Chioggia to Ravenna - Day 79

Date: November 5th, 2009
Distance: 107.5km (in 5:10!)
Country: Italy
Song of the Day: Rearviewmirror - Pearl Jam

Today was much better. Left early and got onto the road. There was a bit of rain in the morning, but it only lasted 15 minutes. It wasn't that cold either. By the afternoon it had cleared off and was rather sunny.

I was making great time as well. The fixes to my bike have been a great improvement. I need to remember to get on a regular cleaning schedule...

Still on the same highway for most of the day. But the farther out I got the fewer trucks. So it was actually pleasant. Plus the last 20 kilometers I took a side route closer to the coast. I still couldn't see the sea from there either though. So I took a side path and got to see the Mediterranean for the first time. (I did see the Lagoon in Venice, but that doesn't really count. You can't say you saw a city because you had a layover at the airport.)

I even got into Ravenna at 4:30 PM. Plenty of time to spare. All the campings along the coast were closed. So I found a nice hostel in town. I even had a chance to fix the limits on my rear derailer. While I was at it I straigtened out my front derailer as well. So my bike is running great.

I was thinking of continuing along the coast for a bit, but I don't see the point. There really isn't anything to see. The roads don't go that close to the shore here. So I think I will head overland and try to get through Umbria down to Rome. Should be interesting with all the hills.

-Dravis

P.S.: Thanks to Jonn-E for suggestions from his recent trip to Italy. Also, because he mentioned some things from Venice that were too late. I am going to try and announce as far in advance as I can my plans so people can suggest things before I get there.

Venice to Chioggia - Day 78

Date: November 4th, 2009
Distance: 91km
Country: Italy
Song of the Day: November Rain - Guns 'n Roses

Miserable day. Rain was just so damn cold my hands were numb. When I was in Iceland, one of the Canadian bikers was going to give me some thick rubber gloves. I wish I had those today. Just awful.

The only good part was I did replace my read derailer hanger before I left. So my derailer was hanging straight now. Much better. (I still forgot to re-adjust the limits, so the shifting was off. But it didn't rub and have nearly as much friction.) Plus I cleaned off the crud on the gears. So I was going much easier and faster than before.

The highway I was on was terrible as well. There was a shoulder, but it was a busy highway with lots of trucks. Not really that dangerous but with the rain and crap being sprayed up by them it just wasn't in any way pleasant.

When I got into Chioggia it was full of camping sites. They were all closed though. I wandered around in the rain for an hour looking for something that was open. Nothing. Finally I got to a pension a booked myself a room. Another 40€. Italy has been expensive. Urgh.

-Dravis

Venice - Day 77

Date: November 3rd, 2009
Distance: 12km
Country: Italy
Song of the Day: Stork & Owl - TV on the Radio

Woke up and went to get some supplies, as in food. It was raining just a bit when I left the hotel I was at. By the time I left, it had stopped.

So I headed out down the road to the camping site I was going to stay at the night before. My first experience with Italian roads was a bit unnerving frankly. In town (Mestre, just outside of Venice) it wasn't so bad. But getting onto the highway was pretty hairy. There was no shoulder and big trucks were passing right by me. Then there was construction on one side, so there was even less space. I was only comforted by an old guy (with no helmet) going the same way I was. He didn't seem to notice all the cars going by. The vehicles also did slow down a lot in areas where it was tight. So after a bit I got the idea that this was normal and I wasn't going to be killed.

When I got into the camping it was actually going to be more expensive to pitch a tent then to rent a bunk in one of their cabins. I don't know how that works out, but okay I got a bunk. It was just in a mobile home style trailer, still it was inside and there was a bathroom. Plus I wasn't intending to stay inside.

I caught the next bus into the city. I still just had my shorts on. The German guy next to me said that I was being optimistic about the weather, which I thought was amusing. It turned out to be right, though. By the time I got into Venice the sun started coming out.

Now Venice is a maze of little streets bordered by buildings and canals. Frankly I was almost surprised by how much land there was, though. I know most of the city was just built on wood pilings in the water. So to have things like piazzas and trees is a bit like putting them on a boat. (Or maybe like having a swimming pool on a cruise ship.) In any case, you could often walk for hundreds of meters without seeing a canal.

Still, you just can't design a city like that. It is just so amazing to walk around and see how it evolved. For instance, some of the bridges were at an angle when crossing a canal. The streets on either side didn't line up, so they just built an angled bridge. In other places I saw a bridge with steps leading down to two small passage ways on one side. Or (private) passage ways connecting two buildings on opposite sides of a canal. I can't imagine doing any surveying work in the city. The difference between private and public spaces must just be a mess.

