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Asia China

Fantastic and Futuristic Shanghai

I left Beijing early to take a train to Shanghai.  While I lucked out with air quality for most of my trip (except Xi’an), this train ride was my first glimpse into the horrible pollution that exists in China.  I looked out at the sun rising behind the clouds of smoke, and it took me a few minutes to recognize that it was in fact the sun.

Getting into Shanghai, I could immediately sense how different it was from Beijing.  Much more modern, of course, but also a wider variety of cultures mixing together.  My first order of business was to check into my hotel, which was amazing!  It was about a block away from Nanjing Road.  I had splurged on this one and was absolutely blown away.  They even did chocolate on the pillow, which, in my opinion, is the true mark of a luxurious place.

The first picture is the view from my window.  My first stop was the Bund to see the famous skyline, undoubtably the coolest one I’ve ever seen!  From there, I explored Nanjing Road, which had gorgeous shopping malls.  There was one that had a series of spiral escalators.  I’d never even contemplated that a non-straight escalator could exist!  Shanghai truly felt like the future.

The next morning, I got up early and headed to Yuyuan Garden.  I was there before it opened, technically, which gave me time to explore the area first.  I LOVED Yuyuan Garden.  Truly one of the most magical places I’ve been.  I’ve heard it’s rather touristy, but because I was there early, I was probably the fifth person in the garden, and I felt like I had it to myself for at least the first hour and a half or so.  It’s full of hidden passageways and staircases, which are of course my favorite thing, and every area represents a different style of traditional garden.

As it started to get more crowded, I went temple hopping in Shanghai.  First I visited the Jade Buddha temple, followed by the Jing’an temple.  This let me explore a few other neighborhoods in Shanghai.  The ironic part of the Jing’an one is that it is right next to a mall, and from many angles you could see a large Old Navy sign in the background.

From there, I headed to the French Concession!  It’s such a cool neighborhood.  The first street I walked down was half small hipster boutiques and half Chinese food shops.  Then I ended up in a residential area that had plenty of international schools and hipster beer bars.  I made my way over to the Propaganda Poster Art museum.  Strangely enough, it is located in the basement of an apartment building, so you just have to follow the signs and you come to a tiny museum lined with most of the remaining propaganda posters from the Mao era in China.  For probably obvious reasons, China has destroyed many of these, and this museum is the only one of its kind in the world.  They provided context for each time period, and it was really interesting.  I bought a replica of one that shows one of the few ballet performances that were allowed while Mao was in power.

That night, I headed to the Bund again to see the skyline at night.  It truly is spectacular.  The Shanghai skyline feels like someone saw the Jetsons and then decided to make it real.  I wanted to just stare at it forever.

For my last morning in Shanghai, I had a nice leisurely breakfast at the hotel.  I tried dragonfruit for the first time and liked it quite a bit!  Once I checked out of my hotel, I headed over to the financial district.  There’s a walkway over a good portion of it and I headed over to a nice park, where I had great views of all of the skyscrapers.

I spent part of the afternoon at the Oriental Pearl Tower, which offers amazing views of the city and has a museum about Shanghai on the bottom floor.  It was great to get a sense of the history of the city.  They went through its origins, from an old port city to colonization and later modernization.  One interesting aspect of museums in China is that they have stores in between the exhibits…. they’re excellent at the “exit through the gift shop” method.

I took a night train to Xi’an that night, which was an adventure.  At the end of my time in Shanghai, though, I had fallen in love with the city, and I would absolutely love to go back!

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Asia China

The Great Wall of China

I was so excited to visit the Great Wall!  This is my second of the Seven Wonders of the World, and no offense to Italy, but I found it a lot cooler than the Colosseum.  I ended up climbing between twelve watchtowers, which according to my phone, was about 5.6 miles and 172 flights of stairs.

I didn’t want to try to figure out public transit to Mutianyu, so I booked a bus tour.  They picked me up at my hotel.  I ended up sitting by two Dutch guys on the bus and hung out with them for most of the day, which was fun – we talked a lot about cultural differences between the US and the Netherlands, and they taught me all about overtourism in Amsterdam and speed skating.  I convinced them to sled down the Great Wall and they convinced me to climb more watchtowers than I would have.

