Hark and be of good cheer!
A kind, eccentric writer lives here!
Some serious works, some silly rhymes
Show the passing of life times
Stories therein, some words too
Poetry for the fanciful of you
Read on, good soul, and may you smile
And stay herein for quite a while
- Created By toratiger
Hey Look Guys, Architecture!
Breakfast was earlier than I would have liked, but luckily it was only a short ways down the hall. The morning went by without much of a hitch, though to my dismay there were no hard-boiled eggs. The whole breakfast seemed to consist of pastries. We climbed aboard the very nice train to Rome in no time. I was able to read for a considerable amount of time, thankfully. I like reading. It seemed like no time at all before we were pulling into the train station Roma Termini (named after the baths of Diocletian, but may be an Italian pun for all we know—it is the end of the line).
Our first stop in Rome was the Coliseum, thus called because of the colossus that stood nearby while the games were still going on. Its official name is different and no one really uses it, but it was originally named after the man who financed the building project. There is also the fact that, according to historians, no Christians actually died in that arena (though there were other arenas back then). I know, I was disappointed too. We had an hour to take pictures and guess at the bloody games that were once held in the area. It did rain for a bit, but thankfully two of my small band of sightseers had umbrellas and thus were able to get the backpacks and cameras out of the rain. A small party of two went upstairs and took better pictures, even managing to intervene in a hilarious video recording of the British school group we found (“I am not entertained!”).
Our next point of interest was the Roman forum, complete with victory arches of Roman generals and temples to every kind of deity. We also peeked over a wall at the floor where Julius Caesar might have been stabbed and craned our eyes toward the prison where Peter and Paul were held. I didn’t actually see the Mamertine (if that is how you spell it), but I was assured it was over there. We didn’t have time to see it, really. We had ticket reservations at the Vatican Museum, and we can’t keep THEM waiting and, besides, we hadn’t eaten lunch yet.
The only really exciting thing about lunch was how rude this one lady was to us about us sitting in the wrong place. But, to be honest, she was ruder than most Americans I know, and that’s saying something. We didn’t know! Plus we offered to do whatever was necessary to sit down. It was awful.
The great thing about reserved tickets is that you don’t have to stand in the line that circles almost the entirety of Vatican City. I’ve stood in that line before: it’s no fun. Thankfully, we just had to remind them of our reservations and we cut ahead of all of those people. Haha, suckers! We put our bags through the x-ray scanners and walked through the metal detectors; basically, the only difference between this security and airport security was that we got to keep our shoes on. The museum itself holds masterpieces in tapestries, paintings, and sculptures. The highlight would be the Sistine Chapel, which definitely cannot be taken in during one walk-through. The sheer amount of frescoes is dizzying. Another highlight for me is seeing the Vatican parking lot and the one-truck fire department. Whoohoo!
Our leaders then led us to some decadent gelato and a small piazza where we could sit down. It’s amazing how much you miss regular benches and places to sit down until you go to an area where sitting down and resting your feet doesn’t seem to be important. It’s the little things, you know. Plus that gelato was amazing. I found out that Stracciatella is the most awesome flavor of g elat o ever, and honestly I will always get a scoop of it anywhere I have gelato. Then it was back to the metro and the train station, where we were on our own for supper. Mom and I got sandwiches at this cart in the middle of the entryway. While we were waiting for our food this guy comes and begs for spare change for a sandwich. I tried to tell Mom not to give him anything—I don’t trust beggars with money—but she gave in, so I helped. We watched him even as we walked away and joined the group again, and surprise surprise he bought himself a beer. Mom felt used, I felt bad for knowing all along not to trust him and not being more forceful about it.
We then caught the train back to Florence, whereupon I buried myself in a book again until we got back. It was an early night for me after the late night I had had before.
So Why do We Call it Florence?
One of the hardest things on this trip is the fact that my suitcase is larger and heavier than everyone else’s. It’s not usually a problem until there’s steps involved. In this case, there were definitely steps involved.
We left the hotel the next morning, and I dragged my behemoth of a suitcase off the one step into the room, up the one step onto the courtyard proper, off the step on the other side, up one step into the hallway, and down two steps into the kitchen before I could rest easy. Thankfully, the area between the hotel and the train station was relatively flat, though the train station has serious steps. At least ten of them. As I was contemplating dragging myself to the opposite side of the steps to the supposed ramp on the other side, a kind man in our group offered to help me. He took my suitcase and dragged it up the staircase as I took his much smaller, much lighter suitcase. I was eternally grateful. And then there were the steps into the train towards Firenze, or what we call Florence. Not only was I to drag my suitcase up a steep, narrow flight, but I had to do it quickly. Oof. I managed to finagle it on somehow. I stored my suitcase and settled down on the train with a book until we got to Florence, whereupon I had to wrangle my suitcase, descend the same steps with the same problems of efficiency, and not lose the group. We walked the short way to the hotel and waited for our illustrious leader to arrange luggage storage for us. The bad news for me was that the elevator started only after the obligatory initial flight of stairs. Seriously?
