Trip of a Lifetime

Flight home and... Canada?

2010-07-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

Security was questionable at the Istanbul airport for our flight home to Chicago. On our way through security, something looked suspicious in our bag, so they had us take them over to a table for search, then left us alone with them for 5 minutes or so before returning to actually do the search. Nice one.

Then our transatlantic flight ran out of gas and we got diverted to Toronto (making an even 20 foreign countries on the trip). It was crazy hot. The woman sitting across the aisle from Josh passed out from the heat and we took off with her laid across a set of seats with an oxygen mask on and people fanning her trying to help her cool down. She did seem to fully recover by the time we got to Chicago, but I was troubled by the treatment she got.

We were fortunate enough to be re-booked on another flight to Portland that same evening, and while we didn't actually need to hurry to catch it, we found ourselves running hand-in-hand through the airport just because we were so happy to be back in the United States and overflowing with energy. O'Hare airport has never looked so good. We arrived in Portland only about 4 hours late and Mary's parents were there to greet us. Our checked luggage didn't make it until the next day... the first and only leg of the journey where it failed to keep up with us.

Istanbul - New District

2010-07-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

On our final day in Istanbul, we visited a more modern district of the city, across the Golden Horn (an inlet from the Bosporus) from the more historic areas. Modern Turkey is a lot like modern anywhere else. We followed the Rick Steve's tour up and down Istiklal Street. There's actually a trolley that runs the distance of the street, but it's actually slower than walking, by and large, especially if there are crowds.

Here we took advantage of a few Turkish signatures foods: Turkish delight (locum), Turkish Ice Cream (very sticky and thick), simit (bagel-shaped bread covered in sesame seeds), and helva (ground sesames, flour, and sugar). Only the last we didn't particularly care for.

There is a lot of 20th century architecture here, and a lot of European influence. This part of Istanbul leaned more toward Europe, and most of the European consulates are or were here. Most of all, this is a shopping street, and it looks a lot like other shopping streets, albeit with a Turkish twist.

We also passed by (several times) Galata tower, an old 219 feet high tower standing tall above the surrounding shops. It's supposed to have a great view over the Golden Horn, and fantastic views of the historic district, but we didn't go up.

Unfortunately, our final day was somewhat low energy, and we had a lot of last minute shopping to do. The whole trip was long, draining, and exciting. We had a great time, but were ready to go home.

From Istanbul

Istanbul - Grand Bazaar, Mausoleums, Spice Market

2010-07-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

Today was truly what a "Europe Through the Back Door" day is supposed to be about. While I love Rick Steves travel philosophy, all too often I've been really disappointed with the content of his guidebooks. Why? I think mainly because he's, like, the number one Europe travel writer in the USA, which means everybody and their brother is trying to squeeze through the same little tiny back door at the same time. This is evidently not the case (at least not yet) with his Istanbul guidebook.

We spent the day doing the Old Town Back Streets self-guided walking tour (not as convenient reading it as the audio ones he has for Italy are, but still good). The first stop was a lovely cemetery and mausoleum. I thought I'd seen enough of this stuff on this trip already, but they decorate them up differently here. Lovely!

From Istanbul

Then we saw the old column that is all that is left of the old Roman Forum.

From Istanbul

And then it was lunch and the Grand Bazaar. We weren't really expecting much of the Grand Bazaar, having read that it's become very touristy, with jewelry shops and souvenir stalls having displaced a lot of the sellers. With locals mostly preferring to shop across the Golden Horn in the New District., and with high rents having forced out most of the workshops. However, it was still really cool to be in the old bazaar building and to see and hear it all. In one section there were a bunch of guys standing around yelling into cell phones (it sounded like there was a fight going on), who are evidently the currency exchange. We dropped in at one recommended jewelry shop where we were invited upstairs to see the craftsmen at work. One was putting some final touches on a solitaire ring, and another seemed to be stringing together settings for something, an eternity ring perhaps? We didn't have our camera out for most of it as it is recommended that you keep your valuables out of sight and close to your skin in here.

From Istanbul

The best part was the gold smith we were directed to. One particular guy who apparently doesn't speak any English, and doesn't want any payment, but loves to show his craft off to tourists. When we arrived and were invited in he was placing a crucible on the fire and getting it all very hot. When it was ready, he put in a bunch of scrap gold (old jewelry mostly), and as that melted he added more. After a while he added a bunch of white powder, stirred it up, then seemed to remove a glob of the white powder. Then he poured the gold into a mould. After a minute, he cooled it in a couple of water baths, then polished it, then handed it to me to hold for a minute before it went to his customer. Seriously. Just like on TV. It was like 2 inches by 2 inches by 1 inch, and was really heavy. He said it was 18 kt. We asked how much that much gold was worth, but like I said above, he doesn't speak English. There was evidently more gold to be rendered than he could do at once (or maybe his customer wanted two pieces), so we got to see the process a second time. This piece of gold was smaller.

From Istanbul

His next customer had some bent up silver wire which he put through a tool with a couple wheels and a bunch of grooves many times to make it into nice straight wire of a smaller gage and longer length.

From Istanbul

After this he wanted to see our book (we guessed: he was making a book-opening gesture with his hands and seemed pleased when we showed him the Rick Steves cover on our iPod Touch), then suggested that we get tea at the little teashop across the alley from his shop, and watch the backgammon game outside. I guess he must have paid for our tea because the teashop owner refused payment from us. They play backgammon really fast here, maybe 4x faster than Josh and I play. And we play pretty fast. It reminded me of watching Grant and Adam playing speed chess at Mudd.

I didn't see this part, but evidently one of the guys made some gestures to Josh at me that seemed to be about me being pretty, followed up a big thumbs up. We got this from the guy selling tram tokens the other day too. And here I thought I was the only woman in the city who wasn't some exotic beauty. Or maybe it's just that I let my hair and elbows show...

From the Grand Bazaar, we moved on to a couple mosques that were kind of small and unimpressive compared to the Blue Mosque yesterday. And a third that was supposed to be very nice and we had a really hard time finding, but turned out to be closed for renovations.

Finally we went to the Spice Bazaar, which is kind of like a smaller version of the Grand Bazaar that specializes in spices... and generally in selling stuff to tourists of a more home and bath variety. We also stopped to pick up some souvenirs. After all, we'll be going home very soon!

From Istanbul

Josh thought I looked so good in the scarf that he had to try it on. Doesn't he look like a man who isn't afraid of anything?

From Istanbul

Istanbul - Cistern, Palace, Harem

2010-07-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

Cistern
We started the day with a visit to the underground cistern in the old town of Istanbul. It was built in the 6th century AD and is as big as two football fields. However, it fell out of use when the pipes clogged, and people forgot about it. However, they did notice that the wells in this part of town were more successful. Anyway, it's this huge dimly lit cavern full of recycled Roman columns of a variety of designs. Since the columns are all different sizes round and height, they used blocks underneath to make them all the same height. Two of the lower blocks are carved Medusa heads. Some people think the Medusa heads are there to ward off evil spirits. Others think they were conveniently sized.

From Istanbul

Apparently, until recently, it was still at least half full of water, so the only way to visit it was by boat, which sounds pretty awesome. They have (mostly) drained it and installed catwalks over the water. Although there's not a lot to it other than endless underground columns disappearing into black water, the atmosphere is great down there even with a modest crowd. It feels like some rather wet Hall of the Mountain King. It showed up in the Bond film "From Russia With Love", so you might have already seen it.

From Istanbul

Topkapı Palace

Next we took lunch and moved on to the Topkapi Palace, the main residence of the Sultan and governmental headquarters of the Ottoman Empire. This was certainly one of the more unique palaces we saw in our journeys, yet in other ways we felt like we'd seen it all already. Istanbul is the city that spans Europe and Asia. It is where East and West come together, and the Ottoman Empire was top dog regionally for a long time. At once we were reminded both of the Indian palaces from the beginning of our trip, the Chinese palaces from the middle of our trip, and the European palaces we'd most recently seen, with a huge amount of lovely Islamic calligraphy throughout. Unfortunately, about half of the exhibits were closed, including a lot of the ones we were most interested in, like the Kitchens and Armory. The Treasury was nice but crowded. We saw one of the biggest diamonds in the world: 86-carats.

The Hall of Holy Relics was a bit odd. They had all manner of things from Mecca, and a bunch of everyday items that supposedly belonged to religious figures: Muhammad's sandals, Moses' staff, etc. And they had many visitors who certainly seemed to believe in the authenticity of the items.

There was also a whole tulip room from the tulip mania period in Europe.

From Istanbul

Harem
The harem isn't what we Westerners expect when we think of a harem. While there were a lot of women in the harem, the sexual relations of the sultan were strictly regulated by ... his mother. This is to make sure that there aren't too many heirs to compete so that the succession isn't a terrible mess. Apparently it worked fairly well, as the family dynasty lasted a long time. As a place, the Harem is the set of rooms that the Sultan, his mother, his (up to four) wives, consorts, princes, and all the associated staff lived. The quarters are of course, extremely lavish, as you would expect from a dominant world power. Common in the quarters is a blue glaze ceramic that was produced in İznik. They make for a nice wall decorations. The layout of the rooms is interesting, as it places the princes well away from the consorts, and the queen mother between the sultan and the wives. The only men allowed in (other than those of royal blood) were doctors. That's a large part of why there is so much misinformation regarding harems in Western culture; the foreigners weren't allowed in and apparently their speculation was a little off the mark. The harem is beautiful, and well worth a visit.

From Istanbul

Istanbul - Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Monuments, Museum

2010-07-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

Our first stop of the day was the Hagia Sophia, which is a fantastic old building that was first one of the greatest cathedrals of all time (completed in 537), then one of the greatest mosques of all time (converted in 1453), and is now a grand museum (since 1935). As such, it is in wonderful condition for its age. Plus, it's a marvelous work of architecture. It's like a pantheon built atop a bunch of partial pantheons. And for all the crowds, it is moving to see such wonderful Christian and Muslim art displayed side-by-side. Hopefully someday this will no longer be a mark of uniqueness.

From Istanbul

Before heading in, we stopped to look at the 18th century Ottoman fountain for pre-prayer ablution.

From Istanbul

Here is the main "donation mosaic" showing Constantine presenting a model of Constantinople and Justinian presenting a model of the Hagia Sophia to Mary and Baby Jesus. There were others of this nature throughout.

From Istanbul

I seem to be facing Mecca.

From Istanbul

Next we went to the Blue Mosque, which is just a couple blocks away across a park. The Blue Mosque was built in the 1600s by Sultan Ahmet, and is very similar architecturally to the Hagia Sophia. However, it's always been a mosque, and they'd worked a lot of the architecture kinks out in the intervening millennium, so the dome has never collapsed and there are more windows. The decor is also completely different: all red, white, and blue tiles and mosaics rather than dark marble. Although the Blue Mosque is slightly smaller than the Hagia Sophia, the light colors made it feel bigger.

From Istanbul

After the mosque, we walked along the park that used to be the Hippodrome, or old racetrack. In the park, once surrounded by the Hippodrome, are a number of interesting monuments. As you can see Istanbul is quite a crossroads.

There was a fountain given to Turkey by Germany.

An Egyptian Obelisk with a Turkish foundation showing, among other things, the Obelisk being erected on this spot. Cool, eh?

From Istanbul

The Column of Constantine, which was actually made in Turkey, but is now just a brick obelisk because the bronze plating was stolen during the crusades.

A triple serpent column looted from Delphi (the heads disappeared just 300 years ago). You can see the Column of Constantine in the background.

From Istanbul

And finally this area also used to have 4 beautiful bronze horses. They were looted during the crusades and we saw them at San Marco in Venice. They are thought to have come from Greece originally.

Our final stop was the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum where we saw many beautiful things.

Lots of Koran holders like this one.

From Istanbul

Some beautiful calligraphy. This is the sultan's signature.

From Istanbul

And, of course, carpets.

From Istanbul

The museum also had a fantastic view of the Blue Mosque with the Egyptian Obelisk in the foreground.

From Istanbul

Downstairs were exhibits on various nomadic peoples of Turkey. It looked pretty interesting, but we were dead tired and about out of time.

From Istanbul

Lost Day

2010-07-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

So you know that overnight bus to Cappadocia I mentioned? It was supposed to leave at 11:30pm. At 11:30 they told us that it had broken down and would be two hours late, arriving at 1:30. Again at 1:00 we asked for the ETA and were again told 1:30. After struggling to stay awake until 1:30 we were informed that they actually hadn't fixed the bus yet and to expect it at 3:30. The Turkish fellow passenger we'd been talking with evidently gave up on it and went home upon getting this news. We thought that sounded pretty smart, since we had no faith that the bus would actually show up at 3:30. By this point, of course, it was far too late to catch a different overnight bus anywhere.

We debated what to do for a bit and eventually decided that since everywhere else we really wanted to go was at least 10 hours away by bus, we'd basically lost the entire next day, thus making the trip out to Cappadocia not so feasible (out of time). So we insisted on a refund for our ticket, which took a good long bit of arguing with them, then booked ourselves on the latest bus to Istanbul that would arrive during daylight hours, then checked into an overpriced hotel that the bus station folk directed us to. All this ended up taking us until after 3:00, so maybe we should have waited for our original bus, but who knows of it was really going to show up at 3:30?

The 10-hour bus ride to Istanbul was not as miserable as we expected. It was a comfortable "techno" bus with little TV things at each seat like on the intercontinental flights (unfortunately everything was in Turkish), and WiFi. Also appropriately timed food/bathroom stops and snack service. Had there been power for keeping stuff charged, we could have made much more progress on catching up on the blog, but it was nice to be able to book our hostel in Istanbul and download enough podcasts to keep myself in interesting radio programs most of the trip.

The bus system in Turkey does have a very good reputation for comfortable buses (definitely were that), and running on time, so apparently we just got really unlucky.

