Join the Joyride: London to Athens (and back again)

---

May and I nervously greeted our contiki crew the morning of May 22, feeling abit apprehensive as to what the next few weeks of our tour would hold. As it turned out, it was truly a memorable adventure...Our contiki camping crew taking us on the road through some of the most beautiful and unusual places I've seen to date. 12 countires, 22 days and lots of fun on the way...

AMSTERDAM/Netherlands...First stop on the journey. While the city of Amsterdam itself offers alot in terms of architecture and culture, its most famed things were what caused our eyebrows to raise, jaws to drop and lots of laughter. Strolling throuhg the streets of the red light district was both amusing and quite sad (some of the girls in the windows looked very young). The famous cafes of the city certainly filled the air with a certain aroma and while we were very good and indulged in nothing wicked during our time there, simply the scent in the air was enough to make everyone unseasonably mellow. Visited the house of Anne Frank which was really fantastic to see-it certainly made her whole experience all the more real. Also did a lovely bike ride through a small village just outside the city and saw traditional windmills, cheese-making and clog-making, all claims to fame for this region. Spent a chilly two nights in our tent here but survived with our tent intact (which was a feat given neither of us proved to be very skilled tent builders on this our first attempt).

BERLIN/Germany...Arrived at 'Tent Station', possibly the most random camp ground in Europe where we found our grounds to house an empty pool, a running track, a massive football field, a bar and an old grandstand-type structure...All this at the site where 'tent station' was a handpainted sign with an arrow pointing vaguely in the direction of the actual camping area. Once again spent my time in Berlin feeling overwhelmed at the enormity of the history that happened here. It is truly a city that captures the imagination-for its history, its people and for the increasingly interesting architecture that continues to pop-up all over the cityscape. Buildings such as the Jewish museum and the Reichtag are worthy of a trip to Berlin in and of themselves, and then ther's the famous German Wurst...but that goes without saying really!

PRAGUE/Czech Republic...I have heard nothing but praise for the city of Prague. Everyone who has ever travelled here has come back with endless stories of how wonderful the city is and so my expectations were very high. Needless to say, our time here exceeded them all. I fell in love at once with the beautiful cobbled streets, the arty Charles Bridge area and had to take a deep breath in when viewing the entire city from a lookout near the royal palace (where we saw the changing of the guards which was very cool). Prague is really beautiful and very captivating, albeit its citizens can be alittle random at times (e.g. while waiting at a railway station just outside the city, our entire contiki crew boarded a train only to discover we were on an interstate service which had not intended to stop at the station where we boarded, we'd scared the driver and by alighting, we'd delayed the train by 3 minutes. Our entire group copped fines for each of these three offences!!!) Unfortunately, our camping time here was marred by the prescence of two very persistant polish boys who continued to come by our tent at all hours of the night to invite us to have drinks with them...alittle unsettling and in truth we were abit relieved when the time came to pack up tents and move on.

VIENNA/Austria...A brief stopover here-long enough to view the famous St Stephen's Cathedral, visit the two major palaces of the city, and to sample the famous 'Sacher Torte', (which some 16 year-old apprentice chef made up on the spot when left alone to cater for a 300+ Austrian dinner party...Needless to say, it proved to be his golden ticket!) It was very wet and miserable during our one night here which is unfortunate when one is sleeping in a tent! But the weather didn't dampen the spirits of our fellow contiki crew who partied well into the wee hours and managed to be wild enough to cop a firm scolding from camping ground owners and contiki team in the morning (kinda felt like we were back at school during the morning reprimand from our tour manager!)

BUDAPEST/Hungary (via BRATISLAVA/Slovakia)...Made a lunch stop in the little known capital of Slovakia, Bratislava, which revealed itself to be a charming little city with a great pedestrian square, famed castle and awesome local cuisine. Lunched at a little local trattoria and was pleasently surprised to find chicken cooked in potato pancake batter was quite tasty. Headed to Budapest where hungarian goulash was on the menu (and we ate quite a bit of it during our visit!) Budapest is a beautiful city which utilises the Danube river to maximum effect in the cityscape. There are amazing lookouts high above the city which offer views all along the Danube, graced by the spectacular parliament building (which is a real standout), gorgeous churches and some awesome bridging connecting the 'Buda' and the 'Pest' sides of the city. The lowpoint of our time here was getting a fine (again!) for failing to buy the correct train ticket for our 4-stop journey to a local shopping centre to get abit of retail therapy! Hmmm....did not manage to get any sympathy from the train guards who stuck firmly to their guns in charging us the fine...despite the fact we'd been in the city for a grand total of 1 hour at the time and had been feeling pretty pleased with ourselves for even managing to get ourselves any train tickets in the first place due to the lack of any English translation or English speaking staff! Despite the hardcore Hungarian train conductors, we had a great time exploring both 'Buda' and Pest' which combined, make one cool city.

