Nifty Nice

After a heavy dose of tourism in Italy, we decided to take it a little easier for the next couple of days while we were in Nice. Since we didn’t do too much in Nice, we didn’t take many photos either, but what few we did take can be seen here.

We arrived in the Nice rail station early evening after a long train journey from Rome that took us through Pisa, Florence and Monaco. We checked into our hotel, found a nice Italian restaurant and had a good meal and some excellent dessert.

We woke up the next morning without much of a plan for the day so we went a wandering. We ended up walking down to the old part of Nice which had a great market and atmospheric, old French style streets which we spent some time nosing around.
As we were next to a large hill, we decided to head up (via a lift) to take a look of the city. At the top was a park and the views of the city and surrounding area were spectacular. While up there, we ran into an Aussie who had the same Kathmandu bag as us; we ended up talking to him for a bit. It was nice to speak to someone from our neck of the woods for a change.
It was quite warm by the time we got down the hill, so we headed back to the hotel, got our togs and towels and headed down to the beach. The beach was reasonably busy, and scattered with topless sunbathing women (not the attractive kind unfortunately). We spent a couple of hours there sunbathing, swimming in the Mediterranean, and relaxing on the stony beach.
We spent the rest of the day getting train reservations sorted, doing some much needed laundry in a dodgy area around the corner from our hotel, and going on a tram ride to a particularly uninteresting part of Nice.

The next day, before heading to the train station I came across an unusual site early in the morning. On my way back from the dodgy laundromat (after drying some wet laundry) I looked down a side street and saw it was packed with Muslim men sitting silently and motionless in the road. They had a sign sitting infront of them in French. I’m guessing it was something to do with Ramadan (which was on at the time), or some kind of silent protest. Either way, it was a little weird.

We left a short time later on a train to the town of Carcassonne.

Roaming Rome (part 2) – The Vatican and Pompeii

The second part of our trip to Rome continues after our second day in Italy’s capital. The photos of Rome can seen here, and the photos of Pompeii can be viewed here.

We decided to get a tour of the Vatican on our third day, so we headed back toward the other side of the city and arrived at the end of a very long line stretching back a couple of blocks from the entrance. It was a weekend, but the line still seemed ludicrously long. When we got to the entrance, we found out why. It was World Tourism Day, and to celebrate, entry to the Vatican was free! Score.
This time we shelled out for audio guides after being disappointed with the information available at the other tourist sites in Rome. We weren’t disappointed this time. The audio-guides provided all the information we needed as we marvelled at the vast collection of art on display at the Vatican. Some of the more impressive parts were the Raphael rooms, apartment rooms painted by Raphael and his apprentices in the early 16th century, and the famous Sistine Chapel, a rectangular chapel with all the walls and ceilings completely decorated by leading artists (including Raphael and Michelangelo) of the late 15th and early 16th century. The effect is still breathtaking.
We left the Vatican early afternoon, and headed to the Spanish Steps in the Piazza di Spagna, but it was busy, so we headed off to relax and spend some time in the nearby Villa Borghese gardens. We ended up in the Piazza del Popolo a bit later where we saw the twin churches of the Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto. Even though we were over the other side of town and tired we decided to walk back to the hotel. We walked via landmarks such as the impressive fountain of Fontana di Trevi, and through the Piazza della Repubblica.

We had planned to get a train for our last full day in Italy down to Naples, spend some time there, and also visit Pompeii. On the train to Naples, we were in a compartment with a Russian-American couple and an Italian-American-British man who lived near Naples and worked for the US Navy nearby. While chatting to the three strangers, the US Navy local strongly suggested that we spend as little time as possible in Naples as he considered it unsafe, especially for tourists. Put off by his warnings, we only changed trains in Naples on our way to Pompeii, which was a good thing, as looking back on it we needed all the time we could spare to look around Pompeii.

