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Today is the day that I learned (very quickly) how to drive on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, and in a new car, in Rome traffic. Just to add an additional level of difficulty, I did it with one arm tied behind my back. OK - I'm kidding on that last one. Just the last one. We picked up our rental car today. It was a bit far to haul all our luggage, so we caught a taxi up to the car rental place.
It was a bit sad to say goodbye to Rome & the Hotel Majestic. Still, we were heading off to Siena and Tuscany, so the excitement level was pretty high. We got to the Avis office, and after quite some time (actually, most of it was just standing around - the whole rental experience was actually pretty straight forward - simpler in fact than renting our car in Tasmania last year) the guy behind the counter says he's off to collect our car - he'll be back soon. About 10 minutes later, he pulls up ... in a black 320d BMW station wagon. Hot. But now I'm crapping myself - I not only have to get the hang of driving on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, in the famous chaos that is Roman traffic - I have to do it in a luxury car. We pull out the GPS and set that up, pull out the iPod, set that up, get the maps ready (in case of GPS failure) locate the various indicators, wipers, lights (lights have to be on even during the day in Italy) and finally, we're settled in ... and ready to go. Gulp. Good thing was, thanks to Google Earth, I'd already sussed out the first few turns and knew that the first cross street was one way, so up to the next street, left turn, aim for the left hand arch through the old roman wall, then merge quickly into the traffic & we were away.
I think I actually got the hang of the driving pretty quickly actually. Rome traffic is chaotic - but there does seem to be a relaxed air about it - as long as everyone else watches whats going on around them, then you're free to drift across lanes, turn quickly without indicating, changing your mind at the last minute, just like a local really. If in doubt, throw the hazard lights on - all's fine if the hazards are on. Touch wood, but about the only close call we had was when I took a corner a touch too tight & kissed the curb with the tyre.
Once we'd gotten through the maze of streets and onto the secondary road we were following out of town, we were off, winding our way through the outer suburbs of Rome, heading north towards Tuscany.
First stop was a town called Sutri, north of Rome. Sutri is famous for an ancient Etruscan settlement (the original inhabitants of northern Italy in early periods). The ruins remaining include an ampitheatre as well as a pile of crypts dug into the side of a large set of cliffs. Most of the crypts were well and truely opened up, but at least one showed what used to happen - the Etruscans would carve out a crypt (basically the size of a largish coffin, bigger for some), put the body in, then brick it up. We spotted one crypt that had been opened, but the bricks had for the most part been left intact.
The present day Sutri sits on a hill above the Etruscan site. Being our first Italian village, and also in need of some drinks, we decided to venture up the hill. Not the best move. We didn't exactly receive the warmest welcome. Just scowls. Ah well, we quickly retreated, found a little cafe at the bottom of the hill, closer to the road and the tourist area that was at least happy to sell us some water & soft drink, and we hit the road again.
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Title:Radicofani |
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Once we'd left Lazio (the region that Rome is in) and entered Tuscany, the next village on our list was Radicofani. This is a true Tuscan hilltop village, dating from 978. Its also some way off the beaten track, it was a reasonable detour for us, and we weren't following the main route from Rome to Siena - so it was very unlikely that they'd get too many tourists in this neck of the woods. Radiciofani also doesn't show up in a lot of guidebooks for the Tuscany area - so after the chilly reception we got in Sutri, we were a bit hesitant. The village has a declining aging population - Kym commented that it kind of felt like a Tuscan retirement village - but here, italian villages redeemed themselves. We met a lovely old lady in a store (that might have had something to do with it) that couldn't speak a word of English, but she managed to sell us a mountain of stuff. Afterwards, we continued to explore Radicofani, wandering through the streets that appeared to not have changed much in a long, long time. Towards the top of the town, we walked past a computer store - it gave us quite a giggle, here we were, surrounded by buildings that were hundreds of years old ... and a computer shop. The locals were quite pleasant, nodding & smiling, even though this little town really is way off the beated track for tourists. Radicofani was beautiful - very neat and gave you a sense of a relaxed, tranquil community. Locals were sitting around on benches in the street or in park having a good natter. A few kids playing, and walking by the elderly stopping to have a chat. We were so disappointed we couldn't just hang and explore more, but the day was getting on and we wanted to maximise our time in Siena.
Our next stop was a town called Bagno Vignoni. This is the site of a natural spring, where water boils up from underground, heated all year around. The spring has purported healing properties, and has been a health spa since Roman times. We got here quite late in the day, so we really didn't have all that long to spend here - fortunately, beyond a small collection of houses clustered around the spring, there wasn't a whole lot to see here.
We hit the road after around a half hour at Bagno Vignoni, and it wasn't long until we hit the 'typical' Tuscan landscape of rolling green hills. By this time, around 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the light was just starting to turn a bit golden, so it was the perfect time to get to this point in our trip. We had to pinch ourselves a bit, as we realised that here we were, driving through Tuscany. What was a bit of a surprise was that the area that is 'typical' Tuscany, i.e. the rolling hills of grass and cypress pines, isn't actually all that 'typical' - a lot of the area we had been driving through was quite forested. The area of hills and cypress trees actually ran out pretty quickly after only a few kilometres. We did however stop to grab a few quick photo's - even though we were a bit nerrvous by now about the time and safe in the knowledge that we'd be in this area again when we day tripped out to Pienza and the area around Montepulciano.
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Title:Tuscany |
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We pushed on as the light was starting to fail, as the last thing we wanted to do was to try to find our way into Siena in the dark. After a while we hit the outskirts of Siena, which could really have been just any other town really, but then we worked our way into the old part of Siena. Driving in was quite an experience, as it is a hilltop town, and to get to the old Siena, you have to drive some quite windy, twisty roads up the hill. Once you hit the old city walls, thats when things get *very* interesting. After passing through a gate, we had to turn onto a tiny little road that back here would be considered a single lane. Its tightly hemmed in on both sides by very tall rock walls - it is in fact I find out later, on top of the old city wall. At one point on the way in, we encountered a bus, just sitting in the road. Frustrated, I squeezed my way past - and the bus gave us a good blast of the horn as we head past. As I look back in the rear vision mirror, we saw that the bus was in fact sitting at a traffic light - opps.
Not too much further up we found the carpark for the hotel. As it turned out, this was one of three carparks, none of which were terrifically large. The one we'd found first was in fact their under cover garage. It was incredibly small - just as I was starting to reconsider and was looking to how I was going to reverse back out, one of the hotel staff appeared, waving us forward. He gave me a hand to get the car into a spot that was incredibly tight - I was really not looking forward to getting it out the next day. He was terrifically friendly, and very helpful - he reminded us just a bit of Moby (ok, so he was slightly built and bald) - so for the next few days we referred to him as 'Moby'.
Once we'd checked in, it was around 7 o'clock - and as we weren't sure what the restaurants in Siena did opening hours wise, we chose to eat in the hotel restaurant. Which was quite nice, as it overlooked the town proper (our hotel was ever so slightly on the outskirts of Siena itself, no more than a five minute walk). It was pleasant enough, just a bit on the pricy side.
After dinner we wandered into Siena itself - sure enough, the place was pretty active. We quickly found the piazza in the centre of town, and it seemed that the whole town was there, having a great time at the various cafes, enoteca's and restaurants ringing the piazza. We found ourselves a little gelato bar that came to be a bit of a regular for us, grabbed some gelato and sat in the piazza, soaking it in & relaxing.
More to come ...
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Sunday started at 'oh my god it's early' o'clock, up at 4:30 am in time to get down to the Piazza Del Popolo to get the first glimmer of dawn - hopefully while the street lights are all on to help balance the exposure. I couldn't believe it that even at that time of morning, there are people still out and about - I think at least a good few of them were still out from the evening before. But believe it or not, there were a few die hard tourists out and about. Only one lunatic with a tripod & camera though - so I felt confident that my prime vantage point wouldn't be taken.
