Sofia: Tell Me the Truth, I'm the First Tourist Here, Right?

Before I arrived in Sofia, I read the following advice regarding safety in the Bulgarian capital: “Avoid people who are drunk and aggressive. Avoid soccer fans because they tend to be drunk and aggressive.” I have to say that, generally speaking, that’s good advice wherever you go.

I arrived in Sofia rather early in the day, around noon. When I disembarked and went into the station, I turned to the trusty GPS to try and find my way to my hotel. It was a little tricky getting out because just in front of the station is a complex of little stores. It’s not a large complex, but the stores are arranged in sort of a maze, so I just walked towards the south until I hit a main road. I followed in the direction I knew I was supposed to head into and I found my hotel easy enough. I dropped off my stuff and started walking around.

One of the first things I noticed was that there was a KFC and Dunkin Donuts really close to my hotel. Needless to say, I indulged, but not immediately. I was hungry, so I went to one of several little hole-in-the-wall pizza-by-the-slice places that I passed on my way to the hotel. The pizza in the window had corn on it. Also, some sort of meat and some mushrooms, but I was much more intrigued by the corn. I thought I’d try it and guess what it tasted like. Pizza with corn on it. It was a’ight. Generally speaking, though, I was not a big fan of Bulgarian pizza. The crust was too thick and soft and the cheese was too bland.

I didn’t know what there was to see in Sofia, so I picked the first street that looked busy and walked down that one. It led towards the south of the city. There were little restaurants here and there, lots of kiosks and as I crossed an intersection that was under construction, there were a few old churches and a large statue. They were alright I suppose, but not exactly what I was hoping for in my four-day stint to Sofia. Was this it? I didn’t know. If this was the tourist center, though, I have to imagine that Sofia doesn’t get a whole lot of tourists.

For dinner, and a few times thereafter, I went to a little cafeteria-style restaurant and perused the offerings. I went with a tomato and cucumber salad and this dish that sort of looked like macaroni and cheese, but it wasn’t. It was a potato-dish, with tiny chunks of potatoes interspersed with little, spicy pieces of ground pork. The dish also was covered with a thin layer of cheese. The meat reminded me, flavor-wise, of the barbacoa at Chipotle. It was good and went down easy with a Kamenitza, which became my Bulgarian beer of choice.

Still, what was there to see in Sofia? There had to be more, right? It seemed like there had to be more. I stopped by a souvenir shop to check out the shot glasses. I’ve learned that if you want to know the must-see spots in a city that you know nothing about, you can see what are considered a city’s icons on the shot glasses and coffee cups. The structure I saw over and over again was a beautiful church with a golden dome. I decided that the church was what I need to find.

There was free wifi at the railroad station, my hotel had nothing even resembling internet, and I downloaded an app on Sofia to see what the main attractions were. It turns out that the church I saw was on the souvenirs was the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. It also suggested that I visit Orlov Most (Eagle’s Bridge) as that was a landmark around which much of the other main tourist locations in Sofia are located. Fair enough. It seems like I had a quest for my next day in Sofia.

Thessaloniki in the Sunshine

My last full day in Thessaloniki was also Greek Independence Day. On top of that, it was one of the most beautiful days imaginable. My favorite thing about being me, at least currently, is that when days come around like that, I can go out and enjoy them. And enjoy it I did.

I went back out to the waterfront and walked along the shore. A kilometer or so down from the square that I had found the previous day, I found another square. This one was even more lively than the first. Also, it was very odd because intermingled among the cafes and storefronts were ruins of an ancient town (I assume because it looked ancient) here and there throughout the square. Right next to the roped-off sections of ruins were people drinking coffee or beer in the square.

A little further down the shore was what I believe is the biggest icon of Thessaloniki. It’s called the White Tower and I honestly don’t know anything about it except it isn’t really all that white and it looks like it belongs on a chessboard. I noticed the first day that I saw it that there were people up top, walking around. Having not suffered from acrophobia for almost two weeks now, I resolved that the next day, I would go to the top of the White Tower as well as visit a few of the many museums that were in the neighborhood. I made this resolution, however, not realizing that the next day was a holiday and all of these places would be closed.

Still, I walked around for a long time, looking at the crowds and soaking up the atmosphere. Just like Independence Day in the United States, there were lots of people walking around with their children and vendors were selling hot dogs and popcorn. Some were also selling souvlaki, which I guess is a little different, but much of what I saw didn’t look too different than what you would expect to see back home.

I took pictures of any of the old buildings and statues that I thought looked interesting. I would be lying if I were to say that I knew what many of them were, but I just snapped away. Clearly, there were some ancient ruins, as well as some churches that appeared to be several centuries old. Intermingled amongst these were modern buildings, like the Thessaloniki Civic Center, and modern sculptures. I can’t say that Thessaloniki is a very picturesque city, but it does have enough personality to at least make it interesting.

