Aussie in Sweden (and other places)

It’s been a fair while since we last updated this so it will most likely be a long one. The last time we did update was on our first of 5 nights in Paris. The next day we started seeing the many sights in Paris, which takes longer than most cities because they are so spread out but are connected by a great Metro system. First stop was the Louvre which we spent a couple of hours wandering through. You aren’t allowed photos of the famous things inside (even though that didn’t stop us taking some) so here’s my favourite photo which is of the pyramids and fountains outside.

Next we headed to the Cathedral of Notre Dame via the modern museum (Pompidou). This cathedral is the biggest we’ve been into so far and there were plenty of people wandering around inside and out. At 5pm we arrived at the Eiffel Tower and jumped in the queue which is the first we’ve come across. This was a good time because we got to see the Eiffel tower in daylight and watch it light up as the sun went down. The line took about an hour to move and then we were on our way up the elevator. The view from the 2nd tier let us see the city quite clearly and from the top tier it was a great view but being almost twice as high it was more difficult to see anything in detail. Here’s the view from the top tier.

It was a fantastic experience both going up the tower and also seeing it so close. This photo was from across the river looking back after we’d come back down.

The following day we caught the train out to Versailles to have a look at the spectacular palace. Our photos don’t do it justice because of the fog that started to blanket the city for a few days (which makes us glad we did the Eiffel Tower the night before). It took a couple hours to wander through all the rooms which we had audio commentry for. Here’s a photo of painting from one of the rooms, but if you look at the couple in the bottom left you may recognise them as Jesse Spencer (Chase) and Jennifer Morrison (Cameron) from House MD. We all had the same commentary so we saw all the rooms at the same time, which felt slightly like stalking especially since we saw them the day before at the Louvre. The photo isn’t all that good because we didn’t want to bother them by asking for a proper photo since we seemed to be the only ones that recognised them.

The gardens of the palace covered many hectares and every bit of them is so well manicured. Unfortunately most of the fountains weren’t working because the ponds were all frozen over. This photo looks out from the palace into the gardens. We walked towards the canal you can see in the background and out to the smaller palaces.

That night we went to a show at the Moulin Rouge which we really enjoyed and are glad we went to. There was plenty of singing, dancing, amazing costumes, topless girls and to our surprise small skits that were actually really entertaining to break up the dancing. Our seats were right up the front within an arms reach of the stage so we felt like we were almost part of the action. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside so here’s one of the entrance which I’m sure most of you recognise.

On Christmas Eve we did the rest of the major monuments and famous regions of Paris. The day started with a train trip out to La Defense, which is the commercial district of Paris with many modern high-rise buildings. There isn’t much to see there except the tall buildings and an Arch that lines up with the Arc de Triomphe which is directly down a long straight road. After a quick wander through the Christmas markets at La Defense we took the Train back to the Arc de Triomphe. Surrounding the Arc is the craziest round-a-bout we have ever seen. No lane markings, enough room for about 1000 cars to be on at the same time and European drivers is definitely a recipe for disaster. Suprisingly no accidents in the 15 minutes we were there though. This photo is from the outside of the round-a-bout looking at the Arc, I managed to get a photo with no cars in it.

We walked from the Arc down Champs-Élysées which has many prestigious retailers which are unfortunately well out of our price-range. The only thing we bought was tickets to Disneyland from the Disney Store for the next day. After we reached the end of the avenue (which is getting close to the Louvre) we wandered back to our hotel via the shopping district. Most shops were shut because it was quite late but they had nice Christmas lights and window displays. That night we went to Mass at the Sacré-Coeur with thousands of other people. Unfortunately, it was in French. Here’s Sophie in front of the church before we went inside.

Disneyland was where we spent our Christmas day because nothing else was open. It was a really good day despite the low thick fog and breeze. The park is definitely designed for kids so we spent the day going between the fast rollercoasters and managed to avoid queues every time. At the end of the day we saw ‘The Legend of Lion King’ which is a short play version of The Lion King. By the end of the 11 hours at Disneyland we were cold and wet from the fog. It was a lot of fun and certainly worth visiting. Here’s us at the entrance as we left.

