Sarajevo: Scars

As my bus approached the outskirts of Sarajevo, it passed by a building with a gaping hole in the roof. Not far off was another building riddled with bullet holes. Once the bus entered the city itself there were no more damaged buildings, but the scars of war are not something you forget quickly. The Sarajevo bus station is located a ways away from the old city center (where my hostel was located) and I chose to walk the whole way there rather than take public transit. The sun was going down when I started walking and 35 minutes later when I arrived at the hostel it had gotten dark. The only notable thing that happened the rest of that day was that I talked with a guy from New Zealand and he was telling me about archaeologists had unearthed some sort of ancient underground tunnel network a few miles outside the city. He said he visited the site himself and the workers there allowed him to take a look around. Apparently there's some sort of wall/door into the tunnel network that seems to have been built with techniques for more advanced than what should have been around back then and there's strange things going on with the ground. I can't verify if any of this is true, and honestly it sounds like something that would be on that History Channel show Ancient Aliens. Alternatively, it sounds like the premise of a movie like The Mummy. Perhaps there's an ancient evil sealed within the tunnels and we are unwittingly setting it loose on the world. Of course, it's just as likely that the hoopla surrounding this discovery is way overblown and the tunnels are something mundane. It will likely be years before anything conclusive is known. My personal favorite (highly improbable) theory, which I made up myself, is that this is the world's most ancient practical joke, and the people who created the tunnels long ago set it all up just to mess with the people who would eventually find it.

On the following day I did my best to see as much of Sarajevo as possible. Although I didn't get to everything, I saw most of the biggies. Sarajevo sort of reminds me of Zagreb, but with a more eastern spin. This makes sense, of course, because for a long time Sarajevo was controlled by the Ottoman Turks. I started the day at the Sebilj Fountain on Bascarsija Square. The square was all torn up for construction but the water was still running in the fountain. I walked around, doing my best to stay out of the way of the workers, and visited some of the nearby streets that were full of shops selling various goods made of copper. From there I roughly followed a self guided walk from the pages of one of my guidebooks. I stopped briefly into the Morica Han, a former travelers' inn, and then moved on to the Gazi Husrev Bey mosque. The mosque is named for a local administrator from Ottoman times who built up Sarajevo and then willed his fortune to the city to continue building. While inside the mosque I overheard a nearby tour guide tell his group that at this particular mosque all the calls to prayer are prerecorded and then broadcast over the loudspeakers. The reason for this is that the local imam is very old and unable to climb the mosque's minaret. After leaving the mosque I continued west along the main pedestrian road and then turned south the check out the covered bazaar. Nothing caught my eye while passing through and I moved on further south to the Latin Bridge. Right at the bridge is the street corner where Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated, setting off the chain reaction that would lead to World War I. Today there's a plaque that marks the spot where the assassin stood and a museum is on the street corner. I pondered for a few minutes these deaths which sparked a conflict wherein over 17 million people would die, but then I had to get back on schedule. I returned to the main road, and then went north to pay a visit to an old Eastern Orthodox church. After that I passed by the Sarajevo city hall and then walked up to a viewpoint on a hill. Along the way I passed through a graveyard that had been dug during the siege in the 1990s. There were a number of wild dogs in the graveyard but they weren't aggressive. In America there would probably be a public outcry if there was a pack of wild dogs wandering around town, but in Sarajevo no one seemed to care. The dogs were only in one part of town and I would hope there would be some program to get them spayed or neutered, but I really have no idea what, if anything, is being done about them. It was a cold, foggy day in Sarajevo so when I got up to the viewpoint I couldn't see the whole city. Sarajevo is in a valley between mountains with the oldest parts along the river in the middle and then as you look further out from the center the city gets more and more modern. There were a few skyscrapers in the distance that I could barely see through the fog. When I came down I walked over to Sarajevo's Catholic cathedral. There was a school group in there and a priest was telling them something. I assume it was a history lesson on the church. I looked around in there for awhile and next visited the Eastern Orthodox cathedral. The curtains to the back of the church were open, so I could see into the place where the priests perform part of the mass that is normally hidden from the public. Outside the orthodox cathedral is a city park where old men play chess with giant chess pieces. The game that was going on looked like it was most of the way over, so I joined the group of people standing around and watched. I've never been big on chess and don't claim to know much of the strategy behind it. The guy with the white pieces seemed to have his opponent on the ropes, having removed most of the black pieces from the board, but the other guy rallied and mounted a comeback before finally being outmaneuvered and forced into checkmate. With the match over and a new one about to start, I left the park and passed through a market hall and then a covered outdoor market. I didn't buy anything, but some of produce did look good. I kept going west and came to the eternal flame; one of several war monuments scattered across the city. The flame is in an outdoor alcove of a building with bullet holes that have intentionally never been repaired. Scars like these serve as a reminder of the siege, the longest in modern history, and the people who died in it. Down the street, past the Bosnian central bank, is a park with more makeshift graves from the siege and another war monument. At that point in the day I stopped my sightseeing. There were a few more things farther west in the city that would have been interesting to see, but I had gone through all the things I really wanted to do. That is, except for conducting more "research." I had passed by a McDonalds while walking around town and was really curious to give it a try. To my delight, the burger I got at the Sarajevo McDonalds was fantastic. I guess I shouldn't be surprised - Bosnian cuisine has a lot of meat in it so it would make sense that the Sarajevo McDonalds would use quality beef. After leaving McDonalds I slowly walked back to the hostel, taking in the city as I went. At the hostel I spent some time blogging and looking up potential hostels for down the line. Later that night a group of people staying at the hostel invited me to come along for dinner. Some of them were going to one restaurant in the Austrian part of the city and two of them were going to a place in the old Turkish quarter. The restaurant in the Turkish area sounded more interesting, so I went with those two people. We found the restaurant and ate a traditional Bosnian dish, which was meat wrapped in some sort of thin, flaky bread. We chatted for awhile about our respective travels, so I got to eat Bosnian food and practice being sociable. Back at the hostel I did some more work online and packed my backpack for the departure the next day.

The next morning I had to get up early for my flight to Istanbul. The hostel staff called and arranged for a taxi to pick me up and take me to the airport. If I had hailed a taxi myself of the street there's a decent chance the driver would have overcharged me, so I was appreciative of the hostel staff making sure I got a fair price for my ride. My driver spoke a little bit of English and a tried to converse as best I could using simple words and phrases. At the airport I had a few Convertible Marks left over and was hoping to spend them at the airport store, however everything there was for sale in euros. Thankfully the cafe was taking them and I bought a pair of sandwiches to eat later in the day. My last few "cents" I dropped in a charitable donation box. Soon enough, the plane to Istanbul arrived and I boarded. As I looked out the window I felt bad that I didn't have more time for Sarajevo, but then again I now have a reason to go back one day. The plane taxied around the airport onto the runway. Then it lifted off into the sky and I left Bosnia behind. Next in line was the finale of my time in the east: Istanbul.

Mostar: Cultural Bridge

I'm currently at my family's house, but I'll still update the blog when I can.

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I had passed through Bosnia while traveling between Split and Dubrovnik, and now it was time to actually stay there. From Dubrovnik my bus followed the coastal highway back towards Split but after awhile turned north and crossed into Bosnia. Since I had departed Dubrovnik in the late afternoon, it was nighttime when I arrived in Mostar. The rain was coming down and the ticket office had already closed for the day, so I would have to come back the next day to buy a ticket to Sarajevo. My hostel in Mostar was only a short walk from the bus station, but at night and in the rain it felt longer. The hostel itself was really nice and felt more like I was staying in someone's home. Despite the rainfall I ventured back out into the city and walked down to the area around the old bridge. Hardly anyone was walking around that night; understandably so. I got a few photos of the old bridge before returning to the hostel, at which point I was thoroughly soaked. A few of the other people at the hostel commended my fortitude but also said I was crazy for wandering around in the rain with no umbrella (I was wearing my shell jacket, but that was the only piece of waterproof clothing on me). Perhaps they were correct, but I was only staying a single night in Mostar, so I couldn't wait for the weather to improve.

The next day I had until the mid afternoon to see Mostar. Because I was only interested in checking out the bridge and the old town area around it, this wasn't a problem. Certainly there's more than that to see in Mostar, but it is the highlight of the city. I got some money from the ATM (in Bosnia the currency is called the Convertible Mark, and the abbreviation is BAM, which I found hilarious) and bought my bus ticket to Sarajevo. Back down at the old bridge I was able to find my way down to a better viewpoint than the night before, and while getting photos I got to see one of the town's famed bridge divers take the plunge. Mostar's bridge was originally built during Ottoman times but was destroyed in the 1990s during Bosnia's war of independence. After the war it was rebuilt using the same stonework as before and is again a symbolic bridge between eastern and western cultures. The city of Mostar itself is something of a cultural melting pot, with Catholic churches, Eastern Orthodox churches, and Muslim mosques dotting the city. When I finished at the bridge I spent some time wandering around the old town. Along the way I made a fortuitous discovery of an ice cream stand that accepted Croatian kuna, so I got to use up all but one of my leftover kuna... and eat ice cream. I also walked through part of the more modern section of Mostar, which is much like other European cities, except some of the buildings were used as sniper nests during the war. With some more walking I eventually wound up back nearby the old bridge and did some reading there, and even talked with a British couple whose photo I took for them. I looked down at my watch and saw that it was time to head over to the bus stop. When I got there I sat down in the back (all the other seats were filled) and waited for departure. Just before the bus was about to leave an elderly man came running up to the bus and got on. He moved to the back and sat down next to me, and proceeded to hurriedly tell me something. Since I don't speak Bosnian, I have no idea what he said, but I'm guessing it was a long story about what happened that caused him to nearly miss the bus. Part of me was flattered that he mistook me for someone who speaks Bosnian. Or, then again, maybe he was just being old and senile. Whatever the case, I just nodded my head and pretended that I understood. After a few minutes he calmed down stopped talking. All the while the bus was winding its way through the mountains and valleys of the Bosnian interior. Final destination: Sarajevo.

