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Waking up to a hearty Italian meal of Salami and Mozzarella cheese for Breakfast we set on the streets of Venice to get lost in the best way I can think of.

I’m just going to make a quick obersavation that might sound silly.  Italian’s know how to make damn good coffee.  In less then an hour I had three coffee’s and damn I’m ready for more.  This morning I had an awesome Mochachino, and Cara had a Venetian Machiatto which was fantasmagorical.  The Venetian Machiatto was like a regular Machiatto with a dollop of thick fresh cream on top…. mmmm….. 
Must be something in the water here, or possibly the cow’s.

Getting lost in Venice is like loosing your virginity, it’s envitible.  A city built on 117 islands with over 400 bridges is bound to confuse even the most dedicated tracker.  Good luck with GPS to as you’re surrounded by Three/Four story buildings of solid rock with lanes no wider then 2 metres.  Even if you did have a GPS accurate enough to traverse these lanes it won’t help you that much as Street numbers are virtually useless as they’re a mixture of districts and long non-sequential numbers.

All of this can be summed up in one word: AWESOME!

Getting lost in this place is a pleasure as each turn brings a new flavour and experience.  The problem lies when your Wife is busting to pee and you have no idea where you are.  Arguments ensue, words are said, but after another coffee you forget such troubles.

I really enjoyed just strolling around the city and soaking it up.  The knick-nack shops contain most of the same junk as others on the Islands, but that’s ok because you don’t come to Venice to shop.  There are numerous Lace stores and Masks’ for the Carnivale as well.

Gondala.  Gondala, Gondala?

If there was one reason Cara wanted for us to spend our Honeymoon in Europe I think it is because of this.  Beautifully romantic and hillariously expensive we splurged early in the day to take a slow boat throughout the lanes of Venice.  The weather was a bit overcast, and the forecast was for rain so we purchased a cheap bottle of Champaign and jumped in a Gondala!

Awww what a lovely couple.   When I popped the Champaign we were just about to travel under a bridge and some of the on-lookers cheered with us when it popped.

In about an hour our slow boat tour of Venice was finished.  It’s a pity it had to end there because we were so enjoying our time.  The Gondala ride was definitely the highlight of our exploration of Venice…

Wi-Fi here is scarce, in at least the small part of Venice we’ve explored.  There is a Net place near our hotel that is also next to useless and at 8euro ($15AUD) you’ll be able to explore the internet like our forefathers did when tin cans and string were in fashion.  
We have many movies to upload, but it takes around an hour to upload 20megabytes with numerous drop outs so there is no guarantee.

The internet may be slow, but the Pizza is fast and hot.
Above, Cara consuming a $2euro (around $3.50AUD) slice of Margarita Pizza we found at a hole in the wall called ‘Crazy Pizza’.  I think I’ve eaten so much Pizza now that I am oozing with mozzarella.  
I love here when you go to a little Pizza shop and ask for a Pizza the guy will go ‘OK – 5 MINUTES!’ and start  spinning out a round dough from scratch.  And damn the Pepperoni Pizza is hot!

Lucky for us it rained after we took the Gondala ride, as it’s been raining ever since.  I was happy to explore Venice with the weather, it wasn’t pouring just this miserable mist.  I love it though because we don’t have conditions like this back at home.  Tons and tons of tourists are all over the islands and I’m so happy when I find a little spot where the is no one else.

Definitely taking things at a slower pace then in France.  I’ve read that Italian’s are masters at the art of doing nothing, and I’m more then happy to practice this.

Waving good to Nice and France we boarded the Venice Express train with a full day of travel ahead of us… oh dear.  Comparing a French train to an Italian one is like comparing an award winning dentist and a guy with a hammer: they can both remove teeth but there are varying degree’s of cleanliness and pain one might think about before choosing.
Not knowing what to expect we had paid the extra Euro’s an opted for first class.  Turns out on Italian trains that baggage is more for hand luggage then suit cases.  The only place to store luggage is above your head, and now I’m glad we stayed under the 20kg limit set by our International Airplane restrictions.  A Japanese couple sharing the 6 seater-cabin didn’t dare put their luggage on the racks and instead opted to squeeze them between their legs.

For those that are keen on bringing their pooch, First class in Italy allows you to bring dogs with you;  I was wondering why there was so much hair on my seat until I found a few Germain Shepards eating some Salami a few seats down from us.  Don’t worry, you only have to pay a third of the seat price for your K9 companions.

Cara was a bit annoyed as she was looking forward to viewing the Italian country side as we power through on the train, but alas the Italian’s think dust is a protective layer and is best kept on.  So we had a view kinda similar to a cataract ridden 70 year old with Vaseline smeared on their eyes.

