Hi guys!
Well I have just less than one month left in Europe and I have such mixed feelings about it. There are so many things I miss about the US and home (Olympics coverage in English for one!), but it will be so sad to leave this continent that has treated me so so sooo well for the summer.
Here's what I've been up to since I last wrote....
I rounded out Germany with visits to Dresden, Munich and Cologne. I must say that Dresden was the first city I visited that I had to say was one I could have skipped and not missed. A bit lackluster to say the least, though it had been recommended to me. Munich was terrific and I frequented a number of beer gardens and continued to have luck finding the "Radler" beer which is a beer and lemon mix. I also took a day to visit the Dachau concentration camp which was very somber and influenced my mood enough that I couldn't find the energy or desire any longer to get off the train that evening in Heidelberg (a city I had planned to visit) in favor of continuing on to Cologne to reunite with a friend a day early. Cologne had a much greater vibrancy than I knew about - full of European tourists, bachelor/bachelorette parties, weddings, dancing in the streets, you name it! I was also there for the start of their Gay Pride WEEK (not just a day in Cologne). Two highlights were the chocolate museum and climbing the Cologne Cathedral and reaching the tippy top just as it started to thunder, lightning, and rain cats and dogs. It was a truly electric feeling being at the top of the spiral with wind and rain spray coming in and hearing the howling weather at that elevation.
I extended my time in Cologne not feeling up for the long train rides all the way to and from Stockholm which would leave only enough remaining time to spend barely 48 hours there, so instead I made the much shorter trip to Malmö, Sweden. And I'm really glad I did because now I know Stockholm is DEFINITELY worth visiting on a future trip, probably paired with Finland and Norway. I immediately liked the feeling of Malmö - even in the train station. In Swedish design, form does follow function and the city just felt very livable... And clean! Though it was misting a very light rain that morning or maybe because it WAS misting, I just loved the feeling in the air there! I did a little shopping, visited design museums, and had the best - I do mean absolute best - cinnamon bun ever. (It was so incredibly soft and melt -in-your-mouth despite no longer being warm from the oven.... Just soooo fresh - no need for preservatives I suppose... They are eaten right up!)
Then it was time for Copenhagen, one of the expected highlights of my trip, and it sure did deliver! I enjoyed reuniting for three nights in the city with two of my favorite former surfers. Denmark isn't the sunniest country but my good fortune continued and I experienced brilliant sunshine. Not only that, but sunset there was at around 10:30pm or so, so the days were very long. It was weird how it affected my eating habits because I would expect dinner around 10pm given the daylight, but all the restaurants would be closed (Scandinavia does not share the late dinner hour with France, Spain, and Italy!)
On the Thursday morning, the three of us headed to a town outside the city to meet up with more of their friends for four days of camping at the Roskilde Music Festival. Holy smokes, it was an amazing festival!! I was able to see so many of my favorite groups - Bon Iver, M83, Santigold, Daughter, First Aid Kit, the Shins, and soooo soooo many new bands to me that were thrilling to see on both giant and smaller, more intimate stages. (This is one of the largest music festivals in the world and has 8 stages!) I was up dancing til sunrise with acts like Paul Kalkbrenner and Pretty Lights, though there, sunrise only means 4am because the sun rises so early!!
(photo borrowed from Roskilde!)
I next had to get on the road to make it to another music festival the following weekend in Portugal so I just had a couple two night stopovers in Paris & Zaragoza, Spain to drop in for much-too-short reunions with other friends. I honestly ended up not doing much besides resting, reading, laundry, and just a bit of sightseeing because I actually came down with a bit of a cold Sunday night/Monday morning after too much dancing and not enough sleep. But I nipped it in the bud and I was back in action in plenty of time for Portugal!
Watching the Eifel tower light show from a distance (didn't get to see it in 2007)
The view from my "bedroom" in Paris in the 5th arrondissement.
