to look like that, so jeans have been perfectly acceptable and generally you don’t need to wash them everyday either.

And yeah, the Medication we’ve bought has been way over the top. We ran out of Sudafed because we did need that, and we’ve just bought some more in France. We found that buying medication, even in China is okay. The Pharmacist’s generally know what you’re looking for if you can hand them the packet you want because they have translation books at the counters. We certainly didn’t need two packets each of nausea tablets. And we have 10 bottles of malaria tablets because we each have to take one daily in Africa and for the Inca Trail. Our medication bag could have been halved...though the cautious side of Ev says ‘but we still have another month and a half to go’.

We’ve changed our itinerary. We’ve decided not to do the Inca Trail because Ev’s legs are still cramping every day as we head out on day trips. We asked Karen from Travel Managers to investigate the difference between taking the train up and just seeing Maccu Piccu, but we’ve decided to just cancel Peru all together (that’s 5 bottles of malaria tablets we can take out now, or donate to someone). Our trip is becoming very expensive and it would be good to have a week at home before going back to work. As it was, we would arrive home on a Thursday and Dan will have to start work on the Monday and that is really not a lot of recovery time. We’re feeling pretty homesick here in Rome, but still want to continue with our trip. We’ve been going non-stop for a full month, everyday going out to see some amazing sights, and this last week of driving and watching our bank account diminish has gutted us. We’ve planned a lot more rest days coming up, and we’re hoping Greece will be very quiet as well. We’re both looking forward to NY mostly because it’s a country that speaks the same language, has TV we can make sense of, food that will taste normal, theatres, and sport, Dan is very excited about the American Sport.

Being so far behind with our journal and posting on the blog has also been pretty stressful. We have a lot of information stored in our minds and things we still want to read from our souvenir books to incorporate in each journal. Uploading and sorting photos also takes a lot of time. It’s tiring to think about, but it’s worth it. We read through our China book all the time and are glad we took detailed notes then in 2006, so we need to make sure we keep up with it on this trip as well even if we just finish uploading things to the blog when we get back to Australia. There has been so much we have seen and all the days seem to blur into one at times.

We’re having another rest day tomorrow. Honeymoons are supposed to be relaxing right?

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Vatican City

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 00:48:00 +0000

Today we visited the smallest country in the world: The Vatican City at the centre of Rome. We’d been for a walk the other day and saw a line up to the Vatican that stretched the entire block of 700 metres and would have taken 3 hours to go in. In our down time we’ve come across some great tips, so we booked our tickets online which were ready for collection at the desk inside the building. We were shocked that we waited only 15 minutes to get in! Research is really paying off for us. Thursday’s before lunch is the quietest time of the week and at all costs, avoid lining up at 7:30am because every other tourist is doing it hoping they will get there first. Again we went with the audio guide option so we could explore the whole place on our own without being rushed and we are so pleased we did.

We passed through the Galleria Carte Geogrfiche of the Vatican Palaces. This room has scenes with gold frames painted on the ceilings and maps on the walls displaying Roman Army territories. It was a spectacular room to walk through. This corridor led us through more rooms with huge wall tapestries and on to Raphael’s rooms. Raphael's rooms were frescoed by several artists though the existing paintings they were soon replaced by Raphael alone with an aid for minor sections from 1509-1517. Stanza della Segnatura became Raphael’s masterwork being completed from 1909-1511.

Galleria Carte

Room after room after room walls and ceilings are decorated.

Raphael's Room

Room of Constantine

Sistine Chapel

We stayed in the Vatican for three hours and inside the Sistine Chapel alone for over an hour to listen to the audio guide comments and take in the many scenes that the artists had painted on the ceiling and walls but we’ll get to that soon. It’s a place where you wish there was no one else moving through so you could lay down and just allow your eyes to wander from scene to scene to scene, then back to the start again because you’re bound to see things you didn’t the first time. The audio guides bought great meaning to each scene. The photos of the book are very clear and probably better pictures than we could have taken inside (photography was strictly not allowed in the room).

Sistine Chapel

Wall Scenes

The scenes on the wall were Old and New Testament bible scenes were brought to life visually by various artists including Perugino, Pinturicchio, Signorelli, Cosimo Rosselli, Piero di Cosimo, Ghirlandaio and Botticelli. Some important scenes include the ‘Donation of the Keys to St. Peter’, the ‘Trials of Moses’, the ‘Temptation’ and the ‘Punishment of Korah’ and ‘Dathan and Abiram’. There are also 24 figures of popes painted.

To finish the chapel, Michelangelo was commissioned to decorate the ceiling (800 square metres and 300 figures) which represented scenes from the Old Testament including Separation of ‘Light and Darkness’, ‘Creation of Adam and Eve’, ‘Life Events of Moses’ and ‘Christ’s Ancestors’. Michelangelo also painted the wall behind the alter called ‘The Last Judgement’ which displayed the truly artistic creativity of Michelangelo’s finely tuned art of imagination blending with realistic illustrations of drawing the human body.

Ceiling in the Sistine Chapel

Ceiling Detail

Creation of Man

God separating Darkness and Light

Last Judgment

Creation of Man

We are pleased we took our time going through the many halls and rooms that mazed through the buildings and were lead outside to explore the Vatican City at the Piazza di San Pietro.

Monumental Staircase 1932 in the Vatican Museum

St Peter's Basilica

We joined the hundreds of tourists outside queued to pass through the security checkpoint into St Peter’s Basilica which was built over St Peter’s tomb as a monument in 320AD. Bernini planned the layout and detailing of the basilica and later Michelangelo redesigned the structure of the basilica.

Outside and in, the detail in everything is of the highest standard with marble flooring and pillars, gold trim everywhere, delicate tiling on ceilings and the flooring mixed with finely painted images and intricate carvings and sculptures including Michelangelo’s ‘Pieta’. Tourists came through the church in waves as we explored the corners of the rooms.

St Peter's Basilica

A magical moment with the natural sunlight streaming through to the alter.

St Peter's Tomb

The Pietà sculpted by Michelangelo

Back out in St Peter's Square, a red granite Egyptian Obelisk stands in the centre surrounded by navigation stones amongst the cobbled path. A granite fountain stands to one side at the edge of the piazza.

What time was this picture taken?

4:00pm

Tired from another full day, our legs dragged us back towards home and we stopped into the shops to restock our food and water supplies. This afternoon we are both really starting to feel exhausted physically and mentally from being on the move all the time. Walking everyday is definitely taking a toll on Ev and we’re thinking of cancelling our paid Inca Trail tour without getting a refund, so we’re going to take it easy tomorrow and see how we are after some rest and hopefully relaxation back in the hotel. The receptionist was kind to give us some ice for drinks and some hot water for tea when we arrived home, the two best ways of winding down. Although we are really curious to continue exploring some of the districts close to Rome, we need to start pacing ourselves and recuperate. We’re looking forward to lazing in Greece especially on our Greek Islands tour.

Time to look back over our photos from today and jot down some more notes.

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Rome City Sights - Spanish Steps, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:55:00 +0000

Despite yesterday’s ordeal, we’ve decided that the best cure for a stressful day inside is to continue exploring outside, but as per our revenge plan, the breakfast Nutella has became our hostage along with sugar sticks and tea and we now have a couple of movies to watch thanks to the fast internet speed and unlimited capping.

Spanish Steps & Trinita dei Monti Church

From the Metro Spagna station we passed horses with carriages queued in the Piazza di Spagna not to far from the Barcaccia Fountain to take customers for a tour of the surrounding cobbled streets. We mazed our way through to the fountain where we took some photos up to the Spanish Steps. Because there were so many people waiting at the fountain we only had a few seconds to literally jump in front of the camera for a snap before being hurried by other tourists. This is the widest staircase in all of Europe and consists of 138 stairs and looks up to the Trinita dei Monti church.

