14th, 15th and 16th of January 2012

Paris day 6 - By Jess

Our last day in Paris, and therefore Europe, had arrived! We checked out of our hotel but, since our plane wasn't leaving until 11pm that night, we still had a whole day to fill. So we decided to go and climb the Eiffel tower. We made our way to the famous landmark, during the day this time, and got in the line to climb it. The wait was quite long, around 40 minutes, but that was nothing compared to the people waiting for the lift. We eventually got to the front of the line and began the long, long journey to the first and second levels of the tower, as far as you can walk. It was a long climb, and I was very out of breath by the first level. When we got there, though, we were delighted to find that there was an ice skating rink on the tower. We did a loop, took some photos, and then headed for the second level. This meant another long climb, which we did.

The second level rewarded us with some great views. We had a toilet break and were surprised to find they had hot water up there. We took more photos and then decided to pay the extra 4euro each to ride the lift all the way to the top of the tower, as we couldn't get any higher on foot. We got in and went all the way up. And it's a very long way up. It was, of course, freezing up the top, but we took some photos, declined the 15euro per glass champagne, and marvelled at the amazing view of Paris. It was worth the arduous walk up to stand at the top and look down at the capitol building, fountains and surrounding parks and buildings. Just beautiful.

We then headed back down to the first level of the tower for some lunch. If we had seen the cafe, we would have gone there (a word to anyone who goes there after us) but we didn't so we decided to have lunch in Restauraunt 53. We each ordered a burger and shared cheescake for dessert. It wasn't the best food, but the view was brilliant, as we were seated by a window overlooking the park area behind the tower. We took our time with lunch, as we were both stuffed from the climb, and followed lunch with cups of tea. We then left the restaurant and inquired about the ice skating.

It turned out that the ice skating was free! You just had to leave your shoes as a deposit, so off came our boots and on went the skates. We then spent the next half an hour trying, with limited success, to ice skate on the Eiffel tower. It was lots of fun but neither of us were particularly great, and I was paraniod that after our injury free holiday one of us would break an arm or something on our last day. We were getting cold so we decided it was time to say goodbye to the tower, so we got our shoes back and climbed back down.

It was getting quite late at this point so we figured it was time to head back to our hotel, pick up our bags and go to the airport. We picked up some delicious cakes on the way back to our hotel and ate them in the bar. And then it was time to leave. We grabbed our luggage and tried to naviage the metro one last time to get the train to Charles DeGaulle airport. All those stairs with all our luggage presented a bit of a challenge, but we'd learnt from previous mistakes, and left plenty of time to get to the airport. We finally made it onto our train and disembarked for the last time. Once in the airport it was surprisingly quiet, though it was quite late, and after checking in and dropping off our bags (which, thankfully, were under the weight limit) we had some late dinner and waited for our flight.

We left Europe at 11.05pm and began our time travelling journey home on Air France.

The flight wasn't great as we were in the middle two seats of the middle row, meaning any time one of us needed the loo we had to inconvenience a stranger either side of us. The chairs were also tiny, even I was squished, but at least we were given ear plugs and eye masks. I managed to get a bit of sleep, but not a lot. On the plus side, as it was Air France, the food wasn't bad and the congac was free.

We landed in Singapore after about 13 hours, for a 3 hour wait. We weren't feeling brilliant, but we had a drink, tried to freshen up and then hopped aboard our Qantas flight home. The seats were bigger this time and we were on the aisle of the middle row, and I had a gap next to me and the next person, so it was much more comfortable. The food was ok, and once again I was able to sleep a little.

We arrived back home at 6.50am (though we didn't get out of the airport until nearly 8.30am) and so ended our awesome European adventure!

13/1/12

Day 5 in Paris - By Jess

We both woke up feeling slightly less chipper than usual, but after some coffee we made our plans for another day in Paris. We decided to do some shopping today after visiting Notre Dame and then visit the Montparnasse tower for some photos and dinner, so after dallying a bit we headed towards Notre Dame, Antique book markets and BHV in the old DeVille building.

We arrived at Notre Dame and first visited the interior of the church. There were some beautiful stained glass windows and statues, though as it's a 'real' church there were parts where we couldn't go right up to in the alter. Then we decided to climb the towers and see where Quasimodo lived. Notre Dame was one of the few places in Paris that our passes wouldn't allow us to skip the line, so we waited for around 45 minutes in the line to climb the towers. The climb was very long up a seemingly endless marble helical staircase, but it wasn't as bad as we were expecting, and when we finally reached the top between the two towers the view was breathtaking. The gargoyles and other gothic details of the building are truly exquisite, and we spent quite a bit of time taking photos and enjoying the brilliant view. We made our way across the roof section to the second tower where we had another long and even narrower climb to one of the bells. the view from the very top of the second tower was even more spectacular and it was lovely seeing the interior oak structure of the bell tower and how it supported the massive bells. Once again we took our time before our long, but much easier, descent. A really fansastic start to our fifth day.

