Vienna

I think Vienna has been a mixed bag of nuts for us. It's beautiful but at the same time it's not. The people are extremely odd - apologies to any of our Austrian friends!

We arrived Friday evening, it was really hot but better than Budapest. Arrived at our hostel which was ridiculously busy and full to the brim with fellow travellers. Luckily they informed us on arrival that our room was also available for Saturday night aswell, which solved the issue of having to find somewhere else to stay for that night and eliminated the prospect of having to check in, and out, on each day we'd be here.

We grabbed a quick bite and headed back to our room to get ready before we went out to test the waters. We stayed in the 6th district so there isn't that much on offer around the hostel, although we did meet some very young Finnish guys who were also staying here and went to a small bar down the road called 'Traveller's shack'. Spent a while there but after an hour or two we'd had enough, far too many backpackers who were completely off their faces, and our little friends were a lot younger than we had suspected, therefore leaving decent conversation to a minimum. We made our excuses and left, walked around and found another bar where we stayed for a quiet couple of drinks...and shots...before we headed home.

Not much to be said in terms of sightseeing in my opinion. We walked all the way through the shopping district situated right by our hostel, checked out some buildings and headed to the museum quartier where we checked out a fashion exhibition and also the museum of modern art. Walked further up into the 1st district where everything became a bit more grand and upmarket, took some snaps and retreated back to the hostel as the weather had somehow dropped a good 15 degrees and was absolutely freezing.

As last night was our LAST NIGHT we decided to go to a nice restaurant and have a goodbye style, romantic meal together. Food was great and such a nice change from sandwiches. We definitely began to feel very nostalgic after that...

Today M left early to get to Prague in order to meet Richard by the afternoon, so I was left behind on my own! Not that I've really been on my own as we've been messaging since :)
Apparently the toilets are all out of order on her train, so that's....5.5hours without loo time for M.

I'm leaving for the airport in about an hour and a half..and I'm definitely very happy to be going home, to see all my friends and family and sort my life out a little. However, words cannot describe how incredibly sad I am that this trip has unfortunately come to an end.

So..this is it! Last blog post! Looking forward to seeing everyone!!

With love,

Gabriella and an absent M xx

Budapest

The train from Venezia to Budapest was just over 13 hours so obviously we opted for a sleeper carriage. However, as we had failed to reserve a cochette in advance we were left with no choice but to take a normal seat. 'No biggie' we thought as we walked into the station and saw a very clean and modern fast train which we assumed was our mode of transportation. We then realised that the rickety, old Hungarian train next to it was ours. Getting on it was horrible, the seats didn't correlate to the tickets assigned, there were no lights, no a/c (sauna room levels of heat), hyper-active gypsies and a few dogs roaming around. Pretty much our idea of hell especially after becoming slightly spoilt with the luxuries made available to us by staying at Julia's home.

Things began to look up slightly when the lights and a minimal amount of a/c were switched on, and we began to get comfortable in our little seats, squashed in next to the gypo's and dogs. A bottle of rose eased the pain.

The rest of the journey was spent in the dining carriage. We ate omlette's at 2am, continued drinking through until 8am and did yoga at 9am. When we finally arrived in Budapest we were a bit of a mess, schlepped our belongings to the hostel and passed out until the early evening.

We decided to spend that night at the hostel after cooking ourselves dinner (yay to having a kitchen!!!!) and watch a film. That night we met some students in the 'hostel' which we realised was actually a huge university dorm with only the medical students residing there over the summer months.

Day times in Budapest were great although extremely hot. They don't like a/c there - anywhere. We did a lot of walking, crossed the Duna river, walked up to Mathias church which has a panoramic view, and later checked out the main shopping district. On our second day in Budapest we went to check our Magrit Island which is essentially Budapest's answer to Hyde Park, situated in the middle of the Duna and made easily accessible by a pedestrianised bridge.

Night times in Budapest were also great! TOO HOT, but good fun. Not far from our hostel we found a great little square overflowing with bar's and restaurants and really bustling. We also stumbled upon an excellent beer garden, quite hidden from the obvious eye of your average traveller. We didn't make it to any clubs for a couple of reasons. We couldn't be bothered and we weren't prepared to pay entry. The traveller's life is clearly not as glamorous as one might assume!!!

We were very pleased to get on an extremely clean and high tech Austrian train as we made our last train journey together to Vienna...our final destination.

From Budapest to Vienna

Haven't had a moment to update since we arrived in Budapest but hopefully will be able to once I arrive in Vienna.

