Charlie Timpany
Touching down after a turbulent night before in Ancona train station, we dropped our bags of at our hostel. Our accommodation is very nice. The bunks are reasonably comfy and the bathrooms are clean, considering they are shared. I share a room with Hamish, Alex, Tommy, Josh Busch and Josh Jefferies. The first sight was Santa Maria Maggiore, a highly enjoyable experience as we witnessed Mass with a select few of Cardinals in attendance. The church for me was the benchmark in what I considered a good church, with most of the churches in Rome fortunately exceeding this. We have been to a lot of churches, so it's hard to distinguish which church is which, without looking at photos of memorable objects in that particular arena of God. For me, the most amazing and memorable churches we visited were Saint Peter's Basilica and Saint Paul's Without The Walls. Saint Peter's was an incredible experience, from the gold-covered walls, to the large sarcophagi that surrounded deceased previous popes in the tombs underneath the church. The latter was just as large as Saint Peter's, with the remains of Saint Paul visible in the high altar, to the mosaics of all the popes surrounding the top of the walls that encapsulate the cathedral. A lot of museums were also visited in Rome, including the Capitoline museum and the museum which houses the Ara Pacis, and the Vatican Museums. Some of the more memorable sights were the Vittorio Emmanuele Monument (the wedding cake), The Colosseum and the Roman Forum that surrounds it, and Pompeii in Naples, which was an incredible experience, with the Roman life of 2000 years ago being preserved by the ash and mud of the Mount Vesuvius eruption of 79AD. Rome, for me, has also marked the start of purchasing tangible items, including t-shirts from Guess Jeans and Polo Ralph Lauren. At the time of writing we will be leaving for Florence tomorrow, with Pisa being the first stop of our Tuscan experience. Looking forward to another great city.
BEAUCAIRE
After a grand day in Venezia, the collective caught the overnight train to Dijon, where we would transfer to a TGV train that would take us to Avignon. From there we would jump into minivans and drive to our hotel/resort in the southern French town of Beaucaire. This plan however was met with a couple of snags. Stepping onboard our coach, we were met by our sleeping arrangements of a cramped room, with bunks stacked three high. Me and Jack Seton were unfortunately placed in the bottom bunks, which happened to be the smallest. Funny due to the fact we are both well over 6 feet tall. According to reports from the rest of the boys, we were woken up by angry Swiss border control agents, shining flashlights into our eyes and demanding our passports and tickets. Fortunately for me, Mum suggested that I bring earplugs to sleep with. These small buds of foam miraculously allowed me to sleep through this whole ordeal! Very thankful Mary. We were then woken up by Fergus, who told me and my cabin mates that we would be getting off the train in ten minutes and hr told us to get ready. Turns out that this was completely wrong information, and that we would actually be arriving in 2 and a half hours. Brilliant. After hopping off the train at Dijon, we hopped on a TGV train, which travelled in excess of 300 kph at some points, beating the 250 kph we reached on the Italian bullet trains. We arrived in Avignon to pick up the minivans to find out that they were waiting for us at the wrong Avignon train station. An hour waiting for the vans to arrive was filled with playing rugby and disc in 36 degree heat. We then hopped into the vans, arriving in our hotel/resort in Beaucaire, to be met with a large dog that some of the boys have now named 'Aslan', due to the fact that it has a rather large mane. The hotel is very nice compared to past accommodation, and satisfying swims are given due to the large pool close to our rooms. Over the few days that we were in Beaucaire, we visited sights such as Tarascon castle, The Palace of the Popes in Avignon, and The Theatre of Augustus on Orange. The highlight of all the sights that we visited would definitely have to be the Pont du Gard. It's a well kept 2000 year old aqueduct that brought water to Nimes in the Roman times. The boys and I got to swim and jump off rocks into the river that flowed under the aqueduct, accompanied by very funny French and Algerian school children, with one of them getting rather excited if one of us managed to stuff up a dive in to the water. Overall Beaucaire was a highly enjoyable break from the heavy amounts of sightseeing we did in Italy and Greece.
