http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/bruin619/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from bruin619 en-us Sun, 03 Jan 2010 04:57:29 +0000 Sun, 03 Jan 2010 04:57:29 +0000 Very quickly...after rome we decided to head out to Corfu Greece in order to escape another extremely hot although beautiful Italian city. Here we hoped to be able to have a beer on the beach not walk up any stairs and just relax. We accomplished our goals. After taking an overnight ferry from Brindisi italy we arrived at the famous pink palace at around 6am tired and beat up. We the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Greece/Ionian-Islands/Corfu/blog-306997.html Catching up from the last few days...the Cinque Terre was a rousing success as we welcomed the region's laid back atmosphere as a much needed contrast from what has been a furious pace of sightseeing day tripping and pub crawling. On our first day we decided to take the five town 56 mile walk from Rioggiamore our town to the northern most town of Monterosso where we hoped to find some sand http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Rome/blog-305137.html It turned out that EJ was not able to go sky diving on our last day in Switzerland due to the fact that the trips were completely booked. It was without a doubt the nicest day that we had there weather wise and there were parachutes opening above us all day. After leaving Gimmelwald we headed back to our previous hostel Balmers in Interlaken and used all of their facilities free of charge http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-302423.html Picking up where we left off canyoning was a lot of fun although we had to cut the day short it was supposed to be 8 hrs total as it was raining and the water levels were getting too high we only got about 5hrs total. It was still pouring when we arrived back at Balmers completely exhausted where we had to make arrangements in order to reach our night's lodging in a town called Gimmelwald. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Gimmelwald/blog-301533.html We arrived in Switzerland after having taken 4 trains 7 hours total from Munich to Stuttgart to Zurich to Bern to Interlaken it was an unintentionally fun day as we boarded the two best trains we have been on yet very luxurious and of course the scenery coming into Interlaken was something like we have never experienced. We stayed at the famous Balmers hostel where we found a ton of A http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Gimmelwald/blog-301175.html Sorry I got cut off...anyway the haufbrauhaus was even better than we expected...an oooompah band played hits all night and the halls were filled with drunken americans and japanese tourist groups honestly the bathrooms here smelled worse than any other that we have utilized. The next morning we got up at around 9am to the sound of pouring rain the area outside of the tent was complete mud http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Bavaria/Munich/blog-300277.html Simply stated Munich has been awesome. Quite easily the best city that we have visited thus far We arrived two days ago with Lionel Ritchie's all night long playing on my ipod...looking back I cannot help but laugh at the symobolism as this was about how long we stayed at the haufbrauhaus our first night sadly it closed at midnight. Anyway after our arrival at the main station we he http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Bavaria/Munich/blog-300257.html Well...we visited Vienna. It was a nice city one that we will surely visit again...when we are about 62 as this seems to be the median age of its tourists. When we first arrived we were concerned that a day and a half would too short of a time frame to properly see all of the cities sights...we were wrong Our first night we ventured into the old city square to check out the St. Stephens ca http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Bavaria/Munich/blog-299735.html What up with it. Just arrived in the fine town of Vienna this afternoon it is much hotter here than expected after three hurricane days in Prague. Looking at our map on our first night we discovered that we could take in all of the town's sights by embarking on one of the many pub crawls that were offered at our hostel. Arriving at the designated meeting place here the first hour of beers http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Vienna-State/Vienna/blog-298453.html They are called doners donners. They are cheap. And delicious. These miracles provided us with the greasy nutrition to power through the Berlin streets. Basically a man shaves off a mysterious cured meat goat etc.. into a pita and throws a sauce and some veggies on it all for about 3. Amazing. Berlin was a very interesting city one that we liked more than we expected. EJ and I being i http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/Prague/blog-297081.html Arrived in Berlin this morning sun after an overnight train from Brussels...very tired from the prisonlike accomodations of the train beds. Our time in Amsterdam went by very quickly there is too much to take in in such a short period of time...basically we kicked things off by heading off to one of the many city squares where people congregate and mostly just puff down heaters or hit up the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/District-of-Berlin/Berlin/blog-296010.html On our last day in Dublin we took the train to a town south of Dublin by the name of Bray. Having left dublin while the sun was out we of course wore shorts and tshirts thinking that the weather would last...not so...we arrived at the station amidst a heavy downpour but decided to continue to look around. Basically the only things to do were to go to the bar or go take a hike up a mountain th http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Netherlands/blog-294911.html What is up our first two days in Dublin have been pretty busy to say the least. After having arrived in Dublin we quickly came to find that Dublin does not label their streets or bus stops like the rest of the civilized world making what should have been a relatively straightforward bus ride into a logistical nightmare Finding that we were two hours early for check in EJ and I decided to a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Dublin/Dublin/blog-294236.html