Paris

Tonight is our fourth night in Paris - nearly the end if our stay here. It feels like it's gone faster than our time in London. That could be because our first full day in Paris was a very big one. We decided to start the day with a Sandeman's New Tour. Their general tours are free (they also offer specialised tours which they charge for) and the idea is you pay there guide what you think the tour was worth. As a result the guides put a lot of effort in, and the tour was a lot of fun.

 It's a three and a half hour walking tour, and we saw Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the exterior of the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe (from a distance), Place de la Concord (where many people including Marie Antoinette lost their heads), Champs Elysees, (possibly one of the most famous streets in the world), and many other historical bridges, squares, and execution sites. Our guide Jacqueline was a lot of fun, and also Australian.

After the tour she took those of us who wanted to a nearby restaurant to try some traditional French food. I was happy with a hot chocolate, but Michelle and André had frogs legs and snails.

 After most of the tour group broke up and went their separate ways, some of us decided to check out some of the other sights together. So we went to the Eiffel tower to get a close-up view, before checking out the Louvre. Pro tip - they no longer offer discounted entry after 6pm on Friday nights for over 25s. They do, however, still offer free entry for under 26s in that time slot.

We prioritised what we most wanted to see, and after 3 hours we were pretty over walking anyway and had seen what we most wanted to.

 If you were full of energy and had the time you could definitely spend a whole day there. We were not full of energy and didn't have the time. So we found a McDonalds for tea (we had seen McBaguettes advertised that we decided we had to try - they weren't much good) at about 9:30pm. We finished the night watching the light display on the Eiffel Tower and didn't get back to our apartment till after midnight. Like I said, a big day!

We are still recovering, (especially as I got a cold) so I will head off for bed now to cram as much in as possible tomorrow!

London

Well we are nearly at the end of our time in London! Our days have been pretty packed which means at the end of each day we've been getting back to our room exhausted and pretty much gone straight to bed, which explains my lack of blogging so far. That and the dodgy wi-fi in our room.
On Sunday (our first full day in London) we decided to check out the Tower of London. This happened to coincide with the London marathon which meant our train in the morning was very full, but otherwise just meant we could hear the cheering all day.

André and I got into the Tower on a two for one deal via daysoutguide.org.uk (I think- can't really check at the moment because I'm posting from André's phone). Basically you just show your national rail ticket with the two for one print-out to get the discount. At 19 pounds each this was an excellent discount.

During our day at the tower we followed a Yeoman Warden's tour (we had Mark - very amusing fellow), had a tour of the tower itself, saw the crown jewels, and explored many of the other exhibits in the complex. I had no idea how large and elaborate it is.

 We spent most of the day there before heading to Tower Bridge in the late afternoon. Fortunately we had great weather all day seeing as a lot of the day was outdoors, except for a bit of drizzle between the tower and the bridge.

Monday was the Harry Potter Studio Tour. The day started a little stressful as we were running late for our ten o'clock timeslot, but it ended up not being a problem as they were happy to just let us in. I think the allocated timeslots are just to space out the arrivals and they don't really care if you arrive a bit late.

The tour was fantastic. Only the first little bit is guided, into the great hall (yes- the actual set they filmed on for ten years!), but after that it was all self paced.

We saw many of the original sets that they filmed on- the great hall, the Burrow's kitchen, the Gryffindor common room and boys' dormitory, Umbrige's Ministry office, and, among others, Diagon Alley! We also saw costumes (including multiples of one of Harry's costumes, in various states of destruction), and props.

The second half of the tour focused on the technical side of things - blueprints from the art department, prosthetics, animatronics and last but certainly not least, an enormous model of Hogwarts which you've possibly seen online. The pictures online don't give a good impression of the size. It must be about 4 or 5 meters tall and around 7 or 8 metres across.

It's the actual model they used for filming (reconstructed in that room!). We spent the entire day there, before having a pub dinner that night.
Yesterday was sightseeing- Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace (we really just watched each set of guards march down the streets to get a closeup view, rather than get half a view of the changing among hundreds of other people outside the gates), Covent garden markets, and had fish and chips at a cafe in Hyde Park for tea (where we watched squirrels!

Today was very rainy so fortunately we had planned to spend the day in museums. Most of the day was at the British Museum, then later in the afternoon we saw the exhibits at the British library. Now we are off to find some dinner- it's 8 o'clock and would still be broad daylight except it's still very overcast. Hopefully it won't be so long before I can update again!

Below:  our  room in London and  André's  coq au vin  that he had for dinner in London one night.

