The night before we leave - I'm learning how to do this. The kids are helping me - they will probably do most of this, at my direction (I knew we brought them for a reason). That's all I have to report now.
OK, we're still alive and doing well. First time we've blogged since we left, sorry! Big days full of sights, sounds, maps and tourists. In Singapore we stay at Little India, not the main tourist area, but bustling with mainly Indians and Singaporeans. Day after we arrived we took 3 trains, a bus and a bumboat to Pulau Ubin, an island still with rain forest and Malay villages. We hired bikes and rode around the island, and saw little monkeys, wild pigs, butterflies and little rainforest birds. Very hot and steamy. Back to hotel for a swim in the pool. Up early next morning to Sentosa island and Universal studios, we' re all kids again! Best ride there is 3D Transformers, 2 hour queue but fantastic ride! Other rides much shorter queues and still great rides - revenge of the mummy in Ancient Egypt, canopy flyer and Cylon roller coaster in sci-fi world, and boat ride in Jurassic Park where can get a little wet or soaked - we got soaked! 4D Shrek show where chairs tip, wind blows in your face and down your neck, spiders crawl on your legs and when Donkey sneezes you get sprayed in the face! Had my photo taken with Charlie Chaplin. Hopefully I can put some photos on this. Monday 12 Sept: we went to Singapore Gardens by the Bay and did an air walk among the super trees. A lovely part of Singapore just near a huge posh hotel with a huge swimming pool on the roof. Then Emirates contacted us to say our flight to Rome via Dubai was delayed by 6 hours, so we needed another night in Singapore. Had to move hotels to Crowne Plaza Changi airport after much reorganising and swearing. Lovely hotel with a very cool pool. Tues 13 Sept brought 24 hours of no fresh air spent in 2 planes and 3 airport terminals, capped off by queuing for 2 hours to get through immigration in Rome airport (bloody Italians). No 3D ride at the end of that queue. Taxi to central Rome and our apartment which is spacious and intriguingly decorated. We are exhausted but glad to be on the ground and in real air. Up early next morning to find the Colosseum and our guided tour. Precious little rest for intrepid tourists. Rome is everything people say and so much more. We have seen all the main sights - Colosseum, Forum, Palatine hill, innumerable piazzas, statues, fountains and ruins, friars' crypts, catacombs, the Vatican, Sistine chapel and all the awesome art on display at the Vatican, plus St Peters Basilica. But it was the Pantheon that stays in my mind and quite literally brought me to tears. The combination of beautiful art, the encompassing shape, the architectural engineering feat that has never been repeated, it's majesty and sheer size were humbling and left me awestruck. Rome has so much, too much - sights at every turn, history beyond recollection, art and architecture that highlight the pinnacle of human endeavour and culture beyond comprehension. I have immersed myself in Rome but feel I have only scratched the surface. We have now spent a wonderful week in Tuscany with friends and others from Ocean Grove and Barwon Heads. Our villa took a bit to find but is so picturesque. We are perched on a hill with 360 degree views of surrounding areas including other villas, villages, grapevines and olive groves. Siena is on the north eastern horizon. The sunsets are magical, pinks and mauves, with village lights dotted around. We have explored Siena, Pisa, San Gimignano, Florence and other Tuscan towns. In the evenings we return to the villa and the 30 of us exchange stories of where we have been over a 3 or 4 course dinner that we take turns in cooking in groups. The week has gone so fast and we have enjoyed it immensely. Our markets and cooking class in Florence was fun. Lots of tastings at the market - all things truffles, balsamic vinegar aged from 2 years to 15, biscotti with sweet dessert wine and limoncello (at 10 in the morning and I got to enjoy Miranda's too). We then cooked bruscetta, fettuccine from scratch with tomato sauce, meatloaf and wanna cotta. What a meal! We said goodbye to our friends on Friday and drove to Chamonix in France. Stayed at a fabulous hotel with pool, spa, sauna, steam room with relaxing area with tea and lemon water. The next day we ventured up the gondolas to see Mont Blanc up close, 3810 metres up! Beautiful clear and sunny day. Then we made a quick overnight trip into Switzerland because we could. We are now at Troyes about 2 hours from Paris. We return our car tomorrow before heading into central Paris to stay a week. Driving on the wrong side of the road has had its challenges - only driven down one street the wrong way, but managed to drive down a narrow cobbled lane where tour groups were walking, and then found ourselves in the middle of a piazza! We are hoping not too many fines find us. We are all well and enjoying our days, filling them with lots of incredible memories. Bonjour from gay Paris! We dropped the car off at Orly airport and got an Uber taxi (first time ever) to central Paris and found our apartment. We are in Bastille and from the living room window we can see the Seine, lots of boats on a canal, traffic and trains, and of course the Eiffel tower. The light show at night is quite a spectacle! Tuesday off to Disneyland, from opening time to closing (11 hours) - kids loved it, all 4 