I arrived in Lisbon to be greeted by the most perfect weather (Spain had been almost unbearably hot and Paris had been a bit cloudy) and I was psyched for the Optimus Alive Festival. Now I had to be selective with what festivals to visit this summer for a number of reasons - cost, conflicting dates, location conflicts with my route, and the fact that many of the festivals have a good deal of overlap of performers who are all on tour in Europe for the summer. So for example, even with my selectivity I still knew that both The Cure and Santigold would be at both. Another upcoming festival, Pukkelpop in Belgium, which was recommended to me, has another four or five overlapping repeats so I decided not to go. However, Optimus Alive was a must-see for me with Radiohead, Florence & the Machine, and Mumford and Sons. And the repeating of artists wasn't a bad thing. Having watched Santigold at Roskilde from about 30 "rows" back, I knew that for one of her songs she asks for dancers from the audience to come up on stage so I made sure the second time around to be close enough and it worked! I hopped up on stage with about 25-30 others and got to shake it on stage!
I stayed in Portugal for 10 days in order to be able to see a friend who would be returning the next weekend from a business trip so in between the weekends I hit up as many beaches as I could find. I ended up falling in love with the country! I rented a car in order to be able to reach some more distant and remote beaches in the south of the country (another highlight was driving manual for the first time in over 6 years on the crazy hills of Lisbon and other towns! Brand new experience for me!) I discovered a number of stunning, stunning beaches and also checked off sleeping under the stars from my bucket list! I rounded out my time with plenty of yoga, trying snails for the first time, copious amounts of ice cream and fruit sundaes, watching the sun set each night, experiencing Lisbon's great nightlife, and exploring the famous town/area of Sintra. I have to give Portugal a two thumbs and ten sandy toes up!
I made an unfortunately short stop in Barcelona next in order to visit another former surfer of mine. He was one who actually visited me twice in Tampa so I definitely had to pay him a visit! After consulting my guidebook I realized that I had already visited the 6 or 7 main sites/attractions in the city on a previous trip in 2007 and there did not seem to be much else to do that merited precedence over spending my one and a half days at the beach. So I got to spend my time guilt-free at the beach enjoying their summertime drink tinto de verano (pretty similar to sangria)! And there's a chance I could make it back once more before flying home, so we'll see!
My time in Barcelona was so short because I wanted to have as much time as possible visiting another friend in St Tropez on the French Riviera. This was a very long awaited reunion as Jenny was one of my very first couch surfers in Tampa! We got to enjoy three days together and I think I can safely say that even with a month left to go, this visit and destination is going to remain high in my top 3 favorite places of Europe...easily. It was a great time full of beaches, nightlife, quaint hillside and coastal towns, beautiful drives through countryside vineyards, bottles and bottles of Rosé, and amazing food. Two meals in particular need mentioning because each in and of itself are highlights on my trip. First, I had the best pizza of my life here and now having also already been to Naples and eaten at L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele, the oldest pizzeria in the world heralded as the best, I can say that my pizza in St Tropez was not just better, but the best. I don't want to give away their secrets, but it starts with using pesto sauce instead of marinara pizza sauce. I can't wait to make it myself when I get back! The second meal was an extravagant feast in town. Jenny's parents own one of the most famous restaurants in St Tropez and with a little bit of notice they reserved us a table for the evening. We ate and ate and ate certainly the best Vietnamese and Thai fusion cuisine I've ever had and topped it off with some flaming desserts! Then on my last day we hit up some of the other nearby cities of the Riviera - Cannes, Nice, and Monaco - for another unforgettable day of fun! Needless to say, it was really, really tough to say goodbye!
