Places I visited:

• Łódź
• Toruń
• Warsaw
  

Toruń is a medievil town that lies in northern Poland. It is best known worldwide for being the birthplace of Copernicus, and within Poland for it’s great fudge.

I arrived there with Marta at around midday after a three hour train ride from Łódź. Marta loves walking around and has a very good knowledge of her home country, so we took up hours wandering around looking at the old city walls, the ‘Leaning Tower’ on the Vistula side of the city fortifications, the house where Copernicus was born and of course the town hall in the centre. Toruń was untouched during World War II so all of the buildings and gothic structures are original, not reconstructions, which makes it all the more impressive.

We had a drink in a very old fashioned bar, to enter which we had to descend stairs from street level. This style of bar is extremely rare in Poland and is quite a novelty in Toruń. Marta reminded me how lucky I am in Edinburgh to have so many bars like this to choose from as well as modern bars and clubs all in one small city. We sat for the best part of an hour to rest and heat up from the harsh cold outside.

Before taking the train back home we walked around the brightly lit town centre and shopped for the best place to buy some fudge for me to take home to my family.

Other places I visited:

• Łódź
• Warsaw
  

I went to Poland to visit Marta, a girl I met while I worked at Heriot Watt University in Scotland. She owned a lovely little flat in Łódź, which I used as my base during my ten day stay in the country. I flew directly into Łódź, which had a surprisingly small airport. It was operated by no more than ten members of staff, who manually carried the passenger’s luggage from the plane into the terminal and placed them on tables. Marta was waiting for me outside.

It was the beginning of February, and it was one of the coldest winters on record. On the way to her flat we took the tram, which was a few degrees higher than the outside temperature, but still easily as low as -5°C.  Once I got settled into her flat we went straight back out again to follow the itinerary she’d set aside for the day.

Our first port of call was Izrael Poznanski’s Palace and textile factory, which I believe is the largest 19th century complex of it’s kind and has since been turned into a shopping centre and small museum. Inside the palace the rooms we got to visit had been kept very much the same as they were when Poznanski lived there.  Scenarios had been set up in each room with a manikin dressed up in the relevant clothing to help one imagine the lifestyle of this incredibly wealthy man at the time. There were another two factories similar to this one, each with it’s owners palace or mansion very close by, as was the workers terraced housing. One of which was owned by Carl Wilhelm Scheibler, who was one of the most important industrialists in Łódź.

The first night we went out to a local bar, where we met up with some of Mata’s friends. I often wandered off to speak to people I didn’t know and hope for an interesting conversation. To my surprise, a lot of the locals could speak English very well; one guy was even impressing me with different accents he could replicate better than I can, namely Aussie, English and American.

I went to a number of bars while I was there, but there’s one that sticks out above the rest for a bazaar reason. At the bar there were huge mirrors the height of the ceiling and length of the bar, but behind it was the ladies toilets. It was a one way mirror, so when the ladies were in the toilet, they could see out across the bar as if it was a window; what a strange concept. Some of the guys who knew where the cubicles were would deliberately stare into the mirror, hoping that there would be someone there at the time, the desired effect to make that person think they could be seen if one looked hard enough. Indeed there were a number of girls who refused to go to the toilet there and opted to cross the road to a nearby bar instead.

On one of my last days there I took a long walk with Marta, her flatmate Jo and her boyfriend through a nearby park and forest. The scenery was incredible, snow was everywhere and kids were being town in sleighs by horses and making huge snowmen, massive lakes were completely frozen over and long roads were empty of traffic. We stopped off at a café for a bite to eat and some hot chocolate near the end of the walk to warm up and relax, what a great day.

Other places I visited:

• Toruń
• Warsaw

Although within Europe there are many different languages and cultures, as a whole it has come to represent a unique civilisation whose ethical values have influenced much of the world.

From the renowned romance of Paris, the scenic Highlands of Scotland and infamous ski slopes of the Swiss Alps to the bustling metropolises of London and Berlin, Europe is a feast for the eyes.

A country of around 60 million inhabitants placed almost dead centre of the Mediterranean Sea. It includes the two largest islands in the Mediterranean, Sardinia and Sicily. The Italian people are stereotyped to be very fashionable, which I found after walking through the streets in Rome, has some truth to it.