It is also probably the least bike friendly city I have been too. This is why I didn't bring my bike into the city. Still it was a big difference from the other city of canals, Amsterdam. Where Amsterdam was a city on land that canals were carved through it, Venice was water with stuff built there. The canals could be almost as small as some of the streets. So all of the canals are crossed with arched bridges that have to be tall and short. So they have steps. Just not a good place for a bike. Which is okay, they would really be out of place in Venice. Instead goods get around the city on boats. It was funny to see mail delivered by some dude in a boat.

I really can't describe the city effectively though. Even with pictures, I just don't think it gives the impression that you get from just being there. Plus I still don't think I got enough pictures. It is just a cool place.

I even managed to get through it without a map. (They wanted 2€ for a stupid map.) So I figured I couldn't get too lost in the city. It isn't that big, plus it has definite boarders. I really didn't know where I was going anyway. I just walked around until I found something cool. I got around just fine.

By the time I got to the Rialto the sky was almost clear. When I got to Piazza San Marco it was bright and sunny. For a day that I thought was going to be raining the whole time, I was so glad it wasn't. I would like to credit divine favor the generally pleasant weather on my tour, but that would incline you to believe that I somehow deserve divine favor.

In the piazza I went to see two things that I wasn't sure about when I got there. The first was the Basilica di San Marco. On the outside it is covered in mosaics. Some of which I think are done in gold leaf. I just thought that if it was on the outside, the inside would be a bit boring. Frankly, I have been to a lot of cathedrals in Europe. But I went anyway. Boy was I wrong. Inside was even more magnificent than the outside. The walls and ceilings were covered in even more gold mosaics. Just cool to be there.

The second place was the Doge's palace. It was 12€ to get in. I actually walked out after seeing the price.When I took one last look and saw the courtyard, I reconsidered. I am glad I did. It was actually worth it, something I didn't expect. The places you can visit are amazing. They start with simpler rooms and work their way up. So the Doge's apartments are actually kind of plain. From there it moves to the council chambers. Imagine rooms where every surface is covered with paintings and art? The rooms keep getting bigger as well. When you get to the largest room it is about the size of an Olympic swimming pool with the ceiling covered in paintings. Frankly I wanted to pull out a pillow in lay on the floor for a while.

Now, I should tell you that there are winged lions all over the palace. Right away I picked up on the fact that this was the symbol for St. Mark the evangelist. I felt pretty good about remembering this. (More weird useless knowledge stuffed into my brain somewhere.) It turns out that St. Mark is sort of the patron saint for the city. So the lion was in many of the paintings (when the city wasn't being represented by a beautiful woman.)

Oh, and they had an amazing armory. They had swords from a three hundred year period. Crossbows most of which had a rack and pinion style crank to cock the thing. The quivers of bolts were cool too. I guess the arrow head was made flat and then the base was bent into a cone to fit it onto the shaft. Oh, and they had an amazing variety of halberds and pole axes. Some which had a crescent shaped fork on top instead of a spike. Plus flamberge, glaives, and corsicans... I could really go on about this. I took as many pictures as I could until they asked me to stop. (I don't see why. It isn't like a painting where the flash will damage it.) In the last room of the armory they had guns of various kinds. Mostly wheel-lock. There was one neat piece, it was a sword-gun. I walked through twice.

The only slightly disappointing part of the tour was the prisons. Yes, I got to walk over the Bridge of Sighs. But there prisons weren't well described like the rest of the palace. It was just a bunch of rooms with no explanations. Iron bars, yep. Bare stone cell, yep. But no history on what it was or who would have been put there. Still the whole thing was worth it, and I stayed until they kicked me out.

Then I grabbed a bit of dinner at a restaurant. I know, it was expensive. Still I felt like I really wouldn't have had the whole Venice experience without at least one sit down meal. So I had a lovely little dinner of tortellini e prosciutto.

After dinner I took one last walk around the city. There were still shops open which amazed me. (Most of Europe seems to close shop by 8:00 PM.) Other shops were closed by had their lights on. Some were peddling food or tourist trinkets. There were two other major categories for the shops though. It looks like Venice is a major center for glass work. (Actually I leaned that work was done in the nearby town of Mirano.) It also has a huge number of mask shops. The masks seemed almost as much a symbol for the city as the gondolas. (I didn't take a gondola ride, actually. I figured as a single guy that would be about as sad as going out to dinner by yourself on St. Valentine's day.)

It was then why I realized why the city was so romantic. First there are all these little shops along the tiny streets. You could, if you were with someone, just stroll around in the evening, hand in hand, along all the little avenues. Looking in the shop windows you could buy presents for that special someone. The second reason is that there are no cars. It is quiet and calm. After dark it is just a perfect place for a quiet conversation or to listen to your own thoughts. So if you a) want to spend money and b) you want a girl to fall in love with you, I suggest Venice.