From Istanbul

Pamukkale - More Travertine

2010-07-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

And today we have... more travertine! We took an early bus to Pamukkale where we left our luggage and went to see the travertine pools, ruin of Herapolis, and the Antique pool.

From Pamukkale

First were the travertines. Back in the day (when all the promotional photos were taken, and when Rick Steves was there with his camera crew), the pools were all open and full of people. Over the years, there's been a lot of damage to them, largely algae growth. Not sure how much of this is due to large numbers of people in the pools, since I normally associate excessive algae growth with phosphates. Anyway, now most of the travertine pools are off limits, and most of the water has been diverted in the hope that sunlight and dryness will bleach them white again. While not as beautiful in as the old photos, the formations are still incredible, and some do still hold water.

From Pamukkale

To allow visitors a similar experience of swimming in the pools, some concrete pools have been constructed along the road leading up through the natural pools. Incredibly, this isn't such a fake experience as you might imagine. The "fake" pools are overflowing with the same mineral-rich water, have the same fine mud bottom, and most astonishing, the travertine is growing off the concrete, at what we guess to be a very fast rate. So maybe these pools aren't so inauthentic after all. Is it really a fake pearl if you purposely put the sand in the oyster?

After hiking up the travertines hillside we wandered along to the right-hand side looking for better views of the travertines, with no luck. Then we found our way to the Antique Pool. This was portrayed to us as something fairly authentic where the old ruins had flooded and were now used as a swimming pool where you get to swim among the ancient fluted columns like you were at Atlantis or something. Well, that's not really what it seemed like. Closer inspection said it was $16 to swim in a skuzzy and overcrowded pool. In water that was reported to be basically as hot as the baking air. With fluted columns covered in green algae. It would have been a cool thing to have said we'd done, but other than that, it didn't look all that appealing.

From Pamukkale

Up next we hiked up to the top of the 12,000 seat amphitheater. This is probably the very nicest old amphitheater we've seen with a largely intact back wall with a good bit of decorative work on it.

From Pamukkale

We followed that by exploring the views out over the travertines going the other way from where we came up. These were better, and we also found a pool (not natural) where we could put our feet in for a few minutes to cool down.

Further along we found a bunch of overgrown travertine that looks like it hasn't had water flowing over it in quit a while. Yet evidently not a hugely long time, as it appears to have formed around a plastic bottle.

From Pamukkale

And there was also a huge travertine wall with a giant hole in it, evidently not having held water in a very long time indeed.

From Pamukkale

Also an old cemetery. Cool, eh?

From Pamukkale

For one final stop before getting into the fake travertine pools, we went out on the point of land right near where we came up the travertines. We hadn't seen anyone out there so it didn't seem promising, but we'd booked ourselves on an 11:30 PM bus, so we had lots of time. And WOW, were we ever glad we did! These pools were spectacular and full of the loveliest blue water! Further around we were able to get a much better angle on the pools we'd seen on the way up, with no people in the way to boot. I think this place would have been truly breathtaking with all the pools full.

From Pamukkale

We went swimming next, well, more like wading. It was fun.

From Pamukkale

Since we still had lots of time, we deciding to try hiking up to the monument they built to St. Philip, to see it's unique octagonal shape and good views. We evidently took a wrong turn since we didn't find it, but we did find some nice views anyway.

We then went to a nice dinner. Kabobs and pizza, yum! Now we are at the bus station waiting for our overnight bus to our next destination (well, most of the way, we have to change at 5 or 6 am since we booked too late to be on the direct bus). It's gonna be a long night, I fear. Hopefully smelling good is not a requirement for riding the bus here...

From Pamukkale

Ephesus

2010-07-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

From Ephesus

Took the earliest ferry to Turkey in the morning, then the bus to Selçuk. We were so tired we went ahead and got a hotel before going out to Ephesus. Our hotel was supposed to provide us free transport to Ephesus according to their brochure and listing in Lonely Planet, but the proprietor explained that hotels are no longer allowed to do this and there is now a big fine if anyone other than a taxi is caught dropping tourists off at the ruins. The bus mentioned in Lonely Planet seems to not run anymore either. This is one of those really frustrating and budget unfriendly things about traveling in these supposedly "cheap" countries, since they often do things like this to capture more tourist dollars. Yes, you can take the taxi for only like $7, which is certainly cheap for a taxi, but if we were in Austria, we could and would take the bus for like $1.25 each, even if there was a $7 taxi. It's really only the food and accommodation that is cheaper in these places. The sights and transportation are generally just as expensive, if not more so.

From Ephesus

Ephesus is supposed to be one of the best-preserved ancient sights, and it was very impressive. We especially liked the Celsus Library, Hadrian's Temple, and the Hill Houses.

From Ephesus

Hey look, a kitty...

From Ephesus

There was an extra fee, and a steep one, to go into the Hill Houses, but they had some great frescoes and mosaics... I think Lonely Planet said the best outside of Italy, or maybe the best outside of Pompeii. They were certainly nice! No doubt the fee was to offset costs of the truly impressive structure protecting them from the elements.

From Ephesus

By the time we left Ephesus we were regretting our failure to stick with the original plan, which involved using left luggage at the bus station and traveling on to Pamukkale in the evening before sleeping. The wonderful thing about traveling in high summer is that you can move on to the next city after all the sights close and still have some daylight with which to find a hotel, enabling an early start the next morning. Oh well. We had a relaxing dinner and got to enjoy seeing the Byzantine Aqueduct topped with stork nests.

From Ephesus

Rhodes - Castle/Museum, Streets, Harbor, Beach

2010-06-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

We spent the morning at the castle seeing the exhibits there. Rough Guide said they were good, and really they were, but also very much like so much we've already seen at other archeology museums this trip. They had some really fine mosaics from other islands though. And the marble windows were pretty cool.

From Rhodes

We also explored by day those same back alleys we'd seen by night. They weren't as romantic, but at least we were able to get some photos.

From Rhodes

Compare with the famous and crowded Gothic Street of the Knights, which we found anything but appealing.

From Rhodes

Next up we walked down to the harbor to see where the Colossus supposedly stood, with one foot where each deer pillar now stands. It's not such a wide distance as we'd imagined. Perhaps he really did span them...

From Rhodes

We then walked the beach, and since we had nowhere safe to leave our cameras, took turns going in the water. First up at the unprotected area with big rough waves, then in the calmer area where Josh enjoyed the diving platform.

From Rhodes

We walked the town some more in the calm and cool of the evening.

From

From Rhodes

Overall, it was a nice relaxing day, but we wouldn't really have missed anything if we'd taken the early morning ferry to Turkey. It probably would have been more worthwhile to spend the day somewhere else. Rhodes was incredible by night, but one evening would have been enough.

From Rhodes

Rhodes - Arrival

2010-06-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

Spent the better part of the day (9am to 6pm) on the ferry from Sitia on Crete to Rhodes. We enjoyed the enforced rest time playing cards, reading (Josh on Kindle) and listening to (Mary from LibroVox on iPod), "The Scarlet Pimpernel." It is more than a little gratifying to recognize aspects of European history we learned on this trip in the story. Also, the flowery verbiage is fantastic. I love how when people get excited they ejaculate their remarks. Granted, I think it might be a little hard to follow if we didn't already know the story from watching the movie. We also did a bit of planning for what little remains of our trip.

From Rhodes

Anyway, once we got to Rhodes we struggled to match the reality of the streets we saw on the ground with the ones in the map in the Rough Guide. You see, the Guide had assured us that all ferries dock at the middle port. It was wrong, ours came in at the southern port, which was just off the map. Once we figured this out we were quickly able to make it to the old town at around 7pm.

The Rhodes old town has got to be the most enchanting old town we've ever been to. It feels right out of a fairy tale with its crumbling stone walls, towers, and churches. The hotel we wanted to stay at was full, but they directed us around the corner to a nice little pension, which doesn't have all the amenities we might have hoped for (Internet, breakfast, kitchen), but was about 30% less than we expected to spend for any room at all.

From Rhodes

After checking in we wandered around the old town, walked through the old mote, went to dinner in the "new market," awwed at the kitties, and generally marveled at what an incredible little town this is. Oh, I'm sure it will be crawling with tourists tomorrow, but for tonight off the main drag we wandered the loveliest narrow allies under flowering shrubs and arching stone supports. Of course most of the nighttime pictures didn't come out that well, so you'll just have to stay tuned for tomorrow's photos of it.

From Rhodes

Sitia (Crete) - Beach Day

2010-06-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

Spent a relaxing morning at the Sitia beach. We did some sunbathing and some swimming, which was all very nice, although the small waves left a bit to be desired.

From Sitia

After swimming, we saw this one dead fish washed ashore. We were later assured that they sometimes fall off the fishing boats.

From Sitia

For lunch we had more gyros along with a Greek salad we made ourselves back at the hotel. The gyros were a bit disappointing, but there only seemed to be like one gyro guy open at midday on Monday.

We spent the afternoon at the hotel enjoying the Internet and working on the blog. We decided to go out to the Archeology Museum, which is supposed to be excellent, but found that it is also closed on Monday. We also went looking for the dot on our map that was marked "Pelican house," hoping for an explanation of the pelican from last night, but we found no sign of either the pelican or it's house.

From Sitia

Next we purchased our ferry tickets for our onward transit. Cute fish in the tank!

From Sitia

In the evening we took a nice long walk along the beach by moonlight. Sadly, we didn't see the pelican today.

Travel Day - Rethymnon to Sitia (Crete)

2010-06-27T20:00:00.000-07:00

Had a glorious sleep-in this morning, then went to the imposing Venetian Fortress where we explored the crumbling barracks, old churches, and so forth. There were nice views out over the water. On the way, we stopped at the cool lion fountain. In the fortress, it looked like they were busy making a replacement onion dome for their church.

From Rethymnon

We tried to go to the Folk Museum next, but it was closed. So we had some gyros back at the hostel, picked up the remainder of our laundry, and got on a bus to Iraklion. We'd intended to go from Iraklion up to the western plateau and see the cave where Zeus was born, but by the time we got there, the next bus was not until midday tomorrow, which doesn't work since we need to be on a morning ferry from Sitia to Rhodes (which only runs a few days per week) the next day. So instead we hopped a bus directly to Sitia, which the Rough Guide assured us was a nice beach resort town.

We showed up a bit before sundown and found ourselves a room in the home of a cute elderly couple. Our room opened out onto a big shared balcony with a small slice to sea view. And out on the balcony, we were able to snipe some WiFi from a nearby unsecured network. Internet access is expensive in Europe, like 3 Euros per hour or more, and free WiFi provided by your hotel seems to be unheard of in Greece. So we were pretty excited about it.

For dinner we wandered about until we found a good-looking gyro guy. He seemed a bit... I don't know, patronizing at first. But he was also friendly, talkative, and good natured. He was also clearly very proud of the food he served, which turned out to be superb.

After dinner we walked down to the beach. Along the way, walking through the square by the waterfront was a man and an enormous tame pelican. The pelican didn't seem all that friendly and would occasionally take a moment away from following its master to frighten the children, whom it was bigger than. It was a little unreal. And, of course, both cameras were locked away in the hotel room.

Rethymnon (Crete) - Samaria Gorge Hike

2010-06-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

Got up shortly after 5am to go hike Samaria Gorge. It was a lovely hike through a tall narrow gorge down to the sea.

From Rethymnon

Unfortunately, we didn't realize that they only ferry out of the town on the far end was at 5:30, where as we finished the hike at 3:30. It was basically your standard tourist town nightmare, and we didn't have our swimsuits with us. The beach was thick pebbles, almost impossible to walk on barefoot, but the swimming looked good with a fast fall off and decent waves. We considered going in wearing our clothes, but after not being allowed on the bus in the morning with a cup of coffee (some people have no mercy!), we didn't want to find out what they'd think of wet clothes. The swimsuits are going in day pack in the future!

From Rethymnon

The bus timing back was also kind of lousy and we didn't get back until around 9:30, and the sunset we wanted to see over the fortress was basically over. We walked around the fortress anyway though, it was nicely illuminated.

From Rethymnon

Iraklion (Crete) - Knossos, Archaeological Museum, City; Rethymnon - Beach

2010-06-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

Arrived in Iraklion on Crete sometime before 6am and were off the boat around 6:30am. The long distance bus station was conveniently located right across the street from the docks. We left our big bag at the left luggage and got some yogurt and coffee for breakfast. Then we crossed the other street to the city bus station and caught the bus to Knossos.

Knossos is the mythological home of the Minotaur and the labyrinth where two young Athenians were sent for sacrifice each year. We arrived a good 20 minutes before opening, providing us lots of time to read the Rough Guide description, which was exceedingly harsh. Like at Delphi, little survived and most of what you see is reconstruction. However, unlike Delphi, what you see today is more the product of Evans' imagination than sound archeology. It was, however, pretty cool nevertheless. Unlike so many other romantics of his era, Evens apparently did not subscribe to the notion that classical building should consist of bare gray stone, and his "reconstruction" is full of color. In this sense, it may be more authentic than other sites we've seen, even if the details are large made up.

From Iraklion

The question is also raised for me, how much of what we've seen is authentic, and how much is questionable (or even well-supported) reconstruction? Is it my new brand of guidebook being brutally honest with me, or is Greece really into rebuilding its old sites more than other countries are. Are other things I've seen and marveled over their ability to hold up to the test of time actually just reconstructions? Stone Henge and the Pyramids have always been there, right? And only ever in better shape than today, right? Or have I been had?

Next up we went to the Iraklion Archaeological Museum, just as the rain really got going. Actually, the body of the museum has been closed for years for renovations, but they had their best stuff--including that famous fresco of the bull jumper!--on display in a single large room. Small, but great.

From Iraklion

This is a board game.

From Iraklion

After the museum and the rain stopped, we made our way to the Platia Venizelou (Fountain Square) where we admired the fountain, then on to the Loggia where Josh hoped to find art, but instead found the Courthouse.

