"Silver Jet, Way Overhead..."

Well we did it!! We bought our tickets!!

Wow, I am really psyched now, this is the first really big investment of our trip. The packs were expensive but could be used for other purposes. The tickets well they are a lot more, and they can only be used for one thing. The departure date is Monday May 28 and we come back the 13th of August.

The flight over is a night flight; we leave at 10:45 and arrive at 8:35 local. The flight time is 5hrs50min, but with the time change we arrive latter. I like the idea of arriving in the morning, as we will be able to see London as we come in, and we might be able to get some sleep on the way over (doubt it), and will let us have a full day right from the start. The flight back lands at 2:25, so that is pretty decent as well, will hopefully be able to get home the same day. It will be a full day, but we will be use to long days by then.

You can see our seats in the picture below. They seats are both closer to the back; I didn’t want to sit to close to the wing as it might obscure our view. Melanie has the window seat on the way over. I remember flying over London on the way home we went into Gatwick Airport and I got a beautiful view of London and it is something I will always remember, so I wanted to make sure Melanie has the same chance I did, to see Tower Bridge as you are coming in for landing.
I can’t wait, and I know Melanie can’t either. It is taking the big steps that really get you excited.

Another 767-300 ER (367) cruising

An Air Canada Boeing 767-300 ER (367)

Our Seats !!

Here are our seats on the plane. Click on the picture for a better look if it is to small.

Cafe Florian in Venice

Venice, the city of canals and gondolas. A place I can't wait to go and see.

I was watching one of my favorite travel shows called "Backpackers" (on the Outdoor Life Network) the other day, and the were visiting Vienna. Anyway, while there they visited a cafe called "Cafe Florian" and it looked really cool. It is the oldest cafe in Europe founded in 1720. The interior has a really cool ornate look that probably hasn't changed since it opened, and it has a seating area outside in St.Marks Square, with about 100 chairs, the type of cafe seating so often seen in pictures of Venice.

It is supposed to have some great coffee, and I thought it would be a great experience. The only thing that takes away from it is that the coffees cost around 7 Euros, which translates to be about $20 Canadian it will have to be one of the luxuries on the trip. As you can see from the pictures below it is a pretty cool place. Hopefully the coffee will be worth it. The guys on the show had this to say, "I don't know anything about coffee, but this is really good coffee" so I guess that kinda sums it up. I will be sure to let you know. On one final note looking for famous people that lived in Venice and may have had a coffee there I found out that Casanova actually lived in Venice from 1725-1798, so he probably went here. Pretty cool. Anyway hope you like the pictures.

The exterior of Cafe Florian in St.Marks Square

The entry way...

An interior shot, it's really amazing

Cafe Florian, looks like it hasn't changed in 300 years

A few more things to take

Well I finally sent off my passport application today. I had it reviewed at the post office as there isn't a passport office in PEI. It costs an extra $15 for them to review it, but they check the picture and application for any issues and guarantee it won't get rejected so its worth the extra money for peace of mind. As a result of my application I had to get a government piece of ID, so instead of getting just an ID, I thought that it would be the perfect time to get my beginners drivers licence. So now I can finally drive a car legally. I know its a bit late, but like I have said all along I have never needed it and the money always had a better place.

I also bought a nice summer sweater to wear while in Europe today. I have a good shirt folder that will keep wrinkles out of clothes (thanks Chad and Heidi), but I thought a nice sweater would be something that I could wear to a restaurant and wouldn't need to be ironed. We also picked up a couple of cheap bed sheets that we will fold in half and sew up to make a light sleeping bag. This light bag will help us keep clean as we will be sleeping a lot of hostels and will save us money as many hostels require people to rent linen if they don't have their own.

So we are slowly picking up things along the way to take with us on the trip. Can't wait to get my passport back, they said it should be back the first week of March, so even if its late there will be time to spare.

Trying something new...

Well, I have decided that posting regularly has not been something I have done lately, and I need to make a change. So for now on instead of trying to put up posts following the route that we are going to take, I will post differently. I received three different guidebooks for Christmas and thought that I might be able to post more often if I post interesting information that I read in them and post any other interesting things I find out during my preparations. I need to read the books so this should help me get through them as well. So here is a neat budget saver that I just read.

Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART)

This a neat trick on how to get a scenic trip around Dublin. The way you get to see Dublin is by boarding the local rapid transit system or DART train as seen above, which is laid out on a track along the bay. The trick is when you by your ticket you tell the cashier that you are going to the next station, but you don't get off right away. The rail line runs back and forth, so you can simply ride the entire system and then get off at the station you bought the ticket for once it comes around again. The entire trip costs 89p. How cool is that! Since we will be visiting Dublin towards the end of our trek, this may be something that we choose to do to save a few pounds.

Hope you liked the new posting idea.

Another Step Closer !!

There they are !!


We got our packs. While home for Christmas, Melanie and I bought each other the packs for our trip as Christmas presents. Mine is the red one and Melanie has the gray/grayish blue one on the left. I hope you can make out the colours well, my monitor is kinda old and the brightness is going. Anyway we are pretty psyched about getting them as they are one of the most important things to get before going on the trip, next to tickets.


