Almost done! So! On our last day, we had breakfast in the hotel which was a bit overpriced but worth it just because it meant I got to have Jessie stop and eat something in the morning. If we had to ‘look’ for somewhere to eat we wouldn’t have stopped moving until we were at the gate. Anyway, it was walk, metro, metro, metro all the way to the airport. I was actually really impressed that we were able to get all the way from Paris, back inside our house in Austin, *all without ever stepping outside*. I messed up the airport metro tickets a bit, but I wasn’t the only one, clearly. So we just sort of slipped out with other people at the exit turnstiles.
Once we found our gate, we spent a lot of time shopping at the duty free store, mostly getting chocolate. We still have some of it, in fact. Good stuff. The plane ride across the ocean wasn’t too bad, actually. We had the middle seats, three of them, to ourselves, so first I took a nap on Jessie’s lap then she returned the favor. She even played with my beard and my bald head while I rested, which always feels really nice. She’s a great wife.
Oh, and two more adventures. Before customs in Dallas, where we landed, I was using the bathroom and saw someone leave their passport by the sink. Well I picked it up, found the guy by his face in the passport, and gave him his papers back. He was quite relieved, and I felt good.
Then, while resting at the gate in Dallas, Jess was reorganizing our backpacks for the flight. When it was time for us to board, I looked around our seats to check for anything left behind, and it turns out it was a good thing I did. We nearly left the CAMERA. I gave Jessie very stern looks for that, you can be sure. Very stern.
Past that, not much to report. Flights are never that exciting, at least you generally hope they’re not. Then we got home, relaxed, and spent the next several days trying to get over jetlag and the next several weeks blogging about it.
And that was Europe.
Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Europe Part 21: Paris, again
Paris made a bad first impression, and Rome a bad last one. Given how early our flight was, and how busy airports can get around flight time, we actually ended up waking up for our flight at 3:45 in the morning. Yowza. We managed to get checked out okay, but the walk from the hotel to the Train station to look for a Taxi was a little overwhelming. All dark, we counted:
-Two prostitutes of indeterminate gender
-A rat
-A bunch of 5 or 6 young guys trying to pickpocket a sleeping homeless guy
All in the space of the three minute walk. That’s a pretty high density of sleaze. And the crazy didn’t stop when we got into the taxi. The streets were pretty much empty and the guy drove like the cops were on our tail. I started to count how many red lights the guy would run, but I stopped counting after reaching “all of them.” It was a quick trip, though. Unfortunately, all that efficiency meant we got to the airport 3 hours before our flight. A little excessive, but at least it meant we had time to write. And the airport had a cat, too, just hanging out. He liked attention.
Our flight was pretty normal, we got checked in, waited, and flew right up to paris with a whole bunch of Italian people. They applauded when we landed; I’m not sure if that’s normal. Then we took a bus into Paris proper. We navigated the metro to the Champs d’Elise, the area near which we were hoping to find a hotel. Our first several attempts got us nowhere, all the rooms were booked. We were starting to get nervous when we finally made it to one of the placed we had found on hostels.com that had spare rooms, or at least it did a few weeks ago when we checked. Lucky us, they did have a room available for us. Cheers! Plus, it was cheaper and the room much better than the other place we had been planning to stay. But more on that later. We ditched our heavy backpacks and strolled around Paris a little bit more. Our first stop was the Rodan Museum. We took the metro and when we exited we were in the middle of...something. We’re still not sure what. There were a whole bunch of African-Amer, uh, I mean African-french guys, all standing around while some people played rhythmic music and some other guys asked for donations. We walked along the street and eventually we got past the black guys and then past the Riot Cops. No idea what was going on, but if I had to guess, I suspect it was a planned demonstration for...uh...something. I doubt the riot cops really needed to be there except in case everything went bonkers. Everyone was way too laid back to riot.
What was the name of this statue again...?
Anyway, Rodan museum. It was a really neat place because of its focus. We got to see a lot of really neat statues, including the famous ‘thinker’ and ‘Portal to Hell’ as well as a bunch of other really interesting pieces and a lot of history. Especially after so much classical and neoclassical artwork it was sort of a relief to get to something more modern. There were a couple of other artists there, too. One of Rodan’s contemporaries who had done some really neat sculpture in a very similar style, and another guy who did crazy actual-modern stuff in steel. He had the Mr. Clean logo on a metal gate. He also put tattoos on pigs. That kind of modern. I remember him mostly for his brochure, which, summarized, said: “The artist is so cool, the artist is so out there. You can’t even begin to understand how smart the artist is.” Cool steel structures, though.
My celebrity look-alike.
After completely burning Jess out in the museum (though she did let me sit and read some stuff that I found intriguing) we got some lunch at the museum cafe. Real food. We had been subsisting off of cookies and other backpack-munchies for pretty much the entire morning. Getting some protein seemed like a good idea.
After that we went back to the Champs d’Elise for a bit. It’s a big, fancy street with L’Arc D’Triumph at one end (neat, but under construction) and a whole lot of stores along the way. If we had been into fashion we clearly would have *completely flipped out*. But we’re not, so we just window shopped, mostly. The one really neat thing, though, is that the street also houses car companies, at least showrooms where they show off prototype cars and all sorts of fancy vehicles. We took a lot of pictures. Matt would have been pleased. One of the highlights was a camera-and-TV system that would video you holding a card up to the screen and would then superimpose a 3-d car onto the video feed on the camera, like you were holding it in your hands. Neat effect.
I'd drive that.
Then back to our hotel, where we entered the *smallest elevator in all of europe.* Capacity: 3 people. Or two with backpacks. The room itself, though, was magnificent! We had a balcony that looked out onto the street, a TV that worked, our own bathroom, and even a *TUB*. Such luxury after three weeks in hostels! Jess went right to work taking a nice long back while I stared out the window for a while, wrote, and caught up on some world news. I had been pretty much cut off for the whole time we were over there.
How's that for a view?
We played some more rummy, talked for a while, and took a stroll out later in the evening when I wasn’t quite ready to go to bed yet. Most stores were closed, but we did find a market with some munchie-foods to take on the plane with us. And then Jess layed on my chest and we went to sleep.
-N
-Two prostitutes of indeterminate gender
-A rat
-A bunch of 5 or 6 young guys trying to pickpocket a sleeping homeless guy
All in the space of the three minute walk. That’s a pretty high density of sleaze. And the crazy didn’t stop when we got into the taxi. The streets were pretty much empty and the guy drove like the cops were on our tail. I started to count how many red lights the guy would run, but I stopped counting after reaching “all of them.” It was a quick trip, though. Unfortunately, all that efficiency meant we got to the airport 3 hours before our flight. A little excessive, but at least it meant we had time to write. And the airport had a cat, too, just hanging out. He liked attention.
Our flight was pretty normal, we got checked in, waited, and flew right up to paris with a whole bunch of Italian people. They applauded when we landed; I’m not sure if that’s normal. Then we took a bus into Paris proper. We navigated the metro to the Champs d’Elise, the area near which we were hoping to find a hotel. Our first several attempts got us nowhere, all the rooms were booked. We were starting to get nervous when we finally made it to one of the placed we had found on hostels.com that had spare rooms, or at least it did a few weeks ago when we checked. Lucky us, they did have a room available for us. Cheers! Plus, it was cheaper and the room much better than the other place we had been planning to stay. But more on that later. We ditched our heavy backpacks and strolled around Paris a little bit more. Our first stop was the Rodan Museum. We took the metro and when we exited we were in the middle of...something. We’re still not sure what. There were a whole bunch of African-Amer, uh, I mean African-french guys, all standing around while some people played rhythmic music and some other guys asked for donations. We walked along the street and eventually we got past the black guys and then past the Riot Cops. No idea what was going on, but if I had to guess, I suspect it was a planned demonstration for...uh...something. I doubt the riot cops really needed to be there except in case everything went bonkers. Everyone was way too laid back to riot.
What was the name of this statue again...?
Anyway, Rodan museum. It was a really neat place because of its focus. We got to see a lot of really neat statues, including the famous ‘thinker’ and ‘Portal to Hell’ as well as a bunch of other really interesting pieces and a lot of history. Especially after so much classical and neoclassical artwork it was sort of a relief to get to something more modern. There were a couple of other artists there, too. One of Rodan’s contemporaries who had done some really neat sculpture in a very similar style, and another guy who did crazy actual-modern stuff in steel. He had the Mr. Clean logo on a metal gate. He also put tattoos on pigs. That kind of modern. I remember him mostly for his brochure, which, summarized, said: “The artist is so cool, the artist is so out there. You can’t even begin to understand how smart the artist is.” Cool steel structures, though.
My celebrity look-alike.
After completely burning Jess out in the museum (though she did let me sit and read some stuff that I found intriguing) we got some lunch at the museum cafe. Real food. We had been subsisting off of cookies and other backpack-munchies for pretty much the entire morning. Getting some protein seemed like a good idea.
After that we went back to the Champs d’Elise for a bit. It’s a big, fancy street with L’Arc D’Triumph at one end (neat, but under construction) and a whole lot of stores along the way. If we had been into fashion we clearly would have *completely flipped out*. But we’re not, so we just window shopped, mostly. The one really neat thing, though, is that the street also houses car companies, at least showrooms where they show off prototype cars and all sorts of fancy vehicles. We took a lot of pictures. Matt would have been pleased. One of the highlights was a camera-and-TV system that would video you holding a card up to the screen and would then superimpose a 3-d car onto the video feed on the camera, like you were holding it in your hands. Neat effect.
I'd drive that.
Then back to our hotel, where we entered the *smallest elevator in all of europe.* Capacity: 3 people. Or two with backpacks. The room itself, though, was magnificent! We had a balcony that looked out onto the street, a TV that worked, our own bathroom, and even a *TUB*. Such luxury after three weeks in hostels! Jess went right to work taking a nice long back while I stared out the window for a while, wrote, and caught up on some world news. I had been pretty much cut off for the whole time we were over there.
How's that for a view?
We played some more rummy, talked for a while, and took a stroll out later in the evening when I wasn’t quite ready to go to bed yet. Most stores were closed, but we did find a market with some munchie-foods to take on the plane with us. And then Jess layed on my chest and we went to sleep.
-N
Europe Part 20: Random bits of Rome
We woke up a little bit early this day to prepare for our crazy-early departure from Rome by Plane the next day. We were planning to hit up some Roman Museums and other random sights today, but the museum didn’t open for a while so instead we started the day at a nice cafe down the street where I ordered a cappuccino. Actual coffee. It was not bad, really. The milk and a little sugar really mellowed it out. We had some pastries, too. I felt very continental. I still don’t like coffee very much, though.
We did a few more morning things like printing out boarding passes and the like, and eventually the museum opened up and we were one of the first people in. The national museums have several branches in Rome, we went to the best one first, affectionately nicknamed, by Jessie, the marble head museum, for obvious reasons. The highlights were definitely all the busts of all sorts of people and the very detailed and interesting descriptions below. They had some larger statues, too, including a couple of huge bronze statues with intriguing histories and structure. The upstairs had slightly less interesting mosaics and frescoes, but the downstairs had the single most impressive coin collections I’d ever seen. Coins from every era from ancient Rome on to modern Italy and the Euro. They also had them mounted under glass with a neat motorized magnifying glass to check them out better. Very cool.
I am very concerned about these coins.
After the museum we were *starving* so we ate at a couple of different places. I wanted to eat at a Donner Kebab place, I’d seen them around and I was curious. I still don’t know what kind of meat it was, but it was pretty good. Then we swung by a Trattoria to get some pizza by the square. It was hyper-greasy, but we saved some of the meat and crust and went back to our hostel for a bit to feed the kitties. Once we started throwing meat for them they got really excited and all four of them came over. We tried to give a little to each, but ‘bold kitty’ got the most. May have been pregnant, it’s hard to tell, and rude to assume.
That's 'bold kitty' in the front. Slightly bold kitty behind, white kitty, and scaredy cat way in the back.
