Lauterbrunnen Day 2 & 3

1. Lina & Ted the dog.
2. Trummelbach.
3. Murren mountain - restaurant in the snow.
4. Seilpark.

Lina & Ted the dog

On the way out of the hotel while we were heading down to the Trummelbach Waterfalls we found ourself a little friend. Lina and Ted the dog met us. And that changed the day completely. As we ran through the fields I knew exactly what kind of dog I wanTed. Ted was a Canadian Labrador. He was huge, "buffely", energetic and exciTed but that's why I liked him, really.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some say that it's a small world, I disagree

 

 

 

 

Trummelbach

So, we walked on to Trummelbach Falls. When we finally got there we went up to a lift system like this to half way up inside the mountain.

 

 

Those guys in the lift are us

 

 

 

 

 

First I walked up the stairs next to the left to see the first 2 waterfalls - they thrashed and crashed like nothing I have ever seen. I realised the second waterfall's water was creating the first waterfall... If this was true then what was feeding water into the second waterfall. I decided to ponder about this in the lift up.

(Now I'll tell you about the Trummelbach while we go up)

Trummelbach falls are famous because they are 10 waterfalls inside a mountain. Both of these facts nearly blew me out of my socks they were so amazing. Another fact is that 20,000 litres of water per second comes down the falls and this is water from the 3 big mountains - the Eiger, the Münch and the Jungfrau.

(Now we are at the top of the lift)

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favourite fall was the corkscrew because of the way the pressure of the original waterfall has shaped the rock in a way that makes it go round - not like a whirlpool down but a whirlpool sideways. You can see on the video.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a great afternoon up in the town of Murren too but now I want to tell you about the Seilpark in Interlaken the next day.

 

 

 

The Seilpark

We heard about the Seilpark from two Canadians we met on our way to Dubrovnik and it sounded awesome. The Seilpark might be the best outdoor adventure I've ever been on because it made you rely on your own skills such as courage, strength and balance. Even though it was tricky getting the harness on it was really fun. You got to go through tunnels, slide across zip lines and climb across unsteady planks of wood. I don't think I would have been as good with the zip lines if I hadn't already tried zip lining in New Zealand.

 

I was a tiny bit short to go on the adults courses so I went on 3 courses for kids - the Lizard, the Mountain goat and the Butterfly. You do these courses completely unassisted and you are up to 10 metres off the ground. It was completely safe because your harness couldn't become unattached by mistake. There was a magnetic system that made sure one of your safety lines was always attached. But they had a clever system at the very end - the last rope was cut in half so you could release. Otherwise I would still be stuck there in the trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Lauterbrunnen for dinner and washing clothes because we leave tomorrow to go to Bern - capital of Switzerland.

 

Lauterbrunnen Day 1

Hi guys, here I am now in Lauterbrunnen

Lauterbrunnen is somewhere in the middle of Switzerland surrounded by snowy mountains called the Swiss Alps. One of the most famous mountains is called The Jungfrau. It's actually one of the three biggest mountains in Switzerland. The others are Münch and the Eiger (in English these mean monk, the ogre and the Jungfrau means young maiden). I don't really know why the Jungfrau is called the young maiden - it didn't really look like a young maiden to me.

The first day here we decided to take the Jungfraujoch up the jungfrau (the Jungfraujoch is the train up the Jungfrau). Because it was probably the only day we were in Switzerlamd where it wasn't raining and the sky was going to be clear, we knew this was the day to head on up. Every year 2 million people make their way up the mountain to see the breath-taking view that we saw. Some people get disappointed as they find when they come up the Jungfrau the clouds have already taken their place in the sky. We had amazing views.

Getting up the Jungfrau takes at least 2 hours up and 2 hours down. The view from the train was dazzling and people also go up the Jungfrau to see the views from the train. The train goes through the mountain so not much view for the last bit.

When we got to the Jungfrou A.K.A the top of Europe A.K.A a whole mountain full of awesomeness we walked down a big tunnel full of Amazing things. The first room we explored was a room where it seemed like you were in the images of the surrounding mountains that they projected on the wall. There was also an ice sculpture gallery with statues made of ice. They also had an outdoor section where you were on a platform with a glacier underneath you.

