Barcelona

 

1. Markets
2. Las Ramblas
3. Columbus Statue
4. Aquarium
5. Sagrada Familia
6. Jose tour numero 1
7. Tapas
8. Jose tour numero 2 - gothic area
9. Jose lunch
10. Park Guelll
11. Classical Music Concert
12. Lost Dinner
13. Americano meeting

 

 

 

Hi guys, now I'm in Barcelona and ready to talk of my adventures here...

 

 

 

 

THE MARKETS

 

Shortly after we arrived in Barcelona (not the capitol of Spain) we walked down to the markets on Las Ramblas, the famous walking street, to get some food. The markets are busy and bustling and full of people and all you see at the front as you go in are juice stalls (cups of all kinds of crazy mix and match flavours of juice - they even had one with mango and coconut).

When we got down there we bought a juice and some food and looked around. They sell vegetables and fruit and pastries and baked breads and pies, they sell cheeses and lots of different types of meat such as duck, rabbit, geese and sausages and fish too. There were sweet things too such as chocolates and ice-creams and they also sell some really funny things such as lollies in the shape of vegetables.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LAS RAMBLAS

After the markets we took a walk down Las Ramblas to see what all the hustle is about. Las Ramblas is a big bustling walking around street full of tourists and Barcelonians and stalls and buskers and street sellers - nearly everyone is walking down to the big statue of Christopher Columbus statue near the waterfront which I am going to tell you about now.

 

 

 

COLUMBUS STATUE

The statue is about 30 metres high and one metre wide and has on its top a huge sculpture of Christopher Columbus pointing out to sea. He left from here when he sailed off and discovered America. When we were in Barcelona we saw that he was wearing a red and blue lined soccer shirt (Barcelona team). Later we found out from mum's friend Jose (pronounced Ho-Zae) that the shirt caused some problems for the public because it was advertising Qatar airways as well as the Barcelona soccer team.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AQUARIUM

At the end of Las Ramblas you can walk out past Christopher Columbus to the Barcelona aquarium. The aquarium was not your average aquarium - there was quite a lot of large fish including piranhas, sharks, a sun fish and manta rays. But the thing that I liked the most was the tank full of cuttlefish because you can examine all their insides from the outside and you can see all the ripples and beating bits and bumps in their body. Cuttle fish are a bit like chameleons and change colour according to their mood. We also saw lots of eels.

 

 

 

Whale

 

 

 

 

 

Fish

 

 

 

Turtle

 

 

 

Sunfish. A VERY big fish with a VERY little tail

 

 

Sunfish

 

Sunfish

My first word - Occopie

 

 

 

Sharks

 

 

 

Cuttlefish

 

 

 

More Cuttlefish

 

 

 

Even more cuttlefish

 

 

 

And some more cuttlefish

 

 

 

Eels

 

 

 

SAGRADA

 

 

 

 

 

SAGRADA FAMILIA

On one of our days in Barcelona we went to visit the incredible Sagrada Familia. it is a HUGE church built by Antonio Gaudi who is the most famous architect in Barcelona.

The strange thing was that when Gaudi started building the church he was a completely non-religious man, but by the time he finished he was completely catholic.

Gaudi was interested in nature, he processed things around his mind that we still don't understand today. His obsession with nature also changed the design of the church. The columns holding up the enormous roof are actually shaped like trees - their branches and leaves at the top holding up the entire church.

My first impression when I walked in was "HUGE" - it was a little too big for me. I loved it. The kid's audio guide was even longer than the adults one - strange - and afterwards I had learned more than mum and dad Had learned! The Spanish started building the church in about 1870 and it is still not finished!

But I am.

 

Here are some pictures before I go.

 

 

Talk about the leaning tower of people!

 

 

 

Squelchy

 

 

 

 

SOME MORE PICTURES FROM BARCELONA...

