La Rochelle

My visit to La Rochelle was part of a Uni course I've been doing in French, so it was kind of half holiday, half study visit. The university wanted us to learn as much of the language as possible while we were there, so we had to spend our mornings in a language school - hardly ideal, but we made up for it in the afternoons with plenty of sun, sand and Belgian beer.

Le Vieux Port of La Rochelle, built to control entry into the harbour. Unfortunately the €8 admission fee (per tower!) helped control my entry into them.

Leffe - the beer of kings.

Topdeck: Rome

Rome. The Eternal City. This is somewhere I'd wanted to visit for ages and it didn't disappoint.

We headed straight out into the city on a walking tour to see the major sights, including the brilliant Trevi Fountain, which was packed with tourists...

The Pantheon is even more impressive. It's almost 2,000 years old and still has the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. I was in Rome for 3 days and went back on every one of them just to marvel. 

Phil's panorama shot of the interior of the Pantheon.

Our walking tour finished outside the Colosseum, where there was still time for one last group photo before we headed back to the camp-site pool for our last night on tour.

The next morning we visited the world's smallest state - The Vatican City. We paid for a guided tour and it was well worth it. Our guide spoke 4 languages and knew the answer to pretty much anything you asked him. Unfortunately they didn't allow photos in the Sistine Chapel, but we did get one inside the Basilica itself. 

La Pieta inside the Basilica was very impressive. Sculpted by a 23 year old Michelangelo, it makes me feel fairly inadequate having not yet sculpted a masterpiece of my own.

That night after a quick nap in our hotel, me and Phil had to say goodbye to our fellow travellers. It wasn't easy - it'd been an amazing 10 days and we'd made some friends for life. The rest of my time in Rome wouldn't quite be the same...

The next morning I was feeling pretty good though. I'd had my first proper night's sleep in a real bed since July and I was ready to see the parts of Rome I hadn't managed to the night before, starting with the Roman Forum, followed by a look around the inside of the Colosseum.

The weather was so hot that day, I retreated to my hotel pretty early and spent the last of my euros on Fanta and Pringles. While sat watching the news in Italian in my underpants it hit me that another trip was over. Topdeck part two was fantastic - I got on with everyone on the trip, we had an excellent crew and the destinations were all brilliant. This won't be my last trip with the company, I'm sure of that.

Topdeck: Orvieto

The small hilltop town of Orvieto is on the way from Florence to Rome, so we stopped for an hour on the journey down.

In all honesty there wasn't a lot to see. The cathedral was undoubtedly the main attraction.

The local speciality was wild boar sandwiches though, which I tried. It wasn't dissimilar to pork, maybe a little bit more gamey. It was still pretty hot, so we all chilled out before our final stop in the Eternal City...

Next Stop: Rome, Italy

Topdeck: Florence

Like Pisa, I'd been to Florence before. It's a beautiful city with some of the best architecture that Europe has to offer.

On our first night in the city we were taken to a local karaoke bar where James and I sang "Man, I feel Like a Woman" and got really drunk. A good night all in all though!

The following morning we went on a walking tour to the magnificent Duomo.

We stopped off on the famous Ponte Vecchio too.

The weather was incredibly hot, so we retreated back to camp until the sun had gone in. We then spent our night overlooking the city from the hills while the locals tutted at us for being loud. Brilliant view though!

Next Stop: Orvieto, Italy

Topdeck: Pisa

Pisa is a bit of a dump. There's no other way to describe it really. The only thing worth seeing is the Leaning Tower and I'd seen that before, so I spent the hour or so we had there going to McDonalds, then playing rugby with the Aussies next to the Baptistry. After a couple of minutes we'd drawn a reasonable crowd of Chinese tourists and I got a round of applause from them after taking a high bomb from over my shoulder. A very surreal moment.

I did find the time to take one stupid photo though. You can't really go to Pisa and not...

Next Stop: Florence, Italy

Topdeck: Monaco

We didn't have too much time to spend in Monaco, in fact it was under 3 hours, but I'm very glad I went, even if only to tick the world's second smallest state off my list.

We saw the cliff-top fortress which has housed the Grimaldis since they seized power in 1297 before wolfing down the cheapest pizzas we could find (most restaurants were charging at least 20 euros for a starter and most of the cash machines were paying out in €100 notes!) I couldn't resist the temptation to wash it all down with a Leffe though.

Afterwards, me and Phil walked part of the F1 track, including the tunnel and start line before toasting to 10 years of friendship with our legs dangling into the harbour where the billionaires keep their super-yachts - a fine way to end our time in the principality.

Next Stop: Pisa, Italy

Topdeck: Nice

It was a long drive down the the French Riviera, which seemed like another world compared to Switzerland.

We wasted no time after setting up camp - we threw a decent mix of spirits and juice into a big plastic box and mixed it up before making our way to the beach across the road for a sunset beach party. Things got quite messy quickly and I'm certain this was the night when the cold that lingered among us for the rest of the trip started spreading. After drinking punch in the Mediterranean while looking both up at the stars and across at the illuminated Nice, everyone went back to camp, where the next morning was spent waiting to see who would emerge from which tent while we ate breakfast.

On our free day in Nice, some bright spark had the idea of renting roller-blades. I hadn't done it for at least a decade, so I was quite shaky to start with. I dressed accordingly with short-shorts and a headband which got me plenty of looks on the promenade - I can only assume they were jealous stares.

After stopping for a prosciutto and gelato break (not at the same time, don't worry), we spent some time on the beach before getting ready for the next leg of our journey.

Next Stop: Monaco