Final Stop: Rome

Well, we've spent the last 2 days exploring the city of Rome, from our campground hostel just outside the city. Saw the Roman Forum and area ruins in one day, and today we roamed around the Vatican. Our timing was unbelieveably perfect, as we waited only 5 minutes to get into St. Peter's Basilica (the lineup when we came out was at least 2 hours long) and only 10mins for the museums and Sistine Chapel (the lineup when we first got there was at least 3 hours). Everything was very grand and gorgeous... almost unchurchlike!

We will be vegetating at the campground tomorrow poolside, flying to Munich tomorrow night, and then home on the 16th! No more touristy stuff for us... it's somewhat bittersweet, but we are definitely ready for some Canadian living.

Looking forward to seeing/talking to you all!

Cinque Terre

We arrived safe and sound in Levanto, Italy yesterday, despite having to be shuttled by bus a portion of the trip due to a problem on the tracks. Our hostel is great, and thank you sooo much mom and dad for the recommendation on the city! Today we took the train to the bottom town and walked up to the 3rd one, then took the train as we were only wearing flip flops. The towns are nice, but ours is much less touristy and more villagey. Italian pizza last night, and pasta tonight! This place really is gorgeous. Will post pictures eventually.

Hike to Gimmewald

Today we made a day trip to a tiny mountain town recommended to us by 2 girls at one of our previous hostels. We took a train to a town at the base of the mountain, and started hiking along a river trail past beautiful waterfalls on either side of us. We even walked behind one! Had a picnic lunch next to the river and continued along to the base of the mountain below Gimmewald. Then we climbed. The trail was gorgeous, and the views were absolutely stunning. It took us about an hour and a half to climb 500 vertical metres. The trail was about 4.5km. The town was iddy biddy with a few homes (no idea how they got stuff up there...assuming there was a road going up another part of the mountain!), so we just walked through and took the gondola down. This thing was awesome... I think it boasts the steepest cable car in the world. When we went over the cliff, I can see why! Mom, not recommended for you (from Emma). We took the bus back to the train station to save some time. Definitely goes in the books as the most beautiful hike we will ever do. Completely wiped out, we're doing laundry and making dinner tonight before heading to Cinque Terre tomorrow!Sideways view of the gondola drop.

ICE CLIMBING

WOW. That's about all that can be said about this most awesome adventure. Emma, Erich, and some random guy that actually went to highschool with Emma were the only ones in this wicked adventure to Steinglacier in the Alps. The drive up the mountain took us to where the glacier used to be a few decades ago (don't get us started on global warming) and then it was an hour hike through water, tundra scrub, and snow drifts waist deep in places. The hike took us to approximately 2200 meters above sea level, where we stopped for a bite to eat (the picture above was the view out) while our overworked guide shovelled snow off the glacier for us to climb. The climbing started with a rappel down. We were told in school not to run with scissors but nobody told us not to jump down cliffs wearing spikes and holding sharp axes.

which of course is going to cause an accident. Just kidding , seriously nobody got hurt well not really. Emma of course is much more graceful at falling down the glacier (i know it's a bit hard to tell, but these pictures are looking straight down).
Once the falling part is over, the climbing part starts.


That is until we accidently fell into the crack in the galcier... help help i'm stuck in the hole
Sherpa emma to the rescue!
So yeah, there are a tonne more pictures for us to show you, but this was so awesome, we climbed for about 4 hours which was pretty exhausting in both soft ice and very hard ice. We would definitely recommend this adventure to absolutely anybody.

The Most Beautiful Place on Earth

Emma and City gates of Lucern
City gates (we walked along the top and climbed the towers)
Lucern riverside (Ted, do you find this "puzzling" photo familiar?)
Lucern's famous Lion carved into a cliff
View of the city and mountains from the old city wall

Lucern was beautiful on the first day, but the weather didn't hold up for us for the other 2. Ted, you may rememnWe roamed around town on our 2nd day, and due to low clouds and 24 hour rain, we couldn't do the hike we wanted to. Instead, we took the train to Zurich and wandered the streets: stumbled upon a doggie parade and a gay pride parade - both highly entertaining :).View from the train from Lucern to Interlaken
View from Interlaken

We are now in the most beautiful place in the world, without a doubt. Nestled between two lakes, surrounded by the swiss alps is Interlaken. We caught a lucky day of having sunny weather after Luzern is was a complete bust with nothing but constant rain. The train ride into Interlaken probably has over 150 pictures between the two of us. Arriving in Interlaken we've done some hiking on a small hill near the town and started walking up to one of the mountains...but then realized we would need some dinner and thought we would save the serious climbing for tomorrow! There's Interlaken's most popular bar below the hostel, and they have live music tonight so we'll probably check that out before packing it in early for an 8:30 start tomorrow (that may not sound bad, but we've been lazy bums recently).Us on our mini hike

Beautiful Luzern

Again, pretend z is y and y is z.

We arrived safe and sound in Lucern todaz after a long train ride through beautiful southern Germanz and Swityerland. This place is absolutelz gorgeous... in the mountains and prettz buildings. Will post again when we have more to talk about and are able to post photos. Just letting anzone who cares know we,re alive.

Love to all,
E squared.

Beautiful weather here in München

Statue of Thor dressed like a monk

Happy Drunks!

The Famous Hofbrauhaus

Psych....it's been pouring rain and is bloody cold. We again did the walking tour in pouring rain, however not as bad as it was in Amsterdam. Saw plenty of neat sights. And heard some interesting stories about the city of Munich. Initially there was a silver lining to this horrid weather...that being the beer halls are warm and cheerful and it makes it easy to spend 5 hours in one. Especially with the great people we chatted to while there. The downside of that...is this morning really really sucked. But I told myself if the monks can drink five masses of beer a day, so can I, however a mass of beer weighs in pretty heavy as it is a full litre. However I only made it to 4 masses....I know, I'm a shame. But do tell Thor that if he is ever in munich that they do allow dogs at the Hofbrauhaus and I think he would really enjoy the beer. Emma woke of bright and cheerful this morning, thouugh it helps when you only have 2 and a bit. We've both enjoyed the Deutches Museum (full of all kinds of cool and geeky things).

Munich

We arrived in Munich today after once again, NOT getting lost!! Our hostel is nice, we splurged for a private room to try to catch up on some sleep (and so we could stumble home from the beir gartens without disturbing anyone!). Had dinner at a neat beer hall with very gruff waitresses in traditional german maids dresses. Erich had a wonderful dinner consisting of a 1L beer (who ever came up with that is a genius...'no ocifer I swear I only had 1 beer') 1 big piece of pork leg, some other random pork and a bbq quater chicken with a dumpling all smothered in beer gravy, i know what your thinking...and yes the damage to my heart was worth that dinner. Emma found cheese pasta with no meat (at least none that was translated on the English menu).

Right now, we are sitting in an internet cafe as hail the size of marbles comes down... apparently we're in for this for the next 3 days as they haven't had much rain, so keep your finger's crossed the weather man is wrong!! We are off to see Pirates of the Carribbean... ciao for now!

Catch up photo collection

Yay! We finally have a card reader... enjoy the pics from our last few cities!

Brandenburg Gates in Berlin Berlin Reichstag
View from hill in Prague (palace to the left) Cool church in Prague View of Prague Palace from Charles Bridge
Crazy bikers in Vienna - 3 were playing soccer on pimped out bikes, and one was riding a friction drive concoction
Vienna Parliament Building (makes Ottawa look very unimportant)
Theatre where we saw the Wiener Mozart Orchestra Us inside the theatre (the stage is down there, I promise)
First dinner at the oldest beer hall in Munich