I'm Back
Hello everyone. I'm back from my italy trip, and of course, it was great. I've been looking forward to this trip for a very long time. It was just fucking great. If u ever thought about visiting europe, go to italy, its amazing. forget about paris, forget amsterdam, forget spain, italy is the one.
So, 6 days in italy, 4 cities, (700 pictures), seems rather ambitious, but we pulled it off easily. party due to the fact that i've been there before (with parents on a tour group 5 yrs ago, cant be too helpful) and another friend who has been there 1 or 2 years ago.
We were in Rome, Pisa, Florence and Venice. Didnt go to Milan, but its alright. and basically travelled about by train and flew to rome and back from rome, for 53 pounds (budget airlines are wonderful).
Lets start with Rome, or rather Roma as the italian calls it. On the bus journey to Rome central, it was quite ugly i would say, lots of high rise buildings (not as high as sg), which were rather dirty looking. Dull coloured buildings (lots of grey), sorta depressing. but when we got to central rome, it started to look much different. We walked about til late and saw lots of great stuff. The Pantheon was truly amazing, with its big hole at the top of the dome, and its 6m thick walls, the resting place of Raphael. was the largest dome in western europe until the Duomo in Florence came along (which we also visited, haha) . We were at the world famous trevi fountain at about sunset, and it was magical. except for the indian or bangaldeshi people tryin to sell us so lame stuff. apparently not many people know that this is THE 3 coins in the fountain fountain, i managed to dig up 1 and 2 pence coins to throw in (cash is tight, ha). Also we visited the pointlessly famous spanish steps of rome, just to see a flight of 138 steps leading to an Egyptian Obelisk and the biggest Armani ad i've ever seen in my life behind that. it was crazily huge!
oh yes, before all that, we had pizza for dinner, of course, we are in italy! more often in italy u would find pizza shops selling pizzas that are rectangular instead of round, coz we only know pizzas to be round, well sorry guys not in italy! its a huge rectangular piece, and u choose which one and he/she will cut how much u want. and a can of coke was like $4, damn it.
also that night we found ourselves outside the Castel Sant'Angelo, and it closed as we approached it. looks like a fortress anyways. it is suppose to have a hidden passage way to the vatican too, if u have read Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, thats the location of the climax of the book (i think). and it was pizza for dinner too. we den went back earlier as it was cold and we were tired as most of us had to wake up at 430 to catch the flight.
Next day, it was a trip to the Vatican City or as the italians say it Vaticano! the highlight of my trip! Did u know that the Vatican is a Nation State? and it is the smallest in the world. i tend to refer it as a country, which it is more or less, its confusing. i thought it was a common fact that most people knew, but i was wrong, of the 7 of us, 5 didnt know that. and worse part is that they didnt believe me! so it is ok! the head of state is of coz the Pope, it has a governer which can be referred to as the president if u so wish. the Holy See is a permenant observer in the United Nations. it has its own post office, its own stamps, a vatican bank, which has the only ATMs in the world to use Latin! its own supermarket, a railway station, issues its own coins (Vatican Euro, now), has its own internet domain (.va), its own radio station, its own newspaper. so its a country basically in an area of slighty more than a 100 acres, amazing! the swiss guards protects the vatican, it is more or less its military force. and yes the swiss guards are swiss, and catholic and must be at least 174cm tall and a swear their lives to the Pope. and have very cute uniforms, which the Japanese tourists seem to like a lot. also there are vatican citizens, about 500 odd. ok, too much info there. so we got there after spending a fair bit of time trying to get on the right bus, and after a friend (the only girl in the group who coincidentally has the same birthday as me) was pick-pocketed of 70 euros (~$150). we walked about St. Peter's Square (or Piazza San Pietro in italian) taking photos and all, and wondering what's with all the chairs and people. seems like we couldnt go into St. Peter's Basillica (or Basillica di San Pietro in italian) and when we were about to adjourn to another place, the Pope appeared! What timing we had. He passed by in his popemobile and in a santa cap too! very cute, and a bit silly too. but he was just meters in front of me. i've got pictures on that too. and after going one round, he started talking. he was talking in at least 5 different langauges man. very good....