Pompeii is huge. It is a superbly preserved Roman city that was buried by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius back in 79 AD. We got there late morning, and found that they considered World Tourism Day to be a weekend celebration, so we got in free there too. I also asked about maps and guides this time, and were directed to a separate office where we received a good quality map and guide. Had we not asked, I don’t think we would have received.
When in the city we found that not all the city is open to the public, but the most impressive parts are open, such as the administrative and religous centre, the entertainment center, the high street, as well as the largest and most lavish villas in the city. There was more than enough to see. We spent most of the day there, but there was still heaps that we had to miss.
Half way through the day, we heard occasional barrages of gun fire (a mix of automatic and semi-automatic) in the distance; even though it was probably just target practice, it still unsettled us a bit, but since it wasn’t close by we weren’t too worried by it.
After having seen Pompeii, all other Roman ruins we’d seen elsewhere paled in comparison; and aside from the gun fire, it was a fantastic day, and well worth the trip down the coast.

We headed back up to Rome at the end of the day and prepared for our train journey back over the border to Nice, France the next day.
When on the train to Nice we got chatting to a different American couple in our compartment (this time American-Italian) which was a nice way to spend the journey north. We were looking forward to getting back to France.

Roaming Rome (part 1)

Rome didn’t live up to expectations for us overall. Although it has a long history evidenced by the tourist spots that are scattered around the city, we found the tourism infrastructure to be lacking, if not completely non-existent. We also found more of the people we communicated with to be rude or less helpful when we were struggling to speak in broken Italian, compared to when in the same situations in France. Although we had no camera when we arrived, we did take some photos during our four nights staying in city which you can see here.

As you might remember from the previous post; we arrived in Rome with no camera, and more worryingly, only a small amount of money. We had decided to tackle our problems in 4 steps:

1. Find a tourism office in the train station and get a map.
2. Check in to our hotel and drop off our bags.
3. Find a cash machine that works for us.
4. Buy a cheap camera.

Easy right?
We arrived in Rome’s largest and most busiest train station, Roma Termini, and immediately began looking for a tourism office. We couldn’t find one in the large station or on the map boards. While at a map board, we were approached by a woman selling accommodation, who we asked about a map; she gave us one for free.
Our first goal down, we trundled off to our hotel which we found was only a short walk from the station, but in a building up 4 flights of stairs. It was there that we met the terrible receptionist. We approached the pursed lipped woman and said that we had a room booked and asked if she spoke English (all in Italian). Her response was “No” followed by quickly spoken Italian; which we couldn’t comprehend. We continued this strained communication for a while, until we figured out that she wouldn’t check us in until we showed her a print out of our reservation, which we didn’t have. We then tried to ask in Italian where we could find an internet cafe so that we could print it out. She ignored the request and went on again about the reservation. We gave up on her, picked up our heavy backpacks and went back down to street level in search of an internet cafe. While at the hotel reception, I had noticed a sign in broken English that said you had to pay for the room upfront in cash. Yet another problem was added to our list.
Luckily we found an internet cafe around the corner and got the printout. We headed back to the train station in search of a cash machine. We did find a couple, but we had the same problem as in Venice and couldn’t get any out on our cashflow cards. As we were desperate again, we gave in to getting more cash out on credit, enough to pay for four nights + extra to get us by for a day or so.
We made our way back to the hotel feeling a little defeated. We were prepared to confront the horrible woman again, but there was a different and much more friendlier woman on the desk who happily checked us in and took our money. She even spoke a little English, so we took the opportunity to ask where we could buy a camera. The train station was her recommendation, so after dropping off our bags, we headed back there again in search of a new camera. We did find a couple of stores selling cameras, but they were dated models and were well overpriced. We ventured further into the city via the underground Metro system and ended up looking around streets full of clothing and jewellery stores. After about four hours of exploring, we were not far from the Vatican. By then we were depressed and about to give up on our search for the day, but before we did, I saw a Kodak sign above a store. We wandered over and at first it looked like they didn’t sell digital cameras, but as we approached the glass counter, we saw an array of modern mid to low range digital cameras displayed underneath at reasonable prices. We had finally found a camera! We promptly bought the cheapest one available from the old couple who owned the shop and left very relieved!

