Mississippi one, Mississippi two, Missis....

Waiting is boring.  I have now been in York for a week.  I have been living in a backpackers and have handed in my CV to a few places.  Now just waiting to hear back from anyone.  Once that happens I can do something again.

I have now wandered around most of the city centre of York a few times.  I have done a ghost tour (York is apparently one of the most haunted cities in the UK) and have even taken some photos.  After going to Handball training on Sunday, I spent the next two days hardly able to move.  Going almost a year between trainings, I probably should have taken things slowly on my first day back.  Instead I went all out and suffered for it afterwards.  Following all of that I then got sick.  Just a cold and it has almost gone now, but enough to be annoying.  Atleast I have had nothing to do but wait anyway.  Come on phone, ring with good news for me...

Front of York Minster

Side entrance to York Minster

Clifford's tower, York Castle

Ruins of St Mary's abbey

York city walls

Only intact Viking age building in York, Tower of St Mary's church Bishophill

The grand old Duke

So I now live in York.  Well as much as anyone can ‘live’ somewhere without having a job or accommodation.  I have been here two days so far and it is a really nice town.  Currently I am at a backpackers inside the old city walls.  However, this backpackers comes with a full kitchen attached to my room and free laundry.  They even supply tea, coffee etc.  Really it is more like a shared room in an apartment.  I should find somewhere else though.

After getting back to the UK about a week ago, I relaxed.  I applied for a couple of jobs and asked people I knew around York if they knew of anything.  For the rest of the week I relaxed, recovered and caught up with a lot of people.  It was good to see a lot of friendly faces and have time to catch up with commitments to other people (I finally uploaded some photos to Facebook for the first time since I have left NZ).  Then after a week of getting more and more restless, I decided that I had more chance of finding something in York if I was living in York.  So a quick search for a hostel and a ticket north, and I was off.  Turns out the train was about five hours faster than a bus and only slightly more expensive.  A brief stop in London, led me to York.

Since I have been here I have handed in my CV to a few places.  There seem to be a lot of places looking for waiting staff etc, so I will see what happens.  I have met some locals and drunk with them.  I have found a Handball club and am going to go along this afternoon to see what they are like.  I haven’t found somewhere to live yet though.  I am holding off on that until I have an idea of where I am going to be working, as I would like to live vaguely near where I will be working.  Other than that, I have been wandering around looking at places.  Unfortunately I do not have my camera with me and we have had good weather so far.  I wasn’t expecting that, so didn’t try to bring my camera in my pack.

So all in all, it is going pretty well at the moment.  Oh and the main point to take away is that I am in York.  Not sure how that enriches anyone else’s life, but it’s a step for me.

In Bruges

There is pretty much only one reason that I visited Bruges over any other place in Belgium.  I saw a movie when I was in Uni.  It wasn’t a massively great movie, but it was one that showed me the only view of Belgium that I have seen.  So when I was going to Belgium, I figured that I might as well go there, it looked pretty in the film.

After a change from bus to train in Brussels (which looked nice, the small part I saw) I arrived in Bruges.  I had had success using the maps and GPS on my phone in Cologne, so figured I would do the same in Bruges.  Without knowing which buses to take, I saw that the hostel I was staying at was about 2.5km from the train station.  Turns out walking that distance carrying all your gear seems further than I thought and meant that I received my share of weird looks while doing it.  I got a good initial look at the old town centre as I passed through.

After a supplied breakfast, I had a marked map and a food list.  To me food in Belgium is chocolate, beer and waffles.  So first stop in my wanderings was, when I managed to find it, a chocolate museum.  It gave the history of Belgian chocolate, from the Aztecs through to modern processing and packaging.  Also the added bonus of samples.  Needing to walk off that before lunch, I wandered the town centre crossing canals and generally just looking at stuff.  Lunch almost beat me.  I found a bakery and got a cup of soup with fresh bread and a chocolate dessert thing that had me struggling to get through it.  Tasted amazing though.  I had to walk out to the windmills before I risked going to a chocolate shop to obtain some samples to take with me.  A trip up the bell tower seemed compulsory before relaxing at the hostel bar preparing for a beer tasting.  A slightly intoxicated trip to find waffles at about 9pm showed us that apparently Bruges closes at about 6pm.

