hello!

we are now somewhere in france, in a little hotel at the base of a castle (not in the castle this time unfortunately(something i could get used to)). it is far, far too cold to be camping...so we are eating less to meet budget (not really) and bad weather and hotel wifi means catching up on the blog. its a bit of an epic...

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last time we posted photos we were in siena (nb. frazers reading this can refer to the frazer-white photo site as i think we basically followed each other around italy) however they would not have this photo...
rohan in (regulation (it would be fair to point out)) swimming cap

we drove from siena up to florence and got caught up in some horrendous mid-town traffic (it was toms fault). anyway, we had good intentions to set up camp and head into florence, but we were a little frazzled and thought we'd check out the pool. bad move, the sun was shining, they had chill-out music playing and deck chairs and we lay down and didnt move all afternoon...well except rohan who felt compelled to buy a swimming hat and do a few laps.


the next day we went down into town and stood in line to see the Uffizi Gallery. Annoyingly, we decided to get audioguides (to help our appreciation) and saw that we could get 1 for 5 euro or 2 for 8 euro - so we got 2 (a good deal it seemed). Turns out that 2 audioguides is actually 1 audioguide with a headset attached to it... as soon as we saw this I said 'actually, could we just get one', but i had handed over the money and was told that 'we dont give refunds'. So I saw the first few rooms through a sea of red...and with Rohan and I joined at the head, not unlike siamese twins (it was a while before we learned how to live with this and not attract stares). But, it was quite cool to see Botticelli's masterpieces which i have always loved and michealangelo, di vinci, raphael and other lesser known talented artist's work all in one morning, but a bit draining and it wasnt long before we decided to head back to our little oasis in the foothills. it was nice to be above it all for a while (physically, obviously).


important bridge in background (last old ones after they were burnt down in the war)





Its hard not to be impressed by the ornate marble exterior of florence's duomo
Palace in Florence

After Florence it was time to head to Venice. It was love at first sight for both of us when it came to Venice...even Rohan, who had been grumbling his way around Italy (too many tourists), was in awe. So much so that we spent a very long day wandering the alleyways as there was nothing I could do to stop him trying to capture every canal, flower, gondola we passed. so it was a bit of a photographer's dream and a photographers girlfriend's nightmare, but i didnt mind too much.

our first glimpse of Venice



me and my buck teeth happy to be in venice


canal

gondolas





wall art




washing

stature in San Marco Piazza (a concert was being held here the two days we were here (the guy who did the music for The Mission, we met a very animated serb who had travelled for three days to see it).


food - i was so excited to see something other than the usual pizza/pasta options - so i ordered it - cuttlefish in squid ink - not technically vegetarian but still, i have suffered on this trip food wise. I got a few curious looks from the other customers. Rohan opted for the less adventurous gnocchi.


This woke me up! (but Rohan actually got out of bed to take the photo) The view from our campsite.

Despite the black cuttlefish, by this time we had had enough pizza and pasta (i think rohans record from pizza was four days in a row) and headed east to Slovenia. Our first stop in Slovenia was the Postoyna caves which one of the biggest cave networks in Europe- 21km or something...slighlty more impressive than the Peak District 'cave' we visited earlier in the year (although as greg pointed out, that did have comedy value). In fact, these caves were almost too impressive - i dont think i need to see another stalectite or mite as long as i live.

Pisa take two



big cavern

The camping site we stayed at was deserted and freezing aswell so we didnt have too good a first impression of Slovenia. However, from Postoyna we headed to Ljubljana and as i wrote earlier

I Heart Ljubljana. I just loved it. I am not sure why and there is no point really putting photos up because they wont capture the atmosphere and do it justice.

Central Markets - Ljubljana



Flowers in Ljubljana

From Ljubljana we headed to Lake Bled which was stunning and did some rafting, some hiking and some rowing.Rohan rowing.

dont need words for these ones

Then we headed up to Viena (Austria) with a pitstop in Graz along the way. In Viena we stayed in an apartment with some rowdy canadians, kiwis and aussies. It was a bit of a shock for us as we have been living a bit like the elderly lately but it was fun to meet some travellers (for a bit).

Art Deco inspired jewellry that i loved...but couldnt afford so took a photo (birthday 11/12)

Famous ferris wheel in Viena

me and mozart in viena

We picked up Greg in Viena and headed down to his families castle in southern Austria (Styria) for a fabulous weekend - good food, good wine, great company, perfect weather and of course amazing and unusual accommodation...a definite highlight and many thanks to greg's family for putting us up and showing us around.

View from the WeinStrasse, where we munched on chestnuts and drank Sturm (fresh wine) (the done thing)lunch just over the border in slovenia (stunning location) with greg and family

castle cloisters

the castle - waking up here is something i wont forget in a hurry, or the room with the ping pong table and chandelier.

but all good things have to come to an end and we headed up to Salzburg and back to the tent, which, as palacial as it is, was a bit of a step down...still, the view wasnt bad.

Another day, another picture-perfect lake (no, we're not sick of them yet) this one near Salzburg.

Our last campsite for a while! (notice the lack of tents in the background)

After Austria we raced through Switzerland (not the plan but we have had bad weather and it was so expensive) and now we are in France....but it has been a great month or so...

Hope you are all well.

