Our Adventure

Florence – Rome
On our drive to Rome today, we stopped off at the cliff top town of Orvietto. The Italians seemed very fond of cramming as many houses as they could onto precarious positions on rocky outcrops. We passed many of them on the way to Orvietto. The strangest thing was seeing cars parked right on the cliff top in the many small squares of the town. Orvietto was another beautiful historic town with its cobbled streets and twisting alleyways. It was a fort between Florence and Rome, to warn of any army advancing on Rome. One of the local culinary specialities was roasted wild boar. We sampled it in the form of a boar sandwich. The meat was nice, like port but not as salty. The strangest boar product was the legs of boar prosciutto, with hair and feet still attached.
On our arrival to Rome, we went straight into our 3 hour guided walking tour of the city. During the tour, it was very cool to be able to drink the water from any of the fountains in the city. The water was very fresh and icy cold. The highlights of the tour were the Trevi Fountain (which the water for all of Rome’s fountains passes through), the Pantheon and finally the Colosseum.


Day 2 Rome
We had been waiting for today for most of the trip - when we would get to see inside the Vatican City. After skipping the lines (we were on a tour), and going through the airport style security, we were finally inside the walls. We were very lucky that the day before we were there was the once a month free day so there were far fewer people than normal. The artefacts inside the museums were spectacular. Most of the Items originated from Rome and Egypt. One of my favourite items was Julius Caesar bath. The bath is made from one of the rarest stones on earth – red Egyptian porphyry. The stone is so rare that it can only be seen in the Vatican, a couple of Museums around the world and on Bill Gates desk. He purchased a small block from the Vatican, which cost 500, 000 USD. The stone is worth 44 000 per cubic cm. We also saw the statue that The Thinker was modelled from. All that is left is the torso and the top of the legs. It was also Michelangelo’s favourite statue. Once inside the tapestry room, our guide informed us of three optical illusions in the room. The first is the ceiling, which looks like it has been carved from stone, but is actually very cleverly painted with light and shadow. By far the most impressive was the third illusion. On the tapestry of The Last Judgement, the image moves and rotates with you as you walk past it. The effect is a hologram that can only be produced when it’s woven into a tapestry.
The next part of our tour was to the map room. This room houses maps of all the Italian provinces. The maps were made by people standing on high ground and sketching what they saw. The sketches were then taken back to a mapmaker and the finished provincial map was made. These were then joined together to make a map of Italy. The final map is very close to the modern version; the map of Venice’s streets is still good enough to use today.
At last, we entered the Sistine Chapel. It was not as big as I was expecting but the artwork was no less spectacular. People inside were not able to be silent which was disappointing, some tour guides were even giving demonstrations inside the chapel. Some of the scenes depicted in the artwork are quite odd – Men embracing, God mooning the church, all the women and Eve were depicted as being muscley like men, God and Eve hovering in a womb after Adam has been born while the scene of The Last Judgement forms a giant skull. Most of these reflect Michelangelo’s opinion of the Church at the time and his knowledge of anatomy and science.

Off to Florence today. Our drive was to take us via Pisa to see the leaning tower. It was very warm when we arrived, especially after the jumpers and thermals of Switzerland. Even though we were expecting the tower to be on a lean, when you see it close up it surprising just how much of a lean it is on. There have been many attempts to correct the lean, but the tower is still expected to fall sometime in the next 100 years. Our route then took us to a campground 45 mins from Firenze (Florence). It was the first of many super campsites that we would be staying in. They are so big that they have their own shopping centres and restaurants. For dinner tonight we got our first experience of real Italian pasta. The dishes were very simple but the taste was amazing. We weren’t prepared for the quantity of food though. The pasta dishes just kept coming and then at the end they brought out a massive pizza for each person. There was only one person out of 48 that even got close to eating it all.

Florence day 2
Today we took a walking tour through the streets of Florence. We were taken first to the council building with its walls painted with scenes of the Austrian landscape and fields of orange trees (which were considered a sign of wealth). Outside the building is a life size replica of the statue of David, where the original once stood. The statue of David is very lifelike, which reflects Michelangelo’s study of anatomy, while the other statues created by his apprentices have very exaggerated muscle structure, and features. There were also a few statues reflecting scenes from Greek mythology – Hercules killing a centaur and a huge bronze statue of Medusa losing her head. Florence must have been an amazing hub of science and art in its heyday. After our tour, we sought out some of the local gelato. Going with the Europeans love of Nutella, I decided on that flavour for my gelato. It was sweet and very smooth compared to our Australian ice cream. Perhaps because of the sugar rush, we got lost for the first time during the trip. The alleyways are very small and the buildings are high so it’s quite hard to get a bearing when walking around. The map we had was practically useless as well. Eventually though we got through the maze of alleyways and made it back just in time for the pickup.

Lauterbrunnen to Nice

We left beautiful Lauterbrunnen today for the French Riviera. Our drive out of Switzerland took us past many military installations and airfields. For a neutral country, the Swiss are prepared for anything. The many tunnels through the mountains for roads have specials tunnels that branch off that can hold their entire population if they ever needed to. The main tunnels into the country are also permanently rigged with explosives to stop and invasion.