Then we took the metro up to Piazza del Populo, another famous square that, on this day, was being taken over for the anniversary festivities of the Italian Police. They had all their sexiest cop cars out, including a Ferrari and one helicopter on the ground and another circling in the air. We didn’t spend too much time there before deciding to head up to a nearby park, with a gorgeous panoramic view of the city. We relaxed in the park for a bit before wandering along random roads for a bit and, eventually, stumbling upon the Spanish Steps.
Historically significant, the steps are mostly a meeting place for tourists and locals alike. Lots of people sat on the steps, hawkers strolling between them all. When we walked down the steps a trio of guys ran by us carrying wares in white cloths. Jess called it: those were the guys selling fake Coach Bags and other knockoff stuff, and there were cops approaching. I just assumed it was skeezy, I didn’t know it was illegal, too.
Resting, but resting *historically*.
We sat on the steps and rested for a while, then wandered through some more streets. We got more gelato, a guy in front of his store let me know he had some fresh noodles and slapped me on the shoulder, which was fun, and I found my souvenir at a garden store. They had a whole bunch of terra cotta and stone figures, like angels and cherubs and other such things inspired by old roman ruins. I got a little vase with a lid that had been decorated with the sort of details and cherubs that I’d been seeing all over Europe. Evocative, cheap, and a container. Even better, not made out of plastic. Good find.
We made our way back to Piazza de la Republica and this time went into a nearby Church: Santa Maria degli Angeli. Very big, like St. Peters, but much less busy, the silence was nice. We wandered around in there looking at the decorations and the borderline-insulting display about Galileo that was doing its best to assure everyone of the compatibility between science and faith. The church had some huge arches, big paintings, and a lot of neat stuff to look at, including some sort of star chart on the floor. We couldn’t really figure out what it represented.
This is one of my favorite pictures from the entire vacation.
We exited and wandered into one of the other national museums, but a much less impressive one. They had a lot of random stone fragments and, oddly enough, a tree that had been, presumably, planted by Michaelangelo but had been so damaged that only a few tendrils actually led into the ground. Weird. We didn’t spend a lot of time there, but we did see another cat.
We rested back at the hostel for a bit then went out for a nice dinner, a big fancy affair for our last night in Rome and the beginning of our journey back home. We found a place down the street that had some nice set menus and sat down for a many-course meal. I had the fish meal, of course, and Jess had regular pasta and stuff, but between all the bread, pasta, salad, and dessert, and house wine, we felt very well fed and like we had capped off the city quite well. Cheers!
That was a really good dinner.
We came back to the hostel after that, relaxed and played rummy for a bit (Tie!) packed up our stuff, showered, and did our best to get to sleep before our preposterously early wake-up call the next day.
-N
We did a few more morning things like printing out boarding passes and the like, and eventually the museum opened up and we were one of the first people in. The national museums have several branches in Rome, we went to the best one first, affectionately nicknamed, by Jessie, the marble head museum, for obvious reasons. The highlights were definitely all the busts of all sorts of people and the very detailed and interesting descriptions below. They had some larger statues, too, including a couple of huge bronze statues with intriguing histories and structure. The upstairs had slightly less interesting mosaics and frescoes, but the downstairs had the single most impressive coin collections I’d ever seen. Coins from every era from ancient Rome on to modern Italy and the Euro. They also had them mounted under glass with a neat motorized magnifying glass to check them out better. Very cool.
I am very concerned about these coins.
After the museum we were *starving* so we ate at a couple of different places. I wanted to eat at a Donner Kebab place, I’d seen them around and I was curious. I still don’t know what kind of meat it was, but it was pretty good. Then we swung by a Trattoria to get some pizza by the square. It was hyper-greasy, but we saved some of the meat and crust and went back to our hostel for a bit to feed the kitties. Once we started throwing meat for them they got really excited and all four of them came over. We tried to give a little to each, but ‘bold kitty’ got the most. May have been pregnant, it’s hard to tell, and rude to assume.
That's 'bold kitty' in the front. Slightly bold kitty behind, white kitty, and scaredy cat way in the back.
Then we took the metro up to Piazza del Populo, another famous square that, on this day, was being taken over for the anniversary festivities of the Italian Police. They had all their sexiest cop cars out, including a Ferrari and one helicopter on the ground and another circling in the air. We didn’t spend too much time there before deciding to head up to a nearby park, with a gorgeous panoramic view of the city. We relaxed in the park for a bit before wandering along random roads for a bit and, eventually, stumbling upon the Spanish Steps.
Historically significant, the steps are mostly a meeting place for tourists and locals alike. Lots of people sat on the steps, hawkers strolling between them all. When we walked down the steps a trio of guys ran by us carrying wares in white cloths. Jess called it: those were the guys selling fake Coach Bags and other knockoff stuff, and there were cops approaching. I just assumed it was skeezy, I didn’t know it was illegal, too.
Resting, but resting *historically*.
We sat on the steps and rested for a while, then wandered through some more streets. We got more gelato, a guy in front of his store let me know he had some fresh noodles and slapped me on the shoulder, which was fun, and I found my souvenir at a garden store. They had a whole bunch of terra cotta and stone figures, like angels and cherubs and other such things inspired by old roman ruins. I got a little vase with a lid that had been decorated with the sort of details and cherubs that I’d been seeing all over Europe. Evocative, cheap, and a container. Even better, not made out of plastic. Good find.
We made our way back to Piazza de la Republica and this time went into a nearby Church: Santa Maria degli Angeli. Very big, like St. Peters, but much less busy, the silence was nice. We wandered around in there looking at the decorations and the borderline-insulting display about Galileo that was doing its best to assure everyone of the compatibility between science and faith. The church had some huge arches, big paintings, and a lot of neat stuff to look at, including some sort of star chart on the floor. We couldn’t really figure out what it represented.
This is one of my favorite pictures from the entire vacation.
We exited and wandered into one of the other national museums, but a much less impressive one. They had a lot of random stone fragments and, oddly enough, a tree that had been, presumably, planted by Michaelangelo but had been so damaged that only a few tendrils actually led into the ground. Weird. We didn’t spend a lot of time there, but we did see another cat.
We rested back at the hostel for a bit then went out for a nice dinner, a big fancy affair for our last night in Rome and the beginning of our journey back home. We found a place down the street that had some nice set menus and sat down for a many-course meal. I had the fish meal, of course, and Jess had regular pasta and stuff, but between all the bread, pasta, salad, and dessert, and house wine, we felt very well fed and like we had capped off the city quite well. Cheers!
That was a really good dinner.
We came back to the hostel after that, relaxed and played rummy for a bit (Tie!) packed up our stuff, showered, and did our best to get to sleep before our preposterously early wake-up call the next day.
-N
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Europe Part 19: Really big church
Today, we visited the Vatican. Does this count as another country? We woke up and after a little bit of work getting our reservation ticket sorted out and figuring out where the museum actually was, we ended up at the Vatican Museum at Precisely 9:00, right when our reservation was. As it turns out, we got to skip the entire line (significant, I assure you) and were one of the first people in the museum.
The layout of the museum is mostly linear, though there are detours to all sorts of interesting collections. Most people won’t see them, though, because they just want to head right off to the Sistine Chapel. We took our time. We went through a lot of areas and saw massive collections of all sorts. The collections of roman statues were particularly impressive, they had big famous figures like emperors and little sculptures of kids and rich families. A lot to take in. Also big collection of animal statues, from the exotic to the mundane.
Muscle statue!
The tapestries were another highlight. Rivaling some of the big paintings in the Louvre for size, they spanned the entire hall from floor to ceiling. And when you got up close, you could see some very impressive details in the stitching. Then we got to one of the other ‘things to see in the Vatican museum’, the Raphael Rooms. Very detailed and complex, and very full of people. It went for room after room. Pictures do it better justice than words, though.
Raphael Rooms: Now that's how you paint a wall.
Next up was the ‘modern art’ area, which most people passed because the Chapel was *so close*. We went, though, and I’m glad we did. There were a lot of neat pieces, including some by Dali and a few others that looked really nice. Then it was time for The Sistine Chapel.
Which was pretty uninspiring. Sure, it was neat to see *the* frescoes, but honestly everything else was way to distracting. All the people mulling about and taking pictures while curators repeated every 10 seconds “no pictures please be quiet” over and over and over again. Then the speakers came on and blasted “QUIET PLEASE” in 5 languages which would keep people silent for all of 10 seconds. It was a mess, and it wasn’t even as busy as it was when Jess saw it. At least we weren’t shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone.
The rest of the museum was pretty nice, too. I liked seeing some of the church artifacts: crazy old chalices and host-holders with ridiculous detail. The gift shop was fairly interesting, too. Aside from the normal bits and pieces, they also had replicas of the seals that old popes used to seal correspondence. If I was into seals, or popes, I might have gotten one. We passed the “Early Christian art” display because it was just a whole lot more Marble and we were getting pretty tired. So, MANY hours after entering, we left.
After a cafeteria lunch, we headed over to St. Peters basilica. There was a GIGANTIC line in front, and we were initially concerned, but it moved quite quickly and we got in with no worries. The church has a lot to see inside, though some of it was blocked. There was another famous ‘Mary and Jesus’ statue by Micaelangelo, this time with Jesus just down off the cross.
You could fit several significant other churches *inside* this thing if you wanted.
Then there were Mosaics, copies of famous paintings made with tiny, tiny pieces of glass. But the hall was generally dominated by these Preposterous statues, in marble, of old Popes or brothers or cardinals or something. It’s honestly a little off-putting, these brooding old men looking down on you with grumpy faces and condemning eyes. “How dare you enter my house, you sinner.” The altar, which is also huge, by the way, has a statue of St. Peter that you’re supposed to be able to kiss his foot. I’m not sure if they still let you do it, because it’s blocked off, but so many people have that his foot has been worn down to a nubbin.
After that we walked back through the catacombs which let us get a look at where, presumably, St. Peters original remains are housed, right underneath the altar. Pope Paul was interred down there too, still receiving flowers and prayers. After that we considered climbing to the very tip-top of the cathedral, but decided to pass. We shopped around a little bit for a Chalice, and we did find a store that would let us look at them, but after all that...churchitude...I was pretty burned out on holiness. It’s not accidental that I don’t go to church anymore, and I found the whole experience kind of upsetting, especially when I learned where all the money to build that church came from. Anyway, I decided to skip the cups.
Jess resting afterwords in the square out in front.
We got dinner at a restaurant where I tried Spaghetti Carbonara. Which, as it turns out, isn’t my favorite. Glad I tried it, though. We took the Metro back to our hostel in rush hour traffic, but nothing like as bad as Rush hour metro in Japan, so we managed. Back at the hostel, we planned out our next day a little, relaxed while it poured rain outside, and I gave Jessie a foot massage. I like being the best husband in the world.
-N
The layout of the museum is mostly linear, though there are detours to all sorts of interesting collections. Most people won’t see them, though, because they just want to head right off to the Sistine Chapel. We took our time. We went through a lot of areas and saw massive collections of all sorts. The collections of roman statues were particularly impressive, they had big famous figures like emperors and little sculptures of kids and rich families. A lot to take in. Also big collection of animal statues, from the exotic to the mundane.
Muscle statue!
The tapestries were another highlight. Rivaling some of the big paintings in the Louvre for size, they spanned the entire hall from floor to ceiling. And when you got up close, you could see some very impressive details in the stitching. Then we got to one of the other ‘things to see in the Vatican museum’, the Raphael Rooms. Very detailed and complex, and very full of people. It went for room after room. Pictures do it better justice than words, though.
Raphael Rooms: Now that's how you paint a wall.
Next up was the ‘modern art’ area, which most people passed because the Chapel was *so close*. We went, though, and I’m glad we did. There were a lot of neat pieces, including some by Dali and a few others that looked really nice. Then it was time for The Sistine Chapel.
