From Rome we went back to Florence, because of what I mentioned earlier, we didn't get to see the David, or any other museum. I shouldn't complain about luck, we have been lucky, but the on day we came back was the day the museums went on strike! ARRGH, I was pretty mad to say the least, Jack almost bought me a gelato to make me feel better. We went up the Duomo anyways to get a nice view, which was the most stairs we've climbed to date, 463, and it was tight! By the time we got back down to the ground the strike for the museum with the statue of David was over. We got in and it was quite worth the trip back, it was huge and difficult to describe. It was easy to see why its so famous though, it makes every sculpture I've ever seen look worse. I snuck a picture in, no flash, no harm done ;). Unfortunately afterwards the other museum never reopened, so that was it for Florence.
We took the second night train of the trip that night, and some Australians that we met scared us by telling a story about their friends who were gassed in the night and had everything stolen! that didn't happen to us, it was the worst sleep ever though. The seats weren't adjustable and there was no leg room. Not to mention the beautiful timing of the ticket checker.
Nice was nice I would say, since we arrived late we hadn't showered yet, it took a French shower and realised calling it a french shower was a faux-pas. It actually was a very pretty city, and we got a perfect day for it, it was warm enough to take a dip in the Mediterranean. There weren't many others swimming, the water was cold enough to frighten a turtle (it was cold). I really like being in a non-english country where i could understand what people were saying. They still spoke to me in english even when I tried my french out. I'll get more attempts when we come back to France. Nice was just a stop spot en route to Barcelona (it would have been 24 hrs in a train!)
Spain here we come
Monday, October 29, 2007
When in Rome?
We were all pretty excited about going to Rome, especially for the Colosseum. If you can imagine, there is a lot to do in Rome, I think we did a pretty good job at getting most of it in. I wont list everything we visited, but we did go inside the Colosseum and took an audio guided tour. It was interesting and it was easy to picture what was being said because of Gladiator. We also went to the Fontana di Trevi and threw a coin in for good look. Over the right shoulder or it doesn't work, I think its the first good luck trick that we did right so far. We obviously went to Vatican City, which was quite impressive, we were even lucky enough to see the Pope. I would say he was about 10 feet away in his sweet ride. It was kinda cool, and since we didn't understand (or really care) what he was saying we were able to get in a shorter line to get into the Vatican museum, which also led us into the the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately we were allowed to take pictures (even though everybody was), but it was quite beautiful. Now we've seen works from all the ninja turtles, Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo and Leonardo. We also went into St. Peters Basilica, which is the biggest in Europe for sure, maybe the world!
We also met some pretty cool guys at our hostel. We played cards with them while drinking wine, and hung out for most of the night. They even joined us for our Vatican City tour. Although it was hard looking at art work with 6 people so we got separated, and by chance met back up in the line to the Basilica.
On one of the days, we took a day trip out to Pompei, it was pretty neat city because it was covered in ash when Vesuvius erupted, keeping it in near perfect condition. Some of it was kind of creepy because it preserved things so well, that you could make out folds in the peoples clothing from almost 2000 years ago. A weird man tried to give us a tour, and we politely told him we weren't interest, so he tried to make us feel stupid. Good try, now we really don´t want to take your tour. Our train ride to Pompei took longer than we expected so we didn't get to go up the volcano, but we really wanted to. I suppose it was a blessing in disguise, it would have cost a lot of money to do the city and the mountain.
Thats all I got for Rome.
Ciao
We also met some pretty cool guys at our hostel. We played cards with them while drinking wine, and hung out for most of the night. They even joined us for our Vatican City tour. Although it was hard looking at art work with 6 people so we got separated, and by chance met back up in the line to the Basilica.
On one of the days, we took a day trip out to Pompei, it was pretty neat city because it was covered in ash when Vesuvius erupted, keeping it in near perfect condition. Some of it was kind of creepy because it preserved things so well, that you could make out folds in the peoples clothing from almost 2000 years ago. A weird man tried to give us a tour, and we politely told him we weren't interest, so he tried to make us feel stupid. Good try, now we really don´t want to take your tour. Our train ride to Pompei took longer than we expected so we didn't get to go up the volcano, but we really wanted to. I suppose it was a blessing in disguise, it would have cost a lot of money to do the city and the mountain.
Thats all I got for Rome.
Ciao
Monday, October 22, 2007
Wanna buy a hand bag?