The people on the train though were fun to listen in on.  A bunch of Americans sitting in a nearby cabin were postively HOLLERING and were speaking to some Kiwi’s. 
I tried my best much to my amusement to speak the little Japanese I could to our cabin buddies.  Unfortunately the only thing in memory I had was Nils’ youtube videos of Jnglish speaking girls saying the rudest things. 

We changed trains in Milano to head over to Venice with the second train being a lot newer and quiter then the previous one and watched a movie on my Macbook called “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”.  I didn’t realise the context of the film nor the darkness of it, but i was glad I was travelling to Italy instead of Germany watching it… 

Eventually we arrived to a slightly chilly Venice and grabbed a public boat to take us near our hotel.  I didn’t realise that cars/bikes are almost non-existent here due to the lack of space and water.  Boats are the way to go, and we met some lovely Americans spending their short holidays in Europe. 

Dragging our bags around the bustling streets we shortly found our Hotel, and here’s a piccy of the reception.

Don’t worry, the room is actually pretty spacious!  The biggest room so far we’ve had in Europe.  My only complaint is the lack of elevator and three flights of small stair cases.  Poor Cara is going to have to take some more pain killers for her hips… or just drink enough until the pain goes away.

In any case… WE’RE IN VENICE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Dropping of the C3 to hire company was a breeze, but finding Diesel to fill it up wasn’t. Luckily, I had filled up two days earlier and after nearly 150kilometre’s the tank still registered as Full! Parked the car, handed over the keys and viola all good.
I miss that car already though.

No matter as today we explorer the city of Nice in all it’s glory. First up we climbed up Chateau De Nice, which used to be a castle back in 1691 and is now kind of like a sports park for kids. Any case I lie, we didn’t take the stairs but paid 1.20Euro to take a lift. Cara’s hips are almost at breaking point now from all the walking and sitting in Aeroplane and Car’s, so walking up stairs are quite painful for her.

The view up there is pretty spectacular though.

I really love Nice compared to Paris. Its vibe is a lot more fun and fresh then that of the seriousness of Paris. We both found the city to be enjoyable and very similar atmosphere to say Brisbane.

Seeing kids for the first time was pretty cool, as we simply haven’t seen any kids with the places we’ve been so far. I jumped on a giant spider climbing thing and managed to push a few of the tikes of. Sadly, I didn’t reach the top. At the Chateau Cara found a nice bench to rest her hips for a bit and have a stretch….

After descending we headed to the beach and had a bit of a walk on the rocky shore. The water is spectacular in its blue translucent colour, and I doubt there would be many hazards for swimmers in terms of stingers. But it’s quite boring with very little waves and hella cold. On the upside women are allowed to sun-bath topless.

Ducking back in the city i have to mention the tram system they have here. The cities main shopping strip has a two way tram system in the middle that was just completed in 2007 so very new. It’s awesome and apparently well needed as it is seemingly always packed. At $1euro a trip it’s good value too.

Cara and I did something we haven’t done since we arrived in Europe…. shopping! With a few hours before closing time we tried our luck with the local shopping strip which was the closet thing to shopping back in Australia. I actually found a Video-Game store, I was starting to think they didn’t exist here! We probably spent more then we bargained for but with a 19.60% tax on everything who’s to complain.

To save a bit on the clothes, widgets, and other stuff we bought, we decided on having a cheap meal for dinner instead of a restaurant. After seven days of having constant big restaurant meals we’re both starting to feel quite bloated! The rooms we’re staying in don’t have any facilities to even have a refrigerator let alone prepare a meal so it’s restaurants and Cafe’s. Speaking of Cafe’s, I did manage to find a cheap place to have a Coffee and I chose a Choclat Vineto (we’d call it hot chocolate but it doesn’t translate as that).

mmmmm yummy…. and yes my camera work does suck but the glass is actually tilted. I was too excited about having the drink then taking a photo of it.

Turns out McDonald’s here isn’t all that cheap either! At $11.20euro (around $20AUD) for two medium Big Mac Meals I don’t think it’s possible to have a cheap meal on the run here. In any case we were impressed with the 15 year old cashier who managed to make sense out of our English! She was so happy when she said something correctly and we were happy someone was understanding us for a change!

Ding ding, we woke up in Nice again and luckily the bed bugs didn’t bite. Not so for some guests a floor below us however as I overheard in the lobby an Indian lady complaining furiously about ‘insects biting me on my bum at night’… I just hope the sheets from room 318 get mixed with ours…

Revving up the Citeron C3′s diesel engine we shot of to Europe’s second smallest country Monaco. Taking a long windy and leisurely way via the sea was enjoyable. The C3 doesn’t offer the best driving experience but it is a car and I was so happy to be driving around again with my partner (err, Wife!?) through these foreign roads.

