Euro Trip - Part 3

Day 4 :

Got up ,& after the usual morning activities , left for Venice . Got to the quay and got off the bus and onto a boat

Venice , Venezia in Italian , is a city made up of 170 islands and numerous canals .. Transportation is either by foot across the bridges (Venice has 400 bridges ) or by boat . So we got into the boat and entered Venice .. Marvelled at the way the place is constructed as we entered . . As everything here is transported by boat all the houses on the waterfront have landing docks and steps to enter the house from the water .. Some even have water garages .. They have public bus boats , police boats , gondola's etc etc .

Started the tour at the Bridge of Sighs .. This was so named because this was the bridge that the prisoners had to cross when they were about to be executed and they would sigh as they caught a last glimpse of the city



Then we were taken for a Gondola ride .. Nowadays gondola's are hardly used by the locals for transportation , they use motorized boats instead .. So the gondola's are used for ferrying tourists primarily




We were taken past the main waterfront and into the side canals that dot Venice . The gondola boatman was so skillful that all he had was his single long oar and not once did he collide any part of the gondola with a building or another boat .. Sang an Italian song on the way too .. In the narrow canals they even have speed limits .. 5 Kmph .. Tough to go beyond that anyway cuz of all the gondola traffic as its a very popular tourist attraction as seen from this traffic jam




After the gondola ride we went to the Murano glass factory where they showed us a demonstration of how to make glass works of art . Bought a red glass vase there .
After this we went onto St marks Square which contains the cathedral , baptistery and the bell tower .. St marks square is a big open space famous for the number of pigeons that can be perennially found there

For a fee one can ascend the bell tower and while we were waiting in line to do so , we bought one of the famous Venetian masks



Went up the bell tower and had an AmaZing aerial view of Venice .. From up there u can see the shoreline , the neighbouring islands and how densely the buildings are packed together so as to maximize the available space




Right when we were up there it turned 12 pm and the bell started ringing with a deafening noise. After takin lots of photos up there we descended back to St marks square

A great thing about Europe is that , anywhere they find a open public place or square they hold concerts and other events there . St marks square was also being prepared for a concert at that time




Got on the boat back to the quay after strolling around Venice a bit more . On the way back , we were served lunch and had live Italian music in the form of a musician playing an instrument

Got back onto the bus from the quay and had a 5 hour drive into Austria as we bid farewell to Italy .. Passed a few vineyards and as we got closer to Austria the scenery was breathtaking with lush green valleys nestling among the snow topped mountains in the background on either side of the road



Many of the hills had Castles and forts sitting on the top of them , all of them centuries old , used nowadays as private holiday bungalows. Also saw a few ski jump places and ski elevators , not in use presently but very popular in the winter

Reached Innsbruck in Austria at around 6 pm and proceeded for the city tour

Innsbruck is a small , very picturesque city with huge snow capped mountain ranges lying just a few kilometres away and visible from the town itself . Language spoken predominantly is Austria is German . Bruck in German means ' bridge' and the river running through the town is called the Inn and so the town literally means " Bridge on the river Inn "



The center of this city too had cobbled stone roads . As it was almost 7pm when we went for the city tour all shops and museums were closed ..Apparently they all close shop @ around 4 -5 pm itself . Saw the golden roof building so called because when seen against the backdrop of the mountains it shimmers as if made of gold



Also in Innsbruck is the worlds oldest existing restaurant as recognized by the Guinness book of World Records dating back to the 13th Century.. Went for dinner after this and had our local Austrian meal that day .. Soup , Steak and mashed potatoes .. After a nighttime stroll around the area , went back to the hotel and to bed .


Day 5 :

Left Innsbruck and went to the Swarovski Kirstallwelten . The entrance certainly was impressive with the Swarovski demon hanging over the entrance spewing water from its mouth



Inside there are a few displays and exhibits made of crystal for the visitors to look at before proceeding to the main shop. They also have the worlds most expensive wall made up of millions of crystals ... 2 rather boring shopping Hours later, our bags heavier with a few crystal articles we left the Kristallwalten and drove To Liechtenstein and out of Austria passing on the way the third longest mountain tunnel in Europe - 14 kilometres long .

