Thus far Italy has proven to be a formidable opponent for our travel passions. France was fantastic, but the current pace Italy is setting could definitely tip the scales as to which country we'll love the most. We left Monaco yesterday morning as early as we could, knowing that the drive to Lucca would be about four hours, and wanting to maximize our time spent there. The one thing that's important to understand about all the driving we've done, and some of the long journeys from A to B, is that its ALL good. The drives are almost as spectacular as anything else we've experienced. This particular drive from France into Italy was hands down, one of the things I think I'll remember the most about our trip. As we crossed the border into Italy, we proceeded to drive through the Italian Alps. Now when I say through... I mean THROUGH, lol. It was incredible, as clearly the Italians decided the only way to traverse a massive mountain range is to cut massive tunnels through sections. So all along the drive for about two hours, it was non-stop tunnel action, with some stretching a few kilometres long. I was expecting these kinds of tunnels for when we go north to Switzerland in that last leg of our trip, but being able to drive through them now was just so awesome.
So after a great drive, we arrived in Lucca basically around noon. The drive in was easy, as the city isn't really congested, and we checked into our hotel without problem. This hotel was a return to my original plan of finding places really close to everything we wanted to see. The last few places were a bit out of the way, but the prices couldn't be beat. The walk into historic Lucca was about five minutes from our hotel, and it was another fantastic gorgeous day. Lucca is officially where I want to retire to! It's such an amazingly beautiful, and peaceful city. It seems so perfectly placed as you can stand anywhere in the city and look around to see the snow-peaked alps in the distance, seemingly surrounding the city. The historic city is once again, like Avignon, a completely walled in city, whose ramparts are in fantastic condition. They've basically morphed into the natural landscape with grass covering much of them, and are so wide that they're basically a giant promenade, with parks, and bicycle lanes, etc... All the while giving you an elevated view of the city and landscape around Lucca. Again, just such a peaceful place.
After walking around the city walls for a while, we finally plunged into the actual historic city. After having experienced Avignon and how crappy it was in the interior, we were a little skeptical going into another walled city. We were extremely pleasantly surprised. Lucca is exactly what Avignon was not: clean, peaceful, visually stunning, the list goes on. We tried to locate a restaurant from the Frommer's guide for lunch, but we feared we wouldn't make it in time before it closed, so we settled on a place that looked pretty popular with the locals. It was right beside a stunning church with a giant open space called a piazza, where many people were just sitting around watching the world go by. The big thing about Lucca as well, was just its authenticity. There were virtually no tourists there, and you really felt like you were experiencing the raw life of the city and it's people. After a fantastic lunch of freshly made lasagna - honestly the best I've ever had in my entire life - we made our way to really the only notable thing to see: St. Martin's Cathedral. It was an interesting church, but it was under heavy restoration, and they were super strict about not taking any pictures or video inside. We managed to sneak a little bit of each, but not much.
We spent the rest of the day walking around just taking in the beauty of the city, and then went for dinner at another fantastic restaurant recommended by Frommer's called Ristorante Giglio. We had the best, and cheapest full meal of the trip thus far. I had a Mushroom Risotto that blew me away. Afterward we had another relaxing evening, prepping ourselves for this morning going to Pisa.
We left Lucca sad to go, but the allure of getting to see the leaning tower of Pisa was strong enough to wipe clear our longing to stay in Lucca. The nice thing was the drive to Pisa was only twenty minutes, as they're so close together. I was very surprised by Pisa, for some reason I had created an image in my head of Pisa that was WAY off from what it really looks like. It's a big city, and busy. Once again the historic portion is inside old city walls, and the place is run by tourists, lol. They're everywhere! They walk on the streets as though there are no cars, yet there are. So here we are driving through a sea of people, looking for a place to park. We finally found a place about ten minutes walk away from the leaning tower, and made our way there. The leaning tower is FAN... wait for it... TASTIC! It was totally mind-blowing to see this structure on such a severe angle, yet supported and freestanding on it's own - thanks entirely to massive relevelling projects that have been taking place ever since it started to sink and lean hundreds of years ago. It's situated beside a big church and a domed baptistry, which are both exquisite in their own right. Let's face it though, the star of Pisa is the Leaning Tower. Up until getting to Pisa, we had heard different reports as to whether or not one could summit this great structure, and we were super excited to see plenty of tourists hanging out at the top. We got some tickets, waited like twenty minutes for our turn to ascend, and made our way up.