Which was pretty uninspiring. Sure, it was neat to see *the* frescoes, but honestly everything else was way to distracting. All the people mulling about and taking pictures while curators repeated every 10 seconds “no pictures please be quiet” over and over and over again. Then the speakers came on and blasted “QUIET PLEASE” in 5 languages which would keep people silent for all of 10 seconds. It was a mess, and it wasn’t even as busy as it was when Jess saw it. At least we weren’t shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone.
The rest of the museum was pretty nice, too. I liked seeing some of the church artifacts: crazy old chalices and host-holders with ridiculous detail. The gift shop was fairly interesting, too. Aside from the normal bits and pieces, they also had replicas of the seals that old popes used to seal correspondence. If I was into seals, or popes, I might have gotten one. We passed the “Early Christian art” display because it was just a whole lot more Marble and we were getting pretty tired. So, MANY hours after entering, we left.
After a cafeteria lunch, we headed over to St. Peters basilica. There was a GIGANTIC line in front, and we were initially concerned, but it moved quite quickly and we got in with no worries. The church has a lot to see inside, though some of it was blocked. There was another famous ‘Mary and Jesus’ statue by Micaelangelo, this time with Jesus just down off the cross.
You could fit several significant other churches *inside* this thing if you wanted.
Then there were Mosaics, copies of famous paintings made with tiny, tiny pieces of glass. But the hall was generally dominated by these Preposterous statues, in marble, of old Popes or brothers or cardinals or something. It’s honestly a little off-putting, these brooding old men looking down on you with grumpy faces and condemning eyes. “How dare you enter my house, you sinner.” The altar, which is also huge, by the way, has a statue of St. Peter that you’re supposed to be able to kiss his foot. I’m not sure if they still let you do it, because it’s blocked off, but so many people have that his foot has been worn down to a nubbin.
After that we walked back through the catacombs which let us get a look at where, presumably, St. Peters original remains are housed, right underneath the altar. Pope Paul was interred down there too, still receiving flowers and prayers. After that we considered climbing to the very tip-top of the cathedral, but decided to pass. We shopped around a little bit for a Chalice, and we did find a store that would let us look at them, but after all that...churchitude...I was pretty burned out on holiness. It’s not accidental that I don’t go to church anymore, and I found the whole experience kind of upsetting, especially when I learned where all the money to build that church came from. Anyway, I decided to skip the cups.
Jess resting afterwords in the square out in front.
We got dinner at a restaurant where I tried Spaghetti Carbonara. Which, as it turns out, isn’t my favorite. Glad I tried it, though. We took the Metro back to our hostel in rush hour traffic, but nothing like as bad as Rush hour metro in Japan, so we managed. Back at the hostel, we planned out our next day a little, relaxed while it poured rain outside, and I gave Jessie a foot massage. I like being the best husband in the world.
-N
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Europe Part 18: Old Old Old Rome
Our first full day in Rome had us wandering the old parts. The *really* old parts. We had a sort of list of things we wanted to see, and we mostly did it on foot. Good exercise for pizza and gelato.
Our first major stop was the Colosseum. We saw a bunch of random neat stuff on the way, but if I try to describe every single neat thing we spotted, we’ll be here all week. Anyway, the Colosseum was really impressive. I liked wandering out into the center and imagining a roar of the crowd as I appeared. It must have been quite a sight. They had some displays around the outside with historical notes and archeological findings. My favorite was the descriptions of the games the crowd would play during and between fights. Rolling the bones, and such. Jess wanted, of course, to go explore the area down beneath the floor where the stages and lifting cages would be. It wasn’t open, though. We did wander all around to get a sense of the size of the place, though. Truly an engineering marvel.
Gladiator muscles! Arrrrr.
We got some underwhelming but nourishing street food from a vendor after that and then wandered to The Palantine Hill, a large, sprawling area with a boatload of ruins of an old castle. We poked our heads in all sorts of corners, we especially liked the bathhouse area because we walked up on the third floor. That area must have been gigantic. We also saw the very famous, very old Circus Maximus which wins the award for most underwhelming ruin in all of Europe. It just looks like a big field with a dirt ring worn in it. I could imagine high schoolers playing flag football there on the weekends, but nope. Big famous ruin. Ben Hur and all that.
A statue pose on Palantine hill. Not bad, if I do say so myself.
After quite a long time checking out the Palantine Hill ruins (mostly brick) and then wandered to an overlook of the old Roman forum (mostly marble). Very little of it remains intact, but there are a few really impressive buildings all within a block of each other. A couple of historic arches, the location of several important temples and even a few columns that have stood, despite the attempts by guys trying to get some cheap marble, for thousands of years. I also liked how there was so much ancient roman marble that they just left it lying around in piles. You could sit on it, sketch it, whatever. Just ancient stuff. We have it all over Rome.
So after the ‘really old rocks’ tour, we found ourselves outside the ‘monument to victory’ building, which, I’m told, is also famous. Then we wandered around the Parthenon again. I considered getting a Church chalice as my ‘container souvenir’ for europe, after all, we did spend an enormous amount of time in churches of one form or another, but the cool looking ones were all way too expensive, and the cheaper ones weren’t preposterously elaborate enough. They had a whole bunch of church gear around the Parthenon, though. Kind of like outlet shopping for catholic churches, I should think. Kind of like going to Belgum to get your chocolate or Germany to get your beer. You want the real crazy chalices, you go to Rome.
After some more wandering, we went ‘square hunting’. Lots of historic squares to see in rome. We settled in Piazza Navone and had some pizza outside and stared at people and fountains to recharge the ol’ batteries. Then we went south to Campo Di Fiori, another famous square, but the market there was just wrapping up and it was just all full of half deconstructed market booths and old vegetable matter. It didn’t look particularly famous, but what do I know? We got some more gelato there. Yum.
Yum. Yum yum yum. Yum. Good way to fuel up for all the walking, too.
We made another random stop when we walked by a museum that said it had a bunch of DaVinci stuff. Being good engineers, we felt like checking it out. It was pretty great, they had a bunch of his old sketches and had actually recreated a lot of the things he had sketched and designed, including crazy things like a tank with 16 cannons around the outside and really fundamental things like *ball bearings*. Pretty neat little distraction.
Ball bearings, for crying out loud! What a role model for aspiring engineers.
We wandered through some random back alleys (always a fun pastime in Rome) and found ourselves at the Trevere River. We sat and watched it flow for a while, and then wandered back north to the main area of rome through an alley covered with graffiti and still full of tourists. Neat highlight. Our plan, after that, was to walk along Via Del Corso, but we decided instead to be tired. We still had to walk all they way back to the hotel, though, and we saw the four fountains of San Carlo. If Rome has a checklist, we must have ticked a lot of boxes.
Back at the hostel, we checked out the alleyway behind a window in the stairway and the cat brothers came over to see what was going on. Turns out their are four of them, and they get all excited and big-eyed whenever we came to the window, but the never came close to let us pet them. Then a bunch of writing and dinner at a restaurant near the hostel that was well reviewed in the guidebook. It wasn’t bad, but we had good food all over, really. Then resting and writing. Trust me, we took a lot of notes, it took quite a while each day to write it all down.
-N
Our first major stop was the Colosseum. We saw a bunch of random neat stuff on the way, but if I try to describe every single neat thing we spotted, we’ll be here all week. Anyway, the Colosseum was really impressive. I liked wandering out into the center and imagining a roar of the crowd as I appeared. It must have been quite a sight. They had some displays around the outside with historical notes and archeological findings. My favorite was the descriptions of the games the crowd would play during and between fights. Rolling the bones, and such. Jess wanted, of course, to go explore the area down beneath the floor where the stages and lifting cages would be. It wasn’t open, though. We did wander all around to get a sense of the size of the place, though. Truly an engineering marvel.
Gladiator muscles! Arrrrr.
We got some underwhelming but nourishing street food from a vendor after that and then wandered to The Palantine Hill, a large, sprawling area with a boatload of ruins of an old castle. We poked our heads in all sorts of corners, we especially liked the bathhouse area because we walked up on the third floor. That area must have been gigantic. We also saw the very famous, very old Circus Maximus which wins the award for most underwhelming ruin in all of Europe. It just looks like a big field with a dirt ring worn in it. I could imagine high schoolers playing flag football there on the weekends, but nope. Big famous ruin. Ben Hur and all that.
A statue pose on Palantine hill. Not bad, if I do say so myself.
After quite a long time checking out the Palantine Hill ruins (mostly brick) and then wandered to an overlook of the old Roman forum (mostly marble). Very little of it remains intact, but there are a few really impressive buildings all within a block of each other. A couple of historic arches, the location of several important temples and even a few columns that have stood, despite the attempts by guys trying to get some cheap marble, for thousands of years. I also liked how there was so much ancient roman marble that they just left it lying around in piles. You could sit on it, sketch it, whatever. Just ancient stuff. We have it all over Rome.
So after the ‘really old rocks’ tour, we found ourselves outside the ‘monument to victory’ building, which, I’m told, is also famous. Then we wandered around the Parthenon again. I considered getting a Church chalice as my ‘container souvenir’ for europe, after all, we did spend an enormous amount of time in churches of one form or another, but the cool looking ones were all way too expensive, and the cheaper ones weren’t preposterously elaborate enough. They had a whole bunch of church gear around the Parthenon, though. Kind of like outlet shopping for catholic churches, I should think. Kind of like going to Belgum to get your chocolate or Germany to get your beer. You want the real crazy chalices, you go to Rome.
After some more wandering, we went ‘square hunting’. Lots of historic squares to see in rome. We settled in Piazza Navone and had some pizza outside and stared at people and fountains to recharge the ol’ batteries. Then we went south to Campo Di Fiori, another famous square, but the market there was just wrapping up and it was just all full of half deconstructed market booths and old vegetable matter. It didn’t look particularly famous, but what do I know? We got some more gelato there. Yum.
Yum. Yum yum yum. Yum. Good way to fuel up for all the walking, too.
We made another random stop when we walked by a museum that said it had a bunch of DaVinci stuff. Being good engineers, we felt like checking it out. It was pretty great, they had a bunch of his old sketches and had actually recreated a lot of the things he had sketched and designed, including crazy things like a tank with 16 cannons around the outside and really fundamental things like *ball bearings*. Pretty neat little distraction.
Ball bearings, for crying out loud! What a role model for aspiring engineers.
We wandered through some random back alleys (always a fun pastime in Rome) and found ourselves at the Trevere River. We sat and watched it flow for a while, and then wandered back north to the main area of rome through an alley covered with graffiti and still full of tourists. Neat highlight. Our plan, after that, was to walk along Via Del Corso, but we decided instead to be tired. We still had to walk all they way back to the hotel, though, and we saw the four fountains of San Carlo. If Rome has a checklist, we must have ticked a lot of boxes.
Back at the hostel, we checked out the alleyway behind a window in the stairway and the cat brothers came over to see what was going on. Turns out their are four of them, and they get all excited and big-eyed whenever we came to the window, but the never came close to let us pet them. Then a bunch of writing and dinner at a restaurant near the hostel that was well reviewed in the guidebook. It wasn’t bad, but we had good food all over, really. Then resting and writing. Trust me, we took a lot of notes, it took quite a while each day to write it all down.
-N
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Europe Part 17: FAST trains
[Hey, I added some pictures to Part 16. Yous should go check them out.]
We got up pretty darn early and hoofed it down to the train station. (Of course we packed the day before...we’re professionals.) We spent some of our franks on postcards and stamps to send some more letters home. The trains were all pretty normal until we got to Speitz. That train was fairly packed. But remember how we got some reservations before? Yep, this was one of those trains. We had to kick some fellow travelers out of our seats, but they got kicked out of several seats before the ticket-takers came around. She got it sorted out eventually, though. Anyway, we just holed up in our seats, read, and munched on chocolate and trail mix. I think we just ate out of our backpacks all day. At least until dinner. Good thing we stocked up.
