CherryPopper

On our way to Florence we hit Pisa to see the learning tower of Pisa. There really isn't much in Pisa and is a bit of a hole to be honest so it was a quick photo stop to get the obligatory shot of you holding up the tower, or in recent times to get the "erect" tower coming out of your lap. So after the quick stop in Pisa we hit Florence.

After dinner at the hotel we all headed into the city to the Red Bar. Now i'm not sure why they called it the red bar but i'm guessing it had something to do with the fact that everything was red? There were quite a few other tours in this bar, not just contiki but other companies as well so it was bound to be a great night.

The beer's were pretty crap and expensive, the place was crowded and hot but the one redeeming feature was that it had karaoke!!! With a few beers under our belts some decided to give the singing voice a warm up and jump on stage. First up of course was.... Random. But what song would he pick? being Random and not knowing what he will do or say next it was an obvious choice... "The Yellow Submarine". He had that place pumping with the entire bar not just singing but screaming "we all live in the yellow submarine, the yellow submarine". A few of the others jumped up and gave it a go with 2 of the Americans and 1 Canadian picking "men at works - land down under" which was just wrong on so many levels and Cam, Simone and Kirby giving "New York, New York" a bash. It was a great night and a hell of a lot of fun.

The next day we had a tour of the huge amounts of art work on display around the city of Florence as this is where anyone who was anyone in the art world used to come to do their work. Statues, carvings and lots of paintings are everywhere around Florence. The one thing that impressed me the most was the statue of David. My god that is one impressive piece of work. It took just under 3 years to chip away at the marble block and turn it into one of the most life like statues i've seen... you can even see his butt hairs if you look carefully enough. Once again lots of walking and visiting the sites and statues.

Later that night we would head out for our dinner and group photo over looking Florence. The dinner was great and for once it wasn't pork which was a refreshing change. We had entertainment in the way of an Opera singer who had one impressively powerful voice and sung without the need for a microphone as well as a few others who got us up and dancing. Even Random got his butt shaking with not one but 2 girls at once. Lindsay even tried to show me a dance that had a total of 4 steps but after both of us being...well.... drunk we couldn't get it together.

After dinner we headed out to "Space Electronic Discotheque" nightclub. This place was huge and full of people which makes for a great night. Deano shouted us a few rounds on the house and we all danced the night away. There was even a wet t-shirt comp half way through the night and 99% of them were Australian girls... i so must be going to the wrong parts of Australia. Anyway our Joanne got up their and strutted her... rather large chest. She ended up taking the goods and coming out the winner. She did us proud.

Another late night but what a great one. Next up Lucerne.

We hit Rome that night and went on a quick tour of the city on the bus. There is one word that best describes Rome at night. WOW Massive monuments that have stood for centuries lit up at night to show them in all their glory & splendour. Afterwards we kicked back at the hotel for drinks, card games and a chat with Deano. It was really interesting hearing where he had been as he pretty much as all of Europe covered and the only parts he doesn't are at war at the moment so i don't see him going there anytime soon.

It was an early rise for everyone as we had to hit the Vatican city before the crowds to be sure we got into the place in this lifetime. The pope was meant to give his little speech but apparently his a soft cock and can't handle the heat so left us for Austria to cool off... Soft popey... soft. But this also meant that the line wouldn't be as long since he wasn't talking, it still took us 2hrs to get in!!!

Once in we got a guided tour of the worlds most priceless collection of artwork. All the "ninja turtle" artists were there as well as every other big name you can think of. Anyone who was anybody had some art work at the Vatican city. The halls were chock full of art work, statues & more. Even the buildings themselves ended up covered in paintings and mosaics. The floors the walls even the roofs had paintings on them, some were even trippy enough to have been painted to look 3D with frames around the pictures... very trippy.

Walking into the Sistine Chapel was just amazing. The entire place while small is covered wall to floor with paintings. Massive paintings everywhere, roof, walls even the floor has marble mosaics in it. Just amazing to think it was all done by a handful of people the roof was done by Michelangelo alone.

After getting through the Vatican we also visited St Pauls Cathedral. WOW what an enormous church in every way. Massively high roof with dome's everywhere and they are all painted with depiction's out of the bible. Its very wide and long with small area's on the side for small worships and alike. Just one big impressive church.

After getting through the Vatican we headed into Rome to see the rest of the impressive buildings that Rome has to offer. But first up was lunch and lots of gelati to get us ready for an afternoon of walking. The gelati in Italy was not the crap we get here, its more like ice-cream and very very yummy.

First up we hit the "Il Vittoriano" or as the locals call it "the wedding cake" since it looks like a wedding cake and like a wedding cake there isn't much inside. But a very impressive building with some great views from the top of the coliseum & of Rome. After that we visited the Coliseum and that is one impressive building. In its day it could hold 70,000 people and they could have it cleared in 10 mins!!! Personally i think they just let the lions loose in the crowd to get them out quicker. For such an old building its quite impressive when you think about when it was built (0080 AD) and the fact that there was nothing even close to it in the entire world.

From there we walked around Rome seeing a few more of the sites including the church where they made these memorials for the monks out of their bones. Its quite disturbing in a way walking through and seeing so many human bones setup in an artistic fashion. We also visited the trevi fountain, a few more churches, some big squares and lots of other buildings from the glory days of Rome.

That night we were all dead after getting up so early to see the Vatican city. So we had a quite one in the hotel then hit the hay ready for the bus ride to Florence.