138 Spanish Steps - The widest staircase in Europe

Barcaccia Fountain

Hundreds of tourists had gathered to experience their moment of sitting on and walking up the Spanish Steps for themselves. We took our time walking up the marble staircase and were pleasantly surprised by the relaxed and fun family atmosphere and noticed people sitting on the stairs people watching and reading in the sun on the steps.

We couldn’t spend too much time in the Trinita dei Monti church above the Spanish Steps enjoyed the time in the Italian Renaissance church admiring famous biblical scenes like the life of John the Baptist and Passion of Christ.

Trinita dei Monti Church

In front of the church stands the Obelisco Sallustiano, (one of the many obelisks in Rome) which was moved here in 1789. It is a Roman obelisk in imitation of Egyptian ones and the hieroglyphic inscription was copied from that on the obelisk in the Piazza del Popolo. Although we’ve explored Egypt already on this trip, we are both still fascinated by the Egyptian hieroglyphics and history.

Obelisco Sallustiano

We made our way down the fashion road Via Dei Condotti admiring some stunning red shoes and expensive clothes. Maybe we’ll be back another day to buy something, not on this trip though. It’s gorgeous to see the shutter windows down this street.

We continued through the Piazza Navona and saw another obelisks in a fountain. The open spaces enclosed by the coloured apartments and serviced restaurants is a perfect place for vendors to also be but sadly we were running out to time with so much more to see so we continued walking.

In the Pantheon

We came from the back of the Pantheon and were ready for a lunch break so queued 15 minutes in a pizza place which was very popular by tourists. It was tasty and greasy and just what we were needing to refuel. The back restaurant room had paintings of Mexicans with sombreros which we thought was an odd combination with Italian pizza?!? It goes to show that even on a break our minds are always wandering and observing when we’re in new surroundings.

The external walling of the Pantheon was actually under construction today, but it was still amazing architecture, and inside the building we again marvelled at the structure and marble detailing. Inside the Pantheon is the sarcophagus of Raphael and has the sculpture of Madonna del Sasso (Madonna of the Rock) created by Raphael’s pupil and a beautiful 16^th Century chapel alter with a Crucifix sculpture. We could have stayed here all afternoon reading about each piece and observing the ceiling and walls.

The Pantheon

Raphael's sarcophagus with Madonna del Sasso (Madonna of the Rock) sculpture by Lorenzetto 1524

16th Century Chapel of the Crucifix

Trevi Fountain

Next stop was for refreshing gelato at the Trevi Fountain Piazza and we were amazed by how many people had gathered in a small space to see water poured over sculptures. The craftsmanship of these sculptures were truly fantastic and well worth the international fame it has generated. We flew across the globe to see it.

Piazza del Pollo

On our way home we strolled past the obelisk and sphinx in the Piazza del Pollo as rain began to lightly fall and we were pleasantly surprised that the Leonardo Da Vinci Museum was across the street.

Leonardo da Vinci Museum

This was a perfect opportunity to slow down and learn about one of the greatest influential Italians. Although da Vinci is well known by the public for his paintings, one quote read that he much preferred the freedom of creating his inventions and his counsel was highly sought after by dignitaries because of his abilities. This museum displays interactive machines recreated by his detailed sketches and displays creations such as his flying machine, boats, a machine for storming walls, and an 8 barrelled gun that looks like a rake. A video also looped about da Vinci’s geometric theories of the Viturvian Man.

We really wanted to buy a t-shirt with Homer as the Viturvian Man, but decided to save our money because we still have a month of travelling to go.

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800 Words Recovering From Staff Abuse

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 05:09:00 +0000

Ev was yelled at by one of the staff at the hotel today because she was taking breakfast that we've paid for upstairs to the room. We didn't know that we couldn't do that. Ev was at the elevator just outside of the small restaurant room and at the kitchen door with a tray of tea and orange juice to take up stairs (which she'd done before) and she had a plate of food as well. The kitchen okayed her to take it up, then this weasel of a man saw what Ev was doing and said “Excuse me miss, you can not take food up to your room. You must eat down here” Ev said that the kitchen staff said it was okay and he stamped his feet to insist that she can not take any food and that it would be a disaster if she and 80 other guests took breakfast up to their room. He offered that we could instead call from our room and pay an extra 3 euro to have the hotel deliver breakfast to us. That makes sense?? What a crock!! He made Ev give the food back to the kitchen staff. It was so embarrassing because it was in front of the staff and other guests in the dining room. After he left, the girls in the kitchen were also really embarrassed and apologised. As Ev got in the lift with the tea (cause she was allowed to only take that with her) one of the girls checked to make sure he wasn't around and picked up the plate then got in the lift as well. She said 'no charge' and put the plate on the tray. They were very lovely, but inside Ev was fuming!

We ate breakfast in our room and after an hour we started looking online for another hotel to say at for our remaining 6 nights in Rome but they were either too expensive, not available or in locations too far away, plus we don’t actually know if we can get a refund. We’ll ask later when the other reception ladies are on because we do not want to see this dickhead! Some people can be real pricks! We would never be treated like that in Australia. It just seems to be one thing after another every day not going right. We still have so many things we want to see on this trip though and have already paid for flights and accommodation for later so going home isn't an option for us. This was supposed to be our rest day.

We went down stairs to get some lunch from the shop and the tall weasel was at the counter and abruptly took our room key and said “Goodbye”, no smile or anything and no mention of this morning’s ordeal. Maybe this is the normal way they treat their guests. When we returned he just said “Room number” and handed us our key. We really don’t want to stay here any more. Upstairs we checked this hotel’s ratings online and it turns out that other guests have complained about the rudeness of the staff and how terrible the shower is, they must have all had the same room as us. Maybe we should have read this more closely when we chose this hotel. Hotel delle Vittorie, DON’T STAY HERE!!

At about 2pm we decided we definitely didn’t want to say and needed to ask if we could get a refund so made up a bullshit story that we wanted to stay in Florence for the next 6 nights. Turns out we can’t get a refund at all because we’ve already paid for the whole stay. That’s the problem with prepaid stays. If you hate it, you’re stuck with it.

Well if we have to stay here, we are going to exploit our stay. We have to pay 20 Euro for internet for 24hr period so we’re using up their bandwidth and downloading movies and TV series, and all the free breakfast stuff like sugar and Nutella, it’s come back to the room with us. We’re not usually this passive/aggressive but we have no option in leaving so, Screw You Guys!!

We both found it really difficult to sleep tonight so we were on the internet and writing our journal. Ev’s been feeling pretty sick from all the stress and to top it off, our day got worse when we received an email from our Tax Agent who confirmed that our return would only be half of what we were expecting. Our rent is due this week and we have recurring bills we’ve had to cancel. This is not good! We skyped Ev’s parents for some moral support and they are life savers. Our money worries are temporarily over, until we get back, but at least we can relax a little now, and they agreed the staff have been very unreasonable. Tomorrow should be a better day. Look out Nutella, we’re coming for you.

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Colosseum and Palatine

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 03:42:00 +0000

The hotel breakfast cafe downstairs this morning was packed and very uncomfortable. The room only seats 30 guests and we had to share a small table with German sisters in their 60’s. They seemed lovely as they wrote postcards back to family. It was very cosy indeed. The hotel served a typical European breakfast of cereal, cheese, fruit, and yummy pastries. Nutella croissants are devilishly good and it still seems wrong for breakfast. Anyhow we’re ready for another full day.

We’ve done some research about visiting the Roman sights and today we’re set to see the Colosseum and surrounding area.

Colosseum and Roman Forum and Palatine Hill Museum

We caught the train then walked to the Colosseum. It was an incredible view and we couldn’t believe how big the structure was and the detail in the columns.

