Venezia

Hello,
Well today was the last day of what was a fantastic camp. The traditional Italian fare awaited us one final time before everyone received an Italian farewell (lots of kisses). We set off about 10am with Dan, Alice and co in the direction of a city by the name of Venice. The trip was supposebly meant to take four hours and in that time we left the mountainous region of the Dolomites behind in exchange for a flat dry landscape. Around two hours into the trip and we'd made our way back to Verona, our place of arrival. Unfortunately i wouldn't get to see the home of Romeo and Juliet but i felt assured greater things were in store for me elsewhere. Eventually the road turned into a four lane highway and the signs for those traveling to Venice became more and more frequent. I didn't really know what to expect as far as how it would look entering the city. I think i may have even forgot that it was surrounded by a lagoon, how silly of me! I was therefore quite surprised to find how industrious the area was before getting on the long bridge that made its way to the bus/train depot. Dan and Al returned the van to the rental company while the rest of us waited on the side of the road with our luggage in the hot midday sun. A weird feeling came over me as i began to appreciate what a unique part of the world i was in. A couple of hundred meters down the Grand Canal (the main canal in Venice) lay the train station and accompanying tourist office. Along the way i spotted the entrance to my hostel, that was easy to find i thought to myself. I bid farewell to the guys and headed for the train station where i bought a map. The lady at the reception gave me another map and the pointed out the major sights, places to eat etc. My room had was quite spacious and contained four spacious beds and a shared bathroom. Opposite was a small room which had two of the oldest and dogiest computers ive ever seen/used. The reverse of the cliche 'no expense was spared' would be applicable in this instance. However i must admit i did brave the tedious slowness of the machines on a few occasions. First on the list was a visit to the local supermarket which was located back near the bus depot. I stocked up on some fruit, OJ and other assorted goods that i thought would make up a decent breakfast. After this i headed out towards the northern Cannaregio district which is the more quiet and peaceful area in Venice. It was really nice and peaceful walking through the streets and not seeing any tourists whatsoever! I got lost but i think if you come to Venice you'll soon discover its inevitable and just a part of the experience. One alleyway i came across had no less the three cats sleeping in the shade (see pic). i kept wandering in the same direction in an effort to get to the most northern part of the district. Children were playing in the streets, and having fun. Seeing the locals in their environment was a nice contrast to what i would encounter for the rest of my stay.

I had a look for somewhere nice and relatively cheap to eat but couldnt really find anything that appealed to me. There are heaps of budget and slightly run down restaurants to choose from, as well as the pizza by the slice offerings everywhere you looked but they didnt look very appealing. Every 50m or so in every direction you will find a Gelati stalls were you can buy the delicious ice cream the Italians are famous for! The choice of flavours is great and the price quite reasonable to at around 1.80 Euro for two scoops or 2.50 for three. Yellow signs are on the sides of buildings on all the major paths to help direct you to the major attractions, San Marco, Rialto and the Galleria. I thought i may as well check out the famous Rialto bridge as it was in the general vicinity. Once i had criss crossed my way over bridges and through the maze of streets i found a hive of activity on the bridge itself. It provided a nice view of the Grand canal where you could see the comings and goings of the numerous water taxi's and gondolas. I decided upon having an early night and make the most of Saturday evening to see what the Venice nightlife had to offer.

Saturday was where i packed in all the must see sights in Venice. To start things off i went inside one of the many Churches you can find in Venice. There is no shortage of them that's for sure, however i was recommended four in particular by the lady at the hostel. After this i walked towards the Accademia Galleria...'Accademy of Venice is one of the most prestigious of Italy, keeping paintings of Venetian school since the Middle Age to masters of the Renaissance with masterpieces by Bellini, Tiziano, Giorgione, Tintoretto, Veronese...' Inside there were 21 rooms, all of which had interesting pieces. Around two hours of art gazing was all i could muster before i had to get outside into the sun. It was a shortish walk from here over a bridge before the tourist masses started gathering in the rush towards the main square. There was an attractive tour guide leading a huge group of around 50 people so i followed along with them in the hope they were going where i thought they were. On eventual arrival at the square i was awestruck at the size and grandeur of its appearance. The rows of grey windows on the buildings on either side and the Basilica of San Marco at the far end made for an impressive sight. It suddenly occured to me why this is where all the tourists go! I had read somewhere in our hostel about there being no eating in the square but hadnt payed much attention to it for whatever reason. it was hence a surprise to me when i got told off for attempting to eat a sandwich on a step. I sat and watched as literally hundreds of pigeons swarmed as a one entity in all directions. People everywhere were either feeding, watching or posing for photo's with these scummy birds. I decided to eat my lunch down by the water's edge to avoid any trouble before going in the the Basilica. The wait in the line wasn't too bad maybe 10-15 minutes. There were signs displayed saying that you werent allowed to bring bags into the building and that they had to be taken to a baggage hold in a street nearby. I didn't feel like leaving the queue though so i watched as other got told to line backup before it was my turn to be inspected. My not so ingenious plan was to hold onto my backpack behind my back and avoid it being spotted. This managed to get me past the initial man but a few min later i was spotted so unfortunately had to deposit my bag like everyone else :) Once i found myself inside once more i got the appreciate the amazing work that had been put into the building. The entire inside ceiling was composed of tiny gold mosaics and the scale of it was quite unlike anything id ever seen. They had a small room off to the side which was the treasury. Upstairs there was a museum and the entrance to the balcony from where you could view the whole square. After i felt id had sufficient viewing time i kept wondering through the museum, there was more interesting examples of mosaics and how they are made as well as three very old, lifelike bronze horse statues.

