Over the past few years I have done a lot of travelling, especially around Europe. I’ve seen some out-of-the-way places, and others right along the beaten track. But there was an exception: I had never been to Rome. I had been to other places in Italy along my travels, Turin, Bardonecchia and Ancona. But not those famous and amazing spots like Venice, Milan, Florence or Rome.
So when I saw a cheap hotel deal for a nice hotel in Rome right around my birthday, I put the idea to V and we booked it. She had been to Rome before but was willing to come and be my guide, and to experience the city in a bit more depth (as much as is possible in a weekend) then the stop on her European bus tour a few years ago.
I went to Rome without too many expectations. I had never been that impressed with Italy, but was mindful of the fact that I should experience this reputably amazing city. And yes, I was amazed. My expectations were exceeded by this ancient city.
The weather was stunning, hovering just below 30 during the day. The sun was shining, the tourists of the high summer season had largely disbursed, and the city was buzzing. I was surprised by how open and colourful the city was. I was expecting it to be denser, dirtier, and more cramped. But I was pleasantly surprised.
We spent much of the weekend walking, walking and walking some more, just taking in the city and sights (and gelato). Everywhere you walked, there was amazing architecture to see, whether Roman Catholic masterpieces from 500 years ago or ancient Roman ruins from 2000 years ago. Just walking along a footpath it wasn’t uncommon to see the remains of some ancient columns just lying there.
The newer part of the town involved walking between many scattered fountains, pizzerias, churches and of course the mandatory tourist shops.
Overall it was 2 days well spent. We managed to fit in a lot of sights in a short period of time (including the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, St Peter’s Basilica, the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon and more) while still managing to find the time to spend a morning at the hotel swimming pool enjoying those last few strong sunrays, before our lives in London hit the cold, dark winter.
Where in the World is DK?
Showing posts with label Italy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italy. Show all posts
28 September 2009
30 January 2007
G'day from the land of the Drive Thru Bottle-o
When I last wrote I was just gearing up for Christmas, with a little shopping trip to France. The week that followed involved more Christmas festivities and paying particular attention to the media's reports about the trouble at Heathrow Airport.
First of all apparently many people were missing flights because the extra airport security needed after the August London terrorism scare couldn't cope with the masses all escaping London for the holidays.
Then to make matters worse, you may have heard that London was engulfed in some major fog. It really was quite bad. Think of the worst fog you have ever seen early in the morning or very late at night, and apply it for four days non-stop. That's what it was like. Hundreds and hundreds of flights from Heathrow were cancelled, and I was worried because on Saturday 23rd December (the busiest Heathrow day - oh no), I was to fly to Prague.
On the night of the 22nd I had a lovely English Christmas dinner followed by pressies with my house mates and friends and retired to bed early (around midnight) because the next morning was a 4am start to get to the airport the recommended 2 hours early for my flight to Prague. Luckily the fog had lightened up a bit, and the crowds were really full on (I had to wheel my suitcase over people's feet to get through) but it was manageable. In the end my flight had a 90min delay not because of weather conditions or crowds, but because some idiot parked a truck in front of the departure gate where we were meant to get on a bus to take us to the plane on the tarmac, and took over an hour to move it. Nevertheless I arrived in equally foggy Prague safe and sound.
I was greeted by my Czech aunt and cousin and taken to their village outside of Prague. There I relaxed, enjoyed a traditional Czech Christmas (minus the carp fish for dinner, having schnitzels instead), including pressies on Christmas Eve and just generally chilled out in the countryside, including a nice forest bike ride in around freezing temperatures.
On Christmas Day my aunt and cuz took me to Plzen (Pilsen), the original city where Pilsner beer came from and where lager as we know it was initially invented. I was sure to have some Pils at a traditional 17th Century beer hall, complimented of course with some beef gulas.
By the 27th I was well and truly over village life (although going to the well in the village square with buckets to get water and collecting firewood did have a certain 1800's charm about it) so I ventured into Prague itself. I spent the next few days in Prague walking around, taking in the winter atmosphere (and a lot of sausages
served on cardboard with mustard and rye bread), feeling like a bit of a dag walking around with thermals under my jeans and a ski jacket. I felt like less of a dag when mid afternoon on the 28th the heavens opened and covered the city with a few inches of snow. It was wonderful walking around the city and home through the suburbs on fresh powder. Everything looks so nice blanketed in white. Great, although I I returned to feeling like a dag falling on my arse after slipping on ice.
