Friday, July 30, 2010

London Eye

As I mentioned in a much earlier post, the London Eye 4D movie, was just fantastic. I still think it's one of the best promotional movies out there and the some of the best 4 minutes you can spend in London. I found a copy of it on youtube, now it's a bit fuzzy because you're not wearing the sexy glamorous glasses but still, you get the idea.



And here is a picture of us on the London Eye and a picture Sophie took and photoshopped...

Venice

So we saved the best Italian spot till last, Venice! Along with almost 100 Disney-Adventure-full-on-American parents, and their loud-full-on-American- kids, we arrived via train in Venice. This pic is from the train coming into the Venice Station.
Now, every guide book will tell you that one of the things you must do in Venice is get lost... This is something you don't have to try to do. This is something that just happens, very quickly. Within the first half hour we were lost, after lunch and checking into the hotel we were lost again. Didn't take long. See, in Venice at the start everything just kinda looks the same and at the end, to be honest, it's not much different. From very early on we ditched the maps. They are useless in Venice! Only half the streets have names. We decided to just follow the arrows that were on the wall every now and then that would eventually lead us to Piazza San Marco, the main square of Venice. From here we could find everything and we followed the same route everyday. On the way to the square we passed so many stores with masks of every size and glass from the island nearby. Everything was so beautiful.


When we arrived at the square we had a quick look around then made our way to the place where our Gondola ride would begin. We ended up being in a fleet of 11 gondola's for a trip through the tiny canals of Venice. Once Gondola, which remained in the middle, had a singer and an accordion player on it so we could all hear them.

The next day we followed the same route down to the Piazza (everyday we took a different route home, unintentionally) for an on land tour but not before I fed the pigeons!

It was actually a bit scary, I didn't want any pigeons to land on my head or arm which made me a bit jumpy so I didn't get as many pigeon fans as the other people. Not to mentioned there was an annoying Asian boy scaring them all off. We joined the tour and it was boiling hot so she was kind enough to always find the shade. We went inside the church (wearing our Catholic Clothes), saw the place where the story from the bible about the two women one baby decision was made and where Marco Polo lived for a short time. The guide was great because she was so passionate about Venice. She highlighted many of the problems that the city is having due the rising water which means that fire boats and ambulance boats can't make it under the bridges to help people. She also told us that every house in Venice has two doors, one from the canal and one from the footpath. There are no roads here.
We went for one more little tour after that one which was kind of joined on. This part though was on a boat and it went up the Grand Canal showing where all the rich people lived, the Rialto Bridge and some other things. The guide here sounded just like Heidi Klum somehow and let us stand up on the boat and all which was funner than just sitting. I don't know how she did it in heels though.
For our last day of Venice we just finished up a few things. We stole some rolls from our hotel breakfast to feed the pigeons. Today we got more and mum even had some on her arm. She was so brave, wearing her Rome dress and Florence shoes and all.
We also went up the bell tower today but it was better than all the others because... it had an elevator!!
During the time we were waiting to go up mum was worrying that it would go off because it was almost 12 or 1. Funny thing is that it did, and it was very loud.

After this we had lunch along the Grand Canal and saw the original Bridge of Sighs. That night Mum sent Sophie and I out to find some chips. Just chips. This is extremely hard in Italy to find Take Away chips. Now you may be thinking McDonald's but I never saw one in Venice, the only fast food related thing here that I witnessed was a paper Burger King Bag. But I don't know where they got it from because there was no Burger King as far as we knew. After what seemed ages of walking around our Piazza Roma we finally found somewhere. Mum got her chips, so did we, and we were able to watch the FIFA World Cup final in peace.

A long time ago, back when I was still in Australia, we had booked all flights for this trip. A few months ago EasyJet emailed us declaring that they cancelled our morning flight to Paris and put us on a more expensive afternoon flight. The next we made it to the airport and the first problem arose. Mum got the times wrong so we had to wait even longer for check in. Luckily Sophie had her Ipod touch so I could watch St. Trinians and she could go on the internet on her phone. Once we could check in a giant lined developed but I noticed everyone was kinda in the wrong one, so I went over to the next lady. Well, this didn't go down to well with the fellow passengers. They all began yelling at me in Italian and French, so I got back in the wrong line. Then they figured out I was right, so this giant stampede formed as people moved to the next checkouts. Stupid, stupid people. By now I just wanted to get out of Italy, I had really had enough of been taken as an American (because no other country speaks English so we must have been American) and dealing with people like this. It also must have been bitchy Italian day because the ladies working in the store we wanted to get some M&M's from just snatched the food from us. Then our flight was delayed, then there was another stampede to the gate, then another off the bus onto the plane. We told Sophie to not wait for us and to just get on the plane luckily she did and got us seats together. Finally we were in the air. Thanks EasyJet for the easy transfer. This was the only bad part of Venice.

