ROMA, ITALIA
Friday June 29, 2007
Trip to
So having stayed a bit later at work today, knowing that I wont’ be coming in on Monday, I went home and made food, took a nap and woke up just in time for the train ride. This week, as I felt better about walking in the dark to the train station, I took my normal route. It was not that bad, and the train was actually 15 minutes late. I was actually getting a sleeper in a 3 bed ladies room on train. It was rather nice since I was getting in with an elder lady and a younger girl at the same stop. I was assigned the bed at the very top so it had much more privacy. They were travelling to
Saturday June 30, 2007
At about 9:30am, I arrived at the eternal city. After strapping my backpack and all my belongings securely onto myself, I stepped into the Stationze Termini. It was actually a huge station, attached to a very modern mall, which I was surprised about since there were so many stories of it being very “sketchy” (like
Taking an about 10-15 minute walk (since I’m still scared of the busses and pickpockets), I finally arrived at the Colosseum, the emblem of
The underground maze area where they built elevators and gates for animals and slaves were also very impressive. And then, the guides (well other people’s guides) said that it was most impressive when they flooded the underground area to create a type of water arena for sea battles and stuff. There were staircases that led to nowhere, because of the wear and tear and damages from the natural disaster and some of the outer tier has fallen off. (earthquakes)
I was completely in awe and wanted to stay there and just absorb the history for a long time. After visiting the Colosseum, I was waved over by a gladiator person and took a picture with him. It was OK, but the thing that pissed me off was that they don’t tell you there’s a charge until afterwards. The guy was trying to get me to pay him 5 euros.. but I knew in
Navigating through the ruins, I walked up the staircases to the capitolini Hill and went to the Capitoline museum (musei capitolini). The piazza surrounded by three buildings was designed by Michaelangelo and housed a collection of sculpture and art. What I liked most about it was actually the collection of ancient rocks with inscription of it about Roman lifestyle that was housed at the underground passage way that connected the two buildings. It was just fascinating for me to learn about lifestyle of ancient people.
After the Capitoline museum visit, I went up the monument building for Vittorio Emmanuel at the Piazza Venezia. It was a war memorial building made of white marbles that resembles a wedding cake (my friend also called it Italian typewriter). It was a very nice building, very strong presence and has bronze horses pulling chariots at the top that is 12 m long (the horse alone). Truly impressive. The view of central
After my visit to Piazza venezia, I walked up via de corso and visited the famous Trevi Fountain. It was so crowded mid day, and after getting a gelato, I sat there and just looked at the fountain. It was very nice. Apparently the materials again was taken from the Colosseum and the fountain was built in the Baroque style at the end point of their famous aqueducts. Of course, I threw my share of coins into the fountain, so that means I’ll be returning to
Anyways, what fascinated me was how tucked away this attraction is, it was surrounded by streets (narrow ones) and gelato and cafes. No open piazzas nothing. I then walked up the via corso some more in search of the famous high end shopping street that leads to the Spanish steps. Walking by stores like Burberry, Armani, Ferragamo, Valentino, Versace, Prada, Gucci,
After the Spanish Steps, I walked down another hill (lots of hills in
Met a guy from
The Night tour operated by Odyssey tour was one of panoramic one. It was a bit pricey considering we didn’t really stop anywhere except at the trevi fountain (which I saw already) and the tour guide spoke in English german and French (which was a bit confusing, although I should be able to understand if not all, then at least 2) There was quite a bit of information, and we did see the colosseum, palatine hill, circus maximus, castel s tangelo, st peters went up the hill of ginnocoli (near vatican) at night, which I wouldn’t be able to do if I was walking and travelling alone.
