Bratislava

It started with 2…then it quickly escalated to 7, 4 kiwis including us, Andrew and Amy, 2 Aussies Luke and James and 1 Brit Paul…destined for Slovakia. Unfortunately for Paul, due to a recent stint in a German jail after the last group trip, he decided to drop out.

So what seemed like an eternity after booking the holiday, the 6 of us headed off after work to Luton airport eager to head into the depths of a Slovakian winter and experience Bratislava to the fullest. Seems that all the excitement was too much for some of us though, taking the opportunity to sleep hard on the plane, for others the joy of photographing those sleeping was also too much to resist.

After arriving at the airport late at night expecting to walk outside and find the normal 50 taxi cabs waiting desperate for business we spent a good 10 mins in the exceptionally chilly climate frantically waving down any infrequent taxi that rolled up. By the time we arrived at our accommodation, spent what seemed like an eternity checking in, once again the girls were tired and the boys were hungry! Some of the group made it back in time for some sleep…others (no names but they were Australian…) befriended some locals and held them up in a local bar till the very early hours despite protests of “we need to go home – we have lives to lead”.

True to form though and despite the lack of sleep everyone was up and ready to go in the morning on our pre-booked day trip to the outskirts of Bratislava. Much to our delight we realised we were the only ones booked so we had the luxury van and guide all to ourselves. After a quick history lesson and tour around the city of Bratislava, we headed into the Carpathian ranges and their small towns, although the weather was very foggy and cold so we couldn’t see any mountains or much else. First stop was a ceramic making workshop where we got treated to a demonstration of pot making then painting which is a traditional pastime of Slovakia. We couldn’t help but snap up some ceramic bargains, it would have been rude not to.

After that we were off to Červený Kameň (red stone) Castle which ranks among the best preserved in Slovakia and boast the largest cellars in central Europe. After a quick snow fight in the grounds we had a guided tour of the huge castle which apparently you aren’t allowed to take photos inside of but I seemed to miss being told that and was snapping away happily until I was told I wasn’t supposed to – oh well!

From the castle we went straight to our last stop on the tour which was to visit a local winery. It has been said that Slovakia produces some of the best white wine in the world, problem is that it is so good that all of it gets drunk by the locals and there is none available for export which is why you can’t buy it outside of Slovakia. The family vineyard was the highest mountain vineyard in Slovakia and I have to say it was really odd doing a wine tasting session in the snow. You normally equate wine tours with sun! The owner also had a mighty fine collection of old tractors which were restored to working order, would have loved to have started one up and taken it for a burn around the grounds but there was wine, cheese and bread to sample inside.

Coming from a country where wine is of a high standard, and humouring the Aussies who also claim their wine is drinkable, we would always be a hard bunch to please. We were not disappointed though, so much so that we all bought some to have later on that night considering we might not be able to find it outside of Slovakia anytime soon.

We got our guide to drop us in the historic centre of Bratislava on the way back and much to our delight it was the first weekend of the Christmas markets. The others were quick to snap up one of the fried meats on offer, whilst I was more inclined to look at all the Christmas decorations – yeah ok maybe I was sampling the fried goodness as well…I cant tell a lie. After some solid market browsing we decided to recuperate back at the hostel before going out for dinner. Recuperate for some means taking over the lounge room playing games loudly!

After getting bored of the games we ended up going to a traditional Slovak restaurant for dinner – recommended by our friendly guide. The food was delicious, most of us opting for traditional – although Chris got snails and I thought they were a French delicacy? Ah well, they tasted ok! We emerged from the restaurant into the cool of the night and started wandering around aimlessly until some local girls took a shine to the Aussie contingent and lead us to their favourite hangout which happened to be an underground rock bar. No health and safety rules in this place as they shut off the lights and lit up the bar with fire!

The next morning saw us wave goodbye to the Aussie boys as they were on an early flight and one of them was looking a bit worse for wear to be honest…all in the name of fun apparently! That just left the 4 of us kiwis to continue our sightseeing around the city taking in the castle, the new bridge which has a viewing platform like a UFO (unfortunately not open to go up and we still don’t know why as we don’t speak Slovak!) and as many of the historic sights we could find.

Of course all this walking builds up a good appetite so it was back to the Christmas markets for more tasty meat products! We got tired of walking around so headed back to the hostel to grab our bags and get to the airport in good time. Our taxi driver turned up quick smart and it was apparent after wheel spinning out of the driveway that he was on a mission. Zig zagging through traffic, driving at breakneck speed, flashing anyone sitting in the fast lane and hitting the off ramp to the airport at approx 160kph we were all hanging on for dear life. As he screeched to a stop in front of the departure lounge he uttered his first words to us, “8 minutes, good time”. So we bid farewell to Bratislava with that quote in mind…in fact it could be said that we could take it and make it a saying of our own to describe our trip to Bratislava…“6 people, good times”.

