Italy part 2

We left Florence on the cheap train (read really, really slow) for Rome.  All of the hostels in the city center were pretty expensive so we opted for a camping that was a 20 minute metro ride from the city center.  As usual we arrived at the city center having no idea where we were going and hungry from being on a train all day.  After running in circles with our packs for an hour and a lively "discussion" as to where we were, we found the right metro to get us to the camping.  We stayed in a twin room that consisted of 2 cots and just enough room to walk between them.

The next day we went to check out the Colosseum and the roman forum which was very cool, and luckily not very crowded.  The city itself however, was just crawling with tourists and those waiting to rip them off (some were so clueless I was temped to rip them off), so we were glad to be staying outside of the city center.  That night we had a picnic on the Spanish Steps which I am still not sure why they are important but they sure seemed to be. There we were hassled like crazy by Indians trying to sell us roses. Thanks to Istanbul we were pros at brushing them off.

The next day we went to the Vatican.  On the walk towards it there were tons of Australians trying to sell us tours by saying that there was a problem at the gate and the only way to get in was with them.  They were wrong. We got in no problem.  We went to the Sistine Chapel which was beautiful.  It was about an hour and a half wait to get in but it went really fast because the line snaked through room after room of the palace all decorated extremely elaborately with pictures of Jesus.  Lets just say that the church is not hurting for money, and if they are they need a new accountant to tell them gold globes and crosses are not a good investment.  I guess the 16 Euros they charge the thousands and thousands of people who go through there every day doesn´t hurt.  Once in the Sistine Chapel you are just in a sea of people all looking up (with good reason).  There are signs telling you not to lay on the ground to look up and security guards yelling "No Photo" over and over.  (It didn´t work!)

After the Vatican we just started walking and found ourselves in a beautiful park overlooking the city with not one tourist; just dogs and kids.  It was really what we need to relax after our lemming experience with the Catholic church.

We then took another very slow train to Venice.  We fell in love with Venice as soon as we got off of the train.  It was such a nice change having no cars!  I think it helped that Europe canceled all flights so there was hardly anyone there.  It was a really nice change from the busyness of Rome.  The nice thing is that even a traffic jam in Venice is scenic.

We really didn´t do anything in Venice except wander around and explore the city.  I think that we saw about as much of the island as your possibly can in two days.  Our hostel was in the old Jewish Ghetto which was a nice place to stay because it was close to everything but not touristy at all.  The closest thing to a dramatic event was when one leg of my tripod fell into one of the canals when I was taking a picture off of a bridge.  Having no use for a bi-pod I swung under the bridge and hung from it while I used my foot to scoop the leg out of the water.  Lisa was very impressed.

After Venice we took the train back to Milan to catch a flight to Malaga Spain.  When we got there, the night before our flight, they cancelled it due to ash!  We imeadiatly started looking at other options.  Right when we were about to book a 19 hour boat to Barcelona, only half of the way, for four times the cost of our flight; they reinstated our flight.  We made it to Malaga without incident.  (Just the nervous feeling that you are on one of the first flights they allow after saying it was to dangerous to fly!)

Italy (Part 1 of at least 2 but hopefully many more)

We left the chaios that was Thessaloniki behind and flew to Milan, Italy arriving in the pooring rain.  Since it was pooring and Easter so everthing was closed anyway, we didn't even try to see anything.  The next morning we went to the train station to try and buy Eurail passes.  At the train station, which was the size of DIA, no one had heard of Eurail even though their website specifically said that we could get them there.  We cut our losses and just bought a ticket to La Spezia where the Cinque Terre is.  It turns out after all of our Itailan rail tickets we spent half of what a eurail pass cost anyway!

In the cinque terre we stayed in one of the five towns, Riomaggiore.  We spent most of our time just exploring the towns and relaxing.  We spent one day walking the Camino del Rey which is a path that connects all of the towns.  We took our time and stopped at beaches and the towns along the way.  We saw one beach way below, it looked so beautiful that we headed down even though it looked really far.  After 45 min we made it and took out our lunch for a picnic.  Maybe 5 minutes into our picnic a large German man walked 15ft past us, laid out his towl and stripped butt naked and laid out.  He was far from discrete.  We decided to finish our lunch quickily and walk the beach to get away from this guy.  We walked a few hundred feet and came around a corner only to find about 20 nude sunbathers!  All men, all old and all overweight!  Not really worth the hike.  Going back up we decided to take what looked like a shortcut.  After just a little while though, the trail ended and we ended up doing some 5th class climbing up walls and it took an hour and a half.  Plus, we were only half of the way done with the Camino!  The rest of the walk was unreal how beautiful it was, though!

