Final Day in Paris

Friday 26th February 2010:
Well today was my final day in Paris. I woke up, had breakfast, checked-out and then headed straight to the Louvre to spend the day there.
Arrived at the Louvre at about 10.30am and was able to get through the security fairly quickly, then ticket line was pretty small as well, I guess there are advantages of coming to Paris in winter time. Spent the rest of the day there until about 3.30pm when I left, sat in the gardens outside the Louvre for about 30 odd minutes before making my way back to Sacre Ceour to grab dinner at a restaurant, and then spent a bit of time in the hostel chilling.
Now about to head out to the bus station to grab my bus back to England. Should be fun and will more than likely sleep most of the way out there.

Goodbye Paris for now, may we met again in the future sometime.

A slow quiet day in Paris

Thursday 25th February 2010:
What can I say, I went for a quiet and short day in Paris today and got it.
In the morning I went out and did some laundry as I was running out of clean clothes, so this took up about 1.5 hours including folding and walking time.
I then ventured out into the city and went to visit the Catacombes. Quiet and interesting and a little eerie place, but overall well worth the entry price and walking distance to see all the bones down there.
I then made my way out to the Cemetiere du Pere Lachaise, where all the famous people are buried. I found and visited the graves of Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde and Choplin as well as seeing all the other graves and monuments to the deaths of those who died in various wars and the Holocaust victims.
The most interesting part was on Oscar Wilde's monument where it states that "He died fortified by the Sacraments of the Church"
After visiting the Cemetery I made my way back to the hostel to relax and rest and try to upload photo's and to pack my bags ready to leave tomorrow.

Paris day 3 - gypses among other things

Wednesday 24th February 2010:
Well another morning and day in Paris. Woke up eventually and just in time for breakfast, then headed slowly out. Not in a rush today at all.
Started out again near the Notre Dame, but instead made my way along the riverside towards the Louvre Museum.
Walking towards the Louvre Museum I received my first ring guy for the day. By this I mean that he bends down and pretends to have found a "gold" ring just on the ground. Of cause it's obvious that he hasn't, but the first one you go along with and I ended up giving him 2euro for the effort. Of which he was wanting 4.50 for lunch and I told him to go to a supermarket and buy lunch for 2Euro because that's what I was going to do.
Was looking at going in, however thought I'd leave it until Friday when I had a full day to do it. So instead I headed up the Champ de Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe.
Did the free version of this instead of paying their wanted fee to go up the top of the Arc and get a good view of the city (figured I'd leave that for the Eiffel Tower.
From the Arc I again went down to the riverside and walked all the way along until I got to the Paris version of the Statue of Liberty. Much smaller than the American version, but just as good looking.
My second encounter with the "gypse" ring guys was at the start of the Champ de Elysees where a younger guy again tried to give me a ring he'd just found on the ground. I showed him the other one I'd already had and he still tried to get me to buy the other one off him. I told him no and kept walking.
My third and final run in with these guys was on the bridge near the Statue of Liberty, and this guys effort was the poorest of all 3. It was a last minute thing where he though I might just go for it, but unlucky for him 1 I'd already had 2 guys before him try the deal, and 2 I say the ring just sitting in his palm as he went down to the ground to pretend to pick up the ring. I promptly told him that I'd already seen it and we both kept walking in our different respective ways.
From there I wandered back to the Eiffel Tower where I spent the next 4 hours in and around the tower. I decided to walk up the stairs to the 1st and 2nd floors which cost 4Euro less than taking the elevator, and was well worth the walk. The line to get in and pay for a ticket was a lot smaller as well and I only had to wait about 1 minute for my ticket compared to at least 30 minutes if I'd wanted to go the elevator up.
Eventually made my way all the way to the top of the eiffel tower, where I must say it was extremely windy. And by that I mean that on the west to south side of the eiffel tower it was really blowing a gale to the extent that it was extremely hard to stand in one area without being blown around.
Lovely views from up there though and I got photos of Paris in both the day and twilight times.

