A quick excursion to Italy's Amalfi Coast

My blogging rate has slowed to a crawl. Sorry! Back to Italy...

Italy's big cities of Rome, Venice, and Florence are excellent destinations for tourists.  But the smaller towns are also amazing, in their own way.  We tried to balance big and small on our trip.

From our base in Rome, we took a day trip south to the Amalfi Coast. That area is quite a bit different than most places in Italy. It's full of small coastal towns built on hills.  We are also motivated to flee from Rome that day, since millions of believers converged on the Vatican to see Pope John Paul II's Beatification ceremony. 

The Amalfi Coast is a peninsula that sticks out to the Mediterranean Sea.  It's southeast of Naples, which is south of Rome.  There are a bunch of towns on the coast.  We visited Positano, Amalfi, and Ravello.  You may also have heard of Sorrento.  Other sights in the general area include Mt. Vesuvius, Pompeii, and Capri.

Usually travelers spend at least a few days in the Amalfi Coast.  It's the best way to appreciate the beautiful and chill atmosphere.  But we didn't have the time, so it ended up just being a day trip.  That meant waking up at the crack of dawn and taking a 1.5h high-speed train to Naples.  Btw, the Pope followers were already flocking to the Vatican at 5am!! 

Naples

I passed through Naples on my last trip (photos above are from that trip).  There is some charm to this city.  Great coastline, nice view of Mt. Vesuvius... This time around, however, Naples was just darn ugly.  The city streets where pretty ghetto everywhere.  There was construction all along the major boulevard, making it a pain to get around.  And they have had this seemingly perpetual trash worker strike problem, so everyone was just dumping trash in large piles at street corners. 

We had a bad transit experience in Naples as well.  We walked from the train station to the docks, expecting to hop on a ferry to the Amalfi Coast.  Turns out that there was no ferry service to the Amalfi Coast that day (May 1).  It wasn't posted anywhere, not even on their website, and no one cared to be helpful.  Things got a little stressful amongst our crew, I think.  But luckily, we found a Hertz car rental place nearby and rented a van.  Returning the van was messy too. All the construction and traffic made it really difficult to drive in the city. We barely returned the car on time and made it out on the last train back to Rome - with just a couple minutes to spare!

Once we got out of Naples, it was all good. Driving down to the coast was a most enjoyable experience. In fact, I am glad we drove, because we could see so much and just stop anywhere. The drive involved a lot of mountain passes, windy roads, and amazing views of towns and valleys.  The photo above is of the infamous Mt. Vesuvius (left, in the distance), the volcano that entombed the town of Pompeii in 79 CE. 

Positano

The first town we visited in the Amalfi Coast was Positano.  Wow.  It is one of the most picturesque towns I have ever seen.  Positano is built on a hill that drops right into the sea.  There are only a couple roads in town.  The roads wind back and forth, up and down the hill.  From afar, it looks like the buildings are built on top of each other.

Positano was once a small fishing village. It started getting some notoriety in the 1950's, starting with John Steinbeck. Now it's totally a resort town. You may have seen it in movies like "The Talented Mr. Ripley" or "Under the Tuscan Sun." At the base of the hill, the city center leads out to a relaxing rocky beach. There are all sorts of cozy restaurants, with great views of the town and the sea. The winding streets take you by dozens of shops, eager to lighten the wallets of tourists.

Here's a funky 180+ degree panaroma I took of Positano. Click on it for a full screen view (you can do this with any of the photos on this blog).

Amalfi

 

Amalfi is the main town in the Amalfi Coast region.  In the middle ages, Amalfi was the capital of the Duchy of Amalfi, which was an independent state.  Although parts of the town are built on a hill like Positano, the city center is bigger and flatter.  The piazza (below) is a great place to relax, drink some coffee, eat gelato, and shop.

Like most cities in Italy, there is a big church in the city center.  It looks magnificent with the afternoon sunlight shining on it.

Ravello

Ravello was the last town we visited in the Amalfi Coast.  Unlike the other two towns, Ravello is situated inland, high up in the hills.  You have a really nice view of the hills and valleys from Ravello.  Unfortunately, we needed to get back to Naples to catch the train, so we didn't have much time to spend in town.  Apparently we completely missed the seaside view from Ravello.  I didn't too my research well enough - oops.  But check out these photos from others on the Internet.  Holy amazing!

