Peaches and Pasta in Como

Kristin and I woke up early in Milan and walked back to the train station to catch a small regional train to a place called Como.  Como is a small town at the base of Lake Como, which stretches out beneath the huge mountains of the area.  We found a place to stay through Air BnB that was advertised as an actual bed and breakfast, rather than just a room in an apartment.  When emailing with the woman, both Kristin and I got good vibes.  They offered to come pick us up at the train station, which we gladly accepted, given our heavy bags.  

After about 40 minutes on the train, we walked through the train station and found Enza and her daughter, Stefania, waiting for us with a sign.   They were super kind, gave us big hugs, and drove us back to their house, about 6 miles away from the center of twon.  Enza speaks Italian and French, and a little bit of English, so I mostly translated for Kristin.  We both told her that we wanted to learn some Italian, so she some spoke to us in Italian as well.  Their house was so nice, and exactly what we were looking for.  Quiet, relaxing, and stress free.  When we arrived, Enza showed us her peach tree and had us pick five or six peaches.   

 The peach tree

We sat in the garden eating some peaches when she brought us a delicious salad with cheese, salami, olives, and radishes in it.  We were so happy and surprised… we found out that the image of Italians always wanting to feed you was very true here at BnB Mimosa :) When we finished eating, they happily drive us back to the center of town where Kristin and I wandered along the lake, window shopped, and relaxed in some of the parks.  

The views were gorgeous and we were both ecstatic to be in Como.  Since it was quite warm out, the breeze off the lake was also really nice.  We relaxed in some parks and enjoyed the views while drinking a glass of refreshing white wine. 

                                                                     Enjoying our wine

We also took a mountain “cable car”/tram up to the top of one of the mountains where we again had amazing views of the surrounding areas.  We could even see Switzerland! It was cooler at the top of this mountain, but we opted not to take the bus to the very top of the hill because it wasn't a very clear day and we didn't think we'd be able to see a ton more than what we could at this spot. 

The view from the top!

As it has in every city we’ve been it, it rained in Como later that afternoon.  We tried distracted ourselves inside, escaping from the warm raindrops.  We checked our the town's church, and some fun department stores that had lots of home decorations.  Enza graciously came down to pick us up early.  Back at the house, she fed us melon and prosciutto.  It was right before dinner, but we didn’t refuse.   Even the weather seemed to apologize and welcomed us to Como :)

 A rainbow!

We ate dinner at the local restaurant. For our second night in Italy we tried pasta with pomodoro sauce.  They were super  nice and also added zucchini.  We both agree that we’venever had such fresh and delicious pasta.  The sauce, which wasn't even really a sauce, was chopped up tomatoes, olive oil, and the perfect amount of salt and herbs.  It was incredibly delicious.

 Best pasta ever.

We then walked right across the street to the gelateria, where we bought some gelato and watched the France-Portugal game.  The gelato was super good, we both tried Nutella this time.  We had held off buying gelato, and it most definitely paid off.  The base was almost a milk flavored gelato, but it was filled with scoops of nutella.  The game was fun to watch, even though France lost.  We were ore excited about the Italy game the next day!

14-hour Travel Day

Yes, you read that correctly.  14 hours of travel... We left the apartment in Prague around 6:30 and walked to the train station. We were there plenty early in order to catch our bus to Munich, Germany.  Kristin and I weren't quite sure what to expect when they said we'd be taking a bus... but the bus surpassed any and all expectations.  

 Fancy bus!!

We both decided it was the fanciest bust we've ever been on.  Comfy leather seats, televisions on the back of each chair, nice tables, a "stewardess" type person who could serve us snacks and drinks etc... It was super enjoyable, comfortable, and fun to watch the country side go by.

Bye Prague and your dancing buildings

We arrived in Munich 5 hours later, with about an hour to spare before our next train.  On our way into the city we saw part of Munich's Olympics stadiums, which totally made my day!

We grabbed some lunch, and easily navigated the station and found our train.  We hopped on board, found our seats, and enjoyed another 5 hours of transit.  The scenery was absolutely gorgeous.  

