Julia's Journical

Scheveningen *now with added cold!

December 12, 2009 – 7:36 pm

Lindsay and I spent some days at Scheveningen.

We spent a few evenings walking on the beach

It was really cold.

So cold in fact that we found some ice bergs.

We spotted a jelly fish. Thats how cold it was even the jelly fish turned blue.

It was very beautiful despite the cold.

And during the day the sunshine was lovely and warm

especially when we were tucked up cosy and warm at the end of the pier in the pancake restaurant drinking hot chocolates and eating pancakes!

*yes that is a lump of butter.

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Backpacking | Tagged beach, cold, foam, holland, horses, jellyfish, ocean, pancakes, pier, sand, scheveningen, walk | Comments (0)

The Beginning of the End.

December 10, 2009 – 4:21 am

While Lindsay was in Ghent, I stayed in Oss with Elke.

My first night back in Holland Oma and Opa took us out to a lovely posh restaurant in Oss.

Again Oma was the only one to behave like a lady.

Opa and Elke ordered Dam Blanche for dessert.

Dame Blanche is vanilla ice cream with whipped cream and hot chocolate sauce on top!

That night Elke and I stayed up very late packing her room into boxes. She was moving the next day into her student room in Nijmegen.

We found a nativity scene missing Jesus - baby Jesus had been sucked up by the vacuum cleaner.

I modeled Elke’s many sunglasses for her.

The next day Tom and Michiel, 2 of Elke’s brothers, came to help out.

Building Elke’s new wardrobe was a big job!

After the boys left, Elke and I unpacked everything, I coloured coded her dressed for her. We then walked the 2 minute walk to town for shoarma and ice tea. After unpacking everything we caught the train back to Oss and walked home from the station. As we neared the park a witch rode out of the woods on a bicycle! We were really shocked… before remembering it was Halloween!

Lindsay arrived back in Oss the next day. It was very exciting to see him. A few days later we went with Yvonne to visit Elke in her new room.

Elke’s kitchen:

Couch, TV and sink:

and big green bed:

After a few day in Oss we made our way to Den Haag.

Avi and Beer arrived a day after us from their vacation in Italy and brought with them lots of yummy food.

Lindsay and I joined them for a second breakfast, where we had poppers!

I haven’t had a popper since I was in primary school!

Avi had bought some yummy bread rolls from Germany to share with us.

Lindsay and I spent many days walking around the streets near Beer’s house taking photos of the area. We felt it was about time that we showed everyone the beautiful streets we were walking in everyday.

Tightrope walking statue

The street full of buildings owned by Shell, parallel to the street Beer lives on.

A street full of embassies and a stormy sky.

Me waiting for Lindsay.

Here I am another day walking back from Alber Heijn (the supermarket) after buying eggs and yoghurt! Excitement.

Here is the Irish Embassy

Up next:
Kat arrives and we go to the beach.

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Backpacking | Tagged cousin grandparents, denhaag, moving, oss, the hague | Comments (0)

Barcelona to Belgium

December 10, 2009 – 3:45 am

We left Barcelona at the crack of dawn, and arrived in Montpellier (France) after sitting for 5 hours on the train. Hopping off the train we expected to head up to the ticket desk and reserve seats for the next leg of the trip, Montpellier to Paris. In Barcelona the lady at the ticket desk said we would have no problem getting on the train to Paris and had a full hour, more than enough time to reserve our seats.

Walking up to the massive line at the ticket desk our dreams of a quick transfer were shattered. The line was so long, we stood in the line for 50 minutes talking to 2 Australian girls in the queue behind us, all 4 of us still carrying our heavy backpacks. Their train to Zurich came and went. And still we waited. Finally, with 10 minutes to spare before our train was due to leave we were next in line. We showed the lady the train to Paris that we wanted, pointing it out in our Eurail timetable book. She looks at her computer, looks at us and says “non”. So we point to the next time…she says “non”.

Through interpretive dance we manage to get the message across that we need to get to Belgium that night. Lindsay was talking at a conference early the next morning. She types into the computer, then says “allo, non”. Which basically means “computer says no”. Helpful. So we said “English, English?” and she directed us to a colleague who spoke perfect English.

This English speaking ticket woman was lovely, and we explained to her that it was vital for us to get to Belgium that night. So she found a train that was heading to Lille, from there we had 10 minutes to get the train to Brussels and then from Brussels we could get to Ghent, where the conference was being held. It turned out there was a public holiday in France and everyone was on the move. Catching a train to Lille instead of Paris was perfect. In Paris we would have to catch the metro across the city, but in Lille we could just change trains.

We had an hour to wait, so decided to grab some lunch and experience as much of France as one can experience at a train station.

Thanks to Lindsay’s non-paying clients, this is how much of France we got to experience:
A sandwich shop on a busy road next to the station.

(Guess who is officially off our Christmas Card list?)

We got on our train, which as far as trains go was pretty space age. It was like catching a train from the future decorated with an ’80s theme. There was a little dog across from us who fell head over heals in love with Lindsay. The dog tried to get Lindsay’s attention and climb on his lap, only to be pulled back by his owner. The little dog then lay on the ground crying, looking longingly at Lindsay.

