Cyprus_Rome and Paris

Yes, we have been rather lax with the travel blog this week, but the weather must have something to do with it. The temperature today is not expected to rise above 3 degrees and so John and I are having a lazy day indoors at the hotel before venturing out this afternoon for lunch and another visit to Notre Dame Cathedral to hopefully listen to the organ.

We have been busy this week visiting the Eiffel Tower (twice), a ride along the Seine river, a tour of both Versailles and the Louvre as well as looking at the 300 wax statues at the Wax Museum. The wax statues look entirely realistic and one expects them to move or wink as one passes by.

A visit last Sunday to St Sulpice Parish Church for an organ and brass quintet recital was an unexpected treat. The organ in St Sulpice is considered to be the finest in the world and its organist, Daniel Roth, one of the finest and a renowned successor to the two great French organists and composers Duprey and Windor.
The weather is certainly cold and windy and necessitates a warm lunch in a different restaurant each day with a fine (and cheap) carafe of wine followed by a siesta and sitting in bed watching the news on CNN or BBC, our only English channels on the TV, even China had more English channels. So our day usually starts just after 6am, a brisk walk to our daily activity and ends in bed for an afternoon siesta and then a little exploration at night. We usually wear a T-Shirt, a thermal shirt, a shirt (mine is of course the check traveling shirt), a jumper and a warm coat.

Tomorrow we start our trek back to Australia with an overnight stop in Rome followed by some rather long stretches sitting at airports with one 12 hour stopover between flights at Kuala Lumpar.

The earlier shot of John and I in front of the Eiffel Tower was taken by a photographer and I took a photo of the photo, thus explaining the blurriness.

The trip has been very exciting and enjoyable and the warmer Aussie weather will be welcome.

Cheers
Peter and John

The last few days have been hectic with aeroplanes to catch and things to see but always cleansed with at least one litre of good red Italian or French wine. Yesterday we even tried the All-Day-Brekfast at an Irish Pub with a glass of Guiness. John and I are starting to resemble Twiddl-dee and Twiddle-dum

Our last trip in Italy was to Pompeii to look at the ruins and check that Mt Veseuvius was still docile. But apparently Mt Etna, 300 kms away became active on the day of our vist, definitely an auspicious omen.

Now in a lovely 4 star hotel in Paris John can now manage to use his navigator to get from the hotel room to the hotel lift without turning the wrong way. However I cannot confess purity since I started our 2.5 kilometer walk the other day with the map upside down; we had managed a good 700 metres before John's navigator insisted we were going the wrong way. Alas it was right.

I did notice in Rome that a number of tourists were using their mobile phones to navigate around the city. All those little streets and lanes are confusing. The pedometer is working overtime and I have almost managed to get the thing to 20 000 paces.

Paris has a wondeful sense of life and conviviality about it and walking the streets is quite a bit of fun, it is certainly easier to navigate than Rome.

So far we have taken a bus tour of the city, a boat ride along the Seine and stood next to the Eiffel tower. We even walked to the Louvre last night and walked about the myriad of underground shopping malls without getting lost.

Bye for now.

Pete

Vatican and the Colesseum

Experiencing Rome's history and culture is a joy and visiting places studied over the years is fascinating. In the past few days we have visited the Vatican Museum and St Peter's Basilica twice, the catacombs,the four major basilicas of Rome, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon and the Trevi fountain. Tomorrow we head off to visit Pompei and on Thursday we will tour on the "Hop On- Hop Off Bus" about Rome.

On Saturday we visited the Vatican Museum on a public holiday which was the last weekend of the school holidays - what an experience as we were jostled and pushed along the corridors making it very hard to appreciate the museum. Then yesterday we went again with hardly a tourist in sight and it was a wonderful experience. The frescos, statues and other items make up some of the 9 kilometres of corridors in the museum.

St Peter's Basilica is awesome and the building covers five acres of statues and priceless artworks from Michaelangelo, Raphael, Bernini and others. The Pieta is an incredible sculpture for a 23 year-old Michaelangelo.

