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Well, I have neglected to write in here for about 2 months, so I guess I will do what I can now. Really, this should be called The End, because in a week I am back in Alberta. I will, or at least am planning on writing one more after this though. I am in fact headed back a month earlier than originally planned. There are several reasons for this, but I'm going to keep this particular entry strictly about travelling. Furthermore, because of the type of travelling it was, and the fact that I have two months to cover, means that it will be more of a lame summary. Here we are:
So after a quick stop in Stuttgart on the way back from Egypt and Greece, it was time to meet up with Kyle, a friend from back home, in Paris. I enjoyed Paris, but I also found some things overrated. Namely, the world's most famous museum. The Catacombs were perhaps the most impressive/interesting thing, and a good escape from the clusters of tourists that flock to Paris's world renowned attractions. However, you can't help but want to take a jaunt up the Eiffel Tower. Take the stairs!
From there it was on to Barcelona. You can't go to this city and not experience or at least hear some sort of theft, robbery, or pick-pocketing. Hell, it almost happened to Kyle within minutes of getting out of the main train station. However, you also can't go here and not experience the works of Gaudi, a man that most architects would probably marry if they could. The city more or less, has it all. It being on the coast, also means that it has a beach that is filled with people, not always fully covered, catching sun and waves. The magic fountain provides a nice show of color, music, and of course water, for an evening alternative to going out drinking and getting robbed.
Nice, was well nice, but on the night train there, things werent that nice for Kyle who got his camera stolen out of his bag that was tucked under his arm while he was sleeping! The city is part of the Cote d Azor (sp?) or French Riveria and neighbours the independent home to F1 racing, and the rich and famous (and perhaps pompous,) Monaco. I never really found either city to contain anything overly special, but well worth a visit. Nice had a decent beach, where some of the not so fortunate residents go searching for what they can at night. This includes running off with some satisfactory Pizza-box art done by a girl we met. Nice also is the home to my "incident," which you may only ever hear if I am as drunk again as I was that night.
Genoa, although not on our list of places to go, would be where we spent a night in a train station (this would be my number 3- and all in Italy) due to some train misunderstandings. The target was, in fact, Venice and we did eventually get there. I don't really have that much to say about Venice. We happened to run into two girls that we met in Paris. If there were any more Pigeons and tourists in the city, I think it would just completely sink. However, there is generally a reason why a place has many tourists (that don't seem to realize Pigeons are basically flying rats,) making it somewhat self-explanatory as to the uniqueness of the place.
A nice change from these sort of places was then Innsbruck. Tucked in the beautiful Austrian alps, it sort of seems like it doesn't have too much to offer, unless of course you like hiking, skiing, or crystal. The ski season at this point, was essentially over, but hiking was a go. What's better than a 4 hour hike up a mountain only to be greeted with a quaint little Biergarten and getting yourself a well-deserved Hefeweizen? Well for some I guess it might be being on acid without actually doing it by taking a little "trip" through the Swarovski crystal "museum." Wow.
Munich is of course a fairly well known party town, or at least a beer drinking one, and with the many other things there are to do there as well, my third time there wasn't any less exciting. The Deutsches Museum has absolutely everything you could want on science and technology. Now I just need to figure out how the one river is able to form such a wave that surfers can actually, well surf on it. Take a stroll through the Englisher garten, but be wary of where you are walking, unless of course the nude tanning is up your alley. Of course we went and checked out the Hofbraeu beer hall, the starters of Oktoberfest, and Kyle was in heaven.
Somewhere in here I made a large mistake.
The mistake continued when we arrived Brussels, because of all places that I've gone to so far, it would be the last place I would ever go back to. It's somewhat boring and has sub-par attractions that are generally over-priced. We did stumble upon a market that was selling anything from old playing cards to TV stands, jewellery and old roman coins. If I would ever have to do real shopping outside of Walmart or ski shops, it would probably have been there. So I wouldnt say that Brussels was a waste of time, but there were apparently a lot better things I could have been doing at the time... but this is a travel blog.
