Europe Trip: Florence

And now for the conclusion to our great European adventure!

The train ride from Venice to Florence was long (about three to four hours) but, thankfully, a straight-shot. The train started out relatively empty, but filled up at each of the stops along the way.

We finally arrived in the city and purchased a map from the tourist desk. I figured out where our hotel was and that it was located about two miles away from the train station. I asked my mom whether she would like to pay for a taxi or walk. She asked what I wanted to do; I said I would rather walk. So we did. We rolled our luggage two miles down Florence’s cobbled streets and narrow sidewalks. Did I mention it was 90+ degrees outside?

When we arrived at the hotel, we were both red and dripping sweat. The man at reception was amazed that we had walked all the way to the train station. He showed us to our room and we relaxed in the air conditioning for a while.

When we were finally cooled off, we decided to go find food. We walked along the river for a distance, toward the center of the city. We stopped to check out the menus outside every restaurant we passed and finally found one that sounded good.

We both ordered the chicken in white wine, and I ordered some bruschetta as an appetizer as well. I asked for the house white wine to accompany my chicken, but the waitress brought me….Chianti. She must not have heard/understood the “white” part. Oh well, another bottle of Chianti for me.

The next day, we started to head up to the Piazzale Michelangelo, which overlooks the city. We got about halfway up before we decided the view was good enough, and it was too hot to continue all the way up.

We had a reservation that afternoon at the Uffizi museum, so we started to head in that direction. We went to a few high-end stores, such as Gucci, Prada, and Armani before stopping for lunch. It was pizza again, but this time I actually got the house white! This is Italy’s version of pepperoni pizza. Apparently, if you ask for “pepperoni” you’ll get peppers. So this is “salame piccante” (or “spicy salami”). And it was good. So good.

After we ate, I finally bought a pair of shoes, though not from any of the designer stores. I really wanted a pair of Pradas, but I couldn’t find any that I thought were cute enough to pay $600 for. So I ended up at a smaller Italian chain store, and bought a cute pair of brown strappy sandals for less than $100.

We finally made it to the Uffizi and checked out all kinds of Italian art. We saw paintings by three-fourths of the Ninja Turtles’ namesakes. (Donatello was nowhere to be found.) The highlight? Seeing Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus”. It was so much larger than I was expecting; I wish they allowed photos.

Outside the museum, we discovered a mime putting on a show. He was mimicking people and walking behind them. I’ve got some good video footage of this that I’ll eventually put together and post.

We headed back to the hotel and went up to the terrace. My mom read and I, of course, took pictures of the sights.

The next day, our goal was to tour the cathedrals around the city. We headed over to Santa Croce, which was close to our hotel.

The posted opening time was five minutes after we got there. So we waited. And waited. And waited. It never opened. Unsure if it was ever going to, we decided to head over to the Duomo instead. There was a little bit of a wait to get inside, but it was mostly in the shade and moved quickly.

Outside the Duomo was a tall tower, Giotto’s Campanile. When I mean tall, I mean tall. It takes 414 stairs to get to the top. And I climbed. Every. Single. One.

I paused at the top to cool down. No air conditioning. 90+ degrees. It would have been a good idea to bring water, but I hadn’t thought of it. I then entertained the idea of selling water at the top of this thing, or even right at the bottom. After 10-15 minutes of rest, I ventured to the outside of the tower to check out the view. And what a view!

After snapping photos, I headed back down the 414 stairs to find my mom, who was waiting patiently at the bottom. She had found some people to chat with, so I retrieved her and we headed off to find water and food.

I found myself with yet another pizza in front of me. This one was four cheese, and it was the best pizza I had the entire trip. No wine this time though. I figured I was too dehydrated as it was.

We went to the Accademia art gallery after lunch to check out Michelangelo’s David statue. It was very large. Very very large.

At this point, we were quite tired of looking at Italian Renaissance paintings, so after a quick glance around the rest of the museum, we decided to head back to the hotel.

We wanted to rent a car the next day, so we got directions from the hotel reception on where we could find a car rental place. We went inside the wrong building first, but they kindly pointed us in the right direction. Our car was a tiny little Fiat something.

We made our way into the Tuscan countryside and came to the town of San Gimignano. The town is like a fortress, walled and with an abundance of tall towers.

We ate lunch here. Yes, I had pizza, but it wasn’t very good. It reminded more of microwavable pizzas than the delicious pies I had elsewhere in Italy.

We wandered around the small town, going in and out of shops, and eating delicious gelato.

