Salzburg to the Czech Republic

The day we left Salzburg started early for Michelle and me as we woke early for her to catch an 8:30 flight. The night before, while we waited for the laundry, Michelle booked a taxi for the trip to the airport. So the next morning we got up, she finished packing and had breakfast (which she bought from a supermarket the day before as the hostel breakfast didn't start early enough), woke André up to say goodbye, and we headed out the front to wait for the taxi that was due to arrive at 7.

A few minutes after 7 and the taxi hadn't turned up. But then Michelle got a call from the driver who had clearly gotten confused and, we think, went to the other hotel on the cliff where our hostel was located. A few minutes later he turned up though, and she got to the airport without any other dramas.

I decided to go back to bed then because breakfast wasn't served until 9 anyway. When we did get up, we had time to finish packing and have breakfast and didn't leave until a bit after 10. We had arranged to take a shuttle bus from Salzburg to our next destination, Cesky Krumlov. It was a last-minute arrangement, but the cost was cheaper than a train, especially as we got a discounted last-minute deal, and the trip was simpler. We had arranged to be picked up in front of another hostel in town as vehicles aren't allowed up in the park where our hostel was (unless they have a permit which taxis like Michelle's did).

We were a little surprised to be met by a driver with a spacious car rather than an actual shuttle bus and we were the only passengers. Our driver, Daniel, was very friendly though, and eager to tell us all about his hometown of Cesky Krumlov. For only the second time on our trip, we had the opportunity to see the countryside from the road rather than from a train. As we drove, Daniel told us about how the Czech Republic is still working to recover from communism, and how the community in Cesky Krumlov is excited that tourists have begun to notice them. He was also very critical of the EU's demands that the Czech Republic adopt the euro within six years, especially considering the current condition of the euro.

Even from the car, we could see how communism has left its mark on the country. We passed an unused border checkpoint, and Daniel slowed down for us to take a photo of the relatively new EU Czech Republic entry sign, not the old checkpoint ("that is just ugly grey building!"). Many things also just look run down and haven't been maintained as well as in other countries and the trains are visibly much older.

We got to Cesky Krumlov just before 3pm, and Daniel dropped us right to the hostel where we had to check in for our pension (guest house). Check-in was easy enough, and the lady took us down the road, across the river and up a small hill to the pension we were booked into. There were five rooms on the guesthouse, each with its own bathroom (we hadn't had a bathroom to ourselves since Tignes!) and a shared kitchen and dining room. Our room was spacious and looked out onto rooftops of houses down towards the river, and a large high-set church across the river. Shortly after we dropped our things off, we went for a walk to get some groceries and have lunch. We were reminded just how cheap things are in the Czech republic when we bought a loaf of bread, 4 apples, 2 oranges, 1L juice, 0.5L beer, three yoghurts, butter, chips, and two muesli bars for around $15.

We chose a restaurant right on the town square (The Old Inn) for lunch where André had a salmon pasta dish and beer while I had marinated chicken with a large side salad and huge garlic bread for about the equivalent of $20. The food was excellent as well. Very happy with bellies full of excellent food for a good price we headed back to our pension. It was such a late lunch and such a large meal that we didn't even bother having dinner!

Salzburg - Castles and Palaces

On our last full day in Salzburg we set out to see two of the most famous places in Salzburg- Schloss Hellbrünn and Hohensalzburg (Fortress Salzburg). Breakfast was the standard for the hostel- German bread with cheese and cold meats, jam and juice. I decided on the first day I wasn't a fan of the German bread, but we had a few of the chocolate croissants leftover from Florence so I had those with cheese, ham and juice.

Salzburg's bus system is similar to Italy's in that you can buy tickets from tobacconists, newsstands etc. However unlike in Italy, you can still buy tickets on the bus, it's just more expensive. Unfortunately we generally got stuck buying tickets on the bus because there was nowhere near our hostel that sold them. So after the 332 steps down the cliff (we only paid for the elevator on the days we were carrying our packs), we jumped on a bus out to Schloss Hellbrünn (Hellbrünn Palace). The palace itself is not terribly impressive (it's pretty, but not in great condition and not very big), but the real attraction at Hellbrünn are the trick fountains. The palace and fountains were built around 500 years ago by the prince archbishop of Salzburg as a day residence, so there are no bedrooms there. The extensive grounds include a network of fountains, including secret hidden fountains perfectly placed for the archbishop to play pranks on his friends. Our guide clearly loves his job, demonstrating the trick fountains both when we were expecting it and when we weren't! Michelle and I figured out straight away though to look for the dry patches on the ground where the fountains obviously don't reach, and stand there!

We had lunch back in the old town where we went on a hunt for 'Salzburgers' that we saw advertised on our first day. It didn't take too long to find the same food stand, and it was worth the search- one of the best burgers I've ever had! After lunch we took the funicular up the hill to Hohensalzburg, the castle you can see from nearly anywhere in Salzburg. It was interesting not just in itself, but also because it gave a really good history of the city too, which was first mentioned as a settlement in the 900s, and the fortress was built not long after that!

We ended up not being able to spend quite as much time up there as we would have liked because it closed. We had to do laundry anyway, so went back to the hostel to get our washing and went on a hunt for a laundromat. We had a map and knew specifically where we were going, but the problem came after we put the washing on and wanted to find dinner. We were well out of the tourist area and it was past 9pm, so many places were closed. We walked up and down the street, avoiding the pizza place because we overdosed on pizza in Italy, only to be told several times that kitchens had already closed. So back to the pizza place it was. It actually turned out to be pretty good pizza, and the Indian owner was friendly and chatted to us while the pizza cooked.

