Saturday, September 23, 2006

Traveling Part II

A couple friends from the States are joining me for a week of debauchery. Our travels will take us to Brussels, Amsterdam, and then Munich, where we'll spend four days at Oktoberfest because I haven't really been drinking enough beer in Belgium. Awesome.

I return September 30th, so look for more posts thereafter. I'll also fill in on life in Leuven since I haven't had the chance yet. Unfortunately, I'll also have to go to class when I return. They don't call this party study abroad for nothing.

Zum Wohl!

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Barcelona Part II

Our second day in Barcelona started off with more Gaudi, this time at Parc Guell. He designed a number of public structures and statutes there, and it was cool just walkin’ around and snappin’ photos.


More cartoon buildings and brilliant photography.


Maybe Gaudi was really Dr. Seuss.


After Parc Guell, we walked down to Barri Gotic, the gothic part of Barcelona, passing one last Gaudi on the way. Barri Gotic, with its narrow, winding roads and big cathedral has all the staples of really old Europe.

Kinda creepy.


Barcelona goes goth.

At one point in Barri Gotic, we sat down in a tapas restaurant for a quick bite, and Joe put his shoulder bag on the ground underneath his bar stool. Some shade-ball tried to steal it by wrapping his foot around the strap and dragging it out, but luckily someone at another table saw and alerted Joe. He bolted out of the restaurant, only to find his bag ditched just outside the door and the skeeve running up the alley. Good thing someone saw it – Joe’s passport was in there. We were warned by the server that Barcelona, and especially Las Ramblas, is one of worst places in Europe for pickpockets, a fact we knew from books but now know from experience. It sucked for Joe at the time but it makes a good story now I think.

Our day, and our trip, ended with me lobbying the others to attend a Barca match, Barcelona’s soccer team and arguably the best club team in Europe at the moment. But with nosebleeders at E50, we decided to pass. Early to bed, we were up at 4 AM for our flight back to Brussels.

Barcelona Part I

We flew RyanAir again out of Milan and ended up at another airfield in the middle of nowhere, over 90 kilometers from the Barcelona city center. Because we arrived at night, the bus trip didn’t give us much a view of the countryside, but about two hours later we pulled into the city. As soon as I started walking to the hostel I had a good feeling about Barcelona. I had heard good things – it’s many travelers’ favorite city – so my expectations were once again high. This time, the city didn’t disappoint.

Our first order of business the next day was to check out La Sagrada Familia, an “interesting” bit of architecture and probably Barcelona’s best-known landmark. In essence nothing more than a church, it is Gaudi’s most famous building in a city full of famous Gaudi buildings. And though it was started over 100 years ago, it is still actively under construction. You won’t be able to grasp the scale or detail of this structure without seeing it person – it’s unlike anything you’ll ever see elsewhere. Two guidebooks call it a once-before-you-die experience. When it first came into to view, about the only thing I could say was, “what the fuck?” It seriously looks like something out of a cartoon.





The front facade of La Sagrada Familia is over 100 years old.


The rear facade is equally "interesting".

I don’t quite know how else to describe it. Gaudi pulled his influence from nature, and many of the themes are present all over the building. There are baskets of fruit atop various spires, a tree with doves in it atop another, and what looks like “snow” draped over many of the edges. Inside, the entire space is meant to look as though it sits under a canopy of trees, and quite frankly it does.


A concrete canopy of trees.



Because it’s still under construction, they have several, very technical displays set up explaining how the various features are designed and constructed. Given my limited background in math and engineering, I was able to wrap my head around most of it, but some of it also slid over. I think any architecture student would have loved it the way my brother loves Star Trek conventions. Definitely see it if you ever get a chance.

Gaudi’ed out for the day, we next headed down to Las Ramblas, which is basically just a massive street market. It’s like the Taste of Chicago, but every day and without the delicious pizza and ice cream. Instead, they sell pretty much anything you could ever want here: live turtles, chinchillas, roosters, chickens, iguanas, flowers, plants, all sorts of fresh fruits, fish, and meats, clothes, and jewelry.

YUM! Whole dead pigs!


A food market off Las Ramblas.