By the 29th December I was a bit bored with Czechia and decided on impulse to jump on a train to Dresden, Germany, for a day trip. The 2.5 hour train ride was beautiful. The whole train link between Prague and Dresden runs along the bank of the Elbe River, the valley looking quite magical covered in snow.
Dresden itself was a really nice city. It was close to flattened by the allies in WW2 but you wouldn't guess it by looking at it. It was rebuilt to a crisp clean city yet retaining what looked like to me as old style-architecture that you see in cities like Prague as well as massive contemporary shopping centres that the Czechs seemed to be visiting in swarms.
Upon returning to Prague that night I met up with some friends of my mum who she used to hang out with when she was 18. They still lived in the same neighbourhood and they took me to a pub in the area which my
mum and her friends used to hang out in. It's a really good feeling travelling across to the other side of the world to see what the folks used to do for a good time (ie. drink beer - more than happy to follow those footsteps).
For New Years weekend my friend Nicolle came over from London and we partied in the city. Midnight was spent on the amazing Charles Bridge (amongst the horde of mostly Italians) watching fire works shoot out from just about every surrounding neighbourhood.
New Years Day was a lovely day, and I tried to suppress my hangover by going for a walk in Petrin, a big hilly park right by the city. But by 5pm I was in bed trying to forget about my hung over existence. The
next day I left that existence behind, catching a train to Vienna. The 4-hour fast Pendolino Tilt train ride was quite luxurious. The luxury continued as I got picked up in Vienna by a friend who took me by car to the village that I lived in as a refugee when I was 6 years old after my parents and I escaped the Communist Czech Republic. I stayed in the Guest House run by the family that put us up when we stayed there originally, so it was a nice trip down memory lane. I got to do some alpine sightseeing in the snow, and even went skiing for a day.
Then I returned to Prague and then London. I worked my last week in London and went for a weekend ski trip in Italy. The European snow season was really poor so there wasn't that much good skiing to be done, but in Italy it is enough of an adrenalin rush just getting into a car, so our taxi ride from the airport made up for the poor snow in the thrill stakes.
Upon returning to London for the last time it was all about packing and going away parties before finally arriving back in Melbourne on the 25th January, to some beautiful weather, great food and welcoming friends and family.
Thanks to everyone who I met along the trip for making it fun and successful and for those at home for staying in touch.
First of all apparently many people were missing flights because the extra airport security needed after the August London terrorism scare couldn't cope with the masses all escaping London for the holidays.
Then to make matters worse, you may have heard that London was engulfed in some major fog. It really was quite bad. Think of the worst fog you have ever seen early in the morning or very late at night, and apply it for four days non-stop. That's what it was like. Hundreds and hundreds of flights from Heathrow were cancelled, and I was worried because on Saturday 23rd December (the busiest Heathrow day - oh no), I was to fly to Prague.
On the night of the 22nd I had a lovely English Christmas dinner followed by pressies with my house mates and friends and retired to bed early (around midnight) because the next morning was a 4am start to get to the airport the recommended 2 hours early for my flight to Prague. Luckily the fog had lightened up a bit, and the crowds were really full on (I had to wheel my suitcase over people's feet to get through) but it was manageable. In the end my flight had a 90min delay not because of weather conditions or crowds, but because some idiot parked a truck in front of the departure gate where we were meant to get on a bus to take us to the plane on the tarmac, and took over an hour to move it. Nevertheless I arrived in equally foggy Prague safe and sound.
I was greeted by my Czech aunt and cousin and taken to their village outside of Prague. There I relaxed, enjoyed a traditional Czech Christmas (minus the carp fish for dinner, having schnitzels instead), including pressies on Christmas Eve and just generally chilled out in the countryside, including a nice forest bike ride in around freezing temperatures.
On Christmas Day my aunt and cuz took me to Plzen (Pilsen), the original city where Pilsner beer came from and where lager as we know it was initially invented. I was sure to have some Pils at a traditional 17th Century beer hall, complimented of course with some beef gulas.
