http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/jgibeault/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from jgibeault en-us Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:07:44 +0000 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:07:44 +0000 I mostly slept on thelfight to Frankfurt. Or at least tried to sleep. It was fine with headphones in and a little music playing but as is to be expected not that comfortable for long periods of time. I also managed to enjoy a couple of episodes of Extras a couple of in flight meals and a couple of tiny wines.Customs in Frankfurt was fun. I approached the passport checkpoint....No questions ask http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Bavaria/Augsburg/blog-413453.html Ok so pretty much I think myself and everyone I know should move to Montreal.... It's a REAL city...So for anyone reading this who would like some information on how to get yourself to Montreal I've devised a simple three step process that should work pretty darned well.Step 1 Leave EdmontonThis is key. Leaving Edmonton is pretty straightforward. Get on the skyshuttle take it to the airport http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Quebec/Montreal/blog-411395.html Four months later I can tell you that the adventure didn't stop when I got back from Europe. Even though I started working the summer weekends were packed with activity. I went to Waterton Nationla Park with Vanessa still one of my favourite places in the world three weddings the Creation Science Museum in Big Valley hilarious camped about four times and went on a 1500km road trip each http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Alberta/Edmonton/blog-341070.html Well. This is it. The last stop on our grand adventure. One more night in Paris before we head home to Canada. Are we ready to go back Yes and no. We've been away for two months but there's a few years worth of things we haven't seen yet. Yet. I'll be back soon enough and I'm going to make sure of it too...So how did our last day go Well we probably couldn't have asked for a more fitting conc http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Ile-de-France/Paris/blog-333807.html We left the non hustle and bustle of Luxembourg in favour of the hustle and bustle of Amsterdam. On the way we stopped in the train station in Brussels which brought back some good memories from the very beginning of our trip almost two months ago now. We also grabbed lunch and possibly our last Belgian beer of the trip.First stop in Amsterdam The Red Light District.... but it's not what you th http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Netherlands/North-Holland/Amsterdam/blog-333806.html Have you ever stopped and thought about how terrible Guns and Roses lyrics are Neil and I did and it entertained us for days. You know where you are baby You're in the jungle. You're gonna dieTerrible.Amsterdam is too far away from Gimmelwald to get there in a day so we had to break up our journey. Well actually it's more the lack of high speed rail running between the two places. So we de http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Luxembourg/Luxembourg-City/blog-332336.html For a while I wasn't sure if I should blog about this place and then I considered lying and telling you it sucked. The reason this place seems like a secret and it might be a good idea to keep it that way it isn't even in the Travelblog directory. It pretty much has the most dramatic and breath taking mountain scenery that I think I will ever see. After leaving Interlaken and taking a train http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/South-West/blog-331680.html Hey Do you want to hear a slightly amusing anecdote We've seen signs that post hours in Italian as 1100 2400 and in English read 1100am to 1200pm. It's kind of funny but it's also really thoughtful of them to have made an English sign in the first place so I'd never make fun of it. That's why it's just an amusing anecdote.... and I realize that the amusement is limited..... very li http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Liguria/Cinque-Terre/blog-325026.html Since we saw what we wanted to in Florence we decided to use our last day there to take a day trip. Neil and Amy headed to Pisa while I decided to see if I could get to both Siena and San Gimignano in a day. It was a day of transportation challenges.The first thing Neil and Amy encountered was a rail strike. Since service was severely reduced they had to wait hours for a train to Pisa that wasn http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Siena/blog-324701.html I left Positano to meet up with Neil and Amy at the train station in Naples which meant I got to take the crazy bus ride one more time. I've really gotten used to it though. The fact that the drivers don't slow down around blind corners seems natural enough now.Daniel also left Positano at the same time. On the way to Naples I realised I forgot to pay for my hour of internet time and Daniel rea http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-324103.html A guest entry by NeilWhile James was lounging about in Positano for a couple more days Amy and I took the short trip to the island of Capri where we were greeted by sharp cliffs lush greenery and light blue water. The island is composed of two villages. These would be Capri and Anacapri. Anacapri where we stayed is farther into the island and although this sounds like a bad thing it is http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Campania/Capri/blog-319135.html This entry is long. You can do a lot in 5 days.First of all allow me to recommend the Amalfi Coast. Second let me suggest the southern coast. As spectacular as the north coast is around Sorrento the south side is somehow five times more spectacular and the bus ride there is incredible I'm looking forward to telling you all about it.But first a couple of adventures I forgot to mention about R http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Campania/Positano/blog-285170.html Rome wasn't built in a day but we almost saw it in one. I don't recommend doing it like that but if you're curious here's how we ruined Rome for ourselves.We arrived after a pretty long high speed train ride. It was also somewhat uncomfortable train ride because the tables in our high speed train that separate the rows of seats which face each other were built for people without any knees. I http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Rome/blog-305773.html So if you didn't pick it up in the previous entry the Swiss Alps are pretty breathtaking. It's great to be back in the mountains. Also when we got back in Switzerland the railway announcements were in German Swiss German Italian French and English. It was pretty wild. Also when the French announcement was made it was the first time we'd understood a language other than English in a coupl http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/South-West/Interlaken/blog-290176.html Wow. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/South-West/Interlaken/blog-290170.html We spent a total of three nights in the Munich area and all three nights were in different accommodations...Our train from Prague was unable to take us the whole way to Munich because of some track work being done in the Czech Republic near the German border. So after taking a train part way they loaded us on to buses for about half an hour to take us the rest of the way to the German border. T http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Bavaria/Munich/blog-290618.html Neil and I have decided to become alcoholics.And it's not that this seemed like a really good idea or something we had thought about before the trip. However the economics of Prague really seemed to make it the obvious choice or in our case way of life.The first step in us becoming alcoholics came about because we did not understand the currency. We've left the territory of the Euro and enter http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/Prague/blog-288523.html Neil and I successfully met up in Berlin in what may very well be the largest train station in Europe. It's not that we planned it that well it's more that I figured out which train he was probably arriving on and tried to stand in a place where I could see people coming down the stairs off of the platform and we got kind of lucky.We stayed at Jetpak City Hostel. With a name like that how coul http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/District-of-Berlin/Berlin/blog-286473.html So one thing I forgot to add about France We saw a KFC in Nice. That's not really a surprise given the number of Burger Kings McDonalds etc. in France but the surprise for us was that it was called KFC not PFK like it is Quebec. Strange.And I just remembered a really funny story from Paris that I forgot to blog about earlier. Amy had the hiccups. She'd tried pretty much everything to get r http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Venice/blog-281534.html Today I had one of those spectacular travel experiences that makes people want to spend there whole lives traveling around and doing nothing else. In fact today was above in beyond anything I could have thought about. In fact I may have achieved a state of travel nirvana and ruined traveling for everyone else. HowI went to Liechtenstein.But first I set out to explore Feldkirch. It didn't take http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Liechtenstein/Vaduz/blog-285109.html