I have heard second hand that not everyone can post a comment. Can someone with this issue screenshot the error message and email it to ipad@jewell.id.au?
Unfortunately this is one-way email, I can’t reply. If I can see what the issue is I might be able to change something in the setup to fix it.
Thanks, Steve J.
Italy begone, we’re in the Confoederatio Helvetica now (Switzerland for the rest of us). We crossed the Alps around lunchtime and left Italy behind.
This will be a short post, as we spent most of the day entrained and I’m sure you don’t need a blow-by-blow description of that. We noted that we have been on 4 different Italian trains, and they have all been totally different. The first, from Rome to Florence, was the best: more room, better seats, more room for luggage, the WiFi actually worked.
No photos from the train trip. If you want to see two beautiful locations I would recommend Stresa in Italy and Spies in Switzerland. These towns are nestled alongside big lakes. Very impressive. I could happily live at either of these.
There is an immediate and noticeable difference between Italy and Switzerland. Mown grass. Switzerland from the train looked neat and trim. Very green, very tidy. No wonder these guys produce good watches, I couldn’t see the Swiss being satisfied with close enough.
I can’t tell you much about Bern yet, I am still working it out. This evening we will decide what to do tomorrow.
Bye, Steve J.
A few photos of Bern to keep you amused in the interim:
No, not really, it was a great day. The headline was Milly’s idea, she may still be delirious. The girls have rated today as the “best yet”, so it must have been okay. Or it might have been because today was a serious shopping day. How serious? Well, I need to go back at work on Monday, so reasonably serious.
The good news is Milly bounced back a bit and spent the whole day out out with us. She kept going to sleep on the bus and boat, but other than that she was back with us.
We got away early and bussed into Venice to catch the boat over to Murano. I’d never heard of the place but apparently they do a reasonable trade in glass ornaments and knick knacks. It turns out they do indeed turn out some half decent stuff. Who would have thought that I would have been entranced by glass baubles? They are very, very pretty. I even weakened and bought some really swish artistic pieces myself, see below.
Not satisfied with one island, after a short sojourn on Murano we embarked for Burano. Burano’s claim to fame is lace and coloured houses. Michelle bought lace and I took photos of coloured houses, so between us we had that covered.
The coloured houses look something like this:
Back to Murano to buy more glass and then home. Shame Milly didn’t really get to see Venice itself, but she was happy with what she did see.
It’s arrivederci to Italy now, as we catch a train at 8-something tomorrow morning and head for Switzerland. If we haven’t got what we want from Italy by now it’s too late. Next stop the chocolate capital of the world (it probably isn’t, however it’s close enough, so we are eating chocolate).
Some final (fresh) observations about Italy:
Okay, bye for now. Catch you in Switzerland. I feel a bit like James Bond – flitting about Europe, leaving Venice for a rendezvous in Switzerland. Only without the cool car, and no neat gadgets, and no georgeous woman (I have two! Beat that Jimmy!). Other than that….
Steve J.
More photos:
Some of the missing photos from Florence. The so-called captioning feature is a bit hit and miss, so if it hasn’t got a caption then forget it, it’s not getting one. Every time I try and correct the caption, something else screws up.
We left Florence this morning on the train (another drama for another time) and wound our way up country to Venice. We were met at the train station by the host of the apartment we are staying in – which was damned decent of him. The apartment is on the mainland, rather than in the lagoon – sort of in the suburbs. A bus stop is located just around the corner and takes you straight into Venice proper in about 15 minutes. This one is a very modern apartment, rather than the pieces of history we have been in up until now.
Milly is still not well, so she spent the afternoon in bed while Michelle and I wandered through Venice. I think she has past the peak, she is at least trying to eat. Hopefully she will be sightseeing in earnest on the morrow.
We did out usual trick, starting at the bus terminal in Venice we more or less wandered in no particular direction for a couple of hours, photographing interesting things and looking in the shops. If I wanted a mask to go to a ball, this would be the place. But I don’t, so it isn’t. Lots of nice stuff though. Lots of large numbers on the price tags. No hawkers in Venice?! Maybe there just isn’t room for them, as the so called streets (not the canals) are so narrow that you can’t really fall over, you would just fall against a wall.
