Rome was walked around in a day

Today was probably our biggest challenge so far this trip. Rome may not have been built in a day but we managed to walk a big chunk of it.

In the extreme heat we set out to walk around Rome. Our first stop of the day was at the internet cafe for the last blog post. We then walked about the minutes to find some breakfast/lunch (I think Rome has been the most expensive city so far but we haven’t really been thinking about it too much – we don’t check the prices of things until we go to pay the bill and then we get the shock :) )

Next stop was the train station to reserve our seats for the trip to Florence tomorrow – pretty easy, given that everyone we deal with here seems to speak English.
We then started our trek to see as many sights as we could. We were a little worried in the beginning because the park that our hotel guy had told us to walk through was packed with gypsies, gangs and homeless people and we were a little scared and a couple of times got a little frustrated as we kept getting lost as we worked our way around the trouble spots.

In the end we made our way to the Colosseo (Colosseum) and it was worth all the effort. We decided we didn’t have time to line up for the couple of hours it would take to get inside so we just took a walk around the outside which was amazing enough.

Next stop was much easier to find, right next door, Foro Romano (Roman Forum). This was by far the toughest part of the walk – the photos give some indication but it was like walking through the desert. It was so hot, almost no shade and what shade there was was occupied by hundreds of people trying to escape the sun. Again it was worth the sunburn (and yes we were drowning in sunscreen – it just doesn’t do much here) to walk through such an incredible place.

The next few stops included – Piazza Venezia, Pantheon, Mausoleo of Augusto (Opera), Piazza Dei Porto Di Ripetta, Piazza Di Spagna (Spanish Steps) & Fontana Di Trevi (Trevi Fountain). There were a heap of other places we stopped at along the way but couldn’t really keep track of what they were.

We’ve just worked out that pretty much we walked the tour bus route which would take about an hour to drive around. So not a bad effort we think.

The downside to walking around is that we don’t get to take as many pictures because we have to put the camera away between sights, but the upside is that we get better pictures of the things we want to concentrate on and we got a heap of pics on the bus on the first couple of days so together we think it works.

Anyway as we set on the last post we are off to Florence tomorrow so hopefully we will be able to get on line then if not we will definitely have access in Venice on the weekend.

Now off to dinner - PIZZA. We have to keep finding different places to eat because we are in the same clothes :)

The Catch Up

Ok so we have had a bit of a break since we did the last update, it turns out that we can’t access the internet from our accommodation in Rome, but that it because we are in a beautiful room hidden away from anyone else.

So we have a bit of action to update on, since we last wrote we have had another day looking around Paris. We started the day off by going to the train station and using what they call “left luggage” This turned out to be sensational. For $10 you can use secure lockers to store your stuff up to 72 hours.

So we took use of this and headed to the train station to book our ticket on the overnight train to Rome. From the station it was a quick, and I mean quick metro train trip back to St Lazare where we hoped back onto the tour bus that took us straight to Arc de Triomphe’. We both knew how big it was but being underneath it really drove this home. For example the flag that was hanging under the Arc was about 100 times bigger than the American one in teddies bedroom.

From there we headed back to the Eiffel Tower, where we grabbed some more fries and an ice cream and just hang out in the park for a while. This was a great time to relax and people watch. We have become accustomed to the gypsies around all of the main tourist spots, so they really do not bother us anymore.

We made our way to the train station to pick up our bags and head to Rome. We were a little worried about the train trip as we were sharing the train cabin with 4 other people. This trip was 14 hours to Rome so this could turn our very bad if you were placed with the wrong people. We eventually found our seats and it turned out we were with 2 Italians and 2 Scots and a French guy that was trying to stow away? (this is a bit of a story but in the end the Italian took his bag and placed it in the hall a few doors down.)

The Train ride turned out to be very cool. The Scots had some great stories about their current trip (their honeymoon) and also Scotland, of course. The Italians seemed to love that we were talking and trying to get to know them. Phil even got to the point of them writing a menu out for what to order when in Rome. We ended up exchanging address with the Italians and they want us to send them a few pictures.

