Mark did come in and steal a breakfast in the morning, and we were joined by Candace too. The three of us agreed to head out to see the palace at Versailles. First though, Mark and I have to go and move our car. We find a parking house a reasonable distance from the hostel, drop the car off and forget it.
The train ride to Versailles is about half an hour long, but it takes you to just a couple of blocks from the palace.

Versailles is gorgeous. Even from a distance the first view of it is impressive. Entry isn’t too expensive, and you get free audio guides to take you through each of the rooms. The guides talk about the grandeur of the palace, the meaning behind art works and tells day-in-the-life-of stories about the Louis’ and Ladies who lived there. I particularly enjoyed the Royal Chapel, the Herculean Ceiling, the Hall of Mirrors (the signing of the peace treaty ending World War I was signed here!) and the art work in general. What the audio guides don’t talk too much about is the means for the opulence of the kings and the stories behind why the people revolted, though it doesn’t take a Bachelor of Arts to look around and connect the dots for yourself.
The gardens that start at the rear of the main palace are simply huge. They span as far as you can see from the balcony of the palace (which is on a hill) and there are a couple “small” holiday palaces (seriously!) and a Queen’s retreat house/palace made for Marie-Antoinette.
Even around the gardens there are more beautiful works of art. Most of them were to do with mythological deities and I wish I could have heard the stories behind them all.
We left before we got to see too much of the gardens, or hire a boat to paddle around in, and we caught the train back into Paris to kick off an evening bike tour.

A bike tour is a great way to see Paris. I attested to this last year when I took the daytime tour, and it’s just as good, if not better, by night.
If nothing else, there are many beautiful things to see in Paris. The day and night tours don’t cover much of the same ground so you do get to see a decent spread. And on top of that you get to meet decent people as well. We met sisters from Texas, a family from Atlanta, a Finish bloke called “Per” who was living in and offered us accommodation in Florence, and a few Aussies whose accents were refreshingly welcome.
The evening bike tour (with Fat Tire – yay for a free plug) includes a boat cruise along the Seine, with lots of free wine. This, dear blog, is a marvellous way to enjoy Paris. Along parts of our ride we’d seen Parisians decked out along the roadside, or along a certain bridge, with food galore, more than enough wine, and a free and happy spirit. They sit and sing, talk and laugh and the atmosphere is great. It was great for us then to jump on a boat, sample the wine and enjoy the company of people we’d just met. Or had spent the day with and were coming to know, as was the case with Candace and I. We got close, and were able to appreciate the scenery (there are two Statues of Liberty you know) in the company of each other if none other.
Everyone finished their drinks and took their photos and we disembarked to ride (yes, free alcohol and ride yourself back please) to our destination.

The leader of the tour (a certain Nick from America) took a fancy to a few of us and invited us for drinks under the Eiffel Tower after the tour. Of course Mark and Candace and I willingly accepted, and bought ourselves what would count for dinner and some French bottles to share on our way to this monument of art and romance.
There is an almost magical vibe about the parks around the Eiffel Tower. We’d all been there before, but this time, in different company perhaps, we laughed and chatted and enjoyed our time together. Mark and Per went off to play soccer with some others nearby, around 1am. Candace leaned over on my shoulder as we gazed at the glittering tower. “I’m sorry, but I can’t give you more.” I tell her.
“That’s ok, this is perfect” she answers.

After a fly’s flitter we (Mark and Candace and I) rose and bade farewell to our newfound friends to return to our hostel before the 2am curfew. Really, 2am is only lightly enforced and the receptionist on duty was still up so we three resolved to crack and enjoy the last bottle of wine we’d bought for the evening.
Still the receptionist isn’t finished with chatting up other hostelees, so Candace and I make a break for an ATM to get some cash out. Together. Alone. After … well a few bottles of wine.
Nearly, we nearly get ourselves (OK, just me) in bad territory, but we don’t. I’m taken with how easy we can turn on and off (especially off) the romance, and still be so cool and fun together. I bid her goodnight with “Candace Cross, you rock”.

