We flew into Berlin and immediately noticed how green Germany is. Such a difference from the last time I was here! When it appeared to be grey - it was winter. Our apartment was in the old Rixdorf area right near to the edge of the former American sector. Having last been in Berlin when the old Germany was divided I was very keen to see the parts if Berlin that had been behind the wall and the road that runs through the Brandenburg gate. We headed to the Brand...

This week has been lovely. We flew to Dubrovnik from Rome and had a great 2 days there. We explored the old city ( so clean), swam in the sea( so beautiful) A little rocky but lovely blue clear water, probably because there isn't any sand. We went to the top of the cable car to look out over the sea and city. The border of Bosnia is right behind at the rugged mountain range. We went on a 3 island day trip which was interesting as we got to travel up the coast ...

Rome is big, big buildings, big history, big statues, big lots of people!! We have had a great 5 days here. We were joined by our English friends Shirley John and Abi and we had great fun and learnt heaps thanks to our tour guide, history guide and information reader -John. We managed to arrive just in time for republic day when everything is closed and there are heaps of people in the city, but that didn't stop us walking all over Rome. We have seen way too m...

Lucca is a beautiful walled ( yes another walled) city. We took the train, and as we had to change trains in Pisa, decided to do a quick walk down to the leaning tower. It was still leaning, in fact it has recently been cleaned so it looked pretty good for a leaning tower. Back to Lucca. The wall around Lucca is really wide and there is a bike track and park all around the old city. The old city has very little traffic so it is quiet and great for bike riding...

After spending time walking in the mountains by the sea, Florence seems like a big noisy city. It isn't really too big and it has many redeeming features. It has many wonderful galleries but the ones I enjoyed the most were the Uffizi and the Accademia There I was able to see paintings I have used in my teaching and get ideas for new lessons. Paintings are almost always better in real life. We have also done some exploring of the city both on foot and bus. Looki...