Oh my god, come to Amsterdam, and stay at the Plus Prague hostel!!!
The hostel has all the essentials, single beds NOT bunks, ensuite toilet and shower SEPARATED, lockers, windows that OPEN, a 25m indoor pool, sauna and hot showers for free, a bar, restaurant, pool tables, Free internet on 10 computers and breakfast buffet, all INCLUDED IN THE PRICE!!!
AND I just went out for dinner, and had 3 courses, a coke, and several shots all for under $20 AUD...
Can someone explain why this place is so awesome?? I haven't even seen the city yet, and that'supposed to be utterly beautiful!!
Also I will be able to get a whole bunch of photos up here (or maybe just on facebook...) because all the co0mputers here all seem to have USB ports... OH MY GOD
Thursday 30 August 2007
Free the pee!
The above reference is for anyone is unfortunate enough to have seen The Bridge to Terabithia! (I got stuck watching it on the flight from Korea to Rome)
But seriously, folks! Going to the toilet is costly in Europe! Every pitstop on our bus tours leaves us between 50 cents and 1 euro poorer, and even our puib crawl made us pay for toilets at evry venue - I was redisulously reluctant to buy any drinks after realising I would have to pay every time I needed to go to the bathroom! We all saved it up as long as we could which doesn't make for the liveliest dance floor or the friendliest conversation.....
Why??? I mean fair enough, they need to pay for the upkeep of the toilets, but i'ts like every single building is renting out their toilet space to some independent cleaning company or somethign! Yes the Europeans are clearly opportunists, Angus take a lesson ;) Just screw peo9ple, that's where the secret to success is.
But seriously, folks! Going to the toilet is costly in Europe! Every pitstop on our bus tours leaves us between 50 cents and 1 euro poorer, and even our puib crawl made us pay for toilets at evry venue - I was redisulously reluctant to buy any drinks after realising I would have to pay every time I needed to go to the bathroom! We all saved it up as long as we could which doesn't make for the liveliest dance floor or the friendliest conversation.....
Why??? I mean fair enough, they need to pay for the upkeep of the toilets, but i'ts like every single building is renting out their toilet space to some independent cleaning company or somethign! Yes the Europeans are clearly opportunists, Angus take a lesson ;) Just screw peo9ple, that's where the secret to success is.
Tuesday 28 August 2007
The Berlin Theatre...
I've been stressing about not having enough time in Berlin to see anything and now it is going to be an even greater problem! I would love to extend my stay here by another 2 days but that will only leave me with a day back in Civitanova to get myself sorted... which is so not enough, considering I still need to see Ilaria!!! I'll just ahve to come back. As with most places! But anyway we did a walking tour today for just 10 euro which is advertised as being 4 hours long, and ended up being over 6 hours, plus a green Berliner Beer afterwards! It was by far the best tour I've been on so far, and if anyone is going to Berlin, look up Insider tours. The guy we had was actually on his second last tour and showed us all his favourite parts, which he wouldn't normally include - he is about to head back to Canada to his normal profession, working with the Opera! And boy did we see some theatrics on this tour! He practically reenacted the whole political situation surrounding the erecting and abolition of the Berlin wall, and had me a little teary once or twice. He himself was so overwhelmed by his own theatrics on occasions that he had to turn away and take a moment! Awesome.
All the monuments around the city are mind-blowing. So many buildings have been reconstructed multiple times, some still have bullet holes in them, some are very modern and abstract, both subtle and conspicuous, but all really commemorate the horrors quite accurately. It's obvious that people might not necessarily want to talk about their bloody history, still quite fresh in many people's minds, but they are not willing to risk forgetting it! Around every corner there is some kind of testament to the war or the wall or the jews.
Still not sure what to do with tomorrow, but there's a bike tour out to Potsdam where there are castles - I missed the Schloss in Munich so if it's sunny I might hit that up!! There are hundreds of museums I want to go to but Iäll never make it to all of them. This city deserves a while week.
Love to all, hope you aren't getting bored by reading this!
Kels xox
All the monuments around the city are mind-blowing. So many buildings have been reconstructed multiple times, some still have bullet holes in them, some are very modern and abstract, both subtle and conspicuous, but all really commemorate the horrors quite accurately. It's obvious that people might not necessarily want to talk about their bloody history, still quite fresh in many people's minds, but they are not willing to risk forgetting it! Around every corner there is some kind of testament to the war or the wall or the jews.
Still not sure what to do with tomorrow, but there's a bike tour out to Potsdam where there are castles - I missed the Schloss in Munich so if it's sunny I might hit that up!! There are hundreds of museums I want to go to but Iäll never make it to all of them. This city deserves a while week.
Love to all, hope you aren't getting bored by reading this!
