Piazza San Marco:

random canal shots:

market:

indeed:

The rest here

I just hit Berlin, where it looks like I've found one of the rare hostels with a blazing fast internet connection and available USB ports, so its hopefully time to start a photo dump. Going through the old ones (pre-Athens) still...

Seville was a great, relaxing pit stop city, with a lot of cool things to see and do outside the standard museum/church litany that awaited me in Italy:

La Giralda by day:

La Giralda by night:

view from the top of La Giralda:

inside the Catedral:

my trusty bike:

Plaza de Espana:

Torre del Oro:

Alcazar gardens:

Alcazar garden ducklings:

The rest are here

A message from a friend got me thinking about just how much has been lost, destroyed or otherwise damaged so far this trip. Not much better to do on a stuffy 3 hour bus ride to Prague (yeah, changed my mind), so here goes:

• 20 euros - dropped from my pocket in bordeux, where I'd stupidly kept money next to my much-used city map
• ~7 euros in coins - went flying from my pocket sprinting from the Vienna eurocup fanzone in the rain
• GPS USB cable - lost, details unknown
• sandeman corkscrew - my sole personal souveneir, confiscated by airport security in Munich
• souveneir coffee mugs from Seville - left in Seville hostel
• bottle of cheap French wine - left in a Paris hostel
• sunglasses from Dublin - left in a different Paris hostel
• sunglasses from Lacanau - left on a bus in Rome
• sunglasses from Rome - fell apart a few days later on cinque terra
• electric razor - brought from US, destroyed in santorini by improper voltage
• electric razor bought in Rome - thrown in trash after two barely successful uses during which it made jackhammer-like rattling noises (mental note - everything bought in Rome was junk)
• towel - left in Bordeaux hostel
• towel - destroyed in Plus Florence hostel. while drying on the balcony some welders a couple stories up managed to light it on fire
• pair of shorts - left in Dublin hostel
• pair of shorts - flew from balcony in Athens hostel
• pair of socks - worn threadbare, tossed in trash
• peanut butter and two boxes of cereal - left in second Florence hostel (later ran into a girl from the hostel in Munich, where she mentioned she'd "ate peanut butter I think some American left")
• 3-4 bottles of shampoo, left in various hostel showers
• arm - possibly fractured, the result of trying to demonstrate a roundhouse kick in flip-flops in Seville at 5 in the morning. it still has a bump and sore spot 5 weeks later
• 2 Eurail timetables - destroyed riding around in my daypack
• Canon XTi camera + lens + memory card - stolen off Cherbourg to Paris train
• Casio z1080 camera - destroyed in the Wombat's bar in Vienna, exact cause of death unknown
• passport - intact but quite warped after being soaked in sweat in cinque terra and water in vienna
• headphones - earbud cracked apart in munich, but mostly repaired using a bandaid as tape

The Lisbon Oceanarium was quite a random but enjoyable stop. A bunch of these photos could use some work in Aperture, but no chance of that right now:

The rest are here

Going back through these photos reminded me what an enjoyable and varied experience Lisbon was - quite a contrast from many of the later cities I've visited

The rest are here

Still in the czech internet cafe, transferring photos from camera cards to my iPod. I've had poor computer luck with most recent hostels since my return to Athens, so I need to spend some time offloading pictures before my camera cards are full.

I somehow unfortunately lost the photos from my first train layover in Madrid, so all that's left is a limited number from my walk through a park and garden on the second layover. Not a terribly accurate view of the city as a whole, but oh well:

The rest, few though they are, can be found here

Actually an internet cafe, but when a pun that lame comes to mind, you can't pass it up. I'm in Cesky Krumlov, a small medieval czech town. It looks like I may wind up skipping Prague with the intention of returning back at some later date, but I'm a bit "citied-out" at this point, so that's fine by me

After Florence I had a couple beer-soaked days in Munich. The city itself was a bit of a culture shock; I'd been dodging cars in the garbage-filled streets of Naples just a week prior, and found Munich almost bafflingly first-world - spotlessly clean and with underground pedestrian tunnels for easy crossing of major streets

After that it was off to Vienna, where I pictured myself spending the days viewing magnificent architecture and touring old palaces. What I hadn't realized was I was arriving towards the tail-end of the quadrennial EuroCup matches, of which Vienna was one of two host cities. End result was an unexpected but enjoyable change of plans to instead include such culturally-expanding experiences as: stampeding to the exits of the 50,000 person FanZone after a monsoon-like rainstorm broke out; nearly getting killed by a Turkish guy after shouting "deutschland" on the metro, about 10 minutes after Turkey had lost the match to Germany; watching the Spain-Russia match from the stadium with a Canadian I met at the hostel, who happened to have won tickets and had a spare; staying up until 8:30AM drinking with Spanish guys from the hostel after Spain won its match, involving various adventures which I'll decline to immortalize on the public internet; etc

So, although a fun time was had by all, Vienna gets itself on the "requires return visit" list, because I wasn't in much shape to do more sight-seeing than a slow, short walk through the city a couple times

I'm in cinque terra, my last stop before leaving Italy for my second and final time. I wound up staying an extra night on my return trip to Florence, at Dany's House, which easily coasted into first place as my favorite hostel of the trip so far. The staff and fellow travelers were almost universally wonderful - it felt like staying at a house with a bunch of good friends

I think travelling alone tends to have the effect of heightening both the highs and lows that come with backpacking, and it honestly can be hard sometimes. But I wouldn't trade the utterly sublime times - as among others, the last few days have been - for much of anything

