Europe 2012

Contiki tour through Europe with my cousin Emma, as well as some sightseeing and catching up with family in London

Day 14 & 15 – Florence, epic shenanigans, Pisa & Lucerne

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Mel

We have no wifi so I haven’t been able to blog properly for a couple of days, plus I had an adventure which I will write about here – I warn all my responsible blog followers there will be head shaking and tut tutting!

Florence was so beautiful. After our first night of cultural karaoke (culture fail) we woke up and headed off for a day of exploring. Neither of us were super keen on the walking tour as we both have had enough of walking around trying to listen to someone with a really thick accent talk over a crowd, so instead we had a chilled morning with coffee and slow meandering. We went up Giottis Tower which was an EPIC climb. 414 steep, tiny stone steps.

Both of us are hideously unfit.

The views made it worthwhile though, utterly breathtaking. We were going to line up to see David but the wait was more than 3hrs – so no. We saw the replica one instead. We also went into a few churches and shopped at the local markets.

We then all got dressed up for our fancy contiki dinner that night (yes, I wore a dress) and our table had 6 people, 3 of whom weren’t drinking. It also had 4L of wine!! Soooooo I drank quite a bit of it…I was also serenaded by an Italian man who was very creepy and once he realised I was mortified and blushing he kept coming back. Argh.

Now for the shenanigans. We had opted out of the space disco last night as it didn’t start until 10:30pm and it was a 7am bus morning the next day. After drinking white wine, champagne and red wine at dinner I embraced the idea of a disco enthusiastically so off we went. There was vodka. And Bacardi. And tequila. And jäger. And maybe more wine? Then definitely more vodka. It was messy. We left after 1am and I don’t think I have ever been so drunk in my life! I still navigated the taxi driver back to the hotel *hi 5 for me*

At 6am the alarm went off and we packed and made it downstairs still absolutely smashed. I was so proud of us for getting there and even remembering to have our passports on us!

I was very sick on the bus. Motion sickness and a hangover do NOT go well. I was definitely not the only one which was some consolation. That was my big night out I think, no more drinking! I have never woken up still drunk the next day so it was some effort.

We stopped at Pisa on the way and took pics, I was still a little drunk then so didn’t attempt to climb it!

We are in Lucerne, Switzerland now and the drive in was so beautiful (minus the nausea). The mountains, little towns and the lakes here are very pretty and different to anything I have ever seen before. Tomorrow we are going up Mt Pilatus on a train and a cable car and on a lake cruise which I am really looking forward to.

No telling off the drunky mcdrunk okay, I learned my lesson! Pinky swear.

Categories: Europe 2012 | Tags: alcohol, Florence, Lucerne | 3 Comments

Day 13 – Florence night life

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Mel

The photos speak for themselves really….

Categories: Europe 2012 | 2 Comments

Day 13 – Rome to Tuscany to Florence

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Mel

Very short entry today as I am using hotel wifi in the lobby. We left Rome early this morning with some very hungover people on the bus and headed to Tuscany. The first part of the drive was 3 hours and I was fine – we stopped for services (peeing and food) and then had another hour to go to Tuscany. The roads turned into windy mountain roads and our bus driver was a fill in one who drove like a crazy person, I came so close to throwing up on the bus! Had the plastic bags ready to go and all.

Tuscany was beautiful, we stopped at a vineyard and most of us sampled wine, bread and olive oil. It was in the Chianti region so made legit chianti wine which was tasty. I only had a few sips and sat out in the fresh air for the rest of the winery tour. It was then back on the bus to Florence (only an hour thank goodness, still feeling quite gross from more windy roads) and on to our hotel.

Which is the worst one by far!

We are in a tiny little room crammed in to a corner with ten other tiny little rooms where you can hear the guy 3 doors down roll over. The aircon doesn’t work at all either and the toilet is about a metre from my bed. It is by far the crappiest hotel yet and as Amelia and Claire said “I don’t want to be murdered in my bed”. Me either girls!

The plan for tonight Is dinner, karaoke and partying hard. I think my plan will be dinner and bed…until 1am when all the people in the rooms around us come back. Ahhhh contiki, you’re classy.

I can’t say much about Florence yet as aside from the auto park hotel we haven’t seen any of it! Tuscany was very pretty though and the wine was delish.

Categories: Europe 2012 | Tags: Florence, Motion sickness, Rome, Tuscany | 4 Comments

Day 12 – Rome!

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Mel

I ate so much food today! Mmmm.