We stored our luggage in two empty rooms and made our way out into Florence. We walked through the busy market (not giving anyone time to actually shop) to the piazza San Lorenzo where the church of San Lorenzo was. This Lorenzo person was a Medici who was in great power when the church was built. Apparently you can buy a sainthood. The façade of the church was interesting—there was no façade. Then we were let loose for lunch. My small group decided to go to the large marketplace-building off the market we walked through. The inside was noisy with smells and people mingling together into a great cacophony of Italian. We dashed up the steps and decided it was every man for himself for this meal. We walked from booth to booth, looking for some non-alcoholic, non-meaty meal. We found it after circling about three hundred degrees. It featured two charismatic and young Italian chefs tossing pasta and sauces and a quiet man in the back making the pasta. Yes, hand-made and authentic Italian pasta. I got the spaghetti pesto, and despite my reservations it was delicious. Oh I love real Tuscan food. We made our way back to San Lorenzo for the next leg of our Florentine adventure.
Okay, so in Italy Florence is called Firenze. There’s nothing about that name that leads me to Florence, personally, so I was really curious as to how we managed to Anglicize it with an entirely different vowel sound. After much thought and consideration I do believe Florence was called thus in English because of the coins they made, florens.
We made a line after our leader like the ducklings we all really are at heart. He took us back to our hotel to move into our rooms, though he took us a different way this time and it confused some. Some of us found a Laundromat that would prove useful later, so we marked its location in our minds. We found our luggage out of the rooms and into our rooms, finding out who our new roommates were and stuff. We didn’t have long to settle before lining up again outside the hotel and heading towards the great and glorious Duomo, passing the Santa Maria Novella and attached cloister on our way out.
We finally rounded the corner of the piazza and stopped to marvel at the amazing façade of the Duomo, a spectacle of white and green marble. In front of the ginormous church lay an octagonal baptistery with its famous relief-paneled doors. I was near the front of the group, so I had no trouble double-backing and making our way around to the opposite side of the baptistery, but when we turned around the group was gone. There were three of us students with the leader and his wife wondering where the other twenty or so group members had gone. Us younger people stayed put by the doors while the adults tried to find them. It’s a good thing we did stay put: the emissary from the group found us kids first. We told this messenger to bring the rest of the group to the side of the baptistery, and by the time our leader got back we were all gathered again. We oohed and ahhed over the magnificent relief sculptures in the panels of the doors one by one, finally rounding the corners to ogle at the other doors until we made it to the gates of paradise. They are called that because someone (I think it may have been Michelangelo) said they were good enough to be the real gates to heaven. They’re masterfully done, I’ll give him that.
Then we stood in line to enter the Duomo. Again we were under the scrutiny of dress code police. This time there were less problems. The inside is airy and open, the windows and altar beautifully done, and the inside of the massive dome houses a fresco of the last judgment. Last time I was in Florence, I climbed the dome and was able to walk right under that fresco, right under hell. I recommend the climb to anyone—the views are gorgeous. Sadly, it was time to leave the cathedral. There’s not much in there, really, and there’s only so far you can go as a tourist anymore. So I sat outside humming Dona Nobis Pacem with Mom. The good news was that we heard the bells in the large campanile (bell tower) outside the Duomo. That campanile is a spectacle in and of itself, and you can climb it just like the Duomo. Both cost money, however, so it is your call.
Then we walked down the broad streets of Florence where our leader pointed out the Bargello (once a greenery, then a church, now a museum), a highly-recommended gelateria, the Ufizzi (the old offices of the Medici, now a museum), and the world famous bridge with all of the silver- and goldsmiths. There’s a bust of some egotistical past ruler who said that as long as his face was seen, Florence would be safe. Seriously, he said that. They’re doing restoration work (like everywhere we’ve been so far) around it, so there’s plywood surrounding the bust, but the face can still be seen. We’re not taking chances, right?
We were dismissed after we got to the other side of the bridge. Us three musketeers (my two best friends on the trip and myself) wandered around taking pictures and finding cool things to comment on, including reminiscences of the Coca-Cola tour in Georgia and the goofy-looking satyr, I mean, faun in the fountain by the Ufizzi. We ate at the gelateria (which was hand-made and expensive, but so good) and found the adults in their restaurant before reconfiguring our group. There were fireworks that night, on account of it being Saint George’s day, so three people wanted to go and three people didn’t want to stay up late. I wanted to go—c’mon, they’re fireworks! The small parcel of us that wanted to go (two musketeers and one faculty) made our way over to the street by the Arno River and decided three hours was too long to stand in one spot. So we sat and talked until a more reasonable hour, when we sat on the concrete of the rail and talked until the fireworks actually started: 10:00 pm. The fireworks were good, but it was after eleven when we finally squeezed through the crowds and made it back to the hotel.
