Day 38

Our first stop off this morning was to go white water rafting. It was very cold in the water, although the rapids were a bit tame, it was still a lot of fun. Sorry no photos of the rafting or me in my wetsuit.
We went from there onto Munich. In Munich I stopped briefly in St. Peter's church, for the cultural aspect, and headed for the food market, the Viktualienmarkt. On my first try for it though, I overshot it and ended up, happily, in a small French market, after looking longingly at a few stands with cheese, I bought a few macaroons, and a crepe. The crepe was really tasty, I haven't had the chance to try the macaroons yet, but they looked good.
I then found the Viktualienmarkt, and bought a punnet of blueberries and a fresh squeezed oj, and wandered around, wishing I had a kitchen, or at least a free meal tonight, to eat the produce, or olives, dried meat and cheese.
I then headed back to the Marienplatz, with the beautiful old town hall. Just in time to see the Glockenspiel, an old mechanical working on the tower that moved every day at 5 and 11. It was rather anticlimactic, but it must have been awesome when it was built.
Tonight we went to a Bavarian beer hall, an old one. It was pretty cool. We got these big litre steins of beer, and pork knuckle, with a potato dumpling and cabbage that wasn't quite sauerkraut yet. Sadly I managed to delete all photos of today off my camera, so there are no awesome photos of me drinking from the stein, or there was also a good one of me gnawing on the pork knuckle bone :(.
So in summary, a really good day, with good food, fun and company.

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Location:Austrian Tyrol to Munich

Day 30

This morning started with a walking tour of Istanbul, the highlights were a visit to the blue mosque built in just seven years in the 16 hundreds,


although the fact it was built from marble stolen from the roman hippodrome next door, which is now no more may account for the speed of building. It was pretty, but I think I'm just about church/temple/mosqued out.


The guide also pointed out the sultans palace, and a church, turned mosque, once the 4th biggest church in the world, and the biggest underground cistern in the world as being worth visiting, but I think while I'm here i'm going to relax, and go shopping, rather than be cultural here.
Next door was the site of said hippodrome, alas now gone, but for the obelisk stolen from an Egyptian temple,


one that we'd been to a few days before was still there, it's a bit strange now to see these obelisks all over Europe, after having seen them in their rightful place.
After the blue mosque we headed to the traditional roman baths, a building to be appreciated in it's own right, being built by the Turkish equivalent to Michelangelo, which I will be going back to tomorrow to see more of it and to be pampered. Before heading to a rug shop for a sales ad, beautiful rugs, but a lot out of my budget.
Then it was lunch time. We went to a place recommended by the guide and had donna kebabs,


nice, and Turkish pizza with ground meat with and without the cheese - these were the highlight of the main meal for me.


Dessert was turkish coffee, very strong, but good and a pistachio baklava like sweets, they were really good, and not overwhelmingly sweet, a nice lunch all-round.


After the good Turkish food, it was of course time to hit the grand bazar and go shopping. My goal for today was to go window shopping and do the main shopping tomorrow. In this I succeeded, i saw some beautiful soft scarves, and a pretty spice grinder, which I hope will turn out to be functional, and sat down to a cup of apple tea, very tasty.
I still haven't decided if I want to buy some dried apple to to drink while I'm in Europe, or use as gifts, as I don't think it'll get thru customs. (Edit: didn't end up buying any)
At this stage I had a headache, and we had a dinner show that night, so I decided to head back to the hotel, to work on the Internet and have a nap.
This was a good end to the afternoon, and at 7:30 we met in the lobby to head out to our Turkish dinner and dancing show.
The dinner was good. The food started with a mezze plate,


followed by pastries,


that I think were spinach and ricotta, then a main meal of meat, tomatoes and chilli on a base of some kind of cheesy vegetable purée.


It was good, but not sublime. Dessert was really nice and simple, vanilla ice-cream on fruit salad, there are no pics of dessert, I ate it before thinking.
The entertainment at dinner was good. About four belly dancers, and other groups of dancers in-between. There was even one group which threw knives with their mouths. I'd put pics here, but my iPad doesn't like the length and pic density of this post already, and there is only so many times I can rewrite a blog.
After dinner we went home and I crashed.



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Location:Istanbul

Day 36

Got to sleep in a bit this morning, which was good. I'm starting to feel a lot better.
We headed into Vienna for a short walking tour, around the winter residence of the Hapsburgs, it was large and pretty.


In one of the windows there was a silhouette of the empress Sisi,


then we headed round to the courtyard and stables where they keep the famous dancing horses. We actually got to see them coming out of their stables into their practice yards, no dancing though.



The next stop was a memorial to holocaust victims, here we found out that you need a licence to tour guide in Vienna, so after a few attempts to discuise what we were doing with singing, we had to move on before we got the whole story, we're going to a concentration camp tomorrow though.
The tour ended on the main shopping street in Vienna, and rather than wandering round, getting overtired and sick again, I headed back to the hostel and did my washing.
Headed back into town and had a piece of apple strudel before the meeting up for the schnapps museum at 4pm.
The schnapps museum was interesting,


there are a number of different types. At the end I tried a strawberry cream, raspberry brandy, an orange sweetish schnapps with gold in it, and a type of absinthe which focused on the flavor of the wormwood, rather than the aniseed flavor more common - I think I prefer the aniseed flavor. Although I liked all of them, the bottles were a bit too big, and nothing was irresistible, so I didn't end up buying anything.
We stopped briefly at the Hapsburg's summer palace, it was very pretty, before our dinner.


Dinner was nice. First was soup,that I didn't eat much of.
Then the mains, rather than wiener schnitzel I got a farmers plate.


