This installment of my travel journal covers Days 9–11 of my 2011 trip to Europe…

After returning to Florence from my three-night trip to Rome, there was little time to rest as I had to turn right around the next morning and hop on a train to Venice.  I was slightly apprehensive about this trip because I was going alone.  It can be nerve-wracking enough traveling in a foreign country whose language you don’t speak when you’re with a group, but going by yourself kicks things up notch.  However, I would have regretted passing up the opportunity to see Venice during what could likely be my only trip to Italy, so I booked a hotel, bought a train ticket, and off I went.  I picked a good day and time to go as the train was not overly crowded, allowing me to have my own section of seats for most of the three-hour trip.

I arrived in Venice that afternoon and stopped by the information area to buy a city map.  I had decided, since it’s not a huge city, that I would walk everywhere rather than dealing with the water taxis.  As I would soon discover, however, Venice is a maze of narrow streets and alleys.  I would get lost or turned around several times during my two-night stay there.

The view from my hotel

I eventually made it to my hotel and, after getting settled in (and getting my room changed because my original room had a strong, strange smell), set out to do some exploring.  I was quite hungry by this point so I stopped for dinner, where I had mediocre lasagna served by a not-quite-pleasant waiter.

After dinner I continued exploring.  I quickly got over my initial apprehension and welcomed the ability to move about at my own pace without worrying about other peoples’ needs or schedules.  Don’t get me wrong, I still prefer to have company when I travel, but my two days alone here—just flowing through the city at my leisure and letting the magic of Venice wash over me—were the most relaxing of the trip.  It helped that I didn’t have to worry about bus or train schedules (or, in this case, boat schedules).  There’s something to be said for just walking everywhere, and Venice is the perfect city for doing that, being entirely pedestrian (e.g., no motor vehicles or bicycles allowed), even if you do get lost occasionally.

A typical canal with multiple bridge crossings

The Grand Canal

Eventually, I encountered a gondola crossing.  Since I was unlikely to take a full gondola ride by myself, I figured this little crossing would at least give me some of the experience, so I stepped aboard and handed the ferryman a fifty-cent coin as visions entered my head of the dead paying Charon to cross the River Styx.

My Gondola

Later that night I came across a lovely little tea room along a side canal, where I enjoyed some vanilla-scented Darjeeling and warm apple cake while Big Band jazz played in the background—the perfect prescription for a chilly October evening.  On the way back to my hotel, I did some shopping and called my wife (I wish she could have been with me in this romantic city) before calling it a night.

The Tea Room

The next day I did a good seven hours worth of walking, taking lots of pictures.

Looking across the lagoon at the island and church of San Giorgio Maggiore

Part of my day was spent looking for this pizza place called Al Vecio Canton that had been recommended by Wikitravel.  Speaking of which, Wikitravel is a great source for finding good restaurants, things to do/see, and places to stay, and provides valuable advice on how to get around.  I had just discovered the site on this trip and wound up using it a lot.

Anyway, I walked around in circles for about an hour searching for Al Vecio Canton.  At one point I stopped at this café with a similar name thinking it must be the place, but the pizza did not look appetizing so I left.  Just as I was just about to give up, I decided to enter a hotel on the chance that the front desk manager might know the place.  Thankfully, he did, and proceeded to draw a line on my map from the hotel to the restaurant.  His directions were perfect and I finally arrived.  It was basically a hole-in-the-wall pub in a narrow alley, as the picture below shows, the kind of place that the average tourist would likely walk right on past without a second glance.  For me, however, after a long search bordering on obsession, it was like gazing on the Holy Grail.  I sat down and ordered a beer and a pie called the Diavolo, which was topped with spicy salami similar to pepperoni, but with a bit more zing.  It was delicious, the best pizza I had anywhere on the trip, and totally worth the effort to find it.

