Swiss Alps Baby!!

 So long Vienna! You will forever be burned in my brain as the place where we got bed bugs.

After we made our day trip to Salzburg, Austria (where Mozart was born and raised) we hopped on another international train to Lucerne, Switzerland. Just an hour outside of Zurich, Lucerne is a smallish, picturesque mountain town. Beautiful and expensive as hell! The most expensive place I've ever been, comparable with Tokyo. So, when we arrived it was about 11 pm and you know what I was thinking!? Ack! It's even colder here!! But, I am so happy that I purchased long undies because I was actually warm in Lucerne and it was the coldest place on our trip . 2 degrees and socked in with fog. Lucerne was just a passing- through stop on our journey. I am happy we made the time to explore! The one day we spent there, we hiked Mount Pilatus...actually we took a gondola up and hiked down. Our day started out foggy and pretty chilly on the ground, but once we made it past the clouds on the gondola, it was warm, beautiful and sunny! Swiss Alps baby!! We have been told a few times on our travels that hiking is a very Canadian thing to do...and that day in Lucerne we hiked our asses off...literally! Our lower bodies were killing us the next day.

Jeni and I @ Mt. Pilatus

"Hello!" I say through chattering teeth!

Gondola

The surroundings were beautiful. I love the mountains and have been blessed to have had the Rockies basically in my backyard for most of my life, as Jasper is 4 hours from Edmonton. I am always amazed every time I visit the Rockies, and the Alps were equally as spectacular!

Observe: Swiss Alps!

One bummer thing that happened was that I lost my camera on our hike (very sad face). It was in my pocket one minute, and gone the next. I retraced my steps a long way...to a point where I knew I had my camera...but found nothing. No one had turned it in at the bottom either. I have contacted the mountain as well since our visit...and nothing has been found *sigh*. Lost in Switzerland...forever. Or in someone's North Face jacket pocket! Not to worry though, J-Sak has a sweet camera and has so far taken like 1400 pics! Haha!

When I look back at the day spent on Mt. Pilatus in Lucerne, I feel it was one of the best days along our travels thus far. I was so tired of being chilled and when I woke up that morning and saw nothing but grey fog, I wanted to sleep the day away in the hostel! No joke! It turned out to be one of the sunniest snippets of time on our European journey...as soon as we were higher than the cloud cover.

Observe again: Swiss Alps!

I'm pretty sure it was around here that I lost my camera...having some fun in the process!

Ok...so we packed up our gear after one day/2 nights in Switzerland...and we were north bound...headed for a big doozer of a city...the one on the map that everyone goes to when seeing Europe for the first time: Paris!

Skip Ahead...Cinque Terre, Italy...

So, I have been writing my blogs in chronological order, and though I last left off in Austria that moment in time was almost 4 weeks ago...and I would like to tell you about the present moment for a bit...

It is 12:15 am on November 6th and we have been gone one full month now. I am sitting in our hostel room (we got a steal of a deal on a private room, queen bed) in Riomaggiore, Italy. I'm not sure if anyone out there reading this has been to, or heard of, Cinque Terre? But Riomaggiore is the southernmost of five villages nestled into the cliffside on the northwest coast of Italy. Cinque Terre is in a national park and there are several hiking trails along the coastline that link all five villages and is approximately 12 km long. Jeni and I plan to hike through all five villages: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. We have heard many stories from other travelers about Cinque Terra and how it is one of Italy's highlights and that the hike, with blue ocean on one side of you and cliffs embedded with small villages on the other, is an unforgettable experience...nothing quite matches up.

Both Jeni and I have been looking forward to this point of our trip for a long time. In the early stages of our planning for Europe, we always had a place for Cinque Terre at the top of the list. Now, here we are at the first village of Cinque Terre and we have heard some terrible news...