Climbing the Leaning Tower is phenomenal. You begin climbing this massive spiral staircase around the building, only to realize that you're climbing stairs that were built level, and are now as slanted in all directions just like the tower itself. As you go around, you're leaning as much as the tower is, it was so much fun. The top offered one of those gut tingling views, as you would lean over the edge to see nothing but ground, and on the other side of the lean you would see the building slanting. It was crazy. We also made some cool friends with two American girls on a bus tour who had split from their group. It was fun to share the experience with a few people, confirming something I mentioned to Lindsay that a trip like this would be cool to share with another couple who had similar interests, and travelling habits. Anywho, we hit the souvenir shop after our climb, and found a nice pizzaria with a clear view of the Leaning Tower and had lunch. The pizza was okay, the view was better. :-)
After Pisa, we left for what will be our destination for the next three days: Rome. The drive was nice, smooth, took about three hours to get to just outside of Rome. Then we experienced the most challenging driving conditions I've ever been in. Driving in Europe has been a blast, and apart from the crap that happened trying to get into Eze, has been without issue. There have been different conditions that have tested my driving skills, but nothing like what Rome threw at me. First, we hit Rome in their rush hour, making the highway around the exterior of the city jammed. There was an accident ahead in the direction we were going, which seemed to make the drivers more reckless. Accident, after accident, after accident proceeded to develop as cars kept trying to get ahead, change lanes, etc. It made me worried for the first time, not because I didn't think I could manuever the traffic, rather that an Italian driver would hit me as he was doing something stupid. I decided to get off the highway, and head through the inner city to get to our hotel. I had been avoiding that as long as possible, but I felt it would be safer. It definitely was for the first 40 minutes, as traffic moved at a snail pace. When it finally started moving a bit more near our hotel, the streets became quite confusing, and drivers are absolutely nuts there. Lines in the road mean nothing, mopeds zip through every which way around moving cars, just nuts. I steeled myself, focused with all my mental might, and managed to navigate through the most insane driving conditions I've ever seen. I'm quite proud actually. We parked in an underground place next to our hotel, and breathed a massive sigh of relief, lol. We don't have to worry about driving for another few days now, as we walk and take transit once we get to most places, but I'll be happy to drive clear of the city once were done here, hopefully making it out in one piece.
So yeah, we're in Rome now at a really cool hotel. Tonight we'll hit up a restuarant noted by Frommer's and try and see a few squares and fountains all lit up. Today is also St. Patrick's day, so I'm sure we'll see how Rome celebrates the day. Here's a link to the pictures from Lucca and Pisa, enjoy! That's all for now, Ciao!
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
EZE AND MONTE CARLO...
Preface: I realize the gap in between the last post and now has been great, our trip is actually over now and we're back to real life, but I really still wanted to capture the last two weeks of the trip here in my blog. I would have done so during the trip, but we ran into some locations without free internet, and add to that the energy it would take to update the blog, it was just tough trying to get it all in during the trip. Anywho, the next few posts over the next week will round off the trip nicely, and I plan to word them in such a way as though we were still there. We'll see how it goes.
Today was officially the craziest day of our trip thus far. It was unfortunate in some sense, but by the end we both felt it kind of came together in such a way that we should likely look back on this day as an awesome day, despite it's cons. The day started much like any other - we woke up, packed up our gear, checked out of the hotel, and made our way to yet another adventurous destination. I had expected the drive down to Eze to be smooth and take about two and a half hours. In a perfect world we would have checked in to our hotel, maybe explored Eze a bit, and then spent the rest of the day in Monte Carlo - which is basically right beside Eze. Yeah... in a perfect world, lol.
