We arrived in Rome very early in the morning, after having endured an 8-hour plane ride. Due to the difference in time, we left Tampa International at 12 P.M. or so, and arrived at the Roman countryside at around 7:30 A.M. the next day. I didn't sleep on the plane a bit; it was extremely uncomfortable. The food wasn't bad, though. I learned the importance of standing occasionally.
We stayed at the Hotel Tiziano, a relatively large and up-scale hotel only a few blocks away from the Pantheon. They had old-fashioned metal keys, affixed via keychain to large weights which displayed our room numbers. I stayed in a small room with a king-sized bed with a TV on the opposite wall, end stands standing at either side, and a desk for work in a small nook sporting a beautiful, close-up view of a brick wall. The bathroom was small and the shower even smaller, about large enough to bathe an adult mouse.
The first day seemed to last forever, since we ended up being awake for 36 hours. After being awake for what was technically all day, we headed out to see the Pantheon, which was absolutely humongous. It was very hard to imagine that the stones that were there had been sitting there for thousands of years. We learned about how the facade was constructed much later than the dome and Pantheon itself.
Afterwards, we walked around the city and decided to take a look at the Spanish Steps — the steps that lead to the Spanish Embassy in Italy. We got assaulted by salespeople, one of which put a hex on me or something; when I didn't want to buy his obnoxious screaming umbrellas, he mumbled in Italian, and also uttered "chaka laka boom boom". We ate gelato on the steps, after Ms. Hays was offered "free" flowers and asked for payment. We went to Dior, and the black security guard in a tuxedo followed us around professionally until calling the manager to essentially ask us to leave.
We took a taxi back to the hotel. The cab drivers were crazy in Rome. Straub had told us about how taking part in the Roman taxi service was similar to what one experiences on a rollercoaster, except that instead of riding upon engineered metallic bends and twists, you rely on your cab driver to weave between large, densely-packed crowds of people. While we never actually saw anyone get hit, we're pretty certain that taxi-related accidents were the cause of the majority of ambulance trips. Mopeds and cars were being driven by equally insane people, but were less replete. Moped drivers weaved between cars and drove on the wrong side of the road, right past cops (who seemingly did nothing).
I took a two hour nap in my room, and then we went to dinner and shortly thereafter headed to the Piazza Novana, a large square that had a lot of street vendors selling contraband in the open. Maggie bought a purse, and helped Ashley negotiate on the price of a wallet. There were spraypaint artists, knock-off designer handbag salesmen, painters, sunglass salesmen, and musicians (like an accordion and guitar player).
We went back to the hotel and went to bed.
Breakfast began at 7:00. The breafkast at the hotel was pretty standard for most of Europe: cereals, breads, fruit juices (Italy seemed to always have blood orange juice).
Our first stop was at some old ruins undergoing reconstruction. There were, among other things, a public restroom (which seemed to be missing the roof) and an auditorium (which also, surprisingly, seemed to be missing a roof). We passed by a tall family tower on the way out of the square – it sat in the corner and looked really anachronistic when mixed in with the more modern buildings and power cables.
We did some walking and made our way over to the Capitoline Hill, which had leading up to it a long series of inclined steps designed to allow horses to meander into and out of the area. Once you make your way up the stairs, you come to an equestrian statue of the philosopher Marcus Aurelius (it was actually a copy, the original had been placed in the adjacent museum not too long ago). One trick that the scultor used to portray Aurelius as powerful was to make him practically the size of the horse – it had its intended effect. Straub told us about how the Romans had not destroyed the statue because they believed it was a depiction of Constantine, who was responsible for making Christianity legal to follow in the Roman Empire. In reality, the man depicted by the statue killed Christians in his free time, and it certainly would not exist today had the ancient Romans known this when they went on their tyrade of bronze-smelting and marble-smashing.
Through the left rear exit of the Capitoline Hill, after passing a statue with an Ancient Egyptian theme, a series of streets opened into the Roman Forum, which had been excavated and made fully visible to the public. It turns out that, interestingly enough, the ruins are only visible once one removes the millenia of dirt and trash that have piled on top of them. This excavation was going on around selectively all over Rome, and as you get deeper, as Straub said, you go further and further back in time. The Forum was expansive. You could see the foundations of buildings so modern-sounding as a shopping mall, and also see visages of the oldest remembered people in the world, such as the ashes of Julius Caesar. You have to see a map or something for it to be fully comprehended: it had more history than one mind, let alone one diary, could hold.
