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Next on the list – Oban

I’m going to try and catch the train to this afternoon, around 4:45PM to Oban. It takes a while to get there, almost 5 hours. It’s supposed to be a very scenic ride though, so hopefully I can see some of it!

I’ve booked a bed at the Oban Youth Hostel, which looks very neat and is really inexpensive – 19£ including 4£ for breakfast. The building looks pretty amazing, like an old abbey. Take a look at their website:

http://www.syha.org.uk/hostels/highlands/oban.aspx

Tomorrow I plan to check out Oban itself, and figure out what to do for getting to the Islands of Mull and Iona – from what I’ve heard, it should be pretty simple and there’s frequent running ferries throughout the day. I hope to stay a night or so on Mull, which should be nice and relaxing.

I’ll try and update again once I’m in Oban! I haven’t yet uploaded any pictures from Edinburgh, perhaps I’ll get to do that some tonight as well. Bye!

In Edinburgh




Edinburgh at Night

Originally uploaded by cdine

I arrived in Edinburgh at 17:00 sharp, and managed to find my hotel without too much difficulty – it’s a bit away from things from what I can tell, but only by maybe a 10 minute walk.

I went out to dinner without any of my things, so I just snapped a few photos with my iPhone – this one, while not too great, shows how neat it is here. There’s huge Baroque style buildings, castles, abbeys, and cathedrals everywhere in the old town area and along the Royal Mile. Very cool to see and walk around – and this was just on my way to find some dinner! I’m looking forward to wandering around more tomorrow and in the coming days.

It’s -9ºC right now – but it’s not as bad walking around here as it was in London. Lots of people out and about, too!

Well, I’ll post more as I discover things, good night!

My Shopping “Splurge”

Today I bought two things that should make the remainder of the trip even better, both from Oxford street in London.

1 – A prepaid (15£) SIM card for my iPhone. Now I have 500mb of data for my phone, no credit card or even name needed. Nice! It’s on the O2 network, and so far, so good. Should work throughout the UK.

2 – A long wool peacoat, at 89£ it was a good deal around here (I asked some locals not associated with any stores and they said not to pay more than about 100£ – which is easy to do in all the big stores. I’m already warmer! It’s got a zip up chest warmer, double flap button front, and a detachable hood, which should be great in Scotland.

London deffinetly has the shops – I can see how people who really like shopping would be right at home here.

Or.. London!

Nevermind, I got a route worked out to London, via train and ferry! Its very cheap too – 3 euros for the train and another 3 for the ferry, Easy! I leave tomorrow so ill stay one more night in Paris, in a hostel. More info later, off to the Louvre!

Louvre and leaving Paris

Well, today I’m off to the Louvre museum for most of the day and then I’ll be heading out of Paris. Prices on the Eurostar trains for today still look high, so I think I’ll head to Sweden to meet up with Tony. It’s a quite long train ride – 26 hours, but it’s free travel with my Eurail pass, and it’ll give me some time to relax while on the train – sounds fine to me! I haven’t really had a “down” day since I started traveling yet.

Hopefully it all works out! I’ll try and update again later.

Paris, Snow, London, Etc.

I wandered around a bunch today, and it got rather cold and snowed for quite a while (lightly) – I’ve seen the Eiffel tower now from all over, but haven’t gone up it, visibility’s really poor and it’s just cold! I think I’ll save that for when I’m back in the warmer months sometime :)

Paris is definitely a fun town to walk around in, it’s all very inviting and (fairly) easy to navigate. The metro system’s great when you need to get somewhere quick, supposedly in Paris you’re never more than 500 yards from a metro stop – not bad! Managing not to walk right between all of them when you’re looking for one may be another story though!

Tomorrow I hope to go to the Louvre museum, since I got there as it closed yesterday (they still let you walk around the common areas and gift shops), and today most of the museums are closed for the holiday. I think I’ll let that be the end of my Paris experience, and then hopefully make it over to London.

I didn’t quite realize that the Eurostar train wasn’t like an extended metro train.. and it’s actually quite expensive (ouch) – rides out tonight (e.g. two hours from now) would be about $150.. and for tomorrow, well, a whole lot more than that.. I’m *hoping* that a last minute booking for tomorrow will be similar to if I were to book tonight. But it’s a bit of a gamble, although it really wouldn’t be that fun to be rushed and hop on a train in two hours (saving the cost, but adding to the stress, and loosing the cost of my hotel for tonight). There’s supposedly a discount of Eurail pass holders as well, but you can’t determine that or book it online, I’ll have to do it in person or via phone (and their phones are closed today!)

