Verona - I'm tired of saying every town I go to is cute, but it's true. Europe is just generally cute. There's stone buildings everywhere and it's tiny and there are few skyscrapers (none in Rome, which I'll get to later). So Verona is cute. The outside is ugly, but if you're inside the old town it's cute enough. There's not much to do but wander around and gape or shop the high end stores. It's a day trip from Venice - you get in, see the bridge (which is amazing), and see Juliet's Balcony. Which is actually fake, but you're supposed to. There's really not much else. It was a good stop over from Munich, but I definitely wouldn't recommend more than a day here.
Venice - You need at least two days here - one to just wander and gape, and one to see a few sights. There's definitely a few days of stuff to do here - we only did the San Marco stuff and that took a lot of the day. If you want to see any of the markets, far off churches, or art museums, you'll need a few more days. Tip: invest in an expensive hotel with air conditioning. Doesn't matter where really, Venice is pretty walkable. But never open your windows at night. Big mistake. I agree with the guidebooks - it's getting a little bit too touristy, but the sights are totally worth it. The view from the top of St. Mark's was awesome. And we never got out to the islands, which are supposed to be amazing.
And that takes us into Rome, which needs quite a bit of explaining all by itself.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Extras and Recap
So I have been accused of only telling about the bad stuff and not enough of the good stuff. Apparently I also don't talk enough about Skip. He's here. He exists. Haven't kicked him out yet.
I think the bad stuff just sticks in my head more because it makes a funny story and there's only so many times you can say "this church is gorgeous" before sounding like a broken record. For the sake of posterity, though, I will try to recount some of the good times here.
Geneva: The people were so nice. Incredibly nice. Everyone spoke English and they were very good about it (especially when I would go up to them and start babbling in English like an idiot cause I still hadn't adapted to the different continent). The food was very good - I don't really know what traditional Swiss is, but the pizza and breakfasts were very good. It is really a gorgeous city, and if I had a lot of money I would consider one of the mansions on the lake. And a boat. Cause if you live on a lake, you need a boat.
Lyon - Very quaint and cute. We stayed in the medieval quarter, so all the streets were teeny and most of the buildings looked at least a couple hundred years old. The people were generally very friendly - not like we found in Paris. The church on the hill and the view from it were FANTASTIC. One of the best views on the whole trip, if you don't count the Eiffel Tower. Cause that's just like...cheating. The food....I could pass on the local cuisine. Pig's innards and cow muzzles and grossness. The first night's food was very memorable - pub grub in a very loud, odd setting. The second night I can't recall at all, so it must have been forgettable. Overall, very cutsy city, but I don't know what I'd do in it for more than a couple days.
Paris - There's just too much to say about Paris. The most beautiful city - my favorite church we've visited is still Notre Dame - with awesome museums and churches and palaces. You could spend a couple weeks in Paris and still not see everything you want to - I know we packed our days and still felt like we hadn't seen it all. And yet if I could just do away with the Parisians....their smoking kinda got to me after a while. Tip: always sit in doors in a restaurant. Or anywhere for that matter. Never sit outside. Sad, but true.
Bruges - Just the cutest darn town I ever did see. Definitely stay within the city limits, cause when all the day trippers leave in the late afternoon/evening, the city is nice and quiet and sooo pretty. The food is amazing, too. The fries are skippable - they're not really anything special. The waffles are to die for if you get them made fresh. And the local cuisine - Flemish stew and the like, was pretty darn good, too. The people are also really nice. The guys at the hostel were so helpful and everywhere we went, people would try to help us. It was an awesome place to visit after Paris.
Amsterdam - The dutch were pretty darn nice, too. Our tour there was the most fun we've been on, I think. There's definitely way too much to see in one or even two days. We didn't get to touch Anne Frank's house or any of the museums. But we did meet a bunch of awesome people and have a rollicking good time.
