Where do we start with Italy? So far we've been here for a bit over a week and we are yet to be won over by this country. There are some great things about it, but also some terrible things. But more on that in a minute.

We drove into Italy from Switzerland, which I guess is going to provide any traveller with a bit of a culture-shock. Coming from the amazingly rugged, colourful, beautiful and organized place that is Switzerland into Italy was bizarre. We hadn't got more than an hour into the country before the landscape became dry, almost barren looking. And what we saw of the west coast down to Naples was all like that. There were still farms growing lush, green corn but they were islands amongst the dust.

The east coast has been much greener and far more picturesque so far. We spent a couple of days sunning ourselves on a beach at Marina de San Salvo. A small tourist town, with lots of Italians on holidays taking their tanning very seriously indeed. Very seriously. (We found oursleves completely out of step with the Italians' daily routines though. The beach is packed in the morning, everyone is there. We trundle off to lunch at about 12.30 and when we return they're all leaving for their lunch. 3 or 4 hours later some of the keen ones return for some more sun shortly before we head off for dinner. Later we're trying to sleep while the whole town rouses to drive past our van repeatedly.)

Rome was not what I expected. I somehow thought it would be a bit more glamourous and a bit fuller. The ruins take up a lot of space very close to the centre of the city so my first impression was of the place being unfinished or under construction. The ruins were magnificent though. The Colosseum was something to behold as were the Palatine hill, the Palaces and the Forum. It was great to see it all up close in person after studying it throughout school and at uni.

And then Pompeii. Not impressive in the same way as the Colosseum but astounding because of how intact it is. The sheds full of unbroken pottery, petrified people and animals. The bakeries with original flour mills and ovens ready to use. It was amazing and good fun to wander around the streets of a 2000 year old town.

Something else that is amazing and good fun is driving a largish vehicle here. One afternoon after a lovely swim at Sorrento, where the water was ridiculously warm, we took a little drive further around the peninsular to find a place to stop for the night. Indulge me by trying to imagine this. Coastal road. High up – basically cliff edge. Low stone wall between car and the edge. Narrow road. Two large vehicles (eg, bus and camper) passing each other is tight – bus driver obliges by yelling something at us that did not get lost in translation. Blind hairpin corners. Italians parking wherever they feel like. Mel likened that 2 hours of driving to one of those puzzles that have one free space for you to slide all the pieces around. That is just what it was like.

Italians' driving is something to behold. We've driven though the centre of many towns, even Naples, and it doesn't matter where they are, if they feel like doing something, they just do it. They'll stop in the middle of the road to chat with a friend who is walking past, they'll double park, turn their hazard lights on and then walk away from their car (apparently if your put your hazard lights on then you can do anything), they do not let people merge and they definitely don't stop for pedestrians if they can help it. Certainly makes things interesting.

Italy has provided us with plenty of little stories, like the cop who stopped us on the highway and told me that Mel is “a very beautiful lady,” in the classic, slightly sleazy Italian way. But the biggest impression it's made on us is not a good one. There is just so much rubbish. Some of the big cities around Europe have been full of buildings going grey and dirty from pollution, but nowhere has it been like this. I have never seen so much rubbish outside a tip, ever. It is absolutely disgraceful. It's all over the roadsides, in the streets, at the beach (to a lesser extent). We went to a lake outside Rome, where the Pope has his summer residence, to have a swim. There was a grassy, gravelly area at the waters edge where people could spread out a towel and sit. But the whole area was strewn with rubbish. It was a really beautiful spot but not at all inviting.

But then there is the food.  The guide that took us through Palatine hill and the palaces gave us directions to a strip of restaurants/delis in a town outside of Rome.  We sat and ate our way through a delicious antipasto platter in about 2 hours.  It was huge and so very good. 

I'm not sure if we'll be able to come to a final decision about Italy, but it sure has been interesting.

Nice, Mt Blanc, Switzerland and more!

A quick update before I explain the photos...we decided that instead of going straight on to Italy from France we would head up to Switzerland so save us extra driving later on...

We continued up the French coast for a few more days and stayed here in Nice for two nights. It was great. Shopping, eating out and swimming. We explored the harbour and the 'old town' which was a maze of narrow alleyways filled with cafes, icecream shops and everything you can imagine. We also got to wander through a night time market and 10 Salamancas worth of resturants. There wasn't enough time to try all the food!

