our journey around the world

As I mentioned, we found Munich super family friendly.  We settled into our cheap deal hostel for a week and spent some days doing school work and some out and about.  We learned about Hitler and his rise to power; some stories about the resistance of the Munich locals as well as the atrocoties committed at the thousands of concentration camps set up around Europe, when we took a day trip to Dachau. 

Michael finally had his dream of seeing a “real” castle fulfilled when we went to Neuschwanstein; and we sang along to the soundtrack on a day trip to Salzburg for the Sound of Music tour. [Read more →]

After 7 months of travel I believe we have found the winner of  “The Most Family Friendly City”.

Munich.

No doubt the rest of Germany could measure up just as well, which could well make Germany the best family destination in Europe!

So what’s so special about Munich, you ask?  Well for starters, it’s cheap for families. [Read more →]

 So while we made the decision not to go to Florence, we did in fact have to pass through the train station twice – spending at least 5 hours there in total.  Does that qualify as visiting Florence?

We spent the night in Pisa, even though most people make it in a day trip from Florence just to see the Leaning Tower.  The Italian government have spent a fortune reinforcing it to make sure it doesn’t topple.  Not surprising given the number of tourists there.  I don’t think Pisa has much else to offer but the crowds at the Tower were outrageous. 

The most hysterical thing was everyone having their photos taken in various poses of holding the Tower up or knocking it down.  The Tower itself is actually tucked in behind a cathedral and the only way you can get in position for such pictures is to go onto the large expance of grass surrounding the whole complex.  Only problem is standing on the grass is illegal.  Periodically, the police come out and blow whistles and yell at everyone while they shoo hundreds off the grass.  As soon as they’ve gone, everyone goes back again.. [Read more →]

After boiling our bums off in Naples and Rome and living on a steady diet of take-away pizza slices and gelato, you could say it was an understatement that we were looking for a change.

My vote was for Tuscany.  Florence had always been on our list, but after standing in the lines in Rome, the thought of waiting for tickets to the galleries in Florence was the last thing we wanted to do.  So we made a massive call and decided to skip Florence all together and headed for Siena.

Unfortunately, the accommodation was no cheaper and the food, if anything, was more expensive.  Sigh..  More pizza.  At least this time we sat and ate it in the beautiful Piazza di Campo. 

I would love to show you a picture, but unfortunately every single one of my Tuscany photos are on my corrupted hard drive.

The next day, we were faced with finding somewhere cheaper to stay or heading to another city.  In desperation and doubt we asked the local travel bureau for help.  Luckily for us there was a self-contained apartment at a local farmhouse.  Yay!

We jumped on one of the extremely extensive local buses and puttered out into the countryside of rolling hills lined with vineyards and pencil pines.  We had our own sitting room and kitchen, bathroom and 2 bedrooms and we settled in for 4 days.  That handy little local bus had a stop right outside and then dropped us off a mere 6 minutes later at the local supermarket!  Whilst we couldn’t cook (only because there were not pots or pans!) we did have a fridge. 

 It was still hot but now we had the added bonus of an inground pool with views out over the rolling hills.  Aaagh…

After our expensive but visually amazing soujourn in Santorini, we were still looking for the non-touristy Greek experience we’d always wanted.  We jumped a ferry to another island named Naxos.

So I’m here to tell you that unless you go to some little tiny island that nobody’s ever heard of (or you happen to own one!) that there’s no such thing as a non-touristy Greek Island.  There are just different levels of touristy starting with Santorini at the top as the most over-touristed.

Naxos is probably about a 5 on the scale and we found a nice little apartment not far from the beach (once again did the “find accommodation when we get there” – it’s starting to become the norm to do it that way.  It’s a pain but it’s way easier to try and get a better price than over the internet.

Anyway, we spent 3 days playing on the beach and watching The Nanny reruns (ok – it was the first English language TV we’d seen in ages!!).  Our local shop was run by a mother and daughter who didn’t speak a lot of English but insisted on giving us freebies every time we set foot in the place.

We also finally gave away the gyros when we found the traditional Greek restaurant we’d been craving.  We tucked into moussaka, pastitsio and lamb with grilled vegetables like we hadn’t eaten in months.  The owner, also a Michael, was shocked that we had only eaten gyros since we’d been in Greece.  He never eats it – “never know what’s in that stuff!” he said..

Michael and his lovely wife stuffed us with massive servings and free bread, olives and roast potatoes for 3 amazing nights until we decided we had to leave or we would never fit into our clothes!

[Read more →]

A series of accommodation choices that came with no or really bad internet (as well as me swanning around doing little more than look at the view) has meant this blog is now quite a bit behind where we actually are.  So I thought I better get updated – also because it seems the internet isn’t getting any better!!