Since I didn't want to do either I took the bus back out of town and went to bed.

-Dravis

Salzburg to Venice - Day 76

Date: November 2nd, 2009
Distance: Cheating by train
Country: Italy
Song of the Day: Southbound - Thin Lizzy

Woke up and got myself a ticket to Venice. I didn't have much of a choice though because of the bike. There were only a couple of trains that I could go on. So I had to be on the 10:31. I was really hoping to spend a bit more time in the city, but oh well.

Salsburg itself is really cool. It is built on top of all these rocks at a bend in the river Salzach. So a number of the buildings are built right up against a rock face. Overlooking the old town is a giant fortress. Man, I really wish I had the time to see that. There is always next time. I have just accepted that I can't possibly see everything on this tour.

From there it was over to the station for the first of four trains. With three changes it really made for one hell of a day. On the Austrian side of the Alps, boy was it pretty. These tiny towns built all over little mountain valleys. Frankly it reminded me a bit of central Colorado. The rivers on the other hand were this blue-green color that reminded me of Alaskan rivers. Maybe one summer I will do a tour of the Alps. But I was glad not to be biking.

On the Italian side, the weather turned bad. Cloudy and raining. I really could see much because of all the mist. Plus the sun set shortly after that, and I couldn't see anything anyway. So I spent a bunch of time sewing. My walking around pants had just a short strip of velcro to keep them closed. So I replaced that with a zipper, and then put a flap with a big piece of velcro over that. Amazingly it all worked, and I didn't do anything stupid like sew the pocket shut. I hope it keeps the pickpockets out...

When I arrived in Venice it was pouring rain. Just buckets. I guess I had arrived during the middle of a storm. Ugh. This wasn't something that I really counted on. I waited for the rain to subside for a bit. I was going to head out to a camping site on the north end of the lagoon, but after half an hour, I realized it wasn't going to get any better. So I just found a place near to the train station. Yeah, it was expensive, but it did save me tons of misery. Tomorrow I will try to get to the camping site.

-Dravis

Munich to Salzburg - Day 75

Date: November 1st, 2009
Distance: 158km
Country: Austria
Song of the Day: Circles - Soul Coughing

So I left Munich on a bright Sunday morning. It really could not have been more pleasant. The ride out of town was pretty easy, although it was annoying becuase I had to wait for all these stop lights. Once I was out in the countryside though, it was much more pleasant. I did get lost again, but I found my way back to where I was going. I did meet another girl on her own bicycle tour. It was her "winter tour", which I thought was cool. Anyway, that is the first person I have seen on a real tour since I have been on the continent.

By the afternoon I was in this beautiful Bavarian countryside. The Alps were in the distance, and the towns were so quaint. The sunset in Houlswang and Eggsberg was magnificent. There are a couple of lakes there. They must just look magical during the summer. I could definitely understand people wanting to vacation here.

But after the sunset, the weather turned crappy on my. A big, cold fog set in. Plus I was riding at night which really didn't help anything. But my intention was to get to Salzburg, and I wasn't stopping. So I just rode on. Once I was going it wasn't really that cold, either.

I did get to Salzburg around 9:00 PM. I still didn't have a clue of where I was going to stay though. The guys from the hostel this morning recommended Yo-Ho. But I didn't know where it was. I headed toward the center of the city and just asked around. Eventually I found a place called St. Sebastian Institute. The place was really quiet though. Again, this is the off season. So I had the room to myself.

Oh, and it turns out that the Yo-Ho (Youth Hostel) was listed on the google map that I had cached of the city. Whoops. Oh well. I had a good, if quiet, night.

-Dravis

Munich - Day 74

Date: October 31st, 2009
Distance: None
Country: Germany
Song of the Day: Hey Jude - The Beatles

Woke up and had a late breakfast with Craig and Susie. It was a bit quiet, but I guess that was to be expected after the night we had. They were going to go on the free walking tour with me, but Craig wasn't feeling it. I still wanted to go though.

The walking tour was fantastic. Our guide, Ozzy, had just won an award for his tours. Plus he was a really fun guy. The tour consisted not just of when the buildings were built, but also Bavarian history. This started with the founding of the town to control the salt trade all the way though the beginning of the Nazi movement (which just so happened to start in Munich). Plus I guess 80% of the city was destroyed during the war. So almost everything that you see is new. All the signs still say when the structure was first built, but almost all are less than sixty years old. So I won't bore you with going over all the stuff we learned, but I highly recommend the tour. Plus it is free! (Okay, a good tip is somewhat expected.)

