The cheaper the beer the more I shall drink!

Hello people, the first thing I should say is that I am really starting to have a bloody good time on this trip!I shall attempt to tell the tale of what has occurred since last Saturday which will be a bit of a test for the memory. Saturday night defiantly deserves a mention, I met a crazy Dutch guy in the hostel and ended up going out in Bologna. I knew it would be good as it was a Saturday night in the biggest student populated city in Italy but it truly was awesome. There were 3am raves in the middle of the main square, outdoor bars, loads of people, it truly was memorable! on Sunday with no sleep and a hangover I headed to Venice, the first day was a non event as I was pretty wiped out from Saturday. I explored the city the second day but felt that the tourists spoilt it slightly for me. It is still a great city and so unique and different from anything I have ever seen before. In the evening I met with my Brazilian friends from Florence which was great and I shall probably see them one last time in Dubrovnik. The next day I left Italy after a great 3 and a half weeks, as I could not find any direct buses, thanks for that Lonely Planet, to Pula in Croatia I elected to get a 5am train to Trieste where I hoped to find buses to Croatia. By the way Anna if you are reading Trieste is where they make Illy coffee! After I had sorted this out I was in Croatia by teatime and self catered that evening where to my delight I found tuna in the supermarket and a massive bottle of beer for under a pound, good times! in my first full day in Croatia I explored Pula, it is supposedly a city but feels far more like a small town. Just outside of the town is the 1st century Roman Ampitheatre which was like a smaller and less busy version of the Colosseum in Rome, I sat there in the sun for a while and felt very relaxed! in the evening I went for dinner and beers with Amy from Oxford, had a pizza for 4 quid and a very enjoyable evening. I arrived here in Rijeka around mid afternoon yesterday. The city is a fairly busy port city with a modern centre and a few highlights such as the imposing castle I am going to hike this afternoon. Last night I had some traditional Istrian cuisine, Istria is the region I am currently in. i went with a Dutch guy who has cycled here from France and a lively Canadian guy who was a great storyteller. We joined a couple of German girls and a chap from Turkey at an Irish bar and more beer was consumed. I am meeting the German girls in Zagreb tomorrow for more of the same! so that is everything about up to date, I think things are picking up now as I am meeting more travelers rather than tourists and people on holiday. It is also remarkably cheap here compared to Italy and after initially worrying I am now confident that the money can stretch the 2 years. Next up I have Zagreb for 3 nights with a trip to nearby Samobor sandwiched in between. The adventure continues...

Getting closer to Croatia

My time in Italy has almost come to an end, I have tonight in Bologna and then 2 days in Venice before I cross the border on Tuesday, well actually 2 borders as I have to pass through Slovenia to get there. Since my last update the highlight has been the Cinque Terre hike/walk I did on Thursday. The evening before was pretty chilled out, managed to find the Chelsea/Juventus game on the tv at the hostel. It was the first football I've seen since leaving England so that was nice. The next day I got the hostel shuttle which they kindly include in the price of the booking to the park. It dropped us off in the first village, Riomaggiore and I set off from there. There are quite a few different trails you can take but the most commonly used one is the azzuro (blue) trail which links all 5 villages and is supposed to take upto 5 hours. Unfortunatly the path was closed between the second and third villages so I had to take the path aimed at experienced hikers which I am far from! this added an extra 2 hours onto my time and by the time I reached Corniglia the middle village I was fairly sure I wasn't going to manage the 3 and a half hours of hiking still ahead. Just to put it into perspective this is not the Tissington trail! there is a lot of uphill invloved and a hell of a lot of steps! also bare in mind the temperature was in the high 20's and you will see why someone like me, hardly at the brink of physical fitness was feeling the strain after some 4 hours of this! Anyway, after a sandwich and a litre of water I carried on to Vernazza which I completed in the hour and a half it was supposed to take. After a rest here the temperature was cooling and I found the last 2 hours to Monterosso easier than a lot of the rest had been. I celebrated with a pizza back at the hostel and felt quite proud to have completed the whole thing in one day and for the most part I enjoyed it. Yesterday I was aching, climbing any form of stairs with my backpack on was torture and when I arrived in Bologna via Parma, I wanted a simple stroll to my hostel. However the train station and surrounding area are probably the most chaotic I've come across so far and the hostels directions were fairly awful so I thought bugger it and allowed myself the luxury of a taxi. I was really not in the mood for Bologna yesterday, a big dirty city with noise and chaos was not something I was upto after the previous day so I had an early night and slept for 12 hours. Today I've found the centre and it is actually a pretty cool place, its another university city and they are obsessed with food! it is everywhere and it says something that the city's nickname is La Grassa which translates into 'the fat one!' speaking of food I'm off to sample some, if this proves to be my last entry from Italy then it has been great and one hell of a way to start the trip. I plan to do a personal guide to getting around Italy on a budget, trust me it can be done!