From Brussels it was on the Kyle's final stop, Amsterdam. Well, to some, Amsterdam is one of those cities or places that you would apply the now cliched "what happens in "place", stays in "place,"" but that I guess depends on what you are going there for or whether or not you are part of a British stag party. If you look past that part of Amsterdam you also find the culture the city contains. Art is abundant and there are several museums devoted to it and some of the more notable artists the world has seen. For anyone that has read the Anne Frank diary or knows the story, stepping through that bookshelf doorway will truely move you. After a few days in Amsterdam and it wearing us out, we made a little daytrip to Rotterdam. Since it is one of the many cities that got almost completely flattened durning the war, it now contains a handful of interesting modern buildings and architecture. Apartment buildings in the shape of a cube that are set on one corner would be the most notable.
Kyle left on the 23rd of May and from then on it was solo time. Quite solo indeed.
I had only ever gone through Cologne with the train, so I wanted to stop there for a couple days. It contains a Cathedral that towers above all else. It's also an old Roman city and evidence can be seen here and there. The Rhein flows right through it and does a decent job of seperating the old from the new. Since getting to Amsterdam, the sun hadn't really shown itself. This continued here, and I spent some time in the rain. Probably good for the runners in the marathon that kept me entertain, while I waited for the sun to go down over the cathedral.
My next stop was one of my favourites. Luxembourg, the so called Gibraltar of the North. There is walls going everywhere around this place, and with the addition of a steep valley, just walking around here keeps you entertained for a good while. There is also a unique old castle/fortress thing called the Bock casemates, where you can go exploring in the tunnels built into this double sided cliff. After crawling to the end of a smaller tunnel, turning on a light only to find the freakiest looking spider dangling within inches of my face, you would have thought I wouldnt have done it twice... Spiders...eww. I also took a bus out to a smaller town where there was suppose to be some interesting hiking trails in another old gorge. I randomly got off the bus at a stop where it looked like it would be interesting to indeed do some hiking. Highlight included these narrow stairs through a few foot wide crack in the cliff.
I've been to Aachen before, but that was with the Uni trip, and this time it was to visit family. My aunt(s) live just outside of the city in a house once used by Napoleons army to trade horses (I think), but it is now totally under protection. Aachen is a cool city and would have been a choice for my exchange, but the 480 euros a month that Stuttgart gives out sort of made up my mind quite easily. Nearby, there is another town called Monschau, that is completely hidden in a valley. It is also hidden from all tourists other than Germans, but it is well worth checking out. The usual I guess- an old castle some ruins, a nice old town with interesting old buildings. Since these two cities/towns are really close to the border, an interesting sight for me was the concrete tank stoppers still deeply embedded in the german countryside.
From there it was off to visit more family in Muenster. Basically, the aunt and uncle that live here, I had seen maybe twice before in my life and never really spoken to before. It ended up being really good, and I got to know them and their interesting profession of restoring old buildings. It's quite amazing what they can tell simply by analyzing paint. The city itself is a little smaller, has a large student presence, and again, was once completely flattened. My uncle showed my a building that Hitler had had painted only so that once it were destroyed (if it were to get destroyed) by the allies, they would have had to repay to fix it, after Germany's eventual victory... Hmmm.
In my guide book I had read about stories of people getting gassed while on the night trains from Berlin to Warsaw, waking up and having all their stuff missing. This made for a somewhat nervous train ride, but it was fine all the way from Muenster to Warsaw. Now Poland hasnt had an easy time in their history, and nothing exemplifies this better than Warsaw. Everything there is to see and do there, has something to do directly or indirectly with being ummm taken over and occupied. Well, maybe not the random bear pit that sits right alongside one of the cities main roads. I also don't think I've ever seen a larger concentration of good looking girls.
From Warsaw it was to Wroclaw to meet up with friends from Stuttgart (JP, Hugo, Allison and Ryan) that had friends there to stay with. I still can't pronounce the name of that damn place, but I do know how to say you have beautiful eyes now. I didnt actually get to see too much of the city itself. I don't really think there is too much to see anyway, but it was awesome being taken care by the polish families we stayed with. So hospitable and nice. Witnessing a car crash would be the first of two in Eastern Europe. No one was hurt, but the first reactions of both parties was to jump on their cell phones for 5 minutes without looking or talking to each other. How did we survive without these things?
