Year: 2004

Europe

Paris Again

29/05/2004

After a very late breakfast we headed off on the Metro to visit Montmartre and Sacre Couer Cathecral. The cathedral is large and impressive. What’s more, there is no entry fee. A mass was finishing just as we arrived and then a group of a dozen or so nuns sang another service which lasted for […]

Europe

Somme

27/05/2004

On Wednesday, we had a pre-arranged tour of the Flanders & Somme WW1 battle fields. Annette Linthout who I had found on the Internet picked us up at our hotel with the intention of following the general route of the Australian soldiers and then dropping us off at our next hotel in Paris in the […]

Europe

Brugges

26/05/2004

On Monday we went to Brugge. We caught a taxi to the train station at Gare le Nord and caught the Thalys train to Brussels and a connecting local train to Brugge. The countryside in the north of France is very different from that in the south around Provence. Here the fields were much larger […]

Europe

Paris

24/05/2004

We arrived in Paris last Friday afternoon after travelling north from Arles. That trip took about 3 hours to do around 800 kms. It was quite something to be travelling for some of the trip at 300 km per hour on the TGV (France ‘s fast train). I had travelled at that type of speed […]

Europe

Provence

21/05/2004

We found the hotel relatively easily. It is a converted farm house and has a very interesting character. The owner / manager, Frank and his wife Catherine are very pleasant. There are a great number of rooms here which suggests that French farmers had exceptionally large families. The food in the dining room was enjoyable […]

Europe

Cote d’Azure

17/05/2004

Saturday is a travelling day for us. We packed up last night and were away from the villa by 8.00 am. We drove back to Florence the same way as we had travelled to in the first place and headed for the Avis office near the station. We got a little lost & separated but […]

Europe

Tuscany

11/05/2004

Here we are for our special week in a villa under the Tuscan sun. We picked up our rental cars from Avis in Venice last Saturday (a week ago’ -one snappy little Renault Megane and a rather beaten up Opel van. The previous renter of the van must have collided with a tree and a […]

Europe

Venice

08/05/2004

With our time in Lucca at an end, our caravan of people and multiple suit cases headed off to Venice. We caught a local train to Prato and then changed for a long distance train to Venice. Because the area around Prato & Florence is surrounded by hills, much of the first 1/2 hour was […]

Europe

Lucca

05/05/2004

We were picked up from our hotel in Florence at 8.40 and piled into a waiting taxi with all our baggage and headed off for the station. Our train to Lucca left at 9.40 am and we weren’t sure whether the train just went to Lucca or whether it was a stop on the way […]

Europe

Florence

02/05/2004

Well, we were all packed up and ready to leave our hotel in Rome on time at 8.30 am last Friday and caught our transfer to the station which was only 10 minutes away. Rob & I left everyone to mind the bags while we went off in search of the place to get the […]

Europe

Rome

29/04/2004

Monday April 26 was a travelling day for us. We found the station in Munich easily enough – it was right under our hotel. It took a few minutes to get our Eurail ticket endorsed and then we waited 30 minutes or so for the train to leave. We were on train No 85 for […]

Europe

Bavaria

26/04/2004

This time we are in Germany. Up early in the morning on Wednesday, April 21, for a quick breakfast and a taxi back to Paddington Station for the train to Heathrow. While the station is directly under Terminal 1, it’s still a long walk of 3-400 metres to the departures hall. After checking in we […]