By the 27th I was well and truly over village life (although going to the well in the village square with buckets to get water and collecting firewood did have a certain 1800's charm about it) so I ventured into Prague itself. I spent the next few days in Prague walking around, taking in the winter atmosphere (and a lot of sausages
served on cardboard with mustard and rye bread), feeling like a bit of a dag walking around with thermals under my jeans and a ski jacket. I felt like less of a dag when mid afternoon on the 28th the heavens opened and covered the city with a few inches of snow. It was wonderful walking around the city and home through the suburbs on fresh powder. Everything looks so nice blanketed in white. Great, although I I returned to feeling like a dag falling on my arse after slipping on ice.
By the 29th December I was a bit bored with Czechia and decided on impulse to jump on a train to Dresden, Germany, for a day trip. The 2.5 hour train ride was beautiful. The whole train link between Prague and Dresden runs along the bank of the Elbe River, the valley looking quite magical covered in snow.
Dresden itself was a really nice city. It was close to flattened by the allies in WW2 but you wouldn't guess it by looking at it. It was rebuilt to a crisp clean city yet retaining what looked like to me as old style-architecture that you see in cities like Prague as well as massive contemporary shopping centres that the Czechs seemed to be visiting in swarms.
Upon returning to Prague that night I met up with some friends of my mum who she used to hang out with when she was 18. They still lived in the same neighbourhood and they took me to a pub in the area which my
mum and her friends used to hang out in. It's a really good feeling travelling across to the other side of the world to see what the folks used to do for a good time (ie. drink beer - more than happy to follow those footsteps).
For New Years weekend my friend Nicolle came over from London and we partied in the city. Midnight was spent on the amazing Charles Bridge (amongst the horde of mostly Italians) watching fire works shoot out from just about every surrounding neighbourhood.
New Years Day was a lovely day, and I tried to suppress my hangover by going for a walk in Petrin, a big hilly park right by the city. But by 5pm I was in bed trying to forget about my hung over existence. The
next day I left that existence behind, catching a train to Vienna. The 4-hour fast Pendolino Tilt train ride was quite luxurious. The luxury continued as I got picked up in Vienna by a friend who took me by car to the village that I lived in as a refugee when I was 6 years old after my parents and I escaped the Communist Czech Republic. I stayed in the Guest House run by the family that put us up when we stayed there originally, so it was a nice trip down memory lane. I got to do some alpine sightseeing in the snow, and even went skiing for a day.
Then I returned to Prague and then London. I worked my last week in London and went for a weekend ski trip in Italy. The European snow season was really poor so there wasn't that much good skiing to be done, but in Italy it is enough of an adrenalin rush just getting into a car, so our taxi ride from the airport made up for the poor snow in the thrill stakes.
Upon returning to London for the last time it was all about packing and going away parties before finally arriving back in Melbourne on the 25th January, to some beautiful weather, great food and welcoming friends and family.
Thanks to everyone who I met along the trip for making it fun and successful and for those at home for staying in touch.
24 October 2006
Wine tasting with Adolf, sailing with crazy Captain Ivo and much much more
Hi everyone!
I have been concentrating on travelling again recently. It all started with the August "Summer Bank Holiday" weekend in the UK. Having 3 days off work meant that I had to go and visit the continent otherwise it would be 3 days wasted by staying in England. Flights to everywhere were very expensive so I opened a backpackers magazine and booked the first interesting coach tour I saw. So very early on the Saturday morning I headed off on a bus to Germany. It was a boring bus ride but it was a perfect opportunity to catch up on sleep and even read up on German lingo in my phrasebook.
Upon arrival in the small town of Bad Salzig in the Rhein Valley (a picturesque German wine making region) in the evening, accompanied by a random selection of people on the tour, I drank some local wine, followed by drinking some more local wine, followed by eating, and then drinking some more local wine, more local wine and then some local beer. (The drinks were included in the tour price, the company was good, and the wine was OK - what else could I do?)
Later that night it was interesting using the German I learned earlier to talk to some non-English-speaking locals in a pub. Not surprisingly, I woke up the next morning with a bit of a headache, but that was soon forgotten about thanks to an early morning stroll around the small city of Boppard and a river cruise up the Rhein Valley, underneath the countless medieval castles, green forests and abundant fertile vineyards. We overlooked the beautiful green region from the famous Loriley cliff, and then walked around a local city and attended a wine tasting, presented by a winemaker called Adolf. I've attached some photos from this beautiful place! Back at the hotel the theme was again local wine.
On the bus ride home we stopped off in the beautiful Belgian city of Ghent. That was the third Belgian city I'd been to and the third one I loved, making Belgium grow in my heart as one of my favourite places.
