< rant />

Budapest - Beers, Baths and Slight madness

2009-10-26T21:31:00.007Z

21 - 24 October

We arrived in Budapest on a Wednesday night, expecting a quiet night in at the hostel, after a quick walk down to the river, and out for dinner. Rach retired early, while Kerry went out for a few 'quiet' beers with a few people from the hostel (Bubble Hostel, best hostel in ages due to the great people! More on that later), only for them to turn up around 2AM, giggling and not able to look each other in the eye... turns out one of the hostel mates divulged a LOT more information about her personal habits than anyone was expecting. Much hilarity ensued, and everyone kept giggling about it for the next few days...

Anyway, the next day we went for a walk up Gelert hill on the 'Buda' side, to get a great panaromic view of Budapest, and for Rach to cough her lungs out. Got an asian tourist to take a pic of us - she looked terrified to hold the SLR, and I thought she was going to drop it, hence the slight grimace on the pic below!

Gelert Hill - worth the hike

DON'T DROP THE CAMERA! (note my pained smile...!)

We then headed back into Pest, and up to the Terror Museum. For a very depressing subject (it housed both Nazi and Communist interrogation and terror squads), it was a well done museum, with lots of loud rock music and information in English. Back to the hostel again for a few more beers, then headed out about 9.30ish for drinks at a 'Ruin bar' in the Jewish quarter called Mamoush (sp?). Great place - basically an abandoned apartment building from the Communist days, which they've opened up a few apartments and the central courtyard, and grabbed furniture from skips/side of the street. We ended up sitting in someone's old lounge room, right by the bar which was in the kitchen.

Next day was October 23rd, which is Republic day in Hungary, celebrating the various uprisings against the Communist government. Sam from the hostel was doing some reading on the 1956 uprising, and found out it started just a few doors down the street from the hostel, and there were tanks firing on protesters on the next street. As a lot of stuff was closed, we headed up to Szechenyi Thermal Baths for a couple of hours of soaking in various temperature mineral baths - the outdoor ones were pretty nice, it was cold out, and boiling hot in the pool (38 deg C), so very refreshing while dashing about to the next pool.

Hummus Bar. Sexy.

The afternoon was spent holed up at the hostel watching movies, internet, cups of tea and beers etc. Funnily, Sam from the hostel was on the shared hostel PC reading some news sites, when a trojan/virus thing decided to activate and kept popping up adult web sites and taking over the antivirus systems. K and I spent a few hours messing about cleaning it off, but we were all kept giggling over some of the sites that came up. Again, beers in the hostel, then out to a club later on with Brownyn (the other girl from the Hostel) to check out some Hungarian music.

Budapest is a huge city, and we only saw a small part, but what we saw was fun. Nightlife is great there - a lot of hostel mates were out all night.

More photos on flickr here.

Next stop, Prague (Czech Republic).

Slovakia

2009-10-26T21:18:00.003Z

19-20 October

After Vienna, we jumped on the train for a short hop to Bratislava in Slovakia (about 60km from Vienna), for a couple of nights. Rach was still struggling with a horrid cold thing, so was pretty grumpy about stomping around. We headed into the Old Town for lunch at the 'Slovak Pub', where they have lots of traditional Slovakian food - we had Garlic soup served in a hollowed out loaf of bread, bean soup, Goulash Soup and Tortellini like dumplings, and local beer and Cola (Kofola - kind of like a anniseeidy flavored Coke).

Tram

The rest of that day and the next were spent cruising the streets of Bratislava - walking the Old Town which is full of small winding streets and lovely squares, and up to the Castle which is closed, but can walk the battlements for a good view.

Kerry getting rather artistic on the camera

A beer or two went down at the hostel bar too, which was in the basement, and themed like the horror movie 'Hostel', which I have a feeling was filmed in Bratislava (anyone know?). There are heaps of quite comical statues placed around the Old Town. Funniest thing we saw was a quite nice looking dog (not a stray), hanging out at a Tram Stop, and then jumping on the tram - everyone was looking around for it's owner, but we think it was hitching a free ride on it's own! Must've had an important meeting.

So that's how it feels on the other side of the lens...

More photos are on flickr here.

Next stop, Budapest in Hungary.

Austria

2009-10-18T20:11:00.011+01:00

We left our brief visit to Germany behind and headed for the alps, Innsbruck. The scenery of this town is worth the visit alone. It is surrounded by mountains which were snow covered and there was a light snow falling for the whole time we were there, none of it was sticking to the ground fortunately though.

Moody, the sky, not the girl

Innsbruck

We did a whole bunch of sightseeing and the usual stuff, climbing up a tower in the centre of town which used to be used to spot fires, visited the city museum, visited Schloss Ambras which has an interesting Curiosities collection(stuffed crocodiles, stuffed sharks, and lots of paintings of people covered with hair, dwarfs and giants etc. etc.). We also went to the ski jump at Bergisel were some young french kids were training so we were able to watch them jumping, it was very impressive and I think you'd need to be brave to do it the first time. Surprisingly, they were jumping on artificial grass, which is how they train all year until the snow comes and covers it in a 30cm layer.

