cale-ashton2017

[cale-ashton2017]

Strasbourg

Our two days in Strasbourg afforded Cale a much needed break to rest and recover. Strasbourg is a city right near the border between France and Germany and it boasts of each culture. We really really liked it here, which isn’t a surprise seeing as a lot of people recommend it. The city itself is well-equipped like a city, but cleaner than some of the bigger ones. Our hotel was right at the center of it but also conveniently close to the train station. 

We spent most of our time here wandering around the squares and cobblestone streets and shops. We didn’t eat anywhere special because of all the money we bled on food in Switzerland--instead we enjoyed McDonalds which is always handily cheap. Our nights were spent binge watching House because APPARENTLY in France it is still available on Netflix. That was a lot of fun. 

I love old churches and made it a point to see Notre Dame in Strasbourg. On our way to it (letting Cale navigate because lets just face it he’s better at it than I am), we stopped by another old church and went inside. There was a service going on, however, and instead of taking a quick glance and walking out, Cale went and stood in a pew because ‘he didn’t wan’t to be rude.’ After about ten minutes of listening to the French service, I ushered us towards the exit. One unusual issue we’ve had is with doors and locks in Europe. We must be stupid Americans because 9/10 we have trouble getting them open. This door was no exception. Cale was staring at me trying to be quiet and trying not to laugh at how awful it was to attempt to open this door during this service. At that exact moment, it swung open and a woman who was clearly a member of the congregation held it open for us on the outside--right as Cale had started laughing.

So yeah we quickly ran away because we realized how insensitive we looked. And after about ten more minutes of walking, we came to Notre Dame. And let me tell you, what a sight. We could see the spires from far away, but it’s tucked really tightly into a square so you turn a corner and BAM there it is. I was pretty blown away by it. As ever, it was also stunning from the inside and oh my gosh there WASN’T A LINE. That was probably one of the best parts about Strasbourg, honestly, getting a break from the usual tourist crowd. 

We enjoyed our two days of wandering and eating McDonalds before we hopped on another train to our next stop: Paris!

[cale-ashton2017]

Switzerland!

Okay ya’ll, it has been a long delay since I’ve posted because I’m still trying to figure out this picture thing. I have them on my computer but now tumblr isn’t cooperating--every time I go to make a post with pictures, it doesn’t let me! Until then I guess we’ll just go picture-less.

So last I updated we were heading to Switzerland. Now I discovered that the Bernina Express (a train line that is actually a UNESCO world heritage) was running a train that somewhat fit our itinerary. Taking a panoramic, scenic train through Switzerland has been pretty high up there on things I wanted to do this trip, so I adjusted our plans accordingly. We woke up at 7am in Verona and headed off to a train station. We didn’t get a chance to see much of Verona as a result, but ultimately for our purposes, Cale and I weren’t too disappointed to be leaving. We took a train from Verona to Milan which was empty and lovely, we wanted to stay on that particular train all day because of how spacious and comfortable it was--plus it had WIFI which is pretty hard to beat.

From Milan we hopped on another train to Tirano which is right snug on the border between Italy and Switzerland. We were not expecting that particular train journey to be so beautiful but WOW was it ever. Mountains and lakes and villages tucked in between. It was really enjoyable. We arrived in Tirano around 1pm... yes, we had already spent roughly 5 hours in trains at this point. The Bernina Express was scheduled to leave at 3pm so we had two hours to kill in Tirano. As I have discovered on this trip, 17 year old boys need A LOT OF FOOD. So first things first, we find a little restaurant right by the train station and post up there for a delicious final Italian meal of pizza and pasta.

The service here was lovely and I would go back in a heartbeat to this northern region of Italy. A pair of American ladies dined next to us which brought us a little taste of home, although we got a glimpse into some stereotypes of Americans, like being culturally insensitive. They were well meaning but they talked down to the servers a bit and it was apparent. 