The pizza place—definitely eat here if you go to Venice

After lunch I made my way to St. Mark’s square.  The lines to see the monuments were long so I decided to just walk around and take in the ambience, which included dueling orchestras around the square (and areas crowded with both people and pigeons).

St. Mark’s Square

From there I moved on to other areas of the city.  At one point I encountered a bizarre art exhibit.  Most of the paintings were too risqué to share in mixed company (such as depictions of superheroes having sex with each other), but to give you an idea of the exhibit’s weirdness, here’s a sculpture that sat out front:

Sculpture in front of bizarre art exhibit

I visited some other exhibits around the city and also wandered into an old church where a man was tuning a harpsichord in preparation for a performance that evening of Vivalid’s Four Seasons.  I considered returning for the performance, but more on that later.  I completed my walk around the city and made my way back toward the hotel, visiting the Tea Room again on the way.  I also stopped at the Ponte degli Scalzi bridge to take some night photos of the Grand Canal.

The Grand Canal at night

When I got back to the hotel I relaxed for a while, decompressing after a long day of walking.  At the last minute I decided I’d try to make the Vivaldi concert.  However, because I was running late, I didn’t have time to properly refer to the map, so I wound up taking some wrong turns.  I finally made it to the church but just missed the beginning of the concert, so I decided to take a nighttime stroll along the shore looking out toward the island of San Giorgio Maggiore.  On the way home I decided to take in a bit of the Venice nightlife with a detour to a square full of restaurants and pubs where the local college students hang out.  I stopped for a drink and some food before heading home again.  It was quite late by this point and the walk home through all of the narrow alleys and empty squares was a bit creepy—perhaps not the best time to be wandering alone with my eyes fixed on a map, but I eventually made it back to the hotel.

The next day I caught an earlier train back to Florence so that I would not miss the last bus up the hills to the villa, but things did not go entirely smoothly.  More on that and my ill-fated trip to Cinque Terre in the next installment.

In the meantime, here are some links of interest:

• More Photos from Venice
• Eurotrip 2011: My Journal, Part 1
• Eurotrip 2011, Part 2: Under The Tuscan Sun
• Eurotrip 2011, Part 3: When in Rome

This installment of my travel journal covers Days 5–8 of my 2011 trip to Europe…

Following our adventures in Florence and Lucca, we hopped on a train the next morning for Rome.  We arrived in the afternoon and, after settling in at our hotel, walked straight to the Colosseum, which I had wanted to see since I was a kid.  It’s every bit as magnificent as I had imagined.  Walking around this ancient marvel of engineering, in the very footsteps of the citizens and rulers of the greatest civilization of the ancient world, is an amazing experience.  Pictures can’t really do it justice, but here are a few anyway…

This view of the Colosseum really gives you a sense of how much the structure dominated the cityscape of ancient Rome.

Colosseum Interior Panorama

The surviving original facade of the Colosseum

In all, I must have taken a good 300 pics of the Colosseum that day alone.  My only regrets were that I neglected to take any video and that I never made it back to the Colosseum at night.  After our tour of the Colosseum, we ate at a nearby café in its shadow, pulled in by one of the aggressive greeters stationed in front of all of the restaurants.  The merchants are very aggressive all over Rome, particularly in the street shops.  If you walk away from them they’ll chase you down the street.  Anyway, we called it an early night as I was still suffering from some jet lag and lack of sleep.  Before bed I took this photo from our balcony:

Rome at Night (long exposure shot)

The next morning we embarked on an all-day walking venture around Rome.  First we stopped at the Basilica of St. John Lateran which, I was interested to learn, is the actual official seat of the Pope, not St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. We also took another walk around the Colosseum, where we encountered these dudes:

Centurion of Rome anachronistically talking on his cell phone…

When the guys in the photo above flagged us down and offered to pose with us, we said, “what the hell?”  Little did we know that they would wind up charging us 30 Euros (ten for each centurion) for the privilege of taking pictures with our own cameras—no mention had been made of charging us beforehand.  So word to the wise: either avoid these guys or negotiate a fee before letting them take any pictures.

