Vatican City

Luckily neither Chris nor I caught on fire when we entered the city gates into Vatican City. Vatican City is so tiny that we were shocked to hear it has it’s own passport and police service.

We spent all of our time touring St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican museum and the Sistine chapel. St. Peter’s Basilica is exquisite! There were so many beautiful things to look at I didn’t know where to start. It better be since half of the building materials were stripped from other buildings such as the Pantheon and the Colosseum.

We had planned on visiting the Vatican for only one day. We failed to realize that the only entrance inot the Sistine Chapel was through the Vatican museum. Rather than waiting in line we bought our tickets online for the following day, allowing us to skip the 2-3 hour line instead. The museum was surprisingly beautiful. It was full of paintings, statues and wonderfully decorated rooms. It was crazy to see how much detail goes into some of the paintings and ceiling décor. Upon entering the Sistine Chapel I was shocked at the size. For some reason I expected it to be a lot larger than it really was. I guess I shouldn’t expect that since one man completed all of the paintings himself. There is not one inch of wall that has not been painting. There is so much detail that it is hard to focus. Our audio guide was a great help though. It gave us a better appreciation for what story was being told. The most exciting part about being in the Chapel was to watch the guards… Yes you read right. I said guards. Their sole job was to make sure that people do not take photos. They take their job very seriously. They would jolt across the entire room yelling “no photos! No photos!” while making their way to the culprits. Not many people abided by the no photo rule so we took some time to people watch and see how many sneaky ways people could think of to take these forbidden photos. Some people are pretty darn crafty.

As beautiful as the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s basilica was it is probably a place I would not go back to. It is a once in a life time experience.

Assisi

Assisi is a beautiful old church town located on a mountain. They have old cobble stone streets and plenty of Catholic Churches. Assisi is the the home town of St. Francis and this town is proud to remind you. Although I may not be very religious, some of these churches really were stunning. Assisi was well worth the hike up those hills.

Naples

Naples is the birthplace of pizza and sadly that is pretty much all it has to offer. I don’t like to be disrespectful about where we visit but thankfully we were only using Naples as a hub for our day trips. We watched a documentary explaining why Naples looked so different than Florence and we found out it had to do its location on the sea. These sea ports made Naples become a hub for drugs and crime. It seems like the inhabitants have given up hope towards their city. It is covered in graffiti, garbage and has absolutely no traffic laws. We were lulled to sleep by sirens and woken up by traffic horns.

 

On the day we stayed to explore Naples we went for dinner at this small stone oven Pizzeria. It was by far the most amazing pizza I have ever had in my life! They barely resemble the North American style of pizza. The crust is as thin as a piece of linguini pasts and the toppings are sparse. I used to think more was better but after tasting these pizzas I am not sure. Mine was topped with a thin layer of “pizza sauce”, mozzarella and a spicy pepperoni. Chris and I both agreed that we want to try to replicate it in Canada.

Although we did not enjoy the city we did LOVE our day trips. Our first day trip was to the coastal town of Sorrento. Sorrento is stunning. It is well taken care of and is full of restaurants and tourist based shops. Since there was not a lot to see, we spent most of our time on the sandy beach. Most areas are dominated by paid piers that hotels or restaurants rent out to tourist wishing for a beach chair and crystal clear water to swim in. Chris and I opted for the public beach which was smaller than a football field. The water had a few pieces of garbage floating around but once you went past it, it was beautiful! We soaked up the sand and picked some beautiful sea glass to add to our pieces from Australia.

Our second day trip was to Pompeii. Pompeii is an ancient town that was destroyed and covered by suet from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. We explored the city to view many houses, bakeries, places of worship and even the first fast food restaurants…. Okay these restaurants weren’t exactly drive thrus but they were pretty close. Chris and I could not believe the intelligence of these people who lived thousands of years before us. They were able to harvest water from the mountains to feed the town. These same practices are used today except they changed the led pipes. Chris and I actually drank from these same fountains!  We also got to see and old brothel. But honestly I am not sure how comfortable those stone beds were. After we left the brothel we were on the hunt for ‘signs’. These were honestly carvings of male private parts in the side of walls and in the streets. I felt like I was back in elementary school seeing things I shouldn’t be seeing.  For me the most shocking thing was to see the bodies of some of the inhabitants covered in suet. For Chris it was the size and how well the ruins were preserved after such a disaster.

