I just want to start with saying that a bus tour is an awesome way of seeing Europe. You can just sit back and enjoy someone else doing all the work. The way these bus tours are set up is that you can do as little or as much as you like. They have so many options for you it’s not funny, but if you want to do your own thing then you can as well. I won’t mention the tour operators name but if you’re interested just get in touch. And for the money you can't beat it. For a bit under 900 pounds ($1400 AUD) we had a 17 day tour, good accommodation, most meals and great food, tours, side trips and more.

This was the beginning of an awesome trip.

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Inside the Chunnel train on the way home

First thing we did was meet up with the rest of the bus crew: mostly young Aussies and Kiwis, but a couple of people older than Emma and I thrown into the mix. My favourite game was making people do the “Emma’s forty?” face. People never believe me when I do tell them, and ID is often required as proof. Good times.

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Rome

This place is huge, busy, bustling, and a bit grubby. A short yellow bird-like lady took us on a stroll through the heart of Rome. Our first stop was the Coliseum, the huge golden stadium taking your breath away the moment you leave the tube station. Seeing these ancient monuments in real life is indescribable, but heading onto the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, The Spanish steps and through the streets of this famous city was mind boggling, and incredible mix of the ancient, the old and the new. Food is plentiful and either cheap or expensive depending on where you go. A supermarket across from the Park we were staying in sold awesome pizza slices for less than 2 euro, and one guy bought the same piece in a restaurant for nearly 10 euro! One night with these guys and we decided to have a bit of a drink, as Aussies and Kiwis often do upon meeting. I don’t remember how I got home. But apparently we had a great night.

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Vatican City

To be honest with you it’s kind of hard to describe this place. The incredible treasures of the church are ridiculous in its beauty and worth. Walking around this museum of artefacts gives an idea of how those people, hundreds of years ago, would have felt walking into such a place. And then you see the Sistine Chapel, and you can almost believe in the religion it depicts. The massive chapel absolutely filled with people, talking in a hushed reverence as they crane their necks to stare at the masterpiece above them. This is one of the most talked about pieces of art in the world, and ironically there was a very cranky man walking around shushing people in the chapel. How could you not want to talk about it while you were there? And why was he so angry? In a place of peace and understanding he seemed to be angry and ignorant of the place he was patrolling. Then we waited in the line for St Peters, in the rain, the pouring rain. But the wait was worth it, the massive domed ceiling and grand entrance way, surrounded by truly astonishing works of art was enough to keep me dumbfounded as I walked through it. Apparently large enough to hold 60000 people for mass, you can feel the power in the heart of Rome’s capitol, and just knowing that the hill where Jesus died is in there somewhere is truly inspiring. Not enough for me to get religion but wow!

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Florence

A short drive through the beautiful Italian countryside brought us to Florence: a maze of twisting, turning, narrow streets and markets, filled with shop after shop of many delights. Just the one night in this wonderful town. A nice walking tour through the town early took us past the 200 year old copy of the statue of David. Nice, apparently the real one is there somewhere in the town as well. I thought the fountain of Poseidon was even better though! The top floor of the hostel gave 360 degree views of the city and was a great climb.

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Pisa

It’s kind of funny: if they had built this tower right in the first place it probably wouldn’t get as many visitors. It’s a huge marble tower, in a large field of green grass, with a large temple and Cathedral in the massive square (all built using the same stone literally cut from a mountainside (Thanks Mum!)). And basically it’s famous because it’s almost fallen over after several attempts of getting it right. After dumping several thousand tonnes of metal into the ground around it, it looks as though the leaning tower won’t become the one story building of Pisa. It’s a bit like the engineer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge say “Look, It’s just isn’t going to meet in the middle. But I have this Italian mate that did wonders in Pisa...”

Getting off the bus is a bit of a hassle as guys selling pretty much anything threaten you for a sale, ironically it’s not illegal to sell the stuff, but it is illegal to buy it and large fines are given to tourists every day. We won a tour photo competition by making it look like we put the tower into a garbage bin. Sort of sums it up really.

Nice

The drive from Pisa took us through some truly beautiful countryside: towns perched on hills, surrounding cathedrals and castles, Mountains looming in the distance, town after town drifting by, and a possible wrong turn (just a rumour). But then just inside the French border we took a little detour through the small country of Monaco. I winding, tiny road, overlooking the Mediterranean, and of course Monte Carlo itself. Our driver would take the bus to the wrong side of the road so people could look down the canyoned walls to the sea, a dizzying drop down to the sparkling ocean and even more sparkling Monte Carlo.

