Milano, Verona & Venice

A friend of Kim’s Mum lives with her family in Milano, so we went to stay with her for 2 nights, attempting to fit in Milano, Verona and Venice in such a short time. After a few tears from me, and many many from Kim and Nellie, we took the push bikes and had a personal tour around Milano. On the way we passed 2 fashion shoots (plus the one which was happening right outside the train station when we hopped off the train!), the street where Gucci was assassinated (which was organised by his wife none the less!) and past the Duomo di Milano (cathedral). 

 

For dinner, Nellie cooked up an incredible meal, starting with the traditional melon and prosciutto and moving onto the best rice salad of all time! I even started my own recipe book, thanks Nellie! 

The next day we woke before sunrise to catch an early bird train to Verona and Venice. Stopping at Verona for only 1.5 hours, we were stretched to visit Italy`s thrid largest amphitheatre, the Arena (which is still used even though it was completed around 30 AD) and Juliet`s window, which I was most excited to see. The Arena was incredible, obviously it has had continuous maintenance over the years, but to be inside an ampitheatre which is so old and has so much history was humbling. Walking under the arch to Juliet`s window, the walls were covered with scribbles of poems and love letters, written by visitors for their speacial person. For anyone who has seen the movie `Letters to Juliet` the brick wall under the balcony is exactly the same as in the movie! Two ladies were working full time to scrape off the peoms and other script covering the walls. If I had my time in Verona again, I would definatly stay a few days, not only for the romance of the city, but the city itself was beautiful and peaceful.

 

Venice was exactly how I pictured it, canals, boats and people EVERYWHERE! The best way to see the city is to throw the map in the bin and get lost, seriously lost. There is no other way to see this unbelievable place. All I could think of when we were walking around Venice was of The Italian Job, when they use the boats in the canals to make their robbery! There are thousands of different masks made and sold in Venice, mask shops are everywhere! Casanova has his own style of mask to protect his identity, but you can literally get any kind you like, with or without feather, animal masks, gold plated masks...everything! The canals were absolutly filled with tourists doing the totally overpiced and typically touristy thing of riding in a gondala, Kim was devestated after months of believeing we would receive a free ride with our Eurorail tickets, but we had no such luck finding the elusive stall. Don`t fall into the same trap people, it doesn`t exist! 

Cinque Terre

Our first stop in Italy proved to be a great choice. Cinque Terre is a coastline made up of 5 villages and is incredibly beautiful and picturesque. Good value accommodation is pretty hard to find in any of the villages, so we stayed in the next village along the coast (just 5 minutes by train) in a place called Levanto. By the end of our time in Cinque Terre we were happy to stay there, slightly out of the way of all the tourists and subsequent hike in prices.

 

The first full day in Cinque Terre was my birthday, so we walked from Levanto along the mountainous coastline to the first of the five villages, Monterosso. Monterosso is home to the only beach in Cinque Terre, although you can swim in all the villages. We worked on our tans and worked up our appetites, so that night we went out for a typically Italian meal of pizza (me), pasta (Kim) red wine and gelati. What a way to start a new age! Kim gave me a lot of little Italian pastries as a cake, and boy were they good! She even sung happy birthday! 

The following day, we planned to take the train to the furthest village Riomaggiore, and walk back along the path which links all the villages. We were a little late to start walking however, when the train stopped in what we thought was the tunnel between the fourth and the fifth village. That however was the train stop, and we didn’t realise until the doors closed and we kept going onto the next town of La Spezia. That wasn’t a problem, until we realised the next train back to Riomaggiore wasn’t for another hour! So much for getting an early start to beat the heat! Finally we made it to Riomaggiore and started walking along the path back towards Levanto. A 5 hour hike turned into an all day hike, we couldn’t resist stopping to check out the cute villages and to swim in the naturally formed rock swimming holes. In one of the towns there is a spot where you can cliff jump. I did a baby one, and Kim took on and defeated the papa one, about 7 or 8m. She was standing there for about 15 minutes trying to talk herself into doing it. A crowd formed and one random lady was like ‘just push her!’ Finally when she jumped everyone clapped and went their own separate ways. In the weeks prior to getting to Cinque Terre, there was a landslide which had come down between two of the villages and cut off part of the walking path. This was a pity because otherwise we could have walked the whole way from the fifth village to the first. The final 3 or so hours of hiking was really good, it was the hardest part of the track (but compared to some of our previous hikes, it wasn’t dangerous or super hard) and we did them in record time, powering past everyone! By this time in the afternoon however it was super hot and we were so sweaty! Kim even took a photo to show how sweaty she was (I don’t think she wants me to publish it!). It felt good to pump out a few km’s though and it was perfect terrain for walking. 