 

On the way back we stopped at a town called Kleine Schidegg were we went down to play in the snow. If you have never felt snow then I'll describe it. you know that mucky stuff you get when you mix corn flower and water? That except white, as cold as ice, hard and can be broken into little bits. That's what snow is. Anyway, we found that you can't just run through snow you have to watch out for hills. But it was to late, we had already fallen down One. Now when you are soaking wet and rolling around in the snow it's hard to not have fun. So we did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we got back you'd be surprised how tired I was.

 

 

 

 

 

And there's only one thing to do about that, and we did it.

 

Catch up with you next blog, bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monterosso - Vernazzo - Riomaggiore - Manarola - Corniglia - Monterosso

 

(waking up in Monterosso)

This morning after a great breakfast in our new hotel I walked out of the hotel to walk down the long, steep hill with a great view of the town of Monterosso. Anyway, mum said “you guys go exploring for thirty minutes and wait for us”. So we did.

View from our hotel

We walked down to the garden and walked around and in a cute little clearing we saw a cute little cubby cottage made out of cute little planks of wood and as we walked inside the cute little door we saw a cute little room. Sadly, the room wasn't as cute and little as it could be. It needed to be cuted and littled up a bit. We soon fixed that, we cleaned up everything in the house.

 

Mum, Dad, Zoe started walking down the hill. I, however, started running down the hill. When we got down I realised that there was an aqueduct with a river flowing right through it right out to sea. I dropped a few leaf boats down there. Mum, Dad and Zoe came down a while after me.

Then we set off on our journey/hike/walk all the way to Vernazzo the next town of the Cinque Terra. Its a climb up a massive hill and along the top and down the other side to Vernazzo. We walked over the hills finding as many waterfalls as we could. We also sailed lot of leaf boats down them as well. Here are some pictures of us.

 

 

That's me next to the beautiful view

 

 

 

Look at that cute little river

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway we got to Vernarzzo and from here I can basically explain to you in dot points what we did

• Had lunch
• Caught a train to Riomaggiore
• Then a train to Manarola ( because the lovers walk was closed).
• Walked to Corniglia over another hill - a very big hill with lots of steps
• Took one last train back to Monterosso

 

Afterwards I was really tired. But I thought to myself “drew you have just achieved your goal, you have just conquered all five towns of Cinque Terra”. By the end of it all we were so tired we just flopped into bed.

 

And so that was that, we had walked all the five towns of Cinque Terra.

 

Tomorrow we go to Switzerland I'm not sure what adventures I'm going to have there but I think they will be good.

I really didn't think Cinque Terra would be what it was, I thought it would be a delicate old town in the forest with little wooden cottages instead of houses and peaceful quietness surrounding it. Although I thought it that way, it was quite pleasant having it how it really is. I was surprised how much I actually enjoyed the walk, maybe there will be more like that in Switzerland?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Florence: Science and roses

• Liam's challenge
• Rose garden
• Car rally
• Leonardo Da Vinci museum
• Bye bye suitcase

 

 

Liam's Challenge

Liam had sent me an Email the day before that said I had to run two kilometres per three days easy, I completed it in one day and up stairs and with two evil dudes chasing me.

 

 

 

 

Scary but true, but when you have two bad guys on your tail you get filled with adrenaline. You have to go really fast.

 

The Rose Garden

 

 

Running up the stairs wasn't hard but through the rose garden was. The sweet smell of the roses seemed to slow me, urge me to smell them, but I resisted, or did my senses eventually take over. There were three-hundred and fifty roses urging me with smell them. Which means three-hundred and fifty times I had to resist the urge.

 

 

Alright, my senses did overcome me.

 

 

 

The lake of the garden

 

 

 

The view

 

 

 

 

 

On the way back we saw a vintage car rally. It was really loud!

 

Those guys are eating ice cream

 

 

 

Look at all those cool cars

 

 

 

That's an old one

 

 

 

Leonardo Da Vinci Museum

 

Yesterday, I was doing my blog for Venice day 1, 2 & 3 while Zoe and mum went to the Leonardo Di Vinci Museum. They got the pizza package deal so it cost them eight €uros to get in instead of seven €uros each. When you enter you see a picture of the Mona Lisa with a hole for a head and you are supposed to put your head in, and Zoe did. It's really funny I know [and no Zoe that was a compliment]. Today, dad and I went, we didn't get the pizza package deal but we were fine.