 

 

 

 

Thats Gaudi's famous lizard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bye for now

 

Drew-on-the-move

 

Lauterbrunnen Day 2 & 3

1. Lina & Ted the dog.
2. Trummelbach.
3. Murren mountain - restaurant in the snow.
4. Seilpark.

Lina & Ted the dog

On the way out of the hotel while we were heading down to the Trummelbach Waterfalls we found ourself a little friend. Lina and Ted the dog met us. And that changed the day completely. As we ran through the fields I knew exactly what kind of dog I wanTed. Ted was a Canadian Labrador. He was huge, "buffely", energetic and exciTed but that's why I liked him, really.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some say that it's a small world, I disagree

 

 

 

 

Trummelbach

So, we walked on to Trummelbach Falls. When we finally got there we went up to a lift system like this to half way up inside the mountain.

 

 

Those guys in the lift are us

 

 

 

 

 

First I walked up the stairs next to the left to see the first 2 waterfalls - they thrashed and crashed like nothing I have ever seen. I realised the second waterfall's water was creating the first waterfall... If this was true then what was feeding water into the second waterfall. I decided to ponder about this in the lift up.

(Now I'll tell you about the Trummelbach while we go up)

Trummelbach falls are famous because they are 10 waterfalls inside a mountain. Both of these facts nearly blew me out of my socks they were so amazing. Another fact is that 20,000 litres of water per second comes down the falls and this is water from the 3 big mountains - the Eiger, the Münch and the Jungfrau.

(Now we are at the top of the lift)

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favourite fall was the corkscrew because of the way the pressure of the original waterfall has shaped the rock in a way that makes it go round - not like a whirlpool down but a whirlpool sideways. You can see on the video.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a great afternoon up in the town of Murren too but now I want to tell you about the Seilpark in Interlaken the next day.

 

 

 

The Seilpark

We heard about the Seilpark from two Canadians we met on our way to Dubrovnik and it sounded awesome. The Seilpark might be the best outdoor adventure I've ever been on because it made you rely on your own skills such as courage, strength and balance. Even though it was tricky getting the harness on it was really fun. You got to go through tunnels, slide across zip lines and climb across unsteady planks of wood. I don't think I would have been as good with the zip lines if I hadn't already tried zip lining in New Zealand.

 

I was a tiny bit short to go on the adults courses so I went on 3 courses for kids - the Lizard, the Mountain goat and the Butterfly. You do these courses completely unassisted and you are up to 10 metres off the ground. It was completely safe because your harness couldn't become unattached by mistake. There was a magnetic system that made sure one of your safety lines was always attached. But they had a clever system at the very end - the last rope was cut in half so you could release. Otherwise I would still be stuck there in the trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Lauterbrunnen for dinner and washing clothes because we leave tomorrow to go to Bern - capital of Switzerland.

 

Lauterbrunnen Day 1

Hi guys, here I am now in Lauterbrunnen

Lauterbrunnen is somewhere in the middle of Switzerland surrounded by snowy mountains called the Swiss Alps. One of the most famous mountains is called The Jungfrau. It's actually one of the three biggest mountains in Switzerland. The others are Münch and the Eiger (in English these mean monk, the ogre and the Jungfrau means young maiden). I don't really know why the Jungfrau is called the young maiden - it didn't really look like a young maiden to me.

The first day here we decided to take the Jungfraujoch up the jungfrau (the Jungfraujoch is the train up the Jungfrau). Because it was probably the only day we were in Switzerlamd where it wasn't raining and the sky was going to be clear, we knew this was the day to head on up. Every year 2 million people make their way up the mountain to see the breath-taking view that we saw. Some people get disappointed as they find when they come up the Jungfrau the clouds have already taken their place in the sky. We had amazing views.

Getting up the Jungfrau takes at least 2 hours up and 2 hours down. The view from the train was dazzling and people also go up the Jungfrau to see the views from the train. The train goes through the mountain so not much view for the last bit.

When we got to the Jungfrou A.K.A the top of Europe A.K.A a whole mountain full of awesomeness we walked down a big tunnel full of Amazing things. The first room we explored was a room where it seemed like you were in the images of the surrounding mountains that they projected on the wall. There was also an ice sculpture gallery with statues made of ice. They also had an outdoor section where you were on a platform with a glacier underneath you.

 

On the way back we stopped at a town called Kleine Schidegg were we went down to play in the snow. If you have never felt snow then I'll describe it. you know that mucky stuff you get when you mix corn flower and water? That except white, as cold as ice, hard and can be broken into little bits. That's what snow is. Anyway, we found that you can't just run through snow you have to watch out for hills. But it was to late, we had already fallen down One. Now when you are soaking wet and rolling around in the snow it's hard to not have fun. So we did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we got back you'd be surprised how tired I was.