The next day we wasted time with a short sleep-in and some general exploring until our 6pm flight to Stockholm (Lachlan left for London around midday). David picked us up from the airport and took us for a tour of Stockholm. The next morning it was Sam’s Birthday which we began with a sleep-in and bacon and eggs. We went to David’s parents for an early dinner of Moose Casserole and Blackcurrant Mousse Cake (with Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream) for dessert. We then drove to the Globen which is the main ice-hockey rink in Stockholm. We watched our first ice-hockey game which saw David’s team win (which was good news because of the terrible season they’ve been having). That night we met up with Andreas who also went to the hockey for a few drinks. Here’s the Globen (which they light up different colours every night, shown here in DjurgÃ¥rden’s colours) and the view from our seats.

The next day we had even more of a sleep-in (so good to catch up on sleep we haven’t been getting) and again had bacon and eggs. That afternoon we went to SkanSen which is a zoo/museum with historic Swedish buildings and scandinavian animals. There we saw some Wolves, Lynx, Foxes, Otters, Minks and some (living) Moose. Here’s a photo of the male Moose (the females look a bit like humpless camels because they have no antlers).

That night we cooked traditional Swedish Meatballs with Lingon Berries. Ian came over for a few drinks and we spent the rest of the night planning our next week or two.

This morning we had planned to do washing and booked a 7am spot but it was too dark to be 7am so we stayed in bed until 10. Washing is now done and we are just about to head out to see the city.

Tomorrow we are heading north to go skiing for the day. We’ve also booked a trip that wasn’t really on our itinerary so here’s the plan for you all.

January 2 - Fly to Gothenburg. Stay with Emil and Ludvig for a couple nights.
January 6 - Train to Copenhagen. Staying in a hotel for 2 nights.
January 8 - Fly to Stockholm.

We then hope to go north again and go skiing for a few days (if we like it tomorrow).

We’ll keep you posted with how that goes and the rest of our doings.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes.

Hope you all have good New Year celebrations and we look forward to seeing you all in 2007.

Sam and Sophie

PS - Tjena is Sweden’s version of G’day

Thanks for all your Christmas messages. It wasn’t a white Christmas just a very foggy Christmas day at Disneyland. Absolutely freezing but a good day.

We’ll update the blog properly when we get to Sweden which we leave for in about 7 hours.

Talk to you soon.
Sam and Soph

Hello again,

So, a few days ago we were in Bourdeax and since time flies we are now in Paris.

We travelled north out of Bourdeax to Nantes, where we were greeted by Christmas markets and busy streets. That night we had dinner at La Boucherie Restaurant (which translates to The Butcher’s Shop Restaurant) where we enjoyed an almost Australian Steak and Chips.

The next morning we did our sightseeing in the freezing cold. Our hands felt like they could snap off after having them out of our gloves to eat our pastries for breakfast. Nantes had a Cathedral (no surprise there), a castle with moat (which had plenty of scaffolding and workmen surrounding it) and the old gates to the city. Here’s Sophie standing in the main arch protecting the exit to Paris.

11am we drove to Tours where we found a hotel to stay the night which felt like we in Africa because of the Safari-like decorations in our room. We decided that Tours was our place to catch up on the sleep we felt like we were missing. Later that night we ventured out into the small town to have a look and find some dinner. It was freezing in the breeze so we weren’t out for too long.

The next morning we drove to Orleans which turned out to have a very small city centre with our hotel right in the middle. We were in a room that could also be called an attic, it required climbing 5 sets of narrow windy stairs in a 4 storey building. The roof of the room was quite angled which made it impossible to stand up in the shower, but the room was really nice. A major supermarket just down the road allowed us to pick up cheap pastries, alcohol and some much needed toothpaste.

Orleans is the home of Joan of Arc, almost all of the notable buildings and areas are named after her. Here’s a photo of an outdoor ice-skating rink with her statue in the background.

Sophie enjoyed the shopping and managed to decide on a coat to buy (finally) which she later wore out to our final dinner as a group of 4. Here is a photo of Sophie’s Entree which she found to be quite nice.

This morning we left Orleans bound for Paris airport where we needed to drop off Mel in order for her to catch a flight to the UK. Unfortunately for her she later informed us that due to fog no flights were flying into Heathrow, so she caught the train. Hopefully the weather clears and we are fine to fly to Sweden in a few days.

The airport was also where we needed to return our car. In the 21 days we had it we travelled 5427km and filled up more times than we care to remember. All went well with the return, then Lachlan and us caught the train to our Hotel in Paris, which is within (long) walking distance to the main sights. This afternoon we walked just up the road to the Sacré Coeur. Here’s a photo of it and the view from it. It was from up here that we also caught our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower (which you can’t see in these photos).

