A few days since I've last posted; here in Vienna the internet is not free...boo. Our last day in Prague I got a semi-early start and headed out to the battlements with Steve and Brenton. It was only about a 15 min. walk from our hostel and greeted us at first with a HUGE wall. I'm going to guess about 25 ft. high, and all brick. Inside there were few battlements left, but there was a really pretty church inside that had tons of paintings of saints all around the walls. I took pictures of some of my favorites. Afterwards we wandered around the graveyard of the church and saw Dvorak's grave (which Angela and Adam told us to be on the lookout for). Our final farewell to Prague was sitting atop a wall (not one of the super tall ones) looking out over the Danube and on the city of Prague. Really nice views, and we watched some rowers in the river. From there it was onto the train station and the worst train ride we've had so far. It was about 90 degrees the entire 5 hours journey, killer. Steve and I felt like we were in Italy again. At least we were slightly better off than Angela and Adam whose car was nonexistant and they had to get a conductor to find new seats for them (this was the case for a bunch of people). After the most dehydrating train ride possible (and meeting 2 UK guys who I had a suspicion I would see again) we made it to our hostel. Along the way we ran into the Indian guys who has stayed at the same hostel in Prague and we both took the same tram out to the west side of town. After checking into our room (which is almost comically small for 3 people) we tried to find an Indian resturant that an Indian man in Vienna had suggested to our Indian friends. We agreed to try and meet up there, but couldn't find it. After a lot of wondering around being very hungry and tired we went into an Indian grocery store and Adam took one for the team and asked the store owner if he knew of an Indian resturant in the area. The shop owner was really nice and gave us detailed directions to a really good place only a few minutes walking away. Needless to say I got buttered chicken and a large coke. One of the best meals I've had on this trip. Then it was back to our hostel for a good long sleep. On the way back we saw a parade of bikers, joggers, and rollerbladers having a party along the roads. They had a car blasting music (at one point it was Switch by Will Smith) and a police escort. It looked like a ton of fun.
Next day we slept in a bit and then took the metro out to Stephanplatz. We went into Stephendom, but couldn't go too far in since Mass was currently in session. Then to Mozart's house and took some pictures from the outside. Steve and I were really proud of ourselves for understanding what the Spanish tourguide outside was saying. More walking over to the Royal Cemetary Church, the Opera House, the Sucession museum, etc. It was a nice walking and orienting day; all of these things we just saw from the outside. From there was the Naschmarket, which was awesome. It's an enormous (several blocks long with multiple rows) market with sections of resturants, food markets, new clothes for sale, yard sale stands, etc. Everything and anything you could think of. We all wished that we lived in Vienna so we could shop here on a daily basis. Angela bought some cool Indian bags (Adam did a good job of bargaining down the price) and I looked at tons of lapis lazurli jewelry, but didn't buy. Also, as Steve pointed out all the food stands seemed to sell something stuffed; usually stuffed olives..but they are big into stuffed foods apparently. To end off our walking tour of Vienna we headed over to Karlsplatz and went to take some pictures of Karlskirche (Karl's Church for you non-German readers). We happened upon a huge wedding and got to see parts of the chruch (from a roped off doorway obviously) that usually you don't get to see. We saw a horse-drawn carraige outside (they are everywhere in this city) and decided to wait until the bride and groom came out. One of the members of the wedding party gave us all some rice to throw, which made us all feel pretty special. It was a ton of fun and I have to wonder now how many tourists have pictures of this random person's wedding. On the metro ride home we ran into the UK guys (my suspicions are always correct) and then took a quick trip to the grocery store and then on a schnitzel adventure. We are starting a pattern of having bad luck trying to find resturants. Angela had read about this really famous schnizel place with the schnizel bigger than the plate. When we got there (about a 30 min walk) we found it was closed for 2 weeks while the family went on holiday (only problem with family owned resturants as Adam pointed out). Ah well, we did get some schnizel after checking out a few resturants in the area. Also a random note, you can get free tap water in Vienna! This is very exciting for us. When we got back to the hostel Steve and I played a very close and intense game of Settlers of Catan (he won...I need a rematch) and while playing a guy played the Simpson's theme on the piano, which completely made my day.
Sunday started with my new standard of apple and bread breakfast, then off towards the center of town again. It is way hotter in Vienna than in either Prague and especially Berlin, so that took a bit of getting used to. We rested in a beautiful rose garden for almost an hour and got to see tons of different types of rose bushes. One of my favorites (and Angela's) was the Piccadilly Rose. One of the very few rose bushes with no blooms was called the Americana rose (we get the hint). After the garden we headed to the Hofburg Palace and checked out the treasury. There were also some relics in there for me (score!). Lots of ridiulous detailing, ornateness, shiny, etc. Everything we like in a museum. For lunch we got some bratwurst. Here it is surved in a bageutte and is about a foot long...I could not finish it, not even close. From there Angela and Adam split off from Steve and I. We went to Stephendom (where we got to go more inside and see more beautiful church architecture), the Royal Crypt (main highlight was the crypt of Franz Josef and Elizabeth) and the Sucession Museum (this time we actually we inside). The Succession museum was....interesting. I think Steve put it best: "it blew our minds with modern art". The main attraction was a 30 meter fresco called the Beethoven Fries which is an interpretation of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. That was pretty cool. The rest was a little freaky (an enormous room dedicated to seal stuffies covered in blood, fur coats covered in blood, dead manniquins admist coke bottles, pictures of dead people who were obviously blown up or shot...etc...). After that we took a nice refreshing break at a huge fountain and memorial dedicated to the USSR, we are guessing for their help in liberating Vienna from the Nazi's. The coolest part was a rainbow that was in the fountain (I have good pics of this). We met up with Angela and Adam and took the tram to a huge graveyard on the outskirts of Vienna. Inside is a section dedicated to musicians and has the graves of Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss, and more! That was very cool and we met up with a US kid there who was a musician. With him (none of us remmeber his name) we took the tram up to St. Mark's cemetary to see Mozart's grave. We got off the tram a stop early since a ticket checked got on and none of us had gotten tickets. I would like to note that this was the first time we had not gotten tickets and the first time we have ever seen anyone check. Not a far walk we found the graveyard...which had closed 20 minutes earlier. Steve made a mock attempt at climbing over the wall, but stopped after we had 1) finished our pictures of him and 2) he completely scraped up his elbow. We metro'd back to the hostel (with a ticket!) and got schnizel (again) from a really nice family owned resturant. The family was Turkish, as are tons of families in this area. Adam and I got some ice cream on the way back which was amazing! I am already planning my trips back there. I got 4 scoops (I didn't finish, eyes way bigger than my stomach): coffee, after eight(the mint candy), nutella (awesome!), and poppy seed (way better than you would think). A fun part about that too was the ice cream guys reaction to Adam and I standing around a crowd of Austrians not really knowing what to do or how to order. He simply looked at our confused faces and said "English?". There are tons of people here who speak English, many more that I expected and a slight relief after Prague.
Today was a lazy day with Angela and Adam splitting off again leaving Steve and I to our shennanigans. First we went to PraterPark to ride the big ferris wheel. It was a small amusement park inside a large garden park. The ride was nice and we got some good panoramic shots of Vienna. We then walked to an apartment complex with a funky and artsy outside decor. All the apartments painted different colors, mosaics, etc. Really cool, I can't remember the name right now though. From there we tried to find some clock in one of the platz's that was supposed to be like a glockenspeil with a show, but couldn't find it. Later we learned Adam and Angela had no better luck. So we just wandered over to Stadtpark and relaxed for a few hours; napping and wandering. It was hot again today, so lethargy was quick to set in. We headed back to the hostel around 5 and got more ice cream along the way (double yum!). Angela and Adam have since returned and we are planning what to do with our evening.
It is kind of weird having been travelling for so long, all these hostels start to feel like home. I am definitely looking forward to coming home, but am already planning my next trip back to Europe. :)
Monday, July 28, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Last Day in Prague
Today was our last full day in Prague and tomorrow we leave mid-day for Vienna. I might try to go see the battlements tomorrow morning if I get ambitious. Im also going to try and find this hotdog vendor who apparently has the best hotdogs in town. We'll see how well I do.
Today Steve, Brenton and I walked all the way back to the Prague Castle area and first went into St. Nick's Church, which Steve and I had not gone into a few days ago. But it was completely worth the 35 crown entrance fee. The inside was gorgeous, with high ceilings and tons of gold plated statues everywhere. There were some relics (which have now become one of my favorite things to see) but they were of saints I've never heard of. Lots of marble statues and intricate everything...too hard to describe, you'll have to wait for pictures. From there it was on to Loreta church to see the Prague Sun and Santa Casa. That was a bit of a let-down. Santa Casa had no signs indicating it as such, but by the end of our tour there we assumed it was the brick building inside a marble building (which had tons of statues on the outside). The Prague Sun was very pretty (we couldn't take pictures, so google it if you want to know what I mean), but after the treasury of the Residence Museum in Munich it paled in comparison. Pretty stuff there, but not worth the 90 crowns to get in.
Tonight I have done my laundry in an actual washer and dryer (huzzah!!) and we made another meal of pasta from the grocery store. My few crowns that I have left I'm going to use for potential excellent hotdogs tomorrow. Unfortunately a good part of today was rainy, so not a nice day to walk around and say goodbye to Prague. But at least the weather reports from Vienna look good, we may even see the temperature go into the 80's!
Today Steve, Brenton and I walked all the way back to the Prague Castle area and first went into St. Nick's Church, which Steve and I had not gone into a few days ago. But it was completely worth the 35 crown entrance fee. The inside was gorgeous, with high ceilings and tons of gold plated statues everywhere. There were some relics (which have now become one of my favorite things to see) but they were of saints I've never heard of. Lots of marble statues and intricate everything...too hard to describe, you'll have to wait for pictures. From there it was on to Loreta church to see the Prague Sun and Santa Casa. That was a bit of a let-down. Santa Casa had no signs indicating it as such, but by the end of our tour there we assumed it was the brick building inside a marble building (which had tons of statues on the outside). The Prague Sun was very pretty (we couldn't take pictures, so google it if you want to know what I mean), but after the treasury of the Residence Museum in Munich it paled in comparison. Pretty stuff there, but not worth the 90 crowns to get in.
Tonight I have done my laundry in an actual washer and dryer (huzzah!!) and we made another meal of pasta from the grocery store. My few crowns that I have left I'm going to use for potential excellent hotdogs tomorrow. Unfortunately a good part of today was rainy, so not a nice day to walk around and say goodbye to Prague. But at least the weather reports from Vienna look good, we may even see the temperature go into the 80's!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Prague Adventures Continue
As I said before, Prague is not full of things to do for a week, so the last 2 days have been pretty laid back. Two days ago we were planning to go to Kutna Hora to see the bone church (Kostnice), but it was pouring and cold. And we all got a little freaked when a lightning bolt came down right next to our hostel. There was a blinding flash of light and then the quickest and loudest thunder clap I've ever heard. I'm pretty sure that is the closest I've ever been to lightning. There was a weird smell afterwards too. Anyways, that day pretty much got chalked up to napping and reading. We met a nice guy in our hostel who we're sharing a room with named Brenton who is from Australia. We spent the evening with him; we went out to dinner (the same place I had gotten beef goulash the night before) and then had a rousing evening of playing the game of Life and Scrabble. We are quite the partiers.
Today we really did go to Kutna Hora and Brenton joined along, it's nice to have new people in our small group. It took us a while to get to Kutna Hora since the walk to the train station was about 40 minutes (including Steve's hot dog break), then we had to wait an hour for the bus, and then the busride was about an hour. Once at the towns bus station we luckily met some tourists who had just been to Kostnice and gave us walking directions to it. Only about a 20 minute walk away was a normal looking church surrounded by a cemetary. Nothing would make you think it was out of the ordinary...except the second you step inside. Pretty much every decoration in this place was made out of human bones. Over 40,000 humans total dating back to the Black Plague. Pretty crazy stuff. There was a chandelier made of bones and it had every bone found in the human body included. There was a shield on the wall made of bones and had a bird made of bones appearing to peck into a human skull. Like I said...crazy stuff. Even though the church was small (basically one big room) it was entirely worth the effort getting there. We also bought a combined ticket so we could go into the cathedral in town too, but unfortunately it was under construction so most things were either not on display or just strewn about. A statue of Jesus (positoned as he would be on a cross) was lying on the floor in plastic wrap looking like something out of CSI. The coolest things to me they had were relics of saints (I'm a sucker for relics). They had the skeletons of St. Felix and St. Vincent, some parts covered in wax (like the face) and some bones exposed (like the ribs).
After a brief stop at the grocery store there (while waiting for the bus) and finding Bueno Bars (a chocolate candy made by Kinder that Angela and I are obsessed with) we got the bus back to Prague. It dropped us off at a different place in Prague so we had to take the metro back near our hostel. Brenton, Steve and I went out for pizza while Angela and Adam went back to the hostel to eat their leftovers from the night before. Now I'm going to go downstairs to the common room where I think there is more Scrabble going on. ;-)
Today we really did go to Kutna Hora and Brenton joined along, it's nice to have new people in our small group. It took us a while to get to Kutna Hora since the walk to the train station was about 40 minutes (including Steve's hot dog break), then we had to wait an hour for the bus, and then the busride was about an hour. Once at the towns bus station we luckily met some tourists who had just been to Kostnice and gave us walking directions to it. Only about a 20 minute walk away was a normal looking church surrounded by a cemetary. Nothing would make you think it was out of the ordinary...except the second you step inside. Pretty much every decoration in this place was made out of human bones. Over 40,000 humans total dating back to the Black Plague. Pretty crazy stuff. There was a chandelier made of bones and it had every bone found in the human body included. There was a shield on the wall made of bones and had a bird made of bones appearing to peck into a human skull. Like I said...crazy stuff. Even though the church was small (basically one big room) it was entirely worth the effort getting there. We also bought a combined ticket so we could go into the cathedral in town too, but unfortunately it was under construction so most things were either not on display or just strewn about. A statue of Jesus (positoned as he would be on a cross) was lying on the floor in plastic wrap looking like something out of CSI. The coolest things to me they had were relics of saints (I'm a sucker for relics). They had the skeletons of St. Felix and St. Vincent, some parts covered in wax (like the face) and some bones exposed (like the ribs).
