Sorry for the delay - pictures are finally up! As promised, there is a big album with all of the photos we took for those of you with time to kill. For everyone else, there is a captioned "Best of" album (which still has 189 pictures).
Link: europevicariously.shutterfly.com
We hope you enjoy them!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Home again, home again...and Paris!
We're officially back in the US, safe and sound. Before I launch into how wonderful it is to be typing this entry from my couch at 70 Arbor Street (having slept on a real bed, with a clean indoor bathroom, and a real cup of American coffee by my side), I have to tell you about grand Paris (pronounced Par-ee, of course).
Before you ask, yes it is possible to camp in Paris. There is a grand total of one campsite, located in the city's version of Central Park (Bois de Boulogne). They provide a not-so-courteous courtesy shuttle, which you have to pay for, that takes you to Porte Maillot, a stop on Paris' Metro line number 1. Though the park itself is definitely sketchy during the evening, I assure you we felt quite safe throughout our stay.
Like Rome, it would be impossible to give a detailed account of everything we did during our five days in Paris, so instead, I'll stick to the highlights. The good news is that I can also use photos in this post (since is a picture is worth 1,000 words, of course). Unfortunately, it rained for almost the entirety of our stay in the City of Lights, so we didn't get to hang out in grassy parks and people-watch as much as we'd hoped. BUT, as far as I'm concerned, the weather didn't stop us from having a fantastic time.
Day One: Before the rain really set in, we had the chance to do an early morning city walk where we saw the shockingly-gothic Notre Dame Cathedral. Though we weren't able to spot Quasimodo himself, we did see some creepy gargoyles and got some great photos of what our guidebook referred to as the church's "muscular buttresses" (tee hee).
The photo here doesn't quite do justice to this awe-inspiring church, but it certainly gives you an idea. Imagine starting construction on this massive project, which was largely the work of community volunteers, in the hopes that your great, great, great grandchildren would one day be able to attend the opening ceremony nearly 200 years later.
Next we went to the gorgeous Saint Chapelle church. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but the inside walls are constructed almost entirely of stained glass, an overwhelming effect. Each giant panel of stained glass (of which there are 16) contains hundreds of tiny biblical scenes which proceed in chronological order from left to right. It ultimately tells the story of the entire history of the world from start to finish (according to the bible, of course).
We also saw the Conciergerie, where prisoners such as the infamous Marie Antoinette waited for the guillotine to make them a foot shorter on top; the Opera Garnier, a lavish opera house with a grand ceiling painted by Chagall in his very recognizable, whimsical, primary color cartoon-like style; and the Galeries Lafayette, where we purchased some fleece blankets to get us through the rainy nights in our tent. We finished off the night with a guided boat cruise of the Seine, where we were able to see many of Paris' biggest hits framed by pale yellow floodlights from our dry, cozy seat on the boat.
Day Two: We spent the entirety of our second full day in Paris at Versailles. The chateau itself was just as luxuriously gaudy as you could possibly imagine, and the gardens were truly amazing. Perhaps lesser known than the palace itself is the imaginary village Marie Antoinette created for herself so that she could pretend to be a peasant. The set-up was like something out of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, truly an 18th century Disney World:
Day Three: Day Three had the misfortune of falling on August 15th. August 15th happens to be a French holiday that must rank up there with Christmas and New Years, because the first three museums we tried to go to were closed. Darn. We did get to wander around a few beautiful neighborhoods and ultimately ended up at the Pompidou Center which was open for the day. The Pompidou Center is a museum of modern art, including the building itself. It was constructed as an "inside out" building, which means all of the escalators, pipes, tubes, and wires are outside the walls. Casey and I both enjoyed the top floor of artwork which represented the years 1900-1960. The other floor was work from 1960-present and housed a special exhibit consisting entirely of works of art by women. It was cool in concept, but proved to be a bit too modern for our tastes. (Many of the exhibits were meant to elicit shock, disgust, confusion and sadness). As it turns out, the perfect remedy to recover from a long rainy day full of closed museums is some hot, delicious falafel, a bottle of wine, and some card games.
Day Four: Rain again. Ugh. Not to be deterred from having a good time, we started the day with a climb up l'Arc de Triomphe to look over Paris' wheel spoke layout. Then we strolled down the Champs Elysees. To an outsider, it may have looked less like a stroll, and more like me clutching onto Casey's arm for dear life to avoid slipping on the slick wet curbs and cobblestones in my flip-flops.
Despite this, we had a grand time window shopping, perusing the 450 euro t-shirts and paying the equivalent of 7 dollars for some chapstick. Paris, overpriced? No! Next we visited the Orangerie, a small museum that's best known for housing Monet's waterlily paintings. This beautiful display (which we both loved) is considered by some to be the very first art installation, as the 80 year old Monet actually designed the canvases knowing they would be displayed in the oblong, skylit rooms of the museum. The afternoon was reserved for our visit to the Louvre where our Rick Steves tour gave us a two hour long crash course of all of the museum's most famous pieces of artwork. We did, of course, see the Mona Lisa. Though I certainly appreciated the painting, it was nearly impossible to be emotionally moved by it. The giant mobs of tourists shoving and snapping photos at the tiny canvas which was housed behind the glare of a sheet of bullet-proof glass made me feel underwhelmed by the whole experience. So physically moved by mobs of people? Yes. Emotionally moved by Lisa's elusive smile? Not so much. But, Casey loved it and neither of us regretted the trip to see it.
The final activity for the day (as the rain let up and the skies began to clear) was a hike up the Eiffel Tower in the evening. I say hike, because there was no way were were going to stand in a huge line and pay 8 euro for an elevator when we could stand in a short line and pay only 3.50 to climb the 750 stairs to the second story. The climb itself was an adrenaline-pumping experience. The wobbly stairs are enclosed by a cage so you can't fall, but I would not recommend the climb to anyone with a fear of heights...On the second platform, the tower began to shimmer as the clock struck 10pm. This new-ish light display was installed for the turn of the century and it was such a hit that the tower now sparkles every evening on the hour. As we ascended the final third of the tower (in an elevator by necessity this time), I couldn't help but think of how old this structure was. And why am I trusting my life to this tower, which was hastily erected as a temporary structure for the 1889 world's fair??? Rest assured, I did my research first. The construction of the tower is so sound and the weight so evenly distributed that the pressure per square inch of the 10,000 ton structure on it's four massive concrete bases is no more than a man standing on tiptoe.
Day Five: Our final day in Paree! We visited the Musee D'Orsay in the morning where we got our impressionist fix in the converted train station. Casey got a bit cranky because some of the display was being renovated. Consequently, when Rick Steves told us which paintings to look at, they were not in their proper locations. Tragedy! We recovered from this traumatic reorganization with a trip to the Rodin museum, where the sculptor's works were displayed exactly in the order Rick Steves predicted. Phew! We made a mandatory stop at a patisserie for some sweets before heading over to see Napoleon's tomb and the Army Museum. There was a fascinating and very moving exhibit on WWII (with a focus on French involvement, of course). General Patton was mentioned more than a handful of times which inspired a bit of hometown pride.
At this point in the evening, our lovely last day in Paris, which was not as rainy as the others and therefore considered to be good weather, was far from over. We had initially planned to spend a final night at our campground before catching our early morning flight, but the man at the information desk shook his head sadly while informing us that we "need to be sleeping in airport" as there was no form of public transit from our campsite that would get us there in time. Alright. No problem, right? So we had one last dinner and packed up camp for the last time on continental Europe. To minimize time in the airport, we planned to catch a late train out of the city. And that's when the trouble began. We arrived at the train station to find ALL ticket windows were clamped shut. Unfortunately, said train station was in a not-so-nice part of town, we were lugging around heavy backpacks, Casey desperately needed to pee, and one of us (whose name will not be mentioned) decided to discard his metro ticket despite knowing that we needed it to be allowed to exit the station onto street level. Several mini breakdowns ensued, for once, not one of them mine (!) before we located a coin-only ticket machine, sprinted to a bakery where the owner was cashing out, asked for 20 euro in coins in broken French, purchased our tickets, and got the h*ll out of Dodge.
One night of restless sleep in Charles de Gaulle airport, and we were on our way home. Sort of. More like on our way to Iceland, which, believe it or not, is cold. (See previous post).
Thus concludes our Europe Blog. Thanks for reading along. Seriously. If a few people enjoyed reading this half as much as we enjoyed writing it, then the whole thing was worth it. Our next (and last) post will be a link to our photo albums where I'll do my best to provide helpful captions that label everything we tried (sometimes futilely) to describe to you. We'll make two albums available, one with all 500 hundred and some-odd pictures we took, and a second with our "best of" hits for the reader with better things to do than scroll through 500 pictures (some of which would make the bloopers reel if this were a video special...)
Vaarwel, Auf Wiedersehen, Ciao, Au Revoir, Goodbye!!!
Before you ask, yes it is possible to camp in Paris. There is a grand total of one campsite, located in the city's version of Central Park (Bois de Boulogne). They provide a not-so-courteous courtesy shuttle, which you have to pay for, that takes you to Porte Maillot, a stop on Paris' Metro line number 1. Though the park itself is definitely sketchy during the evening, I assure you we felt quite safe throughout our stay.
Like Rome, it would be impossible to give a detailed account of everything we did during our five days in Paris, so instead, I'll stick to the highlights. The good news is that I can also use photos in this post (since is a picture is worth 1,000 words, of course). Unfortunately, it rained for almost the entirety of our stay in the City of Lights, so we didn't get to hang out in grassy parks and people-watch as much as we'd hoped. BUT, as far as I'm concerned, the weather didn't stop us from having a fantastic time.
Day One: Before the rain really set in, we had the chance to do an early morning city walk where we saw the shockingly-gothic Notre Dame Cathedral. Though we weren't able to spot Quasimodo himself, we did see some creepy gargoyles and got some great photos of what our guidebook referred to as the church's "muscular buttresses" (tee hee).
The photo here doesn't quite do justice to this awe-inspiring church, but it certainly gives you an idea. Imagine starting construction on this massive project, which was largely the work of community volunteers, in the hopes that your great, great, great grandchildren would one day be able to attend the opening ceremony nearly 200 years later.
Next we went to the gorgeous Saint Chapelle church. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but the inside walls are constructed almost entirely of stained glass, an overwhelming effect. Each giant panel of stained glass (of which there are 16) contains hundreds of tiny biblical scenes which proceed in chronological order from left to right. It ultimately tells the story of the entire history of the world from start to finish (according to the bible, of course).
We also saw the Conciergerie, where prisoners such as the infamous Marie Antoinette waited for the guillotine to make them a foot shorter on top; the Opera Garnier, a lavish opera house with a grand ceiling painted by Chagall in his very recognizable, whimsical, primary color cartoon-like style; and the Galeries Lafayette, where we purchased some fleece blankets to get us through the rainy nights in our tent. We finished off the night with a guided boat cruise of the Seine, where we were able to see many of Paris' biggest hits framed by pale yellow floodlights from our dry, cozy seat on the boat.
