It is with a tinge of regret amidst great anticipation that we make our final entry of the holiday. In three hours' time we'll be on the plane home with 13-14 hours of travel ahead, and the comfort of our own home awaiting us. Far at the back of our minds is the prospect of returning to work and all the drudgery that accompanies it, but even the idea of getting back into a routine seems somewhat attractive after two months of free days and afternoon drinking (I know, it sounds great when you put it like that, but you really do get sick of it after a while).
Anyway, picking up where we left off, we got up bright and early yesterday to go to the meeting place for our 12 hour tour to the Mekong Delta, but unfortunately George came down with a brief but intense bout of the Saigon belly and we decided to give it a miss and hung out in the hotel for a few hours until he recovered. After this, we walked to the Jade Emperor Pagoda, which turned out to be quite a mission, as it was a pretty big walk, our dodgy fake Lonely Planet guide has very confusing maps, and it was damn hot on top of that. Another weird thing about this place - the street vendors who sell big bottles of water to passing travellers seem to have two (or possibly three) sets of price signs that they interchange according to how hot it is at the time. This morning, for instance, it was really hot again and we tried to find the place we usually get 1.5 litre bottles for 5,000 dong (about 33 cents), but every stall had signs up for 8,000 instead (I know, I know, it's about 10 or 20 cents difference, but it's the principle). When we were walking back in the afternoon just after it had rained and cooled down, the price had miraculously changed back to 5,000.
Anyway, we eventually found the pagoda, which was cool but probably not really worth the walk, and then walked back to the main area and had a very tasty lunch at what turned out to be a particularly fancy Vietnamese restaurant (and still only cost us about $30). After this we were at a bit of a loss as to what to do, and after the previous day of excessive beerage, we decided to head back to the hotel for a 'rest' before dinner, which turned out to be the rest of the night lying on the bed and watching crap on TV and reading.
This morning we stuffed around until check out at 12, using the gym here in attempt to get back into an exercise routine, packing and stuff, then spent the rest of the afternoon shopping at the Ben Than markets, getting caught in yet another downpour, and having lunch and a few beers. Now we're back at the hotel filling in time until we get our taxi to the airport.
Despite our initial reluctance to even be here, we've quite enjoyed Vietnam and intend to come back one day and do some more travelling to Hanoi and possibly into Cambodia (eventually...). You hear so many accounts of journalists and photographers who worked here during the war and despite the atrocities they saw they can't stop themselves from coming back again and again (just listen to the words of Khe Sanh), and now I can kind of understand it. There is something about this place, despite the filth and poverty. Everyone is so friendly (despite just trying to get their hands on our money), a huge contrast from the generally abrupt if not rude service we experienced in most of Europe without noticing it. The main downside is that the people treat white people like royalty simply because we have so much money, and that is quite uncomfortable for people who simply want to experience the place and not get treated so differently. There are literally people employed at every restaurant simply to open doors for people, and they hang around near your table waiting for the slightest sign of you needing something.
The chaos is very disconcerting at first, but that also becomes kind of addictive after a while. Crossing even the smallest street was terrifying on the first day or two, but now we've learnt how to do it properly (look down at the street, walk very slowly, even yawning helps, and all the motorbikes just weave around you - it you try judging the traffic by looking up or walking too fast, you're bound to stuff up and have someone screech to a halt in front of you, or worse, flatten you) we make any excuse to cross a road just because it's fun.
Well, that wraps up our Vietnam experience and the end of our holiday...we leave here in about 15 minutes and it's all over. Thanks all who've been reading and enjoying, and we'll see you all soon.
Cheers
Bec & George
13 October 2007
12 October 2007
This place is f#cking crazy!
Saigon...sh*t...
The immortal words of Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now. They begin to make sense. This place is seriously insane. But awesome. But uncontrolled and zany. But fun. You get the idea. Basically, it's the kind of place you either fall madly in love with, or leave with your tail between your legs. Personally, I'm planning a return visit.
OK, so with the hyperbole aside, we spent our first day here doing the sights. A lot of this was, admittedly, forgettable, but the War Remnants Museum was amazing for its 180 degree view on everything we consider common knowledge e.g. the VC were national heroes (to us, 'war criminals'), the war was one of invasion (as opposed to 'opposing communism') and the brutality of war crimes the actions of patriots. But all that aside, this country has proudly become more than it hoped to after countless years of imperial repression, and is basking in its unique embrace of capitalism in a socialist guise.
Where was I? Oh yeah...after we were done with our wandering we collapsed into the rooftop bar of the Sheraton Hotel where we enjoyed spectacular views of the sun going down and half-price cocktails. We then indulged in our first bowl of pho, Vietnam's answer to the lamb sandwich. It's little more than meat and noodles in stock (with herbs and bean sprouts) but super tasty.
It was following this meal that we had our first run in with the Vietnamese wet season - dear God, when it rains here, nature doesn't stuff around. Anyhow, soaking wet we stumbled into the nearest dry place, which turned out to be called 'Guns 'n Roses Bar'. No points for guessing what music was playing. After a few beers and atrocious games of pool we braved the weather back to our hotel (about 20m down the street).
Yesterday, after a belated start due to my thinking I'd contracted chronic fatigue syndrome from the water, we continued our walk around the city, including Ben Than Markets and the (very filthy) river, then basically resigned ourselves to food and booze at a fantastic little place called The Goldfish. After what turned out to be half price beers, we were inspired to find the famed 'bia hoi', super-cheap draught beer sold by the litre. Having struck a rapport with the Goldfish staff, we were directed to the local swilling pit, where we not only indulged in litres of beer for less than $1 each, but also entertained the locals by my headbutting the door jamb of the very dubious bogger (the worst toilet in Scotland; an achievement for Vietnam). A staff member saw it happen and, after expressing requisite concern, nearly died laughing.
With 5 litres of this bia hoi to carry around in our stomachs we once again got caught in rain and, after some getting lost and extensive pointless debate, crashed out.
Today we actually got off our arses and saw the countryside. We took a boating tour out to the Cu Chi tunnels, famed for absolutely bollocking the Yankies during the Vietnam (read: American) War. It was amazing, but also disturbing, to hear all the stories we are so familiar with told from the completely different perspective. A highlight, but also one of the most terrifying things we've ever done, was to crawl through some of the tunnels that were home to VC for weeks, if not months or years. It was all f*cked up. We got out early, and were very grateful for the escape. There was literally not enough room to turn around in these tunnels; we were told to walk hunched over, but I ended up on hands and knees. Not good.
On our return we enjoyed another feed of pho, then settled in at a bia hoi bar, shortly before the skies opened up. The beer and the torrents down the street were ample entertainment until we decided to brave the short sprint back to our hotel and the pikers' dinner at our hotel restaruant. The run home was made all the more exciting by the fact there was no way of avoiding wet feet. The water was literally two feet deep at some points, and it took all my moral fortitude to wade through the filthy flood barefoot. Yuck. Needless to say, we have since showered and disinfected.
Another tour approaches very early tomorrow, so we depart. Farewell.
The immortal words of Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now. They begin to make sense. This place is seriously insane. But awesome. But uncontrolled and zany. But fun. You get the idea. Basically, it's the kind of place you either fall madly in love with, or leave with your tail between your legs. Personally, I'm planning a return visit.
OK, so with the hyperbole aside, we spent our first day here doing the sights. A lot of this was, admittedly, forgettable, but the War Remnants Museum was amazing for its 180 degree view on everything we consider common knowledge e.g. the VC were national heroes (to us, 'war criminals'), the war was one of invasion (as opposed to 'opposing communism') and the brutality of war crimes the actions of patriots. But all that aside, this country has proudly become more than it hoped to after countless years of imperial repression, and is basking in its unique embrace of capitalism in a socialist guise.
Where was I? Oh yeah...after we were done with our wandering we collapsed into the rooftop bar of the Sheraton Hotel where we enjoyed spectacular views of the sun going down and half-price cocktails. We then indulged in our first bowl of pho, Vietnam's answer to the lamb sandwich. It's little more than meat and noodles in stock (with herbs and bean sprouts) but super tasty.
It was following this meal that we had our first run in with the Vietnamese wet season - dear God, when it rains here, nature doesn't stuff around. Anyhow, soaking wet we stumbled into the nearest dry place, which turned out to be called 'Guns 'n Roses Bar'. No points for guessing what music was playing. After a few beers and atrocious games of pool we braved the weather back to our hotel (about 20m down the street).
Yesterday, after a belated start due to my thinking I'd contracted chronic fatigue syndrome from the water, we continued our walk around the city, including Ben Than Markets and the (very filthy) river, then basically resigned ourselves to food and booze at a fantastic little place called The Goldfish. After what turned out to be half price beers, we were inspired to find the famed 'bia hoi', super-cheap draught beer sold by the litre. Having struck a rapport with the Goldfish staff, we were directed to the local swilling pit, where we not only indulged in litres of beer for less than $1 each, but also entertained the locals by my headbutting the door jamb of the very dubious bogger (the worst toilet in Scotland; an achievement for Vietnam). A staff member saw it happen and, after expressing requisite concern, nearly died laughing.
With 5 litres of this bia hoi to carry around in our stomachs we once again got caught in rain and, after some getting lost and extensive pointless debate, crashed out.
Today we actually got off our arses and saw the countryside. We took a boating tour out to the Cu Chi tunnels, famed for absolutely bollocking the Yankies during the Vietnam (read: American) War. It was amazing, but also disturbing, to hear all the stories we are so familiar with told from the completely different perspective. A highlight, but also one of the most terrifying things we've ever done, was to crawl through some of the tunnels that were home to VC for weeks, if not months or years. It was all f*cked up. We got out early, and were very grateful for the escape. There was literally not enough room to turn around in these tunnels; we were told to walk hunched over, but I ended up on hands and knees. Not good.
On our return we enjoyed another feed of pho, then settled in at a bia hoi bar, shortly before the skies opened up. The beer and the torrents down the street were ample entertainment until we decided to brave the short sprint back to our hotel and the pikers' dinner at our hotel restaruant. The run home was made all the more exciting by the fact there was no way of avoiding wet feet. The water was literally two feet deep at some points, and it took all my moral fortitude to wade through the filthy flood barefoot. Yuck. Needless to say, we have since showered and disinfected.
Another tour approaches very early tomorrow, so we depart. Farewell.
08 October 2007
Fading fast in Ho Chi Minh
We've just arrived in Ho Chi Minh City and are both feeling rather messed up from a combination of way too long away from home, it being about 4am in our bodies but 10am here, and no sleep since 6am yesterday morning. We arrived at 7 o'clock this morning and thankfully our hotel will allow us to check in at 10 rather than the usual 2pm, so we're only 10 minutes away from showers and a change of clothes.
We're both finding it difficult to get fired up about acquainting ourselves with yet another city, especially one as crazy as this. Our taxi driver informed us on the way to the hotel that there are 10 million people in this city, and I think every one of them was on the roads this morning. Most people ride around on scooters (no helmets of course) and no one looks where they're going. From our short walk around we've already learnt that you don't look when you cross the road, you just look down at the road, grit your teeth and walk across. They do make way but it's very frightening.
We've booked five nights here but we're already considering seeing if we can change our flights to a couple of days earlier - it's probably not possible, but it's such a good thought to get home a few days earlier than planned that we want to try!
If not, we'll make the best of our time here. We're considering doing a full day cooking course including a morning visit to the Ben Thanh Market, which is close to our hotel. We decided to buy a guide book this morning because we know literally nothing about the city, so we got a Lonely Planet guide from a stall on the street, and of course it is a dodgy photocopy inside a glossy cover. Oh well. We're too buggered and indifferent to complain, so we'll just count it as one more stupid bastard tourist mistake. Other than this we'll probably just roam the streets and drink cocktails and beer (not much different from anywhere else really).
I can't even be bothered looking up the Vietnamese word for goodbye even though we got a 'free' phrasebook with our guidebook.
Seeya
We're both finding it difficult to get fired up about acquainting ourselves with yet another city, especially one as crazy as this. Our taxi driver informed us on the way to the hotel that there are 10 million people in this city, and I think every one of them was on the roads this morning. Most people ride around on scooters (no helmets of course) and no one looks where they're going. From our short walk around we've already learnt that you don't look when you cross the road, you just look down at the road, grit your teeth and walk across. They do make way but it's very frightening.
We've booked five nights here but we're already considering seeing if we can change our flights to a couple of days earlier - it's probably not possible, but it's such a good thought to get home a few days earlier than planned that we want to try!
If not, we'll make the best of our time here. We're considering doing a full day cooking course including a morning visit to the Ben Thanh Market, which is close to our hotel. We decided to buy a guide book this morning because we know literally nothing about the city, so we got a Lonely Planet guide from a stall on the street, and of course it is a dodgy photocopy inside a glossy cover. Oh well. We're too buggered and indifferent to complain, so we'll just count it as one more stupid bastard tourist mistake. Other than this we'll probably just roam the streets and drink cocktails and beer (not much different from anywhere else really).
I can't even be bothered looking up the Vietnamese word for goodbye even though we got a 'free' phrasebook with our guidebook.
Seeya
06 October 2007
On the countdown
We are literally into our last day in Europe. I can't believe it's gone so fast.
We are now in Amsterdam, but our final day in Berlin consisted of a panicked rush to meet a walking tour group that we'd already booked and paid for. We caught it after multiple train changes and much swearing. This was a good thing as the tour was really good, taking in most of the key sites and giving a quick overview of Berlin's amazing history. When the tour was over, we went back over a few sites we didn't look at properly before, and now I can't remember what else we did.
On the final night of our stay in Berlin, we found our way to the Brandenburg Gate where a major concert thing was being set up. We assumed it was to do with the national holiday celebrating the re-merging of the two Germanys, but it turned out to be a Coke 'new band competition' type thing. All the same, it was good. Getting there was bizarre - we followed the hordes around a series of blockaded roads and finally found our way into the parklands where the event was being held, only to be looking back on where we'd started. We got stuck into some potent punch, watched a few bands and left before it got too chaotic - there were probably hundreds of thousands of people there. We had a classy dinner at an American grill where we got treated to free dips, marshmallows to melt over a hibachi-style cooker and a postcard that they sent on for us. Very nice.
After another 6 hour train ride (our last) we found our way to our Amsterdam hotel which turns out to be a complete bog hole, run by a grumpy tosser. Needless to say we've been spending as little time as possible there. We had dinner at a pizza joint and pretty much crashed out.
Yesterday we spent just walking. This city is sometimes called 'the Venice of the north', and it is fitting, although it's more busy in a more city-like way than Venice. We took a cruise along the canals which was made all the more enjoyable by a crotchety old captain with a cutting wit and heavy dose of sarcasm. We got into the beers pretty much straight after that, resulting in my post-dinner stumble in the middle of a main road. I have scabs on hands and knees as evidence.
Today we went through Anne Frank's house (thanks for the recommendation, Tracy) which was thorougly moving having just read the book and also having experienced plenty more Holocaust and war history in recent weeks. In the wind up of the European leg of our trip, we will now discover a few more beers and say farewell to Amsterdam in the most appropriate way.
Next report from Vietnam!
We are now in Amsterdam, but our final day in Berlin consisted of a panicked rush to meet a walking tour group that we'd already booked and paid for. We caught it after multiple train changes and much swearing. This was a good thing as the tour was really good, taking in most of the key sites and giving a quick overview of Berlin's amazing history. When the tour was over, we went back over a few sites we didn't look at properly before, and now I can't remember what else we did.
On the final night of our stay in Berlin, we found our way to the Brandenburg Gate where a major concert thing was being set up. We assumed it was to do with the national holiday celebrating the re-merging of the two Germanys, but it turned out to be a Coke 'new band competition' type thing. All the same, it was good. Getting there was bizarre - we followed the hordes around a series of blockaded roads and finally found our way into the parklands where the event was being held, only to be looking back on where we'd started. We got stuck into some potent punch, watched a few bands and left before it got too chaotic - there were probably hundreds of thousands of people there. We had a classy dinner at an American grill where we got treated to free dips, marshmallows to melt over a hibachi-style cooker and a postcard that they sent on for us. Very nice.
After another 6 hour train ride (our last) we found our way to our Amsterdam hotel which turns out to be a complete bog hole, run by a grumpy tosser. Needless to say we've been spending as little time as possible there. We had dinner at a pizza joint and pretty much crashed out.
Yesterday we spent just walking. This city is sometimes called 'the Venice of the north', and it is fitting, although it's more busy in a more city-like way than Venice. We took a cruise along the canals which was made all the more enjoyable by a crotchety old captain with a cutting wit and heavy dose of sarcasm. We got into the beers pretty much straight after that, resulting in my post-dinner stumble in the middle of a main road. I have scabs on hands and knees as evidence.
Today we went through Anne Frank's house (thanks for the recommendation, Tracy) which was thorougly moving having just read the book and also having experienced plenty more Holocaust and war history in recent weeks. In the wind up of the European leg of our trip, we will now discover a few more beers and say farewell to Amsterdam in the most appropriate way.
Next report from Vietnam!
03 October 2007
Two days in Berlin
This will have to be a quick entry as we have only 12 minutes left of internet time.
This is our second full day in Berlin and so far we've both loved it. It's a very cool city with a laid-back vibe and plenty of friendly people.
Yesterday we took a train out to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which was an interesting experience. Unfortunately all the museums were closed to we just wandered around the camp and marvelled at all that had gone on there in the past. It was a little sobering.
We then went back into the city and walked around for a while. We found this really weird area where there were numerous grey blocks of stone at various sizes but with no explanation of what it actually was (this morning we learned it was a Jewish holocaust memorial and that the lack of signage was intentional). Later we finally succumbed to a meal of Indian curries followed up by a few cocktails at a weird Incan bar before an early night.
This morning we went on a three hour walking tour of Berlin, which was quite interesting. We walked about five kilometres and saw all the main important areas of the city and we both learnt a lot we didn't know about the city's rather colourful history.
After this we wandered back to a few places we didn't spend much time at on the tour, like the biggest remaining section of the Berlin wall, had some lunch and here we are. Heading back to the hotel for a rest before we head out for the evening.