Afterwards i made my way to Doge's Palace, a huge tall building with a magnificent view of the entire city. The elevator took about 20 people up to the top where everyone crowded round the various vantage points. I systematically made my way around, patiently waiting for a space to present itself. It gave a great aerial perspective of the city, islands and mainland. I felt compelled to stay as long as possible due to the rather hefty cost. That evening i got to experience the Venice nightlife. I found it was as busy during the day as it was at night, San Marco square all lit up was particualry nice. Making my way back i came across several African men selling fake bags on the side of the street. This is a common occurence in the city where youll find them selling bag's, sunglasses and the like. These guys started packing up their makeshift setup and running for their lives because of what i assume must have been the police having spotted them. I followed them along and got talking to one guy who i think was from Somalia. I tried to take a photo of them but i think he was afraid i show it to the authorities as he was quite against the idea :) Another interesting situation i stumbled across was where there was a cat perched up on the flower baclony of one of the buildings. A small crowd had gathered in front of the helpless kitty until out of nowhere a few guys hopped up and promptlz rescued the kitten. The next day i went to the last of the magnificent churches youll find in Venice, one of which was in the middle of a service(it was sunday)! I wish i had gone to one of the islands instead of lazing about in the sun eating icecream. Ah well. 3 hours early to the airport as well to cap it off! To cut a long story short i got home at 2.30am with work the next day :) Travelling is certainly not routine. Next post will be about my experiences in Germany, the motherland. Watch this space...

Chair lift ride

Heya, this post will be brief as i am still a while of finishing this trip. Anyhow on the last day of camp there was another mountain to conquer. This particular mountain was quite high and required a chairlift to the top. After a steep ascent by car to the base of a hill it was discovered that the lift was out of action as it was lunch time. The chairlift ride rode us up over a hill then down again to another platform..then up the climb to the base of the mountain. The older ladies got a ride up with a friendly local in a 4 wheel drive. We all ate the local fare at a restaurant which was located about 500m up a sharp rise. I had some delicious pasta with mushroom sauce and half a strudel. It was quite chilly and windy being so high up but i was keen to tackle the 1km or so climb to the very top. A few had already set off earlier and i passed them on their way down. At the top the view showed the whole surrounding area and i got a real sense of the mountainous region. That evening there was a market in the village centre. People selling wares and food, as well as a brass band consisting of 6 blokes who were very energetic and fun. Forgot to bring my camera with me which i was spewing about afterwards. Afterwards played some cards, Chinese 500 and i won! :D That was about it for today.

The view from the restaurant down towards the chairlift.

Thats one sheer drop.

The view from the top. Me posing.

hmm friesian cow, it was a surreal feeling hearing the peaceful sound of their bell's

Train troubles

The traditional trip to Innsbruck was on today's agenda for those who wanted to go. It wasn't a compulsory activity as there were people who had been before and it was a 2 hour journey by car. Id been told earlier that morning that the city wasn't anything special but i wanted to check it out to say id 'done it.' Two full car loads headed out of the car park at 10am. Unfortunately for myself and five others we would be forced to catch the train as there were not enough seats for us all. What i thought would be a simple affair of buying the tickets at the station and hopping on turned out to be a bit of a calamity. On arriving at the ticket office we were abit surprised to see a long line of people. Maybe what wed been told told today about it being busy was true...four of us had eurail passes and therefore didn't have to face the prospect of waiting in line approx 5 minutes before the train was due to arrive. Pam being the seasoned traveller that she is duly exclaimed to us that we could buy our tix on the train but warned it would end up costing more. How much more she did not know. With the second's ticking by i made the decision to line up despite feeling it was a lost cause. A couple of anxious minutes later and my instincts told me to check the track and there it was! Immediately the adrenaline kicked in as i sprinted for the stairs to get to the far platform. where K. Jumping down the stairs, almost rolling my ankle, down the tunnel dodging, turning and up another flight of stairs. Phew! Made it. I looked around and there was Kay, Pam, Kyle and her parents urging me on before we hurriedly got on the nearest carriage together. Having found some seats i caught my breath as we waited for the ticket inspector to come to discuss our situation.