A return of the single walking tour

Tuesday 23rd February 2010:
Woke up this morning at around 8.30am, went inside the hostel (my room is on an attachment on the outside of the main building) to grab some breakfast (croissant, glass of milk and 1 roll (not feeling very hungry).
From there I grab a banana I'd bought the day before and headed out to book my euroline bus back to London (leave late Friday, travel overnight and get into London Saturday morning around 6am I think).
From there I caught the Metro into the Cite station, where Notre Dame is near to.
From the Notre Dame and the archelogical crypt, I wandered around the city down pass the Sorbonne, then the Pantheon. Then over to the Palais du Luxembourg, then down and over to the Observatoire de Paris. From there I wandered through the Cimetiere du Montparnasse over to the Tour Montparnasse (but they wanted 10.5Euro to go up to their observation deck so I passed on that. Onwards from there up to the Eglise des Invalides and took in the tomb of Neopleon and the war/armory museum. Had a look at the 1st and 2nd WW exhibit, and was going to look at the pre-WW exhibit however it was closing time, so from there I wandered up to the Grand Palais and on to take a distant photo of the Arc de Triomphe, before catching the Metro back to the hostel for dinner and a well deserved rest.

End day 2 in Paris

An afternoon in Paris

Monday 22nd February 2010:
Woke up early (6.30) for a very early start to get to Paris. Caught my bus at 8am and headed on my 4 1/2 hour journey to Paris (with 1 about 10 minute stop after about 2 hours for a rest break).
Arrived into Paris at 12.30pm, then made my way very easily out to the hostel in Montmartre (north of the Paris city centre). Spent the afternoon wandering around and seeing the sights in and around the district/village of Montmartre.
Visited the Sacre Couer Basilica, the St Pierre Church, the Moulin Rouge district and theatre (again I find myself in near a red light district and was propositioned to go into a few of the venues for a free 5 minutes just to look around - didn't because I didn't want to - however the ladies pretended they didn't understand what I was saying, although I'm pretty sure that they did.
Met an older French guy (I think his name was Aundre?) at near the Sacre Coeur who started chatting with me about Montmartre and Rugby and then took me back into the St Pierre church, where I'd already been and showed him the photos'. But he insisted I take a few more photo's of specific items.
We parted ways, I went to take some photo's of Paris in the twilight before heading down to the Moulin Rouge to get a photo in the night time, followed by heading back to the hostel to have dinner.

Thus endth my 1st proper day in Paris.

Off to enjoy some Belgium Waffles

Saturday 20th February 2010:
Up in the morning around 10 am, to cheak out of the hostel. Went to visit the Van Gogh museum before heading back to the hostel to grab my bags and head to the bus station to catch a euroline bus to Brussels.

Unfortunately the buses aren't that regular and so had to wait at the eurobus office until 2.45 before being able to get on a bus to Brussels.
The trip was fairly uneventful and not much to be seen from the highway the bus takes. Arrived into Brussels at the north train station, then headed on foot following the directions given to the hostel.
Checked into the hostel, made my bed, then grab some pizza for dinner before heading back to the hostel to relax, write this blog, upload photo's and get some sleep for an early and long day on Sunday in Brussels to see the sights, and buy my bus ticket to Paris for Monday.

Sunday 21st February 2010:
Woke up early thinking that I'd need most of the day to see the Belgium and European capital Brussels. How wrong was I, by 3pm I was back at the hostel taking a break. However I did get to see nearly all the major sights in and around Brussels (except for their Arc De Triomphe - couldn't be bother to walk all the way down to see it.

Instead I spent the day wandering mostly by foot, but I did catch the underground train out to the Atomium - 1950's architectural masterpiece. I grabbed myself a Belgium waffle for lunch as well as my obligatory keyring in the image of the Manneken Pis.

Starting to wish I'd only decided to stay one night in Brussels and headed out to Paris tonight instead of tomorrow morning - but oh well, what's done is done. Head off to Paris at 8am Monday morning, to arrive by 12.30pm. Should give me time to check into the Hostel, before going out to see the sights at the Sacre Coure Basilica.