 

 

 

 

Here are a few things I saw at the museum…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Archimedes screw

 

 

Leonardo also designed pulley systems. Single pulleys had been used for hundreds of years but he made changes to pulley system. It was a single pulley attached to a single pulley. It was easier than the single pulley system and revolutionised the way we lived. Then he created the triple pulley system. It was a double pulley attached to a single pulley. It was easier than the double and single pulley system and revolutionised the way we lived. Then he worked on the quadruple pulley system. It was a triple pulley attached to a single pulley. It was easier than the triple, double and single pulley system and revolutionised the way we lived because of the way they let us lift extremely heavy things with just a few pulls for example bricks for building the duomo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The night clock

 

 

 

Our suitcase broke

The wheel got a rip that wasn't fixable. It was extremely devastating because the case meant a lot to me. We had to get it thrown in the garbage. Although we do now have separate cases to replace the old one.

 

 

 

 

I actually cried.

Tomorrow we are leaving to go to Cinque Terra ( Cinque Terra means five places because there are five towns along the cinque terra coast.)

 

Florence Day 2

1. Uffizi Gallery
2. Gelati Festival
3. Boots
4. Making Paper
5. New restaurant - Chinese food in Italy

 

Uffizi Gallery

Even though we planned ahead I wasn't prepared for the 2 1/2 hour walk through a bunch of paintings. I got really bored. For me it's just a bunch of paintings really. I know that there are some of the most important paintings in the world but for some reason to me they just don't matter. Although the birth of Venus was quite intriguing. At the very end we saw a room that represented the five elements of the universe (air, water, fire, earth and cheese (I got that last one from the book I'm reading at the moment (The Kane Chronicles (The Throne Of Fire)))). The red marble walls represented fire. The shells encrusted on the roof represented water. The weathervane at the top of the roof represented air. The stone floor represented the earth. But I'm not entirely shore what represented cheese though.

 

 

The birth of Venus by Botticelli

 

 

Gelati festival

After the Uffizi Gallery we walked down to the main part of town to buy Gelati Festival tickets. We tried all the different flavours of gelati. There was melon sobet, lemon sorbet, strawberry, cookies and cream, double choc, vanilla, custard, and my new personal favourite, cookies. Cookies was the Gelati Festival special.

 

 

 

“AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

 

 

Paper making

On the way home we saw a lady making paper designs. The process is called marbling. I thought it was really interesting. Later I found out that you could get this in Melbourne. After that we went home and to bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's the paper drying

 

 

Next stop: Cinque Terra

 

Florence Day 1

1. The Academia Gallery
2. St. Lorenzo's Church

 

The Academia Gallery

Today we went to the Academia Gallery which holds many famous objects and paintings like the statue of David. As we walked in we turned the corner and we saw the most famous statue in the world. Yep, we just saw the statue of David. Supposedly the most beautiful statue in the world. If you look at David closely he looks brave from one angle but scared from another. I think that Michelangelo, when he carved it, meant the brave angle to be after David had defeated the giant and the scared angle was before he did. I will now tell you the story of David and Goliath.

Once upon a time there was a giant named Goliath who was terrorizing the town. No one was brave enough to defeat him. But, a poor little Shepard boy named David would. God was proud of this boy and possessed him. So a little shepherd boy, with only a slingshot over his shoulder, and a rock in his hand, set out to kill the giant. So, David, powered by God defeated the giant.

 

 

That's the real thing

 

 

 

The weather in Florence has been a bit rainy at times.

 

This picture below is actually a copy of David because the real David was damaged while it was standing in this exact spot during a riot in the 1500s. They fixed the real David and put him in the Academia

 

 

 

 

St. Lorenzo's church

We visited this church because in English St Lorenzo means St Lawrence (aka St Daddy). When we got inside we saw a huge room with another domed room off to the left. In the domed room we discovered that Lorenzo Medici's coffin was is the middle of the room. The dome had glass in the top so that when the sun streamed through the light was in the exact middle of the coffin. The Medicis are a famous family in Italy and in fact all of their bodies were buried in the church.

 

You wouldn't guess this but even though you may think we didn't do much, at the end of the day I was extremely tired. That night I could hear the Florence church bells ringing in my ears as I went off to sleep.

