Italy (Milano, Florence, Venice)

Following Geneve, we took a very enjoyable train ride into Milano. It was then we realized we hadn't taken down the information of our next couch surfing host, Fabio. No address, phone number, or directions. Fortunately, we soon saw after getting off the train that he was there on the platform waiting for us. He took us back to his flat and cooked us some real Italian pasta. Mmmm.

Next day Fabio took us on a tour of some of Milano's best sites. One interesting thing he showed us was the tilework in the floor of an arcade which shows a bull over a coat of arms. Fabio told us that you are supposed to "put your foot on the bull's balls and spin on your heel".




For every spin, you will get one year of good luck. Well, I'm looking forward to my year.

Next it was off to the expensive shopping area: Prada, Gucci, etc. Oh ya – and Ferrari. I know their cars are expensive, but it looks like Ferrari has been getting into the accessories. Like these sunglasses. Zoom in on the price tag at the bottom right.



Ya, and that's the price in Euros – for a pair of sunglasses. Yikes! FYI 12,700 Euros is over $20,000 CAD.

Fabio next took us to Milano's best cathederal, the Duomo du Milano. I managed to get this stunning shot of its white stone against a threatening sky...




We were only in Milan for three days, and we went to the Duomo each of those days. It was magnificant. On the second day we went inside...



and on our last day we climbed the steps to the roof...

We had hopes of seeing Michaelangelo's famous painting "The Last Supper", but we learned you need to buy a ticket more than a month in advance if you hope to get in to see it. Oh well, next time, I guess!

So then we were off to Florence – home of much of Italy's renaissance art. You know - pieces like Michelangelo's David...

Oh – wait – that's me. Oops. Well, actually, you're not allowed to photograph the David sculpture. But they do have a pretty decent copy of it outside in the piazza (that's it in the background).

Florence has so much art in its many museums, but really, after you've seen 100 paintings of Madonna with child done in gold, well, seeing the next one isn't quite as interesting – even if it was painted by Botticelli. It's almost the same with cathederals, but the Doumo at Florence was different. The exterior was done in flat marble as opposed to ornately detailed carving. But honestly, I found the green and pink to be a bit garish. It was huge, but not beautiful...

Next was a visit to Venice, and I certainly preferred it to Milano and Florence. It was just so unique and in all its crumbling and decay was real beauty. I also didn't realize the amount of canals in the city. It's all canals! Not just two or three – there are hundreds. The streets are entirely for pedestrians. If you want to get around you walk, or take your boat – or a "water bus"...

And of course the scenes from around the city need no commentary. They speak for themselves...

It just so happened that when we were in Venice they were hosting their bi annual contemporary world art fair (the aptly named "biennale"). There were pavillions from many of the world's countries, showing that country's best art. Here's a few pics...

One closing observation about Italy was their invention of pre-made toast. I remember making a joke about this years ago and how it would never work. Well, here in Italy they do it. They actually pre-wrap and sell individual pieces of toast. I think they're missing the point - toast is supposed to be served HOT.

Geneve and CERN

With Paris done we were on to Switzerland for a brief visit. We took the high speed TGV part way...




and then finished by bus. One nice thing is the Eurail pass we have is only offered in first class – and it's pretty comfortable. I love train travel.

Anyway, one reason for going to Switzerland was for me to go to CERN – the location of the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator. This is also the focal point of Dan Brown's current book and film "Angels and Demons". And like the film says, CERN has actually produced anti-matter, but in much smaller quantities than in the film. But enough about the film – the facility was amazing. It consists of a 27 km tunnel that's 100m below the surface of the earth. In it, they use 250,000,000 watts to accelerate subatomic particles and smash them together and then use a "computer farm" to analyze the resulting mess. They are trying to re-create conditions that existed around 0.00000000001 of second after the big bang, in search of the hypothetical Higgs Boson. Ya – I love this stuff!



On our tour we even got to go 100m underground to one of the experiment chambers. Here's me at the CMS chamber. You can see the beam tube entering the red CMS experiment equipment.







The actual beam tube is only about 4 mm in diameter, so all 27 km of the beam tube must have powerful and very accurate magnets to continually focus the beam. Here's a better look at the beam tube without me blocking the view.




I even got to play with the controls - although I thought I overheard someone say these weren't real. Whatever – they were just jealous!





In addition to CERN, we spent some time around Geneve. Never mind the Swiss Rolex watches; how nice is this flower clock...

I almost cut myself on a Swiss Army knife, but Amanda saved me at the last minute (but she still had time to snap this pic)

I saw this on a poster – there's music festival on now, and I thought this was interesting. I don't really know how to read music, but this just makes things even more confusing!