At one point, what I thought was a parade passed by…

…but it turned out to be a funeral. Oops.

We went to the torture and death penalty museums there, which I don’t think my mom was too thrilled with, but I found intriguing!

Isn’t the Tuscan countryside gorgeous?

On our way back into Florence, we stopped at the top of the Piazzale Michelangelo, which we hadn’t climbed to the top of days earlier, so we took some shots of the view.

Parking the rental car in front of the hotel, we walked toward the Ponte Vecchio (”old bridge”). On the way, I noticed someone had tagged each pillar with…Darth Vader?

The sun was setting, and I captured this photo on the bridge, which will soon be hanging over my bed.

Early the next morning, we packed up and drove the rental car to the airport, where we dropped it off. Our European adventure was coming to a close. We had a brief overlay in London (hey, I can say I’ve been to London too now!) and then a long flight back to the states, with another brief overlay in Charlotte.

It was two weeks, but it seemed to fly by. I cannot wait to go back, revisit some of the cities, and travel to new ones!

Previously:
Paris
Lake Como
Venice

Europe Trip: Venice

We arrived in Venice on Wednesday, June 10, by train. We had decided that since we would only be in the city for a few days, we would just take our carry-on luggage and store our large suitcases. There was a luggage storage area in the train station, so that was our first stop.

With small bags in tow, we then tried to figure out how to get to our hotel, which was right off of St. Mark’s Square. We finally figured out which water bus we needed to take and climbed aboard. The trip down the Grand Canal was incredible.

We arrived in St. Mark’s Square and then wandered around looking for the hotel. The directions we had were meager, so we ended up asking someone to point us the right way. We finally found the hotel down a small alley.

After checking in and getting set up in the room, we decided to eat dinner. We went to a small restaurant right outside our hotel. I had pizza and Chianti, of course. This pizza was topped with basil and garlic.

The next morning, we started our sightseeing. Our first stop was St. Mark’s Basilica in the square.

After that, we went to the Doge’s Palace next door. Here we got to go over the Bridge of Sorrows, though we never went to see it from the outside. Then we crossed the Grand Canal to visit the Accademia and Peggy Guggenheim art museums.

At the Guggenheim, we ate lunch. I had the most delicious ravioli! And Chianti.

There was a really cute American guy who was interning at the museum that was giving some history to the place, so we sat and listened to him for a while. Then we toured the exhibits and decided to head back to the hotel to cool off.

Except the only way to the Accademia bridge was flooded.

It didn’t look like the water level would be going down anytime soon, so we followed some other people’s lead, removed our shoes and socks and waded our way to the other side. We did a little more wandering around, bought gelato, and then retired for the night.

The next morning, we grabbed a quick lunch at McDonald’s. The fries at this one tasted more like the fries here than the ones in Paris did. Then we made our way back to the train station, recovered our bags, and hopped on a train to Florence.

Overall, I loved Venice and I would really like to go back and spend some more time there, since we basically only had about a day and a half.

Previously:
Paris
Lake Como

Europe Trip: Lake Como

Early in the morning of Monday, June 8, our train arrived in Milan. From there, we caught another train to Como. In Como, we had to take a bus to Bellagio. I wasn’t sure where to buy bus tickets, so I tried the train ticket line. The woman at the window didn’t speak English, but, luckily, a woman next to me offered to translate, so that I wouldn’t have to dig out my phrase book. I learned that bus tickets are bought in tobacco shops. Of course.

Bus tickets in hand, we wait. About 45 minutes to an hour later, our bus finally arrives. We then endure an hour long bus ride on the narrowest streets that could ever exist. The bus had to honk around every curve to warn oncoming traffic that a giant bus would demolish them if they tried to continue driving. There were times when I had no idea how we didn’t scrape against another vehicle.

We finally arrived in the town of Bellagio. It is a cute little down with lots of cobblestone stairways and few real roads. It is located right on the lake, at the intersection of the three branches. (And for those of you who didn’t know, the wedding scene in Star Wars, Episode II was filmed somewhere on the lake [not Bellagio]).

Our hotel was located about halfway up one of the staircases. Dragging our suitcases, we finally arrived and were able to check in. Again, our room was located on the second floor. But at least the elevator was in working condition.

After dropping off our luggage, we went out to explore and find something to eat. I don’t remember if I mentioned this in my post about Paris, but in Europe (at least, in France and Italy), menus are displayed outside of restaurants, so you can “menu-shop” and decide where to eat. We walked around and looked at pretty much every menu in town, making notes about places we wanted to come back to. We finally settled on the first restaurant we had looked at. I ordered the lasagna and a glass of their house red wine. I’m not sure what the wine was, but it was really good.

