Wow, I have been rather slack on the old blog for a while now, so I had better make it up.
From my last entry, I was about to head to florence.
I had heard so many horror stories about the gypsies outside the train station in Florence. Stories of babies being thrown at you to distract you, gangs of kids using sheets of cardboard to keep you out of your pockets while they rob you blind....
So it was with some trepidation that i stepped off my train from Rome. Bags securely attached to the body and locked where possible, anything of value out of my pockets. I headed out of the station expecting to enter a writhing sea of gypsies, with babies and cardboard flying everywhere. However obviously gypsies no longer "work" on sundays, as there wasnt one in sight. I did later manage to find a few begging in the piazza, but i did feel rather cheated of my florence gypsy experience.
I arrived in Florence at about lunch time, and not being much of a church or museum fan, by that night I felt that I had seen all that florence had to interest me. It was certainly a beautiful city and there was lots to look at, but it was also very full of tourists which can get a bit annoying after a while.
I thought that I should go and check out the statue of David. However when I arrived I found a line over 100m long, and on the sign stating the entrance price, they had stuck a bit of paper over the old price of €6 and written €10 on it. Such a blatant rip off to make the most of the summer rush, i could believe how obvious they were about it. So for that price, i was more than happy to just look at the replica in the square for free. That was enough for me
The following morning I decided to head to Pisa for a few hours to “tick the box” of the leaning tower with a few people from the hostel.
Thats pretty much all it was. Im not sure what all the fuss about it is. Its just a tower that is on a slant. However the area around it is just like a circus full or tourists and people selling fake sunglasses and bags and crappy overpriced souveneirs. By this point I was struggling to work out why people seem to be so in love with Italy..
By the time I was heading to Milan that afternoon, I was definatley feeling over Italy and looking forward to leaving.
Milan was interesting for the fact that the only things there was a massive church and lots of clothes shops. I have no idea why it is the “fashion capital” of the world, as it just seemed to be a grey and pretty bleak city. Anyway, the important thing was that I had a flight out from there, and after paying yet more over inflated prices, i finally made it to the airport and was off to Prague.
My first impressions of Czech Republic was how clean, modern, organised, cheap and “western” it seemed after Italy.It was a bit of a suprise.
However, after having near perfect weather for the entire trip, it was now raining. My first morning in prague, i headed down to the old town, but it was just bucketing rain most of the time, so I ventured inside and watched a movie for a while, and when I emerged again, the rain had cleared and the tourist groups had amassed.
Everyone I have met on this trip who has been to prague has seemed to say the same thing. Its a very nice, beautiful city, but just completley over-ran with tour groups now. The next day I climbed the tower of the astronomical clock and was there at midday, when the crowds gathered below to watch the clock. looking down, it was just a sea of people staring up towards you.
So after a few days in prague, i headed south to Cesky Krumlov where I was pleasantly suprised. It is a small town, with a big castle and tower built into the cliff, overlooking the small old town, while a river circles through the town. it was absolutley beautiful, and although i learnt that it is the 2nd most visited city in the country, it didnt feel swamped like prague did (although i did arrive on the weekend and it was full of german daytrippers!)
It is also the european version of Vang Vieng, as everyone hires a raft and floats down the river, stopping at bars along the way for local beer and a sausage.
Within an hour of arriving i had extended my stay to 3 nights.
The town is also full very really good and CHEAP cafes and bars, most with outdoor terraces along the river with beautiful views of the castle. Spent a few hours at my favourite with a beer or tea and a good book, listening to the constant shouts of “Ahoy!” as boatload after boatload of germans in matching hats and tshirts went past.
We waited until after the weekend to go rafting, when it would be not so crowded. We had a six person raft, and after initial problems working out the front from the back, we were off and down the first few sets of small weirs and through the town.
After an hour or two of floating, we had left town and were floating through the beautiful forest. Soon it was time for our 1st stop for a sausage and a beer from a little hut, which naturaly led us to start talking like pirates...
Later, after trying to get away from the riverbank, beer in one hand, paddle in the other, boat going round in circles as we harrrred and yarrrreed, we set off to try and plunder the german boats.
Not too sure if germans speak pirate.
They didnt really seem to get the joke. I guess they dont have german pirates. But we still tried to ram them a bit with our boats anyway, especially after our next beer stop.
The scenery was very beautiful, lots of green lush forrest. at one point we rounded a curve in the river, there were no boats around us, and once we stopped paddling and harrring there was complete silence, apart from a few birds. it was beautiful.
We rounded one corner of the river and there was a bridge with a banner on it, asking a question in czech. We tried to guess what it meant, but we soon discovered that it must have asked "are you ready to get wet" as when we passed under the bridge, pumps started up and water started falling from the bridge, soaking us as we passed underneath.
Eventually the yellow pearl and it's pirates made it to the pickup point, after numerous jumping out of the boat to see if we could swim as fast, or just because we were drunk. That also made us think it would be a good idea to go down the final wier, not in the boat like we were meant to, but on our own like all the little kids who were jumping in and going down on their backs.
Bad idea. The water was shallow. Rather shallow. And we were quite bigger than the kids. I never did find those sunglasses......
Again, my time is almost up so i will have to finish later.
I am now in Ollomouc, in the east of the country, before heading to krakow to meet aleks which will be great.