We arrived in Rome and found our first Rome Scheme. The break the public phone and then rig it so it does not spit the change out. The can be only making about a euro from each phone call, but when there is over 100 phones at the station and thousands of passengers, that makes for a good little businesses. After we worked our way around that drama, we connected up with our contact in Rome. He showed us to our room in a building in the middle of Rome. And WOW.......it is billisimo.

We really weren’t sure where to start with Rome – so many things to see in such a small amount of time. Our first challenge was to try and find some food and as we thought it wasn’t too hard – a little harder than usual as a few places are closed because the Italians are on holidays at the moment, but that’s a good thing for us as it is a bit quieter on the streets.

On a side note – we’ve had a bit of a change in weather (which is helping to dry out the colds we both have) – Italy is in a heat wave at the moment.

Then we were back to the issue of what to do – so we went with what had worked for us in London & Paris – we found a tourist bus and hopped on. These buses have been a great way to get an idea of where everything is and give us the ability to see most things to decide where we want to go back to.

That night we found a restaurant pretty much next door to our hotel and here we were educated about “Italian Time” – they really aren’t in a hurry to do much. The service was really good all the way through but when it came time to get the bill, well – that took longer than the ordering & eating put together. But we weren’t in a rush so it was good because we got to people watch some more.

Yesterday we decided to use the bus to get us to the farthest point – the Vatican. Our plan was to have a good look around there and then make our way back to the hotel stopping at a couple of places on the way. Well.... that didn’t happen. The Vatican was so amazing that we ended up spending the whole day there. We did a guided tour with an American Guide. His information was really good and it was the type of tour we were after. We did not want the long detailed version of every piece and every room. This short tour ended up being 3 hours as it was :)

His American style was sometimes hard to take, but that’s typical I guess. He did make reference to Michelangelo and Phil looking similar several times. (Long Hair, Beard, Crazy.....)We got to see all the very good things to see at The Vatican and since we were on the tour, we got express access.

There was so much to see. There was statues, painted walls, the floors....everywhere you looked there was something amazing. We got to see and hear about Saint Peter, We heard heaps of stories about Michelangelo and Raphael. The guide explained to us the meaning of several of the works of art and also why things were where they were. An interesting story is the markings on the floor, they are like bragging rights. They show how big the Vatican is compared to all the other churches in the word. Needless to say, it is by far the biggest. As the guide pointed out the Statue of Liberty could stand up inside the Basilica and not touch the top. This was all in just in the Basilica, we had not even stepped foot in the Sistine Chapel yet.

Stage 2 was the Chapel and the museum. The guide did a good job explaining how it was created and what things meant. Interesting to know that Michelangelo didn’t want anything to do with the Chapel, but was pretty much made to do it by the Pope at the time. It took him 60 days to paint the first section on the ceiling – he didn’t like the first attempt so the next day he redid it, and again the next day, and again and again until after 60 days he finally got it right. He then realised it would take far too long to put that much detail into the whole ceiling so he made a rule that he would only put 2-6 people in each section and by the end he had worked out so many to save time that the last section was completed in 4 hours.

A funny thing pointed out to us was a bit of Michelangelo’s humor – he was upset with the Pope for making him ”waste” 4 years of his life so he strategically positioned one of the paintings so that Jesus’ backside would be pointing down at him while he was preaching. He also hated the art director (because he thought Michelangelo’s work was no good) so he used his face on one of the depictions of the devil. Lesson from this – don’t make enemies with a painter – people centuries from now might be laughing at you for it.

Also interesting to see the statues that have been beheaded by German soldiers during the war – their way of taking home a souvenir. The Sistine Chapel was truly breathtaking – unfortunately the Japanese who own the rights to the Chapel have put rules in place so you can’t take photos – so those who haven’t seen it will have to add it to their list of things to see – well worth a look.

