Roamin’ Rome (Rome. Rome.) (Rome.)

Continuing on from Kristi’s last post, while Rome is definitely hot it is also definitely pretty awesome. We got through the “biggies” of the town in the first few days and had our last two days to take on some less strenuous activities and do some relaxing.

Mosaics are neat.

We awoke after a great night of sleep – primarily due to the genius idea of asking the front desk at our hotel if they had any fans we could borrow for our room. And they gave us the heavy duty model, so this lessened greatly the issue of restless, sweaty sleeping. On our second day, we had purchased a “Roma Pass” which allowed us free public transportation tickets and free/reduced entrance into most of the museums and sites. We did this in Paris, too, and I have to tell you it is greatly worth the money. If nothing else than that they allow you to skip past hundreds of sweaty tourists waiting in line for who knows how long at each place. After the Coliseum/Palatine Hill/Forum entrance we had one more freebie to use on our pass, so we went to the National Museum of Rome. I’ll tell you, the thought of meandering through another crowded museum looking at golden paintings of Mary and Jesus did not excite us at all. But we needed to kill some time and get our money’s worth, and this was supposedly one of the top museums in Europe. Plus the air conditioning sounded nice.

We headed up and found ourselves pleasantly surprised. The museum didn’t have a painting one, and was primarily full of mosaics, statues and frescoes from interiors of ancient Roman houses. AND there were only a handful of other people in the entire place, so we could sit and take our time going through it.

The main piece I wanted to check out was the famous discus guy.

Discus Guy

The main piece Kristi wanted to check out was a hermaphrodite.

Look closely...

Check and check.

Continuing on, I think I have seen too many of the Travel channels shows on weird places to check out because as soon as I read in our guidebook the word “crypt” alongside “a great place to see bones in fancy decorations” I planned our next stop. The Capuchin Crypt.

Capuchin Crypt

After Kristi took a quick chiding from the lady at the front desk for not being dressed appropriately for a place of worship (it was underneath a church), she let her go in because “frankly, it’s too hot to be wearing anything other than a light dress.” Check one in positive column for heat.

Unfortunately cameras weren’t allowed in, but I snagged this pic from the internet to give you a glimpse of the place. Very freaky, indeed. They were whole chandeliers made from jawbones (this part freaked Kristi out the most, after a few minutes staring at it trying to figure out what the hell they were), an amazing looking alter made from shoulder blades, another alter of skulls and various other oddities.

Good thing we were dressed appropriately, otherwise that place would have been WEIRD.

Traverse area in Rome

We then made our way past $10 cappuccinos and $20 sandwiches to a park for our daily nap/read session outside, and then over to a great little bohemian part of town called Traverse for dinner. Which turned out there was a festival going that night with vendors everywhere, stages set up in various plazas for concerts, and just general good vibes going on.  We had yet another amazing meal, stuck around about 10 minutes watching some guitar/singing/speech thing that we couldn’t understand a single word of, and made our way back enjoying a night walk in Rome.

Traverse festival

Some sort of permanent carnival on the river

Victor Emmanuel Monument at night

Coliseum at night

We also came upon another site of ruins near the Coliseum where there seemed to be some sort of local play going on about, from what we gathered, some historical aspect of Rome, with some breakdance fighting intermingled for some reason.

Sidepoint 1: The great thing about Rome is that they like to tout how much water they have. Starting with the aquaducts and fountains, they have always seemed to want to shove it everyone’s face saying “Look what we can do with water, b*tches!” Thus, there are fountains everywhere for you to fill up your bottles with free, crazy cold water. It is great.

Sidepoint 2: The bad thing about Rome is that apparently you can get hit in the crotch by subway doors.

Nobody wants that

Inside the Pantheon

The next day was again relax-focused. We headed back to Traverse for lunch, found another park to read in, stopped by Scholar’s Lounge for a couple mid-day pints of beer, and headed to the Pantheon. This is supposedly the best preserved piece of Roman architecture because it is the only place to be used continuously since its construction. And impressive it was. Also, the first and second Kings of Italy are buried here, along with the artist Raphael.