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Title:The view into the heart of Rome from Piazza del Popolo |
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Eventually I got down to the Piazza, and not an indian shawl/tripod/jewellery/sunglass/rose seller/statue in sight. Once I'd got the shots I was after, I decided to do the Spanish Steps and the fountain in front of that which always seems to be packed with people. Then on to the Trevi Fountain to see if I could get a nice & wide panorama. It was there that I came across my first solid tourists, including one bloke with a camera and tripod doing exactly what I was trying to do. He was streadfast in staying put, right in the middle of my wide shot, and refused to move (despite me getting uncomfortably close) - so I worked with what I could. As I was tinkering away, I could have sworn I heard ever so softly 'use the force luke' as all of a sudden I was caught in a shower of bird poop. It was either a pelican that let go, or one very large pidgeon who'd been having some difficulties in the last few days, because it went everywhere. All over my head, down my back, down my arms, all over the camera, the lens and the camera bag on the ground. What a mess. Luckily my hayfever had been giving me grief, and I was in the habit of carrying copious piles of tissues. I conceded defeat and headed back to the hotel for a bit of a shower, a nap then off for breakfast.
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Title:The Spanish Steps, with Trinita dei Monti behind and Bernini's Barcaccia fountain in front |
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Kymmie and I picked up again a few hours later, going for some more wandering around the area Piazza Colonna. We'd spotted a little street the night before, Via dei Coronari that promised to be interesting, so we headed back to try to locate it. It looked pretty cute & interesting at night, so we wanted to take a closer look. We found out later that Via dei Coronari is *the* street in Rome for antiques and antiquities. After wandering up & down this little back street, we ended up back in Piazza Navona. We'd read about a little store 'Ai Monasteri' that sells all sorts of produce from northern Italy's monastraries that we were keen to check out near Piazza Navona, so we decided to go and check it out.
After a bit of a search, we found it, but it was closed. Spew. Big sigh of relief though from our friends and family though I am sure that you all didn't end up with bars of monastery soap for souveniers. A sign on the door indicated that they were closed between 11 am and 5 pm - so we decided to head back later.
In the meantime we decided to head back to the hotel - it was another hot day in Rome, and we wanted to get into some cool air & recharge for a bit.
When we returned at 6:00, it was still closed. To console ourselves we grabbed a couple of amazing little pastries from a pasticceria. No name, just 'Pasticceria'. It was a family setup by the look of it, the jolly little old guy just standing in the middle of the place smiling & nodding was probably dad.
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Title:Even after 500 years, Pasquino still has a lot to say |
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Now that it was a bit cooler, we wandered a few more of the little streets & ally ways, eventually stumbling across one of Rome's 'talking statues' that I'd recognised from photo's. The 'talking statues' were statues that people used to attach signs, or
letters to in order to speak out anonymously against the establishment
or religious leaders. This one was a faceless, armless, legless lump of rock basically, a sad beaten up statue that used to apparently be 'Menelaus with the body of Patroclus'. Its more commonly known as 'Pasquino'. This poor beaten up statue has been located in the Piazza Pasquino since 1501, and is apparently the 'most vocal' of all the statues. The tradition started back in the 16th century, and continues today.
Just nearby was a little Sienese restaurant 'Terre di Siena' that gets a decent little write up in some guide books. As we were off to Siena the next day, we thought that having dinner here was the perfect way to finish up our time in Rome. Its situated in the Piazza Pasquino, with a few little outside tables as well as some inside, but as it was a really pleasant evening, we decided to sit outside to watch the passers by. At one point just after we sat down, we watched a tall, older guy wandering around with his rather large dog, having a good old natter to a number of different shop keepers etc in the area. He didn't look like a local, but the fact that he was out walking his dog made us think he must have been. After a while, we wandered up to us, and just asked 'English?'. I replied 'Yes' - then he launched into a great long description in a reasonably thick american accent about how I needed to put my camera bag under the table, not to the side, as the gypsies would nick it before I'd even noticed. Given that the area we were in had quite small gaps between the bars, I kind of figured that not only would it have to be a very sneaky gypsie for me to not notice it, but it'd need some level in skill at dismantling a large DSLR in order to make off with it by breaking it down and pinching each little piece - I thanked him & moved it anyways - he looked like the type to come back & check up on me to see if I'd heeded his advice. As he wandered off he launched into some long winded and loud explaination to the waitress in italian, pointing at us regularly. Sure enough - an hour later - he was back, wandering around & walking his dog. Quite an odd fellow really.
More to come ...
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This morning we headed up to the Piazza Del Popolo. This is one of Rome's largest piazza's. There's an obleisk in the center of it that was bought from Egypt back in the time of Augustus. At one end is the Porta del Popolo, at one time the original entry into Rome. If you stand at the obleisk, you can see right down three of Romes major roads, Via Di Ripetta, Via Del Corso with the Vittorio Emanuelle monument at the other end, and Via Due Macelli with the Quirinale hill at the other end. Either side of the Via Del Corso are twin churches, mirror images of either other, flanking Via Del Corso. The view is amazing.
By the time we got there, it was a bit later in the morning, and stinking hot - so we weren't really in for a long stay in the piazza. And, of course, that specatacular view from the gates of Rome, right down three of its major roads was completely ruined by one of the indian shawl/tripod/jewellery/sunglass/rose sellers dressed up as the Statue of Liberty. Just standing there. One of those bloody annoying 'human statues'. We really did want some photo's of this view, but didn't want it bloody ruined by a dodgy statue, so Kymmie decided I'd be coming back at dawn ... just kidding - it was a mutual call - but it'd be me getting up at 4 a.m. to get down there in time for a dawn photo while Kymmie slept in a bit :)
While we were deciding where to head next, one of the indian shawl/tripod/jewellery/sunglass/rose sellers wandered up to one of the fountains at the base of the obleisk, plunged his entire bunch of roses under water, ripped them out, shook them off & he was good to go to try to flog his half dead roses off to unsuspecting touristi.
We took a stroll down Via Del Corso, one of Romes major shopping streets. After a while we tried to locate the Body Shop there - getting lots of helpful directions, but we just couldn't seem to locate it. We found a pile of other usuals, Accessorize, Lush, but no Body Shop. We knew it was there some where - it just elluded us. Which was a bit of a shame, because beyond curiousity to see what they had on offer that was on the way to Oz, we were low on a couple of things and couldv'e done with the top up. We also have a bit of a tradition to track down the Body Shop in each city that has one that we visit - so this is the first one to escape us.
It was seriously baking in the sun, so we decided we'd venture up to the Borghese Gardens. Once we'd slogged our way up the steep incline from the Piazza Del Popolo, we found that it was very cool witha great breeze and lots of shade. A lot of families were out, strolling, playing etc. We wandered around there for quite a while, and ambled back in the direction of the hotel, where we had a bit of a break in the cool of the room for an hour or two before we were off again. This time we were heading over to the Castel Saint Angelo. I was really keen to get some dusk photo's of the Castel. We grabbed a cab over, and tried out a few spots for photo's.
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Title:Castel Saint Angelo |
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| Kymmie found an absolute corker view of Saint Peters Basillica while she was having an explore in the area.
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Title:Saint Peters Basilica |
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After grabbing a few shots, we headed off for dinner. We decided to go to Georgio's restaurant again (we call it Giorgio's - even though it isn't actually his restaurant). He got quite a kick out of seeing us again. Georgio recommended the sea bass to Kymmie - she wasn't all that keen if it came whole because of the bones - he promised us that he'd take care of it & come out to fillet the cooked fish for her. True to his word, out he came with the whole sea bass, and proceeded to very deftly fillet it for Kymmie right at the table. It was quite the specatacle, providing entertainment for the rest of the customers, as he bought out a seperate table to work.
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Title:Georgio, Kymmie and the sea bass |
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More to come ...
