Of course there has to be a degree of anti-climax now. After all, we have seen most of the finest art that has been preserved through the centuries, seen the most significant architectural sites from Ireland, England, Holland, France, Italy, (and the intrguingly distinctive Gaudi drenched Barcelona). Yet there was also some pretty ordinary work that was somewhat disappointing. Among the golden peaks of human endeavour, there were some molehills of underachievement. It was confirmed for me that the spark of genius is rare indeed.

Excruciatingly hard to return to the work-a-day world. So grey, so mundane. And yet, what did we see on the other side of the world but what is mundane for they who live there?

While us cats were away, the home mice naturally were tempted to play. Results: one new laptop stolen during a "party", one car stolen and joy ridden through a brick fence. I thought I had removed anything of value from the house in anticipation of lower standards of housecare from the Young Thoughtless Males. Memo: next time consider plastic shrink wrapping FOR THE WHOLE HOUSE NOT FOR THE LUGGAGE!!!!

On reflection I find this blog highlights a serious coffee addiction,which may be due to Melbourne itself having developed a huge array of latte sippers. Also that the bodily needs for decent nutrition need to be satisfied to sufficient degree that you are not distracted by either excessive hunger, thirst or intestinal distress from the primary task of walking around, looking, listening and thinking about your surroundings.

Post Trip Reflections remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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8.10 in the morning went by, but finally we were ushered through the road construction area to where our coach was waiting, unable to reach the hotel. A seemingly endless round of pickups from other hotels followed, until by 9.30 we were back at the tour office ready to board the actual tour. No time for a pitstop, rush rush rush.

At Salisbury the ancient cathedral impressed us with its immensely high spire, its many medieval tombs of knights and barons, and its splendid stained glass. We viewed an original of the Magna Carta, watched over and commentated on by a lady who may well have been there for the signing.

While the few passengers who had opted for a pub meal lingered awaiting their pre-booked lunches, the rest were let loose in the Salisbury shops. Here I was gladdened by an exceptional prawn and mayonaise roll and a just-right cappucino. Fresh, real food; a rarity on our long sojourn.

A short drive onwards to Stonehenge, getting briefed on the way in the varied theories of how it came to be there. The stones every bit as impressive as expected. Tourists can no longer get closer than a defined circular walk, with a good audio commentary to listen to when the cold wind whipping against your ears permits. One theory suggest the site was a refrigerator for keeping meat in ancient days. The prevailing temperature supported this hypothesis. It was damn cold.

As the coach drove away, Miriam saw many small white pebbles in the meadows, and commented that her grandfather had collected pebbles like that from near Stonehenge. As a misty rain gathered, we rolled in to Bath, for a quick squint at the town and in particular the Roman Baths.

The Baths were fantastically well preserved and gave a real insight into the life and leisure of the ruling Romans and their underlings. A tasting in the Pump Room showed the spring water to be similar to but milder than the mineral water of Keyneton in Victoria. Many of the friezes and statues from the site have been recovered and are displayed in well lit conditions on an interpretive walk. Just don't know why the Romans in Rome don't polish the treasures of their city.

The day had been huge and we were glad to be dropped off at Earls Court Road, a short walk to "home". A good rest and a leisurely packing of bags was required. For after an all too brief sleep, the HotelLink mini-bus was seeking us, it was 4.30am and we were on our way to Heathrow ready for departure to Dubai.

4-5-06

We were glad to have the opportunity to catch a few of the sights we hadn't had time to see previously. Top of the list was the Tate gallery, to finally reach total art overload. A quick tube ride to Blackfriars, and a leisurely stroll across the bridge delivered us to the Tate. Entry was free except to a couple of exhibitions that were of no interest to us anyway; we were here to see the core collection. More excellent Dali and other favourite surrealists such as Magritte, Matisse, asbstract stars such as Rothko, Pollock and more...

School children sprawled in front of the huge canvases and reproduced them carefully in their exercise books. Special mention must be made of the young girl who had carefully torn up pieces of coloured paper to make a very accurate small scale version of a Matisse collage, "The Snail".

After art exhaustion set in, we headed off to walk past StPauls Cathedral, joining the hundreds of Londoners eating sandwiches on the steps. Peeking inside, it all seemed grand but the entrance fee of something like fourteen pounds per person was somewhat exhorbitant, so we backed out. Finding ourselves in the theatre district and the Strand, we saw many familiar Monopoly street names. Continung randomly through the streets we came across Australia House, the only visible reminder of home that we encountered in the UK.

Before the afternoon ended we had visited Harrods, just to see the Egyptian escalators. From the statues of Dodi and Di to the top of the building, everything in sight is gilt and resplendent. Shopwise, it seems just like Myer used to be in its glory days. Lots of good but fully priced luxury goods, and many staff doing their best to be attentive to the customers.

Mopping up England remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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On reaching the check in counter for Eurostar, our tickets just provoked beeping from the machine. It was too late to get on the train. Fortunately, the French rail system's policy is to reissue tickets for the next available service, if you have missed any train by less than one hour. So, after we had calmed down, we were able to board the 10.20am train and still be in London by 12.00 (1pm Paris time).

The EuroStar is certainly a civilised way to travel between the two capitals, a comfortable ride, a brief overview of north western France, twenty minutes of darkness as you travel under the Channel, and before you know it you are at Waterloo Station.
Here, once we had established our bearings, we were only a short walk from familiar surroundings. With somewhere to stay for the remainder of our time the immediate requirement, an Internet cafe was quickly found, opposite the gallery where earlier in our travels we had seen the Dali exhibition. With a little diligent searching, found what looked like a comfortable hotel in Kensington (the Shaftesbury) at 59 pounds a night, and booked it online.

We were feeling a lot more relaxed being back in an English speaking country where we could find our way around easily. We even knew that we should get an all day ticket on the Loop, right away, so that we could get around central London easily. This being our second stint near Earls Court, we felt right at home, knowing where to buy food and drinks and so on. Saved on dinner by buying pre-prepared Chinese at 2.2 pounds per serve and heating it in our room, because unlike every hotel room on the continent of Europe, this one actually had both a microwave and a fridge for guest use. Very convenient.

The room itself was incredibly overheated - a common situation in England. I had to seek help to get the heat down enough to sleep. It appeared that you could not turn off the heat, but you could turn on the air conditioner and open the window a small way; not exactly a greenhouse friendly approach to energy usage. However in decor and cleanliness the rather small room was superior to most others we had stayed in. And, as I had not brought with me a cat to swing, the compact size was not too much of a problem.

There is much to be said for the restorative powers of a hot bath in a clean bathroom, followed by a cup of tea.

Best of all there was internet access, a feature that I had thought would be more widely available than it is. But Internet cafes are everywhere, even in the tiniest towns.

Back to Old Blighty remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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With no direct train available, change at Genoa required, from the fast train down to the dirty and slow rolling stock familiar to us from our night time adventures. Time enough in Genoa to stroll past the Christopher Columbus statue near the rail station (love your work Chris, but sorry we can't fund your trip to the New World. Maybe someone else can chip in?) Procured coffee and cake in the only shop in the street with visible tables and chairs in the sunshine and returned to the station in time for our train to Nice.

All we want to do now, having decided to abandon Venice as a destination, is to get back to England with enough time in hand to squeeze in the sights we missed first time round: Stonehenge and Bath in particular. So, after deep discussions with a helpful ticket clerk at Nice, it was determined that the fast train under the English Channel would be the best option despite a supplementary charge of 75 euros each on top of our Eurail passes. The alternative would be a slow train to Calais, followed by paying our own way on the ferry with maybe a discounted fare, and further uncertain arrangements from Dover back to London.

Journey from Nice to Paris peaceful enough for us - seasoned enough to gather provisions before the journey, but in this case the dining car was in operation. One young American lady found she had failed to get off at Aix-en-Provence and instead found herself several hundred km away in Paris at midnight, perhaps as a result of her insisting she could speak French but clearly could not listen to French and extract any meaning from it.

I had booked a room at the Terminus de Lyon Hotel just near the Gare de Lyon station, so it only took ten minutes and our trusty compass to find our way there. Clean, adequate room, and we were soon asleep.

Rapid Decampment remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The train journey from Rome to Florence was quick and smooth, zipping by forest covered hillsides with the mist trickling through the valleys. On arriving at Florence railway station, the usual battle to find the specifics of which way to go, and how far, to find the accommodation that had been booked long ago. First step, buy a local map - the hotel bookings office at the station having supplies in a range of languages at one euro each. Next, try to find anyone with a smattering of English to show the wanted address to and seek their advice. In practise at this point you usually run into a conveniently located publicist for the local taxi drivers who insists that it is far too far to walk. Eighteen euros, including six to carry our two modest suitcases, seemed a little steep for a three kilometre journey.

Nonetheless, we were faced with but one afternoon to achieve the goal of seeing Michaelangelo's David, so we set about this in a very focussed manner. After briefly glancing at the ancient room in the Annalena guest house allotted to us, we consulted our map and planned the most direct walking route to reach the gallery. Once in the street, we marched at high speed back across the river Arne and by-passed the Uffizi gallery, reaching the Galleria Del' Accademia within a half hour. Here we queued up with a thin band of shade to protect us from the hot sun while an accordion player worked the other side of the street, playing his heart out but raising little interest from the crowd. Though we had been warned of the potential for a long wait, it only took about twenty minutes for us to reach the entrance.

Inside, we first checked out a display of unusual and historic musical instruments from many different countries. Included were some very early guitars that looked singularly hard to tune. Best was the Chinese water bowl, whose handles after being dampened are rubbed to produce an eerie sound.

After a while longer perusing the 12th-15th century religious art, full of suffering saints being martyred in various painful ways, we moved on to see several of Micaelangelo's unfinished sculptures, their forms just emerging from the marble. Exciting to see the rough chisel marks of the master, so firm and assured compared to other works of the era, including one that had once been attributed to M-A but in its style is completely wrong.

