Did I say Pizza?

Ohhhhh, I must have been in Italy for too long because I actually was meaning Piza, well, actually Pisa (close enough to make the very lame joke work though, surely)!  But for the record, this Chicken quite likes pizza too!

After a bit of a mammoth drive from Pompeii, we arrived in Pisa in the afternoon, we drove around for quite sometime looking for a car park (ended up finding one a fair way away, but after all that driving the walk did us good!).  Speaking of driving, the drive around the streets was really interesting, the buildings houses and structures were not as I expected and were really interesting and cool, I think it’s worth visiting just for the drive around!

Anyway, oh, just incase anyone hasn’t picked up just yet why we were looking for a car park, it was, to see the great Leaning Tower of Pisa.

So we stretched our legs and headed off, on the way we stopped and made a new furry friend, a very cute dog that was tied up outside in the sun looking very thirsty, so we gave him some of our water (well, ended up being the whole bottle, since we didn’t have anywhere to pour it into and he slobbered all over it), a pat and some attention, which he seemed to like and continued on (he tried very hard to follow us, however the lead just got in the way!).

Finally reached the Leaning Tower (I am making it sound like it was the world’s most mammoth walk….it was actually only about 3 blocks!), and just to be like everyone else, we posed in the usual way – where you pretend to hold up the tower, however for me it was a little difficult without any arms to speak of, so I went for the “giant chicken” pose:

Giant Chicken!

and here is another of me:

Yay, look at me, I am at the Leaning Tower!!

I will probably shock some people when I say we decided against going up inside the tower, something I will probably regret (although I prefer to see it as an excuse to go back – hehehe), as the wait was over 3 hours, and we were keen to get to Florence so we could spend some quality time there (TIP: Get your tickets to go up the tower before you walk around and see everything, they only let a certain amount of people go up at a time).   I have since seen some night shots of the tower (I am a sucker for pretty buildings lit up at night!!), and kind of wish we did stay, oh well, next time.

We did spend a fair amount of time soaking up the atmosphere, I was very impressed with the grass, it was very comfy and soft, nothing better than sitting on the grass outside a great building enjoying the sun….not too much can beat that!

Anyway, back to the tower, I must say hats off to the crappy soil and less than perfect foundations on which it was built, it is certainly much cooler with the lean.  And it actually leans more than I thought (photos just don’t do it justice!)…..it really looks like it is leaning just that little bit too far

What some people may or may not realise, is that the tower is part of the Cathedral of Pisa complex, and I must say, the cathedral and baptistery were equally amazing.  As a site, it surely is impressive (Even if you have been through Europe and seen every Cathedral known to man)!  So, I was one happy chicken….

Sooo,

Finally, made it to Pompeii and it was a bit more special than I thought it would be.   For those who might of heard of Pompeii and don’t know what it is.  Pompeii is a coastal town in Italy (about 2 hours south of Rome), and in 79 AD Mt Vesuvius erupted, burying the town in 30 ft of ash, volcanic mud and debris.  It was left for around 1700 years until it was excavated, leaving what was left of it really well perserved.

I must admit I severely underestimated the size of this place, it’s seriously big!  I only got a couple of photos, below is the Forum.

If you look closely you can see Vesuvius in the background, and if you really use your imagination the cloud above it kinda looks like a big cloud of smoke or steam…

Above is the forum again, don’t you just love ancient sites that let you touch and walk on the ruins?

Walking around is amazing, it was quite the sophisticated society, with bars and bakeries (although i wasn’t sold on the open toilets that are located right on the side of the streets).  The Amphitheater is pretty cool, but I just love walking down the cobbled streets, kind of eerie really.  The most surreal thing was seeing the casts of the victims, you could clearly see their expressions and most were of complete and utter horror, not the way I want to go, that’s for sure!!

But the best bit?  It was raining a little, and while I was wondering around I met a very nice security guard, who actually let me go behind the scenes, into places that were roped off and behind gates.  It was pretty cool, I did get photos, but didn’t get any with me in them.   We saw some amazing tile work and detailed wall paintings, it was pretty awesome, I must say.

Next we decided to go up and see Mt Vesuvius, we drove as far as we could, the last 200m is done by walking.  We weren’t sure whether we should, but once we got there we were pretty excited, this chicken certainly has never been up close and personal with the mouth of a volcano before, especially one that manage to bury it’s surroundings!!  We were told there was a little wait, but it was cool, we were more than happy to.

We waited until after a couple of hours, we realised  we weren’t going to get to see it, part of the track had been ruined in the rain, and we were told it could take days to fix.  It’s always the way, you always want to do something heaps more when you are told you can’t.   I had to let this go, we didn’t have days to wait, infact we planned to leave the next day.  So,that was that, 200m from seeing the top of the volcano…

Back on the road tomorrow.

