Leaving Roma - City on the Water - Impromptu Sidetrip

Leaving Roma

 

We're leaving Italy already. It was never supposed to be a huge section of our trip but still...the time we spent here went by so fast. Let me get you up to speed:

I think our last update was from Roma - the night before we left. The following morning, we woke up early since we had a date with the Colosseum. They opened up the dungeons and third tier to the general public that morning...for the first time in 40 years! We had reservations for a guided tour, so we wanted to make sure we got there on time.

After checking out, we dropped our packs at the train station and headed off to the Colosseum. This was the place where gladiators had fought against each other and animals in ages past! Although the walls have started to crumble, much of the impressive structure still stands.

We bypassed the long line, laughing at the tourists waiting for tickets ^_^ and picked up our reservations. The tour guide arrived shortly and showed us around the second tier. You could see all the way down into the underground levels (now visible because of the decay of the floor) - if you could see around the tourists.

Then the fun began. Our guide led us though a locked gate to another set of stairs, and we climbed up to the third tier. Our small tour group was the only one up there, so we had no problems seeing down. It was truly an awesome view from the top. Behind us, we could see the Roman Forum. The tour guide rambled on, but I didn't listen. (We generally look down on guided tours - the only reason we paid for one was to get access to the top tier and dungeons.)

We descended until we were at the level of the arena, and went through another set of locked doors. The dungeons awaited us! We saw tunnels and vaulted caverns where animals and gladiators used to wait their turn. Admittedly it was nothing like what we expected - we only saw a small portion of the dungeons - but it was well worth it. I'm sure David will go into more detail about the Colosseum and the surrounding area.

We saw the Roman Forum and then headed off to catch a train. One thing worth mentioning: we had to wait for a few hours at the train station since our train was pretty late. The later it got, the more homeless people showed up - and many of them were pretty crazy. We were glad when our train got there because it got very sketchy at the station.

Our train ride was made in comfort and style since we managed to snag a private compartment for 6 and take it over. We soon discovered that if all the seats were slid back, they met in the middle and created a comfortable double bed.

There was a slight snafu in the morning - our train stopped just short of Venezia and started going in the opposite direction after a short delay. We got off at the next stop (an hour later) and caught a train back, but our car had ended up in some random town called Latisana. We spoke with someone else later who had been on the same train and he had reached Venezia just fine. The only explanation I can come up with is that our car got switched onto another train - which is very odd. But we did get there eventually.

City on the Water

 

Venice! The city on the water - the place of canals, vaporettos, gondolas, and masks. I had been especially looking forward to seeing it on our trip, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint. We made the trek across the island to our hotel in about a half hour, then went back out to explore.

Starting off with the obvious: there are no roads in Venezia. Only canals. So instead of cars, there are boats. Personally I liked the absence of noise brought by cars, but the downside was that transportation is expensive. It would've cost us €6.50 to get to our hostel by waterbus. Taxis and gondolas can be even more expensive, often charging up to €100/hour. So we walked everywhere, which wasn't a problem since Venezia isn't a huge place.

The city is just as you would picture it from a movie or whatever. It's very beautiful and, I suppose, romantic if you're there with the right person.

During our first full day in Venezia, we took a trip over to Murano, a neighboring island. The trip only cost us 2 euros each way, luckily. Murano is famous for its glassblowing artists and I wanted to see the works firsthand. Now, normally I'm not an art fan - but when you see a guy effortlessly shaping a small elephant using tongs and a blowtorch, you can't help but be impressed. I enjoyed watching him work.

One thing you have to remember about Venezia is that it's right on the ocean, so the tides cause problems. At high tide, spots in the city tend to flood with up to 3-4 inches of water. We found that out the hard way when our route was blocked by a veritable lake - we had to backtrack around it since neither of us had adequate footwear. (My boots are only somewhat water-resistant.) In St. Mark's Square - a very popular tourist attraction - they set up temporary raised paths every day so that people can still get from A to B.

Our hotel had advertised free wifi, but I ended up paying $5/night for it. I spoke with the manager though and I may get a refund. In fact, the hotel overall was underwhelming - but it was a place to sleep. Oh well.