David stands proud and tall and every bit as impressive as one would expect. Bathed in the diffuse light of his own skylight his veins stand out in a stunningly lifelike manner. Yet I can't help thinking those hands are a little too large. Still, a magnificent sculpture and quite a different experience to the two inch tall reproductions infesting the nearby shops.

Leaving the museum we wander through the streets and take refuge in a McDonalds. After ingesting some sustaining junk food, we researched the local bus routes, finding that it would be possible to bus our way to the station next morning. Later in the evening, the guy on reception at Annalena gesticulated wildly to emphasise I would have to get down to the tobacconist shop pronto so as to get some bus tickets. You can't just buy them on the bus! So we ventured down the road and after waiting for every local in town to buy their fags and lottery tickets we were equipped with tickets for the morning bus.

While waiting to arrange a wake up call, I flicked through a book in the lobby that gave the history of the guesthouse. It had started as a convent in the mid fifteenth century, then was in the hands of a gentleman and his wife, Annalena. The family fell on hard times and borrowed money from Cosimo, one of the powerful Medici family. Later, Medici foreclosed on the loan and took possession of the house, together with its beautiful garden, which still exists today behind a high fence.

At night we prowl the streets and pass through the ancient doors of the Porte Romana. We find our destined pizzas and local red wine and sleep, tired from our long walks today.

The Day Florence Got Done remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We are in Dubai today.... with much unpublished material not having been able to get the chance to post it on this blog yet. Here it is hot, hot, hot and very different.
To friends and family, just to let you know, we will be on a plane at 2.30 in the morning the 7th May (Dubai time) so should be home after midnight on Melbourne's sunday

.

The above was all I had time to bang out in the close confines of one of Dubai's Internet cafes. Let me expand this entry a little.
We arrived in Dubai skimming in over a landscape whose skyline has an ancient collection of low rounded and linear shapes obscured by air that seems dusty or dirty. On the receiving end, we detect a card held up displaying our names. We are whisked away to a car for our airport transfer, where we observe the local traffic style (the symphony of horns) and frequent four-into-two-lane road changes just to keep everyone excited. To add to the confusion, U turns also happen at intersections leading to a degree of hazard for pedestrians.

Our accommodation at the Pearl Residence, with its ironing board cover matching the couch, and its piggyback power adapters festooing the electricals, was adequate enough, very thoroughly cleaned each day in a process that seemed to take about an hour. The TV offers many Arabic films, Hollywood cartoons dubbed in Arabic, and a dash of CNN and BBC. Long way from Kerry O'Brien in quality. Tiring of infotainment that is basically a 30 second grab of crude headlines repeated without cease.

We crank up the cooling and get the room quite cool, a welcome relief after a rather overheated hotel room in London. But the outside temperature was right for a quick swim on the rooftop, very refreshing in the 40 degree heat. And for entertainment, the guys operating the window washing cradle, as it dangles from the side of the building with not a safety harness in sight.

Out on the streets the sun beats down like a drumstick whacking the back of the head. We hang around outside the supermarket waiting for it to open at 2pm due to it being Friday. A thin waft of cool air leaks out onto us from the shop air conditioning. Presently the lights flicker on, the shop opens for business and a six pack of Fanta is obtained.

Refrigerated air is your friend in Dubai, and the lure of avoiding the heat by staying in your room is strong. Undaunted, we explore the old quarter, crowded with tiny stalls crammed with goods which we could see no reason to acquire. We walk through a fun park and market combined, where a stall selling "found" luggage of unknown origin jostles with the crowd descending from the ball of death, in which an adventurous fellow spins a motorcycle in tight circles in defiance of gravity.

The skyline is dot dashed with angular cranes adding more buildings that seem to be around seven storeys in height. The architecture is for the most part similar to what gets pulled down in StKilda Rd these days - a tired seventies look with some local flavour in ornamentation.

Memo: check for acceptance of credit card befoe eating meal. Murphy's law states that the ATM that is compatible with your card, and issues money in the desired denomination, will be far from the restaurant where your beloved is held as security pending your payment of the bill for one large pizza an ice cream and a coke.

But now our travellers have tired of the travel. This is a chance to rest before the last leg home. We take advantage of it and sleep longer than we have for many days.

Just before midnight, we exit our room, whisk our bags down the hotel steps before the nosey porter can try to extract another tip from us, and wait a while for our transfer to the airport. Ten minutes late, a minibus rolls up with other travellers looking as ready as us to hot foot it to the airport.

The plane is huge and takes forever to load with passengers; but eventually we are able to sink back in our seats and know we are on the way back to Australia. At this moment you know your trip is almost over, but you don't care. You just want your own familiar surroundings back, as soon as possible.

Dubai the land of heat remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Unfortunately to stay at England's only nationally significant geological site, famous for its Jurassic and Triassic strata teeming with fossils, a premium is imposed. Still, 200
english pounds is pretty savage for two days. Cleanliness and a modest degree of comfort, such as pillows thicker than 10 millimetres and a shower capable of washing the human body apparently create a much higher rate of gouging.

As for getting here, I found that buses were the only option, with several connections required. National Express busline is willing to sell you tickets through a phone call with ticketing details sent to your mobile by SMS, which you then show to the driver who waves
you aboard. Before departing from Victoria Coach Station (a short distance from Victoria Tube station), we had walked across London from the Kensington Edwardian, through the Royal Boroughs, past the Sloan Square yuppy shopping precint,where shop workers stepped around sleeping homeless men in the indented entrance to a high fashion retailer. With frequent monitoring of our progress on a detailed map, we made it to the coach station with an hour
or so to spare. Found that here you could actually buy food that didn't make you feel as greasy and befouled as the standard London fare. Particulary recommend the samosas available at the first store as you walk in the entrance.
Once aboard, the journey was soon underway but had not progressed more than a hundred metres before striking a total traffic gridlock, rumoured to be caused by some kind of boat race
happening on the Thames. No kidding, it took an hour and three quarters just to reach the M4 motorway and get above 5km/hr.Passed houses formerly lived in by Sylvia Pankhurst and
Hilaire Belloc. In fact many famous people had lived in this street, according to the profusion of circular blue plaques.

The bus drivers were in disarray, with following connections having to be rearranged on the fly. There was much discussion over mobiles between drivers and base, with buses being redirected to take passengers hither and thither. After one more bus change,we were dropped off at Dorchester. This ancient town is better known under its fictional representation in Hardy's "The Mayor of Casterbridge". It has wonderful ancient stone cottages, Keeps, walls that have stood for a thousand years or more. But the folk at the railway station didn't know where Charmouth, our destination, was located; it required a forensic examination of the atlas to confirm that if we walked 10 metres to the bus station and waited for the number 31, it would pass Charmouth in its journey.

As we pondered the lack of timetable, the lack of even a notice as to what bus line operated here, in rolled the alleged number 31, with a driver as jolly as an extra in a Hardy crowd scene. At one stop, a sour faced harridan climbed aboard and asked " You going to Weymouth?"
"No, I'm going to Axminster, that's why it says so on the front of the bus."
For three pounds 20 (you wouldn't have the 20p, would you?) each, this ride was a lovely panoramic ride into the past, through green rolling hills and splended vistas of the distant sea. Not being quite sure where to get off, and noting that in a series of towns there had been only one stop by the bus, I pressed the stop button as we rolled into Charmouth's town limits. As luck would have it, the turn off we needed was only a hundred metres or so further along.

After submitting to the rude financial discipline of the future Mrs Fawlty and being shown to our room, we strolled down to the windswept, pebbly Charmouth beach, watching the sea mists flailed by a constant gale against the soft and crumbling cliffs. This is an area where intact Ichthyosaurus heads and other fossilised bones have been found often, and you can see in local fences where many prize specimens have been pried out and ripped off by the unscrupulous. Once so common, the fossils are now not so easy to find, but the locals keenly promote visitors to come and enjoy them. The protective attitude is reserved for automobiles, with signs warning thieves that they may just find that the car in the car park they are intent on stealing is a police honey pot set to entrap them in the act.

Very light dinner: yoghurt and fruit and choc biscuits. Not willing to spend another 40 pounds for another over fatty meal with chips over everything. Brrr! Will have an early night in comfort and go for a long walk tomorrow to Lyme Regis.

3-4-6
Miriam awoke early, the sun was already kind of up, so we went for a quick walk down to Charmouth beach. Beautiful sunny day, perhaps the upside of global warming for the UK. What is hard to get used to is the sudden variability of temperature; when the sun goes behind a
cloud it is almost like a ghost has walked across you, you shiver and hurry to put on a jacket, and just as soon you are tearing it off in a hot sweat.

Signs warned of the danger of walking to Lyme Regis along the beach, with a huge area of clifftop having collapsed not so long ago, mudslides from the cliffs, and powerful tides that could cut you off with nowhere to go but into the drink. Decided to take the land route instead, of course preparing ourselves with a hearty breakfast prepared by Sybil Fawlty and her minions. I like a good coffee, but the cafetiere (so pompously described in the menu) was so loaded with caffeine that I was wide eyed and almost shaky.

Back to the beach to begin our walk, we checked out the fossils in the beachside shop.
There were some fascinating examples mainly of ammonites (ancestors of the squids of today), small fish like creatures, and the prize icthyasaurus heads, a crocodile like creature of the distant past). On the whole, though, the local fossils were outnumered by imported
examples from such non-local sources as Madagascar. Always check the provenance of your fossils, lads.

We set off on the signposted walking route, shortly finding that due to the mudslides mentioned above, the original route had been deviated from, lengthening the walk from 2 and a half to about 3 miles each waY. Walking through the cottage lined street out of
Charmouth, we encountered a village plod (policeman) sussing out a rather suss looking character who could have picked up a role as an extra in the Bill. Mr Plod glanced at us, dismissed us as mere tourists and went on his way. We saw him again a few minutes later
parked on the side of the road, and again on the road on our way back from Lyme Regis. I can't believe there is much crime going on here.