We returned, with our pizza, to the laundromat fifteen minutes before closing only to discover our clothes had not been dried in the dual washer-drier which was also supposed to dry them. Then André realised he had only put it on a wash cycle, not wash and dry. This was possibly fortunate as we realized there were some things in the wash that shouldn't be put in a drier. So we had to pull all the washing out, throw it into a drier, and put the drier on the hottest and fastest cycle possible. For future reference: 90 degrees for ten minutes dries everything. Even jeans. It was finished by 10, at which point the machines automatically turn off, so we were able to relax and eat our dinner. Then when we finally got back to the hostel near 11 we realised Michelle still had to pack for her 8:30 flight the next morning. Oh well.

Ice Caves

We chose our second day in Salzburg to take a day trip to visit the Eisriesenwelt ice caves. The caves are near Werfen, a little town about 45 minutes' train ride from Salzburg. So we got a bus to the train station in Salzburg and hopped on a train to Werfen. From the train station we walked about ten minutes to the car park where the shuttle bus to the caves picks you up. The bus wasn't too expensive, 6 euros each for the return trip.

But the trip doesn't end at the end of the bus ride. It drops you at the visitor centre where you buy your tickets, and from there, it's a 15 to 20 minute walk, uphill, to the bottom of the cable car. If you're super keen you can skip the cable car and hike up, but it's your choice between a three minute cable car ride or an extra two to three hours of walking. Literally. I know what I'd choose. Because then, at the top of the cable car, you have another 10 to 15 minute walk. Still uphill. We stopped at the top of the cable car for lunch (Austrian Mac and cheese for André and toasted sandwiches with side salads for me and Michelle) before continuing up to the caves.

They warn you that it's zero degrees inside the caves regardless of the outside temperature, so we came prepared. We emptied out my backpack (easy when you have packing cubes!) and André carried it for the day with our jackets, scarves, beanies and gloves in it. At the entrance to the cave we put the extra layers on except for the gloves. Disappointingly we discovered the tours were only in German with a printed English translation on a piece of paper. This can be difficult to read when there is no electrical lighting in the caves, only the gas- yes, gas- lanterns they gave us to carry. What is this, the 1800s? Do they not have head lamps or at least battery operated hand held torches? Nothing on the website suggests you should bring your own torches either.

You are also not allowed to take photos in the caves. According to the website it's so that guides don't get 'blinded by flashes' (which wouldn't be necessary if the place was lit better) and so nobody slows the tour down because tours leave 'every six minutes' - they don't, they leave every half hour. So by ten minutes into the tour, we were not very impressed- no electric lighting so we couldn't even appreciate the ice formations properly (could just see them via our lanterns and the magnesium flares the guide lit), hand-held gas lanterns, no English speaking guide and no photos. However a bit further into the caves the pace slowed a bit and the guide climbed in behind many ice formations to light longer-lasting flares. Permanent electrical lights still would have been more effective, but we were able to see things better. André also managed to get some video on his phone but got told off about half way through the tour! I started reading the translation but was also carrying a lantern so passed the translation to Michelle to read. So I basically went through it without any commentary, but it was still interesting and very different to anything I've seen before. Everything its covered in ice. In many places you can see the rock through the ice- it's so clear it's like looking through water. There are enormous frozen waterfalls, some 'pouring' down through holes in the ceiling to form ice columns, others 'flowing' down through the cave. Some tunnels were so low even I had to duck my head. And because it's ice and re-forms every year, nobody cares much if you touch it either (although there are large long-lasting formations that do break over time). We went about a kilometre into the cave network, which extends a further 41km into the mountain.

If you have the opportunity to see other ice caves that are better set up it probably isn't worth the cost and effort to get to Eisriesenwelt, but as we'll probably never have the opportunity to see something similar again, it still ended up being a good experience.

Salzburg

We got into Salzburg late afternoon. After a little bit of trouble figuring out buses we visited an Info Centre where a lady there pointed us towards the right bus and explained how to get to our hostel. We got off our bus at the bottom of a cliff, where we got on an elevator to the top of the cliff where our hostel was!

All did not go smoothly straight away though. The girl who was checking us in realised her boss had double-booked our room. We had booked a double room for André and me, and a dorm bed for Michelle. Somehow, they had double booked the only double room in the whole place. The girl was able to rearrange some bed assignments to at least have the three of us in the same room, and also offered us the first night free. With the offer of a free night-and the fact it had such a great view being at the top of a cliff behind the old town- we decided to stay. We didn't want to sit around looking for somewhere else to stay when we had somewhere cheap and interesting to stay anyway.

On our first night we took a bit of a walk around the park on the cliff where our hostel was situated. We found a small food outlet where we bought wurst hotdogs and André had a beer while Michelle and I shared something called an apple spritz. It turned out to be similar to appletiser, but not as sweet. We had other spritzes while in Austria and figured out they were just juices with mineral water. We had a bottled one that evening but often in restaurants they are offered as the juice alone or with mineral water as a spritz.

As we headed back to the hostel for bed we could hear music coming up from the old town below. Someone joked that it was the nuns rocking out, but we discovered the next morning that we had arrived in the middle of a music festival. It was all woodwind and brass bands playing a mixture of traditional music and covers of popular music like Queen. It was right in the middle of the old town, and meant there were lots of food stands set up. Our first day was also a Saturday, which meant there were the normal Saturday markets running. So we spent the morning looking through the markets and shops of the old town where we got an apfel bezel (apple pretzel) big enough for the three of us to share for morning tea, and then stumbled across the music festival while looking for the information centre. We stopped there and got lunch (wurstl, schnitzel, chips, semmel, beer and coke) from one of the stands and ate at one of the dozens of tables they had laid out in front of the stage. Clearly Europe doesn't have the same attitude to sun protection as Australia does- all the tables were spread out in the sun, which was actually a bit of a nice change after London and Paris had been so cold and drizzly and Florence and Venice's weather had been temperamental too. We also noted a lot of people in town still wear traditional dress. Most don't, but enough do that in a crowded shopping street you'll see several people walking around with lederhosen or drindles on, which we found quite amusing.

