Round the World

Woke up to a crummy breakfast - the milk was room temperature, and the croissants were pre-packaged! We bussed in to town where we met our guide for a walking tour of Firenze (Florence). We visited the golden door (which has now been replaced by a replica), the Duomo, then in to Santa Croce. Here we left the guide, and were taken into a jewellery store for a short presentation on Florentinian gold - all the girl's eyes lit up! Then in to Peruzzi leather where again we had a presentation then did a little shopping!
We were then free to explore - so we wandered around for a little while, eventually coming across the line for the Gallery Accademia where the original of Michaelangelo's David lives. €6.50 each to get in and through metal detectors and bag screenings! Then finally in after standing in line for an hour. The statue was definately the best part - the detail that went into it was amazing! you could see the veins in his arms, ribs in his chest, tendons in his hands - and he was uncircumcised too! Back outside we found lunch from a pamphlet - €7 for a pizza and coke. On the way back to the meeting point we stopped for a hot chocolate / coffee while we waited for the others.
That evening most of the group went to a monk's dinner - we stayed back, had a siesta, then walked a few blocks down the road & whiled away a few hours at a laundrette. Then some dinner just down the road (Salad for Meredith, Tortellini for Will) then a stroll for some gelati, then to bed!

Twas an early start - up at 6:15, breaky at 6:45, in town by 8am to met our tour guide at St Peter's Square. She took us for a walk around, then explained what the statues inside the cathedral were about - tour guides aren't allowed to guide inside the cathedral! Before we could go in we had to get through security where they checked our bags. The church was very big and lots was going on - there was a chapel underneath the floor, and a dome which people could go up, and of course in St Peter's cathedral one would find St Peter's tomb. After we came out, the guide explained the wall built around St Peter's and the Vatican City.
We got back on the bus and headed to the Colosseum where there was a BIG queue! Around the outside there were guys dressed as Roman soldiers who didn't like to be photographed or posed with unless you paid them (around €2). While the people who paid to go into the Colosseum did their tour (not us) Karen and the two of us went for a walk around the Roman Forum, and Circus Maximus - it was a very hot walk! Then back to the bus which took us near to the entrance of Vatican City. Again the tour people went inside to see the Sistine Chapel, while the three of us went for a walk towards the city. We had lunch at a Pizzeria with a €10 deal - you got Salad, Spaghetti / Lasagna / Pizza, and a drink. The food was not too crash hot! (Meredith's pizza had a piece of ham straight from the deli, and two pieces of salami thrown on).
We headed towards Castel St Angel - Will's hayfever was getting worse and worse, so we decided to call it a day, after the quick-cool-down-with-gelati trick failed. We headed to the nearest Metro station - tickets were only €1 each! We went through the gates, validating our tickets as we went - but the gate wouldn't open for Meredith! It was difficult finding someone who knew what was going on (especially as though we were both on different sides of the ticket barrier) but eventually a Metro employee interpreted our frantic waving arms and let her through. We got on, 4 stops later at Cornelia we got off, finding the McDonalds right where Tania said it would be, then followed her directions back to the hotel. It was a long HOT walk which still made Will's hayfever worse and increasingly annoying to put up with. We got into the hotel & had cold showers to flush out the dust and pollen from the system, then had a sleep.
We woke up at 7pm & walked up the lane to a Chinese restaurant which was cheap (first word we understood!) but the food was still great! Afterwards we went back, our bus was pulling in to the hotel. One of the other couples on the trip (Matt & Liz) had some sudafed & that knocked Will out for the evening while Meredith washed her hair!

