Scubophilus Thistler

After the shambles of the day’s trip from Ireland, we were picked up by friends in Rhyll. Not the most picaresque part of Wales, but after a short drive through the the chavy beach town we were on our way back to Rachel’s at Ruthin. We enjoyed the homely comforts over the next few days, as well as a personal tour guide of Northern Wales. We went tobogganing in Llandudno, a busy Victorian seaside resort with a chilly beach that we spent a bit of time at.

We took in the epic scenery in Snowdonia National Park, which lays claim to Wales tallest peak – Snowdon. We didn’t do any hiking ourselves, but made our way in a bit to catch some of the views. Had a night out in Ruthin’s only club, but was a fun night and met loads of locals. We explored the quaint little town the next morning before heading to Llangollen. We enjoyed exploring the town for a while checking out the steam railway and the nice running River Dee. From here we drove to Chester, and got a train back into England.

In Birmingham we got another cheap nights accommodation, staying with Ross the night before heading down to Bristol. In the morning before our bus we got a speed tour of the city, particularly the Bull Ring commercial area.The newish Selfridges department store stuck out the most with the crazy architecture modernising the city quite a bit. A few hours on the bus later we were in Bristol. With our flight to Italy not leaving for a few more days, we had plenty of time to see in and around the area.

That afternoon we took a stroll through Bristol, walked to the Clifton Suspension Bridge and spent a few hours looking for a cheap internet cafe on the way back. After we decided to give up and head back to the hostel we found out there was access there! The next day we got a train to Bath, but were straight on a tour bus before looking around. First stop was Stonehenge. Whilst the weather and the distance we had to stand from the stones was a bit undesirable, it was still fascinating and I was glad to have gone. Avebury was next, providing a more spread out but accessible version of Stonehenge, set around a small town. Was a very memorable experience walking in amongst such ancient stones.

From there we headed onto Lacock which, being completely owned by the National Trust, has maintained its unspoiled beauty through the ages. It’s also been used as the set for Pride and Prejudice and some parts of the Harry Potter movies. After lunch there we were off to Castle Combe, another tranquil medieval village. On our return to Bath we explored some of the city for the first time, before deciding to visit the Roman Baths. The beginning was a little drawn out, but once we finally got up close with the baths it was all worthwhile. They’ve been preserved so well and provided a bit of insight into Roman lives.

The next day it was off to the airport, Milan here we come!

A recap for anyone who didn’t see the last post planning the trip: This year Easter brought with it a generous whole month off. With exams seemingly in the distant future, Ashleigh and I decided to make the most of it with a trip, rather than just studying throughout it. Italy was decided upon early, as we were both keen on heading there, and the timing of the break brought with it the perfect time to see Ireland – St. Patrick’s Day. Rachel, Ashleigh’s flatmate, had also offered for us to stay in North Wales with her. Guiseppe, my Italian flatmate, lent a hand in sorting out the Italian itinerary, and with that we were planned and ready. The 3 flights that we needed each cost only 10 Euro (before taxes), one of the benefits of short distance travel with budget airlines over here.

On the Sunday evening after term finished, we flew into Shannon airport and got a bus to Limerick. We’d decided on spending St. Pat’s there since accommodation in Dublin was either booked out of expensive. We were up early the next day and managed to explore some of the city. Plenty of history with King John’s Castle and the Treaty Stone to be seen. The march started at midday – we were both a little surprised as the march seemed to be more of an exhibition of local scout groups and marching bands than anything else. Still, it was good to be in on the day’s festivities. A few Guinness throughout the day ensured the authenticity of the event. Limerick wasn’t the loveliest Irish town we visited, with enough chavs to fill an English city, but it was good to stop in there for a couple of nights.

Onwards to Cork we went, a lovely city with the central island split from the mainland by the River Lee. We enjoyed exploring the town centre, by night and day, finding a couple of cathedrals and an art gallery amongst the main shopping hub. Really enjoyed my time in this nice, friendly city. From here we caught our second Irish bus to Dublin, for the last leg of our trip in Ireland.

We we taken back a little at first when arriving in Dublin as our hostel was in a pretty nasty looking location. A nice old lady recognised us as tourists and warned us of all the druggies around. With no particular itinerary in mind, we took to the streets to explore. We soon found ourselves in the immaculate Trinity College, and had a look around the campus there. We made our way back through Temple Bar, which is the well known pub district of Dublin. We found the National Museum of Ireland quite interesting, and there was an impressive looking Viking ship parked in the main square. A last minute decision to visit the Guinness Storehouse was made, though we were quite happy with the insight into the brewing practice that it gave us. Complementary pints were enjoyed whilst taking in the sights of Dublin from the sky.