Alpsnacht, what?
Okay, so I love Switzerland. The people are a bit cold but, well, it is Europe. WE invaded THEIR space with our rude and obnoxious behavior, but to be fair their main industry IS tourism. Just saying.
So today we went to Luzerne, which is home of an amazing lake and an impressive view, following our morning church service. After two train rides that added up to about three hours we arrived in town, got tickets for something we didn't know much about, and headed off. All we knew was that we had to take a bus, gondola, cable train, and boat. Do you see how many things could go wrong here?! We managed to make it off the bus at the same stop (all 28 of us) and get up the narrow street without getting run over, which was a miracle in and of itself. The gondola, as it turned out, was to go up into the alps, and quite high into those alps I might add. The initial glass cage we were trapped in--I mean invited into fit four people with surrounding windows. The views were marvelous, and I don't think pictures quite did them justice. Let me try to convey the awesomeness of those mountainsides. The trees were taller than our cables in places and thin as a five-year-old, the faces of the mountains were jagged like they'd been sculpted with a razor, and the height climbed into the clouds. We did NOT get off at the first stop because apparently the goal was to get to the top of Pilatus, the mountain we could not see due to clouds. We got off at the second stop where the small gondolas turned around (the bottom was out of the question-- we were going on bravely) and were crammed like sardines into a bigger, standing-room-only car with glass from floor to ceiling. For the record, when that car crests the first ridge in that mountain, it accelerates as well as swings. There was a shriek from inside the car that nearly deafened me. Then we arrived at the top of Pilatus--7,000 feet up.
The visitor center was spacious, and there was an outside viewing area upstairs. It's kind of freaky to watch the clouds roll through a platform, not gonna lie. There was this set up of rings and mats that we guessed (accurately was for a gymnastics show. Soon the whole platform was split in half by caution ropes. First some old yodelers sang (good, but soft-- I don't think I got them yodeling on video, just them mouthing the words). Then some gymnasts warmed up. Finally, they performed. Oh man. They were good and the guys were all hot and worth seeing. Doesn't hurt that they were setting a WORLD RECORD with that show. First gymnastics team to perform at that altitude. They beat the record by a couple of thousand feet.
Next was the cable train down. Good pictures, funny (sleepy) friends, and the gentle rocking of the car made for a wonderful ride. There were several tunnels chiseled out of the mountainside, literally. It was quite impressive and very dark with the occasional rustic window. Four of us Americans ended up sitting next to four German-speaking Europeans. They laughed with us when one of our friends fell asleep on the rolled-down window and inadvertently nodded into the glass. Priceless. Anyway, we eventually did pull up to Alpnacht... Alpennacht... Oh, I don't remember. Something like that.
We got off the train, thanked the attendants, and ran to the boat, making it there about two minutes before cast-off. Apparently the ticket place where we bought the Pilatus tickets didn't think we'd make the boat. Well we did, so, ha! We took lots of pictures and had a grand old time on the second floor until the ticket collector gently reminded us that we had second-class tickets... and therefore did not belong there. Eh, downstairs was crowded, but the water was so wonderfully clear that I did not mind as much as in a muddy-brown lake somewhere in America. It was then that I listened to the Moonlight Sonata, or Bach's Sonata 14 in C# minor, with the lake that gave it its nickname. It was quite stellar, I gotta say. Sure, it was daylight and not moonlight, but what could I do?
We got off the boat after almost an hour and ended up back at the train station in Luzerne where we had started. Our leader showed us this old bridge from like the 15th century (well, it has been rebuilt because wooden bridge plus plethora of smokers = not good for preservation)with beautiful flower-boxes, paintings, and old stone tower included. That was worth the walk. I hope the pictures turn out.
Well, unfortunately our time had run out. After (unsuccessfully) trying to find groceries for the LONG train ride tomorrow, we met up at the rendezvous point and headed back to Bern. Y'know, you'd think we'd be tired after this long day of adventure, and you'd be right. We went straight back to the hotel after finally finding our groceries and started making plans for bed. Then my mom got this bright idea to find apple strudel since this was our last night in Switzerland. She found it near the bear pit (long story as to why this was funny that I might tell at another time) and as she was discussing it with our desk-lady (who furnished us with bus tickets our first day here) the lady called the restaurant and made us reservations. So the clothes went back on and the group headed out for late-night strudel.
