Jan 2008

So now for all of you who have been asking how our xmas and new years was this is for you. I know it’s a bit out of order (there is still 2 weeks of our European trip to go) but I thought I’d slip this in anyway.

Christmas was pretty low key, just me and Rach at home with our little tree. A leg of lamb and bottle of red for me and ample roast veggies for Rach.

On the 29th James F had come to stay with us for the new years break mainly in anticipation of the Edinburgh hogmany festival and since it was more of a holiday for him he wanted to go and see Glasgow for a day as well. Sweet I thought, we haven’t been there yet, what a good idea James. Well if you ever have the privilege of going to a city with Mr. Fletcher then ask him this question first. “James why do you want to go to ‘place x’ is it a) you want to walk around the city and see the sights (which I assumed) or b) do you want to go for a bit of a shopping trip. When we arrived I found out it was more of answer b). Ah well after a good few hours of James and Rach (who was loving the shopping trip) dragging me around different shops I put my foot down and made us walk out to the Glasgow Necropolis and all of the overindulgent graves and tombstones of the old Glaswegians.

Back in Edinburgh on New Years Eve Jasmine and a flat mate from Birmingham also came to stay for the festivities. This stated with a party at one of our mates places in the east end. I think they were a bit sick of the cold weather as the theme was a beach party, where if you wanted entry you had to dress up in beach attire.

ohh, nice face rach

From the beach party we headed out to the hogmany festival street party where we were greeted by another 300,000 new years revelers. Princess St was packed and what would have been a quick 5 min stroll to the middle of the st ended up taking 30min, all holding hands so we didn’t get lost in the crowd. It was a bit lame just standing there waiting for the countdown but once it got going and the fireworks started it was pretty cool.

aparently james forgot that we had left the beach party

why is james trying to lick me, i just don't know

It hadn’t been all that cold since arriving back in Edinburgh only 1-5 degrees compared to the negatives of central Europe, but after getting over the New Years celebrations the weather decided to take a bit of a turn. But not really in a bad way more of a nice snowy sunny way. So we decided to go for a bit of an ice skate in the festival grounds

come on james, you have to give up the beach theme, it's snow for heavans sake

Anyway that was our Xmas / New Years 07-08; low key gullton on the 25th, fooling Jamie into shopping trips in Glasgow, massive parties on new years eve and running about in the snow.

After our hellish ferry from Italy we weren’t really in the mood for finding a place to stay (as we hadn’t booked anything) and when we started to be hawked by potential hoteliers Rach walked away and left me to deal with it. Then just when we thought that we’d have to pay for a proper hotel along came Nikola. He told us that his place was ‘very nice’ and 25 min walk from the old town but that he’d drive us everywhere we wanted to go. Too good to be true right, well not really. The place was really nice; it was pretty new, full kitchen and bathroom, pretty much just a new 1 bed (king size) apartment. And to top it off we’d just txt Nikola from wherever we were and he’d be there in 15 min to taxi us to wherever (so big ups Nikola, highly recommended www.burum-accomodation.com). He even gave us a Happy Xmas/New Years txt the other day.

Our first full day in Dubrovnik was spent exploring the old town, it reminded me of Venice (funny that considering it was part of the Venetian empire). It was a really nice day and I was even contemplating a swim.

In one of the ruins left by the Bosnian war we found a mini cat colony

Then Rachel kicked a dog

we brought a hat off some old ladies who wereknitting in old town

That night after reading the many posters advertising a free wine and cheese evening in one of the resort we headed out to see what we could get for free. The answer was everything, it was put on by the Dubrovnik winter tourist board and it was another case of the endless wine glass. The vineyard owners would get up in-between glasses and explain what was so great about there wine (all in Croatian so it was a case of nodding and smiling), apart form the wine there were full plates of cheese and bread with olive oil. Basically we didn’t need to go out for dinner and drinks afterwards.

The next day we’d planned to catch a quick ferry over to one of the islands for a day of beach walking and picnicking, but the weather had other ideas. I was raining cats and dogs. So we got a pass to see 4 different museums to get out of the rain. Of course we couldn’t find the entrance to the maritime museum and in searching for it ran around the outer wall of the old town only to be drenched head to toe by freak waves that were battering the city walls.

The last day in Dubrovnik before another big day of travel up to Slovenia was spent doing another of our speed tourist activities. We had missed out on the city wall walk on the first day and our second day was washed out so we had between 10 and 10:45 (as our bus left at 11:00). So we basically ran around the walls looking at all the views and taking a quick succession of pictures.

So our last experience of Italy was our train trip from Naples to Bari where we caught a ferry to Croatia, but before leaving Naples we had to have one more crappy experience. When we tried to check out of the hotel (and pay) we were told that it was twice as expensive as when we had booked through laterooms. Anyway after a half hour argument in broken Italian and English he eventually caved in and we got to pay the discounted price.

When we got into Bari we discovered it isn’t really a tourist town at all, which was accentuated by the amount of English that the locals knew (although it still had the throngs of Africans trying to sell fake gucci bags). It was a challenge to figure out the washing machines in the local laundromat, but there’s nothing a little bit more volume and hand gestures can’t work out.

