Paris

Sunday 28 August 2005

A long sleep in followed by our usual muesli breakfast. Off to Paris city centre at 4pm with Julie. Julie got off at one station before us (Chatelet) to go to an open air concert in the park. A sad moment, saying goodbye. We changed to Garedelyon to get to Bastille, then Paris Austerlitz. A luxury overnight cabin on the train for two to Madrid. Paris was awsesome and French the only foreign language so far that didn't grate on our ears! We are in mourning at the state of affairs re: the cricket. England 477, Australia 1st innings 218, 2nd innings 307 - 7 !! One and a bit days to go in the 4th test. Phoned the Major before leaving Madrid giving him a quick warning that we would be getting to Miranda Do Corvo around 10am Tuesday. He told us that he was under the doctor and taking thousands of pills. He had had a bit of a "heart thing". Has Toby his dog and two cats. He had heard about Bill Baker's death.

Julie and Lulu

Saturday 27 August 2005

Hit Paris again. Bus to Versaille, 7.50 tour of State Apartments and Hall of Mirrors. Then back into Paris city centre to take in Notre Dame then Sandy climbed to the highest level of the Eiffel Tower. The evening was spent with Julie at a little indian restaurant in St Germain Laye. We absolutely love Paris. It is quite a special place.

Versailles

Friday 26 August 2005

We spent the day at the Picasso museum and the Montmartre before getting home at around 20.00. The latter was a wonderful experience but not much in the way of squalid garrets left, only prime real estate. Another great day.

Montmatre

Eiffel Tower from Montmatre

Thursday 25 August 2005

We arrived in Paris EST at 7.01, bought a three day Paris Visite card for zones 1 - 5, took the metro to Opera-Auber and the RER to St Germain en Laye. We bought a phone card and phoned Julie who met us in her silver Peugeot and took us to her flat - really spacious with a garden - lovely. We had breakfast and then Julie went off to work and Patsy and Sandy hit Paris! We took in the Louvre and walked around the Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triumph area. A quiet evening chatting to Julie rounded the day off.

Seefeld

Wednesday 24 August 2005

We left our packs at the Egerthof and spent the day re-visiting and photographing our 'stomping grounds'. We inquired at the station to see if the floods had affected the rail line from Seefeld to Munich. It had. We had to scramble to the Egerthof, grab our gear, catch a bus to Innsbruck and a train to Munich to catch the 20.56 to Paris. We just made it. On the Innsbruck to Munich leg we saw several houses under water with destroyed crops - very sad.

Sandbags for Flooding

Hotel Egerthof

Tuesday 23 August 2005

Apart from a short burst at shopping for supplies, Patsy spent the day in the room sucking lozenges. Sandy hit an Internet cafe only to find his e-mail down and could not read any reply from Julie in Paris. He then took a walk to the Kaltwasser and Rosshutter. We watched the sun go down wondering if we would ever be back.


Monday 22 August 2005

The morning in Seefeld was spent taking a walk down memory lane. We ran the original Hohe Munde Hotel to ground (Sandy and Patsy's first skiing holiday 1977), its now a sports shop. We found the beginners slope, the old church, the Geschwandkopf, the ski jump and the Olympia swimming pool. We also found the Jaggerheim Hotel (Sandy, Patsy, Adam and Tertia 1984), sadly now derilect and unoccupied. All these have huge memories for our family and it was wonderful to see them again. We had a long swim in the pool in the afternoon which probably exacerbated a cold that Patsy caught in Italy. We booked on the Munich - Paris overnight train on Wednesday 24 August. Sandy sent an e-mail to Julie Hasler in Paris giving her arrival info and asking for instructions to reach her place. We had a quiet evening. What a beautiful place.

Jaggerheim Hotel (from 1984 Holiday)

Geschwandkopf

Beginner's Slope

Sunday 21 August 2005

We caught the 7.08 to Innsbruck. It was a great journey. Through Tuscany (Tuscany Villas just like our Brisbane place), the Italian Alps and the Austrian Alps into the Innsbruck valley. We arrived in Innsbruck at 16.33 and caught the 18.35 to arrive in Seefeld at 19.14. We had booked into the Hohe Munde, or so we thought. After a bewildering walk around the village centre with Patsy determined to find the Hohe Munde we got a receptionist at another hotel to ring the number of the hotel we had booked into. It turned out to be a hotel called the Egerthof. The manager drove down to pick us up and for 64Euro a night we were given a huge room with CNN, a huge bathroom and a balcony. Best accommodation yet.

