Forcola – A Love Story

Okay so I’m in Rome waiting for my train. Armed with some old rolls (bun thingys), a jar of peanut butter (from Canada) and some chocolate chip cookies we found our train car and hopped on. Welcome to travel by Eurostar high speed train. Depart Rome, see flat countryside with orange colored buildings, enter tunnel at high speed…ouch…my ears…see flat countryside with orange colored buildings, enter tunnel at high speed…ouch…my ears..see flat (repeat for 4.5 hours as needed).

Arrive Venice search for Vaporetto (also known as water bus). Think you are at the end of the line (you aren’t). Get in wrong line up but try desperately to figure out how to scan your ticket. Figure out the ticket scan (don’t insert just sort of wave it in the vicinity). Line up at wrong Vaporetto stop and wait. Wait some more, Figure out you are an idiot and go to extreme right of pier to find correct Vaporetto stop. Go down Grand Canal…make ooh and ahhh sounds.

Dump luggage in room and go wander, find out there are way too many pretty shops here with exquisite window displays that make you want to hand over all your credit cards and cash. Try not to do this, do it anyway. Figure out that it is the displays you like so just take photos instead. Discover that the 5 minute walk to St. Mark’s Square is 30 minutes or more if you window shop and get sucked into each shop. Find dinner at restaurant overlooking Grande Canal (which I will spell differently everytime so watch for that). See giant cruise ship pulled by canal ferry, canale fairie, tugboat with pilot thingy. Try to do the math to figure out how a ship that large goes down the Grande Canale. Put away your napkin and pencil, it’s not possible. Take a movie instead note that all canal traffic has mysteriously disappeared, cry silently and hope a few gondaliers survived. Finish your spaghetti al pomodoro, your bun, your Coke or Iced Tea (iced tea abounds in Venice now, nothing quite as refreshing except gelato). Immediately ask for the bill (il conto per favore) and head to the nearest gelato stand (not more than 10 feet from your table).

The next day is time for your Venetian rowing lesson on a batela with forcola. A batela was an old working boat in which you stand and row. It is about 27 feet long, the oar is 9 feet long and the forcola holds the oar (every gondola has a forcola). Take water taxi to marina on other side of Venice, take a movie while you go up the Canal Grande….awesome! Find marina, find Jane, find batela, learn stance for rowing, practise for 10 minutes, step in boat and row. Head to Venezia Lagoon (not the canal), the big, huge, bloody, lagoon with fast boats and wake which wakes you up and tries very hard to make you fall over. Try to remain standing and rowing and keep your oar in the forcola. Try to sing “O Sole Mio” which is not a Venetian song, admit you don’t know any Venetian songs and get reprimanded. Learn stearing (or go in circles which was my specialty). Try to not remove oar from water while steering (stearing)…whatever! Just keep your oar in the water, feather, make sure you keep those wrists moving, why isn’t the top of the oar up by your shoulder? Rock back and forth the rowing is done by your legs not your arms. Make all motor boats stop, you have right of way. Row…row…row…row. Realise all the pictures taken of you rowing are from behind and including just a huge butt shot and very little else. Do not post these pictures on the internet or your blog or in fact put them in your album. Decide that learning to row Venetian style is the most fun you’ve ever had in your entire life. Enquire on the cost of your own batela (there’s only 2 in the world…and they’re not for sale…sucks to be me).

Say goodbye to your instructor (Jane you awesome teacher you) and find gelato as you deserve it (well you actually always deserve a gelato).

Walk back to your hotel (about 30 minutes). Take photos, get lost, find a forcola maker named Paulo and buy your own forcola (all you need now is a gondola and an oar). Get Paulo’s picture with your forcola.

The next day we learned how to break out of prison (Cassanova style), and how to be in the Venetian Secret Service (love popping out doors that from the other side look like a filing cabinet…cool). Can’t take a picture because then it wouldn’t be secret anymore would it?

Find friends you hung with in Rome and take them for a coffee and the world’s most expensive coffee shop (Florian’s) in St. Mark’s Square. Take several pictures of the coffee/hot chocolate and sweets, you deserve photos at least. Desert and coffee just set you back over $200.

At night ensure you have a full moon and then hang around and wait for the moon to appear before taking 1200 photos, 1198 of which are blurry. Feel very pleased with yourself that you got 2 good pictures of “la luna”.

