Thursday, June 20, 2013
Europe Part 3, concluded.
So ends my third journey to Europe. It was fun traveling with my friends for the first time, and that first time being across Europe. It was good relying on my past experiences at certain cities, and my memory of where things are and how to get to places remained in my head. I had a better camera this type, so I got to take better pictures. I actually had to pay for my food this time, and didn't rely on only cheap meals. My highlights of this trip include the whole country of Croatia, the food at the Beer halls in Munich, Augustiner Edelstoff bier, pizza in Napoli, and everything about the city of Rome. We stayed in some great apartments, and some great hostels. You get what you pay for. I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do, but if it means a return trip to said places, than I guess that is what fate has in store for me. When I return to Europe again? It remains to be seen, but there are obviously many places I have in mind. The Dalmatian Coast of Croatia, specifically Split & Dubrovnik, Prague, a trip to Paris again, Vienna, and definitely my return to Rome. Rome will always be Caput Mundi (Capital of the World) to me, the history, the art, the food, and the culture are the best. I'm not exactly sure if I'll go to Munich again in the summer, but definitely for Oktoberfest one day. I probably will never go to Venice again. And as much as I love Florence, it's time to move on and see other places in Italy like Siena again, Padua, more of Milan, etc. Sorry I couldn't update this when I was away, but spotty Internet connections and pretty much going out at night after an exhausting day is a lethal combination.
Auf Wiedersehen
And here is how leaving Rome and entering Munich sucked. We boarded on time and everything, except these older German idiots lost their airplane tickets, so we had to wait forever for that. Then there is only one working runway at Fiumicino, so I passed out before we had taken off, only to find out one hour later, we were just leaving. Then what should be an hour flight to Munich, took forever, since it was rainy in Munich, and they had the same problem with one working runway. And obviously they give preference to the bigger jets leaving and entering Munich. So we circled Munich a few times before we ran out of fuel and had to land at Nurnburg airport. Where some very antsy people got off the plane pissed off and where even the workers at Alitalia didn't know what to do. They had one attendant who could speak Italian, German, and English so he was getting swarmed. They weren't sure if they were going to bus us to the train station, then put us on a train, or try get another flight. Eventually we had to refuel which took a long time, and they had ran out of drinks, since they only stocked for an Hour 15 minute flight. So we finally landed in Munich about 3 hours late, and desperate to find out if the Luftansa airport bus was still running. Luckily we caught it as they were about to take off, and we had a Turkish driver who could actually speak English. We made it to Wombats City around 9 something, and we were desperately hungry. We didn't feel like going all the way to Hirschgarden, so we decided to eat at the Augustiner Keller again. We pretty much got put in our own room, and had a good waiter named Samir. Everything was SUPER, as he kept saying. I had to get some more Schweinbrauten before I left, David got a meat sampler, Jeremy got some weinerschnitzel, and Julian got some suckling pig. They also had two steins worth of Augustiner and pretzels. We bought our steins, gave our waiter a big tip, and were ready to go drinking at our hostel's bar. We met some Germans on the tram back to the Hauptbahnhoff, and invited them to drink with us after, and two of them got drunk after the plethora of Jager shots they were drinking. Julian ate an entire sandwich doused in mustard, as the legend of the mustard jacket goes on. We went to some popping bars at Kultfabrik, and had some cheap beers and we exited at about 4 am. It was dark, cold, and everybody was extrmely tired, so we passed out loudly and probably snored loudly much to our shared roomates chagrin. But we woke up in the morning, our roommate from Minnesota was cool, he had a plane to catch at Ireland. We got some last minute shopping in near the Marienplatz. We started at a Dallmayr's chocolate, then we went to the Hofbrauhaus shop, David bought the cheapest lederhosen from this traditional bavarian store, that was 210 euros. The nicest one was 900 euros, but the handcraftery and the leather was perfect.