After a brief stop at the grocery store there (while waiting for the bus) and finding Bueno Bars (a chocolate candy made by Kinder that Angela and I are obsessed with) we got the bus back to Prague. It dropped us off at a different place in Prague so we had to take the metro back near our hostel. Brenton, Steve and I went out for pizza while Angela and Adam went back to the hostel to eat their leftovers from the night before. Now I'm going to go downstairs to the common room where I think there is more Scrabble going on. ;-)
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
More Prague!
We're in Prague for a whole week so expect many blog titles about it. Yesterday was a fun filled day of finding out how the Czech like to screw tourists out of their money. First we walked to the Prague Castle, which is the big toursit attraction here. It was quite a long wal from our hostel, almost an hour, but it's a nice walk through town and along the water. The castle is really a castle complex and has tons of things inside, like St. Vitus Cathedral, other churches, Golden Lane (a reconstruction of what a typical road in the days of the castle would look like, kind of like a mini RenFest without people dressed up). We bought out tickets to get into the castle which were 125 Czech crowns (14.5 crowns to 1 US dollar), but then they told us that there was no information signs inside the castle and so highly recommended the audioguide...which was 200 crowns for 2 hours! Yeah, so no audioguides for us. Then we got into the Royal Castle and found out that the majority of it was closed for renovations and much of the open rooms were in a bit if disarray from the renovations. Ah well, we could still get into St. Georges Church, St. Vitus Cathdreal and Golden Lane on our ticket. St.Georges was nice, although rather small. Oh, by the way, it cost an extra 50 crowns for the priveledge to take pictures, so we all snuck pictures behind tour groups. We then went to Golden Lane, which was my favorite part, mainly because you could pay 50 crowns for 5 shots using a real crossbow at a target. That was awesome. I got alright at aiming, but all of my arrows kept bouncing off the target instead of sinking in. But it was still really fun. Lastly we saw St. Vitus Cathedral (after a not so bad wait of 30 minutes to get in), which was very impressive with really awesome stained glass and the creepiest pieta I've ever seen (all the heads and hands were missing).
Since we were already so far out of the center of Prague we decided to go to the Loreta church, which is even further out. Loreta church has the Prague Sun and Santa Casa (which is supposed to be the Virgin Mary's house). When we got there we found it was closed on Mondays, so we get to walk all the way out there another day (we are considering paying to use the public transportation instead). As we were walking out we went back to St. Nick's, which was open this time, but it actually cost money to get into (about 35 crowns). Angela and Adam went in, but Steve and I had seen enough churches for free.
By this point we were all really tired from walking so much and went to an early dinner at the same restaurant we went to the first night. We had a bad start there...we tried to say we had 4 people for dinner and somehow this got interpreted as we wanted 4 coffees. Imagine our surprise when 4 coffees showed up on the table, and our waitress was not pleased when she figured out that we weren't going to drink them or pay for them. Then magically we got a new waitress. The rest of the dinner went smoothly.
We were planning on going to the bone church in Kutna Hora today, but it's raining, so we haven't decided if we want to go yet. Really other than the Loreta church this is the only thing we have planned to do and we have 3 more days, so we may not go anywhere really today. Prague is a nice city to be in, but if you are trying to fit in as many places as possible into a vacation I would say 3 days in Prague is all you need to hit up almost everything.
Since we were already so far out of the center of Prague we decided to go to the Loreta church, which is even further out. Loreta church has the Prague Sun and Santa Casa (which is supposed to be the Virgin Mary's house). When we got there we found it was closed on Mondays, so we get to walk all the way out there another day (we are considering paying to use the public transportation instead). As we were walking out we went back to St. Nick's, which was open this time, but it actually cost money to get into (about 35 crowns). Angela and Adam went in, but Steve and I had seen enough churches for free.
By this point we were all really tired from walking so much and went to an early dinner at the same restaurant we went to the first night. We had a bad start there...we tried to say we had 4 people for dinner and somehow this got interpreted as we wanted 4 coffees. Imagine our surprise when 4 coffees showed up on the table, and our waitress was not pleased when she figured out that we weren't going to drink them or pay for them. Then magically we got a new waitress. The rest of the dinner went smoothly.
We were planning on going to the bone church in Kutna Hora today, but it's raining, so we haven't decided if we want to go yet. Really other than the Loreta church this is the only thing we have planned to do and we have 3 more days, so we may not go anywhere really today. Prague is a nice city to be in, but if you are trying to fit in as many places as possible into a vacation I would say 3 days in Prague is all you need to hit up almost everything.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Prague Day 2
We had a nice slow start to today; I finished my book (What is the What) in our hostel's courtyard so we didn't end up leaving until around noon. We walked to Wenceslas Square and hung around the area for a while. There are lots of shops along the way so we all did a lot of window shopping and comparision shopping since every place here has the same knick knacks. We also got our first Prague hot dogs, which are supposed to be some of the best in the world. I don't really know about that, they were definitely spiced differently than American hotdogs, but in most respects tasted the same. We also got to sample the Prague gelato.
From there it was a nice leisurely walk back through the old town into the Jewish district again since we wanted to see it on a non-Saturday. Mostly we browsed all the little stores and markets along the way. I picked up a traditional czech pastry that I don't know the name of. It's a swirl of toasted sweet bread with nuts and I think cinnamon on top. They smelled so good from the street I had to get one. From the Jewish district we crossed the river and made our way to one of the St.Nick churches, but unfortunately it had closed early for a concert, so we'll have to come back another night. In the same area we saw John Lennon's wall: a tall, painted wall (actually a lot like the Berlin Wall) maybe about 20 meters long. There was the Coexist sign, lots of peace signs, a portrait of Lennon, etc. Also some weird foam confessional outside...we're not sure what that was all about.
When heading back towards out hostel we took the Charles Bridge and Angela picked up some pretty handmade earrings. She also fed the seagulls some bread she found. I have a good picture of the seagulls catching the bread from out of the air. It actually got a little scary as the seagulls were starting to figure out where the bread was coming from.
Back at our hostel tonight we made some pasta for dinner and played a game of scrabble (Angela won...even though this is the first time she's ever played). A nice low-key day with tons of walking again. My legs and feet are starting to worry me cause they ache most of the time now. Tomorrow we are going to see the Prague Castle and the Loreta church (with Santa Casa in it), and St.Nick's if we can fit it in.
From there it was a nice leisurely walk back through the old town into the Jewish district again since we wanted to see it on a non-Saturday. Mostly we browsed all the little stores and markets along the way. I picked up a traditional czech pastry that I don't know the name of. It's a swirl of toasted sweet bread with nuts and I think cinnamon on top. They smelled so good from the street I had to get one. From the Jewish district we crossed the river and made our way to one of the St.Nick churches, but unfortunately it had closed early for a concert, so we'll have to come back another night. In the same area we saw John Lennon's wall: a tall, painted wall (actually a lot like the Berlin Wall) maybe about 20 meters long. There was the Coexist sign, lots of peace signs, a portrait of Lennon, etc. Also some weird foam confessional outside...we're not sure what that was all about.
When heading back towards out hostel we took the Charles Bridge and Angela picked up some pretty handmade earrings. She also fed the seagulls some bread she found. I have a good picture of the seagulls catching the bread from out of the air. It actually got a little scary as the seagulls were starting to figure out where the bread was coming from.
Back at our hostel tonight we made some pasta for dinner and played a game of scrabble (Angela won...even though this is the first time she's ever played). A nice low-key day with tons of walking again. My legs and feet are starting to worry me cause they ache most of the time now. Tomorrow we are going to see the Prague Castle and the Loreta church (with Santa Casa in it), and St.Nick's if we can fit it in.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Prague Day 1
Internet is free in this hostel also, so I'm aiming for daily posts still. AND they have an American keyboard, which is very exciting for me after weeks of learning new configurations. Today we basically took out own walking orientation tour of Prague. Our hostel is on the fringes of the old town, so most everything is within walking distance. We slept in a bit again, although I haven't been getting as much sleep as I should since I started reading What is the What. It is an amazing book about the lost boys of Sudan and follows one's life in particular. It is incredibly depressing at some points, but I completely recommend it if you're looking for a new read. Anyways, back to Prague. First we walked to the dancing house, which is an architectural sight. It looks as if two buildings (one made of concrete, one of glass) are merging together and then separate again at the top. Too bad you can't really go inside. Then we walked along the river admiring the different bridges and the island parks in the river (like in Paris) until we got to Charles Bridge, which is the largest. Steve and I sat and people watched for a while and Angela and Adam checked out what the vendors were peddling on the bridge. We are going to walk more on it when we go see Prague Castle and the Loreta church since they are on the other side of the water. From there we meandered towards the old town square and stopped along the way for lunch. We all got pizza, and unfortunately since we were in a more touristy area it was a bit expensive. Still nothing compared to Switzerland. Last night we got a great dinner at a small resturant near our hostel. Angela got some great traditional Czech foods such as garlic soup and potato pancakes. I will need to try guloush while I am here.
We got to the old town square just in time to see one of the hourly shows of the astronomical clock. Not as intricate as the glockenspeil, but still pretty interesting. They had a skeleton who rang a bell and saints would glide past open windows. In the square we found a place with a Salvador Dali exhibit that we might go back to one day while we are here. It doesn't have any of his painting though, just pictures of him, and some of his ceramics and graphics. So it's on our maybe list. From there we walked into the Jewish district (I have a habit of visiting these on Saturday) and decided to come back some other day, probably tomorrow. We could see all the empty stands where they have lively markets, but it was the wrong time to go.
Like I said, most of our day was just walking around the city. It is a really beautiful city and I am constantly amazed at how beautiful most of the buildings facades are. Lots of different colors and many with paintings on the outside. There is a definite difference though between here and western Europe, I haven't been able to put my finger on it yet, but there is a different feel about eastern Europe. Walking around today we saw two cars that had been broken into and had their radios stolen.
But regardless I really like this city. The only think I don't like is the return of a high percentage of smokers. I had enjoyed the relatively low rate in Germany and especially Switzerland, but now it's back to around how it was in Italy. Although not as bad as in the Netherlands...
Tonight we are keeping it cheap and made dinner in our hostels kitchen (I still had leftover pasta from the restuarant last night). And we bought supplies to cook dinner for another night. And of course we all resupplied our chocolate stores (except Steve who is allergic to chocolate *tear*).
We got to the old town square just in time to see one of the hourly shows of the astronomical clock. Not as intricate as the glockenspeil, but still pretty interesting. They had a skeleton who rang a bell and saints would glide past open windows. In the square we found a place with a Salvador Dali exhibit that we might go back to one day while we are here. It doesn't have any of his painting though, just pictures of him, and some of his ceramics and graphics. So it's on our maybe list. From there we walked into the Jewish district (I have a habit of visiting these on Saturday) and decided to come back some other day, probably tomorrow. We could see all the empty stands where they have lively markets, but it was the wrong time to go.
Like I said, most of our day was just walking around the city. It is a really beautiful city and I am constantly amazed at how beautiful most of the buildings facades are. Lots of different colors and many with paintings on the outside. There is a definite difference though between here and western Europe, I haven't been able to put my finger on it yet, but there is a different feel about eastern Europe. Walking around today we saw two cars that had been broken into and had their radios stolen.
But regardless I really like this city. The only think I don't like is the return of a high percentage of smokers. I had enjoyed the relatively low rate in Germany and especially Switzerland, but now it's back to around how it was in Italy. Although not as bad as in the Netherlands...
Tonight we are keeping it cheap and made dinner in our hostels kitchen (I still had leftover pasta from the restuarant last night). And we bought supplies to cook dinner for another night. And of course we all resupplied our chocolate stores (except Steve who is allergic to chocolate *tear*).
Friday, July 18, 2008
Arrived in Prague!
We just got into our hostel in Prague and I'm already in love with it. Free interenet, breakfast included and until 11am, nice front desk person, informative website, etc. The train ride from Berlin was about 5 hours. Our last morning in Berlin was not very exciting, just packing and being shooed out by the owners of the hostel.
Yesterday we had a lazy start to the day; since we didn't get back until after 3 we slept in. Our first stop was the Pergamon museum (which we did't get to until about 4pm....). It is almost entirely about Babylon, with some old Greek and Roman stutues thrown in. The whole place was split into 2 sections, one on the truth of Babylon and one on the myth. In the truth section was a copy of Hammurabi's code, which was cool for me to see since the original was not in the Louvre when I went. But I enjoyed the myth section more, lots of painting of the tower of Babel, confusion of tongues, etc. Some other interesting exhibits were there too...and were sort of related to Babylon. One was a series of tabloid covers concerning Saddam Hussein all framed and with glitter randomly sprayed on. Upon reading the description beside the exhibit we learned that it was the artist's own semen holding the glitter on.... Another one was a lego concentration camp. One guy took a bunch of different lego sets and made his own concentration camp, crematorium (sp?), etc. He used a lot of skeletons from the pirate lego set. We spent about 4 hours in the museum and then headed back where we had dinner the night before. Steve and I got out last currywurst and Adam and Angela revisited the falafel cafe. After dinner we walked around the neighborhood seeing a vibrant art community/compound with tons of artist exhibitions/shops. Then we also walked by the large synogogue (sp?), which was very pretty (huge gold Star of David on top) but it was too late to go inside.
