The tallest building in Dubai - Burj Dubai (see http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/burj-dubai/tallest-building-in-the-world-taller-than-most-things-281122.php) for more info, is currently sitting at 150 odd storeys tall. They said it will never be finished, as they will just continue to add to it, everytime another country says they'll build one taller!

You can do a tour of that (they take you up to an apartment up high) and other sights around Jumeirah for about $150!

We decided to have high tea at the Burj Al Arab instead.

17 October - UAE remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Took the beach bus today (Jumeirah region). Well what an eye opener. Over 25% of the worlds cranes are now situated in Dubai. They cant build things fast enough! I have to say the stuff they were building 10 years ago was quite unappealing to the western taste. They now are employing people from all corners of the globe which has bought a more international style to things.

We went to the 3rd largest shopping centre in the world. I dont think we saw it all, but we did see the ski slopes! Sitting at -2oC I was tempted to make a run for it when we got off our unairconditioned bus, but refrained when I saw all the contents of this bizare world wearing all their ski gear and hats and mittens and all the like. It is the highest indoor ski slope, but not the longest (but I'm sure their working on that as we speak!)

Also visited Souq Madiant Jumeirah. This has been the nicest building that we've seen.

Its built in the traditional style and is full of classy touristy shops selling amazing Iranian rugs, quality jewellery and beautiful handmade clothes, pottery and other artefacts. We had lunch at an expensive restaurant down on the water's edge and got the first close up haze-free glimpses of the Burj from here...

After the bus trip we ended back at yet another of their 88 shopping centres in Dubai and found a free shuttle bus back to the Souq district so decied to take it. Found an american girl Marcia who had basically 24 hours here and didnt know what to see. We invited her to join us. We had a great time and she really enjoyed the Souq area. We bought some safron from the souq dealers. Paid about $20 for 10g of safron (about a hand full). I know back home you pay about $6 for about 3 strands of it in the supermarket. Just hope we're allowed to bring it home!!!

Today it was 33oC and 85% humidity!

16 October - UAE remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Got the hop-on-hop-off Big Bus trip started today. You have 24 hours from the time you start the trip to see all you can. Dubai is such a sprawling city. Its chocka with traffic and they are in desperate need of a subway system (which will be here in 2009 and 2010).

The city is also covered in a huge haze making taking photos really dificult to do. Havent been able to work out if this is a year long proplem or just a short season problem, as purchasing a 50th floor penthouse apartment on the marina might be a waste of money if its a year long problem!

Did the city tour today. Only 7% of Dubai's income is derrived from oil. I was surprised as I considered it to me most of their income.

Finished this very hot day with a traditional Dhow Boat trip. Its a 1 hour cruise up and down the main section of the Dubai Creek. The boat was very cute but the comentary was vertually the same as the bus, so nothing new learned.

Staggered home to shower the days sweat and hit the airconditioned hay.

15 October - UAE remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Awoke to the sound of the 5am prayer call! Oh its so loud in our hotel!

Found the Spice Souks and Gold Souks in the "old town" (all of 50 years at the most!). Fabulous smells and colours and the gold is just amazing. I had previously visited the gold street in Bali, but that doesnt even equate to a back street of this area! There is tons and tons of gold lining these walls. Mostly traditional 24 carat gold, there are also lots of new european 18 carat gold and styled jewellery. Lots and lots of loose stones and lots of expats selling them too! One shop was even called "Aussie Mike", noice!

We also did the tour of the first School in Dubai as well as the Traditional Home exhibition. That was fascinating seeing the first attempt at airconditioning a couple of hundred years ago. they build these second (if one storey house) or third storey (if two storey house) floor box on each corner of the house. Its open on all for sides and they have these decorative poles through the sides that catch the breezes and draw them down into the house. Quite clever stuff.

Food is cheap if you stay away from the hotels. Found a faboulous vegetarian restaurant down the road. Had a great thali for about $4 which was so filling and also bottomless (as they appear to do here!)

14 October - UAE remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Well the so called easy trip to the airport turned into a nightmare as we were dropped over 1km from the checkin desk due to the never ending construction of Terminal 5. But we managed a great flight to Dubai. Seemed to be much more spacious than our trip over.

We arrived to searing heat and everyone saying how nice the weather is now!

