Epic Honeymoon - Day 22 - Sintra

Pena Palace, Sintra.

Our last full day in Lisbon, we took a day trip out to the popular tourist town of Sintra. Home to the Pena Palaca – previous residence of the royal family – among other landmarks, you need to ensure to get there early to beat the crowds. We didn’t follow our own advice, but we fared okay in this regard. To get there, you must board the overland train from Restauradores station; you might read that it’s Rossio, but the Rossio metro station is at Rossio square, while the overland train leaves from Rossio main station... where the Restauradores metro stop is... go figure! Tickets can be bought on the machines or at the counter for a little over €2, and a return will be two singles (no saving if you buy a return or buy them individually).

Epic Honeymoon - Day 21 - Lisbon

Rooftops and cruise ships; a Lisboa kind of view!

Just as we would emerge from the hillside suburb where we were staying, we would meet a small square in front of Igreja de São Domingos. Adjacent to the church sits the barfront shop of A Ginjinha, which serves up the cherry liqueur we had been treated to at Tabuas two nights earlier. You will get a shot for €1.40 and can drink it right there on the square. It’s quite the popular spot!

Epic Honeymoon - Day 20 - Lisbon & Belém

Padrão dos Descobrimentos

The next morning, we took the metro down to Cais do Sodre and transferred to the overland train to visit Belém. Situated about 6km to the west of Lisbon, Belém watches over the mouth of the Tagus as it meets the Atlantic Ocean.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 18 & 19 - Lisbon

Praça do Comércio, Lisbon

Our next stop along the Epic Honeymoon trail was actually a noteworthy one for me: it was a new country to add to my list. With all the travel in my job, I have racked up a nice list of countries, but my recent years had seen me lacking any new places. Part 6 of our journey, though, brought my age and number of countries back to even: 33 countries at age 33. And while my list of countries will surpass my age later in the trip, for now, we explore Lisbon, Portugal.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 17 & 18 - Rome

The wonderfully touristy Fontana di Trevi.

Our last full day in Rome was dedicated to exploring the main touristy haunts of the city centre, starting with the annoyingly crowded Trevi Fountain. If you’re not aware, the story is that you take a coin in your right hand, back to the fountain, and throw the coin over your left shoulder into the water, wishing for a safe return to Rome. If you’ve done this before and you are back, your safe return has been granted, and so you now wish for something else. But apart from the coin-tossing tradition, the carvings of the fountain are quite spectacular. It’s hard to get a good photo of it, with the crowds around, but you can, relatively easily, get close enough to appreciate it.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 16 - Rome & Vatican City

The exit stairs in the Musei Vaticani.

On Saturday, 30^th September, we had made plans to visit the country within the city of Rome: The Vatican. As a separate city-state, crossing into Vatican City technically counts as visiting a new country – not that you get a stamp on your passport or anything. Obviously you can’t just wander around the entire grounds, but you can visit the various holy sites and museums to learn a bit about the history of the Catholic Church.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 15 - Rome

The exposed foundations of the Colosseum.

The next morning, we walked from our AirBnB to the Colosseum; an easy 10-15 minute stroll. This iconic and immense structure sits proudly at the south-eastern corner of Rome, neighbouring the ruins of the Roman Forum. I had seen the Colosseum on my Contiki Tour in 2011, but didn’t have the chance to go inside. On this occasion, I read up on it in advance and bought the tickets online before leaving home. 

Epic Honeymoon - Day 14 - Rome

Proverbially, all the roads will lead you here; it was the centre of the Roman Empire in the early days, and a powerhouse example of rich versus poor. The ritualistic executions by wild animals did not last, but thankfully, some of the amazing architecture has. Welcome, one and all, to the majesty of Rome.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 13 - Pisa

Our last full day in Florence was actually not in Florence – we took a train across the countryside to visit Pisa and its infamous Tower.

