Venice, Day 2

Wednesday, 4 July 2012

Since our nap cut into our sight seeing the day before, we got up a bit earlier on Wednesday so we could get into the city and see everything that we wanted to see.

Ponte di Rialto

The first place we headed was the Ponte di Rialto, which is a huge bridge that crosses the Grand Canal. For once, we didn’t get lost while following the signs, so we were able to walk right to the bridge. Plus, it was also a bit easier because streams of people were headed towards the bridge, so we just followed the crowed. I was a bit surprised to find that the bridge is actually a bit more than a bridge. Down the middle of the walk way, there are two long buildings that house shops, so if you walk on the inside of the bridge, you can shop at the same time. On the outside of these shops there is a nice façade so if you look at the bridge from down the river it is really pretty.

Basilica San Marco

After crossing over the Ponte di Rialto (which connects the island of San Polo to the island of San Marco), we headed back to the Piazza San Marco so that we could actually do the touristy things there. The first stop was the Basilica San Marco. The line was long, but we decided it was worth it because it was one of the only things that we wanted to do, plus it was free. When we got in, the made us wrap cloths around our waists because we were wearing shorts, and you’re not allowed to show your knees or shoulders in the church. The inside of the basilica was interesting, definitely not what I was expecting. It was really dark, so it was kind of hard to see everything, but it didn’t really matter because most everything was covered in gold, so that was easier to see. However, we didn’t get to see much of the inside of the basilica because everything besides the main room was an additional fee to go into. To see all the rooms would have added up fast, so we decided that the main room was enough for us.

View from the Belltower

We came out of the Basilica and literally walked across the street to the bell tower. The tower cost €8, but we decided it was worth it because we really hadn’t spent a lot of money on touristy things during the trip. So we got in line and waited in the heat to be herded into a tiny elevator that would take us to the top. But the wait and the heat were worth it because we could see the entire city from the tower, including the piazza below and the Grand Canal. Walking through the streets, I already thought that Venice was a gorgeous city, but seeing it from up above just confirmed it. Something about the architecture of the city combined with all the canals is absolutely striking. It is by far one of the prettiest places I have ever been

Belltower

After we came down from the tower, we set out for the Campo Santa Margherita, which was touted by one of the many travel sites I had read as Venice’s liveliest square. I had picked up a bit of a better map that morning in the hotel, so we decided to follow the map rather than relying on instinct. However, the map only comes in handy when the streets have names. One of the confusing things about Venice is that many streets don’t have names. And if they do, the signs aren’t completely visible. So, despite our best efforts to navigate effectively, we still ended up getting lost. When we finally found the right place, we realized that we had already walked through the Campo Santa Margherita several times without realizing it. Unfortunately, we think that the “liveliness” is more prevalent during the mornings, and as such, we did not really get to experience it.

Venice Canals

Disappointed, we set out across the city to the island of Cannaregio, where I had read that there were good markets/shopping. For the first time in our entire trip, we actually made it to where we were going without getting lost. I was able to navigate us from the Campo Santa Marghertia to the Jewish “Ghetto” in the middle of Cannaregio. That wasn’t quite as quite as exciting as we had hoped, but it was still neat to see. We then headed back into the rest of Cannaregio where we did some souvenir shopping and ate gelato.

Venice at dusk

By that time, we were exhausted because we had spent the entire day out in the blistering heat and humidity, walking everywhere. So we decided to head back to the hotel and rest for a few hours. Once we got hungry, we decided to head back into the city one last time and eat dinner there, rounding out our trip to Venice.

Venice, Day 1

Tuesday, 3 July 2012

Tuesday morning came way too early. Our flight was at 7:00 and we wanted to be there by 5:45, so we had to leave the hotel by 5:15, which meant I had to wake up at 4:00. After walking all over Barcelona for two solid days, I was exhausted, so the last thing I wanted to do was to get up that early. But it was a necessary evil if I wanted to get to Venice. Luckily, the flight was nearly two hours, so I was able to get in a decent nap. Because our flight was so early, we arrived at the hotel way before check in time. But the people were nice and let us drop off our luggage so that we could go into the city.

