Picking up where I left off, the boys and I found ourselves on a train to Toulouse crammed in the steaming hot baggage compartment. It was there where I made a rather interesting business deal. Several nights earlier, at a blackjack table in Monte Carlo we befriended three girls from Colorado, and as these things tend to go, we bumped into them on the train to Toulouse and shared the 7 hour train trip and a bottle of cheap wine. During our fun but uneventful stay...

The idea that the journey is as important as the destination seems to shine through whenever I write my blogs, because our transit from city to city or country to country is always an adventure. We trained from Lyon to Nice, making friends the people on our carriage. All was well until half an hour from our destination the train broke down. We were told it would only be a fifteen minute wait. It turned out to be over 8 fifteen minute waits, over two hours until w...

Lyon: On our last night in Paris, After a lovely home cooked meal of meat pasta in meat sauce with chilli (my creation naturally) which cost 1.76 Euro a piece we got some shuteye, leaving the next morning for Lyon on a TGV train. They put Cityrail to shame. I'll take cruising at 300km/h through the scenic French countryside over rattling at 50 with views of Wollstonecraft. I'm starting to notice when doors sound like things that aren't doors. On the TGV the bat...

Part 2 of 2: If I was to give any advice to someone traveling to Paris, it would be to beware the Curse of the Parisian Monday. Everything good is closed and there is no nightlife. We woke up especially early to visit the Catacombes (a 2km underground walk lined with tens of thousands of Parisian skulls) only to find it's open Tuesday through Sunday for no apparent reason. Later that night we caught to metro to a jazz bar I had been recommended. We discovered th...

Part 1 of 2: Our massive trek from Santorini to Paris saw us enjoying the best and the worst of the transportation experience. First was an 8 hour ferry ride, first class (all they had left) on the biggest ferry, nay (yes, nay) the biggest boat I've ever been on, which had multiple escalators on it. I know right? Escalators on a boat! The experience reminded us of Titanic, because while we sat in our exclusive first class section others slept on the floor all th...