After that I had to stop at Sport Munziger to buy some German football stuff before we headed back to the train station. There is also a Bayern Munich store at the train station, but many of the good items were sold out. We got on the luftansa bus back to the airport at about 1. Checking in was cool there, because I got to finally use my luftansa card in their machines, you can your passport there, and then it prints your ticket. A lot better technology than LAX. Dropping off our luggage was no problem, no weight problems. I stopped by the Bayern Munich store at the airport, where they had a lot better selection. But I got stuck behind a film crew in the security line, so it took FOREVER behind them. Because every single item in their luggage has to be scanned thoroughly so that sucked. We ended up at some crappy cafeteria type food, since I thought Airbrau was only in the Airport center, and I feared a long passport line. However, when went upstairs there was no passport line, the lady joked that were in Munich only when it rained, which was kind of accurate, and to add insult to injury, there was a Airbrau right there upstairs near our Gate. So we all were kind of upset, but whatever. Our flight was boarding when we got upstairs, and had to go through the two more ticket security checks, before we finally boarded the Airbus with the downstairs bathroom back tot the state and said Auf Wiedersehen to Deutschland
After that I had to stop at Sport Munziger to buy some German football stuff before we headed back to the train station. There is also a Bayern Munich store at the train station, but many of the good items were sold out. We got on the luftansa bus back to the airport at about 1. Checking in was cool there, because I got to finally use my luftansa card in their machines, you can your passport there, and then it prints your ticket. A lot better technology than LAX. Dropping off our luggage was no problem, no weight problems. I stopped by the Bayern Munich store at the airport, where they had a lot better selection. But I got stuck behind a film crew in the security line, so it took FOREVER behind them. Because every single item in their luggage has to be scanned thoroughly so that sucked. We ended up at some crappy cafeteria type food, since I thought Airbrau was only in the Airport center, and I feared a long passport line. However, when went upstairs there was no passport line, the lady joked that were in Munich only when it rained, which was kind of accurate, and to add insult to injury, there was a Airbrau right there upstairs near our Gate. So we all were kind of upset, but whatever. Our flight was boarding when we got upstairs, and had to go through the two more ticket security checks, before we finally boarded the Airbus with the downstairs bathroom back tot the state and said Auf Wiedersehen to Deutschland
I already miss you Rome.
We had to start a little early today, because we had Vatican Musuem reservations at 930, but it was a B&B type hostel, so they made us breakfast around 8:45. It was like toast, cereal, milk, coffee, and juice. I really just had the cereal, and a bite of the toast, and was antsy to drop our bags off, and get on the subway to St. Peters. The walk to the museum entrance had a huge line for the people without tickets, but we got through no problems at the reserved tickets line. At the ticket booth, we only had 3 student ids, but the dude pointed out my AS roma shirt and gave me a thumbs up and let us go through. We started with the Pinacoteca since it was closed at the night door, and it was definitely one of the main reasons I wanted to come back to Rome, and it didn't disappoint.
Raphael's Transfiguration is a 13 foot tall masterpiece.
Leonardo's St. Jerome in the Wilderness had a huge German class in front of it, so we really couldn't get a good view of it, but its another neat unfinished Leonardo painting. That dude is a lazy ass like that guy Michelangelo.
Then we saw one of the highlights of the trip, the Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio. This is one of my favorite paintings, so seeing it in person was awe inspiring. This lady next to us giving a private tour to some elderly couple, remarked herself that it was her favorite item in the whole museum. Just the realism and everything about the painting is remarkable. So remarkable that some street fashion brand that Kanye West wears, slapped the image on a blank Champion branded hoodie, and charges 400 bucks for it.
After this we went to Cortile della Pigna which we skipped last time, and saw the lame Sphere within Sphere statue that apparently is also at UC Berkeley.
From there we were going to go to the Braccio Nuovo so I could finally see the Augustus of Prima Porta, something I was waiting to see for 2 years, only for that part of the museum to be closed. So I still haven't seen this sculpture I so desperately want to see, but whatever. We then had one more stop to make, the Etrustcan/Greek antiquity room so I could see the famous pot of Ajax and Achilles, before we sped through the rest of the museum to get to the Sistine Chapel for our showdown with No Photo guy.
However, No Photo guy wasn't working, and some other tourist laughed when we were saying Silence Please, No Photos. But we did sneak some videos, and some pictures of the roof of the Sistine chapel. And then some guard stalked my friends and made them put their phones/cameras in their pocket. I couldn't sneak an image of any of the side paintings which stinks, and its impossible to get one of the Last Judgment with the guards standing right in front of it. But it was great seeing this stuff again, since I probably won't go to the Vatican again when I go to Rome, unless the Braccio Nuovo is open.
After this, I emphasize that we followed Jeremy out the wrong exit of Sistine Chapel, instead of ending up right outside by St. Peters Basilica. So we had to go through the long maze of the Vatican museum gift shops that puts you out where you started, a long ways from St. Peters.