As we were close to the Vatican, we decided to try out the new camera. We headed into Saint Peter’s Square and tried out some shots as the sun was setting, then saw the changing of the Swiss Guard. We decided to check out St. Peter’s Basilica which was still open even though it was quite late in the day. There was no entry fee, but there was some tight security to go through before entering. Inside, the Basilica was huge, elaborate and breathtaking. A fitting centre for the Catholic Faith. We enjoyed walking around the basilica and looking at the amazing sculptures and other works of art. By the time we left it was pretty much dark, so we went in search of a restaurant.
We found a nice well priced Italian restaurant not too far from the Vatican. It was quiet when we entered, but as Italians eat a bit later, it was packed by the time we were half way through our meal. The food was tasty, the wine cheap (and not nasty) and the service friendly. It was a great way to end an awful day.

The next day we decided to do a mammoth tour of Rome to see as much as we could. We started with the Colosseum early morning, and were some of the first tourists of the day to enter. It was quite impressive standing inside, but lacked in information about the history of the place which we assumed would be all around the huge ancient stadium.
We left a little disappointed and headed over to the Forum, just a stones throw away from the Colosseum. We found the Forum had the same problem as the Colosseum. Even though there were huge, ancient Roman structures scattered all over the site, there was no information about what we were looking at, or where we were. All the tourists who seemed to be enjoying themselves had bought Rome guide books from street vendors and brought them in with them. There was no options to get these once we were inside. Having said that, the place itself was pretty amazing with some huge Roman buildings still standing (at least partially).
Our next destination was the Pantheon. It was originally built during Hadrian’s reign around 125AD, and its huge granite columns were brought over from Egypt especially for its construction. It was impressive, but very busy inside, so we didn’t stay long. Back outside the Pantheon, I spied a cash machine. I gave it a go, and hit the jackpot, it worked! We got out a few wads of euros, feeling much happier with our situation.
We then checked out a square, Piazza Navona, where local painters were displaying their artwork for sale among fountains and statues. We stopped off at a quaint quiet church when we reached Tiber Island, an island in the middle of the river. We needed the rest, both for our legs and for our heads, tired from our hectic day thus far.
But it wasn’t the end of our day yet. We checked out some other nearby sites marked on our map, one of which had the famous Mouth of Truth, which is said to bite off your hand if you put your hand inside the mouth and tell a lie.
It was getting late in the day when we came upon the Circus Maximus, the remains of the ancient chariot racing track of Rome. There’s not much there now, just the shape of the massive arena covered with grass and trees. While we were checking it out, we saw a strange sight: hundreds of bicycles were pouring into the Circus Maximus as we watched. Some of the cyclists were dressed in fancy dress and there were a couple of tandem bikes in there too. After a while, they started around the track, went around twice, then back onto the Roman streets. We still don’t know what it was all about.

(to be continued next post…)

Vivacious Venice

Venice was the most unique and tourist-packed city we’ve visited. Since it’s basically a collection of islands, land based motor vehicles have no place in the city. We spent a whole day touring around the city, and we didn’t see one car. The lack of vehicles makes the city unusually quiet, but its still busy. Instead of wide streets, the city thoroughfares are either pedestrian alleyways with bridges, or boats on the canals. As well as hoards of tourists, the streets also had many immigrants who had mobile counterfeit stores (sheets on the ground with merchandise) to avoid police. It was a strange experience; and one that I would recommend even though there are too many tourists. We took photos, as always, which I have uploaded here.

We left for Venice from Zurich via a slow train this time. This one took us through the marvellous Swiss Alps toward the Italian border. As we got closer to Venice, the towns started to change from being made up of orderly Swiss chalets to more random dilapidated Mediterranean buildings.
We arrived late in the day, and found our way through the busy streets to our hotel, which was not far from the station. Prior to leaving the station, we bought a map at what we thought was a tourist booth in the station, but was actually a hotel booking office.
We spent the remaining daylight by wandering around the city’s alleys. We quickly got lost and found a couple of interesting buildings; an Opera house, which was closed for the day and a large church, the Frari, which looked bland from the outside, but was very impressive on the inside with magnificent sculptures and paintings throughout it.
We were starting to feel a little peckish after leaving the cathedral, and luckily found a pizza store round the back of the church. The store was just a hole in a wall that sold pizza by the slice, but it was by far the best pizza either of us had… soooo goood! We managed to get ourselves unlost soon after the pizza and returned to our hotel.