alright, after which we head for the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel, we had to walk out of the Vatican, and walked along the walls, and then back into the Vatican. one guys was going, "so that means we walked out of a country and back into it again har?!? how come no need to chop passport har?!?" basket. the meseums were mind blowing. we walked and walked through hundreds and hundreds of paintings, sculptures, tapestries, cravings, painted ceilings and walls, statues, and watever they call these things. every room we steped into, it was another in sync "wow", with open mouths and eyes trying to absorb what its trying to hard to see. many famous paintings were housed there, like works of Fra Angelico, Giotto, Nicolas Poussin, Titan, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, which was a build up to the famous Michelanglo's paintings of the Sistine Chapel, the ceiling's Creation of Adam, and The Last Judgement on the wall above the altar. And that was the biggest wow of the day. totally blow anyway. no pictures were allowed in this part of the building, but we still attempted of coz, couldnt resist. and we were caught, haha, just a warning though.
After the Sistine, we headed for Basillica di San Pietro. it is so unbelievably huge its scary. there is a holy door in the front, which is open only for special occasions like jubilee year, so that was closed. inside was another huge "wow" for us, u have to stand there for awhile with your mouth open and slowly look at what is in front of u, rolling your eye balls in all directions trying to capture what's before u. and then start walking forward, and your head will start to move round now, and soon u will find yourself walking backwards to see what's behind. it is the second largest church in christanity, it took 110yrs to build n completed in 1615, to me, that seems fast for its time. Michelanglo was one of the main architects of the basillica and design the egg shaped dome (its not a hemisphere). and it also has some of his works in it. its free to enter (the best part for us), but there are some parts which u need to pay for like the treasury and the dome, which we didnt la. we did see a mass go on in there too. the burial site of St. Peter is suppose to be directly below the high altar of the basilica, so i was more or less above the tomb of St. Peter!
next morning, we were up at 4 plus in the morning to make our way to the train station to go to Pisa, n we missed the train, as a friend was in the toilet doing some business. we took the next train to pisa, which was more ex actually, but we took the risk and boarded the train. some of us got "caught" and just had to pay the difference, which we spilt among ourselves. pisa was fun! coz of the silly pictures we were really caught up taking! the leaning of the tower actually quite scary leah, its really tilted quite a lot. we den had a ok-only-la chinese lunch there. after a few hours there we then headed to Florence! which is known as Firenze to the italians. got there after nightfall, and was approached by a guy for a 2 star hotel which we took. it was not bad for a 2 star, n it was cheap. we walked about and around that night. Saw the night view of the Duomo, which was massive, and its facade which is very distinctive, is made of white, green and pink marble, and its really one of its kind. it has a huge huge dome, and a bell tower. we came back in the day time to check it out. florence was also once the capital of the the kingdom of italy u know? hmm.... interesting. it is also famous for it art and architecture, and its is often considered the birth place of italian renaissance! not too far away from the Duomo, there is the Piazza di Signoria, where there are quite a number of i guess famous sculptures, the most famous one there is the replica (yes replica!) of Michelangelo's David. the real one is housed in another gallery which is a long walk from there, the Accademia gallery. Michelangelo's David is the supposedly the world's most famous sculpture, of at least italy's. gifts on David can be found anywhere in italy, especially boxer shorts. ............................ which explains the boxer shorts part, the shorts is basically just the dick and the right spot. cool. beside that is the Uffizi gallery, my friend calls it the wuchichi gallery, haha! it is one of the world's oldest gallery, and the most important one to italy. it houses art works of famous people like leonardo da vinci, titan, raphael, Michelangelo, almost the whole squad of teenage mutant ninja turtles! we went in the next day. its a maze inside, and i've never seen so many paintings at once in my life, and never seen such a large collection of the Mary and Baby Jesus!
ok, im now tired of typing.... i shall continue maybe tomorrow. maybe.
keith at 12:07 AM
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