Arrivederci Roma

Dad would be proud of me, I had a double gelati today, with whipped cream.

What do you do in Rome when your plane leaves at 22:00 hours?  Well, from my point of view – you start by having your fill of the free breakfgast at the hotel.  Then you go and get a bigliette regionale for 4 euro, this allows travel on all trains trams and buses all day, that way the eternal city is your oyster.

Beautiful, just there between two fairly ordinary buildings

I first went to St peter’s just for a look before the crowds got there, and then back to the Hotel for a shower and pack.  After that, bus to Palazzo Venezia to look at the art, mind you, the building was spectacular.  Then bus back to the Hotel to pick up my hat as the rain had stopped and the sun was out.

From Palazzo Venezzia, Madonna with her boob out.  You don't see many of those.

Lunch time by then and no excuse for not having pizza, then off to the  Villa Medici, via Piazza Barberini and Spagna.  You can only get in to the garden, and then only on a tour, and the next English tour was tomorrow, so I missed out again.  Had a nice walk though and the double gelati I was talking about.  From there back to Termini along via Nationale and off to Piazza Vittorio Emanuelle because I hadn’t been there before.  A nice ruin and there was a festival on, expressing pride in the European Union.  At least that is what I thought, and you can understand why with big signs saying ‘European Pride’ on the gates.  After a quick exit I ducked down to San Maria de Maggiore for a hello then back up to Termini via another quick hello to another Maria (delgeti Angeli or whatever it is).  Early dinner of gnocchi in four cheese sauce at my favourite Bar Viminale then back to the hotel for the luggage.

Crapping myself the Amalfi way

I looked for a day trip from Rome, and eventually settled on the Amalfi coast.  What a good choice even if I do say so myself.  Beautiful, a bit like Lake Como but with sea and you can swim.  3 hour train to Salerno, then a half hour on the ferry to Amalfi.  Glorious scenery and a perfect day.

Caught the ferry there and a bus back to Salerno in the afternoon.  Not sure if that was a good idea.  The road hugs the cliffs, sometimes hundreds of meters above the water.  Returning to Salerno, driving on the right hand side is always on the 'drop' side and I was sitting right on the relevant window.

                                          Loved this sign on the Amalfi ferry, it was how it worked too


Goodness it is beautiful though.  And a lovely swim, not quite as warm as Tel-Aviv, but you need a bit of coolness to be refreshed.  I am amazed how much Europeans sunbake without water.  Obviously the Italians at Amalfi have water but the central Europeans seem to sunbake everywhere there is grass to lie on.  I guess they don't see that much sun.

The ferry ride was great, the views were stunning and there are also lots of sea caves to imagine pirate treasure in.  On the ferry was some kind of celebrity couple, I don't know who, not Italian, and she was the bigger celebrity.  A photo crew kept taking photos of them in different poses, and were still with them later in Amalfi.  I didn't see them near this fountain though, which has an interesting alternative to the common motif of cherub boy peeing.

Lovely cathedral at Amalfi with a museum of treasures and the Basillica of Saint Andrew the apostle (or disciple I can't remember which).  Lots of little alleys and lots and lots and lots and lots of steps.
I went for a swim at the beach, ate a bag of fresh cherries and discovered another nice food, arancini, rice balls with cheese and ham or whatever, covered in breadcrumbs and fried.  The further up the alley you go the cheaper they get.

Scary bus ride back to Salerno and hot train ride back to Rome.  Yes folks its hot here.  Did I say I went swimming?  Did I mention mid twenties Celsius?

'Appy on the Appian Way

You can't beat Rome, you really can't.  Despite the crowds and the dirt.  You can get a bus to Trastevere in the evening, discover ancient city gates you had never seen and go past the Colosseum all lit up on the way back.  You can hop on a train and a bus in the morning and be on the Appian Way.  The queen of the long roads in its day,  now a peaceful rural road in the midst of Rome, with ancient villa ruins and newer (medieval and on, but not post 1900) villas still inhabited.  Plus the tourist sites.  Many people, both local and tourist, were on bikes or jogging.  I bet the bikes were uncomfortable over those paving stones.  Would rattle more than your bones I reckon.

