Singapore

Well just a quick update as we are about to head to bed for a good nights sleep before our last leg home :)

Flight from Heathrow to Singapore was uneventful... as you want them to be. Only problem was that neither of us got any sleep and it was the flight that we really needed to get a couple of hours on.. because we left London at noon Friday & arrived in Singapore at 7:30am. So when we made it to our hotel around 10ish Nicole crashed out for a few hours & Phil managed to stay awake for an hour but caved not long after. We did get up about 1pm and decided our best option (with very limited time & still feeling very tired from the flight) was the on/off tour bus which had two circuits that covered a big chunk of the city.

We did both circuits and got a really quick introduction to a very diverse city. We had a lunch/snack/dinner in a food court before taking a walk to see the Merlion fountain which Phil remembered from his childhood visit here.We then got the last bus back to the hotel & went downstairs for a beer, snack & to listen to some singers that the hotel had performing in the lounge.

Now we are back in our room and are ready for some sleep before our 10 hour flight which gets us back in at 7:30 tomorrow night.

Can't wait to see everyone soon
Lots of love
Phil & Nic

Our last day in Europe

Well as expected yesterday was another big day... we had breakfast in the hotel at 8:15am and didn't get back in from dinner until 10pm.

We had a little time before out first stop, yes I know were were running ahead of time, unusual for us :) So we headed into Regent park for a little walk around. London has some really beautiful parks, that's for sure. We were able to see and get up close to some ducks, swans, pigeons and even some squirrels. The squirrels were very interested to find out what the camera tasted like.

First stop on the trip was Madame Tussaud's - a very cheesy stop but one we thought would be fun & not as intense as the other two places we were going and we were right :)

Not much can be said about it other than it is quite amazing how real some of those things look and we had fun posing for pics & watching other people and their poses.

Next stop was the Cabinet War Rooms & the Churchill Museum - these are both housed in the actually War Rooms that were used by Churchill and his crew during the war. It was very interesting to imagine how loud and busy it would have been down there during this time. We do know however that there would have been no whistling as Churchill hated it. We got to see most of the rooms down there one of which was the Map room which had the actual maps that were used during war time, which had graffiti about Hitler on them. Another room was his actual Chamber. This was interesting and a still had one of his cigars on the be side table.

We moved from here back to the Tube where were headed out to see the Imperial War Museum. This place was massive. We were there for about 3 hours and only got to cover about 40% of the things there. When we go back to London again, some day, we will have to finish this off. His had things from all the wars and major displays about WWI and WWII. That had lots of actual items on display and plenty of things to read. There was also a massive Holocaust exhibit. We were able to piece together the things that we had already heard and seen at Dachau and things made the experience even more moving. It was hard to comprehend how big Auschwitz was compared to Dachau. We were able to see a diorama of Auschwitz that helped us realize this, completely unbelievable.

It had been a long day, and we were both tired and not feeling the greatest. I think travel belly is getting the better of us now :) So we headed back to the hotel for a quick snack and a sleep before taking the 2nd last part of the journey.

Wont be long now until we can tell you some stories in person.

Looking forward to seeing you all soon

London Take Two

Ok so we didn't have a great plan for this afternoon but we knew we wanted to have a look at Trafalgar Square & St Paul's. To do this we had to use the Tube :) which we didn't do last time we were in town but given our recent train experience the Tube was no worries.

We had a quick wander around Trafalgar & also did a quick stroll around the National Gallery (unfortunately quite a few areas were closed off due to a strike).

We hopped backed on the tube and made our way to St Peter's were we got some great shots (using the great afternoon sun again). Sad to say we really should have visited here on our first trip ... on our first drive by we thought it looked great but we think now that we have seen the Vatican it just didn't look as impressive. But that said... it is still a very beautiful church.

We then took a stroll over the Millennium Bridge (not too wobbly today) and once on the other side realised we needed to walk back because there aren't any Tube stations near by on the other side. So we walked back - got on a tube & headed back to the hotel.

We then found some dinner in a pub ... interesting choice of venue given that England was playing soccer tonight. Lucky for us - they won!!

And now we get ready for bed... tomorrow is a very big day - Madame Tussaud's, Cabinet War Rooms & Imperial War Museum.

No doubt we will have a blog update tomorrow

Night all

Phil & Nic

Back in the UK

Well we successfully made it back into the UK yesterday and picked up our hire car from Stansted airport. First stop was the Duxforth Airfield where they have a few museums set up.

