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Why are you so mean Trieste

September 9, 2014 mlopian Leave a comment

It’s cold, the wind chill is coming from the east. You can hear the gears grinding as the they struggle to maneuver from first gear to second. They’re still people walking the streets of Trieste at 3 in the morning. We’re on the streets, the lights from the fountain blur as I daze in and out of sleep.
We arrive in the city late and have nowhere to sleep, having heard of a hostel by a local we catch the number 6 bus to the castle, close to where the hostel is. We searched for an hour by the beach for both a place to camp and a hostel but to no avail, we find nothing. We catch the bus back to the city center and try to find an area to sleep that would be quiet, being cheap we didn’t want to spend money on a hotel. I always fantasized about the idea of travelers sleeping wherever they deemed necessary. I thought it was a romantic way to marry the nomadic ways of a traveler to the land. NEVER AGAIN. Not our thing, I don’t mind camping out but when you sleep on the streets there’s a lot you have to worry about, and quite frankly, I want to sleep peacefully without the worrying.
But the city was nice, the beach was gorgeous and if you believe it or not we found the hostel the next day. We actually passed by it the night before, maybe we were honestly too tired to recognize it, I’m not sure but in any case we decided to leave Trieste for Croatia.

Tid bit for the day: always know the name of at least TWO hostels in the city you’re visiting. Trust us it’ll help.

So this is a very strange toilet in the train station of Trieste. You have to hold onto the rail and squat to pee or poo. I know my mamma ain’t squatting. It isn’t user friendly for those who have bad knees or the elderly.

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Oh sweet Venice

September 9, 2014 mlopian Leave a comment

We arrived In Venice after changing trains three times. We’ve learned that we don’t have to pay any additional money with the eurail pass if we take regional trains only. Unfortunately that may mean a longer train ride but we don’t mind. We left the train station and took bus 15 to camp jolly, part of the plus hostels (thank you mom for telling us about it). On our way there we walked under a tunnel filled with graffiti, or art, depending on how you look at it. A lot of Italy is covered in graffiti, I would think that they would like to preserve the beauty but maybe they want some modern touches? 🙂

We arrived at camp jolly and immediately see a gondola stationed in the entry way. The camp was like most of the other plus hostels but the pool was lovely and the restrooms had a modern feel to them.

Although we arrived later in the day and without a reservation the camp had room for us. It was 9.90 euro per person for a three bed tent. When we get to our door we hear music being played on the bench near our tent. Sitting there were two people that we would spend talking the night away until the early morning hours. Their names: Erica, from NY and her boyfriend Fergus from Scotland. The two of them are cycling across Europe with their end destination being Turkey. That’s pretty incredible. They too have a blog: thepilgrimschoice.wordpress.com.

As we all sat there drinking our rum and having a good time another traveller came to sit with us, his name: Ayoib. Ayoib was from Saudi Arabia and just finished getting his masters at Edinburgh.

The next day we had arranged to go into the city. Again, we took advantage of the bus system. The train stop was just one away from where we were staying. Venice has absolutely no cars, there are a ton of bridges to walk over or you can take a water taxi or gondola ride. The gondola ride was about 80 euros. The streets of Venice were crowded and you can easily get lost. The streets almost always look the same, one right turn, becomes another and before you know it your an hour away from where you started. If you have time it’s a great city to explore. In almost every window you can find artwork made of glass and masquerade ball gowns and masks. And if your lucky you can catch people dressed up for some social event. There’s lots of energy in this city.

Tid bit for the day: Always look at the app prices for hostels and compare it to what the hostels advertise. Often times you’ll find that the app proves are cheaper.