BELGRADE/Serbia...The first of our very interesting stops to the baltic area where the traces of the civil wars of the 1990s remain very evident in the cityscape and in the faces of the people who call Belgrade home. The startling thing to behold was the fact that nearly every building had bullet holes strewn about its surface and indeed, the remains of blown-out buildings litter the city streets. The people of Belgrade have been somewhat successful at rebuilding their lives but unemployment is incredibly high and poverty very evident, especially in the massive shanty settlements on the city´s outskirts. Serbians still remain very proud of their war heritage-a major fort overlooking the city is probably the biggest tourist site. The outskirts of the city are quite picturesque in many ways but think it will be a long time before this part of the world becomes a major tourist hub. Right now the priority of the people seems to be the maintainence of peace in the Baltic States and to this end, they've been successful so far.

SARAJEVO/Bosnia...Sarajevo surprised me in so many ways. Immediately upon arriving, the strong turkish heritage of the city became evident (explained by the long turkish occupation of the city last century). I spent quite a bit of time walking around a market place likened by our tour manager to the Grand Bazaars of Turkey itself. The second thing that immediately grabbed attention is the mountainous terrain around the city circumference. The city itself is literally surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and during the City Seige (1992-1995) Bosnian Serbs and Croats took to the hills to set up sniper and granade posts from which to attack the city. Standing on the streets with mountains visible from all viewpoints, it is very easy to imagine how incredibly surrounded and trapped the people of Sarajevo must have felt during these terrible years. We walked down one street in the city formally known as 'sniper alley', due to the great visability of persons on this street from all mountain shooting posts. Simply being on the road where so many people had lost their lives was incredibly eery. The real highlight of our time here was a visit to the 'Tunnel Museum'. This museum consisted of a regular house which was used as the 'Gate to Sarajevo' during the years of seige. A tunnel ran from the house to a section of Bosnian freeland just beyond the mountain range and was used to transport both military and civilian goods, as well as people themselves if they had somewhere else to go once outside the war zone. The museum was being maintained by a former military member who had helped build the tunnel and used it during the war. Listening to his stories was one of the most moving experiences of my life-he spoke with such courage and honesty about the years where the people of this city were confronted with the death of loved ones and the reality of their own imminent mortality every minute of every day for 4 long years. What really stayed with me was the strong belief in destiny held closely by the people of Sarajevo (who are warm and welcoming and have lived through so much). Reality is grounded in the everpresent knowledge that the possibility of death is imminent for everyone each and every day. So all one can do is live each day in the best way one knows how and leave it to destiny to decree what will be. The loss of loved ones, especially from the war years, is explained and accepted using this philosophy and it is these ideals on which the people of Sarajevo have kept going and rebuilt their lives after the longest seige in modern history.

DUBROVNIK/Croatia...En route to Croatia, we made a stop in the Bosnian city of Mostar. I have to confess that driving towards the city, I felt alittle anxious about getting off the bus as all we could see was derelict housing, blown-up buildings (or bullet holes littered on those that were still standing) and endless empty streets. Then suddenly we found ourselves in the midst of on a bustling little township with the Mostar Bridge and landscape forming the most beautiful backdrop ever. Our lunch stop here was not nearly enough time to discover the delights on offer! Fortunately, more delights were to follow in the 3 nights we spent in Dubrovnik-one of my most favourite places in the whole world. The old city has maintained its traditional city walls and you are able to walk the entire perimeter of the city along the tops of these. The sea forms the backdrop to the city gates and the views from everywhere are just breathtaking. We spent our days here eating the freshest, tastiest seafood and gelato and basking in the sunshine and swimming in the sea. It was a perfect 3 days in a truly delightful city that I could return to again and again (I certainly hope to!)

VENICE/Italy...My return to this magic city was marred by the bucketing rain and cold wind that greeted us during our one full day here. Needless to say that simply increased the motivation to shop and shop we did! Later in the afternoon we were blessed with sunshine just in time for our gondola ride through the Venetian canals. This was the most relaxing hour ever where we kicked back with a glass of wine and listened to our very amusing Gondola man singing away merrily as we punted along. That night back at camp was our last night with our entire contiki crew as 12 people would not be continuing on for the rest of the trip. It was a fun evening of reminiscing together about our journey so far...especially the previous nights victory in the sumo competition by one of our own crew! It was very sad to pack up our tents one last time and part ways with new friends when we left Venice to sail onwards towards Athens.