I am really looking forward to Prague, this hostel seems awesome and I already think I will like it here more than Berlin. We'll see.
Yesterday we had a lazy start to the day; since we didn't get back until after 3 we slept in. Our first stop was the Pergamon museum (which we did't get to until about 4pm....). It is almost entirely about Babylon, with some old Greek and Roman stutues thrown in. The whole place was split into 2 sections, one on the truth of Babylon and one on the myth. In the truth section was a copy of Hammurabi's code, which was cool for me to see since the original was not in the Louvre when I went. But I enjoyed the myth section more, lots of painting of the tower of Babel, confusion of tongues, etc. Some other interesting exhibits were there too...and were sort of related to Babylon. One was a series of tabloid covers concerning Saddam Hussein all framed and with glitter randomly sprayed on. Upon reading the description beside the exhibit we learned that it was the artist's own semen holding the glitter on.... Another one was a lego concentration camp. One guy took a bunch of different lego sets and made his own concentration camp, crematorium (sp?), etc. He used a lot of skeletons from the pirate lego set. We spent about 4 hours in the museum and then headed back where we had dinner the night before. Steve and I got out last currywurst and Adam and Angela revisited the falafel cafe. After dinner we walked around the neighborhood seeing a vibrant art community/compound with tons of artist exhibitions/shops. Then we also walked by the large synogogue (sp?), which was very pretty (huge gold Star of David on top) but it was too late to go inside.
I am really looking forward to Prague, this hostel seems awesome and I already think I will like it here more than Berlin. We'll see.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Berlin Continued
On Wednesday we started off on the metro into the main part of town where there are lots of tourist sites. We saw the Brandenburg Tor, which is the old city gates. They look at lot like all the big gates in Paris with the horses on top. We also popped our heads inside the DB bank which was designed by Gehry (sp?) and has lots of glass in crazy patterns. Then we went to wander around the Gedenkstatter Deutecher Widestand: a memorial to the German jews killed during WW2. It was a really cool memorial made up of hundreds of slabs of stones. From the perimeter it looked like none of the stones were more than 2 ft high, but when you entered the complex they loom to around 10 ft. It seems more like the ground is sinking into the stones than they are getting taller. Very interesting effect and kind of creepy to walk around in. Especially when Steve likes to jump out from behind corners...
From there it started to rain so we made a quick trip over to the Reichstag, the government seat of Berlin, but the line to get in was pretty long (Angela and Adam spent about 45 minutes in it), so Mark, Steve and I decided to skip it and head to the Museum für Naturkunde (Museum of Natural History). That was intresting, although MUCH smaller than the one in DC. But they have the Archaeopteryx, which is the first found and best preserved fossil of a dinosaur with wings and feathers. They also have the largest piece of amber, which was kind of a let down because it is only about 2ish ft long and 1 ft high and is not shiny like amber jewelry is.
We left the building a little after they closed, and it was lucky we didn't get locked in! We had fininshed seeing the museum, but did't yet want to venture out into the rain so we shared ipod music in the cafe room for a while. At one point a guard came in about to lock the doors and found us and told us in surprised German that the museum was closed. He had to take us out a side entrance because the front gates had already been locked. From there we met Angela and Adam for dinner. They got falafel and we went to a German resturant next door. It was kind of pricy, but soooo good. I got a lamb and mashed potato dish.
After a stop back at the hostel to rest up Mark, Steve and I went out to a dance club in downtown Berlin. We got there at about midnight, waited in line for 20 mins and then got in. The bouncer took a while to find my birthdate on my VA drivers license. Inside was amazing! They have about 6 different dance rooms all with different DJs playing different types of music. We ended up in the electronic/sorta techno room and danced for a few hours. A little after 2 I was tired and we decided to leave; also our day pass was only good on the bus and subway until 3am. But we were not smart enough to think ahead on getting back and the S-bahn and U-bahn were closed until 4:30am. So we checked the bus and tram schedules near the club, none of them took us anywhere near our hostel. We ended up getting a cab, which was expensive, but it was that or not get back until 5am.
This morning Mark left to get his plane back to the States and the rest of us are going to the Pergamon art museum. Tomorrow we leave for Prague.
HI MRS. JIANG!!!
From there it started to rain so we made a quick trip over to the Reichstag, the government seat of Berlin, but the line to get in was pretty long (Angela and Adam spent about 45 minutes in it), so Mark, Steve and I decided to skip it and head to the Museum für Naturkunde (Museum of Natural History). That was intresting, although MUCH smaller than the one in DC. But they have the Archaeopteryx, which is the first found and best preserved fossil of a dinosaur with wings and feathers. They also have the largest piece of amber, which was kind of a let down because it is only about 2ish ft long and 1 ft high and is not shiny like amber jewelry is.
We left the building a little after they closed, and it was lucky we didn't get locked in! We had fininshed seeing the museum, but did't yet want to venture out into the rain so we shared ipod music in the cafe room for a while. At one point a guard came in about to lock the doors and found us and told us in surprised German that the museum was closed. He had to take us out a side entrance because the front gates had already been locked. From there we met Angela and Adam for dinner. They got falafel and we went to a German resturant next door. It was kind of pricy, but soooo good. I got a lamb and mashed potato dish.
After a stop back at the hostel to rest up Mark, Steve and I went out to a dance club in downtown Berlin. We got there at about midnight, waited in line for 20 mins and then got in. The bouncer took a while to find my birthdate on my VA drivers license. Inside was amazing! They have about 6 different dance rooms all with different DJs playing different types of music. We ended up in the electronic/sorta techno room and danced for a few hours. A little after 2 I was tired and we decided to leave; also our day pass was only good on the bus and subway until 3am. But we were not smart enough to think ahead on getting back and the S-bahn and U-bahn were closed until 4:30am. So we checked the bus and tram schedules near the club, none of them took us anywhere near our hostel. We ended up getting a cab, which was expensive, but it was that or not get back until 5am.
This morning Mark left to get his plane back to the States and the rest of us are going to the Pergamon art museum. Tomorrow we leave for Prague.
HI MRS. JIANG!!!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Last 2 days of Berlin
I'm going to try and remember everything we did yesterday...it was quite a lot. We got a late start and first made our way to AlexanderPlatz, which is a nice park surrounded by churches. In the middle of the platz is Nuptunebrunnen: a giant statue of Neptune in the middle of a fountain. Very impressive except that it obviously hasnt been cleaned in a while and has tarnished quite a bit. we briefly went into Marienkirche (one of the churches there). Almost all the walls were bare, I am guessing it got hit hard in WW2 and no one has since repaired it. A brief walk from there was the BerlinerDom, another church, but HUGE. And obviously as the name implies it has a big dome on the top. The dome and walls are covered in pretty mosaics and the organ alone would fill up many other churches. We wandered around the crypt where I think at least 90% of the men were named Fredreich. Then from the crypt we walked all the way to the top of the dome where there is a lookout area. The steps never end! The climb was quite decieving because there were multiple doors you would have to go through, so you would think "oh! a door, I'm there!"...and beyond the door there would be more stairs. That being said the climb was worth it and the view of Berlin was nice. I have to saw though of all the cities I've been to so far Berlin has been my least favorite. I'm having fun here, but the city itself is not as inherently beautiful as so many of the other European cities I've been to. It is very urban, overrun, in some places very dirty. Most places are not great for just strolling around.
From BerlinerDom Mark, Steve and I split from Angela and Adam so we could go see the bears in Koll. Park. The city has 3 bears as their mascot. Only 2 of them were out, but we could see them MUCH closer than in Bern. While in Bern the bear was far below in a pit, here the bear is separated from you by a trench, but you are eye level to the bear. They were European brown bears. We watched them for a while before returning to Alexanderplatz and getting some pizza. We took the tram to one of the Stasi prisons, or "special camps" where people were held by the Soviet Union for various 'crimes'. Usually the crime was attempting to escape east Berlin. The so-called "U boat" cells were pretty disturbing; tiny stone cells with no windows and a large wooden surface as a bed. People were kept in them under varying conditions to get confessions: shortened rations, no sleep, partially filled with water, etc. Unfortunately we were not able to arrange a tour in English, although that would have been even creepier because usually the tour guides are former prisoners of the camp.
Last touristy thing of the day was the Berlin Wall East Side Gallery. It is the longest remaining stretch of the wall and is covered in paintings and graffiti. There are even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle graffitied on! We walked along the whole stretch of remaining wall and then took the S-bahn to an Indian resturant I had looked up the previous day. A craving for butter chicken had taken me over. The resturant was really good, as was the butter chicken. We spent a little more than we usually do, but it is nice to treat ourselves every once in a while. We didnt leave the resturant until about 10:30.
This morning we got another late start and went straight to the Berlin Zoo. We spent over 6 hours there, and luckily it didn't rain! (It has rained everyday in Germany the entire time we have been here). It was a cool zoo since they don't use cages per se, but rather the trench/moat system. So you get to be eye level with the animals and it appears as if nothing but a short distance is separating you. The elephants and hippos were my favorite. We were able to make it to the hippo feeding time and went into the big cat house immedietly after feeding time. I watched a puma play with some rabbit guts for a while. We also saw where they prepare the big cats food. You can see some dead rabbits on the floor, a huge hunk of meat hanging from the ceiling by a hook, and a small chainsaw. Another cool part of the zoo was its nocturnal animal section: it was all underground and mostly dark, so it was kind of like a haunted house. The aardvark scurrying across freaked me out. By the end of the zoo we were all pretty beat so we grabbed another helping of currywurst and are now back at the hostel for an early night in. It's hard to get enough sleep when the truck deliveries happen loudly outside our window at 6:30am!
From BerlinerDom Mark, Steve and I split from Angela and Adam so we could go see the bears in Koll. Park. The city has 3 bears as their mascot. Only 2 of them were out, but we could see them MUCH closer than in Bern. While in Bern the bear was far below in a pit, here the bear is separated from you by a trench, but you are eye level to the bear. They were European brown bears. We watched them for a while before returning to Alexanderplatz and getting some pizza. We took the tram to one of the Stasi prisons, or "special camps" where people were held by the Soviet Union for various 'crimes'. Usually the crime was attempting to escape east Berlin. The so-called "U boat" cells were pretty disturbing; tiny stone cells with no windows and a large wooden surface as a bed. People were kept in them under varying conditions to get confessions: shortened rations, no sleep, partially filled with water, etc. Unfortunately we were not able to arrange a tour in English, although that would have been even creepier because usually the tour guides are former prisoners of the camp.
Last touristy thing of the day was the Berlin Wall East Side Gallery. It is the longest remaining stretch of the wall and is covered in paintings and graffiti. There are even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle graffitied on! We walked along the whole stretch of remaining wall and then took the S-bahn to an Indian resturant I had looked up the previous day. A craving for butter chicken had taken me over. The resturant was really good, as was the butter chicken. We spent a little more than we usually do, but it is nice to treat ourselves every once in a while. We didnt leave the resturant until about 10:30.
This morning we got another late start and went straight to the Berlin Zoo. We spent over 6 hours there, and luckily it didn't rain! (It has rained everyday in Germany the entire time we have been here). It was a cool zoo since they don't use cages per se, but rather the trench/moat system. So you get to be eye level with the animals and it appears as if nothing but a short distance is separating you. The elephants and hippos were my favorite. We were able to make it to the hippo feeding time and went into the big cat house immedietly after feeding time. I watched a puma play with some rabbit guts for a while. We also saw where they prepare the big cats food. You can see some dead rabbits on the floor, a huge hunk of meat hanging from the ceiling by a hook, and a small chainsaw. Another cool part of the zoo was its nocturnal animal section: it was all underground and mostly dark, so it was kind of like a haunted house. The aardvark scurrying across freaked me out. By the end of the zoo we were all pretty beat so we grabbed another helping of currywurst and are now back at the hostel for an early night in. It's hard to get enough sleep when the truck deliveries happen loudly outside our window at 6:30am!
Monday, July 14, 2008
Berlin Again
OK, just some quick things to mention that I couldn't write about yesterday.
-Our hostel here is nice, but WAY out of town. 15 minutes walking to the metro station and then a 30 minute metro ride to the center of town. Plus our German counts for nothing here since we are in a Turkish neighborhood and the owners here speak only Turkish. But the room set-up is awesome. Steve, Mark and I have a room across the hall from Angela and Adam, and our rooms are in a private hallway with it's own doorway and separate bathroom. It's much more like a hotel than a hostel.
-Checkpoint Charlie by the way is the place where East and West Berlin were separated. The museum is much larger than you would think and goes into more than just Berlin, but also Ukraine, Romania, etc. and how they became republics. There is a stand outside the museum and right under the "You are now leaving the American sector" sign where you can get your passpost stamped as if you were travelling between east and west Berlin. But they charge for that. The most interesting part of the museum for me was seeing all the ways people tried (and sometimes succeeded) to get out of East Berlin. Lots of cars were on display with their tiny secret compartments. One girl got out in between 2 hollowed out surfboards. A few children fit into suitcases. One guy made a zipline for his family. The stories go on. It was interesting, but sad to think what people were reduced to just trying to escape.
Today we are going to go see the Berlin Wall and some other sites. We have free internet here so if I may post again tonigt.
-Our hostel here is nice, but WAY out of town. 15 minutes walking to the metro station and then a 30 minute metro ride to the center of town. Plus our German counts for nothing here since we are in a Turkish neighborhood and the owners here speak only Turkish. But the room set-up is awesome. Steve, Mark and I have a room across the hall from Angela and Adam, and our rooms are in a private hallway with it's own doorway and separate bathroom. It's much more like a hotel than a hostel.
