Europe 2nd Trip - Rome, Italy (Day 6)

30th Oct 2013, Wednesday, Sunny

Borghese Gallery

Today, we are going to see the Borghese Gallery and the reservation made to enter the gallery was on 11 am. So i got to wake up a bit later, and the breakfast was delivered at around 7.30 am. The same breakfast was served, but we got 3 additional pastry that we bought last night. Out of 3, only the tiramisu tasted better..hahaha....After the breakfast, we just rested in the room until the time was ripe to make our way down to the gallery. Then we went to take the metro down to the station near the gallery, then we still need to walk a 10 to 15 mins distance to the Borghese Gardens. As we were walking to the gardens, we saw the road cleaning truck and it was like mini size too. And i asked the stupid question by saying that even the cleaning truck was mini size in Italy. My friend just suan mi saying that the roads in Italy were small, so their vehicles need to be small too. If too big, how to drive around? -_-"...When we reached the garden, it was very big, so we took a stroll slowly while making our way to the gallery.It was so nice to walk in the park, as it was windy and wasn't hot. There was even a playground, i just ran towards to the swing to play for awhile... ^_^..... After this, we continued our way up to the gallery. Once we reached the gallery, it was still early before we can enter. So we walked outside the gallery and waited for the time to be up. There was a choo choo train too, to let people take around the park and there was even security officers riding horses patrolling around. Finally, it's time to go in the gallery, we went and deposited our bags and got the audio guide, then we made our way to the entrance. But we still need to wait for like 10 mins, cos the staff were still asking the people from the earlier slot to leave the gallery before we can enter.

Apollo & Daphne (Taken from Web)

The gallery has a large private collection of arts by Cardinal Scipione Borghese and has 2-storey high of paintings and sculptures. Photography was not allowed in the gallery, but it really had a few highlight paintings and sculptures worth to take a look. The gallery was so big and we were limited to 2 hours in the gallery....Didn't managed to finish the whole audio guide too....left a part behind when the announcement came to inform that the time is up (sadz.....). There was even 1 structure that was displayed on the wall....It was showing Marcus Curtius throwing himself into a chasm. On the 1st room we went into, up at the corner of the ceiling, the paintings was painted like 3D (as in you thought they were sculptures up in the ceiling, but actually they were all paintings which painted to look like 3D). After that, we went in rooms after rooms, there were a few highlighted sculptures to see. One of the highlights was Pauline Bonaparte, it was a beautiful lady sitting on a couch and the whole sculpture looked like it was real. You can even see the folds of the cloth and how the couch was pressed when the lady was laid on it. Another main highlight was the sculpture of Apollo and Daphne. It was very interesting when listening to the explanation from the audio guide, and you can see how Daphne was going to be transform into a tree by seeing her feet and hands as branches as she tried to flee from Apollo. 

Rape of Proserpina (Postcard)

The next one i like was the sculpture of Rape of Proserpina. You can actually see the firm grip of Pluto (powerful god of Underworld) on Proserpina (daughter of Ceres). It was so beautiful looking at all the sculptures. There was a sculpture on David, which was by Gian Lorenzo Bernini too but it was a smaller version (The super big version is at Galleria dell'Accademia, in Florence). There were also famous paintings displayed inside, like The Last Supper (by Jacopo Bassano), Deposition (by Raphael), Sacred and Profane Love (by Titian), and many more.

Time was up and we had to leave the gallery after 2 hours, then we went back down to return the audio guides and collected our bags. We got some postcards showing the masterpieces at the shop and then we had sandwiches for lunch at the cafe there, don't know why i can't even finish the sandwich....so big piece...-_-".....After the lunch, we made our way down to Colosseum. We took a super long way to the metro station, there were shops along the way too but they were all closed. We reached the Colosseum at around 2 plus and there was a lot of visitors too. Then we headed in to see the interior. As usual, 1 friend went off on her own to listen to Rick Steve's audio guide and mi and the other friend went ahead on our own without audio guide. Mi and my other friend were just snapping photos away of Colosseum, it was so nice to look at and the sky was very blue today too.