In a couple ways this second stay Florence has been a perfect antidote to the start of my trip through Italy - a miserable few days alone in Venice, after a stupid decision to leave Seville - and terrific bookend to the Italy experience. Now, off to Munich and northern europe

On the seemingly endless series of train rides from Seville to Venice, I stopped off again in Barcelona for a 5 hour layover, with the singular purpose of spending more time at Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell. So, some pics from the Gaudi visit (although I still ran out of time in Parc Guell):

Sagrada Familia:

the vertigo-inducing stairwell:

Parc Guell:

I'll write up thoughts on Porto when I have more energy... for now, pics:

the city:

Port tasting:

Poet's hostel:

Bom Jesús do Monte (in Braga):

park by Bom Jesus:

Time for a photo dump... all pictures so far (2646 of them, before deleting the screwups and duplicates) are on my computer, and are clogging up TimeWarner's thin intertubes on their way up to flickr. Yet more Paris pics:

Louvre at night:

Musee d'Orsay:

Eiffel Tower:

Arc de Triomphe:

Due to a family emergency I'm taking a brief break from traveling, and after a series of flights I'm back home in Rochester for a few days. Looking at the bright side, I'd become fairly ill traveling through Italy and was having a slow recovery, not least due to Italy's apparent total lack of normal cold medicine. Hopefully this will be a chance to recover and retool a bit. Coming from Naples back to the United States was quite surreal, and I'm sure going back will result in another round of culture shock

Anyhow... look forward to a spate of blog updates, assuming I don't just spend the entire time wasted on Nyquil

Somehow even as I´m having somewhat more success with uploading, I still seem to be getting farther behind on photos. Here´s some from Barcelona, which is now 4 cities ago (Madrid, Porto, Lisbon, Seville) ... although Madrid doesn't really count

the beach:

walk up to Park Guell:

view from Palau Nacional:

olympic area:

flags on the stadium:

castle:

a random bee from a Montjuic park:

at the north end of La Rambla:

The rest are here, though there's still a bunch sitting on my camera cards

Good

Barcelona was a really wonderful place to be - one of my favorites so far - an almost perfect mix of the frenetic tourist-trap feel of the big cities, and the self-paced enjoyment of the smaller ones. Las Rambalas had all the people you could handle and more, and that seemed to be the point; but the gorgeous sights by day, and slightly scary and claustrophobic alleys by night were much more manageable. The weather during my stay was nearly perfect, hot but comfortable during the days, cool and refreshing at nights - every night I wound up walking the streets long past all the shops had closed, just enjoying the breeze. The proximity to the sea also meant the entire city had pristine air, a wonderful change from Paris

Although I didn't eat out much for "real food", the city was full of terrific ice cream shops, which I practically lived off. The best was Patagonia Bar, with amazingly good tropical fruit varieties

Bad

By far the most strenuous walking city so far, I almost entirely avoided public transportation, but at the expense of a bum knee, a blister on my foot, and a huge sunburn. Las Ramblas also got a bit too seedy at night - my worst encounter was when one of a group of prostitutes tried to grab my arm after I'd clearly said no. I understand being a 5-foot tall, 180 pound hooker may be a tough gig, but let's try to stay civil

Ugly

The tap water was far too heavily chlorinated, and its temperature bottomed out at lukewarm, leaving a taste like drinking out of someone's backyard pool

Accomodation - Centric Point

Second only to St Christopher's in Paris, Centric Point was the most commericial hostel I've stayed at so far, but it was also fairly enjoyable. The first night there was a rowdy frat-like crowd of Americans and Australians, but after that it settled down a bit and was more friendly. The staff and the reception were consistently cold, but the stay was otherwise pleasant. The breakfast, complete with fresh fruit and a number of varieties of cereal, juice and shrink-wrapped snacks, was the best I've had so far

Places

I'm posting brief notes on this stuff for now... not enough time in the day to write things out fully, and I may be back in Barcelona for a few hours on a train layover to revist a couple Gaudi sites

Las Ramblas

Enjoyable if a bit stressful walk through the crowded streets lined with a variety of shops, restaurants, street vendors and artists - everything from shell games to ice cream to prostitues. I left valuables in the hostel while walking the area, especially at night. More interesting were the dozens of narrow winding alleys running all over the area near Ramblas, which seemed like they ought to be a good place for getting knifed, but in fact had everything from tasty kebab shops to 4-star restaurants. Favorite site were some young people running through an alley pushing two couches they'd stacked on top of each other, lord knows why

Parc Guell

A steep, stair-heavy walk to the top, but offered a great view of the city. I somehow missed the supposedly trippy Gaudi artwork, so I'm planning to get back if possible

Montjuic

You can and should easily spend a day walking up this huge hill on the outskirts of the city. It's lined with assorted museums, parks, beautiful scenery and views of the city, etc. I started at Palau Nacional and from there took the long way up past the area built for the '92 Olympics, skirted through a park, up to the castle, then down for a longer tour in the park and then the steep walk down towards the harbour area. Even skipping the museums that was a 6-7 hour round trip, and utterly exhausting

Estadi Olimpic

Almost deserted when I arrived, I couldn't find much in the way of activities, but it was exciting to walk through the actual Olympic area and it provided a decent pit-stop on the way up Montjuic

Castell de Montjuic

More impressive for the views and landscaping than the castle itself, but well worth the climb to the top of Montjuic for the awesome perspective on the city and harbor. The tourist crowd was pleasantly low

Sagrada Familia

Impressive for the size and the bizarre, unique architectural style - unfortunately I didn't have a chance to go inside, because of a protest on the street nearby, cause unknown

At least some of them...

Baud et Millet:

down to the cellar:

about half the cheese buffet:

streets at night: