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brettnfran - Brett and Fran

Brett and Fran We, Brett and Fran depart on Sunday on our long, long, long service leave.
Believe me, it has been a long, long, long time coming
We fly out from Perth International Airport at midday on 11th May 2008 Mothers Day. We arrive in Singapore at 5:25pm for a 6 hour stopover.
11:05 departure for Heathrow where we arrive 5:25am. Couple of hours later we depart for Nice where we arrive 10:15am 12th May. We have leased a Peugot 307 touring wagon from the French Govt and we leave for Italy the next day. Meeting Deb and Lorraine at Pisa. We all then head for a week in Gaiole in Chianti,Tuscany via San Gimignano. Visiting Florence and Siena during our stay.

We part with Deb and Lorraine and go southwards on the 20th overnighting at Tivoli which is on the outskirts of Rome on our way down to the Amalfi coast. Arrive in Praiano for 5 days. We plan on visiting Positano, Sorrento and maybe the Isle of Capri by boat. After Amalfi, we head for a week in Roma. I'll be brushing up on my roman history circa 100BC to 14AD (Sulla thru to Augustus) I'm sure we're also going to throw some coins in some fountain.
On Monday 2nd June we cross the boot of Italy for Ancona where we pick up a ferry bound for Croatian island of Ciovo, near Split where we stay 3 nights and then head up the Dalmatian Coast to Opatija for a night on the way to Rovinj for 2 nights. Then it's back into Italy to visit Venice. They say the street drainage isn't very good there 2 Nights including my 53rd birthday.

Lake Como is next on the list where we're staying 3 nights at Bellagio. We finally leave Italy on the 13th June and go to Cannes where we'll base ourselves for 5 nights and catch a boat along the coast for day trips to St Tropez, St Raphael and Monte Carlo. We then through Marseilles and along the south of France to the city of Montpellier, capital of the Languedoc area which grows 3 times as much vines as Bordeaux. (you can see my interest)
Next day is into Spain for a short visit to Barcelona (2 days) then back into France to Toulouse for 1 night on the way to Bordeaux for 4 nights. Might just manage to visit a chateau or two.

27th June, we meet up with Lib in Paris for 6 nights and then the Champagne area for 3 nights then over the channel to England on the 6th of July touring the south coast for 4 days. Lib leaves us when we arrive in London and we¡¦ll stay on there for 4 nights before dropping off the car at Heathrow for our flight to New York on the 14th July. 3 nights in NY then a flight to Las Vegas for 5 nights. Dunno why we're staying there so long
We're planning a helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon whist in Las Vegas.

An internal flight to San Francisco where we stay 3 nights and pick up a hire car (hopefully a Mustang Convertible) for the drive down along the Big Sur coastal highway. We'll stay a night in Carmel and Santa Maria before arriving in Los Angeles on the 27th July for 2 nights before our flight to Honolulu. 3 nights in the Hilton Hawaiian Village in the Rainbow Tower brings our holiday to and end with a trip back via Syd-denee arriving home 10:25pm on 2nd August.

Whew!!!

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Last Login: October 31st 2008

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San Francisco is a very nice town, similar, in a lot of ways, to Perth. Our hotel was just by the gate entrance to Chinatown. The weather was cool and the wind cutting to the extreme. Fran had kicked her toes on the foot that she’d had a broken toe on and she was hobbling somewhat, but soldiering on bravely. In addition to this handicap, she felt like she was coming down with the flu. The inevitable red bus tour took us around the sights of San Francisco, down by the Fisherman’s Wharf, past Alcatraz and then towards “THE BRIDGE”. The [View Full Entry]

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1499 Words | 2 Comment(s) | 17 Photo(s) | 1 Video(s)
Published: July 31st 2008 | 184 Views | [diary=306543]

Fishermans Wharf
Cable Car
The Golden Gate Bridge

New York is one helluva town. It is on the go 24/7. Masses of people rushing to and from at any hour of the clock. The swarming cabs are thick on the street and rarely does 15 minutes go by without a siren of some sort go screaming past. We arrived after the 7 hour flight at about 4 am but had to put the clock back 5 hours making it still before midnight. Immigration took 1 ½ hours as we had to wait for all the yanks to go through first. A set fee for the cab to anywhere in [View Full Entry]

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1647 Words | 7 Comment(s) | 23 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: July 24th 2008 | 48 Views | [diary=303842]

From the tour bus
Times Square
John Lennon's apartment.

London swings like a pendulum do…… No Bobbies on bicycles tho’. What a multicultural city London is. We think Oz is multicultural! I’m afraid the Poms are terribly outnumbered. Either that or they’ve all gone somewhere else to live. Our hotel is Eastern European. All the staff are and most of the guests are too. Very nice tho’. We dropped Lib off at Heathrow at 9ish. Fond farewell and so sorry to bid her farewell. Lib really brought a lot to our holiday and she was unstoppable. I think she had a good time. She kept us running often and the [View Full Entry]

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969 Words | 4 Comment(s) | 7 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: July 14th 2008 | 47 Views | [diary=299469]

Trafalgar Square
Sign post
Eye on Big Ben

Hello from sunny England….NOT!!! More of that later. Paris was all that Paris should be. The weather was great, not too hot, not cold, and just right for touristing. We did all the sights from slightly afar so that we wouldn’t mingle with the crowds or do the lining up things. We’d bought a Metro pass so we utilized the trains a lot. Mont Marte was lovely with great views of Paris and a very nice Cathedral, Sacre Cuer. The street musicians were there. One with a harp was playing some beautiful music. Lib had organised some walks, this one being [View Full Entry]

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2049 Words | 6 Comment(s) | 27 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: July 9th 2008 | 36 Views | [diary=297574]

The Far Canal
Louvre
Mont Marte

We haven't had good access to the net since we arrived in Barcelona, so this blog covers a fair span. We stayed in Barc 2 days, then onto Toulouse for a day, then Bordeaux for a longer visit before finally arriving in Paris last Friday, I think. My day to day jottings follow. Barcelona is deceptive at first. Looks like a big business city and it is, but it is also a mecca for tourists and they cater for them very well. The city is clean and the people are obviously proud of their city and very welcoming. The government put [View Full Entry]

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2780 Words | 2 Comment(s) | 38 Photo(s) | 1 Video(s)
Published: July 1st 2008 | 37 Views | [diary=293796]

Placa d'Espagne
Carcassone 2
Carcassone 3

By brettnfran
June 20th 2008
South of France Europe » Spain » Catalonia » Barcelona
Ahhhhh The French Riviera. I can think of worse things. Certainly a cultural change! Have to think in French. Well, bon soir and au voir anyway. You do the right thing and ask the French shopkeepers how much something is in French (Compienne) and they have the temerity to answer you in French! And I don’t understand a bloody word. We slept fitfully on the night we were leaving Bellagio, Italy as we normally seem to when we’re leaving a place. We were on the road just after 5am and decided to take the coastal road down the peninsular where Bellagio [View Full Entry]

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2079 Words | 2 Comment(s) | 30 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: June 20th 2008 | 148 Views | [diary=289659]

Monaco
Monaco Tunnel
Cannes Harbour

By brettnfran
June 13th 2008
Top of Italy Europe » Italy » Lombardy » Como
June 9th. Time to leave Rovinj and Croatia. Headed out towards the Autostrada and we just got onto the ramp and I mentioned to Fran that we would probably need some small Euro coins for the tollways and She said “Shit! we gotta go back, the money belts still in the hotel safe”. Cost us an hour but I’m glad we realized then and not when we got to Venice. We eventually arrived in Treviso about 1.30. Treviso is a small walled town about 30 Km outside of Venice. Fran had noticed how expensive it was to stay in Venice and [View Full Entry]

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1516 Words | 3 Comment(s) | 17 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: June 13th 2008 | 65 Views | [diary=286825]

Treviso Fountain
Evening in Treviso
Water feature

We left Italy after driving from Rome Monday 2nd June earlyish. We set GiPS and he decided to take us due east to Pescara, then up the coast. The drive over the mountains was one to remember. You would drive directly towards a mountain, enter a tunnel maybe 2 km long and come out on the other side directly onto a very high bridge, straight into another mountain. The mountains still had a little snow on them but this was a lot higher than we were. It was quite spectacular. When we got to Pescara, we turned northwards up the Adriatic [View Full Entry]

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2616 Words | 3 Comment(s) | 15 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: June 8th 2008 | 376 Views | [diary=285098]

The Ferry
Last shot of Italy
Balcony shot

By brettnfran
June 1st 2008
Roma II Europe » Italy » Lazio » Rome
We went in search of a laundromat. Ha hahaha You want a what? We drove 12 km NE in search of one we found on the net. Got to close by and saw a sign. Great, but the sign posting here does not give you idea of distance. You may follow a sign for miles then they stop and you are expected to know where it is from there. In this case that sign was the one and only sign we saw of a “Lavanderia” We eventually gave up and headed south. There was apparently one near that shopping centre we [View Full Entry]

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854 Words | 5 Comment(s) | 9 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: June 1st 2008 | 50 Views | [diary=282571]

Colloseum (2)
Republic Square
Veneto Square

By brettnfran
May 29th 2008
Roma Europe » Italy » Lazio » Rome
We were up bright and early the Monday morning. Excited to be going to Rome, I suppose. We got as far as Naples and our trusty GPS decided to send us through the back streets and laneways again. I suppose it gives us an insight into the parts of cities that aren’t usually seen. But at peak hour, Hmmmm!!! Just north of Naples is Pompeii, the city still being excavated after the eruption of 79AD. As you can see from the pics, it’s a full roman city just as it was 100 years or so after Julius Caesar. There had been [View Full Entry]

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1072 Words | 2 Comment(s) | 35 Photo(s) | 1 Video(s)
Published: May 29th 2008 | 70 Views | [diary=281380]

Pompei 1
Pompei 2
Pompei3



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