-Checkpoint Charlie by the way is the place where East and West Berlin were separated. The museum is much larger than you would think and goes into more than just Berlin, but also Ukraine, Romania, etc. and how they became republics. There is a stand outside the museum and right under the "You are now leaving the American sector" sign where you can get your passpost stamped as if you were travelling between east and west Berlin. But they charge for that. The most interesting part of the museum for me was seeing all the ways people tried (and sometimes succeeded) to get out of East Berlin. Lots of cars were on display with their tiny secret compartments. One girl got out in between 2 hollowed out surfboards. A few children fit into suitcases. One guy made a zipline for his family. The stories go on. It was interesting, but sad to think what people were reduced to just trying to escape.
Today we are going to go see the Berlin Wall and some other sites. We have free internet here so if I may post again tonigt.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Berlin
OK, I have to make this post quick since our hostel owners want us off the internet soon (its after 11pm). Our last day in Munich we went to the BMW museum first off. I can sum it up in one word: shiny! It was pretty cool, and very fun to see the perturbed staff members when someone touched one of the cars and left a fingerprint smudge. Then we went briefly to the English Gardens, but the weather started to get bad, so not much time was spent there. It reminded me a lot of Vondelpark in Amsterdam. Then for about an hour we huddles under the storefront of an expensive cafe while it poured. When the rain slowed a bit an showed no sign of stopping soon we made our way back into the main part of town and got a late lunch. I had the best piece of tirimisu of my life....I drool thinking about it. Then we went to the Residence Museum and treasury, thecrown jewels were quite impressive as you would think and the free audioguide was actually interesting. But the actual Residence was ENORMOUS and we had to pick up the pace and skip some rooms so we could make it to the glockenspeil (sp?) by 5pm. The German staff in the museum got pretty ticked with us when we skipped some rooms and therefore went out of order (gasp!) and were even more offended when we said we needed to leave before 5. They kept pointing out that it was open until 6. The glockenspeil show was honestly no great shakes, BUT it was in that same square that a huge Gay and Lesbian Day parade and festival was taking place and we hung out mostly there until our 11pm night train. We breifly went over to a kids park and had lots of fun on the seesaw and some spinning thing. Tons of good pictures from that. Then back to the festival to see some singing groups. We listened to Scream Club, a lesbian duo from the USA and Zeitgeist, a German group which opened their act by having one member shirtless, greased up, and throwing a lightbulb around himself. It was awesome.
Then the night train to Berlin. I actually slept pretty well, yay Dramamine! Steve didnt sleep at all. We got into Berlin at 7am and promptly took naps until the afternoon. This evening we got curryworst at Curry 36 and then went to checkpoint Charlie. I have to get offline now, so more about that later.
Then the night train to Berlin. I actually slept pretty well, yay Dramamine! Steve didnt sleep at all. We got into Berlin at 7am and promptly took naps until the afternoon. This evening we got curryworst at Curry 36 and then went to checkpoint Charlie. I have to get offline now, so more about that later.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Munich and Füssen
We left Freiburg 2 days ago sadly; I will miss looking out the bathroom window above the sink to see a vineyard. The train to Munich took about 4 hours total and Adam and Angela met us at the station. They have already been here for a few days. Our trudge to our hostel was longer than expected, but most stuff here is within walking distance. We packed our late afternoon with seeing as many things as were open; 2 cathedrals and other random buildings we passed that looked cool (and free) to walk into. By 8 we met Angela and Adam at the Augistiner beerhall and restaurant for some more classic German dining. I got "pork escalope vienna style", which basically turned out to be pork schnitzel. It was delicious and I am already craving some more, perhaps in Berlin...
Today we woke up early and took the 2 hour train ride to Füssen. There are 2 big castles there, but we only went into the Neuschwanstein, the bigger one that is supposed to be more impressive. It is the castle that Walt Disney used as his basis for the Sleeping Beauty castle in the animated movie. It was everything I hoped it would be, one tall tower and everything. It was built for King Ludwig who died before it was entirely completed so a lot of the inside is not finished. The guided tour (the only way to get in) takes you through the 6 completed rooms. They are all ridiculously ornate with lots of frescos related to Wagners operas, who Ludwig was apparently obsessed with. The throne room has an enormous (maybe 10 ft. diameter) chandelier made to look like a crown. His bedroom took 14 woodcarvers 4 yrs. to finish and has a sink with a swan head faucet that got water directly from the mountain above. It was really cool inside, although it would have been nicer to have more time to look at stuff as opposed to being moved quickly along by the tour guide. We took a nice walk up and down to get to the castle from the town of Füssen (and yes, I do keep typing the name so I can keep using umlats). We didn´t do much else in Füssen since the trains did not run very often to and from Munich and we wanted to make it back for dinner.
We went out to a cheap, but yummy Thai place that had drawn our attention yesterday from the delicious smells eminating from the doorway. The asian food I´ve had in Europe so far has all been really good. Angela promises me that we will get indian buttered chicken (a new favorite of mine) when we get to Berlin. For an after dinner experience we went to the Hofbrauhaus: the big, famous beerhall here. It is enormous, loud, rowdy, polka-y....all the stereotypes you would expect at 10 times the decibel level. It was a fun and needed experience for any trip to Munich. Unfortunately we got there just as it had started to pour so we couldn´t find a place to sit in the downstairs area, so we went upstairs to an extension of the same place. A slightly quieter atmosphere, but we got the joy of a classic 'I´m too busy for customers' waiter. My main pride there was pointing out that he overcharged us and him admiting it. He was nice, just hard to get a hold of. I got the homemade apple strudel..mmmmmm. Although now I want to go back and try the bavarian cream with marinated berries. I had a minor brain hemorrage trying to decide between the two.
It was still raining so we took 3 different metros to get back to our hostel and tomorrow we will see the BMW museum, the English Gardens, and the Glockenspeil (sp?) before leaving on a nighttrain for Berlin. I hope they will have more butter pretzels in Berlin!
Today we woke up early and took the 2 hour train ride to Füssen. There are 2 big castles there, but we only went into the Neuschwanstein, the bigger one that is supposed to be more impressive. It is the castle that Walt Disney used as his basis for the Sleeping Beauty castle in the animated movie. It was everything I hoped it would be, one tall tower and everything. It was built for King Ludwig who died before it was entirely completed so a lot of the inside is not finished. The guided tour (the only way to get in) takes you through the 6 completed rooms. They are all ridiculously ornate with lots of frescos related to Wagners operas, who Ludwig was apparently obsessed with. The throne room has an enormous (maybe 10 ft. diameter) chandelier made to look like a crown. His bedroom took 14 woodcarvers 4 yrs. to finish and has a sink with a swan head faucet that got water directly from the mountain above. It was really cool inside, although it would have been nicer to have more time to look at stuff as opposed to being moved quickly along by the tour guide. We took a nice walk up and down to get to the castle from the town of Füssen (and yes, I do keep typing the name so I can keep using umlats). We didn´t do much else in Füssen since the trains did not run very often to and from Munich and we wanted to make it back for dinner.
We went out to a cheap, but yummy Thai place that had drawn our attention yesterday from the delicious smells eminating from the doorway. The asian food I´ve had in Europe so far has all been really good. Angela promises me that we will get indian buttered chicken (a new favorite of mine) when we get to Berlin. For an after dinner experience we went to the Hofbrauhaus: the big, famous beerhall here. It is enormous, loud, rowdy, polka-y....all the stereotypes you would expect at 10 times the decibel level. It was a fun and needed experience for any trip to Munich. Unfortunately we got there just as it had started to pour so we couldn´t find a place to sit in the downstairs area, so we went upstairs to an extension of the same place. A slightly quieter atmosphere, but we got the joy of a classic 'I´m too busy for customers' waiter. My main pride there was pointing out that he overcharged us and him admiting it. He was nice, just hard to get a hold of. I got the homemade apple strudel..mmmmmm. Although now I want to go back and try the bavarian cream with marinated berries. I had a minor brain hemorrage trying to decide between the two.
It was still raining so we took 3 different metros to get back to our hostel and tomorrow we will see the BMW museum, the English Gardens, and the Glockenspeil (sp?) before leaving on a nighttrain for Berlin. I hope they will have more butter pretzels in Berlin!
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
More on Freiburg!
Ack, I realized I forgot to write about some cool stuff we did yesterday! Mainly eating some authentic German food. We went to a resturant slash brewery (as they all are here) and I got a plate of 3 different kinds of bratwurst, saurkraut, and homemade mustard. It was delicious!! But gave me indigestion...thank goodness my first aid kit included peptobismol. And at the wine festival last night there was an orchestra of accordians! They were pretty good; the highlight of the night being when they played I Will Survive...no joke.
Anyways today has been pretty relaxed, lots of walking around and seeing the old city. For breakfast/lunch we all got pizza margheritas for 2.5 euros each! And they were large pizzas; it was delicious. We also went to the big cathedral here, which was beautiful as they all are. There were some carvings inside from the 1300s. More walking around and then we found Mark´s holy grail of kirshwasser liqour. The lady who owned the shop was really nice and while Mark was debating between several types she offered to let him taste the difference between the new and old. Wow....you could see on his face (and smell it from 10 ft away) that the old was way stronger. He ended up getting 2 bottles made in 1986. She also gave us advice on a good place to get Black Forest Cake, seemed appropriate since we are right next to the Black Forest. We wandered to a park where there were lots of different types of grape vine varieties on display and also a fountain surrounded by tons of flowers. We took a nap under the trees next to the fountain and when we awoke went in search of cake. It was well worth it! You could distinctly taste the kirshwasser in the cake, and the frosting was so much better than in the US. Instead of being heavy and sugary it was basically just real whipped cream. After a trip to the grocery store we have returned to our hostel perhaps for some more ping pong or just to enjoy our last few awake hours in Freiburg. We are definitely all going to miss this place.
Anyways today has been pretty relaxed, lots of walking around and seeing the old city. For breakfast/lunch we all got pizza margheritas for 2.5 euros each! And they were large pizzas; it was delicious. We also went to the big cathedral here, which was beautiful as they all are. There were some carvings inside from the 1300s. More walking around and then we found Mark´s holy grail of kirshwasser liqour. The lady who owned the shop was really nice and while Mark was debating between several types she offered to let him taste the difference between the new and old. Wow....you could see on his face (and smell it from 10 ft away) that the old was way stronger. He ended up getting 2 bottles made in 1986. She also gave us advice on a good place to get Black Forest Cake, seemed appropriate since we are right next to the Black Forest. We wandered to a park where there were lots of different types of grape vine varieties on display and also a fountain surrounded by tons of flowers. We took a nap under the trees next to the fountain and when we awoke went in search of cake. It was well worth it! You could distinctly taste the kirshwasser in the cake, and the frosting was so much better than in the US. Instead of being heavy and sugary it was basically just real whipped cream. After a trip to the grocery store we have returned to our hostel perhaps for some more ping pong or just to enjoy our last few awake hours in Freiburg. We are definitely all going to miss this place.
Freiburg
Our last night in Bern was a quiet one; doing laundry and hanging around watching some television in German. Yesterday morning we left early to catch our train to Freiburg, Germany. Back to the Euro! The train was really nice and I was fascinated with the electronic text above each seat which displayed automatically what your leg of the journey was. I was incredibely impressed until a lady came over and had the exact same seat reservation as me...luckily she was nice and just sat somewhere else laughing it off as a silly mistake. We got into Freiburg and had to walk around for over an hour to find our hostel. I don´t think I will even trust locals again to give me directions in their hometown. When we did finally get here (Black Forest Hostel) we were all amazed. It is a super hippie hostel that used to be...who knows...some sort of huge warehouse. They have a pingpong table, no curfew or lockout hours, free showers, and we have a private 3 person room. Mark needed a towel and most places have been charging about 2 dollars to borrow one, and this place gave him one for free. It´s a cocopops towel with a big monkey on it, haha.
After putting our stuff down in the hostel we immedietly went out to hike in the Black Forest around where an old castle used to be and up to a viewpoint. It only goes about 2 km into the Black Forest, but to get to the viewpoint you have to climb up about 500 steps! More than to get to the top of Notre Dame tower! But the view of Freiburg was pretty amazing, although it was a little scary because it is very windy here and so the top of the tower was vibrating pretty hard... It was then we learned that Steve is afraid of heights...
By the time we got back to the hostel it was starting to rain and since we were all pretty beat we took a nap through the rain. We got up early evening and wandered around town for a bit and found the town´s wine festival! We were very lucky because it is a yearly event and we caught the last day! It was tons of fun; I tried 3 different types of wine- a Guwertztraminer (sp?), a Pinot Blanc, and some sort of rose sparkling wine. All of them were delicious. We ended up buying a bottle (for only 11 euros!) that we will drink tonight. Today we are just planning on wandering around the town some more, I want to see the big cathedral here (every town has one) and who knows what else we will find!
This town is very nice and not touristy at all. There is a big university here so it reminds me of Blacksburg a bit, just the German version of a college town.
After putting our stuff down in the hostel we immedietly went out to hike in the Black Forest around where an old castle used to be and up to a viewpoint. It only goes about 2 km into the Black Forest, but to get to the viewpoint you have to climb up about 500 steps! More than to get to the top of Notre Dame tower! But the view of Freiburg was pretty amazing, although it was a little scary because it is very windy here and so the top of the tower was vibrating pretty hard... It was then we learned that Steve is afraid of heights...
By the time we got back to the hostel it was starting to rain and since we were all pretty beat we took a nap through the rain. We got up early evening and wandered around town for a bit and found the town´s wine festival! We were very lucky because it is a yearly event and we caught the last day! It was tons of fun; I tried 3 different types of wine- a Guwertztraminer (sp?), a Pinot Blanc, and some sort of rose sparkling wine. All of them were delicious. We ended up buying a bottle (for only 11 euros!) that we will drink tonight. Today we are just planning on wandering around the town some more, I want to see the big cathedral here (every town has one) and who knows what else we will find!
