Return To Rome

Saturday (2/20/2010)

At 6AM this morning, the boat I was sleeping on had an annoucement that woke everyone, including me, up. It was announcing that we would arrive in Naples by 7:15. We shuffled out of the boat and due to it being dark and rainy, rather than going to Sorrento as we had planned, we drove immediately to Rome, nonstop, and arrived at around 9:00AM. We first returned our rental car, which took 1.5 hours due to crazy traffic in the city, and lack of proper signage. We then checked in to our hotel, and went to have a brunch at a snack bar. Since Rome welcomed us with sun, unlike Naples, we decided to continue exploring. We first saw the cathedral of Christo Salvatori, and then we went to the Spanish Steps a second time, to see the sights, and to take pictures in the sun. We then went again to the Vatican City, but this time, we waited in line to enter the cupola of the St. Peter's Basilica. After waiting about 30 minutes, we rode up an elevator, climbed around 300 steps and arrived at the highest point in the Vatican. From there, we could see all of Rome and the Vatican. The views were breathtaking, and we spent at least 20 minutes up there. We then descended to explore the roof of the cathedral, and then walked around the inside of the cathedral for the last time. After our last visit to the Vatican, we slowly went back to our hotel via Metro. After relaxing for about 2 hours, we ate at a traditional Italian restaurant that was absolutely packed, and had a 5-course dinner that lasted almost 2 hours. We went back to the hotel and almost immediately went to sleep after a seemingly short, but tiring day.

Sunday (2/21/2010)

Today was our last full day in Italy. We woke up, had our hotel breakfast, and had a goal of visiting the sights of Rome we haven't yet seen. We first took metro to the Basilica of St. Paul. We entered during the Sunday morning mass and walked around. We saw the tomb of St. Paul, as well as the portraits of all of the popes since St. Peter. There are only 7 spots left for portraits, which leads some people to believe that the end of Christianity or of the world is soon to come. After we left the basilica, we visited the Pyramid of Cestius, which is a pyramid in the middle of Rome. It looks very misplaced, but is still interesting. From there, we took the metro to Circo Massimo, which is the remains of the world's first Stadium, but all that remains is a grass field with a sandy bottom. We walked its length to a strange church with a large tablet which will supposedly chop your hand off if you put your hand in it. I would've put my hand in it if not for the line, which was at least 30 minutes long, so it was simply not worth it. We then went to a real Roman cuisine restaurant (Cuchina Romana) to have "Dinner" which is eaten between 12-3PM. There were all sorts of weird dishes, such as bools tail, tripe soup and some other items from the insides of animals. From the restaurant, we went to the Piazza Repubblica downtown to see an extremely old church with contemporary sculptures and features. From there we visited the Campo di Fiori, in which flowers are sold during the day, and then we walked by the Tiber River through the Ghetto, where many of Rome's Jewish people lived when pope Paul VI separated them from Romans. We also saw the Great Synagouge of Rome, which is Rome's largest. As we walked through the ghetto, we also saw many more Roman ruins, including Julius Caesar's death location. Lastly, we visited the Trastevere, the area of Rome behind the Tiber River, and had some pastries at a nice cafe in the main square of Trastevere. From here, we wanted to return to the hotel, but we didn't know which bus to take. We ended up taking a huge circle around Rome, but finally managed to reach the hotel in time to have a good night sleep.

Tomorrow, we'll be taking a taxi to the airport in the morning, and flying out to Philly at 11AM, and arriving in Providence by around 5PM.

Sicilian Adventures

Here is what happened for the past two days:

Thursday (2/18/2010)

Today, nothing at all went as we had planned, but we still had an excellent day. First, we had our typical hotel breakfast, and then we drove off to Mt. Etna where we were going to have an excursion to the crater. We noticed that throughout this trip, we experienced all 4 seasons of the year. Winter in Rome the day it snowed, spring in Rome and Naples, summer in Palermo and Sicily, and fall on the slopes of Mt. Etna. It was quite amazing. When we arrived at the excursion center near the top of Etna, it was buried in at least 3 feet of snow. When we went inside the info center, it turned out they would be closed for weeks, due to the recent snowfall and wind. We were disappointed, but we took amazing pictures from the incredible views on our position in Etna. There was even a world cup for skiing occurring on the mountain at the time. We descended down the mountain and set our GPS for a river gorge that we would walk through. On our way, we stopped at a sleepy little town called Zafferani. It was very small, but had a nice, cozy feel to it. We stopped by a pastry shop and had the best pastries and coffee in the entire trip, and we stopped by a little grocery store, and purchased the cheapest water we’ve ever gotten in Europe, €0.25 per bottle (from the typical €1-2).

