Tuesday 24th June - Thursday 26th June We arrived in Gatwick Airport around 1pm and headed to town. We stowed our bags at Waterloo (home of the most Nazi bag inspector yet) and explored the local area. This meant we got to see South Bank, the Millennium eye (which has always struck me as been a Ferris Wheel rather then an Eye), Westminster and Big Ben. After looking around town we met Jess who gave us a key to Daniel’s place (who unfortunately happened to be away at this time.) Jess very nicely took us for a drink and showed us [View Full Entry]

---

---

Sunday 22nd June - Tuesday 24th June After a good sleep, we headed off to explore town and see what Nice had to offer. There was an Iron Man competition on so there was lots of activity around the beach. There was also lots of people on the beach and it remains the most crowded beach I have ever seen. It was good to have a swim though. Nice is a very pretty town, the Mediterranean coast is stunning and the town is clean. It was very hot and quite busy but a great place to have a couple of drinks [View Full Entry]

---

---

Friday 20th June - Saturday 21st June We arrived in Florence about 9:30am and headed off to the hotel, (which was close to the Station.) From the hotel we got directions to an outlet shopping mall which had fashion brands at a reduced price. It was okay although there range was not so good and the transport arrangements meant we had to spend a couple of hours longer then we needed. When we got back we had a look around , going into town to look at the Duomo. It was very impressive (as all the churches are, we have seen [View Full Entry]

---

---

Thursday 19th June We arrived in Rome about 2pm after taking a morning train from Venice. At this point we proceeded to get lost on the way to the hotel, eventually reaching it. It was a nice room and it felt a little disappointing to only stay here for one night. As we only had one day we went out exploring, hading first to the Colosseum. On the way we made a number of discoveries: 1. It was extremely hot (in the mid 30’s) 2. Rome has possibly the oldest and scungiest Metro trains and trams that we had seen. 3. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Tuesday 17th June - Wednesday 18th June We arrived around midday after a 2hr train trip from Verona. Our hotel was close, only 5 minute walk so that was good. After checking in we went exploring. Venice with the canal’s is something different. Its difficult to explain what its like, very beautiful and very unique. Full of tourists though so parts of it a very crowded. In terms of sights the only one we specifically headed for was San Marco square. The rest of the time was spent on ferries travelling the canals or wandering through the streets. Its extremely easy [View Full Entry]

---

---

Sat 14th June - Sunday 15th June We arrived in Milan about 7pm. It was a nice trip from Geneva with the scenery been particularly spectacular. Despite our hotel (Hotel New York) been 200m from the Main Train Station it was still pretty hard to find, but we found it. Once settled in we had a look around and found that around the area it was a bit scungy, we also had our first meal of Pasta and Pizza something that would become a trend. The next day we headed into town and went to the Duomo (Italian for Cathedral I [View Full Entry]

---

---

Monday 16th June We arrived in Verona around 11am, and found that the hotel was a good 15 minute walk from the Train station. It was also on Verona’s busiest and possibly bumpiest street. Verona is a beautiful small city with a population of around two hundred and fifty thousand. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is based on events from this town and later on we were to find the balcony where Juliet waited for Romeo (I guess a stronger knowledge of Shakespeare would have been useful at this point, we read King Lear and Macbeth at school not Romeo and Juliet.) [View Full Entry]

---

---

Friday 13th June We arrived in Geneva around 2pm and went to our hotel (Best Western Strasbourg) which was close to the train station. Unfortunately Brenda’s teeth were quite sore so we needed to find a dentist open on Friday afternoon / night. Our first attempt was a little comical, the closest emergency dental clinic recommended by the hotel concierge turned out to be a school dental clinic. Luckily the guy there was very good and recommend another clinic, made an appointment and told us how to get there. That took up most of the night and we didn’t really feel [View Full Entry]

---

---

Tuesday 10th June - Thursday 12th June We arrived in Paris around 3am after a convoluted journey through Belgium (it took 4 trains to get from Ypres to Paris.) We fond our hotel (Le Pavilion close to the Eifel tower) and then went exploring. It was a very warm day so walking around it got quite hot. We walked down to the Eiffel tower and had a look around the park. That night Brenda’s friend Thierry took us out to dinner. We first went to Notre Dame cathedral (where a concert was taking place so we couldn’t go inside) after this [View Full Entry]

---

---

Sunday 8th June - Monday 9th June We arrived in Belgium about 4pm, we were about an hour late as there was an accident further ahead which meant we were rerouted to another station. This caused us a few issues in getting to our hotel. Once we were settled in we went into the tourist area and ha a look around. Here we got to see Grand Place, Marquis Pis (a small statue of a boy urinating, one wonders why it is so famous,) and the Brussels Cathedral. You can see most of the sights in a couple of hours so [View Full Entry]

---

---