Gotta go.
This is our second full day in Berlin and so far we've both loved it. It's a very cool city with a laid-back vibe and plenty of friendly people.
Yesterday we took a train out to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which was an interesting experience. Unfortunately all the museums were closed to we just wandered around the camp and marvelled at all that had gone on there in the past. It was a little sobering.
We then went back into the city and walked around for a while. We found this really weird area where there were numerous grey blocks of stone at various sizes but with no explanation of what it actually was (this morning we learned it was a Jewish holocaust memorial and that the lack of signage was intentional). Later we finally succumbed to a meal of Indian curries followed up by a few cocktails at a weird Incan bar before an early night.
This morning we went on a three hour walking tour of Berlin, which was quite interesting. We walked about five kilometres and saw all the main important areas of the city and we both learnt a lot we didn't know about the city's rather colourful history.
After this we wandered back to a few places we didn't spend much time at on the tour, like the biggest remaining section of the Berlin wall, had some lunch and here we are. Heading back to the hotel for a rest before we head out for the evening.
Gotta go.
01 October 2007
More beer, more beer, more beer, more beer...
That pretty much sums up our experience at the Oktoberfest yesterday. We report, much the worse for wear, from Berlin where we have just arrived after 6 hours on a train. I've had a headache for 24 hours straight and there are no pharmacies open on Sundays and no pain killing drugs available in supermarkets.
Our first day in Munich was, to put it frankly, a bit shit. It poured with rain all day long and it was bitterly cold. After becoming drenched in 10 minutes of rain, we eventually procured umbrellas and headed into the city to check things out. With the weather the way it was, it was difficult to experience much of what had been recommended to us in Munich - all the beer gardens were closed, walking around looking at the sights or seeing parklands was pretty useless, so we were restricted to shopping for Birkenstocks and going to the Augustiner Bierhalle, both of which we pulled off with some success.
The rain actually did stop in the late afternoon, so we mastered yet another metro system and went to find a jazz bar recommended by our trusty Lonely Planet guide. Unfortunately the jazz bar appeared to have been replaced by an expensive looking Italian restaurant, so we salvaged some part of the evening and ducked into another bar, which although completely empty other than staff and with pretty bad music, was actually relatively cool. A few drinks later we decided to call it a night without dinner considering we'd had a big lunch.
As something of a miracle yesterday ended up being superb weather-wise, so we boarded the tram and followed the hoards to the Oktoberfest. At first we just wandered around marvelling at the sheer size of the place, watching crazy drunk dudes on suicidal fair rides and perving on buxom wenches and cute boys in tight lederhosen.
We attempted to get into a few of the larger bier halls, but found enormous lines to get into all of them, so we contented ourselves with the smaller and slightly more sedate Paulaner hall, where we were able to get standing room to begin our day of drinking. The first beer went down remarkably quickly and we wisely decided to order some food before things got too messy. Several sausages, roast pork and potato dumplings later we braved the outside beer garden (again, standing room only) and soaked up the sun for what turned out to be a huge afternoon.
We were quickly befriended by a group of Germans from Dusseldorf who took a liking to us and asked us all sorts of questions about Australia and insisted on us teaching them an Australian beer song. They couldn't have been more delighted with the lyrically complex 'more beer, more beer, more beer, more beer...' etc and the rowdy renditions went on for several minutes at a time, always followed up with the magical refrain of 'Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi oi oi!' It was kind of embarrassing but pretty funny.
The afternoon passed in a daze and I remember very little of it other than that every time I came back from the toilet I had a new beer. I think other people were buying us beers, because this morning we had quite a lot of money left over, which shouldn't happen when you're drinking 1 litre steins at €7.70 each.
Somehow we found our way out and back to the tram, where I continuously dropped my water bottle on the ground. On one of these occasions as I bent to pick up the bottle for the millionth time, the tram doors opened and I was surprised to discover myself sitting on my arse outside the tram. Yes, I fell out of a tram. Luckily the other passengers' amusement and my embarrassment only lasted until the next stop, where we were actually supposed to get off. I guess it would have been more appropriate if I'd fallen out there instead.
Neither of us remember anything of getting back to the hotel, but some time later we woke up lying on the bed in the dark fully clothed. In a bit of a daze and wondering what had happened, we got undressed and got in bed, and it was only as we were trying to work out what time to set the alarm for the following morning that we found to our surprise that it was only quarter past eight. Not really being up for dragging our sorry arses out to find some dinner, George went down to reception and ordered us a dodgy pizza, which I am quite sure saved my life. We very quickly passed out again, only to wake up this morning with headaches and foggy heads to make our way to the train station once again.
It's too early to have any real impression of Berlin yet, as so far we've just walked around trying without success to find me some drugs. We'll probably just have a quiet dinner and an early night, and I'm quite sure mine at least will be alcohol free for only the second time in the last 6 weeks...
Auf weidersehen
Our first day in Munich was, to put it frankly, a bit shit. It poured with rain all day long and it was bitterly cold. After becoming drenched in 10 minutes of rain, we eventually procured umbrellas and headed into the city to check things out. With the weather the way it was, it was difficult to experience much of what had been recommended to us in Munich - all the beer gardens were closed, walking around looking at the sights or seeing parklands was pretty useless, so we were restricted to shopping for Birkenstocks and going to the Augustiner Bierhalle, both of which we pulled off with some success.
The rain actually did stop in the late afternoon, so we mastered yet another metro system and went to find a jazz bar recommended by our trusty Lonely Planet guide. Unfortunately the jazz bar appeared to have been replaced by an expensive looking Italian restaurant, so we salvaged some part of the evening and ducked into another bar, which although completely empty other than staff and with pretty bad music, was actually relatively cool. A few drinks later we decided to call it a night without dinner considering we'd had a big lunch.
As something of a miracle yesterday ended up being superb weather-wise, so we boarded the tram and followed the hoards to the Oktoberfest. At first we just wandered around marvelling at the sheer size of the place, watching crazy drunk dudes on suicidal fair rides and perving on buxom wenches and cute boys in tight lederhosen.
We attempted to get into a few of the larger bier halls, but found enormous lines to get into all of them, so we contented ourselves with the smaller and slightly more sedate Paulaner hall, where we were able to get standing room to begin our day of drinking. The first beer went down remarkably quickly and we wisely decided to order some food before things got too messy. Several sausages, roast pork and potato dumplings later we braved the outside beer garden (again, standing room only) and soaked up the sun for what turned out to be a huge afternoon.
We were quickly befriended by a group of Germans from Dusseldorf who took a liking to us and asked us all sorts of questions about Australia and insisted on us teaching them an Australian beer song. They couldn't have been more delighted with the lyrically complex 'more beer, more beer, more beer, more beer...' etc and the rowdy renditions went on for several minutes at a time, always followed up with the magical refrain of 'Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi oi oi!' It was kind of embarrassing but pretty funny.
The afternoon passed in a daze and I remember very little of it other than that every time I came back from the toilet I had a new beer. I think other people were buying us beers, because this morning we had quite a lot of money left over, which shouldn't happen when you're drinking 1 litre steins at €7.70 each.
Somehow we found our way out and back to the tram, where I continuously dropped my water bottle on the ground. On one of these occasions as I bent to pick up the bottle for the millionth time, the tram doors opened and I was surprised to discover myself sitting on my arse outside the tram. Yes, I fell out of a tram. Luckily the other passengers' amusement and my embarrassment only lasted until the next stop, where we were actually supposed to get off. I guess it would have been more appropriate if I'd fallen out there instead.
Neither of us remember anything of getting back to the hotel, but some time later we woke up lying on the bed in the dark fully clothed. In a bit of a daze and wondering what had happened, we got undressed and got in bed, and it was only as we were trying to work out what time to set the alarm for the following morning that we found to our surprise that it was only quarter past eight. Not really being up for dragging our sorry arses out to find some dinner, George went down to reception and ordered us a dodgy pizza, which I am quite sure saved my life. We very quickly passed out again, only to wake up this morning with headaches and foggy heads to make our way to the train station once again.
It's too early to have any real impression of Berlin yet, as so far we've just walked around trying without success to find me some drugs. We'll probably just have a quiet dinner and an early night, and I'm quite sure mine at least will be alcohol free for only the second time in the last 6 weeks...
Auf weidersehen
28 September 2007
Prague - a tale of excess
Prague nearly did me in. Well, to be frank, an excess of beer and a heavy dose of stupidity nearly did me in. When we last left you, we were about to head off for a beer tour of the city. Of course, with a bit of time to kill, we cleverly decided a few warm up brews were necessary. Coincidently ending up in the same bar at which we'd swilled tequila and Bloody Maries the night prior, we got stuck into the steins and were already ticking over when we met the tour group at the Wenceslas Square statue. The tour took us to five pubs, of which I only really remember three. We had a meal at one, tried some scary schapps-like stuff at another, and my night effectively ended with a couple of shots of absynthe, reputedly 70% alcohol.
Needless to say, the next day I was poorly but we still had to see the sites. We made it to the Astronomical Clock for the great anti climax of it chiming, we crossed the Charles Bridge, which was beautiful despite teeming with tourists, and took a big walk around the Prague Castle. We rounded out the day with a traditional Czech lunch and some shopping for warmer clothes, then went out for dinner at a very pleasant pub-restaurant. Here we tried hot apple punch which, unfortunately, was loaded with rum and smelled like diesel with a splash of apple juice. We also discovered that there's a drink called 'grog' but were disappointed to learn that it is simply rum with hot water. Yuck.
Our train journey to Munchen was uneventful apart from a pile of drunken, lederhosen-wearing Germans piling into the first class cabin with us half an hour from our destination. Despite it being the end of the day, they put Australian drinking records to shame - a few girls passed around a few bottles between them and surely would have knocked over two bottles in that short journey.
Last night we had the mixed pleasure of our first beer garden experience, mixed because despite the food and beer being really good, the 8,000 or so seats in the beer garden itself were deserted due to inclement weather. Nevertheless, the meat-meat-meat spectacular I had was good, and, apart from a deceptively-named dunkel weiss bier (not a fan of wheat beer), the beer was cracking. The service was also good; the waiter had a good laugh at us struggling to read the all-Deutsch menu and eventually took pity, saying "why didn't you ask for an English menu?". Duh.
Today the weather is abject poo. On the way to writing this little diatribe we went to four venues seeking an umbrella, which we have now secured. However, the persistent rain is dampening many plans; a recommended free walking tour of Munich is looking unlikely, and beer gardens more so, especially given that I feel like my stomach has recently turned into a rusty spin dryer. Regardless we will go out again shortly and tackle the day, saving energy for the Oktoberfest (and maybe the AFL Grand Final) tomorrow.
Needless to say, the next day I was poorly but we still had to see the sites. We made it to the Astronomical Clock for the great anti climax of it chiming, we crossed the Charles Bridge, which was beautiful despite teeming with tourists, and took a big walk around the Prague Castle. We rounded out the day with a traditional Czech lunch and some shopping for warmer clothes, then went out for dinner at a very pleasant pub-restaurant. Here we tried hot apple punch which, unfortunately, was loaded with rum and smelled like diesel with a splash of apple juice. We also discovered that there's a drink called 'grog' but were disappointed to learn that it is simply rum with hot water. Yuck.
Our train journey to Munchen was uneventful apart from a pile of drunken, lederhosen-wearing Germans piling into the first class cabin with us half an hour from our destination. Despite it being the end of the day, they put Australian drinking records to shame - a few girls passed around a few bottles between them and surely would have knocked over two bottles in that short journey.
Last night we had the mixed pleasure of our first beer garden experience, mixed because despite the food and beer being really good, the 8,000 or so seats in the beer garden itself were deserted due to inclement weather. Nevertheless, the meat-meat-meat spectacular I had was good, and, apart from a deceptively-named dunkel weiss bier (not a fan of wheat beer), the beer was cracking. The service was also good; the waiter had a good laugh at us struggling to read the all-Deutsch menu and eventually took pity, saying "why didn't you ask for an English menu?". Duh.
Today the weather is abject poo. On the way to writing this little diatribe we went to four venues seeking an umbrella, which we have now secured. However, the persistent rain is dampening many plans; a recommended free walking tour of Munich is looking unlikely, and beer gardens more so, especially given that I feel like my stomach has recently turned into a rusty spin dryer. Regardless we will go out again shortly and tackle the day, saving energy for the Oktoberfest (and maybe the AFL Grand Final) tomorrow.
26 September 2007
Horses, beer and gothic towers
I'm going to begin by saying that I want a Lipizzaner...
The performance by the Lipizzaner stallions at the Spanish Riding School was absolutely awesome and worth every cent of the very expensive ticket prices. The venue itself was almost opera-esque - gallery seating on two levels looking down on the arena, and we had the perfect seats - on the lower level, about 3 metres above the ground and right in the centre of the long side of the arena.
Bear with me while I go through the highlights for me - they probably won't make a whole lot of sense to anyone who hasn't ridden horses for half their life, but I need to record them before they disappear from my memory. Unfortunately we weren't able to take any photos of the performance, and although everyone had cameras, they all obeyed the rule so I did too. I now regret that because all we have are several photos of the empty arena, but at least they are proof that we were actually there.
The first part of the performance was a group of eight young stallions still in training and performing fairly basic dressage movements. The mere fact that there were eight young stallions in the same confined space was interesting enough in itself, as some of them were absolutely exploding with hormones and a few 'mistakes' were made. It was then that the brilliance of the riders first became apparent - despite the antics of these very strong and exciteable young horses, the riders remained calm, quiet and with the softest hands you can imagine.
After this came a group of four of the mature stallions who performed more advanced movements that easily outstripped the abilities of the top international Grand Prix dressage horses, who are usually pushed beyond their abilities too quickly and eventually break down. These horses were almost perfectly calm and well behaved, supple and fit and performed all of the movements with no restraint or stiffness. This was followed by a team of two horses that performed similar movements in mirror image of each other, including some amazing feats such as simultaneous canter pirouettes around one another.
After this came the group of horses in ground training (all the horses are taught the movements from the ground first and then in the saddle with a rider), and this was where we saw the 'airs above the ground', the movements that most people come here for. These included the levade, a controlled rear which takes an enormous amount of strength from the horse, the capriole, which involves the horse rearing, then launching himself into the air and kicking out behind so that for a moment he is suspended horizontally in the air, and another movement that I can't remember the name of, where the horse rears and then leaps forward for two or three bounds on his hind legs.
This was followed by a single horse in long reins with the handler guiding the horse from the hindquarters. This was also cool because it was very difficult to tell how the handler was cueing the horse to perform each movement.
After this they brought out the big guns - the fully mature and trained horses performing the airs above the ground with riders, who incidentally do not use stirrups at all. This was amazing in itself, as the rider is sitting on a saddle almost completely vertical, with no stirrups while the horse leaps along, and the whole time his hands remained soft in the horse's mouth. I hate to think how many times these riders have bad falls before they master this.
The finale was my favourite - eight fully trained, mature stallions performing precision drill-style dressage literally nose to tail. It wasn't the most spectacular part of the performance but to see the happy, eager look on the horses' faces, their calm disposition and the effortless ease with which they performed was an absolute pleasure. On top of this, I saw the best riding I've ever seen in my life, particularly by the leading rider, who was an old guy in his 50s with a rather large paunch, but who had the softest hands I've ever seen. His horse was the calmest and most picture-perfect dressage horse you could image. I couldn't take my eyes off him for the whole performance.
Now I've got that out of my system I'll let George give you his interpretation of the performance from a non-horse person perspective, and he can also fill you in on our activities since we've been in Prague.
Hello, 'tis me. Not once did I think of the Spanish Riding School visit as "Bec's thing" as I was sure I'd find it interesting. In fact, I even quite enjoyed the Lipizzaner museum, particularly watching amazing video of these horses leaping in the air and kicking their hind legs out behind them, in an ancient battle technique called 'the capriole.' Seeing the capriole live is what I came to be excited about, but it turns out the whole show was more amazing than I could have imagined. The sheer control of both riders and horses - not necessarily one over the other, but in general - was staggering. To see, right in front of you, a guy of your size and weight, sitting on a horse as it jumps 3 to 5 steps on its hind legs, or leaping in the air and kicking out at an invisible opponent, is simply dazzling.
The 'slow' bit that Bec really enjoyed was as enjoyable to me; if you can imagine the Holden Precision Team driving independent, strong-willed animals within an inch of death, then you've got the idea. It's not necessarily as dangerous, but Bec is not joking when she says 'nose to tail.' It was beyond perfect. These horses and riders have obviously put in so much time and practice you cannot but be impressed. I literally had hairs standing up on the back of my neck.
Anyhoo, after the riding school we decided to wind down at a few Heurigen houses. Unfortunately it was a mission to get there and back as one section of the normally superb subway line was down, necessitating no less than four changes. We made it in the end and enjoyed sturm ('new' wine that is not entirely fermented, leaving it sweet, slightly effervescent and looking like cloudy apple juice) at one Heurigen house at which we were in danger of being hit by falling chestnuts. We moved to another that had sold out of sturm (it is a rare treat, available only in September of each year, making us very lucky) but we had a wine and a pretzel and watched a Wednesday-doppelganger cat eat and wash. Finally we settled at a place which turned out to have a great buffet and plenty of sturm. We sat outside and I ate until I literally felt sick, making the five trains home quite a debacle.
The train trek to Prague the next day started in a first-class cabin shared with Kiwis (one of whom looked strikingly familiar). We got kicked out of first as our ticket from Breclav to Prague technically didn't allow it, then spent our first hours in the Czech capital trying to resolve issues such as IPods left in Vienna, extremely bad hair and unsuitable shoes. Achieving some of these, we rewarded ourselves by meeting Tom again, as well as Sarah and Matt (Bec works with Sarah) and hitting the booze in a big way. Tom, in his inimitable style, had met a lovely young Mexican lass called Jennifer in Barcelona and brought her along as well, meaning we had a great team to celebrate his 30th birthday in this most magnificent of cities.
