This is just a quick post with some thoughts of things that went wrong through our trip, it might be useful for people planning future trips:
1. Staying longer than 3 days in any one place. We ended up cutting short our time in Amsterdam because we'd already seen all the sights we wanted to see and felt ready to go home.
2. Getting stuck late at night at the Ramblas in Barcelona because we stayed out past when the Tube service closed. Be sure to check when the Tube closes in your destinations, and make sure you know the address to your hostel in case you need a taxi like we did (We didn't, but managed to get there by saying 'Bone House' multiple times in Spanish and English until he understood us).
3. Getting off at the wrong train station in Florence. Make sure you pay attention to the station names on your journey, some cities have more than one train station and we managed to get off a stop early in Florence.
4. Queueing for hours at the Uffizi. It was worth it once we were inside, but if you can avoid the busiest time for the gallery do so. Also make sure you bring snacks, a drink and something to do or read - Meg and I ended up alternating between one of us sitting on a bench reading and one of us standing in the queue reading.
5. Not being able to find the statue park in Budapest. We found the right bus stop and got on the right bus, but we went round the route 2 or 3 times with our eyes peeled for a sign pointing out the park, but we couldn't see any. In the end we gave up and never got to see the park.
6. Failing to pack any warm clothing. I assumed that since it was July that everywhere we went would be hot and sunny. Very stupid. I didn't take any trousers at all, so I was freezing in Vienna and on the overnight trains. Always take clothes for all weathers just in case! A waterproof jacket would have been great too. Also, a small bag for going out at night. Try not to forget anything!
If anyone reads this blog and wants to ask a question, feel free to comment. Meg and I are both happy to help even though we were too lazy to finish the blog!
- Mojo
Monday 28 December 2009
Wednesday 1 October 2008
Oops a daisie
Hello again -
This blog has been sadly neglected - sorry. Partway through our trip we found that the hostels we went to no longer had free internet, or easily accessible internet, which meant that we got behind with our blogging, and then it became a vicious circle: the blogging paradox. So much to do, not enough time to blog everything including our backlog, and blogging became a sort of responsibility. The more we put it off, the more we had to write about, meaning the more time we would have to spend writing it. When we did write, we wrote in so much detail/had so much to say that it took quite a while.
So we have been home since August, felt that we might add more post-trip to the blog but didn't get around to it. Needless to say, we enjoyed our trip a hell of a lot, enjoyed writing the blog, and would do it all over again. I may write a few things about particularly memorable places/things we did at a later date.
Thanks for reading
This blog has been sadly neglected - sorry. Partway through our trip we found that the hostels we went to no longer had free internet, or easily accessible internet, which meant that we got behind with our blogging, and then it became a vicious circle: the blogging paradox. So much to do, not enough time to blog everything including our backlog, and blogging became a sort of responsibility. The more we put it off, the more we had to write about, meaning the more time we would have to spend writing it. When we did write, we wrote in so much detail/had so much to say that it took quite a while.
So we have been home since August, felt that we might add more post-trip to the blog but didn't get around to it. Needless to say, we enjoyed our trip a hell of a lot, enjoyed writing the blog, and would do it all over again. I may write a few things about particularly memorable places/things we did at a later date.
Thanks for reading
Wednesday 16 July 2008
A funny thing happened on the way to the Pantheon...
Well, we have been too busy to post lately, so here is an update. We're now in Rome, staying in the apartment of a generous friend of my family, Manu. It's lovely to be here where we can feel comfortable and enjoy privacy. It's also great to be out of the center, as we have experienced a little of what the 'real' Rome is like, as opposed to the tourist traps around the sights.
We arrived from Florence on Monday, but it was very late at night. We hadn't realised how big the Roma Termini station is, so when we went to get our ticket to Vienna for Wednesday the queue took over an hour. Then the taxi ride took a long time and thus became more expensive than we had expected, but it couldn't have been avoided as the apartment isn't easy to get to at first, especially in the dark and with luggage.
Finally we arrived and got settled in, but there was certainly no time to go out or do anything before bed. The next morning we got up and took a while to get out of the flat. We ate breakfast at a cafe nearby, then finally set off to find a bus to the Pantheon at about midday. We wandered down the street to an area we had been told was well connected to the rest of Rome, but we still couldn't find the bus numbers we were looking for. So we kept walking. After a while we stopped for some sandwiches which turned out to be disgusting - never order a sandwich when you see that the ingredients are preserved in oil. My sandwich was just dripping with the stuff, it went on my skirt and hands and the floor and everywhere, and it made me feel so sick.
