The City Of Canals, Venice, Italy, 31st Dec 2006

My four companions for the night, packed into one corner of the claustrophobia-inducing cabin in which we spent about eight hours. It was still manageable when everybody was still awake and sitting upright. Our spatial scarcity was only highlighted when everybody started reclining piecemeal and dropping off into sleep. Things didn't improve when in the middle of the night, an Italian lady of considerable proportions entered the cabin. (From left: Zhen Qiang, Gim Hui, Joanne and Evelyn. I'm the bumblebee if you haven't already realised.)

Piazza San Marco, or St Mark's Square - Venice's most recognisable square. As with every other city squares, one finds in the background the ubiquitous pigeons and the usual pigeon feeders seeking cheap thrills (more here than anywhere else, I discovered).

The Bridge of Sighs. This is the real thing, having seen replications of it in both Cambridge and Oxford.

Gondolas and more gondolas.

And that's me on one, grinning foolishly from ear to ear.

(Which is the best way to keep in the vomit. It was quite choppy on the lagoon before we entered the canals proper.)

In a city which is eked out from the sea, the canals are the roads. Here we were intrigued to find the usual traffic impedimenta, meant here for gondolas instead of the usual vehicles. They only lacked zebra crossings and traffic lights.

There's also an amicable traffic culture there, ostensibly corresponding with the lack of automobiles and the like. As our gondola approached a blind spot, our boatman would slow the craft down and holler something across to alert others of his impending approach. They all handled their vessels with such finesse there didn't seem to be any likelihood of an accident. Now, it would also seem that all land motorists are boars. Yet in the first place, I think I'm not far off the mark when I say all the boatmen in Venice know one another!

The few licks I've had of gelato in Italy. Now I know that'd sound tragic to most of you, but I'm not a sucker for ice-cream.

The Year Was 79 AD - Vesuvius & Pompeii, Italy, 30th Dec 2006

Signs like these were put up at every turn on the route up Vesuvius, lest the zealous narcissist trigger a massive landslide. The interesting thing was that here, where we were nearer to the crater, there are only three dots on the sign. There are five on the ones further down the slope. I wouldn't have thought of a simpler way to illustrate how a landslide works.

On the lip of the crater, at the very top of Vesuvius. I approached the above position with much trepidation, having dislodged quite a bit of loose sand and rock getting there. And that wasn't a smile, by the way. It was a grimace.

I never doubted one moment that showering in hot pumice would be a most excruciating experience. That must have really hurt.

This is a replica of the original, made by pouring plaster into the cavity in the rocks where the flesh and bones would have been, having decomposed and vanished a long time ago.

I wonder if any remains were discovered in the brothel when the volcano erupted. It isn't all that surprising at all to find a brothel in Pompeii actually, considering that prostitution is held by many to be the oldest trade alive. They scrimped on space, and cost, in those days: the stone bed you see in the picture, plus an additional four feet worth of walking space, is all there is to a single cell.

They had bars then too! What would they have talked about in the evenings before the 24th of August?

Now, when do you think she'll blow?

Abandoned vineyards in the shadow of Vesuvius. That's Evelyn on the right, and me on the left with a risible attempt at youthful exuberance.

To be fair, I should claim half the culpability since I assented to it in the first place. But I should make it absolutely clear that it wasn't my idea!

The climb that gave me a stigmata on my right wrist. Unfortunately it didn't even come close to making me a fifth of a saint.

Naples, The Heart & Soul Of Italy, 29th Dec 2006

The Palazzo Reale (Royal Palace) in the centre of Naples, where the former Bourbon and Savoy kings of Naples used to live.

The church of San Francesco di Paola, which is directly opposite the Palazzo Reale.

Late afternoon in the Bay of Naples, atop the Castel dell'Ovo, which is Italian for Egg Castle.

55/04 Delta Wing, Platoon Three. No, this really is the Castel Nuovo.