Italy was my next destination and it was full of so many highlights of its own! I visited Bologna, Venice, Florence, Pisa (for only 2 hours!), Cavriglia along with a multitude of other tiny Tuscan towns, Rome and Naples. Unfortunately I don't think the day time high temperature was ever lower than 93 degrees for my 13 days there and it more often happened to be closer to 97 and 99 degrees, but the amazing thing was that I loved Italy despite the hot, hot heat! I must say that in a do-over I would omit Bologna (I couldn't really eat Bolognese sauce after all) and Pisa offered absolutely no shade on an incredibly hot day, but still it was all part of the Italian experience. Florence was perhaps the most giant surprise given how much I loved it. So much to see and do and then finish the night off in one of the dozens of piazzas with a bottle of wine. I was really looking forward to Tuscany and as expected, it was gorgeous, but I discovered that even if I may like red wine, I don't much care for it in 97 degree heat, so we didn't do nearly as many tastings as I thought we would. It was still amazing zipping around the hills in our rental Smart car!
In light of the heat, it turns out my mere four nights/three days in Rome were just the right amount of time - though I know I will be back! Arriving on Friday night from Tuscany I received just the best introduction to the city when my host gave me an incredible night time tour of the city by scooter complete with a bottle of cold *white* wine to share. Italy really shuts down for the month of August I learned with everyone taking vacation and so the streets were quiet except for a few pockets of activity here and there, but seeing all, and I do mean ALL, of the sites (Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Colosseum, Forum, Circus Maximus, Vatican, Tiber River and fountain after fountain and piazza after piazza) in the stillness of the warm, summer night all lit up affirmed that August is still a fine time to visit. (And made this girl who took Latin in high school squeal with excitement!) With such an introduction, the only way to follow it up was a day at the beach and not just any beach, but I will declare the beach in Sabaudia (about 95 km southeast) the best beach I have been to in all of Europe. It was just perfect! Perfect temperature, perfect sand (no rocks or shells finally!), perfect color and clarity, and my favorite part was its shallowness so you had to actually walk out about 150 meters before your belly button even got wet! The beach stretches for miles and sits in a sort of crook below a giant mountain in a national park...spectacular and definitely worth the long drive..which wasn't so bad in a convertible :) With a day at the beach and a nighttime tour already under my belt I could revisit the sites over the next two days more enjoyably! Sistine Chapel and Colosseum...check, check off my bucket list!
My last stop was Naples and I could ramble on for double the length with how much I loved my time there staying with a friend of my brother's, but I'll keep it short and say it was just divine! Napoleons love their fireworks and wine ...and pizza! and I partook in all of it! We also visited Pompeii and made the super scenic Amalfi Coast drive (truly the best -- definite highlight among all of Europe!) Another delight of mine was being able to mail home about a fifth of my bag's weight and offload some things I can do without for the end of my trip at U.S. domestic postage rates from the Navy base there! (hint, hint.. y'all have some postcards coming!) I lifted my bag the next morning and it felt as light as a feather... almost :) Just divine!
Mount Vesuvius behind us!
I'm in Lucerne now and just smitten with how picturesque the city is. It sits along a lake and river surrounded by mountains and two nights in a row I have watched the mountain tops turn pink at sunset with reflections of the Alps showing in the panoramic apartment windows everywhere I look!
Here's what I have left to do before boarding my flight in Madrid:
-Geneva and Zurich & hiking in the Alps with a former surfer
-A bit of time in Lyon, Strasbourg, and Lille, France
-Brussels, Ghent & Bruges in Belgium
-Amsterdam and possibly also Rotterdam
-Almost a full week in Paris and a weekend in the countryside outside of Orléans
-Marrakech, Morroco - I have a hotel booked right in the Medina!
-Seville, Granada, and Madrid!
And for tradition's sake... the low lights!!