If it ends up being really expensive – I have a few options, I could get an obscure flight on Sunday for about $150 that goes though.. Denmark, or, if I can get ahold of him, visit an stay with my friend Tony in Sweden for a few days (with my Eurail pass, I could travel there for free) and from there either book a Eurostar train to London, or a flight to London or Edinburgh (since I’d have burned some of my time up)

Well, I guess we’ll see what happens, hopefully it doesn’t end up being too stressful or expensive! (Planning more would have been helpful, it turns out!)

New Years Eve

I’m off to the Tropcadéro (or thereabouts) to watch the fireworks from the Eiffel Tower, which they normally don’t do, but this year they are for the 120th anniversary of the tower – perfect!

Happy New Years everybody!

Marseille

I’m in Marseille now, and have been since yesterday – it’s quite a big city, and it was much more difficult to navigate from the train stations than the other places I’ve been to!

I had planned to be in Marseille before it got dark, but that didn’t quite work out with the train I caught from Arles, so that made navigating the town a bit harder, but I found a hotel that was reviewed decently by the Michelin travel books (yes, like the tires, too) and relatively close to a metro stop. It was easy to get to, and in a good central location – Vieux Port.

I hopped on a tour bus today and saw a good amount of the city that way, and it was also a nice way to learn about the history of the town that I likely wouldn’t have gotten other ways, not a bad deal! Afterwards, I wandered around some of the neighborhoods and a bit of the (incredibly busy) shopping districts. It’s a bit past 9pm now, and I’ve got to go and grab some dinner. More posts & pictures later!

La Sagrada Familia

Today the weather seems to have followed me from Seattle – it’s been overcast all day and a bit misty – but no bother! I made it out to see La Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi’s famed work of art that began construction in 1882, and isn’t planned to be completed until at least 2020. It’s truly fascinating, the first thing that struck me was how great it was to see the differences in material quality and age from the older material to that which has been recently built. There are so many details – and everything is a detail – to the structure that it’s difficult to describe it all as a whole. I got there with just enough time to do a self-guided audio tour, which was handy. The take away from that was about how Gaudi wanted the interior to be perceived – perfectly, and as an extension to nature. The central columns are shaped like trees with their branches supporting the top of the building, and the windows are designed to allow just the perfect amount (and colors) of light in. The choir can seat more than one hundred singers, and the stones above them are harmonically shaped to perfectly direct the music throughout the entire church. There are also curious cryptograms and hundres of other peculiar puzzles throughout the architecture. I look forward to returning again once construction has completed – I’m sure it will be even more awe-striking then. I took a good number of photos here – and hope to have some uploaded soon. Uploading large numbers of photos is tricky over here, but hopefully I’ll get some up as I go along.

The second major thing I did today, actually before visiting La Sagrada Familia, is book a reservation on a Talgo train to Montpellier, France for tomorrow (Sunday) at 8:45am. That will get me on the way to Marseille (it’s necessary to transfer trains at Montpellier) where I plan to stay for two or three days before heading up to Paris to bring in the new year.
The reason my reservation is only to Montpellier, and not all the way to Marseille is because apparently they just make the reservation from your current location – so I’ll make another once I arrive at Montpellier. This gives me some flexibility, too – I think I’ll stay a night in Arles, which is a quiet and small town/region that’s highly suggested by several sources (Rick Steves, Wikitravel). There seem to be a good number of hotels/hostels/bed & baths available there – so hopefully I can find something decent (and inexpensive!)

Also – the photos that I’ve began to upload from my camera are now often geotagged automatically! This is very exciting, and is due to the Nikon GP-1 GPS attachment that my Mom, Aunt, and Uncle got me for Christmas. Thanks guys!

This isn’t really exposed on Flickr (that I’ve found), but you can get a map for things matching a certain tag – I’m tagging all of my photos on this trip with Eu2010 (among other things) so here’s an awesome way to follow the trail of my travels!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdine/tags/eu2010/map/

I’ll add a link on the sidebar to the right so this map is always easy to get to.

Well, hopefully my next update will be from Arles, France! Auvoir!

Christmas Lights in Barcelona

Christmas Lights in Barcelona

A good first day

I’ve had a nice and slow first day, there’re a lot of people around La Rambla which my hotel is near, either tourists, locals, performers, or vendors.
Tomorrow I plan to go see some of the architecture that I’ve heard so much about, and try to figure out what I’ll be doing to get to France on Sunday.

Here’s a photo of the view from my hotel as I write this.

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