Rome and onwards...

Finally our internet has been connected, so read on about the second half of our Contiki adventure!

Our following day we had a full day to explore Rome, and we started off first thing by catching the train into the city and lining up to get into the Vatican City. Luckily for us due to the season and our early arrival, there wasn't much of a line (apparently it can take just about all day to get in at some times of the year). We made it inside to the Vatican museum within about 30 minutes, and had a look around at all the renaissance artwork (paintings, sculptures and tapestries), along with a few wings of more modern artwork, on our way to the famous Sistine Chapel. The Chapel itself was a little bit smaller in overall size than some people were expecting, given some of the gargantuan cathedrals we had seen throughout France, however the amazing frescos by Michaelangelo and Boticelli had to be seen to be believed, with the famous 'Final Judgement' and 'Creation' the paint has been restored in recent times, and looked great. It was incredible to think of the artistic skill and technique needed to paint it over 500 years ago. From the Sistine Chapel, we managed to sneak out the back exit on the advice of our tour guide, in order to avoid lining up with the thousands of others to get into St Peter's Basilica and the Crypts. We went down into the crypts of the popes first of all, which held the sarcophaguses of a number of former Popes, with information about their time as Pope. The tomb of John Paul II was obviously the most popular spot for people visiting the catacombs, and was covered in flowers, and surrounded by candles from people visiting. Once we had left the catacombs we managed to avoid the crowds and get into St Peter's, which is reportedly where St Peter himself was buried (under the main altar, where only the Pope himself can carry out services). The Basilica itself hold a number of smaller chapels, a museum, and hundreds of pieces of priceless artwork, including Michelangelo's 'Pieta'. We walked into the famous St Peter's piazza where the Pope addresses crowds, however he was nowhere to be seen when we were there!

Following our visit to the Vatican we travelled back into central Rome to visit a number of the other famous landmarks on a guided tour. We started off at the Roman government building, and travelled through the ruins of the ancient Roman forum, and the site where Julius Caesar himself is said to have been cremated. We followed a path through the ruins, ultimately arriving at the Coliseum, which is still fairly well intact (except for the arena floor, which is largely no longer there, giving you a direct view down into the cells where prisoners and animals were kept). Later on that afternoon we travelled out to a Capuchin monastery where the cellar has been turned into a bone museum, with everything from furniture to light fittings (slightly morbidly) made from the actual bones of dead Capuchin monks.

The following day we set off north again for Venice, via Maranello, the home of Ferrari, where we stopped off at the Ferrari museum, which was pretty impressive (for the boys in the group anyway). We saw the Ferrari factory and test track, however there was no testing going on the day we were there unfortunately, which would have been pretty cool, given that everything was covered in snow! Most of the cars in the Ferrari carpark had a pretty thick layering on them, and on our way out of the museum, the carpark made a pretty good opportunity for a snowball fight! We arrived in Malcontenta, near the island of Venice later that afternoon, and had a quiet night in after dinner ahead of a full day in Venice the day following.