I had read the travel guide for Rome and, what with the long passages about pickpockets and scams, I entered with a bad first impression and my hands in my pockets over the camera. Our transfer to the fast EuroStar train in...some city or another went off without a hitch, though. And that train is pretty darn fast. It cut a couple of hours off of our travel time, and that’s time we got to spend in rome. So, nice.
So our train pulls into Rome, and all paranoid about all the pickpockets, thieves, con men and bad singers the guidebook had told us to look out for, we locked down all our valuables and prepared to run the gauntlet. Of course, when we got out there, nothing. Just people, as it turns out. Not much more likely to rob you here as anywhere. Especially when you travel with a guy as determined-looking and bestowed with gristly strength as I am. *Flex*. *Flex*.
Would you pickpocket this man? I didn't think so.
We made our way to the nearby hostel on foot (crossing the street in Rome is always an adventure: walk with purpose, time your crossing with others, and don’t stop walking). Turns out we made a poetic transition from the best hostel we’ve ever stayed at...to the worst. We had been ‘upgraded’ to a better room, which mostly just meant we couldn’t pay by credit card, and it made me fear for the downgraded version. We still had one shared bathroom, the room had one light with an exposed bulb. There was a kitchen, but the fridge was broken and, oddly enough, no silverware. Plenty of plates, though. Ants in the hallway and a silverfish in the room. I didn’t tell jess until after we left. She hates silverfish almost as much as I hate things that give my girl the heeby-jeebies.
On the plus side, it’s cheap, near the train station, and we found four cats in the alley behind a window in our stairwell. But first, hunger. We wandered around to an Itallian restaurant (shock!) and ordered some foodstuffs. I had sort of a mission in mind that I wanted to find one of the old-school pizzas. Flat bread with tomatoes, basil, and fresh Mozz. cheese. Never did find it: their pizzas have gotten pretty Americanized, but who can blame them? American pizza is pretty great. I did try the Margherita Pizza which was pretty good. Jess got some pasta. Not bad for a first meal, all told.
It started to rain, and we had our coats, but the city sprouted this army of clearly-not-from-itally-but-I’m-not-sure-what-country-they’re-from guys who would be glad to sell you an umbrella for a euro or two. I wonder what they do when it’s not raining? Anyway, having a little extra time before we had to turn in, we started to just walk around the city some. Rome is a joy to walk around. There’s some thousand-year-old building or gorgeous architectual masterwork around pretty much every corner. I stopped and gawked at a lot of buildings that may or may not have had any important historical significance.
I'm not sure what this building is. It's probably important.
We walked by the Palace of Exposition, the Colonna Tralana, and the Parthenon. The Parthenon was the most impressive, even though part of the outside was under construction. The inside had been under construction when Jess had come before so she got to see some new stuff.
The newly renovated interior of the Parthenon. And us.
Then we got some Gelato (I think I like Amy’s better. Don’t shoot me!) and wandered over to Trevi Fountain, where everyone had their picture taken last time Jess came to Italy. We got our picture taken in the exact same spot. Also, behind Trevi fountain is just some building or another. Probably someone’s house. Imagine the HOA on that building.
Oh, also, we had this exchange, which I liked:
Jess: Do we have any coins to throw in the fountain?
Noel: Not really. Just some big coins from the Gelato.
Jess: Oh, okay.
Noel: ...
Jess: ...
Noel:
Jess: No, it’s okay.
Noel: You know, you don’t think I can read your mind. But I can.
Same Picture Jess got the last time she was here. I like being included this time.
We scoped out the fountain (us and about three different school trips. They were all over. What’s with Europe and school trips?) and sort of meandered our way back home through Plaza De La Republica. Apologies for not describing more of these landmarks in detail, but we saw so many that If I describe each one we’ll be here all year. We got some food at a market (always good to stock up) and came back to the hostel to sleep.
-N
We got up pretty darn early and hoofed it down to the train station. (Of course we packed the day before...we’re professionals.) We spent some of our franks on postcards and stamps to send some more letters home. The trains were all pretty normal until we got to Speitz. That train was fairly packed. But remember how we got some reservations before? Yep, this was one of those trains. We had to kick some fellow travelers out of our seats, but they got kicked out of several seats before the ticket-takers came around. She got it sorted out eventually, though. Anyway, we just holed up in our seats, read, and munched on chocolate and trail mix. I think we just ate out of our backpacks all day. At least until dinner. Good thing we stocked up.
I had read the travel guide for Rome and, what with the long passages about pickpockets and scams, I entered with a bad first impression and my hands in my pockets over the camera. Our transfer to the fast EuroStar train in...some city or another went off without a hitch, though. And that train is pretty darn fast. It cut a couple of hours off of our travel time, and that’s time we got to spend in rome. So, nice.
So our train pulls into Rome, and all paranoid about all the pickpockets, thieves, con men and bad singers the guidebook had told us to look out for, we locked down all our valuables and prepared to run the gauntlet. Of course, when we got out there, nothing. Just people, as it turns out. Not much more likely to rob you here as anywhere. Especially when you travel with a guy as determined-looking and bestowed with gristly strength as I am. *Flex*. *Flex*.
Would you pickpocket this man? I didn't think so.
We made our way to the nearby hostel on foot (crossing the street in Rome is always an adventure: walk with purpose, time your crossing with others, and don’t stop walking). Turns out we made a poetic transition from the best hostel we’ve ever stayed at...to the worst. We had been ‘upgraded’ to a better room, which mostly just meant we couldn’t pay by credit card, and it made me fear for the downgraded version. We still had one shared bathroom, the room had one light with an exposed bulb. There was a kitchen, but the fridge was broken and, oddly enough, no silverware. Plenty of plates, though. Ants in the hallway and a silverfish in the room. I didn’t tell jess until after we left. She hates silverfish almost as much as I hate things that give my girl the heeby-jeebies.
On the plus side, it’s cheap, near the train station, and we found four cats in the alley behind a window in our stairwell. But first, hunger. We wandered around to an Itallian restaurant (shock!) and ordered some foodstuffs. I had sort of a mission in mind that I wanted to find one of the old-school pizzas. Flat bread with tomatoes, basil, and fresh Mozz. cheese. Never did find it: their pizzas have gotten pretty Americanized, but who can blame them? American pizza is pretty great. I did try the Margherita Pizza which was pretty good. Jess got some pasta. Not bad for a first meal, all told.
It started to rain, and we had our coats, but the city sprouted this army of clearly-not-from-itally-but-I’m-not-sure-what-country-they’re-from guys who would be glad to sell you an umbrella for a euro or two. I wonder what they do when it’s not raining? Anyway, having a little extra time before we had to turn in, we started to just walk around the city some. Rome is a joy to walk around. There’s some thousand-year-old building or gorgeous architectual masterwork around pretty much every corner. I stopped and gawked at a lot of buildings that may or may not have had any important historical significance.
I'm not sure what this building is. It's probably important.
We walked by the Palace of Exposition, the Colonna Tralana, and the Parthenon. The Parthenon was the most impressive, even though part of the outside was under construction. The inside had been under construction when Jess had come before so she got to see some new stuff.
The newly renovated interior of the Parthenon. And us.
Then we got some Gelato (I think I like Amy’s better. Don’t shoot me!) and wandered over to Trevi Fountain, where everyone had their picture taken last time Jess came to Italy. We got our picture taken in the exact same spot. Also, behind Trevi fountain is just some building or another. Probably someone’s house. Imagine the HOA on that building.
Oh, also, we had this exchange, which I liked:
Jess: Do we have any coins to throw in the fountain?
Noel: Not really. Just some big coins from the Gelato.
Jess: Oh, okay.
Noel: ...
Jess: ...
Noel:
Jess: No, it’s okay.
Noel: You know, you don’t think I can read your mind. But I can.
Same Picture Jess got the last time she was here. I like being included this time.
We scoped out the fountain (us and about three different school trips. They were all over. What’s with Europe and school trips?) and sort of meandered our way back home through Plaza De La Republica. Apologies for not describing more of these landmarks in detail, but we saw so many that If I describe each one we’ll be here all year. We got some food at a market (always good to stock up) and came back to the hostel to sleep.
-N
Europe Part 16: Gear-tracks
It’s after Judo and I’m tired, but let’s see what we can do to finish off Switzerland, ja? (I think I'll skip the pictures for now. It takes a while and it's late. I may add them later, though, I'll let you know.)
Oh, and on a happy note, our Cuckoo clock from Germany finally showed up! It’s up on the wall and ticking away. It’s also *really* high up. Those 8 day weights hang REAL long. I’ll put up pics later. So...
Our third day in Switzerland was as pretty as the second, mostly, and this day we wanted to head up the other side of the valley to the highest train station in Europe near the top of the Jungfrau Mountain. After lightening our day pack (less hiking, more train rides) we toddled down to the train station and bought our tickets two minutes before the train left. Nice timing. The trains on these mountains are special: because they gain so much altitude there is actually a gear on the trains that runs on these teeth in the middle of the track. Keeps it from slipping during steep and wintry ascents and descents. During the assent out of the valley we shared a car with a Chinese tourist family. There are few things louder than old Chinese ladies speaking Mandarin.
Jess at the halfway point.
The views on the way up were spectacular: slowly climbing the side of a mountain with the valley and Lauterbrunen spreading out below us. And with no clouds, we got to see a lot more, this time. The midpoint of our journey happened at Kleine Sheindig, clearly on it’s way out from ski season. The slopes looked like so much fun it made me wish I could ski. We could also see down over the other side of the mountain, toward a city named Grindelwald. We never got down there, but it looks very pretty from above. Then we transferred to he final train which climbed a little bit more and then disappeared into a tunnel. This tunnel is nearly 100 years old. The train system was actually built nearly 100 years ago by a thousand men, tons of dynamite and drills, and a pre-winter food drop that would make Costo jealous. It took 16 years and opened in 1912. How’s that for modern convenience?
On the way up the tunnel, the train stopped a couple of times to let us off at observation points: places where the tunnel meandered close enough to the side of the mountain that they had built windows for us to see down into Gimmerwald and over near some glacial formations. Impressive engineering, that. Their aim was pretty dead-on.
I took this one for dad. It's a snowblower. You want?
At the top, there is a lot to do, you just have to make sure you do it carefully, because you’re at 3454 meters of altitude. It’s easy to get winded. Our first stop was the Sphinx observation tower. They actually did have an observatory up there. Great views of the mountains with little clouds in the way. We were also surrounded by wires in what turned out, later, to be a Faraday cage. That’s what they put you in when you may get struck by lightning. Evidently it happens quite a lot, and without those wires, we’d be in real danger. With them? Safe as houses.
Jess outside. Always with the danger.
After that, we go to go OUTSIDE. It was really cool. My favorite part. When we first walked out it was cloudy and hard to see much of anything. There was a trail, though, so we wandered along for a couple hundred meters, then turned around when the clouds broke. We got to see the observatory and mountain top...and the sledding slope! They had disks there and a nice hill you could just ride down for as long as your altitude-weary legs could take you. Jess went once. I went three times, wearing myself out so much I had to take off my coat. Sledding on top of the highest mountain in Europe, though? Highlight.
That's the observatory behind us.
Next was the Ice palace. Probably more impressive during proper tourist season, they still had a pretty neat array of ice carvings in this structure that was literally just melted out of the ice. Can’t imagine how it’s so stable, but it is. My favorite structure was this big block of ice that people put their hands in to wear down hand prints. I did my part melting down a millimeter at most. Oh, and the ceiling and walls are all ice. So was the floor. We saw a couple of kids slip and fall. After that we went outside, again, to the ‘terrace’. A flat viewing area that was pretty cloudy when we went out. The entrance was also hyper-slippery with everyone walking on it. We wandered around and waved at the web cam.
