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.

Caitlin celebrated her entry into the teens by spending the night before her birthday in a tent with 100 other backpackers.  Really it was a giant marquee with a wooden floor and you got your own sleeping mat and blankets.  This came about because our hostel had one night without availability so we had to move out for a night and then come back the next day.

Caitlin designated the activities for the day, which included going to the movies to see Toy Story 3 in 3D; ice creams at McDonald’s and a trip to Pizza Hut for dinner.

Bienvenue a France

Finally we had to move on and we decided to go west through the Black Forest to France – first stop Strasbourg.  This is such a beautiful place, with a river running through the middle of ancient old timber frame houses – a mixture of French and German.  That is one of the things that has always amazed us on this trip – the invisible line between countries; even more invisible in Europe because of freedom of movement.  One minute everyone’s speaking German, the next we’re clicking over to French.  Time to see if any of our French study will pay off.

There are no “sights” as such to see as we wandered south through Dijon, Lyon, Avignon and finally Marseille.  We simply moved along looking as we went.

 Marseille is a massive port in the south of France.  It has a very high populations of Arabic and African immigrants so it has a very different flavour.  Reminded us a lot of Naples. 

By the time we had arrived here, we had been moving every day or every second day and were a bit bored so decided to stop for a while after getting a great deal on a couple of Citadines apartments.  Citadines has always been out of our reach, mainly because they will not allow 6 people in their family apartments.  We had completely run out of options so we decided to risk “hiding” 2 of the kids.  It really was hilarious when you think about some of the other places we have stayed around the world and the tiny rooms all 6 of us have crammed into.  At Citadines, we took 2 apartments that were strictly for 2 people each, with an interconnecting door.  We doubled up on everything we would need – 2 kitchens, 2 double beds, 2 sofas, 2 tables etc etc.  It was absolute luxury!  We just had to make sure that we didn’t get caught having 4 children when we were supposed to only have 2.  We never left or arrived together and always made sure we were never seen together.  Very secret spy!

Spending a few days here allowed us to rethink our itinerary again – the beauty and the pain of flexibility – and we decided to do spice things up a little and side track to Morocco and then head north through Spain.  Time to start ”travelling” again and not just drift!

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.

We stayed at the A&O Hostel on Arnulfstrasse (there is another near the Hauptbahnhof, as well as throughout Germany).  The good news is that kids under 18 stay for free at these hostels!  That means that we stayed in a 6 bed dorm room with ensuite or a 5 bed family room with ensuite and fridge, for €25 each adult! 

Then there’s the public transport.  Kids are classed as aged 6 to 16.  Under 5’s are free.  There’s also a “partner” ticket that covers up to 5 people who travel together (2 kids are classed as 1 “person”), which lets you take as many buses, trams or trains in the inner city as you like.  €22.50 got us a 3 day pass for all of us.

Then we discovered that Europe Tours were here.  We first came across these guys in Jerusalem, where we did one of their free walking tours.  They also offered a number of great paid tours we would have loved to do but they were just too far outside our budget.  Not so in Munich!  Kids under 14 were free on all their tours!

We did the brilliant free walking tour again and then also went out to Dachau as well as the all day tour to the Neuschwanstein Castle.

We splurged one night and ate out at the Augustiner Brau Haus (€82 for the 6 of us including dessert.. and beer) but we also had the occasional take-away bratwurst for a mere €2.50 or shock horror.. Burger King.  The reason being that in Munich, kids meals are free with every “king whopper value meal”.

Much to our delight, there were also wonderful supermarkets throughout the city – conveniently for us there was one right next door to the hostel.  Prices are way cheaper than Australia – including fruit & vegies.

We stayed in Munich for just over a week and our budget was just that little more healthy.

The other thing that we love about Munich (and Germany), that we think is severely lacking in other countries, is how organised it is. 

The Hauptbahnhof (central station) is so well set out it’s impossible to get lost.  None of this following signs that go nowhere like in Rome.  The tourist information centre staff who can in fact speak fluent English, are happy to help you and try their best to do just that!  Instead of being lost and stressed, Munich starts you off being organised and in control! 

Germany is also green.  Apparently one of the most environmentally friendly countries in Europe – a claim I’d easily believe.  We saw so many farm houses and barns covered in solar panels – in fact we even saw whole fields covered in solar panels.  Wind turbines dot the horizon, bins are available for recycling in public areas, machines give you credit for bringing back your plastic bottles and my all time favourite – recycling. 

McDonalds and Burger King don’t have bins.  Instead you slide your tray with all your rubbish on it into a big holder.  We couldn’t work out why they didn’t have bins!  Then we saw staff out the back sorting the rubbish off each tray and making sure they got everything that was recyclable.  Love it!