Hamburg - A sedate city (might have just been the constant rain), but still very lovely. There's a lot about WWII here, and if you get a good tour (I recommend the NewEurope one even for the older generation - 'twas a very mixed crowd on our trip) it's really worth it. Plus the gummi bears are awesome.
Prague - In one word - AWESOME. I loved Prague. I wish we could have stayed longer. We didn't get to do the insides of the churches or any of the WWII memorial stuff or any of the museums. It was so incredibly pretty and there was just so much to see, you need to spend at least a day wandering around to just LOOK at everything and get your bearings. The food is good if you steer away from traditional Czech.
Vienna - The underrated city of our trip. Our hostel was just so bad, I know it totally ruined the city for Skip. I am trying to see past that, though. The Shoenbrunn Palace was amazing - beautiful and totally furnished. And the zoo was pretty darn good, too. We didn't get to do any of this other stuff I discovered - the churches, the crypts, the Hofburg, etc. I would love to go back, but it might be hard to convince Skip. Stupid hippie hostel with its hippie drum circles at 3 in the morning....
Munich - Pretty city - we got there during the city's birthday party, so it was a bit more crowded than usual. Everyone is very, very nice. Our favorite cheap accommodation - the hostel was awesome. There's also so much to do. There's all the WWII stuff, the town hall, the churches, and then there's all the stuff outside. I would have loved to see Dachau, but we only had time for one day trip so of course I'm gonna pick the pretty pretty castle over the Nazi concentration camp. But I would like to go back and see it. And the other castles, too. The food was good and the beer was actually drinkable, which is high praise coming from me. I mean, it must be pretty good if the Pope has it shipped to him in the Vatican.
To be continued....
I think the bad stuff just sticks in my head more because it makes a funny story and there's only so many times you can say "this church is gorgeous" before sounding like a broken record. For the sake of posterity, though, I will try to recount some of the good times here.
Geneva: The people were so nice. Incredibly nice. Everyone spoke English and they were very good about it (especially when I would go up to them and start babbling in English like an idiot cause I still hadn't adapted to the different continent). The food was very good - I don't really know what traditional Swiss is, but the pizza and breakfasts were very good. It is really a gorgeous city, and if I had a lot of money I would consider one of the mansions on the lake. And a boat. Cause if you live on a lake, you need a boat.
Lyon - Very quaint and cute. We stayed in the medieval quarter, so all the streets were teeny and most of the buildings looked at least a couple hundred years old. The people were generally very friendly - not like we found in Paris. The church on the hill and the view from it were FANTASTIC. One of the best views on the whole trip, if you don't count the Eiffel Tower. Cause that's just like...cheating. The food....I could pass on the local cuisine. Pig's innards and cow muzzles and grossness. The first night's food was very memorable - pub grub in a very loud, odd setting. The second night I can't recall at all, so it must have been forgettable. Overall, very cutsy city, but I don't know what I'd do in it for more than a couple days.
Paris - There's just too much to say about Paris. The most beautiful city - my favorite church we've visited is still Notre Dame - with awesome museums and churches and palaces. You could spend a couple weeks in Paris and still not see everything you want to - I know we packed our days and still felt like we hadn't seen it all. And yet if I could just do away with the Parisians....their smoking kinda got to me after a while. Tip: always sit in doors in a restaurant. Or anywhere for that matter. Never sit outside. Sad, but true.
Bruges - Just the cutest darn town I ever did see. Definitely stay within the city limits, cause when all the day trippers leave in the late afternoon/evening, the city is nice and quiet and sooo pretty. The food is amazing, too. The fries are skippable - they're not really anything special. The waffles are to die for if you get them made fresh. And the local cuisine - Flemish stew and the like, was pretty darn good, too. The people are also really nice. The guys at the hostel were so helpful and everywhere we went, people would try to help us. It was an awesome place to visit after Paris.
Amsterdam - The dutch were pretty darn nice, too. Our tour there was the most fun we've been on, I think. There's definitely way too much to see in one or even two days. We didn't get to touch Anne Frank's house or any of the museums. But we did meet a bunch of awesome people and have a rollicking good time.