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We got started a bit earlier today, as we had a big day planned, we were hoping to hit a few of the big features of Rome. First up was a trip to Saint Peters Basillica over at the Vatican. We'd done the museums a few days earlier, but by the time we'd finished, we just didn't have the steam to be able to tackle the Basillica afterwards, so today we were going to get to it nice & fresh. We caught a cab over to the piazza in front, Piazza San Pietro. When we arrived there were people absolutely everywhere, and it was still only relatively early. First up - coffee. We sussed out a cafe to the side of the road leading into the piazza, and ordered a couple of cafe's 'al banco' (at the bar). We knew the drill, ordering and paying at the till first, getting a receipt and then presenting that to the barrista. It was amazingly good coffee considering that it was basically tourism central - I caught the barista's eye & told him 'grazie mille, molto buono cafe' (thankyou very much, very good coffee) - he was a bit chuffed with that we think. After a caffeine hit, we wandered out to tackle the crowds and when we got closer to the basilica, we saw the queue. I kid you not - it was probably close to a kilometre long stretching across the piazza. We did notice though that it was actually moving quite quickly, so we thought that we'd give it a crack, join the queue and see how far we got in a little while. We ended up having a bit of a chat with the people in front of us as well as behind, and before we knew it,, we'd moved quite some way - so we perservered. It didn't take to long and then we were standing in front of the metal detectors and security for the entrance. We did miscalculate the queue, ending up in the queue for the crypts rather than the basilica itself, but we figured we were here for a while and we perservered. We were glad we did, the crypts were quite amazing - a large number of the popes are interered in the crypts. Each has a small area, almost like a chapel. Some of the later popes, including John Paul II even have pews at which some people were praying. It is a sacred area, so no photography allowed... which was a bit of a shame, as you end up passing by the crypt for Saint Peter himself. Some of the crypt area's are obviously off limits, a peek around the corners however showed some amazing art and fresco's - incredible to think that they had been there for centuries. After weaving through the public areas of the crypts, we ascended a staircase to find ourselves within the basilica. I could rave about how phenomenal the basilica is & how much of a sensory overload it is, with all that art, all the sculpture, and the sheer huge size of it - but that doesn't really give any real impression of the experience. Dare I say it, but almost a religious one? :) It definitely had a very sacred feel to it - you had no doubt that you were in a place of great significance - making you feel extremely humble.
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Title:Faith
The touch of the faithful over hundreds of years has worn the foot of St Peter smooth. |
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Title:Michelangelo's 'Pieta' |
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| We wandered out of the basillica after a few hours exploration. On the way out, we passed a security guard who had obviously spotted the pope sticking his head out the window - because he was telling anyone & everyone that he'd just seen 'Il Papa' and pointing out the window - it was the funniest thing, the guy was a security guard for the Vatican, but he was like a little kid, all excited he'd just seen the big man in the flesh. We wandered back to the cafe where we'd had our caffeine jolt in the morning, to grab some lunch. It was a bit of a self service production mill, and as it was luch time, the place was a mad house. However the barista from the morning recognised both of us (we had to go in sperately to grab lunch to keep our table) - he was very friendly & almost glad to see us. After we had lunch we went inside for another cafe at the bar, and a pastry, and shared a bit of a laugh with the barista and his offsider about the craziness of the lunch rush. They took a bit of a liking to us - we asked for a pastry that looked a bit like a pretzel, they gave us another pastry, telling us it was much nicer as it had a filling, but when we went to pay (again, not like the other touristi who have to pay up front) to tell the cashier it was the cheaper pastry. When we did go to pay, they made sure we only paid for the cheaper of the two :) It was a great experience, and they gave us a nice little farewell, singing out lots of 'ciao's' as we left. (Ciao is the more familiar greeting/farewell - you know you've done OK if you get a Ciao instead of a more formal Buona Sera) So - where do you go to next after an experience like that? The Coliseum of course! A change of mood after the morning touring the Vatican, the Coliseum needs no introduction. We spent a good few hours (at least one trying to work out how to get to the ground level) exploring the ruin. After the Coliseum, we wandered around a bit, took some photo's of the exterior, then wandered up past the Arch of COnstantine where we found the entrance to the Palantine Hill. We had a card that gave us entrance to a number of archeological sites, including the Palatine Hill for a five day duration. It was only an hour or so until closing, but I figured that the card gave us five days access, we could take a bit of a peek and come back tommorrow for a better look. We wandered up through the Palantine Hill, out towards the 'back' of the hill that overlooked the Circus Maximus, and wandered through the ruins of the Domus Augustana and Domus Flavia and started to explore the Farnese Gardens before we were chased out by the security guards shoo-ing everyone out due to the area closing for the day. We had a bit of fun with one of the guards, I was trying to get a shot of one building, he was telling us 'time to go' and I pleaded with him in pretty dodgy italian for just one photo - he got a bit of a laugh out of it, let me have the photo, then we took off - until the next photo point. He'd come down the path, wave his hand, we'd take off again, and he'd have a laugh at the crazy papparazi touristi. All good fun. It was still quite light, and while we were down this way, I wanted to try to get some night/long exposure shots of the Coliseum, so we wandered up the road towards the Vittortio Emanuelle monument to find somewhere to grab dinner. We found a nice little pizzeria, then afterwards, wandered back down the road to grab some night shots of the Coliseum. We did run across a very persistent indian selling dinky little tripods that were no larger that a hand in height, and he tried to convince me that the expensive tripod I had over my shoulder (which was at full extent and measures a good 5 feet tall - it does get some looks :)) would not be as good as his little pieces of crap and I really should upgrade. Tosser.
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Title:Moonrise over the Coliseum |
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| After grabbing a couple of long exposures of the Coliseum, we called it a day, and headed back to the hotel. More to come ...
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Today we decided that we'd do an exploration day. Not so much trying to squeeze in any of the significant ruins or major sights, rather a bit of a wander and take some time to investigate some of the smaller things and maybe wander through some of the tiny back streets we encountered the night before. First up was a wander down to the Pantheon to take a look & relax hopefully in the Piazza Rotunda with a cafe or gelato. It was very disappointing to get to the Piazza Rotunda to find that a good portion of the front of the Pantheon was hidden behind scaffolding. This was to become a bit of a common theme over the next few days - large portions of Roman sights are hidden behind scaffolding. Its almost as if Rome is going through a housekeeping stage. Some of the scaffolding is fairly well camoflaged, for example the Vittorio Emanuelle monument has a sizeable area of the front hidden by scaffolding, however its as white as the monument, and its only when you get relatively close do you find that it is in fact there. To console ourselves, we grabbed some gelato, and found a spot on the stairs surrounding the fountain in the piazza to do some people watching & get a feel for the place. It started getting a bit hot & crowded, so we headed into the Pantheon. It was a bit strange, it definitely felt bigger inside than what it appeared to be outside, but still, we were both a bit surprised that it didn't appear to be quite as large as both of us imagined. We wandered around for a bit in the cool shade, soaking the place up.