Everything is still going well, tonight will be our first of five nights in Paris and we are looking forward to the busy days ahead that we are in the process of planning so we make sure we see everything.

Merry Christmas to you all, we hope you all enjoy your time off work and enjoy opening your presents.

Special mentions:

Family - love and miss you heaps and sorry we won’t be with you for Christmas.

Emily - goodbye and best of luck in Dubai, we hope it all goes well and I will miss you.

Naomi - have a fantastic trip, be careful and I hope you make it to the top of the mountain.

Sophie and Sam

Last time we had just arrived in Toledo which was an interesting little town perched on the top of a hill. It was also the coldest place we’ve experienced so far as you can see in this photo of our car as we attempted to leave at about 8:30am on Thursday. The thermometer in the car (although very unreliable) said -1°, which is the first negative temperature that we know of so far.

We tried to find a train station outside of the city of Madrid but that didn’t turn out to be as easy as you would expect so we drove into the centre of the city to find some parking. Our hostel was in a good position and they were very helpful in providing us with information on what to see. The room was tiny and the shower cold but it was ok. We spent the afternoon wandering the streets and walked the perimeter of the palace and its gardens. The gates were shut for some reason so here’s a photo from the gate.

The streets were just like any other city but the pedestrian crossing noise (for blind people) annoyed Sophie to no end (it sounded like a cheeping chicken). The support for Real Madrid was almost non-existent compared to that of Barcelona, a sports store owner didn’t even know that there was an official store about 100 metres away.
That night Sophie headed to Flamenco dancing while the other three went to a terribly overpriced dinner that was a waste of money.

The Flamenco dancing was at the back of a restaurant just a few streets from the hostel. I fought my way through the many diners and people waiting for the show to get my ticket, which I was lucky to get as I didn’t have a booking. The show was incredible, it consisted of a male and a female dancer, drummer, 2 guitarists and 3 singers/clappers. As you would expect it was very intense and well worth the 11pm start. It was all in Spanish so I couldn’t understand what they were saying but the gentleman next to me continually translated throughout. Sorry, but there are no photos of this as Sam had the camera at the time but you weren’t allowed to take photos anyway. At the conclusion of the show I went to the bar across the road with the people I was sitting with. It all made for a great night - Soph.

The next morning we had churros: chocolate coated and caramel/custard filled and then we headed out of Madrid to Pamplona. The only thing to see in this city is the running of the bulls which we were 5 months late for so we had to look at the outside of the bull arena and we walked some of the streets they run down. Here’s a photo of the main stretch from the most dangerous corner.

The next day we drove back across the border into France to Bordeaux via San Sebastian which was our last (short) stop in Spain. We wish we had time to stop in San Sebastian for a night as it actually had beaches with real waves and looked like a really nice place. Some very silly people were actually surfing. The car’s thermometer read 7°.

We arrived in Bordeaux to a busy city centre due to the Christmas markets. After finding a place to stay and park we headed into the centre on the tram and had a look through markets and shops until they shut at 7:30pm. For dinner we found an ‘Australian bar’ in the markets which was very misleading. There was no English anywhere, and the only Australian things on the menu was Kangaroo something (we couldn’t read it) and Foster’s which I’ve never seen in an Australian bar.

This morning the four of us headed out to Lynch-Bages Chà teaux which is about 50km north of Bordeaux. There we were given a tour of the winery which was really informative and of course tasted some of their wines. This was a pretty big Chà teaux that produces (and bottles) over 300,000 bottles of mainly red wine per year. This is a photo of their small ageing room.

Not being too fussed with the wine (sorry Mum, Dad, Martin and Di) we weren’t all that interested in buying any so Sophie bought some really nice chocolate instead, which is a mix of dark chocolate and red wine. As we were leaving the winery we were greeted by the very enthusiastic cafe staff who gave us some roasted chestnuts and hot red wine - FOR FREE, because it was Christmas. We spent the rest of the day back in the centre of Bordeaux.

We have just had dinner at a Chinese restaurant (with a menu in French) which was nice and the people were lovely even though we couldn’t understand them. The phrasebook we bought the day before has already come in handy many times.

We have been trying to find presents to bring home but it’s quite hard to find things that aren’t useless, breakable, big or expensive. We will keep looking, but that’s our excuse

Hope everything at home is good and not too hot. Talk to you all soon.
Sam and Soph

Hello again,

Fortunately the drive from Nice to Barcelona went to plan! We arrived at our accommodation about 4pm which gave Sam and Lachlan plenty of time to get to the 8pm game.