In the afternoon we went for a walk up behind the old town to see Nonnberg Abbey where scenes from The Sound of Music were filmed, and where the real Maria started her training. We could only walk around it, and didn't really recognise anything from the movie. We just decided we would have to watch the movie again when we get home! In our walk through the old town we had also seen the fountain where they filmed Maria's 'I have confidence' scene. Afterwards we crossed the river and walked along it to see Schloss Mirabell's gardens which Salzburg is famous for. A few other Sound of Music scenes were filmed there including the children and Maria singing 'Doe, a deer'.

We had a proper Austrian meal for dinner that night. André had Berner wurstl, which is a wurstl wrapped in bacon, while Michelle and I both had tirder gröstl, which is chopped beef and pork (we suspected these were beef and pork sausages) with chopped roasted potatoes served with a fried egg on top. Both meals came with a side salad which was served first (something we have found standard in counties with German influence) and was very tasty. It had cold potato in it too, and while that sounds weird with a green salad and I normally don't even like potato salad, it worked well.

Our first day in Salzburg already made it one of our favourite places.

Venice

Our stay in Venice was quite relaxed compared to some of the other places we stayed. There really isn't a lot to do in Venice and it's all contained in a small area close together. It's mainly gondolas, glass, masks and shopping, shopping usually related to the first three items on that list.

On our first day, the first order of business was to find a laundromat. We found one that wasn't self service and wouldn't have our washing back to us for two days. Fortunately as we were saying no and getting ready to leave, an English backpacker came in and told us about a normal self-service laundromat. We didn't have too much trouble finding it, and the machines were fast. While the washing was on we went for a wander and found a bakery/ confectioner who sold enormous meringues. We had seen large meringues before, but they normally looked like those grocery-store 'fake' ones. These looked like proper home-made meringues and were a bit cheaper, so decided to give them a go. And they were good! About the size of my hand, they were too big to eat all in one go so we had to save the rest for later. Michelle had a chocolate one, André's was plain and I had a strawberry one.

Most of the rest of the day was spent looking through markets and shops. We did the tourist thing andd went to see San Marco's Square, which I was thoroughly underwhelmed by. The buildings were all dirty, although it looked like they were in the process of cleaning them, possibly for the America's Cup which we saw being advertised everywhere. We found a great little place for lunch where André got pizza and decided it was the new best pizza he's had on the trip.

Just before tea we decided to go for a gondola trip. It was 80 euros, which was what we expected, and between the three of us not too expensive. It was late afternoon on a weekday, so while there were other gondolas out on the water, it wasn't too busy. It was very peaceful and relaxing and gave us the chance to see parts of buildings and areas we wouldn't have seen otherwise.

On our second day we spent half the morning first looking for a post office to send souvenirs home, and then when we discovered how poorly stocked they were, a shop that sold bubble wrap. We didn't find any bubble wrap so just used newspaper, but by then the post offices had closed anyway (about lunch time!). After having some lunch we bought ourselves leather gloves from one of the market stalls, as we had found a lot of places in Europe, while they might not be too cold during the day, can get quite cold at night, and neither André nor I brought gloves with us!

Afterwards we bought vaporetti (water bus) passes and headed over to Murano to see a glass making demonstration. I've seen glass blowing before but this guy also sculpted a glass horse for us which was impressive to watch. I was surprised to note many of the buildings in Murano look more modern than in Venice, and the streets are much wider with more space, and cleaner. It also seems very residential which also surprised me. We had a look in a few glass shops, and while I was surprised that a lot of the prices were not exorbitant, I also saw things for considerably more than I had seen them being sold in Venice. I might have actually bought one or two things if it weren't for the problem of carrying or posting them home! That evening we took a vaporetti up and down the grand canal for a bit of sight-seeing before having a late dinner at a restaurant right near our hotel. It seemed a bit touristy and pretty empty, but it was late and a lot of other places were closing! The food was good though.

The next day we moved on to Salzburg. We were having problems figuring out the connections online, so the day before we dropped by the train station to get a staff member to help us book the right trains. We ended up having to get a monorail from the main Venice train station to a larger transport depot, from which point we got on a bus to Villach in Austria.

When we arrived in Villach we spotted a post office, so I went in to send the parcel of presents and souvenirs while Michelle and André went to look for some lunch, agreeing to meet on the train platform. I sent off the parcel no problem, and headed back to the train station. I found the right platform, with our train already there, and waited for André and Michelle. And waited. And watched the hands on the clock tick by. Departure time. Doors began to close. I heard somebody yell, and saw Michelle and André running from the other end of the platform. I ran towards them, we hit the button on the closest door and it opened for us. Jumped on and the train began moving about one minute later as we walked through the train to find our correct carriage and seats!

Pisa to Venice

Back when I was still planning our trip, I thought we might go from Rome to Florence via Pisa, that is, get a train from Rome to Pisa, spend the day there, then get a train on to Florence for the evening. Well, with the booking of trains a few days before we needed to leave Rome, of course I forgot that plan. And we didn't have time to visit Pisa while we were in Florence. So, we reversed the original plan. We decided to visit Pisa before moving on to Venice. Pisa is not far from Florence, about an hour on the train, so even though it is west of Florence while Venice is east, it didn't cause any problems.


We had a bit of a late start to the day because we knew we didn't have a time that we had to be on the train. Trains run regularly from Florence to Pisa so we decided not to book one. We had another breakfast from the minimart in our campsite — croissants, yoghurt, bananas, juice, cereal — and eventually got onto a train to Pisa. We got to Pisa about lunchtime and actually had some difficulty getting to the leaning tower, which we really shouldn't have as it's basically down one road from the train station, but we followed a sign that must have been moved and so took a bit of a detour! We got there eventually though and walked around the tower and its other associated buildings like the church and baptistry. We didn't go into any of them or up the tower, but it was fun just to see them and take photos — of the buildings and of the scores of people lined up with their hands up in the air, having photos taken 'supporting' the leaning tower! We got a late lunch close by — between the three of us we shared a huge pizza, salad and fries and Michelle confused the poor waiter by ordering lemonade, which he wasn't familiar with, explaining it as lemon soda, which he did know, and then changing it to pineapple juice when I ordered one! The prices were very good, as most Italian food is, especially considering we were one street away from the leaning tower, although the drinks were a bit on the exy side, also something we have found is typical in many places where the food is cheap!


