Plitvice, Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Berlin and Amsterdam

Plitvice Lakes, Croatia 

We arrived at our campsite here in the late afternoon, we put our tents up and had a beautiful dinner cooked by the lovely Vytas and had an early night ready for a full day exploring the next day in the Plitvice National Park. 

Up bright an early we showered and readied ourselves for a day of walking, soaking in nature and relaxation. This was another one of the things on the tour that I was most excited for. The day started off stressful with Aaron wondering off with my bag which had all my food and water. After some waiting and him re appearing we disappeared off together for the day. We walked all around, as far and and much as one could walk. The water was as clear and as blue as ever, crystal clear and untouched. No-one is allowed to swim in the water and I reckon thats a part of why it is so clear and beautiful.

 The waterfalls were magical, every type of height and shape and width this place has every type of waterfall you can imagine, some down pouring with water some sprinkling water over like fairy dust the atmosphere was calming and relaxing. It was a peaceful day filled with beauty and mother nature. We walked the entire national park and the end of the day came quickly, back on the bus showered and another wonderful dinner cooked by Vytas and we were happy, a few drinks in the beautiful campsite we were in and bed. Tomorrow we make our way to Budapest

Budapest, Hungary

We arrived in Budapest and set up our Camp. We had 9 new people joining our tour! So exciting, brings something new and fresh to the group!! So we set up camp and chatted away to the new family members, mostly all auzzies, the kiwis were now out numbered!! The night was a chilled one, a few card games and an early night.

Our free day exploring Budapest was both a relaxed and emotional one. We started our day in the Roman Baths. Hot hot hot saunas, some steamy steam rooms and warm relaxing baths. After a few hours of allowing our muscles to move into a slumber state, we got out, dressed and headed for some lunch. After we had filled our hungry bellies, we headed to the The house of Terror. The house of Terror contains exhibits related to the fascist and communist dictatorial regimes in 20th-century Hungary, and is also a memorial to the victims of these regimes, including those detained, interrogated, tortured and/or killed in the building. Walking around the museum reading learning and taking in all the info was very emotional and mentally tiring. We finished on the lowest floor, the dungeons. It was almost silent down there. Feeling the pain, and putting yourself in there position (or at least trying), remembering them for who they were and what they went through, it was saddening.

After the house of terror we all felt quite tired and so we headed back to the camp. We showered and readied ourselves for the evening. We were heading out with the Family to one of the old bars in Budapest. A brilliant night in a buzzing little bar welcoming the newbies to Topdeck! 

Vienna, Austria

On-route to Vienna we stopped off in Bratislava and had a walking tour with the stallion. Filled with big beautiful buildings and history this place was just gorgeous, it was cloudy and it started to rain, which is unfortunate for my photos, but my word, such a lovely place. After our tour, we had some lunch and I had a nice coffee with my girl Mina. The time had come and we were leaving for Vienna.

Vienna.

Time to set up camp, and then were off on a driving tour. We spent our night at a Carnival (The Prater) where a few of the family members went on a few too many crazy spinning rides and spewed in bushes and toilets. Me? No. I was too tired for the shenanigans and so I watched everyone get pale and sick. 

I slept peacefully and was ready for another day in Europe. Another attempt to fix my phone. Or should I say, another failed attempt to fix my phone. We, Flav, Mina and Aaron and I went to the museum square and sat and had coffee. All coffee'd up we headed out for a day of exploring. Flavio walked around with us and gave us our own private guided tour of the city! What a treat! We headed into St Stephens Cathedral and had a look around, it was massive, and so gothic looking. The inside was very beautiful. Cathedrals feel so secretive. Every time I go in, I feel like everyone should be silent, its almost as if the walls are whispering secrets to each other…maybe if we're quiet enough we'll hear them? 

A guided tour of the catacombs was about to start and we dived in there before we missed out. Aaron decided to stay in the cathedral and check it out some more, so Mina, Flav and I went down. Our tour guide did the tour in both German and English. His English accent was very deep and very seductive. Wow I feel like that was enough of a reason to go down!! 

Yes. These walls do hold secrets. And yes the walls do talk. They hold jars containing the remains of the Habsburg family, and there are rooms full of bones from people who died in the black plague in the 18th century. It was dark and heavy and so surreal. But totally amazing, I loved it and would recommend everyone who's going to Vienna to go! 

After the cathedral we headed to the Mozart Museum. A little bit of history for you. The house is located on Domgasse. It was built in the 17th century, originally with two storeys, and redeveloped in 1716. Mozart rented rooms here from 1784, at which time it was also known as the Camesina House, after the family which had owned it since 1720. In 1941, the 150th anniversary of Mozart's death, his former rooms were opened to the public as part of "Imperial German Mozart Week", a National Socialist event intended to honour him as a "typically German" composer (in contrast to his polyglot lifestyle). In 1945 the running of the exhibition was taken over by the Vienna Museum. Despite its apparently attractive location near St. Stephen's Cathedral, visitor numbers at the so-called "Figaro House" were relatively modest, at around 80,000 per year. 

So my experience here. Well its started off with a bit of a blonde moment, after exploring reading and learning everything on the first floor, we discovered that we were supposed to start on the third floor and make our way down. Opps. So we went up to the top and after going the wrong way around we finally figured out how to do this thing and so we did it. Properly, or well at least kind of properly. We had audio guides and so we silently made our way around. To be honest I didn't really know much about Mozart at all. I feel like I know quite a bit now. As you would if you went to a museum dedicated to his life. It was great I loved it, he had an interesting life. Spoilt and rich, it was an easy way to start his career as a musician, however the talent is raw and natural and there is no denying he is amazing. A gambler with a huge debt. A stuffed black man. Music. This guy appears to have it all. 

After the museum and reading about, and listening to all this information of classical music, I was well excited for the Orchestra I was attending that evening. We walked around together chatted, laughed and had a good time, had lunch lost Mina to an iPhone shop and made our way back to the meeting point where we would be heading off to the Schnapps museum. A few more sights to see and back to the bus we went. Aaron wasn't coming on the schnapps tour so we left him in the museum square and headed off! 

The tour was good, she told us some history and gave us some taste testers. Home time to get ready for the Orchestra in Vienna! 

All dressed up and looking smart we headed off to the orchestra. I was expecting a great big theatre

 place with tiers of seats, about 80-100 people in the orchestra, lots of fancy people, all of it. For the money I was paying, yes thats what I expected. We got there and climbed a million steps up up up so I was thinking we were making our way up to the top floor or something. We walked into the room. Yes a room, a large room with fancy wallpaper and chandeliers. And we are sitting at the back. With a bunch of heads in front of me. I look to the other Watson in the group and we cringe. What the heck is this!! A few seats on the stage for the few musicians. Disappointment rushed over me. Gutted. I was gutted. I paid euros I didn't really have but forked out anyway… for this. Im in the musical capital for goodness sake! Ok so we sit and wait. The people come in and they sit. And then they start playing. Goosebumps. Emotion. Excitement and then sadness. Romance and hate. WOW! Ok so I'm disappointed with how the place looks but as soon as the orchestra started playing they blew me away. How amazing is music, and their skill! The talent. Wow, just amazing I loved it! Cath (the other Watson) was happy and one of the other girls was even crying! They were amazing. Half time, some sparkling wine that they called champagne and the second half. It was time to head back to camp, all goose bumped and loved up I jumped onto the bus happy with how amazing my time in Vienna has been. A city full of places to

 visit, the buildings all so very beautiful. The streets clean and the people busy and happy. Romance was nearly everywhere we went. Vienna you are a lovely place.

