Steph's Travels

Hello again and apologies for how long it has been since i last wrote anything on here.... we just haven't stopped!!!! It has been absolutely incredible so far on Top Deck and I really dont want it to ever end!!! We met all of our group (44 of us!) and our leader Gus, bus driver Husky and cook Frazer in London on 30th July and departed on the 31st to Paris. We made lots of good friends immediately and because it's a 'gappy' trip we are all 18 or 19 and its just amazing fun! Sometimes we feel like we're on a school trip. Paris was beautiful. We climbed the Eiffel tower, went on a bike tour and went on a Seine river cruise. Moving on to Switzerland next, we stayed in a stunning little town called Lauterbrunnen and went up the mountain (by train, not foot!) to the highest point in europe where we played in the snow and patted some husky's. Unfortunately the weather wasn't good so we didnt get very nice pictures from the top of the mountain, but it was still really nice to go up there and we stopped for drinks at this little town on the way down and we could hear the cow bells all ringing on the cows in the fields. Next we went to Florence, via Pisa to see the leaning tower. Florence was a buzz of excitement. Our first night there we had pasta and pizza for dinner which was just a fantastic welcome to Italy. We walked around the city and then went out on a shopping spree.... all those italian leather goods! We kept justifying the price of things with the usual "how many times am I going to be in Florence?!" We then headed to Bari, Italy where we caught the overnight ferry to Southern Greece. We learnt how to sail our little boats and then off we went! Everyone was so excited about sailing and it was everything we'd imagined! The water was amazingly clear and we had so much fun! On our first night we watched and participated in some traditional greek dancing and had plenty of shots of homemade ouzo, before stumbling back to our boats to sleep. I got quite sunburnt on our second day which isn't so great but hopefully it'll turn into a nice tan! After sailing we reluctantly left Greece on the overnight ferry again. Burnt, dehydrated and tired, we headed to Rome, Italy for some more gelato! that was yesterday. We did a walking tour of Rome and saw all the major sights, tasted 5 flavours of gelato and took plenty of pictures of the colosseum. Today we spent the day in Rome at our leisure and had another pizza/pasta lunch (how many times are we going to be in Italy?) and more gelato! Next we are off to Venice where we are going to go on those little Gondola boats!
Love you all and take care.
remember my e-mail is steph_way@hotmail.com
xoxx