Last night in Amsterdam

Friday 19th February 2010:
Spent the day with the 7 Spanish people who are also in my hostel room. Went out to the Heineken Brewery to do the Heineken Experience tour, where we got to sample 2.5 beers (but only half pint size not full sized), as well as the opportunity to purchase a bottle of Heineken which was personalised. I got one with my name on it for £5.

After that we went for a stroll back to a cafe they Spanish guys wanted to visit - a traditional Amsterdam Cafe - called Cafe Atlantis (the name of one of the magic mushroom varieties). Spent some time in there before heading out for some food (the Spanish are really prepared for everything as they had some sandwiches already made and shared them with me), while we wandered down a market street. We parted ways at the end of the market as Iwanted to go see the Anne Frank house.

Disappeared on a tram to go see the Anne Frank house, however there was a massive line up and I really didn't want to wait for an hour or so to see the house, so instead I got back on the trams and made my way down to the Sex Museum. Pretty interesting albeit quite graphic and mostly of mid 19C porn pictures etc.

In the evening I joined up with the Spanish in our room again for a few drinks, before heading out for a party night. However I got tired of walking around looking, so parted ways again to grab some chips, and then head back to the hostel for some sleep.

The world of 2 Dam's

Tuesday 16th February:
Woke up to buy the last couple of things before heading to the train station to go to Liverpool for my flight. Once at Liverpool airport the security check-in line was long, however apparently not as long as it had been as it was Mid Term break and so everyone was catching flights out.
Flight to Amsterdam was uneventful and eventually made my way to the hostel after getting mixed up with their directions once off the tram.

Wednesday 17th February:
Woke up for a day of exploring Amsterdam. Nice city although very very cold. Started the day with a breakfast of banana pancake (plate sized). Followed by a walk around the city including a visit to the Rijksmuseum. Quite an interesting museum, although a little expensive at 12.50€.

Thursday 18th February:
Up early this morning (8.30am start) to make sure I caught a earlyish train to Rotterdam. Train journey was nice, but I wasn't able to see much scenery as it was fairly foggy and mostly miserable. Rotterdam is an very interesting city with a cacophony of architectural types.
Spent the day either in an office (meeting a recruitment agent there) or on a tram going between stops and sights. Good thing I had a day ticket.
Eventually came back to Amsterdam at about 5pm arriving at about 6.30ish to walk back to the hostel (found part of the red light district, but it was pretty ordinary and dead while I was walking down it - will head there late Friday night to see what all the fuss is about).

To Tunisia and return:

Sunday 7th February 2010:
Woke up early to catch a train at 8.30 to get us to Gatwick Airport at just before midday. We booked in and went through and waited for our plane to be called and boarded. The flight to Tunisia was fairly uneventful with a little bit of turbulence, but not a lot.
Arrive into Monastir, Tunisia were we went through passport control, but being Tunisia and me being Australian I had to wait for them to issue me a visa. While waiting there was another couple of which one was South African and also had to do the same wait.
We eventually were issued our tourist visas and pickup our bags, I had to get some Tunisian money to pay back the South African guy as he forked over the 10 Dinar for my Visa as they only took Dinar and I only had pounds and Euros.
We walked straight through the security bag/customs check and found the Thomson desk to get our transport to the hotel.
Arrived at the hotel just before 8pm, and got checked in and went up to the room before heading back down for a late dinner (which closed at 9pm, so we were lucky enough to be able to get there by about 8.30).
I went for a wander outside after dinner and met an English guy who is also staying at the hotel for the week and we got chatting and had a beer.

Monday 8th February 2010:
Woke up in time for a 9amish breakfast (breakfast is only served until 10am). I spent the day lounging around the hotel reading the latest John Grisham novel, finished it, then went for a walk into Port El Kantaoui for a look around before heading back to the hotel. Met up with Kev the English fella again, had a beer and then went to dinner around 7pm.
Came down later to check emails, and met up with Kev again, My friend came down and joined and we had a good chat. Kev and I had a couple of beers, before it was bed time.