On our way to the Tempio di Romolo (the Temple of Romulus, founder of Rome), we saw a brothel. The Temple was cool too. It had a beautiful ceiling with an inscription and a painting. We sat in the shade of the Arch of Titian, and took pictures there too.
From the forum, we traveled to the Colosseum. Shockingly, it was much smaller than I had imagined, and reeked of tourists – but that didn't take away from its majesty and how impressed it left me. I had never known that the center of the stage was actually an understage, and originally had a wooden floor upon it. The understage gave access to trap doors and what-not. The smooth edges over the entrances to the Colosseum, in most cases, used to be seats, but had been eroded away by the elements and by previous popes. Similarly, the pillars that hold up most structures in Rome, the Colosseum included, have notches in them, serving as visages of the bronze and gold bits that used to adorn them.
It was a long, uphill, trek to the church of St. Peter in Chains, but it was totally worth it. The ceiling artwork was amazing. I can only show in pictures what I felt.
We ate at a tourist restaurant. It was disappointing and way overpriced, but whatever, we were hungry.
Afterwards, we stopped at a fountain and then sat on some benches outside the Underground Church (the San Clemente Museum). We wanted to go in right away, but we had to wait for them to open (which ended up being about a 1.5-hour wait). We got some gelato during this time, which was way too chocolatey, and Maggie and Ashley headed off to get some stuff from a nearby vendor.
San Clemente was very cool. It was cold underground, but also very humid because the springs that supply some of Rome's water flowed directly through it. There were three levels in all, and thin staircases tying each together. There wasn't much to see; just some old artwork, a tomb, and springs. It was hard to determine what some of the rooms were used for. Obviously, I couldn't get any photographs because it was very dark underground.
We took a taxi to the bone church, which, despite my miconception of being a church entirely made of bones, actually was a museum showing some ornaments made from human skeletons. It's interesting how ornate human bones can actually look – long chains of tailbones and jawbones created the illusion of lines of chains, and many other bones were used too. No photography was allowed.
Most of us went back to the hotel after seeing the bone church. We were off to rest and get ready for dinner.
Dinner was delicious as usual, and we ate at the same place every day in Rome. I'll have to figure out its name. After dinner, we walked to the Trevi Fountain. It was pretty impressive. Everyone was kind of shocked I hadn't heard of it, but I at least recognized it. We took pictures of ourselves throwing cheap coins into the fountain, and then were off to dodge aggressive street vendors and look in the nearby shops. A street vendor rudely shoved a flower into Maggie's chest and made us want to leave, so we did. Getting away from important landmarks and entering quieter, less tourist-filled areas was one of the nicest parts of Rome. We went to sleep.
We went and saw the Vatican. It was all very beautiful, and would have been interesting if not for the heat and for the tourists. Maggie and I both became pretty close to having anxiety attacks, and so we went back to the hotel area to wait for our departure to Florence. After looking for a McDonald's to escape Europe and eat American food for just a little bit, we gave up our search (we realized that the McDonald's in question was about 25 minutes away in the Piazza Spagna) and had Subway. It tasted like Subway at home, but with much better tomatoes and bread. We had already brought our bags downstairs that morning and loaded them in the "locked" dining area, so when 3:00 rolled around, our departure was a piece of cake. Maggie and I waited in the lobby for only about 10 minutes before we learned the majority of the group had given up on pushing through the crowds of sweaty Asians and Americans filling Vatican city in the heat of Roman summertime.
The bus ride took about four hours because of a rest stop – a rest stop elongated by an influx of about thirty loud French tourists who dirtied the bathrooms just in time for us to use them. I got a panini and a gatorade. It was the least expensive food I'd found in Europe so far.
The Hotel Albion in Florence was, at first, cramped and awful. But then it grew on us big time. We learned that Mossimo had known Straub as a family friend for many years, and that we should feel more as guests in someone's house than as guests in a hotel. The staff were very kind and prompt, and always greeted us with smiles. Despite the hotel not being very modern and lacking unity in room design, the maintenance and roomkeeping was impeccable, the atmosphere quaint and homey. And the food they served us was top-notch.
The East Lakers skipped out on touring the River Arno, mainly because we took advantage of the more robust Wi-Fi in this hotel to get in touch with our families (some took this too far and stayed up late on Facetime, which was bothersome since my room was located right above the lounge).