Jess in the Ice Palace
After that, Jess was pretty worn out, so in an attempt to refuel we got some food. They had a cafeteria up there that had some decent faire, considering it all had to be brought up on a train. Jess had chicken and fries, and I had curry chicken. We put the spare curry all over everything. We watched another cheesy ‘multivision’ movie (the blinds closed automatically again. Kind of odd) and walked through the souvenir shop again but Jess clearly had ‘mountain burnout’ so we took the train back down. Jess was smart and got us seats on the downhill side because that meant that we were leaning back in our seats during the ride down, and pretty much everyone but me was taking a nap on the train. The nice couple across from us would fall asleep and then start to fall forward. Jess had to suppress giggles. Then she fell asleep, too.
We considered doing some hiking when we reached Kleine Sheindig, but Jess was pretty worn down so we just took the train. Jess slept some more and I listened to Chinese tour guides talking about things I couldn’t understand. Jess woke up near the bottom and told me I could sleep if I wanted, but I wasn’t tired and, evidently, that makes me superman. We wanted to get some food when we got back to Lauterbrunen but, If memory serves, it was Sunday afternoon and pretty much everything was closed. So instead we just had an early dinner, wrote a whole heck of a lot in our journal and Jess kicked my butt at rummy again. She did that rather a lot.
-N
Oh, and on a happy note, our Cuckoo clock from Germany finally showed up! It’s up on the wall and ticking away. It’s also *really* high up. Those 8 day weights hang REAL long. I’ll put up pics later. So...
Our third day in Switzerland was as pretty as the second, mostly, and this day we wanted to head up the other side of the valley to the highest train station in Europe near the top of the Jungfrau Mountain. After lightening our day pack (less hiking, more train rides) we toddled down to the train station and bought our tickets two minutes before the train left. Nice timing. The trains on these mountains are special: because they gain so much altitude there is actually a gear on the trains that runs on these teeth in the middle of the track. Keeps it from slipping during steep and wintry ascents and descents. During the assent out of the valley we shared a car with a Chinese tourist family. There are few things louder than old Chinese ladies speaking Mandarin.
Jess at the halfway point.
The views on the way up were spectacular: slowly climbing the side of a mountain with the valley and Lauterbrunen spreading out below us. And with no clouds, we got to see a lot more, this time. The midpoint of our journey happened at Kleine Sheindig, clearly on it’s way out from ski season. The slopes looked like so much fun it made me wish I could ski. We could also see down over the other side of the mountain, toward a city named Grindelwald. We never got down there, but it looks very pretty from above. Then we transferred to he final train which climbed a little bit more and then disappeared into a tunnel. This tunnel is nearly 100 years old. The train system was actually built nearly 100 years ago by a thousand men, tons of dynamite and drills, and a pre-winter food drop that would make Costo jealous. It took 16 years and opened in 1912. How’s that for modern convenience?
On the way up the tunnel, the train stopped a couple of times to let us off at observation points: places where the tunnel meandered close enough to the side of the mountain that they had built windows for us to see down into Gimmerwald and over near some glacial formations. Impressive engineering, that. Their aim was pretty dead-on.
I took this one for dad. It's a snowblower. You want?
At the top, there is a lot to do, you just have to make sure you do it carefully, because you’re at 3454 meters of altitude. It’s easy to get winded. Our first stop was the Sphinx observation tower. They actually did have an observatory up there. Great views of the mountains with little clouds in the way. We were also surrounded by wires in what turned out, later, to be a Faraday cage. That’s what they put you in when you may get struck by lightning. Evidently it happens quite a lot, and without those wires, we’d be in real danger. With them? Safe as houses.
Jess outside. Always with the danger.
After that, we go to go OUTSIDE. It was really cool. My favorite part. When we first walked out it was cloudy and hard to see much of anything. There was a trail, though, so we wandered along for a couple hundred meters, then turned around when the clouds broke. We got to see the observatory and mountain top...and the sledding slope! They had disks there and a nice hill you could just ride down for as long as your altitude-weary legs could take you. Jess went once. I went three times, wearing myself out so much I had to take off my coat. Sledding on top of the highest mountain in Europe, though? Highlight.
That's the observatory behind us.
Next was the Ice palace. Probably more impressive during proper tourist season, they still had a pretty neat array of ice carvings in this structure that was literally just melted out of the ice. Can’t imagine how it’s so stable, but it is. My favorite structure was this big block of ice that people put their hands in to wear down hand prints. I did my part melting down a millimeter at most. Oh, and the ceiling and walls are all ice. So was the floor. We saw a couple of kids slip and fall. After that we went outside, again, to the ‘terrace’. A flat viewing area that was pretty cloudy when we went out. The entrance was also hyper-slippery with everyone walking on it. We wandered around and waved at the web cam.
Jess in the Ice Palace
After that, Jess was pretty worn out, so in an attempt to refuel we got some food. They had a cafeteria up there that had some decent faire, considering it all had to be brought up on a train. Jess had chicken and fries, and I had curry chicken. We put the spare curry all over everything. We watched another cheesy ‘multivision’ movie (the blinds closed automatically again. Kind of odd) and walked through the souvenir shop again but Jess clearly had ‘mountain burnout’ so we took the train back down. Jess was smart and got us seats on the downhill side because that meant that we were leaning back in our seats during the ride down, and pretty much everyone but me was taking a nap on the train. The nice couple across from us would fall asleep and then start to fall forward. Jess had to suppress giggles. Then she fell asleep, too.
We considered doing some hiking when we reached Kleine Sheindig, but Jess was pretty worn down so we just took the train. Jess slept some more and I listened to Chinese tour guides talking about things I couldn’t understand. Jess woke up near the bottom and told me I could sleep if I wanted, but I wasn’t tired and, evidently, that makes me superman. We wanted to get some food when we got back to Lauterbrunen but, If memory serves, it was Sunday afternoon and pretty much everything was closed. So instead we just had an early dinner, wrote a whole heck of a lot in our journal and Jess kicked my butt at rummy again. She did that rather a lot.
-N
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Europe Part 13: Mostly on trains
So much for Germany. Fantastic time but today, we get to go to Switzerland. We packed and then wandered around Fussen wasting some hours until our (planned) train left. Mostly it was seeing things we’d seen before, but there were a couple of new sights. We saw a woodworking shop that had rocking horses and rocking motorcycles, which was neat. A little farther down we stumbled on a farmers market, and after being hopped up on random pastries for so long we wanted something healthy. So we got some bananas, grapes, and I picked out three completely random apples that I’d never heard of before. They weren’t bad.
Food!
After a little more walking, and a bit of drizzle that I weathered with my emergency poncho (poor outer layer!), we went back to the train station and took it to Buchloe, our first stop on the way. We spent some time there, waiting for the train, and wandering around the city. We stopped at a random ‘1 Euro’ store and picked up some playing cards with naked ladies on them. We also got the naked men cards, just for balance. We strolled into a supermarket after that and Jess had to hold me back from buying *all the chocolate in the world*. We just got some of all of the chocolate in the world. Which is a lot of chocolate. Then we got some travel sandwiches at a cafe and hung out back at the train station.
You wish you had a chocolate aisle like this a the Safeway.
Then more time on trains. Not all of it bad, we got to read some and listen to podcasts and Jess fell asleep on my shoulder. I really like when she does that. Then after a bit we crossed the border into SWITZERLAND! Then our train turned around and went back through germany a bit and then back into SWITZERLAND again. We had a couple more transfers, one in Zurich and one in Bern, which is kind of like routing your flight through LAX and Seattle. Big hubs. Zurich was pretty normal but Bern looked like an enormous subway transfer station. All underground. Kinda spooky, but we managed to route just fine.
After that we found ourselves on a train to Interlochen, which means ‘between the lakes’. It’s between a couple of big lakes and the train rolls along the shore. The view with the mountains behind the pristine lakes was really something to behold. We gawked at it so much that one of the locals engaged us in conversation. I think she liked how awed we were by her country. It was something to see.
We. Are. Adorable.
The train from Interlochen to Lauterbrunen was *steep*. So steep, in fact, that it used a gear system to keep from slipping. Pretty, too. The valley kept going and going, revealing more and more beauty as we went. We spent most of the train ride with our mouths hanging open, I think. When we got up to Lauterbrunen, Switzerland, were we’d be making our base camp for the next four nights, we saw the tradeoff between going earlier in the year. The mountains were kind of cloudy above a certain elevation and there was still a lot of snow clinging to the top of the mountains, but the fact that we had come in the rainier season meant that we got *waterfalls*. Tons of them! Lauterbrunen exists in this incredibly pretty but STEEP valley, with sheer walls on either side that lead up to two mountains. Jungfrau and Schilthorn. We’d see both, in time, but the cliffs themselves just had waterfalls all over them. So gorgeous.
We checked in to our hostel (more on the hostel later) and went off to have some dinner. I had a traditional dish called Rosti, which is pretty much hash brown. But *traditional* hash browns that only use specific potatoes. It’s good food, either way. And a banana split for dinner. Jess saw that there was Fondue on the menu too late, though, so she got really excited for that the next day. Then we went back to the room and, with the waterfalls streaming away in the background, discussed what we felt like doing with all of our time.
-N
Food!
After a little more walking, and a bit of drizzle that I weathered with my emergency poncho (poor outer layer!), we went back to the train station and took it to Buchloe, our first stop on the way. We spent some time there, waiting for the train, and wandering around the city. We stopped at a random ‘1 Euro’ store and picked up some playing cards with naked ladies on them. We also got the naked men cards, just for balance. We strolled into a supermarket after that and Jess had to hold me back from buying *all the chocolate in the world*. We just got some of all of the chocolate in the world. Which is a lot of chocolate. Then we got some travel sandwiches at a cafe and hung out back at the train station.
You wish you had a chocolate aisle like this a the Safeway.
Then more time on trains. Not all of it bad, we got to read some and listen to podcasts and Jess fell asleep on my shoulder. I really like when she does that. Then after a bit we crossed the border into SWITZERLAND! Then our train turned around and went back through germany a bit and then back into SWITZERLAND again. We had a couple more transfers, one in Zurich and one in Bern, which is kind of like routing your flight through LAX and Seattle. Big hubs. Zurich was pretty normal but Bern looked like an enormous subway transfer station. All underground. Kinda spooky, but we managed to route just fine.
After that we found ourselves on a train to Interlochen, which means ‘between the lakes’. It’s between a couple of big lakes and the train rolls along the shore. The view with the mountains behind the pristine lakes was really something to behold. We gawked at it so much that one of the locals engaged us in conversation. I think she liked how awed we were by her country. It was something to see.
We. Are. Adorable.
The train from Interlochen to Lauterbrunen was *steep*. So steep, in fact, that it used a gear system to keep from slipping. Pretty, too. The valley kept going and going, revealing more and more beauty as we went. We spent most of the train ride with our mouths hanging open, I think. When we got up to Lauterbrunen, Switzerland, were we’d be making our base camp for the next four nights, we saw the tradeoff between going earlier in the year. The mountains were kind of cloudy above a certain elevation and there was still a lot of snow clinging to the top of the mountains, but the fact that we had come in the rainier season meant that we got *waterfalls*. Tons of them! Lauterbrunen exists in this incredibly pretty but STEEP valley, with sheer walls on either side that lead up to two mountains. Jungfrau and Schilthorn. We’d see both, in time, but the cliffs themselves just had waterfalls all over them. So gorgeous.
We checked in to our hostel (more on the hostel later) and went off to have some dinner. I had a traditional dish called Rosti, which is pretty much hash brown. But *traditional* hash browns that only use specific potatoes. It’s good food, either way. And a banana split for dinner. Jess saw that there was Fondue on the menu too late, though, so she got really excited for that the next day. Then we went back to the room and, with the waterfalls streaming away in the background, discussed what we felt like doing with all of our time.
