Retrospective post #3: Venice

Getting a bit slack with putting these up - between moving stuff to Canberra and the Gold Coast and just general lazing about.  But here's the last retrospective post, from Venice.  After this, I will either write some more for Paris and the rest of Italy, or just brush on them in a final wrap-up post :) But for now, here's another:

Took the overnight train from Vienna to Venice, which was certainly an experience!  It was my second overnight train (the first being the Caledonian sleeper from Dundee to London) and I have to say the first one was much more comfortable!  Although to be fair, that type of sleeper wouldn’t have worked well for us because I was in a 2 bed berth and there were 3 of us on this train.  We were in a 6 bed berth, at the very top beds, which were surprisingly high up, especially considering they didn’t have any kind of railing or anything.  Getting on the train wasn’t very smooth - when we booked the ticket Jo had asked about if our 3 big suitcases and other bags would all fit and was assured there would be plenty of room.  However when we got on, we discovered there was actually nowhere to put them, and the conductor guy was (at least at first) fairly unhelpful to the point of seeming annoyed about the situation.  It was pretty stressful for a bit, but luckily the only other person in the same berth who got on at Vienna was a lovely Italian guy, who was happy to move into another berth that had a free bed so that we could store our suitcases on his bed.  After that initial confusion it was alright though.  One thing I love about trains in Europe/the UK is that they almost always have powerpoints on the longer distance trains, meaning I can use my computer for as long as I want and also not have to worry about having it all charged the night before.  So Jo and I watched the Hunger Games and then we all went to bed.  Two other people got on at later stops, but as we had already gone to bed we didn’t really see them until we were all woken up for breakfast.  It wasn’t the worst sleep I’ve ever had, and it was definitely a good way to do the long journey between Austria and Italy with minimal time wastage, but we were pretty tired when we finally made it to Venice!  

When we got to Venice, first we had to leave our bags somewhere, and since it was fairly expensive per bag, we combined all the bags as much as possible, leaving just my backpack - hence why I looked even more like a tourist than all the tourists there!  Anyway then we went and caught the water bus to Piazza San Marco.  That was cool, we hung around and got our first Italian gelato, however we were also pretty glad to leave by the time we did due to all the pigeons.  They were everywhere, and disgusting!! Although even worse than the pigeons were the big seagulls, one of which we saw eating a dead pigeon in the middle of the square!  We were also pretty disgusted by all the tourists feeding the pigeons and encouraging them to land on them so they could take pictures.  

We got left the piazza after not too long, and decided to just slowly make our way back to the train station and then get the next train to Rome.  That was nicer.  It is such a maze!  I don’t think we would have gotten far without a map, but all the little back streets off the main tourist tracks were much quieter and just as beautiful.  It is definitely worth a wander, if you don’t mind feeling a little lost most of the time!  

Eventually made it back to the train station, and so got lunch at a little restaurant nearby while we waited for the next train.  I had a delicious carbonara - the authentic stuff is way better than any I’ve had at home (except of course for my Italian flatmate Rughy’s carbonara!).  We also gave in and bought a piece of nougat to share - every second shop had big pieces of it sitting temptingly on display.  This we ate in the train as we made our way to Rome.

Retrospective post #2: Vienna

A beautiful city, with lots of different but equally as nice styles of architecture all together in one place.  Definitely up on the list of nice looking cities, although Edinburgh still holds number one!  Had a really nice time there, although we didn’t achieve a whole lot in terms of sightseeing.  We got there a day early due to our spontaneous early abandonment of Budapest which gave us 3 full days there.  The first night we got there late, and so went to an Irish pub we found around the corner for dinner.  Gotta love Irish pubs - they’re everywhere and generally pretty reliable for a decent meal.  The downside to the pub, and also just to Austria in general, is that its not illegal to smoke inside pubs and even restaurants.  Which means when you come home from dinner you generally smell quite strongly of smoke :S  

