http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/KelEurope/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from KelEurope en-us Sun, 07 Sep 2008 09:20:27 BST Sun, 07 Sep 2008 09:20:27 BST We arrived at the airport early for our flight home to Melbourne. This was due mostly to my wanting us to get to the breakfast room at The Pancreas as soon as it opened 730 a.m. so that I could actually get some eggs on my plate before they were all snapped up by the other Pancreans and before the Odd Blond Canteen Woman refused to cook any more. So we arrived early and it turned out we were http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/City-Centre/blog-215970.html Our last day of European Adventures is drawing to a cruisy close. And I cannot tell you how nice it will be to pack tonight knowing that it will be for the last timeSo yesterday afternoon we went to the matinee well 3 p.m. session of 'The Lion King' at the Lyceum Theatre. What an amazing production. It was the best stage production I've ever seen not that I go to the theatre all that often http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/blog-215294.html We've now arrived back at 'The Pancreas' otherwise known as St Pancras Youth Hostel in London. We caught the Eurostar train from Paris this morning quite the production that was more about that later. It's so funny here sitting near reception and listening to the nice NZ dude dealing with people a nicer dude than last time we were at The Pancreas. To get in the building you have to buzz http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/blog-214931.html It's really not what you think It's just that 'Dirty Dancing' the film seems to be our Parisien soundtrack given that Samaritaine and CK have been singing 'Dirty Dancing' songs since we arrived after a dinner conversation re the film. For my part I can only really watch listen or roll my eyes and sometimes all three at once having only seen the film once apparently sacreligious and no http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/-le-de-France/Paris/blog-214327.html Or 'The red tap means hot right'Well to be more precise it's the Northern Irish Invasion. Lisbon has been taken over by the Northern Irish who are here from what we can gather for a soccer match between Celtic FC and someone else I guess a Portuguese side. I first noticed them last night when walking back through the city from Alfama. There were about six guys all wearing stripey green http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Lisbon-and-Tagus-Valley/Lisbon/blog-213712.html We arrived in Lisbon yesterday morning again no customs so no stamp on the passport. We're staying in a hotel here which is a nice reprieve after the shocking WHE in Barcelona. It's like we're staying in someone's house a very quaint and charming little hotel and extremely cheap where Samyelena has been kind enough to let me have the double bed. No breakfast unless we pay for a standar http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Lisbon-and-Tagus-Valley/Lisbon/blog-213410.html We had a long travel day two buses a plane and another bus in transit to Barcelona on 18 October which included on our ClickAir flight from Naples the best plane landing I have ever experienced. The passengers even broke into a round of applause for the pilot I don't know if this is a standard ItalianSpanish thing or if everyone was just in agreement about the superiority of the landing. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Catalonia/Barcelona/blog-212737.html The Internet was way expensive in Amalfi hence my silence. I'll be brief due to lack of time ...Amalfi overall was great. It's a really beautiful place though not on the same level as Austria. It would be a lovely place to hang out on your honeymoon or spend a romantic time. It was quite touisty but in manageable numbers and the tourists weren't manic like they have been other places Venic http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Campania/Amalfi/blog-212442.html Do I look French An Italian dude said bonjour to me this morning. Not bonjorno.I neglected to add a very important detail to yesterday's blog. Remember how the gladiator clowns almost swindled us Well karma caught up with them sort of in a secondhand kind of way ... okay not really.When we joined our Colosseum tour before we went inside our guide took us over to one of the gladiator cl http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Rome/blog-211145.html I'm on another of those weird symbolonkeydoesnotmatchwhatittypes keyboards only this one has half the keys blank because the letters have worn off from so much use Too funny.This should be a quick one because I'm pretty much up to date with the blogs and we didn't do a great deal today having some downtime this afternoon. But there's a funny story to tell as there always is. An almo http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Rome/blog-210894.html You know what I loved about Florence At the 'i' they had these pamphlets these 'Welcome to Florence' pamphlets of the following Public Toilets in the City so handy Courtesy Points in the City a guide to the reception one can expect in various cafes whether cafes have indooroutdoor tables smoking areas tea service toilets onsite etc. and City Services a guide that included lists of http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Rome/blog-210666.html ... and I will be your guide for today. I was actually the guide for the Kelly and the Samara's group tour of the Galleria d'Academia on today this afternoon. I made them feel like the howyousay KGB people or special private investigators because I gave to them the small earpiece so that they could hear me talking when we are not standing in the group. I have now joined Kelly for to describe he http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-210079.html Well ciao from Florence a city I'm really enjoying.We arrived by very nice Eurocity train though perhaps still not as nice as the longdistance GermanAustrian trains yesterday morning. We had several hours to explore the city before checking in properly to our accommodation though we did dump our bags there when we arrived. I had a really good feeling about Florence as soon as we stepped of http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-209804.html We spent the last twoandahalf days in Venice and due to time constraints and not being able to get Internet access in the Water City I'll now just have to just give a general overview of our time there.Venice overall for me was disappointing. I had always wanted to go there and had been fascinated by the place but it didn't live up to my expectations. I did actually find it fascinating http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Venice/blog-209468.html I'm actually in Florence right now but once again cheating with the dates and locations so that they ring true with the content ... I had no Internet access in Venice unless I paid like 8 euro per hour daylight robbery.This Italian keyboard is so weird The symbols above the numbers and around the letters don't correspond with what's on the actual keys. For example the symbol will say b http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Salzburg-State/Salzburg/blog-209447.html I think this will be a short one as Internet is expensive here and I seem to have not much spare time to actually write. Could be something to do with my needing a bit of extra sleep because I have a cold. This would not be remarkable except that it's my first actual cold in almost four years since I first got sick with glandular fever. Weird I come to Europe and catch a cold that I've avoided http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Salzburg-State/Salzburg/blog-208164.html Im using a strange Viennese keyboard which has the z and y swapped makes sense to the Viennese but is very offputting for me and has all the symbols above the numbers in a different order. Finding the key and then figuring out how to get it to actually type was quite the chore As youll see I figured it out. Well Samski did. I cant take credit. Thanks Samski. So where were http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Vienna-State/Vienna/blog-207276.html Alrighty it's now the morning following my previous blog. It's Saturday morning and most people are still asleep. The early hours of the morning are the only quiet time at this hostel. Yesterday we actually lost power in our room but oddly only on one side of the room. It did however happen to be the side of the room where the only powerpoint is located. We complained at reception and the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/North/Prague/blog-206563.html Well the award for Worst Hostel goes to our hostel here in Prague. I don't know if it's the worst hostel in the world or even if it will be the worst of our travels but it's the worst so far I won't go on about it but it's really quite dodgy. The bathrooms are terrible both structurally try massive holes in the tiled walls and in terms of cleanliness. The establishment feels like it's fall http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/North/Prague/blog-206375.html Apologies for the lame blog title.We've just arrived in Praha Prague and I'm standing yes standing at a computer at reception because the two computers with seats are taken. And I think this computer is actually only for accommodation bookings you're not supposed to use it for anything else Oh well no one has kicked me off yet ...Our train trip from Berlin to Prague was about 4.5 hours lo http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/North/Prague/blog-205797.html