We celebrated with a butt-kicking dinner near the famed Astronomical Clock, which of course involved pant-loads of beer, and drinks at a little bar on the way back to respective hotels (tequila slammers and Bloody Maries with double vodka were involved).
With limited memories of last night, Bec and I met Tom again late this morning and climbed the Powder Tower which gave great views over Prague and a coming rain storm. Farewelling Tom, we scoffed some dodgy local vendor food and headed off to shop for clothes on the cheap. With some success, and the rain pelting down, we ducked into the first available bar, which by coincidence was the same as we'd indulged in various spirits the night prior. And that, two and a half litres of beer later, brings us to now.
Tonight we're copping out to the tour thing and seeing traditional beer halls and the like. I personally can't wait. Until next time.
Prost!
The performance by the Lipizzaner stallions at the Spanish Riding School was absolutely awesome and worth every cent of the very expensive ticket prices. The venue itself was almost opera-esque - gallery seating on two levels looking down on the arena, and we had the perfect seats - on the lower level, about 3 metres above the ground and right in the centre of the long side of the arena.
Bear with me while I go through the highlights for me - they probably won't make a whole lot of sense to anyone who hasn't ridden horses for half their life, but I need to record them before they disappear from my memory. Unfortunately we weren't able to take any photos of the performance, and although everyone had cameras, they all obeyed the rule so I did too. I now regret that because all we have are several photos of the empty arena, but at least they are proof that we were actually there.
The first part of the performance was a group of eight young stallions still in training and performing fairly basic dressage movements. The mere fact that there were eight young stallions in the same confined space was interesting enough in itself, as some of them were absolutely exploding with hormones and a few 'mistakes' were made. It was then that the brilliance of the riders first became apparent - despite the antics of these very strong and exciteable young horses, the riders remained calm, quiet and with the softest hands you can imagine.
After this came a group of four of the mature stallions who performed more advanced movements that easily outstripped the abilities of the top international Grand Prix dressage horses, who are usually pushed beyond their abilities too quickly and eventually break down. These horses were almost perfectly calm and well behaved, supple and fit and performed all of the movements with no restraint or stiffness. This was followed by a team of two horses that performed similar movements in mirror image of each other, including some amazing feats such as simultaneous canter pirouettes around one another.
After this came the group of horses in ground training (all the horses are taught the movements from the ground first and then in the saddle with a rider), and this was where we saw the 'airs above the ground', the movements that most people come here for. These included the levade, a controlled rear which takes an enormous amount of strength from the horse, the capriole, which involves the horse rearing, then launching himself into the air and kicking out behind so that for a moment he is suspended horizontally in the air, and another movement that I can't remember the name of, where the horse rears and then leaps forward for two or three bounds on his hind legs.
This was followed by a single horse in long reins with the handler guiding the horse from the hindquarters. This was also cool because it was very difficult to tell how the handler was cueing the horse to perform each movement.
After this they brought out the big guns - the fully mature and trained horses performing the airs above the ground with riders, who incidentally do not use stirrups at all. This was amazing in itself, as the rider is sitting on a saddle almost completely vertical, with no stirrups while the horse leaps along, and the whole time his hands remained soft in the horse's mouth. I hate to think how many times these riders have bad falls before they master this.
The finale was my favourite - eight fully trained, mature stallions performing precision drill-style dressage literally nose to tail. It wasn't the most spectacular part of the performance but to see the happy, eager look on the horses' faces, their calm disposition and the effortless ease with which they performed was an absolute pleasure. On top of this, I saw the best riding I've ever seen in my life, particularly by the leading rider, who was an old guy in his 50s with a rather large paunch, but who had the softest hands I've ever seen. His horse was the calmest and most picture-perfect dressage horse you could image. I couldn't take my eyes off him for the whole performance.
Now I've got that out of my system I'll let George give you his interpretation of the performance from a non-horse person perspective, and he can also fill you in on our activities since we've been in Prague.
Hello, 'tis me. Not once did I think of the Spanish Riding School visit as "Bec's thing" as I was sure I'd find it interesting. In fact, I even quite enjoyed the Lipizzaner museum, particularly watching amazing video of these horses leaping in the air and kicking their hind legs out behind them, in an ancient battle technique called 'the capriole.' Seeing the capriole live is what I came to be excited about, but it turns out the whole show was more amazing than I could have imagined. The sheer control of both riders and horses - not necessarily one over the other, but in general - was staggering. To see, right in front of you, a guy of your size and weight, sitting on a horse as it jumps 3 to 5 steps on its hind legs, or leaping in the air and kicking out at an invisible opponent, is simply dazzling.
The 'slow' bit that Bec really enjoyed was as enjoyable to me; if you can imagine the Holden Precision Team driving independent, strong-willed animals within an inch of death, then you've got the idea. It's not necessarily as dangerous, but Bec is not joking when she says 'nose to tail.' It was beyond perfect. These horses and riders have obviously put in so much time and practice you cannot but be impressed. I literally had hairs standing up on the back of my neck.
Anyhoo, after the riding school we decided to wind down at a few Heurigen houses. Unfortunately it was a mission to get there and back as one section of the normally superb subway line was down, necessitating no less than four changes. We made it in the end and enjoyed sturm ('new' wine that is not entirely fermented, leaving it sweet, slightly effervescent and looking like cloudy apple juice) at one Heurigen house at which we were in danger of being hit by falling chestnuts. We moved to another that had sold out of sturm (it is a rare treat, available only in September of each year, making us very lucky) but we had a wine and a pretzel and watched a Wednesday-doppelganger cat eat and wash. Finally we settled at a place which turned out to have a great buffet and plenty of sturm. We sat outside and I ate until I literally felt sick, making the five trains home quite a debacle.
The train trek to Prague the next day started in a first-class cabin shared with Kiwis (one of whom looked strikingly familiar). We got kicked out of first as our ticket from Breclav to Prague technically didn't allow it, then spent our first hours in the Czech capital trying to resolve issues such as IPods left in Vienna, extremely bad hair and unsuitable shoes. Achieving some of these, we rewarded ourselves by meeting Tom again, as well as Sarah and Matt (Bec works with Sarah) and hitting the booze in a big way. Tom, in his inimitable style, had met a lovely young Mexican lass called Jennifer in Barcelona and brought her along as well, meaning we had a great team to celebrate his 30th birthday in this most magnificent of cities.
We celebrated with a butt-kicking dinner near the famed Astronomical Clock, which of course involved pant-loads of beer, and drinks at a little bar on the way back to respective hotels (tequila slammers and Bloody Maries with double vodka were involved).
With limited memories of last night, Bec and I met Tom again late this morning and climbed the Powder Tower which gave great views over Prague and a coming rain storm. Farewelling Tom, we scoffed some dodgy local vendor food and headed off to shop for clothes on the cheap. With some success, and the rain pelting down, we ducked into the first available bar, which by coincidence was the same as we'd indulged in various spirits the night prior. And that, two and a half litres of beer later, brings us to now.
Tonight we're copping out to the tour thing and seeing traditional beer halls and the like. I personally can't wait. Until next time.
Prost!
23 September 2007
Guten Tag from Vienna
Forgot to mention in our last post that one of the benefits of the super long and mostly drunken train ride here was that it was our first journey that we could actually see substantial changes in the landscape along the way. It was also by far the most scenic trip yet, going between mountains covered with pine trees and tipped with snow, and through valleys that looked as well tended as a golf course but were complete wilderness.
The contrast of what we´ve seen of this whole country thus far with dirty, disorganised Rome is amazing. Everything here is absolutely immaculate and clean, even the metro stations and public toilets! The traffic is sedate and polite, the drivers readily give way to pedestrians, and the whole pace of this place is slower and more relaxed. You´d hardly guess it was such a big city until you try to walk all over it, like we did.
After our last post we were surprised to discover (particularly after our experience in Spain and Italy with the siesta) that none of the restaurants nearby were open at quarter past nine. So we decided that we weren´t really hungry anyway and skipped dinner altogether in preference of an early night.
The following morning we availed ourselves of the very generous and excellent breakfast here - at last, no more overly sweet pastries and cake. There were some other bizzare additions, such as cold meats, brie and swiss cheese, bread rolls and savoury dips, as well as the usual bread, eggs, bacon, cereal, yoghurt, etc. Surprisingly the coffee here is quite good too, even from an automatic machine, and far better than anything we had in Italy. OK, I´ll stop talking about food now.
After breakfast we started our tour of the city, checking out some of the numerous churches and palaces. The highlight was a quick tour of the catacombs beneath St Stephen´s Place, which displayed old statues that had been removed from the outer of the church as well as some more grisly scenes, such as centuries old bones stacked like firewood in individual rooms.
We also went into the Lipizzaner Museum, which chronicles some of the history of the Spanish Riding School as well as the care and training of the Lipizzaner stallions that perform in the show we´ll be seeing tomorrow. Now I´m even more excited about going.
Other than that we just walked absolutely everywhere in our usual pattern, came back to the hotel for a too-short rest before heading out to a restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet guide. It was called the "Gulaschmuseum", and suprisingly enough it served numerous different goulashes, including a chocolate dessert one, which we unfortunately couldn´t possible consider trying after our enormous main courses.
Today we mastered the metro system and did a little less walking. We went to the Hapsburg´s summer palace, a gargantuan palace with 1440 rooms and set on an enormous estate. We didn´t go inside but went for a big walk around the gardens, climbed a monument with a great view of the palace and grounds as well as a good bit of the city, then got ourselves lost in the maze. After this we had a tasty lunch at a cool jazz bar and were served by a grumpy cow of a waiter who wouldn´t even look at us when we spoke to her. She got no tip for her troubles.
Then we went to the House of Music, which was this bizarre interactive museum type thing where you could learn more about the theories of sound and music through a series of hands-on auditory experiments. It was weird.
Tonight we´re heading out to find an area of Heurigen, wine houses that serve their own wine fermented on the premises and are apparently very cool.
Not sure if I mentioned that tomorrow we´re going to the Spanish Riding School...?
Auf weidersehen.
The contrast of what we´ve seen of this whole country thus far with dirty, disorganised Rome is amazing. Everything here is absolutely immaculate and clean, even the metro stations and public toilets! The traffic is sedate and polite, the drivers readily give way to pedestrians, and the whole pace of this place is slower and more relaxed. You´d hardly guess it was such a big city until you try to walk all over it, like we did.
After our last post we were surprised to discover (particularly after our experience in Spain and Italy with the siesta) that none of the restaurants nearby were open at quarter past nine. So we decided that we weren´t really hungry anyway and skipped dinner altogether in preference of an early night.
The following morning we availed ourselves of the very generous and excellent breakfast here - at last, no more overly sweet pastries and cake. There were some other bizzare additions, such as cold meats, brie and swiss cheese, bread rolls and savoury dips, as well as the usual bread, eggs, bacon, cereal, yoghurt, etc. Surprisingly the coffee here is quite good too, even from an automatic machine, and far better than anything we had in Italy. OK, I´ll stop talking about food now.
After breakfast we started our tour of the city, checking out some of the numerous churches and palaces. The highlight was a quick tour of the catacombs beneath St Stephen´s Place, which displayed old statues that had been removed from the outer of the church as well as some more grisly scenes, such as centuries old bones stacked like firewood in individual rooms.
We also went into the Lipizzaner Museum, which chronicles some of the history of the Spanish Riding School as well as the care and training of the Lipizzaner stallions that perform in the show we´ll be seeing tomorrow. Now I´m even more excited about going.
Other than that we just walked absolutely everywhere in our usual pattern, came back to the hotel for a too-short rest before heading out to a restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet guide. It was called the "Gulaschmuseum", and suprisingly enough it served numerous different goulashes, including a chocolate dessert one, which we unfortunately couldn´t possible consider trying after our enormous main courses.
Today we mastered the metro system and did a little less walking. We went to the Hapsburg´s summer palace, a gargantuan palace with 1440 rooms and set on an enormous estate. We didn´t go inside but went for a big walk around the gardens, climbed a monument with a great view of the palace and grounds as well as a good bit of the city, then got ourselves lost in the maze. After this we had a tasty lunch at a cool jazz bar and were served by a grumpy cow of a waiter who wouldn´t even look at us when we spoke to her. She got no tip for her troubles.
Then we went to the House of Music, which was this bizarre interactive museum type thing where you could learn more about the theories of sound and music through a series of hands-on auditory experiments. It was weird.
Tonight we´re heading out to find an area of Heurigen, wine houses that serve their own wine fermented on the premises and are apparently very cool.
Not sure if I mentioned that tomorrow we´re going to the Spanish Riding School...?
Auf weidersehen.
21 September 2007
An addition - kind of important
Bec´s post covered everthing we´ve done and the magnificence of Vienzia very well BUT...
I must add, after an unforeseen sunscreen leakage, my phone is - to use a highly technical term - stuffed. If you need to contact me, please message (or in an emergency phone) Bec on 0412 411 081.
Chairs.
The G Man (yes, I´m pissed).
I must add, after an unforeseen sunscreen leakage, my phone is - to use a highly technical term - stuffed. If you need to contact me, please message (or in an emergency phone) Bec on 0412 411 081.
Chairs.
The G Man (yes, I´m pissed).
Three days in Venice is nowhere near enough
You see it in movies, you read about it, you see photos, but still nothing prepares you for the wonders of Venezia (Venice). It is absolutely amazing. Part of you thinks that maybe it's not actually real, and actually I'm still not sure if it is.
There's something completely surreal about wandering around streets where there are no cars, no scooters, no bicycles, no ambulances, no police cars. The roads are canals and the emergency services, taxis, buses and general transport are all via boat. It's an amazing place - the most unique place we have ever seen, and probably ever will see, again.
The reason we haven't written sooner is twofold - firstly, we've been so enthralled with Venice that we haven't been able to stop long enough to bear going inside as opposed to roaming around endlessly, getting ourselves lost and finding where we are again, and secondly because internet cafes were 7 euros an hour as opposed to the 2 euros an hour we've become accustomed to.
We stayed in an apartment, which was surprisingly cheaper than a hotel room, and it was so good to be able to cook real food again (especially considering Venice is the most expensive city in Italy). Our first day we walked around for a bit, found Piazza San Marco and the Rialto Bridge, then went to the supermarket and bought up big on beer, wine, and groceries. You can't imagine how good it is to cook again after eating out at least once a day for more than a month - all we made was pasta with tomato sauce, chilli and basil and it was one of our best meals of the holiday! That's probably an exaggeration, but it really was such a relief that we couldn't get enough of it.
The following morning, after three weeks of croissants and sweet crap for breakfast, we had scrambled eggs, proscuitto and toast, followed by yoghurt and all bran and it rocked. We also made our own coffee, which, sadly, was better than the majority of the coffee we've had all over Europe (another realisation - coffee in Australia is actually better than in Italy).
That day we pretty much wandered all day with our mouths hanging open in amazement. We started by booking our train to Vienna, then we went to the ghetto which was the place that the Venetian Jews were forced to live before they were herded to their deaths at concentration camps. It was just a square, but it was kind of moving as well - there were plaques and you could kind of picture what it would have been like to live in a trapped community. At some stage we went back to our apartment and had leftover pasta for lunch (yum), then we set out again with the intention of getting purposely lost. We tried to get to some public gardens and then there was a huge thunderstorm and it pissed down with rain. We sheltered under an awning for a while waiting for it to stop, then eventually gave up and tried to walk out anyway. Finding that the rain was much heavier than we'd thought, we stopped under a canopy until the sun came out and the rain almost stopped and we ventured out again. As if all this wasn't enough, we were then pelted by huge pellets of hail, at which time we were luckily in front of a cafe, so we went in for a beer. Here we stayed for an hour or more talking to a fellow Australian who was also stranded there until the rain cleared up. By then the rain seemed to be gone for good so we headed back to our apartment, stopping on the way to buy some fish for dinner. Predictably, while we were in the supermarket it again started pissing down, but knowing we were close to home we decided to brave it anyway. Bunches of locals were lining the streets under awnings and laughing at us as we ran up the street in the pouring rain getting completely drenched, but we made it to our apartment for nice hot showers and a fantastic dinner of roast potatoes, salmon with lemon butter sauce and rocket and cherry tomato salad. Sound good? It was fantastic and it cost us about 5 euros.
We had originally intended to hit the town that night, but the rain persisted and we were so comfortable that we just stayed in and had a quiet one.
The next day (yesterday) we got up early and rushed down to San Marco Square (the biggest tourist area in Venice - a huge square with beautiful architecture and a massive church surrounding it). I was dubious about the lack of tourists but there was hardly anyone there and the morning sun was so beautiful, so we took shitloads of photos and eventually headed very slowly back to our apartment for breakfast, photographing all the way. We had another great breakfast of friend eggs on toast and cereal, then spent hours on the water bus to go to Lido, an island off Venice. Unfortunately Lido was a bit poo, with the promised beaches being rather crap. We salvaged the trip by having relatively good pizzas for lunch (our first paid meal in Venice), then we got back on the boat and went back to the mainland, walked through the gardens we'd missed the day before, then went back to the apartment for a bit of a rest.
After our big lunch we skipped dinner and finally went out to catch a bit of the Venice nightlife. We went to a swanky bar first where we were conducted to a table by a blonde woman who looked more like a hooker than a waitress and bought overpriced drinks and waited for half an hour for the bill before we pissed off as quickly as possible in search of a jazz bar George had spied two days before. Not accustomed to seeing Venice at night, we got lost for a while before finally finding the bar, which turned out to be closed on Wednesdays, and then gave up and went back to the apartment. Unfortunately I'd somehow hurt my back so was not altogether displeased to end the night with an Averna (Italian liquer, $50 a bottle in Adelaide, €9.90 in Venice).
Today was to be our first long haul journey, 8 hours to Vienna, and it was surprisingly bearable, especially when you consider that we were sharing our 6 person cabin with 4 loud Americans. Apart from being a bit loud, they turned out to be totally decent people (amazing enough). We spend the first half of the journey comparing our various cultural practices, which was surprisingly interesting, and then they shared their junk food with us, and then we discovered the drinks trolley served beer, and then we shared our pre-purchased bottle of red with them, and by the time we pulled into Wien we were thoroughly jolly and well aquainted.