We were all set to leave Dublin for Wales on the Dun Laoghaire-Holyhead ferry, but the journey was not as easy as we’d hoped. A combination of a three hour delay, rough waters and delayed docking once we finally made it to Holyhead lead to a long day of waiting around. The ferry itself was incredible inside though, and felt like a cruise ship with the various bars and restaurants around. Once we were back on solid ground, it was time to explore Wales.

PS. I planned on writing the Wales, Southern England and Italy posts immediately, but have been inundated with uni work since arriving back. Keep an eye out and hopefully I’ll get something out in the next week. Thanks for looking :)

I’m packed and ready to leave in about an hour for another exciting adventure. We’re heading from Leeds to Shannon airport, and staying in Limerick, Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow. Very excited about that and it was lucky that it fell right at the end of semester. Afterwards we will head to Dublin, possibly through a few towns on our way. Later in the week we will catch the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead, and stay with a friend in Northern Wales for Good Friday. Between then and Wednesday the 26th, we’ll make out way through Wales and Southern England to Bristol.

On the 26th we’ll be flying to Milan, Italy. Across 2 weeks we hope to wander down through through Venice, Ferrara, Bologna, Florence, Pisa, Siena and Rome. Really looking forward to going and seeing so much in Italy. Afterwards we fly out of Milan again and make out way up to Leeds from London, seeing some sights along the way.

I’ll try to keep this updated along the way and will take plenty of pictures!

I’m cross-posting this with my other blog, where I was asked to write some some tips for international students wishing to study in the UK. I’ve kept this one separate and just covered my travel antics here, but if you’re interested in the the process behind getting here and academic life feel free to check it out here.

Here are some of the I’ve differences I’ve noticed between life in Leeds and Queensland over the past few months. Some might seem a bit negative, but it’s really part of the fun and experience of living here.

• For the same trip, travel can range from the ridiculously cheap to obscenely expensive.
• Despite being 20 degrees colder, people still where the same clothes clubbing.
• It really doesn’t snow as much as you’d hope.
• Pints soon become just as easy to get through as schooners.
• You wake up every morning knowing that it’s quite unlikely that you’re going to see the sun.
• Dinner time becomes 6pm, on the dot.
• Every kind of Pasty/Pastry is available, but still no authentic meat pies.
• Newspapers are even more tabloidal then back home.
• Accents vary a ridiculous amount considering how close everyone is to each other.
• Metric really hasn’t taken off yet, despite conversion discussions starting in 1818.
• Jaywalking is rampant and not policed. Glance and run!
• A Full English Breakfast is an amazing start to the day.
• Where ever you go, it’s likely you’ll find an old castle or church.
• Fancy dress is a fact of life for going out.
• Rain becomes so normal you hardly notice it.
• Basins come with two options, scorching hot or ice cold.
• Potatoes become part of your staple diet.
• Libraries become much more use to students when their only a short walk away.
• You notice all the slight differences in vocabulary – "Hoover vs. Vacuum, Duvet vs. Doona, Squash vs. Cordial", just to name a few.
• There’s no limit to the amount of tea you can pack into a day.
• Terraced houses are everywhere, no Queenslanders here.
• "You alright?" almost completely replaces "How’s it going?"
• There’s someone asleep in every lecture.
• Radiators are capable of turning any cold room into an Australian summer.
• Traffic lights go yellow through both green to red and reverse.
• Even on a sunny day you’re bound to find a cloud up there in the sky somewhere.
• Supermarket branded alcohol is fit for consumption.

After a solid two weeks of exams they are finally over. It was very different to back home, with twice as many in the same space in time but I think they went alright anyway. In the last post we were about to leave for Paris, so I’ll continue from there. After a seven hour bus ride from Düsseldorf to Paris, we arrived and made our way to our hostel. After unpacking, we headed straight to the Eiffel Tower and after many photos there continued to explore the city. We took a free guided walking tour the next day, which covered a huge amount of the Parisian sites.

On Christmas day we headed up the Eiffel Tower for some stunning views of the city, and had a nice Christmas park in the Luxemburg Gardens. In the afternoon we went to the amazing Notre Dame Cathedral, where an organ service was taking place. We met people from the walking tour for drinks that evening, the Australian tour guide was quite a laugh. Quite a unique Christmas for Ash and I, but a very fun one.