We then decided it was a good idea to sit under the columns of Pantheon and read. And apparently two mid day pints makes Blake sleepy, so what better place to take a quick nap than on the front porch of a nearly 2,000 year old structure. Very relaxing.

Perfect place for a nap

We had our last meal of Rome at another amazing place. I think Rome has given us the third best food, behind Paris and Cinque Terra. Everything has been delicious. And of course, our final Italian gelato.

The final gelato

We are now on our last train headed to Zurich, and one night away from flying back to Dallas. We will have a Europe wrap up post later, but I can tell you it has been a great experience and one that we will never forget. At least for me. Kristi is passed out in the chair across from me, so I can’t speak for her at the moment.

UPDATE: On the train, this 5^th grader was bawling in some other language a few rows behind us. It had been going for about 15 minutes straight. This is my imitation of them. If you turn up the volume, you can hear them crying over our childish snickers.

Rome, You Are So Hot

Our train ride from Cinque Terre to Rome was relatively uneventful, and before we knew it – we were out of paradise and into a hot sweaty city.  Rome is hot.  Very hot and also concrete-y, increasing the hotness by radiating heat up at you.  After sweating our way through the streets, searching for our hotel (with minimal bickering – I am getting way better at this!) we found ourselves in a graffiti covered corner, facing our hotel, Hotel Felice – translated to “Happy Hotel.”  At first appearance, we were pleasantly surprised by the place, despite its outward, graffiti-tastic appearance -  its always a crapshoot as to the quality of our various hotels, and this one seemed somewhere in the middle. Plus most of Europe is covered in graffiti anyways so we are becoming immune to it. We made our way up to our room and quickly realized one important downfall.  This place has no air-conditioning….or fan….or breeze.  Now, a little known fact about Blake – he sweats more than any human being on the face of this planet.  I don’t even think he has stopped sweating for one minute on this entire trip.  He is down two notches in his belt, a fact I attribute to pure water loss.  As we settled into our hotel room for a while, Blake had a minor “I’m sooooooooo hot” melt down, solved only by the following:

Fan Head Blake

Even I wondered if it was going to be possible to stop sweating the entire time we have in Rome.  After taking cold showers, we headed out into Rome, and both began immediately sweating.

Tour Guide Blake

Since I had been playing the role of tour guide Nazi for the majority of the trip, I decided Blake was in charge of Rome.  He began immediately following old Rick’s advice, and we were able to see several of the main “must see” sites through 3 self guided tours the first night.  We walked the Spanish Steps, threw coins into the Trevi Fountain, squinted at the ridiculously gleaming white Victor Emmanuel Monument, sat by the Pantheon, ate a delicious dinner of sausage, cheese, and a pizza, and finished it off with something called a “Tortufga” which must mean delicious chocolate thing that kind of looks like poop.  There are approximately 2 billion people also walking around at night, and at any moment you can look to your left and see a couple making out, rolling around, and probably some tongue.  We also got to see several street performers who stand around looking like statues (you know the ones I’m talking about) get dressed and into their statue position.  It is quite the stream-lined process!

Blake throwing his coin in the Trevi Fountain

Obviously these are live action shots.

Exhausted, hot, and entertained, we headed back to the hotel for the night.

Inside the Colosseum

Day 2 of Rome involved more hotness, centering around a tour of the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and The Palentine Hill.  After suffering through a heat stroke, we ate a quick lunch at a recommended restaurant – enjoying more delicious food.  I will say this about Rome – the food sure is great.  We have definitely had some of our more delicious food here.  Soon after eating, we found our Roman Savior – The Scholar’s Lounge – an Irish Pub with real, honest to God, air conditioning.  We immediately entered, and spent the next several hours escaping the heat and drinking multiple pints of Guinness (Blake) and Erdinger (Kristi).

Look at that face. Such happiness!

When we stumbled out of there, we made it our mission to find another place with working air conditioning, and soon found ourselves at an English cinema, waiting for it to open so we could watch the latest Twilight movie (despite neither of us reading any of the books.)  I promptly “fell asleep” (read:  passed out) in the theater, and I am afraid Bella’s saga between the spindly old Edward and the amazingly hot Jacob will have to be discovered by me on another day.  We ended the night at an amazing wine bar/restaurant and soon headed back to the hotel for round two:  Kristi and Blake versus Roman Heat.