We passed from Germany, through Austria, and into ITALIA!! We were stoked to have finally made it to Italy :) The mountains (Alps), rivers, vineyards, and small towns were gorgeous.  

 Welcome to Italia!

We made it to Verona, where we transferred to our final train of the day.  We made it to Milan, found our hotel, and collapsed on the (comfy) beds! 

We mustered all our strength and headed just down the street to grab some dinner.  We are so glad we did because we ate the most amazing pizza of our lives.  We started dinner with bruschetta, so fresh! Then our pizzas came.  Mine had pomodoro (tomatoes), mozzarella, olives, mushrooms, ham, and artichoke hearts (surprised me, since I didn't know the word in Italian while ordering). Kristin's had several cheeses, pomodoro, and spinach.  

 Kristin's pizza (left) and my pizza (right)

We both about died of happiness because they were so good.  We slept contentedly that night and enjoyed the left overs the next morning for breakfast (shhh, don't tell the Italians).  The next day we'd be off to Lake Como!

Sunshine and Blue Skies in Prague

Sadly we only had one full day to spend sightseeing and exploring Prague.  But we definitely made the most of it. 

In the morning we made our way to the central square.  We grabbed some breakfast and then wandered through the tiny, winding roads, checking out all the beautiful buildings and statues.  

 

 

 By pure luck (although we say it was perfectly planned), we found the city’s clocktower at about 10:45.  What’s cool about this clock tower is that there is one clock that tells the actual time, and another, completely separate astrological clock.  This clock indicated where the sun and the moon are, what season it is, what day of the year it is, and on the hour every hour a comical, satirical “play” happens.  The four evils (greed, death, vanity, glutony) are represented by little statues.  The skeleton of death rings a bell, they all start dancing, and the windows above them open.  The 12 apostles make their way through the windows, while music plays in the background.  You can also wikipedia "Prague Astrological Clock" for a more accurate and in depth description

 

 

Astrological Clock

 

We then walked over to the St. Paul bridge and checked out all the statues.  There are over 30 statues all along the bridge, each representing different saints, apostles, and holy people.  We had a beautiful view of the castle, the river, and the city from the opposite side.  

 

St. Paul's Bridge

 

It was nearing noon, so we quickly walked back to where we planned to meet from friend from Loyola.  Aly is here studying in Prague all summer, and we decided that we definitely needed to see each other.  She had set a meeting place at “Wencelas Square”.  We arrived and it was a 5-6 block square with tons of people.  I was worried we wouldn’t be able to find her.  We walked towards the main statue and I finally recognized her.  It was so much fun to see parts of the city with a friend from back home and to have someone who’s been in Prague show us around the city.  She showed us this "monument", actually a grave of a 20 year old who was killed by the government as he protested against the communism in the 60s.  He is buried in the spot he was killed, right across the street from the statue symbolizing the country's freedom.  Learning these facts and their historical impacts was very very interesting.

This was actually her finals week of the first session of classes, but for her language course the professor was having the class go out to lunch together and having them order in Czech.  They were nice enough to include us, so Kristin and I joined the class for a traditional Czech lunch.  We were the only ones who had to point at the menu.  Everyone else helped translate for us.  It was really bizarre at least for me to be in such a large group of Americans because I haven’t heard that much English all at once for over a month and a half.  Part of me was partially frozen, haha.  

 

Beer with our lunch

After lunch we said goodbye to Aly and headed over to the castle.  We discovered that what we thought was the castle was actually the church in the royal city.  We strolled around this gated in city, exploring the little museums, the inside of the beautiful church, and also the actual royal castle.   

 

We also walked down Golden Lane, a street of tiny houses where villagers who contributed to the life of royalty lived and performed their duties as seamstress, doctor, healer, geographer etc… 

 The Castle

On our way back down the hill towards the river, we had some amazing views of the city:

 Views of the city

Along the way we tried this interesting and delicious sweet bread that they make.  It’s almost like a pretzel in that it’s crunchy on the outside but soft on the inside.  They cook it over a fire and the dough constantly rotates.  It’s sprinkled wit sugar and served warm.  A perfect mid-day snack.  We wandered a bit more before heading back to the apartment.  To reach the metros, you must take the escalators.  They were super super long and it was almost dizzying.  And according to Aly, they used to go way faster, but in order to join the EU, they were mandated to slow them down! I can't imagine racing down this escalator!

