Our European Adventure

Day 34: Sun 22/11

train to Rome

We pretty much spent the day on the train. It was so wonderful and roomy and interesting. That’s why I’m going to write so many full descriptions about it. Not.

Day 35: Mon 23/11

OTBT, Colosseum, Laundromat. Unable to handle any more pizza or pasta.

We couldn’t help ourselves in our first day in Rome, we had to get on an OTBT!!! Wowee! The tour was cool – Rome was warm and pretty and we were all feeling a bit out of it so sitting on the bus helped us chill out a bit. We got off at the Colosseum and had a look around. There were heaps of dogs and cats just lying around without owners. They are everywhere in Italy. For a trio of dog-haters like us, it’s not that great.

Our evening was another exciting one – we took a trip to one of Rome’s greatest sights – the LAUNDROMAT. Ooh la laaaa. So great though, the guy did all our washing for us and we got to go have dinner for the same price it would’ve cost us to stay and try to do all the laundry ourselves. He even folded our clothes and put them back in the suitcase and gave us coat-hangers for the stuff that couldn’t be put through the dryer! So good! We joked on the way home that he would’ve had a fun time trying on our bras and undies and pretending to be a “laaadddyyyy.” (imagine a high-pitched woman’s voice here please). Or maybe he put a bra over his face and did “the fly”. We do it all the time and it’s hilarious, so he must have given it a go!

By this stage, we were completely unable to eat any more pizza or pasta, and set out to find something else. Best we could do was veal and roast chicken. Oh well. We vowed to find an Indian restaurant as soon as possible.

We booked this tour with our hotel after deciding that dragging saphira around to look at any more renaissance art would be a nightmare. Pisa, obviously, to see the leaning tower and Lucca because it sounded lovely and we were keen to do something outdoors. When we booked the “bus tour” we imagined an overly perky tour guide and a huge coach full of other loud, embarrassing tourists. We imagined we would fade into the background at the back of the bus somewhere and trail behind the tour group at our destinations.

Well. After asking a few unhelpful Italians where to find the bus stop (“Just wait out there, it is a white bus.” - totally wrong information!) a tour guide looking for tourists for some other destination pointed us to our guides and bus across the road. Claudio and Daniella were not quite what we were expecting. Both in their fifties, Claudio was cheerfully unkempt-looking while Daniella was bright and colourful with big hair. Claudio’s smile and yellow fingers indicated years of smoking (cigars, probably) and Daniella’s violet socks with bright green frogs dancing on them stood out immediately. Eek! We looked around for the rest of the passengers. “Are there any other people here yet?” We knew we were already late because of all the bad directions we had received. Daniella looked around. “No, I don’t think so…” and then Claudio pointed out the “bus”. We’d call it a van.

Now that we realised we had our own private tour guide and chauffeur we thought we were pretty special! We all sat beside each other in the van while Daniella peered at us from behind her seat and chattered away endlessly about the countryside, different places we might choose to visit in Lucca and Pisa, and details about Tuscany’s history. Interesting, but hard to follow, so Mel and I took turns making encouraging grunts and the occasional comment. Every so often I’d notice an exaggerated, “Oh, wow!” from Mel, punctuating a fairly boring statement about the “mounts” on our left. Daniella was awesome at speaking English (despite a heavy accent) but the one thing she got wrong was the word “mountains”. I would silently giggle… then not very long after do one of my own embarrassing gasps of fake excitement to disguise the fact that I’d drifted off.

We arrived in Lucca and Daniella suggested a few things we might want to do and see then left us to potter around on our own. We visited the cathedral where the sculpture of Jesus, apparently carved by Nicodemus while angels guided his hands to sculpt his true face was kept. We got lost in the narrow streets and almost got run over by nannas on rusty bicycles. We climbed the tower with the trees on top and enjoyed a stunning view of the town and surrounding mountains. Lastly we strolled along Lucca’s town wall (yes, the same one that they built to protect themselves against enemies – ie: Pisa – hundreds of years ago.)

We then met up with Daniella and Claudio and headed to Pisa. On the way, Daniella pointed out the “mounts” where Michelangelo got his marble to sculpt David (all one piece of marble!) and most likely a hundred other sculptures. We saw lots of olive trees and Cyprus trees and lovely ripe clementines dangling from branches.

First thing we did in Pisa was eat. We were starving after our big walk and climb up the tower. We ate (surprise!) pizza and pasta at a Trattoria in the main street. I totally wanted to go for a ride on a triple bike but instead we decided to climb up the leaning tower. Yikes! After yet another lovely Italian woman yelling at us to get our tickets before we could even approach the tower, we discovered that they don’t let children under 8 years even go in it. So we cruised the ugly markets and played on the grass in the square until it was time to meet Daniella again for a guided walking tour.

We all now know far more about the leaning tower than we ever really cared to. Did you know that it leans about 4 metres? That as soon as the lean is as long as the radius it will fall? That it started off only 3 stories high before it began to lean and was abandoned? That another architect designed the rest of the tower with shorter and heavier columns to try to even it out? That even later, concrete was injected into the ground under the sinking side and soil was dug away from under the other side? Oh wow, I could go on for hours. Daniella sure did.

We went into the cathedral and checked out the beautiful Baptistry. The cathedral holds the giant chandelier that Galileo apparently used to develop his theory of pendulum swing. It was a nice place to hang out and of course there was heaps Daniella could tell us about all the art, architecture and history of each building.