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Florence in a day

September 9, 2014 mlopian Leave a comment

First, we’d like to apologize for not having posted anything in a few days. Our days have been full and our mortal bodies tired, and we haven’t had access to wifi for a few days. Below you will find a very long blog about that past few days, but first, a shoutout to Tamsin Woolley back in the states : HAPPY 25TH BIRTHDAY TAMSIN!!! From Italy

From Florence

From our friend Ayoib in Venice

Our straps digging deep into our skin, rubbing back and forth, our breath hurried, little beads of sweat start rolling down our face. The sun is beaming down on us as we run to catch our bus 246 to the metro from camp Roma. As we enter the bus from the back we’re greeted by a young minister sitting down smiling, you can see a glimmer of laughter in his eyes, but we made it. In our rush we passed another backpacker- only to meet him again at the metro. I guess we didn’t need to run to catch the bus because the next one came right after. He was slender with fair features typical for a German. He told us of a hostel he recently stayed at in Florence right off Michelangelo (our next destination). He mentioned that it was cheap and in a beautiful location, so we made it our next stay to spend the night.

We arrive at the termini or main train station only to be confused by more jibber jabber, we haven’t picked up as much Italian as we’d like. We get lost in a sea of people waiting for their ticket number to come up on the screen so that they can purchase their tickets. It took an hour wait for us to finally decide to skip the line to purchase our train ticket for Florence. I was somewhat disappointed in our purchase of the eurail pass because the train was not free although discounted, it cost 10 euros each. I’ m beginning to wonder if there really is an advantage to buying the eurail pass.

When you see Roma, it is not what you envision Italy to be, it’s crowded, there’s a lot of history but not much character, lots of tourist, there’s no magic in the city, no passion. But Florence, Florence is exactly what we thought Italy would be, lots of character, and romance, the people had a little more laugh to them. The buildings looked vintage with lots of browns and beiges, the streets are narrow, and all the cars are small, ranging from the size of a smart car to a Toyota yaris. Street parking seems to be very difficult as there are very few spaces available due to the many cars parked on the side of the road. There’s so little space that they have cars parked on the bridge, going the length of the entire bridge.

We catch bus 12 from the train station to our camp Michelangelo where we are greeted by an amazing view of Florence from the top of the countryside. We immediately cross the street captivated by the view and forget to look both ways and almost became a bug on a windshield. We took a few pictures and we both instantaneously said this is the Italy we imagined in our dreams. After we sat quiet for a few more moments taking in the breathtaking scenery we started our walk to our campsite. With a little trepidation when we arrived at the campsite we decided to go with the more cost effective option, only by a few euros, and pitch our own tent. If it was up to me I think I would have spent the extra money and stayed in a tent they provided. For a simple tent it seemed to be a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. The tent only came with 3 parts: the tent, the poles that support the tent, and the stakes to anchor it to the ground. It took us an exhausting hour to figuring out how to make our tent stand. The camp grounds were filled with rocks, which did not make for a very comfortable sleep as the stones kept poking through the underbelly of the tent. And the bugs, especially the Mosquitos, in Italy are relentless. After we finished pitching our tent at 18:20 we decided to venture out and see all that Florence had to offer. We hopped on the first bus we saw and decided to get off on a random stop. We ended up getting off close to the the center of the city and decided to see the Boboli garden and Piazza Pitti. After getting lost a few times and then stopping to decide which restaurant to dine in we arrived at the gardens, only to our disappointment that it closed just minutes before we arrived. We tried to sneak in the back way, but the security caught us at the last possible moment before we were inside. We were only able to catch a glimpse of a piece of art that we snapped a quick photo of before being shooed out. We then sat outside the garden on a sloping hill that was picturesque of Italy. We laid talking for about an hour before our stomachs started to join in on the conversation . On our way in we noticed a place that was relatively cheap and could fit our penny saver budget, samosas and gyros for dinner.

As we lay in our tent to rest our heads for the night we are surrounded by a barrage of noise, if it wasn’t the music coming from the club Flo right next door or the cars driving on the road ten feet away from us, it was the metal clinking of some construction going on near by. Our rest not the most peaceful, but we woke the next morning with the knowing ache that we were leaving this beautiful city for Venice.

Tid bit for the day: When I have good ideas, they’re bad ideas, but then somehow my “bad” ideas become her good ideas an hour later.