mutley lise

The home stretch was in sight as we left Berlin. We spent two days in Cologne, in western Germany, enjoying non-backpacker-like luxury in a hotel overlooking the Rhine - other highlights of Cologne were the great food in the local breweries and the surprising number of professional beggars crowding the entry to the local cathedral. We then flew to London for a few days and finished off some essentials before heading back to Sydney - the National Gallery in London was well worth a look and a day trip to Oxford (didn't meet the romanticised image that I had in my mind), Stratford upon Avon (Shakespeare's home town, and Warwick Castle (where we played medieval aristocrats and militia for a few hours). Otherwise, it was comforting to get back to London for straightforward pub food and ... read more

We jumped on the train to Berlin, successfully avoiding being ripped off again by a Prague taxi driver. German rail impressed us but our trip was continually being interrupted by people who had reservations for our seats. The train was almost at capacity and the only place we could find was in the even more luxurious dining car - we had a three hour trip and felt like stowaways, hoping the waiter wouldn't kick us out - that bowl of soup had to last a long time :-)! Mind you, most of the dining car travellers appeared to be in a similar situation. We spent about four days in Berlin, with the aim of travelling briefly to most corners of the city to try to get a feel for the diversity and enthusiasm that it is ... read more

Merry Christmas everyone!!! We started our day in Vienna working out how best to pick Nick´s brother Josh up from the airport and hoping the plane wasn´t too delayed after all the fog all over Europe. We made it, Josh made it and all was good! Well Christmas over here was a little different to what we might usually have at home, about 1 degree (though no snow still), a trip around town on the tram and a hot lunch in a cafe followed by a little nap (I think that´s when Nick and Josh thought they should have been playing golf!). We had our delightful Christmas dinner in an Aussie pub along with a few other expats and a surprisingly large number of non-Australians. Somewhat untraditionally perhaps we all had burgers for dinner, having decided ... read more

Well how could you complain about Florence, art and hand bags??? Nick may have been a little jealous about David but he really is just amazing. We may have been a little ripped off in Florence with gelato one time, 20 euros later was just a little too much... Venice was just gorgeous yet again thought we're not sure how people who live on canals survive.... Trying to make our way to St Marks Square was a little frustrating, seemed to be justy a combinatation of several shops (glass wear, shoes, masks and anything else). I must admit I was very hopeless at St Marks Square and refused to go anywhere near the pigeons, they were just every where and and a little scary... Talk to you next from Austria (my phone wont't work so if ... read more

Nick was very brave and volunteered to pick up a hire car in Como to make our way through Tuscany down to the Amalfi Coast. After a few shaky initial moments he did very well and after only about 40 mins we made our way back to our hotel 10 mins walk away...! Something we discovered early - the one way streets - which are lovely to walk on but not so nice to drive on. Tuscany was relatively easy to navigate around and we visited some lovely fortified towns on top of hills with fantastic views. There seemed to be many camper vans in Tuscany and in fact just out side of one town there was a whole little village of them! Made our way to Siena, will need to tell the full story over ... read more

It was relieving to pick up the pace a bit in Switzerland after the dozy French regional cities (although we were in those places on a Sunday and Monday). We arrived in the Swiss capital, Bern, on Tuesday night and were lucky to get out of the train station without any bruises! The nightlife here was more exciting, with an old world feel around the town. The next day, we wound our way around the River Aare - I haven't seen a river as clear as this for a very long time. The air was also so clean and wonderful to breathe. On Wednesday, we moved on to Interlaken, at the foot of the Alps. Again, a lively place but heavily fogged in. Cans of VB were on sale in one of the local pubs, but ... read more