Anyway, we stayed at the Wombats im Naschmarkt in Vienna, which I would definitely recommend!  Probably the best hostel I’ve stayed in to date.  Also in a really good location, right near an S-bahn station and also not too far from the historical centre of Vienna.  The next day we took it pretty slow - sleeping in after our bad night in Budapest, then going shopping for some jeans for Jo, among other things.  We also had Wiener schnitzel for dinner at a place that is apparently famous for their Wiener schnitzel.  They were huge! But also quite delicious :)  See picture below:

The next day we went on a walking tour, which was free - provided by the hostel.  That was quite interesting, particularly in terms of the history of all the beautiful buildings we had walked past.  Things I particularly remember from the tour include the Memorial Against War and Fascism, the Habsburg Palace (most of which is now converted into libraries or the like) and the memorial that was erected during times of the plague (if it has a name I can’t remember it!).  The last one is apparently the only one in Europe on which you will find a monarch in a kneeling position/not in a position of power.  It was erected as a place where people could gather and pray not to get the plague.  There was also a chapel in the Habsburg Palace where the Vienna Boys Choir sings and the Vienna Philharmonic play at mass on Sundays.  Would have loved to have gone to that, but unfortunately we weren’t there on a Sunday, and also you have to get there and line up for at least 2 hours before the mass actually starts, which makes it quite early in the morning!  I would have also loved to have seen a Mozart or Beethoven concert while we were there, but I guess because it was winter which is low season, there only seemed to be concerts on the weekend which weren’t much help to us.  

After the walking tour we went and had a quick peek inside Stephansdom, which is a big church in the centre of Vienna.  Like all the big churches in Europe, it was very ornate and beautiful inside.  Had dinner at a little restaurant recommended by the tour guide as having traditional Austrian dishes, which was quite nice.  I had my third goulash (first Prague then Salzburg) which was pretty good, although I think the tastiest was still the one in Prague.  We also went and had our free drink from the Wombar (the bar in the hostel) before going to bed.  Opted for the wine, which was a very bad choice!  I’ve had goon that tasted better :S Can’t really complain though since it was free!  And it was still definitely the best hostel!  

Our last day was lovely as well.  It was snowing, which luckily I still find magical rather than inconvenient so I was loving it.  We were able to leave our bags at the hostel, and we headed to Schönbrunn Palace.  Took lots of photos there, as well as a few videos of Grace’s snow antics.  

We decided to just walk around outside rather than going in, because being winter as usual stuff was closed.  But I have definitely resolved to go back in summer.  And it was a nice, if not very slippery, walk around outside.  After that and some morning tea we were pretty chilly, so decided to do something inside and warmer.  So we found the English cinema in Vienna and went and saw The Hobbit in 3D.  Then we stopped at a supermarket for supplies, grabbed our bags from the hostel and headed for the station to catch the sleeper train to Venice.

Retrospective post #1: Budapest

Well I suppose every trip has to have its not so great parts, and Budapest was definitely the worst place we’ve been so far.  In saying that, it was quite dependent on circumstances and we ended up only being there for around 24 hours so we may not be the best judges of actual quality.  But based on our brief experience, it definitely would not make it on our top 10 list of places to go back to!  

It started with the hostel.  We got there and checked in, and went up to our rooms.  They were actually quite well set up, with each bunk bed having a big division wall of wood between them and a curtain on to the entrance area.  Not ideal for 3 people, as then one person has to be alone, but if you were 2 or 4 it would have been great.  They also had huge lockers, that I was actually able to fit ALL my stuff into - suitcase, big backpack and Sportsgirl bag!  That was about all that was good about the hostel though.  The beds were fairly uncomfortable and the linen was an off yellow colour that made them seem like they were a little bit dirty.  And to top that off, the guy in the next compartment over spent most of the night snoring the place down.  The bathroom was also pretty gross, the worst part being the showers which were supposed to be button operated but lasted like 2 seconds for every press.  That and the fact that the dorm was mixed with a shared bathroom but there was no private area around the showers to get undressed/dressed.  