Jeremy and Julian stopped at some gelato place, and David and I walked to St. Peters square only to find a ginormous line for the general public to get inside St. Peters. With the time constraint we were under, we had no time, so I was annoyed that I didn't get to go inside St. Peters Basilica at all on this vacation. Again, an excuse to come back to Rome. haha.
We did some Rome gift shopping near the Piazza, before we hailed a cab back to Termini. Our taxi driver showed us a good restaurant to get Porchetta, but we had no time, and tried really hard to get us to go with him to the airport. But we had to get our luggage, and he had a small taxi. So we rushed to get our luggage, and get on the train express to Fiumicino airport. It's really cool that you can take public transport from the main train station to the airport, too bad LA sucks. From there, we were lost on what stand to go to at Alitalia, but eventually found it, before we had to wait in a huge line for security at the terminal. It was a pain to take out every electronic item I had on me. But I got some McDonalds, and got my old reliable meal, before we boarded our flight out of there.
Raphael's Transfiguration is a 13 foot tall masterpiece.
Leonardo's St. Jerome in the Wilderness had a huge German class in front of it, so we really couldn't get a good view of it, but its another neat unfinished Leonardo painting. That dude is a lazy ass like that guy Michelangelo.
Then we saw one of the highlights of the trip, the Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio. This is one of my favorite paintings, so seeing it in person was awe inspiring. This lady next to us giving a private tour to some elderly couple, remarked herself that it was her favorite item in the whole museum. Just the realism and everything about the painting is remarkable. So remarkable that some street fashion brand that Kanye West wears, slapped the image on a blank Champion branded hoodie, and charges 400 bucks for it.
After this we went to Cortile della Pigna which we skipped last time, and saw the lame Sphere within Sphere statue that apparently is also at UC Berkeley.
From there we were going to go to the Braccio Nuovo so I could finally see the Augustus of Prima Porta, something I was waiting to see for 2 years, only for that part of the museum to be closed. So I still haven't seen this sculpture I so desperately want to see, but whatever. We then had one more stop to make, the Etrustcan/Greek antiquity room so I could see the famous pot of Ajax and Achilles, before we sped through the rest of the museum to get to the Sistine Chapel for our showdown with No Photo guy.
However, No Photo guy wasn't working, and some other tourist laughed when we were saying Silence Please, No Photos. But we did sneak some videos, and some pictures of the roof of the Sistine chapel. And then some guard stalked my friends and made them put their phones/cameras in their pocket. I couldn't sneak an image of any of the side paintings which stinks, and its impossible to get one of the Last Judgment with the guards standing right in front of it. But it was great seeing this stuff again, since I probably won't go to the Vatican again when I go to Rome, unless the Braccio Nuovo is open.
After this, I emphasize that we followed Jeremy out the wrong exit of Sistine Chapel, instead of ending up right outside by St. Peters Basilica. So we had to go through the long maze of the Vatican museum gift shops that puts you out where you started, a long ways from St. Peters.
Jeremy and Julian stopped at some gelato place, and David and I walked to St. Peters square only to find a ginormous line for the general public to get inside St. Peters. With the time constraint we were under, we had no time, so I was annoyed that I didn't get to go inside St. Peters Basilica at all on this vacation. Again, an excuse to come back to Rome. haha.
We did some Rome gift shopping near the Piazza, before we hailed a cab back to Termini. Our taxi driver showed us a good restaurant to get Porchetta, but we had no time, and tried really hard to get us to go with him to the airport. But we had to get our luggage, and he had a small taxi. So we rushed to get our luggage, and get on the train express to Fiumicino airport. It's really cool that you can take public transport from the main train station to the airport, too bad LA sucks. From there, we were lost on what stand to go to at Alitalia, but eventually found it, before we had to wait in a huge line for security at the terminal. It was a pain to take out every electronic item I had on me. But I got some McDonalds, and got my old reliable meal, before we boarded our flight out of there.
a final night in Rome
Back in Rome for the Night. When we pulled into the train station we had to go to the left side of Stazione Termini this time, where all the Afrians, beggars, and in general dirty people are chilling. So it was weird walking by them with our luggage in tow, but we were walking fast and not easy targets at all. It was a less than 200 m walk to our hostel, so that was good. But we had a crappy elevator to take us to our rooms, our rooms were hot, but if the window was open, it gets really loud. But we had internet, so that was important. From there, I was in a rush to get to the AS Roma store before it closed. The easiest accessible one was in Piazza Colonna so we had to walk there all the way from Piazza Barberini which wasn't bad. We got to look at the Trevi Fountain again, while it was blistering hot, and full of tourists. But we made it to Piazza Colonna, where I finally got a good view of the Marcus Aurelius column, and also made it in time to the A.S. Roma store.