Italy vs Portugal

With the impending arrival of Janice from NZ, it was decided that a girls trip to the “heel” of Italy should be planned. We chose Lecce as the destination of choice due to the rave reviews about the baroque architecture and the claims that it was the “Florence of the South” for traditional food and way of life.

Now it has to be said that I possibly did rub in the fact that I was going away to a gorgeous destination with a great group of friends on an almost daily basis to Chris so it was inevitable that envy would kick in and he would plan his own boys trip away to another European destination – therefore the Porto boys trip was booked!

Not content to be outdone I ensured I was not just away for a weekend but made it a nice long 4 day trip, leaving extremely early on Thurs morning. Amy and I caught the night bus at 3am in order to get to the airport on time. We arrived in Brindisi rather jaded and a little disappointed to see grey skies – where was our hot Italian weather? A short train ride later we arrived in Lecce and waited at our bed and breakfast for Janice and Karena to arrive from Rome. It was a quick turnaround from bags being dropped in the room to heading out to find food.

Wandering through the old city gates into the old town we quickly discovered that “siesta time” from 1-5pm was a way of live and strictly adhered to as the place was deserted. Luckily for us there was a snack cafe opening up and we managed not to kill each other from hunger. After fuelling up we continued to wander through the old town as things slowly started coming to life. We were merrily going about our way when the heavens opened and rain teemed down. We sought refuge in a cafe where it would have been rude not to buy something to eat! We all assumed that this weather would be a freak occurrence and that we would be basking in sunshine for our remaining 3 days – bad assumption. For the remainder of our stay in Lecce we battled the rain, wind, thunder, lightening and hail!

Fortunately for us the charm and food of Lecce kept us very happy indeed and we spent most of our time marvelling at the grand baroque buildings and sampling the local cuisine. Of course this was all time is slow motion as every day we were forced to nap and rest from 1-5 as literally nothing was open. Funnily enough this was really easy to get used to!

We did manage a sneaky day trip down the coast further to Ottranto just to satisfy our curiosity that the weather was no better than in Lecce…it wasn’t, but it was still a great little trip on a funny little train! And just to clarify, wet weather is no reason not to try as much gelato as you can handle…

On the flip side, and possibly some kind of cruel joke, Chris and Andrew struck the sunshine jackpot and enjoyed summer temperatures of 23 – 24 degrees in Portugal for their weekend away. I will never live this one down…he even took a photo of a temp gauge to rub it in that little bit more. In fact this blog posting will now transfer over to the gloater himself to fill you in on the boys weekend.

Aaaahhhh warmth. Portugal was great. 23 degrees everyday was great considering the temp in London has not passed 10 degrees for a couple of months now.Our reason for going to Porto, Portugal was easy. The Flights were cheap and well why not. With the girls away it was a good opportunity to go on a holiday with no clothing shopping.

We didn't have much time so decided that in order to make the most of it sleep would have to be sacrificed. We arrived in the evening and our first impressions were great. The metro was new, the airport was new and everybody was real friendly.As the girls were not there we decided to stay in a dorm to save money. We ditched our stuff and went straight out for a feed. After some aimless walking we settled down to a massive meal, beers and some pool. Somehow it never really cost us that much. I think that could be because the waiter kept stealing untouched food from other peoples tables and giving it to us with a sneaky thumbs up.

Like so many European countries the night life doesn't really kick off until about two in the morning. We missioned back to the dorm where there were 5 Americans still sleeping. They had been sleeping when we arrived much earlier. After some accidentally on purpose crashing and banging they woke up and joined us on the journey back out to sample the local nightlife. We had been given directions to a club but never made it. The street was closed off and there were thousands of people outside partying so we stayed there instead.

5am time for sleep. 8am breakfast. 8:30am straight to the nearest coffee shop where Andrew had grown fond of the double shot espresso and as I don't drink coffee a can off coke for me. Still in shorts and tee shirt we headed out for an intense day of sightseeing. We started with a river cruise, which was a great way to take in the city from a different perspective and our first opportunity to taste some of the world famous Port (funny that with a name like Porto). The other Aussies on the boat had bought a bottle each so it meant the normal red Port had run out we could only have white port.