We then dropped briefly into the church of Ayios Titos, which was a mosque for a while in between being a church and being a church.

From Iraklion

Finally we wandered around El Greco Park looking for the cheap souvlaki places the Rough Guide promised, to no avail. Eventually we gave up and got lunch from a bakery. We got way too many sweets though. In a fit of excitement, Josh got 4 pieces of baklava for us to share, and Mary picked out a big piece of carrot cake which seemed upon eating it to have been soaked in honey. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing!

After lunch we walked down to the Venetian fortress on the water. Unlike so many other places we've been, this one felt like a genuine fortress. Not a palace, not a ruin, not a museum, just a plain honest fortress. With lots of canon balls.

From Iraklion

We walked by what is left of the Venetian arsenals on our way to the bus station, where we retrieved our stuff and got on the 2:30pm bus for Rethymnon. Left luggage is a beautiful thing.

When we arrived in Rethymnon we went straight for the Youth Hostel, but the reception was closed to reopen in a half hour at 5pm. We got some gyros and waited around, then checked into a dorm. It's not one of the nicer hostels we've stayed in. It was the first without lockers. The owner just expected us to trust that no one would take our stuff because he only checks in cool people. And while I'm sure that most other travelers are honest, from everything we've read the person most likely to steal your stuff is another traveler, and the most likely place is from a dorm. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, it's not a big deal to carry all the valuables, but that doesn't work when you want to go swimming! Anyway, he did agree to lock them up for us, though from the size of the locker, this clearly isn't something he normally does.

We enjoyed swimming at the beach, although there wasn't much surf. On the way back we bought supplies to make ourselves Greek salad back at the hostel. We had planned to go down to the Venetian Fort by the water to see the sunset, but time got away from us and we didn't realize until a jogger staying at the hostel got back from her jog and told us all about what an amazing sunset it was and to be sure to see it tomorrow.

Turned in shortly after this with plans for an early morning, only to be awoken by loud conversation in the next dorm. The walls here seem to be paper thin. Also, we weren't able to charge anything since there was no plug in the dorm we were in. Like I said, not one of our better hostel experiences.

Delphi - Oracle, Museum, Etc

2010-06-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

Got up early and went to the Oracle of Delphi. We didn't quite manage to be there at opening time and we already behind a couple buses of tour groups.

There was a lot less left than we expected, and after reading in our guidebook about the reconstruction of what little is left (the Treasury of Athens, the Temple of Apollo), it was more than a little disappointing. Here is a set of monuments that didn't even begin to withstand the test of time. We decided at this point to do Crete instead of the Peloponnese. Anyway, the initial enthusiasm about the Peloponnese had involved a plan to rent a car, which we cannot do because we didn't get an international drivers license before leaving home.

From Delphi

The Delphi Museum was much better. They still have a bunch of the friezes and pediment statues from the major buildings. The Treasury of Athens even originally had a pair of statue pillars like the Caryatid!

From Delphi

Also, the Dancing Pillar and pillar-topping Sphinx were fantastic.

From Delphi

There was also an impressive life-size bronze chariot driver, but they never found his horses. A person might suppose that he might go with the horses atop San Marco in Venice (which are thought to have originally come from Greece by way of Turkey)... but probably if that was possible the caption would have said so.

From Delphi

In the small section of ruins across the road, we found the iconic round temple that you always see in photos, which rescued the outdoor experience for Mary.

From Delphi

Also, there were kittens. Greece has cats like India has cows.

From Delphi

Next we had a disappointing lunch at a cafe with free wifi, trying to book ferry tickets to Crete from Athens with no luck. Then we picked up our bags from our hotel to move on. By the way, this was our view last night...

From Delphi

We took the bus to Athens and were able to buy our ferry tickets near the port. Two bunks in gender-segregated 4-bed dorms for 49 Euros each. Not too bad. A good night's sleep was had. For 29 Euros each we could have had reclining deck chairs, which sound sketchy, but upon real life inspection proved to be indoors and looked far more comfortable than airline seats. This is THE way to travel to the far islands. We talked to other travelers who took high speed boats to Crete which cost more, took up 3 hours of prime daylight sightseeing time, and made them very seasick due to the motion of the boat.

It was a proper cruise ship with bars, swimming pool (not filled), and dance club, but the journey was barely 8 hours, so we went to bed before departure.

Athens - Assorted Ruins, Acropolis Museum

2010-06-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

In the morning we went to a few minor sights around the acropolis, including Hadrian's Library, the Roman Forum, and the Ancient Agora. There wasn't much to see at Hadrian's Library, though it looks like they have just started rebuilding it from virtually nothing.

From Athens

The Roman Forum included the Tower of Wind, which used to have a weather vane on top, a few sun dials, and a water clock inside for rainy days.

From Athens

The Ancient Agora was actually a big site with lots of old foundations and a temple that they claim is the best preserved Ancient Greek Temple anywhere. It was small, and in slightly better shape than the ones in Paestum. It was really nice.

From Athens

In the same area we dropped into an old little church with great acoustics.

Then we moved on to the shiny new Acropolis Museum, where we saw what's left of the statuary and friezes from the Parthenon. Unfortunately, there's not a lot left. And a lot of what is left is in the British Museum. The highlight here was the recreated model of the pediment statuary based on sketches from around 1900. The new display for the original statuary is at either end of the top floor arranged as it was originally, with views of the Acropolis in the background. The stated goal is to give a better sense of the original feel. However, disembodied without their building, along with so many pieces missing, it seems like it mostly emphasizes what has been lost. More like a memorial with a collection of empty chairs.

From Athens

After the museum we stopped for lunch then picked up our stuff from our hotel and hopped the bus for Delphi just in time for it to start raining. We got to Delphi around 7pm and checked into a cheap hotel (25 Euros) with a fantastic view. Then we out for a huge dinner of gyro, souvlaki, and Greek salad for under 10 Euros. The days of Greece being fantastically cheap may be over, but after a few weeks in well-to-do places like Austria and Germany, the prices are seeming pretty fantastic to us. Maybe we'll end this trip less over budget than expected.

From Athens

Athens - Arrival, Archeology Museum, Parthenon

2010-06-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

"I think that one is our hotel." "Which one?" "That one, with the two prostitutes out front."

We arrived late at night in a somewhat seedy part of town. Our hotel seemed nice enough at first, but there was only one electrical outlet that we had to climb on the nightstand to reach. And the AC hummed incessantly. Eventually (at like 3am) we went down to reception to have it turned off. Ugh.

So it was a slow start in the morning, made slower by discussion of moving and laundry.

In the early afternoon we went to the Archeology Museum, which was great. They had wonderful statuaries ranging from the most ancient which looked very Egyptian, up through Roman. There was also a gallery with the very impressive finds from Mycenae, starting with the Mask of Agamemnon, which I'm sure you will all recognize, along with a wonderful collection of jewelry and gold leaf. Upstairs was a wonderful array of pottery, and at the back was a bronze collection including pieces of what seems to have once been a geared astronomical clock, a good 1500 years ahead of anything else similar.

From Athens

We took so long at the museum that we found ourselves in a big rush to get to the acropolis, since we thought we wanted at least 3-4 hours there before closing time at 7pm. Well, it was a bit of a let down after Paestum. As promised, there were cranes and a lot of scaffolding, though less than there might have been. The Parthenon is in pretty bad shape. The Caryatid porch was smaller than it seemed in class, and they are doing work in the ceiling, so it wasn't that picturesque. The temple of Athena Nike was completely scaffolded-in. The entry gate, the one building up there you get to go into, however, was pretty amazing.

From Athens

The day really made me think of my high school Humanities teacher, Mrs. Mortland. I'd like to tell her about visiting the wonderful places I learned about in her class. She asked us to keep in touch and gave us her email address right before graduation, but it was her address at the school and she has moved on to somewhere else. Even google doesn't know how to find her.

On the way down the hill we stopped to see a variety of minor ruins.

From Athens

We could see this temple in the distance. Should try to go over to it tomorrow.

From Athens

In the evening we walked through the districts of Plaka and Monastiraki, which are supposed to be some of the nicest in Athens. This strikes us as not a great sign for the city. They weren't that nice.

Vienna - Schloss Schlonbrunn

2010-06-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks to staying up for the opera, it was another difficult morning dragging ourselves out of bed in time for breakfast. After booking a room in Athens, we moved on to Schloss Schlonbrunn the iconic Viennese summer residence of the Hapsburgs. It was a lot like the winter residence, with certain sections of the audio guide seeming to have been copied verbatim from one to the other, reflecting very similar setups between Franz-Josef's and Sisi's apartments in each location. However, Schlonbrunn had many rooms on display from other members of the dynasty, and the rooms were more impressive, but in exchange it didn't make as nice a story or give as good an impression of the people who lived there.

After, we braved the dreary cold weather to explore the grounds. We found three lovely Romantic-era fountains.

From Vienna

Then climbed the hill for some lovely views of Vienna.

From Vienna

On our way to the exit, we ran across some birds that looked like finches, but with different coloring than we see in the States. They were lovely and seemed quite tame, so we just couldn't resist getting out a little oatmeal we had with us to feed to them. They were extremely bold, landing on our fingertips to eat from our palms. And to try to eat Mary's thumb nail, which they seemed to find a good bit more interesting than the oatmeal. They also hovered impressively in midair to check out the goods before landing. They were amazingly light and delicate.

From Vienna

At this point we went back to our hostel for a little bit of last minute planning before hopping our flight to Athens.

Vienna - Holsdorf Palace: Silver Collection, Sisi Museum, Royal Apartments; Opera

2010-06-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

We started off the morning a little late after our late train into Vienna last night, just barely making it to breakfast before it closed at 9am. We are staying at the Huttledord Hostel 20 minutes from down town by metro. It's got a real institutional feel to it that reminds us of the Globetrotter Inn where we stayed at in London. Though at only 13 Euros each for dorms, it's a steal. And the breakfast was surprisingly good: three kinds of whole grain bread, yogurt, cereal, coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. Mmm. Eggs, meat, and cheese were also available for a modest fee.

Our first stop of the day was the big cathedral of Stephensdom. Mass was going on and much of the outside was covered in scaffolding, so it was a kind of disappointing.

From Vienna

We enjoyed a good bit of great romantic outdoor sculpture.

From Vienna

Next we walked to the Hofburg Palace, where we picnicked in one of the courtyards before going inside. The tour was in three parts, with hands-down the best audio tour of the trip. It started with the Silver Collection, where we saw service after royal/state/etc service. None of them were particularly old, however, as they were typically made of solid gold or silver, so were typically melted down and re-purposed as soon as they went out of fashion or the owner fell upon hard times. During the reign of Napoleon, most were converted to coin. Porcelain was not considered fancy enough for anything but dessert, though even this seems to have eventually changed for economic reasons. It was pretty and we joked about being in "the dish room" (as the president jokingly calls the White House China room in "The American President"), though it was really more like a dozen rooms!

From Vienna

Next up was the Sisi Museum, where we learned all about the apparently famous Empress Sisi, wife (and cousin) of Emperor Franz-Josef. She became exceeding popular after her assassination, though apparently the legends about her were not based in reality. It seems she was an exceedingly unhappy woman who hated being the center of attention. She did a lot of traveling (largely to escape court life/responsibilities), spent 3 hours per day having her ankle-length hair done (by servants, she read or studied foreign languages during the process), and had a state-of-the-art bathroom and exercise equipment (she was 5'8" and worked hard to maintain her weight of between 90 and 95 lbs--yikes!).

Next we saw the apartments in the palace where Sisi and Franz-Josef lived and received people. It was in many ways like other palaces we've seen, but the audio-guide really made it come alive with the descriptions of he lives of the people who lived there: Franz-Josef seems to have been a well-loved ruler who took his work and family very seriously. Sisi seems to have taken her health and beauty very seriously.

Next we had the second half of our picnic before hurrying on to the Opera House for a 3pm guided tour.

From Vienna

We were more than a little put-off by the crowds when we arrived, but they broke us into manageable (still large) groups by language for the tours. The tour was excellent. We got the history of the opera house, got to compare the art from different periods, heard about how the curtained windows of Franz-Josef's private room were visible from the entry so people could decide whether or not to buy tickets based on whether his light was on. Actually though, Franz-Josef didn't much like the opera, so he'd sit out in his box before it started so people could see him, then retire back to his private room to take tea and receive important guests after the show started. We also heard about the guy who decided to change the opera from a more social affair where the house lights stayed on and people wandered in and out through the show, to what we now are used to with the house lights off and people expected to stay in there seats. He added intermissions so there would still be the social aspects, and had large rooms for people to mill about in during intermission added to the opera house. We also saw back stage and heard about how the sets are stored in a big warehouse across town and a different set is delivered by truck each day and assembled in an average of around 3 hours. You see, they do a different opera each night. Yeah, seriously! (Repeats, sure, but not on consecutive nights.) We also heard about how the whole orchestra pit can be raises and lowered. Why? Because some operas have more instruments and you want the orchestra further away to keep from drowning out the singers. Others have smaller orchestras and the pit is raised to make them louder. No one is miced, so this is important! Finally we heard about the Opera Ball, and saw the 3 ton chandelier, which is so heavy it cannot be lowered for maintenance and cleaning (normal ones are, that's why the hero can cut a rope to drop it on enemies) and instead a section of the ceiling lowers to allow access for cleaning. I'm glad that's now my job! Anyhow, it was a great tour, best of the trip by far!

From Vienna

After, we got in line for standing tickets to the night's opera, Tannhausen by Wagner. Once we had staked out our spot with Josh's jacket, we went back behind the opera house for some traditional cheap-eats at the hot dog stand. The opera was in 3 segments of approximately 1 hour each with 2 half-hour intermissions. Josh liked it, Mary not so much. Sure wish you could buy standing tickets to the theater in the USA for 4 Euros though!

Divci Kamen - Castle Ruin and 5th Wedding Anniversary

2010-06-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

[Editor's note: can't find my notes for this day either.]