The ski jump

Later on we took the train to Salzburg. In the morning we took off for some sightseeing in light snow. We walked up to the castle, Hohensalzburg Fortress, above the town which gives a good 360 degree panoramic view. We continued walking along the hills above the town before heading back into town for lunch and a visit to the Katacombs. Happily, we managed to avoid all showings of 'The Sound of Music' at the hostel, and didn't even spot any fans around the city. Lucky escape...! It was late afternoon by this time so we went back to the hostel for the happy hour and bumped into a couple from Perth who we'd seen in Innsbruck. It turns out they were taking almost the same route as us between Munich and Krakau, but a day or so behind. We had a few beers and traded stories etc.

A castle on a hill above a town

Maitai river

In the morning Rach woke up with a cold and a fever before we packed up and headed for Vienna. We were going to do some sightseeing and stuff in the afternoon but decided to take a break and rest up instead.

In the morning we went out to Schloss Schönbrunn which is a palace built by the Hapsburgs to rival Versailles. We took a tour around the state rooms and then walked around the gardens. In the afternoon we went back into town and visited the Central Cafe which is a well know coffee shop for some coffee/tea and cakes.

Beaming with enthusiasm over the prospect of more old stuff in rooms

These stick people are everywhere, somebody should tell them they're walking on a footpath not the North Face of the Eiger

A thing you can climb up but not a thing where you can get a cup of tea from the cafe.

Afterwards we took a few wrong turns on the local transport but managed to finally get to the MAK which is a contemporary art gallery/design thing. It's quite a weird museum/gallery and it has lots of exhibits of things which aren't contemporary at all. We did enjoy it though even though Kerry got told off for trying to take photos.

More photos: Innsbruck :: Salzburg :: Vienna

Next up: Bratislava.

München

2009-10-18T19:49:00.007+01:00

We got to München for Saturday night and the hostel we were staying out was one big party. We decided to take it easy after the previous few nights efforts to get an early start the next day.

On Sunday we did our usual wandering about sightseeing looking around the town centre and then taking a tram out to Schloss Nymphenburg.

Fancy work from the photog, fancy walk from the boss

It was starting to get a bit cold by this stage so we stopped off at the Augustine Keller Bier Garden which was on the way back into town for a touch of lunch. The food here was really good, and we had a few beers to accompany it. There were lots of people in traditional Bavarian garb dancing to a band and boozing it up out in the back room, there clothes were very smart, Rachael was jealous. After lunch we needed a nap so didn't really get up to much else for the rest of the day.

We were originally only staying 2 nights but decided to extend it a couple more because we thought the city deserved more than a quick look.

On Monday we took a 2 1/2 hour train to Füssen which is the starting point for visiting the Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles. By the time we arrived at Hohenschwangau the weather started to really take a turn for the worse, we persevered and walked up the hill to Schloss Neuschwanstein which is a very picturesque castle.

Disney would be proud

About 10 minutes walk past the castle there is a bridge 90m above a gorge that looks back on the castle and normally gives a great view. The weather was appalling by this stage, we were soaking wet and the wind and hail was howling up the gorge.

Probably should have added a thumbs up to go with the grin and the crouch

We headed back into Munich and were happy to get back to dry land as it were. We celebrated by taking advantage of the happy hour in the hostel bar for the next few hours.

It goes without saying we woke up with decent hangovers. We spent the day visiting the Dachau concentration camp memorial which is about 1/2 hour out of Munich. The sight has a good museum and shows a strange 1960s video about the history of the camp. It's quite a depressing day going out there, and the hangovers didn't help! Afterwards we headed back into town and took it easy for the evening.

More photos: Munich :: Fussen

Next up Österreich.

Heidleberg

2009-10-18T19:34:00.007+01:00

We headed up to Heidelberg on Friday morning for some authentic German action. It's a very nice small town situated on the river Neckar and is supposedly in it's "original" state as it was barely bombed during WWII. We stayed next to a pub right in town, I won't bore anybody with the details but basically there's a lot of good pubs and cafes serving local fare(beer and schnitzel) so we ended up having quite a good time for the one night we stayed.

Cheers

In the morning it was raining heavily so we snuck out for breakfast and managed to get very wet in about 5 minutes. It cleared up enough for us to go up to the Schloß(castle) and have a look around. We also visited the Deutsch Packaging Museum which was about as interesting as an empty cardboard box.

Rain, what rain?

Nice pose

More photos here

Next stop: München

Switzerland after Geneva

2009-10-18T18:57:00.009+01:00

After leaving Geneva we headed to Bern, stopping at Lausanne on the way which is further around Lake Geneva(Léman). We spent a few hours walking around the city and had lunch at an Indian cafe up by the church above the town.

I don't remember it being that sunny

Bern is the capital of Switzerland but you could never tell by walking around it, it's quite a small town centre but very picturesque. We took a guided walking tour in the morning which was a bit lame but showed us some views over the river we hadn't found rambling by ourselves.

It's a clock, lots of Japanese tourists were watching it so we joined in

This statue eats children, he looks busy

From Bern we moved onto Zurich. On the night we arrived we visited our friend Enda who Kerry worked with at SwissRe and is now living in Zurich. He cooked us dinner, which if you know him is an amazing feat and then we had a few drinks to catch up. We wisely waited for the last train back to Zurich before leaving, only to find that it didn't even go halfway into town. We found ourselves stuck in the middle of nowhere outside Zurich at 1am. We ended up going back to Enda's and kipping the night there.

Enda, cooking, this is real, not staged.

