Rome...part two

Although we were exhausted from a very long day of being tourists, we wanted to avoid the long lines to get into the Vatican Museum by joining a tour. So we had to be at St. Peter's Square by 9am. Originally, we had wanted to avoid the Vatican on Wednesday because there would be a Papal Audience (the Pope comes out, rides around in his Pope mobile and gives a speech). We thought that the crowds would make it a little too busy. However, the following day (also our last day in Rome) was a free day and there would be no tours available. Anyway, we attended the Papal Audience and there were thousands of people there and I was not tall enough to get more than a couple glimpses at the Pope. Andy did manage to take a few pictures. You'll have to search the pics (Waldo style) to find the Pope. Here we are at the Papal Audience.
The Vatican Museum sure was impressive. The collection is absolutely HUGE!!!! Even the ceilings were ornate. The ceilings of the "Map Room" were particularly impressive.
The highlights of the day were Raphael rooms, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. The Raphael rooms were cool because they were practically empty and the walls were the works of art. We saw the "School of Athens" as well as a fresco with Sylvester Stallone in it. Take a look...here's a hint, he's the guy on the left.
The Sistine Chapel was, of course, a masterpiece! It was so cool to see it in person. We were not allowed to take pictures there because a few years ago a Japanese firm had paid to have the chapel cleaned in return for the rights to any pictures taken there. You'll just have to go there yourself.
St. Peter's Basilica is...huge. It's hard to appreciate the scale of the building until you realize how many people are there and how small everyone is. We did run into some LDS missionaries at St. Peter's, so that was cool. St. Peter's Basilica is the home of Michelangelo's first masterpiece, the Pieta. One thing we were unable to find was something our tour guide said we could find in some of the nearby giftshops. Try as I may, I could not find the coveted Pope Soap on a Rope.

The Vatican is it's own country and is protected by the Swiss Guard. Apparently they have standards similar to missionaries but are also trained to kill people with practically anything. Be it as it may, they have funny uniforms!!
After the Vatican and St. Peter's, we headed home to rest. We wanted to be somewhat functional for our last day in Italy. All we did the rest of the day was find something to eat and then we ventured out to the Colosseum to get some night pictures. (See the previous entry for those pictures.)

For our last day in Italy, we took the time to walk around to places we had not yet seen like the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. The Trevi Fountain was very cool and very big. The tradition is that if you throw a coin over your shoulder into the Trevi Fountain, you will return someday to Rome. We were certainly down with that!! Of course, I insisted that we use American pennies because they are worth less than euros. :-)

We then went and saw the Spanish Steps. In all honesty, I couldn't tell what the big deal was about the Spanish Steps. There were certainly a lot of tired-looking tourists trying to muster up enough energy to make it to their next destinations. But there was a big advertisement at the top of the steps obstructing the view. In one of the guidebooks I read later on, I found out that the area surrounding the steps is a really expensive shopping area...kind of like a Rodeo Drive. So that explains why our lunch at a nearby restaurant was overly expensive (and skimpy on the portion sizes). They even charged us a 2-euro-per-person cover charge. Lame.
At that point, we had seen everything we really wanted to, so we went to a cathedral in the area where we saw another one of Michelangelo's statues, "Moses". That was very cool. We polished off our day by having our last gelato and doing a little souvenir shopping. That night, when we went out in search of food, it was POURING rain!! We were so fortunate to not have had any rain our whole trip and we never had to change our plans because of the weather. In fact, we had EXCELLENT weather the entire time!! Anyway, we went to a restaurant near our apartment (which is very far from all of the touristy things in Rome). Aside from getting totally drenched, the atmosphere and food were excellent!

We had a WONDERFUL time in Italy and I highly recommend going there. Just going to Italy was educational and very beautiful. This was my first time traveling in Europe and I must admit that I LOVED it!!!