Monaco has one of the highest amount of police and it shows, as soon as we entered the city/country we noticed quite an influx of coppers. We did a ‘slow’ lap around the famous hair-pin turn and followed around the Monaco F1 track. After cruising the streets for an hour or so we found a park in the centre of Monaco, the Casino.

The first photo above show us as we were about to head towards the Casino and the latter is looking back towards the mountains surrounding Monaco. Apart from gambling and spending copious amounts of money there isn’t that much to see here. So we did as the Monacians do and spent an insane amount of money…. on ICECREAM!

The above photo show’s that Cara’s eyes are bigger then her stomach. It doesn’t give a good perspective here on how big these deserts were, safe to say that they had enough calories to sink a small ship. But tasty…. oh so tasty….

There is one other thing that Monaco has and that is ludicrously expensive cars parked in front of Hotel’s as badges of honour. Lambourgini’s Diablo’s, Ferrari’s from the 60′s, Ford GT’s, Porsche 911′s, you name it and it was there. I was surprised people were so brazen with touching and leaning on these insane machines, but then again I suppose the owners don’t mind showing us mere mortals there wealth.

Searching for a different High Life, we shot out of Monaco in search of a mountain. It has been Cara’s dream that we find a quite little place somewhere to share a bottle of Vin together. What we found was a town called Eze, and on top of that a Castle that was even older then Gourdon. This castle has approximately a bazillion steps, and the further we climbed through it’s streets the more in love we fell with it. It was around 6pm when we arrived, so by then the Castle’s shops were closed and most of the tourists have left.

Perfect for us honeymooner’s to loose ourselves inside the castle walls.

I’m so happy we’ve found these little Castle’s, even though there’s really not much to ‘do’ in there we can soak up the atmosphere and awe of how people lived in the past. That and sneak in a kiss or two looking out to the mountains below. If I ever come back to France I want to spend a night or two in one of these relics.

We never did find a mountain to have a little drink but we did have a nice view of the city of Nice during sunset on our way home…

Tired and hungry we found a small Restaurant with a bit of character to it that suited our stye; a nice escape from the endless Cafe’s and Pizza joints in the area. I ate an -awesome- Beef Stew ‘Nice style’ that was like a slow cooked meal there! There was a form of Karoke there as well, with a musician playing on a keyboard offering people to come up and sing. We both declined not wanting to damage the Patron’s ear drum’s with our out of tune melody’s… but after a wine or two we were quite applauding of the efforts from others.

The keyboardist noted our nationality and in response to our drunken claps managed to play a ‘version’ of Advance Australia Fair! Our job is done, Cara and I managed to sing the Australian Anthem in a little old bar in Nice.

I always wanted to drive up a mountain in Europe. You see it all the time in movies with those twisty turns and tunnels. Today we decided it was high time to drive up a mountain, and an awesome receptionist pointed out a castle on a map for us called Gourdon.

Traffic in France is interesting, here are a handful of observations from a wee old country town driver (Brisbane)…
- Lines on the road are just guides and do not mean you have to stay with in them, if you feel like driving on the wrong side of the road just do it until you see oncoming traffic.
- Indicators (blinkers) aren’t necessary and indeed useless, as most frenchies don’t understand that when you indicate you’re turning left it doesn’t mean you can turn right.
- Blind corners aren’t blind, you just step on the gas as you enter the turn! Also feel free to overtake on blind corners.
- Small cars in Australia are considered regular size here. And god help you if your driving a larger car/bus.    

I’ve been taking note of how scooters and to a lesser extent Motorcycles get around here. Scooters seem to be able to go literally anywhere including footpaths, so if the light is red and they’re in a hurry they’ll just pop on to the footpath, take the walking zebra crossing and jump back on the road.

I guess the general vibe is that people are trying to get to their destination as quickly as possible. Drivers seem fairly courteous, but if you’re slow they’ll do anything possible to get around you. And since I’m not a local and have no idea what’s ahead of that next blind turn you can guess I’m a little on the slower side.

In any case, driving up the mountain was a blast!

Here we are halfway up to Castle Gourdon, and we just had to stop to take a peek. Mountains and open landscapes like this simply don’t exist where I’m from, and was quite breathtaking to see. By this stage Cara and I were also taking a breather from the drive up as it was a little stomach churning. When we finally arrived to the castle we were blown away!