Pisa, Lucca and Genoa

Today I am in La Spieza which is a gateway town to the Cinque Terre. This basically translates into 5 towns and is meant to be some the best coastal views in the world and some great hiking, I will find out more tomorrow when I go there but it was always one of the things I was most looking forward to about the Italy part of the trip. The hostel is dead, its just me and 2 girls here it seems ;-) Anyway, since my last entry the pace of the trip has quickened and this is actually by 4th stop in 5 days so it is getting a bit more rushed now. I'm glad I had the slower start to ease me into things though. My last update was on Saturday night and I'd intended to pack my stuff for the following day and get an early night after that, however the 2 Brazilan girls who were in my room had other ideas and several bottles of wine later I was in a club in Florence and have most likely ended up with travelling companions as I will be meeting them in either Venice or Zagreb. They say the best nights are unplanned and when you are travelling every night is unplanned so I guess thats why I love to do it! The next day, hungover, I headed for Pisa and the leaning tower, except that is Pisa and I instantly thought why the hell have I booked 2 nights here? I let my sore head heal in the sun on the beautiful gardens by the tower and spent the evening wandering around the area by the Arno which was nice. I decided on a day trip to nearby Lucca the next day which is a small town still enclosed within city walls and about 700 meters each way. It's a cracking little place and filled with world heritage quality buildings and I strolled around aimlessly taking it all in and enjoying the sunshine. The beer was flowing again later as those Aussies emereged and multipled from nowhere again but there was no club this time which may have been for the best. I did quite like Pisa in a way, it was a lively student town again with some great universities I found out. The weird thing is I only went there in the first place to view an archiological project that went rather wrong, still it was fun. Yesterday and today has been mainly focusing on a rather roundabout way to get here which looking at it now could have been planned better. I spent a night in a hostel in Genoa, which was way out the way of the city so I was resticted to just being in the hostel with a load of erasmus students whatever they are! :-S Today after a variety of trains and buses I am here and looking forward to doing something interesting tomorrow after a few days of relativly little. Just to recap then I've 2 nights here, then its Bologna and then Venice after that we're onto Croatia. Hello to all xx