Florence

Florence was my second favourite Italian city. We arrived on train and caught a taxi to our hotel which was about no more than a 5 minute walk from the train station. But we didn't know that at the time. The hotel, Hotel Universo, was awesome and arty, I highly recommend it. Every room is different and every floor has a different style. We landed with 'floral' and our room was black silver and a bit of orange. After checking in we went for a walk around and a bit of an expensive lunch all before our afternoon tour.
The tour started off really nice. We had a bus trip up through the country side where we could see a bit more of Tuscany with the sunflower fields and all. Also from the top of the hill we could see down into Florence, sadly the bus was never allowed to stop. The road was extremely narrow both up and down however on the way down our driver managed to hit a post, he kept going. By now, about 45 minutes into the tour another man and us all started to drift off to sleep. It was incredibly hard to stay awake and it just got worse as we then started walking towards the museum. The guide was incredibly boring and just droned on and on about places like this.
We finally get to the museum and whats the main focus? Jesus and Mary art. I couldn't have been more thrilled... Don't get me wrong I actually don't mind Jesus and Mary portraits I think they're quite nice but there were 100's in here and they all looked the same! The stand out painting in the museum was The Birth of Venus, I've always loved this picture and it was really cool to see the original and it was much larger than I imagined. The guide however kept talking and sweating and then he kinda just ended things and left us there. Three people had already left the tour which I think gave him a clear indication of some things. Sophie and I just wanted to get out and another member of our tour, an American film graduate, needed help getting back to the train station. This guy, I must mention, had the Dark Mark tattooed on his arm. Hehe, odd but cool. We made it back to the station and then to our hotel after Sophie paid something like 7€ for an ice cream. I told you it was expensive in Florence.

The next day was my birthday, yipee. It wasn't a very good birthday, but it was a good day. In the morning I got a pretty star necklace and lotto tickets from the Andersons which was the only present I actually got that day. But that's all ok, we went for a walk around after breakfast and to a bridge with lots of shops on it. They were all jewellery shops too.
We kept walking up along the river and found these locks which we put on the fence by people who loved each other. So, no Kieran, I'm sorry but it wasn't just someone who really loved their bike.
Then we found this cat! At first we thought he was stuck, then we figured out we wasn't but he was just down by the river on the little edge of the wall. Just chilling. Weird Italian cat.
Soon enough it was time for our next tour which would be taking us out to Pisa. As soon as we got off the bus in the carpark near the town entrance we were bombarded with people selling bags, water, umbrellas (again like in Rome) and all that. Really, they would stand at the door of the bus so it was hard to get out then follow you till you left the park. Once we were inside the city walls they were all gone and we could admire the tower and cathedral in peace. First impression was that the tower leans more than I imagined. We changed over tour guides and were taken into the cathedral where we could Galileo Galilee's light. It was here that he first realised (during church) that it had taken the light the same amount of time to get from one end of the swing to the centre point on each sides. Clever clever.
The cathedral is also on a slant like the tower. If you had a ball and put it on the ground on the inside it would roll in the same direction as the tower of Pisa does. Also this is the reason the light above doesn't hang in the direct centre of Jesus face in the painting, because its on a tilt. The guide thought this was the easiest question in the world but none of us got it. A little fact though, the Baptistery at the front leans in the other direction, so the ball would roll in the opposite direction to which the leaning tower leans.
We didn't go inside the tower because there wasn't enough time but walking around was interesting. You could see the cables holding it up and everything. Sophie made me do the horrible tourist photo like the other 100 people.
I think this next photo is really good because it shows how much it leans away from the church.
When we got back into Florence we went for a little walk and to buy a nutella crepe for soph and some of these fruit cups that the stores were selling. Basically a giant plastic cup with cut up fruits in it. Main point is we saw this guy who had two fully dogs in the back basket of his bike and they even had little seat belt things. It was so cute.
Our last day in Florence was the funnest by far. In the morning we went for a look inside this church, it was okay but the outside is much better with the green tiles and all.
Then we walked up 100's of stairs, again, to get to the top of this bell tower.
To see these views...
It was spectacular up there, a full look of Florence. I'd show more pictures but they all kind of look the same with the red roofs. In the afternoon came the most anticipated part of Florence, the Segway tour! Believe me, they really are as fun as they look. At first everyone was a bit wobbly. We were teamed up with a man and his two kids from Holland so there was 6 in the group. We were all taught how to stop, reverse, park and drive. When I first hopped on I was surprised by how lightweight they were. I always imagined them to be heavy and that you really had to push them forward but in the end the slightest movement had you going. Once everyone was ready we went off and everybody was staring at us and asking where they could get them from. We went to heaps of places during the tour even to a square where the guide had her first apartment, first concert and first kiss.
At the end of the tour I could barley feel my feet, the easy way of getting round actually hurt. None of us crashed or had an accident, though the guide ran over an old Chinese mans foot. He wasn't impressed. We were given an extra 10 minutes at the end where we could do whatever we wanted so we all zoomed off. We ended up at a piazza that we were at before and the lady had told us not to ride over it however somehow my segway ended up on the edge then I had no control. It just sped forward on the tiles and I couldn't slow it down. Eventually I got to the edge but that was the only problem I had.



