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Posts tagged sightseeing
Friends in London
0Prologue: this blog entry is well overdue and my apologies to our loyal followers for its delay (hello family!) but as you can imagine there has been far more pressing issues to organise since our arrival in Whistler. Anyway…
Our stay in London was postponed by a week thanks to Eyjafjallajokul the Icelandic volcano, which meant our original 9 day stay was transformed into a whirlwind 2 day stopover. Understandably I was quite disappointed about this as time with friends was now drastically reduced, but such is life and we just had to make the most out of the little time we had.
We arrived at London Stansted airport late Monday evening. Note to travellers; airports don’t seem to operate customs during the evening so if you want to bring in half a kilo of Swiss honey rather than eat it every day for 2 weeks at your previous destination, you best travel at night. We walked through the non-EU gate, only to see it lead to the same place with no staff as the other gates, and made our way to the bus terminal. Kindly our friend Greg had volunteered to pick us up from Liverpool Street Station in the early hours of the morning and after a catch up with him we called it a night.
The next day we saw all the sights of London with Greg. It was an interesting city and one we will definitely have to revisit to explore further. The city put on some beautiful weather for our short stay, which was wonderful as it only made the gardens and parks we walked through look that much more amazing. We had some traditional English food for lunch (meat, potatoes and peas), shared some drinks and saw all the cliché British icons; black cabs, red double decker buses and the queen’s guards.
That afternoon Jase and I went our separate ways as we had different evening plans. Jase stayed in London with Greg, experiencing more of the London city culture, while I caught the train to spend the night with my friend Jess and her boyfriend Glenn at her place in Wadhurst. I had to laugh as I got on the train and looked at my fellow passengers. Prior to boarding Jason, being the good husband that he is, told me to hold on to my bag and stay safe. Somehow I don’t think the white, 50-somethings in their suits that would be worth more than everything I was carrying and wearing were going to mug me!
My arrival at Wadhurst brought on a wave of emotions. I was so happy to see Jess as for a while I didn’t think we would get to see each other at all. That evening we spent catching up over another traditional English meal at the pub and I was introduced to her lovely boyfriend and toured around her beautiful little cottage house.
The next morning Jase caught the train up from London and Jess took the two of us to an old English castle, very typical of the historic sites around her area of England. It was really enjoyable to wander the beautiful gardens while chatting to Jess. The scenery was just like you would imagine, something from a water colour painting with willow trees, lakes and greenery for as far as the eye can see.
The afternoon was spent with Jess and Nicholas, the little boy whom she cares for as a nanny. Nicholas was really cute and it was fun to hang out at the playground with them and another mum and son, just chatting away in the sunshine as the kids played on the awesome pirate themed playground. After a nice dinner at Jess’ we said our goodbyes and headed back to the train station to go back to Greg’s.
The next morning we were up early to catch the underground so we could get to the train station that would be the starting point for our trip to Dublin. While our stay in London was only very short we were lucky to see both the busy city and gorgeous countryside during our visit. Thanks to both of our wonderful friends for being such fabulous hosts and guides… we hope to see you either in the UK or Australia again soon.
A rough night in Milan
1The cheapest destination to head out of Switzerland and back to Udine was via train to Milan. We had made the decision some time ago that we wanted to stay with my Italian family one last time before we left Europe so it was just a matter of finding a cheap and relatively hassel free means of transport back. Milan provided us with the opportunity to see another Italian city and break up our travel, whilst still taking us in the direction of Udine.
Our 5:45am train trip wasn’t the greatest of starts to the day but it was a cheap ride out of a country that has generally very expensive train travel so we were happy to deal with the lack of sleep. The early start also allowed us to spend nearly a full day sightseeing, sleep the night and then make another early (but not so early) start the next day to catch the train to Udine.
We had heard mixed things about Milan so we didn’t know what to expect. We were apprehensive upon our arrival but pleasantly surprised by the grand central station that greeted us. Since we aren’t keen shoppers there were not many items on our ‘things to do in Milan’ list. After catching the metro to our accommodation to drop off our bags we headed out to see the Duomo, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and the Castello Sforzesco. It was for the best that we didn’t want to see a lot as Jase’s heel became really sore. After a sit down in the park we headed back to our hostel and called it a day.
