My Top Fifty Highlights From Our Trip Through Europe and Egypt - Part Three

30. There is not much to do on the Eiffel Tower, but it does give you a view of the whole of Paris in all its cream-coloured, seven-storied glory. What made it even better was having to wait less than two minutes to buy the entrance tickets (travel in winter, folks!) But Hollywood has lied to us... we couldn't see the Tower from any of our hotel windows.



29. On a cold night in Venice, the warm taste of grappa in our throats was a toasty way to end the evening. Our mischevious waiter followed that up with a complimentary shot of limoncello. You can see why Venice is considered to be so romantic.

28. Provided that you are not claustrophobic, the Cabinet War Rooms of Winston Churchill are worth a look. Many of the rooms are still set up as they were left at the end of the Second World War, giving you a good idea of what life was like at the heart of the British resistance (minus the bombs of course).

27. At the Prime Meridian in Greenwich you can stand with one foot in the eastern hemisphere and the other foot in the Western hemisphere. This would be higher on the list but I don't want to reveal how much of a dork I am.

26. The Doge's Palace in Venice has the grand rooms and pretty ceilings and all the trimmings you would associate with the seat of sovereign rule. But it also has a dark underbelly - the cold stone prisons cells which used to house the wretched souls pf the condemned. The officers' rooms were not much larger or warmer, although at least they would have been high enough to avoid the floods.



25. On the ceiling of the Dome in Florence is a painting of the Last Judgment, with images of Hell occupying the lower circles and images of Paradise splashed across the top. This could be an allegory for ascending the dome itself, as you climb over 400 steps through narrow stone passageways, finally emerging into the blue sky surrounding the roof of the dome, from which you can gaze down on the city below. Fortunately, although the climb was tiring, it didn't take us long to get to the top (travel in winter, folks!) - one can imagine that in summer the hot, airless corridors are filled with the bodies of the damned.

24. There are two thoughts that we had when we saw the head of the colossal statue of the Roman Emperor Constantine:

I) How freakin' big must the statue have been?! (10 metres tall apparently)
II) Big heads are cool!



23. On the subject of all things old and big, Constantine had nothing on the Egyptian pharoah Rameses II, who erected four giant statues of himself outside the Great Temple of Abu Simbel. The mountainous temple is fascinating for two other reasons: first, the carvings inside, and second, the fact that it was moved from its original site to avoid being swallowed up by the nearby lake. On the downside, it's a hassle to actually go out and see the thing - it's three hours drive through the desert from Aswan, and you have to join the tourist convoy by 4am in the morning.



22. Having seen the colossal David in Florence, we were prepared to be similarly overwhelmed by Michelangelo's other ultra-famous work, The Creation of Adam, which lines the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Instead, our immediate reaction was 'where the hell are we? are we in the right place?' - turns out it is just one of a number of panels that run across the length of the ceiling. Once we got over that surprise, however, the paintings were quite beautiful to look at. Also in the Vatican Museum was Raphael's 'The School of Athens', which shows various famous Greek philosophers - it must have been the ultimate in nerddom during the Renaissance.

21. Seeing the Roman baths in Bath inspired us to have a thermal spa of our own. We were lucky enough to get the room to ourselves, which put a crimp on my business dealings, but gave us free rein to whack each other with the foam 'noodles'.