Checked into our $170PN hotel that is 20 years old, all tiled floors that echo every word said in the halls by everyone entering or exiting their rooms. There is no double glazing, so we hear all prayer calls from the next door mosque. The one surprise that wasnt mentioned in the advertising brochure was the pool and gym.

Looking forward to exploring...

13 October - UAE remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Checked into the Travellers Inn @ Heathrow. So we could make a quick exit at 5am the next morning for our 8:40am flight (this stupid 3 hour checkin is crazy)!

Once safely in the room, we caught the bus to the tube station and headed into London to do last minute postage and stuff before we left. We then went and had a lovely dinner on the Espanyola one of the lovely boats permanently mored on the river and is now a restaurant.

We then went to see our last play in London - The Country Wife. It was a hillarious play about the beautiful young country wife taken to the city by a jealous older husband who overprotects her from the wicked men of London and it all backfires on him. Really well done.

Caught the train back and we'd booked into a hotel not dissimilar to the Formula One's we'd had such horrible experiences with in France. The hotel was new and large as was the room, which also had two double beds. But the beds were knackered and yet it all looked brand new. I ended up sleeping in the other bed as we continually rolled together in the bed.

Oh the joys of travelling!

12 October - London remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Portsmouth is a really pretty spot. Fabulous old part with cute cobbled stone streets, quaint pubs, flower tubs everywhere and all brightly coloured. It also has some newer bits, the new tower - 105m tall, which we couldnt really see much from due to the fog, and nothing is complete without the smeggaplex shopping centre adjoining it. It was hugely crowded, so we shot back to the old part of town to have lunch at a cute pub on the water and watched the multitude of ferrys from other ports local and international arriving by the truckload!

We then found a gorgeous 13th century church. It was bombed in the war so lost all their windows and half the roof, so the church is now half the original size and the new stain glassed windows represent scenes from the war showing the fire on the roof, the soldiers that were lost and it was quite moving to visit.

Just outside on very small plaques marked the commeration (almost in passing) of the First Fleets Departure to Australia, and also to America! Puts all into perspective!

Had one enquiry about the van, and one offer to purchase it for GBP2000. He said he could come up with the money tonight, so we accepted his offer. He bought it sight unseen and was there a couple of hours later with the cash. It was a stressful time worrying the the van would sell. We were planning to spend the whole of the next day searching for somewhere to sell it should it not sell.

Checked into an expensive B&B for our second last night!

11 October - England remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Woke early to pursue Bath as early as possible. Really enjoyed the tour of the Roman Baths. Bath was orginally called Salis Minerva so the Goddess Minirva was goddess of wisdom, medicine, the arts, dyeing, science and trade, but also of war. As Minerva Medica she is the patroness of physicians. Hence the healing powers of Bath have been sold throughout the ages as a cure all. This is the most amazing find in the whole Bath digs to date. It was found just last year when they were digging up a road to redo some sewerage pipes! The condition its in is amazing.

When the monks moved in in the middle ages, they used to take the sick and invalid town into the smaller pool.

You can see the high water mark. The water used to be a rusty brown colour when the roof was on the building, but due to the temperature the water sits at, and being exposed to the sun as it now is (originally it was housed under a huge roof). Out of the photo are the little cubicals that are surrounding this pool. The monks sat the invalid in these cubicals up to their necks for hours on end to help cure them of their ailments.

In the georgian era, doctors used to pescribe up to 5 gallons a day be drunk of the water. I did have a glass up in the pump room after the tour. It was warm of course, and tasted hugely of minerals and metals contained in it.

The main pool is still lined with the original lead lining that the Romans installed when they built the place! Can you believe it!

Bath is a really pretty georgian town. Full of great shops, cafes, gorgeous buildings and of course the great spas! unfortunately as time was running out I wasnt able to indulge in a spa - such a shame!

From Bath we sped on to Bournmouth. Finding some interesting little towns along the way falled Fontmell Magna where we found a cute little village of thatched roofed cottages...

and Twerne Minister where there was a really posh private school. The girls school uniforms actually consisted of a floor length skirt! Yeiks! I thought my school uniforms were bad! :-) I also took a fab picture of a butchers shop, which was also part of a cute house. It had a huge window in it the front and a huge picture of a pigs head on the sign out the front. No name just a pig!

