Naples

Tuesday morning my sister Susan and I took the Circumvesuviana train (which winds around Mount Vesuvius) to Naples, checked our bags, and headed to the Naples National Archaeological Museum, which when we got there found was closed on Tuesdays. Instead, we took the first half of a Rick Steves walking tour of Naples, which I myself found pretty fascinating. Naples is the densest city in Europe, and even more frenetic than Rome. The sun was out, thank God, and Susan found a hole in the wall pizza restaurant with outdoor seating in front of an art school and museum. Susan had a glass of wine, I had a glass of beer, and the waitress brought us a large tray of snacks, bless her heart.  The place was filled with students taking a break on a sunny afternoon, and was a very pleasant respite from our walk. Afterwards we continued on past Piazza Bellini, the place where Bellini got his start, walked through an area made up of bookstores and bookstalls, and wound up at Piazza Dante, where the Metro stop was located and where I took the photograph on the left.

We took a rest in the piazza before heading back to Naples and then on to our hotel near the Rome airport. During this time I was very fortunate to be able to take a photograph of the Crazy Pigeon Lady of Napoli (who turned out to be my own sister Susan), as seen in the photograph on the right. After resting, we returned to the train station and bought tickets back to Rome.  I don't think the clerk spoke much English, or else he was just plain mean. He told me there was a train that left for Rome at 3:05, but since it was already 3:00 I told him I didn't think we could make that one.  He wound up selling us tickets to that train anyway. Why? Why why why?

I had to immediately collect my sister and rush her to the soon to be departing train.  Not only was it leaving immediately, it was also a high speed train that cost 36 Euros per ticket more than the regular one.  Plus, our tickets were for the very last car on the train (car eleven).  Once we got even with the first car, the whistle blew, signaling imminent departure, and so we had to climb aboard and make our way through narrow aisles, carrying 4 bags, through eleven cars.  I wound up falling once, and was helped up by fellow passengers.  As we headed for the next car, a woman ran up to me with our tickets, God bless her, which had fallen out of my shirt pocket when I fell. We finally got to our seats, where I sat panting for  45 minutes or so of the one hour trip, but was still able to summon up enough strength to take the photograph on the left of Susan (aka The Pigeon Lady). Once in Rome, we headed to the airport, where we caught the shuttle to the Best Western Rome Airport, and our flight back to Denver the next morning.  It was definitely time to head home.

Sorrento

My sister Susan and I arrived in Sorrento at a reasonable hour, but it took a while to find the bus stop, which naturally turned out to be on a hill that we had to climb with all our luggage. The hotel was located on the Via Capo, and was supposed to be just a short walk from the train station, but since we were carrying all our luggage and "short walk" seems to have a different meaning in Europe, decided to take the bus. Sorrento sits on a cliff overlooking the Bay of Naples, and although it has some Greek walls and ruins, it is all about the view here, one of which can be seen in the photograph on the left.

Sadly, it rained most of the time we were there, which is always a drawback when it is the town itself that is the attraction and not museums or other tourist attractions.  And I also have to add that it appears the British have taken over the place lock, stock, and barrel.  There are British pubs all over the place (the English Inn, the Celts Bar, the Irish Pub, etc., not to mention that half the hotels in town have British names).  The night we arrived we checked into the Hotel Britannia and had dinner at the Mannequin Piss, named after that delightful statue in Brussels and filled with English patrons watching the soccer game.  Considering that it seems to rain almost 24/7 here, they should all feel right at home. Our hotel was located above the fishing village of Marina Grande, seen in the photograph on the right, which we passed each time we headed to the center of Sorrento.  And yes - that is indeed Mount Vesuvius in the distance across the Bay of Naples.

The day after we arrived in Sorrento we took a bus ride along the Amalfi Coast to Positano, seen in the photograph on the left.  The bus was so crowded we had to stand, but fortunately we were at the front and could look out at the scenery, or at least what we could see of it, considering it was pouring down rain and you often could not see more than a few feet.  Susan did get to experience driving along cliffs that plunged down hundreds of feet to the Bay of Naples, with the bus coming within inches of the edge. Of course, the entire time the bus driver would be driving with one hand and gesturing with the other.  You can't beat fun like that.

