My Shout

I've made my own custom design for my blog. I couldn't help it really.. once you have an idea, it all just falls into place so easily. And as my mind often wanders to beer, it's no surprise this is what my blog ended up looking like

A similar design with a replacement header graphic would be quite hard for others to achieve at the moment though. You would basically need to be able to upload the graphic to somewhere that allows images of that size (700px wide). Don't worry, it's in the works for TP, so soon anyone would be able to do the same.

Ian (IMonaghan to TP'ers) spent last month in Melbourne and we had quite a few opportunities to catch up. And there's nothing better than going on a road trip with someone else who loves to see the world. So, the second weekend he was here, we loaded up his hire car and headed straight for the greatest natural attraction in Victoria - the Great Ocean Road. It would be a short trip, but we managed to cram in some great sights.

Getting to the Great Ocean Road is quite straightforward from Melbourne. You just head out on the Geelong Hwy and continue past Geelong following the big brown signs. Passing the small town of Anglesea, there is a famous arch that you go under to officially start your Great Ocean Road trip. You can usually find some tourists taking pictures there. It's almost obligatory to get a picture of yourself in front of that sign.

We meandered down the coast taking in the stunning views. You can't drive fast, but there really is no need to. Along the way, we spotted some Koala's sleepily going about their business. In Lorne, we decided to make a detour and check out the Erskine Falls. On the way, we practically screeched to a halt to give way to a little echidna crossing the road. The echidna was bemused by all the photo taking that was going on and didn't seem to mind it one bit. I guess they can't run fast, so they may as well enjoy the moment. One of the great and often unmentioned things about the Great Ocean Road is the Otway Ranges that it backs on to. There are some spectacular waterfalls, wildlife, forest walks and since recently, even the longest treetop walk in the world (more on that later). You could easily spend a mid-week going from sight to sight at a fairly hectic pace and still not see everything. The Erskine Falls provided a good taste of the rainforest.

Further down the road though we decided to stop at another great rainforest experience - Mait's Rest, an easy (mostly boardwalked) walk through some beautiful ferns and very tall trees. I've been there before but had forgotten how enjoyable it was.

After a lunch of seafood in Apollo Bay, we decided to pay the Cape Otway lighthouse a visit. Lighthouses are usually good fun and this was no exception. The views from the top of the lighthouse are simply stunning.

We noticed the sun was on its way down by now and we needed to make some serious progress to catch the star attraction of the Great Ocean Road, the Twelve Apostles. And we arrived there at exactly the right time - minutes before sunset and a perfect photo opportunity. This scenery never fails to impress.

It was getting dark quickly now, so we pushed on to Warrnambool where we stayed for the night. Warrnambool is a great little town, but sadly not much seemed to be going on that night. We had fish and chips for dinner, then tried the local Irish Pub, but had to leave when the rather dismal band came on stage. Driving around town, we didn't find many other options, so decided to call it an early night. After all, we had plans for the morning.

We didn't have long the next day (had to be back in Melbourne by 5), but we desperately wanted to go see the Otway Fly Treetop Walk, a fairly new attraction. Also, we wanted to stop off at some of the other coastal features we had missed the night before. So, we rose bright and early and headed back to the Road. There are several other great coastal scenic lookouts besides the Apostles. I found the Bay of Islands, which I hadn't seen before, quite spectacular. The Loch Ard Gorge is an old favourite and it didn't disappoint this time either, it's well worth walking down the steps here. Though, I'm sure the caves at the base was accessible last time I visited about 6 years ago. There's another cave that requires some negotiation with the tides that can still be explored though (probably not advisable, but oh well).

The Fly Treetop Walk was enjoyable. Plenty of freaked out people scared of heights to keep us entertained. The walk down to access the Treetop walk is longer than you would imagine though and means you will need to walk back up that hill as well. Still, well worth it.

And that pretty much ended the trip. From there we drove straight back to Melbourne for a bbq and some beers to finish off the day.

YES, at last we have reached the launch stage and the Travellerspoint blogs are free for anyone to enjoy. So, by all means, start a blog, post some entries and keep us all entertained!