We stopped at Mt Blanc on the way to Switzerland. When the lady sold us our tickets to go up the mountain she said 'the visibility isn't perfect' what she meant was 'there is no visibility whatsoever'. We were a bit disappointed.

The next day dawned and it was so sunny and clear that we went up again, still a little cloudy up the top but mind blowingly beautiful.

We then went on to Switzerland. We don't have many photos because it was pretty grey for a few days. We have however visited the lovely medieval town of Gruyeres...famous for its cheese. We got to see it being made and then that night (thanks to a conversation with Monica) we went out and had proper gruyeres cheese fondue - about a kilo of it! Delicious!

This is Interlaken, we camped here on the side of lake after visiting Bern (which I'm pretty sure is the capital). It was a cool place, I wish we had had more time there and that it hadn't rained all day. At Interlaken we also visited the caves of st Beatus, an Irish missionary monk who was rumoured to have slain the dragon living in the caves. We did a tour 2km into the caves, it was pretty cool but the best bit was when all the lights went out...we had to get the emergency torches out to make our way back.

Camping in Switzerland is very expensive (45-55 swiss franks per night) so we have done a lot of roughing it...this was the view from our car park in Weggis on lake Lucerne. Small towns in Swizerland are great, they put on heaps of stuff for tourists. The first night we were here we went to a 'folklore evening', we couldn't understand anything but the yodeling and little kids dances were fun =)

The next day we caught the cable car from weggis up to the top of Mt Rigi and did some walking. The views were spectacular. That and the constant sound of cow bells in the background made me think of the Sound of Music and Heidi a lot

Were now in Arbon near St Gallen which were visiting to see an ancient library made by monks. Last night we went to an out door cinema to see 'Black Swan' assuming it would be subtitled. After waiting an hour and a half for the movie to start we found that the whole thing was done with German voice over, oops! However the atmosphere was lovely, the cinema on the edge of the harbour and other towns along the lakes edge were setting off lots of fireworks so we had a good time anyway.

Miss you all.

France

As hard as it may be to believe, driving everyday, finding a place to stay, and big days of sightseeing are remarkably tiring. So it's been very nice to spend a bit more time in one place just relaxing. It's also been fantastic to have some good weather. Of the 7 days we've been in France only a couple have been below 30 degrees – a nice change from England.

From the train we drove to St Leu d'Esserent, a small town north of Paris, where we stayed at a superb caravan/camping park. One of the reasons it was superb was the pool and another was the weather. We spent our anniversary lounging by the pool, reading, swimming in the pool, eating baguettes with brie, olives and dips, reading by the pool, drinking French wine, and just generally having a great time.

Paris was over in a whirlwind of a day. We took in some of the sights – the Louvre (we bought tickets at the train station which allowed us to skip the 400m line up!), walked up the Champs Elysees, and climbed the Eiffel Tower (a shirtload of steps). Plus as a bit of a bonus we got to see peak hour traffic from the luxury of a bus, and then experience a 45 minute delay with the train. It was a lovely day though.

The next day we drove into Versailles. We thought we'd stop for a couple of hours to check out the palace and then be on our way... We were there for about 5 hours and could easily have stayed longer to check out more of the gardens. It is not possible to describe the grandeur and opulence of the place. Of all the things we've seen so far Versailles has blown me away the most. However I try to describe it, I can't do it justice.

 The back garden...

Louis XIV chapel

Right now we're in a town called le Lavandou on the south coast where we've been swimming everyday in the beautifully clear water of the Mediterranean. Tomorrow we'll head east to spend some more time somewhere else on the south coast of France before crossing another border and confronting another indecipherable language.   

Oh, and I just checked the weather for Hobart...there's definitely something to be said for skipping the winter.  Enjoy!

Week 3 in the UK

After we left Sarah and Chris in England we traveled up toward the lake district, and also planned to visit Edinburgh...of course the weather meant we had to change our plans and visit Scotland first. Here are the photos

The Lakes:

The lake district 'striding edge' walk...we actually walked a very narrow edge, fall off either side and I reckon you'd die. It was awesome! And sunny!