A Long Trip

Well we have arrived safely in London! After about 32 very long hours, including an 8 hour stopover in Ho Chi Minh City Airport, we landed at London's Gatwick airport at 7 this morning.
It first started with Michelle's flight from Canberra being delayed by two hours. This meant she got to the international airport ten minutes before our flight out of Australia boarded. Fortunately the Qantas staff member who checked André and me in was very helpful and got Michelle checked in as soon as she arrived. (Our Vietnam Airlines flight was code sharing with Qantas and Michelle's flight was also with Qantas).
This then set us off on our nine hour flight to Vietnam. They fed us two hot meals, each meal consisting of the warm dish, a bread roll, a salad, a dessert, a drink, tea or coffee and wine. The seats were not terribly comfortable when upright but when reclined were fine. The lady who checked us in arranged  our seats so that we had four seats between the three of us which was great. Michelle and I were able to snooze a little and watched some movies (Abduction and Puss in Boots).
After eight hours in Ho Chi Minh City airport, we left on our next flight at midnight. Again Vietnam Airlines gave us a warm meal before we spent the next ten hours attempting to sleep. I think I may have got about six hours total. Breakfast was yoghurt, fruit, bread roll with jam, cold meats with salad, juice and tea or coffee.
Overall I was pretty happy with the service on our flights. The interior of the planes was a little shabby, with some non-vital items duct-taped together. But the food was good, the staff were friendly, the flights ran on time, and the seats were reasonably comfy.
Once our plane landed, we got through passport control, collected our baggage and got the train into London it was about half past nine. We found our hotel with no problems (two minutes walk from King's Cross Station) and were able to drop off our bags even though we were too early to check in. So we took a train into the city and spent a few hours looking through St Paul's Cathedral. There are a lot of steps to the top of that dome! We then found a coffee shop for lunch and headed back to our hotel to check in (but not before spotting two squirrels in the park!) So now we are in our hotel planning for tomorrow and taking much needed showers!

One Week!

Well, it's getting very close - one week until we leave! Next Thursday we fly from Townsville to Sydney and spend the night in Sydney, before flying out of Sydney Friday morning. Excitement! I'm even looking forward to our time in Sydney. I've lost track how many times I've been there, but you find something new every time. I'm hoping this time to check out the view from Mrs Macquarie's Chair as I've never been there before - yes, I know, I'm a very bad Sydney tourist.

Virtually everything is sorted. We are intending to enter Vietnam for a day on our way back from Europe (our stop over on the way there isn't long enough to justify the visa fee). Applying for a visa via the Embassy in Australia will set you back over $70, but I found an alternate way to get a visa for much cheaper. While the embassy will never tell you this, you can get pre-approval for a visa prior to leaving Australia, and when you land in Vietnam and show the pre-approval letter, you'll be given your visa then. This is different to 'visa on arrival', where you just turn up and get given a visa. 'Visa on arrival' does not exist in Vietnam for Australian citizens so don't get the two confused. At first I thought the visa pre-approval process was a scam. The site was dodgy and when I checked the embassy website it was obviously reluctant to endorse the pre-approval process (but, importantly, did not disown it as a scam). However Timatic, a service of IATA (the International Air Transport Association) verifies that you can get pre-approval for visas to Vietnam. Many airlines use Timatic on their own websites, so this was information I took straight from the Vietnam Airlines website, courtesy of Timatic -

Visa Issuance:
- Holders of an approval letter stamped and issued by the Vietnamese Immigration Department can obtain a single-entry visa on arrival, provided it states that the passenger will pick up pre-arranged visa at Noibai (HAN), Tan Son Nhat (SGN) or Da Nang (DAD) international airports. This single-entry visa is valid for:
- 1 month if traveling as tourist; or
- 3 months if traveling on business purposes.
The approval letter must:
- be both in Vietnamese and English, and
- contain passengers' data; and
- be arranged by either a sponsoring company or a local travel agency.
- Holders of a letter issued by the Vietnamese Immigration  Department confirming that a visa is ready for collection,  can obtain a transit visa on arrival provided arriving on  Vietnam Airlines (VN). Fee: USD 25.-.

I ascertained from other travellers (on Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forum) that they had indeed used this process many times successfully, and one user (employed by a european airline and works in a european airport) recommended using Vietnam Visa Pro to get our letters. Other users agreed. The best bit? US$9 each for our pre-approval letters, and US$25 each for the actual visa when we land. Much cheaper than $75 each, especially for only one day. If you are still uneasy about the process, PayPal is available as a payment option. The embassy website warns that it cannot endorse any such letters and that you could get turned away at customs, but most people suggest this is because the embassy is not happy with losing revenue with people getting their visas elsewhere. I tried checking the their Dept of Immigration website to verify the process, but it looks just as much like a highschool project as the Vietnam Visa Pro website, and doesn't contain a lot of useful information. And hey, if we don't get in, we have only lost $9 each.

