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Published: September 1st 2007
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I stopped over in San Francisco for 2 nights where I did some sightseeing. I saw the Golden Gate Bridge, went to a Chinese garden, Fisherman’s wharf, shopping at Union Square and Chinatown. San Francisco is nice, but I wouldn’t want to live there, apartments are really expensive too.
Thursday 2nd Aug: In London I did a hop-on hop-off tour where I saw the National Gallery. This was awesome-thousands of old paintings. I went through Buckingham Palace which was really grand and beautiful inside-lucky Queen! I saw the changing of the guards where the horses and guards were all dressed formally. I also went to Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral-these were pretty and ornate and massive. Don’t know how they built them so long ago. I went on the London Eye ‘ride’ which had an amazing view of London and the river Thames.
Sat: The next day I caught up with my cousin Angela at Covent Garden for shopping which was fun.
On 5th August I started my Contiki tour. We went by bus from London to the Cliffs of Dover, crossing the English Channel, then heading through Belgium to Amsterdam (which took about 8 hours). Most of
the group went to the red light district (which is surprisingly safe and there are families walking around at night) and got right into Amsterdam life. I hung out in a pizzeria with some others which was good.
Monday: The next day we went to a cheese factory where they loooooove their cheese in Amsterdam, then a clogs factory where a guy made a clog out of wood in 10 minutes. We also went to the Anne Frank Heis (house) which was interesting as I studied it at school. Surprisingly there was no furniture etc from when they stayed there but there were photos and other documents. We went for a fun canal ride which was a good way to see Amsterdam.
Wednesday: Today we did a walking tour of Berlin. We saw Reichstag (a parliament building), Checkpoint Charlie (a checkpoint where there was a gap in the Berlin wall where a few people managed to escape). Some awesome stories of Jews successfully escaping by tunneling or using a flying fox over the wall. We saw a holocaust monument which looks like a lots of tombs/coffins in a big area, but when you walk in the ground gets
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Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco deeper and the tombs higher. Quite sad all the Jew murdered back then. We then went to a few clubs that night.
Fri: Today we looked around Prague! We walked up the hill to the largest ancient castle in the world. Then we went on a canal cruise. I went inside St Francis of Assisi and also got some good souvenirs.
Sat: Today we looked around Munich, saw the Glockenspiel cuckoo clock, although it was under construction and the cuckoo didn’t really work. That night we went to a beerhall where we all had 1 litre beer mugs. It was so fun-we sang and said “proste” or something that sounds like that meaning ‘cheers’ like every 2 minutes. There were pretty German ladies doing music bells and dancing on stage.
Sun: Today was the best day so far. We drove to Hopfgarden, Austria which is the most beautiful place I think i've seen so far. I’m thinking of totally living or retiring there. Hopefully retiring in the next 2 years-haha yeah right. We went PARAGLIDING-YAY. That was awesome, not at all scary and i'm definitely doing it again in either Canada or NZ. We then biked around
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Big Ben, London the town to a trout farm/pond where we caught a fish (and the guy killed it and cooked it) and ate it. That was fun. The houses are really beautiful here and they love their flowers and land etc. Really well kept sections.
Mon: On the way to Venice we went WHITE WATER RAFTING-YAY. That was fun, not scary and we got thrown in the cold water by the raft guide about 6 times, but totally worth it.
Tuesday 14th: Today we went into the city of Venice by 30 minute boat ride from our camp site and went to a glass blowing shop which was good, then a lace shop. I did some good shopping-markets and clothes etc. Lots of nice glass jewellery. We then went on a gondola (canal) cruise like you see in the movies, but the canals were quite busy with the boats. Just imagine the ‘Italian Job’ (it was filmed near where we were in the city).
Wed 15th: We drove through Tuscany to arrive to hot Rome. We walked and saw the Pantheon building. This was amazing, but unfortunately didn’t get to go inside. This was probably the most amazing building
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National Gallery I actually saw in Europe, I studied it at school but it was so nice in person. We saw the Trevi Fountain.
Thurs: Today we went to St Peter’s Basilica, Rome. This was amazing, massive. I caught the lift up to avoid about 300 steps, then walked up the remaining 200-300 steps to the top to see an amazing view of Rome. We then walked around Roman Forum where we saw the ruins, Trojan’s column (which you will know if you studied classics at school) and big arches. We then went to a place where hundreds of Capuchin Monks’ bones were displayed artistically which was eerie but interesting. It was really hot today-probably between 35-40 degrees.
Fri: In Florence we saw the outside of Santa Croce cathedral where we had our contiki group photo. We went inside the Duomo cathedral which was massive, saw the fake Statue of David (there was a 1-2 hour wait to go inside to see the real one) and the Ponta Veccio (a really old bridge with jewellery shops on it.
Sat 18th: Today we drove to Switzerland. We passed through Milan, stopped at a pretty town called Lucerne. This looks a
lot like Milford Sound or Queenstown in NZ-very pretty. Most of the group bought Swiss Army Knives, Swarovski crystal, or expensive watches. Our hostel in Lauterbrunnen was right at the bottom of a massive mountain with a pretty waterfall off it.
Sun: Today we went up Jungfrau Mountain by a 2 hour train ride. This is the highest mountain in the world to have a train up and the highest post box in the world. It was of course really cold up there, especially as we had been used to pretty hot weather the days before.
Mon: Today we drove 801 kilometres!! Long bus ride to Paris.
Tues: We went to a perfume factory this morning, so I bought some nice perfume. Yay. We also went up the Eiffel Tower. The queues were so long, not as romantic as you think. I can now tick that off my list of honeymoon destinations. Anyway… we saw the Arc de Triomphe and the CRAZY intersection around it. About 7-10 roads leading in and the cars entering the intersection have right of way. Didn’t see any crashes but apparently insurance companies don’t cover accidents that happen here.
We walked down
Champs-Elysees (rich shopping street with the biggest Louis Vouitton street in the world), went inside the Notre Dame (which actually wasn’t that big in comparison to others I’ve seen).
We had dinner near a cathedral called Sacre Coeur. Pretty amazing view of Paris. We then went to a Caberet Show near Moulin Rouge. This was amazing.
Wed 22nd: Today was Petula, our tour manager’s birthday. She was awesome, really knowledgeable and fun. Today we drove back to the English Channel. On the way we went to Vimy Memorial (a Canadian war memorial area with barracks and probably still landmines in the ground)
End of tour. In total we drove approx 4000 kms around Europe. Glad to say goodbye to the bus though.
For the next 2 days I just got over my jet (well bus) lag, and total tiredness while in London.
On sat 30th aug Vartika (friend from high school) and I went to Malaga, south Spain. We stayed in a 4* hotel in the city centre for an awesome package deal price so that was nice. We saw the sights-Gilbrafaro Castle on hill, Picasso and Matisse museum, and where Picasso lived, and Malaga
Cathedral.
We caught buses to Torreminilos, Marbella and Puerto Banos. These all had nice beaches where I got rid of my pasty winter skin and got a bit of tan in the 32-36 degree heat. We saw the massively expensive launches and boats in Puerto Banos where Antonio Banderas among other rich people go.
On this trip, I saw the most development of apartments in a city or beachside town I’ve ever seen. There were massive resorts and apartments all over the hills and mountains.
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