We arrived in England on the last day of April, and were met by Mark at Heathrow. We all travelled to Oxford on the Oxford Tube, a bus service providing a connection direct to Oxford from Heathrow.
After organising a transfer from the Rome airport on a bus (Mark had told us that the Italian cab drivers were suicidal lunatics), we booked into our Italian hotel, the Hotel Villa Pamphili. We had an excellent meal at a special Italian ristorante that evening, near the main railway station, which included wine and live entertainment. Afterwards we saw the Trevi fountain and the Spanish Steps, but it had started raining and we got thoroughly soaked - not a good way to finish the night.
Next morning our sightseeing started with vistas of the beautiful Piazza Venezia and the Roman Forum; we visited the Colosseum and heard about gladiatorial combats and early Christian martyrdom; afterwards we proceeded via Circus Maximus and across the Tiber to Janiculum Hill where we saw a panoramic view of Rome, and finally visited the monumental St. Peter's Square and Basilica. We went to the Sistene Chapel, and couldn't believe the extent of the paintings on the walls and the ceiling of the Chapel - we had seen photos of the ceiling, but it was just so much more impressive in real life. Michelangelo's work is unbelievable!
VENICE
That afternoon we left Rome and headed towards the Pope's summer palace, Castelli Gandolfo, in the hills south of Rome, where we had a wonderful meal in a little restaurant in Frascati - the home of Italian white wines. It was really a memorable evening, with live singing and music and a real insight into the rural Italian life style.
PISA
We passed through a kaleidoscope of Italian landscapes on the way through the fertile Italian plains. An interesting detour took us off the highway into the vine- and olive-clad Tuscan hills, home of the popular Chianti wines. When we got to Pisa we saw the famous leaning tower. It is so much more impressive in real life - I couldn't believe that it could remain upright at that angle! Dianne bought a leather handbag from a little market stall in Pisa.
FLORENCE
After an early start, we drove to Florence, cradle of the Renaissance, and saw the magnificent Santa Maria del Fiore, Giotto's Bell Tower, the Baptistry's heavy bronze "Gate of Paradise". To top it off, we admired Michelangelo's celebrated David in the Gallery of Fine Arts. We also checked out the shops, with Florentine leather goods and gold jewelry everywhere. After a lunch break we headed north towards Venice.
We started the day early, and after catching the bus to the main port area, we travelled in style on a private boat which took us through ancient canals to meet our resident local guide.
On our walking tour we visited St. Mark's Square and the Byzantine splendor of St. Mark's Basilica, saw over the lavish Doge's Palace, and the Bridge of Sighs. There is nothing romantic about the Bridge of Sighs - it was a very dark, dreary covered bridge along which condemned prisoners were escorted from the court in the Doges palace to the primitive cells where they were to be imprisoned. We also watched Venetian glass blowers fashion delicate glasses and ornaments. Later we walked around Venice at our own pace, but found it dirty, noisy and crowded. We were glad to leave and return to the hotel.
We travelled through the scenic Semmering Pass, through stately Styrian crossroad towns, Carinthian lakes and resorts, which provided an ever-changing Alpine backdrop to our journey through some of the loveliest parts of Austria as we headed towards Vienna. It is unusual travelling in the mountains in Europe - we didn't seem to be climbing, and we didn't take roads over and around the mountains - we went straight through them in huge long tunnels. We had lunch at a little town called Arlberg, near the end of a 14 kilometre long tunnel through the mountains - it was one of the loveliest spots we had seen.
VIENNA
We saw the lavish terraced gardens of Prince Eugene's Belvedere Palace, and then went for a drive along Ping Boulevard, past Emperor Franz Josef's Hofburg Palace and the State Opera. Next we saw the Prater amusement park with its giant Ferris wheel, featured in Orson Welles's classic film "The Third Man", and later saw where the ultra-modern United Nations City lies on the banks of the Danube River. We visited St. Stephen's Cathedral, and saw the midday parade of historical figures at the musical Anker Clock.
Just after lunch we were looking for one of the Mozart museums, where he used to live and where he wrote the famous opera "Figaro", and I found 150 schillings. There was nobody around at the time, so the money came in handy - it was used for lunch and to cover the cost of the Figaro Museum.
On the way back to the hotel we saw the golden statue of Johann Strauss in the memorial park.