Hmmm,

Well, this chicken got a little bit too excited about Pompeii and completely forgot about this little place called the Vatican City!!!!!

Big Oops!

Soooo,  we have a full day looking around (which, is not nearly enough time), so many great things all in the one spot (well, one very big spot!), first up was St Peter’s square, and it’s big, much bigger than I thought, it has a stage where the pope talks, I tried to get a photo with me talking on it, however, they wouldn’t let me (I was even thinking up a very inspirational speech to go with it).

We checked out St Peter’s, very impressive indeed, the strange thing is that this place is big, it’s impressive, great decorations, lots of things to see and just check out the only photos that I got inside……I think this chicken has a subconscious morbid side:

went for a little walk up some stairs to check out the dome:

Awe pretty!  Next we went onto the roof for an awesome view.  Actually the roof was pretty awesome in general, especially the statues:

Next we went to the museums and checked out the Sistine Chapel, that man can sure paint!  I especially loved the 3D effects.  I didn’t get any photos as you weren’t allowed to take them, plus it was soo busy in there that you could hardly move!  All in all a pretty good day I must say!

Ok, so I can say for certain that Pompeii is the very next stop!

Me again with some more Rome goodness!!

Did a huge amount of walking around Rome, deliberately getting lost to see what I could find (oh yea, and got not so deliberately lost too!!).

I went and saw the Pantheon, which is such an interesting shape, and I learned that when it was built you used to have to get to it by a set of stairs, however the ground level around it has risen so much that they are not needed anymore – how cool is that!  I wonder if future traveling chicken will need steps going down if the surrounding ground continues its rise?

Next, I checked out the Trevi fountain, I had no idea that it was in such an enclosed space, it was during the day so I didn’t get it to myself (and I was running out of mornings!). This was all my camera was able to capture (oh and it’s not straight because Yas was holding the camera up as high as she could, she’s not the tallest person in the world, and there were people infront – I am just glad that she actually got some of me in it – hehehe):

The next day I went on the archeological bus tour, too much to fit in a day, however, I did see the aqueducts, and while cool and important, they weren’t as impressive as I thought they would be (I am sure I had seen photos of better than where we went!), anyway it was a bit rushed and I forgot to take some photos…. the last photo I took in Rome was of a very important place, a place that once you have been too you will never forget……… Yay, the best Gelato place in the world!!!! (actually I took this photo because this was recommended to me, and wanted to make sure it was noted that I had been. There was a very long line, a billion different flavours, it was very hard to make important decision like that under pressure – but I did and it was goooooooooood!):

So that was my trip to Rome in a couple of posts….oh yes, last night we decided to have dinner in town (pizza, we were sticking with the Italian theme), followed by a movie, completely forgetting we relied on a train to get back.  As complete luck would have it, we got to the station just in time for the very last train (and when I said just in time, I mean running to the train).   That was a lucky one….

I am going to stick my neck out and say I will be back to Rome, while we saw as much as we could in the week we were here, we didn’t get many relaxing days and there still was a tonne of things to see.  I am still deciding about my favourite ‘really big’ cities – the big ones at the moment being Paris, Rome, Moscow and Vienna (which scrapes in).   I think I felt the most attached to Vienna, something about it I just loved…but for sightseeing Rome and Paris are neck and neck….. we will be going back to Paris to drop off the car, so I will think about that some more.

Tomorrow we head further south to Pompeii, which is somewhere I have been really looking forward to, so am excited about that.

Well it certainly isn’t tomorrow as I promised however, I will try make up for it in photos! (apologies all round for my lateness).

We traveled down to Rome on the toll roads, which I realised was a big mistake. First because they arn’t the cheapest, and secondly we were in a country known for it’s scenery and we took the biggest road we could find. I guess the good news is that we will be coming back up so we have a chance to fix it.

We arrived in Rome pretty much in peak hour.  And managed to get very lost, I think we must have drove around for an hour looking for where we were staying, and when we found it, we couldn’t get to it as it was on the other side. During this time I managed to come up with a few observations about drving in Rome:

1.  During peak hour single lane roads can somehow fit 2 cars

2.  Vesper riders have a serious death wish (they would dart infront of us without notice – and seemed to love it when there was barely enough room)

3.  Parking is seriously done as if on a cartoon….if the space isn’t big enough, you just nudge the car a little infront and behind to fit in (we were told there was a waiting list of up to a year to get your car body repaired), we saw 3 cars do this just on our way to dinner!

