Miscellaneous events of November and December

Having been a bit slack on a) the uploading photos front and b) writing blog posts, here it all is in a big jumble to round out 2008.

We had visits from Bronwyn and Steve from London and Stina from Sweden. It's great having visits because we can do all the touristy things we've been saving up to do for ages! My number 1 favourite would have to be the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, it's a definite must-see if you come and visit.

I also went to London for a study day with my class to meet people from SustainAbility and the European Bank among others. Another trip to London happened because of a gathering of all the Commonwealth Scholars - it was so interesting to meet people from all around the world and see the flash insides of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office - very swish although no photos allowed I'm afraid, you'll just have to get invited to something there yourself!

Christmas was a great time to spend in Oxford too. The covered market was absolutely bustling with Christmas trees, what seemed like thousands of turkeys and dead boars/deer hanging up most days too. The highlight though was the Mummers Play that we saw after an intense game of Risk at the Bookbinder's pub in Jericho. It's a tradition dating back to medieval times and was great fun.

The random collection of photos are here.

Weekend in Cardiff

A couple of months ago we went for a weekend visit to Cardiff to visit Adrian's friends John and Jen and to watch the All Blacks take on Wales at the Millennium Stadium.

We started off with a quick jaunt around Caerphilly Castle, home of the legendary leaning tower and where the grand hall was all set up for a wedding. Caerphilly cheese is pretty famous too (apparently) and succumbing to the temptation of buying something in the gift shop, I can now report that it is very delicious and highly recommend it to all!


We got back just in time to watch the England/South Africa over some pizza and beer in central Cardiff. It was very difficult to know who to cheer for - we couldn't cheer for England while in Wales, and it's always hard for a Kiwi to cheer for SA! But thankfully that was over quickly, and a quick spray paint on the cheek of a silver fern later, we were in our seats and cheering the All Blacks on. It's always great to see the haka live and this one was particularly good as there was a long stand-off between the two teams afterwards - who says it's meaningless these days?!


Wales started the game with a hiss and a roar, which was great for us as we'd been told that the Welsh fans only sing when they're winning - we got an earfull alright! But the boys did us proud, coming back to win 29-9.

And, as with all good Antipodean fixtures, it was a crazy small world as Lucy from school happened to be sitting on the very same row as us! Was great to catch up and marvel at how 'small world' it always is. A few celebratory drinks and a wander down Cardiff's infamous 'Chippy Alley' rounded off the night.


Home James the next day - but herein lies the cautionary message of this post. Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT be tricked into getting the bus from Cardiff to London, then the train from London to Oxford to get home (instead of the train straight from Cardiff to Oxford). I don't care how expensive it is to get the single train, a two hour journey versus an eight hour marathon is definitely worth it!

The rest of the photos here.

Blenheim Palace

In early November, Adrian's brother Dominik and his fiancee Nikki came up and visited us in Oxford for the weekend. One of the things they had on their list to do was Blenheim Palace, which is about 30 minutes on the bus north of here. Unfortunately we visited on one of the worst days we'd had in a while so most of our outdoor exploring was limited! I also realised the negatives of my extremely cheap Primarni padded coat - rather than repel water it literally sucks it in through the seams, great.



But enough about my coat! Blenheim Palace is pretty incredible. It's a World Heritage Site and unlike most of the UK's stately homes, is not managed by the National Trust which makes it pretty different inside. Rather than preserve all the rooms as they would have been previously, they've created this incredibly high-tech and interactive tour that leads you through the house and gives you a brief history of its previous inhabitants. It's most recent (and probably most famous) was Sir Winston Churchill and there was another exhibition in another part of the house detailing his life.


The gardens were absolutely stunning as well and we will definitely be heading back there during summer for some picnics and exploring. We caught the last of the Autumn colours (through the rain)
although I know that all the North American students in my class would definitely look down their noses at it compared to what they get back home!


The link above (and again here) gives a hugely detailed run-down of the history, construction etc. of the palace and is well worth a look. The rest of our photos are here, so enjoy!

Port Meadow

Before it all got completely submerged, back in late October we went and did a bit of exploring around Port Meadow which is a massive open space/common grassed area near to our house. There are some horses, allotments, completely wild areas and lots of grass. It seems quite strange to me that these type of areas exist - there's even mention of being able to graze your animals here in the Doomsday Book!


During summer the whole area is grass, but slowly (and then a lot more rapidly!) it gets wetter and wetter until now (December) it seems like there's a huge lake in the middle of it. The allotment that I'm working on with some friends from class is on the edge of it, so I've been spending more time there lately - and hopefully more when the weather gets better!

More photos here.

St John's bops

A 'bop' is one of the bizarre Oxfordisms that you have to get used to around here - not using them would be worse than trying to get people to understand the accent! A bop is basically a party at a college bar or common room and has a theme (with our without dress-ups). Each college generally has two or three bops per term, ours were 'Heaven and Hell' and 'Jungle' themed.

We were a devil and St Peter for the first one at my college (home made costumes thank you!) and as Adrian was in London for the second one, I was a bird of paradise for the second one - although maybe the beak that I made looked more like Gonzo than a bird!

Hope you enjoy the rest of the photos here.

Matriculation

We had the matriculation ceremony for the 2008/09 freshers on the 18th of October - think graduation except in reverse! We have to wear sub fusc with our gowns which made us all look like penguins (and the girls look like some sort of errant country western singers with velvet ties).

