Italy Trip - Part IV - Pisa, Florence

We reached Florence on 16th April at 11pm. Our hotel was quite near to the main railway station ‘Santa Maria Novella’. Having only one day for both Pisa and Florence, we had decided to visit Pisa the next day morning and spend rest of the time in Florence.

Pisa is situated 90kms away from Florence and it took us 1hour journey in the train to finally reach there at 10am. There was a sign board outside the railway station about where the tower is located, we walked almost 15 minutes according to the directions and at last, after taking a curve, we saw this amazing structure – the great leaning tower of Pisa – it was a wonderful sight.

Some facts about the Leaning Tower of Pisa –

“The construction of the Tower of Pisa was performed in three stages over a period of about 200 years. The tower was intended to stand vertically, to serve as a bell tower, but began leaning soon after construction started in August of 1173”


It is possible to climb the tower till top, but only 10 people are allowed to enter the tower at a time. And unfortunately all the booking till 2pm was already over, and as we wanted to go back Florence and continue site seeing there, waiting till 2pm to climb the tower was conditionally unacceptable – so we missed climbing the tower :-(

There is a Duomo and a Cathedral (with museum) nearby the leaning tower and there are enormous numbers of small shops in the roadside, where you can find different kinds of tower models and other cute little items. We did some shopping there and also bought leaning tower model.

Cathedral near Pisa tower

We took the next train to go back Florence, and after having lunch, we first visited the ‘Palazzo Vecchio’ - the palace to many old royal families and now a museum. Outside to the Palazzo there is a copy of Michelangelo’s David, the most famous sculpture of all times. In the Palazzo Vecchio, you can also find a nice courtyard, the 'Salone Cinquecento' (in the first floor), The 'Cappela della Signoria' (second floor) and the 'Sala dell’Udienza' (second floor) among other rooms full of works of art

Sculptures outside ‘Palazzo Vecchio’ - David, Neptune Fountain

In front of the 'Palazzo Vecchio', in the 'Piazza della Signoria', there is an arcade with several sculptures. Next place we visited was a famous Cathedral. There is a tower next to the Cathedral and is called the "Campanile" and it is 82 meter high. We climbed to the top of this tower (which has almost 500 steps) and the view from the top was just amazing, it gave a wonderful landscape view of the city.

Cathedral

A view from top of Campanile

Finally we walked down to the famous old bridge in Florence – The ‘Ponte Vechio’ which was constructed in 1345. On the bridge, you can see lots of shops too. We crossed the bridge and walked further to some more places. In the late evening we came back, a view from the bridge that time was really nice.

‘Ponte Vechio’ bridge at night

The next day morning we traveled from Florence to Milan to catch the flight to Copenhagen and from there a train back to Aalborg. And that was the end of our wonderful memorable 5 days trip to Italy.

Italy Trip - Part III - Rome

We reached Rome Tiburtini railway station at 6am in the morning, and the main railway station Roma Termini was few kilometers away from there. One good thing about Rome is that the city is well connected by metro trains. We bought daily metro pass and a city map from the station and caught the next train to Roma Termini.

Our hotel was few minutes walk from the railway station. We checked in and within another hour we got ready to explore this fascinating city of Rome. According to our plan, we had two days to visit Rome and Vatican. A tourist whom we met in the hotel advised us to go for Vatican on the first day in order to avoid huge crowd on next day (16th April) as Pope addressing the public. Plan was set to visit Vatican on the first day and Rome on the second day.

We soon caught a metro train going to Vatican and within another 15 minutes, we reached in Vatican City, the smallest state in the world, a state that occupies only 108 acres. The Vatican is an independent state since 1929. Every year millions of Catholics visit the home of Catholic Church here. There was huge crowd of tourists everywhere and we soon found ourselves attached to a queue heading to the Vatican museum. The queue moved on and it took more than an hour till we paid 12€ to enter this amazing museum.

Vatican Museum

This museum is home to century’s worth of treasures that collected by and gifted to the papacy. Some of the famous exhibits of this museum are : The Egyptian Museum - with one of the biggest Egyptian collections, the Pio Clementine Museum - dedicated to the Roman and Greek works, The Gregorian Museum - with Etruscan works, The Raphael Rooms - with beautiful frescoes. There was so much to see in this museum and I don’t think even one day is enough just to see all of these. Then we visited the famous Sistine Chapel, Pope’s official private chapel and the place where cardinals around the world meet to elect a new Pope.