Tuesday 9th February 2010:
Woke up around 8 amish to get going early, we caught a taxi to the Sahara Beach hotel and had an agreed price for that and him taking me further onto Monastir. However once My friend was dropped off he wanted to up the price for the further trip to Monastir. I disagree with the amount he wanted to charge me extra and so just walked away from the taxi with only paying the price to the hotel. Went out the front of the hotel and caught a bus into Monastir about 1/2hr later.
Wandered around Monastir for a couple of hours before catching a bus up to Sousse. Wandered around the Medina in Sousse for a little while with a personal guide (who asked for money at the end (as I was expecting), for his tour and mini history lesson). He ended up taking me to a bunch of different shops even though I had no intentions of buying anything. However I did end up getting a leather face Versace belt for 20 dinar (about £10). Eventually left Sousse around 3.30 and caught a bus back to the hotel where I went out to get a coke and some bottled water from a local supermarket (cheaper than what the hotel charges).
Wednesday 10th February 2010:
Up for breakfast before heading out to the harbour for bit of browsing and sightseeing. This was then followed by the day out in Sousse for My friend to do some medina haggling. Didn’t end up buying anything but still had a long time in the medina to enjoy and waste the day away.
After catching a bus home from Sousse the rest of the day was just spent just around the hotel for dinner and the rest of the night.

Thursday 11th February 2010:
Woke up early, but not early enough for to have breakfast. Headed out to catch a train from the Sousse to El Djem. Train journey was standard with some nice scenery on the way, albeit very blandish. Arrived into El Djem at 9am and walked down to the Coliseum for about an hour and a half wander around the inside of the Coliseum. We then called into a shop for My friend to get some gifts before then heading back to the train station to get the train back to Sousse. Unfortunately it was a lot colder a day than what we were expecting and so were not ready for the rain or cold weather.
Trained it back to Sousse to then catch the bus back to Port El Kantaoui to spend the rest of the day warming up and relaxing before heading out for dinner.

Friday 12th February 2010:
We got up to have breakfast before heading into Sousse for a look around the Medina. We wanderer all the way from one end of the Medina wall all the way around the entire length of the medina wall. We then headed to the train station again to catch a train from Sousse to Tunis – about a 2 hour journey.
We got to Tunis and then found a taxi which took us on a 2.5 hour sightseeing journey of Carthage for 20 Dinar each (total 40 Dinar or about £20 for the entire trip). Our first stop was at the Amphitheatre Romain, followed by the Quartier Punique & Museum where we spent about 40 odd minutes taking in the stunning landscape scenery and old roman ruins.
From the Museum our next stop was the Theatre Romain where we spent all of about 5-10 minutes and I ended up buying 2 fake Roman coins for 5 dinar, and as such made up time as all the roman ruins close entrance at 5pm. By the time we left the Theatre it was about 4.15. Our next port of call was the Parc Archeologique Des Thermes were we spent probably about ½ hour wandering through the ruins of the old crypts, grave sites and old Roman bath ruins, as well as getting a few scenery and coastline shots.
We then made our way onto Sidi Bou Said where the whole town is made up of blue and white painted buildings only. As we were running out of time we were only allowed about 15 minutes here to see the sights, wander the streets and take some photo’s before heading back to our taxi and guide for the afternoon.
From Sidi Bou Said we started to head back to Tunis and the train station in time for our 5.35pm train back to Sousse and Port El Kantaoui for dinner. We drove past the old Roman Aqueducts, then on along the Tunis Lake before getting a 5 minute tour of downtown Tunis and back to the train station.
We arrived back in time for the train ride back to Sousse at 5.35pm and eventually arrived into Sousse at about 7.30pm. We tried to catch a bus back to the hotel, however as we were unsure when the next bus was due and one didn’t come along while we were standing there we bit the bullet and caught a taxi back to the hotel. We got back to the hotel and went straight to dinner at 8pm (the restaurant closes at 9pm), after which we went to our room and then to bed.