We hadn't heard of the place until we were chatting with the Gladstone couple at the Normandy tour. They told us they thought it was great but to be careful as you need more time than you would think.... and how right they were.

We arrived in the car park at 12.30 and pretty much ran thought most of it and we didn't get out until 4:30ish. There are half a dozen different hangers which house different kinds of information. The first one we went to had a collection of different planes that had been restored by the staff at the airfield (and some volunteers). It also had a "History of Aviation" area which had a time line of videos, data boards, pictures, etc and also had an interactive area (Craig - photos will prove I played Flight Sim :) )

When we got out of the first hanger we realised that we had been in there for over an hour & we still hadn't been to the two main hangers. So we decided to walk to the other end of the complex where they were. The highlight of the trip out there was definitely the next hanger - Land Warfare Hall. This hall is a museum of every piece of army equipment that you could imagine - tanks, car, hats, guns, shoes, artillery... did we mention tanks :) Phil's aim this trip was to get a picture with some WW2 tanks and this place provided more photo ops than we had time to take them. It was great to see so much of the equipment that we had been told about during the Normandy & Ieper tours.

Next hanger - American Air Museum... again another massive collection of planes and army gear. The most interesting thing here was a series of glass panels that made up a border fence outside the museum. Each panel had little planes printed all over it. The panels went on and on - we couldn't fit them all in one photo. This wall was representative of all the US planes lost during war. A truly amazing sight and one very hard to fathom.

By the time we got out of this hanger it was about 4pm and this was the time we had said was the very very latest that we could be leaving. So we skipped two hangers which we thought would be of least interest to us but we did make two more quick stops - one of the restoration hangers and the Battle of Britain hanger.

We had a quick look in the gift shop and then got back in the car to head to our next stop - which we needed to get to before sunset - Stonehenge.

We made pretty good time so we did a quick stop at the hotel to check in as we weren't sure what time reception closed and it turned out the hotel was about 3km from the stones.

We were so impressed at our timing... until we got there and found that it had closed at 6pm... current time was 6:30... DOH!!!

We did get quite a few pics over the fence and we got to see our first beautiful sunset this holiday. Even from a distance Stonehenge is quite impressive but not quite what either of us was expecting ... very stange to see something so impressive sitting in the middle of sheep farms and motorways. But regardless, it is amazing to think that they have been there 5000+ years.

Our plan was to head back to Stonehenge this morning to get a closer look but, as has been the case a few times this trip, we were delayed with a little bit of travel belly and didn't end up leaving the hotel until just after 10 - and we needed to have the car to Reading by 11:30 (just over an hours drive away) or pay for another day of hire. So we made the decision to head off and get on to the next adventure.

We dropped the car off to Reading (with 2 minutes to spare) and got a taxi to the train station. We got the train to Paddington & found our hotel - which this time is much closer (about 2 minutes walk). And now we are working out what we are going to do with our last day and a half in Europe.

We will no doubt have another blog or two before we go so until then .. love to all

Cheers

Phil & Nic

Berlin

Nothing very exciting on our train ride from Prague to Berlin - only we figure we must be getting used to the travel now as the five hour trip felt like it was over very quickly - more like two hours. Some German ladies did think we were wonderful as we changed seats with them so they could share the 4 seater section. Little did they know we wanted to swtich so Phil could face forwards. In return for our generosity :) we were rewarded with two cans of wine - a very interesting concept to us but not wanting to be rude we accepted and we enjoyed them.

We arrived in Berlin to a few clowds and we were happy that it looked to be clearing. We easy understood the Berlin train system and managed to make our way to our station. We found the hotel, checked in and headed out for a walk. We didn't take the camera with us as we figured we would be doing plenty of walking around today. On a few occassions Phil commented that he wished he had the camera as the lighting was perfect for some shots of a couple of different buildings we passed.

We found a fish & chip place to grab a snack - we had missed lunch again (a problem we seem to have here) and it was too early for dinner. I think the guy thought we were American because we both ended up with a litre of tartare sauce on our chips.

We decided to head back to the hotel, where we made the most of having a shower that worked properly - we both have a new found appreciation for clean hair :)Next challenge was some dinner....