We managed to find all the usual tourist haunts: the Rialto Bridge, Piazza San Marco and the Doges’ Palace. The Rialto Bridge was under restoration, so no photos. An interesting thing about building restorations over here is that the facades are covered in scaffolding and hessian (as you might expect), however the hessian is printed with a facsimile of the building underneath. At a glance you don’t even realise that it has been hoarded over. It doesn’t even show up in photographs unless you look carefully. What a great initiative, maintaining the sense of history and culture even when under renovation.
By the time we got to Piazza San Marco we’d had enough of walking. Even with out map we weren’t sure if we could find our way back before dawn, so we jumped on a water bus and cruised down the Grand Canal back to the bus terminal. This is a very good way to see a large part of Venice, not exactly in comfort though as they don’t seem to have any limit on the number they are prepared to jam onto the boat.
Fortunately Milly was still alive when we got home, so all good. Tomorrow we might take a boat trip to Murano and Burano.
All for now, it’s late.
Cheers, Steve J.
Q. How do you make a Venetian blind? A. Throw sand in his eyes.
Just for the sake of it, more photos.
Michelle lurking around another gondola
Firstly, an apology. The camera ran out of battery on the upload, so there are no photos. I will do a special photo post tomorrow. Or whenever I manage to get some more AAs. I thought I put the power cable in, but no it’s the AV-out cable.
Milly is still sick, only sicker. She has huge tonsils and fever, on top of runny nose and cough. We thought maybe we should take her to a doctor and get some antibiotics, as it would be a shame to lose her so early in the trip. Seemed simple enough, there’s a red cross on the map, that must be a hospital. And within a stone’s throw of one of the bus stops. Couldn’t be easier, so we caught the very first hop on-hop off bus of the day (with a convenient stop a few hundred metres from the apartment) and sped off.
Needless to say we couldn’t find a hospital at the marked location, as there wasn’t one. We did find a sign pointing in the direction of a hospital so we walked that way, hopeful. I won’t bore you with the details, except to say that we have seen a lot of Florence that we hadn’t planned on seeing. We started out from home at 9am and about 1 pm we were finally at a hospital. Fortunately the hospital was the easy bit, only a 15-minute wait and 15€ later we had a script and were back on the streets. Shortly thereafter we had the much needed antibiotics and a bus home. It was a good move getting a 2-day ticket for the HOHO bus, we have got value from that.
The doctor confirmed the tonsillitis diagnosis (which wasn’t hard) and suggested Milly might have pneumonia as well!
Michelle thought she had better stay with Milly during the afternoon. Being the devoted family man I am, I abandoned them and went back into the city to look around some more. I walked up and down every interesting side street I could find, and there are a lot of them. Florence is quite a contrast to Rome, as the city is comprised entirely of tiny little streets and mainly pedestrian traffic. It’s also much cleaner. Everyone in Italy seems to smoke and in Rome it shows, as there are cigarette butts everywhere. Much less so in Florence.
Navigating around Florence city centre is reasonable easy, as whenever you look up you can see either the Florence Cathedral or the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio. This will make more sense when I post the photos, or when you look it up. I ventured into the Cathedral and marvelled at its octagonal dome. I really do recommend you Google it because it is quite fascinating. The photos won’t do it justice. The dome doesn’t start until 50-odd metres off the ground, then the dome itself is 40-odd metres high which adds up to a sore neck when you try and take photos from the ground. I didn’t climb the bell tower, which claims to have 400+ steps. I don’t really do steps unless I have to, especially more than 400 of them.
Being an engineer at heart, stopping to photograph interesting bridges wherever I come across them, I was more than a little taken with the Ponto Vecchio. I have about 100 photos of it that I am happy to share, plus a little statuette thing as well. I mean, it’s a bridge, much more important and impressive than a silly church.
The latest news is Milly is hanging in there and has ordered gelato for dinner, so she must be okay. We ate at the little restaurant over the road, meaning about 5 metres from the front door. We are off to Venice tomorrow so I’d better get some more batteries ASAP. I suspect there will be some bridges needing documenting.
Until then, arrivederci.
Steve J.
for those of you who are too impatient to read the whole thing – a short summary: Left Rome, arrived Florence. Bye for now.