After the boat ride we visited the Calem Port Factory which was about as old as dirt. It was good tour with an even better tasting at the end. I must admit though I didn't buy any to take away as I really do think that Port taste a bit like spew.

After walking through the city sampling local foods and bevy's, visiting gold leaf covered churches and buildings covered in bath tiles (it seemed the Portuguese got a bit carried away and started covering everything in white and blue bath tiles) we grabbed some prosciutto ham as a snack and went back to the dorm. Before long the Americans had joined in and it was full steam ahead preparing for another night on the town. We didn't stay as long in town this time but what a great atmosphere.
The trip was awesome and made better by the fact I new I would be returning to Portugal at Christmas for a week long surfing mission.

Pit Stop Prague

Prague has a reputation of being a bit of an English stag and hens weekend destination. This is not surprising as it is the capital of the Czech Republic which holds the record for the highest amount of beer consumption per person in the world. The record stands at a staggering 156.9 litres of beer per person per year. To give a comparison New Zealand stands at 77 Litres and the UK at 99.

The other slightly more sober fact about Prague is that it somehow escaped the ravages of the second words war so is filled with a massive amount of amazing Gothic and Victorian architecture.

Julie, Andrew, Amy and I started our journey to Prague from Luton airport. We jumped on a half empty plane surrounded by at least two stag parties and a league team. It didn’t take long before the party started. The league team got told off for sexually harassing the flight attendant and Andrew and I got ripped of buying aeroplane beers.

By the time we got to our hostel we were so hungry all we could talk about was food. The girls considered sleep more important so we left them to it and went to the local all night takeaway. Basically it sold Czech style donor Kebabs. They were pretty good. Andrew went back for another one while I tried some meat filled pastry thing which was too hot and tasteless. Time disappeared and we didn’t get back until two in the morning.

We didn’t have long as breakfast was at 8.30am. It doesn’t matter how far you go, cornflakes for breakfast are always on the menu. It was supposed to be a buffet but all that meant was that you could have as many cornflakes as you wanted.

Wrapped in our biggest jackets we set of into the morning mist to explore the city. We walked around visiting pretty much every church, bridge, opera house that Prague had to offer. We soon started to realise that Prague had a little bit of every country. A small Eifel Tower on the hill, a St Pauls looking cathedral, the Spanish steps and a church that resembled Notre Dame etc.

After a beautiful lunch in an underground cellar we decided to go back to the hostel for a few drinks. We bought some absinth which is a local delicacy (we never ended up drinking any thankfully). Not having our fill of stodgy (but delicious) Czcech food at lunch we went out for dinner to try some more local delacacies. The boys went for the slabs of meat and the girls got the local pasta speciality. Unfortuantely Amy's ended up being a version of macaroni and cheese and she ended up gazing longingly at our food with a great deal of envy. Unlucky for her trying to sample meat off mens plates is like trying to take a bone from a dog - you could lose an arm with that kind of carry on.

As I have mentioned Prague is famous for its drinking and therefore it has a huge amount of pubs and beer. So we decided to go on an organised pub crawl through the hostel in the hope we would get to see some of the nice Prague pubs and to get a chance to see how the locals lived. We were slightly disappointed when we turned up to the first pub which was called, can you believe it, Molly Malones! By about the third English filled pub we were over caring as the alcohol was free and for Julie especially the cheesy 80's music was great. I had no idea she loved Guns and Roses so much hmmmmmmmmm.

That night no one apart from me slept very well. They all spent the night desperately running to the bog, a record of seven in one night for Julie. I had been rough the day before and seemed to be on the mend. I had some how passed it onto everybody else though.

We had to get up early again for breakfast and also to get to the dilapidated rail station to catch a train to kutna hora where the famous Ossuary chapel was. The cemetery grounds were considered sacred, and hence became a much sought after location for relatives to bury their dead. In the 14th century, the Black Death spread the bubonic plague across Europe and now 30,000 bodies all wanted a resting place within the sacred grounds. Such vast numbers of dead led to the creation of the ossuary in 1511 by a half-blind monk who gathered up the bones to be stacked up within the ossuary, making space for new corpses, which were soon taken up by more victims from 15th century Hussite Wars. The monk decided to decorate the chapel with the bones and made them into such things as a chandelar, coat of arms and caves. Pretty bizarre stuff really!
Seeing as we were in Kutna Hora we thought it would be a good idea to check out the town as the chapel was out in the sticks. It took about 20 mins to walk into town and halfway there was that familiar need for the toilet brewing in a few of us. The pace picked up to almost a canter and after weaving through the narrow streets we burst into the tourist information looking desperate! fortunately there was more than one toilet otherwise I am sure a fight would have broken out. After the much needed toilet stop, we realised we only had a short amount of time left before we had to head back to Prague to get to the airport so we headed straight for St Barbaras which is one of the largest gothic cathedrals in europe. It was spectacular but there was no time to browse so we missioned our way back to Prague.