Hamburg - A sedate city (might have just been the constant rain), but still very lovely. There's a lot about WWII here, and if you get a good tour (I recommend the NewEurope one even for the older generation - 'twas a very mixed crowd on our trip) it's really worth it. Plus the gummi bears are awesome.
Prague - In one word - AWESOME. I loved Prague. I wish we could have stayed longer. We didn't get to do the insides of the churches or any of the WWII memorial stuff or any of the museums. It was so incredibly pretty and there was just so much to see, you need to spend at least a day wandering around to just LOOK at everything and get your bearings. The food is good if you steer away from traditional Czech.
Vienna - The underrated city of our trip. Our hostel was just so bad, I know it totally ruined the city for Skip. I am trying to see past that, though. The Shoenbrunn Palace was amazing - beautiful and totally furnished. And the zoo was pretty darn good, too. We didn't get to do any of this other stuff I discovered - the churches, the crypts, the Hofburg, etc. I would love to go back, but it might be hard to convince Skip. Stupid hippie hostel with its hippie drum circles at 3 in the morning....
Munich - Pretty city - we got there during the city's birthday party, so it was a bit more crowded than usual. Everyone is very, very nice. Our favorite cheap accommodation - the hostel was awesome. There's also so much to do. There's all the WWII stuff, the town hall, the churches, and then there's all the stuff outside. I would have loved to see Dachau, but we only had time for one day trip so of course I'm gonna pick the pretty pretty castle over the Nazi concentration camp. But I would like to go back and see it. And the other castles, too. The food was good and the beer was actually drinkable, which is high praise coming from me. I mean, it must be pretty good if the Pope has it shipped to him in the Vatican.
To be continued....
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Venice or the City that is Under Construction
The train ride to Venice was brief - less than an hour, but that was kind of the point. When we get there, it's raining. Full on pouring. Lovely. We were told it would take about a half hour to wind our way to the hotel from the train station. So not happening anymore. So we stand in line for tickets on the waterbus. We should have just walked. We still got wet and it took forever to buy the darn things. Everyone was paying cash until this stupid idiot decided to pay with a credit card and jammed the machine. Then you had two lines converging into one and it was a big mess. In retrospect, he didn't know his card would jam the machine, but at the time I was pretty pissed.
The ride was nice, though. Down the Grand Canal to the Rialto Bridge, which is only a few blocks from where we want to be. So incredibly crowded, though. The tourists are incredibly annoying. Maybe they're trying to pick the nothingness that is in my pockets (I firmly hold on to my purse, carrying every valuable I own), but I get bumped into a lot. I even get punched in the chest once by some idiot trying to walk and read a map at the same time.
Our hotel was pretty easy to find, though. Venice is actually kind of small. The room was nice enough - big bed, tv, closet, bathroom. What more could you ask for. While we don't look over the canal (too much money), it is on a quiet street, so we're pretty happy. There's free wifi too so yay.
We spend the entire day just wandering around. We get a gigantic lunch at a restaurant - the caprese salad was aaaaamaaaazing, but the pasta was just good. We wander basically all day. We wander into a random church we find - gorgeous and littered with frescoes. Some saint's dad is buried there, but I can't read Italian so it's hard to figure out who.
Wandering around for hours on end may sound stupid, but it was awesome. The only downer was Saint Marc's Plaza - half of it is under construction. Half the Basilica is covered in scaffolding. The Bridge of Sighs is covered in scaffolding. Very disappointing. Anyways, we grab a couple of cheap pizza slices for dinner (very tasty, and very like NY slices). At the end of the day we stop into a bookstore and pick up a Venice guidebook to help plan the next day - this proved to be a fantastic idea because it helped us to skip nearly every line.
