Travel Blog Posts
November 4th 2010
*********** FRANCE - PARIS*************** The night train was a 12 hour trip with carriages that had 6 rooms: 3 for the men, 3 for the ladies. In each carriage was 4 pull down bunks, 2 on each side, one above the other. My room was next door to Lynette's and only had the one Frenchman in it who didn't speak a word of English. When the train took off, Net was the only one in her room so I was elated when the conductor okayed me staying in her room. He had keys that unlocked each bunk and pulled down the one above Net's. Just as I had settled in and unpacked, the train stopped at a station on the Spanish border and two old French women got on board with tickets showing that they were ... read more
November 2nd 2010
SEVILLE The taxi driver took off from the station and began to swerve through the traffic like he was paying the fare. If we hadn't have had the experience of Bali or Thailand's roads before, we would have been extremely nervous. Like the aforementioned Asian places, Seville traffic was all about seeing an opening and going for it. The only difference is that they absolutely love using their horns here. Our hotel was called the Adriano Boutique and was situated in the old part of the town, surrounded by restaurants and bars. The cafe on the corner was well known for its good food which the taxi driver supported by pointing to it and muttering something in Spanish before he drove off. We left our luggage in our room and immediately walked the 30 metres to ... read more
October 29th 2010
************ SPAIN ************* BARCELONA Ola! The taxi dropped us off at the first station over the border, Figueras. It was a tiny train station and we were famished so we sampled some Spanish food for the first time. Netty had a long pastry thing with custard in the middle and nuts on top. I had a toasted ham and cheese sandwich but with the cheese on the outside of the bread??? It took 2 hours for the shabby train to get to Barcelona. I read and Netty slept. Our carriage was filled with a group of down syndrome folk who had just returned from the special olympics. They proudly wore their medals around their necks and kept their champion minders busy with their antics. Our hotel was 2 train stops, a transfer and then another ... read more
October 25th 2010
******* FRANCE ********* NICE AND MONACO It was about a 7 hour train trip to get from Florence to Nice (pronounced nees). We could only get a ticket as far as the Italian border as the ticket lady wasn't sure if there were trains running in France due to the ridiculous strike based on the extra 2 years the government wanted to extend the pension age (from 60 to 62). They already have a 34 hour working week! Eventually, we managed to make the two transfers and get to Nice. As we crossed the border, the National French Police came on board and checked everyone's passports. We witnessed one guy get dragged off and the train left without him. Nice was nice (hehe) but not as nice as my niece (hehehe). Homeless people frequented the alleyways ... read more
October 23rd 2010
FLORENCE Our hotel was central and close to the main train station in Florence. We noticed that the locals led a more sedate life style than their cousins in Rome so we immediately warmed to the place. Our hotel had no reception and required that we go to a hotel around the corner to check in and get the keys. The nice lady handed us a set of 4 keys and explained that we would need to use each one to get to our room. She wasn't joking either. The third door we unlocked had a laughable amount of locks on it for which we only needed to unlock the one. It was like the Hotel Elite had once been used to house the crown jewels or something of similar nature. Another strange thing that we ... read more
October 22nd 2010
ROME We walked through the huge central station of Rome in anticipation of our 4 night visit. The hotel we had booked was 9 stations from the centre but only took about 15minutes to get there. Our room was on the 3rd floor so we were a tad disappointed when the receptionist told us that the elevator was out of order. The usual routine ensued, I gave my backpack to Net and carried both our suitcases up the stairs. I didn't mind too much as I figured it was a good workout. The room was small but had all the comforts we needed. I was happy that it had a bar fridge which we used to store drinks and food in. The bathroom though had a bad sewerage type smell which we couldn't get used to. ... read more
October 16th 2010
*************** ITALY ******************* COMO We had to make 4 train changes from Brig to get to Como. We crossed the Italian/Swiss border 3 times on our journey. Como is situated at the south end of Lake Como which is 46 kms in length. George Clooney has a house here, Star Wars scenes were filmed here and it is the home of Alessandro Volta, the guy who invented the battery. We arrived at our hotel and then walked into the main part of town. There were carabinieri (police) at several road blocks along the way and we soon found out that they were there for the big soccer game of Como v Chiasso. The local supermarket that we went into had a temporary wall over their alcohol section and a sign saying that no alcohol could be ... read more
October 11th 2010
*********SWITZERLAND*********** LUZERN We passed through the Swiss Alps on our train ride, staring with open mouthed wonderment out the windows as we went. The snow capped mountains were enormous and the little villages at the base just made us want to live there. We arrived in Luzern in central Switzerland and made our way to a McDonalds to use the internet to find accommodation. We settled on the Ambassador, a hotel across the river and immediately set off with our suit cases in tow. We picked Luzern as we had heard it was a beautiful city and it certainly lived up to its reputation. We could notice a difference in the architecture of the buildings and bridges even with our untrained eyes. Spires on towers and churches were much taller and pointier. We settled into our ... read more
October 11th 2010
******GERMANY********** Well the english signs have now disappeared and 99% of every word we see is in german. The 4 hour train ride allowed me to go through the phase book and try and learn some german words. It is a strange language. W's are pronounced as V's, S's are Z's and Z's are S's. Any “cht” word, and there are quite a few of them, are pronounced by the sound you make when gathering spit in the back of your mouth, as in Achtung. The key phrases I memorized were: Ich verstehe nicht I don't understand Entshuldigung Sorry/Excuse me Wir komme aus Australien We're from Australia Ich hatte gern ein glas bier bitte Can I have a beer please BADEN BADEN The first place we stayed at was a smallish town in the south west ... read more
Netherlands -Amsterdamage
Published: November 30th -0001Europe » Netherlands » North Holland » Amsterdam
October 7th 2010
******AMSTERDAM********* We arrived in Amsterdam at about 8.30pm. Just after we hit the tarmac with the plane still driving down the runway at some speed, a hairy man got up from his seat to gather his overhead luggage. The pilot was quick to get on the PA system announcing, “Would the man standing in the aisle please return to his seat and fasten his seatbelt”. The man did but soon got out again and the pilot repeated his request. Then a moment happened that we thought we would never see. The pilot started pumping the brakes, deliberately trying to unbalance the man which he nearly did. The trick worked and the guy got back into his seat. I have a liking for Norwegian pilots after that. Shortly after, we quickly caught a train from the airport ... read more
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