It was a “no bus” day for the tour so we had to find our own way around Rome. We are staying about 30mins out of the city so it is a bit of a hike…we left the hotel at 8:30am and our guide hannah walked us to a bus stop where all of us (about 45) got on the bus…then a train…then swapped to another train! Miraculously we all made it in one piece. We started with the Vatican City tour which was the most expensive tour we have done to date (€33). I am assuming that includes the entry price though so when you consider that it probably isn’t too pricey. The Vatican is crazy – so many people just shuffling along looking at stuff and some of the tourists are unbelievably rude and just shove you out of the way. One of the boys on our tour took pity on me being trampled by a nasty Japanese man and elbowed him out of my way 🙂 I still owe him a beer for that! Other than the shuffling it was amazing. The sistine chapel just blew my mind and saint peters basilica was so big, so beautiful and so detailed.

The Vatican tour took about 2.5hrs and after it out main priorities were to pee, to sit down and to eat. We made it about 50m from the Vatican and collapsed at a roadside pizzeria where we ate pizza AND pasta for lunch – then gelato for dessert. Such fatties. After a rest we felt better and abandoned our hastily (lazily) formulated plans for public transport and instead opted to walk from one end of Rome city to the other so we could see the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum and the Roman Forum in daylight. With our trusty map reader Amelia leading the way we were off! Our first stop was the Pantheon and as it was day time we got to see inside, it is an active church and although I am not a religious person, I was impressed. The detail is amazing and there was a choir singing hymns which worked so well with the acoustics of the building. Next up we wandered to the Trevi Fountain which had looked amazing last night but in the day time it was even better…I threw in two coins which means 1) I will return to Rome one day and 2) it will be with a lover! Go me. By this point we were tired, grumpy, full of water and sweaty so after a 35min wait to pee (I swear, there is one public bathroom in all of Rome and it is in McDonalds) we slowly plodded onwards. Amelia navigated the back streets and when we suddenly popped out in view of the Colosseum there was much rejoicing! We opted to line up which was quicker than I thought (only 22mins) and wander through without a tour.

I think we spent well over an hour at the Colosseum. The views, the photo opportunities and the feeling of walking through something almost 2000 years old was just amazing. We sat down for awhile and just relaxed while soaking in the views. So far the Colosseum has been my favourite thing to have experienced in all of Europe.

We took photos at the roman forum and walked up a side street were we ate dinner at a street cafe nearby, we had beautiful views of the Colosseum. After a really long day we all rewarded ourselves with a few drinks…and more gelato! It was then off to navigate the train and bus home which was surprisingly painless. I was so excited that we arrived back just as the laundry guy rocked up which means I have lovely fresh, clean PJs to sleep in.

We came up to the room and sat around for a bit and then decided we felt like losers as it was only 8:30pm. We went back downstairs to the bar and one of the Canadian boys on the tour bought us a drink, so we socialised with them for awhile…they are all good fun but had been drinking all day so had a good head start on us. It’s almost 10pm now and I think bed time very soon as I am exhausted.

Tomorrow we are off to Florence and will see the leaning tower of Pisa on the way!

There are lots of photos for today as I took so many. There was just so many amazing things to see….

Huge pizza for dinner

Frolicking near the Trevi Fountain

Inside the Pantheon where the choir were singing hymns

Looking adorable at the colosseum

The colosseum

Percy at the colosseum

The trevi fountain

Percy at a roman castle

St peters basilica

The Swiss guards

St peters square

Inside one of the Vatican galleries (photos were allowed in this section)

Categories: Europe 2012 | Tags: colosseum, gelato, Italy, pasta, Rome | 3 Comments

Day 11 – Venice to Rome

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Mel

Another travel day, another sore butt! This one was not as long as some of the others (7hrs in total on the actual bus plus 2.5hrs of stopovers) but it was probably the worst as I got nasty motion sickness and one of the boys threw up on the floor of the bus. Yep.

We left Venice bright and early with yet more seat stealing (I’ve yet to have mine taken, I am not sure how I’ll react when it happens – I guess a massive temper tantrum lol) and some very hungover people on board. Our first stop was an outlet mall full of fancy stores like Prada etc at discount prices. So not my thing since I love my op shop clothes, I did buy some beautiful smelling vanilla lip balm though.

We then had another four hours driving to Rome. When we arrived we did a quick bus drive around to see some of the sights before being dropped in the city for dinner. The traffic is absolutely nuts here, there are no lanes and people just cut each other off. They also double and triple park illegally or park in the middle of the road. It is terrifying! As Rome is a “no tour” city tomorrow we have to explore on our own, so tonight our tour guide “unofficially” took us to some of the most beautiful monuments on a walking tour. We ate dinner opposite the colosseum, saw the pantheon and the trevi fountain. Plus a few other monuments. After so long on a bus and two hours walking we were all knackered, our hotel is 30mins out of the city so by the time we got out here it was after 9pm and I think everyone has gone to bed.

Tomorrow we are catching the train in very early (eeeek) and going on a Vatican tour. Then we are going to see inside the colosseum, explore the city, find our own dinner and catch the train home.