Dubrovnik & Montenegro: The Two Citadels

For my final few days in Croatia I stayed in the city of Dubrovnik. The bus ride to Dubrovnik from Split followed the scenic coastal highway. As some of you know, Croatia does not control the entire stretch of the Dalmatian coastline and the bus had to pass through the small strip of land owned by Bosnia. This awkward piece land ownership goes back hundreds of years to when Dubrovnik was an independent republic. There was a massive earthquake (I think it was in 1667) and the city was so badly damaged that the leaders of the republic were concerned that the Venetians might seize the opportunity to march in and take over. To prevent this, the republic cut a deal with the neighboring Ottoman Empire and gave them that little patch of land to form a buffer zone and discourage Venice from getting any ideas. Dubrovnik and Croatia never got the land back and today it's owned by Bosnia. Thankfully when you pass through that stretch of Bosnia there's just a token passport check, so it's not a big inconvenience. The bus station in Dubronik is next to the modern harbor, (where the bigger ships dock) so upon arrival I caught a city bus to the old city. My hostel was within the city walls, near the north end of the old city, which meant I had to go up some stairs to climb to get to it. With the few hours I had remaining that first day I walked around town and got photos of much of the old city. The weather forecast called for possible rain over the next two days so I wanted to grab some photos while to town was still dry.

I lost some sleep going into the next day because another person's phone alarm went off early in the morning and they weren't in the room to turn it off. I had hoped it would just stop on its own but after a few minutes it was clear that it was just going to keep going so I got up and took the liberty of turning it off myself. It would around 9:30am when I would leave the hostel and I was pleased to see no rain clouds overhead and the forecast had adjusted to just rain the next day. I went over to the city walls entrance near Ploce Gate and went up the walls. By this time of day the tour groups had arrived in town and I would have to deal with them. The city walls offer a great view of Dubrovnik, though it seems that the tour groups tend to do only about half the length of them. It was a fairly warm day but it felt warmer on the walls. There's almost no shade or cover up there and from what I'm told, the stone traps and reflects back heat such that during the summer it can be like an oven up on the walls. I did a full circuit of the the city walls. If you just walk and don't stop it takes about an hour to walk the whole length, but I was stopping frequently for photos, so it was just after noon when I finished up and came back down. The tour groups also slowed me down and a number of times I had to wait for them to pass so I could get some room to maneuver. I returned to Dubrovnik's main street, called Stradun, and got some ice cream. After that I visited the Serbian Orthodox Church, which was the first Eastern Orthodox Church I visited during my time in Europe. It was small, but I recognized the iconography from the brief bits of eastern church history I learned back in high school. Next I went over to the fort of St Lawrence, which is just outside the city walls. My entry ticket to Dubrovnik's city walls included entry to the fort and I spent some time in and around it. There's very little of interest inside the fort but it does have a good view of the city. As it was looking out on Dubrovnik it occurred to me that maybe I should have watched an episode of Game of Thrones before coming to Europe. I know that Dubrovnik it used for one of the cities in the show, but having never watched it, I don't know what to look for. When I was done with the fort I returned to the hostel to do some photo uploads to social media and later in the day I got on the gondola up to Mt. Srd, a tall hill overlooking the city. During the siege of 1991 Mt. Srd was the only high ground held by the Croats. There's a large stone cross up there which replaces another one that was blown up during the siege. I got photos of Dubrovnik and the surrounding area as the sun was going down and then took the gondola back down to the city. With that I had largely finished all my Dubrovnk sightseeing, and there were still 1.5 days left before departure. I could have just sat around but instead I got a ticket to be part of a tour group visiting Montenegro the next day. Normally I would organize this sort of thing myself via public transit (and if you've read the previous blog entries you've probably noted that I don't much care for tour groups) but getting to and from Montenegro by bus or train was looking problematic, so this would be a significantly easier option.

The next day the rain finally appeared. It was raining when I woke up and it didn't stop at any point during the day. The tour bus to Montenegro was scheduled to leave a hotel outside the city walls at 7:30am so I got up early and did my best to be stealthy and not wake up the other people in the room. The tour would take me and the other people in the group into Montenegro and then across the Bay of Kotor to the town of Budva, and then to the town of Kotor before driving around the Bay of Kotor and back to Dubrovnik. It was about a two hour ride to Budva and along the way the tour guide gave an abbreviated history of the region. I was intrigued to learn that Montenegro uses the euro for its currency, though it didn't get permission from the EU authorities to do this. On one hand their economy is fairly stable being tied to the euro, but on the other hand the government can't print any money. When we got to the Bay of Kotor the bus drove onto a car ferry and while crossing the water I stood outside the bus taking in the scenery. The Bay of Kotor is a lot like a fjord, though technically it's not a fjord due to the lack of glaciers. I got some photos but it would have been nice if it was a clear day. On the other side of the bay, we drove to Budva, a seaside town. Budva is an up and coming resort town with a small old town and lots of new buildings going up in the modern part of the city. With Croatia having been thoroughly discovered and developed for tourism, it seems Montenegro is the next country in line on the Adriatic Sea to get the tourism nod. I can only imagine the travel snobs lamenting how Montenegro is getting "discovered" but they can console themselves by telling everyone about they went to Montenegro before it was cool to do so. Personally I didn't find Budva very interesting. Being a rainy October day, there wasn't much of anything going on in either the old or modern parts of the town. With the summer over, many of the businesses were either shut down or operating on minimal schedules. There wasn't anything notable about my time in Budva and when the time came I returned to the bus. Thankfully Kotor was much better. Although the continual rain put a drag on the experience, I found Kotor very interesting and I hope to one day go back and spend a night or two there. Kotor is similar to Dubrovnik in that they are both fortress cities that still have their old walls. However, Kotor's walls run right up the mountain next to the city. If it hadn't been raining I would have climbed them. We got a forty minute guided tour of the old town and then afterwards we had an hour of free time before departure. Like Dubrovnik, Kotor has both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, so you can do some comparisons between the two styles. Perhaps the most notable thing in my mind was how the Eastern Orthodox churches didn't have any pews, as their masses are normally done with everyone standing. I tried to explore as much as I could, but the rain had me stopping several times to get indoors for a few minutes to dry out. Despite my best efforts, I was thoroughly drenched when I left Kotor. The bus ride along the Bay of Kotor was, like the ferry ride, scenic even with the rain. When we got back to the Croatian border we ended up stuck for an hour. As best as I could tell, the Croatian border cops were understaffed and there was a long line of cars and buses that moved very slowly. It was dark and still raining when I arrived in Dubrovnik. I went straight to the hostel and started drying off as best I could. There were no more expeditions that days; I had gone through enough rain for the day.

The next day I didn't have to be at the Dubrovnik bus station until 4:00pm. I checked out of the hostel in the late morning and left my backpack behind. With my primary sightseeing in Dubrovnik already finished, I passed the time visiting some smaller sights like the Dominican monastery. I also walked out to the port and then to the breakwater. Although it wasn't raining, the storm clouds were still passing overhead and the waves were larger than usual. I saw a few other tourists get wet from these waves, which on one hand is funny, but on the other hand that happened to me once, so I know it's not amusing for the one getting wet. As I walked around Dubrovnik I was also trying to plan out how I would use up the last of my kuna. I needed to save a few to store my backpack in the luggage compartment of the bus but I wanted to try to use up the remainder as well. A spare kuna or two would be ok as a souvenir, but more than that seemed like a waste. After some thinking I thought I had it figured out. Passing by the St Blaize Column, I saw some people dressed in traditional outfits and putting on a folk dance performance. I spent some time watching that and then returned to the hostel to make use of the internet one last time. 4:00pm eventually came and when it did I was at the bus stop. Surprisingly, the bus was charging one euro for luggage rather than the standard seven kuna, so my scheme to use the last of my kuna on the bus came to nothing. Granted, seven kuna is roughly one dollar, so it wasn't like I was wasting a lot of money, but I was feeling strangely defeated at that moment. But I also knew that there were far worse fates than wasting a dollar, so I just paid the one euro and got on the bus. I was going into Bosnia for a few days, and my first stop was the city of Mostar.

Split: Rematch

There was a large guy sitting next to me on the bus from Zagreb to Split, so I was feeling cramped for much of the ride. I arrived in Split, which is on Croatia's famous Dalmatian coast. And no, it's not full of dalmatian dogs like the ones from that Disney movie. The bus arrived in Split just before 7:00pm. I was staying at the hostel I lodged in the last time I was in Split, which is in a pink house just up the street from one of the city's beaches. Like Zagreb, Split felt very familiar and I remembered the way to the hostel, even though it was getting dark. When I got to the front door I rang the bell. The hostel manager, a woman known as Ladybird, answered the door. "I have returned" I said. "So you have" she replied. Given how many people pass through the hostel each year, I was impressed that she remembered me, but then again I was probably a more memorable visitor, as the last time I was in Split I cut my foot open and had the pleasant experience of digging sand out of my own flesh. In an interesting turn of events, I got the exact same bed as the one I had the last time, (downstairs, next to the bathroom, lower bunk) which makes it officially a legacy bed. After I got settled in and ate dinner, I joined a small group of other guests who were playing a game of Mafia. For those that don't know, Mafia is a group game that splits people into two groups: mafia and townspeople (and each person knows what they are but doesn't know what everyone else is). There are many variants and house rules that people have developed over the years, but the basic idea is that the mafia are trying to kill the townspeople and the townspeople are trying to identify and kill the mafia. Good times were had by all, even the one guy who kept getting killed at the start of each game. As the day ended I looked ahead to the next two full days I would be in Split. Like Zagreb, I was returning to Split not so much for sightseeing but for a very specific mission. In this case, it was a rematch of sorts. The last time I was in Split I went for a swim and ended up losing some blood. This time I was going to go for a swim but I didn't intend on giving this city a single drop.