That night we just took it easy again and had dinner in the piazza out front of our hotel. We originally just went out for some chips but ended up getting a whole meal. It was nice to be out there though as the piazzas are really popular meeting points so lots of different people were there. And this was the end of Florence.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Roma Roma Roma

Finally we left England, flew over these Alps on our Easyjet flight and landed in Rome.
My first impression of Rome, honestly, was that it was hot and dirty. It was almost 40 degrees that day, and everyday after. The train ride from the airport to Termini Roma wasn't exactly beautiful. And dragging our suitcases along the cobbles to the hotel wasn't exactly fun. And the place just generally wasn't clean. You're sweaty, you're tired, you're hot, you're in Rome. Overall Rome was my least favourite Italian city out of the ones we went to. We checked in then went for a walk and had some gelato in front of this church which was less than five minutes away from our hotel.
One of the best things about Rome is that the Gelato is cheap. Very cheap compared to Florence. We followed our map to where this 3D intro to Rome movie was. It took us ages to find and once we watched it mum and I both felt so sick as your seat moved as well. The movie was great but not so much on an empty stomach. We then went walking around and into this museum where Sophie got told by a policeman not to lean on the side of the steps. The inside was a bit boring but the views from the outside were very impressive.
The ruins in Rome are just incredible. I didn't think that there would be so many all in the one spot. After having a quick look at some we found a place to eat. Since we had arrived in Rome Soph and I would never stop singing 'When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that amore' so we were so happy when it came on in the restaurant.
Once we finished lunch we went down for a walk around the Colosseum. Sophie found these facebook 'like' stickers which we thought were really classic. The Colosseum really is as big as you would imagine it to be and as impressive.
Slowly we wandered to where we would begin our night bus tour. Our guide was Vanessa who had this sweet Italian accent when she spoke English, it was so cute. The tour went all around Rome and for the most part it wasn't fully dark yet but more sunset which was really nice. We stopped at the Trevi Fountain which was as packed with tourist as you would imagine.
The tour stopped at Piazza Navona as well which we went back to the next day. It was really beautiful to see Rome at night and with air con. The only downside to the tour was the invasion of Americans which stole our seat at one point too but they were obese so I just felt sorry for them. Then again maybe not... fat philly's. The next day was just as hot and we went inside the Colosseum which was incredibly confusing but amazing at the same time.
Afterwards we got on yet another hop on hop off bus (these buses are awesome I'm telling you) and went back to Piazza Navona. It's really nice here and a little more quiet from the hussle and bussle around the Colosseum. Here I also got to fill up my water bottle at one of the many taps in Rome. The water is drinkable and free! And who doesn't like that on a hot day especially when this water is colder than the ones in the shop!
Next stop if I remember rightly was the Spanish steps. This place was crowded, the shops all had SALDI! written on them meaning it was half year sale time. Mum even brought a nice dress. We climbed the stairs and had a look around then did some shopping.
We waited a very long time for the hop on hop off bus to come pick us up from the stop near the steps. We sat in the blistering sun perfecting our tans and judging all the scooters that went past (Sophie decided that all the scooters with a box on the back were the better ones). I must give the Italian women some deserved appreciation. The way they can wear the clothes they wear on those scooters is very admirable as I my self know how hard it can be to wear that short dress or those heels on a scoot or vespa. That night we just spent inside our room, it was too hot to go out and we really just needed a rest.

The next morning was just as hot as the rest but it was about to get hotter as we had to wear our Catholic Clothes. Meaning something that covered our shoulders and knees. It was Vatican Day. Here I am in my Catholic clothes.
We walked around forever trying to find the meeting place of our Vatican Tour. I really believed that we were going to miss it. I believe that the church part is actually a let down in size, it's a bit small, but the Vatican City is huge when you have to find a meeting point. Even if it's the smallest country in the world. Luckily we found our meeting point and got on the tour in time. Inside was a real 'omg' tour. So much gold, so much wealth, so much art. This place could end world hunger and provide clean water for 3rd world countries with a quarter of its stuff. Unbelievable. The Sistine chapel (not that I'd call it a chapel) was so cool. The painting with the fingers and all is truly worth seeing sadly you can't take photos and the security is big on keeping everyone quiet.

We were able to go into the cathedral after but not too much else as the Pope was doing some business meetings so areas were blocked off. We left afterwards to go straight back to the hotel and change into more summer appropriate clothing. Had lunch, did some laundry, then visited the Pantheon and the Trevi fountain again. That night we just took it easy and walked down to the Colosseum to see it at night and then that was the end of Rome.