Roma (Rome)

Bonjourno!!

Made it to Italy on an annoying cheap flight where they bombard you with sales pitch to buy sandwiches, drinks, raffle tickets, toys, perfume, smokeless cigarettes, duty free goods among other things. I guess when you have a captive audience on a cheap flight you may as well annoy them eh!!

Got oriented in Roma and found our hotel all good.
Julia spent sunday morning relaxing and catching up on a bit of zzz's while i nipped off to the colosseum at 8.30am to see if i could beat the crowds (which i did). I spent an hour wandering around reading the information boards and things then got a guided tour as well, however the guide had such a strong italian accent that it was very hard to follow, but since i had read up a bit i had a bit of an idea what she was on about.


Basically you have to come and have a look for yourself, but here are the details.... It is elliptical in plan and is 189 meters (615 ft / 640 Roman feet) long, and 156 meters (510 ft / 528 Roman feet) wide, with a base area of 6 acres (24,000 m2). The height of the outer wall is 48 meters (157 ft / 165 Roman feet). The perimeter originally measured 545 meters (1,788 ft / 1,835 Roman feet). The central arena is an oval 87 m (287 ft) long and 55 m (180 ft) wide, surrounded by a wall 5 m (15 ft) high, above which rose tiers of seating.


Then we had a bit of a relax for the rest of the day until it had cooled down a tad from the high of 35 deg.
Went for a stroll through the streets and ended up by the river Tiber, which had heaps of people lining one side of it and the bridges over it. Turns out that Madonna was coming down the river on a boat (not the "Like a virgin" madonna, this is the "catholic statue" madonna) so we stayed and watched it come by, and everyone clapped and cheered.



Then had a look through the streets of roma at night, visiting all the normal tourist traps fountains, steps, pantheon, churches and the like!!





Today was a big day for us, Julia went to the Vatican to have mass with the pope






Fred opted to look over some ancient roman ruins in detail then wander about the city like a lost tourist. Yeah talk about hot trev, just 35 deg day today, scorchio!!!!


Tonight we met up with the group we will be with for the next two weeks, so we head off to florence with them tomorow

All good


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Location:Italy

Madrid - Spain

We have moved on to the massive metropolis of madrid. Took a 5 hour train ride, was interesting to watch the countryside changing from sea-side, to forests and mountains to rolling arable plains to dry arid country.

So its pretty hot here in Madrid, 35 deg i think. We took a quick look around the city centre on the hop on hop off bus, so we could see it without having to work our legs too much.





Stopped off at Palacio Real (Palace Real) which is a huge palace and gardens in the middle of Madrid.


Madrid is a bit of a big sprawling city, with 3.5 million in the city, and about 6 million in total including the surrounding areas. So bit of a busy place with lots of hustle and bustle.

Friday night was the last for our group together, so we had dinner out together which included an octopus dish (Fred says its very nice, Julia is too chicken to try it) and other local specialities including a beef dish which no one could translate from spanish to english what cut the meat was, but definitely not fillet but still pretty tasty with lots of garlic.

Saturday we went out for a breakfast of Churro's and coffee with the group, great way to start the day - deep fried dough dipped in hot thick tasty chocolate washed down with coffee :)










To offset the sugar rush, we headed off for a walking tour of the city centre, which helped to explain the history of the last 1000 years in spain, with in-bred kings and wars with the neighbouring countries and also civil wars etc.





Now we are all done with Spain, and on our way to Rome in Italy for two days before starting the next Intrepid tour of Italy. Yay!!!


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Location:Spain

Logrono and San Sebastian

OLA!!!

Took a small bus ride from Pamplona to Logrono. Arrived at 3pm to find the place pretty much dead, but then by about 5 pm the shutters come up on the shops and the town becomes alive again. Tea is normally not till about 9-10 pm due to the heat of the day etc.

Next day we went to visit a lovely winery and museum in Brione,




and of course we had to sample some just to check it was all good after it had spent 3 years in a barrel and another 3 years in a bottle.




Then out to the coast of spain, to end up in a delightful city called San Sebastian.


The climate is a nice 27 degrees during the day, so makes going to the beach compulsory to cool off in the atlantic ocean.

took a funicular to the top of the hill overlooking the bay, and found a cute little kids amusement park up there, so of course we had to have a ride on the roller-coaster and boat things etc. All good fun

then back to the beach to work on the tan, relax and watch people etc, bit of an anatomy lesson at times :/
The water is nice, refreshing and easy to get into.





Today we took another bus to a city called Bilbao where there is a famous museum called the Guggenheim museum, with lots of modern art and stuff. They even had a massive statue of a dog made out of flowers




Heres a spirally arty thing made out of 2 inch thick plate steel, you can see the size of it in relation to the humans in amongst it.




Now we are back in San Sebastian having a small siesta (when in spain ...) before going back to the beach later on this afternoon hopefully.

So all good here, plan to goto Madrid in the morning
Yeehaaaa




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Location:Espanol

Barcelona & Pamplona

Hi again
Writing from the lovely town of Pamplona.
Had a great time in Barcelona - Hot muggy city.
Had a bit of a wander around - went to the Maritime Museum to a exhibition on the Titanic
Stroll up La Rambla (main tourist street - very average) and looked around some of the back streets in the old town where we stayed.