There are three ticket lines at the lower floor entrance and we bypassed the ‘General Ticket Box’ and the ‘Tour Guides Box’ to the ‘Audio Guide Box’ where we were given a map and saved ourselves 45 minutes of waiting and the freedom to explore the sites on our own. This was such a good tip we read about because we had a better understanding of the history without being annoyed by an actual guide or being in a tour group and the price was only a few euro more.

We headed into the lower floor and learnt about the history of The Colosseum, originally known as Flavian Ampitheater.

Ground floor from inside the Colosseum

Building of the Colosseum began in 72 AD and was completed in 80 AD under Titus who inaugurated the Colosseum by holding 100 consecutive days of solemn festivities which saw the slaughter of 5,000 beasts. The Colosseum was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles like animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles and classical mythology. In the Middle Ages it became a fortress, then a quarry for materials until the mid 18^th century until Pope Benedict XIV consecrated it to the Passion of Christ. There are still crosses erect to this day.

The Colosseum measures 188 by 156 metres and is capable of seating between 40,000 and 73,000. The tiered seats were arranged according to rank: the lower marble seats were reserved for patricians, and the highest seats were made of wood for the plebs. Much of the building has been ruined from earthquakes and stone-robbers so it’s impractical for large events be held there, besides it would be really uncomfortable for us to sit on wood seats for an entire concert.

First floor from inside the Colosseum

Our audio guide continued as we moved around the theatre to the upper floor for a better view of the arena. The amphitheatre is 86 by 54 metres covered by wooden flooring over an underground structure of 15 corridors, many cells and passageways. There are storerooms for weapons, stage equipment, a hospital, a morgue, and barracks for the sailors within these cells. The floorboards also had trapdoors so animals could enter the arena via hoists.

We were fascinated by the intricate structure of the Colosseum both inside and out and admired the museum of warriors of the past then headed back outside. We had a homemade lunch sitting on the far wall opposite the exit to admire the detail of the building and feed the pigeons then headed on to see the Arch of Constantine situated between the Colosseum and the Palantine Hill.

The Arch of Constantine

The structure was built from parts of other significant monuments of historical nature to commemorate Constantine’s victory of Maxentius. The centre atrium, is the newest arch of the three and was built of new materials to depict scenes from the life of Constentine in the 4^th century AD.

Palantine Hill

We walked past the beautiful Church of Santi Luca e Marina to the entrance of the Palantine Hill which was included in the Colosseum ticket price. We decided not to have the audio guide this time as it would have taken longer. The village has a rich history of being a cemetery in the 9^th century BC then having its main buildings and temples rebuilt when Rome became capital of the Mediterranean, then the new Imperial Forum reconstructed the village to reflect the splendour and prestige of the dynasty which was upheld throughout the Imperial Age. The last Roman monument was erected in 608 AD in honour of the Emperor Phocas then the area was slowly buried except some temples that were converted into Christian churches until excavation in the 18^th century.

Temple of Antoninus and Faustina 141 AD Forum marks the death and deification of Faustina, wife of Antoninus Pius.

Temple walls with The Palatine in the background

The Palatine was used for religious ceremonies, then later official residence of Emperors and it became the first botanical gardens in the world.

We walked through the Farnese Garden and found a fantastic view of the Colosseum then continued to the exit at the Arch of Titus that was decorated with heroic scenes in battle.

Arch of Titus

We walked back past the Colosseum for one final look on the way to the train station. That was a long day, but an incredible experience understanding more Roman history.

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Rome Rest Day

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 02:47:00 +0000

We were completely wrecked after our exhausting day yesterday so we stayed under the covers hiding from the world. By lunch time we were really hungry. We’d been snacking on the food we bought from Paris for breakfast but we were in need of more sustaining food and we wanted to be more familiar with our surroundings so we headed down to Reception to ask some questions.

Our Breakfast

She said that our chances of finding anything open in the area was very slim because most shops are closed on a Sunday in Italy. There is a supermarket a couple of blocks away so we went for a walk and had missed trading hours by an hour, but at least we know where to come tomorrow, and we also came across the nearest Metro stop which will be helpful to know when we’re ready for sightseeing. There are a couple of authentic restaurants on the same street as the hotel so we have dinner sorted tonight. Reception have sightseeing maps for sale so we’ll get one tomorrow morning.

We had an early dinner at 5pm when the restaurant reopened and boy it was good. Finally some authentic Italian food in Rome. We both wanted Lasagne and a Pizza. Although lasagne was on the menu, they weren’t serving it tonight so we settled for authentic spaghetti and the waiter suggested a beautiful Cheese Calzone (which is a pizza that folds over itself). The pasty was very fluffy. After a while the cheese became a little too cheesy flavoured so we mixed the spaghetti with the calzone and it was even better. We simply couldn’t eat it all so we asked if we could take it home. The waiter seem offended that we had asked to take it home. The restaurant was dine-in and take-away, so we couldn’t understand what the big deal was. When we left he was a little rude to us but attempted to be nice and invited us to come back tomorrow night. We’ll see about that. There are so many places to explore but since the food is really good and we’ll be here for a week, we will probably try one of their pizzas before we leave.

Ev asked Reception for hot water and milk for a cup of tea and like yesterday they were helpful. Tea is so comforting when you’re tired and homesick.

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Pisa-Rome

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 12:30:00 +0000

Worst day of the trip so far.

Driving from Pisa to Rome was again very bad. More tolls, we ran out of cash (remember we have the extra fee when we drop the car off). Our tax return still hasn’t come through and we really need the money now. We couldn’t use Ev’s credit card as we don’t know the pin. We had enough cash to pay for fuel but had to put food back. We didn’t have a GPS to rent and were in desperate need of a map. After we finally found a service station that sold maps, the only one we needed of Rome had been sold out. We finally found a map and Dan bought it with cash while Ev called her bank to ask what her pin was. The bank said her card does have a pin but couldn’t tell her over the phone; they’d have to generate another pin and post it. That’s really helpful WHEN WE’RE IN ITALY!! There was no way we could get cash out. We drove through the streets of Rome which was another whole level of stress from lots of one-way streets that weren’t indicated on the map, no lines on the road and cars that just push in front of you. We finally arrived to the hotel in the northern part of the city to drop off our bags and by the time we got there we were so stressed that Ev was shaking inside and felt like vomiting and Dan had been cursing many expletives about the roads and no signs on the streets. We dropped our bags into the hotel but our room wasn’t ready so the unhelpful staff allowed us to leave our backpacks literally in front of the Reception desk where all of their guests could see our things. We didn’t feel very welcomed and were clearly stressed. Anyway, no time to rest, we have to get the car fuelled up and back in time or we’ll be charged extra. We fuelled up close to the train station where the rental company was. We drove around the terminal 3 times before finding the poorly labelled car park entrance which was on the 7^th floor and by that time a bar had gone down on the fuel indicator and we stressed that we’d be charged 150 euro for not bringing it back full. We found a close by self-service depot that had a sign saying ‘credit cards accepted’. We checked before putting in fuel if they actually take credit, they didn’t. What the hell!!! We’re taking the car back anyway and pleading that we don’t get charged 150 euro because the fuel isn’t full. Turned out the missing fuel bar was ok. Maybe she could see how desperate and stressed we were. Exhausted we left and decided to catch a train back to the hotel. Surely things couldn’t get worse, but it did. It took us 45 minutes of walking around the terminal with poorly marked signs to find the information centre. We finally found it and were told we should take the Metro A line which was what we thought we should do. We went to the ticket booth with coins and tickets were very cheap at only 1 euro each. We had 1 euro and 20 cents. Come on!! We walked around stressed thinking of what to do because we still couldn’t withdraw cash or use credit. We headed back towards the Information Centre but Dan had a good idea of exchanging one of our souvenir notes from Ireland or Scotland. We really didn’t want to do that, but had no choice. The exchange staff were on a break. Oh My God!! Can’t anything go right for us? The sign said only for another 5 minutes, we waited 15 and were first in line. Even the staff aren’t in tune with us. We saw a sign that we could get a cash advance, (Horray!!) so once it was accepted we finally had some cash and didn’t need to exchange one of our notes. Dan had a wave of relief refresh him, but it took Ev a lot longer to de-stress. Finally some money and a good backup option until our tax return is in our account. We took our time and headed straight for food. Finally, we had greasy pizza from Italy at the train station which was the best remedy to the most stressful day of our lives. It was seriously the best pizza we have ever had, and we now had change for the train ticket. We finally crashed in the hotel room at 6pm. What a ridiculous day.