Day Two: We spent the entirety of our second full day in Paris at Versailles. The chateau itself was just as luxuriously gaudy as you could possibly imagine, and the gardens were truly amazing. Perhaps lesser known than the palace itself is the imaginary village Marie Antoinette created for herself so that she could pretend to be a peasant. The set-up was like something out of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, truly an 18th century Disney World:
Day Three: Day Three had the misfortune of falling on August 15th. August 15th happens to be a French holiday that must rank up there with Christmas and New Years, because the first three museums we tried to go to were closed. Darn. We did get to wander around a few beautiful neighborhoods and ultimately ended up at the Pompidou Center which was open for the day. The Pompidou Center is a museum of modern art, including the building itself. It was constructed as an "inside out" building, which means all of the escalators, pipes, tubes, and wires are outside the walls. Casey and I both enjoyed the top floor of artwork which represented the years 1900-1960. The other floor was work from 1960-present and housed a special exhibit consisting entirely of works of art by women. It was cool in concept, but proved to be a bit too modern for our tastes. (Many of the exhibits were meant to elicit shock, disgust, confusion and sadness). As it turns out, the perfect remedy to recover from a long rainy day full of closed museums is some hot, delicious falafel, a bottle of wine, and some card games.
Day Four: Rain again. Ugh. Not to be deterred from having a good time, we started the day with a climb up l'Arc de Triomphe to look over Paris' wheel spoke layout. Then we strolled down the Champs Elysees. To an outsider, it may have looked less like a stroll, and more like me clutching onto Casey's arm for dear life to avoid slipping on the slick wet curbs and cobblestones in my flip-flops.
Despite this, we had a grand time window shopping, perusing the 450 euro t-shirts and paying the equivalent of 7 dollars for some chapstick. Paris, overpriced? No! Next we visited the Orangerie, a small museum that's best known for housing Monet's waterlily paintings. This beautiful display (which we both loved) is considered by some to be the very first art installation, as the 80 year old Monet actually designed the canvases knowing they would be displayed in the oblong, skylit rooms of the museum. The afternoon was reserved for our visit to the Louvre where our Rick Steves tour gave us a two hour long crash course of all of the museum's most famous pieces of artwork. We did, of course, see the Mona Lisa. Though I certainly appreciated the painting, it was nearly impossible to be emotionally moved by it. The giant mobs of tourists shoving and snapping photos at the tiny canvas which was housed behind the glare of a sheet of bullet-proof glass made me feel underwhelmed by the whole experience. So physically moved by mobs of people? Yes. Emotionally moved by Lisa's elusive smile? Not so much. But, Casey loved it and neither of us regretted the trip to see it.
The final activity for the day (as the rain let up and the skies began to clear) was a hike up the Eiffel Tower in the evening. I say hike, because there was no way were were going to stand in a huge line and pay 8 euro for an elevator when we could stand in a short line and pay only 3.50 to climb the 750 stairs to the second story. The climb itself was an adrenaline-pumping experience. The wobbly stairs are enclosed by a cage so you can't fall, but I would not recommend the climb to anyone with a fear of heights...On the second platform, the tower began to shimmer as the clock struck 10pm. This new-ish light display was installed for the turn of the century and it was such a hit that the tower now sparkles every evening on the hour. As we ascended the final third of the tower (in an elevator by necessity this time), I couldn't help but think of how old this structure was. And why am I trusting my life to this tower, which was hastily erected as a temporary structure for the 1889 world's fair??? Rest assured, I did my research first. The construction of the tower is so sound and the weight so evenly distributed that the pressure per square inch of the 10,000 ton structure on it's four massive concrete bases is no more than a man standing on tiptoe.
Day Five: Our final day in Paree! We visited the Musee D'Orsay in the morning where we got our impressionist fix in the converted train station. Casey got a bit cranky because some of the display was being renovated. Consequently, when Rick Steves told us which paintings to look at, they were not in their proper locations. Tragedy! We recovered from this traumatic reorganization with a trip to the Rodin museum, where the sculptor's works were displayed exactly in the order Rick Steves predicted. Phew! We made a mandatory stop at a patisserie for some sweets before heading over to see Napoleon's tomb and the Army Museum. There was a fascinating and very moving exhibit on WWII (with a focus on French involvement, of course). General Patton was mentioned more than a handful of times which inspired a bit of hometown pride.
At this point in the evening, our lovely last day in Paris, which was not as rainy as the others and therefore considered to be good weather, was far from over. We had initially planned to spend a final night at our campground before catching our early morning flight, but the man at the information desk shook his head sadly while informing us that we "need to be sleeping in airport" as there was no form of public transit from our campsite that would get us there in time. Alright. No problem, right? So we had one last dinner and packed up camp for the last time on continental Europe. To minimize time in the airport, we planned to catch a late train out of the city. And that's when the trouble began. We arrived at the train station to find ALL ticket windows were clamped shut. Unfortunately, said train station was in a not-so-nice part of town, we were lugging around heavy backpacks, Casey desperately needed to pee, and one of us (whose name will not be mentioned) decided to discard his metro ticket despite knowing that we needed it to be allowed to exit the station onto street level. Several mini breakdowns ensued, for once, not one of them mine (!) before we located a coin-only ticket machine, sprinted to a bakery where the owner was cashing out, asked for 20 euro in coins in broken French, purchased our tickets, and got the h*ll out of Dodge.
One night of restless sleep in Charles de Gaulle airport, and we were on our way home. Sort of. More like on our way to Iceland, which, believe it or not, is cold. (See previous post).
Thus concludes our Europe Blog. Thanks for reading along. Seriously. If a few people enjoyed reading this half as much as we enjoyed writing it, then the whole thing was worth it. Our next (and last) post will be a link to our photo albums where I'll do my best to provide helpful captions that label everything we tried (sometimes futilely) to describe to you. We'll make two albums available, one with all 500 hundred and some-odd pictures we took, and a second with our "best of" hits for the reader with better things to do than scroll through 500 pictures (some of which would make the bloopers reel if this were a video special...)
Vaarwel, Auf Wiedersehen, Ciao, Au Revoir, Goodbye!!!
Saturday, August 21, 2010
August 21, Already?
Hi All--
Well, we were major slackers for the last week or two of our trip, and very little news surfaced on the blog. Our apologies! And now I´ve got a little timer ticking away on the bottom of my screen, and only ten or so minutes to hit you with some relevant info, so here goes.
The Loire Valley:
Most importantly, we had a bed! It was in a lovely B&B run by a strange, little Frenchman who had no end of recommendations for restaurants. So we ate well, marveled at the chateaux, and were very happy to have a warm room, complete with four walls and a roof, when the rain rolled in.
Paris:
E will almost definitely post a longer update on this in the next day or two. For now: it rained, then it poured; sometimes it was just overcast, but that only lasted for an hour or so, after which it rained again. Thank goodness Paris has so many excellent museums -- between the Louvre, the Orangerie, the Musee d´Orsay, etc etc, we rode out the weather. And we also managed to tromp around the Champs Elysees and hike up the Eiffel Tower during the few dry bouts. As I said, more on all that later.
Iceland:
Note for future travelers to this country: Packing to sleep outdoors in Italy during August does not prepare you to camp in Iceland at any time of year. Yes, it is greener than Greenland, but no, that does not mean it is warm. When everybody around you is marvelling at the wondrous weather, and you´re busy counting the number of toes that you´ve lost to frostbite, it´s safe to conclude that you failed to prepare for the weather.
Despite the miserable sleeping conditions, however, we loved Iceland. It was one of the only outdoorsy destinations during our six weeks, and the other -- Cinque Terre -- easily ranked among our favorites. The landscape is bizarrely alien, devoid of trees and wildlife, with volcanic ridges rearing out of grassy plains and the occassional sheep wandering freely nearby. We hiked among geysers, straddled tectonic divides, and rafted down a glacial river. Excellent times all around.
The Future:
We fly home this evening, and the feeling is bittersweet. It´s quite sad that our adventure is coming to an end, but six weeks is a very long time, and frankly, we´re missing some of the comforts of home. We greatly look forward to kittens, normal coffee, predictable weather, a newspaper in the morning, and bathrooms available whenever we need them. We will also have much better internet access, and more on Paris, along with massive picture updates, will soon follow.
So stay tuned!!
Well, we were major slackers for the last week or two of our trip, and very little news surfaced on the blog. Our apologies! And now I´ve got a little timer ticking away on the bottom of my screen, and only ten or so minutes to hit you with some relevant info, so here goes.
The Loire Valley:
Most importantly, we had a bed! It was in a lovely B&B run by a strange, little Frenchman who had no end of recommendations for restaurants. So we ate well, marveled at the chateaux, and were very happy to have a warm room, complete with four walls and a roof, when the rain rolled in.
Paris:
E will almost definitely post a longer update on this in the next day or two. For now: it rained, then it poured; sometimes it was just overcast, but that only lasted for an hour or so, after which it rained again. Thank goodness Paris has so many excellent museums -- between the Louvre, the Orangerie, the Musee d´Orsay, etc etc, we rode out the weather. And we also managed to tromp around the Champs Elysees and hike up the Eiffel Tower during the few dry bouts. As I said, more on all that later.
Iceland:
Note for future travelers to this country: Packing to sleep outdoors in Italy during August does not prepare you to camp in Iceland at any time of year. Yes, it is greener than Greenland, but no, that does not mean it is warm. When everybody around you is marvelling at the wondrous weather, and you´re busy counting the number of toes that you´ve lost to frostbite, it´s safe to conclude that you failed to prepare for the weather.
Despite the miserable sleeping conditions, however, we loved Iceland. It was one of the only outdoorsy destinations during our six weeks, and the other -- Cinque Terre -- easily ranked among our favorites. The landscape is bizarrely alien, devoid of trees and wildlife, with volcanic ridges rearing out of grassy plains and the occassional sheep wandering freely nearby. We hiked among geysers, straddled tectonic divides, and rafted down a glacial river. Excellent times all around.
The Future:
We fly home this evening, and the feeling is bittersweet. It´s quite sad that our adventure is coming to an end, but six weeks is a very long time, and frankly, we´re missing some of the comforts of home. We greatly look forward to kittens, normal coffee, predictable weather, a newspaper in the morning, and bathrooms available whenever we need them. We will also have much better internet access, and more on Paris, along with massive picture updates, will soon follow.
So stay tuned!!
Monday, August 9, 2010
Is Nice nice?
Ciao/Bonjour!
Since Casey is hacking away beside me at the impossible layout of the French keyboard to tell you about Florence, I figured I would use this time to give a little update about our time on the Italian and French Rivieras.
First stop - Cinque Terre. This amazing place, literally meaning "Five Lands", is the very picture of quaint-ness. (That's a word, right?) I should warn you now that this part of the trip went pretty smoothly so all I can do is gush about how perfect it was. This is your cue to skip to the next entry if you're the kind of person who only watches sports to see someone mess up and fall.
Our train ride was amazing not only because it was clean and quiet, but because the scenery was unbelievable. There had been thunderstorms all morning, so my first glimpse of the Mediterranean as we emerged from the train tunnel was bright blue churning water under a darkened, stormy sky. Wow. Our campsite in Levanto was gorgeous too -- we had our own little shady terrace surrounded by olive trees. Since this was the part of the trip where nothing was to go wrong, the skies cleared up just as we finished setting up the tent and we spent the afternoon lounging on the beach. Rough life, huh?