We are taking a train to Vienna this afternoon (hopefully) and we have accommodation for tonight and Sunday night...so that leaves Saturday without a roof over our heads. We'll figure something out though.

Can't believe this trip is finally coming to an end..! We'll finish our travels and go our separate ways on Monday. M is going to Prague and unfortunately for me I'm going back to London on my lonesome... :(

Venezia

Just a beautiful place!!

I was warned that the smaller canals smell like shit but I haven't really found myself holding my breath and then gasping for clean non stinking air.

We've had great weather here although the last couple of days have been really very hot. We've spent a couple of days at the Lido tanning ourselves, enjoyed cooking dinner and making breakfast everyday (especially for the soft boiled eggs, mmmm), and we've also really enjoyed the lack of cars on the island!

We ventured out into the Venetian night on Saturday and headed to L'accademia area which is near to the university. A massive change in clientele was noticed as soon as we crossed the big bridge. No more couples having embarrassingly cheesy romantic meals together! Students, young people and cheap drinks! We sat down at a bar and after having only got through half a glass of wine we were..how can I put this nicely..we were imposed upon by an Australian who was so blonde it scared me, and who had a face so red you wouldn't give him a second look if you saw him in a lobster tank at a restaurant. Anyway, we decided we might as well temporarily befriend him and his Aussie mates who turned out to be going to the same club as us (smallest room in the world, called Piccolo Mondo - only club on Venice island), a coincidence some would say but I think it was more down to the fact that it was the only option.

So we went onto this club, kind of hung out with our new red faced friends, danced a little and then decided to bail and find a place open selling pizza rolls. Verdict: Pizza rolls are man's best invention.

Today we're leaving Venezia after four wonderful days staying with Julia and Claud. We're taking a 13 hour train tonight straight to Budapest, where we'll be leaving the EUR and the good food (we assume) behind. Can't say for sure when or if I'll have internet access but hopefully it won't be a long wait until the next update.

Here's to the final week of our trip!!

Bologna

I can’t lie. I didn’t eat spaghetti alla bolognese in Bologna, and for that I feel like a failure. Although I did devour an excellent plate of tagliolini con zucchine e speck so I don’t actually care too much about the lack of ragu that went down.

Bologna is a great city. Less tourists, much cooler (still hot and sunny, but nice), full of great deli’s, café’s, restaurants, bar’s and gelateria’s and with a cool ‘university town’ vibe.

We stayed at a hotel in the suburbs of Bologna, a 10 minute bus ride from the city centre, but with the room costing €16/night pp for all the amenities and facilities we could dream of (free buffet breakfast incl), we were more than happy to fork out a euro to get into town.

We only had one full day in Bologna so we did what we do with every city and wandered around, took in the life of the city, laughed at strangers, ate food and drooled at the sight of every deli.

We went out on the second night to a bar called Cafe de Paris. It was good, not as expensive as we had imagined and we had a reasonably quiet night there. Again, like Genova, Bologna is not one with a crazy nightlife, perhaps only on the weekend!

Highlight of Bologna - eggs for breakfast!!

Yet another quick update!

Hello, hello! To all the lovely fans!!

We are currently in Venezia and it is amazing!! We arrived here a couple of nights ago, staying with M's auntie Julia (fabulous hostess!). Her place here is just beautiful, great location and we really feel at home. We will be staying here for 2 more nights before we make our way to Budapest. I'm sure you can all imagine how much M and I are stuffing our faces as we are pretty sure this is the last stop on our trip before we encounter terrible food. Last night we both ate roughly 500g of pasta.

We miss everyone loads! We also hope people are actually reading this although we're not sure as no one is commenting on the posts :(

Here are a couple of teaser pictures to keep you all occupied before I divulge all details on Bologna and Venezia.

Ciao ciao for now!

Pisa & Firenze

Pisa

We arrived in Pisa in the afternoon of the 1^st July, and walked a short way to the B&B in the sweltering heat. Clearly we weren’t going to escape Italy’s soaring temperatures in Pisa! Arrived at the B&B which was in a great location, right in the middle of a busy pedestrianised shopping road which conveniently lead onto one of the main bridges in Pisa, which in turn crossed over to the university district, the leaning tower itself, and tons of bars, café’s, restaurants and small markets. The window from our room looked straight onto the street which was perfect for M and I as we often enjoy heckling passersby.