Colosseum (From inside)

It was a really big amphitheater and this was once where naval games and gladiators fighting held. But too bad, only this was what left after devastating earthquakes and stone-robbers...How nice would it be if the whole place was still intact (Maybe still can hold some events there). After walking the whole round of Colosseum, we made our way opposite to go to the Roman Forum. Just outside the Colosseum, the Arch of Constantine was there but half of it was under maintenance. But when we reached there, it was already closed but there was a side road where we can walk up and take a peek on the ruins of Forum. So we walked up to that road till we reached a small church. We just went in to take a rest. After the rest, we headed downhill as we need to go have dinner and get ready for our segway tour. Just about we reached the gate of the road, one of my friend tripped onto the gate stopper and landed my other friend a '熊掌' (bear slap) on her back...hahhaaa...so funny, the one got hit was ouching her way and even sent messages to our another friend (in Singapore) to complain. She was complaining it was painful...hahhaa....we all had a good laughter at that time but luckily, all was well, no fall no injuries (the road was made of stones, not so friendly) except a '熊掌'.

Theatre of Marcellus

After the laugh, we tried to make our way down to the tour agency for our segway tour. As we ended up arriving early there, we told the guide we are going for our dinner first. The guide was very friendly and he was ok with it. He even asked us to take our time. From the street of the agency, there was a square where there were a lot of restaurants. So we ended up with 1 that sells sandwiches and pastry, as to get a quick bite (named Clubkave). I had a sad dry ham and cheese sandwich, it wasn't very nice and it was quite dry. So I didn't finished it. After dinner, we went toilet and made our way back to the agency. It turned out we were the only 3 person on the tour, so the guide told us to leave our bags in his office and after he locked his office, he took us to the tree where he parked the segway. One of my friends had been very nervous on riding the segway, as she only rode it once. So the guide told her to keep calm and stay close to him, he will take care of her...hohohoo....After a 5 mins warm-up, we were off to start our tour, so the guide told us to stay in a single line, the guide as first person and i as the last person. And so we started our 3 hour ride, riding on the segways, we had fun riding from places to places around Rome city. One of my friend had her camera len cap dropped while riding and she even hit on an expensive brand motorbike and fell off from her segway (After that, she got a big blue-back bruise on her knee). After that, it was a smooth ride until the end of the tour. Some of the places we went were places we went on Monday and during the day, but just this time we had some explanation and story-telling from the guide. We had some group photos taken around the places too. At 1 point, when we were crossing the road, there was a car dashing out from the traffic light and i was crossing the road. Luckily, i crossed the road fast enough before the car came near mi. It was fun riding the segway around Rome and seeing the city in night view. The guide also brought us to a higher level, so that we can see Rome city from the top, and from far, the dome of St Peter's Basilica was seen clearly. And he also told us how pizza margherita came about and it resembled the Italian flag (it was amazing how the pizza was only with just 3 ingredients: red (tomato), green (basil), and white (mozzarella) and it can taste so good).

Trevi Fountain

On our way back, the guide showed us a fountain which was named Fontana delleTartarughe (also known as The Turtle Fountain). There were turtles on top of the fountain, like crawling in the water and there were dolphins too, at the lower part of the fountain. The guide told us that the one of the turtles was being stolen and so the other turtles was being replaced by copies now..haha...After this, we went back to the agency which ended our tour. We had a friendly chat with the guide and took photos with him too. After this, we decided to make our way down to Trevi Fountain (which i am glad that i went, although i was super tired).  On the way, we passed some souvenir shops and one of my friends got a gelato (euro $2.50) and we also got a crepe (euro $4,50) from Blue Ice. As usual, there were a lot of people when we reached there. I tried to take as much photos as possible on the Fountain, and then just sat down and looked at it. It was so big and grand, it really looked very beautiful. You can hear the water gushing down the fountain and it just feels so good sitting there looking at it. We even went down and tossed a coin into the fountain (A traditional legend holds that if visitors throw a coin into the Trevi Fountain, they are destined to return to Rome. To do: You need to take the coin in your right hand and toss over your left shoulder into the fountain). But i think i threw it over my right shoulder....so guessed might not be able to return Rome again...hahahaa......After the tossing, we went off to head back to our hotel, halfway, we passed by a McDonald's and we went in and got a Happy Meal (because of the Minion Toys). Then we went to the bus stop and waited for almost an hour for the bus to come. Finally, the bus came and we can go back to the hotel to rest for the day. Phew.....

Places missed to visit:

Spanish Steps

Roman Forum

Pantheon

Hotel Stayed:

Target Inn

Places Visited:
Borghese Gallery
Colosseum
Arch of Constantine
Roman Forum
Trevi Fountain (Italian: Fontana di Trevi)

Europe 2nd Trip - Pompeii, Italy (Day 3)

27th Oct 2013, Sunday, Cloudy

Rooftop Garden

Today we are going to visit the city of Pompeii, had to give up hiking Mount Vesuvius cos both of my friends were tired from yesterday's walking. So we woke up at 5 or 6 am plus, then prepared for breakfast. Ooo...the breakfast area was on a rooftop garden, it was so cooling to have breakfast there and can see the blue blue sky. They even have a small area for table tennis. The croissants were great too and there was a cute triangular pantry that we all love it when we had it the first time. I tried the yogurt too, it was apricot flavor. I love the red orange juice too, it was in red color..different from the normal orange color. It was nice!! And the ham was nice to go with the bread.