Pam played the role of interpreter while i sat eagerly awaiting what wed have to shell out for the journey. After a lengthy discussion she relayed to us the bad news was that it would cost Kay and i ~40 euro due to it being an international route. The lady suggested an alternative route that involved getting on another train before the border with Austria but it sounded like a hassle and we wouldn't get to Innsbruck until around 1pm. The frustrating part lay in the fact that had i had time to buy a ticket in Bressaone it would of cost a meager 8 euro! I summed up the pro's and con's and decided it wasn't worth the money. It wasn't an easy decision but i figured that it wasn't worth the money for a only few hours enjoyment. I think Kay for the most part agreed with me, either way he came with me! :P Anyhow it was a slightly abrupt and disappointing way to start the day...Our location was approx 10km down the valley from camp which left me in a dilemma as to what to do next. I forgot to mention earlier, Kay comes from Germany (see pic) and is the boyfriend of a lady from the same country who has been coming along for a few years. He spoke a little English so i could could strike up some conversation which was some comfort. Its times like that i wish i spoke another language *sigh* Kay inquired when the next train would be coming and it was over an hour away! I suggested we walk as i wasn't to keen on sitting around doing nothing. Thus began the long walk back to town in the hot midday sun. Meanwhile the crew that hadn't gone to Innsbruck (All the italian saints and a few others) were heading back to the Platzer's house for the day. The next while saw kay busily organising a way out of this mess for the both of us. On our travels we stumbled across a sign on the side of the road advertising a fair. Pr Alf had previously mentioned that today was an Italian national holiday and people celebrated all over the country by getting together, eating food and other frivolities. I wanted to check it out just for the sake of it and see what was going on. A ten minute walk up the hill later and we found quite a large group of people enjoying themselves eaintgfood, drinking and even a few kids rockclimbing. It was a short stay though as a few minutes later Kay told me Sabina was going to pick us up! Yay, good news. WE gratefully got in the big van which wound its way in the opposite direction to where we had come towards the city of Bolzano. The Platzer's house was about half an hour out of the city, perhaps a little bit smaller then Launceston in terms of size. Everyone was relieved to get out of the car as it was a really hot day. I lazed on the deck chair for a while then had a hit of table tennis with Andy before the heat took its toll and i gave up from lack of energy. There was also a few games of fuzeball had where the ball more often off the table then not. Alessandro (see pic above) enjoyed flinging himself on the flying fox while Darren and i took some pics of him in action. Lunch time was a selection of pasta together with some interesting grape juice. Everyone chilled out, some more then others (Pr Pino fell asleep on a deckchair) before we got in the cars once more to check out a local lake for a swim! As soon as i heard the plan to go swimming i regretted not remembering my board shorts, however there was no way it was going to stop me getting wet. The lake was a lot larger then i was expecting and had a couple of decent sized swimming pool just above it where the locals flocked in numbers. Along the side of the lake there were some quite large Paddle which fit about 6 people. They looked like the best way to get around and they were heaps of fun with three of them speeding around for an hour. I thought the water would be really cold but it was really nice and refreshing. Unfortunately once exiting the water i would have to deal with another problem associated with wearing wet clothes, ouch :( Every night i got the feeling when i went to bed that the days were disappearing really quick. Talking to people there I think everyone agreed it was a pretty full on week while on the other hand i think its good being occupied. Tomorrow would be the last full day before we all went our separate ways...*sigh*. Nevertheless it involved some more spectacular views and a cool ten minute ride up a chairlift. Dont forget there's lots more pic's here. Hopefully ill get to writing about Venice soon as in two weeks ill be heading off to Germany! woohoo

Castle time.