It was a good 2 hour bus trip, haven’t been on a bus for awhile, so it was an interesting experience. I was so exhausted by the end of the night that I went right to bed with some really rowdy neighbour next door. Good thing the room was not too hot.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Since I’ve seen quite a bit of things on Saturday, I decided that one way or another I will go shopping. And because I was afraid of the crowd and things that could happen at the flea market, I decided to take the free shuttle to castel romano, the
When I got back to
So we ended up in a very nice piazza where there were street musicians, mimes, and you name it. At an open café, we had a nice dinner, and me also a traditional Italian tiramisu (sooo yummy). After dinner, we decided to wander for a bit, and saw the piazza navona at night time and also the pantheon. They were heading to
A bunch of guys from
Monday July 2, 2007
As per the advice of my new friends from the hostel, I woke up bright and early on Monday and took the metro to Ottaviano station and walked towards the entrance to the
Anyways, at about 10:10am, I got into the line ups to get security screening, then another one to get tickets inside the Vatican museum, and then it was another line up to feed your ticket through. After lots of line ups and picking up a guide book, I began my visit in the museum with the largest and most expensive collection in the world. Touring through the Egyptian collection (it was soo good, loved it), the etrusian (went through I it quickly), greek busts (of Sophocles, Aristotle (I forgot his name at the time) plato, etc)) and then more sculptures and paintings. Finally through the room of the tapestries (wasn’t that interesting) and the room of the maps (loved it) and then Ralphaels room (loved loved it, with his paintings of poetry, knowledge theology and justice) and into the famous Sistine Chapel (flooded with people) and stared at the last judgement, the ceiling depicting the story of genesis and all kinds of pictures of the pope on the side by Michaelangelo.
I spent about 2 -3 hours inside the museum before coming out to yet another line at St Peters (the line at this point to the museum is just as long as before if not longer). Went through the basilica and it was so just wonderfully built. Designed by Bernini and the dome was later added on by Michaelangelo. It was beautiful. The design was like two arms and embraces any visitors that come in to visit, and in return accepting all of mankind! Statues that are about the height of a person lined the piazza, they are of saints and of other important biblical people. I went right to the line to get up to the cupola. Met two girls from somewhere in the
We came back down right into the Cathedral, it was massive, and because there was no sun, I couldn’t experience the light rays shining through which was a bummer. There was all kinds of niche and chapels dedicated to important popes and memorials for other things. A treasury was also available for visit. There were preserved bodies of popes and also the memorial in the center where St Peter’s remains rested. One of the more cool statues that caught my eyes actually had a goddess stepping on the globe, and from one of the guides, apparently she was stepping right on
Anyways, I also went to touch St Peter’s feet like everyone else did to be blessed J After that I decided to take a walk back and try to catch the Pantheon to wrap up my visit at
Apparenlty I was also told that the cylinder built up of alternating trapezoid and semicircular niches and supporting beams and pillars inspired bernini’s design at St peter’s bascillica.
Anyways, it was good, and I went back to the hostel, met a girl from
Friday June 22, 2007
I was extremely nervous about travelling to
Anyways, I was really prepared for my trip and didn’t carry a lot of cash in visible places. I had the bulk of my money in my money belt as well as my 2 travellers cheques, health card, ISIC card, passport, return train ticket and most importantly my credit card. I went and bought a bike lock for my backpack so that I can lock it to the overhead rail of the train cart.
The 20 minute walk from my place to the train station was a bit scary. (I’ve never walked out into the streets after dark yet, only really early in the morning, like 5). I chose the longer route just so that I can stay on the main streets and got to the station safe and sound.
Because there was reserved seating and I was only able to get a seat this time around for 40 euro each way >< (but a couchette and a sleeper next week for
Saturday June 23, 2007
So after a really hot and stuffy train ride, luckily people in my compartment did not smell.. and not knowing when my stop is (because Italian train conductors don’t check as much as the Austrian ones, so no one told me where we were), I had to guess at my arrival time to know when to get off, I finally arrived in Firenze, Italia (in Italian) safe and sound! I was on my guards at the train station (as they are known to be quite a bit of crime there), located the police station, and then started wandering to the postcard stands. Check in was at 9, so I had 3 hours to spare. After purchasing my post card I decided to locate my hostel, there was a big group of teenagers following a guide, looking like a school group who has also just gotten off the train, so I just walked with them for safety reasons.