We packed up our bags in preparation for our (very) early morning the next day before heading out to dinner.  We again found a place that served salads (after a rich lunch) and was also broadcasting the Czech-Portugal game.  Czech, like Holland, lost to Portugal. We can’t decide if we’re good luck for Portugal, or just bad luck to whichever country we’re in.  Either way it was again a great atmosphere to be in (minus the cigarette smoke) and fun to get to watch some sports. 

1000 Crown Bills

After gathering our stuff, we made our way back to the main train station of Hamburg.  We gave ourselves lots of extra time, and got to the station with about 45 minutes of time to relax. We found a bar that was serving coffee, so we grabbed a seat, had a cup of coffee, and took a few deep breaths in gratitude of not being rushed :)

 

We caught our train and had a short ride to Berlin.  Of course, since the rain has followed us our entire trip, it was raining in Berlin. We went to the ticket station and got some train tickets for the next leg of our trip.  We then searched the station and found the luggage lockers.  Both Kristin and I had medium sized bags, but there was only one locker available… since we’re both pretty stubborn and type-A, we weren’t going to let the locker beat us. We somehow managed to fit both bags into a relatively small locker.  We were ecstatic. 

We headed out into the city with just our backpacks.  We saw a few monuments, where the Berlin used to stand, and grabbed a quick lunch that is authentic to Berlin: some sort of meatball, with a side of potatoes and a salad.  It was yummy and filling before our 5-hour train ride.   

We made it back, caught our second train and found ourselves in a compartment with a few other people who didn’t seem to speak English and didn’t smile.  So we did some reading and knitting.  At the first stop all three other people left so we had the entire compartment to ourselves for the last 3 hours of the ride! We then proceeded to play our music, have some snacks, and read girly magazines. We made it to Prague at our 7 PM without any problems.

We did however realize that we had to take the metro, but only have Euros, rather than crowns, the currency in Prague.  Upon finding an ATM, and inserting my credit card I was faced with a choice to withdraw: 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, or 5000.  Neither of us had the slightest idea what the exchange rate was., so I pressed the 1000 button.  Causing us even more shock was the fact that the machine spit out a 1000 bill!! We both just started laughing because we had no clue what that meant.  Turns out that 1000 is about $50, so it worked out in the end.   

We found our third AirBnB apartment, and went to grab dinner down the street.  We enjoyed delicious salads, some Czech beer, and ice cream for dessert since for a change it was actually hot here! But because traditions can’t be broken, it did rain that night on our way back home… at least it was a warm rain!

Hamburg, Germany

On Tuesday morning I snuck out early and went on a run here in Wilhelmsburg, just outside of Hamburg.  It was a nice day, and it felt great to go running after a few days without.  I really love running in new cities; it’s a great way to see lots of the surrounding scenery.  Wilhemsburg is a cute little quiet town, that’s actually on an island.  Hamburg is the biggest port city in Germany, so there is tons of water everywhere.  Unlike San Francisco, it comes from a river rather than being on the coastline.  I ran and saw some quaint houses, lots of green fields, and even an awesome looking windmill. 

Once I got back and we were organized, we grabbed a cinnamon roll type pastry (delicious!!!) that Katinka recommended, caught the bus and then the metro into the town center.  Hamburg, unlike Amsterdam, is very industrial.  There is lots of history, but it’s much more heterogeneous than what we saw in Amsterdam… one block is full of business building and cargo boxes, and then next there are these gorgeous little town squares and 500 year old churches. 

 

City Hall

We walked down the main avenue, saw city hall, and were loving all the hidden tall ship emblems.  Some were engraved into the side of old buildings, others were gold statues at the top of polls.  Thankfully the downtown area wasn’t too expansive, so we were able to walk for most of the day (even though we did have unlimited metro passes).  We didn’t have much of an agenda and decided to make it a low-key day and just enjoy wandering and seeing what we found. 