For food in Thessaloniki, I basically alternated between gyros and Greek salads, making up for the lack of those items when I was in Athens. There was also a ham and cheese pie mixed in there, but just the one. Also, there was some junk food that I tried and liked. They were little puffs of flavored corn meal. They were almost exactly like cheetos, but instead of being flavored with cheese, they were flavored with peanuts. It was sort of a corn-meal-peanut-butter-puff that was actually really good.

One last observation about Thessaloniki is that I’m not sure if it’s spring break in Greece, which is possible considering the holiday, but I saw kids and teenagers out all day the entire time I was there. Even if school was out, however, I can’t explain why the coffee bars and cafes were packed every day I was in Thessaloniki starting at around 3:00 in the afternoon. People must have been working somewhere, besides the cafes, but it looked like an early-Saturday evening instead of a mid-Wednesday afternoon. All-in-all, though, I have to say that Thessaloniki seemed to have a much better going-out-youth-oriented culture than Athens, at least from what I saw.

Okay, that’s probably enough about Thessaloniki. I’m on a train from Greece to Bulgaria (did you know that they stamp you passport in Bulgaria?) and I’m sure I’ll have stuff to say about Sofia coming up.

Thessaloniki - Seriously, Thessaloniki

Who knows? Maybe, we’ll get two entries out of Thessaloniki, though it seems like much more of a one-entry town. We’ll see.

I came to Thessaloniki not knowing anything about the town except that it is the home of PAOK (a football club), it is the second-largest city in Greece, and you pretty much have to go there if you want to train out of Greece because, from this direction, it is the gateway into eastern Europe. I decided that since I had to go there anyway, I’d spend a few days and see what it had to offer.

Arriving at the train station, I knew I was staying at a Holiday Inn that was supposed to be very close. The directions were simple – exit the station, turn right and walk about five minutes. Fair enough. That’s what I did and lo and behold, I was at the hotel. As in Athens, the neighborhood in which my hotel was located did not appear to be too promising. There were sex shops, strip clubs, and x-rated movie houses all up-and-down the street. It appeared that I had found myself in Thessaloniki’s red-light district and it didn’t have anything near the charm of, say, Amsterdam’s.

Because of train strikes in Greece, the only train I could get out of Athens left at 6:50 in the morning, so I was pretty tired when I got to Thessaloniki. I had noticed that I was getting wifi at the train station from somewhere, though I couldn’t get it at the hotel without paying through the nose, so I decided to walk along and see where else I could get it. I turned and walked in the opposite direction from the railway station.

There were little, grungy cafes and army surplus stores, but I only had to walk about three blocks before I found a Starbucks. Excellent. I hate Greek coffee. I sat down and had some coffee and went back to the train station to check my e-mail and maybe get a ticket for Sofia. When I got back to the station and looked around, I noticed that getting out might be a little difficult. There were eight ticket stations, but only three of them were open and they all had lines about 40-50 people deep. There was one lane for international tickets and that was closed. I decided that it should be a job for the morning, so I checked my e-mail (there were two cafes in the train station that had free wifi), grabbed a ham-and-cheese pie and went to the grocery store, where I bought my new favorite five-euro-red-wine. It was a Macedonian wine and I could read very little on the label, but it was sweet and not too strong and went down well.

The next day, I returned to the station and discovered that morning was the best time to get a ticket out of Thessaloniki. The lines were short, and the international booth was open and only one person was in the line. Because the ticket to Sofia, with reservation, was only 18 euros, I decided to buy a ticket rather than using up my Eurrail pass.

I still hadn’t found anything even close to scenic in Thessaloniki. As far as I could tell, it was all porn shops and Starbucks, but I ventured a little further this first full day. Three or four blocks up from the Starbucks was a little square and a pedestrian (other than motor scooters) way. There were dozens of little stores and cafes and, to the right, it went on for five or six blocks all the way to the Mediterranean. I walked down to the sea and had a look. It was beautiful, but the weather was sort of dismal, which took away from the overall experience. I knew I would be in Thessaloniki for a few more days, though, so I had high hopes for a better day.

Coming back from the sea, I stopped by a gyro shop and ordered a sandwich “with everything.” Now, this gyro “with everything” was a new one on me. It had pork, tomato, onions, french fries, ketchup and mustard. What, realy? French fries, ketchup and mustard? Where’s the tsatsiki. Well, tsatsiki might be fine for you fancy folks in Athens, but in Thessaloniki, they were using french fries, mustard and ketchup. Is Primanti a northern Greek name? I don’t know. Still, it was mighty good.

It looks like I’m getting two posts out of Thessaloniki after all because I haven’t even mentioned walking along the shore or Greek Independence Day. I will, though.

Athens: More of the Old

On my second morning in Athens, it was yet another beautiful day. I had breakfast in the hotel – nothing special, some luncheon meat and cheese, cereal and a hard-boiled egg – and went back into town. I stopped by Starbucks, a new Athenian feature since my last visit, and headed back to Syntagma Square. By the way, did you know you can get Greek coffee at the Starbucks in Athens? It’s priced like Starbucks in the United States, though. I don’t like Greek coffee and if I’m going to drink it, I want it to be a lot cheaper than that.

Next to the Parliament building in Syntagma Square, I discovered a park. Quite a good-sized park, at that. I don’t remember visiting it during my first trip here in 1999, but it is very possible that we did. It has five or six entrances, some ancient ruins, a sundial, a cafeteria, a pond and was a lot like parks all over the world. There also were some palm trees and orange trees, which I guess makes it a little different from most. Since it was a beautiful Sunday morning, I strolled around for a while and then sat and did some people watching.

You never know what’s going to be open on a Sunday when you’re travelling. Lo and behold, lots of the stores were closed, but most were open. After the park, I went over to the Temple of Zeus, which was free of charge on this particular day. It’s located behind Hadrian’s Arch and if you go down the main streets between the Acropolis and the Arch, you can see pretty much everything there. The most intriguing piece probably is a column that has fallen down and exposes all of the various pieces that had been put together to make the column. There wasn’t a whole lot to the area and I wasn’t there long.

I headed over to the Plaka section of town for lunch. This is a very touristy area and I wanted to stop by a café that I had read about online. I’d share the name with you, but it was only so-so, so I’m not sure I’d actually send anybody there even though some random person on the internet sent me there. I had pork souvlaki that came on pita bread with onions and tomatoes, with a side of french fries. I wasn’t really thinking about drinking, but the cheapest beverage on the menu was a ½ liter Amstel, so I figured what the heck. It wasn’t the best souvlaki that I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t bad either.

After lunch, I walked around the Athens flea market to get some cheap souvenirs for folks back home. The Athens flea market is similar to other markets all over the world. It’s like a Cairo bazaar or a Sunday trip to San Telmo in Buenos Aires. There are hundreds of little shops, all selling the same cheap clothing and souvenirs and you can walk around without getting harassed (at least in Athens) and look around until something catches your eye. I find that things in these markets tend to be overpriced and of mediocre quality, but still they are cheaper than if you were to purchase the same items in one of the little stores around town because of all of the competition on the same street. Anyway, I bought myself an AEK cap and some little trinkets for people back home and then headed off.

The highlight of the next day was the Athens Archaeological Museum. The big money items of this museum are the Mycenaean artifacts, thousands of sculptures and artifacts from Akrotiri on Santorini. My favorite items were the frescos that had been taken from Santorini. Akrotiri is sort of like Pompeii in that after a massive volcano blast on Santorini, the town was buried in ash and very well preserved. The frescos, which are in very good shape, include the famous Boxing Boys, which I’m sure you have seen before.

That was mostly it for the touristy stuff, with the exception of some small things with which I won’t continue to bore you. I think there will be an Athens passing thoughts entry and that likely will be it.

Athens: Seems Like Old Times

Athens reminds me of Greektown in Detroit, except that the language barrier is a little less of a problem in Athens and I have about a 5% smaller chance of getting shot. In my travels of the past several months, this is the first time that I’ve returned to a place that I had visited previously. I went to Athens and some of the Greek Islands with some friends from law school in 1999. That was before the 2004 Athens Olympics and I was curious to see how much had changed since I was there before.

As it turns out, not much. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I bought a hat in the very same store in which I bought some t-shirts and a key chain eleven years ago. I guess that it’s fitting that Athens doesn’t change, though, seeing as the big draw to Athens are those things that have been there for over 2,500 years.

I arrived in Athens at night, and my hotel was in sort of a sketchy neighborhood, so I didn’t venture out too far, though I did find a grocery store, or at least of grocery store of sorts. It had alcohol and junk food. It wasn’t ideal, but it would serve its purpose.

The next day I went out for some immediate sightseeing. I had three full days in Athens and it was the weekend, so I expected the touristy places to be pretty crowded. Despite the sketchiness of my hotel’s neighborhood, the location was great because everything I wanted to see was within a 20-minute walk. Of course, the first place for which I headed was the Acropolis. On the Acropolis, again of course, is the Parthenon. There are the remains of a few other temples, as well, and some other structures, such as an amphitheater, but it’s the Parthenon that everybody knows about.

The Parthenon really shows its age. As I’m sure you’re aware, it was blown up several centuries ago when it was being used as an arsenal and gunpowder was ignited and boom. It looks like it was blown up centuries ago. In fact, between that event and the removal of columns and pieces by the British and the French, it’s surprising that there’s anything left holding it up except for the ever-present scaffolding. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an impressive structure, but I’ve seen much more impressive structures. This just happens to be the most famous remaining structure of one of the most famous ancient civilizations, so I think it gets much more credit as a “great wonder” than it’s worth.

The ticket for the Acropolis is twelve euros and it is good for several other sites in Athens as well. Among these were the Theatre of Dionysos, the Ancient Agora, the Roman Agora and the Temple of Zeus. I had some time as well as some interest, so I made my rounds to those as well. The Theatre of Dionysos is the amphitheater that I mentioned earlier and is located near the south entrance to the Acropolis. I’ve always been a fan of the ancient amphitheaters and this one was pretty cool, with seats that seemed to be in really good shape, though it was not entirely clear to me how much of the theater was original and how much had been restored.

The Ancient Agora was very interesting, looked upon by the Acropolis. All I had for a guide was the information boards that accompanied many of the ruins. There are some amazing ancient structures that still are in good shape, including a temple that was much better preserved (or put back together . . . I don’t know) than the Parthenon. As always, I took some pictures and walked around for a while.

I stopped by Syntagma Square, which is one of the places that I remember most about my first trip to Athens because it is in the center of the city and there were riot police controlling anti-American riots going on there in 1999. It’s bordered by Parliament at one end and McDonald’s at the other. For lunch, I had a ham and cheese pie. I had a few ham and cheese pies while in Athens. These, umm, delicacies are similar to spanikopita, made with buttery filo dough and feta cheese, but the ones I had obviously contain ham rather than spinach. It’s one of my favorite things about Greece. I hope they have them in Thessaloniki. At some point during my stay, I also ate at the Syntagma Square McDonald’s, partly out of nostalgia, and partly because they had an item – a Shrimp Burger – that I had never seen at any other McDonald’s. Unlike the McItaly burger that I tried in Milan, the Shrimp Burger was actually pretty good.

Okay, that’s enough for this entry. I may try to lump the rest of Athens into the next entry, but it may take two. Don’t worry, we’ve got time.

Rome to Athens: The Odyssey

After a week in Rome, I was ready to head to Athens. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked Rome, but it was time to move on. I knew the trip was going to be complicated. I had to get a ticket to Bari, arrive in Bari and take a bus from the train station to the port, get a ferry ticket to Patras, then arrive in Patras and get a train ticket to Athens. Still, with all of my travel experience, I thought that I would get through without too much trouble. I was wrong.

The first time I tried to make the trip, yes, I said the “first time,” I was unsuccessful. It appears that between Rome and Bari, I was supposed to get off the train in Casserta, hop on a bus to Foggia, and then hop on another train to Bari. Do you know who told me this? Nobody. My ticket didn’t provide any clues, telling me that I was going straight from Rome to Bari. I realized it only when I found my way back on the road to Rome. It was already a tight schedule, so I knew there was no way that I was going to make it to Bari in time after this fubar, so I called the hotel that I had stayed at in Rome to see if it had a room for another night. Fortunately, it did, so I ended up spending another night in Rome.

The next day, I tried again. When I got the reservation for the train, the person at the ticket booth told me that I would need to get off the train in Casserta and take a bus to Foggia. Thanks. Where were you yesterday? On the train, when the conductor punched my ticket, she told me that I would need to get off the train in Casserta and take a bus to Foggia. Have you caught on to the pattern yet?

Fine. This time, I’m just following the crowd. I get off the train in Casserta, hop on a bus from Casserta to Foggia and then hop on another train from Foggia to Bari. Now, because I tend to look things up ahead of time. I knew that the train station in Bari isn’t all that close to the port in Bari and I needed to find a Bus #20 or lug all my stuff about a mile in an undetermined direction. Fortunately, as soon as I stepped out of the train station, I saw a #20 bus and chased it down. Arriving at the port, I picked up a ferry ticket to Patras, Greece with about an hour-and-a-half to kill.

Now, if you read my post about the ferry from Egypt to Jordan, you realize why I boarded the ferry with great trepidation. I was expecting bad, bad things. I knew that I was guaranteed an “airline-style” seat, so I wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor unless I wanted to, but I knew nothing else. The trip was to take eighteen-and-a-half hours, with a stop in another port first, just south of the Albanian border.

What I found on the ferry was a very pleasant surprise. There was plenty of room to store my luggage in the main cabin with the airline seats. That room had a large HD television, and played back-to-back soccer matches (Europa League) from around 7 to 11:30. The ferry had a nice restaurant (I had a Greek salad), the bathrooms were clean, and there was even wifi on the ferry which wasn’t free, but was very inexpensive. Even better, many of the airline seats weren’t taken up, so there was room to pull up the arms of the seats and spread out and go to sleep. As an added bonus, we picked up an hour by switching time zones, so the trip was only seventeen-and-a-half hours. The one problem was that when we made the first stop at 4:30 am, it was loud and bright as most of the passengers exited the ferry, so I was awakened way too early, but overall, it was the best ferry trip I’ve ever taken.