The next Italian stop, Florence. Florence (or Firenze, I don't know why we Americanize the names of Foreign countries so much... I can pronounce Firenze) is a beautiful city, we were lucky because with our hostel we got a free walking tour of the South side of the river. We got to see the Duomo, a huge dome which was built without the use of scaffolding with a dome within a dome. After the tour we wandered the north side, the Tuscany area, and got lost. At least we thought we were lost because it took us a long time to find our way out, and the view we were hoping for never really came. We did however get to climb through some bushes to get a glimpse of Florence from a hill top. Good times. One the second full day of our visit, we made the trip to Pisa. Guess what? we saw the tower of Pisa. It was pretty cool, it definitely looked like it was about to fall the entire time. We wanted to go up but it was ridiculously expensive. At one point I decided that i needed to have a piece of Pisa Pizza in Pisa, I did and it was delicious. Andrew and Jack each had a piece of my piece, so I guess that's a piece of a piece of Pisa Pizza in Pisa. (say that five times fast) . We also heard that Florence was known for its big and delicious steaks... I wish we could afford that. Speaking of buying things, the markets were crazy, tons of people all over the place, and they were all selling the EXACT SAME THING!! Your options were; purses, sunglasses or watches, then five feet later, purses, sunglasseses or watches. It was quite funny, because we didn't understand how the people selling would watch us say no to one guy selling watches then ask us right afterwards. My answer was usually "I have a watch thanks" and their quick reply was "why not two?". We escaped without buying anything.
On the third day, we wanted to do a bike tour, so we could get the nice views, see all the vineyards and go up into the mountains. Problem was, at least for me, that they were at least 70 euros for the tours, little steep for me. Luckily we found one where you could do a self guided tour for only the price of the bike, and they give you all the routes you can take with good places to stop for food. We did that and it was a good choice, the total kilometres was about 67 km. Jacks bike was the only one where the computer worked. We were definitely sore after that, but we got some great views and some good exercise. Unfortunately when we got back we found out that all the art galleries and museums that we wanted to go to were closed on Monday, and we had already booked our hostel for Rome. We hadn't even seen Michelangelo's David yet. With some skillful rearranging we worked it so that on our way to Nice, we can stop in Florence, do everything we missed without adding any extra time to our trip. Swish.
We went out one night with a bunch of people from the hostel on one of the nights. It was a pretty good time, our hostel was full of english speaking people so we had no troubles communicating, and they had no troubles explaining drinking games at the bar. We played a darts drinking game, and in case anyone was wondering... the Milton boys dominated. But seriously, it was fun and since it was early in our visit to Florence we made some friends for the next couple of days there too. Some of which I don't think we ever got their name.
So there's my Florence entry, but its not the last.
On the third day, we wanted to do a bike tour, so we could get the nice views, see all the vineyards and go up into the mountains. Problem was, at least for me, that they were at least 70 euros for the tours, little steep for me. Luckily we found one where you could do a self guided tour for only the price of the bike, and they give you all the routes you can take with good places to stop for food. We did that and it was a good choice, the total kilometres was about 67 km. Jacks bike was the only one where the computer worked. We were definitely sore after that, but we got some great views and some good exercise. Unfortunately when we got back we found out that all the art galleries and museums that we wanted to go to were closed on Monday, and we had already booked our hostel for Rome. We hadn't even seen Michelangelo's David yet. With some skillful rearranging we worked it so that on our way to Nice, we can stop in Florence, do everything we missed without adding any extra time to our trip. Swish.
We went out one night with a bunch of people from the hostel on one of the nights. It was a pretty good time, our hostel was full of english speaking people so we had no troubles communicating, and they had no troubles explaining drinking games at the bar. We played a darts drinking game, and in case anyone was wondering... the Milton boys dominated. But seriously, it was fun and since it was early in our visit to Florence we made some friends for the next couple of days there too. Some of which I don't think we ever got their name.
So there's my Florence entry, but its not the last.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Drive by shooting.
