Female traveller – Page 2 – ThePassportPrincess

Day 58 – London

October 15, 2015November 29, 2015Sarah7 Comments

8th October 2015

This was my second to last day in London so I spent it doing something actually touristy.
I met up with Kara (from my top deck tour) and her sister Larni at the Tower of London.

We bought our tickets to get in and decided to wait around for a tour that was about to start. It ended up being really fun because our tour guide was funny and knew so much about the Tower of London.

Before visiting, I didn’t really know much about the Tower of London. Just that it was a castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London.

Basically the castle was used as a prison from 1100 until 1952 although that wasn’t it’s main purpose. It also served as a royal residence and is now the place that holds the crown jewels!

In the 16th and 17th centuries when the castle was mainly used as a prison, it held many figures within its walls who had fallen into disgrace, such as Elizabeth I before she became queen.
That’s where the saying “sent to the Tower” comes from. Even though there was lots of torture and death that happened at the castle, only seven people were executed within the Tower.
Executions were more commonly held on the notorious Tower Hill to the north of the castle, with 112 occurring there over a 400-year period.

Once we’d explored nearly every inch of the castle, we headed off to get some lunch at the Borough Markets.

I wasn’t really expecting much from the markets, but if you’re ever in London and you love to eat like me. Go!!!
It was probably one of my highlights of London haha.
It’s a huge food market underneath railway lines in Southwark, Central London.

When we got there, we said “oh my god!!” And “ahh look at this!” About 100 times when we discovered something delicious to eat.

There was everything from hot made sandwiches filled with either chicken, bacon, pork or haloumi.

There was cheesecakes to buy by the slice, brownies, pastries, cupcakes, chocolates and fudge, donuts and other hot meals. Ahh I was in heaven! We didn’t know what to buy but ended up settling on one of the sandwiches. I got a haloumi filled one which was so good! And a cup of cider to go with it 🙂

Now that I’m recapping this blog, I really want to go back and have another sandwich haha
Eventually we decided to go home and meet up again later on. One of the girls from our Top Deck tour who lives in London was having her birthday dinner that night so we had to head home to get dressed and re-do our faces haha.

Once I had gone back to my hostel and gotten ready, I headed to the tube to catch the train out to Soho.
I met the girls at this restaurant/club (which I now can’t remember the name of) and we had drinks and dinner before heading downstairs for some dancing.
We may have gotten a bit drunk as wine was £12 a bottle woohoo!

A few of the girls left after that so it was just me and the sisters left.

Eventually after not being able to get into another club, we headed home for the night.
As Kara was going to the airport the next day and so was I, we agreed to meet at the Gatwick airport train station and catch the train together for our departure from London .

Day 51 – Munich

October 5, 2015May 2, 2016SarahLeave a comment

As our whole Top Deck tour wanted to go to Oktoberfest we left Venice at 5.30am to make the 7 hour drive to Munich, Germany.

We had a stop off in Austria which was actually really nice with all their mountains and stuff. We stopped off at a gas station/bakery and they had the nicest selection of croissants and filled donut things. I again, had some self control and didn’t have any. 😥

We got caught up in Traffic around 12.30pm (I know this because I was busting to go to the bathroom) so our driver pulled over at this picnic stop so people could go to the bathroom and we had our packed picnic lunch on fold-out chairs with it all set out on a table.

On the way to our hostel, we had a stop off at the Dachau Concentration Camp which is on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory not far from Munich.
It was one if the first concentration camps opened in Germany which was meant to hold political prisoners but eventually was enlarged to include forced labor and the imprisonment of Jews and ordinary Germans.

It was quite sad to walk around and see how prisoners lived and then read about how they were all in constant fear of brutal treatment from the guards and being forced into standing cells. Also, how they had roll call every morning and had to stand in lines outside for hours. Even if someone had died, they’d have to drag their body to the roll call just so they could be accounted for. There were 32,000 documented deaths at the camp, and thousands that are undocumented.

I think it’s free to go to the camp/memorial. We spent about 2 hours there and we still didn’t see everything.
There’s a lot of stuff to read and they have the gas chambers etc there to have a look at. It can be quite emotional for some people so it’s probably good we did it before Oktoberfest. Makes you realize how lucky you are to grow up in a time where stuff like that doesn’t happen in NZ.