The path continued along the road, then turned into woodland lined with hundreds of years of leafmould, with a pathway mired in mud in parts, requiring careful navigation along the edge. Then across the Charmouth golf course, with many an elderly golfer kindly waving us
across the airway before wacking their tiny white balls.After the golf course, the path followed the roadways that seemed thick with diesel fumes making us gasp until turning again into quiet wooded pathways. We made our variation to the route deviation, tramping across some very muddy patches and glimpsing splendid coastal views. It really is a very pretty seascape.

Reaching the outskirts of Lyme REgis, we wandered through the old graveyard, surpisngly finding few graves older than the mid nineteenth century. None of Miriam's relatives in evidence. The town sits on several steep inclines that make it hard to see where you're going but we eventually found our way down the main street lined with houses built in the 1600s.

The street so narrow that cars are formally obliged to wait for the oncoming traffic to pass them before advancing. Liked the Hong Kong Chinese restaurant with its menu sticky taped to the ancient glass, the Chinese characters somewhat out of place against the architecture.Excellent lunch at a cafe overlooking the harbour, at last some green leafy salad, which had seemed elusive at most food vendors. Beneath the stonework of the main harbour front area, an innovative sewage water storage and treatment facility has been incorporated, preventing sea pollution and keeping up the venerable feel of the area. The streets full of tiny shops offering ice creams cornets, chips in paper cones, locally made fudge and lollies, small children darting around everywhere, lots of animation and colour.

We tried to commence the walk back to Charmouth along the beach, but the large pebbles that stressed our ankles as we walked, and the uncertainty of the tide - is it coming in or going out? - led us to retrace our steps to the land route.

Back at Charmouth, after a doze in front of the tele - remarkably free of American product - we chose to have an evening drink and a meal at the George Hotel, named after one of those

Georgian kings, I think Geo V, c. 1911? Enjoyed seeing some of the local folk, families

playing snooker, a man taking his mum's dog to the pub with him (fine dog you've got there, I said to him), old friends doing what they clearly do as a regular pastime. Friendly atmosphere, despite furnishings on the wall that looked like they might have knocked off a few heads in their time. Back to our digs for a relaxing bath, rang Miriam's relation in the Midlands to arrange a visit up there tomorrow. Iris, who has not even yet met us, proved delightfully welcoming and proposes to meet us from wherever we can get to near her

place by public transport tomorrow. Must be out of this joint by 7.15am tomorrow so early

to bed tonight.

4-4-6
Out on to the cold high street of Charmouth by 7.30 to await the 7.43 bus. It's that one, or

wait four hours for the next one that goes back to Dorchester Sth rail station. At the last

minute find I still have Mrs Fawlty's room key. With the bus drivers indulgence I drop it

off on the unattended counter of the general store, while the shopkeepers are busy out the

back with their baking for the day. Hopefully it will find its way back to Hensleigh House.

A picturesque misty early morning showed the green hills of Dorset dotted with black faced

and shaggy sheep, and we were soon standing in the frosty chill of the bus stop. Our

connection back to London arrived on time and delivered us safely to Victoria Coach stn

where we needed to figure our next move. National Coachlines offered Northampton as the

closest destination, but falsely supposed that a local train would take us the rest of the

way. In fact, once at Northampton the only option was the local double decker bus, that

weaved its way through stonelined laneways via a roundabout route, through standstill

traffic and with a couple of phone contacts with Iris eventually spotted her patiently

awaiting us at the bus terminus.

After a natter and a rest, Iris walked us down to the Canal Boat business before dark,

which was bigger in scope than expected, up to sixteen boats lined up along the stretch of

canal. She showed us the "Malvern" and explained she was happy for us to take it for a run

for a couple of days - to depart tomorrow morning. A brisk walk up to the pub for a hearty

dinner and a couple of drinks and we were ready for a kip. Iris kindly putting us up in the

most comfortable digs we've had so far in old Blighty. Best sleep, with back spasms almost

completely gone now.

5-4-6
Iris introduced us to son Tim, who showed me the ropes of skippering a narrowboat on the

canal. After ten minutes of tutelage, he seemed confident enough that I could handle it,

and jumped off onto the bank to walk back. I'd decided to head towards Napton on the Hill

because it offered a long stretch with no locks to navigate - and this proved a relatively

easy run. Diesel engine, forward and reverse, throttle, and a couple of ropes to secure the

vessel to the bank wherever one chose to stop.

Along the way we saw many different narrow boats, some painted up with folksy art and bright

colours, some with rough sheds and gypsy style dwellings on the banks. Plenty of boat

dwelling dogs, and even a few cats - one boat had mesh over the front of it, from where a

proud ginger moggy acted as the the figurehead of the vessel, while two big black dogs at

the rear of the boat confronted two large white swans who were not a bit concerned.

Thankfully Tim has tipped me off about the basic courtesies of narrow boating. If a vessel

is approaching, pull to the right. First one to a bridge has right of way. If you see a

potential trouble spot, like three boats entgering a narrow stretch and heading for a

narrower passage beneath a bridge, throw her into neutral and exercise some patience. So,

no "canal rage" incidents, which do, apparently, happen now and then.

After about three and a half hours we reached Napton, where the sign for the "Folly" Pub

indicated "Last Pub for Five Hours".
Beyond, we would have had to go through seven ascending locks and after being at the tiller

for some time I was feeling knackered and ready to stop for the night.

The way of the canal appears to be that you park your boat in line with all the other visitors to the locality, within an easy walk of the pub. Some retirement age couples seem to drift around the canal system much like in Australia people take off in their motorhomes and drive around the whole nation.

As the afternoon wore on Miriam started feeling chilled and in respiratory distress. She went to bed and slept fitfully for thirteen hours, giving me time to read an entire novel that was in the end not worth reading but passed the time. Cooked up a Croque Monsieur in the galley but M could not eat anything.

6-4-6
Prepared to commence the journey back with Miriam not in a good way. Apart from handing a cup of coffee up to Captain Shane at the tiller once, she again fell into a feverish sleep. Once back at Braunston, Iris rang the local medical centre and we took M to get some antibiotics, as the doc confirmed a lung infection. She is now sleeping peacefully and hopefully will be right again in a day or two. But is she well enough to cope with going further north, to Scotlan? Mmmmm.... just don't know yet, and yet I will have to make some kind of forward bookings. Anyhow, the focus for the time being it to get M well again.

Several days went by, and here's what happened..... remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Later, after most were asleep but I was having trouble getting there, I saw two young shady characters roaming up and down the corridor. Sure enough, after a while there were cops running around and a Canadian lady reporting her bag with passport and credit cards was gone.
Now I had seen one of the guys standing ten metres or so down our carriage corridor with a bag draped over his shoulder that looked like what she had described, and gave a description to the conductor. A few hours later, the cops found the offenders still on the train. They had slipped on the train while it was stopped at a station, one of the seemingly endless stops. About four o'clock in the morning a female conductor woke me up and told me they had caught the guys, and presented the missing bag to me as if I had the owner in my compartment. I pointed her down the corridor to approximately where I thought the Canadian might be found, who was of course much relieved to regain possession of her passport, her credit cards, and every essential item a traveller needs.

So all in all, a nerve wracking night. It took a long while for the adrenaline to subside. I managed a couple of hours of fitful nightmarish sleep before a freezing morning and being jolted awake by Miriam shaking me. In the confusion of having only five minutes notice from the conductor that we would have to get off at Rome, I lost my cosy windcheater that we had bought in Ireland, damn.

Also, by the time the journey was over, the railway toilets were in a condition more appropriate to a concentration camp than a contemporary democracy. The floor awash with urine had stunk from the start and grew steadily more horrific as the kilometres eked away. A strange suited gentleman who had stood at the end of the carriage looking out the window, pausing only to listen to what we think was a drag queen practising a little opera, changed into his pyjamas and climbed up into the couchette where our illegal immigrant had been. His feet proceeded to stink out the whole compartment, which we of course had to lock against the possibility of more thievery. The whole journey was an absolute health hazard. It had started like an Agatha Christie novel and ended like a failed Hitchcock movie.

We finally made it into Rome at 6.30 in the morning, where we found that the station we were at was a few km away from our b & b. A taxi driver was happy to rip us off with a fifteen euro ride including a massive service charge for lifting our two humble bags into the cab. No-one seems to give a stuff about anyone in this town, service with a snarl at every shop, but the b&b we are in seems ok and there is an english speaker on the staff , who is great and has given us some good advice.
We are told by him, look out for thieves and pickpockets constantly here,especially around the main tourist areas. And don't feel complacent on the trains, they are constant targets for thieves too.

After flaking out on the bed for an hour or so, we struggled out and tried the tourist bus that had worked OK for us in Barcelona. We were so tired that every time we closed our eyes on the bus we were instantly asleep, and unable to take in much about us. However, we did gain an appreciation of the strange jumble of the ancient, the not so old, and the plain bad taste of some of the more recent parts of Roma. With plans to tackle the city after a restorative sleep, we called it a day and hit the sack fairly early.

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Rome

Advised by Pino, our part time (mornings only, brings our breakfast in his bag, lukewarm yoghurt, bread like paper, brioche and apricot jam, always the same....) that there was a snap transport strike again (happens every coupla months, he says)we resolve to strike out on foot to see Rome. At this point I am really glad to have with me my trusty compass, a reasonably detailed street map with major sites marked on it, and Miriam to watch my back and pockets while we walk. With the aid of these things, we navigated fairly smoothly to the Spanish Steps, accidentally found the house where John Keats, one of my favourite poets, died, the house now a museum devoted to he and Shelley. The Byron shirt shop is next door.
Onwards, and in a side street we found a pretty cool little fresh food market, bought some foccacia kind of things that were better than most of the horrible food we had been subjected to by the so called restaurants of Rome, good coffee at half the price, and a slice of real Romans going about their day.

Colntinuing on we made it to the Vatican, and round the back to the right, then to the left, and the left again to the Vatican Museums including the Sistine Chapel, one of Miriam's required sites for this trip. With a room of Raphael's frescos to compare, we argued the merits and issues of both, feeling that Michaelangelo's work was more inspired and grand in conception, but as some have commentated, his portrayals of women seem over muscular and quite masculine in appearance.

