So, I’ve been delaying updating my blog with the rest of my Easter Break adventures for quite some time.. I wanted to ensure I had enough time to sit down and reflect on all I had done, as there is really just so much to explain. I’m still a little awe-struck myself at all of the many things I saw and did in such a short period of time. Well, here goes!
I had a (necessary) two days rest in Vienna after visiting my host families in Germany, which was just enough time to do laundry, and give my brain a break from all that German I had been speaking ;). The perfect summer-like weather we had experienced in Bavaria the week before continued, and I managed to spend both afternoons basking in the sun in the (now) very busy Prater Park behind my house.
On Thursday April 16th, the Euro-adventures continued. I took the (now-familiar) train ride to Salzburg, where I met up with Kim* (*see my blog from my Munich adventure!) We were booked on a Ryanair flight from Salzburg to Dublin. This was both of our first experiences flying with a so-called “discount” airline, but asides from the distractingly bright blue and yellow interior of the aircraft, the flight was smooth-as-can-be. Once in Dublin, we were a little flustered trying to figure out how to get to from the airport into the city centre and to our hostel, but we soon found out that the Irish really are a friendly and helpful bunch. (Kim and I often found ourselves looking at each other and smiling at all of the adorable Irish accents, especially the kids.) We were booked for three nights at Abraham hostel. The hostel itself left much to be desired, but the staff were quite helpful, the showers had pretty decent water pressure and we basically just needed a place we could crash at the end of each night. (And to think my family calls me “Five Star” – gosh, I’ve changed, huh? Guess that’s what happens when you’re paying out of your own pocket!) Being the penny pinchers we are, we opted to attend the hostel’s “free breakfast” each morning of our stay, which literally consisted of a cup of instant coffee, and as much white toast as you could possibly consume – and believe me, some people took advantage of this. The wait for the toaster could get pretty long when some of the big boys were shoving up to 10 pieces through at a time!
After settling into our hostel, we set-out on the short walk to Trinity College to meet-up with our “personal tour guide” for the weekend - Lara, a friend of Kim’s from highschool, is attending Trinity on a year-long exchange program with the Queen’s Commerce program. What a luc
ky girl! Trinity College is actually one of Dublin’s most renowned tourist attractions, and Lara even managed to score herself a room in one of the historic on-campus residences. (The “privilege” of living on campus at Trinity is typically reserved for fourth-year students, to allow them easier access to participate in many of the on-campus clubs and activities.) Lara brought us to the famous Temple Bar area, the cobblestoned streets which are home to plenty of traditional (although perhaps over-touristy) Irish Pubs pulsating with mostly live Irish beats. Our first stop was the (most famous and) original “Temple Bar”. Being the Canadian girls that we are, we were delighted to find that they had (some very expensive) Coors Light on tap. Apparently we’ve been spoiled with our Austrian beers, as I can honestly say it was pretty rough going down – so much sugar! We stuck with Irish beer and cider for the remainder of the weekend ;)!
On Friday morning, Lara had to attend classes, but recommended we check out the famous Guiness Storehouse. As it so happens, 2009 marks the 250th anniversary of Guiness - kind of neat! We had already learned much about the “brewing process” of beer on our Munich brewery tour, however the building itself was quite extraordinary aesthetically, and I also really enjoyed the section on Guiness’ marketing and advertising. To finish the tour, we were treated to a complimentary pint of the dark stuff in the Storehouse’s rooftop bar that provided 360 degree views over the city. While we each barely managed to slug back about half of our beers, the views were certainly incredible, and establishing all of the major landmarks helped us in orienting ourselves around the city for the remainder of the weekend.
Lara had the remainder of the afternoon free from classes, and once again played tour guide. In my opinion, Dublin is best enjoyed wandering the quaint streets and alleyways, and absorbing the fun-loving Irish culture, rather than jetting around the city searching for “must-see” buildings and landmarks. As it was Friday, another night out was a necessity, and we signed up to attend the “Backpackers Pub Crawl”, which was actually started by a Canadian way-back-when. Ironically, although the Pub Crawl meets up at 8 o’clock every night at the Trinity gates, Lara herself had never experienced an organized Dublin Pub Crawl. We immediately befriended a group of loud and rambunctious Scottish girls, who were just visiting Dublin for the weekend, and so from the beginning it promised to be an interesting, if not great, night. The Pub Crawl took us to five typical (and apparently less-touristy) bars before finally ending up in the Temple Bar area once again. It was a good opportunity to get off the “main drag” and to see the nightlife as the Dubliners themselves experience it.
