European Travels

Amsterdam

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Sat, 23 May 2009 19:08:00 +0000

For the final trip on my spring break. Me, Amy, Will, Kristin and Toni headed up to Amsterdam for a few days after being in Vienna for one night. We were all so sick of travelling that we really didn't want to do much at all, not too mention we were all realizing how large of a dent we had put into our savings. So, for the most part we toured Amsterdam on our own and just hung out around the city. We did go to the Anne Frank tour, which I made a video at the end of the tour but the system there never emailed it to me so yea, no video... good story I know.

Outside of Anne Frank's House

The leaning buildings

In a park

Skinniest house in Amsterdam

which is next to the widest bridge in Amsterdam...

Napoli

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Sat, 23 May 2009 19:08:00 +0000

Napoli was the last stop on our Greece/Italy trip and the pizza here was amazing, as expected because apparently it's the birthplace of the pizza. I think I had a pizza it least once a day while here. Napoli wasn't exactly the nicest city, but it was where we were flying back home from.

Oh, actually we had a rather interesting story while in the airport. So, we waiting in line at the security checkpoint and we come across some suspicious luggage that had been left behind and no one was looking at it or picking it up. Then when we're almost about to go through, the power went out. The lights had been flickering while in line, but no the power actually went out for a solid minute or two in an aiport! It was the one of the most ridiculous things that I had ever seen. None of us could believe that a power outage would/could actually happen at an airport, but in Napoli I guess it can. This combined with the suspicious luggage that someone had planted seemed quite suspicious and some members of our group got quite nervous. It really was just the icing on the cake to our Napoli trip... haha it was quite the city.

Oh and I did go to Pompeii, but I forgot my camera so I guess I'll steal some photos from my friends and share them later.

Capri

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Sat, 23 May 2009 19:08:00 +0000

We took a ferry to Capri for the day. It was such a cool island and we (Amy, Julie, Will and I) all enjoyed the day on the island. Although I thought the Amalfi coast was better, Capri was extremely beautiful.

Capri

Blue Grotto

I stupidly left the flash on in the actual Grotto so the picture inside didn't come out that great... sorry.

Statue in Ana Capri

Street in Capri

Leaving Capri

Amalfi Coast

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Sat, 23 May 2009 19:07:00 +0000

We rented a car...

Positano

Amalfi

Outside of Salerno

We rented a car for the day... unfortunately the weather wasn't nice enough to really use the convertible so we felt a little stupid riding around in this tiny little car, but we still had fun. Although I've loved all of my travels here, this one was definitely one of the most beautiful and inspiring places I've visited. It was so cool, and you definitely couldn't experience it properly without renting a car or getting a car hire.

Sorrento

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Sat, 23 May 2009 18:29:00 +0000

Dates: April 16th – 19th

Sorrento was absolutely beautiful. Our hostel, Seven Hostel was a really nice hostel in Sant’Agnello, Italy. It is about a 30 to 45 minute walk from Sorrento, but it wasn’t bad at all. The hostel was really nice and inexpensively priced. We were there for a few days so the walks weren’t that bad, plus one day we went to Capri and the other day we drove around the Amalfi coast.
Outdoor lounge at hostel

Sorrento was a nice little town and of course had great food! Everyone had a really good time and thoroughly enjoyed this leg of the trip, even though we were all getting a little bit tired of traveling... we were going on our 3rd week of our trips and were living out of a carry-on sized suitcase.

Easter Tree in Sorrento

On the walk to Sorrento

View on the walk… yes it’s dorky w/e

Last night in Sant’Agnello

More Pictures: Click Here

From Bari to Sorrento

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:22:00 +0000

Date: April 16

We arrived in Bari, Italy early in the morning and had to walk to the car rental place to get a car we could take to Sorrento. It was just as expensive and took much longer to travel by bus or train so we figured it would be more fun to rent a car. So, we did. However, when we got to where the car rental place was supposed to be... it had closed 2 months before! Luckily, a woman at a Best Western was able to direct us to another car rental agency near the train stations. We had to walk for probably another 20 to 30 minutes to get to this one. But, we finally did and go the car to drive to Sorrento.

Of course, the only car they had available was a manual. And being the only person who was 21, I was the only one who could drive the car. I've learned that I've gotten better at driving stick than I used to be, so it wasn't a problem. Smartest thing we did though, was renting a GPS. We would've been in trouble without it.

