We’ve reached the ‘A’, Amsterdam. Our train stopped for an hour on the way here, which we assumed was all of Europe trying to stop us from leaving…especially seeing as they chose not to stop the bar, but alas we made it. Dam it. Our final destination is the land of tulips, clogs, dykes, windmills, red lights, a tasty breakfast sauce and Dutch ovens. There are also a plethora of coffee houses, but when you go in and try to order a flat white or a long black they send you to a different part of town???

We didn’t have much time here, but still managed the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the Heineken Experience. Which is not a brewery tour, but an Experience! Willy Wonka of beers, if Willy Wonka only made one product. The Dutch are amazing how they can preach responsible use of their product, just before telling you to skull and get out before the next group.

We managed a few laps of the oldest red light district (a few more than Lea would have liked, a few less than James would have liked), but spent more of our time in the beautiful suburbs. A lovely city, but we’re glad we started in Croatia and did Z to A rather than A to Z. We’ll never forget walking through the gates in Dubrovnik to start this incredible time of our lives,

That’s it, the honeymoon is over.  Goodbye Europe.

Thanks for watching.

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And most importantly, thank you to my beautiful wife for this life changing adventure. Eight weeks together and I’m more in love than ever. I can’t wait to be back in our home…when’s our next holiday?

The pesky wasps have now been replaced with B’s, a sure sign we’re getting closer to that once so distant ‘A’, which will signal the end of this incredible journey across Europe from Z to A.

We caught the train from Paris to Brussels, because we’re certainly not willing to ever drive in Paris again. If you’ve ever been to both these cities then you’ll know this probably wasn’t the right order in which to visit them. Paris is a dream, like being serenaded by Edith Piaf while swimming in a pool of wine, butter and cheese, whereas Brussels is more like being punched in the face by Jean-Claude van Damme.

After a week in Paris, we were finally able to get some real culture in Belgium, achieved through drinking as many different local beers as possible and thus many different cultures…Al and Tones came over from The Hague to stay with us, which meant more time was spent on our rooftop garden drinking and looking over the construction site next to us, towards the lovely Turkish quarter, than was spent wandering the filthy streets. We did at least manage one breakfast with (deconstructed) mimosas on a balcony (we miss Paris), had a Flemish stew at a tourist trap (which sounds even worst than Dalmatian stew and…was), saw a little boy and girl peeing, passed by a bar that was a haunt of Karl Marx that is now the most expensive restaurant in town (hilarious), worked up the energy to go on a walking tour of all the good bits, which only covered about 500m, but took 2 hours (I guess because the guide waffled on a bit…), Lea had mussels in Brussels, we all had amazing frites, Tones and I did a beer tasting for science (because scientists look out for each other) and woke up after a bender with what felt sledgehammers ringing in our ears…which turned out to be from the sledgehammers next door, so at least our hearing is still ok.

Although Brussels wasn’t all that bad, it did have us both a little worried about moving on to Bruges. We needn’t have worried. So perfect to be in another fairytale town at the back end of our trip. All you can do there is drink beer, eat waffles, decorate stuff with lace and wander around the canals through the amazingly preserved medieval streets. And that we did…apart from the decorating. We had our first brewery tour of the trip (I’m sure you’re supposed to do more beer tours on honeymoon) complete with unfiltered, unpasteurised beers for breakfast (to sit on top of the previous two-steak-day), we saw a young man suffer morning sickness outside the beer museum, which we took as a sign and promptly entered to see if we could learn about the cause of his illness…James did, as they “shared” all six “tastings”.

Apart from waffles, we also ate a quiche, sitting on the footpath, in the rain while locals and tourists alike crossed the street to avoid being asked for a coin, to help with our next meal. Although, we would have had to sit there for quite some time to cover the next meal, as it was at our only Michelin starred restaurant of the trip. I don’t think climbing the 366 stairs of the Belfry or our walking tour quite covered that meal, as you soon realise why they call them Michelin stars, leaving with your head seeing stars and a few extra tyres around the middle.

After two lovely days in Bruges we had a night in Ghent.  Probably what Bruges would be like if it were still a real town.  Nice, but not Bruges.  We did manage to have one of the most fun and tasty dinners of the trip before hitting up the Pink Flamingo (which I also don’t think is a euphemism, but might be / should be) to help get through a respectable number of the literally* millions of beers they have in this country.

*Totally not literal.  But I think there are over 1000 and “we” probably only tried ~30.

However, the relationship did get off to a rocky start. The first Parisian site to be seen by the now well travelled “newlyweds” was the Bastille monument.   Unfortunately this view came as they were entering the lovely round-about surrounding said monument and as they say: “if you’re driving in Paris, stop it”. To quote James, 2015.

Seemingly oblivious to the near death experiences and effects on relationships (between all three parties, including Paris), Lea and James hit the road again…on bikes.  Misinterpreting the “Fat Tire Bike Tours” name, they provide wide tyre bikes, rather than cater for those who are exhausted and have overindulged for six weeks, we found ourselves riding through Paris on a perfect Friday night.  Lea describes herself as a “Rotto rider” (where your only obstacles are quokkas, not crazy, driving, riding and walking Frenchmen) and strongly identifies with the balance issues of newborn babies, but despite this, Lea, James and Paris all fell in love…and almost off the bikes, after getting drunk on a boat cruise (part of the “ride”).

With so many grand plans for day trips to: Versailles, Giverny, Rouen, Fontainebleu…Paris turned on its charm and a remarkable run of weather that saw our balcony and the copious amount of public parks become overwhelmingly attractive.