On October 25, the village of Vernazza was seriously flooded due to an abundance of rain and certain trails of Cinque Terre are now closed. When we arrived at our hostel this evening, we spotted posters asking for people to donate money to help the village of Vernazza. Also, the next two days call for heavy rainfall and we originally planned to be here 2 nights and then on to Rome, but we pushed Rome back a day to hopefully have a drier day in Cinque Terre. Not sure if the weather will be in our favour.

The owner of the hostel, a very nice man who speaks few words of English, but was extremely inviting (even though we arrived at a quarter to midnight), told us that there is supposed to be a lot of rain tonight and to keep the shutters closed, and in case of an emergency, go to the top floor of the building. We are already pretty high up...fourth floor maybe. Brings my memory back to the 2 typhoons I endured when I spent the summer of 2008 in Taiwan! Anyways, I guess the area is on high alert and many people are on edge because of Vernazza's flooding. I know we'll be fine, but it disappointing knowing that we may potentially have awful weather at this point on our trip and that Vernazza is dealing with a terrible event.

Well, it is time to sleep this rainy night away... and hope that, if not tomorrow, the day after will allow us to do a bit of hiking.

Jeni and I were stuck in a small-as-hell train station in La Spezia tonight, waiting for our train to Riomaggiore, and we had cookies, diet Coke and McDonalds for dinner. In Italy people. ITALY! A wasted dinner in the land of pasta, pizza and mozzarella...

The Hostel That will Forever Be Burned into my Brain as...

As we left Cesky Krumlov and began our journey to Vienna, Austria, we hoped to God that our train ride would be less of a mess than our previous ordeal. Though we had to transfer a couple of times, our journey was simple and we arrived in Vienna in the early afternoon of October 20th and there are two things I vividly remember about our arrival there: one, holy hell it's FA-REEZING! Two, we needed to do laundry...badly. All my clothes smelled like cigarettes and sausage! I felt like a walking, talking bratwurst!

We spent only a day and a half in Vienna. It remains the most uneventful part of our trip thus far. I'm sure Vienna has lots to offer if one was to stay there for a while...but we were okay to move on. Our hostel had a good bar with 1.5 Euro wine for happy hour...that suited my fancy. Plus, we met some Canadians and Aussies in our hostel and that was kool. By this point in time, I was becoming sick of the 5 degree or colder weather...and purchased some fleecy long underwear. Now, you would think that 5 degrees isn't so bad...other travellers would comment and say, "But you're Canadian, right?". Yeah, but when you are walking around outside allll daaayyyy loonnngg, it gets chilly.

We made alternative plans and instead of staying in Vienna an extra day, we decided to spend the night and then head to Salzburg for the day the next morning. Early. And thank God we did! When J-Sak and I woke the next morning we discovered we were covered in small, red bites...

I went into the bathroom for a shower and looked at my face the mirror and noticed that my neck had been chewed! Gross!! The more I looked, the more horrified I became. My ankles, arms and neck were covered! This discovery came at 6 am as we were getting ready to take our 7 am train. I promptly bolted out of the bathroom and woke Jeni to show her my chew marks on my neck! Let's just say we got outta there ASAP and tried to get our money refunded. The hostel offered us free coffee. 

Yes,  a traveler's worst nightmare has come true: bed bugs! 

Poor Jeni had it worse than me...she basically had to quarantine her whole bag except one outfit. One outfit for one whole week. Yum.

The Promised Land...Finally Arrving in Cesky Krumlov!

After our nice travels throughout Praha, we decided to go somewhere small and obscure...a nice change since for most of our European travels we are hitting up the larger centers. We had to take what we thought would be a simple train ride, with one connection, to get to the southern town of Cesky Krumlov. About half way through our first train of the journey, a very stern and I-mean-business-type train lady comes to our seats and babbles a whole speech to us in Czech. J-Sak and I simply nod...knowing that nothing we say to her or she says to us will be easily understood. We now believe that her babbling was specific instructions about our not-so-simple train ride ahead!

Something's up...