Metro Tickets

After we had the wonderful breakfast, we made our way out to Pompeii. We had to buy our metro tickets from the ticket machine, which was 'hiding' in a corner. It's a ticket for 90 mins, and gosh, the metro was damn slow..We took like almost an hour just to reach the main train station to take the circumvesuviana train. By the time we reached there and got our tickets, it was like 10 plus to 11 am. There were a lot of people taking the train too, we made our way down to the platform to catch our train. We had to wait for another 15 mins or so for our train. Finally, our train arrived and we all boarded, it was packed with people. There was no available seats, so we stood near to the door. Luckily, there were some seats empty after a few stations, we were able to sit down (legs tired from all the standing...hohoho). Along the way, was able to see Mount Vesuvius, it was so beautiful. After the long ride, we finally reached the station of Pompeii. There was a tourist guide counter just in front of the station and the staff were trying to get people to buy their tickets for their guided walk. We just went in straight to the main counter (which was at the entrance of the city) and got our tickets.

Steep road to enter the city

Here is a brief introduction on Pompeii:
Pompeii was an ancient Roman city that was once prosperous during its time. There were gladiators fighting in the theater and the people were still using horse chariots. But all these were gone after the city was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Now what is left are the ruins that you can see in the visit and try to understand how the people had lived at that time.

When you first passed the entrance, there was this very steep road that you need to walk up to enter the main city (which is the city gate). One of my friends went on her own, listening to the audio guide (which we downloaded from Rick Steve) whereas mi and another friend, we went in walking with the guide taken from the book. The road of the city were all built with big stones (basically, you can see 1 stone and 1 stone as the road, not like our normal road that were built with tar). I had to jump from stone to stone to walk around...hohoho...One of my friends had a fall when we were walking up to enter the city (hurt her ankle but luckily, it wasn't too serious...). Anyway, she continued on her walk, and mi and my another friend continued ours. The road really wasn't easy to walk around, had to jump from rock to rock. The city was super big and amazing....we tried to follow the self guided tour and went and see those highlighted sites. And there was this 3 bigger and higher stones on the road, they were used to let pedestrians to walk around the streets when the streets were filled with water (used for washing the streets). As we walked further in, there was a big main square, where the temple of Jupiter and the city hall stood. Then we went to see the Basilica and the fish and produce market. Inside the fish & produce market, there was a display of plastic molds of Pompeiians who were caught in the disaster. Behind the molds display, was a wall of pictures that was kept preserved. We walked abit further in the market, there was display of actual mummies of the Pompeiians. 

Stoves made of marbles (Fast Food Joint)

After some time, mi and my friend just got tired and hungry. We bought a slice of pizza and ate before we continued our journey again. I saw my friend when we were just continued walking, i asked my friend, "Isn't that person look familiar?"...hohoho....
Next, we continued walking down the streets and saw the fast food joint, where we can see the stoves made out of marble. Then we just continued walking and we ended up on a stairs that lead us to a higher ground that we had a high view of the city of Pompeii. We took some photos there and headed back down to the city again. We ended up at the House of Tragic Poet. Next, we walked till the House of the Faun, this house was the biggest house in the whole city of Pompeii. But 1 side of the house was closed off, there was a big complete picture (which was showing the battle of Alexandra, the original is currently displayed in the National Archeological Museum) on the floor at the courtyard. Then we continued walking on the streets again, we ended up at the theater, which we caught with our friend. We took a moment to sit around at the theater, i climbed all the way up to the top. And from there, you can actually see Mount Vesuvius at the left side. Too bad, it was too cloudy, the clouds were covering the volcano..not able to take a clear shot of it.

