No kangaroos in Austria

After setting off from Bled in Slovenia, we headed through the Alps on a spectacular train journey through to Mozart's birthplace, Salzburg. Some of the highest peaks still had snow in patches, but mostly we passed by mountains blanketed with lush pine forests, with postcard vilages in the green valleys. Salzburg is supposedly a big cultural draw card, but we found it very bland and lacking in a lot of the culture that makes Europe so interesting, like a busy town square and typical cafe strips. The old town area south of the river sits below an imposing castle, with remnants of additional fortifications on the north side of the river. The other side of the castle overlooks a big field with just one house in the centre - the executioner's residence - as it was believed to be bad luck to live anywhere near them. Past this you could see over the green fields and villages to the Alps. The city is famous for its (cheesy) Sound of Music tours, but having never seen the movie we decided to give it a miss, saving ourselves the 50 Euro ticket price - and our sanity. Apparently some of the youth hostels play the movie in the common area every day - needless to say, we also decided to give them a miss!

We did however make a trip to visit the ice caves at Werfen - these are the largest ice caves in the world. We originally planned to hike up to the mouth of the cave, but when we go to the bottom of the hill and looked up, it became very clear that the 5.50 Euro cable car ticket (up) was a far better option! The caves are pretty spectacular inside - the temperature drops to about 0 degrees, and some of the ice structures look like frozen waves while others look like giant animals made from stalagmites and stalactites. When we came out of the ice caves and started on our way hiking down, it started to rain - luckily we hadn't gone far, so we headed back to the cable car. I don't know what was more satisfying - scoring a free ride on the cable car when the guy didn't check the tickets, or not having to walk for 2 hours down the mountain!

After Salzburg we headed to Vienna, which thankfully was more interesting, although after sleeping through half of the weekend, we soon discovered that not much opens on Sunday (except cafes serving fantastic Vienna hot chocolate). So we had to content ourselves with checking out the old city centre - including the Spanish riding school, palace and museum district - and then some crazy amusement park with about a million rides for the kids and bars and casinos for the oldies.

Of all the places we've visited, Austria has been the biggest disappointment - the alpine countryside is beautiful, but the cities (especially Salzburg) we found to be overpriced and not that special. Plus it seems that smoking is a national obsession - absolutely everyone smokes, everywhere, and all the time so it's virtually impossible to avoid. So after our brief visit to Austria were were looking forward to touching down in Greece... more on that in our next post.

Slovenia

Ljubljana

After we passed through Slovenia on our way to Hungary for the Kayaking competition, we decided that we had to come back. Plainly and simply it is astonishly beautiful at nearly every turn. Our first stop on the return leg was the capital Ljubljana. As the story goes, this is where Jason (as in Jason and the Argonaughts) slayed the Dragon and founded the city....I think he is actually credited as being the first resident. You can see a dragon motif throughout the town too. Its not too hard to actually picture a Dragon perched on the castle that overlooks the old city (which is where we stayed...the old city not the castle!). The city is fantastic this time of year, and I think it gets better through July.


Culturally there is a lot going on in the city most of which is free to the public. One event that we attended was a public performance of Swan Lake (by the national ballet) in Presemon square, in the old city. Although the show was great, the thing that made this unforgettable was the fact that it is actually based on the life and death of France Presemon, Slovenia's most famous poet, and is set right there in Ljubljana. There was a giant statue of him next to the stage looking up towards Julia's window. Some of the backdrops that were used were pictures of buildings....nothing special until we realised that you can see the buildings from the square. Great coincidence for us, great planning by them I think.


We like most other people in Ljubljana this time of the year also spent a lot of time sitting next to the canal sipping drinks watching the nice clean water flow by.


One evening we went up to a local restaurant and I think they were so happy to see us that the big old chef did his best to poison us with home made digestives....they were really nice, flavoured with different herbs and things. Each time you said they were nice he just smiled and said "I know" as he poured you another flavour...


Bled

Our next stop was Bled, kind of an adventure sport base in the Julian Alps. Bled is famous for its lake, island in the lake and castle that overlooks the lot. The lake is a beautiful acqua colour that really stands out, especially when the sun hits it, and the view from the castle up the mountain is fantastic.


We spent a few nights in the Bled, from which we also visited Vintgar Gorge, which makes the Crystal Cascades in Cairns look like nothing.


We also ventured over to Lake Bohinj and went kayaking.


After four days in town we moved a little bit out of town to the base of the mountains to Hostel Jakeli with eggs for brekkie and Slovenian home cooking for dinner. The hosts have been really nice and we also managed to squeeze in a horseriding trip, a picnic by another small lake in the mountains, and a quick beer with the Bears at a restaurant in the mountain. Its really nice being in a small town and riding through fields where they are collecting the grass and drying it on racks to use as stock feed for winter.