The day was chilly and overcast and it started to drizzle at some point, so we headed back to the hotel. We ventured out later that night for our first taste of gelato! And it was gooooood! So good that, in spite of taking photos of virtually everything I ate on the trip, I failed to get any decent shots of my gelato. I ate it that fast.

The next day was also rainy. My mom fell on the stairs outside our hotel first thing, so we spent a good deal of our morning trying to track down the pharmacy. Which, when we finally found it, was closed for siesta, or whatever they call it in Italy, haha. We took this opportunity to go to the local Internet cafe, so I could update Facebook and check my email. I had free wi-fi access in the hotel in Paris, but, in Italy, it was a different story.

Then we hit up a pizza joint for lunch, and I began my Italian tradition of pizza and Chianti. I had just the pizza margherita (cheese pizza, basically) and a half bottle of wine. It was quite tasty.

We walked around some more and did some shopping. We would have liked to take a boat tour of the river, but it kept raining, so we never got the chance.

The next morning we caught the bus back to Como and began our trek to Venice.

Previously:
Paris

Europe Trip: Paris

Yes, I am finally starting my vacation recap! Yay!

On Wednesday, June 3, my dad drove my mom and me to the airport. We had a brief layover in Charlotte before the nearly 9 hour flight to Paris. I was excited to be on a big plane, since this was the first time I’d ever been on one with two aisles. Unfortunately, we were seated in the center section. I was really hoping for a window to catch my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, but c’est la vie. It was an overnight flight, since we left around 3pm Charlotte time and arrived around 7am Paris time.

We stepped off the plane and went to claim our bags. (My mom is going to kill me for telling this story.) My luggage is easy to spot, as it’s purplish and with reflective writing on it. My mom said her suitcase was black, so she tediously checked every large black suitcase that came our way. The amount of luggage soon dwindled. I started joking if maybe it wasn’t black after all, but she was insistent. Finally, there were only two bags left going around on the carousel: one was a large blue suitcase and the other was a smaller bag. My mom went to find someone to tell them that her bag had not arrived; she was told to continue waiting. I asked again, “Are you sure the suitcase is black?” To satisfy me, she went to check the blue suitcase. It was hers.

Finally, with luggage in tow, we now had to figure out how to get to the hotel. We went down to the transportation area and found a train. This train took us to a large train station in Paris. Unfortunately, we had no idea where our hotel was located on a map, had no idea how to work the Metro system, and my feet were slowly being covered in blisters. So we took a taxi from the train station to the hotel. This is when we learned that driving in Paris is crazy. Crazy.

After seemingly almost killing about 10 pedestrians, 3 cyclists, and 2 people on motorcycles, we arrived at the hotel. Our room was not yet ready. We were told to come back in two hours. Sigh. We stored our suitcases and then roamed around the streets of Paris. Although none of the touristy places. We had no idea where we were. We ate lunch and then found our way back to the hotel.

Our room was ready this time. It was on the second floor. The elevator was out. The staircase was circular. My feet were still screaming at me. None of this a good combination, but we eventually made it to the room with all luggage intact. Like most European hotel rooms, it was small. Two twin beds pushed together. A desk. A TV hanging in the corner. A bathroom.

Having changed my shoes, finally, I was ready to go explore. My mom had other plans. A nap, to be exact. I mean, I guess it had been over 24 hours since I had actually slept last, but who wants to sleep when there’s Paris to explore? My mom did. So we napped. And then we ate. And then we went to bed.

We woke up the next morning, refreshed from our jet-lag and ready to take on the city. I studied some maps and a train schedule and figured out how the Métro system worked. Then we were off to the heart of Paris to see Notre Dame Cathedral.

Fun Fact: There’s a spot right in front of the Cathedral that supposedly marks the exact center of the city (”point zéro”). It’s where all of France’s highways are measured from.

After leaving the Cathedral, we walked up to the Panthéon, which is a burial place for several famous people, including Voltaire and the Curies.

There’s also a neat pendulum thing keeping time in the main part of the building.

From there, we headed down the the Louvre to spend our afternoon gazing at art. We would do this a lot on our trip. To the point where all the paintings started to look the same.

But we got to check out the Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa…

…and a bunch of neat ceilings.