We spent our 5th wedding anniversary at a castle ruin we expected to have mostly to ourselves. As previously noted, Mary came here with her parents in 1993 and it was not developed for tourism at all. In fact, we could hardly find the place.

We walked to the castle (now serviced by a well-marked trail) from Holubov.

From Divci Kamen

There was a ticket seller, but she explained to us that the castle was free today, though she did not have the English to explain to us why. There were a few field trip-looking groups of little kids and later on we started to see groups wearing life jackets.

From Divci Kamen

The castle was smaller than Mary remembered. With trails and well-kept grass, we were able to move about it much faster now than in 1993. Even so, it was still pretty lovely. After a while, it started to rain and we had it to ourselves for a while. Mary found this kind of amusing because the one day we had rain on the 1993 trip was right here at this castle too.

From Divci Kamen

It was pretty cool to see how they worked around the natural stone.

From Divci Kamen

And there was a nice little cairn garden in the courtyard. If you look closely, you will see an arch someone made too. It's atop the garbage can, or whatever that is.

From Divci Kamen

Mary enjoyed the dramatic natural landscape. She remembers searching for the castle in the woods and Dad pointing to this ridge (from a slightly different angle), and saying that he would have built his castle up there. This was right before we spotted the castle for the first time.

From Divci Kamen

In a clearing below the castle some sort of event was going on. There was a tent with children painting pictures, a little gyro vendor, and a giant bonfire where the adults appeared to be making charcoal. We greatly enjoyed warming ourselves at the fire, since it was so cold and wet.

From Divci Kamen

Nearby we found a river full of kayakers, some of them disembarking to climb up to the castle. I guess that explains the life jackets we saw earlier. Cool, eh?

From Divci Kamen

After, we walked back to Holubov in time for a great early dinner where we had stayed the night before hopping on a train for Vienna.

Travel to the Czech Countryside

2010-06-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

[Editor's note: Can't find my notes from this day or the next... will try to remember what happened.]

In the morning we fought the crowds at the Prague castle (which has like a whole town inside of it) and back across the famous bridge that would probably be really enchanting if one wasn't shoulder to shoulder with tourists and caricature artists. We picked up our luggage and dashed for the train station. Overall we weren't that pleased with Prague. Prague became a destination after the wall came down because it was such a nice unspoiled old world city. Unfortunately, it's not so unspoiled anymore. It's "the previous previous Ljubljana" and it shows.

From Prague

A final note about Prague is how much we really liked the metro. See photos. Especially take a close look at the icons, particularly the girls' skirts and the other accessories depicted.

From Prague

Mary wanted to return to an enchanting castle ruin in rural southern Czech Republic that she'd visited with her folks back in 1993. Back then, it wasn't developed for tourism at all. We found it through a person we were staying with, who directed us to bicycle to a particular path into the woods where we eventually found it. We also heard a cuckoo bird in the woods that day, which sounded just like my parent's old cuckoo clock from Germany.

Well, in our attempt to go back, we located the castle on Google maps and noted that there is a train station in the town just a kilometer away. Not so hard to get to as I remembered. Sweet. So we took two trains to get to the little town of Trisov in the evening around 6 or 7pm. Upon arrival, we discovered that there is no place to stay in Trisov. With some difficulty, we found the one restaurant (really more of a bar) in town and they confirmed that there was nowhere for us to stay, unless we had camping gear in which case we could camp near the castle. Oops.

The notes from Mary's parents suggested that there might be somewhere to stay in the town of Kremze, 4 km away from Trisov. So we set out on foot down the country road past field and forest. A little outside Holubov we started seeing signs for accommodations. Well, a sign for one 4 km away, and another an unspecified distance. In Holubov stopped to ask someone outdoors about accommodations. That person didn't speak much English, but soon we had attracted a bit of a crowd. They all thought that we should walk 2 km up the road (away from the railroad tracks, which we had been roughly following) to the nice cheap pension up there. But they did concede that there was a place to stay in Holubov, they just didn't think we should go there as it was really expensive. We pressed as to what they meant by "very expensive," and eventually were told that it was more than 200 Koruna, maybe a lot more than 200 Koruna. 200 Koruna is about $10 so we decided to give it a try. Apparently even though Prague is now almost as expensive as any other big city in Europe, people are still a lot poorer in the countryside. Not that this comes as any great surprise.

From Divci Kamen

We found the pension on the other side of a lake with a slide and strange structure in it. Mary was reminded of swimming in the reservoir with the Czech kids when she was in the Czech Republic before. The room turned out to be a princely 700 Koruna per night, around $35, but we were mighty glad to have it. We had a splendid dinner, including a wonderful pasta dish with poppy seeds.

From Divci Kamen

It was a really good day. We definitely got well off the beaten track, but did not find ourselves feeling frightened. It helps that it was right around the Summer Solstice so the daylight lasted well into the evening as we hunted for a place to stay. And there is something profoundly cool about walking from town to town in Europe... it really feels like you are on some epic journey out of a fantasy book. Later in the evening we took a stroll down to the train station to check on the next day's schedule. It was lovely.

From Divci Kamen

Prague - Vsyehrad, National Gallery, Astronomical Clock

2010-06-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

In the morning, we found ourselves lethargic. Eurotrip was on, so we lounged around until late morning watching that. Afterward, we headed down to Vsyehrad, the fortress that overlooks the Danube. We found a cute little spot to eat some lunch, and enjoyed walking around, but there wasn't a lot to see. The views were very nice, and someone was playing (practicing?) organ music in the church, so we stopped and listened for a while.

From Prague

We also saw about the cutest little playground ever.

From Prague

We descended the riverside of fortress, and hopped a tram along the water.

From Prague

Next up on the agenda was the National Gallery, which houses 14th-18th century artwork. Across the way were some nice buildings with some cool fake texture. We've seen a lot of art this trip, but Josh figured it'd be different farther North. It is, and the museum had some nice stuff. We especially liked the "Still Life With Monkeys." Because everything is better with monkeys, especially paintings of fruit.

From Prague

We were right next to the Prague Castle, but it was late, so we headed home via the touristy old stone bridge. It's nice, and packed with people.

On our way back, we also stopped in at the Old Town Square, just missing the hourly clockworks. The clock was very nice, and the square was really busy. Looks to me like maybe some of the engineers escaped after building the astronomical clock we saw in Venice.

From Prague

Speaking of the square being a bit of a madhouse, catch a load of this bicycle bar!

From Prague

We ate homemade pasta for dinner, fusilli with eggplant, tomato, onion, and garlic -- Mary's turn this time. Kitchens are great.

Regensburg

2010-06-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

Regensburg is a nice small town with a nice medieval downtown full of lovely buildings. We spent the morning cooking up some lovely breakfast (eggy in a basket) and making up some picnic food for later. Slow mornings are great. Afterward, we wandered around Regensburg, crossing the first ever permanent stone bridge across the Danube, and wandering its streets and its churches.

From Regansburg

There was a well inside the cathedral. How cool is that?

From Regansburg

Old walls...

From Regansburg

Old-time signs...

From Regansburg

The pita for our gyros being made...

From Regansburg

Monument in the park...

From Regansburg

Best coffee hut ever...

From Regansburg

In the evening, we caught the train to Prague. The instructions to our hostel were lousy, so we were glad that we had the GPS (on our Nokia N810) with us.

Füssen - Fairytale Castles

2010-06-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

In the morning, less early than we'd hoped, we hopped a train to Füssen, the location of crazy Ludwig II's fairy-tale castles, notably Neuwanschtein. The trip turned out to be pretty expensive, as the train to Füssen wasn't cheap, and then we had to backtrack to Munich on our way to Regensburg in the evening. As we found out later, if we had waited just a little longer, until 9am to depart, we could have done the whole trip (to Füssen and on to Regensburg) for one €30 regional group day pass good for up to 5 adults. Mistakes like this are why we dislike the Central Europe Lonely Planet so much (this was a €50 mistake).

In any case, we arrived, and started off on our 20 minute walk to Hohenschwangau: a castle, town, and ticket center. However, the bad guidebook (text of which clearly was meant to be paired with a map that was cut), failed to indicate that it was a 20 minute walk from the ticket counter to the castle, and a 1 hour walk from the train station to the ticket center. Ugh.

From Fussen

Finally, we got our tickets and walked up to Neuwanschtien, Ludwig's castle, time appointment in hand. We ate lunch in the courtyard of the castle while we waited for our assigned tour. The castle was splendiferous. It took 56 carver-years just to do the woodwork on his bedroom. He managed to die (under mysterious circumstances) before he finished the castle, so there's a big shop on the uncompleted second floor. The kitchen was amazing. I want a kitchen that well equipped and large. There was an awesome great hall at the end of the tour, but it was crowded with our tour group there. No dancing for us.

From Fussen

The outside of the castle is the most iconic part, however. This is the castle that inspired the Disney castle. We got our best view of it from a bridge over a waterfall and behind the castle. The hike over was short and the views were great. Afterward, we headed a little farther along the path, and suddenly we were in a quiet wooded area, quite unlike the rest of the area. There were also nice views of the other castle from the trail.

From Fussen

We still had a little time until we need to be going to catch our train, so we popped up to Hohenschwangau, where Ludwig II grew up in. It was too late to go on a tour of the interior, but the outside was very nice, and less ostentatious than it's uphill neighbor. We caught the bus back to Füssen and got our ticket just in time to catch the next train to Regensburg.

From Fussen

At the train station in Munich, we saw this couple traveling by train and by bike. Awww. Maybe someday that's gonna be us... :-)

From Fussen

We got to Regensburg at around 8:30 at night, only to realize we had no map whatsoever. Oops. The tourist info was initially closed, but the guy was evidently just on break as it opened again while we were trying to figure out what to do. The nice man circled the hostels on a map he gave us and sent us on our way.

The place we wanted to stay was closed and we had to call the owner and wait around for 45 minutes for him to show up during half-time of the day's world cup semi-final match. We entertained ourselves walking around the lovely old town and having some ice cream. We ended up in a sweet studio apartment for cheap with a nice kitchen.

Munich - Neue Pinokotek, Residenz, Englisher Gardens

2010-06-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

Dreary rainy day in Munich. We started the day at the Neue Pinokotek art museum, which was very nice. It had a bunch of Romantic and Impressionist paintings, including a few Van Goghs, Monets, and that wonderful one by Walter Crane with the waves crashing on the beach as horses, "Neptune's Horses."

From Munich

Next we had lunch of brats and kraut at a beer garden, after failing to find anything like a grocery store. Lonely Planet listed a couple "self catering" options that turned out to be anything but cheap. Leading us to ask, not for the first time, if the author of the German section had ever actually been here. We also saw a pretty cool clock that we didn't have any info about.

From Munich

After lunch we toured the Residenz and Treasury. The treasury was excellent, including the royal scepters and crowns, medals of honor (such as the Order of the Golden Fleece) and crystal ware. That stuff that looks like etched glass is actually carved rock crystal. And would you take a look at that travel toiletry set!

From Munich

The Residenz was seat of Bavarian rule. The tour was long and extensive, and we were palaced-out by the end of it. However, the palace was extraordinary. We toured through a variety of bedchambers, antechambers, the audience room and others.

From Munich

This is the hall that was built to house the sculpture collection.

From Munich

The best part of the whole place was this dinning room with an amazing Trompe L'oeil ceiling. It looks a little funny if you are off center, but from near the middle of the room it's completely believable. Except that as you move your head back and forth it looks like the building is shaking and about to fall in on you. Anyway, it was awesome.

From Munich

Also, is this Versailles in Germany?

From Munich

Afterwards, we headed over to Englisher Gardens, a huge city park. As it was a cloudy day, the park was seeing little use (the promised nude sunbathers weren't there). The ducks were out in full force however, especially near the large pond the garden sported. There were beer gardens within the park, and people were watching the World Cup.

From Munich

We also found this cool clock. Did the engineer from Venice get away?

From Munich

Oh, yeah, and you'd never guess the holy book provided for us at the hotel. The life and teachings of Buddha.

Oh, yeah, and one final cool thing about Munich? There are two sidewalks most places.

From Munich

Salzburg - Hellbrun Trick Fountains, Castle, Maria's Abbey

2010-06-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

In the morning we took a bus out of town to see the "trick fountains" at Hellbrun. They were a bit cheesy, especially in presentation by the tour guide, but it was a good time too. Also, it was really impressive to see what they did entirely with water power, without electricity or any other power source.

From Salzburg

There was also a nice little palace on the grounds that we enjoyed exploring. It had some fantastic wood inlay, and the dinning room had some great murals.

From Salzburg

Next we were thinking of taking a cable car to the top of an almost 2000 m peak nearby (which we could do for "free" with our 24 hour Salzburg sightseeing card), but it was overcast (mountains all had their heads in the clouds) and threatening to rain, so we decided it would probably be pretty disappointing and not really worth the time. Instead we made our way back to town and took the cable car up to the castle.

From Salzburg

We took the castle tour, we started in a room with models of the castle. They did a nice job of showing how the castle evolved over time. Next up was a room with a variety of torture instruments. They didn't actually do the torturing here, but prisoners were chained up in it. Then we went to the top of the tower for some awesome views of Salzburg. They also showed us a mechanical clock/organ thing, which by the time we are blogging, both Mary and I don't recall much about.

From Salzburg

After that, we headed down the hill to see the Abbey that we missed before, the one from the Sound of Music. It only looked like we had access to the church, which was small and quite dark. Then we walked back down the hill and explored the little "catacombs" near the cemetery we saw on our way down.

From Salzburg

Afterward, we walked home along the river, passing a market. One of the stalls had some stuff that we saw in India. Small world. We picked up our luggage and headed off to Munich.