Our time is Slovenia has been relaxing and enjoyable from start to finish. The tourism offices have been the best we've come across, everything is so organised and easy, and the people have been so friendly and helpful to us. On top of that the country itself is beautiful and it doesn't feel like you're getting exploited as a tourist at every turn which is a welcome change. We can't recommend Slovenia enough, and may have another contender for our White Christmas location at the end of the year!

Kayak Camp

It was a bit of a strange feeling heading into camp with the AUS Kayak team at the AIS Eurohub in Varese....I realised that I only made it overseas with an international team after I left the AIS! Anyway, after wondering what the hell I was going to with minimal gear, borrowed computer, headful of mud and a few things that I Maguivered from the hardware store things got pretty busy. Workwise the setting was beautiful, the food fantastic and the athletes more than willing to work hard with the impending slection regatta ahead. One of the highlights of the camp was the relay....basically everyone cheated (false starts) and everyone claimed the win...the athletes are still trash talking each other.


Another highlight from Varese was a trip up the mountain to Socra Monte....a village up the mountain with a very religous history, and chappels built all the way down the mountain. Hard to explain...but a must see if you're ever there.


Following the camp we jumped in one of the vans that were being driven across Italy, through Slovenia and down to Szeged (Hungary), which is where the final World Cup was held. After a few near misses in the cars, some amazing scenery, particularly through Slovenia, and about 13 hours in the vans we finally arrived. Our athletes put on a very good showing, most of them making A-finals, placing in B-finals or winning medals. In the end we left with 1 gold (Davis Smith-Luke Morrissson MK2 1000m) and 2 silver medals (Ken Wallace MK1 1000m, Matt Goble MK1 200m).


Apart from the enthusiastic crowd which was more akin to a Rugby League crowd in AUS, and the extremely high calibre of competition, there was one of the most amazing displays of stunt flying that any of us had ever seen. I think the pilot was actually from the Red Bull plane racing circuit.


Following the competition we hitched a ride with one of the coaches back to Slovenia which looked amazing on the way through...so far we are very glad we came back to unexpectedly one of the most beautiful countries we have seen so far. More on that in our next post :-)

Italian beaches, Roman ruins and Milano shoes

After Naples, we headed for Baia Domizia for some much needed beach relaxation. After catching the local bus (driven by yet another crazy Italian driver with no concept of one-way streets, centrifugal force or the fact that he was in charge of a top heavy bus travelling at 80km through narrow streets and roundabouts) to the Baia Domizia Villagio campground, we realised that our expectations of what constitutes a campground were about to be blown out of the window. This place was literally - as the name suggests - a village! It had at least 450 shady sites sites and cabins, 3 resort style pools (complete with enormous spa), a restaurant to seat several hundred, at least a dozen amenities blocks (each with long rows of hot showers, toilets and change rooms), greengrocer, gelateria, tobacconist, supermarket, bazaar, laundry and disco bar. Being a little early in the year, the place was relatively quiet, but it was easy to imagine the place pumping in high season. It had a dedicated section of beach as well - pretty nice, although it takes a while to get used to the brown/black volcanic sand. We spent most of our time alternating between lying on the beach drinking water, lying on the grass near the beach drinking wine, and lying in the tent eating pizza. It's a hard life sometimes!

After four days of tanning, we headed off on another train ride to Roma (Rome). Our hostel was somewhat out in the 'burbs, but armed with our Naples experience in finding hostels (and some good directions off the net), we found it without any hassles - this was no mean feat, given that there was no sign on the street, only the name of the hostel next to the intercom button that let you up to the second floor. In two nights and a day we packed in a lot of Rome - drinks with some fellow hostel-ees at a reggae bar the first night, the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Palatine Hill and St Peter's Basilica during the day, drinks at the hostel owner's former bar, and finished off with a visit to the Spanish Steps. The ruins throughout Rome are pretty unbelievable, and they're not limited to the tourist drawcards such as the Colosseum - the central train station has ruins underground, in McDonalds!


We also climbed up the dome of St Peter's Basilica, which has fantastic views over the whole of Vatican city and Rome. Unfortunately we ran out of time to see some other sights (like the Vatican museum and Sistine chapel), but hopefully we'll get a chance to come back to Italy later in the year.


Now, for those of you who don't already know, we're actually in Italy so that Lecky can do some work with the Australian flatwater kayak team in Varese, prior to the World Cup in Szeged, Hungary. This truly is a terrible part of the world, as you'll see from our photos :-) And what makes it even worse it the proximity to Milan - again, this is truly a terrible thing. One day of shopping could have seriously put a dint in the travelling budget, had it not been for some tough self-control (and forgetting the second credit card helped too). The shoes were amazing, the clothes stunning, the gelato delicious and the panzarotti - outstanding!