Over all our visit to Naples was an adventure and even though we weren’t a fan of the city we would not have changed our experience. Staying in an apartment that was inside a compound, had a metal gated door and an inside door was an experience in itself!

Cinque Terre

Visiting one if the five towns of Cinque Terre was something I have been most looking forward to! This area connects 5 sea side towns lacked on the steep hills. The streets of these towns are windy and steep but are worth the view you get in the end. All of the houses and buildings are painted in bright colours and added such a beautiful feel to the city. We only had a few hours since the train schedule is pretty sparse so we chose to go to Riomaggiore. Riomaggoire is a fishing village and was supposed to be one of the least tourist of the destinations. If that last fact was true then I am happy we picked this city.

We wandered around the city, winding around streets and finding some beautiful lookouts over the sea. After we explored the city we made our way to the rock beach. Those beach was covered in huge and tiny rocks. Lucky we found a somewhat flat space and soaked up the sun. The water was chilly but crystal clear. We splashed around for a bit before heading to lunch. Since it was our first time eating out we had to choose the obvious choice… We went and got pizza!

We stopped at a small pizzeria where both Chris and I got our own pizzas while sitting outside to eat. The pizza was amazing and it was one of the best ways to end our day.

Pisa

Pisa is a nice city but does not have a lot to offer aside from the Leaning Tower of Pisa and a few other buildings in the same square. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is actually beautiful. It had so much detail and work put into it. It was a shame to see most people only coming to take photos of them kicking in down or holding it up then leaving. Of course we took these photos too but we also went up closer to see. The strangest thing we read about the tower was that they actually only let 40 people climb inside each day.
The rest of our visit was spent walking around the old city walls and seeing the famous church by the water, completely covered in scaffolding.

Florence

Florence is a typical busy city but with plenty of old buildings. We had a rough start since we walked 45 minutes to an apartment which had the wrong key in the lock box. Luckily our neighbour came to the rescue and gave us a spare. She was our savour since both Chris and I were starting to lose our calm trying to make the wrong key fit.

The apartment we stayed in was something else! This apartment was like stepping back to the 1950’s. The apartment was full of old wardrobes, strange family photos, ancient cupboards and a grandparent feel. The man who rented the apartment to us was younger so it led us to believe that it was either his father’s or grandfather’s place. Obviously we made up plenty of stories about the grandfather being out in an old folks home or being put in one of the locked doors in the apartment itself. We seriously hope the first was true verses the second.

Florence was a cool city to be in but we mainly used it as a hub for our day trips. Each day trip will have its own blog because both Pisa and Cinque Terre deserve their own.

Chris and I were really looking forward to Italy because we were craving authentic pizza and pasta. This is strange since we have been eating pasta almost every other day for the last two months. Italy shocked us though. We found Florence a little cramped for our liking. The fact that it is over a thousand years old means that it was not created for modern modes of transportation. Due to this, walking down the street is a juggling act. Italians are not one for personal space.

Our favourite parts of visiting Florence are both similar yet very different. Chris says he loved to see the Italian culture (the leather, the gelato, the Italian persona, and seeing police men with their leather bags). I liked the same but I loved bag shopping at San Lorenzo market. Since I dragged Chris along for about an hour, without complaining, we celebrated our shopping completion with authentic gelato.

Aside from our day trips we did to a waking tour. Although there were many things to see I truly lived one fact. Our guide took us to a building with a small metal arched door. He explained that these were the first drive thrus for wine. A plaque stated the time of operation which was usually 8am-11pm. You could walk up to the window and order your glass of wine while standing it and chatting with your friend.