This photo of Ravello is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Summary

The Amalfi Coast is a beautiful, relaxing region of Italy.  I am very glad we went out of our way to see it.  I'm not sure I would travel back to Italy to see Rome, Florence, or Venice again.  But I could certainly see myself spending a few days wandering the hill towns of the Amalfi Coast.  The area really deserves several days of your attention (or weeks, if you're retired haha). I'd love to see the Cinque Terre again too.  Life may be short, but it should hopefully be long enough for a return visit!

Related links:

• All articles on my Italia 2011 trip 
• Slideshow on Flickr 

Rome: Ancient capital of the world

Wow, it has almost been a month since I visited Italy. Time to get the blog articles going!

Rome was the first destination on our trip.  What a city!  So much history, so much culture. It's amazing to be able to visit and to take it all in. This was my second time to Rome; the experience was just as awesome as the first.

About 2000 years ago, Rome was the largest city on the earth, with 450,000 people.  It was the capital of perhaps the mightiest and most influential civilization in history (for more info, click here).  The Roman Empire spanned three continents, from northern Africa to Asia Minor to the British Isles.  The Romans left us with a great legacy, including language (Italian/Spanish/French/Portuguese) and engineering (paved roads, the arch, cement, water systems, stadiums, the dome).  Several of today's great cities were founded by the Romans: London, Paris, Istanbul, Barcelona, Budapest, and Cologne.

Ancient Rome

Perhaps the best symbol of the old Roman Empire is the Colosseum, aka the Flavian Amphitheater. It looks just like any other stadium from afar, but when you walk amongst the ruins, it comes alive. You can imagine being there in a toga and sandals, hearing the roar of the crowd, watching gladiators fight each other to the death. Now if only Russell Crowe were doing guided tours... 

As a photography dude, I especially enjoyed the opportunity to shoot the landmarks of Rome at night.  They are just beautiful lit up.  There's something rather Romantic about Rome :)

Travel tip: The line for tickets into the Colosseum can be very long. Best option is to buy a combination ticket at the Palatine Hill, which never has a line. Our luck with tickets was hit-or-miss this trip; the Palatine Hill was closed the day we went. We went with option 2, which was to buy the ticket-with-guided-tour at the Colosseum, which had a different and much shorter line. Click here for more detail on options.

The Roman Forum is located right next to the Colosseum.  Unfortunately, the Forum is a ruin site - just a bunch of columns and broken stone.  It's hard to tell what the actual buildings looked like.  But wandering through the ruins is a neat experience. It definitely puts some deep thoughts in your mind regarding how old the place was. You can get a good view of the Forum ruins from the Palatine Hill (see photo below-right, from my first trip). If you are interested, there is this neat project called Rome Reborn.  It has some pretty cool 3D models of what ancient Rome could have looked like.

The other major ancient-era building in Rome is the Pantheon. It was originally built to pay homage to all the Roman gods. It was later turned into a Catholic church. It's an impressive structure, with large stone columns in front. Inside, you can see its huge concrete dome with a open oculus in the center.  Pretty amazing stuff for an intact, 2000-year-old building. I "prepared" myself for Rome by watching the movie "Angels and Demons" - the Pantheon is one of the first landmarks shown.

Early-Modern Era Rome

Although Rome is probably most well-known for its role in ancient history, central Rome is comprised mostly of buildings built in the last 400 years. One of the biggest landmarks is the Trevi Fountain.  It's a beautiful large fountain of Baroque design. It's named "Trevi" because it was once the intersection of three ancient Roman roads, or "tre vie." At this intersection, a simple fountain (not the one you see now) provided pure drinking water to travelers. The water was channeled by the aqueduct Aqua Virgo, from the hills outside of the city all the way to the fountain. This landmark is a testament to ancient Roman engineering.

The super fancy fountain you see now was built in the 1700's, by Salvi and then Pannini. The Trevi Fountain landmark area today is just a small piazza, but it's always mobbed with tourists. I don't think it's very enjoyable hanging out here (btw, watch out for pickpockets here). But a couple movies like "La Dolce Vita" and "Roman Holiday" have romanticized it for tourists. Not to mention some replicas of it at Disney World and Las Vegas. Everyone feels compelled to toss a coin over their shoulder, which means you'll return to Rome one day. Above, you can see that Chris and Kristine didn't coordinate their coin toss very well. I didn't throw a coin last time, but I came back anyways!

