Erasmus Roadtrip: destination Italy

Haciendo el longuis en Verona..

Hello foks!!

Here it comes the very last trip I made between winter and summer semester break. I must say I enjoyed this trip even more because I knew it was going to be my last one around these months, since the classes of the summer semester has already started (Mon,  21st of Feb). Anyway... here is the Italy post, I hope you enjoy the reading.

How was this trip organized? Well we have to go back to several weeks before, along with the 2 Madrilian girls, Tamara and Barabara, Alfonso and me while playing Mus, we were talking about how great could be going to Venice to see the Carnivals, and maybe visit some small towns around it, but that was all, some chitchatting about the trip while concentrated on the game... but the weeks were passing by and the idea of going to the Carnivals was getting clearer.

We finished exams and I started my weekend travelling, right when I came back from Budapest, we decided to meet to play Mus (as usual), and it turned out that the girls and Alfonso organized already the trip to Italy, including Verona, Padova and Venice of course. Long story short, they ended up with one free seat, so I joined to the road trip to Italy.

So on the 18th of Feb, 7am, we departed from Rozna on our way to the first city in Italy to visit, Verona.

5 hours drive, and after spending some time looking for the hostel (that it was kinda far from the city, and it turned out that it was really a hotel) we step our feet on the city around 3pm. The very first thing we did was to look for food desesperately, so we tought, what is the typical food of any globalized city? McDonalds it was ! So the guys went to it, but I refused to eat one more hamburger, it was pretty much my diet during the past weeks travelling, so I went out to look for some Italian bakery and buy some pastries or sweets.

Fortress

After charging our energies, we got ready to visit all the part of the city, starting from Castelvecchio, The Arena, Juliet's House, Verona Cathedral and so on... All the monuments were gorgeous!! So different from what I am used to see in Ljubljana, and from the places I've visited the previous weeks, I was so excited to see everything, I could say that I am finally in Italy. I regret sometimes missing the High School trip to Italy becuase it overlapped with me living in the US for 4 months.

Anyway, after 4 hours walking non-stop trough the city, it was getting darker and colder for moments, so we decided so it was time to go back to hotel, but first going to the supermarket to buy the dinner, and of course some alcohol to deal with the rest of the night!! yeahh you have read right, we went to the supermarket because Italy is freaking expensive!  I rather spend the 10-15 euros of a meal in a restaurant to buy a whole bunch of food, drinks and stuff to spend the night, which we all did, hence we end up with lots of food, chips, chocolate bars, beers and wine... we had a great night I must say!! some people would prefer going out to a club, but this kind of plans don't disappoint me at all.

Heart shaped 'tree' right outside of Juliet's House

For the next day, we decided to leave town early enough and continue with the next city, Padova, so around 12ish we were arriving to Padua. And again, amazing town, generally speaking it wasn't very different from Verona, but all the rivers and canals in the city made it very special and extremely beautiful. We visited pretty much everything, from the Saint Anthony's cathedral (Basilica di Sant'Antonio), The Oratorio de San Giorgio Scrovegni's Chapel (Cappella degli Scrovegni), a 90.000 square meters, Prato della Valle (the biggest square in Europe), Santa Giustina Basilica Roman ruins, including an Arena.Chiesa Eremitani, The Duomo, Palazzo della Ragione, Palazzo del Bo and Tempio Antonio della Pace.

We spent half day in Padova, because we wanted to get to Venice and register in the hotel before the sunset. That's why we left the city and within 2 hours we arrived to Mestre, because all the hostels/hotels in Venice were accoupied, and those with room left were extrmely expenive due to the festival, and c'mon its Italy !! so after some incidents finding the location of the hotal, we made it save to the hotels, but it was kinda late already, and the conection from Mestre to Venice is not good either, so we decided to stay the night in the hotel and wake up early the next morning to see the romantic city of canals and Gondolas.

Ohh yeaah baby, Carnival costumes

 For a strange reason I found Venice very familiar, (damm Venetian Macau casino), but it was very good, very pretty, I dreamed about going to Venice for quite a long time, I liked it a lot from the beginning, but due to the all the tourist, wether Italians or foreigners, I felt a little bit stressed, It was good to walk slowly and enjoy the views, but the crowd made me wanted to finish asap. Still, check out the amazing sites we saw

Amazing Sunday we spent in Venice, it's a pitty we couldn't have seen Venice during the night, because there was schedules parades of people in costumes and stuff, but still, we saw some during the morning.. so it's fine.

