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| Wawel Dragon, Krakow |
The next day we got up early for our tour of the Auschwitz concentration camp. There isn't a lot to say
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| Auschwitz |
That night we caught a night train to Prague. As it was my second time there, I had seen all the sights so I put the guys (and now Dan Jones) on the New Europe tour and went and found a nice place to have a beer. I met them at the end for the uprising story and gave them my own express tour of Prague Castle. This time we could actually go in to St Vitus's Cathedral, unlike last time. The guys all wanted to do a Pub crawl, I was a little reluctant due to what happened last time in Prague and I was also fairly poor. So I went along with them while they paid, but we had to wait about an hour for the next one to start. So we went and got some pizza and came back. Now since I hadn't paid I just expected to just hang with the guys while they all enjoyed the power hour (and then some) that they had all paid for. Instead, I just sat there and whenever they got a drink, they got me one too. So pretty much, not only did I not have to pay for a night of drinks and several night clubs, welcome shots etc, I didn't even have to get up to get them. Put that one down as a win.
The next morning they all caught a train to Munich and I left them and went to Milan for a concert that I had booked months before even leaving Australia. Muse. The concert was incredible, and I'll get to that, but as for the city, man, do not get me started on Milan. The day was really hot and it took me forever to find my hostel. Add this to the fact that the wheel on my bag broke so I was practically dragging it through the street. Once I found the place I couldn't even relax, I had to go walking to find a new bag because time was ticking away until I had to get to the concert. I ended up having to shell out another €40 for one, which as you can imagine, I was not too happy about. It wasn't even that great quality.
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| Muse in Milan |
I caught the metro to San Siro, I went to the ticket collection and, OH YEAH! He gave me my ticket to Muse. It had literally been one of the most frustrating days of the last 6 months but you should have seen the grin on my face when he gave it to me. I was like a little kid I almost skipped a bit. So I found my seat (or somebody else's) and waited for the show to begin. The funniest thing was in between acts, Green Day's Holiday and U2's Vertigo came on. You should have heard the cheers and the dancing and the singing going on. It was as if Muse themselves were out there. So. The concert. Muse opened with Uprising followed by New Born, Map of the
Problematique, Our Love is Forever, Guiding Light, Hysteria, United States of Eurasia, Feeling Good, Undisclosed Desires, The Resistance, Back in Black (yes, an AC/DC cover which, for some reason they had Nic Cester come and sing the lead for it...anyway moving on), Time is Running Out, and Unnatural Desires. At this point they finished after about an hour and a half at which point I thought that was a bit crap even with an encore to come, but then they came out and played Unintended and with it came this big UFO shaped balloon with an acrobat hanging from it, not dissimilar to that on HAARP. Then came Exogenesis Part 1 and Stockholm Syndrome and left the stage. I was feeling a lot more satisfied with this, and then they came out a second encore! For the second encore they played Take a Bow, Plug in Baby and finished with Knights of Cydonia with this awesome harmonica intro.It was the best night and made the trip to Milan worthwhile and I just want to relive it over again.
June 9
I had my single night's sleep in Milan then it was off to one of the most romantic cities in the world: Venice. On my own. I arrived at Venice train station there in mid afternoon and caught a bus to the hostel. It was a bit weird because the hostel was on the mainland and was a 15 minute bus ride from Venice. Once there, I had bought a 5 bed dorm (tent) for €13 a night. When I got there they were all full, so they upgraded me to my own (air conditioned!) unit. Since it is not in the heart of Venice, they have a shuttle bus system that you need to book in advance. Most had already been booked so I booked a 6pm one and enjoyed the warm sun, sat by the massive pool and read my book. I made a friend on the bus and we had some pizza together. It was enormous and only about €4. We went for a bit of a wander but had to be back on the bus by 9.
June 10 was huge. I got a pretty early shuttle into Venice and began my day of walking up bridges and by the water. I am actually writing this significantly after the fact so it will be brief. The photos will show best what I've done. I pretty quickly made my way to the Rialto Bridge, had a beer underneath it at a cafe and got some pretty sweet photos. I saw a couple of churches before heading to the main even: San Marco Square. I also climbed
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| Venice: View from the Rialto |
June 11
The train ride from Venice to Ancona to meet Emily was really nice. As both cities are on the coast the train followed the beach. It was a clear, warm day and seeing the beautiful white sand and beach umbrellas all laid out in a row did make me wish I could stop. The trip to Ancona was much less stressful, it was a nice, simple train ride. I met Emily there and wandered around for a bit, but there is really nothing to do there. We found a cafe, sat down and had a beer and I had the sudden realization that our ferry left at 8:30 not 10:30. It was a mad dash to the station to check in then needed to catch a €20 taxi 2 minutes up the road to get to the actual ferry. We made it and as soon as we were on they lifted the gate. The ferry ride wasn't too bad. It was an overnight ferry and being poor, traveling students we bought regular seats, rather than a sleeper. Thankfully it was a fairly empty ride so we were able to lie down on the floor of the seats. I think I got a few hours sleep since I'd been training for this for months now, but Emily most definitely did not.
We got to Split, Croatia at 7:30 am. We found the hostel painlessly and then sat on the 'beach' for about 4 hours. Though when I say beach you have the choice of lying on either cement, dirt or grass. We chose the grass. after we checked in we walked around the old town, through Diocletian's Palace, an old ancient Roman ruin and had some lunch with a girl we met there called Ash. Also staying at our hostel was a guy called Matt, who amazingly enough is from Newcastle.
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| Split, Croatia |
That evening Emily, Ash and Matt went and watched some guys play this game where you juggle a tennis ball with your hands on the beach in waist deep water. It looked ridiculously simply but also really fun and challenging. We found a bar, had a few sneaky beverages and watched the football.
