Work hard, play hard... in Europe

2010 has been a busy year work wise for both of us.  Ron has been working the long hours that his new position as Manager demands.  Cat started a new job in December 2009 and was working hard to settle in and prove herself.  We decided it was time to reward ourselves with a little vacation...

We were finally able to save enough money and secure time off of work to take the vacation that Cat always dreamed of.  4 weeks in Italy with a quick stop over in Paris.  After a quick call to the Qantas office, we booked our flights with a mixture of points and hard earned cash.  As you are all aware, using points to pay for flights isn't the easiest thing to do.  Because of that, we ended up flying in to London instead of flying straight to Italy.  This meant a longer flight but it did provide us with the opportunity to see some of London's famous sites.

After months of reading travel books, forums and websites, our plans were set.  We would fly in to London, spend a few hours before taking the high speed Eurorail to Paris.  From there, the plan was to fly into Venice, then take the train to Vernazza in Cinque Terre, to Monteroni D'Arbia in Tuscany, to Positano in Amalfi Coast and finally to Rome.

Everything was set and we were ready to go.  That was until the Icelandic volcano decided to erupt and covered the UK in volcanic ash, canceling all flights in and out of the airports.  The natural disaster cost the airlines $1.7 billion and almost our vacation.  Thankfully the winds slowly pushed the ash away and flights resumed... 3 days before our intended departure.

After 20 hours and a quick layover in Singapore, we finally made it to London.  We landed at 6am and had train tickets to Paris at 1pm.  That meant we had 7 hours to explore the town. 

Is that a patch of blue sky?