We didn’t actually get to Munich until 5pm so we had to check in quickly and then be back at the bus by 6pm so we could all head off to Oktoberfest. There were 6 girls in my room so imagine 6 of us trying to use 2 mirrors while getting changed and doing our hair in a small space. Drama!
I was lucky because I did my whole make up on the coach beforehand so all I needed to do was my hair and get into my outfit. Otherwise I think I would have only been wearing some mascara haha.

(This is me and one of my 6 room- mates, Ashleigh)
Kara and I got matching outfits as we got ours from the same supermarket as her haha.

It looked pretty cool though, when we got to Oktoberfest everyone was wanting photos with us or OF us because we were matching.

Oktoberfest is pretty crazy! I couldn’t believe how big it was. It’s funny how it’s called Oktoberfest but it’s actually in September. Back in the day it originally took place during the 16 days up to, and including, the first Sunday in October.

In 1994, the schedule was modified in response to German reunification so that if the first Sunday in October falls on the 1st or 2nd, then the festival would go on until October 3 (German Unity Day).

If you’re ever in Munich during September, its defintaly a must-do.
There’s no entrance fee, you just have to pay for your alcohol and if you want any food.
A pint is usually €10.50. They must make so much money as more than 6 million people from around the world attend the event every year.
I actually hate beer, so i didnt get really drunk when i was there. They only sell beer and Radlei (which is a mixture of lemonade and beer) so I ended up drinking that the whole time.

If you don’t drink, it’s still cool to go and experience. They have amusement rides, sidestalls and games (kids can attend this too) as well as so much food!!
German food tastes so good! They have stuff like Hendl (roast chicken), Schweinebraten (roast pork),Schweinshaxe (grilled ham hock),Steckerlfisch (grilled fish on a stick), Würstl(sausages) which is what I had as well as potato dumplings, cheese noodles and these big iced cookies which i really wanted to buy but didn’t.

The festival finishes at 10pm, so when it’s over you don’t really hang around because the music stops playing and drinks stop getting served. Oh yeah, another thing we didn’t know when we got there is that you can’t just go up and buy a drink. You have to have a table and one of the beer girls comes and brings beer to you and you just pay her. To get a table you can reserve one, otherwise just hope to god that there’s a spare one. We got there late so we didn’t have one but some guys waved us over and we joined them so that was lucky – It probably helped that all our boobs were pushed up to the ceiling in our outfits.

It was a long walk back to the hostel at 10.30pm. We didn’t think it was that far but I’m sure we walked for like over an hour! Haha.

So yeah, I didn’t really experience the sights of Munich. Just the festival as we were off at 8am the next morning for our next destination!
Xx

Day 49 – Venice, Italy

September 30, 2015April 28, 2016Sarah5 Comments

We were off to Venice on Tuesday 🍕🍝
The Floating City in Italy! Venice31

It’s famous for it’s art and architecture as well as the many canals separating the 118 small islands on which it was built in the fifth century.
There are no cars or roadways so I was very excited to how everyone gets around.

We left Switzerland at 9am in the morning for the 7 hour coach ride into Venice. We had a stop off somewhere (can’t remember where) and had a Top deck picnic again.

We had salsa and corn chips, chicken pasta salad, crackers and cheeses along with a berry pie thing and these really nice chocolate covered biscuits which I had like 5 of haha! They were small though 😕

We had a surprise on the way to Venice, our tour driver took us to Verona on the way which is like an hours drive away from Venice city, it straddles the Adige river in Veneto, northern Italy and it’s where three of Shakespeare’s plays are set, Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Taming of the Shrew.

When we got to Verona, we walked to the Verona Arena which was built in the 1st century by the Flavian emperors for shows and gladiator games. Today it’s now used for public events, fairs, theater and open-aired opera during the Summer nights.