On Boxing Day we headed to the Louvre for a few hours. It was enough to catch a glimpse of the Mona Lisa, surrounded by security guards, and explore a tiny portion of the museum. Definitely plenty more to see next time we’re in Paris. We headed out of town to see the catacombs that afternoon, but they were closed to renovations. That night we took an interesting tour of Montmartre, a district of Paris that remains very similar to how the entire city was hundreds of years ago. We started at Moulin Rouge, and made our way up the hill to the stunning Basilica of the Sacré Cœur. The next day we visited the Arc de Triomphe before our flight out to Scotland.

Glasgow seemed very similar to Leeds, just a fair bit more industrial. It was good to get out of the city (for the first time of the trip) into the Scottish Highlands as we did on the next day. The night before had seen the first snow of the season, so the mountains were snowcapped and picturesque. We got up close with a Red Dear, and stopped for a while at the Three Sister Mountain range. We made it as far as Glencoe, where we followed a trail around the beautiful lake named Glencoe Lochan. On our way back to Glasgow, we made a detour to Glen Etive, where we were surrounded by looming mountains and had a couple of waterfalls flowing through it.

After Glasgow we headed across to Edinburgh for their New Years celebrations, called Hogmanay. Despite being a wet night, we still had a brilliant time. You can’t say very often that you spent New Years watching fireworks launch in front of a castle, surrounded by a hundred thousand people. Overall, we had a fantastic trip – much better then staying back at uni studying. Tomorrow is the start of the new semester, so it’ll be interesting to see how the new subjects are.

Over a week into the trip and this is the first hostel I’ve stayed at with free and unlimited internet access. Photos are online, and Ive added a few to this post. The itinerary has been updated to reflect the few changes we made on the road. Now finally, an update as to what’s happened so far.

Since leaving Leeds on the 9th of December, Ash and I have visited The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. France and Scotland are still to come before heading back to Leeds for exams. We started off in Amsterdam, an eccentric yet beautiful city. A lot of the time here was spent just wandering around the city’s huge network of canals in awe of it all. We also took a visit to Madame Tussauds – very cool getting up close with loads of stars.

After a couple of days in Amsterdam, it was onto Rotterdam. The city was almost completely rebuilt after WWII bombings, leading to lots of interesting architecture. We visited the city’s main museum – Boijmans Van Beuningen, which had a massive collection of medieval and modern art. We got up close with some works of Dali and many others. We also made it to the Netherlands Architecture Institute, which documented the design of many of the buildings we had seen in Amsterdam, and the reconstruction of Rotterdam after the bombings. Whilst not an attraction of the city, we got to see the Queen Victoria cruise ship depart the harbour. On a stroll through the city at night, we saw a bunch of rabbits. Quite a shock to see so close to the city.

On leaving Rotterdam it was onto Belgium. We had just one night in Antwerp, which was a nice introduction to Belgium. We met fairly bad weather there, but still made the trek under the river (pedestrian tunnel) to see the city from afar. Due to a train strike the next morning we were forced to hot foot it on the last train to Brugge. It was a bit disappointing, having to leave before exploring the city some more, but we were lucky not to get stranded there.

In Brugge, we were met by hundreds of British tourists and a few locals. It was quite a contrast to the other cities, but the city still felt quite medieval and in total Christmas mode. Plenty of Belgium chocolate and beer consumption. We climbed all 366 steps of the Belfy in the city centre for some priceless views. In Brussels, we took a tram out to the Royal Museum for Central Africa, which houses artifacts from the time when the Congo was a Belgium colony. The extraordinary Grand Place was lit up for Christmas, and an awesome light show saw lights on the Town Hall flashing in time with various songs. The St. Michael and Gudula Cathedral was quite epic, and inside were nativity scenes constructed by each of Brussels international communities.

From Brussels we caught the quick and quite Thalys train to Cologne, while we only stayed one night we still managed to experience authentic German Christmas markets and visit the city’s world renowned Cathedral. Beautiful views of the city were to be had from across the Rhine. It was only a short trip from Cologne toDüsseldorf, where we are staying now. Over the two full days here we hope to experience loads of markets and wander through the Altstad. Already we’ve been up the Rheinturm tower, for spectacular views of the city, and through the frost-covered parks along the Rhine.

On Sunday its a bus to Paris, which is quite exciting. Its been an awesome trip, I’ve seen so much and everything’s gone really smoothly.