Travel to Salzburg

2010-06-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

Since we didn't get back from walking around the lake until pretty late last night, we had kind of a slow morning. We reheated last night's pasta and veggies for breakfast, then made up the remaining pasta with oil, cheese, and garlic (everything we had left) to have later for lunch. Times like this make me feel like I am becoming my mother. I hated it when she expected me to eat leftover cold pasta for lunch when we were traveling. However, this was really good cold leftover pasta, and it was my idea, so it was all good.

We went online to reserve our rental car and discovered that the base rate that Avis was quoting us was about half the price of the real rate once they added on the taxes and fees. Ugh. Why do they think I care what is the money they get and what is extra taxes? Oh, right, they don't. They just wanted me to make plans to use a rental car based on a lower price. We considered the car anyway for a while but eventually decided against.

By this time, it was almost time to catch our train out of Lake Bled. We'd hoped to go up to the castle for views out over the lake, but there really wasn't time. Instead we just went down to the water for a couple minutes before hurrying off to catch our train to Villach, right over the border in Austria, then switched for a train to Salzburg. On the way down to the water, we saw a nice church. The train ride was really scenic too. In our compartment on the way to Salzburg was a German student on his way home from a semester studying it Italy. We enjoyed talking with him and he urged us to visit Regansburg when we go to Germany.

From Lake Bled

From Salzburg

We arrived in Salzburg around 5pm, having emailed and heard back from 2 out of 3 hostels in Salzburg that they were booked for the night, and the third one turned out to be crazy expensive. Instead we went to tourist information where they booked us a cheap room for a small fee. We got there just as it started raining heavily, but after a while it cleared up and we went out. Most things were closed, but we went on a long walk around the old town exploring the things that were still open, including:

Gardens

From Salzburg

Window shopping

From Salzburg

The Dom (the big cathedral)

From Salzburg

St. Peters

From Salzburg

Maria's Abbey from the Sound of Music (it was closed, but this looked kind of familiar)

From Salzburg

Lake Bled - Bee Museum, Vintgar Gorge, Lake Walk

2010-06-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

After checking in, we rushed off to the Bee Museum in Radovijca. It's a quaint museum that houses a working bee-hive, and various tools used in the process, and an informative movie about bees. Apparently bee-keeping was big out here. It was also an impressively cute little town.

From Lake Bled

After the museum, we caught a bus that took us around fifteen minutes from the entrance to Vintgar Gorge. Vintgar Gorge is a mile-long gorge near Lake Bled. It's a great little gorge that reminded us of Watkin's Glen. Unlike most waterfall or gorge hikes that I'm used to, we hiked downstream.

From Lake Bled

From the far end of the gorge, we hiked back to Bled by way of the quaint little town of Zasip, which afforded us nice views of the surrounding countryside. It was also a really cute town in a way the photos seem to have mostly failed to capture. The first part of the way was along a trail through the woods, which actually showed up as a road on our map! Way to feel transported back in time!

From Lake Bled

Our hostel had a kitchen, so dinner was pasta rustica – in olive oil sauté one onion, one large zucchini (eggplant substitution acceptable), a clove of garlic. Boil penne. Combine and add sufficient quantities of cheese and salt. Yum!

After dinner, we hiked around Lake Bled. The lake was beautiful and clear. There's a cute little church on the island in the lake. We made the walk in the twilight and enjoyed the scenery, played with the digital camera (flash settings), and watched the swan and duck families that lived on the lake. There is also a cute castle on the rocks above the lake. How lovely.

From Lake Bled

Ljubljana, or "The Next Next Prague"

2010-06-10T20:00:00.000-07:00

According to Rick Steves, Krakow is "the next Prague" and Ljubljana is "the next next Prague." Well, Mary and her parents enjoyed both Prague and Krakow quite a bit back in 1993, so Ljubljana seemed like a destination not to be missed!

On our first day, after a picnic lunch up at the castle, we joined a walking tour that took us around downtown Ljubljana that we booked at the TI. He walked us all around the historic old town of Ljubljana, starting at the courthouse, showing us the bridges (cobblers, triple, and dragon), the original baroque church in Ljubljana that a lot of other Ljubljana churches are modeled after, the cathedral with it's fancy bronze door made in celebration of Pope John Paul II's visit and a fantastic ceiling, a library with windows made to look like open books, and ended the trip with a boat ride. There was more, but we were pretty tired, hot, and unfortunately more than a little out-of-it.

From Ljubljana

Not long after the tour, it was time to say goodbye to Mary's parents. There were some Cappoeira performers on the bridge outside our hostel as we walked them to the rental car and said our goodbyes. They drove off and left us to rest up in Ljubljana.

From Ljubljana

In the evening, we decided to attend a free concert of classical music that the tour guide mentioned. It was performed in St. Jakob's church. The music was excellent, but we were tired, so we darted out at intermission. Afterward, we decided to walk about for a while, and listened to some street performers.

At the center of town, we heard some drummers performing some sort of African (we think) drumming that was pretty sweet, and then there was a modern dance performance in the same square on a stage nearby (the big temporary eye-sore in front of a nice church). Did I mention the Cappoiera dancers from earlier in the day? This town sure loves to perform.

From Ljubljana

The following two days were mostly spent relaxing and planning the next segment of our trip. We thought about heading down toward Dubrovnik and then overland to Greece, but further research showed that to be a poor idea (either around 20 hours of buses through the mountains, or longer on ferries by way of Italy) that brought back memories of long overland travel that was unpleasant in Southeast Asia, so we decided to head North through Austria and Bavaria to Vienna and then fly to Athens. One of these nights we had a lovely picnic up on our balcony. Did we mention our hostel room in down town Ljubljana was a large corner room with a window overlooking the river and a balcony overlooking the square, where we could sit and listen to live music from the cafés below? And a steal at only 52 Euros per night. We could hardly drag ourselves away from it!

From Ljubljana

Plitvice Lakes National Park and Croatian Coast

2010-06-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

Before today, we thought Watkin's Glen (New York) was the most beautiful place in the world. We were wrong. The most beautiful place in the world is actually Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia.

From Plitvice

Plitvice is a series of 16 lakes connected by a series of travertine waterfalls. (See side topic on travertine.) The park was well done too, with boardwalks over the fragile travertine getting us right up close to the action with minimal environmental impact. It all felt very wild and was very clean. The water was crystal clear and full of fish. We were a little disappointed that swimming wasn't allowed, and I'm sure anyone with a love of fishing was disappointed that wasn't allowed either, but with over a million visitors per year, keeping everyone on the boardwalks is surely what we have to thank for such a beautiful park. The other thing we have to thank for the pristine condition of the park is the recent war, during which the park saw few visitors.

Additionally, unlike so many other places we've been, it really looked like we could see our entry fee at work: there was a boat ride connecting the upper and lower sections of trail in a nice big (though slow moving) electric boats, buses connecting many points throughout the park so you could easily hike one way, and park rangers conducting tests of the water. The boardwalks were beautiful and in excellent condition, plus the routes were well chosen such that you could almost never see any other stretch of boardwalk or the tourists walking upon it, making the park seem like it had a lot fewer people in it than it really did. I don't think we saw a single piece of litter. Kudos to whoever is running this place.

Anyway, in order to beat the rush we started our hike just after opening time, 8:00 or 8:30, I think. Our hike started at the bottom of the series of lakes with a steep down hill into the gorge. On the opposite side of the gorge from the path was a tall waterfall that is not actually part of the series of lakes.

From Plitvice

Among the first things we noticed were all the many fish swimming in the brilliant water. Does this look like a healthy river or what?

From Plitvice

A bit further along was a series of caverns up the face of the gorge. There was a path, but we didn't take it since it went away from the waterfalls and we were racing the package tourists.

From Plitvice

Just beyond we came to a row boat sunk in one of the lakes. We stopped for breakfast within sight of it and in a little bit some men came and dumped the water out and set it floating on the lake.

From Plitvice

These incredible lakes and waterfalls just went on and on.

From Plitvice

And there were great blue dragonflies.

From Plitvice

Some of the lakes were very still and provided amazing reflections.

From Plitvice

Although there were many other people on the trail, often we seemed to have this magical place all to ourselves.

From Plitvice

"How did you find out about this place?" Mom and Dad wanted to know. They brought the Rick Steves guidebook, but didn't notice Plitvice with its small black and white photo.

From Plitvice

"I watched a bunch of Rick Steves PBS travel programs off NetFlix before we left," I replied. "I thought the Balkans seemed like a nice place to visit, but a week after watching the only specific place I remembered that I wanted to go was here."

From Plitvice

Josh had fun playing with his big camera.

From Plitvice

After hiking the suggested route up the 16 lakes we took the bus part way back and then walked along part of the ridge trail which provided an entirely different set of views. From here you can actually see how the lakes flow into each other.

From Plitvice

We had breakfast right along there.

From Plitvice

Would you take a look at that crowd? Sure glad we arrived early!

From Plitvice

Back at the beginning again we have the tall side waterfall in the upper right and the lowest of the waterfalls between lakes in the lower left.

From Plitvice

And here are a couple very happy travelers.

From Plitvice

After Plitvice, we moved on to the Croatian Coast. It was very pretty, although we were along a section of coast that no one goes to. We stopped at a little town and did some swimming from a pebbly beach. We also admired the fish and other sea life from the dock. This looks like a nice area for snorkeling, but we had neither the gear nor the time.

From Croatian Coast

We arrived at our hostel in Ljubljana (back in Slovenia) around midnight, after wandering around the pedestrian zone looking for parking. The town was still hopping, but we checked into our hostel and went right to sleep.

Ptuj, Zagreb, Slunj

2010-06-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

In the morning we walked through the Ptuj Castle, which had room after beautiful room still full of their great furniture, heaters, tapestries, and murals on the walls. The chandelier looks like it came from Venice!

From Ptuj

Upstairs there were some interesting festival masks and unimpressive paintings.

From Ptuj

Downstairs there were a bunch of musical instruments and an armory. Also a not-so-impressive statue of St. George killing a pathetically tiny dragon.

From Ptuj

There were also nice views over the town of Ptuj from the castle grounds.

From Ptuj

Next we moved on to Zagreb, the Croatian capital, where we went to the City Museum to learn a bit about the country's history. After they booted us out because the museum was closing, we walked the Rick Steves walking circuit and admired the outsides of a variety of buildings. We were able to actually go into very few, as it was Sunday. We were surprised to find a bunch of tour buses outside of the cathedral (properly called, "The Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saintly Kings Stephen and Ladislav"). It's not a particularly famous cathedral, nor is Zagreb much of a tourist destination. We think we found the answer when we went up behind the alter and found a body wearing a bishop's hat on display, being circled by praying people. This isn't mentioned in the guidebook, I think their bishop must have just died recently and the bus loads of people were coming to pay their respects.

From Zagreb

Pressing onward from Zagreb, we wound our way south toward Plitvice Lakes National Park. Along the way we passed, well, many things, but notably we stopped to photograph a storks nest atop a telephone pole. In some parts of the world, these are very common, but it's quite a thing to see for us Americans. So that's where babies come from!

From Ptuj

Our final photo stop was the little town of Slunj, which we saw out the window and had to turn around and explore! The town is perched incredibly, all but unbelievably, right on the cusp of a series of waterfalls. As one would expect, the main industry of the town was originally water power and you can still see some of the waterwheels. Also as one would expect, the main industry of the town is now tourism. So how is this possible? See the side topic on travertine.

From Spunj

Side Topic: Travertine

2010-06-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

The formations at Slunj, Plitvice Lakes National Park, Pamukkale, and (we guess) Kuang Si Waterfall and the Caves in Laos are made of Travertine. Travertine is formed through a strange sort of "reverse erosion." The water becomes super-saturated with calcium as it dissolves the limestone it flows over. When the water is relatively still, it continues to hold onto it's calcium, but as it flows over the edge of a waterfall or other disturbance, it is unable to hold as much calcium and the calcium is deposited on the lip of the waterfall. Thus the lip of the waterfall is built up over time with the flow of water, rather than being eroded away. Incredible!

This seems to explain the beautiful pools in and around Kuang Si Waterfall in Laos, the white pools at Pamukkale, the lakes in Plitvice Lakes National Park, and the way a town could be perched atop a waterfall as Slunj is.

Austrian Alps and Ptuj

2010-06-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a beautiful day as promised and we drove around to the other side of the lake where we took a gondola up Dachstein mountain from the town of Obertraun (which sounds like some villain from that movie... the Mudders will understand).

From Halstatt

Josh and Mary thought it was going to be lame, but they were wrong. The views were incredible. It seemed like we were at the top of the world with snowy mountain peaks in all directions. You couldn't ask for a more beautiful clear day, or a more beautiful place to spend it. As Dad said, "If you aren't going to take the gondola up into the Alps on a day like today, when are you going to do it?" It was much like we expected the Himalayas to look, had we done our hike on a clear day.

From Halstatt

We had fun watching the paragliders launching from the top of the mountain.

From Halstatt

Josh even did a little high-altitude sun-bathing.

From Halstatt

Then we walked on to the 5-fingers lookout where we stood out over the edge of the mountain and looked back at Hallstatt.

From Halstatt

When we got back down, we drove on for the town of Ptuj in Slovenia, which we chose to go to largely because of the name. In Slovenia, "J" is pronounced as a "Y", and name of the town really is pronounced just like somebody splitting. We even drove through the town Spittal to get there. I'm not making this up. Along the way we saw a whole flock of paragliders.

From Halstatt

We had just a little bit of time after we arrived and before it got dark to check into a hotel, walk through town to a restaurant on the waterfront where we had quite a feast (the meat platter for two and the fish platter for two). The river was lovely.

Hallstatt - Salt Mine and Hiking

2010-06-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

We decided to hike up the mountain to the salt mine rather than take the Funicular, as it looked like a nice 1 hour hike. It took us more like 2 hours, but it was enjoyable. Most of it was heavily wooded, but now and then we got a nice view down over the town and lake.

From Halstatt

The salt mine tour was pretty cool, though Mom and Dad said it was much better when they were here 28 years ago with Mary's sister and brother. First we all had to put on special clothes, I guess to help us slide down the slides better.

