Europe 2007

Has it really come to this? The twilight of Nick and Lisa's Excellent Adventure, and the imminent return to gloomy,gloomy Melbourne (we still love you melbourne, really.)

Tomorrow we fly out of prague, and into a maelstrom of uncertainty, i.e. not one, but two london airports. What better place to spend a thursday in the midst of a critical terror alert! So much fun we're doing it twice.

Enough of tomorrow though, there's some catching up to be done...

Rome
Wow. Walking into Rome was like entering a theme park for history buffs. The city-scape is made up of iconic ruins such as the colosseum, the forum, and the pantheon. They're all right there, in the CBD. It's something else. Something else that's something else in Rome is most definitely the food. If we don't come back 10kg's heavier, put it down to the walking and the food in London. Rome did it's best to leave us gibbering obese diabetics, and we enjoyed every minute. The Pizza, Pasta, Coffee, Pastries and Gelato are as good as everyone says, and a little better. Yummo. Four days in Rome flew by, helped by the astoundingly beautiful weather. 25-30 degrees every day, and we didn't see a cloud.

At the Trevi Fountain

Gelato

Prague and Cesky Krumlov

The View from our Hostel

The Czech republic hasn't put on quite the same show for us weather wise, but made up for it by serving up $2 Steins of Pilsner and Cesky Krumlov.

A quick summary:
Prague - Two days in beautiful prague have been the perfect transition back to Melbourne life after the Exotic wonders of Italy. Prague is not that dis-similar to Melbourne, it feels very new, despite the old buildings, and the weather has been patchy and unpredictable at best. It's a very different place from what we were expecting, and occaisionly underwhelming due to the mass of tourist-y areas, but there's plenty to offer here. The highlights in Prague have been:
- a comprehensive Salvador Dali exhibit in the Town square

Prague Square by Night

- a stroll up to Prague Castle for some amazing views
- massive steaks at an argentinian steakhouse, surrounded by exotic animals (including Piranhas, Iguana and a very gullible Toucan)

Bratwurst and Pilsner..mmmm..yummy

Cesky Krumlov - Up at the crack of dawn on Tuesday for a 3 hour bus ride to Cesky Krumlov a UNESCO protected town near the border of Austria, right out of a fairytale. 150 kms on a cramped bus, and would you believe, it was worth every bit.

Beautiful Cesky

The first point of order in town was to hire a canoe for a dose of nature. The safety course for the canoe consisted with showing us where the oars were, which end of the boat was the front, and where to find our complimentary bottle of rum (it's true!). We chose a scenic 15km route downriver to the next town, which we were told would be an easy cruise. It may be for most people, but some sore muscles today would disagree! The problem may be that rather than pointing the boat straight ahead and taking the direct route, we zigzagged the entire way, probably doubling distance travelled. Not to mention a slightly embarassing incident which left Nick with a sore left buttock and slightly soggy... The highlight of the trip was possibly a stop at a makeshift canoers pub on the side of the river, which served among other things Beer, Jagermeister and Absinthe!

Paddle Paddle Paddle

The Makeshift Canoers Pub

Having worked up a hunger, we headed to the Piazza Cafe for a magnificent feast of Pancakes, Savoury and Sweet. One of the best meals ever. After Lunch, there was a little time left for a stroll around the village, followed by another 3 hours on a bus, this time with an ill-tempered driver, and an ambient temperature of what seemed like 60 degrees.

Mmmmm....Blueberry Pancakes and Espresso

And now alas, for the Final Ciao of European Sojourn 2007. It's been a blast, thanks everyone for reading, and hope to see you all soon.

Nick and Lisa xx

Bologna - The Two Towers by Night

Literally translated, La Grassa is "The Fat", and rightly so. After the culianary disaster that is Venice, Bologna has set our stomachs (now slightly rounder) back on track with some magnificent home style pastas and antipasti the last two nights.

For those without the knowledge, Bologna is the birthplace of such luminaries as Mortadella, Tortellini (and its fat cousin Tortelloni), Lasagne, and Spaghetti Bolognese, which of course the locals don't call Bolognese, but instead Ragu (and they don't eat it with spaghetti either, but Tagliatelle).

We've partaken in these delights in two small trattoria in the student district of Bologna, and both nights the food and service have been wonderfully italian. Tonight in particular, when our food arriving at our table was accompanied by a flurry of activity, with no less than six bottles and shakers of assorted vinegars, herbs and spices arriving in quick succession. We also sampled the local Lambrusco (a sweet bubbly red), which was brilliant.

Outside of the delights our tastebuds have encountered, Bologna has also provided one of (if not THE) highlights of the trip so far, at least for Nick - a guided tour of the Ducati Factory and Museum. The Factory was fascinating, and we saw the very place our multistrada was constructed by loving Bolognese hands. The factory is quite small, and very hands on, which is enough to make any ducatisti gush with pride. There will be plenty of photos to follow (we took almost 100 in the museum alone). Also, we were quite welcome there, thanks the the recent exploits of Aussies Casey Stoner and Troy Bayliss in the Racing recently.

Nick and Loris Capirossi's MotoGP Bike

We're out of time now, so arrividerci!

Don't come to Italy to get a good Italian meal. Well, that's the message Venice has sent so far, anyway. We've had a couple of good, cheap, slices of pizza, but after two dinners, it's been two duds, particularly tonight.

