Category Archives: Europe Holiday 2013

Buongiorno, sono in Sorrento, Italia!!

We’ll we’ve finally made it to Italy. Currently, I’m sitting on the rooftop terrace of our hotel in Sorrento as the sun goes down, listening to the hustle and bustle from the street below. Although I can’t see the ocean from our hotel, there is a good view of the hills behind us, and we’re 30 seconds walk away from the train station.

On the subject of trains, the local line here is more of a budget metro instead of a train. Yesterday on our way from Naples to Sorrento, the heavens opened on us in a big way; thunder, dark clouds and torrential rain accompanied us as we started our ‘train’ journey to Sorrento. The carriage we were in also started leaking above 2 seats so it was raining both inside and out.  Both me and Freya were very excited when a young Italian on the train left his seat (he was getting rained on inside) only to tell another passenger “piovere” (it’s raining) and pointing at the ceiling. YAH!! We understood what he said!!
Near Pompei two British ladies got on and not deterred by the indoor rain (apparently she’s been here a while and nothing surprises her anymore…) one of them promptly sat down and erected this defense of the rain –

Most of the carriage had a small smile on their face after this, one young guy was trying very hard not to smile.

After 45 mins hurtling along, bouncing all over the place (on this line, it seems one doesn’t need to prune overhanging branches/plants etc as the train will do that…) plants, shrubs and branches bashing and scrapping along the side of the train, we arrive at the end of the line – Sorrento

Last night we had pizza and pasta for dinner, today we had gelato for lunch and a very nice pasta for dinner at what looked to be a family run restaurant. So far prices are not too bad and everyone is very friendly. We’ve been using a little Italian, but mostly English as that’s the language we’re generally greeted in. (There are a lot of British/Irish tourists here currently, some whom have seen way too much sun recently) It will be good to be in the same country with the same language (minus the dialects) for such an extended period of time after all our constant moving around recently.

Hopefully we’ll be going to Pompeii tomorrow as the weather is suppose to be quite nice for the rest of this week (temp in the mid to high 20s)

Whilst eating dinner tonight, a local church was having great fun ringing their bells over and over and over, which kinda reminded me of when I was in Central Java – Yogyakarta and the mosque’s would call people to pray, except the bells weren’t quite as loud, continuous or sounded 4-5 times a day. (Tada!! 1^st Central Java reference, not a very good one, but it’s a start)

Ciao

Well with just over 1 month to go until our holiday is over, I thought I ‘d write a small summary of our trip so far.

We’ve visited the following countries –

• UK
• Iceland
• Norway
• Sweden
• Denmark
• Germany
• France
• Switzerland

We’ve travelled several thousand kms, spent several hours waiting for planes, trains and buses. We’ve flown, drove, ferried, bused, trained and walked our way around Europe, encountered several different languages, sampled a wide variety of food, experience different cultures and explored nature in it’s varied forms.

For those who remember, I mentioned earlier in my blog that Temple Run 2 has been a great time occupier on our travels, so if you’re interested, my current Temple Run 2 stats are:

High Score: 12 248 619 points
Longest Run: 33 549 mtrs
Most Coins: 13 684

I’ve also recently found another free game which I’ve enjoyed called “Run That Town” from the Aus Gov Bureau of Stats. It has some funny voiceovers from Shaun Micallef and quite a few puns. So far I’ve been adored by my city, as well as semi-loved and semi-kinda-sorta forgotten. My next goal is to be booed and run out of town.

I’ve started to miss a couple of things from home like my iTunes Library, my bed and pillows, my car, my dog, my house with it’s nice shower, my decent Wifi and semi decent Internet connection and (sort of) my job (it’s sometimes nice to have a routine in your week, instead of constant variables such as the ones you encounter when travelling). Another thing I have been missing is English TV (to be specific, shows on TV in English be that subtitled or spoken), especially in Germany, France and Switzerland, where the only English channel was BBC World News or CNN. I’ve managed to semi rectify this by downloading the last few episodes of Season 2 of Grimm at our hotel in Bern, which has helped to occupy time on this train trip from Bern to Sorrento, although I’m now at the end of Season 2 and I’ve been shown a cliffhanger, Damm now I’ve got to wait until Season 3 comes out later this year, though not to fear, I started downloading episodes of Arrow so at least I’ve got something to go on with.
Although these are American TV shows it’s nice to have something to watch that you can understand and something that isn’t the same 5 News stories going round and round and round and round……

All things aside, I’ve been having a great time and it’s been a really nice holiday. I’ve seen lots of interesting unique things (many of which I’ve blogged about here), travelled through some very pretty and unique landscapes and stayed in accommodation ranging from the noisy, smelly, terrible value for money to the excellent, clean, modern, great value for money spots.

I’m looking forward to our last month in Italy, catching up with relatives in Pozza, eating gelato every day (almost) and having a great end to our trip (hopefully).

Ciao for now 🙂 🙂 🙂

I’ve really enjoyed my time visiting in Switzerland and will definitely be coming back again in the future. The 4 official languages sometimes makes it a bit hard to communicate as the primary language varies depending on what area of Switzerland you’re in eg. Geneva is primarily French, yet Bern and Zurich are primarily German, although English is widely spoken if you ask for it.

One observation so far is custard is very popular in Europe, particularly in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. They have a lot of bread/pastries with custard fillings, toppings etc. Not that I’m complaining, I happen to like both bread/pastries and custard.

Out of the three cities we visited in Switzerland, I liked Bern the best. It wasn’t as noisy and busy as Geneva and had more trees/parks/green spaces in and around it than Zurich.

Anyway, must get to bed now, we’ve got to get a 7:30 train tomorrow from Bern to Milan, before connecting to a train down to Naples and Sorrento (plus the people in the room next door are making a lot of noise again, slamming doors, running up and down the corridor, so it might take some time to get to sleep).

Cheerio, Auf Wiedersehen, Au Revoir, Ciao, Chau