Matts Meanderings

I definitely would have preferred to spend more time in Austria - only got to visit one city there - Innsbruck, and only for two days. Then again, Matt had been through there before, and had seen it all, so i can understand him not wanting to visit all the places again.

Innsbruck is stuck in a valley, surrounded by some pretty damn tall mountains. Its quite pretty actually. But, before I get there, I should say something about the trip there - apparently, that section of railroad is one of the most beautiful in the world. It snakes through and around all these mountains through the Alps, so its quite easy to just stare out the window for long periods of time. Very very nice.

Getting back to Innsbruck again - 'cos of the time of year, there was a lot of clouds around, pretty much obscuring the tops of the mountains - every now and then, you could get a glimpse of a mountain, but not an overall impression. From what I saw though, I'd definitely get intimidated by the mountains if I lived there (I could see myself going outside and yelling at them occasionally - telling them to go and intimidate some other poor smuck, and stop looking over my shoulder...).

Anyway, getting back on track, there's a river running through the middle of the town that feeds straight from a glacier - had an odd milky green colour to it. Looked pretty darn cold too, but didn't want to test out that theory - i was quite happy just assuming that .

Tim, Matt and I wandered around for a while, and had a bit of a look at the place, and then decided to go up the cable car to the top of one of the mountains nearby. Not a cheap thing to do, but, dammit, it was fun . Got to the top of this hill (after a train thing (a funicular i think), then two cable cars), and got to about 2.5 kays up. Where it was snowing! Yay! Matt and I went out and played in the snow for a while (and got cold and wet, but who cares), and generally had a ball.

Back in the hostel, managed to meet some more random strangers, including an Aussie guy who was captaining a yacht round the Med (ahh, the life), and a french girl, who first laughed at how few words i knew, then congratulated me on my french accent for the ones i did know - so all hope is not lost . But, had a good time, playing darts (seems to be a big thing there - the hostel had 6 darts machines - odd).

Went to offload my photos, and when i eventually managed to find somewhere to do it, the guy didn't really know what he was doing. I was stuck in that horrible place where you know more than the guy does, but you dont want to be rude and tell him how to do his job. Gah! After a while, I just took over anyway - it was easier, and wanted to catch a train at some point. Showed him how to do a few things .

And then, it was onto the train, yet again, this time, heading into Germany. Five trains later, and about 6 hours, we arrived in Überlingen.

OK, I'm now back in London, kicking back and relaxing at Paul & Lydias house. (Hopefully, i'm not imposing too much on them... )

I'm back here 'cos:

• It got to the point in The Netherlands that i was well and truly sick of visiting new cities, so i decided i needed some time out to relax for a bit.
• Needed to sort out a few minor things like money and stuff.
• People keep hassling me to upload photos.
• Need to update the blog. Still need to write about Austria, Germany and The Netherlands.
• Need to email and call lots of people (I'll get there, I promise...).
• Need to get myself an ipod type thing (for those that care, i'm probably going to go for an iRiver H340). Got a little sick of not having my music collection with me .
• Need to sort out where i'm going next.

So, I'm here for another week or so, then I'm off again. Not sure where i'm going, but i'm sure i'll find somewhere .

This is going to be a short one because:

1. I'm getting sick of writing about Italy
2. I'm sure you're getting sick of hearing about Italy
3. I was only there for about 22 hours in total

So, caught the train once again, and arrived in Venice (also known as Venezia), right at the perfect time to get caught in some really horrible weather. Windy, rainy, cold. Not much fun really. And seeing that we were only there overnight, it was pretty annoying.

But, ignoring the weather, we went wandering around Venice, having a look round, getting the vibe of the city. Its quite cool, as there are no cars at all, and not even any bicycles. Everyone gets around on foot. Its quite good, but there's none of the 'normal' sounds (of cars) of a city. I was also warned that it can get a bit smelly with all those canals - but turned out fine - no problems.