The city of Split only has a few historical attractions and is something of a laid-back beach town, so there's little reason to get up early. On my first full day the weather was gloomy most of the time with gray clouds covering the sky. I passed by the beach and went over to the area around the old town, which used to be the retirement palace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. After the western part of the Roman Empire collapsed, nearby peasants moved into the now-abandoned palace and converted into a small town out of which the modern city of Split would eventually arise. As I came up to the palace I checked out the outdoor market that was going on and then passed through the palace on my way over to a hill that overlooks the city. I don't remember the name of this hill, but it has a lot of stairs to get to the top. There's a few small chapels up on the hill, which appear to be abandoned but I'm not sure about that. Before I reached the top I also passed by the small zoo that's up there. At the highest point of the hill is a flat area with a flagpole. The view of the city is fairly good, however it's much better for just a view of the greater region around the city. You can take in the dry, rocky landscape that characterizes much of this part of Croatia. Rather than come back down the way I came, I decided to hike down the other side of the hill. This took me down an offroad trail and I honestly don't exactly know where I was because I was beyond the range of my map. I was never truly lost, as I knew the general direction I needed to go to get back to the main part of Split, but I didn't know what to expect as I walked around back there. Eventually I got on one of the main roads and made my way towards the harbor. By the time I got there, quite a few hours had gone by (since the start of my initial climb up the hill) and it was already the late afternoon. I stayed in the harbor area a little while and then walked back to the beach near the hostel. There were a few people there, including some guys playing the official sport of Split. I don't know the name of the sport, but the idea is that you have a team of five guys standing in the shallow part of the water and they hit a small ball back and forth to each other with their bare hands. The objective is to keep the ball from touching the water for as long as possible. Also I think there's a rule that you must wear a speedo, as all the guys were wearing them, but then again maybe that's just because it's Europe. Apparently each summer Split hosts an annual tournament for this game. When I returned to the hostel I chatted with some of the other guests before picking up some food from the grocery store and eating dinner. The rain started to come down around then, so I didn't go for a night walk around the old town.

I had expected the bad weather to continue into the next day, so I was surprised to wake up to sunshine. Realizing that it would only last for a few hours, I quickly got ready for the day and then went down to the beach. I spent ten or so minutes lying out in the sun and then it was time for my rematch. The water at this particular beach in Split stays shallow for much further than you'd expect, so you have to walk a ways out before the water level gets above your waist. The water itself was a little cold but nothing I couldn't handle. If I was in Split in July or August the water would have been warmer, but I was there in October so no warm water for me. When I got far enough out I took the plunge and started doing laps up and down the beach area. I passed by the pillars in the water that gave me trouble last time. They're covered in clams/muscles with sharp edges, which is how I slashed my foot last time, so I avoided them this time. My swimming was the most workout (upper body wise) I had gotten since the start of the trip and when I finally came out I was tired, but felt like a winner. No foot injury and no blood loss equaled successful rematch in my book. I returned to the hostel to clean up and afterwards got a meal at a seaside restaurant. In western Europe I normally avoid sit-down restaurants because of the cost, but in eastern Europe they only cost a fraction of what they do in the west. Also I normally don't like to spend time just sitting around, but on this occasion a long victory meal was in order. As I ate the clouds moved back in and it started to rain, but I didn't care since I had already gotten my beach time in. The rest of the afternoon was spent back at the hostel, talking to people, doing laundry, and working on the guest computer. The rain finally stopped after dinner and I was able to do a walk through the old town before going to bed.

The next morning I had a few hours before my bus was scheduled to depart to get in a few bits of sightseeing. I paid a visit to the St Dominus Cathedral, which might be the tiniest cathedral on earth. It used to be the mausoleum of Emperor Diocletian but it got converted to a church in the medieval period. Nearby is the St John (Baptist) baptistery, which was once the temple of Jupiter. At the baptistery, and many other places across Europe, I couldn't help but notice all the coins people throw away, and part of me wishes I had an industrial strength magnet to recover them. The final sightseeing item I did in Split was to climb the cathedral's bell tower. As I was up there surveying the city, it occurred to me that I really don't know exactly what it is about Split that I like, but I do hope to keep coming back to it from time to time. I came down the tower, went back to the hostel for my backpack, said goodbye to Ladybird, and then walked over to the bus station. Next in line was my final Croatian city: Dubrovnik.

Zagreb: Stone and Water

After being gone for nearly a week in the San Francisco area, I am back and once again slowly grinding out these travel log posts. Now, where were we?

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It was a scenic bus ride for most of the 3.5 hours between Rovinj and Zagreb. When I arrived it was late afternoon. Zagreb was exactly as I remembered it from my last visit and I hardly used the map as I made my way from the bus station to my hostel, which was two blocks off of the main square. As the capital of Croatia, Zagreb has a much more modern look than some of the other major cities in the country. Even the older parts of the city don't feel that antiquated. For an evening meal I went to a fast food place that I had ate at on my last visit, though I think the shop went by a different name back then. Maybe it's not the same shop, and it actually was replaced by the current one. Anyways, this place specializes in french fries with chicken nuggets and other things. Back at the hostel I made arrangements for a day trip to Plitvice Lakes National Park for the second full day in Zagreb. My throat was still bothering me and would continue to do so for the whole duration of my time there.

Clouds and rain moved in the next day. It was like the weather was trying to mirror my health. I knew that I just had to wait it out with my throat problems, but that didn't make it any less unpleasant. My energy felt a bit sapped, but that wasn't much of a problem because I didn't plan on doing too much sightseeing in Zagreb. That wasn't a judgment against Zagreb itself - the city is a nice place - but from my last visit I knew what the city had to offer and there was nothing I was dying to see. The main reason I was in Zagreb was for my day trip the following day to Plitvice Lakes. Still, even with my sickness and lack of motivation, I did a decent amount of sightseeing on the first full day. In the morning, after buying food and some cough drops, I went over to the main square and checked out the market that had been set up there. Outdoors was mostly produce and indoors was mostly meat and cheese and a little seafood. It's rare for me to actually buy food from these markets but I always like visiting them. As it got close to noon I walked over to St Mark's Square as I had read that on some Saturdays there is a mini changing of the guard ceremony. I got there late, so I don't know if I missed the ceremony or if it wasn't being done on that particular day. The church on St Mark's Square has a colorful roof with the national and city emblems on it, though the church itself is closed to the public. Apparently the priest who administers the church does not want to deal with the hassles that come with tourism, which I can understand, even though it would be nice to be able to take a look inside. The Croatian national parliament is also on St Mark's Square, though it too is not open to the public. I think I only saw two or three cops on patrol outside the building, so it struck me as under-defended, but maybe there's more security than I could see. When I finished at the square I went over to the nearby Museum of Naive Art. In this case, Naive Art refers to art done by Croatian peasants with no formal art training. Most of them were poor and painted on glass, which was more available to them than standard canvas. There's also a lot of winter scenes in their paintings because the rest of the year they were busy working their farms. The museum itself isn't very big so I was done in half an hour and then I walked east, passing through a stone arch and by the altar of Mary that's in the small tunnel connecting two of the main streets (sorry, I know these descriptions won't mean much to most of you). A few people were praying at the altar and it reminded me of how Croatia is still a majority Catholic nation, which contrasts with the largely secular western Europe. With a bit more walking I came to the Zagreb Cathedral. The last time I was in Zagreb the city was doing restoration on one of the cathedral's towers and while the work still wasn't finished, I could see that they had made progress. Outside the church there's an exhibit showing how badly the stonework of the church has been eroded over the years and what the restored exterior will look like. Part of Zagreb's old city wall is also next to the cathedral, along with a large clock that was stopped at the moment the 1880 earthquake struck the city. In some of the crannies of the wall there were Legos that were filling the gaps. I'm not sure if it was some sort of art project or just people messing around. Inside Zagreb Cathedral it was fairly dark until someone turned on the church lights. On one of the walls near the exit you can see a strange looking inscription that looks like some sort of alien language. It is actually written in Glagolitic, a script created around the 9th century AD, probably by the missionaries Cyril (the same guy who created the Cyrillic Alphabet) and Methodius. Since the Slavic languages eastern Europe had sounds that didn't match up the the standard Latin-based alphabets, Glagolitic and other scripts were created. These days Glagolitic isn't used, but it's considered an important part of Croatia's national history. Once I was finished at the cathedral I returned to the main square and saw that some sort of ceremony was taking place. I couldn't tell what it was for, but based on the emblems being flown and all the guys in wheelchairs, I'm guessing it was a tribute to wounded soldiers. A folk band and choral group performed and speeches were given. I started feeling really sick after a few minutes and returned to the hostel to sit down for awhile. When I was feeling better I went back outside and did one final bit of sightseeing by walking along the "Green Horseshoe" of parks, which is a long series of parks that look like a large U when viewed on the map. Along the way I passed through a small botanical gardens. Back at the hostel I researched and made reservations for some of my upcoming hostel stays in Spain and printed out directions to the next several hostels I was going to be staying in. I also got some blogging done and uploaded photos to social media. It struck me then that, for a vacation, I seemed to be doing a lot of work. That night I went to bed hoping that rest would do me some good, but I had a bad feeling about how the night was going to turn out.