The next day didn’t really get much better either.  There was nothing that was overly unpleasant, but of course everything is worse when you’ve had hardly any sleep (and also when comparing it to the loveliness of Austria...).  We went to a supermarket for breakfast, but of course had trouble finding things because we didn’t speak the language.  Did also have a laugh because everywhere on the street there were people shovelling the snow from the footpaths, and then outside the supermarket there was a van full of bread that they appeared to be distributing to a line of people, some of whom were holding snow shovels.  Hence I jokingly concluded that they were paying the people in bread to shovel the footpaths.  Anyway, then we decided to go to one of the baths which Budapest is apparently famous for, experience a bit of culture.  That definitely was an experience!  Firstly just getting there - we were quite unconfident about the public transport so decided to walk, but it had been snowing previously and since none of the roads or paths were salted there was sludgy melting snow everywhere.  Which meant if you happened to be too close to the wrong part of the road when a car drove past, as Grace and Jo found out you get Bridget Jones style splashed from head to toe in dirty melting snow.  They were definitely not happy about that, as you can see below, and we were all paranoid from there on.  

Then we got to the baths.  That was better - they were quite old and beautiful, if not a little run down for the price.  We decided to splurge and get a massage too, which was an experience in itself.  Very glad that they changed one of our original appointments so that we all had women, because when we went in we were told to take everything off - while they stood there and watched.  Pretty sure it was the first time I’ve been completely naked in front of anyone since I was a child!  I didn’t find it so bad because I had expected it and was also pre-warned by Jo as she came out before I went in.  But the fact that she didn’t really turn away or anything was a little disconcerting!  Grace I think had a worse time of it, as she had expected it to be more like home where they tend to leave the room or something and also give you a towel to cover yourself a bit.  She said when the woman turned away to get something she pretty much dove onto the table with her thongs still on, so then was lying there awkwardly trying to kick them off without getting up again. Anyway that was definitely an interesting experience for all of us, and was quite nice.  Well, except for the fact that she worked so hard on my shoulders that they were then sore for the next 3 days.  Still on the topic of awkward nakedness too, there was fairly horrifying sights out in the baths as well - lots of old women in either very revealing or very ill fitting swimmers, who would also then get out and casually strip.  

Anyway when we left we decided that in order to avoid any more snow baths we would get a taxi back.  But this meant we then had to haggle with the taxi driver outside, who wanted the equivalent of about 18 euro for what was a maximum 10 minute drive. Didn’t exactly help maintain any good mood we might have had after the baths!  As a result, when we got back to the hostel we went down to the common area for the internet, then decided to look up trains to Vienna just cos we could.... Which resulted in us realising there was one in 50 mins, so we packed up in about 5 mins and rushed off to Vienna a day early.

Post-travel wrapping up...

So, once again I'm a bit behind!  Funnily enough, I have actually already written a bit more, but I never had internet to put it up at the time of writing.  And now I am once again back in Australia, enjoying the fact that a cool change has gone through making the heat much more easy to adjust to!  So I am going to finish off posting what I've written, then finish with a final post :) Just to explain why I keep posting when I'm not actually away anymore :P  Have to put up the rest of the stuff I wrote, since this blog is my unofficial travel diary!

A Winter Wonderland!

Salzburg = winter wonderland. The best way I can describe it.  Coming into Austria on the train the scenery was beautiful, and Salzburg was just as beautiful.  We weren’t staying in the prettiest area of Salzburg, but the next morning when we woke up and it was snowing, everything looked amazing.  