Kels xox
This was meant to be a holiday!
Ok, it's official. The novelty has worn off and travelling is no picnic! Especially when you find yourself in a new city every 3 days!
Amsterdam was an interesting experience - I joined up with a completely new busabout crew and, since everyone tends only to sleep on the bus, didn't really meet any of them before arriving. The lovely, brand new, overly sterile Stayokay Zeeburg put us in all completely different rooms so I still hadn't met anyone by the time we left, except for a West Virginian girl Kirsten from my room - I was lucky to have found her, too! Plenty of people were in rooms by themselves... So while I managed to see a lot in Amsterdam it was kind of lonely because it was just me and Kirsten for 3 whole days!
We wanted to get straight down to business the night we arrived so we tried to get to the Anne Frank House, but just missed it and went to the Sex Museum instead. That was certainly an experience... but for 3 Euro it was hardly one to be missed... we were in stitches the whole time! Pronographic photos from over a century ago, S&M, urinal fetishes, you name it and it was there!
First thing next morning we did the Anne Frank House and while the story of Anne Frank herself was moving, it was the reality of her father surviving the whole ordeal and having to confront these diaries and make decisions about how to get Anne's story out there must have been so heart-wrenching. I can't imagine how anyone would even begin to deal with something like that. Being away from mum and dad always makes something like that seem more real too, but then I'm just emotionally unstable ;-)
The Heineken museum was an intersting experience... more like a mini theme park than a museum, but we got 3 beers during the tour for our 11 euro so it was probably even cheaper than going to a bar! It was kinda cute! That was really just killing time before our bike tour though, and we also spent an hour or two sitting by the canals eating lunch, watching the surprisingly good looking dutch boys riding past on their bikes and boats, drinking beer and smoking who-knows-what! It's a littl too chaotic a city to really appeal to me but damn it would be a fun place to spend a week with mates. It has something to offer to anyone and everything.
The bike tour sped us through the city so I was glad we had already got our bearings, then out into the countryside where we got a 5 second presentation on cheese making and clog making by the wierdest guy I've ever seen, and got some cool chliche`d photos of windmills and giant clogs. Not sure it was really worth it just for the photos, that may have been all I got out of it!
That night Kirindy got into Amsterdam (the only one left from my previous busabout bunch - we should have been actually travelling together had she not missed the bus from Munch, hahahaha) so we did the pub crawl together. No exciting stories but a big night with lots of dancing and some overly keen guys... we bailed, only to find out it was the last place anyway. The bus trip the next day to Berlin was NOT enjoyable, but I still managed to meet some nice people, finally, to hang around with in Berline!
Amsterdam was an interesting experience - I joined up with a completely new busabout crew and, since everyone tends only to sleep on the bus, didn't really meet any of them before arriving. The lovely, brand new, overly sterile Stayokay Zeeburg put us in all completely different rooms so I still hadn't met anyone by the time we left, except for a West Virginian girl Kirsten from my room - I was lucky to have found her, too! Plenty of people were in rooms by themselves... So while I managed to see a lot in Amsterdam it was kind of lonely because it was just me and Kirsten for 3 whole days!
We wanted to get straight down to business the night we arrived so we tried to get to the Anne Frank House, but just missed it and went to the Sex Museum instead. That was certainly an experience... but for 3 Euro it was hardly one to be missed... we were in stitches the whole time! Pronographic photos from over a century ago, S&M, urinal fetishes, you name it and it was there!
First thing next morning we did the Anne Frank House and while the story of Anne Frank herself was moving, it was the reality of her father surviving the whole ordeal and having to confront these diaries and make decisions about how to get Anne's story out there must have been so heart-wrenching. I can't imagine how anyone would even begin to deal with something like that. Being away from mum and dad always makes something like that seem more real too, but then I'm just emotionally unstable ;-)
The Heineken museum was an intersting experience... more like a mini theme park than a museum, but we got 3 beers during the tour for our 11 euro so it was probably even cheaper than going to a bar! It was kinda cute! That was really just killing time before our bike tour though, and we also spent an hour or two sitting by the canals eating lunch, watching the surprisingly good looking dutch boys riding past on their bikes and boats, drinking beer and smoking who-knows-what! It's a littl too chaotic a city to really appeal to me but damn it would be a fun place to spend a week with mates. It has something to offer to anyone and everything.
The bike tour sped us through the city so I was glad we had already got our bearings, then out into the countryside where we got a 5 second presentation on cheese making and clog making by the wierdest guy I've ever seen, and got some cool chliche`d photos of windmills and giant clogs. Not sure it was really worth it just for the photos, that may have been all I got out of it!
