TravelStream™ news feed for member wagonmaker on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/wagonmaker en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:53:15 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wagonmaker/1/1229190420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wagonmaker/1/1229190420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wagonmaker/1/1229190420/tpod.html Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:53:15 -0500 Teacher's Odyssey - EUROPE 2008

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Rome, Lazio, Italy

Quick update from our final destination!
We arrived in Rome yesterday, and it is an amazing city! Our hostel is a bit underwhelming, but it's our last place, so this is very exciting for us!

Today we visited the Vatican, including the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica and the Museums. We also took a walk along the Tiber River. The river, just like the one in Florence, is very high, flooding out all the river walks, etc. In fact, during our train ride from Florence to Rome, the whole of Central Italy seems flooded: all the fields and roads are washed out, the rivers and streams are way out of their banks!

Anyways, this computer really stinks, so I can't write anymore. Three more days and we're home!

Wayne
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Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany

Howdy!
A start-up entry! I think this will set up a map-pin in Winnipeg, which is good!
Still working at the Fort, though, so... I have to go to work!
Wayne
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Florence, Tuscany, Italy

Well, I figure I may as well take advantage of the free and convenient Internet here at our hotel to write more about our trip.

Yesterday, we went to Pisa, using the very last day on our trusty Eurail passes. Pisa is actually not very special in itself, other than, of course, the famous tower. It was very cool to finally see such an icon. It's one of those things that everyone knows about since they're really young and it's so common that it actually sort of becomes some sort of fantastical fable in your head, so it was really cool to see it. We did not go up because the prices to do so border on extortion. In the same square as the tower, there is a huge cathedral (Duomo) and a baptistery, both of which ALSO cost a heck of a lot of money to see, so we didn't actually go inside of anything in Pisa.

One of the neat things about this trip is that we have (lately) met quite a few people, others who are travelling. AT the beginning of the trip, it was always the other people who had been travelling longer and had more "wisdom" to share. Now, we are inevitably those who have been travelling longest and offer our tips to others. We met a couple girls in Verona who were staying at our hostel, then ran into one of them again in Cinque Terre, who introduced us to a couple American guys who were also travelling around, and then in Pisa we ran into those two guys again. So it's just really funny how people tend to follow the same travel routes and we keep meeting up with them. We also ran into a girl in Cinque Terre, and then just happened to run into her in the street again here, and we were able to help her out and show her a nice place to stay, etc.

Anyways, Florence is very nice. We took a major walk around today, seeing all the piazzas (and there are lots of ncie ones here) and going up on the hill of Piazzale Michelangelo for (free) sweeping views of the city. Also, last night, I got together with Evin, from the Fort. His studio is actually in the same building as our hotel! So, we went out for dinner and had a whole bunch of delicious Italian wine! It was a good time!

And so tomorrow we take our final train ride to Rome! Hard to believe. We keep talking about home, but in five days, we'll actually be on our way there. It seems surreal in a way! How can three and a half months be over already? But also, the trip is our reality right now, and home is inconceivable (just like beforehand, the trip was inconceivable and home was, obviously, the norm). Anyways, it'll be awesome to be home!

Take care, everyone!

Wayne
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Riomaggiore, Italian Riviera, Italy

Buon giorno tutti!

Well, we've had an amazing few days, helped by amazing weather and incredible accomodations! We are still having difficulty with Trenitalia and train connections, etc, but everything else has just gone excellently. For the past couple of days, we stayed in the Parca Nazionale delle Cinque Terre, an amazing protected marine area of the Italian Riviera.

To get there, we took a regional trian to Parma, which is, of course, the birth place of parmagian cheese. I wish it had been the birthplace of efficient train schedules instead, though. None of the electronic signs in Parma station were working, and there seemed to be no efficient train connections to La Spezia, on the coast. We tried to take a train to Borgo, which was part of the way, but that train mysteriously didn't come. So, we had to wait almost three hours for the La Spezia train. Anyhow, we finally arrived in the village of Riomaggiore, the first of the five villages that gives Cinque Terre its name.