About my room: it was less than I expected, but I didn't spent much time in there anyway. The main issue was that the windows, instead of being sealed glass panels, were simply holes in the wall with grates preventing birds from intruding, and wooden panels protecting me from large bugs. Mosquitos, of course, still made it in, but I didn't get bit too much. I couldn't really explain to my roomkeeper to keep the windows closed when cleaning my room. This was the first day I noticed that it gets bright out extremely early in Italy around this time. The sun rose at 6:00 and woke me up much earlier than I wanted. The birds came out an hour before and screeched a lot. I didn't sleep well that night.
We woke up and went to the Uffizi Galleries, but I don't really remember what was in there. Just some statues of emperors lined up in chronological order, and tons of paintings which were of some interest. Before we entered the galleries, we were approached by a real-life beggar, who awkwardly went up to each of us and shook a cup of coins. Even when we made it clear we didn't speak Italian, she continued to repeat the same thing over and over again in Italian.
We went to a leather shop afterward, and I bought a Florentine leather wallet. The leather store smelled amazing. It was refreshing to see real leather when we had seen so many knockoff handbags. We left the leather store, and I split off with Rebekah and Ashley Jane. Maggie, Emily, and Melissa went shopping. We wanted to climb the tower next to the Duomo, but there were 414 stairs and no elevator to be found, so we said "nope" and looked for a nearby garden. The garden cost money, so we sat at a Palazzo for an hour or so, looked at some pigeons and Ashley's new shoes, and then we went back to find Michelangelo's David.
Everybody was shocked at the size of David, and the detail in the muscles and veins and tendons. The marble was smoothed down to the point where it looked like white skin. The realism present in these scrulptures is always so amazing, and it was easy to appreciate since it was cool in the room in which we were looking at it. We skipped the rest of the museum and went back to the hotel, with the group plus Kristen, Ashley, and Sarah, but we lost Ashley Jane, Ashley, and Sarah on the way there. Later that night, we got McDonald's at the train station.
At Dinner, Straub told us that Venice the next day would be significantly hotter and sunnier than Florence and Rome. We were worried, but we went to bed at the usual time.
We took a train to Venice, through the .Italo line. It was a new train, so it was very nice. It came furnished with working power outlets, air conditioning, free Wi-Fi, etc. It also went something like 280 km/h, which I was not expecting.
In Venice, we hiked over to the Piazza San Marco through the series of mazes that make up the Venetian map. The Piazza was quite pretty, but Ms. Hays, Maggie, and I quickly made our way into the smaller alleyways and started finding what we could, with plenty of picnic bench breaks in-between. We got some paninis and gelato and ate them in an ally, and, as we eventually found out, in front of some guy's house. It was nice to get away from the Grand Boulevard and see real people going about their daily lives in the city. It was so easy to get lost, but that was part of what made it fun: we got to see what nobody else saw. We made our way over to a park which eventually led to a sign. And that's where we saw Everything. Literally: the Museo di Everything. It was a small piazza that had local artwork, food, and a shop with exotic carniverous plants and stuff. Across the street, you could see a display of pottery handmade by local potters, one of which we met and discussed (in terrible Italian and English) the differences between the American connotation of an owl being wise and the Italian connotation of an owl having big eyes and being foolish. In their culture, the fox is wise. Then we played in a park, Maggie and I watched a small green-vs-blue swinging contest and sat on the teeter-totter. We refilled out water bottles and went to the Grand Boulevard to pick up some gelato.
Ms. Hays, Maggie, and I went back to the Basilica and sat for about an hour and a half with the rest of the group minus Shelby (she was sitting on the other side of the tower). We all watched a bunch of tourists feed pigeons and hold them in their hands, which was kind of terrifying. We all just joked about how they were going to get terrible diseases like avian flu and pigeon AIDS. Once Mr. Straub showed up, we went to the water bus that would head back to Florence. It was around 4:30. The water bus was way too cramped for the number of people it was holding. We made friends with a young British couple from Leeds (near Manchester), who were going on their own little tour via the rail system. The guy looked like Alex Wright.
We ate dinner and went to bed after getting back to Venice. We had to pack for a train ride to Innsbruck that would be happening the next day.
Sleeping in was awesome, but, we went on our way pretty shortly. The trains were both pretty great – the first was the .Italo train, and then we had a layover in Bologna Centrale and boarded a cabin train (called by most of us the "Harry Potter" train). I got some crappy panini, but Maggie and Ashley got some delicious pasta. I was pretty impressed at the trilingual train staff – the food coach waiter spoke Italian, German, and English, all pretty well.
We arrived in Innsbruck and took a bus to the hotel. The Alps were much bigger than I expected them to be. I remember seeing them first on the train through glass, and then unfiltered when we were loading the bus, and no matter how much I looked at them, I couldn't seem to get over how tall they stretched into the sky.