Anyway, soon enough we boarded the Bernina. Panoramic trains are something to behold. It was a little cramped between Cale and I on one set of seats, and a gentleman from Singapore sat across from us. But we managed. I so wish I could post pictures right now because words don’t do the train ride justice. Every turn was a waterfall, a snow-covered mountain, a village tucked between a blue lake and rolling hills, etc. Needless to say the four hour journey from Tirano to Chur was well-worth the detour. The gentleman across from us was very educated and in the army in Singapore, we discussed the differences in governing systems and what he felt worked for his country and what we felt did and didn’t for ours. He was intelligent and insightful, and also on his way to Zurich where he would take a flight to London to make his wife’s brother’s wedding... which he stressed he could NOT miss, haha. So far, every person we’ve met on this trip has been interesting/a pleasure to get to know.

From Chur we took a train to Zurich, and from Zurich a train to Bellinzona, where our hotel for the night was. By the time we arrived it was 11pm. We were both dead tired. On top of that, Cale had started coming down with my sickness. We get off the train and it is cold and dark and of course... it starts raining. Our hotel is roughly a 10-12 minute walk away, so we walk, in the dark, in the cold, in the rain... which I’m sure did not help Cale’s body trying to fight off the sickness.

We arrive, exhausted, and have to wait for the hotel attendant to let us in. Had a funny conversation with the girl where she asked us where in America we are from. When I said Texas she said ‘Wow! TEX-AS.’ I smiled and said how beautiful we thought Switzerland was. She shrugged and said ‘Yes, but you’re from TEX-AS.’ So I’m not sure where she’s gotten the idea that Texas is prettier than Switzerland, but as much as I miss and now appreciate home, scenery-wise it ain’t got nothing on Switzerland haha. 

Essentially we fell asleep immediately, but not quite before discovering that we didn’t have an adaptor suited for Switzerland. Luckily we were able to charge our phones via my computer and crash. Woke up the next morning feeling dead but had to get out by 10. Cale very sick by this point, I’m still recovering. We eat a quick breakfast before setting off again. The original plan had been to explore Bellinzona, Switzerland’s southern capital which is home to three medieval castles. But it was cold and raining once again and Cale just really wasn’t up for it, so we altered our plans a bit and took an earlier train to Grindelwald. Grindelwald is a little tricky to get to via train. We had to take a few to make it over there, stopping at a grocery store in Lucerne’s train station on the way where we had the world’s best fresh-squeezed orange juice. Like seriously. I’ll be dreaming about this stuff. I want to go back just for the orange juice.

Anyway, we make it to Grindelwald early afternoon. It is stunningly beautiful and shockingly cold. Cale is roughing it through a fever so we get him into our lodge and he rests for the night. We venture out for dinner and discover, like everywhere else in Switzerland, it is unbelievably expensive. The next morning we walked around awhile and took in the natural beauty. Overnight it had snowed on the tops of the mountains, and it actually started snowing while we were out and about. Our original plan was to take a quick trip to Bern and walk around there for a few hours, but Cale was still in the worst part of his sickness so we opted instead to head to Strasbourg, our next stop. 

[cale-ashton2017]

Rome -> Venice -> Verona

It’s been a few days since I’ve had a chance to update the blog, and we’ve been quite busy! I’ve also been putting it off because I had to switch to taking phone pictures and I’ve been having some trouble getting them off my phone and onto my computer. So this update will be photo-less unfortunately. Anyway! April 21st I woke up very sick. I’d had a nagging sore throat on our first day out and about in Rome but I ignored it, and it turned into a full blown cold. Ended up staying inside all day and Cale went out a few times to get us food because my fever was so high that I was miserable. Unfortunately we had a tour scheduled for the Vatican museums, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica and they wouldn’t let us reschedule so we lost a little money not being able to go on the scheduled day.