After several hours of touring the huge Vatican collection, we moved on to the Coliseum and walked right around it, as well as many other sites of great antiquity that were impressive and imbued with many ghosts of the long ago days. Particularly interesting was the site in the middle of town where it is believed the forum in which Julius Ceasar met his pointed demise once existed. It is now home to hundreds of feral cats that sleep on top of the ancient stone columns and are believed to be descendants of cats that were given by Cleopatra to Mark Antony; unfortunately he was allergic to their fur and dumped them. Now the cats are citizens of Rome and are not allowed to be harassed.

We enjoyed seeing the jigsaw of the old traces of Roman glory overlain with each new ages reworkings and renovations and additions. What was disappointing was the alarming indifference to such simple hygiene matters as refraining from urinating on every available surface. This seemed to be a popular practise among the natives of the city - and was not confined to men alone. If the scarce public toilets happened to be closed - a frequent case - the practise seemed to be to let fly in the very doorways of the toilet buildings. All this in broad daylight, with no shame displayed at all. All public buildings, such as the cafe in front of the main station Termini, had to be hosed down every morning to reduce the stench but never removing it. All in all, it seemed that the glory that was Rome is now a debased and self interested collection of opportunists out to take what they can from the visitors who surely sustain their local economy. We were pleased to be able to get tickets to get out of town and head to Florence the following morning.

Not so nice a-Roma remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Rose in the bustling and baffling city of Barcelona to tramp the streets with the aim of finding one of the double decker buses that continually tour the main ‘highlight’ spots. Our resoning simple: we had no idea how to negotiate the transport system with absolutely zero Spanish knowledge between us. After viewing the main cathedral quite close to our lodgings, which was grand and gothic and full of slightly spooky things like matched pairs of sarcophagi hanging off the walls, containing an early contributor to the cathedral and his wife, we continued on through the warm sunny streets. ON reaching the dockside area we found the appropriate orange bus and for 18 euros each bought the right to circle the city, thinking this would help us get oriented. After all, I had only pushed to come to Barcelona for one reason: to see some of Gaudi’s architecture. Of his work, the one that intrigued me was the Sagrida Familla cathedral, a work that is also known as the Cathedral of the Poor; this is because it had no official support and was commenced with public subscriptions only. Still unfinished, once it is completed it will be one of the modern wonders of the world.

A few stops into the tour of the city it was apparent that stylistically Gaudi’s work is related to that of others and has a certain Catalan style, where bright colours, strongly geometic patterns and somewhat extravagant decorative frills are commonplace. Before long the fantastically tall and slender spires of the Sagrada Familla appeared before us. To join the queue, you first run the gauntlet of beggars who continually work the crowd, especially focusing their attentions on the tourists. The long queue slowly snaked its way into the base of the building, where a display explained the many different types of stone used in the construction, and why they were chosen, their breaking strain, their mineral composition at microscopic level, and so on. For the price of admission (8.5 euros) you get to climb the towers that appear so slender from the street and rise some 90 metres or so. However, once you have commenced the climb, being locked within a snaking conga line of multicultural tourists, there is no option but to proceed step by step. What begins as a spiral staircase of about 90 cm width , with a hand rail on the right hand side, quickly narrows into a very tight upward spiral much like being on the inside of a giant snailshell like the nautilus. Seemingly with each step there is less room to place your feet, it is dark, lit only be narrow slits to the outside, and the feeling of claustrophobia grows quickly. It is not helped by young lovers who pause to fool around for ten minutes or more blocking the progress of those below them. No room to get by; plenty of patience required. Claustrophic feelings begin to arise as more climbers come up behind you and you begin to feel squeezed.

At the twenty metre mark, Miriam was not feeling good about proceeding, having bravely overcome her aversion to heights to make it thus far. The opportunity to descend by crossing horizontally to the other tower presented itself, and Miriam proceeded to head downward. It was up to me to continue the upward expedition. The next stretch, up to the sixty metre mark above ground level, continued to narrow and now there were few hand rails, and more holes and little walk out battlement style protrusions where the young again took their chances for photo opportunities and general playing about. Through gaps in the masonry you could get an excellent view of the details on the façade that can only be glimpsed from ground level, such as birds that though made of greenish stone appear light enough to fly from the structure up to heaven. Eventually the staircase pauses and you walk across a bridge like passage where a sign warns you not to linger and of the dangers of strong winds. At the far side the choice is to continue upwards to the highest point, or to start the descent down the alternative staircase. I decided, after taking a few snaps of Barcelona from this height, that I must have caught some height anxiety, for there was no way in the world that I was going to go up any higher.

Turning to the downward stair, I quickly found myself alone for a few minutes, fairly unnerving in the circumstances. Then I caught up (or is that down) to some other downward heading tourists, and soon returned to ground level. Within a few minutes I found Miriam, who had not wasted her time. She had thoroughly explored the Gaudi museum and viewed the interior, where workmen are continuing to push on with the dazzling construction. Inside, huge columns, graceful as giraffe legs, push high into the air, and gold and green ceramic tiles are prepared in sections for attachment to the vaulted ceiling. Everywhere, the fine dust created by the construction work and the water that cools the machinery fills the air. We left with small fragments of the building fabric mingled with our hair, our eyes, and our skin.

Miriam showed me the fascinating displays in the museum that highlighted the breathtaking vision Gaudi has given the world in this building. Regardless of how you feel about religion this man has been inspired by the structures and energy flows of the natural world and has learned so much from his almost clairvoyant reading of such things as fungi, crystals, seeds, animals and birds, the secrets of how strength can be found in curves, parabolas and hyperbolic planes, it is truly a wonder to behold. I was very pleased to have made the effort to see it and Miriam found it equally inspiring.

Having just about reached mental exhaustion point, we found the next available orange bus (but note that there are other buslines running different coloured buses that the orange bus ticket does not apply to, with separate bus stops as well), and taking a vantage point on the upper deck, protected by the windscreen for much of the way, gained a quick view of the remaining touristic highlights as defined by the Barcelona authorities, the requisite grand buildings, remnants of earlier rulers, invaders and so on. All interesting, but the day was coming to an end and we stayed on the bus, happy to be able to lie down in our humble little room; also glad we had brought our own heating element and could make a cup of tea. Tea is seemingly deemed some kind of poison in these parts and could not be seen in the shops.

With a search of the neighbourhood we eventually found a café serving reasonable food and coffee at a price that the locals liked and patronised, and we returned several times to it. This was in the next street along from the Boqueria, and coffee, the lifeblood of this pair of intrepid travellers, was only 1.2 euros against at least twice that for a worse product virtually everywhere else. Think it was called “Bacalla” or something like that in the Portaferrissa.

The supermarket (or supermercat as it is in Spanish) was quite an experience. You enter at one end, go by the security guard, use a narrow plastic basket to gather your selections. Similar to those our parents would have used in the early 1960s, and allowing the store to squeeze more customers into the store. To pay, you line up in one vast queue that is then farmed out to one of about four checkouts. We found that paracetamol was unobtainable in the mercat, a pharmacy being required for that, but we managed to get some bottled water. You just don’t feel safe drinking the tap water, though I don’t know what state the water system is in.

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The following morning it was time to bid adios to our Barcelonan experience. We checked out via the smirking sleazy guys at reception, with the free internet PC available at reception that wouldn’t go to any more than a few predetermined sites, and had a weird keyboard that slowed non-Spanish users to almost a complete halt. Basic hotmail use only seemed to be workable. Too bad for Yahoo users like me.

We rolled our baggage to the metro station up Ramblas and after the usual anxiety of trying to figure out the right ticket, the right platform, the right direction and the right place to get off, we made it to the central Barcelona station. Here I waited in line for twenty minutes while someone was stuck at the ticket office getting nowhere, and a Spanish speaking gentlemen didn’t let his lack of English stop him from chatting animatedly to me in an amalgam of Spanish, French , English and a range of other languages. Then the ticket guy shrugged his shoulders and pointed to another queue, refusing to deal with me because I had a Eurail pass. When I eventually found a more helpful woman in the Information & Ticketing area, I confirmed that he could have issued me the tickets I wanted, which were only to the Spanish/French border, from where the intention was to get tickets from the French railways to go on.

So, at last, another dirty, aged train slowly edged us towards Cerbere, the first railway town over the border. Like Portbou on the Spanish side, this is an end of the world kind of place where no one seems to smile. A homeless man lies in his own filth in the waiting area, with his only friends close by him, a bedraggled dog and a marmalade mangy cat seemingly quite happy to be the third member of this nomadic triad. As we waited for our next train to come in – we found that returning to Avignon from here was our only realistic option before nightfall – a woman bought a healthy baguette from the grumpy, sour faced café attendant, walked up and handed it to the homeless man, said “ Bon appetite” and left him in peace. After he had eaten, he walked on his way to who knows where, his dog walking like an old arthritic, his cat sitting across his shoulders as though this was their everyday existence.

There are various forms of torture in the world, but riding on the Spanish and their co-conspirators the French train system is perhaps one of the most persuasive. It’s message to the traveller seems to be – your time is nothing to us. Your journey will take as long as we choose to make it. We won’t tell you how long that will be. Just be assured, it will take longer and will be more uncomfortable than you could imagine. A couple of hours beyond the scheduled time we rattled into Avignon.

This time I made an executive decision. An Ibis sign was visible adjacent to the railyards. Arising to the reception area from a darkened threshold to an elevator that fortunately did have lights, above the crumbling concrete of Avignon station we found refuge for the night. Though it was now almost 10 pm , the hotel was happy to cook up a meal that was more tasty and sustaining than we had enjoyed for many days, the room was clean and quadruple glazed against the railyard noise, and allowed us to have a healing and refreshing sleep. And the cost for all this was less than we had payed for our night in the medieval quarter.
Thus was our Anzac Day spent – the day we remember the sacrifices our armed forces made to help keep Europe free from tyrants through two wars.