Technically, where we’re staying isn’t even in Venice. It’s in the town over, called Mestre. But the commute into the city isn’t that bad – it’s only twenty or so minutes by bus. So we boarded the bus and rode into the actual city of Venice.

Vaporetto Ride

One of the top things on my list was a ride down the Grand Canal. There are riverboats that will take you on a “cruise” down the canal and tell you what you’re looking at, but they are very expensive. However, when I was researching Venice, I found a way to finesse the system. Instead of paying through the nose for a guided river tour, you can pay €7 for a ride on a vaporetto, which is a waterbus. The #1 vaporetto runs very slowly, so it’s basically a river cruise, you just don’t get the commentary. We decided that we didn’t really care if we knew what the buildings were or not, so we opted for the cheap way. It may have been cheap, but it was really cool. The Grand Canal is the major waterway of the city, so it is clogged with all kinds of boats, from gondolas to vaparettos to water taxis to delivery boats. I really enjoyed getting to see the gondolas up close because they are something I’ve only seen in movies. It was also really neat getting to see how the water goes right up to the front of some of the buildings. To get to the door, a person has to jump from a boat a little pier in front of the building or straight into the door of the building.

Piazza San Marco

The vaporetto dropped us at San Marco and we followed the crowd to the Piazza San Marco. Judging by the amount of people crammed into the piazza, it is definitely one of the main tourist attractions in Venice. This is because three of the big things to do in Venice (the Basilica San Marco, the Ducal Palace, and the Torre dell’Orologico) are all right there together in the piazza. By this time, it was lunchtime, and we were starving, so we decided to skip those attractions for the moment being and head straight for food. However, because the piazza is such a big tourist area, everything there is really expensive. So we headed down into a side street, where we found a place with reasonably priced food. Of course, because I’m in Italy, I ordered pasta.

Getting lost can be pretty

After lunch, we decided we should head back to the hotel so we could check-in and put our luggage in our rooms. However, that was easier said than done. We had already paid for a vaporetto to get down to San Marco, and we really didn’t want to pay to get back, so we decided to walk back to the bus stop. The walk was definitely an adventure. Because of all the canals intersecting it, Venice is a really hard city to navigate, especially if you’re walking everywhere. On top of that, the map that we had didn’t have many street names on it, so we were left to just wander in the general direction of where we thought we were supposed to be going. We knew that we had to cross the Grand Canal to get to the correct island, but we didn’t know where a bridge was to cross it. According to our map, it was near a big piazza, so we followed the street signs to that piazza. However, when we got there, there was no bridge to be found. So we continued to wander for a while until we finally happened to come across the bridge we were looking for. After that, we didn’t think it was going to be too hard to get back because there were signs pointing us in the direction of the piazza where the busses stop. Once again, we were wrong. We followed the signs, but still ended up lost. Fortunately, a nice man took pity upon us when he saw us studying our maps. In very broken English and hand signs, he directed us to the place where we needed to be.

During all of these adventures, I learned one very interesting detail about Italian men. They are intrigued by my blonde hair. I guess it’s because Italians are olive-skinned and dark headed, so they’re not used to people with lighter hair. But it’s not just that they’re intrigued by it; they stare. And they don’t try to hide it. They blatantly stare. I should probably find it uncomfortable, but I actually think it’s pretty funny. For instance, we were walking down a tiny alleyway while we were lost and this guy was coming from the opposite direction pulling a big trolley worth of boxes behind him. I saw that he was staring at me, but didn’t think much of it. But he kept staring. And staring. He got so distracted by my hair that he accidentally ran his load of deliveries into the wall. I just think it’s funny that some as inconsequential as hair color can distract them so much.

After all the adventures of getting lost in Venice, we finally found the right place and got on the bus to go back to the hotel. Because we gotten up so early and were tired from both that and walking around so much, we decided to take a nap before heading back into the city for the evening. However, our little nap turned into a four hour nap. I didn’t wake up until 8:00! By then, we decided that it was too late to go back into Venice, so we just walked around the corner to a restaurant near the hotel. I had pasta again – I know I’m going to gain weight on this trip because all I’ve been eating is carbs, not to mention gelato! 