Italian street numbers are weird, one street merges into another and they are randomly spaced with red and black letters that goes in ascending order meaning, you can see (red 100, red 102, black 20, red 104, black 22, black 24, red 106… ) etc.. you get the point. Red numbers are commercial numbers and black ones residential. So it’s almost like two streets combined into one… talk about it being confusing..
Anyways, I didn’t have much trouble finding where I needed to go, my hostel – Locanda Daniel, as the map was quite good. But it was still only 6:30am.. and ppl on the street are kinda scary looking, so I walked back to the train station and decided to hang out at the Mickey D’s across from it and write some postcard, and do some planning. I bought a really expensive piece of sweetened pineapple piece (I thought it was like a pineapple freezie type thing) but nope.. it was just a piece of pineapple.. and then sat there for about an hour writing postcards.
I then checked out the Market of San Lorenzo. Street vendors were still setting up their booths (this looked a lot like hong kong streets – “lady street” and “garden street”) mostly selling Florence souvenirs and leather goods, bags, shoes, belts.. and also went into the market building where it was a fresh meat market, also selling Italian wine and cheese, reminded me of the fresh meat market in
It was about 8 when I decided to walk back to find the recommended breakfast place, Bar gusto, to have breakfast there. I had a really really good cold coffee (because I was hot), it was served black and I had to ask in order to get milk. After I checked in and unloaded some of my more bulky stuff (clothes, bike lock, toiletries) into the room – pay attention here – on a shelf after the lady said I could do it. I quickly changed out of my train clothes, got my sunscreen on and set off to my appointment with David. (oh btw, the map they gave me really sucked, so I bought a
I located the Accademia gallery with no problems and there was already quite a line up going on. (gallery opens at 8:15.. people probably started lining up then). Because my hostel made my reservation for me, I managed to skip the line and go into a shorter reservation line to line up. It wasn’t so much as lining up as they let you in once your appointment time comes. We waited for about 15 minutes, I started chatting to the family group behind me who are from
So after about an hour to an hour and a half in the gallery (small but there was another side to it with instruments on display – I didn’t go in). I decided to make my way down to my next appointment and explore the city a bit.
Walking towards the famous landmark of Florence, the Duomo, it was actually quite scary, first you have watch out for weird people who might pose a threat to your belonging and safety, then you have to watch out for bikes, who speed through like theres no tomorrow, then there’s motor scooters, who make a lot of noises and travel at high speed, then cars who could care less if they run you over, and finally the busses and transits..
The Duomo was a very large structure and the marble façade was breathtaking in the sunlight. The amount of details and just the building as a whole, combined with the famous red dome top at the back of it is just a great piece of architecture. Continued to walk south, through a street of a lot of clothes/cafes/gelato stores, I arrived at Piazza di Signoria, where there was a palace of some sort standing with lots of statues in front of it. There was the replica of David standing on the same spot that the real one used to stand. This was where I took out my sandwich and decided to eat lunch before I head inside the Gallery of Ueffizi.
It was a windy day and I almost got blown away. Again the piazza was full of tour groups (lots of Disney cruise ones with mickey mouse signs), souvenir vendors, street (fake stuff) vendors, artists, and even fake statues. I went to pick up my tickets from the reservation queue (which was empty), and then headed to the ticket entrance and got in within 10 minutes. Security screening was a bit tight and they had to check large backpacks inside the gallery. I listened to the advice from a friend and bought a guide book as supposed to the audio guide. So following along the guidebook and occasionally standing close to random English tour groups, I wandered through the 45 odd rooms of the Gallery. There were quite a collection, with the famous Bottecelli’s Birth of Venus, the Primervera (they were both under glass cases, which mean very important), collection of Michaelangelo’s works, Da vinci’s works. It was interesting that there were so many stories from the Bible, I only know a bit.. wished I’d paid more attention in RE (religious studies) classes back in
After about the 20th room, I got a bit cold, it was very temperature controlled to preserve the arts, alarms everywhere and ladies that yell at you when you talk too loudly.. (strict security), and all the arts started to look the same. Then I just decided to go for the ones behind glass, because they are obviously more famous and only skim through the rest.
