Tourist Sites

We are back in Barcelona again on our way home after 6 months on the road. It has been quite a time. We have experienced every emotion from amazing and inspiring to annoying and frustrating. It hasn’t been easy all the way – arriving in a new place takes a lot of work and research to get a basis of information – town map, transport map, where to buy tickets, exchange rate, accommodation and not be ripped off, internet, ATM, food, opening and closing times and usually all the information you can find is in a foreign language. But it has been worth it.
Coming back to Barcelona was like getting home – we knew most of the information already and had the language too. We visited some old haunts – bars, restaurants, internet cafés and plazas.
True to form, Barcelona turned on its major 3 day festival of the year just as we arrived. That meant that there was a lot to do and events to see but also that all the shops and markets were shut for the whole time.
Part of the festival was the Giant Parade. Lots of different characters – dragons, kings, queens, jester etc dance around the street to pipe or drum bands. They are like enormous puppets, with a person walking inside them. They only come out once a year so we were lucky to catch them.
The best thing we saw was the ‘Casteller’ competition (human castles). It was fantastic to watch as about a hundred people all dressed in white pants, wide black sash belts and coloured shirts, work together to build a massive tower of people at least 7 levels high. They are well practiced and quick so the poor people on the bottom don’t have to hold everyone up longer than necessary. As the tower grows in height, the climbers get younger and smaller and the very top 2 people are just kids about 5 or 6 years old, climbing with crash helmets on. As they pull themselves up to the top, the crowd is focused on those little bodies climbing up so high. No one makes a sound, then as they reach the top a unified cheer of relief goes up from the crowd and the bands start to play. Everyone is happy and pleased for their success. Coming down also has to be done carefully and in strict order but they seem to just slide down everone’s backs. We saw 3 ‘castellers’ and each time was just as exciting and tense as the first.

Venice is really a city on the water and the canals replace streets in all respects. There are passenger ferries, ambulance boats, police boats, private boats, water taxis, construction boats, gondolas and even the occasional hoon. Walking is the only other option to going by boat.
We bought an all day ticket to explore a few of the 117 islands that make up Venice.
Murano is famous for the production of Venetian glass. We saw a glass blowing demonstration and they make it look so easy. Of course there are glass shops and glass jewellery and all sorts of souveniers everywhere. But it is very nice. Next we motored over to Burano famous for lace making and restaurants. These islands are similar to Venice with canals and bridges but a bit less built up and some of the houses are painted in attractive, bright colours. It is all very tourist oriented though and felt like we were a commodity they had to deal with. Next was Torcello with an old monastry, but by this stage we were all a bit worn out from walking and tourist sites. The boat back took about 1 1/2 hours but we got to see Venice in the setting sun and it was great for photography. After some pasta for dinner we thought we would try one more boat trip down the Grand Canal through the centre of Venice. It was very pretty and stopped at the Piazza San Marco where we saw 3 classical groups battle it out for the crowds’ attention. The problem was the boats were slow and very crowded and we didn’t get back to the bus stop to go home until the last bus, so we had to end our day by getting a taxi home and taxis can demand any price they like at that time of night.

Venice really is different to any place we have seen. Yes, we knew it had canals, yes, we knew it was beautiful … but to see it, is really like a fantasy world.
Venice itself is a collection of 117 islands separated from the mainland and the only access is by a long causeway for cars and trains. Even from the distance the silhouette of the domes and towers is clearly visible.
I thought there were perhaps a few canals and those places were always on the tourist promotions and postcards – but in reality EVERY street is a canal. There are lane-width canals, street-width canals and highway-width canals. There are cute curved walking bridges 0ver the smaller canals and just 3 bridges or water transport over the larger Grand Canal. All the supplies, produce, and a lot of visitors arrive by boat. There are police boats, water ambulance, water taxis, gondolas and private boats … the canals are very busy … it is fascinating to watch. And there are no cars at all on the walkways through the canals. All the buildings are old and some a bit dilapidated, but that just adds to the appeal.
It is beautiful with picturesque scenes at every bridge. I have been drawing throughout my travels and there is no shortage of suitable scenes here. There are a few larger open piazzas (squares) where you can find bars, restaurants, pizza, gelato, spritzers and pasta.
Everyone told us Venice is expensive, but after Germany and especially England – things don’t seem too bad at all.
We had booked accommodation on the net, 25 minutes outside Venice. It is a nice B&B called Verde Venezia in the country outside Venice and the bonus is it is just near a big Casino that offers a free shuttle bus service to Venice every hour for its customers. So we just have to look like compulsive gamblers and can happily jump on the bus to get to and from Venice each day. I think the driver might catch on soon. (There is a regular bus service too.)
Venice is famous for Venetian glass, Vivaldi music (he was born here) and theatre masks. There are a lot of tourists but the canal area is large enough that we have been able to get away from the masses to less crowded areas.
I have found Venice to be one of the highlights of my travels and it is good to see it before it disappears.