We followed our GPS for a while, and got some excellent views of the Sicilian landscape, but we felt like we were going away from all cities, and we just saw farmland and real Sicilian towns. When our GPS said we arrived, we were on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Our GPS got us lost. What happened was we accidentally reset the GPS to the wrong address, and it took us to the end of a paved road. We were 10 miles from our real destination. We drove back to the gorges we wanted to visit, and it turned out it was closed, due to too high waters. What a bummer, the second thing that was closed contrary to our plan. We still had some excellent views of the river gorge, and took some great pictures. We were then going to drive to Taormina, to visit the ruins of an Ancient Greek amphitheatre. We joked that they would be closed for some ridiculous reason, like “out of paper tickets” or “suspected earthquake”, but we knew that it would be one thing that would go according to our plan. When we arrived in Taormina, the very troubling thing to find was parking. We looked everywhere, we drove through the entire city twice, taking little curving streets with 360 degree turns, but we still failed to find public parking. Very few people, even young people, speak English so even getting directions is a puzzle. When we finally found a parking garage, we were relieved, and rolled in to pick up a ticket. The machine said “Garage Full”. We were flabbergasted, as it was February, but it turns out that public parking was closed for the winter, even though there was summer weather. We finally found another parking area right outside of the city limits, but had an elevator to the city center. We took it and finally arrived on Taormina’s main street.

It was a nice, cozy little town with astonishing views of the surrounding landscape. When we arrived at the ruins, it was 4:35PM. They were closing the gate that was adorned with a sign that read a 4:30PM closing time. Our plan was once again ruined. We still enjoyed a wonderful view of the landscape and a stroll through the nice old town. The buildings there were all very neat and unique. We finally drove back to our hotel in Giardini Naxos where we relaxed for a couple of hours before going out for dinner. We ate at a pizzeria/pasta place, and since we were the first to dine (most Italians start dinner at 8:30ish), the owner let us take my pizza out of the oven for pictures. The pizza was some of the best I’ve ever had, preceded only by the pizza in Monaco last year. We then walked back to our hotel and pretty much immediately went to sleep.

Friday (2/19/2010)

Today was a long, but successful day. It started with a large breakfast. I had 5 croissants, yet still managed to be hungry later in the day. We checked out of our hotel in Giardini Naxos, and then drove back to Taormina to visit the ruins that we failed to see yesterday. Since we knew exactly where it was, we weren’t lost, and got there just in time. We took another stroll through Taormina’s nice main street, and arrived at the Ancient Greek amphitheater. Even with Mt. Etna covered with clouds, it was still an enlightening experience, learning about the origins of the theater, and also seeing the breathtaking views of Giardini Naxos, Taormina, and Scylla. If it weren’t a little foggy, we could’ve seen mainland Italy from the theater. After that, we left Taormina, and had a non-stop ride through the Sicilian inland to Palermo. It was about 2-and-a-half hours long, and the views were decent, besides the clouds. We passed through the city of Enna, in the geometrical center of the island, at over 3,000 feet in altitude. When we arrived in Palermo, it was sunny and quite hot, so we were quite lucky. I can’t imagine how hot it must be in the summer. We parked in the port, and started to walk through Palermo towards the opera house. My brother and I had a quick, late lunch at a McDonalds, and we then walked down another street. A man with a horse carriage stopped us and offered us a ride through the sights of Palermo for “trenta euro” which we thought meant €30. We accepted the ride. It was interesting to ride in a horse carriage with crazy Italian drivers swerving around us, including a bus which was trying to trample our horse. We stopped at the famous buildings in Palermo: the cathedral, fountains, opera house, theater, and a mosque that was converted to a church. When we finished the tour, the man showed us the brochure with a price tag of €80. We were confused, because we thought he meant €30, but after negotiation, we were able to pay €40. We spent the rest of our time eating at a nice Italian pizzeria/pasticeria, and then drove to the port where we embarked on our ferry, departed, and slept.