As feared, that night was miserable. I got very little sleep and kept having to get up every hour to use the bathroom. There was no stealthy way to exit the room, so I probably woke up the others repeatedly that night. When morning finally came, I remember looking in the mirror and seeing bloodshot eyes staring back at me. I was tired and felt awful, but I had a trip to Plitvice Lakes planned and nothing short of being hospitalized was going to keep me from following through with it. To get to the bus station rode the tram and once there I found the bus and got on. It was about 2.5 hours to the lakes and during the ride the bus passed through parts of the Croatian interior still scarred by the war in the 1990s. If you go through there you'll see a normal looking house and next to it will be an abandoned house with bullet holes and sections of the walls or roof blown out. From what I've read, most of the derelict houses belong to Serbians who fled the area during the war and have never come back. When the bus reached Plitvice Lakes National Park, it dropped me and everyone else off on the road, towards the west end and Entrance #2. My plan was to start hiking at the trailhead at Entrance #1, so I had to ride the park shuttle and then do some walking to get there. At Entrance #1 I made my way down a series of switchbacks down to the water. I had seen photos and video of Plitvice Lakes in the past, but being there is something else. When you're not on a regular trail you're on these wooden walkways directly over or next to the water, so you get real close to the scenery. There are also no guardrails on the walkways over the water, but they're wide enough that I never felt in danger of falling in. I went over to the largest waterfall, called Veliki Slap and climbed up alongside it to an overwatch point. Not too many people make the climb, so I was by myself for most of the time I was up there. When I came down I followed the "B" route, which was supposed to take about three to four hours to hike. You could probably do this route in a little less time than that, if you can somehow stop yourself from pausing to take photos. I seemed to be stopping every few minutes, as every turn of the path yielded another great photo opportunity. Plitvice Lakes has the highest concentration of streams, lakes, and waterfalls I've seen anywhere. The water is also very clear and full of calcium carbonate, which explains much of the rock formations in the park. As I hiked along the trail I photo-bombed a group of middle-aged Asian women who were taking a group photo. Another item checked off the bucket list. The trail moving west from Entrance #1 towards Entrance #2 is uphill, but easy. Personally I think this is the better way to do it, because if you're moving east then you'll keep having to turn around to see the waterfalls. After some hiking, I came to the boat landing P3 and caught a boat across the largest lake to the landing at P2. At this point I was near the end of the B route but I still had over an hour before I needed to leave the park and go to the bus stop, so I looked at the map and decided to loop north around two of the upper lakes. There weren't as many people hiking around the upper lakes region as the lower lakes. I hiked past the two lakes and a large waterfall, up to an intersection with another trail going even farther north. If I had more time I would have kept going but by then I needed to start making my way back. I arrived back at the P2 boat landing and got on a boat to P1, which is near Entrance #2, and from there walked to the bus stop. Generally it's not advisable to be doing lots of physical exercise when you're sick, but in this case I was feeling better overall when I left Plitvice Lakes. My throat wasn't bothering me so much, though my nose was running a lot. Back in Zagreb I was able to get to bed at a decent hour and slept a lot better than the night before.

My bus to Split wasn't scheduled to leave until 2:00pm the next day, so I slept in and after I got up I didn't leave the hostel until the late morning. I made use of the guest computer to publish a blog post, print my travel visa for Turkey, and book a pair of hostels for my upcoming time in Spain. With the little time I spent outside the hostel I went up the Zagreb Eye, which is an observation deck on a tower on the main square. The guy operating the tower's elevator asked me where in the United States I was from, and I told him Colorado. I don't know if it's funny or if I should be concerned, but the first thing he knew about Colorado was how we had decriminalized marijuana. After getting some photos from the observation deck, I came down and got a meal from a place nearby. Then I went back to the hostel for my backpack and went over to the bus station. It was time to head to the Dalmatian coast.

Rovinj: Transition

To say the ferry ride from Venice to Rovinj was bumpy would be a severe understatement. I'm not sure if we passed through a storm or if it was just the nature of that part of the Adriatic Sea, but the boat was bobbing more dramatically than any I've been on. It took about 2.5 hours to reach Croatia and the sailing got a lot smoother once the boat was back in coastal waters. Before arriving in Rovinj, the boat stopped at another town on the coast and there was an ambulance waiting at the dock. A guy was put on the stretcher and then everyone else who was getting off at that town exited the boat. After that it took fifteen minutes for the boat to reach Rovinj.

The town of Rovinj is in the region of Istria, which is towards the northern end of Croatia's long coastline. The city has an Italian feel to it, which is probably due to the fact that it was part of the Venetian republic for a long time. For me, Rovinj marked a major point in my journey as I transitioned from western Europe to eastern Europe. When I arrived in Rovinj it was already dark so I couldn't see much. I was staying at a room I had found on Air BnB and my host met me at the ferry dock. He walked me over to the room, which was inside Rovinj's old city and gave me some basic information of the neighborhood. Nothing else happened the rest of the night. Most everything was already closed so I would have to wait until the next day to get to work.

The next day there was a lot to do, and much of it was not sightseeing related. That said, the old city of Rovinj can be seen in just a few hours, so there was no real issue. One of the main things I had to get done was to purchase a bus ticket for the following day to Zagreb. While in much of Europe I normally travel by train, in Croatia the train network is more limited and buses generally are the better way to travel. To buy the bus ticket I also needed to get some money from the ATM, as Croatia does not use the euro. On the plus side, the Croatian national currency, called the kuna, is worth much less than the euro or the dollar and everything is cheaper in Croatia than in western Europe. This was especially welcome after my time in Venice, which financially was akin to me setting my wallet on fire. Once all the necessary mundane work was done, which was around 1:00pm, I finally got started on exploring Rovinj. I started at a parking lot, of all places, outside the old city walls which has a great view of the old city. Nearby it is a monument from the old communist days, recalling the time when Croatia was part of Yugoslavia. There's also an outdoor market out there. I took a little time to peruse the stalls and noted that oils were the most common ware being sold, so maybe they are a local specialty. From the market I followed Garibaldi Street to the "Square at the Bridge," which is not so much a square as it is a confluence of several streets. From what I understand, there used to be a waterway dividing the old city from the surrounding land and Square at the Bridge is where the bridge over the water was located. Further south is Tito Square, which as a water fountain that commemorates when the city finally got running water. From there I entered the old city under the Balbi Arch; a former city gate. At the top of Rovinj's old city is the St Euphemia church and after checking out the church I climbed the bell tower. The stairs in the tower are not so much stairs as they are wooden slots sticking out of the walls and they can at times be tricky to climb and descend. When I came down and finished with the church I went down the northwest side of the city to a path above the water. I passed by a rocky area where a few people were lounging by the sea. After walking around the old town some more, I went back to my room and then went for a bike ride on the bicycle my host had let me borrow. Like the one I borrowed in Amboise, the bicycle was not in the best shape, but I wasn't going to argue with a free bike ride. I followed the coast for awhile and then turned onto a bicycle trail that went through a forest/park. Some distance up the trail I decided to turn back and then I rode the bike all the way back to the room. By then it was time for dinner. Later that night I walked around town, though Rovinj doesn't have much going on after dark. The day ended and I felt like I had gotten done everything I wanted to.

I slept in until 9:00am the next morning. My bus wasn't until 1:45pm and there wasn't anything urgent left to do in Rovinj, so there was no need to hurry. My host didn't have anyone reserving the room that night and I took my time getting ready for the day. After packing up and cleaning the room, I spent my last bit of time in Rovinj walking through both the newer and older parts of the city. While I was out I also got some medication for my throat, which had started to bother me in Venice but had now turned into a standard sore throat. On my last trip I had gotten sick briefly in Milan, so with this ailment I guess I created a tradition of getting sick while overseas. I also visited St Euphemia one more time before leaving, and then went back to my room, got my backpack, and walked over to the bus station. The little town of Rovinj had taken me in and welcomed me to the east. Ahead was Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.

Venice: Dream's End

The train from Padova to Venice was packed so I had to stand for most of it, but was a short ride so I didn't mind. On arrival I noted how much better the Venice train station was looking compared to three years ago. When I came to Venice last time, the station was a chaotic mess due to renovation work being done on it and I had a hard time getting my next transit connection set up. This time everything seemed to be in order, however I wasn't going to be leaving Venice by train, so it really didn't matter. The hostel I was staying at was just beyond San Marco Square. Looking at the map it didn't seem like it's that far away, but I had forgotten just how long it takes to walk from the train station to San Marco. There are almost no straight/direct paths to anywhere in Venice. You also really need a detailed map if you're intending to walk anywhere other than the train station, the Rialto Bridge, or San Marco Square. Those places have signs directing you along the path but for anything else you'll need a map to navigate the maze that is Venice. When I got to San Marco Square I saw that it was partially flooded from the high tide that occurs at certain times of the year. Normally the drainage systems of the city send rainwater out into the lagoon, but during these high tides (called acqua alta) the water from the lagoon comes flooding in and can partially submerge the lower parts of the city. As Venice continues to slowly sink these events will come more regularly unless the government's efforts to set up tide barriers are successful. Venice is an almost dreamlike city and my favorite town in Italy, but the dream will likely one day come to an end.

After checking into my hostel, I set out on a similar mission to that which I had done when I arrived in Florence. I tracked down a gelato shop that I had enjoyed the last time I was in Venice and was glad to find them still in business. The gelato in Venice isn't as good as the gelato in Florence, but you can find quality shops if you know where to look. From there I set out to get intentionally lost, which isn't hard in Venice. I started wandering near the Rialto Bridge and turned down whatever street I felt like walking. A few hours later I wound up at the Accademia Bridge and put myself back on the grid. It was past 6:00pm at this point so I got dinner. Later that night I returned to San Marco Square. The tide had subsided and the elevated walking platforms had been taken down. The bands at the various restaurants were playing and I listened in while having some gelato. Back at the hostel I was up late doing both writing as well as uploading photos to social media. I would have rather gone to bed than manage photos on Facebook and Instagram, but I wanted to keep my "fanbase" up to date with what I had seen and done.