You know I couldn't resist posting a picture of our food...

We had big plans to go see the Vatican during the next day, and hung around the hotel avoiding the outside until our reservation time was near.  At the last possible minute, we gathered all our belongings, ate some DELICIOUS Chinese food in the train station, and headed over to the Vatican – home of a crap ton of art and the Sistine Chapel.  Despite the human achievement that is the Sistine Chapel, Blake and I were more concerned with the person who’s entire job it is to shush people in the chapel.  And he takes his job serious too!  Like every shhh is the first!  He is such an aggressive shh-er!

That night – we went back to our favorite little bar, and drank multiple beers, before calling it a night.  Oh, and apparently I announced to Blake and some strangers in the subway that I knew a little dance called “The Gladiator Dance.”  And then I did it.  Blake, of course, took a picture.

Yeah, that's right. The Gladiator Dance.

Whew.  That was a lot.  I am going to let Blake take on the rest of Rome.

CIAO!

Note:  Blake informed me that my post makes it sound like I hate Rome.  I would like to announce that I do not hate Rome.  I like Rome.  I just also like being cool.

Cinque Terra: One Better Than Cuatro Terra

Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it Cinque Terra, which of course in German means a whale’s vagina.

I’m sorry, I was trying to impress you. I don’t know what it means. I’ll be honest, I don’t think anyone knows what it means anymore. Scholars maintain that the translation was lost hundreds of years ago.

No? Agree to disagree.

Cinque Terra (“The Five Lands”) are a series of five town on the Italian Riveria, and in my opinion, one of the best spots in Europe. Seriously, this place is incredible.

Our home terra

Kristi and I check into our 10-bed hostel room, which turns out to be a sweet little apartment that has 1 queen size bed in one room, and 2 twin beds in another (not to mention a full kitchen). One of the best surprises all trip. The owner told us to take the queen since we were married. Our roommates came in later in the night when we were asleep, but it didn’t bother us at all due to the layout of the place.

After check in, we head to one of the other Terras (the names of each town run together in my head; not really important anyways) just in time to watch the sunset on the beach, find a little dive by the beach, have a couple drinks, play some cards (sidenote: Apparently Kristi and I both have forgotten the exact rules for all two-person card games. What we have ended up playing all trip is a mixture of speed, slapjack, war, B.S., and gin. It works.), and find an awesome restaurant for dinner.

One of the things we have been looking forward to here is the food. It is top of the line, fresh sea food right out of the ocean, and at a reasonable price. Pretty much every meal included mussels of some sort, and if you know Kristi, she loves mussels.

We head back right after dinner to get a good nights rest, because the next day we take on the task of hiking the 7-mile trail that links all 5 towns.

Now you  may say, “Blake, you guys have been walking 6-9 miles every day for a month straight. 7 miles should be cake.” Which would be true, if it were flat sidewalk miles.

Beginning of trail

This trail started off easy enough, with a stroll down Via dell’Amore (“Lover’s Lane”) at dawn. The views were astounding. It makes you stop to sink it all in to realize that you are actually seeing this with your two little eye balls.

Then, at the 3rd town you see this little gem: 382 steps straight up to the town.

382 Steps of Fun

I had flashbacks of the infamous Grand Canyon incident on Spring Break ’03 (Mike, Brandon, Polk, Chuck – I’m looking at you chumps who almost killed me). But thankfully to Kristi gently nudging me into doing 2 half-marathons last year, I am a little better equipped to tackle this. But still.

View

After the 3 town, it makes you pull up your boot straps. Crazy vertical stairways. Trails 2 feet wide with drop-offs. Switchbacks. And crowded turns with German tourists with hiking sticks. (I always thought The Price Is Right was making it up with the yodeler on the Cliffhanger game. But no, that is how they hike.)

It really isn’t horrible, but it isn’t the stroll in the park I thought it would be. The views definitely make it worthwhile.

About 4 hours later, Kristi and I arrive at the final town, drenched in sweat and dirt, and ready to hit the beach.

