March 2016:
When we make a list of places that we want to visit in the world, Italy would be screaming at the top of the list. How many times have we seen in movies, magazines and books, how much have we heard about places here, the Italian food, Italian mafia, Italian fashion and language, there is so much to this place that i could just not resist to experience.
When we make a list of places that we want to visit in the world, Italy would be screaming at the top of the list. How many times have we seen in movies, magazines and books, how much have we heard about places here, the Italian food, Italian mafia, Italian fashion and language, there is so much to this place that i could just not resist to experience.
The ride to Munich was a bit scary and confusing as we had been behind a huge line of vehicles in the highway, good that we had some buffer time between the buses.
Roma!! was written the bus that we got in. We grabbed the seats that were available and i was sure i'm not going to even blink to capture everything in the way. I dint even mind how much my retina could spot in the darkness, all i could, my eyes were ready to grab.
The roads started to bring its magic, nature never stops to make you wonder. The snow licked peaks in the night, and the far lights that's calling us to come there and here....the path was such a bliss to experience. we pierced through many mountains with the help of gorgeous tunnels and in the process just crawled our ways into German-Italian border.
Sunshine knocked at the doorstep of eyes just to show the beauty of another beautiful country. stops here and there and we finally reached Roma.
We got ready in our hotel, i liked the hotel for its different structure, small and compact and just like what we expect in Italy, tall and a pinch of oldness involved.
When you get on to the roads in a place like Rome, anything you wear and do is style and fashion, well we just want to be on the right side of fashion. With my favorite white shirt and coolers on, i'm fucking excited to show off and walk the ramps of Italian roads. so were my friends.
We got out of the metro station and there it stands out tall and majestic, Colosseum !! In my childhood i had bought charts for 2 rupees in my school to stick this picture in a book and my social science teacher would explain me what is this. Now i'm standing in front of it.
Words can only explain little when there is so much history and beauty given to you to digest in a moment. However, my imaginations were knifed as we came to know pope is going to come there and Colosseum will remain closed for the reminder of the day and so will the Palantine hill be.
We quickly restructured our plans for the day and went to Pantheon. Our Legs are the best transport in Europe, help yourselves to go to any place, and its seriously fun to walk through the cities roads and get a good vibe of it.
We went to pantheon, the largest dome in Rome. Its a big one yes. architectural brilliance is something you cant fail to notice.
This Castle was not in the list, but managed to make its way in the list due to our freshly sabotaged plans.Castle was good though. Got some good Ariel view of the city.
It was lit up beautifully in the night. The path was wide and lit with street lights and moonlight. So much of history, how many books has explained how many novels and documentaries, the place for a billion Catholics, St. Peters Basilica was right in front of me with just few meters far.
It was as if they show in movies everything becomes stand still and modern things gets vanished one by one all around you and the old structures come into the frame with old people walking with a 360 degree rotation of camera.Just think about this....(as they say in some novels) centuries ago at this same place there were scientists who wanted to discuss about their discoveries but were forbidden by religious heads and they held secret meetings. Galileo and many others from around the world were part of it. and i'm walking in the same street as they did. Don't know whether the meetings were held beneath the path i'm walking, to the church left of me or right omg!!
i took pictures with bewildered thoughts and of course, amusement, looking at the wonderful structure.
We went to Trevi Fountain from there walking through a street, just like our commercial street in Bangalore. Hot spot for shopping i would say. Italy is a place for fashion and the things i'm seeing here has not brought my imaginations anywhere down by an inch.
We had many cafes in the street leading to Trevi Fountain, they were beautiful. the fountain was big and loaded with as usual confusing sculptures, don't know if something is encrypted in them.
Roadside cafe where you can sit and become part of the breeze, chatting and having food, what a feeling.
There are so many plants in this world and so many not discovered and not given names but each time when i see the menu i hardly find 5,10 things for vegetarian. what irony!!
But, i'm in Italy, it's a crime if i don't have pasta and pizza. sipping a drink and having superb dinner. just when were ready to burp, the bills screamed at us for 420 Euros. 420 i repeat!! apparently the amount mentioned in the menu for sea food was per 100gms or something, but my frnds hunger seemed to have gobbled up 2kgs of Mediterraneans ocean population.
That's fine, we had a great dinner. Pizza was awesome, spaghetti was good.
All set to see Colosseum and Vatican city this day.
We hired guide service to skip the line, i must say it was really good that we did that, not only did we skip the line but we got some insight about the history and the guide wow he was fantastic. down the line i might just forget some punch lines of him so let me put it here....