I had a few plans for what to do on the next day, but changed them during breakfast as I looked over the map and realized that there it made more sense to group certain together and postpone others to the following day. After leaving the hostel, I passed through San Marco Square. The line to get into the basilica extended around the side of the building and out of my line of sight, once again confirming the advice I've given other people; never do any of the sights on or near San Marco Square in the morning. I continued on and walked all the way around to the Grand Canal and then crossed over it, making my way towards the Santa Maria della Salute, a church at the bottom end of the canal. On the way my feet got soaked by a rogue wave that came up over the pavement. I got a few photos of the area before going into the church itself. Many churches in Venice are more historical sights than actual religious buildings and have entry fees, but thankfully Santa Maria della Salute is not one of them. After checking out the church I visited the Accademia Museum, which I had skipped on my previous visit to Venice. The museum specializes in art by Venetian artists from the middle ages through the high renaissance. It also has an unavoidable combo ticket with another museum, so the entry fee is higher than what I would normally have paid. I continued my exploration of the west end of Venice after finishing up at the museum. The gondola workshop I found on my last visit was still building and repairing gondolas and I passed by a college of some sort. Nearby there were a few students getting publicly hazed. I had read that in Italy this sort of thing sometimes happens at graduation, so maybe that was what was going on. Way out in western Venice you'll find hardly any tourists, as there's nothing to see other than apartment buildings. Walking out there felt like being in a ghost town and the silence was striking. Eventually I came back from that area and went over to Scuola San Rocco. If you look inside Scuola San Rocco from the entrance window you might wonder why this place is so highly rated in travel material, but if you pay the entry fee and go up to the second level you see why it is called the Sistine Chapel of Venice. The walls and ceiling are covered in dramatic paintings, and for me the best part was that nobody was enforcing the no-photo policy. I snapped a few shots and then just sat in a corner, staring at the ceiling. To help combat neck stress, there are a number of large mirrors lying around that you can borrow to more easily examine what's above you. The Scuola San Rocco also has a few small exhibits on the upper levels of the building but they're only worth a quick look. The San Rocco church next door also doesn't warrant much time, though it is free. The nearby Frari Church is not free, but if you have the time and money and want to see more Venetian art then by all means go in. It also appeared to have the tomb of Titian, but I could be wrong about that. The day was progressing quickly and it was already late afternoon when I left the Frari Church. I walked first to the Rialto Bridge and then back to San Marco Square. I had hoped to get there in time to enter the basilica but I got there too late and it was already closed for the day. After dark I went back to the area around Santa Maria della Salute to do some nighttime photography. My little camera was having trouble focusing of some objects, but on the plus side I was able to do a few experiments that would help with getting difficult photos later in the trip. Back at my hostel there was a group of Spanish teenagers making a lot of noise near the lobby. I'm guessing it was a school group, but like so many teenagers these days, most seemed addicted to their smartphones and alternated between talking loudly to each other and staring at their screens.

Most of the next day was spent exploring the lagoon of the greater Venice region. Normally I avoid the water buses in Venice because of how expensive they are, but on this day I bought a 24 hour pass and proceeded to max it out. I started one of the stations near San Marco Square and then rode on a water bus that was doing a clockwise loop through the western half of the city. The water bus that I got on was one of the older models with open air seating in the front, so I got a great view, but it was also a very windy day, so it got a bit cold where I was sitting. The water bus took me around the west edge and past the cruise ship dock. These parts of Venice don't get featured in travel material. The water bus continued on, passing under the causeway that links Venice to the mainland and came around to train station. Lots of people got on the water bus at the train station and then it went down the Grand Canal. It's one thing to look out on the Grand Canal from the sidelines. It's quite another thing to actually be in the middle of it with all the boats passing around you and being able to see all the people walking along the bridges and pathways. It took awhile, but the water bus got back to San Marco Square and I got off and then got on a different water bus which took me to San Giorgio Island. There's a church with a bell tower on the island that has possibly the best views of the city. The wind was still blowing strong so it got cold up there, and the noon bell went off just before I came down. Another water bus took me back to San Marco Square and then I got on another one that dropped me off at the Rialto Bridge. From there I walked to the north edge of the main islands. At the Fondemente Nova station I took a water bus to Isola di San Michele, a small island that holds Venice's main cemetery. As you can imagine, there's no room in the main part of Venice to bury people, so this entire island was converted to be the city's burial grounds. I only paid a short visit, but I can say that it's very beautiful. The next water bus took me further north to the island of Murano. Like Venice, Murano is actually not one, but many islands linked together. It is known for its glass-making shops, though there's only a few of them left. The vast majority of glass you'll see for sale in Venice is actually mass-produced over in Asia and then shipped in (this is also true of all those Carnival masks you see being sold all over Venice). I came across an actual glass workshop and got to see the guys inside blowing and molding the glass into the various shapes. The furnace was glowing hot and molten glass was oozing out of it. When I felt I had seen enough of Murano I got on another water bus in the direction of Burano. It was a 20 minute ride and along the way the water bus passed a few islands with the remains of old buildings on them. Burano is similar to Murano in that it's a small island cluster, but Burano is linked to other adjacent island clusters by a bridge. While Murano got famous for glass, Burano made its name with producing lace. Burano also has a leaning tower, but unlike the one in Pisa, no one seems to care about Burano's tower, which is just a church bell tower. Even way out in Burano there's still a decent number of tourists, but for me my favorite part of being out at Burano is actually not Burano itself, but the Mazzorbo island cluster next to it. There's a park there with a garden and vineyard on it, and not another tourist in sight. It's so strange to find such a quiet and peaceful place in the Venice region. I stayed awhile there and wished I could have stayed longer, but the day was wearing on and I wanted to get back to the main part of Venice by sunset. On the ride back, the water bus passed by Torcello, another island cluster near Burano which has the oldest settlements in Venice. It's mostly marshland and gives probably the closest look to what the Venice region looked like before it was developed. If I ever come back to Venice I'm going to try to get out there. When I finally got back to the north side of main Venice islands, I got on a water bus that took me around the east end of Venice. On the ride I was standing next to a young American couple who must have been in Venice on vacation and I remember the woman asking the man what he had learned on this trip, and him giving what I thought was an incredibly token/cliche answer. In his defense, I think he was caught off guard by that question, and he asked the same question of her, which generated a similar platitude. I arrived back at San Marco just as the sun was going down and got a few photos before grabbing dinner. I also got some interesting Italian toothpaste, which lasted me through the rest of the trip and I still have at my home for the moment. For my final water bus rides of the day, I went back up to the train station and then got on a water bus going down the Grand Canal. It was a nice ride, though the Grand Canal at night isn't as well lit and I thought it would be. The water bus stopped service at the Rialto Bridge and I walked back to San Marco Square from there. Some gelato and late night photo uploads finished off the day.

My departure from Venice the following day was not until the afternoon. During breakfast I was talking with one of the guys from my room and it turns out he lives in Oakland, so I might end of seeing him when I pay a visit to the Bay Area in December. On the rooftop of the hostel I was able to stage a photo of me sitting on a bench looking over the city. It took a number of attempts to get my GorillaPod properly mounted and the camera aimed at the right angle, but I was able to get a pretty good shot. I then went over to the eastern part of Venice and walked around there. Like the west end, there aren't too many tourists out there and it's a good place to go if you need a break. When I came back to San Marco Square I saw that the line to get into the Doge's Palace was short so I got in line and went in. The no-photo policy from the last time I was there had been removed and the route of the tour had been adjusted, cutting out the meager Doge Apartments which no one really cares about. Instead you get to go right to the Senate Chambers, which are the best part of the tour with their large rooms covered in gold and paintings. Afterwards you pass through the armory, the Bridge of Sighs,and the prison before leaving. I next went into the San Marco Basilica, whose no-photo policy was being enforced, resulting in me having to be sneaky. For me the most notable part of the church is the ceiling, which is a giant mosaic. The upper floor also has the bronze horses of Alexander the Great. When I finished in the basilica I walked across San Marco Square to the Correr Museum, which I visited mostly because it was part of the mandatory combo ticket for the Doge's Palace. The museum itself is fine, but mandatory combo tickets are always annoying. That said, if the Doge's Palace has a long line, you can skip it by going to the Correr Museum first and then bypassing the ticket line for the Doge's Palace. By now my time was running out so I went back to the hostel and got my backpack. I had to get to a ferry terminal in the southwest part of Venice, and on the way I got a slice of pizza and french fries for a quick meal. The fries were surprisingly good. In fact they were some of the best I've had anywhere, to the point where I felt back that I had to eat them quickly. At the ferry terminal I had to go through border control because I was going to Rovinj in Croatia, which is not part of the EU's free-movement group of countries. When I first landed in Paris in August I didn't get my passport stamped, (they were just letting people in) and this caused a little confusion with the immigration officers. After a minute of me explaining what happened, one of the officers said something to the other one and I was cleared to board the ferry. I got a window seat and as the ferry slowly left the city I took in my final view of Venice, and Italy. Next in line was Croatia, and my transition to Eastern Europe.

Padova & Verona: Intermission

After Florence I stayed a couple of days in the city of Padova. I was making my way north to Venice, and on my previous trip I had skipped over the towns along the way, so I figured this time I would stop and pay a visit to two of them; Padova and Verona. Nothing too substantial happened in either one, but they offered a chance to see a part of Italy that I had missed on the last journey.

The city of Padova (aka Padua) is something of a college town and has a famous university that dates back to Renaissance times. It also has the creepiest hostel I stayed at during the entire trip, which I came to refer to as "the asylum" because it reminded me of a prison/mental hospital. After checking in and depositing my stuff at the hostel I spent the rest of the day checking out a few different things in Padova. I went over to Prato della Valle, which is a large park/plaza that used to be a Roman amphitheater and on certain days hosts an outdoor market. Near one end of the parkis Basilica di Santa Diustina, which is a large, spacious church with not too much in it. I noted that the exterior bricks have the mounts needed for a marble facade, but since there's no facade on the church I'm guessing this is another one of those churches that had the funding pulled right near the end of construction. I then went over to the Basilica of St Anthony, which was clearly well funded by its ornate interior and multiple domes. For some reason it has a no-photo policy (the bane of my existence!) so I had to be sneaky to grab a few shots. I ate dinner on a bench back in the main part of town near the city hall. The wifi at the hostel wasn't very strong, so I couldn't do too much uploading of photos, but on the plus side that meant I didn't have a reason to be up past midnight. I did notice that night that I had several mosquito bites on my feet, which probably happened in Florence. Thankfully there was no pain or itching, so I knew they would heal within a few days.

