A stop in Athens for souvlaki

Our flight out of Paris was just an hour after Mums, so we were all able to head to the airport at the same time - which was handy. So while she climbed aboard a 13 hour flight destined for Singapore we got on a 2.5 hour flight to the ancient city of Athens. We arrived at around 4pm and took the train to the city where we met up with our latest AirBnb host. She showed us around the apartment we were renting and gave us an overview of what was around the area and what we should get up too over the coming days. Afterwards, we popped out for a quick dinner of souvlaki.- which here apparently is served with french fries inside the bread with the meat and salad. We were going to head out for a bit more of an explore but it was Sunday night and the city was pretty much shut down.

Yesterday morning we got up and tried to get a jump start on the day as we had quite a bit of admin we needed to take care of. Truth is as far as this leg of the trip goes we only have a couple of days of accommodation booked in Athens and after that we don't have anything concrete planned until we fly back to NZ (from Athens again). It was actually an interesting morning, everything around our apartment was closed and the streets were really quiet, we figured that we were just in a pretty quiet area of town and jumped on the metro station to the downtown area. We ended up having to go to a different stop than the one we were aiming for, as the central station was closed for "Safety Reasons" - we figured that they were doing repairs. However when we got out at the next stop we were greeted by a mass of crowd, people handing out Greek flags, riot police and fully armed military personal. For a split second we wondered if we had walked into some massive political demonstration that was about to turn nasty but everything was alright. We spotted a younger guy (the younger ones are more likely to speak English) and he told us that it was OXI day which commemorates the Italo-Greek War from 1941. It was all fairly exciting and we took some time to soak up the atmosphere for a while before we clicked that it was a public holiday and that we would have to leave our plan making for another day.

Since there wasn't much else we could do to get anything booked for the coming days we made the most of Athens. What was great about the public holiday was that all the historic sites were free for the day so we had a great time exploring the Acropolis and the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Sam and I had a bit of fun trying to take photo's of the sites without other tourists in the way.

Odeon of Herodes Atticus

The Erechtheion 

The Temple of Olympian Zeus with the Acropolis in the background.

After we explored the ruins for a few hours we did the next best thing to do in Athens... we hit the beach. Conveniently the nearest public beach was only a few stops away from our apartment on the train and while it was largely occupied by leather-skinned old men and women with an advance bodily confidence it was still a nice place to lie in the sun - something we hadn't been able to do since we were in Barcelona, which seems an eternity ago. We spent pretty much the rest of the day there as there was literally nothing else for us to do - everything else was closed.

Today we got up and headed down to Port Piraeus and spent a good chunk of the morning trying to plan out what islands we were going to visit and when. This turned out to be a bit harder than we expected due to the off peak schedule and the fact that some of the ferry companies had not released a time table for November yet. So after trying a few different scenarios we opted simply to book a one way ticket to Santorini, the number one island on my bucket list, where we will simply retire and live for the rest of our days... no just kidding. We just booked the first leg and figured that we'll wing it from there.

So we planned things out the best we could and then decided we'd worked so hard we should probably take it easy and spend the rest of the day at the beach - so we did.

Me at the beach - Sam did we'll to ensure the old people weren't in the photo.

Paris la ville de l'amour

Thursday was more or less a travel day for us. It's been quite a big distance that we have covered over the previous days - taking us from Nice through to Paris. We've made a few brief stops both days, the first in Avignon which we talked about in the last post and then yesterday we stopped off to see the Château de Versailles.

Yes that is real gold - well real gold plated lead.

We had a local tour guide named Virgina who took us through some (but definitely not all) of the 700 or so rooms. Originally built by Louis XIV (although not personally I assume), who never considered it big enough - even when he lost the use of his leg's due to gout when he was in his 50's. Each room had amazing artwork adorning the wall and the ceilings - many of which were dome shaped. Many of the sculptures and paintings were inspired by Roman history and Greek Mythology - whose symbolism was often incorporated into each Monarch's own monuments.

The Hall of Mirrors was very impressive too. I think one of the most impressive aspects of this building is most of what you see is the original material as the building was not destroyed during the French Revolution or during the two World Wars. It was interesting to get up close and personal with the King's bed chamber and possibly more significantly the queens - which in fact was last inhabited by Marie Antoinette, who was captured during the revolution trying to escape through a back passage that led from the Kings bedroom.

The Hall of Mirrors

After the tour through the palace we had free time to explore the gardens - which were nice but likely would have been much more impressive were it summer and the colorful flowers out on display.