View from Hotel Egerthof

Hotel Munde

Italy

Saturday 20 August 2005

We walked for 7 hours taking in the Roman Forum, Coloseum, Circus Maximus, Trevi Fountain and St Peters, where Sandy was turned back for wearing shorts by a hysterically orthodox apprentice cleric! Walking up towards Roma Termini three young men deliberately bumped into sandy with a 'Oh I'm sorry!'. Sandy started feeling his pockets to see if they had been picked. Then he recognised the culprits. Three of last year's TGS Year 12s, Fletcher, Innes and Kavanagh. Then Patsy recognised the two girls who were with them, Gemma Innes (Liam Innes' twin sister) and laura Hunt. The girls had spotted Patsy from a bus they were on and the boys had spotted Sando in his TGS cap and had jumped off to accost us. A great moment for both of us. A real Italian pizza finished the evening.

Ex-Pupil Backpackers

Trevi Fountain

St Peters Cathedral

Friday 19 August 2005

Took the train to Pompei Scava and took in the ruins. They are about three square miles in area all buildings preserved to some extent minus roofs. Two theatres and a mini Coloseum. Quite the most amazing ancient site we have seen - better by far than the Roman town at Split. We then went back to Naples and caught the train to Rome. We have just had a great spaghetti meal and are about to go to bed in our hotel.

Mt Vesuvius

Pompeii Ruins

Thursday 18 August 2005

Arrived in Bari at 8.15 Italian time. Caught a bus into the station and booked on a train to Naples leaving at 4pm. Hung around Bari until train left. After a four hour trip, changing at Caserta, we hit Naples at 8.30pm. We did not die, although the station area is pretty full of low life, and booked into the Ideal Hotel for the night. Very comfortable.

Addition for 4th August 2005

Athens

Wednesday 17 August 2005

Had a long sleep in then took the Metro and a bus to an outlying station to get the train to Patras. From there we caught the ferry, the Blue Star 1. We splashed out on a de-luxe cabin with a porthole for Patsy and had another great sleep. The trip on the ferry cost nothing because of the Eurorail pass but we didn't fancy sleeping on the deck with all the smokers. Hence we took the cabin. The trip alone would have cost 200 Euro with no Eurorail Pass! The cabin really was luxurious with BBC World Service on TV.



Tuesday 16 August 2005

The day was spent seeing the sights of Athens,among them the Olympic Stadium (1896), games first held here in 776BC, the Acropolis and the Temple of Zeus. We booked on the 11.55am train to Patras to leave on 17 August, this took an hour as the Patras train leaves from a different station.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and girding up our loins for the travels to come.

1896 Olympic Games Stadium
Acropolis
Athens from the Acropolis
Parthenon
Temple of Zeus
Theatre of Dionysos

Egypt

Monday 15 August 2005

We caught our lift to the airport at 8am after a drama which involved opening a wooden door, which had been blocking the staircase and going down 9 flights of stairs because the lift had packed up. While waiting to go through security before check in we witnessed in quick succession a man chuck an epileptic fit and a young woman drop a baby with the ensuing hysterics. The flight was quick and local knowledge got us back to the Pan Hotel, in Athens, where we booked in for two nights. Good to be back in the West.

Sunday 14 August 2005

We spent the morning, after an Egyptian breakfast (kidney beans, boiled egg, buns, tomato,cucumber, butter, tea, juice and jam), seeing the Egyptian Museum full of mummies and stone and wood carvings and inscriptions from 2800BC to 250AD (by then Egypt was a Roman province). The antiquity of it all was amazing as was their level of civilisation. In the evening we had a dinner cruise down the Nile, quite special and complete with a band, a belly-dancer and a sort of whirling Egyptian.

Saturday 13 August 2005

Sandy got up early for a walk around central Cairo and along the Nile. We had arranged a tour of the pyramids to be picked up at 11am. Off we went, saw the pyramids, somehow got dragooned into a buggy ride around the site and picked up an enthusiastic guide who took charge of our camera and snapped merrily away at anything that moved. Trip wound up costing us three times as much as we had originally agreed to but it was still quite cheap and we had fun. Spent the rest of the day watching Nile TV, in our room, which had a lot of programs in English including the News. Cairo is a huge place with a population of 22 million most of whom are poverty stricken. Mismanagement and corruption in high places as well as a shortage of natural resources makes for a breeding ground for Islamic extremists amongst the youth. The whole of the Middle East is a time bomb waiting to go!

Pyramids
Sphinx
Buggy Ride

Friday 12 August 2005

Went to a travel agency as soon as it opened, 9am, and got return flights to Cairo at 2.35pm back on Monday 11.20am with Egypt Air. Sandy had a quick walk around earlier and saw some sights. Took the Metro to the airport, very civilised. The flight was delayed until 3.45pm. Good meal and service on board. Saw the pyramids from the air as we turned on final approach. Cairo is amazing, green on either side of the Nile for about 10 km, then harsh desert - no vegetation at all. Negotiated a cheap hotel with a travel agent at the airport and wound up at the Hotel Cleopatra Palace, worn out now but would have been great in its day, a couple of blocks from the Nile. Traffic very heavy and driving totally insane. Death more probable here than in any aeroplane. Settled down for a noisy night - cars hooting at pedestrians!