Saturday 13th February 2010:
We went for a quick 15 minute swim before heading off to breakfast. After breakfast we headed into the Harbour to get some souvenirs before heading back to the hotel for a few hours before our camel train ride.
At just before 2pm our guide picked us up to take us out to the camel station. Unfortunately for us it had started to rain, and it didn’t let up, but got heavier for the entire Camel trek through the lovely back marshes of Kantaoui (it really wasn’t that exciting as what we saw was a lot of rubbish and olive trees. We arrived at the halfway point and joined a bunch of other people who were either on their own wonderful Camel trek, or taking off on a quad bike adventure/ride.
We were given some traditionally made bread (although had to pay 1 dinar for it), before deciding on taking the horse and cart back to the hotel. Where when we got back we both had a nice hot show before relaxing until dinner time.

Sunday 14th February 2010:
We woke up, had breakfast and then relaxed in the hotel room until the midday check out time. Once we had checked out we went for a walk down to the Harbour for a little last look around before getting some food for the plane flight, then went back to the hotel for the rest of the time until it was time for us to leave on the coach to get to the airport.
Checked in at the airport then went through security to wait for the plane. Flight was fairly uneventful, albeit with a bit of turbulence. We got to Gatwick on time, although we were taxiing for about 10-15 minutes before we got to our gate which was almost at the end of the airport. Got through passport control and then pickup the bags and caught a train to London. I got the Gatwick express to Victoria to catch my coach back to Birmingham.

I eventually got back into Birmingham at about 2.45am and got a taxi home to sleep for the rest of the night.

And thus endth our Tunisian adventure.

Italy - Milan and Bergamo

Sunday 31st January 2010:
Left the house to catch a train to Liverpool and then a bus to the Liverpool airport. Nothing exciting happened and I was at hte airport with plenty of time to spare.
From there the flight to Bergamo was pretty standard with nothing happening on the flight. However when I got to Bergamo I missed the first airport bus by a couple of minutes because I had to get a ticket of the bus, so I then had to wait almost an hour for the next bus. Then went past my stop in the city, so when I got back to the correct stop, the other bus up to the hostel had gone, and so I had to wait almost another hour for the next and last bus to come and take me to the hostel.

Booked into the hostel and got some sleep.

Monday 1st February 2010:
Woke up eventually to explore the city of Bergamo. Had breakfast and then headed out for the bus to take me to the Citta Alta (old City). Spent most of the day wandering around the old and new cities and seeing the sights before heading back to the hostel for some cheap dinner and to unload photos onto the net book.
Eventually went to bed around midnight.

Tuesday 2nd February 2010:
Got up a bit later than I planned to. about 8.20 instead of 8am. As a result I ended up getting to Milan just before 11am. This still allowed me to see a number of different sights including the Duomo, St. Maria Church, where the Leonardo Di Vinci 'Last Supper' painting was done, unfortunately it was under restoration and out of view of the public when I went there.
I did try and get into the Museum of Science Leonardo Di Vinci, however due to restoration work this is also closed on a Tuesday as of the 2nd Feb. Just my luck.
I wandered around the city a bit more, before catching about 3 different metro trains to the Central Station to catch a train back to Bergamo. Back in Bergamo I grabbed some pizza for dinner then followed by more unload of photos and the writing of this.

Wednesday 3rd February 2010:
Got up early to catch a couple of buses to the airport, unfortunately due to my luck I caught 2 wrong buses and what should have been a 40 odd min ride at the most turned into about 1.5hr's slog.
Eventually got to the airport with plenty of time to spare thought and had an uneventful flight back to Liverpool, where I caught a bus to the train station and the train back to Birmingham.
Since being back nothing exciting has happened and I've had a show, unpacked, done some clothes washing and now eating dinner.