More from Barcelona, and an unexpected return to Avignon remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Anyway, the profusion of bad taste shops selling t-shirts, hippie paraphernalia, pseudo-rastafarian hats and so on soon becomes so boring that one decides quickly to seek out the fine artworks that have brought us to this town. Now as you start to try to go somewhere with a purpose, you discover that the streets run in odd directions, basically the main streets are like spokes on a wheel ( a wheel that a drunk has jumped on and bent at angles here and there) and between the spokes canals of various widths run between the mainly 17th century houses. These houses, the legacy of the wealthy merchant class who made their pile of gold during Holland’s golden age of trade, tend to be about four storeys high, with high peaked gable roofs, and some are so old that their foundations have sagged to one side so their walls are no longer straight. Some of these are so bent (like some of the visitors to the town) that they lean on their neighbours for support, and their floors are visibly out of square.

The Tourist Info office, which had been closed tight when we arrived in the darkness of the previous evening, sold me two Holland Passes, which promised prepaid entry to a number of the usual tourist attractions and discounts to others. Being keen to avoid wasting time in queues, I had taken up this offer, which cost 25 euros for each of us. Eventually with the constant guide of my trusty map, our tram stormed its way to the Rijksmuseum. This is indeed a monument to what must have been the peak of Dutch success in world trade and a resultant pride in celebrating their achievements. At the entrance sits a model ship, based on a design that was never made in the real world, but nevertheless shows the key means by which the Dutch traders ventured out into the East Indies and returned with riches based on any trade they could profitably participate in – never mind if the natives were subjugated and the trade included items like guns and opium.

Today those traders have a strange immortality as they gaze out, with all their facial oddities and blemishes captured by master artists such as Rembrandt and Vermeer. For we who have only known these works in art book reproductions, it was stunning to see the artistry of these great masters of the past, and in this museum it is possible to be very close to the works and study their brushwork at close quarters. Many of the works on view are stunningly detailed, and with their smooth, thickly varnished finish some have a more real effect than a modern colour photograph – because of the artists selection of what details to include, and the effect of the composition. Brilliant works, with Rembrandt probably the master to be revered above the others for consistently outstanding execution.

Apart from the paintings, the museum also had endless displays of fine silverware, Delft porcelain items, furniture with intricate inlays of exquisite timber, all the material goods that rich merchants could possibly use to show off their wealth to each other and to history. Too much to appreciate in a visit, or perhaps ever. All in all, a strange irony that in creating these works that will be retained and savoured as examples of the highest achievements of art, the finest works contain an implicit criticism of the smug self belief of those who have been portayed (having paid their subscription to be included in the group picture, such as “The Night Watch”). You didn’t just have to be part of the group in reality, you had to have the money to chip in or the artist would leave you out of the picture, or leave you for eternity with only a portion of your face showing, obscured by a pike or something.

By the time we had left the museum, the day was almost done and after scouting for half edible food we headed back to the hotel, with art works playing on our minds far into the night.

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This morning we ventured on to the train system, as the RAI station was co-located with the tram terminus near our hotel. We soon found that the railways were faster and threw you around less than the tram, and it became our preferred means of getting in to Amsterdam central. We had already found that the Van Gogh museum was close to the Rijksmuseum so no time was wasted in getting there. Whereas with the Rijksmuseum our Holland Passes allowed us to skip the queue and go straight in (although I had to convince a guard-woman-bulldog-creature of the legitimacy of the scheme, it being only in place for a few days at this stage), with Van Gogh some patient waiting was required. Once inside, this was without doubt a highlight of the journey. To see the totality of Van Gogh’s life experience and his work from its early, self taught but undeniably unique first canvases, through his interaction with other artists and dabbling with their ideas of what painting is about, to the flowering of his genius and its tragic last few outpourings in his final canvases. By the time we reached “Wheatfield with crows” I was a blubbering emotional wreck. I have never been so moved by paintings in my life. For anyone who has suffered – and I guess that means anyone who has lived in this world – you must go to see the legacy of soul filled communication Vincent has left to us all. It will affect you. It touched me in ways I can’t even begin to describe.

After that, we were emotionally drained and in need of a coffee. In my usual frugal style, I thought I would take up the offer on the stubs of the Rijksmuseum tickets, for a discount at the Cobra café located in the Museum Square. Here, the offhanded manner in which our waitress declared there was no menu, you could have mushroom soup or a baguette and coffee, was followed by twenty five minutes of watching other patrons whose orders were filled while we sat with increasing hunger and decreasing patience. Coffee came eventually, but in the end I fronted the counter and told them I would pay for the coffee but wouldn’t wait any longer for service. The business was clearly about selling booze to the tourists, as I commented to Miriam, the danger with a cobra is that one bite can be so costly.

That night it was again difficult to sleep, our minds swirling with the hundreds of images, so many familiar but yet so much more powerful in their true appearance. The room unbearably stuffy and no possibility of fresh air except by travelling seven floors down and walking on the streets with the resident schizo who constantly approached passers-by soliciting money. I went for a long walk in search of milk to make some coffee in our room, and felt like I had walked half way across Holland before finding a shop still open at 9.30pm. Be advised: out of the city centre everything shuts early. Find the local supermarket and stock up on what you will need for the night, or feel like a prisoner in your poky little hotel room.

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This morning we concluded we had had quite enough of Amsterdam and would have been happy to move on, but the room had been booked already so no escape possible. We found that walking was a good way to get to see more of the city and make sense of its layout, so set off on what we knew would be a fairly length stroll, towards the Hortus, the botanical gardens. Surely we made a comical sight, me with my head in a map half the time, straining to find the street signs or recognisable landmarks, Miriam constantly rescuing me from dangerous traffic or from bumping pedestrians with my backpack as I turned this way and that. At last we rounded a corner and glimpsed some greenery, and after completely circumnavigating the perimeter, found the entrance to the gardens.

This long established garden, originally the place where medicinal plants were grown and doctors taught in their usage – and we are talking about powerful plants that can kill if the dosage and use is not well understood – was somewhat of a curiosity. An ambitious greenhouse arrangement provided three different climatic conditions, one of which provided a suitable environment for a number of Australian plants, such as the Eucalyptus Ficifolia, Ericas, Grevilleas, Queensland Bottle Trees (with no bottle formation likely in the next twenty years by the look of it) as well as such Ozzie cottage favourites as Pelargonium and Geraniums! Elsewhere, we searched in vain for a Gingko Biloba, but among the conifers section, pride of place was given to a small Wollemi Pine protected by a steel fence, one of the small original release to botanists worldwide of the rare Australian tree. All in all, I must say that our front yard contains a plant collection that is broader and in better condition than this pride of Dutch horticulture, and we don’t charge 6 euros for admission to the public!

Again, this was a case of having to explain the Holland Pass system to the guy on the desk, but he didn’t seem at all fussed about it.

It was a different story in the afternoon, when we decided to get one last scrap of value from our passes by visiting, of all things, the Bible Museum. As a recovering lapsed Catholic, Miriam has an interest in the historical aspects of biblical times, and I was also keen to see some of the antiquities there. Already tired from the day’s walk so far, we became somewhat lost, being far from the areas to which we had become accustomed around Centraal Station. As we pondered our maps, a classic Dutchman, complete with broad smile, funny hat and bicycle, appeared before us and obviously wanted to help us. Even more so when we mentioned we were looking for the Bible museum, he clearly took us as pilgrims earnestly seeking a holy site. He proceeded to give a fifteen minute or more exposition in an amalgam of Dutch and something that might have been English, or perhaps not. We were to go “oder da bridge and oder da bridge and oder the bridge” (that cross the little canals) one doo drei and dat way (waving to the left). Then to make sure we understood, he repeated the performance with more hand signals and heavy stress on the number of bridges and which way NOT to turn. And perhaps he was some kind of Dutch angel after all, because we followed his directions as best we could and on the edge of exhaustion, found ourselves outside the Bible Museum after all.

This museum had some interesting Egyptian artefacts that the original owner of the house had collected, his model of the Tabernacle, and displays of models various loonies had made over the centuries of the Temple of Solomon based on measurement derived from the Bible. It was a convincing demonstration of how a list of specifications can be interpreted in absolutely different ways by people, depending on their own mind set. The best part of the house, I thought, was the oval shaped staircase that runs down through the house, and off which the various rooms of the museum are reached through doors of different colours. As the steps widen towards the base, the levels go a little crazy and you are advised to hold the railings to not lose your footing.

Retracing our steps oder der bridge and oder the bridge et cetera, we found our way back to Central Station, and emboldened by our Biblical adventures, and unable to find where to buy tickets, we rode the train freely as the street urchins of Amsterdam back to the transatlantic blandness of our Holiday Inn.

18-4-6
Time to get the hell out of this city ringed by water, dirty water befouled by take away containers, scraps of plastic, pigeons and Canal Cruising Captains raking in 11 euro a head for a brief tour of key localities you can walk between within an hour anyway. Training in to Centraal Station for one last time, I ventured to the ticket counter to have our Eurail Select passes endorsed for validity, the necessary step before you can use them out on the rails. Tickets were issued to get us to Brussels, where we would have to change trains to continue on via the Thalys Fast Train to Paris. There is always a time of anxiety when travelling in a land where you don’t have a scrap of the language, is this the right platform, is this the right station, can we go in this carriage….. But once on board, all was well, though the inspector glared at me as I hadn’t written today’s date in the Eurail pass, a big no-no. The second leg, the smooth sleek thalys high speed train, zipped by almost like travelling on a plane, but at ground level. The scenery zips by with a dream like quality, by the time you point something out you are way passed it and there is something else briefly coming into view. Arriving in Paris in the late afternoon, it was necessary to use the Metro to find our way to the hotel, and we found that quite smelly, dirty and intimidating, the air filled with the stench of Parisien Pissing. Steep steps, me cursing the weight of Miriams suitcase and wondering why she has brought so many bricks with her. While I pondered the map after coming up from the Metro she looked around and pointed out the hotel just behind me. The Campanile Hotel…. Tiny room, plastic cups, the electic jug permanently mounted on the wall, lots of street noise suppressed by double glazing. A room for sleeping not one you want to stay in.

