Cinque Terre

Our first stop was in the Cinque Terre, a rugged stretch of coastline along the Italian Riviera. The Cinque Terre (“Five Lands” in Italian) is a UNESCO World and consists of five villages precariously perched between the cliffs and the sea – Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare. We arrived via cruise ship at the seaside town of Portofino and from there, boarded smaller boats that ferried us there.

The pastel-colored, cliff-hugging villages look like they are straight out of a fairy tale. We started our visit in Vernazza, where we explored the charming harbor and the Gothic-style Church of Santa Margherita d’Antiochia, first built in 1318 AD. However, the narrow alleys of Vernazza were completely mobbed with tourists during our visit.

For some respite, we picked up a focaccia and hiked up to Doria Castle to avoid the crowds. The focaccia was too dry and didn’t taste good at all, but at least the view from above offered nice views of Vernazza down below.

Next, we hopped on a boat to neighboring Monterosso. After grabbing a disappointing, overpriced lunch at a touristy restaurant with our guide, we explored Monterosso (the guide hyped up the lunch so much too). While also crowded, the beaches and crystalline waters there were stunningly beautiful. Though, I couldn’t imagine living in either village, with the constant crowds of travelers coming in and out each day. Maybe the other three villages in the Cinque Terre are quieter since they’re harder to get to.

While undeniably beautiful, the crowds and rushed pace of our Cinque Terre tour prevented us from fully enjoying this place.

Pisa

Pisa was our next destination, home of the famous Leaning Tower. By arriving early, we were able to enjoy the Piazza dei Miracoli before the tour bus crowds descended. The sprawling square contains the medieval Leaning Tower, the Pisa Cathedral with its carved marble façade, and the circular Baptistery – all surrounded by manicured lawns.

Despite the early hour, we still spotted visitors doing the quintessential tourist photo, pretending to hold up the Leaning Tower. The famous tilt of the Leaning Tower was even more pronounced in the past before restoration work stabilized the structure. The tower’s foundation was inadequately laid on soft ground, causing the structure to start leaning soon after the first floors were completed in 1178. Today, the tower leans at about a 4-degree angle. Due to the precarious tilt, only a limited numbers of visitors are allowed inside at a time. Legend holds that Galileo dropped two cannonballs of different masses from the Leaning Tower, proving that their rate of descent was independent of their mass.

The Leaning Tower is actually just one part of Pisa’s impressive Field of Miracles complex. The sprawling square also contains the Pisa Cathedral with its carved marble façade, and the circular Baptistery – all surrounded by manicured lawns.The adjacent white marble Pisa Cathedral with its Romanesque architectural details is a stunning sight, dating back to 1064 AD. We also admired the round Baptistery, a dedicated location for performing baptisms.

Florence

Our final stop was the historic city of Florence. We started at the Hospital of the Innocents from the 15th century, designed by Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi. Historically, parents could anonymously leave infants in a revolving door on the outside wall, where they would be safely cared for.

Moving deeper into the city, we visited the Florence Cathedral, with its massive dome that was the largest in the world for 400 years. The crowds moved slowly as eager visitors craned their necks to admire the pink, white and green marble facade.

The cathedral’s ornate façade is divided into three distinct horizontal levels, with rows of saints, prophets, and decorative patterns carved into the marble. The three huge bronze doors of the cathedral are also adorned with relief panels depicting biblical scenes.

We also spent time in Florence’s Signoria Square, home of a replica of Michelangelo’s David and the historic Palazzo Vecchio town hall.

On the way to lunch, we stopped to look at the Ponte Vecchio, Florence’s iconic landmark spanning the Arno River. It was common practice in the medieval times to build shops across the bridge. Initially home to tanners and butchers in the medieval era, the bridge is now lined with jewelry shops.

Next, we had lunch at the Palazzo Borghese, once home to Pauline Bonaparte, the sister of Napoleon Bonaparte. The ambience of the place was great, but the food was very disappointing – I could have made better pasta and I’m in no way an expert.

