Category: europe15

First port of call was Duisburg, in the heart of the Ruhr Valley, in Germany’s industrial belt. ‘You’re an Australian, and, um, here in Duisberg?’ said the dubious waitress. I don’t think Duisberg is a tourist mecca which is a blessing (no touts or tour buses clogging up the streets) and a curse – nothing much was open even by 8am, which meant a day trip was started on an empty stomach. First world problem, I know.

Continue reading “Germany”

A short TGV ride from Montpellier to Paris got me there in no time. I’d been to Paris a couple of times before, and the main purpose of was meeting up with family anyway, so didn’t feel to have missed out by not doing too much sightseeing. One exception was a visit to the Catacombs, underground boneyards in long since abandoned limestone mines from beneath the city streets. A fascinating display of tribute to the dead, and what could have been macarbe was compellingly beautiful. Apart from that the rest of the time was spent chatting, drinking, eating, apero-ing at any of the endless number of bards and restaurants, or on the Peniche, the houseboat on the Seine where I was dossing with the folks. Continue reading “Netherlands (via Paris)”

Cursed by the train system – the trains between Nice got close but not quite to Montpellier. Stopping in Nimes, this cost money, paying for an extra night in a hotel, but actually saved time. I was originally going to Nimes as a day trip to see the Pont du Gard, a triple-decker Roman aqueduct. Not having to travel from Montpellier allowed me a bit of extra time to wander around Nimes itself, which has enough sense of its overt Roman history – Arena, Temple, Tower, to mondernise the glue of the city streets around them in a way which lets the history still read. Luckily the trains were running again the next day, and I eventually made it to my digs in MontP a day late.
Continue reading “Southern France”

To cross the border from Slovenia to Italy, there’s an obscure link between Villa Opicina, a hill town just inside Italy and Trieste, the main border city with connections to the rest of the country. It’s a cute little tram which works its way up and down the steep hillside and is a fun way to make the connection. The carriages date back to the early 1900s and a few of them were even onsold to San Fransisco to be part of the street car network there.

The first part of the train ride from from Trieste to Milan to runs along the Adriatic Coast and is gorgeous, before it heads across the Lombardy plain with deat flat fields and windbreak rows of Poplars interspersed with the bleak concrete agglomerations of Italian industry.

Continue reading “Northern Italy”

I quite liked Ljubljana, although in a day all you could really do was get oriented and see some of the bigger attractions. Two days would have been too long and a week not enough if you know what I mean. The weather’s been unsettled and stormy which meant the view from the medieval castle at the top of the hill to the surrounding plains was really dramatic, if a bit hazy but you could see how green the surrounds of the city are. There’s a market which runs every day in one of the town squares in which small farmers from that green surround bring their produce.

They’re making a huge effort to redo the old part of town, with new footbridges across the river, street trees and paving so the whole place seemed really fresh.

A free walking tour runs a couple of times a day so I hitched onto that – as well as talking about the main sights, she guide explained how the recent history including collapse of communism and the civil war had affected Slovenians, which was interesting to hear from a local. 

Apart from that I spent the rest of my day there wandering until settling on a plate of cevapcic and pivo (beer) from a local bistro. What can I say, the beer was excellent. The cevapcic weren’t a patch on Romanian mititae, but maybe I’m biased!