Here I pass authorial control to Miriam who will provide some commentary on the delights of Paris, by special request of her sister Esther. She will also give a few comments on England and elsewhere, perhaps. Here goes:

To quote Paul Simon, there are angels in the architecture, and it’s the first time I’ve understood the statement. Not sure if he was referring to Paris but there are angels in the architecture there. The city is humbling, beautiful and so historic. On ground level the stench of urine is everywhere not limited to the gaffers who sleep around the churches and riverbanks in little cardboard shelters, and small tents provided by Doctors Without Limits. The contrast is the smell of some beautiful perfumes of women walking passed. The women are tastefully dressed but not expensively – they are not overdone, just tasteful. None of them have big bums. I conclude I have no French blood. The children are happy and black children seem to have equality here that was not evident in London and Amsterdam and especially Ireland. In France the races are irrelevant, the only crime is to have milk in your coffee.

It truly is a country where democracy rules but contradictions are everywhere. A lot of crazies on the streets but a charitable attitude is shown to them by society. Even to go into the churches you have step across foul puddles and fumes of human and animal excrement. You can’t take your eyes off the architecture; it’s wonderful with gold leaf renewed on public buildings and statues shining in the sun, lots of pigeons. Outside our hotel a heating vent gave out warm air from the Metro beneath, where a crowd of pigeons would warm themselves before nesting for the night. In the morning, we found a crowd of Algerian looking youth rolling around with the pigeons on their dung and happily feeding crumbs to the pigeons like some ritual.

The highlights for me of Paris and Amsterdam was seeing in 3d the pictorial icons of my youth, the Eiffel Tower good but disappointing. In my childhood it was a marvel of engineering but has been outdone by many other projects since. After viewing the world from the plane the Eiffel Tower seems not so high at all. More quaint, yet to contrast Notre Dame breathes history and makes one feel insignificant in history. An archaeological dig beneath Notre Dame explains and puts in context the Celts who first inhabited the site around 300-500 BC only to be driven out by the Gauls who were driven out by the Romans. The island on which the cathedral stands was the site of the original settlement, chosen for its defensive qualities. And the people are still eating the same things that were found in archaeological evidence… beef, mutton, fowl pork and oysters a favourite. Don’t know about snails. Can’t come at them. Even after wine.

The church magnificent, stained glass windows dead bishops organ music permeating the air, Shane went to try to climb the bell tower but too late to get in, I went around relighting peoples prayer candles that had gone out. Couldn’t resist it. On this very site the real St Vincent started his charity in about 1623, still going strong. Part of the archaeology, not part of the church PR machine.

The wealth of art in this city between the Louvre and the Musee D’Orsay astonishing, and there were dozen of other museums we couldn’t get to see…just arted out, brain full, couldn’t take in another image, and it’s true that the Mona Lisa’s eyes follow you around the room no matter where you stand, I tested it and it is absolutely true!
I even squatted on the ground, the guards thought I was nutty, but I had to test it. The guards spent their whole time saying “PAS DE PHOTOS!” but arrogant tourists seem to think their endless flashlights have no effect on the precious artworks, both in Paris and Amsterdam. More Van Gogh in Paris, mainly from the psychotic phase, very powerful…. More sunflowers in London but didn’t get to see them there. Hoping to get back there. We saw a Cezanne and Pisarro exhibition, tit for tat, both painting the same scene side by side as painting buddies and influencing each other. Fantastic art.

Also walking along beside the Seine, passed the bridge where Resistance clandestine meetings were held during the war, leading to many shootings by the Nazis, moving memorial plaque there.

Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam was a very emotional day and his works are truly inspired though flawed in part, probably by his mental state. The museum claimed his condition was epilepsy but I would dispute that. The canals though filthy were just as Bill Berkelmans, Antoinette’s father, described to me as a child. The youth of Amsterdam made me feel old. The old people my age and older hanging around with the youth just looked pathetic. Didn’t see anyone with a finger in a dyke.
But lots of the old lift up bridges you see in some of Van Gogh’s paintings across the canals.

Back to Ireland for a minute….. the Ring of Kerry is as good as if not better than the Great Ocean Road but the weather was too rainy to see it at its best. Ireland full of familes with at least four girls and sometimes one boy at the end, often no male progeny, very attentive fathers. People of Ireland on the streets very helpful but service in commerce quite shockingly bad. Indifferent, rude, do as little as they can get away with. Filth in the streets of Dublin, can’t understand. Non Irish treated as second class citizens. Hothouse atmosphere of a union meeting, everyone on the verge of being in a bad temper in the media. Sinn Fein up in arms about the sale of the Irish National Anthem words and treasured documents coinciding with the anniversary of the 1916 uprising but not offering to put up the money to buy them. Just whingeing that someone should do something.

And as for England……where I got sick, struck down by the cold of the place. And detoxing from cigarettes, I admit. It was like visiting Grandpa’s birthplace. The place where he decided to come to Australia (Lyme Regis, they just call it Lyme ) full of history but the cliff he walked on has slid into the sea in the last few years. Fossils are the big business of Charmouth not to mention our encounter with Sybil Fawlty. I think Shane described her.

Moving on to our visit to Iris at Braunston, near Northampton, she was just lovely. Shane couldn’t get over the resemblance in the way she sat at a table and the fall of her hair, the family traits of the Whites were definitely there. Iris claims I am very “White” and look very much like one of her aunts. She did discuss Jessie’s bargepole delicacy, describing her and Peter just appearing stepping over the building rubble without notice while she was busy with renovations. Some interesting family stuff but more of that on our return. The canal was where I got really sick, couldn’t get warm and kind of lost three days. Fortunately Shane bonded really well with Iris. Anyhow, Esther, this is my input for now, more later hopefully and sorry to hear you have been ill, don’t blame me I wasn’t there to give it to you. Love from Miriam. PS Please keep an eye on Sean after Liam’s departure just till we’re back.

Back to Shane now……

21-4-6
By day three I had grown fed up with Paris, the daily grind of searching for something to eat that didn’t contain ox tongue, or pate, or cow’s head or other bizarre things, where is the fresh salad and vegetables , what’s so hard about turning on a bit of that?
We had seriously overdosed on the best art in the world, possibly. A full day in the Louvre, with works ranging from Egyption antiquities through Greece, Rome and all the best of Europe upto the mid nineteenth century. Then the following day an even more determined visit to the Museum D’Orsay, full to the brim with every great impressionist work you have ever seen in an art book, topped off with an excellent Cezanne and Pisarro exhibition. And then when I complained that I hadn’t seen any Delacroix, Miriam found some for me within minutes. It was a feast that made the brain hurt and the heart ache. To see the peak of achievement of so many different approaches to art was really something, and at the heart of what I wanted to get out of this trip.

We discussed what to do next, with a room booked for the town of Perpignan for tomorrow (Saturday), where to go, what to do…. I plumped for a quick dash down to Avignon, for no better reason than that I like the sound of the town, and couldn’t get the childrens song out of my head. “sur le pont d’avignon, la la la la, la la la la”. Again a fast train, the TGV that cris cross France very efficiently, gorgeous scenery straight out of Cezanne’s canvasses, sweet villages with ruined medieval towers perched on green distant hills. Avignon was a Rome away from Rome for Popes seven hundred years ago who didn’t want to leave France, so they moved the papacy here for a while. Things are just so old here, the clock tower was last restored during the reign of Napoleon the Third; I think that’s about 1830 or so. And it’s still ticking away….
It is actually a walled city; the medieval stone wall is visible through the bathroom window (which also has the first bidet we have seen, don’t think I’ll be experimenting with that). The streets are in parts so narrow you can almost stretch out and touch either side, cars squeeze by and still there are homeless drinkers in the streets. You could easily make a computer game out of this town, it’s just like a Hero’s Quest kind of town. We enjoyed a pleasant meal at the Pi 3.14 Brasserie, where my French seems to be improving enough to almost hold a conversation with the proprietor. They certainly appreciate it when you make the effort. Man, don’t know how I’ll do in Barcelona, don’t have any idea of how Spanish grammar and syntax work.

OK, gotta get ready for bed now, as tomorrow has come all too soon. It takes as long to write about what you have seen as to see it, it seems….. good night to all. Even if you are just waking up for the day, as the sun rises in your part of the globe.

Now we are in Avignon remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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13-4-6
Breakfast the next day was notable for the attitude of the serving girl at breakfast , who dished out poached eggs that were stomach turningly undercooked. It’s the first time in history I’ve had to send eggs back to the kitchen. Indeed, for all friendliness and willingness to help that the people in the streets show here, the service attitudes of shop assistants has been disappointing, with a few cases of us just up and leaving after waiting excessively long for attention. Enough griping for now, the car must be taken the last hour’s drive to Wexford before I start incurring more charges beyond the excess milage.

After dropping off the hire car at Wexford, just over the bridge where fifty seven odd rebels had been executed in the eighteenth century, I rejoined Miriam who was waiting at the station /bus stop guarding our baggage. A slow bus ride up along the east coast and inland took us through the streets of Arklow , the rolling green hills of county Wicklow, and at last into the fair city of Dublin. Tired from another long afternoon of sitting still, we decided to grab a cab to the Mespil Hotel, where I had managed to book a room via internet from Killarney. After settling in briefly we headed out for a walk along the Grand Canal opposite the hotel, where a statue of local poet and character Patrick Kavanagh sits on a bench waiting for people to sit alongside and have a yarn in spirit at least. Through St Stephens Green, where James Joyce walked and wrote of , and where a bust of the writer looks out on the lovers of this generation as they court upon the damp but sun tinged grass.

