Oh Mein Gott!

Wow! I know not where to start so the beginning is a good place.

The 8hr train trip to Venice on which i witnessed an intercultural slaying match over a seat was the prelude to Italian hospitality! I arrived in Venice, the city of dreams, alone, slightly terrified and sweating like an animal in the sweltering 28deg heat!! I boarded the vapporetto and sailed away into the late afternoon air towards my hostel. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry! I was doing it. I was there! All by myself, seeing things i had always wanted to see and feeling the cold air whip through my hair as we sailed along the Canal Grande, houses leaning slightly, aged and damp; front doors leading to open water, boats following no apparent set of rules but, somehow, avoiding collisions, i gripped the barrier on the boat for fear that i was about to float away on the weightlessness of my own emotions!!

Arriving in the hostel saw me man up and approach a girl who was also travelling alone and through whom i met such a super fantastic girl it makes me sad that i won't be there to tour the rest of Europe with her!! Enough of my sop! After a day of exploring Venice both by boat and on foot, through tiny dark alleyways where old men sat on lone chairs pondering life's existence, it was time for dinner and wine! There is no way i could possibly explain the intensity of all the flavours! They put salt in their food!! You remember that white stuff that they used to put in food in Australia when you were 2? It was around the same time that Maggi noodles still had a taste...the tomatoes are not floury but sweet and slightly sour. The olives glistening and still bearing a pit! Washed down with some marvellous local white wine my gastronomique journey was set to continue with a canal side picnic of wine, cheeses, chocolate and late night cards. Oh i am pining over the memory already! The next day saw me convince Amelie that a day in Verona with me is worth far more than a day alone in Venice...wow wow wow wow! Verona. Where do i start?

With a terrifying bus ticket buying adventure whereby the lady stared blankly at my request to get to the obscure little township of Pedemonte, followed by a 25 min wait alone in the street, during which i considered strapping my documents and cash to my abdomen for fear of a gang of gypsies cursing me and my bag exploding for not giving them any 'spare' change...what a word..spare...as if...i'm travelling...all my fears were unnecessary as i arrived at my bed minus breakfast (in Italy coffee=breakfast) which was so luxurious and so cheap i was convinced something bad was going to happen, settled in for a recharge night excited about my day ahead exploring the famed city of feuds and romance with Amelie. Verona was the gift that never stopped giving. I got into Flight Centre travel agent mode and planned a fantastic circular route around town visiting every sight the town had to offer a well endowed (map bearing) tourist! We started at Juliet's tomb. After swooping through the museum dedicated to the queen of hearts we descended into the bowels of the earth to explore the deathbed of literature's most famed couple. Love messages were scrawled into the rock, depictions of flames long gone and perhaps enduring...a truly girly awwwww moment! From there we followed the old town walls which are approximately 2000yrs old and in which the Veronese have established cafes, restaurants and offices, into the town centre. Piazza Bra was a feast for the senses. With Verona being the most Roman city in Italy after Rome itself it is not surpirising that a spectacular arena, which is still in use for opera season and holds 20, 000, greeted our smiling faces! From here we headed north to Juliet's house to leave our own messages of love upon its graffitied corridors. Decades worth of love notes pinned to the wall. Layers upon layers of permanent marker scrawled dedications in every language, barely a square inch of blank wall remained! After rubbing Juliet's right breast in the hope of good love it was time to explore the remaining ruins of the Roman gate to the city Porta Leona. A surreal remnant of an ancient time beneath the city, bordered a few metres above by cafes and souvenirs! In a truly educational experience we ventured through to
the Scaligeri palaces, built by one of the feuding families upon which the bard based his magnificent tale, now the location of the Veronese parliament. From here we crossed the river to get a better view of the Ponte San Pietra bridge, historically laden as it was bombed several times. The last time it was destroyed every rock was taken from the bottom of Fuime Adige and it was rebuilt as per the original! Crossing the bridge and climbing miles of stairs between ivy covered houses we discovered an amazing view of the historic town! Our journey south took us through Castelvecchio, a medieval castle built purely as an exercise of opulence by the Scaligero! A quick meal of cheap pasta and white wine finished the day and from there Bologna awaited!