Our next morning we got up early to take the ferry over to Venice, unfortunately, this was one of the coldest, wettest days which we had experienced on our tour so far, so this put a little bit of a dampener on our time. Luckily, there was a lot to do which was sheltered from the weather, like going shopping down the endless winding alleyways which made up the main shopping district. Venice is famous for it's blown glass, and we saw some artisan glassblowers give a demonstration in the morning of how their products are created which was interesting. Kate bought e few pieces of handmade glass jewellery over the course of the day also. One of the main attractions in Venice is St Mark's, where the apostle Mark is said to be entombed, after having his body returned from the middle east wrapped in pork, so that the Muslims wouldn't want to inspect what was being transported! The church itself is very intricate, and quite different from a lot of the other churches in Italy, having more of a Turkish style to it, and most of the roof is covered in gold leaf and large mosaics made from glass pieces. That afternoon we went for the obligatory Venice gondola ride, although due to the weather it wasn't exactly the ideal way to experience gondoliering, by getting progressively more soaked and cold! We spent most of the late afternoon in a restaurant sitting and trying to dry off all of our clothes. We did have a good time however, and caught the boat back later that evening to Malcontenta for our last night in Italy before heading north to Austria!Our trip took us further north out of Italy, and up into southern Austria, towards our next stop in Vienna. We noticed a difference almost immediately, with Austria being a lot more alpine, although interspersed with beautiful valleys and rivers, the other clear indicator was that the pizza we had been having at our rest stops had been replaces by schnitzel, strudel and bratwurst! We were extremely impressed by our hotel in Vienna- by far the nicest place we had stayed at; it was a four star resort, with it's own swimming lake (frozen over), massive grounds, and a large indoor heated pool and whirlpool area. Kate and I had chosen not to go on the optional outing that night, and certainly didn't regret it as we had a great time relaxing for a change. Our next day out in Vienna was a bit rainy as well unfortunately, but we managed to avoid the weather well enough to check out the inner city sights- the royal palace, Sigmund Freud park, and a large golden statue of Mozart to name a few. That afternoon we visited the original Schnapps factory, and had a tour and a chance to try out a few of their products, including straight Absinthe, although it was much too early in the day to really enjoy.After a brief couple of days in Austria, we headed north towards southern Germany, stopping off to experience Mauthausen concentration camp, which was quite a sombre, but worthwhile experience, and is quite surreal to think that it was such a short time ago relatively that such a picturesque site could have been the scene of such horrible atrocities. The camp itself has been well preserved, with the bunkers, gas chambers and crematoriums still in eerily good condition. The site now has tributes and peace related sculptures and statues, and serves as a tribute to the 110000 people who died there during the war.After this stop off, we carried on into Bavaria (Southern Germany), and into the home of Oktoberfest; Munich. We only had one night in Munich, but after having a look at their famous Glockenspiel, and the 'Devil's Footprint' in the Munich Cathedral, where the devil is said to have stomped and left a heavy foot shaped imprint in the lobby of the church- after this brief bit of sightseeing, we headed to the Hofbrauhaus, a huge beer hall in the middle of Munich, where beer is served in steins (by the litre!), and the local specialty was pork knuckle with sauerkraut, which Kate and I both enjoyed.

After our stop in Munich, we headed further east to the very edge of 'Western Europe', the Czech Republic, and Prague. Luckily for us, the temperature was in the high single digits when we arrived, however the ground was still covered in a thick sheet of ice, which made walking around safely a bit of a challenge! We made our first stop at the top of town, at the ancient Prague castle, which still has armed guards on patrol, despite the often freezing temperatures. Their cathedral inside the castle featured some of the most amazing stained glass windows that I have ever seen, along with a gigantic pipe organ about the size of a house. We carried on out of the castle down the other side of the hill, which gave us a great view over Prague, and crossed over the famous CharlesBridge, which is lined with all manner of statues. We then walked through the old town to the astronomical clock, which rings on the hour, and is accompanied by an elaborate clockwork puppet display, and a skeleton ringing the bells!

