26th May 2012

Hi all

I know its been a week since my last blog.........sometimes we find that we may not have internet connection available or as is the case this week , we left our Australian adapter in a motel in Switzerland and have spent a few days trying to find a replacement!!!!!!

The last time I blogged we were staying in Fussen in Germany and were planning to visit the fairytale castle, Neuschwanstein. We decided to take the horse and carriage ride to the castle instead of the bus. The horse and carriage has to stop about 600m from the castle so it is a very steep climb up to the castle gates from there. In the castle itself there is about 270 steps to reach the top. It is quite impressive inside and the highlight would have to have been King Ludwigs bedroom complete with a very impressive ensuite and a huge throne like toilet!!

After our visit to the castle we headed out of Germany and into Austria. We spent the night in Innsbruck and then drove on to Switzerland via Liechtenstein, the smallest country in the world. We stopped for lunch in Liechtenstein and had our passports stamped, the only country in Europe that actually does this.

We arrived in Lucerne late on Saturday and checked into our hotel. We were lucky enough to get a complementary upgrade into a very nice BIG room. Something we havent had much here in Europe. It was really nice to have some extra space so we decided to stay an extra night.

Switzerland is absolutely beautiful. We stayed in a small town just outside Lucerne right on the Lake. It was very picturesque right down to the cows (complete with cow bells) roaming around the paddocks. We spent a day just wandering through the village and the next day went into the city itself. We strolled over a bridge built in the 14th century and wandered through some little cobblestone streets. We found a little hairdressing salon and Mark had his first European haircut!!! The only downside to Switzerland is that it is really quite expensive.

On Monday (21st) we decided to head toward Italy. We drove through to Lake Como which is just over the boarder. We spent the night and then decided to head to Pisa the next day and visit the Leaning Tower. I have to say that Italy is not at all what we expected and it has been quite an eye opener. There are toll roads absolutely everywhere, lots and lots of tunnels and poor old Mark has a melt down everytime the GPS tells him to turn into a TINY cobblestone street that doesnt seem big enough for a person to walk through.....they are wild drivers here and we havent seen one car that still has both side mirrors attatched. Mark thinks its like something out of a James Bond movie. We drove from Como south toward the coast via Genoa. We were constantly in and out of tunnels and not knowing what to expect in Genoa got the shock of our lives as we exited one very long tunnel and found looming ahead the HUGE city of Genoa. We had lunch, had a look around and then headed further down the coast to Pisa.  We found a very nice b&b in Pisa and walked down into the town square....OMG the streets are like a rabbit warren......very interesting but I must say overall Italy has been quite grubby compared to Germany which was just prisitine. We visited The Leaning Tower of Pisa which is quite amazing. Em wanted to walk the 300 steps to the top but we were unable to get a tour through until late in the afternoon so we missed out on that.

That brings us to Wednesday  when we headed further south and into Civitavecchia. This is a Port town where alot of cruise ships leave for cruises to the Eastern and Western Meditteranean. We stayed out in a small town called Santa Marinella which is right on the beach. Em was busting to have a swim so we spent the afternoon on the beach.  We spent two nights here, caught up on the washing and today have arrived in Serento on the Amalfi Coast. Running out of power now so will post quickly and upload some photo's tomorrow.