For those of you with more patience:
Woke up this morning and packed our bags ready for the short walk (bit over a km) from the apartment to the railway station, only to find it pouring rain. Our host, Aldo, rang us a taxi. Turns out he and his wife own the whole building (about 8 apartments) although he doesn’t live there, he has an apartment elsewhere in Rome. His wife’s family has owned the building since at least the 1930s. They are gradually renovating the apartments. No complaints at all, happily recommend the location and Aldo.
The train trip from Rome to Florence was over in an hour and a half, which was a shame as we were travelling first class and I could really get used to that. It was largely wasted on me though as I kept dropping off to sleep.
A tip for visitors to Rome’s Termini train station, be wary of friendly people who want to help you. Although it sounds like a lovely gesture, it probably isn’t. We were puzzling over which platform we needed to be on when a friendly, helpful young woman offered advice and insisted on showing us where the platform was, although we had worked it out in the meantime. Then she insisted that we owed her a 5€ tip for the assistance. Should have known better, she was an Indian lass and it would be equally suspicious if an Italian popped up at a train station in New Delhi to provide advice.
The taxi from Florence station to our new digs was another adventure. Very little traffic, but huge numbers of pedestrians in central Florence and I’m sure the taxi driver wanted to scare the bejesus out of as many of them as he could. Another nice little apartment, which is directly behind a church. I am going to go out there and wring that bell ringer’s neck before we leave on Monday though. We have only been here a few hours and he’s already annoying me, ringing the bells every 5 minutes. Maybe tomorrow will be quieter, being Sunday and all…
Today was another day of wandering around amazing cobbled streets and marvelling at very old buildings and old bridges, plus looking at an array of statues with willys. Tomorrow we will go and see the real statue of David. We also did a lap of the city on the hop on – hop off bus and they are happy to go up even smaller streets than the buses in Rome. Who needs drugs when you can get this kind of adrenalin rush?
That’s all for today.
Cheers, Steve J.
The time has come, we leave tomorrow morning. We have to get ourselves packed and up to the Terminus, ready to catch a train at 10am so there won’t be time for sightseeing.
Today was an interesting mix, with a few changes of plan because Milly is as sick as a dog. Head cold and temperature, hope she hasn’t caught flu. After finding a chemist and dosing her up with everything at hand, Michelle and I headed out for a few hours on our own.
We walked down to the Piazza Venezia and had a good look over the monument to Victor Emmanuelle I. It’s quite spectacular. The display of regimental flags inside is very extensive, although after the first 20-odd variations of the Italian flag they all started to look the same. Not sure that Milly would have been impressed, so she was better off in bed.
After a few days and a lot of walking we are getting fairly used to the layout of the city. We have hit 20,000+ steps every day so far.
After lunch we dragged Milly out of bed and down to the Vatican. It seemed a bit sacrilegious to be in Rome and not at least have a look. We went through the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. Because we didn’t really do our research, are not in the least religious and know next to nothing about the Pope or the Vatican, we skipped the really long line for entry to St Peter’s Basilica. That was a mistake. We will have to do that one on the next trip.
It poured rain when we were in St Peter’s Square and the first drops had hardly hit the ground when all the hawkers selling selfie sticks and ice water were suddenly selling ponchos and umbrellas. Very impressive businessmen.
A summary of how I found Rome, based on extensive on-ground testing and very little research:
That’s all. Bring on Florence.
Steve J.
About to leave the flat and find a hop on – hop off bus to start the day. Probably head for Vatican first up before the crowds. Yesterday it was quite pleasant before lunch, the crowds really picked up in the afternoon though. I don’t fancy the ticket line after lunch.
Apparently shopping is also on the agenda today.
That’s it for now. It’s only 8am. I’ll update this entry this evening.
Back again. The sightseeing bus is another thing worth doing early. We were first on the first bus. By the time it was halfway around the loop it was full. We hopped off at the Trevi Fountain for some essential shopping then struggled to get back on again an hour later. The lineups at some of the stops would have taken several empty buses to clear. Those people were in for a long wait.
The blog app is having a moment. If it would let me add a caption it would read “Marcus Aurelius column”, but it won’t so it could be anything you want. If you want to know more about the column I’ll have to refer you to Google, as this is a travel blog not a history lesson.