Barcelona, Day 2

Monday, 2 July 2012

Our second day in Barcelona was worlds better than the first day. To start, when we woke up, the skies were clear, without even a cloud visible. That did wonders for our spirits – rain sure puts a damper on things when your main mode of transportation is walking.

La Sagrada Familia

The first place we headed once we got into the city was La Sagrada Familia, which is a huge church in the middle of Barcelona. Not only is the church huge, but the architecture of the place is visually interesting, covered with carvings. One of the other things it is famous for is it’s long construction time. Though construction began on the church in 1882, it is still under construction today, and is not slated to be completed for another fifteen years or so. I’m not sure why it’s taken so long to build the church, but it seems insane that it will have taken nearly one hundred and fifty years to complete. Unfortunately, we were unable to go in. We didn’t realize that it was such a major tourist attraction (probably the biggest tourist attraction in Barcelona), and as such, we did not plan accordingly. We arrived in the late morning to find that the line was already wrapped around at least three sides of the church. I followed the line around for a while, but it just kept going and going. I couldn’t find the end, and we decided that the part of the line we could see would probably be at least an hour line. The long line plus the hefty fee to get in was more than enough to deter us, especially when we had other things in the city we wanted to see.

La Casa "Les Punxes"

La Pedrera

When we were planning to go to Barcelona, I went to a website that showed me attractions of the city, and I got to pick and choose things that I thought looked interesting. However, the website didn’t let me know exactly what there was to do at the places that I picked. Consequently, we ended up walking around the city, just to find that our endpoint was a building we couldn’t go in. This happened at least twice. The first instance was la Casa “Les Punxes.” For some reason, I thought it was a church, so we wandered around, looking for a building that looked like a church. That didn’t work. That’s because it’s not a church. It looked more like a wannabe castle. The building itself was interesting, but we didn’t get to do anything there aside from take pictures. I don’t know what its original purpose was, but it has since been converted into a shopping center. From there, we moved onto la Pedrera, which had looked really cool when I looked it up. Once again, the building itself was really neat, but we didn’t go in because it was a museum. We wouldn’t have minded a museum, but we didn’t think we would get anything out of it considering it was all in Spanish.

The Arc de Triomf

After two disappointments, we headed over to the Arc de Triomf because we knew what to expect there. We had been to the Arc de Triomph in Paris, so we were expecting to be a bit underwhelmed by the one in Barcelona, but we were pleasantly surprised. The arc in Barcelona was much different from the one in Paris. The Arc de Triomph in Paris is made completely of white marble, while the arc in Barcelona is made out of red brick. While the Arc de Triomf in Barcelona is quite a bit smaller than the one in Paris, it was still pretty impressive. The landscaping around it was also really pretty – it is at the end of an avenue lined with palm trees.

View of Barcelona from the castle

To round out our sight seeing in Barcelona, we headed out to el Castell de Montjuïc, which is on top of a hill overlooking one of the harbors in Barcelona. To get up there, we had to take a cable car up the hillside. During the ride, we were able to look out over the city and see all the things that we had seen on foot. By far the most prominent building in the Barcelona skyline is la Sagrada Familia. It towers over everything in the city and is quite easy to see. The cable car ride dropped us off at the castle, so we walked around the grounds, which gave us a really good view of both the city and the water. From there, it was easy to tell that Barcelona is an absolutely gorgeous city, something that wasn’t always so obvious when we were down in the streets, wandering around and not knowing where we were.

Barcelona, Day 1

Sunday, 1 July 2012

Plainly put, the first day in Barcelona was frustrating. To begin with, there were tons of people in the airport because a lot of Spaniards were flying from Madrid to Kiev where the final of the Euro Cup 2012 was taking place. Because there were so many people, getting through check-in and security took forever. But we finally got through. The flight itself was fine – I slept most of the way.