We knocked off some of the biggies though. La Louvre: saw Mona Lisa, who could barely rustle up a smile for us, and Venus de Milo whose attraction has always been lost on us so we were a bit nervous, but she turned out to be pretty armless. We also went to L’Orangerie for a Monet fix and drank wine from coffee cups on the lawn in the Tuilleries.  La Musée d’Orsay: worth going for the building itself, a van Gogh collection that houses every VG painting an art ignoramus (James) would have ever seen in a book, so many Degas’ that would have come in handy in Champagne….pop…and an interesting temporary exhibit on prostitution, which, surprisingly, was free to get in to… Le Tour Eiffel: the oldest, temporary structure we’ve ever seen and we were surprised by how blown away we were at the top, and not just because of the wind…it gives a breathtaking view of this beautifully, perfect city.  Arc de Triumph: another surprisingly impressive monument that soars above the flat surrounds, and with the city mostly closed to traffic, in a cute attempt at being green, we were able to dodge the traffic on the round-about then walk along the length of Les Champs Élysées, sans voitures. A once in a lifetime chance.

We also visited the Rodin museum (really makes you think), Pantheon, Pompidou, Picasso Museum, passed Notre Dame a couple of times, picnicked on Île St Louis, funiculared to Sacré Coeur and Montmarte, walked past the Moulin Rouge (I’m sure the view inside is a lot better than outside), ate crepes in the Latin Quarter, drank in the Luxembourg gardens and wandered the streets at night drinking wine outside Notre Dame, on the steps of the Louvre and in the Tuileries …so we did get around a bit.

The standout of the sojourn in Paris, was a night at the opera. We booked well in advance to make sure we got in to see the building, not being fussy over what was on show. A Paris regular and regular Woodsider also managed to get cheap last minute tickets, which help to slightly offset the cost of drinks inside, but if you have to pick somewhere to drink €70 Taittinger after not being paid for five weeks, then this is it!  Just tearworthy, stunning beauty in every corner, we now know why people were bad mouthing La Scala (you know who you are). But we agree, La Scala sucks.   The opera itself, Platée, was incredibly entertaining.  Hilarious acting, amazing soprano and the best choreography we’ve ever seen in an opera.  The first opera we’ve seen for a while without regular use of a muff, although we did get close, as one of the ladies (not the fat one) was dressed in red lingerie for no apparent reason, nobody was complaining.  To be fair to all, we also saw: three entangled men in two piece lingerie, random frog people, multiple acts of domestic violence (to the laugh of the crowd), breakdancing, sadomasachism, girls with six foot long legs and a mesmerising ceiling by Chagall that seemed perfectly out of place.

However, most of our time in Paris really was spent like locals (who don’t work and can still walk away smiling after putting up with the genuine Perth prices…in Euros…of our local store) on our balcony, drinking champagne, eating cheese and breakfasts of mainly croissants with incredible heirloom tomatoes and cheeses.  We had flirted with the idea of including mushrooms…as James was desperate to call it a breakfast of champignons. Utterly indulgent, time wasting, life changing breakfasts. So ridiculous in fact that when toasting to our ménage á trois with Paris (who I’ve heard is actually gay? So bad luck Lea), a butterfly appeared from nowhere and circled our bubbles before returning to the bright blue sky.  We also got to watch a SUPER, lunar eclipse from our balcony…vraiment, Paris?

À bientôt, gay Paris. We’ll never baguette you.

After a quick stop in Troyes (which was “c’est Troyes bien”) we arrived in Épernay, staying on the Avenue de Champagne…which seemed like as good an address as any to start.

Unfortunately, somehow, the previous meals of French classics such as “dix-sept fromages avec pain” started to catch up with James (who remains vigilant at not using the same joke in sequential posts by mentioning the ‘pain’ bit must have been in English) as he swelled up to a size that would have been enough to inspire the Montgolfier brothers.

Deciding it was only fit to be full of gas in Champagne, the honeymooners hit the streets (or at least the one aforementioned avenue). They (James) burped and farted their way along the Avenue like something out of a Willy Wonka movie, without inheriting any of the amazing Châteaux, and managed to get to two cave tours and three more tastings in their short time. All the while somehow avoiding aiming at the annoying Brits asking (“so how do they get the bubbles in?”…even though they accidentally discovered it) and declaring, in my best French, “I fart in your general direction.”

A nice dinner of more meat followed (to try and unclog those bowels…where James did order a salad to start!!  Who knew that would mean a bowl of potatoes, bacon and cheese with a shaving of lettuce?), before heading to a tour of the impressive Veuve Clicquot cellars the next day in Reims (another classic honeymooners spot..veuve=widow in French).

POP!!! Pop…pop pop…

After nearly eating ourselves to death in Lyon but surviving, we decided it was near high time to try it with wine instead, as we packed up and headed to Burgundy. We had originally thought of travelling through Geneva en route to Dijon, but as we felt neutral on whether to visit Switzerland for a day, we opted for more wine in France.

Our rash decision was nearly regretted as the sight of many strange men with guns, on the side of the road, giving us the stink eye (otherwise know as French eye….or just “regarder” here), made us wonder whether it was rabbit season, or worse…tourist season. Or maybe they were just due a new revolution, and should we turn down the Les Mis blaring over the car radio!?