We knew we’d have a big day of driving ahead of us, so after not a really early morning we first head down to an Internet café. To grab addresses of hostels in Paris.
On the road and we’re driving through the alps and through France, and really feeling it in our back pockets. We spent AU$150 in tolls on this day alone, it really is crazy.
We hardly stopped except for half an hour to have luke-warm sausages and old chips for “lunch”.
The last of the tolls we passed through was a bit of trouble. We’d been paying by Visa card for all the previous ones, but this lady flatly refused to take it, saying that none of the booths at this toll would. This was a real problem because Mark and I had only a couple of Euro between us, and needed to make 18! On go the hazard lights and we franticly search through pockets in bags and all sections of suit-cases to find all the Euro we could scrounge. When we were humble and sorry and funny about it the lady in the booth saw the humour in it and was friendly towards us – I think she was about to give us a slight discount before we produced the last few coins to make up the total.

Driving into Paris we go to look up the address of one of the hostels, and I realise that I’ve forgotten to change TomTom’s maps around and we don’t have any detailed maps of Paris at all, only highways in and out of the place! Great, now what? Well the traffic’s terrible so we have a bit of time to think about it.
We remembered that the hostels were near to the Eiffel Tower, so we started there once we found it (it’s big, but not that big ya know). After driving around it for about 20mins we randomly happened upon one of the streets we were looking for. Or at least drove past it and spent 5mins driving round the “block” (there is not a single square or rectangular block in the whole of Paris it seems) to get back there. Once again the luck of the Irish (Mark must be Irish) came through in full flight because the first street car park we saw in town was right out the front of the hostel we’d just found. Amazing, and quite handy later on.

We rock in, pleased as pie that we’d actually stumbled upon something we were randomly driving around searching for, but our spirits were soon slightly dampened when the friendly receptionist told us they were well and truly booked out. She suggested another place that “always has rooms” and showed us how to get there by train. We told her we had a car and that if there was a chance we’d get a room the next night we’d just as soon sleep in it. She suggested that we do that very thing, and by the way the showers are up those stairs and breakfast is downstairs wink-wink. She also said that if we come back after the 2am curfew then there’s likely to be a bed or two available where someone has booked but not shown up.

We head on out towards the Eiffel Tower (taking a long way of course cos it’s our first go) in the hope of a big screen being there with the France Spain game on. Nothing. Then Mark and I eerily re-enacted what a few of my tour mates and I did the previous year in trying to find a train way from the Eiffel Tower to a few stops down where we were told a decent night district was, and there was likely to be a screen.
45mins later we arrive at the end of the 15min train trip. Our main problem was that we didn’t have any Euro, having spent it all on the last toll we’d just passed. Oh well, we finally made it, and once again there was no big screen but there were lots of excited Parisians flowing out of pubs all around.

Pretty interesting game. We were slightly disappointed to see the French get up, but it made for a great vibe after the match. We were quite famished, and it really is great how you can go out for a meal at 11:30pm at night (and we weren’t the last to arrive) in Europe – it’s a top lifestyle.
I ordered duck and Mark steak. I was somewhat surprised to see them both come out in the same sauce, and somewhat disappointed to see it was a pepper sauce that suited Mark’s steak perfectly (his was a lovely meal) and mine like a bill does a platypus.

After knocking off a delightful bottle of wine at the same place we made our way back to the hostel and were half in luck – there was one bed available! Mark had already said he wanted to be the one to take the cheaper car option and I wasn’t keen on that idea so it worked out tops.

Getting ready for bed in the dorm a certain girl came in and we started chatting. Her name was Candace, she was from Canada and the two of us hit it off from the start. We shared a few stories before agreeing to meet over breakfast and going to bed.