Yesterday we had a big day in Paris, we hit the road at 7.40 for a bus tour, which Virginia (our tour guide from the previous day took us on). We started down the famous Champs Elysees Avenue through the round about at the Arc de triomphe, passed the Lourve through the historic and cultural areas of town. It was really interesting and was a good way to get oriented with the city so that we could head back later and take photos. Our bus tour finished at the iconic Eiffel Tower. We took the elevator to the second floor and enjoyed the view from above - whilst avoiding pick pockets. The weather was a little overcast but it was still pretty warm, which was good because it meant that Kimilla could have fun taking photos. Rather than taking the elevator down again, Kimilla and I took the path less traveled down the 650 or so stairs.

Ah... young love

From the Second Floor looking North

From the tower we were taken to the Lourve, where we spent some time outside taking pictures and having lunch before taking a guided tour through the highlights of the gallery. The building itself was pretty interesting, having formerly been a fortress (and the setting for the DaVinci Code). We checked out the iconic glass pyramids (including the upside down one). However, the paintings and sculptures were what we were really there to see, our highlights in particular include the famous Mona Lisa and the Venus De Milo.

Can you see Robert Langdon?

... I guess you know what this is.

In the evening we got all dressed up and headed to the world most famous cabaret show - the Moulin Rouge. Due to some clever planning on tour guide John's part (months ago), we had access to premium tickets at the dinner show. The food was pretty good - although it was pretty difficult to eat on account the very small seating spaces. During the meal a 5 piece band was performing classic music in a variety of languages from a variety of eras.  The show itself was an assault on the senses, the dancing was impressive and costumes (where there were costumes) were very colorful and vibrant. In between the dancing and musical sets there were a collection of very talented acts which I really enjoyed. The was a juggling guy who performed drum solo's using the balls that he was juggling. A trio of acrobats who performed a bank robbery while hiding the third member of there team in the cash bag. The final one was a ventriloquist who performed his act on the standard puppets, a real dog (who opened its mouth at the right time) and members of the audience (who had to open there mouths when he squeezed there hands) - it was hilarious.

Today was our first day off the tour, its been an amazing trip but boy its not for the feint hearted. We have traveled 5,500 km in 18 days by bus, that's not including the distances traveled by boat or on optional excursions. So today, we slept in and took the morning pretty easy. We had a late breakfast and then took a stroll down to the local mall so I could get some new shoes - I had literally walked the others to death.

After lunch Kimilla and I headed back into Downtown Paris to checkout some of the places that we had driven by in the bus tour yesterday. Our first top was Notre Dame - while there are many Notre Dames in France, this one in particular is the setting for Victor Hugo's the Hunchback of Notre Dame. We were even there on the hour and heard Mr Quasimodo ringing the bells.

Cathedral at Notre Dame

From the Cathedral we walked up the Seine River to the Pont de Arts where we very romantically wrote our names on a padlock, attached it to the bridge and in a symbolic gesture ensured our love would never be unlocked by throwing the keys into the river.  

Ah... young love

From there we continued up the river, Kimilla did her thing with the camera and eventually we ended up somewhere the area between Les Invalides and the Eiffel Tower, where we stopped for a coffee - which was well timed as it rained unexpectedly and rather strongly for about half an hour.

A bridge with Flags

Once the weather picked up a little we headed on toward Mr Eiffel's tower and spent the remainder of the daylight hours just sitting around enjoying the atmosphere of Paris. It really is a amazing city, we both agree that its up there with the best of them. We watched the sun go down behind the Trocadéro and waited as the the Tower was lit up. Then bang on 7pm we enjoyed the light show, which Kimilla managed to capture (somewhat in the picture below). Tomorrow we are leaving Paris, Pam is going back to NZ via Singapore and we will be heading to Athens.

Eiffel Tower - sparkling with lights

It's nice in Nice

Yesterday we got a sleep in – as in an actual sleep in. We didn't have anything official scheduled before 1pm so it was up to us when we got up. We prized ourselves out of bed at 8am and headed down to a pretty simple breakfast of coffee and croissants. Kimilla and I headed out together to explore the City of Nice – it’s nice in Nice.

It was really a good time of year to visit because the weather is still sunny and still warm but the summer crowds have gone (well and it was a Tuesday), so everything was pretty quiet. We went for a walk along the promenade down to the flower market (The Marche aux fleurs). From there we trailed back through the Older Town looking through some of knick-knack shops to the Massena Square and through some of the Newer town, where they had cafes, clothes shops and other things – Including a cute we pet shop complete with little dogs. It’s a good thing there is decent supply of little dogs, because Nice is known to be occupied largely by older widows of rich men, who had died under suspicious circumstances. Apparently the women deal with their grief by leathering their skin on the beach (topless!) occupied by their little dogs.