The first town in Burgundy to meet us was at the southern end in Mâcon…not much to tell you about Mâcon. We bought some bread, as it was Sunday we thought we’d get into the Catholic swing and should start the day with a little…“pain”.   Also, being Sunday and not knowing what we were doing we struggled to find much to drink, but the landscape and towns were beautiful. The one tasting came after we completely interrupted a family sitting down to their dejeuner and made us realise that the years of French lessons might actually come in handy…more than just memorising an impressive poem to use in bars. We did some un-wine tourism, despite mutual protests, to seem some old Abbey at Cluny and a castle or something else without wine. We also struggled to choose where to stay, but settled on the cute enough, Chalon-sur-Saône, which being France on a Sunday night was shut down. However, a milestone was achieved as we found a restaurant that had frogs legs…amazing (although does anything taste bad in garlic and butter?).  James felt disappointed for forgetting to sneak in a battery…sorry Galvin.

Our second day in Burgundy was much more successful as we had an amazing tasting, with a lady who was very lovely, particularly after Lea dropped in the “wow, these are so different from Straylian wines eh?”, which always comes with a smile. The winery was also located around the corner from the Rue Filaterie, which we took as a good sign. We picnicked in the vines, soaked up the sights, drove through to Dijon, past the Grand Cru vines, that all have cemeteries in the middle. We assume these add a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ to ‘le terroir’.

In Dijon we walked around the very pretty town, tasted some mustards and had steak and potatoes, because….it’s France and that’s what you do. James also had a “salad”, with cold meats, some sort of hot barbecue sauce and a single poached egg drowned in red wine. Which was heaps, as we all know that one egg in France is…un oeuf.

The next day we opted for an organised “wine” tour back through the vineyards of the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune. There was a lot of teaching about Burgundy’s silly systems and not as much wine as you’d think, so little that when the guide was talking about the cemeteries, James was able to refrain from the previous terroir joke. We made up for it though in our free time in Beaune. Amazing cellars where a paid tasting gets you a glass and access to free pour your own tastings of as many wines as you want in the cave…Were they lucky we only had two hours free???

Staring down the impending drive to the Champagne region, Lea had the idea to throw a chardy in the works and suggest instead we spend a night in Chablis. What an inspired move, one of the cutest towns we’ve been in, cellar doors everywhere (we only managed 6 in 4 hours), lovely people, a room with a view over the watermill stream for a picnic (terrine, cheese, bread…quelle surprise). Parfait. The only thing that could make this town better would be buying a Grand Cru then walking through the Grand Cru vineyards to drink it at sunset.

To begin our stop in the food capital of France, Europe…maybe the world, Lyon, we arrived at our hotel and entered a lift with one other gentleman, before the poor ascendeur had a fit and sounded real alarm bells…way louder than the metaphorical ones we’ve been ignoring for five weeks.  630kg limit in this lift…our bags are really getting a lot heavier than we thought.  Our hotel also had trick mirrors for some reason, which was kind of cool like Luna Park, where if you turn side on, the lower half of your abdomen appears to extrude a good foot or so more than the rest, so clever.

After this initial wake up call, we responded by going straight out to a cute little bouchon, which is unique to Lyon and can mean tiny restaurant, tourist trap, traffic jam, plug, bottle shop, cork…., we found it to be a mixture of all of the above.  After a default five courses of random foods, your intestines feel like a traffic jam, with a plug at one end and a bottle shop at the other…and that’s how you’d feel even you didn’t eat the beautifully cut radishes that became clear were meant as a table decoration….my secret shame 😦

Apart from two amazing meals in bouchons (one which brought James to tears…in food agony, it was the other one where the tears were shame at eating the floral arrangements) we also: saw the beautiful and modern basilica (owned by the people not the church, win…assume it’s available for weddings, parties…bah mitsvas), caught our first funicular since Zagreb (which thankfully, despite the crowd, didn’t sound alarms and get fingers pointing); saw the incredibly well manicured Roman ruins (again so much better than Rome); drank on our balcony; saw a girl walking through the old town carrying a mattress (not saying she was easy…but….); walked through many of the Traboules, built as hidden streets within the buildings in order to cover the shame of the over indulged as they crawl from bouchon to the nearest porcelain bus; and took a walk into the new area of town being developed – the Confluence – where they’ve built some space-like buildings to either cover up, or what seemed more likely, to funnel business to the tourist-stabby part of town.  We made it past the first “James, don’t say anything to bring attention to us being tourists” moment (jokes on Lea, I still had the town map sticking out of my pocket) before turning back to the nearest wine and cheese bar.  We also had our first escargot of the trip, which were a little slow to come out…

Lyon was a beautiful town, well worth the visit.  A more appropriate itinerary would be: one day in Lyon eating at bouchons, two days in bed sweating and crying…and repeat.

…but we totally held back.  It was mucus green and huge.  Not being in Texas (or even wearing the boots), James  quickly shifted into diplomatic mode, blubbering, “la voiture est trop grande” to the poor girl at Europcar.  In Rome they may well have brought out a Matchbox car for us and sniggered, arms all over the place, but in Nice we scored a near new Polo.  Vive la France!

But that was our second upgrade (potentially a requested downgrade, but we were happy) of the trip.  On arrival in Nice (our first stop in the Sud de France), when asked by reception if it was our first time here, we beam, “iit’s our first time in Fraaance!!!”  Instantly forgetting all the practice of “C’est mon premier fois en France”, and looking perfectly out of place with our backpack waist and chest straps still done up amongst a waterside medical conference….but nevertheless being rewarded with an upgrade to a water view room with balcony. Mon Dieu!!! We’re not in Italy anymore.