Apologies to anyone who has been waiting on this final installment. Jetlag and the need for sleep kicked in and the last few days have been focussed on trying to stay awake during the day and trying to sleep at night

Rome was a fantastic experience and a great way to finish our holiday. Unfortunately in Rome people speak Italian though, so any of the communication skills learned from Spain or France were lost here. The good news is that the Romans really don't seem to mind speaking English and, unlike the Parisians, seem to even prefer it over bad Italian.

Our trip from Madrid to Rome was rather tiring. The metro journey in Madrid to the airport involved several swapping of trains and because Janelle's ankle was still rather sore at that stage, it was a rather unpleasant experience. In the end we did make it though as you probably already guessed and booked into our hotel around 5 in the evening. The hotel's elevator was little more than a closet on a pulley and could barely fit us with our bags. The room was probably our nicest of the whole holidays, also the most expensive, but that was to be expected in Italy. Having checked in and refreshed ourselves somewhat, we felt the need to have some pizza and see some sights. A walking tour taking in the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and the Piazza Nuovo worked out well for us, being relatively close to our accommodation. The real highlight of the evening was on our walk back though, when we saw a rather large police escort driving right past us. Who do you think we saw but the POPE himself comfortably being whizzed off in the direction of the Vatican. Even more entertaining was the busfull of cardinals following right behind! Who would have thought we would get to see all this on our first night in town

The attractions in Rome are unrivalled by any of the other places we had visited. Essentially trying to cover 2500 years in 2.5 days is no mean feat! Naturally, we didn't try that and settled for the major attractions only. Our first full day we spent in the vicinity of the Vatican and St Peter's. St. Peter's Basilica was rather amusing to enter, as the Vatican is very strict about dress code. There are 'dress police' positioned at several points while entering and we saw many people getting turned back for wearing skimpy clothing like shorts, singlets and such. We knew of this beforehand so weren't caught out.. As you can imagine, there are stalls aplenty in the area selling very cheap long pants and shawls to cover up for the visit. Having passed the dress-police the Basilica was a rather enjoyable place to visit. For one it was nice and shady compared to the heat that was beginning to develop outside.

Next stop was the Sistine Chapel and the walk on the way there was quite draining indeed in the scorching sun! The staff letting people in to the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel didn't seem to care so much about dress-code, although the sign still said such things weren't allowed. Visiting the Chapel is a rather tedious exercise of being guided through a cattle-grid of sorts from one room to the next in shuffle mode the whole way waiting as the cue progresses. As such, the whole thing does take quite a while. Fortunately, it was well worth it and seeing the beautiful ceiling was a remarkable experience.

After our visit there, we decided we would give the Colosseum a go as well the same day. We knew it would close an hour before sunset, so wouldn't have much time, but decided to give it a go anyway. We ended up having about 45 minutes to walk around, which proved more than enough really, considering all you can really do is walk around inside it! Unfortunately, we didn't realize until 3PM the next day that the Colosseum ticket also gave us entry to the Palatine Hill (which has a lot of ruins, etc.) till 12PM the next day.. grrr..

As a result we skipped the Palatine hill the next day completely and settled for the Roman Forum instead, where the ruins of temples and government buildings are located. Entry there was free, so nothing to grumble about really! One particularly nice feature of Rome is also the water fountains that are located in many parts of town. They are constantly flowing and the water coming out is beautiful to drink. Wandering around the Roman Forum, there are water fountains everywhere, which is rather fortunate considering how hot it gets among those ruins!

A lot of our second day was spent visiting old churches and some of the beautiful artworks within. A visit to the Spanish Steps was also squeezed in before lunch and after lunch we went to the Pantheon again to get a look inside. It is a remarkable building to be inside with the circular hole in the ceiling casting a beautiful ring of light on different parts of the wall at different times of the day. In the evening we wandered down to the Travastere area, which has a lot of restaurants scattered around. We ended up in a rather nice wine bar eating some foccaccia and antipasto - a great way to end the day.

On our last morning in Rome we had one more thing that we wanted to visit - the Santa Maria del Popolo church, which has a couple of rather remarkable Caravaggio paintings within. Because it was a Sunday, there was of course mass going on when we got there. After waiting around for 20 minutes or so though, we got a chance to wander around inside. Supposedly this church was built on the spot that Nero was buried. There used to be a grand oak tree growing over his grave and considering he was such a disliked emperor, no one really liked the error. Some saint then had a vision to fell the tree and build a church there, the result being Santa Maria del Popolo (Saint Maria of the People).

