Category: Europe 1999 ???????????

Time to leave Birmingham, but first of all we needed to settle the bill. I realised I was a bit lacking in the cash department, so had a quick consultation with "Basil", our host. He apologised for not accepting cards, but gave me directions to a cash machine, and then asked "Are you sure that’s  ... [More]

The first B of the B&B, the bed, was very comfy, and we slept well. The second B was a great big artery blocking cholesterol bomb of the full English variety. Thoroughly delicious, and the ladies serving it were marvellously friendly, and promised to call an ambulance if anybody collapsed with heart failure. They had  ... [More]

We set off from my uncle Hew’s place, not excessively early, but early enough. Our eventual destination this day was Birmingham. All the English people I spoke to wanted to know why on Earth we’d want to go to such a hell-hole, but as it turned out, Birmingham’s reputation for being grey and very nasty  ... [More]

Just as we were getting used to Roma, it was time to move on to pastures new. We packed everything, somehow, back into our bags, disposing of whatever stuff we thought was surplus to requirements (those two huge books all about the pasta museum, for a start) and set off for the station. On the  ... [More]

Today, we got religion, and we got robbed. Well, almost. Well, okay, not even almost. But we did visit Il Vaticano (The Vatican), and we did have a close encounter with a pickpocket. You can hardly go to Roma without visiting the Vatican, so we caught the Metro to the brand spanking new Cipro/Musei Vaticani  ... [More]

Another glorious day in Roma (Rome), and our first activity of the day was to head back to Pincio, a little corner of the gigantic park Villa Borghese. We were going to meet L’s Italian teacher Giuseppe, who when he’s not in Melbourne teaching Aussies how to speak Italian, is in Roma being a Roman.  ... [More]

After a quick stop-off by the Colloseo to exchange the el-cheapo t-shirt L had bought for one that didn’t have a hole in it (there’s a tip for any of you wandering off to Roma – check the merchandise before you walk away), we wandered up Via Del Circo Massimo, enjoying the impressive view of  ... [More]

Today, we had one simple mission: To cast a vote. The Victorian state election was on Saturday, and we’d decided that rather than vote at the airport on our way out of Australia, we’d explore Roma and find the local Australian Consulate and exercise our democratic rights there. So we set out to find it,  ... [More]

We woke up early, around 5am, and watched CNN for a bit. During our stay in Italy, this was the easiest way of catching up with the news, at least all the big world news. Getting it from the Italian news services was a bit dodgy with my Italian vocabulary, which was (and still is)  ... [More]

Around half past six in the morning we landed in Roma (Rome). There was a looooong queue at immigration for all of us poor sods without EU passports. Actually a number of long queues, a bit like at McDonalds where you never know which one will move fastest, and which one will split into two  ... [More]

After dashing around like maniacs making sure everything was packed, we left the house around 2pm and zoomed up the Tullamarine eventually-to-be-a-tollway to the airport. The good people at the car parking place couldn’t find our reservation, and reckoned we’d been quoted the wrong price. But they grudgingly allowed the quoted price, and took the  ... [More]