The next day was spent mostly in Verona. I used up the last travel day on my France and Italy rail pass for the roundtrip, since the train to Venice was only going to cost a few euro. Although Verona is well known as the town where Shakespeare's famous Romeo and Juliet play takes place, it has a lot more going on than just that. For example, it has the second best preserved Roman arena (after the Coliseum in Rome) in Europe. Today the arena hosts plays, concerts, and other functions. When I was there I saw a crew setting up the stage for some sort of performance and before I left Verona at the end of the day I passed by the arena and could hear the music of whatever band was performing that evening. After checking out the arena I walked over to Porta Borsari, a gate from the old Roman walls and then passed through it on my way to Piazza Erbe, one of the main squares of Verona. A short distance from the piazza is the Juliet House, which contains a courtyard and balcony that are supposed to be the ones from Shakespeare's play. There is absolutely no proof that this is true and I have no doubt that the owners of this property have profited handsomely from all the tourism that passes through. In the courtyard there's a statue of Juliet. If you take a look at it you'll notice that one of Juliet's breasts is shinier than the other, and that is because there's this thing where is you rub the breast you're supposed to find your love. A big crowd normally gathers in the courtyard and people stand around, waiting for a chance to pose for a photo with the statue. No, I did not rub the statue, in case you were wondering. I observed the scene for a few minutes before returning to Piazza Erbe and then climbing the Torre Lamberti. The tower has commanding views of the city and the surrounding countryside, though there's not as much to see as in places like Florence. The bell of the tower sounded at the half hour and took my and everyone else up there by surprise. I came down the tower and walked passed the elevated tombs of the Scaligeri Family. The Scaligeri dominated Verona in the 1300s and forced all the other noble families to dismantle their towers. Adding insult to injury, the bricks from those towers were then used to pave the streets of the city. Not far from the tombs, I passed a seemingly innocuous building on a street corner, but a tour group was standing around outside the building and I overheard the guide tell them that this was the Romeo House. While not all that interesting to me, this was one of many instances during the journey across Europe where I got some free tour guide information by simply listening in on a nearby tour group. I came next to the Sant Anastasia church; another one of those churches that spent more money on the interior than exterior. Someone was playing the giant organ, though I didn't recognize the tunes. It made start thinking about if anyone has done giant organ renditions of various songs. A lot popular songs probably wouldn't turn out very good, but I bet we could find a few that translate well. I imagine somewhere on the internet there's someone who's already tried this. Outside the church I crossed the Ponte Pietra bridge and went over to the Roman Theater, but is was closed for renovations. On the way back I nearby got bumped in the head by a kayak a guy was carrying around. I walked to the Verona duomo and also checked out the archaeological exhibit below the church. Like so many others, the Verona duomo is on top of the remains of an older church and archaeologists are carefully digging up the old one while making sure not to compromise the foundation of the new one. By the time I left the duomo it was the late afternoon and I decided to make the Castelvecchio fort my final sightseeing of the day. The fort itself isn't that big and the museum inside it has a modest collection of things to see, but you can go up on the ramparts. Behind the fort is a bridge which I went out on half way to get a photo of the fort, and then I made the walk all the way back to the arena. When I got there I still had a little time before I needed to return to the train station, so I listened in on the music coming out of the arena for awhile. The time for departure came soon enough, and I went back to the train station and returned to Padova.

Compared to the day in Verona, the following day in Padova was nowhere nearly as eventful. A lot of people do Padova as a daytrip from other places, and I can understand why. All the biggies can be seen in a few hours and then you can be on your way to other places. Having already seen a decent amount of Padova when I arrived, I spent part of the morning slowly uploading photos to Instagram. The main thing I did that day was my visit to the Scrovengi Chapel. You have to have a reservation to get in and if you miss your entry time you're out of luck. The chapel interior is covered in an impressive set of frescoes by a guy named Giotto di Bondone, a famous Renaissance painter. Apparently Giotto didn't have any formal training on how to paint - he just had an absurd level of natural talent. The chapel itself was commissioned by Enrico Scrovengi, whose father, Reginaldo, was a notorious loan shark. In fact, Reginaldo was so bad that he appears as one of the people suffering in Hell in Dante's epic poem Divine Comedy. Enrico hoped that building the church might somehow atone for his father's sins and more or less buy his soul out of hell. When you go to the chapel you first have to spend 15 minutes in a dehumidifying room. The frescoes in the chapel are very sensitive and exposure to excess moisture from the outside air will damage them. Once out of the dehumidifying room, the other people in the group and I got 15 minutes in the chapel before we had to leave to make room for the next group of visitors. 15 minutes is just long enough to take everything in, though I wouldn't have minded having a little longer. After the chapel, I visited a pair of museums that were covered as part of my entry to the chapel and later in the day I went over to an outdoor market which had been set up in the center of town. Normally I just walk around these markets and don't buy anything, but one stall was selling dried mango slices, which I love, so I bought some. For a few hours in the afternoon I just walked around Padova. Along the way I saw a long line of locals at a shop that was selling some sort of calzone-like thing. I got one myself, though I'm not totally sure what was in it. As best as I can tell, it had potato, meat, bits of tomato and some sort of sauce. It was tasty, so my small effort at trying local food paid off that time. Back at Prato della Valle there was another large outdoor market that had been set up, so I spent an hour looking around. That night after dinner I was uploading more photos to Instagram, but it was a slow process due to the limited wifi at the hostel and the fact that Instagram doesn't have a mass-upload function, so you have to do each photo individually.

The next day I got up and left for Venice. Padova and Verona had been decent stopovers, though I found Verona to be the more interesting of the two. The next city on the journey was the grand finale of my time in Italy: the lagoon city of Venice.

Florence: Priorities

Leaving behind the Siena, I arrived in Florence in the midafternoon. Having been there on the previous trip, the whole place felt very familiar and I easily navigated to the area near the duomo, where my hostel was located. Whenever I arrive at a new place I normally spend some time getting a lot of mundane things done so that I can dedicate the rest of my time to sightseeing or whatever else I have planned. Florence was the same but in this case after I had checked in and unpacked I didn't start my sightseeing time by visiting a museum or church or monument. No, the first order of business was to walk down to the south side of the Arno River and confirm if my favorite gelato shop was still open. A man has to have priorities. I got there and was delighted to find that it was still open for business. For those that don't know, Florence is the motherland of gelato. There are shops everywhere and the quality is arguably the best you'll find anywhere. The particular shop that I love, called La Carraia, was my favorite gelato shop on my previous trip and it still holds that title. I came back to this place over and over again, even though it's kind of out of the way from the main historic part of the city. Anyways, with the most important business taken care of, I walked over to the Piazza Michelangelo viewpoint which has a great view of the city and I got photos while it was still daylight. I  remember that place because there's a bronze replica of the David statue there, standing in the middle of a parking lot. The day ended and I was able to get some blogging done after dinner. And I got more gelato.

The first full day in Florence was spent doing a sightseeing blitz, similar to what I normally do in cities like Paris. With the duomo so close to my hostel, it was the natural first objective and I got in line for climbing the dome a few minutes before it opened. The last time I was in Florence I had skipped climbing the dome because it normally has a long, slow moving line and the view from the bell tower is just as good with a shorter line, but the city had made entry into the duomo-related sights covered by a single combo-ticket, (with no individual ticket sales) so I felt like I had to do it to justify the purchase. Getting in line early in the day proved to be the right call, as when the dome opened a lot of people in front of me got to enter right away, meaning the wait for my entry wasn't very long. Climbing up the church to the dome gets a bit cramped but you do get to up close with the church's architecture and better appreciate what was, at the time of construction, an incredible feat or design and engineering. The views from the top of the dome are good, but because of how popular the dome is, it gets very crowded up there. I came down from the dome and walked over to a few nearby places, since the main part of the duomo itself wasn't open yet. I paid a visit to the unfinished San Lorenzo church (it's unfinished in that it never got a facade) and then checked out the stalls outside the Mercato Centrale covered market. Bags, belts, jackets, hats, etc - all the typical stuff. The Mercato Centrale is itself an indoor food market and food court, similar to the indoor markets you find in places like Madrid. When I was done browsing I returned to the now open duomo. The interior of the duomo isn't as impressive as one would think from looking at the outside. Most of the art is housed in the duomo museum, so what you're looking at is mostly empty space. Directly underneath the duomo, and accessed by a stairwell inside the duomo, is Santa Restorata, an archaeological excavation of the of the older and medieval churches that the duomo is built on top of. Stepping out of the duomo, I next went into the adjacent baptistery, whose ceiling is covered in mosaics that remind me of the ones in the Basilica San Marco in Venice. As I learned, that's no coincidence - Florence hired artists from Venice to do the ceiling. While great to look at, admiring the ceiling will leave your neck hurting from constantly looking up. I then went over to the small Orsan-Michele church and then visited the Bargello Museum, which is sort of like the Accademia Museum in that it is mostly dedicated to sculpture but it's nowhere nearly as crowded as the Accademia. Speaking of which, it was getting close to my reserved entry time for the Accademia, but I realized it had been a few hours since I had last had gelato, so I fixed that problem before heading over. I got to the Accademia with some time to spare, so I checked out the nearby Piazza S.S. Annunziata for a few minutes and then came back. While you don't need a reservation to get into the Accademia, it is generally advised to have one. Otherwise, you're looking at a 1 to 2 hour wait to get in. The Accademia Museum has a number of things in it, but the main reason people come is to see Michelangelo's famous David statue. While it is true that there's other great stuff in there besides David, I think we all know that if the Accademia didn't have David, then it wouldn't get nearly as many visitors. The last time I was at the Accademia there was a no-photo policy, but since then it had been lifted, so I could freely grab snapshots and not have to be sneaky. I've always thought the layout of the Accademia was weird in that you get to David pretty quickly. On one hand you get to see the main attraction early on, but on the other hand, after you've seen David, everything else seems second-rate by comparison. After I finished at the Accademia I walked down to Florence's other leading museum, the Uffizi Gallery. The Uffizi is probably the best collection of Renaissance artwork anywhere, and like the Accademia it's best to reserve an entry time so that you don't waste an hour or two standing in line. I spent just under two hours inside the Uffizi, and would have stayed a little longer but I needed to get over to the duomo bell tower before the sun got too low in the sky. I climbed the bell tower, which is just slightly lower than the viewing area of the duomo dome, but personally I think the view from the tower is better, as you can see the dome itself. It's also not as crowded as the dome, so you normally don't have to wait long to get in. The sun went down a short while after I came down from the tower and I returned to the hostel for dinner. Later that night I went back to Piazza Michelangelo to check out the view of Florence at night. I also got more gelato. Actually, it should go without saying that I got gelato many more times than I've mentioned, but I figured it's probably better to not have every other sentence being about me getting gelato, so just assume as you're reading this that I got more gelato every few hours.

