Summer Trip 2008

Massimo left to work at morning, and unfortunatly forgot our existence for a second and locked the port. So, we ended up having to wait for Massimo to get off work to get the car out of the yard. Not much a problem though, because we woke up very late. When Massimo arrived and opened the gate, we drove to Loiano.

Loiano is a small town on the mountains, and the Loiano Balkan Festival isnt big either. This is the first year, and it was organized by some local couchsurfing people. After searching for a while we found the place where couchsurfing people were camping, set up our tent and walked to the main square where the festival takes place. Some Romanian band is playing at the moment..

We slept long after yesterdays journey, waking up maybe around 14. After hunting for some food we agreed with Massimo to meet him in Florence in a few hours, there was going to be a couchsurfing spaghetti party at somebodys place. While waiting for Massimo in Florence, we did a quick walking tour around the city.

Nothing special to say about the party, except that it was fun with pasta, cheese, good wine, nice people etc :)

We have been thinking of changing our route a bit, and not going to Istanbul but returning to Croatia from Greece by a ferry. Lets see what happens. On the other hand, we have some friends in Istanbul and meeting them would be great. On the other hand, Croatian beaches are tempting and driving long distances isnt so fun in these hot countries without air conditioning..

Now its time to get some sleep again, tomorrow we should be heading towards Loiano. Luckily its just 50km away from here..

After having a wonderful plate of cheese and cold meats and glasses of wine we headed to Massimos place. Hes having a big house on top of a high hill just outside Pistoia. The house is kinda full of animals, around 10 cats inside and 3 wolfdogs on the yard.

The wolves are something I havent seen before. The 2 female wolves are quite small and behaving just as any normal dog, but the big male one ( which also has most wolf genes of those three ) is incredible. Its really big and seems to be fast and aggressive. 2 whole raw chickens work as a dinner.. :p

After the swimming break, we were approaching Pistoia very fast. Stable 140kmh speed on the autostradas took us first past Venice and then Bologna. Some Italians seem to be driving like headless monkeys, we got passed a few times by some sport cars driving well over 200kmh. When the darkness fell, we had to drop the speed just to be careful, but we were already approaching Florence and Pistoia so that wasnt much a problem.

But, the roadworks become a problem. The autostrada from Bologna to Firenze was under repair works, and it was also totally full of trucks. That led to the worst almost accident so far. At some point a lane just ended without a forewarning, and we had a truck on the other line near our rear, passing us. When we realized the situation, I had no other options left than driving out of the road through some roadwork marking cones to the roadwork area maybe 70kmh.

Luckily there was nothing bigger on the way, and the car didnt get damaged by the cones. After waiting for a while to the constant traffic to pause we got back to the road, and continued to Pistoia without further problems.

Our friend Massimo already had some Polish girls staying at her place, and we went together to the city to have some food and wine. Feeling much better now, we are in Italy, the weather and the atmosphere is lovely and we got some food:)

Finally got a chance to swim in the Adriatic Sea, we have been dreaming of it since last summer:) The beach was a sand beach though, and Im not so big fan of those because the water is never very clear, but it was the best one we could find without using whole day searching for a beach

Earlier today we have been driving from Vienna to Italy, taking a quick refueling pause in Slovenia. 2 girls with old Finnish Mitsubishi were following us to Slovenia from Austria, the first Finnish car we have seen so far. Now we should continue to Massimo, bypassing Venice, Bologna and Florence. The autostradas are fast, so it will be just 2 hours..

Once again nothing special happened today, while we crossed the beatiful Slovakian Tatra mountains and the whole Slovakia on the way to Vienna. We left Krakow around 13 and arrived to Vienna at 21.30, so the relatively short 400km distance took quite long time. The roads were small and a lot of roadworks going on. After Ziline the road changed to a very good motorway, so the last 200km took only a while. In Vienna we are staying at Maria´s place. Last summer we met her in Greece where she was studying, and now she´s back in Austria

Last night we were out with some Couchsurfing people, and our German friend Florian was also there. Florian is always carrying his toy ape with him, and now he wanted the ape to see the world a bit. So, we have to take the ape to Massimo in Italy, and Massimo will bring it back to Florian later :P

Facebook profile of Bim Bo the Toy Ape

Today I also had time to get the video material from my camera to the computer, but didn´t put much of it online yet. Here´s one anyway:

Via Baltica traffic

We had to do something about the damaged tire of the car, so at the morning we went looking for a tire shop. Found one easily, but of course nobody spoke English in there. Once again we had to manage with our minimal Polish skills, but now our car has shiny new rear paws and it´s rolling smoothly again :)

Our German friend Florian ( Flohfish ) is also in Krakow today, and there will be a couchsurfing meeting tonight, so I guess we will be attending that also. Now it´s time to cook a bit, some Polish pirogis etc.

The afternoon went by being lazy, laying on the bed and watching House M.D DVD series. At some point I got an idea of taking a look at the couchsurfing site, just to see if there´s any meetings or anything going on in Krakow today. Some local couchsurfers were going to watch Euro 2008 football final together, so we decided to join them.

There was a big screen near the market square in the centrum of Krakow, and a lot of people watching the game. I´m not a big fan of football, but this kinda mass happenings are always fun, the atmosphere is great. Seems like almost everybody in Poland was hoping for Spain´s victory over Germans, and that´s not so surprising. Actually many people said they just hope the Germans don´t win, it doesn´t actually matter who does. They don´t like Germans so much, for obvious reasons.. Everybody had the colors of Spanish flag painted on their face, some even dressed up to the Spanish colors

Spain did win the game, and that caused a great party in the centrum of Krakow. People were singing Spanish songs, dancing at the market square, and the pubs were full of people. We ended up spending a few hours in a pub, and then coming back to the hostel. Even for a non-fan of football, that was fun :)

It´s warm and nice in Krakow, around +25C degrees at the moment, and really feeling like summer. We woke up late, took a long shower and have just been spending time at the hostel doing laundry, wandering around, sitting at the garden..

Last few days we haven´t been sleeping much and have been driving a lot, so we are still feeling a bit tired and not really motivated to do anything special. Maybe it would be a good idea to go walk around the city a bit, find some food and cook at the hostel..

We noticed we can actually survive at gas stations, shops and so on with our very beginner-level polish skills. That´s kinda nice, makes everything easier when you can speak and understand the local language at least a little bit. It also takes a few days every time to get used to speaking english all the time, but after a week it´s not a problem anymore :)

We ended up spending a hour or two at Agata´s summer cottage, and started driving towards Krakow around nine. It was nice to meet friends again. That kinda sums up the idea of Couchsurfing and other that kinda organizations, it´s great to come somewhere where you have friends to visit etc instead of just being lost in a strange country. And after traveling around and hosting people in Finland we are starting to know a lot of people in many European countries. :)

A few hours of driving in darkness, and we reached Krakow, maybe the city I love most in Europe. In here we are staying in hostel named Good Bye Lenin. Also a cool place, where we have been staying a few times. Feels like being home :)

One of the tires of our car has structural damage that was already diagnosed in Finland, and somehow fixed by adding more balancing weights to it. Now it´s getting worse again, making the car stutter a bit all the time. I guess we have to do something about that, maybe we will search a tire shop in Krakow at monday and replace the broken one. I´m a bit afraid it will break somewhere later if we won´t replace it soon, and maybe there we won´t have this easy opportunity to get a new one. Besides, the tires are probably cheaper in Poland than in Italy for example.

Laura went to search some food from the city, and I unloaded the stuff from the car into the hostel. Now it´s time to get one relaxing beer from the hostel´s bar and get to sleep, I guess..