Day 17: Luxembourg: An Old Friend With a New Look

I've been to Vianden a few times and I've always had a pretty good time. I've visited the castle twice before, and, while it's a little castle, it's very well restored and always interesting too look at.

This time there was a festival going on, so it was a bit more lively than usual, for better or for worse.

Let me back up a bit though. We started off the afternoon by driving up through Ettelbrück and Brandenbourg, through the rolling hills and gentle mountains. I love the northern part of Luxembourg for its simple beauty and great views. We stopped a bit to walk up to the castle in Brandenbourg, although we didn't go inside. I noticed a lot of cars parked around with the license place that said NL, which is the Netherlands. According to Charel, lots of them come to northern Luxembourg to camp and see the scenery. I think I saw more of them then I did cars from Luxembourg.

After viewing the castle and taking some pictures, we next went to a reservoir on top of one of the tallest mountains in Europe. I probably mentioned this before, but this reservoir is used to make electricity. They produce the electricity in the night-time, when it costs more, and then during the day they pump the water back up to start the cycle all over again.





After this, we went to Vianden itself. We managed to park not quite so far from the castle, which was kind of a miracle considering how many people were there. The place was packed. There were merchant stalls everywhere inside the walls in the courtyard, in the first couple of rooms, and scattered in the display rooms throughout the castle. It made it pretty difficult to just tour the thing, though I imagine that the castle got lots of business that day. There was a sort of staged fight going on in one of the larger areas, and the crush of people was so bad that it was nearly impossible to get through. It was pretty annoying at times, although a few of the stalls had some very interesting hand-made stuff for sale. Most of it was just tourist junk, though.

After fighting our way through the castle tour, we decided to walk down to the town itself, which is down a very, very large hill. I didn't time it, but it takes about 15 minutes to walk all the way down. My knees were protesting by the time we reached the bottom.

The skylift was still open, so we decided to give that a try. I had never done that before, so that was a new thing that I was happy about. It gives a great view of the town, the castle, and the surrounding area. There is a restaurant at the top that they pretty much shuffle you through, but as we had already made a reservation at our usual place, we didn't stop there to eat.

We ate supper at the Victor Hugo hotel, which is one of our favorite places. I got the trout this time, which is one of the best things that I've had there. The only downside was a lot of bones, but I've had a bit more practice at removing them since I've moved to Europe, so I guess it wasn't too bad.

We drove home and went to bed early, preparing for our long day on Thursday.

Days 15-16: England: Two Long Days in London

Day 1

I've been to London before, but it didn't really make a very large impression on me the first time. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was about 12-13 years old at the time. Or maybe just that we were only there for one day before moving on to the next place. The point is, this trip was something that made more of an impact on me.

Now, 2 days in London is hardly long enough to do much, but as this trip seems to be a "skim the surface" type of thing, it was good enough to see a lot of the famous stuff. Especially the Underground, which we spend a large amount of time in.

We left early from Luxembourg, a morning flight directly to London City airport. We bought our metro ticket there, knowing we'd be spending lots of quality time using the system. First, we took the DLR line to the Hammersmith and City line, which led us to our hotel. A very nice hotel, and much, much bigger than the one we stayed at in Rome. We couldn't check in right away, but we were able to leave our bags with the concierge service so we didn't have to haul them all over London with us.

Our first stop was St. Paul's Cathedral. It's a famous cathedral, something well-known in London. It's pretty impressive on the outside, but I can't really tell you how impressive it is on the inside, since there was an entrance fee of 17£ to get in to the thing. Now, I understand that a church that doesn't get funding from the government needs funds for maintenance,  but I think that price is just a little too high. Perhaps because I got into all of the big churches everywhere else for free. I snapped a few pictures from the entrance before being shooed out with a scolding of "No photos please."


We then attempted to get to the Millennium Bridge to cross the river, but we got a bit turned around and ended up walking through some of the back streets until we finally found where we wanted to go. For part of it, we were followed around by a couple of tourists who apparently thought we knew where we were going. Turns out we didn't. The guy said "Guess we need to find a different guide!".