At this point we finished the tour but the guide recommended that we go through the Tombs for a quick look (the tombs also provide the easiest exit out of the Vatican).The tombs contain all the Popes from the last 800 or so years – the most popular of which was Pope John Paul II – who had a crowd of people around him, most of whom were praying. Very touching to see how loved he was (and still is).

So we were out of the Vatican and it was stinking hot and we didn’t know if we had time to do much else so we decided to head back to the hotel, have a shower & get some grub – in the interest of getting an early-ish night and starting out early this morning. We found a little pub to have a feed on one of the main corners and we ended up people watching for hours. Guess we’d better sign off now – time to sweat a bit more while we walk around in this Roman heat.

Our problem now is how to we fit all the remaining sights into one day??? Tomorrow morning we head to Florence. Hopefully we will be able to get online again then.

Thanks to everyone for your emails and messages – they are really great to read after a long day. And thanks to Mum C for checking up on us :) Sorry that we had you worried.

Anita & Craig – no doubt Puff will be out soon so best of luck to you both – can’t wait to get the phone call.

Love to all

Phil & Nic

PS

Sorry for the massive update, but it has been a while. Also sorry there are no pictures inside this blog, it could not work out how to do it correctly at the internet cafe. I have uploaded some Rome ones to the Picasa site though, so check them out.

Paris - Turns it on

Well today was our day to explore Paris. We woke up and looked out the window and could not see the houses in the next street. Fog had set in and it looked like it was going to be a very gloomy day.

Since we are on a time budget, we headed out anyway and went to see what we could see. Our first stop was the Eiffel Tower. We again caught the Metro, which is a piece of cake now. It was only a few stops before we hit the tower. We followed the crowds, as we couldn't see the Tower yet. As soon as we came around the corner - Boom - there she was. Well there was the bottom half of her. And the bit that we could see was incredible enough. She is much bigger than either of us imagined. We found a coffee & a pastry and found a seat to sit and enjoy the beauty of the fog clearing slowly.

Next we went to find the open roof bus tour. We now figure this is the best way for us to see most of the big cities given that we have no idea where we are going and what anything is.

Took heaps of photos again while driving around. Went past all the big sights and eventually hopped off at the Louvre for a wander around. By this time the fog had finally cleared and we were left with a beautiful blue sky over Paris.

The Louvre was another great place to see given its recent publicity. We took a walk over the river and then along the banks up to Notre Dame where we saw our first bag snatch - our security measure tightened up after that - even though we were already being extremely careful.

We wandered around for the rest of the day, and hopped off and on the bus a couple more times.

We finished the day by taking a walk from the Grand Palais, which looks down over the Eiffel base. Grabbed some french fries with mayonnaise :) and took a seat to watch the sun go down and the lights come on.

It was about 9:30pm by the time it was done and we decided to head back home as we are both sick now and in need of some sleep.

Today we wander around Paris for a bit and then tonight we get our first overnight train to Rome. We have made a change to our trip and won't be seeing Switzerland - we are disappointed but we need a couple of nights in one spot to try and recooperate a bit.

Hope you enjoy the pics of Paris

Love to all

Phil & Nic

Normandy - D Day Tour

Since we last made an entry on the blog we have moved from Brugge to Bayeux. This was an amazing adventure.

Firstly we had to find what trains to get. This involved us getting a few transfers along the way. We successfully started to work out the Begium train system by “winging” our way through French. We then arrived in Paris, where we had to use the “metro” to transfer to another station. We were a little worried about this so our plan was to go to an information booth in hope that they spoke English. We we got of the train to move to the info booth, the line was about 30 deep with tourists. We only had 40 mins at to make our transfer or else we would miss our train to Bayeux and there for miss the Normandy tour.....that was not an option, so we sucked it up, read the metro chart the way we thought it worked, bought a ticket and BINGO, we made it. We caught first class trains and can i just say ....wow, food and drinks all the way, very nice indeed. We made it to Bayeux refreshed, fed and ready to go......that was until we tried to catch the local bus service to a closer location to our hotel. No one spoke any English, not even enough for us to get pass “bon jour”. After two attempts with different bus drivers, we decided the only way we were going to make it before dark was to walk it. It was 3 kms with full packs, windy, chilly and Nicole with her cold/flu/cough thing. We made it and made it in great time. Nicole has really been showing that she is putting her all in and then some, as this is our once in a life time tour....no time for the rest or wicked.

