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Travel Idea and Italy as Starting Point

I start this blog 28 days after the beginning of my travel because I noticed I repeat myself so often, telling my friends about my travel experiences. If other Travellers are interested in my experiences, I am happy to share with them. I chose English as language for my blog because of that and so that friends I make on my travel can follow, too.


Starting point was a trip to Italy to the area of Urbino with the Choir and Orchestra of the University of Bamberg in Germany. I was stuck in melancholy when I left germany nearly a week too late. When that trip was over, everybody went back home, except me. Friends dropped me in Fano on the east coast of Italy. I rested there for 2 days in a private pension. Then I left to the train station. I originally wanted to visit Tessin again, my favorite region of the world in switzerland (I love mountains!), but changed my plans. I bought a ticket to Brindisi in South Italy from where I new there was a ferry to Greece. I felt uncertain about what I did, felt unconfident how this trip would end emotionally. It's been the first time that I really travel alone, and everybody who knows me, knows I am spontaneous. The first night after arrival in Brindisi was horror, but the next day i found the tourist information in the center on the beach. They were very very helpful, great people. They advised me where I could buy a tent: Decathlon store which you reach by bus from the train station (stop Ospedale). There I was attracted by the bikes they offer, and the idea was born. Actually it was born a few months earlier with my friend Noel in Berlin, but here it came concrete. Is that too spontaneous?


In the evening I met Jon Tringham! What a luck, he cycled from London to Brindisi and his journey would continue through Greece! Even more luckily for me, he waited for a parcel with spare parts to arrive from London for his amazing Brompton Bike, and he helped me the next day to buy a bicycle (payed 199 Euro), tools, spare parts and accessories in Decathlon again. I also met a very cute girl named Gabriella in Brindisi, unluckily we had not that much time to spend with each other. She also introduced me to her friends Laura, Roberto and Francesca.


My plan was to go together with Jon to Thessaloniki as a first destination. There I would decide how my travel would continue. I have to make a comment on the youth hostel in brindisi, and especially the man it is run by: I cannot recommend this place, he locked the doors of the place at random hours, denied accomodation by his sympathy, he did not like me, so I had problems with him. Jon and I then left towards Greece by night ferry even though his parcel did not arrive. The night on the deck of the ferry was calm and about 30 Euro.


So the first episode on my new bike began in Igoumenitsa in Northern Greece...


Thanks to all there, Gabriella and her friends, the tourist information and especially Jon, to you a lot of thanks!

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