It was certainly worth all the hassle! The train station is right on the cliff-side coast, and we got off the train and immediately saw the cliffs fall before us into the sparkling blue Mediterranean Sea. The sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was incredible! We walked up the steep main road to our "hostel" and had to wait a bit to check in. We sat down and a black and white cat immediately jumped up onto Alex's lap and laid down, so we petted the cat for a bit. It turned out that every time we passed by here, the cat was sitting on a perch near the place and we stopped to pet it. In fact, there was cats all over the place in Cinque Terre. Anyways, so the guy finally comes to the hostel, which is actually only a hostel office. We paid for our stay, and then he leads us off down the street! I'm thinking, what a dodgy situation! This guy has our money and he could just run off! But he didn't. The hostel actually just has rooms all over the tiny village and runs the whole thing as a collective hostel. So he led us all the way down to the marina! We got a large, two bedroom apartment, with our own bathroom and TV and everything, for really cheap! Plus, we were right on the waterfront, so we could open our balcony door and hear the waves crashing at our doorstep! It was like paradise.

Yesterday, we spent the whole day hiking around the park, through all five villages: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. The weather was perfect: not a cloud in the sky and the sun was beating down and it was actually hot! I took lots of pictures!

Today, we took to the trains again, almost for the last time, since our faithful Eurail passes will finally expire tomorrow. We wanted to stop in Pisa to see the tower, etc, but it was inconvenient to leave our bags there, so we'll just go back tomorrow. We are now in Florence, in another incredible hostel, recommended by my Fort friend Evin. It's right near the train station and we have our own private room again. This one has satellite TV and we have our own computer with free Internet! Amazing! And we're not paying very expensive either, for this place or the one in Riomaggiore. Anyways, Evin is living right next door! I logged onto Facebook and had a conversation with him, and when he found out we were here already, he told me to go to the window of the bathroom and look out -- he's right across the courtyard from us! So I had a chat with him - we're meeting him for dinner tomorrow night.

I guess that's about it! After three nights here, we're heading off to Rome (we'll have to pay full price for that train ticket!) for our last stop! There are so many things I'm looking forward to at home, I can't wait!

Take care!

Wayne

PS. Incidentally, we also heard some rumours about flooding, etc, in Venice, but saw no trace of it while we were there.
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Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Hello everyone!
I will write a longer entry soon about Italy.
Well, after Milan, Italy has been very nice to us! Verona was very very nice, very much like an Italian Salzburg. Very clean, gorgeous weather and lots of natural beauty to see. Venice was an understandable adventure, we spent about four hours walking all over the whole city, it was incredible. Now we are in Bologna, and we are basically spending our time here relaxing, since there aren't really alot of sites to see. So, we are using this time to do laundry instead!
Tomorrow we head off to the Mediterranean coast to Cinque Terre, to a town called Riomaggiore. After two days there, we are headed to Florence for three days, and finally Rome for four days to finish everything off!
Take care, everyone!
Wayne
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Lecco, Lombardy, Italy

Hello everyone!

Well, it is finally December and we have had our first taste of Italy. Our first stop here (after many train transfers) is Milan, a highly fashionable city with a very high-culture attitude. To put it bluntly, Milan has not warmed us up to travelling in Italy. Our hostel is full of hobos, the people are standoffish, we can't take most trains here, and nobody seems to like to use any kind of heating system.

Point the first: We are the only backpackers in our hostel. We are staying in an independant palce in the far south end of the city, and judging by the rest of the clientele, it is like a rooming house or a Homeless shelter or something. Every other person in our 16-bed-dorm is a middle-aged Italian man who can't seem to keep himself or the room (or our ensuite bathroom) clean. When I take a shower in the morning, I have to clear out everyone else's half-empty shamppo bottles, bar-soap, razors and used band-aids from the shower stall. I also have to empty off a hook or two so I can hang my towel, they all seem to be perpetually taken by used towels and dirty clothes. The common rooms in the hostel are constantly haunted by these same denizens, hollering at the top of their lungs to each other in Italian. All in all, it is relatively unpleasant to be at the hostel at any time of day. I hope it isn't this way at any of our other hostels. We're having alot of trouble booking other places because a surprisingly high number of Italian hostels are closed for some random period such as November 26th to December 21st, meaning we're left out in the cold. This means we have already booked some rooms which are a bit more expensive than we should have to, and that we haven't found any place at all for Verona (tomorrow night - yikes!) or Bologna.