In my opinion, the best Roman landmark to chill at is the Spanish Steps (Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti). At the base of the steps is a nice Piazza di Spagna that leads to streets with fancy shops. At the top of the 138-staircase (the widest in Europe) is a church, the Trinità dei Monti. It's a beautiful and relaxing place, which I love with some late afternoon sunlight and gelato in my hands. There's no fancy history here; the steps were built in the 1700's.

Right next to the Colosseum and Forum, it's hard to miss the immense Vittorio Emanuele II Monument. It is a newer building - built in the early 1900's to honor the unification of Italy in 1896. I think it's a monstrosity. It's so big, it dominates the skyline of the Forum area. They even blew up part of the Capitoline Hill and some medieval structures to build this thing. I wish they could just have put a statue of the Vittorio dude in a piazza somewhere instead.

Rome, like the other great cities of Europe, is full of piazzas or town squares. The photo above and left shows the Piazza Navona. This piazza was also in "Angels and Demons" - though the fountains are way too shallow for Tom Hanks to jump in, haha. The photo above and right is the huge Piazza del Popolo. Rome has a lot of obelisks too, stolen from the Egyptians.


Accomodations in Rome

Rome is a large, modern city.  Only the Centro Storico, the historic center, is the tourist area.  Last time, I stayed way outside the Centro (not even shown on the map above).  It was a bit inconvient and expensive to hire a cab to take us to the city (btw, you don't want to drive in Rome!).  This time, Kristine rented an awesome apartment for the seven of us.

The location was perfect, halfway between the Colosseum/Forum area and the Tiber River/Vatican. It was just a couple blocks from the Piazza Navona - just a 15min walk east to most of the landmarks, or a 15min walk west to the Vatican. Travel tip: If you stay too close to the Colosseum/Forum, there isn't much to do in the evening. The Termini (train station) area is a little ghetto and lacks charm. But if you stay somewhere between the Piazza Navona (our apt) and the Spanish Steps, you'll be next to medieval streets and alleys, piazzas, and great food/drink/nightlife. The only drawbacks were the 4 flights of stairs to get to the apartment and the neighbors in the courtyard who threw a party all Saturday night (which I slept through haha).

To be continued...

Hmm, this blog post is getting long. I will have to leave off other Rome landmarks like the Vatican for another post.

Related links:

• All articles on my Italia 2011 trip 
• Slideshow on Flickr 

Italia, here we come! Trip preview

Well, it's about that time - time to travel the world again!  This trip's destination is Italy.  I'm leaving later today.  There's a nice-sized crew of us going - seven people, converging from Chicago, Detroit, and DC! Although I already went there in 2006, you can usually count on Italy for great culture, food, and weather.

This trip will be another wild-and-crazy trek through Europe (see my Oktoberfest Euro-Trek articles).  Last time in Italy, I did a tour.  This time, we will be our own tour guides.  We will go roughly from south to north, visiting the following places:

• Rome (3 days): Our entry point.  Once the center of the world.  All roads lead to Rome!
• Amalfi Coast (1 day): Beautiful coastal resort area just south of Naples
• Florence/Tuscany region (4 days): Home of the Italian Renaissance, with lovely hill towns and wine throughout the area
• Venice (1 day): One of the most romantic places in the world, with its distinct canals
• Milan (1 day): Big city.  Flying back to the State from there. 

Determining what time of year to visit Italy is always tough.  Americans usually like to travel in the summer.  But I think Italy is a little less crowded and not as hot in the spring or fall.  We figured that going in April, just after Easter (not during Easter!), would be good.  But there's a wrinkle - they decided to throw a Beatification ceremony for the last Pope John Paul II while we're visiting the Vatican.  Beatification is step 3 of 4 in becoming canonized as a Saint in the Catholic Church.  Pope John Paul's ceremony will be the fastest ever done - sometimes it takes a couple hundred years before you get your props.  I appreciate the Vatican's desire to include us, but really, I would much prefer to see the empty seats in front of St. Peter's Basilica (see photo above) than a horde of 1 million+ believers in the Square.  Never fear though - I watched the movie Angels and Demons last weekend, to prepare for the experience.

Europe is full of royalty events this upcoming weekend.  In the UK, we have the Royal Wedding.  In the Vatican, we have Pope John Paul II's Beatification.  I honestly don't care for either event, especially since I was not allowed to vote for either position.  But hey, when in Rome....