At the end of the day, Daniella decided to catch the train home so we were left alone with Claudio, who was embarrassed about his bad English and therefore refused to talk too much. (His English was excellent). Saphira and Mel fell asleep during the drive while I gazed at the beautiful scenery, reflecting on yet another awesome day in Tuscany.

Day 31: Thursday 19/11

Not a spectacular day. Florence didn’t take our breath away like Venice, and we struggled to find something decent to eat. So far in Italy we haven’t found amazing food for breakfast or lunch. Dinner is pizza, pasta and meat dishes (all yum but very rich), and we’ve started craving plates of boiled vegies or a good stir fry. Maybe Rome will deliver.

Day 32: Fri 20/11

Our day started late and we were glad for the warm sun after the cool foggyness of Venice. We hopped onto yet another open top bus tour (they’re dumb, but they do help you get acquainted with a place pretty cheaply and easily). The drivers in Europe still shock us. They are bold and ballsy and not afraid to break the rules and take risks like cutting in front of a huge double-decker bus without warning, or speeding diagonally across 5 lanes of heavy traffic just in time to make their exit. And that’s just the cars! Scooters are even scarier! We had the luxury of watching all this crazyness from the front seat atop the bus. The commentary had the usual loud classical music accompaniment and was slightly out of time with the actual tour, but I’m not complaining, it kind of made it more fun, laughing at the stupidness of it all.

We got off at the Piazza del Michelangelo where a replica of Michelangelo’s David stands (it’s original position, apparently) and there are gorgeous views over Florence. We had lunch their and sat on the steps gazing at the view (and watching the hilarious tourists and merchants around. Oh, I haven’t mentioned that in Florence there are penises everywhere!! I think it’s something to do with David, or maybe it’s just that Italian men love their willies, but you can buy pretty much anything from a market stall with a doodle on it. There are boxer shorts, aprons, t-shirts, magnets… they all have David’s donger on them! Ew! Not loving that at all. Saphira hated “Dave” (as she calls him) but later decided that he was alright, because he had a nice bum.

We came off the mountain and tried our luck at Galleria del’Accademia where we got to see the real Dave up close and personal and a whole stack of other Renaissance paintings and sculptures. All the religious themes and symbolism got a bit much for us and to be honest we didn’t spend a particularly long time there. Saphira was not too impressed with all the paintings of Jesus on the cross with cherubs holding out bowls to catch the blood from his hands and skulls catching the blood from his feet. Not her cup of tea. Mel’s or mine neither.

We accidentally got on the wrong Vaporetto to the Guggenheim museum. It took ages and the cold wind stung our faces. Mel hasn’t been well so it was a disaster for her. By the time we got off all we wanted was a warm cosy room with a hot drink, but it was not to be. We were here to see the Guggenheim collection!

Peggy Guggenheim was clearly a little bit weird, but her art collection: AMAZING. She had a pretty nice house too, with direct access to the Grande Canal. We really loved looking at the Kandinksy, Ernst, Picasso, okay let’s face it, we loved ALL the art. Saphira did a few fantastic sketches of her favourite paintings, and passersby loved watching her and commenting on her drawings. A few even took photos, which she of course thought was excellent. We ate lunch at the museum and bought a few postcards of our favourite artworks.

After lunch we headed to the Piazza San Marco where we got to go into the cathedral. No singlets, shorts or mini skirts allowed! (So naturally I had to wait outside. Not even Jesus himself is ready for these thighs. Should probably have left the mini skirt at home.) Anyway the mosaics were absolutely amazing. So huge, and so many tiny pieces of tile, stone and gold in each one. Eek! I can’t imagine what a person is thinking when they decide to create a 3 storey high mosaic, but whatever floats your boat! Really gorgeous. Most of the mosaics are replicas because the originals got destroyed – a common story with many European artefacts and buildings, but we got to see some of the original bits and pieces of mosaic which were just as intricate and beautiful.

We ended the day with a stroll through the cobbled lanes back across the Rialto bridge and home again. On the way, Mel picked up an awesome pair of Macbeths!

We arrived in Venice at about 9am and were greeted with the Grande Canal the moment we left the train station. So great! The first thing we noticed about Italy is that people are helpful! After France and London, this was a nice change. People speak English and don’t try to make you feel guilty (although they still only say, “Little bit” or “Oooh, I’ll try,” when you ask them if they speak English. Liars).

Venice is gorgeous. We couldn’t quite get enough of traipsing over the cute little bridges and staring out at the gorgeous canals, with families’ washing strung up over them and gondoliers desperately trying to coax customers to take a ride underneath. We took a LONG stroll through lots of backstreets and looked at lots of cute little shops selling glass items (name any object, and they have one made of glass in Venice). We saw plenty of cute little churches with bell towers and intricately carved doorways. We didn’t need much else to occupy ourselves!

Ended up straying so far from home we couldn’t quite get ourselves out of the rabbit warren and caught a vaporetto back to the hotel. Grabbed some warm clothes then headed out to eat near the Rialto bridge. Enjoyed a lovely meal right next the canal (which was thankfully, less stinky than we imagined) and attempted to navigate our way through the streets. The occasionally dodgy sign pointed us the way but we got pretty lost and by time we were about halfway all three of us were busting for the toilet and frantically running from street to street. It was definitely a “relief” when we finally found our way back, with the help of some American tourists and their Italian friend. We tried our best to get to bed early in anticipation of a great day ahead, but getting to sleep has never been easy for the three of us… sigh…

Okay, I suspected the overnight train to be uncomfortable and small, but WHOA! It really was small. By the time we got all our luggage in, we sat in a neat row on the bottom bunk and looked at each other as if to say, what now?