 Our train ticket shows one connection that we have to make about 2 hours after our departure from Praha. Jeni and I are leisurely sitting on the train as it comes to a halt at a dinky train platform (not station, platform) in the middle of nowhere. About 2 minutes after we have been stopped, the stern train lady comes whipping past our seats and yells at us in Czech. Alarmed, we grab all our stuff and bolt off the train as she keeps rambling at us in Czech...pointing...and then some more rambling. Has she realized we freakin' don't understand her? It think so, but the rambling still continues. Once we departed the train, we were left standing on this platform wondering what the H was going on...and, though I have made the train lady out to be a sour crusty thus far, she really did help us out...though I think she was cursing under her breath every minute of it. She grabbed Jeni's arm, still blithering in Czech, and started hauling her away, out back, behind the platform. I quickly follow behind Jeni hoping that we will soon reach the Promised Land without anymore hiccups. We are lead and shuffled onto a bus that takes us on a 20 minute joy ride to a small train station where we board yet another train that FINALLY takes us to our original transfer station! Our last train, departing to Cesky Krumlov, is a two coach, mini, chug-a-lug that winds us through the Czech countryside before reaching our final destination an hour before sunset. What a journey! 

With that all said, Jeni and I enjoyed our laid back time in Cesky Krumlov...we met a couple of other travelers and spent our 2 days hanging out with them...one was from Taiwan (so I got to brush up on my Chinese) and the other was from Korea. Cesky Krumlov, in the off season, is a sleepy town but beautiful nonetheless. The second largest castle (next to Prague Castle) surrounds the Old Town area of Cesky Krumlov and we explored that for a day. We ate more classic Czech food while there and had a couple of naps during our stay to recover from the past two weeks of travel. After 2 days, we were happy to be moving on to another country: Austria. Then after that: Switzerland! Woooooo, Alps here we come!

Panoramic view of Cesky Krumlov

'Aint it beautiful?

Side note: the hostel we stayed in in Cesky Krumlov, Traveller's Hostel I think, had the cutest dog ever ever...named Oliver (said with a Czech accent).

Watch out for those hedges!

Praha, Lurking Aussies and Hot Wine!

The train to Prague (Praha as the Czech's call it) was uneventful I think because I cannot remember it! The Czech Republic was one of the countries I was most excited for and had heard great things about Prague from other people who had travelled there. Going from a huge city like Berlin to a small city like Prague was great...we were able to walk the city without taking public transport at all.

We stayed at Prague Square hostel, which was clean, in a great location, had free internet and met some kool travelers there as well. Oh, by the way, Europe is crawling with Aussies. They are lurking in every corner. I mention the great things about this hostel now because, for the next couple of weeks of our trip, our accommodation takes a turn for the worst. Cliffhanger!!!

Prague is a beautiful, medieval looking city with the Vltava River running through it and the Prague Castle perched up on the hill overlooking the goings-on. A highlight of Prague is the Charles Bridge (which dates back to the 1350s, holy sh!t that's old!) where there are local artists selling their jewelry, paintings and odds-and-ends all day long. I bought some super kool earrings and a watercolor painting, which I am stoked about. Actually, Jeni and I both bought paintings, and since Prague, we have been hauling around a cardboard tube thing wrapped in a large, orange plastic bag to protect our art. Also, on the Charles Bridge, there is a statue of a saint (both J-Sak and I cannot remember which saint it is at this point on our journey) with relics along the bottom of the statue that everyone rubs. There is a loooonnng line up to rub the relic of a woman on her knees (which is supposed to bring good luck and fertility) and no line up to rub the other relic: a dog. So Jeni and I, thinking we are too clever for words, bound up to the dog relic and rub the shit outta it, getting pictures and what not. Later, on our walking tour of Prague, we find out from our guide that rubbing the dog is BAD luck. Genius.

Old Town Square

The Astronomical Clock

Prague Castle

Me scoping out the goods on the Charles Bridge

To all you Vic Symphony readers out there (Sandy, I know you are a faithful follower!) Dvorak is from Prague and I got a nice pic of his statue. I thought it was pretty kool!

