We’re Back … here’s the slide night.

Actually we’ve been back for a week but I’ve been busy catching up with things and haven’t got back into the blogging thing again just yet.

If you can stand it, this will be my slide night and I’m only going to do this once so pay attention ok.

All these shots are taken with the Canon S90 as I didn’t taken the 5d  as we wanted to travel light , I think it did a great job and after all, the pics are only for us to keep, our memory shots.

As it was my first trip to Europe I was bright eyed and bushy tailed and I wasn’t disappointed.  We  left Perth and the plane to Singapore was only half full, great start, plenty of room to move.

We had 9 hours in Singapore just time enough to go into town and have a look around.

 

We went to the Raffles Hotel, the new Sands hotel ,

checked the shops and went on the Singapore Eye  , where this shot was taken.

 

 

 

 

 

We boarded a Singapore Airlines A380 for the trip to London and settled in. The A 380 is a fantastic aircraft , its huge and it’s quite and its comfortable , but after  12 hrs it’s just another plane.

 

We had 2 days in London and  had quite a good look around.

 

 

I loved London, vibrant full of action and history and it had a good feel to it.

The only down side as I’ve mentioned before is unfortunately  7.5 million people live in the city, a few to many for me, but you get used too it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then onto the Euro Star train and over to Paris for 5 days. The Euro Star is great , there’s something about shooting along at 300 km’s hr watching the countryside go by.

 

London and Paris are 2 of the ” BIG 3″, London Paris  New York,  and they live up to there reputation very well I’d say .

Paris is a little larger than London with  approx 11.5 million people in the city.

including 2.1 million living in and around the CBD, thats almost more than the entire population of WA , amazing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Montmartre  in Paris is the home of the artist’s, they line the streets with their work set up in stalls for sale and they paint portraits as well on the spot. We a great afternoon out with plenty to see and lots of cafes and action , a great people watching place,

and some superb artworks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of our favorite places on the trip and one I can highly recommend is in northern Italy, almost at the French border, a place called Cinque Terre , the five villages.  There are five villages built into the side of the cliffs over looking the Mediterranean Sea. The easiest way in is by boat or train and you can walk between the villages , a fantastic place to spend a couple of days and very photo friendly.  The walk between the villages is spectacular, one of the few times I wished I had the 5d with me.

If you are going anywhere near the South of France or planning a trip to Italy, make sure you take the time to go here , you won’t be disappointed believe me.

The villages grow fruit and veg. and olives etc. up the sides of the cliffs on terraces , something they have been doing for over a thousand years.

 

 

 

Riomaggiore   , Cinque Terre.

 

 

 

 

Vernazza  Cinque  Terre.

 

 

 

 

Venice of course is another place that is certainly worth the time , a timeless place. As our Gondola driver told us ” If you live in Venice in something built in the 1500’s, it’s considered modern.”

There are 150 canals, 400 bridges and 235000 people in Venice and it is smaller than Rottnest ( Venice 15 sq km’s Rotto 19 sqkm)

 

 

 

A quiet day in Venice (below).

The day we arrived was the yearly regatta day so there were quite a few people about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carting hay Swiss style

 

 

This is our  hire car    🙂     at the top of Mont Ventoux in the  South of France.

This is the highest climb on the Tour Da France.  ( 1920 m )

 

 

 

 

 

Certainly two of the most amazing things I saw on the trip was these  bridge’s.

 

 

 

The Viaduct De Millau  was opened in 2004 and is 2.5 km’s long

and 245 mts tall , the highest vehicular bridge in the world, it’s in the South of France

 

 

 

 

In stark contrast, The Pont Du Gard was built over 2000 yrs ago by the Romans  as a canal bridge, part of a 50km aquaduct to shift water to the Nimes district for use in fountains, baths and homes, it’s also in the South of France.

It is 50 mts high and  274 mts long and carried 200,000,000 lts of water a day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While in northern France we went to visited the Australian War Memorial at Villers Bretenue, in fact we camped outside, got up at dawn and wandered around it. It is a serene peaceful place on a hill surrounded by farmland and well worth the visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After  Central Europe it was back to London for a couple of days then out into the English countryside for a couple of weeks.

Traveling around England is little like being in a story book , the countryside is just fantastic and the villages are so close together and they all have a at least 1 pub.

 

 

 

What a great name for a village,Sheepwash. We also went through Maggot Flat , Upper Slaughter , Lower Slaughter to name a few.

 

 

 

 

 

Thatched roof house in the Cotswolds district.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What better way to finish , than with a beer at the Pishill pub  !!!!

So thats it, a quick overview of  our little trip to Europe, plenty more but I won’t bore you any longer.

We would  certainly  go again , there is so much to see and take in and we only really scratched the surface .

There are millions of people  in the northern hemisphere , around 90% of the worlds population live there.

Yes it’s crowded and busy but you soon learn to accept it and if you get off the beaten track it not so bad.

FOOTNOTE :    To anyone in Europe reading this.   If you are thinking of coming to Australia to live remember we have mostly desert’s here with hardly any water.  It’s hot and dry, we have deadly snakes, poisonous spiders, wild dingoes, man eating sharks , crocodiles and deadly jellyfish in all the waters  oh  and bears that live in trees !!!  Driving from place to place you can be lost for days.

Stay where you are, you live in a beautiful part of the world, you don’t know how lucky you are.

 

 

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