Seafood Pasta

Then we left to see the biggest house again (as my friend had not seen it), mi and the other friend tried to find the 2000 years old lead pipes. It was caged at one of back alley, it wasn't very noticeable. But it was definitely old lead pipes..hohohoho....Then my friend brought us to the public bath, the entrance was very dark, as it was getting dark. We went in and take a look, it was dark inside, with no much light. And there was a black dog sleeping inside too, can't even see it. The bath was further inside, it was soooo big. By the time we finished walking, it was already 5 plus and the sun had already set, it was getting dark.So we made our way back to Naples train station. The train back to Naples was also packed with people and while we were on the train, there was a group of teenagers, shouting around the train and were very anxious. Later, we saw some of them were running out the 1st station and some of them were running in to the train. There was like a big commotion but they were all speaking in Italian...don't understand, so got no idea what was happening. When the train reached to the 2nd or 3rd station, we saw the teenagers ran out of the train and some were suddenly got caught by police, who were waiting at the station and they were in full amour. Hahhaa...one of the teenagers was still sitting beside my friend, she kept joked that she seated side by side with a criminal (Forget whether is the one seated beside got caught by the police...hahhaa...). After this commotion, we just waited for our train to reach Naples train station...like long journey back...Then we headed down to a restaurant nearby Naples train station area to have our dinner. The restaurant name is called
La Cantina dei Mille. We had a pizza and pasta (my friend ordered another pasta too cos they were too hungry), free bread were given too..but the bread was hard as rock...hahhaa..my friend knocked the bread on the table, and it sounded like taking a stone and knocking on the table...so funny...

I don't find the food bad, it's just salty for me to accept (the seafood was fresh and the prawns really smell nice). Anyway, i ate a little and as we were paying, the boss gave us his namecard and wanted us to give feedback on tripadvisor...kekeke.....Then we made our way back to hotel. The metro really cannot make it, we had to wait and wait for it to come.
Finally, we reached our hotel and we can rest for the day...yeah!! (Too bad, didn't even have time to shop around the streets near our hotel, there is a Disney store there too...)

Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Tolendo

Places Visited:
Pompeii

Europe 2nd Trip - Naples, Italy (Day 1 & Day 2)

25th Oct 2013, Friday, Sunny

Supper on Swiss Air

Finally!!Going to Italy and Swiss...we got the air tickets from January and had waited for 10 months for it.Most of my colleagues and friends had already went for trips and came back...And i waited pretty much too long for it...all my excitement were gone....but finally our turn came...i am going with 2 of my working friends...

I got sick on the day itself and had to see doctor to take mc and rest. We met at the airport at 7.30pm and another friend even turned up with her boyfriend to send us off...hohoho (really surprised but i was happy to see her)....We checked in our lugguage and had dinner at Seafood Paradise before heading in to the gate.
We went in around 9 plus and off we go,to board the plane.It was a long journey to Zurich...i was seated beside one of my colleague and another ang mo..both their legs needs so much space,until i don't even have much space for myself.I had to bring up my legs,after some time,i got legs cramp...hahaa...

We saw a bit of flashing lightnings on the plane,had supper and breakfast too.It was super cold on the plane,i felt my nose was going to drop off already....and i was having blocked nose and coughing too...The guy was bleeding on his nose suddenly when we were having breakfast.He turned to ask me for tissue,i got a shock when he asked with his blood dripping....and then he went to toilet to clean up.Then we just napped for a while before the plane touched down to Zurich airport.

26th Oct 2013, Saturday,Sunny

View from transfer flight

When we arrived at airport,we made our way to take the transfer plane to Rome. We had to pass swiss customs and then to the gate and waited for our plane.It was a short ride from Zurich to Rome.There were lsser people onboard the plane too and was spacious...Anyway,we reached Rome airport.Then we went down to collect our Roma Passes and headed down to Termini train station.We took the airport transfer train...it was about 40 to 45 mins ride...Once we reached,we went to look for the Trenitalia ticket office to make our train reservation.There's alot of people waiting in queue...My advise:Get all your train reservations done at once if you don't to waste time standing outside the office to wait.There was no chairs to sit too,everyone was just standing around waiting for their numbers to be called.

While i was waiting for my turn,my friends went upstairs to get data sim cards (for $20 euro). They also waited for quite some time for their turn. Finally,we got our data sim cards n train reservation done.Then we headed down to the platform to board our train to Naples. When we wanted to board the train,a guy "helped" mi and one of my friends to get our luggage up the train...and he asked for tip from us once he put our luggage down (the other friend went further in the train on her own liao)....so we gt no choice but to give him a $10 as tip (no small change too)...he wasn't going to leave without some $. Then later we know,there are some people just trying to be helpful but they will ask from you $ for their so-called help. Anyway, we just went in with our luggage (as it was placed abit far from our seats) and sat down (my 2 friends helped to carry my luggage up in the upper storage as there was no space near the seats area and mine was the smallest and lightest. hohoho...a lady sitting besides us was laughing at us when both my friends were trying to bring down my luggage when we reached our stop....the 1st class coaches are really comfortable and got free drinks and snacks too (for high speed trains)....better than 2nd class coaches....