(when he was explaining about men sitting and women standing back in the days.... he gasped in joy and gave a high five to a man standing beside him and told "yeah that's the way it should be right!!" and when the man nodded yes " you are going to sleep alone tonight", the crowd burst into a big laugh. when he was explaining about gladiators and men that women like and he suddenly asked pretty ladies in crowd about man of their dreams and when they took a sec to ans he casually said"Tour guide"....
and about Rafael and Micheal Angelo.....Rafael lived for 37 years, he liked women, micheal angelo, did he like women?? did he like men?? he lived for 89 years, moral of the story....feaky feaky makes your life short.....and he looked at a small boy and said" this boy looks all confused, ok you can go play bingo" )
he showed us the place where king used to come in and gladiators came in, also he explained about the massive construction and how churches took away some parts of Colosseum to decorate churches.
We also got lot of knowledge about the palantine hill and how and where Romans back in the days used to come and go and events and wars and secret stories about kings wars. It's so fascinating to know how politics and brains were so much more sophisticated in olden days than today.
Time for some lunch and then to Vatican city. Now this would be 4th country in Europe i would be setting foot on.
The path to Sistine Chapel was gorgeous. The never ending paintings and sculptures, so many paintings, how many years would they have taken to do this, so much of imagination and effort.
I have wondered whether a painter paints how it is actually present right in front of his eyes or he takes his creative right to paint the things he imagined. Was this actually true or the painters imagination. No one can ans.
Sistine Chapel, it was a masterpiece. Micheal Angelo, has kept the best for the last i suppose. The picture that i have seen from my childhood, i'm not sure whether its Adam trying to grab the hand of god or some person naked.....the original picture of that i'm just looking at it right above my head. This is a indescribable feeling.
With huge amount of perplexed notion i just made way out of Vatican city.
We went to the St. Peters Basilica to check it out in daylight. We went even more closer than before and looked at its super view in evening light. looking around me, its a big place so much of crowd, Swiss Guards in their different costume, it was superb and yeah i cant forget the salute a Swiss Guard gave to someone wow.
It was time to see the sunshine in other cities of Italy.
We woke up early and it was that night where this daylight savings thing came into act and we had one more less hr to sleep.
Took the train to Pisa. The train track was unfolded in the shores of sea and that gave us splendid view into the sea. we were able to see greenery on one side of the train and sky kissing the sea on the other side. It was a dream ride.
Pisa is a small village, with literally less people and things to do and see.
The big tower that was wonder of the world. so many pictures and googles and charts and songs in movies were shot and i'm walking towards it with a simple smile on the face.
How many times can you go to a train driver i don't know if its the right word to use train driver, well, how many times in life can we go to him ask for next stop, yes we did it. it was one hr from Pisa to Florence. so we had to ask him about the stop. That was good.
As i mentioned in my fb checkin "i cannot go at the speed of light....physics, i cannot go super sonic....i'm not a combat pilot, but i can go at 300kms, yes when i get into a bullet train".
To the hottest destination in the world.
What a place, you will stay perplexed continuously and consistently. Grand canal was one of the most beautiful spots i have ever seen in my life. It is the place for couples no doubt. It's only awful to know that his city will sink in some years and decades to come. I must consider myself lucky to be walking in this place.
The roads or i should call just a path instead of roads, were so narrow. They were beautiful, old houses and shops, i felt like i'm walking in 15th century.
we dug the way out to hotel.
We started roaming again, i read somewhere saying just don't plan anything for Venice, go and get lost in the streets, he was absolutely right. you need to just get lost in this place.
We saw some churches and docks.
Night ride in the sea was so damn good, standing on the foot boards of boats during the ride with breezy Mediterranean wind.
Mission Burano-
the Ride was fantastic. It was as if we choose the zoom out option in a live streaming video, we were watching our island go far and the beautiful view kept on loading us with more.
The colorful houses that we have seen in postcards, that's Burano. It was a silent and calm place a small island yet as beautiful as any other of its cousins around in Mediterranean. We took lot of pics. This is the Venice that the world knows, the colorful houses and small streams.
Blissful lunch in a proper authentic Italian restaurant with gorgeous ambiance and waitresses.
I must say i felt like staying in this place for some more days. It's so simple and beautiful. there is no mess and fuss about it, a simple touch with nature all the time when you stay there.
Before going back, we decided to have a pleasing bit of evening food on the banks of Grand Canal. A man started playing music beside us, street musician, how much more content can this get. Libido for travel meets absolute satisfaction.
Morning broke and thoughts lingered in my mind to go back to the beautiful country. i will, in future.
In the end the lust to wander has only increased.
:):)