Trains run on time, the streets are clean, the people are friendly and quite a large percentage speak English. 

Really.. what more can you ask for.  It’s a great start, anyway..

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..

The train from Florence goes straight to Venice and Venezia Stazione should be a tourist attraction in itself.  Inside it looks like any other Italian train station (mainly great queues of people trying to buy tickets from 2 ticket windows open out of 10 – sorry bit of sarcasm there!).  However, you walk through the main exit doors and right there in front of you is the Grand Canal.  It’s quite surreal, like walking into a theme park.

Note for fellow travellers – the guide books will tell you you can walk from the station to St Mark’s Square in about 15-20 minutes.  They’re lying.  Especially not straight off the train, with packs and kids.  One thing you’ll learn about Venice is that it’s a meandering labrynth of bridges, alleyways and piazzas that all look the same (and the signs are well.. typical of Italy – all over the place!).  You will have to take the water bus which has astronomical fares.  Kids are NOT discounted.  Budget accordingly!

We arrived at the station late in the afternoon and a storm was hovering on the horizon.  Typically, by the time we got around to Saint Mark’s on the water bus, it was starting to spit.  All the passengers started pouring off the boat and by the time we made our way through the crowds, it was bucketing down.

It kept right on raining  with no sign of letting up, so after about 10 minutes we decided to cover our packs as best we could with rain covers and try and find the hostel.  It had been steamy hot all day so it was quite a relief to go out into the rain, although the raindrops were so big and pelting down that they actually hurt!

We did eventually find the hostel (note to people who own accommodation – please put a map or at least give instructions that make sense, so we might have half a chance of finding you!)  We were, of course, absolutely soaked and then had to pull everything out of everywhere and try to set it out to dry.

In our guide book it comments that Venice is not really a real city anymore, it’s more like a tourist park.  That is possibly true. There doesn’t seem to be any other commerce going on there other than that to cater to tourists. 

It is unlike anywhere else in the world, so I guess it’s worth fighting the crowds and the ridiculous prices just to wander through those famous alleyways.

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…

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!

Acropolis now… actually - no..

Paul had been to Athens 20 years ago and all he could remember was that it was hot and dusty.  Apparently nothing has changed! 

That’s probably a little unfair – we weren’t there long enough to give an opinion.  The best reasonably priced accommodation we could find still cost €65 per double and you literally could not swing a cat.   The only affordable food was heading back down the gyros track, so we decided we would check out the Acropolis and keep on moving.

Paul went out to firm up the ferry tickets to Italy but came back to tell us to hurry up and pack because the only available ferry for the next week was leaving that night!  The ferry was leaving from Patras which is a 2.5 hour bus trip from Athens.  That left us with about an hour to see the Acropolis – the whole reason for coming here in the first place.

So we grabbed the kids and hassled and prodded and ran them up the hill in the 40C heat to the entry gate.  It was shut.  I looked around at the other tourists all crowding around the gate – they were looking as confused as we were.  I checked the guide map.  No – definately was supposed to be open..  A girl appeard on the other side of the gate and said that they would open about 2pm.  We had no idea why it was closed but we would be on our way to the bus stop by 2pm, so there was no way we were going to see the Acropolis close up..

If the kids had’ve had the energy to cheer, I’m sure they would have jumped up and down.  They were completely over the whole thing.  So we took a couple of photos of what we could see and off we went.  Farewell Athens..

Benvenuto Italia

We like ferries.  The ones we’d been on in Greece had been great.  The international one we went to Italy on was run by Superfast and it was massive – I think with 3 garage levels.  Unfortunately, the cabins weren’t quite as spacious as the Greek ferries but still very well appointed and we settled in for the night without any problems.

We arrived on the Italian coast at the port cityof Bari.  We had trouble finding afordable food and ended up in McDonalds.  Little did we know this would be an ongoing problem in Italy – not something you think would be a problem in the land of spaghetti bolognese, the most budget meal ever invented after baked beans on toast!   But alas for a family of 6, unless we were prepared to pay €40-50 for a meal –  spaghetti or pasta or anything besides pizza stayed off the menu! 

Pompeii defeated..

Naples was absolutely boiling.  We had a few people tell us that Italy was experiencing some sort of heat wave never experienced before.  We had survived 46/47C in India – Italy should’ve been a piece of cake!  No – the humidity was crazy, the hotel’s air conditioning was not working and if Naples most famous export is it’s pizza, well let’s just say they should find something else to be famous for.  Enter Pompeii.