Wish that you never had to leave and vow to win the lottery so you can return to Venice and take months worth of lessons and then build your own batela. Oh and in case I forget, please ensure that you get at least one photograph of that certain Gondolier that looks like Tom Cruise

P.J. and the adventures of Alistair the Bear

Snuzie & Alistair at the Colosseum

Today I volunteered to stay behind and let my brother’s Alistair and Snuzie have their own special day at the Colosseum. The following is my interpretation of Alistair’s adventures today.

Alistair left very early this morning, some would say too early. So early in fact that he was the first one at the Colosseum and I don’t mean just tourists, I mean no souvenir vendors, no staff, nobody. Well a couple of feral cats that live at at the Colosseum. So apparently pictures were taken, dirt was abducted (decided to actually take dirt from Rome, specifically Colosseum dirt) as a souvenir. Italy is now smaller by approximately over 1 teaspoon and 1 very small piece of marble. This marble could have been a seat in the Colosseum for all I know. It’s not really a rock, more a tiny pebble. Luckily I’m not the one going to jail as I wasn’t there.  Apparently Rome was invaded by the likes of my brother who claimed a tiny peice as his own. Now he thinks he’s Ceaser Alistair because he conquered a teaspoon of dirt. Next thing  you know he’ll want one of those shiny crowns, a toga, some sandals and a palace or palazzo and slaves and a garden and a monument and an arch and some columns. You get my drift.

At 9:40, Alistair the Evil, went below the Colosseum where they used to keep the lions and tigers and bears (oh my!). Alistair is convinced that he’s the only bear that has emerged from the cell under the stage alive in one piece. Well him and Snuzie and they think they are both pretty special now. They have pictures to prove it. They saw the Gate of Death (where the gladiators entered the arena and the Gate of Triumph where they departed if still alive). The saw where the elevators were raised with the animals in them. Then they climbed all the way up to the 3rd level where the women and slaves had standing room only seats. They said they liked that view a lot but it was super windy up there, way up high. I wonder if the boys sat lower down to look up the ladies skirts (oops, did I say that out loud?).

Anyway they had a super time (Alistair said they were very first in line at the Colosseum, at the very front and when you think 30,000 people a day go through they were the first of 30,000).  They loved that they virtually had the place to themselves for the first 15 minutes.

To thank me for letting them go without me they bought me a present. Something I really wanted but was told I couldn’t have because it was too expensive (30 Euro). But I really wanted my souvenir and they knew that. Apparently they found one for less money and so when they got home there he was. Just for me. My very own Pope John Paul II Bobble Head. I call him P.J. That stands for Pope John even though he kinda mostly went by Pope Paul. He has been busy trying to do a mass on our sofa in our room. No conversions yet although he’s doing his best. My new friend was from Poland, lived in Krakow. That’s like 20 minutes from Auschwitz. I’m glad he made it, he was an actor before being a priest and a pretty good one I understand (and handsome too, nice 8×10).

So that’s my story for today. I hope Alistair doesn’t have to go to jail because that would mean he’d likely be killed by a gladiator in the Colosseum because he was a naughty boy. He shouldn’t celebrate any victory until we’re safely back in Canada. He says in exchange we can send all that Lire we still have that’s no good now.

Offical report by reporter Baxter as told to him by Alistair the Bear (World traveller).

A Hot Time in the Old Town Today

Okay…okay…it’s a city not a town. Today (oggi) we put all our undesirables (dirty undergarments) and walked a whole block to the laundry. You hand them the bag, they take your name and 2 hours later it’s washed, dried and folded. You hand the nice boy about 11 Euro and depart with a smile on your face.

To the Metro then and beyond…to the Colosseum stop. Keep walking, keep walking…past the forum…to the Victor Emmanuel II Momument (first King of Rome). Took pictures, took more pictures, saw stupido tourists get in trouble for sitting on steps as signs everywhere say “Stupid tourist don’t sit on steps”. We climbed up the steps to the regular folks viewpoint but paid our 7 Euro to ascend on the elevator to the tippy top (best durn view of Roma except the blasted sun). The sun washes out the view cuz it’s so bright and then all that reflection from the white momument because…well it’s awfully very white you see.