Once we got tired we decided to go to the parking, grab the car, and get our butts back to Ljubljana.

Beside of all the walking and tireness, the city we've visited were all fantastic, very typical Italian and full of history, something that I enjoyed the most! 

I hope you have enjoyed reading the post as much as I enjoyed the visiting them.

1 abrazooo a todos!

Erasmus Road Trip: destination Budapest

Well well, this month has been quite busy for me, even tough I’m on holidays until the 21st, that jeans until next Monday, I haven’t stopped a single moment, whether partying, travelling or just simply playing mus with my friends…

Last post was about the trip to Serbia and Bosnia, and this one will be about the weekend in Budapest.

And again, the means of transport was renting a car, but this time, a different one, we opted for a van, coz there were 8 of us going to Hungary. So on Saturday 12^th we gathered first in Rozna, then pick up Sandra and Maya in their flat, and finally pick up the people living in Bezigrad right before we started our journey.

The trip to Budapest was quite smooth, once you get out from Ljubljana there is a highway that connects directly to Budapest, so it’s pretty good, we spent like 5 hours on the van, but on our way, we passed near by Lake Balaton, so we strayed from the road to go see the amazing lake. (picture)

We didn’t stay long coz we couldn’t see very well the lake since it was partially frozen.

By 2pm we arrived in Budapest, the capital of the Magyars, my first impression of the city was that we arrived in big capital, heavy traffic, wide roads, trams, metro and tons of people on the streets. It didn’t take long until we found the hostel, it was located next to the Comedy Theatre of Budapest, the most difficult thing was to find a parking space for the van, but we were lucky so it dind’t take much time either.

I must say, the hostel was fantastic, big rooms with couches and stuff , very clean, nice environment, a really bargain for the price they charged us, 7.5 euros per night and person.

The Groove Hostel

We unpacked the stuff and immediately we went out to find something for lunch, and guess where did we end up… yes again, in McDonald’s… which obviously the menu was the same like in any other part of Europe, but even cheaper than in Belgrade..

Later on we went to do some tourism around the city, we didn’t even used the map, because Maya had a local friend, so he did of tourist guide and took us around.. nothing better than a local to discover the best part of the city.

We started in Margit Hid, and walk down Olimpiai Park to see the Parlament, we continued alongside the river down to Roosevelt Tér, cross the Lánchíd to reach Buda part of the city. Later on we went to see the fortress, the castle, Mátyás-templom and many more stunning sights!

As we were walking it was getting colder and darker, so some of us decided to go back to the hostel to rest, while others continued for a little longer, that why we got to cross back the bridge to Pest, and see Szent István-bazilika (St. Stephen's Basilica), Szabadság tér and later on just walk back to hostel enjoying the beautiful night views.

After resting for a short moment in the hostel, we decided to go and grab something for dinner, we didn’t go to any special place, just a regular fast food restaurant, and after that we took the tram for 2 stops, until the bar hopping district, we got in to a very nice Pub, decorated with football motives, nice music and full of Soproni beer, super tasty. After a a couple of hours we moved to a club, which we was in the 5^th floor, it was like a old warehouse, I didn’t like the music much, but I had fun tough.

Some of us went back earlier to the hostel, so on the next day, only me, Luca and Carol got up early to do some tourism around the city, but first we went to Starbucks to have breakfast! While we were having a hot coffee and a apple strudel, we decided we wanted to go to see the Gellert Statue and the Citadella. With full of energy we went walking from the West Railway Station to the Citadella, it took us almost one hour to reach the place, it wasn’t that far actually, but walking up the hill to reach the Citadella it’s quite a tough job.. specially if you haven’t slept properly for the past weeks… anyway, wi finally reached it, and to celebrate we made a fantastic picture, enjoyed the views, we could actually see the whole Pest side, really amazing !

To go back to the hostel to meet the others, we decided to take the tram, great blunder, since we didn’t know where to buy the ticket we just hopped on the tram, but in 2 stops the inspectors came in and we got cought… they wanted us to pay 6000 Forints, or 25 euros.. we just made the fool and gave 1000, they insited that we had to pay, but we finally went out just paying that.