PARIS
Our Parisian experience started with a metro ride from Gare du Lyon to our stop closest to our hotel called Luxembourg. Bucko gave us small tickets that would allow unlimited train travel over the course of five days. We arrived at our hotel and dropped off our bags to go to Notre Dame. Its a beautiful cathedral situated on the Ile-de-Cite in the river Seine. This was one of the first churches apart from Saint Denis that utilised the use of stained glass to create heavenly light within the church. We then walk through the Louvre, Tuileries gardens, Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysees to reach the Arc de Triomphe, to find that we needed reservation to go up. The next day we ventured to the colossal Louvre museum instead of Les Invalides, as President Trump was there that day. We spent 5 hours in the museum looking at work by Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt. The Mona Lisa was impressive, but shrouded in the throngs of tourists bustling forward to view the painting. According to Bucko it would take three weeks to look around the whole museum if we looked at every item for ten seconds at a time.
BEAUCAIRE
After a grand day in Venezia, the collective caught the overnight train to Dijon, where we would transfer to a TGV train that would take us to Avignon. From there we would jump into minivans and drive to our hotel/resort in the southern French town of Beaucaire. This plan however was met with a couple of snags. Stepping onboard our coach, we were met by our sleeping arrangements of a cramped room, with bunks stacked three high. Me and Jack Seton were unfortunately placed in the bottom bunks, which happened to be the smallest. Funny due to the fact we are both well over 6 feet tall. According to reports from the rest of the boys, we were woken up by angry Swiss border control agents, shining flashlights into our eyes and demanding our passports and tickets. Fortunately for me, Mum suggested that I bring earplugs to sleep with. These small buds of foam miraculously allowed me to sleep through this whole ordeal! Very thankful Mary. We were then woken up by Fergus, who told me and my cabin mates that we would be getting off the train in ten minutes and hr told us to get ready. Turns out that this was completely wrong information, and that we would actually be arriving in 2 and a half hours. Brilliant. After hopping off the train at Dijon, we hopped on a TGV train, which travelled in excess of 300 kph at some points, beating the 250 kph we reached on the Italian bullet trains. We arrived in Avignon to pick up the minivans to find out that they were waiting for us at the wrong Avignon train station. An hour waiting for the vans to arrive was filled with playing rugby and disc in 36 degree heat. We then hopped into the vans, arriving in our hotel/resort in Beaucaire, to be met with a large dog that some of the boys have now named 'Aslan', due to the fact that it has a rather large mane. The hotel is very nice compared to past accommodation, and satisfying swims are given due to the large pool close to our rooms. Over the few days that we were in Beaucaire, we visited sights such as Tarascon castle, The Palace of the Popes in Avignon, and The Theatre of Augustus on Orange. The highlight of all the sights that we visited would definitely have to be the Pont du Gard. It's a well kept 2000 year old aqueduct that brought water to Nimes in the Roman times. The boys and I got to swim and jump off rocks into the river that flowed under the aqueduct, accompanied by very funny French and Algerian school children, with one of them getting rather excited if one of us managed to stuff up a dive in to the water. Overall Beaucaire was a highly enjoyable break from the heavy amounts of sightseeing we did in Italy and Greece.
PARIS
Our Parisian experience started with a metro ride from Gare du Lyon to our stop closest to our hotel called Luxembourg. Bucko gave us small tickets that would allow unlimited train travel over the course of five days. We arrived at our hotel and dropped off our bags to go to Notre Dame. Its a beautiful cathedral situated on the Ile-de-Cite in the river Seine. This was one of the first churches apart from Saint Denis that utilised the use of stained glass to create heavenly light within the church. We then walk through the Louvre, Tuileries gardens, Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysees to reach the Arc de Triomphe, to find that we needed reservation to go up. The next day we ventured to the colossal Louvre museum instead of Les Invalides, as President Trump was there that day. We spent 5 hours in the museum looking at work by Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt. The Mona Lisa was impressive, but shrouded in the throngs of tourists bustling forward to view the painting. According to Bucko it would take three weeks to look around the whole museum if we looked at every item for ten seconds at a time.