Before my bus back to the UK I had some time to kill and found the best Belgian waffles I have ever eaten.  A van in the town square cooked them in front of me and layered it with icecream, chocolate, icing sugar and strawberries.  It would have tasted great eating it without any toppings.  My bus had me wondering how to get back to Canterbury easily.  My bus was going to London, so I had a late ticket booked back down the same road to Canterbury and a bed in London sorted if something happened.  However, I met a lovely Australian couple on the bus who were renting a car in Dover and offered to drive me to Canterbury as they were heading that way too.  So got a ride there and then picked up and taken back to the farm to relax, recover and refresh before I move North.

Bruge 

Skyline silhouette

Buildings right onto the water

Canal with Bell tower in the background

On the scent, Cologne

Hmmm… how to explain Cologne?  It was ok.  For some reason I wasn’t as impressed by Cologne as other places I visited.  It was the first time on my trip that I was slowed down by rain, I had had issues with a railway driver’s strike and was still recovering from a light cold.  So there were a few things to overcome.

Although I wasn’t caught up directly in the strike, the after effects were a massive number of delays across Germany.  Overall my train to Cologne took an hour and a half longer than the four hours scheduled.  For this I was fortunately refunded 25% of my ticket price, which was a pleasant surprise.

Once I finally arrived and checked in, I was running out of daylight to see the city.  I made my way down through the old town and had a look through the cathedral.  It is a beautiful cathedral and welcoming.  The rest of the city was nice, but didn’t really make me love it.  It was actually the city I felt the most uncomfortable in.  It was just a feeling but was enough to not let me really relax into the place.  Apart from the cathedral there wasn’t much for me to see.  There was also the obligatory parade/protest.

Every city I have been to seems to have a protest or parade.  I have seen the Oktoberfest, football fans corralled by riot police, student protests, protests against the Islamic State and other protests that I have not been able to understand except to know that people weren’t happy.

Anyway, Germany done.  It has been an awesome trip and I loved most of it.  On to Belgium and the fairytale town of Bruges.

A lack of Hamburgers

First things first, although there are the normal fast-food places, I didn't find extra hamburger places. Nor was there a Hamburger Street (which I had seen in Berlin). The closest was the disappointing Hamburger bank (again with no hamburgers). Having never knowingly met anyone who had been to Hamburg I figured that it wasn't really a big player on the European tourist market. So only had a night there.

Arriving into the main train station, I found the best one so far. Big, open, clearly signed, basically a big underground shopping mall with train, bus and underground stations attached. It was also conveniently placed across the street to my hostel. After checking in and obtaining a map, I set off on my usual method of exploration, wandering aimlessly around foreign cities until I see interesting things. I walked down past the Rathaus, over canals, up to St Michael’s church, down around the harbour, before ending back where I started.

I really liked Hamburg. I wasn't really there long enough to get a real feel for the place, but the feeling I got was good. Everything was more open, fewer people (it was a Monday evening, so could be biased), next to the sea and I felt more laid back. Long term I don't know what it would be like, but the brief sample left a pleasant taste. On to Cologne.

St Michael's Church

New Berlin

I hadn't expected to be in Berlin for another week. Somehow I managed to find another hostel at late notice that didn't cost the earth and it turned out to be even better placed. My American travel buddy was already in Berlin, so we caught up, saw the lit up and closed buildings (national holiday, unification day) and grabbed some dinner.

Getting up early the next morning I had planned on doing the free walking tour that had been recommended by friends that had previously visited Berlin. I needn't have bothered, the tour started at 10:30 from my hostel, so I wandered around and found breakfast. The tour was worth it. Starting with the Brandenburg gate and the Reichstag, through the Jewish holocaust memorial, past where Hitler's bunker once was and where the Luftwaffe headquarters building still stands, part of the Berlin wall and the commercial area of Checkpoint Charlie, Gendarmenmarkt square, up past the book burning memorial to Museum island. It covered alot of the key tourist points with an engaging and knowledgeable guide. To top off the tour I then went through the Pergamon museum and saw some amazing exhibits that covered Babylonian, Saracen and Islamic art, history and architecture, along with samples of Greek, Roman and Egyptian history. After most of the day sightseeing I found possibly the only bar in Berlin that was showing the All Blacks vs Springboks test. Settling in for a tense game with a group of Kiwis and a token Springbok we were joined by my travel buddy, to witness New Zealand's first loss in two years. Dinner preceded a pub crawl that ended at a nightclub and me getting to bed after 4am.