That night Kirindy got into Amsterdam (the only one left from my previous busabout bunch - we should have been actually travelling together had she not missed the bus from Munch, hahahaha) so we did the pub crawl together. No exciting stories but a big night with lots of dancing and some overly keen guys... we bailed, only to find out it was the last place anyway. The bus trip the next day to Berlin was NOT enjoyable, but I still managed to meet some nice people, finally, to hang around with in Berline!
Thursday 23 August 2007
Switzerland photos - my second home!!!
This is taken looking down on the Lauterbrunnen valley just before I went paragliding over the edge of the cliff!!!
Back in love with travelling!
Belgium is quirky and adorable and romantic and I've been speaking french for 24 hours now, and loving it! Belgian chocolates, bikes, lace, waffles and terrible weather (we must be near England...)
I have not got nearly enough time here - I had less than a day in Bruxelles and explored as best I could in the pouring rain, but all the sites are scattered randomly throughout the sprawling city so I didn't cover too much ground! I did manage to see the comic strip museum (Belgium is the home of Tin Tin and the Smurfs (schtroumphs - NOT "puffi" you silly Italians!!), eat a giant waffle with strawberries, cream and chocolate, and see an Italian movie which left me feeling all warm and fuzzy. As did the fact that I got to speak French everywhere I went - the first time EVER I've used it in a ligitimate situation, and it's kind of working for me! Yay!! Especially since Brussels lies above the language barrier and should speak Flemmish - it was a pleasant surprise to hear everyone using French.
Brugge is adorable, quite small but a beautiful mixture between medievil and gothic architecture, lots of plant life around and winding canals everywhere. I climbed to the top of the Belfry, checked out a museum, and saw the blood of Christ... once again I've only had an afternoon, but I will be taking a canal tour tomorrow morning and visiting the chocolate museum, as the busabout bus doesn't leave until 1pm. It has been wonderful to be away from Busabout for a few days, actually get a full night's sleep and work on my own agenda. Lesson for the future - be sure to get some time alone and don't follow others around! One more early night tonight and I'll be ready to a little partying in Amsterdam.
Oh, really wierd coincidence - I ran into 3 kiwis as I checked into the hostel here in Brugge, who were in my room in Switzerland 10 days ago! I had no diea they would be here... hbow random is that? You go for years without seeing your classmates, and yet over here you can cross the borders of 6 countries and still run into people!
Gonna get some photos up later tonight if I get lucky. Cross your fingers for me!
I have not got nearly enough time here - I had less than a day in Bruxelles and explored as best I could in the pouring rain, but all the sites are scattered randomly throughout the sprawling city so I didn't cover too much ground! I did manage to see the comic strip museum (Belgium is the home of Tin Tin and the Smurfs (schtroumphs - NOT "puffi" you silly Italians!!), eat a giant waffle with strawberries, cream and chocolate, and see an Italian movie which left me feeling all warm and fuzzy. As did the fact that I got to speak French everywhere I went - the first time EVER I've used it in a ligitimate situation, and it's kind of working for me! Yay!! Especially since Brussels lies above the language barrier and should speak Flemmish - it was a pleasant surprise to hear everyone using French.
Brugge is adorable, quite small but a beautiful mixture between medievil and gothic architecture, lots of plant life around and winding canals everywhere. I climbed to the top of the Belfry, checked out a museum, and saw the blood of Christ... once again I've only had an afternoon, but I will be taking a canal tour tomorrow morning and visiting the chocolate museum, as the busabout bus doesn't leave until 1pm. It has been wonderful to be away from Busabout for a few days, actually get a full night's sleep and work on my own agenda. Lesson for the future - be sure to get some time alone and don't follow others around! One more early night tonight and I'll be ready to a little partying in Amsterdam.
Oh, really wierd coincidence - I ran into 3 kiwis as I checked into the hostel here in Brugge, who were in my room in Switzerland 10 days ago! I had no diea they would be here... hbow random is that? You go for years without seeing your classmates, and yet over here you can cross the borders of 6 countries and still run into people!
Gonna get some photos up later tonight if I get lucky. Cross your fingers for me!
Tuesday 21 August 2007
Germany vs Switzerland 2007 - no contest!
There is a massive storm brewing outside and rain is bucketing down onto the glass roof of the hostel's "winter garden" and almost drowning out the music coming from the bar - seems to be the perfect time to write the happenings of the past week. I have to admit I am getting over the constant travel, the changing faces and places, living out of a suitcase and, above all, sharing a room with smelly, dirty, creepy boys. Nothing aginst boys in general of course, I have just been very unlucky... That said, I have packed an awful lot into only 9 days and am beginning to pay for it, once again, in lack of sleep and the resulting bad mood!
Ok so from where I stand, Switzerland is the land of perfection, Munich is just completely random...
