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ivina woke up this morning feeling under the weather.. but once she stepped into the roman catholic capital and tiniest country in the world, vatican city, all her unwell-ness was forgotten! it really is hard not to be impressed by the grandeur of the architecture in vatican city.
we listened to our friendly hostel staff and woke up bright and early to avoid the crowds at the vatican.. so despite missing our bus stop, we still made it to the vatican with a relatively short queue in front of us.
once you step into vatican city, the basillica greets you in its wide expanse, with a tall obelisk marking its centre and columns topped with statues encircling it. st peter's square is HUGE man! many many chairs there for mass held on sunday. vatican is so small (for a COUNTRY) that once u exit the square, you're in rome again! it just consists of the sistine chapel, the museums and st peter's square.
and we checked out the swiss guards there as well. haha, the one in my pic is quite shuai! anw their uniforms are atrocious la. can u imagine some guy sneaking into the museums to steal artwork and the swiss guards try to creep up on him to catch him in that conspicuous attire? the thief can spot them from a MILE away!!!
so anw, cute swiss guards aside, we got thru the security check and entered the church. it's sooo beautiful. u really have to take your time and walk along the aisles and check out all the intricacies of each chapel, michelangelo's pieta sculpture of Mary and Jesus, all the popes and their sculptures. There was a small mass going on when we went in and listening to them singing the hymns on such sacred ground just gave me goosebumps.
after letting ivina taking videos of the church and basilica until her memory card ran outta space, we split up to go to the sistine chapel, while the lovebir.. *cough* i mean, jinteng n mingrui went to castle sant angelo.
so we walked past the queue that had gathered to get into the church and laughed coz they werent early like us, nehnehnehnehnehneh (ok la it was probably just me who did that)! got out of st peter's square and back to rome where the queue for the sistine chaptel began. so we started queuing abt about 9am..
and queued.. rounded one corner, no entrance in sight..
queued some more.. rounded another corner.. still no entrance..
passed by this elderly lady who was begging for money. one side of her head was red and raw as though the skin n hair had come off.. hope someone got her to a doctor or sth. her money bowl was quite full, coz many of us were rather shocked by the sight of her scalp.
so anyways, we rounded at least 3 corners, queued for about 1.5 hours and saw countless signs pointing us to the direction of the sistine chapel, until we reached the entrance. got our student priced tickets to the vatician museums and followed MORE signs guiding us to the sistine chapel. i really felt like the sistine chapel was some sort of myth that people came up with and that it didnt actually exist coz we had to travel so far!!! like journey to the west.
we crossed rooms after rooms dedicated to various artists - raphael's room, etc etc - galleries after galleries of modern art and sculptures, occassionally eavesdropping on some tour guides talking about the history of a certain work. it's REALLY alot of rooms ok. sistine chapel became 传说中的 sistine chapel haha.
FINALLY arrived at the chapel. we werent allowed to take pics in there, although pple around us were trying their best to snatch a snap despite getting reprimanded by the security personnel there. haha. every 3 seconds, when the volume in the chapel began to rise, the security would shout 'quiet please!' and silence would befall the place. so in e end still quite noisy.
the last judgement was really amazing.. esp when u considered the fact that michelangelo painted the ceiling and all the murals on standing upright. imagine the stress on his neck when he painted the ceiling!
so rushing off from the vatican after spending an insufficient halfday there, we got on board a eurostar train (the first use of our eurail pass!) to venice. arrived about 7 plus and began our search for a hostel. the hostels in venice are usually more expensive coz it's such a touristy place.. but eventually we managed to get a one-star hotel, cheaper than our hostel-of-choice.
check out how the one-star hotel looked like (there's even the helpful ONE star on the signboard). haha.. we didnt actually stay here.. we stayed opp it, at its one-star sister hotel or something, but e hotel recep was here.
so we set off next morning after quite a nice stay in e first hotel room of our trip - e guys' room even had a tv! - to explore the calles and fondamentas of venice. it's really a city to get lost in.. and then take ur map and figure your way out. haha. managed to meander our way to piazza san marco, where it was a nice and wide expanse of space, a breather from the small alleys we made our way there from. there were more pigeons than people there i think.. and some young punks tried running towards the pigeons, making them all take flight and putting us in fear of pigeon droppings for a while, until they all settled down again.
it was very leisurely walking ard venice in the nice cool weather.. saw the gondoliers in their stripey tops and by their gondolas (too ex for us paupers), the ponte rialto, the grand canal, all the traghetti (small sampan-like boats) and jam-packed ferries bringing people around venice on its waterways.
venice also has ALOT ALOT of masks which were sold practically in every other shop.. the big ones are really intricate in detail and pretty! and they cost a bomb too. haha. too bad gerald didnt manage to find his teardrop one.
so after 2 free breakfasts at the cafe near the hostel, we left venice on the morning of the 19th on another regionale train to milan. after having quite a bit of luck in finding last-minute-vacant hostels, milan proved to be insurmountable. we checked with the very very helpful tourist information uncle and found out that due to this furniture trade fair thing in milan which has attracted like every businessman in europe, hotels AND hostels were full for the week. SIAN. byebye milanese duomo and ermm.. shopping haha.
so this is all we have to show for milan, the train station. haha. hurriedly made plans to leave italy for zurich, switzerland next. up north we go!
bagpack with neccessties for three weeks: check, ryanair cheapo-looking air ticket: check, empty water bottle: check, some.. erm.. body butter and nailclippers (haha): check, fully-charged and memory-filled cameras: check..