The next few weeks were spent working and partying the last few weeks of Summer away in London, counting down to my 2 weeks of annual leave in the 2nd half of September.
So half way through September I flew out of London to the city of Ancona in Italy. The flight was full of Aussies and Kiwis all heading to sail Croatia (flying cheapo RyanAir to Ancona and catching a ferry across the Adriatic Sea seemed to be the most cost effective way of getting to Croatia.) Ancona wasn't particularly interesting as it was really just a port city, but the overnight ferry ride to Split in Croatia was quite luxurious and fun. Getting to Split was a bit of a disappointment because instead of finding warm Croatian weather, I was greeted with rain, rain and more rain.
I boarded the boat that I would spend a week sailing the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia in. It was the smallest and oldest boat in the fleet of about 17. I was a little bit shocked about the cramped conditions (and the fact we only had 1 toilet/shower for 19 passangers) but luckily I was the only one on the boat who got a room to myself, making it much more bearable. The first three days of sailing were quite bad on account of the weather. We hit some storms and really rough seas. One on occassion, our crazy captain took us head on into a storm the other (bigger and more stable) boats did not choose to brave. The main way of making time pass was balancing out on the deck trying not to vomit. Or fall overboard. Despite the bad weather the water was still warm, and we even managed to go for a swim when we found a tranquil bay.
We saw some beautiful coastal towns and when we got to the southernmost point of the tour, Dubrovnik, the sun finally came out. Immediately the whole place looked so much better – amazing how a bit of shining sun can really bring a place out. Walking around the old castle walls of Dubrovnik was great. It also proved to be a great place for a night out.
The rest of the tour was spent sailing from island to island during the day while we sunbathed on the roof and every now and then anchored in the beautiful clear water for a swim. I swam in some amazingly picturesque locations, each time in crystal clear water. In the evenings we would moor up in a port and explore the village or city we ended up in, explore the streets, eat the local cuisine in great outdoors restaurants among scenic old town ruins and party in the local bars and nightclubs (or on the roof of our boat with our sleazy alcoholic, yet lots of fun, chef). My favourite of these places was Hvar, an amazing, hilly, old town, surrounded by castle walls, overlooking a peaceful marina in a bay surrounded by green hills.
The sailing tour finished with a night back in Split. The highlight of the night was getting a local with a small zippy electronic baggage trolley to drive 16 of us (it felt more dangerous as it sounds) to a huge outdoor nightclub on a hill just out of town overlooking a beach. The next morning I wasn't quite ready to leave Split, so I hired an apartment with some people from the sailing tour and stayed an extra day. That day was spent walking around the local markets before going on a white water rafting trip in the hills about an hour inland from Split. The most dangerous part of the this, unfortunately, was being driven up in a car by a speeding, chain-smoking, non-seatbelt-wearing, Croatian soldier in his early 90's Audi that I WISHED had seatbelts in the back. Luckilly we did make it to the lovely clear river where we boarded some rafts and went down a beautiful forest valley. The rapids were fun but nothing too extreme. The highlight was when we came to a waterfall and stopped to get out of the raft and go through the waterfall. Behind the waterfall we found a small cave that we went into, but to get across had to swim through a small cave lake of 7ºC cold water and then climb up a rock face in the dark. It was fun!
The next day was my birthday. The 2 girls I was staying with took me out to an awesome birthday breakfast in a nice outside restaurant. I then said bye and caught a super modern German tilt-train from Split, winding through the mountain ranges to Croatia's capital, Zagreb.