After a slow start to the next day we walked around Zurich and did a bit of sightseeing. We visited the basement of one of the police stations where the vaults are covered in paintings, it was quite amazing but we couldn't take photos and I can't find any reference on the web right now so you'll have to live without a photo.

That night we visited Andrew Erickson and his fiancée Agne who now live in Zurich(they were at our wedding) and they cooked us dinner and we caught up over a few drinks. Even though some very nice Ukranian vodka was involved we managed to get a tram that took us back into town without any problems.

In the morning we took a funicular up to Felsenegg which has quite a good view over the city, the weather was a bit grey though so we didn't hang around too long and walked back down the very steep hill. We also visited the Freitag(they make bags from recycled truck covers) shop which is made from shipping containers and has a lookout at the top.

There's a bag shop in there

We went out around Neiderdorf strasse for a few more drinks that night catching up with Enda again to cap off our Switzerland trip and cap off us. Ended up in a rather expensive bar - I think we managed to drink away €100 that night, onto plain rice and tap water rations for the next few days, haha.

More photos here: Lausanne :: Bern :: Zurich

Next up: Deutschland.

Geneva, Switzerland - Cheese, Cheese, Fondue and Mountains

2009-10-11T21:40:00.004+01:00

3 Oct - 9 Oct
After skipping most of France, we arrived in Geneva to a cold bright day. Wandered through the Old Town, and along the lake front. Evening was spent with an early dinner at a 'Thai - Chinese' restaurant (the food wasn't one or the other tho), and then went to the movies to see 'Inglorious Basterds' - in original format, with subtitles. Funny thing is, it had French and German subtitles for the Swiss, then started mixing in English ones when the movies dialog was actually in French or German... got rather confusing at times! The Swiss were also laughing at bits we didn't find funny at all, guess we missed something they got in the translations?

The next day we got a bus to Veyrier, and caught a cable car straight up a 1000m cliff face to Saleve (sp?), took a bit of a walk around, and checked out the view.

The afternoon was spent with a tour around the Palais of Nations (the UN compound), which was really interesting. It was a Sunday evening, and there was nobody around, no lights on, and they were half way through clearing the last weeks conferences, and setting up the next weeks ones, so there were lots of abandoned photocopiers and piles of junk lying around. Felt quite gloomy at times.

Dinner was a fantastic Fondue at a restaurant called Auberge du Savièse - we shared a two person cheese fondue with green peppercorns and shalots (called Fondue Au Poivre), some rather dodgy local wine, and a lot of bread. Mustof eaten a kilo of cheese each... yum tho.

More photos on flickr here - Geneva.
Next stop, Laussane and Bern.

France, take two

2009-10-11T21:29:00.003+01:00

30 Sept - 3 Oct

Next, we stopped for two nights in Biarritz, after a bit of a debacle getting there - it's only about 50km from San Sebastian to Biarritz, but we had to change trains on the French border, only to find the train wasn't running and the staff in the station told everyone the wrong info for the replacement bus... Eventually got there without too much more excitement.

We stayed in a cheap hotel right in the centre of town, by the posh cafe's and jewelery stores, very close to Port Vieux, where we found some cheaper restaurants, and cafes that do really nice breakfasts (the same price as the hotel, but a whole lot more food, and a lot better tasting!). Most of our time was used walking, and hanging out at the Surf beaches.

It rained quite a bit, first rain we've seen for ages, and the surf was pretty dead, so not a lot of action on the beaches. We stopped by the Musee del Mar (Museum of the Sea), to check out the Aquarium - the seals had just been fed, so just lay sleeping and snoring in their pool.

From Biarritz, we jumped on a night train through to Lyon, and then another train to Geneva, so bypassed the rest of France completely. Again, a rather slow ride, with lots of long stops in Stations, and a semi-deaf Nun waking up at around 4AM shouting and asking if we were in Lyon yet... half the train yelled at her, and we were on our way again.

More photos on flickr here - Biarritz.
Next stop, Switzerland.

Northern Spain

2009-10-11T20:52:00.004+01:00

After leaving Portugal we bussed north to Spain and into Galicia. We stayed a couple of nights in Vigo which is unremarkable but we were mightily impressed by the food. There's a street where about 10 women are just shucking oysters onto plates of 12 for sale right there, slightly treacherous to walk down there, with all the oyster guts on the street. Rach had a dozen oysters in a little 'local' restaurant we found in a back street, for about €8, which is probably the cheapest and freshest oysters I've ever eaten.

After Vigo, we took a very long train to Bilbao (11 hours, ouch. Weirdly, it's the 4-5 hour trains that really get me...). We spent a couple of days there and visited the Guggenheim, wandered the river and the Old Town.. ). We spent a couple of days there and visited the Guggenheim, wandered the river and the Old Town.

We then carried on around the coast to San Sebastian, where they have a variation on Tapas called Pintxos which is usually piece of bread, some topping like anchovy or tortilla etc. and then held together with a toothpick. There are really nice looking surf beaches there, with lots of surfers out... shame there wasn't much surf tho :)

More photos on flickr here - Vigo :: Bilbao :: San Sebastian

Next stop, Biarritz in France.

Portugal - Lisbon and OPorto

2009-10-05T07:33:00.004+01:00

19th - 24th Sept

We flew into Lisbon and stayed for 3 nights. We did a lot of walking around Lisbon, I guess because we were fresh from our holiday from our holiday in the UK so we saw quite a bit of the city.