Our group kept on going to Krakow, where we met up with two more Stuttgarters (Chris and Joanna,) the one being a Polish gal. She was a great host to her city, but sometimes I wonder if she is part Mexican, because she is on time, well not often. Haha, I hope she reads this. We ate good food, checked out a castle, some museums and various things including the salt mines. Joanna, our polish friend there had to leave for her own travel plans and then trouble quickly found us. We payed a "special" price for not being tickets for our backpacks on the tram. The price wasnt that special... This was on our way to Auschwitz. This is a place I don't really know how to describe, nor necessarily want to. It's just, well Auschwitz. Unfortunately, soon after I left Muenster I had learnt that my Oma in Switzerland had passed away. Coincidentally, there was a large service at Birkenau (part of Auschwitz) on the same day as her funeral back in Switzerland. This was a little wierd for me. On the way back to Krakow, we had another Polish incident that involved Chris being held by the cab driver by the backpack straps and us, eventually, after police "involvement" having to pay an extra 200 zloty. Night train to Prague
Due to circumstances, Prague wasnt exactly the first place I wanted to be at the time, but I went along with the group anyway because I was having a good time with them. Prague also has many things to offer, including spires everywhere. It is supposedly home to the world's largest fortress/castle. Here I also met up with another Stuttgarter, but... well, ask me. We headed out for a night of drinking on this pub crawl that turned out to be a good time. The next day was more or less written off, but a rest was well needed anyway.
Well Prague wasnt the only place I was going to czech out in the republic. The other guys all went back to the gart to continue their studying. I headed to a small town called Czesky Krumlov. What makes this small town worth a visit is the river that goes through and around it, and over some wiers. Since the Czechs seem to be very protective of their rubber tubes, I did not get to do any river floating, but there was at least a castle hanging around for me to czech out. Oddly enough, it would also be the second time a random pit with bears was present.
That about did it for me in the Czech Republic except for an unplanned stop in Ceske Budejovice after some slow train action. I few others had the same problem and we all decided to head to ol Macdonalds where we played some cards. This city happens to be home to Budweiser beer. Not the American one!
So I got into Vienna a lot later than planned and it took a good while to find my damn hostel. Vienna was going to be just yet another big city where I would aimlessly walk around, find a museum or two some architecture and maybe a nice park or two, when I suddendly seen a face. It was the face of a friend from the U of C. In fact, I coincidentally ran into the group of U of Cers who are doing internships in Switzerland. I knew or at least recognized a few, and got to know a few more. So I spent the rest of my time there hanging out with them. This included the strangest Opera ever, although I actually have nothing to compare to, but if that wasn't strange than I don't know what is. Another "famous" architect called Hundertwasser also has much work in Vienna, but personally I think making a floor wavy isn't exactly what everyone is looking for in a building.
Bratislava is just a bit further down the Danube and the capital of Slovakia. I think more people go here because of recent movies than anything, and thus I only stayed one night as well. The amount of old Soviet Block buildings here and large smokestacks almost gives the city a certain kind of beauty. It was like a garden of concrete. There is, however, a castle overlooking most of the city and a relatively alive and revived old town. For some reason, the town also seems to have a handful of really talented kids who were impressing passerbys with 5 ball juggling, unicycles and other various tricky things.
By this time I had my fair share of big European cities so I wasnt very hungary for more, once I got to Budapest. Sorry about that one... The hostel there was, however, really chill and way out of downtown, but still close enough to keep everything walkable. Oddly enough, Budapest is home to a castle. Yup, another castle on another hill. During this whole time the World Cup was going on, and the Swiss boys were playing. I of course, being the big spender that I am, opted to sit with some of Budapest's classier, well dressed, and at-the-very-moment unemployed finest, and watched it from a small hill on a big screen where you would have had to pay to get in for a good view.