In Vernazza we found a cool little place that served takeaway focaccia's, pizza's and calzone's. There was one dude working there, he would take whatever it was you wanted and put it in the oven so it was yummy and hot when it came out, it was such good value we went back! I had a calzone with ham and cheese and a focaccia with olives! Best focaccia ever! 

 

On our final full day in Cinque Terre we took the ferry which stops at 4 of the 5 towns, and again went swimming and took a look at each of the towns. It is always nice to get different views of an area, and it was also pretty cool to see the track where we had walked the day before. It was a very relaxed day, perfectly in tune with the seaside setting. 

Interlaken

We were very lucky to have found a Couchsurfing host from Canberra, who has been living in Interlaken for 3 years. Hayden lives in a barn on the outskirts of Interlaken, a perfect spot for his extreme sports, paragliding and the like! 

We were originally staying with Hay-dog for 3 nights, but on the day we were leaving for a hostel, he invited us to stay for our whole time in Interlaken (8 nights). We loved the barn so much, it became a second home! We also became friends with some people from one of the hostels who were from Canada, the US and the Netherlands, so it was lovely to feel such at home in the middle of Switzerland. Hay-dog (Kim was K-Dizzel and I was E-mu) even had use of an electric car! 

The day that we arrived in Interlaken, the Tour de Swiss was passing through the mountains not far from Interlaken, with the stage finishing in the next town of Grindelwald. Hayden and Mark (the Dutch dude) were riding part of the track after the competitors went past, so we caught the train up with some new found friends and sat on top of a building overlooking the finish line. The crowds were cheering and ringing cow bells, what a sight!

Being that we were staying in the Apls, we decided one day to do a hike to Schynige Platte which has an elevation of 2068m, starting in Interlaken at 567m. The first 3 hours was climbing the entire way! No rest for the wicked. Laura, a girl from Toronto who was also staying with Haydon was like a little mountain goat! What a gun. After about 2 hours we reached a train stop which had the best facilities (a working basin, soap and hand towels) considering we were literally in the countryside on a mountain…only in Switzerland would you find such convenience! Reaching the top was incredible, we had another incredibly scenic lunch overlooking Jungfrau (which falsely claims to tourists to be the top of Europe) on one side, and the two lakes which meet at Interlaken on the other. On the way down we took another route and got midly lost, trampling through a farmers paddock and a track that (we didn’t know at the time) had been cutoff from hikers. Oops!

Another day a group of us borrowed some tandem bikes and the electric car and headed to Neuhaus which is a nice picnic spot on one of the lakes. We hired a kayak and two paddle boards and cruised around on the lake for a bit. It was a perfect day until we got onto the water, when the weather changed and it became very windy and choopy. Kim and Laura were out on the kayak paddling around in front of the ferry stop. Blasting its horn once, Kim and Laura took no notice of the ferry which was trying to get back onto the lake. When it did it again for a good few seconds they still had no clue that it was telling them to get out of the way. By this time everyone on board and on the shore was watching the unfolding of events, I was standing there going ‘get the hell out of the way’, but the wind was coming from the opposite direction so there was no chance that they could hear anyone yelling. By this time the captain of the ferry was just about sitting on the horn, but the girls weren’t too frantic in moving out of its way. When they got back to shore a crazy old lady started yelling at them, telling them that she was going to call the water police and report them. What a hectic arvo!