I went to the Saint Callista catacombs.  Amazing.  Layer upon layer of dead Christians.  Some buried in family crypts, some in single graves.  Some famous like 16 popes and numerous assorted saints.  There are levels and passage ways and little places where the ancient Christians could pray.  You get to see a couple of remaining bodies.  There is another set down the road at Saint Sebastian, where there is a church.  I didn't see a church at St Callista.   - this may be because it dates from the time before Christians could worship openly, or it could be I just missed it.  I don't know who St Callista was or what was done in the name of St Callista to deserve sainthood.  I do know that the toilets were free, - that in itself is a miracle in Rome.

                                          View of St Peter's from the battlements of Castel San Angelo

Went from there to Castel San Angelo.  It was good.  Started raining just after I got in.  You have to wait until enough people had left before you get in.  There was a really old building, some furnished rooms, frescoes, some great paintings, stories of intrigue and plotting, and great views.  Just my thing.

Went back to the hotel after that.  They do try bless them, but they really have no idea.  It is run by a couple of young blokes.  The little touches are definitely missing, like a third coat hanger, or a light switch you can reach from the bed.  It rained constantly from then on until I decided to brave it and go to Trastevere anyway.  Rain stopped shortly after I'd gone out and got meself wet.

                                       Square Trastevere, more crowded than it looks I swear


Found a lovely little Restaurant with a cheap tourist menu and sat down.  Fantastic spinach and cheese ravioli with a butter and sage sauce.  Tripe Romano didn't taste, look or feel like tripe to me (more like meat).  They took it back and gave me a plate of veges.  Then panacotta for desert.  Delicious!  Never had it before but will be having it again.

WhosawWarsaw? IsawWarsaw!

Guess where I went straight after I had checked in to my hotel this evening?

I am in two minds about the effort required to have a quick stop-over squizz at a city.  If I hadn't been to Eastern Europe then definitely a few hours in Warsaw is worth it.  There is a different feel to Krakow and a different style of building.  More colourful I think.  Not quite as impressive from my perspective, but that may be a Hobart/Launceston thing.

My other mind says - anything is better than hanging around an airport for four hours.  So it is unanimous.

Warsaw seems to be a much more modern metropolis than Krakow.  Krakow airport, by the way, was a large tin shed.  A bit like Launceston before the upgrade, or Hobart airport in the 60s.  Warsaw is much more up to date, and their central railway station is a magnificent modern piece of architecture.  It is easy to see where the infrastructure money is going.

                                                             Krakow Airport


In Warsaw I caught the airport bus to the centre of Old Town.  The ex-Pope is really big here, literally!

Attractive old town.  Perhaps not as mystical as Krakow or Prague.

It is nice to get a look around before all the junk shops open.  On the way back to the airport I saw a magnificent early to mid 20th century building.  History says it must be pre-WW2 I think.  It looked like that New York building that movies always seem to use as the site of the residence of the mega rich mega evil nemesis of the hero.  I think an Australian media-baron lived there in real life.

When I arrived here in Rome I went straight to the fountain from my hotel, which is on what might be called the "African" side of Termini.  I went via my favourite street corner, El Quattrocento Fontane, naturally.  Then I went around to the cafe/restaurant near the Opera house, where I had risotto au funghi previously, and had risotto au funghi.  Yum.  On the way to the fountain I was disappointed at how dirty and seedy Rome was, but the feeling didn't last long.  One look at that fountain, and the throng and the mess and noise just melt away!!!!!!

Krakow hotel is fantastic.  Big bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, price of a reasonably cheap hotel.  Old and quaint but renovated well.  50 metres from a big shopping gallery (don't ask how long it took me to find a supermarket.  Why on earth would you put it on the top floor?)  The main train station is the other side of the gallery as is the bus station.  10 metres the other way is the main drag that leads to the gate and the barbican, about 50 metres on.  The only problem is I can't find the tennis on the tele.