Anyway, 2 hours after setting off we still hadn't found our bus. At this point Meg realised her purse was missing, so we trekked back up to the cafe and she found it hidden under a magazine. While we were there, we decided to take advantage of the guy behind the counter as he spoke the best english we had encountered so far that day. He told us to get the Metro just round the corner, and get off at Spagna. That's what we did, and when we emerged we bought a map so we could navigate from there to the Pantheon.
On the way we passed by the Spanish Steps, but without realising that's what it was because there was no clear sign or anything. Then we popped over to the Trevi Fountain, one of my favourite monuments ever. Finally we made it to the Pantheon and had a look around. Entry was free which is always nice, and Meg listened to one of the audioguide machines and pointed out some details of interest to me.
After that we realised we still had some time, so we wandered vaguely in the direction of some of the monuments illustrated on the map. Meg was also on the hunt for an ice cream place as she fancied some more italian gelati. We found ourselves in a gigantic square, which turned out to be exceedingly fruitful.
The first thing I noticed was in the centre of this piazza was a railing, obviously to stop people falling into some precipice beyond, from which ragged columns were poking into the air. I convinced Meg to ignore a possible gelateria and have a look at the ruins with me, and when closer we saw there were a bunch of crazy bright pop art works and wooden structures mingling with the ancient ruins.
Then Meg pointed out a black cat way down below. I got all excited and took a billion crappy photos of this far off cat. Then we walked around a bit, and saw another cat. Again, I got excited, took awful pictures, and we moved on. Then we saw another cat.. and another... and another two together.. then six or seven cats in just one patch of this huge square. We started really looking and must have seen about 20 cats. We joked that this was like a really cool pet store where you spot the cat you want roaming around the ruins.
After a while we went off and had ice cream, then planned to go find the monument we had initially been seeking. However, we were drawn again to look at the cats, some of whom were much nearer. Then we saw a sign saying there was a cat sanctuary. We couldn't really tell where it was, but I saw some steps leading down to a garden type place and insisted that we go in.
There were maybe 10 cats in this tiny patio, some friendly and some shy. Then we went inside... WOW. Dozens and dozens of cats just roaming around, sat in baskets or on top of a microwave, in cages on the wall, or in a big room to the side with restricted entry. The ones in cages were kittens who weren't ready to be allowed to roam freely, very cute. Then an American woman came over and started talking to us. She was a volunteer, and explained about the cats and how it worked there. Everyone was volunteers, no paid staff, and the cats were clearly well looked after and well loved.
She took us into the restricted entry area which is for cats who aren't allowed to wander free for various reasons: illness, disability, runaways, or just cats who prefer it in the 'nursery'. She told us about all the different cats: this one has his eye out, this one has his ears cut off from skin cancer, this one was bit by a dog and has a big chunk out of its back. My favourites were these 3: Ramingo, a black fluffy cat with a neurological problem which made his walking really crazy like he was on ice and kept sliding around. Forrest Gump, an orange tabby who is deaf, blind, and has cat AIDS. And Ambrosino, an orange cat who reminded me of my dearly departed cat Spike, I think he was just shy and preferred the nursery. I stroked him for ages and he looked very blissful throughout. We chatted with the staff for ages and stroked many cats and it was wonderful.
After a long time enjoying the company of the cats and the friendly volunteer workers, we headed back to the apartment. On the way we kept an eye out for somewhere to eat, and we came across a nice looking, traditional Italian restaurant. We asked to see the menu and it looked a little expensive, but we decided to go with it and just have one course.
Then a youngish waiter came over who spoke great english. He was very funny and friendly, insisting that the restaurant was our home and we could have things how we liked etc. We explained that we don't eat meat, and he described how traditionally Italians would start with a room temperature bean soup, then a pasta, then a meat course, then dessert, but we could have just the soup and pasta. We asked how much it would be and he said €4 for the soup and €6 for the pasta, so it would be €10 total each. That is about par for our dinner budget, and great value for 2 courses. The menu had said the soup was €7 and the pasta €8 or something, so we began to sense this guy was giving us a nice deal, perhaps because he could tell we were stingy.