The streets of Dublin are lined with rubbish and papers that blow around wildly, catching in the spikes of fences and festooning the many building sites. A few old men with long handled tools pick ineffectually at the flotsam, resplendent in their high visibility vests, a fashion item that has been all the rage right across England and now Ireland as well. Stepped into a huge church with many fine pews labelled with the long dead who had paid for the privilege. Massive dome arcing above, and beautiful marblework everywhere. Once we had driven our feet to the edge of pain, a great famine descended on us. This was duly resolved at an American style diner with burgers, chili for me and the standard vegeburger for M. Delicious onion rings and a thick, thick shake to sluice it down.

Fitful sleep after little but Irish TV or the CNBC exposing maltreatment by the Chinese authorities in land seizures in the cities. Early to bed with a plan to rise and see the town some more.

14-4-6 Good Friday

In the morning a brisk walk through the centre of Dublin, hello to Oscar Wilde reclining on a large boulder in the park, a busker grey and immobile jerking into a convulsive dance if given coins, a small boy startled running to his Dad for comfort, and coming back with another coin for more thrills.

Researched the way out of here – a five minute walk to a stop where the airport bus comes by every fifteen minutes. Throw the bags in the luggage bay and off we go, as always when driving to the airport of cities everywhere you glimpse the seedier, dilapidated side of the city, then wind on to a blank motorway with nondescript half dead plantings struggling for life among the fumes.

On reaching Dublin Airport, we played queuing games for an hour or so, first lining up at a RyanAir counter but that was only for the flight to Stanstead, next counter, wrong flight showing on the monitor, at last a Host unhooks a barrier and marshals various would be passengers into a newly formed queue in the correct location. It was a bit like being a bee in an unknown hive, where the energy flow eventually pushed you into the required behaviour.

Onto the flight, 737-800 just like Virgin and Qantas use back home, but this one decked out in the gaudy yellow and blue of RyanAir. And they delivered us safely and on time despite late departure to Eindhoven airport.

Eindhoven airport is relatively new, with a sparse modernist architecture and no kiosk or shops hat could be found. Bus connections to Amsterdam though are no problem, and cost no more than Heathrow to London. As evening descended we rolled across the flat land of Holland, cris crossed by canals, and glimpsed a few old windmills and more contemporary wind generation mills, rotating gracefully and without ruining the aesthetics of the landscape.

The bus deposited we few passengers – just us and a small group of youngsters out for a lark in the freedom of Amsterdam – at the Centraal Station. In the darkness of Good Friday night, it took us a little while to find the right tram to get to our hotel. IN the end it was a short ride of 20 minutes to the RAI station precinct, where a large convention centre and theatre provides a venue for businesses to meet. The Holiday Inn was visible from the tram stop, and after a quick meal we crashed, exhausted, into bed. Holiday Inn like similar American hotel chains everywhere, you could be in Geelong and it would look the same, but the toilet is bizarre and difficult to flush.
Have nicknamed it the Hitler toilet it is almost sexually macabre.

This travelling lark can take it out of you when it goes on and on. Memo: factor in more substantial rest breaks in the future. More later……

The latest news remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The hotel itself was overrun with drunken Welsh Guards (retired long, long ago by the looks of them) , and they brought with them a faint smell of old urine. The décor was not so much retro 1960s as still actual 1960s, with Chartreuse walls in the stuffy hallways, and curtain and bedspread patterns that have surely not been updated since around 1970. However, clean enough, and the staff friendly and helpful enough and at a fair price.

9/04/2006

Consulted the PC and suddenly noticed that the ferry booking confirmation indicated NEXT Sunday, not today….. problem! Resolved to get down to the ferry terminal as early as possible to try to sort it out. Very cold walk through a Dylan Thomas Welsh village scene, with shop windows full of old ratty knick knacks one can’t imagine anyone buying. Light lunch at the Maypole Diner, taking up the offer of the only options without chips, baked beans or spaghetti on toast.

Thence to the ferry terminal, a wait until 11am when the ticket office opened, and fired up the computer to show the woman the details I had, explaining that the guy who took the booking over the phone had stuffed it up. After a few minutes exploring her computer system she was willing to understand the position and wrote up a paper ticket (the printer being down) and we were allowed to take up places on the Irish Ferry.

The Ferry large and not at all crowded, so we were able to catch a quick nap lying on the lounges. Passengers feeding constantly, like chip powered sharks, and the shipping company gouging them with prices almost double those on shore. Memo to travellers: buy up a sandwich or two and a drink before you board. The crossing smooth and untroubled from Pembroke Dock to Rosslare harbour taking about four hours and only 42 pounds one way for the both of us.

Once ashore, found there was still one local bus heading towards the hotel I had booked a room at for the night. Bought tickets from the bus counter and hung around bored for almost an hour. As the appointed hour approached, we went outside and a drunk staggered up and asked a nonsensical question, and after finding we were from Oz , just had to tell us all about his relations in Cronulla and the text messages he had received about it and so on. Before we realised, the bus that had been sitting in the car park area suddenly slammed its door and took off – just as the penny dropped that that was our bus. Despite dashing after it, it sailed off into the distance. Immediately a cold Irish rainstorm burst around us, and we toiled up a steep hill dragging our bags behind us, not in the best of moods.

Seeking a way to move on, tried thumbing a ride – ludicrous for our age group of course, with bags atow. Then tried to ring a cab with a number supplied by the petrol station girl – no answer, leave a voice mail. Eventually ducked into a hotel and asked for another taxi number at reception, who explained “ Oh that number, I know for a fact he’s not working today.” Got an answer on the alternative number and within 15 mins a large van , no taxi light atop, rolled up, and we bundled our dampened selves within. “You’re not in a hurry, are you?” says the driver, and so he stopped off and waited for fifteen minutes while some dart players finished their drinks having been plaything in some local darts championship. Then we rushed through darkened rural lanes to what appeared to be the next stage of the dart players’ pub-crawl.

That done, and having had the whole lifestory of his kids and his Australian connections, we were dropped at the Quality Hotel 20 minutes after the kitchen had shut, so unable to get any supper. A packet of cheese and onion crisps for Miriam and a pint of guiness for me. Dog tired by this stage, the air cold and wet, into a comfortable bed but terribly overheated room making sleep elusive for a while.

10-4-6
Next morning in a dining room over run by children managed a giant Irish breakfast in preparation for our first day of seeing the land of some of our forefathers. Decided to organise a hire car as public transport thin and rare in this land. Thanks to the mobile able to line up an Opal Corsa in the town of Wexford, which reception told me was “exactly two miles, straight up the hill and keep going”. What I didn’t know was that the car hire firm, the local Opal distributor was actually on the far side of town, so it took more like and hour or more of walking, plus half an hour of form filling and waiting for the car to be cleaned from the last hirer, before I could take it. Rang the Quality Hotel, who put ;me through to Miriam so I could get her to pack up and await my return with the car without infringing the required check out time.

At last we were away and spent a pleasant day motoring around the south east, pausing in Dungraven for a very pleasant meal at a Pakistani restaurant of all things, overlooking an inlet that was remarkably reminiscent of Port Fairy. By then, darkness was beginning to fall and the need for finding a roof for the night was upon us. Figured we would try a B & B of which the roads hold an endless number. Without much forethought I saw one called “Maple Leaf” and though that sounded OK. Rang the doorbell, was greeted by an elderly lady who asked 65 euros for the night for a room with ensuite. Sounded OK to me. Once inside though, the décor was somewhat scary, filled with knick knacks , old crystal, china bulls, a glass table held up by four rearing brass horses, and various other items calculated to give you the willys. Beautiful view from the bedroom window of the shore arcing away in the distance, and the lights of Dungraven spread out below like fallen stars. Insufficient compensation, however, for we had made our bed….. and it was a worn out and somewhat smelly one at that, with a heavy old eiderdown that may or may not have been laundered in the last century.

Worse, I was now going down hard with the same respiratory bug that had attacked Miriam and spent the night in a hot and cold sweat. The shower eccentric – triggered by pulling a string switch in the roof – and the whole arrangement cramped and lacking in privacy. Lesson: don’t say yes till you’ve had a look at the room.

11-4-6
After a fitful night of troubled dreams, tossing and turning, we rose and found that our host had done her best to make a good breakfast, with little bowls of freshly cut fruit, more eggs than we could possibly eat, and looked hurt when we couldn’t finish it. We got the hell out of there as soon as we could, and drove to
Cork in search of some warmer clothes as both of definitely feeling under equipped for the very changeable weather, warm and sunny one moment, freezing rain finding its way down your neck the next. Miriam found a cardigan she liked in one shop, and the shop lady explained how to find Marks & Spencer, where we found another couple of garments that would keep us warm enough.

Continuing on out of Cork to the west, without the benefit of a map I found the way to Killarney, as the terrain became more hilly, the peaks barren of vegetation and more scenic by the mile. This time we selected accommodation with care, rejecting the first place we looked at, that wanted 140 euros for the night, and that I afterwards noticed had started its life as a Presentation Monastery, no wonder it had an unfriendly feel. Almost next door, Murphy’s Hotel offered us a room at 90 euros the night with breakfast, and after viewing the room and confirming its cleanliness, accepted it. Both of us feel in need of a peaceful night’s sleep without having to deal with people.

Dined at the bar forming part of the hotel, standard pub grub but quite acceptable. TV mostly in Irish in the hotel rooms but who cares, the bed is huge and comfortable and reception turned on the heating in the room remotely when I asked how it worked..
Plan for tomorrow is to drive the Ring of Kerry which is reputed to be the most scenic in Ireland and full of a rich array of archaeological sites.

I’ll try and upload the details of these last few days to the blog but not much Net access this way, quite pricy compared to say London. This will have to wait till morning when the Internet cafes open again.