We caught the train to the city then out to the stadium where we did not think it was possible to get lost but it turns out thousands of people shop just down the road from the stadium and we followed the wrong crowd. Once we got to the stadium we had no trouble getting the tickets that we had ordered from an internet site written in Spanish. We were apparantly quite early to the game as everyone arrives within 10 minutes of kick-off. This is our view before the game started.

The game was awesome, Ronaldinho didn’t disappoint. Some of the stuff he can do is amazing, makes everyone on the field look like schoolboys. Here is a pretty cool photo of him taking a free kick, which only just missed.

Not long after, I decided to take a video for our reliable blog readers and it just so happens that 30 seconds later Ronny scored the one and only goal of the match. I couldn’t believe that I got it on video.

Whilst the boys were at the game Mel and I had a nice dinner in the Restaurant of our hostel and I did our washing! - Soph

The following morning we caught the train into the centre of Barcelona. Sam and I purchased a bus ticket which allowed us unlimited travel on the tourist buses which did a circuit of the main attractions which took 2 and half hours if you didn’t get off, but we got off at many of the stops which meant it filled our day. This is an amazing view of Barcelona city from Park Guell.

We really enjoyed Barcelona there were so many people on the streets and we were pleased to have our first Churros. The next day we headed down the coastline to Valencia and that afternoon we caught the train out to the beach in an attempt to find food. Unfortunately everything was shut, but the walk along the esplanade was nice.

We had a nice dinner in the centre of the city which was alot more lively than the foreshore. Sophie thinks she may come home as fat as a house because she has fallen in love with the wealth of sweets.

The next morning we drove to Cuenca and looked around for a place to stay in the old town. Here is the view from where we parked the car.

This was quite an incredible place. The hotel we stayed in was really lovely, even though Sam, couldnt walk under the doorways without breaking his nose. That night we had tapas for dinner at a restuarant on the side of the cliff. This photo is from across the gorge looking back at the hanging houses (just down from our hotel).

Today we drove to Toledo (just south of Madrid) where we are staying in a nice hotel in the old part of town.

Still having a good time, glad we have bags with wheels and it is definitely getting colder so beanies and gloves are in constant use.

Talk to you soon
Sam and Soph

Hello again.

Last time we left you in Florence and we’ve traveled a fair way since then. The car has just clocked over 2000 km today. This is what we’ve done.

We caught the bus into the centre of Florence from just outside our hostel’s gates and it turned out to be very cheap, we couldn’t figure out how to buy a ticket since we don’t speak Italian so we hopped on and then off at our destination without paying. The driver didn’t seem to care. It was a bit of a rainy day and we were getting hassled to buy umbrellas for a while and eventually we bought one each. Sam’s lasted about 10 minutes before falling apart .

We decided to climb the Tower next to the Cathedral which cost us €6, we had to go up the 414 steps to the top. Here’s a photo from the top of the tower looking out over the city.

We then made our way across the river to the Piazza of Michaelangelo which sits on top of a hill that took about 10 minutes to climb. The view from here was amazing, it made the tower we had just climbed look small. You can see the tower next to the dome of the cathedral in this photo.

The next day we headed off early to Venice. We parked the car at Tronchetto and caught the Vaporetta down the canal to San Marco. Here we found an abundance of pigeons and masks. We walked the skinny alleys and eventually found our hotel which was really nice. Then after getting a map we headed out to explore. We bargained our way to a more reasonably priced (€50) Gondola ride down the Grand Canal, under the Rialto Bridge and through some narrow back-canals for 35 minutes. Here’s a photo of us at the end of the ride with our driver. The plastic bag next to Soph contains the carefully packaged mask that she had just purchased.

We took our Gondola ride at low tide but here is a photo from the next morning when it was high-tide. The water is actually inside the doorway.

We were a little bit sad to leave Venice since it was such a lovely city despite the expensive hot chocolate and parking.

On our way to Milan we stopped briefly in Verona where we saw the cathedral and the supposed house and balcony of Juliet. Here it is.

Next stop was Milan, we would have arrived at about 5:30pm but instead sat in traffic where it took 3 hours to travel 10km on the highway. The only cause we can think of was a football match that may have been on in Milan at the time, had I known that, we would have been in Milan hours earlier and I would have been at the game.