While we were there, we heard that there was climbing a few towns away.  Having no idea where, we took the train to that town and started asking around.  Amazingly, people actually knew where the climbing was and within a few hours we were climbing.  It was really nice being on some well protected routes, not risking life and limb like Meteora!  We eneded up going back the next day too!

Also the pesto was amazing (that is the region where it originated) and we ate it like 5 nights in a row.  Lisa even found pasta she could eat with it.

After the Cinque Terre we took a train to Florence.  Along the way the train stopped in Pisa so we decided to get off and hike all the way across the city with our packs!  Lisa made me jump through hoops with my 50lb pack to get the stupid picture above!

In Florence we stayed at a hostel with pretty much all 19 year olds trying to get drunk and hook up.  It was ok though.  While in Florence we moslty just wandered around trying to get lost.  We went the the Uffizi Gallery and saw thousands of pictures of Jesus.  It was cool though seeing paintings by all four ninja turtles!  We also went into the Duomo, which is without a doubt the most beautiful building I have ever seen.  (On the outside, the inside was so so, a few too many crucifixes for my taste.)

We wanted to see the Bobli Gardens, but being on a budget we decided not to pay but to try to catch a view from somwhere on the perimeter.  No go; they had that thing completly walled in!  We did however, in the process, get nice and lost on some neat little streets between mansions and ended up high on a hill overlooking the city with some amazing view and no tourists.

We also spent a lot of time trying gelato, and had the most delicious pear gelato that even had the same texture as pears.  While we were there we took a day trip to Sienna which was the perfect example of a beautiful Tuscan hill town.  There we did pretty much the same thing, just wandering around trying to get lost and away from tourits and tourist prices.

After Tuscany it was off to Rome (Blog to come).

The Hamam (Turkish Bath/Scratch) Experience

     It began with a heavy-set man in a loin cloth and a old Turkish lady blabbering in Turkish about my options for the "Bath."  Luckily there were prices listed in English on the wall and showing them cash is pretty universal to understand!  I opted for the 'basic' 1.5 hour scrub with massage.  The woman directed me into a private changing room were she cued me to undress and wrap myself in an oddly similar looking cloth.  I assumed the cloth was meant to cover me from chest to mid-thigh.
     I walked out of the changing room cinching the towel around the top-most part of my thighs, locked my door, and luckily was escorted directly into the 'bathing' area.  After ducking through a low archway, you enter a room which leads to many passageways with fully marbled floors and walls.   I was then passed on to another  lady through one of the passageways who greeted me topless and somewhat frazzled.  She dragged me into a room with a few naked women, ripped my towel off, set it on the marble floor and sat me down.  She turned on a sink and started splashing water on me with a little bowl and the instructed me to continue splashing water on myself.  I did as instructed as I overhead the other ladies speaking English.  So I thought what not a better way to make some new friends then when in the nude!  After a few minutes another new lady came in and directed the seated ladies out of the entry way.  I was left to continue splashing. 
     It was a relatively warm room and the water was nice and warm too.  The sink was beginning to overflow, with no drain.  So I took the initiative to turn it off myself because no one a had come for me at this point .  As I am sitting and patiently waiting, I tried desperately to get the ill thoughts out of my head of being trapped in this tiny marble room with no escape!  I really didn't know if I had been forgotten about!  The room was seriously about 10x10 ft. with a cement dome atop.  The ceiling had tiny little cylinders cut out which maybe only my arm could fit through.
      After about what felt like an hour, one of the ladies returned and said "massage?"  I'm thinking I haven't had my scrub yet and assumed that would come first, so I said "scrub?" and she just flagged me to follow her.  So I did as I didn't want to be left in that room any longer!  Turns out the scrub and 'massage' are combined...  She laid my towel on a solid marble table and pointed that I start face down.  You can imagine the comfort of lying on a slab of marble with only a little piece of cloth underneath.  She splashed yet some more water on my back and proceeded to scrub with a mitt on her hand.  After about 30 seconds, my whole back side had been scrubbed down.  She then took a towel, dipped it in some soapy water and basically just covered me in soap suds.  The massage was a quick (that's being generous!) rub using the suds.  She then rinsed and said "flip, flip."  She proceeded with my front side in the same fashion.  I think the goal is to get down about six layers of skin when they do the scrub.  Lastly, she had me sit up and lucky me got my hair washed out of the deal! 
     Once again I was shuffled away.  This time to the drying station where I was crowned with dry towels and escorted back out to the reception area.  I was presented with apple tea (a Turkish drink pretty much like a packet of hot apple cider) and seated on a couch to sip.  I looked at the clock and realized I was only in there for about 45 minutes, maybe only 10-15 of which was the scrub/rub!  So I took my time with the tea and utilized the lotions and hairdryer on a nearby counter.  Figured I might as well move slowly as John and I were not going to meet for another hour!  Upon my dressing, I discovered a good size scratch mark under my neck for rememberence of my thrashing and abusing experience for the next few days!  I was pretty darn clean though.
(sorry-no photography allowed!)

