Italy - so much to see and to eat...so little time

Our Italian adventure began with two days in Venice. Rich rediscovered the Mozzarella de Buffalo he tasted on his last trip to Italy and ate this at almost every meal.

We stayed in a beautiful boutique hotel located in a refurbished 600year old Venetian apartment building so even when Rich had to do a bit of work, it was in these incredible surroundings.

The highlights of our time in Venice included a visit to a Salvador Dali exhibition, cruising around the canals in a gondola (so cliche but what an experience), visiting St Marco's square with the fabulous basilica and the Doge's Palace, going to see a theatre production one evening about the history of Venice and the Venetian empire that lasted 1000 years, eating at some fabulous restaurants and we have to add in the nail- biting Manchester United vs Manchester City football game Rich found playing at a pub! 

In Venice we got to explore the grandeur of this illustrious empire as it was...even catching a water bus along the grand canal to get from A to B had us frantically turning our heads this way and that to take it all in.

On the evening of our second day, we hopped on a train and headed for Florence...this city is just heaven for history buffs (ie: Simone) and art lovers alike. We were fortunate enough to be the only two people to show up for a city tour, so ended up having a tour guide all to ourselves. It was such a treat to be able to ask all the questions we wanted...and we had plenty, and to have such a knowledgeable person on hand to answer them. Our tour ran over by one hour and we learned an incredible amount about this birthplace of the Renaissance era.

We then headed off to explore the two major art galleries and to see Michaelanglo's David which is simply breath-taking. We walked across the famous Pont De Vecchio Bridge with it's numerous jewelry stores and Rich even climbed the dome of the Duomo, Florence's major cathedral. Five hundred steps up and the same down...quite a feat.

Before we overdosed on culture, we headed off to la Cinque Terra, five little Italian towns perched atop some spectacular cliff and along the Mediterranean coast. On our way there, we stopped off in Pisa between trains for the obligatory photo shoot at the leaning tower. Rich even tried his hand at planking.

We stayed in Monterosso, the largest of the five towns and our hotel room had the most amazing view of one of the town's little beaches. These towns are all so charming and are exactly what you would expect of an Italian village as they would have been hundreds of years ago. In fact, they have found amphoras in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii that had held wine made in one of these villages.

Surrounded by vineyards and cliffs on one side and sparkling blue water on the other, these towns are simply spectacular.

We divided up our time between relaxing on the beach and exploring the towns.

Between the first two towns there is a little path called the walk of love. Here young lovers attach locks to the fences and then throw the key into the ocean in the hope of locking up their love or inscribe their names on the walls.

Richard got all romantic and carved out a love heart with our initials in the wall with his pocket knife...very sweet.

It was then sadly time to say goodbye to all the pasta, pizza, gelato and Mozzarella de Buffalo and head off to the South of France.

Next post to follow shorty.
You stay classy Sydney
Rich and Simone xxxxx

P.S:  Rich here - You can take the Bogan out of Australia but you can't take the Bogan out if Simone. In the home of fashion, she sported a few interesting outfits like this one.

Highlights - Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia

We are having such an incredible time in Italy and our schedule here is so jam-packed that we don't have a lot of time for this post so we thought we'd keep it short and sweet by sharing our top 10 highlights from our time in Croatia.

Let's go with Dave Letterman style -countdown from 10 to 1

Highlight number 10

Picking and stuffing our faces with wild berries in the Croatian bush on the island of Hvar













Highlight number 9

Visiting a little village built 600 years ago to enjoy an dish of baked lamb and potatoes prepared as it would have been done centuries ago in a ceramic container called a 'Peka'.




Highlight number 8

Our day trip to Montenegro. Turns out that this tiny little country (48,000  sq/km) is Europe's equivalent of Colombia. It is run by the head of the illegal cigarette trade and their primary industries are black-market cars that gave been stolen from England and drugs.

This little haven does not allow extradition to other countries and as the last Thai Priminister found out, you can buy Montenegran citizenship for $500k. In saying all this, it's still a stunning country, with some cute little old towns and a great place to see the Russian maffia enjoying their holidays.







Highlight number 7

Swimming in some of the clearest sea water the Mediterranean has to offer.












Highlight number 6

Breakfast in Bosnia on the way up the Croatian coast..purely for it's randomness factor.







Highlight number 5


Walking along the ramparts of the old town of Dubrovnik where we could really appreciate the magnitude of this fortified town.











Highlight number 4

Upon walking around the edge of the old city, we discovered a small hole in the city walls that lead out to a  bar and swimming platform called Buza. This provided the perfect opportunity to cool off in the crystal clear waters and Rich joined the locals in some rock diving.