Unfortunately, the weather beat us in Pompeii.  We wandered among the ruins of the city and some of it was truly amazing but the heat was killing us.  It didn’t take long before the kids rebelled.  Ruins, no matter how interesting, on a hot day is not most kids idea of a great day.

Rome is burning

Unfortunately, Rome was no better.  The heat was debilitating and the crowds suffocating.  Air conditioning (where it existed) was terrible.  We set off to see the sights on our own Roman marathon. 

 The queue for tickets for the Vatican ran at about 1km.  Once we had sweated it out with our fellow travellers for nearly 2 hours, we moved en masse as a continuous, seething crowd through each gallery.  Some of the galleries, including the Raphael rooms were amazing but attempting to look at artwork when you can’t stop and are completely encompassed in a crowd is near on impossible.

I could probably get charged with herecy but I’m going to go out on a limb and say the Sistine Chapel is completely overrated.  There.. I said it.  Perhaps it was the standing up close against people I didn’t know.  Perhaps it was the “bouncers” who ran around loudly telling everyone “sssssshhhhhh” because talking is banned.  Either way, it was an anticlimax.

We went from the Vatican Museum to St Peter’s Square.  The queue for tickets to the church was not as long as the museum but there was nothing that was going to make us line up again, so we didn’t see it.  We did however, throw coins into the Trevi Fountain, sit in the shade at Piazza Verona and look at the remains of the market at Campo di Fiori.  By the time we got to the Colosseum; we took a photo and kept walking.   Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we sure saw it’s biggest sights in one!

Unfortunately, due to our hard drive having a bit of an accident, we currently have no photos from a lot of places in Italy.  Hopefully when we get home we’ll be able to recover them..

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).

Actually Hanna & Ryan were off to Cappadocia while we were going straight to the sea.  We spent 2 days watching the massive cruise ships come in and out of Kusadasi (that’s Kushadarcy for all of us non-Turkish speakers), before realising that wishing we were on a cruise wasn’t going to make it happen and we should push on. 

Finally…The Greek Islands
Another bus and a hydrofoil later and we were in a hotel in Rhodes town on the Greek island.  Unfortunately, so were most of the Swedish gap year who were intent on drinking, shouting and knocking on each other’s doors ALL night!   This is when Paul & I realised we really are old.  Twenty years ago we would have gone out and joined them, not telling them to pull their heads in that some people were actually trying to sleep!!  Needless to say, after having no sleep at all, we moved.  The beach wasn’t very good anyway..  We took a bus to the other side of the island to the village of Lindos – described to us as “much more family oriented”. 

We hadn’t been able to find any reasonably priced accommodation online so took a chance  that we could fall over something when we got there (something we’ve been loathe to do so far).  After parking me, backpacks & kids in a shady spot in the middle of the tourist shops, Paul went off to try and find some of the apartments we had seen listed. 

Meanwhile an old lady came out of one of the souvenir shops and said one word “room?”  I think that was the only word of English she knew but over the next week we were grateful, because her “room” was an apartment, complete with kitchenette and a balcony overlooking St Paul’s Bay. We spent a week going to the beach, sitting on the balcony and horror of horrors, we actually prepared some of our own food!  Don’t get too excited; we didn’t get any more culinary than spag bog made with bottled meat sauce and tuna subs. 

 Saying that though, it was the first “homemade” food we’d had in 6 months and it was great!  Made a nice change from our regular dinner which was now the Greek version of the kebab – the gyros.  We’d been living on these since Jordan – basically the same thing with different names depending on the country. In Jordan, it was kebab – meat, salad, fries & tahina; Israel it was shawarma – chicken, hommous, tahina & those fries again; the Turks were pretty similar to the Jordanian version and then the Greeks changed it slightly by calling it gyros (yiros) changing the tahina slightly and calling it tzaziki – still with the now ubiquitous french fries.  We had given up asking them to leave them out.

One of the highlights of our week was when Caitlin and I had our hair cut.  There was a very trendy looking salon near our apartment and we were both desperate for the attentions of even a half decent hairdresser.  We were both laughing when we went home to tell the others about the colourist who had started on me – dressed in thongs, cut off denim shorts and a shirt open to the waist; topped off with shoulder length blonde hair.  The cutter had short, brown hair topped with a pair of sunnies which never moved the whole time we were there; boardshorts and a pink surf shirt.  Oh… did I mention they were both men? 