We woke early the next morning so we could beat the rush to the most popular tourist attraction in Venice: Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square), the largest square in Venice and home to the most extravagant and popular church to visit in Venice, St Mark’s Basilica.
Even though we arrived before the Basilica opened, there was still a huge queue which we joined. When we eventually got to the front of the line, they wouldn’t let me in with my small backpack while women with giant handbags passed through unhindered. I had to find the cloakroom for the Basilica which was down a small alley off the square, well out of the way, to leave my bag in before entering. Inconvenient. Inside, the walls were covered with gold mosaic tiles everywhere. We don’t remember much else of it as the throngs of tourists used their flashes on their cameras to turn the church into an epileptic’s nightmare. We left quickly as we became rather uncomfortable.
After leaving the square, we went back to the Opera house from the day before (which took a while to find again) and had a quick tour of it. We decided that we had to take a trip on the canal before we left, but found the traditional gondolas to cost an outlandish amount of money to hire. We instead opted to take a far cheaper water taxi down the Grand Canal. It was interesting to see Venice from the water.
We ended up back at the now incredibly busy Piazza San Marco. We walked purposely away from the crowds toward the east of the city, where we found some quiet. We wandered around the streets and alleys for a while, savouring the moments when there were more locals on the street than tourists. On our wander we saw the Arsenal as well as the Public Gardens – the only large green space in the city.

Our legs were close to collapse by then, so we stumbled back to our hotel for a much needed break. Unfortunately, back at the hotel, our camera was accidentally knocked onto the floor. From then on, when turned on, it can’t stop zooming and makes a horrible a grinding noise. In short, it was screwed. Little did we know that this was only the beginning of our bad luck.
We were leaving for Rome the next morning and we had to have cash ready to pay for the room when we checked out. “No problem” we thought. There were a few cash machines I’d seen nearby. The cash machines were there and working, but incredibly, they didn’t accept our UK cashflow cards as the ones in France and Switzerland had done. We started to panic just a bit. It was getting late by then, so we resorted to going to a currency exchange office which also didn’t accept our cash cards, but did accept credit cards. It ended up being quite expensive getting euros out on my credit card, but at least we had something to pay the hotel with.

We left for Rome the next morning with no camera, a small amount of euros, and not knowing if if we would be able to get access to a working cash machine when we arrived.

Scenic Switzerland

We chose to go to Switzerland for two reasons. 1: Because we hadn’t been there before, and 2: Because our old flatmate and good friend Marco lives there. Marco was nice enough to let us crash at his place in Zürich. This isn’t unusual for him as he often hosts travelers through the couchsurfing.com website, and he made us feel very welcome. Marco also has a blog that is linked on the right.

We really enjoyed our stay in Switzerland despite the weather being overcast or raining for most of our stay. We didn’t do nearly as much as we did in Paris, but the slower pace let us take a bit of a rest! We took a few photos when we did get out, which can be seen here.

We arrived in Zürich from Paris by speedy train just after midday. When we stepped onto the platform, we saw a strange sight on the opposite platform. It was packed full of hyped up football fans sporting their team’s blue and white colours. Their train hadn’t arrived yet, but they could see it coming, and they were all cheering as it approached. The cheer reached a roar as train came to a stop infront of them, and they rushed to get on, not just through the doors, but also through the windows. If I had been close enough, I’m sure I would have seen them frothing at the mouth.
We came upon a more welcome sight as we entered the station: a local vegetarian brand was advertising their range of pre-prepared food by cooking and giving it away for free at stalls. We hadn’t had lunch, so we chowed down with the locals, including some Swiss Army soldiers.
We utilised the city’s efficient tram system to meet up with Marco at his work. He showed us back to his flat and we caught up.

The next day, after sleeping in, we took a a bit of a look around Zürich itself. The centre wasn’t as big as I had expected, but its still very picturesque with some great views of the lake and surrounding hills. Later, back at Marco’s, we met his Swiss girlfriend Monique who we shared a meal with. Monique was nice, friendly and logical (great catch Marco!).

We ended up going up the largest of the hills surrounding Zürich the next day (technically a mountain) The Üetliberg. We had to get a specific train up there, and views over Zürich and its lake were fantastic, as we had gone up on a clear day.
We went out with Marco to Monique’s place that afternoon, and played some mini-golf, which Tanya won over me by only one point. Later, Monique cooked for us at her place, and we met her sister too. It was a great night all round.