From Florence, it's an easy train ride across to Pisa, arriving in about 1 hour. There's no need to pre-book tickets for this one: just roll up at Santa Maria Novella and buy a ticket from the machine. It will only set you back about €8 per person.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 12 - Florence

The next day was a pre-designated as a day or art and culture, as we had pre-booked to visit the Uffizi Gallery, home to and incredibly huge collection of some of the most famous art from Italy’s Renaissance, and Galleria Accademia, which is of course known as the house of David.

We got going nice and early, arriving to Uffizi to find the crowds that pre-booking will get you past. You can save a couple of euros by getting yourself out of bed at the crack of dawn, if you so choose. But who needs that when you're on holiday??

Epic Honeymoon - Day 11 - Florence & Prada Outlet

Firenze in all her glory.

The next day had been earmarked for a shopping trip for Avy. Not too far from Florence is the Prada Outlet in Montevarchi town called Space. The train there took about 45 minutes, and from there, you can catch a dedicated shuttle bus to the outlet. However, there is also a local bus option if you take the bus bound for Levane; it’s only 4 stops to the outlet and will cost about €1.30 per person. We went with this option, and picked up tickets for the bus at the local Tabacchi – from the station, cross the main road and walk to the right; you can’t miss it. The bus terminal is then further up the same road and then to the right.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 10 - Florence

Florence's amazing Il Duomo.

For our departure from Venice, we looked at the options and chose to take the train. Trains through Italy and quite convenient, but not necessarily cheap. Booking in advance, we managed to get a very decent price with TrenItalia, and so we set off to ride the rails for, arguably, Italy’s cultural capital, Florence.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 09 - Venice

A pretty rainbow of houses.

The next morning, we repeated our journey across to Venice, this time skipping the Ferrovia bridge and weaving our way east to the edge of the island, arriving to the F.te Nova water bus stops. We took the water bus for €7.50 each (one way) out to Burano. It’s worth nothing that this would also be covered by the ACTV pass. We had originally planned to buy the two day pass for €30 each, but decided to do a whole lot more walking instead. If you plan to hop on and off the water busses down the Grand Canal, you definitely want to consider this pass, as you will bankrupt yourself on the tickets.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 08 - Venice

The view from Ponte Rialto.

The next morning, Friday 22^nd September, we walked back to Mestre station to head over to Venice. You can use the ticket machines here to get a one way Trenitalia ticket to Venice Santa Lucia station for only €1.25 per person. Again, tickets must be validated before use and this is done at the green machines that occupy almost every pole in the station.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 07 - Santorini to Venice

A delicious way to start the day.

The next morning, we checked out and walked the length of Fira to the bus terminal, stopping first at the 24/7 bakery to pick up some breakfast. They have a huge range of pastries, stuffed with cheeses, sausages and the like. I opted for a spinach and cheese puff, while Avy took the cream cheese bagel. From the bus stop, Avy went for a quick walk to a cafe we’d seen on the street to the east side of town to grab some coffee. We each had an iced cappuccino, which was deliciously creamy (probably because it was topped with real cream rather than foam). At only €1.80, this was some of the best coffee we’d had, so certainly pay a visit to Coffee Island.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 06 - Santorini

Probably the most photographed church in the world.

The night’s sleep was somewhat interrupted by the bells of the local church. They would ring in a certain pattern of three or four tones; obviously there was some special day or celebration happening, as the same was going on the next morning from quiet early. Amazingly, we managed to take an easy morning and only set into town around 11am, stopping at Lucky’s Souvlaki for a breakfast yiros (when in Greece...!). I had read that Lucky’s was a “can’t miss” destination when in Fira. It was alright, but of the three I’d now had, Good Mood Food took the honours as best yiros in Fira!

Epic Honeymoon - Day 05 - Santorini

Looking out over the Caldera.

After an uneventful evening hanging around at Athens airport, we arrived to Santorini about 8:30pm. We had a small run-in with the first taxi driver, who wanted €25 to take us to our hotel – he’d loaded our bags into the boot, and while we debated and discussed the price (we’d read around €15 to Fira), he got pissed off and unloaded our bags to go get another fare. We lined up at the taxi rank again and ended up sharing with an American guy who was travelling to a hotel near ours; our fare came to €20, so it was a nice price for us, but the taxi driver probably made a good profit for the combined fare.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 04 - Athens

Gazing up at the Acropolis.