Now, we're going back to Rome, spending a few days there before returning to the U.S. on Monday.

Naples and a Boat

It’s been a long 4 days since I last posted, so I’ll summarize them here. Also, I've heard that people are having trouble accessing the website for the blog, which has all of my posts from previous trips, and will (soon) have pictures from this one. Simply go to http://aceurope.blogspot.com , and everything will be there.

Sunday (2/14/2010)

Today, we got up, had breakfast, and went to get a rental car. We reserved with Hertz, one of the largest rental companies in the world, 2 months in advance, and when we got there, he said he has a car for us. He wanted to give us a SmartCar, which seats only 2 people, while we need to seat 4 plus luggage. When we explained that we couldn’t take it, and we ordered a car for 4 people, he said we’d have to wait a few hours. We immediately cancelled the order, went to a neighboring car rental service and ordered a car for the same price and better insurance in just minutes. This car was also our first test with Italy’s crazy drivers. We made it safely to the hotel, and from there took the two hour drive to Sorrento, a town near Naples which had our hotel. On our way, we stopped at a rest area on the highway. I ate some pretty good pizza, and my parents said that the coffee was excellent. When we arrived at our hotel, we were impressed. It had an extremely nice view of Vesuvius, and the rooms and lobby were very large and nice. It is probably the best hotel I’ve ever been to. In the afternoon, we visited a nice village 5 minutes away called Vico Equense. You could walk every street within 20 minutes and had a square with a nice fountain. There were restaurants and pastry shops everywhere. When we walked in a restaurant for dinner, we were informed that they don’t serve food until at least 7PM. Disappointed, we returned to the hotel to relax and returned to Vico Equense at 7:30. We had a nice dinner and for dessert we searched all around the town for some excellent pastries which we ate for the next few days.

Monday (2/15/2010)

Today was a long and adventurous day. We woke up early with the plan to climb Mt. Vesuvius, the volcano that towers over Naples, Pompeii, and Sorrento. To do so, we drove up towards the car park before the summit, seeing some beautiful views of Naples and the surrounding area, as if we were in an airplane. When we reached the last view bends in the road as it was getting steeper, we reached the snowcap (which rarely occurs on Vesuvius), and our 2WD rental car refused to drive up, so we had to walk the remainder of the route, about 1km. When we reached the car parking area, we were disappointed by the news. The summit was closed due to icy weather. We were not permitted to walk the remaining 30 minute walk. We walked back, grabbing some igneous rocks from the various historic lava flows on the way down and when we got to our car, it was stuck in the snow we parked it in. It took 3 people to push the car out of the snow. We drove down the mountain and then decided to visit the ancient ruins of Pompeii. It was a mindblowing 5 hour adventure, walking through the city that was once buried by ash and rediscovered. We saw so many things: bathhouses, forums, temples, houses for the rich, theaters, a large stadium/amphitheatre, gardens, and even a YMCA of their time. We left the ruins exhausted, and returned to our hotel to relax. We went to Vico Equense for dinner, but instead of the usual 5 minute drive, there was unexplainable traffic that took us 45 minutes to get there. I can’t imagine what would happen in the summer. We had a decent dinner, returned to the hotel, and went to bed after this long day.

