Rome/Pompeii, Italy

We left early in the morning on Sunday to arrive in Rome early afternoon, so we could get to exploring right away.  We pre-ordered our colosseum tickets online and decided that would be a good landmark to check out in the afternoon as it was only a 10 minute walk from our hostel.  Since we booked online, we paid a small extra booking fee but it was well worth it when we arrived.  We walked past hundreds of people in line in what was estimated as a 2-3 hour queue to the "reservations" line with only 5 people.  We walked around the colosseum with our pre-downloaded audio guides so we wouldn't have to bother with a tour guide.  We found out some interesting information, for example:

• Place for fights between gladiators, fights with animals and public executions by wild animals
• 9,000 animals slaughtered in colosseum in the inaugural year in 79 AD
• 4 levels of seating (moving upwards) were for senators (personalized seats made of marble), knights, Roman Citizens, poor citizens and common women
• Where the private entrance for the emperor was located
• Up to 73,000 spectators

The ticket also included access to Palatine Hill and the Roman forum which we visited right after. These sites were full of ancient ruins.

The following day we decided on a day trip to Pompeii as other travellers had highly recommended it and we had an extra travel day to use on our Eurail pass.  Pompeii was covered in 20 feet of ash in 79 AD after an eruption of Mount Vesuvius and later uncovered to find the city to be very preserved due to the lack of air and moisture.  We were there for a couple hours and got a chance to see a good portion of the city including the amphitheatre and voids between the ash, filled with plaster, to see the positions of the humans when they died.  We were kind of hoping to see the people as they were in the houses but the people and artifacts have all been removed and put into one area.

Our final day in Rome was to visit the Vatican City and St. Peter's square.  We booked online, which once again saved us waiting in a MASSIVE line, allowing us to walk to the front and right into the city.  We're glad we did our research before visiting these huge Roman attractions.  The city was neat, although there was waayyy too many people in there so it was hard to move around freely.  We saw a lot of the famous artwork, including the Sistine Chapel, where security tried to keep everyone silent to little avail.  After the Vatican, we headed out to check out St. Peter's square where the Pope comes out most Sundays.  Unfortunately we were not there on a weekend so only got to check out the area.

We then finished the day by heading out to an Italian restaurant that specializes in gluten-free pizza and pasta for our last night in Rome.  Holly had the gluten-free pizza she had been craving and I had a large calzone that looked like a giant pizza pop.

We headed back to the hostel for an early night, as we were off to Greece the next day!

Kev

Cinque Terre, Italy

We arrived in the Cinque Terre a little later than expected, due to the reliability of the Italian train system.  After checking into a small family run hotel, we explored the village we were staying in (Vernazza) before going out for a nice dinner by the ocean.  All the villages in the Cinque Terre are extremely charming, with so much color, character, and situated in the most beautiful landscape.  It's no wonder the region is considered a World Heritage Site.  Due to there not being much on at night there, we just checked out the stunning sunset and watched the powerful ocean waves explode over the rocks, before calling it an early night. 

The next day, we hiked the trail from Vernazza to Corniglia, the next town over.  The hike consisted of rugged landscape, absolutely breathtaking views of the ocean, and friendly people along the way.  Surprisingly, most people we talked to in this region were North Americans,  which was definitely a change.  After exploring Corniglia (situated high up on a cliff, unlike Vernazza which is right on the water), we took a train to the village on the other side of Vernazza, named Monterosso.  This is the most resort-like town in the Cinque Terre, with the nicest beach.  Here, we relaxed on the beach, checked out the town, and we were going to hike back to Vernazza until we were advised against it.  So instead, we took the train, and arrived back in Vernazza within five minutes.

After dinner, we spent another quiet night researching Rome, which we left for today by 630 am.
Holly

Florence, Italy

We arrived in Florence in the evening, after a long travel day.  It took us about fifteen extra minutes to find our airBNB host's apartment, as Florence has a system consisting of three different numbering systems for addresses.  They are color-coded, and of course the number we were looking for was in the palest color of all three (and as our host said, "nowhere else in Italy do they have this, only in Florence"). We had a rather lengthy introduction to the apartment with the host, where Kev had to prove he could unlock the apartment door about three times and turn on the gas stove, and as for me, the important information was where the iron and hairdryer were - and whether or not I approved of the bathroom.  Finally around nine pm, after a swift goodbye, our host whisked out the door and we went out for a nice dinner.