From Halstatt

They used an interesting technique of flooding chambers with water to dissolve the salt, then letting the water flow out down the hill to the town where they would boil off the water. The subterranean lake they showed us was pretty cool, but unfortunately he didn't leave the lights on that long for us to admire it. They also had beautifully lit samples of salt for us to look at.

From Halstatt

We also got to ride down the slides the minors used to get to work, and ride on a narrow gage train out of the mountain.

From Halstatt

We also saw some of the more modern mining apparatus.

From Halstatt

After the mine tour, we hiked further up the mountain for some more wonderful views out over the lake and the town. We also saw a bunch of mine "drifts" which are horizontal mining tunnels into the mountain.

From Halstatt

We also found the cutest little hobbit house!

From Halstatt

Hiking back down to town, we followed some lovely little torrents of streams. First a bunch that were clearly man-made and looked kind of like water slides, then the main river that has been subjected to some engineering too. We saw and read about a lot of work done to keep these streams from eroding too much of the mountain away. Rock slides and avalanches are a big concern in Hallstatt.

From Halstatt

The approach back into town was lovely too.

From Halstatt

Upon returning to town we read some posters about the big political issue in town: while the mine and some of the buildings are currently a UNESCO World Heritage site, but there is a desire to put the entire town on some historic list which is apparently a lot more strict than being on the historic list in the USA: according to the poster, the private home owners will no longer be allowed to make any changes to the interior of their homes without permission, all the way down to the placement of furniture. This didn't seem to be a popular idea with the locals, and many of the houses have big signs outside that say simply, "Nine Danke," ("No thank you").

Palmanova & Halstatt

2010-06-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

In the morning we headed off for Palmanova, the star-fort city built by the Venetians in 1593 AD. The site is best viewed from above, as in aerial, so here's a satellite view:

View Larger Map

We saw towns like this (probably including this one) in the map hall at the Vatican and thought that surely they could not be accurate representations of real places. And seemingly for that reason didn't bother to photograph any of them.

We weren't sure how much of it we would be able to see from the ground, but it was pretty neat. We started off in the center of town. The central piazza is surrounded by the tiniest moat ever. We figured it was the last line of defense. The whole city-town-fort was laid out on a plan that let the defenders defend from a number of concentric stars.

From Palmanova

The center of town also contained the (free) military museum. While not a big tourist destination, Palmanova remains an important military base, though surely less so with military aircraft in the picture. Most of the museum was dedicated to World War Two, and there was an old WW2 veteran there who seemed eager to show off some of the stuff to us. If I understood him correctly, he showed us a bicycle that disassembled that a paratrooper could carry on his descent, *his* helmet (from somewhere in North Africa), and a bunch of old radios that Joe and Josh geeked out over, propaganda (from both German and American sources), and of course guns and uniforms.

From Palmanova

Parked outside the museum was a jeep with an old gun mounted on top, which the old war vet drove off in after he was done talking with us.

We picnicked for lunch near one of the city gates, and explored the Earthworks defending the city. They were pretty impressive. I wouldn't bother trying to attack this city without an airplane!

From Palmanova

Next up was the scenic drive to Austria, through the beautiful Alps. Along the way we passed an old castle and when we drove up there we found that they've turned it into a bird zoo.

From Austrian Alps

Finally we arrived at Hallstatt, which might just be quaintest little town in the world, perched on a lake in the Australian Alps. It is famous for its salt mine, which is the oldest in the world. In fact, salt mining was such a big industry back then (and source of power and wealth) that there is an entire period of European history named for this little town. When we got there, we found water across some of the roads, flooding along the waterfront and into some of the lowest buildings. According to our host at the hotel, it'd been raining almost non-stop for a month, but was supposed to clear up around noon tomorrow, and would be followed by a beautiful Saturday, which she had off. She seemed pretty excited.

From Halstatt

We went to dinner at one of the few restaurants that was still open at 9pm and got lots of really good Austrian food (which seems much like German food). Mary got an incredible soup that was described on the menu as "Beef Consume with Pancakes". We thought surely this was a mistranslation, but Mary has had a lot of things called pancakes all over the world, and they have all been good. Well, it wasn't a mistranslation. There were thin pancakes sliced up like noodles in a beef consume soup. And it was really good. Will have to try making pancake soup at home!

Venice - San Marco, Aquileia - Layers of Mosaics

2010-06-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

Got out early, but there was already a long line for the San Marco Basilica by the time we arrived. We enjoyed touring the inside and seeing the Byzantine mosaics. Up in the museum, there were great views out over the interior of the Basilica and over the square outside. There was also an array of old tapestries from the palace next door. We also got to see the horses atop the Basilica. The horses are thought to be from ancient Greece, and are spectacular.

After San Marco, we hurried off to the Venice Airport where we picked up a rental car then drove on to Aquileia. In addition to being an important town in the spread of Christianity, which isn't really important to us, Aquileia, specifically the town's Cathedral, is one of those cool places where you get to see many layers of history right on top of each other. While there actually was a service going on while we were there (in a corner up front), the Cathedral is more archaeological site than church these days. The beautiful original mosaics covering almost the entirety of the floor have been uncovered and to protect them you walk through the cathedral on elevated glass walkways.

From Aquilia

Approximately under the alter there is a crypt full of pastel frescoes with a few relics from minor saints. Where by relics, of course I mean bones of the saints in fancy displays. I know they have these all over European churches, but I don't think I will ever get over how weird it is.

From Aquilia

Next up were the mosaic excavations where we saw the floor mosaics from the former church on the same site on the top level.

From Aquilia

A few feet below the level of the old church is the Roman basilica (meeting place). This one is well squished by the weight of the current bell tower, but you can see the mosaics that aren't directly under the tower.

From Aquilia

And even a bit further below the Roman basilica there are simpler mosaics from the old Roman house that stood on that spot.

From Aquilia

We've seen a lot of mosaics in this trip. And Mary and her parents have seen a lot of mosaics in previous trips (actually, they'd all been to Aquileia before but wanted to go back and to show Josh), and so we think we are really saying something when we say that this is still the best place to see mosaics.

There were also some Roman ruins around town outside, though nothing to write home about. So we'll leave it at that.

From Aquilia

Venice - San Gorgio, I Frari, Merano, Jewish Ghetto, Grand Canal

2010-06-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

Got out later than intended and had a bit of trouble figuring out the vaporetto (boat bus), and ended up on the number 2 vaporetto around the outside of the city (instead of the one that goes up the grand canal), which provided interesting views of the more industrial part of the city, such as it is. It appears that Venice still has a fishing industry.

We got off at San Gorgio island where we explored the church and went up in the tower for the view back over Venice.

From Venice

Back at San Marco Square we found a long line to go into the cathedral, so we decided to move on to the I Frari church, where we admired the famous art by Titian.

Next we took the vaporetto to Merano Island to see the glass making (after an accidental stop on the cemetery island).

From Venice

Mary and her parents remembered being on Merano Island 15 years ago and watching glass being made in a factory setting for shipment around the world. We weren't sure if we would find that again though, as there is now a lot of imitation Venetian glass made in China. We saw it for sale in Asia and wondered at it, and according to Lonely Planet, a lot of what they sell in Venice is now made in China. The first place we went to that claimed to be a factory, we paid to see a demonstration, and they were clearly only working glass as a show when people were there to see it. How disappointing! We wandered later into another facility where there were 2 guys actively making stuff, that actually looked like it was for sale and not just a show. It was a smaller operation than we'd seen 15 years ago, but cool. Still, I don't think we can really recommend the trip out to Merano to see it any more--they were only doing the kind of stuff you can see everywhere these days.

From Venice

We didn't get back in time for San Marco, but Josh went to the Galleria dell'Accademia while everyone else went back to the hotel for some planning for the rest of the week.

On the way back to the hotel we took a wrong turn and found ourselves in the vibrant heart of the Jewish Ghetto, which was the original ghetto, but in fact never was a "ghetto" at all. There was just a Jewish community near the copper works, which was called a "ghetto," and that's where we get our word for a segregated community. There was a monument to the people taken away to concentration camps during WWII. There is a new Jewish community there now, but they are mostly not the same families. Anyway, it was the first and only place in Venice we went that felt like a real city with real people living their lives. The square was a block from a school and full of children playing. There was only the smallest handful of other tourists.

After dinner we look the slow vaporetto the full length of the Grand Canal while listening to the Rick Steves commentary.

From Venice

At San Marco, we enjoyed listening to the live music coming from the fancy cafes and danced in the square before taking an express vaporetto back to our hotel.

From Venice

Venice - Arrival, San Marco Square

2010-05-31T20:00:00.000-07:00

In the morning in Florence we visited the Basilica de Santa Maria Novella where were admired some nice frescoes before hopping our fast and expensive EuroStar train to Venice. When we arrived Mom and Dad were were just arriving at the train station to meet us, having gotten in 45 minutes earlier from Portland, Oregon and checked into our hotel.

We dropped off our bags at the hotel room, then struck out in search of a restaurant that wasn't crazy expensive. We ended up at a little bar along some random little canal where we had pasta and salad.

From Venice

After lunch we walked down to San Marco Square where we found and admired the fancy astrological clock which shows the positions of the sun and moon relative to the earth and zodiac, along with the phase of the moon and the world's first digital clock. According to legend, the inventor was murdered so that no other city could make for themselves such a cool clock. Something for us scientists and engineers to keep in mind, I guess...

From Venice

Next we did the Rick Steves audio walking tour around San Marco Square, seeing the different "sides" of the square that were from different eras, and how the one built by Napoleon in the back tries to bring everything together, which it does well at a glance, but if you look closely you can see the imperfections.

From Venice

There was also the big bell tower, the Doge's Palace (a fancy place that very much flaunts its lack of needing to be a fortress), many of the winged lions of St. Mark, and the Bridge of Sighs (surrounded by ad-covered scaffolding).

From Venice

It was a good day, and it was really good to see my folks!

From Venice

Florence - Uffizi, and Pisa - Leaning Tower

2010-05-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

Dreading the extra-long queues, and unable to reserve tickets (sold out), we got up early, breakfasted, and queued up at the Uffizi twenty minutes before opening. There are only around thirty people in front of us. Given the page space devoted to the museum in our guidebook, we expected something the size of the Vatican, but it's quite a lot smaller (but still really nice). Notable paintings include The Birth of Venus, Primavera, Venus of Urbino. The famous Venus statue was indisposed when we were there. So it goes. We had a Rick Steves audio tour here too, which highlighted the important works and changing styles and methodologies employed in painting as the Renaissance got going. The Galleria exhibit was the work of Caravaggio.

From Florence

The museum took less time than we expected (only a couple hours, perhaps Lonely Planet's 4 hour estimate was assuming a long wait in line and the need to elbow past crowds?), so wandered around Florence poking into whichever churches we could find that were open to tourists (not many, as it was Sunday). They have a lot of really lovely churches in Florence.

Next we decided to head over to Pisa for the afternoon. Pisa is a cheap (5.70 Euro) and fast (1 hour) train ride from Florence, and the tower is around a mile from the train station, so we walked. On the way, we picked up some gelato (chocolate and hazelnut, yum). The tower is quite a bit shorter than Mary had remembered or Josh had imagined. And it leaned more than either of us had expected, even though Mary had seen it before! There's a very nice green space around the tower (which is part of the Duomo complex). Here, we relaxed and enjoyed the sun and shade and views before we headed home. The leaning tower looks just like the photos, except it's not until you see it in person that you discover that you never really believed that it leans that much.

From Florence

Florence - Duomo & Loggia dei Lanzi

2010-05-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

Today we were planning on heading straight up to Venice. Mary's parents will be meeting us there, so we thought we'd need some time to see the city before they arrive, but it turns out they want to spend some time there also (even though they've been a couple times before), so we decided to skip the Appian way and catacombs and head straight for Florence, which is on the way to Venice anyway. We caught a morning train to Florence and checked into the hostel near the train station. It's the weekend, so we were happy to have anything with availability that was cheap. Since most of the awesome museums have hour-plus long queues, we decided to reserve some tickets for the next day and walk around town first, visiting the Duomo. Luckily, walking around Florence is really easy. They have banned cars (except for residents' vehicles) in the historic down town, making it a wonderful pedestrian zone. First, we visit the Duomo, which has a lovely white, red, and green facade (the colors of Italy), which is actually new to celebrate the unification of Italy. The impressive part is the dome, which we decided to not climb, as the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica is similar and was somewhat disappointing to climb.

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The inside of the Duomo was disappointing. There just isn't much in there, like they blew their whole budget on the dome or something. Speaking of which, apparently the better part of the cathedral was built during the century before the technology to build such a big dome was rediscovered in the Renaissance. Talk about faith!

Next, we walked around down town with the Rick Steves audio walking tour. We went into a church that was a granary before it was a church, with a grain warehouse upstairs and an open air grain market downstairs. We could see the holes in the columns that were the bottom of the old chutes for delivering grain. We then made our way down to Piazza della Signoria where we saw the Palazzo Vecchio with it's replica of David out front on display where the original David used to be, the other monuments, and the Loggia dei Lanzi which is a pavilion with some awesome statuary. It was originally a place for public speaking, but was converted to a place for statues by the Medici. As Rick Steves put it, the Medici preferred free art over free speech. We also walked down to the Ponte Vecchio, the famous covered bridge full of jewelry shops.

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Rome - Ostia Antica

2010-05-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

We slept in, and made our way lazily over to Ostia Antica in the afternoon after some suboptimal public transit. Ostia Antica was at the mouth of the Tiber river in ancient times; since then, the river has changed course, the shoreline has moved farther seaward, and the major port for Rome has moved. It was abandoned for these reasons, and because of Malaria. The site itself was a lot bigger than Herculaneum (the excavated part) or Paestum, and a little smaller than Pompeii. Unfortunately, the best stuff (columns, marble, statues) have been largely carted off to other locations as far away as Istanbul. After all, this city didn't get buried by a volcano!