There are also scam street artists everywhere and kiosks for at least a mile. I was “lucky” enough to be called out to participate in one street performer’s act where he pretended to put a lit cigarette out in a rolled up handful of my t-shirt. When he pulled the cigarette out, it was extinguished, but there was no mark on my shirt. Everyone laughed. I looked like a jackass because I couldn’t figure out how he did it. Those people make me angry. I refuse to post the picture of it here.

We also went out later that night, first to a bar and then to a club. Red bull and vodkas were E9 and I thought it would be awesome to drink several. It was. I met some people from Brighton, England, and, just playin’ around because I was bored, said I had been there (I obviously haven’t). When they asked what I was doing there, I mentioned I was passing through on my way to another city. But unbeknownst to me, Brighton is on the southern coast of England, and it is completely out of the way from everything else. There’s no reason anyone would ever pass through there while moving on to another city. So I kinda got called out. Oops. But they all kinda sucked at life and I’ll never see them again anyway. Awesome.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Milano

The next stop on our tour was Milan. Initially, we chose Cinque Terre and Barcelona as our bookends, and we needed another city to fill in the middle. Florence and Venice were too far away; the French Riviera and Monaco weren’t places to which I wanted to backpack. Milan seemed like a good solution, as it would provide a serious change of pace without requiring a long trip to reach. Indeed, the train ride from Riomaggiore only took a couple hours, and Milan could not be more different from the five villages.

Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly my favorite stop on the trip. Perhaps high expectations spoiled an otherwise interesting city. I imagined nothing but unparalleled grandiloquence and class, sophisticated opulence and haute couture; this was Milan, after all, where impossibly slim Dior-clad ladies and Armani-suited gents slip gracefully out of Ferraris and Maseratis to fetch (nay, have their butlers fetch) champagne flutes and caviar on every street corner. And while I’m convinced this vision still exists somewhere (read: the Four Seasons), the vast majority of the city was something quite different. Even the nicer area around all the designer shops lacked the glitz and glamour I imagined would pervade. In a way, it reminded me of Los Angeles (sorry, Melissa!).

Overall, the city has a very industrial feel, which is really just a nice way of saying it’s dirty. There is a fine line between that visceral, grimy residue of urban energy upon which I thrive, and just plain filth. In too many places, Milan crosses that line and has far too much of the latter.

But what it lacks in form, it makes up for in function. This is a city that works. Everywhere you look business suits and skirts scurry across the streets. The freneticism of people running every which way, coupled with stifling heat and humidity, amounted to a downright oppressive atmosphere. I think the thickness of the air clouded my entire perception of the city. But don’t get me wrong. Milan was a great change of pace. If you know me at all, you know I love a bustling city, and it felt good to be there after a few days in rural Italy.

The upside of Milan, however, is Il Duomo, the world’s largest Gothic church (and second only to Rome’s St. Peter’s in sheer size). With seating for up to 40,000 condemned souls, it’s pretty freaking huge. Basically, it can hold all of Wrigley Field, so Cubs fans should probably make a pilgrimage there to beg forgiveness for their fucking atrocious baseball team (on the upside, there are actually two teams that have worse records than we do!). Anyway, I took a picture of the interior, posted below, but though I noticed no signs forbidding flash photography I thought it would be disrespectful. As a result, the flash-less image is crappy. Sorry (but not as sorry as I am for the Cubs!).




We took a lift to the top of Il Duomo and walked around the roof for an up-close look at the architecture. Let me tell you, anything that takes over 500 years to build is going to be impressive, and this was no exception. What takes over 500 years to build, you ask? 2,245 unique marble statues, the first of which was carved around 1386 when construction first began. You’d think I’d learn a lesson here about patience, but I didn’t – I’m still annoyed the Trump Tower in Chicago isn’t finished yet.

As the theme goes, the pictures I took atop the church once again don’t do it justice, but check them out anyway. Looking out from the roof, the Milanese skyline isn’t much to behold, but all the flying buttresses and statutes were enough to keep our attention for an hour or two. We sat on the roof for a good long time just chillin’. It was the high point of my stay in Milan.




The rest of the time before we flew to Barcelona was spent walking the city, window shopping a bit, checking out a museum, and hanging out in the park. That’s about it. We spent two full days in there, but only one was necessary. Then it was on to Spain.


The piazza from the top of Il Duomo.

On the left, Il Duomo; on the right is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, essentially an open-air mall and home to many designer shops.

Down a steet in the Milanese shopping district.

