Paris Our wonderful trip through France continued as we caught a TGV into Paris, the city of lights! We wondered how anything could top the experiences of the last week, but Paris being Paris, it did not disappoint! We arrived in Paris in the afternoon and as we ascended the steps of the underground near our hotel we were greeted by a beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower! We soon found our hotel and were thrilled to find that our balcony did in fact have the advertised view of the Eifel Tower. It was fairly late, so after a short stroll [View Full Entry]

---

---

France We left Barcelona very early on the on the Monday morning and caught the train to Perpignan in the South of France where we would pick up our hire car for the ‘driving’ leg of our trip. Unfortunately, our keys were not waiting for us at the station as they should have been, and the Europcar office was closed. After sharing a taxi to the airport with an American couple also in search of an open Europcar office, we were informed that our car was actually back at the station but that they had forgotten to leave the keys with [View Full Entry]

---

---

Barcelona We left Rome on the Wednesday afternoon and caught a cruise ship across to Barcelona. The ship departed from the coastal city of Civitavecchia, about 40 minutes from Rome by train. Lucky for us it was brand new, and we had a large comfortable cabin on the top passenger deck with a huge porthole to look out at the sea. After a couple of drinks in the bar we decided to have some dinner, which it seems is only served for an hour... and we just made it! Unfortunately we missed breakfast the next morning because it too was only [View Full Entry]

---

---

Apologies for the lateness of this post... we’ve been having too much fun in France! (You’ll just have to stay tuned for further details on that ;-) Rome The thing about bragging too much about something that is yet to happen is that you inevitably get your comeuppance (yes, it is a word). This was the case with our Rome apartment with spectacular views into the Colosseum (that I spent weeks bragging about) which of course fell through at the last moment. Yes, that’s right, we didn’t get our lovely view, but we were ‘assured’ that our new apartment would be [View Full Entry]

---

---

Venice... just fantastic! Venice was one of our more anticipated destinations and it didn’t fail to deliver. After our three days we were left wishing that we had planned for a longer stay, it was that good. We arrived mid afternoon on the train from Milan and made our way to the Vaporetto (water bus) to take us to our hotel near the famous Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square). The Vaporetti crews are obviously accustomed to their vessels and are not afraid to cram in as many people as possible. Thankfully, we were able to quickly make our way aft [View Full Entry]

---

---

Luzern At the end of our hectic ‘3 countries in one day’, we arrived in Luzern rather exhausted... but since it was Michael’s birthday we thought we should head out for some dinner (*Michael: damn right!*). True to form, everything in Switzerland is expensive, so after searching for a while we found a nice little cafe/bar which wasn’t too overpriced (*Michael: and had a hot little waitress!* *Kate scowls*). The next morning we walked down to the river and discovered it to be inhabited with hundreds of beautiful white swans. They glide effortlessly through the strong current eating, playing and even [View Full Entry]

---

---

Vienna We arrived in Vienna late on a Thursday afternoon and after settling into our hotel we headed out for some dinner. We stumbled upon a Russian restaurant in the backstreets near the hotel and decided to brave it! We tried our best and managed to order most of our meal in German, however after a bit of confusion about the type of beer on offer, our waitress (who didn’t speak much English) headed off to get the Chef; a huge Russian in his traditional red outfit. This is when Michael discovered Eidelweiss, a delicious wheat beer which is now one [View Full Entry]

---

---

Prague Our arrival at Prague was less than glamorous despite the fact that we had a car waiting. Praha Hlavni Nádrai (main train station) is well... crappy... to say the least. It looks like the crappy end of Sydney Central station if it had been left for 20 years without cleaning. Anyway, we weren’t there very long before we were whisked off to our hotel at the foot of Prague Castle. My first impression of the hotel was not great - it was about 10:30pm and all the adjoining shops were boarded up, exposing peeling paint on the rough walls. Inside [View Full Entry]

---

---

Berlin Well, after our slightly disastrous arrival in Berlin things started to pick up! Our apartment was not great and I won’t begin to describe the problems with the washing machine however the area was quite nice and the breakfast was good. On our first day we headed to 'Museum Island', where we toured the Pergamon & Altes museums. The Pergamon museum contained a beautiful recreation of the steps leading up to the altar of the temple at Pergamon, an ancient Greek city in modern-day Turkey. It included the pieced together remnants of the friezes surrounding the temple (over 100 metres [View Full Entry]

---

---

I can't believe that it's only been 4 days since we arrived! :-) We have seen and done so much! So let me start from the beginning... Köln I will not bother to bore you with the finer details of our 22 hour flight except to say Juno is a very good movie. After our very long flight and an hour’s wait for our Eurail tickets to be validated, we headed to the platform where to my delight it was about -2 degrees. Now I know you all think that that last comment was sarcasm but it wasn't, you see it [View Full Entry]

---

---