Sound of Music tour was awesome, but not so much because we were seeing places from a movie, more because we were seeing some beautiful spots, had a hilarious tour guide and listened to a soundtrack that reminded us of childhood on the way.  We also met a lovely Canadian girl called Sophie.  We saw the lake and the gates at the back of Schloss Leopoldskron where Maria and the children capsized the boat in front of the Captain and Baroness first.  That was cool, the edges of the lake were all sluggish and starting to freeze, and three ducks swam past with little drifts of snow on their backs.  Then we went to Hellbrunn Palace where we saw the gazebo from ‘Sixteen Going On Seventeen’.  It was originally at the place on the lake, but so many tourists were jumping the fence day and night to see it/dance around it that they wanted to get rid of it, so it was moved.  Now its also locked, cos apparently a couple of years ago an old lady hurt herself dancing around in it.  Anyway, then we went to Mondsee, which was a gorgeous little town and home to the church where they shot the wedding scenes.  The church was beautiful, though not half as big as it looked in the shots in the movie!  We also had lunch in a little restaurant there - Grace and I tried some Austrian goulash, which like the Czech version was pretty delicious, and Jo and Sophie had Käsespätzle.  We all had tap water too, on the recommendation of the tour guide, and he was right that its definitely delicious water!  Though we were all a bit shocked when they charged us each 50c for a glass of tap water?!  We also drove past the house they used for the von Trapp house in the movie, with the avenue of trees that the children were hanging out of leading up to it.  We weren’t able to get very close to that though, as the road in front is restricted to residents and guests.  And on the way home we watched a video about Salzburg and the Sound of Music, narrated/hosted by a somewhat older Liesl.  Altogether very enjoyable :) Here's a few pics - you can see all the rest on Facebook of course!

In the afternoon we just wandered the streets of Salzburg - had to go and buy a big backpack for me, as unfortunately my suitcase wheel stopped turning in the UK, and as I still had to use it the wheel had worn almost completely down on one side just from dragging it around by the time we got to Salzburg.  So I am now the proud owner of a hiking backpack, which I managed to get on sale.  But its not quite as big as my massive suitcase so I have also had to send a whole bunch of stuff back to Australia - definitely not a cheap exercise! :( Ah well, the joys of travelling I guess!  We also had to stop many times to take lots of snow pictures - it was just so beautiful and I was trying as hard as I could to catch it on camera! Made a wee snowman, checked out the gardens where some of the do-re-mi scenes were filmed... But the other main touristy thing we did in the afternoon was have a piece of the famous Original Sachertorte from the Sacher Hotel, which was very fancy and very delicious.  Sachertorte is basically just a chocolate cake with apricot marmalade and covered in chocolate.  Although the hot chocolate tasted more like warm milk, which was weird but in the end good with the richness of the Sachertorte.  

Anyway after our relatively lazy afternoon we went to the Augustiner Bräu, which is a huge brewery that can seat around 5000 people according to our tour guide.  He also gleefully pointed out that it is both attached to a church and next to a hospital.  It was pretty cool - kinda like a big indoor picnic area as there are just big halls filled with tables, and you go and get your stein of beer served from big kegs and then either bring your own food, or go choose from the wide variety of foods available at the little stall-like shops in one of the area between halls.  Apparently they have really nice big areas outside too when its summer.  We met our new friend Sophie there, and also 4 other Australians that she had met on the salt mine tour she did in the afternoon.  (Note: according to them, if you’re in Salzburg then DON’T do the salt mine tour!).  It was nice to have some company other than each other for a night - you can kinda run out of things to talk about when you hang out with the same people all day every day for a few weeks...  But aside from that, everyone was really cool and we had a really good night.  Had a beer and some dinner at Augustiner, then went to search out the oldest restaurant in Europe.  Turned out they didn’t just serve drinks, and was a very intimidating and fancy fine dining restaurant, so we searched out another bar in the Old Town.  It was quite interesting - it was a little underground and appeared to just be a hole hacked out of rock.  It was also empty except for one guy, and blaring really loud music.  But we all sat down and got a drink, and eventually a massive group of about 40 guys came in.  We stayed for a bit, debating what would cause such a large group of just guys to go out together (buck’s night, sports team...), and after Jo and I chatted with one guy and found out why they were there (not a football team, but a group of football team FANS out for a belated Christmas do?!) we headed to a rooftop bar across the river.  Then after that we headed home.  

We were going to try and do something like the Red Bull hangar the next morning, but then left the hotel and had so much stuff with us that we decided to just head straight to Budapest.  Little did we know... But I will elaborate more on that in my next post, which should be soon as we're on a train all night tomorrow night! :P

Prague!