Italy has a coarse past, especially during the Mussolini regime. It formed a pact with Nazi Germany and strongly supported Hitler’s annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia. After heavy defeats from the British and France in 1943, Germany invaded the former allies and the fascist Mussolini was arrested, which subsequently brought his regime to an end. For the rest of the war the country was a battlefield until it’s liberation on April 25, 1945.

Despite this, Italy is home to the greatest number of UNESCO world heritage sites and is seen as a seminal place of artistic evolution with such work as Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli and many more. Italy has also made a huge contribution to: literature; thanks to the likes of Quasimodo and Petrarch, Science; through Galileo Galilei, Alessandro Volta and Guglielmo Marconi, and music with composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti, Rossini and Puccini and the late tenor Pavarotti.

Places I visited:

• Alghero
• Rome

I flew to Rome from Alghero mainly to visit Raffaella, a friend of mine who I met in Scotland working for EF Languages. I told Raffaella when to expect me and she kindly booked a hostel on my behalf so that I didn’t have to worry about finding a place myself. I caught a train from the airport to the city centre and she met me there to show me to the hostel.

Most days Raffaella was happy to show me around the many places of interest during the day, and various bars in the evenings. The first place we visited together was the Colosseum, which I’d seen countless times in pictures and films before. This, however, didn’t do any justice to being in the presence of the structure itself, which stands almost 50m high, and covers an area of 24,000m². We walked for about twenty minutes from the Colosseum to Piazza Vennezia, which is dominated by the ‘Monument of Victor Emmanuel II’, where we met Raffaella’s friend Giovanna.

Giovanna couldn’t speak any English, so communication was difficult between us, luckily Raffaella was on hand most of the time. She seemed a lovely girl despite the lack of understanding on both our parts. One evening we went out together just the two of us. To this day I’m not sure how we coped the whole evening, but we had fun. Dinner followed by a drink and a walk home via Trevi Fountain, which was wonderfully lit up in an orange glow.

At the end of my month in Italy, the hostel where I was staying had organised a halloween party, and I was invited to go along with them. We hit the city with almost everyone dressed up as some kind of ghoul, not including me. Apart from one Irish girl in the hostel, I was the only one who wasn’t from Argentina. However, I relished the opportunity to use my Spanish since I hadn’t spoken it in months.

Other places:

• Alghero

Alghero is a small city located in the north west of Sardinia, the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. I was attracted to Alghero because of the very reasonable price for a scuba diving course, which I’d never done before. I booked my trip for the duration of one month, and planned to visit other towns on the island while I was there. For a change, I booked accommodation in advance so didn’t have to worry about finding a place to stay on my arrival. Once I was settled in, the first thing I did was look for a scuba diving centre. I cycled to a number of places that I found using a Google search, but the first two were closed for the autumn (it was mid October at the time).

On the second day I found Blue Service, just on the edge of Alghero city centre. The prices were great and staff, Michele and Matteo, were very welcoming. I booked the very basic PADI Scuba Diver course which lasted three days. It was an incredible experience, the first time under the water was so exciting and new for me. It’s hard to describe, and only another diver can understand the feeling. The water was very clear, I saw moray eels, barracuda, butterfly fish and an octopus.

Close to Alghero, further round the west coast, are caves called Cappo Caccia. I located it on a map and rented a bicycle for €7.00 to get there. It was around 16km each way to the caves over some steep hills, and in the 28°C heat I really had my work cut out for me. I had some lunch once I reached the cliff where the road ends and the stairs descend to the caves below. The stairs had been cut into the rock face and only 20 feet below me the waves were crashing into the rocks. At the cave entrance I was briefed by the guide, then followed her in while she talked about the history of the site. Apparently these caves are five million years old, and some of the stalagtites, which take over 100 years to grow 1cm, were upwards of 4m long.

I met some girls from New Zealand the following day, Lilly and Barbara. We had a fairly relaxing day, walked around the city, ate lunch and drank some beers. Then to finish the night off, we went to a local bar close to the hostel and had some whisky and cigars.

My plans to see the rest of Sardinia changed when I found that there were cheap flights to Rome from Alghero. I had a friend, Raffaella Addario, who lived there and since I hadn’t seen in a year or so, I decided to fly there instead of venture to the south of the island.

I returned to Alghero two years later in 2007, to undertake a PADI Open Water Diver certificate with Michele at Blue Service again. On this occasion I was joined by two very good friends of mine, Cameron Moyes and John Hanna, who were also interested in learning to dive.