Our final stop was the Basilica of Santa Croce, the resting place for many famous Italians like Galileo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli. However, we unfortunately did not have time to enter as we were tricked by the tour guide to a leather and gold shop instead for a sales pitch (we were told there was going to be a demo) before having explore the city ourselves the rest of our free time. In the plaza itself, we saw local artists selling their paintings and sketches.

Overall, although the trip was quite rushed, we still got to see a lot of cool stuff. If it weren’t for the crowds and the mediocre food, we would have enjoyed it even more.

See here for more of Cinque Terre, Pisa, and Florence

Originally, we had planned on visiting Sedan too. This was where the Germans made their initial breakthrough into France that eventually led to the French surrender. We intended to go to the Museum of the Last Cartridge, the local museum there, thinking that it was about the World War II battle, but actually it was about the Battle of Bazeilles during the Franco Prussian War (which I had never heard of before). In the end, we didn’t have time for it anyway so it was okay that we didn’t go.

The Maginot Line

Not far from Sedan, was a preserved portion of the Maginot Line in northeastern France, known as the Ouvrage La Ferté. The Maginot Line was a series of defensive fortifications stretching along the French border from Luxembourg to Italy built after World War I to protect France from a future German invasion. The location at the Ouvrage La Ferté saw the heaviest fighting during the Battle of France in World War II. It eventually was overwhelmed by German forces and its entire garrison was killed.

It’s exterior still shows the damage from the battle and grass has grown over the craters that were once there. It is possible to tour the inside of the bunker, but it is only available to large group tours.

Driving through the area, it’s pretty common to still see bunkers on the side of the road.

The Ouvrage La Ferté is in a pretty remote location, which makes sense considering it’s a defensive fortification, and because of the rain the night before, we ended up driving on some flooded roads, and even narrow farm roads that even Google Maps didn’t have a name for.

Verdun

From Ouvrage La Ferté, we drove to Verdun. Verdun was the site of another major battle in World War I, and to remember the fallen soldiers, a memorial containing their skeletal remains was constructed.

Unbeknownst to us, the ossuary was actually closed when we arrived, so we never got to go inside. We could only peek through the windows and see was a blurry view of stacks of bones. In front of the monument lies a military cemetery.

Nearby the ossuary is the actual fort that played a role in the Battle of Verdun. The fort fell to the Germans without a fight since the French had abandoned the fort thinking that the fort would have been ineffective against the heavy artillery that the Germans were using. Eventually, the fort was recaptured.

The road leading up to the fort was interesting too because some of the old trenches were preserved. The zig zag of the trenches can still be seen. Its purpose was to ensure that shrapnel exploding inside the trench would be contained. A straight trench would have allowed a clear path for the shrapnel to fly through more of the trench.

From there we drove three and a half hours to Strasbourg, where we’d start our fourth day of our road trip. That’s all for now!

• Maginot Line
• Verdun

There is a Uniqlo here! I wish I got paid to say this, but it’s the greatest clothing chain in existence.

Gotta love these Bierbikes rolling down the street.

Our main reason to come here was join in on the party that is the Eurocup. A giant screen was set up at the Brandenburg Gate just to show the games. We stuck around to watch Poland play against Portugal!

The weirdest part, that before the game started, they did Kiss Cams, which was fine, but they did this with straight men too… shudder

These people know how to chill.

We met some of my friend’s German friends and they took us to a warehouse that was converted into a bar with a giant screen just to watch Germany VS Italy. According to them, going to that place to watch the game has brought them “good luck” when they went to see Germany VS Brazil in 2014. Definitely one of the greatest games of Football I’ve seen – what a close game between Germany and Italy with a 6-5 Germany win after a penalty shootout.

And of course, when in Germany…

Link to photo album: here

See the post for Day 1 and 2 here

We woke up in the morning to find that the hostel staff restored the hot water again.  So after a nice long shower, we resumed our sightseeing.  We would have liked to have breakfast at the hostel too, but we took too long (or woke up too late).  Instead, we had to find a supermarket to buy food.  We carried the bread, ham and cheese to the Coliseum and ate it there.