Just before Nice we stopped at a perfumery, most of the guys were not terribly excited (I honestly couldn’t have cared any less) about the process of how perfume here was made, though the gentleman called the “Nose” was interesting enough. These guys went to Nose college so they could differentiate between around 6000 scents. That’s some nose! They aren’t even allowed to smoke or eat spicy foods!

Nice was a big surprise as it is much larger than I imagined. A massive, sprawling city surrounded by some famous places and just as important in its own right. We wandered into the town and found a nice restaurant for dinner (nothing is cheap in Nice) and relaxed for the night.

Monte Carlo

The next morning we jumped on the local transport and headed for Monaco. Bordered by France and Italy it is possible to get a photo of the three countries in one shot from certain vantage points. On arriving in Monte Carlo we climbed high into the steep hillside the city is built on for the best views. This country is popular with the mega rich as it famously has no taxes, and there is quite a waiting list for people to even be allowed to move there, the population is heavily controlled, by money, of course! We spoke to an elderly local who explained that a simple 2 bedroom flat with kitchen and bathroom, and some view would sell for about 12.5 million Euro ($20 million AUD)!

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As we wandered past the Ferrari dealerships and branded shops, we worried a bit about the price of food... but then found a fair on the waterfront selling massive hamburger subs for about $10 each. Oh so good! From here we caught a good look at a Bugatti Veyron, with the usual guys getting photos pretending to get into it (no I did not!) and wandered down to the Marina to view the massive multi-million dollar flotilla. A truly garish display of wealth with motor boats the size of small cruisers sitting inside garages on even larger boats!

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A nice harbour front walk across to what is arguably the most famous casino in the world, a dazzling display the world’s most expensive supercars sat out front, my favourite a fully carbon fibre bodied Lamborghini sat a little way from the front door, an Audi R8 and various other very, very nice cars sat around for us commoners to drool over and pretend for a moment. The casino itself was quite beautiful in the entrance but gave way to the usual tables and a huge number of poker machines. 10 Euro to get in and we weren’t even close to being dressed for it. The fountains and grass walkway to the entrance were way more interesting for us anyway! A short mountain climb back to our train and we headed back to reality and our room in Nice.

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The French Riviera is absolutely beautiful and the beach went on forever, the thing is: we have much better beaches back in Australia!

Barcelona

We said an early goodbye to Nice and headed for Barcelona, via a small town called Arles, not very well known but has a small coliseum and ancient Roman town with the same twisty tiny street as Florence and other ancient towns. Only a short stay here and back onto across the Spanish border and into sunny Barcelona.

Except it wasn’t sunny. Three nights there and it didn’t top raining! But we made the best of it. The hop on bus took us around the sights, past endless rows of streets and architecture. Warnings of bag snatchers and pick-pockets were disappointingly fruitless, as the people were very friendly and helpful. We headed back to the hotel for another Pizza dinner and then to a bar where you paid $4 a litre for beer and poured them yourself from taps in the middle of the tables. You wanted more you just motioned to the bar how much and away you went. Unfortunately I had the flu quite bad and had to leave early. I would be back...

The great thing about Europe is that there are so many small businesses run by one or two people with truly excellent food and service. We went into town the next day and found this little hole in the wall restaurant with one guy who is the bartender, manager, waiter, chef and everything else. Ducking out of the grey weather her took us in and cooked a great meal fresh for us, always happy and helpful. We had a look at the Familia Sangreda cathedral as well, drawn into the forest-like columns and gazing at the sky-like ceiling high above us. This crown-like cathedral is a masterpiece of the old and the new, unfinished after nearly 100 years. I was expecting  it was much bigger on the outside than it was, just images in my head making me believe it was so, but the inside lives up to its portrayal of a walk in the woods, with incredible stained-glass and iconography. After this epic cathedral we went back to the $4 a litre bar and drank 13 of them with the help of our Canadian friends. It was a great day!

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1000 year old olive tree still has fruit!

Avignon

On the way to Avignon we travelled to the Pont du Gard, an absolutely huge aquaduct built thousands of years ago, stories high and a beautiful end to a long drive. The sun set through its arches and we strolled across it talking about our trip and enjoying the break from our trip.

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This beautiful walled city once held the Papal seat, apparently one of the popes decided that Italy just wasn’t where he wanted to hang out and built a new Papal palace for himself and the next half a dozen popes, a while later they all made nice and moved back to Italy where, apparently, the Popes belong. Avignon is also know for half a bridge: it almost spans the river and looks very pretty at night, but it seems Europe is full of half finished or not quite right architecture. Good for them for almost finishing everything, or at least letting them fall apart.