On the very long train from Prague to Salzburg, which leaves plenty of time for a more in detail recount of Prague.  Hence after not having posted at all for a long time I have now done two within a day of each other!  Unfortunately Hogmanay and Berlin etc didn’t get the same in depth descriptions, but oh well.  I definitely plan on going back to those places at some point.  Prague I could go back to, but I would definitely want to learn at least a few phrases/useful words in Czech first.  I’d forgotten how hard it is to be in a country where you don’t speak the language at all - my only other experience of this was in France on two separate days.  Though to be fair I at least know a handful of words in French, whereas I have not the first clue when it comes to Czech.  

But yeah, regardless of the language barrier, I did quite enjoy Prague.  It’s a beautiful city, probably the second prettiest I’ve been to yet, coming in second to Edinburgh and with Strasbourg in third (note city, because the little villages we saw in Elsass and some I saw on the train through Germany were gorgeous!).  It is remarkably well preserved considering it went through WWII and the following years of Soviet communism.  Did a free walking tour in the morning, from which I learnt the following facts.  There is a concert hall in Prague that is the last remaining building in Europe that Mozart played in live.  They also have a huge astronomical clock that is either 600 or 800 years old (my memory gets a  little fuzzy when it gets down to specifics!) and the largest medieval castle I think in Eastern Europe.... But anyway, there’s a lot of beautiful old buildings all throughout Prague, many of which are a bit run down now but still beautiful.  

The walking tour was really interesting, went through the Old Town and a bit of the New Town with a Czech guy who studied drama therapy at university, so was very enthusiastic and dramatic!  We also saw the Jewish Quarter with lots of synagogues, one of which was a museum that apparently Hitler established and stored items taken by the SS etc to create a museum of an extinct race.  Also saw an old church which has two “creepy and spooky” legends/stories with it.  First is that there was an old rich guy who went to sleep in his study and slept for several days, and so his servants thought he was dead and had him buried in the family crypt.  He then woke up and managed to push the top off his coffin, but couldn’t get the door to the crypt open.  People heard yelling and loud noises from inside and assumed his spirit couldn’t rest, and so the priest took holy water and blessed the door of the crypt, and after a few days the noises stopped.  But not long after another member of the family died, and when they opened the door to the crypt and found the guy sitting leaning on the coffin, with a grimace on his face because he’d died in such distress.  The other story is about a statue of Mary inside the church, which apparently has a beautiful necklace on it.  A thief saw it and decided he’d like to steal it, so he got himself locked inside the church one night.  But when he reached up to take it, the statue grabbed his hand.  So he was stuck standing there with his arm above his head.  He tried bargaining with Mary, but remained stuck there.  When the priest found him the next day, he looked at it and said “We’ll just have to chop the hand off”.  The thief was relieved, until he realised the priest meant his hand.  So now there is a mummified black hand still hanging there - didn’t get to see it properly cos the church wasn’t open, but we peered through the window and could sort of make out a bit of it.  

I also got the impression from the tour guide that the Czech people are very proud of their democracy and their tradition of tendency towards democracy and democratic values even when they were held back from it.  Many stories included past kings who were very liberal about religion and supported science and the arts.  We also heard stories about the Prague Spring when Dubcek introduced “communism with a human face” and also about the students who set themselves on fire in protest when the liberties introduced during the Prague Spring were taken away again by the Soviets.  We also saw the site where there used to stand a huge statue of Stalin with a group of workers behind him.  Unsurprisingly it was blown up around the Velvet Revolution when the Czechs separated from the USSR.  It was actually amazing to remember how new the democracy of the Czech Republic is.  Our guide was saying they have presidential elections in a few days which will be the first (or one of the first?) since they became the Czech Republic.  And he was also saying that one of the potential candidates is a Czech of Germany heritage whose family was made leave all their possessions behind and leave Czechoslovakia back when the Nazis were threatening to invade.  This property included a big palace up on the hill with all the castle buildings.  But he forgave and forgot, and came back to Czechoslovakia to make a career as a politician.