Arriving in Patras, again having looked ahead, I knew that the train station was very close to the port. I found it with little trouble after being pointed in the right direction. I met a girl from T’ronto (her pronunciation) who was on the ferry and also heading to Athens. We had some time to kill so, after getting our tickets to Athens, we walked into Patras and grabbed some lunch. When the train came, we hopped on. It was the smallest, tightest-fitting train I have ever been on. I mean, it was smaller than your average subway car. We found seats, though, and headed towards Athens.

Well, not all of the way to Athens. Somewhere an hour or so out of Patras, the train pulled over and everybody got off. I wasn’t about to get caught on another train heading in the wrong direction, so I followed everybody. Everyone else got on a bus, so I got on the bus. The bus made the next few scheduled train stops and stopped in Kiato. In Kiato, it was time to hop on another train. This train actually looked like a subway car. In fact, I would have thought that I was on the subway except that we were still an hour outside of Athens. It was difficult trying to figure out where we were or whether we were on time, so we just hopped off the train at the time we where scheduled to arrive in Athens. Fortunately, by that time, we were in Athens. It had already started getting dark, and I had a decent idea where my hotel was located, so I took off and headed in that direction, finding the spot with little problem.

I guess the train-bus-train-bus-ferry-train-bus-train trip from Rome to Athens all worked out in the end.

Rome: The Food Entry

My entries about food are kind of meaningless because enjoyment of food is such an intimate, personal thing. Reading reviews of hotels I’ve stayed in or movies I’ve seen have demonstrated very well that just because somebody likes something, or even though something is done technically correct or is artistically well-received, doesn’t mean any particular person will enjoy it. So I guess I say all that to say you should take anything I say in this post with a grain or two of salt because it’s basically just my attempt to post some pictures of food that I ate in Rome.

First up, I suppose is pizza, because as in Milan and Pisa, I ate a lot of it. I ate slices from little fast food places, I ate whole pies at pizzerias, I had pizzas with sauce, pizzas without sauce, pizzas with meat, pizzas with only cheese. Pizza was a staple. I didn’t have any horrible pizza experiences in Rome, like the hot dog pizza that I had in Pisa, but some definitely were better than others.

The best pie I had probably was on what was supposed to be my last night in Rome. It was a chicken and broccoli pizza. The sauce was creamy, definitely some mozzarella, but I’m not sure what other types of cheese may have been used. There was no hint on any tomato sauce. The best of my slices was from a four-cheese pizza from a little joint close to the Trevi Fountain. I went back to the same place a few days later and got a slice of tomato and red pepper pizza that wasn’t nearly as good, but it didn’t take away from the first experience.

Then there is the pasta. I’m not a huge pasta fan, but I do like a good sauce and some good cheese, so I’ll eat pasta when there is an opportunity for either. As with Garfield, my favorite pasta dish is lasagna and I had lasagna at a bunch of places in Italy, including a few in Rome. I can still say that the best lasagna that I have ever eaten is at Otello’s on Connecticut Avenue, just south of Dupont Circle in Washington. In fact, my sister’s is better than any I’ve had in Italy, but to be fair, it’s not like I had it everywhere and I’m certain it must be fantastic in places here.

That wasn’t all of the pasta that I had, though. If you recall, a week or so ago, I wrote about the best meal I’ve ever had in Europe, which was in Pisa. Well, that meal was surpassed in Rome. I forget the name of the restaurant, but it is on Cavour Street, just beyond where Cavour runs into a street that leads to the Colosseum. (I remember that because I remember seeing the Colosseum on my way to the restaurant.) I had eaten some pasta (lasagna, as a matter of fact, and some veal) there a few days earlier and thought it was good enough for a repeat visit, though I wanted to try something different.

Once again, I ordered both a pasta course and a meat course. My pasta course was linguine with cheese sauce. My meat course was meatballs with tomato sauce. They came together, which was perfect because the flavors all worked perfectly together. What made this the best meal that I’ve ever had in Europe was the sauce. Oh, dear God, the sauce was so good. The garlic and oregano were strong, but not overpowering. It was a little spicy, a little salty and very, very tomato-ey. I would even eat brussel sprouts if they were smothered in this tomato sauce. The meat was good, the pasta was tender and the cheese was perfect. Fortunately, I had some bread to finish off the sauce so I didn’t have to revert to actually licking the plate. I would have. It wasn’t quite Las-Vegas-kobe-beef-steak-good, but it was pretty damn close to it.

Okay, there’s the food entry. I seem to recall having some good food in Greece when I was last there in 1999, but Italy is going to be a tough act to follow. Speaking of Greece, the next entry will be about my thirty-something-hour trip from Rome to Athens.

P.S. Crap, I forgot to mention the gelato. I had gelato at a few places, usually either pistachio or a variety of fruit flavors, and it was, of course, perfect. Can't come to Rome without getting gelato and I'm glad I indulged. Sorry for forgetting you, gelato.

Rome: The End of the Most Touristy Stuff

Okay, here is where things start getting a little frazzled on the blog because it’s time for me to try and fit the rest of Rome into one or two (or three) short posts before moving on to Athens.