Saturday morning we woke up to sunshine (!) – an apparent rarity in Ireland. We packed
ourselves a picnic and took a 45-minute train ride out to the tiny seaside community of Howth in the Dublin suburbs. The charming town was surrounded by a blend of jagged cliffs, and endless sandy beaches, and we couldn’t have asked for a more gorgeous day in which to enjoy the beautiful scenery. After a lovely day hiking in the sun, we finished off our evening in one of the many new and popular gourmet burger joints before settling down for an early night - my flight to Paris was to leave at 7 AM the next morning.
I had to wake up at 4 AM Sunday morning, to ensure I was at the Dublin airport for check-in at 5 AM. Despite the lack of sleep, thoughts about Paris and the girls I would meet there kept me awake with excitement through the flight. Waiting for me at my gate in Paris was Virginia, my roommate from Guelph who has been on a semester abroad program in the “City of Lights” for the semester. It was so great to see her in flesh and blood; we had been planning this Pari
sian rendezvous even before we set-off to our respective destinations in the winter. We quickly hurried to Terminal 3 on the very opposite side of the airport to pick-up the third member of our little Euro-group: Melanie, another roommate from Guelph. Melanie had flown-out of Toronto the evening before, but despite the jet lag, was anxious to be with her girls again and get her very first Euro experience started. On the train-ride back into the city it was just like old times; non-stop chatter, and cutting each other’s sentences off as we all shared our own stories of what we’d been up to the past four-ish months :).
We were booked in for four nights at “Oops” design hostel in the Latin Quarter. As this would be Mel’s first hostel experience, she wanted to ensure that the place we were staying was the upmost in comfort and security (by hostel standards, at least!), and thus the artsy and posh interior was well received in comparison to my shabby accommodations the previous few nights. We were booked into a four-person room, and a quick glance at the “Italian-French” dictionary on one of the bunkbeds gave us a good indication of who our new roommates might be. As it turns out, the two girls (who were Italian, obviously) spoke very little English, and communication was sparse but friendly throughout our stay. I even went down to the hostel breakfast with the two girls on a few occasions, as Mel slept off her jet lag, and it’s quite amazing how far hand language can get you in a pinch.
After checking-in, our whirlwind itinerary throughout Paris began. In the first day, we conquered most of the main sites including the City Hall, Notre Dame, Champs d’Elysees, Arc de Triomphe and a view of the major exhibits in the Louvre (including our dear Mona, of course). Virginia really enjoyed our “oohs” and “aahs” at all of these well-known attractions, as it
was a chance for her to re-live the city through “new eyes”. We had dinner at a tiny Italian place right on the Champs d’Elysees, which provided for some great people watching. Paris, while full of tourists, is nevertheless a very multicultural city, even in contrast to Vienna, another European capital. One of my few negative impressions from Paris was the unwanted and excessive attention from men; Virginia warned us early-on not to make eye-contact with men, as that is often taken as an invitation. We took heed of this lesson quickly!
After a relatively early first night, and a much-needed sleep-in, day two was scheduled as a relaxing day to shop and casually wander the side-streets. I was struck by the differences in architecture between Paris and other European cities I have been to, as it truly is very unique. Virginia, who took a course on Parisian architecture while she was there, explained that in fact, Paris was intentionally designed to be such an aesthetically pleasing city, and for the building styles to be analogous and complimentary to each other. It seemed that every corner we turned, a new and beautiful building, park or monument awaited us, regardless if it was something deemed an important cultural or tourist landmark in the guidebooks.
Decked out in new duds from our shopping trip, the evening plan was a stroll along the Seine River (complete with a bottle of wine), en route to the Eiffel Tower. While the Eiffel Tower had at first been rather unimpressive to me (in retrospect to all the hype), as our stroll took us nearer, and the night sky darkened, the lit-up Eiffel Tower soon loomed before us, and I no longer doubted it’s architectural uniqueness. After grabbing Nutella and banana crêpes from a nearby “crêperie”, we settled down on a bench where we enjoyed our treats while watching the glimmering lights of the Eiffel Tower light show (-lights up every hour on the hour
in the evening). Epic!
Already day three in Paris, there was still so much to see! We trekked up the many stairs to the beautiful, white Sacré-Coeur/Sacred Heart Basilica, which also provides the highest outlook point in the city. The nearby and charming Montmartre artist’s district was once its own tiny town, before it was swept up into the Paris city limits. Just down the hill from Montmartre is the red light district, home of the renowned Moulin Rouge. There were certainly some scandalous shops, museums and clubs as we made our way down the street and back to our metro station. To finish off our afternoon, we visited Paris’ largest park, Jardin du Luxembourg. The former Luxembourg Palace is now home to the French Senate. Just like in the movies, “Springtime in Paris” meant that the park was just a-buzzing with families in search of an afternoon under the glorious, and (unusually?) warm April sun. (We truly lucked out with weather over the course of our
adventures!)
