There comes a stage in one’s life when you get ABSOLUTELY sick to death of being on a bus - I’m there! Today was another of the long haul legs, from Nice to Barcelona - without any interesting stops along the way. I guess that stopping through some gorgeous European towns would make life so much easier - but then we’d have even less time in the big cities…and we had heard from Tam and Sam that there was lots to see in the big B. We finally pulled into Barcelona at 5:00pm, and with only 6 chapters of Harry Potter [View Full Entry]

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With no extra activities planned with our group today (probably our first day with none) Iz and I had plans to kick back. We had to do some laundry first though, as we hadn’t washed in over 2 weeks! After an hour and a half on the net, waiting for the clothes to dry, we were ready to hit the beach. It didn’t take much to convince me to pay the extra to access the private beach, where you got deck chairs, an umbrella and table service. We didn’t have towels, and the rocks looked a bit uncomfortable. As it was [View Full Entry]

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Today we say Ciao to Italy and bonjoir to Monte Carlo and France. We made our way out of Montacatini and headed over, under and through the mountains. We passed through over 180 tunnels and over dozens of highway bridges. This would have to be the most costly stretch of highway in Italy! Our first stop was at Pisa - home of the leaning tower. It definitely has a nasty lean! We sent about an hour at Pisa taking photos and having lunch. It is pretty crazy to think that the tower had more of a lean than it currently has [View Full Entry]

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A lot of people were happy to say goodbye to Rome, as many of them had found it to be a dirty city. It does get you a bit down, to see the lack of effort and respect. Here is a city steeped in history, and yet the people seem to allow it to be destroyed by rubbish, graffiti, and the modern age. Supermarkets were being built on top of historic Roman columns as we drove out. Apart from the disrespect, Iz and I still managed to find a few things we would like to see, and although I would rather [View Full Entry]

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Today we venture through Rome - the historic capital of the Roman Empire. The day started with a trip from Rome to the principality of the Vatican City. Sounds a bit weird to do an excursion to another country, when we only just got here! The Vatican City is the smallest country in the world and is actually surrounded by the city of Rome. The guided tour was lead by Chincia again, who introduced us to Rome yesterday. We were all handed personal radios as we waited in the queue. Chelle struggled with her ear-piece. She doesn’t do earphones, and only [View Full Entry]

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Today we make like the Romans do and Travel to Rome - via bus, not chariot. The drive was a long one, as we were by-passing Florence, a quicker drive, and heading on to Rome. Jon gave us a brief history of the ancient city on the way, which was good. After two toilet stops, and some grub, we finally got to Rome at 4:00pm. We certainly weren’t expecting to see all the topless hookers on the side of the highway coming in - they position themselves at the bus stops, and wave their boobs at you while you drive past [View Full Entry]

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We had high expectations of today - a trip to the glass blowing factory, then a stroll around the streets of Venice, with the sun gleaming across the street canals. This idealistic dream quickly evaporated as we woke up to yet another drizzly day. Last night, we had checked the weather on the internet (sunny 29 degrees) and had dressed accordingly. We both wore thongs and shorts - bad idea Sunshine! The day started with an hour trip to Venice from our accommodation - which was about 45 minutes outside of Venice. This trip included a water taxi to the centre [View Full Entry]

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This could possibly be our shortest blog to date, as all we really did today was DRIVE. We seem to do a lot of that on this tour, which is understandable, given the huge expanse of Europe - at least we still have a day to check out the sights. I did have one highlight this morning, and that was trying out the beday in our bathroom. This feature is pretty much standard in Italian bathrooms by the sound of it, and I thought it was pretty much part of the whole experience. It wasn’t a bad one, by any means, [View Full Entry]

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The early morning start was worth getting up for this morning, as we had a palace to visit - the Schonbrunn Palace. We were visiting the summer palace of the Hapsburg Royal Family, which has over 1000 rooms, as opposed to the Winter Palace, which has over 3000! Obviously, we didn’t get to look through all of them, but we did get to see some amazingly opulent sights. Empress Maria Theresa ruled here for her lifetime, and had 16 children at Schonbrunn, including Marie Antoinette. The Viennese people loved this lady, who provided free health care and education (which was WAY [View Full Entry]

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There seem to be a lot of ‘Burgs’ in Germany - and this one you would definitely have heard of; it is the town where Mozart was born, and where they filmed scenes from the ‘Sound of Music’. It’s Salzburg! That was our destination today, but first we had to get there. This was pretty straight forward, considering it wasn’t too big a drive from Innsbruck. We disembarked from the bus, two and a bit hours later, into the rain (I was wearing sandals - I always manage to have them on when it’s raining) and we headed into the famous [View Full Entry]

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