We felt a bit awkward when eating our lunch with all the other walkers at the top because everyone was kitted out in waterproof everythings; gaters, million dollar walking shoes, compasses, ordinance survey maps and whistles. We sat quietly in our jeans and sneakers and then left soon after.

Traditional tourist pose at the top of the walk =)

In the lake district we camped in an area called Langdale. It was absolutely stunning, but only when sunny. I finally decided that I thought that the English were crazy because on the day we left it was absolutely bucketing down and all the English were huddled under the boot doors of their cars eating breakfast or setting off for a walks...

In Scotland:

There were 5-6 lochs (not sure about the spelling) at Loch Ness and we got to watch them open one after the other to let all the sailing boats down. It took about 2 hours.

We ended up doing and extra day trip in Scotland because the weather was still too bad to go to the lake district. It was the best decision. We really couldn't capture it in photos but the scenery was awesome in the real sense of the word. Big, majestic and just incredible.

Our day in Edinburgh was great, it poured all day but by that stage we understood what all the English were telling us...'if you don't go out when its raining you wont go out at all'

The photo above is at a pub called Brew Dog. Nick, Simon's brother told us about it. Beer in the UK was ok but this stuff was so good. Its now up there with some of my absolute favorites. We even bought a T-Shirt!

The other thing we did in Edinburgh was go on the 'Total Whiskey Experience'. I don't really rate whiskey as a rule but the tour was great. I enjoyed learning how to appreciate whiskey better and can now even tell the difference between types. Plus it kept us out of the rain...

Simon will post soon about France so far...I just want to say how incredibly sunny and warm its been.

England

Hi everyone! It's been a little while since our last post so here's a bit of a run down of what we've been up to since Belgium.

We caught the train from Calais to Folkstone on Tuesday last week and spent the next week driving along the south coast of England towards Cornwall. The weather has lived up to the cliché, being highly changeable to say the least. We have had a few nice days here though which certainly helped make the photos look a lot nicer, and made the sightseeing much more enjoyable.

The landscape is beautiful. There are the same vivid greens of the Netherlands and Belgium but with lots of coastline and hills and cliffs too. The old fishing villages built into the sides of cliffs, the narrow and overgrown country roads, the hedgerows criss-crossing green rolling hills; these are the classic, stereotyped images of the English countryside and they are spot on.

We've stayed at a few great spots over the last week. Greenhill Farm in New Forest was a beautiful camping area with plenty of wildlife, and Edgemoor, a paddock made available to campers by a local farmer, just out of St. Austell, was a lush shade of green and very quiet. 

The UK is quite a bit bigger, geographically, than we'd thought.  And that's changed our plans slightly.  It looks like we'll end up hanging around here for an extra week so we have time to head north to Scotland before we get the train back to France.

On Monday we drove to London from Ilfracombe via Stonehenge, (which isn't quite as big as I'd imagined it.) It's been great to spend the last few days with Chris and Sarah, and especially have them show us around the big smoke yesterday.  London really is big.  It's going to be fun seeing some more of the sights with them over the next few days.

That's all for now, more soon.

Chimay, Brussels and Bruges

This week in Belgium has really been about beer tasting and food...

In Bruges, we relaxed with books on the side of the canal before dinner

A massive beer shop in Bruges, that boasted a 'beer wall' containing each of the different beers of belgium and the correct glass to drink it with.

The fruit beers go down well with the women here, this was 'framboise' and delicious! Though too sweet to drink often.

It was about thirty degrees, and so good to get out of the sun and into 'Brugs Beertje.' At the other pub we went to (at which you had a choice of 400 Belgium beers) we ordered a cold nibbles platter. What we got was a plate full, and I mean full, of sausage, chunks of pate, prosciutto, bacon and chunks of cheese...more meat than I've eaten in weeks!

Brussels, massive city, we got a bit lost. But we also got to go to a proper flea market. To quote Fran from Black Books, they 'do sell a lot of W...'

We had lunch at a lovely cafe and being unable to read the menu properly I went for something with Camembert in it. 20min later the waitress bought out a whole, large wheel of camembert, all melty and coated with almond, some sort of brown sugar sauce and bread. It was a good lunch!

Cheese at the Chimay shop, we tasted four of these and they have got to be among the nicest cheeses I have ever tasted!