From there I went back to the hostel and did some stuff online. I was hoping to find a crew to get some dinner with, but no one was around. I did get some food and brought it back to the room. Because it was Halloween, I wanted to get a costume together. I figured that I could do an okay impression of a SCUBA diver. I had the camelback and a water bottle would work just fine. I needed some goggles though. So I spent some time cutting up my milk bottle and making a pair of goggles.

This is about when I met Davide and Evelyn, a couple of my roomates. Evelyn was from L.A. and I think just before she left she went to a party at my old loft there. How weird is that? Small world. Davide was from Italy, outside of Verona. Soon Evelyn's friend Emma joined us. (The had just met the day before, but were going to Berlin together the next day. I love hostels.) We were talking and having a good time. Unfortuneatly this annoyed one of the other guys in the room. I guess he was trying to sleep. I would feel sorry, but this was 9:00 PM on a Saturday night in Munich. Plus if you don't want to hang out with people, or have some crazy experience, don't stay at a hostel.

We decided it was about time to leave anyway. So headed downstairs and met up with some other people in the Hostel bar. They were all going to the Hofbrauhaus. It turns out that it was mostly a group of engineering students who were talking a semester in Germany. One of the girls, Blair, was really interested in bike touring as well. So if she is reading this, I hope you get some good ideas of what (not) to do. Another two of the guys were from Clemson, which some of you might know...

I did go to the Hofbrauhaus, and is probably one of the few people not to have a beer. (Emma had some wine, so it didn't make me feel too bad.) I did get one very large and expensive pretzel though. Mmmmmmm. Like I said, my pretzel intake has been off the charts. We were sitting with a German couple from the black forest. The guy kept calling me Reinhold Messner, because of my SCUBA outfit. Which was funny. (The really funny part is Messner was known for being the first guy to climb everest without oxygen.)

From there we were going to go to a club with the engineering students, but lost them along the way. So Davide, Evelyn, Emma and I just ended up going back to the hostel. We had a good time just chatting and hanging out, but in the end, I think we were all tired, so it ended up a much earlier night than the one before.

-Dravis

Eurasburg to Munich - Day 73

Date: October 30th, 2009
Distance: 54km
Country: Germany
Song of the Day: I Talk to the Wind - King Crimson

Got up early again. Yay. Had some breakfast and broke camp. I did scare myself a bit in the night. I thought something was munching on my food outside the tent. Turns out that it was just my breathing russling my sleeping bad. So that is my Closeau moment. Really though, nothing bad happened.

From there I just rode on to Munich. Conditions in the morning were just miserable though. It was bitterly cold and a mist had moved in. Plus I was having more headwind. Just like, but with the cold it was really crappy. Even with my full biking gloves on my fingers were almost numb. Just before noon though the sun broke out and started warming things up.

Rode through a couple of things without really seeing anything. I went through Dachau the town, but didn't see any signs for the concentration camp. A concentration camp is a weird tourist destination though. Closer to Munich I rode by the Olympic village by didn't go through it. I don't know if there is really anything cool to see there though.

Once I got into town I didn't have a clue where I was going though. I didn't have a place to stay. I just planned on getting a bed when I got there. I just didn't see any hostels. I did see the central trains station, so I decided to stop there. I figured they would have a tourist office. I was standing outside trying to figure out if I could bring my bike in when this Aussie guy started talking to me.

Turns out his name is Craig and he did have a hostel booked, but didn't know where it was. I said I would watch his stuff (he was pretty loaded down) while he went in and got a map and asked where the place was. Now the line inside was much more like people standing around in went so slowly. So after waiting around for a bit, He had some maps and the hostel was just around the corner.

One hostel is as good as any other right? So I just followed him over there. I even ended up getting booked into the room with Craig. By this point we were getting on pretty well. We ended up dropping the stuff off in the room and going out for some late lunch.

After that we took a stroll about the city. I hadn't a clue what to go for or what to see. But we just wandered around for a bit to see what there was. Frankly I did wonder what was actually old and what was new. I suspected that some of the buildings were destroyed by the second world war. The city has a lot of dates on buildings, but I wasn't sure they could be trusted. The city itself is pretty neat. But after going through a bunch of European cities, I guess it just seemed like another one.

After that we went back to the hostel and met up with Craig's friend Susie. She is from Bavaria, and had come up to meet with Craig. We ended up at the bar in the hostel. There we met another Aussie guy named Andy, and the four of us headed out for dinner. We ended up a a bierhall. I had sweinehaxe. Yum. It was a bit tough though. The one from Feirabend is so tender it falls apart in your mout. I love that.

From there we headed out to a club to dance the night away. Germans are still not, in my opinion, great dancers. Like I said though, that just means that I fit in. Actually, I think less than half of the croud was German. Most of the rest I think were tourists like me. In all it was a fun night. I didn't get back to the hostel until 5:00 in the morning. Whew.

-Dravis