After a few hours in Pisa we had to be on the train back to Florence in time to catch a train on to Venice. Fortunately we had no train problems there, although for some bizarre reason the booking system for the Florence to Venice train did not let us choose our seats and assigned us two together and one further down the train. We assumed the other seats must have been all booked, but the carriage was 90% empty, including the seats beside Andre and me. It was nice to be back on a highspeed train though, as the trains to Florence from Rome and between Florence and Pisa were all lower speed regional trains. We pulled into Venice's St Lucia train station at about 8pm as the sun was setting. I was surprised to find Venice was a little cool, something I had not expected for a coastal (island!) town. One of our first impressions after walking out of the train station was how wonderful it was to be in a town where we wouldn't be subjected to sirens as we had in Florence, Rome, Paris and London, because there were no cars! (An impression that was blasted to smithereens on our last day, which I will get to later!) 

In most of the places we stayed, after about a day I began to get a basic feel for the area around where we stayed and had some inner navigational ability. I never achieved that in Venice, other than the street and square immediately at the end of our street! But with a map we found our accommodation easily enough and got checked in. We headed out for a late dinner and found a place close by with pretty cheap food, but true to previous experience, the drinks prices were through the roof. Andre decided to try a beer  —  I think I've only ever known him to drink beer about twice  —  and actually quite liked it, but it cost 7 euros. My main meal cost 8! And they added a 12% service charge on! 12%! Needless to say we didn't go back there during the rest of our stay in Venice, which I will blog about later, as it is now past 11 and I have to go to bed!

Florence

After five nights in Rome we moved up the coast to Florence. This was one of the simplest legs of the trip, just one train the whole way. We were in a compartment with four others (two small children shared a seat). It was a noisier, slower, older train than others we've been on, but the seats were more comfortable than some others.  We were a little worried at first that the train wasn't airconditioned, as Rome was pretty warm and when the train was stopped the airconditioning was off. But once the train started moving the aircon came through and it was all good.

Florence was very warm too when we arrived, probably about 30 degrees. We had some trouble finding our bus, as the bus stops had changed since the instructions we had were written. It was right by the train station though, and we found a news stand nearby that sold tickets. In many Italian cities you can't buy bus tickets on the bus and need to buy them beforehand, normally from tobacconists or newsstands. This can be a pain after hours or on Sundays when such places are closed, so it's good to buy a bunch at once if you know you're going to be taking a few bus trips.

We couldn't tell from the bus map if it stopped outside our caravan park or not, so we got off a stop too early at Piazzale Michelangelo. This wasn't a bad thing though, as the view from the Piazzale is excellent - and nearly matched by the view from the deck at the campsite. We only had to walk about another 200m (if that) to reach the campsite. We were staying in a three-bed permanent tent, about half way down the campsite (which is on a hill to the south of the historical centre of the city). From the tent there wasn't much view, but at the top of the campsite at the bar/restaurant the view was excellent. We spent our first afternoon at the Piazzale taking photos of the view and watching a few dozen kites, including one enormous one that would have been a good 5m squared, with tails. We got burgers from a snack stand for dinner (cheap but pretty lousy food) then spent the evening having drinks on the deck at the campsite.

Our first full day in Florence ended up being cold and drizzly. In the morning I bought some breakfast items from the campsite minimarket - chocolate-filled and jam-filled croissants (which we had discovered in our B&B in Rome), yoghurt, juice poppers, and cereal. This was our sole day to explore the city, so we spent time walking around, seeing the Ponte Vecchio, markets, Duomo, and other impressive buildings, and visited the Accademia (to see Michelangelo's David) and a Leonardo da Vinci museum. We decided to skip the Uffizi due to time contraints - we decided we'd seen enough art museums for now and were more interested in Leonardo da Vinci and specifically wanted to see David. Florence is a very pretty city, prettier than Rome. Rome is big and imposing and impressive, but Florence is pretty.

For dinner we had pizza and salad on our campsite deck - the pizza was reaonable, a good base but the toppings were a bit average, so still not as good as the pizza we discovered on our last night in Rome. The plastic 'walls' had been fastened down around the deck though due to the cold wind that had been around all day, so the view wasn't quite as nice as it had been the night before. We got hot chocolates after dinner, and WOW, they were the best hot chocolates ever! It was like drinking hot chocolate cream! We needed them as the evening was very cold. In fact all three nights in Florence were cold, something the locals told us was very unusual, which was unlucky as we were in a tent! Andre and I squished into one bed one night (we had a bunk bed and one single) to keep warm but it was a bit uncomfortable so the next night we went back to separate beds, though half way through the night I woke up so cold even with two blankets that I considered moving into his bed again!

For our second (and last) full day in Florence, we had booked a bus tour of the Tuscan countryside. We just had croissants for breakfast as the minimart wasn't open yet and I'd bought two packets the day beforehand, so we had spares! For our tour we met outside a cafe at 8:45am and drove out of Florence a little after 9. Our first stop was Siena, a medieval walled city. We were supposed to have an hour of free time before our guided tour, but due to some elderly americans who complained very loudly about going "too fast" and "not being able to see" the guide, we took much longer to get into the town centre (as it's car-free, the buses have to park outside and we walked in). This meant we only ended up with about half an hour of free time, so we didn't go very far. We then had a local take us on a tour of the town, through the cobblestone streets and into the elaborately decorated cathedral (covered in marble, including a parquetry-type marble floor, the only one of its type in the world). After the tour was lunchtime, where we had the option of eating at a place reserved by the guide with others from the tour. It was eleven euros each and basically all you can eat pasta, cold meats & cheese, salad, bread (served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar), wine and water so we decided it was a pretty good deal. It was a good opportunity to meet some of the other travellers on the tour, and we chatted with some Indians, Americans from Oklahoma and Canadians.