For the first time yet, I got off a train (that was ridiculously late,) looked around and didnt see one other backpacker. Welcome to Belgrade. I also have never seen a hostel in more cramped quarters. The kitchen, common room, reception and internet were all the same room, and all no bigger than an average sized bedroom. The owner, presumably, although a nice, but somewhat crazy lady would get there are 7 in the morning, bring you breakfast in bed and would finally leave at 11 at night again. Sometimes she too slept there. A fan of Milosevic (and who isnt?), we kept our conversation off of politics by her instead teaching us card tricks for the equivalent of about 5 cents. Belgrade, although not on the inteneraries for many travellers was rather interesting. I don't think you could spend more than a couple days there though. Of course there is a castle, which houses a museum of umm basically war, which they seem rather proud of. I almost even went in, but I can't yet read Serbian. Interesting was the two large office buildings with some nice holes in them courtesy of NATO bombs that they appear content on letting just stand there, abandoned and fenced off. The city is also home to the worlds largest, yet not finished Orthodox church. In Stuttgart I once ran through a fountain because I was drunk and couldnt get in clubs. Here, it is just a nice way for kids to cool down when it is 38 degrees out. Time to go to the ocean.
So I stepped on to the night bus to a place called Budva in the new country of Montengro as, again, the only foreigner. Interesting feeling. More interesting though, was the literal inches we came from crashing into a semi but instead causing the cars behind us to crash. I looked out the side window only to see another car with half its front end smashed in roll out into the other lane. I don't think anyone was hurt, but I never really found out because, well, our bus driver didnt seem to want to stick around to find out. I really enjoyed this place, and here I hung out with two guys from Singapore whom I met quickly in Belgrade. The hostel was brand new and really cool. I stayed for three nights. The town is touristy, but only local tourists, and there is a fast food everywhere, only it is a local take on it. Kotor is a nearby town with an old fortress built at the top of a cliff. A snake was hanging out on the old stone stairs on the way up, and some bats were just hanging in the inside part of part of the old fortress. The views of southern europe's largest Fjord were amazing. We made another day trip to Cetinje, where the suppose mummified part of the hand of St John the Baptist was suppose to be. However, it was doing a bit of it's own travelling and was currently in Moscow. Otherwise, the town was almost a dead. I think the newly seperated Montengrans are really happy because of it, because I found them to be, probably the friendliest Europeans so far. A smile for no reason? What?
For a reason I still don't fully understand and probably never will, I was being urgently called back to Stuttgart. I still wanted to hit up at least some of Croatia so I decided I would have to do less in even lesser time. First night was in Dubrovnik, where I stayed at some ladies guesthouse because there are no hostels there for some reason, although very touristy again. A marked change actually from Budva, although only 3 hours by bus. The city is rather remarkable with its very large stone walls surrounding the whole old part. You can stroll along the top of them and that's what I did. I came across a fashion show and had a nice evening swim.
The bus ride from Dubrovnik to Split had stunning scenery. The Croatian coast is amazing and I wish I had had more time there. Split is another coastal city but it contains one of the best preserved ancient roman areas there are. There is a large ancient basement under a portion of the old walled in areas. It also has one of the larger markets I've yet seen, and it even kept me interested for a bit. But I had to split from that city and make a mad, seemingly purposeless dash back for Stuttgart. The night train was fun though, because I rode with two Swedish girls, and that in itself is pretty good, but they also didnt have passes for the train, so that made their time, and mine interesting. I spoke some German for them when the Austrians were going to kick them out of the train. They did end up making it though. Interestingly enough, on what would be my last real part/train ride of my entire trip, I met a girl that lives closer to Bentley (back home in AB) than anyone else I had met yet. Sundre to be exact. I found this sort of interesting, but perhaps it isnt.
So then it was back in Stuttgart, and, well my journey had never yet been so interesting...
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half mexican Joanna
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i did read :P
Simon, for the hundred time - I was living OUTSIDE of the city :))) and u should know best how tricky the trams in Poland may be.. yes,indeed, the ticket is needed, hah. hugs!