1. The trains. I know I mentioned these earlier, but now I have a few funny stories to share. I actually counted and so far I have taken 58 trains (not including the suburban line trains in cities like Berlin, Munich, Copenhagen, etc which are also included in my train pass) throughout Europe. So it finally happened on my trip from Barcelona to St Tropez that I boarded the wrong train at one of my connecting stations. I can laugh now, but when I learned of this on board the train I was very distressed. I knew at that late point in the day that my options to correct my mistake could be few and far between as trains start running far less frequently and St Raphael (the nearest station to Jenny) is a very under-serviced station to begin with. But I found an angel on the train who helped me re-route my train schedule and I only ended up taking 5 trains that day instead of the original 3. It could have been much worse! The second story came on my most recent train journey from Naples to Lucerne. Seat reservations are required on many of the popular or high speed trains in Europe and these typically must be made at the train stations (headache!), but the Italian train company allows you to make them online. However, in my hurry in making them the night before in Naples I goofed and made reservations for September 8th (8-9-12) instead of for August 9th (9-8-12) goofing up the European date convention. I thought it was an honest mistake when the train conductor pointed it out to me once we were already underway and didn't see what the big problem was since the price was the same and around me in first class was 75% empty. However, he saw it differently and not only was he insisting that I pay the reservation fee again, but that I needed to pay a higher, 18 euro fee, for doing it while on board the train. Needless to say, I was not happy. I had made the same goof with my second reservation of the day from Milan to Lucerne, but fortunately those employees neither noticed or cared. So I know I have certainly seen major benefits to taking the trains (I think my pass paid for itself by train ride number 30), but I suppose as with any form of travel there are hiccups and surprises. I ended up missing what should have been an easy connection in Barcelona en route to Lisbon because of the craziness that is the Barcelona train station. It felt more like an airport than a train station with its security scanners (unseen up to that point anywhere else in Europe), access control points, longer than long lines to board the trains, and segmented platforms that made it very hard to navigate. I do not look forward to going back there... ever!
2. So I know I mentioned that Florence & the Machine would be at the Optimus Alive festival and as my favorite artist I was incredibly excited to get to see her again. So it came as a giant blow to me when I learned two days prior to her show that she had pulled a muscle in her throat singing at another festival and doctors had told her to take a week off canceling her performance in Lisbon. When I learned the news in Zaragoza I felt the wind just totally die in my sails that morning. I had felt I had been racing across the continent to get to see her enduring long train rides and ordeals, but I had to just briefly grieve this loss and move on. Still, it was one of the biggest bummers of the trip.
3. The next one is a silly one, but I had been bug bite free since Athens where I got four bites on my face while sleeping one night. But the bugs, specifically I am told the Tiger Mosquitoes from Africa, finally found me in Barcelona and have continued to feast on me throughout all of Italy and here too now in Switzerland. I've been bitten in some of my most hated spots too - between my toes and on my palms and wrists and again on my face under my eye in addition to everywhere else on my body! I guess missing the bug bites will not be one of the advantages to missing out on Tampa in the summer after all!
4. And this last one is anything but silly as I have very sincere sadness in missing the Summer Olympics this year. It was a totally conscious decision to omit the games in London from my itinerary this summer, but I had done so thinking that I would still be able to watch the Olympics in at least a somewhat similar fashion to how I normally would in the US. So I was disappointed to learn that Italy doesn't really care about the Olympics. Bars were almost never showing the games and when I found them on in my hotel rooms on tiny TV screens it was always only for the events that Italy was competing in - like fencing. So I went the first 9 days or so only getting to watch one swimming race and it actually turned out to be one that Michael Phelps was competing in (the freestyle relay I think), but I had no idea he was ever even in the pool because the Italian coverage only showed the French team celebrating afterwards. They didn't care about Michael Phelps :) So it was a complete joy to me to find in Naples that AFN, the Armed Forces Network, broadcasts full NBC coverage in ENGLISH of course and I could finally watch a little bit! By this time, swimming and gymnastics were over, but it was nice just to see team USA on the screen finally :)
So I know this was a long one...did you make it to the end? :) I apologize for how long it's been since my last update, but blame it on the iPad... it really is awful for typing. I have found it is much more enjoyable and easy on my arms and wrists to listen to podcasts on the train then to stay current on my correspondence. I'm sorry!! Only one month left until I have a real keyboard again!
I hope you all have a great weekend and of course happy birthday to Linda! Wish I could be there to celebrate!
Miss you all!
Annie
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Well I have just less than one month left in Europe and I have such mixed feelings about it. There are so many things I miss about the US and home (Olympics coverage in English for one!), but it will be so sad to leave this continent that has treated me so so sooo well for the summer.
