I’ve just visited Athens, and I’m on my way to Santorini in the Greek Islands. I’m sitting on an Aussie-made fast catamaran as I write. I’m smiling because I chose the “woosh” boat (52 euro, 5 hours) over the slower one (33 euro, 9 hours). The slower one left Piraeus (Athens port) before us, and we overtook it within ten minutes of leaving the harbour... Athens is a sprawling city, with a population of 4 million, which I think is the same as Melbourne. Fortunately, if you’re interested in “seeing the sights”, you could just about do [View Full Entry]

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Rome marked the end of the trip for Clare, and the beginning of my solo trip for the next two months. We had extended our stay in Positano by one extra day, and we were very lucky (but got a good lecture from the owner) that the next hotel allowed us to change our booking without penalty. This left Clare with one evening to see something of Rome before flying home, so off we went exploring. We caught a bus down to St Peter’s square and had a brief look around before wandering back into the city and finding the Trevi [View Full Entry]

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We’ve just left Florence, and I’m sitting on the Eurostar Alta Veloce to Naples, on our way to the Amalfi coast. Not bad, Italy, but not as good as the Shinkansen! OK, it’s a far cry from anything we have in Australia… After leaving the Cinque Terre via a few trains, we arrived into the hustle and bustle of big-city Florence on Wednesday afternoon. We booked into our little hotel that I found in the printed Bible (Lonely Planet), as opposed to the online version, Trip advisor. Hotel Cestelli is located 30 seconds walk from the Arno River, 3 minutes from [View Full Entry]

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I had to start off this page with something other than Wow, so there it was. Wow. The Amalfi Coast really is a great place to visit. There are just as many stairs to climb as in the Cinque Terre, although this area is ten times the scale and size. Accordingly, there is room for roads here, even if they are only a car and three-quarters wide, or a bus and half a car depending on your viewpoint! We didn’t see or hear of any accidents while we were here, but I’m glad I didn’t have to drive myself through here, [View Full Entry]

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The Cinque Terre (five lands) is a national park that contains five villages. Each is jammed into the folds of the cliff. Houses are built on top of each other, literally. There would be no demolishing and rebuilding of the lower ones, because the five others above would in serious trouble. Actually, they all stand on each other’s shoulders too, so it would be more like fifteen… And if it’s not built completely on top of another house, it’s been glued, perched or jammed in to solid rock somehow. Many of the homes have the cliff face as a feature wall [View Full Entry]

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10 May 2009 I’ve just spent three days in the most amazing city yet. Venice is one of those cities that everyone knows of (and it seems like everyone was there), but it’s definitely one of those ones that you just have to go to and absorb for yourself. I spent my time wandering the streets, searching for the ultimate photograph to take. To take such a photo, I think you’d have to stay for a year, so that you get to be part of the furniture and part of the incredible history that is wrapped around you. I don’t understand [View Full Entry]

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Hi fellow readers Just a short note to say hello to all, after being net-less again for a while. Since I wrote last I've been to Kyoto, Hiroshima, Himeji, and Kobe. Now I'm sitting at Kansai airport waiting to spend a horrendous amount of time in the air getting to Paris. I'll find the time to write more about Japan in the air! You have to hand it to the Japanese. If anyone else needed a new airport, they'd build it on farmland two hours out of town. Kansai airport is built on an island that they made from scratch, at [View Full Entry]

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Hakone is at the base of Mount Fuji, and is the prettiest place I’ve seen so far. The town is built in a valley not far from the coast, and to me felt very “Japanese”, in it’s architecture and style. Everything is so green, unlike anything I’ve seen in Australia for so long. Houses jammed in together, with the road barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other. Being near to Fuji-san, it’s set up for tourists with quite a few inns and hotels, but in no way tacky or loud. Plenty of people make the day trip [View Full Entry]

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. Today saw us take our first Shinkansen train north to Nikko. We waited on our allocated triangle on the platform, and two minutes before departure time, the 16 car Shinkansen train pulled up precisely in front of us. I discovered that my Hong Kong bargain wristwatch was running 20 seconds fast as we pulled out of the station. I can’t believe that it was due to depart at 10:27 and 20 seconds. But then again… The first half of the trip was through Tokyo metro, up on an elevated rail, and it didn’t feel terribly fast to us. Then after [View Full Entry]

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Hmmm, it could be interesting writing this. I’ve just had a hot spring bath at the inn we are staying at in Nikko, and it was bloody hot! But that comes later. I haven’t told you about Tokyo yet. Tokyo is big. Sorry, that should be Big. Bustling, crowded, hectic, organized, ultra clean. There are almost no rubbish bins to be found anywhere on the street or in the stations, and yet the place is spotless… As tourists we found ourselves wandering around the government business district during work hours, and we were just about the only ones there, apart from [View Full Entry]

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