I got out of the gallery within 2.5 hours.. thinking that is there something wrong with my appreciation towards fine arts?
Anyways, after the Ueffizi, I headed west into the city and went to check out the
After visiting the Santa Croce, I went to the famous gelato store Vivoli to find a huge line up. I had a raspberry and tiramisu combo and it was absolutely delicious. I tried to walk back to the Duomo to locate the shopping streets and make my way back to the hostel but somehow managed to get lost. Luckily I was able to find a church looking thing in the distance and ended up at the Santa Croce again.
When I got back to the hostel to rest up and decide if I wanted to head to the Piazza di Michaelangelo and check out
Anyways I was able to talk to Amber and also met a bunch of graduates from HKU who are on a grad trip. They went to do laundry and when they came back I decided to join them for the evening to head to Piazza Di Michaelangelo (coz safer, otherwise wouldn’t know how to get back after dark without getting mugged). So we headed out and took the bus across the river up the hill. The busses took forever to come and forever to move and cost 2 euros each for a validity of 70 minute. The view up there was breathtaking but because the wait was so long, the sun was quickly disappearing. There were street vendors everywhere selling fake purses again and even tripods. We took lots of pictures and also checked out the little café where the TVB series about airplanes had a scene in it. Heh We then waited for the night view of the Duomo and wanted the Ponte Vecchio to also be lit up (but it didn’t). After waiting for about 2 hours and wasting a lot of memory on our digital cameras, we decided to head home.
I didn’t have a chance to eat dinner, so we went out and grabbed an panini (only thing that was opened at like 2200)
The day concluded with us using the free internet at the hostel to add each other on facebook. Me attempting to turn on the broken A/C in my room (theirs was working), then giving up and borrowed their fan (lucily) and falling asleep to the hustle and bustle of Florence night life beside the window with the fan on and 4 empty beds (mixed dorm people were out and about partying – good thing).
Sunday, June 24, 2007
So I decided that I’ve done most of what I could in Florence and the only thing that was left was the Duomo, the Santa Maria Nouvella Church, and the Ponte Vecchio (didn’t have enough time, or else I would’ve gone to Pisa with the HK students or gone shopping at the Mall which is a bus ride and a train ride away for 30 an hour and quite a bit of walking –but you get prada etc… there; the HK students also went to Milan where they had a great time shopping >< style=""> Anyways, waking up at 9 which was nice, the room was again empty (these ppl don’t sleep do they?) I packed up and checked out, leaving my backpack in the luggage area.
Headed down to the Ueffizi (to look for legendary prada stamps- which I did not find) since the Duomo doesn’t open till the afternoon because of the mass on Sundays. Chilled there for a bit waiting for the post office to open at 11, saw the HK students again :D and then headed down to the Ponte Vecchio to check out the “
At about noon-ish I went back to the Duomo to line up to go for my visit since I had nothing else planned for the afternoon. Surprisingly there was a line and the line began to move just after noon. By the time I got to the entrance, I realized it was because ill prepared tourist realized that it was not opened yet and decide to give up. Since I really have nothing better to do, I just stayed and secured my first spot in the line. There were an elder American couple and a younger couple behind me. We then began to chat to help the time goes by faster. The elder couple are from
Nearby, there’s a self service restaurant where I had a really yummy real Italian Lasagna. Even better was they took credit card and the prices was fair.
