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Published: April 16th 2007
Me at the effiel tower
just put it out of order to have it as the picture caption for this blog I have not written anything for a while because I have been gone for the last few weeks. I first went to Lichtenstein and Zurich Switzerland for a weekend with one of my friends. I got back to Milan on Sunday and that was the same day that my mom flew into Milano. Next, Alberto, my mom, Tatiana, Alberto’s son, one of Alberto’s architects and I all went to Sardinia on the 10 hour boat ride from the mainland directly to Sardinia. The boat left at 9 p.m. on Monday and arrived in the early morning in Sardinia on Tuesday. When we got there, other than some renovation that needed to be done to Alberto’s house in Sardinia, nothing much went on because during the off season, there is nobody on the Island of Sardinia (from what we could tell) other than a few people also doing renovation work on buildings before the tourists come in the summer. Also the weather was cold and rainy so it was not the best of experiences. Finally, in the apartment next door to Alberto’s there were workers jackhammering all day long and it was possibly one of the loudest and most painful experiences
of my life. To make the situation of that day much worse the power in Alberto’s apartment shut off that afternoon. Once we had n o possibility of heating the apartment, we all decided we should pack our bags as fast as possible and leave on the 10 hour long boat ride that evening instead of staying the night in Sardinia. So for that trip I spent a total of 20 hours on boats and I spent a miserable 14 hours in Sardinia (with a few nice moments, like the great lunch we all had and walking around Porto Rotondo when it was not raining). Upon returing to Milan, I then went back to Switzerland for five days and toured around other parts of the country with a couple of friends while my mom was in Monte Carlo with Alberto. Upon returning from Switzerland I came to my apartment to get my pre-packed bag to take with me for Paris (was in Milan for a grand total of 45 minutes). I arrived in Paris, where my mom was visiting one of her friends who rents an apartment each April. My mom and I then stayed in Paris for three days,
then we both took a train to Monte Carlo to meet up with Alberto and stay at his house there. We all then returned to Milan where I spent one day before leaving again for Cinque Terre in Italy with my mom, where we stayed for two days. Finally we returned to Milan last Friday and my mom left on Saturday morning.
Sadly, while in Switzerland (both times) and Lichtenstein, the people I was with took many pictures that I have not received as of yet, so I will only be able to choose from the pictures that I actually took to put in the blog.
To begin with the details of all of my trips…The weekend that my mom was coming to town I was out of town in Lichtenstein and Zurich. I went with my friend Theresa on the train to the small Republic of Lichtenstein, which is located directly east of Switzerland. When we arrived in Lichtenstein we saw many drunken people wearing green clothes (all of whom turned out to be Northern Irish who were in Lichtenstein for the European Soccer Cup qualifying match against Lichtenstein.) We ended up sitting down for
dinner with a group of Northern Irishmen who, besides being ridiculously drunk, were very nice and told us that they would take us to the game and find tickets for us. We then went to the game and got tickets and stood and cheered for Northern Ireland for the whole game with our new found friends. After the game we were told by some of the N. Irish that we could hitch a ride with them back to Zurich (which is where we planned on staying the night). We boarded a random bus that had been rented by one of the specific fan clubs that had travelled from N. Ireland, which ended up being weird at first since we clearly were not part of their fan club and also clearly were not people that they knew. In the end though, like all of the other N. Irish we had met, they took us in and were all very nice and of course a lot of fun. Once we got back to Zurich, the people from the bus told us to come out to the bars with them, which we did, and that since we had no place to stay in
Me with my N. Ireland scarf
In Zurich, my camera did'nt have batteries in Lichtenstein so until I get pictures from Theresa I only have Zurich. Zurich that we could crash with them in their hostel, which we did. That night I then received a 3 hour long lecture about all of the troubles within N. Ireland due to their civil war, and was told that I should come and visit them in their city of Belfast some time. Upon waking up in the morning I realized that there was a Northern Irishman who was spooning with me, and that the owners of the hostel were poking all of the Northern Irishmen because we had slept past the checkout time and none of them would wake up. In the confusion Theresa and I promptly left, since we were not paying the original fee for the hostel and were not about t o pay the added late fee that was about to be incurred by the comatose Northern Irishmen. On Sunday Theresa and I walked around Zurich for a couple of hours and then took the train back to Milan.