This town is very nice and not touristy at all. There is a big university here so it reminds me of Blacksburg a bit, just the German version of a college town.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Bern
By the way, I messed up in my last post, the town we stayed in was called Gimmelwald...I realized right after I signed offline. Anyways, we left Gimmelwald yesterday after hiking to a waterfall which was really pretty. You are even able to go behind the waterfall so I got some neat pics of that. The only not so fun part was it rained on our way back down to the town, so I got pretty soaked. But the best part was we got to walk through a cloud! From halfway down he mountain we could see the town get enveloped in a cloud and then it continued on up to us. So in two days I got to touch both a glacier and a cloud. We took the train to Bern in the afternoon, only 50 mins from Interlaken. By the time we got to our hostel here it was raining again so we had a lazy night of eating dinner, reading, and doing laundry. I was especilly excited about the laundry part, although both the washer and the drier had multiple problems and I now know the nightstaff of our hostel pretty well.
Today we slept in until 9 (way late for us as of late) and went out to explore the old city of Bern. I really like Bern, there are 3 main streets with lots of shops and resturants. One of them is obviously the alternative street and has tons of tatoo, piercing, and erotica shops. First we went to Albert Einsteins house and toured around the small flat and saw a video on his life. This was the place where he thought up the theory of relativity. His life was a bit strange with me mostly wondering what happened to his first child, a daughter with a woman he later married. All the video says is that his illegitimate daughter was "possibly" given up for adoption...it leaves the mind to wonder. After that we went to the Bear Pit. The bear is on the Bern flag and is a major symbol here. In the bear pit was one sleepy bear named Pedro. I don't know what kind of bear he was, but he was pretty big. We also went to the Bern Cathedral, which was very nice although now that I have seen Notre Dame I am a little spoiled when it comes to cathedrals.
We grabbed a small lunch for a big price. Everything in Switzerland is so expensive! We went to a Starbucks to grab some drinks, but the hot chocolate was 6.80, for a small! Ridiclous. Thank goodness our hostel includes breakfast. We got back to the hostel at about 5 and now Mark and Steve are doing some laundry. Especially nice about Bern are the flowers everywhere (especially a lot of morning glories) and the pretty river that runs through separting the old town from the new town. Our hostel is near the old part of town directly behind the parliament building. Another nice thing here is that almost everyone speaks English and the public transportation is reliable! Those are both a bit of a change from Italy...
Tomorrow we leave for Frieburg in Germany and hopefully things will be a bit cheaper there!
Today we slept in until 9 (way late for us as of late) and went out to explore the old city of Bern. I really like Bern, there are 3 main streets with lots of shops and resturants. One of them is obviously the alternative street and has tons of tatoo, piercing, and erotica shops. First we went to Albert Einsteins house and toured around the small flat and saw a video on his life. This was the place where he thought up the theory of relativity. His life was a bit strange with me mostly wondering what happened to his first child, a daughter with a woman he later married. All the video says is that his illegitimate daughter was "possibly" given up for adoption...it leaves the mind to wonder. After that we went to the Bear Pit. The bear is on the Bern flag and is a major symbol here. In the bear pit was one sleepy bear named Pedro. I don't know what kind of bear he was, but he was pretty big. We also went to the Bern Cathedral, which was very nice although now that I have seen Notre Dame I am a little spoiled when it comes to cathedrals.
We grabbed a small lunch for a big price. Everything in Switzerland is so expensive! We went to a Starbucks to grab some drinks, but the hot chocolate was 6.80, for a small! Ridiclous. Thank goodness our hostel includes breakfast. We got back to the hostel at about 5 and now Mark and Steve are doing some laundry. Especially nice about Bern are the flowers everywhere (especially a lot of morning glories) and the pretty river that runs through separting the old town from the new town. Our hostel is near the old part of town directly behind the parliament building. Another nice thing here is that almost everyone speaks English and the public transportation is reliable! Those are both a bit of a change from Italy...
Tomorrow we leave for Frieburg in Germany and hopefully things will be a bit cheaper there!
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Grimmelwald
Wow! Two posts in two days? Crazy! We have free 15 min internet time here so I thought I should use it now. This morning we left Interlaken (after a delcious included breakfast on which we feasted) and made it to Grimmelwald up in the Alps. To get to our hostel it took a train, ferry, bus, and cable car up the mountain. But it was so worth it! It is called Mountain Hostel and they dont lie, the views are incredible! I am in love with the Swiss Alps. By the time we got here Adam and Angela had already left for their trek to the top so we started on just a shortish hike to a glacier and it was fantastic. The glacier was admist a field of wildflowers and grass and streams running off from the glacier. Very reminicent of scenes in the Sound of Music. We touched the glacier, threw some snowballs, and ate a snack in the field. Then we tried to walk to the top of another mountain...BIG mistake. All the times they give for hiking here are obviously for Swiss people, not us. After 2 hours of hiking we met some Swiss hikers on the trail and they told us we were basically less than half way there. And most of the hike was steep uphill. We ended up just turning around and calling it an exercise routine.
We got back to the hostel and relaxed for a bit while we waited for Angela and Adam to get back. It took them 8 hrs to hike up to the top (of course the locals say it only takes 5...yeah right). I can't wait to see their pics! We splurged tonight on dinner and all 5 of us went out for real Alpine cheese fondue, quite delicious. Tomorrow we split again from Angela and Adam, but Mark, Steve and I are going to hike to one of the waterfalls here before going on to Bern. My main priority right now is to do laundry! My pack is starting to develop a distinct odor...
HI JUDY CHRISTIS! :)
We got back to the hostel and relaxed for a bit while we waited for Angela and Adam to get back. It took them 8 hrs to hike up to the top (of course the locals say it only takes 5...yeah right). I can't wait to see their pics! We splurged tonight on dinner and all 5 of us went out for real Alpine cheese fondue, quite delicious. Tomorrow we split again from Angela and Adam, but Mark, Steve and I are going to hike to one of the waterfalls here before going on to Bern. My main priority right now is to do laundry! My pack is starting to develop a distinct odor...
HI JUDY CHRISTIS! :)
Friday, July 4, 2008
First Day in Switzerland
I found Mark and Steve! They had some crazy adventures in Florence involving lost Eurail passes and hour long bus rides, but they finally made it to Cinque Terre and we had a lovely dinner at a cafe overlooking the water and had a traditional Italian 2 hour long relaxing dinner. The next day I had to change hostels into Riomaggiore (my hostel would not let me check out before 7am and our train left on the 4th at 6am) and then we started with what was supposed to be a 15 min hike up to a Monastary to have lunch. The guidebooks lied! It was a one hour 15 min hike straight up the mountainside with broken stairs and in the hot, humid Italian weather. Thank goodness we found a cafe along the way so we could buy more water. When we finally got to the Monastary it was closed, but we were exhasuted anyways. Although I do feel rather accomplished. We then took a differnt path back which was 100 times easier; only 40 mins and no stairs. We did the easy walks between Riomaggiore and Manarola (about 20 mins) and Manarola to Corniglia (about 1 hr). We then took the train to explore Vernazza and Monterosso. We had dinner in Monterosso, which is a beachy town (a beach with sand!) that reminds me a lot of Florida. We split a bottle of local wine, which was delicious as usual. While walking around we happened upon a live concert with lots of townspeople dancing so we hung around listening to the music. Monterosso is the place to be in Cinque Terre at night.
We woke up super early today and caught the 6am train to Genoa, then a train to Milan, and then a train to Interlocken (well, 2 trains and a bus, but who's counting!). And by chance we were on the same trail as Angela and Adam; even in the same car. So now we are in Switzerland and get to use to Swiss Franc which is about equal to the dollar but everything here is ridiculously expensive! We got 2 10 inch pizzas and it cost 28 dollars! So we stopped at a coop to get some food while we are here. I also picked up some chocolate :) We didn't get into town until about 4pm so we have just been wandering around checking out to great view of the Alps. We took a ferry to get from Spiez to Interlocken and it was a beautiful ride, and free with our Eurail passes! It's a nice small town, not very touristy. The main things I love here are that it's not incredibly hot and humid like Italy was, the water is an amazing shade of aquamarine, and you can see the Alps anywhere you look. There are also a lot of flowers planted all around town which makes the city very pretty. I have seen tons of peoples backyards filled with vegetable gardens and it makes me jealous; at home the deer would destroy anything like these gardens.
Tomorrow I am going to hike in the Alps for a bit, but am only going to do some of the shorter hikes. My legs still hurt from making it to that monastary! I think Angel and Adam are going to hike all the way to the Schilthorn, which is a 8 to 9 round trip strenous hike. I admire their bravery. I want to do some hanggliding here, but the prices start at 160 Francs. Everywhere you look in the skies you can see people paragliding, sometimes they do flips and tricks. Probably next update will be in a few days in Bern, and I have no idea when I will next be able to upload pictures.
We woke up super early today and caught the 6am train to Genoa, then a train to Milan, and then a train to Interlocken (well, 2 trains and a bus, but who's counting!). And by chance we were on the same trail as Angela and Adam; even in the same car. So now we are in Switzerland and get to use to Swiss Franc which is about equal to the dollar but everything here is ridiculously expensive! We got 2 10 inch pizzas and it cost 28 dollars! So we stopped at a coop to get some food while we are here. I also picked up some chocolate :) We didn't get into town until about 4pm so we have just been wandering around checking out to great view of the Alps. We took a ferry to get from Spiez to Interlocken and it was a beautiful ride, and free with our Eurail passes! It's a nice small town, not very touristy. The main things I love here are that it's not incredibly hot and humid like Italy was, the water is an amazing shade of aquamarine, and you can see the Alps anywhere you look. There are also a lot of flowers planted all around town which makes the city very pretty. I have seen tons of peoples backyards filled with vegetable gardens and it makes me jealous; at home the deer would destroy anything like these gardens.
Tomorrow I am going to hike in the Alps for a bit, but am only going to do some of the shorter hikes. My legs still hurt from making it to that monastary! I think Angel and Adam are going to hike all the way to the Schilthorn, which is a 8 to 9 round trip strenous hike. I admire their bravery. I want to do some hanggliding here, but the prices start at 160 Francs. Everywhere you look in the skies you can see people paragliding, sometimes they do flips and tricks. Probably next update will be in a few days in Bern, and I have no idea when I will next be able to upload pictures.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Cinque Terre
This morning I left Genoa and took a 2 hr. train ride to Manarola, one of the five cities of Cinque Terre. My last day in Genoa was mainly walking around the city, but that night Brittany and I went out with some of Marcos' friends to an awesome bar in Nervi along the sea. First we went to dinner at a cafe where if you buy a drink (about 6 euros) you get the buffet for free! Then at the bar we had mojitos (it is my drink of choice now apparently) and hung out overlooking the water and Porto Fino in the distance.
Cinque Terre is a picturesque town; when I post picutures you guys will be jealous. There is a rocky coastline very similar to Dartmouth and cool, clear water to swim in. I may have to buy a bathing suit while I'm here! I met up with Angela and Adam for lunch (we all had pesto dishes, yum!), and then was supposed to meet Mark and Steve at 5. They apprently missed their morning train and now I'm not sure where they are. I hope I will meet up with them tonight. Tonight more walking around I think; it's very hot here too. I actually took a nap on a bench along the coastal path.
I just checked into my hostel and it is nice and clean; although they lock you out between 10 and 5 which is a bummer. No siestas for me. Alright, I only bought 15 minutes of internet so I gotta run!
Cinque Terre is a picturesque town; when I post picutures you guys will be jealous. There is a rocky coastline very similar to Dartmouth and cool, clear water to swim in. I may have to buy a bathing suit while I'm here! I met up with Angela and Adam for lunch (we all had pesto dishes, yum!), and then was supposed to meet Mark and Steve at 5. They apprently missed their morning train and now I'm not sure where they are. I hope I will meet up with them tonight. Tonight more walking around I think; it's very hot here too. I actually took a nap on a bench along the coastal path.
I just checked into my hostel and it is nice and clean; although they lock you out between 10 and 5 which is a bummer. No siestas for me. Alright, I only bought 15 minutes of internet so I gotta run!
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Genoa
I made it to Genoa! The flight on RyanAir was not bad at all (I got freaked out when I accidently found some "I hate RyanAir" websites online), although getting to the airport was very difficult. Initially I was going to take the tube to the Tottenham Hale train station and then pick up the Stansted Express from there, but Lee offered to drive me to Tottenham Hale to shorten my journey. And thank goodness he did! We got to the station and it was closed so he had to drive me all the way to the airport (which is hardly in London at all, its about an hour outside the city). I got into Genoa and made my way to my couchsurfing hosts' (Marcos) house; I managed the trains and buses just fine although the last bus driver told me the wrong stop to get off at, but luckily Marcos found me.
The first night here Marcos introduced me to his friend Brittany who is an AuPair (sp?) here from California. She has been really awesome and took me out with her friends for drinks at a place playing the final Euro2008 game. Spain won, Germany lost, but after Holland was out of the running i didn't really care who won. We had a nice chill night and talked until 2am on the waterfront. The next day I explored Genoa alone (I will be glad when I get to Cinque Terre and have travelling friends back!). I started at Piazza Ferrari, which is a really nice place to just sit and people watch. There is a large beautiful fountain in the middle. I got a sandwich for lunch and ate it next to the fountain. From there I wandered down the streets of Genoa and made it to the waterfront near Porto Antico. The streets here are all cobblestone and frequently very narrow, lots of shops and delis, and the whole town is built sloping up from the water. I spent a few hours at the Aquarium, which was really nice with dolphins, sharks, a ray touch pool, etc. I watched the 3D kids show about sharks in Italian. I then rode the Bigo, which is like a big glass elevator that takes you about 3 stories up for a waterfont panorama of the city. It's not an overly amazing view, but it's only 2.50 euros. I then walked to the Palazzo Principe, but it was already closed. The guard though was nice and let me walk around the gardens for free.