On Sunday Emily Ash and I caught a ferry to a nearby island called Supetar, (like avatar but better?). It was really nice there, still no sand on the beaches, just nice looking rocks or cement. But we hired a paddle boat which had a slide on it and paddled around for a bit. We had a swim out in the water and of course slid on the slide. After we came ashore we found a nearby hotel and helped ourselves to their pool, swam in it for a bit and relaxed by it. All the while some of the staff were performing dances to whatever songs came over the loudspeaker. They weren't very advanced but still fun to watch. We came back and had a rushed dinner at Ladybird's (the hostel owner) friend's restaraunt again. Em and I had to rush off to catch our ferry, you would have thought we'd learn but no. Again, we were the last two on it. This was another overnight ferry and is pretty much the same story as the trip over. However, this time we discover the duty free shop and, unlike the duty free shops that you see going in and out of Australian airports, this one actually had really, really cheap stuff. We bought a bottle of Jager for about €8 and some €12 rum. Insane prices. I think I like this place
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| Rome: The Colosseum |
The next morning we then missed the next train to Rome by about 5 minutes. It was so frustrating but we made it there eventually. The first thing we did after dropping our bags at the hostel was hit up the Colosseum. Such an incredible building. So old and such history there. I think it was Emily who made the comment which can apply to all ancient ruins, at which point do they stop being ruins and rubble and become fascinating history and tourist attractions? Rick Steve recommended we take a guided tour of the Colosseum, which was well worth it.
And part of this tour was a tour of Palatine Hill. So naturally, after seeing the Colosseum we tried to do the second part of our tour of Palatine Hill but couldn't find the tour guide and they wouldn't let us in without him. So we walked up to the Pantheon, found a cute little place for dinner and headed to the hostel. But not before searching and asking for where the Italy world cup game was being shown by FIFA on the big screen, no one knew so we just watched it at a restaurant in Piazza Navonna.
The following day we decided to try our luck at Palatine Hill again. But first we went via the Spanish Steps and he Trevi Fountain. While at the Spanish Steps it began to rain a little so we then had to dodge all the immigrants trying to sell us umbrellas. Yesterday it was sunny so they were selling sun umbrellas, they are efficient I'll give them that. It fined up at the fountain and of course we threw a coin over our shoulder to ensure our return to this magnificent city. We then moved back over to the ancient centre to complete our Caesar Shuffle (courtesy of our trusty guide Rick Steve) and joined the tour we were meant to be on yesterday which was such a relief. He took us up the hill and gave us a good view of the Roman Forum which we then went down to and walked through ourselves, guided by Rick Steve of course. After this the sun came out so we headed back to the Spanish Steps where there were actually people sitting on. Some guy tried to get me to do the string on the finger thing but didn't get me this time. By now we felt we had actually done everything we wanted to in Rome. Em suggested we see this church called Cappuchin Crypt, which was decorated by the bones of about 4000 monks. We couldn't take photos but got a few postcards because it was pretty incredible. Very creepy though.
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| Trevi Fountain: We'll be back! |
Wednesday, my last day in Rome, I left Emily and had a day in Vatican City. I had my Rick Steves so I started my own tour with him. The line was remarkably short, as most of the tourists were in St Peter's Square watching the Pope give an address. It would have been cool to see but didn't have the time to stand in queues. Even though the Vatican museum is a must see, I did kinda feel that it was just another museum, maybe that's just because I'd been to so many in the last 2 months. Having Rick Steve explaining things along the way definitely made it a lot better because I knew the best things to look for and what they meant. As expected the tour climaxed through Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. It's really amazing but was a lot smaller than I imagined it would be. I'm happy I got one good photo of it though, and even happier that the one good one is of the creation of Adam and surrounding frames. Rick suggested a shortcut to St Peter's Square but it wasn't open, so I took the long march back and got there just as the pope was finishing. I just saw him on the big screen then he was gone. Now St Peters, this church is just amazing. It is absolutely huge and ornate and seems to go on forever. Around the top of the church near the ceiling is a gold band with writing in it, those letters are 7 feet high. I'm sure this is no surprise but it really was the most impressive church that I have seen in Europe... And I've seen a lot. I must have spent about 45 minutes in there just walking around taking it all in. Afterwards I met Emiily back in the square and we had some lunch and kinda just walked around for a bit. We went to the store and bought a bottle of wine for dinner. After that was gone we went and got another bottle and drank it on my bed and watched some football.
Thursday morning, the 17th was possibly one of the scariest days of my trip so far. I got the time of our flight wrong by 40 minutes (again? Seriously?). We got to the train station and missed a train to the airport by about 2 minutes. It was then that we realized what time we needed to be there. We ended up having to catch a 70€ cab which I beleieve the cabbie turned into a €100 cab with a quick switch. But we got there in time. For our 11am flight we checked in at about 10:30 and get this, we weren't even the last ones to do so. As we were walking toward the gate a few girls stormed past in a mad rush looking for a plane to Athens, so we jumped on the running bandwagon too. It turned out that our plane was delayed for an hour too. Lucky break.
But the fun didn't stop there. Upon our arrival in Athens we learned that the public transport system was on strike. Luckily for us it ended at 5, only 2 hours after we got there. We finally got ourselves to the hostel, got ourselves settled and found some dinner. It was the best way to end the day, it was a lovely sit down meal and was cheap too. We also were picking up on the Greeks' love affair with wine. Free wine is very common with a meal in Greek restaurants, and being povo students we were quite happy about this. We settled in for the night, with protests in the background, ready for our next adventure on a 7-day cruise of the Mediterranean.
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