Kristy’s Brief Travel Diary
OK so it’s been a long time coming, and Kristy has kind of been kicked in the bum by Pete and Vicky to get cracking on updating her blog again. So this post is one she’s been meaning to do ever since they got back from overseas. BTW One of the best experiences of Kristy’s life. For anyone who has not ventured into the unknown and immersed themselves in a foreign culture, you should definately plan to do so….consider it your “Bucket List”.
(oh, by the way, I guess you’ve noticed by now, that Kristy is still trying to pull off this third person thing)
There’s no need to go into great detail because if anyone is that interested, you can always check out Pete’s Travel Diaries or for photos check out flickr. They started with a few days in London catching up with some friends…and they both can’t say thank you enough to Con, Libby, Chris and Gerard for putting up with them. They then ventured down to Paris courtesy of Eurostar, and after some pain-staking wandering, looking for accomodation, ended up in some shoddy room which would not meet 1-star by Australian standards, then went to the Moulin Rouge that night…OMG LOVED IT!!!! The Moulin Rouge that is, not Paris….her first Parisian experience and Kristy couldn’t get out of the city fast enough.
From here they trained it to Milan, landed late at night and found their hotel was waaaaay out in the ‘burbs….nice room though. Next day they saw a little of Milan - Duomo being the main attraction, despite the visit causing them to nearly miss their train to Venice (small case of miscalculated timing).
Venice was the next stop, and gee was Kristy glad they had booked 2 nights in Venice….this is her favourite city in the world (thus far). Now she’s not quite sure how to describe what she felt when in this beautiful city but it was certainly positive. She loved the fact that there were no cars, trucks, bikes, scooters etc. And the narrow alley-style maze of the floating city is awesome…they’d just turn a corner and see where it took them…it’s a great feeling when you’re just wandering with no destination or timeframe in mind.
After Venice, yes sadly they had to leave, it was Florence. Now prior to their trip and even since they’ve been home, Kristy has heard from so many various people that Florence is the most beautiful city in the world. Well, this was not her opinion but perhaps she just missed the beautiful part. When they alighted the train, they found the international train station was filthy and the area surrounding it was no better. There they stayed in a hostel which was not so bad but reasonably expensive considering what they’d paid for hotel rooms and apartments in the last two cities. Given that they were not real keen on seeing Florence, they decided to take day trip to Pisa the following day, and this was worth the trip. Pisa is a beautiful old city / town and they really enjoyed the trip.
From Florence it was onto Rome, where their hotel was in the bronx, and the room in the hotel looked like an old converted storage space. Anyway, she’s not complaining, but it was the butt of their jokes most of the time they were there and it was at least comfortable and not too expensive. Rome was fantastic, so many great sites to see and enxiting things to do. Trevii Fountain was definately Kristy’s favourite and in fact, whilst she’s says that Venice is her favourite city in the world, the Trevii Fountain is definately her favourite individual site in the world. It’s just fabulous, the way the fountain is actually carved out of the side of the building and and the detail in the scultpure and the cool water running over was just so relaxing, she could have sat there and watched it for hours.
From Rome it was back to Paris, and any horrible opinion she may have had of Paris before, this brief visit changed her mind. Paris is quite nice and houses some of the largest and most brilliant places Kristy has seen. The Louvre for example is absolutely tremendous…Kristy & Pete didn’t have time to do the whole gallery, but they did check out as much art as possible. The Arc de Triomph is ginormous, and the Eiffel Tower is really a site to see….no they didn’t climb it. Kristy doesn’t do heights, and the Duomo in Milan put her off any more elevated sites for the rest of their trip.
After Paris they trained it up to Calais and crossed to Dover via the Cezanne (Sea France ferry), and from Dover back to London. She had to admit, by the time they were on their way back to London, she was a little relieved and felt a little more relaxed. She just never fathomed how difficult it could be in a country where you don’t know the language…mind you, the travellers knew enough to get by, but Kristy would love to live in one of these European countries for 3-6mths and learn the language through necessity, because you’d be amazed at the extra linguistics they picked up just in the short time they were there.
As for London, she can see why so many Aussies go backpacking and end up staying there….the culture is not unlike Australia, and Kristy suspects the transtition from Oz to UK would be reasonably seamless. By this she means it’s an English speaking country so there’s no language barrier, the public transport is amazing, the cost of living is comparable with Oz but in different ways, and you’re likely to run into any number of other Aussies at any given time, so that shoud ease the homesickness a little (maybe).
Anyway, so Kristy’s next post shall be her travel tips…stay tuned (but don’t hold your breath, you might turn blue) 