The churches in Italy were very different than the other ones we have seen. I am a HUGE fan of the gothic style so I was shocked to see the Greek style. They are very basic but covered in intricate marble designs.

Our first taste of Italy was exciting but very intriguing.

Ps. I am so sorry for the lack of photos. I will try to add more photos one we can download camera photos to the lap top.

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Interlaken

Interlaken is a stunning small town between two lakes and a whole bunch of mountains. The city itself is so quaint that you can walk anywhere within 30 minutes and every block is about 20 steps. Due to the small size of Interlaken there isn’t a lot of tourist things to do. Honestly the best thing about this town in the scenery and the vibe.

If you are an adrenalin junkie or have a lot of money to spend then you can fill a full weeks itinerary worth of activities such as sky diving, paragliding, cliff jumping or bungee jumping. Chris and I neither had the desire or the money to jump out of a perfectly good plane so we hiked the mountain instead. It was my chore to find us a hike… Mostly because Chris didn’t care which one and can hike just about anything, myself on the other hand cannot run for 5 minutes without getting out of breath. So I picked the most obvious one! It was a two and a half hour hike to Harder Klum. On a map this looked like nothing. It looked like it was about half way up the mountain with a beautiful lookout. What I failed to realize was that this map was completely wrong. Not only is Harder Klum Interlakens home mountain and is 1322m but it is also two and a half hours ONE WAY!!! Here I am thinking it will be a nice hike… NOPE. Honestly if it wasn’t for Chris I would have chugged my water and headed back down after half way. I would have taken my photos in one of the beautiful clearing and made my way back down. Thank goodness Chris was there because I obviously didn’t want to look like a whimp so I sucked it up, caught my breath and trekked through the field of cows and up the steep mountain. The view from the top was absolutely incredible! Unfortunately my computer won’t work on the Internet here so you will only get to see a few of the photos we took on our phones. We stayed up there for a while and had our picnic lunch before walking back down.

Since there is not a lot to do in Interlaken we took a day trip to Grindelwald. Grindelwald is a quaint little town even smaller than Interlaken but situated right in the mountains. We planned on doing a few hikes but quickly changed our minds after getting part way up and having our legs almost give out on us. The hike to Harder Klum destroyed our legs. Instead we just walked around the city. We stopped to feed a field full of sheep but as I had my arm straight through the fence with a fist full of grass Chris put his and on the fence and electrocuted himself. I thought it was pretty funny since apparently my rain jacket was protecting me and he hot quite the shock. Needless to say we have up on feeding them after that. On our walk we also saw the coolest lawn mower. Honestly it was this small little robot, almost like the robot vacuumes, that just zipped around the lawn and went back to it’s charging station when the battery got low. We couldn’t believe how cool it was. Not to mention these people had the most amazing lawn in all of Grindelwald.

The rest of our time in Interlaken was spent wandering the city.

Oktoberfest

Don’t think I forgot to mention about Oktoberfest, the main reason we went to Munich! Oktoberfest is a hard thing to describe. On the outside it is a huge festival based around beer and food that millions of people visit every year. That is the basic way to describe Oktoberfest, but when you are actually there it is like nothing else. It is similar to the feeling of being a child at a huge fair full of flashing lights, huge rides and the mouth watering smells. It is even more wonderful because you know on the other side of those rides are a handful of tents serving delicious, MASIVE steins of beers! Hanna lent me her dirndl so I could totally immerge myself in the culture. I honestly wanted to buy one, bring it home and wear it daily. They are so fun to wear!

We spent most of the day exploring 4 different beer tents. The tents served one of the six original brewers and the steins cost between $9-10 each. Honestly it was worth every penny! If we were to go back we all said that we would have gotten up early so we would have gotten a seat in one of the beer tents. We were lucky that the weather was perfect because we spent all of our time in the outdoor beer gardens. Aside from the 4L of beer we each had, we got the chance to try some of the traditional food which is either deep fried, battered or fatty…. All of which were outstanding! Here are some photos from our Oktoberfest.

