Brenda and Shaun
On our honeymoon (married 1 and a half months). Traveling the world for two monthsbrendaandshaun
Travel Blog Posts
July 8th 2008
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 where we were staying. It was nice to be in a house instead of a hotel room. Dan’s flatmates were really good sorts and didn’t mind us invading their space. In fact it was so ... read more
July 5th 2008
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 and watch the world go by. After eating and exploring town we went back and had a rest. Later that night we took a train to Monaco to see what it was like. Monaco was ... read more
July 5th 2008
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 a lot of churches by now). We then looked around but more and had dinner. The next day we went to the Prada Factory outlet, we must have looked keen as we got there 45 ... read more
July 2nd 2008
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. The Train station is massive, it takes about 10 minutes to walk from one end to the other (they had walk-escalators but some of these were turned off.) 4. The city is full of old ... read more
June 30th 2008
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 to get lost as there are small canals and bridges everywhere, streets are just small alley ways and with them been so close to the building you can not focus on a landmark to get ... read more
June 28th 2008
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.) We hired some bikes and biked around Verona. With the exception they were seriously uncool bikes it was a great way to get around. Traffic is not too bad (excluding our street) and the weather ... read more
June 28th 2008
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 guess.) It was spectacular although the square had a few too many hawkers for my liking. Upon entering we were quickly kicked out as we were wearing shorts. After this we headed to some shops, ... read more
June 24th 2008
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 like doing much sight seeing. The next day it we had a look around the lake and took the trams around town. One of the perks of the hotel was they gave us a pass ... read more
June 18th 2008
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 we walked around past the louver and also saw people picnicking on the bridge across the river. After a bit more walking we went to a pub had some drinks (Brenda fond a Strawberry beer ... read more
June 15th 2008
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 we didn’t need too much time. All this sight seeing had made us weary so we stopped for a couple of good Belgium beers and some food. Brussels was quite a bit more relaxed then ... read more
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