Not sure how much we all slept. On the bottom bunk, I could crack open the blind a little and stare out at the stars and the passing towns. I could hear mel about me and saphira above her sighing and yawning and wriggling about so I don’t think either of them had a great rest, but it was ok. They woke us in the morning with espressos, which helped.

Sunday in London. You can hear the church bells. We took the tube to Buckingham Palace to see what all the fuss was about.

Buckingham Palace is weird. The gates and the statues are lovely to look at, but you know. Meh. I’ve seen more interesting things in my life. And where was the Queen? I thought we’d at least get to see that wussy little wave she does. Even a fake hand sticking out of one of the windows would be nice. They could put a lacy cuff on the wrist and some costume jewellery on the fingers and it’d just have to turn back and forth… maybe I’ll write and suggest that. Reckon it’d be a winner.

The hot cup of tea we got at the park was nice though (it was such a freezing day!) and Saphira was happy to have another quick frolic with a squirrel. We didn’t last long outdoors though, and took another tube to check out Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Of course on Sunday they don’t really like you going in and peering at people while they’re doing the whole church thing, so we resolved to come back early Monday morning. We might be on holidays, but we should’ve known that Monday mornings aren’t ever a desirable thing to see… we will have to see St Paul’s another time. Maybe in the next life.

Headed to Spitalfields market to savour the last hours of the day with a bit of shopping. Suitcases are a fair bit heavy now thanks to a few purchases made! We had dinner at Giraffe, mainly because it was there and we knew Saffi would dig it. She certainly dug her orange balloon! We’ve gotten into the habit of making a toast before every meal, and Saphira tries to keep track of whose turn it is. She made her toast (which was so memorable that I’ve forgotten it) and tucked in to whatever it was she ordered. Sorry, my memory is fading. Or I just can’t be bothered. Suffice to say, it was a lovely night. The end.

Oh, the Tate Modern! What a day! We couldn’t take photos of anything but we all loved the cubism and surrealism best. The weather was really TERRIBLE so apart from my bad navigational skills from the tube station to the museum, we were happy to spend the whole day indoors. Saphira did some great sketches of her favourite art works and we all kind of spun out in our own little worlds while we were there. Very impressed with pieces by Francis Bacon, Max Ernst, Kandinksy, Jackson Pollock, Monet’s Water Lillies and Dali’s… well… everything. We’re a Dali-loving family!

Crap weather would not stop us from attacking the Portobello road markets! We started the day in the world’s tiniest café, being nudged and elbowed while we plowed through coffees and pastries. Our clothes and hair were soggy, but our spirits were bright, and soon the weather followed!

Markets were a treat. Bought lots of cool handmade bags, belts, clothes etc. but really there was no limit to what you could get there if you were interested. We tried to avoid the stinky fish stalls but couldn’t stop ourselves from looking at everything else. It was a really nice day, finished off at the Prince Albert pub. Saphira loves referring to pubs as “the public house,” and has been desperate to go to another one since we got back from Bristol. What a treat when we found awesome food, music and atmosphere inside! We sat at the rainbow table (appropriate, much?) and saphira drew pictures of all the awesome things we’d been doing while we enjoyed a few beers on the couch. They played cool music and we had a bit of a sing-along too. Lovely.

A bad night’s sleep led to yet another big sleep in. We made it out of the hotel at about lunch time and set off to Mildred’s vegetarian restaurant in Soho. The food was divine. Dunno if Mildred was there though. We did look for her!

We spent the afternoon walking around Soho, Oxford Street, and Regent Street. Got dinner at a 50s theme restaurant (lame! But the beer was good) and just wandered about in a bit of a senseless way. The Christmas Lights had all been turned on and all the shops had their window displays out so it was a pretty fantastic sight.

Day 22: Tuesday

We spent the day exploring the Natural History Museum. Checked out all the mammals and dinosaurs. To be honest, I could have stayed all day, but it was a bit much for saphira.

Just outside the natural history museum was an open-air ice rink! How awesome! We were freezing our butts off so bad, and I thought mel would chicken out, but all three of us strapped on our skates and went flailing across the ice! It might have been romantic with the fairy lights and music, and the elegant figures of dancing skaters, but alas. Captain Klutz had shown up with his girlfriend, and every five seconds he seemed to be flying towards one of us, completely out of control and unable to stop! We had to duck and weave, which, if you can imagine a white whale on ice skates, isn’t that easy.

Saphira has never ice skated before, and her technique is a little hard to describe. It’s kind of like running, or marching, but funnier. She goes for speed, rather than style, and constantly has a panicked look on her face. Okay, we all had that look on our faces with the Captain so close, but there was a definite sense of freaked-outness about her that was pretty funny.

At one stage, Saffi and I totally stacked it and went sliding on the ice. I can’t even tell you how it happened, but I can tell you it hurt! Saffi had the biggest bruise on her bum! After that, she really wanted to get off and never skate again, but we forced her to keep going and by the end of the night she was gushing about what a great time she had and how awesome she is at ice skating. Hmmm.

