Há exactamente 30 anos atrás, no Verão de 1988, fiz com o Rui aquela que ainda é hoje uma das minhas viagens mais memoráveis - o interrail. Partimos ao fim do dia da Estação Velha de Coimbra, e fomos no Sud-Express até Paris. Depois fomos a Amesterdão, Copenhaga, Berlim, e outra vez Paris, no regresso a Portugal.
Neste Verão de 2018 foi a vez do Miguel fazer o seu interrail, com 2 amigos de Lisboa. Numa versão mais moderna, é certo, mas espero que igualmente memorável (e pelos seus relatos não duvido que o tenha sido). No caso deles em vez de apanharem o Sud-Express e perder horas a fio a atravesar Espanha, foram de avião até Amesterdão. Benditas low cost! E daí seguiram para Berlim, Praga, Cracóvia, Budapeste, Croácia (Split e ilha de Hvar) e por fim Itália - Roma, Florença, Veneza e Milão. No fim, estavam cansados e felizes!
Em 1988 não havia telemóveis, nem redes sociais. Telefonava uma vez por semana para os meus pais de uma cabine telefónica, e entre estes contactos eles não faziam a menor ideia de onde estava e o que estava a fazer. O Miguel e os amigos criaram uma conta no WhatsUp à qual adicionaram os pais, e lá fomos tendo notícias, mais ou menos assíduas, o que reduziu muito a minha ansiedade maternal. Mas o melhor mesmo foram os relatos que o Miguel foi escrevendo no Facebook sobre os sítios por onde passaram. Trinta dias memoráveis que, com sorte, lhe vão valer anos e anos de boas recordações.
Para quem não o segue no Facebook, ou por lá não passa com regularidade suficiente para ir acompanhando o seu diário de viagem, aqui ficam os seus textos. Desta vez sem fotografias, para não distrair do mais importate. As palavras. Se calhar não vão ter paciência para os ler todos, mas eu quero aqui guardá-los para memória futura.
AMESTERDÃO
Ok so I meant to start this yesterday but I thought about a clever caption so I delayed it to today. I’ll do a little photoalbum and description for each of our days! Or while I have patience for this...
Anyways, first day: got to the Amsterdam airport, paid 5 (!) euros for a
train ticket to the city (we soon realized we have it good in Portugal
in terms of prices), ate a damn good burger as our first meal, then
walked a bit around the city. We were surprised at the sheer
amount of bikes in the city. I mean Minneapolis is the most
bike-friendly city in the US, they say, but it doesn’t get even close to
here!! Anyways, we then visited one of the famed Amsterdam coffeeshops, and
then went home to the hostel. Went back out at night to see the famous
Red Light District, which was a fun but bizarre experience. Didn’t go
home too late, we were exhausted! But overall awesome first day.
Second day: we got a taste of the Amsterdam life as we rented some
bikes and went around the city in them. It was hectic!! I almost fell
twice, Afonso made this lady fall, but it was a blast. It’s such a
fantastic way of seeing around the city, and makes everything much
quicker. We had a great lunch outside a grocery store, featuring bread
and turkey, and met some Portuguese people! It was nice seeing fellow
comrades. We went around the area with tons of museums, then headed over
to the Windmill, which meant Dutch crafted beer! It was pricey, as
everything here is, but definitely worth it. Great second day, it’s such
a different culture and we’ve met some awesome people so far.
A little late (whoops) but day 3: today was much more relaxing, which
meant less pictures. We took a free walking tour of Amsterdam, where we
had an amazing tour guide and made me even sadder for being unable to go
to certain museums and places, like Anne Frank’s house. We got to try some old Dutch cheese though, which even though I abhor
cheese made for a cool pic! Afterwards we came back and packed, and on
our way out met a couple of awesome French dudes living in Brasil. They spoke some awesome Portuguese and we were sad that we only got to talk to them for half an hour before leaving.
I’m writing this from the Berlin main train station, while waiting for
the subway to take us to the center of the city. Our first train ride(s)
was an experience. We took a train to Eindhoven, then a bus to
Düsseldorf, and finally an overnight ride to Berlin. It was rough
getting here at 5:40 AM, as we have a tour we want to go to in less than
5 hours... but onwards we go!
BERLIM
Day 5: today (yesterday) I fell in love with two things: Berlin and
free walking tours. All at the same time! After arriving in Berlin at
5:45 AM and resting for a little bit at the hostel, we went and walked
around for a bit before our tour started at 11. I knew I was going to
like it at once. The buildings in downtown were old and full of history
(if you know me, you know I’m kind of a history geek), and the city has
the kind of feel that it’s been through a lot and it’s aware of that.
That feeling was confirmed in our free walking tour. Aided by an
amazing guide, she took us through an unforgettable walk through Berlin
and its history, especially how it was shaped through the daunting 20th
century. We walked through the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe
during it, and the tour guide recommended the museum under it so we went
there afterwards. So powerful. To hear the stories of but a few of the
victims and the families, it filled me with something that is hard to
identify. Not sadness, not anger, but a weird mixture of hope and
hopelessness. Sounds strange, but I think you’ll only understand if you
ever visit it. SO DO IT.
