Florence - Italy

With our hard earned euros we headed to Italy, first stop Florence. It was a whole day on the train, and not the best thing to do after a night out drinking, but we made it.

The Ponte Veccio, aparently the only bridge to survive WW2. Not as pretty as I would have thought. Use to be butchers shops, but now is full of jewellery shops.

Not too sure who this guy is, but he looks pretty mean with the clouds like that behind him!

The Duomo, which was packed with toursits. There are actually heaps of Aussies in Florence at the moment, we cannot escape them!

This is us...with a nice backdrop taken from the Ponte Veccio.

We bumped into Michelangelos statue of David...

Here is another view of him. He is actually a lot bigger than I had imagined.

Basilica di Santa Croce.

We will stay in Florence for a few days, and make a day trip out to Pisa before heading to Roma!

Cote d Azure

After leaving Barcelona we headed to the french riviera, to Antibes (one stop before Nice) on the train and then got a bus to a small town called Biot, where our friends Paul and Olivia are living whilst looking for work on very expensive boats.

They lent us their tent and blow up mattress and we ended up camping in the same caravan park as they are living, the Pylone caravan park for a week. There are a whole bunch of Aussies and Kiwis living there, it was a great atmosphere, and we didnt want to say goodbye.

This was the party we had on our last night at the Pylone. We had a great time Paul and Liv, sorry about the eviction notice!

Free beers, wine and cheese, thanks to the Monaco GP! Good Times! We all actually worked at the Monaco Grand Prix over the weekend, and managed to take home excess food and drink, along with a nice pay packet each. Will upload some GP pix when i can get my hands on some copies.

One of the overly expensive boats mentioned above! To give you an idea of size, you can see the guy cleaning the small boat inside...this is one of many in the area. The little one is still a lot bigger than yours Dad!

sean will be trying out for a modelling contract once we get to the UK...this is his seano Boss ad.

We did go swimming, but the pebbly beaches take a bit of geting used to, they are a bit rough on your feet!

Barcelona

Next stop was Barcelona, the home of Gaudi. We checked in to the hostel, yes this time we had a booking! And then headed off to see all the Gaudi buildings. They are strange looking things, but cool, beacuse they are unlike anyhting we have ever seen before.

Sean with a mosaic lizard at Parc Guell, designed by Gaudi.

The park benches in Park Guell.

Information centre and gift shop at the Park.

Whilst in Barcelona we made it out to the olympic site to see a game of football. We saw the home team, Espanyol lose 5-1 to Gadafe.

Gaudi's yet to be completed masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia. Construction began around 1880, with no solid completion date as yet!

The Sagrada Familia continued...

Strange looking Gaudi buildings continued...

Probably my favourite Gaudi building, which was just up the road from where we were staying and only 16euro to get in, it was a little out of our budget!

Granada and the Alhambra

From Seville we headed east to Granada. Again we didn't have any accomodation booked. And in the end found a place that we wouldn't recommend to anyone, but it was only for one night and it was close to everything, and we had a cool roommate which was great.

We spent about 9 hours at the Alhambra, a place described (in the Lonely Planet Guide) as a masterpiece of Islamic art. It was so amazing, and definately a highlite of the trip so far. The palace and gardens were to beautiful.

Some of the gardens and water features in the grounds.

A view from inside to Palace looking into a courtyard.

Mosaics on the walls of the palace.

I love this photo, the reflections of the water are so clear.

Went out for free tapas and then tea with Kristine our roommate from Melbourne. It was such a cool little place.

A view of the Alhambra from the opposite site of Granada.

The Sierra Nevada Mountain range. Snow still on the top, depite us nearly melting in Granada at 35 degrees.

Back to Sevilla

We finally managed to drag ourselves off the beaches and get back on a bus to Sevilla. Spent one faily sleepless night there. But it is a beautiful city.

Spanish scenery. It really is lovely.

Downtown Sevilla is the Plaza de Espanyol. It is really nice to walk around and has mosaics of all the Spanish towns on the walls there.

Plaza de Espanyol continued...

Sevilles Cathedral.

Epic journey to Lagos - Portugal

Ok, we left Toledo at 5am to get a train to Madrid, and then to Sevilla. We got to Seville, wanting to stay a day or two before getting a bus over to Lagos in Portugal. Once there we found out that no busses go on wekends, so we had to buy a ticket and catch a bus at 4.30 that afternoon. We ended up finally getting to Lagos at 10.30pm, and still had to find a place to sleep! It all turned out very well in the end, and we had a great time relaxing on the beutiful beaches of Lagos for 5 days.

Sean taste testing the Port of Portugal.

Us taste testing the local beer, Superbok, on our rooftop patio with ocean views!


Gee, we seemed to be doing a lot o taste testing, eh? This time it was pints of Long Island Iced Tea.

We were actually the only people on this beach, it was so amazing. The water was freezing though.

Another Lagos beach.

Spain Part 1

OK from Paris we headed south through France to San Sebastian, Spain. As I have previously mentioned we were hoping to relax and unwind from all our walking and churches and museums, by laying on the beach in the sun...

One problem, it was 16 and raining. A little cooler than the weather we have has so far!

To keep out of the elements, we headed to the bars. As you can see the selection of Tapas was hughe. The salmos was Shannons favourite, while Sean won´t be selecting the pate with raw egg yolk again!

The beaches in San Sebastian were beautiful, and all the postcards show them packed full of visitors...not today!

We walked aroun to the other end of the main beach to see the very appropriately named Wind Combes.

Managed to also make it to a food and wine festival.

Next stop in Spain was Madrid. Much warmer down here. A very relxed feel to this city. Only spent two nights, and managed to see two girls get their bags stolen. We are being very careful with our things.

Next stop was Toledo. A very nice little town on the top of a hill. The Cathedral was very nice.

Cathedral again.

Seans favourite bar so far. 1.60 euro beers and free plates of tapas. I don´t think he will ever want to leave!

Spains country side is beautiful. This one was taken from the trian window.

Paris...

OK, from Brussels to Paris. The first two nights we stayed in a dodgy hostel, but our room mates were good value. Had our first day of rain since we left home. We spent our first day at EuroDisney, it really was a lot of fun.

Made it into the Eiffel Tower. This was amazing. We have both seen so many pictures of it before, but to see it for real is awesome. We had a picnic in the sun before climbing to the second level. It was quite tiring, but the view was great.

Another shot of the Eiffel Tower.

After the first two nights, we move to a different hostel. This on in Montmarte, 10mins walk from the Sacre Cour. Spend many evenings up here chatting with other travelers (most frequently Colin from Winnipeg) from the hostel, drinking cheap wine, watching the sunset over Paris.

You are right Dani, the Eiffel Tower is smaller than we expected!

May 1st was a public holiday (May Day), so most attractions were closed. We did a free walking tour for 3.5hours around the major sites. Finnished up at the Arc de Triomphe. This is one crazy round about. I would not want to drive on it!

Made use of our free museum pass over the next two days. Saw some paintings, you know the drill.

Notre Dame was great, the walk to the top was tough, but again great views.

This evening was a definate highlight. We headed down to the tower in the evening, again with wine. 1 Euro per bottle, you can´t not drink it. It is cheaper than bottled water over here! So the tower is also amazing by night. And we were very surprised to see the light show on the hour. It was great. Paris. Amazing city.