Fact: - Josip Broz Tito, Freud, Hitler, Vladimir Lenin, and Trotsky were all patrons of the same Viennese cafe (Café Central) in January 1913. #somethinginthecoffee?

Prague, Czech Republic 

Today we head from Vienna to Prague but not before a visit to the Mauthausen concentration camp. We stopped off, the sky was grey and dark and it was raining a bit. We went inside and watched a

video for 45minutes all about the concentration camp we were about to go into. There were men and women telling their stories of survival, and also people who had helped hide some Jews who had escaped. An American solider who was apart of the liberation of the camp spoke, he was very emotional, his eyes were red and tears were slipping, images of what it looked like and the camp survivors were flashing in front of our eyes, images of the lost souls and dead bodies. It was very heavy and very emotional, a few times I had to look away from the screen, my eyes too blurry from the tears and my heart aching for the people who were taken beaten tortured and treated so horrifically. I felt sick already, and now it was time to go into the camp and see where these people lived, and how they lived. Aaron walked to the front gates and couldn't go any further, he didn't want to go in so back to the bus he went. That left me on my own. I walked the camp feeling a little bit lost. I pictured myself here and felt scared. Some people don't agree with going into concentration camps as they feel like its intruding or something like that. Not me. For me when I go into these places its about recognising what happened. For me its about remembering the people, I feel like if I was here in these camps dying and being treated the way these

people were I think I would feel like no-one cared or loved me, I think I would feel like the world had turned its back on me, so when I go to a concentration camp its me saying, I'm not turning my back on you, I will remember you! I will recognise what happened here and I will appreciate you as a human, a person. I walked into the rooms, and around the yards, I said sorry to no-one, even though I know it
means nothing. I felt like I needed to say it. I went into the gas chambers, the cremation rooms, seen the ovens they used, I seen the autopsy room and killing rooms. It was an unearthly feeling, and then I walked into the room of names. All the people killed in this camp, their names were written all over the room, on dark tables bright white names - I love this room, a room to remember. Reading some names, and thinking and remembering that person. A few big books with names, their ages all they knew about that person. It was a sad room, at the same time is was a beautiful room, a room to remember!

The clouds came together and it started to rain, heavily. Then before I knew it the thunder was roaring in the sky and lightening was flashing, lighting up the sky. How fitting. The storm was expressing my feelings. I stood under some shelter for a while before braving the rain. I enjoyed a coffee with Flavio while we waited for the others to finish up in the camp, back on the bus and off to Prague we go.

We got to Prague set up our tents, had our dinner cooked to perfection by Vytas, and headed out on a night guided tour by Flavio. Awesome tour, Prague is so beautiful at night time :). After the walking tour we headed to a pub before heading to a 5 story club, which was intense by the way. After dancing the night away I headed home for some sleep, ready for a day in 

Prague!

Prague is a beautiful city! We walked the city all day up and down every street we could walk. The buildings are very gothic and beautiful, and for a city that is very atheist there are a lot of religious statues around. The vibe in this city is a very arty, chilled one. People selling things on the side of the bridge with their little stalls and what not, amazing food everywhere you go, the smells that waft from some of the cafes are divine! I ate a lot of food here. Really good food. I have little words to describe Prague, but don't be fooled, it is by far one of my favourite cities. I love it here. I came with no expectation, I had not googled this place I didn't know what it looked like, nothing. So I was happy with what I was presented with. Such beauty. 

Berlin, Germany. 

We had a hostel upgrade here in Berlin :) 

When we arrived we had a guided driving tour by Flavio. A great tour, we seen (what's left of) the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate the Reichstag building, the Holocaust Memorial, the t.v tower, along with loads of other beautiful parts of the city. Flavio (once again) gave us loads of historic facts about this beautiful city. Tonight we chill at the hostel for tomorrows day of exploring.

Sleep.

So todays day of exploring. It was a very chilled day of exploring for me. For the third time Flavio was helping me with my iPhone and trying to fix it. I'll tell ya this guy goes above and beyond for us, its amazing! So we dropped everyone off at the third reich walking tour, and some others off at the zoo and we headed to the apple store to see if these guys can help me or not. We get there, I'll save you the boring details, but yes they can fix it, so I left it with them and Me and Flavio headed out for coffee,

we walked a small part of the city, with mainly just shops and what not, we had coffee and chilled. It was nice to hang out with Flav for the morning, it's an insight into a tour guides life. We spoke of travel and life back home. And of course it wasn't long before I needed food, always food. Kebabs and I tried my first falafel which by the way is amazing, if you ever wanna get something and your stuck for choices and falafel is on the menu, without a doubt get falafel. AMAZING. Ok. So after lunch I parted ways with Flavio and headed back to get my iPhone. Finally it was fixed :D woohoo. Time to check out my iPhone life and head back to the hostel. I was feeling super tired and I needed a nap before the night began, as you do in Berlin, we were going on a pub crawl, apparently thats apart of the 'Berlin culture'. Right. So nap time and dinner before we head out to the pub.

Two things.. so glad I paid attention to the driving tour, and so thankful it was so good as it was the only part of Berlin I actually got to see as I was getting my phone fixed all day. Secondly shout out to Flavio for being so helpful and such a great friend and helping me out with my phone, if it wasn't for you, I would have got lost and ended up back in Prague somehow.. and I wouldn't have a fixed phone! Thanks Flavio!! :)

Amsterdam, Netherlands 

So we arrived in Amsterdam and set up our tents in a cool little spot. We readied our selves and headed out for the night, off to explore a few things Amsterdam has to offer. We discovered the red light district and enjoyed a chilled out night together. Two guys that left us in Rome had surprised us with a visit so it was nice to see them and reunite :) 

The next day was priceless. We had a biking tour of Amsterdam.

 Learning the ways of biking in Amsterdam! Bikes are like equal with cars, and pedestrians they are nothing, like small ants. If your walking in Amsterdam its gonna be hard work. Your probably gonna get run over by a bike or something.. I'm serious, these people they don't stop or anything, bikes hardly even stop for the red light!! But if your biking, its a different story, life is so easy. Biking in Amsterdam is such an amazing free feeling, I feel like a bird with legs haha! Im flying, but I'm still on the ground. It makes sense. So we biked around Amsterdam with the crew enjoying the sights, our bike tour lady was dutch so that was cool too! As we biked I took in the beautiful city while enjoying my freedom feeling. The thing I love so much about Amsterdam is that, no matter where you are there is always something to look at, whether you are biking the suburban streets where rose bushes and beautiful plants grow against the houses, or if your biking throughout the town where the beautiful canals flow through, or

maybe you've gone for a coffee? There is sure to be someone playing chess or singing on the street, or if your in the red-light district…there is always something to look at there. The houses are beautiful, the city, the way it is laid out. Its beautiful. After our tour, some of us kept our bikes and headed off with Flavio who gave us a walking tour, more in depth, history and cultural info chucked at us. Love it. After that we split, everyone went off in different directions to do different things. Myself along with Flavio, Kyle,  Joel, Luci, Jess, Zoe and Mina headed off to a brewery on our bikes (feeling the freedom) we arrived, it was closed so we biked to some markets chilled, ate, shopped and then headed to a park to enjoy a cold drink the sunshine and each other. Today is my last day with the group, tomorrow they leave to London and I am staying here in Amsterdam. We chilled out together and before long it was time to head back to the bus, we're going back to camp to freshen up for our river cruise and dinner tonight. So we do that. Freshen up. And then back on the bus to the canal where we board our boat and starting cruising. We have a nice meal and some beautiful rose wine.  Chatting and   cherishing our precious last moments together. The views were beautiful. The house boats gorgeous. The night carried on into the city, bar and clubs dancing and laughing. Back home to the tents to sleep for the last time.  Up time everyone is busy packing up there tents and their bags and my life is a total mess. Ok I expected today to be hard, saying goodbye, but I seriously thought I would be fine. I did not expect to cry at all, I didn't feel like I would cry, just say goodbye and move on. I am sort of walking around aimlessly, mind blank. Totally aware that I have to pack my bag but just not able to do it. Ok, now its time to say goodbye everyones bags are on the bus and now we have to hug. My heart broke into pieces. I have become so close to these people it is unreal, I have friends for life. Its crazy I know, to think in 5 weeks we can become so close but we did, we slept together sat together, played cards on the bus together, ate all our meals