Lots of very interesting stuff, which certainly delighted my inner history/politics nerd.  And we had still more of it in the afternoon, as we decided to go with the same guide on his castle tour that started just after the morning walking tour.  That was pretty cool too, there was a lot to see up there as well, the highlights of which were probably the first courtyard, the big cathedral and Golden Lane.  The courtyard wasn’t particularly finely adorned - the guide described the design as minimalist before minimalism became popular - but it had this awesome little spot which I have put a picture of below:

 

Doesn’t look particularly special, but if you stand in the middle of the circle (where Jo is standing) with your chin up and facing back towards the steps, when you speak it is amplified so that it sounds like you have two speakers on either side of your head.  Though it only sounds like that to you, not to anyone else.  It was pretty amazing, though something that you really have to experience cos you can’t really imagine it.  The cathedral took I think around 100 years to finish buildings, as it was a slow process interrupted by wars and other things.  It was an amazing big structure of Gothic architecture, that strongly reminded me of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh and probably also other churches around Edinburgh too.  This is it below:

It also had lots of big stained glass windows, with the exception of one which was handpainted in art nouveau style.  It is also the place where they store the royal jewels in a  casket which has seven locks and seven different people hold the keys, including the president.  The place where they store it is also along an outer wall, behind a huge mosaic which is made up of more than 1 million little pieces. Tried to get a picture of that too, although it was a little big.  Very impressive though!

Then Golden Lane, which I liked simply because it was so cute.  It used to be servants quarters, and is lots of little houses built into the bottom of what was a very thick wall.  Jo and Grace made me pose next to one of the doors because I was actually slightly too tall for it.  The famous writer Kafka also lived in one of the little houses at one point.  Above the houses you could walk inside the wall, where they displayed suits of armour, and also at one end medieval weapons of torture.  They also had a little gift shop, in which above the door they had a chastity belt! (Though it wasn’t an Everlast :P ).  Had a laugh about that, and of course had to get a picture.

 

We met a nice Canadian guy on the afternoon tour who was doing his masters in Edinburgh, and who strongly reminded me of my Canadian friend Karl from Freiburg!  Also met a couple from Wollongong, who were hilarious.  It was also strange, because the guy reminded Grace and I a lot of our cousin Tim, and we also found out he used to live in the same suburb our cousin currently lives in too!  We had a good laugh with them about the Brazilian guy in the group who would step directly in front of the tablet screen when the guide was showing us pictures, blocking the view of everyone standing behind him.  We also ran into them again not long after the tour which was lucky cos they were able to guide us back to where we needed to go.

Had some Czech food that night, namely goulash served in bread.  It was pretty delicious.  The previous night (just after we’d arrived) we had gone out in search of a place recommended to us by the hostel receptionist, but somehow managed to find ourselves in an Azerbaijani restaurant so ended up sampling some traditional Azerbaijani food.  Easy to do when everything is in Czech!  The Azerbaijani place also didn’t have English menus, but luckily someone there spoke English so he came over and translated the menu for us and gave us recommendations.  

But we’re now in Austria, which I am liking already.  Aside from the fact that its nice being able to read the signs and mostly understand people again, the views from the train were beautiful.  Lots of snow-dusted little villages and a very alpine-y landscape.  Looking forward to exploring Salzburg tomorrow, and Vienna next week.  Will hopefully do a Sound of Music tour tomorrow too! :)

Farewell Scotland, hello continental Europe!

Have gotten a bit slack over Christmas in the blog department, but realistically this is a trend that will probably continue for the rest of my travels.  Who knew simply writing down past events in a not so creative way could be such an effort?!

So anyway, brief run-down of Christmas and Hogmanay....  I think last I wrote was just before I met Grace in Germany.  We were in Germany for 4 days, and we spent pretty much the entire time at Christmas markets - went to the ones in Mainz (which was literally right down the street from the apartment we stayed in), Frankfurt and Wiesbaden.  They were all amazing!  And the last one we went to in Wiesbaden was the best, despite the icy rain for most of it, because I got to catch up with Jasmina! That was lovely, just wish we'd been in Germany a bit longer so we could hang out some more.  But yeah, so far still love Germany - am yet to have a bad experience :)

Had a lovely Christmas at Jo's place.  Got to meet some of her friends, experience a carvery meal, see a wee bit of London (which was dominated by shopping lol), attend our first Christingle service and eat a delicious Christmas dinner.  Then on Boxing Day we headed to Dub and Dee's (again for me, first time for Grace).  It was great to see them again, went for a walk around Elsenham and saw some thatched cottages, went to Anglesey Abbey and had a conservation tour of the house, and spent a few hours in Cambridge.  Both Grace and I have put pictures up on Facebook.