After lunch we left Siena and moved on to Monteriggioni, which can't even be classified as a village - it's really just a castle on a hill surrounded by farmland. We only had an hour there, enough time to climb the wall and look at the view over the countryside and look through the shops that now inhabit the castle walls, before we moved on to a winery for some wine and olive oil taste-testing which Andre had been looking forward to all day! We met some other Canadians there, Duy and Anita, and swapped gelateria recommendations with them - they were heading to Rome so we recommended Giolitti's, and they had just left Venice so recommended a gelateria there! I didn't mind the white wine that we tasted but wasn't a fan of either of the reds, but I never like red wine. We didn't buy any of the wine or oil there, but did buy some of the lavender honey that they also produce - I'm hoping we don't have too much trouble getting it back into Australia!

Our last stop was San Gimignano, another medieval walled town on a hill, known for its towers that can be seen from all across the countryside. Again we only had an hour there - not enough to explore it really as it is much larger than Monteriggioni and could be classified as a small town, but we did taste some of the gelato there and bought some postcards.

On our return to Florence we decided to try and find a restaurant that Duy had recommended for dinner. Easier said than done. It took us more than an hour as Andre had recorded the restaurant name on his phone, and his phone battery had gone flat. So we had to find a cafe with a power point where we could plug the phone in to check the restaurant details. That took long enough, but then Google Maps pinned the wrong spot on our map (even with the correct address), and TripAdvisor flatout gave the wrong address. We ended up finding it eventually though and we ended up not being extremely impressed. Andre said his steak was excellent, but Michelle and I got lasagna which, while it tasted good, had next to no meat in it and no tomato sauce at all - not sure if that's traditional or not, but none of the other lasagna we had in Italy was like that. We did have very tasty bruschetta though. The late dinner meant we didn't have a chance to do any laundry as we'd wanted and were up late clearing photos off our SD card onto Andre's phone.

We did enjoy our time in Florence, even though it was cold we liked semi-camping as something different to the B&Bs, hotels and apartments we'd had up to that point.

Rome & the Vatican

15 May

Apologies for the delay in updating! We have just left Florence and our accommodation there (a permanent tent in a caravan park) didn't have wi-fi - it was only accessible in their bar area, plus our days were quite busy!

But back to Rome. On our second full day in Rome (last Wednesday) we had booked tickets for the Vatican museums, having heard how very long the line can be. So off we headed for our 10:30 time slot. As we got closer the area was very busy as we expected, but as we neared St Peter's we began hearing people talk about tickets to see the pope. Sure enough, we had picked a morning when the pope was giving an address in St Peter's Square. This was both good and bad for us. It was on at exactly the time we were due to enter the museum, so this meant the queue for the museum was only about five minutes long. The bad part was, the queue was only five minutes long - so we had wasted an additional 4 euros each by pre-booking our tickets (thankyou catholic church for your ridiculous charges).

The Vatican museum was much bigger than I expected - we spent a good three hours in there. It had some impressive pieces in its collections and I particularly liked the hall of old maps and another hall of tapestries illustrating various bible stories, including some I didn't expect like Herod's massacre of all children under two in his effort to kill Jesus. However I also couldn't help but be a little disgusted by the enormous wealth that the catholic church has obviously put into relatively trivial things like the interior decorations of the building - frescoes, ornamental sculpture, etc.

The museum included a visit to the Sistine chapel, and although we had guards who were strict on their 'no photos' policy, we did manage a few photos. Michelangelo's paintings were quite impressive, although it looked to me like one or two down the far end actually seemed unfinished.

After the museum we went to have a look in St Peter's church itself. The line to get in was ridiculously long, and it was hot, so we decided to get gelato from a place nearby that I'd heard was good. It was a disappointment. My black cherry had that fake medicine cherry flavour and the caramel was more like vanilla with swirls of caramel through it. Note for anyone else: Old Bridge gelateria not worth it.

I was over walking by that point, so after looking round inside St Peter's for a while I went and sat outside while Michelle and André climbed the dome.

The next day we explored via Appia Antica, or the Appian way. It's a road that runs through southern Rome and is lined with roman ruins. Tip: most of it is not pedestrian friendly except for Sundays when it's closed to traffic. This seems absurd to me as one would think it's quite a popular tourist destination, but maybe it's not as there wasn't much in the way of food shops around either. So after much walking and re-routing we eventually made our way there. We should have taken advantage of the archeobus that runs that route, but somehow I hadn't heard of it before we got there.

We got there eventually though, and visited the catacombs of San Sebastian which were apparently the first catacombs used by the christians in ancient Rome. I didn't realise catacombs were also used by pagans and even after christians were no longer persecuted. After visiting the catacombs we walked along a more pedestrian-friendly section of the road (much of which still has the original roman paving) and saw a few other ruins including the mausoleum of Cecilia Metella. We debated whether to go across the park to see some aqueducts, but it would have required changing buses twice and still a bit of a walk, and we were also interested in seeing the Baths of Caracalla which closed shortly and were simpler to get to. So the baths won out.

I was actually a little underwhelmed by the baths complex, I think mainly because my expectations were too high. I had heard about how huge they were, and they weren't that big at all. The building was still impressive and appears to have been multi-storey, but compared to the Forum and Palatine Hill, they are nowhere near as extensive. The information boards did a good job of describing the original structure though, something that I found lacking in many other ancient roman sites.

We did so much waking that day we really were not up to eating out, so decided to eat in our room and buy something from nearby. While André went to put on a load of washing at a nearby laundromat, Michelle and I went looking for food. We found a great little place just down the road which sold the best and possibly cheapest food we had in Rome. We bought two meals for 9 euros each, and each contained a pasta primi (first course), secondi (meat-based second course) and a side of veggies. This means we took home a meal of lasagne, pork kebab with potatoes and peas, and an unidentified pasta dish, meatballs in tomato sauce and carrots. Between the three of us there were still leftovers and it was all very yummy.