together, explored the cities together, we peed together, we poo'ed together, we showered together, everything we did, we did it together. That is the magical thing about camping. No one sits in their tents and is unsociable, we are together all the time and it was amazing. I hugged my friends goodbye. Luci my sweet soul sister, Mina Mina Mina, the kiwi girls…the cuzzys, my playa Michael. Lovely Vytas and my dear sweet friend Flavio. I have not cried so hard in my life, I felt lost as they drove away from us. Goodbye Topdeck, this trip has been the most amazing experience of my life, you guys have bought me out of my shell so much, gone are the days where I am shy! Special thanks to Flavio, an amazing tour leader, and a better friend. It has been such a pleasure meeting you. You have opened my eyes to a whole new world! You have stimulated my travel like mind and have encouraged me to pursue my dreams. Thanks for everything. I look forward to meeting you again soon.

Cya you all later!!

Amsterdam Part 2.

We spent another week here in Amsterdam after the Topdeck tour ended. We stayed with our long time dutchie friends Karina and Deborah, who we met and lived with in Australia in 2013. We explored more of Amsterdam and Aarons family came and visited us for the weekend. We caught up with two

 more of our Dutch friends we met in Australia and then it was time to go to Thailand. It was a great relaxing week after a full on 5 weeks. I was feeling tired.

In conclusion I have to say Amsterdam was by far my favourite city, like I said there is always something to look at, always something going on. 

The house boats on the river are beautiful, the people sitting on their decks painting pictures of people passing by…drinking coffee and reading the paper. The druk druk druk (busy busy busy) people of Amsterdam rushing about, but always with a smile, always happy and always enough time to say hello or help you out. The roses growing on houses, the trees lining the streets, the fresh coffee and delicious foods. Bicycles, more bicycles than people! I am in love with Amsterdam. 

Topdeck has changed me, Europe has changed me, my plans are out the window and travel seems to be the only thing I can see for the next few years. Now its time for another change, off to Asia I go for 4 months.

Pisa, Florence, Rome, Greece, Tirana, Budva and Dubrovnik

Pisa, Italy.

This was a neat little surprise for me as I had no idea that we were stopping off here. We jumped off the bus and walked through the intense heat to the leaning tower of Pisa. We were given some information, some history and all that and then we had some time to go check it out, take some pictures and chill before getting back on the bus and heading to Florence. Straight away everyone ran to the leaning tower and started taking the usual pictures. One building captured my eye though, not the leaning tower (as beautiful and unique as it is) the Baptistery stood out like a sore thumb to me. Just as you walk through the arch way, too your left there it is, BAM! 'Hi I'm a massive building with really intense detail.
The people who built me have some serious skills, check out my neck, see these sculptures of men all around, see there faces? See the emotion?' The Baptistery was speaking to me, so while the others ran off I sat down and had my lunch in front of it, I admired it's architecture and character, the men all around it, the faces. I have a thing for sculptures, they really tug at my heart, the emotion, the way the artist is able to make you feel what they are feeling, its immense! So I admired while I ate and once I felt I had taken as much in as possible and had taken the time to appreciate where I was I headed down to the leaning tower. It is a very beautiful building, its very white and elegant. the little arches all over the building are very elegant and pretty. The fact that it is leaning is a pretty cool and pretty special thing too. It was unintentional you know, they didn't purposefully make it on a lean! The foundations on one side of the tower were softer and caused the tower to lean.

After all the pictures were taken lunch was eaten and we'd taken in all the beauty one can possibly take in, we headed back to the coach, set for Florence.

Fun fact: The Leaning Tower of Pisa was completed in 1372, is 55.86m tall, and is made of marble and stone. Many methods were proposed to stabilise the tower, including the addition of 800 tonnes of lead counterweights to the raised end of the base. It was used as a Nazi observation post during WWII, but was spared from Allied artillery fire due to its beauty!

Florence, Italy.

We arrived in Florence chucked up our tents quick smart, showered and readied ourselves for our walking tour. It was hot. I don't know what the temperature was, but it was hot, it had to be in the 30's somewhere. It was a dry heat, the kind that you can feel burning your skin, we set off and 5minutes in I was already wet with sweat. We walked around and the lady talked

a lot, I heard some of what she was saying but mostly I was in my own mind. The statues were all very beautiful. Florence is known for its art. They have a lot of art museums I think. The buildings here are nice, and its a very pretty town, the river is gorgeous and there is a very old bridge with shops on it. Actually its such a beautiful bridge that even hitler didn't want it to be touched because it was so beautiful. (Hitler also ordered that no-one touch the opera house in Paris because he thought it was beautiful). The heat was immense and the tour was finishing. We met up with Flavio and headed our for some kai. Tonight was a night for karaoke, after our meal we headed into a separate part of the restaurant, enjoyed a glass of wine and watched a few people sing some songs. Flavio and the two chefs Aimee and Vytas came out and onto the stage. Brilliant. Flavio and Vytas were wearing girls clothes and

Aimee mens clothes, they sang 'Barbie Girl' it was really awful but such good entertainment. After that everyone started getting up on stage and having a go, I mean what did they have to lose right? You couldn't get any worse than what we had just heard from our leaders! We sang the night away and then headed back to the campsite for some shut eye. Our next day in Florence was a half day. We had until just after midday and then we were off to Rome. We headed into town and had a chilled out morning, coffee, relaxing and then a leather demo. After the lady tried to sell us some expensive goods half of the group headed out for lunch together. It was the most amazing lunch, I would even go as far to say it was the best meal I have ever had, and the company was spot on perfect!! At my table was Alejandro, Lui, Dora, Scotty, Joanne and then me! It was a three course meal with free wine. Perfect! We had bruschetta for the starter, it was amazing, a huge 1kg steak between three people for the

main. Our table was medium rare. Obviously the best table. Obviously the best way to eat steak!  And for dessert we had…some chocolaty coffee thing I can't remember the name of, also very nice! I don't know what happened but for some reason the entire meal we couldn't stop laughing. Something sparked us off and that was it, we were laughing for days! And when we stopped to eat Alejandro, who's laugh honestly is the most amazing, funniest laugh you'll ever hear, would start to laugh again which would set the table off again. There were tears in our eyes and our guts were hurting. It was a deep happiness and real enjoyment was had. We toasted to people who appreciate good food, we drank red wine and had an amazing time. Sometimes you need to laugh like we did that day. Such a great day, one that will stay with me forever.

Off to Rome we went.

Rome, Italy.

We arrived in Rome and got stuck in straight away. Flavio, the Italian Stallion was taking us on a 5 hour walking tour in Rome. Wow. This, this I am excited for! I really enjoy the walking tours with Flav, he keeps it interesting, chucks in a few jokes and is so informative, but not boring, no mono tone voice. It makes a huge difference to be with someone who is passionate about the city rather than someone who is just doing it because its their job, Now, I would love to pass the information he gave us on to you but try taking in that much information and retaining it all!! 

Rome. One of the oldest cites in all of Europe, with continuous habitation since approximately 1000 BC. 