The soup was delicious and I am desperate to make it myself somehow when I get home. It has beans, and little squares of pasta, and the soupiness was thick beany goodness, yum yum yum. We each had a spaghetti with tomato and basil dish, only Meg had chunks of fresh tomato, and fresh chopped basil and parsley ('spring' pasta) while I had normal tomato and basil sauce and some cheese on top. These were also very tasty. Finally the guy came over and we decided to ask for the dessert menu as the food had been so good. The waiter explained that there were just 2 choices: a sweet wine with a biscuit to dip in it, or fresh watermelon. We asked how much the melon cost and he said it was a gift to us. Free watermelon! We were tickled pink to match our juicy watermelon wedges. Thus in the end we had 3 courses of delicious food for €10 - amazing! We decided to go back there on our last night, hopefully the experience will be repeated, as tonight we were forced to eat Chinese food which was extremely unenjoyable.
I will be brief about today as this is so long already: we saw the Palatine and the Colosseum. The entrance to the Palatine was not clearly marked so we trekked around for ages and got hot and bothered. It was great inside but without the audioguides (trying to be stingy) we couldn't know what most of the ruins had been. It is thus advisable either to shell out for some form of guide, or get lucky and hop on one of the free tours which I passed by after I had wandered around for an hour already. Also the Palatine is HUGE and Meg and I got seperated and found it very difficult to navigate our way back to each other. So try to stay together, or arrange a meeting point and time just in case. When you go to the Colosseum, do the Palatine first and then you won't have such a long queue for the ticket, as the Palatine has a faster ticket booth and the only available ticket is for both. And as with many other monuments with paid entry in Italy, residents of EU countries can show their passport to get a half price ticket, and that is a great money saver.
Ok, I want to go to bed soon so this is it for today. Tomorrow we will walk to the Vatican City and spend the day there, return to the restaurant for dinner hopefully (I worry that it will be too early in the day now that I think about it....), then we go to catch our train to Vienna at 7:10pm.
Mojo
We arrived from Florence on Monday, but it was very late at night. We hadn't realised how big the Roma Termini station is, so when we went to get our ticket to Vienna for Wednesday the queue took over an hour. Then the taxi ride took a long time and thus became more expensive than we had expected, but it couldn't have been avoided as the apartment isn't easy to get to at first, especially in the dark and with luggage.
Finally we arrived and got settled in, but there was certainly no time to go out or do anything before bed. The next morning we got up and took a while to get out of the flat. We ate breakfast at a cafe nearby, then finally set off to find a bus to the Pantheon at about midday. We wandered down the street to an area we had been told was well connected to the rest of Rome, but we still couldn't find the bus numbers we were looking for. So we kept walking. After a while we stopped for some sandwiches which turned out to be disgusting - never order a sandwich when you see that the ingredients are preserved in oil. My sandwich was just dripping with the stuff, it went on my skirt and hands and the floor and everywhere, and it made me feel so sick.
Anyway, 2 hours after setting off we still hadn't found our bus. At this point Meg realised her purse was missing, so we trekked back up to the cafe and she found it hidden under a magazine. While we were there, we decided to take advantage of the guy behind the counter as he spoke the best english we had encountered so far that day. He told us to get the Metro just round the corner, and get off at Spagna. That's what we did, and when we emerged we bought a map so we could navigate from there to the Pantheon.
On the way we passed by the Spanish Steps, but without realising that's what it was because there was no clear sign or anything. Then we popped over to the Trevi Fountain, one of my favourite monuments ever. Finally we made it to the Pantheon and had a look around. Entry was free which is always nice, and Meg listened to one of the audioguide machines and pointed out some details of interest to me.
After that we realised we still had some time, so we wandered vaguely in the direction of some of the monuments illustrated on the map. Meg was also on the hunt for an ice cream place as she fancied some more italian gelati. We found ourselves in a gigantic square, which turned out to be exceedingly fruitful.
The first thing I noticed was in the centre of this piazza was a railing, obviously to stop people falling into some precipice beyond, from which ragged columns were poking into the air. I convinced Meg to ignore a possible gelateria and have a look at the ruins with me, and when closer we saw there were a bunch of crazy bright pop art works and wooden structures mingling with the ancient ruins.
Then Meg pointed out a black cat way down below. I got all excited and took a billion crappy photos of this far off cat. Then we walked around a bit, and saw another cat. Again, I got excited, took awful pictures, and we moved on. Then we saw another cat.. and another... and another two together.. then six or seven cats in just one patch of this huge square. We started really looking and must have seen about 20 cats. We joked that this was like a really cool pet store where you spot the cat you want roaming around the ruins.
After a while we went off and had ice cream, then planned to go find the monument we had initially been seeking. However, we were drawn again to look at the cats, some of whom were much nearer. Then we saw a sign saying there was a cat sanctuary. We couldn't really tell where it was, but I saw some steps leading down to a garden type place and insisted that we go in.
