Travel Blog...

Well it was a quick four hour flight from Athens to Berlin – dodging the ash (the volcano erupted again and ash was heading our way then changed direction closing Spanish airspace. I beats catching an overnight ferry and trains from Athens to Berlin which would take at least 24 hours in travel time.

We went on an interesting three hour walking tour that covered the main things to see in central Berlin but we won’t bore with the details…

These pictures are of Reichstag (German Parliament House). The Reichstag dome is the large glass dome at the very top of the building. The dome has a 360-degree view of the surrounding Berlin cityscape. The main hall of the parliament below can also be seen from the cupola, and natural light from above radiates down to the parliament floor. A large sun shield tracks the movement of the sun electronically and blocks direct sunlight which might bedazzle those below.

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The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe with 2711 blocks and museum underneath which had accounts and diaries of what people went through – it was awful and confronting. It is difficult to grasp that concentration camps and the Berlin wall existed such a short time ago We will visit Dachau concentration camp when we go to Munich as our Berlin walk guide suggested that one.

Finally Ampelmann– no summary of Berlin would be complete without it. There was an Ampelmann shop that sold everything Ampelmann. Stuff like bottle openers, lollies, magnets, corkscrews, key rings, thongs, stationary and T-shirts.

We were very lucky once again as we dodged the ash cloud that is still causing havoc and Athen’s airport and entire city had a 48 hour strike that finished the day before we flew in. We needed to stay one night in Athen’s before our flight to Santorini the next day – Athen’s is not a desirable place to be (probably even when there is no civil unrest) so on the way back from Santorini we changed our plans and stayed in a hotel across the road from the Athens airport.

Santorini is beautiful and the view from where we stayed is amazing. While in Santorini we walked along the cliffs, ate some good food and admired sunsets.

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This is a selection of food we ate at a restaurant that came highly recommended – thanks Julian and Leah! It was so good we never went anywhere else. The cherry tomatoes were the best I have ever tasted.

On the last day we hired at car and drove around the island – it’s only about 12km long. Craig only ended up driving on the wrong side of the road a few times…

There is black sand beaches covered in beach umbrellas you can hire, a red rock and sand beach, a great view of the whole island from a mountain and a great spot at one end of the island to view the sun set. Later in the year it sets into the ocean although for us it set on a small island.

Our next stop is Rome; we looked at all the usual things…

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After dropping in to see the Pope at the Vatican we climbed to the top of St Peters Basilica. The spiral staircase was the last part of the climb to the top of the dome – the rope went down the middle so you had something to hold onto. The picture below that is taken in the air gap between the inside and outside domes.

To give an idea of the size of the place, the black altar in the middle if the larger image above is 29 meters high, solid bronze and made in 1634. The source of the bronze to make the structure was an issue of contemporary controversy as it was believed to have been taken from the portico ceiling of the ancient Roman Pantheon. The remains of St Peter are underneath the altar – they think. It is directly underneath the large dome which is 73 meters above the floor – its internal diameter is about 41 metres.

The Vatican has its own postal service – Poste Vatica, and telephone company – Telefoni Vaticani. They need to do some maintenance on their pay phones though as none were working.

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The Colosseum complete with authentic Gladiators who (when not smoking and chatting on a mobile phone) would strike a pose with their prop holding victims for cash. This guy is wearing a crown while holding up a bunch of plastic grapes. Very Roman indeed.

I think the Colosseum we saw in Arles was more interesting to look through. The one in Rome only had less than about a third open that you could actually walk through and a lot of the walkways were blocked. It was also harder to hurt yourself in the Rome Colosseum as all the paths and stairs had been modernised (i.e. made safe) and elevators installed, where as Arles looked pretty much original and you could climb all over it. This is probably a good thing considering the number of people that visit the Colosseum in Rome.

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More Roman ruins and the place where Julius Caesar’s body was burned after he was assassinated. It wasn’t too hard to imagine Asterix and Obelix walking about saying “These Romans are crazy".

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Finally, the Roman Pantheon (complete with scaffolding) built around 126AD – yes almost 2000 years old. It was interesting that the level of the bottom of the steps was lower than the surrounding street level. 2000 years of rebuilding on top of old rubble under the surrounding streets has made it slightly higher. That hole in the dome is about 9 meters in diameter. You could fit a sphere 43 meters in diameter inside.

When we arrived in Florence it was lightly raining and as soon as we left the station we were bombarded by umbrella salesmen. This continued while walking to the hotel every 100m or so until we succumbed and got out our own umbrellas at which point the umbrella salesmen left us alone and the poncho salesmen appeared..

When we checked in the hotel guy told us everything was closed the next day because of some holiday, so we went off to see David at the Accademia Gallery.

After waiting a huge 10mins in the line (in the street outside some bland non-descript building – we initially weren’t sure we were at the right place) we made it inside. It’s really quite an impressive sculpture and very lifelike; there’s even veins in the back of the hands and feet.

We also went to the attached Department of Musical Instruments which had a collection of instruments including a number of Stradivarius violins, cellos and a 5 stringed viola made in the late 1600’s. They also had a collection of pianos which showed the evolution of the inner workings from the first ‘models’ to current day.

The next day we climbed to the top of Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore or Duomo’s Dome. The Duomo is Florence’s gothic cathedral that was built with a hole awaiting a dome in its roof. This was before the technology to span it was available.

The climb to the top was on a stairway in the airgap between the inner ceiling dome and the outer roof dome. It was like going through secret passage ways (that I’m sure exist in all these massive churches) and allowed you to see the support structures holding it all up. There was also a collection of tools that were used to build the dome which looked fairly primitive -  the most complicated was a winch pulley system.

Venice is a huge maze of canals and alleys. It was fun walking through and sometimes getting lost in the streets and over the many little bridges that connect the islands. After three days of pizza and pasta in The Cinque Terre we went in search of different food. We found a nice restaurant away from the main tourist area (filled with more locals than tourists, usually a good sign) and went back the next night as well.

On our last afternoon in Venice we went on a Gondola through the small and main canals. It was great seeing Venice from this perspective.

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