View

View

View

End of trail

We take a train back to our hotel, get cleaned up and head straight back to the last town to get our beach on. A relaxing way to top of a day of strenuous hiking.

Pina Colada & cards by the beach

We take in a few waves, a few pina coladas, a few made-up card games, and then head across the street for dinner at a place we had read about in our guidebook.

The menu and the book both suggested we try the chef’s special “seafood platter,” that was said to be a meal for two. We should have known something was up when our waiter immediately brought out 4 plates, to us saying “Wow, that was fast” and his reply “Oh no. These are just the utensils.” Awesometown.

After 15 minutes or so, to the shock and awe of everyone in the restaurant – literally, the place went dead quiet and all eyes were on us – our waiter walks out struggling with a huge earthenware pot (I likened it to an alabaster jar), took of the lid, and slid out the contents…

The sea was angry that day, my friends – like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli. Suddenly the great meal appeared before me. I tell you it was ten stories high if it was a foot. From where I was standing, I could see directly into the eye of the great fish.

In the enormous bowl in front of us laid:

1. One full lobster
2. One full octopus (head removed)
3. A dozen or so squids
4. Two giant fillets of munk fish
5. Giant crab claws
6. 5 or 6 giant prawns
7. Countless mussels
8. And the soup that it all was cooked in
9. Oh, and a basket of garlic bread. Like that was necessary.

Women fainted. Children cried. Men looked on in adoration as if at a homecoming ticker tape parade for war heroes.

This picture does not do it justice AT ALL.

Kristi and I looked at each other in astonishment, mouthing to each other “What the hell did we order???” But not ones to back down from a challenge – and a delicious one at that – we grabbed our utensils and started at it.

And it was DELICIOUS. Seriously. This wasn’t a “I’m just gonna throw crap in a pile and make it a spectacle” type dish. This was premium seafood to the last bite.

And, seriously, the entire way through people at all the table around us kept looking on in amazement, some stopping us to ask what in the world it was that we ordered.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm

I was proud of us, all that was left were a few measly squid (which turns out neither of us are the biggest fans of), a prawn and a couple mussels. All in all, an amazing dinner experience.

Belly’s full, we roll our way to catch the 10-minute train back to our hotel and end the night watching Beowulf on my computer. (Don’t ask why I had it. But turns out it is semi-animated and not half bad at all. Also turns out Angelina Jolie is in it. Who knew.)

We get up early the next morning, not ready to leave the Eden that is Cinque Terra, but we have reservations in Rome. Which we are currently in, but I will leave those escapades up to Kristi’s story telling… all I can say is: hot.

Nice, Land of The Sunburns

So, Nice.  Well, what Blake failed to mention on his overly positive last blog post (you can always count on Blake to gloss over all the complaining.  That’s how you can tell our blog posts apart…mine are complainy, and his….aren’t) was that he spent the last couple of days in Paris with the remains of my cold.

Blake taking some German drugs.

Poor Blake.  After watching me suffer through Berlin and continuing to share Coca Cola Light’s with me, he found himself “at around 75%” (Blake rates his sickness using a percentage scale) after a few days in Paris.  Luckily for him, I had bought some sort of weird drops in Germany, which I never took thanks to my discovery of the joys of Tylenol Sinus.  After interpreting the proper dosage to “ten drops every hour,” he took this medicine with some trepidation (again, the liver.  I am scared of it.)  For our last couple of days in Paris, Blake has been downing this medicine and looking somewhat like a drug addict.  So, with this in mind (and Blake at 30% – his estimation) we boarded our train for Nice

Luckily for us, the Nice train runs a straight 6 hours, and because we were on the last train out (the only one with open reservations) – we were actually in first class.  Blake slept his way through the train ride, pausing only for a delicious dinner of ritz crackers, and before you knew it NICE!

This is what Nice (or at least somewhere near Nice...I actually have no idea what city this was taken in) looks like during the day.