Today was the day for the Normandy tour. We had both been looking forward to this since we found it. Again with the tour it was a great way to be able to see all of the spots that we had heard, read and seen about quickly. We could have easily spent 4 weeks here doing it ourselves, but that was not the type of holiday we were on.

The tour was great and did go to all the right spots. The guide was good, but not as good as our previous guide in Ieper. I think we may have been spoilt there, but we were expecting a little more out of this guy.

We did learn a heap of things that we did not know and also taught not to believe everything you see on “Saving Private Ryan” and even “Band Of Brothers” or though they are pretty good representations.

The weather unfortunately was not very good for us, as it was cold, windy and even raining during parts of the day, but this did however give us a more realistic point of view how it was on D Day for the guys. As one of the stories we did learn was that D Day was meant to be the 5th June 1944 but was postponed due to weather and then given the green light on the 6th even though weather had not improved.

We took a heap of photos even though they did not turn out as good as i had hoped, because of the sky, they do however mean a lot to Nicole and I as we know have a full idea of how it really looks over here in Normandy

Hope all is still well over there for everyone.We are missing you heaps.

PS – tell puff he does not have to wait for us.

PPS – sorry for the heaps of photos today :)

Nous partons demain

The Crouch Travellers

Ieper - The Great War

Today we had a trip out to Ieper (or Ypres or Leeper - depending on who you speak to and which signs you read) to go out on the Flanders Fields Battlefield Tour.
To start with we had to get a couple of trains out to Ieper from Brugge (via Kortrijk) - which we managed to do with minimal fuss (we were rather impressed with ourselves - it does help to know that pretty much everyone has a small knowledge/understanding of English)

We had a quick walk out to the city centre to meet up with the tour van. The tour was great because we only had 6 of us in the car and the guide (Chris) had so much information / stories to share that the 4.5 hours flew by and we are now very inspired to learn more about WWI & II.

We visited 4 cemetries out of the 150 that are within a 10 sq mile area around Ieper. Over 850,000 died in the area over a 4 year period. It was quite amazing to stand at the biggest of the sights and picutre a man standing at each grave - and then imagine them all being slaughtered. Very heroic that they never gave up even though most knew they weren't going to make it home.

Chris gave us some great details into the Australians who were awarded the VC medal and also some interesting stories of others who gave their life to save their comrades - never let your cobber down.

The 14 year old who used his brothers name to get into the army was an intresting story - his parents thought he was volunteering at a ammunitions factory and it wasn't until the letter arrived informing of the older brothers death that they realised where he had gone.

We have a million other stories but we can't do them justice telling them on here.

Once we were done with the tour we made our way back to Brugges (sucessfully :) and in first class) and had a walk around the streets to find some Waffles - very very good and very very sickening.

We are off to Bayeux tomorrow (via Paris - but only to change trains) to do the Band of Brothers tour of Normandy on Thursday. Should be a great day and I'm sure we will have heaps to share once we get to the net again.

Love to all
Hugs to Bundy & Haydos :)

Au Revoir
Madame & Monsieur Crouch

Est-ce qu'il y a quelqu'un qui parle angais?

Today was a a busy day, but not a great deal got done. We started the day off with some time in the hostel. We charged the camera and phone and repacked the bags and we were ready to go,

Todays mission was to leave the country and head to a new one. We drove to the airport and dropped the car off on time. Things have been working out well so far J Next we checked in to our Ryan Air flight from Glasgow to Brussels. This also went very smooth and even though it was sit anywhere seating, Nicole and I got to sit next to each other. The flight was very nice.

