Day 20 to 23, To London

SDSpivey

This is going to be a long post as I am jamming all of London into one post, because of the lack of internet.

We have had an ongoing problem with early arrivals, by not being to check in to our rooms until twoish. Oddly, the only one we could check in before noon was the one where we wouldn’t arrive before 2.

We left our Paris hostel and walked down to the train station, about a mile, but at least it was all down hill. The train to London was about 2.5 hours, just long enough to be boring, but not enough time to sleep.

Since UK doesn’t use euros, we utilized the changer at King’s Cross (the Harry Potter station) to get pounds. With a fist full of new cash, we splurged on a taxi (£14) instead of the “tube” to get to our hostel.

We should have saved our money, 4 days in London cost over £700 (about $1100). Everything in London is expensive. The exchange rate is about £3 to $2, so you need to add 50% more to any price to determine equivalent pricing to US.

I had booked a 20-bed dorm, but we ended up having to use the top bunks of designed-for-children bunk beds and there were only four outlets, right next to each other. We went down and tried upgrading and managed to get a private 3-bed room to ourselves. Oddly, the beds were almost touching, side-by-side, going across one wall. They really should have put in a king size, instead of 3 singles. Unfortunately, that room was only available 1 night, so we had to transfer the next morning to a 4-bed dorm, we were the first in, so we snagged the bottom bunks. Woo Hoo!

The first day we went into the underground station, right on the corner, and the attendant at the ticket machine got us to buy an “Oyster Card” which is just a RFID card that allows you to bypass the ticket machines and pay ahead. I was skeptical, but I didn’t want to have to specify my destination for every ticket I bought.

The tickets were high almost £5, which is 3 times higher than Italy or Paris. I initially put £15 (plus £5 deposit) on each card and later another £10. After riding all over, dozens of trips, the final balance was still more than £6. That card was the only thing that saved us any money on this trip. I don’t understand the deposit, because we got that back and still have the cards.

We went out to London Bridge, rather a boring bridge now days, there isn’t anything on the bridge like it used to be. It used to be lined on each side with houses and shops, much like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.

We crossed and then walked the wharf to the Tower Bridge. This is the bridge most people think of when they imagine the London Bridge. It has two towers that support the roadway and hold the machinery that raises the two middle spans, allowing tall ships to pass.

You can take a lift up to the top of one tower and cross over to the next, walking over a glass floor.

We had a quick lunch of fish and chips, then took a tour of the London Tower, a fort/castle and home of some of England’s kings and where some of those kings imprisoned some of the king’s enemies and critics.

There is also an exhibition of the crown jewels at the Tower. Unfortunately, most of the crowns had been scavenged by later kings to make new crowns for themselves, so many are just gold and fur, no gems. You would think they would at least fill them with fake stones.

The next day, we rode the London Eye, basically an enclosed ferris wheel, which is on the river bank of the Thames. Then walked across the Westminster bridge to the House of Commons, where the clock tower containing Big Ben, which is the large bell, not the tower.

Next door is Westminster Abbey, the place of many royal coronations and weddings. They wanted £20 to enter and wouldn’t allow any photos, so we skipped it. We wanted to head over to Buckingham Palace, but there was something going on and we couldn’t.

Our room is across the road from Hyde Park, a huge park with a large duck and swan pond, and the Diana Memorial Gardens.

On the other side of the park is a blue police box, the only Tardis in London. Nearby is the Natural History Museum. On room has over forty double sided cases with mineral and crystal samples, way more than anyone could take in. There was also a 5 pound natural quartz crystal “spear”, that was almost totally clear. There were so many beautiful colors of minerals, the whole rainbow must have been represented.

The mammal room had a full size model of a blue whale, a huge model, dwarfing the elephants and other models.

They had various extinct and near extinct stuffed animals, including a bunch neither of us has ever heard of.

There was a skeleton of a dodo bird, which is ironic as the nearby Oxford Museum had the last known full specimen but a clerk had thrown it out, believing it to be garbage.

Day 19, Musée d’Orsay

SDSpivey

This morning we went to the Musée d’Orsay.

It is filled with more modern art than the Louvre, with many paintings by Renoir, Van Gogh, Pissaro, Degas, Manet, and Monet.

There was only one elevator that we could find to go up, all the others were closed behind doors, hidden from casual use.

Afterwards, we crossed the bridge and grabbed some food and ate in the Louvre gardens at a round fountain, feeding a few of the baby ducks a bit of our bread.

The temperature here is in the low 60’s, with wind blowing and shifting directions. Neither of us brought any sort of jacket, but I did have my Inverness, FL sweatshirt, thankfully. Mom had to break down and admit she was cold and bought a Paris sweatshirt this morning.

