People I met

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.

Cities and Towns

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!

Rome has so much charm!

The Trevi Fountain. And yes I did throw a coin in. Anyone up for a trip to Rome?

I wan't looking for this at all, but I turned the corner one day and there it was!

There's just something about Rome...

The Vatican.

A view of Rome from a hill to the north of it. You can make out St Peter's Basillica in the distance.

One of the hill towns in the Cinque Terra.

And another - this one was my favourite.

The tiny hill-top town of Eze just outside of Nice.

Hotel de Paris in Monaco.

The casino in Monaco - and yes I did go in, and no I didn't make a bet! I satisfied myself by watching men in bow-ties bet huge sums of cash.

Another tiny town outside of Nice. The French really know how to make things pretty!

Churches

I've seen so many churches (and beautiful ones at that) in my travels, that they needed their own post.

Sangrada Familia, Barcelona. Gaudi's last work that is still not complete, as modern day architects and builders try to finish using his original plans and are not doing so well.

The Gaudi-built facade.

A modern stained glass window (built to Gaudi's plan).

The modern facade - so different.

This is cool - its a door at the front of the building.

This is not actually a church, but a shrine to Mary in the side of a building in Barcelona.

Another church in Barcelona.

This church was open at the top and had a tropical style garden on the inside, but still seems to function as a church!

One of my favourites. First built about the 4th century, and not a lot done to it since. Its in Perugia (Umbria) in Italy.

The Duomo in Perugia. Europeans love to gather on steps of churches and other ancient buildings, I've noticed. They don't do anything really. Just sit and talk and sometimes read or eat.

The Duomo in Florence. This is spectacular.

The Duomo in Florence from afar. Actually from the hill I was staying on. Great place to watch the sunset.

A cathederal in Rome. They were having a church service so I had to be careful about taking photos - hence so far back.

The organ in the same cathederal. I managed to hear this play which was fantastic.

Earlier... a procession from the same cathederal. It was so loud!

The Duomo in Florence again.

Very un-spectacular, but it was nice to see this tiny church in the Cinque Terra which is still used today and doesn't have all the decorative arts adorning it.

Again, not a church. But this was a shrine to Mary along the walk of the Cinque Terra. They are everywhere!

Yet another.

I loved this church. It was in a tiny village in the hills outside Nice. This was the most spectacular part of it and it was really plain on the inside, but you could tell that it is well looked after by its people and and lot of love goes into it.

Markets

I think you can tell a lot about a city and the people who inhabit it by the the markets. Paris has the markets built into its daily lifestyle while some other cities are more discreet about it and tuck them away in hard to find places.

Barcelona was my favourite. The fruit and vegies are immaculately displayed and are so vibrabant and fresh looking. They are also really cheap and the produce is of an amazing quality. I had the best pineapple I've ever had there.

I don't know what it is about the Spaniards that make them so good at making lollies, but they are incredible. My favourites were the sugar coated bananas.

These bowls of candied fruit were massive. I couldn't have put both arms around them.

Mmmmm.....

Nice, France... they are also great at making sweets. These are marzipan fruits.

Leave it to the french to be so creative.

I must also mention the Mercato Centrale in Florence. This place was fantastic as well, and actually a lot like Adelaide Central Markets - don't laugh!- I've realised how lucky we are in Adelaide to have them.

The Mediterranean

I absolutely loved everything about the mediterranean sea. No matter which country I saw it from, it was just so beautiful, so I thought I'd put together a few photos in a post to demonstrate this.

This is the port at Barcelona which has been made tourist friendly and is really pretty. Look at the colour of that water!

Not technically the sea itself, this was my favourite part of it - sailing from Spain to Italy on a huge ferry with a pool and a cocktail bar. There was nothing else to do but enjoy it! I took this photo before we left Barcelona in the evening.

Sunset...

And sunrise the next morning. It was incredible!

This is the Cinque Terra in Italy.

There's a path that follows the coast and goes through 5 towns along the way. They are all so beautiful in their pastel colours perched on the cliff tops and down into the sea. It is a protected area and there are huge efforts to combat errosion of the soil by keeping the hills around it as vineyards and olive groves as they have been for hundreds of years. The towns were apparently built so much like fortresses so that they would be protected from pirates.

I walked the entire path and struggled at times, more with my fear of heights than my fitness! The paths are all hand made and are a little scary at times.

You walk up this high, and down to the bottom several times along the walk.

One of the towns along the way. This is where I stopped for lunch.

And this is the beach where I got stung by a jelly fish. I'm sure you've read that story by now!

More Italy and now back in France

Ok so first of all I have to say thanks for all the texts, but I'm ok. I was on that metro line 1 in rome all the time a couple of weeks ago, but am nowhere near there now.

Secondly, I'm typing in a german computer in a hostel in Nice so you'll have to excuse the odd punctuation again.

Thirdly I have to say sorry, but there will be no photos at the moment still cause this connection is way too slow so Ill try again tomorrow.

So after the last post I went to Perugia in Umbria which I have to say was the most 'fairy tale' place I have ever been. Its the second largest producer of chocolate outside Belgium - yum! Its a little hill town that dates back to the Etruscan times (like 500 bc) and still has arches and aqueducts that are this old. Its incredible and I can't wait to post some photos. It was a much needed break after the cities I've been doing so far. My hostel was 1350 years old and had real frescoes on the ceilings and my room overlooked endless Umbrian hills and villas with vineyards.

From there I went to Florence and saw all the Michelangelo and Leonardo artworks, etc. I stayed in a camping place on a hill 10 minutes to Central Florence in an olive grove. The view there was amazing too. I wasn't quite as impressed with Florence as I thought I would be though. Still, I have some great photos.