-N
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Europe Part 12: The Castle was the boring part
Our primary goal in Fussen was to see the famous (nearby) castles. Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. They’re big, they’re famous, and they’re really cool looking. Of course, being so famous they’ve implemented a schedule system, where you sign up for a time. Us being good travelers, we knew this, and so signed up for the early slot, 9:00 AM. Unfortunately, working backwards, that meant they wanted us there at 7:50. Bear in mind, this is what they told us. Jess will be quick to remind you: they told us to be there at 7:50. So we had to wake up at 6:30, gather our day pack, and then walk to the bus station to catch the bus to the castles. We picked up some pastries for breakfast on the way. Once again: pointing to food is the easiest way to get it.
Of course, we got to the bus station early (it’s what we do) and wasted some time playing at another really cool German playground. We got on the bus with roughly 100 schoolchildren, evidently that’s how they get to school. We ride the bus and get there at about 7:40, just a little bit ahead of when they (emphasis Jessie’s) THEY TOLD US TO BE THERE and we are the only people around. No tourists, no buses, the stores are all closed, and the ticketing office doesn’t even open up until 8:00. Jess was quite upset. We wasted some time standing in a line consisting of the two of us. (Any geometry student can tell you that it only takes two people to make a line.) Eventually it opened up, but the tour didn’t even start for another hour.
This castle is much cooler on the inside than the other one.
We slowly walked up to the first beautiful, historic castle, Hohenschwangau, slowly. We had time to spare. It’s just a bit up on a hill from the office and the little tourist town beneath. It was a little overcast so we didn’t get a view of the other castle, but I’m told that one exists. We saw the gardens and fountains and then went in for our tour. Hohenschwangau (Ho-en-SCHVAN-gau) was definitely the better of the two tours. The castle was finished and we got to see all the rooms at a calm, unhurried pace, with an English guide and everything. We got to see a lot of neat details and gifts to the royal family, which were always terribly impressive. No pictures, though, sorry. My personal favorite were the queens bedroom and the kings bedroom. The king had put little pinpricks of light in the ceiling so he could have stars over his bed, just like ours back home. There was even a larger light for the moon that you could adjust from full to new. The queens bedroom was directly downstairs, and they were connected, get this, by a *secret passageway*. Evidently they knew that little princes got formed somehow, they just chose to believe the actual process *never happened*. I’m also tickled by the idea of the queen lying in her bed, nearly asleep, and then she hears a creak from the secret door and inwardly rolls her eyes thinking: “It seems the king is in high spirits tonight”.
He he. He he he. Ah. Ahem. Anyway.
The other hidden door in the kings bedroom was for the other thing that kings, I guess, weren’t actually supposed to do. His bathroom. Do note, though, that not counting the servants passageways and annex, the castle, this royal dwelling for the highest people in the land, probably wasn’t that much larger than our house is here. Ah, progress. Also, the beds were TINY! Were kings really short? And not allowed to cuddle with their wives? I shudder to think!
Lots of people getting their picture taken here. Can you blame them?
Next up: Neuschwanstein. *The* romantic castle. Unfortunately, covered mostly in clouds today. No matter: we girded our loins and hiked up the hill to see the castle, and once we got closer it slowly appeared in the mist. Very romantic, very inspiring. Also: huge. Again, no pictures, but the inside of the castle wasn’t that impressive. It’s this enormous, sprawling thing, and only a few rooms were ever finished. There were a couple of fantastic ones, though. The kings bedroom, for one. The whole room was done in wood and carved with *preposterous* elegance. We even got to go through the *secret door*, cleverly hidden behind wooden carvings. This secret door only went to the dressing room. No late-night trysts for King Ludwig. Ludwig was the king who designed, more or less, the castle and oversaw its construction. Jess and I suspect he may have been gay, hence his never marrying, his brooding solitude in a world that *clearly* wouldn’t have accepted him, and his love of fabulous, fabulous castles. We saw a video of the history of the castle because it was warm in there and cold outside, and then boycotted the gift shop on the way out because Jess resented being made to wait early in the day.
Food for fuel, next. A restaurant down the way sold us a four cheese pizza and some pork medallions on top of egg noodles (delish) as fuel for our hiking! We took a trail up to Mary’s Bridge, which, unfortunately had clouds instead of the customary view of the castle. We could still see the river underneath, though. Then we went past the bridge, past the “danger” sign, and on and upwards to...something. We weren’t really sure. We’d read about the path but weren’t really sure where it went. We’re still not.
How's this for dramatic?
See, this path wound up the mountain on which Neuschwanstein (Noy-SCHVAN-stein) is perched, and so it was steep and covered in clouds. We ascended on switchbacks for about 45 minutes and never had any sense of where we were going. Every few minutes the switchbacks would take us to this terrifying cliff face that presumably overlooked the castles and the valley but today was just...white. Nothing. We had no idea where we were. We just knew the rocks went *straight down* from where we were standing. The peak of...wherever we were going always seemed just out of reach, but that was, primarily, because that was all we could see through the clouds. After quite a lot of that we decided we weren’t going to get to the top and we turned around and came back. We were the only people on the trail the entire time. Turns out we made the right choice. We were on a three hour trail to the top of a gondola, which, no doubt, wouldn’t have been open with the fog.
Behind Jess and that tree, the world just drops away.
On the way down, instead of taking the normal route, we wandered down Pollat Gorge. Remember the river we could see from above at Mary’s Bridge a couple of paragraphs up there? Yeah, that’s the river. We took a different route down and HO-LY-CRAP. That walk was the best part of the day, beating out both castles by far. (Granted: Jess and I are both suckers for waterfalls). It started out with a massive waterfall and a view from below of Mary’s bridge that we could just *barely* see. We studied the waterfall and then took the path down to see yet more waterfalls, more and more. It ended with a walk on a steel grating that had been drilled into the side of the rock directly over another set of waterfalls and a flume for collecting water. It was astounding. We stayed there for a long time just watching. Definite highlight points.
Jess likes waterfalls. Here's she's standing on a grate, which is *directly over one*.
After that it was a short stroll and a bus ride back to Fussen. We stopped at a supermarket to buy some water and trail mix. We ended up eating lunch on trains out of our backpack a lot and having backup stock was always helpful. Also...more chocolate. We decided to try an Indian restaurant for dinner back at the city and it was really good. Refueled, we managed to get back to the hostel and just write and relax our legs for the rest of the day.
-N
Of course, we got to the bus station early (it’s what we do) and wasted some time playing at another really cool German playground. We got on the bus with roughly 100 schoolchildren, evidently that’s how they get to school. We ride the bus and get there at about 7:40, just a little bit ahead of when they (emphasis Jessie’s) THEY TOLD US TO BE THERE and we are the only people around. No tourists, no buses, the stores are all closed, and the ticketing office doesn’t even open up until 8:00. Jess was quite upset. We wasted some time standing in a line consisting of the two of us. (Any geometry student can tell you that it only takes two people to make a line.) Eventually it opened up, but the tour didn’t even start for another hour.
This castle is much cooler on the inside than the other one.
We slowly walked up to the first beautiful, historic castle, Hohenschwangau, slowly. We had time to spare. It’s just a bit up on a hill from the office and the little tourist town beneath. It was a little overcast so we didn’t get a view of the other castle, but I’m told that one exists. We saw the gardens and fountains and then went in for our tour. Hohenschwangau (Ho-en-SCHVAN-gau) was definitely the better of the two tours. The castle was finished and we got to see all the rooms at a calm, unhurried pace, with an English guide and everything. We got to see a lot of neat details and gifts to the royal family, which were always terribly impressive. No pictures, though, sorry. My personal favorite were the queens bedroom and the kings bedroom. The king had put little pinpricks of light in the ceiling so he could have stars over his bed, just like ours back home. There was even a larger light for the moon that you could adjust from full to new. The queens bedroom was directly downstairs, and they were connected, get this, by a *secret passageway*. Evidently they knew that little princes got formed somehow, they just chose to believe the actual process *never happened*. I’m also tickled by the idea of the queen lying in her bed, nearly asleep, and then she hears a creak from the secret door and inwardly rolls her eyes thinking: “It seems the king is in high spirits tonight”.
He he. He he he. Ah. Ahem. Anyway.
The other hidden door in the kings bedroom was for the other thing that kings, I guess, weren’t actually supposed to do. His bathroom. Do note, though, that not counting the servants passageways and annex, the castle, this royal dwelling for the highest people in the land, probably wasn’t that much larger than our house is here. Ah, progress. Also, the beds were TINY! Were kings really short? And not allowed to cuddle with their wives? I shudder to think!
Lots of people getting their picture taken here. Can you blame them?
Next up: Neuschwanstein. *The* romantic castle. Unfortunately, covered mostly in clouds today. No matter: we girded our loins and hiked up the hill to see the castle, and once we got closer it slowly appeared in the mist. Very romantic, very inspiring. Also: huge. Again, no pictures, but the inside of the castle wasn’t that impressive. It’s this enormous, sprawling thing, and only a few rooms were ever finished. There were a couple of fantastic ones, though. The kings bedroom, for one. The whole room was done in wood and carved with *preposterous* elegance. We even got to go through the *secret door*, cleverly hidden behind wooden carvings. This secret door only went to the dressing room. No late-night trysts for King Ludwig. Ludwig was the king who designed, more or less, the castle and oversaw its construction. Jess and I suspect he may have been gay, hence his never marrying, his brooding solitude in a world that *clearly* wouldn’t have accepted him, and his love of fabulous, fabulous castles. We saw a video of the history of the castle because it was warm in there and cold outside, and then boycotted the gift shop on the way out because Jess resented being made to wait early in the day.
Food for fuel, next. A restaurant down the way sold us a four cheese pizza and some pork medallions on top of egg noodles (delish) as fuel for our hiking! We took a trail up to Mary’s Bridge, which, unfortunately had clouds instead of the customary view of the castle. We could still see the river underneath, though. Then we went past the bridge, past the “danger” sign, and on and upwards to...something. We weren’t really sure. We’d read about the path but weren’t really sure where it went. We’re still not.
How's this for dramatic?
See, this path wound up the mountain on which Neuschwanstein (Noy-SCHVAN-stein) is perched, and so it was steep and covered in clouds. We ascended on switchbacks for about 45 minutes and never had any sense of where we were going. Every few minutes the switchbacks would take us to this terrifying cliff face that presumably overlooked the castles and the valley but today was just...white. Nothing. We had no idea where we were. We just knew the rocks went *straight down* from where we were standing. The peak of...wherever we were going always seemed just out of reach, but that was, primarily, because that was all we could see through the clouds. After quite a lot of that we decided we weren’t going to get to the top and we turned around and came back. We were the only people on the trail the entire time. Turns out we made the right choice. We were on a three hour trail to the top of a gondola, which, no doubt, wouldn’t have been open with the fog.
Behind Jess and that tree, the world just drops away.
On the way down, instead of taking the normal route, we wandered down Pollat Gorge. Remember the river we could see from above at Mary’s Bridge a couple of paragraphs up there? Yeah, that’s the river. We took a different route down and HO-LY-CRAP. That walk was the best part of the day, beating out both castles by far. (Granted: Jess and I are both suckers for waterfalls). It started out with a massive waterfall and a view from below of Mary’s bridge that we could just *barely* see. We studied the waterfall and then took the path down to see yet more waterfalls, more and more. It ended with a walk on a steel grating that had been drilled into the side of the rock directly over another set of waterfalls and a flume for collecting water. It was astounding. We stayed there for a long time just watching. Definite highlight points.
Jess likes waterfalls. Here's she's standing on a grate, which is *directly over one*.
After that it was a short stroll and a bus ride back to Fussen. We stopped at a supermarket to buy some water and trail mix. We ended up eating lunch on trains out of our backpack a lot and having backup stock was always helpful. Also...more chocolate. We decided to try an Indian restaurant for dinner back at the city and it was really good. Refueled, we managed to get back to the hostel and just write and relax our legs for the rest of the day.
-N
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Europe Part 11: Shopping!
Rothenburg the night before. VERY Pretty.