Cool Tall Ships!

We made our way towards St. Michael’s Church and visited both the top tower and the crypts underneath the church.  The views from the top tower (after climbing 450+ stairs) was breathtaking and gave us some ideas of more places were wanted to visit.  The crypt was super cool, and we learned that lots of people were buried under the church. There was a high demand for this type of burial, and it also raised money for the church.  What we also learned was that the graves were made to be very deep so that 3-5 coffins could be stacked on top of one another to maximize the limited space.  Kinda creepy…

 

St. Michael's Church

 

After our visit, we wandered in the direction of the historic square we saw from the church tower.  It’s a square where all the houses are conserved from wher they were first built.  It was super cute and there were no tourists, which was nice.  We then kept wandering, saw part of the port, skipped the fish market (Kristin’s allergic), and found a place to eat.  Since neither of us speaks German, we usually just pick the place that has an English menu.  We quickly found out that we had picked an all-potato restaurant… every dish was made with potatoes.  We were so full after just a few rich bites we had to try to communicate to the lady that, yes the food was delicious, but that there was too much of it! She was concerned at first, but she packed it up for us to bring home.

We continued walking, window-shopped, and picked up some lettuce and veggies for dinner that night.  Katinka was great and let us use the kitchen and everything, so once we got home, we reheated our leftover pizza, made a huge green salad, and drank the bottle of champagne I was given by some of the doctors at the hospital.  I couldn’t keep it one more day in my suitcase… it was just too heavy to drag around. Only solution: drink it :) We packed up our stuff, and prepared for another day of traveling towards our next stop: Prague!

Dark Skies and Delayed Trains

We woke up Monday morning to the sound of rain hitting the windows and roofs of the nearby houses.  We really wanted to see the famous flower market, and had to return the bikes that morning.  We grudgingly got up, packed our bags, and dropped them off at the luggage lockers in the train station.  Thank goodness the apartment is only a 5-7 minute walk, because it was not pleasant in the pouring rain. 

                                                           Rainy Monday Morning

We walked back and quickly found a tourist shop where we could buy ponchos.  Super helpful in keeping some water off of us as we rode our bikes to the flower market.  We saw all the colorful flowers in the little tents that lines the canal.  There were tons of varieties and Kristin bought some tulip bulbs of her favorite type of tulips.  The rain had let up, so we rode our bikes back, returned them to the shop, and stopped for a little brunch at the nearby bakery.  The apple strudel and coffee were perfect to help us warm up and try to dry off.  

We killed the time before our train and explored some neighborhoods we hadn’t seen.  Once back at the train station, with LOTS of time to spare this time, we went to go get our Eurail passes validated.  What we didn’t know was that it would take 45 minutes to get the piece of paper stamped.  So even though we had given ourselves ample amounts of time, it again seemed like we had to fast walk to the platform.  We made our train but it needed to stay on schedule so that we could make the 4-minute connection at the next station.  We made this connection because the second train was running 10 minutes late.  Phew! I’m starting to appreciate the fact that things are never on time in Europe. 

One the next leg of our train travels, a man in a different car became really sick.  So we were delayed about 15 minutes while the paramedics evacuated him.  This was again not boding well for our next train connection, even though this time we had 18 minutes to transfer.  We arrived at the train station 20 minutes late, having been told that our train was going to wait for us (the passengers of the delayed train).  We rushed to the platform only to find out that this train was also 15 minutes late.  So all in all, late trains usually work out well because they are all late! We finally made it to Hamburg, Germany!!

Katinka, our host here, met us at the metro station and walked us back to her apartment.  She couldn’t have been nicer.  Showed us her apartment, where we could use anything we wanted, offered us a beer after our long day of travel, and helped us order a pizza to be delivered since we hadn’t eaten dinner.  She’s a second grade teacher, and we sat outside and talked for an hour as the sun set.  It was great to be welcomed so warmly after a long day of chaos.  

 Our room in Amsterdam