It was a nice city that I enjoyed walking around in the afternoon, but I had a Croatia/Slovenia/Austria Eurail pass to utilise, so I continued on by rail to Slovenia the next day. Catching the train through Slovenia was great. The countryside was probably the most picturesque I have seen, with a great mix of lakes, forests and small quant villages, each built around a single church old tower. I made it to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia and was going to look around a bit, until I realised that the next train to Vienna was a mere 15 min away so I jumped on that. It was actually a train to somewhere called Maribor, at which I was meant to change to a Vienna train. The problem was that about 45min after we were meant to hit Maribor the train was still in the middle of nowhere. I eventually asked a conductor I saw and she told me in 30% Slovenian, 30% English, 40% German (that I somehow managed to piece together) that I was in fact not on a Maribor train, that the train split in 2 way, way back and that I was in fact heading to somewhere completely different. She ushered me off the train at a small village somewhere and directed me to run onto a small, old, rickety, local train that was about to depart. I followed her instructions. The train ride was an interesting experience. The train stopped at lots of little villages and at other places which didn't even constitute villages. Some of the stations were literally nothing more than a patch of gravel in a field. The passengers were all local farm people, the conductor spoke no English and had evidently never seen a Eurail pass in his life. I wasn't really sure where I was, or even if I was still in Slovenia, and was a bit annoyed that I was only seeing this beautiful sunny day through a train window, but an hour or two later, I did manage to arrive in this Maribor place. I looked around the town for an hour, and was impressed. It was a nice little city. I spent about 2,000 Tolars in a local supermarket and jumped on the next train to Vienna.
The trains distance trains in Sloevnia and Austria were great. I only had a 2nd class ticket but 2nd class was way superior to 1st class in Britain. It was all comfortable big seats in 6-seater-cabins. A great way to travel Europe, assuming you manage to find your way onto the right train. I arrived in Vienna quite late, and the hostel I wanted to check into had no space. I managed to walk to a few hotels near the Südbahnhof train station, picked the cheapest (nay, least expensive) and just crashed – I was exhausted.
I spent the next day just walking around Vienna. The highlight of this was finding the Gorilla in the Prater amusement park. I had been there as a 6 year old with my parents (just after we managed to escape from then Communist Czechoslovakia), 20 years earlier almost to the day, at which time I had a photo with the Gorilla much to my terror at the time, because I was crying, scared of the big ape. So I got a photo with same Gorilla 20 years later. Maybe I'll go back again when I'm 46.
That evening I caught a train from Vienna's Westbahnhof station to the beautiful city of Salzburg. Again, I arrived late and just crashed in a nearby hotel. The next day was the last day of my trip. I spent the morning walking around the Salzburg streets, marvelling at the scenery, which was a mix of great architecture and beautiful gardens, placed against a background of big green hills (which, of course, are alive with the sound of music).
In the afternoon I joined up with a tour group to the ice caves, right up in the Alps. That was a most amazing experience. It involved a super-steep bus ride, followed by an even steeper cable car ride, then a steep walk but all this was rewarded with amazing views over the Alps and valleys below and an even more amazing ice cave. The tour of the cave, aided by old-style open flame torches for light, was an hour long, and any longer would have been painful as the cave temperature is litrally 0ºC. The cave is full of walls of ice and naturally formed ice sculptures. After the cave tour we rewarded ourselves with frankfurters and local beer as we sat, thawing out, and overlooking the Alpine scenery.
Upon return to Salzburg it was a trip to the airport with one of the people from the ice caves tour that was on the same flight as me. At the airport, a last attempt to sample some Austrian cuisine (goulash and beer) and then waiting for a flight which was an hour and a half delayed, resulting in me getting back to London after the trains from the airport had finished running. A coach ride and night bus ride later, I made it home. At 3 am. And went to work the next day. Since then, work has been keeping me busy. I have been seconded to a large French Pharmaceuticals company outside of London so I'm constantly tiring myself out commuting to Surrey, but it's all good fun. Last Friday was my firm's annual party, which was a no-expenses-spared extravaganza, which I'm still recovering from.
Since October ticked over, the previously surprisingly sunny weather has taken a dramatic turn for the cold. So London winter, here I come. My next main holiday is not till December so the next couple of months will be spent trying to save some of these valuable British Pounds to bring back home, instead of spending it all on travel and booze. Wish me luck!
See you in January!
I have been concentrating on travelling again recently. It all started with the August "Summer Bank Holiday" weekend in the UK. Having 3 days off work meant that I had to go and visit the continent otherwise it would be 3 days wasted by staying in England. Flights to everywhere were very expensive so I opened a backpackers magazine and booked the first interesting coach tour I saw. So very early on the Saturday morning I headed off on a bus to Germany. It was a boring bus ride but it was a perfect opportunity to catch up on sleep and even read up on German lingo in my phrasebook.
Upon arrival in the small town of Bad Salzig in the Rhein Valley (a picturesque German wine making region) in the evening, accompanied by a random selection of people on the tour, I drank some local wine, followed by drinking some more local wine, followed by eating, and then drinking some more local wine, more local wine and then some local beer. (The drinks were included in the tour price, the company was good, and the wine was OK - what else could I do?)
