I’m going to Berlin over the upcoming Easter holiday, which I’m really looking forward to. Then the following weekend (after a few days of rest) I head to Poland (Warsaw & Krakow), Slovakia (Bratislava), and Austria (Vienna) for a week, before flying back to London.

The Tirol region is a large mountainous area of Austria, with loads of small alpine towns. It’s full of stunning scenery, and I imagine a lot of time it’s also full of tourists. There’s hiking, paragliding, skydiving, etc. to do in summer, and of course skiing in winter.

I was in a compartment in the train from Munich for a while with a middle aged American couple that were quite nice, and then I had to change trains to head into St Johann. It was a really nice (and hot) day, so when I got off the train I had a full view of the mountain range towering above the town!

It took me ages to check-in though, because no-one was around at the hostel/pub. I did eventually get a room key though. I was staying up the road in a guesthouse in my own room. The place was packed with several different tours. They run Oktoberfest tours from St Johann, and bus everyone down to Munich each day. It’s not a bad idea really, because the trip is less than 2 hours and the accomodation would be much cheaper and easier.

There was apparently a big party going on that night that I could join. The three big tour groups (plus others, including me) all get together in a big tent with some live bands. I decided that in the interests of meeting people here in this new town I should shake off the hangover and join them! It was a good choice – great party!

The next day the weather started to turn shit. It started raining, and the temperature was dropping. The weather forecast wasn’t promising either, but I wanted to see some more of the area so I booked another couple nights. The following day I went to Innsbruck (aparently the capital of the region) to spend the day doing something productive. It was pouring down rain, but I wandered around the old town and saw the “sights”.

Today I decided to do a hike, because the weather was sunny again. The tourist office was only moderately helpful as to what to do, but I got a map and some idea of what to expect. I was on my own and not quite sure how fit I’d be (..too much beer drinking lately), so I didn’t do the most difficult, awesome looking walk that I’d been checking out on the skyline. The one I did was really good though, with great views! It was on a ski mountain, so there were times that I could tell that I’d be on a ski run in winter. I climbed to about 1700m (the top of the gondola) but didn’t have the time to do the remaining steep section to the peak (another 300m altitude). The cloud was thick up there anyway. Would have been awesome on a clear day though!
The great thing about walking on a mountain like this was that I could catch the gondola back down . Cost me 6 euros, and was worth every euro-cent!

I’ve been a bit bored the last few days (despite the alpine scenery). I’m a bit isolated and not meeting anyone, so I’m looking forward to the bus out tomorrow lunchtime to Italy!

I had a few days back in London a couple weeks ago, so I’ve put a heap of new photos up of the trip up until my jaunt back to London.

After Barcelona, I went to Valencia (and la tomatina festival!), Madrid, and San Sebastian (north coast of Spain). Then I headed back to London to see Shan, and I stayed 4 or 5 days or so. Then I headed to Cologne in Germany, before heading down to Frankfurt (to meet Shan again) so we could go to Tobi and Sabi’s wedding party. After the party we toured the Rhine valley for a few days!
Shan flew out of Frankfurt, and I went down to Munich. A few days later Scott, Michelle, Joe and Shamine all arrived for Oktoberfest! After drinking entirely too much beer (and having an awesome time), I’ve come to St Johann in the Tirol region of the Austrian alps.

It’s raining today, but there will be hiking to be done as long as the sun comes out tomorrow or the next day. I’ll be catching busabout again from here into Italy!

Now to hunt down some brunch….

The first night was a party bus with just Busabout people on it, which was basically a pub crawl except you couldn´t drink on the bus (although the guide was walking around squirting people with a massive water gun full of vodka). After several bars, we ended up at a club down in the docks area…and got home around 6ish. Unfortunately for me, I had to change rooms the next morning because I had 2 separate bookings and they couldn´t keep me in the same room. Aargghhhh.

The next day I ran into Dave, and wandered around most of the day with him. We saw a few sights in the 6 hours or so of walking! The best of which is probably the Sagrada Familia, a wacky but incredibly impressive building that´s been in progress for over a hundred years or so, but still has at least 40 to go. It was designed by the Spanish artist Gaudi, who is quite revered in Barcelona. He has at least one museum and a park dedicated to his rounded, cartoonish architecture in Barcelona.

A day or so later I eventually got around to doing the bike tour. The tour was well worth it, and covered a lot of the interesting historical parts of the city. Barcelona has been a very fast growing city ever since the Olympics were held there in 1992, and now is Spain´s biggest tourist drawcard (I think). Anyway, bike tours are good value.

I also had the cooking class, which wasn´t too bad. We were shown how to make Sangria (and drink lots of it) and Paella. I´ve eaten heaps of it since then, and I´ll be trying to make my own Paella when I eventually get a kitchen.

The Picasso museum wasn´t too bad, but it was mostly dedicated to when he was younger, so not his most famous paintings, etc. I also remembered that I don´t actually like Picasso at all.

I spent a fair bit of time just wandering around Barcelona. Don´t bother with the crappy beach that they built for the Olympics. It´s quite close to the big port and just generally crap. Apparently the real beaches a couple of km down are much better but I didn´t go there. It was quite warm while we were there too. I can´t really remember what else I did there!