Next, we made our way toward the Roman Forum but we had trouble finding the entrance and wound up walking all over the place, touring some of the other forums and buildings in the area.

Forum of Augustus

Victor Emmanuel II monument

After stopping at a café for pizza and a beer, we finally found the Forum’s entrance.  The Roman Forum is a sublime experience, especially if you can allow yourself to imagine what it must have been like in its glorious prime: the magnificent buildings, the hustle and bustle of citizens moving to and fro.  The self-guided, recorded tour helps transport you to that era by explaining everything that you are seeing.  I highly recommend the tour, otherwise you’re just walking around looking at a bunch of pieces of marble and stone.

The Roman Forum: Arch of Septimius Severus

The Roman Forum: Temples of Saturn and Vespasian and Titus

The tour is so comprehensive that if you actually stopped to listen to every description of every site, you could easily spend an entire day in the Forum and the adjoining Palatine Hill, but we only had the afternoon until they closed, so I had to rush through some things and skip others.  At one point, I made my way to the Temple of Venus and Rome, where I had a spectacular view of the Colosseum.

The Colosseum viewed from the Temple of Venus and Rome

A closer view of the Colosseum

I don’t think people realized that they could go up there because I was the only person around, so I just sat for a while admiring the view, snapping photos, and appreciating that oasis of tranquility in the middle of Italy’s most famous and heavily visited city.  I walked inside the temple, where, again, I was completely by myself.  It was a nice, quiet place to sit for a few minutes and decompress from the stresses of travel, and would have been a perfect place to eat lunch or do some writing.

Temple of Venus and Rome (self-timer photo)

Before leaving I grabbed a stone from the ground that was actually a fallen piece of the temple structure and brought it home for my stepfather, who had requested a stone from Italy (I also brought a piece of one of the other forums home for him).  I eventually made my way back to the Palatine Hill, where I rejoined my uncle and we continued our tour, which lasted another couple of hours, including a walk through the very underground corridor where Caligula is thought to have been assassinated.

The Hippodrome of Domitian on the Palatine Hill

Wide view of the Roman Forum from the Palatine Hill

When the Forum complex was getting ready to close for the day, we rushed back to the entrance to retrieve our collateral for the audio tour listening devices (my uncle had left his passport and I my driver’s license), so we didn’t get to complete the tour (I wasn’t able to see the Circus Maximus, though it is little more than a grooved field now anyway).

That night we headed out for dinner at a restaurant called Zodiac, located high on a hill overlooking the entire city.  On our way there we could not find a cab so we decided to walk, thinking “how bad can it be?”  Well, it turns out that the restaurant is WAY up the hill, and the only way up there is to walk up a steep, dark, winding highway with little-to-no shoulder.  Thankfully, we found a cab at the foot of the hill and avoided this arduous climb.  We were already so wiped out from an entire day’s worth of walking that I don’t think we would have made it, or, if we had decided to push through, it would have taken us most of the night to even get up there.  Even with the cab it took us a long time to get to the top, but we eventually did and, despite feeling somewhat underdressed, we had a great meal while enjoying this spectacular view of The Eternal City:

Rome

After dinner we had a cab drop us at the subway stop that would take us back to our hotel only to discover that the subway system had closed at 9pm!  Apparently The Eternal City closes early.  After some walking we eventually found another cab and made it home.

That night and into the morning we had some heavy rain, which resulted in our subway stop being flooded and closed.  We weren’t sure how we were going to get to the Vatican, but we were fortunate to run into some nice Italian men, and a Brazilian woman who spoke both Italian and English, so she was able to translate their instructions for us to find the next subway stop.  She then walked with us to the stop.  A little side note on subways in Rome: you will often encounter people on the trains begging for money, something to consider if that sort of thing makes you uncomfortable.