We then headed to HMV where we spent some time looking at clothes and so on, and also tried to start finding presents for people. We eventually tracked down some nice silk hankies which were on special (as everything is horridly expensive) and Andrew found some shirts. After shopping for a couple of hours, we decided to head for the famous Shakespeare bookshop and explore the antique book markets on the edge of the Sienne on the way. We must have looked at hundreds of antique books, as well as comics ad nick nacks and I found two more books that were reasonably priced, both from the 1700's. We were once again nearly thwarted by the impossible Parisian streets and we spent quite some time looking for the bookshop. We enventually found it, but only after first giving up and heading back, at which point we stumbled across it and were able to spend some time browsing English books for a change.

It was now time to head to Montparnasse and get our night photos of Paris. When we arrived at the tower we were disappointed to discover that the restaurant at the top where we had intended to have dinner was undergoing renovations and was closed, so we just caught the very fast lift to the top and spent about half an hour taking some amazing photos of the city at night. It was freezing cold, and so once our photos were done we decided to head back to our hotel to pack up and get some food.

By the time we made our way back to the hotel it was getting a bit late, so we quickly packed our bags and then headed to a restaurant in Montmatre which had good reviews. It was completely full, so we wandered around for a bit and then found the 'oldest hotel in Montmatre' where we had our last dinner in Paris. It was lovely. I had a first course of escargot (snails), which were quite nice, followed by duck and finally creme brulee for dessert. Andrew inadvertantly ordered three courses of cheese. For entree he had a baked camenbert cheese on pear slices drizzled with honey, followed by chicken in cheese sauce and a cheese platter for dessert. All the food was lovely, as was the wine, but we were cheesed out by the end of it. The creme brulee was probably the best dessert I had had all trip. We headed back to our hotel at about 1am, very full and looking forward to our last day.

12/1/12

Day 4 in Paris

Today is another museum day, beginning with the Musee D'Orsay. Before heading to the museum though, we decided to actually go to the Moulin Rouge that night so we quickly headed just up the street and booked a table for that evening. The girl said that jeans weren't allowed, so we figured we could get some pants for Andrew at some point during the day. From there we headed off to the museum and on the way I finally found an Antique bookshop that actually had some reasonably priced books, so I picked up a book published in 1778 by Voltaire and then we continued on our way.

The Musee D'Orsay is a museum mainly focussed on Impressionist painters, so we spent hours wandering through this fantastic museum looking at the brilliant Monet's, Manet's, Cessane's and so on. The Museum also has some beautiful sculptures and, of course, Toluse Lautrec's work and Rodin's work as well. We had a lovely lunch in the upstairs restaurant - the building is a converted train station and the restaurant was located with one of the humungous clocks as part of the central wall. I had quiche lorraine and Andrew had the cesar salad, with tea as an accompianment. We were feeling a little under the weather as we'd stayed up very late the night before, so we didn't have wine with lunch that day.

After lunch we went and had a look at the next two floors of the museum where even more exceptional art is on display, incuding a giant sculpture of a polar bear which was awesome. There was a special exhibition on dedicated to the works and life of Oscar Wilde, which showcased the paintings and works that apparently inspired much of his writing. We ended up spending over four hours at the museum and we finally decided it might be a good idea to go shopping for pants.

What a shambles that was! We headed to Galleries Lafayette to discover hundreds of shirts, jeans and suits that needed to be tailored, but no plain, single black pants for sale! We then began a somewhat frantic search for a shop that sold basic clothes, heading back to UniClo, only to find that even they didn't have what we needed. We eventually found a C&A where Andrew finally found a well priced pair of well fitting black slacks, and we raced back to our hotel room to get changed. We had planned to get dinner before the show, which we had to arrive at by 8pm, but we were rushed for time, so we only had a chance to slip into some 'fancier' clothes and then go straight to the Moulin Rouge.

We arrived and were shown to our table. We were seated at a table of six (where there were currently no other guests) but we were thankfully placed at the end overlooking the ballustrade so we had an uniterrupted view of the stage. Part of the deal with show is that each person gets 1/2 a bottle of champagne. Our waiter intially gave us a small bottle of champagne and orange juice on the side, but obviously realised his mistake and so we also were given a large bottle between us as well. Because it was quite an expensive outing we felt obliged to drink as much of it as humanly possible. We hadn't eaten anything since about 1.30pm, and it was now nearly 9pm. We proceeded to get quite sauced.