There were maybe 10 cats in this tiny patio, some friendly and some shy. Then we went inside... WOW. Dozens and dozens of cats just roaming around, sat in baskets or on top of a microwave, in cages on the wall, or in a big room to the side with restricted entry. The ones in cages were kittens who weren't ready to be allowed to roam freely, very cute. Then an American woman came over and started talking to us. She was a volunteer, and explained about the cats and how it worked there. Everyone was volunteers, no paid staff, and the cats were clearly well looked after and well loved.
She took us into the restricted entry area which is for cats who aren't allowed to wander free for various reasons: illness, disability, runaways, or just cats who prefer it in the 'nursery'. She told us about all the different cats: this one has his eye out, this one has his ears cut off from skin cancer, this one was bit by a dog and has a big chunk out of its back. My favourites were these 3: Ramingo, a black fluffy cat with a neurological problem which made his walking really crazy like he was on ice and kept sliding around. Forrest Gump, an orange tabby who is deaf, blind, and has cat AIDS. And Ambrosino, an orange cat who reminded me of my dearly departed cat Spike, I think he was just shy and preferred the nursery. I stroked him for ages and he looked very blissful throughout. We chatted with the staff for ages and stroked many cats and it was wonderful.
After a long time enjoying the company of the cats and the friendly volunteer workers, we headed back to the apartment. On the way we kept an eye out for somewhere to eat, and we came across a nice looking, traditional Italian restaurant. We asked to see the menu and it looked a little expensive, but we decided to go with it and just have one course.
Then a youngish waiter came over who spoke great english. He was very funny and friendly, insisting that the restaurant was our home and we could have things how we liked etc. We explained that we don't eat meat, and he described how traditionally Italians would start with a room temperature bean soup, then a pasta, then a meat course, then dessert, but we could have just the soup and pasta. We asked how much it would be and he said €4 for the soup and €6 for the pasta, so it would be €10 total each. That is about par for our dinner budget, and great value for 2 courses. The menu had said the soup was €7 and the pasta €8 or something, so we began to sense this guy was giving us a nice deal, perhaps because he could tell we were stingy.
The soup was delicious and I am desperate to make it myself somehow when I get home. It has beans, and little squares of pasta, and the soupiness was thick beany goodness, yum yum yum. We each had a spaghetti with tomato and basil dish, only Meg had chunks of fresh tomato, and fresh chopped basil and parsley ('spring' pasta) while I had normal tomato and basil sauce and some cheese on top. These were also very tasty. Finally the guy came over and we decided to ask for the dessert menu as the food had been so good. The waiter explained that there were just 2 choices: a sweet wine with a biscuit to dip in it, or fresh watermelon. We asked how much the melon cost and he said it was a gift to us. Free watermelon! We were tickled pink to match our juicy watermelon wedges. Thus in the end we had 3 courses of delicious food for €10 - amazing! We decided to go back there on our last night, hopefully the experience will be repeated, as tonight we were forced to eat Chinese food which was extremely unenjoyable.
I will be brief about today as this is so long already: we saw the Palatine and the Colosseum. The entrance to the Palatine was not clearly marked so we trekked around for ages and got hot and bothered. It was great inside but without the audioguides (trying to be stingy) we couldn't know what most of the ruins had been. It is thus advisable either to shell out for some form of guide, or get lucky and hop on one of the free tours which I passed by after I had wandered around for an hour already. Also the Palatine is HUGE and Meg and I got seperated and found it very difficult to navigate our way back to each other. So try to stay together, or arrange a meeting point and time just in case. When you go to the Colosseum, do the Palatine first and then you won't have such a long queue for the ticket, as the Palatine has a faster ticket booth and the only available ticket is for both. And as with many other monuments with paid entry in Italy, residents of EU countries can show their passport to get a half price ticket, and that is a great money saver.
Ok, I want to go to bed soon so this is it for today. Tomorrow we will walk to the Vatican City and spend the day there, return to the restaurant for dinner hopefully (I worry that it will be too early in the day now that I think about it....), then we go to catch our train to Vienna at 7:10pm.
Mojo
Sunday 13 July 2008
Ramblings with no direction from Meg
Hello, bonjourno, etc. I'm writing to you today, dear readers, to bring you random thoughts and notes from my scantily-scrawled-upon journal and to update you and my psychiatrist on my state of mind, just in case.