The buildings here are so different. Actually something that has surprised me about Europe, call me naive, but I thought that the cites, the countries, most of them would be quite similar. I thought that the buildings would all be very much the same and the cultures not tooo different from each other. How wrong could I be. Every city, every country is so completely different from the next. The buildings are different the people, the fashion, the cultures, the religions actually religion is huge in Europe, everything is so unique to its own place. I love that. So. Rome. Everything seemed to be, so Roman, ha, makes sense right? Buildings made from fancy types of stone and marble… the spanish steps, wow really pretty! There are 135 steps all together! Flavio said if girls could walk up and down the stairs in their stilettos without falling then they would be great models, so I whipped my stilettos out of my day bag and now when I get home I'm gonna apply for a modelling job cause damn girl, I smashed them steps!! HA 

We walked and talked and Flavio pointed out loads of things, we stopped off at the Trevi Fountain, Flav flung off some facts and explained myth is; if you chuck in one coin you will be granted one wish, two coins and you will return to Rome in 3 years and three coins you will be married in one year, so take a guess how many I threw in. Its obvious right!! Two coins. I need to come back here and see more, I need more time. A country is so much more than a few cities. There is so much more to be travelled, so… two coins. We carried on to the

Pantheon, a 'Roman Temple' the inside was just amazing, it was immaculate. It is still the worlds largest unreinforced concrete dome! Very cool. Outside a man was playing and singing some Pink Floyd too, that was an added bonus.  Onwards we went, onto Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers). Here we admired both the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi and the Sant'Agnese in Agone, Flavio, while throwing out historic facts, pointed out something quite interesting, A lady statue on the building is looking away from the fountain in 'disgust' and a man on the fountain is holding his hand up like he's pushing the building away from him. I have tried to think how to explain the rivalry to you but then I think to hard abut it and I confuse myself, so read up on this, its really quite interesting, and it would be much more accurate than me trying to tell you something I know not much about. But this interested me, because like I've said before, I have a fascination with statues, art and expression. Somewhere in there we stopped and had our dinner, really nice pasta, really really nice pasta, and bread too, weird combo but it

was good, and when we couldn't eat anymore we carried on with the walking tour. The sun was beginning to go down now, we approached Piazza Venezia which was shinning a wonderful pink from the sun which was starting to go down, we admired the beauty, you know they ate a meal out of the horses belly when they completed the building! Crazy…
We carried on until we came across the Imperial Fora, ruins from way back. Julius Ceaser was the first to build in this section of Rome! It was absolutely gorgeous, the way the sunlight was sitting on it to, Rome was starting to glow. Glorious glorious Rome. I was getting butterflies in my belly, this was almost too much beauty for one to handle, you really need to experience Rome at sunset.

We carried on past the Imperial Forum until we hit the Colosseum. Im pretty sure my eyes popped out of my head. The sun was almost gone the sky a beautiful blue and the Colosseum was lit up. Glorious glorious Rome. Everyone took their photos and admired this beautiful historic building. I was feeling overwhelmed and quite tired. I was trying to imagine what this place would have been like 1000 years ago, what would have been happening, I was imagining myself in their world. It was amazing. What a tour! Amazing. Good job Flava Flav! You got this tour guide job down to a T! It was time to head home, it had been a long day, a day full of fantastic sight seeing and now my brain needed to rest for the Vatican city tomorrow!

Rome day 2. Up bright and early ready for the tour of the Vatican city. I cannot begin to describe this to you. Go to Rome and experience it for yourself. It will save me a whole lot of brain ache trying to even describe a tiny little bit how amazingly mindblowingly crazy good this place is. And I don't mean its cool because the popes lived here forget the popes, lets concentrate on the art. Lets talk about Michelangelo. The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel. Or how about The Last judgement where Michelangelo is holding the skin of himself. Feel the sorrow and pain. Remember he didn't want to do this work, the Pope had threatened war on Florence had he not done these paintings. Poor old Michelangelo was forced into it, but my word, his work is more than breath taking, its magnificent, its overwhelming, its passionate, its detailed, its real, its raw emotion! Michelangelo a true genius, an amazing artist with talent I don't think this world will ever see again. Now shall we talk about Raphael? Go to the Vatican City. 

Before I head back to the campsite to get some much needed rest I went to check out the Colosseum with Aaron and Mina. After waiting for half n hour or so we had our tickets and were inside. From the pictures I had seen I knew what to expect, but none the less it was amazing. The Colosseum is such an ancient building, with so much history. Its a crazy feeling to be standing in a place where so many things happened, from gladiator fights to animal fights to beheadings or trials. I am standing in a place where death was entertainment. I let myself feel the fear that those who were going to die that day would have felt, I pictured myself in the audience, and I was amazed again by the human race, how crazy are we?! I can see Julius Ceaser standing up in his own little pod watching over the fights, eating green grapes with his golden cape on. Whys he gotta be so tanned and handsome? The bad ones always are right! So back to reality, now I'm standing here and I'm just in everyones way while I take myself back all those years.. so I move on, we take some beautiful pictures, we walk all the way around upstairs and then again down stairs. Looking at all the tunnels beneath where the Colosseum floor once was I can't help but think of the people and animals once stuck down there waiting for the big doors to open, sometimes it was a person vs an animal, a lion or a tiger maybe. So much intense feelings here. I love this building, I love the history, I love the design but I can't shake the awful deathly feeling. Not much has changed you know, except the fact that we don't kill now, but we still hurt each other for entertainment right? Boxing fights.. cage fights… reality t.v…. Humans eh. After an amazing emotional walk around we left and I set off home by myself, leaving Mina and Aaron to check out a few more spots on there own.

I was a little apprehensive about going back to the campsite on my own, as I have told you before I'm really good at getting lost, like I'm a pro at it, so I wrote down the directions word for word and headed off. The metros were ok, I seemed to get on the right ones, and after getting a little bit lost and coming out the wrong part of the metro station I finally found the McDonalds where I was supposed to catch my bus, which was more than half an hour late.. I finally got on but had no idea where I was supposed to be getting off, so I spotted two girls with backpacks and asked if they were heading to Camping Roma, my campsite, yup they were so I was going to get off the bus with them, not long after I had spoken to the girls there was a while lot of yelling and commotion from behind me on the bus. A poor looking lady with two kids breastfeeding one of them was yelling at a backpacker, who was yelling louder back, after a bit of listening I realised the lady with the kids had pick pocketed the girl but had been caught red handed, there was a group surrounding the women and children threatening to call the police and as soon and the bus stopped she stood up spat in the girls face and ran off the bus. At least the girl got her money back right!? It just goes to show, pick pocketers will do anything to distract you, small child and cute baby, no-one would expect her to be stealing from you while she feeds her kid right? The girls who were helping me get back to the campsite informed me it was time to get off and back we went. I changed and got straight into the pool, it was so hot!! I was telling the girls on my tour about the lady on the bus and they too had the same experience with the same lady! Except my friends were the victims, lucky they caught her before it was too late! Close call. That night 9 people from our tour were leaving and 5 people were joining. We went to the bar and gave them an amazing send off, we crossed dressed laughed and danced the night away. Rome glorious Rome, thank-you for such an amazing few days.

Greece

Today we begin our journey to Greece…we jumped on an overnight ferry, we showered enjoyed the sunset and had an early night, 11 hours sleep in a real bed rocked gently by the ocean. Pure peaceful bliss! 

