Day 16 Sunday 7 October Day of the YMCA Wake up 7 Leave 8:30 Today was our day in Tuscany. We drove through the gorgeous Tuscan countryside. Gary took us through back roads that he use to hike through. It was beautiful scenery. We stopped next to a vineyard for a lovely view of San Gimignano from below. The views continued to be beautiful as we made our way up the mountain. San G was delightful! Right up there with Bruge. It is a 14th Century medieval village. Gary took us on a walk up to the top tower for a gorgeous view. We had a homemade gelati and shopped. I bought some nice ceramics. The church bells were going off for a long time. The sound echoed through all the walls and sounded wonderful. A ... read more

Day 15 Friday 5 October 2007 Roman Holiday Wake up 5:44am Breaky 6:30am Meet 7am We had a very early start to get to the Vatican. Rome is a mad city. Cars everywhere. Vespas even worse. The group line up was quite long when we go there. The public were already queued even though they wouldn’t be let in until after 9:30am. We met our guide Franka and went in around 8:15am. The Museum was amazing. It was hard to understand the scale of the place. The letters at the top of St Peters dome were over 2 metres yeat looked tiny. It wasn’t until you saw people above it that you could put it in perspective. The Sistine Chapel was different to how I expected it. It was a long rectangular shape. There were many ... read more

Day 13 Wednesday October 3 Gondolas and glass Wake up 7:15am Breaky 7-8 Meet 8:45 This time, we took a larger boat over to Venice. The number of people there was astonishing. It was very different to last night. It was extremely crowded and you were not allowed to sit down, even if eating, unless in a shop. We met Anna for our guided walk. It wasn’t that interesting to me. I was beginning to get sick like the rest of the bus. I was feeling very giddy and hot. We went to the glassblowing demonstration. Very interesting. Then they tried to sell us everything in the shop. We had free time after this and went off to explore. We had a really yukky pizza and some yum gelato. We walked down alley after alley but ... read more

Day 11 Monday October 1 From Palace to peephole. Wake up: 6:15am Breaky 7am Leave for tour 7:40am Breakfast was ordinary and cold. We left for Schonbrunn Palace with our local guide Ilse and arrived at 8:30am. The Palace was spectacular. Every room was unique. The Hapsburgs used this Palace as their summer residence. Walking the floors of the ballroom was incredible, imagining all the people that graced the floors over the centuries. One painting in particular took my fancy. It was of Maria Theresa on the throne surrounded by people. There were 3 frescos on the ceiling. 1 of peace, 1 of Maria with her people and one of war. Amazingly, a missile landed right in the middle of the war fresco during the war and was stuck there. The painting needed restoring as did ... read more

Day 9: Saturday 29 September 2007 What??? No English?? Wake up: 6:30am Breakfast 7am Depart for tour 8:30am This morning Dora took us to Hero’s Square first. I loved it. It had the tomb of the unknown soldier. Along the top of the columns, the statues mean work, war, peace and wealth. The main statue in the centre was of Arc Angel Gabriel. The legend was that the Pope wasn’t sure who to give the crown to… Poland or Hungary. He dreamt the angel told him Hungary. We drove through a park where there were zoos (saw an elephant) swimming pool and artificial lakes that become ice skating rinks. I’d love to see that. We ascended to the Fisherman’s Bastion which had amazing views of the city. We walked along the walls and took photos. Beautiful! ... read more