Day 48: Au revoir Rome, ciao Paris. Saving the best till last

Our last day in Rome.
It is always a little sad as I leave one place I have quickly grown to love, and yet of course exciting to think that I’ll soon be somewhere new.
Today we basically had a spare day free of any planned activities since the juggling from the closed Colosseum meant that we had missed going to Naples and Pompeii.  Naples couldn’t have been an option today as there was no chance we would be back in time to make our evening flight to Paris.  So today was an opportunity to sleep in and just take it easy. And today we did just that.
After our 10:00AM checkout, we headed off to Termini station to drop off our luggage. Seven weeks we’d travelled through Europe without any address tags on our luggage, but now I was feeling that my luck had run out, and I had best find some before we left our luggage in the left luggage.
There are a lot of shops at Termini.  Two levels of shops.  The lower level included a McDonalds alongside part of the old Servian wall.  I just love finding these old city walls, and this one is from the 4^th Century BC.  History plus.
But continuing on the search for luggage tags; most shops if they even understood what I was asking for did not have the damn things.  Not even the sure bet bag shop.  There was even a full on supermarket down here where at least I found a combination luggage lock so we could lock up the hand luggage, but alas no tags.
In the end I gave up and checked our bags in tagless and headed back upstairs.  I bought our tickets for the airport train ride this evening, despite those pesky “ticket helpers”, and then headed off down the streets of Rome looking for somewhere to plonk and relax.  The simple prerequisites being drinks and shade.
We sat down at a nearby restaurant but after 10 minutes without service, gave up and moved on. We decided to walk to Trevi Fountain again, especially as I hadn’t yet tossed my obligatory coins in. Half way there, wouldn’t you know it, we came across another fountain.  Rome is the city of fountains.

Day 47: Vatican City

Today is Vatican Day.  You know, because more Roman Catholicism.  Anyway, it’s not realistic to visit Rome and not visit the Vatican. Our tickets were for 9:30, and I’d organised the train tickets the night before so we headed straight down to the metro station about 8:00.  That should be heaps of time.
There are only two train lines in the underground in Rome, so it’s pretty straightforward getting around on the train, except this was peak hour and the platform was crazily crowded.  We had to let the first train go, and managed to just squeeze onto the second.  I’d never seen anything like it, except maybe in those videos of trains in Japan where they have people to push the commuters onto the carriages.  The platform and train were literally packed solid with people.

Day 46: A Roman Holiday

OK, let’s try this Colosseum thing again…

Walking there, I noticed what looked like a key embedded into the road between the cobblestones.  This caused me to pause, which was very lucky, as a bird shit then exploded on the road just in front of me.  So stopping to look at this key prevented me from getting bird shat upon.  This has to be lucky right?  It's luck if a bird does poo on you, so it has to be even luckier if one goes to poo on you and misses, yes?
We got down at the Colosseum just after 8:30 and yes, it was open.  There were queues but they weren’t too bad.  Wait, once inside the queues continue through the first corridor and around out of sight down around the curve; but really they weren’t too long and moved quickly.  As a bonus, Michelle as an EU citizen got in for free!  So that bird pooing incident was indeed lucky!
We grabbed our audio guides and started our tour.  I tried to get onto the underground tour, which would have taken us into the areas beneath the Colosseum, but there were no English tours left available for today.  Something to organise in advance for next time.

Day 45: Dead monks + fountains + ruins + cats = Rome

We got up nice and early and headed down to the Colosseum ready for the 8:30 ticket office opening.  You know, to avoid the queues I’d heard so much about. As we approached, we could see huge crowds.  But they weren’t at the Colosseum.  Instead they were lining the streets waving red, white and green flags.  There was only a small group of people lined up at the Colosseum, and the gates were closed.

Day 30: Ode to Joy, George Clooney, Padme and James Bond.

I got up early today as I wanted to try and catch our church bells playing Ode to Joy, like they did last night.  But I had no luck.  I think somebody in the belfry was watching and spiting me. :-(

We walked along the Green Way from above our apartment into Lenno.  The Green Way is a walking path, which for a good portion of its length follows the Antica Strada Regina, an ancient road along the western shore of Lake Como.  Rebuilt by the Romans and used as their main route between the north and south of the alps, through the ages seeing the passing of traders and armies, and now tourists and dog walkers.

Day 29: Leave the car behind when travelling to Italy.

Breakfast at the hotel again.  Same fare as yesterday.  They should alternate days or something.  Anyway, again not that hungry, so why am I even talking about it?
Grindelwald put on is best weather for our departure.  The skies were so blue and the air so crisp; I could see every little detail up on the mountains and the glacier.