We went to the hostel afterwards,
chilled, had dinner, and got ready to go out. We joined a pub crawl
through the bars of Berlin, and boy was it fun! The night in Berlin is
awesome, but it also ends earlier than Lisbon’s, which I was honestly
thankful for. Some much needed sleep. Sorry for the huge post today,
Berlin has a part of my heart now. Can’t wait to see what it holds for
us today!
Days 6/7: these days seeing around Berlin reinforced my love for the
city. What a place! It’s a beautiful city, influenced by the several
different conflicts and tragedies it’s been through. In a way, it’s like
Lisbon, in that centuries of history shaped it into something unique.
We went to the Turkish Market, ate a classic German burger, visited a
section of the wall, the old Third Reich SS building, the Topography of
Terror, the Memorial for the Fallen Soviet Soldiers, and more. They were
a great couple of days!
I took less pictures than usual because I
was so enthralled in the city, but I’ll try to get back on track in
Prague, which is where we’re currently headed. Updates to come, so stay
tuned
PRAGA, CRACÓVIA, BUDAPESTE E CROÁCIA
For those of you who know me well, you know that I get sick easily...
too easily. And of course I had to get sick in one of the best months
in my life! So anyways that’s why my updates took a hit. And what a hit!
We’ve been through Prague, Krakow, Budapest, and now Croatia. A lot of
pictures and adventures went undocumented, so here’s my weak attempt to
make up for it.
Prague: so different from the previous cities that we’ve been in! While Amsterdam seemed like a very modern city,
and Berlin felt like a city that, while aware of its past, looked
forward to the future, Prague felt like a gateway back hundreds of
years. An old city, with lots of history, beautiful buildings, churches,
and bridges, and very diverse. We very much enjoyed our time here, and a
particular nod must be given to the city’s castle. Wow. Up on the hill,
made up of several palaces, churches, and fortifications, and a long
wall that goes around all of the former. A must-see if you ever go to
Prague!
Krakow:
Unfortunately, I became sick when we got here on the first day, so I
didn’t enjoy Krakow as much as I could and wished. Yet the taste that I
got did not disappoint, and it left me wanting more, much more. I’ll be
back! The place that left the deepest mark in me though was not in
actual Krakow. It was an hour west of it actually, in the infamous
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The feelings that the day-long
visit there evoked in me are indescribable, so I won’t even try to. I’ll
just say one thing: visit it, see it yourself, learn the stories of
those who spent the harshest years there, and never forget what you
learned there. I know I won’t.
Budapest: again, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to, my being sick really put a dampener on it, but what I did see impressed me a whole lot. Budapest is amazing!
Cheap, beautiful, the people were nice (definitely our best stay at a
hostel, we made a whole lot of friends!), and the buildings magnificent.
I really really really really want to go back, leaving was not a
goodbye, it was a see you later!
Croatia: I’m currently writing
this in a hostel in the Croatian island of Hvar, a paradise on the
Adriatic Sea. Very expensive, a little too bourgeois for my taste,
but it is a nice rest from all the traveling we’ve done so far. The
beaches here are oh so pretty, the water oh so clear, and the weather oh
so hot. My patriotic self will still obviously say Portuguese beaches
are MUCH better, but the beaches here are a nice change (still, if you
wanna go to the beach in Europe, look no further than Algarve. You’re
not getting better than that!)
Alright, that’s it for now, sorry
for the really long post. I’m better now, so hopefully I’ll be more
timely with my posts again. See ya next time!
ROMA
I was warned about Rome, but I always brushed these away as one of my
mom’s exaggerations or my friends’ hype-building. Boy, I should not
have done that.
Rome isn’t always the prettiest city, nor is it
the cleanest or easiest to walk around. It is, however, the grandest,
most imposing, and most majestic city that I have ever been in. And
probably will be. You can be walking around the streets and suddenly run
into 2000-year old columns that are surviving the test of time and still
standing. There are more churches and monasteries that I can count, and
all of them are huge and rich inside. I guess it makes sense since the
Catholic Church was pretty damn rich back in the day, but holy smokes.
We took a one-day trip to the Vatican, and that was probably what I
most enjoyed out of anything in our trip since Berlin. Having bought a
ticket for only 8€, we got in the dozens of museums that they have,
varying from Egyptian artifacts to renaissance paintings to an
incredibly long hallway full of huge paintings of maps of the various
regions of Italy directly painted on the wall (this one impressed me a
lot, as you probably guessed). And of course, the Sistine Chapel, and,
last but definitely not least, St. Peter’s Cathedral. This church was
HUGE. Think literally Mines of Moria in Lord of the Rings huge.
Monumental pillars, incredibly detailed statues and paintings all over, a
ridiculous number of domes, and an Iron Throne-looking seat at the end
of the Church, worthy of gods. Color me impressed!
So yes, if
you’re ever in Europe, Rome HAS to be in your travel plans. I’ve said
this a fair amount of times on my posts, but trust me when I say this
city is quite unlike any other, and definitely one of my favorites on
our trip so far. Onward to Florence for us now, stay tuned.
Infelizmente, este foi o último relato. Ainda foram a Florença, Veneza e Milão, onde apanharam o avião de regresso a Lisboa. Gostava que tivesse feito um texto sobre a experiência em geral, mas não aconteceu. A vida aconteceu e agora já está de volta a Minneapolis, onde se prepara para mais um ano lectivo.