Around 10 minutes before the show started a man with his girlfriend (?) were also shown to our table, at which point, upon seeing two people at the table already, he proceeded to have a huge hissy fit about having to sit with other people. He was getting really angry, and he eventually slipped the waiter a 50 to get him and his partner on their own little table essentially in the middle of the stairs. This meant that we ended up having the whole table to ourselves for the night.

The show was brilliant! Of course, we were quite drunk by this stage, but it really was a spectacular series of performances that included acrobats, jugglers, comedians and ponies. One of the highlights was when a giant aquarium came out from under the stage and was lifted above it, inside which were three huge boa constrictors and a woman who 'danced' with them underwater. Well worth the money and so much fun.

The show finished at around 11.30pm, at which point we were both very drunk but very happy, and in great need of food, so we popped right next door to Quick Burger and had what I consider to be the best cheeseburger every (although that could be drink Jess talking) and we eventually headed back to our hotel room around 1am. A brilliant day in Paris!

11/1/12

Day 3 in Paris - By Jess

Today was set aside for the Louvre and other museums, and so began a massive day of museums. We began with Dali museum in Montmatre, once again getting very confused in trying to find it, but once we did it was a brilliant little museum showcasing many of Dali's works, especially his awesome sculptures. So much of Dali's art was thoroughly weird but both of us really enjoyed his work.

From there we then headed to the Cinemathique museum, a lovely collection which explored film history and had some awesome exhibits of early projectors, cameras and film techniques. There was also a fascinating special exhibition on the early film Metropolis, which was amazing, and they showed the first non-documentary film 'Journey to the Moon' - hilarious - and some Charlie Chaplain, also very funny. We bought a souvenir magnet and then headed back into the main city for the Louvre.

We utilised the hop-on hop-off bus, which took much longer than expected, though it did give us a chance to see the Arc Du Triumph, Champs Elise, Capitol building, War memorial and Eiffel Tower again, and we hopped off at the Louvre.

We arrived at around 4.30pm and went to the restaurant for a beautiful lunch of quiche, duck and cheesecake. From the restaurant we then began our 5 hour tour of the Louvre. Wow, just, wow. You could spend a week in this museum easliy. We saw Anicent Egyptian relics, the Mona Lisa, paintings by all of the masters, ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, amazing jewelry, furniture and decorative works, as well as Napoleon's apartments and the ancient fortress foundations of the Louvre itself. An astonishing place and we would go back any time.

By the time we left it was nearly 10pm so we made our way back to our hotel after a very busy day for some much needed rest. An amazing day in Paris.

10/1/12

Paris day 1 - By Jess

We had a pretty early flight out of Rome to Paris, so we woke up and headed to Leonardo DaVinci airport where we had some breakfast and then got on a plane, landing in Paris at about 12pm. We caught the bus to the Opera in Montmatre and then proceeded, with marginal success, to actually navigate the Paris underground. A lovely Parisian man tried to help us, but with heavy luggage and all those bloody steps, it took us quite a while to actually find our hotel. Once we eventually did, we settled into our room and then went to ask our concierge how to get to all the places we wanted to go. He was brilliant and showed us on a map everywhere we needed to go. Our hotel was less than a 2 minute walk from the Moulin Rouge, right in the centre of the Red Light district (which we ddn't know when we booked it) so we wandered up to see the famous club and then we headed in the direction of the Eiffel tower.

We eventually made it to the tower just as it was getting dark, so we took some photos and then wandered back into the shopping area of the city, near the famous Galleries Lafayette. We found a restaraunt and were delighted to have some very tasty French food. As with the rest of Europe, it's cheaper here to buy beer or wine than soft drink. We finished our lovely meal and then tried to get back to our hotel. Unlike every other city we'd seen so far, Paris was really, really, really hard to navigate. This is partly because it's a confusing layout, and partly because there are so many little streets that aren't actually on any of the maps, making navigating really hard. We finally found our hotel, after many wrong turns, and got ready for Versailles tomorrow.

9/1/12

Paris day 1 - By Jess

We had a pretty early flight out of Rome to Paris, so we woke up and headed to Leonardo DaVinci airport where we had some breakfast and then got on a plane, landing in Paris at about 12pm. We caught the bus to the Opera in Montmatre and then proceeded, with marginal success, to actually navigate the Paris underground. A lovely Parisian man tried to help us, but with heavy luggage and all those bloody steps, it took us quite a while to actually find our hotel. Once we eventually did, we settled into our room and then went to ask our concierge how to get to all the places we wanted to go. He was brilliant and showed us on a map everywhere we needed to go. Our hotel was less than a 2 minute walk from the Moulin Rouge, right in the centre of the Red Light district (which we ddn't know when we booked it) so we wandered up to see the famous club and then we headed in the direction of the Eiffel tower.

