Fiona and Claire's Travel Blog

We had another slow day here in Nice. Starting the day with a breakfast on the hostel terrace where we were joined by Denise, the resident turtle that likes to snap at poor unsuspecting feet. We then headed into to town with one of the girls that we'd been talking to last night; Jess from Queenstown, New Zealand. We had all decided they we'd go on the walking tour of Nice this morning and the three of us got some water and headed to the meeting point.  This walking tour was significantly better than the tour we had done in Florence. This young local man as informative, quick to get to the point, and also covered some informative info about modern day Nice as well as the history of this city. For example, the pink house on the hill that we were about to go to thinking that it must have been the Matisee museum, that was also a big pink building on a hill, was in fact the mansion of the first Mr Bond himself, Sean Connery! We had a laugh about this thinking about how funny it wou

After packing our bags in the morning we walked to a local coffee bar/bakery guided by David and upon Heather's request for the "delicious jam filled brioche" they really were delicious! We savoured this last tast of Italian coffee as last night we decided to head to the French Riviera to Nice!  We threw together a wee packed lunch from the left ova of last nights salad and headed off for example train to Milan where we'd get our connection to Nice. From the we settled in for our 6 hour train journey.  there was a very posh designer lady sitting opposite us for the majority of the way, until Monaco Montr Carlo, and although she was very distant for the Friday hour or so she quickly loosened up after I offered enr a chocolate treat and subtly complimented her in small talk. we found out that she was originally Estonian but had lived in Londona and Nice and a for other places but was now base in Monte Carlo. Claire and I wer speculating after she got off that we though

We slept late, had a slow breakfast and then meandered out way to the beach. We sat there for most of the day, claire swam, I sunned myself had a we nap, took some photos....then we wondered up and found somewhere to have lunch and had a delicious seafood salad each. WE MISS ITALIAN COFFEE! They still have lovely pastries here but their coffee is sharp and a bit bitter comparison to the delightful coffee we've been indulging in for the past week of our travels.      We went back to the beach for a wee while in the afternoon and just enjoyed the salty sea breeze in the still quite warm 4pm sun.   We adventured out does the to a local chain restaurant called Hippopotamus for dinner, and just to spite the rude and ignorant American voile beside us we iced to speak as much French as we could muster to the poor waitress. Dinner was ok but reasonably priced so we didn't mind.  After a couple of weeks with very little social contact (and by this I mean going out or drinking) with any

We woke up to a wonderful view outside our room window, we could see Tuscan hills, the church next door and the courtyard below us.    The sun was shining so we were excited to go out and explore. The lady at the reception desk recommend a great place to have a typical Italian breakfast which had the best coffee I have ever  tasted. Such fast service too! We took a bus to the centre of town and found the most helpful tourist information lady. She highlighted all the sights on our maps along with all the best places to eat (very important). So we made our way to an attraction just around the corner. We noticed a huge crowd of people straight away, and had a moment of 'what are they all looking at?' And as we walked a few more steps we saw exactly why. In front of us was the most huge elaborately designed cathedral we had ever seen, we couldn't even fit the whole thing into a picture! (so far this city was off to a good start and it wasn't even 12 yet). The famous dome ha

The rain is here to stay, making today another good day to visit a gallery. We left our big heavy bags at the hostel after checking out and made our way to the Belvedere gallery which is one of Vienna's many great places to absorb some culture. We bought tickets to see the Gustav Klimt exhibition which was just amazing. The paintings are huge in real life. 'The kiss' was the centre piece, taking up an entire wall top to bottom. A lot of the works on display were unfinished as he died before he could complete them, but there was something nice about seeing his work from a more deconstructed perspective.    Along with that we got to see some of Egon Sheile's stuff too, which is an artist our life drawing teacher always used to rave about. He's a big deal when it comes to drawing naked bodies and even some not so naked bodies. A lot of the work we saw was (relatively clothed) family portraits and embracing couples which were similar in subject matter yet very different

Well. Had a VERY relaxed and amazing sleep in David's gorgeous colourful apartment last night! We didn't even set an alarm today we simply woke up when we were ready. Unfortunately the SEVRAL churches in Davies neighbourhood had other ideas. I was woken at 6 first then again at 8 so I just got up. It was a lovely view from the front balcony and you and from the back veranda you could see the hills of Switzerland.         Once everyone else had risen we had a coffee on the balcony and headed off in David's convertible car towards two lakes in the area,  Lake Lago d'orta and Lake Maggiore. We first hea ded to  Lago d'orta, perched at the bottom of a deep valley we waked down a very steep hill from the car park th the village and the lake. The village was quite typical of a lake village in Italy; steep pebbled streets, colourful houses that are slightly falling apart, altogether a very beautiful and idyllic setting to have lunch.  (Photos to follow) We took a different