Arriving in Poole couldn't find anywhere decent to stay to carried on to Bournmouth. Steve found what looked like a quiet street to park in and sleep but it turned out to be as wide as one car mirror to the other, so we had to drive the entire 10km lenght of it and find somewhere discrete to stop and park.

10 October - England remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Drove through the wonderful Lakes District. Its so picturesque full of trees, green rolling hills and of course water!

Ended up up at the Windermere for breakfast. Large touristy town with lots of yachts and boats. There is even a ferry taking boats and cars across to the other side. Home to Beatrix Potter for a time.

Hard to get good pics as it was overcast, and there was a bit of rain, but it was just gorgeous to drive through.

In the afternoon we hit Wedgwood. It was an interesting tour. Dont worry about eating there. The food is crap!

Ended the day a few miles out of Bath.

9 October - England remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The hills are certainly alive in this part of the woods. We woke to fabulous views and stone walls, mist on mountains and sheep dancing in the heather - woops sorry must be the haggis talking. Steve actually had the best haggis ever the night before. Much better than in Edinburgh. Same format, but much more tasty. I tried some, and it was quite sweet and spicey. We carried on up the hills past a gate that is closed during snow and ice as its just too slippery. Luckily we only encountered one car, and he pulled into one of the little layby areas and let us pass. We actually had the breaks smoking before we got to the bottom of the hill and reached the town of Kenmore.

We found our dream hoosie. A wee little castle that had just gone broke mid renovation. Picture attached...

We had breakfast at the oldest inn in Scotland and continued on to Killin Hotel for lunch. Have discovered a fabulous Pear Cider from Sweden. Must look out for that one back home.

Ended the night at the beginning of The Lakes District...

8 October - England remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Had a huge morning running around trying to squeeze a bit of Edinburgh into our psyche before moving on. Did the Big Bus Tour, The Real Mary King's Close Tour, National Turst Property dating from 1520 onwards. And, most importantly, haggis hunting!

We met Brett for lunch at a pub we were recommended that served haggis. Steve was most disappointed to not receive some festering offal material complete with valves and blood and guts oozing out of a thick stomach lining. Instead he received a round moulded artisitcally presented layer of haggis topped with a layer of sauted leaks and topped with a layer of mashed potato. He was gutted, so to speak!

Brett then took us to the cafe that JK Rowlings wrote part of the first Harry Potter called The Elephant. There was a fabulously sun lit rear to the cafe with huge windows that were drenched in sun the day we arrived and there was a terrrific view over Edinbugh Castle out the windows too!

We finally decided we had to move on. We finally had to say a fond farewell to bonny Edinburgh and Brett. Thanks so much to our fine tour guide! We had a great 24 hours in Edinbugh!

Brett suggested a route for us to take that he stumbled upon with Antony, so we decided to take in Perth and take his advice. We arrived in Perth in time for dinner. Found this great restaurant called The Bothy. The waiters are all dressed in gorgous kilts - the real ones, not the skirt varieties that are sold in all the tacky tourist shops. The waiter asked where we were from and we said Perth, the other one. He laughted and said every time he goes "down south" and mentions he's from Perth, they always say, "what West Australia". He said just goes to show how many people from Perth, Scotland, actually travel!

We chucked a left and headed up a one laned winding road into the hills... Found a layby and parked...

7 October - Scotland remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Arrived a bit bleary-eyed but it was nice to be back in an English speaking country. We were surprised after returning from the land of free sex and drugs, that we just breezed through customs on arrival!

Slowly cruised up the coast to Edinburgh. We were planning to overnight along the way, but now desperate to get the van up on ebay for sale, we were again having difficulty finding an internet cafe. So we drove on through. Arrived around 5:30pm and stumbled on a brand new cafe in Edinburgh. Listed van, and bombarded the poor subscribers with millions of updates from our lack of internet access yet again! (sorry folks!)

The we met up with Brett and his friend Antony over from Dublin for the weekend. Went out on a pub crawl, which was great fun. Antony was a hoot. Such a crazy travller guy. We all had some great philosophical travel discussions over many beers. It was a great night. Brett showed us all the great local haunts in the classy parts of Edinburgh. He also gave us directions to a lovely quiet park to park the van and sleep the night!