Needless to say I was left a little tired. So I extended my stay in Berlin another day to recover. Buddying up again we went to the Eastside gallery (a heavily graffitied section of the Berlin wall), ambled through a market then wandered randomly through the neighbourhood of Kreuzberg. I then gave her a highlights tour of the Brandenburg gate before we parted ways. I headed back to my hostel with the intention of booking my way somewhere or writing this. Instead I fell asleep in the common area, so put myself to bed by 7pm. An early end to an unexpected trip to Berlin.

So now I am off to Hamburg. I had thought about maybe Denmark replacing Poland, but the cost of the trip there and back at short notice and for only a couple of days made it not really feasible or sensible. Berlin was a pleasant surprise. Although lacking the old buildings of most of its neighbours (flattened during the war), it has a comfortable feel to it is welcoming of everyone and a history that must be uncomfortable for them but that they put on show. Maybe this is to show the world that it is not the place it was under Nazi control or maybe it is a method of repentance. Either way I felt more comfortable here than I thought I might, especially after the low I felt in Prague.

French cathedral

Jewish Holocaust memorial

Berlin cathedral

Eastside gallery, Berlin Wall

Brandenburg Gate

Unexpected journeys

An unforeseen change in plans. I had planned to travel from Prague to Krakow in Poland. From there I was going to spend most of a week in Poland. However that will now no longer be the case. I missed my train to Krakow. In a comedy of errors I watched it disappear without me. First I went to the wrong subway stop and found no train station, then I went to the wrong platform and found no train. When I had eventually found someone who could tell me what the problem was, I ran to my platform, up the stairs to see the doors closing as it eased out of the station. This left me in a city with no accommodation and an invalid ticket in my hand.

Finding a seat and a map I worked out that my options were another ticket to Krakow and continue as planned, or change plans completely. The next train was alot later, longer and more expensive than my last one, so I changed my plans. Basically I have cut out Poland. I would have really liked to go there, but will now have to do it another time.

Instead I found a train to Berlin, scrambled using roaming mobile internet to find accommodation on a holiday weekend for them and have penciled in the possibility of Denmark instead. Time will tell how well this plan works. Now I just have to find a use for the 900 Polish Zloty I got before leaving England.

Prague? Czech!

So it turns out that when you go to look at sights in a country that doesn't speak English, all of the signs and descriptions aren't in English either. So in Prague everything was in Czech and therefore almost incomprehensible to me.

Arriving I had the technique sorted. Off the bus, into information, grab a map and local travel pass, sorted. In spite of this I still walked past my hostel briefly. After checking in, I met up with my new American friend and we set out to explore the sights we had been told to see. We walked to the old town square, saw the show at the astronomical clock, walked the waterfront and Charles Bridge. That left us with the hill. Up past souvenir stores and cafes we rose to see Loreta and into the monastery. Here we paused to admire the view and ended up staying for dinner and a beer. It was dark by the time we left and thinking that we were heading to the castle, we wandered up a dark pathway. This is the sort of place parents warn you not to walk when they expound the dangers in travelling. It was a pathway with the street lights out, on the edge of a park, in a strange city and not marked on our maps. Needless to say, as I am writing this, nothing untoward happened. In fact it led us to an observatory. So instead of being mugged, I gazed at the stars and craters of the moon through high powered telescopes. Eventually we found our way back down to Prague Castle, our original destination. We walked past the armed guards and through what is supposedly the largest medieval castle complex in the world. From here we called it a night.

At this point I must point out that I feel that Prague has all of the makings of a Dr Who themed city. Outside Loreta is an avenue surrounded by creepy looking statues, the inside of the subway stations reminded me of daleks and the TV tower which dominates the southeastern skyline has giant black baby statues crawling up it. In general a pretty creepy place if you think about it.