We tried to sleep through the 6 hour trip, it was dark outside and looking out the window resulted in your own reflection looking back at you. A young woman opened her hand bag and a cat popped out. My sinuses went omfgzomgwtfzombiesomg. (I am allergic to cats)

Our train pulled up in Lille and we jumped off the train. We had 10 mins to find our next train. We raced up the escalators to look frantically for the departures board. The board said the train we needed was the last one for the night and on the platform we had just come from! So we raced back to the platform and discovered the last 3 carriages of the train we had just been on were continuing on to Brussels.

The train trip to Brussels took another 30 minutes. From there we had to find a train to Ghent. The train to Ghent took another 30 minutes, from Ghent we had to change to another train that took us to the suburb of Ghent our accommodation was in.

In one day we travelled approx. 1400km via public transport! YIKES!

We arrived in Ghent in an Industrial area, by now it was 11pm. To navigate ourselves we were to look for a chimney stack… but it was so misty we couldn’t see any! After phoning the B&B for help we finally arrived. One of the hosts met us and took us onto their boat. Thats right! We stayed in a canal boat! it was huge and luxurious. With a big comfy bed and an ensuite. But sadly a cat…

Lindsay left the next morning for his conference while I hung out with 3 very English kids who were on holidays in Ghent. They were charming and loved photobooth on my laptop.

We then watched Sponge Bob Square pants on YouTube while their parents packed. The parents were so happy to have a moments peace and I was having fun hanging out with their kids so it worked out very well.

I packed my own gear and made my way to the train station. I considered hanging around in Ghent, but the cat at the B&B was really affecting me (I couldn’t breathe) so had to leave.

I caught a train to Antwerp station,

and back over the border into Holland. I was picked up at the station in Oss by Elke.

Up next … lots of thing and the reasons why I have been to busy to blog!

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Backpacking | Tagged antwerp, barcelona, beligum, eurail, france, gent, ghent, montpellier, spain, trains | Comments (0)

Barcelona via Madrid

November 21, 2009 – 12:47 am

While we were in Barcelona, an old classmate of ours emailed, inviting us to visit her in Madrid. So we thought, why not? The chance to see someone from home and speak Australian English at a normal pace, e.g. super fast (we both speak really slow now so that people can understand us).

We caught our train to Madrid with no problems, the train was fast and this time didn’t get lost en route. Lindsay and I made our way to the hostel and hung out a bit before heading out to meet with Sarah.

She found us, and we went on a quick walk. This is my husband, Mr Blurry face, standing in the exact centre of Spain.

We had left the camera at the hostel. So I used my iphone camera. Thus no photos, you are all just going to have to believe me!

It started to rain, and Lindsay, who had started coming down with the cold I’d had the previous week, was getting sicker and sicker. Sarah took us to a restaurant for paella. After eating and chatting we went out to see it was still raining outside. So Sarah invited us back to her apartment.

It was raining even harder as we walked to Sarah’s place from the metro, but it was lovely and warm inside. We met her boyfriend who is really nice. Lindsay starting to look pretty sick. So we had to say goodbye and make our way back to the hostel. Lindsay started complaining of feel really unwell, and really cold. I thought he was suffering from a terrible bout of man-flu. But I decided to check on him just in case, and he had a really high fever! I did what I could which was basically give him some water. Then at 1am a group of Spanish people came into the dorm room, talking and turning all the lights on. I turned the lights off, gave them a dirty look and went to sleep. At 6am they got up to leave again, turning the lights on and talking… again. ARGH!

The next day Lindsay was still sick, but no fever thankfully. I had to get him to the train station so we could get to Barcelona. We made it to Barcelona, back to the hostel with no problems but then had to wait for an hour while a difficult customer was checked in. Lindsay was still really sick, and we had no food, but had to wait. So stressful.

We got our room, a private one this time. Our window opened up onto an internal courtyard/corridor light thingy. All the smells of cigarettes, cooking and bathrooms from 6 floors of apartments came into our room. Yummy. We spent 4 days in the horrible dark smelly room, while we nursed ourselves and each other back to health. Walking into the kitchen one day I was greeted by the prosthetic leg man! He excitedly said “Australia?” I nodded and that concluded our conversation.

After 4 days we were supposed to be heading to Paris. But guess what? I am sure you will never guess …. Lindsay’s clients stopped paying… again. So Paris was cancelled. Paris was too expensive and Barcelona cheap in comparison, so we had to stay in Barcelona.

The hostel we were staying in was an old apartment block, with the dorm rooms in the bedrooms of the apartment. 4 rooms of people share a kitchen, lounge room and bathroom.

We had to change apartments. In our new apartment were some very cool, and English speaking people! We met Aaron, Jessica and Alison all from the US. Oh and the unusual, jet-lagged, Mexican guy. As well as a German couple. We had 2 cards nights, and many a yarn. Once Lindsay had recovered we decided to do some sightseeing.

We walked to Guel Park to see the Gaudi mosaics.

It was pretty spectacular!

And yet rather unusual.

I spy with my little eye Sangrada Familiara

Then we walked up to the highest point in the park, and up this stone platform.
The busker at the base of the platform was terrible.