We were hoping to take a boat to Capri from Positano, but the weather was so miserable we decided to take the next bus back to Sorrento, where we had lunch and then went back to the hotel.  Susan needed to rest, and so I went out on my own to take photographs and explore a bit. That 4 hours was the one time I saw the sun in that town.  I took the opportunity to take the photo on the right of one of the more luxurious hotels there, hugging the cliffs above the port. When I collected Susan to walk into town for dinner, it started pouring again.  The restaurant we ate at was very nice, however, with good food.  It was also very popular - there were even people waiting in the rain to get in. The next morning we considered taking a boat to Capri, but since it was still raining off and on, decided to head to Naples instead.

Rome

By the time we got to Rome, I think my sister Susan was getting a bit tired from dealing with the hordes of tourists and all the walking.  We took a three hour bus ride from Siena to Rome's second largest train station, and from there to our hotel, which involved taking a metro train and still another bus to Largo Argentina (a major transportation hub in Rome). From there we walked to the hotel, located near Campo de' Fiori, one of the nicest piazzas in the city, where we had dinner that night. By this time, of course, I don't think Susan cared if we were at Campo de' Fiori in Rome or Smokestack Alley Plaza in Gary, Indiana.  She choose the first restaurant we came across, and insisted on heading back to her hotel room right after dinner.  The photograph on the left, by the way, is of a statue of a heretic burned alive in Campo de' Fiori back in the middle ages.  Jules Caesar was also assassinated in this piazza back when the Theater of Pompeii was located here.  I mentioned these fascinating tidbits to Susan, but she didn't care.

Rome, I must admit, is a huge, very frenetic city, which during ancient times required chariots to get around in, which sadly were not at our disposal during this trip (I do remember seeing them around town the last time I was there, however). While Susan rested, I took advantage of the time to take some photographs around the hotel, such as the one on the right I took from the hotel's rooftop bar. I personally like Rome a lot, with it's narrow streets and buildings going back to the birth of Christ, if not earlier.  Granted, it is crowded, but still fun (I know, I know - they don't call me "Crazy Old Man Hoyt" for nothing).

The next day we took the bus to the Vatican.  We had reservations for the Vatican Museum at 12:00, and found we had to circle the Vatican (which is an entire country, I must remind you) to get there. The neighborhood was very nice and enjoyable to see, despite the long walk. However, when we approached the entrance, a number of tour guides warned us that unless we took their tour, we would have to exit the museum and walk all the way back to the front of St. Peters and stand in a long line to get into the basilica.  I finally gave in after the third or fourth sales pitch, and we took the tour. I later found out from reading Rick Steves guidebook that this is technically true, but if you just confidently go through the tour guide's door you should be able to get into St. Peter's anyway. The crowds, by the way, were massive in the museum.  When we finally got into St. Peters, we looked around a bit and then immediately headed to the Travestore neighborhood (which is very historic and old), where we had wine and beer on the main square to recuperate.

That night (after a long rest period) we took Rick Steves Night Walk Across Rome, which goes from the Campo de' Fiori to the Spanish Steps, and laces together Rome's nicest piazzas and urban spaces.  Susan was a trooper, and we made it all the way to the Spanish Steps (which we didn't climb, by the way). We also passed the Trevi Fountain (seen in the photograph on the right), but the crowds were so huge we didn't linger, and headed instead to a nearby cafe for dinner. The next day I had planned for us to visit the Colosseum and the Roman Forum, but Susan was in no mood for any more sightseeing.  We did, however, take the bus there and looked at the Arch of Constantine, walked around the Colosseum, and spotted the entrance to the Forum , but then headed directly to the Metro and the train to Sorrento. Arrivederci Roma!

Siena

My sister Susan and I took a bus from Florence to Siena, and after a bit of a walk from the bus station to the hotel (located next to Il Campo - the city's famous piazza, as seen in the photo on the left), had time to rest up before dinner. Just as I sat down on the bed in my room, I heard drums, tambourines, and shouts from a large procession marching right under my window. When we turned the keys in at the front desk as we left for dinner, we asked the desk clerk what it was all about.  He told us it was a neighborhood group cheering on the team that would represent them in Siena's semi-annual horse race, which pits each neighborhood against each other in a horse race around Il Campo.  Amazingly enough, they made another parade through the neighborhood at 12:30 A.M., on a Thursday night no less, two months before the event. Do they do this every night, or every Thursday night? I admire their enthusiasm, but don't they have jobs?  Do they just show up late every morning? So many questions, so few answers.