After the strange situation, it was quite funny actually, we got to hostel and met the other for lunch, we went to a typical Hungarian restaurant, and I tried authentic Goulash.. very very good! It tasted similar to any regular ‘Guiso de carne’.

And here it comes the best part of the day .. we went to Széchenyi Thermal Bath, waaoaoo, so good, on our way we got to see the stunning Heroe’s Sq, but the bath was so far better than that, specially after the morning long walk..

Almost 4 hours of pleasure bath, and relaxed body, we went back to the hostel, not before having dinner. While in the hostel we didn’t know where to party, since it was Sunday, so most of the places were closed, so we finally decided to buy some beers and just drink it in the room.

On Monday morning, we woke up quite late, we didn’t have check out time because no new guest were getting in, so we packed our stuff by noon, and then we went to see some place left, like the Fashion Street and surrounding, and also the Great Synagogue.

Later on we just got to the hostel and grab our stuff and hit the road back to Ljubljana,

The best thing is that the trip didn’t really finished when we left Budapest, when we got to Ljubljana, I left my stuff, got my clothes changed and went for dinner and go to the last Parlament’s Erasmus party.

Erasmus Road Trip: destination Serbia

Beograd, capital of Serbia

Hello folks, sorry for the belayed post of Beograd, but I have been quite busy this week, anyway, here goes the adventure to Belgrade, tha capital of Serbia.

As I was saying in the last post, it took us like 10 hours to travel from Sarajevo to Belgrade, and why is that? There are several reaosns, the first one is that we got lost at the beginning, there are no clear signs to travel from one place to another, so with were pretty much driving with our instinct, 2 hours or so, until we arrive to a dead end, is when we realized we were kinda lost. So after trying to find the way the hell out of there, asking in the petrol station, local people that didn’t speak a work of English, (obviously is not their fault, whenever u go most of the time the people in villages don’t speak any English), we managed to find the right way, but the second obstacle came, curvy and poorly paved narrow roads, dozens of trucks, so that meant no more than 50-60 km/hour speed.. that is why it took us in total 10 hours for a 500 km distance…

6th Floor Hostel

Anyway, after arriving finally to the city around 8:30-9 pm, we went directly to the hostel, and hopefully for us it very good located, next to the train station, and we neither had to worry about the parking because the hostel had a private parking for guests. So we registered in the hostel, rested for a while, and we went out to do some night sightseeing while we were looking for a place to have dinner… We didn’t stay long coz we wanted to rest well and wake up early to joing the free tour on the morning.

Belgrade itself it looked baronial buring the night, with all the mixed cultures from the Turkish conquest, Austrian invasions, with a strong touch of Communist Yugoslavia and some ugly buildings from the post-communist era.

During the night it looked amazing the city, but I must say that the city is quite ugly during daylight, because there are many buildings abandoned or poorly preserved, and the pollution of the city didn’t help much.

The hostel by the way, was very good, clean rooms, kitchen, with free internet, and the most important thing, continuous hot water ! it was a nightmare showering in the hostel in Sarajevo with barely warm water..

Trg Republik

On the next day we woke up with enough time to get to Trg Republike (Republic Sq.) at 11am to join the free tour, on our way for breakfast some of us took local delicatessen like cheese burek for breakfast or simply a sub. About the free tour, it is totally free of charge, the guide was a student from the university of Belgrade, it’s like any other freetours, is is only based on tips if you liked the tour. The guide was pretty good, since she was also a young student, she showed us the main sites and also the hidden ones, it lasted for 3 hours more or less. As I said, we started in the Republic Sq., we continued to Knez Mihajlova street, Belgrade Fortress, Kalemegdan, Kralja Petra Street, and so on, and we finished in the Studentski trg, we received a wide and rich historic class of Beograd and Serbia, with this kind of tours it makes one even more interested in History.

After the tour, we went by ourselves to to do some tourism, and later we went to a traditional Serbian restaurant recommended by the guide, to have traditional Serbian dinner with traditional Serbian beer. Very very tasty  !!