Bern
I was welcomed into this cosy, clean, medievil city with open arms. From the moment I stepped off the train a man pushing a pram with family in tow stopped me to check that I knew where I was going - luckily, because I was heading in the somplete wrong direction. He gave me perfect directions in English and I was off to my hostel in no time. I just have had that bewildered traveller's "first time in Bern" look! How often does that happen, that people will actually stop YOU to volunteer directions when they think you need them? Enough said, i was already in love with Switzerland! The walk to hostel only confirmed that love. I have seen a lot of beautiful medievil cities in my travels through italy, but none as charming and PERFECT as this one. The 15 minute walk showed me a few very wide pedestrian-only streets, a tram service which seemed to run every 2 minutes, a fountain at every intersection, large colourful medievil flags (the city's mascot, the Bear, the Swiss cross, etc) hanging from every second shuttered window, every other window bearing bright red flowers. The buildings themselves were clean, all of similar height, and all boasting covered archways which, I later found out add up to 6km worth of shopping malls. The people walking the streets seemed to actually LIVE there, very few tourists were wandering around. The hostel itself was the cleanest and best organised I had yet been to, and all of my room-mates lovely. Despite travelling alone I managed to find dinner and drinking buddies without any problems, but was happy to spend the days exploring alone.
I was ecstatic to have two whole days to explore this city, quite a niovelty after the rushed Greek islands experience, and was determined to make the most of it. The first day I just walked everywhere I could, scoping the place out, and took hundreds of photos of fountains and beautiful streets. Since it only takes about 15 minutes to cross the city centre, i managed to cover some serious ground. I found the bear-pit, a pretty depressing site as the two bears inside spend their days looking up at the tourists and basically begging for treats. From there a sharp incline leads to the large rose garden which looks over the whole city of Bern from a great height - it is so beautiful the way it is nesteld in the bend of the Aare River. It was a beautifully relaxing day, as my first day travelling solo. I couldn't have thought of a better way to spend it. Especially when I was rolling those hand-made Swiss chocolates around inside my mouth, mmmmmm.
The second day I packed as much in as I could, visiting the Einstein museum, climbing the gothic Minster Cathedral tower (not sure how high it was but I estimate around 300 steps in the tight spiral staircase leading to the top... dizzying!), and went down to the river where you can supposedly jump in and be carried along by the current. Unfortunately the river just happened to be raging and swimming was not recommended - at all. So i didn't get to try that little novelty. I spent my last night at the outdoor cinema over the top of the train station where they were screening English movies with German and French subtitles.
Lauterbrunnen
Early-ish next morning I wandered down to the train station and jumped on to the next train to Interlaken, the beautiful city on the enormous, crystal clear lake supplied by glacial melt. After Interlaken I had a little trouble breathing as the train wound its way through the stunning alps, luscious green alternating with snow-capped peaks. The train track mostly ran parallel with babbling brooks and rushing rivers, all full of glacial melt water, on the other side of which hikers and mountain-bikers were having the time of their lives on the abundant cycle paths. The weather was perfect and everything so beautiful, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight that awaited when I got off the train!
Just to set the picture, it was already a perfect day and Lauterbrunnen sits at an altitude of around 800m, so it seems even clearer than it is. Stepping out of the station I found before me a single inclining street lined with more of the same medievil flags, running through a luscious green valley, lined on either side by 800m high cliffs topped with more greenery, which sparkled with the recent rain fall and spewed forth from a great height several waterfalls, one of which was audible from where I stood, about 1km from its base. Lauterbrunnen literally means "valley fountain" or valley of the waterfalls, and I had expected to be blown away by it, but the reality cannot be expressed by either words or photos. It was AWESOME. The 4.6km high Jungfrau Joch loomed ahead, at the end of the valley, sparkling such an extreme white it seemed purple. I stood there like an idiot with my pack on and my mouth wide open and just stared for a few minutes. A few tears made their way out of one eye and I had to simultaneously resist the urge to burst out laughing. Like seriously, amazing.
Unfortunately there is so much to do in the Interlaken Oberland I had no hope of ever being satisfied with my stay, and have resigned myself to the fact that I absolutely must return. And probably take dad with me to throw himself off some REAL cliffs on the mountain bike :) After the first afternoon, average weather prevented me from doing too much, but i did manage to have 2 huge nights at the "Bomb Shelter", the cramped underground bar reserved only for Contiki and busabout, visit the Trummelback Falls, a series of underground raging waterfalls, go paragliding from a height of about 1.8km over the Lauterbrunnen valley and go white-water rafting through the raging river. I was devastated not to be able to climb to the top of Jungfrau or the slightly smaller Schilthorn, due to both time and weather constraints, but since I had a few hours between activities I was determined to do SOMETHING... talking to my paragliding pilot scored me a free lift into Grindelwald, which was a much larger valley than Lauterbrunnen and equally beautiful in a different way.