Rome...part one

On Monday morning we set out for Rome. For whatever reason, we had problems purchasing two second-class train tickets and ended up getting two first-class tickets. It was quite a bit more comfortable and a lot cleaner than the other train rides we had been on, but it was significantly more expensive. At least they served us a snack.
The first thing we did after we found our apartment/Bed and Breakfast was to check out the Colosseum. It was really cool to see it. We bought tickets for a tour of the Colosseum and Palentine Hill. We learned so much. I walked away from the Colosseum with similar feelings as when I visit the Great Wall of China. There's such an amazing sense of history! The Colosseum was built in 80 AD and most of it is still standing. Our tour guide told us many interesting things. You're probably aware that the Colosseum was used for competitions between gladiators. Gladiators were typically prisoners and they would compete with one another or against animals like lions, wolves, etc. We learned that the losing bodies of the gladiators were drug off stage where they were quartered and their blood was drained into vials which people would buy and drink thinking that a person's power was in their blood (not their spirit). We also learned that one of the emperors thought to flood the Colosseum so that competitions on boats would take place. The boats would ram into each other and the gladiators would be hanging on for their lives because not only would they be risking their lives by drowning, but there were alligators in the water as well.
While I certainly don't agree with the practices that went on at the Colosseum, it was humbling to stand there and take it all in. How could a civilization take so much delight in the death and slaughter of other people?
We did, however, get some cool pictures of the Colosseum at night.
Our guide mentioned that contrary to popular belief, Christians were not killed at events at the Colosseum, but under the rule of Emperor Nero (he was a crazy little emperor) Christians were executed and burned at Circus Maximus where they would hold horse/chariot races. There's not much left to Circus Maximus now...it just looks like an open field.
Palentine Hill was where some of the emperors lived...quite extravagantly, I might add.
From Palentine Hill we could see the Forum which is where all the political events took place. Here's a picture of the Forum with the Colosseum in the background.
The next day, we started early so we could make it to our Angels and Demons tour. It was really cool. If you don't know, Angels and Demons is a book written by Dan Brown and most of the action takes place in and around Rome. We spent the morning walking around the "Path of Illumination" and learning a variety of things about the area. We saw Andy's all-time favorite statue, the Ecstasy of St. Teresa.
Our tour took us to the Castel Sant' Angelo, the Pantheon, St. Peter's Square and Santa Maria del Popolo.
We had scheduled another tour called "The Dark Heart of Rome" for Tuesday evening, so we just walked around Rome and went in a ton of Cathedrals that I can't remember the names of and tried to save up energy for the tour. I will say this, the cathedrals in Rome sure are ornate!!!
On our night tour, my favorite story was that of Bruno. Bruno was killed/burned at the stake for speaking out against the church. He claimed the Christ was just a magician. He later became a symbol for freedom of speech. I thought his statue was really cool looking with the moon behind it.

Florence

We left Cinqueterre early Saturday morning to catch a train to Florence so we could make our reservations to the Academia--the museum with Michelangelo's "The David". We were sad to leave Cinqueterre, but anxious to move on to other locations. We arrived in Florence and went straight to our hostel, the Instituto Gould. Not too bad for 62 Euros a night.
On the way to our hostel, we saw something that had made us laugh in Torino. The cars in Italy are significantly smaller than the cars in America. In fact, the Smart Car's ForTwo only seats two people and can literally be parked in a parallel parking spot...vertically. Take a look:
After all the hiking we had done the day before, we were pretty exhausted. We went to the Academia Museum where, among other things, we saw Michelangelo's The David. I was very impressed with how huge the statue is--17 feet high! I was also impressed that Michelangelo completed the statue when he was only 29 years old. We also saw the six unfinished statues, The Prisoners, by Michelangelo. He truly was a talented sculptor.
From the museum, we walked around a little and saw the famous bronze doors of the baptistery (or at least the replicas) by Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1452.
Across from the baptistery is the Duomo of Florence. It is huge. It is also impossible to get a good picture of it because the surrounding buildings are so close to it. We were so worn out from hiking, waiting in lines and walking around that we didn't have the energy to wait in line to go inside or to climb to the top of the Duomo. However, the outside of the Duomo is very unusual because it was built with different colors of marble (or granite or whatever it was).
The green and white contrasts and the designs really make it an impressive building. However, we couldn't help but notice how dirty it was. In fact, most of the larger cities are very dirty and I kept wanting to grab a bucket of cleansers and a scrub brush and start cleaning stuff. Even a pressure sprayer would have done wonders. On our entire trip, we only saw one dude removing graffiti and I wanted to give him an award!! Everywhere we went (except Cinqueterre) there were problems with graffiti. Fortunately, the main attractions were graffiti-free.
Our second day in Florence was a Sunday. We were not close enough to an LDS church, so we walked around to a couple cathedrals to hear some singing and we even found an English-speaking service that we sat in on for a little while. It was interesting.
We then went to the Uffizi Museum for our reserved tour time. The Uffizi Museum is one of the largest museums in Italy. There were soooo many statues and works of art there. The statues are my favorite. We saw a couple famous paintings by Botticelli; The Birth of Venus and Primavera. The Medicci family (a wealthy Italian family back in the day) sure did have an extensive art collection.
We then walked around Florence. There's a piazza, Piazza della Signoria, that has several statues out in the open including a copy of The David. We also walked around to see the famous bridge, Ponte Veccio, which is a bridge with several jewelry stores on it.
We then went to the Boboli Gardens. In all honesty, I was expecting the gardens to be better manicured, but it was cool anyway. The gardens are several acres and there are statues throughout. Here are some of our favorite pictures.
After walking around the Boboli Gardens for quite some time, we took a taxi to Piazzale Michelangelo to see the sunset. I highly recommend doing this. It's a great location to see Florence and especially to see the sun set. We got some great pictures. The large bridge is the Ponte Veccio and off to the right, you can see the Duomo. Here are some more of my favorite pictures from the Piazza.

Cinqueterre....continued

Since we really only had a day and a half in Cinqueterre, we spent our only full day there hiking from Corniglia to Manarola where we had lunch. Then we hiked from Manarola to Riomaggiore by way of the "Love Hike". While we were in Riomaggiore, we had gelato (Italian Ice Cream). YUM!! We then caught a boat from Riomaggiore to the western-most village, Monterosso al Mare, via boat. The boats that run between the villages are large and they stop at all the villages except Corniglia. Here's a picture of a boat docking at Vernazza.
Monterosso is, by far, the most touristy of all the villages, but it also has the best beach. I was surprised that the water was relatively clean and warm enough that even I, a self-proclaimed beach snob, would have gone in it. We rested a little and just enjoyed the ocean for a little while and then we took the train to Vernazza. Vernazza was cool because it had these old towers you could climb up to. They were once used as watchtowers to help defend that part of Italy from intruders.