Day two started with a realisation and a discovery. Discovering crepes at the hostel breakfast and realising that the previous day I had seen 90% of what I had wanted. Luckily my travel buddy had some ideas. So we met at St Nikolas church and headed up to tour the castle and see it in daylight. The tour ticket allowed us to go inside St Vitus cathedral (apparently on about 100 years old rather than the centuries old it had appeared the previous night), the old Palace, the basilica of St George and down the Golden Lane. Each of these was interesting in their own right but the selection of weapons (some of them pretty ridiculous) and window into how people lived displayed by Golden Lane made it my favourite part. All of the sightseeing made the chimney cakes on offer, just outside the exit, irresistible. From there we gazed at the displays inside the Mucha Museum (an art nouveau graphic artist) and the stalls at the open air market. Back in old town we attempted to view the old Jewish cemetery and ended up with icecream on route to an ice pub. It was very similar to the ones in Queenstown. Dinner was from some stands in the old square and chased down with mulled wine to end the night.

I have decided that Prague (apart from the creepy bits) is probably quite romantic. It would be somewhere that I would happily return to with someone special to share it with. Unfortunately it has also shown me how lonely travelling can be. I have travelled with friends, family and someone special and now on my own. It makes it clear to me how much more enjoyable this is when you have someone to share it with. It is strange that somewhere so lovely and that I have enjoyed being has left me so melancholy as I head off to Poland.

Prague

Charles bridge

Big swans in Prague

Charles bridge

View from the Monastery

Evening over the Vltava

Sleepy medieval

My stay in Nuremburg was short. Just a night's stop as I tour on. I had been told by several people that really this was all I would need. The train rolled in midafternoon and my bus rolled out mid-morning the following day. Arriving it struck me that this was the first time I had visited a new city where the language was foreign and I had no one with me or meeting me. A new type of isolation. After hitting tourist information for a map I wandered to my hostel. It was a strange mix of a town. I was walking along the old medieval city wall passing old brick buildings when every now and then it would change, an ultramodern glass building breaking up the old feel.

In the hostel I met an American girl doing the same as I was, so we teamed up to explore the town. We wandered along the walls, through the town and up through the castle. Grabbing dinner on the way home, we were suddenly surprised by the red light district as we walked the walls back to the hostel.

The next morning began the trip to the capital of the Czech Republic, Prague.

The Sound of Music

The sound of music seems to be a combination of many contradictory sounds.  It is the sound of a bustling city and the quiet noises of the hills, it is the tune of traditions combined with the boisterousness of foreign tourists, it is a powerful history mixed up with an eye to future progress. But overall, everywhere you go and in everything you do, there is always the chance of a beer.

Following my farewell from Crundale, a quick and not entirely sober stop in London, a short flight to Frankfurt and the final leg, I arrived in Munich, capital of Bavaria. Travelling to Munich during the Oktoberfest can be a recipe for disaster and a lack of accommodation. However, I was lucky enough to be met at the airport by my German sister and given a place to stay. After dropping my gear at her apartment we did a self-guided local's tour through the city, stopping for enormous pizzas and Belgian hot chocolate.

The following day we travelled about an hour south of Munich along the autobahn to the hills around Bad Weissee for an afternoon hiking through the hills on the Austria-Germany border. We climbed a couple of peaks, saw amazing views over lakes, into Austria, the main body of the alps rising in front of us and little holiday huts hidden away. On the way home we stopped at the lake for a quick paddle. That night everyone was too sore and tired to do much, so we watched a movie and hit the hay. Preparation for the big day to come.

Day dawned with a little high cloud that promised to burn off later. This was the day of heading to the Oktoberfest with a group of locals (all of whom thankfully spoke very good English). We started with a traditional Bavarian breakfast of weiss wuerste (veal sausages), pretzels, radishes, tomatoes, sweet mustard and of course, beer. The girls dressed in dirndls and the guys in lederhosen, except me. Although I would have liked to wear the traditional leather trousers as well, spending upwards of €100 on a pair of pants that I would wear once didn't seem like a sensible use of my money. Especially with a beer at the festival costing €11 each! I can now confirm that it is impossible to look bad in a dirndl. Oktoberfest is unlike anything I have ever experienced before. The closest I can think of is the Fielddays. It is a similar size, but half the space is taken up by giant pavilions for the big breweries. These beer tents and beer gardens can hold several thousand people each. The rest of the space is taken up with food stalls or theme park rides. After looking around the entire place, we sat out in the Hacker-Pschorr beer garden for several hours. In this time I managed to drink a few steins of helles and eat a half hendl (roast chicken). Around 6pm we moved inside to where the party was. With the band playing English songs I knew the words to and German songs that people were happy to help teach me, the rest of the evening passed in blaze of dancing nonstop on benches and meeting people from all over the world (not that I could hear or understand most of them). It was definitely something that is incomparable and leaves a lasting impression. It is not even all about the beer.