We were really happy with the Hotel Sonnhoff upon arriving in Mutters. It was the first time EGT had used this hotel in Austria, and it was a very good choice. The lobby was on the 0th floor, the pool was downstairs, and the rooms were above. My room was very pretty, and had a view of the town, with the city of Innsbruck visible to the right. It was absolutely stunning at night when lit up. Ironically, the prettiest of views from my room was that from my bathroom.
The night we arrived, we played around outside. Maggie and I noticed a little playground next to a wooden building outside of our hotel. The countryside girls joined us in running down the hill and doing some "hardcore parkour" over a fence. Ashley and Emily came out with headphones in ear and iPads in hand and we made a Vine. Afterwards, we had dinner and then went into the pool and the sauna, and we did this a few times until we retired to the grass yard next to the playground outside of the Sonnhoff. You learn a lot about your friends when you cram ten people (as usual, Shelby was absent) into a sauna with bathing suits on. Once we air-dried outside and wanted to come in, everybody (besides Shelby) piled into my room and we continued our very confidential discussions.
This was the day we simply relaxed. We all wanted to go into Innsbruck (Mutters was just a small town that laid on the side of the mountain). We eventually found the tram, and accidentally stole a ticket (you don't necessarily have to have a ticket, but if you get caught without one, you will get fined. The police board the trams occasionally and ask to see tickets). The tram was a little red electric train that ran all the way around the city and the adjoining towns, and seemed to be the primary way for people to make a quick run to the city to pick up groceries or clothes or what-not.
There were so many stores in Innsbruck, but we just went to the McDonald's by the train station and into a grocery. The city is alive and under what seems to be constant, widespread construction. It seemed like they were building an overpass of some sort. The fountains followed us to Austria, and poured out the same amazing, free water. After Melissa, Emily, and Ashley grabbed some food from the grocery, we took the tram back to Mutters. We got lost a few times because we took the wrong trams, but we made it back with plenty of time before dinner. We went swimming, and Ms. Hays and Rebekah joined us. Emily tried to fall asleep in the sauna for some reason, but she survived. We went to our rooms and relaxed a little bit, had dinner, and then Maggie and I sat on my patio and watched the sunset. We went to bed at eleven. We had a glacier to see in the morning.
Breakfast came much earlier that day. We left for the glacier at 8:15, and had no idea how long our trek thereto would be. It was a long one. The glacier was so far away that it wasn't even visible from our hotel. We boarded a tram to the last stop, Fulpmes, and after a quick photo session with a nearly-naked municipal construction worker, eventually found a bus stop that would take us to the gondola service (a gondola is a cable car). After a 45-minute bus ride, mostly uphill, we found ourselves in a cool sub-seventies breeze outside of a massive building which sold tickets for all of the extreme sports available on the alps. We were probably already a few thousand feet above sea level.
The cable cars took us to the tip of the glacier, and it was shockingly beautiful and bright. The snow is so reflective that it warmed our cable car, while the air simulataneously made us shiver. Vans are not made for snow, but I managed. We had some snowball fights, took plenty of pictures, and precariously crept to the edge of a large hill of snow, which, though we would have been safe had we fallen off the edge, still seemed incredibly daunting.
We went and ate at a restaurant, except for Shelby, Ms. Hays, and Rebekah (they stuck behind and had sandwiches). Maggie and I both got an amazing dish that tasted a lot like chicken marsala, but also had noodles on the side. This waiter was trilingual as well, and in the same languages. I remember him approaching us speaking fast German, noticing out faces, and then smiling and saying "can I help you?", only to take a menu from us and point out the translations in the menu; pointing out respectively "German, Italian, and English,", and then exclaiming, "I speak all three for you!" The restaurant, two miles high in the Alps, had Wi-Fi for once, so I tried to get in touch with Ashley (as in, my sister).
After lunch, we came down the glacier again (and made fun at hikers from the cable cars above), met some dogs and kind people on our way from the bus stop to the tram station, and then finally came back to the hotel at around 5:15. Ashley and Sarah both left to go hiking, but came back when they realized they had nowhere near enough time to make it back to dinner by 7:00. I tried to get the Wi-Fi working so I could develop a project I had going, but I couldn't, and I felt pretty trapped. Dinner was quite good; we had steak and my favorite dessert I tasted on the entire trip: it was something like a raspberry mousse with a dollop of whipped cream. It was so delicious.