On a lion at el Mirador de Colón

But when we landed, everything went wrong. I looked up the best way to get to the hotel from the airport, and decided that a taxi was easiest. However, because a cab is kind of on the expensive side, the girl I’m with vetoed that option. When we got to the airport, I asked at the information desk for the best/easiest way to get to the hotel. The lady helping me said that a taxi was probably easiest. But because we had already decided against that option, she showed us how to get there via public transportation. She circled the stops we needed in the bus line and the tramline so we could reach our destination. We got on the bus, but ended up getting off at the wrong stop because the lady had said to get off there first, but changed the directions without making the change clear to us. Because it wasn’t the right stop, we couldn’t find the tram stop for the line we needed. And on top of that, it started raining on us as we wandered around Barcelona, desperately lost. Finally, after nearly an hour of walking, and probably at least a mile, we somehow miraculously found the correct tram stop. When we got off the tram, we had to wander around for several minutes before we found the hotel. I don’t like not knowing where I’m going, so the whole process of getting to the hotel was not a fun experience.

We decided that since it took us so long to get to the hotel and since it was long past lunchtime, we would just eat lunch at the hotel. However, the restaurant and room service are not open on the weekends. So we dropped our things off and turned right back around, heading into the city and the rain.

From our hotel, it took a good twenty to thirty minutes via a combination of tram and metro to get into the center of Barcelona. It took so long to get into the city that by the time we came of the metro, it had stopped raining and the sun was shining, which put us in a bit of a better mood. We found a place for lunch where we once again had chicken paella and sangria.

La Plaça del Rei

El Mirador de Colón

After lunch, we set out to try to get some sightseeing done despite the fact that it was now late afternoon. We began walking to the Plaça del Rei (Plaza of the King), which used to be the medieval centre of the city. That was actually pretty neat because we got to see a portion of the old city walls. From there, we set out to find another monument, but we kept getting distracted by all the cool architecture in Barcelona. We ended up down by a marina that had a bunch of modern art sculptures. We continued down the road because we had see a large column at the end of it. It turned out to be the Mirador de Colón (I’m not sure of this translation, but I think it means viewer of Christopher Columbus), one of the tings that was on my list of things to see. By the time we got down there, it started raining again, so we headed back the way we had come because we had seen several places to take refuge in. We ended up in Starbucks because they had free wifi so we could look up information that we needed. We waited there for nearly an hour, hoping the rain would let up or stop, but it never did. It just kept raining harder and harder.

Once we decided that we couldn’t wait out the rain, we headed back to the hotel. There, we ordered pizza and watched the Euro Cup, which Spain won against Italy, 4-0. In Spain, like the rest of Europe, soccer (or as they call it, football) is a big deal, and the noise outside reflected that fact. After every goal Spain scored, we could hear what sounded like gunshots (though I suppose it was probably fireworks) and cheering. Once the noise died down, we were able to go to bed, exhausted from the frustrating and rainy day.

Madrid, Day 2

Saturday, 30 June 2012

La Puerta de Europa

To compensate for the fact that we went to bed so early the night previous, we woke up a bit early to get out into the city and see things. Our first stop was la Puerta de Europa (the Port of Europe). The description that I read of it online called it the gates to Europe, so I guess in that way, it’s kind of like the St. Louis Arch and how it’s the “Gateway to the West.” I was expecting to have to walk a bit after we got off the metro, we came up out of the underground and it was right there along with a golden obelisk and a monument to a Spanish architect, whose name I cannot remember. La Puerta de Europa is really impressive because it is to building made of metal and glass that slant in towards each other. It really does look like a gate of some sort.

After la Puerta de Europa, we decided to be orderly and work our way back into the city, so our next stop was la Plaza de Dos de Mayo (the Plaza of May the 2^nd). I wasn’t quite sure what it was going in, but people online said it was worth going to, so we went. Unfortunately, it was kind of bust. There really wasn’t much there aside from a brick arch and a statue. There were also tents for some kind of market, so I think maybe people recommended it more for the market than for the actual plaza itself. Following that plaza, we headed to yet another plaza, la Plaza de España (the Plaza of Spain). The name made me think that it would be large and impressive, but not so much. Once again, there wasn’t really a whole lot aside from a statue. On top of that, it was gay pride weekend in Madrid, so they were setting up stuff for that in the plaza, which kind of diminished the effect.