Next I went to left Milan on Wednesday with Mark, to go visit our friend Talia in Bluche Switzerland. Wednesday night the two of us plus Talia and some of her friends from the graduate
school program they are in all had a great fondue dinner and then went out in Bluche (which might be smaller than Hamilton, for those of you who know Colgate) and then we went up the mountain that Bluche is located on to the town of Montana (?!?!?). The next day Mark left to go to VinItaly which is a large wine festival in Italy, and Talia and I began our trip around Switzerland. First we went to Lausanne which is located on a lake. The town was great, and there were great views from the hill that the upper part of the town is on. We began by walking around on the hill and looking at the views of the lake. We saw the cathedral that is located on the hill, and after that we walked down toward the waterfront. We found a Thai/Chinese restaurant to eat dinner and after dinner we walked farther down toward the water where we found a flower shop that had 6 live rabbits in the window. We proceeded to spend 20 minutes watching the rabbits for no apparent reason other than out of shear boredom. The next day we went to a grocery
Porto Rotondo in Sardinia
one of few pictures taken before the weather got bad store and bought bread cheese and meat and took the food down to the water front and sat at a park and ate brunch. After we ate we walked the length of the waterfront before walking to the train station to get our train to Bern.
We arrived in Bern on Sunday afternoon and just walked around trying to figure the city out. We found our hostel which was across the street from a shop that had a mechanical, elfin-looking puppet that was wearing a jester’s hat and a dress-like outfit. The elf was sitting on a flower mechanically kicking it’s legs into the air exposing the lack of anything on under its skirt. We thought it to be frightening and mildy inappropriate, but it turned out to just be the first of many strange things that we were to see during our stay in Bern. Since it was Sunday and all shops were closed, we could not do much of anything other than see the sites of the city. We walked to the clock tower in the center of town to see the mechanical figurines that move on the clock when it chimes every hour. It is
before it got bad
our walk before the rain came supposed to be a great tourist attraction but in reality it was a small clock tower with barely anything or consequence to see, so it was disappointing at best. We did find a shop that looked like it had a lot of cool souvenirs to buy, but it was closed until Monday. We then went to see the river that surrounds Bern which had some great views. On our way back to our hostel we saw the Bern “canal” which is actually just a trickle of water running down the center of a street in old town Bern, that has always been used to feed water to the many fountains of Bern (it was strange and underwhelming). The final thing we did before going to eat was to go to a park in the center of Bern that had some very nice wooden lounge chairs placed permanently in the green, we sat in them and ended up taking naps in the sun. Our guide book recommended a place for dinner that turned out to be a candle-light place with a great menu. I had a tenderloin of horse (had to get it because it sounded interesting) which was great. That
night we went to a bar that was recommeneded to us by the travel guide, it is an anarchist/communist bar (I don’t know how those two groups for a bar together, but oh well). I was clear that this place was out of the ordinary and we were then surprised to hear that it was country music night there. For the night we listened to two German-speaking Swiss men dressed in full cowboy attire (including cowboy hats) singing 60s and 70s era American country music in English with thick German accents.I have to say I never saw that coming! As we walked home that night we saw multiple spray paint grafitti dogs with the head of George W. Bush on them that had been sprayed on anything from buildings to statues. It was just the way to cap off our interesting day in Bern. The next day we went to the shop that we had wanted to go in the day before (which turned out to have more strange and more interesting things in it than we thought it would), then as our book told us we went to see the Bern bears, which are two depressed looking live bears
that pace in their enclosure all day and are gawked at by tourists. Next to the bear enclosure is the “famed” Bern show. This show was made as a tourism tool for Bern to show off its rich heritage, but in fact it is just an overdone, corny and sad attempt to be too serious for its own good. The highlights of the Bern show would have to be the 3D talking chair that belongs to one of Bern’s founding fathers, and a rotating 3D map of Bern complete with a smoke effect that shows how the entire old town burnt in a fire (it was a tiny smoke machine from one corner or the map that spit rather than spewing smoke). We left to go to the train station a different way than we had come because on the way to our hostel the first time was passed a church that had multiple drunken/passed out/homeless people all around it plus vomit on the sidewalk, a women who looked to have been punched who was now bleeding and crying and being yerlled at by a man who was with her, plus another person who looked to have had part of
everyone hurrying to leave Sardinia
no power= no heat= everyone runs away from Sardinia his face burned off. It just wasn’t the greatest of places to be wandering through toting bags and looking like tourists. I know there were plenty of other things about Bern that were out of the ordinary but it is just too hard to describe some of the things we saw.