There was one more place of note in Rome that I wanted to visit, and visited, and photographed, and now am writing about. That place is the Pantheon. As the name suggests, it was a temple built for all gods, Roman gods that is, and I believe I saw that it was built in the second century A.D. Most of the temples built at that time are now in ruins, but this one was converted into a church in the seventh century and has been used as such ever since. Because of its consistent use by the religion that is in power in Rome, it has escaped the destruction that has befallen almost every other contemporary structure and remains fairly truthful to its origin. Unfortunately, the Pantheon was going through renovations, so my pictures are obstructed by scaffolding, but you get the picture, so to speak.

I think that, this being post four about Rome, that’s enough about the touristy stuff. What else is there? Oh, there was soccer. Or almost soccer. I wanted to go a match at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome while I was there and Lazio was hosting Bari, so it seemed like it would work out. Since neither club is very good this season, I was hoping I could get tickets at the stadium before the match. Online, I saw websites that said this would be possible. I hate those websites now.

I went to the stadium, but because I got lost in Rome and couldn’t find a metro stop earlier in the day, the earliest I could get to the stadium was about an hour ahead of time, though I thought that would still be enough time. I got off the bus, walked across a bridge and a few streets and arrived at the stadium. I looked all over for a ticket booth, exactly where the website told me to look, but to no avail. Finally, I found a booth for online tickets. I stopped by and asked where I could buy a ticket. The person at the booth told me that the only place to buy the ticket was at a store in a piazza on the other side of the bridge. I went to the piazza on the other side of the bridge, but couldn’t find the store. By this time, it was five minutes before kickoff and I decided that if Lazio wanted my money, they should have made it a lot easier for me to give it to them. Frustrated, though far from heartbroken, I gave up and went back into the city.

I also spoke with a few people while I was in Rome. First, I met up with Cecilia, who was a student in the TEFL class that I took in Buenos Aires. She works at an art gallery near the Spanish Steps, so I stopped by to see her a little before she left work. When the gallery closed, we went to an Irish pub because she swore there was one around and I told her that I had not seen one. She was right. (Before the week was over, I found four more Irish pubs and a Scottish pub.) We stopped by for a beer and then went to some place “more Italian.” The “more Italian” place was a bad wine bar that had no other people. It wasn’t very Italian. Oh well. She is relatively new to town and we both learned something and I had a good time, nonetheless.

I also spoke with some old dude at the Scottish pub, where I went to watch Inter Milan eliminate Chelsea from the Champions League. He was one of the many Europeans I’ve met that professes to know more about the United States than any American and can list in great detail all of the things wrong with the country and the people even though he’s never actually been there and I doubt seriously whether he’s known very many Americans in his life. Since these people amuse me, though, more than irritate me, I talked with him throughout the match, or at least before the match and at halftime.

After the match, my journey really began. I left around 11:00 pm, a little drunk, and got some dinner. The dinner was a chicken & broccoli pizza and a liter of wine. Okay, now I was more than a little drunk. I took that a step further by getting lost. Now, drunk and lost in Rome, I had no idea how to get back to my hotel and couldn’t find a soul to direct me. Eventually, I decided that a little clump of trees that I saw provided adequate shelter and I decided to go to sleep. Around 2:30 am, I woke up, started to sober up and realized that I had fallen asleep in some trees right outside of the Roman Forum. If nothing else, at least I knew where I was. I actually had the state of mind to take some photos of Rome at 3 a.m. on my way back to my hotel, where I arrived shortly thereafter. Afterwards, it was a little frightening to think about, but it all worked out well in the end, so I’ll just be thankful and hopefully learn from my mistake.

I think the next post will be food-oriented. Maybe because it’s almost breakfast time for me.

Rome: More Sightseeing

I guess I’m writing more about Rome than I expected to. I still have more touristy stuff that I want to mention. I’ll try to limit it, though; because it’s not that much more exciting to write about than it is to read about.

After the Colosseum, the only other place that I knew I had to go to was Vatican City. The world’s smallest country has two specific places that I wanted to see. First, I wanted to visit the Vatican museums, which is a group of separate museums banded together under one roof, give or take, and St. Peter’s Basilica. I hopped on the metro and went to the closest stop to Vatican City and walked about ten minutes to get to the city gates.

I decided to go to the museums first. As I mentioned earlier, the Vatican museums are a series of several museums. The first that I saw, as an example, was an Egyptian museum. There were also art museums and museums of ancient Rome. A few of the most interesting include a map room, which holds a series of large maps of Italy and the surrounding area from the sixteenth century, and the Raphael rooms, which are fantastic rooms with mosaics painted by Raphael and his staff at the request of the Pope at the time – I forget which one.