We stopped for a light baguette for lunch – making sure that we only got one’s made from the end pieces, as we had been warned that the middle sections may have been in Pierre’s armpit (bad joke but we laughed).

At 1pm we caught up with some of the group members and went for a tour around some of the other areas just outside of Nice. We started first by going up to an amazing little perched village at St Paul de Vance. The village there was originally built as a Roman battlement but now is mainly used by artists and other creative types. It was really interesting just to walk around the cobble stone paths and take photos. Interestingly, one of the cafés on the edge of the town was once frequented by many little known artists who were able to pay for the meals by donating a painting to the owner. The owner stored the paintings in the attic, which was later discovered by his grandchildren. The collection was found to contain priceless pieces by Picasso, Braque, Miró, Matisse, Leger, Calder, Chagall and many others, which now are used as decorations around the café. Unfortunately, we were told that you need to book an appointment several months in advance to actually get inside, so we didn’t get in to see it – but there’s an interesting piece of history for you.

From there we went for a drive around the Scenic Moyenne Corniche enjoying views of the most expensive properties in the world (literally on property recently sold for over 172 million euros). While we were there we stopped off at the Fragonard Perfumery for a demonstration of how they make their perfumes, soaps and other beauty products. It was pretty interesting and in my humble opinion rather similar to what I had seen going on in some of the breweries and distilleries that I have visited. It was also interesting to see a place in the process of making complicated and very manual products by hand.

From there John took us to an amazing family owned French Restaurant for dinner. So far this is the best food that we have all trip – in my opinion. All the courses were wonderful but in particular for the entrée we had a fish soup – which was kind of like a chowder but without the white sauce, rather it was served with croutons, a paprika and garlic mayonnaise and cheese. The deal was that you put the mayonnaise on the croutons and placed it in the empty bowl, then ladelled the soup on top before adding a sprinkling of cheese. If that constituted the entire meal I would have been happy, but we had two other courses after that and a sampling of the local wines.

Today we had a normal start and were on the road at about 7.45. Today was one of the bigger driving days as we had to go from Nice through to Lyon. We drove a fairly scenic route past Cannes (where they have the film festival) and stopped off for a few scenic hours in the small town of Avignon. Avignon borders the Rhône River and is interesting due to the medieval parts of the old town Centre. It used to be a papal city in the 1300’s – and the Popes created quite the abode aptly named “the Palace of Popes”.

We did a little exploring around the old town and took a small walk along part of the city wall up to the botanical gardens. It was a good chance to get out and stretch the legs and nice to be outside of the coach – as we have spent quite a bit of time on it over the last few weeks. For lunch we had some baguettes in a small café with some macaroons and a Café Latte.

We arrived in Lyon at about 5.30 and had a nice dinner included dinner at the hotel restaurant. Tomorrow will be our final bus travelling day on the Road to Paris.

Renaissance Statues, a Leaning Tower and a brief stop in Monaco

We arrived in Florence around 6pm on Saturday, where the weather was a little over cast. Our hotel was quite a ways from downtown so dinner was provided in the hotel. We had a collection of bread, pasta, potato and various other Italian carbohydrates spread over the course of an hour and by the time we finished eating it was time to go to bed.

Sunday Morning we got up bright and early and were shipped into the downtown area where Sam and I went with some of the group for an explore through the Galleria dell'Accademia. There we were taken for a bit of a tour through the various art periods leading up to the Renaissance. Our guide showed us through some paintings by Brunelleschi and then stepped us through some incomplete sculptures of Michelangelo's. She gave us a bit of an understanding of how Michelangelo worked and a bit of an insight into his temperament and personality. We then moved on to the high point of the gallery which was Michaelangelos' David (The real one). It was really impressive and our guide took us around all four sides of the sculpture and discussed different aspects of how it was sculpted and why it was significant to Florence's history. A little like the Sistine Chapel we were not allowed to take photo's - so we won't be putting any here, not of the original at least.

From the Accademia we caught up with the rest of our tour group and were given a walking tour around some of the other areas of the downtown, which included the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, the Battistero di San Giovann, the Piazza della Signoria and the Basilica of Santa Croce (which is famously the burial site of Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli amoungst others).

 Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore

The Original Fake Statue of David at the Piazza della Signoria.

The crowds at at the Piazza della Signoria.

After our walking tour finished we did a quick tour through one of the local leather factories - which was really just an excuse to get us in the store (which was rather expensive - but hey it's Italian Leather, what do you expect). It was interesting enough but Sam and I left the group pretty quickly to go do our own thing. First we made mandatory stop to get a coffee - the coffee here is fantastic, its completely blown the whole Tim Horton's thing out of our system. From the cafe we went and checked out the local markets - it was awesome with loads of cheap knocks, tacky souvenirs and haggling stall owners. We spent a couple of hours looking around and even bought a few small things.