Wandering down the Turkish coast
Last time we talked, we had done our Aussie national duty and paid pilgramige to the Gallipoli battlefields.  We crossed the Dardanelles to see the horse used in the movie “Troy” but alas there was no sign of Brad in his skirt and took one of the very nice Turkish buses to Selcuk (pron. Sellchook).  Selcuk’s claim to fame is that it’s right next to the ancient city of Ephesus (yeah those guys that Paul the apostle wrote to).  Well the ruins were… ruins.  They were quite interesting actually but probably set us up to be over Greek or Roman civilisation ruins from there on in.

We stayed in the ANZ Guesthouse, run by the fast-talking, Turkish born Aussie, Harry and ate kebaps (by now our staple dinner) at his mate Ali Baba’s restaurant.  We also met fellow Aussie travellers Hanna & Ryan from Sydney.  Hanna is a writer and her blog has both inspired me to get back to keeping it up to date, but also tempted me to just put a link to her blog and let you read her more professional musings.  They were, after all visiting most of the same places as us! (see the website link on the left). [Read more →]

All my life, Gallipoli has been on my list of places I wanted to visit and so when we finally set off on our bus from Istanbul to the Dardanelles, I was really excited to finally fulfill this dream.

I won’t go on and on about the history – but it certainly does come alive when you’re standing in the middle of the Lone Pine cemetery, which is smaller than a football field and realise that in this rediculously small space, a battle claimed 8000 dead or wounded.

We spent five hours doing a tour of the battlefields and cemeteries and it was brilliant.  Even the kids were interested and just like when we went to Hellfire Pass in Thailand, I spent most of the evening and next day answering questions.

If you would like to learn more about the Gallipoli campaign or visiting the area, click on this website for fantastic pictures, stories, diaries etc.

If you’re wondering why Anzac is so special, even in defeat; I think this sums it up:-

Turkey has been a bit of an eye-opener for us.  It has always been on my list purely because of Gallipoli but of course there is so much more to it.

Istanbul was fabulous.  What a great city!  It’s vibrant and colourful and kind of European, kind of Middle Eastern.  The people are possibly the friendliest we’ve encountered on our travels.

Instead of hassling us, the shop vendors plyed us with freebies.  From our hostel, we walked past all the al fresco restaurants looking for a reasonable kebab.  Of course, they all met us out front and tried to woo us into their establishment, as we’ve experienced before – only this time it was “try my meatballs” or  “Oh Madame!  You must try our chicken!  It is the best around!”

We almost didn’t have to sit down to eat because we had been given so many pieces of meat and various other bits, we were nearly full!  The restaurant we chose, did give us a delicious lamb meal but then insisted that we try his apple dessert, followed by hot apple tea in those tiny Turkish glass cups – on the house. [Read more →]

Here are some stats for the first six months:-

• Visited 13 countries;
• Stayed in 58 hotels, 11 Youth Hostels, eaten at 147 restaurants/cafes,
  (cooked one meal!!) & had one McDonalds Hotel delivery.
• Visas required – 8;
•  Border crossings – 7;
• Travelled on 10 planes, 21 trains (incl 5 sleeper trains), 25 coaches (incl 2 sleepers), 27 local buses & 33 mini buses;
•  13 ferries,7 water taxis, 6 long tail boats, 2 junk boats, 1 cruise ship, 1 falucca, 1 surfcat & 1 canoe;
• Rode on 20 motor bikes, 4 cyclos, 1 horse & buggy, 2 bamboo rafts & back of a ute 3 times;
• 7 cable cars, 4 skytrains, 3 trams, 1 camel ride and one horse ride;
• Caught about 180 taxi/tuk tuks and rode the metro/tube about 50 times;
• Big sights seen – 3  -   Great Wall, Taj Mahal & the Pyramids;
• Castles, palaces, temples, churches, museums…..Countless!

- Time spent together – 24/7 for 26 weeks!
- Memories – priceless.

One thing Jerusalem is not short on is churches and mosques.  There is a mosque on virtually every block.  When we first came to the Middle East it was kind of cool to hear the call to prayer echo around the city, but we have decided that in Jerusalem it gets a bit much because there are so many mosques and they all sing at the same time in different keys, so it creates an absolute racket.  Add to that the church bells ringing and you have a noise that only God could love!

The noise aside (it’s only 5 times a day after all!) the old city of Jerusalem has a really interesting vibe.  It’s made up of 4 quarters – Jewish, Christian, Muslim & Armenian – all within one square kilometre inside the city walls.  It feels like it’s way bigger than that because there are so many alleys and laneways snaking throughout.  The main thoroughfares are lined with gift & souvenir shops, spices, lollies, religious trinkets, vegetables & kebabs etc etc.

We found a hostel just inside Jaffa Gate in the Christian quarter and wandered the streets for a few days.  Just to wander was great.  We also took a walking tour which took us past all the holy sites and explained a lot about the differences between the religious groups here.  [Read more →]