May 2007

3 weeks in and I think the biggest cultural shock I experience may just be going from one keyboard layout to another. After just getting the hang of the Italian layout I'm now bashing my head trying to get used to the Austrian one. Despite the fact that a keyboard is only so big, I still have not been able to find the key for the at symbol. Also the z key and the y key are switched from the positions from which I'm used to - this makes for multiple retypings of any word with either letter

Innsbruck has a certain resort town feel that reminds me of Whistler in a lot of ways. The main town is set in the Austrian alps and along with the surrounding holiday villages has played host to the olympic games twice. The setting is stunning and the surrounding areas make for some great hiking. I had picked this town just for the hiking and was stoked to learn beforehand that there was a mountain club that provided free transportation, guides, and a traditional nightime siesta. This sounded too good to be true to me and it turned out it was... sorta. The program started at the beginning of June and I was there at the end of May, hah.

Deciding that I still had to make the most of the mountains I set off for some independant hiking on my two full day there. It was good to get some activity in and the sights were impressive. I had a bit of a run-in with some of the natural inhabitants on my second day though. On one of the trails I was hiking the path ahead was blocked by a mountain sheep/goat. Since the path was pretty narrow and my knowledge of mountain sheep in the alps is rather limited I decided that trying to get around this fella on a narrow trail with a steeeeep fall wasn't the greatest of ideas and I had to tuck tail and turn around.

The hostel I stayed at was a quaint bed and breakfast - probably the coziest hostel I've ever been. Met some interesting girls from Hong Kong that had all quit their jobs to travel around for awhile, as well as a group of siblings from the states. However I think I might be a little over-relaxed from the past week as I'm feeling restless and looking for to the big city hostels and beer gardens of Munich where I'll be going to next.

Since I've been blogging for the past hour and a half and I've got a pretty severe head rush from all the smoke I'm going to go get some fresh air now!

At the summit of Patsch - one of the ski hills in the area

Blocked by a mountain sheep

Giving said mountain sheep a piece of my mind (trust me, it's there in the background)

Hiking the nordpark on my second day

Alpine hut used by mountaineers

7:00 AM: DONG! - the town bell, not 50 feet from my window

wake up groggily

7:30 AM: crash, bang, crash, bang - construction from one house over

groan and roll over

7:50 AM: Faaaallalalalalla - Opera singers from my hostel
8:00 AM: DONG!

Reluctantly give up on sleep and get out of bed.

Pretty much to the minute this was my morning routine in the town of Riva del Garda. A little background on why I ended up in this sleep-depriving location - I was feeling a little burned out from the tourist trail that I had been following so I decided to try to take a bit of a detour from the usual route. I ended up choosing a lakeside town in Northern Italy as there was only a tiny blurb on it in my travel guide. Upon arriving I found out that I was successful in getting off the typical backpacker circuit - a little too successful as I didn´t meet another backpacker in my 3 days there. Unfortunately what I didn´t count on was that apparently this little town was a major destination for vacationing austrian families. It´s also a windsurfing and mountain biking hotspot so there was no lack of travellers when I was there. Oh and just to make things more interesting, about 90% of the people in my hostel were opera singers preparing for some big opera competition in town.

Arrrrrrghhh!

It wasn´t as bad as I make it out to be really - I had a very relaxing 3 days of laying on the beach, swimming, and reading. The town itself was in a gorgeous setting, and it had an interesting fusion of Austrian-Italian culture (this area only became a part of Italy following the first world war). And while it wasn´t my most social stop I did get to meet a couple of interesting locals and some guys from Northern Africa. However lesson learned - back to the beaten path for me!

Ciao,

Jon

Collectively the bane of sleeping-in

View of the lake - see it's not so bad afterall

Right
Walk 20 metres
Left
20 metres more
Up and over a bridge
More lefts and rights before finally
Stuck on one side of the grand canal with no where to turn and no way to get across.

This pretty much sums up my time in Venice. It may just be the world's easiest city to get lost in. When the numerical addresses do not have a pattern, the concrete sidewalks are often only shoulder width wide and the main 'street' is shaped like an S it's quite easy to lose your sense of direction. I headed out with just that intention though as I stuffed away the city map and just meandered my way along the sidewalks, canals and bridges - by the end of my two days here I sure was glad I had brought along a good pair of runners!

