Paris to Florence

Rather than farting around uploading pictures to this stupid blog (it's a real pain in the ass), I'm just going to link you to my photobucket pages.

First stop on my 18 day tour was Paris. I had no expectations of Paris and didn't think I'd be overly impressed by the Eifel Tower. Admittedly, during the day I wasn't... but at night time it's stunning. Paris is definitely a city that's at its most beautiful at night.

The photos of the tower that you can see were taken from the very spot that Hitler stood and admired the tower when he invaded Paris. The skulls and bones you're looking at are in the Parisian Catacombs. These catacombs stretch on for kilometres under Paris and were a place to intern the dead during plague and influenza years. There are possibly millions of skeletons down there. Of course, I had to see Notre Dame - what a stunning building.

Our last night in Paris, we went to dinner and then to a cabaret where we watched gorgeous girls theatrically get their boobs out and got sloshed on red wine (hence the beautiful wine stained smiles on everybody). Afterwards, we got shitfaced on the bus and in the lobby of the place we were staying. This was the first night of what became an 18 day bender. I got caught stealing beer at 4am by the ninja receptionist. I thought he'd gone to bed. He hadn't. He wasn't happy haha. An incident which coined a phrase that became very popular on tour; "That'll be 8 euro."

Next stop was Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. This place was breath taking. I've seen the Canadian Rockies and didn't think I'd be overly awed by the Swiss Alps... but this town was magnificent. It's situated in a valley with 800m cliffs on either side. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Our first night in Lauterbrunnen ended up in people dancing on tables, hooking up and someone fucking in my bed. It was probably the biggest night of the tour and ended with Ben, Rueben and I walking down a pitch black road, passing around a bottle of wine, falling over fences, standing in the middle of a field taking swigs of gin from the bottle then chasing them with fists full of snow. We talked crap for ages before one of us looked up and noticed the moon had come out and we could see the cliffs. The three of us just kind of stared at them for the next half an hour and didn't say much. We didn't need to.

After a quick stop in Pisa (forgot to upload photos) Florence was our third destination. Though it was later trumped, up until this point Florence was the most fun I'd ever had in one day. Four of us started the day by just walking around. We saw the statue of David and then climbed the bell tower of the Duomo cathedral. I was quite hungover so the 480-something steps to the top nearly killed me. It was worth it.

We walked a little further before discovering something that made our day and changed our lives; Segways for hire. We hired some and just before tearing away I was heard to utter the immortal quote, "Lets go Segway the fuck out of Florence". We did just that.

From then on we "segged" around town on our "seggys" (I named mine The Segasm), defying death on huge roundabouts and seeing all that Florence had to offer. Although I was nearly killed in traffic, I can't begin to explain how much fun it was to segway around Florence. We went to the Ponte Vecchio, Santa Maria Novella Pharmacy - the world's oldest (and still operating) pharmacy/apothecary, street art, Piazzale Michelangelo and just about everything inbetween.

When we finally had to give the segways back, it was Ben who pretty much summed up how we all felt when he said, "Walking is for chumps," and then later, "Fuck legs. Are you listening God? You've been trumped."

What a day.

Next blog will be Rome onwards.