That night we went to a famous restaurant near Grinzing - on the Marchfeld Plain - in the Heuriger wine district. There was live entertainment and the food and wine was excellent ... a memorable night.
SALZBURG
We left Vienna early in the morning, and the bus drove through the "Sound of Music" lakeland of the Salzkammergit, by lovely Lake Wolfgang as we proceeded towards Salzburg. After a morning stroll through the historic center of Mozart's hometown, over a shaky footbridge to where we admired the exquisite Mirabell Gardens and the Baroque Horse Trough. We also saw the Great Festival Hall, St. Peter's Churchyard, and the monumental Domplatz, and after a short lunch break we visited Mozart's birthplace in the charming Getreidegasse.
After leaving Salzburg on our way to Switzerland we travelled to Innsbruck, Austria's Olympic resort in the Tyrolean mountains. We enjoyed a pleasant walk through its quaint medieval lanes to see the balcony where Emperor Maximilian's Golden Roof is situated. It was a religious holiday there, and we saw a parade of almost everybody in the city in their native costumes with bands and singing and chanting. Many of the town's shops were shut. This is not unusual on a religious holiday, apparently.
I liked Switzerland. It was a clean country with friendly people and spectacular scenery - it really is just like the photographs and films you have seen, only more spectacular - pictures are no substitute for the real thing.
LUCERNE
We arrived in Lucerne to find that there had been a mix-up with our hotel bookings. When that happens, the tour company is obliged to provide alternative accommodation "of equal or better standard". This meant that we were moved to the most expensive five star hotel in Lucerne - the Palace Hotel, shown here.
One of the things which we saw while sightseeing in Lucerne was Thorwaldsen's Lion Monument, a memorial to the Swiss guards who lost their lives during the French Revolution. They were employed as bodyguards by the French king, and were trying to protect him from the people as they swarmed the palace. The Swiss guards were literally torn apart by the French mob. Mark Twain once visited Lucerne and referred to the Lion Monument as "the most moving piece of rock in the world".
Another well known feature we saw was the famous covered wooden bridges which date back to the 12th century, and ornate patrician houses of the walled Old Town. Afterwards we browsed through shops looking at Swiss watches, cuckoo clocks and Swiss Army knives. I chose a knife from a huge range of about fifty on display. While some of our companions climbed a local mountain by cable car and took a cruise on the fiord-like lake, we had lunch and a folklore party at a local restaurant, with yodeling and alphorn blowing and folk dancing and other forms of alpine merrymaking.
A scenic day! On the Swiss border, at Schaffhausen, we took pictures of the thundering Rhine Falls. We had a short break here, and it was possible to catch a boat and land on a small island near the falls, or to tour around almost underneath the falls themselves. It looked very spectacular from the boat, but it was impossible to take pictures from the boat due to the amount of spray generated by the falls.
Later during the morning we travelled through the lush valleys and pine-clad hills of the Black Forest, where we visited Triberg, renowned for its cuckoo clocks. At the place where we stopped, there was an actual working cuckoo clock the size of a small house, and on the hour dancing figures appeared, a chimney sweep popped out of the chimney, and animals capered about. Everybody on the tour bus just stopped and stared - it was a real cuckoo clock, not just a look alike as we had thought when we first saw it.
I'm afraid that we had a preconceived idea of what Paris would be like from listening to other travellers who had visited there years ago. However Dianne and I found it to be a large, well laid out, elegant city which gave us the feeling of space.
Mark had arranged for us to stay in the guest room at St. John's College again, and that was only a matter of three or four hundred metres from the bus station. The college oozed wealth and tradition ... we have little idea of real history in Australia, with a relatively short time since the first settlement. 
Gaudi's ideas on urban planning and design were quite ahead of his time - his use of bright coloured mosaic tiles and flowing curves and lines imitating nature typify his works. It was not enough to be functional and robust, but everything that Gaudi designed and built had to be artistic and aesthetic. Traffic and pedestrians were separated, and no buildings were permitted to block another's view of the sea. Only 60 percent of the available land was built on, with the rest remaining as public parks and gardens.
The three of us decided to take a bus to Toledo for a day trip. Toledo was formerly the capital of Spain, and is a very old fortified city showing the influence of the various people who conquered it over thousands of years.