Today we just want to go home back to Australia.

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Cluses-Pisa

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 12:05:00 +0000

We woke to a surprisingly lovely view of the surrounding mountains and slowly got ready for a day of driving. We had Macca’s for breakfast which was a little challenging because the cashier couldn’t speak much English and we can't speak French, but pointing seemed to work. She helped us work out the currency as well.

Cluses, France

Today’s scenic route today was spectacular through huge mountains among clouds. We needed the windscreen wipers a lit through the fog and rather than fighting our put-put car we estimated to reach Pisa later than we intended. Still, the driving was stressful and there were tolls along the highway everywhere. We’ve been unable to withdraw any cash so we’ve had to swipe our card to pay tolls and buy fuel. We thought ATM’s would be available at most petrol stations.

Speaking of petrol stations, we discovered yesterday that our tank is very, very, very small and we almost ran out of fuel. Forgot to mention that trauma in yesterday’s entry. The gauge was close to ‘Empty’, but not quite empty, and by the time we had reached the next stop, the E was flashing very fast. We were seriously tensing our legs hoping that we would make it in time and not have to walk to get help on the highway. At least we have a better understanding of how this crappy car works. Anyway, the scenery was nice today.

France / Italy Border

When we arrived in Pisa, we were very keen to have some greasy Italian pizza so we went down to the restaurant to look at their menu. They only had gourmet pastas. Looks like we’ll need to find a takeaway place we can use credit with, cause we have less than 1000 euro cash, but first a quick look to the Leaning Tower of Piza. We were given directions from Reception and he also told us of some close pizza places we could look for. We drove through the streets of Piza in the light rain and noticed the traffic wasn’t very busy for 5:30pm. It doesn’t seem to be a very big city, but their traffic is still pretty crazy, more so because Ev still hasn’t mastered driving on the other side of the road. We drove a little too far past the Tower so U-turned and parked in a small area at the entrance of the Tower, literally. Unsure if we were able to park there, we very quickly got of out the car in the spitting rain and walked quickly for a photo. The Tower is in a complex with another chapel and of course vendors were out making money.

Leaning Tower of Pisa

No time to line it up properly - that'll do, we have to run.

We snapped a few shots and hurried back to the car to make sure we didn’t have a parking fine. We realised on the way there had been a police van parked in the complex near ours the whole time. Ev went to the car, and Dan quickly bought a magnet of the Tower. Dan heard that a lady had been told by the police she couldn’t park there, so we were very lucky not to be fined. So we have our shot, time for some food!

A small pizzeria was on the side of the road on the way back to the hotel so we pulled in and got out of the car. Looking at the menu, we realised they didn’t take credit. It seems that nowhere in Italy takes credit. We decided that gourmet Italian is going to have to do tonight. Seriously, we just wanted a pizza. We procrastinated and went back to the room. We couldn’t get the TV to work so Ev had a shower and Dan fell asleep until Ev woke him up at 8pm. Dinner was expensive and really not worth it. Dan had ravioli that was dripping in oil. Ev had grilled chicken breast in a white wine sauce with nuts. Sounded nice, but the balance just wasn’t there. Neither of our meals came with sides and we were very hungry when we left. All of our food was still in the car and it was pouring rain and we were exhausted. Both very disappointed with our expensive meals and still stressed from our drive we compounded our anxiety and anger by talking about our money worries. We really need our tax return to come in now! We listened to each other properly and came up with a plan for budgeting our holiday and how we should deal with it when we get back home. This soothed us, along with some much needed makeup sex. What? We’re on our Honeymoon! We went to sleep more relaxed.

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Paris-Cluses

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 11:12:00 +0000

We can both proudly say that we have given Paris every effort to see its top sights and happily we report that we believe we have had an authentic French experience. We found the French people very lovely which we were both surprised about, having heard many tourists say the opposite about their stay. We are both super excited to go to Italy and hopefully will meet more lovely people and understand the Roman lifestyle better, especially their food!! Greasy pizzas here we come.

We didn’t have an exact route planned but as long as we end in Rome in two days we’ll be happy. We have a few options of staying in small towns in France and in Italy we’re thinking of staying in Geneva, Florence. First though we needed to get to the airport to pick up the rental car and we’re both pretty stressed about driving. We know that there is going to be a big fee because we're dropping it off in another country so we're just hoping there won't be other hidden fees along the way because we still have hotels to pay for along the way and our tax return hasn't come into our account. We were very pleased to drop the car off last time because it was really difficult driving. We’ll call Omaha Beach day a driving practice run. We asked for a smaller car this time because we had a couple of close encounters with curbs and buildings in narrow alleys on our Omaha Beach drive but sadly a small car on a fast no-speed-limit highway was a really bad idea. We drove through many tunnels and over beautiful gorges and past small provinces which was nice, but to be honest, the stress of driving on the other side of the road really wasn’t worth it.

This car was terrible and had NO pick up. We should have taken it back but thought it would be fine. Oh well. We both have led feet when it comes to highway driving, not that we speed, but, when there’s an opportunity to go as fast as you want i.e. no speed limit at all, we expect to be able to do just that and it simply was not satisfying to be limited to a really shit car!! So here we were plodding away in the ‘slow lane’ behind the caravans and trucks a lot of the time unless the road was downhill. What was most challenging was knowing that when we did overtake we were actually slowing down all of the traffic who had been sitting on 120-180km/hr as their average speed and we were stuck on 110km/hr max! Plus the frustration of the signs, or Ev having difficulty following the signs in unfamiliar towns. We had a couple of heated moments in the car today and found a hotel at the last minute.

No that’s not us, but we wish that it was the crappy car we were in.

We’ve found a new appreciation for pre-booking hotels because we would have had the security of a bed and actual directions. Anyway, driving today was disastrous so we’ve rested in Cluses at the Best Western after not finding any B&B's on the outskirts of Geneva.

"Please no more driving EVER!!"

Where are those drinks now!!

P.S. After Dan had too many drinks he wanted more coke so Ev let him drive for the first time in France. What? Yeah, He was very uncoordinated. It was only in a back street, no cars around and he just reversed then his conscious kicked in! Come on, you actually think Ev would let that happen. He didn't actually make it all the way to the end of the street, just part way.

We had a good night and stayed up until 3am after discovering some cool French musicians on their video hits channel. We were listening to their songs on the internet and just unwinding.

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Paris City Sights

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 03:46:00 +0000

We are quickly running out of time in Paris but as exhausted as we are, we want to push ourselves today again to see all that this beautiful city has to offer. Please be warned pictures of exposed bones are in this blog and anxious children may be disturbed by the images (‘cause adults don’t get scared by this stuff), but that’s later in the blog.

Notre Dame Cathedral

We started our day at the unmistakable Catholic church of Notre Dame. The exterior was beautifully embellished with the iconic windows and statues of the Apostles. The beauty inside the building of contrasting dark wood tones and colourful glass windows was breathtaking and it was truly touching to see the many alters and candles as offerings.