4. When approaching a T-intersection to a main road DO NOT STOP and wait for an entrance, you will be met with a lot of angry people behind you.  You just slow down,  drive into the traffic, and somehow people just make room for you.  If you are worried, just do what I did, close your eyes and it will be over in no time – although probably don’t do that if you are driving (hehe)

5.  When you are tired from driving in circles, just do an illegal left turn into where you are staying (oops!)

6.  Finally I can say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do!

The strange thing is, all of the above seemed to work well, so I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad system (although the parking is a little rough), however, it didn’t stop us from unanimously agreeing that the car would stay put until we needed to leave!  Luck had it there was a train station about 15 mins walk from where we were staying. Not to mention a lovely street filled with some food places down the road.  What more could we want?

Ok, so back to the sight-seeing part.

The next day we got up, and caught the train into the city, and of course our first stop was the Colosseum!  We hired a guide to take us around and give us some history. I would give you a snippet of the good stuff, however, he told us so much and I was too busy looking around to notice (hehehe – when the site lists it as a wonder I will link to it – how’s that for laziness?!).  Anyway, it was very big and would have been awesome to goto in it’s glory days and see a show or something. I am not sure about the killing and fighting stuff, but maybe a performance of the chicken dance or something would be cool (or, maybe not! lol)

We enjoyed it so much that after we finished we had a lovely drink across the road so we could relax and enjoy the view.  Ok, I will now be quiet and show the pics:

Pity I couldn’t put the photos next to each other, they would nearly line up and you would get double chicken!!  Coooool.

Next stop was Palatine Hill, and according to mythology,  it’s here where the story of Romulus and Remus begins. I always love a good mythological story, don’t you?

In the below picture, can see the white building with the statue?  Well, that just happens to be one of my favourite places in Rome, the Piazza Venezia, I didn’t get any photos with me in it, I am not sure what it was about it that I like so much, because it happened to be one of the busiest places traffic wise.  I think I visited it a billion times (yes, I might be prone to a little exaggeration!!), however something about it drew me to it.

While we were walking around we found this beautifully manicured pathway that was kind of like a huge maze for this little chicken….so I thought I would have a bit of a play before continuing with our sight seeing:

In the following days we saw the Spanish steps filled with huge crowds, so I vowed to get there first thing to see if things got any better, and I am so glad I did, check it out:

Well, I have some more photos to show, but I will leave it for next time.

Arividerchi!

Hello!!

Where should I start, Venice.  We spent a couple of days in Venice.  The first day, we got off the ferry, walked over a little bridge and on the other side was a building with huge spray painted words saying  ”Kill the tourist”, for a second I pondered and agreed that if I was to live somewhere similar that was crawling with tourists I would feel the same way (oh except the killing part, not so keen on that!!).  But, then I realised that comment was directed at me, and became a little disturbed by it.  lol.

Venice was almost what I was expecting.  It did feel like I was walking around a postcard, everything seemed familiar for some reason, the canals, the bridges, coloured buildings, all very pretty.  Things I wasn’t expecting was the small winding alley ways, lined with shops filled with beautifully made masks and all sorts of stuff.  Secondly, when we arrived to St Marks the entry was flooded, we had to walk along fold up tables, and lastly it was a little dirtier than I expected.

I looked up about the flooding and it’s actually reasonably common, with the city sinking and the water levels rising, you don’t realise how much of a threat the city is under until you can see it actually happening.  I must admit I did love seeing the tiles on st marks floor through water, just made them look even more special…and by the time we finished looking around the flooding had gone enough for us to walk out.

One thing I regret, is that after seeing Ljubljana all lit up beautifully at night, transforming it completely.  We never did see Venice at night, I have a sneaky suspicion that it would look just as stunning at night, however, I will have to wait for my next trip to find out!

Oh yes, here I am on the Rialto bridge (wow it was busy, we had to wait a while before getting to the middle to take this photo – but the good news is that I love the attention, and I always get attention when there are crowds – yipeeeeee)!  See, it was a perfect day, with a great view:

I am actually now in Rome, however, I will come back and post on that tomorrow (I am making a conscious effort to get more photos, so lets see how that goes!).

Well, it’s been busy!

Mainly because I have been helping out with the launch my parent site, which is exciting cause I know they have a tonne of cool ideas, they just don’t have to people to make it happen over night, but it will get there, I will be helping them where I can (although I think I will need to do a little more traveling first!!).

Anyway, back to it…

right, so after spending sometime in Bled we decided it was time to head out for Venice.  However, along the way we stopped into the famous caves.  We got there nice and early (a little too early, but we had time to relax and be first to get our ticket).  We caught a cute little train that took us deeper into the cave and after  a little time of ohhhing and ahhhing on the way down we got out and was able to walk around while our guide was giving us the facts.  Here are a couple of photos of me in the caves:

a little blurry, this camera wasn’t the best for photos at night I have found out.