We had real Italian pizza one more time before we left Venezia. I'll never like American pizza quite as much now. Our last meal in Italy was pasta - it was very good but not as different from American dishes as the pizza.

I'll never forget what Venice looks like at night. The moon reflects off of the Grand Canal and makes the scene look like something out of a movie. The sight escapes description by words - my only advice to you is to go to Venezia and walk the streets by night yourself. The silence envelops you and you can look out across the water for ages.

Eventually we had to leave Venezia - and Italy. We took a night train out after saying farewell to the city on the water. I'll say this, though - Venice is one of the places that I know for sure I'll be back to. Arrivederchi for now, Venezia!

Impromptu Sidetrip

 

Our train was heading to Budapest, Hungary on part of a side trip we created. Hungary was never on our original itinerary, but we had a few days to kill while we were waiting for a package from home to arrive at our next waypoint. The ride there was certainly an interesting experience, if not a restful one.

We were in a 6-person compartment again, but with assigned seats this time. We were sharing it with two friendly Poles, a Hungarian with two dogs, and a Russian. The Poles spoke a little bit of a lot of languages - mostly English and Polish though. The Russian guy shook his head when asked if he spoke English. The Hungarian dude rambled at us in Hungarian with an English word thrown in every few sentences.

We struck up a conversation with the Poles - the guy with the dogs wanted to join in as well and talked at all of us in Hungarian throughout the train ride. The Russian guy was silent.

We had to pass through Slovenia and Croatia to get to Hungary. Slovenia implements the Schengen Agreement so we had no trouble with customs. However, the dogs started barking if anyone knocked on the compartment door. They barked for an hour straight at one point, which caused the Russian guy to tell us to "Shoot the dogs, please.". (Evidently he did speak English and just wasn't in a friendly mood XD).

One of the Poles saw my class ring and thought I was engaged. I was amused XD but had to admit that it was only a high school ring.

The Hungarian guy also thought I was German - which was one of 5 individual instances on this trip where someone has mistaken me for a German. One time someone even told me that I speak Spanish with a German accent, which completely mystified me.

Anyways, the Poles and the Russian guy got off about 4 hours into the trip. We had 10 hours left to go with the other guy talking amiably in Hungarian XD. We got some sleep, but unfortunately Croatia is not a Schengen country. We were woken up about every hour and a half by armed border guards who wanted to check our passports. There was one time 4 guys lined up outside our compartment, and each of them wanted to see our passports...

We got here safely, though. I think this blog post is fairly long as it is, so I'll tell you about what happened when we got to Budapest in another post!

< Derek >

Roads to Rome, Rails Away!

Roma

Following in Derek's lead I shall forthwith endeavor to utilize only the true names for the cities we visit. Anglicizing names has caused us to occassionally not recognize the names of cities on maps. We should all call cities and countries the names they were originally given!!

Visiting the coliseum was great, but would have been WAY BETTER without the annoying tour group. Since we signed up for the two levels of the Coliseum that only opened that day, the dungeons and the third level, we were obligated to travel in the tow of a guide who spoke heavily accented English.

As the guide pointed out, what you see today at the coliseum is basically a skeleton of what it once was. All of it's valuables have long since been looted and much of the marble and limestone used in its construction has been repurposed. In my opinion they should do less maintenance and more restoration. You have to rely on your imagination, but it isn't hard to visualize the seats and cheering spectators cheering the battles bellow as you climb the upper levels.

The tour was very informative but utterly intolerable. She spent to much time talking I tended to zone out and just wander the area until she was done. I couldn't go far since the areas we visited were locked and closed off to everyone else. The dungeons were cool, but not as much as we'd hoped. Apperantly the armories and chambers we had hoped to see were destroyed to make way for the metro. FAIL. We did get to see how the coliseum worked, and how lions and tigers used to be elevated through the wooden floor above to pounce on unsuspecting gladiators.