We took a ski lift up and then walked along the wall for about two hours, from there, we headed back and took an alpine slide down the mountain, which was awesome.  Part of the time we had to go slow because we were behind a kid, but I would still highly recommend doing the sled ride down.

Our tour included lunch, so I had rice and potatoes as well as cucumbers and carrots with a spicy sauce before we headed back to Beijing.  It was a great way to ring in the New Year!

 

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Asia China

Harbin: Ice Sculptures and Siberian Tigers

From Beijing, I took a night train up to Harbin to go see the Ice Festival!  This was the first time I had ever been on a night train, and it was my first long distance train trip in China.  This particular train station had no signage or announcements in English, so I got there early so that I could observe and ask around if needed.  It turned out to be pretty straightforward.  While hoisting myself up on the top bunk was an adventure, I ended up sleeping very well as the train rocked me gently back and forth.

I had hired a driver in Harbin, so I met up with him in the train station.  He didn’t speak any English and I didn’t speak any Chinese, so we communicated through Google Translate.  He drove me into the city to pick up all my tickets for the day and I got my first look at Harbin.  The architecture blended Chinese and Russian styles, with some buildings including Cyrillic signs with the standard Chinese.  I was blown away at the size of some of the apartment buildings, which were absolutely massive.  It was also brutally cold while I was there, at -10 F and a “feels like” temperature of -24 F.

Our first stop was Snow World, where there were giant sculptures made out of snow.  Some were still being constructed, and there were galleries of smaller sculptures that were designed by students for a competition.  It was cold in a way that I have rarely felt before, and I often had to find a building to go inside to warm up so that I could feel my legs again.  Still, the sculptures were stunning.  I think their snow version of the Temple of Heaven was nearly the size of the real one.

From there, we headed to the Siberian Tiger Park.  I had researched this before I came and saw online debates about the ethics, although for the most part it felt like the night safari my family and I did at Disney World.  Except the bus had a cage over the top and the animals were all tigers.  I couldn’t understand what the guide was saying, but at one point people started passing up money.  Eventually, I understood that they were buying live animals to feed to the tigers.  A small Jeep-like vehicle came into the enclosure and tossed out live chickens, which the tigers killed and ate in front of us.  After the bus ride was done, we went to a sort of caged walkway.  Some people bought meat to feed the tigers through the cage, although to me that was the part that did cross the line ethically so I just watched.

After the tigers, we went to a local Chinese restaurant.  My driver was confused about my vegetarianism and struggled to find dishes to order.  We had lunch with another Chinese guide, Toby, and tour participant, Sharon, who is a South African teaching English in China.  She had also lived in Oman and Bahrain to teach English.  We talked about traveling and China over our food.  Lunch was interesting.  I tried a corn soup (great), a dried tofu pasta dish (meh), a tofu stew (good flavor, weird texture), and the potatoes from a chicken and potato dish (delicious).  I also tried a Harbin beer that was developed by the Soviet Union, which I liked quite a bit.  Food was served family style.

After lunch, we headed to Polar Land and I watched the sea lion show.  They had a walrus that danced, played the harmonica, blew a balloon, whistled, and did sit ups, which was quite impressive.  Then the sea lion came out and did very impressive jumps and caught rings thrown by the audience.  It was a quick trip, because I was anxious to get to the main event: the Ice Sculpture Festival.

It was incredible!  Possibly the most magical place I’ve ever been.  They had built a Colosseum and Duomo out of ice, and castles with turrets and slides.  Many of the buildings were designed after famous Chinese buildings.  All of the lights changed color, creating stunning designs.  I met up with Toby and Sharon there, and Toby told us the whole festival was constructed in 15 days!  They have to wait until the river is cold enough to harvest the ice, apparently.  The whole thing was completely worth the effort it took to get there.  After the festival, I went back to the train station so I could catch my sleep train back to Beijing.