We were pretty tried from the days traveling and although we weren’t supposed to be leaving port until 10pm we went straight to our cabin and to sleep when we were let on at 9pm. It was an 8-9 hour trip and we were supposed to be in Dubrovnik at 7 in the morning. So when we woke up at 6 (after one of the best sleeps on tour so far) we thought it would be nice to go and have breakfast as we pulled into port. But alas we were already stopped. So I asked the receptionist if we had made good time and were there already “no we are still in Bari” she replied with a sly smile. She’s got to be kidding right? Ah no…. we had just slept through the announcement that departure was going to be delayed due to bad weather.

So that was a disappointment, but we were assured that we would be underway just after breakfast (which we were told would be free due to the delay). But of course there’s no such thing as a free breakfast and just after we finished the boat took off and our stomachs started to rebel. It was the roughest boat ride we’d ever been on (and I’ve been on some pretty rocky inter-islander trips) and the first two hours saw the contents of our insides duly return to the surface.

It did eventually calm down after we were out of Italian waters, which was just in time as Rach was ready to throw herself overboard. We ended being little sun gluttons laying out on the deck for the rest of the trip.

We had no real expectations heading into Naples for the 2 nights we were there and only really started to look when we booked our room from Rome using laterooms.com (which had a perfect record of good hotels for really cheap). And what we read on the internet and in our lonely planet was quite good, once were ‘industrial city’ now glitzy seaside metropolis close to island beach resorts like Capri and in the area where Vesuvius blew her top and covered Pompeii and the surrounding area. So we thought we were in for a bit of an unexpected treat.

Well maybe not………

We arrived by train in the afternoon and the city met us like the dirty industrial behemoth that she turned out to be. There was rubbish everywhere, the place looked like a dump. And as we found out on our return to the UK Naples rubbish collection is controlled by the Mafia and the have been putting a halt on collection to make money of other areas shipping there rubbish in, damn mob.

And even combined with the fact that our room was a s#!thole and manned by the dodgiest Italians so far, we were not going to let it ruin our stay. So we decided to take a nice walk along the waterfront to see if we could get a ferry over to one of the islands. This was made a little harder by the relentless wind and insane drivers, I mean we thought the drivers in Rome were crazy but these guys take the pizza pie. We eventually gave up on going to an island and got some food and wine, locked ourselves in our room and watched bad Italian dubbed Walker Texas Ranger episodes.

Our only picture we took of Naples (the only clean place we could find)

There was no way we were going to spend the next day in the city so we hopped on a train and headed out to Pompeii to see the ruins. The actual ruins were a small walk from the train station but of course we got on the wrong train and had a 5k walk, ah well it meant we didn’t have to ride with the huge groups of Asian and American tourists.

The Ruins itself is a really cool place and big, we walked for 6 hours solid and still didn’t see all the ruins. Anyway we armed ourselves with an audio guide and headed out.
Most of the ancient city is still really well intact and you can really imagine the way people used to live from the building and other remains in the site.

The bodies in some of the houses are a bit freaky, most of them look like they just fell asleep but there are some stuck in frightened poses which I guess conveys the destruction that a volcanic eruption can cause (watch out ruapehu).

acient sewer system, blocks so you can walk across the street which would have been covered in poo

Most of the views around Pompeii are pretty spectacular, melding the uncovered ruins of an ancient civilization against the mountain that preserved them for us to see and in doing so wiped out and entire region from the map.

Anywho, buy the time we got back to Naples we had been on our feet for 8 hours and were in dire need of some relaxation. And what better way to do it than by doing what we had done every night since being in Italy, by going to a local restaurant and getting filled up on local dishes and drunk on local wine.

And now just as you expect me to criticize Naples some more it started to redeem itself (if only in a small way). The food and vino was the best we’d had in Italy and not to mention the cheapest, 2 euro for a ½ liter of wine is nuts (ah well I’m not really one to complain).

Our three days in Rome were a prime example of how to be a speed tourist. There is just so much to do and see and we were determined to fit all in to the time we had.

The first morning was spent going round Vatican City. We were just going to mosey round ourselves but the line to get in was huge so we allowed ourselves to get hawked by one of the guides outside. He was pretty funny and insisted that we looked like students. So we got the whole 3 hour tour for only 10 euors more than the entry fee.

The Vatican museums are pretty impressive, statues galore and the detail that has gone into everything (floors ceiling and walls) is pretty mind boggiling. We asked why all of the male statues had their wee wees broken off to which Andrei (the guide) replied one of the more ‘conservative’ popes went around knocking them all off because he thought it was pornographic. Anyway, big thumbs up to Andrei (if your going there he’s the 6 ft 4 bald guy).

So as per our speed tourist plan we walked past the Spanish Steps, they were ok but crammed full of people.

and then jaime got lost, but no worries soon back on track

We flew passed the Trevi Fountain, which was very cool and again packed full of people

We threw a coin over our shoulder which apparently means you will return to Rome again

Next on the list was the Pantheon, Oldest and best preserved ancient Roman building in Rome. And surprise surprise it was also packed full of people. Still another thing seen another thing done.

The next day of speed touristing was spent going around the Colleseum and Roman Forum.

And of course at the end of each day we were going out for pizza and insanely cheap wine.

So rome....
lots to do and entriley possible to do it in the time we had.