Brace yourselves, this is a long one.
We left for our
European escape at around 9 in the morning followed by 9:10, followed by
9:20 forgetting something each time and having to return. Lucky we left
early! Fast forward 3 hours and we are on our first plane leg for the
day. Brisbane to Hong Kong, 11 hours to start with wasn't too bad and we
were flying with Cathay pacific which had really nice planes and food.
From
past experience with hey lag I decided it would be best to stay awake
for the first flight and sleep for the second. I felt find after the
first flight and just before the second I took an anti-nausea/dozy
tablet for the next flight. BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER. I was throwing up for
approximately the first 6 hours of our 13 hour flight to Zurich. On the
hour every hour.In the toilet, in the tiny bathroom sink, in sick bags. I was
surprised it just kept coming up. After more attempted sleeping whilst
hugging a clean sick bag we finally got to Zurich just in time to run to
our connecting flight. We arrived in Rome at 9 in the morning. My
husband was stressing a little because we didn't go though any kind of
immigration in Rome. Turns out we did that in Zurich and only have to do
it going in and out of the eurozone not individual countries.
I had
planned for all our accom to be close to train stations so we caught the
train from the airport into the city. We stayed at a cute little hostel
called rome metropolitan guesthouse which was run by two brothers. One
of the bros had a little cafe around the corner so we got free coffee
and various pastries. Hubs was not at all happy about staying in a
hostel which could only be a dingy rat infested hell hole... But quickly
changed his mind once he saw it. Our first night we were in the bunk
bed room (hilarious) but the second we were put in the room we ordered
which was the queen bed. They were very apologetic.
The
rest of Rome was filled with other touristy activities such as the
tours of the Colosseum, roman forum, palatine, Vatican and catacombs. In
all cases I highly recommend the guided tours. Even if the price is a
lot more expensive (€30-€50 more) than the entry do it. Even just not
having to wait in the stupidly long lines (esp he Vatican) makes up the
price in itself. Just make sure you go with a reputable tour operator.
We did roman holidays and they were excellent. The Vatican tour was
mammoth. My husband was a bit annoyed at the start of the tour that the
guide was missing so much inside the Vatican museum but realised by the
end of it that it was a 3 hour tour and he was buggered by the end of it
and glad she didn't take her time showing us everything. We ate at a
few restaurants but. Nothing to really write home about. I've read that
most of the nicer restaurants were across the river but we didn't get a
chance to go there.
On a free day we took a train to Pompeii
and spent a day exploring the ruins. Our train ride back was awful. We
caught a regionale train in 2nd class with standing room only left. We
should have gotten off and waited for another train but we endured. It
was a 3 hour train ride, standing, squashed, unable to move. There was
literally no room for people to come on the train but the Italian way
was Shining through here. Every stop one person might get off but
another 5 would get on... With luggage. These people would just reach
out and grab these guys pulling them onto the train. We might as well
have been crowd surfing in there or sitting on each others shoulders!
I'd definitely recommend the train you pay for your seat.
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| Pompeii |
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| Pompeii |
Nice night time was
funny, first thing we saw after leaving the train station were signs for
sex and signs for chicken. Our hotel was another nice little hotel, a
best western this time. And everything is very close in nice. In the
morning we walked down to the beachfront and witnessed some winter
craziness. There were some Xmas trees that has been sprayed in fake snow
and there were occasional white particles floating through the air so
we assumed they must be from the trees. Until there was more particles
and some landed on us and melted. IT WAS SNOWING!! We are from south
east qld in Australia. It doesn't snow there, at least not in my
lifetime. So seeing snow in nice was very exciting. We also saw some
sort of polar bear swim (not actual polar bears). There were about a
hundred people gathered along the shore of the beach and 50 or so went
for a swimming race in the ocean. Craziness! Then you have the support
crew of the swimmers which there was 20 or so boats on the water and
they were all dressed as Santa's. Nice was fun. The water was this
amazing azure colour and there were water spouts forming on the horizon
collecting water for the clouds. They looked like little twisters.
Our
next train wasn't too long, we caught the train to Toulon where we were
picked up by my husbands grandmother and we spent 4 days with her. She
showed us around her town and ran us through a day in the life of
grandma. It was nice to just stop and relax and have some very delicious
home cooked meals made for us. We we're going to go to Bordeaux but we
ended up cancelling our tickets and instead drove with hubs nan to Tour.
It was about an 8 hour drive and was hubs first time driving on the
wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car. It went well with
nan navigating until it got dark and we couldn't read the map any more.
Out came trusty smartphone with Tom Tom. We found our way to hubs
Aunties place for our next relax. We stayed with hubs' family for Xmas
so we were there for about a week. It was an absolutely beautiful place
they had. It was a converted barn in which some of the sections of the
house were actually older than our country. Amazing! while we were there
we visited a couple of chateaus and castles and got the lay of the
land. We didn't get a white Christmas though, unseasonably warm they
say. Most mornings were about 3 or 4 degrees (Celsius) with the days
hanging around 8-10 degrees. So not too cold.
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| Winter Land |
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| Chickens |
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| The Barn |
After
we left the farm we hired a car in Tour and Drive to Nantes. This was
my husbands first experience of driving in a city on the wrong side of
the road, on the wrong side of the car in figure 8 roundabouts. This was
stressful. We didn't stay long in Nantes, just long enough to find a
car park we could park in and take a short walk to calm ourselves. We
then drove to our pit stop which was Rennes. We were staying in real
motorway accommodation. The hotel itself was nice (Oceania cap malo) but
the area was just funny. There was plenty of fast food to choose from.