Our hostel was right in the centre of the city and was really good (they even cooked eggs or crepes to order for breakfast). We walked up to the Castelo Sao Jorge which is a fortress above the town and gives quite a good view across the city. We also visited Cristo Rei which is a large statue of "Christ the King" on the opposite shore of the river which Lisbon is on. It resembles a similar statue in Rio, and is 100 metres tall. We took an elevator to the top and snapped a few photos of the town.

Before we left on the train for Porto, Kerry had time to get a haircut at the barbers across from the hostel. This was hilarious because the barber couldn't understand English so there was lots of hand gestures and pointing to scissors and clippers etc, while two old ladies who worked there looked on laughing at us. He ended up with the only 'style' the barber knew, which was a side comb over, nice!

The old area of Porto is built on the steep banks of the river Duoro and the train passes over this as it arrives so you get a great first impression. Of course after trudging up and down the hills a few times looses it's charm pretty fast. Our hostel was central, right next to Torre do Clerigos which is a church that you can climb to the top of, it gives a nice view of Porto. There was some kind of University initiation/orientation week going on so there were groups of kids being marched around the city chanting, singing, dressed like idiots, and being made to do strange stuff in parks. The older students were all wearing the Student's uniform of long black cape and black suits, which is a little creepy looking, and there are all sorts of weird rules and traditions that go with wearing the outfit like the first year students can't look them in the eye unless addressed by them. I can't find anything on google about it either, v strange.

Porto's wine cellars cover one side of the Duoro opposite the old city and we managed to visit a couple of, them, Ramos Pintos and Sandeman, splitting the tours/tastings with some lunch and a bottle of cheap plonk. The tours take you around museums/cellars etc. giving you a history lesson and telling you about how they make the wine, they finish with a tasting. We tried some white port which we've never had before and a tawny or two.

Sampling the wares, Sandeman Cellars, Porto

More photos here: Lisbon :: Porto.

Next stop, Vigo in Northern Spain.

UK Stopover

2009-10-05T07:27:00.002+01:00

7-20 September

We had to go back to the UK to pick up travel visas for later in our trip so we spent a couple of weeks messing about waiting for those to be issued. We met Jocelyn and Bruce (K's parents) at Leicester Square and had Yo Sushi for lunch one day, and then later in the week we took them to Brick Lane for a curry before they flew back to NZ. Originally we were just meeting them in France, but ended up seeing them in Croatia, France, Spain, and England.

On the weekend we drove up to Leeds to meet Rhyce and Cath Barker who were staying with Rhyce's brother while they toured about before heading off to the continent and onto the Greek Islands.

Chatsworth - stopped off on the way to Leeds

We caught up over a few beers and had a meal together. On Saturday we drove about the Yorkshire Dales and then had dinner with Rhyce and Cath again. On Sunday we headed back to London to stay with friends and then spent the rest of the week catching up with friends before leaving on the Saturday for Portugal.

Yorkshire Dales

Flam, and kayaking in the Fjords

2009-09-23T15:03:00.004+01:00

4-6 September

One of the things we decided early on in our planning for this trip, was to do some Sea Kayaking in Norway. And we finally got there!

Day 1 we met the guides (Erwin and Roger from Njord Kayak) at their base in Flam, and met the rest of our group (Matt and Lisa from the USA, and Charlie and Mary from London). After a few hours of saftey stuff, and stuffing the kayaks full of our gear and food, we took off for a quiet start from Flam up the Aursland Fjord, paddling for about an hour. Saw a Seal swimming the Fjord, and some Harbour Porpoises too. Stopped to walk up to a waterfall for lunch, then back for a few more hours paddling to our first campsite at Stokko. Brief stop at the town of Undreadal before we reached Stokko - it's famous for it's goat cheese, but the store was closed to Kerry's dissapointment! The fjord is really similar to Fjordland in New Zealand, where we have kayaked, except this fjord has people living and working in it. Got the tent up in the rain, and finally warmed up with an excellent stir fry dinner cooked by Erwin. The hip flask of Laphroig and endless stories helped with the final warming up too, thanks Charlie ;-)

Day 2 saw us getting up quite late, to a huge mass of clouds rolling down the fjord. They never quite reached us, but looked really close. After stuffing everything back in the kayaks again (we took way too much stuff as usual), we paddled up to Stigan (Steegan?) and pulled up on the wharf. From there we hiked up to Stigan Farm - a very famous farm, as it's the higest farm still being worked in the fjords - 500m or so straight up a goat track for 45 mins, perched above the fjord (took some convincing to get me up there, but totally worth it for the view). Very interesting to see how they lived up on the tops of the fjiord - they have cable winches for pulling up supplies, and somehow they managed to get all the materials for a large farmhouse up there. Nobody was too hungry then, so we jumped back in the kayaks and paddled up to the end of the Aurlandsford, and stopped where it joined the Naeroyfjord, a Unesco world protected fjord, rafted up, and had lunch in the kayaks, with ferries and boats driving past thinking we were crazy! We crossed the Naeroyfjord a few times, and disturbed a huge Sea Eagle, who perched in a tree above us and decided we weren't a threat. Paddled to the next campsite, which had a entire beach full of driftwood from the storm that had recently passed through - Rach had great fun building a fire with the damp wood (too many people came and poked at it, ruining my system! haha). Another fantastic dinner cooked by Erwin, this time pasta with pesto and chicken. Maybe it's the fresh air, or the tiredness from paddling all day, but the food on the trip all tasted fantastic, along with Roger's espresso. Evening saw us sit around the fire being entertained by Charlies tales and jokes again, with the Laphroig making the rounds.

