Vatican City: It’s Full Of Papal Stuff

On June 13, 2013January 26, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Europe9 Comments

Previously, on “Steven and Michelle Go To Italy,” our peripatetic siblings checked out Venice and Rome. What’s left? The Vatican, of course! This was our first view of St. Peter’s Piazza, a.k.a. Pope Central.

The archways on either side of the Piazza have a lot of columns on either side of the breezeway- they look like this. Pretty impressive, right?

The way in to the Vatican museums was an enormous spiral walkway. I don’t think this was the usual way in; they said something about the usual way being blocked off for some reason. Anyway, this was a herd moment.

At the top, there’s a series of rooms, and this incredible view. From here, St. Peter’s Basilica looks like a matte painting in a Lucasfilm movie, doesn’t it?

This was our tour guide. She’s from Indiana, as it turns out, but she lives in Rome and works as a Vatican tour guide. She has an incredible amount of knowledge. The big bronze sphere she’s standing in front of is a sculpture called Sfera con Sfera (Sphere within Sphere) by an artist named Arnaldo Pomodoro. Our tour guide pointed out that Arnaldo Pomodoro sounds very nice in Italian, but in English, he’d just be Arnie Tomato. This amuses me.

Sfera con Sfera rests on a disk of mercury, and can be spun by a single person. It’s heavy, but moveable.

I didn’t know this when I was in Vatican City, but there are actually thirteen versions of Sfera con Sfera. I first realized it was not unique when I saw a second one at Trinity College in Dublin. I’ll get back to that in a few weeks when I post about my trip to Dublin- we’re still in Italy.

Well, technically we were in The Holy See, not Italy. Vatican City is a fully functioning and recognized country with its own police, fire, military, and post office. It’s the only country in the entire world with a birth rate of zero. But I digress.

The thirteen different versions of Sfera con Sfera are all different diameters. To give you some sense of scale, take a look at the bronze ball atop the cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica in the next photo. Now bear in mind that the diameter of Sfera con Sfera is the same size as the bronze ball at the top of the Basilica. Neat, eh?

Let’s take a break from the Vatican to talk about water in Rome. Specifically, open water spigots that are all over the city. There’s two or three in the Roman Forum. They’re on streets all over the city of Rome. The water is perfectly drinkable, and the locals refill their water bottles from them all the time. The locals also know that if you block the flow from the bottom, there’s a small hole in the top that turns it into a drinking fountain, like so:

Meanwhile, back in the Vatican museums, there’s a whoooole lot of busts.

I’m not really going to talk much about these next few pictures. If you’re a student of art, particularly of sculpture, you’ll most likely recognize some or all of these. I acknowledge that they’re amazing, but I’ve never had much to say about sculpture. Here’s some really amazing sculpture, though.

I mentioned that the Vatican has their own fire department, right? Here it is.

The tour of the Vatican museums goes through the Raphael Rooms. The artwork done by Raphael in these rooms is amazing, especially for someone who spent all that time learning to wield a pair of Sai while running around the sewers of New York.

This particular panel, the School of Athens, is my favorite. Nobody is in this crowd by accident. Dude in the blue robe all by himself? Diogenes. Serious looking man front and center in the purple shirt and calf high boots sitting by himself? That’s Michelangelo. Pythagoras is in there. Euclid is there. Alexander is there. Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus, all present and accounted for. Raphael painted himself in, as well as his favorite girlfriend. The depth and detail in this fresco is amazing.

I’ve seen Rodin’s work before, several times in several places, but seeing an original of The Thinker always makes me stop and ruminate.

You’re not supposed to take pictures in Michelangelo’s master work, the Sistine Chapel. I’m a rebel. This room is pretty incredible, though.

After the tour, we wound up in front of the Basilica again. There were big banners up because during the Pope’s service the next morning, two nuns were to be canonized. That is, they were to be sainted. I’ve forgotten their names, but I’m sure there’s a Papal website that lists them somewhere.