Notre Dame

We entered the Crowned Jewels room and saw displays of Priest cloaks and precious rings, old scrolls, plaques of previous Priests and gorgeously displayed gold goblets, platters and other gifts.

Les Invalides and Napoleon's Tomb

We walked around the beautiful church for almost an hour before making our way to Les Invalides and Napoleon’s Tomb. The Les Invalides is a series of buildings once used as a military hospital and later extended to incorporate a retirement home called ‘hospital des invalids (hospital for invalids). Now it is a French Army museum and Emperor Napoleon’s Tomb. Napoleon was a military and political lead of France and Emperor of the French now known as Napoleon I, who shaped European politics in the early 19^th century.

A gold cap on the dome of the building was added in 1676 to mimic the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome for a private chapel for King Louis XIV and was finished in 1708. The cathedral is also the tomb to Emperor Napoleon and other close family. The room inside is truly spectacular with marble flooring and huge pillars. The space opened on the first to see below to the ground floor and Napoleon’s tomb floor and above stretched the beautiful high ceilings decorated with scenic paintings of Nepoleon and gold decorations that scaled almost five floors high. Each white marble pillar supporting the ceiling was carved to give a Roman decor style. Once examining the unmistakable brown marbled tomb below the eye is drawn around the first floor to the back of the building to the enormous alter of black and white marble with angels flanking its sides.

We walked past the main alter with sore necks from looking up, then made our way down spiralling wide brown marble stairs to the ground floor. The corridor door was guarded by marble stone figures carrying precious gold crowns. Napoleon was truly worshiped and adored by the people. The walls of the corridor leading to the tomb were spot lit on carved scenes of Nepoleon in battle and shaking hands for peace agreements.

The tomb was centred in the room and surrounded by angels at each pillar carrying offerings. Further behind the alter was the resting place of Napoleon with a statue of him with a staff and crown.

Uplifted, we left the building for a better shot from outside. Time for lunch! We stopped into the Cafe Du Rendez-Vous and enjoyed a French lunch. It was nice to finally stop enjoy the French pastime by watch the passerby’s over a good meal and coffee. It’s good to be in Paris today. The cafe was across the road from the Parisian Catacombs.

Catacombs

More history: At the end of the 18^th century, rampant disease in the les Halles neighbourhood caused by the adjacent Cemetery of the Innocents led to the mass grave being entirely exhumed. In 1785, it was decided that the bones were to be moved to the building stone quarry under the Montsouris plain in the south of Paris. On April 7, 1786, after being properly converted and readied, the quarries were consecrated and become the principal ossuary of Paris. Until 1788 cartloads covered with black clothes, escorted by priests chanting the office for the dead, crossed Paris by night to deposit the remains. The Catacombs were accessible to the public to view in 1810-1811.

We bought our tickets and walked through the slippery corridors 20 metres below ground level beneath the metro in the old sewer system before coming to the bone galleries which follow the street patterns above ground. It was very eerie walking through nameless bones that were decorated to form patterns.

We walked almost half an hour with only one way out, forward. Although there were other people walking the corridors, no one wanted to speak. We heard every echoing footprint splashing in shallow puddles but were surprised that the bones were dry. There were plenty of lights through the corridors that lit the skulls and bones so we could clearly see the details. It would have been scary if the lights turned out. We were very pleased to breath the fresh air outside. Now we were inspired to keep going and see all there is in life.

Louvre Museum

One last stop for the day was the Louvre Museum, but first before the Museum, the world’s best toileting experience. Check out the toilet paper colours and patterns and the toilet seats. Every toilet is cleaned by an attendant after each use with the latest electronic flushing and taps that technology has to offer.

On with the Museum tour. The prism colours were spectacular.

The museum was very busy with thousands of people everywhere, especially in the room of the Mona Lisa painting but we pushed through and got a shot. The painting was behind glass for protections and flashes were going off all around. It’s clear to see now why so many other museums don’t allow photography.

Mona Lisa

La Venus de Milo

Goddess Athena

Though we’ve been to Egypt, we gazed at the Egyptian artifacts of the museum for a long time still admiring the beauty and craftsmanship of the carvings.

Ramses II

Becoming tired from our day we rested inside the foyer then took the escalator to the upstairs exit via the prism.

We certainly have a better feeling for the culture and history of Paris after our day and we’d love another week here to slow down and enjoy the sights more, but we can rest when the trip is over.
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DisneyLand Paris

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 01:17:00 +0000

My Husband took me to DisneyLand in Paris today! I'm the luckiest girl in the world!!

DisneyLand Park

The first thing we saw from a distance was the Enchanted Castle. Yey, We’re at DisneyLand! Armed with our tickets we walked through the baggage search and straight for the ticket booth to exchanged for real tickets (just like Pinocchio) and get our hand stamped for a pass out. There was barely a line and we walked in virtually straight away. As soon as we walked through the turnstile we quickly stopped in to a souvenir shop for Ev to get a DisneyLand shirt to wear all day then headed back outside and looked at our map to find the rides we want to... What’s that celebratory music in French?... Mickey is coming!!! Woot Woot!! The music started playing over the loud speakers as the road was clear to make way for the ‘Mickey and Friends Parade’. There was Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, The Incredibles, Goofy, Pinocchio, Tigger, Wall-E, the Chipmunks, Lilo and Stitch... and they were all singing and dancing on the back of the train and waving to Evelyn! Yes, waving just to her ;) What? that’s how DisneyLand is supposed to make you feel? The parade was short but long enough to inset that we are truly at DisneyLand. Time for some rides!

Evy in her new shirt @ DisneyLand

Elastigirl - The Incredibles

Pinocchio

Tigger

As we were saying we have a few ‘must see’ rides already chosen... Hey, there are some little girls wearing Snow White dresses. Ev would wear one if they were in her size... Ok, ok, back to the rides, so we’ve decided we are going to use the... Look, where do we get those Tigger balloons from?... (See what Dan has to put up with!) So back to the rides, the Fast Pass would be good to use on the... Balloo... (Dan covers Ev’s mouth)... roller coasters because we do not want the same experience of waiting for hours like at Legoland... Balloons?

Surprisingly there was no wait on our first ride and we walked straight in as well. Have we missed something, or just come on a really good day. Now, Ev has never been on a fast roller coaster before but was pumped for this one because she knew Dan would love it. ‘Space Mountain’ was incredible. It was in the dark most of the time and twirled upside down and did a 360. It was so fast. We could hear some girls screaming behind us. So cool!

Space Mountain ride

That ride was next to ‘Star Tours’ which was a group ride in a spaceship and a 2d screen of a Star Wars journey through space and inside one of the ships. It was unreal when Luke’s/our ship flew through an asteroid shower and in space and dropped the bomb that destroyed the Death Star. Very cool indeed! Outside we went to a gift shop and saw small figurines of Minnie as Princess Leah, Mickey as Luke, Goofy as Hans Solo and Donald as Darth Vader. We wanted to get them all.

Star Tours ride

We stopped at the ‘Videopolis’ at about 1pm and had leftovers from yesterday: cold toasted cheese sandwiches (it tasted as bad as it sounds) while watching classic Mickey Mouse cartoons like Steamboat Mickey on a big projector. At least we attempted to bring our own food to save money. Onwards we pushed through...That’s two boy rides in a row. Time for some girly stuff. We walked through Sleeping Beauty’s ‘Enchanted Castle’ and saw the entire storyline made in stained glass windows. Evy’s in love all over again.

Sleeping Beauty's Enchanted Castle

The ‘Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups’ ride was so much fun and there wasn’t much of a line either. The cups spin and we had a wheel to turn our individual cup clockwise or anti-clockwise. It was really fun.