Number two: The people (with some notable exceptions) here are not very helpful for the hospitality-industry. Waiters and waitresses we have had ARE very nice and patient, helping us out, which is awesome. People who work at newsstands or tabaccherias are downright rude and brush you aside if you don't speak Italian. The grand post office near the Duomo doesn't appear to sell stamps, or at least three different people shoved us off by giving us hasty directions in Italian as to where we should be to buy a stamp. The people on our side of the counter aren't much better, nopbody appears to want to wait their turn, and they just step right up to the counter, even when us and a couple of other people have formed a line. Usually, they place a very complicated order too, making us wait even longer.

Point three: Our "global Eurail pass" which should be GLOBALLY valid for all trains, is endorsed by Trenitalia, the national train service. However, there is a LONG list of trains we can't take unless we pay a hefty supplement of 15 euros (which os more than half the fare anyway). And, there appear to be very few regional trains going anywhere useful that we can take without a supplement. I didn't pay 1,000 euros for a trian pass just to be forced to pay a supplement for every ride! It actually makes me very angry.

Finally: Everywhere is cold. Everywhere. I appreciate the fact that in Winnipeg it is currently colder than the +3° I have to put up with, but I do think a museum should be heated. Well, not the Museo Nationale della Scienza e Tecnologica. Or how about a train station, or the train itself for that matter? None of the Italian trains we've taken so far are heated (maybe that's what the supplement would get us).

Anyways, needless to say, we are hoping for more luck in Verona. We will be spending our day looking for a place to stay, so wish us luck! Hopefully it will stop raining.

Wayne
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Interlaken, Swiss Alps, Switzerland

Hello everyone,



So we're finally in Italy, in Milan. It took awhile to get here. We've
noticed that some countries are not so great about having trains into
neighbouring countries. It was difficult to get from France to Belgium,
and today it was difficult to get from Switzerland to Italy. It took
four trains, from Interlaken to Milan. Then it was a long walk from
Milan's Stazione Centrale to our hostel, which seems fairly average, as
far as our hostels go.



Interlaken was adorable, a cute mountain village in the Alps, where no
building looked unlike a Swiss Chalet. We enjoyed hiking up the
mountains, sitting by pristine, quiet mountain lakes, and seeing
ancient ruins of castles. Unfortunately, Interlaken is famous for
extreme sports like canyon-jumping or skydiving (and skiing too) so our
hostel was filled with young American idiots who were on a Thanksgiving
weekend ski trip. It was not pleasant to be at the place. Luckily, we
had a private room, so we didn't have to share accomodation with them. But the city itself was so relaxing and beautiful. We had to get rid of our Swiss francs last night, so we went out for a nice meal (for a change)! We had an amazing Swiss cheese fondue with big desserts! It was fantastic!



Anyways, Milan is busy, crowded and expensive, and I'm looking forward
to our first big Italian city! Tomorrow we'll visit the Duomo, the Science and Technology Museum and the
Pinacoteca Ambrosia, an art museum with many masterpieces in it
(apparently). We'll see how it goes.



Take care!



Wayne
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Lyon, Rhône-Alpes, France

Hi everybody!

What a great day I had today! I am in Lyon, France, which I will admit was a bit off our travel map, but Paul from Lower Fort Garry is studying here for a year and invited me to come visit him and stay the night, so that is an offer you can't refuse! I have been treated royally here; the first thing we did was have some lunch (a meal Alex and I have stricken from existence in our regular budget lives) which was delicious baguette sandwiches. I have met a couple of his roommates, wh are very nice, and they have expressed dismay that I won't be staying another night for American Thanksgiving tomorrow, which was very nice. All in all, I will be sorry to leave tomorrow! But, I couldn't leave Alex on his own for another day; how would he survive?

Today Paul and I borrowed some bikes from Veloff, which is just an automated outdoor system with a row of about 20 bikes, all over the city. You can just borrow a bike at one station, ride to where you need to, then leave it at another station. The bikes are free if you borrow them for under an hour. Awesome system! We biked into Vieille Lyon, and saw the narrow tourbelles, tunnels between houses that lead to inner courtyards that date from medieval times. We also climbed the Fourvière hill, up to a gloriously over-the-top cathedral that looms over the city, with great views from its courtyard. Now, Paul is making homemade pizza from scratch and I will be able to sit down to a home made meal with him and three of his roommates.