My friends Darrel and Linda recommended a B and B with a restaurant downstairs that they stayed at in Siena years ago, and that is where we headed for dinner.  Darrel told me that the owner started drinking wine in the morning and continued through the evening, closing the restaurant when he felt it was time to call it a night.  It was located just off Il Campo, right behind Siena's City Hall Tower (seen in the photograph on the right), and I must say it was a really nice, low-key place to eat.  There was only one other table occupied - a large group of locals - and as far as I could tell, the owner (most likely the son of the previous owner) waited on the tables and the wife did the cooking, a truly local establishment.  The food was very good, and the dinner was the cheapest one we had while in Europe.  Once we finished dinner, they locked the place up behind us.  Evidently it did not cater to the late night crowd.  We walked back across the piazza to the hotel, passing locals and tourists just sitting  down on the bricks of Il Campo and enjoying the nice evening.  A beautiful, laid-back town free of tourist groups.  I wonder how they possibly missed the place?

The next day we walked through Siena's picturesque streets to it's famous Duomo.  For once, there were no huge crowds of tourists to maneuver through, and so we could take our time enjoying the artwork and architecture.  Siena was a major rival of Florence, but in 1348 the Black Plague killed off a third of the population, and then it was conquered by Florence in the 1500s, leaving it a medieval backwater, and thus preserving it as a living medieval city today. My sister Susan did not feel like climbing to the roof of the Duomo, or for that matter even the City Hall Tower, from which are spectacular views of the city and nearby countryside, and so we checked out of the hotel to catch the bus to Rome.  After buying the tickets, I was told that the bus would be leaving from the train station, and that is was just a short walk away. We elected to take a bus there instead, and it took 20 minutes.  It seems that Europeans have a much different definition of a "short walk" than Americans.  I imagine their idea of a long walk would be to Rome (which took 3 hours by bus).  No wonder they all seem so healthy.

Florence

 As I mentioned in a blog post several days ago, we took the overnight train from Paris to Florence (never try this yourselves) and found our way to Piazza San Marco, near our B and B, after finally figuring out the bus system (thank you Rick Steves). We had to kill an hour or two at a cafe overlooking the Museum of San Marco until we could check in, since we had arrived so early.  I was a little worried, since we were not able to find a Rick Steves recommended hotel in Florence, but the place turned out to be fine, run by a friendly and helpful young couple in a quiet residential neighborhood, as seen in the photograph on the left.

The buildings in this neighborhood were from the early 1400s, no less, and I find it truly amazing that these buildings are still in existence, much less have elevators, bathrooms, electricity, television, and all the other creature comforts, although on a much smaller scale than in the U.S. In fact, the only hotel we stayed at that didn't have an elevator was in Dallas, Texas (surprise!), but that is a story for another time.  The photo on the right shows the view out of our rooms, a building which I assume was a palazzo back in the 1400s from the looks of it, but I could be wrong.  That rooftop garden looks truly wonderful.  I think I could actually live there (in the building, not the garden).

In any case, once we got settled, we walked due south to the famous Duomo, where the line to get in stretched for what appeared to be miles.  My sister Susan asked if we were going to have to go in (she did not sound enthusiastic), and so we admired the outside of both the cathedral and the baptistery and then headed through very quaint and narrow streets to the Uffizi Gallery, where we had 3:00 o'clock reservations. The Uffizi Gallery, one of the greatest art museums in Europe, was (you are going to be shocked) packed to the gills.  This building once held the offices of the Medici, who controlled Florence, and is "U" shaped, with a large glass sided corridor running along the inside of that "U," where you could exit the exhibition spaces and find a little breathing room.  It was from that corridor that I took the photograph on the left of another one of Florence's sights, the covered bridge called the Ponte Vecchio.

It was raining when we left the Uffizi, and after taking a quick walk to the Arno to look at the Ponte Vecchio, we headed to the nearest cafe in order to recover from our most recent encounter with mass tourism. The cafe we choose was located on the Piazza della Signoria (as seen in the photo on the right), just across from the Palazzo Vecchio, which used to be the home of the Medici family until they ran out of space (that damn artwork) and needed something bigger, which turned out to be the Pitti Palace. The cafe was very quaint, everyone was very friendly, and at the end of the meal the waiter brought out an after dinner liqueur, which I thought was very nice until I noticed that they charged us for it.  I didn't feel like arguing, and so we paid the bill and took the bus back to the B and B. The next day we toured the gardens of the Pitti Place, which were very beautiful, and then picked up our luggage and took the bus to Siena.