Now I am up high in the sky near the sun which is baking my little head and turning my brain into a mush bath. But the sun is not done with me, no my little friends the reflection of the light off all the white raises the heat because now it’s coming up at me hotter than it comes down. Mush brain now liquid brain…can’t concentrate, tummy upset, pretty sure about to die but stumble onwards taking shaky pictures of the view and trying to find shade (ha..ha..funny…what shade?). Crawling now on all fours, panting like a dog (oh yeah I am a dog) I have found my way back to the elevator and head down. Someone has put in a cafe with mist water fan things. Need water! We go inside and purchase a fruit bowl, a Coke and a bottle of water and now we wait…and wait…for a table. Finally we are rescued by an Italian couple and when they left the table, we rescued a lovely couple from Peru by sharing our table with them. I said to her “Parle Inglese?” Luckily she spoke English and Spanish so we said it must be quite easy to understand Italian if you speak Spanish. She said yes she thought it would but hasn’t understood a single word they say. She was funny. We left together, now less baked and slightly more human.

And now a word from our sponsor.

The horse statue out front of the monument is 43 feet long and is the largest equestrian statue in the world. The king’s moustache is over 5 feet wide and a person can fit into a horses hoof. To climb up to the first view area we had to climb 242 punishing steps. Ha.. ha…they don’t know squat. They oughta climb the stairs from the platform of the Metro Line B from Castro Pretoria to the street level. Forget Saint Peter’s climb to the dome, this is the only time Mom had to stop (twice) and was out of breath. The stairs are spaced quite far apart so you have to lift your knees up and by 1/2 way your knees say (piss off stupid human type) and that’s it. Stuck forever half way up from the Metro.

Word for Dan…we saw a man making little motorcycles and thought of you and bought you one but then something horrible happened. Something horrific.  My brother’s Spookie and Norbert discovered that they are a perfect fit. Spookie being a ghost is now “Ghost Rider in the Sky”. I  can not guarantee you will now actually get this bike unless you pry it from Spookies cold dead hands (don’t forget he’s a ghost). Good luck with that! |Oh well it’s the thought that counts, right?

And now I leave you as it’s time to depart on our Roma by Notte Tour with Paulo. He was a flight attendant with Air Italia for 25 years. It’s a private tour of 3 hours so better visit the toilet before I depart (Io parto).

Ciao!

Fruit and Earthquakes

Apple Bouquet

Apparently some soothsayer said there would be a massive earthquake on May 11, 2011 and that Rome would be leveled. Apparently according to the BBC several local folks left the city “just in case”. Rest assured there was no shaky ground here, I know because we walked all day and nothing shaked, not even a little bit.

What is it about Italian fruit? It is a million maybe a trillion times better than fruit from California or Hawaii. It is so sweet and fresh and tasty, why it’s almost as good as the gelato. The strawberries are to die for, the bananas….num…num..I wish I could bring them home. They even put them in floral bouqets. If you’ve never seen a apple and rose bouqet you are in luck because I shall put a picture here for you. Aren’t they pretty?

Today we were so early to the Sistine Chapel/Museum and because we pre-purchased our tickets in advance we skipped the entire line, walked in like friggin celebrities. Straight in, no wait at all. So we got pictures of stuff with no folks around to bother  us at all. I like feeling like a celebrity. Did you know that celebrities existed even before Christ, who is quite the celebrity around Rome, darn pictures everywhere, worse than the tabloids on Angelina and Brad. The only person with more pictures plastered around here and his very own bobble head doll (Dad says I can’t have one but I have pocket money), is Pope John Paul II. I think I need a bobble head Pope, Dad says he’s all poped out but I’m feeling a little bobble head coming on. Perhaps I can sneak one in my luggage. I’m trying to find a mini scooter (cuz there are millions of scooters here, everywhere you look there’s another 500 scooters). Anyway I want to find a little scooter for Mr. Dan but they are all ugly and cheap…even too ugly for Dan and that’s really ugly.

Did you know the best gelato place is the White Restaurant. It’s called that because the whole place is white and black. Really pretty nice, especially the gelato. Course we had a good one today (gelato I mean) too. Oh, who am I kidding, we have gelato and pastries every day. In fact a feel a pastry coming on in about 9 hours. Better make room in my tum..tum.

My friend Desiree from Halifax has arrived and we took them for walkies tonight. Tomorrow we spend the night with them terrrorizing Rome. Maybe that’s the earthquake that was predicted! The downfall of Rome thanks to Baxter and his gang of Canadians eh!

Later people who are anywhere but Rome tonight. I feel sorry for you!

