Ravenna

Italy, what can you say about Italy. It has to be the best country in Europe to visit. The food, the people, atmosphere, the weather and it’s just Italy. Ravenna is just a small town on the east coast of Italy and is most famous for its beautiful mosaics, which are incredible. Also it is famous for being the capital of the Byzantine empire in the 6th century. It was incredibly hot when I was there but thankfully the beach was too far away. So I ended up cycling to the beach and when I arrived found all the Italians EXTREMELY burnt. Also no one was in the water just lying on the beach getting abnormally tanned. Really a site to see all these brown Italians lying and walking around the beach too scared to go into the water (Wish I had my camera with me). So there I the whitest guy on the beach swimming around. I’m sure they all thought I was completely nuts. Anyways Ravenna was a beautiful little town well worth the visit.

An example of the spectacular mosaics

Vienna

As always I love Austria and Vienna is like the icing on the cake of Austria. It has to be one of the most elegant cities in Europe. As you walk around you feel transported to the 18th century with all these majestic and grand buildings surrounding you. In Vienna I met up with some more friends from my exchange in Copenhagen which was fantastic. Definitely could live in Vienna.

Warsaw

The train journey from Budapest to Warsaw was an extremely interesting experience. I’ve caught a sleeper train before but I’ve never experienced getting into a un-air-conditioned shoe box of a cabin at 1am in the morning with 4 other people already sleeping in the cabin. Then trying to get all our luggage into the cabin and get into our bunks without disturbing the other people sleeping. A completely impossible task. So after a hellish experience on the night train (which was just a couple of hours delayed) we arrived in Warsaw. When we arrived into the train station it seems you have been transported back to the 1980’s in the height of communism. As The station is very dark, bland and concrete, extremely depressing. We were actually trying to find the tourist information office and we came across the police station and were thinking of asking them but it was down this long corridor with lights flicking on and off and seemed to just get darker and darker the closer you got to the office. Very eerie. Once we got into the main part of the city it was amazing. The building and design was beautiful and actually reminded me of Nyhavn in Copenhagen. The most interesting thing about Warsaw was this contrast of the communist style and the old town western European style.

Exhibit A - Palace of Culture and Science

Exhibit A - The main square in the old town

Budapest

From Zagreb we made our way to Budapest. I really loved Budapest as it was such a beautiful and vibrant city. I especially like the unique combination of the Buda Castle and Pest region and then the Danube running through the middle. Also in Budapest I meet up with one of my friends from Copenhagen and ended up going around Budapest with her and her Hungarian friend which was awesome. The biggest different between Copenhagen and Budapest was how cheap everything was. It was ridiculous especially alcohol.

Budapest Parliament

Zagreb

Next stop in my euro trip was Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. An oversight on my part was not knowing that Croatia is actually not part of the EU. Zagreb is one of the weirdest cities I've ever been to. It was completely dead when we got there, mind you it was 40 degrees, plus there is literally nothing to do there. So we promptly decided to go to the plitvice lakes which is about 2 hours outside of the city.



Buses in Croatia are very interesting they assume you know where your stop is and there is no need to mention any of the stops over the loud speaker. So of course we got off a stop late 15km away from the lakes. Not a problem I thought just catch the next bus or at worse just get a cab there. Well we went into a local hotel and they inform us there wasn't a bus till the afternoon and that because it was a small town there were no cabs. So we were effectively stranded in this town. The only thing I could think of was to hitch-hike hoping hitch-hiking isn't as bad as it is in Australia. Thankfully it didn't come to that and we got a ride with someone in the hotel bar that the receptionist organised. Once we got to the lakes it was one of the most incredible places I've seen. Also we had found where all the people had got to. Supposedly they get an average of 10,000 tourist a day at the lakes.

Next stop Budapest.

Istanbul

First stop of my summer holiday was Istanbul. Staying with my Turkish friend from Copenhagen in the European side of the Bosporus. We actually were staying in student accommodation but most of the other students that stay there had left for the summer. So it was just 2 Aussies and 2 turks = awesome time.



It was an amazing 2 weeks as essentially we were living as Turks. By the end I really got to know and experience life in Istanbul which includes bargaining in the grand bazaar which ironicly is closed on Sunday when bazaar in Turkish means Sunday. Supposedly it was just too busy on Sunday they had to close it.

One of the most memorable moments was crossing over to Asia and drinking tea while the sun set over Europe. The only thing that I think turkey is missing this time was the feeling you were a multi millionaire. With the re floating of the Turkish lira the Aussie dollar is almost 1 to 1 unlike 8 years ago when it was 1 to 1 million. Shame. Anyways thanks so much Alperen and Erdi.

Tomorrow Croatia.

Take care
Jono

The summer is coming to an end

Hey everyone

So I'm here in Amsterdam at the moment coming to the end of a jam pack summer. Currently I'm enjoying glimpses of sun shine as I enjoy a coffee overlooking one of the numerous canals. Definitely the life :)

I'm sorry that I haven't written on my blog for ages. But I've come up with a cunning plan to rectify this. Don't worry it will not include one massive post outlining in extricating detail everything I have done in the last 2 months which I'm sure would bore you all. I have instead decided to post one entry a day on each city I visited. Starting with Istanbul tomorrow. Hope you all enjoy it.

Take care
Jono


- Posted from my iPhone