We eventually made it to the tower just as it was getting dark, so we took some photos and then wandered back into the shopping area of the city, near the famous Galleries Lafayette. We found a restaraunt and were delighted to have some very tasty French food. As with the rest of Europe, it's cheaper here to buy beer or wine than soft drink. We finished our lovely meal and then tried to get back to our hotel. Unlike every other city we'd seen so far, Paris was really, really, really hard to navigate. This is partly because it's a confusing layout, and partly because there are so many little streets that aren't actually on any of the maps, making navigating really hard. We finally found our hotel, after many wrong turns, and got ready for Versailles tomorrow.

8/1/12

Day after Vatican - By Jess

Today was all about getting to see some of the last bits of Rome before we headed off to Paris. We went off to the Pantheon to see one of the oldest Ancient Roman temples in the world, and one of the best preserved. The distinguishing feature of the Pantheon is that it was constructed from concrete, which the Romans later forgot how to make. It's a very big structure and it's mind boggling how they were able to construct it so many thousands of years ago. When we arrived there was actually a church service on, so we took a few photos and went for a wander. I wanted to get a ride in one of the horse and carriages that were congregated around the front of the temple. However, when I asked how much it was, the driver said "200 Euro", so bugger that! We went for a wander around some back streets and then wandered back to the Pantheon so we could have a look inside. It's a very pretty church inside, but it only took a few minutes to do a circuit.

Following the Pantheon we decided that some serious shopping was in order. Before that we needed lunch, so we headed back to the spanish steps nad had lunch at a first floor restaraunt overlooking the famous landmark. I had gnocchi and Andrew had traditional Roma pasta and both were pretty nice. It was lovely being able to look out over the fountain and the steps and just relax for a bit. After lunch we headed back to one of the main shopping streets and began looking for shirts and dresses. We didn't have much luck when it came to the shirts but I finally found a clothing shop with some gorgeous tops on sale. I bought a new dress and two tops, and we continued our shopping expedition. By the end of our shopping we'd bought some new socks and undies, then we headed back to our hotel to do much needed washing. On the way we wandered into a little museum which ended up being the front part of the recently excavated Trajan's markets. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the ancient market site and getting some beautiful photos of Rome at sunset. Eventually we made our way back to the hotel and we grabbed our bags of dirty clothes and headed to the laundromat, stopping to get a takeaway pizza on the way. We spend about 1 and a 1/2 hours doing washing, eating pizza and watching Inbetweeners. It was prettly late by this time so we headed back to our hotel to get ready for our very early start tomorrow.

7/1/12

By Jess

Today required an early start as we needed to meet our Vatican tour guide at 9am for our tour of the infamous city state. We reached the meeting point with about 15 minutes to spare and, once we'd worked out who our tour was with, got hooked up with our headsets and introduced to our lovely guide, Susanna. The Vatican was well worth the effort. We began by walking through one of the papal courtyards known as pine-cone court, for the giant bronze pinecone that Pope Alexander nicked from the Pantheon around 500 years ago which now stands overlooking the courtyard. In the centre of the courtyard was an amazing modern spherical sculpture in bronze of a giant sphere encasing a smaller one, visible through a giant rending of the structure, exposing a mechanical-like interior. This huge sculpture spins in the wind, and it was quite beautiful and unexpected in it's baroque setting.

We were given a detailed rundown of the particulars of the Sistine chapel in the courtyard, as talking isn't really allowed in the chapel itself, and our guide explained the compositional elements of the ceiling and wall frescoes by Michaelangelo and Botticcelli, explaining the techniques and time involved in the creation of the works. Following this we made our way into the Vatican museums which were spectacular. We were led through room after room filled with incredible frescoes and sculptures, and the galleries themselves were just astonishing. Particularly amazing was the 'map room' which is essentially an ornately decorated 125m long corridor, abour 20m high, depicting every part of the known world in the 15th century. Raphael's rooms were also exquisite and the whole of the museum was amazing.

We then were given around 20 minutes in the Sistine chapel itself, and it was incredible! Yet another major highlight of the trip was actually standing in the real chapel looking at one of the most recognisable images in the world. What was even more incredible were the works that make up the full roof of the chapel (of which Adam and God is only one panel) and the Last Judgement on the front wall. It was spectacular.