Cinque Terre Roundup

We spent another day in Riomaggiore after our hike more or less just chillin’. We rented kayaks and paddled out into the Mediterranean, which was a lot of fun but also quite a (needed) workout. I also spent a good amount of time lying out on the beach, though this was an interesting experience because the “beaches” have large, flat, rounded rocks instead of sand. But I was able to get comfortable enough to fall asleep for a couple hours. I did not, however, get much sun. boo. We also bought postcards and did other tourist crap, though we didn’t take any more pictures. The photos below are a few more random Pisa and Cinque Terre shots.


Note the bird in mid-flight.

Up the coast from Riomaggiore.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Vernazza and Monterosso

Though we started our hike mid-morning, the afternoon was well upon as by the time we left Corniglia. Though I can’t be sure, I think the trail to Vernazza, the fourth village, was the longest. It proved much more demanding than the previous two. At first, we had difficulty finding the trail’s exit from Corniglia. We had to hike up a steep road and then shimmy down a set of “stairs” that looked more like miniature cliffs before we got on our way. The trail took us through a few substantial elevation changes and was far more rugged than the others before. With all the rocks jutting out from the ground, I got a bit nervous that my sandals wouldn’t hold up. But somehow the difficulty of the terrain, coupled with our growing hunger, wasn’t enough to spoil the hike. At higher elevations, we found our best views yet of the Riviera.

Vernazza is a bit different from the other four towns in that it used to be the site of a small castle. You’ll notice in the pictures below a small turret and fortress at the point. We later learned from a few retired Brits that kept leapfrogging up on the trial that the castle now hosts a small pub, which for some reason I think is kinda funny. Vernazza is a bit larger, and given its proximity to Monterosso, which is by far the most commercialized and touristy village, it is also more congested than the others. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed it. A small lagoon and beach area made for some good people watching.


Vernazza from the south; note the turret at the point and all the boats moored in the cove to the north.

Once settled into Vernazza, we found a small restaurant for lunch. I, of course, had a delicious pizza. I’m still loyal to my Chicago-style deep dish, but the stuff in Italy ain’t all that bad either! In each village, there are several taps that bring up cold, mountain spring water, and we caught this cat enjoying a bit of it just outside our restaurant.

Even the cats love it there (but sorry my photography sucks!)

A meal has a curious way of slowing you down, so we hung out in Vernazza a little longer after lunch to digest and relax. Even as we left, we did so sluggishly, but not long into the hike to the final village, I turned around and snapped my favorite picture of this trip so far. It’s currently my wallpaper. And no, I didn’t just scan it from a postcard!

Best. Picture. Ever. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then, right? Vernazza from the trail to the north.

We continued on the trail to Monterosso, and it proved at least as difficult as the one to Vernazza. Each time we thought we were done climbing, we’d round a bend and face another steep incline. But as always, what goes up must come down, and the final stretch into the village was thankfully all downhill. Since many tourists stay in Monterosso, they most likely do the hike in reverse (if at all), but we all agreed that we liked our direction better. Though the hardest trails come at the end of the hike, it seemed more rewarding to trip from smaller villages to larger ones, and then return to the smaller one at the end.

As for Monterosso itself, I wasn’t very impressed. It is, by my amateur calculation, at least twice the size of the others, and it is far more commercialized. There are a number of hotels there as well, and for the first time I felt as though I was in a tourist trap. On the upside, there was a much larger selection of restaurants. We grabbed some gelato, walked around for awhile, and then hopped on a train back to Riomaggiore for the night. Due either to my exhaustion or my distaste for the town, I have no pictures of it, but I promise you’re not missing too much!

Friday, September 15, 2006

Manarola and Corniglia

Our second day in Cinque Terre started with a bang – several of them, actually. For whatever reason, one of the churches rings its bells for about three straight minutes every morning at 7:30. I suppose this is to wake up the town or mark the end of morning mass. In retrospect, the practice sounds like the quaint tradition of a small village whose life and livelihood once revolved around the church, but that morning it was just downright rude! We were on a vacation, after all, not a mission, and were no mood to wake at 7:30 to the clanging cacophony of church bells not more than 100 meters away. Despite a tiny population, there are two churches in the village. I am convinced the clergy there entertain themselves with dueling bell-tower concertos. Each hour brought a new tune.