We arrived in Greece drove a short while and finally we arrived at the harbour, it was raining, thunder and lightening but it was still warm, nothing better than a swim in the ocean in a thunderstorm right? So I jumped in! The water was warm and refreshing, and I was alone, none cared to join me, it was nice! I got out and dressed and headed to the bar for a drink and some food while my captain and assistant captain were informed on how to sail a yacht. So heres the low down. Sailing around the Greek Islands for three days. 6 people on each boat. The top deck 'office' choose who sails together and who will be the captain and assistant. On my boat I had Jackie and Ru, Chris and Tim (Chris is the pregnant babe) and myself and Aaron. Tim was the captain and Aaron was his assistant. The main captain man himself who would help us over a radio if we needed it was briefing them and teaching them how to work the sails and everything else.

Once the rain had stopped and everyone was briefed and ready to go we headed out. We didn't sail the first day due to the lack of wind, so we had our motors on and we dotted along the ocean until we reached a nice little bay, where we docked our boats and headed up to the restaurant where we would be having our dinner. We chilled out by the pool, swam, dived, bombed made a lot of noise and had a lot of fun until it was time to get ready for Dinner. Greek food. Omg its so good. The greeks know how to make a good salad! After a night of food, fun, socialising and late night swimming (goodbye sunglasses and watch :( ) we headed to bed ready for a full day of sailing the next day. Uptime! Morning swim with Ru and Scotty to clear the head and freshen the body, breakfast, clean the boat ready for inspection and off we set. We motored out to the open ocean and we put our sails up for the first time. We were such an amazing team! We had Chris who was an amazing chef, she'll be a great mum, Tim and Aaron who did all the hard work, putting the sails up and putting the anchor down and pulling it up again, Jackie and Ru the best drivers the world has known and me, no1 sunbather and navigator. We worked so well, from the back to the front we kicked butt and over took our fellow topdeckers, our sails were perfect our driver knew exactly how to steer into the wind and me keeping our driver on track when she couldn't see. The ocean is so peaceful. We

sailed along silently we soaked in the sun, my mind was completely empty. I took the time to embrace the emptiness my mind had taken on, and fully relaxed my body. It was time to recoup after two weeks of tiering travel and late nights. We stopped for a swimming and lunch break and headed off to our next destination. We arrived, docked our boats and played some cards with the crew, when the time came we headed over to the restaurant where we had our dinner. All night I had a bad case of the rocks! I don't know what else to call it, I felt like I was still on the boat my body felt like it was swaying, actually I felt really drunk, but I wasn't at all I was sober as can be, but I was moving, in my head I was moving. We were sitting and eating our meals, and I was sure we were moving. We weren't, but I'm sure we were. We had some lessons in Greek dancing and watch some guys put a corner of a table in their mouth and lift it up and dance with it, it was a crazy night, and the Greek family who owned the restaurant were so so lovely and nice to talk to! Eventually we made our way back to the boats and rested for our last day of sailing.

More sailing, more relaxing more swimming more sunbathing more restoration. And we arrived back to where we started. Showers dinner and a night to celebrate Greece. It had been a great few days relaxing and getting to know the people on our boats better. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be, sailing around Greece, I thought the towns we would stop at in the evenings would be more busy, and maybe see some ruins or your stereotypical Greek buildings and houses, I thought the group would be all together on a big yacht not separate. Actually it was one of the things I was looking forward to the most on this trip, sailing around the Greek Islands, but it wasn't anything I expected it to be. In all honesty I was disappointed, I wanted more from the sailing than what I got, we paid for the trip so at least let us pick who we sail with? But while I say that, I had an amazing time, nothing was bad, it was awesome learning how to sail a boat completely on our own, and I did throughly enjoy the people I sailed with. We slept our last nights on the boats and the next day we cleaned up and set off for Tirana.

Tirana, Albania.

Albania is a very poor country and only just recently has opened its boarders for tourists to come and travel through. There is a lot of poverty, things are done the old fashioned way. Its almost like taking a step back in time, so for the drive to Tirana I sat up the front of the bus by Niell, our bus driver, so I could take in as much as possible. For some parts of the drive the landscape was very similar to something you would see driving from Te-Anau to Queenstown, mountains and rivers, some dried up, some fast flowing. Green then brown.. very pretty, then the closer we got to Albania, the more it turned to farm land and small towns. I seen a handful of men and women in paddocks, digging up their land and sowing there seeds all by hand, there were people walking down the main road with big wagons full of wood or food, people were walking their cows, feeding them on the side of the roads. Young boys selling food on the side of the streets to make some money. It wasn't like anything I had seen in Europe but it was very pretty in its own way. The houses were all quite small and mostly run down, locals were sitting outside the shops chatting and staring at passing vehicles. The old men had their tops off and belles out the children kicking an old ball around on the roads. People were making the most of what they had, I think, I never talked to these people, this is just what I observed from my seat in the front of the bus. Its not nice to see the poverty but it is nice to see kids kicking a ball around instead of sitting on their iPad. 

We arrived in Tirana and went straight to a driving tour, a lady, our tour guide for the drive, jumped on the bus and we got started. She started to point out a few random buildings, she never said where they were though, she just said… 'this building here…..' what building? we are moving and there are buildings everywhere, I was struggling to stay awake but was forcing my eyes open, then she pointed out a playground, some shops and a river, thats when i decided this lady was too boring and let myself fall asleep. I woke up just as she was finishing and thanking everyone for listening, I looked around and half the bus was just waking up, ok, good it wasn't just me then!! Finally she was gone and we were at our hotel, yup thats right hotel upgrade!! Yea baby! Myself Jo, Lucy and Jacinta were sharing a room so we grabbed our belongings and headed on up. Big rooms, sitting areas double bed we had it all! We only had one night here…we had dinner at the restaurant enjoyed a few quiet beers and headed to bed, tomorrow we drive to Dubrovnik. Home to Kings Landing, Game of Thrones! :D 

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Croatian and Mediterranean Pearl.

The drive to Dubrovnik was a scenic one, driving through Montenegro offered impeccable views. We stopped off in a gorgeous City called Budva for a few hours to enjoy the scenery and get some food. We walked down to the beach front, got some food, shopped for some new sunglasses, seeing as the Greek ocean ate mine, and headed down to the old city. A beautiful little area, with cobbled streets and little shops. After a bit of a wonder around we headed along a little track that took us around the coast for some beautiful pictures. Before long it was time to head back to the coach to finish our journey to Dubrovnik. Such a neat little town, a great place to stretch the legs and smash down some food. Sweet as! 

We arrived in Dubrovnik set up camp and headed into town for a night time guided walking tour of the city, not from Flavio unfortunately, instead we had a local guide who was nearly as good, but not quite. Dubrovnik is breathtaking. The town is lovely, really nice and pretty, the old town is extravagant. It is pristine. It glows of supreme supremacy! I know what you thinking, your thinking can you even write them two words together in a sentence, yes. yes you can, if your going to try and describe the old town in Dubrovnik, you can make up a sentence of only intense adjectives and put them together, and it is ok. Because Dubrovnik is that good that you can do that. After the walking tour we met up with the Italian Stallion that we call Flavio, and headed back into the old town. Walking through this place is, I wanna say magical but it doesn't seem to do it justice. So the main street, everything is a really

beautiful white-ish colour like its cream but it glows a white radiance, the ground looks like it should be an iceskating rink, its so shiny and smooth and it feels luxurious to walk on. The buildings are the same, tall and glowing, they have nice windows with a deep beautiful green coloured shutters on either side, the shutters are usually always open, which is welcoming. The street lights are coming off the buildings and they aren't a tacky blue or green or orange/fire coloured light, they are pure white which makes it feel clean and like there should be diamonds falling from the sky. The streets are glitzy! Ok so maybe this sounds really dramatic to you, but unless you are there you can't possibly understand the pure beauty this place holds. It is so clean, it smells nice and the people are beautiful. Here try this… Dubrovnik's appeal lies in its well-built simplicity and functionality :) there maybe that explains it. 