We continued our art tour at the Musee d’Orsay. Funny story: When we first arrived, we decided to go into the first room we came to. I was excited because it was photography, and, as we all know, that’s my favorite kind of art. So, I waltz into the room and start checking out the pieces. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice my mom isn’t being allowed in the room. She turns and walks away. I’m thinking, “Umm. Oookay.” I didn’t know if she needed to go somewhere first and do something (I have no idea what) before coming in, so I dawdled in the first room for a bit. She wasn’t showing up, so then I grew worried that she might be waiting for me, so I rushed through the rest of the exhibit. When I exited, she was sitting on some stairs. She told me that apparently you had to pay extra to go in that room, but I had apparently wandered in right when the ticket-checker-people weren’t paying attention. Oopsie. Hehe. I might need to brush up on my French for “Hey, this costs extra!”

We continued through the museum and saw some interesting pieces, including some of Toulouse-Lautrec’s “Moulin Rouge” paintings.

Our feet were starting to hurt, so we headed back to the hotel room to rest up. Later that evening, we headed out to visit the real Moulin Rouge. We didn’t go in but did get some photos outside.

Then, I fulfilled one of my personal goals by locating the restaurant that Amélie worked at in the movie “Amélie”.

We got back on the Métro to head back to the hotel. We got off at a different stop than normal, to avoid changing trains, and decided we were hungry. It was late and most places were closed in the area, but we found one little bakery-type-place that was open. I ordered a hot dog (and got a bottle of wine to go with it at a convenience store down the road). While we were there, the man behind the counter told my mom that her daughter was very beautiful. Except in French. Which I understood and she didn’t. So I turned red, he laughed at me, and, all the while, my mom was asking, “What?”

The next morning we headed down to the catacombs. It was a drizzly morning and we waited outside for an hour to get in. I was thankful I had packed my hoodie. We spent most of our time in line chatting with the family in front of us from Chicago. In fact, I’m pretty sure everyone in line spoke English. That didn’t stop some random French person from coming up to my mom and asking her something in French. That happened a lot while we were over there. We concluded that my mom must look French. I tried to teach her to say, “Je ne parle pas Français.”

We finally made it inside the catacombs. There was a long circular staircase down. Then a long walk underground. But we finally made it to the bones. There were a lot of bones.

To those who aren’t familiar, the catacombs came to be when Paris’s cemeteries started getting too full and causing disease. In the late 1700s, they decided to relocate people to this area underneath the city and construct all new cemeteries. Many of the stacks of bones have information about where they used to be buried.

After a winding circular staircase back up and a lunch at McDonald’s (strangely, French fries aren’t quite as good as American fries), we hopped back on the Métro to visit the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, where we could play with neat mirrors…

…and optical illusions.

At some point while we were touring the museum, I dropped my camera and broke my 50mm lens. Sigh. I had to resort to my crappy kit lens for the rest of the trip.

Later that evening, we went on a night-time bus tour of Paris, where we got to see all the landmarks lit up. This was our first real glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. It wasn’t enough to see it on the bus, however, so we took the train to see it in person after the tour was over. It was magnificent. Yep, I teared up.

The next day was our last in Paris. We got up and checked out of the hotel before heading down to the Champs-Élysées. We walked up the famed street. I was wanting to shoe shop (and wine shop…and clothes shop), but it was Sunday, and this apparently meant all the stores were closed. So, instead, I snapped a few photos of the Arc de Triomphe, watched the crazy roundabout traffic, and listened to my mom get accosted by a scam artist.

Then we walked to the Eiffel Tower to see it in daylight. I took photos. A lot of photos.

After I was done rivaling my dad for most-photos-taken-at-one-famous-landmark (you can’t visit my parents’ house without finding at least one random photo of Mount Rushmore lying around), we took the train to visit the Luxembourg Gardens. It was so pretty. And peaceful. I could have stayed there all day.

We ate lunch at a little sandwich shop where, amazingly, the girl behind the counter was American.

And now for the most adventurous part of my entire tale: Leaving Paris. A month or two ago, I had made train reservations for all legs of our trip. It was required, at least, for our trip from Paris to Milan, which was an overnight train. We arrived at the train station, handed our paperwork to the girl behind the counter, and discovered that we did not have a reservation! Some communication somewhere had become crossed and because of some email confusion when I made the reservations, my card had never been charged and our tickets had never been issued! And she couldn’t get us a spot on the train, since reservations were required. I panicked a little. How were we going to get to Italy? The next train we could take didn’t leave until morning. Sleeping in a train station was not an option I wanted to consider. She told us to talk to the train when it arrived.