Poor Mel was left alone the whole time because she was so focused on not falling down that she didn’t want to hang out with us (plus I don’t know if she could keep up with saphira’s super speed). I had saphira practically hanging from my right arm the entire time (despite trying my best to encourage her to branch out on her own!) By about halfway through Mel was having a better time, still with the main goal of not falling down. She seemed to be a magnet for crap skaters, and was constantly being smashed by out of control kids (not forgetting the Captain) and almost stacking it. On reflection, she thinks that she had a good time. I think.

Day 23: Wed

Back for round two at the natural history museum! Actually, it was way better than the first day because we got to go inside “the cocoon”. It’s pretty cool, with interactive stuff for kids and heaps of gross creepy crawlies. You got to spy on real biologists doing experiments and the only downside was the school groups. Oh, yuck. Can’t even count the number of times we both almost started organising this bunch of rowdy kids. Not exactly helping us get excited about going back to work.

We spent the evening in Soho, and made the fatal mistake of trying to find a hairdresser. Returned with the worst haircuts the world has ever seen, and I refuse to write any more about it, because I’m in public right now, and could end up in tears just thinking about that awful night.

Day 20: Sun

As usual, we woke up in our cave wondering what time it was, and discovered we’d slept in. No that we cared, after a great night we deserved a sleep in! We all dressed up (in our one good outfit) for our matinee show of The Lion King.

Okay, we loved it. The costumes, the sets, the singing, the puppets, it was all amazing. Saphira’s favourite thing was that there were little kids in the show! The little girl who played Nala also played a cute little elephant which Saffi thought was just brilliant. And the boy playing Simba was adorable!

After the show we hung out in Covent Garden. Very tempted by the cupcake shop! Saphira really loved the buskers and the fairy lights.

Day 21: Mon

Monday ended up being a bit of a write off. We spent the day sleeping in and organising the rest of our trip. Booked trains, flights and hotels so we still felt pretty good about ourselves at the end of the day, and über excited about Italy and Greece!

At some stage we had to decided to extend our stay in London based on the fact that we’d spent a few days in Bristol, we hadn’t been particularly well, the weather had been crap, and we’d slept in too much to get everything done that we wanted to do. So we had a nice relaxing day checking out the Tower of London.

We were looking around King Edward’s chamber when a knight from the past started chatting up Mel! He turned out to be quite knowledgeable about all things medieval and we had fun asking him questions and trying to explain to him the purpose of television. That was great, but the best was when his wife rocked up. She was in a perky mood and felt like teaching us a dance (there were about 20 other tourists watching us, which was just great). So she taught us the steps. We all had to hold hands and walk around to the left, then the right, then something else, la-di-da, then “we all hop around in a circle”. All of us, including her husband, started actually HOPPING ON ONE FOOT (very awkward when you’re carrying a camera around your neck and you’re unco and a fat old bag like me) and she started cracking up laughing and said, “Oh no, I didn’t mean hop on one foot!! No no no… Like THIS….” Which meant not hopping, but SKIPPING – somewhat easier and less embarrassing than hopping, fortunately, since by then a small crowd had gathered and we were all giggling and blushing and puffing with exertion.

We saw the crown jewels (yawn) and got our heads full of history before departing under the big stone gates to walk along the thames and off to that giant circle of tourists in glass boxes, the London Eye.

Heaps of the major parks and gardens around London had special Bonfire Night fireworks displays on, which just happened to coincide with the time we chose to go on the Eye. Brilliant! There we were, looking out over the whole city, while flashes of brightly coloured fireworks shot up from different corners all around us. It was totally cool, although not nearly as cool as our own fireworks on the mound in Bristol. Maybe we should have been passing round a bottle of Baileys?

Have to mention the cute Italian restaurant under the train station where we had dinner. Stone walls, candles, and a slight shaking with every passing train above us. Nice. And the wine was amazing.

Sadly, we woke to find that James had already left for work, so we spent the morning just hanging out and chatting with Dom, Kiri and Liz. It was nice just lazing around and drinking coffee and acting like we didn’t have to leave. We were sad to go and Saphira spent pretty much the entire train ride sobbing and sighing and dramatically pronouncing, “I JUST MISS EVERYONE SOOOO MUCH!” Ever since we left she’s been asking, “What do you think Elijah’s doing?” and “What do you think Elijah would say about my drawing?” and “Can we PLEEAASSE buy one of those for Elijah?” It’s heartbreakingly beautiful.

The reason we had to get back to London was to see Wicked. Wow! We were mesmerised from the moment it started. Loved all the little references to the parallel story of the Wizard of Oz. Loved the music. I think we all fell a little bit in love with Elpheba. The thing I love about musicals is that everything that you want to happen, happens. Just when you think, “Now would be a good time for everyone to break into song and dance around,” they do! I love it! Oh my gosh I love it.

Finished the night off at Nandos, which is surprisingly better over here than the one at Buranda shops. Pigged out on hommus with chilli oil, corn, and peri peri chips. Hurrah!

After MUCH effort we finally managed to arrange to see Kiri, Dom, James, Liz and Elijah for a couple of days in Bristol. Took the train in the morning (after an annoying and stupid mix-up we missed one train, but they got us on another and asked Kiri to, “Please apologise to Miss Jones for the inconvenience.”)

The first thing everyone noticed about us when we got to Bristol was, “You’re so colourful!” I guess after living in the bland shades of grey of England, people start dressing to fit their environment. We, on the other hand, look like a trio of travelling gypsy clowns. We can’t help it! We just like being bright! And the other thing that our dear Aussie friends commented on was, “I can’t believe how strong your Australian accents are!” (Code for: “you guys sound like total bogans,” - which we do.)