On the way to Salzburg we made an amazing discovery, the seats in the cabins could pull out almost flat, therefor, we had a bed for that trip. I used it to its fullest and slept the entire ride. Since we were coming back into German speaking territory, we went to another beer hall played a few games inspired by the movie beerfest. We were trying to bounce our coins into Litre sized drinks on a relatively soft table. It didn't make us drink a lot, but it did mark up the table... I covered them with napkins, good as new. The game did however intrigue some older people around, although it was simple, it was difficult to explain in another language. I would have to say that we didn't do a whole lot in Salzburg, but it was a very pretty City, we got another spectacular view from the top of a fortress. There were mountains in the distance, which had dangerously jagged peaks and snow caps. I think we all kinda wished we had more time there to hike up one, but that might have taken over a day. We did meet up with Jack's girls for some drinks. We played cards had some fun, but I think it will be the last time our paths cross on this trip. I guess that was about it for Salzburg.
We had and unexpected surprise (is there any other kind?), on our way to Venice, our train went right through part of the Alps. We just kinda looked out the window to see these huge mountains approaching. the mountains were so steep, even the sturdy footed bridges looked like the might stumble. We were even lucky with a cloudless day, the only thing that scratched the blue sky were the white jet streams. It was tough to take pictures when the train was flying by though. It was definitely a cool way to head to Venice.
We eventually arrived in Venice, which was neat, we just did what you expected, took a boat ride, walked through the square with all the pigeons, and wandered aimlessly through the streets. It was fun, but I am glad we didn't stay too long though. There wasn't a whole lot I wanted to do there. There were a lot of pretty views though.
Florence next!
We had and unexpected surprise (is there any other kind?), on our way to Venice, our train went right through part of the Alps. We just kinda looked out the window to see these huge mountains approaching. the mountains were so steep, even the sturdy footed bridges looked like the might stumble. We were even lucky with a cloudless day, the only thing that scratched the blue sky were the white jet streams. It was tough to take pictures when the train was flying by though. It was definitely a cool way to head to Venice.
We eventually arrived in Venice, which was neat, we just did what you expected, took a boat ride, walked through the square with all the pigeons, and wandered aimlessly through the streets. It was fun, but I am glad we didn't stay too long though. There wasn't a whole lot I wanted to do there. There were a lot of pretty views though.
Florence next!
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Eastside
Since I am behind in my blogs, I am going to cram the Eastern Europe part together. The first Eastern destination was in Prague. It was a very nice city, we climbed 287 steps to the top of a Church tower, which gave us a nice view of everything. We also climbed Peltin hill aswell (we've done alot of climbing) and had another beautiful view of the City. Everything was really cheap in Prague, especially beer. 500 ml Beers in the store were under a dollar, and even in the bar we were paying just over a dollar. So we figured it would be a good place to do our own little pub crawl, we went place to place and even found a New Orleans still bar with a huge black guys singing some blues without a microphone, and his friend playing piano. They were very good, we even went back there for dinner the next night. Also from Prague we left on a day trip to Plzen to take a tour of the Pilsner Urquelle brewery. Birthplace of Pilsner beers. The gave us some unfiltered right from the barrel Pislner Urquelle beer. I liked it alot more than the bottled stuff. Overall Prague was a nice place to stay.
We headed more east to Polland next, and stayed in Krakow. This was one of our worst train ride I would say, we did not have a seat for the first 3 hours of our ride. the train was so crowded we had to stand in the aisle and attempted to read. It was worth it though because Krakow has been one of my favourites so far. It is one of the only cities in Polland that was not destroyed by Nazis. Apparently they liked the look of the town so much that they didnt want to destroy so they just took it over. So all of the old buildings were undammaged. Everything was pretty cheap there too, the eastern part of our trip has been nice on the budget. We also went to Auschwitz, which was definitely the saddest part of our trip. Its where the first concentration camp was, and also the biggest one. It was very strange to be standing where hundreds of thousands of innocent people died and suffered. We walked through the living facilities and they had little room, most of them starved to death. It was pretty sad. It was definitely a necessary stop, i think we all learned a lot and made me appreciate more than the numbers we hear, that they were all individuals. I think thats enough depressing stuff for now.
We went back to Krakow and checked out the old communist section of town, old square concrete buildings, with parapets for snipers to hide behing on the roofs. It was kinda cool to see, although very ugly. I've been finding more and more beggars in the eastern countries, they come very close and don't mind making you feel bad. Our tour guide told us that even though they look really sad and pathetic, she sees them at bars and in restaurants later in the night. So I did my best to ignore them.