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Lutterbrunnen

Another early morning and we went on through some truly magical countryside where long tall mountains drift over from the sun with flashes of the colour of fire in the forest chasing the coach. Into Geneva for an expensive walk around we gathered some local money and travelled around this busy city. One little interesting bit here is that the infamous numbered Swiss bank accounts came about so that the Nazi’s couldn’t get access to the contents of Jewish (and other) accounts. Entering and leaving the city, you are greeted with some of the most amazing scenery: mountains, white and cold drift past in the distance, deep, dark valley drop down towards mirrored lakes and rivers, twist their way through ancient forest straight out of the Brothers Grimm.  Lutterbrunnen is situated east of Geneva in the hills at the foot of the Jungfrau Mountains, the tallest in the area at 4200 meters. Our room was straight from a story book: wooden log house, comfy, bed with magnificent view from the windows. The town itself look as if made from gingerbread, and candy. With walled mountains craning high above the rooftops.

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It was pretty cold her too, so a quick trip to the store for some supplies and into our room for a good night sleep. The next morning was a big one. WE were to travel by cog-train to the top of the Jungfrau mountain, 4200 meters at its highest point. This is the 3^rd time on my trip that I would be at this height! With the highest being 4665 meters in Tajikistan, but this time I got to play I the snow a bit! The train ride took about 2 hours to get to the top, and isn’t cheap at 130 Swiss francs, but well worth the effort. The train itself is a 100 year old antique, still used for the arduous climb to the top. A couple of stops on the way up to view the mountains and we arrived at the Oracle at the top of Europe! They do make it fun though, with a frozen palace of rooms and hallways carved from the glacier, an outside viewing area, and an excellent outdoor walk and play area. Emma hasn’t really been in the snow and loved it, though she may have mentioned how cold it was once or twice. The views at the top of the world are quite breathtaking and we had a little fun with the local black birds, letting them eat from our hands. It really is tiring walking around up there with the low oxygen and we headed back down after a few hours, all of us weary from the trip up. Some of the group stopped for an hour at the half way point, enjoying a drink and seeing an avalanche.

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On getting back have to the hotel we decided to do a bit of exploring and went for a walk around town. There is a beautiful waterfall that drifts down from a height well over 100 meters and is close to the centre of town. We may or may not illegally jumped over a locked fence, ignoring signs that the walkway was closed. This is an unsubstantiated rumor and I have no idea where that started. Up a windy track and through a long black tunnel we came to the climb for the waterfall: most of the stairs for the climb were missing and the barriers were all laying on the ground at the entrance to the waterfall climb. So up we went anyway, over wet, slippery rocks and ledges to a beautiful sight of the waterfall crashing down past and misting the air around us.

Munich

Our drive to Germany took us through the small country of Lichtenstein, an old barony that is now considered a country, ruled from a cliff-top castle by the leader of this crazy little place. It wasn’t very exciting but definitely an interesting little town of modern shops and ancient buildings. We hung around for over an hour, wandering around and taking it in. We travelled on through Austria and into Germany, sailing down the Autobahns with ease, and rating the likely hood of long-life for the people speeding down them and laughing at the Ausfahrts (hehe! Ausfahrt). Things became a little more serious on our trip as we arrived at Dachau, which, like the other concentration camps of Auschwitz and Berkenau, has a simple silence about it. An eerie coldness and quietness that seems to dampen conversation and any other surrounding noise. The sheer numbers of people killed there is staggering and we all commented on the nothingness that is felt upon entering its gates. My favorite story from this time is of when the Americans freed the prisoners at Berkenau: the first US soldier that entered the gate found a dishevelled and crying Polish women, skinny and frightened she pleaded with him not to kill her, cowering at his feet. He tried to explain to her that he was there to save her, but she couldn’t understand him, crying and begging at his feet, in fear of his uniform. He finally got it through to her who he was and why they were there. Apparently these two were married the next year. From all that horror came a little love.

Munich is seriously a party town, known best for its Oktoberfest celebrations in September. After a quick check in we walked up to the Lowenbrau Kellar (Just like in Sydney) and had one of the best meals ever: pork with crackling, smothered in gravy, with a huge potato dumpling. And beer. Blessed beer. The local purity laws make the ingredients for beer very simple here: grains, malt yeast and barley. German beer is very, very good. Then off to the Hoffbrau Keller, a massive, famous beer hall in the centre of Munich, the oldest in Germany. Bright and colourful, loud and noisy with Oompah bands and conversation, beers galore. One of my goals for this trip was to have Emma drink a beer as big as her head. On came the 1 litre steins and she drank 2. And a half!! 20 of us sat around and drank and laughed in the beer hall, talking to random locals and some from overseas, til around 12. We then set of to a nightclub around the corner. The doorman stopping us and explaining this was a serious nightclub. WTF! What does that mean? This is a serious nightclub, no messing around. We laughed and said OK. Whatever gets us inside. He also explained that it was another type of nightclub, I did mistranslate his accent. He said it was a Greek nightclub, I thought he said Gay. Sort of the same thing but he laughed and the ice was broken. And we went staright into a very quite group of people. Until we started that is. Dragging people from their seats we started the places rocking. The DJ turning the music down on occasion only to have a large number of people yell at him to turn it back up. Emma acted as wingman for one of the boys and chatted up 5 girls for them. They wussed out and we caught a taxi back to the hotel around 3am, on money Emma found in her bra (I think it may have been a payment of sorts).