So I was stoked to stock up on some gear from my favorite football club, before I headed home to the states. We walked up Via del Corso all the way to Piazza del Popolo, and enjoyed a nice snack of Burger King chicken nuggets and fries. They charge for sauce there, and their manager wears like a really expensive Armani suit. but whatever. We got back to Termini to drop off our stuff (my big bag of Roma gear) and waited forever at the Bus Stand for the bus to Trastevere. It took a long time for the bus to come, and there was a ton of people waiting for it to arrive. We ate at a cheap place in Trastevere, but recommended from Davis's friend, and made the fatal mistake to eat inside. It was light raining outside, but nice, but inside was an inferno with a pesky fly hovering around. But every thing on the menu was extremely cheap, so I got some Spaghetti Bolognese, Trippa alla Romana, water and some vino for about 15 euros. We were going to go to some craft beer place, but it was raining, there wasn't any street signs to indicate the street we wanted, so we ended up missing Open Baladin. Again, always an excuse to come back to this city I love. So we ended up walking by Piazza Venezia again, and the gorgeous Vittorio Emanuel monument in the night, and ended up back at Scholars Pub. This night was a little more lively with students, but with dumb American students who you could tell were too young for bars in the states. We caught a cab back to Termini, and crashed at the hostel in the hot room
So I was stoked to stock up on some gear from my favorite football club, before I headed home to the states. We walked up Via del Corso all the way to Piazza del Popolo, and enjoyed a nice snack of Burger King chicken nuggets and fries. They charge for sauce there, and their manager wears like a really expensive Armani suit. but whatever. We got back to Termini to drop off our stuff (my big bag of Roma gear) and waited forever at the Bus Stand for the bus to Trastevere. It took a long time for the bus to come, and there was a ton of people waiting for it to arrive. We ate at a cheap place in Trastevere, but recommended from Davis's friend, and made the fatal mistake to eat inside. It was light raining outside, but nice, but inside was an inferno with a pesky fly hovering around. But every thing on the menu was extremely cheap, so I got some Spaghetti Bolognese, Trippa alla Romana, water and some vino for about 15 euros. We were going to go to some craft beer place, but it was raining, there wasn't any street signs to indicate the street we wanted, so we ended up missing Open Baladin. Again, always an excuse to come back to this city I love. So we ended up walking by Piazza Venezia again, and the gorgeous Vittorio Emanuel monument in the night, and ended up back at Scholars Pub. This night was a little more lively with students, but with dumb American students who you could tell were too young for bars in the states. We caught a cab back to Termini, and crashed at the hostel in the hot room
See you Florence. See you in a very long time
Once again I woke up early to do my own thing in the morning. I started off at the Medici Chapel. They had some exhibit on of something, I dunno, but they had a bunch of pieces of Medici art on loan from other museums across Italy, so that was cool. They were doing some restoration of the grand tombs, so I couldn't get the best views of them, but it was neat seeing the tombs of Lorenzo and Giuliano Medici in the tomb done by Michelangelo. I appreciate those tombs a lot more, especially after watching that new Starz show, Da Vinci's Demons. After that, I walked to the Mercato Centrale to find a fruit stand and get some farmer fresh peaches. I got two good peaches for 70 cents. I went to the Duomo museum after that.
They were doing some work on the building so a lot of the Bruneschelli stuff on his tools of building the dome was closed, so I guess I didn't get to see the stuff I read about in the book about Brunesechelli and the dome. But it was cool, I got to see Michelangelo's other Pieta, and Raphael's ugly Mary Magdelene again. This time however, they had some really nice altarpiece and cross of St. John the Baptist on display, that wasn't there two years ago. So those two pieces were really neat to see.
I also got to look at the finally restored original Lorenzo Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise" in display in the courtyard. Man that stuff is impressive, because even the faded fake one on display on the baptistery doors and at some church in San Francisco looks good. But seeing the O.G. stuff in pristine condition, you honestly see why Michelangelo nicknamed these doors the "Gates of Paradise"
After this, we had to pack up, and check out the room and move our bags to the storage room. We started off with going inside the Duomo, since I've actually never been inside it before, excluding the Dome. They had some huge frescos including one of some English mercenary knight, a dope picture of Dante Aligheri, and its cool seeing the Last Supper dome painting from the ground floor.