He didn’t know the words to any of the songs he was playing so he La-ed and hummed and mumbled. He was so bad that he was good.

The view was awesome.

I was still working on my newly developed fear of heights and couldn’t manage a sane photo.

We then walked back down to check out the Lizard.

En route we spotted this on a ceiling:

On our last day we went to an amazing fresh food market. The food was so fresh it was disturbing.

The juices were nice and affordable!

And the same colour as my straw.

Yum!

And then it was time to leave Barcelona for our epic train journey to Belgium.

But that trip was so eventful it deserves its own blog post.

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Backpacking | Tagged gaudi, guel, madrid, market, sangrada familiara, sant jordi hostel, train | Comments (0)

Granada

November 20, 2009 – 11:04 pm

Lindsay and I had a private room in Granada which overlooked the tourist district. It was the perfect location!

On our first day we decided to walk around the tourist areas before making our way up to the Gypsy part of town.

There were cats everywhere!

We walked along a creek, we looked up and could see the Alhambra palace.

It was really hot but we kept walking and walked up some very step little side streets.

The view was amazing.

Looking up we could see the old cities walls.

There were even more cats and kittens everywhere.

They were super cute.

Walking around the Gypsy quarter was amazing. Hundreds of tiny white houses around narrow walkways and staircases.

It was all so beautiful, even the doorways!

This house looks cosy.

We got back to our room. From our room we could see a busker outside the town hall. He ran around the crowds of people imitating them, laying down in front of them, declaring his love for them etc. It was hilarious. A group out on a hens night walked by singing and chanting.

One day we we went and spent money buying lovely things for ourselves. Thinking we were towards the end of our trip and Lindsay’s clients had starting paying we could splurge. I got a camel leather handbag, we bought some paper lanterns and Lindsay got a beautiful leather notebook. We had some delicious sweet arabic tea in a beautiful tea shop. That night we went to a Lebanese restaurant across the road, only to be served by the same man who served us at the tea shop! It was very funny, especially when he served us again in the tea shop when we went there for dessert!

The next day was Alhambra day. It was a warm sunny day, with beautiful blue skies. And I was really really sick. I had a heavy cold, was aching and so weak I could barely walk. But to go to the Alhambra you must buy your tickets in advance. So I insisted that we go anyway.

Lindsay took all the photos, while I sat down at every available moment enjoying the place from a seated perspective.

We first went to through the gardens.

I may have been sick, but not too sick to be weird.

No matter where you are in the gardens you can see or hear a fountain.

We then went into the garden palace where Lindsay took this stunning shot.

The rooms inside the garden palace were amazingly decorated.

the ground were river stones arranged in patterns.

In this shot you can see the main part of the Palace on the other ridge.

My favourite part was a staircase with railing full of crystal clear, freezing cold and running water.

We went into a very old bath house.

The were star shaped holes in the ceiling letting in light and air.

After a break we went into the castle.

You could go up inside 3 of the towers to look at the amazing view.

We found a man with the same camera as ours to take our photo.

These were in the centre of the castle, they used to be the offices and workrooms for blacksmiths, swords-smiths, leather workers etc.

I am not too sure what the balls were for

It was really high up! Look dad, look how high I am!

Then I spotted this handsome bloke.

To go into the most beautiful palace you need to book a time when you order your tickets. It is a huge building, and you can make your own way through the palace. We were booked for 6pm. But had to stand in a line until 6.30pm before going inside.

It was stunning!
A ceiling

A floor

A wall

A window where women could watch the men unseen.

A reflection

A wall

A husband

A doorway

A decorated wall

A star shaped roof

A view

A floor

A bath house

A tower

We were seriously impressed!

The Alhambra is the most beautiful building I haver been to!

We spent the last day in Granda drinking tea and willing me to recover. Deciding to travel light we had left a bag in Barcelona. In this bag was all my tissues, vicks and echinacea! Mistake!

Up next, back to Barcelona with a quick stop in Madrid.

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Backpacking | Tagged alhambra, arabic, bathhouse, castle, fountain, granada, islamic, mosaics, palace, shopping, sick, spain, tea, water | Comments (0)

Barcelona Week 1.

November 17, 2009 – 3:15 am

Lindsay and I spent 2 weeks in Barcelona. With a trip in-between to Granada. Our first week this is what we got up to:

Sangrada Familiara was only about 4 blocks away from our hostel.

It is rather magnificent! And constantly evolving.

Another day we decided to do a walking tour from our book of walking tours. 10 minutes into the tour we found a nice side street and made up our own tour. It was seriously hot and we enjoyed the cool little streets and looked in the numerous stops.

We wound up in the Gothic quarter. Where we sat briefly to enjoy the music of a busker and the cool shade created by the large church.

I looked up at one stage and saw this creepy thing:

We had a poke around in a church called St Jordi. Instead of having little prayer candles they had electric candle things.

It just looks really weird. To *light* a candle you put a coin into the little money box.

The giant golden thing looked like it had ET faces on it

See them? They are the swirly things going around the sun looking part.

The courtyard of the church was really pretty, there was a fountain with cold drinkable water pouring out of it.

This was my favourite part of the fountain.