We reached Liechtenstein and were taken for a small tour of the city of Vaduz ,its capital .

The Principality of Liechtenstein is a tiny, doubly landlocked country , bordered by Switzerland to its west and by Austria to its east.
It has no army of its own and is looked after by Switzerland .. For this reason the border checks to enter into Switzerland are done on entering Lichtenstein itself .

The tour of Vaduz was in a mini road train basically taking us to the few places of interest like The 15th century Red House and the vineyards owned by the prince.




Only confusing part abt Liechtenstein was the question of what its population actually was .. Our tour manager said 32,00 , the recorded tour tape on the train said 35,000 and the train driver said 34,000 .. Unless there were 1000 people dying and being born every minute there ( ie 3 % of its population ) there was no way of explaining it :)) .. My dad put it in perspective .. "Whatever its population is its less than that of Adyar "

After the 45 minute tour of Vaduz we left Liechtenstein and crossed into Switzerland

Switzerland's official name is Confederation Helvectia . It has a population of 7 million but gets almost 20 million tourists a year .They speak 4 languages there .. German, French, Italian and the lesser-known Romansh . It is one the few countries in Europe that has its own border controls and visa instead of the Shengen visa which gets u into most countries in the region and has made border checks between countries redundant .

On the way to Engelberg where we were to stay that night we passed the Wellen See (See meaning lake in German ), a huge lake with water the colour of dazzling green emeralds , the likes of which i had never seen before



Reached Engelberg , checked into the Scweizerhof hotel , had dinner and went for a stroll around the city , which , like a lot of Switzerland, is visually stunning .



We even tried blowing one of the traditional Swiss horns , the long Alphorn to no avail .. After trying for a bit we gave up and the professionals took over and gave us a mini concert :)



As it was getting quite chilly , came back to the hotel and went to bed .

Ps : Hope these posts are long enough for Haresh :P

Euro Trip - Part 2

Day 2 :
After a 2.5 hour wait in the queue we finally entered Vatican city along with a local guide we had been had provided with .. Received these cool audio receivers with headphones .. Sort of like a radio with a few frequencies .. the guide has a mic with a transmitter attached and these signals are picked up by whatever receivers are tuned to that frequency within a few yards ... really useful for hearing what the guide is saying in crowded places

Vatican city as many people know is the smallest country in the world and is enclosed within Rome with huge walls covered with cctvs separating it from the city

Once inside went through the Vatican museum whose walls and ceilings were covered with tapestries and painting and before entering Sistine chapel the guide stopped at one of the many illustrations put up outside the chapel about the works of art inside and explained it to us as it would be too crowded inside to appreciate it

The ceiling and walls of the Sistine Chapel were done by Michelangelo who had not painted anything previous to this assignment .. It took him 2.5 years to do the ceiling alone and most of it was spent atop scaffolding erected by him to reach that height



The fresco behind the altar is The Last Judgement where u can see Jesus in the middle calling all the people unto him .. Above him is heaven where all is peaceful whereas below is Hell where the unworthy fall . The first image at the bottom is Christ , in the second the skin of the person being peeled has a face .. this was Michelangelo's own face .. The third picture shows the various saints who were crucified and the fourth shows the guardian of the underworld with a snake around him and biting his u-know-what ... Some critic had apparently criticized Michelangelo's work and to pay him back Michelangelo drew him as the guardian of the underworld




The ceiling has the fresco of genesis showing the creation of light and dark , of man , woman , of their banishment from paradise , of the floods and Noah etc from bottom to top . Michelangelo was a great believer of beauty being the means to reach god.. His paintings were also full of symbolism's .. On the top right corner of the painting u can see the stage of evolution where god is creating man and giving him wisdom .... If u look closely u can see that the shape behind god is that of a brain .