And speaking of interesting, one thing I like about travelling are the little surprises you get where you come across things that are different from home. Like this... What's wrong with this picture?

Ya – nine eggs in a carton. It should be either six or twelve! ;-)


After our two days in Switzerland we got on a train, and were bound for Milano, Italy.

Paris!

What a change arriving into France from Ireland– language, food, prices, population, everything. In Paris we had arranged to split our time between two Couch Surfs. Our first host, Gion Alfredo was super nice. He met us at the nearest metro station (despite us being 45 minutes late) and walked us to his great flat. He's on the top floor (8th) of a nice apartment. It's hard to see because the back of big sign blocks the bottom of his building, but it is indeed eight floors up. That's his living room with the peaked dome - it's where we slept on his futon.




He has a great view of the Sacree Coeur cathederal from his living room windows. That's it on the hill top in the background. He took us for walk there on our first night. It only takes about 20 or 30 minutes to walk there.

Gion Alfredo was great. He cooked us a dinner and then took time out the next day to show us some of the "hidden" sights of Paris. One really cool one – that unfortunately you're not allowed to photograph – was the vault of the main branch of the federal bank "Societe Genarale". You can actually walk down to the vault and see it's open door. That door is exactly like a five ton swiss watch. It has a glass back, so you can look inside and see it's polished chrome gears, rods, and other internal workings.

Of course we made the mandatory visit to the Louvre. They say if you spent just 10 seconds looking at each piece displayed, it would take you over two years to actually see everything in this enormous museum.

The crowd around the Mona Lisa was huge. Everywhere else in the Louvre was spacious but it was packed like crazy around this painting. And it's actually quite small. Sorry for the tilted angle but I had to photograph it on max zoom from quite a ways away.

Then there was the Venus de Milo...

Amour and Psyche...

And many many other famous works.

We also went to the Pere Lachaise cemetary which holds the graves of many famous people – including some non-French (such as Jim Morrison from the doors). We visited some of these graves. Maybe you'll recognize the names...

One of the best parts was meeting up with our good friends from Calgary – John and Arranny. They came all the way to Paris to visit us! Here's a nice picture of us enjoying the nice weather in Paris...

The four of us took a day trip to visit the palace of Versailles. Wow – no wonder the French revolted. While they all starved, these guys were living like rock stars...

In the middle of that hot day we rented a row boat and toured through the "grand canals". Ahhh - nothing like a slow and relaxing row...

We saw more of Paris too. Like the catacombs...

The famous Moulin Rouge

The opera house

We walked to the Sacree Coeur cathederal and listened to a really good musician entertain the crowds on the front steps.

We had our own little picnic on the banks of the Seine with a view of Notre Dame and the "restaurant boats" passing us by.

We walked along the wide boulevard of the famous Champs Eleysee where the Tour de France bike race ends every year.

One cool thing is they have an "almost free" bicycle rental system in Paris. It reduces traffic and downtown is even faster than driving, so we tried that out. Here is Amanda at a bike stand getting her bike.

I had to take a picture of this McDonalds restaurant. It's not exactly the way you'd see it back home in Canada.

I also got a kick of someone's idea of a parallel park. I guess if you have a Smart Car, a perpendicular park is just as good. I'll have to try this technique some time!

Anyway, that's all for Paris. Next was Geneve, Switzerland. Stay tuned...

finishing Ireland

We had a little more time in Ireland since my last blog update. In that time we bade farewell to our gracious host Ian in Galway and went to see a friend we had met up in Belfast. He lives in Castleisland, so that's where we headed. But en route we made a detour through the tiniest hiways. Check out this road sign showing fractions of miles. I thought it was pretty funny.

Anyway, we took such roads to get to the cliffs of Mohr...

Carrying on we met our new friend Tommy in Castleisland (he is a guy we met in Belfast). He had his boy Daniel with him (one of eight children), and we all went out for a pint of Guinness (well, Amanda and Daniel didn't partake, so I guess it was just Tommy and I who actually had the Guinness).

There was just one more item on our hit list before leaving Ireland and that was to kiss the Blarney Stone which rests on an awkward outcrop at the top of Blarney castle. It is actually at the bottom of an overhanging wall at the top so it's a little precarious to manoeuver yourself into position – especially considering that there is a gap between where you lie down to where the stone is. A gap that's maybe 30 meters above the ground.

Anyway, there's me leaning over the gap for a kiss...

The roads got larger as we made our back into Dublin for our final night before heading to Paris. In our rented car we managed to pretty much drive around the island. I would love to return to Ireland, but next time I would skip Northern Ireland, and spend more time in the tiny villages near the south west coast.