Random/General:
Random/General:
- "Aiawawa!" - catchphrase of the trip, we heard a man shriek this at Weatherspoons at Gatwick whilst greedily ingesting our 7am veggie breakfasts like zombie gannets
- A moment in which we spontaneously hummed something from the Nutcracker Suite and danced like puppets
- "We ARE the station!" - a rather enthusiastic expression of quite enjoying waiting around in stations, something we've had to do rather a lot of. Reading good books (we've both been reading "If on a Winter's Night A Traveller" by Calvino, lying around on marble benches drawing faces in pen on my upside-down chin - Chin People, freaky, and making weird noises (and having weird animal noises made at us by various Spaniards...male and female)
- Watching a guy swiftly and adeptly play crystal glasses set out in front of him, each with different notes (different water levels)
- must mention again the boy-racer type taxi driver - music blaring, cigarette-readying. Reckless, slightly handsome (as is the Meditteranean theme, as I have said, time and time again), swerving terrifyingly to unwrap Starbursts. All in all highly inappropriate as Mojo was feeling sick...
- "Madrid is SO GAY" - www.gaycircus.net. We saw them setting up stuff on HUGE trucks by the park we were in on our last day, and felt sad that we couldn't continue our perusal of liberal Madridian festivals. I must say, some very attractive men were readying for the circus, but sadly the title of the show hinted at their likely unavailability.
- "and we emerge as beautiful shiny conkers" - a phrase used to simultaneously refer to and disguise the fact that everywhere we've been so far we sweat about 10 buckets per day, each. Enough to provide one week's ration of salt for a WWII family
- I can't stop laughing about/remembering the drag queen performances we saw in Madrid. The most extreme, over-sexualised, gaudy performances.... drunk audience singing along, wigs swooshing through the air like nylon whips, fake patent leather everywhere, and the heaviest makeup and most energetic simultaneous miming and dancing I've ever seen
Trains:
- (I know Jo's covered it already, but..) the first train we had from Madrid to Barcelona was amazing - cold as a fridge, super-modern design with posh LCD screens and glass informing us of our speed and the outside temperature (35°C), a film showing (The Nanny Diaries, in Spanish, but nevermind), a genuinely comfy headrest with nice reclining seats that worked smoothly (rather than after 5 minutes of your irritable wrestling and jealous glances at reclined neighbours). The views were also great, I should sort out some photos soon, from the window. That said, they're rubbish, but give you an idea of the landscape. LASTLY, we travelled at 273km/h! Beat that, National Rail.
I'll post again later. I need to eat lunch, wash my feet (mmm..they get SO dirty), recover from the shock, awe and strange delight at the absolute downpour we just had in Florence, complete with thunder, lightning, and opera on an ipod, and on top of all that we plan to go to San Croce cathedral.
See you later alligators,
Meg
Friday 11 July 2008
Well, it's been a while....
Yes, too long since our last post. In Barca the hostel comps were always packed with people, and in Milano our hotel charged €1 for 15 minutes of internet - rip off.
Here's my rundown of Milan:
We arrived as scheduled, but the bus proved hard to find, so we took a taxi. No one had heard of the hotel (no one= taxi driver and the people she yelled at asking where it was) so the ride cost us more than it needed to, but oh well. The hotel, though budget was pretty nice. No AC and the breakfast wasn't great, but the room was nice and private too.
We didn't do anything except eat that night. The next day we went to buy our train tickets at the station (we forgot to on arrival) and ended up with a different time than planned as it was cheaper. Then we walked down towards the Duomo. On the way we got some super delicious ice creams: Meg had chocolate cherry and 'buon biscotto', while I had the latter and cafe latte. At the Duomo we enjoyed the pretty building and tried to stave off African men forcing stringy bracelets on us (You're beautiful! It's free, a gift from Africa! I love you! I'm a good man! A euro for Africa? Come on, give me a euro....). Meg gave money to one of them, but learnt her lesson by the second one.
We wandered into a shopping mall next to the Duomo and came across a photoshoot for Italia's Next Top Model. This was phenomenally exciting for me, as I am a longtime watcher of the Next Top Model series. We stayed and took pictures of the photoshoot, which featured several models flying through the air, all in the same dress and make up. It was amazing to see how it's all done. We also had a snack of a pizza pasty that tasted a bit doughnutty (panzerotti) which was delicious and oozy with cheese.
After that we wanted to go in the Duomo, but sadly Meg had ignored her own advice and didn't bring a cardigan to put on over her revealing (by catholic cathedral standards) dress. So I went in with my cardi on, but was promptly ushered out again a few minutes later as it was closing time. Oh well, it wasn't as pretty inside as out.