The next morning was our checkout day at our guesthouse in the Vatican. We packed all our stuff and asked our hosts (John and Martina) if it would be okay if we left our luggage there while we toured the Vatican. They said yes and we set off to St. Peter’s square. Even though we got there quite early it was VERY busy. The longest lines we’ve ever seen. Just to get into the Basilica was a 4 hour line. We knew we wouldn’t have time to see everything if we waited in lines all day, so we decided to pay for a skip the line tour. It was not a great tour, the vatican museums were very crowded and the sistine chapel was no exception. Both were amazing but there really wasn’t time allotted to stop and look at anything; the sheer amount of people meant you had to keep walking constantly. I snapped a few pictures to look at later because I didn’t get a chance to look at anything for very long. However, once we got to St. Peter’s Basilica it was ALL WORTH IT. WOW. Amazing. Apparently it took 120 years to build the second Basilica and Cale and I, before we walked in, thought that was a long time. Once we got in however we thought WOW they built that place fast. It’s truly grand. And enormous. We loved walking around and taking it in. It was our highlight of the Vatican for sure.

Next we set off to the train station at San Pietro and took a train to Roma Termini where we then had trouble finding our next hotel, the Four Seasons Hostel. We discovered once there that hostels are not our thing. We did not enjoy the shared bathroom whatsoever. In fact, I decided I’d just wait to shower until we got to our next hotel. That night we ate at a strange kebab place and hunted down some toiletries, while I continued to recover from my sickness. At this point we were both a little saturated by Rome and decided we were okay with waking up in the morning and making our way to Venice.The train ride to Venice was beautiful. More so than I expected. It was our first train journey in which we had to reserve seats—and wow, is that a lot nicer. You have much more space and room for your bags. From Rome to Venice there was a lot of beautiful countryside, mountains, rolling hills, etc. It was a very peaceful trip. Once we got to Venice, however, things became a little more stressful.

Everything is on water in Venice. You would think that would be common knowledge. I knew this, and yet, I wasn’t expecting to have to take a boat to our hotel. And figure out which boat that was. And figure out how to get from said boat to hotel. Ultimately we got on the wrong boat (of course) and got off at the wrong stop (of course). At this point, sick, sleep-deprived, having not had a decent shower in nearly a week (our stay at the Vatican was okay, but the shower had next to no water pressure and unpredictable temperatures), I was ready to throw a temper tantrum. I went to a hotel near Rialto bridge and asked them how to get to Hotel Kette. They drew a route on a map for us and sent us on our way. I was a little confused by the map so I stopped at another stand and asked for further directions, and this lady told us to go the opposite way. Cale, cool-headed as ever, pointed out that if we went the way she said, the canal would be on our right. In fact, the canal was on our left. I’m glad one of us was logical at the time otherwise we may have wandered around in circles. Recognizing that he was in better shape to navigate than me, I handed off the map and we arrived at our hotel in five minutes or so. Hotel Kette was beautiful. Venice was our splurge city because it is so expensive to stay there, which is why we only opted for one night. But man was it worth it. They even upgraded us free of charge to a room with a deluxe balcony. I’ll attach some pictures below. We were beyond lucky. The view from that balcony was amazing. After getting settled in and taking showers we set off into the city to find dinner. The restaurant we stopped at was yummy and decently priced; we chose to sit outside which was a good choice except that it ended up getting a little chilly. By the time we were done eating both of us were pretty tired and we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

We woke up pretty early the next morning and finally had a really good breakfast. Happy and full, we packed up our things, showered again because wow that shower and tub were great, and went downstairs to leave our bags in the hotel’s luggage room. Then we went out into the city again and literally wandered around for a few hours. We stumbled on some beautiful sights, and of course made it to San Marco’s square and the Bridge of Sighs. Venice is a special place. Nearly everywhere is very clean. We never felt unsafe walking around, even wandering tiny alleyways and back corners of the city. We both would love to go back one day just to have more time to explore and walk the streets. No gondola rides for us but we had plenty of time by the canals and the water. It is magical there.Our train for Verona left at 4pm that afternoon and was an hour and a half in total. From our train we were to take a bus to near our hotel. The train ride was cramped but fine. When we arrived, however, finding the bus was rather challenging. I called our hotel but the landlord didn’t speak good english so we were on our own. Eventually we got on bus 12 which supposedly took us to San Fermo, our stop. However, it turns out there were TWO bus 12s that each ran different lines. We didn’t find this out until we got to the end of the line and the bus driver turned off the bus AND LEFT IT. So Verona isn’t as ‘nice’ of a city as Rome or Venice, or at least not the part we were in. It felt deserted and both of us were a little uncomfortable just waiting at this nondescript bus stop. Uncomfortable enough that we turned on Cale’s data and started trying to figure out how to get out of there. It turns out we had gone the opposite direction of our destination and were now over an hour away on foot, through who knows what kinds of neighborhoods, carrying all our luggage. No, that wouldn’t do. There weren’t any taxis in sight so we thought, hey, maybe there are ubers. No such luck. Eventually however, a local gentleman tried talking to me in Italian. I understood enough to figure out he was asking what time the next bus arrived, when I went to answer I guess he recognized my accent and asked if I spoke English. I said yes and it turns out he spoke very good english! He proceeded to explain to us that the next bus to San Fermo would be arriving very soon.