Cameron and I took our own wetsuits with us so that we could go snorkelling near the hostel without having to rent equipment. The water was rather cold, and John ended up borrowing my wetsuit for the first day of snorkelling. He got used to it though and was happy to brace the cold and go in his speedos the following days.

Each day saw us wake up early to dive at around 09:00, then we hit the restaurants for lunch and beer just after mid day, followed by the supermarket for snacks and more beer to drink at the hostel. We’d then store the goodies in the fridge and while it chilled, we snorkelled in a different location each day, and returned to have some cold beer and a good laugh. It was a great little break with the lads.

Other places:

• Rome

Throughout history, France has had a huge influence on the rest of the world. Between the 17th and 19th centuries it had the second largest colonial empire in the world. It’s influence stretched from metropolitan France in Europe to North America, South America, Western Africa, Southern Asia and Polynesia. At it’s peak, the empire had almost 9% of the worlds landmass under its sovereignty.

Today, France has the 6th strongest economy in the world and the second largest Exclusive Economical Zone, extending over 11,000,000km² across the worlds oceans. With such destinations as the Eiffel Tower, Palace of Versailles, Carcassonne Castle, Notre Dame, The Louvre, many sun spots across the Mediterranean coast and countless ski resorts in the east it’s no surprise to learn that France is the most visited country in the world, receiving more than 80 million visitors annually.

Places I visited:

• Les Gets
• Paris
• Angers

I went to Paris with my girlfriend at the time, Claire, who was born and raised in France. Her father stayed in Villebon, a province of the capital, so we slept at his place and took a train into the city centre each day.

Claire acted the tour guide and led me to some of Paris’ main monuments and buildings. The first stop was Notre Dame. I’d seen it before in films and photographs, but only externally. Inside was completely new to me. It was very dark, little or no lights inside and a few candles burning in certain areas. This emphasised the windows and their marvelous patterns because of the natural light shining through. There was the option to go to higher levels but I was told by my guide it wasn’t worth it, so we went for lunch instead.

The Louvre is probably the most fascinating museum I’ve ever been to. The sheer scale of it is difficult to fathom. It is the most visited museum in the world and has over 35,000 objects on display from the 6th millennium to 19th century within an area of 60,600m². The most famous objects being the Venus de Milo statue and Mona Lisa painting. Although there’s been some controversy over the pyramids in the central courtyard I found them very attractive. I love the design and the fountains surrounding them. Inside, we wandered about aimlessly for hours and ended up getting lost despite having been given a map at the entrance.

Claire’s dad met us in the city a few times while we were out, he always treated us to lunch and dinner which was very kind of him. On the nights we were at his house his wife Hyunsook did most of the cooking, which was often in the style of her homeland, Korea. Plenty kimchi – excellent.

Claire and I were to head to her mother’s house in Angers while in France, so on our last full day before we caught the train we went into the city to see the Eiffel Tower. I’d seen it from the Seine when we took a quick cruise on one of the barges, but it wasn’t until I was standing right under it that I fully appreciated it’s size. We climbed the first three floors using the stairs, then took the elevator to the top. The view was incredible.

Other places:

• Les Gets
• Angers

Angers sits in the North West of France, near the region of Brittany. I took the TGV from Paris to Angers with Claire to visit her mother, Caro, who is English but has lived in France for 35 years.

Caro collected us from the train station and took us to her house, where I stayed for the duration of my time there. Since on this trip I wasn’t a tourist as such, and was there to visit Claire’s family, I spent most of my time in and around the house. I had a lot of time for the pets wandering about as well, Claire’s favourite cat Saffy and her rabbit Moka were both very friendly animals and I had perhaps too much fun chasing them about in the garden.

Other members of the family were visiting, and we all had dinner a few times in Caro’s house. The whole family are fantastic cooks, and when they’re all contributing to dinner the food is guaranteed to be top class. I loved it.

One of the overriding reasons to visit Angers is its stunning tapestry series on display at the Château d’Angers. It is the longest tapestry in the world, 100m survives of the original 140m. The works were woven in the 14th century and depict stories from the Book of Revelation.

Caro took us there and we spent hours looking at the story being told by these huge works of art. Apparently it takes almost a full year to hand weave only 1m², so judging by the long wall of tapestry I saw in front of me it had taken hundreds of people  many years to complete.

Other places:

• Leg Gets
• Paris