Over a Beer or so our trio decide that Budapest would be our lazy city. Most of our trip so far has had very little down time, just one thing to the next. Our hostel was very small and had kind of a family feel to it. So we made a few friends right away, also for the third time I think three of Jack's friends from school happened to be in the same place as us, so we had a few more friends there too. Those are some of the reasons we decided to make it our relax city. Its cheap here too, I think it will be our last City where we will be well under budget. We stayed an extra day for that reason. We did fair amount of walking the first day, and checked out the buda side of town. Surprise, surprise we climbed up a hill to get a nice view, which we did get, right along the river. Budapest is known for their Spas so we went to one, they call them baths, but they are more like swimming pools with hot tub temperatures. It was very relaxing, and they had fountains with warm water you could stand under. It was just like a massage. It was just what we needed, and it was pretty much half way through our trip. We made another change in plans, now we are no longer going to Vienna, we were told by Jacks friends that there wasn't very much to do there, so we are going to Salsburg intstead and meeting up with them there also.
I'll try not to leave it so long till my next post, its easier for me to do a little at a time aswell.
cheers everyone
We headed more east to Polland next, and stayed in Krakow. This was one of our worst train ride I would say, we did not have a seat for the first 3 hours of our ride. the train was so crowded we had to stand in the aisle and attempted to read. It was worth it though because Krakow has been one of my favourites so far. It is one of the only cities in Polland that was not destroyed by Nazis. Apparently they liked the look of the town so much that they didnt want to destroy so they just took it over. So all of the old buildings were undammaged. Everything was pretty cheap there too, the eastern part of our trip has been nice on the budget. We also went to Auschwitz, which was definitely the saddest part of our trip. Its where the first concentration camp was, and also the biggest one. It was very strange to be standing where hundreds of thousands of innocent people died and suffered. We walked through the living facilities and they had little room, most of them starved to death. It was pretty sad. It was definitely a necessary stop, i think we all learned a lot and made me appreciate more than the numbers we hear, that they were all individuals. I think thats enough depressing stuff for now.
We went back to Krakow and checked out the old communist section of town, old square concrete buildings, with parapets for snipers to hide behing on the roofs. It was kinda cool to see, although very ugly. I've been finding more and more beggars in the eastern countries, they come very close and don't mind making you feel bad. Our tour guide told us that even though they look really sad and pathetic, she sees them at bars and in restaurants later in the night. So I did my best to ignore them.
Over a Beer or so our trio decide that Budapest would be our lazy city. Most of our trip so far has had very little down time, just one thing to the next. Our hostel was very small and had kind of a family feel to it. So we made a few friends right away, also for the third time I think three of Jack's friends from school happened to be in the same place as us, so we had a few more friends there too. Those are some of the reasons we decided to make it our relax city. Its cheap here too, I think it will be our last City where we will be well under budget. We stayed an extra day for that reason. We did fair amount of walking the first day, and checked out the buda side of town. Surprise, surprise we climbed up a hill to get a nice view, which we did get, right along the river. Budapest is known for their Spas so we went to one, they call them baths, but they are more like swimming pools with hot tub temperatures. It was very relaxing, and they had fountains with warm water you could stand under. It was just like a massage. It was just what we needed, and it was pretty much half way through our trip. We made another change in plans, now we are no longer going to Vienna, we were told by Jacks friends that there wasn't very much to do there, so we are going to Salsburg intstead and meeting up with them there also.
I'll try not to leave it so long till my next post, its easier for me to do a little at a time aswell.
cheers everyone
Time to catch up
Well this should be fun, I haven't written in a while. Well after Copenhagen Germany. We started in Berlin. It was certainly a City with a lot of history, and history that was easier to relate to because it was fairly recent. We got to see what was left of the Berlin wall, which was cool because it was covered in artistic graffiti, a lot of the graffiti was about unity or about the wall itself. Someone had also written that the loved Josh, I assumed that Josh to be me so I took a picture. We took a free walking tour the next day and that worked out really nicely. In the free tours the tour is working for tips, so they'll do what they can to make it good. The guy we had seemed to know a lot, it was worthwhile. We were able to cross off most of the tourist attractions with just his tour. We saw where Hitlers Bunker was, where he killed himself. Also the Jewish memorial, and Checkpoint Charlie. Charlie doesn't mean anything, its just the army way of saying 'C', Alpha, Bravo, Charlie etc. With taking this tour you got a discount on the pubcrawl at night, so we did that, met a bunch of Canadians and probably had too much to drink. That made for a slow morning for me at least.