The Pope’s altar is set up and ready to go.

Before we ran out of time, we took the walk up to the Cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica. You know me and my love of tall places. I have to climb. The first part is a short elevator that gets you to this level, and shaves 200 steps off your climb.

From there, it’s still more than 300 steps up, but the view is worth it. Oh yeah.

After we climbed down, we finally went inside the Basilica. The light does this amazing streaming thing that, once again, looks like a matte painting.

I was a little bit amused that the Basilica uses Bose speakers that are painted to blend in with the marble. Very Popey!

No visit to the Vatican is complete without a few minutes spent marveling at the Papal Swiss Guard and their mighty multicolored pantaloons. Members of the Swiss Guard must apply for the position. They must be Catholic, single males with Swiss Citizenship, between the ages of 19 and 30. They must have completed basic training with the Swiss Military.

They must also be able to appear dashing while wearing a black beret, and they must be comfortable with wearing a sword at their left hip, cos it’s there. Hidden in this photograph, though.

I mentioned earlier that the Vatican also has its own Post Office, right? Here’s the front doors. You’re not supposed to take pictures inside, so you can only guess what I did when I went in to mail a postcard.

On our way out of the Vatican, I turned around to take one last picture of St. Mary’s Basilica with the sun behind the Cupola. It’s a hell of a building, if you’ll pardon the pun.

Finally, to wrap up our time in Roma, we went to the pizza restaurant which, according to Trip Advisor, was the number one rated pizza joint in the vicinity. Apparently, being number one means you don’t have to stay open.

Luckily, the place across the street was open and inviting and kind of amazing. It was also called Henry Cow, which I kind of love. I had this pizza. Visible on the pizza are, clockwise from the 12:00 position: artichoke, mushrooms, an egg, prosciutto, and in the center, black olives. It was absolutely delicious, and it was a fantastic last supper. I mean it was a great last meal in Italy.

Have you ever seen the Sistine Chapel? Is that the biggest ball of brass you’ve ever seen? Have you ever had an egg on a pizza? Is soy gelato still technically gelato?

Rome: It’s full of ancient stuff!

On June 10, 2013January 26, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Europe8 Comments

The Italian trip continues! After my sister and I wrapped up our time in Venice, we boarded a Trenitalia train bound for our next stop: Rome. I’ve mentioned before that I love traveling by train; Italy is no exception here. The countryside we passed through was often quite pretty:

When we arrived in Rome and got our stuff to the hotel, our tourism followed two categories: Ancient stuff and Vatican stuff. First, the ancient stuff, starting with the Colosseum. The Colosseum is one of the most recognizable structures in the world. (Note to self: See if anyone’s done research on the most recognizable structures in the world. I bet that would be fascinating. And I bet I’ve seen a bunch of ’em already.)

…and this is among the ruins in the Colosseum-adjacent area.

Don’t let rumors of the fall of the Roman Empire fool you- they’re still hanging around:

For still more fascinating ruins, there’s the Roman Forum.

The stones of this roadway were very hard. Since it was raining on and off, they were very slippery also. It’s fascinating to think about just how old this walkway really is.

It wouldn’t be Rome without Vespa biker gangs.

…and I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t go somewhere very tall to take a picture.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Rome Edition. I didn’t realize until I started researching just how many Tombs of the Unknown Soldier exist. Many different countries have their own variant.

The Spanish Steps.

Trevi Fountain, one of the more famous water-bearing landmarks in Rome. A traditional legend says that if visitors throw a coin into the fountain, they will come back to Rome. I didn’t know this at the time, so I didn’t throw any money. I guess I won’t be going back to Rome.

I particularly liked Triton and the water-winged horse.

The Pantheon is quite large.

No, really. It’s huge. Here’s my sister for scale.

One of the coolest things about Rome is that you can just walk a few blocks through the city in any direction and you’ll wind up in another cool Piazza or find another amazing church. For example, we were walking between two things we knew about and stumbled across Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, a hidden-away church with a big elephant in front. Here’s the elephant.