Tuesday (2/16/2010)

Today was the first day of the entire trip where we got to sleep in because tit was rainy, so there wouldn’t be anything interesting to do. I woke up at around 11AM, and we packed up pretty quickly, caught some last good views of Vesuvius, and drove off to Naples where we would spend the rest of the day. When we arrived in Naples, we did not get what we expected. It turns out it is a dirty city, but that wasn’t the bad part. What was bad was the drivers. IT was ridiculous. 6 cars would be side by side in the 3 lane roads, motorcycles would be slaloming through the traffic, and traffic lights were only suggestions, and almost never followed. We also got lost on our way to the port, where we would park. After about an hour and a half of crazy driving, we reached our parking space, and went off to to find the underground city of Naples. That was an adventure--getting to the underground city. We got lost in dark alleyways that could somehow fit cars racing at 50 mph, and the rain made it that much worse. We finally arrived at the city at 1:55PM. Perfect timing. The guided tour in English began at 2:00PM, and it was extremely interesting. We explored an ancient Roman amphitheatre that was discovered in the cellar of an apartment, and we explored the underground wells that people use in Naples. Those with claustrophobia or arachnophobia should not come to this place, as it is filled with small spaces, and spiders in those places, but it didn’t bother me. And don’t worry about rats. The snakes ate them. We left the underground city at around 4:00PM and started our walk back to the port, which was so much easier now that we knew a better route than Naples’ dark alleyways. At the port, we got lost, trying to get to our ferry, but by 6:30, our car was parked in the garage, and we were experiencing our first overnight voyage on a large vessel with cabins and a restaurant. Falling asleep was difficult, not because of the rocking up and down 10 feet at a time, but the annoying disco music playing two decks below us while normal people were trying to fall asleep. Anyways, it was somewhat of a shorter, crazier day, than the usual long and relaxing ones.

Wednesday (2/17/2010)

Today was a long and very tiring day. I woke up at about 6:00 AM in the ferry with an announcement that we’ll be arriving at 7:15AM. Rather than sleep in, I decided to get myself ready and watch the sunrise over Sicilian hills and Palermo, on the aft deck of the boat (The back, for those of you who have never been on a boat). We arrived and left the ferry at around 7:30AM. We spent about an hour through the dirtyish streets of Palermo (not as bad as Naples), in search of the Capuccini Catacombs. It turns out it didn’t open until 9AM. We spent the next half hour browsing the nearby cemetery. We could tell that they buried the very wealthy, because some people and families had an entire chapel built for them. We entered the catacombs as soon as they opened, and I have to admit, it was creepy. The bones of hundreds of men, women, and monks were displayed, with incredible preservation techniques. There were bodies hundreds of years old, yet the skin and hair still remained. The creepiest one though was a little girl, who looks like she is just sleeping, but actually died 90 years ago. The guy who invented this preservation method died, taking his secret with him. We left Palermo and had a very long road trip from one coast of Sicily to the other. We had two main stops, first, about an hour in, we stopped at Caccamo, which housed a medieval Norman castle, with breathtaking views of Sicilian mountains and valley. Our second stop was a cliff in Milazzo, where we were supposed to have views of Stromboli and the Aeolian Islands, but we couldn’t find how to get to the lighthouse. Nevertheless, we still got a great view of Sicily and the surrounding area. The remainder of the ride was countless tunnels through the Sicilian mountains, with the occasional breathtaking views of the valley between them. We finally arrived at our hotel at Giardini Naxos, which started as a Greek colony in Sicily, became a fishing village, and is now a popular tourist resort city. We took a stroll through the city, and from the port, we got our first and breathtaking view of Mt. Etna, the mountain that towers over Sicily, and the one that we’ll ascend tomorrow. We returned to the hotel to relax, and went out again for dinner in a traditional Sicilian (Which is not that different from Italian) restaurant, and finally came back to the hotel to sleep after such a long and crazy day.

Now, tomorrow, I'll be climbing Mt. Etna, and from there, the trip will be done in reverse. We'll drive back to Palermo, take a ferry to Naples, try climbing Vesuvius again, hopefully it'll be open, then we'll drive to Rome, and from there we'll fly back home.

Rome!