We found a tapas bar/steak house which was very nice - we may have liked it because it had gas heaters & shelter from the wind :) The food was great, only problem we had was I got in trouble for not eating the salad and we also got weird looks when we said we didn't want any bread. We knew all was ok though when we asked for the bill and the cheeky waiter said NO (keeping in mind he didn't speak a lot of English) and walked off with a cheesy grin & giggling. He went inside and was watching us through the window - still grinning away. He came back a couple of minutes later with a receipt that they had written up in English for us :) and was smiling even more when we left him a tip.

Today we headed out on the tour that Michelle L had recommended to us - The Famous Insider Walk!! We were really looking forward to this one as it looked like it was going to show us a lot of sights that we were both keen to see.

Phil jumped out of bed and ran to the window and yes... you guessed it... it was pouring rain. Really why did we think this tour would be any different to the rest of Europe :) but as the brochure said - we walk rain or shine... so off we went.

Our Scottish guide, Kenny, first came to Berlin 10 years ago and has been doing tours for the last 4. He was a great guide - his humor & excellent knowledge made for an interesting day. His ability to build up a story really put you into the moment.

We ventured around the city - East & West - and learnt many new things about this amazing town. So hard to believe that these things were still going on in our life time.

We saw the remains of the Berlin Wall, Brandenburg Gate, the sight of Hitler's Bunker, SS & Gestapo headquarter buildings, the Jewish memorial, Checkpoint Charlie & many more.
The four hour tour lasted over 5 (a rather interesting finish of a swallow crashing into the window we were standing next to - I think a few people missed the closing minutes of the tour as they were worried about the bird) and was definitely worth the $$ & effort. We highly recommend anyone coming to Berlin does this tour.

Another city & many more additions to our reading list :)

As the tour finished ... out came the sunshine. So we decided to do the tour in reverse :) and took some more pics without the water wash over the lens. Well to be honest we only made it half way in the reverse direction (seeing the main sights we wanted to revisit - along with a stop at the outdoor photo exhibit - Topography of Terror) when we realised how exhausted we were and found the train station and headed for the hotel. (But not without being approached by a few low lifes trying to sell us expired train tickets - we've been here too long to fall for that trick buddy)

Tomorrow morning we head back to the UK (via plane) and we pick up a hire car to go and see the American Air Museum (yes Craig we will get you a few piccies) and then to Stonehenge.Not sure that we will have net access until we get back to London on Wednesday so that will probably be our next update.

Hope all is well at home - not long now and we will be back in Oz (wishing we were here)

Cheers

Phil & Nic

Salzburg

Hey Guys,

Just got pointed out to us (thanks dad) that we have missed writing a blog about Salzburg...opps.

We had an interesting start to the morning, the alarm didn't go off and Phil woke up about 20 minutes before we were supposed to be meeting our tour group downstairs. So in a record time we showered, dressed, packed and checked out. We had 5 minutes to spare so we ran up the road to grab some snack food to pass as breakfast (seeing as we had missed our complimentary one in the hotel). Not a very good idea - while we were away the tour bus came & went.

After unsuccessfully trying to call the company Nicole finally got some help from the hotel receptionist and we were picked up about 10 minutes later ... and it turned out to be a very good mistake- rather than being on a coach bus for the tour with 35 other people we got a mini van tour with 5 others and a great tour guide who was very passionate about the area and the movie :)

We got to see a heap of sights from the movie and learnt quite a few bits of trivia. The tour follows the path between the movie sights but also gives history on the area so we found that part really interesting too.

The tour was enhanced (well for Sound of Music fans) by our guide who had an incredible singing voice and broke out into song on many occasions. Mum Crouch you would have loved this tour and she would have loved you because none of our group would join in as we were even more embarrassed by our abilities after listening to her.

Salzburg really impressed us - the scenery was the most amazing that we have seen (and we have seen some impressive stuff on the trek around). The pictures pretty much say everything because words can't describe it (and keep in mind that the pics aren't the best because it was raining/overcast most of the day). We recommend that everyone who hasn't seen the area make the trip over to see it for themselves :)

When we were done with the tour we headed to the train station to get the train to Munich and you've got the blog updates from there :)

And now we must run to get our train to Berlin....

Prague

We have moved country again since our last update – we left the internet cafe in Munich and walked across the road to collect our bags from the hold lockers. We then realised we were ready way too early so we grabbed a great Germany coffee ... from Starbucks.