 

 

 

 

 

And there's only one thing to do about that, and we did it.

 

Catch up with you next blog, bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monterosso - Vernazzo - Riomaggiore - Manarola - Corniglia - Monterosso

 

(waking up in Monterosso)

This morning after a great breakfast in our new hotel I walked out of the hotel to walk down the long, steep hill with a great view of the town of Monterosso. Anyway, mum said “you guys go exploring for thirty minutes and wait for us”. So we did.

View from our hotel

We walked down to the garden and walked around and in a cute little clearing we saw a cute little cubby cottage made out of cute little planks of wood and as we walked inside the cute little door we saw a cute little room. Sadly, the room wasn't as cute and little as it could be. It needed to be cuted and littled up a bit. We soon fixed that, we cleaned up everything in the house.

 

Mum, Dad, Zoe started walking down the hill. I, however, started running down the hill. When we got down I realised that there was an aqueduct with a river flowing right through it right out to sea. I dropped a few leaf boats down there. Mum, Dad and Zoe came down a while after me.

Then we set off on our journey/hike/walk all the way to Vernazzo the next town of the Cinque Terra. Its a climb up a massive hill and along the top and down the other side to Vernazzo. We walked over the hills finding as many waterfalls as we could. We also sailed lot of leaf boats down them as well. Here are some pictures of us.

 

 

That's me next to the beautiful view

 

 

 

Look at that cute little river

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway we got to Vernarzzo and from here I can basically explain to you in dot points what we did

• Had lunch
• Caught a train to Riomaggiore
• Then a train to Manarola ( because the lovers walk was closed).
• Walked to Corniglia over another hill - a very big hill with lots of steps
• Took one last train back to Monterosso

 

Afterwards I was really tired. But I thought to myself “drew you have just achieved your goal, you have just conquered all five towns of Cinque Terra”. By the end of it all we were so tired we just flopped into bed.

 

And so that was that, we had walked all the five towns of Cinque Terra.

 

Tomorrow we go to Switzerland I'm not sure what adventures I'm going to have there but I think they will be good.

I really didn't think Cinque Terra would be what it was, I thought it would be a delicate old town in the forest with little wooden cottages instead of houses and peaceful quietness surrounding it. Although I thought it that way, it was quite pleasant having it how it really is. I was surprised how much I actually enjoyed the walk, maybe there will be more like that in Switzerland?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Florence: Science and roses

• Liam's challenge
• Rose garden
• Car rally
• Leonardo Da Vinci museum
• Bye bye suitcase

 

 

Liam's Challenge

Liam had sent me an Email the day before that said I had to run two kilometres per three days easy, I completed it in one day and up stairs and with two evil dudes chasing me.

 

 

 

 

Scary but true, but when you have two bad guys on your tail you get filled with adrenaline. You have to go really fast.

 

The Rose Garden

 

 

Running up the stairs wasn't hard but through the rose garden was. The sweet smell of the roses seemed to slow me, urge me to smell them, but I resisted, or did my senses eventually take over. There were three-hundred and fifty roses urging me with smell them. Which means three-hundred and fifty times I had to resist the urge.

 

 

Alright, my senses did overcome me.

 

 

 

The lake of the garden

 

 

 

The view

 

 

 

 

 

On the way back we saw a vintage car rally. It was really loud!

 

Those guys are eating ice cream

 

 

 

Look at all those cool cars

 

 

 

That's an old one

 

 

 

Leonardo Da Vinci Museum

 

Yesterday, I was doing my blog for Venice day 1, 2 & 3 while Zoe and mum went to the Leonardo Di Vinci Museum. They got the pizza package deal so it cost them eight €uros to get in instead of seven €uros each. When you enter you see a picture of the Mona Lisa with a hole for a head and you are supposed to put your head in, and Zoe did. It's really funny I know [and no Zoe that was a compliment]. Today, dad and I went, we didn't get the pizza package deal but we were fine.