El Campo del Moro

Following all the plazas, we decided to try our luck with a park since we had enjoyed the park so much the day before. We were looking for el Campo del Moro, but all we could find was this park that was more concrete than plants where they had inflatable soccer fields set up. So obviously that wasn’t the right place. We wandered about a bit, thinking we might find the park eventually, and we ended up running into la Puente de Segovia (the Bridge of Segovia), which is a bridge built in the 1500s. It looks a bit like an aqueduct with all its arches. We walked across the bridge and actually ended up finding el Campo del Moro, which was lush with vegetation. It actually runs right up to the back of the Royal Palace we had seen the day before, so we were able to see the Palace from the backside as well as the beautiful gardens.

By that time, it was lunchtime, and we had been walking for a while on top of all the walking we had done the day before, so we decided to take a break and eat. The place that we ended up going had wifi, so we were able to check in with civilization, as it was the first time we had had access to the Internet in two days.

Las Cibeles

After resting our feet for a while, we headed back into the city to see some more things. The next thing on our list was las Cibeles (I’m not sure what that translates to), which is this really cool round about with pretty buildings and a cool statue. Pretty buildings, statues, and fountains were our favorite thing to do in Madrid because they were free, but also interesting.

La Biblioteca Nacional

Next, we headed over to la Biblioteca Nacional de España (the Spanish National Library). The building itself was really impressive and had a lot of statues of famous Spanish authors, such as Miguel Cervantes, who wrote Don Quixote. Unfortunately, on Saturdays, the library closes at 2:00, and we got there around 3:30, so we weren’t able to go in. We weren’t too devastated though because we didn’t think we would get that much out of it since everything was probably going to be in Spanish.

The last place we visited in Madrid was la Gran Vía (basically the equivalent of “Main Street” in English), which is a huge street full of shopping and pretty buildings. As I mentioned before, it was gay pride weekend in Madrid when we were there, and it just so happened that a huge celebration was going on when we got there. There were so many people that we had a hard time pushing ourselves through the crowd into the McDonald’s just to go to the bathroom. I didn’t really get to see Gran Vía because there were so many people. It was definitely an experience!

Madrid, Day 1

Friday, 29 June 2012

Friday morning came way to early for my tastes, especially since I wasn’t able to go to bed until around 1:00 am because of the excitement. I woke up at 3:30 to get ready and get absolutely everything packed away before heading down to the bus stop at 4:30 to catch a bus to Luton for our 6:40 flight to Madrid. It was exhausting! But luckily, one thing I’ve gotten really good at on this trip, is sleeping when sleep can be gotten. So I was able to sleep during the bus ride to the airport. I stayed awake just long enough to get seated on the plane before passing out again. I think I slept all of the two and half hours of the flight.

Surprisingly, when we landed in Madrid, things went quite smoothly. I had looked up a few ways to get to the hotel from the airport, but I wasn’t sure what was easiest or cheapest, so I decided to ask the information desk. We got lucky, and the hotel had a shuttle that we hadn’t noticed when we looked at the website. So I called the hotel to arrange the shuttle, which is when I had to begin using my Spanish skills. The lady on the phone didn’t speak English, so I had to switch into Spanish mode and tell her what we needed. Luckily for us, I was able to communicate well enough that she understood me and I was able to understand her.

La Puerta de Alcalá

Once we got to the hotel, we checked in, dropped off our stuff, and promptly headed back into the city. We were starving, so after hitting the ATM to get euros, we headed to lunch. Ordering was an experience. None of the people at the restaurant spoke English, and only a portion of their menu was available in an English translation, so I was forced to translate for the both of us. However, because we learn Latin American Spanish in school and not Spanish Spanish, a lot of the words I didn’t know, because they’re not in the cuisine of Latin America. So we stuck with something I knew for sure was something we would like: pollo y patatas (chicken and potatoes – or as they turned out to be, French fries).