No matter what city you are in you always seem to stumble across dodgy taxi drivers who can spot tourists a mile off. Seeing as we knew how much we paid to get into town from the airport we were not liking the quote that was 4 times the price to get back! We managed to find a reasonable one and our long journey back to London begun. I am beginning to hate airports...

Romantic Paradise

It has always been known that we love the outdoors and getting back to nature. Lately we have not been to many places that have satisfied our needs for beautiful scenery and a bit of quiet away from city life. That all changed with our recent trip to Lake Bled in Slovenia. We had heard it was a spectacular, romantic place and we weren’t disappointed!

Bled is a small town that has a small lake as its focal centre point and in the middle of the lake is a small island housing a monastery with bell towers that tourists and the like can pay a small fee to annoyingly ring all through the day. How the monks don’t lose their minds with the constant ringing of bells I don’t know! Towering over the lake is a 1000 year old castle perched on top of a cliff which makes for a stunning backdrop. We were very happy arriving into town and seeing such beauty!

The first night we arrived quite late so after a recommendation from quite possibly the friendliest hostel owner in living history we headed into town for dinner. Well, it is no secret that we love food and the dinner we experienced was to die for. Chris predictably went straight for the dish that had the most meat content (he was very happy when he was presented with a plate of mixed meat goodies…) and I went for a seafood risotto. Both were morsels of pure happiness and delight, especially as they didn’t have the hefty price tag to go along with it.

After going to bed full and content we woke early to a brisk but sunny morning and grabbed the free bikes from the hostel for a jaunt to the Vintar George which was rumoured to be a 2km distance from town. Expecting a leisurely ride to the start of the gorge walk we were quickly heaving our screaming legs uphill for at least 4km, both of us not wanting to admit to being desperate to get off and walk. But, as they say it was worth it. Hardly a soul in sight we wandered our way around the wooden walkway through the spectacular gorge. It was nice to smell the air, a mix of trees, leaves, water and freshness, something we have been without for quite some time. We are used to smelling urine, smog and a hideous mix of takeaway fried food everywhere in London. At the end we were treated to a waterfall which was small by Huka Falls standards but we marvelled all the same. Best part about it was the downhill ride back to town through small farming villages – I have not smelt silage in a long time (I realised I didn’t miss it…not even a little bit).

After our small bout of exercise we deemed ourselves worthy of trying one of Slovenias delicacies which is basically a big layered tower of pastry, custard and cream piled so high it was impossible to eat without ending up with a pile of custardy goodness going everywhere (think custard square with masses of cream!) Yeah, so that lasted all of 20 seconds…we are not ones for savouring.

As the sun shone on we took the opportunity to get our walk around the lake in (which takes about 2 hours not including the 50 photo stops you end up taking along the way so more like 3 hours). We were planning on doing the touristy thing of getting our lazy selves rowed across the island on a boat by some old Slovenian dude, but we decided it was more fun (and cheaper) to hire a little boat and row ourselves across. It has to be said that Chris and I are not particularly good at rowing…in fact we are laughable at it. It would be great if we wanted to go around in circles, but not particularly useful when you have a destination in mind. It went to show that we both have one stronger side than the other so it ended up being 2 normal rows, then 2 with your left side only, then 2 normal and so on…don’t think we will be the next NZ hopefuls for the 2012 Olympic team!

All that activity just meant we were ready for (wait for it) more food! We contemplated going back to the same place as the night before but decided to go to a pub that has started in 1903. After some ridiculously cheap drinks we opted for pizza upstairs (although not traditional it was very tasty) before heading back down for more cheap beverages. The pub was decked out in number plates and we managed to find one from NZ. We were trying to leave before the landlord declared we couldn’t leave without trying the locally made blueberry schnapps – on the house. How could we refuse? It was extremely tasty.

Now I have mentioned that the constant bell ringing from the island could be annoying, but not as annoying as the church bells clanging for a good loud 15mins early on a Sunday morning. Not even a nice chime or two, it was more like a threat to all those in town with its aggressive tone and degree of urgency – much along the lines of “get up and get to church NOW!” kind of thing. Not amused – at all.
Being our last day we had to get up to the castle for a look see. Another gorgeous day, another morning starting off with a burn to the legs with the hill climb to the top of the cliff. All was going well until we spied the tour buses lined up at the entranceway. It has to be said – I hate tour groups. They seem to have no awareness of other tourists and just end up dominating the attraction they are in purely as they have the numbers to hog space and block entrances and view points. Anyway, I digress, the castle was interesting and the view (once we glared enough at the tour groups to get through to see it that is) was worth it. We were inspired to walk around the lake once more before leaving, just to soak in as much of the wonderfulness that is Lake Bled.