The next morning we embarked on what would ultimately be a 12 hour day of hiking between six towns. Because we camped in Levanto, which is not technically one of the 5 Cinque Terre cities, we added an extra leg of hiking to our trip. This part, our first hike of the day, turned out to be not only the most difficult, but the most beautiful. We wound along cliffside paths with panoramic views of the Mediterranean and the surrounding coastline. We went through vineyards, found secluded beaches, and hiked to the top of several small peaks. Not bad for a day's "work". And of course, we got something to eat in each of the towns -- both to give us a literal taste of the local culture, and to keep us going on the next leg of our trip.
An early morning train ride out of Levanto was when we bid farewell to Italy (or so we thought). Our connecting train was booked so we sat in a local Italian train station for a couple of hours until the next one came along.
There isn't too much else to report on the last couple of days in Biot (a small town on the French Riviera). We have been spending the majority of our time eating picnics and drinking cheap wine on the beach. Last night we ventured to Antibes for dinner and to explore the little downtown area. We ate an authentic French meal of garlic naan and chicken tikka masala, got a bit lost, did some window shopping, then meandered back to Biot. (Which, incidentally, is not prounounced "B.O." like body odor but "bee-ot". Way not as funny.)
Right now we are in the midst of a day trip to Nice which I am told is nice, but I wouldn't know yet because the only things I've seen have been the train station and this internet cafe. We are planning to grab some lunch and head to the Chagal and Matisse museums, climb a hill of some sort, and likely do some more lounging on a beach.
Miss you all!
Since Casey is hacking away beside me at the impossible layout of the French keyboard to tell you about Florence, I figured I would use this time to give a little update about our time on the Italian and French Rivieras.
First stop - Cinque Terre. This amazing place, literally meaning "Five Lands", is the very picture of quaint-ness. (That's a word, right?) I should warn you now that this part of the trip went pretty smoothly so all I can do is gush about how perfect it was. This is your cue to skip to the next entry if you're the kind of person who only watches sports to see someone mess up and fall.
Our train ride was amazing not only because it was clean and quiet, but because the scenery was unbelievable. There had been thunderstorms all morning, so my first glimpse of the Mediterranean as we emerged from the train tunnel was bright blue churning water under a darkened, stormy sky. Wow. Our campsite in Levanto was gorgeous too -- we had our own little shady terrace surrounded by olive trees. Since this was the part of the trip where nothing was to go wrong, the skies cleared up just as we finished setting up the tent and we spent the afternoon lounging on the beach. Rough life, huh?
The next morning we embarked on what would ultimately be a 12 hour day of hiking between six towns. Because we camped in Levanto, which is not technically one of the 5 Cinque Terre cities, we added an extra leg of hiking to our trip. This part, our first hike of the day, turned out to be not only the most difficult, but the most beautiful. We wound along cliffside paths with panoramic views of the Mediterranean and the surrounding coastline. We went through vineyards, found secluded beaches, and hiked to the top of several small peaks. Not bad for a day's "work". And of course, we got something to eat in each of the towns -- both to give us a literal taste of the local culture, and to keep us going on the next leg of our trip.
An early morning train ride out of Levanto was when we bid farewell to Italy (or so we thought). Our connecting train was booked so we sat in a local Italian train station for a couple of hours until the next one came along.
There isn't too much else to report on the last couple of days in Biot (a small town on the French Riviera). We have been spending the majority of our time eating picnics and drinking cheap wine on the beach. Last night we ventured to Antibes for dinner and to explore the little downtown area. We ate an authentic French meal of garlic naan and chicken tikka masala, got a bit lost, did some window shopping, then meandered back to Biot. (Which, incidentally, is not prounounced "B.O." like body odor but "bee-ot". Way not as funny.)
Right now we are in the midst of a day trip to Nice which I am told is nice, but I wouldn't know yet because the only things I've seen have been the train station and this internet cafe. We are planning to grab some lunch and head to the Chagal and Matisse museums, climb a hill of some sort, and likely do some more lounging on a beach.
Miss you all!
Great Expectations
Hi All!
It's been awhile since our last post, and it's now my job to fill you in on what you've missed. So bear with me as I cast my mind back to the days of yore, when we first arrived in Florence...
This city came with extremely, extremely high expectations, at least for me. Many people promised that it would be the most wonderful, romantic, gorgeous city that I had ever seen, that no other city in Europe could compare... And anything that receives that much hype is destined to disappoint in some respects.
For example: we came into the city having successfully located our campsite in multiple foreign locations, we knew that Florence had a simple, single-ticket bus system, and there was a bus route that began at the train station and ended at our campsite. We expected, therefore, to have no problems with our arrival.
These expectations were not met.
We had explicit directions to the exact corner near the station that the bus would stop at, but lo and behold, no stop was to be found. Some further searching located a sign for our bus a good 400 meters away -- unfortunately, the sign did not list the camping stop among the 45-ish destinations of the route. Okay, we told ourselves, no worries, we'll wait until the next one comes and ask the driver. Forty minutes later, with no bus on the horizon and the sun really laying the heat on thick, a miracle occurred: I randomly glanced at the route of a different bus, saw a "Camping" stop, and our tent was set up and ready to go ten minutes later. (Whew.)
We also expected no difficulties locating internet access. Our campsite had none, but we had been told that an excellent chain had sprouted multiple locations around the city, driving the sketchier joints out of business and providing super-easy access for tourists. Unfortunately, they have since gone out of business themselves, leaving a wasteland of abandoned computer terminals sprawling across Florence. (We did manage to find somewhere for Eliza to type up her Rome post, but declined to enter any delicate password information while there...)
The city itself, of course, could never live up to the fairy-tale land that I had created in my mind. Major differences between my imaginary Florence and the real one include the existence of a sewer system, pigeons, garbage cans, and other tourists.
And the art came with quite possibly the highest expectations, as Florence's museums are widely regarded to be some of the best in the world. I anticipated incredible things and occassionally got them (more on that later), but the collections ultimately focus on a very narrow time period, and there are only so many ways that you can marvel at the transition from flat, gilded medieval saints to brightly-colored, realistic, 3D Renaissance work.
That said, several expectations were not only met, but wildly exceeded.
Food, for starters. Okay, we'd been eating in Italy for a week and a half -- it's been wonderful, but there's only so much that one can do with cured meat, pasta, and pizza, right? Wrong! Maybe we just got lucky, maybe the food really is that much better, maybe we were just relieved that nobody tried to swindle us tableside. But as I look back over my notes from those three days, over half of them are spent describing meals and restaurants, talking about the free wine and the variety of cheese (one was made with pistachios!), the olive tapenades and the fresh, flaky bread, the tender beef carpaccio and the creamy tiramisu -- let's just say that if you ever visit, we have plenty of recommendations to send your way.
Also, the sunset. Everybody says that it's mind-boggling, and best viewed from the top of a very steep hill on the Piazzale Michelangelo. But did we really want to hike up 20 minutes worth of stairs just to watch some pretty colors flare over a river? Frankly, no -- but because our campsite was on top of the same hill and there was no way that I was dealing with the bus system again, we didn't have much of a choice. And the one night that this allowed us to catch the show in its entirety was truly spectacular. (I swear that we have pictures to prove it, you just have to wait until we find a way to upload them!)
And finally, David. The David. One of the most famous statues in the world, endlessly photographed, reproduced in every art history book ever, and even cast into multiple copies on display throughout the city. After seeing variations on this guy soooo many times, I truly didn't think I would be that impressed -- but absolutely none of the reproductions comes close to the splendor of the original.
I wish I could tell you exactly why. It was partly the display, at the end of a hall with a glass dome above, designed to filter and reflect natural light over him evenly; partly the size, a towering 17-some-odd feet; partly the backstory of Michelangelo carving him freehand out of a block of flawed marble, rejected by other, more senior sculptors; and partly David himself, the complexity of his expression, the angles of his limbs, the beauty of his pose. But there's something more ephemeral as well, something you can only know by experiencing. All else aside, Florence ranks among the top cities of our trip if only for the forty-five minutes that we spent walking around this single statue.
Other things you should know:
- We continued topping things, climbing 465 stairs to the heights of the Duomo.
- The Boboli Gardens contain an exquisite marble statue of a morbidly obese dwarf riding a turtle.
- McDonald's coffee is just as bad in Europe as it is in the States.
- And Eliza remains unbeatable in cribbage, but I shall never abandon hope.
LOVE TO ALL!
It's been awhile since our last post, and it's now my job to fill you in on what you've missed. So bear with me as I cast my mind back to the days of yore, when we first arrived in Florence...
This city came with extremely, extremely high expectations, at least for me. Many people promised that it would be the most wonderful, romantic, gorgeous city that I had ever seen, that no other city in Europe could compare... And anything that receives that much hype is destined to disappoint in some respects.
For example: we came into the city having successfully located our campsite in multiple foreign locations, we knew that Florence had a simple, single-ticket bus system, and there was a bus route that began at the train station and ended at our campsite. We expected, therefore, to have no problems with our arrival.
These expectations were not met.
We had explicit directions to the exact corner near the station that the bus would stop at, but lo and behold, no stop was to be found. Some further searching located a sign for our bus a good 400 meters away -- unfortunately, the sign did not list the camping stop among the 45-ish destinations of the route. Okay, we told ourselves, no worries, we'll wait until the next one comes and ask the driver. Forty minutes later, with no bus on the horizon and the sun really laying the heat on thick, a miracle occurred: I randomly glanced at the route of a different bus, saw a "Camping" stop, and our tent was set up and ready to go ten minutes later. (Whew.)
We also expected no difficulties locating internet access. Our campsite had none, but we had been told that an excellent chain had sprouted multiple locations around the city, driving the sketchier joints out of business and providing super-easy access for tourists. Unfortunately, they have since gone out of business themselves, leaving a wasteland of abandoned computer terminals sprawling across Florence. (We did manage to find somewhere for Eliza to type up her Rome post, but declined to enter any delicate password information while there...)
The city itself, of course, could never live up to the fairy-tale land that I had created in my mind. Major differences between my imaginary Florence and the real one include the existence of a sewer system, pigeons, garbage cans, and other tourists.
And the art came with quite possibly the highest expectations, as Florence's museums are widely regarded to be some of the best in the world. I anticipated incredible things and occassionally got them (more on that later), but the collections ultimately focus on a very narrow time period, and there are only so many ways that you can marvel at the transition from flat, gilded medieval saints to brightly-colored, realistic, 3D Renaissance work.
That said, several expectations were not only met, but wildly exceeded.
Food, for starters. Okay, we'd been eating in Italy for a week and a half -- it's been wonderful, but there's only so much that one can do with cured meat, pasta, and pizza, right? Wrong! Maybe we just got lucky, maybe the food really is that much better, maybe we were just relieved that nobody tried to swindle us tableside. But as I look back over my notes from those three days, over half of them are spent describing meals and restaurants, talking about the free wine and the variety of cheese (one was made with pistachios!), the olive tapenades and the fresh, flaky bread, the tender beef carpaccio and the creamy tiramisu -- let's just say that if you ever visit, we have plenty of recommendations to send your way.
Also, the sunset. Everybody says that it's mind-boggling, and best viewed from the top of a very steep hill on the Piazzale Michelangelo. But did we really want to hike up 20 minutes worth of stairs just to watch some pretty colors flare over a river? Frankly, no -- but because our campsite was on top of the same hill and there was no way that I was dealing with the bus system again, we didn't have much of a choice. And the one night that this allowed us to catch the show in its entirety was truly spectacular. (I swear that we have pictures to prove it, you just have to wait until we find a way to upload them!)