The Coliseum

We sat outside under the shade of the massive structure and just took out all the food.  While we ate though, bees kept annoying us and went after the package of ham.  It made no sense to me.  I thought bees only wanted nectar.  After spending a bit of time killing the bees, we resumed eating.  After finishing up, we walked around the Coliseum until we found the entrance.

From the outside, we could already see the massive structure.  It was clear that much of the structure had fallen apart since it was built.  Entire layers of the coliseum had collapsed over time.  What remained didn’t look that sturdy either.  A lot of preservation work must have been done to it to prevent the whole structure from collapsing.  Even on the walls, one could see many holes in it that used to hold up ornaments and other decorations when the structure was still in use.  The structure is certainly a great feat of Roman engineering.

Now that the structure is used purely for tourism, a lot of street vendors naturally set up shop here (it’s kind of weird sometimes because every single one of these street vendors I’ve seen are black).  It’s quite funny to see them all pack their stuff up really fast (it’s like they’re used to it) when cops showed up.  It really reminded me of those food vendors on the street in Hong Kong except without the carts.  Even better were the people dressed up as Roman Legions that got their pictures taken with people.

Because we purchased the Roma Pass (thanks to my friends European travel book) when we arrived at the airport, we were able to get free direct entry into any two museums in Rome (as well as unlimited travel on the metro system) for 3 consecutive days.  We used our pass at the coliseum and walked straight inside.  We didn’t even have to wait in line.  As we walked, everyone seemed to look at us wondering why we didn’t have to wait.  It was like being a VIP.

Walking into the main arena area of the coliseum really reminded me of the movie Gladiator.  The floor of the arena had long since collapsed so looking into the center only reveals the hidden rooms and passageways that used to serve as the barracks for the other gladiators.  To show what the area would have been like, there was a reconstructed portion of the arena floor.

The seating areas of the coliseum seems to have collapsed as well.  At first I wondered where people actually sat when watching shows.  We pretty much walked around the entire circumference of the coliseum and did not find any.  They must have all collapsed, which could explain why some areas had concrete poured over it to preserve the structural integrity.  At least that’s what I think based on the slabs of concrete that covered a lot of the area.

Some parts of the coliseum featured exhibits of its history too and that was quite interesting to see.  After going through the exhibits, we tried to go up to the third floor, but it had been closed off for some reason.  Somehow, a few people managed to get up there anyways.  Since we didn’t know how to get passed the locked metal gate, we saw whatever else we could and then afterward, we went to the Roman Forum.

Forum Romanum

Again, we used our Roma Pass to bypass the line and it felt so good being able to do that.  The Roman Forum was a large excavation site and so there was a lot of Roman ruins in the area.  It was basically the ruins of an entire city.  Looking on the map, we saw that there was so much to see there.  In the few hours that we were there for, we didn’t even go through it all.

We hadn’t completely recovered from all the walking we did the day before and the walking at the coliseum so we took it easy.  It would be interesting to see just how many kilometers we had all walked since the start of the trip.

Memorial to Vittorio Emanuele II

We ended up staying at the forum until the attraction closed and then afterward, we went to the memorial to Vittorio Emanuele II.  This memorial was the largest memory I’d ever seen.  It seems that this person was so important to the Italian people that they gave him a giant memorial with ceremonial guards. Seems kind of pompous to me actually. I looked up this person on Wiki and apparently, he was the first king of a unified Italy.

When we looked at the whole memorial, we wondered how long the ceremonial guards stayed out there for and how the guards would change shifts.  As we were discussing it, we saw three guards march out from the memorial to relieve the current ones.  The new guards switched places with the old ones by marching into their previous standing spot.  The relieved guards would then march away.

Trattoria Der Pallaro

By now, we were really hungry and after looking at my friend’s guide book for restaurant recommendations, we decided on going to a place called Trattoria Der Pallaro.  The cool thing about that restaurant was that it had no menu for people to pick food from.  Guests were served what the restaurant chose to serve.  For 25 euros, people got served a multicourse meal and didn’t get to choose what food they got.  It seemed like a really cool idea.