Istanbul

We left our new friend behind and took an early morning train to Thessaloniki with the intent of then taking a night train to Istanbul, Turkey. When we arrived at the Thessaloniki train station we went to the ticket window and requested two tickets to Istanbul for that night. The woman behind the counter simply replied, "Strike, no trains today, no trains tomorrow." At that point we tried to ask about other options but she was clearly unsympathetic. We decided to condense our stuff to one pack and leave the rest in a locker at the train station and headed out in search out in search of a bus to Istanbul. We walked out of the train station onto the busiest road in the city during rush hour in a neighbourhood that seemed to consist only of strip clubs and army navy surplus stores. Finally, after a few hours we found a bus station and bought tickets to Istanbul for that night.

After a very poor nights sleep (spending 2 hours in the middle of the night going through customs) we arrived in Istanbul. We caught a shuttle to Sulthinament Square which was near to where we we staying. The square sits between the Blue Mosque (see pic above) and the Hagia Sofia, the two biggest tourist attractions in Istanbul. We walked through the square in search of our hotle and were supprised to find a dozen police officers armed with AK-47s. We thought, shit, more protests or riots? We later found out that the cops were there just to control the massive amounts of tourists that would decend on the square later in the morning.

Our first stop after dropping off our stuff was the Spice Bazar which consited of an open building the size of a train station packed full of market stands selling spices, dried fruit and candy. All the venders were hasseling us, " Come my brother, you can spend your money here. Where you from." We had a great time sampeling all of the candy and dried fruit. We also went to the Grand Bazar which is also a covered market but seemed to be more like the size of Boulder, selling anything you could think of, again everyone hasseling "My friend, I will take your money."

Istanbul was amazing overall, but exhausting and hectic to say the least. Everywhere you went you were being hasseled to buy somthing. To add to the confustion, five times a day was the call to prayer (Turkey is a Muslim nation) when every mosque would have some melodic chanting blaired from load speakers on the minurets on the mosque. The problem is that there are so many mosques at any one time you are in earshot of five or six different mosques, all very out of sync. We did however find the mosques to be a great place to get away from the confustion for a few minutes. Another one of our favorite places was the Helic Bridge which connected the two European sections of the city. The bridge offered a great view of the skyline of the old part of the city. The top of the bridge was full of fisherman packed in shoulder to shoulder dropping thier lines into the sea and the bottom was lined with colorful seafood resturates serving their catch.

Istanbul is the only city in the world to be on two continents, sitting on both Europe and Asia so one morning we took a 20 minute boat ride to Asia for lunch! The street food in Istanbul was worth the trip on its own. There was everything from sesame bread to grilled fish. Ice cream made with orchid root to make it strechy and mussles cooked with rice, served in the shell that are illeagle due to lead in the water but delicious non the less! The other great thing was the tea called çay that they drank all day served in little glass cups.

One thing that struck us as a little strange was that in a culture that expects women to have their heads, arms and legs covered, there were cheap lingre stores everywhere and half of the channels that we got were nothing more than ads for sex hotlines.

Our last full day in Istanbul was interesting. We spent the moring just wandering around the city. The owner of our hotel, Omar, invited us to dinner and asked us to submit a favorable hotel review online. Of course there is no way to refuse a dinner invitation when you can hardly understand each other. Lisa asked him about a Hamam (turkish bath) and before she knew it he had booked one for her to be back in time for dinner. That afternoon Lisa went to her Hamam and I went to buy our return tickets.

After her Hamam, bruised and sore (see next blog entry for Lisa's account of the Hamam!!!) we went to the hotel for dinner. We walk into the dining room and nothing was cooking and there was no sign of anyone! After a half an hour Omar's wife came in making no mention of dinner. She said somthing about Omar being at McDonalds. We decided to go have our usual picnic in the square and to go out to a hooka bar. When we got home, Omar came barreling down the stairs and started appologizing profussly waving his arms around to keep the motion lights on. We assured him it was no problem but he insisted that he would make it up to us anyway.