Needless to say Switzerland left both my wallet and my energy supply very drained!! But in 7 days I didn't manage to find a single thing bad about it. Except maybe the abundant gun ownership, that worried me a little, but there was no sign of it anywhere at least!
Munich
Beer drinking capital of the world... this city was founded by monks who found that brewing beer was a good way to beat the hunger of their fasting regime... personally I call that cheating! But the fact that beer drinking and religion went hand in hand to create this city says a lot about its present-day state. It is just so RANDOM.
Enormous beer gardens which are full all day, every day of the week, a diet of pork knuckle and sausages, beer for breakfast... a heart attack waiting to happen. how this population has survived until now I do not know. The architecture is very mixed due to the fact that 60 % of the buildings were flattened in WWII, so it's very difficult to deifne the character of this city.
Our first night consisted of a beer-crawl, where I very proudly drank a whole (almost) Stein of Augustiner beer, bellowing "PROST" and clunking glasses with all my new busabout mates. It just got better (and messier) from there. We all had so much fun and had many stories the next day, but doing the 3 hour walking tour with a hangover was not the best idea. Nor was trying to cram in a 2 hour visit to the Dachau concentration camp.
Dachau deserved much more time than we gave it, I ran out of time to even go into the museum where all the informaiton was. I don't think i got the full effect of the place, but even knowing very little about it, you walk onto those huge grounds and just feel your skin prickle. Very little of the original remains, but they've done a good job reconstructing just enought to give testament to the horrors that occurred there, combined with a few very effective monuments, one of which is set out against the sky and depicts dark, writhing bodies entwined with barbed wire... awful stuff. I just can't believe I was walking as a tourist around the vast, empty space where so many people where mercilessly tortured and killed. The silence was very thick, I imgaine it would have been the same even when the place was full of prisoners. You just can't imagine what they went through. Well I can't anyway, no matter how hard I try.
Verdict:
I had possibly the worst hsotel experience imaginable in Munich (will write at a later date), which tainted my entire stay and meant that Switzerland is the clear winner from the last week and now my officially adopted 2nd home. I need to find myself a swiss man, as I don't like my chances of breaching those borders through any other means and am too scared of all the guns to try and do so anyway...
For now it is getting late and I have to be up at 4am for a flight to Brussles, so I bid ye goodbye, but please stay tuned for the exciting adventures of rat-boy.
Ok so from where I stand, Switzerland is the land of perfection, Munich is just completely random...
Bern
I was welcomed into this cosy, clean, medievil city with open arms. From the moment I stepped off the train a man pushing a pram with family in tow stopped me to check that I knew where I was going - luckily, because I was heading in the somplete wrong direction. He gave me perfect directions in English and I was off to my hostel in no time. I just have had that bewildered traveller's "first time in Bern" look! How often does that happen, that people will actually stop YOU to volunteer directions when they think you need them? Enough said, i was already in love with Switzerland! The walk to hostel only confirmed that love. I have seen a lot of beautiful medievil cities in my travels through italy, but none as charming and PERFECT as this one. The 15 minute walk showed me a few very wide pedestrian-only streets, a tram service which seemed to run every 2 minutes, a fountain at every intersection, large colourful medievil flags (the city's mascot, the Bear, the Swiss cross, etc) hanging from every second shuttered window, every other window bearing bright red flowers. The buildings themselves were clean, all of similar height, and all boasting covered archways which, I later found out add up to 6km worth of shopping malls. The people walking the streets seemed to actually LIVE there, very few tourists were wandering around. The hostel itself was the cleanest and best organised I had yet been to, and all of my room-mates lovely. Despite travelling alone I managed to find dinner and drinking buddies without any problems, but was happy to spend the days exploring alone.
I was ecstatic to have two whole days to explore this city, quite a niovelty after the rushed Greek islands experience, and was determined to make the most of it. The first day I just walked everywhere I could, scoping the place out, and took hundreds of photos of fountains and beautiful streets. Since it only takes about 15 minutes to cross the city centre, i managed to cover some serious ground. I found the bear-pit, a pretty depressing site as the two bears inside spend their days looking up at the tourists and basically begging for treats. From there a sharp incline leads to the large rose garden which looks over the whole city of Bern from a great height - it is so beautiful the way it is nesteld in the bend of the Aare River. It was a beautifully relaxing day, as my first day travelling solo. I couldn't have thought of a better way to spend it. Especially when I was rolling those hand-made Swiss chocolates around inside my mouth, mmmmmm.