This will be a quick one. Bologna was a downright disappointment! From the amazing experience offered by Verona i arrived to the greyish red concrete jungle that is the university town of Bologna. After discovering the 'charming' bed and breakfast was merely someone's house with a spare room and too much pot pourri housed in a faceless, nameless grey shroud of cement my day just delcined! Everyone was so angry looking. I ate my Ragu for which i came, yes i planned an entire stopover to try real bolognese sauce. And that was it. I sat alone, literally alone, in the restaurant. The food and service were amazing and the sweet wine dirt cheap but heading home in the dark for the first time in my life i was scared. I hurried back through graffiti poisoned streets where gruff looking guys passed me without even a glance...well maybe a glare but that was all. Dark alcoves were unavoidable and i skipped in front of cars simply to get into bed all the faster! The next morning i left Bologna. A ransacked handbag was sprawled at the door.

My disappointment was overshadowed entirely and my every expectation was blown completely out of the water when i got to Rome and back to my old pal! Waiting map in hand, Amelie greeted me with a smile and it was off to the Colloseum! The real deal! 50, 000 spectator capacity, crumbling facade and a 500m queue! Oh mein gott! Nothing could have ever prepared me for such a sight. We entered the arena, the sun glinting softly through the archways. I couldn't move. The sight of the ruined cells and corridors which once housed prisoners beneath the floor of the stadium, waiting to die a most gruesome death. The deathly steep seating, the marble steps worn out in the middle from millenia of stamping feet. I could feel the years of life pressing in on me! Or perhaps it was the tight feeling in my bladder from the lack of toilets. Either way, i was finding it hard to believe my eyes. Frome.hahh get it..rome...from here we ventured past the ruins of the Roman Forum, former CBD of the Roman world! and on to visit the many monuments the marvellous city had to offer by twilight!...it is at this point i take a pause..
Oh mein Gott!! i can't write anymore. If you have read this far i applaud you. If not...your deadded from Facebook.

Fill In The Gaps

Austria! the hills were alive and i thought i was dying most of the time! But for the time that i was alive and kicking i kicked it good! Vienna is a city of wonders! i was, however, disappointed when i IMDBed Tobias Moretti and found out he lives in Munchen and not Vienna...but Komissar Rex disappointment aside i discovered the city in which i want to live! For the first time since leaving home i felt like i was at home! I walked the streets and could imagine myself carrying fresh rolls and cheese up four flights of stairs for breakfast before embarking on a leisurely stroll through the Schwarzwald forest which circles the city...wait that WAS my life for a week or so!! It was crazy! I spent the afternoons battling men dressed as classical composers trying to sell tickets to Mozart concerts while attempting to not let a single drop of my crazy nutty chocolate eis drip on the pavement. Eyes wide, i admired the most amazing architecture, the Sisi and Kaiser apartments, part of the Hofburg palace...yes i said palace, the palace square is also where Hitler first assembled his masses... are in the heart of the city. Crossing the archway from the Kaiser apartments took me to my heaven on earth. The Spanish Riding school! Watching baroque shaped white stallions execute motions one thought only existed in oil paint while listening to Blue Danube in a riding arena built over 300 yrs ago and which was built to accommodate the entertainment needs of the Hapsburg royal empire my heart almost burst! It also happened to house a human bird flying attempt some 100 yrs ago. accounts beyond the gentleman's ascent are hazy! We toured the stables and my chin started to hurt for it was dragging on the floor my mouth was open so long! The stable the stables...the cleanliness...the tack...pieces worth up to $500,000 exhibited as if in a museum. You get the point...i loved it! The come down post Lipizzaner land was tough. But i managed. A ride on the Viennese version of Melbourne's-fantastic-wheel-thing-which-is-so-insignificant-i-can't-even-remember-its-name-in-Docklands. The view was spectacular! A visit to the local castle...yeah just the local one not one of the hundreds sprinkled like chocolate shavings over the flourless chocolate cake that is Austria, was in order. Schloss Schonbrunn, with its meagre 300yrs of history and sprawling lawns was amazing! Literally. My first maze ever. Was so unbelievable! I could just imagine the inbred royal society sprinting madly through the 2m tall hedge labyrinth skirts in hand after so naughtily pinching that handsome cousins rear end screeching....Oh! One will never find me!!! Every corner of the castle and its plot were dripping in opulence. Flowerbeds manicured better than Janice Dickinson's Eyebrows, a Zoological Garten, servants quarters and stables, enclosed within a wall of pale yellow stone all decorated tastefully with gold and all in the city! After a day of exploring such wonders, however, my guts began begging for food! And feed them i did. My first rib experience. I was served off a surfboard sized board and am convinced i ate an entire pig's worth. Along with about a dozen potatoes and the best garlic sauce my polish tastebuds have ever encountered! Washed down with beer i was so satiated that had i died at that moment i would have been smiling. its sick what food does to me. the garlic sauce did come back to haunt me later, though, the audience at the opera did not appreciate the ribs as much as i had!
My Austrian adventures end here as i boarded the train the following morning and headed for what was to be the best adventure of my meagre life! Italia!!!