We wake up early the next morning and make a beeline for St. Mark's Basilica. The line moves really quickly because it's so early and everyone can just run in. The Basilica is famous for it's decoration and it's inhabitants. A couple of Venetian sailors smuggled Mark's body here from Alexandria way back when. In a barrel of pork. They said they were "rescuing" him. However it went down, the Basilica is amazing. We pay for the museum, which is on the second floor to see the view and the famous gold/bronze horses. They were believed to have been made in Alexander's time and were stolen by Nero and then the Venetians. The doge used to like to make speeches in front of them. I just think they're awesome because they're horses. I snap some illicit photographs while Skip shields me from the guard's eyes.
That's an annoying fact - you can't take pictures inside nearly any building in Venice. Every place we went, you were only allowed to take pictures out the windows, not inside. This didn't really stop me from taking pictures (or from idiots using their flash cameras and then getting yelled at) but it's still annoying.
The view from the top of the Basilica was amazing - half of it was roped off for restoration (good god all of Europe really is under construction), but the other half looked over the doge's palace and the rest of the square. Great photo opportunities there.
We head over to the Correr Museum after that, where we buy a St. Mark's Museum Plus Pass and briefly look through the exhibits there. Now, you have to have a Museum Pass to see the Doge's Palace. You can buy it at a lot of places in Venice. Why people wait in line at the Doge's Palace, which lets people in vveeerrry slowly is beyond me. We bypass the line and go right in. The doge's apartments were pretty impressive - they hold the largest canvas in the world, which was cool - but they aren't furnished, so it's hard to get an image of what happened there. Still, all of the paintings were nifty and the prison was somewhat interesting. The Bridge of Sighs was still covered in scaffolding...annoying.
At this time it's around 2 and we are very tired. We grab pizza and head back to the hotel for food and nap. And just in time, too, because right as we get inside, the skies open up. It pours for a couple hours while we are sleeping, but the sun comes out again when we emerge around 5. We fight through the now giant tourist crowds in St. Mark's Square to reach the bell tower. Amazing views over all of Venice. We stay up there a while because it was expensive and we just don't want to leave. It was compltely enclosed, too, so Skip's not getting the vertigo he usually gets.
When we finally do get down, we hunt all around for a good restaurant. We cross over the Rialto bridge and think "hey, why don't we try one of these restaurants on the canal - you can watch the gondoliers and it'll be fun. Cool." Not so cool.
We had to fight our way through aggressive waiters who wouldn't take no for an answer. "Table for two?" "No thank you." "Sit over there." "No thank you." "Table over there." "No!" It went on and on like this with the waiters getting more and more obnoxious. Finally Skip is just glaring at them all with the New Yorker "get the hell out of my way or I'm gonna break your face" look and we make it through to a quieter street. We read later that this stretch is pretty much an embarrassment to Venice. They're always aggressive, have a minimum price you need to pay, overcharge for everything, and the food sucks. We find a restaurant in a little side street, have more pasta and another yummy caprese. On our way back, Skip glares again and no one comes near us. Yay.
We hunt around for souvenirs for a little while - there's even a Disney Store (there was one in Verona, too) - but don't really find anything. Transporting glass with us for the next two weeks seems problematic.
Wish we could spend more time, since there's so much more we want to do, but we get home to get to bed for the train ride to Rome the next day.
The ride was nice, though. Down the Grand Canal to the Rialto Bridge, which is only a few blocks from where we want to be. So incredibly crowded, though. The tourists are incredibly annoying. Maybe they're trying to pick the nothingness that is in my pockets (I firmly hold on to my purse, carrying every valuable I own), but I get bumped into a lot. I even get punched in the chest once by some idiot trying to walk and read a map at the same time.
Our hotel was pretty easy to find, though. Venice is actually kind of small. The room was nice enough - big bed, tv, closet, bathroom. What more could you ask for. While we don't look over the canal (too much money), it is on a quiet street, so we're pretty happy. There's free wifi too so yay.
We spend the entire day just wandering around. We get a gigantic lunch at a restaurant - the caprese salad was aaaaamaaaazing, but the pasta was just good. We wander basically all day. We wander into a random church we find - gorgeous and littered with frescoes. Some saint's dad is buried there, but I can't read Italian so it's hard to figure out who.