We finally crossed the bridge and decided to have an early lunch. We ate at a place called Founder's Arms, which had a nice overlook on the river. We all ordered the same thing: a bacon and egg toast sandwich. The bacon was more like ham, but it was still pretty tasty. Dick was provided with ketchup and I think it made his entire trip.

After lunch we walked along the Queen's Walk, a pedestrian area running along the Thames. When we started, there were only a few tourists and a bit more local people doing their pedestrian/biking thing, but as we got closer to the "touristy" areas, the crowd started to thicken. That's how you know when you're getting near something that you'd find on a postcard. In this case, we were approaching Westminster Palace and Big Ben. We also walked by the London Eye, a huge Ferris-wheel type structure with large, enclosed cars to view London. The line was long and it was hot, so we opted out and just took pictures instead.


We crossed Westminster bridge and walked by the previously mentioned photo traps, and then continued up the street. We turned and walked by the main government offices. We also walked by the horse guards. Said horses were fidgety and nervous, and probably a little cranky. I would be too if stuck standing in the hot sun surrounded by tourists wanting to get your picture. Their riders took it all in stride, however, and we soon moved on.




We then turned and walked towards Buckingham Palace via the Mall, a straight, wide road flanked by parks, statues and what I assume are very important buildings. Buckingham Palace itself was pretty impressive looking, with lots of gold and statues and such. The famous guards were there, standing as still as they famously do, but there were other, normal guards who were the ones watching the crowds.

After the Palace, we walked through a small park filled with shade and people. Usually the people were in the shade. There were also a large number of empty cloth chairs, and people sitting on the ground. I was puzzled until I saw a sign showing rates on renting time for the chairs. You had to pay to sit in the chairs! Well, at least the ground was still free.

We boarded a metro on the other side of the park and went to Piccadilly Circus, which isn't really a circus at all. There, I got my American tourist comment for the day in. Anyway, we spent about 30 seconds there before walking down the street to reach the destination that Mom wanted to go to: The M&M's store.

There are only 4 of these stores in the world, 3 of them in large US cities and one in London. I hadn't been to one before, but this was the third out of 4 for my mom. This thing had 4 levels of merchandising goodness. I had told myself that I was going to look around and maybe get something if I liked it. Which of course set us up for buying way more than we intended. Now we have magnets, coasters, clothes, and a blanket (and more), but hey, we all like M&M's, so why not. We had to carry it around for a bit, but at this point it was after the time we could check in to the hotel, so that's what we did.

We rested at the hotel for about and hour, then took the metro back down to Leicester Square (that's pronounced like "lester", don't ask me why) to eat something before the rest of our planned evening. We ate at a steak house, the first one that I've seen since last August in the US. They had Guinness, too, so I was happy even before I ate any food. Both Dick and I ordered the same thing: Kentucky Wide BBQ Ribs. Wide was an understatement. These things were huge. I think they killed a cow instead of a pig by mistake. I managed to eat it all, without much difficulty. Walking several miles a day apparently gives me quite an appetite. They were really good, too.

We went to a play called the Mousetrap, an Agatha Christie play that has been running for 62 years straight. It is the longest running play in the world. My English friend told me to go see it, and I'm glad that we did. We were all the way up at the top of the theatre (we knew this advance), but we could still see and hear everything just fine. Well, except when a police car went by, which, being that the play was a murder mystery, seemed to fit right in anyway. I won't give a link to Wikipedia this time, because they spoil the ending and they specifically asked the audience not to tell anyone the ending. There's even a stipulation saying that, as long as the play is still running, no one is allowed to make a movie. Apparently that doesn't extend to books released in the US, however, as my mom, being a big Agatha Christie fan, had already read the story. I don't think it took anything away from the experience, however.