of us! We did lots of rides from brain-jolting roller coasters to special effects and movie stunt shows, meeting Mickey (1 of several I suspect) to the tea cups. But the highlights were definitely the wonderful grand parade and closing light show and fireworks. The spectacle just walking around the park was a delight. Disney does this stuff so well. By the time we made it back on the train and to our apartment we were exhausted, but filled with Disney dreams. We have spent the last 3-4 days exploring Paris, the tourist sites, the bustle, and getting mainly on foot and by Metro. The train system is extensive, complex and usually crowded. Being mostly underground we don't get to see much of the city, and you emerge from a 'sortie' and it can take some time before we can get our bearings and decide which way is the right way. We have seen Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, and one or two other Basilicas, as well as Concorde, the arch de Triompe and the Champs Des Elysees in between. After the majesty of Rome's Pantheon, we had to see Paris's namesake and found a beautiful and very large edifice with an intriguing pendulum to remind us of earth's place in the universe, and various crypts of well known French including Voltaire and Marie Curie, but was not in the same league as Rome's Pantheon for me. We have walked the high-end shops while looking for Laduree, a very exclusive chocolate and macaroon shop, for Miranda. We passed Maxim's, took a photo and decided to dine a little closer to our price bracket. We shopped at more more sustainably priced stores and found some bargains at a well known Paris flea market which was fun. We have visited a few art galleries including Dali and of course the Louvre. Our main aims in this immense gallery were to find the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, which we succeeded in doing. On the way we passed and bypassed several civilisations of culture and pinnacles of human endeavour. We could have spent a week at the Louvre alone and not seen it all, let alone appreciate all its worth - it is utterly awesome! At another dimension of the arts, we saw the show at the Moulin Rouge which was everything I expected - the colour, the costumes and the glamour were all there plus some fantastic acrobatics, acts of strength, some small ponies and a weird act involving a girl swimming with live boa constrictors. The kids were all a bit shocked by all that they saw, not expecting the extent of flesh, but we're mesmerized. We took a taxi home afterwards by a driver who knew Paris and its roads well and liked to get to his destination in a hurry - stop, start, squeeze through tight lanes and even tighter between other cars, it was as thrilling as some of the rides at theme parks! No trip to Paris is complete without visiting its most famous landmark, the Eiffel tower. We climbed to the top, walked all around it and under it and photographed it from every angle. It is a significant structure of which the French are so rightly proud and I'm do pleased to have seen it. We leave Paris tomorrow, but I take with me memories of a busy and noisy city, its apartments with small windows decorated with iron and often plants and flower boxes, narrow streets and numerous road junctions in large central round abouts, motor bikes, scooters and bicycles, and much hustle and bustle. The Eurostar train from Paris to London is fast and smooth and train travel is comparatively relaxing. We then caught a second train to Salisbury for another 90 minutes or so. Salisbury is a lovely largish town with interesting shops, old buildings, an old town wall and gates and nice people. After we found our accommodation for the night at a gorgeous English pub, we went for a walk through town to the cathedral where a service was ending and the organ in full volume - reminding me instantly of my father. The cathedral includes a very old set of battalion flags, the oldest working clock and a beautiful font much more recently added but provides a lovely splash of colour and blends old and new so perfectly. We capped off the evening well chatting with the publican where we stayed. We visited Stonehenge and took the walking to a vantage point option rather than the shuttle bus. Salisbury plains are green and lush and the cows left us alone but Errol managed to find a fresh cowpat! We then drove to Tintagel on the Cornwall coast, a gorgeous little seaside village. Before dark we rambled over green fields and over stiles, past a couple of donkeys, the coast and a slightly creepy coastal church, complete with graveyard - door open, candles lit, on dusk, but no one around ... We quickly completed our loop walk back to the village before it got too dark. The next morning we explored the ruins of Tintagel castle, the reputed birthplace of King Arthur. Set on an exposed peninsula, almost an island, accessible only by a bridge, it was used for centuries and some walls, holes, canals and other signs provide evidence of previous life and English history. On the beach below at low tide we entered Merlin's cave. We all enjoyed this area so much. We ventured just further down the coast to Port Isaac, or Port Wenn for those who know the TV show Doc Martin. This was a surprise for the kids, although Errol recognised the area when we got to Tintagel. A lot of tourists there because of a TV show, but it's a lovely little fishing village, with little narrow streets and very hilly. Fish and chips or