It took us about 3 hours to drive across Italy, and everything went quite smoothly. The best part of the drive was between Napoli and Sorrento. The countryside was absolutely amazing, and the tiny roads snaked along the cliffs right next to the water. It was an extremely cool place to see. Driving was definitely a better choice than taking a train... I'll explain later about the trains in Italy.

Anyways, we found our hotel fine and returned the car later in the day. It was definitely a good end to a long trip from Greece.

Back to Athens...

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:13:00 +0000

Date: April 14 - April 15

On the 14th we took a ferry back to Athens. Thankfully, this one was much faster and we arrived in Athens on time. We were all pretty tired from the day and didn't really do that much in Athens on the evening on the 14th.

The following morning we had to figure out how to get to Patra, the port town where our ferry to Italy was leaving at around 6 pm. We found the people at the Athens Backpackers Hostel were very helpful and told us exactly where we needed to go. It was a little confusing as it involved using the metro, then walking to find a bus stop that was at a random spot on a street and taking that bus to another bus station. To top it all off, it was just starting to mist a little bit when we left our hostel, luggage in tow.

We got on the metro and got off at the right stop, but had to ask a few times about where the bus we were looking for would stop. Eventually, we figured it out and there happened to be a bus waiting there when we found it. We crammed into the overflowing bus, hoping we were headed in the right direction and that we would know the stop when we found it.

It just so happened that bus station we were looking for was the very last stop, as we had suspected. We got our tickets and searched for the next bus, hoping it would deliver us in Patra (on time). The bus ride was actually quite nice, and brought us to the bus station with about an hour to spare.

Of course, we were starving and got some food before heading for our ferry. Oh, and this time we did have the right confirmation numbers for our ferry so that worked out quite well. We quickly ate our last meal of souvlaki and then headed for our ferry.

15 hours later, at 8 am the following day we would be arriving in Bari, Italy.

Ios

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:01:00 +0000

Dates: April 11 – April 14

Ios is a small island just north of Santorini. We arrived about two weeks early for the season so the island was actually quite quiet. This was fun as we had a lot of fun doing our own exploring of the island and entertained ourselves with the limited services. When I say the island was quiet, I mean that there were about 10 other people staying at our “hostel” which was essentially like a resort and there was only one place to sit down and eat lunch in the town. Oh and there were two bars open, which we didn’t go to because the walk back to our hostel involved a rather large and steep hill and took about 30 minutes. Let’s just say with the tiny roads, scary drivers and lack of lit pathways would not have made for a fun trip late at night.

Our beach at the hostel

The pool

Like I said, it was a pretty sweet place for a “hostel”.

Since the island was pretty small, we rented ATV’s one day and rode around the island. It was an absolute blast! The island was such a cool place, and zipping around on the ATV’s only added to the fun. Uh, yeah that sounded quite dorky, but whatever, we all had a great time haha. The island had tons of tiny churches scattered around the whole island. We also checked out another popular beach, which was unfortunately deserted and nothing was open because it was too early in the season. And then I got the bright idea of taking a dirt road back to our hostel. It was actually kinda fun, but definitely not the smoothest terrain I’ve come across. (More pictures from this can be seen in the blog post below.)

Homer's Grave

The other days, we spent time on the beach or by the pool, or in the town. The weather was exactly “hot”, but one day was definitely a good day to sit out at the beach. Otherwise, it was a little windy, but still was a great place to be during our spring break trip.

Church in the town

Where we ate lunch every day (it was only 5 to 7 euros so it was cheap and we had no other options)

ATV day in Ios

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:01:00 +0000

Photos stolen from action photographer extraordinaire Julie Hyman

Ferry to Ios

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 06 May 2009 09:49:00 +0000

Date: April 10

We could pick up our tickets about an hour before the ferry was leaving, but due to the construction on the subway we had about 45 minutes before it was leaving when we finally found the office to pick up our tickets. Apparently since the company had switched our tickets for our return ferry they gave us a completely new reference number, and we needed the number for the boat company and not the booking company… yea, a little confusing. So, the man said that we needed to buy new tickets; however, this was not happening! He didn’t seem too bothered by the fact that we had already paid for tickets and needed to pick them up, and he continued to talk to customers that were further back in line. This only added to the level of frustration everyone was feeling that day and added to the frenzy we were already in.

