Ireland

I had about a week between the time I finished the tour and the time I was due to fly to Australia. I did not just want to spend the week in London and I had a little bit of money (not really mine) left. I decided I needed to see Ireland. I got there the cheapest way I could which meant a few trains then a ferry which arrived into Dublin about six am. I spent the full day in the city and booked myself on a tour of the south leaving the following morning.
The Paddywagon tour was hardly full and the tour guide just seemed to be going through the motions. It was a fairly routine path I chose and the tour guide I could tell had seen it all hundreds of times before. We stopped at the Cliffs of Mohair, Galway, Killarney and then the Blarney Stone.
Many people make comparisons between Scotland and Ireland and it is hard not too. In my books though Scotland easily wins. I enjoyed my few days in Scotland over my few days in Ireland but I was happy to have seen Ireland and it was time to leave Europe.
I flew from London back to Melbourne in mid August 2010 over 17 months after flying in there the year before.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam once again was the end of my tour and once again I loved it. It has such a contrast from one area of the city to the next and we did almost exactly what I had done the year before. We attended the sex show and I was a part of the show (that does not mean I had sex), you will have to go see for yourself to see what it involves. My free day I spent just wandering the streets and enjoying the whole city and what it has to offer. I did not though try everything the city has to offer, if that makes sense.
Our final night together involved a Chinese dinner followed by a lot of alcohol aboard a canal boat. Its a good way to say goodbye as the next day on the bus everybody is exhausted and hungover. When the bus parks up in London everybody gets off goes their separate ways and you are back on your own.
Amsterdam would have to be in the top five best cities I have ever visited.

Austria, Chezch and Germany

Tyrol was great because it was not a city. I like cities but having been to Vienna I was glad on this trip to get the chance to explore a different part of the country. In Tyrol I chose to go canyoning. Although it was not as extreme as I was hoping it would be as there were only a couple of drops in the two hours or so we were in the water. Canyoning was the most afforadable option for me but some of the crew chose to go skydiving.
Entering Prague I was back in familiar territory. I had visited Prague on my Top Deck tour in 2009 and therefore I spent most of my free day checking out the Prague Castle, something I had not really seen on my first visit. I went in search of what is known as the dancing house in Prague although I did not find it.
From the Czech Republic we stopped for a night in the Rhine Valley in Germany and it was pouring rain most of the time. It was again a part of Europe not overun with tourists and the narrow streets make it a good challenge for coach drivers to get around. We stayed the night in an old castle which was quite a lot different to the hostel in the middle of Amsterdam we stayed in the following night.

Venice

Sovenia is a great country and I had the opportunity to visit when I caught up with my mate Igor. In the few days I spent with him he taught me caught a lot about the country and so on the tour when we entered Slovenia I became the tour guide for a few hours. We stopped in Slovenia to visit the Postojna Caves, it was a part of Slovenia I had not visited and spent a couple of hours on an organised English speaking tour in the caves. They are the largest underground caves in Europe. Having seen the cave we drove back into Italy and made our way to the campground in Venice. Pizza and pasta was once again my food of choice on a night which was one of the biggest drinking sessions of the tour. The Toga party. Wild things happen for some reason when you mix wearing a toga and drinking a lot of beer.
A big night out is not reccomended before a full day sightseeing in Venice but I pushed through the hangover and saw Venice in a half a way.
We watched a glass blowing exhibition and a glass blower before boarding a gondala and riding down the Grand Canal. I walked around some more on my own and then deciding I would head for the bus and back to camp to spend the afternoon in the pool.
Our next stop after Venice was Tyrol in Austria and it was a rather dramatic change in landscape and change of mood.

Sailing in Greece then driving to Croatia

I was named captain of one of the sailing boats in Greece. It was a position giving to me because I told our tour leader that I was comfortable in the water and had driven a boat before. I had never though sailed a yacht. The whole trip began quite slow because each of the six boats were given instructions on how their boats work and it took a while to get everyone organised. Then it was up to us. For the three nights we stayed on the yachts the conditions were cramped. This was ok really considering we were sailing one of the nicest parts of the world. I was captain of six people. Three youngish English girls, two South African older guys and myself. As well as sailing the boat I also became a mediator as the others were not getting along to well. We sailed to the island of Corfu and pretty much as soon as we parked up each day I left the boat and looked after myself. I had a couple of huge drinking nights on our stopover nights in Greece and loved the spot and loved being in the water. The water was a perfect blue.
To get from Greece to Croatia we had to drive through Albania. We stopped overnight in the city of Tirol. A country which takes pride in the fact there is not one Mc Donald's restaurant in the whole nation. The country looks like a third world country and probably was the most backward country of any I visited in Europe. If a building looks unfinished the owners do not have to pay tax on it so the whole country looks about three quarters finished. I decided not to go into town that night and instead stayed at the hotel. I shared a three bedroom unit with two other guys and it was the most space I ever had on the tour.
The country is off the beaten track and not visited by many tourists. We didn't spend a lot of time in the city. A local guide climbed aboard our coach and explained the city to us although we did not stop at all.
We stopped for lunch in Montenegro before making it into Croatia.
Dubrovnik was in party mode when we arrived, locals and tourists were partying together in the old town to celebrate what I think was their Victory Day and National Thanksgiving Day. Everyone was a little slow to get up the next morning but once we got going we made our way back into the old town. I walked the top of the wall around the city before enjoying a seafood risotto lunch and a swim.