The drive went as smooth as could be expected, quite nicely actually. The countryside changed once again, continuing it's mediteranean theme, as well as bringing us through beautiful mountainy regions. We were on the main highway cruising around 140 km/h - did I mention how I love that their speed limits are 130? yeah... I love that - and we came to a point where the GPS was saying we had about forty minutes to go, and asked me to get off the main highway just past Cannes. Now in retrospect, this was one of those creepy sixth sense moments, as I was like, "ummm, what the hell, why does it want me to get off the highway? I feel like we should just be staying on". I chatted with Lindsay about it, who simply trusted the GPS knew what it was talking about, and at that crucial forking in the road I was faced with two choices: go with my gut and stay on the highway, hoping it would offer an exit to Eze; or to trust the GPS wasn't leading me astray, and get off the highway. Against my gut, I chose to get off the highway... big mistake.
The road led us through the city of Nice, right down to it's waterfront on the Mediteranean Sea. It was beautiful! The city was unlike any I've ever seen, and looked like how both Lindsay and I would imagine Miami Beach area would look like. It was awesome inland as well, with steeply sloped cliffsides rising hundreds of feet, dotted with houses, buldings, villages, and winding roads. At first the road was moving quite smoothly, albeit with drivers who didn't understand the concept of driving in their own lane. If it wasn't for all the driving I'd done thus far, it may have been intimidating - instead I was zipping through small openings, and weaving like a true Frenchman. We had basically decided that the GPS had led us on the true path once again, though I couldn't help but think in the back of my head that there was going to be a detour that would eff everything up... ladies and gentlemen, I officially HATE bicyclists. They shut down this main artery through the city in lieu of arriving bicyclists on a route from Monte Carlo. This forced us into a detour that was crowded to put it lightly. It was only by the skin of my teeth that we managed to navigate through that mess to an alternate route recommended by the GPS. After 40 minutes, we arrived at the precipice of this alternate doorway to Eze, only to have it slammed in our faces by the local police, who had closed off that entry - AGAIN for the stupid bike tour! A U-turn and a desperate move towards the highway direction led us on what seemed like a legitimate detour route, which we followed. This route got us to within ten kilometres of our destination, up a steep and winding mountainside. You know what though?... closed... this time I was screwed over a little extra as my beautiful Peugeot diesel manual engine valiantly failed to engage after having to stop in the middle of an extremely steep graded road. Four tries edged me closer and closer backwards toward the car behind me. With cars beginning to grow impatient, honking ensued as the thick sweat began to drip from my face. It was at this moment that my fantastic wife recalled something her Dad had told her about getting up a steep grade in cases such as what we found ourselves in. His method was simple, turn on the engine but leave the parking brake on. Get into gear and begin to rev to a decent RPM, and then slowly release the parking brake. This concept requires a fair bit of mental concentration surprisingly, as there are few things in play, but thinking calmly I was able to enact this method with supreme skill, and once again our car moved forward in what was a joyously excited moment for Linds and I. Of course, after that we had to turn around again and go back, defeated by yet another failed route.
At this point I was not all that happy. Our day was slipping away, and we seemed destined not to make it into Eze, let alone get out of that crazy city. At that moment I was decided, we were going to head north back to the highway and get out of this craziness. Once back on the highway, after another twenty minutes wasted, we found ourselves one exit away from Eze... ... ... at this point my original sixth sense proved correct, we should have just stayed on the highway. Whatever, spilt milk, we didn't cry but just kept moving - finally breathing a sigh of relief thinking we would finally get into Eze. We got off at the exit, made it to within three minutes of our hotel, and guess what... yup... THAT'S RIGHT! We got turned around by more police. I was ready to 'flip a table and piss on it' at that point (that's a Michael Kazmaier-ism... it's genius really). I pleaded with the officer in my crappy french, but he politely said it would not be possible to go into Eze at all for the next few hours. At this point, a mere few kilometres from Monte Carlo, we decided to say screw it with Eze, and we went straight into Monaco after turning 40 minutes to go into about two and a half hours wasted.