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Title:The occulus of the Pantheon |
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From the Pantheon, we wandered up Via di Minerva to the church of Saint Maria sopra Minerva. In front of the church is an miniature Egyptian 6th century B.C. obelisk mounted on the back of a baby elephant designed by Bernini. We wandered into the church and spent around an hour or so wandering through, taking a look at the large number of tombs and memorials, including the tomb of St Catherine of Siena and also stopping to view Michelangelo's 'Risen Christ', a quite buff looking Jesus, completely starkers, except for the little bit of bronze something strategically placed in later years by the church. We had one of our walk around Rome cards that lead us around to the Piazza di Saint Eustachio and Via di Saint Eustachio where one of Romes best cafe's, Caffe Saint Eustachio where we had a couple of cafe's. And yes, these were probably the best coffee's we'd had so far, and probably the best that we've had since. Amazingly impressive coffee. By now we were feeling very peckish, so wee started wandering looking for anywhere that offered food at a reasonable price, heading in the general direction of Piazza Navona, and preferably somewhere that offered a bathroom. We spotted a tiny little restaurant, that I could actually see the sign for the bathroom inside, so we figured that this was good enough! As it turned out, this place was one that was basically untouched by the tourist trade, as the owner/waiter was very rough with his english. Still between my bad italian, and his bad english (mostly my bad italian) we got through. We ordered two glasses of a Chianti and for meals, what sounded like an interesting dish of proscuitto with fennel and a dish that seemed to consist basically of buffulo mozzerella, tomatoes and basil with asparagus. When they came out, Kymmie laid eyes on the plate of proscuitto and freaked, making a grab for the mozzerella, tomato and basil dish, leaving me with the proscuitto and fennel. There was two different types of proscuitto, one tasted very mush like standard proscuitto, the other however had a very strong fish flavour. Still very nice, especially with the fennel drizzled with olive oil and a hint of pesto or something similar. Once we'd finished and we were sorting out the bill, I had to attempt to establish what the other meat was. Well, it turned out to be a pesce (fish) proscuitto, one was tuna, the other was actually swordfish. Very tasty. From here we wandered over to Piazza Navona, one of the grand old piazza's of Rome. Famous for being a cultural and enertainment hub of Rome, we found it contained a collection of those human statues that stand there and don't move, although these ones weren't doing such a great job, they were doing quite a bit of moving, as well as a guy tying ballons. Not exactly the peak of entertainment & culture. While we were there, there were some pretty significant storm clouds brewing. As we were heading out of the piazza there was an ominous crack of thunder. As if that was the queue, the indian shawl/tripod/jewellery/sunglass/rose sellers along with their nigel no-friends glass cube selling mate dropped what they were doing & all turned out in force selling the umbrella's. We got a reasonable amount of the way back to the hotel before the skies opened up & dumped on us. And then you couldn't wipe the grin off the umbrella sellers. It was amazing - they were thick on the ground. What made it hugely amusing was that a couple of them were using their own products, complete with broken spines, holes, etc. A great selling point that. We got back to the room, had a bit of a break & a change of clothes and headed out for dinner. It was actually really cold after the rain, so we thought we'd keep it nice & local & head to one of the restaurants on Via Veneto, just down from the hotel. There was a place that caught my eye earlier, 'Ciao Bella' - another cheesy name, but we were finding you can't use the names to judge a place. We got seated fairly quickly and efficiently, but it went down hill from there. The waiter was quite abrupt, wasn't interested in listening, so much so that we ended up with completely different meals to what we ordered - and it was crap anyway. So, we said 'ciao' to 'Ciao Bella' as quickly as we could, I even contested the pane charge (bread charge) that all restaurants add to the bills - even if you get no pane. I did it just to be a pain in the arse tourist that we were treated as. It didn't matter, cause the bill came to 48 euro, 46 without the pane charge, and I couldn't be arsed waiting, so left a 50 euro note & we walked out. To console ourselves, we headed over towards Piazza Navona and Gioletti for some premium gelato - reportedly Romes best gelato. And based on the research so far, I'd have to agree. It was amazing. I ended up heading back for seconds, much to the amusement of the guy behind the counter. Afterwards we wander through the back alleys in the general direction of our hotel.
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Title:The back alleys of Rome |
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By now it was quite late, around 11:30 or so. We've found that we are starting to adopt the italian way of starting late in the morning, resting through the day, then venturing out at night. So we called it a night & headed back to the hotel. More to come ...
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Today is the first of our pre-booked museum/gallery visits, the Vatican Museums. We were very glad we had prebooked tickets. The queue for pre-booked tickets was probably 5 or 10 people - the queue for people who hadn't pre-booked extended around the corner, and down the street for a good 100 metres or so at 9 a.m. Because we arrived an hour before our allocated entry time, we had an hour to kill before we could enter - so we went in search of a bar/cafe where we could get our first jolt for the day. We found a little mum & dad place just around the corner, and down the street a ways. It was very satisfying to be able to order a couple of coffees in Italian without any miming, or bad attempts at dodgy italian sounding english. They're a very trusting lot the Italians - we again weren't asked to pay up front, instead we were invited to sit outside in the sunshine & our coffee would be bought out to us. Once we had them, it would have been all too easy to wander off without paying. But at the prices that some of these places charge for un cafe (basically a shot of espresso), it's hardly worth the risk. The cheapest we've found so far was 75 euro cents. That's about AUD$1. Absolutely cheap as. Of course, once you get towards the touristy area's, the prices go up, however if you take your cafe 'al bar' instead of 'al tavola' (standing at the bar rather than seated at a table) then you will find that the prices are still ridiculously cheap, usually still only 1 euro. And typically its only the super popular places, or the places in the heart of the tourist area's that have a bar price versus a table price. We've also found that you tend to get a slightly better level of service if you stand at the bar to sip your espresso, rather than plonk down at a table & expect your 'caffe americano' when you order 'un caffe'. Very amusing to watch at times as people order 'un caffe' and receive an espresso instead of the flat white that they are expecting. After about 40 minutes and two caffe's later, we headed back up the hill towards the entry to the Vatican museum. By this time there were even more people trying to get in, and the entry foyer was an absolute chaotic mess. What was interesting was that there were metal detectors and security guards at all the entry points - I was thinking that I'd get some grief as I passed my tote bag laden with metal and glass and wiring through ... but they didn't even glance up. I guess they see enough bags loaded with camera equipment to not get their pants in a knot over it.
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Title:Statue of Julia, daughter of the emporer Titus.
Vatican Musuem collection, Braccio Nuovo |
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Eventually we work out which way the first of the museums are, and grab ourselves a guidebook & headed in. Its astounding just how huge the various collections in the Vatican museums are. In some guide books they actually tell you that its not possible to see the complete collection - you have to pick a couple and focus on seeing those. Its probably good advice. After a few hours of wandering around, in some cases fighting extremely thick crowds, you start to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of items that are all amazing in their own right. The overall layout of the museum is also one way. At points its not possible to go back, due to signage, secuirty, or just the sheer colume of people passing through a choke point. So be very careful if you go, thinking that you can return to a collection if you find you have time later in the day- becuase you won't be able to. The other big thing to be aware of is that there is a distinct shortage of bathrooms - finding one can be quite an ordeal - and unless you are very careful, you can end up too far past them, and unable to turn back to get back to where you started. Definitely never pass one up thinking that you'll wait till the next one - because that may be a *long* way off. After 6 1/2 hours there we'd seen a good solid portion of the various different area's and collections - but there were area's that we missed, which given the history & location, you tend to feel a touch bit guilty about. But generally speaking - we at least looked through most of the collections. We made our way back to the hotel for a bit of a rest & a recuperate before heading out again to explore the area around Piazza Navona, and the little back streets around there. We were on the prowl for a well rated restaurant in the area, as well as *the* best gelato in Rome according to our guide book. We located the gelato bar after a while, but no luck finding the restaurant. As it was getting late, and we were starving, we settled on a little back alley osteria 'Osteria Spaghetti'. Cheezy name, but far enough away from the tourist areas we thought to have the possibility of being a bit more of a local fave. There were plenty of people at the outside tables, so we figured we might just be OK. Our waiter for the evening, Giorgio, got off to a great start with his routine, he was very entertaining, friendly and an all round great guy. We had loads of fun - and he got quite a laugh out of us as well, especially at the point in time where I decided I wanted a change in the view, so Kym & I swapped seats - he found that immensely amusing. After dinner we were far too full to treat ourselves to desert, so we gave Gioletti a miss, vowing to return. Instead we we wandered back to the hotel through the back alleys of Rome, past historical churches, tiny piazza's nestled in their shadows. More to come ...
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We've been plagued with internet issues ever since hitting Rome. The room that we had in Rome came with complimentary WiFi - which worked fine for the first day, then just packed it in. Numerous efforts to convince the hotel that there was a problem with their WiFi was met with indifference 'it is not possible sir, we have the best Internet in the area.' So what follows are all the posts that were supposed to be posted while we were in Rome. We've hit Siena, and there is complimentary WiFi here as well - it seems to be more stable and functional than what we had in Rome, although its a long, long way from what you'd consider usable at home. So bear with us while we struggle through with the limited internet access.
