scootmandoo

Let's start off by saying that today went better than yesterday.... lol We got up at about 6am to catch a train to Dover, England to see Dover Castle. Dover Castle is one of the oldest sites in all of England. William the Conquerer was the first to start building a fortification on the site in about 1066, but the Romans were there before him and had built a lighthouse to help guide ships across the channel between 50-100 A.D. The lighthouse is believed to be the oldest structure in england. The two ring walls around the castle stand about 50ft high and the keep at the center stands 83ft high. The Castle has a commanding view of the White Cliffs of Dover and of the town of Dover of over 600ft. What is cool about ... read more

Today started early... I couldn't sleep last night and was up until at least 3am. Mom was snoring away next to me with apparently no problem sleeping. (don't tell her I said that... lol... I'm serious). Anyways, we got up at 7 so that we could be at the Victoria Coach Station by 8:45am. By the way, a coach station is a bus station. Yesterday the weather report said that it was supposed to be 52 degrees with a slight chance of rain. I should have known better. The slight chance of rain was correct but it was more like 40 degrees with 35mpg gusts of wind. All in all it wasn't a bad day though. Our tour started at Leeds Castle today which is actually a lot like the Piatt Castles in southern Ohio. It ... read more

Well, after 15hrs and 3944 miles of flying, 3 trains, and a taxi ride we finally made it to our hotel. lol I have never been so happy to arrive at a destination. We ended having to take an extra train because "someone" thought that they were on the right one.... we won't discuss that right now though. The hotel is the cat's meow. We did have to ask for a room with two beds though. One double bed is just not enough, so now we have two twin beds. So far mom is surviving the trip but I think that she will either arrive home sore and beat up or just sick. It is definately colder here than I expected. After we arrived at the hotel and unpacked all of our stuff we hit the ... read more

Well, let's see where I left off... Nice at the hostel Hotel Paradis. Nice is a very cool city. It is a hard city to put into words. It's a mix of French and Italian cultures and I'm assuming that is why they call it the French Riviera. You have all of the traditional french stores and customs but it has that mediterranean flair of Italy. To get here you have to pass thru the Pyrenees mountains and that gives it's own little micro climate. The winters are really mild and in the summer it never gets really hot. I spent most of my time in what is known as "old town." It is literaly that... the oldest part of the town. Apparently until 10-15 yrs ago it was nothing but a trashy slum, but now ... read more

i got up today and traveled to Paris. the train ride wasn't as bad as the last ones although it did take about 3 and a half hours to get there. I ended up getting inparis at about one o'clock in the afternoon and immediately started to look for a place to stay. I hadn't booked a place before hand so I wasn't reallz sure what I was going to do. I ended up just hiking around for about a half hour before I just couldn't stand lugging around my 50lb pack. At that point I just decided that I would just splurge and get a decent hotel for the night. Aparently the area where I got off the train the hotels were running about 170.00 euro a night (about 210 dollars) so I had to ... read more

Saturday, May 28, 2005 Today started out about the same as yesterday ended I’m afraid. I woke up at 6am and knew from reading the train schedules that there was a train to Bayeuex at 6:55am. I went to the train station and again butchered the French language bought a ticket to Bayeux for 3.95 euro. I forgot that I get a youth discount for being under the age of 26. The train actually was not until 8:00am. I’m still not sure how I got that wrong. The train came at 8 and was only suppose to take about 15 minutes to reach Bayeux. It ended up taking me about two hours to reach Bayeux because about ten minutes into the trip the train broke down and we came to a complete stop on the tracks. ... read more

Friday, May 27, 2005 Today I left London to head to Portsmouth, England where I took a Brittany Ferry to Caen, France. Actually the ferry lands in Ouistreham (wee-stra-ham.) I had initially thought that the ride only took about 4 hours but, it actually took about 6 hours to cross the channel, with the time change it ended up being 7 total hours. That doesn’t seem too bad until you consider that I was on a ferry with about 500 school children ranging in age from 10-13. Kids of those ages are not behaved or very quite. Compounded by the fact that every one of them was French. Six hours of screaming French children is more than any man should have to endure, but I think that it bothered all of the British passengers more than ... read more