Our first full day consisted of exploring the main focal points of the city.  Included in this was the great Duomo (cathedral) which was absolutely breathtaking, the central market, the piazza del Signoria, and the piazza Michelangelo which had magnificent views over the city.  That night we went for dinner at a buffet where you pay 9 euros for a big drink and all you can eat.  However, the food was pretty mediocre, so the all you can eat aspect was lost on us.  We also had to check out a gelateria, which Italy is so famous for.

The next day, we checked into a hostel in the morning, and went for lunch before going on a budget wine tour in the Chianti region.  The guides drove us and fourteen other attendees in two vans, first into the Tuscan countryside to a vineyard up in the beautiful hills.  After getting to try the grapes right off the vines, we arrived at a charming house where a very passionate host gave us a tour and then a wine tasting.  The tasting consisted of three different wines (two reds and one dessert wine), olive oil, a very small tasting of truffles (worth €5000 per pound), bruschetta, 8 year old balsamic vinegar, and finally 3 drops of 30 year old balsamic vinegar on vanilla ice cream (delicious - don't knock it until you try it).  

After the tasting, we got driven to Siena, which is a beautiful small city sort of similar to Florence.  We got some free time there, where Kev and I went for a drink with four other people from our van.  The next leg of the journey was where the 'budget' part of the type was extremely apparent... We basically got dropped off in some fortress in the middle of nowhere, for ten minutes of exploring.  To top it off, we couldn't even see around us because it was already 8 o'clock at night.

Finally, we got to our destination for dinner, which must have been the most entertaining part of the day.  Our host, an older Italian man named Giovanni, couldn't speak more than three words of English (hello, goodbye, and thank you), but still spent the whole night singing, drinking wine, and interacting with all of his guests.  Our dinner was a three part meal, all delicious.  We started with appetizers of Italian meat, cheese, bruschetta and salad, and then had spaghetti (they even had gluten free spaghetti for me), and finally we had dessert with a mousse-like cake and another apricot pastry.  Of course, with this was all the wine you could drink (the bottles were at least 2.5L each).  

 

After a great dinner with great conversations, we got driven back to Florence where we went out with all of our fellow wine tourmates, before heading out the next morning for the Cinque Terre.

Holly

Austria

So we decided to add Austria to our itinerary for a relaxing time outside of the big touristy towns we've been visiting and so Holly could see some of the Sound of Music sites that are famous in Salzburg and surrounding areas.  We stayed just outside Salzburg with an AirBNB host who runs something  like a small hotel in a little town called Loibichl in the mountainous region. Our first day we rented bikes from our host and spent the day cycling up and down the hills, through the bush and along the lakes for a total of 34 km.  We were exhausted by the end but it felt very good to get a solid workout in coupled with some gorgeous scenery.

Our next day we spent cycling around our area and the nearby city, Mondsee, where we visited the church where the wedding was in The Sound of Music.  There wasn't much going on in the town, so we called it an early night and were headed off early the next day to Florence (we decided to skip Venice as it is very expensive and we suddenly ran short on time for Italy).  Before we caught the train in the morning we spent an hour to check out Salzburg and some more Sound of Music scenery.

Munich - Oktoberfest

Our visit to Munich was short and very centered around visiting Oktoberfest so our experiences were almost exclusively based on this event.  All accommodations are very expensive as they are scaled up through the roof as there are an extra 4 million people visiting the city over the course of the festival, so we decided 2 nights should suffice to experience it.  We had a long travel day to get there from Interlaken, arriving in the middle of the afternoon.  We got settled and decided to take the S-Bahn into the festival area to get a feel for place before we spent a full day there the following day.  The initial impression was overwhelming as there were more people in one area then we'd ever seen before including a lot of Germans from all over the country as well as people from all over the world mixed in.  Almost all were dressed in traditional Bavarian outfits with the men sporting lederhosens and the women dirndls.  We were not dressed up for the event yet but we realized it would be a necessity for the full experience the next day.  The crowd included people of all ages from families with small children to old couples who I could imagine having attended the last 40 years.  The most intoxicated individuals were all between 16-30, many of which appeared to have lost any one they had come with with no clue what was going on as they stumbled through the crowd bumping into everyone.  We were both hungry and decided to dip inside a restaurant and order a half-chicken each as that is one of the main food options at the festival.  Of course to fit in it must be accompanied with a 1-litre stein of beer for myself and glass of wine for Holly as a gluten-free alternative.  We then continued on to the absolutely packed festival (it happened to be a German holiday that day to make it even crazier) to scope out some alternatives for beer tents to visit the next day including the Hofbrau tent, Hippodrome, Augustiner, etc.

