A long train trip to Nice yeilded great results! An awesome hostel in a former monastery where we got upgraded to a private room with ensuite and had views over the ocean! This made up for Alice tripping over the curb while running for the tram with her pack on and not being able to get back up because of the weight of her pack and all the Frenchies laughing at her... Next day after gorging ourselves at all you can eat free breakfast and being given the low down on Nice by one of the hostel staff, we walked around [View Full Entry]

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Cinque terra was awesome! Stayed in apartment converted into hostel which had a balcony from which we could see the ocean! The village we stayed in was called Riomaggiore and had one street and lots and lots of stairs! First day we did the walk from Riomaggiore (the 1st village) to Monterosso (the 5th and last village). Was really beautiful walk along the cliffs and through olive groves and vineyards with big sparkly blue ocean to look at the whole time! Unfortunatly the wine man we had been told about whoe sells you glasses of his hand cultivated wine and limoncello [View Full Entry]

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We got into Rome at night and had really cheap, extremely delicious freshly made woodfired pizza for dinner! Apart from the crazy frenchman in the hostel it was great! Day One: Ancient Rome day! and extreme sight seeing! Walked around the outside of the Colleseum, harrased by men dressed up as legions for pictures/money, that was when they weren´t (a) talking on their mobile phones (not a very convincing ancient roman legion) or (b) smoking cigarretes. Lots of them were wearing stockings over their ultra hairy italian legs, hilarious! Not very ancient..not very Roman.. Also were har [View Full Entry]

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After arriving late the night before we slept in and then had pizza for breakfast/lunch. Yum!! We spent the day walking around the narrow streets and getting lost and then found again and enjoying views from the city walls across the surrounding countryside. We went into an awesome cathedral with crazy black and white checked marble on the walls and floors. We also climbed the bell tower in the main piazza and got an amazing view! Cause our hostel had no kitchen we had to eat out..what a shame! For lunch we went to a cheap little local restaurant and Alice [View Full Entry]

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It started out as a perfectly normal train trip..starting at 9am.. Then the mountains and the snow! Alice jumped out of the train at one of the stops and touched the snow..it was cold and wet. But totally AWESOME! Unfortunately for Alex, Alice got back on the train in time..ha ha.. We got to Innsbruck and were supposed to get a connecting train to Florence...if only it were that simple. First our train was delayed by 10 minutes, then by an hour, then we had to get the next train and then the next train was cancelled! Crap! (But there was [View Full Entry]

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Mapeseses girlfriend Jess is studying dance in Salzburg, so we crashed on her floor and she made brownies! Yum! Salzburg has to be the most picturesque city we've been to so far...and Alice loved the Sound of Music locations. We went to the convent where the opening scene is filmed.."How do you solve a problem like Maria..lalalalala...." The best. [View Full Entry]

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We decided to skip Vienna due to time constraints and headed over to Graz to visit Mapes. Mapes plays valve trombone and is doing his masters in Jazz composition at the uni there. Unfortunately the hardest thing for him is that he has to learn German to fluency in 6 months. Well he looked a bit skinny from all the studying so we spent a few days sightseeing and cooking up huge meals to fatten him up. [View Full Entry]

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Our intuition paid off, avoiding the night train was a good idea because the train ride was amazing. We were trying to watch a movie on the laptop but the scenery kept rudely interrupting. [View Full Entry]

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Prague was our first real tourist mecca shock. The first sign of this impending anoyance was the fact that our hostel was full of loud Americans. We thought we might have just accidentaly booked the American hostel, but no, Prague was full of loud Americans. The first day out we walked right into their trap. We went to the changing of the guard at the castle with the idea of looking around it aswell. The band playing made the guard changing fun, but as it drew to a close the tourist hordes began to file into the castle. Well, it wasnt [View Full Entry]

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Our stay in Krakow can be summed up as dumpling eating occasionally interrupted by walking and looking. The dumplings weren't particularly tasty, or healthy, but they grew on us, especially those stuffed with cabbage and mushroom. Our first day was our usual trek around the city. We spent all day walking to the castle and down to the Jewish quarter. After some hunting around for a place to eat lunch we found a small smoke filled room and settled down for lunch. Our first courses were traditional soups, then we had crepes, mine with chicken curry and Alice's with apples and [View Full Entry]

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