Ok, this is all sounding a bit random so I'll explain the day as it unfolded. Matriculation is the ceremony whereby you enter as an official member of your college, and thus the university. It's normally held in the Sheldonian Theatre, which looks pretty splendid, but as that's closed for renovation at the moment we had ours in the Exam Schools (which was also pretty fancy). We all met at 9am at college (my college is St John's) and then signed the register to make it all official. One of the college Fellows (senior academic members of the college) gets to use his privilege of walking on the beautifully manicured lawns - which are strictly forbidden for the rest of us mere mortals! After that there was a whole lot of waiting around for our 10.30am ceremony...

Finally we were on the move and headed off down the road to the Exam Schools. Having my own personal paparazzi was brilliant - but he wasn't alone! Apparently Oxford on matriculation day is pretty popular with tourists and we had quite a few random groups of people wanting to take our photos! Bizarre...

The actual ceremony took about five minutes. One guy says literally two sentances in Latin and that's it! But, just to pad it out a little, we had a speech in English as well to explain the point of what we were doing. Unfortunately I managed to explode into a coughing fit as a result of my 'freshers' flu' so didn't really catch most of it...

And then it was over! Hope you enjoy the photos - there are heaps more here.

New photos of Oxford

Here are some new photos of the first few weeks in Oxford - enjoy!

Field trip to Dorset

As a way of the MSc class getting to know each other, the deparment organised for us to all go down to Dorset for the weekend (as I mentioned in the previous post). There are about 35 of us so it was good to get everyone's names sorted before we had to start debating things in class!

We went to the Isle of Purbeck and during the charming English rain, freezing cold, and horizontal wind, we visited Corfe Castle, Tyneham, and Kimmeridge Bay. It was all about how we conceptualise landscape and we spent many hours discussing things like 'what is nature' (ask yourself - it's actually pretty interesting, or that may just be the geek in me...).

It was all very quintisentially English, with lots of autumnal blackberries to munch on, and old pubs to visit. Anton Oliver is actually in another one of the MSc classes that the Geography department runs and so it was a bit of a shock to look up from my cornflakes to see him there the first morning! Tried not to be too star struck though...


The class is a good mix of people, about one third or a bit more from the UK, a decent sized group from the States and Canada, and then us odd balls, like an Australian, Russian, Indian, Irishman, and even a Mongolian! Considering that 63% of all postgrads at Oxford are from outside of the UK I think we're doing a pretty good job of sticking with the statistics.

Here are some more photos of the weekend!

One year as a student…

So, we’re here in Oxford. It’s as pretty as everyone says it is, although I have to admit my (Amelia) adventuring has only extended so far as my college (St John’s) and the supermarket! We will definitely have to go on a walking tour or something. I’m sure we’ll have all the inside knowledge before too long.

Autumn is in full swing here. The leaves are falling and swirling everywhere and are in every colour from deep greeny black through golden yellow and a rich ruby red. I’ve collected one every day so far and am hoping that they dry out and retain their colours. The lawns however are beautifully manicured and a lush, bright green. Probably because no one walks on them! These are the trees at the entrance to our flat but I'll take the camera out soon and see what other pictures I can get.
We moved into our flat with the extremely generous help of my friend Debbie who drove us up to Oxford on Sunday. It was pretty easy to find and is about 10 minutes walk from the centre of town. St John’s is on the way into town (as is our new local, the ‘Royal Oak’) so it’s perfect. The flat itself is really big, loads of storage and furniture galore. We’ll invest in an air mattress or something so come and visit! It’s a block of flats called Hart Synnot House and houses graduate students from my college. There’s a lovely communal lawn which should be great for next summer and is lovely to look out on in the meantime. It even has squirrels!

It’s funny thinking of all the things that you take for granted when you move into an established flat though – we have no chopping board, grater or sieve for example! Adrian’s all about trying to get things for free, so luckily there’s a great Freecycle group in Oxford that I’m checking out. Hopefully it has stuff we need soon! (Freecycling is basically listing what you’ve got that you don’t want and people come and collect it – and it has everything you could possibly think of!).
I got my uni ID card today too – so there’s no backing out now! I’ve also been inundated with information – only a day after thinking that I didn’t know enough about what was going on… There are all sorts of freshers events and whatnot this week and next week to keep us busy and meet some people which should be great.

I’ve also got a field trip on Fri-Sun with my class (the 29 other people who are doing the MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy) down to the Isle of Purbeck on the south coast. I’m looking forward to seeing who else is in the course and meeting the lecturers etc. (how geeky does that sound…).

Adrian’s started the commute this week too – it took over three hours to get into London this morning! Yikes. Hopefully he can convince his work to let him work from home…

So there you have it, the first installment from Oxford. More reports as events warrant!

Wisiting Welly

It was like I had never left...

While Adrian was making the big bucks in London, I decided to make a short sojourn down to our nation's capital to see how everyone was doing. And I had a great time! Big ups to Kate and the (current and ex) Hataitai massive for welcoming me back; I would move back into that flat in a second if there's ever a room going and I'm in Wellington!

Kate and I went on an 'urban safari' to Cape Palliser to check out the seals (and the lambs, hawks, black cows, fat sausage dogs etc.). It was a gorgeous day and the fush and chups at the Lake Ferry pub rounded off the adventure nicely.