The second day I packed as much in as I could, visiting the Einstein museum, climbing the gothic Minster Cathedral tower (not sure how high it was but I estimate around 300 steps in the tight spiral staircase leading to the top... dizzying!), and went down to the river where you can supposedly jump in and be carried along by the current. Unfortunately the river just happened to be raging and swimming was not recommended - at all. So i didn't get to try that little novelty. I spent my last night at the outdoor cinema over the top of the train station where they were screening English movies with German and French subtitles.
Lauterbrunnen
Early-ish next morning I wandered down to the train station and jumped on to the next train to Interlaken, the beautiful city on the enormous, crystal clear lake supplied by glacial melt. After Interlaken I had a little trouble breathing as the train wound its way through the stunning alps, luscious green alternating with snow-capped peaks. The train track mostly ran parallel with babbling brooks and rushing rivers, all full of glacial melt water, on the other side of which hikers and mountain-bikers were having the time of their lives on the abundant cycle paths. The weather was perfect and everything so beautiful, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight that awaited when I got off the train!
Just to set the picture, it was already a perfect day and Lauterbrunnen sits at an altitude of around 800m, so it seems even clearer than it is. Stepping out of the station I found before me a single inclining street lined with more of the same medievil flags, running through a luscious green valley, lined on either side by 800m high cliffs topped with more greenery, which sparkled with the recent rain fall and spewed forth from a great height several waterfalls, one of which was audible from where I stood, about 1km from its base. Lauterbrunnen literally means "valley fountain" or valley of the waterfalls, and I had expected to be blown away by it, but the reality cannot be expressed by either words or photos. It was AWESOME. The 4.6km high Jungfrau Joch loomed ahead, at the end of the valley, sparkling such an extreme white it seemed purple. I stood there like an idiot with my pack on and my mouth wide open and just stared for a few minutes. A few tears made their way out of one eye and I had to simultaneously resist the urge to burst out laughing. Like seriously, amazing.
Unfortunately there is so much to do in the Interlaken Oberland I had no hope of ever being satisfied with my stay, and have resigned myself to the fact that I absolutely must return. And probably take dad with me to throw himself off some REAL cliffs on the mountain bike :) After the first afternoon, average weather prevented me from doing too much, but i did manage to have 2 huge nights at the "Bomb Shelter", the cramped underground bar reserved only for Contiki and busabout, visit the Trummelback Falls, a series of underground raging waterfalls, go paragliding from a height of about 1.8km over the Lauterbrunnen valley and go white-water rafting through the raging river. I was devastated not to be able to climb to the top of Jungfrau or the slightly smaller Schilthorn, due to both time and weather constraints, but since I had a few hours between activities I was determined to do SOMETHING... talking to my paragliding pilot scored me a free lift into Grindelwald, which was a much larger valley than Lauterbrunnen and equally beautiful in a different way.
Needless to say Switzerland left both my wallet and my energy supply very drained!! But in 7 days I didn't manage to find a single thing bad about it. Except maybe the abundant gun ownership, that worried me a little, but there was no sign of it anywhere at least!
Munich
Beer drinking capital of the world... this city was founded by monks who found that brewing beer was a good way to beat the hunger of their fasting regime... personally I call that cheating! But the fact that beer drinking and religion went hand in hand to create this city says a lot about its present-day state. It is just so RANDOM.
Enormous beer gardens which are full all day, every day of the week, a diet of pork knuckle and sausages, beer for breakfast... a heart attack waiting to happen. how this population has survived until now I do not know. The architecture is very mixed due to the fact that 60 % of the buildings were flattened in WWII, so it's very difficult to deifne the character of this city.
Our first night consisted of a beer-crawl, where I very proudly drank a whole (almost) Stein of Augustiner beer, bellowing "PROST" and clunking glasses with all my new busabout mates. It just got better (and messier) from there. We all had so much fun and had many stories the next day, but doing the 3 hour walking tour with a hangover was not the best idea. Nor was trying to cram in a 2 hour visit to the Dachau concentration camp.
Dachau deserved much more time than we gave it, I ran out of time to even go into the museum where all the informaiton was. I don't think i got the full effect of the place, but even knowing very little about it, you walk onto those huge grounds and just feel your skin prickle. Very little of the original remains, but they've done a good job reconstructing just enought to give testament to the horrors that occurred there, combined with a few very effective monuments, one of which is set out against the sky and depicts dark, writhing bodies entwined with barbed wire... awful stuff. I just can't believe I was walking as a tourist around the vast, empty space where so many people where mercilessly tortured and killed. The silence was very thick, I imgaine it would have been the same even when the place was full of prisoners. You just can't imagine what they went through. Well I can't anyway, no matter how hard I try.
Verdict:
I had possibly the worst hsotel experience imaginable in Munich (will write at a later date), which tainted my entire stay and meant that Switzerland is the clear winner from the last week and now my officially adopted 2nd home. I need to find myself a swiss man, as I don't like my chances of breaching those borders through any other means and am too scared of all the guns to try and do so anyway...