Florence - Thumbs up

I am currently on my 3rd and final day in the fine city of Florence. I had thought the weather was cooling a bit but the temperature has shot back up again today, summer is very much still lingering about here in Italy. I had arrived here early on the Thursday from Perugia as my hostel bizarrely only checks people in from 9 in the morning till 1 in the afternoon, the staff even disappear completely after that so if you arrive after that you are pretty much screwed, its a strange system but it seems to somehow work and its a nice little hostel, very good value for money and the girl that runs it, Serena, is very friendly. My first day was a bit of a slow one, I realized from the map I was given that Florence isn't really that big and a simple case of wandering soon led to me to the massive dome which you can pretty much see from just about everywhere in the city in any case. I wandered a bit more and found a cheap Chinese restaurant for dinner and went back for an early night. The next morning was taken up with one of those things that travelers pretty much hate but has to be done, doing the laundry! luckily there was one right across the street from the hostel and an hour later that was all done with. I set off to the dome again accompanied by an Australian fashion designer who was staying at the hostel. This time we climbed the 450 odd stairs to the top (something I would have really struggled to do 2 weeks ago!) and the view of the city was pretty spectacular. Being an Aussie he was then gasping for a beer and I didn't take much persuading! we were joined by more Australians (I think they grow on trees where bars are concerned) and several beers and a pizza later email addresses and promises to meet again later that night were being exchanged, I have no idea what happened to them after that! My evening was spent watching the spectacular sunset over the Arno river and then an even more spectacular view from Piazzale Michelangelo from which you really can see just about everything in Florence, I'm going there in a bit to try and catch the sunset there this evening as its supposed to be one of the most spectacular sights in Europe. Today I've started self catering for the first time as eating at restaurants and cafes every day is starting to hit my budget, sadly the Bistecca alla Fiorentina will have to be missed. My main activity has been strolling around the Boboli gardens on the other side of the Arno river, they are basically the palace gardens and are really nice to wander around on a day like today. After the sunset I will most likely have a beer with yet more Aussies that I have met here and that will be all for Florence. I can see the city's appeal, it is very full of tourists and this can get quite tiresome at times, especially the big groups but I am not anticipating many other places to be like this with the exception of Venice really. So I'm almost 2 weeks in now and things are going pretty well. I defiantly feel a lot better physically due to the massive amount of walking I have been doing, not really feeling homesick though I do still miss a lot of people and two kittens a great deal. Next up is Pisa tomorrow and then Genoa and the amazing sounding Cinque Terre which I am very much looking forward to. Hope everyone is well. Chris x

Vesuvuis, Pompei and a day of trains

I'm currently in Perugia which is the largest down in region of Umbria. It's a nice little town which can be walked around in about half an hour and a lot more relaxed than Naples, I really like the place, apparently its set to be the European culture capital in 2019, I can believe it! A bit of a recap then since my last entry, Monday did indeed consist of Pompei and Vesuvius. Both were well worth it, like the Colosseum the history surrounding Pompei blew me away the pictures I've took could never do it justice and I'd recommend it to anyone, whether you're into history or not! The views from Vesuvius were incredible, you could literally see the whole of Naples and there really isn't anything like being near the top of a volcano that could blow at any moment! After all that I left Naples the next day to come here and it took forever, 3 trains and around 8 hours and all I did when I arrived was spent another 2 hours in this internet cafe getting the pictures of the trip so far on facebook. Today however has been a different matter, I had a proper look round the town and then discovered the mini metro which is a fantastic cable car/roller coaster which takes you from the centre of Perugia back to the train station, honestly I have never seen anything quite like it! I had decided to get a train to Lago Trasimeno nearby which was supposed to have some great hiking. Unfortunatly when I arrived all I could see was a dead end town on the edge of a lake, I wandered around and eventually found a ferry service to Isola Maggiore which I had never heard of but I had nothing else to do so I took it and it turned out to be a great little island with local restaurants, churches and some great walking trails, yet again a day that promised very little has delivered a lot. Tomorrow is Florence which I am very excited about, I have 3 nights there and then it's Pisa for the leaning tower and all that jazz. I'm starting to get fairly settled with the trip in general, I think the fact that I am taking my time and accepting that I cannot see everything is helping on a trip this length you probably do need to pace yourself! Also I'm really enjoying Italy so far, almost can't believe I've never made the effort to come here before! Missing everyone at home, hope you're keeping well Chris x