 

Venice day 1, 2 & 3

Hi, it's me again this blog I'll be telling you about my adventures in Venezia the city of water. So, I'd just gotten of the train to Venice and mum explained to us that she had booked a TAXI to our new hotel. When we got to the new hotel I saw it was called VELA BLU CAMPING VILLAGE. So we got out of the TAXI and walked down to the new hotel. The reception showed us to our room and we walked inside. It was tiny and our bedroom was about two square meters including the cupboard which we had two keep our clothes in anyway. This was really unfair seeing as mum and dads bedroom was at least four square meters. But in the end we survived. After dinner at the hotel restaurant we went back to the cabin and to bed.

WATER SLIDE PARK

After breakfast mum and dad said we could go explore the new hotel. Zoe and I walked around the corner walked for about twenty five meters around another corner walked for at least fifty meters and then turned around another corner. And there we saw it, the waterslide. This was our next conversation:

Zoe: Yes, I knew there was running water.

Drew: No you didn't.

Zoe:Yes I did.

This arguing goes on for quite a while.

Drew: Alright, I believe you.

Zoe: Good I knew you'd see it my way some day.

Drew: I don't, I just want to swim I that thing.

Zoe: So, come on what are we waiting for!

Drew: You're right!

Zoe: I know.

Drew: Aw come on man.

Zoe: Run for it!

Drew (while running): Why?

Zoe: Do you want to go on the waterslide or not?

Drew: Alright then.

Finally we got back to the teeny cabin and told mum. And she said “alright, you can go” and that was all Zoe and I needed to hear. As we got our bathers and ran down to the pool again we heard a swish and the water slide powered down. Damn that was really bad, I was looking forward to that. But we went in anyway we asked the lifeguard why this had happened and she said “no-a running, splashing or-a talking until-a tree-a clock-a”. I thought this was because I the Italians have a siesta but that's kind of weird because the last night they had stayed up till ten pounding out music. Finally the water came back on again and Zoe and I ran for it we went down slide by slide. We all loved it.

 

 

Ahh, perfection

 

 

 

YEAH!

 

 

 

 

 

 

WOO HOO!

 

 

 

BOO YEAH!

 

 

 

YAH HEE!

 

 

LETS GO BABY!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE ACTUAL CITY OF VENICE

The next day we got up early to catch a boat to the actual city of Venice. When we got there st. Mark's square surrounded us. With its gigantic tower and huge curved building it looked kind've like a tadpole really. Any way we walked down past the canal to get something to eat and some glass animals to buy. We found both of those things. First I'll tell you about the glass animals. I bought a dolphin, hedgehog, owl and an octopus to add to my collection. To eat we found a place where they served pasta in a box. We all had a great meal there.

 

 

 

These are the some of the animals I got

 

 

 

This is where we had the pasta

 

 

 

Great meals we had there

 

 

 

Now last words, when in Venice, you're always together

 

 

 

Three words that describe Venice are bustling, overflowing and colourful.

 

So I guess bye for now until further notice.

 

Dubrovnik day 1, 2 & 3

I woke up and realised I was still on our ferry to Dubrovnik. So we went down to have breakfast. What I find weird is that you needed breakfast tickets to have breakfast. Even though the breakfast wasn't very good. I had a piece of toast, some ham, an egg, some orange juice and a bowl of bad cereal. As we walked off the boat I had no what adventures I was about to have…

OFF THE BOAT

When we got off the boat mum hired a TAXI to the fire station, why you ask, because next to the fire station on the fifty-sixth steep upward steps was the seventh room of our apartment which is where we were staying in Dubrovnik.

Whoa that took the breath out of me, not only that last sentence but also climbing the fifty-six stairs. When we did get there we had to wait a long time for Gloria (the apartment owner) to come and give us the key. When she finally got here she showed us around the house. While we were outside I spotted a cute little wooden tortoise, but wait, it wasn't wooden as it stretched out its head I felt a strange bond to it.

 

 

 

 

Wallace eats some apple

 

 

 

 

We made it a house. It was made out of a plank of wood, two dustpans, a terracotta roof tile, some flowers, some tiles, some cement, two jars of paint and a glass bowl. The plank of wood was the roof. The dustpans leaned on the terracotta roof tile to keep the tortoise from escaping out the back. The terracotta roof tile was the back wall. The flowers were her bed. The tiles were cemented down as the floor. The cement was used to stick things - we made it out of water and dirt rocks. The two jars of paint were holding the wooden plank.