The castle is around 1000 years old, and why an eye opener for Cara and I. You can just imagine people living here and etching out a life over the years. On the far side of the castle was a restaurant overlooking the mountains with another breathtaking view.

We loved this place so much and wished we could stay a night here! Next time we’re around perhaps, I’m sure this castle will be here for another 100 years or so.

After a refreshing Pizza and Blanc Vin we drove down the mountain to Canne. The drive was a lot easier since we were hugging rock instead of cliff-face and pushed through the peak hour traffic. The Canne Movie festival is about two weeks away, so we could see quite a lot of preparation happening. Quite a few books we’ve read suggested that this town lives for the Movie festival and they’d be right as we found very little else there to keep us there.

Intent on enjoying the weather we drove along the coast and pulled up beside a beach. The Mediterranean Sea is a hell of a lot calmer then the Pacific Ocean and it seems a lot colder. Quite a few families were enjoying sun-baking on the beach as did we. I’m not sure about the rules here, but topless seems to be the way to go for women wanting full body tans!

I figured out that Gazoline means Diesel, refuelled the Citeron C3 and 22 litres we had done around 510 Kilometres. All in all a fantastic getaway day taken at our own time and exactly what I wanted to see in Europe with Cara.

Sacrea bleau!   

Today was our most difficult one for motivation so far! We didn’t sleep very well and for some reason started feeling dazed again. Any case we had a mission to enjoy Paris and dammit we were going to do that! First up was the Sacred Heart Church, and the hundred or so steps up to it.

Around 20-30 Africans were panhandling/begging at the entry steps, these guys were organised and made sure that no matter what entry you took a couple of them would intercept you. There tactic was quite forward, they come up asking were you are from and grab your hand to tie a string on it. They talk to you telling about the plight of Africa and ask for money to send to their families/friends/etc.
I spearheaded our way through and made it most of the way, until one big guy grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let go asking where I’m from. He was pretty pissed with me that I was non-engaging and I was getting ready with my ‘A’LAAAIDE’ line (french for Help) but they eventually gave up and just looked pissed at us.

After a decent workout walking up the steps we finally made it to the Sacred Heart Church!   

Entry is free to the Church, and you kinda walk around the sides checking out the architecture. A massive church by anyone’s standards, but I was little disappointed with the amount of stuff for sale inside. I guess this is what happens when you have millions of people pouring through the doors all the time, but it just seems to cheapen the Church.

Paris’s Metro system is pretty good, but to supplement it they have these awesome bikes for hire! If you’re a local you can buy an annual card which grants you access to these bikes any time you wish. There are hundreds of automated stations where these bikes are where you can pick one up and you’re off! I wish we had picked up bikes earlier as they’re a fantastic way to get lost in the city.

I really wish I could use my iPhone for GPS here. Global roaming with Optus my carrier in Australia lets me use data here for 0.20c AUD per kilobyte or about a bazzilon dollars per google map. Thinking I’d do what I did in America back in 2004, I purchased an Orange 3G PrePaid card here in Paris to take advantage of local rates. Well turns out PrePaid data here in Paris is about the same here. It cost 30Euro to buy the SIM and then I loaded around 10Euro (around $18AUD) credit on it.
How long do you think 10Euro would last you data wise here? Oh about 100kilobytes….. I asked about three people before I bought the damn thing here what the data rates were before I bought it, but no one could give me a straight answer. Seems like Data over 3G is a ‘new’ concept for the Frenchies, and these sales guys were fathomed on why I’d want to use internet on my phone when I could use WiFi at a coffee shop for around 2Euro for 30 mins….   At this rate it would have been cheaper just to buy the maps on my damn Garmin GPS for every country we’re going to.

Jumping back on our L’OpenBus again we headed to the triumph of Engineering for the 19th Century… the Eiffel Tower. Holy crap this thing is tall. I realise I’ve been on taller structures, but the French have made sure that no other buildings are near it, which consequently made hands sweaty with fear. Unfortunately, the line-up to climb the tower was about as long as the tower is tall!

I didn’t get to see the tower at night, because the sun doesn’t really set here until 10ish! Though I did read you can climb the tower until midnight, and I would think that would be pretty damned cool.

Because our train to ‘get the hell out’ of Paris leaves at 7ish from a station about 30 minutes travel away we made sure we had an early night. I found an awesome hole in the wall Pizza store and grabbed a Salad and PIzza. I managed to strike up a conversation between the owner and a customer which was fantastic! Finally I thought I’ve found some people who weren’t arrogant French bastards! Turns out I was wrong, they were from Canada hehe! In any case they were pretty dang cool and chatted about our travels so far…