After lunch, I decided to wander a bit more and do a bit of shopping. I was able to discovered some famous brand names of high end fashion stores. (I really liked this pair of sunglasses from miss sixty), stores like Gucci, diesel.. All kinds of brands. I was so tempted to buy shoes (in all its glitters) but they were a bit pricey. I found a really cute dress from this store called “the end” who sells fashion made in france/Paris and
It was about 5pm when I got back to the hostel and I thought that I could rest my feet for about 2 hours prior to heading out to dinner and then to the train station. I took a shower and started using free internet to chat. Dinner was good, as it was another recommended restaurant by the hostel – 13 euro, ½ liter of water, pasta course, main course – juicy pork steak, salad, and bread. The people were really nice, and I managed to waste a bit of time and headed to the train station to catch my train at 9pm.
I made a reservation for the train and apparently this train was much more empty than the one I took to get here. I got a window seat so that was really nice and shared a compartment with 2 couples (younger ones and older ones, older ones won’t shut up again) . They all got off at
Arriving at
This trip will be repeated next week, only with a 3 hour train ride extra to and from
Hopefully I will have just as much luck in
Saturday June 16
I woke up at 5am to catch the 6am train to
Johannes showed up and we went to the park just outside the train station to wait for the rest of the party. I met another Johannes (graduate from mech eng) from IAESTE (whose place I ended up having to crash at, as he had 2 other housemates, and they were not around, so I got to use Martin’s room for the night). Thomas from IAESTE also, a PHD student in Chem eng, who happened to have done an IAESTE exchange in Toronto at U of T on the 4th floor of WB in the Pulp and Paper lab under the supervision of a Dr. Tang (Japanese) 3 years ago. So that was really cool when we started talking about
So the 8 of us took two cars and headed for a 2 hour journey out to the north east of
So after 2 and a half hours, and a lot of hard work, and also taking a normal route as supposed to the advanced route, because of our shoes (there was a mountain nazi guy who came and said we would be arrested if we were seen with those kind of shoes on on the mountain, we finally reached the hutte ( or cottage) at the top of the mountain. There, we took a nice break, I ate a knodel mit wurstel (some dumpling thing with sausage and kraut (cabbage)), tried to play the local cards game and chilled for about 1.5 until the rain went away. (yes, it started raining) Once the rain went away, the group climbed up to the peak of the mountain. We then began our descent. The descent was difficult for me and Eddy as our shoes really weren’t able to hold us up. My philosophy, from my previous exp in hiking, climbing, whatever experience I had with SJA, told me that as long as I’m willing to get my hands dirty and stay low, I should be Okay. Hence I took my time and really clinged onto the mountain side. We were about ¼ of the way down when it started to rain again, and the paths became really difficult to walk in. It was difficult with rocks and extremely dangerous without the rocks. Puddles, mud slides were not doing us well. A little while longer, the Johannes whose place I will be staying at offered to let me hang on to his backpack, and this really helped save my life a few times. I was sliding down, my ankles were killing me (since no support) turning at weird angles as I try to maintain my balance. I slid a few times and it was not very pretty.. We finally reached the bottom of the mountain about 6 or 7 and we were soaking wet.
There, we warmed up and had soup ( a French onion kind that was a bit too salty) and Johannes took some videos of us, like testimonies. The group decided to drive back to
Anyways, Johannes live in a very nice apartment on the ground floor with very spacious hallways. There are 3 rooms in the house and the way the bathroom is set up is kind of strange. The toilette area is separate to the shower+ sink area. (apparently this was the norm, as I saw a similar set up at Alicija’s). I took a nice warm shower and then began to clean up my shoes (they were soo gross and mud drenched). Johannes made Spinnach spaztle with some sort of a paste thing and we got ready to go to the party. I had to borrow his flipflops so I don’t have to wear my gross shoes and head to Alicija’s and borrow her shoes.
Johannes took his bike and I sat at the back. So talk about having first times, I think this was the very first time that I sat at the back of someone’s bike. It was quite exciting and I was impressed that Johannes still had so much energy. As I was wearing flip flops, it was also difficult to keep them on my feet, I came close to losing them a few times.