After a short time in our lovely room, with merely a hint of what to expect, by 8pm all we could see was a…sea(?) of black with illuminated white washing up on the cobbled shore.  We strolled to the old, old town to the East (which is by definition the Nice-Est part of town….) to find a late night dinner…on a Monday, so we found everything mostly shut down and were forced to opt for a traditional French, Asian restaurant (it wasn’t even Vietnamese) for…steak frites…mais oui.  Amazing.  (Top TIght Travel Tips: When you order Champagne and it’s not on the menu and the waitress has to check if they can accommodate, you might want to follow up with a “ça coute combien?” before confirming and most definitely before ordering another round.)

The following morning was spent drinking Champagne in bed, looking over the azure water lapping the long coastline, pondering where the French get their strange names like “la Côte d’Azur”???  But after an amazing swim in the Med, there was little time to discuss the subtleties of the French naming systems, it was off to Monaco…a place totally free of subtlety!!  We finally caught the bus there (after walking the streets for hours and were eventually helped by a man who when asked, “polly voo francy” replied, “no I’m very sorry sir, I only attended Oxford for three semesters and have been home for several months and hitherto am, regretfully, a trifle rusty”) and the view of the coastline was worth the extra effort, it lived up to the hype and really highlighted the unattainability of it all.

Monte Carlo is an interesting destination, if you wander for a while you can find hints of a beautiful city that within a few decades looks to have been swamped by 100.000 (100,000) apartments built by the same architects who “won” the bid for Perth’s (current) Telstra building.  WIth all the beautiful, secluded coastline we traversed in Dalmatia, people still preferred to stand on the stern of their multi million dollar “stink boats”, in their speedos, all so lonely with their supermodels barely able to fill the space, in an overcrowded harbour, surrounded by tourists in a town ripping off billions in tax from countries all over the world.  One down-to-earth yachtie even named his “Just another toy”.  Losers!! #wishitwereus…just noticed there’s more than one way to read that hashthing, you can all judge yourselves.

We forked out to enter the centre of the nation’s entire economy, the casino, and when one is solely dependent on a single source of income, one often stretches their own rules for even the plebs, as Lea’s beautiful dress and James’ dapper jacket were frowned upon by the sandal wearing and blue rinse brigades.  We could have been in any one of the many Crowns, apart from the opulence of the late 19th century artistic styling and the early 21st century flat screens showing Premier League or the…..who cares.  So we sat in the corner drinking champagne before hitting the roulette table to put €50 on red for Nan…who really bets red, Nan??  James, as always enjoying the  proximity to international gambling, sweating, smoke stained and space invading riff raff types, struggled to approach the table to change the cash and, alas, missed the first game (as one punter yelled across the room “there’s a bloody fly on 21!!” which I’m still not sure was a good or bad sign), as the ball thingy then landed surely on black!  Next game now, and we’re in….the wheel span in slow motion (although slightly off balance as nobody seemed to care about the fly, and the chips were now stacked high on 21)……..RED!!  Thanks be to Monnie and Saint Grace of Monaco.  We broke with family tradition and promptly collected our winnings and got the hell out of the casino and the “country”, with the night’s Champagne paid for, and Nan’s share still kept aside…10%. Family rates.  We feel confident that should we have lost the bet, the rest of the family would have helped cover the debt, being mostly Tasmanian the burden shouldn’t have been too great…per head.

After a balanced breakfast (we balanced the decadence of mimosas over the Med, by sharing a plastic knife to eat tubs of yoghurt we’d snuck in) we hopped in our Polo and hit the road.  No time (or driving demeanour) to stop in the Antibes, we “soon” arrived in St Tropez (after our navigation tool decided to check the boundaries of its internal maps).  Great town, tasty baguette, more stupid people on silly boast #ifonlyitwereus, before Aix-en-Provence.  A gorgeous hotel, with a claim to fame of having “not to have been blown up by the Nazis”, an honour we also share, but didn’t mention.  They at least did have a tree blown up, I assume in a vain attempt to starve the incoming Allies of oxygen.  The staff, again, were lovely, suggesting a number of restaurants to exhibit their local cuisine.  We wandered around the town past a number of the restaurants, Chez Pierre, Bistrot Francoise, la Petite Quelquechose, Frenchy McFrench’s, before landing on the quintessentially sounding…Chez Mitch.  The aussie came out in us as we initially thought they’d had the ampersand stolen in some prank (like taking the ‘S’ out of Red Rooster), as it was a Uni town, but it was not “Chez and Mitch’s”, but jut Mitch’s place.  We know because we nervously made a reservation en français, earlier, with who turned out to be none other than Mitch…the guy from the sign: MITCH.  One of the best meals we’ve had on our trip, not just for food, but the staff and Mitch himself!

Our first full day in Provence tuned out to be mostly a driving one…and mostly not in Provence.  After finding an olive oil tour we were keen on, for obvious reasons, we hit the road first thing, then panicked, cried, got rained on and somehow made it in time for the tour in a stupidement chouette town.  Phew!!!  Oh and by the way just cos the website was in English doesn’t mean the tour was.  However, knowing un petit peut de l’huille d’olive, we nodded and hor hor hor’d our way through and actually picked up on some things: the Spanish make crap oil.  Bon temps!  After stops in Arles and Nimes (birthplace of denim for those attending trivia nights or working for Levi’s), we visited the ridiculously impressive Roman aqueduct, le Pont de Gard.  Having been to the Forum and Colosseum a week or so before, this blew our socks off.  By far the most impressive we’ve seen, the French do Roman ruins so much better than the Romans.

