Friday, August 31, 2007

Stonehenge and Bath

Yesterday I took a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath.

The visit to Stonehenge was really interesting, learning about its history and surroundings with an audio tour. We were lucky to get reasonably nice weather, windy but not raining :) (apparently it's quite often raining out there and being such an open and exposed site walking around in the rain would not have been fun!)

Bath was really lovely, unfortunately we didn't get a lot of free time to explore the city and see all the attractions that Bath has to offer but did get entry into the Roman Baths which was interesting.

Got to see Bath Abbey from the outside - didn't have time to look through but have seen my fair share of Cathedrals through Europe to last me a while ..

The River Avon and Pulteney Bridge with all the shops and streets around it reminded me a bit of Italy, parts of Florence and Venice.

Bath has some beautiful parks and gardens and a pretty good main street for shopping! It would have been nice if we had spent longer in the city to see it in more depth but the couple of hours we had there was worth it.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Photos

Various photos taken over the past few months

http://picasaweb.google.com/njshew/London?authkey=yk-6GEonsTU

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Europe Unplugged

Spent three weeks travelling Europe and had a great time. My three week Europe tour started in London and took us through Paris, Lyon, Nice, Monaco, Florence, Rome, Vatican, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Munich, Liechtenstein, Lauterbrunnen, St Goar and Amsterdam.

Highlights for some of the places we visited -

Paris - The Louvre, Notre Dame Cathedral, Arc de Trumph, Eiffel Tower and eating snails

Lyon - A lovely picnic lunch

Nice - Beautiful beaches and a great punch party

Monaco - Casinos

Florence - Stopping at the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa and wandering through Florence

Rome - St Peters Bascillica, Colloseum, Roman ruins and the best pizza

Vatican - Sistene Chapel

Venice - Gondola down the canals and an awesome toga party

(I found cobb crunchies, also known as tatties in Italy!!! This was so exciting, even better than finding lays - you can buy them in big bags like chippies oohhhh sooooo good, like pringles - once you pop you can't stop!)

Vienna - Schnapps Museum, Massive theme park and Orchestra concert

Prague - Loved this quaint little city, shops, babuschka dolls and puppets everywhere

Munich - Beer halls, steins, sausages, pork knuckles

Lauterbrunnen - Jungfrau Mountain and Ice Palace - hot chocolate has never tasted so good after being in a complete white out at the top of Jungfrau

Had a great night in Switzerland, for dinner we had massive sausages, they might even beat the size of the sausages that Amy, Rodney and I had in Chch!! And, I found a beer in Switzerland that I actually enjoy and had a few with dinner!! Eve beer, litchi flavour - shame that Dave, Vince and Geoff weren't there to share in this moment with me ;) !!)

St Goar - Cuckoo clocks and Hermie the crazy German who made our stay at the campsite an interesting experience

Amsterdam - Clogs, cheese, red light district, coffee shops

I'm now a little more tanned, maybe a few kg's heavier thanks to all the baguettes, crepes, pasta, pizzas, icecream, strudel, sausages, tatties etc we ate, glad to have a bed to sleep in again and a little over camping for a while but it was all fun :)