I also went back into work to say hi which was rather random - it was so similar that it felt as if I should be sitting down at a desk rather than just sitting in the kitchen drinking wine, but there were definitely lots of new faces that made me realise just how long I'd been gone. It also made me appreciative of my current job title, 'Lady of Leisure', and all the fun that having no plans on a Thursday entails...

The rest of the week was filled with wining and dining at various locations around town (including an absolutely delicious cassoulet, and tips on what the best thing is to order at yum cha, courtesy of Andrew). My bank balance is looking a bit poorly compared to my stomach!

Other highlights were the Rita Angus exhibition on at Te Papa at the moment and the swing on Mt Victoria that I had never known about! It was about time it was discovered though - it was absolutely HEAPS of fun (as Mark, Tom and Kate are showing).

Here are the rest of the photos.

Wet and wintery

After however many days of brilliant sunshine and nearly 40 degree heat, it’s back to winter for Amelia. (Although it’s only about four or so degrees colder than London I might add).

The main thing about this winter, after the brilliant, best in 60 years NZ summer, has been the vast, copious, massive amounts of rain. Auckland has had 10 wet weekends in a row and here’s what that looks like:

And if you thought the puddle looked bad, here’s what it looked like a mere five minutes later:

This weekend coming is supposed to be fine - bring it on I say!

And then it was over

So there you have it. 112 days of tripping around Europe, each about 5200 euros poorer, but a million photos richer.

There were too many highlights to mention them all, but I know that the Blue Grotto in Capri and the whole of Corsica would have to rate right near the top (or as Osun, our tour guide for Gallipoli would have said, they were some of the 'top best' things we saw). So if anyone needs hints about where to go on their next European adventure just give us a call!

Stay tuned for more adventures during the next 12 months at Oxford...

Eastern and Northern France (and don't forget Luxembourg!)

It's the final countdown...da da da dum...dum de dum de dum...

That's right, it was the last week of our trip. As I'd said, we had some more days left on our Eurail pass and so it was off to a region of France that neither of us had properly visited - the East. We based ourselves in Metz, which is the capital of the Lorraine region, and had a hostel with a kitchen - it's the simple things I tell you. Metz is home to the best stained glass in Europe - the cathedral St Etienne is literally filled with incredible glass art, from the Gothic and Renaissance periods, right up to some fantastic windows done in the 1960s by Marc Chagall. They also had a lot of pieces in museums in the region where you could look at them really up close and see all sorts of detail that you wouldn't otherwise know was there (like the expression on this guy's face).

We also spent a day in Strasbourg making use of the wonderful French institution whereby most museums are free on the 1st Sunday in every month. I for one was well over museum hopping by this stage, but our last two in Strasbourg - the Museum of Notre Dame with lots of sculptures and other pieces from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, didn't let the side down and were a good way to finish. Strasbourg felt really different from the rest of France, the German influence was everywhere, and we made the most of being so close by tucking into some delicious gingerbread...mmm...

Day trip #2 out of Metz was to a whole other country - Luxembourg. We succumbed to the lures of the city card yet again and went on a three hour walking tour with Henriette who was the town gossip and, as well as showing us the main sights like the Golden Lady (below) and the cathedral, told us all sorts of stuff that I'm sure wasn't on the official programme! Luxembourg used to be one of the most fortified cities in Europe until they dismantled nearly 90% of the fortifications to ensure peace. The remaining 10% that remain are mostly open to the public so we had all sorts of fun wandering around underground trying not to take a wrong turn! The city also had the most incredible patisseries that I have ever seen - must be something about the melting pot of European influences, but I wanted to eat everything in sight - pity the budget wasn't in harmony with the stomach...

Last day trip, #3, was out to Verdun to visit some of the WWI battlefields and memorials. We hired mountain bikes in Metz and braved near vertical hills to look around at everything (ok, they weren't vertical, but they felt like it!). It was really nice to get out in the countryside and see something a bit different.

Our final stop was in Lille for two days so I could show Adrian my other home town. It did as it always does and rained nearly non-stop, but we still managed to see the citadel, go to the zoo, look at some markets and, as no trip to the north would be complete without a trip to Flunch, eat so much food that we were nearly ill. I never thought there would be a limit to how many frites Adrian could eat. Turns out I was wrong...

The rest of the photos are here.

Ou se trouve le Louvre?

So, it all came down to this. All those weeks of travel was working up to the city of all cities - bring it on Paris!

Sterling Air did a stirling job (ahaha) of chauffering us into town, and in conjunction with the wonders of the RER and metro system we made our way to Clichy, our home for the next week (and one of Paris's largest hostels). Armed with the trusty Lonely Planet we did a walking tour through Montmartre, visiting Sacre Coeur and checking out the overpriced souvenirs, then headed out to Pere Lachaise cemetary to see Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison etc. It's such a serene place, you could just wander there for hours, and some of the monuments are so beautiful.

But we were here to see everything we could in the shortest amount of time (I don't know how long you would need to give Paris justice, but I see new things everytime I go, so our stint of five days was definitely not enough) so on day two we headed into town to join a free tour of Paris. Free tour you say? Well, you pay what you think it's worth at the end, and after seeing the Pont Neuf, Louvre, Grand Palais, Petit Palais, Tuileries gardens, Champs Elysees etc. etc., let's just say we decided to part with some of our (rapidly diminishing) euros. But we were not sated! So that afternoon we crammed in a visit to the Arc de Triomphe, a wander through some gorgeous back streets, and of course, a trip up the Eiffel Tower. 