We arrived at the hotel on the mainland of Venice just in time for dinner. One thing about Venice is there is no nightlife whatsoever, so we had a "Laundromat party" while we did some washing and then after that closed went to the local park and drank grappa. We drank the night away chatting and playing card games so it was a nice easy night.

The next day we jumped on a boat to the main island of Venice. Gondolas, green smelly canals and pigeons... so many stupid kamikaze pigeons in the main square, you had to be on the look out or they would fly into your face. Stupid pigeons!!!!

Venice is a quaint little city which is best explored by simply getting lost in the maze of ally's and canals. There are a few things Venice is famous for, glass and lace are the main two things but the other more exciting things are shopping and gondola rides through the canals of Venice, i did both.

I got lost and found a number of great little shops where i got a few things including some Gucci sunglasses for my 2 painful sisters. They had so better be grateful.

Next was the gondola ride, i jumped on one with a Grant, Tyler, Lindsey, Anna and James from the tour. We grabbed a few bottles of wine before hand to set the mood on the peaceful cruse through Venice and to see the sites from a different view. Our gondola driver was a funny but very dirty old man. He asked for the girls to be sat up the back closest to him and introduced himself as "Bond... James Bond... 0069" & from that point on he was chatting up the 2 girls on the gondola for the rest of the cruse.

It was a nice relaxing cruse around the canals of Venice and knocking back a few bottles of red wine made it even better. After that was dinner and then back on the boat to the hotel. The boat ride back was just beautiful as the sun was setting over Venice and it made for some spectacular views and photos.

The next day we jumped on the bus again and were off to Rome.

Into the Austrian Alps we go with an awe inspiring drive. Nothing but towering mountains either side reaching to touch the sky. We were heading to one of the more adventurous excisions on our trip (though not as risky as the red light district in Amsterdam), white water rafting in some very cold water. It was straight from a glacier in the Austrian Alps so it was only 5 degrees even when it was 30 degrees out of the water.

We all got geared up with full length wetsuits, boots, life jackets and helmets ready for whatever came our way. After a few safety tips and what not to do they let us jump in the water to cool down and after the initial...awww this is better than sweating my ass off it soon became too cold to stay in there for long without loosing some manhood due to shrinkage.

The raft was finally set free with us in it and we headed for our first rapid. It was just a baby one to get us started and pop our rafting cherry on. The next few started to get up there with some "water walls" to crash through and in turn getting the 2 guys in front thoroughly owned.

We had a few spots where we could jump out of the raft and drift along in the water with the raft. It was at this point I took it upon myself to ensure Cam got pushed in with me. After stuffing around in the water for 5 minutes and both our manhood's disappearing we jumped out in time for the next set of rapids.

One thing that was great about the rafting was the breaks we had between rapids just to sit back and look up... up at the massive mountains towering above us either side. We all sat silent after one set of rapids just taking in such a spectacular view.

The final rapids were a lot of fun with quite a few big water walls along the way and once again the 2 guys up front, Cam and Shaun got owned. I let them know i felt their pain by laughing out loud... and pointing at them.

All up it was a great way to see the Austrian Alps and get wet at the same time.

Venice are you ready for us??

Cam & I scored the big room at one of the nicer hotels we stay at so we were very popular. After ensuring everyone knew we had a bigger room, the group headed out to the beer gardens in Munich.

Now in Munich they don't serve beer in pots or even pints, but stines. A stine is a glass that holds 1 Liter of beer!!!! Not only were the beers massive but the food is huge to. Deano told us to get a stine and a pork knuckle. Now a pork knuckle is the knee of the pig & makes for some fine eating.

We walked into what has to be the strangest family resturants i've ever seen. It wasn't so much the traditional german band dressed in lederhosen (traditional german clothes) or the locals also dressed in lederhosen sporting some of the biggest handlebar moustash's i have ever seen but the massive amounts of beer being consumed.

Once we had found a table & ordered our stines & knuckles we started to get a feel for the place. There were groups yelling out random chants which we soon joined in on. They always finished with a clang of the stines & a cheer of "prost" (cheers in German). There were also German beer drinking songs being sung so by the time our awesome waiter brought all our stines at the same time we were ready to join in. He had 6 x 1 liter stines in each hand!!!

The pork knuckles were huge, it would have been a kilo of meat for sure.@It was very tasty and suited the bolivian atmostphear perfectly and it was washed down quite well with another stine of beer

We got into the swing of things by joining in on a few chants, songs & also starting a few of our own. In a few cases there were the odd "chug chug chug" chants from around the garden. Joe (aussie guy from sydney) decided to take up the challenge and give chugging a 1L stine in one go. The chant went out and Joe started skulling, he started stong but half way through you could see he was struggling and when he could see in end in site he crumbled and stopped due to lack of air (or some might say balls ). The chants soon turned into boo`s and not just by us but the locals too. Needless to say we disowned Joe for the rest of the night. It was a great first night in Munich.

The next day it was a day of shopping & eating in Munich as well as the hightlight of the day, the glockenspiel clock. This baby was built in the 1860`s and back then it would have been the best thing since fire but today its not really that impressive. Would have been better to see it while drunk as then i`m sure it would have been way more exciting.

We also saw a few sites of Munich like the Frauenkirche where it is said to have the devil`s footprint in the marble floor, funny enough my foot was the same size? We also went to the top of the tower to get a look from above the city skyline. The best part of the day was heading to the food markets for lunch and of course... a stine

Munich has a great vibe to it and would be one of my favorite cities so far. Its got great people, really laid back and of course the beer halls like Hofbraeuhaus.

Next up is the White Water Rafting & Venice