 

In true Swiss tradition, one night we decided to make cheese fondue. Normally fondue is eaten only in winter because it is so heavy, and although we were in summer, it was lucky that it was quite a cool night in the barn. We had the fondue with the traditional bread, potatoes, capsicum, apple, broccoli and of course white wine so it didn’t set in our stomach. Sooo good! Nothing better than cheese covered food! Yum!

During our travels we have been very lucky to accidentally stumble across events that we didn’t even know about until we are in the middle of it. Jodlerfest was no exception. What is it you ask? It is a Swiss festival of Jodlers and Alphorn players which is held every 2 years, and the location changes every time. We were lucky enough to be in Interlaken the exact week that Intelaken was hosting the event. At any moment the Jodlers can form a circle and start Jolding right there on the street. It was amazing the amount of people from Switzerland who Jodle, everyone was dressed in the traditional dress, and some men even had one dangly earing in which I assumed (and hope) was also a tradition of the Jodlers. 

We also did a day trip to Luzern which was nice, but the weather was pretty shocking. To cheer ourselves up we did a trip to the supermarket where Kim consoled herself with 1kg of ice-cream, claiming that it was a bargain at 12euros.

 

The hike to Harder Kulm (1322m) was a really nice walk, where we could hear the Jodlerfest and have a view of Jungfrau. When we were at the top, there were some Alphorn players who put the horns on the brick barrier and played as if to the valley and the mountains on the otherside. 

Our last day in Interlaken however was by far the most memorable. Haydon and another Aussie friend had told us about a hutt called Glecksteinhutte (2317m), where you can hike up to and stay for a night. They had pointed out the path when we were at the Tour de Swiss in Grindelwald, and it followed the edge of a mountain. Then and there we decided to do it, so we called ahead and booked for a night at the hutt. We took a train to Grindelwald and then a bus, where we told the driver where to drop us for the start of the hike. And what a hike it was! The path was about 2 to 3 foot wide, and clung to the side of the mountain nearly the whole way up. At parts there was a metal rail that you could hold onto (or cling to for dear life!). The view was spectacular, overlooking the valley and mountains on both sides. About 50 minutes into the two hour hike we turned to check out the view, and noticed some dark clouds forming, some really dark clouds. The temperature had dropped and we could see rain in the distance. Having little experience in the mountains we had forgotten how quickly the weather could change and hadn’t checked the forecast because it was such a beautiful day when we left Interlaken. After passing under a waterfall and getting a little wet, it started to rain. Having left the rain jackets at home, we put our jumpers into our backpacks (we had to carry our food, water and clothing for the next day as well) so they didn’t get wet and pressed on. The path was becoming more and more dangerous, not only because of the rain, but some of the path was slate which was extra slippery. At one stage I had a bit of a panic attack because the thunder and lightning rolling toward us, and the track was getting worse and worse. We were already too far gone so we pressed on, passing a glacier (we saw a small avalanche!) and an Ibex. The Ibex started following us up the track, probably thinking ‘what are these fools doing!’, I like to think he was somewhat of a guardian angel looking out for us! Finally we could see the hutt, and when we were less than 100m from it, the clouds rolled in. We were literally in the middle of the storm! Kim was only a few meters in front of me (less than 5m) and I could barely even see her. The hutt which we could easily see just a few minutes earlier was swallowed up by the cloud. When we fell through the front door, the lady who looks after it gave us a bit of a serve about not checking the weather and leaving so late. The hike was meant to take a good couple of hours, but we did it in 1 hour 50 minutes! Legends! But the bad news was, was that there were no hot showers! The storm fully hit when we got in however, and after an hour or so was basically past. We went outside to check things out, and there was group of bachelor Ibex’s which the lady from the hutt was feeding salt to. They were pretty tame considering they are completely wide. That night we had an early one, with no-one else in the 90 bed hutt (obviously they had all checked the weather!) and got up early to hike back down before the storm which was forecast for noon. No major catastrophes on the way down, except I slipped holding onto the rail and ground 3 knuckles against the slate. Ouch! Looking back on it, it was a pretty cool hike, but boy was I glad to see the bus on the way back down!