Yet another day with the “Himmel der Bayern” (heavens of Bavaria, blue skies and a few fluffy white clouds). I joined an organised tour with Discover Bavaria, heading to the fairytale castle of Neuschwanstein. This castle was designed by King Ludwig II, based around the works and operas of Wagner, it is also the inspiration for the Disney castle. As one of the top 10 things to do in Germany I felt I should visit while I was so close. It was a pleasant experience to be surrounded by people speaking English again after hearing so much German. We took a bus to Tegelburg, arriving for lunch that included the best wheat beer in the world. After lunch I took a bike ride down to Swan Lake with a girl who it turns out I had met in Austria during Contiki. Then we had the main event. We were taken to various lookouts with amazing views of Hohenschwangau castle and Neuschwanstein castle, before doing a tour of the inside. Grabbing an icecream on the way to the bus rounded out a day that was even better than I thought it would be.

Finally it was time to move on from Munich. Packing in the morning, I was given an informal food tour of Munich that ended with lunch at a small Barvarian restaurant in the centre of the city off the normal tourist lines. It was a good way to end a great stay in this amazing place. With farewells at the train station and Nuremburg in my sights, it was time to move on.

Piano player next to a fountain

Top of Saint Lucas's church

Breakfast

Hiking through the forest

Looking over to Austria

Sculpture of the german version of a taniwha

Hohenschwangau castle

Hohenschwangau and surroundings

Neuschwanstein castle

Earning a Crust

So my last couple of months have somewhere between busy and hectic.  At the farm I was offered a job up until harvest (about a month), then just before I was told that there was no way I was finishing until the end of harvest, and then after harvest the job kept going for a couple more weeks until I said that I was going to travel again.

The job was great.  Being back on a farm reminded me how much I had missed it.  Living with a family here I was just another son and was looked after like it.  If they were doing something then I was too, if they were invited somewhere then I was automatically part of the invite.  And they have a dog.  The actual work part was general farm work and harvesting.  So there was stock work, farm maintenance, hay and silage making, grain haulage, storehouse work, cultivation and the everyday little jobs that pop up.  Everything from delivering calves to emptying grain bins to days spent in a tractor cab.  Long hours meant that I got paid well and limited options for spending it.  During harvest I was doing 80+ hour weeks with one week I did 95 hours.  It was good and I worked hard enough that they have tentatively offered me the same gig next year.  So might end up back this way in the future.

Aside from working for the last 3-4 months, I have tried to throw myself at any opportunity with the family, farm and community.  I have attended weddings, a 90^th birthday, agricultural shows, plowing matches, parties, Pilates, sports events, stag dos, regular locals evenings at the pub and the Kent only game of “Bat and Trap”.  Turns out bat and trap is a sport that I am not very good at.  However I have played a few times when the team has been short of players.  It is a game that is a cross of cricket, lawn bowls and tennis, with a health amount of drinking taking place.  I can’t explain it more than that.  It is more of a social thing than a competitive one, and fun.

I have made a lot of friends here and will hopefully return to see them all again.  It has been a good way to see this part of the country.  I feel that people who travel all of the way over here and live in London tend to get stuck there and not really see the real country.  By living in a little village I feel that I have had no choice but to see the real England, or atleast the real Southeast.  Now I have an urge to travel again.  I am going to see more of Germany and surrounding areas.  Seemed a good opportunity to see the Oktoberfest and the largest country in Europe.  Afterwards I think I will move north towards York and try to find something up there.  Who knows.  Time will tell how it all works out.

"Home", Huntstreet Cottage

Puppy

Ready for harvest

Westgate, Canterbury

Back in the UK (yes I skipped a bit and yes I am still behind)

As I am terrible at catching up with this, I am going to change what I am doing.  I had been hoping to finish off the Contiki entries etc and keep everything in chronological order.  That turns out to be wishful thinking and I am just getting further and further behind.  So I am going to let you in on a secret… I survived my Contiki trip and am still alive.  I am doing pretty well actually.  Quite busy even, which is why I am struggling to try to catch up.  So the rest of the Contiki entries will appear and they will be labelled so you know what they are, but I will also try to keep up with what I am doing at the moment.