The hostel was average, but it had a cool huge bar area where people generally hung out (and queued for the free interweb access). I ran into a fair few people that I´d met before at some stage or another in this hostel. It´s a great city to visit with plenty to do, but I was glad to eventually move on to Valencia.

Getting from Barcelona to Valencia wasn´t going to be with busabout though, because that leg had been booked out for months (because of la tomatina festival, which I´ll go into later!). So I made my way by train. I ended up with a first class ticket, which was a bit more expensive, but at the time I couldn´t be bothered trying to argue that I wanted a cheap ticket, especially since it came with free food and drink. I was actually looking forward to it (I much prefer trains to buses…).

I think it was only about 4 hours on the train down to Valencia main station. However, to join the package/tour thing that I´d booked for la tomatina I had to catch a local train out to somewhere else. That was difficult! I understand a little Spanish (from the course Shan and I did recently), but no-one would speak English and it was still extremely unclear what was going on. Anyway, I did figure it out. The camping ground was about 20 minutes on the train out of Valencia, and I´ll continue this story soon… 

Update: Photos

The Avignon accomodation that we stayed at is like a big caravan park, which also has a building with dorm beds. There’s a shop and a swimming pool, etc, but we didn’t really use them. The park is right near the river, directly opposite the walled city of Avignon on the other side, so there’s a great view of the city from there.

Avignon itself is an old walled city made famous by the fact that it was the seat of the Pope (the centre of the Catholic religion) for over a hundred years. Way back during a period of political turmoil in Rome, the Popes fled and picked Avignon as their new home. They put a load of money into building a magnificent palace and surrounds. Apparently the palace took something like 20 years to build (but it is huge).

As well as the palais de Papes, there’s also the (apparently) famous Pont d’Avignon, or bridge of Avignon, which is in a nursery rhyme. It’s was originally a bridge that was built by a guy who heard voices telling him to build it (of course they say it was a message from God). The bridge was important for connecting north and south France, but it was washed away in floods. They rebuilt it a few times but it got washed away again. Now it’s just 3 arches that stop in the middle of the river, which makes for an expensive tourist attraction.

I spent most of my time in Avignon walking around with a guy named Dave, and we saw way too much of the city. There was plenty of time to kill. It’s really not interesting enough for 2 days, but the bus only comes through every second day. I’d probably recommend taking a few pictures on your way through, and keep going…

We did have an interesting dinner on the first night though. We’d spotted a place that seemed to be a bit like a Sizzler, with a cheap steak and salad/vegies meal. Unfortunately we learned (and so have a few others I’ve spoken to) that it just means a mince patty. That wasn’t the only problem though, because when you order it medium (expecting a steak) you get a mostly raw mince patty! Mmmmm! So we had a lot of vegies, and tried to eat some of the steakraw mince, but it wasn’t good. 

Update: Photos

Anyway, apart from the harbour, Cannes actually has sandy beaches. The beaches are packed of course, but it was still a picturesque place. I might have even had a swim there. There’s the walk of the stars with the handprints of various film stars in it along the waterfront. I spotted a couple of recognisable Hollywood names on it. The big theatre place where the film festival is based (with the red carpet leading up to it) is also on the waterfront, but it’s just an ordinary sort of building.

I had a walk around and lazed in the sun, but I didn’t spend all day there and headed back to Nice.

Update: Photos!

I was already exhausted by the time I got to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, but I had to check it out. There was free entry today, but I think there’s usually a fee. I saw plenty of weird and wonderful pop-art – but not too much to get boring.

I managed to make dinner just in time for the hostel kitchen to close by 8pm. It’s annoyingly early considering that the locals would never be eating dinner by 8pm!
I’m shattered tonight – I need a rest day! I think I’ll spend it on the beach at Cannes…

I forgot to mention – a very young girl tried to pick-pocket me today! She was lacking a little in the execution however, as I could see her shadow. I actually saw her shadow reach out towards my back pocket, and then felt a hand on my pocket. It wasn´t likely to work as my pocket was buttoned up, but I suddenly took a lot more care in Nice than before!

Update: Photos!

When I met up with Christian, he’d already checked the train timetable and there was a train leaving in either 5 mins or an hour. One mad rush later, and we’re sitting on a stifling hot train to Monte Carlo. The trip is only about 20 minutes on the train, so it’s a great day trip from Nice.
We wandered around for a few hours, checking out the lay of the land. We went to the famous casino, and saw too many expensive cars for one afternoon. Then we wandered along some of the Formula one route, and around the famous harbour (I want a big boat now). The hill with the castle on it has plenty of spectacular views over Monaco in both directions along the coast.

I admit, I was impressed. I’d like to park my yacht there!

It was pretty tough being out in the sunshine looking over the meditteranean ocean, so we then had to go and find the cheapest looking eatery we could find for dinner. We made another trip up the hill to get the night-time view over Monaco, before catching a late train back to Nice. I went to bed exhausted this time.

Update: Photos!