Once we were moving again though, all the stress began to slowly dissipate. It was hard to be upset when the steep mountainside city of Monte Carlo, physically touching the clouds at some heights, was so stinking beautiful. The winding roads are so much fun to drive on, especially having been baptised with such roads throughout France, and really knowing our car at this point. I can see why Europeans love F1 Racing, and why some of the most famous race tracks are in some of these cities on their main roads.
We made our way through the city towards a point of interest that is the reason I wanted to come to Monte Carlo so badly: the Oceanographic Museum and Aquarium. If you've seen the pictures on Facebook, I really don't need to say much more. This place was incredible! So much so, in fact, that the entire stresses of the day evaporated into a feeling of "this was so worth it". We spent a few hours window shopping through the massive aquariums and sea-life they had stored here. This place had Jacque Cousteau on their payroll, amongst many other famous explorers who collected these specimens for display and study. We saw some things I had never imagined before existing, and it quickly became clear to me where George Lucas get's his ideas for alien creatures and their appearances.
After enjoying our time there, we decided to tour the city, making the famous Monte Carlo Casino our destination. We walked along their boardwalk which serves as frontrow seating to the worlds largest collection of MASSIVE luxury yachts. The bay of sorts is LINED with at least 30 huge yachts which simply dock along the boardwalk. No security, no typical harbor, just boardwalk with yachts docked alongside and little bridges extended from each yacht. It was so cool. It's become my life long dream to own a massive yacht, and make Monte Carlo my personal playground like all the other super wealthy owners so evidently do. It was beautiful there, far more than I had anticipated. The water, the city, everything, it was so nice.
We made our way to the Casino, which was a beautiful building, saw some of the most expensive cars in the world just parked around, and even went inside. We feared we wouldn't pass muster in terms of the dress code, but they let us in. That was as far as we went though, as to enter the real casino, you need to buy a pass for about 15 Euro's a piece. It makes sense I suppose, as it keeps us tourists out, and lets the serious gamblers concentrate. We peeked into the main room though, which was much smaller than I had imagined, but far more magnificient at the same time. The room looks like a palaces throne room. It's beautiful.
Afterwards we made our way back to the boardwalk, and found a nice italian restaurant that looked popular. I've found that if a restaurant in Europe is packed, it's usually a good indication you're going to have a great meal. It proved accurate here as well. We enjoyed a relaxing meal, walked along the boardwalk back to our parking area, and made our way to the hotel in Eze finally, sometime around 9pm-ish.
This time we made it into the hotel without any trouble, and enjoyed a unique backdrop of steep mountainsides, dotted with lights, and roads. Our hotel is physically built onto a steep side, with every room supposedly having a view over the Mediteranean Sea. It's beautiful. The view is beyond anything I've ever seen, so much so that I haven't the words to describe it. I've managed some pictures that attempt to capture it's beauty, but they don't come close. I'm trying to burn this image into my head as I enjoy a glass of cognac, but I fear it will remain a ghost of the view I'm seeing right now.
All in all, a fantastic day depsite the time wasted, and the energy spent. Tomorrow we start a brand new chapter in our travels: Italy. The border is right beside Monaco, so we're practically in Italy right now. Tomorrow takes us to the historic city of Lucca, once the capitol of Tuscany. I'm really interested to go there, as a few of our friends have spoken highly of it. We'll see. To be honest though, I think I want to stay here forever. I mean that, it's that beautiful. Well, in practicing my Italian, arrivederci, buona notte. Pics can be viewed from this link here.