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The site itself was nice, though if felt a great deal like a poorly preserved version of what we've already seen. I don't know that we can recommend a trip out here unless you don't have time to go to Pompeii, or are looking for a quiet place away from the crowds of Rome. It's never busy, and with good reason. There is an awesome theater next door to a business district. There are also a few baths to explore. The whole site is brick. Before this trip, we didn't realize that the Romans used a lot of brick and concrete. I guess we assumed that they used stone exclusively. Heck, they even plaster brick columns to make them look like marble.

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Paestum - Greek Ruins in Italy!

2010-05-27T20:00:00.000-07:00

Undeterred by our miss the previous day, we headed down to Paestum after checking out of our hostel. Paestum is a modestly sized Greek ruin from the 7th century AD. It has three temples standing, one with columns around six feet across at the base. There are also a few mosaics, atria, and a lot of waist-high walls. It is supposed to be one of the best preserved Greek sites anywhere, better than any we are likely to see in Greece, yet gets few visitors...perhaps because there is so much less left of it than the nearby Roman cities. It was very nice, and we lingered until 6pm. The evening at these archaeological sites are much nicer. It's cooler, less bright, and there are fewer people. They're quite serene. There wasn't much left of the other buildings around the temples, but we were able to spot many similarities in architecture to Pompeii.

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Paestum is evidently on a train line, which our guidebook failed to mention, and there are plenty of late trains directly back to Naples. Our hostel hostess would have told us this yesterday, had we told her we were thinking of going there. While waiting for the train, we talked with a man leading a small group of his students on tour: they'd come down for the day from Rome and visited both Pompeii and Paestum in one day. That sounds a bit grueling, but doable. I think they did it in the wrong order though, should do Paestum (which doesn't get that busy) in the morning and Pompeii in the evening after the other tourists have departed. We caught the 6pm train back to Naples and changed for the next train for Rome. We had just missed a train, so we waited an hour for the next train, which was then "retardo" by around an hour. So we got into Rome right at midnight, which is when the metro line and regular bus service stop. Did I mention that we booked a "camping" hotel in the middle of nowhere? They do seem to run night buses that approximate the metro routes, so we took that to around the metro stop where we would have caught a bus to our accommodations, and then grabbed a taxi for 26 Euros, which still equates to cheaper than staying in the center.

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Amalfi Coast - Sorrento to Salerno

2010-05-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

The Amalfi coast South of Naples is supposed to be gorgeous, and Rick Steves suggests taking the bus down the coast and then getting on a train back. We considered getting off the bus and taking a hike, but we decide against, as we hoped to reach Paestum in the afternoon. The coast is indeed gorgeous. The road (and therefore the bus) hugs the coast and is full of hairpin turns and one-lane bridges over chasms. It reminded Mary of highway 1 up the California coast. If the islands in the Gulf of Naples (e.x. Capri) are this beautiful, I certainly see their appeal. We transferred buses in Positano for Amalfi, and Amalfi for Salerno, following the Gulf of Salerno (Tyrrhenian Sea) the whole way. Unfortunately, when we got to Salerno, we were running an hour late. We got worried about transport home, and we'd managed to leave our passports back at the hostel, so we wouldn't even be able to check into a hotel. Lonely Planet said there were 12 buses per day, but didn't say when the last one was. We had also put off lunch, and were hungry and cranky, so we headed home instead, and picked up some fresh ravioli to eat for dinner. Yum.

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Pompeii

2010-05-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Pompeii with Rick Steves (audio guide). We tried to get out early, but Mary wasn't feeling so great (pretty tired) and she went back to bed for a bit while she waited for her two cups of coffee to kick in.

As expected, Pompeii was pretty crowded by the time we got there at 11am. And Josh's copy of the Rick Steves audio guide hadn't downloaded right and wasn't working, so we spent the first 90 minutes or so tethered together listening on one iPod while fighting the crowd for a good view of the most important sights. And the House of the Vetti (best preserved of the houses) was closed for renovations. In fact, the whole street it was on was closed off so we couldn't even peak into the atrium to see the penis balanced with the coins to generate fruit. The brothel, for all everyone talks about it, was a bit anticlimactic too.

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So overall, it was a bit of a disappointing morning, which we followed with a picnic lunch in the shade next to the big amphitheater. After lunch, we explored the amphitheater, more buildings in town, and then moved on to the Villa of the Mysteries on the outskirts of town. It had absolutely fantastic frescoes.

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By the time we wandered back into Pompeii proper, it was pushing four o'clock and there was hardly a tour group to be seen. We wandered back through a bunch of the buildings on the morning's tours and now had them to ourselves.

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With all the people gone, it took on a whole different feel, and we stayed for another 3 hours. Some exploring, and some just sitting and taking it all in. What an incredible difference a few hours make. This is why you should spend a few days in Naples or Sorrento rather than day tripping from Rome like everyone else does: so you can enjoy the quiet after the groups leave around 4pm until closing time at 7:30pm. I wish we'd realized this before; we could have squeezed something else (something less popular) into the morning. I'm used to places where everything shuts down at 4:30 or 5pm, so your only chance to beat the crowds is early in the morning.

Ercolano - Mt. Vesuvius and Herculaneum

2010-05-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

Got out reasonably early today and went to the top of the crater of Vesuvius. This isn't much of a climb, as the bus takes you most of the way up. Unfortunately, we found ourselves in a cloud when we first got there, though the mist swirling around the crater was kind of cool looking. After a while though, most of the cloud blew over and we were rewarded with views of the sea and the city of Ercolano. Visibility was unfortunately still kind of low due to pollution and water vapor in the air. We still couldn't see the horizon.

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After we got back off the volcano, we went out to lunch at a nice little pizzeria, where we got to see the wood-fired pizza oven in action.

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When we arrived at Herculaneum, we found ourselves buying tickets at the same time as a school group from the USA. Somehow whoever did the planning for that failed to realize the student and child prices for things in Italy only apply to EU citizens. Which seems logical enough to me when you are talking about the tickets for university students in the 18-24 age bracket, but like a seriously lame policy for the younger kids (these were 15). You have to pay the whole 11 Euro entry fee for an (non-EU citizen) infant for crying out loud. That's insane.

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Anyhow, we arrived in the early afternoon and it was bright, hot, and surprisingly busy. And we had the after lunch sleepies. We decided to give the audio tour a try as there were basically no signs, but it turned out to be quite a disappointing audio tour. You know how much slower it is to listen to something read allowed compared to reading it for yourself? Now imagine the reader is reading for an international audience and therefore speaking extra slowly. And with long pauses between stuff in case you can't find the pause button for yourself. The content was otherwise fine, but Mary just didn't have the patience for it. Josh listened to most of it.

After a while the tour groups departed, the after lunch sleepies wore off, the air started to cool off, and everything got better. Poking into the old buildings was really fantastic. It was great to see the frescoes in situ, and there were some great mosaic floors, and a couple really fantastic wall mosaics. As it got to be evening, the whole area took on a wonderful romantic feeling.

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Something new we learned about Roman buildings (well, at least in Herculaneum), was the cleaver way they collected water for their underground cisterns. In the entry area there would be a little square pool, which was connected to the underground cistern. The pool and cistern were filled by a square opening in the roof directly above that let in rainwater and light. The roof sloped inward from the sides of the house, so they were collecting water from the whole roof area. Cool! I totally want one of those in my house... though of course it doesn't make sense in the climate of the Pacific Northwest.

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Naples - Archaeological Museum, More Resting

2010-05-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

Got another late start today, so we decided to go to the Naples Archaeological Museum, which houses many of the best finds from Pompeii. Unfortunately, the secret room (which houses the erotic frescoes), and the mosaic room were both closed. However, there was still quite an impressive array of sculptures, frescoes, and a solar calendar laid out in the marble floor of one of the rooms upstairs. We especially liked the solar calendar, which we got to see in action as we arrived shortly before solar noon (around 1pm right now due to the "legal hour", which must be what they call daylight savings time over here).

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Naples - Rest Day, Castle

2010-05-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

We still felt in need of resting today. We made ourselves a nice egg breakfast. Loving the kitchen access! We went out for a little while in the afternoon, down to the castle along the waterfront where we enjoyed great views of Mt. Vesuvius, and enjoyed watching the brides get their pictures taken (must have been a dozen bridal couples there for photos), and the sea gulls enjoying the updraft created by the sea breeze blowing up against the castle walls.

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On the way, we stopped in at a fancy shopping mall. Fancy!

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Naples - Arrival

2010-05-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

Took the slow (2.5 hours), cheap (10 Euros) train down to Naples and checked into our hostel. We were surprised to find the train packed with about twice as many passengers as seats. Aren't we in Europe? Evidently if you want a seat, you can pay an extra 5 Euros. Good to know.

Speaking of "Aren't we in Europe?" we are impressed by how funky and dirty Naples is. We knew it had a bad reputation, but weren't really prepared for the amount of graffiti and litter we found.

Our hostel, however, is really nice. We worked on the blog, chatted with other travelers, and used the hostel kitchen to cook up some fantastic fresh gnocchi and vegetables from the market a block away. It was very nice.

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Vatican City - Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, St. Peters Basilica

2010-05-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

Lonely Planet has you do the Vatican (museums, Sistine Chapel, St. Peters) in a half day, followed by the Colosseum and Forum in the latter half of the day. They're crazy. This was a full day for us, and well worth the additional time. We started off at 9am in the long line to get into the museum. While it was around 300m long, it moved quickly and we entered in around a half an hour. Evidently a reservation is a good idea even if you are getting there early in the morning. The Vatican Museums are huge, and could easily eat a full day themselves, and probably several if you're a completest, or slow. We started in the picture gallery (ticopentico?) and the Belvedere (sculpture) hall, and then headed over to the Egyptian section. Next we took the long one-way tour through tapestries, the Raphael rooms (School of Athens), the Map hall (awesome!), and finally the Sistine Chapel. Whew! Let's stop for some photos!

School of Athens:

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The Nile:

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Fresco Map of Venice:

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The Sistine Chapel is taller and contains a lot more panels than Mary had anticipated, and is taller and less broad than Josh had anticipated. It is, of course, fantastic. Definitely a highlight for Josh. Mary felt a little cheated that after paying 15 Euros, she couldn't get any closer to the ceiling than 6 stories away. There are a couple of sections that are unrestored in the corners that are a lot darker than the originals. We're talking night and day here. I'm really glad they cleaned off the grime. The Last Judgment behind the alter is huge. It's really hard to get a grasp on the size of these things in art history books (though you can get a lot closer). On the ceiling is the set of nine biblical panels, which include the creation of light, the sun, and the moon, the creation of man (this would be the famous one), the ejection from the garden, and the flood. Both the ceiling and the walls are frescoes, which means they're painted on fresh plaster. The project took four years, while Michaelangelo worked standing up and painting above his head. And you think your neck hurts looking up at it. Ow.

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We returned to the museums briefly but quickly decided that we were on museum overload. We decided to go back to the Sistine Chapel to take the short cut to St. Peters. This ended up not being a short cut at all as we had to wind our way through a different part of the museums to the Sistine Chapel, but it's okay because the exhibits were awesome. I mean, just take a look at the size of this bowl!

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Our second time through the chapel was darker and quieter than the first time. The exit from the chapel led us to the side of St. Peter's basilica, bypassing the square. The basilica is *huge*. There are a lot of features that make it seem more reasonably sized, but they are just optical illusions. The bronze canopy above the altar is tremendous (and made out of the bronze entry from the Pantheon). This isn't actually the first St. Peter's basilica. They built this one literally around the first one; after they were done, they carted off the old one through the massive doors.

Notable sights include: bronze statue of St. Peter (from the old St. Peter's basilica), a glass coffin with ~~Sleeping Beauty~~ (Pope John XXIII) the pope in charge of Vatican II, Michaelangelo's Pieta, the main altar, and the everyday altar.

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Next we went up to the roof. You can climb to the base of the dome of the basilica on the inside (we took the elevator), and then to the top of dome for great views of the city. The view down inside from the base of the dime made us aware of the immense height of the basilica (the grate made photos almost impossible though). Actually, the optical illusions that make it seem smaller than reality looking up are reversed when you are looking down, making it seem larger than reality. The hike up the dome illustrated the "dome within a dome" building technique, with the stairs in between.

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The view from the outside made us aware of the complete lack of high-rises in Rome. Anywhere.

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We made our way back down a little late for the 5pm Mass at the everyday altar, which was surprisingly sparsely attended. Maybe the information regarding service times isn't well distributed. I would have thought that most Catholics would be interested in attending service in the Pope's church. We only caught the tail end, since we spent so much time up in the dome, but enjoyed the music and the evening light through the stained glass.

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So that's what Josh has to say about the Vatican. Mary also liked it very much, but mostly for different reasons. She was not expecting to walk into a random room in the Rapheal section and come face to face with The School of Athens, which is one of her favorite paintings. Incredible. And like Josh said, the map hall was fantastic. Probably her favorite genre of painting is Trompe L'Eau, and the Vatican is chock-full of it! Fresco fake columns, fake windows, fake niches, fake carvings, fake statues, fake curtains. It's great. The Pieta is also a favorite of hers from studying this stuff in high school. Who would have thought figures carved from stone could be so expressive?!

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Rome - Forum, Palatine Hill, Rain

2010-05-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

Our ticket for the Colosseum also got us entrance to the Forum and Palatine Hill. The Forum was the center of Roman life and politics in antiquity, and the Palatine adjacent to it was a rich residential district. We arrived pretty early in the morning to beat the crowds and followed the free Rick Steve's audio guide. We started at the Arc of Titus, came down to the Tomb of Julius Caesar (which still has flowers on it), and the house of the Vestal Virgins, and visited the Curia (Roman Senate building), among many other things. A fair bit of it is undergoing work.
Josh was disappointed at how cluttered it felt, but Mary thought it was fantastic.