Unable to fall back to sleep, we rolled out of bed and prepared ourselves for a long, difficult hike. For me, this included sliding on my thong sandals and downing a few slices of toast with juice. I didn’t know what Cinque Terre had in store for me.

By default, we chose to walk Via dell’Amore, the (not so) low path among the villages. Several other paths exist, but they all take you high into the mountainside. Our chosen route provided plenty of adventure and picturesque vantages for our purposes, but I give credit to those who might choose the more secluded, higher trails. Besides, Via dell’Amore, though the most direct path among all five villages, is something quite less than a straight line. They say you can hike from one end to the other in six hours, but we were in no hurry. With a name like “Lovers’ Lane”, I think it was meant to be more stroll and less sprint.

Of course, the idea of me walking a trail called Lovers’ Lane is kinda funny, because, let’s be serious here, I don’t quite qualify as a “lover” at this point. And even if I did, I'm not convinced that sweating through a day-long hike is the most romantic way to spend a vacation. I think this was a rare case of the area pandering to tourists. Whatever.

Anyway, the walk between Riomaggiore and Manarola, the next village, is by far the easiest, and with fresh legs we made it there pretty fast. Manarola is a lot like Riomaggiore, but a bit bigger. It sits on something of a bluff, and it seemed a popular place for tourists and locals to lay out on the rocks by the Sea. We had perfect weather that day – clear skies and warm sun – yet for whatever reason none of us got much of a tan. The sun just wasn’t very intense. We didn’t stick around Manarola long, as it was the first village on our trip, and we were eager to continue the hike. We did, however, snap a few good pictures, some of which makes this very amateur photographer rather proud!

*A side note on the pictures: clicking on one will open a larger version in a new window for better viewing.


Manarola.

The trail to the third village, Corniglia, was only a bit more difficult than the first leg. Plus, there were fewer people on it. At one point, I turned around and snapped the picture below. If you look closely, you can see Manarola looking tiny just about dead center of the photograph. I think the sun bleached some of the color out of the picture (like I said, I’m only an amateur), which makes finding it difficult, but I promise the town really is that small compared to the surrounding hills!

Manarola from a distance and dotting the point of the nearest protrusion in the photo.

At the end of the trail between Manarola and Corniglia, we had to climb 400 stairs to reach the village. I thought this would be the most difficult part of the hike. I couldn’t have been more wrong! Both of the remaining legs were far more difficult and involved much larger changes in elevation.

We spent a little more time in Corniglia walking among a few small shops there. We also grabbed a bit to drink, as the midday sun was now beating down on us. The owner of one small wine shop must have been a big fan of socialist and communist regimes and dictators, because every label of wine portrayed a revolutionary or important leader of some sort. For example, he had several bottles of Che Guevara wine, along with other bottles celebrating Marx, Stalin, and Castro. I wish I had a picture, but you’ll have to settle with your own imagination. The shopkeeper, however, was hosting an impromptu midday dance party in his store with what I presume was his granddaughter. We all wanted to join in – he was bumpin’ some good music!

We finally came to the end of the one main street in Corniglia, a picture of which is posted below. The landing at the end of the road sits atop a cliff that leads straight down to the Sea. To get an idea of Corniglia’s size, notice the width of street in the picture, and bear in mind this is the main “thoroughfare” through the village.

End of the road in Corniglia.

Refreshed from naturally chilled, mountain spring water that comes up in Corniglia through a series of taps, we hopped back on Via dell’Amore toward the fourth village. On the way, I snapped these parting pictures of Corniglia. Perhaps had I known that the trail ahead would be so difficult, I may have stayed in town a little longer!

Looking south from the trail, Corniglia.

Corniglia again, high above the Mediterranean.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Riomaggiore

From Pisa, we continued on to La Spezia, the town nearest Cinque Terre. A quick layover, and we caught another train to Riomaggiore, the first of the five towns.

Before I go any further, a little background on Cinque Terre. Literally translated as the “Five Lands”, Cinque Terre is a series of five tiny villages hidden in small coves along a stretch of beautiful, UNESCO-protected Mediterranean coastline at the south end of the Ligurian Riviera. Only recently has the area been connected to the rest of Italy by road; the harsh, unyielding cliffs previously made the villages accessible only by boat or mule. Several trails connect all five, though I use the term “trail” loosely. In some parts, the foot path was only ten or twelve inches wide, flanked by the cactus-dotted cliff wall to one side and a sharp drop-off to the water below on the other. I have not hiked much, but I have never seen more picturesque coastline.