On the way over there it hit us that we have just finished the easy part of the trip, now onto the countries where English is not their primary language. This was proven at the airport where we tried to catch a train to Brussels Central. After a few questions here and there, we were on our way.

In Brussels we got to see Mannekin Pis ( the little boy releaving himself) It was amazing to see so many people huddled around a street corner. We also so Grand Place which was amazing. The workmanship on the stone is just something to see. It is hard to catch that sort of stuff in photos.

From here we hiked it back up the hills to the train station, where some more questions were asked about how to get places. We then validated our “Eurail” pass and we were on our way to Brugge.

We have not done much sightseeing yet here, but what we have seen we have fallen in love with. We had a stroll around the streets and then stopped for some dinner at a little restaurant. They spoke broken English so that made it very easy on us. The food was amazing and we also got to try a local beer. It was very nice indeed.

That about it or us today, tomorrow we take on a Flanders Fields.
Hope everyone is well. Glad to hear there was some rain in Brisbane.......we have plenty of it here.

The Crouch Travellers

Trip to Edinburgh

Today we took a drive from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Was a nice drive out there and pretty close. It only took us about an hour, even though we were looking for a place for breaky all the way :) We eventually found a spot.....it was in Edinburgh.

So after we recharged the battery we headed out for the Castle. Like the guide books says "It dominates the skyline".

We opted for the audio tour, which was a great idea as we learnt so much about the history and also about the surrounding area. The views from the top were amazing as well. We felt like we could see all over Scotland.

After we finished looking all around inside and out of the Castle we took to the streets of Edinburgh on foot. We found heaps of things to look at and some great views back at the Castle. There is a festival on there at the moment, so there was things going on everywhere. It was a great little day drip out there.

After we had some lunch at the local pub, we headed back to home base. We stopped past the Glasgow cemetery on the way though. This was amazing. Very run down, but very interesting to see some of this graves and how old it all was.

That was it today. We are back in the Hostel on our free Internet again. Nicole is hitting the sack early trying to get rid of the cold she has picked up and I am doing this little update then looking for Hotels in Paris.

Hope all is well at home, great to hear it is raining!!!!!!! I will post some pictures from today very soon

Catch up on a few days

Well it has been a few days since we have had a chance to get something on here. Sorry to the parents who may have been getting worried :)

Finding it a little hard to keep track of days over here so hopefully I’m getting this right.

Wednesday (15th) we headed out to see what London had to offer. We decided the best option for us was to buy a ticket for the “Big Bus” tour, which basically has about 12 buses that weave their way around the streets of London & Westminster. The full loop takes about two hours but you can hop on and off at about 75 different locations around the city.

There are two different types of buses – one with audio tour and one with English speaking guides. We had a really good guide on our main bus. He had been working as a guide for 30+ years so had loads of miscellaneous information to share.

Hopped off at Buckingham Palace and had a walk around and also had a cruise up the Thames and walked around the outside of the Tower of London.

We have been in total awe of the history and architecture of the city. Funny to think that most of the city was built centuries before Australia was even discovered.

Took about 500 photos during the day so we guess we will have about 20,000 by the time we get home :)

The end of our day was made interesting by a bus driver who told us to get off at the wrong stop and we had to try and find our way back to the hotel in the pouring rain. We had a nice 5km walk through the back streets of Chelsea, which at the time was a little testing but looking back was a good additional to our trip.

The next morning we decided to use our bus pass one more time (they were valid for 24 hours) to take a trip back to Marble Arch and then walk back to the hotel. The walk was great, back through Hyde Park (where we saw the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain) but took a little longer than expected and we were running late for our next leg. So we had to get a Taxi to the train station. Tick off another item on the “To Do” list.