After a bit of a wait we were able to board our overnight train to Prague. The train was pretty good – we had a room to ourselves with a couple of bunk beds. They weren’t the most comfortable but it was definitely worth the effort because we saved ourselves a day of travel and got to spend the extra time in Prague (and it turns out it was more comfortable than our bed in Prague :) )

Anyway we arrived in Prague around 9am and had a couple of rough instructions on how to get to the hostel. Only problem was it neglected to say if we needed to go right or left out of the station. We stupidly tried to find a spot to stop and work out what we were doing and almost instantly we were set upon by a guy who tried to pin Phil into a corner. We walked off ... at a quick pace... and he followed us down a few corridors and stairs until we managed to lose him at the exit. We made a quick call and headed out to the right of the station... of course... we should have gone left. But not knowing this we went about looking for the street name we had been given... or perhaps a map that would help us out. Instead we found another scary guy who spat at me and then followed us down the street saying something in a language we didn’t understand. A great start to Prague!!!

After doing a big circle we arrived at the hostel and the guy who looks after the hostel wasn’t in yet... so we (with our packs that seem so much heavier as the trip goes on :) ) walked around for a while to find a coffee & some money. By the time we made it back to the hostel we were able to check in... they didn’t have the room that we were supposed to have so we are in the top floor apartment that is meant for about six people to share – it is a lot bigger than the rooms we have been used to of late. We have a lounge room, bedroom, kitchen & bathroom but it is a bit run down.

Anyway... yesterday I had my first hit of home sickness. It has been a really big adventure & yesterday the tiredness hit in and after the trouble getting to the hotel – I cracked! So we didn’t get up to much yesterday. A little bit of a walk around in the afternoon and then we had a late lunch/early dinner before heading back to the room for a quiet night.

Today I felt much better and we headed out this morning for a walking tour. The tour went for about four hours & we got to see different areas of the city – Old Town, New Town, Jewish Quarter, Lesser Quarter & Prague Castle.

Our tour guide was a local girl who gave us quite a bit of information / history on the different areas. This holiday has definitely highlighted to both of us how little we know about geography & history and we have a huge list of things we want to read about when we get home... in preparation for our next adventure :) which won’t be for a few years as the list is really really long.

After the tour we headed to the train station to book our tickets for tomorrow’s trip – our last use of our Eurail pass – Prague to Berlin. We spend a big chunk of tomorrow on the train so probably no blog update until Monday night (Tuesday morning Bris time).

Hope all is going well at home.
Love Phil & Nic

Munich

Well Munich started out very well. We made the train from Salzburg and and earlier connection to Munich than we thought, so that meant we had some time to explore when we first arrived.

We had a little wonder around, and we made one of our first purchase for the trip, umbrellas. With two walking tours in Munich we thought it better then our rain covers. This was a great idea in the end, it made it much easier.

The first night we had dinner in a traditional beer hall. These things are massive!! Quite an experience indeed. Phil even managed to work his way through a Stein.

The next day, which was the day for the Dachau tour, we woke up not too well. Before you ask, it was not from the beer....maybe the food was too rich, but we both had stomach issues. Anyway we sucked it up and made it to the tour meeting point in the rain, only to find out that it was postponed until the afternoon. We went back to the hotel to rest......and then by the time the afternoon had come we were not well enough to go, so we made a phone call and changed the tour to the next day. This meant we would be doing two walking tours in one day...maybe hard work, but better then not being able to do them at all.

We rested for rest of the day,except to venture out for dinner....Bed early, which we were both keen for.

The next day, today, we woke up pumped and ready to go. Quick breaky in the hotel and off to the meeting point. It was raining today, again, but that was not going to stop us.

The first tour was the 'Third Right' tour. This was very good. A walk around the Munich streets and buildings that had meaning in the build up of Hitler and the Nazi party. We both learned a heap of things on this tour and are very interested into taking it further.

The next tour was a tour around Dachau Camp. This was very emotional. We could not believe some of the stories that the guide told us about this camp. The camp was massive and he also told us it was a 10th of the size of some of the other ones around Germany. It is hard to imagine or even describe. Like a lot of the things on this trip, we are going to have to tell you this is probably one you need to see for yourself.

The weather was not kind to us, and it rain most of the time.....so pictures were hard to come by, but we have some. We are currently waiting for our night train to Prague, and posting this in a cafe, so you will have to wait for the pictures until we get to Prague.

Anyway thats it for now. Just to let you know we are both feeling much better. Probably need a rest, which we have now had. Ready for oour next adventure.

