October 11, 2006

Ephesus – We had to meet the with the tour group at 7:45 am for the Kusadasi Tour. The ship stayed in dock until 1 pm so our tour was only 3 hours long. We first visited the Basilica of St. John built by the Emperor Justinian over the tomb of St. John the Apostle. Now in ruins it once rivalled St. Sophia in size. We could see the panorama of the rural Selcuk countryside and the ruins of the Temple of Artemis. Afterwards we visited the House of the Virgin Mary. The Vatican has recognized this small house in the Solmissos Mountains as the final resting place of the Virgin Mary. It has since been converted into small shrine. Dedicated worshippers were first seen burning candles within the home followed by buying little containers to hold the holy spring water nearby. We then headed north to Ephesus, passing the Byzantine fortress at Selcuk. Ephesus is a lot bigger than we thought. It took us a couple of hours to go through. There was a little Bazaar there and I bought a few pashmina scarves. By the time we were done it was already 12:30 pm and the ship was scheduled to leave at 1pm. We headed back very quickly and when we arrived at the dock we weren’t the only ones late. Apparently all the groups were late. We needed more than 3 hours to go through everything. We had an afternoon on the ship so we took a nap and Wallace had another seminar to attend.

October 10, 2006

We were going to visit Athens on our own and last minute decided to join Dale’s group. She ordered a tour just the night before and had room for 2 more. Our first destination was the new Olympic Stadium-Panathenaic Stadium, new meaning 1896. It was entirely built in marble. Afterwards we headed over to the Kaisariani Monastery. It is less famous so there weren’t too many visitors. Traffic in Athens is really bad so I took many naps before reaching the Acropolis. Being on top of the hill there was a great view of the city below. There is constant restoration in place. The last place we visited was the Plaka. We didn’t have a lot of time so we decided not to do a sit down lunch. We each picked up a souvalaki for 1.5 Euro each and had a quick walk through Plaka. Then it was back to the bus and then the ship, just enough to tease us.

October 8, 2006

Venice – This was our last morning in this city before we set sail for Athens immediately after lunch and we didn’t want to miss the opportunity of walking the streets one last time. Our goal was to try to find this optometrist who specialized in custom frames for my oddball head and although we successfully found his shop, we were disappointed to discover that his shop, like many Venetian ones, didn’t open until 11:00 leaving us no time to catch the shuttle back. Ah well, maybe next time.

Our sail away from this city must rank as amongst the most memorable experiences I have had in recent memory.

October 7, 2006

Venice – This was the day we boarded the ship. Since the water taxi wouldn’t be picking us up until 11:00, we took our time puttering around this morning. As our guide came to lead us to the dock, we noticed that the combination of the full moon and the noonday sun created the ideal conditions for a high tide and as we made our way towards the dock noticed the flooding conditions. It makes one glad to be only visiting this place. The water taxi itself was quite nice but since it was already prepaid through our tour company we didn’t have the presence of mind then to ask about rates. It took about half an hour to get us to the ship docks so it was much faster than the vapouretto which I would estimate would have taken us at least twice as long.

We got checked in, found our cabin, had a quick bit to eat, and then quickly made our way out again to see more of Venice. We had been on the exact same ship two years ago, the Grand Princess, while visiting the Baltics so there wasn’t much excitement exploring the ship. This time, we took advantage of the ship’s water shuttle from the dock to San Marco, then made our way across the island to the north and hopped onto another vapouretto to Murano, the famous glass making island. It was a grey and drizzling day and because we arrived in Murano pretty late in the afternoon, we only had a few hours to visit the shops before they closed. Luckily, Cathy found a shop that was a little out of the way and saw some good deals on glass candies she had her eye out for.

As we made our way back to the square to catch our shuttle, we passed by a bulk wine store and with the encouragement of a British couple decided to by a litre of their best wine at 2.05 euros (about CAD$3.00) per litre. Putting aside our scepticism, we brought it back onboard in a plastic water bottle and was surprised by the excellent quality. Italians truly love their wine and their food.

October 6, 2006

Venice – We intended to spend the day wandering the streets of Venice taking in the sights. After taking our time waking up and having breakfast, we had the chance of bumping into some very interesting people from North Carolina, a liberal minded American couple, Jack and Eloise. We had a very engrossing conversation such that all track of time was lost while we conversed about their experiences with their group of 8 fellow travellers, Eloise’s volunteer efforts in the third world, and general world events. I’ll be sure to keep in touch with them.