Sarma

Serbian beer

Later on we just went back to the hostel to rest for a little while, take a shower and get ready to hit some clubs in one of the 5 best cities in the world to party !

We went to a live music pub called Tranvy, also suggested by the guide, and because it wast one of the few places open, officially Mondays are the resting day for party animals.. although the pub was quite full to be a non-partying day.

On Tuesday 9^th we had to pack our stuff again to hit back to Ljubljana, but not before we spent the last Dinars on snack for the trip.

The way back to Ljubljana was way much better, with highway directly to Ljubljana via Croatia.

For a non planned trip I must say everything went pretty smooth, with no big incidents, beside getting lost in the deep Bosnia, and one-way crappy tunnels in the middle of nowhere. 

Crappy Tunnel somewhere in Bosnia.. 

I totally recommend people to visit these places, specially before it gets crowded of tourist, and also before it gets changes to any other regular capital full of shops and malls.. 

See u in the next post !

Erasmus Road Trip: destination Sarajevo and Mostar

Small village in somewhere in BiH

Hello folks !!

Some of you have been waiting for this post about the trip to the Bosnia i Herzegovina and Serbia, so here it is.

This wasn't a very well planned trip, we suddenly decided that we wanted to go to Serbia and Bosnia and we asked ourslef why not just rent a car and go in 2 days.

So, on Friday 4th of Feb ,we (Milo, Mery, Alfonso, Carlos & Tony) departed from Ljubljana (Slovenia) to Sarajevo (BiH) via Zagreb(Croatia), I think the journey lasted for 6-7 hours or so, coz the roads weren't very good, specially when u get to BiH...

Enjoy Hostel in Sarajevo, BiH

But we did a couple of stops to rest, and we passed by this small village lost somewhere in BiH, isn't it beautiful?  By 6pm we arrived in Sarajevo, so we parked on the street and went to find the hostel, which was just ok, the owner of the hostel was called Jasmine, and treated us really well, like a mother, but at the end she was such kind that end up a little bit annoying, but we cope with it well coz we only stayed only for 2 night over there.

City Pub, Sarajevo, BiH

About Sarajevo, the capital of BiH, what can I say, is not really much to see, many building were detroyed, and stayed there until now, hence there weren't many monuments either, and mixed up with a lot of moderns places and shopping malls, so the environment was quite strange, but exciting and different from what I am used to. But I must say, the best thing about the city, is of course the Bosnians, the people are so nice, kind, joyful and all the adjectives that that exists to describe Bosnians, really, they are amazing, and most of them speak very good English, which it really helped a lot to a bunch of Spanish god who knows what where they thinking to decide to go to Sarajajevo. On the other hand, I cannot say the same for Serbians, which I will explain later on.

The picture you see on the left side was taken on City Pub in Sarajevo, 'our Bosnian mom' recomended us the place, and on our way to find the pub, we asked two Bosnian girls for directions, and they took us over there and end up with us drinking and partying, really fun night I must say.

 About Bosnia, we did some tourism around the capital , and we also visited Mostar (Мостар, a 15th century town in Herzegovina region), a place much more beautiful than Sarajevo), Judge urself, amazing town, isn't it?

We spend the whole morning over there, eat some Ćevapi, a traditional Yugoslavian dish, very tasty, it consist of small portions of meat, grilled with spicies, a little bit salty for my own taste, but maybe it was on that restaurant, or beacuse I am simply too picky... but very good, I strongly recommend it to anyone who travel to the region.

On our way back to Sarajevo, we rested on the hostel for a little while, and during the night we went to have partying a little bit, which I explained before.

Next day (Sunday 6th), we packed our stuff again to go to Beograd, the capital of Serbia, which I will talk about it on the next post.

Before I finish, I will tell you the last thing we did in Bosnia, this is visitting the Tunnel of Hope, the only passage to the free Bosnian territory. I won't bored you with the history of the tunnel, that's why I posted a link, but I must say it is very impressive, how the desire of freedom made this tunnel.

After seeing the historical place, we started our trip to Beograd, I won't say anything about the city yet, but I will only tell you that we spent 10 hours from Sarajevo to Beograd for a 500 km distance trip...

Hope you enjoyed with my own vision and experience of the city. Beoagrad post will be written soon!!

1 abrazo enorme a todos!