We had ordered costumes to wear for the festival although Holly's did not arrive in time and mine was extremely tacky compared to the authentic outfits people were wearing.  The next morning we went into a discount clothing shop underneath the apartment we were staying in and hit the jackpot with Bavarian outfits being cleared out as there was only a couple days remaining in the festival.  Holly's was a very nice dirndl and my lederhosen looked very legit as well although I could have fit two of me inside of it.  We were at the festival early to try to get a seat in a tent, arriving just after 11am. We went into the Hofbrau tent as this was one of the most famous.  It was already packed but we narrowly missed a lineup about to form as they reached capacity.  The atmosphere was amazing as we looked around to see 10,000 people with beer steins in their hands clinking glasses and having a great time.  The band would come on sporadically and play one of the Bavarian tunes that was heard all over the festival to a huge response of cheering from the crowd. There were very few seats left as we looked around but we managed to squeeze in right between a group of Germans and a group of Italians who we partied with for the next few hours before we were kicked out at 3pm for all the people that had reservations.  We had an excellent time and actually fit in pretty well with our outfits, even the Germans were impressed we dressed up for the 1 day.  We then hung out with the Germans for a while before heading back for a nap and supper.

Hofbrau tent statistics

Next we went to Salzburg, Austria.

Kevin

French Coast

From Barcelona we took the train to Marseille for the night and spent the following day there.  The main attraction there was the huge port and the views along the coastline.  We used the city bike rental service that cost only 1 euro for a week long subscription as long as you switch the bikes off every half hour. The bike stations were all along the coastline which allowed us to bike all day, traveling just under 20 kilometers at a leisurely pace.

Port in Marseille

Biking along the Marseille coast

The following day we headed into Nice for a 4 night stay.  We spent our first full day on a beach just outside of Nice which had an excellent view along with warm, clear water.  That night we headed out for a night on the town with some people from the hostel.

We spent our next day in Monaco where the Monte Carlo casino is located where they filmed Casino Royale of the James Bond collection.  This is one of the most plush areas either of us have ever been to, with a brand new Porsche being one of the lower end cars on the road.  Most cars on the roads were Ferraris, Maseratis, Rolls Royce, etc.  They also happened to have a yacht show where they had the craziest yachts in the world on display.  A guy was leaving and gave me his pass (80 euro value) to check it out for a little while before it closed.  I spent some time on one of the classic sailboats letting the yacht broker show me around.  It was very nice but I decided there are more practical ways to invest €15M, although it was one of the cheaper ones.  Some of the new yachts were up around €40M that I saw.  We headed back to town and went out for ice cream that night after dinner.

Kev with some of the cars parked outside the Monte Carlo casino

Today was a thunderstorm for a good chunk of the day so far, thus why I am inside writing the blog in the middle of the afternoon.

We're heading out to Interlaken, Switzerland tomorrow for some hiking in the alps before Oktoberfest in Munich from October 3-5.  We will keep you posted.
 Kev

Interlaken, Switzerland

We arrived late our first night in Interlaken after a long day on 5 different trains to get here from Nice.  It was dark, but a nice quiet town with hardly any vehicle traffic.  Our big event of the first night was to go to the small grocery store that was open late to get some food after we had checked in at the hostel. We noticed on the walk there was a large light way up in the sky that appeared to be floating in the middle of nowhere, which we assumed had to be some restaurant on the top of one of the mountains, that were invisible at night.  It was a very weird feeling as we could feel that the mountains were all around us but we couldn't see them.