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At this point, it was getting crowded and nearing lunchtime, so we headed up toward the Palatine Hill through the Nymphaeum of Rain and ate lunch.

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Up on the hill are great views out over the Roman Forum, and a walk through the tranquil gardens. Next we visited Augustus's house (recently excavated and containing some amazing frescoes).

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Next up was the Emperor's (private) stadium. The matter of private stadiums reminds me of the stadium near Detroit that sold for something like $200,000 recently. You too could have owned your very own stadium. Oh well, that ~~ship~~ stadium has sailed.

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After that, we headed over to the Palatine museum. The bottom floor houses artifacts from the Palatine that predate the Romans. The upstairs has some nice sculpture. Best of all, it has a toilet. Finally, we walked through the cryptoportico (underground walkway), which sometimes has temporary exhibits, but not today. We took one last look over the forum, and then headed home for a breather.

Refreshed after around two hours in the hotel, we decided to head out to the Capitoline Museum. Since it's rush hour, we took the Metro, which didn't take us as close, but was out of traffic. By the time we ascended from the Colosseum Metro station, it was pouring down rain. Undeterred, we donned the rain jackets, but as we were approaching the museum, we realized that we're completely soaked. At least the parts that don't have rain jacket on them, and additionally, Mary's shoes are flooded (waterproof Gortex shoes don't do much for you when your soaked skirt is delivering massive quantities of water directly to your socks). We decided to put off the museum for a later date, and turned around to dry off, this time by bus (the bus stop was closer).

Rome - Colosseum, Crypta Balbi Museum, Palazzo Altemps Museum

2010-05-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

The Colosseum is absolutely spectacular. It's big, round, and ~~uncut~~ tall. And it's full of arches. We walked over from our B&B, which was a pleasant 1km walk.

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Although we arrived at opening, the line was already pretty long; we took our guidebook's suggestion and headed over to the Palatine hill entrance and bought our combined ticket there. I'm not sure it's a lot faster, but I hate waiting in lines. We headed up to the second story to take in the view; it's amazing.

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Since I can, I'm going to talk about the Colosseum briefly. The Colosseum was named after the colossal statue of Nero (100 feet?) that was just outside the amphitheater. The Romans razed his palace and built this in (part of) its place. The Colosseum could seat around fifty thousand people. The seating was segregated, and there was a canvas spread over part of the top for shade and rain protection. What you'll see in all the pictures is the below-stage stuff. The floor itself was wooden and covered in sand (to absorb the blood). There were 80 trap doors that were used during plays.

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Next, we headed downstairs (upstairs seems to be closed) for more photos and general gaping.

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There were also some exhibits about gladiators.

We used Rick Steves' free audio guide downloaded in advance to our own MP3 players. We've mostly been avoiding audio guides on this trip after a lot of really disappointing ones in England last year (where language barrier isn't even an excuse), and since we are on a budget, but the Rick Steves ones for Rome have been fantastic in addition to being free. He hasn't made many of them, but I can highly recommend the ones for Italy!

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Afterward, we headed out to Crypta Balbi, a museum/excavation that describes the usage of a building and area as it progressed throughout the ages from residential to industrial and back and forth. While this wasn't all that interesting to us, the archeology student that we chatted with afterward (who explained some of it to us) seemed quite excited about it. Apparently it's one of the few sites in Rome where the medieval stuff was properly excavated, rather than just cleared away to get to the Roman stuff. It seemed pretty apparent that she had read a book or a case study about this place. The museum itself had some artifacts, but was primarily text. The best, but still confusing part was the descent to the excavations in the basement, which was used at some point as a cistern. No idea which time period used it thus.

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We also rather liked the matching dishes.

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Next, we headed off for the National Museum's best sculpture collection at Palazzo Altemps. On the way, we went past some other fountains.

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The Palazzo Altemps in fact contains some awesome sculpture, including Josh's favorite Ares to date. It was also in a cool old building with some lovely, but evidently unimportant, frescoes. (More photos, especially from the Altemps, in the gallery.)

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Along the way, we ran across really cool buildings and ruins we didn't know anything about. I think if you own a home in Rome, you can just forget about adding a basement. I don't think it's possible to put a shovel into the ground without striking some previously buried piece of history!

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Rome - Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Basilica di San Clemente

2010-05-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

Monday we had planned to go to the Vatican, but had some trouble figuring out breakfast and didn't want to go late (ie after opening time). Also didn't want to show up at the Colosseum late. Same for the other big sites. And all the museums were closed, and the Appian Way was open to traffic. Ugh. So... it took us a while to figure out what we were doing. We spent the morning planning out most of the week. Then headed out for the Partheon. We determined that Bus 116 would take us right there. But didn't pay enough attention and were pretty much at the Vatican by the time we realized. A few buses later, we finally found our way there.

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The Pantheon was big. And round. And bright. The area right under the oculus was roped off, as the floor was wet from rain. All in all, it was a bit of a let down, as it was really crowded with noisy tourists. It was smaller than we expected. And it didn't feel like a temple or a church, what with the noisy crowd. And we were in a bad mood after our bus adventure. But the marble was amazing. And it is truly a remarkable building. We hear it is quite nice early in the morning before the crowds arrive, and hope to return at opening time another day.

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Next we walked to the Trevi Fountain, which is quite an impressive Baroque fountain built in celebration of the reconnection of an aqueduct from ancient Roman times.

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We finished off the day at the Basilica di San Clemente, which is kind of a typical (to our eyes) medieval (12th century?) church. The cool stuff is in the basement where they have excavated a 4th century church, and then further down there are a Roman house and a temple to Mithras. In the Roman house there was flowing water, labeled as a "spring," though we'd not sure it wasn't just storm drain water. There wasn't much in the way of captions, nor much to see except the empty ancient buildings, but we stuck around until almost everyone (ie all the groups) left and we had it all almost to ourselves. In the quiet, down at the bottom level it was tranquil, and kind of magical to be sitting there in an ancient Roman house beside a spring, beneath the old church, beneath the old church. We sprinkled water from the spring on each other (this seems to be becoming a theme on this trip) and generally soaked it all up.

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Rome – Arrival and National Museum: Palazzo Massimo

2010-05-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

Ugh, early flight. We woke up at 1:30am after falling asleep around 7pm in order to sleep some before our 5am flight.

Arriving in Rome was fairly trouble free. We got our passports stamped by an extremely bored looking guard. I don't even think they scanned it. There was a minor snafu getting off the train at the right time (the tourist between us and the door didn't realize you needed to press a button to open the door), but the next stop worked fine too. Finding the hotel was difficult, as it was actually a tiny B&B in a flat that was poorly marked (and on this street 130 is across from 257), but we did eventually find it. Our room wasn't ready, so we looked over the sights we wanted to see in Rome, and picked up some lunch at a grocery store: bread, olives, cheese, and Chianti. Evidently the Chianti and sleep deprivation went to our heads, as we were a little woozy for a couple of hours.

Since it was a Sunday evening, we decided to get out in time to see a museum that was described as under-appreciated, so as to not be crowded. The museum was very well laid out; the quantity of items was good, and they weren't crowded. A lot of the museums we've been to take a warehouse approach to museuming, which makes it difficult to appreciate the better pieces, as you don't know which they are.

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The ~~first~~ ground floor contained mostly statues, and some other things like this nice alter.

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The first floor had more statues. Including one that looks like a good friend of ours.

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There were also lots of ancient copies of famous ancient originals.

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The second floor contained some awesome frescoes, one of which was displayed in the round (they built a room in the size and shape of the original room the fresco was taken from). Many other frescoes were displayed in partial rooms (two or three walls) in the same way. There was also an excellent selection of mosaics. And an incredible frieze on a sarcophagus. It seems that the second floor of this museum is normally much bigger, but a large section was closed off as they are redoing the museum to display more of their frescoes in rooms of the appropriate shape and size.

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The basement had coins, which are cool, but never really make good museum exhibits, at least for us. There was also a Roman mummy, and the stuff she was buried with.

It's really great being back in a part of the world where you understand the stuff you're looking at. And signs that I can read (or fake reading).

On our way out, we noticed an ad for another piece that looked awesome, and asked the info people where it was. As we headed off to it, they hassled us about going back through the entrance (they must have thought we hadn't entered yet as we hadn't checked our bag), our ticket didn't work a second time, and we raised a stink. They let us in, but it left us in a foul mood. We probably need more sleep. This piece was apparently only recently returned from the Getty, but we don't remember seeing it when we were there.

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Dinner was a good gnocchi rusticana. Alas, the $2-$4 meals have disappeared :( We'll need to spend more time cooking in Europe, but not here (no kitchen).

Egypt – Giza Necropolis, aka Pyramids

2010-05-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

At last! The Pyramids. The only one of the original "Seven Wonders" still around. It seems ridiculous that just four days ago, we were hiking along the Great Wall. Well, ridiculous and awesome. The Pyramids are big; it's really hard to capture them in a photo and convey their immensity. They were the tallest man-made structure until Medieval times. That's a record that lasted for almost four thousand years. They're still the most massive structure around (unless you count certain land fills...). Additionally, they are old. Really really old. Other than some random stone axes and whatnot in museums, the only man made thing nearly as old that I can think of is Stonehenge. I think they may just pre-date everything else (man made) we've seen by over 2000 years.

We woke up around 6am in order to catch a bus out to the Pyramids by around 7:30am, which should get us there before opening. As you can imagine, there are a lot of people that arrive later in the day, and it is also quite hot later; an early start is a good idea. We found the 'ordinary' (aka non-AC) bus at the bus station at the Antiquities Museum and rode until we could see the Pyramids, and walked around until we found the entrance. There was already a queue forming. We decided against visiting the interior of the Great Pyramid: we'd heard that it was anti-climactic, and it was somewhat expensive.

At 8am when the doors opened, we quickly walked past the largest pyramid (Khufu) to the most iconic (Khafre), which has some of its limestone cap intact. Did I mention that they're big?

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Of course, we didn't want to miss the Sphinx, and we figured it would be less crowded early, so we walked along the causeway between the second pyramid and the Sphinx, looking at the back of his head along the way. The Sphinx is a lot smaller than the Pyramids, but it's also carved from a single block of stone. It's also way cooler. The Sphinx is currently undergoing restoration work; we have mixed feelings about that. In general, we approve of things looking new, so long as they look pretty similar to how they looked originally, as it enhances our sense of wonder, but it's really important to do a good job of it. We sat down and stared slack-jawed at the Sphinx for a solid half-hour. It took almost that long for it to sink in that we were really there looking at the Sphinx and the Pyramids.

From Cairo

While we were there, we sometimes had it to ourselves, and other times tour groups would show up, take a few photos, and leave, with most people stopping where they could first see the Sphinx, not walking the extra 10 feet for an excellent view with the Great Pyramid in the background.

From Cairo

Once we'd had our fill of looking and picture taking, we worked our way toward the smallest of the Great Pyramids. We went the back way, not on roads but among the “catacombs” of other minor structures, which have been partially excavated. For the most part these other structures had their entrances closed off by iron gates, but it was interesting to peer into them and fun to walk among them while looking at the pyramids on the one side and the rolling desert on the other. Aside from the occasional brightly clad Egyptian wondering by on a camel trying to sell us a ride, we had this area all to ourselves. When we got there, we had the crumbling temple next to the small pyramid basically to ourselves, where we sat in the shade taking it all in for a while.

From Cairo

Next we walked back to the Great Pyramid and descended into the tombs of the queens in the small pyramids along side it. It was pretty cool climbing down the 45-degree tunnels into the center of the pyramids, though the tomb areas were rather anti-climactic, being basically just tiny stone rooms. All the goods being, of course, long gone. We also went into another tomb that wasn't under any pyramid.

From Cairo

On the way back, we saw the Nile. You know, the river in Egypt.

From Cairo

What a fantastic day! I don't think there's anything else, except maybe Narnia or the Hundred Acre Wood, that I've wanted to see for as long.

Egypt – Coptic Quarter

2010-05-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

Mary was recovering from being a sick, so we slept in late. We'll do the pyramids tomorrow. Today we visited the [Coptic] Christian part of town. Egypt was primarily Christian until the Arabs invaded in the 7th century. The Coptic Church split off from the Roman Catholic church in the 5th century.

The area had a Coptic museum and a few nice churches. Honestly, the building the Coptic Museum was in seemed nicer than most of the stuff they had. There was a multitude of window boxes with nice wooden screens, and the ceiling was pretty. There was a nice courtyard that rekindled our interest in having one in our home. The exhibits were well done, but not very spectacular. Cameras were prohibited, so I can only show you the outside.

From Cairo

The churches in the area felt like you might expect a Middle Eastern Church to feel like. There was incense, and the room was dark and intimate. The Hanging Church was built in an old Roman tower. The tower formerly looked out over the Nile, but the Nile has changed course since then. There was a service going on at one of the churches we dropped into, and we got sprinkled with holy water, again. :-)

From Cairo

They really seem to like St. George here. There was even a St. George convent. Lucky St. George! Not quite sure how St. George got to be so popular here though, since we went to the spot where he supposedly killed the dragon when we were in England.

From Cairo

We made it a short day and spent the afternoon playing cards, since Mary didn't want to exert herself too much just yet.

Side Topic: High Tech Guided Tours

2010-05-13T20:00:00.001-07:00

A neat new thing at the Egypt Antiquities Museum was the way they conducted the large group tours. The tour guides spoke quietly into a little microphone that transmitted to little radios the tourists in their groups had. This made it hard to join a tour we didn't belong with (good for the tour guide, bad for us), kept the museum relatively quiet (good for everyone), and we assume made the tour guide easier to hear for the participants. Now that we are in Italy, we are seeing this setup most places. It's pretty awesome, and we wish that sights would ban any other kind of group tour, because bellowing tour guides are so very obnoxious. It also allows the group to clump a little more loosely since they aren't all crowded in to hear the tour, which makes it easier to get past/around the groups.