This club’s cover was 5 euro each and the process to get in is extremely lax compared to
Sunday June 17
When we got back to Johannes’s place that night, I found the snail without shell that Martin was talking about crawling on his wall. It was at least 10cm long and it was really gross looking. They were telling me that they need Indian geese to eat these stuff and control their breeding in
On Sunday, I woke up at about 11am to Johannes’ weird music in the kitchen. I know he has company over at 11:30 am and figured that it’s best I wake up before then to get ready. I managed to get all changed and just had to brush my teeth when the company showed up. It was his friend Sarah and Paul and their kid Moritz who will be 1 in a week. They are to be married in 2 weeks and Johannes is to be Paul’s best man. We had a very full breakfast with lots of food served, Johannes was such a great host – Yogurt that comes in a jar, fried eggs, baked beans, pepper and tomato, 3 kinds of cheese, butter and bread, sundried tomatos, jams of a lot of variety, smoked salmon and ham, and they were drinking champagne for breakfast!
After a big Brunch – yes I guess it was more brunch than anything, I headed out to meet the other Johannes and Eddy (who stayed with the other Johannes). We met up with Martin and began our walk around the city. We went up the Schlossberg hill which used to be a Castle that had a very strong fort. When Napolean invaded
After that, we walked back to the city park and sat at another café where I had a very good mango juice with water “ Mango saft mit wasser”. We talked a bit more about accents, about Iaeste
It was on the train when I took out my ipod that I realized there was water trapped between the case and the ipod itself. >< style=""> So I quickly took it out of the case and wiped the water off. It was completely non-responsive and knowing better, I left it as is and decided to go home and look up what I can do to save it. It’s still under warranty as I’ve only had it for less than a month but it might be painful to find a service provider in
Friday June 15
Fridays are always great at work as our working hours are only until 1300. I took a break between 1030 to 1100 and took the bus down to haptbahnhof to take care of my Florence Business. It took awhile for the train ticket agent to get me the right trains and that all the couchette and sleepable carts are booked up. So I ended up getting a 2nd class seat for 40 euro each way. They said it’s possible for me to upgrade depending on availability, just need to talk to the conductors as I board the train. Again, it’s one of those things that if I know I can do it and I didn’t do it. I will definitely regret it later. Once I got back into the office, I was trying to look up places to live in
A group of us from work boarded the bus that took us to Kercha, a tiny little town/village that is along the Italian border west of
Friday June 8, 2007
Bright and early Friday morning, I woke up at 4:45am to make sure that I give myself enough time to walk over to the hauptbahnhof in Klagenfurt to catch my 3 and a bit-hour train ride to Vienna.
At 9:45am I arrived at Sudbahnhof of Wien. I was to meet
I was introduced to
We finally arrived on the openring strasse where we were stopped by salesman dressed in traditional Mozart/Victorian clothing (forgot what they are called) and trying to sell us tickets to the concerts in
After deciding on an evening plan, we walked over to the Mozart garden *need to find out the name* where there is a Mozart Statue and a very beautiful treble clef formed by flowers on the grass. We then walked over to the Hofburg palace, passed by the butterfly museum and towards the States Opera House. On our way to the Opera house, the group stopped by a ticket office and the Katie and them decided to buy tickets to La Traviata, which according to
We continued on to our journey and grabbed a kebab (Turkish food in pita like bread, kinda greasy but filling and yummy for 3 euros) prior to entering the haus di musik. Again the group split up because they wanted to visit the
After the tour at the House of Music, we rested at the giant fountain in karlzplatz and then went home to take a shower and get ready for the night. We met up with the rest of the group and went to a restaurant called Mozarts Tube where Schnitzels were on special for 5 euros, served with Fries or salad. I had a Spiegel beer with my turkey Schnitzels and it was very yummy. Then we headed out to the music theatre by taking the U-bahn (subway) – we got lost, because we lost the map.. and ended up showing up at the office of the Mozart orchestra as supposed to the location they were to perform at. We ended up being about half an hour late to the concert but was still able to catch a lot of it. I have some videos from the concert of night music and some really famous piece. It was a very enjoyable concert indeed.