After another mostly normal breakfast, except for the cereal which was Cinnamon toast ‘esque’ and the milk which was a leeeetle bit too warm (you don’t notice the differences until they’re different) we did some neat German shopping. We stopped at *the* Christmas shop for a while and got a few neat souvenirs there. The thing I really wanted to find was a tiny, detailed version of the buildings: how they’re all tall, squashed together, and lined with cobblestone streets. I didn’t find any at the x-mas shop though.
The Christmas store. We didn't see the sign that says no pictures until after we took it.
While waiting for some other shops to open we were standing at the wall and we saw a cat! Our first cat of the trip. (Definitely not the last.) He was pretty friendly and let us follow him around and pet him, but he was *clearly* on a mission. He was rubbing up against cars and marking them (properly marking, if you know what I mean) and patrolling his turf with gusto. We followed him until he wandered into the courtyard of a house. Talk about posh cat digs. I’ll bet he chases fancy *European* mice.
One of the most preposterous clocks in Germany. Also, look at those Steins!
So after stopping at a few more shops and seeing how totally easy they are to wind, we decided that yes, we did want a Cuckoo clock. But only if they were one of the 8-day ones. I kinda liked how overwrought and silly most of them were. So we went to a couple of shops, all of which had a pretty impressive selection, and each of them had their own, unique extra-bonkers one that was a good meter-and-a-half tall and terribly impressive. So we went back to one of the shops we liked and picked a clock we liked and as the nice old lady who owned the shop rung us up we learned she was a horrible, horrible racist.
Selected quotes:
“Look at them (Japanese tourist) they always just come in and look around they never buy anything.”
“See that? They just look at the window. That’s why we had to put the no exit sign over there, otherwise they just walk right through.”
“Ah, she just took something out of the glass. Aaah! (Yes, she actually yelled.) Would you ever do that? I can’t believe it.”
Seriously, for the five or so minutes it took to ring us up all she did was complain to us about Japanese tourists. Maybe someone should tell her that the young Americans being led to her shop by the tour books find that sort of behavior pretty deplorable. At least we have a story to go with the clock.
...If it ever shows up. We had them send it to the house but we haven’t gotten anything yet. We’re getting ready to complain to the credit card company if we don’t hear back soon. Dumb old racist German shop owners. Bah!
Eventually I did find my little miniature cityscape that I wanted at some random souvenir shop, which I really like. Then we got our backpacks, stocked up on ‘travel sandwiches’ and headed for the train station! Then some random stranger gave us directions to where the train station actually was...and we headed to the train station again!
We had a bit of a layover at one of the transfer stations since we had taken an early train because we were there more than an hour early. This happened to us a lot, as it turns out. I blame Jess. So we used the extra time to figure out the last leg of our journey with a travel agent at the train station. We ended up making reservations on a couple of the trains, and we would, later, be quite glad we did. Also, at one of the stations we got a little confused when our train arrived early under a different name, then the banner changed. We ended up hopping on and, lucky us, it was the train we needed. A little dicey for a second.
Jess on the train. This pic is unique because Jess isn't sleeping.
Then, to Fussen! For a long time, actually. We spent a lot of time on trains. I passed the time reading my EXCELLENT book (Transformation, by some Author whose name I can’t remember but we went back to the used bookstore when we got home and bought all the other books of hers that they had) and Jess red her horrible one. Some Indiana Jones novel that wasn’t based on any of the movies. We didn’t bother to get any extras of that one. I also listened to a lot of podcasts, a good way to pass the time.
After arriving at Fussen we went out searching for dinner. Most of the places were closed but we did manage to track down a nice Italian restaurant. Jess got four cheese pizza (her favorite) and I got an *incredibly hot* salmon and broccoli lasagna. After that, back to the hostel. Yes, a proper hostel. Shared bathrooms and everything. It’s part of the experience. Some writing, some relaxing, and bed.
-N
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Europe Part 10: Realy Neat Old German cities
The most important thing we got done this day was to get some utilitarian shopping done: toothpaste, contact lens solution and, most important of all, new notebooks. We were chewing through the ones we brought so we got some new notebooks so that we’d be able to take good notes. We ended up writing two each. Not bad work, really.
When we came downstairs for our, by now, traditional breakfast of meats and breads, the hotel owner/chef said he was ‘cooking eggs’ and asked if I wanted one. Well that sounded just nebulous enough to be interesting, so I said sure. Turns out he was making soft boiled eggs, and, it further turns out, I don’t know how to eat them correctly. So I made a bit of a mess with shells and yolk and whatnot, but it was pretty good, and it totally grossed Jessie out, which was entertaining as well. Then we wandered around the city while we waited for our train to show up, looking for kitties. Somehow cats and ancient German cities just seemed to fit together. We didn’t find any, but this was the last place where we didn’t find at least one cat for the rest of the trip, I think.
Our train travel was a little exciting, with the train stopping at one point, a track change announcement in German that we couldn’t understand, and a couple of very short transfers. We did, however, make it to Rothenburgh, medieval-style city that was preserved mostly, we eventually learned, by poverty. The city was to poor to restructure itself for so long that it eventually came back around as so old it’s quaint. These days it’s one of the biggest tourist destinations in Germany, with lots of shopping and other interesting stores and sights. I really liked this place.
We first stopped at our hotel to drop off the backpacks and then got some food. We’d done a good job of alternating our activities, going from big city to smaller, prettier cities and ruins, but now Jess wanted the outdoors: wandering through the woods. So when we stopped at the walls overlooking the cliff that Rothnburg was built near for defense, Jess got wanderlust. We did stay on our little guidebook-directed walking tour for a while, seeing the main square and (my favorite) the big long metal poles that used to define standard lengths back when ‘standard’ usually had something to do with measuring from one part of your king to another.
Let's call 'em a bit, a bit more, and a bunch.
We got to head inside the church, which was a little same-y but we got to get real up close and personal with a bunch of altar pieces, including a very impressive one carved all out of wood and enormous. Also, I continued my job of cataloging all the huge organs we saw all over the continent. A lot of relatively new ones, as it turns out. After that Jess spotted the wall again, and this time the lure was too much to bear. We found a hole in the wall (okay, it was a door, but I like the metaphor) and fled the city!
Holy...uh...just holy, I guess.
We ended up walking pretty far, down a long hill and into a nearby city along the Tauber river from Rothenburg. Mostly we just looked at green countryside and tree-lined paths, exactly what Jess was looking for. There were some llamas up on the hill, or maybe goats, it was hard to tell.
Once again: this is what it's like to vacation with Jess. We're supposed to be over *there*.
The highlight was when we reached Detwang, near Rothenburg, and stopped on a bridge over the river to watch some baby geese and their parents. Evidently they were part of a flock of a bunch of birds being kept by a farmer who lived around there, but we just sat and watched the little family for a good fifteen minutes. Every once in a while the mom, or maybe dad, would decide some other goose was getting too close and would duck his head and charge. Then we watched the little babies following their parents around and eventually flopping down to sleep in a big fuzzy pile. Completely adorable.
Oh, and on the way back, those were definitely llamas, before.
We didn't get this close: our camera just has a really good zoom.
Recharged with outdoor energy, we tromped back up the hill to Rothenburg and then resumed our ‘tour’. We walked through the garden where the old castle used to be, kissed at a picturesque overlook, and checked out an herb garden where they had marked the especially poisonous ones with crosses. After that, we walked part of the wall. That’s right, the old wall that had defended the city from bandits and the like for so long is still there, and you can stroll along it for some pretty impressive views of the city.
Now that's a nice view.
We got some dinner, which was really good, and then did the ‘night watchman’s tour’ which is just a tour guide who shows you around the neat city (in english) and talks about it’s history. And not the boring parts, either. The awesome parts. Like chamber pots, and bandits, and keeping a years worth of food on store in every house in the city so that they could survive any siege. And, of course, the time that the city was eventually defeated when some genius took a torch into the gunpowder room during a siege. The best story was how the city was almost destroyed in the last, scary days of WWII, when a Nazi force took to hiding in the city and was told not to surrender. The Americans nearly had to level the whole place by air, but a german commander with romantic memories of the city actually *called* the American commander and negotiated a surrender. History is amazing!
And then sleep.
-N
P.S. Oh, I almost forgot. You know my dual-layer coat? The one I have had for roughly a brazillion years? Well I lost the outer layer on a train somewhere between St. Goar and Rothenburg. End of an era! We’ll come back to this later, too, so don’t forget it.
When we came downstairs for our, by now, traditional breakfast of meats and breads, the hotel owner/chef said he was ‘cooking eggs’ and asked if I wanted one. Well that sounded just nebulous enough to be interesting, so I said sure. Turns out he was making soft boiled eggs, and, it further turns out, I don’t know how to eat them correctly. So I made a bit of a mess with shells and yolk and whatnot, but it was pretty good, and it totally grossed Jessie out, which was entertaining as well. Then we wandered around the city while we waited for our train to show up, looking for kitties. Somehow cats and ancient German cities just seemed to fit together. We didn’t find any, but this was the last place where we didn’t find at least one cat for the rest of the trip, I think.
Our train travel was a little exciting, with the train stopping at one point, a track change announcement in German that we couldn’t understand, and a couple of very short transfers. We did, however, make it to Rothenburgh, medieval-style city that was preserved mostly, we eventually learned, by poverty. The city was to poor to restructure itself for so long that it eventually came back around as so old it’s quaint. These days it’s one of the biggest tourist destinations in Germany, with lots of shopping and other interesting stores and sights. I really liked this place.
We first stopped at our hotel to drop off the backpacks and then got some food. We’d done a good job of alternating our activities, going from big city to smaller, prettier cities and ruins, but now Jess wanted the outdoors: wandering through the woods. So when we stopped at the walls overlooking the cliff that Rothnburg was built near for defense, Jess got wanderlust. We did stay on our little guidebook-directed walking tour for a while, seeing the main square and (my favorite) the big long metal poles that used to define standard lengths back when ‘standard’ usually had something to do with measuring from one part of your king to another.
Let's call 'em a bit, a bit more, and a bunch.
We got to head inside the church, which was a little same-y but we got to get real up close and personal with a bunch of altar pieces, including a very impressive one carved all out of wood and enormous. Also, I continued my job of cataloging all the huge organs we saw all over the continent. A lot of relatively new ones, as it turns out. After that Jess spotted the wall again, and this time the lure was too much to bear. We found a hole in the wall (okay, it was a door, but I like the metaphor) and fled the city!
Holy...uh...just holy, I guess.
We ended up walking pretty far, down a long hill and into a nearby city along the Tauber river from Rothenburg. Mostly we just looked at green countryside and tree-lined paths, exactly what Jess was looking for. There were some llamas up on the hill, or maybe goats, it was hard to tell.
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| From Preecs Place: The family blog |
The highlight was when we reached Detwang, near Rothenburg, and stopped on a bridge over the river to watch some baby geese and their parents. Evidently they were part of a flock of a bunch of birds being kept by a farmer who lived around there, but we just sat and watched the little family for a good fifteen minutes. Every once in a while the mom, or maybe dad, would decide some other goose was getting too close and would duck his head and charge. Then we watched the little babies following their parents around and eventually flopping down to sleep in a big fuzzy pile. Completely adorable.
Oh, and on the way back, those were definitely llamas, before.
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| From Preecs Place: The family blog |
Recharged with outdoor energy, we tromped back up the hill to Rothenburg and then resumed our ‘tour’. We walked through the garden where the old castle used to be, kissed at a picturesque overlook, and checked out an herb garden where they had marked the especially poisonous ones with crosses. After that, we walked part of the wall. That’s right, the old wall that had defended the city from bandits and the like for so long is still there, and you can stroll along it for some pretty impressive views of the city.
Now that's a nice view.