Later that night it was interesting using the German I learned earlier to talk to some non-English-speaking locals in a pub. Not surprisingly, I woke up the next morning with a bit of a headache, but that was soon forgotten about thanks to an early morning stroll around the small city of Boppard and a river cruise up the Rhein Valley, underneath the countless medieval castles, green forests and abundant fertile vineyards. We overlooked the beautiful green region from the famous Loriley cliff, and then walked around a local city and attended a wine tasting, presented by a winemaker called Adolf. I've attached some photos from this beautiful place! Back at the hotel the theme was again local wine.
On the bus ride home we stopped off in the beautiful Belgian city of Ghent. That was the third Belgian city I'd been to and the third one I loved, making Belgium grow in my heart as one of my favourite places.
The next few weeks were spent working and partying the last few weeks of Summer away in London, counting down to my 2 weeks of annual leave in the 2nd half of September.
So half way through September I flew out of London to the city of Ancona in Italy. The flight was full of Aussies and Kiwis all heading to sail Croatia (flying cheapo RyanAir to Ancona and catching a ferry across the Adriatic Sea seemed to be the most cost effective way of getting to Croatia.) Ancona wasn't particularly interesting as it was really just a port city, but the overnight ferry ride to Split in Croatia was quite luxurious and fun. Getting to Split was a bit of a disappointment because instead of finding warm Croatian weather, I was greeted with rain, rain and more rain.
I boarded the boat that I would spend a week sailing the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia in. It was the smallest and oldest boat in the fleet of about 17. I was a little bit shocked about the cramped conditions (and the fact we only had 1 toilet/shower for 19 passangers) but luckily I was the only one on the boat who got a room to myself, making it much more bearable. The first three days of sailing were quite bad on account of the weather. We hit some storms and really rough seas. One on occassion, our crazy captain took us head on into a storm the other (bigger and more stable) boats did not choose to brave. The main way of making time pass was balancing out on the deck trying not to vomit. Or fall overboard. Despite the bad weather the water was still warm, and we even managed to go for a swim when we found a tranquil bay.
We saw some beautiful coastal towns and when we got to the southernmost point of the tour, Dubrovnik, the sun finally came out. Immediately the whole place looked so much better – amazing how a bit of shining sun can really bring a place out. Walking around the old castle walls of Dubrovnik was great. It also proved to be a great place for a night out.
The rest of the tour was spent sailing from island to island during the day while we sunbathed on the roof and every now and then anchored in the beautiful clear water for a swim. I swam in some amazingly picturesque locations, each time in crystal clear water. In the evenings we would moor up in a port and explore the village or city we ended up in, explore the streets, eat the local cuisine in great outdoors restaurants among scenic old town ruins and party in the local bars and nightclubs (or on the roof of our boat with our sleazy alcoholic, yet lots of fun, chef). My favourite of these places was Hvar, an amazing, hilly, old town, surrounded by castle walls, overlooking a peaceful marina in a bay surrounded by green hills.
The sailing tour finished with a night back in Split. The highlight of the night was getting a local with a small zippy electronic baggage trolley to drive 16 of us (it felt more dangerous as it sounds) to a huge outdoor nightclub on a hill just out of town overlooking a beach. The next morning I wasn't quite ready to leave Split, so I hired an apartment with some people from the sailing tour and stayed an extra day. That day was spent walking around the local markets before going on a white water rafting trip in the hills about an hour inland from Split. The most dangerous part of the this, unfortunately, was being driven up in a car by a speeding, chain-smoking, non-seatbelt-wearing, Croatian soldier in his early 90's Audi that I WISHED had seatbelts in the back. Luckilly we did make it to the lovely clear river where we boarded some rafts and went down a beautiful forest valley. The rapids were fun but nothing too extreme. The highlight was when we came to a waterfall and stopped to get out of the raft and go through the waterfall. Behind the waterfall we found a small cave that we went into, but to get across had to swim through a small cave lake of 7ºC cold water and then climb up a rock face in the dark. It was fun!
The next day was my birthday. The 2 girls I was staying with took me out to an awesome birthday breakfast in a nice outside restaurant. I then said bye and caught a super modern German tilt-train from Split, winding through the mountain ranges to Croatia's capital, Zagreb.