We then got a cab to our hotel, dumped our crap and here we are filling you in before we go our for a Viennese dinner. We're now staying here for four days rather than going to Salzburg for two and here for two, so from now we have a minimum of three days in each place, which is quite comforting. Sunday we go to the Spanish Riding School; I can't wait!
We've come to the conclusion that one month is quite long enough for travelling: homesickness has settled in - we're missing Jedi (our dog), our house, our friends and family and I'd just about kill to ride a horse right now. I know the rest of the holiday is going to disappear so fast and I don't want to wish it away, but we've realised how good Australia is, particularly Adelaide (yes, laugh at your will, but try to deny we have it good). We've had no food that is as good or better than good Adelaide food and we crave a bit of order after risking our lives on Italian streets for the last week or two. We may well find that in Vienna and Germany: we'll see.
On that note, we should probably find some dinner. This has become rather long, but I didn't want to leave anything of Venice out.
Conclusion on Italy: if you've got a week or two, skip Rome unless you have a hankering to see the ancient Roman stuff - it is fascinating, but you have a shitload of tourists to contend with, a lot of grime and filth, crazy drivers and quite rude serving staff. Florence is better, but still with the crazy tourist shit. A great base for seeing Tuscany, which is one of the most beautiful places in the world in our opinion. So do that too. And do a Tuscany bike tour, it rocks, even if you're afraid of riding bikes (you'll get over it) and riding through vineyards and olive groves is well worth the physical effort (which is kind of essential in Italy anyway with all the olive oil in everything). Also Venice is an absolute must. Yes, it's expensive, but staying in an apartment makes it worthwhile and you'll never see a more amazing place in your life. It's just incredible. We took more photos there than we've taken just about anywhere!
Speaking of which, we're in the process of uploading photos from Barcelona to Venice into individual albums, so check out the link in the last post. I hope it works - we've had issues finding places that allow it, but there are plenty to peruse if you're keen. I hope you enjoy - sorry about the extreme length of this post.
And from Vienna - prost!!
There's something completely surreal about wandering around streets where there are no cars, no scooters, no bicycles, no ambulances, no police cars. The roads are canals and the emergency services, taxis, buses and general transport are all via boat. It's an amazing place - the most unique place we have ever seen, and probably ever will see, again.
The reason we haven't written sooner is twofold - firstly, we've been so enthralled with Venice that we haven't been able to stop long enough to bear going inside as opposed to roaming around endlessly, getting ourselves lost and finding where we are again, and secondly because internet cafes were 7 euros an hour as opposed to the 2 euros an hour we've become accustomed to.
We stayed in an apartment, which was surprisingly cheaper than a hotel room, and it was so good to be able to cook real food again (especially considering Venice is the most expensive city in Italy). Our first day we walked around for a bit, found Piazza San Marco and the Rialto Bridge, then went to the supermarket and bought up big on beer, wine, and groceries. You can't imagine how good it is to cook again after eating out at least once a day for more than a month - all we made was pasta with tomato sauce, chilli and basil and it was one of our best meals of the holiday! That's probably an exaggeration, but it really was such a relief that we couldn't get enough of it.
The following morning, after three weeks of croissants and sweet crap for breakfast, we had scrambled eggs, proscuitto and toast, followed by yoghurt and all bran and it rocked. We also made our own coffee, which, sadly, was better than the majority of the coffee we've had all over Europe (another realisation - coffee in Australia is actually better than in Italy).
That day we pretty much wandered all day with our mouths hanging open in amazement. We started by booking our train to Vienna, then we went to the ghetto which was the place that the Venetian Jews were forced to live before they were herded to their deaths at concentration camps. It was just a square, but it was kind of moving as well - there were plaques and you could kind of picture what it would have been like to live in a trapped community. At some stage we went back to our apartment and had leftover pasta for lunch (yum), then we set out again with the intention of getting purposely lost. We tried to get to some public gardens and then there was a huge thunderstorm and it pissed down with rain. We sheltered under an awning for a while waiting for it to stop, then eventually gave up and tried to walk out anyway. Finding that the rain was much heavier than we'd thought, we stopped under a canopy until the sun came out and the rain almost stopped and we ventured out again. As if all this wasn't enough, we were then pelted by huge pellets of hail, at which time we were luckily in front of a cafe, so we went in for a beer. Here we stayed for an hour or more talking to a fellow Australian who was also stranded there until the rain cleared up. By then the rain seemed to be gone for good so we headed back to our apartment, stopping on the way to buy some fish for dinner. Predictably, while we were in the supermarket it again started pissing down, but knowing we were close to home we decided to brave it anyway. Bunches of locals were lining the streets under awnings and laughing at us as we ran up the street in the pouring rain getting completely drenched, but we made it to our apartment for nice hot showers and a fantastic dinner of roast potatoes, salmon with lemon butter sauce and rocket and cherry tomato salad. Sound good? It was fantastic and it cost us about 5 euros.
We had originally intended to hit the town that night, but the rain persisted and we were so comfortable that we just stayed in and had a quiet one.
The next day (yesterday) we got up early and rushed down to San Marco Square (the biggest tourist area in Venice - a huge square with beautiful architecture and a massive church surrounding it). I was dubious about the lack of tourists but there was hardly anyone there and the morning sun was so beautiful, so we took shitloads of photos and eventually headed very slowly back to our apartment for breakfast, photographing all the way. We had another great breakfast of friend eggs on toast and cereal, then spent hours on the water bus to go to Lido, an island off Venice. Unfortunately Lido was a bit poo, with the promised beaches being rather crap. We salvaged the trip by having relatively good pizzas for lunch (our first paid meal in Venice), then we got back on the boat and went back to the mainland, walked through the gardens we'd missed the day before, then went back to the apartment for a bit of a rest.
After our big lunch we skipped dinner and finally went out to catch a bit of the Venice nightlife. We went to a swanky bar first where we were conducted to a table by a blonde woman who looked more like a hooker than a waitress and bought overpriced drinks and waited for half an hour for the bill before we pissed off as quickly as possible in search of a jazz bar George had spied two days before. Not accustomed to seeing Venice at night, we got lost for a while before finally finding the bar, which turned out to be closed on Wednesdays, and then gave up and went back to the apartment. Unfortunately I'd somehow hurt my back so was not altogether displeased to end the night with an Averna (Italian liquer, $50 a bottle in Adelaide, €9.90 in Venice).
Today was to be our first long haul journey, 8 hours to Vienna, and it was surprisingly bearable, especially when you consider that we were sharing our 6 person cabin with 4 loud Americans. Apart from being a bit loud, they turned out to be totally decent people (amazing enough). We spend the first half of the journey comparing our various cultural practices, which was surprisingly interesting, and then they shared their junk food with us, and then we discovered the drinks trolley served beer, and then we shared our pre-purchased bottle of red with them, and by the time we pulled into Wien we were thoroughly jolly and well aquainted.
We then got a cab to our hotel, dumped our crap and here we are filling you in before we go our for a Viennese dinner. We're now staying here for four days rather than going to Salzburg for two and here for two, so from now we have a minimum of three days in each place, which is quite comforting. Sunday we go to the Spanish Riding School; I can't wait!
We've come to the conclusion that one month is quite long enough for travelling: homesickness has settled in - we're missing Jedi (our dog), our house, our friends and family and I'd just about kill to ride a horse right now. I know the rest of the holiday is going to disappear so fast and I don't want to wish it away, but we've realised how good Australia is, particularly Adelaide (yes, laugh at your will, but try to deny we have it good). We've had no food that is as good or better than good Adelaide food and we crave a bit of order after risking our lives on Italian streets for the last week or two. We may well find that in Vienna and Germany: we'll see.
On that note, we should probably find some dinner. This has become rather long, but I didn't want to leave anything of Venice out.
Conclusion on Italy: if you've got a week or two, skip Rome unless you have a hankering to see the ancient Roman stuff - it is fascinating, but you have a shitload of tourists to contend with, a lot of grime and filth, crazy drivers and quite rude serving staff. Florence is better, but still with the crazy tourist shit. A great base for seeing Tuscany, which is one of the most beautiful places in the world in our opinion. So do that too. And do a Tuscany bike tour, it rocks, even if you're afraid of riding bikes (you'll get over it) and riding through vineyards and olive groves is well worth the physical effort (which is kind of essential in Italy anyway with all the olive oil in everything). Also Venice is an absolute must. Yes, it's expensive, but staying in an apartment makes it worthwhile and you'll never see a more amazing place in your life. It's just incredible. We took more photos there than we've taken just about anywhere!
Speaking of which, we're in the process of uploading photos from Barcelona to Venice into individual albums, so check out the link in the last post. I hope it works - we've had issues finding places that allow it, but there are plenty to peruse if you're keen. I hope you enjoy - sorry about the extreme length of this post.
And from Vienna - prost!!
17 September 2007
To the next venue
Florence is done. Well, not quite, as we only yesterday discovered the beauty of regional Tuscany, less than an hour from the tourist-drenched streets of Florence.
Anyhoo, after we last left you (with the seemingly unrepeatable miracle of being able to upload photos) we found a cool-looking bar at which to cool our heels. A highlight for me was the local dark ale, the name of which escapes me, but the highlight overall was discovering Veuve Cliquot was available by the glass. I lashed out on one for Bec who can probably never again drink that Aussie muck...(tongue in cheek).
On Saturday we had it in our heads that we were going on our long-planned cycling tour of Tuscany however plans were once again thwarted in that our booking was for one reason or another one week out. However it turned out the tour was overbooked Saturday and underbooked Sunday so we got an easy exchange. We spent the day instead being typical tourists - we climbed the cupola (the inner dome) of the Duomo which really was worth the wait despite my various rants about tourists and line ups, we walked around the entirety of the city seemingly looking for uniquely Tuscan places to eat and drink and ended up settling in the Santo Spirito area where we knocked over a local spumante and then had dinner at the Lonely Planet recommended Trattoria Casalinga. The recommendation is highly advocated - the food as well as the service seems totally genuine e.g. no quarter is given for tourists, the place was packed with locals and was absolutely bloody fabulous. Bec had a seafood anti pasto and the famed cured ham with rockmelon and I enjoyed what was easily one of my top 5 favourite ever steaks, in Florentine style which I think just means 'with salt, pepper and oil and perfectly cooked.' We also had to put to rest many of our preconceptions (read prejudices and stereotypes) about American tourists during this dinner as we got talking to a guy from Boston who just so happened to speak fluent Italian and helped us out with the waitress who, albeit highly efficient, was not at all interested in parla Inglese. We had a drink with Tony after for his troubles.
Yesterday we finally got to savour the sights and flavours of the real Tuscany on our bike tour. Two Italian-speaking Britons picked us up from Florence and drove - very fast - to a castillo in the heart of a small Tuscan town. The family owners of the castillo also produce wine and olive oil (supposedly a world-beating oil) and we got a view of the winery and oil press and a taste of the product, which was pretty damn good. Also of interest was the view from the peak of the tower which would have been amazing if not somewhat marred by clouds of flying ants choking the area.
The bike tour kicked off marvellously; virtually all down hill, surrounded by stunning green, rolling hills and vineyards, and ending with a fantastic lunch at a very traditional little trattoria. However, after lunch and several reds (of course the ANZACs at the table, aided by an ally in a young Canadian girl, had to polish off any remaining booze), the remainder of the trip was somewhat tougher. It contained one mammoth climb that Bec and I did attempt but ended up pushing our bikes a few hundred metres in. Fortunately the tour lads were prepared for this and 5 of us ended up panting in the back of a van for the rest of the uphill leg. Overall I'd say the day was one of the single best we've had and I'd recommend the tour to anyone coming to Tuscany. On that note, if anyone likes the idea of hiring a villa in Tuscany for a month sometime, let me know...Another fact worth mentioning about the tour was that Bec hadn't ridden a bike for at least two decades before yesterday and acquitted herself well despite much initial trepidation. She is now over her fear and cycling around Amsterdam now seems a vague possibility...well done to her.
Last night we were utterly stuffed from our efforts of the day and had a quiet dinner and a few drinks, somewhat ironically, at an Irish pub (admittedly this was mostly because we got a drinks discount from eating next door). We got more gelati before crashing out.
We are very soon to head off to Venice, so our next report will be from there. Ciao!
Anyhoo, after we last left you (with the seemingly unrepeatable miracle of being able to upload photos) we found a cool-looking bar at which to cool our heels. A highlight for me was the local dark ale, the name of which escapes me, but the highlight overall was discovering Veuve Cliquot was available by the glass. I lashed out on one for Bec who can probably never again drink that Aussie muck...(tongue in cheek).
On Saturday we had it in our heads that we were going on our long-planned cycling tour of Tuscany however plans were once again thwarted in that our booking was for one reason or another one week out. However it turned out the tour was overbooked Saturday and underbooked Sunday so we got an easy exchange. We spent the day instead being typical tourists - we climbed the cupola (the inner dome) of the Duomo which really was worth the wait despite my various rants about tourists and line ups, we walked around the entirety of the city seemingly looking for uniquely Tuscan places to eat and drink and ended up settling in the Santo Spirito area where we knocked over a local spumante and then had dinner at the Lonely Planet recommended Trattoria Casalinga. The recommendation is highly advocated - the food as well as the service seems totally genuine e.g. no quarter is given for tourists, the place was packed with locals and was absolutely bloody fabulous. Bec had a seafood anti pasto and the famed cured ham with rockmelon and I enjoyed what was easily one of my top 5 favourite ever steaks, in Florentine style which I think just means 'with salt, pepper and oil and perfectly cooked.' We also had to put to rest many of our preconceptions (read prejudices and stereotypes) about American tourists during this dinner as we got talking to a guy from Boston who just so happened to speak fluent Italian and helped us out with the waitress who, albeit highly efficient, was not at all interested in parla Inglese. We had a drink with Tony after for his troubles.
Yesterday we finally got to savour the sights and flavours of the real Tuscany on our bike tour. Two Italian-speaking Britons picked us up from Florence and drove - very fast - to a castillo in the heart of a small Tuscan town. The family owners of the castillo also produce wine and olive oil (supposedly a world-beating oil) and we got a view of the winery and oil press and a taste of the product, which was pretty damn good. Also of interest was the view from the peak of the tower which would have been amazing if not somewhat marred by clouds of flying ants choking the area.
The bike tour kicked off marvellously; virtually all down hill, surrounded by stunning green, rolling hills and vineyards, and ending with a fantastic lunch at a very traditional little trattoria. However, after lunch and several reds (of course the ANZACs at the table, aided by an ally in a young Canadian girl, had to polish off any remaining booze), the remainder of the trip was somewhat tougher. It contained one mammoth climb that Bec and I did attempt but ended up pushing our bikes a few hundred metres in. Fortunately the tour lads were prepared for this and 5 of us ended up panting in the back of a van for the rest of the uphill leg. Overall I'd say the day was one of the single best we've had and I'd recommend the tour to anyone coming to Tuscany. On that note, if anyone likes the idea of hiring a villa in Tuscany for a month sometime, let me know...Another fact worth mentioning about the tour was that Bec hadn't ridden a bike for at least two decades before yesterday and acquitted herself well despite much initial trepidation. She is now over her fear and cycling around Amsterdam now seems a vague possibility...well done to her.
Last night we were utterly stuffed from our efforts of the day and had a quiet dinner and a few drinks, somewhat ironically, at an Irish pub (admittedly this was mostly because we got a drinks discount from eating next door). We got more gelati before crashing out.
We are very soon to head off to Venice, so our next report will be from there. Ciao!
15 September 2007
At last - pictures!
After much tribulation, we have the first rather large selection of images available for your edification. Using Picasa you can flick through yet untagged images from London, Edinburgh, Paris, Bordeaux, San Sebastian, Zaragoza and the very beginning of our time in Barcelona.
As a certain OB predicted, there is an abundance of photos featuring food and booze - staples of any Bec and George journey.
You can have a look at our 600 or so pics here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/georgebec
Enjoy!
As a certain OB predicted, there is an abundance of photos featuring food and booze - staples of any Bec and George journey.
You can have a look at our 600 or so pics here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/georgebec
Enjoy!
Buongiorno Florence
We've escaped the hustle and bustle of Rome for the relative quiet of Florence (I personally prefer the original 'Firenze'). We left Rome with a blast, having an all-day drinking session which included wines near the Pantheon, many beers and Bloody Maries at a Canadian-run bar in the backstreets and an overly big pizza at a reputed but overrated pizzeria. We've come to realise that us Adelaideans are very spoiled when it comes to food - only now in Florence have we discovered pizza that rivals some made at home. However, I must say my tomato and basil spaghetti for our late lunch was fantastic.
We have nothing planned for tonight but to walk off our lunch and possibly find some gelati and later some anti pasto for dinner. Tomorrow we're off on a bike tour around Tuscany, Chianti specifically. Despite what we commonly know as Chianti - based on experiences at the long-lost Don Giovanni's and adolescent experiences with Mateuse Rose - the wine from this region is fantastic.
We must make an apology - despite our best endeavours we haven't yet got our photos up online. Complexities continue to conspire and by the time we work it out we might well be home again.
I just have to get something off my chest: I will admit I have been somewhat of an intolerable travelling companion in recent days as our experience of Rome really demonstrated the worst effects of mass tourism. Although we're contributing to the problem by our mere presence, it is tragic to me to think that many of the world's beautiful sites are now ten thousand people deep at any time of day and wrapped in layers of security, bureaucratic control and gross tourist merchandise which, in my opinion, degrades most of these experiences. The Vatican, for example, was a marvel to view but to go inside would incur a penalty of half your day waiting in a line. I find it truly depressing that this is the way of the future, but I guess it also encourages me to think of ways to travel roads less trod. It also brings to mind yet again all the wonders we have in our backyard at home. Here endeth the rant.