Whilst the Sistine chapel was brilliant, St Peters Basillica was mind boggling. The sheer scale of the place is really hard to get your head around, even when you're there. It's the biggest church in the world and it's 190m long and 50m high. Unlike the other chapels in the Vatican, the roof looks like it's fresco paintings but it's actually ALL mosaic! It's just so high up, and the mosaic is sooo far away, they look like paintings. It's all exquisite gold (solid, not leaf), bronze and marble and it really is amazing. Michaelangelo's famous sculpture of a young Mary holding the dead body of Christ was to the right of the entrance, and Pope John Paul's body/wax sculpture is on display, as is the previous pope. There is a sculpture in the knave of the vatican which is made of solid gold and must be at least 1.5m thick and over 8m high. The guide pointed out that even a small chunk of it would probably feed Africa. And therin lies the issue with the Vatican, it's a place of extreme opulence and wealth, housing some of the most significant art on the planet and responsible for over a billion souls worldwide. Whilst it's somewhat disturbing having that juxtaposition against other 'Christian' ideals like charity, humility and so on, it didn't bother us while we were there and even on reflection, since we already knew what the Vatican would be like, it was just an astonishing place to visit which was an incredible experience.

Our guide told us where to go for really good gelati so, upon leaving the Vatican, we went and bought gelati for lunch and then did some more shopping. Happily, after the Nike fiasco of Florence, Andrew finally found the right shoes in the right size at another footlocker near the Vatican. We spent some time looking for some cheesy Vatican memento's but we didn't find anything up to our required levels of kitsch. We continued with some shopping and then decided to come back to our room, update our blog and now we're going to head out for some dinner.

6/1/12

Today we woke up at about 8:30 with the Colosseum in mind. We had our continental breakfast, a bowl of cornflakes and a croissant for me, and caught the underground to the colusseum. As we had a 'Roma Pass' we went straight in; the line for tickets went 2/3rds of the way around the Colosseum. That place is amazing. The stories of the place are amazing and definitely something to behold. After about 2 hours there we went across the road to the Roman Forum and explored the ruins for about 3 hours. I think I took about 3-4 hundred pictures. We then found a place nearby for lunch, where I had a wild boar pasta and Jess had an artichoke lasagne. For some reason I'd decided to only wear my hoodie today, a grave mistake I'm afraid. It was freezing. Yesterday I was walking around at night with only a tshirt on, having to carry my goose-down jacket as I was sweating my butt off. There were tens of thousands of people in the shopping area. We followed a stream of people into a giant square where there was a market, but it was impossible to move. It was like being in a mosh pit at a concert, only these people were trying to get into a giant basilica. We headed back to the shopping area walking around looking for stuff to buy, possibly a jumper, when we accidentally ended up at the spanish steps at sunset. We climbed the stairs, took some photos and just as we were about to leave, some opera singers started performing a series of 'hits' for about an hour, so we got a free concert while I was freezing to death. By this time everything was closing so we got some cheese, bread, meat and beers from a supermarket and headed back to our hotel as we have to get up early tomorrow to visit the Vatican.

5/1/12

The next morning we woke up, packed up and caught the bus to the train station, where we headed off to Rome. I smashed my finger putting the luggage on the train, and with freezing cold hands, it took ages before I could do anything with it. It was alright after a while though. When we got to Rome we walked to the Augustia Hotel, where we were booked, only to be directed around the corner to the Hotel Patria, aparently it's sister hotel. The room here is smaller than any room in our house. The bed doesn't even look like a double and the shower is smaller than a phone box. You also can't sit on the toilet straight, as the shower is in the way. On arrival they sent up a bottle of sparkling wine, as the travel agent had put on all our accommodation forms that it was our honeymoon...

We then set off to explore the city, heading for the Colosseum, which we'll be visiting tomorrow, and then to the main shopping street, which is about 4-5kms long and has lights the colour of the italian flag all the way along it. You can't see one end from the other. We walked around, checking out shops on the way and got dinner from a self serve place, where I had pizza and Jess had cakes. We went and saw the Trevi Fountain, throwing a coin in, apparently meaning we will return. Apparently it's a public holiday tomorrow, so every man and his dog, and there were lots of dogs, decided to go shopping too. We headed back to the hotel after all the shops shut and attempted to sleep in our miniature bed and paper thin walled room. I slept fine, Jess apparently didn't.