 

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Asia China

Beijing: An Introduction to China

My trip to China started when I landed to the Beijing Airport and went to an ATM, where I found out that I couldn’t get any money.  I tried all of the ones in the airport and talked to the information kiosks, and when neither of those worked, I stood in front of the ATMs for a while and cried until another traveler took pity on me and let me Venmo him for cash so I could get to my hotel.  After Facetiming with my bank for an hour at midnight and about six more ATMs later, I finally found one that would accept foreign cards and managed to withdraw the money I needed for the trip.  It wasn’t exactly the beginning I was hoping for.

Once I sorted out all my money issues, I set about visiting the Forbidden City.  I ended up hurrying through it a bit, because it was a frigid morning and despite its moniker “The Palace Museum,” the visit is entirely outside.  Still, it was amazing to see the scale of the palace that the emperors used to live in.  The rooms were intricate and beautiful.

After a long and cold walk back to the metro from the North Gate, I continued my visit through the landmarks of old Beijing.  I went to the Lama Temple, which is an extensive Buddhist temple, and watched as people burned incense.  They had these magnificent statues of giant gold Buddhas.  Across the street from the temple, there was an area of hutongs.  Beijing used to have more of them, as that was the traditional way people lived there, but many have been torn down by now.  It reminded me a lot of the Latin Quarters in old European cities, with twisty and narrow labyrinth streets.  It felt invasive to wander through them, where people were still clearly living, but it took me a while to find my way out.

For the afternoon, I headed to the Temple of Heaven.  Ironically, I just saw the “Disney-ized” version of this in Epcot a few weeks before this trip.  The Temple of Heaven complex is a lot more extensive than I thought it would be, with a portion where they used to prepare animal sacrifices and a park.  My favorite part was walking through the Long Corridor, where a bunch of Chinese people were playing cards and some sort of checkers game together.  While walking through there, I got my first taste of being a white tourist in China.  One guy wanted to take a picture with me and a security guard came up to shake my hand.  I had seen this behavior as a tourist in Russia, but it’s strange to have strangers want to take pictures with you.

I also visited my first grocery store this evening, which was a bit of an adventure.  I don’t read Mandarin and most of their labeling didn’t even have pictures that made it clear what the flavorings were, so it took me a while to settle on the types of snacks I wanted to try.  From there, I headed on a night train to Harbin for the ice festival and spent the next day there.

When I got back to Beijing, my priority was the Olympic Park!  I have always loved the Olympics, and the 2008 Beijing Olympics was an amazing spectacle.  Who can forget the drummers, all in perfect unison?  I was beyond excited to be there.  Curiously, the Water Cube (where Michael Phelps won all those medals) has been transformed into half water park and half mall.  There are restaurants and shops, and if you go up to the top floor, there’s an art gallery.

From there, I headed to the Birds Nest!  I splurged for the “VIP” ticket, which meant I could go to the walkway on the very top of the stadium.  They were using the stadium to host a winter festival, with some snow sculptures and gentle slopes for kids to slide down.  It was great, and I spent much of my time there in disbelief that I was actually there.

I had an early dinner that evening at my hotel, the Howard Johnson.  Something my parents found absolutely hilarious, since it was historically a Midwestern chain hotel.  Because I was there before most people would go to dinner, I was completely alone in the restaurant, which was a wild experience.  I did get to finally try Chinese wine, which was something I had wanted to do since I first went to that convenience store and found that their main label was Great Wall wine.  It was pretty decent for the price point.

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North America United States

Orlando: Magic and Manatees

My mom and I have been dreaming about going to Harry Potter World since the concept was announced, and for her birthday this year, we finally went as a family!  After a horribly early morning and two flights for me, we all arrived in Orlando and headed to our hotel.  We stayed on Universal property, at the Portofino hotel, and had an excellent dinner at one of the five Italian restaurants on site.  The hotel was seriously gorgeous.  It looked like an actual Italian city, pretty similar to Vernazza in Cinque Terre.

I don’t have many pictures of Harry Potter World, because a few hours after we arrived, it poured.  Torrential downpour, sheets of rain.  We literally dried out our shoes with the hair dryer that night.  Despite the weather, we had a lovely time.  All the Harry Potter rides are awesome.  I got to do magic with my interactive wand, ride the Hogwarts Express, and drink two different types of butterbeer, so it was a day well spent.  It fulfilled all of my Harry Potter dreams, and I almost think the coolest part of all was seeing people walk around casually holding wands.  Almost as if I was genuinely a part of the magical community.