That night we joined up with a pub crawl run by the same people who do the free tour, met heaps of cool people, had more than enough of the free vodka orange shots, and (incredibly) negotiated the Parisien night bus system to make it home safe and sound. At least, that's what I think happened...

Day three dawned incredibly hot and sunny (again) and so after a visit to Notre Dame we motored on out to Versailles to eat iceblocks, dip our feet in the ponds and lie around in the stunning gardens. We also thought we had factored in just enough time for a visit inside the chateau, but were unceremoniously kicked out early - hint for young players, it is ginormous, overwhelming, and will take way more time to see than you think!

After a day out of Paris it was time to get right back into the action so after visiting more gardens, watching some serious boules competitions, and spending way, way too much money on the most delicious macaroons ever (La Duree macaroons are unbelieveable), it was off to Le Louvre. I (Amelia) was desperately keen to see the collection of Northern European art, as it was closed the last time I visited in '99. So of course, it was closed again the day we went as well. Sacre bleu!! But, to make up for it, we saw the Egypt collection, many, many, many paintings, Napoleon III's opulent apartments, and a little old painting of a brunette.

We had originally planned to be jetting out of Paris that night, making some more use of our Eurail pass while we still had money to afford to eat, but being August, all the Eurail pass seats were already booked. One more day in Paris - such a chore! Luckily we found some stuff to keep ourselves busy, namely, a visit to the Catacombes de Paris which was just so eerie you couldn't keep it in your mind that you were walking through tunnels of real bones, and a visit to the Hotel des Invalides. The latter is where Napoleon I (Napoleon Bonaparte)'s tomb is, as well as that of other luminaries such as Vauban and Marechal Foch. The complex also plays host to the National Army Museum which would have kept Adrian amused for days, but the SNCF waits for no man, so it was au revoir Paris and bonjour Metz!

For more Paris photos, see here.

Malmo and Copenhagen

From the comforts of being looked after by Stina (and her Mum and Dad) to the comforts of being looked after Stina's sister (Matilda) in Malmo. It was great to be able to relax in a house with some luxuries of home life again - a kitchen with a fridge, and a nice lounge with state of the art surround sound and DVD player.

Malmo is home to the tallest building in Sweden, the 'Twisting Torso', and some great museums. We spent our time looking around the beautiful town and went to the beach for a bit of a dip. A series of the museums have the one entry ticket to them all. We decided to hit up a couple of them.  The Science and Technology was a real find, they had a submarine you could look around, and a whole floor of hands-on exhibitions to explain different scientific theories. I'm not sure what we learnt but we had a great time playing on different games. We left with the high score for the geography game, (as you would hope with a Master in the team).

Watch Amelia on the oversized piano, again not sure what we learnt other than don't give up the geography.

Malmo is connected to Denmark by a 7.8km bridge, which takes you to Copenhagen. In the water under the bridge is a wind farm, good luck getting that past resource consent in NZ. We spent a couple of days looking around the town, seeing the Changing of the Guards, the Palace, the Little Mermaid, and the Calsberg factory. The port area which was also very beautiful (and expensive). 

The Bodies exhibition was on in Copenhagen so we decided to go have a look. It is amazing, they have all these real bodies that have been disected and preserved in all these different ways so you can see how the different parts of the human body works. It helps to not think that you are actually looking at someone's insides.

That was our time over in Scandinavia, after a great night sleep at the airport it was off to Paris.

Nybro and sailing in the archipelago, Sweden

What other way to travel than first class? After months of travel in the most economy class of economy class, travelling first class on Swedish rail was absolute bliss. Stina booked our tickets well in advance, which meant that a student fare and a ticket on first class was the same price - definitely something to remember if you're ever planning a trip to Sweden!

So, on our way from Stockholm down to Nybro we made full use of the giant seats, free headphones, OJ, coffee, tea, and fresh fruit. Spoiled us for all future train travel I reckon. We were heading to Nybro to see Stina's Mum and spend a few days in the countryside. She still lives in the house where Stina and her sisters grew up and we (again) were absolutely spoiled with delicious home cooking including one of Stina's favourite dishes, raggmunkar, which are potato pancakes served with bacon, cottage cheese and lingenberry jam. Yum!

We also visited the local history museum which included farm and house equipment that had belonged to Stina's family. Looking at all the old wringers and everything makes you glad that Fisher and Paykel was invented that's for sure! The weather also continued to be gorgeous so there was lots of sitting outside drinking home made cordial and reading books...

There's an end to all good things though, but this time it was onto something equally as good - two days sailing around the Karlhamn archipelago in southern Sweden with Stina's Dad. We cruised out past the million kroner homes (that used to be fishermen's huts) and stunning scenery, and then were lucky enough to get a bit of wind once we hit the edge of the islands so we could do some 'real' sailing. We anchored up for the night and then in the morning explored the island, picking our own blueberries, attempting to feed wild sheep, and checking out the biggest anthill I have ever seen! It was absolutely gorgeous and we were all even brave enough to have a swim in the chilly Baltic - although I don't think any of them lasted for more than 30 seconds...

Next stop, south to Malmo. (And here are the photos again if you missed them from the last post).

Photos of the South of France

Bonjour! Here are some more photos, this time of the south of France: Nice, Marseilles, Nimes, and the Camargue.