There are, rather discernably, three intruders who were rather pleased to have ruined a perfectly stately picture.

The space before the Duomo in Naples, a square by day, a makeshift football pitch by night.

Welcome to Italy.

Big Brother's watching, and taking a picture at the same time.

And Mona Lisa decides to snorkel!

Decline & the Paradox of Eternity - Rome, Italy, 27th & 28th Dec 2006

Sitting astride the Tiber, on a sunny day in Rome.

The oculus in the Pantheon, previously a Roman temple, now a consecrated Christian church.

Any other holes in the roofs of buildings would have been condemned as a defect, and sounded the death-knell for the future business prospects of the contractor in charge of construction. Not this one though, despite it being done on purpose.

The Fontana di Trevi, and the repository of thousands and thousands of coins, hurled generously into the waters by locals and tourists alike. It is said that the first ensures your return to Rome and the second the fulfilment of a wish made at the time of it being tossed in.

The Colosseum, which really goes by the name of the Flavian Amphitheatre, after the dynasty which commissioned its construction. The marble which has gone into the construction of the structure has since been plundered for other uses, with what precious little left guarded jealously by Italian legislation. The English word arena, which we use so often today, is derived from the same Roman word for sand, which covered the stage of the Colosseum where the Emperor's gory spectacles were played out.

The view from Palatine Hill, and what is left of Rome's greatness.

Bare rock, and wisps of nostalgia.

The Castel Sant Angelo, where Hadrian (the same old who built the wall on the Anglo-Scottish border) is buried.

Basking in obscurity in the Piazza di Spagna, otherwise known in English as the Spanish Steps.

The Holy See, Vatican City, 27th & 28th Dec 2006

St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City, and our visit there meant that we've (Chee Hui and I, at least, Nicholas went on his own) seen the world's second and third largest cathedrals. The largest is in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast, and I don't realistically think I'll have a chance (and the money, at least in the foreseeable future) of getting there.

A Swiss guard in the Vatican. These are mercenaries, but one of the most reliable mercenaries on hire anywhere in the world. In 1527, these stout-hearted soldiers fought to the last man the rampaging troops of Charles V in the Sack of Rome, delaying them in order to give then pontiff, Clement VII, enough time to escape. Clement VII was infamously hustled out of Rome buried in a cart full of dung.

Nuns come to see the Pope on Wednesday, when the Pope holds his weekly public audience. Appointments have to be made in writing the week before. I'm not sure if you have to be Catholic. Anyway, he's in that screen there, somewhere.

Piazza San Pietro, and for me, the famousest of squares in Rome!

She's Egyptian, 2900, and fast asleep. I hope I've gotten my facts right, and I haven't added the two additional zeros for the fun of it!

One of the many splendid frescoes in the Vatican Museum, not surpassing of course those in the Sistine Chapel, where photography wasn't allowed. This one here depicts the final victory of Christianity over paganism, represented respectively by the crucifix and the broken Roman sculpture.

We weren't sure if we had to bring our passports along when we visited the Vatican - it being an independent state within Rome.

The smallest state in the world is impressively equipped with their own postal service, and can boast as well one of the friendliest postal staff anywhere in the wide world (as occasioned by the wiry man at the counter, who very kindly agreed to pose for this photograph).

Homage to Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain 22nd to 26th Dec 2006

What's a stay in Barcelona without at least seeing the greatest accomplishment of the city's most famous son?

But to be frank, I was sorely disappointed to find the cranes towering over the La Sagrada Familia (The Holy Family), instead of the latter towering over everything else. It was more disappointing to learn that these machines will be a perennial presence in pictures and postcards for a good part of the future, and I dearly hope to be able to see the Cathedral completed in my lifetime. (What a thing to say at age twenty-one!)

The only possible way for a non-footballer to get his name on the scoresheet in the Camp Nou, home of FC Barcelona - against a headless goalkeeper with stumps for limbs.