I also tried out most of the rides that Universal has to offer and went to the Chocolate Emporium, which I wanted to try because I had seen their crazy milkshakes on a blog before.  It was an awesome day.After our day at Universal, we took a Lyft over to Animal Kingdom Lodge and settled in for a busy few days at Disney!  I was impressed with their Magic Bands and disappointed by their transportation.  Once again, I’d like to give a plug to the Disney Tourist Blog, who I read back when I went to DisneySea and I relied on heavily to plan this trip.  I may not be able to imagine going to Disney World for all my vacations, but I appreciate the detailed research from those who do.

Animal Kingdom – We headed there early the next morning to visit Pandora for the new and incredibly popular rides.  The advice to go an hour before opening worked like a charm, and we found ourselves around Disney regulars who were impressed.  Flight of Passage was awesome, and I would like to also give a shoutout to Kilimanjaro Safaris and the Festival of the Lion King.  Definite highlights.  We had dinner at the Yak and Yeti, which was delicious (although my parents weren’t impressed with the exterior when I first pointed it out!).  After dinner we headed to our Night Safari, an add on where you get a drive through the savannas around Animal Kingdom Lodge.  Our favorite moment was getting close to the giraffes, both to one drinking water close to us and to the baby who started running out of excitement.  Animal Kingdom Lodge also had a gorgeous tree in the lobby, as seen above.

Hollywood Studios – We had a morning and then a night here.  The morning was when we used all our fastpasses and did some Christmas shopping.  I think my favorite ride here was Toy Story Mania.  We came back for dinner at the Brown Derby, where the tables may have felt too close together but the food was delicious.  Mom and I stayed for Fantasmic, which was a great show with projections, live actors, and a moment when they literally lit the water on fire!

Epcot – We spent about a day and a half here.  As expected, I absolutely adored World Showcase.  We went to all of the movies and walked through all the pavilions, checking out each of the Christmas food stalls.  This was also where the most egregious moment of Disney raising costs showed itself, when I ordered ice wine in Canada and received a glass akin to a shot glass for $11.  We had dinner at Via Napoli, which was excellent pizza.  Soarin’ was a fantastic ride and I would have loved to go on it a few more times.  Dad and I stayed to watch Illuminations, which was amazing.  He’s said that it’s the best fireworks show he’s ever seen, and I must say I agree.  We also moved to Boardwalk for the second half of our time in Disney, which was so cool!  I loved the whole complex, and we had some great ice cream from the place next to our hotel.

Magic Kingdom – This park thrives on nostalgia, and I went on many rides that I remember from my childhood when we used to go to Disneyland.  Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Autopia, Pirates, the Carousel.  I’d also like to give a shoutout to Jungle Cruise, where our captain was hilarious.  We ate at Skipper Canteen and had another great meal.

From there, we headed out of the Disney bubble and back to the real world.  Our hotel was out on Cocoa Beach, so we got to spend a few nights near the seashore.  We tried to go to the Kennedy Space Center the next day but found that it was an absurd $57 per person (plus $10 for parking).  Instead, we went to the Cape Canaveral National Seashore and saw dolphins splashing through the water.

The next day was another thing I was very excited about, swimming with manatees!  There was a bit of a snafu where it was farther away than I thought, but we figured it out in enough time.  And so we headed out on a boat into the areas where manatees come in for the winter in search of warmer water.  I had never snorkeled before.  It was a little intimidating at first, especially when we got in the water and it was raining and choppy and we didn’t see anything in the first area besides scary-looking fish.  I thought at that point that I might have made a huge mistake in insisting we do this.  But in the second and third places we stopped, the water was calmer and we were able to see the manatees, and it was absolutely incredible.  They swam underneath us and right next to us, to the point where we were trying to back up so that we didn’t accidentally hit them while we swam.  It’s amazing to be that close to such beautiful creatures, and it’s something I will always remember.  It was a great way to close out our trip.

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Europe Italy

Venice: Gelato, Gondolas, and Giudecca

Venice was amazing.  We had a long day of train rides, so we didn’t arrive until the early afternoon.  It was raining as our train pulled into the station, and the light fog gave the city an otherworldly look.