…and here’s the interior of the church.

Gelato! Gelato in Rome! They even had a soy based chocolate for me, so I was pretty happy about that.

This pretty garden was another “just stumbled across it randomly” space. It was quite peaceful.

I kept seeing these Short Buses, but I never managed to get a good picture that shows just how short these things were. You can kinda see it here, almost. They were hilarious.

It cracks me up that people will write this on a dusty car- the joke is the same in any language.

Next up, The Vatican! Have you ever been to Rome?

Venice

On June 6, 2013January 26, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Europe9 Comments

After all the pictures this week of water where there really shouldn’t be quite so much water, I thought it would be nice to show a place where the water is supposed to be there.

In early May, my sister took a birthday trip to Italy, and we started in Venice. I met her in Venice and we did touristy things together. The weekend was intensely busy, so I’m not going to write a blow-by-blow travelogue for this one, I’m just going to talk a little bit about each of the pictures I’m posting here, in no particular order.

The airport in Venice is on the mainland, not on the island of Venice. To get to the island, you can take a water taxi, a vaporetto (a sort of water bus,) a train, a land bus, or a taxi. Wheeled vehicles can’t go past the very front edge of the island, so the most direct way to your hotel is a private water taxi. It’s pricey, but it’s really worth it. Plus, you get views like these. The first one is looking back at the airport, and the second one is my sister enjoying being in Italy.

I refer to Venice as an island, but it’s actually roughly 118 small islands connected by canals and tiny bridges. The one famous snaking s-curve of canal that everyone knows is the Grand Canal- this is what everyone thinks of when they think of Venice, and it looks like this from sea level.

We took the water taxi to the hotel, dropped our bags off, and headed immediately to the Royal Garden near near Piazza San Marco, which is a lovely little garden and a great place to stop for some peace and quiet.

Piazza San Marco is the largest open courtyard space in Venice. There’s a couple of giant pillars facing the sea- they used to execute people there by hanging them between the pillars. There’s also an enormous bell tower that you can climb.

These long white buildings were originally official offices for the people who ran Venice.

The Basilica of St. Mark is hugely impressive. The Doge’s Palace sits off to the right.

Inside the Basilica there are tremendously ornate mosaics with real gold inlaid into the tiles. It’s pretty stunning to see.

Near the Basilica is a recently restored astronomical clock.

You can climb the bell tower for a small fee, and the views of the island are fantastic from the top. For example:

Back on the ground, there’s a small canal where you can see the Bridge Of Sighs in the background. It’s the enclosed bridge in the background of this next picture. You can’t walk across it from the outside, because it connects the Doge’s Palace with the prison building next to it. You can see it from the inside on a special tour, though.

Two very common things to see in Venice- Gondolas and street musicians. There was street music everywhere.

In every city I’ve visited, there are street performers and buskers also. These people pose for pictures. Taking a picture of them without tipping is considered rude… oops!

The docking posts with stripes or colors are privately owned. The ones without are “anyone can park here” tiers

This is the stairway at the hotel we stayed in. The office, check-in desk, and breakfast room is at the top of these stairs. Our room was pretty near the bottom of these stairs. We did a lot of climbing in Italy.

The famous Rialto bridge is one of the larger pedestrian bridges in Venice. This one spans the Grand Canal, and it’s wide enough to have shops in the center of the bridge itself.

This is a Vaporetto, or water bus. There are several different lines that cover getting around Venice quite nicely.

Our hotel was in one of these buildings, right on the Grand Canal. I’m still not entirely sure which building it was, though.

The gondolas were very nice, and they were all uniquely ornamented. It takes three months to build a gondola- they are custom made out of eight different types of wood, fitted for the specific gondolier who will be rowing it. The metal ornament at the front is usually a counterweight for the gondolier standing at the stern of the boat. Because each gondola is balanced for the specific gondolier, if the gondolier gains more than about 10 Kilo, he will need a new boat.