A final dinner in Aix (a very nice town to stay in, and Jeudi nuit seems to be Uni night so that might be a universal thing), we had dinner away from the Uni bars (to James’ dismay) and ended up at a tiny place called “Le 18”, which sounds like a name for a TV show when only 18 people survive dinner, but the ones that do have a life changing experience.  James, full of confidence, strutted in and staggered, “manger???  ici??? s’il vous plaît??”   A beautiful husband and wife team awaited, with the gent running service.  We knew we may have been in trouble when he asked “parlez vous français”, to which we replied “un petit peut” and he replied “je parle un petit peut d’anglais” and the menu was 100% verbal.  Lips were read, franglais was spoken, but some signing and shadow puppets managed to get us through one of the most fun eating experiences we’ve ever had.  The food was great, but the whole was amazing.

On the way out of Provence, where we were charmed with the weather, we ventured to what we thought was a small winery, which ended up being a whole town and also a whole region…sacré bleu.  Turns out this is where we should have stayed.  We drank wine in a castle and walked around the village where every door front was in fact a cellar door, it’s our kind of town Chateauneuf du Pape is.  (Interesting fakt*”: this was the original working title to the Sinatra song until they changed it to 4:4 timing and couldn’t fit the whole town name in and tried Chicago instead, where he happened to have some mates).  Lea then clocked in at 0.04 to James at 0.022 (BAC) and they hit the road, past an interesting mix of vines, nuclear power stations and wind turbines…for decoration I assume.  But a sudden bit of research by Lea at 2.20pm had us realising we could make a 3.15pm steam train trip through l’Ardeche canyon, and the maps had us arriving at 3.20pm!  Physical challenge accepted, we made it with enough time for a QUICK WC stop off…although not everyone was completely satisfied with the latter.  A steam train? Yes, a steam train.  You’d be surprised (or most likely not at all) that they only sold tickets for Seniors, Children or Families.  Having never come across two adults, alone, before they were quite thrown, so they split the difference and let us on.  We were quite taken with the train and the trip, however, for the rest it seemed more of a nostalgic journey as they recalled the time they brunched with James Watt to discuss possible uses for his improved designs.  We can highly recommend it to everyone!!  From train enthusiast, right the way through to budding locomotive engineering apprentice.

*Fakts are perhaps being economical with the truth.  #obscurenewPMrefs
 

After five amazing days in Tuscany, we drove to the seaside, fishing town of Manarola, also one of five supposed towns along this stretch of the Mediterranean. Our epic day ended with us sitting in our room, drinking prosecco, eating cheese and looking out at the sundown over this cute pastel town.

The following day was to be the only planned outdoorsy one for the entire honeymoon, we were to hike between all five towns, tasting the local fermented delights along the way of course. But either our mockery of both pagan and Christian gods, or the universe telling us to slow down resulted in a much different day. The rain caused mudslides to close the tracks between the towns, wind created seas unfit for the ferries and the Italian work ethic led to a strike on the trains (probably the only strike that you’d notice in this country)…all on the same day. After toying with the idea of disregarding the advice of the national park (they did advise another couple that everything was closed, but there were no gates so “if you don’t mind to die, you can try”) and just giving it a go, Lea rightly didn’t want to be those Aussie tourists who had to be rescued….and the rescue service may have been on strike anyway. So, Lea, being a little under the weather (pun intended this time) took the chance to get a bit of a rest and James was relegated to drinking prosecco and looking out at the lightning over this cute pastel town….which felt very familiar and was actually quite special.

So in true Stewart fashion we bypassed the quick death option and opted for the slower one via a long boozy lunch looking out over the water.  Then after a short nap the trains started to run on time.*

*by on time of course we mean whenever then can be stuffed.  Never let a good strike get in the way of a siesta or 24 smokos per diem (that might have been Italian…or at least Latin, which we’re better at (canis est in via…etcetera….etc….)

We FINALLY took the train to Vernazza, making it to our second of the five towns, and by all reports the second prettiest apart from Manarola.  We watched the glimpses of sun poke through the clouds from a much nicer waterfront than Manarola.  We were then quick to get back to the train.   After it became clear the trains were still not running on schedule, Lea made it clear more wine was needed for the wait, so we ran into town to invest in some “trainies” before making friends with a lovely American who was fascinated to see us bottle in hand (although I’m sure nobody reading has gone into shock) and eventually headed back to Manarola.

Certainly not the stopped we’d planned, but it was lovely in it’s own way and just means we’ll have to come back to get the last tre terre.  We’re certainly glad we picked one of the cutest towns from which to “hike”.  Driving out of Due Terre was another character building experience. Where the hangover had left some clarity, the fog took care of the rest. Driving blind (at least you can’t see the shear drops off the side of the road), on the windy, wet, barely one lane roads up and down the mountains, the Panda stayed firmly in first gear, narrowly avoiding Lea getting out to push or discard the dirty undies to save weight.  A final stop in Genoa, where we gladly handed back the Panda, had gnocchi Genovese and somehow avoided being mugged in the charming side streets of this surely once beautiful city (it seems to have gone downhill a bit since the glory days of the Pesto Rush) and our Italian adventure came to an end.

Arriverderci Italia!

…hopefully that should circumvent any copyright infringements.

They say all roads lead to Rome, but James and Lea worked out that if you do a U-turn, these same roads also lead out of Rome and the one chosen headed to Tuscany!!

After the eagerly anticipated driving in Rome, which more or less resembles a game of chicken (and the free downgrade to an azure green FIAT Panda didn’t really add to our street cred or even help look patriotic to the Azzuris…but still want to get the sticker to say “You are now passing another PANDA!”) we started our Tuscan leg of the trip (which already sounds tastier than the Dalmatian leg) in Siena after stopping off in the impossibly cute towns of Montepulciano, for wine, and Pienza, for cheese.