For now it is getting late and I have to be up at 4am for a flight to Brussles, so I bid ye goodbye, but please stay tuned for the exciting adventures of rat-boy.
Wednesday 15 August 2007
Santorini... too many photos to put up!
Amy and Sophie from NZ - I always seem to end up hanging around with kiwis, why!?! Doesn't the sunset do wonders for our skin? hahaha
Our crazy guide again, and Ness the kiwi.
Here I am standing on the crater of a volcano, yes the same one which was spouting out hot steam, that's right Lozza!
Mmmm yep I'm not even going to write anything about this one.
Caldera of the volcano in the middle of the island group making up Santorini.
Sunset Picnic at Oia, where all the classic sunset shots are taken.
Picture postcard perfect Santorini - the town of Fira. Shopping was waaaay too good there, bad for the bank balance.
Paros photos (booze cruise...)
I roughly estimated that cliff to be about 10m high... then jumped off it. I soooo nearly chickened out but it was a pretty big adrelin rush afterwards. Oh, and a sore bum.
Yes the water really was that blue. More so in many places!
ter
This was taken BEFORE the wine got cut off and the tour stopped a few hours short due to the stupidity of a certain person...
All feeling a little worse for wear, but a big greasy pizza under a Paros sunset made it all bet
Mykonos photos
Introducing Nicole, our busabout guide. WHAT a trooper! Babck-to-back tours and she was still dancing on the tables every night, getting well-munted!! Whoopa!
A sunset, a hangover, a tan and a whole watermelon... what more could anyone want in the world??
Dinner on our very first night in the Islands - the first of large quantities of wine consumed. Well they do sell it by the kg!!!!
The "five churches" in Mykonos
Windmills....
Paradise Beach camping - this is where it was all happening
Some Authentic turkish delight, sold by a local vendor on the boat. Totally overdid it and got sick off the sugar...
Wednesday 8 August 2007
The Greek Islands - Wow
The Islands of Greece may not have been quite what I was expecting but boy they are spectacular! They have a certain beauty that must be acquired, and which is soooo different to Australia! At first everywhere we sailed into looked mountainous, dry and barren, but once you get onto the islands you see just how rich they can be!
Athens
I had a disastrous start to my trip - my first real experience of travelling solo in a truly foreign country did not go well. That is to say, I got exactly where I needed to be, but was a complete mess by the time I got there. A 21 hour ferry ride, 3 hour connection to Athens, 10 minute bus ride, 2 stops on the metro and a 500m walk were more than I could handle, and throw a 50 euro fine on top of that for getting the wrong metro ticket (NEVER, EVER follow a bunch of Italians who seem to know what they're doing, ALWAYS ask!!) and I stumbled into my hotel room ready to have a really big cry. Luckily for me there were already 2 lovely Kiwi girls in my room and they let me vent for a while until I had calmed down. I still haven't seen the Acropolis - that's for tonight back in Athens.
Mykonos
The town was stunning, the sunset magnificent, dinner to die for, and we stayed out until almost 4am drinking and dancing and making merry. It was a fantastic first night, everyone had the chance to get to know each other quite well and it looked like being an amazing trip already. This was my first taste of the Greek Islands and I loved it. I took so many photos, drank so many cocktails, and nearly made myself sick with the amount of food I ate at dinner! The result was that the next day we did not move from the beach (our campground had its own beach) all day.
Paros
Rumoured to be the quietest of the Islands, this Island paradoxically created the most dramas. Aside from dining at the nearby restaurant and sipping cocktails, our main activity was an all-day booze cruise. We stopped at a few swimming holes, scrambled up 10m cliffs and leapt into the water, dived off the boat, snorkelled around the crystal clear blue waters and chowed down on a bbq lunch whilst sipping wine from about 11am onwards. Unforunately a few of the guys went overboard with the wine, and did some incredibly stupid things which caused the owner of the boat to cut us off from the booze and cut the day short, heading straight back to the port. That killed the mood pretty well. This was also the day I started to get sick and realised I couldn't keep partying every night. Unfortunately I didn't learn the lesson properly until it was too late!