6 October - Scotland remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Spent a great day at the Van Gogh Museum. Surprised to learn his career only spanned 10 years and he appears to have amassed alarge collection of pictures in that time.

Also did the De Beers Tour (not alchol, but shiny sparkly things) Steve was worried! It takes over 10 years for a diamond cutter to get trained up to cut diamonds!

Just made it to the boat for the overnight ferry to Newcastle. Onboard were 3 restaurants, 2 bars a cinema room and huge shop! The cabin was really well laid out and spacious.

Didnt know that Holland had such a huge collection of wind turbines out in the water, with heaps more still being installed. The water was dead calm and sunny. Trip was 15 hours long!

5 October - Netherlands remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Town full of hip hoppers, rappers and wheel clamps - and we also spotted a few dykes along the way.

Interesting town. If the trams dont get you, the cars or bikes will! Watch out!

Did a not very good boat trip around the canals. Not enough information given, shame as we had so little time. Did jag a nice hotel though and a safe and secure and expensive parking bay for the bus, after witnessing a car two spaces up from us with a broken rear window. The owners were quite distraught.

Walked around and took in the hugely multicultural atmosphere and eateries of Amsterdam.

4 October - Netherlands remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Had an interesting torturing time trying to decide what Champagne to bring home...

Did tours of both Moet & Chandon as well as Mercier - both incidentally owned by the same Moet conglomerate, along with Mumm, Pommery, Dom Perrignon, Louis Vitton (surprised!) and several others... it seems its bigger business than we originally thought!

There are over 100kms of underground tunnels under the streets of Epernay. They are all pretty much joined together underground by the conglomerate that owns all the big labels. So we decided to bring home some of the small family (hopefully) owned stuff to try out.

Could go on for hours about what we learned about the business and politics of Champagne and the agencies that run it, but wont bore you with it unless you want to know more...

Pictured is Mercier's large 120,000 bottle sized barrel which he made for the 1889 Paris Exhibition which took over 30 years to make! And an incredible effort to transport to Paris before they had to purchase houses in the city to bulldoze to get it into the exhibition centre! It came second only to the Eiffel Tower!

I am the small object to its left!

3 October - France remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Amazing cathedral built in 1498 - see pic

Also has the world's largest Astronomical clock. We saw the miniture copy of this in the Sydney's Powerhouse Museum a few months ago when we were there. The original is so much more spectacular!

Fabulous canals around the whole town, and remnants of the walled city.

From there we travelled west straight to the heart of the Champagne country - Epernay...

2 October - France remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Left after a pleasant night staying at Lindau on the Bodense River on the southern tip of Germany. Over the other side of the lake was Austrian and Swiss Alps. As we chose to drive through Switzerland, we had to purchase a years worth of driving permit for the highways of Switzerland for just one day! So 40SF.

Had a gorgeous lunch at Aqua in gay Zurich on the lake. With a bunch of bankers and sunnies, we sought the shade of an umbrella as it was so hot!!!

From Zurich we moved along the supposed loveliest drive from Mulhouse to Strasborg, which was really tame after the Austrian alps! Also passed a huge nuclear power plant right on the Rhine River (the best roads in France are situated along this stretch of road!!!)

We ended up in gorgeous Strasborg.

1 October - France remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Had a gorgeous trip through the Austrian alps into Germany via crazy King Ludwig of Germany who built this amazing castle and went mad and killed himself and his doctor before it was finished, but not before installing a 4th floor grotto of his private rooms. He was also swan mad. There were swan motifs carved everywhere and china swans all over the house. Totally over the top, but really interesting. Amazing refreshing climbing the huge hill prior to going on the tour. It was fresh and cold, but sunny!

30 September - Germany remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Steve visited Roman Ruins Museam at the foot of the hill we stayed on, while Corinne went shopping. Oh I could have spent money all day! The town is full of clothing designers, interior designers and all the cool and trendy people. Its just so pretty!