The concert ended approximately at 10:30pm. We strolled over to
We took the tram back to see more of the city and noticed that the streets are really tight at times, that if you park not close enough to the curb, you will very likely lose your side mirrors by passing trams. We hung out at the lounge until 2 ish until we finally decided we need to go to bed.
Saturday June 9
The dormitory style, 6 bed sleepers at Wombat the lounge was not bad at all. I was lucky that none of the guys in the room snored and I was able to sleep quite well. There was a fan for the room and not a lot of noise outside as we faced an alleyway. I was able to get up at 8:30ish, packed, checked out and when I didn’t see signs of
Jasper and I took the tram back to Wombat to store his luggage and ate breakfast to wait for Jordan and Jonah to show up. Apparently the 3.50 euro per person all you can eat breakfast deal at wombat was really good according to Jasper. We had two types of meat, unlimited bread, orange juice, veggies, and of course the Wien melange (Viennese cappuccino) that I was told to try. So jasper and I tried it out, it taste a bit like French vanilla, but is a much lighter coffee. We took a mental note to try the ones near the palace to see if this was because it was “hostel style”. Jordan and Jonah finally showed face at about 11, and it was because there were 2 girls in their room that disturbed their sleep this morning, causing the delay. Jasper and I headed over to our other hostel (insert name here) and tried to check in. We weren’t able to until 2pm, so we took a locker with a 10 euro deposit and stuffed our stuff in there.
By taking the subway/tram 6, we headed towards the central
Since Jordan and Jonah had to catch a flight to
We managed to find the box office for opera tickets, and they were charging us 24 euros for the 19 euro tickets. Apparently there is a handling fee, so Jasper and I decided to just get our tickets at the door, at least it’ll be 19 euros, and if we don’t’ get the tickets we’ll just find something else to do. Boiling in the Viennese Sun, we continued to walk in the attempt to find the other ticket office that the group found the day before. Using my broken memory, we were finally able to trace the path but only to find that the office has closed. We walked around the Hofburg palace and found in a quad area (amongst Spanish riding school, heligengist platz, and the Kaiserhaus and sisi museum) the Hofburg Café. Our feet were tired so we sat down under the umbrella to order a Wien Melange and a desert with yummy strawberries in it. It was so relaxing.
After our tummy was satisfied, we located the Hofburgkappelle where the Vienna Boys Choir are to sing on Sunday. Apparently it is also right on top of the Schatzkammer, where the royal jewellery were stored. We decided against seeing jewellery since Jasper said that I’ll see better ones elsewhere. We walked out into the front of the Hofburg palace (which we missed yesterday) and took more pictures of the magnificence of this palace. It was so grand and the amount of details were breathtaking. Horse carriages, also reminded us of the amount of history that this building represent. We walked through a few more buildings and finally took the U towards Neubaugasse and shopped along Mariahilfe Strasse to find something for Jasper’s sisters.
After showering and checking into our room at the Hostel, Jasper and I set off to locate the Volkstheater on U6. We got to the opera house at about 6:15pm and noticed that there were two lines. Apparently, this theatre sells their leftover tickets (from the best seats onward) to students for a student price. Jasper and I ended up getting student tickets for 8 euro each at a 50-75 euro range tickets. We were on the third floor in stage right’s First Box seats. That is just amazing that we got the experience to be in a Box seat ( it would’ve been better if we didn’t have that weird senior lady looming in the third seat in the box.) We bought the synopsis of La Traviata for 2.40 euro (the ppl pointed to the Japanese page, and I told them I only need English). The synopsis was not very detailed but we got the gist of the story. We managed to find an asian buffet restaurant and convinced them to give us one plate of food (which we piled lots on) because there was no time for 4 euros. The duck was amazing.. even better than
The music was really good and I was really entertained by just watching the orchestra directly below our seats. It was a bit hard to see stage right but it’s still nonetheless a great experience. The way this opera was performed was very simple. The main character violetta had like one costume throughout the whole thing (a PJ like thing) and the main colours were white, black and red. The stage was simple with not a lot of scenic background. They sang in Italian and the subtitles were in German. It was still very exciting to guess at what was going on and just see the meanings and emotion that the singers were trying to convey through their body gestures and voices.