After lunch, we went sightseeing. I had compiled a list of all the cool things to do in Madrid prior to our trip, so we set out to see some of those things. The first stop on the list was the Puerta de Alcalá, which is the cool arch thing dedicated to King Carolo III of Spain, who was king in 1778 (if I can read Roman numerals correctly). The arch itself was really impressive, but it was made even more beautiful by the landscaping surrounding it.

El Parque de Buen Retiro

The Crystal Palace

After the Puerta, we walked across the street because we saw some cool penguins that were painted funky colors and designs. When we got there, we realized that we were at the entrance of the Parque de Buen Retiro (Park of Good Retirement/Rest). The park, which is one of the largest in Madrid, was absolutely gorgeous. The flowers were in bloom and the day was beautiful, which made our walk through the park all the much better. After six weeks in London, we aren’t really used to warm, dry weather, so the weather in Madrid is a wonderful change of pace. Half way through the park, we cam across the Palacio de Cristal (Crystal Palace), which is a replica of the Crystal Palace that was build in England for the World Fair. Unfortunately, the original in England was destroyed, but they built a replica in Madrid. The entire building is made up of window after window after window. It felt a bit like being inside a greenhouse. There really wasn’t a lot to do in the actual building, but it was really pretty, so I took a lot of pictures.

La Palacia Real de Madrid

When we finished walking through the park, we headed to la Palacia Real de Madrid (Royal Palace of Madrid), which is the official residence of the King of Spain and his family, but they choose not to live there. We didn’t go in because we didn’t really have the time to dedicate to it, plus we didn’t really want to spend the money considering neither of us knew that Spain had a king until we got there. But we walked around for a while and took pictures of the outside and the gardens out front.

La Catedral de la Almudena

Right next to the Royal Palace is la Catedral de la Almudena, which is a really pretty cathedral. Unlike most of the churches I’ve been in on this trip, this one didn’t have a guide of any sort, so I was just kind of left to wander around on my own. It was okay though because I was able to have some time to slow down and reflect as I looked at all the artwork and decorations in the church. My favorite part of the cathedral was the huge organ that is on the top of the back wall. It was really cool to turn around and see that.

After the cathedral, we wandered around for a bit and ended up hitting two of the major square//plaza areas in Madrid, la Puerta de Sol (literally, Port of Sun) and la Plaza Mayor de Madrid (the Major Plaza of Madrid – such a hard translation!) I’m not really sure exactly what I took pictures of but both areas had a lot of cool looking buildings and statues that I have to research to figure out what they are.

After wandering around, we headed back to this market area we had found, which had a lot of different food vendors. We decided to eat there because everything looked so good, and on top of that, it was cheap. I ended up getting a bowl of chicken paella and some white sangria. When we visit different countries, I really like to try to eat what is stereotypical of that country, and thought that paella and sangria fit the bill. The meal was great, but by the end of it, we were barely able to keep our eyes open after the long, so we headed back to the hotel and promptly went to sleep despite the fact that it was only like 9:30.

One Last Night in London

Thursday, 28 June 2012 

The Eye and Big Ben

Thursday was a bittersweet day for me. I took my last exam, which meant I was done with the school portion of living in London. But with that meant that my time in London was drawing to an end. That reality began to settle in as I spent the rest of my day packing up all the things I brought with me and all the things I’ve accumulated over the past six weeks. I have no idea how I’m getting everything home because I have so much stuff! But that’s a problem for another day. After I finished packing everything, I took my suitcases downstairs so that they could be put in storage, where they’ll stay while I travel around Spain and Italy for ten days. Without all my stuff in it, my side of the room was pretty sparse – just my little suitcase with stuff for the next ten days.

The London Eye

Once that was done and we’d eaten dinner, my little group decided to go to dessert together. The four of us established a kind of tradition while we were in London – probably once a week, we went out to get tea and cake or crepes. We even had a “place.” Pompidou, a little French restaurant just off Piccadilly Circus, had wonderful Nutella crepes, which we all loved. But Thursday, we all decided on cake, so we went to a place that a few people had found the day before. We all had delicious cake and tea. It was great getting to spend the last night with my little group, the people I’ve spent the most time with over the past six weeks.