Today was officially the craziest day of our trip thus far. It was unfortunate in some sense, but by the end we both felt it kind of came together in such a way that we should likely look back on this day as an awesome day, despite it's cons. The day started much like any other - we woke up, packed up our gear, checked out of the hotel, and made our way to yet another adventurous destination. I had expected the drive down to Eze to be smooth and take about two and a half hours. In a perfect world we would have checked in to our hotel, maybe explored Eze a bit, and then spent the rest of the day in Monte Carlo - which is basically right beside Eze. Yeah... in a perfect world, lol.
The drive went as smooth as could be expected, quite nicely actually. The countryside changed once again, continuing it's mediteranean theme, as well as bringing us through beautiful mountainy regions. We were on the main highway cruising around 140 km/h - did I mention how I love that their speed limits are 130? yeah... I love that - and we came to a point where the GPS was saying we had about forty minutes to go, and asked me to get off the main highway just past Cannes. Now in retrospect, this was one of those creepy sixth sense moments, as I was like, "ummm, what the hell, why does it want me to get off the highway? I feel like we should just be staying on". I chatted with Lindsay about it, who simply trusted the GPS knew what it was talking about, and at that crucial forking in the road I was faced with two choices: go with my gut and stay on the highway, hoping it would offer an exit to Eze; or to trust the GPS wasn't leading me astray, and get off the highway. Against my gut, I chose to get off the highway... big mistake.
The road led us through the city of Nice, right down to it's waterfront on the Mediteranean Sea. It was beautiful! The city was unlike any I've ever seen, and looked like how both Lindsay and I would imagine Miami Beach area would look like. It was awesome inland as well, with steeply sloped cliffsides rising hundreds of feet, dotted with houses, buldings, villages, and winding roads. At first the road was moving quite smoothly, albeit with drivers who didn't understand the concept of driving in their own lane. If it wasn't for all the driving I'd done thus far, it may have been intimidating - instead I was zipping through small openings, and weaving like a true Frenchman. We had basically decided that the GPS had led us on the true path once again, though I couldn't help but think in the back of my head that there was going to be a detour that would eff everything up... ladies and gentlemen, I officially HATE bicyclists. They shut down this main artery through the city in lieu of arriving bicyclists on a route from Monte Carlo. This forced us into a detour that was crowded to put it lightly. It was only by the skin of my teeth that we managed to navigate through that mess to an alternate route recommended by the GPS. After 40 minutes, we arrived at the precipice of this alternate doorway to Eze, only to have it slammed in our faces by the local police, who had closed off that entry - AGAIN for the stupid bike tour! A U-turn and a desperate move towards the highway direction led us on what seemed like a legitimate detour route, which we followed. This route got us to within ten kilometres of our destination, up a steep and winding mountainside. You know what though?... closed... this time I was screwed over a little extra as my beautiful Peugeot diesel manual engine valiantly failed to engage after having to stop in the middle of an extremely steep graded road. Four tries edged me closer and closer backwards toward the car behind me. With cars beginning to grow impatient, honking ensued as the thick sweat began to drip from my face. It was at this moment that my fantastic wife recalled something her Dad had told her about getting up a steep grade in cases such as what we found ourselves in. His method was simple, turn on the engine but leave the parking brake on. Get into gear and begin to rev to a decent RPM, and then slowly release the parking brake. This concept requires a fair bit of mental concentration surprisingly, as there are few things in play, but thinking calmly I was able to enact this method with supreme skill, and once again our car moved forward in what was a joyously excited moment for Linds and I. Of course, after that we had to turn around again and go back, defeated by yet another failed route.
At this point I was not all that happy. Our day was slipping away, and we seemed destined not to make it into Eze, let alone get out of that crazy city. At that moment I was decided, we were going to head north back to the highway and get out of this craziness. Once back on the highway, after another twenty minutes wasted, we found ourselves one exit away from Eze... ... ... at this point my original sixth sense proved correct, we should have just stayed on the highway. Whatever, spilt milk, we didn't cry but just kept moving - finally breathing a sigh of relief thinking we would finally get into Eze. We got off at the exit, made it to within three minutes of our hotel, and guess what... yup... THAT'S RIGHT! We got turned around by more police. I was ready to 'flip a table and piss on it' at that point (that's a Michael Kazmaier-ism... it's genius really). I pleaded with the officer in my crappy french, but he politely said it would not be possible to go into Eze at all for the next few hours. At this point, a mere few kilometres from Monte Carlo, we decided to say screw it with Eze, and we went straight into Monaco after turning 40 minutes to go into about two and a half hours wasted.