Paris

My sister Susan and I started our trip to Europe in Paris, and it did not start out well.  While taking the metro to our hotel in the Rue Cler neighborhood, a pick pocket stole the 300 Euros I had withdrawn at the airport for spending money, which really bummed me out for a while.  However, once we got to our hotel, and went for a walk through the streets of Paris, it was hard to stay mad.  I did check Google to see it if the guillotine was still legal in France, just in case I ran into that pair again and was able to get them arrested, but unfortunately that practice, as well as capitol punishment in general, was outlawed in France in September of 1981.  Pity. That night Susan and I went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, where I learned that Susan has an aversion to crowds, which is a bad thing to have in Paris during tourist season. However, the best sights in Paris are the neighborhoods, which have a lot fewer tourists and a lot more locals just enjoying what Paris has to offer, such as at the cafe in the photograph on the left.

We did visit the Louve and the Musee d'Orsay museums, which like the Eiffel Tower seemed to have thousands of tourists, all pushing past you to see the great artworks and take "selfies" in front of every damn one of them, but afterwards, we always headed back to Rue Cler, a market street with wonderful cafes, where we could walk up and down and choose that night's spot for dinner.  I personally feel that Rue Cler is Paris's nicest neighborhood, with lots of tree lined streets, picturesque cafes, and wonderful little parks, like the one in the photograph on the right.  We began to feel like locals there, especially after dining at the Cafe du Marche a second time, and a waiter coming to our table and telling us we were undercharged 20 euros the last time we were there, and that he would add it to tonight's bill. Sometimes living like a local has it's drawbacks.

One thing my sister remarked on is how many steps there are in Paris.  In the metro you are constantly walking up steps and then down, sometimes for no discernible reason, and there are often long passageways to get from one line to another.  After you get out of the Metro, you still wind up having to walk long distances to get to where you want to go.  Sitting outside in the cafes along Rue Cler, we saw a lot of elderly people walking past, often moving very slowly.  I suspect that they just stay in their own neighborhoods, patronize the local shops for their food each day, visit with neighbors they see on the street, and avoid traveling to distant parts of the city, which sounds like a good idea to me.  And who can complain about that when your neighborhoods look like the one in the photograph on the right (which happens to be the Ile Saint-Louis, Paris' priciest)?  All in all, visiting Paris was Susan and my favorite part of the trip.

A Trip To Europe!

My sister Susan and I just got back from a 2 week trip to Europe, not to mention the even more exotic Dallas, Texas.  The reasons for the Dallas part of the trip make me want to cry, so I won't go into them here, except to say that before I knew what hit me, I was standing in Dealey Plaza - where John F. Kennedy was shot - staring out at the Grassy Knoll, wondering if there was indeed a second gunman.  But on to happier things, such as the photograph of my sister Susan standing in front of La Terrasse, located in the Rue Cler neighborhood of Paris, which our favorite part of the entire trip (both the neighborhood and it's many cafes, I might add).  Wherever we went on this trip, finding a good cafe to sit at afterwards was critical.

After spending 5 days in Paris, we took the night train to Florence, which was a truly interesting experience (referring of course to the ancient Chinese curse hoping that you will live in interesting times). We traveled in a six person compartment that at night folded into six "couchettes," which in fact were three bunk beds on each side.  Sharing that compartment with Susan and I were a young woman from Australia (with a horrible cold that I caught), a 59 year old guy from Italy, and a young couple from Homestead, Florida.  The following morning the young woman from Homestead, Florida said it was the worst experience of her life, and they would never do it again.  She kept mumbling about sleeping in the lower bunk and having to watch the Italian guy putting on his pants or something.  I assured her not to worry.  She was still young, and I am sure she will have way more horrible experiences in her life than this.  My sister Susan said she did not sleep at all, but found it all very interesting.  In any case, the photo on the right is of Susan in front of the Colosseum in Rome, which we walked around on our way to Sorrento via still another train.

From Florence, we went to Siena, and from there on to Rome, Sorrento, Positano, and Naples, before heading back to the airport in Rome for our flight back to Denver (after spending a night and a day in Dallas, Texas, but the experience still makes me want to cry, so once again, let's skip the details for now).  In the photograph on the left is a self portrait of me on the rooftop bar of our hotel in Rome, just down the block from the Campo de Fiore, the nicest piazza in the city.  As I mentioned before, it was important to scout out the location of bars and restaurants wherever you went in Europe, so you knew where to start the recovery process after a day of sightseeing.  I always thought it was strange that my friends Bill and Renee always seem to visit Europe in February, and always have a good time. Now I know why.  Over the next 6 days I intend to share a blog post about each place we visited, giving you a blow by blow account.  Better fix yourself a drink.