Writer's Block

It took me awhile to find the motivation to continue blogging alongside my trip. In the past couple weeks, I have been fortunate enough to be reminded that there are people in my life, though at times incognito, interested in my journey. For their encouragement, I will begin my story once more soon...

Though I visited Munich in May 2011, I will share my time and the people I met with you in what is now November 2011; it amazes me that 6 months has passed in what seems like minutes. Even with everything I have done and seen I can remember with great vividness each special moment since the day I embarked on this incredible journey. For those new to the blog, I started this journey in January 2010, though I consider the official start date to the traveling as July 2010.

This was just a thought sharing moment. I will post the continuance of my trip in about a week's time. I am currently walking a section of El Camino de Santiago and will only be checking the world information at the midpoint in Bilbao. I know, I'm cheating by posting this but I felt like sharing.

I post all my blog entries at the time they took place, not when they were written. Thus, I will backdate this to May so it falls between my Trento stop and Munich. Today's date is actually 15 November 2011.

Trento? Never heard of it…

Piazza Duomo with Fontana di Nettuno

The cheapest train ticket from Treviso I could find put me in Trento, Italy. I originally wanted to go to Bolzano (Bozen) but the price was 3x as expensive as I expected. Trento was far enough north that I could hitch easily enough to kill some time in Austria or Germany before heading to Zurich to meet up with a friend from home, Amy. When I arrived at the Trento train station, I looked at ticket prices to other locations further north to make sure I didn’t have any other alternatives but was unhappy with the price of the tickets. If you recall, I had terrible luck trying to hitch through Italy. I decided to try my luck at hitching from this point. As I walked out of the train station, I noticed the weather was absolutely gorgeous. When I started to turn around in a 360, I saw nothing but mountains surrounding the town. I settled my look across the street at a park and a vast map of Trento was displayed. I bounced over to check it out and after glancing at the key, I discovered a youth hostel in town. I was so captivated with the charm of the town, I decided to walk the 2 minutes to the hostel and check their rates. If they were reasonable, I would stay and spend a couple nights. At 14 euro a night, I wasn’t disappointed and decided to book 2 nights. I spent the first day walking up and down the streets looking at the plazas and finding out what there was to do in town from the tourist office. Nobody in the hostel that I met seemed around my age or interested in hanging out. In fact, I think one of the guys was rather glad to see me leave on my last day. That morning, I apparently took too long in the shower and he actually knocked on the door. I spent 17 minutes in the bathroom from shit to shower to exit. I clocked him. He spent 11 minutes just showering…. D-bag! Next time wake up earlier.

Adige River

Anyway, my only full day in town I decided to do some hiking. I had breakfast, did a bit of research on the hiking trails, and then hit the path. I wanted to climb Monte Bondone. I was a bit overzealous, because I had absolutely no idea how long the trail was. I knew the vertical rise was about 2,000m, but the actual distance I couldn’t find on any trail maps. I left Trento on foot and hiked up to Sardagna, which overlooks the town from about 500m above. I continued on but wasn’t making the greatest of time. I only ended up going vertically to about 1200m or so, but with an average incline of 12.5% (According to the posted signs) when I hit 2pm I decided to take a break for lunch and then head back down. I ended up taking the gondola down from Sardagna to take in some 360 views of the valley. Once I arrived back at the hostel, I showered up and went looking for some food. I settled (yea… right…) for pizza since it was my last night in Italy. It was a deliciously greasy “personal” sized pie for my belly to enjoy called the Trentina. I couldn’t tell you what was on it, but damn, was it good.  I enjoyed my time in Italy, but I’m definitely not sad to be setting sail for another country. The next morning I took a 2 euro train to Bolzano and hitched my way to Munich where my CS host was waiting. In the bag!

Panorama of Trento

2011 Europe - Trento

Treviso for the Best Gelato

Inside the Duomo...

I was really thankful to meet up and stay with family. My aunt was on a work transfer from the US for six months and I made it in time to stay with her and my uncle the last week they were in Italy. Since I arrived in Italy, my allergies had been going absolutely crazy and I’m fairly sure Torino made me sick. It was really great timing to be staying in an apartment with family to battle that. Treviso is a cool town north of Venice. I spent most of my time hanging out with my uncle during the days. He showed me around the city, we got lost a few times… even though he had been living there for six months! You can’t fault him though, the roads aren’t on a grid so making a left turn could really be a complete 180 as the street bends back to where you just were (So cool...). I saw a couple sites in Treviso that struck particular attention to not only me, but I think most tourists. The Duomo is obvious as it stands tall in the city and has much history within its walls. Another is the frescas that randomly dot the city walls. It's so cool to be walking down a street, look to a wall that has no real importance and see a little mural to brighten your day. The last is a fountain hidden away nestled back into the side streets of a few shops right in the middle of the city. I found out that the fountain at one time was used to symbolize the changing of the town mayor. When a new mayor is elected, for three days the fountain would pour red and white wine in his honor. That’s so cool!

I told you it was cool!

While in Treviso, I was also able to visit my first Italian beach. We were provided a tip to avoid Jesolo, which is where most of the tourists go, and visit Paneta instead. When we arrived, thanks to some spiffy navigation skills by my aunt, we could tell immediately that there were very little, if any, tourists. There were no rows of umbrellas, no Hawaiian shirts, lots of men in Speedos that shouldn’t be, and some very dark tans.  It was a bit windy, but warm, perfect weather for having a few beers. We spent some time people watching. Of particular interest was a couple at the water’s edge. The female was apparently trying to model for her boyfriend who had a camera. She was prancing around splashing water on herself and jumping about trying to be sexy like a Victoria’s Secret model or something. I’ll have you know that nothing she was doing made her look sexy, quite the opposite in fact. We couldn’t help containing our laughter and I have no doubt it was obvious to those around us.  It was a solid 20 minutes of this behavior from the lass before she went back to her towel. We half expected her to start rolling around in the sand, but she disappointed.

Chillaxin'...

The Italian highlight of my trip was enjoying the gelato experience. Since arriving in Italy, I was eating gelato every single day. It was all very good, or so I thought. My aunt and uncle took me to a gelateria in Treviso called Ill Vecchio. It wasn’t until putting my lips to the taste of their ice cream did I realize what real gelato tasted like. By far the best I think I’ll ever have. They use all organic fruits and milk in their recipes and make it fresh every day. The family that owns it, The Bigazzi’s, is very nice and we struck up a conversation with them the first time I went in. It was hilarious because only their son spoke any English, but we ended up spending 3 hours in the gelateria that night talking. By the end of it, they had been invited to Texas (Where my aunt and uncle live) and we had been invited to a dinner at their house. Apparently, to invite a stranger into your home is extremely rare for an Italian family to do and considered an honor. As such, my aunt was very worried about the tradition and etiquette associated with the invitation. Luckily, we had a trial run with a co-worker of hers that wanted to have a goodbye dinner for her. We asked him all kinds of questions and even did a little research on the internet; it was very serious business. All in all, we probably went completely overboard worrying, but everything turned out very lovely. We managed to make a good connection with The Bigazzi’s and I truly hope to see them again.

The week went by far too quickly and I was sad to see them go. I am grateful to have seen another part of my family in Europe. I’m sure they were getting stir crazy to be back in the States though. I can vouch that six months away from home is a long time. I left mine in July of 2010 to explore the world and I definitely miss the feeling of having a home to call my own.

2011 Europe - Treviso