Update from Killarney - several days worth! remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The new place styles itself as an Edwardian hotel, which is probably the era in which it last had a refurbishment. It is part of a graceful row of high terraces and backs onto a charming old cobblestoned mews. And, several unsecured wireless access points declared themselves as I started up the laptop, making me feel like it won't be so hard to plan our next move tomorrow. On presenting our visages at reception, the on-line deposit I had paid by credit card had not even reached their system, which was down for the count.
Fortunately, although I had not been able to print the receipt, I had saved it on my laptop, so fired it up then and there and managed to convince them that I had a legitimate booking, albeit at a cheaper rate than they seemed to expect. Lesson: take stock, calm down, research the options, before taking a less than optimum choice.

Relieved at sorting out a room, in the early afternoon we headed off to check out the recreation of Shakespeare's Globe theatre, on the south bank of the Thames. This is really worth seeing, made from a thousand oak trees held together with wooden pegs, and with a roof made of Norfolk reeds that birds just don't like to sit on. Now as long as you could fashion a wig from that stuff the statues would not suffer as much from bird attack. The details of the theatre's construction , from the heavens to the area in front of the five foot high stage where the "groundlings" paid their penny to drink and carouse through the performance.

Further along, Tower Bridge and London Bridge came into view, the Tower surprisingly beautiful to look at despite its grim history. We kept our distance; the crown jewels remained intact, although I realised that my belt was fully undone and had been for a couple of hours since I had last heard the cry of nature. A long search for somewhere to eat that had some vego options ended with giving in to a fish restaurant tucked behind a cathedral and beside a steel roofed open market much like South Melbourne market in appearance. Food again badly cooked and expensive: 50p more than a room for the night. You can eat at modest price in London, but you will be living on sandwiches, prepacked and infested with the evil and omnipresent "salad cream". The cafes are run by non-English predominantly, but they have caved in to the demand for "chips wiv everything". Go to Tesco and get some fruit at least, the EU provides a good range of real food and the English just don't seem to get it.

Both of us now almost adjusted to being on the far side of the world, though Miriam very tired tonight after going for an early morning walk. I will stop now, as I think my keyboard pecking is stopping her from settling. Come to think of it, I might just join her. Tomorrow I may even manage to upload some pictures of the journey so far. Goodnight for now: in the land of Oz you are probably about ready to get up and start your day.

London 2 remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Although several people had recommended Emirates on the basis of superior service, I only saw this being extended to the business class passengers. These included remnants of the SCottish commonwealth games athletes and officials, some Braveheart sized giants among them, and one could only conclude that they might have staged a rebellion if they had been forced into the seats we economy class people languished upon. On the other hand, compared to the boredom of listening to Qantas staff gossip amongst themselves, the entertainment options provided by Emirates is pretty good. Each seat has its own small LCD screen (image quality not too bad, but every screen I looked at had more dead pixels than there ought to be), and a panoply of choices of audio and visual entertainment. Before absolute fatigue took over, watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Recommendation: stop the series now before it gets any worse. Our hero needs to be pre-pubescent not awkward adolescent.
Instructions for the screen were difficult to understand, but the seat and a half worth of dour scot to the left of us reached a paw over and stabbed at a button that enlivened the screen. After that, I could figure out the rest.

After about seven and a half hours we reached Singapore, which was then a steamy 28C, but seemed ever so much more oppressive than I have ever felt 28c to be. While Miriam enjoyed a cigarette in the (inside) smoking lounge, a long, long walk from the transit lounge, I went to the toilet. A uniformed guard stood inside the entrance, giving a hard look at every person coming in. I took a leak in a cubicle and soon understood what was happening. This was the Toilet Police. Every time someone came out of the cubicle, his job was to step into the cubicle and verify that flushing had been performed. I remember reading somewhere that it is a finable offence to leave a public toilet unflushed, and here is someone earning a living from this legislation. Memo: Centrelink should be informed of the job creation possibilities for our own country. Strange introduction to Singapore's attitude, which seems to be even more than ever that the individual must be controlled and badgered into conformist ways. It is now on my list of less than preferred destinations.

BAck on the plane and my back is now aching badly, courtesy of a foolish dare-take to see how fast I could pedal on an exercise bike with the brake on quite hard. Aggravated an old injury and now suffering especially since confined to the airplane seat. No comfortable position possible, so from time to time have to get up, walk down the aisle, do a few stretches, find out how quickly several hundred people can befoul the toilet facilities, and marvel at the sheer length of the flying machine taking us across the world. Looking along the aisle, it seemed certainly well able to accommodate a cricket match.

Whatever the hour of the day or night, the policy seemed to be to rigidly deliver meals to the passengers as a means of keeping them captive in their seats. The Non-carnivorous passengers were always fed first - up to an hour later those with no special dietary needs were fed. And once a tray was in place, no-one beyond that point in the row could possibly get out. Then the dirty tray would be left with the, say Vegetarian, until the carnivores trolley had been wheeled out to totally block the aisles. So basically you were trapped, unable to even get out to the toilets, for over three quarters of the journey. Attempts to leave one's seat earned rebukes from cabin staff who later informed us they were stuggling with three staff members under complement, and many of the rest very recent starters who had not been adequately trained. Stephanie, if you are reading this, although a wide range of "special dietary foods" are available, what was presented to Miriam was inedible and basically bailed out of her body at the earliest opportunity. And for the meat eater, the story was not much better. All in all, the reality remains: airline food is very, very bad and virtually impossible to digest. And as you cannot carry foods with you because of quarantine laws, I don't know what option you have. I spent an hour on the phone a few days prior to leaving trying to get through to the Emirates office to specify Vegetarian meals for Miriam, but despite that the meals came out addressed to Mr M Gregory.

By the end of the second leg of the journey, a refuelling stop in Dubai, we were feeling wrecked. Here we were clearly the foreigners, and we were among a cultural milieu of which we had little knowledge and less understanding. Here the smoking lounge was a small area holding a large machine breathing in the smoke from exhaling smokers, while the non-smoking world went on around them. Miriam and a few other western ladies entered this tiny sanctum with a tight crowd of swarthy gentlemen puffing avidly on foul smelling fags.

Beyond, columns of palms inside the building, gilded everything, and duty free stores bulging with alcohol and luxury goods completed the picture. It would be helpful to know a little Arabic here, as the English signposting on TV monitors tends to show Arabic only - not helpful for reading flight numbers and gate numbers especially.

Anyhow, London awaited us, and after about 27 hours travelling time from Melbourne, with about two hours sleep between us, we staggered out of heathrow almost hysterical from tiredness. Found our way down the ramp to the railway station and used our credit card to buy tickets direct to the city, including the tube connection to get us to Earl's Court, the closest station to our hotel. The ride was fast, clean, and safe, with a conductor who comes around and checks tickets- giving anyone who hasn't a ticket the chance to buy one on the spot. Full marks to London Transport. Connex, send some of your useless managers over here to see how well run a mass transport system can be.

The hotel I had picked from an Internet search, the West Cromwell Hotel, had given clear instructions on how to walk the several hundred meters from the station, and we soon found our way there. It is when you have to carry your bags up several flights of narrow stairs at the tube station that you confirm your resolution to keep the contents as light as possible was correct. They seem to have doubled in weight since the beginning of the journey. The tiniest elevator I have ever travelled in took us to the third floor of what is basically a large terrace house among a whole block of similar buildings. Our room, number 16, overlooks a severely truncated old tree in the backyard of the hotel, and a much nicer garden in back of the house next door. Different birds sing, some sweetly, despite the general lack of trees or any vegetation. The streets are lined with building all of three to five or so storeys, like Legoland, the designs are limited and repeat themselves from block to block. You can clearly see the architectural approach in the way Sydney's inner city is laid out.

The room itself is small but adequate, with a panel heater in front of the window on all the time. The fluctuations in temperature here seem to happen suddenly, so you are always putting on or taking off clothes trying to get it right. A layered approach, as for Melbourne in the springtime, is probably the best option. At about four or five PM London time, we felt so knackered we layed down, and a Panadeine or two knocked me out enough to calm the muscle spasms in my lower back. We woke a couple of times, but before we knew it the sky was lightening and we were ready to see a bit of London.

The "Continental Breakfast" of juice, cornflakes scooped from a communal bowl, and tea and toast, was just about all we wanted. A mezzanine floor squeezed above the ground floor lets you sit and eat breakfast while peeking out the fanlight above the front door.

Hyde Park and the Serpentine lured us to stroll along to see the Peter Pan statue paid for by JM Barrie, and we enjoyed a decent coffee at the Lido pavillion at the water's edge. Continuing towards the city centre, we found ourselves amid the crowd at the gates of Buckingham Palace, waiting for the changing of the guard. Apart from one guy with a machine gun, security seemed quite lax. Plenty of Metropolitan Police yelling instructions at the tourists to get back, though. Satisfied with a glimpse of the Buck Palace Gates, we continued on through St James Park (courtesy of Henry VIII), past Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, and across the Thames.

Fortified by a cup of Miso and Bean Curd and a few spring rolls, we ventured into the Dali Exhibition which was quite fascinating and tiring to engage with, there being about 500 works to view. Classics including the Lobster Telephone, large bronzes such as Venus des Tiroirs (Venus with drawers pulled out from the head and body) and works from a wide range of media were featured. Dali classic icons like the melting watch, the spindly legged elephant, and ants were everywhere. Then downstairs, if you hadn't had enough art, there was an exhibition of several phases of Picasso's evolution. Some lovely pieces from the earlier Blue period, and some ceramics that could have come out of the local CAE class.

Now back at the hotel having a wee rest before deciding what to do next. So, more later!

London remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Very grateful for the proliferation of user reviews contributed by travellers who have gone before and subjected themselves to every variety of cramped, dirty, hostile shelter and survived to tell the tale. Had a lousy fortnight just finished with a virus that knocked the wind out of my sails, with a neat flowon into a very painful infection of a nerve deep in my jaw. That slowed down the planning process a lot. Like, how do you make rational choices when the old brain box is processing at what seems like 10% capacity.

However, our thoughts on where to go and what to see are gradually crystallising. Hoping to get right into some serious accommodation booking and purchase of Eurail passes this weekend. Hope the old broadband connection holds out!

Time to get serious remains copyright of the author piepers, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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