Our hotel was in Riomaggiore, the southernmost village, and furthest from the most commercialized village of Monterosso to the north. The town is constructed in a small valley, so to get to our hotel room we had to climb up a steep hill through narrow, winding passageways. It was like something out of a movie. And yes, old Italian women really do shout at each other across the alley while hanging out their laundry!

Taken from high above the village, the whole of Riomaggiore - a single main street and a few homes alongside.

The remainder of the first day was spent resting by the Sea, as the drive to Charleroi, flight to Pisa, and train to Riomaggiore left us a bit tired. I bought a bottle of chianti (for E4!) and settled into a crag in the rocks to read. It was precisely what I wanted it to be. Good red wine. Great book. Blue skies. And the Mediterranean. I could have stayed there for weeks.

In the evening, we dined in one of two outdoor cafes/bars in town, and polished off the day with some delicious lemon and strawberry gelati. Our company was limited to 20 or so other tourists at the bar, most of which were either American or Australian. There was no one else around, and I felt as if we were tucked away in some far corner of the Earth. Absolutely loved it! Even though it was Saturday night, we turned in early, as the following day would find us on the long hike up Cinque Terre.

The cliffs that guard Riomaggiore. The village is tucked in a cove around the precipice in the foreground.

Shout Out

My friend Jerry took the plunge and started his own blog as well - It's Tough to be a Pirate. If for no other reason, check it out for the title graphic he created. It's hilarious, as I'm sure the rest of the stuff he puts up will be as well. Yeah Yerry. 12

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Pisa

I'm back from my first trip. In the next few days, I'll post a bit about each place I visited.

The cast for this trip consisted of me and two U of I undergrads, Jill and Joe, I met during a study abroad orientation at the end of last semester in April. The first leg took us by air from Brussels to Pisa.

Unwilling to go bankrupt before classes begin, we flew RyanAir, a low cost carrier. RyanAir, like Southwest, flies out of ghetto airports to reduce expenses. Our flight departed from Charleroi, which dubs itself "Brussels South" despite begin an hour a half south of the Belgian capital. Oddly, the shuttle from Leuven to the airport cost more than the flight itself (E30 compared to E25).

Despite RyanAir's low fare status, there was fortunately no duct tape on the propellers or landing gear (don't worry, that's not our actual plane to the right!). In fact, we actually had a shiny new 737, but the freaking seats didn't recline and there was a fat ass baby next to me that cried like it was in boiling water the entire flight. Awesome. We also bounced on our landing, which was interesting.

Once in Pisa, we took a quick bus ride to the Tower. The route took us through a good part of the city, and I have nothing good to say about it. The city is remarkable only insofar as it is entirely unremarkable. In fact, it's kinda run down. We made no plans to see anything else.

The Tower sits in a complex along with both a cathedral and a basillica, all of which compliment each other well. Among these gleaming white, centuries-old stuctures, street venders hawk every type of touristy crap imaginable. Luckily for us, we arrived so early (8:30 AM), that many of the venders hadn't opened.


All three structures. From left to right; the basillica, the cathedral, and the tower.

When I first entered the complex, my first reaction was, "holy shit that thing really leans!" Pictures don't capture how startling it is to see such a large building tilted so much. It's bizzare. But my second reaction was to forbid Jill and Joe from taking any pictures of each other "holding up" the Tower. That's just obnoxious. I agreed, however, to permit pictures of them pushing the Tower over instead, because that's kinda funny. Thankfully, we took neither.

Lean back.

The Tower is open to enterprising tourists who want to climb the stairs to the top, but as Pisa isn't much to see, we chose to forego the wasted time and money. After snapping a few photos and walking the grounds, we hopped a bus to the city center and quickly caught a train to Cinque Terre. Our entire stay in Pisa lasted about two hours - just long enough to see the Tower, snap some pics, and bug out. I definitely recommend seeing it, but don't spend more than a couple hours there. Up next, Cinque Terre.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Traveling

Light blogging ahead for the next ten days. My travels will take me to Pisa, Cinque Terre, Milan, and Barcelona. I'll be back September 10th. Do your best to procrastinate without me.