We also ordered the full tasting experience for 10 euros each...I must admit that after the four delicious beers I needed a long walk, but it was very worth it!

Well we have one more day in Belgium, and then were due to catch the ferry to England. Bye.

On The Road

Hi everyone. We picked up our van last week Wednesday after a one night delay due to a mix up about payment, a lost in translation moment. So we've now been on the road for a bit over a week and in that time have made our way down to Chimay, Belgium. On the way we really noticed, and appreciated, the change in the landscape. The Netherlands is a beautiful place, but it really is... flat. I had no idea that I would so quickly miss the drama of home - the hills, cliffs, and ocean - but there you go.

Just a few interesting things we've discovered so far:

• Dinant is a very pretty town. (Pictured above)
• Road maintenance and upkeep is not a priority in Belgium – even less than at home.
• You can buy Chimay Blue in a six pack or carton from the supermarket.  (individual price EU 1.59!)
• The Catholic church was beyond extravagant with money.   It makes me sad to see these monumental cathedrals and the way God was used by men for their gain.

We went to Chimay yesterday, the town with the abbey, the beer and the cheese. Let me just say that those monks know their stuff.   You can't tour their brewery but they've set up their own bar/restaurant/hotel just down the road and it is excellent!  We did a beer and cheese tasting and it was delicious.   Worth coming to Belgium just for that.

We're now heading up to Brussels for a bit more of the city atmosphere.  Following that we'll be taking the train to England on the 7^th.  It will be good to see Sarah and organise Berlin/Munich for the end of our trip.

That's all for now.

PS. If you have any suggestions for things you recommend we should see, feel free to let us know.

Amsterdam central train station

Dom Kerk in Utrecht

Hey everyone, Some good news...we found a campervan on Monday and caught the train down to Utrecht to pick it up and start on our way on tuesday, only to arrive and realise the guy expected us to pay for everything in cash?!? So we were put up in the nicest hotel I have ever stayed at in order to make withdrawals over two days, it felt a little criminal. It was quite a fun delay...enjoy the photos from last week.

A castle type thing with a moat and immaculate gardens

Our picnic lunch somewhere in the bush east of Nunspeet

Trying to remember how to ride with no hands!!

Results pending...

As I sit here and type at the Nunspeet Bibliotheek we are waiting for confirmation for van hire.  Finally!  It's been a bit of a struggle and our patience has been severely tested.  If it all goes well, we'll have a van to pick up tomorrow in Amsterdam...

We haven't been sitting around all the time though.  On Saturday dad took us out for the day on the train to see a bit more of the counrty.  We headed to Utrecht for coffee, applecake, and the local market; took in some of the harbour and a beer at Rotterdam, trained through the Hague and Haarlem, walked through Amsterdam again and revisited Leidseplein, where we spent our first afternoon in Europe.  And back to Oma's by 11pm.  It was pretty tiring but well worth it.  We'll post some more photos soon, I promise.

The great car search

Hey All,

A very quick update...we have spent the last few days searching for a car to rent, it hasn't gone well and both of us are pretty discouraged, most places don't rent out anything small anymore. We nearly booked with wicked vans but would have had to drive from here to London in one week, then fly to Ireland to pick up a different van, plus it was right hand drive...Thats really about all. We will put some photos up soon.

Love Mel

Simon's Oma's next door neighbour's sister knitted me a scarf...

Hello all,

Its been and interesting week. We caught the train from amsterdam to nunspeet (I lost my ticket and had to try to explain that to the ticket man who didn't speak english) to stay with Simon's Oma for 5 days until his dad arrived to help us organise a car and show us around the Netherlands a bit.

Oma has fed us some pretty heavy dutch food, basically carbohydrates with some stewed pears or apples thrown in. We have done a lot of riding, a lot of riding, a lot of riding. This included lots of picnics in the 'forest', which seems like a bit of messy botanical park to me, learning to ride (drive on the right) in a country where there are very few lines on the road, seeing people wearing clogs for real and farmers using actual old school scythes in the paddock (like Death in Terry Pratchett). We have explored some pretty awesome 'historical' towns thanks to the friendliness of dutch neighbours and their willingness to drive us round and buy us fish and appelbak and give us scarves from their sisters...

