Onwards and upwards leaving Italy, before an extremely scenic drive into Switzerland. Stopping for numerous photo-taking opportunities along the way, we finally arrived in the quiet town of Lauterbrunnen. We were rooming in a 400-year old Chateau situated in a valley of the Swiss Alps with 200m cliffs either side, waterfalls, glacier mountains and water rapids. It really was all it had been hyped up to be; it was beautiful, pictures could not do any justice for t...

Florence was only a short mornings drive to visit the final Italian city of our itinerary and it was only a 1 night stay so no time to waste. Probably my favourite of the cities, Florence was a smaller, very relaxed and well structured city compared to the other 2 and very beautiful, being known as the city of art (could also very easily be known as the city of heat, reaching 38 degrees). We started the day watching a leather making workshop before Doug & I d...

An 8 hour coach journey and we had arrived in Rome for the evening. A free roam around the town for the first night saw a visit to the Trevi fountain to unload our loose coins and through them into the fountain (we committed to visit Rome another 10 times with the combined amount of coins we threw into the water fountain). A very picturesque place before heading onto Piazza Navona Square for our dinner. Again fooled by the tourist factor, we were suckered into a ...

A big day of driving from Austria before finally arriving in the drowning city of Venice in the late afternoon. This was to be the first of our 3 camping ground cabin accommodations in Italy as opposed to large hostels. A provided local dinner and at last a quiet night and free time to recharge our batteries, both health wise & electronic devices to catch up on current affairs back in Australia. An early bed time by most ahead of a long day of exploring the c...

What a surprise package this place was. Didn't expect much from Austria, thinking it could be the perfect spot for a mid-contiki rest day to recover. It certainly wasn't. Probably the most action-packed day and craziest night of the lot. As it was only a short drive from Munich (2 hours), we arrived at the quiet town of Hopfgarten in the early morning at a small, intimate contiki-run complex rather than a large chain hostel (the food was so much better). We star...