We have nothing planned for tonight but to walk off our lunch and possibly find some gelati and later some anti pasto for dinner. Tomorrow we're off on a bike tour around Tuscany, Chianti specifically. Despite what we commonly know as Chianti - based on experiences at the long-lost Don Giovanni's and adolescent experiences with Mateuse Rose - the wine from this region is fantastic.
We must make an apology - despite our best endeavours we haven't yet got our photos up online. Complexities continue to conspire and by the time we work it out we might well be home again.
I just have to get something off my chest: I will admit I have been somewhat of an intolerable travelling companion in recent days as our experience of Rome really demonstrated the worst effects of mass tourism. Although we're contributing to the problem by our mere presence, it is tragic to me to think that many of the world's beautiful sites are now ten thousand people deep at any time of day and wrapped in layers of security, bureaucratic control and gross tourist merchandise which, in my opinion, degrades most of these experiences. The Vatican, for example, was a marvel to view but to go inside would incur a penalty of half your day waiting in a line. I find it truly depressing that this is the way of the future, but I guess it also encourages me to think of ways to travel roads less trod. It also brings to mind yet again all the wonders we have in our backyard at home. Here endeth the rant.
13 September 2007
A day of thwarted plans
Yesterday was supposed to be our day trip in Amalfi, and we almost made it...and that sort of set the tone for the rest of the day.
We got the train to Salerno, which all went according to plan, walked out of the train station and found the bus stop for Amalfi right out the front of the station. Perfect. We double checked with information what time the bus came, and though we had to wait for 45 minutes for the next one, we were comforted by the presence of many other tourists all waiting for the same bus and assured ourselves we were in the right place. Finally the bus arrived and I asked the driver for two tickets to Amalfi. Negative: we were supposed to buy tickets from the ticket place (right behind us; the same people who had told us when the bus came but neglected to mention anything about having tickets first). I asked if he would wait 2 minutes for us to get our tickets. No, not possible, he said. By this time it was 11.30, at least half an hour to Amalfi, quite probably a lot more, and our train back to Rome was booked for 3.45. Realising that even if we waited for the next bus and did make it there we'd probably have to get straight on the bus back again to come back, we decided to spend the next four hours in Salerno and salvage something of the two and half hour trip there.
Salerno is not a huge tourist city - not a city at all, in fact, but it was quite pretty and was set on a beautiful cove, kind of like San Sebastian. We got a map from the tourist place and had a bit of a wander after a coffee to get our bearings. We found a really nice public park, went to a bar for a beer and then made the crazy decision to try to walk up this giant mountain to an old ruined castle that was 300 metres above sea level.
We found a crazy zig zaggy stairway that took us quite rapidly up the hill between apartments and kept us mostly off the roads. There were no signs anywhere to this castle; all we knew is that we needed to keep going up. At different points there was room to stop and look down over fantastic views of the Salerno gulf as we tried to work out which stairway to take next. Finally we reached the windy road leading up to the castle and after negotiating 100 metres of it while trying not to be knocked off the road by passing trucks, we were relieved to turn off on another road that actually had a sign. Here we found another stairway off the road, but our confidence began to wane as we walked up it and realised it was mostly overgrown and felt a bit like we were walking through private property. Nevertheless, we pushed onward until the pathway was finally blocked by what appeared to be a very messy and very smelly pig farm. After this we could find no further pathways there, and the road looked far too treacherous to risk walking on (plus it was very long, as it wound around the mountain). So we aborted that plan and began the walk back down. Nevertheless, we got fairly close to the castle and we saw some absolutely amazing views, so we weren't too worried about missing it.
On the way down we intended to visit this garden that was mentioned in the tourist brochure and sounded pretty cool. Unfortunately it had closed at 1.30 and we missed out on that too. Finally, we found a place to have lunch before getting the train back. George ordered the number 2 panini and I ordered a tuna salad, and mysteriously, two paninis with tuna and tomato came out for us... When things like this happen I wonder if it really was just a communication problem or the locals playing a joke on the dumb tourists to see if they'll say anything. They were tasty paninis though so we couldn't really complain!
Not wanting the pattern of missing out on things to continue, we made sure we got back to the station in plenty of time to get our train (and had a bit of stress when none of the info boards showed the platform we needed to be on - but after a bit of covert spying of other people's boarding passes and asking some other tourists we discovered we were in the right place, and the train was 15 minutes late anyway).
Last night we once again got a quiet dinner nearby to our hotel, which was OK, then returned to the hotel to down a bottle of sparkling lambrusco and play a few games of cards. Today is our last day here and we're determined to find some authentic pizza for dinner tonight rather than stay around the tourist trap here (hence the late start).
We're finally able to attempt to get our photos online today, so hopefully this will be followed by a link to them if I'm successful.
Arrivederci!
We got the train to Salerno, which all went according to plan, walked out of the train station and found the bus stop for Amalfi right out the front of the station. Perfect. We double checked with information what time the bus came, and though we had to wait for 45 minutes for the next one, we were comforted by the presence of many other tourists all waiting for the same bus and assured ourselves we were in the right place. Finally the bus arrived and I asked the driver for two tickets to Amalfi. Negative: we were supposed to buy tickets from the ticket place (right behind us; the same people who had told us when the bus came but neglected to mention anything about having tickets first). I asked if he would wait 2 minutes for us to get our tickets. No, not possible, he said. By this time it was 11.30, at least half an hour to Amalfi, quite probably a lot more, and our train back to Rome was booked for 3.45. Realising that even if we waited for the next bus and did make it there we'd probably have to get straight on the bus back again to come back, we decided to spend the next four hours in Salerno and salvage something of the two and half hour trip there.
Salerno is not a huge tourist city - not a city at all, in fact, but it was quite pretty and was set on a beautiful cove, kind of like San Sebastian. We got a map from the tourist place and had a bit of a wander after a coffee to get our bearings. We found a really nice public park, went to a bar for a beer and then made the crazy decision to try to walk up this giant mountain to an old ruined castle that was 300 metres above sea level.
We found a crazy zig zaggy stairway that took us quite rapidly up the hill between apartments and kept us mostly off the roads. There were no signs anywhere to this castle; all we knew is that we needed to keep going up. At different points there was room to stop and look down over fantastic views of the Salerno gulf as we tried to work out which stairway to take next. Finally we reached the windy road leading up to the castle and after negotiating 100 metres of it while trying not to be knocked off the road by passing trucks, we were relieved to turn off on another road that actually had a sign. Here we found another stairway off the road, but our confidence began to wane as we walked up it and realised it was mostly overgrown and felt a bit like we were walking through private property. Nevertheless, we pushed onward until the pathway was finally blocked by what appeared to be a very messy and very smelly pig farm. After this we could find no further pathways there, and the road looked far too treacherous to risk walking on (plus it was very long, as it wound around the mountain). So we aborted that plan and began the walk back down. Nevertheless, we got fairly close to the castle and we saw some absolutely amazing views, so we weren't too worried about missing it.
On the way down we intended to visit this garden that was mentioned in the tourist brochure and sounded pretty cool. Unfortunately it had closed at 1.30 and we missed out on that too. Finally, we found a place to have lunch before getting the train back. George ordered the number 2 panini and I ordered a tuna salad, and mysteriously, two paninis with tuna and tomato came out for us... When things like this happen I wonder if it really was just a communication problem or the locals playing a joke on the dumb tourists to see if they'll say anything. They were tasty paninis though so we couldn't really complain!
Not wanting the pattern of missing out on things to continue, we made sure we got back to the station in plenty of time to get our train (and had a bit of stress when none of the info boards showed the platform we needed to be on - but after a bit of covert spying of other people's boarding passes and asking some other tourists we discovered we were in the right place, and the train was 15 minutes late anyway).
Last night we once again got a quiet dinner nearby to our hotel, which was OK, then returned to the hotel to down a bottle of sparkling lambrusco and play a few games of cards. Today is our last day here and we're determined to find some authentic pizza for dinner tonight rather than stay around the tourist trap here (hence the late start).
We're finally able to attempt to get our photos online today, so hopefully this will be followed by a link to them if I'm successful.
Arrivederci!
12 September 2007
Musings on Rome
We will begin with the pros and cons of cheap flights in Europe:
Pros
Pros
- It's cheap
- The flight will be delayed (nothing unusual)
- The seats are smaller than Virgin/Jetstar planes
- A crazy woman will begin an argument with flight attendants that will last for at least 10 minutes. During this time the passengers will begin abusing her. She will abuse them in return and the person sitting next to you will jump up as if she is about to biff her (but she doesn't)
- That is eventually resolved and is immediately followed by an announcement that the plane will take off in approximately 20 minutes
- The plane takes off in approximately 30 minutes, after which you already have cramps
- Once the plane is in the air, it appears that the engine switches off and you are hanging in the air, at which time you truly believe you are about to die. Everyone looks at one another but no one says anything
- Engine then kicks in again and you continue.
- The plane lands and 50% of passengers break into spontaneous applause
- You get into the airport and go to the appropriate luggage belt, only to wait an hour and a half and two subsequent flights until your luggage finally comes out.
This was our introduction to Italy, and I'm happy to say things have become moderately better. For instance, when we arrived at our hotel, we were pleased to find that not only was it actually very close to the train station, but the staff lived up to the hotel's name, "Welcome Residences", and were pleasingly if not slightly cornily friendly and welcoming.
Our Lonely Planet guide warned us that Italy is not the most organised and streamlined of places, and this has proven to be true. The traffic is completely insane and the rules even less enforced than in France and Spain. There are very few pedestrian crossings, and those that exist are only observed by drivers if they feel like it. After hesitating and then running across the road in a panic for a while, we've quickly learned that the only way to survive is to look down and walk across in front of oncoming traffic.
Last night we had a quiet dinner at a pizza place around the corner and a lovely bottle of Chianti and had an early night after what ended up being 7 hours of travel (despite the 1 and a half hour flight). A big positive about this place is that literally everyone speaks English. I was getting all fired up about using my high school Italian and was even practising different phrases on the plane, but was a little disappointed to find that even when we greet someone in Italian, they will answer in English (probably due to my poor pronunciation).
Today begun with a decidedly poor breakfast at the hotel (stale croissants, fake "juice", a huge pile of bread but no toaster, and yoghurt with a higher percentage of sugar than yoghurt), did some laundry, sorted our train tickets for the next few weeks (a mission in itself) and then we headed straight to the Colosseum. The line was enormous, and after fending off hundreds of American people trying to talk us into taking the guided tour with them in return for an extra 10 euros and skipping the line, we soon remembered that we actually had no cash. After asking someone if we could use credit card and finding out we could not, we left and went to the Roman Forum, which was free and quite amazing, with architecture from pre BC.
We then took a massive hike to the Vatican, where we finally found an ATM, only to find that none of them were available for cash withdrawal (!?). There were heaps of police around and then we realised that today is 11 September. We walked up to the entrance and took a few photos, but had no wish to line up behind the hundreds of people waiting to go into the Basilica, so we left.
After our fourth attempt at withdrawing cash from different ATMS, we finally found one that would give us money, so we immediately purchased due bloody big birras and relaxed for half an hour. We then set out again, picked up another four beers from the supermercato and settled in front of the Fontana di Trevi and drank all of them while drinking in the view. It was beautiful, 500 thousand tourists aside.
We finally got back to our hotel and chilled out for a while before showering and heading out for another dinner close by, this time rigatoni carbonara and linguine alla vongole...yum. Plus a bottle of Chianti (inferior to last night's, but nevertheless drinkable).
Tomorrow we're going on a day trip to Amalfi, which I can't wait for, followed by one more day in Rome, then onto Florence.
10 September 2007
Bye bye Barcelona
We´re onto our final night in Barcelona, and this is a truly saddening fact. We cottoned onto the nightlife a little last night - after a delicious meal in a tiny side street restaunt called LÓlivia we had cocktails and shots at some bar we got conned into with the teaser of free shots and the best Mojito maker in Spain. The Mojito was awesome but the two Euro tip he took from us (by not giving change) compensated for the free tequilla slammer.
This morning I finally found churros - basically deep-fried donut batter twisted into a curl and served with sugar - but the meal was soured by the staff taking some mysterious dislike to us and refusing to bring the bill. But shaking off that annoyance we took a huge walk around the dock and beach areas of Barcelona. The beaches are pretty ordinary compared to ours - dirt rather than sand and very packed - but there´s no shortage of activity and the architecture around the boardwalk is amazing. It is all very modern and adventurous.
Returning to the Colom (a tribute to Columbus) we headed through Las Ramblas and got a train to Parc Guerell. This is one of Gaudi´s masterworks - a former farm turned into installation art en masse. It boasts massive halls, statues, view points, winding tracks and the works. It´s bloody amazing really. Getting there is half the fun - from the train we got we clambered up this madly steep hill which had about 5 escalators along the way to assist struggling tourists. On our return to Las Ramblas we got straight into the booze and food. Pretty much the first place we saw we settled in and got ´cervaza grande´which turned out to be a stein each, and a stupid amount of tapas for lunch. We´ve since had a bit of a siesta ourselves and will soon head out to meet my dad to farewell him - he´s off to Frankfurt tomorrow.
While I think of it, when we were on top of one particularly high and crowded view point at Part Guell we heard this massive explosion coming from somewhere in town. No idea what it was but everyone turned to look. Weird.
Anyhoo, that´s our day so far. Thank you for your attention.
PS. Things you MUST do if you come to Spain:
Spend as long as you can in San Sebastian before it turns into a tourist nightmare - it is unspoiled and completely beautiful.
Drink good sangria - we´ve had and we´ve had bad but the dryer it is the better it is.
Eat sole fish and as much ham as you can get. The Spanish have a love for their ham that rivals our love for Iced Coffee, but there´s so much more choice and it´s actually good. Really good.
Go to La Sacrada Familia and bring a bottle of wine if you´re allowed - if I could have I would have sat looking at it for hours.
Try the lemon beer - it sounds poo but it´s really nice, a good change down from litres of the local poison.
When you see fresh, tasty-looking tapàs, don´t hesitate, just eat it. Although tapas is everywhere, good tapas is hard to find.
Farewell. Next time we report will be from Italy.
This morning I finally found churros - basically deep-fried donut batter twisted into a curl and served with sugar - but the meal was soured by the staff taking some mysterious dislike to us and refusing to bring the bill. But shaking off that annoyance we took a huge walk around the dock and beach areas of Barcelona. The beaches are pretty ordinary compared to ours - dirt rather than sand and very packed - but there´s no shortage of activity and the architecture around the boardwalk is amazing. It is all very modern and adventurous.
Returning to the Colom (a tribute to Columbus) we headed through Las Ramblas and got a train to Parc Guerell. This is one of Gaudi´s masterworks - a former farm turned into installation art en masse. It boasts massive halls, statues, view points, winding tracks and the works. It´s bloody amazing really. Getting there is half the fun - from the train we got we clambered up this madly steep hill which had about 5 escalators along the way to assist struggling tourists. On our return to Las Ramblas we got straight into the booze and food. Pretty much the first place we saw we settled in and got ´cervaza grande´which turned out to be a stein each, and a stupid amount of tapas for lunch. We´ve since had a bit of a siesta ourselves and will soon head out to meet my dad to farewell him - he´s off to Frankfurt tomorrow.
While I think of it, when we were on top of one particularly high and crowded view point at Part Guell we heard this massive explosion coming from somewhere in town. No idea what it was but everyone turned to look. Weird.
Anyhoo, that´s our day so far. Thank you for your attention.
PS. Things you MUST do if you come to Spain:
Spend as long as you can in San Sebastian before it turns into a tourist nightmare - it is unspoiled and completely beautiful.
Drink good sangria - we´ve had and we´ve had bad but the dryer it is the better it is.
Eat sole fish and as much ham as you can get. The Spanish have a love for their ham that rivals our love for Iced Coffee, but there´s so much more choice and it´s actually good. Really good.
Go to La Sacrada Familia and bring a bottle of wine if you´re allowed - if I could have I would have sat looking at it for hours.
Try the lemon beer - it sounds poo but it´s really nice, a good change down from litres of the local poison.
When you see fresh, tasty-looking tapàs, don´t hesitate, just eat it. Although tapas is everywhere, good tapas is hard to find.
Farewell. Next time we report will be from Italy.
09 September 2007
Bloody brilliant Barcelona
Our first full day here has been sun-drenched fun, but to follow up on Bec´s entry of last night, I should also mention a highlight has, once again, been fresh food. We went to the main central market yesterday and the sights and smells were amazing. I´ve never seen so much glorious fish, bread, smallgoods - and to top it off they´ve got bars throughout the market too. One interesting aside is the ´no waste´culture when it comes to meat - we spotted on numerous occasions red and white offal sausage, pig noses and whole sheep heads. Another shock was that whole chooks are sold literally whole - feathers off but head on. Ugh.
We went back to Las Ramblas for dinner and got sucked in by bright pictures of the food - don´t do it, OK? If they have to show you pictures, it´s no good. I mean, it wasn´t terrible but it just wasn´t exciting. I got this enormous kebab that was served vertically and honestly towered over my head. It looked better than it tasted but it was OK. Bec and dad both had a somewhat disappointing seafood paella. On that note, there appears to be a chain of paella joints. Bizarre.
So to today. I had an awesome sleep in to nullify the effect of post-dinner wines at the myriad of bars around the place. We got a dodgy chocolate croissant for breakfast (I still haven´t got myself the famed chocolate con churros) then spent an age and a shipload of money finalising our burning of photos to CD. After that began the mission - we walked south through Barri Gotic, the old town if you like, then went to the Picasso gallery which was overwhelming in most senses of the term - there are more than 3000 pieces covering his long career and seeing his progression in style is a marvel even to an art ignoramus like me. We then got sidetracked into a litle bar for lunch and had an awesome snack of chicken croqettes, garlic mushrooms, tuna salad and tomato bread. Although cheap it was one of the best so far. The two pints of some Basque beer I had were OK too.
With satisfied tummies we marched off to a major park which apparently boasts a magnificent waterfall although thanks to a combination of terror, justified security concerns and out and out paranoia, most of the gardens - which incorporate the Catalunya parliament, I think - were closed to the public. Bollocks.
