After traveling around Europe for three months, the one place I keep telling myself I need to return to is Gimmelwald, Switzerland.
Located high in the Swiss Alps, this town of approximately 130 residents is full of charm and relaxation. There are several places to stay in Gimmelwald – some B&Bs, but most people stay at the Mountain Hostel. At the hostel, people of all ages come together and talk about their travels, where they’re from and hiking. For only 26 CHF ($24.25 USD), the Mountain Hostel is a great value.
One long hike involves hiking from Gimmelwald up 5,200 feet to the summit of Schilthorn. At the very top,there’s an observation deck, a restaurant and a way down – a cable car back to Gimmelwald. The observation deck may look familiar, as it was used in the 007 movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Short hikes can include walking to the town above, Murren, where you can mail postcards and purchase groceries and Swiss chocolates, or exploring Gimmelwald and sampling some local cheese or sausage. There’s a saying, “If Heaven isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, send me back to Gimmelwald.” I completely understand and agree.
I was hoping to go to Asia in 2010, but it looks like I will have to put it off another year. I booked a round-trip ticket to New York City and back from Washington, DC. Using some frequent flyer miles from my American Express Starwood Preferred credit card, I will be flying with Delta to NYC nonstop from San Diego and back home from DC in coach. I will be leaving on May 17, 2010 and returning May 30. I have not booked my accommodation or know exactly what day I will be leaving NYC for DC. I expect to take Amtrak to NYC sometime in the middle of my trip, about a week in each location, but I will finalize everything soon.
I just finished printing out 800 pictures from my trip to Europe and they look great! Thank you Snapfish! Flipping through all the pages brings back so many wonderful memories.
Yesterday, I watched a Rick Steves program on Sorrento and Capri, perfect timing to reminisce on a wonderful time there.
“Until next time, keep on traveling.” -Rick Steves
I am back in Athens for my last night of Europe. I fly out tomorrow morning at 8:15 (Athens time) back to San Diego and should arrive at 6:25PM PST. This has been one long trip and happy to be heading home. Over the past 100 days, I have visited 15 countries (including Vatican City), most of which I never would have imagined visiting.
I woke up around 6 this morning and headed to the bus station to catch the 7AM bus the gorge. While boarding the bus, I ran into another guy from my hostel room who happened to be doing the hike as well. After a 3 hour bus ride, we arrived at the gorge at 10 and started hiking down. While we were walking, I heard a couple speaking English and asked where they were from and it turns out they were from Seattle. We all ended up doing the hike down together at a rather quick pace. Stopping only two or three times for breaks and photos. Luckily, the weather was rather cool and we had plenty of shade. It took 5 hours to do the hike and had a 1/2 hour wait at the bottom before getting onto a ferry to another city in order to catch a return bus. According to west-crete.com, the hike is “16 km long, starting at an altitude of 1250m and taking you all the way down to the shores of the Libyan sea in Agia Roumeli.” We ended up getting back into town at 9:30PM and will be catching a bus at 7:45AM back to the port I arrived at and taking a ferry from there back to Athens. Expected time of arrival in Athens is 4:45PM.
After a full day at Delphi, I needed to catch the ferry to Santorini. I had a 1AM departure and was supposed to catch the metro all the way to the port. Not a problem. When I was checking out at the hostel, I mentioned that I was heading to Santorini and I was then told that the metro was down. Now what? I could take a bus, but the easiest thing to do was take a taxi. I went to the metro station, but could not tell which bus I needed to take, so I went ahead and took a taxi. The total was about 30 Euros (43.04 USD), so I handed the driver a 50. What does the driver do? He pulls out a 10 and says the total was 30 and that all I had given him was a 10. I looked in my wallet and only had a couple 5′s left. I knew I had given him a 50, as I had just gone to the bank and that is all it gave me. I told him I had no other money and was adamant that I had in fact given him a 50. He quickly changed his story to if I wanted any change. What? He handed my a 20 back and I quickly got out. I had to wait around the port until around midnight and quickly found my cabin for the night and went to sleep.
I got into Santorini around 1 and had nothing planned. I met another guy in my hostel room, who was originally from Los Angeles and had been living in Hong Kong for the past 5 years working for Leimen Brothers. He didn’t have plans either and we thought it would be fun to rent quads and drive around the island, as that is how most of the tourists were getting around. For 20 Euros ($28.69 USD), we both rented a quad for the day and hit the streets. Feeling hungry, we found our way to a Mexican restaurant, which was surprisingly good. I didn’t have much expectations, considering we were in Greece, but the food was pretty good. After lunch, we drove over to Black Sand Beach. We had a drink and started started heading back to the hostel. As we were heading back, the sun started to set and we pulled over and watched the sunset.
The next day, we exchanged our quads for ones with a little larger engine, as we were being passed by everyone. We headed to Oia, which is where most of the famous pictures of Santorini and Greece come from. The blue and white buildings are built into the side of the island and look amazing with the beach right below. We walked around Oia and decided to go swimming. We went down a closed off path to the beach right in front of Oia and swam for a while. After tyring ourselves out, we got back on our bikes and wanted to continue to explore the island. We headed to Ancient Thira, which are the remains of a very old town on Santorini, located high up on the top of a mountain. We had a great time driving our bikes up the mountain and had a great view of the island.
We were almost back to the hostel when all of the sudden my bike started to slow down and I couldn’t get it moving faster. I quickly pulled over and tryed to start it back up. No luck. I was out of gas and the bike wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. Luckily, we were in town and at the bottom of the hill to where we rented the quads. I left my quad there for the night and would worry about it in the morning.
The next day, we pushed my bike back and hopped for the best. They didn’t seem to care that much, as probably running out of gas is nothing compared to destroying the quad. We had already seen everything on the island, so we headed to a travel agency to see what else there was to do on the island. He mentioned a 6 hour tour, that goes out to a volcano, a hot spring, and an island called Thirassia. The tour was 25 Euros ($35.87 USD) and would provide a guide and a nice boat ride. The tour was fun, as we met some other travelers from Canada and the US. While on Thirassia, we had had lunch and had some moussaka.
The next day I was supposed to take a ferry from Santorini to Crete and this is what I wrote as soon as I got on board:
I am sitting here on my Hellenic Seaways ferry, “Flyingcat 4″, and just boarded 7:45PM. The ferry was very late, as the original departure was at 5:45PM. This wouldn’t be much of a problem, but I expect we will arrive around 9:30PM and buses stop running at 9. I would take a taxi, but the port I arrive at is 1-1/2 hours away. I was only going to have one full day and planned on hiking the Samaria Gorge, but in order to do the hike I would have to catch a bus from my town around 6 or 7 in the morning. At the moment, I have no idea where I will be sleeping or if I can even do the hike. Frustrating! Assuming I can get into town tonight, I will be arriving around 11PM. Thursday is free (hopefully do the hike), Friday I take a ferry at 11AM back to Athens, arrive in Athens at 5PM, and Saturday fly out of Athens around 10AM.
Update: I arrived at the port and started looking for other backpackers. I asked several people if they were heading to the same hostel and finally ran into a group of 4 other backpackers from Australia who were heading to the same place. We found a taxi who would take all 5 of us to Rethymni, about an hour away. The fare was 90 Euros ($129.13 USD) and we arrived around midnight. I quickly headed to bed and needed to be up at 6 in order to go to the gorge.
