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

We're still here!

I know, I know, it's been a while. We were in Prague after Berlin for 3 nights at Miss Sophie's hostel in the new town. We had a 5 bed dorm with great roommates - went out one night with two girls from, and another night to the same brewery pub with two girls from Australia. We saw Charles' Bridge, the Castle (which really should be called a Palace), the new town, the old town, took the furnicular up the hill and found an awesome little restaurant built into the rock that used to be a wine cellar. A little note to those of you who are squeemish about eyes on your food: they serve fish whole over here... my trout at lunch had the full shabang with eyes and tail and fins in tact (yes, Erich had to cut the head off for me to even look at it) - but it was really really tasty! While it is a beautiful city, we're still not sure why everyone raves about Prague. It was overcrowded, everybody had english menus (what's the fun of travelling if you don't have to mime for your food?!), and we have seen prettier cities...

For example, Vienna!! We arrived on Thursday (staying at Wombat's the Base) and have explored the Museum Quartier, admiring the architecture and gardens and sculptures (Erich has decided he wants lions incorporated on a massive monument over his grave). Yesterday we walked through the main "downtown" with more pretty buildings, a church with an entirely mosaic roof, and found a bookstore selling english books so we picked up one each (we should have brought books!). That night, we went to see the Wienner Mozart Orchestra (no, it's not sponsered by Oscar Meyer it's pronounced vee-en-er) perform in one of the really nice opera halls in the city. Today we went to the Spanish Riding show in the famous riding hall - cheap standing tickets for 25euro with a view of the full arena (the seats right in front of us were 100!!). It was amazing for Emma, and they did a few moves that impressed Erich too. His favourite is the "three legged dog trot" also known as the canter. They jumped on the spot, stood on their hind legs, and did a bunch of moves that Emma used to be able to do at one point. We followed that by taking the U-Bahn to the palace just outside the city centre. We walked through the gardens and its huge fountains and odd placements of grass-filled areas that you weren't allowed to walk on.

A note on style: The mullet is sadly back in fashion here (Graham, if you ever decide to grow one back, you're only allowed to do it here)... we're talking the people that think they're really cool with their mullets, not just the dirty country people with them.

We will post photos once we find an internet cafe that will let us :). Use your imaginations for now... Tomorrow we are off to Munich, so we will have to take photos so that we remember it all when we stagger out of the Biergartens.

Great Days in Berlin

We are very much enjoying the wonderful weather in berlin its hitting about 25C during the day and staying warm at night which is great as there is an awesome patio at this hostel. We've seen a lot of very interesting sights, the brandenburg gate, the tier gartens, the pergamon musuem (whole city gates from babylonia and massive portions of greek and roman temples have been reassembled inside the museum. Lots of friendly people at this hostel which is a nice change from the last one. Tomorrow we leave for prague which from what everybody has been telling us is an absolutly amaying citz. Sorry for the lack of pics, we will post some more once we get to a computer that will let us.

Safe and Sound in Berlin!

We made this trip without getting on a wrong train or walking in the wrong direction! Our hostel looks really cool, but we can't see our room yet. Can't add photos from here either, the computers are locked... sorry! There's a bar, buffet breakfast, pool table, foosball table, patio, and bbq though! Will update when we do something exciting :).

Travemünde by Bike

I'm too layz to fix it todaz, so the y's should be z's and z's should be y's.

We ventured off today to the tourist islandish area of Travemünde, about 20km from Lübeck (unless you're us and get lost everzwhere you go!!) We needed a bus to take us (for free) through a mini chunnel, and a 2min ferry ride to get us to the little community. We found the riding barn, but thex couldn't take us until later. So we rode around the neighbourhoods for a bit, found a great big sandz beach, and a pirate ship called Passat. Bz the time we could have gone back to the barn, it was pouring rain so we rode back to the hostel to do laundrz instead! The laundramat suggested bz the hostel was a little basement room where the owners spoke russian, and german as well as Erich so it worked out fine. Going in search of more schniyel tonight - one restaurant had vegetarian fake meat so it should be interesting!

Guten Tag!

That means Hello in German! We're in Lübeck right now, a tiny little city in northern Germany near the North Sea. Well, the old town, or Altstadt, is tiny, and surrounded by a moat-like canal. The city gates are really cool and the friendly lions päps used to play on are still there:

We managed to get off at the wrong station on our way here... the conductor didn't quite get the full station name translation, so we ended up in a suburb rather than Hamburg's main station. But, we landed safe and sound at our Hostelling International hostel - newer than others we've stayed at, so lacking some character, but clean. Apparently not many tourists come here because we've been lucky to find English speakers - Ive managed to not eat too much meat in the food ordering process though so all is well, and Erich is managing to find Schnitzel everywhere we go so he is very happy....or maybe that is the whole new set of beers he has to 'try'.

