Belated III: Venice is on pylons...

A train to Milan for the night was no substitute for the overnight sleeper...but the one highlight was stopping at a station for 5 minutes in the middle of the Alps. Which meant SNOW!!
Here i am in my natural element.

And here is Al in hers (Warm and toasty...not necessarily with a bottle of wine.)

A quick walk around Milan in the morning (Our second unscheduled stop in the city...it must be some sort of magnet...) some photos.





And then back to the station for the train to...

Venice.

Which was...well...Venice. I likened it to seeing the Mona Lisa. It's famous, it's great to see in the real but it's such a famous, iconic image it doesn't really feel like you're seeing anything new. So two days was probably just enough…









So here are some random thoughts.
Venice and it’s gondolas. Not romantic. Not at all. In fact, if you ride in one in the winter you can be assured of not only paying 95 euros for the experience, you can also expect to be covered in a swaddling of rugs and blankets and look, to the bemusement of everyone taking your photo from the waters edge, like you’re a pile of not particularly “in love” dirty laundry. ROMANCE.

You make your own romance. Sure I can try to accept that to some people, their idea of a “romantic honeymoon holiday of a lifetime” includes being gawked at by hundreds of tourists, while the bored guy who fleeced you for a boat ride down a canal stands over you and pretends to punt…(most likely dreaming of the really great bottle of champagne he can now afford to buy his wife or girlfriend when he gets home and cooks her a candlelit dinner for two).

But I can’t.

You’re in Venice!! It’s not romantic ENOUGH for you already?!

And whats with people and feeding pigeons?! Why are you travelling the world to amazing, beautiful, historical cities such as Venice and documenting your small child being traumatised by hundreds of lice covered, stump footed vermin? Pigeons are possibly the most common bird in, you know...THE WORLD! You don't need to go to Venice to have them frantically peck out your eyes when they mistake them for food in their feeding pile. You could most likely walk outside in any city and throw some crumbs on the ground. If a thousand rats started swarming all over you because you had something for them to eat would you be giggling and having the time of your life? Doubtful.

Belated II: Paris, France

So despite the panicked "We're stuck at Gare de Lyon and eventually a slow train to Milan for the night" adventure. And before those whacky french let slip the dogs of war on Sarkozy's proposed 'social reforms' we actually did have an awesome time in Paris. Home of romance, revolution, and really good pastry.

Arriving on day one we got our first taste of the cold snap which had apparently decided to bypass Spain this year. But you're in Europe you want European weather. And 12 degrees each day and overcast brought such fond memories of home it wasn't unwelcome.

So with portable doonahs, thermal underwear, scarves and gloves attached...we hit the STREETS!! We saw the French things you have to see when in France. The Eiffel Tower, The Arc De Triumph, Notre Dame and Sacre Cour (on possibly the coldest day ever known to man). We trawled through food markets, restaurants, coffee shops, visited the bones of 6 million dead people at the catacombs, a quick salut to Jean Paul Satre and the hunt for the perfect crepe all pretty much perfectly bookended Paris.








Day 3 We met up with Katie and Tania (Tour Guide Extraordinairre) which is about the time Paris suddenly became all about the ART! Or as it soon became known 'The 72hr history of Western Art Tour'.

In a cunning move of touristy GENIUS...we started at the Louvre. LATE! (You miss the crowds, you don't line up for hours and the Mona Lisa becomes less about muscling people out of the way to see a tiny, pretty dull innocuous painting and more about..."Oh hey there's the Mona Lisa, lets go take a look.") Antiquity and the middle ages thru to the late 1800's was the rest of the evenings fair.








12hrs later and we hit the Musee D'Orsay taking in the late 1800's to just before the first world war (Manet, Monet, Corbet, Rodin, Degas etc...). Manet's Olympia the highlight. (When it was first exhibited people were so disgusted by it's profanity they threw rotting fruit at it).







Another 12 hrs after that, Centre De Pompidou. However in a fit of "If i see another awesome peice of art my eyes may actually implode" fervour and with ten people to go in the queue to get in, we decided it would be a lot wiser to scoot off for a bottle of wine and a 7hr slow cooked lamb instead (Or as Katie and Douglas like to now call it...'Exploding High Fives').







And as soon as it had started and we were just getting into our French groove...it was over. A week in Paris it turns out, definetly not enough.



For everything we did do it seems we didn't really tick off half the things we wanted to do from our list. A trip to Versailles, actually getting into Notre Dame, a visit to Asterix Land, It really would have been nice to see Duchamp's Toilet (Sorry...Fountain.), Douglas has yet to solve the MYSTERY OF THE DA VINCI CODE (Despite the insistence that there REALLY isn't one...), Napoleon's tomb and some visits to WWII sites will have to wait till next time.

In Tommorrow's episode - Snow train, one night in Milan and Venice..."HOLY CRAP IT'S ALL ON PYLONS!!!"

