So here is my travel journal from my backpacking trip to Europe. It's more involved than my day log stuff that's already been up the site. There has been some complaining (you know who you are) that my daylog was rather boring and that it focused too much on the details of transportation. I can't promise that this is less boring, but's there's certainly a hell of lot more of it. Occasional parts of the journal have been omitted to protect the (not-so)innocent. These parts really weren't that common, but hey - use your imagination. Keep in mind that this is a journal and things like punctuation, sentence structure, paragraph breaks, grammar, and spelling may or may not been a part of the writing process. Not to mention my almost criminal use of parenthesis. Like my pictures, the writing is quite erratic as far as consistency of content. The journal style kind of mutates over the course of the trip. Read at your own risk.
 4/28 Cincinnati 4/30 Paris 5/02 Paris 5/03 Paris 5/04 Bayeux 5/06 Toulouse 5/07 Barcelona 5/08 Barcelona 5/09 Madrid 5/11 Salamanca 5/12 Salamanca 5/13 Barcelona 5/14 Portbou 5/15 Narbonne 5/17 Nice 5/18 Venice 5/20 Naples 5/21 Rome 5/22 Rome 5/24 Florence 5/25 La Spezia 5/26 Lucerne 5/29 Interlaken 5/30 Interlaken 6/03 Amsterdam 6/04 London 6/06 Salisbury 6/09 Nottingham 6/11 Edinburgh 6/13 Kyleakin 6/15 Dublin 6/17 Dublin 6/23 Hamburg 6/27 Brussels 6/29 Berlin 7/01 Prague 7/02 Munich 7/03 Munich |
5/24 - Florence, Italy So I've just altered my plans this morning, I was planning on getting on a night train to switzerland tonight, but instead I'm about to leave Florence for Siena (11:15 am). I was told that there's a free concert of some opera singer, and some guys I met at the hostel last night may be there. The plan is to then go to Cinque Terre tomorrow, maybe stopping at Pisa on the way. So, we'll see how this works out. I got into Florence early yesterday, but not as early as I was expecting. I had gotten up at about 5:30 to catch the 6:30 train, because the hostel I wanted to go to didn't take reservations, and the guidebook had said it fills up quickly. When I got to the train station, I noticed a train at 6:12 to Florence, so I hopped on to that one. About 2 hours into what I thought was going to be a 1.5 hour ride, I realized that I'd gotten onto the train that made every stop between Rome and Florence. It took 3.5 hours. Ah well, when I got to the hostel, they still had plenty of room. I did the walk around Florence,  seeing the usual slew of must-see stuff, which was pretty easy, cause they're all close together. I went to the Uffizi, I had to wait in line almost an hour to get in. It was a good collection, but I think I am officially tired of museums for now. I did get to see Botticelli's Venus, which I really liked. I also liked his other paintings, there's something about they way he paints people's faces. It's almost cartoonish, but it works. He also seems to use that somewhat resigned face that's on Venus on female characters in some of his other paintings. I went through the rest of the collection rather fast, because I think I've seen enough art lately. I went to the Duomo next, but didn't feel like paying the €6.50 to go inside. The outside was neat, they way it's painted looks almost like cardboard cutouts. They look somewhat surreal against the rest of the city. After that I had to go see Michaelangelo's David. You know, I sculpture doesn't usually do much for me, it feels like once you've seen one marble naked male figure, you've seen them all. Still, the David is impressive, if for no other reason than it's size. It's the only famous thing I've seen that was bigger than I thought it was (the mona lisa, notre dame and several other things were smaller than I was expecting). The detail on it was amazing. There were some close up picture at the base that were kind of shadowed and they easily looked like real muscles. Sightseeing done, I went back to the hostel, now that the lockout was over. Took a much needed shower and sat out on the deck reading for a while. I really liked the hostel, it's probably the most interesting one I've stayed at. Called the Ostello Archi Rossi, it's got versions of famous paintings all over the walls, some of them slightly altered for comedic effect (their version of the famous excerpt from the sistine chapel has man mooning heaven instead of reaching out to touch god). The walls that don't have paintings on them are covered in quotes, doodles and 'I was here 2001' type of scribbles that guests have written over the years. Anyway, I met a kiwi guy named Sid out on the deck and sat talking to him for a while. We were going to grab some food, when we met a couple of girls from the room next to mine (actually, they came over to help me when my key got stuck in the door) who told us that the hostel served food, so we all stayed and ate there. There was of course wine and beer so we sat there for a while. We decided to go to a free concert on the other side of the river (classical of some sort) and then go to what was supposed to be a party someone had heard about. After taking forever to get out of there, Me, Sid, another Kiwi named Gary, Sophie and Jen headed out. Jen and I were kind of leading the group (we had the maps), and somewhere along the way made the decision to skip the concert (decided it was too far of a walk) without consulting the rest of the group. We finally found where the party was supposed to be, and it was just a rather boring bar. We ended up going to a bar nearby where they had open bar for 10 euros. Sid and Gary decided to pass and went back to the hostel. It was fun, sampling drinks from the list of specials with names like Strokin, Doctor's Blowjob, and Sex Behind the Bar. Finally we left around 1 to make it back by the 2 am curfew, and then we sat around talking until around 3 or so.
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