 

Later we walked down to the old city. All in all I think Dubrovnik is :

Calm, classy, bright, clean, relaxed, zippy, exotic.

Anyway after the old city we had a lovely stir-fry for dinner and went to bed.

 

 

THE NEXT DAY

The next day I woke up and realised I had to get my new souvenir today seeing as I was leaving tomorrow. So we went down to the old market to see if I could find one, but firstly Me and Zoe headed to the garden to feed Molly the tortoise.

Gloria the apartment owner had given us lettuce the day before so we could feed Molly. When we went down to feed her we couldn't find her anywhere. Finally we found her far away in the corner of the garden far from where she normally hangs out hiding underneath the lavender bush.

Zoe told us that she only knew the tortoise was a girl because it didn't have a tail. Maybe she knew this from one of the many fact books she has read? After the markets I decided to check on that and I did find a tail so Molly Mavis the tortoise became Wallace the Tortoise.

At the old city market, Zoe and I found a T-shirt shop called "Manu-Factura". Inside the shop a lady came to greet us. I never found out her name. She told us we could choose whatever design we liked from a book and put it on any colour T-shirt we liked or we could take one of the already designed T-shirts.

One of the already designed T-Shirts I likes was white and had nine boxes on it (green ink) in a square and each box had the personality of someone and a funny quote. It was all about a glass of water and was very funny. In the first box on the top left it said "Optimist" and the quote was "Glass is half full". Next to it, it said "Pessimist" and the quote said "Glass half empty". Next to that it said "Realist" and the quote was "The Glass Is". In the end I decided that I didn't want to spend so much money on a T-shirt (they were 10 Euro).

 

The shirt didnt look like this but these were the words

 

 

 

Eventually we found a souvenir stall that had what I was looking for. It was a small little, wooden boat with billowing sails and a Croatian flag. Dad and I remember the flag because we play logoflags quiz a lot. The flag of Croatia has red and white squared shield with 5 house type things on the top shield including a Ram and a Fountain.

 

 

 

Later that afternoon we took the cable car to Fort Imperial. The ride up was fine but coming down was a bit rocky. When we got to the top there were beautiful views of the mountains and sunset falling over them. Mum took a nice picture of me that we put in coloursplash and only left my hair colour and the colour of the flower I was touching.

 

 

 

When mum and I went down the road a little bit, we sat on some rocks and watched the drifting sunset glide down over the islands. It made me think that this is one of the reasons that people must travel to Croatia, it was beautiful and delicate and I felt lucky to see it.

 

 

 

 

 

THE NEXT, NEXT DAY

Today I jumped off a cliff.

I know it seems scary but I did. Although it was a bit of a challenge. First we had to book tickets for sea kayaking which is lucky because mum booked yesterday. We walked down to the harbour to get instructions. First we had to ask an information man wearing a bright orange t-shirt for directions. He said that we had to go down the path for about three meters and you would come to some steps, then walk down the steps, under the bridge and around the hedge. As we walked down to the rocky beach I knew I was going to have a great day.

When we were paddling along in our sea kayaks we were getting really tired from paddling so hard. So when we finally got to a beach I was relieved. Now I'll explain a few things while we are getting ready. So, the differences between a kayak and a sea kayak are:

1. A sea kayak is made of plastic.
2. A sea kayak is wider.
3. A sea kayak is open.

Now, where was I, oh yes, the beach, so I sat down on the sand, my first big mistake, there wasn't sand, just rocks. Ouch, that really hurt. Zoe decided she would go and jump off a five meter high cliff into three meter deep water. I thought I would follow. When I got there I had to climb up steep rocky ledges. When I got to the top I knew there was no going back.

 

Afterwards I got an ice cream. I got two flavours. The first was cookies and the second was hazelnut.

After all that Zoe and I had a great day off. Dad, Zoe and I went to dinner at a place called Kizmot. We had a great meal there. We had to on a ferry to Bari so we catch a train to Venice. Now, as I think back on Croatia I find it amazing the people there had such perfect English. It was almost as if I was speaking to someone in Australia.

 

 

 

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