From Prague we caught the train to Dresden over the German border. We were not absolutely sure we would be allowed into Germany … it's a long story but the guards were very friendly, hardly looked at out passports and happily stamped them. Phew!

It was pouring rain in Dresden so we decided to just keep traveling and bought tickets to Berlin. Each trip was only just over 2 hours. – it is all very close here compared to Australia. Rob and Andrea met us at the station and it was great to see some familiar faces and have someone local to show us around. After some creative manipulating we all manages to fit into the car along with all the luggage.

It is still cold here but the sun comes out occasionally. We walked around central Berlin (the old East Berlin). Andrea grew up in East Berlin so she has first hand knowledge of what it was like before and after ‘The Wall’, and the views they held about the West – very interesting. We visited Berlin Dom Cathedral, State Opera House, other churches and concert houses. Yummy hot chocolates in a chocolate house with chocolate scultures in it, Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag … bratwurst lunch in the Tier Garden under the linden trees. We went to a dance hall to watch and do tango at night.

Max is happy – he has a piano to play and doesn’t have to tag along with us here. Arno is a few years older and at school during the day, but seems happy to keep Max company in the evenings, show him around or play soccer with friends.

We have been in Prague for 3 days now and although it felt very foreign to start with it soon began to take on a feel of familiarity.

We landed in Prague from England to discover that Jeff’s guitar didn’t arrive … oh no! They assured him it would be traced and they would get it to us as soon as possible – 3 days, and numerous phone calls later, they have said it is Prague now and should have been delivered this morning – but it wasn't …

Prague is a beautiful old, ornate city that was saved from the bombings of WWII. It is like being in a fairy tale – castles, towers, wide staircases, fancy plaster decoration on everything, fine ironwork, detailed stained glass and cobble stones everywhere forming different patterns on each pavement. There are big central squares and boulevards, it feels very ‘European’. There are trams which are a bit of a novelty, plus lots of liquor shops (even selling absinthe), wine bars and pubs.

Our first hostel in the centre was in a good location but a bit on the edge … we moved to an apartment – even cheaper surprisingly – incase the hostel got noisy over the weekend. Our first meal was at a local Beer Hall. It was a sudden introduction to Czech traditions, food and drink. The place was like an old classroom complete with carved graffiti on the long tables and coat hooks on the walls, the food was hearty pork, with various sauces and potato, bread or bacon dumplings and the beer was in litre glasses followed by generous shot glasses of some potent herbal liquor. We are back in the lands where people smoke everywhere though and at precisely 11pm they closed up and asked us all to leave. For diner the next night we found a very cute restaurant with great food for very low prices and more litres of beer. Prague is famous for its beer – it is very nice and only about $1.50 / litre. Breakfast at the hostel consisted of the mysterious arrival of bread, jam and apples arriving in our common kitchen (which we had never seen anyone else use).

The Czech language is very strange though – it sounds like they are speaking backwards with odd groups of consonants like ‘vzechny’ ‘nski’ ‘tovna’ but there is usually someone who can help in English. In a book shop we visited they had done funny things to English words and names – Margaret Thatcherova and Jane Austinova to name a few. The sections in the shop were labeled Paperbacky, Thrillery and Detektivy!

The next day with marginally better weather so we went to explore the castle – it was very interesting with a high tower to the top of St Vitus Cathedral offering fantastic views over the city, big halls, lots of suits of amour (you could even buy one for only $360A), lessons in crossbow shooting, shields painted on the walls, an alleyway of tiny workmens’ cottages now selling souveniers blacksmith demonstrations and lots horrible implements of torture.

It was about at this moment that I somehow erased all my photos of the last 3 days … oh no.