Can you work this out ?

Hamilton's creative photo in Rome - love it !

San Gimignano is stunning !

We arrived this morning after a short drive from Florence. Photos don't really do it justice, because this place is absolutely magnificent. We are just out of town in a beautiful house and we look across the valley to the old town which sits high on the hill. The house is part of a farm that produces wine, olive oil and honey. Can it get any better ??

This is a great change of pace from city life.  I cooked a great pasta tonight ... perfecto rating from the boys and the owners gave us some wine to welcome us - we feel at home !

Check it out ...

cheers
Phil
View from the house to town

On the farm

Caz amongst the olives on the farm 

Our house for the next week.  

Hamilton's 10th Birthday !!

Thanks guys, I  had a great time, hope to see you all soon. I woke up in Barcelona and ran into Mum and Dad's bedroom and woke them so I can open my presents. The first present was a Lamborghini car from Alex.  Second was a card shuffler and the third one was an ipod touch!

I have been using the ipod touch every car ride, train ride and so on....

We drove to South of France and had birthday dinner (pizza) at Jake, Kath and Lily-Mei's.  I went to sleep in France.

See some photos of my great birthday.

Hamilton

Slightly pleased with new ipod touch !

Birthday lunch in park on way to France

The master shuffler ! 

My what big ... hands you have David (Statue of) !!

We had a 6 am wake up this morning (guess that's pretty much like the real world - sorry folks), and on our first train journey from Rome to Florence. We have a 10 day Eurail pass which we can use over 60 days. Very smooth train and very fast (only 1.5 hours). Much faster and less stress than driving thats for sure. We were in Florence for Breakfast !!  Hope they are all this good.

Enjoyed the day strolling around and of course a visit to see Michelangelo's Statue of David. The boys very impressed with the size of his hands !

I reckon you can smell the leather as you drive into Florence. As a result, new leather jackets for Caz and Phil (oh dear, big problem with luggage now but how could we resist ??).

Boys have now discovered gelato.... perfecto for when we want a quiet coffee stop !

We pick up a car tomorrow and head to a house in San Gimignano, Tuscany, for a week. Looking forward to the change of pace in the country. Weather looks like its turning cold on Sunday... 1 degree forecast - OMG !

Cheers
Phil  

Rome - wow !!!

Sorry for the blog silence whilst in Rome. Whilst the Romans were pretty advanced in their day, these days they are not up to speed with their internet access. No access in the apartment and no wireless internet in cafes, etc.. Anyway, back online now from Florence.

We had no idea what to expect in Rome ... and we were all really taken with it. Blake's favourite so far (but I seem to have heard that a few times already). It goes something like: "Dad, I really like [insert City we are in]".  I guess so many famous things to visit plus huge statues, fountains and piazza's everywhere - made a big impression.

4 nights allowed us to explore the major sites and also chill a bit. Once again some great food. Why does a simple pasta or pizza taste so good here ? I feel inspired to build a pizza oven when we get home ! The kids seem really comfortable trying all of the food here as they recognise it all.

Our apartment was in Via Del Corso which we discovered runs right through the centre of the old town. This was fantastic as we walked everywhere. Alex loved throwing money into the Trevi Fountain (great game he thought). We walked down the Spanish steps with Alex in the pusher (good workout). Ferrari shop was really cool. We just missed the Pope, so will have to catch him next time he is in Blackburn.

Blake turned 12 in Rome and we celebrated in style with a great lunch and dinner. Not sure we walked it all off in Rome. Plan on doing plenty of walking in Tuscany....

cheers
Phil

Enjoying the Trevi Fountain

Great day at the Colloseum

Blake's Birthday

Demolishing another pizza 

 Visiting the Pope 

View from our apartment

Bonjour from Nice

Have just spent a few days with our friends Jake, Cath and Lily Mei in South West France. They live in a beautiful little village tiny called Usclas L'Herault near larger towns such as Montpelier, Pezenas, Narbonne, Nimes, etc.. This is wine and olive country on the Mediterranean. There is loads of history as the Romans made their first trip here a couple of thousand years ago.

We visited the winery that Jake works for (Gerard Bertrand's Chateau L'Hospitalet). It is right on the coast in a stunning setting. We had a fantastic tour and wine tasting which we continued back at the house. Some really great wines and its a shame we could not take too much with us and that it can't be purchased in Australia yet. Jake, you have some more work to do on those exports ...

Another highlight was the visit to the Arena in Nimes with Alex and Hamilton (Blake still sick). This was built by the Romans in the 1st century AD and is the best preserved amphitheatre of the Roman era. Clearly pretty well built as it's still standing strong. The boys loved the stories of the Gladiators.  I can see where the MCG got its inspiration !

Loved Narbonne. We sat in the square for a couple hours drinking coffee and hanging out. Everywhere you look is photo material. Have taken >1,000 photos already and we are only 1/3 of the way through our adventure.

Blake has had a Spanish gastro for 4 days and is now on medication and improving. Not great.

 We drove down to Nice this afternoon and back online ! We say goodbye to France tomorrow and drive into Italy to Rome (around 700 km's).  Looking forward to some Italian food and wine next (oh yeah and some other sites) !

cheers

Arena in Nimes

Narbonne

Narbonne

Jake's tour 

 In the cellar 

Pezenas market -  yum !!

Warming up in Barcelona

Having our best weather here in Barcelona - managed to get a t-shirt on for half an hour yesterday !!  The city is very well presented, certainly not as raw or grungy as parts of Madrid. The architecture is amazing, with many different styles.  We did the open top bus tour yesterday which gave us a great feel for the city including magnificent views of the city and the Mediterranean from high above Barcelona.