Here's what I've been up to since I last wrote....
I rounded out Germany with visits to Dresden, Munich and Cologne. I must say that Dresden was the first city I visited that I had to say was one I could have skipped and not missed. A bit lackluster to say the least, though it had been recommended to me. Munich was terrific and I frequented a number of beer gardens and continued to have luck finding the "Radler" beer which is a beer and lemon mix. I also took a day to visit the Dachau concentration camp which was very somber and influenced my mood enough that I couldn't find the energy or desire any longer to get off the train that evening in Heidelberg (a city I had planned to visit) in favor of continuing on to Cologne to reunite with a friend a day early. Cologne had a much greater vibrancy than I knew about - full of European tourists, bachelor/bachelorette parties, weddings, dancing in the streets, you name it! I was also there for the start of their Gay Pride WEEK (not just a day in Cologne). Two highlights were the chocolate museum and climbing the Cologne Cathedral and reaching the tippy top just as it started to thunder, lightning, and rain cats and dogs. It was a truly electric feeling being at the top of the spiral with wind and rain spray coming in and hearing the howling weather at that elevation.
I extended my time in Cologne not feeling up for the long train rides all the way to and from Stockholm which would leave only enough remaining time to spend barely 48 hours there, so instead I made the much shorter trip to Malmö, Sweden. And I'm really glad I did because now I know Stockholm is DEFINITELY worth visiting on a future trip, probably paired with Finland and Norway. I immediately liked the feeling of Malmö - even in the train station. In Swedish design, form does follow function and the city just felt very livable... And clean! Though it was misting a very light rain that morning or maybe because it WAS misting, I just loved the feeling in the air there! I did a little shopping, visited design museums, and had the best - I do mean absolute best - cinnamon bun ever. (It was so incredibly soft and melt -in-your-mouth despite no longer being warm from the oven.... Just soooo fresh - no need for preservatives I suppose... They are eaten right up!)
Then it was time for Copenhagen, one of the expected highlights of my trip, and it sure did deliver! I enjoyed reuniting for three nights in the city with two of my favorite former surfers. Denmark isn't the sunniest country but my good fortune continued and I experienced brilliant sunshine. Not only that, but sunset there was at around 10:30pm or so, so the days were very long. It was weird how it affected my eating habits because I would expect dinner around 10pm given the daylight, but all the restaurants would be closed (Scandinavia does not share the late dinner hour with France, Spain, and Italy!)
On the Thursday morning, the three of us headed to a town outside the city to meet up with more of their friends for four days of camping at the Roskilde Music Festival. Holy smokes, it was an amazing festival!! I was able to see so many of my favorite groups - Bon Iver, M83, Santigold, Daughter, First Aid Kit, the Shins, and soooo soooo many new bands to me that were thrilling to see on both giant and smaller, more intimate stages. (This is one of the largest music festivals in the world and has 8 stages!) I was up dancing til sunrise with acts like Paul Kalkbrenner and Pretty Lights, though there, sunrise only means 4am because the sun rises so early!!
(photo borrowed from Roskilde!)
I next had to get on the road to make it to another music festival the following weekend in Portugal so I just had a couple two night stopovers in Paris & Zaragoza, Spain to drop in for much-too-short reunions with other friends. I honestly ended up not doing much besides resting, reading, laundry, and just a bit of sightseeing because I actually came down with a bit of a cold Sunday night/Monday morning after too much dancing and not enough sleep. But I nipped it in the bud and I was back in action in plenty of time for Portugal!
Watching the Eifel tower light show from a distance (didn't get to see it in 2007)
The view from my "bedroom" in Paris in the 5th arrondissement.