Megan and I stayed in a hostel on Giudecca, which is an island slightly south of Venice.  This meant that we ended up taking a lot of water buses.  Blogs I read seemed to see this as a negative, but I loved seeing Venice by water and that gave me more of a chance to do so.  We got an unlimited transit pass for the three-ish days we were there.

After dropping off our stuff, we headed to St. Mark’s Square.  I wanted to see Doge’s Palace, which is where the leaders of Venice used to live back when Italy was a collection of city states.  We also got to cross over the Bridge of Sighs and see the old prison from that time period.

From there, we wandered around Venice for a while in search of the Rialto Bridge.  I’ve never been as lost as I was in Venice.  I have a very good internal compass, so even if I can’t find specifically where I need to be, I can at least figure out the general direction I should be going.  Not so here.  I would be walking in a direction I was convinced was correct, and then I would look at Google Maps to find that I had somehow turned around completely.  It’s a good thing they put signs up to point you toward St. Mark’s Square and the Rialto.

We did eventually find the bridge, and got a good sense of the city in the process.  With a lot of cities, there will be one scenic area, and all the pictures you see come from those same places.  In Venice, everything is the scenic part.  You’ll turn down a side street and find yourself crossing the bridge of the loveliest canal you’ve ever seen, until you see the next one.  It’s amazing.  I can’t imagine why anyone would build a city entirely on water, but I’m glad they did.

The next day, we headed to Burano, which is north of Venice.  It’s known for tiny colored houses, and you’ve probably seen it on Instagram.  We had lunch reservations at a place I’d found online.  Or at least, I thought we did.  Turns out I’d booked them for the day after.  The restaurant staff were bemused, saying that no one ever comes early for a reservation.  I assumed we were out of luck, but they had an extra table for emergencies and they sat us down there without missing a beat.

The restaurant was incredible.  Our meal started with bread and prosecco, and when we ordered the house wine, a sommelier came out to pour it for us.  It specialized in seafood, so Megan tried something with clams and I had pasta with red sauce, which was one of the best pasta dishes I’ve ever had.  We both got tiramisu as well.  Again, absolutely delicious.  I had a lot of wonderful meals in Italy, and this was among the best.

We went back to Venice for the afternoon and decided to take our gondola ride.  I had bought a small group option, where you could show up at any of the available times daily.  The gondola would have up to six people in it, which seemed like a fair trade for about 70% savings on the cost of a gondola ride.  True to Italian fashion, they were not ready at the time they said they would be, and we ended up killing time by visiting a bookstore I had seen on Instagram.

The gondola ride itself was super cool.  Everyone is right, that’s absolutely the best way to see the city.  I wish it had lasted longer!

After our gondola ride, we got gelato and headed back to Giudecca to explore that island.  That area is significantly less touristy.  One of my coworkers studied abroad in Venice and said that’s where a lot of students live.  At sunset, it has gorgeous views of St. Mark’s Square.

The next morning we spent a bit more time walking through the narrow streets of Venice, and then headed off to the airport for our flight.  We had a long layover in London, although our flight was fairly delayed and we didn’t get to see as much as we’d planned.  Apparently a bus caught fire in front of Stansted and it messed up all the flights.  We did still have time to go to the Shard and have a few cocktails though!  All in all, it was an amazing trip, and I cannot imagine a better end than Venice.

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Europe Italy

Cinque Terre: 129 Flights of Stairs

Yes, you read that correctly in the title.  129 flights of stairs.  And all of them were worth it.

I have wanted to go to Cinque Terre ever since my family did a puzzle that had a picture of the houses of Manarola.  I couldn’t imagine that such an adorable seaside village could exist in real life.  It took me a long time to learn how to pronounce it correctly, because I always wanted to use a French accent, and it was only in researching for this trip that I learned about each of the five towns.

Our train got in to Riomaggiore, which is where we were staying.  After dropping off our stuff, we explored the city center and then headed out to the other towns.  We hit all five by train, which was fairly doable in a day.  It took us pretty much the whole day, and it was somewhat tiring, but both of us agreed that we saw everything we wanted to.

