Arvi and his Football Pitches

It started during our first train trip to Berlin. I was snapping pictures out the window when I saw my other love ... football. So every train trip, walking tour or our own exploration I've kept an eye out for football fields everywhere (I've kind of got a sixth sense for spotting them).

On the way to Berlin from Munich

Czech Republic

On our way to Vienna from Prague

Snow Covered in Vienna 

Can't really tell but this one in the Italian Alps

Northern Italy

A.C. Risanese in Italy

Water logged pitch on our way to Cinque Terre

Sweet little synthetic in Monterosso

And another futsal pitch in Levanto

Awesome full size synthetic in Villefranche near Nice

concrete/dirt caged pitch in Paris

and one with players and a beautiful backdrop

Shot from the train on our way to Paris airport

another traveling out of Paris

Thick thick snow in Helsinki
 (oh yeah we visited Helsinki the other day) 

pa-REE

ahhh Paris the city of love....i guess

Token Eiffel Tower shot

We had a lovely couple of days in Paris zooming around under the city in the metro or walking around site seeing. We stayed at this cute colourful apartment in an artsy district a quick metro ride away from the city centre. On a sunny first day we ventured off to The Eiffel Tower, its huge. Without many tourists around we got in some good photos and Arvi even got to see some locals play football a couple of hundred metres away from the tower.

so thats how they work

 We visited houses, streets, castles, churches, bridges and more. The love lock bridge was very cool, with 1000's of locks clipped onto the metal mesh.

love lock bridge

Notre Dame was also amazing with all the stain glass windows and gothic architecture.
In Paris we also began our love affair with baguettes. They were so delicious we would eat 3 a day on average.

the Hunchback of Notre Dame 

Huge stained glass windows 

Notre Damn 

A break dancer and pianist street performing 

We caught the free walking tour the second day which took us to places that we hadn't seen yet. After a lovely picnic on the lawns of the Louvre with ham, cheese, hummus and of course 2 baguettes we ventured inside. It is huge!! We got to see the Mona Lisa front row of course, it was alright for a painting but smaller than we imagined.

Picnic nice and sunny

Mona

Mummified animals

Mummy

Leah got to see all her gross Egyptian stuff mummified mummys, cats, rats, dogs, birds and an alligator. Finally, that evening we ventured off to see the lights of the Moulin Rouge. Paris's sex shop street it should be called. Every third shop was either a brothel or sex toy shop (No parents we didn't venture into any).

Moulin Rouge

Nice is nice

We were welcomed into Nice with a mass of people all excited from their day at Carnival. Confetti scattered the streets and there were bright posters, face paint, balloons etc. As we walked closer to our hostel, two huge creepy looking Characters were set up at the end of a square where a lot of the activities/performances took place. We soon found out that after that, the Carnival activities would break for 2 days and start again the day we leave Nice. Bummer.

Creepy Carnivale folk

Creepy Carnivale folk

We did however catch an amazing sun set across the beaches from several viewing places along the Nice board walk.

beautiful sunset

some Asian took our picture

The first night we were so hungry, our stomachs were eating themselves because we couldn’t make up our minds where to eat! We eventually gave into our hunger and ended up at an Irish pub, drinking Belgium beer and eating really tasty burgers. How French!

We had a beautiful first day where we walked east towards the next town, Villefranche. We passed lots of fancy houses and little coves where people were swimming in the clear blue water. Can’t tell you much about Villefranche other than its expensive and we saw a lot of it while searching for about an hour for a public toilet (its ok we found one eventually, apparently fancy rich people don’t need public toilets).

Villefranche 

Leah tried to offset some of the bread, cheese and chocolate we have been eating with a jog along the boardwalk that afternoon. Jogging is very popular in Nice, and all the men’s running tights left little to the imagination…

Walking along the rock beach

The next day we went on a walking tour with the hostel. An animated Englishman took a big group of us through old town and to some great lookout points. Nice flowers markets, the biggest in France were so colourful and smelt amazing. We picked up a baguette, some pate and delicious strawberries to have a picnic for lunch at the top of the hill. Arvi confused the poor shop owners by saying ‘grazie’ instead of ‘merci’. Unfortunately, he still has not adapted to language change.

Succulents for only 1euro!

Juicy strawberries 

Beautiful flower arrangements 

Baguette? 

Thinking of where to go to next, we bought a train ticket to Cannes only to change our minds and go the other way back to Monaco and see why this place is the most expensive place in the world. The houses are big and tightly packed around a bay full of the most luxurious yachts (more like houses on water). Monte Carlo Casino was amazing, so big and a bit over the top. The minimum on the roulette table was out of our budget but we had fun watching people loose their money.We put 10 euro into the pokies instead and took out 72 euro not even 5 minutes later!!! We strutted back to the train station like high rollers, pretty damn chuffed with ourselves. Dinner and drinks that night courtesy of Monte Carlo Casino, Merci Beaucoup!

Ice rink during the winter and swimming pool during the summer

Acting all fancy in Monaco 

Acting important in Monaco

Begging for money for another baguette at the train station

We are off to Paris next ooh la la!