Its been a while since I last wrote. I have been on a cycling tour in the Loire Valley which was awesome!! Very glad I did this instead of hiking. The countryside goes by much faster and you create your own breeze! Plus there are so many little roads to ride on & things to see. I stopped in Tours to buy bike supplies eg a helmet, riding gloves & a gel seat to protect my ass........am glad I did this as it was either this or those horrible nappy bike shorts, which I can now understands the purpose of!! As it was Bastille Day I tried to finde the cemebrations in Tours before I left. The parade I found them setting up for the day prior had finished by about 10am and the town ... read more

So I arrived in Venice after a great train ride. I really don´t mind trains and it is a great way of catching up on reading, journal, postcards etc. This one was particularly enjoyable as it was short, plus all of the sunflowers are out. The last time I was in Italy it was too late for sunflowers (they were all dead & black, not nice) and this time we were too early. However I got my fill of fields of sunflowers in Austria!! Found the hostel ok and it is NOICE. Its a Wombats one, they have 2 here and one in Berlin & Munich. This is the newest one and it has everything a backpacker could want. Small dorms (4 beds), huge lockers, proper showers (eg no detachable head), hairdryers, and even the ... read more

Wow, Slovenia is a very interesting country. I've learnt a lot in a few days and I can contribute it to my hot guide Yann when I did the walking tour! Amazing what looks can do to my interest levels. I think more and more people are taking an interest in this country. Its still nowhere near as overrun with tourists as Italy but I did run into quite a few foreigners. So heres a bit os a history lesson....Slovenia became an independent country from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and have an interesting history. They have basically been plundered by any of the large empires in Europe at saome stage or another so have many different influences. They thankfully started using the Euro this year, a fact which I only realised just before getting ... read more

After 3 nights in zadar we caught a bus to Split to jump onto our boat to sail around the Croatian coast for 7 days and nights. After 3 days in Zadar we hadn't heard many Australian accents (there were many Germans there) and were surprised that as soon as we arrived in Split everyone seemed to be australian and jumping on or off boats! It must be the latest Aussie thing to do. We had no idea what to expect of our boat but what we were hoping for was a boat of friendly people who were up for a relaxing trip and maybe a bit of going out at night. We were put on a boat called the Penelopa and the average age was about 21! The bar opened around midday and everyone ... read more

Ah Venezia....my favourite place the last time I came to Italy and pretty close the second time also! I don't know what it is about this place, it's certainly not the millions of pigeons in St Marks Square, the American tourists or the exorbinant prices... I think it's that Venezia has real class!! People dress up here and are stylish. It's easy to get around on foot and quieter than other large cities as there is no traffic. It's also the scenerey - getting lost in the little backstreets and finding gorgeous squares and buildings. It's also been warm and sunny here which makes it easier to love! I parted ways with Robyn & Dan for 24 hours when we arrived. We'd been together for almost 2 weeks so we thought it was best they ... read more