Ainslie and Rohan.

we were being good. we were in viena and we were in the queue for tickets to see a mozart concert. when we got to the head of the line we saw that there were tickets left to see The Police that night. we ummed and ahhed. tickets werent particuarly cheap...especially if you are unemployed and The Police arent particuarly viennese, and i had convinced myself that i dont like big stadium concerts...still we couldnt pass it up.
It turned out that the concert was about 3 blocks from our apartment so it was a good decision.
when we arrived the warm up band were playing which sounded like a poor imitation of Sting (it was his son i think). still, it had been a long time since i had been at a concert and i had forgotten how the drum gets your heart started and the bass runs right through you.
they were awesome and i dont know if Sting learnt something from those South American Indians, or if it is the tantric sex, but he is one particuarly well preserved man. maybe it is the music.
and do the Viennese rock out? well, as much as anyone and they can certainly clap in time.

we are about to head to the harvest festival ...

hello all,

we are now camping on the shores of the beautiful Lake Bled, Slovenia. It is our first 4 star camping site and it has pretty much everything, including site wide WiFi which is why i am writing to you at breakfast...which was good until it started raining 2 seconds ago! not really in the camping spirit of getting away from it all but nevermind. we are yet to find the elusive 5 star campsite.

yesterday was action packed. we got up and tried to ignore that it was 12 degrees as we headed out to go whitewater rafting. By the time we got there it was hot and sunny though and rohan even jumped out of the raft and went for a float in the icy water and (more impressively) got back in without looking completely stupid.

when we got back we hiked up to a slap (waterfall) and on the way got caught up in some local festival that looked to be about eating meat, drinking beer and waltzing to folk music (we found out later it was the annual cows' balls festival where they celebrate the cows coming down from the hills or something).

we slept well last night! i have been dreaming alot about casey (my dog). camping seems to be for australians, young families and middle aged couples with dogs. the other night i dreamt he had turned into an unruly chiuauau (sp?) with a coat!?

xxx

beer and pizza

dear all,

we are now in ljubljana, slovenia - such a cool town, with a really hip vibe - i think mostly due to all the students out drinking along the river at the impossible number of trendy bars in the warmish weather. i'll try and keep this brief so i can get out with them, although brief isnt really my strong point.

but i will start where i left off the first time.

since our jaunt across germany, our trip went a little 'contiki', only in the sense that we relentlessly hit european hot spot after hot spot...although our last campsite in italy was also a contiki stopover so we got a lil too close to the real thing.

so we had some good weather in prague during the day




then one of the thunderstorms that plagued us during the first month of our trip moved in. luckily this one didnt hit the campsite which already resembled a pond from the weather the night before.

next stop was the popular cesky krumlov



we camped beside a lake (not creepy this time, beautiful in fact) just south of cesky where rohan went for a dip

from czech we drove back to germany, taking a slighty morbid detour to nurnberg - it is chilling driving past the ruins of the collosal structures hitler planned for his third reich. they have an excellent museum (which is in this building - part of the mostly finished enormous main hall) explaining the rise of hitler, what the building were designed for and what the hell they're going to do with them now.nurnberg itself was a lively town which we really enjoyed - not least because we used up one of our hotel nights there. in fact it was the start of a week out of the tent because we went on to munich were friends of my grandparents very kindly put us up in their central penthouse apartment and acted as tour guides - taking us to the quirky standing wave in central munich (had to drag rohan away from here)

and not one, but two beer halls in one day - hence the glow.

not only that, we got to spend a very relaxing day out on their yacht - not a breath of wind but it didnt matter.

helmut on rathmus (i think - god of wind or somthing)

monika and i taking control of things

we had dinner at a lovely restaurant by the lake watching the sun set.

but then it got cold in munich so we decided to head straight to

ITALY!!

first stop was Lake Garda where we camped amongst the olive, cypress and oleander trees - our campsite was out on that headland somewhere

we make a side trip to verona to get a bit loved up (modern day juliet? - thats THE balcony in the background)

some of the millions of love messages on the way into the courtyard

before we headed to the glorious, the stunning cinque terra

we did the walk. it was hotter than the last time i did it and seemingly more tourists (thousands as we got off the train) so i thought it would be unbearable. luckily most (normal, sensible) people stopped at the beach and it was us and about two couples that started the walk. it was only mad dogs, wannabe englishmen, and americans out in the cinque terra mid day sun. still, it meant we deserved some gelati and a dip in the blue, blue med on the way.

me making like an italian at the campsite (yes i do have other clothes, i must like photos of me in this dress). this camp was also surrounded by olives, oleanders and a few fig trees and grapevines for good measure. it was absolutely packed though and at first i couldnt stand it, but since then the campsites have seemed a bit lonely.

we were sad to leave the coast and head east to tuscany (sad to head to tuscany!) as i mentioned in the previous email, we stuffed up initially, camping atop a hill in what seemed quite an urban/industrial area. but we were close to pisa and did the obligatory poses before letting ourselves smirk at everyone else doing them.

the cathedral is also pretty

We didnt hang around long in Pisa but it did have two claims to fame for us. 1. the best toilets so far and 2. (unfortunately) the best pizza...

we headed south to text book tuscany

we stayed near Siena which had the most incredible cathedral i have ever seen (annoyed about spending the 2 euro on the Pisa one!) and a nice vibe.

exterior of the cathedral

& the interior - blew me away

fruit in one of the many delicious looking delicatessens that were all across italy.phew! that is all i can manage for now. time to get some food.

xxx

a/r