Upon arriving in Venice, I immediately felt as though I had stepped into a totally different world. This city is unlike any other that I've seen or could possibly have imagined. It is incredibly beautiful here. The canals and bridges everywhere and the labrynth-like streets create an ambience that is truly surreal. It is very alluring. We arrived in time to celebrate the last 2 days of Carnivale. This 10 day festival in the lead-up to lent gives the Italians the chance to let their hair down one last time before Easter and man do the Italians know how to party!!! [View Full Entry]

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What can we say about Florence, centre of Tuscany and the Italian art world, other than it is a wonderfully charming and enlightened city. It is full of enticing streets, great eateries, cute cafe's and cool wine bars. After checking in to our little hotel in the centre of the city on the shores of the Arno river, where we decided to spoil ourselves with a little alone time in a room of our very own (which was pretty tiny, but nice), we spent the afternoon strolling the streets. We decided to start our cultural fest by meeting the most famous [View Full Entry]

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When in Rome...be mesmerised, be amzed, be inspired. Rome is an intoxicating city. One moment you find yourself almost being run over by a crazed (but determined) taxi driver or one of a million vespers (that seem to be the main mode of transport for citizens of Rome) and the next, you're standing before some amazing Roman relic dating back thousands of years and you can't help but be awestruck. In short, Rome is crazy and random and very fun. In one afternoon spent strolling around the cobbled streets, we visited many of the famous city landmarks. Sites such as the [View Full Entry]

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We ventured out recently to the oldest part of Uppsala, Gamla Uppsala. The old town was once the centre of Uppsala City before the township itself was moved in the 13th Century four kilometres away (to its current site). What remains in Gamla Uppsala is a range of historical sites, testament to the long history of this city. The most significant of the historical sites is a series of ancient burial mounds. The three major grave mounds are said to be the tombs of legendary pre-Viking kings, with archaeological digs retrieving ancient Viking artefacts from this location. It was amazing to [View Full Entry]

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We have just awakened late after arriving back from our first European ski adventure last night. We spent three days skiing (Miranda) and snowboarding (Adam) down the family-friendly slopes of Idre Fjäll, a large ski field (by Australian standards, but small by European standards if you evesdrop over the conversations of seasoned skiers) around 6 hours by public transport from Uppsala. As has been the norm for our trip so far, what should have been a straight forward trip to the ski resort turned into a protracted and sometimes stressful adventure. It started off with an early rise around 6:30 [View Full Entry]

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Stockholm truly lives up to its reputation for being one of the world's most beautiful cities. The city itself is made up of thousands of islands, with multiple harbours forming the backdrop for the beautiful baroque style architecture throughout the city centre. Our day in Stockholm was largely spent strolling around. While it was a very chilly day, the sun was out making our stroll along the harbour really beautiful. Being that Stockholm is the city of museums, it was only fitting that our visit there include two of the most famous. We first visited Skansen, an open air museum that [View Full Entry]

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Its completely surreal to be spending Australia Day on the other side of the world. I'm sitting here typing this looking out the window onto a field of white! It's -1 degrees, the warmest its been since we arrived, and bits of the snow are starting to melt. I'm told this is a bad thing as once melted, it will likely freeze over to form big patches of ice, making a stroll in the snow all the more treacherous (and I'm having enough trouble staying on my feet as it is!). In lieu of traditional Aus Day celebrations, Adam and I [View Full Entry]

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Our journey to here, Uppsala SWEDEN, can only be described as a comedy of errors-one that is not yet amusing to us as we continue to recoup from our 48hr travel time, delayed flight, missed flight, and an ongoing drama of lost baggage that remains lost! Still we can manage a wry smile as we retell this tale-one that we hope will be a future source of amusement, rather than of woe (which our current jet lagged melodramatic selves dictate!) It was with an overwhelming sense of relief, moreso than excitement, that we climbed into the car with our trusty travel [View Full Entry]

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We are officially on the countdown with less than 3 days now before we leave the land of Aus! Adam and I have been crazy busy in the lead up to our big adventure-madly trying to tie up loose ends at home and catching up with as many friends and family as we can. We celebrated our departure with farewell drinks and dinner with our closest friends both in Newcastle and Tamworth which was a wonderful opportunity to say farewell to all our lovelies that we will miss so much! With farewells almost done, we can now look ahead to what's [View Full Entry]

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