Thinking about you all. Hope all is well.
We will reply to your email from Prague

Trip to Salzburg

Just a quick update today as we only have an hour of web access & also we didn’t do much besides more countries.

About five minutes before we were due to get up we got a wonderful phone call from new dad Craig letting us know that Hayden Filippini had finally decided to join us. (Congratulations Anita & Craig & welcome to the world Hayden – looking forward to meeting you and to watching you grow up).

After that news we were wide awake & got ready for our lift to the train station. The train ride was good – Nic got to chat with Anita which was great & we also met a couple more Australians – you really do have to wonder how many of us there would be if we were all in Oz at once because there are a lot of us over here :)

It was incredible to watch the scenery change as we moved over the Italy/Austria border – we thought Italy was beautiful but Austria is incredible. Mountain after mountain, crystal clear water (& waterfalls) and green as far as you can see.

We took a couple of pics from the train but they can’t really do justice to the beauty (given that it is through a window & the train is travelling at 200+ km/hr.

We are now in our Mozart themed room in Salzburg and will probably stay in tonight as it is raining here at the moment. Tomorrow morning we head out on our Sound of Music tour & then tomorrow afternoon we get the train to Munich. Hopefully we will be able to get on line then and show you some amazing pictures from around Salzburg.

Until then .... love to everyone
Phil & Nic

Another day in Venicen

We had a little bit of a sleep in today and then headed to the restaurant next door for a bit of breakfast. The shuttle bus picked us up at 11:15am and we headed back to the island for the day.

We took the same kind of approach as yesterday and just wandered around for a bit with our first challenge to find some lunch. Yes - pasta & pizza again!!! While eating we did a bit of people watching & today we also got to watch a dozen pidgeons playing around with scraps that people were throwing to them. This reminded us of something an American couple staying in our hotel had said about feeding pidgeons in a square. So we set off to try and find San Marco Piazza.

As the photos show we had a great time with the pidgeons and for a few days we will have the claw marks on our arms as souveniers of the experience. We did bathe in the anticeptic wash when we were done though :)

We then continued wandering around for a few more hours. A very different Venice today to what we saw yesterday. Today there was a regatta on and the crowds were crazy.

As the day went on we found more & more that it is really hard to tell where you are going, where you have been & it is even harder to work out where you are on a map. Around 5:30 we thought we should look at heading back towards the meeting point (we wanted the extra time to be able to stroll back) So we headed off in the direction we thought it was..... then we hit the edge of the island :) wrong way – go back!!!

It turned out we had been walking for about an hour in the wrong direction - I guess that is what you get when you don't follow your map :) But it was good mistake because we got to see a whole new area and then another new area on our way back to the pick up point :)

We are back in the hotel now... nursing some very sore feet (Hours walking - 6.5 Approx Kms covered - 18) but the two days provided an amazing adventure that we are glad we got to experience.

Next we move on to Salzburg - where we do the Sound of Music tour :)

Happy Fathers Day to our dads and to all the other dads out there reading this (as we have had quite a few messages from strangers reading the blog)

Good luck to Anita & Craig who will probably become parents tomorrow (well today Bris time) - we are with you in spirit as you go through the experience.

Love to all

Hugs to Bundy & Haydos

Cheers

Phil & Nic

Venice

The day started out very nice. We walked down to the train station to check out the types of seats available on the Munich to Prague train. We had a really nice ticket guy who helped us get a Private Double Sleeper, which is handy meaning we do not loose a day in transit. He also showed us that we needed to pay a little extra to travel in Czech Rep as the EurailPass did not cover that.

We then had a nice quick breakfast at a little cafe down the street, but on finishing our coffee realized we were running late! We got back to the room and packed and had 10 mins to get to the train...which was about a 15 min walk away. It was on.....We ended up jogging there with full packs and made it onto the train with about 2 mins to spare. Lucky we had 3 hours on a train to recover.

On arriving in Venice we had to book the train for Salzburg in a few days time. Then after reading the instructions on how to get to our hotel, we bought a bus ticket and jumped on the number 9, This was interesting as we were not 100% sure what stop to get off at....was it the last one, or the 2nd last one??? We decided to wing it as usual. As fate turned out, we were the only people left on the bus after about 10 mins. When we felt we were getting close, i walked down to the bus driver who we knew did not speak English and I simply said "Villa Dori". He opened the doors and pointed across the road, at the hotel :)

We were staying on the mainland as it is about 20 times cheaper then on the island itself. This hotel offers a shuttle service to the island for $2.50 each which is sensational. We put our bags in the room and headed for the islands.

