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Published: October 19th 2007
Paris
Hey guys, we gave up on the travel blog after falling more than a month behind... but we have decided to keep it up and bore you all with more of our travel adventures! We arrived in Paris at 830pm with Busabout and checked into our 1 star hotel. It was in Montmarte, which is in the red light district, on the same street as the Moulin Rouge. It wasn't scary or anything, except for when we where checking in and we heard a gunshot just outside and the owner shut the front door and windows. It was in a good location despite this, near to a supermarket and restaurants. We met up with beth and went to see the Eiffel Tower - it was amazing! The city had rugby fever from the World Cup, and even the Eiffel Tower had a huge rugby ball in the middle of it, and a screen attached to it with the latest scores. It was also lit up green and gold, the rugby colours, although in our stupidity, we thought those colours were for Australia because they had won the night before!
The next day we did a free walking tour (although you had to tip the guide at the end) and visited almost all the sites of the city, including Notre dame, the Louvre, the Conciergerie (former prison where Marie Antoinette was held), the dome church where Napoleon is buried and much more. In the afternoon we went to the Sacre Coure which has a beautiful view of Paris and beyond. We also moved to the Young and Happy hostel, where we are trapped in the attic there for 5 nights, with no lift and winding narrow stairs. And the bathroom was 2 floors below our dorm =( We indulged in nutella crepes, which we earned from hauling our bags up those stairs!
The following day we bummed around and just went to Pere Lachaise Cemetery, where we saw Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde's graves.
We went to Disneyland the next day, which was so much fun! We watched the Disney character parade and all three of us were overcome by childhood memories as the Little Mermaid, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast and many more favourites rolled past on floats. Most of the rides were kinda childish (but we enjoyed them nonetheless), but Space Mountain was by far the best! Even though it was a roller coaster in the dark and I thought I was going to hit my head on the underpasses!
The next day was a big one; we bought a museum card and wanted to get our moneys worth by going to as many places as possible in two days. We visited the Louvre, walked along Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, then met Beth and went inside the Conciergerie and St Chapelle (built to house Christ's crown of thorns) together. We went to the movies to see A Mighty Heart in the evening.
Continuing to cram in the sights, the next day we went to Versailles. It was nice but I was a little disappointed, especially after all the grand palaces that we've visited in our travels. Stephen did a bike tour in the evening while Beth and I went to Musee d'Orsay, which was amazing - packed full of famous works. Beth and I cracked open the last of Stephen's 42 cent wine from Spain and finished it off over packing our bags, as the next day we were moving hostels (again!).
We only had one proper French meal in the whole week we were in Paris. It was expensive but worth it. Except for Beth's beef, which was not just undercooked... it was raw. Just like in that episode of Mr Bean. However, Beth ate her meal, whereas Mr Bean ended up putting his in the pot plant. Poor Beth! Beth and I went shopping in the afternoon while Stephen had a grump and went to bed. Needless to say, I (Angiolina) have taken over the blog just for this entry, and perhaps the next if Stephen is still feeling lazy. Anyway, after the shopping trip, Stephen and I went up the Eiffel Tower to see Paris at night, and afterwards, we all had a picnic on the grass at the foot of the tower. We had to say goodbye to Beth after that, as we were going to Switzerland with Busabout the next morning.
Lauterbrunnen & Lucerne
Switzerland was perhaps the laziest we have been so far... we basically stayed in our caravan at the *lovely* Busabout recommended camping site in Lauterbrunnen for the entire week. It was raining almost the whole time though, which was a good excuse to stay indoors and chillout. What we did see of the countryside was beautiful e.g. the most photographed waterfall in the world and the snow topped Swiss Alps from cable car.
The highlight of Switzerland for me was the chocolate! We went on a chocolate tour in Interlaken and ate so much chocolate that we bounced home from all the sugar. That said, Lucerne was very exciting, as we did nothing except eat more chocolate, stock up on chocolate for the rest of the trip and ogle over all the different types of Lindt chocolate they have there!
Munich & Oktoberfest
Munich was crazy! Oktoberfest was soooo busy... I dont think I've ever seen so many drunken people in one fairground, all eating pretzels and falling over! It was great! The fist night we went over to check it out, and we discovered that it was Italian weekend, so named because of the vast number of sleezy drunk Italian men that were there. Stephen was in his element and soon made friends. He then proceeded to steals one of the poor dude's Oktoberfest hats, which cost him 25 euro! It went home in my handbag, along with a stein. Memorabilia! We arrived at the tents at 930am the next day, to secure a seat at a table, as you won't get served if your not at a table. When it gets really busy, they shut the doors to the tents and no one is allowed in. It was fun but a little disappointing, as it was a Sunday, and it was more of a family day in the Augustiner Tent (yes, there are children at Oktoberfest). We ate huge salty pretzels, drunk steinfulls of beer and went on a ride, so that made up for it. And we listened to the Oompa band playing drinking songs (the translated lyrics were "cheers to relaxing"). But the prices of everything, even the pizza I had for dinner, were hiked up just because there are so many tourists. So we ate nothing but pretzels and beer for three days. Stephen was done after 4 steins and had to go back to the hostel at about 4 pm, where he slept and woke up at 8pm with a hang over.
The next day we went on another of those free walking tours, so unlike the majority of tourists at Oktoberfest, we saw more of Munich than the inside of a beer tent. The tour guide congratulated us on this. We visited the Englisher gardens (where nudity is accepted and there is a cool natural wave in the river that the locals surf on), the Church of Our Lady, where the current Pope was archbishop for 5 years and also St Peters Church. We climbed the 306 stairs to the top of St Peters and the view was amazing. Our guide was really fun, he wore the traditional German dress and people in the street stopped to take photos of him, because a black guy in Leiderhosen is an odd sight! He gave us a lot of history about WW2, and even though only 4 buildings in the city survived the bombings, the rest of the city has been rebuilt from plans of the originals. We wanted to have a German dinner, but couldn't find a place in our price range. And it's so hard to eat healthy, when the traditional foods are potato and sausage and they drink beer for breakfast! We ended up having Asian, our regular substitute. Our hostel was one of the best we've stayed in, called Wombats. The rooms are clean and spacious and even though its a 6-bed dorm, it feels like you have your own little space cos your bed has a locker and a reading light.
Our next destination was London!!
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Andy
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Wombats Hostel
Yay I'm so glad you got to stay at Wombats in Munich - its so refreshing to go somewhere CLEAN and new looking after so many shitty hostels. It was one of my favourites too (and there is also a Wombats in Vienna - equally good).