Then we trekked out towards a restaurant we had read about in the guidebook, Il Verdi. On the way Meg stopped to photgraph a flowerstand man, and his colleague gave us each a flower for free - take note creepy, pushy African bracelet men! Sadly at this time I began to feel a migraine coming on, and by the time we made it to the place I felt awful and couldn't eat. I had already ordered my €9 plate of pasta so that went to waste, as I brought it back in a doggybag but couldn't stomach it even a few hours later (luckily for Meg, she could).
We got a taxi back to the hotel because of my migraine, and the driver was awful. He swerved all over, opening a starburst packet and sticking a cigarette into the flaps of the air conditioning vents on the dashboard. Finally we were back, and after a brief rest and a shower I felt better, and we had a late night chat before sleeping our final night in Milano.
So today we came to Florence on the train. The train wasn't as nice as the Spanish fast train, but it was a good journey because the views outside were pleasant. The man next to me had terrible breath, but I managed to survive it by listening to my ipod and daydreaming. On arrival we realised that the train station was different from the one I had planned for. Yes, it turned out that the nice woman gave us a cheaper train but failed to mention it went to a different station. We emerged in the sweltering heat of Florence and had no clue how to get to the hostel. With the aid of a map we found a bus stop to take us to the other station, and when we got on the bus we realised we were both covered in sweat - more so than before. It was gross. At the main station we got our tickets to Rome, then walked to the hostel.
And thus here we are, at Academy Hostel in Florence, less than a minute's walk from the Duomo. We share a bedroom and bathroom with 4 other people here, the beds are singles not bunk beds, and we have found out that they do breakfast for free too so that is something to look forward to...
Until the next blog,
Mojo
Here's my rundown of Milan:
We arrived as scheduled, but the bus proved hard to find, so we took a taxi. No one had heard of the hotel (no one= taxi driver and the people she yelled at asking where it was) so the ride cost us more than it needed to, but oh well. The hotel, though budget was pretty nice. No AC and the breakfast wasn't great, but the room was nice and private too.
We didn't do anything except eat that night. The next day we went to buy our train tickets at the station (we forgot to on arrival) and ended up with a different time than planned as it was cheaper. Then we walked down towards the Duomo. On the way we got some super delicious ice creams: Meg had chocolate cherry and 'buon biscotto', while I had the latter and cafe latte. At the Duomo we enjoyed the pretty building and tried to stave off African men forcing stringy bracelets on us (You're beautiful! It's free, a gift from Africa! I love you! I'm a good man! A euro for Africa? Come on, give me a euro....). Meg gave money to one of them, but learnt her lesson by the second one.
We wandered into a shopping mall next to the Duomo and came across a photoshoot for Italia's Next Top Model. This was phenomenally exciting for me, as I am a longtime watcher of the Next Top Model series. We stayed and took pictures of the photoshoot, which featured several models flying through the air, all in the same dress and make up. It was amazing to see how it's all done. We also had a snack of a pizza pasty that tasted a bit doughnutty (panzerotti) which was delicious and oozy with cheese.
After that we wanted to go in the Duomo, but sadly Meg had ignored her own advice and didn't bring a cardigan to put on over her revealing (by catholic cathedral standards) dress. So I went in with my cardi on, but was promptly ushered out again a few minutes later as it was closing time. Oh well, it wasn't as pretty inside as out.
Then we trekked out towards a restaurant we had read about in the guidebook, Il Verdi. On the way Meg stopped to photgraph a flowerstand man, and his colleague gave us each a flower for free - take note creepy, pushy African bracelet men! Sadly at this time I began to feel a migraine coming on, and by the time we made it to the place I felt awful and couldn't eat. I had already ordered my €9 plate of pasta so that went to waste, as I brought it back in a doggybag but couldn't stomach it even a few hours later (luckily for Meg, she could).
We got a taxi back to the hotel because of my migraine, and the driver was awful. He swerved all over, opening a starburst packet and sticking a cigarette into the flaps of the air conditioning vents on the dashboard. Finally we were back, and after a brief rest and a shower I felt better, and we had a late night chat before sleeping our final night in Milano.
So today we came to Florence on the train. The train wasn't as nice as the Spanish fast train, but it was a good journey because the views outside were pleasant. The man next to me had terrible breath, but I managed to survive it by listening to my ipod and daydreaming. On arrival we realised that the train station was different from the one I had planned for. Yes, it turned out that the nice woman gave us a cheaper train but failed to mention it went to a different station. We emerged in the sweltering heat of Florence and had no clue how to get to the hostel. With the aid of a map we found a bus stop to take us to the other station, and when we got on the bus we realised we were both covered in sweat - more so than before. It was gross. At the main station we got our tickets to Rome, then walked to the hostel.