More soon!

Stockholm

Now, everyone knows that I (Amelia) am normally a very organised and detail-loving person. Adrian, on the other hand, is not. The events of our first night in Sweden clearly show how much we are rubbing off on one another...

So, the plan was that my friend from uni, Stina, would come and meet us at the train station before taking us back to stay at her place. This would have been fine and dandy apart from the fact that a) our flight was delayed half an hour, b) our bags got lost for another hour, and c) I gave Stina the wrong day that we were arriving... (Yes, that third point may be the most important I agree).

I won't go into too much detail, but suffise it to say the youth hostel was booked out (only 10 minutes before we arrived at 1am I might add) and we ended up sleeping behind the Ethnographic Museum with a view of the Royal Palace. It gets light in Stockholm at about 3am but we persisted in our snooze till 8am when the threat of coming across passers by became a bit too real! Many hours, lots of internet checking and a few phone calls later all was well and we were safely ensconsed in the luxury of Stina and Vasco (her boyfriend)'s apartment.

Seeing a place with a local is the best way to travel. Stina showed us round her neighbourhood (an ecologically friendly, design heavy area near the central city) and then we did the tourist thing together and got a boat tour around the canals. She also wouldn't let us spend any money and we were treated to first class dinners courtesy of Vasco (including reindeer stew...mmm...) and packed lunches! It was so lovely to be able to see her again and we've concocted all sorts of plans for future European travel so it won't be so long between visits next time.

We checked out the Nobel museum and learnt all about the laureates from a booming voiced guide named Olaf, looked at a Lonely Planet funny signs exhibition, and watched the changing of the guards. Adrian has rated it as the best changing of the guards he has ever seen (and he's up to about seven so far) and the fact it went for an hour and included a gigantic marching band on horseback definitely rated it up there - I challenge you to watch the video and say if you've seen a better one!

Here are the photos of the whole of Sweden and Denmark as well, enjoy!

Bordeaux

Bordeaux was originally planned to be a one night wonder before we jetted up to Stockholm. Fortunately plans changed and we stayed for two - Bordeaux was brilliant!


Planning paid off and our idea to ring and book at the youth hostel meant we got into one of the most popular places in town - it was completely full the whole time we were there. It was excellent having a kitchen again too, so we filled ourselves to the brim with pasta and loaded up on the free breakfast (well...included in the price) each morning.


But enough about food.


Bordeaux city has undergone extensive renovations in recent years and is currently bidding to become the European capital of culture for 2013 - they´ve got our vote! The city has a flash new tram system (which we avoided due to previous negative connotations from Nice) and the longest pedestrian shopping strip in France - 1.2km of pure temptation. The buildings were just beautiful and the water sculpture right on the river front which is basically where the pavement comes to life and starts squirting and spraying water at everyone. It was heaps of fun - the rest of Bordeaux thought so it seemed too, the place was packed! Although that is also explained by the fact we are right in the middle of high season...no more cheap and available all the time accommodation that's for sure.


No trip to Bordeaux would be complete without heading out into the surrounding area to check out some vineyards. Eschewing the kind offer of a 90 euro/pp guided tour, we got out the trusty Eurail pass and headed out to St Emilion, where there is something like one wine shop for every eight inhabitants. It was full of windy, cobbled streets and had great views out over the vines. We weren't really in the market for a St Emilion grand cru or anything like that (any single thing that costs over a day's budget is a bit out of our price range), but we did get into the swing of the wine tastings. The wine is about 70% merlot in that region, so it wasn't really something you can drink too much of on an empty stomach! We rounded off the day with a visit to St Emilion's underground passageways, catacombes and vast church.


Our last day in France saw us head off to the Dune de Pilat - the largest sand dune in Europe. It was 2.5km long, 500m wide and 117m high - and growing! It sure felt that high when you were climbing back up it, but it was definitely worth that (and all the sand in your knickers) to give it a good roly-poly down!! A short swim off the Atlantic Coast later and it was off to the airport to say 'hej!' to Stockholm.

Lourdes

From a religious festival to one of the most religious places, some may have thought we were on a pilgrimage ourselves. We had already seen the Pope and tonnes of churches. Our arrival in Lourdes was met with some of the heaviest rain we had seen since Turkey, so plans had to change. We got a cheap room and had to forgo the campsite, but proceeded to sleep for the next 14 hours. It is dificult to beat a good sleep, and that was a great sleep.

The blue sky to which we had become accustomed woke us up the next day and we started our own little pilgrimage around Lourdes. This year is the 150 year anniversariy of the apparitions of Our Lady to Saint Bernadette, so the town was decked out and they have placed a trail around town for you to follow important places in Bernadette´s life. The fountain she was baptised in, her house, the cave where the apparitions occurred and the oratory where she recieved her first communion.

We jumped on board the trail, but what we were struck by was the number of elderly and ill that were also on the trail. Many were in trollies being pulled around by nurses, friends, family, or Scouts. Most the sights are unimpressive except for the Grotto, which has a massive church built above it, and has thousands of candles that have been left burning as offerings.

Every day they have a procession of the pilgrimages and a torchlight procession, which ends up in the Church of St Pious X, a massive underground church that can hold up to 25,000. No, the ´0´ key has not got stuck. It was huge!!!

There is also a fountain where you can fill your container with water from the grotto. It tastes nice, but we did come down with a cold a couple of days later, so we can´t vouch for its healing powers.