It was quite cool down there (in both the temperature and good factor).  Since I am on the topic of caves, while this one was lit up nicely, what is with the coloured lights in caves?  Is it to bring out certain colours in the rocks?Or is it purely for entertainment purposes?  I have always wanted to know that (well, always as in the last couple of hours at least – hehe)

So after walking around the caves, thinking about the millions of years it took to create the stalactites and how it would be typical for me to fall and knock one down (however I didn’t, probably because I am not tall enough) it was time to go.

At the end we were told to wait at a station for the little train to take use back up…..and I am serious, they really have a station in the cave, complete with a little yellow line (which I am naughty and am in front of)!

Toot toot!

Next stop was Venice, since Italy isn’t the cheapest place in the world we were told they have pretty good camp sites with cabins that are reasonably priced, so we found one that is right next to a ferry stop that will take us in.

Byeeeee

Hello!!

Well we are out seeing Bled today.   It is so picture perfect, it’s not funny.  Seriously, look up photo and you will see the lake with the church (I say look them up because I forgot to get photos, I even forgot to get photos without me in them!!!), we opted to go driving to the other side of the lake where there were less tourists (yes, I am still on my never ending search to see fantastic places without all the people – hehe)!

We did a lot of walking and checked out some of the shops, we found a nice little area were I got some shots on a cute bridge:

See what I mean by uber pretty?

Next stop we are off to see the caves, which I am looking forward to.

Ok,

Well, we have done a lot of driving lately….and been across 4 countries (not really recommended if you want to actually see stuff – lol)!!

First we left Vienna for Bratislava, we spent the day walking around looking at the castle and the town, all very pretty, but as it got later we decided we were keen to move on, so we headed out towards Budapest in the afternoon, although because it was getting late, we stopped at Gyor and found somewhere to stay.  Gyor was a bit of a gem, a really sweet place, we got a little bit of afternoon light to look around before retiring for the night in out hotel:

Then in a huge change of events, we all had a bit of a talk and decided that we would ditch the idea of Romania for Italy…… so we awoke early, got some fresh bread for brekky, and head towards Italy, although, it wouldn’t be a real trip without some stop offs along the way!  We decided we wanted to check out Croatia first, however due to time constraints, we couldn’t go down the coast as I would have loved, instead we checked out Zagreb.  On the way, I saw a Croatian chicken!  No one would let me say hi, so all I have to show is a blurry photo:

Due to the lack of information we had on Croatia (we never planned to come here), we drove around Zagreb, looked around and basically headed back out.  Which leaves us here in Ljubljana.  We arrived late, found a place to stay and headed into the centre for something to eat, and oh my, this would have to be the most romantic place ever (Well, that I have seen), we are staying where the water flows through the city, and all the restaurants have outside seating with lots of fairy lights, cobblestones, old buildings and candles everywhere…. just perfect.  We will be staying in Slovenia for a little longer than our normal stops, mainly because we are tired of driving and it’s soooooo pretty  (Also we were told before we left that we have to see Bled and the caves)!!

Here I am being very brave in a photo that was just begging to be taken.  After walking around the very grand Belvedere Palace, we made our way out to the bus, and while walking down the pathway we could hear someone blowing a whistle, continually, and very loudly, then we heard shouting, soon we realised there was a person that actually was just there to keep people off the grass, and he took his job very seriously!  I don’t really blame him, I wouldn’t be too happy having a tonne of tourists stomping my immaculate lawn either.  Although having said that, I couldn’t resist taking this photo:

Next stop was our last of our sightseeing, we went to the Praterstern amusement park, with the oldest ferris wheel in the world.   Had a great time walking around the park at sunset/ night, the old rides were the best, and we tried as many as we could (as you know I love a good amusement park!!), however this one was more special, as it had a real nostalgic feel about it which I loved.  Here is me riding the ferris wheel:

View of the park

View of the city.  Hmmm, I wonder if anyone can point out the newer part of Vienna?  hehehe

The last couple of days of sight seeing have been great, seeing the old part of Vienna with the new make this an extremely livable city, in fact I liked it so much that I looked up available jobs in the UN here, although nothing for this little chicken (I think I would make a great ambassador, well except for obeying signs).  I have been trying to rank the cities in an order from my most favourite to the least, and it’s a little hard to do, but Vienna would be in my top 2 (and that’s pretty good since everything so far has been ‘awesome’ for this chicken.

Anyway, time to head out to Brataslava (we are on our way to Romania), here I am trying to drive again, you can see the problem that I face with trying to look over the steering wheel…..you might also see the other problem….the car is parked!!!  hehehe

Hope everyone is having a happy new year and working hard on their new years resolutions….mine is always to travel more!