Auf Wiedersehn for now

Next Please!

Post München landscape was awe inspiring.
It is the kind of area one expects to find two small children left in the woods destroying and eating a poor old lady's porch. Or a burly axe weilding man, crying on a rock after sending a young beautiful girl into the woods instead of murdering her as his orders had been. Yes woods. Real woods with dark green canopy's shielding a damp mossy floor. Wild mushrooms under century old trees. And mountains. Lots and lots of mountains. Snow peaked mountains. Glacier water lakes that looked like a smurf had had a bath...

Our come down from the seizing fit that was Oktoberfest consisted of immersing ourselves into mother nature's wide and comfortable bosom. Welcome to Berchtesgaden. We stayed in a little old bed and breakfast nestled between snow capped mountains, with flower boxes beneath every window, a waterfall beside it and run by a charming old lady with a moustache. A short stroll down steep and winding roads lead us into town where the streets were lined with cafes and restaurants all oozing charm and wafting alluring scents of plums, cream and stewing meat. A hike came first, however, and once the fog had lifted from the lake, a little electric boat transported us into a world unbeknownst to my imagination. Walking can be tiring at such times and no one seems to appreciate this more than the Europeans, hence, gratiously, they had converted an old farmhouse into an Alm on the far side of the lake. The Alm is a feat of human ingenuity. First there were the lush green pastures, then the bright ginger cows, then comes the dairy goodness. I had certainly walked up an appetite...heck even if i hadn't that wouldn't have stopped me from throwing myself face first into the barrels of fresh cheese and bread. Oh mein Gott! I smacked my lips together as i sucked down a fresh krug (handled glass) of butter milk, could hardly breathe as i scoffed on dark rye bread with smoked meat and fresh, soft, white cheese then, when i thought it had ended, what should be thrust into my hand but the traditional stampl of post meal schnapps. Not just any schnapps. Obstler. Clear. Herby and oh so burny! But if it's good enough for the locals it will do for me!! Getting a little drunk somewher one requires their footing is, however, not such a genius plan. It did make the trip home seem slightly shorter and the slippery sheer cliff face rock paths a little less intimidating. Now, after such a trip one can only imagine how hungry we were so a slice of wasp coverd (everything is always surrounded by wasps when it is warm which is something i still struggle with) plum küchen was in order. Time to go shower and prepare for dinner, with a pause to frolic in the fields Julie Andrews being tasered style. Dinner at another warmly lit, meat smelling, culturally infused gasthaus. Venison gulash with spaetzle and wheat beer. Wow!...sorry i need to stop writing here a i have just eaten a pebble of brown grey cheese which tasted like fresh cow poo. radnerkäse. Thanks Alex.

Hmm hmm. Dinner was followed, in the traditional manner once again, with more schnapps, this time far more palatabe pear and apricot but just as burny and powerful. I later found myself drinking from the troughs of mountain water located around town. Not sure if this is something the locals take a shine to or not.
The next morning found us cable-car ing it up to the summit of Jenna where a short but difficult trek took us to the very peak. With the thin air slightly rasping through my lungs and the flocks of europeans and their special walking sticks, termed nordic walking...looks very dicky to me! zing! we finally found our panorama! Could see all the way to the Alps. Felt insignificant.

It is at this point that my disease prone lungs decided they had had enough and a bronchial infection took hold!! Woo! I was taken to a small town in Bürgenland, Austria to recover, where Alan Rickmann's doppleganger made me better. I did, despite my being mostly housebound, experience a true small-town festival in celebration of the ancient art of corn kernel air drying. It was just an excuse to drink white wine spritzers, as this is wine country, and eat more. And eat i did! I thought it would take away my disease. Crepe style pancakes with chocolate nut cream and fruit, rich red gulash and soft bread, and far too many wine spritzers which when combined with german paracetamol (which is twice as strong as the stuff back home but of which fact i was unaware until the effects had worn off) left a bizzare stocking-over-the-lense type sleepy haze in place of normal thought function. I lost a week sleeping and attempting to ooze all the phlegm from my body but have recovered and am currently in Austria where i have been searching for Rex and dining with the Von Trapps.

But the opera is calling my name so i shall reconvene at a later date...which might be much later as i am not sure how Italy is with internet....whether that technology has spread there yet i am unsure...