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I came careering down the piste at speed and skied slap-bang into some chap who stopped right in front of me. At the time I wasn't aware that I'd broken my left collarbone... following two weeks of immense boredom I was on the verge of insanity, and so when on a trip to my local village I found myself returning to my hotel not only with the bag of apples I'd set out to buy, but also with an Interail ticket, entitling me to free carriage on virtually any train in Europe for a month...
European Tales: Interrail trip around Europe, a lengthy tale
Joseph Tame2006-06-30 17:39:54
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resulting subsidence should be enough for this bell tower to be classed as 'safe'.
That evening Soh, Kae, Yoshiko and myself took a local train to Viareggio, a small coastal resort not far from Pisa. There, a carnival was taking place, and as I wrote in my diary, 'I've never been to a carnival before - and this one left me stunned. The floats were huge works of art, reaching to the fourth floor windows of the surrounding villas. All singing all dancing with huge sound systems, incredible moving creatures made from papier-mache or some similar material and loads of humans pulling the strings or dancing. So many people, so many crazy costumes. Silly string and shaving foam all over the place- mad.'
After another day in Florence I journeyed on alone to Rome. I'd heard many fellow travellers hark on about Rome until they ran out of breath, but I'd have to say that out of all the cities in Europe I've visited it's my least favourite. Way too much traffic and more tourists than Kleine Scheidegg! The Roman remains such as the coliseum were very impressive, but the pollution and noise got the better of me. I did almost meet the Pope when in the Citta Del Vaticano (Vatican City). Every week or two he holds a "private audience", and somehow I found myself the other side of security seated in a large hall. At this point I hadn't a clue what was going on - I had no idea whom we were waiting for or why the cameras were there. Because of this, when the stuffy atmosphere induced severe feelings of sickness I left the room. Five minutes later the Pope entered.
As the weekend beckoned, so did Venice. A few hours on the train took Kae (who I'd met halfway) and I from mainland Italy, over a short bridge and onto the collection of 117 islands that make up this watery city that is interconnected by 400 bridges. Until that point, all that I knew about Venezia I had picked up from watching a James Bond film
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See photographs from:
Bulgaria Gallery
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France Gallery
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Germany Gallery
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Hungary Gallery
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Italy Gallery
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Romania Gallery
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Turkey Gallery
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United Kingdom Gallery