When we sat down, the waiter asked us whether we wanted red or white wine (probably the only choice for the entire meal).  After we answered, he returned with jugs of wine that amounted to about half a liter per person.  We all thought that was a little too much wine.  Next up was some bread and side orders of olives, ham/smoked meat, lentils, tomatoes and these fried fish balls (I don’t know what they are called).  That amount of food would have been enough for most people.  But knowing that was only the first course, we knew that there’d be more food to come.

For the next course, we were served a penne carbonara.  Half of it had this really delicious cheese sauce while the other half had a less delicious tomato sauce (but still super good compared to other pasta I’ve eaten).  I think that was the best pasta I’ve ever had, but then again, I don’t eat much pasta.

While we ate, I observed how the restaurant functioned since I reasoned that the place would be really efficient at cooking since everyone got the same dishes.  Indeed it was true.  The chef cooked batches and batches of the same thing and the waiters just scooped out the proper proportions for serving.  All they needed to do was keep track of which part of the meal each table was at.

In the third course, we got another serving of bread, but this time with veal, mozzarella balls, zucchini, and potato chips (I guess that random food thing can be a hit or miss on some dishes).  During all this eating, we kept drinking the wine, and I’m sure we would have gotten really drunk (or at least really buzzed) from it if not for all the food we ate.

In the fourth and final course, we were served this lemon cheesecake (at least I think it was cheesecake) with a small glass of peach juice (probably the size of a shot).  Best juice I’ve ever had.  The cheesecake was super good too.  We ended up finishing all the food and the wine.  Despite how expensive that restaurant was, it was totally worth it.

Basilica of the Sacred Heart

The next day, we tried to go to the National Museum of Rome, but we didn’t know that it closed on Mondays.  Instead, we went to the nearby Basilica of the Sacred Heart.  When we went in, this old man who was part of the church greeted us and started talking with us.  He asked us the usual questions like where we were from and what not.  He also talked about the history of the church.  It really surprised me how good his English was.  I didn’t even expect an old Italian man to know it.  He seemed like a really nice guy. He showed us around and insisted that we take some free postcards of the church.

We stayed at the church until it was time to take the bus back to the airport.  We bought our bus tickets from a fellow that I thought looked kind of shady and for some reason he insisted that I put my backpack in the baggage compartment of the bus.  I did as I was told, but I worried so much for my stuff.  I really hoped that no one would steal anything while the door was open when the bus waited for people to board.  From where I was, I wouldn’t have seen anything if someone stole my bag.  I asked my friend sitting close to the window to spot my bag for me just in case.  When we got to the airport, I got my bag and made sure everything was still there.  My friend then told me how he saw the man that we bought the tickets from rummage through someone’s stuff and it looked like he could have stolen something too.  If my bag had been stolen, I would have lost everything.  I guess that taught me to keep all my important documents on my person.

Going Home

On the way back, my friends and I had a nice and long conversation about our views on certain things in life.  It was a super random conversation, but it was fun to talk about this like our childhood and how we were raised.

When we got off the plane and walked towards our bus, we got stopped by these two police officers.  We showed them our passports when they asked for them, but then they walked away with them for a little bit.  When they came back, they asked us if we were in the military.  We all thought it was an odd question and just told them no.  Then they said, “ok”, gave our passports back and we were on our way.  It was really weird and random.  Did we stand out that much in Germany?

During the two hour train ride, we talked about more random stuff.  During the conversations, I realized a lot of things in my childhood, the way I was raised, and my culture that really affected who I am today.  The whole conversation just seemed really profound.

We got home at around 7 pm and after cooking and eating dinner, I sat down to blog and upload my pictures as I always did after each trip.

More photos here

Since I had no computer, I started randomly taking pictures and one of them are of the different coinage designs I had on me at the time…

In order as if reading normally:

1. One Euro: France
2. One Euro: Germany
3. One Euro: Italy
4. Two Euros: Italy
5. Dime: Spain
6. Dime: The Netherlands
7. 50c: Italy
8. Dime: Germany