Day 18, Le Louvre

SDSpivey

We spend most of the day at the Louvre Museum, starting off going down to the Egyptian exhibit.

There is a walkway that originally would have been under water, in the moat, making up the wall of the original small castle, before it was expanded and expanded.

There were a number of sarcophagi, more than I thought even existed.

The cafe wasn’t too high priced and was surprisingly good. In part, I ordered a small yogurt, which came in a terracotta cup, for some reason. I might have kept it to reuse, but it had yogurt residue inside, plus I didn’t want to carry this heavy thing around all day, but I felt guilty about throwing it away.

Smartly, we then found the elevator and headed for the top floor. Working down the stairs is so much easier than working our way up them.

After looping to and fro throughout the various rooms, we headed straight for the room with the Mona Lisa, huge crowd of people around it, of course. They were acting as if that was the only painting in the whole place. I doubt they even noticed the other paintings within that room.

With our legs giving out and rain threatening, we called it a night.

Day 17, Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame

SDSpivey

We started out the day going to the Eiffel Tower. That sucker is tall!

The base sits on stone pedestals about 30 feet square and are spaced 100 feet apart.

They have a double-decker elevator that goes up to the second level, at an angle, then you have to switch to another elevator to go straight up to the top.

There are people climbing the stairs. These people are crazy and need to be locked up for their own safety.

Oddly, the Sacré Cœur can be seen from even the second level, day or night, but the Eiffel Tower isn’t visible from the church. Even the top of the tower is still way below the elevation of the church and is lost in among the buildings.

We headed over to the Arc de Triomphe. When I asked the ticket guy if there was an elevator, he responded with a yes, but that there were still stairs after that to get to the roof. He lied. We had to climb a LOOOONG spiral staircase up to the inner room, then climb more stairs to get up on top.

We then walked down the Champs-Élysées to the river and crossed over to Notre Dame Cathedral. It was free and the line wasn’t long. It is really just a quick loop around the outer edges of the floor, leaving the center for prayers and other church duties.

It was rather dark inside and dirty. Not garbage on the floor, but a dinginess from centuries of dust and candle soot. All of the old buildings are the same way, they can’t be cleaned without doing damage, but this was a bit worse.

Also, while we could see the actual Notre-dame statue (the “Our Lady”), you could only see it from the back. Even the people praying would have been to far back to see it well.

Later that night, we headed back to the Eiffel Tower, to see it lit up and to go up. Did I mention it is TALL?

Day 15 & 16, Last of Italy, Arrival in France

SDSpivey

I had made a huge mistake. We had to check out of the hostel by 10 AM, but would not leave on the train until 11 PM, a thirteen hour wait.

We had a few options:

  • Drag the bags around with us all day as we browse the town.
  • Leave the baggage at the hostel until 5, then go to the train station.
  • Or take the bags to the station and check them.

The first option was no option. I only have one bag, but it is heavy and awkward. Mom has three. Also, there was rain forecasted.

The second was viable, but if we didn’t get back before 5, they would charge us for another night, AND we would still have to lug it around for 6 hours.

We decided on the third. We had already gone by the train station, on our walks, and found that it would be 6 euros per bag. That is 24€, but so much better than lugging them around.

Unfortunately, we neglected to notice (or remember) that this was only for the first 5 hours, an additional .90€ per hour was needed. We were already at the station, so we had little choice.

It ended up being over 57 euros, we would have been better off paying for another night. Then we could have had a nap, since because of the high winds and possible rain, we didn’t do anything all day.

There are only about 50 seats for about a billion people in the station, so when we got a couple, we stayed in them, taking turns going off to the potty.

I have actually found a good use for McDonald’s restaurant, they have free bathrooms. The station had a long line with a 1€ entrance fee. We also hit a McD’s in Rome, near the Spanish Steps, as there didn’t seem to be any toilets around.

The rain came much latter than the forecast predicted, but it was a doozy. The normal roar of the people talking was actually drowned out by the rain hitting the roof.

Finally, our train popped up on the departure board, so we decided to go ahead and go through the security gate. I don’t know why there was one, I didn’t see them checking tickets or baggage, just merely getting everyone to funnel through a tight doorway instead of the huge walkway they had walled off.

Going through early turned out to be a bad decision as there were no seats on that side, so we stood around the display waiting for our train’s platform number to be displayed (like everyone else in the secure area.)

At one point some station worker led a man over to the board and pointed out the man’s train and where the platform number would be when ready. Only the man was French and the station worker was speaking Italian.