After two days in Dubai and a lavish afternoon in the Emirates First Class Lounge, we boarded our flight to the birthplace of democracy and the home of the Olympic Games. I had previously visited Athens in 2011 at the end of my Contiki Tour, but we only had a quick bus tour around the city and the obligatory trek up the Acropolis. On this occasion, we opted to only overnight in Athens and spend more time at one of the infamous islands: Santorini.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 03 - Emirates First Class Lounge

The gateway to another world.

With most of the big ticket items checked off our list, we took it easy on our third morning, enjoying another breakfast at the hotel before checking out and heading for the airport. My elevated status with the OneWorld group (due to my business travelling) got us access to the Emirates First Class Lounge, which is in a world of its own. Occupying an entire floor, the Lounge stretches the length of the terminal, and far and away surpasses any other lounge I have been in.

Epic Honeymoon - Day 02 - Dubai

Dubai Spice Souk.

Day two started with breakfast at the hotel, which was reasonably varied between Middle Eastern / Indian food and some Western staples, including an omelette station. The selection of fruit was a bit of a letdown; also the coffee, which was only instant. Nevertheless, we fueled up well and set out for the day. Catching the metro out to Al Ras, on the northern side of the creek, we wandered into the backstreets and a generally random direction to find the old Souks, running into the Gold Souk first. Here, there are modern shops selling all kinds of fine jewellery; we even spotted a single ring priced at 3-million Dirham (about 1-million AUD)! Though, reflecting on that, maybe we read it wrong. That seems a bit over the top!

Epic Honeymoon - Day 01 - Dubai

Zipping along the tracks on the Dubai metro.

Welcome to Part 1 of I-don’t-know-how-many-parts of my Honeymoon blog! My wife and I planned our massively epic honeymoon for more than a year (she planned it for about 4 years before we even met), and I was told by my boss that I was setting some kind of record for vacations at my company! Using my hard-earned frequent flyer points to get the main flights to and from Europe (plus a nice chunk of taxes), we planned our itinerary throughout, opting to cover as many countries as we could!

Hualien and Taroko Gorge

The day after our wedding banquet, we made plans to head to the east coast of Taiwan. Given that my parents had come all the way for the wedding, Avy wanted to show them as much of Taiwan as she could. Dad and his partner had made plans to join a tour in China, so they were leaving two days after the banquet. But mum, Avy and I jumped on a train on Monday morning and headed for the seaside city of Hualien.

And So, I Married A Taiwanese

Our wedding banquet hall.

In January of this year, my girlfriend Avy and I upgraded our relationship from "dating" to "married". Because we were still not living permanently together - or in the same country - we opted to just do a simple registry office wedding so that we could then move on to applying for the next stage of her Australian visa. Having officially married in Australia, we decided to also make our marriage official in Taiwan, but to skip most of the pomp and ceremony that goes with a traditional Taiwanese wedding and just do the good stuff: a Wedding Banquet!

The Cutting Edge of Japan

Ever since high school, I have always had a fascination with Japan; studying the language for 7 years really got me interested in the culture. As I have mentioned in other posts, Japan still stands as one of my favourite countries - if you haven't visited yet, certainly do yourself a favour and get on to it!

In more recent years, as I have become - let's face it - older (!), my interests in life in general have gradually changed, as one might expect. I've never been much of a cook, but have always had a vested interest in food, and as I have aged, my interest in eating the food has slowly been equally matched with preparing it. And as my work took me to Japan several times over the past few years, I found myself captivated with the dedicated concentration and pride with which Japanese chefs (particularly sushi chefs) prepared their dishes. And the one aspect that caught my attention the most was the ease with which they could slice through raw fish with almost no effort, which got me thinking that it was time to update my kitchen knives with something a little more fancy!