Since Bert arrived we have been doing lots of neccessary things like organising to hire a car, (we aren't able to buy here =( ) getting a sim card for emergency calls and finding second hand bikes to take with us. I haven't minded too much because it has rained the last two days. Today we drove from Nunspeet to Emlichheim (in Germany) and are staying the night with Simon's Aunt and Uncle. They are great, he is a chef so we are eating well! And it is nice to meet some of Simons other family seeing none of them live in Tasmania.

Well thats it, I miss you all, and I miss the drama of Australia (in the scenery and the people) but there are some awesome things here (24bottles of pilsner for 7 euro, and a quarter circle of bree for 4 euro...)

First impressions

 A typical view of Amsterdam.

A not-so-typical view of the Heineken factory.

Well, where do I start?  I think the standout thing so far has been how it feels to be here in the 'Old Country.'  In some ways The Netherlands feels a bit foreign, which I guess is to be expected.  There are things that are polar opposite to Australia.  We're staying with Oma Bultman in Nunspeet.  If Nunspeet were in Australia it would be the undisputed 'tidy town' champion.  Everything is carefully ordered and neatly executed.  You should see the gardens, oh the gardens.  It is foreign.

And yet in many ways it feels so much like home, at least in terms of the culture and our heritage.  At cafes coffee is served with a complimantary speculaas cookje, the default cake to eat with your coffee is appelbak, you get mayonaise with hot chips and you can buy hutspot from the supermarket!  It's how things should be.  (And it doesn't sound strange to hear everyone speak dutch...it just doesn't.)

Staying with Oma is great.  We've been for a couple of rides on her bikes already, seen the town centre and all the shops and cafes, and even met her neighbour.  But I do feel a bit disappointed that I don't speak dutch any better than I do (which is poorly).  It's difficult talking with Oma but we are slowly getting better at understanding each other.

Dad arrives here on Sunday afternoon and we're looking forward to that.  It'll be really nice to see some more of the country with someone to show us the good spots and answer our questions!

That's it for now.

From Australia to Amsterdam

We're here and we're OK!

Half way through the 24 hours we spent in the air I decided 3 things...the world is very big, I hate flying on airplanes and I dislike public transport (on our first day, in melbourne, we got onto a tram only to realise we couldn't pay with notes. I got back off the tram, only to realise that Simon was too slow and I stood there in the dark waving goodbye as he disappeared)

However, we finally arrived in Amsterdam. It was 25 degrees and sunny. The streets are incredibly wide and mostly lined with beautiful trees, as are all the canals. And the buildings!!!. There are bikes and scooters everywhere and everything has right of way before cars - its awesome. I don't know if it was just the relief of finally being off the plane that was talking but the atmosphere on that Sunday evening was completely relaxed and happy. We sat outside a pup/cafe in a big square near our hostel and had beer and croquets in the sun, some men started playing music near by, the trees were green, and guys rode by with their girlfriends perched on the back of their bikes...very mellow

I think that if the Hobart city council puts some of the plans by Gehl (dutch architect) into place in Hobart it would do wonders...Imagine if people actually liked going into Hobart for fun!!

Well I best go get ready for our candlelight canal cruise,

Mel

Riots, Rebels and a Sudden Change of Plans

Dear Friends and Family,

On Tuesday the Australian government issued a 'do not travel warning' in regards to Northen Uganda and Sudan (and the wildlife park where we were going to stay on our way back from Farajok in Sudan). There has been rioting in Kampala, Uganda (where all our supplies were coming from) and rebel groups have increased their activities (kidnapping/robbing cars etc) along the route we would have been travelling. There has also been some difficulties contacting our people already there (please pray for their safety). There may also be some backlash from the assassination of Osama bin Laden. For these reasons the trip has been postponed, although the building of the church/school in Farajok will continue with the locals there making good use of the supplies/materials that our churches and schools have sent...

Instead of postponing our trip to Europe, Simon and I have bought it forward and will still be leaving on Friday. It's been a big day rearranging flights, finding overnight accommodation in Melbourne, and trying to understand why Emirates wont let us fly in different classes for different legs of our journey.

As sad and as frustrating as it is to not go and help our Christian brothers and sisters in Sudan I still look forward to landing in Amsterdam and enjoying some traditional Dutch hospitality from Simon's Oma!