Our Siena accommodation was another classic honeymoon choice…a convent. How do you solve a problem like James’n’Lea?  It was a purposefully, annoyingly difficult place to get into that had Lea blaspheming, “How….f…very….hard is it to get into a convent?” Although with time we found it easier to get into the…habit (sorry, that’s probably 9 hail Marys…whoever Mary is…is she the one flirting with the old guy with the beard in all the paintings?)  Lea also, while at risk of exposing her shoulders, used her emergency cardigan to smuggle wine through reception and into the dorm, then, perhaps slightly affected by the alcohol or ridiculousness of their accommodation (which did include a beautiful view from the balcony towards the Duomo…originally designed to remind people, He was watching…and has binoculars) challenged her already heavenly challenged husband to start throwing corks into the windows of the building opposite. In fact the drinks were so strong (understandably as if the water turns to wine, then the wine must surely turn to grappa?) that when asked “How many convents have you been in?”, James replied, “None…….”. Completely missing the hilarity of his unintentional joke, but nonetheless trying to claim it was calculated and that the “straight face” was the normal one…not the more often used “ignorant face”.

After a quick, cold shower (complete with soap sachets that can only be opened using your teeth, in a not so subtle effort to wash your mouth out) we hit the road and continued through southern Tuscany.  The spectacular landscape, every mile, corner, direction had us thinking we were experiencing the onset of Stendhal syndrome (or Florence syndrome) well before even reaching Florence itself! If there’s a man affected landscape worth aspiring to everywhere else, then this is it.  Breathtaking.  No amount of hyperbole could say how this place is better than anything else in the entire Universe…ever.

We stopped off in the tiny town of Monteriggioni (so darling with it’s 6 foot walls and nothing inside to protect) and the impressive San Gimignano, which remains an undiscovered gem of the region…except to the 100,000 visitors that descend on the town on a Tuesday afternoon…in September. Worth the wait to get in. We then powered through, occasionally hitting 3rd gear in the Panda, to our eagerly anticipated location (for the honeymoon part of the honeymoon) of San Felice.

Borgo San Felice was our one splurge of the trip, and even if we might have felt out of place, the Panda looked at home amongst the olive trees…despite the Beemers and Audis looking the other way. We went from the previous night sitting on the balcony of a convent, having smuggled in wine, throwing corks at window of building opposite to sitting at the “nice” restaurant for the tasting menu in a shirt that cost almost as much to have pressed as it did to purchase. Dinner was probably lovely, there was some confusion over the matching wines, after, unusually, experiencing some pressure to finish the first up, prosecco, Lea and James assumed this would continue and polished off the second tout de suite (still don’t know any Italian)…Only to have the waiter then berated by the larger, more aggressive waiter for not keeping up with the Stewarts and ordered him to refill the glasses. A trend that continued throughout the night, ensuring maximum value was extracted from the meal, where the food became an accompaniment to the wine. It only ended up being four “matched” wines, but a good dozen glasses full…

The hotel was a converted, small farming village, made into a hotel in the 90s. We were worried about losing the small town feel by staying in such a place, but realised that we got the charm of a small town, locked in time without the throng of tourists. It was such a nice place that even the bidet had it’s own line of “Intimate Cleanser”. So fancy in fact, that the bathroom was in Italian (which was a first…unless it was French, Ooh la la!!….hard to tell when you express temperature in terms of capital letters).  Either way, it did make me wonder that when sitting on the bidet (if that’s what you do with a bidet???) whether it would be more of a surprise to turn on the ‘C’ tap expecting cold and getting caldo or chaud…or vice versa? And if you don’t know un petit peut de francais (or…uno piccolo Italiano???) or speak fancy bathroom speak, what would you think when looking at the ‘F’ tap?

The sunsets over the vines and olives were spectacular, and a brunch of cheese, prosciutto, vino bianco (from San Gimignano) and Chianti Classico on the limestone soil, lying under the Sangiovese vines (to avoid being caught trespassing) were experiences we’ll never forget, and will often try and replicate without success. Apart from the next day when on the way to Florence we stopped in Panzana and tried to replicate the previous day on the side of the road, with some success. Not quite the same, but pretty damn amazing.

Then comes Florence, and what can you say about Florence. Basically a perfect town in harmony with tourists and locals alike in a perfect climate..at least between the 10th and 12th of September.  It was so extravagant that we almost felt compelled to remove our bathroom cupboard and start anew, the bonfire of the vanities…  We can thank the Medicis not just for most of this amazing place, but for allowing us to knock off an allusive ‘U’ from our list with a visit to the Uffizi gallery where we got to see a naked chick on a clam…(not going there) just a day after having seen Mike’s incredible sculpture of his good buddy, Dave. We also got to participate in a favourite European past time of “standing in doorways”…seriously how do these guys not keep killing each other!!…oh wait…that’s right. We saw the impressive three-toned Duomo, visited the Boboli gardens (behind the Pitti palace) which came highly recommended by many, but unfortunately we honestly have to say were a bit of a ……..Pitti (and we promise not just for the pun), sat out on a roof drinking wine and limoncello, realising it’s a while since we’ve had a good old fashioned roofie…(the limoncello part was repeated the following night where we downed a 500ml or 50dl bottle…between “us”…before climbing the Duomo only a few hours later, thanks to Lea’s Machiavellian travel schedule clashing with James’ Galilean thirst for knowledge…oh and limoncello), we really felt Dante’s portrait staring up at us with a smirk as we circled the dome nine times to reach the top.