The residents of the courtyard were complete gooses.

That night we met one of our room mates. He spoke no English, and we speak no Spanish. But he was urgently trying to communicate something to us. So Lindsay passed him the laptop, open to google translate. And the Spanish man typed in this:
“prótesis de pierna” which in English means, prosthetic leg. He then pretended to scream in fright. We worked out he didn’t want us to wake up in the morning and see a leg lying on the ground.

The next day we went to the train station to book our tickets to Granada. While waiting in the line I spotted some girls who were obviously backpackers having a little bit of a freak out. I saw they had Eurail timetables with them, so I went over to offer some assistance. They were both Canadian and quite distressed. They had planned on catching a train to Milan, but had found out that the trains to Milan went once a week only. So far they had only used one trip on their Eurail pass and were still new to the game. I gave them the suggestion of catching a ferry to Rome, and then from their catching the train to Milan. We gave them directions to the ferry terminal and to Rome once they arrived in Italy. They had some other questions about how the Eurail passes worked and places to stay. They were so thankful that we had helped. I hope they made it to Milan ok.

We booked out tickets in Spanish! We were so proud of ourselves. Lindsay is really good with languages, which is useful. Leaving the station we decided to head in the direction of a hill with a nice building on it. Along the way we spotted this Miro? sculpture.

Turning around from the sculpture we noticed these trees:

Gum trees! I was so excited I was picking up leaves and sniffing them. (home sick much?!)

The pretty building we had come to see was covered with scaffolding and thus not as pretty.

But the view was pretty fantastic.

As was this busker.

Can you spot Sangrada Familiara?

Its such an epic building.

Walking back down through lovely gardens we found some bougainvillea which is fast becoming my favourite flower (vine? plant?).

The next day was Lindsay’s birthday and we were catching the train to Granada in the south of Spain. This was the longest train trip I have ever been on, we had a load of food with us because we had a knew the trip would take 11+ hours. The train zigged-zagged through Spain.
We left the stormy skies in Catalonia.

And passed through the interestingly named coastal town of:

We arrived in Valencia, where the train stopped for ages, then left the station, heading in the opposite direction before stopping again due to an accident on the train tracks ahead.
We passed through another town and or city. Stopped and changed direction (thus the zig zag).

At one station the carriage in front of our carriage and the engine behind our carriage pulled away. Our carriage was left standing next to a train station that looked very abandoned. The carriage was packed with unconcerned Spanish people, obnoxiously loud Americans boasting about their knowledge of the Spanish people, and English couple then Lindsay and I. NB: it was Lindsay’s birthday and by this stage we had been on the train around 9 hours. After freaking out for only about 30mins, an engine arrived, picked up our carriage and off we went. The engine was pulling only one carriage, so we were going pretty fast. The country side around us changed quickly too.

From pine trees:

to hills covered in rows of Olive trees.

To sweeping fields of grain maybe?

And then 12 hours after leaving Barcelona we arrived in Granda. It was a 30 min walk to our hostel/hotel. We found an arabic restaurant and tried to have a celebratory dinner for Lindsay’s birthday.

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Backpacking | Comments (1)

Rome II

November 13, 2009 – 8:19 am

We woke up on Colosseum day and had a (free) breakfast of sugary sweet croissants with medicine tasting cordial and bounced down the street. When the sugar rush crashed we rushed to get some decent food. Pizza!

It was another steaming hot day! We walked up to the Colosseum and were approached by another tour pimp. The guy was very nice and I grilled him, asking heaps of questions. I didn’t want to get ripped off again. The tour was actually affordable and I also got a discount for the entry ticket to the colosseum because I am an EU citizen under 26 (handy!).

We met our tour guide who had a thick Italian accent and a wicked sense of humor. He asked everyone where they were from, to the English he said “fish and chips” and to the Americans he would say “McDonalds”. He had lots of funny stories. His favourite topic was virgins and when ever he spoke about the virgins from ancient Rome he would grab a pretty girl and lead her around and the group.

Here is one of the girls attacking a friendly gladiator:

Our guide asked us if any of us on the tour had been to the Colosseum before, when everyone said no he answered with “mistake” and walked off expecting us to follow. (he still held one of his ‘virgin’s hand’) It was v. funny.

He told us how the seating in the colosseum was organised. The politicians, nobles and rich families sat closer to the arena, with the lower classes sitting high up and further away from the area. At the very top, the women stood. All the women got was a platform to stand on.

The entry into the Colosseum for the Ancient Romans was free, with free food and wine all day. There was a shade cover manned by professional sailors who would roll out and up roll the sail cloth used for shade.

The white blocks are the original stone.

Most of the original stone was stolen by a Pope hundreds of years ago so he could use it in the Vatican!

Instead of the flat arena I was expecting was a series of tunnels and corridors.

Wild animals were brought through these corridors and through trapdoors in the arena floor. The animals, lions, tigers, bulls etc were killed as part of the show and then eaten!

Our tour then left for the Roman Forum,

but we were more interested in hanging around the Colosseum.

We met another Julia

who has brought a plate with her! How thoughtful.