The next day we decided to do our first hike on the nearby mountain, Harder Kulm.  Although the lady at the front desk advised us against doing this hike without proper footwear and equipment, we decided it would be a nice challenging hike to start out.  The morning had very poor weather with rain and lots of clouds and fog which provided poor visibility, so it was better to wait for the biggest mountains for the next day which was supposed to be clearer.  We ended up hiking to the top in a couple hours over a distance of 4.1 km and an elevation change of 800 m.  The weather was very weird as it started off chilly but we ended up shedding all of our extra layers by about half way up.  We imagined the hike would be similar to a rainforest hike as the humidity was so high and we were surrounded by fog the entire climb.  There was one opening on the way up where we travelled through ranging cows with staring problems. This was a messy leg of the trip as it was muddy and full of cow pies.  I also got a nice little boost of energy when I decided to jump over a small fence that turned out to be electrically charged. The top of the mountain was at elev. 1322 m and was almost completely immersed in clouds at the top, clearing up a bit later so we could get some views and cool pictures.

Kev at top of Harder Kulm - Elev. 1322 m ASL

View of Interlaken from the top of Harder Kulm - Elev. 1322 m ASL

Today, we decided to head into the Jungfrau region where the "Top of Europe" (Jungfraujoch) is located.  We took a couple trains up into the mountains and got off at the Alpiglen station to start our hike of the Eiger Trail, which is located under the huge Eiger North Wall and leads up to Eigergletscher and an excellent view of the glaciers on Monch and Jungfraujoch.  This hike was a bit longer than the previous day at about 2.5 hours and we travelled from elev. 1615 m to elev. 2320 m above sea level.  The hike was came with the warning of "For well-equipped and experienced hikers only" as it was fairly steep at some points, however, we managed with our running shoes once again.  It was an excellent workout as we did it uphill, when it seems that most prefer the downhill option.  The weather cooperated and gave us some clear skies up until the very tips of the highest mountains so we managed to get some incredible views.

Kev and Holly at start of Eiger Trail - Elev. 1615 m ASL

Holly at Eigergletscher with glacier between Monch and Jungfraujoch in background - Elev. 2320 m ASL

We got access to a computer today so we were able to upload some pictures as well as type on an actual keyboard to provide a little extra description.

Kev

Spain

Madrid
Our next stop on the trip was Madrid, Spain.  We stayed for 3 nights and got a chance to experience some of the unique Spanish culture.  We spent our days walking about the central touristy areas including Gran Via (busy downtown street packed with pedestrians, stores and restaurants), Plaza Mayor, the royal palace and gardens as well as a day trip to Toledo.  Our first night we spent in a nice hotel and received a free upgrade to a junior suite which was a nice change from our usual hostels.  We then went for dinner at an Italian restaurant that specialized in gluten free dishes, allowing Holly to have a pizza and a beer for dinner.  The most interesting thing about going out to eat in Madrid is the normal hours that people go out.  For example, the Italian restaurant didn't open its doors for dinner until 8:30 pm and nobody was in a rush to get in except us.  We were the first ones in and it didn't start to fill up until well past 9.  We had heard that typical lunch hours were between 2 and 4 as well.

 Toledo
 Our day trip to Toledo was a very neat experience as we got to see all the steel swords and armor that is made there. This is where The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, etc. gets all of their gear from. The town itself was gorgeous as well.

 Barcelona

Barcelona was the next stop.  We ended up staying for 3 nights and spent our time during the days walking around La Rambla (the happening place) and the surroundings area mostly.  It was full of street performers, markets, "hungry hustlas" (sketchy salesmen selling illegal goods) and a lot of interesting people.  We saw the end of La Merce festival on our second night which was a collection of bands performing and people partying in the streets.  The highlight of Barcelona for us was definitely the football match of Barcelona vs. Real Sociedad. We sat in the top level of the 100,000 seat Camp Nou stadium and watched Barcelona run them over 4-1.  Lionel Messi on Barcelona is said to be the  best player in the world right now (maybe some bias from the sources) and had a nice header goal against Real Sociedad that we got to see.

Holly's Heaven

Holly with chocolate dessert and red wine at a traditional Portuguese restaurant

Portugal - updated

Lisbon, Portugal

We made a last minute decision to book a flight to Lisbon, Portugal as it was the same price to go to our planned next destination of Madrid, Spain.  It cost us about $150 CDN but saved us a very long train ride, a Eurail Pass travel day and we were able to get there in just over 2 hours. It has been the best decision we've made so far.  We have titled it the "vacation within a vacation" as it seems to be a more developed version of Mexico.  Everything is fairly cheap (relative to the cities so far).  We booked into the Good Morning Hostel for 4 nights, costing only about 20 bucks CDN each per night and providing the best hostel accomodation we´ve had so far.  We spent our first day on the beach laying around and going for the occasional dip in the ocean.  The water is a bit chilly (Holly doesn't seem to think it's that bad) but is very refreshing when it is over 30 degrees outside.