After Riomaggiore, we went to Manarola, which is where the most famous pictures are from.  It is so beautiful.  It’s almost embarrassing how many pictures I have of those houses on my camera!

The third town is Corniglia, which is the only one that isn’t directly on the coast.  Instead, you have to climb a lot of stairs to get up to it.  The views were great, and it also felt way less touristy than the other villages.  Luckily, we were there in off season, but this one still felt more authentic.

Fourth up was Vernazza.  At this one, we were starting to flag a bit, so we stopped and did a wine tasting!  We had two white wines and a dessert wine.  It’s fun to be able to taste locally sourced wine.  We also picked up a bottle of the limoncello cream, which we had tried in Sorrento and absolutely loved.

The last town was Monterosso al Mare, which is the only one with a beach.  This one was a bit larger than the others, and felt less touristy as well.  We split a pizza here before heading back to our Airbnb.

This particular Airbnb was a splurge for me, as I fell in love with the views from it.  In classic fashion, I picked one with about a million stairs, not thinking about lugging our stuff up or getting back up after a long day.  We checked on our phones, and our Airbnb was 22 flights of stairs up from the ground level of Riomaggiore.  The views were worth it, though!

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Europe Italy

Traveling in Tuscany

We left Rome early so that we could catch a train to Florence, where we were based for the next two days.  After checking in to our Airbnb, we headed to the main tourist attraction, the Duomo.

We had reservations to climb the dome, which I would highly recommend!  First of all, the views are spectacular.  It gives you a clear view of Florence, and it also lets you see the inside of the church without waiting in the long line.  Plus, you get up close and personal with the frescos on the ceiling.  These featured dramatic scenes of sinners being pulled into hell.

There are a ton of stairs, and the staircases get fairly narrow at times.  I believe when I bought the tickets, it gave a warning to people who were claustrophobic.  The ticket also allowed us into all the other buildings in the church complex, although we opted to not wait in line for most of them.  We did go into the museum, which had religious items and information about the architecture of the dome.  One room had some bones from John the Baptist, so that was kind of cool.

We had a little extra time to explore Florence before we had to meet our wine and pasta tour, so we wandered around through the narrow streets.  I generally have a good sense of direction, but it was a challenge in these streets!  We got gelato and found the courtyard, where our tour guides came to pick us up.

From there, we were whisked into the Tuscan countryside.  Our first stop was a winery.  We got a quick tour of the villa, and then had a wine tasting.  There was a white and two reds followed by a dessert wine.  Unlike the other wine regions I’ve visited, it seems as though Italian wineries see the production of dessert wine as a status symbol.  It’s fairly expensive, as it uses significantly more grapes than traditional wine, but we saw it here and at the wine tasting we did in Cinque Terre.

After we had all drank wine and shipped some back to the U.S., our guides brought us back to their family villa for a pasta class.  We ended up with one of the founders of the whole operation, and she told us about how she had started the business.  They were high up on a hill, and the views from their villa were stunning.  They poured more wine and started the lesson on pasta.  It was easier to make than I expected, although I did end up breaking my egg almost immediately when we started.  Oops.  We made ravioli with cheese filling and fettuccini, and they whipped up sauces to go on both.  Once we were done making everything, we all sat down for dinner.  It was such a delicious meal!

The next morning, we left our Airbnb early to head to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower.  From previous research, I knew there wasn’t much else to see in Pisa, so we just grabbed breakfast at a bakery along the way, took some kitschy pictures with the tower, and headed back to Florence for the rest of the day.  Like Stonehenge, it’s one of those monuments where I’m glad I’ve seen it, even if it isn’t all that exciting.  And after seeing it in person, I’ll admit it leans much more dramatically than I thought it did!

After Pisa, we walked back and explored more of Florence.  I had booked timed tickets at the Uffizi Gallery, so we were killing time until that.  We walked across the Ponte Vecchio, which was swarming with tourists, and walked along the river.  We tried to go around the Boboli Gardens without realizing how large they were, which meant we got a very good look at the charming side streets in that area of the city.