Wandering around for hours on end may sound stupid, but it was awesome. The only downer was Saint Marc's Plaza - half of it is under construction. Half the Basilica is covered in scaffolding. The Bridge of Sighs is covered in scaffolding. Very disappointing. Anyways, we grab a couple of cheap pizza slices for dinner (very tasty, and very like NY slices). At the end of the day we stop into a bookstore and pick up a Venice guidebook to help plan the next day - this proved to be a fantastic idea because it helped us to skip nearly every line.
We wake up early the next morning and make a beeline for St. Mark's Basilica. The line moves really quickly because it's so early and everyone can just run in. The Basilica is famous for it's decoration and it's inhabitants. A couple of Venetian sailors smuggled Mark's body here from Alexandria way back when. In a barrel of pork. They said they were "rescuing" him. However it went down, the Basilica is amazing. We pay for the museum, which is on the second floor to see the view and the famous gold/bronze horses. They were believed to have been made in Alexander's time and were stolen by Nero and then the Venetians. The doge used to like to make speeches in front of them. I just think they're awesome because they're horses. I snap some illicit photographs while Skip shields me from the guard's eyes.
That's an annoying fact - you can't take pictures inside nearly any building in Venice. Every place we went, you were only allowed to take pictures out the windows, not inside. This didn't really stop me from taking pictures (or from idiots using their flash cameras and then getting yelled at) but it's still annoying.
The view from the top of the Basilica was amazing - half of it was roped off for restoration (good god all of Europe really is under construction), but the other half looked over the doge's palace and the rest of the square. Great photo opportunities there.
We head over to the Correr Museum after that, where we buy a St. Mark's Museum Plus Pass and briefly look through the exhibits there. Now, you have to have a Museum Pass to see the Doge's Palace. You can buy it at a lot of places in Venice. Why people wait in line at the Doge's Palace, which lets people in vveeerrry slowly is beyond me. We bypass the line and go right in. The doge's apartments were pretty impressive - they hold the largest canvas in the world, which was cool - but they aren't furnished, so it's hard to get an image of what happened there. Still, all of the paintings were nifty and the prison was somewhat interesting. The Bridge of Sighs was still covered in scaffolding...annoying.
At this time it's around 2 and we are very tired. We grab pizza and head back to the hotel for food and nap. And just in time, too, because right as we get inside, the skies open up. It pours for a couple hours while we are sleeping, but the sun comes out again when we emerge around 5. We fight through the now giant tourist crowds in St. Mark's Square to reach the bell tower. Amazing views over all of Venice. We stay up there a while because it was expensive and we just don't want to leave. It was compltely enclosed, too, so Skip's not getting the vertigo he usually gets.
When we finally do get down, we hunt all around for a good restaurant. We cross over the Rialto bridge and think "hey, why don't we try one of these restaurants on the canal - you can watch the gondoliers and it'll be fun. Cool." Not so cool.
We had to fight our way through aggressive waiters who wouldn't take no for an answer. "Table for two?" "No thank you." "Sit over there." "No thank you." "Table over there." "No!" It went on and on like this with the waiters getting more and more obnoxious. Finally Skip is just glaring at them all with the New Yorker "get the hell out of my way or I'm gonna break your face" look and we make it through to a quieter street. We read later that this stretch is pretty much an embarrassment to Venice. They're always aggressive, have a minimum price you need to pay, overcharge for everything, and the food sucks. We find a restaurant in a little side street, have more pasta and another yummy caprese. On our way back, Skip glares again and no one comes near us. Yay.
We hunt around for souvenirs for a little while - there's even a Disney Store (there was one in Verona, too) - but don't really find anything. Transporting glass with us for the next two weeks seems problematic.
Wish we could spend more time, since there's so much more we want to do, but we get home to get to bed for the train ride to Rome the next day.