No visit to Florence is complete without a Fiorentine alla Fiorentine…unless of course you visit, don’t have one and then leave…which is probably a good choice. Of course if you do decide to have the minimum 1kg cut(s) of steak, make sure that you’re happy with medium rare, cos if you’re not then you’ll really struggle with hearing the moo’s of the almost breathing meat while you eat. Totally worth it though!! Only leaves you wondering who made the poorer choice…the people that designed your airbnb place with a glass floor on the second level or yourself for choosing it knowing you’re four weeks in to a holiday and having just eaten a kilo of cow.

Then after a stop in Lucca (for a picnic on the walls) and in Pisa (for a quick look at some tower, which seemed fine from where we were) our time in this majestic part of the world came to an end.

…catch buses, trains, walk, eat cacio e pepe and gellati, drink Campari spritzers, water from the fountains supplied by aqueducts, prosecco and vino rosso, go to the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Trastevere (like Northbridge), the Colosseum (like the Verona Arena…except SO MICH BIGGER and like nothing else I’ve ever seen), the Forum (some of the best Roman ruins I’ve seen, what a society…God bless those pagans…and although nothing funny happened on the way to the Forum, on the way to the Vatican, James was having a bad day so 2 hours into walking around holy sites in the rain, Lea gestured in front of a crowd of young backpackers to James’ groin saying, “your fly’s undone!”….et tu Leá?), the Vatican and St Pete’s shack (all of what’s good and bad about the human race in one small country), the Capitoline museum, Castle San’Angelo, Spanish Steps (kind of like the Flinders St steps…except covered in Italians….hmmm actually maybe pretty similar), Trevi fountain scaffolding (……..damn, not meant as a water joke, but none was getting through so I’ll take it), Il Vittoriano (best view of Rome from the top of “the wedding cake”), Borghese Gardens and museum, siesta and be rude to strangers…

…HOW ELSE DO YOU DO ROMANS DO!!?? And what else have they ever done for us anyway?

We arrived in Roma after our last train trip for a little while. One of the great things about catching the train over here, or being in public in general, is that going to the loo is more of a test of will and faecal management than anything else. When you get slugged €.80 – €2 per use (plus tip sometimes…?), it really makes you think “how badly do I really need this?” And of course by the time you make the decision to go, then fiddle around with the change machine to get exact coins, it’s almost invariably too late. Potty training over here must come with Economics 101 course notes. And although nobody wants to hear about bathrooms…why do all the showers here have pull chords in them??  Are they for extra assistance?  Or for emergencies? And if so, what are these people doing in their showers that we haven’t thought of to need to tug another chord? Either way, we’ve tried twice (by accident) for no result.

Our accommodation was interesting, down near the Tiber (where Romulus and Remus molested a wolf or something) and was next to an ANTI MAFIA FORCE building. Not sure if we should have felt incredibly safe or were facing imminent danger. Somehow the kids out the front with fully automatic weapons, who were texting their multiple bellas (I assume) something like “Notha tuff day fighting the #MAFIA…lol ;)” didn’t fill us with confidence. Hadn’t seen a blind eye turned so much since we were at the Vatican…burn (that’s what she, the witch, said)…are these the Roman blinds of which we’ve heard so much?

Rome, you were just like a really big Roman town. We loved your history and were taken enough by the “modern” city enough to throw 10c into a makeshift pond set up at Trevi fountain that will be collected by an as yet unknown charity such as the “Monuments Are Forever Integral Afterdark society” (not an anagram for anything cos it’s late and we couldn’t think of one…but mabye there’s another Roman blind joke there…Romans are ony blind at night?? Ok maybe not) so you can keep up with everywhere else in the world and Australians can drink around you and see you at night*…which means we will come back (cos of the coin if you can’t keep up).

Rome, definitely top three of the capital cities we’ve visited so far.

Veni, vidi, vici…vini.

*getting a bit confusing there, but for some reason none of the monuments were as well lit up as everywhere else we’ve visited.

In fair VERONA where we lay our scene
From ancient love break new matrimony

Where a civil service made sinning hands clean.

From forth the fruitful loins of these two amigos

A pair of star-matched lovers take their flight.

Oh Verona, another classic location for young love…as long as you keep away from the cool aid I guess. Full of teenage angst, balconies and family feud…no Grant Denyer, thankfully. But, what a perfect place to prove that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, as with the now Mrs Stewart.

With about 20 hours in Verona, we quickly knocked out the main sights, such as: the homage to marketing that is Giulietta’s house, complete with manufactured balcony, where out of respect to the brilliant men and women, who devised the money spinning scheme, we used our Verona passes to gain free entry; and, “tight arse” tower that saved €1 each, but gained us about a thousand stairs. After such a climb, we decided we well deserved some prosecco, amounting to ~€15…when will they learn.

We visited some Roman stuff, some medieval stuff, mostly destroyed by fleeing Germans, Lea bit her thumb at an old foe and devoured a plate of ham (“who sir, me sir?”, oinked the pig) and mozzarella and had an amazing room, that we were barely in, the “Romeo e Giulietta” room!

The real reason for our stop in Verona was to go to the opera (two in two days! Malto culturo). Romeo e Giulietta (a French opera based on an English play about Italians) was on and was playing in the open air, 2000 year old Roman, Verona Arena. Which we thought was a perfect chance for another once in a lifetime experience, and it was…we can’t wait to do again!