I arrived in Lisbon to be greeted by the most perfect weather (Spain had been almost unbearably hot and Paris had been a bit cloudy) and I was psyched for the Optimus Alive Festival. Now I had to be selective with what festivals to visit this summer for a number of reasons - cost, conflicting dates, location conflicts with my route, and the fact that many of the festivals have a good deal of overlap of performers who are all on tour in Europe for the summer. So for example, even with my selectivity I still knew that both The Cure and Santigold would be at both. Another upcoming festival, Pukkelpop in Belgium, which was recommended to me, has another four or five overlapping repeats so I decided not to go. However, Optimus Alive was a must-see for me with Radiohead, Florence & the Machine, and Mumford and Sons. And the repeating of artists wasn't a bad thing. Having watched Santigold at Roskilde from about 30 "rows" back, I knew that for one of her songs she asks for dancers from the audience to come up on stage so I made sure the second time around to be close enough and it worked! I hopped up on stage with about 25-30 others and got to shake it on stage!
I stayed in Portugal for 10 days in order to be able to see a friend who would be returning the next weekend from a business trip so in between the weekends I hit up as many beaches as I could find. I ended up falling in love with the country! I rented a car in order to be able to reach some more distant and remote beaches in the south of the country (another highlight was driving manual for the first time in over 6 years on the crazy hills of Lisbon and other towns! Brand new experience for me!) I discovered a number of stunning, stunning beaches and also checked off sleeping under the stars from my bucket list! I rounded out my time with plenty of yoga, trying snails for the first time, copious amounts of ice cream and fruit sundaes, watching the sun set each night, experiencing Lisbon's great nightlife, and exploring the famous town/area of Sintra. I have to give Portugal a two thumbs and ten sandy toes up!
I made an unfortunately short stop in Barcelona next in order to visit another former surfer of mine. He was one who actually visited me twice in Tampa so I definitely had to pay him a visit! After consulting my guidebook I realized that I had already visited the 6 or 7 main sites/attractions in the city on a previous trip in 2007 and there did not seem to be much else to do that merited precedence over spending my one and a half days at the beach. So I got to spend my time guilt-free at the beach enjoying their summertime drink tinto de verano (pretty similar to sangria)! And there's a chance I could make it back once more before flying home, so we'll see!
My time in Barcelona was so short because I wanted to have as much time as possible visiting another friend in St Tropez on the French Riviera. This was a very long awaited reunion as Jenny was one of my very first couch surfers in Tampa! We got to enjoy three days together and I think I can safely say that even with a month left to go, this visit and destination is going to remain high in my top 3 favorite places of Europe...easily. It was a great time full of beaches, nightlife, quaint hillside and coastal towns, beautiful drives through countryside vineyards, bottles and bottles of Rosé, and amazing food. Two meals in particular need mentioning because each in and of itself are highlights on my trip. First, I had the best pizza of my life here and now having also already been to Naples and eaten at L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele, the oldest pizzeria in the world heralded as the best, I can say that my pizza in St Tropez was not just better, but the best. I don't want to give away their secrets, but it starts with using pesto sauce instead of marinara pizza sauce. I can't wait to make it myself when I get back! The second meal was an extravagant feast in town. Jenny's parents own one of the most famous restaurants in St Tropez and with a little bit of notice they reserved us a table for the evening. We ate and ate and ate certainly the best Vietnamese and Thai fusion cuisine I've ever had and topped it off with some flaming desserts! Then on my last day we hit up some of the other nearby cities of the Riviera - Cannes, Nice, and Monaco - for another unforgettable day of fun! Needless to say, it was really, really tough to say goodbye!
Italy was my next destination and it was full of so many highlights of its own! I visited Bologna, Venice, Florence, Pisa (for only 2 hours!), Cavriglia along with a multitude of other tiny Tuscan towns, Rome and Naples. Unfortunately I don't think the day time high temperature was ever lower than 93 degrees for my 13 days there and it more often happened to be closer to 97 and 99 degrees, but the amazing thing was that I loved Italy despite the hot, hot heat! I must say that in a do-over I would omit Bologna (I couldn't really eat Bolognese sauce after all) and Pisa offered absolutely no shade on an incredibly hot day, but still it was all part of the Italian experience. Florence was perhaps the most giant surprise given how much I loved it. So much to see and do and then finish the night off in one of the dozens of piazzas with a bottle of wine. I was really looking forward to Tuscany and as expected, it was gorgeous, but I discovered that even if I may like red wine, I don't much care for it in 97 degree heat, so we didn't do nearly as many tastings as I thought we would. It was still amazing zipping around the hills in our rental Smart car!