For our final day in Rome, after a bit of a sleep-in we headed up to the Villa Borghese, a park to the north. This presented more of a dilemma than it should have. See, while Rome's metro system is not extensive at all, it's cheap (1 euro for a one-way trip) and we had a line running very close by our accommodation which would have taken us straight to the park. However when we turned up to the metro stop, we discovered it was closed for some reason and wouldn't be running again until 5. Wonderful. This meant figuring out buses, and do any of the bus stops have bus maps? No. We tried the bus operator's website from André's phone, and it was terrible. Purely by chance we came across a bus stop for a line that would take us to the park. The next bus was due in three minutes. Hoorah!

It was too full. We seriously could not fit on. Obviously as the metro was closed, everyone was on the buses, and the Italians are not as good at cramming onto public transport as Parisians and Londoners. Fortunately the next bus was only another fifteen minutes away, so we got onto that one, and after a 25-ish minute un-airconditioned ride we got there.

The park was quite pretty and had a wonderful look out. After lunch we hired a golf buggy to drive around and explore, and after getting a little lost initially, ended up spending about half an hour cruising around the park. We walked home via another gelateria which had good reviews. It was quite good though I found my lemon was a little too lemony (not sweet enough), and the caramel was more like butterscotch - yummy, but not quite what I was after. So Giolitti's remained our favourite. In accordance with this, I am fairly certain André intentionally took our route home past Giolitti's so that he could make our last gelato in Rome our favourite. As we had just had a gelato, we shared one between the three of us and each chose our favourite flavour, so our final gelato ended up having caramel, watermelon and pineapple.

Once we got home it was dinner time, so we decided to return to the same place we had bought dinner the previous night and try their pizza. We ate in the restaurant this time, and they sell their pizza by the kilo! It was very cheap and the best pizza we had in Rome, a great end to our stay there.

Food we wish we could bring home

Giolitti's gelato, specifically the mango, caramel, pineapple, watermelon and chocolate; the chocolate-filled croissants we've been having for breakfast in Rome; the banana and chocolate crepes from France (I'm totally going to make those though); cheese fondue from Switzerland (I can always make cheese fondue but I doubt it would be that good); the pizza we had for dinner last night (finally found excellent pizza in Rome!).

When in Rome

After our 'break'  in Lauterbrunnen, we headed south to warmer climates in Rome. While this looked like it would be our longest trip, it went much smoother than our trip to Lauterbrunnen, although we almost had to run for our change in Milan. We pulled in to platform 1  and had to find platform 11 in ten minutes instead of 25. Fortunately Milan's main train station is quite straight forward and we didn't have any problems finding it.

We got into Rome at 2pm, and our b&b was within walking distance of the train station. Fortunately the clouds only thought about raining and we got there dry. The address was easy enough to find but the b&b was not marked (it was an apartment building). Lucky for us another guest was leaving just as we arrived so was able to let us in and show us the way up.

The place is in central Rome on quite a  busy street, but is quiet enough at night time. Italians  are not big breakfast eaters so there is not a  large selection of breakfasts, but we've been having croissants with chocolate in them, juice, and André has coffee.

The first afternoon we decided to join a  free walking tour. It was not the same company we used in Paris, as they don't operate in Rome. While  it wasn't a  bad tour, it wasn't as good as the one in Paris. We saw the Spanish steps, the pantheon, Trevi fountain, and several other churches and monuments. We had dinner at a little restaurant near Trevi fountain -not too expensive but the food was average. Strike one for roman  pizza, although Michelle said her lasagne was reasonable. Afterwards we got gelato from a place recommended by our tour guide. I had  caramel and chocolate, Michelle had pineapple and lemon, while André had coffee, baileys and chocolate. It was amazing. It was like gelatified flavour, not flavoured gelato. I  would never have picked pineapple gelato but I  tasted Michelle's and it was fantastic. It's called Giolitti and is near the Prime  Ministerial house, if anyone wants to know!

That night while finding our way home we ended up going down the road  that leads straight to the Colosseum. We crossed a road, turned down another street and there it was in front of us! The street was scattered with other ruins too, and while stopping to take  photos we met another traveller, Sean, who is a Canadian working in the UK. We got talking for two hours and decided after midnight that we should meet up the next day!

So the next day we met up with Sean and spent most of the day looking through the Colosseum,  roman forum and Palatine Hill. I  didn't realise how extensive the complex on Palatine Hill is and we spent quite a  bit of time there. We spent a good three hours at the Forum and Pallatine Hill alone. I was surprised to learn the original roman senate building is still nearly entirely in tact.

In the afternoon we went to see Trajan's market. Waste of money. It was of average interest level, to me, especially as we'd just spent the  rest of the day at far more interesting complexes, and  it charged 11  euros when it had cost 12  for the Colosseum, Forum and Palatine  hill combined. It might have been OK if it only charged 5 euros perhaps, but at 11, I don't think it's worth  it. We visited another gelateria for afternoon  tea,  near the pantheon. They  were also very good but I  still preferred Giolitti's. I  had chocolate fondente and mango, Michelle had Mars bar and cookies, while André had coffee and chocolate, he thinks, but can't quite remember!

Dinner was at a  restaurant near the pantheon. At the same time was a protest with riot police, though the police only had to intervene for a  short time when a  few individuals got aggressive. From what we could gather the protest was something about cruelty to dogs, but we couldn't figure out exactly what was going on. Dinner  was pizza and cannelloni. The pizza was reasonable but still not amazing. Strike  two for roman pizza. The cannelloni was pretty good though. For dessert we took Sean back to Giolotti's and this time I  had mango and watermelon (the best mango gelato I've ever had, and the watermelon reminded me of the watermelon sorbet mum makes!),  Michelle had caramel and nutella, and André again had coffee with something else. It was another late night but it was an excellent day. I will update again later but for now I have to go  to bed!