The Dig – In Search of Bones

Baxter at St. Peter's

Why hello Senore Swiss Guard man, I have a lovely sheet of paper for you. No, I don’t want my picture taken with you just a quick wave of your hand and a nod of your head and I shall continue on my way to the Scavi Office. Hey I thought you were only letting people in 10 minutes before. I say dear fellow with your pretty blue and yellow and really quite flamboyant garments, what have we here? Why some are an entire 30 minutes ahead of the allowed “wave through”. Never mind, I have exchanged my paper for actual tickets and taken the allowed photograph.

With our British tour guide whose name I remember not (because I couldn’t hear it) we gathered in the little room where a model sat. With white pillars and sort of imbedded into a wall (actually part of the wall) we learned that this was the trophy of Gaius. Nothing at all like a trophy, no bowling ball on top, no little molded statue of a mini golfer. This trophy is like a little alter that goes over or shrine over a tomb. There was a hole where you could have originally tossed coins which I think was to pay the ferryman to take you across that final river when you died. I think I’ll swim across and save my coins for the gelato man who I hope is on the other side.

We now enter the necropolis or city of the dead. This particular one is under St. Peter’s in Rome. They had little streets and little houses for their dead and you were expected to visit and perhaps have a picnic and hang out with those who passed on. Not every dead person was buried in these tombs in the same way. Some were cremated (they were in jars, not like a peanut butter jar, more like a vase), others were in coffins, others were in their own sarcophagus (with really nice carvings and a Latin inscription) telling how long they had lived, right down to the hour. It was important how long you lived not when you died.

Now these cities of the dead were where the dead could all hang out together and take care of each other. You were expected to visit. You could even bring food or wine or even  blood from a sacrificed animal which you would pour through a hole in the floor of the little house where you’re dead relatives were. If my family was down there I would put gelato and chocolate biscuits down the holes.

Lots of children died young, 50% before the age of one. That’s why there was a rule that you were supposed to have 6 children. 2 would die before age 1, one would die before adulthood, 1 would die before they had children so if  you were lucky then 2 would survive to keep the population the same. Makes sense until you have health care and then you overpopulate the world and make a big fat mess of things. But I digress.

In this underground city that lay some 45 feet underneath St. Peter’s I was most surprized to learn that Roman mythology was rampant, lots of frescoes of various gods and the Christians were an illegal little Jewish sect that had to hide the fact they were Christian so various symbols were used to indicate they were Christian but it was a secret code, early vandalism I call it.

I loved walking throught this little underground city, poking into the little rooms, looking at the art still visible on the walls and especially I liked the peacocks. Lots of drawings of peacocks as they stood for eternal life because the skin doesn’t rot…or something. They believed this to be true anyway.

We made our way up the little streets and learned that a lot of reinforced walls had to be built because by digging out this hidden city it meant that nothing would be holding up St. Peter’s and we don’t want the church to fall down, I’d be squished for sure.

At the end we saw the corner of the wall of St. Peter’s tomb and entered a lovely little chapel where we could look up through a grate in the floor and see the baldacchino which is like a giant alter. That’s where the Pope and only the Pope can give a service from. The people above us have no idea we are down there. Although the original little alter for St. Peter from back in 200 AD is all there we could see only 1 pillar of the original. Finally the highlight for many was Peter’s bones. They are incased in tiny cases and put into a crevasse in the wall near where they were found. I’m glad they are there and not divided up around the world to be shown in various cathedrals. I was glad to see that although disturbed and analyzed they kept them here. I told Peter to say a quick hello and pass on our thanks to Grandma Kinshella as she was the one that ensured we were on this tour. She would have loved to have come to St. Peter’s herself as she was a super duper Catholic. Still we brought her ring so something she often wore made it to see St. Peter. If she had a little house under St. Peter’s I would definately have stopped by for a gelato and a visit.

I wish we could have stayed in the necropolis longer, the hour and a half flies by. The tour really is an underground cemetary tour. My Mom used to give cemetary tours too so we felt at home. No ghosts I’m afraid and I don’t think St. Peter is down here hanging out. I’m pretty sure he took his keys that Jesus gave him and spends time in that really nice place somewhere over the rainbow. Sorry I feel a song coming on….

He Loves Us Not – The scorn of the Italian night auditor.