And thus here we are, at Academy Hostel in Florence, less than a minute's walk from the Duomo. We share a bedroom and bathroom with 4 other people here, the beds are singles not bunk beds, and we have found out that they do breakfast for free too so that is something to look forward to...
Until the next blog,
Mojo
Sunday 6 July 2008
The Prado and the Botanic Gardens.. Last Day in Madrid
After another night in our hot little Mad Hostel 4 -bed room recovering from our strange drag-queen and jack daniels infused night before, we decided to make the most of our last day in Madrid by heading out to another of the 3 must-see Madrid art galleries, Museo del Prado. It seemed to be much busier than the Sofia Rene, and we had to wait in a queue outside in the sun to get tickets, before being sent round to the main entrance. Once inside we strolled appreciatively (at first..) through dozens of rooms of medieval and renaissance works, huge moody canvases caked with dark, mostly biblical scenes. I really liked some of them, and HATED many of them, but admired the skill put into all of them. We got a little insight into that: as we were walking round, artists from a Madrilean art school were sat with canvases and oil paints copying paintings. It was incredibly impressive, it obviously took a fairly long time, a lot of concentration and a hell of a lot of skill. The copies were to such a high standard - obviously the style of the originals was very intricate and detailed, and the copy painters emulated it almost exactly: often the differences were imperceptible.
My favourite part of the trip to the Prado, as it happens, was a youngish painter copying a portrait. He seemed to capture the essence of being a bohemian artist, and was very attractive, as seems to be the trend for Spanish boys so far. We shuffled around to get a look at his painting ( yes, the painting) and admire it. Unfortunately he had not actually begun painting again for the day and was just preparing his palette, so we returned later to see him painting away very impressively. He looked up, saw us, and smiled and waved, which was somewhat unexpected as we didn't know him. I waved back perhaps too enthusiastically. Later on, when we returned to the hostel, I thought I saw him in our bar as we sat blogging. Jo didn't think it was him but I like to think it was - and it would explain why he may have waved as he might have recognised us from around the hostel. Jury's out on that one.
After tiring ourselves out shuffling through the Prado, and perhaps somewhat tired of being surrounded by fellow tourists, we struck out for lunch and found ourselves in a lovely restaurant next to the Botanic Gardens, titling itself in accordance. It was great as there were hardly any other tourists there at all, if any - we could only hear spanish. We had a spanish-style slow lunch drenched in sun, with finches darting around us, and briefly, an accordion player serenading us. In this instance not a touristy thing as he serenaded all the Spaniards too. He was pretty good, played one of my favourite songs - la vie en rose - odd choice in Spain, and also somewhat less graceful on an accordion. Then we happily trotted down to the Botanic Gardens - about 1 euro to get in, and very nice too. Although I prefer our hometown Oxford Botanic Gardens! We had a nice time relaxing on a bench. with the birdies.
After our usual sweaty siesta we headed off, on Madrid time (9pm), for dinner. We went to a restaurant called La Artemisa or something to that effect, not far from the almost unbearably popular and crowded Sol plaza and area. Luckily the restaurant is about 10 minutes walk away and nowhere near as crowded. We had a great vegetarian dinner - I was really surprised to find so many good places to eat in Madrid (seeing as the concept of being vegetarian seems to be somewhat alien to many - vegetarianism seems to be a new thing in trendy areas like La Latina and Malasana). Finally we headed off to a very popular and touristy establishment for some churros con chocolate - essentially long thin doughnut type affairs with syrupy and sweet cups of chocolate: tasty, but in my opinion, a little overrated, at least where we tried them. Cheap though, at only 3 euros each, and we couldn't even finish the portions we were given. My advice is (unless you have the stamina of a Madrilean bull) to share a portion between 2 or 3 people.
All in all an absolutely fantastic day, if I remember anything else I'll add it in later. See you,
Meg
My favourite part of the trip to the Prado, as it happens, was a youngish painter copying a portrait. He seemed to capture the essence of being a bohemian artist, and was very attractive, as seems to be the trend for Spanish boys so far. We shuffled around to get a look at his painting ( yes, the painting) and admire it. Unfortunately he had not actually begun painting again for the day and was just preparing his palette, so we returned later to see him painting away very impressively. He looked up, saw us, and smiled and waved, which was somewhat unexpected as we didn't know him. I waved back perhaps too enthusiastically. Later on, when we returned to the hostel, I thought I saw him in our bar as we sat blogging. Jo didn't think it was him but I like to think it was - and it would explain why he may have waved as he might have recognised us from around the hostel. Jury's out on that one.