The scenery changed very quickly as we approached the Italian side of the Alps. It went from mountains covered in dark green trees to white rocky hills with less vegetation. The temperature also rose significantly, as we approached the Mediterranean. It was nice to be back at the beach again, albeit a very rocky one. After we went for dinner we were taken to Waynes Bar. Apart from the price of drinks there (10 €), we had an awesome night with a cover band playing great music We danced on the tables for hours and finished out night off with a swim in the Mediterranean. The next day was spent trying to get comfortable on the rock beach and negotiation the steep gravel entrance to the water. Our evening was spent on a bus tour out to Monaco. The drive was very pretty as we drove along the cliff tops with the coves and super yachts below.

Today we began the long drive from Paris to the sleepy town of Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland. The drive was mainly through French farming land though there were some very beautiful parts were we drove up some rugged gorges with ancient castles on the cliff tops. It wasn’t until we were nearly at our destination that we got out first glimpse of the Swiss Alps. They rose up very quickly and filled the horizon all around us, while their snow-capped peaks were reflected in the massive lake beside us. Our base for the next two days would be the small town of Lauterbrunnen. The town and buildings itself were postcard perfect, while the scenery itself was another level entirely. The town is flanked on two sides by massive cliffs, with multiple waterfalls cascading down, while at the end of the valley there are huge snow capped peaks with a glacier and waterfalls. We felt very lucky to be standing where we were. The glacial stream running through the campground was crystal clear and was used to chill the beers for the bar.

Day 2
Our destination today was Jungfraujoch, which is the terminus of the highest railway in the world. We were very excited about the trip as we were going to see real snow. The railway uses toothed tracks to pull the trains up the line. The scenery during the trip was spectacular. We passed many glaciers, waterfalls and damp hillsides covered in flowers. About halfway through the two-hour journey, we had to change to a smaller train, as the rest of the journey was through the mountains themselves. The tunnel section through the mountains was finished in 1912 and it passes very close the face of the mountains. There were three stops where we could get out and have a look through some observation windows. One of these was in the north face of the Eiger and it serves a dual purpose as a launching point for rescue missions for climbers. The train eventually reaches the Jungfraujoch observation centre. The centre houses some restaurants, an underground ice palace and the research centre called The Sphinx, which stands at a height of 3454m. A faradays cage protects the Sphinx, as lightning can strike the building at any time, even on a sunny day.
Being so high, the effects of altitude were quite noticeable as we walked around. It was very easy for us to be out of breath, some members of the group even had to go back down as they were having breathing problems. We were very lucky while we were there with the weather. We got to experience snow whiteout and also to have it clear to blue skies. It was a good opportunity to test out our jackets and thermals in the snow and we were very pleased with them.

Tour day 1 - London to Paris
We said goodbye to gloomy England this morning as we boarded our ferry at Dover. The crossing took 1.5 hours and the weather improved steadily as we approached the French coastline. One thing we learned on the boat was not to mess with the retiree tour groups and their duty free shopping. They were a force to be reckoned with as they rushed for the cheap alcohol and cigarettes. Upon departing from the ferry, we met our bus driver and coach for the next 20 days. On arrival in Paris, our spirits were lifting in Paris after the gloom and cold of London. The weather was much more like home.

The next morning we started our own walking tour of Paris. After being dropped off at Place de la Concorde, we made our way down the Louvre. We were told about a secret entrance into the museum so that we could avoid the massive queues that are always outside. Turned out to be true and we were able to go straight into the museum. After the token photo at the inverted pyramid, we made a beeline for the Mono Lisa before the crowds got too big. For us it was a bit anti-climatic, partly as the viewing distance is quite far and it is behind reflective glass. We found the other paintings on display much more interesting and dramatic. I think the size of them surprised us the most. Some reached from the ceiling to the floor; others were even as long as the display wall. After skimming through the rest of the exhibits, we headed down the Seine to continue our walking tour. We walked along the Seine, past Hotel des Invalids and onto the Champs Elysees. It is one of the most famous streets in the world and is dominated by the major fashion and jewellery labels, premium car brands and of course McDonalds. The rent for shops is rumoured to be over 1 million Euros a year. At one end of the street is the Place de la Concorde, while at the other stands the iconic Arc de Triomphe. As with other old stone buildings and memorials it was interesting to see how the many people that have visited them have worn the stone away. The seats around the base of the arc are starting to get large depressions formed in them from the millions of people that have sat there. One of the craziest roundabouts that we have ever seen also surrounds the arc. It joins the 10 main roads in Paris, is four lanes wide and has no lane marking. Watching the cars go round it seems they just drive in and hope for the best.


At some point during our sightseeing, Trista and I lost sight of each other so the next few hours were spent futilely searching for each other. It was fortunate that we had a meeting point later on in the day that we were able to find each other. After our stressful afternoon, we were treated to a picnic in the park put on by our tour group. We also got our first taste of real French cheese, which was amazing to say the least.