And finally, David. The David. One of the most famous statues in the world, endlessly photographed, reproduced in every art history book ever, and even cast into multiple copies on display throughout the city. After seeing variations on this guy soooo many times, I truly didn't think I would be that impressed -- but absolutely none of the reproductions comes close to the splendor of the original.
I wish I could tell you exactly why. It was partly the display, at the end of a hall with a glass dome above, designed to filter and reflect natural light over him evenly; partly the size, a towering 17-some-odd feet; partly the backstory of Michelangelo carving him freehand out of a block of flawed marble, rejected by other, more senior sculptors; and partly David himself, the complexity of his expression, the angles of his limbs, the beauty of his pose. But there's something more ephemeral as well, something you can only know by experiencing. All else aside, Florence ranks among the top cities of our trip if only for the forty-five minutes that we spent walking around this single statue.
Other things you should know:
- We continued topping things, climbing 465 stairs to the heights of the Duomo.
- The Boboli Gardens contain an exquisite marble statue of a morbidly obese dwarf riding a turtle.
- McDonald's coffee is just as bad in Europe as it is in the States.
- And Eliza remains unbeatable in cribbage, but I shall never abandon hope.
LOVE TO ALL!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
When in Rome...
I have been putting off composing an entry about Rome because we did so much in a few short days that the prospect of compiling the experience into a coherent post (within a 30 minute time limit) is daunting, to say the least. We hit all of the classic sites, with a few not-so-classic detours, ate lots of good food, ate some not-so-good food, and had a memorable night walk of the city in the rain.
Since I can't possibly describe everything in detail, I'll stick to a few sites and stories and the rest will have to wait for our return to the US. Our arrival was a complete disaster, to put it lightly. It was sweltering hot (even when you are expecting this kind of weather, the experience is not any more pleasant). Now, Casey did a great job planning, but for some reason, the campsite in Rome was unable to provide us with coherent directions for our arrival. We clung desperately to the hope that we would get on the Metro "A Line", the only public transportation we knew anything about, and would be able to find someone who could help us to navigate. Imagine our chagrin when we exited the train station to find a line of police officers directing crowds away from the "A Line" sign and signaling them to go elsewhere. Oh shoot. So we milled around a bit like lost sheep until we found some signs that looked like they may have been bus route listings. After much complaining, a little bickering, and a mild breakdown on my part, we boarded a bus that may or may not have been headed in the right direction (based on the driver's ever-so-unhelpful, non-committal shoulder shrug when I asked him about the camp ground).
After crossing a treacherous two lane highway on a blind corner (we looked both ways Mom, don't worry), we arrived at our campsite relatively unscathed. It was VERY worth it. The campsite had a pristine pool, and the most decadent bathrooms I've ever seen, complete with mosiac tiled floors, fountains, and classical music.
The evening brought a visit to the Borghese gallery, one of Casey's favorite parts of the city. The weather had cooled a bit as we strolled through the lovely villa grounds toward the museum, which houses unbelievable Bernini sculptures, gorgeous frescoes, and of course, some Caravaggios.
My favorite day was Day 2 in Rome. We spent the morning in St. Peter's Basilica, which was breathtaking. The entire basilica was designed with some ingenious optical illusions that are actually meant to make it look smaller than it is. It is for this reason that any picture you've ever seen of the interior simply cannot do it justice. For example, there is a tiny gold ribbon running along the top of the interior with some "best of" quotes by St. Peter. Once you learn that each black letter on the gold ribbon is actually 7 feet tall, you can start to get a sense of the actual size of this place. We followed the visit with a fantastic lunch at a little market. I'm starting to really enjoy this type of eatery because instead of trying (futily) to translate a menu, I can just point at something that looks delicious and smile. We ended up with salmon pasta salad, polenta in spinach cream sauce, meatballs, and a big old hunk of italian bread with cheese. My mouth still waters thinking about this random mish-mash of a picnic...
That afternoon we went to the Vatican museum, which was predictably clogged up with giant tour groups, but was a great experience nonetheless. Perhaps my favorite part of the day, however, was the evening. We had planned a night walk across Rome to see some of the famous piazzas and other outdoor attractions. And of course, it rained. I would like to remind you that Rome gets an average of one evening of rainfall per month in the summer. I guess we're just lucky? Anyway, we decided the show must go on, so we purchased sketchy umbrellas from a sketchy guy on the street and started our stroll. Anyone who has ever slipped on a slick curb wearing flip flops in the rain can picture the scene as we tried walking along Rome's cobblestone streets. As it turns out, the rain was a blessing in disguise. It was barely sprinkling, but it was enough to send most other not-so-brave tourist running for the hills. Who else can say they got the Trevi fountain completely to themselves on a summer evening??
During the rest of our stay in Rome, we also saw the Colosseum (of course), took a half day trip to a well-preserved ancient city called Ostia Antica (like a mini Pompeii without the volcano), checked out the Roman Forum, several more museums, the Pantheon (really incredible), and saw some gorgeous churches.
Our final meal in Rome was one that we will never forget. I'd like to say it was a romantic, delicious meal, but that would be a lie. We had intentions to check out a small restaurant recommended by our guidebook, but it was closed for the owners' three week vacation (not an uncommon thing in Italy). Instead, we got sucked into what we should have guessed was a tourist-trap restaurant -- something that our guidebook strongly recommends against. We thought, how bad can it be? The food looks good and not too expensive. So we sat down and order some food, which was indeed, quite tasty. It wasn't until I asked for the bill that we realized we'd been had. They sent out the muscular Roman owner, who crouched over our table and hand-wrote a completely illegible list of "charges" on our bill. I had the courage to ask what one of them was for, and he said, "You sit at my table, you pay this fee". Then, he informed us sternly that his services were NOT included in the price, took one step back from the table, folded his arms and waited for us to pay. Fearing for our lives, we paid the sketchy bill, left a generous tip (despite Italy's no-tipping norm), and ran. It's amazing how right it feels to pay 50 euros for 25 euros worth of food when you feel like you're going to be squashed by somebody. So yes, lesson learned. Ask about ALL charges and fees before you sit down. Otherwise, they can charge you for wearing a blue shirt and you can't say boo about it.
Ah well, you win some, you (really, really) lose some.
On to Florence!
Since I can't possibly describe everything in detail, I'll stick to a few sites and stories and the rest will have to wait for our return to the US. Our arrival was a complete disaster, to put it lightly. It was sweltering hot (even when you are expecting this kind of weather, the experience is not any more pleasant). Now, Casey did a great job planning, but for some reason, the campsite in Rome was unable to provide us with coherent directions for our arrival. We clung desperately to the hope that we would get on the Metro "A Line", the only public transportation we knew anything about, and would be able to find someone who could help us to navigate. Imagine our chagrin when we exited the train station to find a line of police officers directing crowds away from the "A Line" sign and signaling them to go elsewhere. Oh shoot. So we milled around a bit like lost sheep until we found some signs that looked like they may have been bus route listings. After much complaining, a little bickering, and a mild breakdown on my part, we boarded a bus that may or may not have been headed in the right direction (based on the driver's ever-so-unhelpful, non-committal shoulder shrug when I asked him about the camp ground).
After crossing a treacherous two lane highway on a blind corner (we looked both ways Mom, don't worry), we arrived at our campsite relatively unscathed. It was VERY worth it. The campsite had a pristine pool, and the most decadent bathrooms I've ever seen, complete with mosiac tiled floors, fountains, and classical music.
The evening brought a visit to the Borghese gallery, one of Casey's favorite parts of the city. The weather had cooled a bit as we strolled through the lovely villa grounds toward the museum, which houses unbelievable Bernini sculptures, gorgeous frescoes, and of course, some Caravaggios.
My favorite day was Day 2 in Rome. We spent the morning in St. Peter's Basilica, which was breathtaking. The entire basilica was designed with some ingenious optical illusions that are actually meant to make it look smaller than it is. It is for this reason that any picture you've ever seen of the interior simply cannot do it justice. For example, there is a tiny gold ribbon running along the top of the interior with some "best of" quotes by St. Peter. Once you learn that each black letter on the gold ribbon is actually 7 feet tall, you can start to get a sense of the actual size of this place. We followed the visit with a fantastic lunch at a little market. I'm starting to really enjoy this type of eatery because instead of trying (futily) to translate a menu, I can just point at something that looks delicious and smile. We ended up with salmon pasta salad, polenta in spinach cream sauce, meatballs, and a big old hunk of italian bread with cheese. My mouth still waters thinking about this random mish-mash of a picnic...
That afternoon we went to the Vatican museum, which was predictably clogged up with giant tour groups, but was a great experience nonetheless. Perhaps my favorite part of the day, however, was the evening. We had planned a night walk across Rome to see some of the famous piazzas and other outdoor attractions. And of course, it rained. I would like to remind you that Rome gets an average of one evening of rainfall per month in the summer. I guess we're just lucky? Anyway, we decided the show must go on, so we purchased sketchy umbrellas from a sketchy guy on the street and started our stroll. Anyone who has ever slipped on a slick curb wearing flip flops in the rain can picture the scene as we tried walking along Rome's cobblestone streets. As it turns out, the rain was a blessing in disguise. It was barely sprinkling, but it was enough to send most other not-so-brave tourist running for the hills. Who else can say they got the Trevi fountain completely to themselves on a summer evening??
During the rest of our stay in Rome, we also saw the Colosseum (of course), took a half day trip to a well-preserved ancient city called Ostia Antica (like a mini Pompeii without the volcano), checked out the Roman Forum, several more museums, the Pantheon (really incredible), and saw some gorgeous churches.
Our final meal in Rome was one that we will never forget. I'd like to say it was a romantic, delicious meal, but that would be a lie. We had intentions to check out a small restaurant recommended by our guidebook, but it was closed for the owners' three week vacation (not an uncommon thing in Italy). Instead, we got sucked into what we should have guessed was a tourist-trap restaurant -- something that our guidebook strongly recommends against. We thought, how bad can it be? The food looks good and not too expensive. So we sat down and order some food, which was indeed, quite tasty. It wasn't until I asked for the bill that we realized we'd been had. They sent out the muscular Roman owner, who crouched over our table and hand-wrote a completely illegible list of "charges" on our bill. I had the courage to ask what one of them was for, and he said, "You sit at my table, you pay this fee". Then, he informed us sternly that his services were NOT included in the price, took one step back from the table, folded his arms and waited for us to pay. Fearing for our lives, we paid the sketchy bill, left a generous tip (despite Italy's no-tipping norm), and ran. It's amazing how right it feels to pay 50 euros for 25 euros worth of food when you feel like you're going to be squashed by somebody. So yes, lesson learned. Ask about ALL charges and fees before you sit down. Otherwise, they can charge you for wearing a blue shirt and you can't say boo about it.
Ah well, you win some, you (really, really) lose some.
On to Florence!
Monday, August 2, 2010
...and Padova too!
