Pompeii Enroute to the ferry to take us to Greece, we stopped off at Pompeii, a city famous for being buried by Mount Vesuvias eruption in 79AD. Standing on the ground that was once buried by volcanic ash was a pretty amazing feeling. The fact that this entire city was preserved so well under all the rock and has been excavated, and is still being excavated, is a testimony to the way that buildings were built to last in those times. I was familiar with th...

Discovering Ancient and Modern Rome Ever since I studied Ancient History and art in high school, it has been my dream to go to Rome and see both the ancient buildings and famous artworks. For this reason, I think that actually being in Rome was one of the highlights of the whole entire trip. We left Florence very early on Saturday 20 September as we needed to arrive in Rome before 12 noon to enter the Vatican. Luckily, we made good time and were enterin...

Pisa and it's leaning tower After leaving the French Riviera, we spent the day travelling with gorgeous views of the water out the bus windows before entering into Italy. We passed through the small town on Pisa to enable us to see the world famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. Truthfully, this is the only thing worthwhile seeing in the town as it is filled with tacky tourist shops and men trying to sell fake designer bags, sunglasses, Rolexes and anything else t...

Oh the culture and shopping in Florence Arrived in Florence in time for dinner after our stop at Pisa. After dinner some of the group headed into a bar in Florence called "The Red Garter", no, not a strip club, it was a pub. And this pub sold cheap cocktails so of course we had to have some. A few "fruit tingles" and "sex on the beaches" later, we were up dancing when the attack of the Italian men started. Now, I've heard stories about Italian men but re...

Living it up in the French Riviera - Nice To say that Nice was nice would be a complete understatement. Nice was just gorgeous. Our accommodation was in the little town of Antibes, halfway between Cannes and Nice and we were given a day to explore the area. My origional thought was to go to Cannes for a few hours and then head up to Nice for the afternoon. I'm very glad now that I decided to spend all day in Nice as it really was one of the highlights of the...