Our plan for today is to hang around Lisbon and do some shopping before attending a Portugese dinner and then who knows what for the evening.  Tomorrow, we plan on heading to Sintra for the day, a small town outside Lisbon with castles and palaces to explore, and Sunday we will head out to Lagos, Portugal to stay there for 3 nights. Lagos is supposed to be a gorgeous beach town with lots to do, according to other travellers.

We will fill you in on these upcoming events when we get the chance.

Kevin

On Saturday, we visited Sintra, a small town outside of Lisbon (roughly a 30 minute train ride). It is considered a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and it is easy to see why. There are a large number of fantastic castles, palaces, convents, and other neat old buildings and structures on the Sintra mountains. Furthermore, the landscape and foliage is extremely lush, it reminded me of the forest in Montana.

Since it would take a couple of days to see everything, we had to choose only a few sites to see. We started out at the Moorish Castle, which was a relatively small area in total but had a wall all the way around it with turrets and stone walkways around the perimeter of the courtyard. It also boasted a breathtaking view of the surrounding countryside. After some time exploring this castle, we went to Pena Palace, the great palace on the uppermost part of the Sintra mountains. It was really interesting exploring the inside of the palace, not to mention the surrounding landscape was fantastic. We spent a good hour in the woods enjoying some time off the beaten track as well.

Lagos, Portugal

We arrived in Lagos after a relaxing four hour bus ride. Our first stop was our hostel which has great staff and a relaxing atmosphere. After a quick bite to eat, we hit the beach for a couple of hours and spent the night visiting with people at the hostel. Yesterday we got up, went for a run in the hot sun, then went kayaking on a tour through all the grottos along the beaches. We also got to kayak through some pretty tight caves, and got to snorkel at one of the secluded beaches. Last night we went out for a really good Portuguese dinner, and couldn't keep our eyes open past 11.  

Today we went and walked the cliffs that overlook the ocean and run above the beaches. We then spent the afternoon reading and swimming on one of the beaches along the walk. Tonight we're hoping to go out because tomorrow we're bussing back to Lisbon and taking an overnight train to Madrid.

Holly

Lisbon from across the river

Pretty nice beach view

Bruges, Belgium, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg and Paris, France

Bruges, Belgium
After discussions with fellow travelers in Amsterdam, we decided to change our Belgium destination from Brussels to Bruges and it worked out great.  We stayed with a 25-year old guy named Pieter in what was a traditional Belgian home just outside the city, very cool.  He was an awesome guy that we got along with very well.  He gave us bikes to use for the days and nights for transportation which was very convenient for such a small city.  We spent the majority of our time exploring on the bikes and even went for a day trip to a small town just outside of Bruges.  Pieter was busy studying for an exam on the Friday, the day we were planning to leave, so we decided to extend our stay a night and celebrate him finishing his exams and my own birthday.  We had a barbecue with some of his friends and hit the town for a night out.  Pieter wasn't strict on curfew so we returned to his residence by 5 am after a very fun night out.

Our host Pieter

Pieter´s friend Kelly

The Birthday Boy outside Bruges

Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
Luxembourg was another interesting experience, although we figured we would've been satisfied with just spending the day there instead of 2 nights.  It was very weird (and inconvenient) that everything closed so early and made it difficult to find food the first night. We eventually hit rock bottom and found our way to the golden arches in desperation. We spent our time walking around the city and exploring the underground tunnels where they hid their entire city during major wars.

Luxembourg City

Paris, France
In Paris, we stayed in another AirBNB with Isabel who was nice but basically met with us once, gave us the keys to her apartment and we never saw her again.  Our time here was rushed but we got to see some of the major attractions.  Our first was the catacombs where over 6 million skeletons were transferred to an underground necropolis from other cemeteries.  All of the skeletons were arranged in these underground tunnels in an artistic manner.  It was kind of a creepy place but very neat (worth the 2 hour wait). We also visited Notre Dame Cathedral which was an incredible structure.  Then the grand finale of Paris was of course the Eiffel Tower.  We booked online which allowed us to skip a massive lineup (est. 2 hours) and walk right into the elevator going up.  From there, we bought tickets to the summit where we looked around the city from 282 metres in the air.  It was gorgeous at night with all the lights lit up.
 Kevin