Casey did a great job recapping Venice, but I wanted to add that we spent much of that part of our trip in a little city called Padova about 40 minutes to the west. Some of you may have heard of Padua -- this is, in fact the same city, so you can close your atlas. We were so so so lucky to have Elisa DiGiorgio (who still uses her CHB lanyard for her keys, FYI) host us at her lovely apartment. Our first day in Padova was a little walking tour. As Elisa put it, you can see everything there is to see in just about one hour. But what a lovely hour it was. The evening was capped with my first authentic gelato snack on the steps of a beautiful piazza. The experience was marred only by a brief encounter with an elderly Italian man on a bicyle who insisted on telling us the entire history of the city in Italian (despite our repeated attempts at "Io non capisco" (I do not understand) and "Parlo solo inglese" (I only speak English). Elisa also arranged some hang-out sessions for the evenings with some of her close friends from her PhD program. One of MY favorite parts was when one friend brought out his guitar. It turns out Italians love some American music, but often cannot understand the words so they just sort of guess at it phonetically. A great time was had by all.
So this post is dedicated to Elisa for showing us a GREAT time in her quaint, cobblestoned city, giving us real beds to sleep in, feeding us delicious food (if you've never tried stracciatella, go to your local Italian market and buy it!), and of course, offering us a shower in which we did not feel obligated to wear shower shoes. GRAZIE!!
After Padova/Venice we took a super fancy high speed train to Rome where we spent the last four days having a marvelous time. However the spacebar on this computer barely works and my thumb needs a break, so an update on our escapades in ancient Roma will need to wait...
So this post is dedicated to Elisa for showing us a GREAT time in her quaint, cobblestoned city, giving us real beds to sleep in, feeding us delicious food (if you've never tried stracciatella, go to your local Italian market and buy it!), and of course, offering us a shower in which we did not feel obligated to wear shower shoes. GRAZIE!!
After Padova/Venice we took a super fancy high speed train to Rome where we spent the last four days having a marvelous time. However the spacebar on this computer barely works and my thumb needs a break, so an update on our escapades in ancient Roma will need to wait...
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Long Time, No See
Hi All--
Our time in Italy has been jam-packed with activity, so we haven't had much time to blog... Venice was incredible, of course, even if tourists vastly outnumbered locals. And because it's apparently been that way for a couple hundred years, I'm sure that you already have a pretty good concept of what we did there. The typical boxes all got checked off -- we hung out in the Piazza San Marco, gaped at the mosaic ceilings of the Basilica, shuffled sideways through the crowds at the Ponte Rialto, saw hundreds of pieces of famous Renaissance artwork, and yes, took rides up and down the canals. (Although we did that last one on the cheap, taking the vaporetti -- boats that serve as public transit -- instead of an uber-expensive and mildly-awkward gondola ride.)
But along the way, we stumbled across some secrets that very few other people seemed to know, and I thought that I would share those with you instead.
One: Feeding pigeons in Venice is illegal. This must be a closely-kept secret, because every child under the age of six was running around San Marco with hunks of bread for them. (Criminals, each and every one of them.)
Two: You do not have to wait in the enormous line at the Basilica. There is no need to spend two hours baking in the sun, slowly crawling across the Piazza while all of your body's water content gets squeezed out of your pores. There is a small bag-check on a side street -- if you head right there and drop off your backpack, they give you a card that allows you to skip the line and head straight in to the cool interior. Thanks for that tidbit, Rick Steves!
Three: This one's kind of neat -- the Doge's Palace is jam-packed full of incredible artwork, but it's also jam-packed full of crowds craning their necks to see it. However, there's a little, teeny-tiny staircase that leads away from a major hallway, and if you climb to the top of it and pull a three-sixty, voila -- an enormous Tintoretto canvas, a masterpiece in dramatic high-Renaissance style, all to yourself. We sat and gazed at it for a full twenty minutes, and not a single other person ventured up near us. (Although a few walked by and gave us funny looks, wondering why two kooky Americans were camped out at the top of a narrow stairwell with dreamy looks on their faces.)
Four: This may come as a shock to everyone, but there are streets in Venice that are not directly adjacent to the Piazza San Marco and the Ponte Rialto. And they have houses, views, restaurants, canals, everything. It is not necessary to wait in a twenty-minute line every time you decide to do something. You do not have to pay eight euro for a cup of coffee. It is possible to find shady piazzas with free benches and no crowds. There are even real Italians in the city, and believe it or not, they eat at normal restaurants with normal prices -- and you can too!
Okay, that sounds pretty obvious, right? But nobody else seems to have figured it out! The oppressive crowds of the two major tourist centers disappeared, literally disappeared, after a five-minute stroll to the east. And there we found heaven -- streets that you could walk comfortably down, pizza that you could afford, canals that weren't loaded up with trash, shop owners that spoke Italian (and only Italian) -- the "real" Venice, I suppose you could call it, and it was wonderful.
But I have to admit, wide-eyed American cornball that I am, the more official tourist sites of Venice weren't half-bad either.
All for now!
Our time in Italy has been jam-packed with activity, so we haven't had much time to blog... Venice was incredible, of course, even if tourists vastly outnumbered locals. And because it's apparently been that way for a couple hundred years, I'm sure that you already have a pretty good concept of what we did there. The typical boxes all got checked off -- we hung out in the Piazza San Marco, gaped at the mosaic ceilings of the Basilica, shuffled sideways through the crowds at the Ponte Rialto, saw hundreds of pieces of famous Renaissance artwork, and yes, took rides up and down the canals. (Although we did that last one on the cheap, taking the vaporetti -- boats that serve as public transit -- instead of an uber-expensive and mildly-awkward gondola ride.)
But along the way, we stumbled across some secrets that very few other people seemed to know, and I thought that I would share those with you instead.
One: Feeding pigeons in Venice is illegal. This must be a closely-kept secret, because every child under the age of six was running around San Marco with hunks of bread for them. (Criminals, each and every one of them.)
Two: You do not have to wait in the enormous line at the Basilica. There is no need to spend two hours baking in the sun, slowly crawling across the Piazza while all of your body's water content gets squeezed out of your pores. There is a small bag-check on a side street -- if you head right there and drop off your backpack, they give you a card that allows you to skip the line and head straight in to the cool interior. Thanks for that tidbit, Rick Steves!
Three: This one's kind of neat -- the Doge's Palace is jam-packed full of incredible artwork, but it's also jam-packed full of crowds craning their necks to see it. However, there's a little, teeny-tiny staircase that leads away from a major hallway, and if you climb to the top of it and pull a three-sixty, voila -- an enormous Tintoretto canvas, a masterpiece in dramatic high-Renaissance style, all to yourself. We sat and gazed at it for a full twenty minutes, and not a single other person ventured up near us. (Although a few walked by and gave us funny looks, wondering why two kooky Americans were camped out at the top of a narrow stairwell with dreamy looks on their faces.)
Four: This may come as a shock to everyone, but there are streets in Venice that are not directly adjacent to the Piazza San Marco and the Ponte Rialto. And they have houses, views, restaurants, canals, everything. It is not necessary to wait in a twenty-minute line every time you decide to do something. You do not have to pay eight euro for a cup of coffee. It is possible to find shady piazzas with free benches and no crowds. There are even real Italians in the city, and believe it or not, they eat at normal restaurants with normal prices -- and you can too!
Okay, that sounds pretty obvious, right? But nobody else seems to have figured it out! The oppressive crowds of the two major tourist centers disappeared, literally disappeared, after a five-minute stroll to the east. And there we found heaven -- streets that you could walk comfortably down, pizza that you could afford, canals that weren't loaded up with trash, shop owners that spoke Italian (and only Italian) -- the "real" Venice, I suppose you could call it, and it was wonderful.
But I have to admit, wide-eyed American cornball that I am, the more official tourist sites of Venice weren't half-bad either.
All for now!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Tiny Battles in München
Hello all -
Casey and I are sitting in an internet cafe just outside Munich's central station waiting for our night train to wisk us off to Venice, so I thought I'd take this time to give a quick update on our stay in München.
Munich was...well, a series of tiny battles. The first battle was Casey and Eliza versus the weather. This battle lasted for approximately 35 of the 36 hours we were in this fine city. It rained the entire time we were here. I'm not talking about a shower or a sprinkle -- it poured. This would have been fine except that the only concrete thing we had planned for Munich was to take a biking tour of the city. Well, cross that off the list. Weather (which, funnily enough, is "wetter" in German):1 point, Casey and Eliza: 0 points.
We did not want the wetter to spoil our plans, so after arriving at the campground and pitching our tent, we ventured into the city center. This is where we came across our second battle -- cost of food vs. Casey and Eliza. This too, was a battle we were destined to lose as we ended up spending our entire day's budget on an over-priced American style dinner. Why did we go for American style? Well, it's because Eliza vs. German food was not a battle I was willing to fight that night. As our guidebook so tactfully put it, "Bavarians generally don't like to eat anything that didn't have a pulse at one point". We did try some of the famous German Franziskaner Weissbier (a delicious wheat beer) that went over quite well for the both of us.
That evening, after our battle against the 300+ steps of St. Stephen's church on way-too-full stomachs and our brief and somewhat hurried walk around the rainy city, we relaxed at our fantastic campsite. It was a hostel-style place with cheap eats and nice folks. They had a communal outdoor kitchen (covered, thankfully) where we stayed up playing cards and trying to explain the game of Cribbage to a bewildered English couple who were engaged in a tiny battle of their own (namely, a 5 hour best-of-five chess tournament). Everything at the campsite was clean, well maintained and painted in obscenely cheery pastel colors. Perhaps most importantly, the staff was kind enough to lend us some real sleeping bags to help us get through the coldest night of our trip thus far.
The morning brought new battles. The biggest one of note was Casey and Eliza vs. slugs. During the night, a small colony of slugs had moved onto our tent fabric and in our shoes and sandles, which we had left out to dry. Just when we thought we had rid ourselves of them all, I found a slug the size of a Pez dispenser on one of our tent hooks. EW. There was a bright side to the morning, however. While hand-drying our tent with gobs of stolen paper towels, we met a nice group of kids from Milan. They offered up their places if we decided we would like to pass through, but we had to graciously decline. (Doesn't EVERYONE book all of their train tickets 6 months in advance????)
Off to the Deutsches Museum where we battled the line to get in (for over an hour). It was a great way to spend last few hours in Munich -- waiting out the rain at the largest "technical" museum in the world. Favorite exhibits included such disparate topics as the history of boats, musical instruments and mathematics.
And now here we are, sitting in this internet cafe. I'm engaged in my final battle of Munich as I race against the little timer on the screen telling me I have only a few minutes left to finish this post.
On to Venice!
Casey and I are sitting in an internet cafe just outside Munich's central station waiting for our night train to wisk us off to Venice, so I thought I'd take this time to give a quick update on our stay in München.
Munich was...well, a series of tiny battles. The first battle was Casey and Eliza versus the weather. This battle lasted for approximately 35 of the 36 hours we were in this fine city. It rained the entire time we were here. I'm not talking about a shower or a sprinkle -- it poured. This would have been fine except that the only concrete thing we had planned for Munich was to take a biking tour of the city. Well, cross that off the list. Weather (which, funnily enough, is "wetter" in German):1 point, Casey and Eliza: 0 points.