Lauterbrunnen

As I  said when I  finished  off my last  post, we are currently in the Lauterbrunnen  Valley in Switzerland. The scenery here is amazing. Lauterbrunnen  is in the bottom of the valley, with huge cliffs hundreds of metres high on either side.  Then beyond those cliffs are mountains more than twice as high again.  From here at about 700m above sea level, we can see peaks over 3000m  high, and there are more over 4000m which we would be able to see if the clouds hovering over them would go away. There are 72  waterfalls in the valley, many of them glacial, and we can see one of the biggest, Staubbach  Falls, from our  window. Staubbach Falls  is nearly 300m  high, about the same height as Wallaman Falls, and is virtually a  single drop, except it falls onto rocks shortly before it hits the bottom.

Just getting here was an adventure in itself. First we missed our bus from Tignes  to Bourg St Maurice to catch our train by one minute. We called a  taxi instead and between the three of us the cost wasn't  bad, and the  driver was very friendly and acted as a  guide to the area for us  during the drive. Got the train from Bourg St  Maurice with no problems, but it got into Lyon ten minutes late, which meant our 18  minute changeover became 8 minutes. We found our next train with about 3  minutes to spare, which took us on to  Geneva in Switzerland. From Geneva we then had to buy another ticket to Lauterbrunnen  as  they were unreservable  trains. This was simple enough and we then headed  off to Bern. Our next train from Bern was  supposed to  be 20 minutes after our last one got in. However,  it got cancelled as someone jumped in front of  it and killed themselves before it got to our station (pretty  much my worst nightmare at train platforms).  This resulted in us having to wait another hour before the next one came along. We got into Interlaken, our  last stop before Lauterbrunnen, about  two minutes before 9. The next train to Lauterbrunnen left at 2  past 9. Did we make it off the train to the next platform in time? Of course not. So then we had  to wait another hour (in which time we walked into Interlaken to get tea). We finally got in to Lauterbrunnen  at about  twenty to 11. Fortunately our hostel was easy to find and the room key had been left out for us. The room is spacious, there is a  shared  kitchen and dining room and  we hardly see anybody else.

Yesterday we walked up the valley to  see the Trummelbach  Falls. It  is a glacial waterfall inside the cliff -  all you can see from the outside is where it comes spilling out at the bottom. However tunnels and caves have been excavated into  the cliff and lights have been installed,  so for a  price you can go in and see the falls making its way down through its own tunnels in the rock. It was pretty impressive and extremely loud. In the late afternoon we took a cablecar up to Murren  on the eastern side of the valley, but the clouds came over  to ruin the view. We did get a  bit of a  view though, and  it gave us great perspective as a little village on the western side that we'd  previously looked up at was now way below us,  yet  the mountains were still easily twice as high as we were. We had a very Swiss dinner at a hotel down the road- rosti with locally made pork sausage, cheese fondue and chocolate fondue. There is a well stocked supermarket nearby (unlike the supermarket at Tignes which was half empty), although small, so we've been able to make our own lunches and breakfasts. It also means we've been able to  buy a  few Swiss chocolates!

Today has been pretty lazy as we've mainly just wandered around the village, done laundry,  uploaded photos, bought postcards and took a little walk up the hill to eat our picnic lunch with a  view. Lauterbrunnen was chosen as a place to have a bit of a holiday from our holiday, so it's been nice and relaxing.

Tignes

Fri 4 May
Please note we can't always publish these posts the day they're written due to lack of wi-fi. So I'll put the date at the top of the post so you'll know what day it was intended for!
Today we are on the train from Tignes to Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland. The trains took a bit of figuring out but that's another story.
Our two days in Tignes were excellent. The snow conditions were far better than we could have imagined. This week is the last week of the season and we were only expecting the glacial ski runs to be open (these runs have snow on them all year and are reopened later for summer skiing). However it's been an amazing end to the season and there was snow all the way down to the village, meaning we could ski in and out of our apartment building. It snowed the first two nights we were there. The second night it was a bit warmer and all the new snow was gone by the morning, but the first morning there was a good two to three inches of snow on exposed surfaces that hadn't already been walked or driven on.

The first day we spent most of the morning getting the rust off our skiing and snowboarding skills on an easy run near by. Before lunch we decided to try another longer run on the opposite side of the valley. It was hard. It was only marked as a blue run but it had some long, bumpy and steep bits that took a lot of work. Steep is OK if it's not too long and there's enough flat at the bottom that you can afford to get some decent speed up (which this one didn't have until the very bottom), and as long as it's not so bumpy that you risk your ski getting stuck in a rut or bump and sending you flying. It was also a cloudy day which really doesn't help with skiing on bumpy runs. Michelle stacked it half way down and twisted her knee, which meant I had thoughts of dislocated knees, medivacs and travel insurance going through my head as I stood there waiting with her to see how her knee was, melting in the sun that showed its face just long enough for the toughest run we did that day. Ugh. And then we had to get the rest of the way down the run, after which it was time to rip off the gloves, unzip the jacket and lie in the snow for fifteen minutes. André says he was awesome and ripped up on his snowboard, but he thought it was hard too.

Lunch was definitely a welcome break then, so Michelle and I had hot dogs (made with baguettes!) and André got a cheese burger and we shared fries.

 After lunch we went back to the easier run we'd done earlier that day till about 3 o'clock, another unexpected perk as we had read that late season skiing generally was only good until lunch time.