Despite the set back we took on the massive hike to La Sacrada Familia (sp). This gargantuan and long-coming church was kicked off by Gaudi in 1882 and it doesn´t seem at all likely that the interior will be complete before its bicentenary. But the superlatives I have for it cannot go near describing it as an architechtual masterpiece. After walking through the inside (to be frank, not much more than a building site with some fantastic roof and other appointments) the ´back´was a sight to behold. I honestly could have sat looking at it for hours. It towers above you and every inch is intricate and interrelated. It isn´t in the gothic or neo-gothic style you come to expect in Europe; instead it has this bizarre sense of surreal modernism. Its bulk is almost reminscent of Magic Mountain in its asymetery, yet it is absolutely beautiful. The irregularity of the surface, around which are dotted countless stunning statues and gargoyles, gives an almost organic feel to it. It was truly breathtaking and I can safely say that although far from complete, it takes a giant dump on the Eiffel Tower on most counts (with the exception that the queues for the lift to the top are ludicrous e.g. 1.5 hours. On that issue we narrowly avoided getting caught in the Barcelona Chapel lift today - we were waiting for it to arrive and it simply did not - soon after the operator closed it down).
OK, so that brings us pretty much to now. We have few plans but might stumble along Las Ramblas for a decent feed. I´ve been getting stuck into the beers and am currently enjoying Vol-Damm double malt - a mild 7.2% number. At least the beers here are a bit more forgiving than their French counterparts.
Buonas dias!
We went back to Las Ramblas for dinner and got sucked in by bright pictures of the food - don´t do it, OK? If they have to show you pictures, it´s no good. I mean, it wasn´t terrible but it just wasn´t exciting. I got this enormous kebab that was served vertically and honestly towered over my head. It looked better than it tasted but it was OK. Bec and dad both had a somewhat disappointing seafood paella. On that note, there appears to be a chain of paella joints. Bizarre.
So to today. I had an awesome sleep in to nullify the effect of post-dinner wines at the myriad of bars around the place. We got a dodgy chocolate croissant for breakfast (I still haven´t got myself the famed chocolate con churros) then spent an age and a shipload of money finalising our burning of photos to CD. After that began the mission - we walked south through Barri Gotic, the old town if you like, then went to the Picasso gallery which was overwhelming in most senses of the term - there are more than 3000 pieces covering his long career and seeing his progression in style is a marvel even to an art ignoramus like me. We then got sidetracked into a litle bar for lunch and had an awesome snack of chicken croqettes, garlic mushrooms, tuna salad and tomato bread. Although cheap it was one of the best so far. The two pints of some Basque beer I had were OK too.
With satisfied tummies we marched off to a major park which apparently boasts a magnificent waterfall although thanks to a combination of terror, justified security concerns and out and out paranoia, most of the gardens - which incorporate the Catalunya parliament, I think - were closed to the public. Bollocks.
Despite the set back we took on the massive hike to La Sacrada Familia (sp). This gargantuan and long-coming church was kicked off by Gaudi in 1882 and it doesn´t seem at all likely that the interior will be complete before its bicentenary. But the superlatives I have for it cannot go near describing it as an architechtual masterpiece. After walking through the inside (to be frank, not much more than a building site with some fantastic roof and other appointments) the ´back´was a sight to behold. I honestly could have sat looking at it for hours. It towers above you and every inch is intricate and interrelated. It isn´t in the gothic or neo-gothic style you come to expect in Europe; instead it has this bizarre sense of surreal modernism. Its bulk is almost reminscent of Magic Mountain in its asymetery, yet it is absolutely beautiful. The irregularity of the surface, around which are dotted countless stunning statues and gargoyles, gives an almost organic feel to it. It was truly breathtaking and I can safely say that although far from complete, it takes a giant dump on the Eiffel Tower on most counts (with the exception that the queues for the lift to the top are ludicrous e.g. 1.5 hours. On that issue we narrowly avoided getting caught in the Barcelona Chapel lift today - we were waiting for it to arrive and it simply did not - soon after the operator closed it down).
OK, so that brings us pretty much to now. We have few plans but might stumble along Las Ramblas for a decent feed. I´ve been getting stuck into the beers and am currently enjoying Vol-Damm double malt - a mild 7.2% number. At least the beers here are a bit more forgiving than their French counterparts.
Buonas dias!
08 September 2007
Hola from Barcelona (Barthelona if you want to pronounce it correctly)
After very gladly seeing the back of Zaragoza this moring (hasta la vista, el dumpo), we sped on the train to Barcelona today and things are much better here... This city is amazing, so big and colourful and active and far better disposed towards us non Spanish speaking types. We spent the afternoon walking the streets, checked out Las Ramblas (or La Rambla depending on the signs or tourist information you look at). La Rambla is an enormous boulevard with countless cafes, bars, tapas and paella joints in the centre and is surrounded by buskers, human statues and the usual beggars. We sat at one bar and had una grande cerveza (1 litre of beer) and a big glass of sangria, followed by a jug of sangria cava, which is sangria with Basque sparkling white wine rather than the usual red wine...weird but nice, and quite potent too.
For the rest of the afternoon we wandered to various bars and drank beer (including a beer with lemon, which was unusual but nice), and finally went to a photo place to burn our current count of 600 photos onto CD. It was going to take so long that we´ll be going back tomorrow to pick it up! I really like it here, despite the paranoia about being pick pocketed (which is rife here). Luckily our hostel has a safe here so we've been able to lock up our important stuff, like passports and Eurail pass and extra cash. The city reminds me a bit of Paris, but a little grimier and with more colour and character. But it's certainly far easier to communicate than in Zaragoza, where the majority of people were intolerant and even hostile. I do not recommend visiting Zaragoza unless you have a good command of Spanish and/or are interested in Roman Catholic historical stuff.
One memorable moment that we keep forgetting to mention was in San Sebastian, where we were walking down the street in broad daylight when we were passed by a guy on a bicycle who was completely naked. He even gave us a big smile as he passed as if to acknowledge his insanity.
Another thing we've noticed in general since we've been in the UK and Europe is how over-legislated everything is in Australia. For instance, alcohol - you can buy it in every supermarket, and even in more unlikely places, such as internet cafes. In fact when we were writing yesterday's entry in Zaragoza we were swilling cans of beer. No, I'm serious. It's cool, although probably quite bad for our health.
Anyway, we're just having some down time at our hostel at the moment and will soon head out for dinner - still haven't gotten used to the whole siesta thing yet and eating at 9/10 pm. But we've started having lunch later in the day so it's getting easier.
Off now but we'll check in again in the next few days, hopefully with some photos once we have our CD sorted.
For the rest of the afternoon we wandered to various bars and drank beer (including a beer with lemon, which was unusual but nice), and finally went to a photo place to burn our current count of 600 photos onto CD. It was going to take so long that we´ll be going back tomorrow to pick it up! I really like it here, despite the paranoia about being pick pocketed (which is rife here). Luckily our hostel has a safe here so we've been able to lock up our important stuff, like passports and Eurail pass and extra cash. The city reminds me a bit of Paris, but a little grimier and with more colour and character. But it's certainly far easier to communicate than in Zaragoza, where the majority of people were intolerant and even hostile. I do not recommend visiting Zaragoza unless you have a good command of Spanish and/or are interested in Roman Catholic historical stuff.
One memorable moment that we keep forgetting to mention was in San Sebastian, where we were walking down the street in broad daylight when we were passed by a guy on a bicycle who was completely naked. He even gave us a big smile as he passed as if to acknowledge his insanity.
Another thing we've noticed in general since we've been in the UK and Europe is how over-legislated everything is in Australia. For instance, alcohol - you can buy it in every supermarket, and even in more unlikely places, such as internet cafes. In fact when we were writing yesterday's entry in Zaragoza we were swilling cans of beer. No, I'm serious. It's cool, although probably quite bad for our health.
Anyway, we're just having some down time at our hostel at the moment and will soon head out for dinner - still haven't gotten used to the whole siesta thing yet and eating at 9/10 pm. But we've started having lunch later in the day so it's getting easier.
Off now but we'll check in again in the next few days, hopefully with some photos once we have our CD sorted.
06 September 2007
Dazed and confused in Zaragoza
We left the loving, calming surrounds of beatiful San Sebastian and yesterday afternoon our train lobbed into Zaragoza in the country´s central northern region. For the first time, language became a real issue. But that´s for later.
Let me bring you up to speed...
Our final day evening in SS was a calm night of walking through beautiful streets, basking in wonderful weather and good vibes aplenty. Bec and I stumbled on a game of Jai Alai in the backstreets - a crazy handball crossed with squash type game where people bang this solid-looking ball against a wall with their bare hands. During the day we´d also developed a love for the local sangria - a very simple blend of light red and citrus. We found a few different sunny spots and knocked over two whole jugs of it. We later met up with my dad and had a basic dinner of entrees (smoked salmon, jamon, asparagus and salad) which was possibly the meal of the trip so far for its simplicity and delicious representation of the region. We hit a few bars including a very cool wine bar and crashed.
Bec was up and about early and took a run along the stunning SS boardwalk while the sun was rising before we stumbled on an awesome little patisserie for breakfast. The train trip to Zaragoza was uneventful (aside from us disgracing the carriage with our messy lunch of baguettes, cheese and jamon) but we were welcomed to Zaragoza with something less than the famous Spanish hospitality we´d come to expect. When trying to buy our next leg of train trips (to Barcelona) I was mercilessly mocked for my lack of Spanish despite my attempt to conduct the majority of the conversation in my pathetic version of the beautiful tongue. Instead of help I got rolled eyes and exaggerated groans of disapproval, making it patently clear that my attempts at the world´s biggest language weren´t appreciated. On top of this, not only did we get stung with a massive fee for booking seats (the norm in Spain, apparently), the evil wench also ballsed the process up entirely and only gave us two seats rather than the required three, apparently having not seen that our rail pass clearly was for two people. An accident? I think not, my friends, I think not.
Anyhoo, we made it to our hotel with some relief (despite only then discovering the balls up) and we took a constitutional around what is a very historic city. However we were walking during siesta and we were thinking the place was a bit of a dud. That all changed when, after a few 40c beers in our hotel, we went out to find a restaurant and ran into the usual problem of too much choice. We had a beer at Cerveciria D´Jorge (George´s Pub, basically) and at a few other places while waiting for more restaurant options to open up. Sadly this only complicated matters and we ended up with a near stalemate over where to eat which ended when I just piled into the first place that looked half decent. For better or worse it was an all you can eat tapas type bar with Charlies´Bistro style Spanish food. It was bearable though. After dinner we drank at a number of very cool bars including one with this great beer garden surrounded by ancient towering walls. Republica also had a lot of antique type stuff in it and that was cool too.
This morning we were off to a very slow start and have succeeded only really in walking to the train station to fix the ticket debacle (we found someone who could speak English) and drinking beer. We found this great little place off behind the main plaza which was loaded with locals in their siesta break and had a beer and some fried anchovies which, frankly, were the bomb. Tonight we´re going out for a decent sit-down dinner and hopefully find a pub we walked past last night called Mombassa. It had a giant rhino in it. I liked it but we didn´t stay. I don´t like our chances of finding it though, this place is a bit of a warren in some ways.
Let me bring you up to speed...
Our final day evening in SS was a calm night of walking through beautiful streets, basking in wonderful weather and good vibes aplenty. Bec and I stumbled on a game of Jai Alai in the backstreets - a crazy handball crossed with squash type game where people bang this solid-looking ball against a wall with their bare hands. During the day we´d also developed a love for the local sangria - a very simple blend of light red and citrus. We found a few different sunny spots and knocked over two whole jugs of it. We later met up with my dad and had a basic dinner of entrees (smoked salmon, jamon, asparagus and salad) which was possibly the meal of the trip so far for its simplicity and delicious representation of the region. We hit a few bars including a very cool wine bar and crashed.
Bec was up and about early and took a run along the stunning SS boardwalk while the sun was rising before we stumbled on an awesome little patisserie for breakfast. The train trip to Zaragoza was uneventful (aside from us disgracing the carriage with our messy lunch of baguettes, cheese and jamon) but we were welcomed to Zaragoza with something less than the famous Spanish hospitality we´d come to expect. When trying to buy our next leg of train trips (to Barcelona) I was mercilessly mocked for my lack of Spanish despite my attempt to conduct the majority of the conversation in my pathetic version of the beautiful tongue. Instead of help I got rolled eyes and exaggerated groans of disapproval, making it patently clear that my attempts at the world´s biggest language weren´t appreciated. On top of this, not only did we get stung with a massive fee for booking seats (the norm in Spain, apparently), the evil wench also ballsed the process up entirely and only gave us two seats rather than the required three, apparently having not seen that our rail pass clearly was for two people. An accident? I think not, my friends, I think not.
Anyhoo, we made it to our hotel with some relief (despite only then discovering the balls up) and we took a constitutional around what is a very historic city. However we were walking during siesta and we were thinking the place was a bit of a dud. That all changed when, after a few 40c beers in our hotel, we went out to find a restaurant and ran into the usual problem of too much choice. We had a beer at Cerveciria D´Jorge (George´s Pub, basically) and at a few other places while waiting for more restaurant options to open up. Sadly this only complicated matters and we ended up with a near stalemate over where to eat which ended when I just piled into the first place that looked half decent. For better or worse it was an all you can eat tapas type bar with Charlies´Bistro style Spanish food. It was bearable though. After dinner we drank at a number of very cool bars including one with this great beer garden surrounded by ancient towering walls. Republica also had a lot of antique type stuff in it and that was cool too.
This morning we were off to a very slow start and have succeeded only really in walking to the train station to fix the ticket debacle (we found someone who could speak English) and drinking beer. We found this great little place off behind the main plaza which was loaded with locals in their siesta break and had a beer and some fried anchovies which, frankly, were the bomb. Tonight we´re going out for a decent sit-down dinner and hopefully find a pub we walked past last night called Mombassa. It had a giant rhino in it. I liked it but we didn´t stay. I don´t like our chances of finding it though, this place is a bit of a warren in some ways.
04 September 2007
Hola from San Sebastian
I love love love this place - it's my favourite so far out of everywhere we've visited. The town surrounds a big bay cove thingy with beautiful beaches and is surrounded by mountain peaks. Yesterday we climbed up one big hill, Monte Urgull (about 250 thousand steep steps), to this big fort type building with a gigantic statue of Jesus on top. The views from there were absolutely amazing. And the best bit was when we were starting on the way down we discovered this tiny bar on the hillside where you could order a beer and look over the sea and the island in the harbour. Very cool.
The hotel we're staying in is awesome - it's 4 star because that was all we could get and it's two streets back from the beach and has a fantastic view of the sea. It's so good, in fact, that last night before going out we drank our leftover French booze in our room looking over the ocean.
Hardly anyone here speaks English so we've been communicating in a mixture of poorly pronounced Spanish and hand gestures, but it's been good for very quickly learning the basics of the language. George stressed out reserving our seats on the train to Zaragoza tomorrow in Spanish, but it was surprisingly easy in the end.
We´re now really regretting that we´re not staying here for longer. We´ve just had our first experience of tapas for lunch and have been getting stuck into the zurritos (small beers - the only reason we've been ordering small ones is because we couldn´t immediately work out how to order big ones).
This morning we went up the other massive mountain on this crazy cable car that goes up the hill on a 70 degree angle, and the views from the top of that one were even better - alas, no bar, but the weather was not so good this morning anyway. Plus, the main thing up there was a crappy children's amusement park, so not very exciting for us. We had grand plans of walking back down the hill, but couldn't find a path that wasn't a very narrow road with no verge on either side, so we had to get the crazy cable car back down again.
For the rest of the day we're going to hit the turps (how unusual) in the streets of San Sebastian preparing for a big night of more tapas and a jug or two of sangria.
Did I mention I love it here?
The hotel we're staying in is awesome - it's 4 star because that was all we could get and it's two streets back from the beach and has a fantastic view of the sea. It's so good, in fact, that last night before going out we drank our leftover French booze in our room looking over the ocean.
Hardly anyone here speaks English so we've been communicating in a mixture of poorly pronounced Spanish and hand gestures, but it's been good for very quickly learning the basics of the language. George stressed out reserving our seats on the train to Zaragoza tomorrow in Spanish, but it was surprisingly easy in the end.
We´re now really regretting that we´re not staying here for longer. We´ve just had our first experience of tapas for lunch and have been getting stuck into the zurritos (small beers - the only reason we've been ordering small ones is because we couldn´t immediately work out how to order big ones).
This morning we went up the other massive mountain on this crazy cable car that goes up the hill on a 70 degree angle, and the views from the top of that one were even better - alas, no bar, but the weather was not so good this morning anyway. Plus, the main thing up there was a crappy children's amusement park, so not very exciting for us. We had grand plans of walking back down the hill, but couldn't find a path that wasn't a very narrow road with no verge on either side, so we had to get the crazy cable car back down again.
For the rest of the day we're going to hit the turps (how unusual) in the streets of San Sebastian preparing for a big night of more tapas and a jug or two of sangria.
Did I mention I love it here?
03 September 2007
Un grande soir a Bordeaux
Well, not really, but we kicked on after our wine tasting and are a little weary rather than, to use Tom's term, wankered.
Anyhoo, our little bus tour took us to St Emillion about 45 mins out of Bordeaux. The vistas were stunning; STE is beautiful itself w rolling hills and pantaloons of greenery, vines and old, old, old buildings. We got shown around a vineyard about to drop - the bunches were bloody huge - and got talked through the wine making process. Finally we tried a few wines which were again excellent - a 2001 and a 2003. The bus then took us to STE proper and we mindlessly followed the tour guide to a seemingly boring as batsh&t church which opened up into this awesome village of steep cobblestone streets and endless cafes and boozers. We went into this crazy series of catacombs and an underground church which has these dirty great support pillars made of ancient limestone now supported with thumping great metal braces. Amazing stuff.