Next we were off to visit Ian & his family in Caerphilly (Wales). The train ride out took about 2.5 hours but time flew by. Ian & the boys picked us up from the train station and over the next 20 hours we spent time getting to know their home town & the family. The area is truly beautiful and we wish we had more time to spend there.

We picked up our hire car from Cardiff and headed out with Ian & Max to see the Roman ruins – the only Roman ruins in the UK and they are just around the corner from Ian’s place.

From there we said goodbye to Ian and Max and headed off to York (with a quick stop at Raglan Castle – amazing). Got to York around 8pm and checked into our first “Youth” Hostel. Today was another example of how weird the sunset times make your days – heading out at 9pm to find some dinner the sun was only just setting.

Today we took a walk around York and of the many things we had planned we ended up only doing one J. The York Minster was just too impressive to rush & we didn’t end up leaving there until 2pm and even then we didn’t get to do everything (unfortunately we missed out on the Tower climb).

Next stop for us was Glasgow – which is where we are now! Sitting in a university dorm room where we are staying for the next two nights. It is very wet in Glasgow– and a little cold but the drive here was beautiful and the weather report says tomorrow should be clearing so we can go and do a trip to Edinburgh.

Photo count is climbing – over 1000 total now.

And seeing as it is now almost midnight here I guess we should sign off and get some sleep.

Love to all and we will be back on line again tomorrow (we think)

Cheers
Phil & Nic

ello Govner

Greetings from Kensington, London

We had a great trip from Brisbane all the way to London. Singapore airline turned it on and we lapped it up.

The first stage of the trip Brisbane to Singapore was over before we knew it. We got to have two very nice meals and a few drinks to settle the flying nerves. Thats said though, Nicole likes to fly in the big planes (sorry for the non technical term cbird) much better then the normal size ones in Australian Domestic as there is no where near the movement or dropping feeling.

We landed in Singapore and decided to have a walk around to see the airport. We walked around for 2 hours and still did not touch the edges of the airport. We had a coffee and then found some free foot massage chairs. In the airport you can pay in AUD and they would do the exchange for you. Most things look really cheap, but we did not want to buy thing this early in the trip, so we just kept walking around.

The second leg of the flight was just as good as the first. Another couple of good meals and a couple of drinks - Phil had his first new beer - Tiger. (Rated good - but not as good as Gold).

A lot of cloud cover over the trip but we did get to see some beautiful scenery - including the Himalyas.

We had the pleasure of landing in Heathrow at its busiest time of the week & being Summer here, was at its peak. Had a very unhappy American lady behind us who kept us entertained for the very long wait.

Got the express train to Paddington (a few easy starting challenge) then a very long walk with very heavy packs to get to the hotel. We will be catching the tube next time :)

Hotel is nice and the bed was very comfortable. Although we think a rock may have been comfortable given that we only had about 5 hours sleep on the two flights.

We are now off to explore London on a Big Bus. Hope to have a few pics to share tomorrow.

The photos from the first 36 hours can be found at

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/crouchtraveller/TheFirst36Hours

Enjoy

T minus 2 Day 10 Hours

As Nicole and I start to get the final things organised for our first trip OS together, I have found a few mins to do our first post on the blog. We are hoping that this will be our way that we can share whats going on with us over there with all of you over here.

I am not sure how often we will be able to post, but we will try to as often as possible. I have been reading that you can even get an Internet connection on some of the longer trains, that would be handy.

We have not locked much of our trip in as yet, cause that's not the style of trip we were after, but we have a few plans sorted. The first stop is London for a few days. A little self powered sight seeing followed by a short train ride out to Cardiff to see Ian. We are really looking forward to that.

I will try and keep these pretty short, cause we do not want to bore any of you. Feel free to leave comments if you like. I do not think you need to be a member of the site to do that, but I guess we can not tell until you try :)

Anyway that's it for now, it is back to packing and working out what we can leave home.

See you all soon

Love

The Crouch Travellers