Verona
The train ride to Verona was certainly the most beautiful. It went right through the Alps. It was absolutely gorgeous. The mountains were jaw-droppingly huge and still snow capped, and the little towns all had giant ruins in them. Some even had old giant castles built into the mountains itself. The giant stone bridges between a couple gorges were also cool. You could also tell when you entered Italy - the buildings changed, the landscape got a ton more vinyards and the buildings were slightly more run down. But still cute.
When we arrive in Verona it's hot and just about to rain. We also don't get a very good impression of the town - the station is in the modern outskirts...the very ugly modern outskirts. We trek out to our B&B, which is just outside the old town wall so we haven't seen anything we like yet.
Now we've never stayed in a B&B before, so it's a new experience. The woman didn't speak much English, but she was *so* *incredibly* *nice*. I can't say a bad thing about this place because she was just so helpful. She gave us a map right off and showed us all the main highlights of the teeny-weeny town. Our room was also awesome - fully air-conditioned with a bathroom as big as our entire room in Vienna.
We wander around after a bit of a nap - see Juliet's statue and balcony, flooded with people of course (I refuse to pay for entry to the fake house). I mean, the balcony isn't even that old. It was built in the last hundred years. Maybe that makes me a non-romantic, but I like my ambiance to be genuine. It does make me want to see that movie, Letters to Juliet, though. People really did put letters there. I read later that every month or so they have to clean them all up or else the entire place would be flooded with paper. The graffiti at the entrance is also replaced, too. Rumor is that if you and your lover write your names on the wall, you'll be together forever or something mushy like that. They replace those panels every so often so more people can write their names. Does that mean that you're only together till the panels get removed? Seems kind of risky to me. I decided to pass.
We get some food at a restaurant on one of the squares - pretty good. Nothing earth-shattering, but decent. The castle bridge was the best - it's ginormous and has the best views of Verona. We got there at sunset, so it was particularly beautiful then.
Verona was cute, charming. Definitely not somewhere you'd want to be for more than a day. Maybe two if you like to sleep in a lot. I must be missing something, though, because tons of people flood here every year. Is it the Romeo and Juliet thing? Maybe it's because I've never actually read the play, but it's not even my favorite Shakespeare story. Ah well. On to Venice!
When we arrive in Verona it's hot and just about to rain. We also don't get a very good impression of the town - the station is in the modern outskirts...the very ugly modern outskirts. We trek out to our B&B, which is just outside the old town wall so we haven't seen anything we like yet.
Now we've never stayed in a B&B before, so it's a new experience. The woman didn't speak much English, but she was *so* *incredibly* *nice*. I can't say a bad thing about this place because she was just so helpful. She gave us a map right off and showed us all the main highlights of the teeny-weeny town. Our room was also awesome - fully air-conditioned with a bathroom as big as our entire room in Vienna.
We wander around after a bit of a nap - see Juliet's statue and balcony, flooded with people of course (I refuse to pay for entry to the fake house). I mean, the balcony isn't even that old. It was built in the last hundred years. Maybe that makes me a non-romantic, but I like my ambiance to be genuine. It does make me want to see that movie, Letters to Juliet, though. People really did put letters there. I read later that every month or so they have to clean them all up or else the entire place would be flooded with paper. The graffiti at the entrance is also replaced, too. Rumor is that if you and your lover write your names on the wall, you'll be together forever or something mushy like that. They replace those panels every so often so more people can write their names. Does that mean that you're only together till the panels get removed? Seems kind of risky to me. I decided to pass.
We get some food at a restaurant on one of the squares - pretty good. Nothing earth-shattering, but decent. The castle bridge was the best - it's ginormous and has the best views of Verona. We got there at sunset, so it was particularly beautiful then.
Verona was cute, charming. Definitely not somewhere you'd want to be for more than a day. Maybe two if you like to sleep in a lot. I must be missing something, though, because tons of people flood here every year. Is it the Romeo and Juliet thing? Maybe it's because I've never actually read the play, but it's not even my favorite Shakespeare story. Ah well. On to Venice!
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