After Berlin we headed to some of the Bavarian Cities, to try to get off the regular tourist path. We went to Nuremberg first, It was cool because it was where the trials of all the high ranking Nazis took place for the crimes against humanity. We got to go into the courtroom and see some of the trials on video. Most of them got the death penalty, some got life imprisonment and one of to somehow escape with only a few years. A bunch of them didn't even make it to trial because they had already committed suicide. We also went to the Nuremberg museum, which was mostly about Hitler and the Nazis. It was interesting to see that Hitler was not very successful in life before his rise to power. We also got to stand where he stood giving speeches for the Nazis rallies. It was a little eerie.
The next destination was Wurzburg, It was time for a little relaxation time, so we just had a few beers, sat outside and enjoyed the nice views of a relatively small city. Although because of our laziness we decided that we would rent some bikes the next day and tour the city that way. It was cool because we went to the top of a castle and could see everywhere.
Our next destination was Rothenburg. Another Burg city.... or wait, we missed our transfer on the train and ended up in Treuchlingen, oops. We quickly as we could found a hotel and negotiated (with bad English and bad German) a reasonable price. It was nice to have a room with less than 8 people in it. That night was a good night to have a good rest, because the next city was Munich, which meant Oktoberfest!
By the time we got to Munich it was mid-afternoon. Too late to get a good spot in one of the tents at Oktoberfest, so we did a quick city tour. In the spirit of the fest our minds were easily swayed into stopping in to a beer haus, and having a litre. Litre beers hit you hard, we found our way to another busier beer house and decided to get some more practice in for the next day, three drinks in and we were feeling good. It was easy to fall asleep that night. We got up for Oktoberfest early enough, and arrived at 10:30am.... we barely got a spot. It was a German holiday, Re-unification day, so there were already a bunch of Germans drunk before 11. At first it seemed like it would be tough to meet a lot of people because you were cramped and you didn't want to leave or else you might lose your spot, and if you don't have a spot you don't get served beer. But people came and went and we made a lot of friends quickly, drinking games and drinking songs. Andrew and I realized the next morning... we forgot to eat... all day. I didn't know i was capable of not eating. It definitely lived up to my expectations. Thats where we ended our Germany tour. Onward and upward... and eastward.
After Berlin we headed to some of the Bavarian Cities, to try to get off the regular tourist path. We went to Nuremberg first, It was cool because it was where the trials of all the high ranking Nazis took place for the crimes against humanity. We got to go into the courtroom and see some of the trials on video. Most of them got the death penalty, some got life imprisonment and one of to somehow escape with only a few years. A bunch of them didn't even make it to trial because they had already committed suicide. We also went to the Nuremberg museum, which was mostly about Hitler and the Nazis. It was interesting to see that Hitler was not very successful in life before his rise to power. We also got to stand where he stood giving speeches for the Nazis rallies. It was a little eerie.
The next destination was Wurzburg, It was time for a little relaxation time, so we just had a few beers, sat outside and enjoyed the nice views of a relatively small city. Although because of our laziness we decided that we would rent some bikes the next day and tour the city that way. It was cool because we went to the top of a castle and could see everywhere.
Our next destination was Rothenburg. Another Burg city.... or wait, we missed our transfer on the train and ended up in Treuchlingen, oops. We quickly as we could found a hotel and negotiated (with bad English and bad German) a reasonable price. It was nice to have a room with less than 8 people in it. That night was a good night to have a good rest, because the next city was Munich, which meant Oktoberfest!
By the time we got to Munich it was mid-afternoon. Too late to get a good spot in one of the tents at Oktoberfest, so we did a quick city tour. In the spirit of the fest our minds were easily swayed into stopping in to a beer haus, and having a litre. Litre beers hit you hard, we found our way to another busier beer house and decided to get some more practice in for the next day, three drinks in and we were feeling good. It was easy to fall asleep that night. We got up for Oktoberfest early enough, and arrived at 10:30am.... we barely got a spot. It was a German holiday, Re-unification day, so there were already a bunch of Germans drunk before 11. At first it seemed like it would be tough to meet a lot of people because you were cramped and you didn't want to leave or else you might lose your spot, and if you don't have a spot you don't get served beer. But people came and went and we made a lot of friends quickly, drinking games and drinking songs. Andrew and I realized the next morning... we forgot to eat... all day. I didn't know i was capable of not eating. It definitely lived up to my expectations. Thats where we ended our Germany tour. Onward and upward... and eastward.
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