4/1/12

Day thee in Florence was all about shopping, wandering and just taking in Tuscany. We headed into the town centre at about 11am and proceeded to the footlocker we'd been to excited about the previous day. The night before, on getting back to our hotel room, Andrew decided to try on his shiny new Nike's, only to discover that what he had thought were size 12's were, in fact, size 11's. This meant that our first job of the day taking them back to get the right size. It should have been an easy swap but, as it turns out, not quite. The store did not have any size 12's in stock so, after much umming and ahhing, we were directed to another store in another part of the city where we were told that if they didn't have them there in the right size, we could get a refund. So we walked to the other store, hopeful that we would be able to get it sorted and move on, but alas, it was not meant to be. The other store didn't stock that style of shoe at all so, after trying things like changing insoles and so on, we ended up having to walk back to the other store again. This time, after more umming, offering of gift cards and whatnot, we ended up getting our money back.

After the shoe debacle was sorted, more fun shopping was in order, so we began zigzagging through the beautiful streets of Florence looking at every clothing/shirt/shoe and book store we could find. We meandered over the famous shopping bridge, both sides of which are lined with tiny medieval stores, every one of which is devoted entirely to jewlery making. On the other side of the river I finally found somewhere that sold wax seals, something I'd been looking for for ages, and we had lunch at a lovely cafe, both trying the local traditional foods (rare beef, and bread and veg soup).We then wandered back into the town centre and continued shopping for a bit, where Jess bought a new suitcase to replace hers which had broken. It was raining really heavily and Andrew had no umbrella, so we headed back to the hotel to be rid of our soaked clothes and ate at a restaurant next door. Andrew had a calzone that was bigger than his head!

3/1/12 Art day

By Jess

Day two in Florence was art, art and more art. We decided to start our day at the Uffizi museum - the oldest museum in the world, which also houses one of the best art collections in the world as well. The line was obsceney long so we opted to pay the extra for a guided tour of the museum so we could skip the two hour wait. Once we'd got inside (which still took some time) it was magnificent. Room after room was filled with sculptures, paintings, frescoes and church walls, many of which were spectacular. It's here we saw our first DaVinci - The Visitation of Mary. Wow. We also saw Bottielli's Birth of Venus and other famous works by many great artists and a multitude of sculptures by Michelangelo and others. Just amazing.

After spending a good half a day at the Ufuzi we then left the museum and had lunch at a self serve eatery. Once again, very mediocre food and we were unimpressed. However, now we were off to see David. We ended up having to wait for around an hour to get into the museum, there was no skipping that line, but once inside we were once again face to face with some incredible scupltures and paintings. We wandered through a few small exhibitions of religious works, and then into an awesome (if small) exhibition of musical instruments, where some original harpsichords and pianos were on display, and every string instrument as well, including about 8 Stradavrious'. Of course, what we really came to see was David and wow, wasn't he magnificent. After seeing that likeness soooo much around Italy, not to mention the mental picture I already had, to see it in the flesh was amazing. I would point out that for a gentleman with such large hands and feet, it would appear he's lacking somewhat in the groin department, but childishness aside it was breathtaking to see him in real life. Not ony that, but the gallery where he is housed also hosts the most amazing set of other sculptures by other famous artists that are just incredible. While there aren't any as big as David, some of the figures of Eve and the Greek Gods and Goddesses are astonishing in their detail. That was a big tick off my things to see before I die list.

Following seeing David we once again found the markets and did some more shopping. Andrew finally found the Nike Airs he's been looking for for over a year, which we purchased immediately (though hijinks ensued later). Very pleased with ourselves we continued wandering around the city, found a restaraunt we liked the look of and had pizza and pasta for dinner. The pizza was really lovely because it was freshly made, but once again the pasta was very meh. We followed up our dinner with some gelati and headed back to the hotel. A brilliant day all round.

2/1/12 Florence

By Andrew

Today we woke up at 8:30am, packed up all our stuff, had breakfast and and left the hotel at around 11am. We did some more window shopping on the way to teh train station, wher ewe then had to wait for 1.5hrs for our train the Florence. In the station I got the best pizza yet. From now on, it's pizza from little shops, not restaurants.

I'm now on the train... typing this rot.

By Jess

Florence was superb! Our first day consisted of a very long walk to our hotel, the Grand Meditteraneo, which ended up being a very nice place to stay, if a little way from the centre of the city. Once we'd settled into our room we decided to go and explore the city, and what a city it is. The whole centre is a World Heritage listed site so every street feels like walking through the Rennassaince era. The buildings are incredible, and there are statues everywhere. Unlike Venice, we actually found a lovely restaraunt in the old part of town which apparently had been there since the 1850's. We had a starter of local cheeses with truffled honey, followed by a risotto for me and roast pork for Andrew. This is where we discovered Pecorino cheese - it's bit like Parmesan, but slightly milder. Delicious!