After tiring ourselves out shuffling through the Prado, and perhaps somewhat tired of being surrounded by fellow tourists, we struck out for lunch and found ourselves in a lovely restaurant next to the Botanic Gardens, titling itself in accordance. It was great as there were hardly any other tourists there at all, if any - we could only hear spanish. We had a spanish-style slow lunch drenched in sun, with finches darting around us, and briefly, an accordion player serenading us. In this instance not a touristy thing as he serenaded all the Spaniards too. He was pretty good, played one of my favourite songs - la vie en rose - odd choice in Spain, and also somewhat less graceful on an accordion. Then we happily trotted down to the Botanic Gardens - about 1 euro to get in, and very nice too. Although I prefer our hometown Oxford Botanic Gardens! We had a nice time relaxing on a bench. with the birdies.
After our usual sweaty siesta we headed off, on Madrid time (9pm), for dinner. We went to a restaurant called La Artemisa or something to that effect, not far from the almost unbearably popular and crowded Sol plaza and area. Luckily the restaurant is about 10 minutes walk away and nowhere near as crowded. We had a great vegetarian dinner - I was really surprised to find so many good places to eat in Madrid (seeing as the concept of being vegetarian seems to be somewhat alien to many - vegetarianism seems to be a new thing in trendy areas like La Latina and Malasana). Finally we headed off to a very popular and touristy establishment for some churros con chocolate - essentially long thin doughnut type affairs with syrupy and sweet cups of chocolate: tasty, but in my opinion, a little overrated, at least where we tried them. Cheap though, at only 3 euros each, and we couldn't even finish the portions we were given. My advice is (unless you have the stamina of a Madrilean bull) to share a portion between 2 or 3 people.
All in all an absolutely fantastic day, if I remember anything else I'll add it in later. See you,
Meg
Since the last post
Meg is going to do a post about the day before last, this here is a post about yesterday.
The plan had been to get up at 8am, get fed and ready and leave for the train station at 8.45am to catch the train to Barcelona at 9.30am. Here are the things that caused us to miss that train:
The plan had been to get up at 8am, get fed and ready and leave for the train station at 8.45am to catch the train to Barcelona at 9.30am. Here are the things that caused us to miss that train:
- Meg has a tendency to turn the alarm off and go back to sleep before I hear it, so we got up over 20 minutes late.
- When we got to the train station we waited in a queue at a ticket booth and when we got to the front we found that the man didn't speak English, and were instructed to go to customer service.
- We waited for a while at customer service, before being told by the woman at the desk to go to the room next door.
- That room had a lot of people in it, and you had to take a ticket and wait your turn. We had to wait maybe about 15 minutes.
- When we finally got to the desk, it was half 9, and the man told us the train was full too.
So we bought tickets for the 4.30pm train, and spent the day lounging in Retiro Park reading the Guardian. Today we are going to the train station (a different one, or else we would have done this on arrival) to buy our tickets to Milan for a few days time.
It's definately advisable to book your tickets on arrival in the train station, or if like us you don't arrive by train then make an excursion there a day or two before you want to depart. You never know if the train will have space, if you will need to wait a long time, or if you will simply be unable to find where you need to go.
And the best advice is if you are ever in doubt, ask someone. When we went to the station later to catch the train, we couldn't tell where to go to find the platforms. So we spent a few minutes sat in the customer service booth, before approaching the desk, and receiving a withering look and given the simple explanation that it's upstairs. It wasn't obvious to us!
The train was fabulous by the way, sleek and modern, with a film showing in Spanish (The Nanny Diaries) and reclining seats. So a comfortable train ride later we arrived in Barcelona, metroed our way to the right station, and emerged... directly across from Gaudi's bone house. What a great way to start our time here. I think Meg is a little less excited because she has been here before and see all the Gaudi, but it's all new to me and I am very enthusiastic to see it all.
We found our next hostel without too much traipsing, Centric Point, a huge building with staff who speak good English, thankfully. This time our room is 12 bed, and so far it's all girls. After two much needed showers and getting set up in our room we ventured out to find dinner. The place we intended to go was closed, evidently not everywhere is open as late as in Madrid, though by this time it was 10.30pm, somewhat late even by Madrid standards. We ended up at a very polished tapas place, and went a little overboard because it seemed so cheap. We need to start curtailing our dinner spendings, but it's tough when we just snack all day on whatever we can find.
The plan for today is to go to the Bone House and get our tickets to Milan, then maybe stroll down the Ramblas.
Til the next blog,
Mojo
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