Day 3 was a leisurly paddle down to Gundrangen, with lots of stops for snacks and chats. Erwin has been working in the fjords as a guide for 8 seasons, and has spent a lot of time learning not just the routes, but the legends and stories from the locals. There are 'trolls' everywhere - monsters dreamed up to stop the children getting into dangerous situations, and also demon women, unborn children of suicide women as porpises protecting the people who travel on the fjord. It's rather fascinating to hear these stories as you're quietly drifting along the fjord. Arrived at Gundrangen around 2pm, and packed up the kayaks and gear into the Van. A quick 20 min drive through a tunnel, and we were back in Flam. Met up with Erwin, Roger, Charlie and Mary at the local 'pub', which is in a fake viking hall - sounds tacky but was really comftable actually (a rather scary €8 a pint, but by then we didn't care too much), for a few too many drinks (and that Laphroig resurfaced again!), then back to our room for a very rested nights sleep.

A HUGE thanks to the team from Njord Kayaks - one of the best few days we've ever had.

More photos on flickr here (including some that Matt sent us, which I've shamelessly put on my flickr site!). Still need to get our disposable camera we took on the water developed.

Norway Part 1 - Oslo and Bergen

2009-09-23T14:45:00.003+01:00

31st August - 2nd September
We originally planned to go to Norway in October, but the end of the Kayaking season came up quicker than we realised, so a quick scan of flights, and we were on our way to Norway instead of Portugal.

Flew into Oslo and arrived after midnight, at Rygge/Moss Airport, which is a 30 min coach ride out of Oslo. Dropped off in the middle of the city close to 1AM, and wandered aimlessly for a while before we found the Hostel, then managed to wake up everyone else in our dorm while we tried to find our beds, sorry!

The next day we did a combo of sightseeing and shopping for our Kayaking trip - all our winter gear was still in London, which originally we would have picked up prior to heading to Norway, doh. Food is rather expensive - a coffee and spanish tortilla for breakfast each came to about €30 each, ouch. Took a ferry out to the Viking Museum in the afternoon, to see some Viking ships.

2nd Sept saw us jump on a train to Bergen - took around 7.5 hours, but travels through some of the most stunning scenery beside inland Fjords, over and through mountains, and next to glaciers. Arrived to some light rain in Bergen, which considering they have 270 days of rain a year we were kindof expecting.

Spent the next morning walking around Bergen, and got some beautiful sun and some great photos. Afternoon we jumped on the train to Myrdal, where we changed onto the Flamsbana Railway, to get to Flam (pronounced 'Flom').

More photos on flickr :: Oslo :: Oslo-Bergen Train :: Bergen.

Next stop, Flam and Kayaking.

Malaga, Fuengirola and the Costa del Sol

2009-09-23T14:26:00.004+01:00

27th August

We took the train down to Malaga on Thursday(the trains in Spain really are pretty good) and Liz (Rach's Aunt) picked us up from the train station and took us to Fuengirola were she lives. On Friday we had a look around a castle in Fuengirola, and took a drive up to Mijas village which is a white town up above the coast. It's very picturesque and has a great view out over the Costa del Sol. We went back in the evening to visit a craft market and watch a group performing Flamenco.

Fuengirola Castle

Burros Taxi, Mijas

Flamenco, Mijas

Saturday we visited a local market (Rach got some spanish fans and a new dress) and then took the train into Malaga. We cruised around on the tourist bus and looked around the castle above the city. After some tapa for lunch we looked around the Picasso museum which has pieces donated from the Picasso family. By mid afternoon we were blasted from the heat and headed back to Fuengirola for a swim.

The Alcazabar, Malaga

Liz drove us around on Sunday to visit various castles and White Villages up in the mountains. Some stunning views - most of the castles were ruins where anyone can wander about.

White Village, Costa del Sol

More photos are on flickr here :: Fuengirola :: Mijas :: Malaga :: Castle Hunting

Next stop: Norway!

Barcelona and Madrid

2009-09-14T18:46:00.004+01:00

22 - 26 August
On Saturday we caught the train to Barcelona with Joce and Bruce in tow. Spanish trains are great - fast (hit around 300km/h at one stage) , clean, comfortable and they run on time! We'd all been to Barcelona before so had no real agenda to do anything.

We took a look around the Sagrada Familia, a cathedral actually worth visiting, walked along La Rambla, and took the Teleferico (a gonadola) across the harbour. In the evenings we sampled the Paella and quite a bit of Sangria which turned out to be very popular, we had to hold the parents back it was so good.

Waiting for the Sangria in the Plaza Reale

On Tuesday we caught the same train as the parents to Madrid were we parted at the station, they were going on to a tour of Portugal and Spain. We've been to Madrid before as well, so didn't feel like doing to much. After a comical trip to the post office (we were shunted around 4 desks and numerous people, filled out various forms and papers etc. that were eventually torn up, just to post some posters), we wandered along to the Museo Prado to stand in a queue for 1 hour. After getting closer to the front we realised that it wasn't the queue we were supposed to be in, in fact there wasn't a queue for the museum at all. After some teeth gnashing and petty squabbling we had a look at some old paintings - the 'black' paintings by Goya are rather creepy.

