Episode Six - 'Bonjour'

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It has been the best part of a week since we last spoke, not least of all due to the ridiculously expensive internet cafes around the place, but we will get to that later.

The morning after our last entry we packed up our bags, slammed down our last breakfast in Florence and headed to the train station. We were headed for the fashion capital of the world, Milan, in order to meet up with a friend, Karen, who just happened to be in Milan for work.
Despite having reserved a seat on the train we were dismayed to discover that our seats were taken and, not knowing how to explain the problem in Italian, we decided to just put up with it and stand at the entrance to the carriage. That was until a whole bunch of people without seat reservations got on at the next stop, crowding us and squashing us against the wall of the train. Gathering up some courage and pulling out my best 'I'm a confused tourist' face I headed to our seats and pointed sheepishly at the seat numbers on our ticket. Although they weren't impressed, two girls stood up from their (our) seats and pushed past us, giving us just enough room to drag ourselves and our bags through to our seats. The rest of the journey was uneventful, and we arrived in Milan to the by-now unsurprising sight of rain.
After walking to our hotel and getting ourselves organised, we jumped on the Metro and headed into the centre of town to hopefully meet up with Karen. Unfortunately Karen's hotel was in the middle of nowhere -much like Malpensa airport at which she had arrived - and being jet-lagged and not feeling the greatest we didn't get to catch up with her, but it didn't matter as there were Cathedrals to see and gelati to eat.
The Duomo de Milano is truly an amazing sight. We have seen quite a few churches and cathedrals so far on our journey, but this was by far the most impressive so far, inside and out. Towering over the nearby shopping arcade, the 14th century cathedral - with it's myriad spires, statues and arches - is something to behold.
For us however, the Duomo was the highlight of an otherwise uninspiring visit to Milan. With neither of us being real 'shopping' types, we spent most of our time staring and laughing at the ridiculously priced clothing, cosmetics and accesories. Seriously, I know it's all about the brand and all that, but does a 100€ scarf keep you any warmer than a 5€ one? Maybe I'm missing something.
We only stayed the one night in Milan, keen to move somewhere a little more 'budget friendly', and consequently booked ourselves seats on the afternoon train to Venice. Sure, Venice ain't the cheapest city but with the recent floods we just had to go and check it out.
Before we headed to the train station we took the Metro and our feet across town in the rain in order to hopefully get a glimpse at da Vinci's 'Last Supper'. Unbeknownst to us, the church in which it is held, Santa Maria delle Grazie, had closed for lunch and our desire to see the famous painting didn't outweigh our desire not to stand in the rain for three hours waiting to see it.

After a very pleasant train ride to Venice we prepared ourselves for the near certainty that we would get lost on our way to the hotel. Unbelievably, and due probably to more than a little bit of luck, we found the hotel straight away, exactly where the map said it should be. After being given the wrong type of room to start off with, we unpacked our stuff and promptly discovered that our bathroom was an epilepsy factory; being unable to decide whether it wished to be on or off, the bathroom light decided to do both - rapidly. Now I've got no predisposition to seizures or any such reaction, but I have to admit that the headaches that I got from being in there for two minutes were enough to make me use the bathroom in darkness for the rest of our stay.
And a lovely stay it was. After a good night's sleep, we stuffed our faces with the hotel's free breakfast before heading out into town. We headed out toward St. Mark's Square knowing full well that the street signs pointing us in that direction were no guarantee that we wouldn't end up wandering down some dodgy back-alley by accident. And boy are there some dodgy back-alleys in Venice.
To our utter surprise we managed to find our way to St. Mark's with little trouble at all, or at least to the street in front of St. Mark's where our questions of whether the square would still be under water after the floods of a few weeks ago were answered. It was, about 15 - 20cm worth in most places, and the city officials had set up boardwalks to allow foot traffic to continue. I say foot traffic because as most of you would know, the main part of Venice cannot be accessed by car. I have to say, it was refreshing not to hear cars honking at all hours of day and night, and not to have to worry about whether drivers would decide to stop while you are using the pedestrian crossing.
St. Mark's Square was quite beautiful, and it's layer of water just added to the beauty. We felt sorry for a jeweller whose shop looked out over the square, the floor covered in 20cm of water. He didn't seem too concerned however, as he sat with his gumboots on, polishing his wares. Adjacent to the square also, albeit on the far side to the jeweller, was a fairly nice-looking cafe, complete with pianist and tuxedo-ed maitre d'. Nice until we took a look at the price list tacked to the window - seriously, 9.30€ for a glass of coke?! You would want it to be a very, very, very big glass of coke. You can see a photo of the price list somewhere on the side of this page.
Speaking of prices beyond the realms of decency and understanding; Venecian internet cafes. I don't know if the internet in Venice is special (it didn't seem any quicker during the 15 minutes that we used it) but it cost about four times as much as the internet in Florence. Now I love you all very much, but I'm not going to spend the equivalent of $16 Australian per hour to update the blog. I'm sure you understand.

In all seriousness, our stay in Venice, although short, was fantastic. On our last day we were even lucky enough to escape the rain, and our subsequent wanderings turned up a St. Mark's free of any surface moisture. Furthermore we managed to beat Caitlin's gelati record of 27 flavours, although credit should be given to Cait who managed to try all those flavours on her own - we did 28 between us. Mind you, we did do ours in winter...