The Uffizi Gallery was less busy than I expected it to be, considering the crazy lines outside.  One of the coolest parts of it was walking into a room and ending up right in front of The Birth of Venus.  I also think Renaissance art is hilarious, because every person they ever painted is in awkward positions and the babies have faces like old men, so I entertained myself that way throughout the gallery.  We had an early night again, since we were getting up for another early train ride the next morning.

My main takeaway is that I would definitely love to come back and spend more time in wine country.  Florence was gorgeous as well, especially when wandering the streets that aren’t adjacent to the Duomo and the big museums.  It’s fun to get lost in the side streets as they wind through the city.

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Europe Italy

Ruins in Pompeii and Limoncello in Sorrento

You know how when you’re in school, there are events in history that aren’t that important in the relative scheme of things, but you still learn about them a bunch of times and watch videos and write papers and then you grow up and realize that no one will ever talk about that event again?  Pompeii was one of those for me.  Along with the Titanic sinking, Custer’s Last Stand, pretty much anything I ever learned about dinosaurs….  Anyway.  I still remember sitting in 7th grade social studies and watching a somewhat horrifying reenactment of Pompeii being buried in ash.

In short, it was high up on my list to go here.  We got up early to take the train from Rome to Naples, which had some amazing views of Mt. Vesuvius on the way.  From there, we switched to a regional train to get to Pompeii.  For some reason, our train compartment had a bunch of French people on it, which was nice because there weren’t any announcements about what stop we were at so I could ask around to see how close we were getting to Pompeii.  After storing our luggage, we headed over to the ruins.

The ruins were much larger than I imagined.  It’s essentially an entire city, and you can find houses, amphitheaters, a colosseum, and marketplaces.  If I’d had more time, I would have loved to go to the Archeological Museum in Naples, because that’s where most of the objects they’ve recovered are.  The ruins at Pompeii are mostly the structures themselves.  I also would have liked to go to Herculaneum, which is supposed to be better preserved.  But.  I loved seeing the ruins at Pompeii, it was so interesting to walk through a town that had once been entirely wiped out by a volcano.

When our feet got tired of walking through the ruins, we headed into Pompeii for pizza.  I tried Google maps to find a good place.  Since everything near the train station was overpriced and touristy, we picked a place that was about a 15 minute walk away and had great reviews.  We set off into Pompeii, walking through a field and down a small side street.  This took us to a market, where I asked a local where the restaurant was.  He pointed it out to us and we ended up in a truly hole-in-the-wall pizza place, Pizzeria La Bella Napoli.  It was family-run place, and it had the best pizza I ate in Italy.  We each ordered a full pizza and watched them make it in front of us, and then sat down in the restaurant.  Our total came out to 6 euro for two large pizzas.  As we ate, the father came out from the back, where he had been making dough, and tried to speak to us in Italian with his son translating.  It was an amazing experience, and one that I will absolutely cherish when I think back on our trip to Italy.

Once we had gorged ourselves on pizza and walked back to the train station, we headed down to Sorrento for the night.  It took us a while to find our hotel.  I had splurged and we had an ocean-room view, which was absolutely stunning.  I would stay there again in a heartbeat.  We tried to walk down to the sea, but there was a gate because it was still off season so we couldn’t actually get all the way down to the coast.  The below pictures were taken from our balcony.

From there we headed into the town of Sorrento.  We went into tiny shops, where they offered us tastings of limoncello, and killed time until our dinner reservation.  It was lovely, and I would have loved to spend a little more time in Sorrento.

I had booked dinner at La Basilica Sorrento, and when we got there, we were one of two tables in the restaurant.  This is what happens in Italy if you go to dinner at what would be a normal time in America.  We both tried tasting menus, so I tried the vegetarian one and Megan got the seafood one.  I’m usually not adventurous with food, but it paid off here.

My meal was: a half bottle of red wine, a piece of cheese pizza, a mozzarella and tomato salad, a pesto zucchini pasta course, a parmesan eggplant dish that tasted mostly like cheese, and a very strong rum-soaked cake.  It was delicious, and the owner of the restaurant kept coming out to make sure we liked our food.  The pesto zucchini course was my favorite.  All in all, a great day for eating.  We headed back to Rome the next day to visit the Vatican, but I would love to come back to this area and explore more.