Santorini
Shopping, sunsets, amazing coloured beaches, volcano hiking - there was an unlimir\ted itinerary of things to do on this beautiful island and only 24 hours to do it in. But we managed pretty much all of it. Our only full day there started with a massive hike down the dokey trail, dodging kamikaze donkeys, onto a little pirate ship which took us to the caldera. We hiked up with to where there was still steam (stinky sulpher) coming from the top! Amazing geology too (I'm a total nerd I know). We also got to swim in the hot springs which was more a pocket of water which had been stained a slight brown from the mud and which was only slightly warmer than the surrounding seawater... a bit of a let down but still kind of cool. Back in Fira we jumped on a bus to the red-sand beach, which wasn't exactly a luxurious beach but beautiful in its own right - backed by a dark red cliff and covered in red send and pebbles. Dinner was in Oia, where all the classic Greek Island sunset shots are taken, and the thousands of people gathered around our picnic dinner clapped and cheered as the sun disappeared on the horizon. We then returned to Fira and shopped till 1am. so much cool stuff!
Ios
This is known as the party island, and that's all it basically offered. Feeling really average myself, I tried and failed to party, so turned my attention to the watersports offered instead. I spent 2 hours learning how to windsurf and I dare say I did an alright job, and then went on a "Mach I" level tyre ride behind the boat where, try as he might, the driver could not shake us from the scrambler! I am sporting a few bruises today, to say the least :)
Very soon the ferry will take us all back to athens and my Greek experience will be over, but I only have 2 days to get my head sorted because it is straight off to Switzerland on Sunday morning, early.
Still need to find a way to get some photos up here and on facebook. I daresay I'll manage it by the weekend.
Athens
I had a disastrous start to my trip - my first real experience of travelling solo in a truly foreign country did not go well. That is to say, I got exactly where I needed to be, but was a complete mess by the time I got there. A 21 hour ferry ride, 3 hour connection to Athens, 10 minute bus ride, 2 stops on the metro and a 500m walk were more than I could handle, and throw a 50 euro fine on top of that for getting the wrong metro ticket (NEVER, EVER follow a bunch of Italians who seem to know what they're doing, ALWAYS ask!!) and I stumbled into my hotel room ready to have a really big cry. Luckily for me there were already 2 lovely Kiwi girls in my room and they let me vent for a while until I had calmed down. I still haven't seen the Acropolis - that's for tonight back in Athens.
Mykonos
The town was stunning, the sunset magnificent, dinner to die for, and we stayed out until almost 4am drinking and dancing and making merry. It was a fantastic first night, everyone had the chance to get to know each other quite well and it looked like being an amazing trip already. This was my first taste of the Greek Islands and I loved it. I took so many photos, drank so many cocktails, and nearly made myself sick with the amount of food I ate at dinner! The result was that the next day we did not move from the beach (our campground had its own beach) all day.
Paros
Rumoured to be the quietest of the Islands, this Island paradoxically created the most dramas. Aside from dining at the nearby restaurant and sipping cocktails, our main activity was an all-day booze cruise. We stopped at a few swimming holes, scrambled up 10m cliffs and leapt into the water, dived off the boat, snorkelled around the crystal clear blue waters and chowed down on a bbq lunch whilst sipping wine from about 11am onwards. Unforunately a few of the guys went overboard with the wine, and did some incredibly stupid things which caused the owner of the boat to cut us off from the booze and cut the day short, heading straight back to the port. That killed the mood pretty well. This was also the day I started to get sick and realised I couldn't keep partying every night. Unfortunately I didn't learn the lesson properly until it was too late!
Santorini
Shopping, sunsets, amazing coloured beaches, volcano hiking - there was an unlimir\ted itinerary of things to do on this beautiful island and only 24 hours to do it in. But we managed pretty much all of it. Our only full day there started with a massive hike down the dokey trail, dodging kamikaze donkeys, onto a little pirate ship which took us to the caldera. We hiked up with to where there was still steam (stinky sulpher) coming from the top! Amazing geology too (I'm a total nerd I know). We also got to swim in the hot springs which was more a pocket of water which had been stained a slight brown from the mud and which was only slightly warmer than the surrounding seawater... a bit of a let down but still kind of cool. Back in Fira we jumped on a bus to the red-sand beach, which wasn't exactly a luxurious beach but beautiful in its own right - backed by a dark red cliff and covered in red send and pebbles. Dinner was in Oia, where all the classic Greek Island sunset shots are taken, and the thousands of people gathered around our picnic dinner clapped and cheered as the sun disappeared on the horizon. We then returned to Fira and shopped till 1am. so much cool stuff!
Ios
This is known as the party island, and that's all it basically offered. Feeling really average myself, I tried and failed to party, so turned my attention to the watersports offered instead. I spent 2 hours learning how to windsurf and I dare say I did an alright job, and then went on a "Mach I" level tyre ride behind the boat where, try as he might, the driver could not shake us from the scrambler! I am sporting a few bruises today, to say the least :)
Very soon the ferry will take us all back to athens and my Greek experience will be over, but I only have 2 days to get my head sorted because it is straight off to Switzerland on Sunday morning, early.
Still need to find a way to get some photos up here and on facebook. I daresay I'll manage it by the weekend.
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