Santorini
Surprisingly, getting a ferry off Rhodes was not as easy as we thought.  I had ideas that Greek island hopping was as easy as grabbing a ticket and jumping on like a bus.  Wrong!  For starters, nobody in Lindos sells ferry tickets (or could tell us the ferry schedule).  The internet is no help here either so we had no choice but to take the bus the 50km back to Rhodes town and hope there was a ferry, with seats available so we wouldn’t have to find another night’s accommodation.  Luckily the person who had told us he thought there was a ferry going that night, turned out to be right and we were delighted with our roomy cabins and the quite luxurious lounges…  15 hours later we pulled into Santorini – the posterboy of the Greek Islands.

First impressions were not great.  The island is basically a mountain in the middle of the sea.  It was brown and hot and the people were completely tourist jaded.  We had decided to splurge on a hotel overlooking the caldera for those famous views.  Unfortunately, the hotel didn’t mention that it was also overlooking a building sight.  Call us cynical, but paying $390 AUD a night had better guarantee me something better than that!  So we did it again – the kids, bags & I sat in a shady spot with a drink while Paul went off in search of an affordable caldera location, if such a thing exists. 

 Ok – it does.. but for us, the price to be paid for those views was the smell.  We were right next to the donkey track which snakes from port to the town, carrying the cruise ship passengers up and down.  When the wind blew the right direction, it was just like being at the Royal Show – a small price to pay for those views!

So once again, we sat on our balcony and watched the cruise ships come in and out and subsequently the mules going up and down.  One night while out looking for our nightly cheap gyros, Paul bumped into our fellow travellers, Ryan & Hanna.  They had in fact outdone us in the fantastic caldera views, cheap accommodation competition and minus the Royal Show!! 

Turns out Santorini is a small world.  The next day, we went to Oia – that’s the place on the island where they take the photos for all the postcards. We perched on the end of the cliffs to watch the sunset.  Here we were surrounded by a group of young Aussies on a tour and one of them happened to be a guy we met taking the ferry and bus from Koh Samui to Bangkok.  It’s a very small island (world)…

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:-

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.

We rolled down the hill towards the Bosphorus, completely stuffed but stopped to look in the window of a Bacalavaci (ie Turkish sweet & dessert shop).  The windows were full of displays of Turkish delight.  The shopkeeper came out to meet us and insisted we try some varieties of Turkish delight.  So we stuffed some more in – and it was divine.

Next door was an ice cream shop and outside a costumed man was beating “dondurma” (Turkish ice cream) with a big spoon with a long handle.  Dondurma is really different from our ice cream.  It’s kind of thick and stretchy and tastes a bit like gelato.  We stopped to take a photo of the man doing his thing but of course he insisted we try his wares and Michael walked away with a free cone!

We had to get away from all this food, so walked the rest of the way down to the Bosphorus to look at the amazing view and then walked across the Galati Bridge to Asia on the other side of the water. 

The top of the bridge was full of fisherman and men selling grilled fish.  Under the bridge is jammed with fish restaurants.  The whole place was rocking!

Unfortunately on the other side of the bridge, was a whole group of street vendors selling fruit, nuts, bagels and drinks.  After a handful of cherries was given to us, we decided any more free food was going to be messy so we stumbled home to bed and a packet of antacids..

• 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.

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. 

As was expected, the most popular sites were quite crowded, including the site of the crucifiction, the Garden of Gethsemane and the Western Wall.  The first day we wandered into town was a Saturday which is the sabbath day for the Jews.  You have to pass through security, including xray to get into the plaza of the Western Wall and it was crowded with Jewish people in their best clothes.  Unfortunately, no electronic equipment is permitted to be used on the Sabbath so I couldn’t take any photos of the men in their big fur hats and curly side burns.

Jerusalem  is probably the one place where religion is out in the open.  There’s no escaping it – it’s everywhere and the fact that there are 3 different factions all living together is really quite fascinating.  I heard a saying from our tour guide – “Jerusalem is united by its city but divided by its people”.

We went for a short trip to the West Bank to see Bethlehem.  This meant passing into the Palestinian Territories and going through an army checkpoint, so we had to take our passports.  To be honest it didn’t seem that much different to Jerusalem.  Probably quite similar to towns in Jordan.  Our taxi driver, who drove us to the Church of the Nativity, was quite at pains to tell us that the West Bank is completely safe.  “Nothing dangerous ever happens here” he said.

The new city is vastly different from the old.  It’s full of swanky apartment buildings, shopping malls and trendy coffee shops.  We didn’t spend a lot of time there – to us it was just another city. 

 The big problem to us here was the cost of everything.  It is terribly expensive.  We found it difficult to feed the 6 of us for under $30 for dinner.  The best option quickly turned out to be shawarma’s which are like a doner kebab.  Still not terribly cheap but the best option available to us.

We spent a week wandering the alleys of the old city before returning to Jordan (this time the border crossing only took 4 hours!) en route to Istanbul.