We reached Naples at around afternoon, we had to drag our luggage from the train station to the hotel. It was tiring, had to carry them up the stairs and down the stairs again, then dragged them to the hotel and the metro trains are so slow and we had to change 3 times to get to the hotel. We decided that for the rest of the hotels, we will take cab down (too tiring..hahhaaa). Oo...did i mentioned that the metro tickets had to be bought from a tabacci shop? Apparently, these shops are the ones selling metro tickets around italy (except Venice, as far as for the places we went). We managed to reach the hotel safe and sound and did the check-in. The hotel name is Hotel Toledo. The lift was so small and it was in rectangle shape, it can't fit the 3 of us plus our luggage. So the hotel owner told us to go up with 1 of the luggage first and then he will bring up the remaining 2. The room was setup with 2 single beds and 1 slightly bigger bed. The toilet was quite small, and it only allow a person to stand in. So we put down our luggage in our room and rested for awhile.Then we made our way down to the National Archaeological Museum. We chose to walk down from the hotel, and we saw a parade of people doing riot on the street, there was a lot of police standing by. It was a 10 mins walk to the museum from the hotel, there were a lot of shops along the way too. Finally, we reached the museum and got our tickets to go in. It was super big and there were a lot of statues inside (with heads, without heads, etc). 

Farnese Hercules

Above is the famous statue of Farnese Hercules resting on his club and he is holding a golden apple behind his back. The description for this statue is: Hercules is back from all the fighting and the traveling around the world. He is leaning weakly on his club, which is draped with his lion skin and he had returned with his prize, the golden apples of gods (which is shown on his hand behind his back). But after all this, he was told he had to return the golden apples and descend to Hell itself as the final task.

Toro Farnese

And there was another famous large statue called Toro Farnese, which was craved out with 1 whole piece of marble and there was a story on it. This is the story behind it: Once upon an ancient Greek time, there was a King named King Lycus, who was bewitched by a woman called Dirce. He abandoned his wife, Antiope who was pregnant at that time. The wife later gave birth to 2 twin boys, who grew up and killed their dad and tied Dirce to the horns of the bull to be bashed against a mountain.





After the viewing of these famous statues on the ground floor, we went upstairs to see the secret room. The stairs to upper levels were so grand too (those circular shape type), there was a lion statue standing in the middle of the stairs and there were 3 statues standing behind the lower stairs. But before we went to the secret room, we went into the great hall of Sundial with paintings hanging on both sides of the grand hall. It was the home of Farnese Atlante (a statue of Atlas carrying a globe on his shoulders), but at the wall of both sides hang beautiful paintings which are collection from Farnese. They look so real with the colors and there was a round clock at the end of the hall....Then we just sat there and rested for awhile. It was so relaxing to just sit there and watched into the great hall. There's even horoscope icon printed on the ground, like a chart form. It was said that when the sun shines into the hall, it will shine on the horoscope icon (something like that...not sure on the whole function). After this, we walked to the other side of the museum, which contains the pompeiian mosalcs and its ware the secret room is. There were a lot of displays to see (too much to be captured on camera, go for yourself to see them...hohoho..). After seeing the secret room, we went down to the souvenir shop to browse around. After the visit, we made our way down to have some pizza, which is famous in Naples (it was so dark outside and it was only like 5 or 6 plus). 

Pizza Margherita

When we reached there, the restaurant was just getting open for business (lucky us). The restaurant name is Gino Sorbillo. The restaurant was 2-Storey high and we managed to grab a table on the upper level. Everyone was eager to place their orders and the staffs were busy attending to every table. We got the menu and ordered 2 pizzas and soft drinks for us. The pizzas were so big and with thin thin crust (bigger than Singapore ones) and they tasted nice (except i find them salty, if not salty, it will be great for me but my 2 friends they love it.). When I saw the locals there, they all ordered 1 big pizza for 1 pax and they can finish them by themselves (they were not even sharing), and they still look so skinny after the big portion. But for us, we can't even finish the 2 pizzas we ordered (hohoho...wonder whether the staff was laughing at us when we left).

It was packed with people when we left the restaurant and there was a super long queue waiting outside, then we walked back to our hotel to rest for the day. Bought a pack of roasted chestnut back to hotel too (it wasn't that nice, it was dried and had the burnt taste, although the chestnuts are bigger than Singapore type). Tired day with all the dragging and climbing of stairs with luggage and the sweating. Missed to do the self-guided walk mentioned in Rick Steve's book: A Slice of Neapolitan Life.

Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Toledo

Places Visited:
National Archaeological Museum, Naples