THE SEA/En-route to Athens...Boarded a massive ship at lunchtime with a long 30 hour boat trip ahead of us. The ship was decked out with sleeping cabins and restaurants and a pool and had it not been for my propensity toward sea-sickness, it really would've been a luxurious trip sailing the seas. However, I spent a great deal of time gobbling travel sickness tablets and trying to stay higher up on deck where the swaying motion was less pronounced. Given that we were on the boat for such a long time, it really was the perfect excuse for abit of mischief making ala Hens and Bucks theme night. While the boys donned skirts and dresses and got all prettied up, the girls stripped the beds of sheets and embraced the toga phenomenon wholeheartedly. It was alot of fun wandering about the boat dressed as such and no doubt we were the source of much amusement to other travellers. The drinking and dancing continued into the wee small hours and many people were feeling sickness of a different kind for the rest of our sailing time the following day.

ATHENS/Greece...Crazy, crazy city. Arrived at 1am to our hotel, only to be caught in the middle of a massive traffic jam. Jumped off the bus at some random spot and had to concentrate very hard on not getting run over by the surly drivers all around whose driving habits were rogue at best! Explored the ancient sites of Athens, the undoubtable highlight of which was Acropolis hill and the Parthenon. Think we were all abit awestruck when seeing it for the first time-it was very impressive and really made you scratch your head in wonder...how ever did they do it? Our final night of the contiki tour was celebrated with a traditional Greek dinner in the Plaka area, complete with some Greek dancing. Stayed out at a bar near to our hotel and did all our farewells later that night. The joy ride had at last come to an end...farewelled our magic friends and May and I headed off on our own to continue our whirlwind adventure.

MYKONOS/Greece...The islands of Greece are simply stunning. Mykonos lived up to the dream of sunshine and blue skies and cyrstal clear water and delicious food and a laidback life. It is impossible to describe the charm of this place in words...It is just spectacular. We spent a very lazy three days here, exploring the city and lazing by the sea, enjoying being on 'mykonos time'. Even managed to fit in a movie fest during evening chillout. It was a wonderful in every sense of the word and we could have stayed here forever!

ROME/Itlay...Met up with contiki friends Laura and Cate and spent 3 crazy days exploring the sites and simply breathing Rome in! The magic of this city is not lost upon return-if anything, I think I fell more in love with all things ala Roma, most especially the gelato! The sites were every bit as spectaular as the first time I laid eyes upon them-mostly, I spent my time feeling incredibly lucky to be gazing upon the splendour of the sistine chapel, the immensity of the colloseum, the beauty of St Peter's Basillica and the majesty of the Partheon for the second time in my lifetime. The little girl from downunder is really out there seeing the world!!! It was even more lovely to be sharing our roman holiday with friends...we wined and dined and talked and laughed and enjoyed every minute of our time here together.

BARCELONA/Spain...The last of our stops on this incredible journey. Stayed in the heart of Barcelona where sunshine and sea breezes, seafood and sangria, siestas and shopping were aplently. We spent 4 days consolidating our trip with a celebration of all things girly and really embraced the great food and shopping on offer. Visited the landmarks of the city, the highlight of which was Park Gruel where mosaic based sculptures and buildings abound throughout a huge parkland area, now a world heritage site. It was a really beautiful site in a really beautiful part of the world. We were incredibly sad to leave Spain, again this city is one in which you could stay forever and simply embrace the lifestyle offered with open arms.

LEEDS/United Kingdom...Fortunately we were met with our own set of open arms in the form of my lovely Adam who was very happy to have us home again (albeit, we were alittle less excited than he was to return to a climate of 15 degrees, cloudy and wet after having left 35 degrees, sunshine and blue skies that very morning...hmm). However, it was lovely to be 'home' again, showing May around Leeds and having our first official 'guest' here in our UK world. So it was with great sadness that we headed to Heathrow June 25 for May to catch her flight back to the land of Aus. Putting her on the plane, I so desperately wanted to jump on too! But there's yet more adventures to be had here first so I simply sent all my love with her to all back home and waved until she was out of site.

---

Comments

[May]

trip down memory lane...
aww are u sure we cant go back in time?? almost forgot how much fun we had there and then we have all these fantastic pics to remind me of how gorgeous and splendid it was and im stuck at home!!! lol love you, keep posting and smiling petal x