At 7 I went to meet Brittany and Marcos and we made our way out to Nervi which is at the end of Genoa and has some beaches. We ordered some pizzas to be delivered on the beach and hung around. Some people went swimming, the water was actually fairly warm, but I don't have suit with me. I know the Italian people don't mind swimming naked, but I do.
Today I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do. There are not tons of tourist attractions here, I think I will just wander around the city and windowshop along some of the big streets. Tonight Brittany and I are going to go out to a bar near Nervi with some of Marcos' friends.
Just a side note: it's hot here! That is to be expected of coastal Italy in July, but coming from cool Paris and Amsterdam and even cooler England has been a weird shift for me. And there are mosqitos! I was enjoying not having them around before. Ah well, Genoa is a beautiful city with a great layed-back style. Although I am really glad I have met some nice people to hang out with here because it is really not a good tourist city, there is not a lot of see or do that can't be done in 1 or 2 days.
The first night here Marcos introduced me to his friend Brittany who is an AuPair (sp?) here from California. She has been really awesome and took me out with her friends for drinks at a place playing the final Euro2008 game. Spain won, Germany lost, but after Holland was out of the running i didn't really care who won. We had a nice chill night and talked until 2am on the waterfront. The next day I explored Genoa alone (I will be glad when I get to Cinque Terre and have travelling friends back!). I started at Piazza Ferrari, which is a really nice place to just sit and people watch. There is a large beautiful fountain in the middle. I got a sandwich for lunch and ate it next to the fountain. From there I wandered down the streets of Genoa and made it to the waterfront near Porto Antico. The streets here are all cobblestone and frequently very narrow, lots of shops and delis, and the whole town is built sloping up from the water. I spent a few hours at the Aquarium, which was really nice with dolphins, sharks, a ray touch pool, etc. I watched the 3D kids show about sharks in Italian. I then rode the Bigo, which is like a big glass elevator that takes you about 3 stories up for a waterfont panorama of the city. It's not an overly amazing view, but it's only 2.50 euros. I then walked to the Palazzo Principe, but it was already closed. The guard though was nice and let me walk around the gardens for free.
At 7 I went to meet Brittany and Marcos and we made our way out to Nervi which is at the end of Genoa and has some beaches. We ordered some pizzas to be delivered on the beach and hung around. Some people went swimming, the water was actually fairly warm, but I don't have suit with me. I know the Italian people don't mind swimming naked, but I do.
Today I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do. There are not tons of tourist attractions here, I think I will just wander around the city and windowshop along some of the big streets. Tonight Brittany and I are going to go out to a bar near Nervi with some of Marcos' friends.
Just a side note: it's hot here! That is to be expected of coastal Italy in July, but coming from cool Paris and Amsterdam and even cooler England has been a weird shift for me. And there are mosqitos! I was enjoying not having them around before. Ah well, Genoa is a beautiful city with a great layed-back style. Although I am really glad I have met some nice people to hang out with here because it is really not a good tourist city, there is not a lot of see or do that can't be done in 1 or 2 days.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Briefly Back in London
Brian and I left Dartmouth/Stoke Fleming this afternoon and were very sad to see it go. We had a wonderful time there with amazing sites and excellent hosts. Before we left we took a self-guided tour of the local winery (Sharpham Vineyard) and did a wine and cheese tasting. All the wines were delicious; while at the local pub I always had their white. We weren't sure we'd be able to go since it is not near any town (closest is Totnes, but it's about 3 miles away) and no buses go anywhere near. But Anne and Mark drove us there and accompianed us on our excursion. We took the train back to London in the late evening and now I have to get up at about 5am to get to the airport for my flight to Genoa.
I have posted more pictures on the photobucket website in a folder called England. Here is a direct link:
http://s307.photobucket.com/albums/nn283/alexandra_portolano/england/
Enjoy! And lets all hope I find where I am staying in Genoa tomorrow since it apparently takes 3 different buses to get there...
I have posted more pictures on the photobucket website in a folder called England. Here is a direct link:
http://s307.photobucket.com/albums/nn283/alexandra_portolano/england/
Enjoy! And lets all hope I find where I am staying in Genoa tomorrow since it apparently takes 3 different buses to get there...
Friday, June 27, 2008
Dartmouth and Beyond
Tuesday we left Salisbury; we got to see the Magna Carta first though! It was basically just a piece of green paper with lots of old writing on it, but the church it was in was really nice. We got into Totnes -near Dartmouth- that afternoon and were picked up by Anne. She is the mother of a guy who stayed at my Dad's house last month. He is travelling around the whole world for about a year; he leaves for Fiji soon and I'm really jealous. We -Brian and I- have been staying at Anne's house for 4 days now with her and her son Mark. It has been tons of fun! She lives in Stoke Fleming, a small town outside of Dartmouth. On Wednesday Mark took us into Totnes and showed us around; it's a cool hippie town and we had lunch at a vegetarian cafe. Thursday Brian and I hiked into Dartmouth; it'sabout a 2 hour hike along the water and is absolutely beautiful. We spent the day relaxing in Dartmouth; it is a nice seaside town with lots of shopping. We had Devon Cream Tea at the Slopping Deck Resturant on the Butterwalk. The deck is literally slopping and from the outside you wonder how it is still standing. That night we went out for traditional fish and chips on the waterfront. I got the cod and it was quite tasty.
Today was a really lazy day; Brian and I just stayed in the house all day reading Calvin and Hobbes, drinking tea, and then watched Galaxy Quest. It was a nice break from all this relaxing I've been doing ;-) And then this evening Anne and Mark took us out to the local pub, The Green Dragon, where we hung out for a few hours. I have grown fond of the local wine and tomorrow Anne is going to take us to the vineyard where they give tours. Tomorrow afternoon we are taking the train back to London and on Sunday we both fly out. Brian flies back to the States and I fly to Genoa, Italy.
This whole place is incredibly beautiful; lots of rolling hills with cattle and rocky coastline. We have been on several short hikes with Anne and Mark showing us some of the beaches and woods. It has been a bit cold while we have been here, mostly because of the wind, but I can imagine how wonderful it must be to live here when it is warmer and be able to walk to fantastic beaches everyday. From here on will be hostels and the like so I am trying to make the most of the delicious homecooked meals Anne has been making us. More updates in Genoa probably!
Today was a really lazy day; Brian and I just stayed in the house all day reading Calvin and Hobbes, drinking tea, and then watched Galaxy Quest. It was a nice break from all this relaxing I've been doing ;-) And then this evening Anne and Mark took us out to the local pub, The Green Dragon, where we hung out for a few hours. I have grown fond of the local wine and tomorrow Anne is going to take us to the vineyard where they give tours. Tomorrow afternoon we are taking the train back to London and on Sunday we both fly out. Brian flies back to the States and I fly to Genoa, Italy.
This whole place is incredibly beautiful; lots of rolling hills with cattle and rocky coastline. We have been on several short hikes with Anne and Mark showing us some of the beaches and woods. It has been a bit cold while we have been here, mostly because of the wind, but I can imagine how wonderful it must be to live here when it is warmer and be able to walk to fantastic beaches everyday. From here on will be hostels and the like so I am trying to make the most of the delicious homecooked meals Anne has been making us. More updates in Genoa probably!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Salisbury
We left London yesterday and took the train to Salisbury fairly early in the morning. The tube was really delayed and crowded because someone was under a train at one of the stations (no idea how that happened or how it ended). Salisbury is a really pretty little town with cobblestone streets and lots of shops and a market in the morning. We first thing took the bus to Stonehenge, only a 20 minute drive. Stonehenge was really cool and even though you can't touch it you can get fairly close. It was also a nice day, breezy and sunny. They had an audioguide explaining what every stone was called and such, but it was kind of boring and more interesting to just sit and look at it.
When we got back to Salisbury we got a late lunch and Brian and I had a high tea. It was an amazing tea with 4 differnet finger sandwiches and delicious scones. Funny thing was we were in the resturant of a Best Western. Then we just walked around the town for a bit, took a nap, and then later went to a late dinner at Gastrobistro recommended by the owner of the Bed&Breakfast we are staying in. It was quite a good French place, although the portions were all pretty small. The best part was we had a coupon for a free glass of champagne per person and the house champagne was really good! All the wine in Europe has been good. Oh! Actually that reminds me: while we were in London we walked around Brick Alley (flea market type street) and found a guy making fresh mojitos on the street in front of a cafe. We stopped and had some and even though they were ridiculously expensive (£5 each) they were worth it. He ground up limes and fresh mint with a mortar and pestle for each drink individually. Then we sat and enjoyed them in the cafe, which was very chill and had a Moroccan theme.
Today we have been walking all around town looking for an internet place, and we finally found one at the library. We leave in a few hours for Dartmouth (southwest England) and are staying with the family of a friend. Apparently they should have really good fish and chips there since it's a fishing town so I'm looking forward to that. Maybe while I'm there I'll be able to post some pictures of Stonehenge.
When we got back to Salisbury we got a late lunch and Brian and I had a high tea. It was an amazing tea with 4 differnet finger sandwiches and delicious scones. Funny thing was we were in the resturant of a Best Western. Then we just walked around the town for a bit, took a nap, and then later went to a late dinner at Gastrobistro recommended by the owner of the Bed&Breakfast we are staying in. It was quite a good French place, although the portions were all pretty small. The best part was we had a coupon for a free glass of champagne per person and the house champagne was really good! All the wine in Europe has been good. Oh! Actually that reminds me: while we were in London we walked around Brick Alley (flea market type street) and found a guy making fresh mojitos on the street in front of a cafe. We stopped and had some and even though they were ridiculously expensive (£5 each) they were worth it. He ground up limes and fresh mint with a mortar and pestle for each drink individually. Then we sat and enjoyed them in the cafe, which was very chill and had a Moroccan theme.
Today we have been walking all around town looking for an internet place, and we finally found one at the library. We leave in a few hours for Dartmouth (southwest England) and are staying with the family of a friend. Apparently they should have really good fish and chips there since it's a fishing town so I'm looking forward to that. Maybe while I'm there I'll be able to post some pictures of Stonehenge.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
In London, with pictures!
I have finally posted and captioned my pictures of the trip so far. They can be found at:
http://s307.photobucket.com/albums/nn283/alexandra_portolano/
All of them are captioned, and more will follow, but probably not for a few weeks.
London has been nice and relaxing so far. I have been here before and done most of the touristy stuff so I am mostly just hanging out at Brian's uncle's house. Yesterday Brian and his coworker Vinny came over from the US. Vinny will be here for a few days and Brian is staying for a little more than a week. Today we walked around downtown London, Trafalgar square area. We almost went on the London Eye, but it's really expensive ($31!!). We had lunch in Chinatown, but ended up not going to a very good place (avoid Cafe Hong Kong). We then saw the matinee fo Avenue Q, which we all thought was hilarious! It's been called Sesame Street for adults, but honestly it's really hard to describe. There are puppets though!
Not much else to report. We leave for Stonehenge in 2 days, so more news after that.
http://s307.photobucket.com/albums/nn283/alexandra_portolano/
All of them are captioned, and more will follow, but probably not for a few weeks.
London has been nice and relaxing so far. I have been here before and done most of the touristy stuff so I am mostly just hanging out at Brian's uncle's house. Yesterday Brian and his coworker Vinny came over from the US. Vinny will be here for a few days and Brian is staying for a little more than a week. Today we walked around downtown London, Trafalgar square area. We almost went on the London Eye, but it's really expensive ($31!!). We had lunch in Chinatown, but ended up not going to a very good place (avoid Cafe Hong Kong). We then saw the matinee fo Avenue Q, which we all thought was hilarious! It's been called Sesame Street for adults, but honestly it's really hard to describe. There are puppets though!
Not much else to report. We leave for Stonehenge in 2 days, so more news after that.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Bye Bye Amsterdam
Today I must say goodbye to Amsterdam and leave for London. Mom left this morning to go back to the states. I was planning on walking around and windowshopping today, but it is pouring, so internet cafe it is! On Tuesday we went to the Rijksmuseum (pronounced rikes (like bikes) museum) and the VanGogh museum. I was completely blown away by the VanGogh museum; he only painted for 10 yrs of his life and created amazing works. The most impressive part for me is the variety of painting styles he did. Some were very true to life with smooth lines that looked like a pictures, then he did a lot of pointilism (lots of dots to make an image) and some others were crazy colors (green skies, etc.) with globs of paint making the picture literally 3D. My favorite painting of his was the famous yellow sunflowers.
http://z.about.com/d/painting/1/0/Q/T/1/SueBond-19VanGoghSunflowers.jpg
The Rijksmuseum was also very impressive, although only a small fraction of the museum was open. This place is almost as big as the Louvre, but they are doing major reconstruction this year so all of the famous works were moved into a few rooms and the rest closed off to the public. Honestly, I think it made the museum better. The Louvre was amazing, but completely exhausting the walk around. But here you got to see all the stuff you would come to see with minimal tourist collapsing. So many of the paintings here had such great detail in each face it was practically better than a photo. There were also a number of Rembrants and Vermeers (although not the Girl with the Pearl Earring). It was a little creepy to see the portaits painted of children because this was a time when children were just see as mini-adults who needed that pesky original sin beaten out of them. So all the children looked like sickly dwarves as painted.
Tuesday was a beautiful day so after the museums we strolled around Vondelpark for a while. We found that as you walk further into the park it becomes very beautiful (not like the entrance we had seen before). There are lots of walking and biking paths, benches, students tanning and playing tennis, and at the back a large childrens playground with a huge wading pool complete with fountain. We sat on a bench for a while and worked on the puzzles in the US Today (their crosswords are completely lame btw).