Luckily, another man came by and went into the office and asked how to help us. Fortunately, he let me into the office to access my email and read off the new confirmation number. This was correct and we received our tickets with about 15 minutes left before departure. Our ferry wasn’t far and we loaded up climbed to the deck where our inexpensive tickets had us sitting. Finally, it started getting cold out so we decided to go in to the seating area and grabbed a few tables with semicircular booths to nap on. Our 5/6 hour ferry turned into a 9 hour, excruciating wait. We arrived in Ios a few hours late, but luckily our transportation to our hostel was there. And by transportation, I mean a “surfer bro” with a dumpy van driving like a madman in the middle of the night on the tiny, winding island roads. Ahh, it was an experience.

And we still managed to look happy on the ferry:

Athens: Day 2 & 3

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:57:00 +0000

Dates: April 9 - 10

After hiking up the hill, we went back to our hostel and eventually went over to an area (as mentioned by our tour guide) where college kids hang out to try a Greek drink. They called it “warm yellow stuff”… yes I know, they’re quite creative. But it basically is wine that is distilled twice, making it quite strong so it is then mixed with honey and some spices and heated up. You get a small pitcher for about 5 Euros to split amongst 4 or 5 people. Then you pour it into shot glasses to sip, and I must admit it was very tasty. It was a fun environment and I wish we were able to spend a little bit more time experiencing the life of real Greek students.

The following morning, we woke up early to head up to the Acropolis. It was pretty packed up there, but the weather was great and the location, unbeatable. It was really cool imagining what it would have look like before things got destroyed. Apparently, this is one of the last times you’ll be able to see the Acropolis before they put up framing around the base of the Acropolis to repair it. According to our tour guide, it would probably be 30 years or so before the construction would be finished. I guess the Greeks don’t really like to work that fast?

The Parthenon

On top of the Acropolis (Parthenon left & Temple of Athena right)

Temple of Haphaestus

After that we had to head towards Piraeus, which is the large port right next to Athens. From here, we were heading towards the Greek island of Ios. Let’s just say the Greek metro system is not something that would be “up to snuff” in the United States. The rickety subway took us to the port, where we ran into a bit of an issue...

Athens: Day 1 & 2

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Sun, 03 May 2009 15:34:00 +0000

Dates: April 8 – April 9

On Wednesday morning, I got up and went to the airport. I was headed to Athens, while my mom and Earl were headed back home. I had no idea how much traveling was ahead of me. It definitely was such an amazing trip, yet quite tiring.
Anyways, me, Julie, Amy, Will, Toni and Kristin arrived in Athens in the afternoon and after an inexplicably long bus ride and a short walk (suitcases in tow) we found our hostel. Our hostel was in view of the Acropolis and it only took a 5 minute walk to get there, which was absolutely great. The first night we went to hang out on the rocks (called Areopagus) near the Acropolis.

The following morning we took a tour through our hostel, which took us all around the city. We went:
back by the rocks we hung out on the previous night

Greek parliament & tomb of the Unknown Soldier

through a park

And the Olympic Stadium

After our tour we hiked up Lycabettus Hill, which was quite the hike and unfortunately my camera died, but I still got a photo from friends.

Money Poll

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:44:00 +0000

So, it's official, I am broke. And due to the swine flu (soon to be) pandemic, I have decided against traveling to Barcelona, and I won't be going to Italy due to a difficult teacher and an exam date. I don't have much traveling left, which is good for not having any money; however, not so good for people interested in seeing what I'm up to. I've got a bunch of blogs still left to post, but I'll wait til I close the poll before posting again.

This afternoon, I extracted 100 Euros, or excatly $132.54, excluding the fee. I'm hoping this will last me as long as humanly possible. I'd like to know how long you think it'll last...

Click here to respond to the poll.

I'm really trying to actually budget myself, but obviously 100 euros doesn't go too far. To be fair, I do have probably about 5 days worth of food, which is what I spent my last amount of money on today before visiting the ATM. Anyways, I'll update regularly with the amount of money I spent to keep you up-to-date. I hope you all find this as entertaining as I do, well hopefully more, as I'm the one who's broke. And don't feel pity because I find it terribly funny and I'll obviously be fine. This was actually a post that I've been most excited about.

Salzburg

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:26:00 +0000

Dates: April 6 – April 7

Bavarian Mountains:

Tunnels used by the Nazis:

After getting back in from Nice on Sunday night, we went to Salzburg by train on Monday afternoon. After arriving, we ventured across the river to the old city area, which was filled with shops and vendors. Since we got into Salzburg a little late in the evening we didn’t have too much time for other events.