Cornish pasties for lunch, and we found all the main buildings from the show. Then a drive to Bath for the first of two nights. Bath is a beautiful old city that's been used in countless movies and TV shows, hosts at least two universities, and Jane Austen lived there for some time. We visited the Roman baths, still bubbling thermals after centuries, but you cannot swim there. There is a spa and swim place, but children are really discouraged which was disappointing. A bus trip around the city and outside it showed it off very well and Bath has some great shops. We did an evening walk called Bizarre Bath which was very funny, a bit of weird magic and very entertaining. The comedy was appropriate for all ages, the kids laughed a lot and so did we. We left Bath this morning and made our way not that far too Ascot, not far from Heathrow airport - we need to be there in good time tomorrow to return our hire car. Today's entertainment was from the sublime to the ridiculous - from Windsor castle to Legoland. We looked around the stateliness and opulence of the huge castle which is the Queen's weekender, I gather. We were told she would be there probably Friday, and we would have loved to stay around and have a chat, but can't wait that long, we got things to do and places to be. Interesting that Heathrow's flight path is right over head. I know which was there first and it wasn't the airport. We found Legoland after following signs (we didn't know it was there). The kids had only an hour before closing time to run around and do as many rides as possible. Ninety minutes later they emerged red faced, puffed and a bit wet from about 6 rides, climbing on a few playground structures and running a lot. We have only seen parts of the very South of England, not much at all. We need so much more time to explore these parts and other parts of the UK. London calling! Spent the last few days in London having a great time. Our apartment is a whole townhouse in the heart of Soho and the West end. We saw a comedy last night that we giggled our way through and tomorrow night we're off to the Lion King. We've seen Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Houses of parliament, Big Ben, the eye, and Westminster Abbey. We delighted in the squirrels in St James's gardens on the way to the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham palace - so many people watching this anachronism of English pomp and ceremony, so over the top. We've checked out a number of the free museums, loved the Tower of London, did a Themes river cruise, and did a couple of walking tours. Learned all about Jack the ripper, his victims, the parts of London he operated in, and likely suspects. We all loved the rock and roll tour and saw early performance places (pubs) of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, the Who, Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Cream. We saw the location of the last Beatles live concert in Saville Row, and found that out we are staying in London in the same short walkway in Soho, several doors up from the recording studio where the Beatles recorded Hey Jude, and other bands recorded there including Rolling Stones, Cream, Hendrix, Dusty Springfield, Genesis, and where Queen recorded Bohemian Rhapsody - we had no idea. We had a go at platform 9 3/4 and tomorrow we hope to see Harry Potter studios. London had so much, and again we have so little time. The language is easier, the underground is good and our location is certainly right in amongst it all. We leave London today (Wednesday) after a fabulous day yesterday We looked around Covent Garden markets and picked up a couple of treasures and listened to some great live music. Then off to Harry Potter world where all the movies were filmed. We saw all the main sets, costumes, animals and animatronics. We went in Hogwarts Express, sat on Hagrid's motor bike, and walked down Privet Lane. The kids got to green screen on a broom stick and fly around Hogwarts, play quidditch, and be thorough wizards. It was a lot of fun! We had to return quickly to central London and the West end to see the Lion King which was awesome. Fabulous singing, spectacular costumes and dancing, and fantastic effects to tell the story. We all loved it. We leave London now knowing that our holiday is soon to end, but not before a brief stop in Dubai. Our final destination, Dubai. Days are hot in the mid 30s, night minimum mid 20s. We looked at a shopping centre today, complete with aquarium, waterfall, dinosaur skeleton and ice rink. The kids tried ice skating on good clean ice. It was hard to grasp the concept of ice skating - in a shopping centre - in a desert. Then we did a sand dune dinner safari, including crazy 4 wheel driving over sand dunes to nearly rolling, camel riding, quad biking, henna tattoos, sand sliding, barbecue dinner and belly dancing floor show. We watched a big yellow sun turn to gold, pink and red before setting behind the dunes. An entertaining evening. We spent our last day in Dubai at Acquaventure, the water park at Atlantis resort at the end of the palm in the sea. It was an action packed day of water roller coasters, water slides, really scary vertical water slides and drop slides, and an extensive canal system of rapids and floating (more my pace). Lots of fun but still very hot. We leave for home on Saturday and return early Sunday morning in Melbourne. We have all enjoyed our trip so much and are looking forward to getting home. |