Wednesday was a lazy day since we had done all the touristy things we wanted to here. I slept in pretty late and then we just wandered around town along the canals. We went to the Alfred Cuyp street market which was much bigger than we thought it was. It stretched for about 3 blocks on both sides. It was a fun market and sold anything you could think to buy: fresh orange juice, bras, bike locks, toothpaste, fresh flowers, raw fish, etc. Mom got a nice pashmina (I bought one in Paris, they are very popular here) and we sampled some just-made french fries..mmmm..... At the end of the day we went to an Indonesian resturant (Amsterdam has tons of international food) and both had a mini-rice table. Basically it's an assortment of a bunch of different Indonesian dishes. It's good we got the mini because it was huge as it came. There were pickled vegetables, dried coconut with peanuts, a delicous shredded beef dish, chicken leg in spicy suace, a boiled egg in the same spicy sauce and chicken sate. We went there on suggestion of Brian's uncle who I am going to stay with while in London. I am hoping either today or tomorrow to get my pictures posted and captioned so some of these posts will make a little more sense!
http://z.about.com/d/painting/1/0/Q/T/1/SueBond-19VanGoghSunflowers.jpg
The Rijksmuseum was also very impressive, although only a small fraction of the museum was open. This place is almost as big as the Louvre, but they are doing major reconstruction this year so all of the famous works were moved into a few rooms and the rest closed off to the public. Honestly, I think it made the museum better. The Louvre was amazing, but completely exhausting the walk around. But here you got to see all the stuff you would come to see with minimal tourist collapsing. So many of the paintings here had such great detail in each face it was practically better than a photo. There were also a number of Rembrants and Vermeers (although not the Girl with the Pearl Earring). It was a little creepy to see the portaits painted of children because this was a time when children were just see as mini-adults who needed that pesky original sin beaten out of them. So all the children looked like sickly dwarves as painted.
Tuesday was a beautiful day so after the museums we strolled around Vondelpark for a while. We found that as you walk further into the park it becomes very beautiful (not like the entrance we had seen before). There are lots of walking and biking paths, benches, students tanning and playing tennis, and at the back a large childrens playground with a huge wading pool complete with fountain. We sat on a bench for a while and worked on the puzzles in the US Today (their crosswords are completely lame btw).
Wednesday was a lazy day since we had done all the touristy things we wanted to here. I slept in pretty late and then we just wandered around town along the canals. We went to the Alfred Cuyp street market which was much bigger than we thought it was. It stretched for about 3 blocks on both sides. It was a fun market and sold anything you could think to buy: fresh orange juice, bras, bike locks, toothpaste, fresh flowers, raw fish, etc. Mom got a nice pashmina (I bought one in Paris, they are very popular here) and we sampled some just-made french fries..mmmm..... At the end of the day we went to an Indonesian resturant (Amsterdam has tons of international food) and both had a mini-rice table. Basically it's an assortment of a bunch of different Indonesian dishes. It's good we got the mini because it was huge as it came. There were pickled vegetables, dried coconut with peanuts, a delicous shredded beef dish, chicken leg in spicy suace, a boiled egg in the same spicy sauce and chicken sate. We went there on suggestion of Brian's uncle who I am going to stay with while in London. I am hoping either today or tomorrow to get my pictures posted and captioned so some of these posts will make a little more sense!
Monday, June 16, 2008
I'm Already Running out of Titles...
Today I got another late start since I was awoken multiple times by Turkey fans celebrating outside (they won last night against the Czech Republic). I kinda wish the USA was involved in something similar to Euro08, our Superbowl doesn't nearly compare. We started with the Waterloopin flea market, which was mostly a lot of junk (as flea markets are), but fun to walk around and a few interesting trinkets to look at. It is in the heart of the Jewish section of Amsterdam so we saw some things related; notably the Jewish Resistance Fighters Memorial.
Our first museum of the day was a complete bust: the Amsterdam Hermitage. It has rotating exhibits from the Hermitage in St.Petersburg, so maybe we just caught a bad exhibit...but it's a tiny museum and costs 7 euro. Right now they just have a bunch of 19th century pictures of St.Petersburg. If I were Rick Steves this place would go under "major disappointments". But the rest of the day was really nice. We also took a tour of Rembrant's house. He lived there for 30ish years before being kicked out because he couldn't pay the mortgage (sound farmiliar?). We also took a tour of a house from a rich family of the 19th century who (when the owner died) left the house and all its possessions to Amsterdam to be a fully furnished museum. The wealth in the house was overwhelming including a 275 piece serving set for a party of 24 people.
Tonight we took a canal city boat cruise, which showed a lot of parts of the city that we had not seen before, mainly the bay which goes to North Amsterdam. It was interesting to see the more industrial side to this town. Although we both got a little seasick out there and prefered the parts in the canals. We finished off the day at a nice little Italian place and I (of course) ordered their homemade tiramisu. It was a good choice.
That's all for today, a little shorter than normal, but I'm trying to just pay for 30 mins of internet instead of the full hour. And quick news from home: I'm an aunt! Tania had her baby 2 days ago and both are doing just fine and went home yesterday.
Our first museum of the day was a complete bust: the Amsterdam Hermitage. It has rotating exhibits from the Hermitage in St.Petersburg, so maybe we just caught a bad exhibit...but it's a tiny museum and costs 7 euro. Right now they just have a bunch of 19th century pictures of St.Petersburg. If I were Rick Steves this place would go under "major disappointments". But the rest of the day was really nice. We also took a tour of Rembrant's house. He lived there for 30ish years before being kicked out because he couldn't pay the mortgage (sound farmiliar?). We also took a tour of a house from a rich family of the 19th century who (when the owner died) left the house and all its possessions to Amsterdam to be a fully furnished museum. The wealth in the house was overwhelming including a 275 piece serving set for a party of 24 people.
Tonight we took a canal city boat cruise, which showed a lot of parts of the city that we had not seen before, mainly the bay which goes to North Amsterdam. It was interesting to see the more industrial side to this town. Although we both got a little seasick out there and prefered the parts in the canals. We finished off the day at a nice little Italian place and I (of course) ordered their homemade tiramisu. It was a good choice.
That's all for today, a little shorter than normal, but I'm trying to just pay for 30 mins of internet instead of the full hour. And quick news from home: I'm an aunt! Tania had her baby 2 days ago and both are doing just fine and went home yesterday.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Amsterdam Part 2
Amsterdam so far has been a blast. Yesterday we started with a walk around the Jordaan, which is beautiful. But it's more than just that...it's that no where in the Jordaan is NOT beautiful. I am very jealous of the people that get to live there. Brick streets, tons of cafes, canals lined with trees, bikers with Holland football (i.e. soccar) flags. Holland won against France two nights ago securing their place in the Euro08 semi-finals, so there was cheering and partying outside our hotel until about 4am. It's hard to blame them, everyone here likes to see the French get smashed. We walked around the Jordaan looking at the old houses (marked by engraved stone plaques above the door with the year it was built) for about 3 hours, but it didn't seem that long. The first place we went to in the Jordaan was the Noorder Market, which has stands selling cheese, meats, vegetables, flowers, purses, second-hand clothes, candy, etc. It was tons of fun to walk around in. It would be wonderful to be able to live here and do my shopping here weekly. We then went to the Anne Frank house and toured the secret annex and saw momentos of her life and videos of those close to her. It was an incredibly depressing museum, but I am glad I went. The hardest part was watching a video of her father (Otto, the only surving member of the 8 people who hid for 2 years in the secret annex) talking about when he realized his two daughters were dead (he did not positively find out until months after he was released from his concentration camp and went back to Amsterdam).
That afternoon we walked around the Old City of Amsterdam and saw DeWaag castle, which used to be the cities gates. There is a statue on the walls of St.Nicholas, who is Amsterdam's patron saint. Along the walk we got to see some of Amsterdam's skinniest houses. The skinniest is 6 1/2 ft. wide. Because canal space was so expensive and taxes were determined by the width of your house Amsterdam is filled with toothpick-wide, 5 story houses. It is very interesting to see, especially because of the interesting roofing designs they do here (when I post pictures you'll see what I mean). While walking around we met some little Dutch girls (probably 11 or 12) who had set up a nail painting stand and asking .5 euro for a nail painting. They were too cute to pass up, so now my nails are light blue and sparkly. Our last stop was the infamous red light district. Being Saturday night it was quite lively, not just with young guys, but plenty of tourists and families. It's actually a pretty fun place to just walk around and (literally) windowshop. There were lots of girls in windows to be seen, mostly dressed in bra and panties. Sorry guys, but no pictures from here. There are big, burly guys (sometimes seen, sometimes not) standing by the windows making sure you don't take pictures of the prostitutes.
Today we got up and first went to the Flower Market, which as one can guess has tons of tulips as well as other flowers and bulbs. In addition to flowers they have lots of cannibis starter kits, which go for about 6 euros. Mom and I decided customs probably wouldn't take it as a light-hearted joke to take them back into the States. Just for reference, here in Amsterdam anything that says "Coffeeshop" means they have weed and are legal to sell it. We went from there to a nice Sunday art market in the Spui area. There was good art abounding, but usually at a pretty high price. We then proceeded to Begijnhof, which has been around since....I think the 16th century? Now I can't remember...anyways, a long time! It was originally established as a place for devout Catholic women who did not want to live in a convent so couldn't be nuns, but wanted to live away from the hustle and bustle of Amsterdam life. It is now a general sanctuary and only houses women. The place is basically a bunch of houses in a square with a courtyard in the middle and 2 churches (one catholic, one protestant). There are some really nice gardens in the inside. We then had some lunch at a little cafe and I got to try a Danish classic, croquettes. They are hard to describe, but are kind of like the Dutch version of a hot pocket. They have a crispy fried outside, and inside a paste (kind of like mashed potato, but not potato) and pieces of beef. They were pretty good. I mostly enjoyed the cafe because I got to sit next to the owners cat who was napping in a seat near the window.
From there we went to a church across the canal that we had been looking at all during lunch. It wasn't on the map and not in the guidebooks, but it was open to tourists and had free audio guides in English. It was the most beautiful church I have ever seen. And I am including Notre Dame in Paris and all the churches I saw in Spain and Italy. It was called St. Fransicus Xaverius and I have no idea why it is not mentioned in both guidebooks we have, but if you ever come here it is well worth a look around. The architecture is gorgeous with tall vaulted ceilings and paintings along all of it, there are sculptures all around with incredible emotion sculpted on each face, and beautiful stained glass (although not as impressive as that stained glass church in Paris). On the way back to the hotel we picked up some food at the market for a picnic dinner tonight at Vondelpark. When we looked at the map of Vondelpark later we found we really hadn't walked far enough into it to see the pretty parts. The baguette we got was still warm when we bought it. I will definintely miss the fresh bread when I leave Europe. That's all for now, sorry these posts are so long, but I have a lot to tell and I'm sure you can just skim it ;)
That afternoon we walked around the Old City of Amsterdam and saw DeWaag castle, which used to be the cities gates. There is a statue on the walls of St.Nicholas, who is Amsterdam's patron saint. Along the walk we got to see some of Amsterdam's skinniest houses. The skinniest is 6 1/2 ft. wide. Because canal space was so expensive and taxes were determined by the width of your house Amsterdam is filled with toothpick-wide, 5 story houses. It is very interesting to see, especially because of the interesting roofing designs they do here (when I post pictures you'll see what I mean). While walking around we met some little Dutch girls (probably 11 or 12) who had set up a nail painting stand and asking .5 euro for a nail painting. They were too cute to pass up, so now my nails are light blue and sparkly. Our last stop was the infamous red light district. Being Saturday night it was quite lively, not just with young guys, but plenty of tourists and families. It's actually a pretty fun place to just walk around and (literally) windowshop. There were lots of girls in windows to be seen, mostly dressed in bra and panties. Sorry guys, but no pictures from here. There are big, burly guys (sometimes seen, sometimes not) standing by the windows making sure you don't take pictures of the prostitutes.
Today we got up and first went to the Flower Market, which as one can guess has tons of tulips as well as other flowers and bulbs. In addition to flowers they have lots of cannibis starter kits, which go for about 6 euros. Mom and I decided customs probably wouldn't take it as a light-hearted joke to take them back into the States. Just for reference, here in Amsterdam anything that says "Coffeeshop" means they have weed and are legal to sell it. We went from there to a nice Sunday art market in the Spui area. There was good art abounding, but usually at a pretty high price. We then proceeded to Begijnhof, which has been around since....I think the 16th century? Now I can't remember...anyways, a long time! It was originally established as a place for devout Catholic women who did not want to live in a convent so couldn't be nuns, but wanted to live away from the hustle and bustle of Amsterdam life. It is now a general sanctuary and only houses women. The place is basically a bunch of houses in a square with a courtyard in the middle and 2 churches (one catholic, one protestant). There are some really nice gardens in the inside. We then had some lunch at a little cafe and I got to try a Danish classic, croquettes. They are hard to describe, but are kind of like the Dutch version of a hot pocket. They have a crispy fried outside, and inside a paste (kind of like mashed potato, but not potato) and pieces of beef. They were pretty good. I mostly enjoyed the cafe because I got to sit next to the owners cat who was napping in a seat near the window.