I think i'm going to go dot-points, as my brain isn't working the best right now:

• Its a veritable rabbit warren of a city - pretty cool though. Lots of little alley ways and little streets (and lots of lost tourists looking at maps).
• The canals have an odd colour too them - sort of a cloudy blue, almost aqua colour (maybe i'll have to show you a photo).
• Saw St Marks Basillica, and San Marco Square - both pretty cool.
• At one point in San Marco Square, all the birds decided it would be a good idea to get up and fly about for a bit - so i got some pretty cool photos of that. Very Alfred Hitchcock - The Birds (not that i've seen it ).
• The hostel was called Palazza Venobia. Which means Venobia Palace. Which, it pretty much was. It was this huge old building, with huge frescos on the walls, and a huge ballroom with sculptures and everything. Really cool.
• Met an american guy (Tim) in the hostel, who was travelling by himself, so we joined up with him for a while to wander about. He ended up heading up to Innsbruck with us later on as well.
• Caught a bus-boat (a vaporetti) round the city, just so that we could check out the place. Ended up joining up with a lone Aussie for a while (cant remember her name), and the 4 of us wandered around for the morning, before we had to go and catch the train.
• On the way to Innsbruck, we went via Verona - didn't actually see the place, but i vaguely remembered it from Romeo and Juliet, so thats pretty cool .

Pretty good time, all up. And that, folks, is Italy.

Oh, one last thing - I think i'll definitely have to go back to Italy. Preferably, this time with a girlfriend/partner - Italy is a place that seems to be pretty good for couples. Lots of romatic places to go, things to see, things to do. One day.

OK. I've slacked off again for long enough, and its about time i actually shared a bit more about my exciting travels.

Rightio then (Matt pauses for a few seconds, and goes and looks up what the last thing he wrote about was... hold music plays softly in the background...). OK, back again. The last thing that i wrote about was Florence. So, in Florence, we'd met Lindsay, Lindsay and Fraser, and we were all heading in the direction of Cinque Terre - a place that I'd never heard of before arriving in Italy. So, we all jumped on a train, and headed out in that direction. The good thing was that Pisa was pretty much in a direct line from Florence to Cinque Terre, so we thought we'd drop in and say hi (funnily enough, the tower didn't say much back...).

Anyway, pretty much there's only two things worth seeing in Pisa, the tower, and the basilica thats right next to it. Walking up the street to the tower, I couldn't help myself but laugh. Talk about an engineering cock-up. I can understand making the mistake, but they realised it was leaning when they'd put the third story up, but for some reason, they decided they should keep going, and put the rest up. What makes it worse, is that they started straightening the upper levels, so its got a decided bent to it. But, I think the town council must be impressed - it definitely brings in the tourists. Only problem is, there's not a lot else in the town to look at. So, all up, we spent about 3 hours in the town, and that included getting lunch. After that, it was straight back to the train, onwards (ever onwards) to Cinque Terre.

Arrived at Cinque Terre, and managed to find out what kind of place it is (brief pause as Matt thinks back about how cool the place was... sorry...). The name strictly translates to “5 Lands” - but it's 5 villages spread out along the Mediterranean, on a really hilly coastline. Each of the villages is crunched up pretty tightly, and the surrounding hills are covered in vineyards. The train station at Riomaggiore was perched on the cliff, with views out over the Med. So, as soon as I got there, I loved it.

So, it was a few days of swimming, sunbaking (on very rocky beaches), kicking back, relaxing, reading, getting sunburnt, going kayaking on the Med,  and generally doing not a lot really. I kinda enjoyed it. Just a little bit . One of the touristy things thats there is a long walk between all the towns. Its a 12km walk, but some of it is pretty damn hilly. Pretty damn nice scenery though - pity about all the other tourists on the trail . Was a fairly warm day, so not the easiest trek - but I'm glad I didn't do it in summer - when it would be a lot worse.

Met a couple of mad Americans there - Chris (in your best game show host voice) a advertising account manager from New York. Mad as a hatter, but a lot of fun. Also met Mara - a student from Chicago University, over for a history subject as part of her course, for a few months. Sounded pretty interesting. She'd also just finished doing language school for a few weeks to brush up her Italian - had a few days off, so she dropped in to check out the beach. Come to think of it, i've met quite a few American students studying o/s - seems fairly popular to head over and do a fairly intense 6-8 weeks on a subject in another country. A good idea actually.

Oh, yeah, thats the other thing - the local wine there was excellent. Ate out quite a bit (couldn't be bothered cooking - and the food was excellent), and we got a bottle of the house wine - very very nice. And that was the cheapest wine they had. Scary, but quite enjoyable...