Of course, if you’ve been to Vatican City, and even if you haven’t, you know that I’m leaving out the best part. If you follow the guide (again, I rented one of those electronic guide thingies), the tour of the Vatican museums ends at the Sistine Chapel. Many people enter the museums complex and head straight there, but I saved it for the end. If you’ve noticed in my past posts, I’m often impressed with the great icons that I visit in my travels, but also I am often left thinking – meh . . . it’s nice or it’s beautiful or it’s majestic, but is that it? Well, with the Sistine Chapel, the beauty is so much greater in person than in photos or television that I am unable to describe it adequately. Michelangelo’s rooftop work truly is amazing and the guide explained how it meshed all of the work that already had been done at the Sistine Chapel to tell the perfect story.

You can take pictures everywhere in the Vatican museums, usually without flash, except the Sistine Chapel. Somebody told me that the reason photos were not allowed there is that the Japanese company that financed the restoration work obtained exclusive rights to the use of photography and video with respect to the Chapel. I have no idea if that’s true or not. What I do know is that people didn’t take the restriction very seriously and the enforcement consisted of a few people walking around and occasionally shouting “No Photographs!” Seeing as I’m a follower and have absolute faith in the crowd, I took a photo of my own. I couldn’t help it. But at least I didn’t use a flash. That makes me a good person, right?

After eating, I went to St. Peter’s Basilica. At first, it was raining. This was unfortunate because the line stretched out for hundreds of feet and was outside. Rather than stand out in the rain (mama taught me not to), I sat under the roofed wings of the facility and watched people who had the foresight to bring umbrellas enter into the shrine. After an hour or so, the rain stopped, or at least slowed to a trickle, so I got in line. Evidently, entry into the Basilica is free because nobody tried to sell me a ticket and nobody asked to see one from me.

There were two areas that I went to see. First, I went to the tombs of the Popes. All the big ones were there. John Paul I, John Paul II, George Ringo III. Okay, I don’t really know my Popes, but that’s not the point. Beside every carsophagus was a placard giving a brief description of what happened during the reign of each Pope and what he was known for. It’s probably not that interesting to read about, but I found reading the inscriptions interesting. (Photographs were not allowed, so I’m going to throw on a photo from the Basilica beside this paragraph. Obviously, this is not a Pope tomb. Sorry if I confused you.)

The other area was the dome. Now, I believe you can go up to the top of the dome, or close to the top of the dome, or something like that for a fee. I understand that there is an elevator part of the way up and then 300 or so steps you can climb to get there. Since this was only a couple of days after my trip to the top of the Tower of Pisa, and I was very in touch with my acrophobia, I decided that it was probably a good idea that I not make this trip. Below the dome, however, in the Basilica is a fantastic collection of religious art. Here, I basically just walked around and tried to observe and soak in what I could. I’m not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, but this place seemed to demand much more reverence than most.

For some reason, I’ve always thought about Jerusalem and the surrounding areas as the holiest Christian place, with the Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the history and what not. The Vatican, however, is just a complete shrine to Christianity, or at least Catholicism. While Jesus may have been born and raised in the Middle East, he definitely vacations in Vatican City because I can’t believe there is another place on Earth where he is treated so well or with so much respect.

Okay, enough sacrilege for now. There will have to be more posts about Rome.

Rome: Colosseum et al

On my first full day in Rome, I knew where I needed to go. The Colosseum, right? I mean, that’s got to be the first thing, right? It’s recently been voted one of the seven wonders of the world. It’s the single greatest icon in a city of icons. This had to be the destination.

So, that was the destination. To get there, I took the metro. I bought a seven-day metro pass for 16 euro, which I thought was a steal of a deal. Paris’ metro pass is 33 euros for five days. Turns out, though, that Rome’s metro system sucks. There aren’t many stops and you can literally walk around for hours and not find a stop. I know because I did. (They say that the reason it’s so bad is that there are so many ruins still underground that they can’t build additional metro stops without destroying them. Let me tell you, though, that the longer you walk around looking for a way back to your hotel, the less you are interested in saving some column that hasn’t been seen in 1,000 years and may never again see the light of day.) The pass can also be used for the busses, however, so once I figured out the bus system, the card was rather useful.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, the Colosseum. The Colosseum, coincidentally, is at the Colosseum metro spot. In fact, that’s probably why they built the Colosseum there. Okay, enough Colosseum humor. At first, I just walked around the structure. It probably is the most amazing sight I’ve ever seen from the steps of a metro stop. (And I’ve seen a lot of metro stops.) It is amazing to think that this massive amphitheater could have been built with nearly 2,000-year old technology. Still, I didn’t find it as overwhelming as I thought I might. After a while, it sort of grows on you that it’s not amazing for what it is, per se. There are thousands of larger, more fascinating stadiums. It’s amazing for when it was built and how much of it still remains. When it hit me that I was primarily celebrating old, it became less amazing to me since I’ve seen a hell of a lot of old recently.