We did not want the wetter to spoil our plans, so after arriving at the campground and pitching our tent, we ventured into the city center. This is where we came across our second battle -- cost of food vs. Casey and Eliza. This too, was a battle we were destined to lose as we ended up spending our entire day's budget on an over-priced American style dinner. Why did we go for American style? Well, it's because Eliza vs. German food was not a battle I was willing to fight that night. As our guidebook so tactfully put it, "Bavarians generally don't like to eat anything that didn't have a pulse at one point". We did try some of the famous German Franziskaner Weissbier (a delicious wheat beer) that went over quite well for the both of us.
That evening, after our battle against the 300+ steps of St. Stephen's church on way-too-full stomachs and our brief and somewhat hurried walk around the rainy city, we relaxed at our fantastic campsite. It was a hostel-style place with cheap eats and nice folks. They had a communal outdoor kitchen (covered, thankfully) where we stayed up playing cards and trying to explain the game of Cribbage to a bewildered English couple who were engaged in a tiny battle of their own (namely, a 5 hour best-of-five chess tournament). Everything at the campsite was clean, well maintained and painted in obscenely cheery pastel colors. Perhaps most importantly, the staff was kind enough to lend us some real sleeping bags to help us get through the coldest night of our trip thus far.
The morning brought new battles. The biggest one of note was Casey and Eliza vs. slugs. During the night, a small colony of slugs had moved onto our tent fabric and in our shoes and sandles, which we had left out to dry. Just when we thought we had rid ourselves of them all, I found a slug the size of a Pez dispenser on one of our tent hooks. EW. There was a bright side to the morning, however. While hand-drying our tent with gobs of stolen paper towels, we met a nice group of kids from Milan. They offered up their places if we decided we would like to pass through, but we had to graciously decline. (Doesn't EVERYONE book all of their train tickets 6 months in advance????)
Off to the Deutsches Museum where we battled the line to get in (for over an hour). It was a great way to spend last few hours in Munich -- waiting out the rain at the largest "technical" museum in the world. Favorite exhibits included such disparate topics as the history of boats, musical instruments and mathematics.
And now here we are, sitting in this internet cafe. I'm engaged in my final battle of Munich as I race against the little timer on the screen telling me I have only a few minutes left to finish this post.
On to Venice!
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Vienna!
Okay folks, let's be clear about this from the start: I LOVE VIENNA.
And I'm going to spend this entire post waxing poetic about it, so if descriptions of Austria don't float your boat, feel free to check back once we reach Italy.
But for those of you who are sticking around, here's the deal: if you've ever dreamed of wandering down the picturesque cobblestones streets of an "old European" city, book tickets now. Vienna is gorgeous: gleaming white neo-Baroque facades marching along pedestrian-only boulevards; statues and fountains and men dressed as Mozart at every intersection; towering church spires and emperor's palaces and the best opera house in the world, all within a ten-minuite stroll; cafe umbrellas everywhere, ice-cream topped espresso drinks, and the desserts - oh God, the desserts! - rich and creamy and completely devoid of nutritional value. We could have spent our entire stay aimlessly wandering the picture-perfect streets of the first district.
But there were museums to peruse and sights to see as well! In keeping with our "topping things" theme, we scaled the 357 stairs to the heights of St. Stephen's spiky gothic tower, where we were granted a stunning view of the city, spiraling outwards around the base of the iconic cathedral. From there, on to the Hofburg - the Versailles of Austria - a decadent palace with a truly astonishing amount of gilded flatware and surprisingly moving exhibit on the tragic life of Empress Sisi. The Kunsthistorisches Museum followed, and it was packed with late-Renaissance-era masterpieces, including a delightfully dark reinterpretation of David by personal favorite Caravaggio.
Slightly farther off the beaten track, we visited the Kunst Haus Wien, a museum space designed by and dedicated to Hundertwasser, built with no straight lines and multiple tree tenants. (If you don't know who he is, use Google. A bit of a dreamer, perhaps, but with fascinating ideas and quotable phrases to spare.) And the Haus der Musik had super-modern interactive displays on the science of sound, which I barely understood but Eliza truly loved.
It only got prettier as the sun went down. We trekked out to the west of the city one night to find a genuine "wine tavern" - and after an epic fail on my part, did eventually stumble across one that was open... There, we whiled away the night in a softly-lit garden courtyard, sipping heuriger, a deliciously bright, crisp wine made in-house. Another night was spent at the Prater, a decent theme park with a carnival-like atmosphere and a famous ferris wheel that was far too expensive to bother riding. We chose to ascend elsewhere instead, on a 115m tall tower with swings, which gently spun us around as it lifted us up over the city. We rode at dusk, and quiet descended as we rose above the neon lights, no sound but the wind as we whirled softly above Vienna.
I'll stop myself before this turns into the overly-detailed play-by-play travelogue that we had hoped to avoid. But suffice it to say that Vienna has all of the artistic treasures, cultural wonders, and old-city charm that we dreamed of when the idea for this trip first arose. I hear that Salzburg and Innsbruck are just as incredible, and a return-trip to Austria has been firmly etched onto our to-do list. Consider adding it to yours!
Until next time--
And I'm going to spend this entire post waxing poetic about it, so if descriptions of Austria don't float your boat, feel free to check back once we reach Italy.
But for those of you who are sticking around, here's the deal: if you've ever dreamed of wandering down the picturesque cobblestones streets of an "old European" city, book tickets now. Vienna is gorgeous: gleaming white neo-Baroque facades marching along pedestrian-only boulevards; statues and fountains and men dressed as Mozart at every intersection; towering church spires and emperor's palaces and the best opera house in the world, all within a ten-minuite stroll; cafe umbrellas everywhere, ice-cream topped espresso drinks, and the desserts - oh God, the desserts! - rich and creamy and completely devoid of nutritional value. We could have spent our entire stay aimlessly wandering the picture-perfect streets of the first district.
But there were museums to peruse and sights to see as well! In keeping with our "topping things" theme, we scaled the 357 stairs to the heights of St. Stephen's spiky gothic tower, where we were granted a stunning view of the city, spiraling outwards around the base of the iconic cathedral. From there, on to the Hofburg - the Versailles of Austria - a decadent palace with a truly astonishing amount of gilded flatware and surprisingly moving exhibit on the tragic life of Empress Sisi. The Kunsthistorisches Museum followed, and it was packed with late-Renaissance-era masterpieces, including a delightfully dark reinterpretation of David by personal favorite Caravaggio.
Slightly farther off the beaten track, we visited the Kunst Haus Wien, a museum space designed by and dedicated to Hundertwasser, built with no straight lines and multiple tree tenants. (If you don't know who he is, use Google. A bit of a dreamer, perhaps, but with fascinating ideas and quotable phrases to spare.) And the Haus der Musik had super-modern interactive displays on the science of sound, which I barely understood but Eliza truly loved.
It only got prettier as the sun went down. We trekked out to the west of the city one night to find a genuine "wine tavern" - and after an epic fail on my part, did eventually stumble across one that was open... There, we whiled away the night in a softly-lit garden courtyard, sipping heuriger, a deliciously bright, crisp wine made in-house. Another night was spent at the Prater, a decent theme park with a carnival-like atmosphere and a famous ferris wheel that was far too expensive to bother riding. We chose to ascend elsewhere instead, on a 115m tall tower with swings, which gently spun us around as it lifted us up over the city. We rode at dusk, and quiet descended as we rose above the neon lights, no sound but the wind as we whirled softly above Vienna.
I'll stop myself before this turns into the overly-detailed play-by-play travelogue that we had hoped to avoid. But suffice it to say that Vienna has all of the artistic treasures, cultural wonders, and old-city charm that we dreamed of when the idea for this trip first arose. I hear that Salzburg and Innsbruck are just as incredible, and a return-trip to Austria has been firmly etched onto our to-do list. Consider adding it to yours!
Until next time--
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Auf Wiedersehen, Berlin
Having been out of Berlin for a full day now, I feel as though I can reflect a bit on what we saw in this beautifully complex city.
Our trip started with a stroll down Unter den Linden, a street that, in many ways, demonstrates the complexity I am referring to. Its grand entrance (the Brandenburg Gate) is flanked by huge stone columns and gorgeous statues. As you pass through the gates, you see a bustling tourist center lined with German cafes and yes, of course, the occasional Starbucks. There were bike tours and kids playing and street performers. If you didn't take a moment to read the glass panel hiding unobtrusively in a shady alcove of trees, you might not have had any idea that you had just crossed from what was once West Berlin into what was once East Berlin; that nearly 150 people had been killed where you stand.
This was not the last time Casey and I felt conflicted while exploring Berlin. After all, to even a casual observer such as myself, it is very clear that Berlin is undergoing rapid change and as a city, has the near impossible task of moving forward while remembering and commemorating a sometimes dark social and political past.
Despite this, and perhaps because of it, Berlin has so much to offer. This post would get obscenely long if I were to report back on every activity and adventure we had here, so I will stick to some highlights. One of Casey's personal favorites was the Pergamon Museum, a colossal museum displaying ancient architectural works such as the Ishtar gates and the Pergamon alter. We took pictures of both, but even a photograph would have difficulty capturing the sheer immensity of either of these structures, which showcased the best of art and architecture from such disparate places and times in history.
The Neue Nationalgalerie, which we explored on our third day in the city, was one of the best art galleries either of us as ever been to. For those of you who are ready to book a trip to Berlin, I have sad news for you. The gallery is a temporary one, and not all of the collections on display have been as well-received as this one (which focused on German artwork from 1900-1945). Why did we like it so much? The layout was simple -- not too big, not too small. Each room had a theme, whether it was arranged by artist, political or social change, or just created within the same time period. The (free) audio guide was insightful; I don't need a play-by-play of what I'm looking at, I can see it for myself... And of course, the artwork was phenomenal. Paintings that could be at once hilarious and tragic, and sculptures that made you want to know more background than even an excellent audio guide could tell you. One of my personal favorites was a piece by Kirschner called "Potsdamer Platz" that was painted near the start of the first world war. The only reference to the war within the painting, which was of two well-dressed ladies standing in the foreground of a busy cosmopolitan center, was the darkened sky in the background which predicted dark times ahead.
Another favorite tourist activity that Casey and I have taken to is something I like to call "topping things". Within the first two days, we climbed to the top of the Berliner Dom AND took an elevator to the top of the all-too-touristy TV Tower (the tallest structure in Berlin, constructed during the Cold War as a demonstration of technological superiority). Each experience had something wonderful and different to offer, but our favorite climb was on our final day in Berlin proper when we went to the top of the Reichstag building at night. The Reichstag is a government building, specifically where the Bundestag (German congress) meets for 22 weeks of the year. The neo-classical facade of the building, with its German flags and inscription declaring, "For the German People" is certainly impressive. However, once we got inside, we realized that the interior of the building is actually brand new and showcases some of the most forward-thinking and innovative "green" technology the world has to offer. By this point, the juxtaposition of new and old did not suprise us, rather it seemed natural. The large, all glass dome that caps the enormous building is a free-standing steel structure that allows visitors to catch a breathtaking view of Berlin, while giving them a birds-eye peek at governmental proceedings below. As we walked upwards along a spiral that winds around the inside of the dome, a radio-guided audio tour told us what we were looking at in the city below, as well as giving us a history of the building itself.
Overall we had a fantastic time in Berlin. We had delicious food which, despite Casey's last posting, DID include some German specialties like currywurst (sausage covered in a spicy curry sauce) and apple streudel - mmmm. We took a trip to the zoo, saw many more museums and architectural wonders than I have space to elaborate on here, and we still had plenty of time for one of my favorite things: relaxing after a long day with a tall German beer (whose name I certainly could not pronounce) while people-watching from an outdoor cafe.