Categories
Europe Italy Vatican City

When In Rome….

After my night at the IceHotel, I flew down to Stockholm and then took another flight from Stockholm down to Rome.  While flying over the entirety of Europe, I got to see the Alps from the plane, which was a nice bonus.  I met my cousin Megan in the airport, and then we took the train together into the city.

After checking into our hostel, we walked over to go see the Colosseum!  It’s a classic symbol of Rome, and it’s one of the wonders of the world.  It was pretty magnificent to see it in person.  We walked through a park and turned a corner, and it was suddenly there, right at the bottom of the hill.  After marveling and taking a few pictures, we headed over to a wine and cheese bar I had found, Beppe e i suoi formaggi.  We were there at a weird time so it was quiet, and we each drank some wine and tried a wide variety of cheeses.  It was a fairly early night, because both of us had long days on planes and we were getting up early the next day for Pompeii and Sorrento.

We got back to Rome after our train back from Naples on Saturday.  From there, we headed over to Pizzarium, which was in a lovely area of the city near the Vatican.  It kept showing up on lists of good restaurants in Rome, so I wanted to try the pizza there.  It was delicious, although it wasn’t the best I had in Italy – see my post in Pompeii & Sorrento for that story.  We headed over to check in for our tour of the Vatican, and ended up walking around that area for a while since we were early.

When our tour started, we began by walking down the main road toward St. Peter’s Basilica.  There’s a line on the cobblestones that marks the barrier between Italy and Vatican City, which is technically a separate country.  Our tour guide told us a bit about the history and architecture of Vatican City, and spoke about the semi circle of columns that surrounds the main square.  One of the funniest moments was when she asked a child in our group what that was supposed to represent.  The child loudly said, “A trap!” and our tour guide was horrified, because the answer she was going for was “an embrace.”

We headed over to the Vatican Museums, which were very busy.  We had to go on the Saturday, because they’re closed on Sundays.  We waited in line for a long time to go through the metal detector, and then our guide took us quickly through the museums.  A lot of it was sculptures and artwork about the history of Christianity.  There were some gorgeous mosaics.  My favorite room was the map room, which had a stunning intricate ceiling and old maps of Italy and Europe along the walls.  From there we went to the Sistine Chapel, which was also beautiful.  They wanted absolute silence here, although their attempts were undercut by the fact that someone kept coming over the loudspeaker and shushing everyone.  I would LOVE to see how much money the Catholic Church actually has.

Once we left the Sistine Chapel, we took a shortcut over to St. Peter’s Basilica.  It’s a massive structure, with high ceilings and dramatic columns.  Once we had finished looking around, we headed back to our hostel for the night.

The next morning, we tried a bakery I had found online that was near our hostel.  Pasticceria Regoli, which was delicious.  We ate way too many pastries and then headed down to the Colosseum for our tour of that.  We waited forever in the line for security, and then felt a bit rushed through the Colosseum itself, which was a shame.

Once we had left, we headed over to the Roman Forum, which is apparently the second largest archeological site in the world (after Pompeii).  It had the ruins of the buildings from Ancient Rome, and our guide pointed out some of the places where people had governed and worshipped.  The best part of the Forum for me was the hill where we had magnificent views of Rome.

From there, we did a quick tour of the other main sights of Rome.  We started at Piazza Navona, then up to the Pantheon.  Because it was Palm Sunday, the Pantheon was free to enter, which was cool.  It was nice that everything was free, but it meant the crowds were insanely busy for most of our time in Rome.  From there we went to Trevi Fountain, where we both threw in some coins, and we finished out our tour at the Spanish Steps.  That area was swarming with people, so we broke away from the crowd and got some gelato.

From there, we made our way back to our area and had an early night, because we had another early morning planned.  It was a whirlwind trip to Rome, but I think we managed to see most of the main attractions and try a lot of good food.  Rome wasn’t my favorite of the cities we visited in Italy, but that was mostly the crowds in every major area – maybe if we hadn’t gone the week before Easter, I would have had a much more favorable impression of the city.  That said, it was still amazing to see places I’ve heard about and imagined for years, and it was a great way to start out our trip.