More photos here - Barcelona :: Madrid.

Next stop, the Costa Del Sol.

French retreat

2009-09-14T18:37:00.003+01:00

14 - 21 August
Stayed a night in a 4 star hotel in Perpingnan, spent the afternoon at the pool, and Rach spent the night with a mild food poisioning. We picked up K's parents from the train station the next evening after picking up the Right-Hand drive rental car, and drove up to the Villa we had rented for a week in the village of Joch. Joch is at the base of the Pyranees and is a tiny place perched on the edge of a hill overlooking the Tet valley. The villa was great and when we weren't tripping about we spent our time swimming in the pool and relaxing on the terrace.

On Tuesday we went to the market in Il sur Tet, which is on Wednesdays. Instead we drove over a very narrow winding road for about 4 hours to visit Carcasonne, the return journey along the toll motorway was about 90 minutes. There was some great scenery though, we were all amazed when reaching the top of the drive up the mountain to find large flat plains. Carcasonne is a medieval fortress town which is well known for it's Disney like appearance. It's packed with tourists and so forth, interesting to see though.

On Thursday we drove up the same road but carried on a different route to Andorra. Andorra has it all, skiing in winter, hiking in summer. We decided to go shopping. Again a really interesting drive through some great terrain, until you hit the french border police when trying to back into France. Nobody was being stopped as far as I could tell, I think they just liked adding an hour to everyones journey.

The rest of the week was spent swimming, sleeping, drinking wine, and generally having a very quiet time, which we really needed, after being on the road for almost 2 months.

More photos are here - Joch :: Carcassone :: Andorra.

Next stop, Spain.

South of France

2009-09-14T18:30:00.003+01:00

12 - 13 August
From Milan we took the train to Marseilles. While the scenery along the Cote D'Azur is quite nice, we'd seen it all before going the other way a few years ago though, some sleep was in order.

Marseilles was stinking hot and full of French tourists. To be honest I can't get to grips with French waiters, sometimes they're confounding aloof, and other times they're great. Lots of fish was eaten, with Kerry having a huge Bouillabaisse one night - a big fish soup, where the fish is taken out and eaten whole as part of the meal. One of the waiters at that restuarant had a bit of an accident, managing to project someone's steak dinner a few meters and smashing it everywhere (which a big dog at another table was VERY happy about!). It's almost as good as the theater at times!

Us at the Il'de If - slightly crooked!

We took a trip out to Il' De If, which sits off the coast of Marseilles and is where part of The Count of Monte Cristo is set. Only took an hour to buy the tickets, in the hot hot hot sun! Phew...

More photos are here.

Next stop, Perpingnan, and our villa in the mountains.

Milano

2009-09-14T18:16:00.004+01:00

9 - 12 August
From Palermo we wanted to go to Sardinia, but the once weekly ferry had left the day before so we pulled up stumps and took a flight to Milan. Ahhhhhh, clean streets.

Milan is really nice but doesn't have much going for it tourist wise and it's even worse in August when most bars/cafes/restaurants/shops are closed for the summer holidays. At one stage we sat down for a beer at a sidewalk cafe only to find a small bottle was 10 euros, we were quickly on our way.

After some reading we found out it's where they hide Da Vinci's last supper, unfortunately it was booked out until September. They do have a big Cathedral where you can walk around the roof and annoy Japanese tourists trying to take photos though. Woman have to have their shoulders covered when going into the Cathedral but they don't bother telling anybody that until you get to the front of the queue (it's not long however). This gives rise to a cottage industry of Asian immigrants selling scarves/pashminas etc.. outside the front. This is apparently wrong and the security guards chase them off. It's all a bit of theatre however as they don't really want to catch them, since they can't be bothered hauling them off when they do I guess, so they run at them really fast, then stop and stamp their feet until the sellers take off. Much like you would when chasing a pigeon away. We managed to talk one of the Scarf sellers down to 5 euros before she was shooed away and ventured inside. It's a cathedral, exactly like every other one as far as I can tell.

Found the North Face store, and got some new sandals for Kerry, as his were completely shot!

More photos here.

Next stop, South of France.

Sizzling in Sicily

2009-09-14T18:09:00.004+01:00

8 - 9 August
The next night we took a 12 hour ferry to Palermo, it's more like 14 hours since you need to get on 2 hours early, and there aren't any seats. Everybody just sprawls all over the hallways and decks in their sleeping bags and lilos, we chose the bar. After listening to 4 hours of an Italian piano man singing bad covers in English and having everybody dancing and singing along I was ready to jump the plank. Did I mention they ran out of food before the ferry left port?

Anyway we turned up in Palermo early in the morning and walked in completely the wrong direction to the hostel. I say hostel, I really mean flea ridden hotel. We got to try a nice free 'frozen' shot of cappucino from a cafe we got some breakfast in. In the afternoon we visited a catacombs with lots of skeletons dressed up in clothes hanging from the walls, something like 4000 semi-mummified bodies. That might sound a kind of morbid thing to do on a lovely Saturday afternoon, but it was in fact extremely preferable to the streets above which were covered in dog shit and stinking rubbish. How anybody can put up with that I don't know.