It was a dark but not stormy night and all was not well in room 104. Alas the tired travellers had retired for the evening at the hour of 8:00pm but it was the male of the dastardly duo that awoke at 3:15 am. He had no wish to disturb that which lay beside him (neither it a Baxter or pillow be) and made haste to the lobby where he settled in to await the morn. He was not alone our intrepid explorer for in that same lobby was none other than “The Night Auditor” or for Italian purposes the “Notte Auditor”. He had alternate plans for his evening which (doth I say aloud) may have included a silent slumber upon the divano. Alas he could not now that the reader had arrived and sat opposite. And so it went until some 3 hours hence until the arrival of the female who had awoken at 4:15 am and was now ready to find her missing partner.

And so it was the couple would depart from the angry gaze of the “Notte Auditor” after leaving him with their key while they departed some 60 minutes before the introduction of breakfast foods.

The couple wandered nye the neighbourhood and found that it constantly offered up venues of fresh pastries of delectable vision to the eye and the aroma of coffee permeated the morning air. The visions of culinary delight beckoned through glass fronted eateries that were just steps apart but our heros only feasted with their eyes as their own colizione beckoned upon the hour of 7:00. And so they returned at that hour and made way to the banquet table upon which were pastries and fruits of all description on fine china and the mistress sipped upon the frothy milk that sat sweetly upon her Caffe Americano.

Many would have stayed at the sumptious table but they bade farewell to journey forth to the basilica to gaze upon the wonders of Michaelangleo and Bernini and to discover all that which lie some 45 feet below the alter of St. Peter. And in that most holy place did they see the bones of the apostle and the frescos of the peacock and hoped that they would not be required to soon have a coin of their own to pay the ferryman to take them across that final river.

Italy update May 5, 2011

This is a test to see if I can post from my IPod thing a ma jiffy. Laptops are too heavy and cumbersome…not cumberbund as that’s a tuxedo thingy I thinky.

Baxter – The Venetian Gondolier

I know that most people just go to Venice, take a wee ride on a gondola, visit the Doge’s Palace and go home but not me (Io). I, the great Baxter Kinshella, am not satisfied with being a mere tourist and so I have signed up for a lesson on how to row a gondola. I am studying very hard and bothering innocent Venetians with my emails trying to find out what I can. So here is my history of the gondola and the gondolier.

I can take as many gondola rowing lessons as I want but I can never, ever, be a true Venetian gondolier for 3 reasons.

1. I was not born in Venice
2. My father was not a gondolier
3. My father can not teach me to be a gondolier.

My first job in securing a lesson was to Google Venice blogs online and searching for the words “gondola” and “teaching” and “rowing” and “forcola”. We will learn of the forcola shortly. But first I found a teacher, who is not, nor ever will be a Venetian Gondolier for she is Australian, she’s a she, and she has a special boat to learn on. A real gondola is 38 feet long but she teaches on a custom built Venetian boat that is smaller and was used some 100 years ago to transport goods. It is much shorter but you still have to stand and face forward when rowing and it has a forcola for your remo (oar). My teacher’s name is Jane Caporal. We will meet her at the marina in Sacca Misericordia which is on the north (nord) side of Venice just at the entrance (entrata) of the Madonna Del Orto canal. She will row down the narrow canal to the Grande Canal where she will take us to a lagoon where we can practise.

The most important part of a gondola or Venetian boat is the forcola. That is the piece (about 18 inches high) that holds the oar. It has many different sections where you can put your oar depending on what you are trying to do. Are you going forward, backward, to the right, to the left, faster forward or stopping? Without a forcola you could not navigate the canals of Venice. They are all custom built depending on the weight and height of the gondolier.

After my fall in the canal (or rowing lesson and remember you row a gondola you don’t paddle a gondola) I shall make haste to the workshop of Signore Paulo Brandolisio who is a forcola maker in Venice. He has a tiny workshop maybe 10-15 minute walk from St. Mark’s Square. He has emailed me to say we are welcome to visit him and what time his shop is open. If you Google his name he has some pictures up of his forcola’s and on YouTube he has a short little video of his shop. It is very small (piccolo). The forcola is always made of a solid piece of Walnut. There is much to know about the forcola but once I am in Venice I will take pictures and tell you more about them.

Now I must get back to studying my Italian. I think I am up to 450 words now.

Ciao!

Scavi Tour

Yes, I’ll admit it, I’m a YouTube and Google-aholic. Still I managed to find something pretty unique to do in Rome. I found it by accident but decided it was something I had to do.

