Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Contiki Tour – Rome to Vienna

Gutentag!

I'm in Vienna at the moment, it's beautiful up here, people are friendly, and it’s so clean and peaceful after going to Rome and Venice...

Rome was as beautiful and full of things to see as Paris, except a little dirtier with a bit more character... saw the Colosseum, Pantheon, Trevi Fountains, Spanish Steps and all that sort of thing. Also had a tour of the Roman ancient ruins that is cool except it was so hot that it was hard to pay attention to the tour guide but oh well.

Got to see the Pope deliver his blessing and sermon at St Peters Square - now that was cool.

St Peters square was amazing! It's huge maate! I finally got to complete one of the things I’ve always wanted to do which was to see the Sistine Chapel! Woo Hoo! It was quite overwhelming to see but it’s effect on me was toned down by having seen beforehand all the frescos and beautiful art by Raphael and others on the walls and corridors on the way to the Chapel, which was equally as impressive.

Favourite place in Rome was St Paul’s Cathedral! The biggest church in the world, also the most impressive and basically has ruined any other church or monument I will ever see afterwards! That's how awe inspiring and amazingly beautiful it was, with the frescos and gold gildings and windows etc...

Thing about Rome - Drivers do not stop for anyone. The only way to cross the road is to administer what we call a "Death Stare", which involves staring down the drivers as you're crossing the road till they stop. Failure to do so can be disastrous (as I’ve witnessed).

Also went to the Ferrari Museum (that's right Lisa! ) and bought a Ferrari hat, and took photos of all the cars they had on show. It was awesome but was pretty small museum they had....

Venice was beautiful, to think it's sinking and the Italian govt are doing a bad job trying to fix it but that is apparently the fault of the Italian Mafia but oh well....
Went on the Gondola ride, it was so relaxing but overrated, saw the bridge of sighs and sighed there
Went to the Guggenheim museum, it wasn't that good.

Now I am in Vienna, which I shall describe in more detail once I go through it (just got here).

Went to the Mozart Concert in the beautiful concert hall, it was cool, the musicians were dressed in period costume and wigs with vibrant colours etc, the hall was laced with gold gildings and marble and huge chandeliers etc.....wow. Music did get me sleepy after 45 mins of it (it went for 2 hrs)

Anyway, Munich and the Oktoberfest is next, as is Switzerland and Germany.....

BTW did find my bottle of French wine - I was actually sleeping on it, lol....

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