So just over a month ago I got back to London.  What I did for the first few days I was back will be covered in the Contiki series.  Basically I had three days in London having fun with people remaining from the Contiki trip.

Moving on from that I caught up with family in the UK.  Mum has a cousin living in Kent who I thought that I should impose myself on for a few days to rest, recover and catch up with them.  Having not the cousin for a few years and having not met any of the family I thought that this would be an appropriate use of my time.  My few days with them turned into about a week and life snowballed from there.

I took a coach (bus) from London down to Canterbury.  I had been going to take the train down, but after looking at the differences the bus won out easily.  Although it was slightly slower, it was much much cheaper.  I had limited money and plenty of spare time, so the bus it was.  After getting to Canterbury I hunted down a smaller bus to take me to Herne Bay.  When you have no idea how everything works, a dead phone and everything is closed, this is harder than it first sounds.  Eventually I made it and was collected by Mum’s cousin and my second cousin who happened to be visiting for the day.

Staying in Herne Bay turned out to be less about relaxing and more about trying not to let the storm that was going through the house trip you up.  It turns out that they were due to move house.  So my time for the first couple of days was split between arguing with banks and packing and moving a pair of lifetimes worth of belongings.  A few days later and both issues had been successfully negotiated.  It was time for a break.  Mum’s cousin was going to housesit at a farm cottage in rural Kent.  Between the promise of idyllic country life for a few days and the rumoured whisper of a possible job there, I headed to the countryside…

Meeting Athena

It turns out that the 1st of May is a national holiday in Greece. Also on this day all of the ferries were going on strike. I found out later that there were riots in Athens that day as well. It wasn't a particularly settled day in Greece. The first of May was also the day that we had chosen to leave the island of Corfu to go back to the Greek mainland. The first obvious problem here was the lack of ferry. We had been warned that this was going to happen, so the night before our driver had taken the bus and our bags back over on the last ferry. Enter our knight in a white boat. George was on hand to take us over.

So began probably the most unusual trip on George's boat by a Contiki group. The rain was back, so we had the group huddled together trying to keep warm in the small cabin and under a sail cloth on deck as we powered over to the closest point on the mainland. This was a massive change from the party atmosphere of the day before. However we made it safe, with the crew doing their best to keep moral up.

Onto the bus, we headed through a small town that Contiki trips have been stopping in for years. With the way the Greek economy is there are alot of people who are struggling, so Contiki likes to support the people they have been with for ages. We stopped for lunch and everyone went to the same little shop. In there they have a wall of Contiki business cards that every trip that has been through has left.  It is a large wall.

Finally we were getting close to Athens. It was also getting late. We had a night in Athens, an early start the next morning and quite a few of us not happy about how little time we had to explore a city that has its roots in one of the oldest civilisations on the planet. We got to Athens about an hour before sunset, met our guide and went up a hill so that we had a view of the Acropolis. We got there to have the last light of day on the hill. Sunset thankfully, caused the light to be from the best direction for photos. Unfortunately the guide was slow, easily distracted and liked to talk. He told us not to take photos and to listen to him only. I am very happy that I ignored him. I listened to what he said while taking photos. By the time he had finished talking and would let people take photos, half the Acropolis hill was in shadow and just the Parthenon at the top was still in weak light. That was the last time I got to see it in daylight. I wish that we had more time and could have gone up to see it closely. The guide then took us past the stadium built for the first modern Olympics, the pillars that remain from the temple of Zeus and a couple of parliament buildings.

Dinner was a walk about dinner and I was in search of moussaka. Apparently it was delicious, it was. We found a little restaurant that did very good moussaka. The downside was that it took quite a while to arrive. Therefore I didn't have much time to explore the Plaka region of Athens in the dark. Most of the group went via a pharmacy and back to the bus. I figured I had enough time to explore a bit and walked in the opposite direction. In this way I managed to see some more ruins of the old city, lit up at night. There was a cool view up the side of the Acropolis with ruins lighting the way. After finding a waffle in a market for dessert, I was running late for the bus to the hotel and had to run to get there.