After a cleansing rosé we settled at some restaurant somewhere and had a three course deal which included salmon tartare, grilled eel and tons of spuds. We also knocked over two Bordeaux before heading back to the place we discovered Picon and slammed one of them down.
Well and truly going au coucher. Bonsoir.
Anyhoo, our little bus tour took us to St Emillion about 45 mins out of Bordeaux. The vistas were stunning; STE is beautiful itself w rolling hills and pantaloons of greenery, vines and old, old, old buildings. We got shown around a vineyard about to drop - the bunches were bloody huge - and got talked through the wine making process. Finally we tried a few wines which were again excellent - a 2001 and a 2003. The bus then took us to STE proper and we mindlessly followed the tour guide to a seemingly boring as batsh&t church which opened up into this awesome village of steep cobblestone streets and endless cafes and boozers. We went into this crazy series of catacombs and an underground church which has these dirty great support pillars made of ancient limestone now supported with thumping great metal braces. Amazing stuff.
After a cleansing rosé we settled at some restaurant somewhere and had a three course deal which included salmon tartare, grilled eel and tons of spuds. We also knocked over two Bordeaux before heading back to the place we discovered Picon and slammed one of them down.
Well and truly going au coucher. Bonsoir.
02 September 2007
Bordeaux continued
Bonjour or bonsoir depending on where you are in the world.
We have continued to pursue quintessentially French experiences while being typical tourists. We started the day yesterday at the Office de Tourisme (a delayed start due to some appallingly misleading street signage) and discovered that Bordeaux is very much marketed to a local French tourist than it is to external visitors i.e. everything is in French. We eventually settled on a tour for today (Sunday) that will take us to a few wineries in St Emillion. Just down from the ODT is this magnificent fountain dedicated to Les Girodines, apparently bad guys during the revolution whose good names have been seemingly restored post decapitation. We then strolled along the boardwalk along the river (the name escapes me) and happened upon a stunt bike and rollerblading competition that we watched for a bit before ambling about Les Jardins Publique (magnicifent public gardens near the centre of the city).
After chowing down our tasty self-made baguettes (roast pork, brie, baby spinach etc) we met my dad at La Bar au Vin, this wine bar that doubles as the town base for several maison 'wine houses); unfortunately there are no free tastings but the wines we tried blew my conceptions of French wine out of the water. I had expected weak, insipid and flabby stuff; instead most vins displayed great intensity balanced with savoury complexity - truly magnificent, and they weren't even expensive - the most pricey was five euro. Dad departed after one wine and soon after Tom joined us. We had a few moire then moved off toward our place, stopping at a tiny bar on the way and trying this great drink called Picon - simply put it is Stella with a dash of this Fleurs de Bier which adds this Chinotto-like quality to an otherwise bland beer (apologies to fans of the stuff, we've been spoiled here for good beer). Back at our place we hammered some beers I'd bought a la supermarché (an experience itself, one for later) including Pelforth Amber which I haven't seen in Oz but is ann absolute kicker - 6% and swillable.
We settled on a restaurant in the shadow of an awesome cathedral and Tom and I both got brave and had beef tartare - it wasn't really all that much to bang on about. We hit a few bars later in the night and Tom practised his French by getting himself invited to tables of young girls; we had some good conversations with some of these dames whose names now escape me. We had at least a bottle with this lot so hence my memory is somewhat sketchy after what had become a very big day.
Anyhow, must wrap up as Bec is making another sandwich for us to mangér dans les jardins before our wine tour. But a few quick reflections:
We have continued to pursue quintessentially French experiences while being typical tourists. We started the day yesterday at the Office de Tourisme (a delayed start due to some appallingly misleading street signage) and discovered that Bordeaux is very much marketed to a local French tourist than it is to external visitors i.e. everything is in French. We eventually settled on a tour for today (Sunday) that will take us to a few wineries in St Emillion. Just down from the ODT is this magnificent fountain dedicated to Les Girodines, apparently bad guys during the revolution whose good names have been seemingly restored post decapitation. We then strolled along the boardwalk along the river (the name escapes me) and happened upon a stunt bike and rollerblading competition that we watched for a bit before ambling about Les Jardins Publique (magnicifent public gardens near the centre of the city).
After chowing down our tasty self-made baguettes (roast pork, brie, baby spinach etc) we met my dad at La Bar au Vin, this wine bar that doubles as the town base for several maison 'wine houses); unfortunately there are no free tastings but the wines we tried blew my conceptions of French wine out of the water. I had expected weak, insipid and flabby stuff; instead most vins displayed great intensity balanced with savoury complexity - truly magnificent, and they weren't even expensive - the most pricey was five euro. Dad departed after one wine and soon after Tom joined us. We had a few moire then moved off toward our place, stopping at a tiny bar on the way and trying this great drink called Picon - simply put it is Stella with a dash of this Fleurs de Bier which adds this Chinotto-like quality to an otherwise bland beer (apologies to fans of the stuff, we've been spoiled here for good beer). Back at our place we hammered some beers I'd bought a la supermarché (an experience itself, one for later) including Pelforth Amber which I haven't seen in Oz but is ann absolute kicker - 6% and swillable.
We settled on a restaurant in the shadow of an awesome cathedral and Tom and I both got brave and had beef tartare - it wasn't really all that much to bang on about. We hit a few bars later in the night and Tom practised his French by getting himself invited to tables of young girls; we had some good conversations with some of these dames whose names now escape me. We had at least a bottle with this lot so hence my memory is somewhat sketchy after what had become a very big day.
Anyhow, must wrap up as Bec is making another sandwich for us to mangér dans les jardins before our wine tour. But a few quick reflections:
- Supermarkets here are truly super - the fresh food is magnificent, the F and V is great and the beer - mon dieu - the beer; cheap 'less than one euro for les big cans) and incredibly good.
- People seriously seem to live on baguettes here - they are on sale everywhere and at the end of each day virtually everyone is carrying at least one home. We even saw one guy with his baguette strapped to the back of his bike.
- Cycling is a massive thing - it's a very normal mode of transport. In Paris you can hire these public bikes for a euro a day or something and there are these bays you can leave them pretty much anywhere. Paris also has a series of dedicated bikeways running between the footpath and the road. It's a very good system.
We're off to San Sebastian tomorrow but hopefully we'll get in one more free blog before then.
Au revoir!
01 September 2007
First night in Bordeaux
This is an unusually quick addition, but it's pretty late and no one is around, plus we're pretty drunk so feeling a bit verbose...
We've just completed our first night in Bordeaux, which was relatively uneventful, except that there was some major cycling race thing happening...don't know what, but it seemed big. We had pizza for dinner, not particularly French but it was OK. Really that was it for the night, other than drinking the 1 litre bottle of sauvignon blanc we were given in Paris, as per previous entry.
Oh yeah, the bread and cheese here is sensational - we've eaten shitloads of it and it's so cheap too. So is the beer. For the first time our accommodation includes mini bar so we've been able to buy stuff for breakfast and lunch, and the beer is so cheap - less than 1 euro for a 500ml can. In the whole 7 hours we've been here we've taken full advantage.
OK, going now cos I'm stuffed and this wacky keyboard is freaking me out! Report back soon...
We've just completed our first night in Bordeaux, which was relatively uneventful, except that there was some major cycling race thing happening...don't know what, but it seemed big. We had pizza for dinner, not particularly French but it was OK. Really that was it for the night, other than drinking the 1 litre bottle of sauvignon blanc we were given in Paris, as per previous entry.
Oh yeah, the bread and cheese here is sensational - we've eaten shitloads of it and it's so cheap too. So is the beer. For the first time our accommodation includes mini bar so we've been able to buy stuff for breakfast and lunch, and the beer is so cheap - less than 1 euro for a 500ml can. In the whole 7 hours we've been here we've taken full advantage.
OK, going now cos I'm stuffed and this wacky keyboard is freaking me out! Report back soon...
31 August 2007
Reflections of Paris
Firstly, it's been almost a week since the day and night from hell and now I'm not quite so sore about it I can think about the good bits: we had the opportunity to see some beautiful Scottish and English countryside. I particularly loved the Yorkshire area, which is remarkably like the Adelaide hills. The romantic in me is tempted to believe that it is my ancestral Yorkshire roots that account for my love of the Adelaide hills, but my dominant realistic side tells me that it is more likely the fact that my first memories are of living there...
Anyway, Paris: it's a beautiful city, full of beautiful people...and everyone is so goddamn skinny. You can tell who the tourists are because they're the fat ones. In fact, the 'fat' French women are about my size, so I've been feeling like a real heifer. Absolutely everyone smokes, including in restaurants, which is totally gross, especially after experiencing the smoking ban in London, which by the way rocks. Most people do speak English, but not all, so George's high school French has certainly come in handy.
We did all the usual touristy stuff: Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower (don't recommend this - it's really not worth the fight with the bunch of animals that are tourists), Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Champs d'Elysses, etc, as well as some more interesting experiences, such as drinking with a real life Bohemian in Montemartre and getting not only free glasses of wine from a very generous bartender, but a free 1 litre bottle when we left!
Yesterday we went to Epernay and did a tour of Moet et Chandon, which was awesome. We got two glasses of some of the best champagne in the world and toured part of the 38km of underground cellars. This is highly recommended! We then went to the tourist centre for some free tastings, then back to Paris for our last night there.
This morning we got up early and went to see Sacre Coure (big church which looked nice for the 5 seconds I saw it before being kicked out, presumably for wearing shorts - thanks, religion, for spurning me yet again), and the Moulin Rouge, which was a little disappointing, then rushed to get our train to Bordeaux.
Speaking of which, I must go because internet is free at our hotel and there's only one computer and people are waiting!
Anyway, Paris: it's a beautiful city, full of beautiful people...and everyone is so goddamn skinny. You can tell who the tourists are because they're the fat ones. In fact, the 'fat' French women are about my size, so I've been feeling like a real heifer. Absolutely everyone smokes, including in restaurants, which is totally gross, especially after experiencing the smoking ban in London, which by the way rocks. Most people do speak English, but not all, so George's high school French has certainly come in handy.
We did all the usual touristy stuff: Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower (don't recommend this - it's really not worth the fight with the bunch of animals that are tourists), Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Champs d'Elysses, etc, as well as some more interesting experiences, such as drinking with a real life Bohemian in Montemartre and getting not only free glasses of wine from a very generous bartender, but a free 1 litre bottle when we left!
Yesterday we went to Epernay and did a tour of Moet et Chandon, which was awesome. We got two glasses of some of the best champagne in the world and toured part of the 38km of underground cellars. This is highly recommended! We then went to the tourist centre for some free tastings, then back to Paris for our last night there.
This morning we got up early and went to see Sacre Coure (big church which looked nice for the 5 seconds I saw it before being kicked out, presumably for wearing shorts - thanks, religion, for spurning me yet again), and the Moulin Rouge, which was a little disappointing, then rushed to get our train to Bordeaux.
Speaking of which, I must go because internet is free at our hotel and there's only one computer and people are waiting!
30 August 2007
Bonjour!
Greetings from Paris. Once again we have failed to find time (or venues) for keeping you up to date. So, picking up from the nightmare that was Saturday:
Reading: A tale of thrashed-out dudes and lost shoes
After a bit of a sleep in to recover from the cross-country jaunt that was Saturday we had a leisurely start to the day (apart from getting lost trying to find the laundrette inside the hostel) but then had to rush to make the train to Reading. The trip was smooth and the walk from the station gave us some hint of what were in for - many badly sunburned dudes buying masses of beer and already looking untidy at midday. Amy got us into the VIP tent (a godsend for the relatively clean dunnies) and after getting our first beer (a pint of Grolsch for almost $10) we fought our way out among the plebs. We quickly realised that Reading goers put their Big Day Out equivalents to shame - everywhere dudes were lying sprawled on the filthy ground, sunburned, comatose and generally dreggy. I got a few pics to prove it.
Our first stop was an Irish band called Republic of Loose who rocked out a folksy-style hip hop. Other bands included:
Funeral for a Friend
Operator Please (these Aussie youngsters seemingly have a huge British fan base)
CSS
Cold War Kids (a pleasant surprise for I didn't see them on the bill)
Nine Inch Nails
At the end of the night came the highlight - the reformed Smashing Pumpkins. I was so excited I had a rush of blood to the head and took on the mosh pit. About three songs in and loving it, disaster struck. The crowd surged backwards and I went with it. My shoe however did not and I lost it in the crap and filth of the Reading mosh. With the crowd becoming increasingly animated I decided to make a strategic retreat on my one good shoe, afraid of both injuries from stamping feet and the hepatitis surely breeding on the ground. Upon my escape I listened from relative safety then decided to bail as the shoe situation was not sustainable. One condundrum however was that the day's beer consumption had come home to roost and I had to avail myself of the no longer salubrious facilities. Striking up a single-serve friendship with a Briton named Clive I borrowed a right shoe and got about my business. The next problem then was getting back to London on one shoe. I had found one plastic bag to insulate my foot from the soil sewer but fearing that would be inadequate I paid one of the long-suffering dunny cleaners a pound to wrap my foot in sturdy plastic bags they had handy. Upon leaving I thought I looked a sight but on the walk to the train we ran into two other blokes with the same predicament (although their losses were due to them throwing each others' shoes into the crowd). Of course I had to get a photo. The trip back to London was a bit foul: the train was filthy and packed with louts. And of course it stopped at every station so by the time we got in the tube wasn't running. With some assistance from a kindly soul we got the right bus and passed out in bed about 2am.
OK, I hate to cut this short when we're already behind but this keyboard is back to front and it's taken ages just to do this. In our next instalment:
Reading: A tale of thrashed-out dudes and lost shoes
After a bit of a sleep in to recover from the cross-country jaunt that was Saturday we had a leisurely start to the day (apart from getting lost trying to find the laundrette inside the hostel) but then had to rush to make the train to Reading. The trip was smooth and the walk from the station gave us some hint of what were in for - many badly sunburned dudes buying masses of beer and already looking untidy at midday. Amy got us into the VIP tent (a godsend for the relatively clean dunnies) and after getting our first beer (a pint of Grolsch for almost $10) we fought our way out among the plebs. We quickly realised that Reading goers put their Big Day Out equivalents to shame - everywhere dudes were lying sprawled on the filthy ground, sunburned, comatose and generally dreggy. I got a few pics to prove it.
Our first stop was an Irish band called Republic of Loose who rocked out a folksy-style hip hop. Other bands included:
Funeral for a Friend
Operator Please (these Aussie youngsters seemingly have a huge British fan base)
CSS
Cold War Kids (a pleasant surprise for I didn't see them on the bill)
Nine Inch Nails
At the end of the night came the highlight - the reformed Smashing Pumpkins. I was so excited I had a rush of blood to the head and took on the mosh pit. About three songs in and loving it, disaster struck. The crowd surged backwards and I went with it. My shoe however did not and I lost it in the crap and filth of the Reading mosh. With the crowd becoming increasingly animated I decided to make a strategic retreat on my one good shoe, afraid of both injuries from stamping feet and the hepatitis surely breeding on the ground. Upon my escape I listened from relative safety then decided to bail as the shoe situation was not sustainable. One condundrum however was that the day's beer consumption had come home to roost and I had to avail myself of the no longer salubrious facilities. Striking up a single-serve friendship with a Briton named Clive I borrowed a right shoe and got about my business. The next problem then was getting back to London on one shoe. I had found one plastic bag to insulate my foot from the soil sewer but fearing that would be inadequate I paid one of the long-suffering dunny cleaners a pound to wrap my foot in sturdy plastic bags they had handy. Upon leaving I thought I looked a sight but on the walk to the train we ran into two other blokes with the same predicament (although their losses were due to them throwing each others' shoes into the crowd). Of course I had to get a photo. The trip back to London was a bit foul: the train was filthy and packed with louts. And of course it stopped at every station so by the time we got in the tube wasn't running. With some assistance from a kindly soul we got the right bus and passed out in bed about 2am.
OK, I hate to cut this short when we're already behind but this keyboard is back to front and it's taken ages just to do this. In our next instalment:
- French food and culture (smoking, bikes and baguettes)
- The Arc de Triomphe and the Champs D'Elysses
- A massive night out with generous hoteliers and French intellectuals
- A hang over
- Louvre
- Musee d'Orsay
- Notre Dame
26 August 2007
Day (and night) from hell
To bring us up to date, we spent the rest of Friday afternoon wandering around and drinking beer on the street (it is actually legal), ran into Tom by pure coincidence and drank a few Bulmers with him at the finally-discovered Spiegel Gardens, tried to get to a free Fringe show but managed to get lost (my fault) and didn't make it. We then went to a local pub for dinner and both George and his dad were brave enough to try haggis - the verdict was that it was quite tasty but not extraordinary - something like a meat pie with oats.
Previously in the day we had bought half price tickets for this cool folky type band we saw playing on the Royal Mile for 11pm. We managed to drag ourselves out at 10.30 and after walking for 15 minutes and realising we still weren't even halfway there we pulled the pin and decided to forfeit the £6 and go to bed instead.
That brings us up to yesterday - what was supposed to be a leisurely drive from Edinburgh to Leeds then back to London on the train in time for dinner at our hostel turned into a nightmare of constantly getting lost, turning around and going back only to turn around again and go back the other way. First we went to Ladykirk in Scotland (after getting lost about 5 times), had a look around, took some photos then moved onto Hadrian's Wall, which we found after getting lost about 3 times. After this we drove to Leeds, getting lost another several times on the way, where we eventually found the house my dad was born in (yes, after getting lost another few times and then getting directions and a hand drawn map from a very nice lady in a pub).
After this we drove to York where we were supposed to drop off the car and get on the train back to London. We actually managed to get there without getting lost, but once there couldn't find a servo to fill up the car, which wasted another half an hour before we finally got to the station only to discover that we had missed the last train back to London. After more faffing around we finally decided to drive back to London instead at about 9.30pm. What should have been a 3 and a half hour drive turned into a 5 hour marathon because, yes, you guessed it, we got lost. We eventually gave up and got out of the car near where our hostel was and left George's dad to fend for himself. We finally got to bed at 3.15am.