Bristol is cool. Lots of hills, colourful townhouses and brightly painted doors. Far more trees than boring old London as well. The fact that it was Guy Fawkes night and we were finally in the company of people who knew our names, and noticed the same strange things about English people as we did, gave us great reason to celebrate. A plan was hatched to climb the “mound” with some DIY fireworks – and maybe there’d be some other people up there too. Woohoo!

Dom came home from work and we left Liz in the kitchen (baking! Oh yeah!) to go out in Bristol and pick up some fireworks. Dom and Kiri were excellent guides and we got to check out Kiri’s work at the Olive Grove or whatever it was called, until one of her workmates spotted us standing across the road taking photos and generally acting goofy. When she waved to Kiri with a slightly confused look on her face, we hastily made tracks.

Almost had to witness Kiri purchasing an ugly home made Halloween mouse from an op-shop but were saved by Dom’s sarcastic comments. Phew!

The fireworks shopping experience was slightly surreal. We all walked in and looked around with no idea what we were looking for or how to ask for it. It’s weird that the fireworks don’t actually have pictures of what the fireworks will look like on them. So how do you differentiate? The fireworks man asked if we wanted lots of colour, lots of noise, or both. Ummm…? We ended up with an interesting collection of explosives that would apparently look kinda impressive when set off at night. So, happy with our purchases, we proceeded to the park to meet Liz and James and Elijah. That plan got hijacked by the absolutely freezing weather, and we all agreed that hot chips at the pub was a much better idea. So there we were, with our bags of fireworks (James came back with a fairly big bag himself, after “just popping in for a look to see what it’s all about”) crowded around a table at the pub (the very same pub we’d scoffed at earlier for advertising FREE JUGS!! of water), drinking typical English ale (flat and warm, just the way we like it) and generally feeling good about ourselves.

It really was great to feel so welcomed by our friends and be able to talk rubbish and laugh with people who just got us and didn’t give us weird looks all the time. Saphira pretty much fell in love at first sight with Elijah. Pretty cool because the last time Dom, Kiri and James saw Saffi she would have been not much older than Elijah is now. She drew him pictures and took him for little walks and basically just tried to mother him as much as possible. Totally cute.

We ate dinner in the lounge room at Chateau de Lay/Kleinig and sloshed down some wine before donning all our warm clothes for the climb up the mound. Got up the top to find a bonfire, a great view and a stack of drunk English people. What’s wrong with this picture? A heap of people sitting on top of a mountain in close range of a bonfire setting off fireworks at random!?! It was great. Really really fun. Saphira was such a trooper, hanging out with us, chatting to Kiri while James, Dom, Mel and I tried to work out what to do with our fireworks and took turns with the dodgy lighter. We had a great time swigging from our shared bottle of Baileys, watching people setting off different fireworks, and braving our own.

The best was when Dom set a huge one off right over the crowd of people. Whoops! The rocket went flying at a big bunch of strangers… it was pretty loud and firey! We all just ducked and laughed and thanked the universe that it didn’t set anyone on fire! The big box we bought had to be buried 20cm into the ground, which was fun since we didn’t exactly have any digging implements except for the plastic tubes we used to launch our rockets. We gave it a solid home in the ground and if I say so myself, it was awesome. What wasn’t awesome was the stupid idiot dog that kept barking and trying to attack the box where the fireworks were coming from. I don’t know how many times it burnt its dumb dog nose but it kept going back. Later we saw the dog’s owner and realised that the dog was actually the smart one in his household in comparison.

It was cool too because on top of the mound we could see all the other fireworks being let off at random places around Bristol as well as the ones on the mound. It felt so sly and illegal, even though it was perfectly legitimate, to let off fireworks in a public place whenever we felt like it. So much fun.

Ended the night with a sweet cider from the off-license and Kiri and Dom even lent us their bed, the gorgeous things. We felt very taken-care-of and loved.

Very much in the mood for sightseeing (I love that word, how it’s not really a word, but it is) we decided to go on a good old open top bus tour. (or the OTBT as I like to call it.) We also wound up booking ourselves into a couple of shows – G rated only unfortunately – so we were all eager and excited and jumping around in anticipation for Wicked and The Lion King. Woot!

Bus tour was lame in the usual ways, but got us a good idea of what was where and helped us figure out what we wanted to do. Got excited about bits and pieces but the cold really was pretty awful. Not a memorable day to be honest. Except we had a bit of a laugh about being in a real life game of monopoly! How lame are we???

Tuesday morning we woke late, thanks to the complete darkness and silence of our room mixed with our own exhaustion. We dragged ourselves out to cruise around Kensington gardens and Hyde Park. The walk was really nice and weather delightful. Everything was going along splendidly until the crowd of squirrels attacked! ARGH! Okay, there were only 3, and they didn’t really attack, just walked over to us and followed us around a bit, but for me that was scary enough! Saphira of course wanted to pick one up and bring it home as a pet. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

We love-love-LOVED the hundreds of Autumn trees and the thousands of brown, red, orange and yellow leaves gently falling from the sky and carpeting the grass. A big even was when we saw actual Holly! Not the girl, the plant! Well it’s more of a bush really. But the instantly recognisable red berries and pointy dark green leaves sent us all squealing and giggling! Okay, so it’s the first non-plastic holly we’d ever seen, but it really did not require such exuberant exclamations. I think we were just excited to remind ourselves, “We’re in England!” Although after the fifth or sixth time I said that, Saphira politely requested that I shut up.