The following morning, we got up early for a tour of the Bavarian salt mines (in nearby Germany). The countryside was really beautiful. We traveled by a small bus around the area and stopped in a few other small towns. One of our stops took us to the Crow’s Nest and Hitler’s residence for part of the time during World War II. Everything that was left of his house was destroyed at the end and after the war. However, the Crow’s Nest is still there, but is only accessible during specific summer months because of the steep climb.

The Salt mines were something quite spectacular, with underground lakes and tunnels stretching every which way miles underneath the ground. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to bring my big camera into the mines so I have no pictures of it, but I may be going back with friends in a few weeks. Another problem I had was registering for classes took place in the afternoon so I wasn’t able to go on the Sound of Music tour with Nora and Earl; however, this is something I’m hoping to do if I get the chance to go back.

We left on a train late on Tuesday night, only to be waking up the following morning to head back to the airport.

More Salzburg Pictures

The French Riviera & Monaco

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:46:00 +0000

Date: April 1 - April 5

For these days I stayed in Nice, France with my mom and Earl and absolutely loved the area. The weather was a little crappy on the first day and our flight was delayed for hours so that wasn't the best way to start. However, the second day we were there the weather was much better, and we actually rented a car to drive around the area. We headed north from Nice to travel around the countryside and then came back down through Antibes, Juan-les-Pins (my favorite probably because it wasn't terribly over popularized) and Cannes. It was warm and sunny, not too hot and was a welcome change from the semi-chilly Vienna.

The following day we took an all day tour through a tour agency that took us all around the French Riviera. We went through some of the same towns but it also took us:

along the coast to the east of Nice which was beautiful

to Eze

Monaco

Monte Carlo

Antibes

We also visited this really cool, really old town perched on a hill near the area of Nice. I don't remember the name of it, but the pictures of it are at the end of the webshots album.

More Pictures

Matt Visits Vienna

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 10:56:00 +0000

Date: March 24th - March 29th

I'm posting the dates on the next few posts because they are so old and should have been done a while ago.

Matt and his friend, Ben, came to visit Vienna for almost a week, and quickly realized, as most would, there isn't that much to do in Vienna. After about two days of extensive walking they'd probably seen most of what Vienna had to offer. I was busy with class during the week he was here, but was off once the weekend finally came.

On Friday I took my last class and then we headed up to the hills that surround Vienna. Up there we walked around for a bit, enjoying the panorama of the city. Eventually we headed down and went to a heuriger, which is a restaurant that serves wine it has recently made from its nearby vineyard. Usually the food is from nearby farms as well.

Oh and another funny thing, there's a garbage incinerator by my university here... it's not all that different from Rutland High School, I just traded up from a dump to an incinerator. haha

Innsbruck

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:08:00 +0000

View from Bridge Innsbruck was named after

Standing outside an apres-ski lounge

The view from the lounge

Inside the Swarovski Crystal Museum

View from the top of NordPark Mountain (Innsbruck city and surrounding mountains)

Wolves at the Alpine Zoo

This past weekend I traveled to Innsbruck with friends I've met here. Laura, Leah and Brett are all from Edmonton, Canada and we had a great time on our quick weekend trip to Innsbruck. We left Saturday morning at 7 am, arriving in Innsbruck sometime around noon and stayed until Sunday evening. Innsbruck is a small city of about 100,000 people in Western Austria. It's hosted the Winter Olympics twice and is surrounded by the relatively large Alps. These mountains provide great views of the city and surrounding countryside.

The first day we took a tram around the city and ended up seeing the Olympic ski jump and went up to one of the mountains in an attempt to go sledding. However, they were closing soon so we just sat at a cafe and enjoyed the view. We went out to dinner in the old city area connected by pedestrian walkways. We were all pretty tired so we decided to go to bed after we got back to the hotel.

The next day we went to the Swarovski Crystal museum, which was actually filled with cool artwork and had various outdoor activities. Next, we headed up a mountain on the other side of the city on the fenicular (railway up the steep mountainside) and caught a gondola to the top. The view from up here was absolutely amazing, and made me wish I had more time to go skiing. However, there was also the Alpine Zoo lower on the mountain that we actually toward around on our way down to the city. We then walked around and headed towards the bridge that the town actually got its name after and took some pictures of that area.

Almost everything we did, including the museums, fenicular, gondola, zoo, public transportation, etc. were all included in this Innsbruck card that we purchased for 30 euros and definitely saved us a lot of money. It was money well spent on an enjoyable two day journey.

Note: If you click on the pictures you'll see the full sized image if you'd like to download them and save them to your computer.

