Well our wonderful holiday together is over, and I thank Vera for experiencing it with me - it was great.
I wanted to finish the trip off by sharing some lessons learnt and some goods & bads about what we experienced and the things we did.
Firstly Technology - I like to have my technology with me; iPhone, iPad & sometimes mini Notebook, so that I can access the net, e-mails, blogs, travel information, and entertainment. We normally take a power board from home so we only need to have to worry about one electrical plug converter and we can re-charge electrical devices quicker. Camera's were good although with the LCD/LED screens now they chew up the battery pretty quickly; so I intend getting another battery for mine and have it with me in my camera bag. I always carry a spare memory card. iPad & mini Notebook; well I wont do that all the time, but definitely bring the iPad for the entertainment factor. iPhone is a must; this time I had the phone with my Australia SIM in it, but next time I will take a spare iPhone (older - with hotspot capability) to use as an in country phone. I borrowed a Pocket Wifi device from Shawn Offer (a friend from RPYC who was in London with us), which worked great but some countries dont know it when buying their SIM card and configuration was a problem, so instead I would use the in country iPhone for hotspotting other devices - everybody knows an iPhone so I dont see a problem with configuration. I will go into wi-fi for the particular locations we were in; but basically where ever possible I would hook into somebodies wi-fi and were we went it was pretty much everywhere (not like Australia) costing nothing. The only places we had to pay were the big hotels; which just doesnt make sense. Where we had rental cars I took our TomTom with that countries maps. The Greece maps are a cross between Greek & English. French maps were fine.
Tipping - I tend to always tip if I have received good service and in particular when it is been beyond their call of duty. Wait staff are generally really good for tourist information.
London - Well there is not much to say about London as it was pretty much taken up with Cumberland Cup regatta. But from a tourist point of view; getting on a hop-on/hop-off bus as soon as possible is a necessity because it helps with a good overview of the central city, which helps you with planning and getting around. Definitely get the local travel card - reasonably cheap and easy.
Paris - Eurostar was great to get from London to Paris - quick and comfortable and not too expensive. If you want a car in Paris; get it small and be ruthless with parking, and practice a extreme parallel parking (this is particular for anywhere in Europe). Again do the hop-on/hop-off bus as well as the hop-on/hop-off river ferry; and you always get extra vouchers. Dont expect to see everything in Paris; if you really do allow a month or come back plenty of times.

More to come soon.....