Mad Hatter's Tea Party ride

Even ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’ was there. Lining up for this ride freaked both of us out. The rollercoaster was a small mining car that looped at high speeds and our stomachs sunk as we watched the ride do a 360. Holy Crap! This was scary!! We both yelled/screamed! It’s much more terrifying being on a rollercoaster in daylight. That was Ev’s second rollercoaster ever. Ev said she had tensed her body so much to hold on that she didn’t feel the thrill of the 360 part and wanted to go again. Dan said “No way woman!” Wuss.

Indiana Jones mining cart ride

We walked around DisneyLand a bit more and came to the main stage just in time for one of the shows.

We had seen most of what we wanted at this park by 3pm and were concerned we might not have enough time for Walt Disney Studios Park so we stopping in for another look at the souvenir shop for a look around then crossed over to the next park.

Walt Disney Studios Park

There he was at the entrance. Walt Disney with little Mickey.

We were really excited to be at Walt Disney Studios. We first queued up for the ‘Armageddon’ ride but missed it just as the doors closed. The usher outside was screaming and clapping at Dan “Hurry... run, run, run,” to beat the closing door, but there was no physical way that anyone could make it inside, and even if Dan went through the door, Ev was behind the turnstile anyway. The usher looked genuinely annoyed that Dan didn’t run. Hey we gave it our best man. The next viewing is in 15 minutes but we weren’t in a rush to return.

Instead we went to the ‘Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith’, another ride Ev knew Dan would love. We walked through the corridor of signed LP’s by Aerosmith, Coldplay, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., Radiohead and others then we continued to the rollercoaster. That’s 3 in one day. This one was cool. We got in our seats and Ev put our bag of souvenirs at her feet tightly. We had rock music speakers directly in our headrest and heard the Aerosmith band talking then “3”, “2”, “1” and, loud music, we were propelled forward fast!!! followed by jolting corners, smaller spiral turns, sudden dips then another 360 spin and flashing lights all the way. We both felt the 360 this time and Ev definitely screamed. The ride was awesome and we both wanted to do it again but were a bit dizzy. That ride was the best of the day!

Rock 'n' Roller Coaster ride

Dan wanted to go on the Tower of Terror, but Ev was absolutely not up for it. Three roller coasters in one day was a huge stretch for her, so no we are not dropping faster than gravity. Dan was really shitty cause Ev wanted to line up for ‘Crush’s Coaster’, a kiddy ride and a 40 minute wait instead of going on the Tower so we decided to be fair and not do either. We walked around a bit more and saw some characters being chased after by kids. Ev followed.

Donald Duck

Pluto

Second lunch was at ‘Disney Blockbuster Cafe’ and Ev had Mickey ears shaped pizza and it tasted all the better for it. Dan had a hamburger. Then we finally went to the ‘Armageddon’ ride. It truly wasn’t worth the effort. Ev had a photo with Mickey then we finished exploring the park, including Andy’s room from Toy Story.

Ev and Mickey

We left DisneyLand around 5pm (see clock below) with tired feet and uplifted hearts. Disney truly is a magical place where dreams come true and it was everything Ev had hoped it would be. We’ll be staying in Disney World Orlando in October as well!! Bye French speaking Mickey xx.

Arc de Triumphe

We caught our breath on the train back into the city and decided to stay out a bit later to see the Eiffel Tower in lights, but first the Arc de Triumphe at the Place Charles de Gaulle. This structure is a monument to the soldiers who fell during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. The sunlight was perfect for displaying the heroic scenes displayed on the walls. A service was being held at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from WWI. It was good to see, especially having been to Omaha Beach yesterday.

Arc de Triumphe

We climbed the internal staircase to the top of the monument for some spectacular views of Paris (including the crazy driving beneath).

Paris Skyline from Arc de Triumphe

Eiffel Tower

We drove in that traffic!

We briskly walked towards the Eiffel Tower hoping to reach the top at sunset. From the Arc de Triumph it didn’t look too far away, but everything seems closer when you view things from above. (Check to photo above to see how far we had to walk.) It took us about an hour to get there, although we did stop for dinner at Haagen Dazs Ice cream. We arrived well and truly after sunset, but got some beautiful evening photos of the tower.

Eiffel Tower

From a distance, the view of the Tower and scenery was beautiful. We definitely felt more connected to the city and each other this time round. It was very relaxing. We made our way over the bridge where the dinner cruises were crossing then all of a sudden lights all over the Eiffel Tower lit up like twinkling fairy lights for a minute, then stopped. This was the 9pm sparkle just for us.

Eiffel Tower

We carried on to the base of the tower but were held up by police officers. They were yelling pedestrians who attempted to cross the street to the tower. We thought dignitaries were coming and they had closed off the elevators for them, but after 10 minutes waiting we decided we could do without the expense of riding up so we walked to the train station and finally arrived home. Once we were more relaxed we turned the TV on to the news to see red alert messages that threats had been made to bomb the Eiffel Tower. That made more sense than our theory, but we were really lucky nothing happened. Hopefully nothing more serious will happen while we're here because we still have more to see in Paris. God protect us.

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Rest Day

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:01:00 +0000

After our long day yesterday we were eager for some rest and a somewhat quiet day. We slept in missing breakfast so went for a stroll to find something to eat close to the hotel for lunch and on our way we dropped into to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, 'cause that's what you do on a Honeymoon. This cemetery is the resting place for so many of Paris' famous celebrities that a map has been created identifying their grave sites. It is huge, taking up a couple of blocks. We sought out Chopin, Belini (music composers), Edith Piaf (French singer) and many others including the great Jim Morrison. It felt weird after an hour going grave hunting, but when you're actually there, you lose track of time and can almost feel some kind of a connection with these people as you pay your respects.

James Morrison

Belini

Chopin

Enough morbidity, time for some rest at the hotel. We bought a late lunch after a challenging phone call with Ev's credit card bank. We had to call from our mobile back to Australia which was going to cost us a fortune, but they really didn't care. The consultant seemed incompetent and unsure of the procedures and Ev insisted in escalating the issue to a team leader who asked the same questions as the consultant. Anyway, the card is all sorted now, but we are still pretty stressed. Noone likes money issues when they're on holidays, so we've decided to pace ourselves and not do as much this afternoon.

We booked tickets online for DisneyLand in Paris and went down to reception to have them printed. Ev is super excited!! At around 8pm we watched French celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire that went for two hours. We watched the whole thing and followed most of the conversations and questions. It's easy to understand French because you can pick up on some of the words and the rhythm of the accents and vowels. We'd both love to learn French better when we get home.

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Omaha Beach - Invasion of Normandy

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 09:55:00 +0000

Danial has researched a huge day for us to the Omaha Beach area and we have the beach and museums to see today. After a drive of 3 hours we made it to Omaha Beach and could feel the struggles that took place on D-Day. A memorial called “Les Brave” has been erected in the sand on the beach and consists of three elements: ‘The Wings of Hope’ (to always remember them); ‘Rise, Freedom!’ (help us to remain strong); and ‘The Wings of Fraternity’ (to remind us of our responsibility towards others and ourselves). Here’s a short history lesson to recap on the events courtesy of Wikipedia.

Les Brave

D-Day Landings

“Omaha Beach is the code name for one of the five sectors of the allied invasion of German occupied France in the Normandy landings on 6^th June 1944 during World War II. The beach is located on the coast of Normandy, France, facing the English Channel, and is 8 km long, from east of Sainte-Honorine-des-Petres to west of Vierville-sur-Mer on the right bank of the Douve River estuary. Landings here were necessary in order to link up the British landings to the east at Gold Beach with the Americans landing to the west at Utah Beach. Taking Omaha was to be the responsibility of United States Army troops, with sea transport provided by the U.S. Navy and elements of the Royal Navy. On D-Day, the untested 29^th Infantry Division, joined by nine companies of U.S. Army Rangers redirected from Pointe du Hoc, were to assault the western half of the beach. The initial assault waves, consisting of tanks, infantry, and combat engineer forces, were carefully planned to reduce the coastal defences and allow the larger ships of the follow-up waves to land.