We enjoyed gorgeous wine together in the back streets of the old town, which are equally lovely. This place is a buzzing little town. 

After an amazing night together….we went to bed ready for the next day.

Today Flavio went above and beyond for me, unfortunately for me I broke my phone in Rome, it fell from my pocket during some crazy good dance moves, so Flavio was helping me find a place to repair it. So, me, Flav and Scotty set off from the campsite and walked into town, we stopped off in one shop, no they don't repair phones, so off we plodded onto the next, nope they don't repair phones either. Do they know where we can repair phones? Um maybe down the road, poor Flavio, I felt bad, I should be doing this myself!! Off we went to the next place and then the next and the next and then we were pretty much in the city centre and we couldn't find anywhere that was open or that could help. It was really hot so we stopped off into a cafe bar for a cold drink. This had to be the funniest morning I'd had in a while. We talked about needing to buy Scotty a hat, and we were good we were thanks for asking. We even talked about cats. So many cats. It sounds boring, it was one of those had to be there days. My favourite thing about Flav is his comical cat impressions, if your reading this and you know Flav, please ask him to give you happy cat, angry cat impressions. Too good! Im not sure if I'm laughing with him or at him though… haha! After some good laughs and cold drinks we headed off into town, Flavio pointed out some sweet spots for us to check out and he headed off to the island for some nude sunbathing! Haha! Thanks for your help Flavio, I'm lucky to have such a kind friend.

Scotty and I carried on, we wanted to check out the wall around the old city but because we are trying to save as many pennies as we can we decided not to walk the actual wall itself, as you have to pay, but instead we went up as high as we could and walked around the high streets of the Old Town, we had beautiful views of the houses, which are all very pretty and all have terracotta-tiled roofs all similar shades of light red and oranges.

The streets are narrow and pretty, there are little holes in the walls you have to duck through and on the other side is stunning views on the ocean, small cafes and bars are set up here, people swimming and drinking, the atmosphere is so cool. We walked through the most beautiful places and we also found a really rank, disgusting corner I wish we never went to, one thing that was nice about that disgusting corner was the cute little kittens running around!! Oh look at them, they are so…..GROSS ughhhhhhhh :( WHY!!! One of the kittens eyes was not an eye but a big ball of fleshy red stuff! It turned its head and looked right at me with its, thing! UGH, and then the smell hit me hard, cat pee, and poo, and vomit and ugh
dead end, cats everywhere, wild cats that stunk, with little baby kittens with scabby faces! RUN! We left as quickly as possible and I actually felt sick. The smell was that bad. I wanted to vomit. That was awful. Just that one small run down area infested with homeless, unloved cats :(. We had explored enough and were ready to head to an Island just off the mainland, we bumped into the kiwi girls and we all headed to the Island Lokrum together to sunbathe relax and swim. We ate good expensive gourmet pizza, watched the peacocks flash their pretty tails and headed back to our campsite to get ready for the evening. Day two in Dubrovnik, was beautiful and unfortunately it was over.

Thanks Dubrovnik, I'll be back. 

Fun Facts: Dubrovnik is among the 10 best preserved medieval walled cities in the world.

The State of Dubrovnik was among the first countries to abolish slave trade in the 15th century. It seems the country valued freedom even that far back.

Game of Thrones, Kings landing is filmed here.

Only 12 days left!! 

Paris, Swiss Alps, Avignon, Barcelona, French Riviera, Monaco & Venice.

Well the time has come to leave the UK. Off to London we went to start our European Adventure with a bunch of strangers and each other. 

We are travelling around 17 countries in 34 days starting in Paris, with a Travel Company called Topdeck. We have an Italian tour guide full of banter, laughs and a massive amount of information, an Irish bus driver who loves the bus more than the world and an amazing chef from Lithuania who seriously knows how to make great food.

France, Paris. 

We took the ferry from Dover in England to France where we jumped onto our coach and made our way to Paris. We started our time there with a bus tour around this amazing city after the tour we went back to camp and had a chilled night after a full day travelling. 

We spent our day walking this parallel, architecture filled city and after hearing so many bad things about Paris, about it being dirty and smelly and the people so nasty, I was really pleasantly surprised. Its not a dirty place at all! I barely seen any rubbish on the streets, it smelt clean and as longs you addressed the french, well of course, in french, they would help you as best as the could. The buildings were all very much square and straight and prefect and most of the time there would be a building opposite it or on the other side of the city exactly the same. The detail here was gorgeous, the shops were so fancy and the cafes were exactly like you imagine them to be! It was somewhat overwhelming. All this is so strange for me. I can't even begin to fathom how old the buildings here are, or how they made these buildings, it amazes me how the people back then made so much from nothing. The resources they had were minuet compared to what we have these days and yet the buildings they built, the castles the churches, even just normal housing are so detailed and beautiful! It just goes to show that when it comes down to it no matter what, humans can do anything if they put there mind to it. Even with such little resource. We are so much more capable than we realise. Something else I really appreciated about Paris was the amount of talent everywhere, outside the academie nationale de musique, was a man who pulled up a piano, crazy right, pulled up a piano and just started to play some amazing tunes, his passion was so intense, his whole body was playing the
music not just his hands, we stayed and listened for half an hour or so, and before long everyone sitting on the steps in front of the 'academie nationale de musique' was listening purposefully, intently, people were coming off the street and shaking his hand, it was truly amazing, it was like nothing I've seen before. That was pure talent, he should be somewhere else in this world making big money for his talent. Just down the road from that was an orchestra of about 15 people, violins, cellos, trumpets the triangle they had it all, and they were playing some real beautiful melodies, Paris was so alive! And it was such a beautiful noise, more than cars and chatter. Paris was singing.

The only down side of my day was no matter where we went I could not find snails or frogs legs! I was pretty disappointed but I had a chocolate and banana crepe which is probably better tasting anyway right?? 

I have been obsessed with Paris since I was a little kid. I was so pleased to actually be there. I needed to just sit down and appreciate it. So we made our way to the Eiffel towner and sat down in a beautiful little square with fountains in front of us and the Eiffel tower just beyond that. It was so amazing. We ended our day with a picnic by the Eiffel tower with the bunch of strangers I would soon call friends and later family. We had a stupid little introduction were we stood and said who we are and where we come from, my heart was in my throat! We had salads and good food along with snails! Finally some snails… and what a disappointment, I know they are snails, but I was expecting great things!! They were bland, tasteless and all I could think of was snail slime. Gross. Happy I ate one but wouldn't have another. Our time in Paris was ending with a cabaret show. With a glass of wine we enjoyed amazing dancing and performing acts, we got to know our group better and all in all had a fantastic night. In the morning we packed up our topdeck tents and headed to Switzerland. 

NB: Yes me and Az put a love lock on the bridge :)

Fun facts: The Eiffel tower was originally built as a temporary building. It was named after an engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel who's company designed and built the eiffel tower. It needs 50-60 tons of paint every 7 seven years to keep it from rusting and an average of 25,000 people ascend the tower every day.

Switzerland, Swiss Alps, Lauterbrunnen    

After a long drive through the country side we made it to freezing cold Switzerland. 

Switzerland is the only country with four national languages! German, French, Italian and Rumantsch. Home to the stunning Swiss Alps, Swiss army knife, Swiss watches, Swiss chocolate and Swiss cheese. Here, in the Swiss Alps, deep in a valley surrounded by mountains and waterfalls, half of the group (only two days in) upgraded to cabins! Not us though, after spending months sleeping in a camper van in -6degrees our skins were thick enough to handle whatever Switzerland wanted to throw at us. So we set up our tent enjoyed tea with the group and headed to bed after a few quiets in the bar. 