From the tower, we tried to determine the best possible location to position ourselves to get some amazing pictures of the sunset. Our first inclination was to head up near a bell tower. So we set off on what turned out to be a wild goose chase. We went though random alleys up through a school, some government building and a playground only to find that once we had gotten to where we had initially determined to be a great location to watch the sun set, there was a building blocking part of our view. By then, it was about 7pm and we knew we only had about twenty minutes until the sunset. We quickly decided to abandon our original plan and hike up to the main trail where we knew we could get a great view of the harbor. After a lot of hard work, these are the pictures we finally got.


Well worth the effort. Don't you agree???

When we finally got back to Corniglia after a long day of hiking, we had dinner at a restaurant where Andy ordered the most humorous of our vacation's meals, "Pasta to the Angry". It was basically pasta with a lot of pepper. Too angry for my tastes, but Andy enjoyed it.

Cinqueterre - The Five Villages

After staying in Torino, we took the train to Cinqueterre. Cinqueterre is a series of five villages on the Italian riviera; Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. We stayed in the middle village, Corniglia. When we arrived, we had to hike up a mountain from the train to get to Corniglia by way of about 388 stairs.
Fortunately, our efforts were well worth the hike! We could see a small cove from our apartment (unfortunately the windows are all pretty small).


We spent the first afternoon exploring Corniglia and we got some pretty good pictures of the sunset.
The next morning, we set out to hike from Corniglia to Manarola and then on to Riomaggiore. Hiking between each village can take anywhere from 45 minutes to about two hours. Since we only had a day to see the Cinqueterre, we decided to hike to Riomaggiore and then take a boat from there to Monterosso al Mare and then take a train to Vernazza so we could see all the villages and catch the sunset in Vernazza.

The hike was absolutely beautiful!! For the most part, the trail was right along the coast and we could literally see how clear and beautiful the water was.
We stopped for lunch in Manarola. I had Caprese salad (YUM!!!) and I think Andy had one of his favorites...Gnocchi or Ravioli. Once we got to Riomaggiore, we took a quick look around and then had some gelato. Mmmmmm. One of my favorite pictures from Riomaggiore was of the boats in the harbor. Everything about Cinqueterre is relaxing and very inviting. We really wished that we had more time to spend in Cinqueterre.
(I'll have to finish my comments about Cinqueterre later--gotta run!)

Torino

We spent about 4 days in Torino. Unfortunately, Andy had to work most of the time and I was still sick for the first few days. Even though I was playing tourist, I tried to take it easy.

Some of the highlights were our dinners with the SEPA Executives Andy's been working with and my visit to the Pietro Micca Museum. On our first full day in Torino, one of Andy's executives took us out to see some of the sights in Torino. He took us to a Cathedral, Superga, up on a hill that was absolutely beautiful. It took them two years to just level the hill where the Cathedral was to be built.
He then took us out to dinner where we learned that traditional Italian meals consist of about 7 courses. Each dish was extremely fancy, interesting and delicious. My favorite was an asparagus fondue.

The second night, the other executive Andy was working with took us out to a Borolo winery. They took us on a tour of the winery. While we didn't drink anything, it was interesting to learn about the process.

I always thought it was the age of the wine that made it good, but it turns out that "a good year" refers to how much rain and sunshine that winery got during the year.
Our first course that night was a little strange. It was raw hamburger meat (beef tar tar) with garnish and stuff. I wasn't too keen on it, but Andy loved it. I guess I have the green light to just give Andy a handful of raw meat whenever he gets hungry from now on.


The other thing I really enjoyed in Torino was a trip to the Pietro Micca museum. In the early 1700's, the Savoy occupied a much smaller version of what is now Torino. The French were invading and the city was being defended by a small fort. As the French were entering the fort, a soldier named Pietro Micca sacrificed his life in order to save the city by setting off a large bomb. So the museum was there as a tribute to his heroism. The cool thing was that the fort had an underground system of tunnels. So it was really cool to walk through these tunnels and imagine what it must have been like about three hundred years ago.


All-in-all, Torino was very beautiful. There were more Trees and grass there than in Florence and Rome. This is a picture of me by the river Po. Who doesn't love a river named Po!?!?

Milan

So the primary reason we went to Italy was because Andy is doing research for a company in Italy to determine weather they could successfully enter the US market. The company is located in Torino. There was another couple there for the same reason. Andy and I flew in to the Milan Airport and we rented a car to drive to Torino. We had to have a car in Torino because we would need to drive to dinner a couple nights with the executives Andy was working with and to generally get around town.

On our way to Torino, we stopped off in Milan for about an hour and we saw the main Piazza with the famous Duomo (Cathedral). It's absolutely amazing. Not so amazing, however, is the 21st century advertising at the base of the Duomo.