The next day the Tour de France pulled into town. After a fair amount of time scoping out just the right posy, just after a corner so they have slowed down, with a long view afterwards, we staked our claim, pulled out cushion and waited two hours for the caravan to arrive.

The caravan is all the sponsors of the Tour, who dress up their cars and throw free stuff to the crowd. We were in the mood for some free stuff and our position did us well. We walked away with: three hats, a bag, 2 bottles of water, 2 packets of lollies, a packet of salami, 2 keyrings, a lanyard, a sunglasses cleaner thing, a couple of french newspapers, and some blowhorns. Most of which was swapped out for an impressive Skoda hat which has the date and stage on it. Well worth the trade.

We then sat and waited for another hour for the cyclists to come through and then twenty seconds after that we went home... All and all a nice day in the sun. The locals gave something to watch and we have a nice selection of hats.



That day happened to be Bastille Day and the town was putting on a pyro-symphony, that is, fireworks to music. Now we are becoming quite the connoisseur of fireworks and this was the first time in Europe that they had played music with the big booms, which was nice as it had come up on our score sheets a couple of times. It was one of the best displays we have seen!!

After a hard day of sitting around watching things, it was off to sleep to get up early for our train to Bordeaux.

Pamplona!!

Bulls, alcohol, red scarfs, alcohol, red neckties, alcohol, white clothes, alcohol - this basically sums up the San Fermin festival in Pamplona, more commonly known as the Running of the Bulls. I had thought that it would mainly be centered around the bull run, with some other stuff on the side, but the bull run could be seen as an event on the side - there is just so much going on every second of the day!

We had planned to get to Pamplona by train at about 1am on the 10th of July, rest in a park, and then get up early for the bull run the following day. However, while eating dinner in Hendaye on the French side of the border we saw a bus that looked like it was heading to Pamplona at about 7pm - racing over we chucked our bags in the boot, paid the much cheaper fare, and got to Pamplona just under two hours later in time for all the fun! Left luggage was a ridiculously cheap 3.50€ so we partied for a while, getting all kitted up with the right gears (check out the photos here), until we found a cosy possie in the park for a few hours sleep.

They had said that to get a good viewing position you needed to be there about two hours in advance - pish we thought - but they were right. I still managed to get some good photos through other people´s legs though! Adrian will ball you up in the corner when you next see him with his version of the run...

That night we headed out to Estella ("Stella!!! Stella!!!") to our campsite we had reserved literally months in advance thinking that any and all accommodation would be completely booked out. What we hadn´t realised was exactly how far 45km out of the city was... But it had a great pool and we relaxed heartily in preparation for day two of our San Fermin adventure the following day.

Back in the city we checked out some more fireworks (video to come), followed some more marching bands, walked through some markets, and (best of all) went to the fun fair! Dodgems and candy floss are such a good combination...

We had planned on doing the whole sleeping out thing again, and I was a bit concerned about the fact it had started to rain, but then we met some locals and the whole night changed. Oscar, Vanessa and Benjamin were Pamplona locals who had never done the bull run ("much, much too dangerous"! They obviously only considered ´really´doing it if you were practically guaranteed a hospital stay), but went out religiously every night to paaaaaar-tay! They were heaps of fun, so friendly, and took us to the most crowded locals bars (known as penas) you could ever imagine. They also showed us the local´s drink: red wine and coca cola...go on, give it a nudge!

We ended up staying out all night and because we couldn´t find a spot to watch the run the following day, Adrian convinced me to actually run it... We arrived so far in front of the bulls into the ring we got booed. So no, not close to the action at all! (And wouldn´t probably go so far as to say I ´ran´ it either...)

So after all the excitement we got our weary bodies onto a bus and headed back to France. We are clearly getting old because that one night of missed sleep meant we went to bed at 4pm that next day and didn´t wake up until about 9am... Ok, Adrian has just informed me that it was actually more like 30 hours without sleep so maybe we can keep our reputations intact, just this time though.

Provence

Provence, land of sunflowers, English retirees on a year´s adventure, more Roman ampitheatres than you can shake a stick at, and of course, us on holiday.

Provence was also the home of day one of use of our ridiculously expensive Eurail pass - the saga to break even on it is ongoing as I write, wish us luck... But, day one got us from Nice to Nimes, via Marseilles. We originally had grand plans of going to Nimes to drop off our stuff before heading back to Marseilles, but considering the train went through Marseilles, we were lucky enough that left luggage facilities still existed at the train station (post Sept 11 a lot of the left luggage facilities in French rail stations were closed down, only the major stations still keep them. The Marseilles facility had some pretty hard core scanning systems as well).

We decided to go as touristy as possible in Marseilles, mainly due to the fact we decided to get a ´Marseilles Card´ and so wanted to make the most out of our money as possible! It also included a ´petit train´ which is something that all self respecting tourists visiting France have to do at least once on their travels! The train got us up to the Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde, high up on the hill overlooking Marseilles, and protecting the city from all manner of baddies. The inside of the basilica is covered with tiles thanking Mary for saving their lives etc., as are the walls outside.

After tootling back down we got on the ferry out to l´ile d´If, the setting for a part of the story of the Count of Monte Cristo. It houses the citadel which was where several political prisoners were housed, as well as (albeit briefly) a rhinoceros.