Early (again) the next morning we hit the bus for a trip down the Rheine river. The coach took us to St Goar, a medieval town on the banks of the Rheine, complete with castles and battlements. We waited by the river, having fun with leaves and trees, for a oat that would take us an hour down the river to Boppard, our next stay. Unfortunately the evening got to us pretty quickly and we only managed a few minutes before the night overtook our little boat. It was a peaceful way to end a long day and we enjoyed our romantic cruise down to Boppard, past the church where the only entrance is through a pub. Bless those Germans. Dinner was fantastic and we sat on our balcony staring at the river of darkness.

Paris

I have been to Paris before and was genuinely surprised at how much I liked the place on my first visit. I wasn’t expecting it to be so good. The nightlife and food makes up for...well the French, I guess. They really don’t help their stereotype along at all, and can be quite rude. I was pleasantly surprised again this time when the few Parisians we came across were helpful and friendly! Our first night we had a walking tour around the area where Moulin Rouge us situated. From here we said goodbye to some of our friends who would be leaving us and not going back to London with us. We found an Aussie pub which actually had Aussie beer, unlike those stupid London Pubs, and we sat back and enjoyed a Coopers green! We even got to sing a couple of Aussie songs as the Kiwi’s and Canadians looked on, a little confused. A little wander past the red light district and we caught the metro back for a very good sleep.

Refreshed we joined another walking tour the next morning, taking us past some of the more famous sights of the Arch de Triumph, champs elysees and of course the Louvre and onto Notre Dame. I wanted to do something a little weird and Took Emma and our tour Guide onto the Paris Catacombs. This awesome tunnels system, deep below the Paris city streets, contains the bones of more than 6 million people, stacked neatly in corridor after corridor. Somewhat creepy, and definitely a curiosity it makes the crypt in Rome look kind of boring. This 2 km walk takes you deeper than the Paris Metro system, ceilings low and dark overhead, the eyeless skulls glistening in the yellow lights. Of course I touched them, I had too! It makes you wonder who these people were.

Then Emma and I decided we needed a challenge and off we went towards the Eiffel tower, perhaps the most famous Parisian landmark, seen from every window in Paris. This turned out to be quite the journey as it took us nearly 3 hours in line to get to the top, but the views off a darkening Paris are extraordinary, as the city glimmers and sparkles into the distance.

Back to London

Our final early morning and we found the bus to be a little subdued as we had already lost some of our friends overnight. Cruising towards Calais we all chatted about the trip and unanimously agreed that it had been a brilliant journey and we all wanted to steal the bus and keep going. Our guide and driver kept the group together with interesting comments and just by being great people. Perhaps it wasn’t a great idea but we started to have a few beers on the trip back, then we all started talking too loud, singing too loud and just having a ball. It was hiding the fact that it was over. We squeezed the coach into the chunnel train, an amazing feat of engineering as we drove the length of the train on the inside, doors closing behind us to seal of the carriages. A good trip into London and a final goodbye to all our new friends. They were a truly great group and we hope to see them again sometime. It’s funny how people come and go in your life: do we have enough friends? Or do these people take the place of your friend at home while you’re away. Between these guys and my Rally friends, I don’t really expect to see them again. It’s as though we had something in common, but not in the real world. I hope they come and visit us in the real world, you are all most welcome.

Emma left me the next day and I spent an extra day or two staying with friends and visiting with family. I met up with our tour guide again for a long lunch of cocktails in Camden, finally being asked to leave the venue due to our rowdy “Close the door!” to every person that entered. I mean seriously, its 0 degrees outside and you can’t shut the door? The manager asked us, head bobbing like some strange bird, to keep it down or he would ask us to leave. I asked him if his neck hurt from all that bobbing. He blinked in reply.

I left Europe for my next adventure in paradise. The Philippines was calling and after an epic delay in Shanghai I made it to this steamy, busy, fun, extraordinary place. But that’s all for next time!

A Mongolian Adventure with James