Day 23: Uzing. Chateau des Baux, Carrieres de Lumieres, Avignon

Another lovely country drive today brought us to limestone country and the Château des Baux, a citadel allegedly passed down through the descendants of one of the three wise men.  This place is medieval heaven.  A lively little old town, similar to Carcassonne Le Citè with shops and cafès, but at the top of the hill are the remains of the old fortified château as well as working trèbuchets, and some of the best views across the countryside we’d seen to date.

Day 22: Uzes Market Day

Today was market day!  But the town seemed strangely quiet. I’d have thought the place would be buzzing with a market that was reported to be the best in France being held!
As we made our way through the cobbled streets, the noises of the market indeed became clearer and louder and sure enough, the entire Place aux Herbes had been transformed over night from a quiet place for meals and relaxing, into a huge bustling market place.  In fact the market had completely filled the square, spilled out into the surrounding streets, and then flowed both ways down the boulevard as well.  Huge!

Day 21: Around Uzes. Brantes and Vaison la Romaine.

Today we drove through many more of those beautiful clichéd Southern France narrow winding country lanes; small villages of stone and fields of vines and olives, interspersed with sprays of blood red poppies.
The countryside  became more mountainous as we continued.  We stopped in Bognals at a Courrefour, and stocked up on some supplies for lunch and the rest of our Uzès stay.  The supermarket was amazing with so much fresh food: a fromagerie in store, piles of fresh fish on ice in the aisles, bread of all imaginable shapes and types.  Puts Woollies and Coles truly to shame.

Day 20: Around Uzes. The Pont du Gard and Nimes. More Roman than Rome

This morning we visited Pont du Gard, a huge Roman aqueduct of three levels spanning the Aude River.  Bloody amazing is all I can say.
I grabbed the last shaded car park and sorted out the tickets in the visitor centre, where I was advised by the helpful lady behind the counter to bypass the audio guide and grab one after visiting the museum and cinema if I felt it was still warranted.  Sage advice, as after watching a film about the aqueduct, then wandering around the museum for the best part of an hour (it was an amazing museum and highly recommended) we knew everything we needed to know and still hadn’t even seen the aqueduct.  All we wanted to do now was walk down and see it as quickly as possible!!

Those Roman babes knew how to rock a bikini!

Day 18: Le Cite, Carcassone

This morning we wandered around the new city, where there was a market on in Place Carnot.  There seems to always be a market on where ever we visit!

Day 15: Gaudy Gaudi and Magic Fountains - Barcelona!

I was tasked with being the tour guide during our Barcelona visit.  The bar had been raised pretty high with Ken’s London and Edinburgh itineraries; I quickly knocked a plan up on the last couple of nights in London, and today it would be put to the test.

Michelle and I had a simple breakfast at Bar Castells on the corner down from our apartment: cured ham in a baguette with americano coffee and juice, while we awaited Ken and Shaz’s arrival.

The itinerary didn’t really make it much past breakfast when we decided to catch the Bus Turista to get a good all round overview of the city.

We walked up La Rambla to Plaça de Catalunya and queued up for the bus.  There were a lot of people, and everybody wanted to sit on the top deck.  We let the first few buses go, and it wasn’t too long though before some brand new, and more importantly, empty buses rolled up.  Then we were off.

Europe Day 5: Cotswolds to Bath

Next stop was somewhere starting with ‘B’.
Let’s see, Bourton?
Banbury?
How about Broadway?  Yes.  Broadway was a very large town, however the inner city was a beautiful village in the same style as the other Cotswolds towns we had so far visited.

We have arrived: First day in London

The plane trip wasn’t actually as hard as I thought it would be. Sure I knew it would be long, but I managed to get in a good seven hours sleep between Hong Kong and London; and that was without drinking any alcohol at all on the second leg.
The early morning lights of London were laid out beneath us as the plane flew on and circled around to Heathrow. I love flying over cities at night, and really love arriving 30 minutes ahead of schedule!
A very quick passage through customs and baggage collection and we were met by Shazzy and Ken with many cuddles and smiles; a lovely warm welcome after our long flight.
Ken had arranged a private taxi to take us all back to their apartment in London. Leaving the airport and out onto the motorway I still didn't really feel like I was in another country, at least not until we were passing these beautiful multistorey apartment buildings with their high pitched roofs and tall chimneys.
Our taxi driver took us on a little impromptu tour of London: Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, St. James Park with Big Ben in the distance. Along Whitehall and past Trafalgar Square, Cleopatra’s Needle across London Bridge and to the apartment. Yeah, we were in London. :-)
A couple of hours to change and freshen up, and then we were off on Ken’s lovingly and painstakingly prepared itinerary.