Day 2

We intended to get up at 7:30 to eat breakfast at 8:30, but time zones being what they are, I was awake by 7 am London time. We went down to breakfast, where we had to stand in a line and wait. The staff seemed overly apologetic about this, saying sorry for the wait at least twice and we were even approached by a staff member and talked to about it for a couple of minutes. I didn't see what the fuss was about, but maybe some people do. We got in within 10 minutes anyway, and helped ourselves to a large breakfast buffet. I went straight for the breakfast sausage and hash browns (both things I haven't had in awhile) and was not disappointed. The coffee they finally got around to giving us wasn't all that great, but then again, I'm pretty picky about coffee so it could have been okay for everyone else. So I bought a coke at the metro station instead. 

Our first stop was the Tower of London. This famous landmark is a castle, not a tower (ok I get two touristy statements), but still impressive. They had an exhibition for the 100th anniversary of World War I, a flood of red flowers, each one representing a death. There are over eight hundred thousand of them.

Next we saw the Tower Bridge, another post card feature. As it was morning, all of my pictures are back lit, but I did my best. We took our photos and walked over it, heading for the metro station that would take us to the metro and our next stop.

We went next to Kensington next and had some ice cream in a little place near some very big shops. After that we headed to the Kensington Palace and the Royal Gardens. We didn't go into this palace either, but walked through the beautifully decorated places next to it. We saw lots of people out relaxing and exercising, not tourists only but residents too. There were birds everywhere. Small water birds, pigeons, geese, swans, and ducks. They were very accustomed to people and not aggressive at all. Which is not at all like the geese in Iowa, who are really mean and will hiss at you if you even look at them wrong. I guess people are allowed to feed them (all except the pigeons). I was able to get really close to them and get some really great pictures. There's one of a swan that I am really proud of. They would follow you afterwards expecting food as payment for their nice little poses, but sadly for them, I had nothing.

We walked all along their waterfront for awhile, before heading back to the metro, then the hotel, to pick up our luggage, and then finally head back to the airport. We got there so early we couldn't even check in, but we were hungry anyway so we ate at the little restaurant in lobby area. It was called Pret a Manger. For those of you who speak French, the omission of accents was theirs. For those who don't, it means "ready to eat", and that was indeed the type of place it was. It was also one of those places that made absolutely sure you knew that their stuff was locally sourced, fresh, and made that day. Despite the aggressive ecologically-friendly vibe, the food was very good. In fact it was probably so good because of those reasons.

We were allowed to enter the gate area and boarded our plane with no issues. We flew into Luxembourg pretty late, and I slept not long after we got home.

Days 11-12: Italy: Old Harbors and Beautiful Churches

Our cozy and classy method of transport.

We began our day by traveling to Ostia Antica, the ruins of a Roman port on the Tiber River. This port is located about 30 km from Rome itself, and is no longer on the coast of the Mediterranean, due to 2000 years of sediment buildup. It was used to transport wheat, olive oil, wine, and the fish sauce called Garum that, according to Charel, the Romans absolutely adored. We reached it via a small metro line.

A tour guide explaining a map of the ruins.

Our second free Roma Pass entrance was used here which more than made up for the cost of it. Ostia Antica is the third largest Roman excavation site, after Pompei and Herculaneum, and for good reason. We walked through it for over two hours and probably only saw half of it. What we did see is rather impressive, however.

We started off by walking through the old necropolis. What remained of the rooms had small alcoves in the walls for urns. Some of the doorways were very short, which helps demonstrate the height difference between then and now. It is possible that even the Romans had to duck to get into these doors. I included a picture with me for scale (I'm 5'10/1.78m).

We then entered the remains of the port itself. Let me take a minute here to talk about Roman roads. We had encountered them a few times, visiting the places that we did. When they were made, they were level and relatively smooth, and revolutionized transport and movement. Now, most of the filler between stones is gone and time has shifted these stones, so walking on them is a test of attention and patience. After a couple of days of them, my ankles and knees were pretty strained. Still better than muddy dirt roads, however. We could even see some remains of the chariot paths carved into them.





We passed an overlook to the ruins of the baths. From here you could see a good portion of the ruins, plus some of the many mosaics. All of them were in black/gray tile. There has been a lot of deterioration of them due to foot traffic, pollution, and exposure to the elements. As with many things old and Roman, they are under constant restoration. A lot of them were covered up to help preserve them.