In light of the heat, it turns out my mere four nights/three days in Rome were just the right amount of time - though I know I will be back! Arriving on Friday night from Tuscany I received just the best introduction to the city when my host gave me an incredible night time tour of the city by scooter complete with a bottle of cold *white* wine to share. Italy really shuts down for the month of August I learned with everyone taking vacation and so the streets were quiet except for a few pockets of activity here and there, but seeing all, and I do mean ALL, of the sites (Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Colosseum, Forum, Circus Maximus, Vatican, Tiber River and fountain after fountain and piazza after piazza) in the stillness of the warm, summer night all lit up affirmed that August is still a fine time to visit. (And made this girl who took Latin in high school squeal with excitement!) With such an introduction, the only way to follow it up was a day at the beach and not just any beach, but I will declare the beach in Sabaudia (about 95 km southeast) the best beach I have been to in all of Europe. It was just perfect! Perfect temperature, perfect sand (no rocks or shells finally!), perfect color and clarity, and my favorite part was its shallowness so you had to actually walk out about 150 meters before your belly button even got wet! The beach stretches for miles and sits in a sort of crook below a giant mountain in a national park...spectacular and definitely worth the long drive..which wasn't so bad in a convertible :) With a day at the beach and a nighttime tour already under my belt I could revisit the sites over the next two days more enjoyably! Sistine Chapel and Colosseum...check, check off my bucket list!
My last stop was Naples and I could ramble on for double the length with how much I loved my time there staying with a friend of my brother's, but I'll keep it short and say it was just divine! Napoleons love their fireworks and wine ...and pizza! and I partook in all of it! We also visited Pompeii and made the super scenic Amalfi Coast drive (truly the best -- definite highlight among all of Europe!) Another delight of mine was being able to mail home about a fifth of my bag's weight and offload some things I can do without for the end of my trip at U.S. domestic postage rates from the Navy base there! (hint, hint.. y'all have some postcards coming!) I lifted my bag the next morning and it felt as light as a feather... almost :) Just divine!
Mount Vesuvius behind us!
I'm in Lucerne now and just smitten with how picturesque the city is. It sits along a lake and river surrounded by mountains and two nights in a row I have watched the mountain tops turn pink at sunset with reflections of the Alps showing in the panoramic apartment windows everywhere I look!
Here's what I have left to do before boarding my flight in Madrid:
-Geneva and Zurich & hiking in the Alps with a former surfer
-A bit of time in Lyon, Strasbourg, and Lille, France
-Brussels, Ghent & Bruges in Belgium
-Amsterdam and possibly also Rotterdam
-Almost a full week in Paris and a weekend in the countryside outside of Orléans
-Marrakech, Morroco - I have a hotel booked right in the Medina!
-Seville, Granada, and Madrid!
And for tradition's sake... the low lights!!
