Sightseeing, Skiing and Some Français

I'd like to say that I'm finally posting here today because it's the one month anniversary of leaving for my backpacking trip, but the truth of it is that I've just been majorly procrastinating getting caught up on my blog because I have no idea where to begin or how to go about telling the story of my trip. To avoid this resembling my journal entries, I thought I would just focus on the stand-out moments and places I visited.

First things first, the week before I left for my trip was quite eventful, so here's a few pictures and stories from then:

The Monday before I left, some family friends from Canada, Jean and Dave, arrived in Prague while touring around Europe racing in cross country ski loppets and I spent the day with them showing them around. I don't have any pictures from the day as Dave was the main photographer of the group, but the weather was beautiful and, surprising to myself, I actually really enjoyed touring around Prague, something I've done many times. This time, though, I had written down a mini-tour of the Old Town as well as the Jewish Quarter, and I learned and actually enjoyed learning a lot about the history of Prague while we wandered the streets. Normally history doesn't settle well in my brain (I like to say it goes in one ear and out the other, despite my best intentions at remembering and being interested in it), but on that day I was really digging it. And to top off a wonderful day, they brought me a jar of maple syrup all the way from Canada!

The next day was spent planning my trip and finally booking my flight to Geneva for Friday. On Wednesday, Kasia and I went to the ballet! It was Swan Lake, and we managed to score super cheap tickets 30 minutes before the show started: only 100 kc, which is around 5$ CDN. We were in the very back row of the top balcony but we could see the entire stage and the view from there was quite spectacular. The ballet itself was also really cool, although I didn't know the story beforehand which would have been good to know, but all in all it was a great experience.

The view from our seats. Not complaining for 5$!

Swan Lake. Excuse the bad quality, this was taken using my not-so-stellar phone camera.

On Thursday (which was an AWESOME day because I finally, after almost 6 weeks, received my Christmas present in the mail from my parents!!!), Hanna and I played tourist in Prague for the afternoon. We went for lunch at Vytopna Restaurant which, on top of having delicious and affordable food, has a mini train network throughout the restaurant which delivers drinks! I felt like a little kid again watching the trains go around the track, it was quite fun.

After that, we checked out the Czech Press Photo gallery in the Old Town hall, which featured award winning photos taken in the past year from a variety of different fields including nature, politics, current events, and many more. It was fascinating and also informative, as I learned a lot about what happened in 2013 mostly in the Czech Republic but also around the world.

Then, we climbed the Astronomical Clock tower. We took the spiralling ramp all the way to the top (not the elevator!) and enjoyed a stunning 360-degree view of Prague.

Prague from the Astronomical Clock tower in Old Town Square

Prague Castle in the distance

Following that, we descended the tower (elevator this time) and made our way to Charles Bridge, the most touristic spot in Prague, where with dusk falling we had an amazing view of the Castle:

Prague Castle

Now, trip time! I flew to Geneva on Friday morning, barely fitting my backpack through the carry-on baggage size checker. After such a busy week I was looking forward to a fairly low key start to my trip. My two full days in Geneva mainly consisted of wandering around the city, hanging out in coffee shops, running, and getting caught up on sleep.

Flower Clock 

Jet d'Eau, one of the city's most famous landmarks and also one of the largest fountains in the world

Fun facts about the fountain: it can be seen from an airplane at 33000 ft! Water shoots to a height of 140 metres, consuming 500 litres of water per second. While running along the boardwalk around the lake one morning I ventured down the stone jetty to the fountain but I didn't make it as close as is possible for fear of a gust of wind or spray knocking me off the path.

This was the only part of my trip that I stayed in a hostel, and I'm quite glad I did because I met some cool people in my dorm room from the USA, Australia and Russia, and hung out with the American on my last day in Geneva. We went to the Red Cross museum, a highlight of the trip for me. Very eye-opening and sobering and informative.

Next stop: Le Bourget-du-Lac! I had quite a challenging time meeting up with my covoiturage driver (covoiturage, aka BlaBlaCar, is the French equivalent of rideshare in Canada), because my Czech phone number had run out of credit and I couldn't find a place to buy more credit or a new sim card before I was supposed to meet him. Nevertheless, it all worked out in the end and I got a ride 1 hour into France, where I spent the next three days with the Ackermann family from Kimberley, BC, which is 4 hours from my hometown. I had a lovely time with them, enjoying delicious home-cooked meals, sightseeing, skiing for my first time this winter, and relaxing in their rented house overlooking the Bauges mountains (part of the French Prealps) and Lac Bourget. 

The Elephants Fountain: the most famous landmark in Chambéry, a nearby city. 

While wandering the streets of Chambéry on my first day, we happened across a wine-tasting festival and managed to get in without paying the 5 euro entrance fee, since it was closing in one hour. My favourite part of the event was having the wine salespeople show us on a map where the wine we were drinking came from, and generally it was no more than 100km away which was pretty cool. I wasn't a fan of the spit buckets at each table though.. to avoid getting drunk from tasting all the different wines, it is commonplace to swirl the wine around in one's mouth to get the taste of it then spit it out. Gross! And wasteful!

Biennale des Vins de Montagne et de Forte Pente (Biennial of Wines from Mountains and Steep Slopes)

The picturesque view from the Ackermann's rented house 

One of the main reasons I made this a necessary stop on my trip was that I would have the opportunity to go cross country skiing for the first and most likely only time this winter, as the Ackermann's are all avid skiers. It was both weird and great to be back on skis, and I savoured every second of it. On our first afternoon skiing, dense fog had blanketed the entire area so there wasn't much to see, but on day two, we had picture-perfect, blue-bird weather:

So picturesque!

Snow + mountains + skiing = happy Sonja :) 

I couldn't have asked for a nicer day for our second ski. Thank you weather gods!

I reluctantly left the wonderful hospitality of the Ackermann's to continue my journey through France. My next stop was Toulouse, but I had some trouble finding a covoiturage directly there so I ended up going to Grenoble and spending part of the day there before connecting with a second covoiturage driver for the rest of the route to Toulouse. I had my backpack with me, which at this point weighed I think 14-15kg (it was supposed to be 8kg to qualify as carry-on but they seem to care more about size than weight, lucky for me!) but that didn't stop me from touring around the entire city and even climbing the Bastille, which is the hill towering over the city. The weather wasn't ideal for sightseeing but thankfully it stopped raining for the hike, which took 45 minutes and caused my quads to be sore for a full 4 days afterwards..

Mountains peeking through the clouds to provide a scenic backdrop to houses along the river Isère 

The view from the top!

That's enough for one blog post. I know I said at the start that I was posting it on the anniversary of the start of my trip, and I did actually start it on that day, the 17th, but these things take time so, one day later than expected, here it is. Part II coming soon!

Enjoy!

-Sonja