Berlin, Venice & Rome featuring Toby (as himself)
Our tour also took us to the site of Hitlers bunker where he killed himself and to the Jewish memorial. The memorial is a very large area of grey concrete blocks all of different heights that you can walk amongst with some of the blocks towering over you. It's really hard to explain but a wonderful, eerie place to visit
The 2 pictures below were also taken on our tour. The bottom one is the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of Berlin and once the boundary between East and West.
We noticed that the traffic lights were different too. The green man signal to 'walk' is supposed to represent the happy communist off to work! He is quite cute so the people voted to keep them in use :)
Once again, like in munich we realy enjoyed the German food! good value for money too :)
On recommendation we also visited the Berlin Zoo which was quite impressive. It is very open plan and the animals are kept in by deep ditches around the enclosure rather than big fences which is nice.
From Berlin we flew to Venice which was a different world!
We got a boat to our hotel which was in a really great location just near the famous Rialto Bridge. So we spent 2 full days just walking around and exploring the little cobbled streets and canals. It was great to see this beautiful place that is so different to anything we had seen. The Rialto Bridge (below) is one of only 3 bridges that actually cross the Grand Canal.
On our first morning the sun was shining so we took a Gondola Ride. It was great fun! We started in the Grand canal just near our place then under the Rialto Bridge and into the smaller canals winding in the Marco Polo district where we saw Casanova's House! :)
All of the residents get their goods and services via boat! Here are some fruit and veg :)
The italian food was a bit dissappointing we must say. It was very expensive for very plain dishes which was a bit of a shame. We found it to be the same in Rome as well. Even if you try to get away from the tourist spots it was hard to find a satisfying meal (except one great pizza place, not the ones the boys are eating below!) Maybe it's cause we were in big cities??
We had a great time crossing all the little bridges over tiny canals
On our last day we went to St Mark's basillica which is on the larges squares in the city (Piazza San Marco). It's quite impressive!
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We had a bit of a traumatic arrival into Rome when i realised i had left my hadbag on the train! Luckily we had only just left the station and i ran back to find the train was still at the plaform. The train was locked so i had to find some help which was very difficult and stressful. I eventually got help from the police and i got my bag back. Oh my God! what a lucky birthday!
Anyway, it was considerably warmer in Rome and after checking into our awful hostel we had a sunny afternoon to check the place out. Can't complain about the room mates in the hostel this time cause Sam and Toby were ok ;) but the room and building was terrible! Well, we stuck it out!
We did a walking tour in Rome as well and saw all the main historical sites. First stop was the Colosseum.
Below are the ancient ruins of Roman civilisation that we walked through on our tour.
We visited the famous Trevi Fountain (below) a few times. We thought it was really beautiful. It shows Neptune's Chariot being led by tritons with seahorses- one wild, one calm- representing the moods of the sea.
The last couple of days we spent looking around the Vatican. We went to St Peters Basillica and saw the Piazza ouside where everyone gathers to see the Pope from the balcony. The pic below is taken looking at St Peters from the Piazza.
See Toby down the bottom, below :)
The photo below is also taken from the piazza. The columns are on both sides of the Piazza leading up to St Peters
The morning before we flew back to London we spent some time sitting around on the Spanish Steps which are a really nice spot to sit and have more gelato! The 3 of us agreed that although it's great to see the historical sights in Rome, it is quite dirty with alot of dodgy looking characters, beggers and gypsies!