1. The trains. I know I mentioned these earlier, but now I have a few funny stories to share. I actually counted and so far I have taken 58 trains (not including the suburban line trains in cities like Berlin, Munich, Copenhagen, etc which are also included in my train pass) throughout Europe. So it finally happened on my trip from Barcelona to St Tropez that I boarded the wrong train at one of my connecting stations. I can laugh now, but when I learned of this on board the train I was very distressed. I knew at that late point in the day that my options to correct my mistake could be few and far between as trains start running far less frequently and St Raphael (the nearest station to Jenny) is a very under-serviced station to begin with. But I found an angel on the train who helped me re-route my train schedule and I only ended up taking 5 trains that day instead of the original 3. It could have been much worse! The second story came on my most recent train journey from Naples to Lucerne. Seat reservations are required on many of the popular or high speed trains in Europe and these typically must be made at the train stations (headache!), but the Italian train company allows you to make them online. However, in my hurry in making them the night before in Naples I goofed and made reservations for September 8th (8-9-12) instead of for August 9th (9-8-12) goofing up the European date convention. I thought it was an honest mistake when the train conductor pointed it out to me once we were already underway and didn't see what the big problem was since the price was the same and around me in first class was 75% empty. However, he saw it differently and not only was he insisting that I pay the reservation fee again, but that I needed to pay a higher, 18 euro fee, for doing it while on board the train. Needless to say, I was not happy. I had made the same goof with my second reservation of the day from Milan to Lucerne, but fortunately those employees neither noticed or cared. So I know I have certainly seen major benefits to taking the trains (I think my pass paid for itself by train ride number 30), but I suppose as with any form of travel there are hiccups and surprises. I ended up missing what should have been an easy connection in Barcelona en route to Lisbon because of the craziness that is the Barcelona train station. It felt more like an airport than a train station with its security scanners (unseen up to that point anywhere else in Europe), access control points, longer than long lines to board the trains, and segmented platforms that made it very hard to navigate. I do not look forward to going back there... ever!
2. So I know I mentioned that Florence & the Machine would be at the Optimus Alive festival and as my favorite artist I was incredibly excited to get to see her again. So it came as a giant blow to me when I learned two days prior to her show that she had pulled a muscle in her throat singing at another festival and doctors had told her to take a week off canceling her performance in Lisbon. When I learned the news in Zaragoza I felt the wind just totally die in my sails that morning. I had felt I had been racing across the continent to get to see her enduring long train rides and ordeals, but I had to just briefly grieve this loss and move on. Still, it was one of the biggest bummers of the trip.
3. The next one is a silly one, but I had been bug bite free since Athens where I got four bites on my face while sleeping one night. But the bugs, specifically I am told the Tiger Mosquitoes from Africa, finally found me in Barcelona and have continued to feast on me throughout all of Italy and here too now in Switzerland. I've been bitten in some of my most hated spots too - between my toes and on my palms and wrists and again on my face under my eye in addition to everywhere else on my body! I guess missing the bug bites will not be one of the advantages to missing out on Tampa in the summer after all!
4. And this last one is anything but silly as I have very sincere sadness in missing the Summer Olympics this year. It was a totally conscious decision to omit the games in London from my itinerary this summer, but I had done so thinking that I would still be able to watch the Olympics in at least a somewhat similar fashion to how I normally would in the US. So I was disappointed to learn that Italy doesn't really care about the Olympics. Bars were almost never showing the games and when I found them on in my hotel rooms on tiny TV screens it was always only for the events that Italy was competing in - like fencing. So I went the first 9 days or so only getting to watch one swimming race and it actually turned out to be one that Michael Phelps was competing in (the freestyle relay I think), but I had no idea he was ever even in the pool because the Italian coverage only showed the French team celebrating afterwards. They didn't care about Michael Phelps :) So it was a complete joy to me to find in Naples that AFN, the Armed Forces Network, broadcasts full NBC coverage in ENGLISH of course and I could finally watch a little bit! By this time, swimming and gymnastics were over, but it was nice just to see team USA on the screen finally :)
So I know this was a long one...did you make it to the end? :) I apologize for how long it's been since my last update, but blame it on the iPad... it really is awful for typing. I have found it is much more enjoyable and easy on my arms and wrists to listen to podcasts on the train then to stay current on my correspondence. I'm sorry!! Only one month left until I have a real keyboard again!
I hope you all have a great weekend and of course happy birthday to Linda! Wish I could be there to celebrate!
Miss you all!
Annie
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I'm tearing up seeing you with some of our best friends in Naples, Annie. I miss our home there and well, I'm just going to write you an email now instead of a measly comment about it. xoxo
ReplyDeleteI AM SO JEALOUS. My envy consumes my whole being leaving room for nothing else!
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