Hi, it's been a really long time since my last post. I nearly forgot about my blog until today. I'm going to describe to you the first few days of my trip to Italy. These are the first 5 days of the trip, starting on a cold afternoon in Providence:

Flight (2/9/2010 - 2/10/2010)

Today, I left school early after 3 periods and went straight to the airport in Providence. A huge snowstorm was expected for the Providence and Philly area, so we decided to leave one day early. Since the storm was already arriving in Philly, our flight to there from Providence was delayed an hour. In Philly, we had dinner at a Chinese fast food place before stepping on to the plane bound for Rome. The flight, which left on time was the most sickening of my life. There was incessant turbulence, malfunctioning TVs, and bad food. I was extremely lucky to find empty seats in the back to lie down and sleep. sort of. When we landed in Rome, I could tell, because of the clapping, which you usually don't hear when a plane has landed. We stepped off the plane and realized our worst fear of the trip, rain. We went into passport control, and found out a very useful fact about Italy. People at "work" just talk to their friends and pay no attention to what they're doing. We found that out when passport control didn't even look at our faces, and blindly stamped our passports, while chatting with other passport controllers inside his booth. We left the airport in a private taxi, and learned another thing about Italy. The drivers are absolutely insane. The highways have no speed limit (that is abided by), a red light means nothing to drivers, and crossing a street as a pedestrian is a perilous adventure. We saw a motorcycle that literally drove down the streets of Rome in a blur, going at least 100 mph. We were relieved when we reached our hotel, paying the driver who was very calm in the whole ordeal his €60.

Day 1 (2/10/2010)

We were at the hotel at 9:00 AM, and I decided to take a short nap. Short turned into 4 hours and I woke up at 1:00PM, ready to experience Rome. We had a lunch at a local pizzeria, which is pretty much fastfood for Italy, and took a bus to a Leonardo da Vinci museum, getting lost several times on the way. The museum was quite interesting, displaying some of da Vinci's inventions that we take for granted today. We also saw his visions lived, such as his tank (yes, leonardo da vinci invented the armored tank. He also invented the bicycle, the music box, winch, crane, and water skis, not to mention countless other things.) After the museum, we took another bus to the Vatican, to see the St. Peter's Basilica, there was no line, since it was around 5:30. The basilica was huge and amazing. Just one of the small areas of the church (1/15) was bigger than my local church. We left, tired from the long day, and got lost in the conufsing bus/tram system. If we knew about the subway, our life would be so much easier. We went to bed early, to catch up on the sleep we missed over the last few days. It was a long day, which felt even longer because there was no adequate sleep for 2 days.

Day 2 (2/11/2010)

Waking up was difficult, even after 12 hours of sleep. After struggling, we ate a hotel breakfast and made our way to the bus stop. We took a bus to the Vittorio Emanuelle. We arrived at what looked like a capitol building, but it was actually a gigantic monument to the unknown soldier, and when I say gigantic, it is the largest building in Rome, at least double the size of the Colloseum. After a while, we went to the Rome capital museum. I have never been overwhelmed by so many sculptures from ancient times. This museum had literally thousands of statues each with their own history, and it took us hours to get through the museum. The museum was also the site of the great temple of Jupiter, which was the center of Ancient Rome. The ruins that still exist today are 1/5 of the foundation, and for that, they were huge. We left the museum to go to the Foro Romano, which was the roman forum, the political seat of ancient Rome, and made our way to the Collosseum, where we spent several hours. The collosseum is quite massive, and was quite impressive. A guided tour told us the history of the arena (the word "arena" comes from sandy area, and the collosseum stage floor was always sanded.) and what it was like before it was destroyed to build churches. We also saw the ruins of the underground/backstage area, which was where elevators were invented and where the animals were kept. After that, we took a bus to the Pantheon. We got lost, but a McDonalds sign saying (McDonalds Pantheon, 50 mt.) led the way. We've noticed that every famous place in Rome has a McDonalds next to or in front of it. It was as if McDonalds was invading. The Pantheon was interesting, especially since it rained, making a huge puddle on the floor (the Pantheon is a temple with a hole in the roof, giving it natural light). From the Pantheon, we took a short walk to the impressive Trevi fountain, then we took our first subway train back to our hotel, getting slightly lost on our walk back to the hotel. By the way, subways in Rome are extremely deep. I guess they had to go under the ruins so they don't destroy them. After a short break at the hotel, we ate at a nearby traditional Italian restaurant. I had some ravioli. After returning to the hotel, we almost immediately went to bed, as the day was very tiring.