We also get to do laundry tomorrow at the hotel! Hooray, no more poxy sink washing 🙂

Categories: Europe 2012 | Tags: outlet mall, Rome, Venice | Leave a comment

The “group” – half way through the tour

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Mel

I haven’t written much about the people on our tour or what I think of contiki so far. I wanted to give it some time to settle in before I wrote about it, plus it takes awhile to meet everyone.

We have 51 people on our bus so it is a full bus load. They are mostly Australians with about 8 Canadians, a couple of kiwis, a Latin American and 4 girls from the phillipines. The phillipine girls have made no effort with anyone on the bus though so aside from them being a massive pain when they “seat steal”, I am not even considering them in this post. Of the Aussie contingent we have quite a few “country folk” which is nice and also a pretty good spread from all over the place (WA to Adelaide to Tasmania to NSW to Darwin etc). I think the split between girls/guys is pretty even although there may be a few more boys.

Our tour has more couples than I expected, we have about ten so it is almost half the group. A few of them are married as well which I didn’t expect – it is a really cheap way to see Europe though so it shouldn’t really be a surprise. The single people are mostly “party animals” and they like to party hard. There is quite a bit of *ahem* bed sharing going on from what I can tell and obviously the more people drink the more that happens! I don’t know if it is an age difference or an attitude difference but I don’t have anything in common with most of the singles…that said, we have made great friends with two girls traveling together from Adelaide and a few of the couples as well.

I think most of the singles on contiki have the goal of “get written off and party hard” but my goal was always just to explore Europe and I am definitely doing that! I am happy not to be hungover on bus trips haha, although tonight I drank a bottle of wine and sang along to John Farnham on the bus (shhh don’t tell anyone).

As for my opinion on contiki? Well so far…

1) if you don’t like drunk people this is not the place for you. I’m hardly drinking at all and I still find myself in a lot of awkward situations with really drunk people in the group, it would have to be a daily occurrence. It’s a pain in the butt. Especially when they don’t remember speaking to you at all the next day. As long as you make a few friends with similar interests though you’ll be fine.

2) they need to provide more info….we have run into a few problems where we have really clear details on what we are doing that day but no idea about the day after. It makes planning for us harder, especially those of us who want to explore and see the sights.

3) the included meals are hit and miss, as are the hotels. Some have been great and some are truly atrocious. If you have allergies it can be really hard as well.

4) some of the “optional” activities have been fantastic – the walking tour in Berlin, the dinner in Venice, the river cruise in Prague and the bike tour in Munich (which we didn’t do but have heard rave reviews about) to name a few. A few have been really crap though – our gondola ride today was a bit disheartening (not to mention expensive) and as I mentioned, a few of the optional dinners (especially Amsterdam) have been pretty average. That seems pretty hit and miss as well! Maybe do some research if you are on a really tight budget.

5) finally, my absolute worst thing about contiki has to be the hours and hours spent on a damn bus! Three hours between stops is TOO LONG and so is 45mins to wander around at each stop.

I could also have a whine about people who steal other peoples seats….RAH!

Categories: Europe 2012 | Tags: cliques, contiki, group | 2 Comments

Day 10 – Venice

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Mel

Venice is unlike anywhere I have ever been before. We had to pay €450 just for our bus to be able to drive up to the ferry station where we got on a rickety and terrifyingly small boat. The ride to Venice was about 20mins (longest 20mins I’ve spent on a boat to date!).

The first thing we did was go to a glass blowing demonstration and that was amaaaazing. My grandad is a glass blower and I knew what it was in theory but to see the guy do it in practice was pretty cool. We managed to get lost in the shop so didn’t end up getting the sales spiel – good timing on our behalf. Most of our group then went on a walking tour for an hour. The lady used headsets to talk to us but mine was faulty which was a bit of a bummer. We still saw some cool things though…we walked through tiny little streets and across the Rialto Bridge as well is in the main square.

After the walking tour we had pizza and gelato for lunch from a street vendor. Yummy! We also discovered bathrooms in Venice suck as they are dirty, smelly and cost upwards of €1.50 each to use. We walked through the Rialto Bridge markets for a few hours buying souvenirs an searching for an illicit type of clothing we were told they are banned from selling here. I won’t say what it is as I bought two for gifts (Dad and Brad will be very excited lol) but the search and illicit whispering was almost as exciting as actually finding it. The guy we bought them off was happy as he made about €100 in 3 mins from us.

Later in the day (after more gelato) we went on a gondola ride which was a bit disappointing. The actual gondola ride itself was unique but the guys doing it were pretty crap, totally uninterested and clearly didn’t care for us contikians very much. I hope we get to give feedback on that. After the gondola ride was an optional dinner which was an entree, 4 courses of pasta and then gelato for dessert. Not to mention the copious amounts of wine! We sat with people we don’t normally hang with and that was interesting. Canadians are a little odd haha but they seem to think that about us aussies so it is all fair and even in the end. One of the boys bought all the girls at the table a rose which was sweet 🙂 After all that wine It was a very merry trip back on the boat and then the bus.