Cathy and I seemed to remember Venice being much less crowded the last time we were here, 24 years ago. I suppose the world has gotten more prosperous since that time and with it comes a greater amount of world tourism. Certainly, Piazza San Marco seemed to be overflowing with people and pigeons. We decided to take a much needed rest right there and had one of the world’s most expensive espressos at one of the cafes on the square.

While it is impossible to walk the entire city in one day, we managed to take in most of the major roads between San Marco and the train station, via the Rialto Bridge, that day and looped back through the southern side of the Grand Canal returning to the square via the Academia Bridge. I don’t think I went there last time so it was nice to see some areas that are slightly less touristy. We wrapped up the evening with a nice but expensive Venetian meal of triple fish.

October 5, 2006

Florence to Venice – This is the last day in Florence as we start our travel to Venice. We began with a leisurely breakfast at the hotel dining room. Since I am writing several days afterwards, I now have the benefit of comparing this hotel to the one in Venice, but more on that later. We had what became our usual of a hot pastry, scrambled eggs, and lightly cooked bacon that was closer in resemblance to ham than what we would generally call bacon. It was very good and we missed it in Venice. The most memorable part of our morning ritual there was the coffee; dark, rich, and full of aroma and flavour. You could almost taste the texture. It wasn’t until I got on board the cruise ship that I remembered what passes as coffee in North American.

Ciao Tours arranged for our driver to drive us from our hotel 3 blocks to the train station. It wasn’t as straight forward as it sounds because the combination of narrow streets and one-ways made what would have been an easy walk into a 10 minute drive. When we got to the station, we were able to retrieve our tickets from one of the self service kiosks. It was quite a convenient system.

Boarding was a different matter though. We were given wagon #2 and proceeded to a train with the number 2 on the side. Little did we know it meant 2nd class and we actually boarded wagon 12. After a rather strenuous session trying to find room for our luggage and then our seats, we determined we were on the wrong wagon and then had to scramble to the right one.

It seems like all our forms of transportation till now have been either late or delayed, our plane in Calgary, the bus ride from Heathrow to Gatwick, and our plane to Venice. This train was no different as we sat on the tracks just outside Mestre (beside Venice) for over an hour. This delay allowed us to get acquainted with our neighbouring passengers from Florida. We finally made it into Venice an hour late but none the worse for wear. We then made our way to the Vaporetto station, bought our Venice Blue card (unlimited 3 days of public transport) and headed for the boat. It was a very crowded ride but gave us the chance to head down the Grand Canal to our hotel, the Casa Kirsch. The hotel was a modern renovation of a very old apartment like many of the stores and buildings in this city.

Later that night, we took another ride around the island to the north, got lost a few times, eventually found a nice restaurant in the northern end of the city, and then walked back to our hotel through some quiet residential areas.

October 4, 2006

Cathy and I woke up quite early this morning having not yet shaken off the jet lag. We were both reminiscing about the last time both of us were here, some twenty-four years ago. While we traveled quite differently back them, especially me with my backpack, we noticed quite a bit more tourism this time with the streets being much more crowded and touristier shops all around. The most distinctive memory I had of my previous time were the opening of the metal shutters each morning as the ground floor shops opened for business. In fact, entire streets were then lined with such shops and while I can still see one or two here and there, the vast majority have given way to snazzier ones with glass fronts.

Our tour company made advance reservations for us at the Uffizi Gallery. You’ll have to book ahead otherwise the line up to get in will easily be 2 hours or more. We got there fairly early at 9:00, got our tickets in room 3 on the west side, and then proceeded to room 1 across the courtyard to enter. That took about 10 minutes even with reservations so you can well imagine life without it. It didn’t seem that the ticket agent really looked at our reservation numbers though as he merely glanced at it without much attention. I suppose one could fake the reservation too.

It wasn’t very crowded compared with the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, probably because we were one of the first people, and we made our way through the first few rooms in pretty good time. Like most museums, they don’t allow cameras so I have no photos of each room to show.
The Gallery is arranged in a general chronological order with the first few rooms devoted to the early Renaissance and generally advancing through the years in each subsequent room. The first few were the earlier works like that of Giotto. I can’t say I like the early work except as an intellectual understanding of their general mindset. They understandably had a heavy emphasis on religious symbology rather than realism. Cathy’s favourite rooms were 10 to 14 housing Botticelli. Compared to the earlier painters, it is clear why his work had such a profound influence. He definitely had the talent to represent the facial expressions that made them more realistic. Even an art dummy like me can see the difference. He was also one of the first to start painting non-religious themes like his famous painting of the Birth of Venus rising from the sea. I’m not sure if it was his idea or that of his patron, one of the Medici.