The next day I slept in a little. Rain was forecasted for the day, which was part of the reason I had gone full-speed the day before. I was over at the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella around 11:00am when the rain finally started. Fortunately for me, I was going to spend much of the day over in the town of Lucca, where it was not raining. It takes about 1.5 hours to get to Lucca from Florence. There's not too much to do there, but the town's claim to fame is its old city walls, which it never took down. Being Renaissance-style walls, they are shorter than medieval walls but much wider (this was in response to the development of cannons). Lucca turned its walls into a ring path and park that surrounds the historic core of the city, and I walked the entire length. The comparative peace and quiet of Lucca was a nice break from the crowds and noise of Florence, and after finished the loop on the walls I came down and did a self-guided walk through the old town. I passed by the San Martino Cathedral and through Piazza San Michele, and continued through the town until I finished over at Piazza dell Anfiteatro, which was originally a Roman amphitheater but is now an elliptical-shaped plaza. Other than entering a few churches and getting gelato I can't say I did too much in Lucca, but I still enjoyed my time. I had been feeling tired from staying up late working on the blog the previous two nights, so a less intense day was in order. Around the later afternoon I got on a train back to Florence and finished up the day there.

The following morning it occurred to me that it had been nearly a month since I had left America. It didn't feel like it had been a month, but the calendar doesn't lie. I had a few hours in the morning before leaving Florence for my next destination, so I walked all the way out to the San Miniato church, which is just beyond Piazza Michelangelo. There I did a little reading after checking out the church and I also took in one final viewing of Florence from the viewpoint. I came down and walked around the south side of the Arno River and paid a final visit to La Carraia for my final gelato stop in Florence. I then went back to the hostel and got my backpack and went over to the train station. The city of Padova awaited me.

Siena: The Battle of Tuscany

After leaving the Cinque Terre I made my way into Tuscany. The next city I was visiting was Siena, but along the way I changed trains in Pisa and I took the chance to pay a quick visit to the Leaning Tower. I know some people may disagree with me on this, but personally I think the Leaning Tower is the only thing Pisa has going for it. During the 20 minute walk from the train station to the tower, I didn't see anything that caught my attention or seemed like it would be worth investigating. The tower itself makes for a good photo but you have to pay to go up it and that doesn't make any sense, since the only thing worth seeing is the tower and when you're in the tower, you can't see the tower. A much more entertaining than climbing the tower is watching all the other tourists pose for photos. I got my photos of the tower and the surrounding buildings and then returned to the train station to catch a train to Siena.

Like many towns in Tuscany, Siena is up on a hill (at least, the old part of it is). For a time it was a regional rival of Florence, but it never recovered from the Black Death in the 1300s and was later subjugated by Florence in the 1500s. I stayed in a B&B near the train station, just outside the old city walls and on the first night I was there I took a walk through town. On that walk I came across a place called Grom, which is an international chain of gelato shops. Three years ago, before they got really big, I visit a Grom in Florence and was displeased due to what I viewed as an insufficient amount of gelato for what I paid. This sparked the whole concept of "Grom scoops" which I use to refer to anything that is too small for what I paid. I decided I would pay Grom a visit another day and give them another chance. Later that night I found that four of the apps on my phone decided to issue updates on the same day and with the modest wifi at the B&B, it took a long time to get the updates and be able to use those apps again. Somehow these apps always seem to wait for when I'm in a place with bad wifi to issue mandatory updates.

The next day began what I would later call the Battle of Tuscany. My plan was to be doing a pair of day trips from Siena to nearby towns, however it felt like I had to go to war with the regional bus network in order to make them happen. On this day I was planning on visiting Volterra but I missed the morning bus. As it turns out, it wouldn't have mattered if I had been there on time. Looking over the bus schedule, I saw that there was a bus to my planned destination for the next day, San Gimignano, a little later, so I figured I would catch that bus but it turns out you can't buy tickets from the driver. I went over to the Siena tourist info center to get more information on the bus system and was directed to Siena's main bus station, but I couldn't find the ticket office. Back at my B&B, the staff informed me that the reason I couldn't find the ticket office is because the station is one level underground below the bus area, so I went back and after some searching found the stairs down to the ticket office. There was one more afternoon bus out to San Gimignano, so I got a ticket for that and went to the bus stop where it was supposed to arrive. I was a little exasperated at this point, but I also wasn't going to be denied again, so I just stood there and waited until the bus showed up. The ride to San Gimignano was about 1.5 hours and I had to stand for most of the duration due to the bus being full. Although some of you may not know where San Gimignano is, a lot you probably recognize it from photos. It's the Italian town with all the towers. Originally there were 72 of them, but today there are only 14. As one of the easier Tuscan hill towns to reach, San Gimignano is overrun by the tourist horde and full of shops profiting from tourism. Even so, if you can ignore those things it's still worth a visit. Mostly clear skies that day made for some good photos of the town with its towers rising like giant spikes above the other buildings. The San Gimignano Civic Museum occupies the tallest remaining tower and I went inside in order to climb it and get a view of the surrounding countryside. By midafternoon I was largely finished with San Gimignano so I wrapped up my visit and returned to Siena. There I gave Grom its second chance. I'm pleased to say I got bigger scoops this time, though it still costs a lot and I think the quality has taken a hit. I really don't understand Grom's popularity as it's one of the pricier gelato shops and the quality of the gelato doesn't justify the price you pay for it.

Day three of my time in Siena saw a continuation of the Battle of Tuscany. I was better about getting ready for the day and got to the bus station a few minutes before the scheduled arrival of the bus to Volterra. Then I waited. And waited. And kept waiting. And... the bus never came. I stood around for over half an hour and no bus showed up. It got to the point where even if the bus showed up it would be too late; I would miss the connecting bus in Colle di Val d'Elsa. I was peeved, but on the plus side while I was waiting I was able to help a pair of (American?) women who were looking for a particular bus to Florence. I went back to the B&B and after some research online I found that the next time I could get out to Volterra was early afternoon. That left me with a few hours to kill. My plan had been to save Siena's big sights for the next day, so I walked around town and took in some of the lesser sights. I stopped by the San Domenico church, which holds the skull of St Catherine, a nun known for her peacemaking efforts and then went past the Siena soccer field and the town fort all the way over to the San Fransesco church. I'm guessing the San Francesco church doesn't get as many visitors as other places because it's kind of out of the way but it's worth the effort to come and see. I came to Piazza Mateotti, where there was some sort of fitness expo going on, and there were also guys gathering signatures for an anti-drug petition. "You, sign against the drugs!" I would hear them say. I always wanted to respond "but, I love cocaine!" I actually don't know what drugs they were campaigning against, but I assume the illegal ones. After some more walking it was time to get to the bus stop and I got there 15 minutes early just to be safe. Wouldn't you know it, this bus showed up exactly on time. It took me to Colle di Val d'Elsa, a town where many bus routes connect but otherwise doesn't seem to have anything else going on. I waited around for the connecting bus and then rode it out to Volterra. The hill town of Volterra has only about 11,000 residents and a small historic core. Still, I had to rush through it because the last bus of the day back to Colle di Val d'Elsa was only 1.5 hours after my arrival. Had that morning bus shown up I would have been able to do a proper visit, but I just had to hurry and see as much as I could. I walked quickly through Volterra, going through the old entry arch, visiting the town cathedral and baptistery, looking over the ruins of the Roman amphitheater, popping into an alabaster showroom, and climbing the tower at the city hall. I felt like I saw a good amount of Volterra, but I had also skipped a number of things like the Etruscan Museum which I would have gone to if there was time. When time was up I went back to the Volterra bus stop and while waiting I met a pair of Texans, a father and his daughter, who were spending a week in Italy for vacation and cycling. By the time I got back to Siena it was about 7:00pm but I felt like staying out a bit longer, so I walked over to Il Campo, the main square of Siena, and spent some time there before returning to the B&B.