Now. Lauterbrunnen. What a magical day. A day that was never out done by any other day on this tour.Everyone was doing different things, some were skydiving, some were taking the train up the mountain and experiencing the ice cave and other places, some were going on extreme adventures, and then there was us. At first it was just myself and Aaron, we were going to spend the day climbing more mountains or alps?, because apparently no matter where I go I will be forced up another mountain, but as were were walking up the street we came across a lovely bunch of people sitting in a cafe lazying about. Flavio (our Italian tour leader) along with Jess, Zoe, Mina, Dora, Tom, Scotty, Jacinta and Jarred (the best and fittest kiwi couple you'll ever meet). We all joined up and headed down to a beautiful waterfall that we paid 10euros to see from 10 different view points……I wasn't happy with it at the start but by the time we got to the top the views of the waterfall and the surrounding landscape were just magnificent, and well worth every last cent. After the waterfall we headed to the start of the hike we had planned and sat down and had some food together. I really enjoyed this time, we sat and talked as a small group properly for the first time, people were just starting to get chatty and because we were a smaller group more one on one conversation meant we could get to know each other better. Me and Aaron talked about the horrific time we had in Toobeah (most of you remember that story, crazy times) Flavio told a brilliant sort about himself, which i'd love to share but I'm not sure I'm allowed? We laughed some talked some and then chucked our day bags on and headed straight up this beast. 

So. Im walking right. With Jacinta. Ive just met this chick, okay she's fit and sporty and chatty and just a really nice girl and I'm talking about the things we've done mountains we've climbed and slowly I'm starting to stop talking, like she's talking and I'm dying. Im fully out of breath and I have to just own it, I couldn't talk anymore and so on she went. And then Scotty was with me, oh hey, hi yup, yup, yup, look I'm ruined can't you tell?? I can't talk!! Leave me alone! Im sweating too by the way. Its really hot and I'm sweating and I'm dying. Along comes Tom. Oh hey Tom! Yup he's sweating. So am I. We're sweating together and neither of us are really talking, but he still over takes me. I think somewhere in the distance I can hear Flavio's stupid Italian accent say something like "what are you 90, hurry up" so because I'm not 90 I pull every inch of energy I have together and I over take Tom and reach Flavio with Scotty Jacinta Jarred and Aaron, the kiwis. (Aarons a kiwi right?) We did it! We made it to the first resting point just us kiwis, keeping in mind this resting point isn't even half way up the mountain and actually it was hardly even a resting point, we left like 2 seconds after stopping. And just like that I failed, I had pulled all my energy together to reach the leaders and now I was dropping like a fly, they were gone, the footsteps were distant and then silent I could hear the girls behind me and decided to stop and wait, eventually they caught up and we walked together. One of my favourite parts about this day is Dora. Kiwi bliss she is! She was struggling up this track, really struggling but she was doing it. Myself Jess, Mina and Zoe encouraged her and pushed her and we spent a while just walking together enjoying our time together encouraging each other and, really, getting to know each other on a while new level. Dora Dora baben Dora! She nearly gave up so many times but from somewhere she just kept going. It was a really nice thing to feel like I was a part of her achievement being there encouraging her. We were about 30min from the top when Flavio came running out from nowhere (you should see him run, he's like a horse. Italians are like that.) He was coming back and him and Dora were heading back to a place near the campsite where Dora was catching a flight for a scenic helicopter ride. After such a feel good buzz with Dora, myself and the girls cranked it, we caught up with the others and pushed our bodies as hard as Dora had pushed herself. We made it to the top and the views were unimaginable.

The mountains were towering over the small valley, the tops covered in snow, the blue sky was a magnificent blue against the white of the snow, the edges were jagged and so beautiful in a killer way. Everything about the view was perfect. We all sat down outside and chatted about how great life was over a beer. Then it was time to go back down. We went down the opposite side that we came up, there had been a few landslips around the track creating a few obstructions, a few posh travellers wearing fancy leather shoes decided to give it a miss, not us though, were campers right? and turning back would mean re tracing a lot of steps. Steps were important by this point. Steps were effort and we'd given nearly all of our steps up. So turning back, it wasn't an option. We made a plan

of attack and together as a team we made our way across the slippery landslip that had denied so many people already. As the last of us faced the dangerous landslip that was trying to block our way, we joked and laughed that there would be another one around the corner…. hahahahaha…. yep there was another one. Like i said earlier, were campers, we stare death in the face! No challenge was big enough for us on this day and as a team we made our way up and down and as a team we drank and we celebrated and had an amazing time! 

Switzerland was a place full of laughs and memories and challenges. Switzerland a place that I will never ever forget! 

NB: The people who upgraded to cabins…. great idea, we should have done that, it was freezing in our tents!!

I think I forgot to mention that I told Aaron we didn't need sleeping bags. We did need sleeping bags. I had to buy one, and Aaron decided to go without. He was cold a lot. Whoops.

France, Avignon

Avignon was a quick stop over in a cute little campsite. We spent one night here. Flavio gave us a guided walking tour around the city and afterwards half the group had dinner together. Pizza. Always pizza. 

There is some pretty interesting history about the popes staying here in Avignon instead of in Rome. Seven different popes lived in Avignon and it wasn't until some Gregory pope guy decided to head back to Rome. I think it was something to do with the French crown? And I think maybe something bad happened and he had to leave…? Don't quote me on this, the amount of history in each country and different cultures I had to take in was extensive. However I do remember very clearly that the buildings were all very pretty, lush even, and the layout of the city was very pretty and petite like someone had purposefully put the buildings in a cute little way for me to admire. Actually it was very
French, when you think what a little French city should look like, you'd picture something very close to Avignon. Which makes sense, because Avignon is in France. Yes. 

After our history lesson and our fancy expensive pizza we sat by the beautiful river and watched the sunset, enjoyed a wine and slept perfectly. This tour was starting to really impress me by this stage.

In the morning we packed up and headed out to Barcelonaaaaa

Spain, Barcelona. 

We arrived in Barcelona late afternoon, we were in a hostel this night! Free upgrade!! Always a good moment. 

We started our time in Barcelona with a driving/walking tour around the city and then dinner out withlevel of architectural design, character and meaning, it was outstanding. And a building most people believe to never really finish. This cathedral has been under going re construction for years and years. In some parts of the building it almost looks like it is made of candle wax, the way the building is put together, the materials used, its very cool. A special place for sure!
the group. After a good meal and some chit chat and a half an hour Flamenco show (it was over priced, over rated and was supposed to be an hour) we headed to one of the best clubs in Barcelona, don't ask me the name…. it escapes me ha. We spent the night dancing away. After a restful sleep in a real bed the next day we headed out to explore Barcelona and all it has to offer. Jacinta Jarred Aaron and myself walked for days, all around the harbour and through the streets we seen amazing street music, people selling hats and cheap phone covers for your iPhones, they were selling sunglasses and t-shirts on sheets, there were massive fresh fruit and meat markets selling all sorts of things, including chicken feet, and heads! Gross. We discovered the different types of architecture on the buildings, and omg the La Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, now that is a whole new level of
architectural design, character and meaning, it was outstanding. And a building most people believe to never really finish. This cathedral has been under going re construction for years and years. In some parts of the building it almost looks like it is made of candle wax, the way the building is put together, the materials used, its very cool. A special place for sure!

