Log in
Join travelers community
Your Profile
Logout
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
Displayed times (last time: )
where he's chased through the network of 177 canals by a gang of nasty baddies. Despite the sky-high prices and the pouring rain, I loved the place. It is such an unusual city to find in Europe, and definitely the most impossible to navigate! We spent hours strolling along the narrow alleyways - often to find ourselves right back where we'd started, despite thinking we'd never turned a corner. As I wrote that night, ' I have never been anywhere where one can so safely give up all sense of direction and wander for hours on end in no fear of getting hopelessly lost- it is staggering how the old architecture and layout has been preserved. I love the way the way the buildings front right onto the water- the gondolas that gently ply the canals- the pigeon that shat on my head in Piazza st. Marco!'
But then, disaster struck - I ran out of clean socks. There was only one thing to be done - return to my home in Switzerland to put a wash on. After a night in Milan (very impressive Duomo, being used as a backdrop for a huge rave) and a two-hour moonlit hike up the rack-railway tracks (I'd missed the last train) I was finally able to crash in my own bed. Washing done, and having had a singsong at a camp-fire-in-the-snow-party, I couldn't resist but to continue my adventure. This time it was destination: Istanbul.
I chose Istanbul as until that point all I knew of it was its location; strategically perched on the border of Europe and Asia. Also, the three-day train journey would take me through Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, all countries that for years have intrigued me as one hears so little of them in the news. Passing through Eastern Europe was a somewhat depressing experience. Despite Budapest being considered one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, the capitol of Hungary failed to capture my imagination. Perhaps it was the grey sky and my exhaustion from the overnight trek across Austria that served to dampen my
...
See photographs from:
Bulgaria Gallery
,
France Gallery
,
Germany Gallery
,
Hungary Gallery
,
Italy Gallery
,
Romania Gallery
,
Turkey Gallery
,
United Kingdom Gallery