It being a Saturday night we sat outside the Fleatel and had a couple of beers in the bar. It was fascinating to watch the locals careering about on their scooters crashing into bar tables and oncoming cars. It all kind of happens in a chaotic slow motion. We spent a few hours talking to a young boy selling roses - he must have been 12 years old, and sat at our table for a few hours trying to get us to buy roses, eventually he gave up, and just sat there chilling out.

Next stop, Milan.

Southern Italy

2009-09-09T08:52:00.007+01:00

2 - 7 August

After a boring 8 hour ferry ride from Dubrovnik we hit South East Italy, Bari. Bari isn't that interesting and we headed out the next day for Napoli. We stayed in a nice central hostel in an old building that even had it's own statue in the court yard. The best 2 things about Napoli are it's Pizza, which is flippin' amazing, and it's location for getting to other touristy places. I really can't state how great the pizza here is, we waited 1/2 an hour for a table at an unassuming pizza restaurant with paper tables clothes and plastic chairs for what I can only describe as the best pizza I've ever had (Pizza Sorbillo :: google maps link).

The hostel in Napoli (Welcome Inn) was great too - nice staff, good rooms, secure, and a really tasty free Pasta night.

Pompeii (4th August)
We took the Circumvesuviana (a train that runs around Vesuvius) down to Pompeii for the day. Pompeii is big, dusty, and full of zombified tourists wandering around. As far as tourist attractions go it's got some nice mosaics, and ancient grafitti etc.. The ruins are only partially excavated, so would be interesting to return in a few years to see what else has been found.

Saw the google streetview 'bike' packing up while we were there - how they got that around the streets I'll never know, as the cobbles are so worn they would amost swallow the bike, and there are huge bollard stones through the whole city that were used to slow down cart traffic, and also as stepping stones that were used for crossing without getting covered in sewage (lovely!).

The restaurants/cafes surrounding it are best avoided completely, which we found out much too late, the heat must have been getting to us I think. There's lots of street vendors in Napoli selling an iced lemon drink called Granita (kind of like a slushy) for about a euro, it's a great way to refresh the palate before enjoying the mandatory evening beer.

Capri (5th August)
Capri is a tourist mecca in the bay of Napoli. We took the hydrofoil over and spent the day wandering around the island. We couldn't take a boat to see the Blue Grotto because the sea was too rough, I'm not sure they know what rough really means.

Instead we walked down to Marina Piccolo and took a swim off the beach there. It's got really deep, clear blue water which is great for swimming, and lots of greasy dudes in speedos. To get back to the boat, we caught a tiny little bus back up the hill - fits about 15 people, mostly standing up, and the ride is pretty entertaining with taxis, private cars and buses all fighting to get around the narrow winding roads.

Sorrento (6th August)
After a big kerfuffle trying to get train tickets down to Palermo in Sicily and spending the morning finding some ferry tickets we took the Circumvesuviana again and carried on past Pompei to Sorrento. I'm sure it's a great place, but after being lots of great places it was just another place, had a nice lunch and an icecream though. An Super Cornetto if I remember correctly, which is like a Trumpet, just lots bigger.

The city perches on top of some stunning cliffs, which makes for sore legs walking down (and a cramped bus ride back up!).

More Photos - Bari :: Napoli :: Pompeii :: Capri :: Sorrento

Next stop, Palermo (Sicily).

Croatia (pt. The Second)

2009-09-09T08:43:00.003+01:00

31 July - 2 August

We caught a bus the next morning for Dubrovnik, deciding to leave the train to it's own devices. Got up really early, as the bus left at 7AM, to find a few people from the hostel that had just got in from a night out sitting on the couch, and one of our dorm mates who was an earlier casualty from that night out sleeping in the dorm sans clothes or sheets! Much giggling ensued, and we probably woke up half the hostel.

Dubrovnik has a nice old town within fortified walls that you can walk around, which we ended up doing in the middle of the day when most people with any sense were hiding inside a pub or cafe. The views are great and it was well worth the effort.

After that we decided we deserved a beer and ended up in an "Irish" pub in the old town called The Gaffe that was playing the Ashes, refreshments were taken. Wandered to the port area of the old town for dinner at a fish restaurant, and Rach tried out the Squid Ink Risotto, which is black colored from the ink, but surprisingly tasty.

Check out how brown we're getting! Us, looking out over Dubrovnik Old Town.

Spent most of the next day on the beach and then watched the Tri Nations against SA in The Gaffe, which was packed with New Zealanders and Australians.

More photos are here.

Next stop, Italy!

Bosnia

2009-09-02T07:28:00.004+01:00

Finally... a blog post! We've not had a lot of internet access over the last month, so have been rather useless with blogging. Prepare for an onslaught!

28 - 30 July.
We caught the bus from Croatia to Sarajevo, Bosnia which takes about 7 hours. The trip is quite nice as it follows the coast down to Ploce, and then heads inland past Mostar and up a picturesque river gorge before dropping down into Sarajevo.

Our hostel was fairly central, about 10 mins walk into town and just down the road from where we were staying was the Holiday Inn which housed journalists during the war with Serbia and Sniper Alley which was a targeted by Serbian snipers in the hills surrounding Sarajevo. We visited the house which was the start of the tunnel underneath Sarajevo airport (controlled by the UN during the war) through to the 'Free Bosnian' mountains, which was the only way of bringing in supplies/medicine etc. when the city was surrounded by Serbian forces.

