suzyjbrown

Today we drove to Venice and it was the perfect day. The skies were cloudless, the sun was shining and there weren't too many crowds. We arrived in Venice around 1.30pm, caught the Vaporetto to our hotel in San Samuele and were in awe of just how much of a treasure Venice really is. It's simply beautiful... Makes you warm and fuzzy inside...We arrived in our hotel, and behind a wrought iron door we found this...... read more

I really thought Italy would be better. I dedicated 9 nights to it, and so far, the only place that has stood out is seeing Florence. In Melbourne, Italians are known for being concreters, tilers, their coffee and restaurants, gelato and being Catholic... and it's all the same here. The houses of concrete arches, mission brown or orange brick with mission brown trim, roller shutters on every window so you can't let the world in, just makes it feel blah and stuck in the Seventies. Tonight is actually the first hotel in five that we don't have a tiled floor in the bedroom. We have seen plenty of Fiats and Vespas on the road, and were actually trailed through Tuscany by five red Ferraris lead by the club car burgundy Ferrari which brought a little excitement ... read more

Over the past 2 days, we have travelled through 4 countries (France, Monaco, back into France, Italy, France, Italy, again back into France and now we are in Switzerland!), and spent WAY TOO MUCH on toll roads (41.40 Euro to go through the 11km Mont Blanc tunnel & 40 Francs just to enter Switzerland to use the motorways... but then there was a 21.20 Euro charge and 3 smaller charges of 1.30 Euro, 3.80 Euro & 1.80 Euro! UUUGGGHHH!!! And that was all today!), but we have seen some amazing scenery.Firstly, we drove along the French Riviera to take in the sights of Cannes, Nice, Monte Carlo and ending in ... read more

Over the last two days, we've taken to the road... After a severe delay at Charles de Gaulle airport to get our car, they were nice enough to give us a brand new (only 10kms on the clock) B-Series Mercedes Benz to travel in over the next 27 days. Luckily, I know how to drive it! We set out from the airport with our first overnight destination being Poitiers. Our Sat Nav suggested it would take about 6 hours if we didn't use the toll roads, so we decided to get on the tolls, to my absolute horror (will talk about that later).As we didn't leave the airport until midday, ... read more

Today was a MUCH better day than yesterday... We recognised the beggars and learnt to say a sturdy 'NO' when we were approached, and the sun was shining... but we did manage to find plenty of places with 'steps.'First stop, was a lovely little bistro in Grandes Boulevard for petit dejeuner (breakfast) of bagette, croissant, chocolate creme & orange juice! Yum! We rode the Metro to Mouton Duvernet and we waited in line for over 2 hours talking to an American couple and their two children, to get into the Catacombs - the underground tombs of over 6 million people who have had their bones neatly st... read more