The following day we explored town during the morning, then had a lunch cruise down the Vlatva river, with a guide giving us a rundown on all the sights as we passed them by. We spent the rest of our time browsing around town and doing a bit of shopping, before having some decidedly non-Czech Indian for dinner.Our next day took us back west into Germany again, towards Berlin, although we stopped for a few hours in Dresden, the site of one of the heaviest allied bombings of WWII, where most of the city was flattened by carpet bombing. This made for a really fascinating city, with many of the building having obviously been all rebuilt around the same time, in amongst some really huge old buildings, many having been repaired, giving a mottled look of old, blackened aged bricks against the newer, lighter bricks. We arrived in Berlin in the afternoon, and drove through Checkpoint Charlie, the famous meeting point of the US and USSR zones which provided one of the few crossings from West to East Berlin after the Berlin wall was put up in the 1950s, however our tour guide seemed more excited by pointing out that they have different road crossing signals- the western part of the city has the traditional western signals, while the east has completely different looking green and red men- a hangover from communist times, which does remind you of how recently it was that the wall fell. Our hotel was next to a huge hostel, so we had a good night out in their bar that evening, although not overdoing things, as we had a big day from the early morning tomorrow.Our next day started off with a walking tour, via the 'East side gallery' which is a section of the Berlin wall that has been left intact- even though it is just a small section, it still stretches as far as the eye can see. We moved to the base of the giant TV tower, and a park which still has a statue of Karl Marx to start our walking tour. We saw a former royal palace, a number of museums, and the university where Einstein had attended, and where the famous book burning took place by the Nazis, where all non-Nazi books were removed from the university and burnt in a square. There is now a really interesting memorial there now, which looks like a glass panel in the ground, but when you walk up to it and look through the glass, there is a massive underground room with empty white library shelves, to represent all the empty shelves left when the books were burnt. We headed further down to the Brandenburg Tor, which is a huge gate or victory arch, designed for the victorious soldiers to walk through- you can still see patched up bullet holes in it from the battle of Berlin from WWII. Also at the Brandenburg Tor is the hotel where Michael Jackson famously dangled his son over the railings! Some people found this more interesting than others! Just beyond the Brandenburg Tor was the Reichstag, the seat of German Parliament, which was just on the Western side of Berlin after Berlin was split, lying just beyond the 'dead zone', the area in between the inner and outer walls, where anyone who tried to cross the zone would most likely find themselves shot or blown up by a landmine! Following this, we moved down to the recently constructed holocaust memorial, which is a massive sculpture of rectangular concrete pillars of different heights, with shorter ones on the outside and taller ones in the centre. The ground in the centre is much lower however, so it gives the effect that the pillars are all roughly the same height. Apparently the architect has not explained to anyone exactly what the message is that he is wanting to get across regarding the holocaust, but perhaps as the further you get in, the more towering the pillars become, the message it that the more involved you become, the bigger your perception of the magnitude of the holocaust is. We walked down further towards the centre of Berlin, down the border of the old Berlin wall. We stopped at the site of Hitler's bunker, where he committed suicide in 1945, which is now just a small square of grass, with the original underground bunker being completely destroyed by the Russians after taking Berlin. We saw a few Nazi constructed buildings, which were just big imposing concrete blocks of buildings, designed to look intimidating, and saw another fragment of the wall where, up until the late 1990s, you could hire a hammer and chisel, and chip away your own souvenir from the wall. Our tour concluded back at Checkpoint Charlie, after which we were free to do our own thing for the rest of the day- Kate and I decided to go and look around in the Reichstag, and walked past the memorials of the huge number of people who died trying to cross over the dead zone to west Berlin, however the line at the Reichstag was huge, so we decided to go to Berlin Zoo instead, the home of the famous polar bear Knut. The zoo was really modern, with a huge range of animals, from bears, to African animals, tigers, penguins and a giant panda, and was a fun change to looking at architecture and museums all the time! That evening we had dinner in Berlin and a nightlife tour, checking out a few different bars, including an ex-communist bar in East Berlin, then ending up at a nightclub where apparently the 'Hoff still gets the party started every time!Our next day took us west out of Germany (past the border with still standing gun towers, previously used to shoot people trying to escape from the east!), and into The Netherlandsto our final stop. Unfortunately the famous Dutch tulips weren't in season, but we did see a few windmills on our way to Amsterdam!We had dinner at our hotel, then went into the centre of Amsterdam for a tour around town and the infamous red light district- say no more! The following day we visited the Anne Frank house, which has been restored and turned into a museum, and you can see the small areas in the house in which Anne Frank, her family and friends hid until being captured by the Nazis in WWII, and where Anne Frank's diary was written. After this, we visited the Vincent Van Gogh museum. Van Gogh was an Amsterdam local for a lot of his life, and the museum holds a huge collection of his paintings and drawings.Following this we caught a tram then a bus back to the hotel to relax for a little while, before heading to a restaurant near Edam (of cheese fame!) for our final dinner together. After dinner we had a cruise down one of the main canals back in Amsterdam on a boat with an open bar, so we had to make the most of that, being our last night on tour.

On our final morning, we headed out from Amsterdam, and through the north of Belgium, near Antwerp (where the diamond in Kate's ring came from!), and back into the north of France back towards Calais. As we got closer to Calais, the weather got progressively worse, with practically torrential downpours, and very heavy winds. When we got to the ferry terminal we were told that as the wind was so strong, the port at Dover had been closed, and we would have to wait about 2.5 hours before getting on the ferry! When we eventually managed to get on board, we were rocking about so much that some of the people with weaker stomachs had to break out the sick bags, and as the seas were so rough, we ended up taking more than twice as long as usual to make the crossing, then had to queue behind other ferries waiting to be let into port at Dover, so it was certainly an experience to end our tour, although we can't complain too much since we had really great weather (and not even too cold) for most of our journey- and it was one way to spend a bit more time together and get our money's worth! We drove past at least 10 kilometres of lined up traffic waiting to go over to Calais from Dover (due to the ferry delays) on our way back to London, and then arrived back around 9PM to where we started in central London. It was a bit sad to say goodbye to all of our new friends, but no doubt we will keep in touch with a lot of them. We trekked back to the tube again, to head down to Elephant and Castle to get to Vera and Kris' place, and finally made it there around 10:30PM, ahead of a very long sleep in our new temporary home in their lounge!