Have you ever been on a gondola? Was it in Las Vegas, or Venice?

Hannover (and Minden)

On May 20, 2013May 30, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Inside Germany7 Comments

On the weekend of April 27-28, I went to Minden for a Peter Cincotti concert. It is not an exaggeration to say that I’ve been looking forward to that show more than the Depeche Mode concert in June. Seriously, if you don’t know Peter Cincotti’s music, you should really check him out. For those of you on Spotify, here’s a very brief selection of his stuff. If you don’t use Spotify- these play buttons won’t work without the software. You’ll have to check Youtube to hear some of his stuff instead. Just check him out. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Ok, now that we’ve got the Peter Cincotti plug out of the way, I’ll talk about Hannover. I traveled to Minden for the concert by way of Hannover, and I did some sightseeing in Hannover on Saturday before the concert and again on Sunday before my train back home. I took a pantload of pictures, and I decided to show them to you a little bit out of sequence. This isn’t exactly the order that I visited stuff, but it’s close enough.

While walking around on that Saturday, I was more than a little bit surprised to see one of these:

While walking near the Kröpcke, a large pedestrian area near the Bahnhof, I also stumbled across a random volleyball tournament. This happened last year in Amsterdam too- it was rather unexpected.

I also wanted to point out this ingenious way to sell food. I saw one of these in Berlin a while back selling currywurst. I am consistently amazed at people’s ingenuity. Also, I kind of want one of those hands-free go-go-Gadget umbrellas. That’s really nifty!

I didn’t eat lunch from this guy though, I went to Jack The Ripper’s London Tavern instead. I mostly went because I liked the name of the restaurant, but the fish and chips were pretty good..

I took a walk down to the Leibnizufer to see the Nanas, large colorful sculptures by Niki de Saint Phalle. I had seen one other Nana recently, the flying protecting angel sculpture in Zurich. It’s the first picture in my Zurich post. When I learned that Niki de Saint Phalle was an honorary citizen of Hannover and had donated a lot of her artwork to the city, I had to go see some. They weren’t hard to find, either.

With my quest to see the Nanas a success, I decided to take the tram over to the Herrenhäuser Gärten, the Great Garden of Herrenhausen. It was absolutely enormous, and I could easily dedicate several hours to walking around on a warmer, sunnier, more flowerific day. That Saturday was cold and overcast, but it was still an amazing place. I wandered around for nearly two hours. Here are eight of the many, many photographs I took at Herrenhausen.

We interrupt this post about Hannover to show you a picture from an art gallery window in Minden. I really, really like the duck detectives, but I have no idea why. Also, the supplicant ant in the background cracks me up. If I ever go back to Minden when this place is open, I am totally buying one of the ducks though.

Meanwhile, back in Hannover, the weather cleared up a great deal. Sunday wasn’t any warmer than Saturday, but at least the sun came out. This means that the sky got bluer and the pictures got prettier.

Hannover has a lot of interesting sculptures. I find sculptures and statues that I like in every city I visit, but Hannover has a larger than average share of really neat ones. This giant gate and the caesar-looking dude on the horse are both standing at an intersection not terribly far from the Neues Rathaus, which I’ll get to a little further down in this post.

This glum fellow with the umbrella is standing not far away from a glum looking woman holding an umbrella. I really want to know the story behind this one.

Someone gave these two very red eyes. It makes them look really creepy. I’m just sayin’.

Hannover has a nice looking opera house. I know nothing further about this building. It sure is cool looking though.

One of the highlights of my trip to Hannover was the Neues Rathaus, the old “New Town Hall.” The building is no longer used for the main city administration, but it’s still got some offices in it. More importantly, you can walk around inside and go up inside the dome for a small fee. You know me and tall places, how could I not climb up?

