Europe 2012: The final 9 days

Nathan and I both picked up colds on our way home from Rome, luckily I had brought cold meds along with me though, so we were able to get some relief from our cough and stuffy heads.

My week was a busy one, as I had to prepare to move.  We had to be out of our current apartment on Sunday, moving into a hotel for a week before Nate can get into a different apartment for the remainder of his stay.

One last beautiful sunrise from our apartment before we lose our nice view.

Between packing to move, and washing laundry, I also worked on writing my blog from our Rome trip. Thursday was Thanksgiving, which we had originally planned on eating out, but because of our colds we decided to just eat at home. Instead of turkey (which I’ve never seen available over here) I made some chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn, along with a roll and some homemade apple pie with vanilla ice cream.

Our Thanksgiving Dinner

On Friday Nate’s cold was so bad that I convinced him to just stay home from work, since there was nothing major going on anyhow.

My cold seemed to be trailing Nathan’s by a day, so Saturday was my bad day. But we decided to drive down to Aachen, Germany to the Christmas market. I had originally planned to go on Sunday, but since we had to move on Sunday I decided to go to the market Saturday.

When we arrived in Aachen the first order was getting lunch, then we headed out into the market. We were both surprised at how many people were at the market. There were way more people than at the craft fair in the summer. The Christmas market is open for an entire month, but it was only the 2^nd day of the market, and the 1^st weekend, so I guess we should have expected that.

There was way more food booths than I expected, taking up nearly half of them I think. I was a little disappointed there wasn’t more selection, like at the summer market, but there were nutcrackers, ornaments, decorations, scarves and hats.

Towards the end of our visit it was getting dark and we got some hot chocolate and shared a crepe, and headed back.

Sunday after eating breakfast I sent Nate down to see about checking into our hotel room and when he came back he found that our apartment key cards no longer worked. As I was in the room it wasn’t a big problem, but it meant that I had to stay in the apartment while Nate made several trips with our stuff.

We were able to get a hotel room with a kitchen and little living room, it’s basically a studio apartment but without an oven, washer, or dryer.

Christmas lights around Eindhoven

My last few days I’ve spent reorganizing my suitcases, finishing up my blogs, and any other last minute things I could think of. I’m trying to make it as easy as possible for when Nate comes home as he will have to take more bags then me.

On Tuesday night Nate got another group of work friends together for go-karting.

Nate got a group of guys from work to go go-karting again (from left to right Cathal, Rene, Nate, Tim, Luc).

Nate

For my last dinner in Holland I went to De Bengel's with Nate and friends to end my wonderful 3 month trip.

Tot ziens Nederland. (Good bye Netherlands)

Europe 2012- Day 80-81: Rome

Monday was expected to be a rainy day so we planned on doing lots of indoor things. After breakfast we headed out to find that it had rained pretty hard over night, leaving lots of puddles behind, but it was nice for the time being. 

Interesting to see layers of bricks, covered with rock and dirt that make up the roads in Rome.

Our walk to the Pantheon brought us by some more ancient ruins, after reading the signs around the fenced area we discovered that these were the ruins of the buildings being used as the Senate back in 44 BC and the location where Julius Caesar was assassinated.

There was probably around a dozen rats that were roaming around these ruins

Building 1 is where Julius Caesar was assassinated

I was excited to see the Pantheon as it’s probably the most amazing piece of Roman architecture still standing today. Built back in 126 AD by Emperor Hadrian, it had the largest dome in the world until 1436, and is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome today. Today the Pantheon is almost completely intact, missing only the exterior veneer marble and the bronze roof tiles from the porch area which were taken down to be reused at St. Peter’s Basilica. 

The Pantheon is based on a perfect circle, being as wide as it is tall; 142’ from floor to roof top, and 142’ from side to side, and the only light comes from the oculus, which is the hole in the very top of the dome.

To make the walls, the Romans would use thousands of bricks to make a shell, and then filled it in with concrete. The outside of the brick shell would then be given a marble veneer. They would embed in the walls “blind arches” where the bricks would be laid in the form of an arch to add support to the walls. In the Pantheon, the walls at the base of the dome are 20’ thick and up at the top of the dome the concrete is less than 5’ thick.