I used the English electronic guide and went inside for a little tour. You learn a lot about the history of the Colosseum using the guide and it brings the structure much more to life. I probably spent about an hour inside the Colosseum and I think that was probably enough. I ended up visiting again several nights later at 3:00 am and rather drunk, but I don’t think those pictures came out as well.

When you pay for entrance into the Colosseum, you also get entrance into the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, both of which contain great remnants of perhaps the most dominant empire the world has ever seen. The remains range from “tremendously well-preserved” to “what the hell did that used to be and how could you tell?” The most amazing features, and likely the most famous, are the arches Arches of Septimus Severus and of Titus, though the Arch of Constantine, right outside of the Colosseum, was still my favorite.

Afterwards, I walked to Trevi Fountain. Why? Because I was in Rome. I had to walk to Trevi Fountain. I didn’t throw any coins in because I heard that throwing one coin in the fountain meant that you would return to Rome and I wasn’t yet sure if that was what I wanted. Anyway, I went and it was, of course, beautiful. And huge. I took some pictures and sat and did some people-watching. In the neighborhood, there are lots of little touristy restaurants and gelaterias. I’ll go into more detail about food in a later post, but I stopped by a little pizza place about a block from Trevi fountain that had really good pizza. It was one of the few places that I liked so much that I returned to it. (For the record, it was much better the first time.)

Those are the highlights of my first full-day of sightseeing. It also involved walking around for hours and hours and taking pictures and stuff, but I won’t bore you with all of that. There will be other, more important things that I can bore you with in future posts.

Rome: Barbarians (me) at the Cheap Hotels

It’s time to get back into practice with this. The problem has been that I try to draft these posts during my travel days, when I can’t really do much else, and I haven’t had many travel days recently. I stayed for quite a while in Rome. Longer than I expected, in fact, just finishing up an eight-day trip. I figure I can cover most of it in three or four posts, so let’s begin. I’m just not sure if I should do this chronologically or categorically. It may be a little of both. If it get’s confusing, I apologize.

I arrived in Rome on Wednesday afternoon at Roma Termini, which is the main train station and is pretty centrally located in the city. All I knew was that my hotel was about a half-kilometer south of the station. I had read great reviews of the little, family-owned place, Hotel Saturnia, on TripAdvisor, but I picked up a guide book and took a look at it and it listed “Termini Area At Night” as one of the top things to avoid in Rome. I soon learned that the guidebook was overblown and that the area was pretty safe, even at 3:00 am, but it caused me a little trepidation in the beginning.

I got to the hotel and they told me that the room that I had booked had severe plumbing damage and that my only choices were to take a room without a private bathroom (with a refund) or have them call around and find another hotel for me. I took the refund and the room without a bathroom. It turned out not to be that bad and the folks at the hotel were fantastic, so I’m happy I stayed.

On my first day, I did what I do every time I arrive at a new city. I drop my bags, check to see if I have wifi, and then I walk around the neighborhood to see what’s close by. At the front desk, the manager gave me a map of Rome with the hotel circled and I could see that the location was a great one, guidebook be damned. With the exception of the Vatican, pretty much all of the things that I knew that I wanted to see were within short walking distance. (Note: Typically, I hate when people refer to things as “walking distance” as if that provides actual guidance. Walking Distance for whom? I know people who consider anything they can walk to within an hour “Walking Distance.” I know people who don’t consider the mailbox in the front yard to be within “Walking Distance.” But, I digress.)

(I’m going to digress a little more. As I sit here on the ferry from Bari to Patras, they just made an announcement that in case of an emergency, they would like anybody onboard who is a doctor to please identify himself/herself to the receptionist. Nobody ever says this: In case there is a slip-and-fall onboard, please let the receptionist know if you are a lawyer. Enough digression.)

I didn’t know about the Spanish steps, but that is where my journey took me on my first day. If you’ve seen the pictures from my trips, you probably have noticed that I seem to be drawn to obelisks. Well, as in Egypt, this takes no special skill in Rome because they are all over the place. About a kilometer from my hotel, I saw an obelisk and walked towards it and noticed a magnificent church directly behind it. As I approached, I saw the steps leading down to the piazza below. This turned out to be rather fortunate because a few days later, I had to meet a friend and this was the landmark that she gave me, so it helped me to have an additional reference point in the city.

I also walked around looking for a place to buy a bottle of wine and, if possible, a good grocery store. I found a Conad Drug Store at the terminal that had tons of food and drink. As I’ve said before, I always find grocery stores to be fascinating insights into what people actually eat and, as the proverb says, what they are. This particular store became a quick favorite of mine because it had prepared food, for when I wanted to save some money, and good wines, for when I wanted to spend some money. Actually, I found a cheap Lazio wine that actually found a place in my heart very close to the cheap Argentine wine I fell in love with in Buenos Aires.

That was pretty much it for the first day. Nothing at all exciting, but it’ll get better. I actually went places and everything. Just be patient.