The markets - my favorite place

From the market we headed down to the Arno River to take some pictures of the Ponte Vecchio, before heading back to meet the group and catch the bus back to the hotel for a while.

The Ponte Vecchio

Us at the Ponte Vecchio

In the evening some of us from the group headed out to the Tuscan hills for a quick tour of a Winery/Olive Oil Factory. We ran a little late due to a car accident in one of the tunnels and so we didn't get to see quite as much of the area as we would have liked. However, it was interesting to learn a little about how they make the products and that government regulate what is produced in the area. The best thing about the tour was that it included dinner and a rather generous sampling of their various wines and oils.

At the Tuscan Dinner 

All to soon however, we were back on the road again. This morning we hit the road west for a little town called Pisa, which is famous for their poor engineering skills. It was really interesting to see this iconic bell tower. Unfortunately, the weather was really bad and we didn't hang around for too long. We have been pretty lucky with the weather actually, given that its autumn this is the first place that we really got wet. 

Sam thinks this is a genuinely awful and cheesy photo but I kinda like it.

From Pisa we headed North around the cost for the better part of the rest of the day. We had a quick lunch stop just inside the Italian border before heading into France, but not for long... After being in France for an hour and a half or so we drove into the Principality of Monaco. John gave us a quick guided tour as we drove in and headed to the area around the Prince's Palace. We spent an hour or so hobnobbing with the rich and famous and generally enjoying this meticulously groomed area. It really is a small place with the highest population density in the world with population of over 37,000 people living in a space that is less than 2.02 km2. From Monaco, we headed back into France. We will be staying here in Nice for the next two nights.

Saint Nicholas Cathedral

Looking East

Looking out from beside the Princes Palace

Heading South to Sorrento & Pompeii

We wrote this two days ago but due to lack of internet availability we haven’t posted it till now…

Yesterday we continued south to the Bay of Napals. We left Rome at the regular time – seriously no rest on this trip (I’m sure your hearts are all bleeding for us) and hit the autostrada for a few hours till we started hitting the coastal areas.

 As we hit the bay of Naples, we steadily climbed around some windy cliffs which looked down on some of the most expensive (and somewhat average looking) beaches in Italy. I say average looking but I guess the concept of paying to sit on a beach seems a bit outrageous to me, especially when it’s a stony one – but I guess the Italians (and apparently the Germans) see it differently and at 25 euro a day they are welcome too.

Anyway, despite what I thought of the beaches the area really was quite stunning. Old buildings and hotels say on the cliff side and there funny we olive groves creeping between them. Many of the owners don’t even pick the olives, rather the spread nets out underneath them. That way when they fall from the tree the bounce down the nets to a pocket at the bottom of the hill.

We got into Sorrento at about mid-day and had the afternoon to spend looking around the little village most of which stretched along a single street going in both directions from a Square in the middle. Parallel to the main street was a little alcove full of little shops selling gelato, leather belts, ceramics and other souvenirish things. The area is quite famous for its large lemons, which grow to the size of grapefruits and are used in a spirit called limoncello – which apparently was mixed with their other local liquor call grappa and used as fuel for the original moon landing… I joke but boy that stuff was strong. We had a nice time exploring the streets and finding little court yards that looked out over the coastal cliffs.  That evening we had a nice dinner back at the hotel with pasta, free fish and salad accompanied by some local wines.

Today was an interesting day to say the least. Overnight our coach has been struck by a viral stomach bug, so a few people were looking rather green today – everyone is being very cautious with hand washing as it really looks nasty and we are driving considerable distances most days, so not fun. It’s a bit of a shame really because this morning we did one of the tour highlights, we visited Pompeii. This once bustling (and rather sleezy) Roman city was established in 7BC and then buried in 25ft of volcanic debris from  Mount Vesuvius in 79AD. Excavation started there around the 1800’s and continues today. I’m not ashamed to say that I was rather interested in the place after watching a Pink Floyd concert that they played in the amphitheater there in 1972.

The tour was pretty good, the guide wasn't the best and his English was a little hard to understand but we got to see some really amazing stuff including the remains of a Roman bathhouse which contained plaster molds of bodies that had been preserved over the last 2000 years. I say the bodies had been preserved but they weren't, the volcanic rock covered the bodies and solidified quickly enough that when they eventually decayed a cavity was left in the shape of a body. In the mounds you could very clearly see the shape of the clothes that they were wearing. 

In the red light district they took us through a few ancient brothels where they had excavated preserved artwork on the walls which detailed the various services that were provided in the establishment. The city also had remnants of ancient graffiti which helps local historians understand what went on there.