Overall walking in the footsteps of gladiators is a great experience, but if this was going to be the highlight of your trip I'm afraid you may be disappointed. This may be a good point to mention that I am totally in favor of bringing back the Coliseum.

We lounged out by the Coliseum, and Derek actually fell asleep XD. I tied his shoelaces together. He's been warned not to fall asleep while I'm bored so it's not my fault. It was pleasant to nap in such a cultural spot, and even more amusing to watch all the illegal African and Indian salesman sprinting away as a police car entered the area. These guys are in every country we have been in yet.

After that we checked out the forum. Honestly I can't remember if this was all the same day or not, but the forum was cool. Roma must have been truly enormous back in the early AD's.

At some point we rented segways in an uncrowded area. They were cheap and we managed to turn turtle off on both of them! Tag is fun on speeding segways!

We've gotten into the habit of abusing the free breakfasts. Technically we're only supposed to take on croissant each for the free breakfast, but we took enough to last us through dinner. We're cutting costs any way we can.

Overall I agree with Derek that Roma did not live up to its hype. It was certainly enjoyable and worth visiting, but it was a bit romantacized... and dirty.

Getting to Venizia

So we boarded a night train to Venizia to save time and money. It was free (using Eurail) and we had a compartment of 6 chairs to ourselves. The chairs slid out and met in the center, so we pulled them all out and formed a sort of giant couch. It was actually pretty comfortable to sleep on. We snacks and listened to music and got a good night's sleep.

We woke up at 5 A.M., knowing we would arrive in half an hour. At 5:10 we arrived at a stop called Mestre. We were getting a little anxious since the train was stopped there for half an hour. When we left Mestre it was 5:40, already late for our arrival time. The name of our stop was Santa Lucia, and we kept careful watch for it. At some point we realized that our train was now travelling the opposite direction as earlier. We stayed on the train for three more stops until we had had enough and I managed to communicate with a conductor well enough to understand that we were on the wrong train.

We got off at the next stop with absolutely no idea where we were. We were no longer even certain that the train we had been on had ever been destined for Venizia. It seemed unlikely that we had missed our stop. Sleeper trains can't arrive early right? We eventually discovered we were only a few stops down from Santa Lucia, but that the train we had been on was heading away from Venizia.

After waiting 20 minutes at the station, we boarded a student train that was destined for Santa Lucia. We got there still uncertain what exactly had happened. We had checked online, at the statoin, and on the platform. The train we were originally on was supposed to end in Santa Lucia. But it didn't.

We found our Hostel with too much trouble despite the 45 minute hike. It did not live up to it's reputation from the start, since the advertised "free wifi" was actually very expensive. The room was alright I guess... It was mainly the wifi that pissed me off. On top of that I was sick. Being sick while travelling sucks, let me tell you. But I wasn't about to put Venizia on hold for that.

We met someone at the Hostel who had been on the same train as us from Roma. He says he arrived at Santa Lucia at 5:26, right on time. He was one the same train as us, there is no doubt of that, but we were still at Mestre (which turned out to be the stop just before Santa Lucia) at 5:26. So how is this possible?

There is one possible explanation. We were seated towards the back of the train, while he was seated in a car closer to the front. Derek and I believe our car was disconnected from the rest during our extended stay at Mestre, at which point it was reattached to a different train and led in a different direction! I don't understand why they would do this without imforming anybody, but it totally screwed us over.

Venizia

Anyway Venizia is beautiful. There are no cars at all, only pedestrian paths and boats. The place is warm and inviting, and not too hard to navigate. During our time in Venizia we spent hours wandering paths around the canals. At one point we found a very large statue of a naked boy holding a frog. There was a security guard packing heat watching over it. He looked intense. Great dinner conversation though right? "So what do you do for a living?" "I stand guard over a giant naked child."

There were lots of the typical Venizian canal boats, and men paddling them along with their striped shirts and red saché on their hats. We took a small trip to Murano, an Island nearby that is world famous for its glass blowing. We watched a man making a tiny glass elephant. It was truly incredible to watch molten glass take form.

