Way from Klagenfurt to Madrid

Hello everybody,

finally I got time and internet connection at the same time. First of all as a most important message: Buy interrail ticket only if you have no time pressure :)

I didn´t and got problems. My planned way from Klagenfurt to Barcelona was originally via Venice and Milano. It was basicaly a good idea until a guy at railway office in Klagenfurt told me that I´d have to pay 60 Euro extra. So I decided for another connection via Zürich and Genéve, which should take same time but I had to change trains more.

There was only one problem. I mustn´t miss any of the trains otherwise timetable crashes and I´ll not come to Barcelona on time. As some of you knows I´ve already missed a train to Lyon and probabely in manner to make a tradition from this gods let me miss my connection to Lyon again.

This meant that after struggeling in french local trains which were always late and I had to change schedule three times I got to Perpignan, the last bigger city on a french side of french-spanish border. This was the last arrival to Perpignan on that day and there was no other train to Spain.

First who welcomed me at the station was french police. The guys were interested what I´m doing there and where do I stay over night. Well I didn´t have any place to stay and they strongly redommended me to go to one of local hotels next to the railway station. The only bad thing was that there was no hotel opened. I was so tired that after one hour searching I decided to sleep in a dark corner next to the police station. It was cold but fortunately thare were no strange people going around.

Next morning I got the first train going towards Barcelona and everything was fine. Here are some photos from Barcelona:

One of the Gaudi´s most beutiful designs. Von Europe

A very nice hospital near to place I stayed in Barcelona. Von Europe

Sagrada Familia by Gaudi. Von Europe

Von Europe

As you see it got late and I was tired as well. So I went back to the hostel and took the first morning train to Madrid.

By the way the guys in front of my were spanish bioengineers who were supposed to work, but instead of it they played some online shooting games and told me that it´s normal :) It´s probabely nice to work in Spain. Von Europe

After three hours I got to Madrid and visited madrid´s most famous gallery Museo Nacional Del Prado, which I really liked. After finishing the visit I tried to take some photos of Royal Palace by night.

Royal Palace in Madrid.Von Europe

Finally there was my flight to Salvador on next day. I was told to come to the Airport at least two hours before departure. Guys you know me. I come always late, but this time I got scared cause I missed my train two days ago. This paid off. Unfortunately I didn´t know I need a back ticket from Brazil, otherwise I cannot enter the land. So I was forced to pay first class ticket which was really, really expensive. Furtunately I was able to buy it somehow and could fly and could cancel the ticket two days after with only 45 EURO fee.

So that´s it. Sorry for the delay I got with this post. It´s so nice here and so many things to do and it´s really difficult to stay in front of computer ;)

Have fun everybody. I will post as soon as possible.

Klagenfurt

First stop on my way to Madrid, where my flight to Brazil is, was Klagenfurt in Austria. Capital of Kaernten und nowadays base of my friend Nikolaj.

First we visited the city center with Stadthaus which is a seat of Kaerntens parliament.


We found a nice sign from one side of this building showing that after World War II Austria was splitted between the allies. Thats why it's in four languages. The sign itself says that nobody should destroy this building cause of its value. Well I' m not a historician to judge :-)


Another nice part of Klagenfurt is Woerthersee, which is about 25 km long but definitely not so wide.

Legend has it that a small man called Woerthesee Manndl who was really angry about people living in one valley and not going into church. This guy took his barrel full of something and drowned all the village and so Woerthersee was made.

Tired after so many informations about Kalgenfurt we decided to drink couple of beers in local pub.


Now I'm just packing my stuff and soon I will take an overnight train to Zuerich and via Switzerland and France I'll get to Barcelona tomorrow at 11 pm. Hopefully hostel I booked today will still be opened.

Intro

Hello my dear friends and visitors of my blog,

tomorrow I´ll set me off on my journey through south american continent and I hope it will be fun. Naturally I want to share all my experiences and adventures in this enterprise so I´ll try to keep this blog as up to date as possible.

I know there are also many of you, who like to interact. I suppose there is an option to comment my posts and I´m looking forward to your interesting comments.