You can see some of the "blind arches" in this picture

During construction of the Pantheon the Romans had to deal with the weight of the massive dome. To do this the dome gets thinner as it gets higher, they would also mix different stones in the concrete at different heights to make it lighter as it went up; granite near the base of the dome and pumice at the top. On the inside of the dome the concrete is coffered, which not only gives an architectural element, but it takes away from the weight of the dome without compromising the strength of it. Scaffolding was built on the interior and wooden forms were created for pouring the concrete dome.

Due to the large hole in the roof, if it rained, you could get wet. Because of this the Romans made the floor sloping with holes in the floor so the water could drain. The floor was made of marble and still holds the same design that it did when it was originally made; alternating circles and squares. Most of the floor has been replaced over the years though, due to continuous use for the last couple thousand years.

You can see the lower roof line of the porch area, compared to where it was supposed to be

On the outside you can see where the original design was supposed to have the roof of the porch, but the 16 columns which are solid red and grey marble are around 40’ tall, which is probably some 20’ shorter then they needed to be. They came all the way from Egypt, and took many months to get there, so they just adjusted the roof line as you see it. 

The Pantheon has been in use since its construction, being given to the Pope and the Catholic Church in the 7^th century, when it was transformed from a pagan temple to a church. There are several people buried in the Pantheon, including Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (Raphael) the well-known painter, who requested to be buried there just days before he passed away. The inscription on his sarcophagus reads: Here lies Raphael, by whom Nature feared to be outdone while he lived, and when he died, feared that she herself would die.

I have a hole in my chin

All around the city there are drinking fountains, all with a different look.

There are also lots of these little booths around that have a police officer in it.

We got finished with our audio tour faster than I thought we would so we headed nearby to a piazza to check out a few shops. In the piazza we discovered a few fountains, and Nathan was enjoying taking some cool pictures of the water.

Finally it was nearing lunch time. We had planned on going to the pizza place recommended to us by the guy at our hotel. But after searching the area he told us it was in, we found nothing. We even asked some people in shops if they knew where it was, but the one guy that knew of it didn't speak very good English. We ended up just picking a restaurant near us, as our feet were really starting to bother us and we needed to sit down.

Unfortunately the place we picked wasn’t a good one. The food was probably a 5 out of 10, so not bad, but the waiters were arguing over an awning that got burnt by a heater and so that is what we had to listen to most of our lunch, which wasn’t pleasant.

The statue of St. Michael

After lunch we headed towards the Vatican to St. Peter’s Basilica. Luckily the security line wasn’t very long so it only took about 15-20 minutes to get in.

The Holy Door or 'Porta Sancta' is only open during a Holy Year (Jubilee), which occur every 25 years (the last one in 2000). On the first day of a holy year, the Pope strikes the brick wall with a silver hammer and opens it to the pilgrims.

The upper and lower statues are different sizes, the one up high is almost twice as big but both seem to be about the same size from the floor.

This red circle is where Constantine was crowned

These stairs go down to the crypt where several Popes are buried.

It's hard to believe that the white dove in the center of the stained glass window is 6' tall.

Statue of St. Peter. Many people will rub or kiss his feet, and after so many years, his feet are smooth and you can't even tell that he once had toes.

The bronze on this canopy was taken from the porch of the Pantheon when it was given to the church.

St. Peter’s is 500 feet wide and 730 feet long, making it the largest church in the world. Build between the years of 1506 and 1626, it is believed to be built on top of the location where Jesus’s apostle Peter was crucified (upside down as he didn’t feel worthy to be killed in the same manner as his master). His bones are also believed to be buried below the church.

Picture depicting Peter being crucified upside down.

Michelangelo's Pietà

The courtyard of St. Peters Basilica

After the Basilica we walked over to the Vatican museum which also allows access to the Sistine chapel.  We didn’t have much time before they would be closing so we mainly rushed down to the chapel, listened to our audio guide and then quickly left, not really looking at much else in the museum. 

The Vatican museum was a very ornate building.

This tapestry had such vibrant colors I had to take a picture of it.

We thought it was interesting that there were these areal views of Italy and other countries, when they wouldn't have had air planes to get that kind of view.

Built back in 1483, The Sistine Chapel is considered the church of the Pope. The Sistine Chapel is famous for its paintings on the ceilings and walls by Michelangelo. Although he first rejected the opportunity to paint the ceiling (saying he was a sculptor, not a painter), he eventually gave in after much persistence by the Pope. It took Michelangelo 4 years to complete the painting of the ceiling and upper walls, but the alter wall of the last judgment was done at a later date and took him an additional 7 years. 

