Jen's Ramblings In Europe: October 2006

I met so many amazing people along the way and one of my biggest regrets is not having my camera as handy in the evenings with them as I did during the day at all the sights. Here are a few photos I promised I would post. To all of you who I don't have photos with - I hope the rest of your trip is amazing and maybe I'll bump into you again soon!

These are the guys I had my first big adventure with... Looking for our hostel and accidentally stumbling across the Vatican instead. This is us out to dinner in a palazzo near Campo di Fiori in Rome. Thanks guys! I had so much fun with you! And Scott and Dana - see you in Balmain!

Ok - he's not a person, but he followed us on our walk so far and was so happy to be a friend that he had to make it onto the blog.

Spanish Steps.

Ok - I don't know this couple, but the got married in front of this huge crowd on the Spanish Steps and this was them posing for photos. Incredible.

Some of us from the great hostel I stayed in in Nice. We had this huge group going at one point and this is the last of us. And yes, Kirsty at the back does have spaghetti in her hair. Don't ask.

This is my friend Jasmine who I really miss now that she has gone back to the States. We travelled Nice and back to Paris together and had an awesome time! This is her on the train to Paris. She spent a lot of the time laughing at me for being a wuss about the train going 300km per hour.

Every place I went to was beautiful, but sometimes there were stand out situations. I'm not quite sure what made me like Rome more than Florence or Nice, or Umbria more than all of them. It definitely wasn't the way I thought it was going to be! Anyway, here are a few photos of the cities and towns that I've been through over the last few weeks...

Rome - everywhere you turn in this place there is something amazing to look at. I loved the sky in this shot - which is really what I took the photo of.

Bari Gotic in Barcelona. Sometimes I felt like I'd been transported back 1000 years.

Gaudi of course - in Barcelona. This building was designed to resemble a dragon.

This was the view from my bedroom window in Barcelona.

These are the colours I'll remember Barcelona for.

This bar was very interesting. It was the meeting place of the Catalan resistance against the occupying French in Barcelona and has tunnels that lead from the back. One night the French broke in and hung the Spanish men inside, and the hooks they were hung from are still above the bar.

More Barcelona. I had Sangria one night with a few other travellers and this is what we were watching while we drank and talked.

Rome - the Pantheon.

The Pantheon again.

Umbria - this was the view from my bedroom window in Perugia.

An Etruscan Arch that formed one of the doors through the original city walls in Perugia. They were invaded more than once through this one. Its incredible to think that it has been there since about 400BC.

More Perugia. You can see the old walls in this photo.

Perugia - you can see the main aqueduct in this one - and also the steepness of the streets around the old town.

There was a chocolate festival on in Perugia -yum! Perugia is famous for its chocolate.

Medieval Gardens at the bottom of the old town. It now forms part of one of the Universities.

I want to live here! We went for a walk through the Umbrian hills and ate grapes from the vines, apples from abandoned farm house orchards and the last blackberries of the season.

Florence before sunset. It is a very photogenic city, even if it's rather dirty and non-descript the majority of the time.

The Arno in Florence.

The old city walls of Florence - the gates are still the ancient oak doors covered in hundreds of years of scars. Its strange to watch modern cars take their turn to drive through them. I took this from where I was staying up on the hill.

Again - I took this from where I was staying.
A great place to relax with a drink at happy hour with other travellers.

This is the olive grove we camped in. You can't have hard topped accommodation here because the olive grove is protected. So its tents only!

Pont Vecchio - it used to have Butcher's shops all along it, but one of the Dukes decided that he didn't like the smell of it, so he leased all the shops to Jewellers. There are still there today.

Ok, back to the sign saga. This is the metro in Rome. (Actually the one that crashed a week or so ago.) I don't think I really need to comment on these pictures. Couldn't get more graphic really! I love the one where he's stuck in the door!