The next day we were taking the bus back to Greece so we lelft our stuff at the hotel and went for some last minute sight seeing. When we returned we found Omar and his entire extended family sitting down to dinner. He insisted we join them even though we had a bus to catch. We obliged as we really had no choice. Dinner was very good but cold (Greeks and turks do not care what temp their food is) and a little rushed.

Overall Istanbul was unbelivable and I would reccomend it to anyone with extra energy!

Kelch!

National Day Parade

It finally stopped raining on Thursday but we still had to wait untill the afternoon to climb to let the rock dry.  Thursday also happended to be National Day in Greece which celebrates Greece's independance from Turkish occupation.  We spent the moring in Kalambaka watching the National Day parade which consisted of all the local school kids marching in a very unorganized military style to some victourious souding music.  That was it.  The whole town turned out in their Sunday best to witness this.  After some lunch, finally it was time to go climbing. 

Lisa and Gustl approach the Spindle (seen up and left of Lisa)

We set our sights on a thin, free standing tower called The Spindle and started hiking there with our new mentor, Gustl.  The approach was nothing if not sureal.  It should have only taken us around 30 miniutes to reach the base but Gustl was stopping to point out every tower that he has climbed (which is all of them) and if it was a "very good route" or "shit."  When we were finally almost there Gustl got very excited to show us the old cemetary.  We went in the gate and there were no head stones or crosses or anything.  We followed Gustl into an old room with all walls shelved from floor to ceiling.  The shelves were full of boxes with peoples picture on them.  Gustl lifted the lid off of one box to reveal a human head inside!  At this point we decided to wait outside.  Gustl then led us into another room with a trapdoor with light comming up through it.  He lifted the door and underneath were bags and bags overflowing with bones.  He then directed our attention, well actually just Lisa's; I had had more than enough and stepped outside,over a 3ft high wall to a 15ft by 15ft room on the other side completley filled with bones and skulls.  We kept trying to get Gustl to leave with us but he just kept saying "where is there problem, this life, this life."  And then he called John a "Sheizer" for not looking! (added by Lisa!) He really is hilarious and means well and is truly a good person
:-) After a few minutes we rang the chucrch bells and headed to the base of our climb.

John belaying, Gustl climbing and swearing, Lisa waiting and shivering

At the base of our climb we met two other people from our campsite who were quite excited to watch us climb, they had never seen anything like it.  It worked out great for us because now we had photographers.  The climb was 3 pitchs of hard 5.10 or easy 5.11 cobble stones.  It was great becase this was the first rock that was actually vertical and protected well enough that a fall would not leave me crippled.  I (John) led, Gustl followed me and Lisa brought up the rear.  The whole time Gustl was muttering "ooooh pain, my arms, Gustl better in cemetary."  We got to the summit of the tower without a hitch.  We both almost had a heart attack watching Gustl wander around the summit, which was no bigger than a kitchen table top, unroped looking for a place to set up a picture.  At one point he knocked a rock over the edge and noted that a fall would leave you "kaput."  We did an amazing, rope streching double-rope rappel and we were back on the ground.

Gustl rappeling, John and Lisa on summit

The other tower of note that we climbed was called Kelch, which means grail in english.  I started the lead up a moist gully but about 30 ft below the top of the pitch got nervous because of lack of protection.  I sacked up and did what any self respecting man would do; I came down and let my girlfriend lead it.  Lisa ended up leading the whole route smoothly and quickly.  After two long pitches we were on the first summit.  We then down climbed a little and did a big stretching step across to the opposite face.  (See gap in picture below.)  The last belay was miserable as the wind funneled through the gap in the rock at 40mph.  The climbing on the last pitch made up for it though; perfectly vertical finger crack and face climbing with 400ft of air below your ass.  Once on the summit we located the rappel which Gustl had installed and had boasted about all week.  He even let us use his twin ropes since our single rope would not have been long enough. Once over the edge I heard a familiar "Jeaune . . . Litsa . . . ".  Gustl had come to watch us on his famous rappel.  The rappel did turn out to be all it was talked up to be.  It was two 50m rapples, both completly free hanging (that is no contact with the wall.)  Once on the ground Gustl informed us that we went "longsome longsome" (he means slowly) and "I come to see, no Jeaune and Litsa so I go take sleep.  I come back, still no Jeaune and Litsa so I go a little motor bike, I come back and finally Jeaune and Litsa."  " I go this route alone, 1 hour." 