The Colosseum and Roman Forum bring history to life and at times it is difficult to retain all the information. The Colosseum took only 10 years to build and could hold at least 70 000 people and the Pantheon's dome is a perfect hemisphere and is made of concrete with aerated concrete using pumice stone at the topof the dome to reduce the weight.

Our tour guides have included archeologists, anthropologist and specialists in Renaissance artwork. There knowledge is very impressive. John and I had a tour guide to ourselves today at the Coloseum and our other tour groups have been less than 12 people. The weather is sunny and unusual for this time of year. So we are thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

Rome - the Eternal City

We arrived in Rome yesterday, managed to get fleeced with our taxi fare to the hotel, only to find that our hotel is closing for renovations and we were being relocated to a sister hotel around the corner.

Our hotel, The Atlante Star, has some of the smallest rooms I have encountered in my travels, but we are within walking distance of the Vatican and have a supermarket just across the road. On our first stroll about town we found a street full of restaurants and have enjoyed two fine Italian cuisine lunches - one of them being pizza - of course!

Driving in Rome is quite an experience with the motorbikes happily travelling on either side of the road and somehow managing to sneak back onto their side of the road before being run over. The travel guide for Rome suggests that pedestrians walk decisively while crossing the road and the vehicles will somehow drive around. Being hesitant may confuse the driver and may result in injury, presumeably to the pedestrian.

The queues to the Vatican museum and basilica are huge and extend for hundreds and hundreds of metres. Our guide wisked us through the prepaid entrance and spoke into a headset while we wore earphones. The crowds in the museum and papal chambers are unbelievable and resemble a herd of cattle being prodded along a cattle shute. Hestitate for a moment and one loses the guide. The buildings are awe inspiring and photos do not do them justice. The Vatican museum receives 20 000 visitors per day, almost 5 million per year and the art collections are just magnificent.

Tomorrow John and I are touring the Colosseum and are hoping to listen to the choir at St Peter's if we can manage to squeeze in after joining the queue. Everyone goes through a scanning machine and place all goods onto the xray machine. Security is very tight.

Peter

Today I ventured onto a bus to travel a 7 km trip into Limassol city centre by buying a day pass for 2 Euros. Initially I thought of walking the distance but the outside temperature was over 25 degrees and shaping into a beautiful day, our best day yet. The Cyprus travel guide suggested half day guided tours, which seemed exciting, but the hotel desk could not suggest any contacts and said the bus to the city went past the hotel gate every 15 minutes.

I ventured to the bus stop and asked a local the cost of a ticket - his English was better than my Greek. On the bus I spotted a fellow traveller from the hotel who turned out to be heading into the city for a day's shopping. She turned out to be an ex-teacher travelling with her husband at the conference which John is attending. She apparently is a New Zealander now living in Perth and she filled me in on the sites of Limassol and suggested I save my money on a guided tour and do it myself for a $2 dailybus ticket.

The bus trip to Limassol takes about 25 minutes from our hotel and is a beautiful ride along the shore line, with glimpses of the sea between hotels and villas. The bus is very modern and has a screen showing the next bus-stop and the time to reach the destination - just like our trains (well some of them). The main road to Limassol is tree lined and edged with gardens.

The bus stopped opposite the Creek Orthodox Cathedral and this becomes my first point of interest. The inside of the cathedral is beautiful with its chandelliers and frescoes on the walls and ceilings.

The streets are filled with wonderful little shops selling authentic Cyprus cultural items and bargins gallore, including $2 shops.

The next point of interest is the Lemesos Castle and its wonderful museum. No photos are allowed in the museum but the interior is a maze of tunnels leading into tiny alcoves then down into the bowels of the castle as well as climb to the roof with a great view of the harbour.

A qucik beer was enjoyed at a local tavern while waiting for the return bus and an encounter with a German tourist who asked me to help him read his map. Turned out to be a another teacher who spoke about how difficult it is becoming teaching children these days. Bloody teachers are whingers!

More exploring tomorrow.

Cheers

Pete