Munich

Munchin is the heart of the German beer culture. If you don’t believe it then I must tell you a fact that our guide told us during our walk around Munich. According to her data Germany is ranked 3^rd in the most amount of beer consumption in the world per capita. If Munich was classified as its own country then it would bypass the top two countries (Czech Republic and Ireland). No wonder they host Oktoberfest each year. Oktoberfest brings in millions of tourist each year. This was actually the reason we visited Munich when we did. We were so lucky to be able to stay at Hanna’s friends flat. Finding accommodations during Oktoberfest is a struggle!

Hanna and Nigel were coming in late Friday night so Chris and I took advantage of an early train so we could spend the day exploring Munich. Munich is one of the most beautiful cities we have been in so far. It is definitely my favourite city in Germany, and not just because of the beer. Munich has the feeling of stepping back into time. Although a lot of it was destroyed during WW2, Hitler had loved the city so he had every single building and street documented so it could be rebuilt if anything were to happen. After WW2 the city took a vote whether or not to rebuild based on the plans or to create a new modern city. Unlike many other German cities, like Berlin, the locals voted to restore. In my opinion this was the best idea because the city is stunning!

Some of my favourite parts of the city were:

• From far away the new town hall looks as though it is covered in beautiful bricks but when you look close they are actually panted on. Construction took longer than expected, go figure, so it was not completed by the time Munich was due to host the Olympics, so they did what any one in their right mind would do… fake it!

• The old church just outside the main square was rebuilt but while they were searching through the rubble they came upon an old cannon ball that used to be lodge into the side. The figured it should be showcased in some museum or something… so to show the world a piece of their history they built it right back into the side of the newly built church.

• The Hofbrau Beer Hall is legionary. It is one of the original 6 brewers in Munich. The old beer hall has quite the history. Originally the beer hall served beer yet didn’t have any toilets. To make things more sanitary the owner dug a trench in the street for men to relive themselves. The only problem with this was once you left you lost your seat and usually your beer. Being such a cleaver man the owner decided to just dig trenched under each table. The locals didn’t want to accidentally splash each other so they would hollow out their canes or sticks to make a nice pee stick.

• The new town hall is beautiful! It was built to have a show that goes off at noon and 5pm but it is operated by hand some sometimes the worker just doesn’t show up and it doesn’t go off. Apparently this is a normal occurrence especially during Oktoberfest.

Vienna

Vienna truly is as beautiful as everyone says. The city is full of old architecture and stunning palaces. Walking around the Hfbrun house was really fun to visit since we had heard so much about them during our walking tours. Although the Spanish riding school is famous, we didn’t see a show, but we did see all the horses in the stalls.

Since Vienna is known for their coffee scene we went out to a typical and one of the best known coffee houses, Coffee Central , for a drink and some sweets. I was honestly surprised because in no way was this the best chai tea latte or hot chocolate that I have ever had. The warm chocolate cake on the other hand was amazing. It was so rich in flavor that it didn’t matter that we only got a small piece to share.

I had the chance to feel like a princess in Vienna and it was kind of exciting. We spent the morning at the Schonnebrun Palace, exploring the striking old rooms and walking through the palace gardens. That evening we dressed up and went to watch Manon at the Opera. Honestly although it was in another language it was pretty amazing. We spent only 4 euro each for a standing room spot and the best invention was the screen below our rail that displayed what the actors were singing in English. We found it very easy to follow along and not at all distracting.  On the way to the opera a homeless and balding man stopped us on the train to ask if I wanted to go for a drink with him. When I said no he simply walked off the train. I was so shocked and confused at what had happened. On our way home the same man was on our train again. This time he was walking down the aisle, stopping to sit beside each woman and asked them to go for a beer as well. It was the strangest thing we have ever seen.

The rest of our stay we wondered the city and obviously went shopping. Thank goodness Chris is a good sport! We completely understand why so many love Vienna. It truly is a beautiful city!