Tomorrow, I am going back to Geneva where Alex and I will visit the UN buildings (which were mysteriously closed on Tuesday) and then we will be off to Innsbruck. After two nights there, we will finaly reach Italy, staying three nights in Milan. Our next stop after that will be Venice, but we are finding it difficult to arrange hostels at all in Italy, so we are finding it difficult to get a good place to stay. The quandary with Venice is that it is understandably more difficult to get around the city. Oh well, we'll see.

20 days and counting down!

Take care!

Wayne
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Bern, Bern, Switzerland

Hello faithful readers!

So after a disappointing stay in Zurich, our faith in Switzerland was greatly redeemed by the glorious country'a capital, Bern. what a wonderful city! We spent three nights in an amazing hostel, where we were again enclosed in our own little nook off of a 6-bed dorm, effectively having our own space. Also, our entire stay was nicley accentuating by an almost constant snowfall, which started on our first night and left snow on the roofs the next day, and then continued, making positively magical evening walks and views of the city.

Among the things we saw in Bern were: Albert Einstein's house, where he lived during the most intesne years of his masterful work. The modern museum in the tiny house was devoted to the physicist's life and work, making it very interesting for the likes of me, a science graduate. We also visited the Bundeshaus (the parliament) in the evening, since they just recently finished renovating and had opened their door for free self-guided tours. Basically, we were allowed to walk around their entire Parliament unguided and unhindered. While MPs played music. It was incredible! The building was built in 1904, and therefore bears a STRONG resemblance to Manitoba's Legislature. We also visited the bear pits, with bears living in them, zoo-style. Also, we profited from numerous walks around this enchanting old city. We were largely unsnowed on just because every sidewalk (or rather, the side of every street) has covered arcades over them, so you can walk everywhere free from rain or snow.

We also took a day trip to Basel, which was similarly quaint and gorgeous. It was funny going to Basel, since right from the very beginning of our trip, in the Schwarzwald (right north of Basel, or course), we saw every train going to Basel.

Today we transfered to Geneva and we have already visited the fascinating Red Cross museum, since it is closed tomorrow. On Wednesday, I am going alone to Lyon to visit a Fort friend for the day, then we are off to Interlaken for two days, and then finally to Milan, Italy! We are having difficulty finding good hostels and reserving them in Italy, we only today confirmed our Milan booking, and things aren't looking too promising for Venice, so we'll have to see how that goes.

Take care! Almost down to the three week mark! Although we continue to have fun and enjoy ourselves, we talk about home more and more and how we are looking forward to it. I can't believe I missed another Baba-meal yesterday! I'm so disappointed! The food here is, by comparison, terrible! But I geuss that's just because Baba makes such delicious food!

Bye!

Wayne
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Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

Okay,

So, Zürich was our first stop on our eleven-day Swiss journey. We arrived later on in the evening, after our day in Liechtenstein. Luckily, the hostel was an easy find, not far from the train station. However, it was not the awesome place Alex`s guidebook claimed it would be. We had to walk up two and half flights of stairs just to get to the reception desk, upon which we then had to walk two more floors up to our room. Our room was tiny and cramped, with two bunkbeds stuffed in alongside a sink and mirror. The two bottom bunks were taken and those two people had taken up the entire room with their crap. Also, the floor slanted towards the door, making you feel like you were sleeping on a hill. Not impressed. Also, the hostel did not offer free breakfast, which meant we had to find it, a very frustrating affair, as all breakfasts appear to cost at least CHF 15.00 or up, which is pretty much CAD 15.00 for a BASIC breakfast.

Needless to say, all things considered, I was NOT impressed by Zürich. Coupled with the fact that there was actually very little to be done there except walking around, then going (if you`re rich) to the clubs at night, I didn`t really have a good time in Zürich.

At least it was relatively pretty to walk around and soak in the atmosphere. We walked all around the Zürichsee, with pretty views all around, and also walked extensively around the quaint Altstadt, where our hostel was. Last night I met up with half a dozen other backpackers in our hostel and had a good time with them (and a cast iron flying pig) so that lightened my mood about Zürich.

Yesterday during the day we went out to Luzern (Lucerne) and walked around their cute semi-walled town with covered bridges. That was actually quite nice, though the wind was chilly yesterday. I think winter may finally be starting to creep in on us here.

I suppose that`s about it. We are in Bern today, so hopefully Bern will be more affordable. Our hostel is also much nicer.

Take care everyone!

Wayne
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