Across the road was McDonald's, next door was a Chinese restaurant, next
to that a Canadian style restaurant and then a buffalo grill. We
decided to eat there. When we went in at 7pm it was dead, we didn't
realise people ate so late because at 9pm it was packed. I can't exactly
recommend a meal that had been micro waved but it fed us.
The
next day we drove to Mont Saint Michel which was very nice, we parked
on the flood plane car park but tides weren't due until the evening so
all was good. The Mont has a lot of steps. We walked up to the top and
did the tour of the top bit which had a great view. We could only stay a
few hours as we had to drive to Rouen for our next stop. I should
mention that highway driving in France is very easy and enjoyable.
Especially seeing that they have 130kmph on most highways there.
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| Mont Saint Michel |
We arrived in Rouen as the sun was going
down which wasn't exactly a good thing. Our accommodation was in the
centre of the pedestrian district and Tom Tom kept trying to take us up a
street that had become an outdoor cafe seating area. Not to mention the
big poles blocking the way. After about an hour of driving around
freaking out on the verge of tears we spot a sign for the hotel and
decide against the GPS. The sign leads us to another sign and another
and another until finally we made it to the hotel. I jumped out to ask
reception where we were supposed to park the car and they tell me that
we have to reverse up (the tiny little) street we just came from and go
the wrong way up a one way road for a couple of metres to go down the
driveway into the underground entrance. I go back to the car and a van
immediately pulls up behind us. Off we go again. We drive down these
tiny little cobble stone streets to get back to the main road and when
we get to the end of one of these tiny streets we encounter a bollard. A
huge bollard. OH. MY. GOD. we can't reverse up that street again
without damaging the hire car, what the hell are we supposed to do. We
sat in the car for about 2 minutes freaking out before a lovely shop
keeper comes out and starts making hand signals at us. At first we
thought we were getting cursed at for parking in front of his store but
we eventually figured out that he was telling us the bollard goes down
when you approach it. Low and behold we got within a metre of it and it
went down into the ground. HUZZAH! We re-navigated our way to the car
park and finally checked in. As we were now very hungry we asked
reception for directions to the restaurant area and made our way over.
We found a little restaurant which is the only one I can truly recommend
because it was delicious. The place was called "Le Maupassant" and as a
super picky eater I tested by boundaries and really enjoyed what I ate.
Although now I can't remember what the meals were. There was pear in
the entrée.
Our accommodation was awesome. It was
another best western but I had booked us a privilege room which had a
view of the spires of the cathedral across the road. And it had a bath.
Breakfast was nice too. We had to return the car the next day so we left
our luggage with reception and went to find the rental company. We had a
little cheer once we had ditched the car. And a cheer for the fact we
didn't make a single mark on it. We had a couple of hours to kill before
our train to Paris so we walked around town and explored what Rouen had
to offer.
Paris almost immediately jumped out at us.
We caught a taxi from St Lazare? to our flat in St Mande`. All I could
think on the drive there which took about 40 minutes in the traffic
was... thank god were not driving. It was insane, hilarious as
passengers but I felt for the taxi driver. I have been to Thailand and
seen the insane no rules driving they have there. Thai's have nothing
over Parisians. The roads are nuts, some aren't even marked so they just
form however many lanes they can. And the roundabouts are a whole
different kettle of fish. 7 lane roundabouts with no markings! crazy.
When we eventually arrived at the apartment we settled in and called it
home. For our first night we went out to a local restaurant where there
was no English on the menu and used the dictionary on my phone to work
out what everything was. I found some suitable dishes and we ate. The
rest of the nights we were there we didn't eat out. instead we went to a
local grocery store and bought ingredients to live like a Parisian for a
week and make French food in the little kitchenette. Our days were
mostly filled with a lot of walking. We visited the majority of the
tourist sights and some of the not so touristy. We did some more
geocaching and a little shopping. The funniest (sort of) place we
visited was the Louvre. It was funny because of all the idiots who were
lined up for the pyramid entrance. THERE IS MORE THAN ONE ENTRANCE!!! We
looked at the like which was was leading out of the courtyard and
walked directly to one of the other entrances which had no line and we
walked up to the counter and bought our tickets and had immediate entry.
The
place I liked least in Paris was not actually in Paris. We went to
Versailles which also had a bit of a line for entry but there was no
escaping that. The palace was beautiful and all but the gardens were not
so pretty. Winter is certainly not the time to visit Versailles. I'm
not talking about the dead trees, they were apart of the winter
character but all of the statues had been covered with big bags of some
kind and the majority of staff we encounted were rude. This was the only
place in France we experienced rudeness.
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| Round About at The Arc d'Triomphe |
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| Most Awesome Apple |
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| Love Bridge |
We
were in Paris for new years as well but we didn't quite make it. We
went out to the Champs Elysees and watched the crowd gathering then we
went back to Saint Mande, bought a baguette, brie some salad ingredients
and made sandwiches. Then went to bed at like 7pm.
The rest of
our time in Paris was mostly shopping and exploring. I found that the
best shops for unique clothes is the 14th Arrisondment.
I'll
fast forward a little now. We finished in Paris and caught the train to
the airport. We caught our 3 planes home (without throwing up) and was
picked up at the airport by my mum.
T