Day 3 (2/12/2010)

Today was a day that made history in Rome. I woke up slowly, and saw snow outside. It was really a spectacular sight, seeing as Rome hasn't had snow in 25 years. These were just small snowflakes, and it seemed like nothing major though. We went to the subway and tried to buy tickets from malfunctioning machines and finally managed to get onto a train towards the Vatican. We would be visiting the Vatican Museum, a sort of Louvre for Rome. When we got off the station, after 10 minutes of travel, the snow was spectacular. There was almost an inch of accumulation, and seeing palm trees covered with snow was quite a sight. We waited in a 30 minute line to get into the museum, and experienced for the second time, Italians who don't pay attention when they work. We were putting our things through the x-ray machine at the Vatican security. The security officer, instead of looking at the screen to see what we were taking in, he was sitting opposite to it, chatting with other slacking workers. I could've snuck in a tiger and they wouldn't notice. The museum was very overwhelming, and we decided to just go towards the Sistine chapel. It's too bad that the signs to the Sistine chapel lead you throughout the entire museum, concluding at the chapel. It was quite interesting though. We saw Egyptian and Etruscan artifacts, more statues, and a hall of maps. It felt like the Google Maps of the 15th century, since every square mile of Italy was covered in the seemingly infinitely long hall. The Sistine chapel was the last stop, and probably the most impressive. After this long and overwhelming trek, we took a subway to the Colloseum, so we could visit Pallatino, the hill which held ruins of ancient Rome. It turns out that is was closed due to snow. All of that time of travel for nothing. We decided to visit the Spanish Steps. Before spending time there, we visited the world's fanciest McDonalds (it was quite impressive), and then we climbed the spanish steps. The sun arrived just in time as the rainclouds cleared up. After some time there, we walked down Rome's expensive street (comparable to 5th Avenue, Champs-Ulysses, Banhofstrasse, etc.). Compared to those streets, it was quite cheap (only €2,500 for a handbag, others charged as much as €30,000), but it was an interesting walk. To end the day we went to a museum with seasonal exhibitions. Their current exhibition was an interesting astronomy and particles one. We left for our hotel and stayed there until about 8:00PM, when we took a stroll and went to a famous pasta place for dinner. I've never had so many ravioli in one sitting, The meal was huge, and brought us quickly to sleep back at the hotel.

Day 4 (2/13/2010)

Today was the first day of no rain, and real sun. We went to Pallatino, and they let us in with our previous ticket, since it was closed the day before due to snow. The ruins were spectacular, and it ended with some spectacular views of the Roman Forum and collosseum. After that, we decided to revisit the giant building, Vittorio Emmanuele, and take an elevator to the top, where we got an amazing view of the city, with free telescopes. From there, we walked to Piazza Navona, where a Chinese New Years parade was in progress, and where painters from all over the city converged. From there, we walked to the Tiber river, and took a scenic stroll to St. Peter's Basilica seeing the Castel St Angelo on the way. We were planning to go the cupola of the basilica, until we saw the line simply INTO the basilica. It was at least 1-2 hours long, and went through the entire plaza. We realized how lucky we were the first day to not have to wait in line to see the basilica. We took the subway back to the Collosseum to take some good pictures in the sun. After this, we visited what was supposed to be a nice plaza, but was crowded because of a concert for the last day of Carnevale. We walked from here to a church with one of the strangest crypts in the world, the Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini. The crypt was decorated with the bones of over 4,000 Italian monks, and was very strange to walk through. We left after quickly browsing through, and went to a small Italian fast food place where I had a sandwich before heading back to the hotel. For dinner, I ate at the same local pizzeria as the first day and finally came back to relax, and to recall everything we did to write this entry.

Edit: I understand that there are some format problems with this entry, just try to deal with it, there's nothing I can do to fix it.

What's to come

We're leaving Rome tomorrow for the Naples area, where we will see Mt. Vesuvius, and from there,

we will visit Sicily and see Mt. Etna and Palermo, and our trip will conclude when we return to

Rome for two days and then fly home. Stay tuned for more entries, they will come.