There were two choices presented to us for today (Tuesday), either a nice walk to a castle on a hill (The main selling point was that it was supposedly easy going with a slight uphill towards the end)or a ride on a cable car and then a walk uphill to a restaurant etc. It was a unanimous decision that we would go check out the former option. After another early get up and downing as much meat on bread as i could stomach we started walking out of the small village of Natz. Just along the side of the road you could a sense of the scale of how many apple tree's there were in the region. They were literally everywhere you went. Darren commented how it would be cool to have a job picking apples in Tuscany during the summer. I agreed, except we were told its quite hard to that sort of work without all the right visa's and things. The track we were following wound down a small valley where there was a hotel and restuarant (pictured). Close to this was a nice lake. Pr Helmut had drove down and with him brought some remote controlled speed boats which we watched as Mickey and Miriam raced each other. It started to drizzle so we continued walking and left the kids to their fun. Another cafe conveniently popped up on our path and it was time for coffee, for those who wanted it. Despite it being midday I didn't eat here on the recommendation there would be pizza where we would end up. We made our way up a small hill and down again through a forest...It was there the road sloped downwards into a huge valley where in the middle lay a extruding cliff face. You could see a small village on top of the hill and i noticed how good a spot it was to position a castle. By this stage we'd all split up into seperate groups as people walked at a pace they found comfortable. After crossing the bridge we started the quite steep descent that we'd been dually warned about. I liked being up the front and pushing myself as on the previous days excursions. Wayne and i hiked at a steady pace until about half way up when he keenly spotted a wild deer a couple of hundred metres away. As we tried to get closer it sprinted away off the track, it was still cool to have seen a deer in its natural habitat. At the top we caught our breath and checked out the back entrance to the castle as everyone battled their way up the steep slope. As people started gathering at the top few of us went off to find food. I was pretty hungry by this stage and joined the crew while the other went on a tour of the castle. A salami pizza later and it was our turn to check out the main attraction. We waited half an hour to have the services of an English guide which would no doubt make the experience more insightful and informative. After entering the huge wooden door there was an open area with a lawn and to the left there the family's residence who actually owned the whole place! Was nice of them to open it up to the public, must be an interesting lifestyle. Ill let the pictures do the talking as my descriptive narrative is less then adequate and really does not do it justice. A couple of things that stood out were an armoury room with all sorts of medieval killing implements and a huge collection of rifles. Another of the rooms the guide showed us contained fresco's only recently discovered which were among the oldest in Europe if my memory serves me correctly. It portrayed the story of King Arthur and dated back to the 13th century. The view from the front garden was spectacular and made us all realise exactly why the fortress had never been taken by an invading force. The guide told us a story about a wizard who lived in the castle who was well known throughout the area for fixing peoples problems i.e. crops, healing animals etc. My memory is abit hazy but i think the community suspected he could talk to animals, hence accusing him of witchcraft. That ended my first visit to a castle! The first of many hopefully. We were all really tired after the walk so got a lift for the 10 minute car trip home. A yummy dinner awaited us when we got back, Lasagne if i recall correctly :) The next day would be an adventure of misfortune as i attempted to go to Innsbruck, Austria.

In more recent news...Ive started working on a new counter at work (takeaway) and now have the added responsibility of making sandwiches every morning! It has its pro's and con's, on the one hand the time goes much quicker having more stuff to do but it means getting up early every morning(6.30am). From last week i made the decision to start walking to work as well so ive had to adjust quite a bit from my usual routine. Ive got a sense of how many people there are in this city just by the amount of traffic and people i encounter in the 1 hour it takes me to get to Fortnum and Mason's. The pollution is also very noticeable and isn't very pleasant, makes me want to breathe some clean mountain air once more...Hmm tassie air and water is something that cant be matched. Well until next time, ciao.

Fun and Games

Today (Monday) was a rest day after two fairly arduous days of walking. immediately after breakfast we had a group photo of everyone that had come to camp. It was quite funny watching Wayne operate his camera with such enthusiasm. There must of been 10 camera's which wayne had to operate for the shot. Some time was killed before a huge meal of delicious spaghetti was prepared for lunch. This was apparently a tradition at camp and proved to be a good one. It was very tasty, perhaps as good or better then my dad's brew the only downside being that i wasnt more hungry having had breakfast only two hours beforehand. A short while after lunch we gathered in front of the pensione for what was to be a cryptic quiz based on the area we were located. Sabina read out our names in groups of 2 or 3 and we set off with the sheet of clues in search of what would turn out to be elusive answers. I got paired with a lady from Germany called Elly. Her testimony was an inspiration, being strong in the lord despite being isolated from fellowship and also traveling to camp for the second successive year at the age of 85! We got few the first few questions ok, but it started to get quite hard as we walked towards the nearby town of Natz. The clues were really obscure and required a very keen eye and a good ability to understand what the person was thinking when they wrote it. Most people found it difficult and after much wondering about everyone started to help each other out and trade answers. The rain started to drizzle so everyone made their way back to the main building where we had our meals and held the meetings. That afternoon before dinner a game of soccer was organised for those who were interested. There was a small enclosed field which was on the way to where we were staying that was perfect. Quite a few balls got booted over the high rope fence this was soon solved by getting the goalies to throw the ball instead. After half an hour non stop we were all quite tired and some young teenagers had gathered outside on the grass. Theo from Wales spoke some German to the leading guy and he agreed we could play for another 5 minutes. We headed back for some well earned foodand another night of fellowship. Quite a good day overall...tomorrow we would head for a nearby castle! cya