For our last day in Paris, we enjoyed a picnic in one of Virginia’s favourite parks, a lesser-known but beautiful park that she had really only happened-upon due to her architecture class. After packing up our picnic, we headed to the street market district of Mouffetard, to marvel at some of the French delicacies, and to pick-up some of our own last-minute gifts and treats.
The food in Paris was definitely pleasing to the palate. We certainly ate a lot of fresh white bread, which Virginia says is a “must” since a baguette typically goes hard before the end of the day. Even the simple baguette sandwiches or paninis bought on the street corner or at a local Boulangerie (bakery) left our mouths watering. Although I had heard Paris was a very expensive city, one could subside on an endless supply of Brie cheese, croissants or baguettes, and yummy wine, even while pinching pennies. The sit-down restaurants were significantly more expensive, particularly the beer, as it is not as important a part of French culture as in other European cities. (Although I must say, I would pay 8 euro again for the very best (Belgian) beer I have ever had!) Going out in Paris is also apparently expensive (-cover is often as high as 20 Euro, and drinks at 15 Euro a piece), and thus we decided to post-pone any clubbing activities until we were in Vienna.
After a whirlwind four days, it was once again back to the airport and on to our next destination: Salzburg! After a long day travelling, we were happy to settle down in our new accommodations in “Yoho” Hostel. Though not as trendy as our place in Paris, the place was impeccably clean, and the staff could not have been more welcoming and helpful. (A charming aspect of the Austrian people.) For dinner, the girls had their first taste of Schnitzel, accompanied by a delicious (and woohoo, inexpensive) Austrian wheat beer, which might just be my new favourite!
We had long-before planned a day trip out to Hallstatt, a scenic lakeside town which Virginia had come across under an online article entitled “Europe’s 10 Most Interesting Places to Visit”. The hour (plus) train ride through the Salzkammergut region of mountains and lakes was an experience in itself. A ferry boat, scheduled to meet us at the arrival time of our train, took us across Hallstätter Lake and over to the town of less than 1000 inhabitants. Soon after arrival, I realized that this was not my first visit to this mystical town, and in fact I had been there three years before on my last Austrian tour, while my parents were visiting me in Germany. The happening-upon of such a unique and beautiful place twice was really quite remarkable, and I enjoyed myself and the stunning views regardless. Asides from a ridiculous amount of picture-taking, checking-out a couple
of shops, and a glance inside the town’s two churches, there was little left to do asides from settling-down in one of the many restaurants, and enjoying the delicious Austrian cuisine while taking in the amazing views and oh-so-fresh mountain air.
Our Saturday was spent exploring the “old city” section of Salzburg, appreciating the generally charming and medieval feel of the many winding shopping streets. On the city map provided by the hostel, I had found the city was home to the “Augustiner Bräustübel”; a former St. Augustine monastery, which has been brewing beer since 1621. I was
eager to bring the girls to a traditional brewery to experience the very best of Austrian beer tradition and culture. The entrance to the brewery had a market-like atmosphere, and there were various counters set-up selling a variety of warm and cold Austrian dishes. We settled on Sausages, Pretzels, and some traditional Potato Salad before grabbing a couple mugs of beer and settling ourselves at a table in one of the many large beer halls. After a satisfying meal, we wandered outside where the girls had their very first “beer garden” experience under the shade of the many beautiful Cedar trees.
Sunday I left the girls in Salzburg (where they would attend the Sound of Music tour), while I headed back to Vienna to unwind and prepare for their arrival the following day. This p
ast week they’ve spent in Vienna was (hopefully) enjoyable, as they were introduced not only to the traditional Viennesse culture and hotspots, but also received a first-hand glimpse of how I live my day-to-day life in this beautiful city. They are now underway again for another week of Euro-city-visiting, and I wish them all the best in their future travels <3. As for me, it’s back to the books (for real this time), as the second-half of my semester abroad picks up. Until next time ;)!
y realized when the train man came 'round to check our tickets. Oops! We ended up spending about an hour in a tiny train station before we could catch another train back to the airport and then back into the city. Apparently Craig brought some of the cold and yucky Canadian weather with him, and we had one of the chilliest/wettest afternoons Vienna has seen in over a month, which was the perfect opportunity to catch-up and watch some movies before cooking up a yummy fajita dinner and crashing early.
nd the ride was anything but restful. But hey, it was cheaper than the train!) We arrived in rainy Krakow (early) at 4:30 A.M. Naturally everything was oh-so-conveniently closed, including public transportation, but our hostel turned out to be a close walk. We received a very warm welcome at the hostel, and were even given beds to rest in for the remainder of the morning, although we had technically only paid for accomodation on Saturday night.