After that visit, our holiday had come to an end.. nothing else left to do but pack our bags and head back to Melbourne, where the weather has been a true shock getting down to under 4 degrees in the mornings.. brrrr.

Madrid sure turned out to be an 'interesting' experience. Unfortunately not nearly as enjoyable as the rest of the places we visited. Of course, there were still plenty of great things that we saw and experienced.

Our trip from Toledo was easy and quite effortless. The train leaves every two hours from Toledo to Madrid and is the only trip out of Toledo as far as I could tell. Finding the hostel we had reserved was not a problem, but trying to find a way to enjoy the hostel was much harder! For starters it wasn't in a particularly good part of town. When we first walked up, Janelle noticed the sign on the outside saying 'no prostitution allowed in here' - not a good sign. We managed to count about 20 or so prostitutes on the street that evening! Of course, these things can be easily ignored, but unfortunately there were too many things wrong with this particular choice of accommodation! A rabbit warren of grimy looking hallways led us to our tiny room, with views of the piping and grime in the back alleyway and other people's open windows. I killed a huge cockroach while Janelle wasn't watching and waited till the next day to tell her. All these things I could usually get over, but for the fact that it fell through on the one thing that to me is essential, a place to SLEEP! There was very little sleeping that night, as wave after wave of people arrived drunk in their rooms shouting and giggling right outside our door kept waking us up. The morning was started by someone who decided he needed to knock on everyone's door to start wake everyone up for breakfast. It was all too much. We got up, but instead of having breakfast, we started looking for somewhere else to stay the other two nights. We found somewhere only a few blocks away which was only 4 euros extra a night and a far more enjoyable experience - it had hot water for one!

Okay, enough whining for now. The Puerta del Sol, the major square in Madrid wasn't far, so we took a stroll down there to get started. The place is throbbing with people at all hours (at least all hours we saw it). One time we walked down there we saw all the hawkers being raided by the police. People set up sheets on the ground and put all their goods for sale, like sunglasses, cds, belts, etc.. on the sheets. As we were walking past, someone let out a warning and all the sheets turned into bags within seconds and everyone was on the run! Quite amusing to watch really, although the police in Spain with their leather gloves do make for a scary sight! Strange though, we saw several other times when police cars would drive straight past without taking note at all.

Madrid is a rather 'new' city as we overheard a Madridian describing it. 'New' in this case means anything less than 500 years old! The city was chosen as capital when it was only a small village. As a result, the architecture and feel of the place is quite different to all the other places we visited. Nevertheless, it has its fair share of interesting things to do! There are several world-class and famous art galleries that we of course visited: The Prado, the city's most famoust museum, houses a large collection of older artwork, with some very famous pieces by the likes of Velazquez and Goya. The Museo Nacional Centre de Arte Reina Sofia has a very enjoyable collection of modern art and the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum has a chronological collection from about 500 AD to now, with all the rooms curated so that you progress through time - a very interesting experience. Each day we were in Madrid we visited another of these museums, which generally take up at least a few hours of slow shuffling.

In a lot of ways Madrid was very reminiscent of Melbourne. The general street culture seemed quite the same and it one thing in common which made it seem particularly similar - a festival! As much as Melbourne loves its festivals, so it seems Madrid does too. While we were there at least there was a photography/contemporary art exhibition going on. The beautiful thing about it was that there was a free show on one evening which we of course strolled down to see. It was basically a projection of some excellent photography and some not so excellent 'video art'. Something to keep us busy anyway. On that particular evening, we then went on to go and see some free jazz at Popular, a bar that has bands on every evening. The drink prices of course made up for the free entry, but the music by the jazz quartet was remarkable!

We spent a lot of time as usual walking around the city, having coffees, etc.. and enjoying the warmth. On the last of our three days when we planned to visit the Palace, we were stopped from doing any more of that though. Janelle sprained her ankle rather badly on a bit of uneven paving and basically couldn't walk anymore that day (and not very well for the rest of the holidays really). That pretty much was the end of Madrid. Time to move on to Rome!