From there we went to a church across the canal that we had been looking at all during lunch. It wasn't on the map and not in the guidebooks, but it was open to tourists and had free audio guides in English. It was the most beautiful church I have ever seen. And I am including Notre Dame in Paris and all the churches I saw in Spain and Italy. It was called St. Fransicus Xaverius and I have no idea why it is not mentioned in both guidebooks we have, but if you ever come here it is well worth a look around. The architecture is gorgeous with tall vaulted ceilings and paintings along all of it, there are sculptures all around with incredible emotion sculpted on each face, and beautiful stained glass (although not as impressive as that stained glass church in Paris). On the way back to the hotel we picked up some food at the market for a picnic dinner tonight at Vondelpark. When we looked at the map of Vondelpark later we found we really hadn't walked far enough into it to see the pretty parts. The baguette we got was still warm when we bought it. I will definintely miss the fresh bread when I leave Europe. That's all for now, sorry these posts are so long, but I have a lot to tell and I'm sure you can just skim it ;)
Friday, June 13, 2008
On to Amsterdam
I am now in Amsterdam at an internet cafe (so much cheaper here than in Paris) while Mom takes a short nap. We had to catch the train here at 6:25am so we were pretty beat, but I was able to just sleep on the train. We had lunch at a nice little Irish pub (in the Netherlands, of course) and have begun to attempt to navigate the tram system. I can't say much about Amsterdam at the moment since we really haven't done anything here yet. The only thing I can say is that here, bikes rule. They have their own lanes that are right next to the side walk and the tram rails, and not well designated against the sidewalk. But if you are in their way they will ring their bell at you and then precede to run you over. They are very nice, but not about to swerve just to miss a measly pedestrian.
let's see, where did I leave off in Paris? The last day of our museum pass we went back to the Louvre and saw the unwrapped mummy and Napoleon III's apartments that we had missed before. That doesnt sound like much, but the time it takes to navigate the Louvre it probably took almost an hour and a half. To get to the Louvre we started at the Arc d'Triomphe (this time we went up to the top) and walked all the way down (2 miles) down Champs deElysees, which is a big boulevard of cafes and ritzy shopping. The view from on top of the Arc was good (there are 12 identical streets that flourish out from the arc in the shape of a star), but having been to the top of Notre Dame it was not quite as impressive. The walk down the street was nice, and I picked up a baguette Parisian (baguette with ham and butter). You get to see some classic Paris fashion. In case any of you are interested the current Paris fashion for women seems to be skinny jeans (with either high heels or funky flats), big buttons, wide belts, trench coat dresses, and lots of layering. For men very dark and well tailored suits with somewhat pointy shoes.
On Thursday we went to Chateau Versailles, which at first looked like it wouldnt be very nice since it was raining during the hour train ride there (the train was a double decker). But the rain was not bad during the walk there and actually completely cleared up by the time our tour of the inside of the palace was over. Imagining people actually living there is kind of diffucult. Every corner of every wall is filled with decadence and huge portraits. The Hall of Mirrors was beautiful, but (as Amanda pointed out) the mirrors themselves are actually kind of dingy. But you can see the magnificance of the place none-the-less. What really blew me away were the outdoor gardens; not only are they enormous, but beautiful everywhere. There are 300 remaining fountains of the 1500 that used to be there under Louis XIV. My favorite fountain is one showing Apollo and Diana as children around there mother (Laytolla I think...?) surrounded by peasants being turned into frogs and lizards. Apparently the peasants were shunning the mother because she was unwed with children (who were fathered by Zues) so Zues turned them all into frogs and lizards. Since Louis XIV was the "sun god" a lot of the palace is centered around Apollo.
Versailles pretty much took up a whole day (that and a trip to the laundrymat). Then it was not so early to bed and very early to rise to catch the train here to Amsterdam. We are planning on going to Anne Frank's house tonight. More updates later!
let's see, where did I leave off in Paris? The last day of our museum pass we went back to the Louvre and saw the unwrapped mummy and Napoleon III's apartments that we had missed before. That doesnt sound like much, but the time it takes to navigate the Louvre it probably took almost an hour and a half. To get to the Louvre we started at the Arc d'Triomphe (this time we went up to the top) and walked all the way down (2 miles) down Champs deElysees, which is a big boulevard of cafes and ritzy shopping. The view from on top of the Arc was good (there are 12 identical streets that flourish out from the arc in the shape of a star), but having been to the top of Notre Dame it was not quite as impressive. The walk down the street was nice, and I picked up a baguette Parisian (baguette with ham and butter). You get to see some classic Paris fashion. In case any of you are interested the current Paris fashion for women seems to be skinny jeans (with either high heels or funky flats), big buttons, wide belts, trench coat dresses, and lots of layering. For men very dark and well tailored suits with somewhat pointy shoes.
On Thursday we went to Chateau Versailles, which at first looked like it wouldnt be very nice since it was raining during the hour train ride there (the train was a double decker). But the rain was not bad during the walk there and actually completely cleared up by the time our tour of the inside of the palace was over. Imagining people actually living there is kind of diffucult. Every corner of every wall is filled with decadence and huge portraits. The Hall of Mirrors was beautiful, but (as Amanda pointed out) the mirrors themselves are actually kind of dingy. But you can see the magnificance of the place none-the-less. What really blew me away were the outdoor gardens; not only are they enormous, but beautiful everywhere. There are 300 remaining fountains of the 1500 that used to be there under Louis XIV. My favorite fountain is one showing Apollo and Diana as children around there mother (Laytolla I think...?) surrounded by peasants being turned into frogs and lizards. Apparently the peasants were shunning the mother because she was unwed with children (who were fathered by Zues) so Zues turned them all into frogs and lizards. Since Louis XIV was the "sun god" a lot of the palace is centered around Apollo.
Versailles pretty much took up a whole day (that and a trip to the laundrymat). Then it was not so early to bed and very early to rise to catch the train here to Amsterdam. We are planning on going to Anne Frank's house tonight. More updates later!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
An Amerian in Paris continued
Now I'm typing on our hotel's American keyboard, which should make this whole process go a lot smoother. The last two days have been filled with museum goings. Our museum pass expires tomorrow, so we are craming in as much as we can. Yesterday was almost entirely dedicated to the Louvre. We saw as many of the big highlights as we could before collapsing from exhaustion. We did see the Mona Lisa, although it is constantly surrounded by tons of people and is behind a big pane of (probably bulletproof) glass. There were also some Boticelli frescos and some really pretty Rafaels. We passed several artists in the hallways reproducing famous works, all of them were very good painters. We also of course made our way to Venus d'Milo, again amongst a crowd. There is so much art and history in the Louvre you begin to barely acknowledge it; "oh look, another amazing painting from centuries ago, lets move on". That was when it was time to leave. We rushed through the Eygpt halls before having lunch in the international food court. I got some awesome Marakesh (sp?) food. We have not yet seen the Tuilleres gardens, but are going to go back to the Louvre tomorrow night since it is open late then.
While leaving the Louvre we did our good travellers deed of the vacation and helped a woman from Tampa navigate the metro system. I have to say the Parisian metro is excellent; the trains are clean, sometimes air conditioned, and maps are everywhere. It costs about one euro per train ride no matter the distance. That afternoon we switched hotels (some big screwup in the Marriot system) to a place more in the Paris suburbs. We are on the 12th floor and have a great view. Even though we are further away from everything, its a nice chance to see a different side of Paris.
Today was again jam-packed as mom let me sleep in late. We started at the Musee Rodin and saw many of his famous sculptures. notably, The Thinker, Balzac, The Kiss, and The Gates of Hell. Although The Thinker is the most famous, my favorite was The Kiss. I think it shows much more emotion and is a beautiful piece of art. We then made a brief stop at Hotel d'Invalides to see Napolean the first's tomb. Talk about compensating for something...his stone coffin is probably about 15 ft. high at least underneath an enormous painted dome. From there we walked to Musee d'Orsay which is the premiere museum for impressionist paintings. We saw VanGogh's Starry Night, many classic Monet's, Whistler's Mother, several ballerinas by Degas, and other Renoir's and Manet's. We only did the highlights since we got there later in the afternoon and even though they are 'open' until 6pm, they kick you out at 5:30. We then metroed to Sacre Coer, a beautiful "white wedding cake" church that was currently having mass. The inside is very nice with incredible mosaics all over the walls, but honestly the view of Paris was my favorite. It is on top of an enormous hill (some of which we climbed) and has a great panoramic of the city. Lastly, we walked to Moulin Rouge (needed a picture for dad), which took way longer as we got lost in some Paris backstreets. On the plus side we got to see lots of cool open air cafes and markets selling fresh fish, fruits and vegetables. 8 hours later we got back to the hotel and had steak frites (again) at a nearby cafe. It's almost 10:30 now and I am ready to pass out. Thursday we plan to visit Versailles, so news on that to come!
While leaving the Louvre we did our good travellers deed of the vacation and helped a woman from Tampa navigate the metro system. I have to say the Parisian metro is excellent; the trains are clean, sometimes air conditioned, and maps are everywhere. It costs about one euro per train ride no matter the distance. That afternoon we switched hotels (some big screwup in the Marriot system) to a place more in the Paris suburbs. We are on the 12th floor and have a great view. Even though we are further away from everything, its a nice chance to see a different side of Paris.
Today was again jam-packed as mom let me sleep in late. We started at the Musee Rodin and saw many of his famous sculptures. notably, The Thinker, Balzac, The Kiss, and The Gates of Hell. Although The Thinker is the most famous, my favorite was The Kiss. I think it shows much more emotion and is a beautiful piece of art. We then made a brief stop at Hotel d'Invalides to see Napolean the first's tomb. Talk about compensating for something...his stone coffin is probably about 15 ft. high at least underneath an enormous painted dome. From there we walked to Musee d'Orsay which is the premiere museum for impressionist paintings. We saw VanGogh's Starry Night, many classic Monet's, Whistler's Mother, several ballerinas by Degas, and other Renoir's and Manet's. We only did the highlights since we got there later in the afternoon and even though they are 'open' until 6pm, they kick you out at 5:30. We then metroed to Sacre Coer, a beautiful "white wedding cake" church that was currently having mass. The inside is very nice with incredible mosaics all over the walls, but honestly the view of Paris was my favorite. It is on top of an enormous hill (some of which we climbed) and has a great panoramic of the city. Lastly, we walked to Moulin Rouge (needed a picture for dad), which took way longer as we got lost in some Paris backstreets. On the plus side we got to see lots of cool open air cafes and markets selling fresh fish, fruits and vegetables. 8 hours later we got back to the hotel and had steak frites (again) at a nearby cafe. It's almost 10:30 now and I am ready to pass out. Thursday we plan to visit Versailles, so news on that to come!
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Ah...Paris...
OK, first post, very exciting. Made less exciting by needing to use a keyboard in Paris, which is not the same as ours and thus difficult for me to use. So if I speel something wrong, lets blame it on the keyboard and not my lack of knowledge of the French language. My mom and I left for NYC on June 4th and spent 2 days there seeing some shows (The 39 Steps and Legally Blonde: the Musical). Both were a lot of fun. On Thursday we both left for Paris; my flight went through Iceland, hers was direct. We managed to meet up in the airport and make our way to the hotel. We are staying at a really nice hotel very close to the Eifel Tower (we can actually see it from our window) and on a fun street filled with shops and cafes. That first night we walked along Paris streets, got some steak and frites, and saw the tower by day. The Eifel tower is much more impressive in person than you might think from pictures.
Next day we slept in very late, but finally got out and did the Murais walk. We walked through the Jewish district (and got a great kosher veggie pizza) and toured the Picasso Museum. Along the way we stopped into a few mansions of leaders passed. That night we went out for dessert at a local cafe (crepes for me) and saw the Eifel tower by night with its glittering night show on the half hour. It did rain in the afternoon, but not enough to make us go inside.
Today we started at Notre Dame, which is so large it takes over an entire block almost. The detailing on the outside stone is beautiful and the interior has some impressive paintings. There is even one intresting statue inside showing a dying man with a cloaked skeleton over him. Kinda spooky at 8 feet tall. The line to climb the tower was about an hour, but completely worth it. The view of Paris from the top was breathtaking and the gargoyles were a lot of fun to see up close. We met an American family from SanFrancisco in line and went to lunch with them. In the afternoon we saw Saint Chapelle church, which has the most amazing stained glass windows I have ever seen (and I say that after seeing NotreDame). The we went to Le Conciergerie, the prison where Marie Antoinette was held for over 2 months before her execution. I am now on the hunt for some gelato as it is a really nice and sunny day.
I will work on posting some pictures later, but my internet time is about to run out. More postings to come soon! We leave for Amsterdam on Friday.
Next day we slept in very late, but finally got out and did the Murais walk. We walked through the Jewish district (and got a great kosher veggie pizza) and toured the Picasso Museum. Along the way we stopped into a few mansions of leaders passed. That night we went out for dessert at a local cafe (crepes for me) and saw the Eifel tower by night with its glittering night show on the half hour. It did rain in the afternoon, but not enough to make us go inside.
Today we started at Notre Dame, which is so large it takes over an entire block almost. The detailing on the outside stone is beautiful and the interior has some impressive paintings. There is even one intresting statue inside showing a dying man with a cloaked skeleton over him. Kinda spooky at 8 feet tall. The line to climb the tower was about an hour, but completely worth it. The view of Paris from the top was breathtaking and the gargoyles were a lot of fun to see up close. We met an American family from SanFrancisco in line and went to lunch with them. In the afternoon we saw Saint Chapelle church, which has the most amazing stained glass windows I have ever seen (and I say that after seeing NotreDame). The we went to Le Conciergerie, the prison where Marie Antoinette was held for over 2 months before her execution. I am now on the hunt for some gelato as it is a really nice and sunny day.
I will work on posting some pictures later, but my internet time is about to run out. More postings to come soon! We leave for Amsterdam on Friday.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Testing...testing....
Hello and welcome! As I travel through Europe this summer I will use this blog to keep in touch with people and will post as often as I can. If you need to get in touch with me the best way is through email at portolano@vt.edu and if you want a postcard from somewhere just let me know :-D
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