My final day in Siena was notable for the fact that I was finally doing stuff in Siena. Normally I would do sightseeing in the main town first before doing side trips, however it made more sense to do the San Gimignano and Volterra trips first, since my final day was on a Sunday and bus services are reduced on Sundays. I started out back at Il Campo and went up the tower before visiting the Civic Museum, which has a collection of medieval and renaissance art from Siena's heyday. My entry to the Civic Museum also got me entry into the Santa Maria Della Scala museum, which is right next to the duomo. That museum holds a bunch of art that used to be hung way up high in the duomo, where no one could see it, as well as the original stonework of the Fonte Gaia fountain which is on Il Campo. The stone blocks used for the original Fonte Gaia were not the highest quality and over hundreds of years became badly eroded, but the city was able to recover the casts used during the fountain's construction and thus create an exact duplicate, which is what is on Il Campo today. For lunch I grabbed a single slice of pizza and then returned to sightseeing over at the duomo. The Siena duomo was built on the tallest point of the city, but there was very little flat ground there, so parts of the church, such as the baptistery, are below the main part and provide the support columns to hold those sections not on level terrain. The church was also intended to be much bigger. When Florence built its massive duomo, Siena decided it was going to expand its own duomo to create the largest church on Earth, but the advent of the Black Death scuttled the project before it could get far. One part of a new wall got built and you can still see where the new sections would have been. The outside of the Siena duomo looks much like the one in Florence, minus the dome, but the inside is much more ornate (granted, that's mostly because in Florence most of the art inside the duomo was moved into a museum). I spent a few hours in the various parts of the duomo and when I came out I went back over to Il Campo, where I saw that a section of the square had been roped off and people were starting to gather. Though I didn't know what was going on, I decided to stick around and awhile later a marching band with flag bearers came along and then a parade of guys with the flags of the 17 neighborhoods in Siena showed up. One of the guys was standing right in front of me and the wind kept blowing the flag into me. There was some sort of ceremony going on but since I don't speak Italian I don't know what it was for. As best as I could tell, the city was giving out commendations for people who did something and when it was over the band and the flag guys marched off. I started walking down one of the main streets in the old city when I heard the marching band coming up behind me, along with a bunch of people singing. They were going my way, so for a few minutes it was like I was marching with them, until they turned onto some other street and went marching off to who knows where. After dinner I went out for gelato and then spent some time sitting on Il Campo (for those who don't know, Il Campo is one of the few main squares in Europe where it's completely acceptable to just take a seat like you're on the beach). I then went back to the B&B and ended the day.

The following morning I packed and did some reading at a park before getting on the train to Florence, to topic of the next post. Stay tuned.

Cinque Terre: Ascension

So begins the catch-up period of the Europe Trip 2015 blog posts. Like the other posts, this one hasn't been proofread, so apologies in advance for typos.

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I had planned out the train ride from Milan to Vernazza, Italy, and it involved a transfer down the line, however my first train was running 15 minutes late, which would mean I would miss the connecting train and have to wait an hour or two for the next one. I quickly looked over train schedules to see if I could find a workaround and found that if I rode the train a few more stops down the line I might be able to then get on another one that would take me right away to Vernazza. The time gap was very small, and when I got to the station it seemed like my plan had failed since the first train hadn't made up any time on route, but I found that the train I was hoping to catch was itself a little behind schedule, so I got on and soon arrived in Vernazza. The tourist horde was swarming the town when I got into town, giving me a preview of what to expect during most daytime hours in this part of Italy.

Vernazza is one of five small coastal towns in what is called the Cinque Terre (aka, the Italian Riviera). If you laid them out from west to east, Vernazza would be the second from the left. These towns for centuries were difficult to reach from the rest of Italy other than by boat due the mountainous coastal terrain they were built on, but around the end of the 1800s construction of rail lines began, and these days you can reach them without too much trouble by either car or train. The Cinque Terre has been thoroughly discovered by the tourism industry and every year these little towns are overwhelmed by tour groups and individuals coming to experience the towns and hike the surrounding mountains. No doubt many travel snobs and others lament the Cinque Terre being "ruined" but even with the tourist horde I still think it's a great place to visit, especially if you can spend the night in one of the towns.

Vernazza is not a cheap place to stay in. Since there were no hostels, I was stayed at a hotel, which is not the sort of place I normally stay at, but this hotel had the cheapest bed I could find in Vernazza. At $50 per night, it was easily the most expensive accommodation during my entire trip, but it felt like a bargain compared to everything else I looked up online. Everything else, including listings on Air BnB, was going for at least $70 per night. Certainly I could have stayed in a different town outside the Cinque Terre, where there are cheaper beds and then day-tripped into the area, but from what I had read, it seemed like the Cinque Terre, similar to Venice, is worth paying the extra money to stay in so that you can experience the early morning and late day version of the area when most of the tourist horde is gone. This suspicion proved correct, and I'm glad I stayed in the Cinque Terre, though my wallet hated me during the time I was there. Also, I should note that my hotel was up on a ridge on one side of the town, and that my room was on the top (4th) floor of the building, so I had a lot of stairs to ascend each time I went up to my room. On the plus side, my small balcony had a fantastic view of the town.

Not much happened on the day of arrival in Vernazza, though I did spend some time walking around town and planning out a hike for the next day. That next day got off to a good start when I found that the breakfast that the hotel served was at a restaurant they owned, on a bluff overlooking the sea. Normally when I travel I have a very basic breakfast and I could care less where I eat it, but having a meal with a view was nice. The only bad thing was that there was this hornet that for some reason took an interest in my plate and I'm not a fan of hornets or bees flying close to me. I set out for the day a little later than I intended, and by then the first wave of the tourist horde had arrived in town. Watching the horde from the train station is something of an interesting sight. It reminds me of the beating of the heart, where the each arriving train is like the compression of heart chambers, sending a surge of blood, or in this case, tourists, flowing down the main street of Vernazza. Just as a side note, trains are late in the Cinque Terre at least half the time, so if you're running late for your train, there's a decent chance that you're actually ok. I, however was leaving Vernazza for the next town over, called Monterosso. Normally I would have explored Monterosso first, but I wanted to start my hike before it got warm, so I walked straight through the town to the trail head. There were a lot of people also doing the hike that day, but I was able to find the gaps between the groups and for the most part not get crowded while on the trail. The hike from Monterosso back to Vernazza took about 1.5 to 2 hours and had a lot of steep steps and rugged terrain. It's the hardest of the trails linking the five Cinque Terre towns, though very doable by anyone in average physical shape. Being a coastal trail, there are a lot of great views, especially on the approach to Vernazza. Back in Vernazza I refilled my water bottle and rested in the church by the harbor for a little bit before setting out the trail again. The next part of the hike was a little easier than the one between Monterosso and Vernazza, but at this point in the day it was hotter and I was sweating a lot. My left knee was hurting (the one I injured two weeks earlier during my bike ride in France) and I was being careful to not put too much strain on it. The trail took me to the town of Corniglia, which I believe is the smallest of the five Cinque Terre towns and the only one not directly on the sea. From Corniglia I could see the next town in line, Manarola, but didn't immediately set out for it. Instead I looked around Corniglia and ate a little gelato to cool off. There were notices stating that the trail between Corniglia and Manarola was closed, but after resting up I set out for Manarola anyways because I had read online that sometimes a trail being closed meant that it was officially recommended to not hike it but you could still do so at your own risk. A quarter mile down the trail I found out that it really was closed, and for good reason. A landslide had taken out a wide stretch of the trail, leaving behind a chasm far too wide for me to jump or climb around. I went down to the beach to see if there was a safe way to bypass the destroyed section of the trail, but couldn't find one. By that time it was late afternoon. If the trail was still intact I could have definitely reached Manarola, and probably have continued all the way to the town of Riomaggiore before the sun went down. Looking at the map, I saw there was winding trail through the hills and mountains that could get me to Manarola, but it was much longer than the coast path and I wasn't sure how long it would take. I decided it was best not to take chances, so I got on a train back to Vernazza and finished up the day there.

The next day I paid a visit first to Riomaggiore, the town at the far southeast end of the Cinque Terre. For some reason I kept thinking it was named Raggiomayor. It's the largest and least touristy of the five towns, and I followed a self-guided walk from my guidebook through town. I got some photos of the town itself from a hill alongside it, and a little while later almost lost my phone in the San Giovanni church. Not sure why I took the phone out of my pocket while sitting in a pew in the church, but I distinctly remember telling myself to grab it before leaving. As I was walking away from the church I noticed that my pocket was feeling lighter than normal and I realized what had happened. I ran back to the church and was looking around for my phone for a minute when a British couple came up to me and asked me if my phone was missing. They had picked it up and were trying to find me outside the church but came back inside and saw me. I gave them both a big hug and thanked them profusely. It's true that I could have continued on without my phone, but it's loss would have been a severe mental setback and the data and photos on it were irreplaceable. The rest of my time in Riomaggiore was (thankfully) not as eventful and I went down the town's main road, snapping photos along the way. I then got on a train to Manarola and there I followed another self-guided walk, which took me from the harbor to the top of the town and then into the vineyards in the hills surrounding Manarola. It was a warmer and more humid day than the one before, so I was I had already done my serious hiking. The views of Manarola from the vineyards are really nice and I got a good photos from up there. Cinque Terre grapes supposedly produce a distinctive wine, but I couldn't tell you if that's true or not as I don't drink wine. But what is definitely true is that the vineyards in Manarola and across the Cinque Terre are integral to the maintenance of the area as their roots go deep into the rocks and soil and help minimize landslides. After finishing in Manarola I got on a train back to the other end of the Cinque Terre, and the town of Monterosso. This time I didn't follow any guidebook walk and just explored on my own. Monterosso, like the other Cinque Terre towns, isn't big and you can walk the whole thing in less than an hour if you choose. For me the most notable parts of my time there were going up to the ruins of the old castle and the nearby I visited the small church of the Capuchin Friars, who are a local group of monks. Once I was satisfied with my time in Monterosso, I returned to Vernazza, where I did some reading and dipped my feet in the sea. I also got gelato from a shop at the harbor, which had a few flavors that I hadn't tried yet. The two flavors I got were white mint and cinnamon, which were both interesting individually as well as combined. The rest of the day was slowed paced with dinner, laundry, more gelato, writing and various other things.

On the following day I was scheduled to leave Vernazza at around 11:30am. During breakfast I got a cappuccino, just to try it, and of course it tasted awful. As some of you know, I can't stand the taste of coffee, but every now and then I attempt to stomach some sort of coffee-related drink, though the result is always the same. I checked out from the hotel at 10:30am and spent my final hour in Vernazza down at the harbor, watching the waves and taking in the sights of the area. My time in the Cinque Terre had been a good change of pace from my normal travel routine of museums, historical sights, and urban living. The next town on my European journey was Sienna, which is where we'll in the next blog post.