Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Over view
Back home and we are both now back at work, finally the photo's are getting loaded onto the pages and I will be able to close down these memories. We flew Emirates all the way, choosing the trip to be broken into 3 legs of approximately 7 hours each flying time, first leaving Melbourne to Kuala Lumpar with a short stop over and then on to Dubai with another very short change over and then on to London, Our stay in London was for 8 days and this allowed us plenty of time to sight see and shop without being rushed and feeling that we had missed something, the underground train system was easy to navigate and we were lucky with the weather, beautiful days, and the evening were a bit fresh, with the last 2 days getting a few showers. London was our first experience with the hop on hop off buses and found that they are a great source of information and convenience to navigate your way through the sight seeing maze. We stayed at the Mercure Hotel, Praed St in Paddington and the hotel was just over the road from the underground. The start of our train travel started in London through the Chanel crossing on to Brussels and then Amsterdam. Amsterdam was for 3 days and I am still undecided about the city, I loved the old buildings, the river system with it's house boats, amazed at the idea that the main way of transport for the citizens was bikes and how they literally rule the road rules, the infrastructure for the bikes pathways was incredible, and we saw the very young to the very old riding bikes, and I learnt that pancakes actually mean crepes in Europe. Here we stayed at a small hotel called the Tulip Inn and a very old hotel, very small room but very clean and convenient to the city centre. From Amsterdam we then proceeded to Prague via Berlin and our first experience with apartment living, which was quaint and we loved it, from a very small kitchen which we never used, to the much needed washing machine just set in the kitchen somehow, a big lounge room and bedroom to the smallest bathroom with no door on, interesting. Prague is the capital and the largest city in the Czech Republic and the old town square where we were situated is just beautiful.. Prague on to Salzburg which is another old city with the most amazing castle overlooking the city and definately the most interesting to get to, having to go up the cliff side in a cable car, this was also my opportunity to take a day trip to Innsbruck to visit the Swaraskvi museum, and although I was glad to have visited and view the displays, I was a bit disappointed in not seeing more of the process of the raw crystal to the finished product... Going from Salzburg we had to go back through Innsbruck on to Zurich slowly climbing through the Swiss Mountains which were amazing and the scenery breath taking and on to Lyon, arriving in the dark to a bit of a culture shock, this was the one city we really noticed the homeless and our first experience with accommodation booked on line that didn't turn out well, the room had a funny smell and the bathroom had no shower to speak of and no hot water, we only stayed one night and booked into the Mercure Hotel for the rest of our stay, our stay was only a short one in Lyon and once we got over the amount of homeless and did the bus tour we found it an interesting city, but not one that is on my go back to list. Moving on from Lyon it was on to Barcelona to catch up with Carolyn, Tanya and Sheree who were there as a starting point for a cruise to Venice and to celebrate Tanya's birthday, Three days in Barcelona and three full on days of shopping during the day and catching up with the girls at night, although we did do the bus tours this is the only city that we didn't actually do much sight seeing, a lot of the attractions that we wanted to see were so booked out or the lines so long we would have wasted so much time just waiting, We both loved Barcelona, the apartment we had was amazing and way to big for us two but gave us space, the weather was perfect, and the locals very friendly and helpful, definately a go back to city. Leaving Barcelona we flew to Rome, arriving to catching a shuttle bus into the city train terminal, and what a shock that was, Rome is a dirty city and the train station in a word stinks, but we found our way through the underground terminals and on to our hotel, which we had booked through the Mercure chain again, after the initial shock that is Rome city we did a lot of sightseeing here and had a marvelous time, Rome has so much history, so many roman ruins, so much to see. This also gave us the opportunity to take a train trip to Pompeii for the day and we were blown away with this experience. After the initial impression we both came to love Rome. Going from Rome to Paris was our first experience on the overnight fast train and although we missed out on all the scenery it was the only way to go for such a long trip, and surprisingly we both slept well. Paris was all it is made out to be, one of our favourite cities, and we were on the go all the time and filled our wish list to the end, Paris has a life all of it's own, an easy city to get around, friendly people, and we also felt safe walking around. The only negative was the hotel room not having any air conditioning and the weather was quite hot. Finally leaving Paris to fly to Dubai for a 3 day break with nothing planned but to stay around the pool and have sleep ins, we did do the high tea at the Burj al Arab and was an experience not to be missed, Dubai is a progressive city and the buildings are amazing, so much land being reclaimed back from the ocean is truly unreal, when you look at the views of Dubai it has a hazy effect but I have since found out that it is actually very fine sand in the air coming in from the desert, and I believe from all the building work being constructed. We visited 10 cities in just under 6 weeks and most travelled by Eurail which is a fantastic way to go.
Would I do it again? Yes and no, not one part of this trip after London was planned, it was all random, except we knew we were to be in Barcelona at a certain date and moved our way onwards at each point, the only down side to this is, upon arriving in a city we would have to spend time on where and how to go to the next city and then spend time at the station the next morning reserving our seats on the train and being prepared to change our plans if it wasn't available on the day we wanted to go and then spend some time on line looking for accomodation in the next city, before we could explore each city. We ate some fabulous food at some awesome restaurants, and got used to all different versions of "Latte" I would definately do the Eurail system again but the next time I would really plan it and have accomodation all booked and stay longer in some cities than we were able to, my one regret is that we never got to Auschwitz as planned due to running out of time, this is definately on my to do list. Definately, fly with Emirates again due to the flight being able to be broken up into 3 legs and this airline was one of the only one that we could fly into one city (London) and fly out of another city (Paris) without having to go back to London.
A lot of memories, a heapful of experiences made on this trip and I am so thankful that we could do this together and the bucket list has a lot of ticks completed but has given me the wish to do again
- comments
Daz Excellent write up mum,would Love to see Rome,Paris sounds wonderful.