Then we had our photo taken by a very enthusiastic Japanese fellow

After spending the day walking around in the crazy heat we were exhausted! We walked back to our hostel with the usual bread and cheese on the way back.

Our last day we went to check out the Pantheon. It was closed, for a wedding. So we had to have gelato instead.

And then!

We saw the Pantheon. Which is basically a round church.

So we walked and found a bridge!

Then we spotted an Angel who liked to play croquet!

That afternoon we caught a train to Civitavecchia, an hour away from Rome. From there we to catch a ferry to Barcelona.
The boat was huge!

It can hold up to 2000 passengers, there were only 150 people on board! We had booked airplane style seats. But decided to pay to upgrade to a cabin. I guilt tripped the guy at the desk to giving us a discount!

We watched the pilot jump out of the Ferry onto his pilot boat.

I got really sea sick and found standing in the really strong wind at the back of the boat to be brilliant fun. It made my hair look like I was a mad woman.
We spent the rest of the day sitting in the lounge area chatting to an Australian couple we met who were in their 50’s doing a similar trip to ours.

We arrived in Barcelona after 20 hours on the boat.
Up Next Barcelona.

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Backpacking | Tagged Add new tag, arena, colosseum, ferry, gladiator, italy, pantheon, rome, tour | Comments (0)

When in Rome

November 11, 2009 – 12:50 am

We watched the sun seat from the deck of the big car ferry as we left Hvar and made our way to Split, the first leg of the trip to Italy.

It was a bit chilly!

Lindsay and I arrived back in Split and pushed through the room-selling crowds of people like pros - a wave of your hand and a stern no is all it took. We bought tickets for our next ferry and convinced ourselves to actually get on. For 4 euros we bought a soggy sandwich, when 500m away on land we could have bought delicious seafood for the same price. GRRRRR.

The boat pulled out of Split, I entertained the thought of jumping off and swimming back to shore. But Lindsay convinced me not to. We went to bed and woke up as the boat was coming to to Ancona, Italy. We walked off the ferry, through the very convincing passport control. A woman standing by an orange witch’s hat glancing briefly at passports.

And then we were in Italy. There were no directions to the train station, no information. No nothing. Just a car park, a ferry terminal and a bunch of lost backpackers. We saw 2 girls with big backpacks walk off, and 2 other backpackers picked up their packs and followed. Lindsay and I thought, why not, lets just follow them. 4 backpackers behind us thought the same thing. Without any discussion between us at all just followed each other to the train station! We all worked together to find out what train we needed.

We found a helpful conductor who looked so happy to be helping all us young-uns! He cheerfully pointed out which trains we needed and we all went on our separate ways. Our train to Rome took about 2 hours. With nice countryside to look at, it went very fast. The train station at Rome was packed! When withdrawing money from an ATM, the machine sucked up Lindsay’s card and didn’t look like it was going to spit it out again! Fortunately, after thinking about itself for 2 minutes, it gave back the card. We meanwhile were having panic attacks in front of the ATM.

We found a friendlier ATM and then started to navigate our way to the hostel, Hotel Lella. Walking through the station and the streets of Rome, I noticed an awful lots of priests and nuns. I whispered to Lindsay asking if he noticed it also, and how strange it was. He then wisely reminded me that we were in Rome, where the Vatican is.

We arrived and tried to check in, and there was a debate in Spanish not Iitalian. Turned out they had decided to give us a free room upgrade because we were a married couple. Being a very obvious Catholic establishment they were really into that sort of thing. (There were crosses, crucifixes and virgin marys everywhere)

They also decided to include a free breakfast! We were happy about this - the breakfast was a croissant full of custard of chocolate with the strongest cordial ever. Not what I would consider breakfast…but it was free.

Our first afternoon we walked to the Trevi fountain via 2 pizza places (yum!)

Yeah, it was nice. But not as nice as the ones we had seen in Vienna.
What I found the most interesting were the tourists!

Most were from the USA and wearing matching things so they could easily work out where the rest of their tour group was,

e.g. the classy yellow hat gang.

After escaping the mass of people at the fountain we walked up to the Roman forum. Where we (I), spotted a fine example of a behind.

We were so incredibly tired, we sat down and didn’t have the energy to get up. We were literally 400m away from the Colosseum and didn’t have the strength to walk over and have a look!

After resting for a bit we decided to walk back to the hostel with a quick walk around the outside of the Colosseum. On the way back to our room we stopped again to share this:

I am thinking about writing a book called Julz and the giant peach, and is a story about a girl who falls into a peach and makes friends with giant insects.

We purchased bread, cheese, salami and olives for dinner.

The 2nd day in Rome: Not a happy day.

We caught a bus to the Vatican, dressed conservativly because today we were going to meet the Pope! (we didn’t think we actually would)

The bus was packed, slow and hot. So we sweated our way to the Vatican. We arrived at the court outside St Peter’s Basilica.

A man approached us and said “we have a group tour starting in a minute, it will cost you 28 euros each and it includes your entry into the Vatican museum” We thought…hmm sounds good. The vatican only costs 14 euro. So we joined the first part of the tour which is free. The girl was really nice and knew what she was talking about. Then she led us up to the Vatican museum, through security, then Lindsay’s backpack was too big so had to be taken to the cloak room.