We then had a nice walk on my street again, past my old apartment, pass the throngs of Chinese tourists before ending up at Santa Croce. From here, David and I went and looked at all those tombs again to see some frescoes by Giotto and stuff. It's still neat seeing those tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, Ghiberti, Machiavelli, and the empty Dante one.
This time I went inside the Pazzi Chapel instead of exiting right away with worn out classmates. The interior of the cloister is neat, it was designed by Brunelleschi, but the interior of the chapel is whatever. However, it was sealed for a long time and the interior deteriorated because it was sealed after the fatal Pazzi conspiracy.
After this we walked all the way up to Piazza Michelangelo to get a good view of Florence, since these lazy bums didn't want to climb up the Duomo or the Campanile. However, the stairs where you get the best view was closed, so everyone had to settle for pictures near the David statue. After our turn to finally getting a good picture, after this obnoxious Australian bitch took like 50 photos, we finally got to take our pictures.
We had to stop by I Fratelli one more time to get some Wild Boar salami panini's and enjoyed the throngs of tourists lining up after us. Went back to get Gelateria La Carria a final time for some cheap yet delicious gelato, and then headed up to my former super market so they could get some Chianti wines. We cruised to the Piazza del Duomo one more time, before heading to all the market stands to get some Firenze gifts near the San Lorenzo. I got some good deals on some authentic leather wallets, the 'bring your friend I give you discount' option. Jeremy and Julian got suckered into buying leather jackets, after the dudes brilliant selling pitch, and got some really nice jackets for 170 euros. After that, we really had to catch a train back to Roma, and say Ciao to Firenze. We met a nice mother/daughter couple sight-seeing in Florence, with one of the thickest Alabama Southern accents ever. But they were nice people, and loved Los Angeles.
They were doing some work on the building so a lot of the Bruneschelli stuff on his tools of building the dome was closed, so I guess I didn't get to see the stuff I read about in the book about Brunesechelli and the dome. But it was cool, I got to see Michelangelo's other Pieta, and Raphael's ugly Mary Magdelene again. This time however, they had some really nice altarpiece and cross of St. John the Baptist on display, that wasn't there two years ago. So those two pieces were really neat to see.
I also got to look at the finally restored original Lorenzo Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise" in display in the courtyard. Man that stuff is impressive, because even the faded fake one on display on the baptistery doors and at some church in San Francisco looks good. But seeing the O.G. stuff in pristine condition, you honestly see why Michelangelo nicknamed these doors the "Gates of Paradise"
After this, we had to pack up, and check out the room and move our bags to the storage room. We started off with going inside the Duomo, since I've actually never been inside it before, excluding the Dome. They had some huge frescos including one of some English mercenary knight, a dope picture of Dante Aligheri, and its cool seeing the Last Supper dome painting from the ground floor.
We then had a nice walk on my street again, past my old apartment, pass the throngs of Chinese tourists before ending up at Santa Croce. From here, David and I went and looked at all those tombs again to see some frescoes by Giotto and stuff. It's still neat seeing those tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, Ghiberti, Machiavelli, and the empty Dante one.
This time I went inside the Pazzi Chapel instead of exiting right away with worn out classmates. The interior of the cloister is neat, it was designed by Brunelleschi, but the interior of the chapel is whatever. However, it was sealed for a long time and the interior deteriorated because it was sealed after the fatal Pazzi conspiracy.
After this we walked all the way up to Piazza Michelangelo to get a good view of Florence, since these lazy bums didn't want to climb up the Duomo or the Campanile. However, the stairs where you get the best view was closed, so everyone had to settle for pictures near the David statue. After our turn to finally getting a good picture, after this obnoxious Australian bitch took like 50 photos, we finally got to take our pictures.
We had to stop by I Fratelli one more time to get some Wild Boar salami panini's and enjoyed the throngs of tourists lining up after us. Went back to get Gelateria La Carria a final time for some cheap yet delicious gelato, and then headed up to my former super market so they could get some Chianti wines. We cruised to the Piazza del Duomo one more time, before heading to all the market stands to get some Firenze gifts near the San Lorenzo. I got some good deals on some authentic leather wallets, the 'bring your friend I give you discount' option. Jeremy and Julian got suckered into buying leather jackets, after the dudes brilliant selling pitch, and got some really nice jackets for 170 euros. After that, we really had to catch a train back to Roma, and say Ciao to Firenze. We met a nice mother/daughter couple sight-seeing in Florence, with one of the thickest Alabama Southern accents ever. But they were nice people, and loved Los Angeles.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)