We landed at Fiumicino (Rome International) airport at approximately 2 p.m. local time. By the time we cleared through all the various checkpoints and headed for the baggage carousel, it we'd gotten to 3 p.m. Fortunately I'd done a bit of reading before hand and I knew 2 things about the luggage area at Fiumicino - one was that the luggage trolleys required a non-refundable 1 euro coin to get a hold of and two was that there was only 1 area to get trolleys from - if you didn't grab one there, you were out of luck. So, all the way towards the baggage carousel I was on the lookout for some sort of vending machine I could feed one of the 5 euro notes I'd exchanged prior to leaving home (and no, you can't get single euro coins from the exchange - unfortunately). When we spotted the baggage trolleys, just a bit further down the concourse I spied a vending machine. Perfect. While the other new arrivals were standing there looking forlornly at the trolley machine trying to work out where to put their various notes/credit cards, or even work out how they were going to get one without having any euro's, I headed straight for the vending machine, looking for what was going to give me at least a single euro in change. Ah - found it - a chocolate bar - double win! In goes the 5 euro note, out drops the 1 euro coin and a 2 euro coin ... oh and a chocolate bar. Little did I realise there was one fundamental flaw in my cunningly executed plan - the bloody trolley dispenser stole my euro. Back down to the vending machine, one bottle of water later, a new 1 euro coin, and finally we had a trolley. We loaded the bags up, and off we head for the train station - lots of touters trying to get us onto shuttle buses (that take hours apparently to get anywhere) and 'priority' transfers (i.e. my brother Mario has a car, and we'll fleece you to get you to the hotel) makes the express train from the airport to Termini (the Leonardo Express as its called) a reasonably good choice. So, straight to the platform, watching for the ticket kiosk I knew to be there, and as proud as punch I requested from the lady behind the counter 'due biglietti per Termini, per favore' ... to which she ever so calmly pointed up ... to the sign telling me I'd just asked for two train tickets to Termini station from the Bureau de Change. Shit. A quick 'scusi...' and an about face to join the next queue over, and we had two tickets to Termini. A glance over the shoulder at Platform 2 to see that the Leonardo Express was sitting there ready for boarding, and off we go, remembering to validate the train ticket at the discrete little yellow validation machines along side the platform before boarding - which strikes me as odd - if you're purchasing your ticket from the ticket office ... why do they not validate it at purchase? Ah well, I wonder how many of the touristi will miss the ticket validation step... After a mad scramble to get boarded with some rather large bits of baggage and we settle into our seats ready for our trip. As we get settled in, I notice that two locals are giving Kym & me the once, twice and even three times over. It can't be our luggage - sure there's a bit of it, but the backpack and suitcase have definitely seen better days ... plenty of others on the train with nearly as much as us ... maybe they've sussed out the camera bag ... ah, crap - its the bloody expensive and shiny Longines watch that I'd forgotten to take off that's caught their eye as I come to the realisation that we've probably been marked for some further investigation and potential wallet lightening. Giving Kym the heads up to what I think is going on, we position everything in such a way to make it difficult to get at without being obvious, and settle in to a 40 minute trip listening to some young American tourist drone on and on ... only to be interupted by the conductor giving everyone a rough time becasue they hadn't validated their tickets. When we get into Termini, we just sit tight - even though its the end of the trip. They get up & leave - maybe they decide to take a look in the yanks pockets. Either way, we're left alone. Once we got our gear off the train, then began the fun of actually trying to find the exit from Termini station - who'd think trying to find an exit would be such an ordeal? Eventually we found it - only to find that it had started to rain. What we found odd was that in the whole mad rush that is the Termini train station, were all these indians, all selling umbrella's. It was the strangest thing. Little did we realise that these same guys were the ones that happened to all sell roses on the street corners at night, tripods (no, I'm not making this up) in front of all the major monuments at night, the very same ones that sell shawls and wraps out the front of the religious sites to the tourists that get turned away due to inappropriate dress, and if its during the day with no sign of rain, they sell cheap knockoff designer bags, and the same ones that time after bloody time materialise as soon as it starts to spit with cheap, nasty, use once and throw away umbrella's. They're worse than the bloody pigeons. We spotted one selling little glass cubes with statues and crap in them - he was the only one selling these - I wonder if the umbrella/tripod/handbag/shawl sellers all tease him for being different? Anyway, we escape out of Termini, and finally get to a taxi rank where the taxi driver seems quite happy to take us, as opposed to the one who simply was interested in getting us to go away so he could finish catching up with his friends. Odd little man. After the flub with the tickets, I was a bit hesitant to trot out the Italian, but telling myself that what I actually asked for was actually correct - I just asked the wrong bloody person, I pipe up with "l'hotel Majestic a via Veneto, per favore." - to which the taxi driver responded with "Si, via Veneto, prego" - and bugger me, off we shoot into the madness that is italian traffic. Either he's making it up as he goes, or he actually knows that we want to go to the Hotel Majestic on Via Veneto. Granted, it wasn't War and Peace, but sure as hell I'd managed to ask for something in Italian in such a way that the actual Italian I was talking at knew what the hell it was that I wanted. About half way to the hotel, the cabbie blurts out "numero, a via Veneto?" Bugger - what number is the hotel "un momento ..." as I fumble for the booking ... "cinquanta" I stammer back. Fifty. That threw him - the stammering ..."Cinquanta cinque?" Fifty five. "Non, non, cinquanta" as I thrust the booking under his nose, hoping I haven't stuffed up the word for fifty. "Ah, si, cinquanta" Phew - I did get it right. I grinned like an idiot for the rest of the 10 minute trip it took to get to the Hotel Majestic. When we get to the Hotel Majestic, initial impressions are good. Some very expensive cars out the front, and the doorman is very smartly dressed. The hotel itself has a definite air of elegance, and the fitout is both very elegant, and very italian. Our room is all white enamel, and almost over the top embellishments. A very, very italian feel to it. Just a little on the small side, especially after the spaciousness of the room in Dubai. However, the hotel does remind me a bit of an old movie star, a bit past her prime. Loads of glamour, but if you look close, you see the lines from hard living, the makeup is on just a bit too thick, and they've gone with the heaviest duty soft focus lens. The Hotel Majestic is still very grand, but there's some things in need of some repair, and there's a bit of shabby just around the edges. Kymmie says it reminds her a bit of Faulty Towers - the desk staff are just a bit too over the top. Once we'd gotten settled, it was off to get a bit of exploring in before finding somewhere local for dinner. First destination was the Spanish Steps, and to find a good local cafe that we could call our local for the next week. Well, we reached the Spanish steps without finding too much in the way of a cafe. And I must admit, the Spanish Steps were a bit of a let down. Not a Spaniard in sight, and all the post card views of the Spanish Steps show it covered in flowers. Now, to be fair, maybe its a bit early for the flowers (apparently this 'occurs' in late May) - but there weren't even any damn plants that may eventually flower. Not one garden bed. Just steps and large blocks of masonry. A closer look at the postcards showing a very colorful & flowery area shows that the plants are all in pots - presumeably carted in overnight for the postcard photo shoot, and then removed in order to confuse the touristi. Well, it worked :) After a bit more of a wander, and we found a decent little cafe on the main shppping street in Rome, Via Condotti. Feeling bold after my taxi experience, out came some more italian, successfully ordering and even asking the current time with great success. Interestingly, we *didn't* get handed a bill like the other tourists in the bar - we were left to pay at the end at our leisure - so we must've said something right :)
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Title:Detail from the Trevi Fountain |
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Title:The Trevi Fountain |
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After our first taste of italian cafe (espresso), we continued to explore, stumbling across the Trevi fountain, which was not surprisingly packed with tourists. We held off on tossing three coins, as we'll be back to the fountain in the coming days. After a while we decided to head back towards the hotel to try to find somewhere for dinner. Behind the hotel, up a flight of stairs, we found a pizzeria that was a bit too touristy, but we were famished and tired after a long day. We enjoyed two pizza's that we didn't order (someone else probably got our pizza's) and a bottle of horribly overpriced vino rosso. We had a bit of fun with the waiter who was taking the piss a little bit in a fun sort of way over our attempts at italian. We did seem to get a bit more attention though than the other tourists - and had a warm farewell & handshakes that we noticed no one else got - so we're marking that up to the rapport building we're doing with our efforts with the language. Thankfully we were nice & close to the hotel, because by the time we'd finished dinner we were shattered - and looking for bed. More to come ...