In my opinion the best part of Venice just may be the pigeons - with all due respect to the Grand Canal which is very impressive in its own right. The main piazza of Venice is jokingly said to be the only place in Italy where birds outnumber tourists. The good part about all of this though is when you get to feed the birds as after putting some food in each hand you will be flocked by about 4 or 5 birds per arm pecking at you hand. It's great to people watch as depending upon their initial reaction you may see anything from ear to ear smiles or a scene out of some attack of the birds horror movie. Feeding the pigeons does not come without some drawbacks either as my hostel roommate had an unexpected suprise left in his hair afterwards. Sorry in advance for all the bird pictures - I got a little carried away at this point!

Oh and as far as I can tell Venice is not a real town. The only industry is tourism and you will find three kinds of people in Venice. Those producing goods for the tourists, those selling these goods to the tourists, and the tourists themselves. Oh and the gypsies. It's also kind of sad to see but Venice itself is sinking - there seemed to be alot of abandoned first floors on my walks around the city. Also during the summer time when water levels are at their highest the main square floods along with all the famous buildings in the area.

My days in Venice were pretty low-key to be honest. While I had a good group of people in my hostel there was a couple of things that put a damper on events. Firstly, a lot of the locals do not actually live in the lagoon instead they head to the mainland portion of Venice after work. The other was that the hostel I was staying at had a strictly enforced curfew. Venice is notorious for having lacking accomodation options though so hopefully my I won't run into this problem in other cities.

Cheers,

Jon

Feeding the birds

Feeding the birds with San Marco basilica in background - the important church that floods every summer

Some bird overly fond of the camera

Gondola in the Grand Canal

Side canal with gondola boats

'Po-Po' Venetian style

Passing of the birds

Attack of the birds

My roommate who got shat on - I call this one shitting of the bird

Florence

Duomo in Florence with belltower in foreground

View from the top of the duomo

Naked sculpture from sculpture museum

Similar naked sculpture outside the Uffizi

Yet another naked sculpture, only this time I know about it - it's David (the picture is actually of a postcard however, no photos were allowed inside the building!)

The Uffizi - the very famous building I did not go into

Random figure who poses with tourists for money - there's lots of these guys, some as Roman legionnaires, some as carnival characters. I took a picture of this guy cause he was a character - he kept blowing kisses at the women passing by trying to seduce them

Cinque Terre

Manarola - 2nd town on the Cinque Terre

Kirby, Ashley, Katie and Brian - the reasons I now say y'all

Corniglia - 3rd town

Vernazza - 4th town

My burn lines the day after hiking

Some Italian guy gave me this flower at the bar - I guess Italian men really don't care who they hit on.

Sunset over the Cinque Terre

Riomaggiore at night

Apologies in advance if when I come back home I've added the word y'all to my vocabulary. For the 3 days I was in the Cinque Terre I hung out with a group of Americans and there was a lot of the Y-word being bandied about.

The Cinque Terre is a group of 5 villages along the Italian Riveria. The coastal hike spanning the villages is 9km long and has some breathtaking viewpoints. It was originally built by the farmers of the towns - I want to say because they needed to stratify the surrounding lands for agriculture but I could be very very wrong. The towns themselves are vibrant and really worthwhile to spend some time in as well - built directly into the cliffside, it seems as if the houses are built on top of each other (hopefully some of the pictures can capture this).

This stop was meant to get away from the cities and get a good amount of R&R in. I was also really interested in giving some of my time back to the area. Apparently the massive influx of tourists over the past 10 years or so has started to cause a lot of erosion on the trails and in my guidebook it mentions that travellers can volunteer with the local park service to help maintain the trails. I was pretty stoked by this, thinking I could help shore up the integrity of the trail with some locals... unfortunately as it turns out you're nothing more than a glorified garbage-picker. Ah but I had good intentions!

And while my tastes for Italian art may still need some acquiring I think I'm starting to take a liking to Italian wine. I may be getting the hang of this 'culture' thing afterall!

Still no pictures - hopefully tomorrow I'll get them up.

Hope y'all are doooing wellll.