It was half past 1pm when we quit from the museum and after having lunch we walked down to the St Peter’s square – the famous elliptical shaped town square of Vatican City, created by artist Bernini during 1650s. A large obelisk surrounded by fountains sits in the middle of the square and an enormous marble platform leads from the square to St. Peter’s Basilica from which the Pope delivers his weekly blessing.

St Peter's Square

There was yet another queue to enter St. Peter’s Basilica. This Basilica, one of the largest in the world, and is considered as the spiritual centre of the Roman Catholic Church. The construction of the Dome and the art works and sculptures inside were just amazing. One of the best among this is Pietà of Michelangelo. It says that he carved this sculpture when he was only 25

There was some confession session going on one part of the Church. It seems it is also possible to go to the top of the Dome, but we couldn’t do so as it was closed because of some reasons. We spent few more hours enjoying the Basilica and the crowed St Peter’s square before calling for the day and returning back to the Hotel

St Peter's Basilica - inside

The next day, we began our site seeing from the most famous monuments in Rome – the Colosseum. This vast elliptical huge theatre was built in 80AD and was used for gladiator and wild animal fights. Many part of this building is broken and is ruined by now. There is an entrance fee of 12€ to enter into the colosseum, and inside you can have an amazing view of the colosseum (like what we see in film Gladiator). Also there is a small museum inside showing the history and construction details of the Colosseum.

Colosseum

Near to the Colosseum, there is Roman Forum, the biggest collection of Roman ruins in the world and contains constructions in the times of Julius Cesar, Augustus, Traian, Nerva and Vespusian. Some of the most famous buildings here are Senate house, The Comitium or assembly place, The Temple of Saturn, the Temple of Castor and Polux etc.

Roman Forum

The next place we visited was The Pantheon. This building dates from 118-128, its dome’s architecture was too good. We then walked to The Fontana di Trevi where there is this beautiful sculpture and a small fountain and a huge crowd busy in throwing coins into water. This place is famous because the legend says that if you throw a coin you will come back to Rome some day :-). I too did the same. Not far from here there was one of the most famous squares in Rome - the 'Piazza di Spagna' – with the famous Spanish square steps.

One of the beautiful buildings we have seen next was the Vittorio Emanuele II Monument Sculpture, which is dedicated to Emanuelle II, the father of Italian unity and was constructed at the end of the 19th century. Then we visited The Campidoglio, where there are sculptures of Castor and Polux with their horses. The 'Piazza' where these sculptures sit was also designed by Michaelangelo.

Vittorio Emanuele II Monument

Finally we visited Piazza del Popolo, a large square and from one side you can climb up the steps to have a fantastic view of the square.

Piazza del Popolo

Italy Trip - Part II - Venice

We reached Venice railway station Santa Lucia at 11.10PM. We had booked a hotel in Venice and it was just 5 minutes walk from the railway station. We dropped our luggage in the hotel room and came out for a walk. Venice sits at the heart of a lagoon, separated from the open sea by a line of defensive sand bars. Most of the city is connected through canals and public transportation is through water buses (vaporetti) and gondolas (small private boats). I had read that cars and other mopeds are banned in Venice, which was true, I couldn't find any.

Next day morning, we studied Venice city map and sorted out the sights to visit. The first place we selected was Piazza San Marco, the city's most famous square - which later cames out to be a bad decision as we spent half of the day there because of huge tourist crowd and long wait in queues in San Marco square. We bought daily boat pass and took boat no 82 to go Piazza San Marco, which is located almost on the other end of Grand Canal. A trip along the intriguing Grand Canal was a pleasure in itself, and one that you can never tire of.

Grand Canal

The main attractions in San Marco square are Campanile (tall bell tower) and Basilica di San Marco - St Mark's resting place, one of the world's greatest medieval buildings. The piazza was too crowded and there were long queues to enter both the bell tower and the Basilica. We first stood in the bell tower queue. Campanile is Venice's tallest building (98.5m) and it says that a view from top even extends to Alps on a clear day. Though we couldn't see Alps from top, but the view from top was absolutely unforgettable, more than worth the wait to get in. It gave a fantastic view of the city together with the Grand Canal, which was really beautiful.