Oh yeah, and I actually had an alcohol free day - a first and probably only for this holiday. George, on the other hand, knocked over four 500ml tins of Stella on the journey from York to London.
Not the best day of the holiday so far, but today we're heading off to the Reading music festival, where we luckily have VIP passes waiting for us thanks to Amy (thanks sis) and will hopefully be able to spend some of the day relaxing in the VIP area when we're not being stomped on by enthusiastic crowds.
Tomorrow morning we get on the Eurostar to Paris - woohoo!
Previously in the day we had bought half price tickets for this cool folky type band we saw playing on the Royal Mile for 11pm. We managed to drag ourselves out at 10.30 and after walking for 15 minutes and realising we still weren't even halfway there we pulled the pin and decided to forfeit the £6 and go to bed instead.
That brings us up to yesterday - what was supposed to be a leisurely drive from Edinburgh to Leeds then back to London on the train in time for dinner at our hostel turned into a nightmare of constantly getting lost, turning around and going back only to turn around again and go back the other way. First we went to Ladykirk in Scotland (after getting lost about 5 times), had a look around, took some photos then moved onto Hadrian's Wall, which we found after getting lost about 3 times. After this we drove to Leeds, getting lost another several times on the way, where we eventually found the house my dad was born in (yes, after getting lost another few times and then getting directions and a hand drawn map from a very nice lady in a pub).
After this we drove to York where we were supposed to drop off the car and get on the train back to London. We actually managed to get there without getting lost, but once there couldn't find a servo to fill up the car, which wasted another half an hour before we finally got to the station only to discover that we had missed the last train back to London. After more faffing around we finally decided to drive back to London instead at about 9.30pm. What should have been a 3 and a half hour drive turned into a 5 hour marathon because, yes, you guessed it, we got lost. We eventually gave up and got out of the car near where our hostel was and left George's dad to fend for himself. We finally got to bed at 3.15am.
Oh yeah, and I actually had an alcohol free day - a first and probably only for this holiday. George, on the other hand, knocked over four 500ml tins of Stella on the journey from York to London.
Not the best day of the holiday so far, but today we're heading off to the Reading music festival, where we luckily have VIP passes waiting for us thanks to Amy (thanks sis) and will hopefully be able to spend some of the day relaxing in the VIP area when we're not being stomped on by enthusiastic crowds.
Tomorrow morning we get on the Eurostar to Paris - woohoo!
24 August 2007
London to Edinburgh
This is a three-day catch up as we've been flat out and internet cafes in Ed are few and far between (and damn expensive).
On Monday just gone we got up extremely early still not having fully adjusted to our new time zone. At Cristy's recommendation we took a huge constitutional around Regent Park only a stroll from our hostel. It is absolutely beautiful. We got ourselves into the centre walk jam-packed with roses, crazy statues, creeks and mini islands. Swans and squirrels also abound. They are classic - they run around like nutbars and reminded us both of our cat Wednesday on a high. Highly recommended.
We then got the tube into the city and took a stupidly big walk around all the city centre sites including the Thames, Westminster Abbey, Waterloo, Tate Modern, Bucking Huge Palace etc. We had an overpriced but extremely tasty sandwich for lunch and ended up, surprise, surprise, at a pub in Soho. We moved to another pub where we foolishly moved onto the 'extra strong' cider - this caused us some pain and disorientation and we were late meeting with my friend Ian from law school at Tower Bridge. We had a quick pizza dinner (salmon calzone was a highlight) and crashed out utterly stuffed.
Tuesday we stalked the tube system organising our various trips to Ed and Paris then tubed out to the Imperial War Museum. This was amazing but we lost three hours or so and also lost a great deal of faith in humanity through the harrowing Holocaust Exhibition. Although it was terrible this also comes highly recommended. We then stumbled down to a place called Elephant and Castle solely because it was a big place on the map and found out it was only a dump. We had the privilege of seeing our first thrashed-out junkies passed out in a tube tunnel there. Welcome to the real London. After stepping over bodies to get to the right station we tubed to Tower Hill again where we took the Tower Bridge walk (if you've done the Sydney Bridge climb simply don't bother; it's a bit poo) then met Amy again and, in place of actually going to the Tower of London, hit the piss at a pub charmingly named the Hung, Drawn and Quartered. The girls got into the cider and I reinforced my love for London Pride, a delectable hand-pumped ale. Bec and I had dinner at Pizza Express (a substantially up market eat in Domino's or Buongiorno) and ended up paying through the nose again due to getting 'large' Peroni e.g. 750ml.
Wednesday we packed in a panic and took the train to Edinburgh. The national rail service is awesome, but only the foolhardy take on the coffee - it was my worst and Bec's second worst coffee experience ever (on Bec's advice leave the Brisbane airport coffee alone too). Upon arrival at Ed we stumbled about getting bearings to kill time before 2pm check in and got overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the Fringe and the number of people (Ed has a population of 400,000 but it swells to 1.5m during Fringe and Festival). We had a tight-arse lunch at a place called Filthy McNasty's (with a name like that I didn't dare try the haggis) then after check in had the wonderful experience of a laundromat (although of course we killed the time at a crappy local pub). Later in the afternoon we met my friend Tom and his friend, Glaswegian and co-worker Lorna at a Fringe venue called Assembly in a massive old university overlooking the 'new' city (more than 200 years old) and in the shadow of Edinburgh castle. Although the venue was marvellous the show was a bit of a let down - a crazy Korean mish-mash of soppy romance, prison break and break dance - weird. The best bit was when I got photographed with the mad man beat boxer from the show after it finished. The photo session went for so long the poor guy had to stop when his throat gave out (or he swallowed his mic, not sure which). We then hunted around for the Spiegeltent which eluded us and instead we ended up at a pub (where it just so happened England v Germany was starting up on the big screen - a 'cultural' experience) and dinner at one of a myriad of curry spots. We got this crazy tricycle thing home which was kind of overpriced but cool.
Wednesday (yesterday) we decided to be cliche tourists and got on a 'sites of Ed' bus, the highlight of which was jumping off at the foot of this dirty great volcanic hill and climbing up the bastard. It was awesome. The view was spectacular and there weren't even THAT many tourists...we got the bus back to the Fringe centre of sorts at the Princes St gardens and met Tom and another friend of his Fiona for a beer on the lawns in baking sun (I am shockingly sun burned) then returned to the hotel to meet my dad who'd just flown in. We ended up running a bit late for what was the pivotal point of the trip to Ed - the military tattoo so we got an average baguette on the way (rather than haggis, neeps and tatters, whatever the hell they are). The tattoo, in my opinion, was worth every cent and the effort to get here. The massed pipes were highlights, as were this Russian brass band who, we were told, were going to play Tsaichowsky (no idea how that's spelleded) but ended up playing all this modern pop-type stuff, and these kids doing crazy stuff very quickly on motor bikes. The girls from Taiwan doing crazy stuff with guns was cool also.
Today we've done the Ed castle and finally bought some Fringe tix (half price) without external recommendation (Pablo's Finest Hour, accoustic band we saw playing on the Royal Mile) and got beers from an awesome whisky shop on the Royal - a seaweed influenced beer and one with gooseberries. We're soon to sit down for our lunch of cheese and biscuits pilfered from the breakfast hall of our hotel.
Thanks to all those posting replies to this blog, we appreciate it even if our lack of response may not so indicate. We're just a bit too busy for much more than this as you can imagine!
On Monday just gone we got up extremely early still not having fully adjusted to our new time zone. At Cristy's recommendation we took a huge constitutional around Regent Park only a stroll from our hostel. It is absolutely beautiful. We got ourselves into the centre walk jam-packed with roses, crazy statues, creeks and mini islands. Swans and squirrels also abound. They are classic - they run around like nutbars and reminded us both of our cat Wednesday on a high. Highly recommended.
We then got the tube into the city and took a stupidly big walk around all the city centre sites including the Thames, Westminster Abbey, Waterloo, Tate Modern, Bucking Huge Palace etc. We had an overpriced but extremely tasty sandwich for lunch and ended up, surprise, surprise, at a pub in Soho. We moved to another pub where we foolishly moved onto the 'extra strong' cider - this caused us some pain and disorientation and we were late meeting with my friend Ian from law school at Tower Bridge. We had a quick pizza dinner (salmon calzone was a highlight) and crashed out utterly stuffed.
Tuesday we stalked the tube system organising our various trips to Ed and Paris then tubed out to the Imperial War Museum. This was amazing but we lost three hours or so and also lost a great deal of faith in humanity through the harrowing Holocaust Exhibition. Although it was terrible this also comes highly recommended. We then stumbled down to a place called Elephant and Castle solely because it was a big place on the map and found out it was only a dump. We had the privilege of seeing our first thrashed-out junkies passed out in a tube tunnel there. Welcome to the real London. After stepping over bodies to get to the right station we tubed to Tower Hill again where we took the Tower Bridge walk (if you've done the Sydney Bridge climb simply don't bother; it's a bit poo) then met Amy again and, in place of actually going to the Tower of London, hit the piss at a pub charmingly named the Hung, Drawn and Quartered. The girls got into the cider and I reinforced my love for London Pride, a delectable hand-pumped ale. Bec and I had dinner at Pizza Express (a substantially up market eat in Domino's or Buongiorno) and ended up paying through the nose again due to getting 'large' Peroni e.g. 750ml.
Wednesday we packed in a panic and took the train to Edinburgh. The national rail service is awesome, but only the foolhardy take on the coffee - it was my worst and Bec's second worst coffee experience ever (on Bec's advice leave the Brisbane airport coffee alone too). Upon arrival at Ed we stumbled about getting bearings to kill time before 2pm check in and got overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the Fringe and the number of people (Ed has a population of 400,000 but it swells to 1.5m during Fringe and Festival). We had a tight-arse lunch at a place called Filthy McNasty's (with a name like that I didn't dare try the haggis) then after check in had the wonderful experience of a laundromat (although of course we killed the time at a crappy local pub). Later in the afternoon we met my friend Tom and his friend, Glaswegian and co-worker Lorna at a Fringe venue called Assembly in a massive old university overlooking the 'new' city (more than 200 years old) and in the shadow of Edinburgh castle. Although the venue was marvellous the show was a bit of a let down - a crazy Korean mish-mash of soppy romance, prison break and break dance - weird. The best bit was when I got photographed with the mad man beat boxer from the show after it finished. The photo session went for so long the poor guy had to stop when his throat gave out (or he swallowed his mic, not sure which). We then hunted around for the Spiegeltent which eluded us and instead we ended up at a pub (where it just so happened England v Germany was starting up on the big screen - a 'cultural' experience) and dinner at one of a myriad of curry spots. We got this crazy tricycle thing home which was kind of overpriced but cool.
Wednesday (yesterday) we decided to be cliche tourists and got on a 'sites of Ed' bus, the highlight of which was jumping off at the foot of this dirty great volcanic hill and climbing up the bastard. It was awesome. The view was spectacular and there weren't even THAT many tourists...we got the bus back to the Fringe centre of sorts at the Princes St gardens and met Tom and another friend of his Fiona for a beer on the lawns in baking sun (I am shockingly sun burned) then returned to the hotel to meet my dad who'd just flown in. We ended up running a bit late for what was the pivotal point of the trip to Ed - the military tattoo so we got an average baguette on the way (rather than haggis, neeps and tatters, whatever the hell they are). The tattoo, in my opinion, was worth every cent and the effort to get here. The massed pipes were highlights, as were this Russian brass band who, we were told, were going to play Tsaichowsky (no idea how that's spelleded) but ended up playing all this modern pop-type stuff, and these kids doing crazy stuff very quickly on motor bikes. The girls from Taiwan doing crazy stuff with guns was cool also.
Today we've done the Ed castle and finally bought some Fringe tix (half price) without external recommendation (Pablo's Finest Hour, accoustic band we saw playing on the Royal Mile) and got beers from an awesome whisky shop on the Royal - a seaweed influenced beer and one with gooseberries. We're soon to sit down for our lunch of cheese and biscuits pilfered from the breakfast hall of our hotel.
Thanks to all those posting replies to this blog, we appreciate it even if our lack of response may not so indicate. We're just a bit too busy for much more than this as you can imagine!
20 August 2007
It's day three here and we're already feeling like we don't have enough time here. We've already managed to pack a fair bit of activity into the last couple of days and there's still plenty left to do.
On Friday afternoon we stumbled out of here to the pub still barely alive after four hours of sleep in 40 hours and went to the pub where I tried my first warm pint of English beer (not really a fan although it's beginning to grow on me). We were sitting like zombies calculating the earliest we could get away with going to bed when George messaged Cristy to see if she wanted to catch up sometime and she said 'I'll be there in 45 minutes' and the quiet afternoon turned into a big afternoon and night of drinking Magner's cider and beer and talking. At 9.30 pm we realised we had probably missed our free dinner at the hostel, so we drank a bit more, had a kebab (in the doorway of the restaurant to avoid the rain and a 50p surcharge) and then walked back home in the rain - the quinessential English experience.
You'd think after our lack of sleep that we would have had no trouble at all sleeping for 12 hours straight, but not so - I woke up at about 3 am and lay there stressing about if we were ever going to see our bags again. That said, I also had a dream that we got our luggage at 1 the next day, which pretty much came to pass.)
We started the day by walking to the Camden markets (in the rain), which were really cool. We went for a walk along a canal for a while, looked through the markets and drooled over all the food stalls until we eventually succumbed to an enormous serve of West African curries, which absolutely rocked.
After that we walked back to the hostel, tried to sort out what was going on with our luggage, then got the tube to the Spitalfields Markets. These would also have been really cool if we weren't completely marketed out after the morning. So, not knowing what else to do, we went to the pub. We found this pub that proudly proclaimed it was London's first brewery and had been brewing beer since 1669, so being understandably excited about the prospect of trying their beer, we rushed in only to discover that they did not sell any of their beer, and in fact did not brew beer at all and had almost entirely European beers on tap.
Later on we met up with Amy and Alex and my cousin Sarah and her partner Quentin at a bar that had 2 for 1 cocktails. After a few of these we went to Brick Lane (a strip of entirely Indian restaurants where the proprieters stand out the front and try to entice you inside with their great deals, kind of like Lygon Street). The first person who grabbed us offered us a free round of drinks with our dinner, and Sarah said 'We want a free round of beers for all of us, a free bottle of white and a free bottle of red'. The guy didn't seem to know how to argue this so we enjoyed a rowdy dinner of great Indian and crap wine. We were the first to get there and the last to leave and I'm sure they probably thought we weren't worth the sale.
We were completely buggered after this and hopped on the tube for a quick ride home, only to discover that we were going in the wrong direction, so we got off and changed to what we thought was the right one, but was in fact another one going in the same direction, so we got off again and finally managed to get on the right one. (The system here is really not that confusing, we're just idiots)
Today our plans are to go into the centre of London and actually do the tourist thing.
So far we've found that most of the things people have told us about London have not been the case for us. For example:
On Friday afternoon we stumbled out of here to the pub still barely alive after four hours of sleep in 40 hours and went to the pub where I tried my first warm pint of English beer (not really a fan although it's beginning to grow on me). We were sitting like zombies calculating the earliest we could get away with going to bed when George messaged Cristy to see if she wanted to catch up sometime and she said 'I'll be there in 45 minutes' and the quiet afternoon turned into a big afternoon and night of drinking Magner's cider and beer and talking. At 9.30 pm we realised we had probably missed our free dinner at the hostel, so we drank a bit more, had a kebab (in the doorway of the restaurant to avoid the rain and a 50p surcharge) and then walked back home in the rain - the quinessential English experience.
You'd think after our lack of sleep that we would have had no trouble at all sleeping for 12 hours straight, but not so - I woke up at about 3 am and lay there stressing about if we were ever going to see our bags again. That said, I also had a dream that we got our luggage at 1 the next day, which pretty much came to pass.)
We started the day by walking to the Camden markets (in the rain), which were really cool. We went for a walk along a canal for a while, looked through the markets and drooled over all the food stalls until we eventually succumbed to an enormous serve of West African curries, which absolutely rocked.
After that we walked back to the hostel, tried to sort out what was going on with our luggage, then got the tube to the Spitalfields Markets. These would also have been really cool if we weren't completely marketed out after the morning. So, not knowing what else to do, we went to the pub. We found this pub that proudly proclaimed it was London's first brewery and had been brewing beer since 1669, so being understandably excited about the prospect of trying their beer, we rushed in only to discover that they did not sell any of their beer, and in fact did not brew beer at all and had almost entirely European beers on tap.
Later on we met up with Amy and Alex and my cousin Sarah and her partner Quentin at a bar that had 2 for 1 cocktails. After a few of these we went to Brick Lane (a strip of entirely Indian restaurants where the proprieters stand out the front and try to entice you inside with their great deals, kind of like Lygon Street). The first person who grabbed us offered us a free round of drinks with our dinner, and Sarah said 'We want a free round of beers for all of us, a free bottle of white and a free bottle of red'. The guy didn't seem to know how to argue this so we enjoyed a rowdy dinner of great Indian and crap wine. We were the first to get there and the last to leave and I'm sure they probably thought we weren't worth the sale.
We were completely buggered after this and hopped on the tube for a quick ride home, only to discover that we were going in the wrong direction, so we got off and changed to what we thought was the right one, but was in fact another one going in the same direction, so we got off again and finally managed to get on the right one. (The system here is really not that confusing, we're just idiots)
Today our plans are to go into the centre of London and actually do the tourist thing.
So far we've found that most of the things people have told us about London have not been the case for us. For example:
- Everything is expensive: we've found most things are around the same price (yes, after the conversion). For instance, most pubs have 2 pound pints, which is far cheaper than a good beer of that size in Adelaide.
- The food is crap: everything we've had so far has been really good (although admittedly we haven't had any traditional English food other than a bowl of chips in a pub, which were indeed crap).
- Everyone is rude: other than a strange style of customer service which entails no small talk, hello or goodbye or even telling you how much something is, everyone has been really friendly.
One thing that is true is the weather - it's been cold and raining every day.
So yeah, we like it here.
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