Poem of Remembrance

Wikipedia notes that the airforce had “difficulties in navigation caused the majority of landing craft to miss their targets throughout the day. The defences were unexpectedly strong, and inflicted heavy casualties on landing US troops. Under heavy fire, the engineers struggled to clear the beach obstacles; later landings bunched up around the few channels that were cleared. By the end of the day, two small isolated footholds had been won, which were subsequently exploited against weaker defences further inland, thus achieving the original D-Day objectives over the following days.”

The story of Omaha Beach was captured in Steven Spielberg’s movie ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and with not a lot of imagination we could feel the struggles that took place that day. We both felt a sense of allied country pride and gratitude standing on the beach with the water washing over our feet and sand between our toes.

Omaha Beach

We walked up and down the shore then continued our self-guided tour to a few war museums in the area and past the Bridge of Freedom.

Bridge of Freedom

Museums

The D.Day Omaha Museum bought a deeper real experience of the week’s history. From the boats and artillery outside the Museum, to the radio systems, weapons and passports inside the Museum, we were truly transported to the time when war was in the country

D.Day Omaha Museum

We then headed over to the Musee Memorial O’Omaha Beach that had a tank sitting in the parking lot.

Musee Memorial O'Omaha Beach

Victory Flag kept by the Allied Military

Model of the D-Day Landings

Pointe De Hoc Ranger Memorial

Hungry for more history, we drove to Pointe De Hoc Ranger Memorial to see the site where the Americans scaled the cliffs. Here, earth was scarred from the bombs. Despite the bomb covered ground, many of the German shelters were untouched and tourists are allowed to explore the infrastructure.

Pointe De Hoc

German Bunkers

We saw the exact spot where the army climbed the cliff which was incredibly steep. Unfortunately maintenance cranes were working so we couldn’t actually stand there, but seeing the place bought more depth to the history.

The cranes were the first spot the men claimed land

Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial

The 172 acre Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer was the most moving experience of the day. An interactive museum has been created beneath the entrance of the Memorial. The museum displayed allied flags, memorabilia, and many TV’s showing movies of individual stories and facts about their attack.

Allied Flags in the Museum

As we slowly walked around the museum, we curiously braced ourselves while being drawn by a female speaker, solemnly stating names of those who lost their lives during the war. The voice lead us to a sacred space: a large round room with high a ceiling filled with space. This room worthily displayed photos and stories of significant military men and women included those awarded with the Medal of Honour. With the solemn voice overhead we slowly walked around the walls to read the mounted plaques which stated their title, date of birth and death, when they arrived to France and their heroic duties. The museum was a remarkable platform to the cemetery and memorial outside by the beach that stretched for acres.

The cemetery was truly a moving experience. Buried in the cemetery are remains of 9,387 heroic American military. Words truly can’t express the feelings when we saw the multitude of white marble crosses standing on the green grass. Each cross stated a name, date of death, infantry number, division number and the state of America they were from. That’s right; Nine thousand, Three hundred and Eighty Seven white crosses. You can’t see them all from the ground.


Normandy American Cemetery

Theodore Roosevelt Jr's Grave

Unknown Soldier

In the centre of the cemetery blocks, a circular chapel of Vaurion limestone has been created. On the exterior of the lintel of the chapel is inscribed: “These endured all and gave all that justice among nations might prevail and that mankind might enjoy freedom and inherit peace.” Directly above the chapel’s door is engraved a replica of the Congressional Medal of Honour, America’s highest award of valour. The interior of the chapel contains an alter of black and gold Pyrenees Grand Antique marble with a large window behind it, and a beautiful mosaic on the ceiling.

Chapel

We made time to see the Memorial which has the names of 1,557 Americans inscribed on the walls of a semicircular garden at the east side. These are men and women who lost their lives in the conflict but could not be located and/or identified.

Memorial

German Battery

The day was slipping away from us and we still had so much to see. Our next stop was the Longues Battery at Longues-sur-Mer consisting of four unworkable German guns which surprisingly were hardly damaged during the war.

One of Four German Guns

We walked further towards the beach and climbed inside another post which showed a great view of the remains of our next sight, the artificial harbour at Arromanches.

Another German Post

View of Arromanches

The Arramanches Beach is still home to abandoned harbour material that trucks and tanks drove over from the boats during the war.

Harbour remains at Arromanches Beach

We've been learning basic French to get by and interact with the locals. Before our drive home we stopped into a local shop for some snacks. As Ev entered the store she greeted the shop keeper by saying "Bon jour. Parlez-vous anglais?", to which she replied "Oui". We asked her in English how much the snacks were and for directions. After paying for said items, as we left Evelyn turned to the shopkeeper to bid her farewell and said "Parlez-vous anglais?". Ev didn't hang around long enough to catch the confused expression on her face as Dan held back a laugh. Dan left embarrassed by saying "Merci" and rushed out the door. Dan sat in the car for about 20 seconds not saying anything and then started laughing. Obliviously Ev asked "What?" and Dan said "Do you know that instead of saying 'goodbye' you asked her again if she spoke English?" and burst into laughter again. This continued for many hours.

After 8 hours sightseeing we began our 3 hour drive back to the Paris airport and returned the rental car at 10pm as we didn’t need it any more during our stay in France. The drive home was long, but definitely worth it. We were in bed just after midnight after midnight. What a great day... Parlez-vous anglais?

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Eiffel Tower

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 01:04:00 +0000

After our incredibly stressful day driving in the heavy traffic, we decided to take it easy and stay completely out of the car. We headed down for a late breakfast of croissants and jams, chocolate pastries, ham and cheese bread rolls, cereal, yoghurt, fruit salad and tea and coffee. Yummy!! The croissants were lovely, but we’re thinking we will find better ones elsewhere in Paris. The breakfast room was quite small, seating only 36 guests so it’s quite cosy and we wanted to leave fairly quickly.

We rested all morning and after lunch headed out to see the Eiffel Tower in its full glory. Unfortunately because we were still so stressed from our driving experience yesterday we didn’t feel very romantic but the structure truly took our breath away.

We walked around the gardens and underneath all four corners and were bugged by lots of vendors sitting on the cement each with hundreds of small souvenir towers lined up in rows in front of them for ridiculously cheap prices. No we didn’t get any but instead queued for the drinks line and bought a 200ml bottle of water for a ridiculously expensive 4 euro!! Amongst hundreds of tourist we navigated our way slowly around the gardens and found a nice patch of grass under the trees. The grass was a little damp, but the view of the Tower was spectacular. Lots of couples were around us all gooey eyed at each other and we stayed an hour enjoying the sight we came to see the most in Paris and we definitely felt more relaxed after being in the park. What a great lying down view for the afternoon!

We walked further along the gardens to take in a wider view of the tower and surrounding park and noticed more vendors, some dancers, musicians and other street performers busking for money. It was a very lively area and wonderful family atmosphere.

Further away from the park we stumbled into tented stalls for a fun-run finish line to support breast cancer then headed back to the hotel past the outward turned chairs at cafe’s. Cafe dining is very much a people watching experience and it felt strange as a passerby being their entertainment. There’s a nice feel to the city and so far we’ve found the people friendly, oh and public transport is very good here. Our hotel is only a couple of stops from most of the places we’d like to see while where here. We’re planning to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower maybe Monday night but we haven’t finalised on any plans yet. Either way, we’ve had a lovely day and have more to see tomorrow at Omaha Beach so we’re having an early night.

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Driving in the City of Lights

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:18:00 +0000

We definitely could have stayed in Scotland a few more days, but, the car needed to be returned and our flights have already been booked. We packed our bags fairly quickly and have a light bag of souvenirs to take with us. We’re hoping that our drive in France will be good, although we are expecting a bit of stress having to drive on the other side of the road and all. Up and away we go. Farewell beautiful Scotland. We will miss you.

