Italy - Salerno June 21 - 27 Week 3.

A new member of our class this week, a Spanish girl to add to the multicultural mix, and the end of the week saw us saying good bye to our 2 Swiss friends as they were off to enjoy their vacation. We also bid farewell to some other friends from our first class as their month had come to an end.

This weekend we explored the Amalfi Coast visiting Positano, and Amalfi. We took the boat to Positano which was a great way to see this beautiful coastline and get a feel for the geography.

Positano is an extremely picturesque, romantic town built into this very steep part of the coast. With narrow cobblestone streets barely wide enough for scooters, apartments and houses built up not out - in typical Italian style.
The views are stunning and are exactly as one dreams the Amalfi coast should be.

After exploring Positano for a few hours and taking in the breathtaking scenery we took the bus to Amalfi which is half an hour along the coast.

From Amalfi we went for a walk into the mountains behind the town. A friend from school had lent us a book on walking trails so we used this to guide us. Our walk took us through some amazing landscapes, cute little towns, and many lemon farms which were terraced into the side of the mountains. It was a fabulous way to get away from the touristy areas as well as to see the coast from a different perspective.

Italy - Salerno June 14 - 20 Week 2.

Starting afresh we were a lot more relaxed and happy. We were again very lucky to find our new class at the same level as us and everyone seemed really friendly. Our new class was very diverse in nationalities, there were 2 Swiss, 2 Swedish, 1 French, 1 Russian, and 3 Australians (us and a young girl (15yo) from Darwin).

Generally this week was great, our new home with Signora Clara was fantastic and our Italian was making sense. 
We also had discovered our 'local’ pub with some Swedish mates form school. It showed every game of the soccer world cup so we spent a fair bit of time there.

In Salerno we visited ‘Castel Arrechi’ which is the remnants of an old castle perched high on the hills around Salerno and was used to help defend this area of the coast. We also visited the Duomo (St Matthews Cathedral) which is the city’s pride and joy. The Duomo is magnificent and dates back to 1085. It contains mosaics and frescos, a couple of which are still in original condition. It has a crypt underneath which is also beautifully decorated.

This weekend we ventured to Pompeii and walked to the top of Mt Vesuvius, and on Sunday we explored Naples.

Mt Vesuvius, being the only active volcano in Europe, was fantastic. It last erupted in 1944 but was famous from its eruption in 79AD when it completely covered Pompeii and Herculaneum. 

The bus from Pompeii takes you to 1000m and you then have to walk to rest of the way to the crater. The crater is huge and there are still occasional steam jets coming out of the rocks. If the weather had have been better it would also be a site for fabulous panoramic views of the Italian coastline around Naples.

Pompeii ruins are also huge. They take a good 2-3h to explore and possibly longer to do it extremely thoroughly. Walking through the ruins was a great experience. The most moving was the fossilised bodies which were preserved showing the fear and unexpectedness of the eruption in their positioning. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to also visit Herculaneum which is a neighbouring town which was not covered by ash but instead was buried under mud. Because of this it is apparently fabulously preserved.

Naples is quite a pretty city with its old town centre being typical of Italian historical centres being made up of narrow cobblestone streets and lots of magnificent churches and convents. It is also on the coast and has a beautiful coastline dotted with many restaurants.

Italy - Salerno June 7 - 13 Week 1.

Our first week at school was a little challenging. We arrived on Monday morning to find out that beginners usually start every 2 weeks and we were mid cycle....something the agency failed to tell us.... so we started school with a class that had already been learning Italian for a week and who were mostly at least bilingual already.... mmmmm.... we have always liked a challenge :-0.

Our class was great fun and our teacher very understanding so we did get through but decided that we really should start again with a new class next week and learn the basics properly.  

Brii’s birthday also fell this week and was celebrated with a quiet dinner and wine overlooking the Salerno seaside.

The weekend saw us relax and do not much at all. We wandered around Salerno and gathered some information about things to do in the coming weeks. We also changed our accommodation. We were fortunate to be able to change and move in with a host family or Signora as the case may be. 