A few of Rembrandt’s works as well as those of Rubens and Carravaggio towards the end of the gallery were also quite interesting but the gallery’s main emphasis is on the Florentine painters of the Renaissance. I actually found the gallery itself quite an interesting piece of work from the architecture to its history first as an office building (Uffizi is old Italian for office) then as a gallery.

We took a break once we reached the cafeteria and that’s when I started feeling the effects of jet lag. The cafeteria was a very modern contrast to the older gallery and rather refreshing. Expensive water though at 3 euros for each of us.

After resting, we continued along the final leg of the gallery by visiting the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit on the second floor. It was very informative and I found that part in many ways more interesting than the main gallery. After a while, the paintings start to all blur together.
On exiting, I decided to use the main restroom. They had done a spectacular job of converting an old underground cavern into a very modern facility with liberal use of glass and stainless steel. It is, however, almost stereotypical Italian in that, while the design looked exquisite, the details were poorly functional with 4 out of the 6 stalls out of order and the faucets unleashing such a torrent of water as to make splashing your clothing unavoidable.

I came back to the hotel for a siesta while Cathy continued window shopping. We found the shopping district close by. Later we went to a nearby restaurant for supper followed by a late evening lecture set up by the hotel on Florence's Roman and Medieval history. While it should have been interesting, both of us started nodding off having had a couple of tiring days. Well its getting late so we need to pack up and get ready for our train trip to Venice tomorrow.

Good Night.

October 2, 2006

Our trip started off slow by being delayed by an hour from Calgary to London, not departing until 11:00 pm. Our pilot tried to catch up lost time by flying full speed and managed to save about 30 minutes. Nevertheless, many travelers missed their connecting flight. On arrival, we needed to go from London Heathrow airport to Gatwick by bus. The bus ride was only supposed to be 70 minutes and it ended up being 2 and half hours because of bad traffic. The bus driver decided to try some side roads rather than the motorway and that gave us a chance to see the countryside. According to the original plan we should have had a leisurely 6 hour transportation gap between the two airports. In the event, it turned out we had just enough time to grab a bite. The waiting situation at Gatwick is rather awkward because the airport doesn’t assign gates for the aircraft until 30 minutes before takeoff so everyone hangs around the main seating area and then rushing off down a long corridor to catch the plan. In the end the flight to Florence was also delayed an hour and a half. We didn’t get into Florence until midnight, tired and hungry.

October 3, 2006

We were woken up by the sound of the Church of Santa Maria Novella, just outside our hotel window. Having had a very tiring travel day, we were too sleepy to find out what time it was. As it turned out we slept in until 9:30 and luckily had the foresight to postpone our walking tour to 2:00. It was originally scheduled for 9:00. Our Hotel, the Hotel Aprile by Palazzo dal Borgo, like many in Italy, has a continental breakfast that was included with our room and while we got down to the breakfast room rather late and found the eggs a little rubbery, we recognized that we were getting there towards the tail end of breakfast service. Breakfast is how I envisioned Italian cooking and they have taken to it very seriously since the last time I was here; beautiful bacon, wonderful pastries, and of course, superb coffee.

We wondered around the hotel after breakfast into side streets where there were many street hawkers selling souvenirs and cheap products including counterfeit purses. It also gave us a chance to see some nifty vehicles used to get around the very narrow streets here. We stumbled into the San Lorenzo market where they sell produce, meat, pasta, and cheese. After our morning walk we went back to the hotel for a break then met up with our local guide, Niccolo Salvestrini. He took us on a walking tour to Palazzo Pitti, tracing the route of the corridor designed by Vesari, Ponte Vecchio, and the courtyard of the Uffizi museum, San Croce, Duomo, and Battistero. It was very informative and he made everything more interesting with the enthusiasm. Great guide and highly recommended. After the tour we went to the famous Vivoli for their famous gelato. I had pistachio and pear and Wallace had café and melon. We’ll have to go back as both of us greatly enjoyed it and made a point of knowing what to order next time. Then we headed to the Santa Maria Novella Farmaceutica for their famous hand cream.
As dinnertime approached, we asked the hotel clerk to recommend a restaurant close by. A chance meeting with another couple in the lobby with the same intent allowed us to have dinner together. Jan and Ineke were from the Netherlands and we had a great dinner at 13 Gobbi. We made it into the restaurant at 19:00 being about the first ones there and it quickly filled up so it must be quite popular.