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Well, its come time for us to move on from Dubai & head onto Rome. Our flight departure time was 9:25 a.m. - meaning we had to checkin by 7:25 a.m. at the latest. So, factoring in travel time (10 minutes), final packing, breakfast, we were looking at an ever so early 5:30 a.m. wake up time. And of course, I was so paranoid about over sleeping - I basically woke at 4 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep - looks like its going to be another long, long day.
Good news however - when we finally got back in last night - there was a telephone message. Curious, I played it back, and it was Customer services for the hotel enquiring if myself and Mrs Kym would like to take advantage of a complementary transfer to the airport. Which we gladly accepted (why spring for a cab if you don't have to - even if they're ridiculously cheap). We've noticed that we are often addressed as "Mr Darren' and 'Mrs Kym' - we suspect its becuase they struggle so much with the 'Tuer' surname :)
So, a quick breakfast, last stages of packing, and we're heading downstairs to checkout. An always helpful porter rushes up to assist me with the backpack & his eyes nearly pop out of his head when he takes the full weight of the backpack on his little shoulders. Bless him, he just swallowed hard & staggered off to track down where our driver was ....
As we head out of the foyer to the car we spot our driver, dressed very nicely in suit and tie, standing by his BMW seven series - ah what a fine way to depart the uber stylish city of Dubai ... :)
The departures area of Dubai was completely different to the arrivals for some reason. When we arrived, it was all very calm, quiet, no rush, no stress - departures was another thing entirely. Absolute chaos. We basically found ourselves a very rare unattended table at the closest thing we could find to a coffee shop (a Starbucks) and settled in to watch the craziness around us while we waited for our flight to board. Eventually we boarded the flight, and set off towards Rome.
Currently we're flying over the Greek Islands - we've just passed over the island of Myrina, heading for the Greek mainland. The new 777 aircraft that we're on has a camera mounted beneath the nose - you can watch what we are flying over on the seat back screens if you aren't lucky enough to have a window seat. They also have the forward looking camera which, at the moment, simply just shows blue sky and some clouds - not very exciting - but fun to watch when we land.
Itss been a comfortable flight so far - certainly a lot more so than the Brisbane - Dubai leg - Kyms been well and truely been giving the in flight entertainment movies a work out, I think she's knocked off three so far and is working on her fourth.
So that's all so far ... more to come ....
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We gave ourselves a bit of a later start to get over the last traces of jet lag, getting started at around 8 am in time to not miss the breakfast buffet, which if the previous days experiences with the fantastic food on offer in Dubai and the Grand Hyatt were anything to go by it was sure not to disappoint. And it didn't. The breakfast buffet was absolutely stunning. A variety of different stations, each offering different things, a juice bar, pasteries, cold meats and cheeses, cereals, hot food, and regional choices. We stuck with sausages (chicken), veal bacon (bacon like in look and flavour, just from a different critter), sauteed mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and loads of great coffee and the freshest orange juice short of juicing it ourselves. After breakfast it was off to the Dubai Mall again to take a look at the aquarium, let me have another go at the Burj Khalifa with the sun hitting it from the front rather than behind, and do a bit of shopping before our trip up to the 124 floor to see the view. It was disappointing though that the dust from the day before seemed to have gotten much worse overnight - visiblity was down quite a bit.
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Title:The Dubai Mall Aquarium |
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The view from the viewing platofrm of the Burj Khalifa was still amazing. We spent quite a bit of time up there - about an hour and a half, wandering around, playing with the digital telescopes they've got up there. They are basically a camera which you point where you want to look and watch the view on a computer monitor mounted on the front. They can also switch the view to a 'day' view (so not 'live') that was taken on a much clearer day, or a 'Night' view. Both these views overlay details of the various different buildings and a little bit of a description about them. Very cool.
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Title:View from the Burj Khalifa
This is looking straight down to where yesterdays image was taken |
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We decided to head back to the hotel for a late lunch, so that we would definately not miss meeting up with our guide for the Desert Adventure that we had booked for the afternoon and evening, heading out into the desert for some four wheel sand dune driving, with a dinner in a camp with camels and entertainment. We met our first guide at 4 pm - only to be told that we'd be going with a different guide. When he turned up, we were told that we'd be going across town to a different hotel to pick up another guest for our trip out into the desert. So we didn't actually really get on the road for the tour until sometime around close to 5 o'clock. As we headed basically south east towards the desert and the Oman border, the dust seemed to be getting thicker. After around 40 minutes of driving, we met up with around 40 or so other four wheel drives parked in a carpark just at the gate to the wilderness area where we'd be driving. By this time the dust was pretty thick, and the wind had really picked up - it looked like we were in for a good solid sand storm. Even at the carpark, when we got out of the vehicles, we already were getting blasted by heat and sand, getting in eyes and mouths. Still the group pressed on, and headed into the desert. The drivers are clearly very experienced - a couple of the crests and turns had me sure we were going to see a four wheel drive rolll - but they just gave it enough gas to get enough momentum up to stop the vehicles from sliding or rolling. Unfortunately though, the wind was getting stronger & stronger - we ended up in what really did look/feel like a full blown sandstorm. I guess that all just added to the adventure - although one vehicle got into strife and all the passengers had to pile out - right at the peak of the storm - we were all so, so glad it wasn't us that was out there getting shredded by sand :) At a couple of points we spotted some local wildlife - impala apparently.
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Title:Wild impala in the U.A.E. desert
Taken while in a moving four by four - not too shabby .... :) |
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At one point we stopped the vehicles for a drink break - the wind was still pretty fierce, but fortunately by this time the full force of the wind had passed - even so, within an instant of getting out of the vehicles, there was sand in everything. I think my camera survived the experience - but the lens I had on does have a very slight grating noise now when I shift the focal length... ah well. At least it wasn't one of the expensive lenses :)
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Title:The U.A.E. desert. |
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The sensible ones in the group all stayed in the vehicle (that'd be Kymmie) & took video of the silly ones who got out to take photo's. A bit more dune driving, followed by an unexplained half hour stop just short of the final destination, the 'desert camp' where we were to have dinner and be entertained by a belly dancer and camel rides for the brave. Unfortunately, the 'desert camp' had been around for so long, it really felt very tired & worn out. Also it was so targetted to tourists (obviously) that it just felt chintzy. And due to the sand storm, there was sand in nearly everything - not a lot - just enough to be annoying. So it was a bit of an anti climax to the trip - the dune driving was by far the best part of the experience! By the end of the evening, we were quite glad to clamber back into the four wheel drive for the return 40 minute journey back to the hotel, and a good long soaking shower to extract the sand. More to come ...