Since we were in Florence we also had a fair bit of Chianti, as it's the local wine, which was lovely, but true to form I did get a bit tipsy. Following dinner we headed back into the town and found some brilliant markets. I was finally able to fulfill my need for scarves and Andrew also bought some gorgeous ties. A perfect first day.

1/1/12

The next day we got up at about 9am and got some continental breakfast, which didn't include toast. We then proceeded to spend the whole day walking around the maze-like streets of Venice, looking at shops, buying masks, taking photos and Jess pointing out every single little dog in the whole city. We had lunch at another pretty average restaurant, but for dinner we found a slightly better place, where we had Lasagne and Pizza, which was the best yet, but still not great. We then headed back to the hotel and watched a couple movies before bed.

New years eve 31/12/11

We woke up at about 6:30am to pack up all of our crap and headed off to the train station. It was about 0 degrees and raining in Bern, but after a short trip to the main station, we got on a fast train up into the mountains to switch trains to Venice. Up in the mountains it was snowing A LOT. There was about 1 ft of snow on everything of which I took a few photos. We then continued on to Venice station, travelling through the beautiful mountains and northern Italian villages. Ariving in venice we found an infromation centre and and made our way to our hotel; a tiny little place with tiny little rooms, but more than adequete for sleeping and bathing. We then were about to go out when we noticed that there was an ad for a laundrette, something we had not visited during our whole trip yet. We were completely out of clean clothes, so we spent an hour and a half doing laundry. the only other people in the laundry were Aussies too; the Kathmandu clothing gives us away every time. We then wandered the streets of Venice, but it was dark and everything was closed, so we just found a little restaurant and got some pizza/canaloni, which was terrible. We then went and found St Mark's Square, hung out for a bit, then realised we had 5 hours before it was New Years. We went to a little bar and had a few drinks, but it was kinda dull and there was no buzz or excitign atmosphere anywhere, so we went back to our hotel for a bit, where I then fell asleep. Luckily Jess didn't, and we headed back out at 11pm, stopping at a cocktail stand on the way, picing up some pina coladas. There were about 50, 000 people in the square, mostly drunk and ALL smoking like trains. It was like being in a pub before smoking laws, but this was outside and still choking after the countdown there were some fireworks over the harbour, which you couldn't really see from the square where everyone was... stupid. It was a great location, but it was a typical New years, slightly disappointing. We then went home to bed.

30/12/11

- By Jess

Last day in Switzerland and we didn't do a great deal. We slept in (because we could) and, since we saw the whole city yesterday and couldn't actually afford to buy anything, decided to have a very short trip to the shopping centre adjacent to our hotel. Like the rest of the city, everything is massively overpriced but very stylish. We did find that the supermarket has a cool cafeteria/cafe thing where you can get really awesome food for some more reasonable prices, so brunch was a papaya, orange and vanilla smoothie, and spiced winter lemonade with spinach quiche and apricot custard tart for each of us. We then came back to the hotel and chilled out, and then we'll head back for some more cheap(ish) dinner and maybe a drink or two in the hotel bar. Tomorrow is New Years Eve in Venice so an early night is probably in order.

29/11/12

- By Jess

Day two in Bern was excellent. We had a beautifull sunny day of close to 10 degrees, which we spent walking around most of the whole city. We started with a breakfast of pretzels which we munched on whilst walking up and down the main streets of the downtown area and then headed toward the bear park on the other side of the riviera. Of course, bears hibernate in winter, which we only remembered when we actually arrived at the park. But it didn't matter because the scenery was exquisite! From the bridge over the river we could see the whole town, down into the medieval sections, and up the valley towards the chalais' in the hills. It was breathtaking. We decided to follow the trail by the river towards another bridge so we walked along it until we reached the next bridge and then headed to the museum district. We went past all of the museums, including the gorgeous Historical museum, but we were happy to take photos of the beautiful buildings and forego the exorbidant entry fees.

We then made our way back to the main historic part of Bern and bought a cheese platter and some fresh bread for lunch, which we ate in the park in front of the houses of parliament, overlooking the river. We took a lot of photos - it was like everywhere we looked was a postcard. After lunch we continued wandering the idyllic streets and stopped for some awesome hot chocolate from a tea house. It's like drinking liquid lindt - sooooo good. We wandered some more and found a couple of antique bookstores which you'd have to be a millionaire to buy anything from, and we found a brilliant game store which had some awesome editions of many of the board games we enjoy playing back home. For dinner we stopped at a pub and had more artery hardening, lard inducing, traditional swiss fare in the form of a dish (Rosti) sereved in its own frying pan. It's fried thinly sliced potatoes, smothered in gruyere, with ham and egg on top. We learnt out lesson from the night before and ordered one between us...it was still too much food. It makes sense why everyone runs about and it very outdoorsy here - they have to burn off the damn food! On that note, we've seen so many people on crutches and in wheelchairs here. As Dylan Moran said: "Why go skiing when you can sit in the comfort of your own home and break your knees with a hammer?"