AAAAND WE WERE OFF TO PISA!!
we arrived in pisa friday evening and took in the immensely different italian atmosphere. the airport seemed more congested, abit less orderly and the people, alot more good-looking! hahaha. forza italia!!
took bus #1 to our hostel-in-mind, madonna della acqua and realized we were QUITE outta the city centre when we arrived. nevertheless, the hospitable host, who insisted on learning how to pronounce every one of our names was really nice and he sorta put our minds at ease (and honestly it seemed there werent many more choices for us in the next 5 miles, anyways). realized however, the acqua in the name referred to a swampy, water thing beside the hostel which bred the ONLY and rather ferocious mosquitoes i had seen in europe so far.
so walking along the only road in front of our hostel, we took the only bus line there back to the city, in search of the heavenly risotto recommended in let's go. honestly, this was probably the best food let's go recommended, so don't trust the food recommendations in there, people! unless you're desp, like us haha.
next morning we set off early to the field of miracles, where the baptistero and catherdral share the leaning tower's glory. and YES me, ivina and jinteng fell into the touristy trap of posing as though we're pushing/supporting the tower. it's hard to resist when everyone around u is doing it!!
got on a bumpy, noisy but blissfully empty regional train to firenze.. thankfully, the train wasnt late!
i remember a sec 3/4 chi textbook with a chapter on florence.. and telling my friends i wanna go italy for my honeymoon after that.. and all i did in florence was to shop like crazy at the san lorenzo flea market HAHAHA. the leather goods there are not bad!
we walked around the city centre, watched VERY interesting buskers along the uffizi, ogled at michaelangelo's david ( i don't really know if it's the original one), crossed the ponte vecchio - the bridge w many shops on it, took many pics w the duomo.. and plodded our way around in search for this famed gelato as claimed by let's go. AGAIN, bad to rely on their recommendations. good gelato isnt hard to find in italy.. haha. metal tins and grey bananas :)
so sunday morning we set off for rome.. the magnificent capital of italia..
our arrival was rather marred by the very-packed-no-vacancy hostels and hot sun, which we sweated under, trying to find a roof to cover our heads with. in e end we did find a place to stay the night, at alessandro downtown. got a map from the hostel staff and a route to follow and off we went!
walking becomes a second nature to you when a) you wanna save money b) the hostel staff scares u about the metro and umm.. c) u wanna save more money. so we walked and walked and walked.. to roma termini, to piazza della republica, down along via nazionale, past the monument of vittorio emmanuel, along via fiori imperiali (where the ancient city comes to life), around the colosseum and via sacra, the oldest road in rome. the colosseum was closed by e time we arrived, so we walked back up via del corso, the street of tonnnnnnes of shops (but we were so tired we werent in the mood for that), to piazza del popolo for more gelato and onwards to fontana di trevi.
the fountain was wonderful! so crowded even at night.. all the statues (of i think zeus and other gods and goddesses) surrounding it carved in white marble.. and the rushing sound of water drowning the hustle and bustle of the city..
the next day we woke up bright and early to explore more of the eternal city.. followed the map religiously until we got to piazza navona, which housed the fountain of the four rivers, with a damn tall obelisk set in the centre.. unfortunately, the fountain was closed for maintenance coz its marble was getting damaged by the running water and whatnot.. so all we could see were small snatches of bernini's work through wired fences. but the buildings surrounding the piazza were breath-taking enough to erase some of the disappointment, standing pristine white against the blue sky.
the pantheon was our next stop.. the very ancient-looking building with a hole in its roof, called the oculus. the guard there informed us that the interior would never get wet even if it rained.. but we didnt really understand his explanation of HOW that happened. haha. the pantheon was actually converted into from a pagan church to a christian one as some roman emperor (constantine, i think) was trying to spread christianity around rome.. and it houses the tomb of the first king of rome, vittorio emmanuel, and the artist, raphael. it's actually quite quiet in there despite the crowds.
so we continued our stroll, perambulation, saunter, trudge, march, traipse, shlep (what a word!) around rome, got lost in vittorio emmanuel's monument, and ended up where we wanted to be on the first day.. inside of the colosseum!!
the queue was sooo super long and there was a mad rush for the 3pm guided tour coz it meant that u could cut the long queue. but us, being poor penny-pinching students on a budget trip, totally averted our eyes from the guide and even tried to use our german residence permit to get cheaper tickets (it was unsuccessful). i didnt think the trip into the colosseum was v well-worth the money spent.. but wells, it is THE colosseum. haha. maybe just too much ruins for the days.
the roman forum was full of ruins as well, and without a guide, it's REALLY hard to make out which ruin was what a few centuries ago. so usually we just guessed or relied on passing english-speaking guides and tiny signs. but we DID find our temple of saturn after a long long time.. haha yay!
our tired legs didnt manage to make it up palantine hill where a she-wolf, according to legend, suckled the founder of rome, romulus.. so we made our way back to our hostel for free, but worst-ever-tasted pasta which ivina thoroughly enjoyed.. haha.
more on italy! this photo-arranging, and entry-writing business is a TAD tiring for my taxpayer-exhausted mind. BUT! i will persevere!! haha. hope no one fell aslp reading..
SURPRISE!!
haha im amazed we're still able to blog here! okays people (or maybe, person, haha), updates on our three-and-a-half-week-long western europe trip soon! :))) patience.