Better view from the train this morning than it was from the sleeper.  But a different train trip today.  Went to Oswiecim. German name Auschwitz.  Train ride is about 2 hrs from Krakow.  The country is definitely more unkempt than Czech and much older and drabber infrastructure.  Won't even begin to compare with Germany.  When I arrived in Szczecin from Hoffbahn in Berlin I expected something a little flash.  Instead the station was more like Narrandera  main station in the 80s, than a major European border crossing and connection point.  Even the main station in Krakow is only now getting an update.  Mind you, this innaction is probably what saved the Old Town.  Much less English spoken here too, though a great winningness from most people to try and interpret sign language.  Unlike German and Latin languages you can't pick up a word here and there to help the conversation along.  I usually just add 'en' to each word and hope for the best,  "speaken de Englishen?" - (change the 'en' to an 'a' for southern Europe).  Like Japan, Turkey and the rest of Eastern Europe there are many many classes of schoolchildren out and about with their brave teachers.  I don't know why we don't take school kids more places more often.  We just spout crap about "authentic learning".

Got the bus back from Auschwitz, it was a long trip but took us through the more well tended sides of towns and houses.  What a claim to fame Auschwitz has to live with, there are thousands of tourists everyday but no real souvenir trade.  Not even ex-Africans selling Gucci ripoffs.  The town has a historic Old Town etc but not many people stay and those that do don't celebrate their holiday much.

The camp was originally Polish army barracks and the buildings are quite solid brick structures.  A German soldier took many photos that were found and preserved.  These are displayed along with some paintings done by survivors, of which there weren't many.  When people arrived by train they were 'selected' to live to work for the Nazis or to die immediately in the gas chambers.  It is impossible to imagine what this was like.  Most had no idea what kind of a place they had arrived at, despite their treatment in the Ghettos or while under arrest.  There is a photo of a soldier gicving the 'die' signal about an old man who is unaware of what is going on.  There is another blurred photo of a group of children heading off to the gas chamber, blissfully unaware.

In one of the ex women's barracks are some of the collections left from Auschwitz.  These are just what hadn't been disposed of when the camp was liberated.  It really brings home how many people were involved and how Nazis wanted to remove the humanity and hope from these people.  There are rooms filled with shoes and others with clothes or combs and brushes.  A dreadful display shows suitcases, many of them  named in the hope of a better future in this place they had come to.  There are rooms of hair, cut off to be used for cloth manufacture and mattress stuffing, showing how the prisoners were treated like stock rather than humans.

The most telling of the photos perhaps, is one of a group of men who had been 'selected' to live  (the photos of some of the women and children that Mengels and others had experimented on are unspeakable).  These men had been selected to live and it was only then that the Nazis told them about the place they had come to and destroyed their delusions.  They had thought they were coming to start a new life.  They, like we tourists, entered through the gate that has cast iron writing above it, saying in German "work brings freedom" or similar.  The photo catches them when they are told that they will all die there, that priests will live three months, Jews two and so on.  Stragglers are being beaten and there is realisation on the faces of the others that they have a death sentence.

After I left I waited for the bus in a park outside the camp.  There are a lot of trees in the park and their seeds were blowing about like thousands of dandelion bits.  It looked like it must have done 70 odd years ago with ash from the ovens floating down over the same ground.

Dumplings mit liver and grits

Not mit cucumber but, no way!

This Polish restaurant also served an interesting take on garlic butter to go with bread.  It was dripping with black pepper and garlic cloves in it.  I suspect that the garlic was lightly roasted as it was sweet and tender.

The outlook from the train wasn’t as picturesque as Czech Republic or even Germany.  The countryside was nice but the buildings tended to be drab and many more of them than I expected were unkempt.  There were also huge industrial chimneys spewing out smoke in a way that is no longer allowed further west.  To be fair the outskirts of Krakow and some other places showed signs of recent prosperity

Krakow is very special.  Particularly as far as old towns go.  The wall is still up and the buildings are in great nick.  Not as crowded as Prague, perhaps not quite as pretty but definitely as quaint.  The square is the largest in Europe, 200 metres by 200 metres.  There is a huge hall in the middle and a big tower off to one side of it.

