This morning we had a very strict deadline, get up, get ready, eat breakfast and pack the bus before 7AM, otherwise you will be left behind. Today we were heading into the smallest country in the world, Vatican City. Most of the group boarded the bus on time but we still left quite late, some of the group literally ran to catch the bus as it left. I didn’t think yesterdays queue at the Colosseum could be beat but once we arrived at the Vatican the queues were insane. Luckily we were having a group tour around the Vatican hence we could join the much, much smaller, group line. Our private tour was with a young American historian who gave each of us some headphones so we could clearly hear her from her microphone. Once we ... read more

Another early morning and we woke up to find a beautiful day outside, it was perfect for our guided walking tour around Florence. Hannah and I packed up our gear and carried our luggage to the bus where the group was slowly getting ready. Eventually we all packed the bus and made the walk back into town to explore Florence. We met with our tour guide who introduced herself then lead us to our first stop in the Piazza della Signoria which was a huge square in the centre of Florence. The square is scattered with amazing statues and we stood listening to our guide explain the immense history behind some of them. It began quite interesting but she had so much to tell us that most of us lost interest quite quickly. Next we headed ... read more

Hannah and I woke up earlier than everyone else in the group since we were taking the train into Monaco, however by the time we left the others were starting to get ready. We walked down to the train station down the road which took us straight into Monaco, but we realised that we had only just missed the train by a few minutes and the next one wasn’t for an hour. We bought tickets and headed down to the beach for a look around. We walked up and down the pebble covered beach until it was time we head back to the station and catch the train. It took around an hour to get into Monaco but the train ride was fantastic. It ran along the cliff side where we had incredible views of the ... read more

We were up incredibly early this morning, breakfast was at 7AM and we had to set off around 8AM. We packed our gear and tents then threw it all into the coach. We waited around another 20 minutes for Jamie then eventually after standing in the freezing cold we boarded the coach and set of for Avignon. It was another long drive today and the weather was pretty bad as well, constantly raining, sometimes pouring it down. We were all sitting in the bus, keeping ourselves entertained by either playing games, chatting or just sleeping when all of a sudden the bus seemed to lose power. Billy pulled over on the side of the highway to try get it started but it was dead, eventually we all figured out what was going on, we were stuck ... read more

Woke early to my alarm and packed my bag and eventually the tent. This morning I wasn’t feeling great after a big night last night. After my shower I ate breakfast and helped loading the bus, soon enough we were ready to leave. Today we had a long drive across the boarder to Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland. We drove all day long, stopped for lunch then continued driving until we finally reached the border. Switzerland was known to have strict border control so we were expecting to be here for a while waiting to be granted entry. The bus pulled over and Billy turned the engine off. We sat for 5 minutes and were cleared into Switzerland, Jamie couldn’t believe it. He had never heard of it taking such a short amount of time before, considering a ... read more