On arriving, we had a bite to eat....more pasta, and then set out to find stuff. As the guide books say there is no real need for a plan in Venice, just walk the streets and you will find something extremely beautiful everywhere you turn. We took this approach and loved it. It is the most relaxed we have felt all holiday. Strolling down little lanes, over bridges and into little parks and squares. On our travel we came across heaps of the things that the guide books had recommended to visit. It is very interesting seeing the water splashing against the back doors of the buildings.

We are heading back today for more of the same.

Florence and Pisa

Another day, another successful one. Today we headed out of Rome after a wonderful couple of days. We are getting pretty use to the train thing now, so much so that we left until the last 10 mins to arrive at the station or should I say termini :) We jumped on the train heading to Florence, in 1st class and sat back and enjoyed the view. Nicole did some catch up work on the paper Journal and I did some...important ipod work.

We arrived in Florence with ease and even easier to find our new base for a few days. It is in the heart of the action, just down the road from the Duomo. Not quite as big as the church we just saw in Rome, but pretty impressive. The walls of the church were designed to be so impressive that people would say nothing more could have been done to improve them (which as some of our pics might show – it has a lot of intricate detail). The dual dome was put on by another architect so it is a bit different but pretty impressive as it has no support structures.

Speaking of impressive, our room is on the 4th floor.....which is actually the 5th as they call ground floor “0”.....Whatever it is called it is a long way with full packs and sore legs from Rome :) but as normal these holidays we found that little bit extra and made it, and then found the bonus.....air con. That immediately hit 18 degrees :)

We took a few mins to settle in then headed out the door to find lunch and investigate Florence. Taking guidance from previous times, we found the open top bus and did a lap of Florence to get to know it. Like we have said we found this the easiest way to kick start the sightseeing.

This place is amazing. It is like it is out of a painting. The countryside is beautiful, everything is very green. The river is very inviting, to the point of wanting to jump in it, but given that we don’t trust water that isn’t in a sealed bottle – it probably won’t happen. The houses/buildings are so cute. They all are sensational colours and have these shutters on all the windows. Even our place has them.
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That was yesterdays contribution to the blog but we didn’t get a chance to add it.

Today we struggled to get out of the very uncomfortable bed but once up we were on a mission, another lap on the bus to get a better look at Florence and then a train ride out to Pisa.

We are glad we had another look around on the bus because we got to see some more of the beauty that this place has to offer. We hoped off at Michelangelo’s Piazzale which looks over Florence. Unfortunately the day started out a bit hazy so the pics aren’t as good as we would have hoped but you’ll have to trust us that it was truly breathtaking.

We haven’t had time this trip to look at any of the galleries or museums but I’m sure we will be back one day and we will allocate more time to Tuscany.

Next on to the Pisa trip!!! Purpose of the journey – cheesy tourist shots :) and we succeeded!!!
We got the train out to Pisa, about an hour away from Florence and took a guess that we would be able to find the Leaning Tower with easy (ie we didn’t take a map or guide book). Good call by us – the train station and the Tower are at opposite ends of the main city area but it is only a small area which made for a nice walk after we grabbed a bite to eat. (Yes – Pizza again:) )

We both had different expectations of the Tower – Phil thought it would be bigger – Nic thought smaller but in the end we both thought it was great and worth the travel. We got a great laugh watching tourists pose for the “Tower Holding” shots and then we got into the spirit and joined in :)

We took a different route back to the train station and got to see a bit more of the outer city area (more suburban) – although there were a couple of moments we thought we may have made the wrong decision but we got there in the end.

With twenty minutes till the train we decided to find some gelato – and got our best bargin yet – waffle cones with three big scoops of ice cream for 2.50euro each. A great way to cool down.
Anyway now we are back in our hotel room – after discovering we can access the net in here for $0 – another great bargin :)

Tomorrow morning we head off to Venice for a couple of days – which looks like it will be a budget blower! But we are sure it will be worth the $$$.

Oh by the way – the Italian heat has done us both well – both colds are almost gone now.

Hope things are going well back home. We miss everyone heaps but will be back before we all know it (we leave in less than 2 weeks now).

PS GO THE BRONCOS