Only 6 days until I leave for South America now, where I will be going to New York for 4 nights and then onto Colombia to start my tour with Dragoman around South America. Not really ready to go in terms of packing or anything but it normally all works out in the end! It's really difficult to know what to pack because my itinerary says be prepared for all four seasons in a day! Aside from that having left Tesco over a month ago now I've had a lot of free time, and it's been nice to just chill out and relax, and catch up with my friends. What I did do a couple of weeks ago though was a trip around Europe which I will talk about now.
With flights around Europe being so cheap these days I decided to a mini tour to a few European cities. I started off by flying to the city of Aalborg in Denmark, staying in the middle of nowhere between the towns of Hjallerup and Dronninglund. I spent 4 nights here, and managed to get in a days geocaching while exploring Dronninglund and it's surrounding countryside which was very interesting. There were lots of sculptures and the area is particularly famous for its church. At the weekend I went into Aalborg and met a couple of friends I met travelling last time, and they showed me round the city. Aalborg isn't a massive city and has by no means got many tourists, but it was still a very nice city. They even took me to Jomfru Ane Garde which is a street with over 30 bars down it!
I left Aalborg on the Monday and took the short flight to Copenhagen which literally took about 30 minutes (saving a long train journey). I stayed in Copenhagen for 5 nights. Some of the highlights in the city included Nyhavn which is a famous street of colourful buildings, the little mermaid which is the famous statue in the water, the green light district which was a very interesting place, and the Copenhagen street food complex which was a lively area serving food and drinks from all over the world. Despite being a slightly expensive city, I managed to go out and watch the football most nights (including a brilliant 3-0 for Southampton in Europa). Whilst in Copenhagen I even managed to get a day trip to Malmo in Sweden which is connected to Copenhagen by bridge and tunnel through the sea. Another highlight was a trip to Tivoli Gardens which was literally right next to hostel, and is the second oldest amusement park in the world. Copenhagen is definitely somewhere I would recommend visiting! One thing you do find with Denmark though is there is a lot of homeless people going through the bins, and I found out eventually that were collecting bottles because they paid to recycle them (because when you buy a bottle in a shop you have to pay a deposit on it).
After a busy time in Copenhagen, I then took a flight to Rome where I stayed a further 5 nights. My accommodation was literally a 10 minute walk from the Colosseum which was ideal and all the main sights were in walking distance for me. I did find away from the tourist areas Rome was a little dodgy in terms of the homeless people, and vast amounts of graffiti everywhere, not to mention the traffic light system whereby cars didn't seem to acknowledge red and green! Despite this is took me 3 days just to explore the city! I spent a day exploring the main sights including the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, and Pantheon to name a few of the interesting things to see. I then spent a day actually inside the Colosseum and the Roman forum next door which literally took ages to explore due to its size! I then also spent a day exploring the Vatican which was very interesting, and even took a walk up the dome which took ages to get up the narrow staircases! As with Denmark I managed to watch the Southampton games without any problems (even if the Swansea game was on a small screen in the corner while the rest of the pub were watching some Irish sport thing). At least we won! The food here was also amazing, especially the pizza!
After a busy time in Rome, I spent my last day on the beaches of Ostia and Fiumicino just outside the city to relax (being near the aiport), before catching an evening flight back to the UK. It was nice to spend a couple of weeks exploring some new cities, but it was nice to come home to my own bed! I even somehow managed to visit 4 countries while I was away if you count Sweden and Vatican City. I'll try and keep my blog updated while I am away, although I am still unsure how easy WiFi will be to obtain.
6 days to go, Harry.
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