It was a nice city that I enjoyed walking around in the afternoon, but I had a Croatia/Slovenia/Austria Eurail pass to utilise, so I continued on by rail to Slovenia the next day. Catching the train through Slovenia was great. The countryside was probably the most picturesque I have seen, with a great mix of lakes, forests and small quant villages, each built around a single church old tower. I made it to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia and was going to look around a bit, until I realised that the next train to Vienna was a mere 15 min away so I jumped on that. It was actually a train to somewhere called Maribor, at which I was meant to change to a Vienna train. The problem was that about 45min after we were meant to hit Maribor the train was still in the middle of nowhere. I eventually asked a conductor I saw and she told me in 30% Slovenian, 30% English, 40% German (that I somehow managed to piece together) that I was in fact not on a Maribor train, that the train split in 2 way, way back and that I was in fact heading to somewhere completely different. She ushered me off the train at a small village somewhere and directed me to run onto a small, old, rickety, local train that was about to depart. I followed her instructions. The train ride was an interesting experience. The train stopped at lots of little villages and at other places which didn't even constitute villages. Some of the stations were literally nothing more than a patch of gravel in a field. The passengers were all local farm people, the conductor spoke no English and had evidently never seen a Eurail pass in his life. I wasn't really sure where I was, or even if I was still in Slovenia, and was a bit annoyed that I was only seeing this beautiful sunny day through a train window, but an hour or two later, I did manage to arrive in this Maribor place. I looked around the town for an hour, and was impressed. It was a nice little city. I spent about 2,000 Tolars in a local supermarket and jumped on the next train to Vienna.
The trains distance trains in Sloevnia and Austria were great. I only had a 2nd class ticket but 2nd class was way superior to 1st class in Britain. It was all comfortable big seats in 6-seater-cabins. A great way to travel Europe, assuming you manage to find your way onto the right train. I arrived in Vienna quite late, and the hostel I wanted to check into had no space. I managed to walk to a few hotels near the Südbahnhof train station, picked the cheapest (nay, least expensive) and just crashed – I was exhausted.
I spent the next day just walking around Vienna. The highlight of this was finding the Gorilla in the Prater amusement park. I had been there as a 6 year old with my parents (just after we managed to escape from then Communist Czechoslovakia), 20 years earlier almost to the day, at which time I had a photo with the Gorilla much to my terror at the time, because I was crying, scared of the big ape. So I got a photo with same Gorilla 20 years later. Maybe I'll go back again when I'm 46.
That evening I caught a train from Vienna's Westbahnhof station to the beautiful city of Salzburg. Again, I arrived late and just crashed in a nearby hotel. The next day was the last day of my trip. I spent the morning walking around the Salzburg streets, marvelling at the scenery, which was a mix of great architecture and beautiful gardens, placed against a background of big green hills (which, of course, are alive with the sound of music).
In the afternoon I joined up with a tour group to the ice caves, right up in the Alps. That was a most amazing experience. It involved a super-steep bus ride, followed by an even steeper cable car ride, then a steep walk but all this was rewarded with amazing views over the Alps and valleys below and an even more amazing ice cave. The tour of the cave, aided by old-style open flame torches for light, was an hour long, and any longer would have been painful as the cave temperature is litrally 0ºC. The cave is full of walls of ice and naturally formed ice sculptures. After the cave tour we rewarded ourselves with frankfurters and local beer as we sat, thawing out, and overlooking the Alpine scenery.
Upon return to Salzburg it was a trip to the airport with one of the people from the ice caves tour that was on the same flight as me. At the airport, a last attempt to sample some Austrian cuisine (goulash and beer) and then waiting for a flight which was an hour and a half delayed, resulting in me getting back to London after the trains from the airport had finished running. A coach ride and night bus ride later, I made it home. At 3 am. And went to work the next day. Since then, work has been keeping me busy. I have been seconded to a large French Pharmaceuticals company outside of London so I'm constantly tiring myself out commuting to Surrey, but it's all good fun. Last Friday was my firm's annual party, which was a no-expenses-spared extravaganza, which I'm still recovering from.
Since October ticked over, the previously surprisingly sunny weather has taken a dramatic turn for the cold. So London winter, here I come. My next main holiday is not till December so the next couple of months will be spent trying to save some of these valuable British Pounds to bring back home, instead of spending it all on travel and booze. Wish me luck!
See you in January!
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