As always it's taking awhile for the photos to upload so i'll have the link up soon. However, if you click on the prague pictures link you'll see new photos that I was finally able to upload.

Prague

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:19:00 +0000

This past weekend we traveled to Prague on one of the school sponsored trips. We left on Friday morning at 7 am and took a 5 hour bus ride to arrive in Praha (Prague). What amazed me was that when driving into the Czech Republic was that there was no stop. I don't think I needed my passport the entire weekend.

We went on a few tours and saw tons of things throughout Prague, including:
Prague Castle

St. Vitus Cathedral

The Astronomical Clock

Charles Bridge

The Old Jewish Quarter

and the National Museum

One of the best things about Prague, was the food! The food there was absolutely amazing. Some of my favorite dishes include a traditional Czech potato soup and a chicken dish that was basically baked with cheese on top of it. Everytime I sat down for something to eat, I was satisfied. Another great part about Prague was how relatively inexpensive things were, including the beer. We were served 1 liter glasses of beer at one of the restaurants we went to for dinner, and of course had to order another. After a meal and 2 liters of beer we were all quite full, and struggled to get to the club; however, we pulled through and stayed out til 5 am that night.

The night scene in Prague was great. I mean that in a way that it fulfilled every stereotype you can assume about eastern Europe. While the drinks weren't that cheap, about everything else was quite interesting, from the 50 year old women and [creeper] men at the club to the cement floor with random tiles and the music straight out of the 80's and 90's. The second night we went to a club that was 5 floors. It was pretty cool, but at the same time, quite sketchy.

More Pictures: Click Here

Carnival in Venice

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:26:00 +0000

Carnevale di Venezia began in 1268 and usually occurs during a two week period prior to Ash Wednesday, ending on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras). It is customary to wear a mask made of paper-mâché and sometimes a full costume.

We arrived at 9 am on Saturday morning, after taking a night train that we boarded Friday night in Vienna. We didn't leave until 11 pm Saturday evening, so it was 14 hours of touring around the city. I'm certain we must have walked a 1/3 of the city that day, and visited most of the popular/tourist locations in Venice, as well as many trips off the "beaten path" We visited Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square), Basilica di San Marco (St. Mark's Basilica), Ponte di Rialto (Rialto Bridge) and the Grand Canal. Because of the number of people at Carnival, the famous pigeons of Piazza San Marco were not really present; however, we were able to ride a gondola on the Grand Canal under Ponte di Rialto, a necessity when in Venice.

I would be lying if I didn't tell you that a good portion of our day was spent eating, we were in Italy afterall! We had gelato three times throughout the day at varying places around the city, which was amazing at every place we got it. We had lunch at a small restaurant next to one of the city's numerous smaller canals. In the afternoon, we sat down for a break at a cafe, and after a caffeine overload turned to their hot chocolate. When i say hot chocolate, I'm almost positive it was melted chocolate that was heated up. It was delicious, and at the same time quite filling. However, we managed to walk directly to another restaurant and sit down for an Italian dinner, which was quite good.

We finished off our evening by attending the Carnival festivities which were in the beginning stages of a late-night party in one of Venice's larger squares. This party made me wish I had left my backpack in a train station locker and that we were staying the night in Venice. But, we had to venture back to the train station for our train back home.

More Pictures: http://travel.webshots.com/album/570253501dmXFyl

Schönbrunn Palace

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:04:00 +0000

This past weekend we visited Schönbrunn which is located in Wien (Vienna) as a day trip with a program from our school. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside, so I was only able to snap shots of the exterior; however, you can easily tell that this place was amazing. The weather wasn't so great that day, and in the Spring the gardens (which are huge and some not even in pictures) are in full bloom. I will most likely travel here again once the weather is nicer. The palace is truly a work of art, and its impressive size was shocking.

It was built in 1696 for Emperor Leopold I, and then given as a present to his daughter Maria Theresa (mother of Marie Antoinette, I guess we know where she got her sense of lavish entitlement from). Much of the interior was altered by Maria Theresa to keep up with the times and many of the rooms are of Rococo era. The palace was also home to Franz Josef I of Austria, who remained in power from 1848 until 1916 upon his death. He was an extremely devoted leader and would spend countless hours everyday working through the daily task required of a ruler. The palace would only remain occupied until 1918 when the abdication of Charles I ultimately ended the Habsburg Monarch.

More Pictures: http://community.webshots.com/album/570185842HWXZwc