  This man’s name was Franceso and he asked us where we were from. When we said America he became very excited! Which was a change for us; it seems most Europeans don’t’ like Americans very much. Anyway, he asked where in America and we said Texas. Instantly he replied: Houston?? And we said yes, surprised. Apparently he’s a big Houston Rockets fan! Loves basketball. He traveled around a lot in his youth which is how he knows English, but he also knows a few other languages. Needless to say it was really nice to have someone around who spoke our language. We talked to him on the bus until his stop arrived, and then we proceeded to our correct stop and walked to our hotel.

I guess I shouldn’t call it a hotel, it was more of a bed and breakfast. There was a young couple waiting outside when we arrived. The guy tried to speak to us in Italian but quickly realized we didn’t speak it and switched to fluent English. It made Cale and I both feel bad for only knowing one language haha. He told us that the landlord would be back shortly. Fifteen minutes later and a man and a woman roll up on a vespa and unlock the guesthouse for us and lead us to our rooms. It was a pretty nice place to stay although it was another shared bathroom which is just REALLY not our thing. It’s inconvenient having to get ready or use the bathroom according to several other people’s schedules; once again the breakfast was very modest. However it was clean and ultimately not a bad place to stay. Our last adventure in Verona was choosing somewhere to eat. I found a place a four minute walk away with great reviews so we went there. Cale wanted to stop at a quick place for pizza but I insisted on trying this restaurant that locals and tourists both love. We got to Taverna Di Via Stella and were seated quickly. Our elderly waiter instantly looked at us with disdain and paid very little attention to us. We ordered risotto to start, and then rabbit with polenta and stuffed duck with polenta, all pretty reasonably priced—we also hadn’t eaten ALL DAY since breakfast so we had a little extra money to spend on dinner. The risotto took a long time and it was strange. It was dark purple, almost black, and smelled like red wine. It tasted like red wine too. Neither of us liked it and we felt bad but tried to eat as much as possible. Our entrees arrived a long time later and while the meat portions were pretty good, the polenta was very… bland? We left still hungry and experiencing pretty bad service… so you can’t always trust Yelp, people! Although I’m sure it was probably just our server in particular and not picking the right dishes. We learned to stick to things we know we like, like spaghetti or ravioli, haha.That’s it for now!

 I’ll update the blog on our next set of adventures (and hopefully with pictures) when I get a chance. Next stop, Switzerland!

[cale-ashton2017]

4/18-4/20 - Houston -> London -> Rome

Our flight to London was pretty uneventful. I watched the first episode of the new season of Sherlock and Cale watched a view movies/tv shows, including Moonlight which made him cry. I was able to sleep somewhere between 4-5 hours on and off--Cale wasn’t so lucky and only managed to sleep about an hour or so. We arrived in London at roughly 11:45 but didn’t end up getting off the plane ‘till 12:10... our original connection to Rome left at 12:45 and we both pretty much figured there was no way we were going to make it. Sure enough we arrived at international connections to be told we had to rebook, which took all of 5 minutes. Our next flight left three hours later which gave us some time to get lunch and regroup a little before jetting off to Rome.