We touched down from our short one hour flight to Paris at 1pm and despite reading that the Parisian public transport system is very good, we bypassed the train and headed straight to the Hire Car area. Oh Ladies, check out the artwork in the airport toilet. What a way to be welcomed to Paris!

Airport Female Toilet - very French indeed

Back to hire care, we already have a car booked for the 16^th for our drive down to Rome so decided that we would brave the traffic and just use the car until then to get around. It sounds cool: “We’re driving the streets of Paris”, but it was far from cool. The price for the 6 day hire car from Paris down to Rome with our 3 days was well over 1,000 euro. It didn’t make sense to us because we’ve already paid for the 3 days but we were told we would have to pay 500 euro because we were returning it in a different country. Anyway, we just wanted to leave the airport so we took the car.

We drove around the car park a couple of times as it took Ev a while to be comfortable being in the other side of the car with gears on the right side, and she flicked the windscreen wipers by accident thinking it was the indicator, Oops! We slowly left the airport with taxi’s (yes, multiple taxi’s) beeping at us to go faster, but hey, we’re learners here. It was amazing to be driving out of the airport and seeing a plane land literally right next to us with only a fence between our road and the plane runway. Crazy!!

Ev driving on the Paris Highway on the other side of the car and road!!

French graffiti

Planes landing next to the car highway

Unfortunately, actually thankfully, we were driving in peak hour traffic because we could actually drive slow and know where we were on the map. We’ve decided not to use Dan’s iPhone for directions any more. If we get lost, we’ll just have to find a way back the old fashioned way with a compass and a map. We saw signs for an exit we should have taken, but somehow, it merged into the road we were actually on. Few! The huge no-lined roundabout was chaos, so we drove extra, extra slow on the outer most section of the road to make sure we got off at the correct street. We were really lucky to get to the hotel in less than 2 hours, and it should have only taken 45 minutes. It was ridiculous, and that train sure sounded like a good idea. That’s enough driving for now. So where do we park the car? Of course there is no car park at the hotel! We dropped our luggage off at the Grand Hotel and drove 5 blocks away through the crazy roundabout again and paid 22 euro for the car to sleep safely. At least we have a car for some day trips though, right? Now we can relax.

After our luxurious Scottish hotel we were in the mood for a nice bath and hoping for a big room. It was comparatively small and quite cramped with a double bed and not a lot of room to move and only a shower, but it was nice, so we happily unpacked our bags and Ev displayed our toy Highlander cow to make the place a little more homey, then we rested for most of the afternoon. At about 5pm we ventured to the streets of Paris looking for dinner and found a nice take-out eatery which we came back to after going to a small supermarket to buy water and fruit. Dinner was very nice. Ev asked reception from some hot water for a cup of tea. It’s a little uncomfortable not having a kettle in the room. Time for sleep now.

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Edinburgh Castle

noreply@blogger.com (Dan-Ev) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 08:12:00 +0000

We both woke up early for a change and wanted to see Rosslyn Castle (only 20 mins away) before Ev skyped her parents so we quickly had breakfast and left so we’d be back in time. We drove out to Rosslyn where the Chapel was not knowing the Castle is just behind the church. It was a bit of a walk along a muddy car track and we couldn’t believe we actually walked down this same road the other day and missed it. After watching the Da Vinci Code the other night, the final scene was fresh but it didn’t look the same. This is the scene where the cars drove out from the castle at the end. It was very nice with loose stones along the driveway and a weathered stone wall at the front entrance. The Castle looked very homey but as there were cars out the front we didn’t stay long. We’re thinking people actually live there or rented it for the week. It would be a pleasant place to stay. We took a few snaps from different angles then headed back home just in time for Ev’s date at 10am.

Rosslyn Castle

Turns out we both had the days and time confused. We’ll be on a plane tomorrow so will have to organise for another time. We sat around the apartment relaxing and reading brochures about the city and surrounding areas then decided we should make time for the Edinburgh Castle today. It was good to have our own lunch, then we headed out at around 12pm.

Edinburgh Castle

We parked at the foot of the castle and walked up the slope and stairs. On the way Ev’s calves were cramping and she had to stop to stretch. She’s had a lot of soreness the last couple of day drips and we’re questioning if we should even do the Inca Trail. We’ll see how we go and if it gets worse we might have to call Karen to cancel. Eventually we made it up the stone stairs and to the left we were immediately confronted with scaffolding and workmen stacking chairs. The Edinburgh Tattoo was on last week and Ev was kicking herself that we missed one of the greatest shows on earth. We stood in the centre of the stage and imagined the marching bands and horses performing on this very stage with thousands of viewers in the stands before the majestic Edinburgh Castle. Ev pirouetting infront of the Castle. Dan laughed and we walked in.

We had pre-paid for our tickets for the Edinburgh Castle online last night so we just collected them from a machine then also collected the audio guide for around the castle. It was well worth the few extra pounds. The view over the castle wall gave a spectacular view of the city and surrounding mountains. We didn’t really know the layout of the city very well, but a couple of other tourists were pointing out sights to each other which we overheard. It was lovely to see all the greenery between the houses and buildings. Edinburgh is a very pretty place.

Side of Edinburgh Castle

Stage of Edinburgh Tattoo

View of the city from the Castle

At 12:50pm a female soldier and a noise thrill seeking tourist came out into a petitioned space near the wall in front of hundreds of tourists. We waited patiently to see what was about to happen then the soldier moved next to a working cannon peering through the wall over the city. It was a couple of minutes wait for the 1 o’clock Canon and the tourist obviously knew how loud it was going to be as she excitedly jumped and clapped in anticipation then covered her ears before it was to go off. The soldier saluted then grabbed the chord and pulled “Banggggggg!!” The sound echoed and smoke puffed out of the end and although we knew it was coming, it still scared the shit out of both of us and hundreds of other tourists. We reviewed the video Dan took just as she pulled the cord and the camera shakes abruptly as the cannon is fired. That’s twice Dan has been scared! Very cool indeed.

1 O'clock Cannon

Banggggggg!!

After our heart beats returned to normal we continue our audio tour around the castle grounds and marvelled at the city from all sides. On top of the castle near the church we strolled through the souvenir store and bought a book about the Castle and a small bottle of Edinburgh Castle whiskey. Outside we looked over the wall down to the Dog Cemetery a flight down; that’s right, dogs are very loved by the Officer’s and Royal’s.

Church

Pet Cemetery

Castle Meeting Rooms

We carried on to one of the buildings that had been turned into a museum displayed information of the history of the castle and reigning Royals. One curved wall displayed paintings of the earliest Kings and as time moved on the paintings progressively came out of the wall into full sculptures. It was very artistic. We saw the Scottish Crowned Jewels encased in glass, including the Sword of the State made for James IV in 1507, the Crown made for James V in 1540 and the Sceptre for James IV in 1494, and each of the shield designs (about 20) for each Royal couple who governed in their time hung around the walls of the room. We enjoyed our time at the Castle and handed in our audio guide at 2pm. By this time Ev’s legs were very sore so we paid our parking ticket and went back home.

Edinburgh Castle

The Royal Mile

Competition car in a Mall

Back on the couch

We had leftovers for dinner. ‘Oh leftovers, how we’ve missed you’, then rented ‘Mr & Mrs Smith’ and ‘40yr Old Virgin’ from reception. It’s nice to feel like we’re living in a house instead of a hotel room. We’re having our Edinburgh Castle chocolates we bought today with some ice-cream now. Orange and milk chocolate, Strawberry and white chocolate. They are very smooth. Yum! Now, This is a holiday.

After dinner Treat

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