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After checking in, we realised that we were walking zombies - so despite the 'best practice' for managing jet lag & trying to push through & treat the day like any other, we figured we could justify a one hour nap as we'd effectively gained around 6 extra hours for Saturday - so one little hour couldn't hurt. So after a good solid soaking shower and an hours nap, we were up & ready to start exploring Dubai. First port of call however was a coffee to get the brain firing right - and for that we decided to not extend ourselves too far afield - a coffee shop/patisserie in the hotel foyer where we could sit for a bit, gather our thoughts & plan our next steps. Part of that included a 'meet and greet' to Dubai from a representative from the company that we were going to be heading out into the desert with on Sunday. Two lattes and two amazing croissants later, we caught up with the rep from Arabian Adventures. She was all fired up to sell us a load of extra tours, including guided tours of the Dubai Mall - which we gave a miss in favor of our own exploration schedule. She did give us a rather decent little map, and the rundown on a few of the city sights, including the various different sights in the vicinity of the Dubai Mall, including access to the Burj Khalifa - the worlds tallest building at 828 metres. So, we figured that was as good a place to start as any - despite our intial thoughts to avoid the malls - we were making one our first port of call. Getting anywhere in Dubai via taxi is, well, its an experience. At least its a cheap experience, the ride from Grand Hyatt to Dubai Mall, a reasonable length & time in the Dubai trafffic came to 25 durams - around AUD$8. They have little regard for indicators, line markings, speed limits, other vehicles - its astounding that there aren't frequent pileups. The traffic all just seems to get where it needs to go - all at very different rates. Its not unusual to be doing 120 kph past a van that must be doing 60 on the right side, while getting passed on the left by something that must be clocking at least 160 or more. While on our way to the mall, we were quite amazed at the number of workers collecting trash, watering gardens and generally keeping the very clean city of Dubai in a perpetual state of tidiness. The construction sites, not so much, and Dubai is covered with construction sites - we got the feeling that Dubai was basically the city equivalent of a dsiplay home - very polished, but a bit too surreal and tidy to actually be lived in. So after our first white knuckle cab ride, we arrived at the Dubai Mall. All I can say about that is 'wow'. This mall is huge, with just about every store you can think of, plus a whole lot more as well as an ice rink, aquarium and a 24 cinema multiplex. Outside is a vast water feature that includes a huge water fountain that does a 10 minute show every hour. Right next door is the huge shining tower that is the Burj Khalifa. This building is phenomenal to look at, and just as amazingly tall. Just over a small bridge is a 'old style' shopping area, styled along the lines of a souk, the Souk Al Bahar, which is where we wandered off to suss out, grab a cool drink and wander through. It turned out to be quite a pleasant little wander - we grabbed a gelato (yes, very Arabic) and sat on a bench to watch some of the locals wander past. After that, a bit of a browse through an art store where we picked up some picture cards of the Burj Khalifa (in case ours didn't come out or we could'nt fit the thing into a picture) and as I was setting up to photograph the ceiling that included some lovely old style copper arabic lamps, Kym decides that she wants to go and find out a bit about the henna tattoo place we'd just walked past. Around 15 minutes later, I started to wonder if something was amiss, so I wander back to the henna tattoo store - to find Kym sitting inside having a great old chat with her new friend, the lady doing the henna tattoos who was all keen (obviously) to give Kym a henna tattoo. So a little bit of backward & forward, and before you know it, shes come out from the back room with a fresh tube of henna, all set to go. So - here's a picture of Kyms first henna tattoo :)
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Title:Kymmies henna tattoo |
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After waiting for the henna to dry, we wander off outside to have a crack at photographing the Burj Khalifa.
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Title:Burj Khalifa - the worlds tallest building |
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A bit more of a wander around, and then we ventured inside the Dubai Mall to try to find where we could get onto a tour for the viewing deck on the 124 floor. After a bit of scouting we found it (not all that hard to find actually - the inside of the Dubai Mall is exceptionally well signed, with helpful attendants at ever major intersection) to find that all the spots for the day had already been booked. Which kind of suited as, as there was a haze in the air which was cutting visibility fairly drastically. So after booking a spot for Sunday, we wandered off to see a bit more of the mall. By late afternoon we'd had enough, so it was back to the hotel. We vaguely recollected that part of the upgrade package that we'd signed up for included 'happy hour' - in a Muslim country I wasn't quite sure exactly what that would involve - but maybe for us heathen foreigners we could perhaps partake in some alcoholic beverages? So, back to the front desk we go to struggle our way past the language barrier to establish that in fact there was so, so much more for us as part of the package. As it turns out, there is indeed a 'happy hour' when you can enjoy beer, wine and other spirits - all cost inclusive of the upgrade package. Also available was a range of small dishes and appertisers between 6 and 9 pm. A good part of the 14th floor (one up from our floor) is taken up by a number of lounge rooms, where you're basically waited on for as long as happy hour lasts - beyond that, at any time of the day or night, a smaller selection of snacks and beverages are available - just in case you're feeling peckish at 2 am and you can't sleep. Very civilised :) We also had usage of the boardroom for an hour a day, just in case we needed to hold an impromptu meeting or teleconference... We settled in for a glass of white wine and some fantastic appertisers before heading downstairs to locate somewhere for dinner. Kym had spotted a Lebanese restaurant which was probably closer to the regional cuisine instead of the Sushi restaurant, or the Manhattan Grill restaurant, so we thought we'd give that a go. We quickly regretted the appertisers we'd had earlier. As it turned out, the restuarant had three preset menus to choose from - we went with the most conservative of the three, a mere 100 dirams each. For 100 dirams (around AUD$33) we were treated to 12 cold entrees, 8 hot entrees, three mains and deserts. I think we worked out that was probably around AUD$2 for the entrees, mayabe a bit more for the mains. And the food was incredible. We thought we knew some pretty good Lebanese restaurants at home - nothing like this. We did a decent job ont he cold entrees, the warm entrees we found we had to be a bit selective with (some went back with barely a scratch) - by the time we got to mains - we just couldn't do it. We didn't even get to deserts - we had to apologize that there was no way we could consider them - so please don't bring them out. Apparently its quite the done thing to pick at the entrees, and send a large portion of them back - our big failure was attempting to actually eat everything that was bought out for us. Silly us. After apologising, we headed up stairs to call it a night, as we had a big day in store for us the next day. Its also then that I found that I'd mixed up my power adapters, and bought the wrong one for U.A.E - and the mini laptop was all out of juice - hence why there's two posts instead of one for each day :) So that was our first day in Dubai. More to come ....
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Well, here we are, day one of our month long 'Grand Tour' of Italy - and we've literally just landed (a mere hour ago) in Dubai. The flight over was ... interesting. Its been a while since we travelled internationally - and hasn't there been some changes! We got prodded, poked, frisked, weighed, prodded some more, had everything assessed and analysed. And that was after being told that our flight had been delayed by an hour and a half. At least it was a leisurely prodding, poking, etc exercise. By the time we finally settled into our (rather narrow) seats on the plane, we thought all we had left was to grit our teeth & bear the 14 hour, 45 minute flight to Dubai. Well, not quite. As soon as the airplane hit takeoff speed & lifted the nose, Kym got soaked by some grotty, smelly water pouring down from out of the overhead luggage bins. Some muppet had put his drink bottle up there - and as soon as it fell over, it collected all the dust & muck & deposited it right on top of her. Shortly after levelling out, meal service came around. And the food was pretty damn tasty. We were having a great time impersonating a tyrannasourus (about the only way to eat in economy class - pretending you're arms only come out of your chest from the elbow up) - when the woman next to me decided to empty her red wine into my lap. So for the rest of the flight, Kymmie smelled like dishwater - I smelled like an old wino. And of course - the jeans are pretty well ruined. In the interest of packing light for this trip - I limited myself to two pairs of jeans. One day in - and that's down to one. Ah well - I guess I'm hitting the outlet stores in Rome :) But we survived the trip - and navigating the massive Dubai International airport to get to the Grand Hyatt Dubai. The guy working the reception desk must've caught a whiff of us, or the look of desperation in our eyes when he told us that we'd need to wait from 8 am until 2 pm before we could checkin .... however sir, for a mere 150 durams per day, we can upgrade you to a Dubai Creek view room - that is available now. So we jumped at his offer - and here we are. Settled in nicely to a suite on the 13th floor overlooking a vary hazy Dubai and the 'Dubai Creek' - which would have to be the biggest damn creek I've *ever* seen....
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Title:Grand Hyatt Dubai - the room |
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Title:Grand Hyatt Dubai - the view. A quick grab shot of the view from our room.
That river is the 'Dubai Creek' - easily wider than the Brisbane River |
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We've started to map out our daily itinerary for our Italy trip, so people can see where we're going to be on a particular day, or when we're going to be somewhere. This is also a bit of a planning resource as well - we've already found a couple of times when we'd planned on doing something or other that something is only open at a particular time or day which means we've already shifted a few things around to be able to go somewhere or see something.
If you see a little page with a mini 'Google Earth' icon, then they can be clicked on to download the Google Earth Placemark that corresponds to the town or place that its next too (if you've got Google Earth installed that is). In a couple of places there are little camera pictures (yes, its a camera. Trust me.) that you can click on & a new window will load with a set of images from Panoramio for that area. And finally, the 'W' will open another window with the relevant Wikipedia article. All very interactive, yes?