An italian restaurant in the heart of a classical italian town run by non-italian asians should have been warning enough, but we ate there anyway. Well Nick ate there, Lisa just looked at her meal in disgust and promptly had it returned to the kitchen. In short, it seemed as though they had (barely) prepared our pasta dishes earlier that day, then added a LOT of salt and (barely) microwaved them before serving them up approximately two minutes after we ordered them. Yummy. At least we didn't pay for Lisa's meal, which, incidentally, consisted of packet pasta, one or two mushrooms and some salty water. We'll reiterate, yummy.

Other than the crappy dinners, Venice has been brilliant. It's a beautiful, if slightly smelly, town (it's definitely not a city, not after Paris), with amazing architecture, and pigeons and American tourists in ample supply. Neither of us can work out which is more annoying...

Venetian View

Our hotel is a genuine bargain, and a real find, thanks to Lisa. It's situated right on the Canal Rio della Fava, and our room is huge, comfortable, and most importantly - air conditioned. It's even got a TV! Unfortunately it seems all it shows is American TV shows badly dubbed by Italian Midgets (they all have very high, almost hysterical voices).

View from our window

Our Gondola - post gondle

We were warned, but there is a very, very loud garbage gondola that churns past our window at about 5 in the morning, and seems to idle there for the next two hours. Oh well, at least it ensures we get up for brekkie, which is by far the best freebie we've encountered on our travels. A very tasty cereal, peaches, abricot cornettos (that's apricot croissants for you non-euros), and of course, nutella, which seems to be the staple diet of everyone in the EU.

Two things worthy of note - The alchohol here is tres cheap. Want a tally of Becks? $8? $6? Try $1.60. Yep, it's pretty easy to get sloshed, unfortunately italians frown upon it. Strange people.

The other thing, is the bar we visited tonight. Tres Cool, Tres Jazzy, and the ubiquitous cheeky italian guy behind the bar. Served Nick some very nice wine that wasn't on the list though. And got Lisa nice and tipsy (Long Island Ice tea...).

Our Internet place is closing now, so that's all for tonight. So until next time, Buon Serra.

Bissous and Ciao Bella, Nick and Lisa

Paris, city of love, weird non-qwerty keyboards and crepes.

Six-and-a-bit days in Paris later, and it feels like yesterday that we arrived. Paris is the first truly magnificent, huge, cosmopolitan city we have visited on this tour, and at times was simply overwhelming.

Where to begin? Our hotel in Montmatre was wonderful, run by a polite (if not always friendly in the australian sense of the word...), english-speaking (thank god) family. Our room was on the fourth floor and overlooked the typical montmatre street, rue burq, with two bars, a laverie, and a great deal of parked scooters.

Paris has more than it's fair share of amazing landmarks and attractions. (in fact, it seems to have stolen all of London's as well). The best of those that we visited, in no particular order:
- The Eiffel tower, first by day, then night (on the same day, it was a long line), then during a wild thunderstorm. The thunderstorm contributed to our lift to the first floor not working for some time, and stranding many in the rain (not us though, comfortably under cover), and a spectacular light show across the city once we reached the top. Truly memorable.

- The Louvre, or Napoleon's Trophy Room. We spent around six hours in there, and still only saw about a third of the collection. Definitely the biggest collection of Gaudy Italian Biblical Art in the world... The Louvre highlights included: The Egyptian and Roman antiquities, Vermeer's Astronomer and Lacemaker, a nice little collection of Rembrandts, the crowd around the Mona Lisa (and the painting itself, I guess, although hard to see what all the fuss is about)
- The Arc D'Triomph, particularly the view of the world's first roundabout below. The craziest thing involving traffic. Anywhere. Ever.

So, you can probably guess, we enjoyed Paris immensely. And we'll go back, the sooner the better.

Our metro stop

Notre Dame

Musee d'Orsay

Montmatre Carousel - from Amelie

Now, as promised in the subtitle, Amsterdam Highlights...

- The Flying Pig, our hostel. A brilliant little hostel next to the Vondelpark, right off the best strip of Amsterdam - Leidseplein/Leidestraat. The Pig had a great little bar down stairs, which we spent every evening at, with cheap hoegaarden, jaagermeister, a ginger cat, and a generous kiwi bartender. They also served junk food for breakfast.
- Jonny Depp (sic), our bicycle for a day. Jonny took us around Amsterdam, dutch style. We loved Jonny, and Jonny didn't throw us off, not even when we rode him through a typhoon.

Jonny Depp

- Coffeeshops...
- Van Gogh Museum. An amazing collection of the most interesting artist about (in our opinion).
- The Ann Franke Huis. A really great tour through the house Ann Franke and her family hid in during world war II. Very insightful.

It's now early evening on a very warm, very sunny afternoon in Venice. It's a lovely place, and the perfect opportunity for us to recharge our batteries after setting a pretty relentless pace the last few weeks.

Until the next post,

Ciao Bella!

We arrived in Paris yesterday afternoon after a leisurely ride on the train through the Belgian countryside. Paris is a welcome change of pace from the relentless, hedonistic debauchery of Amsterdam.

We are staying in a lovely, quaint hotel - Hotel Bonsejour on the slopes of Montmatre.

We're out of time now, as the internet in Paris is expensive, but a full update is coming soon.