Painted while standing on scaffolding looking up, it nearly killed him off. I can imagine how much he must have needed a chiropractor as my neck got tired of just looking up at it for 20 minutes. Michelangelo painted with a new technique. He had helpers apply wet plaster to the walls and then he painted on the wet plaster. When the plaster dried the paint would get sucked into the plaster sealing in the colors. If he couldn’t finish painting what was plastered for the day they would have to scrape off the plaster and start again.

The most amazing part of his paintings is how 3D they look from the floor; I imagine that part of his skill must have come from the fact that he was actually a famous sculptor. One of his best pieces he sculpted, and the only piece he ever signed, is located in St. Peter’s Basilica.  Known as Pietà (pity) it is of Mary holding the dead body of Jesus. It was carved in 1499 when Michelangelo was only 24 years old.

This is a good picture of what St. Peter's Basilica looks like from above

A courtyard at the Vatican

The stairway ramp to the exit of the Vatican museum

After the chapel we started on our long walk back towards our hotel. We decided to walk along the Tiber River on our way back until we came to an area covered in trees with what sounded like thousands of birds. Even though it was dark out the birds were squawking away, we put our hoods on and ran through the area. I managed to not get hit somehow but Nate was hit a couple times with some “droppings.” After that I decided we were not walking along the river anymore, so we headed inward.

St. Peter's Basilica at night

The path along the river

I was hoping to find some place for dinner along the way, but Nathan wasn’t really hungry. By the time we were almost back to our hotel we still hadn’t eaten so we decided to see if we could find the pasta place that had been recommended to us. We didn’t actually know the name of the place, but he had circled on the map where we could find it. He said there is always a long wait if you don’t have a reservation, but after walking to the location on the map, we couldn’t find such a place . . . strike two. We finally decided on a restaurant simply because I was hungry and very tired of walking.

The Roman market at night

The Forum of Caesar Augustus

The restaurant was decorated very creepy (baby dolls etc hanging from random places) so we decided to order 'safe' items. I ordered pasta, which wasn’t bad, and Nate got a steak. His steak was the biggest thing I think I’ve ever seen, but it was about half fat, a third bone, and turned out to be pretty under cooked. After trying really hard he found about 4 edible bites of meat, so I guess it was a good thing that he wasn’t super hungry.

To try wipe out of our memories the bad food of the day, and help us forget about our tired feet after walking around 8 miles, we topped off our trip with a scoop of homemade nutella gelato, which was very good!

Tuesday morning after we finished packing, we ate breakfast and then walked to the Termini Train station. It was spitting rain ever so lightly when we started walking but soon stopped, and by the time we got to the train station I was wanting to take my coat off.

We saw the shuttle bus just pulling up so we walked over to it. There was a guy trying to tell a couple of ladies that they needed to go stand over on the side walk, they needed to take the shuttle bus to the main airport and this was not their bus, but they didn't seem to understand. The guy was being a bit of a jerk and we weren't sure what we were supposed to do. We found some other guy working for the shuttle bus and he told us that we needed to have the desk check our tickets, even though we had already purchased tickets. Luckily that took only a few minutes and we were able to get on the bus.

As the bus drove to the airport we got to see all we missed when we arrived in the dark. We passed by some other ruins, including some aqueducts.

Not sure what this sign is about, but we saw similar ones all over Rome

We arrived at the airport 3 hours before our flight, which was plenty early, especially for a small airport. But we figured we would rather be early and make our flight than late and miss it, especially with RyanAir having so many regulations trying to make sure you will slip up so they can charge you extra.

When it finally came time to get on the plane we were forced to board the plane on the front (usually they allow boarding front and back). I wanted to walk towards the back as they usually have more open seats.  As we were going to pass by the emergency exit seating we saw that there was twice as much leg room, so we sat there. We actually got lucky as some of the emergency seats were reserved, and many people who tried to sit in the other seats were told to move on. We also had the whole row to us, so lots of room made the 2 hour flight not bad at all.

This time I was able to really enjoy the view of the Swiss Alps as we flew over them on our way home, and we landed 20 minutes early.