The first part of the “climb” is actually an elevator to a small stairway to… another elevator. This elevator does most of the vertical ascent, but there are glass panels in the floor and ceiling to show you the shaft as you travel. The next picture is looking up and the following picture is looking down the elevator shaft. This is not for the claustrophobic, agoraphobic, or acrophobic.

At the top of the elevator, there is a chamber filled with decades of “Francisco was here, 1988!” styled graffiti, as well as a metal spiral staircase to get you to the upper levels of the observation dome.

The view from the observation level at the top of the stairs is amazing if you’re there on a clear day.

After visiting the dome, I walked around the inside of the building for a while. The grand staircase and the ceiling in the center chamber are amazing.

There are also a variety of models of the city of Hannover in various times. This one shows how bombed out the city was in 1945, which is really fascinating to see.

Segway tour! I saw these guys as I was walking around the Rathaus. I’ve always wanted to go on a Segway tour.

This is the view from the water’s edge behind the Rathaus. There’s a cafe right there- if I’d been hungry when I was at the Rathaus, I can’t think of a nicer place to sit and eat.

Lastly, this building… I’m not actually sure what it was. I assume it’s a church of some sort. It was just neat looking, so I snapped some pictures of it.

Have you ever been to Hannover?

Will this post stirrup your emotions? Neigh!

On May 13, 2013April 30, 2013 By StevenIn International Travel - Europe13 Comments

March was, for me, an insane travel marathon. Four countries, eleven trains, five flights (two of them trans-atlantic), two long car rides, and numerous hotels- all in a period between March 19 and April 5. During that time, I realized something that I had never really given voice to before now- travel for me is all about the food.

This realization came to me when we got back from the second trip to Zurich. Yes, I went twice. In less than five days. I didn’t mention that previously because the second trip was for work. One of our colleagues from the Florida office came to Zurich, and she traveled back to Regensburg with us afterward so that she could see a little bit more of Europe while she was on this side of the Atlantic. That Friday, while a small group of us were walking around the Altstadt, my personal tour-guiding spiel sounded a bit like this: “This is one of the two Irish pubs in town. Over here, right past $IMPORTANT LANDMARK, is a great Italian restaurant. Here’s another giant church, and near it, one of my favorite places to have breakfast.”

I didn’t realize it until that moment, but my mental map of Regensburg is almost entirely comprised of food.

That wasn’t even the first food-related observation I had that weekend, either. During the second trip to Zurich, we went out to a lunch with our customers at a super-fancy restaurant in what used to be a ship-building yard. How fancy was the restaurant? When we walked in, someone took our coats and put them on a hanger. The hand towels in the bathroom were rolled fabric hand towels, not paper. The menus were actually made of iron. (Insert heavy metal joke here.)

During that meal, I ordered this:

The steak in the center of this plate is wrapped in Serrano ham. The stuff surrounding it is delicious baby onions and strawberries in a strawberry-pepper sauce.

The steak in the middle? It’s Pferdefilet. A horse meat steak. And it was delicious.

This isn’t the first time I’ve (knowingly) eaten horse meat. The first time was at an Italian restaurant in Berlin last September, as a pizza topping. But then, I’ve never been squeamish about unusual food, unless I can see it’s original form. When I was in Hong Kong, I ate kangaroo meat, jellyfish, Thousand Year Egg, and fugu. I didn’t get squicked out until the restaurant staff brought out a duck with the head and neck still attached.

The only thing I didn’t eat from the plate pictured above was the ham and the flower. I don’t really like ham all that much, and I wasn’t interested in the flower even though it was edible.

It’s important to remember that while all of these foods might seem unusual to an American, they’re not all that strange to a local. People have eaten horse-meat all over Europe for centuries. There are even special butchers just for horse meat in some countries. The other things I listed above from my Hong Kong trip? None of them is unusual to the restaurants that serve them. (The kangaroo meat was in an Australian restaurant, by the way- you don’t see too many kangaroos in China.)

What’s the most unusual food you’ve eaten?

Whimsy. Tacos. The DMV.

Category: Travel Posts