After this explanation we headed into the chapel to see the real thing and then proceeded to St Peter's Basilica





Saw the pieta sculpture again by Michelangelo which is carved so beautifully u can almost see the delicateness of it all



Went through St peters basilica and exited onto Vatican Square .. The pope had asked Bernini to design this to hold as many people as possible and it is Huge and a place that many would recognize from the numerous TV shots



After leaving Vatican city went to see the Colosseum ... A massive structure , it is truly breathtaking and it is quite amazing that it has stood for so long . At its zenith it was used to hold various activities like gladiator fights for which the whole population turned out . It could seat 55,000 people and the acoustics were so good that the king could speak and the entire audience could hear it without any microphone being used




The floor ( the red railing indicating floor level as it would have been ) of it has long been destroyed and u can see the tunnels and passages that used to snake underneath the arena ... These were used to transport the gladiators , to move the animals etc .

The king and the nobles used to sit in the lower rows , rich people in the next tier , middle class in the next and so on .. The uppermost tier was reserved for women and slaves .

Today , many holes are visible in the walls . Apparently the stones were held together and reinforced by metal joints made of copper , bronze etc .. Many years after the Colosseum ceased to be used for activities , some plunderers removed the metal , melted it down and sold them to make money

Got into the bus and left for the Euro hotel that evening .

PS : Saw the Colosseum before it was voted as one of the new 7 wonders :-/

Day 3 :

Checked out of the hotel in the morning and left for Pisa . i had always thought that the Leaning Tower of Pisa was a stand ( barely standing ) alone thing but it was apparently in this place called the Square of Miracles which also had a cathedral and a baptistery right next to it




Entrance to the Square is free but to go into the cathedral , the baptistery , the crypt or to go up the tower is charged ... Kd buggers ..

Parents bought a ticket to go see cathedral and baptistery and sis and me got ticket to go up the tower for 11 euros .. To kill time until our scheduled time of ascent we walked around and took photographs



Lotsa Ppl around were takin trick photographs like pulling or pushin the tower causing it to lean ... like so




Finally the scheduled time came and we started the ascent up the tower by means of stairs inside the tower .. As u climb up u can really feel the slant .. The angle of tilt is approximately 5 degrees .. There are 3 observation levels along the way from where u get a nice view of the surrounding areas .. Finally u get to the bell tower level .. The leaning tower of Pisa was intended to be a bell tower when it was constructed and was supposed to be 3 times its current height .. But when it started leaning they stopped at that height .. it was closed to tourists for some time ( Poor Bow :P ) but they have poured lots of concrete and made the foundation strong now .. The top layer has a circular walkway and as u walk around it the slant is obvious .. Great view from here too


Came down, went back to the bus and drove to Florence ..Its Italian name is Firenze . Florence was the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance and the heart of the Italian art scene .. From here great artists originated like Michelangelo , Leonardo da Vinci etc .. At its zenith Florence was a great centre for trade , art , finance etc .

We first went to the Michelangelo Plaza from where u can get a bird's eye view of the city of Florence .. Also on this plaza is a replica of the famous statue of David done by Michelangelo .




After this we headed for lunch .. Thomas Cook had this arrangement that in each country we would get one local meal to get the flavour of that country .. so the local meal was provided on this day .. Soup , Chicken , Salad and pasta

After Lunch we continued our tour of Florence on foot as everything worth seeing was close to each other .. We were also provided a local guide for this .. We first proceeded to the Cathedral .. The one here is the 4th largest in the world and is famous for his huge dome and is called
' Duomo ' .. After goin in and coming out of the cathedral we proceed to the baptistery .. These doors were made in the Italian Renaissance style and crafted so beautifully that Michelangelo famously remarked " If paradise had doors , these would be it "



If u look closely u can see how they have managed to acheive the illusion of depth on the surface with some entities looking like they are in the forgeground and some in the background . The doorknobs if u can see are the heads of the people who worked on this .