A full day in Venezia! Bus across to the island, then in to the 'boat port' on a 'motoscafi' - somewhat similar to chartered bus but on water. Tania did some map orientation in St Mark's Square, then took us to a glass blowing demonstration at Murano Glass - 5 minutes of glass blowing (which actually looks like it would take some incredible skill for the difficult pieces) then 20 minutes of sales pitch! We hightailed it out of the expensive glass place before they forced us to part with our money! We spent most of the day shopping - mainly window, but Meredith added to her shoe collection. We thought Venice would be impossible to navigate with all the little streets, but on most corners there are signs that give directions to the closest landmark, e.g. 'Per San Marco' for St Mark's Square, or 'Per Rialto' for the Rialto bridge.
Stopped for lunch - choice are semi-limited, generally pizza or pasta! Pizza it was - Hawaiian for Meredith, Al Pollo (chicken) for Will. Then gelati, and a leisurely stroll to our Gondola Serenade! Our group had 2 gondolas, 6 in one, 4 in the other with an accordian player & singer. We went for a 35 minute ride, first under the Bridge of Sighs, then along some bigger then smaller canals, ending up back where we started. It was quite nice, and we even stole a quick kiss while the others were distracted!
After the gondolas, we had a bit of a better look at St Mark's Cathedral (from the outside) which has some quite ornate sculptures, carvings and mosaics as part of the main facade. More shopping & a cup of fresh fruit each from a market stall, then we had a few more hours to kill as the others had gone on a dinner cruise. We had our dinner at a restaurant not far from the lunch one, where we sat outside and watched the world go by. Will had an awesome gnocchi arabiatta (not on the menu, had to ask for it!) & Meredith grilled chicken and grilled vegetables. Meredith had been looking for the Ferrari store all afternoon but was afraid to ask - so Will practised his limited Italian & asked the waiter - it was right around the corner! We zipped in to have a look - there was some very very expensive things! A real F1 steering wheel mounted on wood for €4800. They also had the actual car Michael Schumacher drove in the 2002 F1 series in the store!
With our mission over, we sat in a cafe, shared a fruit salad sundae, had a coffee / hot chocolate whilst watching the black market bag/purse/belt/art sellers try and flog their wares to the unsuspecting tourists. Eventually our boat to the bus stop came back, a short ride then time to turn in for the night.

We woke up to a nice breakfast! Boarded the bus at 8:30am, heading for Innsbruck in Austria. We arrived at 10:45am & quickly disembarked. Tania took our group to the main square where we saw the Golden Roof, and we had a tour of the Swarovski crystal main showroom - it is the biggest crystal shop in Austria! We stopped for a quick lunch at a cafe where we both tucked into a schnitzel. A chocolate shop called 'Akro' caught our eye, you could by individual chocolates, wafers, basically many sweets - so of course we stocked up for the days ahead. No trip to Austria would be complete without a strudel, so on our way back to the bus we ducked into a bakery and asked for an Apple one - it was so fresh we had to wait for it to come out of the oven! by 12:20pm we were back on the bus (with everyone for once) waving goodbye to Austria awaiting our next adventure - Venice!
Arriving at Venice (Venezia in Italian) we checked into the 'Hotel Holiday', even though it was definately not somewhere you would choose to stay on a holiday! The room smelt like a bleach factory when we went in, and the outside was covered in scaffolding! We bussed in to the island of Venezia itself (we were staying a little way off in a place called Mestre), then walked from Piazza Le Roma to our included dinner of Lasagne. In our free time we booked some accomodation for our return to Melbourne (took 30 minutes to process the credit card - SLOW INTERNET!) then we raced back to the bus meeting place for 10:45pm thinking that we'd missed it!

Woke up at 7am & had out continental breakfast - though it wasn't great! Travelled 2.5hrs to our first service stop, had a snack and loo stop, then boarded again heading towards Munich via Dachau where we went to visit a concentration camp which is still quite intact. These camps were Adolf Hitler's idea to capture all the Jews, who became prisoners and many died thereafter. Many of the people we were with were deeply moved - however apart from some gruesome scenes in the movie, it didn't do much for either of us. This was supposed to be our lunch break too, however they didn't have any food! We got on the bus which took us 20 minutes up the road into Munich. We saw where Oktoberfest takes place, while heading to our hotel to check in. We received bags & got ready, boarding for town at 4:45pm finding out the reason why town appeared so quiet was that it was a public holiday - Christian religious holiday (noone could tell us more than that) so Tania took us into town, however the shops were closed, but restaurants & pubs, etc were open. We saw town hall & the clock in the main square, then Tania took us to Haufbrau Haus, which is one of the biggest beer halls - everyone went in being so hungry, but they had mostly pork on the menu - so Meredith just got plain roast pork which looked best - with had Suckling Pig. While everyone had a stein (1 litre of beer!) some had 2 - and stayed on, while us and some of the other females had coke. After we went for a walk to fill in time while the others partied on. We grabbed some dessert at an icecream stand up the road, then went up to the square into the pedestrian mall & walked quite some distance before we heard Pachelbel's Canon in D being played by a string quartet - the song Meredith walked down the aisle to! There were many string quartets along the way, but the song got our attention - along with the musicians. They were so energetic and entertaining, and had little expressions and movements making them sharp! They had a big crowd, and they also had CD's on sales of some of the classical pieces they perform ... so of course, we bought one.
Then we headed back to meet Tania by 8:45pm for the bus, though many didn't come, staying on at the beer hall. Once we got back we did some washing, and took advantage of the heated towel rack. Then to bed at 10:15pm