It was delicious.
Next Stop Uttigen
So, for those of you unaware, I am currently in Switzerland. Switzerland is not the most jumping place in the world, I mean, it's considered a relaxing holiday spot here in Europe. Their main industry is tourism and adventure sports. So today we went to this place called Interlaken, which is this neat little town squished between two gigantic lakes. From there we decided to splurge on a ticket to a different train into the alps.
The alps were incredible. After my friends took a picture with a carabineer-mug hooked on his ear (don't ask), we decided to get lunch in this cute, I mean uber cute, town called Grindelwald. The place was tiny, and the main event there must have been skiing, as most of the shops we walked by were ski supply shops. We then climbed up the mountain-- and I mean straight up, by the way-- on a cog-wheel train. B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L. We then got off at the top of the train route at Jungfrau. The draw for Jungfrau is that the Top of Europe is located on one of the five peaks nearby. You can see the Matterhorn from that place. I unfortunately couldn't stay long because my friends wanted to make it to the next town without waiting a half-hour. It was fine, I just have to find a post card or something with those mountains labeled. I can't spell the next town name, but it's the place with the cable car that goes up to the Schilthorn, or the James Bond mountain. My friend couldn't do that, though, because the car was not running today. We ended up catching the next available train back to Interlaken anyway because the Castle at Thun, which was my treat for the day, closed at five according to our information. It was almost four.
So we time it just right and hop the train to Thun. We get out and start seriously speed-walking (have you ever tried to run with a backpack on in a cobble-stoned area?) towards the castle spires. It was really inspiring. We probably shouldn't have crossed some of the streets in the manner we did, but hey, we're not in Switzerland every day. So we tried to go as straight as we could to the castle, but the streets were not laid out in a way as to make it easy. We ended up passing the castle, going all the way around it, up some stairs, down a few other stairs, up another flight of stairs, and under an archway just to get to the main courtyard, and the ticket desk was inside the wall to our right. Only then did we discover that they had already closed. Something about an event, which may have to do with this being their 750th anniversary. It was on our way down that we found the staircase that led to the street we had walked the length of to find the entrance. Whatever. Then we had one thing on our mind-- finding a place to sit down. We wandered in circles for a bit, and an old petite lady whacked me in the arm because I almost ran over her (she gave me a glare that could toast bread, so I didn't feel as bad as I should have). Soon after the grumpy old-lady thing, we decided to seriously look for some food.
Pizzerias are fairly common in Europe and, let's be honest, Switzerland is close to Italy. We found two pizzerias, and though I had had pizza for lunch, I was very willing to sit down to some good Italian food. Boy did we make the right choice-- it was an excellent location next to the crystal-clear river with a view of scenic town-scape and swans (though I thought the swans wanted to pickpocket my backpack. I had an excellent tomato soup that only cost, like, ten bucks. It was wonderful, and I don't usually like tomato soup.
We were very tired still and had seen most of what we wanted to see, so we decided why not go back to the hotel in Bern. As we were standing in the train station discussing schedules, a train pulled in that said Bern on it. It wasn't the type of train we took from Bern, but we felt that if it was going the same way, who cares? It was only after we were seated in the second level (trains seem to be double-decked a lot) that one of my friends got this weird, panicked look on his face. His eyes got a little wider and he fumbled into his backpack for our Eurail Pass. He muttered to me that it was the wrong train. He got up and found the rest of our group and gave them the heads up-- we were getting off at the next possible stop. He sat down next to me when we heard this tik-tik-tik noise down below. I was pretty sure he'd blow a gasket, especially when I informed him the noise came from downstairs. Hey, he asked. Ticket collectors go down the train to see who has a ticket, and they often carry hole punches, so you know where his mind went. Thankfully we got to the next stop, Uttigen, before he collapsed of fright.
Uttigen, you have to understand, is a tiny station with two tracks running through it and an unmanned station. There was no town that we could see, just a platform with one set of tracks on each side. It was not a place one expected the national railway system to stop. Several of those big trains did pass us, but they didn't slow down. This meant that every train that passed was deafening. My panicked friend soon discovered that he had reacted too quickly to the situation-- the sub-line that we had ridden on was owned by the national railway. It was just a smaller train run by a smaller sub-company. The next train was in 40 minutes, so we had fun waiting by telling jokes and discussing the reactions of the four personality types to this situation: a sanguine would laugh, a choleric would yell, a melancholy would cry, and a phlegmatic wouldn't really care. We got on the next train and rode with no problems to the train station in Bern, though we approached it from a different angle than normal and thus were uneasy about the drop-off location at first. We got back to the hotel and have pretty much crashed after our alpine adventures.
Do you blame us?
End