Marseilles ended with the greasiest kebab so far, and a 3km hike through town and up the hill to the hostel in Nimes - one of the few that had a campsite and a kitchen (heaven in our eyes...).

The following day we headed to the Gard river for a kayak excursion, and a chance to finally test out the underwater capabilities of Adrian´s new camera. The Gard river is, you guessed it, the setting for the Pont de Gard, an impressive Roman aquaduct 275m long and 49m high.

It was heaps of fun to get out in the sun and kayak down the river, including some jumps down off some (very) large boulders into the river. It made for some deep sleep that night as well as some tired backs and arms the following day!

But, as hardened travellers, we decided to fit in a day trip for our last day in Provence - the Camargue, here we come! The Camargue is a huge area on the coast of Provence and is the delta for the Rhone River. We went looking for pink flamingos and came up with salt pans instead. It was a long and somewhat fruitless day, made even more exasperating by the fact we had been given the wrong bus timetable to get back into Nimes that night - meaning that we missed our night train and to even get back to our hostel had to go an hour and a half in the wrong direction in order to eventually get home that night... Argh!!!! But Andy, the fantastic owner of the hostel, and (gigantic) pig George made it all better by giving us free dinner and a glass of wine - the Nimes YHA definitely makes the cut for favourite hostels now!

The next day, finally, we were off to Pamplona...

The French Riviera

Continuing our grand tour of the Mediterranean Coast, we arrived in Nice, which unfortunately, turned out to be not so nice after all... It is a subject that we are not to speak of, but I think I am allowed to share that it involved the new tram system and a 20€ fine each. After that, we pretty much avoided Nice centrale...

Our ferry had arrived a bit later than anticipated, and the bus to our campsite at Cagnes-sur-Mer took forever, so we arrived closer to midnight than one would have liked, but it would have been much later than it would have been apart from the exceptional kindness of a couple of locals who saw us looking in bewilderment at the map and who drove us up to our campsite. And who said the French are unfriendly?!

Day one back on the mainland saw us heading to Grasse, the undisputed French capital of perfumery (obviously this day trip was Amelia´s idea). It´s up in the hills behind the coast and surrounded by fields of flowers, although we stuck to the centre of town. They have a lot of perfume factories offering free tours (aka, pre-shopping propoganda) such as Fragonard where we were so kind as to exchange some of our hard earned euros for some smelly water. It was only after we left the shop that we remembered the 10% off voucher in our pocket...

After Grasse we hopped back on the bus to Cannes to mix with the beautiful people. With our new fragrances we fitted right in...

The following day Amelia went to Monaco to get a stamp in her passport, watch the changing of the guards and admire the flash cars outside the casino. The afternoon was spent at the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary chapel created by Matisse in Vence and at the Maeght Foundation which is a private art museum and garden in the hills of Provence. Adrian had already spent time in Monaco so went to the Nice modern art museum, for a swim at Cap-d´Ail, and strolled along the Promenade des Anglais. We are clearly becoming very cultured and interesting people...

La Corse

Our original plan had been to spend two weeks in Corsica, but it got progressively shorter and shorter as other places looked more and more interesting... And because of our short foray into Bosnia and Herzegovina we had to lop a few more days off again until we were only left with about five nights for the whole of Corsica.

We needn´t have worried...

Corsica is practically impossible to get around on public transport (as in, "No, there are no trains today, you´ll have to wait until tomorrow"), so even if we had had more time I doubt we would have seen much more!

But what we did see was absolutely gorgeous. So far it would be the first place that I (Amelia) would go back to with no hesitation at all - and that´s saying something that it actually lived up to the hype (I have been wanting to go to Corsica for literally years and years).

It started off with a mad rush for the ferry in Livorno, Italy, but once we boarded our luxury cruise liner (dance floor, free snacks at the bar, deck chairs included), we were definitely on Corsica time. We arrived into Bastia on the eastern side of the island at the top and headed pretty much straight up ´Cap Corse´ to a place called Pietracorbara. Being dropped off by the only bus that day to a campsite that was several kilometres away was a bit nervewracking, but as always, it all worked out in the end. The place had a giant pool, incredible value meals, and was definitely the cheapest place we had been for a while!

The following day we tried to go for a hike - it was, after all, the main activity we had planned for Corsica. However, despite the routes being ´marked´on the map (and yes, those quote marks are definitely intentional), we failed miserably to find anything remotely ressembling those illusive squiggly lines. Undeterred we crossed barbed wire fences (they leave quite deep holes in soft legs if you were wondering), marched steadily uphill, crossed rivers, scared a herd of goats, got completely entangled in tea-tree like bushes trying to find the road, and ended by having to cross a friendly local´s backgarden to finally make it back to civilisation. Eventful to say the least!

Heading back to Bastia we had ideas of going to Corte in the middle of Corsica before we headed back up to Calvi to get the ferry to Nice. It was not to be (see above...). We nearly ended up in Ajaccio because we didn´t realise that we had to swap trains halfway through the journey, but a mad dash from one to another and we were on our merry way again. The train trip was pretty incredible actually; they were these really rickety trains that went right through a series of jagged peaks and dense bush - will have to get a better look next time!

When we finally got to Calvi it was a bit of a shock, there were so many campsites and so many people, but completely understandable when you find out that the beach is 4km of golden sand with water so warm it´s like a bath. It was the first place that Adrian got into the water without taking about half an hour to ease himself in...