When the atheists turn to St Christopher you know you are in trouble!

(Skulls from the Catacombs, Montparnasse.)

So clearly there have been far too many photos of the happy smiling adventurers. Today we are coming to you live from Gare de Lyon Paris where we are having what can only be described as a truely French experience!

Yes we've been caught up in the French rail strikes and that means no romantic overnight train to Venice, no posh dinner on train and more importantly no clear deliniation between firsties and secondies.

We're not 100% certain but it would appear that the rail workers have gone on stike over retirement age and a system that privledges those who work for the government. In unrelated events students are also blockading universities over newly introduced education fees and in a day or two apparently the doctors are stopping work over conditions in the public health system.

Chaos? Or just the French being French? From watching the TV and talking to our landlord politics is second only to football and philosophy as topics of conversation. Even at the train station magazine racks there is a weekily magazine called "philosophie" and another called "Historical" though right next to those is Big Jugs Francois! (What would YOU read?!)

We have another 4.30 hours to go before we board the TGV to Milan where we will camp over night and then catch a train to Venice tommorrow morning. In 4.5 hours we could pack in a life time of Parisien experiences (vin rouge, entrecote de l'agneau, creme caramel), except the people who look after the luggage lockers are...on strike.

So we are with our baggage and unable to "faire comme un tourist". Instead we pray to the little St Christopher medal bought at Sacre Couer yesterday in a fine 8 degree sleet, we also thank god for computers, wifi connections and skype. Without which the unforseen mess we're in would not have been sorted.

Paris has been pretty good otherwise...though i think those stories are probably best saved for when we're not sitting in a brisk 6 degree train station re questioning wether we really DID confirm that booking for the hotel tonight.

Au revoir!

Belated...

A week spent in Paris...so a belated post about Granada.

We've decided not to bore you all with the details of how we missed the plane from Madrid to Granada, needless to say if candid camera had filmed Ally holding her head and screaming "WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DOOOO?!?!" when faced with possibly missing the second flight we can assure you it would have been made for television.

It wasn't so much 5"1' ball of rage, rather 5"1 ball of panic. At the time what seemed a sudden and ridiculously expensive avalanche of "everything is doomed why hath we been forsaken?!", turned into really just the first hiccup of the trip...we can now but laugh (We'll most likely regale you with the full details in the future over a drink or three if you REALLY want to know...or not).

Fast forward to the three of us (Al's mum, Aileen, and your two intrepid travellers) with suitcases, backpacks and once again the BRAZEN idea that we really DON'T need a map. Because as we learned in Madrid not having a map is no impediment to finding our accomodation.

So we took off to locate a map just in case...and in the process we really couldn't have walked more directly to where we were to spend the next three days. A beautiful 17th century spanish villa tucked behind what seemed yet another maze of tiny alleyways and buildings.

But proving that using your third eye to find accomodation in a foreign city, getting stuck in Madrid airport for 4 hours, dealing with airline bureaucracy and incompetence really wasn't the purpose of our trip to Granada...no...it was the Alhambra.

Seeing the Alhambra meant another early morning start...a lazy 6:30 (Our Madrid airport funride start time was 5:00 and after supposedly missing our check in by less than 3 minutes we were not going to be anywhere near late for this one!).

So a quick breakfast, busride and forced march to the Nasreed Palace later. Time stopped. We were surrounded by sights and sounds all at once dramatic and serene. A Moorish palace built between the 12th and 16th centuries. One of the 10 wonders of the world(see photos below this post).

The Moors used algebra and mathematics to create an asthetically pleasing design that is incredibly hard to take a bad photo of. Surely then when they were putting this amazing series of palaces, baths, gardens and courtyards together they were saying to themselves "In 400 years time Douglas will be here with a camera...we can't dissapoint!"

It also made us remember those shrill, post 9/11 anti muslim questions of "What has the middle east ever contributed to the West?"
Well lets START with mathematics and algebra. And if you REALLY want to know the rest go here for more answers to possibly the most ridiculous of questions.

The fort of Alhambra is a massive triangle shaped building essentially built into the mountain with a sheer drop down to the city below. It was never taken by force when the Christian's led by Ferdinand and Isabella sacked Granada in 1492. Instead all hope lost and the surrounding cities of Toledo, Cordoba, and Seville retaken the Moors were forced to surrender.

The Christian flag of Spain was raised above the Alhambra as the last Muslim king, rode into exile with the bitter words from his aging mother, "Weep like a woman for the city you would not defend like a man!" following him.

MUMMY!!??

And with that...our trip to Spain comes to an end.
We have since jumped on a train and headed north across the Pyrenees into France to the city of ROMANCE, revolution and really great pastries!!

Paris.
An update of course...is in the works.

Douglas and Ally

Photos from Granada and the Alhambra...