At night.  Which looks like any other city at night.  We followed our surprisingly detailed instructions to the hostel, and after an hour spent waiting on the final bus ride (a 2 minute ride up a hill), we arrived at our only “true” hostel of the trip.  Because Blake was feeling so terrible, our reserved 10 bed room sounded maybe like some sort of torture, so we sprung for an upgraded shared 2 bedroom.  Unfortunately, this was not available every night, so we began our three nights of three different beds.  Our first night was pretty tame.  Unlike our Munich hostel, this place keeps the sub-22 year olds corralled in the bar, and we were able to sleep peacefully.  Blake woke up at “60%,” so we ate a quick chocolate cereal breakfast and headed to our first suggested beach.  After a tram ride and a bus ride, we arrived at a rocky little beach (although less rocky than the rock pile that is Nice.)

My feet and the rock beach. If you look in the distance at the floating white thing....why, there's Blake!

We swam,

Hi From Nice (and a zoomed in camera)!!

wore sunscreen, read our books, and drank warm diet coke before heading out for a pizza lunch.

You can ALMOST see some boobs. Almost.

We moved to a slightly less rocky beach for the afternoon and some of us (Blake) gawked at the topless women, while others (Kristi) tried to take pictures of them (and failed.)  After noticing a nice pinkness to Blake’s ankles, we moved to the shade, where we slept and planned our dinner (well, I planned our dinner.)  We headed back to Nice and proceeded to have our number 1 rated dinner so far.  I had a gigantic plate of “moules” or “mussels”

That is a lot of mussels.

and Blake had some delicious squid ink risotto , and we finished off with a delicious caramel sundae.  Seriously.  I was in heaven.

The next day, Blake and I both awoken to an unpleasant skin situation.  What had seemed vaguely pink the night before, had turned out to be fire engine red.  Mainly Blake.  Thankfully, I have lived a life full of sunburns, and am hyper-aware of the areas of my skin not receiving proper protection at all time.

From someone who knows a little something about sunburns....that is a bad one. Ouch.

Blake is currently blaming the aerosol sunscreen applicator….but…..i’m not that sunburned, and he is.  And I am way more pale.  Something tells me it might (just MAYBE) be the applicator.  But anyways.  We head to another suggested beach in Monacco.  As we headed down the one million mile hill (knowing full well we would soon have to walk right back up that sucker), we debated paying for a lawn chair and an umbrella.  However, when we reached the bottom, we discovered that this cost 30 euro a piece!  Insanity!  So, poor Blake didn’t take his shirt off (he has a red belly) and used his towel to cover his bright red legs.  I tried to tell him that, being a Dansereau, I was very familiar with the old “shirt on at the beach” move, and that he should just jump in the water wearing his shirt with pride (and that I have more than one brother extremely familiar with this move,) but he was stubborn (and maybe embarrassed?) so he stayed all covered up, while I swam around and played in the water all alone.

That's my future home.

We didn’t stay in the sun that long, and soon headed back to Nice, where we watched the only English move (Tamara Drewe….British….British humor,) and ate some dinner (McDonald’s…..sorry, we needed to save some money….and also use WIFI!!!) before heading back for our last night in the hostel and our first night in our only real “hostel” room (10 bed dorm.)  After waiting up as long as possible (11:00…so tired!) we were the first to enter the room for the night.  There were two Australian girls heading out for the night, and we old fogeys talked to them for a while, before discussing how pathetically old we were in comparison to everyone there.  Seriously.  I don’t know the average age, but mentally, I’m old.  They all have their stuff just EVERYWHERE full of dirt and garbage and then they come in and pass out at like 5:00 am.  It just seems so tiring and unsanitary.  Plus they all fart in their sleep.  I know this, because I woke up approximately 500 times.

We are now enjoying ourselves in the great Cinque Terre.  We are thinking about extending our time here and decreasing it in Rome.  That is how great it is.  GREAT.  Ok, I will let Blake write about it.

One observation:

I have seen more dog balls here than I have in an entire lifetime in the US.  Europeans don’t neuter their dogs!  They just let them grow giant balls that flop around!  In front of me!  And then I giggle, because I am approximately 12.  Ok.  Observation over.

Instead of thoughts about dog balls, I thought I would leave you with this picture of Blake and I at the beach. Pre-sunburn. Look how happy and unassuming Blake looks...