We walked all thought the park which was very pretty, the colours were unreal, the grass was heaps green and the sky way blue which made everything in-between look super pretty, I love the way sun makes things look nicer! There was a little pond in the park which people had small boats on and were paddling around, people were sitting in these little bays with seats, reading the paper or their books, people sitting and smoking or chatting. It had such a nice chilled out feeling to it and the people, they looked really sophisticated, and if they didn't look sophisticated they looked so hippie or travelled, it was like one extreme to the other, yet the city didn't feel divided, it was a real cool feeling. There was a really nice building in the park, just beyond the pond, it looked like a monument, it was gold with fountains in front of it, it was very beautiful! Just up the stairs in the middle was a couple dressed the part dancing salsa or something equally beautiful it was really romantic and just added to the feel-good-feel Barcelona had already given us. After hours of 'feeling' the city and seeing all the beauty we could fit in, in one day we headed to the beach where we met the others and chilled out, we watched some beach volleyball and got the beachside feel for the city. I love this place. I could live in Barcelona. The side streets and shops are so beautiful and once you reach the less touristy parts of Barcelona you can start to see the prices drop, and actually the people get nicer the further out you get too. Great city.

We ended our stay with a bang, the Barcelona vs Atletico Bilbao Copa del Ray final was on and there were fans everywhere. It made for a great night out :)

France, French Riveria, Nice

We had a cute little campsite with heaps of space for everyone here, the showers were good and we even had free wifi!! A true delicacy. Our first night here we enjoyed a thai green curry (honestly our chefs were amazing) and then popped down to the beach with the family and had a sangria party. We enjoyed the nighttime views of this gorgeous beach, played some guitar, sang some songs and headed to bed to rest up for the next days adventure.

The next day we explored the wonders of this magnificent, rich town. We walked the streets up and down, we found an amazing graveyard full of these huge headstones, some of them were even little
rooms and had doors with small shrines inside for the dead. These gravestones were seriously impressive, and hundreds of hundreds of years old. They must have cost these people a lot of money. In saying that Nice is a very wealthy town, full of millionaires and celebrities, so of course these people can afford to show off, even when dead! We carried on to a gorgeous view point that looked over the ocean and the city, full of fancy yachts and high speed cars and lets not forget the mansions! The layout of the city against the water… it was really nice. After a full day of wondering around enjoying the markets the food and the views we headed to the beach where we found the rest of our family. We chilled out for a while, swam in the freezing cold water and then headed back to camp where we rushed to get ready for the Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco. 

Monaco

We had very few minutes to get ready but we managed to make ourselves look half decent, we drove around the bay and enjoyed the views, we stopped for dinner at a nice look out point, took some cracking photographs and carried on our way. We stopped at a perfumery which taught us all about the noses of france and how they make perfume, some people brought some and others didn't. Me? No. It wasn't very nice smelling in my own opinion, give me some Rihanna Reb'l Fleur any day! After this we headed to Monaco where Flavio gave us a walking tour of a small part of the city, we ended up at the palace, and had an awesome view of the Monte Carlo Grand Prix. Soon after we were at the Monte Carlo Casino, half of us went in and the other half went into a different casino, one they didn't have to pay an entrance fee into. It was very beautiful inside the Monte Carlo casino. It was all so dramatic and… rich! There were chandeliers everywhere, and rich people just throwing hundreds of euros on the table and loosing, and just throwing more out, like it was nothing, just some pocket money, it made me feel ill, I didn't even want to play with 5 euros!! Flavio ended up winning some dolla dolla bills but other than that no-one won anything. At the end of the night when we re-joined the other half, we discovered the other casino was the place to be, with a bunch of people more than tripling their money! Lucky for some. We jumped onto the bus, drove the Monte Carlo Grand prix track and headed back to the campsite in Nice.

Italy, Venice

This campsite is where its at!! Free wifi again, a POOL, a restaurant and bar and a shop onsite!! The showers even had charging points. Its the small things that we learn to appreciate. Our first night here was a good one, we dressed up in our Italian colours and partied together. 

Venice has been one of the places I have always wanted to visit, ever since I was a small child and knew the place existed. My day in Venice revolved entirely around getting lost, being lost and eating Italian pasta, good pasta with good olive oil and the best garlic, not to forget the chilli, never forget the chilli!! Our morning was fantastic, we had a walking tour by Flavio, he was so passionate about this place, its quite close to his home town so I think he was trying to impress us. It worked anyhow! After our walking tour we watched some crazy cool guy make the coolest horse out of glass, like he

just pulled it out of this fire thing, and it was glowing red and he just twirled it on the metal stick while pulling random bits out with these tweakier things and before we knew it, it was a horse, mane all crazy front legs in the air, tail all bushy and pretty. Then he stood it up on the wood and lay a piece of paper on it, and the paper burst into flames!!! Everyone clapped and walked to the next room and he chucked the horse back in the fire. All the while I'm sitting there with my eyes open massive like a gold fish, mouth gapping open like, what the heck just happened!! That was amazing. That will stay with me forever. After the speech and show about how they make glass ornaments we went back out into the sun and headed towards the gondolas. 6 people per boat and we headed down the canals. Venice is just as beautiful, if not more beautiful from the water. after our amazing ride on the water we headed off on our own to get lost in Venice.
Luckily for me and Aaron I'm great at getting lost, I have no navigation skills whatsoever. So we got pretty lost, a lot lost actually, we were running through these walk ways that kept leading to the water, just water no way out it was like a maze for 45 minutes we kept ending up and the same two squares and somehow for a long time we couldn't get out, until we finally did, no thanks to me. And then we got lost again, we just couldn't find the main square, so I embraced the lostness, I wandered the city of love, I seen the buildings and I appreciated them, I swooned over the beauty all around when crossing the unique little bridges, I touched the walls and dreamt of
the people who created such a lovely city. I ate pasta and drank wine, and then wandered around some more. I ate gelato ice-cream and sat by the ocean. I embraced the heat of the sun and got lost in my own little paradise of Venice. After a full day appreciating all things good, we made our way back to our meeting point on a water taxi, we sat behind a lovely, true Italian lady, mid 30's maybe, she was tanned and blonde and she was speaking of how Venice is in the summer… she was soo Italian and she was so beautiful, the way she spoke and held herself, such a nice person, like she was cool, I wanted to be her. When the people match the city you've just fell in love with it's a really nice thing. 

Back to camp we went, showers all round and then some good italian wine and food.  

Fun Facts: 

The city has an average of 50,000 tourists a day and has 409 bridges. 

You can only drive to the outskirts of the city, fro there only boats and your feet can transport you around.

The boats can fill up with petrol on the water, they have pump stations on the edges of the wharfs and service men who do the work so they don't have to leave their boat.

During the 20th century, when many artesian wells were sunk into the periphery of the lagoon to draw water for local industry, Venice began to subside. It was realised that extraction of water from the aquifer was the cause. The sinking has slowed markedly since artesian wells were banned in the 1960s. However, the city is still threatened by more frequent low-level floods that creep to a height of several centimetres over its quays, regularly following certain tides. In many old houses, the former staircases used to unload goods are now flooded, rendering the former ground floor uninhabitable. The idea is to fix a series of 78 hollow pontoons to the sea bed across the three entrances to the lagoon. When tides are predicted to rise above 110 centimetres, the pontoons will be filled with air, causing them to float and block the incoming water from the Adriatic Sea. This engineering work is due to be completed by 2016.

The buildings of Venice are constructed on closely spaced wooden piles. Most of these piles are still intact after centuries of submersion. The foundations rest on plates of Istrian limestone placed on top of the piles, and buildings of brick or stone sit above these footings. The piles penetrate a softer layer of sand and mud until they reach a much harder layer of compressed clay.