Amsterdam - days 1, 2, and 3 AND 4

Our time so far in Amsterdam has been really relaxing and enjoyable (and no, that is not referring to the city's infamous recreational pastime). Our hostel is situated on beautiful Vondelpark, where you see a variety of people running, biking, picnicking, sleeping, enjoying the scenery, and, of course, smoking pot. Everyone here seems to be quite fit, and the biking part of the culture is fascinating. Fun fact: families here have, on average, 4 bikes, and often they own more bikes than the number of family members.
The day we got here, we checked into our hostel in the late morning (we were up at 4 to make our way to the Edinburgh airport for our 7 am flight), and went right to Vondelpark to check out our surroundings. Since our hostel has a kitchen (small but functional), we have just been going to the supermarket Albert Heijn and cooking our own food. After initially being overwhelmed by the total Dutch packaging and signs, I became extremely thankful for a very handy label addition to all Albert Heijn products: a picture of wheat with a line running through it for anything gluten free. Very helpful indeed.
That night, Kev and I headed downstairs to our hostel bar after eating, where we met two guys who we ended up going out with after a couple of drinks at the hostel bar. Jason, an American, was just here for the weekend, but is currently working in marketing in Dusseldorf, Germany. Louis, a french-speaking Swiss student, is finishing up his mechanical engineering degree this year. Both very nice guys, we just walked around the heart of Amsterdam and ended up at a little corner bar.
On our second day here, we rented bikes for three days (until we leave) and started exploring the city by bike. It's fascinating how the city revolves over the use of bikes, the right of way goes bikes, cars, pedestrians (or bikes, pedestrians, cars.. It's hard to tell). It's extremely efficient and doesn't take us any time at all to get around. We checked out the Red Light District first by daylight, then again by night. It was a very surreal experience, it was extremely eye opening seeing all the prostitutes in the windows and interesting characters wandering the streets. We met a fellow Canadian named Cody (from Vancouver) who's applying to law school this fall. The three of us went out to check out the Red Light District last night, and afterwards met up with two Australians that Cody had previously met. The five of us ended up at a club where they had live jazz music, and a man in his late 60s with amazing foot work, out-dancing everyone on the dancefloor.
After a late night out, we slept in a little later than we would have liked today, and went to Vondelpark for a run (rollerblade for Kev - hostel rents them out). We then biked to the train station where we officially got our eurail passes validated, because we're off to Bruges, Belgium on Wednesday! After some additional sightseeing, we came back to the hostel to make food before spending the night out roaming the canals with some traditional Dutch ice cream from this place they have called McDonald's.

Our final full day in Amsterdam included visiting the Anne Frank house and going out for a nice dinner and bike ride around town and the Red Light District for the final time.  The Anne Frank house was a very moving story based off a Jewish girl, Anne Frank,who wrote a journal while in hiding from the Nazis. We got to walk through the business where her and her family and friends hid before being ratted out by an unknown informant while reading quotes from her journal and watching tapes of those close to her speaking of the situation, including one from her dad, Otto. Otto was the only one of his family to survive the German concentration camps.

Off to Bruges, Belgium for some beer, whaffles and chocolate..

Holly and Kevin

Amsterdam

We have arrived safely in Amsterdam!

Dublin, London and Edinburgh - UPDATED

Hello everyone, sorry for the delay in updating our blog.  We have been very busy and too cheap to get wifi while in the London hostel.

Dublin is a very cool city and always has lots going on.  Our first day was trying to get over jet lag so we just explored downtown Dublin.  The following day, we first checked out the Kilmainham Gaol which gave a history of the rebellion and civil war that took place in Ireland along with talking about all of the politicians and showing us where they were executed.  We then spent the night on a pub crawl with 2 local professional musicians that played traditional Irish music for us and explained everything there is to know about Irish music - very interesting.  We concluded the evening by hitting up Temple Bar (the party area) to watch some local talent perform.

The next morning we headed to the Guinness Storehouse to learn all about the brewing of Guinness Beer.  Holly related to the process from her background in microbiology and myself from by background in drinking beer. The tour included also a taste testing, a pouring lesson and a free pint in the Guinness gravity bar.  The gentleman I am, I offered to drink Holly's gluten-filled pint as well which was filling enough to serve as brunch for the day.  After Guinness, we took a train out to a little town along the coast called Killiney.  We went into the local pub on what happened to be huge carnival for the little town which gave us a real inside look at the Irish culture outside of a tourist area.  We stood out like sore thumbs but it was a really cool experience.

