Rome to Prague

It was inevitable. I got lazy. If it didn't take so damn long to upload photos I wouldn't mind but it's seriously time consuming.

After Florence came Rome. The city was pretty amazing as far as the history side of things goes but it was marred by the people. Italian men are incredibly sleazy which makes it difficult going out with 38 girls in your group. We went on a pub crawl and one of the girls ended up in hospital with her drink spiked and a bunch of people having their belongings stolen after she collapsed on the dance floor. Rome - beautiful but just another big city.

While in Rome we ventured into Vatican City for a couple hours. As you guys know, I'm not fussed on religion and Vatican City was a pretty big reminder of the hypocrisy that is the Catholic Church. Despite this, it's hard not to be impressed with the grandiose of this place. We walked around St. Peter's for a while then spent a while in Sistine Chapel. I couldn't help but wonder if I was the first person in history to talk about donkey shows in St. Peter's and have a photo of his balls taken inside Sistine Chapel...

After Rome was Venice. A gorgeous city that made for the perfect opportunity to throw the map away and just get lost. There's relatively little to see in Venice except the beauty of the city itself, which meant we weren't rushing around trying to fit in all the "big attractions". I'm glad we were there in winter because the infamous stench was hardly noticeable.

We took a gondola ride which was rather unimpressive then just wandered aimlessly for a few hours. Just as the sun was setting we decided to take the Vaporetto (water bus) from St Mark's Square back to the bus station. This took us almost the entire length of the Grand Canal.It more than made up for the gondola ride... Absolutely stunning.

Overall, I wasn't too impressed by Italy. So much history and beauty but some serious disappointments too. I was not at all impressed by the food in Italy, which was often extremely over-priced, very small portioned (9 euros for 4 pieces of ravioli?), and bland. Also, with the men being so incredibly sleazy, it made it difficult to enjoy a night out.

Next, we went to Salzburg, Austria, for a night. By this point of the tour there hadn't been a night that I wasn't incredibly drunk... It caught up to me in Austria. After celebrating a girl's 21st in spectacular fashion, the flu I could feel coming hit me like a tonne of bricks. I was out of action for any sightseeing and didn't get any photos.

Prague... I fell in love with Prague. Prague was the first city that I really felt that I needed to stay a lot longer. It's the perfect mix of middle-ages, 19th century industrialisation, and blossoming modern culture... and the food and booze was delicious, cheap and plentiful. I even got to try real Absinthe :D

We checked out Prague Castle, St. Vitus Cathedral (an absolutely amazing example of gothic architecture), wandered over Charles Bridge (which I seem to be missing pictures of), the peeing statues, the torture museum, the sex-machine museum (which I also seem to be missing photos of), and the mind-blowing astronomical clock.

The only small blemish on Prague was me getting into a (one sided) punch-up with a czech guy. We were on a pub crawl and having a lot of fun when this steroid junkie in this club started being an asshole and was just looking for a fight. After sleazing all over some of the girls, abusing our tour guide and stealing my hat in an attempt to piss me off and still not succeeding in getting into a fight, he decided it was time to up the ante and grabbed one of the girls, shake her around and start dragging her off the dance floor like a caveman... I snapped, charged across the dance floor and punched the guy in the head then slammed his face into the bar. He still hadn't gotten to his feet by the time we were all out the door.

Despite this, I absolutely loved Prague. The beauty of the city itself combined with the liberal feeling, great food, cheap booze and general oddness meant I felt very at home. I'm definitely going back!

I'll eventually get to the rest...