We landed in Rome and found a train headed for San Pietro Station in Vatican City where our first hotel is. The issue was the train left at 8:42 and by the time we got through passport control we had about 12 minutes to get to it. Cale injured his foot a few days ago so getting there quickly was a little rough on him but he was a trooper and we managed to make it on the train with literally one minute to spare. From that train we actually had to switch to another train line but eventually we arrived at San Pietro station. However, it turns out that I got a little confused on where our hotel was, and even though we were in the right area we couldn’t exactly find it. Luckily I was able to call our hosts via Whatsapp and they actually came and found us and led us back to our room. After a few hours of getting settled in we both crashed for the night. Thursday 4/20: We woke up bright and early, had a quick breakfast, and quickly raced downstairs to catch the bus our hosts recommended to us to get to the colosseum to meet up with our tour group, scheduled for 9:30. Well I didn’t see anywhere to buy a ticket for the bus but we were in a bit of a rush and I didn’t think much about it... until we hit a stop and the tram police got on. So at this point we don’t know where we are and they make us get off the bus AND we got ticketed so... going to have to figure that one out, haha. Anyway they said Palazzo Venezia (where we were trying to go) was a 10 minute walk away but they didn’t offer us any other info. And the streets in Rome are completely crooked and there are no street signs and at this point we’re already late for the tour. So I get the brilliant idea to follow my feet and the crowds and hope for the best. Turns out I managed to navigate us to the Palazzo Venezia (I still don’t know how I did this, it was a 15 minute walk) but we are still about 10 to 15 minutes away from our meeting point. Both of us are a little tired and stress from running around but we don’t give up and try and get to the meeting point, the Arch of Constantine, anyway.

We arrive and our tour group is still there! It turns out another American family had called up and told them they were running late, so they waited on them lucky for us. The family arrived and there were 8 of us in the tour total and we started with the Arch of Constantine and then went onto the Colosseum which was beyond amazing. Wow, what a place. Next we went to the Roman Forum which essentially was the hub of Roman society, kind of where people lived, traded, governed, etc. Also super amazing. Lastly we walked pretty far to get to the Pantheon, which is completely incredible. Our tour itself was good but it was a brief overview, our guide didn’t go too much into detail about any of the history but it was enough to provide some context. The best part of the tour ended up being the American family we met. 

After our tour guide left us, Hugh, the father, invited Cale and I to lunch with them. We chose a restaurant right on the Palazzo directly by the Pantheon and sat outside, so we ate and had the most amazing view. Cale’s pasta was way better than my pizza but overall it was delicious. Hugh, Hellen and their daughters Kira and Kleo live in New Jersey just outside of New York City and are visiting Rome on Spring Break. They are quite the world travelers and Hugh backpacked Europe a lot like Cale and I when he was around my age. He insisted on paying for our lunch and then asked us if we wanted to come with them to see the Fountain of Trevi and the Spanish Steps. He is pretty familiar with the city so we said yes, of course! From there he lead us to the Fountain and on the way from there to the Spanish Steps he bought us all delicious gelato even though I insisted on paying. He said he remembered traveling when he was young so he wasn’t going to have us paying. Hugh is an architect and is actually really knowledgable on a lot of the history and buildings in the area. Speaking of, you can’t go anywhere in Rome without a basilica, church, obelisk, etc, in sight. It is an incredibly beautiful city. 

After climbing the Spanish Steps and going into the church inside we parted ways with Hugh and his family (who were incredibly sweet, smart, and funny. We couldn’t have asked for a better group to meet and spend the day with.) and took a taxi back to Vatican City because Cale’s foot is swollen and bruised. He said he could keep going but he’ll need a little rest because tomorrow we tour the Vatican Museums, St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel! 

The pictures in order are pre-flight to London, waiting in Heathrow, arriving at our hotel, the Arch of Constantine, Colosseum, Venus’ temple ruins, the Roman Forum, Palazzo Venezia, the Pantheon, The Fountains of Trevi, The Spanish Steps.