After the Colosseum in Rome and the amphitheatre in Capua, the Roman arena in Verona is the third largest Roman amphitheatre.
The Arena was built using a cement and rubble mix known as opus coementicum. They also used brick and stone blocks from Valpolicella set in square pillars to create an external façade of 72 arches, each spanning 2 meters. These led directly to an interior corridor 4.4 meters wide which runs around the Arena.After having a look at the Arena, we headed over to the balcony of Juliet’s house to rub Juliet’s left boob and write on the walls.
Juliet’s house has a balcony and in the small courtyard there’s a bronzed statue of Juliet. The metal of her chest is worn bare because there’s legend that if a person strokes the right breast that person will have good fortune and luck in love.
I did it! So I’m waiting for my good luck 🙂

The picture was slightly blurry because there’s so many people lining up for a picture and a rub you had to be quick!

Also – in the entrance of the court yard there is a wall where everyone writes the names of their beloved. Many believe that writing on that place will make their love everlasting which is sweet.

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When everyone had written on the wall, our tour guide promised us all Gelato so we went to a Gelato place and got to choose 3 flavors each, yummy!

I got white chocolate, caramel and chocolate chip 😄 and I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty delish!

Excuse my awful chipped nail polish – I had no Nail Polish remover on the trip!!

With our stomachs full of ice-cream, we headed back to the coach after our 2 hours in Verona so we could continue our journey on to Venice.

We’re staying at this camp ground in cabins called Jolly campgrounds. (Sharing with one other person from the group)
It’s about a half our coach journey from the city of Venice and it’s pretty big. They have lots of cabins and more ‘deluxe’ cabins as well. Thank god we have an en suite shower! I don’t think I’d want to walk all the way to use the communal showers.

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Ever since I’ve been at this camp ground though, I’ve hated it!
As soon as we arrived we had to walk all the way to find our cabin (which was confusing enough with all the different pathways) and then when me and my room mate Georgia got to our cabin there was mold all in the shower and a missing light bulb. The room was tidy thank god, but we didn’t have any blankets for our beds – only a sheet each.

The people from our tour across the path from us weren’t so lucky- all their rooms hadn’t even been cleaned so like 4 groups had to go to reception and get new keys to new cabins that were clean.
It’s not as if we arrived early either, by this stage it was 6.30pm.

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Then when I went to go and do my washing, a girl was already complaining to one of the staff members about the drier not working and taking her money. She told me after he’d left that they wouldn’t refund her even though it took her money twice already so she was left with no coins!

I went to put a towel and my gym pants into one of the free washing machines when I smelt this really bad stench coming from it. I reached in quickly to grab my 2 items out and reached my hand into the most disgusting water!!
It obviously hadn’t emptied properly and had the grossest, smelliest water in it!
I quickly knew why it was the only free machine.
What’s even worse is that the staff member who was in the Laundry watched the whole thing happen and didn’t say anything when I pulled my towel out and got drenched in this awful water. I was so annoyed!
It went all over the floor too and it was pretty obvious what had happened. No “Oh sorry about that” or “Yeah that machine isn’t working” Grrr.

Not to mention 4x driers weren’t working, the detergent dispenser wasn’t working either so I had to go to the camp supermarket to buy some off the rude counter guy. He wouldn’t even swap a €1 for two 50c pieces. Dick. He was too busy standing there chatting up his work colleague.

When I finally got my washing sorted I went back to my cabin to have a shower, (which was either Sahara desert temp or Antarctic) when the power went off!!
My room mate had to go to the reception to sort it out while i shaved my legs in the dark. Dinner was in half an hour so I didn’t want to waste any time.

Dinner was all good though. They have an actual Top Deck tent where we all had dinner so I think this is one of their regular accommodation places as there was another top deck group here as well as a Busabout Tour.

After dinner and the drama with my washing, I ended up having a good night at the Campground bar. The drinks were decent prices, they had good music and a happy hour. Plus since there was the other Top Deck group/Busabout group there was more people. It was my first night I actually stayed up until after 1am haha!

Me and Kara were the last ones at the bar from our group. It got pretty crazy though as one of the guys from our tour ended up getting waaaay too drunk and ended up falling on the dance floor and hitting his head then pretty much passing out. The mood was kinda killed after that as everyone helped him out and the ambulance took him to the hospital. Dramaaa. He’s all good though. Even if he did miss out on Venice the next day.

So that was my first day in Italy! 🙂
X