She then tells us the prices, 25 euros ($AUD50) each for the tour, and then you must go and buy your ticket for the Vatican, which is another 14 Euros each! This made me furious! The man had lied to us, and tricked us into going on the tour. The tour guide gave us a 5 euro discount each, because we didn’t have enough money otherwise. A 2 hour tour + entry cost us about $AUD100!!!

I decided to try and enjoy the tour and go back and find the man afterwards so I could rearrange his face for him.

I must admit the tour was good.

We learnt that the chest and arm on this statue was used by Michelangelo as a model when painting the Sistine chapel.

Photo is from here.

You are not allowed to take photos in the Sistine Chapel, but I found some people on Flickr braver than I am!

Photo is from here.

There were pompous looking Italian men whose job it was to walk around the chapel shhhh-ing everyone….like school teachers shhhh-ing a bunch of naughty school kids. I could not stop giggling. They looked like they thought they were so important and special and all they did was go SHHHHHHH! One man even started to growl! The artwork was pretty amazing, but giggling is not really the best way to enjoy the place.

We said goodbye to our tour group of fail, and walked around the Vatican by ourselves. We found this:

No they are not boobs… but bull testicles, which makes perfect sense!

This ceiling is completely flat but has been painted to look 3D!

We walked through rooms of religious art

and were bored senseless.

And were by this stage practically unconcious with hunger and thirst. Our lunch was in Lindsay’s backpack which was in the cloakroom. So we had to spend our last 8 euros on a plate of pasta so small I almost cried and wanted to peg it at the serving lady’s head. We did manage to have a drink which helped!

We then braved the heat again (did I mention is was a really really hot day?) out in the court yard we spotted the Death Star.

I wonder why they have a model of the Death Star at the Vatican Museum?

After another nervous breakdown (mine again) we found the Egyptian section of the museum. Where some Egyptian Priestesses were playing chasies

And this God who had won the fruit basket at the local Bingo

I was by this stage seriously crabby and ready to Karate chop the next catholic, Italian and/or annoying tourist.

So we decided to leave the Vatican and get me some food before moving onto St Peter’s Basilica.

It was nice enough…but its a Church, with lots of gold and bits of dead people. But thats just my opinion, and as I said, I was seriously grumpy.

Finally we escaped the church and started making our way back to the Hostel. We got to end of the street and saw that the traffic had been blocked off. We hung around waiting to see what was going to happen.

After waiting for 30 minutes a motorcade drove past, with the Pope in it!

These guys traveled with their doors open!

hardcore!
and here is the Pope

and if I zoom & crop :

the Pope!

And then we walked back, buying bread, cheese and salami on the way back to our room.

Up Next the Colosseum!

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Backpacking | Tagged ancona, art, blue line ferry, catholic, church, con, croatia, death star, ferryboat, giant peach, hostel lella, hotel lella, italy, motorcade, musuem, pope, roman forum, rome, scam, sistine chapel, split, trevi fountain, vatican | Comments (0)

Hip Hip Hurrah for Hvar!

October 29, 2009 – 9:26 am

After our day at the bay, we decided to reunite again for another day at another bay so we could finish off our picnic lunch.

Luka drove us again in his big green van to this lovely beach

On the way back from the bay house the day before, a wasp had got into the van with us. Lindsay and Erik spent the first half of the trip leaning over the back seat trying to kill the wasp with the yellow plastic plates we had with us.

Knowing the plates were an effective weapon, we were armed and ready when we arrived at the beach that day.

A point system was developed. You got points for:
-killing a wasp in 1 hit
-hitting a wasp while holding the baby
-saving the baby

Erik demonstrates the bank-hand swat while Noëlline demonstrates ’save the baby’.

As it was Louise’s last day in Hvar she spent most of the day in the sun getting as much colour as possible.

While those of us with more time for tanning hid in the shade of the only tree.

After lots of snorkeling and searching for electric fish, Lindsay walked around taking some amazing photos of:

The pebbles that are on the beaches instead of sand:

The private island and lighthouse we could see from the beach:

And pine trees that are native to the island:

I meanwhile snorkeled and swam. Erik had assured me that there were no sharks left around Croatia so I was really brave and swam by myself in the deep water!

I saw all sorts of cool things like star fish, big fish, small fish and stalker fish who would seriously not leave me alone!

After a day of sunbaking, wasp killing, photographing, swimming and snorkeling we walked up over the hill back to Luka’s.

That night we were to have a feast! Louise had organised a big fresh fish dinner. We sat in the lovely outdoor kitchen while Luka cooked the fish on the woodfire BBQ for us.

We had lots of salad, potato salad, fresh bread, fish and lots and lots and lots of delicious homemade olive oil.

Oh and don’t forget the Donkey wine! The local and delicious red wine.

We sat around eating, talking, drinking, laughing and joking.

We all just, you know, hung out together…

We all said sad goodnight and good bye to Louise who was heading back to cold grey London the following day.

That next day was a bit stressful, we found out that Lindsay’s clients had no money and no intention of paying him (or apologising!). So we spent the day fighting, yelling and hating each other. Not only were these clients ruining our holiday, they were also affecting our relationship! So we decided to pull ourselves together and find some other options. We did a trade with Luka. Lindsay would make him a website in return for the accommodation. Being in such a beautiful place, it was not hard for Lindsay to find inspiration for the websites.
Here they are if you want to see what Lindsay made.

WARNING! You will want to stay there once you have seen these websites!
Luka’s Lodge

and

Luka’s Bay House

The day after the stressful day we went back to the beach. Boy was it hard work. Alternating between sitting under a tree reading a book,

and swimming in the beautiful clear water.

It was windy that day, and there was a single wave! (I seriously love that photo…you can see their legs in the wave!)

After the beach Lindsay and I walked the long way back to Luka’s enjoying the view.

The wind was so nice and fresh!

The ocean really choppy, unlike other days where it had been very calm.

Meanwhile back at the ~~ranch~~ lodge,

sangria was being prepared by Noëlline and Erik. Using the bottles of wine that had failed to impress the night before.

The sangria however did impress! In one evening I was converted from a non-drinker to a Sangria lover! The sangria was flowing from the giant saucepan to our plastic cups via a ladle! We spent the evening chatting to our French-Canadian friends (who also cooked us dinner!) and 4 other Aussies who were also at the Lodge. Sometimes Noëlline and I would have to go to ‘our happy places’ when the conversation got geeky. Did I mention Erik was a fellow geek with a ‘hackintosh’ exactly like mine! Lindsay for the first time in months was able to talk geekage!

The next day we hung around while Lindsay worked on Luka’s websites as well as taking lots of photos needed to make the website pretty. Everything from the clear water,

to the stations of the cross which were spread along all the little streets in Hvar Town.

(turn right at number 14 to get to get to the hostel)

We cooked dinner that night for Noëlline and Erik. A huge batch of Spag Bol and lots of Donkey Wine. The Sangria had turned me into a red wine drinker and I officially love Donkey Wine.

It was their last night in Hvar. They had to catch a ferry early the next morning. So another sad goodnight and goodbye.

Lindsay and I spent the last few days swimming, relaxing and website building. One day while snorkeling we spotted an octopus making its way along the bottom of the sea. We floated above it, watching while the sun set over the water. It was magical.

Another day we made a trip to the bay house to take some photos for the website. We convinced all the other remaining guests at the Lodge to join us (4, it was low season by then and we had the place to ourselves!)

Here we are, a big bunch of friends who have never met before this week, drinking juice in paradise.

To take the next photo Lindsay submerged himself in the water, he had to climb over sea urchins and a big slipperly rock while I stood above him worrying about the camera.

The photo is awesome!

Here he is climbing out, safe and sound

all that worrying for nothing!

Isn’t it stunning!?

That night we went for a walk enjoying one of our last sunsets

I am sitting on one of the many benches that line the promenade that follows most of the shore line around Hvar Town.

We went for a last supper to Lungo Mare, for scrumptious fresh seafood

The next day, our last full day we walked around to the other side of Hvar town, to where all the resorts were closing up for the winter.

We did some more reading and swimming,

and some last minute sun-baking.

We then had another swim at the resort beach which was completely sea urchin free…it felt like we were cheating!

The view of Hvar on the way back to Luka’s was awesome!

Then it was time to go! To leave the Island. ~~The Others were after us, and the polar bear was really getting on our nerves, not to mention the man eating smoke machine~~ Europe was calling and we had to answer that call.

We said goodbye to the awesome outdoor kitchen,

the beautiful clear water,

and the relaxation!

Despite Luka’s frequent suggestions that we stay longer, Lindsay and I managed to convince ourselves to get on the Ferry back to Split.

What ever is coming next totally doesn’t compare to Hvar…so if I were you I would not bother reading any future posts…

But then again if you stop you will miss out on the story about us seeing the Pope o_O!

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Backpacking | Tagged boats, clear, croatia, feast, ferry, Friends, hanging out, holiday, hvar, hvar town, meal, ocean, party, relaxation, sangria, sea, snorkeling, sunbaking, swimming, vacation, wasp, water, yellow plastic plates | Comments (3)

Hurrah for Hvar.

October 28, 2009 – 7:18 am

To get to Hvar we had to catch a ferry. We walked down to the port and bought our tickets for the ferry. We walked the wrong way then doubled back just trying to work out where the boat was.

The view as the catamaran pulled away from Split was awesome.

This is where the catamaran pulled up and let us off.

We had not booked accommodation because other backpackers had told us about the huge number of people waiting at the wharf ready to offer rooms for rent. If you show any sign of interest or weakness everyone pounces on you. We had one old lady speaking to us in German and trying to practically climb on top of me. She stood in front of anyone else I tried to talk to. Lindsay at the same time was asking another man about his rooms. This man was Luka.

Me: how far from the beach?
Luka: 5 minutes
Me: you have internet?
Luka: yes
Me: we choose you pikachu!

I didn’t really say pikachu but that would have been hilarious for me and not many other people. Maybe the old lady speaking to us in German but it would have been pretend laughter because she was just trying to win us over.

He walked us over to the shade where he had another guest waiting before walking us all back to Luka’s Lodge.

That’s Luka at the top of the stairs to the Lodge.

Checking us in took ages! Only because we were all having such a great time chatting and getting to know each other. The other guest was Louise from London. And we worked out pretty fast that she was really nice.

After talking our heads off for over an hour Luka asked “Are you hungry?” We 3 said, “Yes!”

Then Luka said “Ok, I will call my cousin, he will take you to his restaurant”. 2 minutes later the said cousin arrived, picked us up in his car and drove us for 2 minutes back to his restaurant. Lungo Mare:

(photo was not taken on that day in case the whole night and day thing confuses you)

We sat down and drooled over the menu of fresh seafood. In the end we decided to choose a plates of mussels, prawns and squid to share between the 3 of us.

It was sooooo good!

After stuffing ourselves it was time for a swim.

this was a 3 minute walk away from the Lodge, not the nicest swimming place because of all the boats but if this wasn’t the best…just think whats to come!

From our spot we could see the island hopping party boats coming in. There was probably about 15 all up.

On the way back to Luka’s we could see the beautiful sunset

and then we walked by this church where a wedding was being held, everyone was singing and clapping!

Luka for dinner cooked us delicious steak on his BBQ… his real BBQ with flames! The meat was amazing, as was his home made olive oil and red wine vinegar! OMG, my mouth is watering now just thinking about it!

After dinner we walked into town to meet some people Louise had met in her hostel in Split. She treated us all to Champagne!

Our 2nd day in Hvar, Lindsay and I walked to the supermarket, bought a loaf of bread, some olives and a dip and walked along the cliffs to find ourselves a private patch of beach/rocks where we could swim, eat and sunbathe.

We climbed into the water through this sandy patch

You have to be careful because there are sea urchins everywhere.

We swam around for a while before climbing out and soaking up the sun on the flat piece of concrete jutting out from the rocks in the photo below:

I am terrified of deep water, and if I can’t seem the bottom I tend to freak out. So we decided to invest in a pair of goggles and a snorkel. We walked into town to buy some at the little marketplace. On the way we accidentally bought ice cream, but it was delicious so we decided to eat the ice cream.

We walked back to the beach and tried out our new goggles and snorkels at a very deep swimming hole/beach. The was a concrete ledge you climbed off and the water was immediately at least 5m deep, and it got deeper fast! The water was crystal clear all the way to the bottom. We could see fish swimming, and bit of debris at the bottom. It was awesome.

We then moved back to our first swimming rock and had a look to see what we were swimming above. Nothing remotely dangerous except for sea urchins. Once we were well and truly wrinkly we hopped out and read our books until it started getting too dark to read.

The next day we bumped into Louise who invited us to go to Luka’s bay house with us. We met Erik and Noëlline, a very nice French-Canadian couple and their very cute baby Olivia. On the way to the bay house we picked up a picnic lunch.

Luka dropped us at the bay, which was completely deserted except for one German couple. We immediately set up our picnic lunch and got stuck into the food.

It was not long before the wasps arrived, note how no one is sitting down.

We are all standing - the trick was to walk up to the table, put food on your plate then run away with the food before the wasps got you.

After eating Louise found a nice jetty to sun-bake on

Olivia had a nap in her tent

while Erik, Noëlline, Lindsay and I took it in turns snorkeling in the bay.

As Lindsay was getting into the water the first time he slipped on this boat ramp

and hit his head on the concrete!

He convinced me he was ok, and there was no blood so I believed him. He then went swimming by himself, and came swimming back to the beach to tell us about the electric fish. We took it in turns to swim out with him to look for the electric fish just to be sure he wasn’t suffering from brain damage.

Here he is returning with Erik…after their hunt for the electric fish. Seconds after this photo was taken Lindsay explaimed “oh a squid!” This was followed by him and Erik spending the next 15 minutes looking for the squid.

Noëlline and I meanwhile discussed how we thought Lindsay was brainwashing each of us into thinking the fish were electric.

I might note, just so you don’t all freak out and think I let Lindsay swim with brain damage, Erik and I saw the electric fish also.

When we were not swimming in the bay we were lying on deck chairs

reading and looking at the beautiful clear blue water

or watching the crabs scuttle around us

Lindsay collected these for me from the bottom of the bay, they are the shells(?) of sea urchins.

Once we had finished swimming, reading, dozing and eating, Luka came and picked us up. He then took us for a drive up to the village his family is from, Brusje. The village’s income for hundreds of years came from their Lavender, olives and grapes. But a fire destroyed these plantations many years ago. The village of Brusje is now very quiet, neglected and forgotten. Most houses are empty with a large number of the inhabitants immigrating to Argentina and some to Australia.

Luka showed us his family home, where he was born and grew up.

No one lives in the house, but Luka looks after it really well, and it was such a lovely house.

Lindsay took this photo of the sun setting through one of the collapsed roofs on a forgotten and empty house. Its one of my favourite photos.

Coming up, another week in Hvar.

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Backpacking | Tagged bay house, brusje, clear water, concussion, crabs, croatia, ferry, hvar, hvar town, juliaholmwood, lindsayholmwood, luka, luka's lodge, lungo mare, picnic, swimming, wasps | Comments (1)

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