Train all day, arrived in London, got food at Waitrose, bed.

We spent the day on the train. Snore! Ate food, updated the blog, read our books. Saphira played Nintendogs and drew pictures. Scenery was NIL so we were pretty bored. Arrived in London and a cute old English dude not only gave us directions but WALKED US TO OUR HOTEL (it wasn’t even on his way!) and gave us a bit of a history of the local area, pointing out interesting things as we went. Quite lovely, and refreshing to be in a place where people speak ENGLISH!

How was I to know that most of the people I was going to speak to (service industry and the like) were going to be immigrants who could barely string two sentences together coherently? Let alone understand us? Eg:

Mel: Hello, I’d like a café latte

Server: Would you like milk in that?

HAHAHAHA. Nice one. Oh, it wasn’t a joke.

(Actually this person wasn’t an immigrant, just a dumb pom).

The train from Marseille to Nice was quick and lovely. Saw lots of picturesque villages and mountains and seaside towns. Arrived in Nice late afternoon and got totally lost walking to our hotel. The problem being that our memories didn’t serve us so well. We would have been fine if the address we memorised was for the actual hotel we were staying at instead of just a random hotel that we looked at on a website once! Ha! Oh well, the weather was fine and after a long train ride, walking around was like a luxurious treat.

When we eventually DID find our hotel, we were so excited to be in Nice, we went out straight away to discover the town and get dinner. We went straight to Esplanade Des Anglais. Saphira enjoyed walking along the pebbly shore in the moonlight and threw rocks into the sea. We got a glimpse of the giant waterfall on the cliffs and resolved to come back in the morning.

Dinner was at Café Del- Arte on Cours Saleya, which we chose because of the awesome red lamps and cool furniture. Street performers did Capoeira demonstrations in front of the cafes and then walked through asking patrons for change. This one guy did all these awesome flips and cartwheels to much applause from the crowd.

Strolling back, we had fun looking at the fountain and statues along rue Jean Medicin and on our street, THE KNITTING SHOP! Every time we walked past we were tempted to go in and grab a pair of needles and start knitting! The shop was also to be the inspiration for our new show, “The Knitting Show” (creative name, I know) which we’ve been filming. Our hosts are Eunace Eikle, Old Elsie, and Maude Urn. Whether any of them can knit is another matter entirely.

The cool thing about our hotel was the free coffees and dollar espressos. Oh yeah! Every time we entered or departed the hotel we grabbed ourselves a coffee! Or a chocolate croissant! Okay, usually both.

Next day we awoke ready to rock out in Nice… at the flower market! I’m sure it’s the kind of thing that’s better if you get up bright and early but being us, we wandered over around midday. Much nicer aromas than the fish market in Marseille, that’s for sure. We loved looking at the flower arrangements as well as the fruit and vegetables, jams, herbs, teas, spices and gourmet confectionery!

Let me just digress for a moment here. I am writing this blog on the train ride from Nice to Paris. It’s like a six hour ride and we’ve been on for only two hours out of six. And who do you suppose is causing chaos on the train? Saphira? Oh no. It is my girl Mel, who is constantly giggling, making funny faces, talking in silly voices and then sooking when I don’t give her enough attention. Is this fun for me??? She just said that sitting here writing the blog together makes her feel like we’re at uni together doing an assignment together, and she thinks it’s so hilarious! Why? I do not know. Actually, when I laughed at her comment, she got all offended and sooked. Argh! Why can’t she just enjoy the scenery? Where is the valium???

Okay, back on track now.

We made our way up to Castle Hill along the boulevard. Wow! All the lookers were out on the beach! Eighty-year-olds in DTs cruised for chicks while overweight topless sunbathers eyed them back. There was one younger guy who was fully PACKING, if you know what I mean. This is a rather delicate subject, so while Mel pretended to pose, I zoomed in from above to get a close look at the package. Ew! It could not possibly have been real. I will post a photo so everyone can get a good look, oh, and check out saggy-bags having a rest in the background.

We gave our bums a rest and chose to take the lift up to Castle Hill, a decision we didn’t regret. The ruins of the original castle are still there, but the garden is the real attraction. With a bit of encouragement, Saphira plucked up the courage to go play with all the French kids while we sat on a bench and I (as usual) got sunburnt. The view was amazing up there and we spent ages walking around and gazing out at the mountains, the city and the Mediterranean. We also got chocolate crepes and coffee right at the top. Divine! It was such a perfect day.

We conveniently stumbled across the bus stop for the Scenic Bus Tour and decided to give it a go. We probably should have got jumpers first because we all froze up there, but it was a great way to check out Nice without stopping every five minutes to look at the map.

We ended the day with dinner at an Indian restaurant. Saphira loved the bollywood film clips and we loved the FOOD. Only bad thing was the dog! I hate how dogs are allowed into restaurants, shops and on public transport! It’s so gross. The dog was barking and making a nuisance of itself the whole time we were eating, and its owner (who looked like a primped up poodle herself) was hopeless at getting it to settle down. She was up and down from her seat all evening.

Guess what we did on the way up to the hotel room? Did I hear you say, “espresso…”?