The next morning we took the Metro into the centre of Milan and had a brief look around. This, we think, would have to be the nicest exterior to a cathedral that we have seen so far (and we have seen so many over the past week).

Soph would have liked to shop for longer but we didn’t have the time to spare (because we need to keep moving to get to Barcelona by the 9th to watch a football match). Sophie did however manage buy some leather boots before we left Italy.

That afternoon we drove across the border to France and managed to get through the non-existent border control very easily. We got to Nice late afternoon after getting slightly lost on our way to the hostel. Today we drove to Monaco along a picturesque road past a medieval town called Eze and arrived at Monaco’s Palace just in time for the changing of the guard, which occurs at 11:55am each day. Here is a video of the changing of the guard, it goes for about 5 minutes and is quite repetitive but was still great to see.

This is a photo of the view from in-front of the Palace looking down on the Mariner. You can also see a small part of the Formula 1 track, which we later drove on.

We stayed in Monaco for a couple hours wandering the streets while listening to Christmas Carols which were playing. Unfortunately most of the stores (of which nearly all were designer) were closed for some reason but Sam was having a ball looking at the massive number of incredible cars. Ferraris, Maseratis, Bentleys, Porsches, Aston Martins, Maybachs and many others. It was harder to find a car that wasn’t luxurious. Most of these were parked close by to the Casino Monte Carlo. We went inside the casino and Sam lost €1 on the pokies but we didn’t pay the €10 to see the actual tables. Here is a photo of the front of the casino.

And that brings us to tonight. We are staying in the same hostel as last night in Nice. We are heading off very early in the morning to travel the 800km to Barcelona so Sam and Lachlan can make an 8:00pm game between FC Barcelona and Real Sociedad at Camp Nou (Sam’s most anticipated part of the trip).

Thanks again for all the comments, keep them coming because we love seeing who’s been reading.

We are having a fantastic time. We can’t believe we’re finished in Italy, it was an amazing country with so many different regions, great food and nice people, we loved it all. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been traveling for almost 2 weeks now.

As you can see we are deviating from the itinerary a bit but from now it should be pretty similar.

Talk to you soon.

Hi everyone

Firstly, thank you for your comments, it is so cool to know you are reading this and I really appreciate hearing from you all. (Look in the comments for some replies to individuals).

Here are some photos from the previous post. This is the Trevi Fountain in Rome:

This is a picture of the number of scooters, imagine almost all streets everywhere covered like this.

This is us inside the Colosseum.

Sorry it’s been so long between posts. Here’s what you’ve missed:

Our second day in Rome saw us enter Vatican City, seeing the Museum, the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s Basillica (unfortunately the Pope was in Turkey). All were quite incredible. This is a hallway in the Vatican Museum, we weren’t allowed to take photos inside the Sistine Chapel (but we did ), but we both thought this was nicer anyway.

That night we went to our first restaurant with some people in the Hostel (we had pasta). I wore the shoes I bought that day, they are silver glittery!

The next day we caught the train to Rome’s airport to pick up our car. There is plenty of room in the car for us and all our luggage and the boys say the car is nice to drive, even though we are on the wrong side of the car and the road!

We headed south out of Rome towards Naples, however we decided to bypass Naples and go straight to Sorrento. Here is a photo taken from the side of the road on the way.

The roads were extremely skinny and windy, barely enough for 2 cars. We were about 3kms out from our accommodation in Sorrento when we got a flat tyre (unbelievable, we know), luckily we were able to put the space-saver on. So that meant the next morning we had to get the tyre fixed. Fortunately there was a Peugeot dealer not far from us and we were on our way north in no time. The place we stayed in was very beautiful and even our room had a view, plus the breakfast was the best we’ve had. This is the view from the end of our street (about 20 metres from the driveway).

We stopped at Pompeii and spent a couple of hours wondering the ruins then continued on our journey. That night we stayed in Orvieto, which is a little town just off the autostrade (130km speed limit)’placed precariously on a cliff’. We woke up to a very misty and chilly morning (4) and headed to Pisa. It was great to see the Leaning Tower, even though it was raining.

This was where we encountered our first toilets which required payment: 30 euro cents. We then continued north to Florence, which is where we are staying tonight and tomorrow. Just in case any of you are wondering, we are 9 hours behind you in time.

Hope everything at home is well. Talk to you soon.

Sophie and Sam