Switzerland 28/12/11

- By Jess

Day one mostly consisted of airports and trains. We caught an afternoon flight from Berlin and landed in Zurich at about 3.30pm, meaning it was nearly dark already. Zurich has a lovely airport in comparison to elswhere we've been so far. From there we had an hour train trip into Bern, where we were staying. We got to the Holiday Inn Westside at around 6pm and then, after dumping out luggage, headed into town for some fondue.

Bern is so unbelievably beautiful! And frighteningly expensive. We went to a restaurant described by the hotel receptionist as the 'best fondue in town' and she wasn't wrong: it was a massive cast iron bowl of the yummiest fondue ever! Andy had gruyere on toast with an egg on top and an amazing salad, which doesn't sound anywhere near as awesome as it was. We stayed in the restaraunt for a good couple of hours and then slowly made our way back to our hotel, stopping occasionally to gawp and roll our eyes at the outrageous cost of everything here. To give some perspective, the fondue alone was about $25 AUD.

27/12/11 Day 4 in Berlin

- By Jess

Shopping, shopping and more shopping! We headed to the two major shopping districts where we spend hours upon hours of zigzagging into clothing and shoe stores. We found the lego store, and Andrew bought some cool little lego star wars magnets, and we found some very stylish Berlin botique stores. Unfortunately, along with the excellent styling came excessive prices, but it was good fun looking at and trying on some really unusual designer couture.

We eventually made our way to Arkadia - essentially a giant shopping mall with Christmas markets outside. We finally bought a gorgeous little candle driven windmill-type Christmas nativity thing, as they were heavily reduced as Christmas had been by now. I also bought a couple of tops, some new socks and undies and did copious amounts of window shopping. Andrew dutifully shopped too, but he didn't find much to interest him. We had a late lunch at an 'American Sports Bar' where I tried to get through the biggest baked potato with chilli I'd ever seen. Andrew had a delicious (also giant) cheesburger and after some more shopping (we'd been at it for about 7 hours by now) we thought it might be cool to see a movie at the Sony centre. We found an English screening of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and we went and saw that. The film was very enjoyable but thoroughly ridiculous, and we discovered that German audiences can be just as irritating as Australian ones - the girl sitting next to Andrew started playing with her phone. Too bad I didn't have any jaffas...An excellent ending to our stay in Germany.

27/12/11 Day 4 in Berlin

- By Jess

Shopping, shopping and more shopping! We headed to the two major shopping districts where we spend hours upon hours of zigzagging into clothing and shoe stores. We found the lego store, and Andrew bought some cool little lego star wars magnets, and we found some very stylish Berlin botique stores. Unfortunately, along with the excellent styling came excessive prices, but it was good fun looking at and trying on some really unusual designer coture.

We eventually made our way to Arkadia - essentially a giant shopping mall with Christmas markets outside. We finally bought a gorgeous little candle driven windmill-type Christmas nativity thing, as they were heavily reduced as Christmas had been by now. I also bought a couple of tops, some new socks and undies and did copious amounts of window shopping. Andrew dutifully shopped too, but he didn't find much to interest him. We had a late lunch at an 'American Sports Bar' where I tried to get through the biggest baked potato with chilli I'd ever seen. Andrew had a delicious (also giant) cheesburger and after some more shopping (we'd been at it for about 7 hours by now) we thought it might be cool to see a movie at the Sony centre. We found an English screening of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and we went and saw that. The film was very enjoyable but thoroughly ridiculous, and we discovered that German audiences can be just as irritating as Australian ones - the girl sitting next to Andrew started playing with her phone. Too bad I didn't have any jaffas...An excellent ending to our stay in Germany.

26/12/11 - Day after Christmas

- By Jess

We did SFA today on account of two reasons. One; I (Jess)was horribly sick and had been hacking my lungs up all night, so a day of rest and warmth seemed like a good idea and; two; Nothing - repeat - nothing was open today. So it was a good day of sitting in our apartment and watching movies/chilling out. We did however eventually head out at about 5.30pm to a local fancy restaurant and had some of the best food yet. I had wood pigeon(ginea fowl) on a scampi base with wild rice and snow pea accompianment with truffle sauce and Andrew had a wild deer steak on a bed of foie gras with truffle sauce and an accompianment of potato gratin. For dessert we shared a chocolate maderia thing with wine soaked pear. Not a cheap meal, but because it was the only one we paid for today, we could justify it.