We didn’t need to sleep in after a decent early night so we hit the road for the big day ahead.
It must be said that neither of us were upset at the prospect of leaving Croatia. This was the only place in the whole of Europe where we really felt this way at all, and we certainly felt it here. It seems unfair to the (still majority perhaps) members of the population who are genuinely friendly people, but Mark and I experienced at best idle ignorance of us from any member of the Croatian public that we didn’t pay money to, with only a small handful of exceptions. And this includes a decent smattering of people, and no end of friendly greetings from us.
I wasn’t aware of a Croatian (or Yugoslavian as it seems to be) stereotype to this effect before I went away, but am certainly able to contribute my experience of the same now.

Our drive took us through a small but pleasant section of Slovenia. Snooze and you’ll miss it – it was all of 20mins long. Somewhere in Italy was our intended destination, perhaps around Turin, but we had no really solid ideas.

Around the right time of day we entered Milan, wanting to make the Piazza del Du Duomo for the Australia Italy game. (We’d been tipped off by a friendly local at a roadhouse who’d heard us give the language a good solid yet pathetic attempt. Once again glad to be somewhere not Croatian.)
In a bit of a hurry we parked the car in a paid car park area that ended up being over 3km from the piazza, so we really had to hustle to make it in time.

For the first half Mark and I stood on our own near the back side third of the people gathered. Early on we were approached by a girl who told us she was a journalist and would like to ask us questions. We gladly agreed but were a little stumped by her first one: “Why are you here?” Simply enough we answered that we were watching the game, and where better to do it than Italy if not in the stadium or back home. Fair enough it seemed, until her next question: “And you don’t feel unsafe?” This made us take another look at our surroundings. Suddenly the couple of blokes in front of us whose looks we interpreted as “check out these palukas” became the testy sussing out for what might conspire after the game.
At half time we sought out the main Aussie contingent that we saw from a distance. This was more fun now we had someone to cheer with. A couple of them were a little too toasted for comfort given the circumstances, which wouldn’t have been as much of a problem except the Italians didn’t know what to make of “We’re happy little Vegemites” and the Skippy theme song, and so assumed they were insults to them. Most of the Aussies were too scared to chant or sing though, and again the locals who were friendly came and asked us why we were there. We said we’d encountered pretty rough crowds in Croatia and that the police came to our aid, but this bloke responded with “Oh no, the police don’t attend this sort of thing here.”

The game is now infamous in Australian soccer history. This isn’t the forum to speculate as to what the outcome should have been, but I will say that it was a terrible way to lose. And the walk to the car was quite an ordeal with all the Italian celebration going on right down the main road we walked along. But we stood up straight, jerseys proud and flags flapping on our backs, and sucked up the jeers and leers of the supporters of a country who play to act.

On the road then, to Turin. We had actually collected the addresses of a couple of hostels in the area, but when we came to look for them we came to find we’d lost them. Great so we drive around randomly and randomly come across a few hotels. Last minute rooms are not cheap here; the best we find is a dodgy old room for 60 Euro.
The room taken care of we head out for a feed. I wasn’t going to let our only night in Italy pass without a great meal, and we happen to find one just around the corner.
That night was just tops, we had an absolutely fantastic meal, with beer and wine to suit each course perfectly, sitting at the back of a restaurant with a TV in the corner where we watched Switzerland play Ukraine, chatting occasionally with the staff, and having a great time overall.

Our last full day in Pula was even lazier than the first. We went down again for a swim to the beautiful Adriatic that was just about at our doorstep, and then for a walk around the shoreline, as recommended to us by the guest house owner.
I should mention that ladies here are quite liberal when it comes to swimwear. Whether or not it is aesthetically pleasing for them to do so, many of them will lose their tops at some stage during the beach trip. Mark went off for a swim off on his own, and somehow never strayed too far from the shore…

We drove into town and saw the sixth largest arena built by the Romans which was there in the centre of Pula. This area of Croatia was part of Italy up until World War II, and the common greeting in the street (from those who will talk to you if you’re obviously foreign) is still Ciao.

With not much else to occupy us we enjoyed a large burger with an ice-cream chaser, and then headed back to our room for more football and sleep.