 

 

 

 

Here are a few things I saw at the museum…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Archimedes screw

 

 

Leonardo also designed pulley systems. Single pulleys had been used for hundreds of years but he made changes to pulley system. It was a single pulley attached to a single pulley. It was easier than the single pulley system and revolutionised the way we lived. Then he created the triple pulley system. It was a double pulley attached to a single pulley. It was easier than the double and single pulley system and revolutionised the way we lived. Then he worked on the quadruple pulley system. It was a triple pulley attached to a single pulley. It was easier than the triple, double and single pulley system and revolutionised the way we lived because of the way they let us lift extremely heavy things with just a few pulls for example bricks for building the duomo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The night clock

 

 

 

Our suitcase broke

The wheel got a rip that wasn't fixable. It was extremely devastating because the case meant a lot to me. We had to get it thrown in the garbage. Although we do now have separate cases to replace the old one.

 

 

 

 

I actually cried.

Tomorrow we are leaving to go to Cinque Terra ( Cinque Terra means five places because there are five towns along the cinque terra coast.)

 

Florence Day 2

1. Uffizi Gallery
2. Gelati Festival
3. Boots
4. Making Paper
5. New restaurant - Chinese food in Italy

 

Uffizi Gallery

Even though we planned ahead I wasn't prepared for the 2 1/2 hour walk through a bunch of paintings. I got really bored. For me it's just a bunch of paintings really. I know that there are some of the most important paintings in the world but for some reason to me they just don't matter. Although the birth of Venus was quite intriguing. At the very end we saw a room that represented the five elements of the universe (air, water, fire, earth and cheese (I got that last one from the book I'm reading at the moment (The Kane Chronicles (The Throne Of Fire)))). The red marble walls represented fire. The shells encrusted on the roof represented water. The weathervane at the top of the roof represented air. The stone floor represented the earth. But I'm not entirely shore what represented cheese though.

 

 

The birth of Venus by Botticelli

 

 

Gelati festival

After the Uffizi Gallery we walked down to the main part of town to buy Gelati Festival tickets. We tried all the different flavours of gelati. There was melon sobet, lemon sorbet, strawberry, cookies and cream, double choc, vanilla, custard, and my new personal favourite, cookies. Cookies was the Gelati Festival special.

 

 

 

“AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

 

 

Paper making

On the way home we saw a lady making paper designs. The process is called marbling. I thought it was really interesting. Later I found out that you could get this in Melbourne. After that we went home and to bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's the paper drying

 

 

Next stop: Cinque Terra

 

Florence Day 1

1. The Academia Gallery
2. St. Lorenzo's Church

 

The Academia Gallery

Today we went to the Academia Gallery which holds many famous objects and paintings like the statue of David. As we walked in we turned the corner and we saw the most famous statue in the world. Yep, we just saw the statue of David. Supposedly the most beautiful statue in the world. If you look at David closely he looks brave from one angle but scared from another. I think that Michelangelo, when he carved it, meant the brave angle to be after David had defeated the giant and the scared angle was before he did. I will now tell you the story of David and Goliath.

Once upon a time there was a giant named Goliath who was terrorizing the town. No one was brave enough to defeat him. But, a poor little Shepard boy named David would. God was proud of this boy and possessed him. So a little shepherd boy, with only a slingshot over his shoulder, and a rock in his hand, set out to kill the giant. So, David, powered by God defeated the giant.

 

 

That's the real thing

 

 

 

The weather in Florence has been a bit rainy at times.

 

This picture below is actually a copy of David because the real David was damaged while it was standing in this exact spot during a riot in the 1500s. They fixed the real David and put him in the Academia

 

 

 

 

St. Lorenzo's church

We visited this church because in English St Lorenzo means St Lawrence (aka St Daddy). When we got inside we saw a huge room with another domed room off to the left. In the domed room we discovered that Lorenzo Medici's coffin was is the middle of the room. The dome had glass in the top so that when the sun streamed through the light was in the exact middle of the coffin. The Medicis are a famous family in Italy and in fact all of their bodies were buried in the church.

 

You wouldn't guess this but even though you may think we didn't do much, at the end of the day I was extremely tired. That night I could hear the Florence church bells ringing in my ears as I went off to sleep.