Italy

Entering Italy for the first time was exciting and I was looking forward to seeing all the historic buildings and trying to understand some of their fascinating past. Florence was a good starting point then but to get there we stopped for a couple of hours in Pisa. Many of us, including me, posed for the holding up the tour photo and walked around it through the crowds. Hundreds of thousands of tourists stop there every day. It still felt unreal to be standing beside a building I had seen so many times in photos.
Our full day in Florence started with a walking tour of the city before being free to roam as we wished. I followed a small crew and we went to the Accademia to see the statue of David. The statue makes him look huge and intimidating although in the story he is said to be small and fighting a huge Goliath. Having seen the statue we didn't hang around the museum too long there was still Florence to see. I walked around with a friend towards to the leather markets, before getting lost and only just making it back to the bus before it went back to camp. In the afternoon we sat by the pool in the late Tuscan afternoon sun.
Our drive between Florence and Rome stopped at Orvieto where I tried boar for lunch. We also stopped outside the cathedral to take a lot of photos and it was just a taste of the magnificent Italian architecture.
Rome was hot, busy and large. It was the longest walking tour of the trip and probably the most interesting. Trying to retain all the information is so difficult, the tour was by our Aussie trip leader and although tours of that sort are not allowed in Rome we managed to get through the day without getting caught. We walked up the Spanish steps, drank from the Trevi fountain and walked around the front of the Colosseum. I returned in my own time the following day and explored the inside of the Colosseum. The Vatican City tour took most of the morning and the tourists again visit in their hordes. The Sistine Chapel is extremely impressive and I am so lucky I have had the chance to see it.
We left Italy on a ferry heading towards Greece. There wasn't a great deal to do on the ship and it was a chance for me to catch up on some sleep and be ready to go for the sailing.

Leaving Guernsey

Four and a half months after arriving on Guernsey I boarded a plane again and left the island. I had said goodbye to all my mates at Hotel Jerbourg. The last couple of nights after work I enjoy a few drinks with all the crew and prepared myself to leave.

I also said goodbye to my girlfriend Jess once again not knowing if I would ever see her again. This was quite a difficult thing to do. Although we had left each other before this time was different because we were possibly never going to see each other again.

A couple of weeks before I left the island one of my University mates Max flew over and stayed a few days. It was great to see a fimiliar face and the opportunity to show a friend around an island I had grown to like and call home for a few months.

I left Guernsey and arrived back in the city London. The initial shock to the body was intense. The business of the roads and pedrestian traffic was something I had to once again get used to.

My arrival in London coincided with my friend Leah's birthday. So I spent my one free day drinking with her and her friends at bars in Notting Hill.

The following morning I waited out the front of the hostel in London to get picked up and once again tour Europe.

Back on tour Paris and Switzerland

Prior to leaving Europe I wanted to see some of Italy, Greece and Croatia. Therefore I went on the net and researched many different ways to get around and found the best way was going to be on a tour bus and I once again booked with Top Deck.
This tour I was the experienced one, I knew what touring in the coach was all about and I was just so excited to be out exploring Europe again. Our first stop after the ferry from Dover to Calais was Paris. We arrived in a couple of days before the Tour De France riders were due to finish, so almost exactly a year to the day I had been there previously.
I had climbed the Eiffel Tour and visited the Louvre so this time around I spent the free day exploring the Catacombs, the Notre Dame and the Père Lachaise Cemetery. I went to the cemetry in search of Jim Morrison's grave. That night in Paris I also went on a river Siene cruise and I felt I learnt so much more about the city this year than when I was there the year before.
The next stop after Paris was into Switzerland where we stayed a couple of nights in Lauterbrunnen. The mountains offer some magnificent views and I was excited to get to the top and have a look around. The easiest and quickest, yet not the cheapest way to get to the top of the Jungfrau is to catch the train. Being on a restricted timeline it is what I opted to do. The train drives through tunnels nearly the whole way up the mountain. To give all passengers a chance to look around the train stops a couple of times on the way up where you can get out and have a look out a glass window. When we looked out the cloud was so low and thick you couldn't see a single thing and it was highly unlikely it was going to change for the day.
When you reach the top you walk out of the station through an ice sculpture museum walkway till you reach the outside. I probably spent a couple of hours outside at the top and walked to a little hut which has been turned into and bar. The cloud did move enough for me to get some grasp on just how big the mountains were. I boarded a train late in the afternoon and headed downard back to our cabins. That night I caught up with more previous bus driver from the tour the year before and enjoyed a massive drinking session with him.