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C & Em's Expeditions
- Be aware of incredibly large bees, wasps and hornets that love to terrorise tourists.
- Hotels in summer do not have self-thermostating air conditioning. It is set to a temperature of about 26 degrees which can be uncomfortably hot at night. Also, it is very rare to get a fridge in your hotel room, and almost impossible to get an iron unless you are in a 5 star hotel. A popular shower in hotels is the hand-held.
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Either by coincidence or not, at almost every restaurant we were seated next to Australians.
Favorites:
Hotel room: (Emma) Zaragoza- Hotel Palafox due to the gorgeous decor and bathroom! 5 stars baby!
(Carl) Villefranche - Hotel Provencal because it was great value for money and the views from our balcony were spectacular!
Hotel: (Emma) Hotel Forum in Rome because it felt like we had stepped back in time. It was also a really handy location- near the Colloseum and metro station. I also loved Hotel Le Jardin de Ste Maxime because it had amazing facilities and was set on the botanical gardens.
(Carl) Zaragoza- Hotel Palafox because it was a 5 star hotel with great facilities, wonderful service, helpful staff and the best club sandwich!
Day trip: (Emma) Isle St Marguerite off Cannes, it was a fantastic surprise with a combination of a ferry ride with view of Cannes, a quiet place were we could bushwalk and set up a picnic, and have a swim in a secluded rock pool. I also loved Eze- I've never seen anything like it, the views on the drive up were incredible, the castle gorgeous, Le Jardin Exotique was breathtaking, not to mention the perfume factory!
(Carl) Isle St Marguerite because it was a great way of getting out of the hustle and bustle of Antibes. It was really rugged and rough, unspoiled by tourists. The picnic was really nice and it was surrounded by nice little swimming holes. It was also made easy by the regular ferries and car parking in Cannes.
Place: (Emma) Carcassonne. The town itself was everything I could want in a Europe town. It was small and quiet, had gorgeous landscape and a breathtaking medieval castle. The whole experience was amplified by the fact that we were joined by two of my best friends, Lala and Lauren.
(Carl): Cinque Terre because it was so beautiful. The little towns, the water, the place we stayed was really homely. It was romantic in ways. The whole experience with the trekking made you feel like you were part of the community, you had to rough it.
Cinque Terre town: (Emma) Riomaggiore. Yes, it was where we stayed but it seemed to offer the a perfect balance between having a large range of restaurants and shops, gorgeous vistas, some great swimming spots and not too many crowds. It was also home to the Via Del Amore.
(Carl) Riomaggiore as it was the quietest and it seemed like the most amount of locals lived there. It had the Via Del Amore and some great little swimming spots, with cleaner water than other towns.
Meal: (Emma) Pizza and pasta in Rome. Enough said.
(Carl) It's hard to choose a favourite, but Ste Maxime had amazing food, and the club sandwich in Zaragoza was definitely the best breakfast.
Coffee: (Emma) N/A
(Carl) St Maxime - on the water opposite our hotel my cappucino had ice-cream in it
Sight: (Emma)
(Carl) In Cinque Terre, the view of Vernazza from the top of the hill, when trekking from Monterosso. I think aesthetically, Cinque Terre was the nicest place we went to.
Beach: (Emma) La Concha in San Sebastian best resembles Australian beaches. The best French Riviera beach I thought was Plage De Passable was great, not too busy and nice cool, deep water.
(Carl) You can't go past La Concha in San Sebastian. Hire a mal and have some fun.
Worst:
Hotel: (Emma and Carl) The "Worst" Best Western, although Hotel Parma in San Sebastian was a bit
of a dive.
Drive: the winding death trap up the hill to from La Spezia to Riomaggiore.
Moment: (Emma) climbing that damn mountain to Manarola from Riomaggiore in the stinking million degree heat and being terrorised by bees.
Also, London airports in general are not much fun, millions of hours waiting in lines.
(Carl) Car accident in Pamplona.
Beach: (Emma) Antibes Juan Les Pins- way too loud, too many people and only a tiny portion of the beach was public. In general, the pebbles and sharp rocks in place of sand throughout France were less than ideal.
(Carl) I thought Biarritz was highly overrated, but my least favourite beach was Antibes. All the French beaches were really crowded and we had to find our own little rocky coves to escape the crowds for a quick dip.
Place: (Emma) Antibes. Way too busy and not my ideal holiday destination. We did, however, manage to have lots of fun there and in the surrounding areas.
(Carl) Antibes, but it did have a really nice beach around the corner from the busy ones and a great cocktail bar.
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