The shopping hasn’t lived up to expectations so far. The only things that have been purchased thus far are a t-shirt and a couple of postcards. I think our problem is that we don’t really want anything in particular and impulse buying is tempered by the prices. That will change.
This caption should read “typical street down which a bus can easily pass – at speed”.
The Vatican has been postponed until tomorrow and begs some further research. The lineup at 9:30am looked like it was a kilometre long, no exaggeration. We spent some time at the Piazzo Venezia and looked through the Santa Maria in Aracoeli church on Capitaline Hill. Some famous people are buried here dating from prior to 1500s.
I don’t know what this is, we’ll call it “another church and another column, in Rome”. Turns out its Trajan’s column on which Marcus Aurelius’ column is modelled. Thank you Google. Still don’t know what the church is. Note the building on the left. It’s being renovated. The hoarding is painted hessian, so as not to detract from the normal streetscape.
We continue to be amused and bewildered by the traffic in Rome. It could be best described as chaotic. The bus trip was like having a ring-side seat to traffic bloopers. I understand why the council doesn’t bother fixing up all the bent and broken or defaced traffic signs – nobody follows them. It is amazing where a bus will fit. A lot of cars seem to have scrapes down the side, so obviously it doesn’t always work out well.
Bought some groceries this afternoon to trim back the food costs. Beer was 1.50€ for a 66 cL (660 mL) bottle at the supermarket, compared to 6€ for 40 cL at the sidewalk cafes. I don’t expect that you will see a lot of public drunkedness at 6€ a glass. And yes beer is a grocery item.
We’re going to give the bus another go about 7pm, to see what the place looks like in the evening.
Went back, did another lap on the bus, all are now nervous wrecks from the number of near misses. The only thing we stopped to look at was the Circus Maximus, scene of chariot racing and the Ben Hur movie. Milly didn’t know who Ben Hur was (nor I think cares). We walked around the track but no one wanted a race, which makes me the winner by default.
Carp Diem,
Steve J.
Wow. It’s been a big day. We have seen about half the city and all on foot. Milly’s FitBit recorded 21,000 steps, Michelle’s recorded something like 24,000 (shorter legs). Our feet can confirm that there were a lot. We have promised ourselves that tomorrow will start with a bus tour of the city, with no walking involved until we do the Vatican.
The day started with the Coliseum (or Colosseum). The place is amazing. Apart from the size and ingenuity of it all, I wonder at the abilities of the Romans. We think that we are very clever in this day and age with all our technology, however I think the Romans had an edge on us. The whole thing was built without the aid of any computer-aided structural analysis and not a union organiser in sight. Still it was built and what’s more I bet the MCG won’t last nearly as long as this thing. A couple of hours very well spent.
We then wandered around the Roman Forum archeological site and the Palantino. The sheer size of the site was impressive, as was the fact that every second staircase ended in thin air, providing a hint as to the original extent of the buildings. They were impressive enough in their dilapidated state.
By about midday we were tired and thirsty and retired to a cafe outside the Roman Forum. The water fountains dotted around are a great idea, as there aren’t any other form of refreshment within the site. Also no toilets. Fortunately it was hot and we drank nowhere near enough so the lack of toilets wasn’t a factor.
After lunch (composed entirely of gelato) we decided to wing it and just wandered up and down the myriad of interesting side streets. We managed to stumble across the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Italian Parliament, Piazza Navona and a whole lot of other things I’ve never heard of.
After we had tired of this we found ourselves at the River (Fiume Tevere) and decided to turn around and head back. I wonder which way that is? After another hour of aimless wandering – bordering on hopelessly lost – we were reduced to buying a map as some of the instructions provided by the locals seemed dubious. Using the GPS on the phone would have been a good option if it had worked. Must look into that.
It appeared we had walked northwest in a straight line for about 5 kms. How is it that, if lost in a desert you wander in circles (a well known fact learnt from Hollywood movies) but if you try and wander in a circle you head off in a straight line?
All in all a fairly good day. Something got itself smeared on the lens of the camera about 1:30pm, so I’ll have to go back to some of those places and retake the photos (maybe). I didn’t notice the smear as, without reading glasses, the whole preview screen looks blurry, so one blur more or less wasn’t that obvious.
Enough for now, sleep beckons.
Steve J