The Turkish quarter is like a big market with lots of grills, cafes, and shops selling tourist tat. The smoke from the grills engulfs the central square, I think the best way to describe it is as one big barbeque. It's a good place to get some grilled meat and bread, which is about all we had for the time we were here.

On the 30th we got up early and dragged ourselves down to the train station for a 7am train to Mostar. We were still sitting on train in Sarajevo station at 9am when started the sick rumour that there was a train strike on, of course nobody could confirm it. A few minutes later we got an email from our Mostar hostel saying there was a strike and we should get a bus. We eventually got to Mostar on the bus, a few euros and hours worse off.

Mostar was very hot as we took a walk to have a look at Stari Most which bridges the river between the Croatian and Muslim sides of the town. This was blown up and rebuilt 3 times during the war, now locals jump off into the river for money from tourists.

More photos here: Sarajevo :: Mostar

Next stop, back into Croatia to Dubrovnik.

Six weeks down...

2009-08-11T18:41:00.002+01:00

We are almost six weeks through our trip. We've left Eastern Europe behind (well, until later in the year!), and are about to head to France.

Here's a map of where we've gone so far - not quite as detailed as I'd like, need to plug in some of the day trips that are missing in Croatia and Italy.

Posts on where we've been are slowly coming - the internet access in Italy has been pretty disappointing, with no free public wifi, and very few internet cafes. Hostel/Hotel access has been pretty patchy too.

View Europe 2009 - to mid Aug in a larger map

Tomorrow we leave Italy, taking a train from Milano to Marseilles, France (via Genoa and Nice - a train trip we've done before going the other way). We have 2 nights in Marseilles, then another train to Perpigan, where we meet K's parents for a week in a villa up in a tiny village in the French mountains (it has a pool!). Feels funny to be taking a holiday from holidaying... :)

Ciao!

Croatia (part 1)

2009-08-11T18:11:00.000+01:00

After Slovenia, we jumped on yet another train, this time during the day to Zagreb. While it's a big city, we found ourselves pretty bored there, as we're totally over museums (how many broken pots are there in the world?!) and the hostel was rather boring too. So lots of mooching around cafes and sitting in parks.

Next stop was Split. We took a night train, and decided to save some € by getting seats rather than couchettes or beds, and after a late start ended up with four young Americans in our compartment, which was a little too cosy for me! Arrived at about 7am, and wandered about like zombies for the day. Sadly, the fast train from Zagreb that day derailed, killing 6 people.

Split is a lovely UNESCO protected city, which we were staying within the protected zone. The old town is actually a palace built for a roman emporer to retire in, that over time has been cannabilised into homes and shops.

We spent four days here, taking a bit of a break - beaches, swimming, a day trip to Hvar Island, and some quiet sightseeing ;).

Our last evening we met up with K's parents, who are touring Europe at the moment, and ended up joining their tour group for dinner.

Next stop, Bosnia!

Slovenia

2009-08-11T17:09:00.004+01:00

Took a night train from Belgrade to Ljubjana, Slovenia on 19th July. We booked couchettes, and managed to get away with only one other person in our 6-berth compartment. Crossed two Borders (Serbia - Croatia, and Croatia -Slovenia), so lots of waking up for passport checks.

Ljubjana is so clean and tidy compared to the rest of the Balkan countries, everyone has a new car and there seems to be a lot more money around.

Spent the morning looking around the castle, where K walked up the hill and I took the funicular up - K was up there 5 mins before me :) The river area is lovely with cafes lining the sides.

Discovered the best 'Burek' we've had yet - a pastry with either cheese, meat or spinach in it, that can be found throughout the Balkan states. These weighed 1KG each!

Found a tea shop where we stocked up on loose jasmine green tea, and also found some replacement sandals for R, nice new North Face ones. The trusty old Merrells went in the bin, wrapped in a layer of smell-proof (I hope!) plastic.

Next day was a train to Lake Bled, a 55min train to Lesec-Bled station, then some confusion to find a bus for the 4km drive to the town of Bled. We took a walk around the lake, 6km around. Stunning emerald water, a picturesque church on an island in the lake, with the castle looming. Exactly as it looks in postcards.

Hiked out to a Gorge (which I'll dig the name out of), and walked through the 1.6km alongside a river. Stunning scenery, and the entire length of the gorge is in shade, so the coolness is a welcome relief. The river is freezing!

The next morning, we went up the steep climb to the castle for more stunning views. Purchased our first souvenir, a bottle of Merlot that R bottled with the help of a monk called Anton. Need to find an occasion to drink it, need the space in my pack back ;)

Next stop, Zagreb in Croatia.

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2009-04-18T03:59:21-07:00

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2009-02-13T11:07:11-08:00

One of those 'of course!' duh! tips - how to grab full screen photos from any app (Facebook in particular on this hint), and assign em to a contact.

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2009-02-12T00:51:31-08:00

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2009-02-08T03:58:54-08:00

Stock photo keywording engine from Yuri Accurs

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2009-01-01T13:46:38-08:00

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2008-06-18T03:25:47-07:00

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glam type lighting - one brolly light, three reflectors