As we sat on the old stones, thinking we should be comparing the PFJ to the JPF, and realised that maybe climbing all those stairs wasn’t such a good idea. For millennia people have been sitting here, trying to make an arse groove with no success. Even with more at our disposal, trying to do it in four hours was pointless. We had thought (as previously described) the singers at La Scala were prima-donnas, but the conductor at the arena relegated them to seconda-donnas. Post an interval (not an intermission, in an intermission you can drink, in an interval you get yelled at in Italian) in an amphitheatre, with 15000 Italians, he would not start until there was complete silence and all of a sudden began screaming at the crowd. Apparently if he’s not able to contribute anything musically or vocally to the performance, nor can we. Thankfully he didn’t put a stop to the incessant hand waving, which created a pleasant breeze. We didn’t have subtitles, so not sure how it all ended, but I think it all worked out well with the main couple running off stage towards a bright light, with big smiles.

That’s it from this quick stop, time to hit the road and see where it leads…

Goodnight, goodnight.

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Ne’er was there a story or less woe than this of Lea and her James…eo.

…oh, and also Milan.

We spent the best part of a day on trains from Venice to Varenna (on the lake).  A day of ups: where we thought we scored/stole a free upgrade to first class on the train to Varenna (the fact we’re not sure gives you an idea of the quality) and downs: some Americans talked to us at a station because they thought (sigh) we were American (oh how the tears flowed and so much was now clear).   We’ve now stopped trying to be un-American by using “Ciao” or “Buongiorno” and kick off every greeting with a, “G’day mate, howsitgarn, got any bloomin’ kangaroos here or what eh?…and PS: we’re Australian but”

Now (now pron: neow) in Varenna and things were getting ridiculous, we’ve continued moving from fairytale to fairytale. Stunning, quiet and with watercolours of George Clooney’s villa readily accessible. Omega watch: check. Grey hair: um…check 😦 Clever and beautiful wife: check. Lakeside accommodation: check. Nespresso machine: check…wait what? Lui? I guess that’s what else, Nespresso!

We had a lovely dinner on a rooftop looking over the lake and mountains (where we were visited by a lovely blind cat and yes, the poor old thing did have…cataracts); took a swim in the lake along with a few other people, but mainly with what appeared to be degrading toilet paper (reminding me of the saying “what doesn’t kill you, can only make you stronger”, which while this maybe true, it kind of covers up the reality that it can also make you very, very ill before hand…you know…or give you spots on your wedding day, just as a way out there thought…maybe we’re still a little sensitive); took a day trip to Bellagio, while on the ferry we managed to overhear (by not sticking salami in our ears) some lovely Americans discussing staying in an (“only”) $1000 per night hotel and also getting seniors discounts (not wanting to start a generational war here, as many of our favourite parents are seniors, so I’ll leave that one there…..); watched sunset on what turned out to be a private terrace looking up and down the lake; drank mimosas looking from our bed out over the lake; really spent lots of time looking at the lake; and fell in love with Varenna.  It’s turning out to be a very polygamous trip…if that can be applied to towns.

On leaving Varenna by train, we realised that instead of scoring the free upgrade, as thought previously, we may have just avoided an expensive downgrade. This was discovered after thinking we’d made the same error again and attempted to rectify the atrocity by sprinting down the platform at the first stop with 50kg off baggage (and significantly more of ourselves), to an overcrowded carriage and then realising that everyone on this train was equal. Although, it clearly looked as if some were more equal than others.

In Milan, Lea discovered the origins of the term “tight arse” at the Duomo where we avoided an extra €2 each, by not taking the lift to the top and instead climbing the thousands of stairs. The view from top was worth the glute work out.  You could see, up close, the Gothic on Gothic style (which you can’t tell was restrained over the centuries of building it, to be less French), there are spires just glued to the walls wherever there’s space, kind of like St Paul’s in Melbourne…if you demolished St Paul’s in Melbourne and built a replica of the Duomo in its place.  However, inside was (and probably still is) something else. Grand columns, amazing windows, statues, art, over the top extravagance, intricate, flat floors (amazing what can happen when you build on terre ferme and not a lagoon). Where the “poor”, old church did seem to have run out of money was in the seating…it was almost as if the pews were designed to make you feel uncomfortable and unimportant?

We were lucky that the one thing James booked worked out, quelle surprise! (I don’t know any Italian.) The tickets he’d booked to La Boheme at La Scala were indeed at our hotel (Hotel Regina…ain’t nothing finer than being in Regina….except maybe many other hotels, or Fanny…a villa on Bellagio) on arrival as promised by “Buono Backyard Booking Co”, and we could see the stage…and it was incredible! There were horses and goats and of course, no opera is complete, without a good muff.  But, on this occasion (as on all for over a hundred years) poor Mimi couldn’t be saved by Musetta’s muff (it turns out Musetta was quite generous with her muff). But we’re all lucky that in this day and age we know consumption can’t be treated by muff alone.

My limitation of superlatives (already used up) can’t describe the La Scala theatre inside (I say it was amazing again…or incredibly, amazing…or incredibly, amazingly, beautiful and nobody judged my lack of vocabulary, I would) and it was a refreshing way to do opera, three hours in the theatre, but one hour was set aside for drinking and of the rest was equally split between the occasional performances, the ovations and the cheap, locals standing behind us and shooshing the rest of the crowd if they clapped a millisecond too early.

NB: The Nespresso tag line is or has been “Nespresso, what else?” And George Clooney likes Nespresso or has been paid to…and also has a place in Lake Como.  Which is where we stayed….on the Lake, not George’s places.  But, it was still awesome.