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 |
5/26 - Lucerne, Switzerland After getting back to Florence last night, I discovered the somewhat important fact that they stopped taking reservations at 11 am, so I would have to just wait until the night train to Switzerland arrived and see if there was room. The fact that the train was late didn't help my apprehension any. When it finally got there I ended up talking to the conductor at the same time as 4 other reservationless backpackers. It took awhile for us to get him to understand that we weren't all together, but we still ended up assigned to the same cabin. Two of the girls had to move to a different car (they were going to Geneva), but they came back to hang out. This guy was happy enough to share his wine with the rest of the group, and we all sat up talking til around 3. It's kinda odd, I didn't really hit it off with any of them, felt somewhat left out of the conversation. Anyway, I woke around 5 in the morning and looked out the window to see lush greenery and heavy fog (bit of a change from Italy). I was disoriented for a moment and had absolutely no idea where I was. Fun feeling. After getting another hour or two of sleep, I arrived in Bern rather poorly rested (this was the third night in a row getting between 3 and 6 hours of sleep). Once I arrived,it occurred to me that I hadn't bother to find out if the H.R. Giger museum in Gruyeres (my plan for the day) was open (museums have the annoying habit in Europe of being closed on random days). After finding that the nearest internet cafe didn't open until 9 (I got in just after 7), I made an unsuccessful attempt to call and ask (I got an recording in German). I ended up waiting til the internet cafe opened, and found out that the museum was indeed open. So then I went on what was a rather complicated trip (get on a train, transfer to a bus, transfer to a train again) to Gruyeres. Once I got there it turned to be exactly the kind of day I was looking for at the moment. Gruyeres is set up on hill, and features a couple of medieval (that may not be the right time period) chateaus, one of which houses the Giger museum.  This is all in the middle of a beautiful valley which today was surrounded by fog. Definitely not the sort of place you'd expect to see an exhibition of really disturbing art. And the truly great part was that it wasn't crowded. I can't tell you how nice that was after Italy. I think most of the people who come to the town go to see the other chateau, and in the hour or so I was in the museum, I saw one other person. Before going into the museum I had the very random lunch of paprika flavored crackers and cheese (Gruyeres of course), which made an oddly tasty combination. There were several restaurants, but they were all quite expensive. The museum was great, it had almost every Giger piece I'd ever seen (I think for a lot of his art, he made multiple copies of them, which would explain why they were able to acquire such an extensive collection) and many that I haven't. Aside from the paintings, they have stuff like life size models of the alien and his Oscar for Alien, as well as a bunch of other sculptures and models. Across from the museum, there's the Giger bar. It's a bar with the decor done by Giger, so of course it's more than a little strange. The decor is supposed to fit with the design of the chateau but it's still unmistakably Giger. I stopped and had an overpriced coffee, and got the bartender to take my picture sitting at the bar (I know I supposedly hate this sort of thing, but I couldn't resist). After leaving, I walked down some paths down the hill until I arrived at the train station in the next town over. I then retraced my complicated steps back to Bern. The train I took getting to Bern happened to be continuing on to Lucerne and I managed to get off, get my pack out of the locker, and get back on the train seconds before it pulled away. Once I checked into my hostel at around 6, I immediately took a nap, which unintentionally lasted until 11:30. Ah well, I really needed it.
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