                                             Cloth hall in the middle of the rinek 

Went to Polish Museum of Art which was quite impressive, then after lunch went to the castle.  Krakow and Warsaw seem to have a bit of a Hobart/Launceston thing going on.  As Warsaw is the current capital, I am going for Krakow.

Toured the state rooms of the castle and the private apartments this time.  Quite interesting especially as there has been no king for ages.  Lots of Gothic and Renaissance sections that haven't been baroqued.  It is well preserved though I think and certainly up there with Prague's.  

                                                Cathedral in the castle

On the way out I left via the Dragon’s Cave.  You go down the steps inside a round tower of the castle, to below ground level.  There you enter a number of underground caves leading eventually to an exit by the river.  Very Merlin.

Then on the way back through the Old Town I saw a fakir among then street performers.  This one was hovering above his mat with only a walking stick to support him.  15 minutes later he was still there.

The return of paranoid Russell

Several rail changes on my way to my sleeper train from Szczecin to Krakow.  Not a good thing for paranoid Russell.  Seven minute change overs especially.  Paranoid Russell likes to get there a long time before the journey starts and to ask at least three people in uniform if he has the right vehicle, the right time and the right destination.

‘What the hec’ Russell likes to front up whenever and see what happens.  You don’t see much of ‘what the hec’ Russell these days.  It was bad enough when my ticket from Prague to Berlin said one station and my landlords in Prague said another.   Got nthere anyway and set off for Berlin.  The scenery is glorious.  When you cross in to Germany it is just as pretty though a little more manicured.  I was surprised at the amount of rural land in Germany.  Lots of villages naturally, but quite a lot of farmland.  The farms actually get to what seems like Australian size up north on the way to Poland.

                                                    tour group at site of Hitler's bunker
                  

I get ahead of myself though, back to Berlin.  Arrived at the Hapbahnhoff in plenty of time.  It is huge, several floors of shops and train platforms and business etc.  After a bit of a struggle I found luggage lockers, instructions for later in the day and a ticket to Brandenburgh tor, which has its own special little railway.  Hopped on and got off in plenty of time for the Sandeman’s free tour of Berlin..

The tour started at the Brandenburg gate obviously, and the Reichstag, and included a view of the French Embassy, the USA Embassy and the Hotel where Micheal Jackson dangled his kid over the balcony.  It then moved on to the old Luftwaffe headquarters which was a GDR government building too.  It has some really colourful propaganda art attached, and then we went on to the remains of the Berlin Wall and then to a fake Checkpoint Charlie.  Tourists are so interested in it that the Berliners rebuilt it complete with fake US soldiers.

After that we went to some more monumental buildings and the site of Hitler’s bunker.  The guided do these tours for tips only and are always entertaining and knowledgeable.  YOU end up handing over close to what you would for paid tour, but get much better bang for your buck.

After the tour time for the gallery, and then halfway through floor one paranoid Russell returned.  Was an hour long enough to get back to the station and get all the double checking done?  Did I really know the way?

Got  there in good time anyway, and got the train.  Next leg was to Angermunde and the train was packed.  No reservations and the aisles were chocka.  I was lucky enough to get a seat because I noticed the locals pushing in and not being polite, so I did the same.  After a stop ½ hour out of Berlin, the extras thinned out a little.  The train was late and the change over at Angermunde was 7 minutes.  Guess who was worried?  Shouldn’t have been, the next train is a specific service and waits for the connections.

This is where the land flattened out considerably and there were many windmills on the horizon. After a little while we passed in to a large forest and the train  stopped at what looked like a bus stop to let two passengers off.  Then I spotted another of these stations with a name that most Peters I know would love to see. 

Finally arrived in Szczecin with 2 hours to spare.  Went for a walk, had a bite to eat and didn’t get mugged.  Each of which felt like an achievement.