As we flesh out the specifics for some of the days (e.g. what day we're planning to get to the Vatican, that sort of thing) we'll be fleshing it out. Some days we won't necessarily plan anything out - those are the days we'll just take as they come :)
It's been an interesting experience with organising some of the museums and galleries that we are going to visit. We've found a really good resource, Select Italy that has been really helpful in getting reservations sorted out. A bit of research has revealed that for some popular sites, the wait time can be up to 2 to 3 hours to get in - if you don't have a reservation & pre-booked tickets. Some sites will just outright refuse entry unless you've pre-booked. Select Italy cover at least the big galleries & museums in the major Italian cities, allowing you to go through them to reserve your tickets - instead of dealing directly with the galleries and museums, which can be quite difficult. I did actually attempt to book our tickets for the Uffizi Gallery via their official website - without success. The response time is really good as well - we booked quite a few tickets last night - and this morning I've already received the vouchers via email for at least three of them.
Friday
May 14
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Brisbane - Dubai |
Depart Brisbane International 20:45 and arrive Dubai 05:45 Saturday May 15 |
Saturday
May 15
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Dubai |
Recover, then spend the afternoon exploring Dubai.
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Monday
May 17
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Dubai - Rome |
Depart Dubai at 09:25 and arrive in Rome at 13:45 |
Tuesday
May 18
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Rome |
The Vatican, The Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel - two tickets booked for 10am |
Monday
May 24
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Rome - Siena |
Pick up our rental car & drive to Siena. See this post for the details. |
Sunday
May 30
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Siena - Florence |
Drive to Florence, via the 'Chianti Road'. See this post for the details.
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Tuesday
June 1
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Florence |
The Galleria dell' Accademia. A small museum, most famous for its star attraction, the statue of David. A very small museum apparently the whole thing can be seen in a half hour. Two tickets booked for 9:30 a.m.
The Uffizi Gallery (http://www.firenzemusei.it/). Closed Mondays - of course. Two Tickets booked for 1pm.
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Wednesday
June 2
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Florence - Venice |
Drive from Florence to Venice
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Saturday
June 5
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Venice - Milan |
Drive from Venice to Milan
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Sunday
June 6
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Milan |
A very quick visit to
the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie to see
The Last Supper. Why quick? The most amount of time you can spend viewing The Last Supper is 15 minutes! Incredibly, as of today (21/04) - all of May is fully booked & June is starting to fill up already. we're booked in for 10am, 6/06.
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Monday
June 7
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Milan - Tremezzo |
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Tuesday
June 8
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Tremezzo - Como - Liestal - Buren |
Drop the rental car off in Como, and board the train from Como to Liestal, Switzerland. Meet JD and Sandra in Leistal & head for
Buren
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Friday
June 11
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Buren - Basel - Rome - Dubai |
Fly from Basel to Rome. Board the flight from Rome at 15:25. Arrive in Dubai at 23:05.
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Saturday
June 12
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Dubai - Brisbane |
Board the flight home from Dubai at 02:45. Arrive in Brisbane at 00:40 Sunday June 13.
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The classic Chianti route is the S222 from Florence to Castellina. We'll be going the 'opposite' direction, heading out of Siena and through the Chianti region, heading generally northwards (with some zig zagging) towards Florence. Our general aim on this leg of our trip is to see as much of the Chianti region as possible - we've taken our guidebook for Tuscany and Florence at its word on the top ten things to see in this region, and we're aiming to knock off at least 8 of the top 10.
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Title:Route from Siena to Florence, "The Chianti Road" |
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To start our exploration of the Chianti region, we'll be heading north east from Siena out along the SS408 to our first stop, Castello di Brolio. Castello di Brolio has been a vineyard since 1007, and was the birthplace of the Chianti Classico back in the 1800's. Our current plan is to hit Castello di Brolio by 10:30 in order to do the one tour that they run on Sundays, the Classic Tour, a guided tour of the castle and vineyard, including tastings :) And of course, plenty of opportunity to pick up some fine Chianti to take with us.
From Castello di Brolio, we head north to the village of Gaiole in Chianti ... not a lot to this little village - it doesn't rate much of a mention in the guidebooks, so it will be a quick stop... and then onto Badia a Coltibuono. Badia a Coltibuono has an abbey dating from 770 as well as an 11th century church. Pretty.
From Badia a Coltibuono we head west to the village of Radda in Chianti, one of the few hilltop villages in this region that still apparently has a layout and fresco's dating from the Middle Ages.
After leaving Radda in Chianti, we head north to Castello di Volpaia, in the village of Volpaia that dates from the 13th century. This is our next Chianti vineyard that we are touring, and stocking up on regional olive oil, perhaps a bottle or three of nice vino rosso.
Next stop is the town of Castellina in Chianti, another medieval town, and old fortified Florentine outpost against the Sienese. While here in Castellina in Chianti we'll be making a slight detour to a nearby Estruscan burial mound, 'Ipogeo di Montecalvario' dating from the 6th century B.C. ... just because we can :)
We then head north, through the towns of Pieve di San Leolino, Panzano in Chianti, Greve in Chianti and Montefioralle. That concludes our tour of the Chianti region, having hit at least 8 of the purported top 10 sites of this region. From Montefioralle, we head north to Florence.
Click here to download our proposed route to load into Google Earth.
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Only a month to go until we depart, and we've started our detailed trip planning.
We land in Rome on the 17th May at 1:45 pm, and that's where we stay for the first seven days of our trip. But after Rome, we're picking up a hire car and driving north to the Tuscan town of Siena.
Now, for those of you who may have been to Rome, or know someone who has been to Rome, the traffic in Rome apparently is quite the experience. And we've seen snippets of it on various travel shows and documentaries. It's not for the faint of heart. Of course, we'll be about as close to the centre of Rome as its possible to get, in a new, unfamiliar car, driving on the wrong side of the road, surrounded by Italian drivers who apparently think they're all driving at Monza in Ferrari's, and god help the turista who has no idea.
So, the last thing I need to be dealing with is navigating the streets of Rome.
Fortunately, I've been out & bought a Navman, and loaded it with the Italian maps. So that's a plus. But the last thing I really want to do is just leave our fate in its little digital hands. Besides which, a GPS will try to get you to where you want to go in the most direct, fastest way its little digital mind can find.
But we don't want to follow it blindly.
Why? Because our little digital navigator will take us directly east, onto the A1 autostrada, and rip us north at 130 kph (the speed limit on the italian autostrada) - and we'll miss a good chunk of Italy.
What we really want is to weave our way north, get ourselves onto the SS2bis secondary, and take our time to weave through northern Lazio and into Tuscany, stopping at some of the little towns along the way and making a day of it.
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Title:Route from Rome to Siena |
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So there was nothing for it but to sit down with the GPS (and the gawd awful desktop software that it comes with - why do all navigation desktop applications suck so badly?) and the greatest navigation tool available on the planet - Google Earth, and map out a series of stops and checkpoints to force the navigator to take us on the route that *we* wanted to follow.
So we've ended up with the route that you can see. And through the wonders of Google Earth, if you click here, you can download the Google Earth route file, which you can use to zoom into Google Earth to take a closer look at some of the area we are driving through. A large portion of the route also has 'Street View' - its an option you can turn on in Google Earth that allows you to see 360 degree photos taken from street level - turn it on & have a play with it if you've never used it. Luckily a majority of Italy is covered, and the images are all high resolution - its almost as good as actually being there! (OK, maybe not quite that good :))
The first half of the trip isn't going to be too exciting (besides escaping the Roman traffic), but once we hit Sutri, we're going to start to see some pretty places.
Some of the sites that we're aiming to see on this part of the trip are;
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Crete Senesi |
A harsher region of Tuscany, also known as the Tuscan desert, close to Siena. This region is quite barren. Hamlets and villages plant cypress trees as wind breaks - the 'other' typical Tuscan scene.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crete_Senesi)
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