We got some dinner, which was really good, and then did the ‘night watchman’s tour’ which is just a tour guide who shows you around the neat city (in english) and talks about it’s history. And not the boring parts, either. The awesome parts. Like chamber pots, and bandits, and keeping a years worth of food on store in every house in the city so that they could survive any siege. And, of course, the time that the city was eventually defeated when some genius took a torch into the gunpowder room during a siege. The best story was how the city was almost destroyed in the last, scary days of WWII, when a Nazi force took to hiding in the city and was told not to surrender. The Americans nearly had to level the whole place by air, but a german commander with romantic memories of the city actually *called* the American commander and negotiated a surrender. History is amazing!
And then sleep.
-N
P.S. Oh, I almost forgot. You know my dual-layer coat? The one I have had for roughly a brazillion years? Well I lost the outer layer on a train somewhere between St. Goar and Rothenburg. End of an era! We’ll come back to this later, too, so don’t forget it.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Europe Part 9: Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin on a river. (Guitar Twangs)
Today the plan was to tour the Rhine River by boat. The route took us on a train down the River, then on a boat past St. Goar, where we were staying, and then up north a few stops where we got off the boat and took the train back home. Sounds simple enough. We started with breakfast of bread, meat, and cheese at the hotel, which seems to be pretty much the standard for continental breakfasts in Europe. Can’t say I mind. They had *smoked salmon*. Yum.
We wandered around St. Goar for a bit waiting for our train down south to show up, but it was Sunday (I know, I had lost track of the days, too) and most everything was closed. There was a Stein Shop that was open that had a hell of a lot of souvenirs, including a run of steins made with bits of the Berlin wall. I thought about getting one, but decided to pass. My ‘tradition’, such as it is, is to get a container of some sort that reminds me of the trip. A stein seemed a little too german-specific. Still really cool, though.
Jess hanging out with some flowers.
We took the train down to Bingen, where we would be catching the boat. On the way from the station to the dock we found THE COOLEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD. They could run water through the middle though a series of keys and locks and eventually it floated a little wooden barge at the end. It even had a cool Archemides screw and a backhoe that Jess played around with. We found a lot of really cool playgrounds in Germany. We’re jealous.
Me and the majesty of the Rhine.
We had to wait for the boat for a while, and so we walked around the (mostly closed) city and then sat in a park for a while on a bench. Jess let me nap on her lap, which was really nice. The boat showed up and we just flashed our Eurail pass and wandered right on. We used the guidebook to do some castlespotting, and then mostly just hung out, relaxed, and enjoyed the scenery. Lots of green hills with old vineyards *way* up in altitude. Every time we passed a castle everyone would get all excited and take pictures. I do have to admit, they were really really pretty. Some were just ruins, like the Rheinfels castle we had seen the day before, but many had been purchased and repurposed, either as hotels, restaurants, or just tourist destinations. The tiny little German towns along the way were pretty nice, too.
Jessie and some...castle. I dunno.
Eventually we started getting a little cold so we went to the inside of the boat and watched the landscape and castles from in there. Jess ordered some apple pie and hot chocolate that was really good, and before too long we were in Boppard, the farthest north stop that we cared about. We hung out in the city for a while, looking at plants and the river, then hopped a train back down to St. Goar.
Back in our ‘home city’ we checked out the now-open Cuckoo clock store and learned pretty much everything there is to learn about clocks: the different styles, what the different roofing types mean, and how to tell how often to wind a clock by the weights. We considered it, but didn’t buy one there. We had dinner at a german restaurant where we learned that Spargel (asparagus) was in season. We both had some, but it was white Asparagus, and very stringy and hard to cut. The beef and sauce was great, though, and it started raining and thundering while we ate, which was a nice touch.
Also: beer. We didn’t drink a lot of it, but they treat it a little differently over in Europe. As opposed to American restaurants which usually have at least five different beers on tap, most restaurants seemed to just have one, or maybe one company and a few different types. Most of the random stuff we tried was pretty good, especially after hiking around Germany all day. Jess found something called Colabeer which, as near as we can tell, is just Cola and Beer mixed together. It’s pretty good, actually. We may have to try it over here sometime. Just make sure you start with a light beer.
They have beer? In Germany? Also, the dark one is Cola Beer.
After our beers and food, we trundled back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit. Other than eat and look at the Rhine river, there’s not a whole lot to do in St. Goar. It was a really nice hotel, though, so we didn’t mind, and it’s always nice to unwind and not do anything too cultural for a while when on vacation.
-N
We wandered around St. Goar for a bit waiting for our train down south to show up, but it was Sunday (I know, I had lost track of the days, too) and most everything was closed. There was a Stein Shop that was open that had a hell of a lot of souvenirs, including a run of steins made with bits of the Berlin wall. I thought about getting one, but decided to pass. My ‘tradition’, such as it is, is to get a container of some sort that reminds me of the trip. A stein seemed a little too german-specific. Still really cool, though.
Jess hanging out with some flowers.
We took the train down to Bingen, where we would be catching the boat. On the way from the station to the dock we found THE COOLEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD. They could run water through the middle though a series of keys and locks and eventually it floated a little wooden barge at the end. It even had a cool Archemides screw and a backhoe that Jess played around with. We found a lot of really cool playgrounds in Germany. We’re jealous.
Me and the majesty of the Rhine.
We had to wait for the boat for a while, and so we walked around the (mostly closed) city and then sat in a park for a while on a bench. Jess let me nap on her lap, which was really nice. The boat showed up and we just flashed our Eurail pass and wandered right on. We used the guidebook to do some castlespotting, and then mostly just hung out, relaxed, and enjoyed the scenery. Lots of green hills with old vineyards *way* up in altitude. Every time we passed a castle everyone would get all excited and take pictures. I do have to admit, they were really really pretty. Some were just ruins, like the Rheinfels castle we had seen the day before, but many had been purchased and repurposed, either as hotels, restaurants, or just tourist destinations. The tiny little German towns along the way were pretty nice, too.
Jessie and some...castle. I dunno.
Eventually we started getting a little cold so we went to the inside of the boat and watched the landscape and castles from in there. Jess ordered some apple pie and hot chocolate that was really good, and before too long we were in Boppard, the farthest north stop that we cared about. We hung out in the city for a while, looking at plants and the river, then hopped a train back down to St. Goar.
Back in our ‘home city’ we checked out the now-open Cuckoo clock store and learned pretty much everything there is to learn about clocks: the different styles, what the different roofing types mean, and how to tell how often to wind a clock by the weights. We considered it, but didn’t buy one there. We had dinner at a german restaurant where we learned that Spargel (asparagus) was in season. We both had some, but it was white Asparagus, and very stringy and hard to cut. The beef and sauce was great, though, and it started raining and thundering while we ate, which was a nice touch.
Also: beer. We didn’t drink a lot of it, but they treat it a little differently over in Europe. As opposed to American restaurants which usually have at least five different beers on tap, most restaurants seemed to just have one, or maybe one company and a few different types. Most of the random stuff we tried was pretty good, especially after hiking around Germany all day. Jess found something called Colabeer which, as near as we can tell, is just Cola and Beer mixed together. It’s pretty good, actually. We may have to try it over here sometime. Just make sure you start with a light beer.
They have beer? In Germany? Also, the dark one is Cola Beer.
After our beers and food, we trundled back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit. Other than eat and look at the Rhine river, there’s not a whole lot to do in St. Goar. It was a really nice hotel, though, so we didn’t mind, and it’s always nice to unwind and not do anything too cultural for a while when on vacation.
-N
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Europe Part 8: Something slightly more relaxing
The next day we managed to get up and moving at a fairly reasonable hour, though the city was still clearly in the throngs of the recovery effort from it’s collective hangover. We checked out of the hotel, the owner was kind enough to let us use his computer to get a train schedule, and then walked back to the train station. The roads were an even bigger mess than they had been the previous night. I was actually kind of chuffed to see a street sweeper whose primary use was to vacuum out the rails where the trams go. It was pretty neat looking.
Messy.
The train took use out of the Netherlands and into Germany. Watching the view from the train was really nice. The whole place was as green and pretty as Costa Rica, albeit a little less crazy in its vegetation, the whole thing punctuated with tiny little german towns with close architecture and little beer signs. After a lot of time on the train we arrived in our first German Stop: St. Goar, on a very picturesque stretch of the Rine river. Our original plan was to try and take a boat up and/or down the river (it’s free on days when we used our Eurail pass) but it was nearly 2:30 by the time we got to St. Goar and we didn’t want to hurry ourselves. We’d take the boat tomorrow.
The hotel owner was very nice and he recommended we head right up to the castle ruins St. Goar is so famous for: Rheinfels Castle. We took a little tram up the (pretty steep) hill and took our time checking it out. The Castle is immensely old, though quite torn apart by both the ravages of time and, as I understand it, Napoleon. The castle housed a tiny museum, but we didn’t stay there too long except to check out the tombstone from 400 B.C. and a wine barrel head a good three meters across.
That's a really big castle.
After that we strolled around the castle. A lot of the old fortifications were still intact and it was impressive to imagine that back in its day, this sort of building was considered luxurious. It was dark, drafty, and all the halls were tiny. There were several small (and I mean *small*) spiral staircases with no light at all. The whole thing reminded me of what we imagine a dungeon looks like in popular mythology. The whole castle probably looked that dark and brooding.
I guess people used to be shorter
This castle also sported an impressive collection of underground tunnels and bolt holes. We wandered through some of them with the tiny little flashlights that we brought expressly for this purpose. Then we ended our tour in the gargantuan cellar. It must have made a king feel very good to see that whole area stocked with food.
Where the hot pockets at?
After our tour we walked back down the hill and made our way into town. I was tired so Jess picked dinner: a little spot that served both Itallian and German food. We got beefsteak and porksteak, variations on which seem to form the core of traditional german food. Jess ate a lot of my onions. Then we hit up a store from some gelato and then walked along the Rhine river while we ate. Another definite highlight for us both. We unwound back at the hotel with Rummy, which we played a lot of. Jess plays it a lot better than I do so she spent most of the early part of our trip kicking my butt at cards.
-N
Messy.
The train took use out of the Netherlands and into Germany. Watching the view from the train was really nice. The whole place was as green and pretty as Costa Rica, albeit a little less crazy in its vegetation, the whole thing punctuated with tiny little german towns with close architecture and little beer signs. After a lot of time on the train we arrived in our first German Stop: St. Goar, on a very picturesque stretch of the Rine river. Our original plan was to try and take a boat up and/or down the river (it’s free on days when we used our Eurail pass) but it was nearly 2:30 by the time we got to St. Goar and we didn’t want to hurry ourselves. We’d take the boat tomorrow.
The hotel owner was very nice and he recommended we head right up to the castle ruins St. Goar is so famous for: Rheinfels Castle. We took a little tram up the (pretty steep) hill and took our time checking it out. The Castle is immensely old, though quite torn apart by both the ravages of time and, as I understand it, Napoleon. The castle housed a tiny museum, but we didn’t stay there too long except to check out the tombstone from 400 B.C. and a wine barrel head a good three meters across.
That's a really big castle.
After that we strolled around the castle. A lot of the old fortifications were still intact and it was impressive to imagine that back in its day, this sort of building was considered luxurious. It was dark, drafty, and all the halls were tiny. There were several small (and I mean *small*) spiral staircases with no light at all. The whole thing reminded me of what we imagine a dungeon looks like in popular mythology. The whole castle probably looked that dark and brooding.
I guess people used to be shorter
This castle also sported an impressive collection of underground tunnels and bolt holes. We wandered through some of them with the tiny little flashlights that we brought expressly for this purpose. Then we ended our tour in the gargantuan cellar. It must have made a king feel very good to see that whole area stocked with food.
Where the hot pockets at?
After our tour we walked back down the hill and made our way into town. I was tired so Jess picked dinner: a little spot that served both Itallian and German food. We got beefsteak and porksteak, variations on which seem to form the core of traditional german food. Jess ate a lot of my onions. Then we hit up a store from some gelato and then walked along the Rhine river while we ate. Another definite highlight for us both. We unwound back at the hotel with Rummy, which we played a lot of. Jess plays it a lot better than I do so she spent most of the early part of our trip kicking my butt at cards.
-N
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