The last post - yes we have PHOTOS!!!! (Edition 1)

As I sit here in a comfortable chair using my father in law's fantastic computer, I laugh at the efforts I made to post regularly on this blog for the last 6 months. We paid $15 per hour in Italy, we battled French keyboards with their AZERTY and German keyboards with the strange Z & Y swap, we risked robbery in Easy Internet Barcelona and we sat with 14 year old porn freaks in Turkey just to post our news on the off chance that somebody might be reading it (other than our parents of course!).

It was a connection back to home for us as we traversed Europe (and spent that 9 days in Africa) and we loved posting but other than the infamous "Stolen Sandwich", we weren't sure who was reading this thing. The feedback however on landing in Melbourne has been overwhelming. People we barely knew were reading the blog, Queens Counsel were reading the blog, friends were checking it every day on the off chance that more crap was spewed out from a Bulgarian internet cafe.

But there was one thing that we couldn't provide while we were on the road. PHOTOS!!!! Now after an exhausting recovery process lead by the tech wizard Bruce Wilson we can present something that no-one has seen. Actual proof that we went to 31 countries and had a fantastic life changing 177 days. So hopefully its like when the Footy Show was finally allowed to broadcast footage of the games and you all keep reading.

This is just 30 or so photos of interest, from about 7gb that we took during the six months.

Early February - Its so friggin' cold.



We all know that there is only one thing that Cathy hates more than cold weather and that’s dressing for the cold weather. The girl who won’t wear socks and hates jumpers was forced to don socks, thermals, fleece and windstoppers from our first week. It was 0 degrees and we excitedly explored Heidelberg and Mainz in Germany. This pic is from Heidelberg, which was the first of about 100 little European towns we fell in love with.



Then we went to Turkey. It was -4 and the snow came up to my waist. But the city was so beautiful and the Blue Mosque had the most incredible colours which reflected in the snow. Here's a couple of shots of one of our favourite places on the entire trip.

















We didn’t feel too bad getting to Athens and finding it 15+. We settled into tourist mode and started taking tourist shots. Here’s a ripper in front of the Parthenon in Athens.

So then we made the trek to the worst city in Europe Naples. Its probably best to quote from our posts of 22 Feb. "Protect yourselves and your belongings near the Napoli Station, enough said." was my comment. And Cathy politely stated "I was not as thrilled with Napoli and Italy as I had hoped I would be." Yes but it got better as you went North. Its just that Napoli looks like the following photo around every corner. Its just a shocker.


Tunisia

Then it was off on our North African adventure. Lonely Planet suggested we could do it by ourselves and we were just fresh on the road ready to take on anything. In retrospect it was a fantastic adventure through a culture we completely did not understand. At the time however it was a full on initiation into the Muslim world and its habits. It was a spectacular country however as these two shots testify. One is from the El Jem colloseum, the third biggest Roman colloseum remaining in the world. The other is from the desert near where George Lucas shot the original Star Wars film. Both show what a tourist can expect to enjoy (if they can avoid locals for a little while).
















March

Escaping Tunisia we made our way through Italy to Switzerland. Italy is a truly fantastic place with a beautiful vista, meal or village around every corner. The more north you go, the more amazing the places. Our faves were the Cinque Terra, Sienna, Venice and Verona. But it was all great.

The other glorious adventure in March was the south of France. Led by Aix-en-Provence and Nice, the south of France has village after village waiting to be explored. And no matter where you go, even when you are in Avignon looking at castles, you must carry your baggette.



Mountain vistas

Coming from Melbourne where we have the temerity to call Mount Dandenong a mountain, rolling into Switzerland, Austria, France and Andorra is a whole new world. In Andorra they ski right next to the national highway. In Switzerland they have two television stations soley devoted to displaying cable images from the top of the mountains. In Austria they have the mountains and they have the lakes. One of our favourite places on the whole trip was Hallstat, a ridiculously cute village perched on the edge of a glacier lake.