We planned with Marco to head to Interlaken, a tourist town not unlike Queenstown, in a completely different part of Switzerland for our next day. Its named Interlaken due to the town sitting between two lakes. It is also right down in the Swiss Alps and is surrounded by mountains. The views are fantastic on a clear day, but unfortunately, we didn’t choose a clear day. The weather was cold and overcast in the mountainous valley, but we didn’t let that dampen our spirits. We grabbed some traditional Swiss food for lunch. I can’t remember what it was exactly, but it was greasy, heavy, cheesy and tasty. Then we decided to get a cable car / tram ride up the Harder mountain to see if we could maybe get above the cloud… we were wrong. We could see about 20 meters infront of us in the cloud. At least the cable car ride was fun. We took a walk around the outer fringes of the town before leaving, but that cloud wasn’t going anywhere. We left a little disappointed, but I think we enjoyed the day overall.

We didn’t do too much for our last day in Zürich as we were mostly organising our trip to Italy. We did get back into Zürich central though, and took a trip around the lake on a ferry which was fun.
Marco and Monique had their weekly D&D session with a few friends that night. They agreed to let us tag along and sit in on the game to see what its all about. After knocking back a couple of beers, I found that its not quite as crazy-geeky as I initially thought, and even looks kinda fun. Even so, I don’t think it would be something I’d end up getting into of my own accord.

In the morning, we said our goodbyes and headed off to the train station to catch a train to Venice.

Paris part deux: Vermin, Versailles, and the Louvre

As with the previous post, you can check out the Paris photos here, and the Versailles photos here.

Later that evening, after finishing up at Notre Dame, we decided to eat on the cheap instead of going out to another restaurant. So we bought some bread, cheese and greens from a Monoprix supermarket and ate in our hotel room (even though there were signs in the hotel telling us not to). Later that night, we were both woken by rustle-rustle sounds coming from our bin on the other side of the room. I dutifully headed over to the bin to check it out. As I leaned over the bin, a small grey blur jumped out of the bin and flashed toward a corner of the room while a scream came from the bed. We had a mouse invader, brought in by our food scraps in the bin. It came back a couple more times during the night before I found its hole, which I plugged with some bunched up paper. It didn’t annoy us again, although Tanya didn’t get much sleep in that room for the next couple of nights.

After a sleepless night, we headed off to the Louvre, the national museum of France. However it was Tuesday, the one day in the week that the Louvre is closed, so we had to find something else to do.
We went to Versailles instead. Versailles is a city that is now considered an outer suburb of Paris. It was built up during the reign of the famous Louis XIV when he moved his seat of power to the Palace of Versailles. The palace and its grounds take up an enormous area, and all of it is kept in immaculate condition. We started by touring the main Palace and its Grand Apartments. They were room after room of 17th century extravagant luxury, each one huge, with painted ceilings and marble and gold everywhere. There was one hall that consisted entirely of mirrors on one side.
After the palace we explored some of the gardens and made our way to another couple of sets of buildings, about 30 minutes walk away, the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon (Marie-Antoinette’s Estate). They were both lower key than the main palace, but still very impressive.

Wednesday came around, and the Louvre was open this time, so off we went. We managed to stay the entire day within the huge museum which used to be a palace. We made an effort to see it all, but we only got through about 75% of it, most of which was very impressive and interesting. We saw too much to list here, but we did see the famous Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, both of which were not as impressive as other art works in the Louvre, and were absolutely chock full full of tourists surrounding the works.
Speaking of tourists, we experienced a couple of “horrible American tourist” stories in the Louvre, one of which I’ll share with you here.

We were at a cafe in the Louvre at lunch, where a large American in front of us was ordering. It went like this:
- I’ll have a coffee.
- Would you like an americano, or an espresso sir?
- (bemused) I just want coffee.
- OK sir, but we have two types of coffee. An americano, which comes in a mug, or an espresso, which is a small shot of coffee.
- (bemused, and angry) I just want an ordinary coffee!
- I’ll get you an americano sir.

With our last full day in Paris over we packed up in preparation for our train journey to Zurich, Switzerland the next day.