We also went to the the old theater, which was already occupied by quite a few German tourists. They were taking turns going down to the stage and speaking, and a couple of them even did some call-and-response type singing. It seems that this theater is designed so that, even if someone on stage is speaking quietly, everyone can hear them, even in the last row.







There were some ruins of some insulae, old houses for the common people living in the area. They were generally up to 5 stories high and caught on fire easily. There were shops on the bottom with the living quarters on the floors above, much like modern city centers today.

The day started to heat up and we decided it was probably good to finish up what we were doing. We took another path to head up to the cafeteria and gift shop area to have some ice cream. Of course, it was also delicious. On our way out, we also passed a lot more mosaics spread around, depicting things like ships and mythical figures.

We returned to the hotel to check on Mom and get some lunch. We went again to the place across the street. Dick got the same lasagna as the day before (it was that good) but I tried something new. I don't really remember the name of it but it was very good. I could have eaten twice the amount that they gave me (this will be a theme of the day).

After lunch, we went to 2 of the 4 big basilicas: S. Maria Maggiore and S. Paoulo fuori le mura.We started off with S. Maria Maggiore, the largest church in the world dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Of all the churches we went to, this one was absolutely my favorite. It's also one of the older churches we visited, being constructed in the 5th century.

The level of detail there was astounding. From the ceiling to the mosaics/paintings on the walls to the altar to the marble statues, it's clear that there was a ton of work put into it. This can be said of any of the great churches in Rome, but something about this one stuck out in my mind. Maybe it was the sheer amount of gilded items and the particular style they were done in, I'm not sure, but I found myself just staring.

We found a statue of Pope Pius IX with an incredible level of detail. They even put texture into the "fabric" of his clothes and pillow. If painted correctly, this statue would be very hard to distinguish from the real thing (except for the size of it.)

We next went to S. Paulo fuori le mura, the other of the two basilicas we visited. This one was enormous, open, spacious, and also lavishly decorated. It was the largest church in the world until S. Peter's was built. This particular church has a portrait mosaic of every single pope along with the time they served. The portraits stretched around all the walls until the current one. There's a story that if all of the portrait spots get filled, then the world were end. There are only about 6 left. Make of that what you will.

In the front of the church, there was a large mosaic that dominated a half-dome shape. There was a coin machine to turn on the lights for about 2 minutes, during which the photographers scrambled to get pictures of it. The grave of St. Paul is also said to be here.






Charel wanted to go to some other things, but Dick and I were both too tired and footsore to do much else. We returned to the hotel to rest for a bit.

We took Mom to the Colosseum, as it is just off of a metro station and it's something that everyone coming to Rome should try to see. The metro was very crowded, which didn't help, but we managed to get her there without too much problem. The peddlers were out in force, and it was getting to the point that they were asking us 2-3 times in a row if we wanted something. I certainly won't miss that part of the Rome experience.

After that we went to a restaurant right next to the metro station near our hotel. I got some kind of ravioli but there wasn't nearly enough. I could have eaten twice the amount they gave me (see? a theme). We then ate ice cream at the place across the street (that we ate earlier) and then called it a night.


Day 5: Traveling home

Not much weird to say about our trip home, nothing super eventful happened. I just want to leave this picture of the Alps that Mom and Dick took, however.











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Day 10: Italy: The Old and the Very Old

As I mentioned before, Rome has a long history that sometimes is all cobbled together. Even the Roman Republic and Empire by themselves span over a thousand years. It's easy to find something from any time period somewhere in Rome.

This was the day we decided to see some of the more famous Roman monuments and ruins. As our hotel was in the middle of the city, it was pretty easy to walk to where we wanted to go. So, we headed towards the Forum Romano and the Colosseum.

One of the first things we saw was the monument to the first king of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II. This place had a ton of car traffic. We did walk up to the fence surrounding it, but we didn't tour it.