There is nothing worth seeing on Murano besides the multitude of shops selling glass sculptures of all descriptions, sizes, and prices. Unforunately they are very strict about their "No Picture" policy. It was definately worth the trip though. We had small backpacks on, so the "you break it you pay" signs everywhere caused us to be very careful.

All the churches look pretty much the same here. I counted at least 7 with the identical dome and spire on top. Why are there so many churches? There are way too many churches.

At high tide lots of the footpaths are underwater. The locals wear boots, but the tourists often have to find alternate routes. There was some big famous church we went to. I don't bother to find the names of all the churches since its all voodoo magic to me, but it was very beautiful. The entire square was underwater. There were wooden walkways erected for the tourists queueing to get into the church. There were also restuarants in the square whose tables were sitting in 3 inches of water. That can't be good for sales...

We spent 2 nights in Venizia, which is more than enough. It's a pretty small island and we had seen pretty much anything anyway. We were planning on heading to Switzerland, but in a last minute change of plans we decided to take a night train to Budapest (pronounced Budapesht by the locals). We needed to kill a few days since Derek's packages wouldn't arrive at our destination in Switzerland until after us at our current rate. We also had extra travel days we wanted to use so... well here we are in Hungary!

Getting to Hungary

This night train was a little more... eventful than the last. We once again had a compartment of six seats, but this time it was full. Seated with us were a Caronlyna and Bartek (I think that was his name, I couldn't pronounce it) from Poland, a Russian guy with massive fists who at first claimed to not speak English, and a man from Hungary with his two small dogs.

The Hungarian guy was extremely talkative, despite the fact that nobody but the Polish pair spoke any Hungarian, and even they only knew a few dozen words. I'm pretty sure the Hungraian guy was homeless, but either way he was very friendly. He also seemed to travel alot, since he kept his passport in a small travellers bag around his neck and enthusiastically flipped through my travel book, describing which places were nice and which were not. He would make disgusted sound and face, like he'd just tasted something foul if he didn't like a place, repeating the name of wherever it was. It was quite amusing.

At some point one of his dogs started barking and wouldn't stop. At this point the Russian revealed that he could indeed speak English, directing a few choice words at the dog in question. It was late and noboby wanted to deal with a barking dog.

On the bright side the Russian now dropped his charade of not being able to speak English and joined the conversation. He was actually quite funny. I think his name was something like Raspun... whatever it was it sounded very much like Russian. We had tried earlier to pronounce some of the Russian words in the key phrases section of my travel book, but even pronounciation guides could not help us with those words.

Raspun and the Polish pair got off at Vienna, leaving us with the Hungarian and his two dogs (one of which appeared to be menstrating on the floor. We managed to get some sleep, but it turns out Croatia isn't as easy to pass through as other parts of Europe. Every 2 hours we were woken up to have our passports checked. At one point a line of 5 or 6 guys walked past the room, each one checking our passports within a few seconds of the last. We must have had our identities check a dozen times by the end of the night.

The Hungarian got off a few hours before us, so we had the compartment to ourselves for a short time. When we got to Budapest we gathered our bags and prepared to disembark. We discovered they don't give you much time to do this, so by the time I got to the door I actually had to hop off of a moving train.

We weren't originally planning to stay the night; there was a night train to Munich were going to take. We decided to see if there were rooms anyway. Unfortunately everything appears to closed in Hungary on Saturdays: the banks, ATM's, internet Cafés, all closed. We walked out with not real idea what we were going to do. I spotted a Mcdonald's and voted for a break there while we determined our next move. It was lunchtime anyway, so we settled for a taste of America.

Thankfully Mcdonald's had wifi and we were able to find accomodation at a very cheap Hostel. For 12 euros each we have a private room with a very comfy bed and a TV (though all channels are Hungarian of course). The Hostel also has cooking facilities and nice bathrooms, free wifi, and a computer. The directions are a bit stupid, since at the entrance it says the hostel is on the first floor when it is actually on the third, but it is the best value for price we've had yet.

So here we are. It is our first night in Budapest. Tomorrow we explore! For now I sleep.

Bye everybody!

David out