I think the man was a bit slow and he just stood there for about two minutes just staring at the board, then was looking around nervously. As I was standing closest to him he asked me something in French about the train for Paris. Since I was going there and I knew the train was supposed to arrive in platform 8, I stated so, in my best French. I wasn’t 100% on that point, so I probably shouldn’t have said anything.

He then took off looking for #8, which was right in front of me, but he ran off anyway.

He eventually wandered back around and was staring at the display again. I couldn’t remember how to say 30, so I told him it would be 25 minutes. Close enough, right?

He then wandered over to #9, which had a train waiting. I didn’t see him again, so I hope he didn’t get on the wrong one.

Luckily our train car was the 3rd one, so we didn’t have to walk far to get on. (Unfortunately, that meant we were at the end of the train when we arrived.)

It was easy to get from the train to the Paris Metro, if you don’t count the numerous flights of stairs.

We were able to drop off our bags at the hostel, and then went out exploring. As long as you have money, you will never go hungry in Paris, there is a food vender every few yards.

I saw a shop across the boulevard wit h neon lights and made a joke to Mom about that being a strip club. Later we found out it <em>is</em> a strip club. There is an entire section of the street with strip clubs, sex toy shops, videos, or whatever.

Stranger still, are the families strolling along with their kids, as if it were just any street on a brisk Saturday morning.

The Moulin Rouge is also in the area, it is just a burlesque house, so it fits in well.

The Sacré Cœur (“sacred heart”) church is only a block north of our room, but it is literally about 500 feet up. It was built on the highest point in Paris. It even has a train that runs up the hill side, quite at a steep angle ~65°.

We walked around the streets beside the church, hoping that we could just gradually make our way up, but every time we turned a corner, there was a steep set of stairs that would have to be scaled.

We took a “short cut” through an old cemetery, but there was no exit, so we had to walk back out.

We finally made it to the top. The view was freaking great. There is about a 120° view of the city for miles and miles, unobstructed by any buildings or trees, of course you still have to see past the people.

There was only one way down, hundreds and hundreds of stairs. I know that we have done an entire year’s worth of exercise so far in the past 2 weeks, and there are still miles and miles left to walk.

Day 13 & 14, Lazy days

SDSpivey
Milan Duomo

We went downtown to the large church Duomo, but they wanted to charge admission, so we just walked around awhile. All I wanted was to go up to the roof to see the city anyways. It was under repairs, so that was out.

Milan looks so much like the other cities that we have visited, we ended up back at the room and crashed out for a few hours.

It was hot and humid, and after so much walking, we were just tired of everything.

It is now the 14th, so we are halfway done.

Day 11 and 12, EXPO

SDSpivey

Luckily, we both awoke early enough to get finished with breakfast before the first of the herd of youngsters started coming out. It was strange seeing kids line up for the cafe dispenser, totally ignoring the fruit juices, milk, and even sodas.

We easily jumped onto the Metro and were on our way, but there is a split in the rail path and we ended up going a stop past and having to go back and cross over to the other path.

It was the last stop, so it would have been real hard to miss. The exit dumps you out right at the entry gates to the fairgrounds. We arrived about 8:30, but it didn’t open until 10. So another game of “Let’s wait.”

The main layout of the pavilions is a large walkway with each lined up along the north and south sides, with smaller non-country pavilions spread out behind them or tucked into nooks between.

We started out thinking we could do 2 on one side then jump across and do 2 there, like a square wave pattern, but we realized that there was no reason to keep crossing the 100 yard or so of the main walkway, so we decided just to go down one side only and get the rest tomorrow. We made it all the way down the north side, but it was a long way back to the exit gate, over 2km according to our map.

Not much to say about any of the pavilions specifically, other than the US’s was idiotic. The lady directing everyone where to go pointed toward a long set of stairs. When mom groaned about how many there were, she took pity and asked if we wanted to use the elevator. Obviously, yes. The lift was right next to an escalator, which we took instead, making us wonder why the hell aren’t they using it for everyone? It is already running, no extra power needed. At the rooftop, there was nothing but a bar serving mixed drinks and cocktails, perfect for the hot day we had. The middle floor just had some sparse kiosks with generic information about US agriculture and a generic audio message from Obama welcoming everyone to the Expo. Not that many would understand it, you know, being that it is a foreign country.

I blame John Kerry. As Secretary of State, he is the head of the Expo pavilion committee.

As we headed toward the exit, darkness was falling. We didn’t get back to the hostel until about 11. We grabbed a couple of slices of pizza, knowing nothing else would be available.

Since most places have the food spread out cafeteria style, most of the pizza are rectangular, making best use of space. Because we said we wanted it to go, this place chopped it up into roughly inch sized pieces and gave us forks. I do have to admit, it might have been easier to eat that way, while walking.