So we sat and waited for the train. When it did, we rolled our luggage down to the tracks. We asked every person we came in contact with if there was anything we could do. They all told us to go talk to the girl behind the counter. We explained we had already done that and they would point us further down the track for someone to talk to. Finally, we came to someone (the conductor?) who pointed us in the direction of a guy with a seating chart. He found us a spot in a car. As we were discussing payment, the train began readying to leave the station. He threw our luggage on the train and then helped us jump on right as it began to take off. It was almost like the movies.

Our car was being shared by an older married Italian couple. We couldn’t really understand anything they said, but it was amusing how they bickered with each other, like you would imagine an older married Italian couple doing. Sleeping on the train, I discovered, was nearly impossible, despite actually having a place to lie down. I listened to music on my iPhone all night and would periodically check for wireless whenever we made a stop, though I never found any open networks. Eventually, we made it to Italy. And I will save that for another post that I will try not to take another two months to write.

And the vacation has been planned…

Thanks for all your concern about my last post! I’m doing better; it was just a rough day. We all have them from time to time.

The good news is that I have a vacation on the horizon! In a little over three weeks, I will be traveling to Europe for two weeks! I cannot be more excited. My mom will be accompanying me as we take a quick tour through Paris and Italy.

First, we will fly into Paris. Our hotel here is the Classics Hotel Bastille in the 11th arrondissement.

Things are a ton of things I want to see in Paris, so I hope we can fit most of them in. I definitely want to see the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, and the Louvre. I’d like to walk by the Moulin Rouge and take pictures (apparently the hotel is within walking distance, so that shouldn’t be an issue). The Science and Industry Museum sounds cool. Then, of course, things like the Notre Dame Cathedral, Sainte-Chapelle, Orsay Museum, the Pantheon, the catacombs, and Versailles would all be awesome to see. We will be staying there for three nights.

Late on our last day there, we will be catching an overnight train down to Milan. From Milan, we are traveling to Como, and from Como up to Bellagio, which is our next stop. I’ve read that Bellagio is rated one of the most beautiful cities in all of Europe, so I’m excited to see it! Our hotel here is the Hotel Bellagio, which is on the lake and not far from the gardens. I’m sure carrying our luggage up these steps will be fun.

We are spending two days on the lake before catching a train to Venice. In Venice, we are staying at the Comfort Hotel Diana, which is just off St. Mark’s Square.

After two days in Venice, we will be renting a car and attempting to navigate our way down to Florence! We will be keeping the car the entire time we are there, so we can explore Tuscany and take a day trip to Pisa. In Florence, we are staying at the Hotel River, which (obviously) is located on the river.

We have four nights here, so we’ll (hopefully) have plenty of time to drive around the countryside, as well as see all the sites in the city. After that, we’ll be flying back to boring ol’ Tennessee.

I can’t wait!

Working towards my goals…

I started house hunting yesterday. It’s a bit sad to know that I can’t afford all of the things I really want in a house (mainly: garage, small yard, same size as current apartment, close to town, not in too bad of shape, and in a good neighborhood). I seemingly can’t afford ANYTHING with a garage, which sucks since that was something I was looking forward to the most. Yesterday we looked inside five houses:

House #1 - fulfilled close to town, small yard, and in a good neighborhood, but no garage, smaller than current apartment, and needed work
House #2 - fulfilled close to town, small yard, size of current apartment, and good neighborhood, but no garage and needed work
House #3 - fulfilled close to town, size of current apartment, and not in bad shape, but no garage, had an enormously hilly yard, and was not in a good location
House #4 and #5 - fulfilled size of current apartment, not in bad shape, small yard, and good location, but not close to town and no garage (they were also like duplexes and connected to another unit)

Hopefully, I will have more luck next weekend.

Also, I have been semi-planning my vacation for next year. I have decided that I want to hit all the highlights of Europe (well, some of them). After pricing how much it would cost to do this on my own, I have been leaning toward taking a Contiki tour with a group of other people since the cost is about the same (if not cheaper). I am thinking of doing the European Discovery tour next October (I know, over a year away…gotta save up money) which takes you through London, Amsterdam, Munich, parts of Austria, Venice, Florence, Rome, Lucerne, and Paris in two weeks. Sounds exhausting, but really fun. I figure if I discover I really like one or two of the places, I can always come back at another time to spend more time there on my own. I really can’t wait to eat authentic Italian food and see the Eiffel Tower up close and take a gondola ride up the Alps. Talk about a photo op. I’ll make sure to bring back some wine and Swiss chocolate and other souvenirs. I should probably apply for my passport now to make sure I get it on time, hehehe.