Blake was not at all well last night (Stomach cramps, etc..) so have slowed down a bit today.

It's Hamilton's birthday tomorrow and we are heading off to Montpellier in Southern France to stay with Jake,  Cath and Lily-Mei.

Have loved Spain and will have to come back as 1 week is certainly not enough. We have found the cities much better value than Paris. One thing with kids is that many of the restaurants don't open for dinner until 8.30 p.m. so you have to look around for those that do. The people speak a reasonable amount of English and are very friendly and helpful.

Adios.

My thoughts - Madrid

I think this was a husband and wife

Madrid, fabulous food, friendly people, fantastic shopping.... I had no idea what to expect and from our first walk in Vitoria, where we stopped overnight, I have loved it. Not without its hiccups however, had a frightful parenting moment on way to Madrid where I fed the boys maxibon ice-creams for breakfast, all good until the vomit that afternoon, poor Alex and oh the guilt. Why the ice cream I hear you ask, no answer, just gave in.  

Hamilton has been fascinated here with all the buskers, they are bizarre I must say. Every few paces there is another person pretending to have no head or playing music with glasses half filled with water, or pretending to be a statue, or there was also mime who was sitting on a chair with his face all white not blinking and poised to eat a shoelace wrapped around a fork. He was there when we went out and still there when we came home hours later. A few beggars but nothing like Paris. Not really my thing but I guess adds another dimension to the city. I have, however, liked the true musicians playing as you walk along.

Parks beautiful, didn't visit any museums or castles or churches here.

Love Carolyn xx

Walking and Eating (again)

Spent the day soaking up the atmosphere in Madrid. This city is so vibrant and has fantastic shopping. There seems to be people down every lane way making the city feel totally alive. We keep buying warm clothes as we go so hope it all fits in the bags ! I am getting shocking images of what we'll be lugging around after 9 weeks.

The market places are full of the most amazing foods and they double as bars/cafes as well where people buy, eat, walk and drink all at once. The atmosphere is just fantastic. We bought some yummy foods (Sausage, Hams, Olives, Pasta, Chorizo, etc...) at the Mercado del San Miguel market and had a feast at home...check out the sausage !

Cheers
Phil

We love Madrid - it's official !!

A cloudless day in Madrid - sensational ! 

Madrid is full of huge parks, plazas (squares), markets, cafes, little lane ways full of interesting stuff and friendly people. We spent hours wandering around and stopping in the parks. We finished the day at Santa Ana Plaza for Tapas. Check it out ... 

Retiro Park 

Mercado de San Miguel (Market) 

Driving into Madrid was a nightmare !!!

Oh my god !! I thought driving in Paris was tough.  This place has tunnels everywhere. We got sucked into one tunnel and ended up 10 km's across town. It then took an hour to get back across town. There are also one way streets everywhere so even when you work out where you are, you can't get where you need to get. In the end Carolyn jumped in a taxi and gave the driver the apartment address and I tailed him in the van not letting him out of my sight. It then only took us 5 mins - great strategy if you get lost in a foreign city. Hamilton liked saying "follow that taxi !!"

Have locked up the car for the next 4 days whilst we explore Madrid on foot !!

First walk around Madrid last night was great. Our apartment is only a 10 min walk to the old town which looks fantastic. Dinner was a plate of grilled meats and some Spanish wine - all good.

Adios.

In Spain!!!

We are now done in the Loire Vally! We drove for about seven or eight hours where we ended up in a city just over the boarder of France and in Spain! The town that we stopped in is called Vitoria. We just did an over nighter here than got up and drove for another six hours the next day to Madrid! Its very different to France, but it's still really cool!

Blake

Wine School & Tour - Loire Valley

November 9th 

  

Today we had an amazing tour of the 'Langlois Chateau' which is owned by Bollinger (Champagne). The winery was not really open but the Director took us on a personal tour. It started with a classroom session on the basics of winemaking which was great and the kids thought it was better than normal school !! We saw the whole wine making process and explored some of the tunnels/caves underneath the winery - it has around 4km of tunnels which are used to store the wine. We tasted some nice White and Sparkling wines and picked up some 2006 sparkling Cremont de Loire which we rated very high (and only 11 Euro per bottle). 

Another fire tonight - pretty cold. 

Will have to come back to this region.... 

Off to Spain tomorrow !

cheers

Phil 

Exploring the Loire Valley

8 November

Spent the day checking out local towns (Saumur, Montreuil-Bellay, Doue-la-Fontaine) and some of the recommended Chateaux in the area:

Fontevraud Abbey

Breze (deepest moat in Europe - 20m)

Saumur Chateau


All very impressive in stunning scenery of the Loire river and endless vineyards.  Mixture of rain and brilliant blue skies !

Cheers
Phil

Farewell Paris - off to the Loire Valley

7 November

Picked up the car is Paris this morning which we'll have for the next 16 days of the journey. We got upgraded to a large 9 seat diesel Renault van as it needs to be dropped back in Rome which is our drop off point. Its huge !!  Its got 3 seats across the front so the kids take turns sitting upfront - they love it.

 

Blake and I picked it up and drove out of the car hire place and straight into the round-a-bout around the Arc de Triomphe - wow - 5 lanes but no lines on the road !! We cruised through in the van and headed back to the apartment to pick up the gang - a baptism of fire. I think the time in HCMC helped though and whilst getting out of Paris was a bit rough we made it unscathed. We drove through Chateaux and wine country and arrived in a tiny town in the Loire Valley called Sanziers (near Le Puy Notre Dame) to find our house for the next few days. 

Our house in Loire Valley

It was only 7 degrees when we arrived so we lit the open fire and enjoyed a welcome bottle of wine from our hosts.