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Chisinau (Кишинёв), Moldova

After getting up in Brasov, Romania, we walked to the train station and had to wait 2 hours for the next train. It is really hard to get the information right the first time in Romania. Customer service is terrible and they are not telling you everything you need to know. You have to know how to ask the right questions to get all the information. So, 2 hours later, we took a train to Ploiesti. We then found some food and caught the night train to Chisinau, Moldova. The journey was around 12 hours. The border for Moldova is a good 3 hours process as you have to “leave” Romania, then “enter” Moldova. After all the border controls, they changed the wheels of the train wagons as Moldova uses Russian standard for the tracks. That consist of moving around all the wagons to different areas, lifting them up in the air to change the wheel assembly and reattaching all the wagons together. We got to Moldova almost on time at around 9 in the morning. Moldova’s country side is beautiful and we planned a few day trips that will follow in the next posts. As for the city itself, it is a capital that has a lot of energy and not that many tourists so it was great. They also have nice parks and one of them offer free wifi so we saw lots of locals relaxing there with their phones and laptops.

Public flea market. A lot of old stuff laid out on blankets in a parking, on the walkways and on a whole street by the train station. It is possible to find anything there; from the old rusted tools to a new or old pair of shoes. Really special place.
Inside of the train station
The night train cabin
Wheel changeover process at the border
A road 20 mins from the capital. Did we miss a turn?
Driving 5 or 6 cars wide in the capital without lines makes it an adventure to rent a car
The bus “station”
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Brasov, Romania

We stayed in Brasov for one week, at the end of our train pass. Leaving Prague at 15:30, we did a first train to Budapest and then changed for a night train to Brasov. We arrived at 14:30 the next day. We took a few days to relax as we were exhausted. It is really hard to move like this all the time. We stayed inside the flat we rented for a few days without doing anything else than reading, researching for future destinations and watching some TV shows. On one of the last day there, we hiked Mount Tampa, up to the Brasov sign, walked in the old city and saw the narrowest street of Europe. It felt really good to be in the same city for more than 2 days.

View of Romania from the train
Some sunflowers
Some more…
First class private 2 beds cabin
Modern Romanian transportation waiting for the train to go by
 
Almost 400 meters above the city
The sign
Brasov
View from mount Tampa
Brasov sign view from the town
This is apparently the narrowest street of Europe
Map of the train route so far, at the end of the 2 months train pass.
Mountains of Transylvania
 
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Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic

Sedlec Ossuary is a small Roman Catholic church in the town of Kutna Hora, Czech Republic. It is decorated with human bones and skulls. It contains the bones of between 40,000 and 70,000 people. They made a huge chandelier, a coat of arms and a lot of decorations on the walls. There are also 4 piles, one in each corner, of bones and skulls. They had to unearth mass graves for the building of a Gothic church in the 15th century and the lower level was built to be used as an ossuary to store those extra bones.

 

One of the neatly organized pile of bones
Huge Chandelier containing at least one of every bone in the human body
Schwardzenberg coat of arms

Outside of the Gothic Church
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Prague, Czech Republic

Prague was a nice city. It also seems like it’s a big party destination for students. We stayed in a big hostel, where everybody seemed to be there to go party all night. We met quite a few nice people and enjoyed our visit. It was a very nice stop even if we were not in a party mood. It has beautiful architecture and a few older cobblestone streets. Prague was worth seeing but after so many other nice European cities it wasn’t that different.

Charles Bridge
David Cerny’s work
Before I die board
Dancing House by Frank Gehry

Charles Bridge
Astronomical Clock

Valdstejnska Zahrada Park
Our new big friend 🙂 

 
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Eisriesenwelt Ice Caves, Austria

The main reason for our stop in Salzburg was to see the Eisriesenwelt ice caves. We got up early and took the train to Werfen, Austria. The train ride was in a valley surrounded by big fields with white top mountains in the background. The little village is very colorful and peaceful. We took a mini bus from the station to the ticket office, 5 km uphill. We then had to do a steep twenty minutes walk to get to the cable car that took us closer to the cave entrance. There was another twenty minutes steep walk to get to the entrance. A good work-out well worth it but not over. The tour consist of a 1 km deep visit in the caves that are 40 km long. It is again a workout as you go up and down around 1400 stairs in the ice caves . The caves are beautiful with the ice formations inside that the guide illuminates from behind for the visitors. Unfortunately, pictures are forbidden inside the caves during the tour so we borrowed one from their website as an example. It is magical and a must see in Austria.

 

Werfen Castle, Austria
Werfen, Austria
Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg, Austria
Inside the caves. This is a picture from them as you are not allowed to use your camera inside the caves.
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Train from Venice, Italy to Füssen, Germany and Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany

After a fairly long train day we arrived in Füssen. The train journey was really scenic, the real Bavaria. On the next morning we walked the 5.8 km to the castles. We climbed up to Hohenschwangau Castle where Ludwig II was born. He had the Neuschwanstein Castle built in 1880s and the castle reflects his obsession with Wagner operas and swans. It was unfortunately never finished as the King died in suspicious circumstances. He only lived in the castle for less than a year. We had a guided tour of the castle which allowed us to see the extend of King Ludwig II’s passion. The scenery was very beautiful in and around Füssen. We enjoyed the small stress free village.

 
 
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Venice, Italy

We got up to take the train to Venice. The train ride getting from Verona to Venice was very scenic, especially when entering Venice via the bridge. When we got out of the station, we found the Hotel Guerrini very easily. We checked in and went for a walk in the little streets of Venice. There are many bridges that go across the canals. There is also a lot of boat traffic and tourists. It is very nice and relaxing to be in a car-free city. It was very funny to see water taxis, water buses, water ambulances, water polices etc.

The next day, we visited beautiful Venice all day, getting lost in the small streets. We had a look at the big Piazza S Marco, and walked along the Canal Grande for a little while. We came back to the hotel for a late lunch, early supper, before going out again to get some gelato. Venice is a popular tourist destination and there is a good reason for this; it is simply magnifico! It has so much character. It is worth visiting.


 
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Cinque Terre, Italy

We took the train to Riomaggiore, the first village, where we discovered that the path was still not open to the public. We had trouble getting information, and the Italian ladies we asked didn’t wanted to work and made it very obvious. While in line to get a map, Seb got adopted by a 4 year old little girl. She thought she was getting close to her dad but was holding onto Seb’s shirt instead. We took the train to the third village, Corniglia where we followed the path to Vernazza. The path was really scenic and the colorful villages look like they are barely hanging on the cliffs. It was very beautiful and very crowded.

 
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Pisa, Italy

We took the train from Rome and did a short stop in Pisa. Pisa is a nice city and the tower is definitely leaning! Apparently there are a few leaning towers in Italy… So during that period they probably didn’t know to take in consideration the soil the towers where standing on. We had pizzas and wine for lunch in a local restaurant. The pizzas were again really good. Italians do know how to cook pizzas. After a few hours of walking in the city with our backpacks, we took another train to get to Genova.

 
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Pompei, Italy

We got up early to take the fast train from Rome to Napoli and a regionnal train from Napoli to Pompei. Pompei is a town that was covered in volcano ashes and mud during the Vesuvio eruption in AD79. There was 20 000 people living in the city during that period, but because there was an earthquake before, most of them had already moved. Still 2000 people died in a matter of seconds when the blast from the volcano happened. Archaeologists did an awesome job removing the 3-5 meters of residue to uncover most of the town. It was very well developed with streets and houses. The inside of the houses were also decorated with paintings and marble. Truly impressive to see how people lived 2000 years ago.