After the performance, we took the U towards the Donau, got out and looked around. We found a bunch of cafes and beer places along the Donau where people just lounged around. It was such a nice environment. We walked down the main street towards Karlplatz again, and there was a huge gelato store, at which we could not resist and bought a ferrero crème flavour one and also a mango one. They were so good and the mango was soo rich *yummy*. Jasper found on one of the
So we decided to go back to Mozart tube for cheap schnitzels and I can get the Knodels to try the dumplings. They sold out of Knodels so I ended up just getting another serving of Schnitzels. We drank some warm (which we asked the lady to stick back in the fridge for us) red wine and lots of tap water. It was a good meal and by the time we finished eating, we decided it was time for bed so that we won’t miss the boys choir tomorrow.
Sunday June 10
The sheets at this hostel was very nice, the only problem was that it was off a main street and the people outside (who likely lived in the hostel wont’ shut up). There was quite a bit of noise, and I didn’t want to climb down the bunk bed and wake jasper up (who was in the bottom bunk) or fall and hurt myself just to get ear plugs. So I had to listen to my ipod and block the noises out. I think I ended up sleeping at about 3 ish and woke up at about 6 freaking out that I had forgotten to turn my alarm on on the cell phone. We did manage to get out of the hostel by 7 and ran towards the U to get to the Hofburg by 8. By the time we got there, we were the 3rd or 4th in line for standing seats. There was a lady who was trying to sell us tickets for 8 euros to sit and the prices go up from there to about 40 euros. We were smart to have arrived early, as there was a huge line near 9 (the mass is at 9:15am). They only let a certain number of people to go in and it was a good thing that wombat’s map told us to be there early. Jasper and I got the front standing “seats” right behind the people who paid over 30 euros to sit just in front of us facing the front of the church. The mass began and all we saw were the faces of the priests since the
After brunch, we hopped on the U to head to Schonbrunn palace. This is the summer residence of the Hofburg family (although it was a 15 minute train ride from their normal residence). It was massive, and we paid 15 euros each to get the grand tour pass which included admission to the full tour with an audio guide, visit to the privy garden (supposedly romantic panaromic veiny garden thing) with lemon trees, visit to the maze and labyrinth and the café at the Gloriette (check spelling) and finally the apple strudel show. The palace was beautiful but it wasn’t actually that old. It was built by a famous empress Maria Theresa (who had 21 children and the youngest daughter was Marie Antoinette) and it was destroyed. It was rebuilt with the Ricocco style and everything was gold plated and there was quite a bit of Japanese and Chinese tapestries on the walls. We walked through the privy garden and went to see the apple strudel show. They gave us a recipe and it doesn’t seem that hard to make. We walked over to the maze and labyrinth, and Jasper said it was the first he’s found on his trip and was super excited about it. We tried to walk through it and got stuck a few times. Then we tried to keep our right hand on the wall and continued to walk and finally found our way to the platform. It was quite a fun experience, I think we were stuck in there for at least 15 minute. The sky dimmed down so we had a break from the intense heat ( there is about a 2 degree difference from the sun and the shades, you can actually feel it). It then started to lighting and thunder and we decided it was time to head back to the hostel and head off to catch our trains.
Jasper was catching an overnight train to
Even though I was dead tired, it was still a great trip because I got to travel with