The packs are made by Asolo, I had never heard of them but the packs looked nice and appeared to be nicer than the ones available on a hiking website I was looking at. My pack (the red one) is pretty nice, I got it from the Radical Edge. It has a pocket for a water bag, a built in rain cover, sleeping bag compartment, and a good sized day pack. It is a travel pack and has handles on the side and top, and the straps on the back can be zipped up in a bag to prevent them from being caught in conveyor belts.


Melanie's is a travel pack so has the protective cover as well, and built in rain cover too. Her pack also has a day pack and a removable toiletry pack which is nice, and will save us having to buy one a nice bonus.


We also got some things to take with us on our trip for Christmas as well. I got a nice Swiss Army knife from my Grandmother, a small sewing kit, a couple of good travel books, and a really cool clothes folder from Chad and Heidi that keeps clothes wrinkle free. The clothes folder will come in handy when we are going to the different restaurants that Melanie wants to go to, as the restaurants she would like to go to wouildn't allow dirty hikers to come in.


That's all for now. Hope everybody had a great Christmas and hope you have a great New Year as well.

A Camera for the Trip

Yeah I know my blogging sucks. Excuses, busy, school......

Anyway I recently picked up a camera for my trip !!! I have been wanting a digital camera for a while, and finally decided on one. It is the Canon S3 IS, it is an ultra-zoom point and shoot, and is considered the next best thing to a DSLR, or a camera that allows you to change lenses.

I like the camera alot, it has swivel screen as you can see in the picture. I like the swivel screen as it allows you to shoot at many angles, and when you close it the screen is not exposed and that means less scratches. The Camera also has a strong zoom for its size 432mm zoom on a traditional film camera (that's alot). There are also macro or extreme close-up features and manual zoom as well.

In short I really like it, and as it can shoot pictures that can be printed at a 11x13 size, if I take an really nice pictures they can be framed for really nice decorations. I also picked up a 2gb memory card wich can store 1500 pictures, which is pretty sweet as well.

If you would like to read further about my camera check out the reviews here, and here.

Fourviere Basillica in Lyon

Stunning View From Fourviere Basillica in Lyon

25%

I am getting there. A milestone, but a long way to go. I hate saving money but it will be worth it when I get there. Two months in Europe is going to be awesome, I hope everybody has been enjoying the blog so far. I know updates have been slow to come at times, but there will be more regular for now on, and much more often when Melanie and I are making our way. Be back with another update soon.

Leaving the Iberian Peninsula and back into France

Back again, well after Seville, we will probably head back up to southern France. I have considered the idea of taking the ferry over to Morocco from the south of Spain as it is only $35 dollars and the cost to stay there would be fairly cheap, but I will worry about that when the time comes. I just want to move on now to other parts of Europe.

The south of France, home to the French Riviera those rich and beautiful vacation spots of the rich and famous, St.Tropez, Monaco, and Nice to name a few. I am sure it will be a beautiful place to visit, if not quite expensive.

Nimes

The first place I would definitely want to take a quick stop in is Nimes, home to one of the most famous Roman aqueducts and one of their most proud architectural feats reaching a height of 160 feet (seen below). The Pont du Gard aqueduct is a world heritage site and has been a tourist attraction for hundreds of years, and was used as a bridge up until the mid 1800's considering it was built less than a hundred years after the time Christ that is amazing. Nimes also has some other interesting Roman buildings, as it is so close to Italy and an area of early expansion for the Roman Empire.

Marseille

Marseille, just the name stirs thoughts of the rich and famous vacationing on the Mediterranean, but once you get past that it is actually an interesting spot. Marseille is Frances most important port, and oldest major cities and was founded by the Greeks in 600 BC and taken by the Romans in the time of Caesar. It has nice museums with many ancient and maritime artifacts, many of which were uncovered after WWII reconstruction.

What really interests me is the catacombs underneath the Abbaye de St-Victor, an old church with a crypt of a martyr killed by the Romans by being ground between two millstones, gruesome. The catacombs are a place where early Christians prayed to St.Lazarus and Mary Magdalene, said to have washed ashore at a near-by town. This being the reason boat shaped cookies are sold during the Candlemas procession in February, luckily they are sold year round to so I can have on (mmmm boat cookie). By the time this is over I am going to know a lot more about the Saints then I bargained for.

There are numerous other places to visit in Marseille, such as the Chateau d'if, where the Count of Monte Cristo was imprisoned, the famous novel. There is also the beautiful Notre-Dame de la Garde, it is only 150 years old, and was built on top of the site of a 13th century chapel. It has some fine marble mosaics, and is topped by a statue of the Virgin and Child a landmark that can be seen for miles as it is the highest point in Marseille.

Anyway you get the picture Marseille is a pretty cool and historic place. It is also home to different culinary dishes, best known is Bouillabaisse, a fish stew flavoured with saffron. The local market is also supposed to be a nice place to go with many local spices available such as rosemary, fresh eggplant, pink garlic, and fresh seafood. On that note, the next place we will have to go is Lyon, the culinary capital of the world, a definite pilgrimage site for Melanie. Hope you like the pictures.

Pont du Gard, you might recognize it from a VW Beetle commercial a few years back.

Marseille

Abbae St.Victor, not to much to see from the outside, at least from this side