Leaving we started heading up to Lake Guada, the largest of the italian lakes. We took the locals route to the lake past about 50 prostitutes! We have never seen such a sight in all our travels (well except out the back of Rome where the Ford dealers where). Steve thinks the Verona/Lake Guada prostitutes were better looking)! :-)

We went via Sirmione which is a cute little fortress town full of touristy but cute shops. Got our second parking fine! Decided that was unfair so we tore it up! The first was in Cannes where we squeezed our bus into a Gogomobile sized parking bay up against a high hedge and the inspector didnt notice we were right hand drive (we had the ticket over the drivers wheel where we normally put it)... We should get that one wiped when we post the bill off with the paid ticket, but the rest we decided will go to the address we dont live at in London that the car is registered to (the previous owners previous address) all because they didnt give change on their meters (nasty - and expensive)... Parking is a killer in Europe, and even harder when every underground carpark has a hight limit usually of less than 2m!

Anyway the drive was magnificent (as I digress into parking). There are ferries taking people back and fourth, holiday makers driving away from northern Italy for the weekend, and ice on the mountains behind! A magnificent sight!

Spent the night just at the edge of the Italian/Austrian Boarder...

29 September - Italy remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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28 September - Italy remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Steve managed to find his restaurants of restaurants - called Giuletta & Romeo - where he had Donkey spagetti; followed by Tartar (raw mince mixed with herbs, spices and a bit of sauce) of Horse (sorry sandy - steve doesnt want you to tell Bree!)

Then the next night we topped that by finding a restaurant experience to match none other! Ristaurante Arche. The food was devine, there were wine suggestions for every dish, and amazing entertainment watching the perfomance when the wine trolly was pushed to the table with the bottle of wine and glass on it. The waiter would open the bottle; sample the wine then pour for every glass that was drunk. I will never forget that most amazing experience!

In between eating, we stayed in a campsite run by some dreadlocked hippies. Every tree had a tag attached with its botanically name on it. It was also on a cliff part of Castel San Pietro. Some of the fortifications still remained. We also visited the Civici de Casa di Giuletta where the Capulette family where believed to have lived. And the fabulous castel with a Rafello and a few others dating back to 1200s.

Verona was another interesting city: one also run by the Guilds. These provided the ultimate in democratic rule. I guess that has aided Verona, Venice and Florence being such strong and influencial cities in their day, as well as maintaining a sence of independence of region today from the rest of Italy.

27 September - Italy remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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26 September - Italy remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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25 September - Italy remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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So for us, even with our water restrictions, consider any park that had dead lawn or weeds, to be a little unappealing. So today we did encounter some hedges that were alive, and the glorious parks surround the Villa Bourgese where where lovely. And during the walks in the shady large trees, it was lovely to experience the atmosphere of parks in Rome.

These were the loveliest pictures we took today. They were both taken in the Villa Bourgese gardens, the first is of the water clock in the park, and the second is of the gorgeous greek watergarden filled with ducks, geese and turtles all having a great time.

Today is our last day of free (well with many people always queing) internet use.

Might be a few days before next communication! hopefully will be soon!

Take care

24 September - Italy remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We visited the Palazzo Barberini which was the fabulous manion belonging to the famous Barberini family. Big in the 1600-1700's. Their family insignia was the bee. They had bees added to all window embelishments, and there are lots of sculptures including the Barberini Fountain, that is covered in small dots (I guess up close you can see the bees). Its quite interesting as we've never seen anything like it!

Their family home has amazing fresco'd celings in every room - even the bathroom! The artwork was also impressive. Now belonging to the Ministry of Culture they have installed a fabulous collection of 12th-18th century works from Italian masters.

From there we moved on to the Trevi Fountain. Probably Rome's most famous fountain. All of Rome is amazingly still fed by an aquaduct system built in 19BC which provides the most beautiful clean water free to many fountains and public drinking fountains around Rome. Apart from a renovation and extension added by the popes around 16th century, its still in fabulous working condition! The Travoli Fountain is the most amazing light blue colour. We didnt get any tour, so assume this too is fed by the same aquaduct. There were about a million people huddled around trying to take their shot!

We also found a small sign a block or so away from the fountain to the Travoli Cinema. They were excavating to extend their cinema underground and uncovered the most well proserved Roman ruin. The found some fabulous coins, loads of urns, and a huge 115,000L water storage room. Fabulous. Best E2 we had spent!

Also visited the Pantheon, which was disappointing. Another church plundered roman building.

23 September - Italy remains copyright of the author cssc, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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