On to Vienna!
Our trip started with a stroll down Unter den Linden, a street that, in many ways, demonstrates the complexity I am referring to. Its grand entrance (the Brandenburg Gate) is flanked by huge stone columns and gorgeous statues. As you pass through the gates, you see a bustling tourist center lined with German cafes and yes, of course, the occasional Starbucks. There were bike tours and kids playing and street performers. If you didn't take a moment to read the glass panel hiding unobtrusively in a shady alcove of trees, you might not have had any idea that you had just crossed from what was once West Berlin into what was once East Berlin; that nearly 150 people had been killed where you stand.
This was not the last time Casey and I felt conflicted while exploring Berlin. After all, to even a casual observer such as myself, it is very clear that Berlin is undergoing rapid change and as a city, has the near impossible task of moving forward while remembering and commemorating a sometimes dark social and political past.
Despite this, and perhaps because of it, Berlin has so much to offer. This post would get obscenely long if I were to report back on every activity and adventure we had here, so I will stick to some highlights. One of Casey's personal favorites was the Pergamon Museum, a colossal museum displaying ancient architectural works such as the Ishtar gates and the Pergamon alter. We took pictures of both, but even a photograph would have difficulty capturing the sheer immensity of either of these structures, which showcased the best of art and architecture from such disparate places and times in history.
The Neue Nationalgalerie, which we explored on our third day in the city, was one of the best art galleries either of us as ever been to. For those of you who are ready to book a trip to Berlin, I have sad news for you. The gallery is a temporary one, and not all of the collections on display have been as well-received as this one (which focused on German artwork from 1900-1945). Why did we like it so much? The layout was simple -- not too big, not too small. Each room had a theme, whether it was arranged by artist, political or social change, or just created within the same time period. The (free) audio guide was insightful; I don't need a play-by-play of what I'm looking at, I can see it for myself... And of course, the artwork was phenomenal. Paintings that could be at once hilarious and tragic, and sculptures that made you want to know more background than even an excellent audio guide could tell you. One of my personal favorites was a piece by Kirschner called "Potsdamer Platz" that was painted near the start of the first world war. The only reference to the war within the painting, which was of two well-dressed ladies standing in the foreground of a busy cosmopolitan center, was the darkened sky in the background which predicted dark times ahead.
Another favorite tourist activity that Casey and I have taken to is something I like to call "topping things". Within the first two days, we climbed to the top of the Berliner Dom AND took an elevator to the top of the all-too-touristy TV Tower (the tallest structure in Berlin, constructed during the Cold War as a demonstration of technological superiority). Each experience had something wonderful and different to offer, but our favorite climb was on our final day in Berlin proper when we went to the top of the Reichstag building at night. The Reichstag is a government building, specifically where the Bundestag (German congress) meets for 22 weeks of the year. The neo-classical facade of the building, with its German flags and inscription declaring, "For the German People" is certainly impressive. However, once we got inside, we realized that the interior of the building is actually brand new and showcases some of the most forward-thinking and innovative "green" technology the world has to offer. By this point, the juxtaposition of new and old did not suprise us, rather it seemed natural. The large, all glass dome that caps the enormous building is a free-standing steel structure that allows visitors to catch a breathtaking view of Berlin, while giving them a birds-eye peek at governmental proceedings below. As we walked upwards along a spiral that winds around the inside of the dome, a radio-guided audio tour told us what we were looking at in the city below, as well as giving us a history of the building itself.
Overall we had a fantastic time in Berlin. We had delicious food which, despite Casey's last posting, DID include some German specialties like currywurst (sausage covered in a spicy curry sauce) and apple streudel - mmmm. We took a trip to the zoo, saw many more museums and architectural wonders than I have space to elaborate on here, and we still had plenty of time for one of my favorite things: relaxing after a long day with a tall German beer (whose name I certainly could not pronounce) while people-watching from an outdoor cafe.
On to Vienna!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Post Script
HAPPY (ALMOST) 20th BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVORITE NOT-SO-LITTLE-ANYMORE BROTHER, DAN!!! And, of course, happy (belated) 0.75th to my favorite still-quite-little nephew, Samuel!
Good Ideas, Bad Ideas
Hi, All--
It's time to talk about two of Eliza's favorite things -- eating and sleeping! For those of you who are unaware, we elected to drastically reduce the overall cost of our trip by camping our way across Europe and eating on the cheap. Was this a good idea? So far, we think it's worked out pretty well, but it certainly gave us the opportunity to have quite a few bad ideas...
Bad Idea #1: Pitching our tent in the middle of a field, far away from any source of shade, in the middle of a heat wave. Sure, our high-tech abode has plenty of ventilation. But you can ventilate it all you want -- stick something in the oven, and it's still going to get cooked.
Good Idea #1: Meeting up with our friend Carrie in Amsterdam.
Bad Idea #2: Assuming that a "3-person tent" would comfortably fit three of us. Thank goodness we're all very thin... (On a side note, our tent weathered several serious downpours in the Netherlands, and is standing tall through a thunderstorm in Berlin as I type this -- Bravo!)
Bad Idea #3: Pitching our tent on and/or near a German ant colony. We still can't figure out where the little buggers are coming from, but they really like throwing parties on our rainfly. I assume that a few will hitchhike with us to Vienna; I just hope we're not responsible for an invasive insect species decimating the Austrian countryside.
Good Idea #2: Impulsively picking Dutch cafes by checking for low prices and ordering random menu items. Seriously, is it even possible to order bad food in Amsterdam?
Bad Idea #4: Impulsively picking German cafes by checking for low prices and ordering random menu items. Some of these kitchens must be staffed by toddlers wielding slices of Kraft American cheese and an EZ-Bake toaster oven. We should have stuck with the wurst. (Although I will say that we've had some of the best falafel/Vietnamese food of our lives here. Go figure.)
We still have two days left in Berlin, so I won't launch into a long-winded exposition of my thoughts on this once-war-torn, deeply divided, ethnically diverse, hustling, bustling, vibrant city just yet. But I will say that we're loving it, and provide a quick list of some particulars (this one's for you, Amy!):
- The sweeping views from the top of the Berliner Dom and the (super-touristy, but still satisfying) TV Tower.
- The Pergamon Temple and Ishtar Gates of Babylon preserved (almost) in their entirety; eat your heart out, Ben.
- Stunning 19th-Century marble sculptures at the Alte Nationalgalerie.
- Libeskind's phenomenal architecture at the Jewish Museum -- even if the exhibits were a bit lackluster.
- The low, low, low cost of beer.
Until next time!
It's time to talk about two of Eliza's favorite things -- eating and sleeping! For those of you who are unaware, we elected to drastically reduce the overall cost of our trip by camping our way across Europe and eating on the cheap. Was this a good idea? So far, we think it's worked out pretty well, but it certainly gave us the opportunity to have quite a few bad ideas...
Bad Idea #1: Pitching our tent in the middle of a field, far away from any source of shade, in the middle of a heat wave. Sure, our high-tech abode has plenty of ventilation. But you can ventilate it all you want -- stick something in the oven, and it's still going to get cooked.
Good Idea #1: Meeting up with our friend Carrie in Amsterdam.
Bad Idea #2: Assuming that a "3-person tent" would comfortably fit three of us. Thank goodness we're all very thin... (On a side note, our tent weathered several serious downpours in the Netherlands, and is standing tall through a thunderstorm in Berlin as I type this -- Bravo!)
Bad Idea #3: Pitching our tent on and/or near a German ant colony. We still can't figure out where the little buggers are coming from, but they really like throwing parties on our rainfly. I assume that a few will hitchhike with us to Vienna; I just hope we're not responsible for an invasive insect species decimating the Austrian countryside.
Good Idea #2: Impulsively picking Dutch cafes by checking for low prices and ordering random menu items. Seriously, is it even possible to order bad food in Amsterdam?
Bad Idea #4: Impulsively picking German cafes by checking for low prices and ordering random menu items. Some of these kitchens must be staffed by toddlers wielding slices of Kraft American cheese and an EZ-Bake toaster oven. We should have stuck with the wurst. (Although I will say that we've had some of the best falafel/Vietnamese food of our lives here. Go figure.)
We still have two days left in Berlin, so I won't launch into a long-winded exposition of my thoughts on this once-war-torn, deeply divided, ethnically diverse, hustling, bustling, vibrant city just yet. But I will say that we're loving it, and provide a quick list of some particulars (this one's for you, Amy!):
- The sweeping views from the top of the Berliner Dom and the (super-touristy, but still satisfying) TV Tower.
- The Pergamon Temple and Ishtar Gates of Babylon preserved (almost) in their entirety; eat your heart out, Ben.
- Stunning 19th-Century marble sculptures at the Alte Nationalgalerie.
- Libeskind's phenomenal architecture at the Jewish Museum -- even if the exhibits were a bit lackluster.
- The low, low, low cost of beer.
Until next time!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Second in the World!
We are actually in Berlin right now, as you may already know if you´re following along at home. We had a fantastic time in Amsterdam (thanks, in no small part, to meeting up with our good pal Carrie for the duration of our stay). Casey was able to post a quick update about our arrival, but since then, we have been unable to find an affordable internet cafe to update you on our Amsterdam shenanignans.
I am pretty roasty in this 6ft x 3ft internet space, so I won´t pretend that this will be a coherent or well thought-out posting. Without further ado, here are some things that I have learned:
-I learned on the flight from Iceland to Amsterdam that whining sounds the same in all languages (thank you, 7-year-old Icelandic boy sitting in the seat behind me).
-I learned that Chuck Norris jokes do not sound the same in all languages (thank you, French teenaged boys raucously recounting jokes about "Shuck Nor-ees" on our first ride on Amsterdam´s tram system)
-I learned that it takes approximately one glass of wine´s length of time in a cafe to ride out the worst of a Dutch thunderstorm
-I learned that peanut sauce on fries is even more delicious than it sounds
-I learned that there are lots of tourists in Amsterdam (as demonstrated by the fact that an announcement was made over the loudspeaker of the tram which everyone ignored. When I asked the only Dutch-looking person to translate, they said the train was broken down and we needed to get off. With a collective "ohhhhh", everyone simulataneously deboarded.)
-I learned that no matter how many children one has in Amsterdam, there is a way to fit all of them on a single bike
-I learned to wear orange, scream "Goooo Holland", and become personally invested in a team in which I had no prior interest
-I learned that grocery stores cannot sell cold beer for some reason, but that sticking a warm six-pack in the frozen fries section for 25 minutes while pretending to browse Dutch magazine racks will do the trick every time
Over all, we had a fantastic time in Amsterdam (and we miss you already, Carrie!). UNFORTUNATELY, we have not yet found a way to post pictures, but I hope to find a way to do that in the not-too-distant future.
Love to you all (we love reading any comments, so feel free to say hi!)
I am pretty roasty in this 6ft x 3ft internet space, so I won´t pretend that this will be a coherent or well thought-out posting. Without further ado, here are some things that I have learned:
-I learned on the flight from Iceland to Amsterdam that whining sounds the same in all languages (thank you, 7-year-old Icelandic boy sitting in the seat behind me).