Thankfully, the weather cleared up when we made it to the Vatican.  Outside the walls I couldn’t help noticing all of the people standing around selling tickets to the museum or offering guided tours.  It reminded me of scalpers outside sports stadiums and I made a comment to that effect.  One of these men overheard me and took great offense, shouting out, “I’m not a scalper, sir, I help people!”  Well okay, then.

St. Peter’s Basilica viewed from the Via della Conciliazione

We entered the grounds with the intention of visiting St. Peter’s Basilica, only to discover a massive line winding all the way around the circular inner courtyard area.  So we went back out to the scalper area and booked one of the Museum/Basilica combo tours that would enable us to bypass most of the lines.  It was worth it as the guide, engaging and knowledgeable, added much to the experience.  I also met another couple on the tour who live right near me in Central Jersey; small world.

Vatican Museum Courtyard

Vatican Museum Map Room: Can you hear the Indiana Jones theme?

Part of the tour included a visit to the Sistine Chapel, which is kept dark and cold, and where photos are prohibited.  In fact, the guy from the aforementioned couple was kicked out of the chapel when he was caught snapping photos.  I managed to snap a couple of covert photos by holding the camera at my hip and pointing it at the ceiling.  This one didn’t come out too badly considering the lighting conditions and my inability to properly frame the shot:

Sistene Chapel

The chapel was not quite how I’d envisioned it–I had this vision in my head of a tall, grand, domed structure, but it’s actually smaller and more intimate feeling than that.  Still, it’s an amazing site when you consider the work that went into painting it.  Following the chapel we made our way to St. Peter’s Basilica, the interior of which is pretty awe inspiring regardless of your religious leanings.

St. Peter’s Basilica interior

After leaving the Vatican we decided to walk along the Tiber toward the Trastevere district of Rome to eat at this restaurant called Meo Pataca, which had been recommended by a Roman native friend of my department manager at work.  It was a much longer walk than expected but Trastevere is a nice neighborhood to visit, full of character with its narrow cobblestone streets and medieval houses (I later found out that both Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone grew up in that neighborhood, so it’s pretty cool to know I walked those same streets).

The Tiber

I’m pretty good at reading maps and I have a good sense of direction, but we still had a hard time navigating the maze of streets that make up Trastevere.  At certain points we considered giving up and just eating at one of the other restaurants we passed, but I was determined to find Meo Pataca.  Finally, we did, but we arrived at a locked door and it looked dead inside.  We thought the restaurant no longer existed and almost left, but we decided to walk around the building and look for another entrance.  I’m glad we did because we wound up having a fabulous meal at an authentic restaurant frequented by the locals of Rome rather than tourists, well off the beaten path.  There was one other group of Americans who found the place and we sat next to them and had a good conversation, but most people were Italians, and little English was spoken by anyone, including the restaurant staff.  It was one of the best meals of the trip—and the best atmosphere, complete with a lady singing Italian songs backed by a roving group of acoustic guitarists.

The Trastevere district of Rome was full of narrow cobbled streets and outdoor restaurants, such as the one partially visible to the left.

The next day we decided to fit in a few more sites before our train was scheduled to leave, including the famed Spanish Steps, The Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon, which is really an amazing building with the way the natural light of the sun illuminates the interior courtesy of a hole in the domed ceiling.

The Pantheon

Pantheon Interior

After the Pantheon we stopped for some more delicious gelato at a place that had been recommended by the same friend of my manager and then headed back to the train for the long ride back to Florence.  We arrived at the villa that night and had dinner with our housemates—one of the few nights when almost everyone in the villa was together.  I was exhausted after the Rome trip but there was no rest for the weary, for I needed to pack for my solo trip to Venice the next morning, which I will be covering in the next installment.

In the meantime, here are some links of interest:

• More Photos from Rome
• Eurotrip 2011: My Journal, Part 1
• Eurotrip 2011, Part 2: Under The Tuscan Sun