The second day was a lot of fun with no injuries, although Michelle's knee was still sore. We found another long blue run to do which was a really fun run to do. The snow was a little icy the second day, but I found I handled my skis better, probably because I am used to Australian snow which is often a bit icy! The run we did had a steep section also, and the ice made it a bit hard going, but it was a sunny day, there were no bumps, and there was a nice flat at the bottom of it to cruise across before the next downhill. The rest of the run was steep enough that we got some nice speed, no long flats to give André problems on his snowboard, and the snow was just soft enough that it made turning nice and easy and we could just swerve our way down the mountain. Probably the best skiing I've ever had.
It was a long run though, so tired us out, so after doing it a few times decided to get morning tea in the form of a banana and chocolate (not nutella!) crepe. After morning tea we decided to head up the glacier. We decided not to take our skis up as there are mainly red and black runs on the glacier and we didn't know how easy or hard the blue run down from it would be. If we weren't so tired we would have tried it anyway, but as I was tired and Michelle's knee was still giving her problems, we decided just to go up as foot passengers for the view.

 And it was a spectacular view. 3400 metres up (the top of the mountain is 3456m) and you're up with the clouds.

We played in the snow, took photos and André got dizzy from the altitude. Afterwards we had lunch (the best cheeseburger I've ever had) and returned to the run we did that morning. However by 3 pm it was slushy and super cut up. It took a lot more work than it had that morning, but we still got some good video of each other coming down the mountain.


So now (missing our bus from Tignes to Bourg St Maurice and having to get a taxi to get to our train on time) we're on our way to Lauterbrunnen via Lyon and Geneva.

These Gauls Are Crazy!

While in France we have noticed the French can do some things pretty weirdly. For instance, our hotel room here in Tignes does not have a toaster and to flush the toilet you don't push the button down, you pull it up. They also like mayonnaise on potato chips (as in fries) but I think I read that came from Belgium.

And the traffic in Paris! It's insane! The road rules are more like guidelines really, that is if they exist. Lanes don't exist on many roads, except to separate oncoming traffic, so you might have a road that is six lanes wide and only has two three-car-wide lanes marked, one going one way and one going the other, and the cars all going in one direction just fit in and push in wherever they can until about the last fifteen metres before an intersection where the individual lanes will be marked. The round-about around the Arc de Triomphe is the worst. Apparently there is a car crash on that round-about every half hour. And they have ketchup and mayonnaise in little single-serve paper packets like you get sugar in cafes in Australia. These gauls are crazy!

Paris Part II

After my last very condensed post about Paris I thought I should write some more about our stay there. The day after our big day out it was drizzly and basically not much good for doing anything except museums. However as the next day was forecast to be rainy too, André and Michelle decided we should save the museum for then. It wasn't too rainy so we headed up to Montmartre to see the Sacre Couer Basilica and Bohemian quarter of Paris.

Because it was rainy the view wasn't as great as it could have been, but we had a look at the inside of the basilica and also inadvertently stumbled across Place du Tertre, or artists' square (which I really wanted to see) where we bought some paintings.
If we had time and it wasn't so cold, I would have thought about getting a portrait done. We saw some being done and they were very good. Instead we went to get lunch in a little local pizzeria, with a live pianist (well, a late lunch, or early dinner, or big afternoon tea - it was about 4:30pm but we had a late start due to our big night the night before!). On our way out of Montmartre we stopped by to see the Moulin Rouge.

After Montmartre, we went to see Notre Dame. We didn't realise there would be a service on at the time, so while we were still allowed in to see the church, we couldn't go up the towers. We also saw some more artists selling their wares at little semi-permanent stalls along the river and bought some more paintings.

While in Paris we bought groceries so we could make our own breakfasts and some of our other meals, as we had a self-contained apartment.
This meant we could take sandwiches and fruit with us for lunch, and we had microwave meals one night, croissants another and toasted sandwiches another. Often we would buy something else at lunch time (as well as our sandwiches), so lunch was our biggest meal. This saved on buying expensive dinners out. We had two grocery stores very close to our place, a Monop' (a mini Monoprix) and a Franprix. Our landlord advised us the Franprix would be cheaper but we found the staff in the Monop' friendlier and they bag the groceries for you- at Franprix you have to do it yourself which can be a pain if you have a lot. The prices weren't much different anyway.
The following day actually turned out to be quite sunny, but I really wanted to see Musee d'Orsay so we went there anyway.

Musee d'Orsay is basically an art gallery which is most well-known for its collection of impressionist paintings, so we saw Monets, Toulouse-Lautrecs, Picassos, van Goughs, and works by many other famous artists. Van Gough's Starry Night is not housed  there, but we did see Monet's Giveny waterlily paintings.
We also tried to head up the Eiffel tower that day, but it was too windy and the top was closed. Instead we went to a nearby cafe where Michelle and André had a banana and nutella crepe (I don't like nutella!) and we shared a plate of macarons. I knew eating near the Eiffel tower would be expensive, but we realised how expensive later when we saw banana and nutella crepes being sold for 3.50 euros when we had paid about 9! Lesson learnt: do not eat near the Eiffel tower! As the wind did not die down, we headed up to Montmartre again as it was so sunny. The view was excellent and there were a few street performers about, and lots of crowds. Food in Montmartre is much cheaper, especially if you buy it from a take away stand/ hole-in-the-wall type outlet rather than a cafe or restaurant. That night for tea André's Salmon crepe was about 4 euros and Michelle's and my chicken baguettes were less than 3 euros each. This was only a street away from Sacre Couer, so if you go further away it probably gets cheaper again.
On our last full day in Paris the weather finally cooperated and we got to go up the Eiffel tower! We took the stairs up to the second level then the elevator to the top, which was cheaper and the line was shorter. We still queued for about an hour though. We also checked out an old castle in eastern Paris called Chateau de Vincennes. You can walk into the complex for free, but certain buildings within the complex charge for entry. We were there so close to closing that didn't bother going in to any of them and just admired them from the outside.
We have now left Paris and took the train this morning to Bourg St Maurice, then a bus up to Tignes where we will spend the next two days skiing and snowboarding! The snow cover is fantastic for the last week of the season (looks like an Australian snowfield in the middle of winter :P) but it has rained a little this afternoon, so hopefully it snows tonight!