After this we went onto a famous bridge .. This bridge is unique cause it has shops on both sides of it and all of them are jewelery shops many of them dating from the 1500's .. Interesting story behind this .. goes like this

The medici family ruled much of Florence for 3 or 4 centuries .. After a while they decided to build a new palace across the river from the old one .. The old one was converted into a govt center .. So to travel everyday from the new palace to the govt centre they Erected a private walkway at some height along and above the public bridge .. Now as there was a river, all the shops on the bridge were those that needed lots of water to operate .. Tanners , Dyers etc . So the whole place smelt really bad and the Medici's could not endure the smell on the way to work everyday.
So they increased the taxes on the shops on the bridge to such a level that the lowly industries could not afford it .. The only people who could afford it were ...... Gold Shop owners .. and they persist to this day .. the shops that is , not the extravagant taxes :P

So after taking us to a few more places of interest like an open air sculpture museum , the apartment where da vinci painted the Mona Lisa and a sculpture of a pig who's nose was so shiny cuz it was believed that if u rub it u will one day come back to Florence ,and after some Italian Gelato , the guide bid us farewell and we left Florence and drove to the Point Hotel

Euro Trip - Part 1

Ok , Here goes the travel(b)log

Disclaimer : The author takes no responsibilites regarding the length of this and any future entries on the same trip .. It is expected that the contents of this will be long and winding so as to preserve the maximum amount of memories before the author forgets them .. In case of boredom it is reccomended that the readers just look at the pretty pictures :P

Day 0 :
Left home and went to airport to catch flight to rome . met an unusaully rude guy at the airport who was pushing past everyone in the queue to get past emigration . Was sure he was a hijacker or atleast a terrorist. saw him waiting at the gate tho .. was apparently waiting for his friend . so all that the pushing earned him was more time in the waiting area than in the queue .. idiots ..

Day 1 :
Flight was lufthansa, bought a universal adapter/usb charger on board, touched down at frankfurt and mom and dad courtesy of dad's star alliance gold card went off into business lounge and brought back snacks for us :-)
Boarded another plane and reached rome in the afternoon .. had local pizza for lunch .. pretty local taste :-/

After checking into the hotel jolly midas went out for the first look @ rome .. What a city ! steeped in history .. infact one of their slogans is " Rome , where the past is always present " . Loved the cobbled roads that they had in the older parts of the city and the old buildings and ruins that dotted the landscape .

Went to the trevi Fountain that evening



Rumour has it that if u throw one coin into the fountain , you will come back to rome .. Throw two in and you will get married .. Throw three in and you will have bad luck .. all these coins have to be thrown backwards over your shoulder with your back to the fountain though .. Which led my cousin to quip " If by mistake i throw in 2 coins ill immediately throw in another one .. id take bad luck over marriage "
:))

Had Gelato ice cream and then went to the Time Elevator after that for a 4d experience that takes u through the history of rome with some thrills thrown in by means of moving chairs , sprinklers etc . Drove past Some nice buildings too like this one called  " The wedding cake of Rome "  on the way to dinner and back to the hotel to end the day .. Was still bright when we went to bed at around 10 pm




Situational Quote  : " While in Rome do as the Romans do " .

D'oh

After a lot of thinkin i decided to suspend my account of the euro trip and decided to explore the simpsons movie website . Cant wait for the movie to come out and thought ill juz post the trailers here .

Simpsons rock !

There are teaser clips also and u can make ur own simpsons avatar .. Mine looks like this

Oh and one last nugget of information . There was a contest to see which town in Usa wud get to see the premiere showing of The Simpsons Movie ... Towns with the name of springfield from various states were supposed to send in their videos to show that they deserved to be THE springfield and then based on votes the best town would be selected ... Springfield , Vermont won the competition and will thus get to host the premiere

Videos here

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/simpsons-contest.htm

Euro Trip - Part 0

Ok, this was supposed to be part 1 of the euro trip blog but they have 11 mbps net connection here in switzerland and so i just spent the last 2 hours watching streaming friends videos on youtube thanx to Chandler :-/ ... So ill just post some pics for now

Check back soon for the actual account .