A view from top of Campanile

Another view from top of Campanile

Then we stood in the next queue to enter Basilica di San Marco and the museum. The cathedral was looking very beautiful inside and there were many things worth watching in the museum. These include the famous bronze horse, the Translation of the Body of St. Mark to the Basilica above the leftmost door, the west facade's only original mosaic, and the superb Romanesque carvings above the central door etc.

The other places we visited are Santa Maria della Salute, a church situated at the entrance to the Grand Canal, Accademia (painting gallery), Campo S stefano etc. We missed few museums because we reached late in these places only to find it closed. However, we enjoyed walking through Venice's narrow streets and visiting the shops in the streets. Venice is famous for the glass works and you can find amazing pieces of glass works together with carnival masks as main attractions of most of these shops.

A Condolla passing through a sub canal



Grand Canal -one of many bridges


Shops - selling glass works and Carnival masks

Finally in the evening, we hired a gondolla and had a nice relaxing trip through the sub canals and the Grand Canal. Gondolla is a superior looking small boat, well decorated and having 4-5 seats, which is usually hired for private ride in the canals. I found this gondolla trip bit expensive as it costs 60€ for half an hour trip.

We walked around the city in the evening and later had dinner from a Chinese resturant and waited for our train to Rome in Venice railway station.

Italy Trip - Part I - Milan

We started from Aalborg at 12.30 AM on Thursday 13th April. First it was an overnight train journey to Copenhagen as our flight tickets to Milan were from Copenhagen. We reached Copenhagen at 6.30 AM and the flight was only at 12.40pm from there. Had breakfast from airport, and then spent rest of the hours by just walking around and visiting most of the shops and doing bit of shopping. Finally, we boarded to the Sterling flight to Milan.

It took an hour and 50 minutes for the flight to reach Milan. The weather in Milan was so sunny and it was a welcome change for us as we were having an extended winter and cold weather in Denmark. We had a pizza lunch from Milan airport. Milan City centre is 45 km away from the Milan Malpensa airport, we bought bus tickets from outside airport and got into the next bus going to Milan city centre. It took almost an hour for us to reach Milan city. Milan is Italy's industrial, cultural and financial centre - Many parts of Milan city reminded me of Bangalore because of its building structure and heavy traffic on road. First we went to the nearby railway station and booked tickets to Venice for the same night. Having only few hours before our journey to Venice, we decided only to visit the famous Cathedral (Duomo) in Milan. It was few kilometres away from the city and we took metro bus to reach there.

Cathedral - a view from outside

The Cathedral is located in the Piazza del Duomo. I have read from some travelogue that this Duomo has more than 2000 sculptures and numberless spires and capitals. The interior of this cathedral is as impressive as its exterior. On that day there was some religious function happening inside the Cathedral, so there was a checking outside before entering.

Cathedral - a side view

There are lots of monuments inside the Cathedral - Ottone and Giovanni Visconti monuments, Medici grave, Pope Martin V monument to name a few. There is a big square in front of the Cathedral's main facade which was heavily crowed by tourists and local people - that place looked like an evening relaxing place for them.

Galleria Emmanuelle

Then we visited the nearby places like Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle, which is a covered street and connects the Piazza Duomo with Piazza della Scala. Finally we returned back to railway station to catch the train to Venice at 8PM. And the train reached Venice railway station Venezia Santa Lucia by 11.10PM

What Do You Care What Other People Think?

I have completed reading Richard P. Feynman's second book "What Do You Care What Other People Think", a sequel to his famous first book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". Richard Feynman is one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century and had won Nobel prize in 1965 for his contribution to Physics. This book narrates about his early life, his relationship with first wife Arlene, his journey with Physics as Scientist etc, and nearly half of the book deals with his involvement on the Rogers Commission investigating the space shuttle Challenger's explosion in 1986. His experiences with the Commission and related studies, investigation and demonstrations are very interesting to read.

Feynman was in many aspects a very inspiring character and ever since I read his books, he's definitely one of my heroes.