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Published: June 26th 2008
Gidday
Its taken a couple of days to get used to being back in the Western world. Primarily just the little things, like cars stopping for you at the pedestrian crossings (and the speed at which the cars travel here!). Breakfast in Frankfurt was a delight, yay for butter, jam, nutella and decent (i.e. nonwhite and not sweet) bread. Oh, and the English Breakfast tea with milk!
Anyway, Sarah and I spent one night in Frankfurt before heading down to Stuttgart to spend a night with Sarah's cousin James. James gave us a wonderful tour of Stuttgart township and his village complete with vineyards and a nuclear power station.
From Stuttgart we caught the train down to visit Anna in Zurich. Zurich was busy hosting the Euro cup (soccer) and the town has turned completely football crazy. In a country where you're not allowed to do your washing on a Sunday, for the fear of disturbing the peace, apparently it is okay to drive around in circles wildly tooting your horn at all hours of the night if your team happens to win a match. Having been promised picnics by the lakes, swims in the river and walks
in the mountains - Zurich suddenly decided to turn decisively cold and rainy. But we still had a fabulous time, exploring the streets and drinking hot chocolate. One day was spent in the Alps, with the sun breaking through on the odd occasion to give us spectacular views of the mountains and the spring flowers were out in abundance, creating fields of yellow, blue, white and red. Cows with bells were ringing through the mist. We made one brave venture into the Soccer Fan Zone to watch the Italy vs. France match on the big screen TV. The area was completely packed and security into the Fanzone was surprislining tight (I lost my empty plastic water bottle). It was bucketing with rain, so we were absolutely soaked even through the freebie plastic raincoats. Surrounded primarily by excited Italians, who would randomly start shouting and jumping up and down. Interesting experience anyway.
So from Zurich, Sarah and caught the train down to Turin, Italy and spent the night there. We explored the city and all its churches the following day before catching the train to Asti, where Sarah's uncle Tim owns a vineyard. So the next couple of days were
spent relaxing on the hammocks in the sunshine, eating wonderful food cooked by Tim's wife Rina, and of course drinking Tim's wine. Tough life.
The next stop was Venice - where by a stroke of luck we met up with Emily. Venice is incredibly photogenic and we spent most of our time exploring the streets and getting lost among the multiple canals. Pizza, pasta and cheap wine (1 euro!) entertained at meal times. Unfortunately we couldn't get into St Marks Cathedral due to huge queues and time restrictions.
Yet another train, transported us to the sleepy Italian sea side town of Trieste. Then it was a bus to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, where we explored the old parts of town, the churches and the castle perched just above the township. About an hour away from Ljubiana, is the mountain township of Bled. Bled is situated on the side of the lake, in the middle of the lake is the cutest island with a little church on it. Sarah and I are just off to go for a swim in the lake, so will catch you all later.
Cheerio
Cielle
Ps. Next stop is Budapest where
we will meet up with our Eastern Europe tour group.
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Andrea and Rich
non-member comment
tell Tim and Rina we'll be visiting shortly! Think we could manage vineyards it Italy quite well... Enjoy Eastern Europe