Italy - Salerno

Our train journey was relatively pleasant with a good sleep and good company - we shared our cabin with a lovely lady from Munich who spoke fluent English and Italian.

After changing trains in Rome we arrived in Salerno at 14.15 and caught a taxi to what was to be our new home for a month. Our apartment was nothing like we imagined it would be. It was more typical of student accommodation with a long hallway being the only living space. It had 4 closed locked doors off the hallway to each of the bedrooms, a bathroom, and a tiny kitchen. Thankfully our room was quite spacious.

Later in the afternoon we went for a walk to discover that everything is closed in Salerno of an afternoon from 1 - 5pm and most things are closed on a Sunday anyway. This made it a little difficult to find something to eat but we did find a pizzeria that was open... ahhh Italy...:-).

Germany - Munich

Nursing our hangovers, we went on a walking tour of the city this afternoon. It was a nice relaxed way to get moving and see the city. 

Munich is beautiful and full of amazing history. Hitler called Munich ‘the capital of the movement’ so many of the The Third Reich important events happened here - probably the most disturbing one being ‘the night of the broken glass’ in November 1938 which was the night that Hitler started the movement against the Jewish people. We had an amazing guide and learnt a lot about the Nazi Movements within the city as well as some other interesting ‘lighter’ facts about Munich.

We then boarded our overnight train to Italy in preparation for our language course.

Germany - Munich

We travelled out to Dachau Concentration Camp today. 

Dachau was the first Nazi Concentration Camp and was the only one to function for the entire 12yrs of the Third Reich. It was the camp that all of the other camps were based on. It is now set up as a memorial to the 200,000 plus prisoners that passed through its gates and suffered within its walls.

The atmosphere within the camp is one of tragedy and suffering. The displays are well set out and the buildings quite well preserved. As a visitor here we walked the path of the prisoners from the front gate, through “check in”, then to the single barracks which is still standing, right through to the Gas Chamber and Crematorium. Words cannot describe the feelings you feel as you walk through these areas and most of all when you stand in the Gas Chamber.... it was heart wrenching and awful!

On a brighter note, we ended our day with a “Beer Hall Challenge”. It was meant to be an educational tour and insight into the beer hall culture of Bavaria .... but it really just ended up being lots of drinking! It was a little disappointing from the lack of cultural education but we still had a fun night and partied until the wee hours of the morning.

Germany - Munich

With the rain still falling the caravan park was starting to establish its own little rivers by the morning. 

We drove to Munich this morning to discover it was a public holiday and absolutely nothing was open.... the up side of this was that we could park in a shopping centre car park undercover to pack and clean the van before we had to hand it back in.

We spent the rest of the day lazing in the warmth and space of our hotel room!

Germany - Regensburg

Today we decided to cross into Germany. We stopped in the provincial city of Regensburg, which is just over an hour from Munich. It was cold and wet when we left Plzen and even colder and wetter when we stopped. 

Regensburg is a fairly modern small Bavarian city. There really wasn’t a great deal to see but it was lovely to walk around and long the River Danube. We enjoyed our first large serve of Wurst and Sauerkraut washed down with a local beer. Thankfully the rain held off for a couple of hours so we could walk around for a little while without umbrellas.... but it wasn’t far away and set in again in the early afternoon. 

The weather isn’t that fun when you only have a Tarago to sit in... our last night in our camper playing scrabble and eating our local delicacies from town was very cosy!

Czech Republic - Plzen

We drove to Plzen today via Karlstejn.

Karlstejn is a small village not far out of Prague that houses a great medieval castle. Unfortunately the English tour was too late for us (and we couldn’t enter by ourselves) so we only saw it from the outside... but it  looked very cool. We ventured on to Plzen, which is famous for its beer.... Pilsner Urquell. 

As you can imagine this was the main reason for coming to this town... we spent the afternoon visiting the museum, which outlined the history of PIlsner beer and the beer making process with, of course, a free glass of beer at the end, and then we visited the Brewery. The tour around the Brewery took us through the old and new brewery houses, the packaging house, and the cellar.... and also ended with a taster - this time straight from the keg.

Jack has declared Pilsner Urquell his new second favourite beer, after “the almighty Cascade Draught”.