I think Scavi stands for excavation and that is what they did under St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. They were looking for Peter, a good friend of that Jesus guy. Apparently some years after Jesus got hung up on the cross his good friend, Peter, headed off to Rome.  Now at that time they hadn’t heard about Jesus or Christianity or any of that stuff. Nero was the Emperor at the time (he liked to sing and play the Lyre but he didn’t fiddle while Rome burned, they hadn’t invented fiddles yet). Anyway, apparently Emperor’s thought they were pretty darn god like so Nero didn’t appreciate what Peter had to say. He ordered him crucified too but Peter said, okee dokee but I am not worthy to be hung right side up as that’s how my great friend Jesus was hung. So he opted for the rather nastier, upside down, version.

Now Peter had quite a few followers so they took him and buried him in a little house. Lots of famous folks and rich folks and well liked folks were buried in little houses (bigger than a tomb), and some came complete with tables and dining implements and such things. Anyway Peter’s “house” along with all these other little burial houses lined little streets and pretty soon there was a whole entire city of little dead people houses and streets. They called this the City of the Dead. There were little fountains in the street and everything.

Okay…so some years passed and a church (St. Peter’s the original…not it’s official name) was built over top of the city. Well…kind of. The city of the dead was kind of on a hill. They needed a big flat bit to build the church so they filled in all the little houses and streets with the dirt from the hill, made it all nice and flat, and built St. Peter’s.

Okay so now jump forward all the way to 1940. Now we have the giant and super big St. Peter’s you see today. They built it over where they thought Peter was buried. Well on top of the old church which was on top of Peter’s little house. So in 1940, Mussolini (not an Emperor cuz they had petered out…pardon the pun), got busy probably with the Vatican guys and went in search of Peter’s bones. They started digging, at night, in the dark….so Hitler wouldn’t find out. Instead of bones they found the old alter and then kind of ran out of time. Then in 1968 a Pope came along and started digging again cuz he really wanted to know if Peter was actually down there. Well they expected to find some bones but instead found a whole entire, miniature city. They called it the Vatican Necropolis. No bones though, just this big city underground. So they dug and dug and dug some more because they had a whole entire hill’s worth of dirt in the little houses and streets. Then at long last they found a red stone wall (Peter wasn’t buried with a red stone in his hand or nearby) the walls of his little house were made of red stone. Anyway they still didn’t quite realize what they had but finally they did and Peter was found…all but his feet apparently. They chop those off when you are hung upside down. Thus kind of confirming that due to the location (up almost under the alter some two stories above), the red stone walls and no feet they figured they had found their man.

So anyway the Scavi Tour allows about 24 English speaking folks a day to go into this underground city, walk the little streets, go into the little houses, and see St. Peter’s bones. It’s pretty darn special and most folks don’t get to go at all, some wait 4 years. Course we decided to contact the excavation office at the Vatican and try to get a spot. We told them anytime on any of 5 days. Then we asked the special help of my Grandma (now deceased) who was a  super duper Catholic and named after 3 saints. My grandparents names are Mary and Joseph ( I kid you not!).  Anyway, with help from the grandparents and great-grandparents asking if they could help us as best they could from “the other side” we not only got a confirmation in less than 24 hours, but had our tickets bought and paid for within 72 hours. Virtually unheard of, unless you get help from those who have gone to join Peter and Jesus.

So we are super, duper excited to go. Even without a camera because I think if you took a picture you might find yourself buried in a little house underground, never to emerge from the Scavi Tour.

Now I’m busy rearranging everything around my Scavi Tour. I also found a super little nifty church to visit near the Pantheon which is really tiny but amazing and rarely is a tourist seen there which is why I’m going.

Let the countdown begin. It all starts in less than 4 months which is how far in advance you have to book if you want any chance at all of joining the most amazing tour. I will be sure and update you on the day we visit.

Hotel info to come….they’re all booked way ahead. Want the best location, best hotel for the best price.

Preparing for my trip to Roma

Well after several false starts I have decided to journey to Rome and Venice. First my checklist.

1. Find my own private tour guide (preferably someone who’s actually been there).

 I have selected one old crazy broad (henceforth known as Sue) and her crazy partner Joe (henceforth known as Joeseppie as it sounds more Italian). This is Sue’s 4th trip to Roma and 6th trip to Venezia (the discrepancy is due to the two visits where she chose not to toss a coin into the Trevi Fountain and returned to Italy but not Rome). Luckily for me on her trip in 1990 she tossed in a coin and there you have it.