We climbed the mountain of stairs to our room and found we had 2 more girls in with us. One was just leaving, but the other only spoke Spanish.

With me being the only guy and at least half of the room speaking Spanish, I feel like a minority. I’m tired enough, I am already asleep by lights out.

Day 10, Arrival in Milano

SDSpivey

After posting yesterday, we were still bored, so we went for yet another walk, picking a different street to go down.

We didn’t go far before we found a supermarket, an actual supermarket, not just a fruit stand that sells canned goods and sodas. We went in, just to browse the odd brands and products, most were American brands like Coke and Nestlè. There are only a few drinks in this country, Pepsi, Coke, Sprite, Fanta Orange, and some various teas, waters, and beers. In fact, I haven’t seen any other product that Pepsi sells.

Since there weren’t many restaurants nearby, we had the idea of just cooking something at the hostel. We bought some pasta and sauce. What we didn’t notice is that the sauce was just a tomato sauce, no spices, no herbs, no nothing. There wasn’t anything at the hostel that we could add to it, either.

Never the less, it was fulfilling, if not great. At least it was Italian.

As we were finishing up, a man came in who was there to clean up. He had great English and was friendly. He said he would look into the food tours, but we didn’t ever hear back about that.

Paid parking started at 9am, so we had to leave before that, arriving at the Milan hostel about 10. I found a free spot right outside the door, and we went in to check in, but that wasn’t until 2. Luckily, they would let us leave our baggage there while I returned the car.

As I was looking at the GPS for the Points Of Interest for the airport, I notice Hertz has all their locations already in there, so I set it for the airport Hertz. I thought that would be a good way to find the rental location, but I was wrong. It took us down a straight way, then a U-turn back about 100 yards or so, then said it was right in the median, which was empty. I only found it by happenstance, down a different road entirely.

We then had to catch a bus into town, luckily I had already pulled up a route from Google Maps. I was also able to follow along on my iPad on an offline Milan map. We had to get off to transfer to another bus, but mom decided we had time to kill, so we walked up the road, browsing the neighborhood.

A pastry shop at the end our block taunted us, so we had to get some cannoli. For research purposes only, of course.

And it was still hours before check in.

These late check in times are killing my schedule. We haven’t been able to do anything but walk around the area, so no pictures today either.

As we sat in the lobby, a huge group of kids came in, at least 40. Likely it was a field trip to the Expo. They were some of the noisiest bunch I had seen. Luckily they were processed and sent to their rooms, far from ours. Yet again, we are stuck up on the 3rd floor, without an elevator this time, so we have to lug our bags all the way up and down.

It is a six-person mixed-gender room, two of the beds are so far empty, hopefully they stay that way. The other two beds have girls things on and around them, so apparently I’m the rooster in the hen house tonight.

We ate dinner sitting in a park watching the little kids play on the equipment.

It is now just after 6 and I am already considering bed. God, I’m getting old.

At least from here on, we should be fairly busy everyday.

Tomorrow, we will finally get to go to the Expo, the whole purpose of the trip.

Day Nine, Parma

SDSpivey

Back in Modena, we really wanted to go to one of the farms where they make the balsamic vinegar and Parmesan cheese, but we were unable to find any tours that didn’t require an advance reservation. Worse, all that I found only took reservations via email, not through their website. Real dumb.

I had hoped once we arrived in Parma, we could find someone to help, but alas no.

We arrived in Parma and found the hostel quite easily. We went up, used the key code that I got in the confirmation and went into our room. We sat there for a while, waiting for the owner, before I noticed there was luggage in the cabinet. We were actually there prior to check out time, and the previous guests had not yet left. Oops.

We decided to take a walk down the road a bit, but didn’t see anything more than we had already seen in other towns, so we drove around bypassing the ZTL, the no-go zone, to the star-shaped area on our map marked as the Citadel. I don’t know if it used to be a citadel or not, but now it is a park, all be it very heavily fortified park. This was the first place that we had seen freshly mown grass. Everywhere else seems to be on the “wild flower” track, or they are just too lazy to cut the weeds.

We grabbed some food and went back to the room to eat. The owner didn’t show up until after 6pm, check in was at 1pm. She took my money, gave me a reciept, then was gone. No info, no rules, no help, nothing. She didn’t even speak English at all. I don’t think that opening your place up to strangers is a good idea if you can’t help them out with any information and won’t even be around.

There really was nothing in Parma that was all that interesting. We were certainly tired of seeing churches. I didn’t take a photo all day. Between that and not finding any food tours, this has been a boring city.