Dublin - Guinness gravity bar

London was a quick 2 night stay but we got a chance to see all the major tourist attractions that we wanted to, including the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge, the Royal Palace and the changing of the guard.  The hostel we stayed at was the only downside of the London visit as it was not very pretty.  Our stay at the B&B in Edinburgh made up for it though.

London Bridge

Edinburgh was by far the most gorgeous city with the Edinburgh Castle and all of the amazing architecture.  We spent our time walking around the city center, touring the castle, shopping on the Royal Mile and we took a day trip out to New Brenwick on the coast to see the Scottish countryside.  We walked the beach, ate lunch there and took a visit to the candy shop for some fudge.

Our B&B host was awesome!  He was a supper friendly guy with a lot of energy and traveling experiences.  He gave us access to the whole "flat" except his own room so it was like staying in a 5-star hotel.  We also used his kitchen to make mostly our own meals to cut down our costs. 

Off to Amsterdam...

Kev

Edinburgh Castle

London Eye

The City of Dublin

So I thought I'd switch it up tonight and do a little segment on the city of Dublin in general, and leave our travel stories for another night. 
First off, the people in Dublin are simply Canadians... With Irish accents.  They are polite, helpful, and simply so pleasant to speak to.  Everyone has been extremely courteous, who we've happened to run into.  Anytime we've looked remotely lost (and trust me, we have been), a Dubliner who notices will instantly ask if we need and help.  For example, today alone we took a bit of a detour on the way to Kilmainham Goal, got lost trying to find a pub where we were to take a music tour, and then lost our tour group before the second pub of the tour.  In these cases, we literally had people walk extremely out of their way to lead us to the correct locations... It was so helpful, and I hope those individuals know how much we appreciated it.
The city of Dublin is also extremely lively at all times.  Every time we're near city center, the hustle and bustle is apparent.  Towards the evening, the Temple Bar region is filled with a diverse population of individuals looking for pubs, bars, or just some free street entertainment.  The local music talent here is incredible, there are 10 year old boys who will lug out their instruments and perform in the streets, and believe me, they are usually incredibly good singers/musicians. 
I think one of the most fascinating aspects of Dublin (which we'll see much more of) is the mixture between the modern growth of the city and its beautiful old architecture.  I find myself staring at doorways and old buildings which have these distinct architectural patterns, yet then I look beside it, and of course there's a McDonald's beside it.  If there's one thing that represents changing times, it's a McDonald's lining every street in busy areas..
Anyways, until next time, and as the Irish say:
Cheers!
Holly

Arrived safe in Dublin - Ardmore hotel tonight

Layover Day in Toronto

So today was another exciting one, starting off with a bang upon arrival to Toronto airport with a trip to the lost and found office to try to get my passport retrieved which I forgot on the plane.  Managed to get one of the ground crew to board the plane and find it after passengers were already loaded up and ready to go.  So after that passed, we moved on...

We met up with Jess Viray (the asian that sang at all Oak Park events for those don't know the name, see photo) in the airport lobby to give us a day tour of Toronto.  Day was awesome, went for lunch in the busy area outside of Eaton's Center on Yonge St., followed by walking down to the harbor front for a beer at Amsterdam Brewery.  Thanks Jess!

Today's blogger: Kevin

The Delay

So after a wonderful send off lunch, we get to the airport, say our goodbyes, get through security, and board our plane. After about six rounds of "ladies and gentlemen, sorry to inform you of a delay..", and an hour and a half of waiting, we finally had the first leg of our journey canceled, from Winnipeg to Toronto.  So just to torture our Mothers with another goodbye, we are now scheduled to (hopefully) leave for Toronto tomorrow morning at 750 am, and we (hopefully) spend the day in Toronto, where we will (hopefully) board tomorrow night's flight to Dublin.  Fingers crossed!

The Plan

 This is a preliminary map showing the general area of the places we are planning to travel to.  The numbers indicate the order in which we are thinking of travelling to each place.  Only up to #5 has been booked so after that point, nothing is set in stone.

This itinerary shows the preliminary schedule we have come up with along with where we are staying if we have booked it already.  Anything that is not booked is subject to change.