-I learned that Chuck Norris jokes do not sound the same in all languages (thank you, French teenaged boys raucously recounting jokes about "Shuck Nor-ees" on our first ride on Amsterdam´s tram system)
-I learned that it takes approximately one glass of wine´s length of time in a cafe to ride out the worst of a Dutch thunderstorm
-I learned that peanut sauce on fries is even more delicious than it sounds
-I learned that there are lots of tourists in Amsterdam (as demonstrated by the fact that an announcement was made over the loudspeaker of the tram which everyone ignored. When I asked the only Dutch-looking person to translate, they said the train was broken down and we needed to get off. With a collective "ohhhhh", everyone simulataneously deboarded.)
-I learned that no matter how many children one has in Amsterdam, there is a way to fit all of them on a single bike
-I learned to wear orange, scream "Goooo Holland", and become personally invested in a team in which I had no prior interest
-I learned that grocery stores cannot sell cold beer for some reason, but that sticking a warm six-pack in the frozen fries section for 25 minutes while pretending to browse Dutch magazine racks will do the trick every time
Over all, we had a fantastic time in Amsterdam (and we miss you already, Carrie!). UNFORTUNATELY, we have not yet found a way to post pictures, but I hope to find a way to do that in the not-too-distant future.
Love to you all (we love reading any comments, so feel free to say hi!)
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Alive and Sweaty
Greetings from the other side of the Atlantic!
We're now safely ensconced in Amsterdam, and our flight went by largely without incident. We landed, used an ATM, and found our campsite with no major problems. (Aren't you all so proud?) Everything was feeling cool and groovy -- even the air smelled fresher as we trekked out to our camping pitch.
Really fresh, in fact -- almost suspiciously so...
Sort of like when I'm in the shower, and I grab a bottle of Pert Plus and squeeze out a dollop, only this smelled like a whole lot more than a dollop.
Which, of course, it was.
A whole bottle, to be precise, and it had exploded all over the inside of my pack. I had luckily packed it in a seperate section, apart from clothing and important documents, but had mysteriously decided to put lots of other valuable things in with it. Among them, our plug adaptor, a pocketknife, an ebook charger, and even the (now-ruined) rolls of toilet paper that my mother gave us, "just in case."
(And wouldn't you know it, the bathroom stalls were universally bereft of TP.)
Forty-five minutes worth of rinsing later, I returned to our tent to settle in and begin adjusting to the six-hour time difference. I wish that I also had to adjust to the temperature difference, but the heat wave that we left back in Boston apppears to have followed us to the Dutch lowlands. Highs in the low 90s and a sun that doesn't set until 10:30 PM, which might have been bearable if anybody owned an air conditioner in this damn country. But they don't, and despite all of the other fancy features that our tent came with, neither do we.
But for all that, we're alive! We made it here safely! We slept through a night without our tent collapsing on us! We have succesffully navigated the most bizarre public transit system in the world! And we've had a wonderful time with the Dutch language, which seems to consist entirely of random vowels strung together in front of word stems like "buurp," "fahrt," and "dijk."
So long story short, we're still managing to have a grand ol' time.
Liza will post soon with stories about all of the fun we've been having since recouping from the arrival!
Until then--
We're now safely ensconced in Amsterdam, and our flight went by largely without incident. We landed, used an ATM, and found our campsite with no major problems. (Aren't you all so proud?) Everything was feeling cool and groovy -- even the air smelled fresher as we trekked out to our camping pitch.
Really fresh, in fact -- almost suspiciously so...
Sort of like when I'm in the shower, and I grab a bottle of Pert Plus and squeeze out a dollop, only this smelled like a whole lot more than a dollop.
Which, of course, it was.
A whole bottle, to be precise, and it had exploded all over the inside of my pack. I had luckily packed it in a seperate section, apart from clothing and important documents, but had mysteriously decided to put lots of other valuable things in with it. Among them, our plug adaptor, a pocketknife, an ebook charger, and even the (now-ruined) rolls of toilet paper that my mother gave us, "just in case."
(And wouldn't you know it, the bathroom stalls were universally bereft of TP.)
Forty-five minutes worth of rinsing later, I returned to our tent to settle in and begin adjusting to the six-hour time difference. I wish that I also had to adjust to the temperature difference, but the heat wave that we left back in Boston apppears to have followed us to the Dutch lowlands. Highs in the low 90s and a sun that doesn't set until 10:30 PM, which might have been bearable if anybody owned an air conditioner in this damn country. But they don't, and despite all of the other fancy features that our tent came with, neither do we.
But for all that, we're alive! We made it here safely! We slept through a night without our tent collapsing on us! We have succesffully navigated the most bizarre public transit system in the world! And we've had a wonderful time with the Dutch language, which seems to consist entirely of random vowels strung together in front of word stems like "buurp," "fahrt," and "dijk."
So long story short, we're still managing to have a grand ol' time.
Liza will post soon with stories about all of the fun we've been having since recouping from the arrival!
Until then--
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Last-minute(ness)
I should be packing right now.
When I told people I was going to keep working at my job up until the day before I left for the trip, most people had the same reaction: "Are you nuts???" As it turns out, I just know myself too well. I have never been able to pack for a trip more than 12 hours in advance. Case in point: waking up at 4am to pack my suitcase for my semester abroad in New Zealand. The alternative is just too stressful. After all, I'm going to need my toothbrush the morning of departure! And how can I possibly pick out a traveling outfit in advance? If it's chilly the morning I leave, God forbid I've already packed away my favorite fleece... So here we are, T-minus 6 hours until we depart for the airport, and I'm sitting in my pajamas with an unpacked suitcase writing a blog entry.
For those of you that know the background of our trip preparation, this should come as no surprise. Casey took care of all of the nitty-gritty details of planning the trip (ie: which countries we would go to and everything we'd do there). This freed me up to plan, well, nothing. And I couldn't have been happier about it. There was a brief period during which he felt bad for not including me and I felt bad for not contributing. It took us approximately 15 minutes to establish that there was a reason for our prospective roles. I could not have cared less which local train we'd be taking from Antibes to Blois, and Casey could not have cared more.
This leaves me in an interesting predicament. You (the blog reader) and I are actually in very much the same position. I am excitedly anticipating the unveiling of what we will do in each city along our route. So in many ways, we'll be taking this journey together. Casey, on the other hand, has yahoo-ed and googled and yelped and highlighted and printed and purchased and just about memorized each detail of the trip. And, of course, he's been fully packed for weeks. So, after a year of planning and a year of not (respectively), Casey and I are both feeling fully prepared to embark on our journey.
...I just need to go pack.
When I told people I was going to keep working at my job up until the day before I left for the trip, most people had the same reaction: "Are you nuts???" As it turns out, I just know myself too well. I have never been able to pack for a trip more than 12 hours in advance. Case in point: waking up at 4am to pack my suitcase for my semester abroad in New Zealand. The alternative is just too stressful. After all, I'm going to need my toothbrush the morning of departure! And how can I possibly pick out a traveling outfit in advance? If it's chilly the morning I leave, God forbid I've already packed away my favorite fleece... So here we are, T-minus 6 hours until we depart for the airport, and I'm sitting in my pajamas with an unpacked suitcase writing a blog entry.
For those of you that know the background of our trip preparation, this should come as no surprise. Casey took care of all of the nitty-gritty details of planning the trip (ie: which countries we would go to and everything we'd do there). This freed me up to plan, well, nothing. And I couldn't have been happier about it. There was a brief period during which he felt bad for not including me and I felt bad for not contributing. It took us approximately 15 minutes to establish that there was a reason for our prospective roles. I could not have cared less which local train we'd be taking from Antibes to Blois, and Casey could not have cared more.
This leaves me in an interesting predicament. You (the blog reader) and I are actually in very much the same position. I am excitedly anticipating the unveiling of what we will do in each city along our route. So in many ways, we'll be taking this journey together. Casey, on the other hand, has yahoo-ed and googled and yelped and highlighted and printed and purchased and just about memorized each detail of the trip. And, of course, he's been fully packed for weeks. So, after a year of planning and a year of not (respectively), Casey and I are both feeling fully prepared to embark on our journey.
...I just need to go pack.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Voetbal
For those of you stalwart soccer fans who are still following the World Cup, the Netherlands have just advanced to the final... And can you guess which country we'll be in when it takes place on Sunday?
Should be an exciting start to the vacation!
Should be an exciting start to the vacation!
Casey's Two Euro
Despite her use of the first-person singular in the previous post, I’m sure you’ll all be happy to know that Eliza won't be trekking across the Continent alone this summer. No, indeed -- I’ll be right there beside her, wearing a baseball cap and Dayglo fanny pack, holding my maps upside down and miscalculating times on Europe’s 24-hour clocks, all while speaking to the locals with a mangled accent derived from two years of remedial high-school French.
I’m sure she’s thrilled.
Like her, I’m also new to blogging, and really have no idea how to entertain such an anonymous audience. What if nothing exciting happens to us? What if exciting things happen, but I can’t do them justice? What if – gasp! – nobody comments on a single one of my posts?? I’ve considered making up crazy stories to hold your attention – something about frolicking through the peaks of the Alps, teaching local children important life lessons, and dramatically risking my own life on their behalf – but then I realized that I was just daydreaming about The Sound of Music again.
In the end, we’ll just do our best to pass on a few anecdotes and keep you all up to date. It may not be as captivating as Julie Andrews breaking into song, but hey, what is?
So bookmark this page and stay tuned!
I’m sure she’s thrilled.
Like her, I’m also new to blogging, and really have no idea how to entertain such an anonymous audience. What if nothing exciting happens to us? What if exciting things happen, but I can’t do them justice? What if – gasp! – nobody comments on a single one of my posts?? I’ve considered making up crazy stories to hold your attention – something about frolicking through the peaks of the Alps, teaching local children important life lessons, and dramatically risking my own life on their behalf – but then I realized that I was just daydreaming about The Sound of Music again.
In the end, we’ll just do our best to pass on a few anecdotes and keep you all up to date. It may not be as captivating as Julie Andrews breaking into song, but hey, what is?
So bookmark this page and stay tuned!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Irony and Welcome
Welcome to my blog. I know, I know EVERYONE has a blog these days. So for those of you who have not yet jumped on this particular bandwagon, I'll explain how this works. You go to the blogspot homepage, name your blog, check the availability of the URL you would like and you're set to go. In my quest to be wittily self-aware, I tried to secure a clever website name somewhere along the lines of: "www.everybodyhasablog.com" or "www.everyoneblogs.com". Guess what! Every possible iteration of that idea was already taken.
Why?
BECAUSE EVERYBODY BLOGS. And apparently "everyone" is just as wittily self-aware as I.
And so I welcome you with open arms to this Euro Trip blog. I will do my best not to bore you if you leave comments/love/wishes/money/compliments that appropriately express your desire to live vicariously through me as I embark on a 6-week journey to blow my life savings on the trip of a lifetime.
Why?
BECAUSE EVERYBODY BLOGS. And apparently "everyone" is just as wittily self-aware as I.
And so I welcome you with open arms to this Euro Trip blog. I will do my best not to bore you if you leave comments/love/wishes/money/compliments that appropriately express your desire to live vicariously through me as I embark on a 6-week journey to blow my life savings on the trip of a lifetime.
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