Sitting in the hotel room now we can hear some very noisy people from our group partying on downstairs. The wine combined with the pasta has done me in though! Zzzzzz.

Canals in Venice

Percy on a gondola with emma and Amelia

Prettiful Venice

Our roses from dinner

Selfie!

Categories: Europe 2012 | Tags: canals, Venice | Leave a comment

Day 9 – Munich to Venice

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Mel

It was a long drive to get here! We left very early this morning (8am) from Munich with more than a few sore heads on the bus after Oktoberfest. It took 2.5hrs to get to Tyrol in the Austrian Alps. The views were amazing. About 3/4 of our bus people went rafting (see previous post) but emma and I opted out and sat in the beautiful sun enjoying the scenery for a few hours. I got some amazing photos.

After rafting it was back on the bus for 5 more hours driving….which turned into 6 because of traffic. We watched a couple of movies (avengers and the hangover) which helped the time pass quickly.

We are staying at some random hotel here (hotel Ambra?) which is, to be blunt, a shit hole. God only knows where we actually are but we appear to be surrounded by factories. Apparently this is normal because to actually stay anywhere near the island of Venice is hideously expensive. We had an included dinner tonight (the lasagne was awesome) then went for a wander with some contiki people and found a tobaccanist nearby who also sells chocolate and coke. YUM! I got smarties in a can.

We then had a room issue where there was panic as the hinge at the top right of the window broke. Both of us were convinced it would fall on emma and kill her in her sleep. We rang reception and after some Italian vs English language barriers, he came up.

And then made us look like total morons because hey, whaddya know, the window opens at the top and the side. Stupid windows! Oh well, at least we have working aircon now haha.

That’s the other thing about Venice/Italy – it’s warm! Shorts and thongs weather in the day time which is lovely. I have just done a whole bunch of washing in the room (soap and sink styles) and am happy it will be dry by the morning. We are now arguing about who gets the only blanket in the room because we don’t want to turn the room temp up in case we break the aircon (pretty sure we are the only room to get it going so far).

Tomorrow we have a whole day in Venice to explore 🙂 I am really looking forward to the gondola ride!

The Alps in Austria (Tyrol)

A photo of the Italian countryside as we drove in. It was amazing – castles and beautiful little towns everywhere.

Categories: Europe 2012 | Tags: crappy hotel, Italy, Tyrol, Venice | 3 Comments

Tyrol stopover

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Mel

More than half our contiki bus has gone white water rafting in the Austrian Alps while we travel to Venice.

We are not rafty people.

I much prefer sitting here looking at the mountain while eating pizza 🙂

Categories: Europe 2012 | Tags: Austria, contiki, Tyrol | 1 Comment

Day 8 – Munich (Oktoberfest)

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Mel

What a day! Up at 7am and into Munich so some of us could go on a bike ride. I am most definitely NOT a bike person so we explored on foot and did a looooot of shopping…mainly for cute Oktoberfest clothes! Now I had already made the executive decision that there would be no dress buying on my behalf as they cost in excess of €100 and I’d rather use that for beer! I bought ab adorable hat that you can see in some of the photos instead. I did sneakily try one outfit on and take a photo (which you are expressly not allowed to do):

After outfit trying on time and bicycle riding time we were off! The coach dropped us nearby and we split off Ito smaller groups. We wandered into a beer hall to start with and drank a stein each (a litre of beer) whilst signing German songs. I had a pork knuckle and it was DELICIOUS! The beer went down okay for someone like me who really hates beer.

As you can tell I was a bit red in the face by the end of that. It was a big effort! We then went on some rides (I screamed my lungs out on another rollercoaster) before finding a different beer hall and spending the rest of the night there. We swapped groups quite a few times but it was still a great day. Emma ate ad drank everyone under the table haha we may have to make her an honorary male 🙂 Percy had some great adventures and I drank more beer as well as eating some amazing food. Gingerbread cookies mmmm. We headed back to the bus in a very mellow, relaxed mood to discover just about everyone else was WASTED drunk. I am looking forward to seeing them cope with our 7am start to Venice tomorrow…

Categories: Europe 2012 | Tags: beer, Munich, oktoberfest | 4 Comments

Europe 2012

Day 14 & 15 – Florence, epic shenanigans, Pisa & Lucerne

Day 13 – Florence night life

Day 13 – Rome to Tuscany to Florence

Day 12 – Rome!

Day 11 – Venice to Rome

Day 10 – Venice

Day 9 – Munich to Venice

Tyrol stopover

Day 8 – Munich (Oktoberfest)

Tag Cloud

Follow Blog via Email

Tags

Europe 2012

Tag Cloud

Follow Blog via Email

Category Cloud

Tags