Once we were moving again though, all the stress began to slowly dissipate. It was hard to be upset when the steep mountainside city of Monte Carlo, physically touching the clouds at some heights, was so stinking beautiful. The winding roads are so much fun to drive on, especially having been baptised with such roads throughout France, and really knowing our car at this point. I can see why Europeans love F1 Racing, and why some of the most famous race tracks are in some of these cities on their main roads.
We made our way through the city towards a point of interest that is the reason I wanted to come to Monte Carlo so badly: the Oceanographic Museum and Aquarium. If you've seen the pictures on Facebook, I really don't need to say much more. This place was incredible! So much so, in fact, that the entire stresses of the day evaporated into a feeling of "this was so worth it". We spent a few hours window shopping through the massive aquariums and sea-life they had stored here. This place had Jacque Cousteau on their payroll, amongst many other famous explorers who collected these specimens for display and study. We saw some things I had never imagined before existing, and it quickly became clear to me where George Lucas get's his ideas for alien creatures and their appearances.
After enjoying our time there, we decided to tour the city, making the famous Monte Carlo Casino our destination. We walked along their boardwalk which serves as frontrow seating to the worlds largest collection of MASSIVE luxury yachts. The bay of sorts is LINED with at least 30 huge yachts which simply dock along the boardwalk. No security, no typical harbor, just boardwalk with yachts docked alongside and little bridges extended from each yacht. It was so cool. It's become my life long dream to own a massive yacht, and make Monte Carlo my personal playground like all the other super wealthy owners so evidently do. It was beautiful there, far more than I had anticipated. The water, the city, everything, it was so nice.
We made our way to the Casino, which was a beautiful building, saw some of the most expensive cars in the world just parked around, and even went inside. We feared we wouldn't pass muster in terms of the dress code, but they let us in. That was as far as we went though, as to enter the real casino, you need to buy a pass for about 15 Euro's a piece. It makes sense I suppose, as it keeps us tourists out, and lets the serious gamblers concentrate. We peeked into the main room though, which was much smaller than I had imagined, but far more magnificient at the same time. The room looks like a palaces throne room. It's beautiful.
Afterwards we made our way back to the boardwalk, and found a nice italian restaurant that looked popular. I've found that if a restaurant in Europe is packed, it's usually a good indication you're going to have a great meal. It proved accurate here as well. We enjoyed a relaxing meal, walked along the boardwalk back to our parking area, and made our way to the hotel in Eze finally, sometime around 9pm-ish.
This time we made it into the hotel without any trouble, and enjoyed a unique backdrop of steep mountainsides, dotted with lights, and roads. Our hotel is physically built onto a steep side, with every room supposedly having a view over the Mediteranean Sea. It's beautiful. The view is beyond anything I've ever seen, so much so that I haven't the words to describe it. I've managed some pictures that attempt to capture it's beauty, but they don't come close. I'm trying to burn this image into my head as I enjoy a glass of cognac, but I fear it will remain a ghost of the view I'm seeing right now.
All in all, a fantastic day depsite the time wasted, and the energy spent. Tomorrow we start a brand new chapter in our travels: Italy. The border is right beside Monaco, so we're practically in Italy right now. Tomorrow takes us to the historic city of Lucca, once the capitol of Tuscany. I'm really interested to go there, as a few of our friends have spoken highly of it. We'll see. To be honest though, I think I want to stay here forever. I mean that, it's that beautiful. Well, in practicing my Italian, arrivederci, buona notte. Pics can be viewed from this link here.
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