With the ferry to the Greek islands so early in the morning, we only had a couple of hours in Athens. I wish that we had the time to explore it properly...

Corinth canal

Bird cage covering the sun

Acropolis hill

Parthenon

Sunset over Athens

A taste of Island life

Leaving Rome felt like I was leaving too early. There is so much there that I think even if I had been there a week I would still have the same feeling. However Corfu beckoned and with Pompeii as a temptation, it was time to go.

As has become the habit, the coach ride started and sleep snuck up on all of us. I have seen some great scenery on this trip, but have probably missed alot too. No matter how alert I am when I board the bus, after half an hour I am dozing. Once in Pompeii most people were doing the optional extra of a guided tour around the ruins. I thought that I knew enough of the history that I wouldn't gain much from the guide. So I bought an entry only ticket and explored. The ruins are alot of fun, but the hour I had to explore was certainly nowhere near enough. I managed to almost run through maybe ¾ of the place. But didn't get to fully experience it. On the brightside it seems like I got to see more than the guided trip.

Late afternoon brought us to the coast and our ferry to Greece. We had an overnight ferry and were expecting comfy seats that we could sleep in on the way. Instead we got upgraded to cabins with beds. From memory this is the first time I have spent the night at sea. So I was going to enjoy it. We bought a bottle of whiskey from duty free and sat up playing cards until about 2am. As we were disembarking at 6am, I don't think that this might have been the best idea. But oh well, too late.

We changed ferries and caught our boat to Corfu, arriving late morning to rain and a nap. Midday we took a shuttle into Corfu township and I had my first gyros. It is basically a kebab with chips in it. Delicious and cheap. If in Greece I recommend going to Mic Macs (a fast food chain) and getting one. While eating the downpour continued. This excluded a visit to the fortresses after lunch. Instead we explored the narrow alleys that resemble southeast Asia. In the process we started to bear more and more resemblance to drowned rats. In that state we found a Fish Spa. And so began half an hour of torture. Basically you sit with your feet in water and fish nibble the dead skin etc off your feet. As someone with very ticklish feet, it was hard to withstand. Afterwards my feet felt good but it took alot of willpower to get there. While we were there the rain stopped, so we got more gyros and headed back for a toga party. The highlight of the party was going swimming in a toga in a thunderstorm. Unfortunately I was physically prevented from entering the water. It would have been fun.

The next day dawned bright and clear. We were to spend the day floating on a boat around the island. Enter the infamous George's boat. It is a small boat with a bar and a very funny and inappropriate Greek man. A day spent floating around swimming, eating and drinking was gratefully enjoyed. A few too many drinks for some people and too much sun for most of us. This was probably the best most chilled out day with everyone on the trip.

We followed up George and his boat with a Greek dinner and dancing. The highlight of this for me was the roasted lamb. The dancing was interesting to watch but would have been better if they hadn't kept interrupting our dinner to take part in the dances. Some people didn't get a chance to finish their food.

Corfu was ok, not my favourite part of the trip. Relaxed and with sun though was what some people had been looking for and George's boat was really good. Worth the visit, but not likely to return again.

Intricate decoration uncovered at Pompeii

Pompeii city walls

Ferry to Corfu

The islands of Greece approach

Corfu's old fortress

New and old fortresses

Apologies

I am sorry everyone.  I am alive and in England now, not stranded in Rome like this blog would have you believing.  I miss judged how much free time I would have to write.  I had planned to write on the coach as we traveled between places.  However, it turns out that alot of that time is taken up with the very real need to get some sleep on the trip.  45 days of no sleep is just a bit too much.  The rest of the free time is taken up with all of the distractions that you get on a bus of 30 odd people, especially when some of them are bored.

Hopefully now I will have some more spare time and my laptop, so will be able to get up to date soon.

As far as photos go, I will get onto them.  I took over 1000 photos, so will take a bit of time to sort and upload.  I will let you know when they go up.

Sorry again, I hope to do better in the future.

Roaming around in Roma - Contiki days 14 to 15

We were fortunate that Florence to Rome is such a short distance. We got to have a bit of a sleep in and a comparatively late start. The trip was reasonably straight forward, only a little bit more traffic that would hint at the chaos that we would find in Rome.