DAY 12:

Halloween morning began with a trip to the beach. How can Australians go to the beach without making a sandcastle? Pebble castles abounded. Mel read her book while Saphira and I made pebble art. There were a few less characters on the beach today thanks to the clouds, which we were thankful for. Can’t imagine Saffi seeing Saggy-bags without loudly commenting.

We sat and watched the water for ages, while other families came and went. Some swam, some strolled. There was a little café open with little blue and white umbrellas serving cocktails and sangria… not totally appropriate with a six year old so we walked away wistfully.

We went on a search for a traditional Nicoise cuisine: Socca. There was supposedly a really awesome cheap Socca place in Old Nice, and we were definitely interested in the gelateria that sold the best ice-cream in the Cote D’Azur. Found both, to our surprise! The socca (chick pea fried pancake) was ace and even the walk around Old Nice was fun. We made our first purchase that wasn’t a souvenir: a new shoulder bag since the one we brought is falling to bits.

Pinocchio’s had the best looking icecream we’ve ever seen and the longest lines. Mel, ice-cream’s biggest fan, was in heaven. We ordered rose, lavender, lychee and fig flavour. Saphira ordered lavender and strawberry bon bon flavour. Whooo! So yum. We could go back every day.

Saturday night was Halloween Night! We were all prepared with
Saphira’s bat costume. Spent the rest of the afternoon teasing up our hair (used way too much hairspray) and applying black makeup. Earlier in the day we had seen some guys doing Halloween graffiti on some big pieces of black plastic wrapped around trees down near the fountain. When we emerged (in all our scary glory) the artwork was finished and Beetlejuice was looking as gross as could be!

The local restaurants all had bon bons for the kids and small groups of ghosts, witches and ghouls were running around with their bags of loot. Took Saphira ages to pluck up the courage to go trick or treating and by the time she did (not until after dinner) almost all the lollies were gone. She ended up with an ice cube from one place! It seemed so unfair because she looked so wicked!

Dinner was great, just burgers but the atmosphere was cool. Rad little pumpkin candles on the tables and bunches of black and orange balloons strung up everywhere. There was a stage with funky cobwebs and a huge fake spider hanging over it but when the band arrived they got grumpy and made the owner take all the decorations down. We didn’t stay for their set. Losers.

Mel and I also enjoyed a couple of coronas and cocktails! It was definitely party night, and a real treat.

We came home feeling great and giggling like idiots. Spent ages making dumb videos of ourselves and collapsing into giggles over them. Were they even that funny? I don’t know! Downloaded the Nightmare Before Christmas movie (gotta love free wifi) and got into bed feeling happy and exhausted and full of Halloween treats.

DAY 13

Got up mega late, missed breakfast at the hotel and headed straight out for the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Found out that Nice pretty much shuts down on Sundays, and couldn’t find anywhere to eat. Across the road from the Museum (which, thankfully, WAS open – and free on the first Sunday of the month!) was this tiny little café that looked empty and abandoned, but inside was warm, cosy and packed with people! We had a really great lunch of pasta and stuffed roasted vegetables. It was all traditional Nicoise food and décor. Hosts were lovely and translated everything into English for us.

At the museum we saw the amazing charcoal and graphite drawings of Robert Longo. (Retrospective exhibition). Saphira liked his huge drawings of faces (babies and girls). Mel and I loved the waves and space drawings. Such large scale works with only one colour! And so much movement in each one! Really impressive and inspirational.

We also got to see works by Yves Klein (that blue) and visit the “Jardin D’Eden” on the terrace. More great views of Nice up on the terrace too.

Were shocked to find it was 5 o’clock when we finally left the museum! Grabbed some sandwiches hoping to get an early night back at the hotel, but after eating them in our room we were all craving crepes so we headed back out (Saphira in her pyjamas!) for dessert on rue Jean Medecin! Those crepes were so worth it. Oh baby.

What a shame we were leaving Nice! We all loved it so much. We haven’t been anywhere we HAVEN’T loved… oh wait, there was Clermont-Ferrand. Can we pretend we never went there?

DAY 7: Clermont-Ferrand

We spent most of the day in train stations or on the train, arriving in Clermont-Ferrand late afternoon. Our accommodation was dodgy and we realised there was nowhere nearby to eat and not much to do. Our hotel (if you could call it that) looked out onto the Michelin tyre factory. The only reason we even bothered to go to Clermont-Ferrand was to climb the Puy de Dome but realised we didn’t leave ourselves enough time to do it. Would have cost heaps to get a ride up there and we had to be on a train at 10am. In the end, the only good thing about staying in Clermont-Ferrand was that Saphira got to flirt with the waiter at the Pizzeria where we had dinner! Oh, and the fact that we walked past an “Aussie” restaurant with boomerang and kangaroo pictures and akubra hats and a giant shark on the bar. HAHAHAHAHAHA!

DAY 8 and 9:

After a sleepless night in our shack (itchy sheets and noisy) we were happy to farewell Clermont-Ferrand for the beautiful shores of Marseille!

Marseille was AWESOME. I love the contrast between the grubby and grimy streets and the pristine shimmering ocean. The Vieux Port was such a prime example: dirty smelly fishies throwing scales and skeletons on the ground and dodgy buskers were all crammed together, right on the edge of the water… and behind them, prestigious yachts floated elegantly on the water!