Again, we left feeling that we didn’t have enough time to appreciate Slovenia and that Lake Bled was just a snippet of what the country had to offer. These weekend trips certainly do leave you feeling both cheated and lucky at the same time as we are fortunate to even be seeing such places even though they are for such a small amount of time. It goes on the list of favourites though for sure.

Oktoberfest 2008

500,000 spit roast chickens, 350,000 pork knuckles, 14 giant tents, 6,000,000 people and 6,940,600 litres of beer.This is not heaven gentleman, this is the 2008 Munich Oktoberfest.The largest beer festival in the world is not something which can be taken lightly so training for this event started early. Liver cleansing diets mixed with tolerance training and of course the search for the perfect hangover cure.

The trip began on Thursday night as the three teams set off from Stansted airport. Two Kiwi's, two Aussies and two Brits.We didn't arrive until 1am so went straight to bed as we needed to get up early to get inside a tent for the day.The weather was terrible in the morning. It must have been about 1 degree so it was essential we made haste and started drinking to get a nice warm beer blanket. We jumped on a bus and almost instantly we had a Bavarian beer in our hands.

I think it important to mention that all Bavarian Beer is subject to the 1516 purity order (act) which means all beer must only contain water, hops and barley-malt. Apparently this justifies early morning starts as you don't get very bad hangovers. That and the fact that beer is considered a beverage rather than an alcoholic drink.

After about half an hour waiting in line we managed to get into the Haufbro tent. We grabbed a table and got stuck in. Everything seemed to be going great. The beer was flowing, we were dancing, singing, meeting new people from all over the world.Then some how everybody became separated. I never saw anyone apart from Luke (Aussie) for the rest of the night. Here's what had happened. One of the Brit's Paul had been arrested and put in prison for throwing a stein glass, Andrew (Kiwi) had become lost missed the last bus home, tried to use the underground which was even hard sober so gave up and spent the rest of the night sleeping on a bench at the train station using the bin as a spew bowl. James (Aussie) had become lost so went to town and continued drinking. Steve (Brit) got lost and went home so didn't drink anymore. Luke (Aussie) got punched in the neck by a security guard and spent the next hour filling out police reports and getting medical assistance (which ended up costing £34 for the privilege).On top of this pretty much everybody lost an article of clothing.

Day two and the training had paid off. Andrew managed to get back at 5am from the train station have a couple hours sleep and then we all set off. No one really feeling that bed despite the amount of beer that was consumed. Oh still one person short as Paul was still in the cells!!!!!!! Dachau Concentration camp was our destination. What a humbling and frightening place. More than 30,000 people died there due to the terrible conditions, murder, starvation and disease.

The previous night was catching up to us but not to worry, hair of the dog was not far away. We jumped back on the coach after a quick Mac Ds stop and drove straight to Andechs Monastery. This was an amazing church with a difference, the monks loved beer and had been brewing it for centuries. They also had the best pork knuckles in Germany. £13 later and I had half a pig in front of me. I had to finish it no matter what!!!

Andrew and I then got dropped of in town to go and find Paul who was still in prison. It was a bit of an experience walking down a dark empty street to a prison. The experience was made worse considering we had the horrific images of the Dachau Concentration camp still playing on our minds. They were not very help full. Apparently you are guilty until proven innocent in Germany so basically we couldn't do anything. On that note we decided to grab a travel beer for our short journey back to the festival.

We never made it into a tent but did manage to meet up with some cool Italian guys and have a great time outside. I think our beer wench called Claudia had never seen such rowdiness. Beer wenches are amazing they can carry up to 20 steins all while wearing a particularly flattering traditional dress.

Two hours by train lies a castle that was the birth child of the Walt Disney castle. There were only two teams left by this stage. The other Brit had gone walk about and missed the train. Have a look at the pic. It was amazing to say the least.

Quickly back to the tents for one final night. We got back to Munich and to our surprise and delight the Aussie team piked. That left Andrew and I. We walked in sober while everybody else was well and truly fueled. We knew that before we took offence to the pushing and shouting we needed to get stuck in. I have to say this was probably the best night.

I got back to London one jumper down one flat mate down but a national champion.