Came across an anti austerity protest down town that blocked up the street
Listened to this guy sing opera.




Up to the top of the Cathedral of Barcelona




Gaudi's Cathedral - due for completion in the next 30 years




Then later on tea by the beach




Next morning we visited the Natural history museum of the city where they have a partial excavation of a roman era street which was crazy to walk through.




Then called in at another church where we got caught up in a wedding




Fred got caught up in a weird parade thing going through town




Decided I don't like mimes, statue people or puppets.
Met up with our tour group that night and after our intro we all headed out for tea
Fred's black "black" rice




Then Fred and I hung out in the narrow streets of the Old Town and listened to some street Opera which was great.
Tour started this morning with a steamy walk to the train station in Barcelona where we boarded the fast train for Pamplona. Cool charging along at 250kmph. As we moved further north we saw lots of Windmills/Solar Panels and heaps of fields of sunflowers. Very pretty.
Hopped off in Pamplona where it is much cooler - down to around 26 degres so quite nice. Not muggy either being a little inland. Wandered around town for a few hours - checked out the route for the running of the bulls and had a little run with them ourselves








Came across a little festival in this park which was cool. Lots of walking. awesome place. Seems to be a lot of cities have the original old fortified towns in the centre from which the city has since expanded. Cobbled narrow streets and old stone buildings.
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Location:Pamplona

The next instalment (days 4&5)

Right - next update.

Had an awesome trip out to Chateau de Versailles with Fat Tire Bike Tours. Joined the tour in Paris where we got our bikes, rode through town to the train station where we all loaded our bikes on and then trained out out to the town of Versailles (about 15km), got some stuff for lunch at the market there (and yummy fresh squezed orange juice and brown sugar and butter crepes) then biked out to the grounds of the Palace. 200 acres of amazing grounds, big wide tree linned roads.



Came up one side of the lake and had lunch at the opposite side to the Chateau so lovely view.




Back down the other side of the lake and then around to enter the Chateau proper. The scale of everything is just crazy.

This photo is in the Hall of mirrors - where it widens out a bit and you got a chance to breath - totally packed! wasn't that much fun squeezing around all the smaller rooms with them.





Gardens were beautiful but didnt really have enough time to see them all.









Long day in the hot sun (first bit of sunburn on now) so we were wasted by the time we got back to our hotel.

Next day was our last in Paris so checked out and then took to the metro again to look around. Ticked off a couple more touristy things - Museum of the middle ages, Tuillirie Gardens, Place du Vendome, The Sante Chapelle and The Consergerie where Marie Antoinette hung out before they said "Off with her head!" (or something like that)










Had Macaroons and Coffee at Point Nuef then back for dinner in the market street (Rue de Cleur) by our hotel before we picked up our bags and took the metro to the train station where we got on Train for Spain and into our magically transforming cabin.
from this




To this




So off to Spain we went.
breakfast this morning




was cool seeing all the fields of sunflowers and barley ready to harvest.

Off the train in Barcelona and just about fell over with the heat. HOT, and muggy.

Decided against finding our own way to the hostel so got a taxi. Checked in and now were trying to cool off before braving the outside world again so taking the opportunity to update the blog

Already getting very confused with Spanish/French/English. Can't wait to add Italian to that mix!

Having a great time!



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Location:Paris & Barcelona

Day 1,2&3

A bit of an update on our trip so far.

"Time toooo say good-bye...

Did have to get my bag back after checking it in because I forgot to get some strips out. (and nearly forgot all my insulin in the fridge).Worries.

Thanks Matt & Amy for dropping us off!

Had a good flight to Singapore - heres Fred not enjoying the free leg massage things they have in the airport.




From Singapore to Frankfurt - all plane sailing(doof doof) - sleeping tablets are amazing. A quick sprint to catch our connecting flight to Paris and then we were here (our bags even made it!)

Jumped onto the metro to get to our hotel.

Our first stop in Paris - popped out of the Metro system (rabbit warren) and into an awesome day. Tried to get the meeting here but just not enough time.







Awesome spot for our hotel - just by the paris sky tower. (yes i wrote that because I cant spell it). Aka Eiffel tower (by Fred)

Did the usual tourist shots so will inflict them on you








Very chilled out first day - we were wasted by about 3pm local time so off to bed.
Day two was all good - Fred did the day tour with Fat Tire Bike Tours, and then we both did the Night Tour - awesome - totally recommend them included a boat tour for a couple of hours at the end so didn't finish until 11.30 but was great

visited lots of Tourist spots so was great










Today was a big day - visited lots of tourist spots - Loved it. Spent 11 hours out and about - heres some pics of the places we popped into


The crazy steep steps on the way to the top of sacre ceour (all 300 odd of them)








Then the view - Amazing




Spent a while in the Notre Dame - Amazing building. Talked about how the awe for the building could easily distract people from what is spiritually real.





Champ elisse and the arch de triumph - just crazy that we are here for real seeing all these things




Roof of the Arch

Then went to a couple of parks on the way to Rue St Germaine where we had tea














Love Paris.

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Location:Auckland Airport/Singapore/France