We bought tickets for a boat to the Ile D’If (an island off the coast that was once a fortress, and then a jail, and now a tourist attraction. Alexandre Dumas made the Ile famous with his story, “The Count of Monte Cristo”). We cruised the port while we waited for our boat time and enjoyed looking at all the docked boats, the shimmering water, the white streaks from planes in the sky, the cliffs, rocks and fortresses at the port’s entrance, and of course, the locals. Loved the old fellas in their tiny shorts sunbaking along the shore. Brown and leathery, they looked like they’d been there a lifetime!

We were so lucky to have such divine weather, and we realised this again on the boat ride. Being somewhere so beautiful is so exhilarating! Even the seagulls seemed nice. Approaching the island was amazing, seeing the cliffs and rocky shoreline surrounded by the crystal clear Mediterranean ocean. We were all mesmerised by the views, both out towards the sea and looking back on the city of Marseille, with the French Alps as a backdrop.

Saphira loved the freedom of exploring the island and examining the natural environment up close. She collected flowers, grass, pebbles, feathers and other bits and pieces. She had her eye out for the elusive lizard that apparently roamed the island, but he never showed himself. Got some great photos of the bright white rocks against the lush green grass.

The jail itself was kind of creepy. We went into these awful cells and realised that people actually DIED in there. As usual, we had to climb stairs (only about a thousand!) and our butts must be looking good by now. Our eyes thanked our butts of course, because the views were breathtaking at the top. It was so peaceful out there, we stayed for hours just smelling the sea air and listening to the gentle ebb and flow of the water against the cliffs.

No time to stop for a long lazy lunch, we grabbed some paninis and got straight onto L’Petit Train. Which wasn’t a train at all! Actually L’Petit train is a crappy car dressed up as a train, pulling about 3 trailers behind it. The little engine that almost couldn’t. We struggled our way up the hill while the extra loud French commentary and annoying kids behind us screeched in our ears, and the fumes of the engine (why did we sit right behind the car?) filled our lungs.

Our journey took us to Notre Dame Basilique church on top of the hill. The church came fully equipped with its own bling: an enormous solid gold statue right on top, which you can see from pretty much anywhere in Marseille, and from the Ile D’If as well. This meant that the view up there was spectacular. It was nearing sunset and we watched as the sky turned yellow, then orange, then pink, then purple over the sea.

Inside the church itself were beautiful mosaics and stained glass windows. Strangely, there were also these weird mobiles hanging from the ceiling, and on them were boats and aeroplanes! Still not sure why… maybe the priest likes the nautical theme? But then why the aeroplanes?? WEIRD. If there was an explanation, it was probably in French, so no wonder we missed it.

L’Petit Train was worse on the way down, even sans annoying kids behind us! Here we were, skidding down this massive hill in the narrowest streets while cyclists and scooters zoomed along a few centimetres away beside us, and all I could think was, “where are the seatbelts?” My knees were smashing into the front of the carriage every time the breaks went on… oh, the pain! And Saphira kept trying to hang her head outside the carriage and look around!

Back on land I swore that none of us would ever be riding L’Petit Train again. Or L’Petit ANYTHING, for that matter.

Dinner was at Le Souk (because we’re a bunch of sooks). MMmmm Moroccan! It is so awkward trying to order Moroccan food in French! But it was all delish, except maybe the sardine. Mel refused to try the sardine, because she is the biggest sook of them all. She was almost throwing up at the smell!

We were all very sad to leave Marseille the next day… such a gorgeous place. But looking forward to Nice!

WASHING DAY! Snore! We slept in, slowly got ready then shopped for our brunch on rue Montorgueil. Yummo! Spent ages in the fruit shop checking out all the different legumes (vegies!) and trying to pronounce their names

. We bought raspberries, blueberries, mulberries, figs, teeny tiny bananas, huge green grapes and a bunch of delicious marinated olives. We bought a plate of French cheeses from the fromagerie, jambon from the boucherie (saphira scored some free salami which was yum) and croissants from the patisserie.

Spent the morning washing our clothes and making clotheslines out of random pieces of furniture. Oh joy. Well, Mel enjoyed herself.

It was such a gorgeous sunny day and we’d spent most of it inside so by mid-afternoon we decided to forget the washing and get out into the fresh air. We wandered down the street to explore a bit more of our local area and stumbled across this huge square surrounded by gardens and the amazing church of st Eustace! Whoa, anywhere you wander in paris you are likely to walk right into something beautiful.

Wandered in and were yet again amazed by the architecture, artwork and solemnity of the place. No Skeletor voice this time just Saphira whining about being bored and hungry (a VERY common theme lately).

We tried to get into the Jardin Les Enfants but the gates were locked and after a bit of a search we found another play area for Saffi. While she climbed on the equipment we hung out and found this random tiny vineyard… there were these tiny little gardens everywhere, most of them fenced and locked, but really pretty to look at.

In search of food, we wandered around to Forum Les Halle where Saphira went on the creepiest carousel in history. Oooh my gosh it was so gross. The guy collecting tickets from kids had crusty sores all over his hands and a ciggie dangling from his mouth constantly. And the horses and other random farm animals were scary and disgusting! Especially the PIG! SPEW! Right after the carousel ride we wanted to get the hell out of there and walked right into a gang of three guys beating the crap out of another guy! Far out! This place was getting worse and worse. We ran for the hills and returned to the safety of our comfortable neighbourhood.

That night we went out for dinner at L’Epicerie Restaurant. We all enjoyed our entrée of Escargot: Saphira said they tasted like olives, I said they tasted like rain and Mel said they tasted like the garden! We are all loving the French food. Mel and I are just a bit partial to the French wine as well.