Kelch.  Note the gap at the top which we had to cross.

After our climb it was time for a little retsina which is a local white wine that only costs 1 euro for a half liter and tasts like wood, but for some reason is delicious. 

Today was really windy so we skipped climbing and just went for a nice long hike and packed up our stuff.  We have to leave camp at 6:30 tomorrow morning to start our journy to Istanbul.

Lisa on the summit of Kelch after a heady (scary) lead!

Crazy Opa

We left Dilys and Les in Elea and headed to a town called Nafplio for 2 days of climbing.  The bus ride there was interesting to say the least.  The bus driver was smoking with one hand and texting with the other while somehow navigating switchbacks so tight the the edged of the bus would hang over the sides of the mountain!  Overall Nafplio was a bit of a disappointment.  It was beautiful but when we went to climb it was closed due to rockfall.  It was very touristy and for some reason there were hundreds of very loud Greek teenangers from out of town.  Our "hotel" looked like a crime scene out of Law and Order.  Overall we had a good time anyway, hiking 999 steps up to a medevil castle and relaxing on a rocky beach.

After Nafplio we took 2 buses to Meteora which took about 9 hours.  Meteora is completly mind blowing!  There are 600ft conglomerate spires rising out of 2 towns, some with active monestaries on top, and most with ruins somwhere on them. 

We are staying at a funky campsite right in one of the towns, it has wifi but squat toilets (a porcilin hole in the ground that flushes).  We met a 70 year old German climber named Gustl or "Crazy Opa" which means crazy grandfather who is hilarious. To Gustl every thing is either "very good", "shit", or "kaput".  He has been coming here for the last 25 years for a few months at a time and has pioneered many of the routes here. 

We started by climbing a warm up, 4 pitch-5.7 up one of the towers which felt less like a warm up when there were only bolts every 40-50ft and little protection inbetween.  When we went to rappel the route our genious system of only having one rope and a small cord to pull it down failed miserably.  Most of the towers are less than vertical on top so the friction is too much to overcome.  We ended up rappeling down with two Czech climbers.  Later that afternoon we looked up to see Gustl soloing the same route and goats around the top of the first pitch!  The next day we climbed a short crack that Gustl put up that was 5.10a but in the same way a crack at Vedauoo is 5.10a (meaning very hard for the grade).  Again the 70 year old Crazy Opa showed us up by flying up the route on a stomach full of beer telling us water is for animals and washing, not drinking.  After that we climbed another nice route that Lisa led, again very run out. 

Yesterday it rained all day so we just hiked up to one of the monestaries and took it eazy.  It is raining again today but should be ok to climb again by tomorrow.  The campsite is interesting, right now there are 3 canadians, the German, another german couple, a man from Minnessota and a French couple biking to India!  We have our eyes on some amazing towers for the next couple of days!

More from Greece

We are still doing well in the southern Peloponnes Greece. We have spent a couple of days in a fantastic medieval village called Monemvasia. It is a big rock a few hundred meters off of the coast connected by a single causeway. You drive across the causeway and halfway around the island. That’s as far as cars can go. After that you walk through an archway gate and around a corner and you are all of a sudden in this beautiful village. We explored this village walking all around the little alleys and cobble stone paths. Above the village a cobblestone path switchbacks up the cliffs atop which you enter another archway. Through this archway is a ruined village from 1100. Most of it was completely ruined except for a gorgeous church which is in great shape.

We love just about everything about Greece and the Greek people except for 2 things. First everyone smokes everywhere. We have had waitresses smoking while serving; there are ash trays in the kitchen of restaurants, its everywhere! We really take the smoking ban in Boulder for granted. The other problem is the way that dogs are treated. There have been several cases of dogs being poisoned while we have been here. There is a young hound dog that Dilys likes a lot that lived in a house near the dumpster where we take our trash. The other day it was missing and Dilys was very worried. After a few days we saw her again but she was out of the gate and cowering more than I have ever seen a dog cower. It broke your heart, it was obvious that her owner kicked her out and beat the hell out of her to keep her away. Being a dog she was trying to go home. Dilys and Les brought her some food and today ended up bringing her home. She was very scared this morning and cowering, but she has been getting better all day. She is extremely sweet, especially considering that she has obviously been treated so bad! Hopefully she will be happy in her new home with Les and Dilys.

We will be here until Thursday when we will head to a town called Nafplio for a couple of days of sport climbing, then its up to Meteroa to climb towers and then Istanbul. More soon!