We ended our transit tour by being unceremoniously dumped at the Budapest International train station at 11pm at night. It was deserted, there wasn’t a taxi in sight. What’s more, we had no local money. Thankfully we did manage to find a taxi reasonably quickly which whisked us of to our hotel for a long awaited stretch out and sleep. Budapest is an interesting town, in that it’s actually the amalgamation of three separate cities. The two major ones, being Buda on the one side of the Danube, and Pest on the other (we forget the name of the third town, [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Turkey, the next 50 hours were a pain and drain, as we blundered our way to Budapest, starting with an overnight pit stop in Sofia, Bulgaria. We decided to catch an overnight bus from Istanbul, that would land us in Sofia at 7.30am. We had heard good things about Turkish buses, and were told to not even bother with a Bulgarian bus company, and this advice was true. Good bus, served tea, cake, and made convenient stops. What was not convenient was the Turkey - Bulgaria border check point at 11.30pm, which took approximately 2.5 hours to get through. [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Turkey from Paris in the evening, and settled in for a short night’s sleep before we were collected early for our two day tour to the Gallipoli battlefields and Troy. The first day of our tour we had a comprehensive visit to the old battlefields where many Anzacs fought against the Turks in WW1. We were blessed with wonderful weather, as our guide constantly reminded us, it should be windy and cold. It was a wonderful experience, wandering and exploring Anzac Cove and the many memorials in honour of the fallen soldiers of the Gallipoli battle. It was [View Full Entry]

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Bonjour! After our 'interesting' start to France we arrived in Montpellier, situated in the south of France, approximately 760km south of Paris, just to the west of Avignon. We arrived to find ourselves quite fortuitously in the midst of a local wine festival. For those that have been to the Harvest Festival, it is a similar concept, except solely dedicated to the wine aspect. For 2 euros we were supplied with a wine glass each, and 3 tokens to try 3 wines. However, given there was only an hour and a half left of the festivities, many of the exhibitors had [View Full Entry]

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Barcelona was the setting for part two of our trip to Spain. Unfortunately Rach caught quite a bad cold (potentially from Duncs who had the sniffles for two days in Lisboa) and was feeling under the weather. We decided that a day or two taking it easy to allow Rach to overcome the worst of the cold was a better idea than pro-longing it. This still didn’t stop us getting out and about and catching all the sights of one of the most vibrant cities in Europe. We started our tour of Barcelona with a walk in search of some Gaudi [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Porto and after an initial exploration of the town we were overcome with similar feelings to Dublin. The town seemed to lack a certain something. We were beginning to feel that maybe we were building up unrealistic expectations of a town only to be let down when we got there. This made us more determined to get to the bottom of Porto and see all it had to offer. The city is a strange mix indeed, the ‘old’ part of the town so obviously displays an amazing history yet it seems to have been lost on those living [View Full Entry]

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Welcome back blog fans! Well, our plans changed slightly, due to some exorbitant plane fares... Subsequently, we decided to wrap our tour of Portugal in a Spanish sandwich. We have split our blog of Spain into two - first will be Madrid, a short break of 6 days in Portugal (see following blog), then our 3 days in Barcelona. So here we go with Madrid… We finally arrived in the early evening after a full day of travel from Dublin where we last left you. We were pleasantly surprised at the warmer weather, yet Rach was shocked (and fascinated) by the [View Full Entry]

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It’s fair to say, that after our experience of Scotland, our first impressions of Dublin left a little to be desired. However, this would start to turn in Ireland’s favour, as our experiences went on. Our first full day in Ireland was spent going straight to the Guinness Factory. After 3 hours of learning all things Guinness, and 3 and a half pints later to Duncs, Dublin was starting to look a whole more inviting! With our impressions of Ireland increasing, we decided to join a 3 day tour of the Ring of Kerry with Paddywagon tours. The tour started with [View Full Entry]

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This blog was meant to be posted 6 days ago, however, due to a difficuly with the internet (primarily caused by Duncs), and a lack of access since has meant we are now posting our blog of Scotland in Madrid. We arrived in Scotland 4 days after our arrival in London and took control of the “Silver Rocket”, which would be our chariot for the next 5 days - a.k.a the Silver Passat with it’s unorthodox method of car ignition. Spent the night at Stirling after checking out the birthplace of Queen Mary of Scots, followed by our first taste of [View Full Entry]

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The trip started well after an upgrade to business from Melbourne to Singapore, unfortunately the same cannot be said for Singapore to London... economy on an A380 with Pommy flight attendants isn't as good as it sounds. But not to worry, the flight isn't why we decided to travel for the next 10 weeks. We arrived in London safe and sound and got straight in the spirit while meeting up with Sam and Em (from here on known as 'Tang & Em'). We undertook the mandatory tourist trek. Off to Harrods first, were the only beneficiary of our fiscal outlay was [View Full Entry]

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