On the evening of our last day in Venice (Wednesday) we headed to the train station and reserved beds on the overnight train to Paris. Having spent some time studying the departures board we had discovered that the train was supposed to through Switzerland, which our Eurail pass doesn't allow us to do. I asked the gentleman at the ticket office if we needed to buy a ticket for the Swiss leg of the journey but he assured me that it wasn't going through Switzerland. I explained, surprised that he understood English, that the board said otherwise, but he was adamant and we handed over our cash and left. Sure enough, upon boarding the train, the ticket inspector's first words to us were 'I will need your passports as this train goes through Switzerland and they still insist on checking them...'. Luckily, he either didn't notice that our pass didn't allow us to enter Switzerland, or just didn't care. Either way, we weren't about to argue.
The trip was pretty much how I imagined it to be - long, stuck in a boiling hot compartment with people who's grasp of the English language included 'yes', 'no' and 'sorry', and containing very little time asleep. We didn't bank, however, on seeing bucketloads of snow as we passed through Switzerland. It was the perfect antidote to a restless and fairly uninspiring evening, and made us hope that we see more of it before we have to come home.

It was sad leaving Italy behind, having picked up enough of the language to get by, and when we arrived at Paris-Bercy station tired, hungry and disorientated it must have been fairly obvious. I say this because no sooner had we stepped off the train than a gentleman thrust a map and details of a 'nearby' hotel in our faces. Surprisingly, and as a last-ditch effort, we actually took the gentleman up on his offer and dragged our sorry arses to Voltaire station in Paris' north-east.
Just as a brief aside, the Europeans really do know how to build suburban train systems. Paris' metro has 14 lines, which sounds confusing but really isn't as everything is really well sign-posted. The ticket machines are easy to work out, and the trains themselves are fast, efficient and oh-so frequent. In the day and a half since we got here we have probably been on about 10 trains and the longest we have waited was four minutes. It's funny when people miss trains here and crack the shits at having to wait two minutes - I feel like telling them about the masterpiece that is Melbourne's rail network.

Anyway, after coming up to street level from the Voltaire Metro station, bags pulling us down as the rain started to fall, we tried unsuccessfully a number of times to find the direction in which we were supposed to be heading - it was like Piraeas and/or Rome all over again. Luckily we managed to find our way to the hotel after a few minutes and after paying, hauling ourselves upstairs and dumping our bags down, we slept and recharged both bodies and electrical appliances for the rest of the afternoon. While I think of it, what kind of hotel room only has one powerpoint - for the TV?! Too bad if you want to shave or dry your hair, depending on your gender and the location of the hair in question.
Another brief aside - the clichés about the French language are true. Last night there were two guys yelling at each other quite aggressively while waiting for the bus. For all I knew they could have been acting out a scene from Romeo & Juliet it was that beautiful.

So that brings us up to today. After once again taking advantage of the free breakfast we decided to play tourist. We caught the Metro to Notre Dame, which is beautiful but not in the same league as Milan's Duomo methinks, before walking to the Louvre. Much like the Vatican Museums, it was hard to know what we should be looking to get out of our visit to the Louvre in as much as you will never be able to see it all -we spent two hours there and we had barely scratched the surface. We both paricularly enjoyed the Ancient Greek sculptures, having developed a taste for them in Greece perhaps, and some of the paintings were quite special too. We did the obligatory visit to the Mona Lisa which, as I had been told, was smaller than you would expect. It was still quite special to see, although not in the same way as the statue of David.
After our brief visit to the Louvre we walked down the Champs Elysees toward the Arc de Triomphe. The view from the top was quite spectacular and we really got an appreciation for how hectic that intersection really is - not surprising I guess given that 12 major roads meet at one intersection.
After another sizeable walk we found ourselves surrounded once again by street vendors, this time at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. It's size and position in the Parisian cityscape is awe inspiring but given the length of the queue and how tired we were from walking all day we decided to head home and brave the crowds again another day.

So there you have it folks, the very latest in Matt & Sharon's Europe adventure. Tomorrow we head to Nantes to visit my cousin Erinna who is there studying. At this stage we will be in France until Sunday but after that we have no concrete plans, besides meeting up with family in Rotterdam for Christmas.

Again thank you all for your continued support of the blog and for your lovely emails. Please leave us comments on the blog page and continue to send us emails - it is really nice to hear from you all.

We leave you tonight with some valuable insight - the only thing more annoying than trying to type a long blog entry on a keyboard which is set-out significantly differently from keyboards that you are used to, is typing said blog entry while people walk in and out of the internet cafe leaving the door open. It's not like it's 5° outside or anything.

Matt & Shaz

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Photos

Milan's Duomo
It's so spiky and beautiful!

Bargain
At 335€ a pop, you would want these bags to last.

Licorice time
Mmm...licorice.

Cafe pricelist
Man oh man. The worst thing was that the place was busy!

Awwh, it's so pretty!
Venice at it's clichéd best;

St. Mark's
Wet wet wet.

Pizza & pasta
Chip-pizza. So so good.

Louvre pyramids
All we needed was Tom Hanks.

Arc de Triomphe
'Tis big. Sharon says 'Carol, try THIS roundabout!'

Australia, in France
Ads for the Australia movie are everywhere - even on the Champs Elysees.