On March 28th I flew out of Glasgow, knowing I would not be returning for 22 days and with all of Europe in front of me. That day I arrived in Budapest and met up with Casey, Brett and Claire, all friends from high school in Medfield. Brett and Casey are studying in Budapest, and served as our guides through the capital of Hungary for the weekend. Most of our time was spent wandering the streets of "Pest", the side of the city that both Casey and Brett live on. However, our first afternoon was spent on the "Buda" side of the river exploring Castle Hill and the Baths which offered great views of Parliament and St. Stephen's Basilica.
While we were in Budapest, we took full advantage of the exchange rate, going out for authentic Hungarian meals, enjoying Budapest's colorful nightlife and buying some souveniers to remind us of our time there. All in all I think I spent a grand total of $40 while there... unbelievable! While short, I really enjoyed my time in Budapest for it was something completely different than what I have been experiencing in Scotland. Although I can see myself getting frustrated if studying in a place so different from Boston, or even Glasgow, it was refreshing to be totally out of my element for those 4 days. That said, I have to hand it to Casey and Brett for being there for months, well done.
From Budapest Claire and I traveled by train to our next destination, Vienna, Austria. Here we were meeting our friend Emily, also from Medfield but also goes to BC. From the moment we exited the train station I was stunned by how regal Vienna seemed. I felt like around every corner there was another palace or royal theater, giving the city an air which I have not yet experienced in my travels. After dropping our stuff at Emily's apartment, our first order of business was to get a pint of Austrian beer and a huge order of weiner schnitzel. I think my favorite thing about our three days in Vienna (aside from the architecture of the city center) was the food. While it may have broken the bank, Vienna offered food like no other city I have been to in Europe. Between the schnitzel, the pastry shops and the stands at the Naschmarkt, we ate like kings while there. On our last day in the city we decided we would take advantage of the weather and spend the afternoon in the gardens of the Schonnbrun Palace which were modelled after those at Versaille. While the gardens were beautiful, out in front of the palace they were holding an Easter market which offered some of the best waffles, crepes and potatoe salad that I can remember.
Feeling a bit heavier than when we arrived in Central Europe, Claire and I set off for Bratislava, Slovakia to catch our respective flights, mine to Rome and Claire's back to London. While we spent no time in the city of Bratislava, our drive through called to mind images I had seen in a class I took on the Soviet Union last semester at BC. As the motorway cut through the city to the airport, we were surrounded by a canyon of massive, cement Soviet-era apartment blocs. After just spending three days in palacial Vienna, it was interesting to see such a stark difference in a major city a little over an hour away.
By that afternoon, I had left Central Europe and arrived on the boot in Rome, Italy. Here I was to meet my friend from BC, Kerrianne, and later in the week some friends from Glasgow who would be making a stop in Rome to check out some of the festivities being held for Holy Week. Kerrianne was to arrive the next day, giving me and afternoon to wander the city on my own. Starting at the Spanish Steps, I wandered for a good 5 hours, weaving in and out of the streets that make up the Old City in central Rome. In that one afternoon I was able to see the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, the Castel Sant'Angelo, the Panteon, the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. Over the course of the four days following my first afternoon in Rome we made stops at all of these sights, but the fact that I was able to see all these places that have only existed on the pages of books in one "walk" is something I won't soon get over.
The next day Kerrianne arrived and right off the bat we took advantage of every minute in Rome. First we took a tour of the Colosseum and the Roman Forum (my favorite place in Rome), and then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Trastevere, a neighborhood of Rome across the river from the Forum famous for it's pizza. The next day was spent in Vatican City, touring St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum. As impressive as the Basilica was, my favorite place inside the Vatican was the Hall of Maps in the Vatican Museum. As the name says, it is massive, arched hallway covered in maps and paintings. The sheer amount of artwork in the museum is still something I wonder at, almost a month after leaving. For our last day in Rome, we decided to pick off the "other" sights which we had not been to yet, including the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon. Aside from the sights, what I think I enjoyed most about Rome was the gelato. Before going to Rome, I feel like it's all I ever heard about, and was skeptical that it could compare to a cone from Big Daddy's in Maine... but gelato definitely held it's own. All in all I definitely plan on making a return trip to Rome at some point down the road (hopefully next time it won't involve an earthquake in the middle of the night that kept Deed's on the edge of her seat until I could find a computer with internet!)
From Rome I traveled north to Florence where my friends Alyssa and Hope are studying for the semester, both from Medfield. Arriving in the early afternoon, I had a good chunk of time to explore the city while my two friends were still in class. While Florence was beautiful, I was shocked at how small of a city it is. Within those 4 hours of wandering I was able to get a grasp on the entire city center, seeing the Duomo, Ufizi Gallery, Ponte Vechio and San Larenzo Cathedral. That afternoon I met up with Alyssa and got to see her apartment (which you could see the top of the Duomo from) and then later met up with Hope and headed to her apartment where I would be staying for the week. Florence is great because no matter where you are in the city, everything is within walking distance which I took full advantage of. Hope and I decided that night to hike up to the Piazza Michelangelo which overlooked all of Florence, and it was a great way to get a grasp of where I would be for the next four days.