We headed out for dinner and awesome gelati but the real adventure of the night didn’t begin until our apparently successful business man of a roommate returned to the hostel drunk. Thankfully I slept through this first part but Jase informs me that the man came in at about 11pm and then proceeded to drink, take tablets, listen to the same song repeatedly and cry – yes, cry. You can imagine Jase’s concern that this guy was going to kill himself, or worse, kill us then himself, so he went to tell the owners. They weren’t too interested in the matter and assured Jase that the man was a happy and successful banker who practically runs the banks. Like any hotshot banker spends his business trips sharing a room with backpackers in a one star hostel! Jase returned to the room, got his earplugs and saw a brief glimpse of sleep long after the drunk did.
Then it was my turn. One in the morning rolled around and I was awoken by the sound of choking and moaning. I think with our time in hostels we’ve become fairly tolerant of snoring, but this guy took snoring to a whole other level. For around an hour I lay in bed with the pillow over my head, wishing to go and smother it over the man’s face. Thankfully the earplugs were working for Jase, and I eventually got back to sleep. And in case you were wondering, Jase contemplated waking me up to give me earplugs too but thought it better to let me sleep… he is always looking out for me.
When it eventually came the time for us to get up we were pretty tired, but the image of my beautiful cousin Serena waiting at the train station kept us going.
The Lonely Planet guide says that you either love or hate Milan but I disagree. Sure, we hated our night’s sleep however perhaps because we didn’t fully explore all that Milan has to offer I’ve left the city feeling fairly indifferent to it all.
Our Roman Holiday
2Rome really surprised us. It wasn’t as dirty or tacky as we expected, we didn’t have to fight off the gypsies like we thought, and there was a totally unexpected, beautiful central park (Villa Borghese) that we loved spending time in. All in all, Rome was a great destination for another short trip.
We arrived at Rome Termini and had an easy 6 minute walk to our accommodation, Macao Rooms, where we were greeted by the owner. We stayed in a pleasant bed and breakfast that we luckily didn’t have to share with any other guests, so it essentially felt like staying in an apartment. The location of the room was in perfect walking distance to many of the attractions and, for us, in walking distance to all the attractions of Rome. On our first day we just explored the local area, including the Villa Borghese which was not too far up the road.
Day 2 started slowly as we made use of the free internet to try and get ahead in our booking of accommodation for our next few destinations. Unfortunately our sightseeing was further delayed by a trip to the Australian Embassy as we had learned that we had not been taken off the electoral roll, despite filling out forms in January, and needed to try and organise something to not be fined for not voting in the upcoming State election.
After a bit of mucking around we were on our way to the Spanish Steps to meet our friend Chad, an American studying in Italy who we met at a hostel in Vienna. He had kindly agreed to tour us around the city. The tour was a lot of fun and it was nice to have some extra company for the day too. Chad was able to share some of the information he has been learning about Italian history while studying abroad, and this made for a more interesting tour than we could have done ourselves. We saw all the famous Ancient Roman sites including the Colosseum and Roman Forum, and of course many fountains, statues and churches too. My favourite site of the day was, hands down, the Pantheon. It was so beautiful, highly decorated, well designed and well presevered – a very impressive building indeed. After saying our goodbyes to Chad at the Trevi Fountain, another amazing attraction, we made our way back to our room to have dinner and rest our tired feet from the day’s walking.
Another full day meant we were able to take our time walking from our accommodation to the Vatican City. As we headed up the road to Saint Peter’s Square a dozen tour guides flocked to us like seagulls to hot chips, trying to convince us to pay for a tour or express entry into the basilica. Of course we said no to them all, I didn’t really see the point of paying for something that has free entry, and the line moved quite quickly considering to volume of people, the metal detectors and the x-ray bag scans. The fuss outside was definitely worth the effort as the interior of the basillica was just amazing. In my opinion it’s magnificence is only rivalled by Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice. I coud not believe how detailed every inch of the place was, and it was just enormous! After soaking in the sunshine and having a snack break in the square we made our way back to our accommodation via Castel Sant’Angelo. The afternoon saw us once again enjoy the sunshine at Villa Borghese before we went out for dinner and admired the Trevi Fountain at night.
We have really enjoyed our time in Rome. The relaxed pace, sunshine and constant surprises have made it a great 3 days. To my surprise, Jason has even said that, while different, it is on par with how much he enjoyed Vienna.
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