This week was a week of holidays and Jazz and I got to have the week to ourselves and our host families. But my host family and I spent little more than a couple of days at home in Oberaudorf.
First of all on the Tuesday, Lukas (my host brother), Korbi (my host brothers brother), and Klaus (my host brother's father), went on a road trip in the direction of Stuttgart, Strassburg, France and Europa Park, a huge theme park on the border of France and Germany. From Oberaudorf it's about 6 hrs so we left at about 6 am and arrived in Strassburg at about two in the afternoon. Strassburg is the city in which the European Parliament is situated and being on the border of two countries, France and Germany, it has had many different swaps of ownership from France to Germany and back again, but is now situated in France.
We had a good look around the city and the cathedral there and then bought tickets to go on a panorama boat that took us around the canals of Strassburg. That was really interesting and the fact that we did it in the twilight made it even better, and shed a whole new light on the attractions of Strassburg. We then hopped in the car again and travelled back into Germany to a town called Ruest, where the Europa Park is found. Ruest is little more than a town so don't bother asking me the significance of putting a theme park in this spot, because I don't know.
Anyway, the next whole day we spent taking in the park, quite literally from head to toe. We got there at nine in the morning and didn't leave again until about 8:30 at night when all the rides closed. We went on about 15 different rides and about twenty in total throughout the day. Most of these were rollercoasters, big and small but also a couple of water rides, etc. Overall we spent probably an hour on the actual rides, and the other 10 hours were spent either waiting in queues or walking around from ride too ride and around the park in general. So that gives you an idea of how busy it was on the day. So in Europa Park, if you're looking for a thrill then the three key rides are the Blue Fire, The Timber Coaster and the Silver Star. All of these have their own attributes and they are all rollercoasters. My favourite was the Timber Coaster because it was the fastest of the three. If you want to see what the coasters are like I'm sure there's videos on Youtube.
Whilst at the park we also went to some of the shows and the like. The next day we travelled back to Oberaudorf and stayed for the night. Another early start but this time we were headed south to Venice.
Once we arrived in Venice we went to the hotel and then out into the city. It is amazing! It all looks quite surreal for a while until you get used to the fact that you are completely surrounded by water. The first thing we did was travel by boat down the Grande Canale to San Marco, the heart of Venice. We then went to another islsnd called Lido, and then back to San Marco again. San Marco was by far the busiest place in the whole city, there were people everywhere. So we kept on walking all the way back to the hotel, looking at shops and souvenirs and thinking about what souvenirs I will buy.
The next day we got on the water bus again and travelled to San Marco again, but this time we had a really good look around the main attraction there, The Basilica di San Marco. When you see it you begin to understand why it is so popular. The intricacy in the decorations is amazing. So from there we travelled to another island called Murano. The big attraction on Murano is the glass blowing factories they have on this island, there are literally hundreds of individual businesses that each blow their own glass and sell it to the tourists, some pieces costing anything up to 4000 euros! And again the intricacy that is in the glass statues and jewellery and also the effort put into making them is astonishing.
We then travelled back to the main city and did some more exploration of the city before dinner and then bed. In the morning Korbi, Lukas and I did all of our souvenir shopping. We all bought carnavale masks which are pretty cool.
Venice for me was amazing and has always been on my list of things to do in my life, but I never expected it to be so much of a zoo. You could almost say its just one great big tourist park. But even still, it was one of most facinating places I've visited in my life. On the way back we visited Verona, the site of the real life Romeo and Juliette. So that was a pretty cool way to finish an awesome trip.
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| Basilica di San Marco |
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 Carnavale Masks |
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