Fortunately we don't need visas for any of our European destinations!

Travel Resources

Below are some of the resources that have been useful in planning our trip.

Accommodation
HotelClub.com
roomorama.com
eurocamp.co.uk
TripAdvisor.com
HostelWorld.com
Lonely Planet: Europe on a Shoestring
Lonely Planet: Western Europe
Lonely Planet: Central Europe

Equipment
Anaconda
Kathmandu
Bootsnall.com (There are some good posts on there about what to pack)
Lonely Planet's Thorntree Forum
REI.com
eBags

Transport
Kayak.com
seat61.com (THE ultimate web resource for train travel anywhere in the world)
Flight Centre
raileurope.com.au (Be wary of actually booking your tickets on this website, as it can charge a lot more than the country's rail website. It is useful for finding out times though.)
bahn.de (the German rail website, but it has a lot of content for rail trips in other countries too).
eurail.com

Where to go, what to do, what to see
TripAdvisor.com
wikitravel.com
Lonely Planet
visiteurope.com
timeout.com
Backpackeurope.com
Offtoeurope.com
Sandeman's Free Tours
Lonely Planet: Europe on a Shoestring
Lonely Planet: Western Europe
Lonely Planet: Central Europe

Destination Guides
I cannot recommend TripAdvisor and Wikitravel enough!

UK
www.visitbritain.com/
www.daysoutguide.co.uk
www.visitthecity.co.uk
www.timeout.com/london/

France
http://uk.franceguide.com/
http://www.tignes.net/en
http://www.beaune-burgundy.com/
http://www.paris.com/  

Germany
http://www.germany.travel/en/index.html
http://www.welterbe-mittelrheintal.de (Very informative website about the Middle Rhine Valley)
http://www.muenchen.de/int/en/tourism.html

Belgium
http://www.visiteurope.com/Belgium
http://www.in-bruges.co.uk/
http://www.visitgent.be

Switzerland
http://www.myswitzerland.com/en/home.html
http://www.mylauterbrunnen.com/

Italy
http://www.italia.it/en/home.html
http://www.parcoappiaantica.it/en/
http://www.revealedrome.com/

Austria
http://www.austria.info/au
http://www.salzburgerland.com/en/
http://www.salzburg.info/en/

Czech Republic
www.czechtourism.com/eng
http://www.ckrumlov.info/docs/en/kaktualita.xml

Exciting Progress & Travel Insurance

Guess what guess what? ...I have a passport! We picked it up the weekend before last, so now, I'm actually allowed out of the country and into other countries!

Today I also bought our travel insurance. It has been said in many places, not least of all the Australian Government's Smart Traveller website, that if you cannot afford travel insurance, you cannot afford to travel. After a bit of reading round I decided on Southern Cross Travel Insurance. They were the cheapest for what we needed, had a lower excess than some of the others and still had generous limits. Australia Post did offer a cheaper policy, but it only covered medical issues and not things like lost/stolen baggage, travel document replacement, delayed travel/change of travel plans etc. Obviously medical issues are the most financially crippling thing that need covering, but I think things like lost/stolen baggage and possible change of travel plans (trains/planes being delayed, etc) are more likely to happen, and I wanted that covered too.

When selecting your travel insurance, do make sure to read the policy carefully to see if it covers the activities you will be engaging in (some activities like winter sports, kayaking/white water rafting over a certain grade, abseiling etc may not be covered or may add extra cost to the policy if you choose to include them). Make sure if you have any pre-existing medical conditions, that these won't cause problems for your insurance either. The policy we took out automatically covered a list of what it deemed 'controlled' conditions (eg. asthma, diabetes, eczema, epilepsy, joint replacements etc) if your condition had not changed in the last 6 months. If you have a more problematic illness, it may not be covered by your policy or you may need to pay more to have it covered.

Make sure also that the maximum individual limits are likely to cover the items you're taking with you (cameras, laptops, electronic equipment, sporting equipment, etc). Our policy, while it may cover up to $15,000 in replacing lost/stolen baggage, will only cover $2000 for individual items, however you do the the option of specifying a few expensive items (up to $10,000 each) for no extra cost. Some policies might charge you extra to nominate more expensive items, or if you'd like to raise the limit of individual items in general, may need a more expensive policy. Since the most expensive item we're taking with us is our camera, worth around $1000, we are easily covered.