My first full day in the city I spent at the Galleria Academia, which houses the collosal "David" statue. Before coming to Florence I had heard all about the statue and was excited to see it, but didn't understand how one statue could get so much hype... but then I actually saw it. The statue was enormous, must have been at least 20 feet high, and was of David just after he had defeated Goliath. I know I am not an art critic, but it truly was an amazing sculpture, and I would highly reccomend a visit to the gallery for anyone visiting Florence. I also got a chance that day to climb to the top of the Duomo which offeres an unparalleled 360 degree view of Florence and it's surroundings. It was a bit hazy when I was at the top, but it was still great to see the whole city from this vantage point.
Because I had so many days to spend in a relatively small city, I decided that on my last full day in Florence I would take a day trip out of the city to experience some more of Italy that I might not have been able to otherwise. After asking for reccomendations on where to go, I decided that my best bet was Cinque Terre National Park in the Liguria region of Northern Italy. This was probably the best decision I could have made. Cinque Terre is a string of five small Italian fishing villages tucked into the cliffs of northwestern Italy. Connecting the five villages is a hiking path that takes about 8 hours to hike. I started my climb around 10 in the morning, making stops in all five of the villages and arrived in the last, Monterosso, by 3 in the afternoon. Unfortunately the path between the third and fourth villages (Corniglia and Vernazza) was closed due to rockslides, and I had to take a train instead. The scenery was unbelievable both in and between the villages. While hiking, the path would sometimes shrink to just two or three feet wide, allowing enough room for only one person to walk. A hundred of so feet below was the Mediterranean and above were the mountains that hid these villages from the rest of Italy. Although my trip to Cinque Terre was made solo, it was the perfect way for me to have a quite day to myself, and soak in all the traveling I had just done.
From Italy I met up with some friends from Glasgow, and we headed by boat to Croatia for Easter Weekend. We arrived on Saturday the 11th early in the morning, and reached the small resort town of Makarska by 9am with a full day of beach ahead of us. Reading this you're probably wondering why in the world I would travel to Croatia, but in all honesty it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever traveled to. All down the coast are massive mountains which fall right into the crystal clear waters of the Adriatic Sea. Just off the coast are hundreds of small islands (the Dalmation Islands - where the dog gets it's name from) that run the length of the country. With the islands on the horizon and the mountains at your back, the sea really just seems like a giant salty lake, void of any waves and lined by pine trees and rocky beaches. Most of my time spent in Croatia was on the beach, however the second day we were there we decided to hike down the coast to where a local had told us there was a "secret beach". After about an hour of hiking along the cliffs on the southside of Makarska, we had almost given up on the idea of this secret beach, but we finally came over a ridge looking down on a beach surrounded by tall white cliffs, with clear shallow water and bleach-white pebbles. We spent the whole day here and was really one of the only relaxing days I had on my 22 day journey.
After leaving Croatia I headed back to Italy by boat, then took a train north to Milan to meet up with my friends Dan and Pier from BC for dinner before I flew to my last destination in Spain. Sitting down to dinner with Dan and Pier, I couldn't help but think it was funny that this was the 3rd time I had seen them in Europe on seperate occasions, and here we were in Milan just grabbing a quick bite to eat. If things go according to plan, I might actually be seeing them one more time before I leave Europe in a few weeks when I go to visit our roommate Sean in Paris.
From Milan, I flew to Barcelona and met up with my friends Ben and Sal from Glasgow. This was the final leg of my trip, and to be honest I was looking forward to getting back to Glasgow. However, I didn't let this take away from our weekend in Barcelona at all, and this huge Spanish city quickly became one of my favorite cities in Europe. I think what I liked so much about Barcelona is that while there was structure and order, there was also a sense of spontinaity that had been absent in my previous destinations. To be honest, we were a bit intimidated by the size of the city, so on our second day there we decided to rent mopeds in order to see everything. Had we not done that, I'm confident that we would have only seen a fraction of the places which that we did on our scooters. We were able to venture to the edge of the city to see Camp Nou, the home of FC Barcelona, then across the city to Barceloneta and the beaches by the commerical district, and then back across the city again to the Olympic Park and Montjuic which offered amazing views of the entire city. By committing to our mopeds, we didn't spend much time on foot that day, so on our last day in the city we made sure to make stops at La Sagrada Familia and Park Guell, two of Antoni Gaudi's most famous works (Familia is his famous cathedral which is still in the process of being completed, and Park Guell is the futuristic park which was once slated for Barcelona's elite upper class, but has since been opened to the public).
If you have made it this far into this post, I commend you. Three weeks of travel is a very difficult thing to summarize, and obviously there are countless stories and details that I had to leave out. However, these will all be filled in when I see you in person, which when I think about it is right around the corner. The next month will be filled with exams and final trips around Scotland, but I'm going to make an effort to really sit back and take it all in because as I can now see, a month will go by just like that!