When we got to Luzern Switzerland we went to our hotel which used to be jail (until 1998). It was a cool place and there were still markings on the walls that had been scratched in by the prisoners. Then we went to see the two famous bridges in Luzern. They are bith famous because they are some of the oldest wooden bridges in Europe (at least one still is because the other was burnt down and rebuilt recently). They are also interesdting because of the paintings that are along the inside of the roofs of each. The one that did not burn has paintings showing the " dance of death" where a series of skeletons leads humans to their impending deaths, but in the last panel Jesus comes to vanquish the skeletons and save man-kind. Then we walked past to city's water turbines that provide power along the
the boat back home from Sardinia
for some reason the boat company is named MOBY but all of their boats have Warner Brothers characters on them and everywhere on the inside of them. river but apparently are often broken, then we went to the ancient city wall (which was being renovated making it impossible to get close to) but while walking along the wall we saw a farm with what looked like a combination of buffalo and long-haired yaks. Since I am smart I wondered why the fence around the "yaks" was buzzing periodically, so I touched it and nothing happened. Later I tried to toach it again and... yes it was electrofied (only at certain times)... and yes it did hurt. For dinner I ate German sausage, then we got chocolates for desert and took them to the river to eat them while looking at the water and the huge amount of angry swans. We then went to an English Pub where they showed cricket on TV and I saw American baseball for the first time since being here. We then went to bed in the jail hotel. THe next day we went to the street market where we saw great fresh food and the best part was the man who was selling hard sausages that had been produced from the meat of the same type of mountain "yaks" we had seen
Cartoon characters onboard
I still don't get all of the Looney Tunes, but they were everywhere on the boat. the day before. We got to taste them and I bought a few (they were really good). Finally we went to take pictures of the lake, followed by going into a church where we were the only people inside (never had that happen before) and we went to a Picasso museum. The museum was great because it had a temporary exhibit that showed pictures taken of Picasso and the life he lived in the last years of his life. He seemd to be a rather funny little man who loved to dance like a fool and had a great sense of humor.
We arrived in Lugano and it was a pretty cold and rainy day, we went to our hostel where we saw that our room was a group room with four beds that had were all pushed together with an extra bunkbed over one part of the giant bottom bed. The room was also in the attic so our only window was above our heads and it went to the roof (an interesting room to say the least). We walked around Lugano for a while, all the time walking toward the lake. WHen we got to the lake we
In Bellinzona
our stop before we got to Lichtenstein went and sat by the water and watched the rain on the mountains across the lake from us. Then since it was so cold we went for an aparitivo (and since we were now in the Italian part of Switzerland, there were aparitivi unlike in the German part). That night we were walking around town trying to see if there was anything going on when a group of Swiss bankers stumbled upon us asking for cigerettes, when we answered in English (and then me in Italian) they asked where we were from. Long story short they took us to a bar with them, bought us erach a glass of wine, and then I was swept away to discuss their feelings about America while one of the guys hit on Talia for an hour. That was our experience with Swiss bankers. The next day we met up with four of Talia's friends who she was traveling with after I left, all of us then went to a chocolate factory that was supposed to be like Willy Wanka, but was just a lot of machines and other than the disappointing chocolate dipped cookie stick we recieved upon entry, it was not very
interesting.