Highlight number 3

Our local host Stejpo drove us up to the highest look out point in Dubrovnik one evening to enjoy the sunset. In addition to beautiful view, he also shared with us some stories and photos of his experience during the war of the early 90's.



Highlight number 2

Exploring the old town of Dubrovnik and learning all about it's checkered history.












And drum roll.............




Highlight number 1

Watching the sunset and enjoying several cocktails at the Hula Hula Bar on the island of Hvar.






This bar is pitched on the rocks near a popular swimming platform and kicks off at 5pm with a DJ until the sun sets at 9pm.


It would be remiss of us to exclude any mention of the TERRIBLE food in Croatia. Some of our meals were even inedible. It appears that instead of taking culinary inspiration from their neighbors Italy and Greece, they have instead chosen to look to communist era USSR.

But all in all, a gorgeous country with a fascinating history and we would recommend it to anyone who hasn't been!

Will write again when we arrive in France.

Rich and Simone xxxxx

More of Greece... sun, surf and lots of history

After Santorini, we headed off to the party island of Mykonos, famous for it's all-day, all-night beach parties...strange destination for a honeymoon you may be thinking...well Simone was thinking the same after hearing all about Richard's last trip to Mykonos.

Fortunately, there is plenty more to this stunning island than just dj's, dance podiums and Ouzo...as we discovered, Mykonos has several stunning beaches with crystal clear water and sand (which is a treat in Europe), has some fabulous restaurants and a gorgeous town offering great shopping!

We found the most wonderful little hotel a 10min walk from town, with a roof-top pool and bar and a wonderful hostess, Anna who gave us plenty of helpful hints and tips for enjoying this island paradise.

When we wanted to hire a car, Anna had one delivered to the hotel for us and collected from the hotel when we were done. When we didn't have the energy to walk into town for dinner, she had someone from a local restaurant collect us from the hotel in a car and drop us back off after our meal...nothing was too much trouble for her and it really made our stay that much more enjoyable!

We spent our 4days here reading and swimming at the lovely beaches, watching the sunset with a cocktail in hand by the pool, enjoying some traditional Greek cuisine at the numerous tavernas and tapas restaurants in town and doing our part to help the struggling Greek economy with some serious shopping...all in all, a relaxing and enjoyable few days.

As in Santorini, all of the houses in and around the town are all painted white. Simone had developed a theory that there was a little man whose job it was to continually repaint all the buildings on the island to keep them spotlessly white. He would begin on one side of the town and by the time he got to the other end, he would just start again.

Richard was very skeptical of this idea until on our last day we walked around a corner and there he was with a paint brush in one hand and a tin of white paint by his side...the little man whose job it is to keep everything white.

We reluctantly left Mykonos for the fascinating and searingly hot city of Athens.

Upon arrival in our hotel room, we drew back the curtains only to see an un-interrupted view of the Acropolis!!!

Our hotel also had a roof-top view of this ancient monument which many guests made use of at sunset.

 

After plenty of begging and negotiating, Richard agreed to let us spend our first afternoon in Athens shopping...when every shop is offering discounts between 50%-70% off, it would be a crime not to. It was not for lack of trying, but by the end of our 5 hour shopping spree, it was only Richard who held a bunch of shopping bags in his hands. This has got to be the only country in the world that has a better selection of men's clothes than women's.
We got down to business on our second and final day in Athens and signed up for a walking tour of the city and it's ancient sights. The first stop on the tour was one of the many metro stations build in 2004 for the Athens Olympic games.

When excavating these sights to build the metro stations, the developers came across various artifacts, skeletal remains and ruins from buildings dating back to the bronze era. To preserve this history, each metro station has a museum inside displaying the findings from that particular site!

We then saw the parliament house and the protests that are currently going on given the economic crisis this country is facing but, as our guide pointed out, it would be a shame to visit the birthplace of democracy without seeing a protest.

It was then onto the temple of Zeus and the Acropolis...both absolutely fascinating. The influence that Greek history, culture and language has had on western civilization is quite mind blowing. We thoroughly enjoyed every second of this tour and our heads were full to the brim with new knowledge by the end.

We ended our afternoon with a trip to the new Acropolis museum which houses all the restored sculptures and artifacts found on and around the Acropolis. This has been voted among the top 5 museums in the world and we could see why. The whole building is suspended above a live archeological dig that has uncovered remains from as far back as the bronze Era.

Each floor has a Perspex floor so that wherever you are in the building, you can see the exposed ruins below. The top floor has an amazing display of all the original sculptures and freezes that decorated the Parthenon and a video presentation illustrating what the Acropolis looked like over the years.






It was then time for us to pack our bags, have our last of many meals of souvlaki and Greek salad and head back to the airport to fly to Croatia...the adventure continues.

We're missing you all lots.
Rich and Simone x