View of Cairo and Nile

Greece

Thursday 11 August 2005

Boarded a ferry to Piraeus (the port of Athens) at 8.30am, only one and a half hours late. Took an hour and a half just to leave Samos, one doesn't realise how big these islands can be and Samos is by no means the biggest. The weather was very windy and so big seas developed and Patsy felt a little shaky. We had a great cabin for only 6 Euro extra each and hence could sleep a little and relax with the occasional trip onto deck. Deep blue ocean and dry rocky islands. We arrived at 7pm took the metro into Syndagma and splashed out on a hotel with CNN. Athens clean and modern in keeping with our first favourable impression of Greece.

Wednesday 10 August 2005

Another lazy day in Samos Town a duplicate of Monday and Tuesday.

View from Top of Samos
Coming Down

Tuesday 9 August 2005

This was a duplicate of Monday, a chance to really unwind. This time we gave the bird water through a straw into the cage. It was desperate for water and came across to us the moment it knew that we were giving it a drink.

Monday 8 August 2005

Went into town (12 minute walk) and booked a ferry ticket with second class cabin (no Porthole) to Piraeus, the port for Athens, for Thursday. We had a fruit breakfast in a park and noticed a pidgeon in a cage with budgies that looked thirsty. It seemed to be injured and was on the ground. The rest of the day was spent swimming, walking and relaxing reading English newspapers! The evening was spent at the best restaurant, with the most delicious Greek food, I have ever been to.

Our Swimming Place

Sunday 7 August 2005

After a great Turkish breakfast at the Paris Hotel we got a lift to Kusadasi, from where the ferry to Greece leaves, at about 11am. Hung around in Kusadasi until the ferry left at 5pm, mostly on the water front nursing two beers. The ferry was very crowded and the trip took about an hour and a half. There were no people selling zimmers at the dock but 50m up the street was a little kombie with Pythagoras Hotel written on it! We spoke to a little man and snapped up a room at 30 Euro a night. A great setting with views of Samos Bay. A light dinner and then bed.

Where do two Maths teachers stay when in Greece?
Samos Bay
Sunset over Samos Isle

Turkey

Saturday 6 August 2005

Took a tour of the ruıns of Troy. Fascınatıng as ıs the realıty of the polıtıcal and economıc sıtuatıon at the tıme of the Illıad - legends apart.
Also the story of the dıscovery of the ruıns ın 1878 usıng amazıngly accurate geographıcal dıscrıptıons of the posıtıon of Troy gıven ın the Illıad very ınterestıng.
A long bus trıp 5 hours saw us set up for the nıght ın a small hotel ın Selçuk - good bıg room wıth great hosts. A beer then bed.

Trojan Horse at Troy
Ruins of Troy

Friday 5 August 2005

An amazing day! We were picked up at the Emek Hotel and taken in a good air-conditioned bus to Garibolu for lunch and then THE BATTLEFIELDS. Quite everything we expected. We spent the night in the Yellow Rose Hotel on the 4th floor.

Emek Hotel Lobby

ANZAC BATTLEFIELDS

-- Anzac Cove --

-- Beach Cemetery --

-- Lone Pine Cemetery --

-- Lone Pine Chapel --
-- New Anzac Day Site --
-- Turk's Words to Bereaved Australian Mothers --

Thursday 4 August 2005

Spent the day in Istanbul. Saw the Blue Mosque and had a long trip up the Bosphorus before bed after another great meal-real Turkish food.

PS: (Added on 19 August 2005) * Patsy heard sirens in the middle of the night in Istanbul. We have since found out that a bomb went off at midnight about half a mile away from our hotel that killed two and injured four people. We knew something was going on in the morning by the police presence but as we could not read the newspapers we did not know what had happened until 18 August 2005 when we read an English European newspaper.

Blue Mosque

Bosphorus River Cruise

Wednesday 3 August 2005

The train finally arrived at 1530 only 8 hours late. A friendly guy got us a room 40 ytl and a package to Gallipoli and Troy to drop us off near the ferry to the Greek Island of Samos. Turkey a very friendly place.

Tuesday 2 August 2005

Rebekah drove us to Pipera Metro. We made our way to Gard du Nord and we caught our First Class train at 1410 as expected. That was the last time anything was on time. WITH NO AIR CONDITIONING we sweated and finished our water by 1900. Train was due in at 0745. There were long delays at the Romanian-Bulgaria border during the night.