Italy or Mexico

I'm now at my second stop on my trip in Naples, in the south of Italy. The title refers to how the city reminds of those in northern Mexico, it really is incredible how vastly different it is from Rome. There is pollution, there is noise and it generally feels like chaos. It is also a city of great history and many fine churches and of course the best pizza in the world which I have sampled today and as someone who has had his fair share of pizza over the years this really does take some beating! The story of the last few days is as follows, my final day in Rome was fairly relaxed and I just chilled in the centre most of the day, wandering aimlessly around the animated streets going from piazza to piazza. I finished the day off by joining the free spaghetti dinner and drinks at Ivanhoe hostel which was a nice way to finish. Onto Saturday and my first train journey! it cost 10 euros for the 2 and a half hour journey to Naples which I thought was a good deal. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere a guy got on who could have been straight out of the mafia. He had it all, the dark glasses, smartly dressed, even a scar on his face! the confusion that followed with the metro and then finding my hostel in the heat of the afternoon hit me hard and I had to have a sleep when I arrived. Another free dinner at the hostel followed, pasta with a great deal of Sangria. It was probably the best evening I've had so far, I much prefer this hostel as its sociable but not over the top. Today I've been out with a couple of the guys from here on a 6 hour stomp around Naples, we've seen some really interesting stuff including the Spanish quarter which is the poorest area in Naples and pretty much a full on slum, I thought it may be intimidating to walk around but the people we met were very friendly. Several churches, piazzas and domes later we went down into the area most know for organised crime. It seemed chaotic and rather disorganised in my opinion, motorcycles everywhere and suicidal kids playing football in the middle of it all. Tomorrow is my last day in Naples but I'm unlikely to spend it here as I'm probably going to explore Pompei and Mount Versuvias. The weather is still around 30 degrees and looking ahead Italy and Croatia are set to continue in this vein for sometime yet!

Pizzas and Piazzas

I think in a nutshell the title does actually sum up my time in Rome very well. I have had pizza near enough everyday and have spent a fair bit of time relaxing in Rome's numerous piazzas. In between all of that I have seen pretty much everything I wanted to see here. I would still say the colosseum is my favourite although the Trevi Fountain, lit up at night was also pretty special. The weather turned hot yesterday, it has been pushing 30 degrees again today and looking ahead it is set to continue throughout Italy for at least the next couple of weeks :-) I feel I've spent pretty much the perfect amount of time in Rome, it's given me time to find my feet and not have to rush round the sights which has been good and the perfect start to the trip. This evening may be spent with a return trip to the Colosseum to see it at night, though to be honest I'm fairly knackered after 4 days of non stop walking around a big city, the last 2 of which in a 30 degree heat. I guess everyone from the hostel will know I wasn't exactly known for my productivity on days off work so they'll know how much of a life style change this is! So tomorrow is Naples, home of the best pizza in the world apparently so it would be rude not to try some! I'm also intending to sort out a day trip to Pompei, met an Aussie girl here who says it's very worthwhile. Lots of pictures to come though I'll need to locate an internet cafe first. Chris

The only idiot in Rome without an umbrella

I should have known that all those times I was smug about the 35 degrees it was in Rome that it would come back to haunt me.. Yesterday when I arrived it was a nice sunny evening but today I have been soaked, still everything has started well. I have done a fair bit of tourist stuff today, the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Trevi Fountain. My first thoughts of Rome are pretty good, it's very manageable for a big city and the pace of life seems a lot more relaxed than most capitals I've been to. In saying that it is a bit crowded with tour groups and I've a feeling that Naples, my next stop may suit me a lot more and give me a more realistic view of typical Italian life. I've had my first Italian pizza slice (within about an hour of getting here!) and am starting to get into the swing of things after being utterly disorientated when I arrived yesterday. Tomorrow's plans include seeing the Spanish steps and St Peter's square. Longer term I need to sort my Italian out as I can say about 10 words at present! The hostel is fairly good, free wi-fi and a great location, lots of friendly people staying here too so all is well. Just in case anyone wondered I'm in Rome untill Saturday morning and then in Naples for 3 nights after that. Hope everyone is well! Chris x

Time to get going

3 and a half years of saving and it all starts tomorrow, well kind of, I'm actually flying Monday but I get to the travelodge tomorrow afternoon so in affect I am on my own from then on. There is no point rambling on about what I think or am looking forward to anymore, this is the last post I'll make from the UK. Hope you all enjoy reading about my adventures, I'll certainly be enjoying writing about them! Thanks Chris