Then I went to the Cinque Terra which is 5 towns on the Italian coast on the Mediteranean. You can do a walk along all of them which is supposed to be 5 hours but I managed to do it in 3.5 which gave me enough time to enjoy the last beach before some aweful jellyfish stung me! A nice local family sent their little girl over with a bottle of water and she handed to me and said 'acqua!'. I assumed they had seem my ungraceful exit from the water and assumed I'd been stung. It made me feel better cause I wasn't sure if I should be getting serious help there for a moment! Again, some amazing photos to come. The walk is actually pretty challenging at the end and is so high up it really was great for my fear of heights!

So I travelled all day today and now I'm in an old monastery in the hills of Nice which has been converted to a hostel. Looks great so far too, and its apparently top 10 in the world.

Anyway, must go - I have dinner waiting for me! I'll hopefully get some photos up soon.

Barcelona and Rome

Im in an internet cafe in central Rome at the moment on a computer with no USB (hence no photos for this post, but I promise them as soon as I can get the up), and a crazy keyboard that has all the punctuation and some letters in the wrong spots! So Ill do my best and excuse the lack of proper english punctuation etc!

So on Tuesday morning I flew to Barcelona from London and arrived about midday. It was so hot. Like 34 degrees and sunny! I found a hostel pretty quickly in the heart of the Bari Gotic quarter in Las Ramblas. This area is amazing! Its all tiny little cobblestones streets with little restaurants selling tapas and sangria. I dropped my things off in the hostel and just walked around all the streets and explored several cathederals dating from the 15th century and earlier. The waterfront area feels like there should be pirate ships and men with wooden legs and eye patches!

The next day I explored Gaudi°s works in much detail and wish I could show you photos! I also stuffed myself with spanish food and sangria.

I loved Barcelona but its such a party town that travelling by myself just didnt feel quite right, so I left after 3 days and caught the Grimaldi ferry to Rome. It took a little over 20 hours and was fantastic. I met some aussies and canadians on the boat and we all lazed on the pool deck in the sun and did nothing for a day which was fabulous! Im developing quite a tan now! Its been so warm here which I didnt expect.

Rome is great. The 5 of us all decided to stay at the same place in Rome to save some cash and have some people to hang out with. When we got off the train in Rome we had to find a metro station which is where the free shuttle to the camp site was going to be. It took us ages to find it and we ended up stopping for a beer to discuss options after an hour of looking carrying all our luggage! At one stage we asked a guy in a service station if he knew where it was and he gave us directions to go down a road, through a little square and turn down another road. Well we did, but the little square ended up being the vatican! So there we are, 3 Aussies and 2 Canadians, sunburned, in singlets and rolled up jeans and thongs with rucksacks wandering through the side entrance to the Popes front yard! We nearly fell over!

Im off to the Vatican tomorrow morning, and today Ill explore central Rome. Saw all the excavations around ancient Rome yesterday which was incredible. I have some great photos, but youll have to wait unfortunately! I think Ill head to Tuscany/Umbria tomorrow afternoon.

Till later!

Last Paris post - for now...

So I have left Paris now - the month is over unfortunately. I loved it though and I am really sad that I had to leave actually. I am in London now eating chocolate and drinking Spanish wine with Leon in preparation for my trip to Barcelona tomorrow morning (and I also have to leave at 3am for my flight and its currently 10.45 and I haven't finished packing)!

I've uploaded some of the better shots from the final week I was in Paris, so enjoy! But before I let you scroll through - like you haven't already! - I'd like to write about some of the things I did in the last week that were so cool that I forgot to take photos...

I went to The Tennessee Bar (which is like a sister bar to La Cameleon and I have previously spoken about) quite a bit. I have made friends with the bar staff and took various other friends there so that they could experience such a friendly, beautiful bar too. Its become like my 'cheers'! Then the bar manager said he wanted to show me the caberet before I left so I went there with him one night after the bar closed and it was sensational! I didn't pay for it which is great because its sooooo expensive to get it. It runs all night till 6am - and we stayed until then. I have to say that the highlight of the night was the little black guy with an afro who sang R.E.S.P.E.C.T so much like Aretha Franklin that it was disturbing and wonderful at the same time. This is the cabaret that the girls from the Moulin Rouge go to on their night off. In fact there were 5 or so there that night who were dragged on stage to participate. In fact it is so small (in a little wine cave under a piano bar restaurant) that every audience member is encouraged to get up. This was such an incredible night!

Also, last night I watched a french film with no subtitles and I understood 90% of what was said! I'm so excited!!

Anyway - enough rambling... enjoy...

Jardin du Luxembourg. This is my favourite place in Paris for a picnic lunch.

And the Catacombs which run under Paris. They were originally mines for the stone to build with, but 200 years ago Paris had a big sanitary problem with the cemetaries, so they dug up the bones and transported them at night under priest escort. Absolutely fascinating. The bones are all lined up neatly by type and labelled by date and where they were dug up from. There are even alters where they had services down there (20m underground). It was also used during ww2 by the resistance. I'm not the sort of person who is worried by small spaces but I have to say that half way down the tiny spiral staircase, I was feeling a little less than ok!

This was the only candle in the whole place. I don't know what it was for specifically. Its so dark down there and it drips water from above.

Pont de Bir Hakeim

The Musee de Rodin - or at least the garden. This is amazing. I went on a Sunday morning and it was a little grey and overcast - the first day I had in Paris that actually felt cool. I wandered around with my iPod on listening to Radiohead and it was sensational. Then I sat by the pond for half an hour. Its such a peaceful place.

The famous Le Penseur (or The Thinker in English) It sits in the garden along with all the others. I can't believe how relaxed the French are about their beautiful artworks and monuments in general. I guess they just have so much...

So now I'm in London and I took this photo last night in China Town. Hehe.

Sit tight for Spain...