We visited Trajan's Forum, part of the Imperial forums, which is under excavation, including Trajan's Column, which has relief figures carved all the way up the side. These figures show the two wars that Trajan fought against the Dacians, who were a people who lived in part of the area that is now the Balkans and Romania.

They had a display showing the relief as if it was stretched out flat, and it ran the entire length of the forum itself. There were remains of pillars too, and according to Wikipedia, it's a home for feral cats, although I didn't see any.








We went next to the Forum Romanum itself, which required a ticket to get in. We had our Roma Passes, which got us in for free, and we began to explore the ruins. There are quite a few buildings in various states of repair. This place was a very important one in Roman culture and life, and its history spans nearly as long as the city itself.





We visited what used to be the Basilica of Maxentius, before it became the Basilica of Constantine, who finished the building of it.

We made our way down to a open area overlooking the Colosseum, providing a very excellent place to take pictures. Part of the wall is under restoration, but you can easily see the different periods and types of building used to construct it. We also saw the line to get in to tour the place, which was too long for our liking, so we never did go in to it.

It was also possible to see the Arc of Constantine, the only structure with a part of the original colored marble left. The monuments were not originally white, but decorated in lots of color. They also painted their statues.








After finishing our pictures, we left and then walked past the Colosseum through a large crowd of people. Passing by the arc, we then walked past the remains of the palaces on the Palatine Hill, overlooking the Circus Maximus.









We returned to the hotel via the metro, and then ate lunch at the restaurant across the street. Both Dick and I tried the lasagna, which was very good. I could have maybe even eaten more of it.

After lunch we took the B metro to the last stop, hoping to catch a bus to go to Tivoli, a town in the tall hills overlooking Rome. We were informed that we had gone one stop too far for our departure point, so we had to hop back on and go back a stop. After we arrived, we bought some tickets and then waited for the bus.

The bus was several minutes late, but eventually it arrived and we boarded. The interior was covered in graffiti and it wasn't air conditioned. I got a seat in the very back, and proceeded to nearly smother due to lack of air flow. The bus took about 45 minutes to get to our place, and it was really crowded by the time we arrived. We got off the bus a stop too late, and therefore had to walk a bit further.

We stopped for ice cream at a place somewhat close to our destination, and it was the best ice cream so far on the trip. After cooling off, we headed to the Villa d'Este, a Renaissance-era villa constructed for Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este. The decoration is a bit modest compared to the splendor of the basilicas, but there are a ton of really nice fountains and a great overlook of the surrounding valley.

They even rerouted a river to feed the fountains in this villa. There was a very large number of pools, fountains, statues, and figures all around the very large, multi-leveled garden. We spent at least two hours there and I don't think we got to see all of it. The mansion itself is in pretty good repair, although it's clear that the restoration is always a work in progress.

Pinocchio Mode

We returned to the same ice cream place on the way back to the bus area. It was hot and the ice cream was really appreciated. If we ever go back to Tivoli we will make sure that we stop at that place again.

We bought the ticket for the way back to Rome and after waiting about 15 minutes, the bus arrived. This one was not as full, was newer, nicer, had less graffiti, and had some mild form of air conditioning. Even better, the bus driver got on the highway this time, instead of stopping every 500 meters and driving through thick, dusty traffic. There was a great breeze coming in, and the ride back was much more pleasant.

After checking on Mom (who was still feeling very crappy), we promised to find a sports drink for her when we went out for supper. We found a small grocery store and found a 1.5 liter bottle for her.

For supper we went to a place in the Piazza S. Silvestro. I ordered a "medium" beer, and decided to take it anyway when the waitress told me that it was .8 liters of beer. I think she doubted that I'd drink that much. It still looked very large by the time I received it, and it was "just" a medium beer. I didn't ask how big the large was but I suppose I would need both hands to lift it.

I ordered penne pasta in salmon sauce, and that was, as usual, very good. It's a good thing that I don't live in Italy permanently, as I would probably have to exercise an hour a day to keep myself from gaining a bunch of weight. They eat so well there. I really can't wait to go eat there again.

We walked back to the hotel and called it a night.


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