2. Buy an absurd amount of travel books about Rome and Venice including books on how to speak the language.

I headed off to our best bookstore and went into the language section, the travel section, the history section and the children’s section. My assortment of books covered all sorts of history and travel books (some by that weird Rick Steeves guy who I think talks funny but he actually writes really, really well). Obviously we can’t take everything with us so what we will be dragging along in our handy dandy backpack will be the Rick Steeve’s Rome, Rick Steeve’s Italian,  Fodor’s Rome (it’s got great maps and a Metro map too), Frommer’s Venice,  and the tiny little Italian language book that will fit in a purse (that’s “borsa” in Italian).

3. Watch movies about Rome

I watched “Angels and Demons” and it has lots of great Rome sites in it. I watched Gladiator plus all the extra’s (6 hours later I discover none of it was filmed in Italy). Still it teaches you all about Gladiators and how the Colliseum worked so still well worth while. I also “Tweeted” Russell Crowe about restaurants in Rome (he has been there several times) and he tweeted me back. Yup the Gladiator tweeted me back but I think he really, really likes seafood and I’m allergic so I’ll have to find somewhere else. Still it was really super nice of him to help. Maybe to thank him I’ll learn his song that he sang on the Spanish Steps and YouTube it while I’m there to thank him. My personal tour guide was an extra in one of Russell’s movies, the one he made right before he made Gladiator.

I also watched “The Tourist” which is awesome if you want to know exactly where the train arrives in Venice and how to catch a water taxi or the Vaporetto (water bus) from there. It took all the worry out of what to expect when I land at the train station in Venice. Thank you Angelina and Mr. Depp, you helped me out a lot.

4. Google till you drop

I don’t know how I survived without Google, don’t tell them but I’d pay for the service. I Google everything from tours, blogs, hotels…pretty much anything I might want to know. I’m learning lots of history this way too. Roman history is nuts…thousands of years, I can’t learn it all but if I can just learn the important emperors who built stuff that will be good. Did you know that Ceaser is a title, like mayor, and not an actual name? I also learned that Hadrian was gay and loved to travel. He didn’t like to fight so he kept his soldiers busy building walls (hence Hadrian’s Wall in England).

5. Take Google man for a walk.

I love Google man. You go to whatever part of Rome you want in Google maps and then drag your little man onto the street. Once you decide on your hotel take the little guy for a walk. This is a great way to find nearby grocery stores, restaurants, traffic lights, pharmacy’s, internet cafe’s, and where the actual entrance is to the Metro or train station. I loves my Google man.

6. YouTube

You can learn so much from YouTube, the history of Rome, places to go, what your hotel room looks like (most have a little YouTube video), even what the inside of the train station and airport look like.

7. Go visit Trip Advisor

For the best hotel narrow down your search to 4 or 5 in the area you want to go to and/or by price. Then go to Trip Advisor for the reviews. One bad review doesn’t mean the hotel is bad but read through the last year or so. Every hotel has had bed bugs, maybe it was you who brought them in on your luggage so don’t throw a hissy fit. If one review said they had bugs and the rest loved the place it means they may have had them for a day or two but doesn’t mean the place isn’t spotless. I had narrowed my hotels down to 3 in each city and then narrowed it down to one for each city (and booked it) based on Trip Advisor. I don’t book on Trip Advisor I book through the hotel directly in most cases. This way you can make changes easily and not fight with any of the online agencies. It is easier to make requests when you book directly. Always, always, confirm dates and requests about a week before you go. It is very easy for the hotel agent to be trying to book your room, check in people, and do a multitude of things all at the same time. Try to get an email confirmation and double check those dates as well. I’m not anal, my tour guide works in the hotel industry.

8. Buy an iPod

I swore I would never do this but after saving points on my Visa for about 25 years I can buy something more than a coffee cup. With my points I purchased an iPod. Last year we dragged a laptop around England (it’s difficult, it’s heavy, it takes up room in your luggage). So my little iPod means I can update my Blog, check my emails, have a little Italian translator with me and even a crappy downloadable map of Rome (it’s on iTunes -it’s not a great map but better than nothing). Rick Steeves little tours can also be downloaded so you don’t have to actually carry the entire book if you are just touring something like the Sistine Chapel or St. Peter’s.

Tune in tomorrow when I tell you about planes, trains and hotels.

Ciao (that’s good bye and hello in Italian….for friends, it’s not formal but it’s easy to remember). Pronounced sort of like Chow (like dog chow).