The Olympic Torch, a relic from the Games in 1992. The sports facilities where they were held are all clustered around the vicinity, on a hill known as Montjuic which is both near the coast and overlooks the rest of the city. And it must surely be said - what a place to compete in!

The Parc del Laberint d'Horta in the north of the city, and its central attraction where Chee Hui played the role of the minotaur and the rest of us those of the victims sent there as annual sacrifices. Looks like a relatively simple maze to navigate, but one will certainly rue the lack of the golden thread of Ariadne once inside!

Barcelona's current genius in residence, who's had enough of glitz and stardom, opting instead for the muck and grime of a busker's lifestyle along the La Ramblas.

More Gaudi, in the building which is known as La Pedrera, designed as a private residence block. This was taken on the roof, where scores of such exquisitely rounded sculptures abound. Having been to the Alhambra, I was startled by the strident, yet elegant, asymmetry of Gaudi's works. The inspiration for all these designs he garnered from objects in the natural world - like a fallen leave, or a snail's shell. It is all summed up neatly in one of his quotes, printed on a T-shirt I bought here:

I'm a geometrician, therefore I'm synthetic.

Elvis lives!

Another talented busker on the La Ramblas, the main street in Barcelona. This one here is a puppeteer, whose skeleton puppet was dancing and grooving to the tune of Elvis Presley's Blue Suede Shoes. I didn't check if the puppet was shod in blue or suede, but it was performing an excellent impression of Elvis, of which The King Of Rock & Roll would have been proud!

The Monastery In The Mountains, Montserrat, Spain, 25th Dec 2006

The monastery in the mountains, in Montserrat, on Christmas Day. This has to be my holiest Christmas ever, I've never spent it in a monastery before!

Buddha smiles through stone. Why he's within such close proximity to a Christian monastery I don't know.

The lavish interior of the chapel within the monastery. One wonders why there is so much gold in a place where the occupants have renounced the world. I apologise for a very mordant appraisal and for the acerbic cynicism, but I'm genuinely puzzled!

We took a funicular, which climbed further into the peaks, from where the monastery was, and was greeted with a most rewarding sight! The latter photograph, however, was taken on the level of the monastery. The lines you see are tram lines. I always have my heart in my mouth whenever I pose for such photographs. But acrophobia is almost always muted, if not mitigated, beyond a certain great height. Fear is quelled where buildings, vehicles and people become subatomic, and distance becomes a hazy estimate, rendered harmless by its inaccuracy.

Amongst The Madridistas, Madrid, Spain, 18th to 21st Dec 2006

I was at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, but Senors Beckham, Cannavaro, Roberto Carlos & Van Nistelrooy were nowhere to be seen.

The Palacio Real, the Royal Palace, as the four in the group has been swelled to eight by the arrival of the Londoners.

Augustus Caesar Rui, inside the Palacio Real, who was nearly admonished for his active role in the case of the moving signpost.

In any palace, the visitor may be sovereign, but the security guard is divine.

Had to mediate between two fully-armoured knights in the Armoury of the Palacio Real who couldn't eye to eye.

Little wonder there, for their visors were down, and both their bascinets faced earthwards!

From the left, Wei Zhong, Christina (his classmate in Secondary Three and Four), Gim Hui and I. Who would have thought to see four Andersonians in Madrid together, because the thing is that each year only a handful or two ever decides to pursue an overseas education.

As I was relating to the other members of the party, it was rather nostalgic to hear somebody address Wei Zhong as plain Wei Zhong, because all his friends from JC onwards know him as Clarence.

Puerta del Sol, and the bear that has so much to do with Madrid's foundations (I have no idea why). I've clambered onto many statues and sculptures whilst on the road but none is quite as embarrassing as this one!

Gran Via, the main shopping street in Madrid, which the balcony of our hostel overlooks. Kudos to Clarence, for his excellent choice of accommodation. Convenience was never a problem because it was located in such a central spot.