At around noon I took the train back from Lugano where I arrived at Centrale station with about an hour and 15 minutes to get back to the apartment to get my suitcase for Paris and to clean up a little. With transit time to and from the station I had about 45 minutes in the apartment before leaving again. I then took the 6 hour train to Paris from Milano and arrived in Paris at about 11:30 p.m. My mom’s friend Liz rents an apartment in the center of Paris where I was able to stay on the pull out couch for the couple of days I was there. Sadly, Liz was sick while we were there so most of the time, she could go out and walk around Paris with my mom and I. The first day there we went across the Seine to the left bank and went to a very good Lebanese food place for lunch. Then we walked along the Seine and saw Notre Dame and then went to the Picasso museum until it closed. On the way back to the apartment we walked by the Georges Pompidou Museum, which I had been to
before, but wanted to walk by because I like the exterior art work as well. On day two we first went to the Paris Opera to see the grand hall and all of the artwork inside. It was a good idea other than the fact that they were doing lighting for the upcoming show so they had all of the lights turned off in the grand hall. We did get our tickets stmaped so we could come back another day to see the inside. As we walked away from the opera we walked by Madeline (famous church) before going to lunch at an outside cafe. Liz then took us to a place that serves a type of hot chocolate called "chocolate ancient" which is like hot chocolate but much thicker and more rich. Later that day my mom and I walked along Champs Elysees and through the Tuileries and we saw the Arc de Triomphe. That night we ate at the Grand Colbert restaurant and I had Escargot and I shared my mom's oysters (they were both amazing). The last day in Paris we went to a street market where on Sunday’s people can buy fresh food of all types,
we also sat down outside fo coffee and listened to a street band (I bought their cd). Next my mom and I went to a large flea market in the north of Paris. There anything and everything is sold, from fake designer clothes to antiques. We walked around the market and then went to a restaurant to eat cous cous, which ended up being very good. After the flea market we took the metro to the Pere Lacaise cemetery where Jim Morrison is buried. It is a really large cemetery with many old and very large monuments to the many famous people buried there. We then went the the Musee Rodin and saw Rodin's "thinker". In the afternoon we went back to the Opera and saw the inside more lit (but not totally lit) this time we could see the famous chandellier from Phantom of the Opera along with the painting on the ceiling and the painted canvas curtain this is made to look like red draped curtains. After that we went to the Eiffel Tower to see how long the line was to take the elevator to the top. It turned out that there were so many tourists in
Paris for Easter weekend that the lines were incredibly long, and the decision was made that because both my mom and I had gone to the top before, that it was not worth it to stand in a line that long. For dinner that night we met up with Liz and went to a place that serves a fixed menu of beef fondue, with salad and “French” fries and unlimited table wine. It turned out to be a great place and the food was very good. That night I met up with a few of my friends who study in Milan, and who happened to be in Paris at the same time I was. Then next day my mom and I took the train to Monte Carlo because Alberto was there and the plan was to stay there a few days and then all drive back to Milan.
In Monte Carlo, a was able to do much more than the first time, including going to the Casino and loosing a small amount of money, and I was able to walk to the other end of Monaco to the Prince’s Castle. We took a tour of the castle and
saw all of the great views from the hill the castle is on. We all drove back to Milan on Wednesday morning and again I got to drive on the autostrada which is always fun because of the high speeds that I get to drive at on the highways here.
Thursday my mom and I left Milan again and went to the five small towns located on the western side of the Italian peninsula named Cinque Terre. Since spring and nice weather has come, it was great to be one the ocean and to be in the warm sun. The five towns are all linked together by a hiking trail and also by a network of mini buses, trains and boats. We arrived in Monterrosso al Mare (the northern-most town) and walked the trail going south between all of the towns. We did the first two sections of trails the first day (between Monterrosso and Vernazza and between Vernazza and Corniglia) and stayed in Corniglia for the night. For both lunch and dinner we ate great seafood meals and we stayed in a penzione in Corniglia which was very nice. The next day we walked to two much
easier trails to the two southern-most towns of Monarola and Riomaggiore. The problem was that my mom’s flight to the U.S. was the next day (Saturday) on Friday there was a transit strike in all of Italy. Due to the strike, we could not leave Cinque Terre until 5 p.m. because luckily the strike was only for the day on Friday and ended at 5. We did finally get a train beck to Milan, with only some minor worries that my mom would miss her flight the next day if there was no train service.
This last Sunday Mark and I went to Parco Sempione in Milano to sit outside in the great sunny weather, play catch a little, listen to some music that was being played by a band of people playing different types of African drums and to people watch since it seemed like all of Milano was outside and at the park that day. It was a great lazy day and we couldn’t have asked for better weather.
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Denis Kohlmuller
non-member comment
Enjoy
Love all the blogs, especially the pics. Enjoy traveling through Europe. Paul and Denis.