It was very nice. Sauerkraut, a dumpling that resembled a potato, a piece of roast beef, a few pieces of roasted ham, and a weirdly cut up hotdog, which I gave away.
I think I liked the roast beef and dumpling and sauerkraut best, the ham was too salty. I think living with mum is slowly changing my taste buds a little.
Dessert was apple strudel, good, buy not the best I've had in Austria. There was singing and dancing during and after dinner, it was a fun night.


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Location:Vienna

Day 2 cont.

After lunch we headed back into the love, via the lion gate


- much shorter lines than the main gate. After wandering around for about an hour, seeing a range of old things,


statues


and paintings, including the mona Lisa.


Then we headed to the meeting place, going out via the glass pyramid


and headed back to the campsite for dinner.
After dinner we headed back into the city, back to the eifel tower.


This time I went all the way up to the top.


The view there was gorgeous, bit not very photogenic.
I took the lift down to the second floor, and from there I took the stairs, to avoid the wait in line for the lift.


Tonight on the grass under the eifel tower, as it was flashing, Dan proposed to Gem, it was really romantic and a good start to our trip.

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Location:Paris

Day 2 cont

Past the square, there were beautiful gardens,


you could smell the lavender in the air, and interesting statues,


before we branched off to look at souvenirs for a bit, then the outside of the louve, and wandering thru back streets in search of lunch.
We found a place in the back streets, and shared a small bottle of rose. Unfourtunaly the main meal I ordered was not very good, but the wine and the blackcurrant ice-cream I had for desert was fantastic.


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Location:Paris

Day 2 cont

And went in under the roundabout,


we then saw it from underneath


before heading up the stairs for another stunning view of Paris, including one of the Eiffel tower.


The walk down just about made us dizzy,


and we headed down the most expensive road in paris, the champs de elisse and on into the square where the obelisk lives,


with statues of terrified horses,


representing the place where thousands were killed with the guillotine.


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Location:Paris

Day 2

This was the day we had free to explore Paris! Had a great day.
Started off at the eifel tower, it is huge, only went up to the second floor this morning, as we went back that night and I wanted to see Paris at night.
Here are some pics of the eifel tower, the view and proof I was up there:









The two girls with me up there are Jenna and Sarah, in that order. Not long after this we split up and Sarah and I went on our way at first with another girl, Kay and later alone.
After the eifle tower, we headed off to the arc d' triumph, encountering a few hawkers along the way. I grabbed a few cheap, small souvenirs here:



After the eifel tower, we walked to the arc de triumph,




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Location:Paris

Day 28

We left Greece early this morning, and drove through the border crossing, my passport is now two stamps and a visa more decorates. Once over the boarder we headed straight to our ferry over the Dardanelles. Stopping for lunch before we got onto the ferry. I had a cheese pied, and it was really tasty.
Once in the Asian part of Turkey (I've now been on 5 of the seven continents), we headed for the ancient city of Troy, once past the fake looking horse,


we wandered through a series of walls of differing ages, built on the same site over a period of a few thousand years


Ruins of towns outside the walls


And yet more roman ruins - they are everywhere.


After Troy we headed to our hotel, had an included four course meal for dinner, soup, a turkish veg pastry roll, reminiciant of a long spring roll, fried whiting, still with it's bones and rice pudding, not as good as the ones we make - too sweet.
I then took advantage of an early night to make up for all the late nights and early mornings, and crashed.
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Location:Greece to Turkey

Day 29

Today we travelled to Istanbul, and stopped at Gallipoli on the way.


It was very moving. The terrain at Anzac cove was steep and inhospitable, it was horrific to think what it must have been like landing on that beach and realising what they faced.


We also saw a Turkish memorial, a cemetery near Anzac cove



and the cemetery at lone pine.


The graves which had messages from families made the most impact on me. Those and the graves of the men younger than I am now. I'd like to come back here one Anzac day.

The rest of the day was anticlimactic, lunch at a service stop was a picnic assembled with Jenna, Witty and Kieren, from a supermarket in order to avoid eating a burger king.
Dinner was an included meal at the hotel in istanbul, not great, but edible.
Now crashing, in our tiny room, with four of us and no room for bags, and getting an early night, ready for Istanbul tomorrow.




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Location:Turkey

Day 5

It was a quiet recovery day today, so after a late breakfast, they gave us picnic baskets and a map to the roof of the world. We were assured that it was suited to our day of rest, it was only a 45min- 1hr walk, up a very steep hill carrying our picnic.


Thankfully due to foresight Jenna and I were in a group with four other guys, who took care of the carrying.
After the delightful stroll, up wonderfully steep mountains,


lunch was really good. Baguettes, Brie and ham, with water to drink, and oranges and mars bars for after. The view was really beautiful as well.



When we got back down the mountain, the afternoon really was relaxing. I sunbaked for a bit and had a nap. There was a meeting about Egypt, where we found out that we needed to acquire a husband for Egypt - it makes life easier, so I now need to track down a ring to use, and tops that cover my shoulders.
I crashed early tonight, needed the rest.


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Location:French chateau

Day 4

Today was a travel day, and after only 4.5 hr sleep I was grateful for the chance to relax a bit.
However, no day goes by without something even slightly mind blowing, and today it was a 14th century French chateau (sadly not the one we were staying in),


fonteguard. We didn't have time to go inside, but the gardens were beautiful,


and the lake had huge fish in it.


We stayed that night in a 15th century chateau.





Just after we got there there was a wine tasting,


we were in the smallest wine region in France, it started with B, the wine was not too bad, but nothing fantastic, I did buy a bottle, it was only 8 €, and that may or may not make it home.



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Location:Paris to French chateau