After we checked in, having adjusted to the Tuscan accent which we hadn’t really heard in Genova, we headed out into the surrounding area, browsed the small shops and markets, grabbed a primi piatta di pasta and eventually retreated to our humble abode to get ready before exploring the nightlife. Luckily we had constant wifi access in Pisa so we were able to check out exactly what goes down. We walked over the bridge to Lungarno, the road which runs all alongside the river where we found is where a lot of the evening socialising goes down. Here there is basically a botellon but on a larger scale. The youth of Pisa hang out on the walls on the river, drinking cheap drinks purchased from the ‘Blue Chinos’ bar or various other establishments, and a slightly older crowd hit the bars in Piazza Garibaldi. A great night was had, we met quite a few people - a group of anarchists and some noisy Sicilian’s to be specific.

Needless to say with cheap cocktails from the BC boys and a couple of glasses vino bianco della casa, we suffered from ridiculous hangovers the next day. Waking up to the heat of Pisa, we felt vile. We’re not sure why we decided that this day in particular would be the most appropriate of days to explore the small city and go and see the leaning tower, but we did. We walked through busy markets, checked out a string of deli’s, went to the leaning tower, attempted to take the tourist shots which proved very difficult under the circumstances, and eventually went back to our temporary home to feel sorry for ourselves/ digest the unmentionable amount of food we had consumed over the course of 5 hours.

After having spent a night in watching a film and having an early night, we spent the last day in Pisa running a few errands and again exploring all the small roads and less touristy parts of the city. In the night we treated ourselves to a meal (my paparedelle al cinghiale was amazing!), although for me it was ruined slightly as within about 5 minutes I had been attacked by mosquito’s and was beginning to really suffer. The heat was unbearable, and on what should have been the 5 minute walk back we found that there was a massive street party and awards show set up on the bridge we needed to cross, leaving us with no choice but to take a 20 minute detour to the next available bridge. We went out that night along the Lungarno to a couple of bars and enjoyed cocktails and wine for almost reasonable prices!

Really adored Pisa, although being so close to everything meant minimal amounts of movement which caused all the hundreds of panini’s and plates of pasta consumed over those few days to stay where they pleased.

Firenze

There are more American’s in Firenze than LA - fact. Our first thought when getting on and off the train from Pisa was: Welcome to the US of A!! Immediately we realised that this would be the first city we would visit that was really crawling with tourists. Anyone I spoke Italian to would assume I was a yank and reply in English, which really pissed me off. We also didn’t think it could possibly get hotter than Pisa, but we were wrong and Firenze was like a pizza oven.

We decided to stay at a small guesthouse/hostel for a mere €12/night pp, and arrived to find that the place was run by the loveliest old lady who was such a gem. We were shown to our 5 bed mixed dorm and were quite pleased that we were (so far) the only habitants. After about half an hour, we were joined by a lone traveler from Sweden called PER. I called him Pear because it was ridiculously difficult to pronounce. He seemed nice although had said he was visiting friends so was never really at the hostel apart from during the nocturnal hours.

We headed out and about Firenze, went and saw Duomo which is beautiful(!) and continued on to see Piazza della Signoria and Piazzia Vecchio. When we got back to the hostel we discovered that two more dudes were staying in our room, both Spaniards who went by the names of Xurxo and Zoilo. We didn’t call them by their names as they were even more difficult than our fruity friend Per, so we dubbed them Shoe-shine and Thyroid. M and I went out for our one and only meal to be eaten at a restaurant in Firenze and were disgusted with the Chinese egg noodles swimming in a MG cornflour sauce, accompanied with soggy, out-of-a-tin shitake mushrooms. This was apparently ‘Tagliolini con funghi porcini’ – I THINK NOT. Went out for drinks at an overpriced bar right next to Duomo, full of skanky unpleasant American’s, but with our new Spanish friends we had a good time and headed back to the hostel early for a decent night’s sleep.

Decent night my ass! No a/c, Pear kept farting and snoring and the room smelt like sweaty butt crack. Bad times, sad morning, coffee and fag needed as soon as eyes were open, and we began our day feeling grubby and irritated. After we got over the bad sleep we spent the day exploring the city (as one does), eating food from supermarket deli’s and sweating buckets. Firenze is beautiful, however it’s such a shame it’s full of so many tourists. We wondered over the golden bridge onto the other ride of the river and found we much preferred it there. Less tourists, more beauty and the best part – more real.

Night time came and we agreed to hit the town with our Spanish friends, went back to overpriced bar previously mentioned, had a little botellon of our own and headed to a club called Twice. Interesting night but fun! Full of American’s it was really surreal being there – definitely did not feel as if we were in Italy.

Dealt with a slight hangover but mainly sleep deprivation the next day as we made our way to Bologna…very quiet journey indeed.