It was so nice to have some real ´holiday´time too after some pretty hardcore sightseeing in Italy, even though we managed to fit in a bit of citadel viewing and a visit to an exhibition of the French Foreign Legion (they have an alpine unit that was appealing to a certain Mazur). As I said, the beach was FANTASTIC - it effectively nixed any and all thoughts of doing any further walks! I´m trying to cultivate laziness as a virtue instead of a vice (Mum I´m sure you´re having a great laugh reading this, people never really do change their spots much do they).

Corsica gets a 10 out of 10 in my book. Photos on the next disposable camera!

Next stop, mainland France (bring on more croissants).

Cinque Terre

The Cinque Terre is a UNESCO World Heritage site in north-western Italy that is home to a series of quaint villages, great swimming, gravity-defying agriculture, and of course (being Italy) lots and lots of tourists.

Between the villages there is a train, but being hardy travellers we opted for the 12km walk between the network of beaches. It was pretty much a stroll in the park though, apart from a couple of pretty steep ascents and the fact that it was absolutely sweltering - I think we got wetter doing the walk with all the sweat than swimming at the beaches!

It was somewhat similar to the Amalfi Coast, but the walk goes right through the villages so we stopped off and had lunch and two swims at the 'beach' (concreted area right to the sea).

While we did the walk we stayed in a town called La Spezia that had a big wine and food night market/festival thing going on while we were there. We couldn't quite work out the system of how you go about buying a festival wine glass, but considering we could understand that it would cost something like 10 euros for each glass of wine we quickly gave up on that idea!

So overall, I think we did Italy relatively well (well, the middle of Italy at least). Highlights would definitely be Rome, Capri and Matera for Amelia and the Blue Grotto in Capri, Umbria and the Cinque Terre for Adrian. But there's lots more to see next time (bring on Venice) so as the coin in the Trevi Fountain says (or is that Arnold Swarzeneger?), we'll be back!

Pisa

Yes, the tower really does lean.

Florence, Italy

After a couple of days relaxing in Umbria, we were recharged and keen as mustard (or should that be pizza) to get back into things, having the worst behind us - or so we thought. Florence had more tourists than Rome, and there was little escaping them, or the inflated prices that inevitably followed. Those tour guides must have some pretty strong arm muscles as they stride through the city at a pace of knots, holding up whatever umbrella, bread stick, or flag they happened to find, trailing sweaty, crazed looking tourists in their wake...


We arrived on their Saint's Day, which was effectively a statutory holiday. We didn't manage to get tickets to the medieval football in the town square, disappointing at the time, but less so as we realised how much money we would have handed over in the heat of the moment. We did however catch the half hour fireworks display, which went off with a bang!


Florence hooked us quickly back onto the museum trail - discovering all sorts of queues. One tour that had no queue though was for the secret passages tour of Palazzo Vecchio, the city hall. It was surprisingly fascinating as we walked up stairwells inside walls and through doors that looked liked walls and cupboards. It was then up to the Duomo to look at the ceiling frescos up close and then onto the dome to get a view of the city, spectacular!!!


After another night at our brilliant campsite right in the middle of town (ok, not so brilliant after walking up all the steps to get to it at night, wonderful in the morning on the way down), we got up at the crack of dawn to get a glimpse at da Vinci's 'David', which is actually worth the hype. They also show about half a dozen half finished creations that lead up to the finished product, so you really see what geniuses these masters were to get such creations out of a block of stone. David is also surrounded by many other fine pieces of work which don't get given the justice that perhaps they deserve (seasoned art critics that we are).


From here it was off to the Uffizi Gallery, to see room after room (that was not closed for the restoration), of famous and amazing artwork - more works by Botticelli, da Vinci, Titian, and Tintoretto (to name a few) than you could shake a stick at. Even trying to pace ourselves it was impossible to retain much enthusiasm towards the end, but as it was our last classical art gallery until Paris we did our best! Commenting on the styles of the various tour guides was an interesting diversion (there was one Australian girl who spoke at her group like a strangled duck and was so agressive in her questioning (was it perhaps an oral exam for these poor, unwitting tourists?) she had spit flying in every direction...).

After another night of overpriced pasta, and a luxury sleep in the tent now that we had found a second thermarest to sleep on, we bade farewell to Florence and headed off to Pisa.

No photos yet, we'll all hang out together in anticipation of disposable camera #2!

Haiku for Florence

Swelteringly hot,
Florence, your art overwhelmed.
Fireworks go boom!

Chilling out in Umbria

Between the helter skelter of Rome and Florence we decided to chill out for a few days in Umbria, Tuscany's lesser known cousin. We were on the Lago Trasimeno where we stayed at a hostel which lent out free bikes, had a pool, hammocks, free internet, a guest kitchen - bliss in other words!

But, as good travellers, we squeezed in a bit of time for some sightseeing to Perugia (Umbria's capital) and Assisi (of St Francis fame). Assisi was all about the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, which housed some famous Giotto frescoes that Amelia had studied at school.
Perugia was shut on a Monday, which was when we arrived. It has a GREAT mini-metro though, like something straight out of the movies (try this link for a video of it). Made our day basically!

More time in the pool followed, then back into the hecticness that is Florence.

Photos finally!

We finally found a one hour developing place and have got our photos developed - oh the excitement! (And no, I'm not exaggerating...).

They're all here for your viewing pleasure - enjoy!