One delicious thing I found popular in the Czech Republic was hot, mulled wine. It is sold on every corner and everyone is drinking it! It is delicious and because I am not too roasty-toasty on my travels, I certainly take advantage of this hot wine situation and drink it fairly often while traveling around the CR.

Weiner & Wine!

 3 days in Prague and now off to a small town in the south: Cesky Krumlov (pronounced Cheskee Krumlov)...this town has been deemed a UNESCO World Heritage site...

A bird's eye view of Prague

Large-and-in-charge Berlin!

Well, I have to rewind a little bit now...because I have let my blogging slide for a while...

After Amsterdam, we hopped a train back into Germany to check out large-and-in-charge Berlin. Can't go to Germany without seeing Berlin! We had a few minor mishaps on our train ride because it was our first train ride in Europe in the day time. Let's just say we did some hop-on-hop-off action to get out bearings straight...as we got embarrassing stares from locals. We stuck out like sore thumbs too...with our huge backpacks, MEC gear and my bandana flapping on my head. We definitely couldn't even attempt to make our mistakes inconspicuous! We figured stuff out, of course, and made it to Berlin no prob.

Eating part of our cheese wheel...

Berlin is full of contemporary history that I find extremely interesting. From WW II to the Cold War and up until now, there is tons to check out! I find sociopolitical issues and topics fascinating (hence my degree in Geography) and to actually see the Berlin Wall was amazing, and one of the highlights of my trip so far. There is so much history and political ideologies wrapped up in the Wall that to walk along it definitely left an impact.

East Side Gallery - Berlin Will

Jeni and I signed up for another bike tour in Berlin...as we were feeling that the city was too big to explore by foot in matter of 3 days. We froze in Munich, and experienced rain all throughout Amsterdam, so you can imagine our delight when we woke up on our first day in Berlin and it was blue, blue sky and sunny. It was the day of the bike tour and because we had been wearing jackets and scarves for the last week, what do you suppose we decided to wear? That's right people...capris. Jeni took it as far as shorts. Shorts. Bad idea. Froze...AGAIN!

J-Sak and I in font of government building

The bike tour was great and saw my things like the Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Museum Island, Holocaust Memorial, and we even stood on the ground where Hitler's bunker was where he committed suicide. Today it's just the sight of a few apartment buildings and a Chinese restaurant.

Holocaust Memorial...I really shouldn't be doing this...

Stalin & his buddy Lenin

Brandenburg Gate at night

What else can I say about Berlin? Pretzel stands everywhere...and I  am starting to realize that drinking booze in public is about as common as eating a sandwich in public. People having a beer with their lunch on the metro...or sitting on a park bench enjoying the sun and a glass of wine. Their society isn't plundering into moral decay and chaos...why can't we do that back home?

Berlin Wall...remember peace

Onto Prague!

The Delicious Czech Dinner...

So, I know in my last blog post I mentioned an amazing Czech meal Jeni and I had when we arrived in Prague...and that I'd fill you all in later...sorry that later came 2 weeks later!

We were starving by the time we arrived in Prague, after our train ride from Berlin...so we headed out for some authentic Czech food. We stumbled upon a small restaurant along one of Prague's windey, cobble stone streets and we were greeted by a hazy whaft of cigarette smoke. The Czech Republic is one of the few countries in Western Europe where people can still smoke pretty much everywhere; in bars, cares, stores, etc. I, of course, ordered a glass of wine and Jeni, a Coke. We decided to share our meals because both seemed equally delicious. I had roast beef in a cream sauce with bread dumplings, topped with lemon, cranberries and whipped cream. J-Sak had chicken soup to start then a main course of crispy breaded chicken with potato salad and sauerkraut. Oh! And I ordered curry rice too...did I mention we were famished?! We surely had a food hang over and still talk about our "Czech meal" every so often on our trip. One of us will say, "I could go for our Czech meal right about now." And the other usually just smiles and nods.