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Published: December 20th 2006
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The Duomo
The Beetle Juice church.... Ok, so we have left you in the ancient and historic city of Rome.
Our next stop on our travels took us to Florence. This was the only time in the trip I feared for my life as our coach negotiated tiny roads that were climbing up a steep hill with a sheer drop on one side. We made it to the top safetly though. This was the part of the trip that I was looking forward to the most... so of course it rained....and rained... and rained. When it wasnt raining it was overcast. We still managed to wait in line for a couple of hours to see the statue of David. David is much bigger than you would think and so detailed that even though the rest of the museum wasnt worth the wait, I am glad that we saw it. We also saw the Duomo which is a pretty cool church that looks like it has come out of the Beetlejuice movie. I cant really describe it. The rest of our day was spent just browsing and enjoying some nice food.
The next day we started at the Vechio Bridge, the only one in Florence not
David
This isnt the real one, but a similar size. The real one is pure white marble. destroyed in WWII. The bridge is now lined with stunning jewellery stores. I could have stayed there for a while but Steve managed to drag me away with the promise of a panini for lunch (which was delicious!) We had booked into the Uffitzi museum, so we headed there after lunch. A very enjoyable museum, easy to negotiate with some spectacular works of art. Steve managed a decent level of interest in this museum as they had a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition with all of his scientific theories and things like that which was quite facinating. Despite the rain Florence was a beautiful city with so much charm and great shopping!
Off to Cinque Terre. I am sure many of you have never heard of this place but if you head to Italy make sure to place it on your list of things to see. Five seperate towns built into the Italian coastline overlooking the ocean. Be prepared to climb some hills though as the towns have built up to maximise the ocean views. Stunning views and a relaxing atmosphere. We had a delicious seafood dinner with our NZ friends Ted and Debbie our first night there to celebrate
The leaning tower
We did a stop over for 1 hour here. It was pouring rain so 1 hour was enough. Ted's birthday. The weather managed to turn good for the first full day that we were there so we took the chance to catch a train to Monterosso the last of the five villages. We then walked up a cliff over to the next town Vaneza. Amazing views from the top of the hill but I was secretly grateful that the rest of the walks back to the first villiage had been closed due to bad conditions. My poor little legs were shaking from my first effort which took about 1hr 45min.
Sadly after only a couple of days there we had to leave also leaving Italy. We both agreed we would miss the food (mainly gelato!) We travelled along side the French Riviera which lead us to Nice. The hotel that we chose to stay in had a really good location only a couple of streets away from the beach. We were lucky enough to run into some fellow travellers our first night there and found a place where we could get half a chicken, salad, potatoes and a drink for just over 7 Euro. Despite our fears that we would never have any again, Nice had some
Cinque Terre
A picture of the coast line fantastic gelato which we sampled more than once while we were there. The weather was nice and sunny the next day so we got dressed up and caught a train to one of the smaller and most exclusive countires in the world. It takes 1 million euro to apply to become a citizen of Monaco and when you get there you realise that these people can more than afford it. The boats on the water and the cars driving past are some of the most amazing you will see, the boats are nicer than most houses that I have seen. We visited the Casino and lost 5 euro on the pokies but got to say that we played at the casino that makes so much money the government could get rid of taxes! We finished the day with a nice bottle of wine watching the sunset.
After a lazy morning we spent the afternoon on the beach and giggled at people trying to get in and out of the water. It sounds simple enough but when you are walking on slippery pebbles with knee height waves coming up behind you it makes it quite difficult. One poor lady was
The town
The town we stayed in whilst we were at Cinque Terre trying to get out for a couple of minutes and when she finally did she had a graze on her bum. We would have helped her if we were not laughing so hard. The evening was spent drinking some more wine, eating dinner and one last serving of gelato 😊 We didnt get up to too much in Nice but we really liked it there.
Sadly we headed to our last official stop on our trip, it is safe to say that even though we had already seen so much we were not dissapointed when we arrived at Lauterbrunen in Switzerland. Peering out of our cabin, one window had snow capped mountains and the other a waterfall. Our first dinner we dined on Rosti - glorified hash brown with toppings, it was amazing! The following morning we took a trip up the Jungfrau mountain which is 3454m up and I got my first glimpse of real snow and fell over for the first time on real snow! Fantastic views and overall a very enjoyable experience (and cold). We settled in for the evening with some friends we had met along the way a few drinks and card games. We
Ted and Debbie
Some friends we met along the way. Great fun visited Trumellbach Falls the following day which is where all the runoff from the melting glaciers on the three biggest mountains meets and has carved an internal waterfall inside the rocks. We were there at its lowest running point at the beggining of winter, I cant imagine how loud it would be in the caves at the beggining of summer when there is lots of water. What a beautiful place Lauterbrunen is.
Then it was the end...... one more overnight stop in Munich and then on the plane back to the UK. Tony and Debs were nice enough to put us up for our first week back before we found a nice little room in Shepherds Bush, London to live. I will update you on what we have been up to after Christmas where we are heading to Bulgaria to go skiing with Jade and hopefully have a White Christmas.
To sum up, Europe was amazing and what I have written here only touches on what we have seen and has barely even mentioned the wonderful people that we have met along the way. Something that I would tell anyone to do if they get the chance and
Steep living
Another one of the five towns hopefully it is only the beginning of our travels while we are here.
I hope you have enjoyed and we wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a safe New Year.
Lots of Love
Liz and Steve
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Mark and Deb
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Hi guys, You seem to be having lots of fun and the photos are amazing. The Melbourne ski resorts had snow for Christmas along with the fires! Go figure. Hope you guys had a great Christmas. Ours was good. Mark worked for the morning but had the rest of the day off which was nice. Alana had her first Christmas and was spoiled rotten by everyone. We look forward to seeing you when you come back to Aus. Enjoy living in London and rubbing in the return of "The Ashes" to us. Mark is actually at the cricket as I write. see you soon.