We got to Rome in the early afternon and went straight to Vatican City. There were people everywhere and alot of groups in national dress or waving national flags. The reason for the chaos being more than the traditional level was that the following day was one of the biggest days for the Vatican for several hundred years. In simple terms it was to be the canonisation of former pope John Paul the second. Anyway, we went through the Vatican City. We got to see through the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel and even St Peters Basilica. Some of the stuff they have in there, apart from being very old, is spectacular in its design and execution. I was slightly disappointed with the standard of some of the painting in the Sistine chapel. Rather than being disappointed due to the quality I think it was because of how much I had it built up in my mind and expected it to be another level above anything I had seen before. Countering this, we got to enter the basilica the day before the canonisation and could visit the resting place of a man who the following day would become a saint. It was sort of mind blowing to think about. Walking out into St Peters square there were people camped out to make sure that they had a place in the square for the ceremony.

The next day was a Sunday and we faced it with a mixture of excitement, frustration and nervousness. Today was the day that two former popes were being canonised. One of these popes was one of the quickest to be canonised in history. To top it all off it was the first time in 600 years that Mass was being led by two popes. All of this combined to mean that there were an extra couple of million people in Rome. With only a day to see everything and massive crowds, we had to carefully plan our day. We started at the Vatican at 10am to see if we could get close enough to see the Pope. The closest we could get before the crowds were more tightly packed than a music concert, was two blocks from St Peters square. We couldn't physically get any closer. We got to see some of the ceremony on a distant screen. After fighting our way clear of the crushing crowd, we passed by St Angelo's castle (hideout of the Illuminati in Angels and Demons) and over the Tiber river on our way to the Spanish Steps. While a large staircase, they weren't overly impressive. After climbing them we followed the road down to the Church of the Capuchin Monks. We did the tour through to see the bone crypts they have. A few hundred years ago someone arranged the bones of over 3000 monks into an artistic display. It was really spectacular, while also being a bit spooky and eerie. For something a bit lighter we headed to the Trevi fountain and along with a crowd of other people donated to receive a wish. It also turns out that in close proximity to the fountain is a place that sells both pizza by the slice and probably the best gelati that I tried in Italy.

We had a tour of the Coliseum planned so walked from the fountain via the National monument and Emmanuel building to the coliseum. This bit of walk was more what I had expected of Rome. There were old ruins and statues, links back to ancient Rome. Since we arrived early for the tour, I sat on some grass in front of the Coliseum and Roman Forum and took the time just to soak in where we were and let the awe of what had happened there just wash over me. It was a surreal feeling. The tour through the Colosseum and Forum was good. No matter what I had heard previously, it had not managed to limit how it felt to be there and the majesty of it all. The only criticism I had wasn't really valid. When the Christian church took over Rome most temples etc were converted to churchs. This to me made them seem less special, but on the flip side, this has caused them to be preserved so that they still exist for me to visit. At the end of the tour the rain started. It was the first time it had rained on the tour when we were out and about. I decided to head up Capitoline hill to the ruins of the temple of Jupiter before going to the Pantheon. Again an impressive building, made more interesting by the rain coming in through the circular opening in the roof. We had a meeting time at the train station to get back to our campsite, so we headed to the Metro station in the pouring rain. After running into a crowd waving to the Spanish ambassador we made it to find the station closed due to the massive crowd of people trying to use it. Three of us made it into the line when the station reopened before they cut the rest of the group off. We stood in an unmoving line for about half an hour before thinking that gelati was a better idea. It turns out that viagra gelati has no flavour, but bacoa chocolate is delicious. Eventually we gave up waiting and took a taxi to the train station arriving 5min before the last train. The others it appeared had found another way and were already there. With all of the excitment of the day, I skipped the party that night had tried to have a relatively early night.

Rome was busy, hectic, full of people, history and sights to see. I saw what I had decided was my bare minimum, so will have to return to see the rest. Being there at a time when history was being made was special. I remember when John Paul the second was Pope, so to be there when he became a saint was unreal. Thank you Italy, now for Greece.

Vatican City entrance

The recently made Saint John Paul the Second's tomb

Ceiling of St Peter's basilica

Trevi fountain

Inside the Colosseum

The Colosseum in cross-section

Looking up at Palatine Hill