Other reasonable insurance providers I found were AAMI (probably my next choice after Southern Cross), World Nomads and Australia Post.

The Gear

As I began researching for our trip, I came across the 'one-bag' concept - the idea, obviously, being to travel with only one bag (each). This seemed like a pretty achievable goal in my mind - I normally only travel with one bag, and thought it wouldn't be too hard to stick to for an overseas trip.

I then came across the idea of travelling with not only one bag, but one carry-on bag. I instantly dismissed this idea. Yes, I'm sure it's great for some people, but really, how could I achieve that? I couldn't possibly take everything I need for 7 weeks to Europe - even if it is Spring - they still have the temperatures of a Townsville winter!

But I kept reading, and kept coming across this idea. People who travelled the world, for a year - or more - with only a carry-on bag. And then I came across this girl's packing list for her carry-on bag. She can really fit all that in a carry-on bag? I thought. That's when I decided it was time to re-visit current carry-on bag size restrictions. I discovered most airlines have a limit of 105 - 115 linear centimetres. For JetStar in Australia, this means it cannot exceed 56 x 36 x 23cm (total 115cm). For RyanAir, the notoriously strict budget European airline, this means 55 x 40 x 20 (total 105cm). Limits tend to vary between 7 and 10kg. If you're not flying much, this means fewer airlines whose restrictions your bag has to meet.

And I decided that if they can do it, so can I. Andre decided he wasn't going to go that extreme, but I decided I would give it a shot. Most airlines allow you your main piece of carry-on luggage, and something smaller like a handbag, which is convenient. So I set about finding a backpack that would not only fit carry-on requirements, but that would maximise on space, and not be too expensive

I found it difficult. Australians have limited options - I found several great bags on the internet, but most were either available only in America or charged almost as much as the bag cost to ship to Australia. Combine that with the fact that Australian prices are so much more expensive than many other places in the world, and I was having trouble. I wanted something:

• With a decent harness (shoulder straps and waist straps) but not an actual frame (far too bulky and heavy for a travel pack, rather than hiking backpack). 
• With one compartment (not several compartments/pockets) to maximise on space and minimise weight. 
• Which was panel-loading (like a suitcase) and not top-loading (like a hiking pack). 
• And I was attracted to the idea of having a stow-away harness (ie, it can zip up into the back of the bag).

I finally found it. Kathmandu is generally not known for its cheap prices, but if you become a Summit Club Member and take advantage of the fantastic sales they have every so often, you can snag a bargain. So Andre and I both bought the Litehaul travel packs - I bought the 38L version and Andre got the 50L version. We scored them for 50% off, which brought mine down to around the $120 mark and Andre's to about $170. I have since seen them under $100. (This model is now out of stock and a new model is in, so it will probably be a while til the new model comes down in price). I have the blue one and Andre has a plain black one. (I actually wanted the grey and red one, in the middle, but our branch didn't stock that colour!)

Yes, the waist strap is removable and becomes the shoulder strap if you want to turn it into a shoulder bag!

The great thing about travelling with 2 people is that some things you don't need to take 2 of, so can be shared between the two bags. For example, we really only need one toiletries kit (just with two toothbrushes!) and one camera.

We also bought a new toiletries bag, as both our toiletries bags were too big for the scaled-down luggage we wanted to take. And so, due to their awesome sale and the fact we were members (add on the fact mum bought it off us to give to us as a Christmas present), we bought a Kathmandu toiletries bag too.

Throughout my reading I also came across packing cubes. They're more rectangular prisms, not cubes, so I don't know why they have that name, but they do. The idea is that it helps keep your gear separate and organised, so if you have to pull out something near the bottom of your bag, you haven't disrupted the entire bag's contents to get it out. It also stops little things from wriggling all the way down to the bottom. I thought they looked convenient but probably wouldn't have bothered buying any... except, again, we found them at Kathmandu on sale! I can't remember how much these cost us. 50% off maybe, or perhaps 3 for the price of 2, I'm not sure. (Edit: I found the receipt. They were 3 for the price of 1!) Anyway, they also ended up as Christmas presents (thanks Grandma and Grandad!)


If you don't live in Australia, there are some great websites where you can buy very similar items. I found myself drooling over many things at REI, Amazon and eBags. In Australia, Anaconda stocks some pretty good gear too.

And if you are interested, you can also find plenty of articles online about travel clothing, too - quick-dry, moisture-wicking, light-weight, etc. If I was going to travel the world for a year I would look seriously into getting clothes like that, but not for a 7 week holiday. Really not worth it.