Hoping the weather holds out for the next couple of days, as we are going to rent bikes to ride to the coast tomorrow, and around the city on Thursday.

Schüss! (Bye!)

Sex, drugs, rock and roll.... and Spiderman

That's right... we arrived last night in the famous city with legalized prostitution, and cops who turn a blind eye to pot-selling "coffee shops" and we went to see Spiderman 3 with Dutch subtitles! In our defense, it was raining and not very nice out. Our hostel is alright, not my favourite, but it'll do. We're in a 20-person dorm very close to the sites and activities in the city. There are even red light windows just up the street! ;) It really is one of those things you have to see to fully appreciate... no photos are allowed of the girls, however, so you'll have to come to witness it.

Today, we got a nice bagel sandwich from the local grocery store and headed out for a guided "free"walking tour of the city. Our guide was very enthusiastic - largely due to the fact that with this company, they work only for tips. She gave us a run down of the old town and the history of the beginnings of Amsterdam as a port city, through the red light district, the new town, and finishing at the Anne Frank house, where the line was too long to go see.

It has been raining on and off for the past couple of days, so we're hoping the sun will break soon! This afternoon we're off to explore around the hostel. Oh, and Graham - while the scent of weed is everywhere, we haven't actually stepped inside a coffee shop. Apparently you can get high from just going in though!

Off to Amsterdam Today

Well we've enjoyed our quiet stay here in Bruge away from the hustle and bustle of the mega cities. We've been on a scenic bike tour of the entire olde town following beautiful pathways beside the defensive canal that surrounds the medieval portion of the city. There are also perserved windmills along the portion of bike path near the canal. This city has a history of milling and weaving so windmills and lace shops everywhere.

Many of the bridge across the canal still have the city gates intact, like the one shown below with all traffic passing through them, and drawbridges on all of the bridges across the canal.
Belgium may have a poor environmental record but they get the idea here. In the picture you see three out of the dozen "Bike Racks" at the train station. Since it is so flat in the city it is extremely easy to get around on a bike if you don't mind sharing with cars and horse and buggys on a road that could not fit a hummer.

So that's all we have time for now, as it is off to the bahnoff to catch the train to amsterdam. Will update you on our multicoloured interdimensional adventures from there.

Brugges

Sunday started off nice and early (and abruptly) to a fire alarm at 6am - some idiot decided it was a great idea to smoke in the hallway under a smoke detector. Once we calmed down from a most nerve wracking wake-up, the day was spent heading up to Montmartre. We repented our sins during mass at Sacre Coeur - it was actually kind of weird, because a full mass service was going on yet tourists were herded around the outer isles. We did actually sit down for a bit to listen to the singing and french sermons. The church is an 18th century masterpiece, a major landmark for the skyline of Paris. On to something completely different, we wandered over to the Moulin Rouge. For at least $150CAD each, we decided not to see a show (see photos in previous post).

Our next hostel is much improved over Young and Happy. We arrived after only getting on one wrong train (thanks to the bad advice from a rather unhelpful information desk attendant). At least we have the Eurail Passes, so we can get on as many wrong trains as we want as long as they're all within 24 hours! Our hostel is called Lybeer's Traveller's Hotel, and is on a quaint backstreet very close to the bussling mainstreet. OK, who are we kidding, everything is close to everything else in Brugge - it is a rather refreshing change after the Paris metro.

Once settled into our private room with ensuite 3-piece, we went to the Choco-Show, a chocolate museum full of the history of the cocao bean and manufacturing of chocolate... including Belgian chocolate samples (and statues that would rival those in the Louvre)!
Dinner at a great little restaurant hidden away off the main drag "De Hobbit" where Erich had all you can eat ribs (sorry Pa, but you're pork ribs can't compare...you have 5 weeks to learn to make bbq pork ribs with a special steak spice that makes them absolutely delicous..Im talking 36 bones left on my plate without an ounce of meat - delicious!!!) look at that boneyard! Emma had tiger shrimp and salad, both of which were soaking in 1.5inches deep of melted garlic butter. We accompanied our splurging feasts with a ridiculously oversized pint of Hoegaarden. Fully refuelled, we're back at the hostel to update you on our day!

Pictures from Paris

(EuroStar train from London to Paris)(Le Tour Eiffel et la belle Emma)

(The back of Notre Dame)

(The front of Sacre Coeur)

(The famous burlesque house itself...)