After that we headed back into London and got a bit more stuck into the touristy stuff - went and saw Buckingham Palace, took a walk along the Diana Memorial Walk, went to the Churchill War Room and then headed over to the Tower of London. Unfortunately we wasted so much time trying to find our way around the interrupted tube services in the morning when we got there that by the time we made it to the Tower it was too late to be worth going in.  But we had a look around the outside and took a few pictures.  Just another thing on my list of things to do next time I'm there.  A list that just keeps getting longer the more places I go!  Anyway after that we went and met Jo at Victoria Station and headed to Manchester.

Manchester wasn't very successful in terms of sightseeing, was more of a rest and recuperation stop on the way to Hogmanay.  Quite liked what I saw of it though.  Had one full day there, then headed on to Edinburgh for Hogmanay!  That was great, I remembered how much I love Scotland when I got back there.  Did a few more touristy things like Edinburgh Castle and a tour of some of Edinburgh's underground vaults where the homeless and criminals used to hide out back when being homeless was illegal in Edinburgh. There was also a Wiccan temple (not sure about both spelling and terminology there, but anyway it was a vault that modern day witches now use as their meeting place).  Also got to meet up with Hannah again, which was awesome! And just to top that off managed to beat all odds and find Jenna and a whole bunch of other Dundee people at the crowded street party! Unfortunately didn't manage to catch up with Meredith, Beth, Maria and Calum.  But all  in all Hogmanay was pretty good fun.  Fireworks over the castle looked pretty amazing.

After Edinburgh we ducked up to Inverness for our last two days in Scotland, which was lovely. Just wish we could have had a little more time! Stayed at a lovely little B&B that my parents and also cousins had previously stayed at and highly recommended.  It was also very conveniently located right across the river from the town centre. Inverness itself was lovely. Got some nice pictures of the buildings along the riverside. We did an afternoon tour which included a short cruise across Loch Ness to the ruins of Urquhart Castle. Then had a delicious Scottish dinner at the Hootananny - a pub known for its Scottish music. But I have decided to make a seperate blog (probably on Tumblr this time) where I will now note and describe in more detail all the amazing food I come across :) So I'll try and avoid repeating that now.

Anyway, after bidding a fond farewell to Scotland and the UK, we headed over to Berlin to begin our continental adventures. Spent about 4 full days in Berlin, which was awesome. After my second experience of Germany, albeit a lot shorter one this time, I'm still loving Germany. Public transport is amazing, lots of interesting history, and delicious food. We were a bit laid back, which meant that we didn't fit in as much as we probably could have, but we saw some of the main touristy sights in Berlin, the highlights of which were probably Hohenschoenhausen Prison, the Berlin Cathedral and the dome at the top of the German Reichstag.  Everything we saw was pretty awesome, but those are probably what stood out the most.  The second two in particular offered great views over Berlin, and the prison was fascinating but terrible - atrocities that continued to go on after WWII, just no longer carried out by Nazis.  It was also amazing getting to see bits of the wall and seeing it marked where it used to stand around the city.  The Brandenburger Tor was also pretty cool, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was also really interesting.  Incredibly depressing/saddening information centre underneath it as well.  We also went to see Pitch Perfect at the cinema in Potsdamer Platz, which is where they have the film premieres in Berlin.

Now in Prague, which I will talk about in the next post as I really should be sleeping... But for mum and dad (/any other interested parties) we're headed to Salzburg tomorrow and then Budapest after that :) So that's me done for now - will try not to leave quite as long til my next post this time!