You may be wondering why I lumped the Pope in with monarchy.  Not only is he the leader of the Catholic Church, he is also the king of a country.  Yeah, the Vatican is a tiny country today.  But it was once a larger nation called the Papal States, with its own military and everything.

When you think of Italy, it's hard not to think of all the history in that area.  U.S. history pales in comparison.  But what is ironic is that Italy the nation is actually 100 years younger than the United States.  What??  Yes indeed.  Since the downfall of Rome (about 1500 years ago), the Italy region became a bunch of different feuding city-states (Florence, Siena, Rome, Venice, etc.).  Later they consolidated into nations: Tuscany, Genoa, Venice, Papal States (see map above).  Italy didn't become a single nation until 1896.  The Vittorio Emanuele II Monument in Rome (photo above) symbolizes this reunification.  You can definitely see the regional differences as you travel around Italy.

But enough of history and politics.  We're on vacation, and it's time to relax.  Our first spot for peace and relaxation will be a day trip to the Amalfi Coast.  It's a little south of Naples, which is south of Rome.  I haven't been the Amalfi Coast yet, but it's supposed to be beautiful coastal region with pretty towns, cliffs, and coastline.  The photo above is from Lerici, near Cinque Terre, which is a completely different region in Italy, but should be somewhat similar in scenery.  The bus and ferry rides to the coast are supposed to be amazing.  We'll also stroll through some of the towns there: Amalfi, Positano (seen in the movie The Talented Mr. Ripley), and Sorrento (you know the song "Return to Sorrento"?).

Our next stop, Tuscany, is perhaps one of the most beautiful and interesting regions to live in the world.  It's full of rolling hills, vineyards, medieval towns, and sun.  Not to mention, the region is anchored by Florence, the capital of Italian Renaissance art and culture.  We are renting a cute apartment in Florence plus a rental car, which will allow us to meander about.

We plan to visit a few places in Tuscany.  Siena is a must - an medieval town with a beautiful city square (above).  We'll also visit Lucca, which I haven't been to.  We'll probably stop by Pisa for a quick "Kodak Moment" too. 

Did I mention food and wine??  Yes!!!  We'll visit a winery in the Chianti region for some Tuscan goodness.  Oh yeah, last time I was there, I wasn't much of a foodie yet.  This time, look for some food photos! :)  I may have to dump all my clothes and just bring wine back in the suitcase...

I haven't been to Venice yet.  I'm very excited to see it.  But I've stayed at the Venetian in Las Vegas many times.  I can't imagine the real Venice to be much different, no? :)  Unfortunately, we will only have a day to spend in Venice, so our experience will be short.  I've watched the movie The Italian Job a few times though, so I think I know what to do...

Our final stop and return flight is in Milan.  Milan is a big city, Italy's business capital.  I don't think it's well-known for landmarks or anything.  But I hope to meet a supermodel there and marry her.  Maybe buy some clothes I can't afford.  The highlight will be catching a football match featuring Inter-Milan, the 5-year reigning Italian League champions.  I have never seen a football match in Italy before - should be super exciting!  Though I hope not to get trampled by hooligans...

Stay tuned on my blog and on Facebook for more photos and commentary! :)

All is good in the world again: I finally got an iPad 2!

 

When the iPad 2 was released in March, I wasn't that excited.  Yes, it's a newer, better product, but was it worth shelling out another $600?  No way.

But a few weeks later, everything changed.  My parents came down to visit.  I let my mom use my iPad to check a few things on the Internet.  I didn't think much of it, since she had used various laptops, netbooks, etc. before.  But with this device, she had fallen in love.  She immediately became an Angry Birds addict.  She was on the iPad all day during that visit.  After that, I decided to part ways with my iPad.  It became a retirement gift for my mom.

My good deed for my mom created a void in my life.  What to do?  No little tablet thingy to play with on the couch, in bed, at the coffee shop, etc.  Time to do some shopping.  I had looked at some of the other tablets on the market.  The Android-based Motorola Xoom looked like a strong candidate.  Gearheads could probably argue for hours on which tablet is better in terms of hardware/OS/features.  But iPad blows away the competition when it comes to apps.  I could care less about the specs; I just want to be able to do cool things with my tablet.  Hence, I decided to go with an iPad 2.

Getting an iPad 2 was a pain in the neck, however.  It's been over a month since they released it, but supply is still very low.  You usually have to get in line at an Apple store around 8am or earlier, to hope to get one.  No thanks, I'm not waking up for that.  And although they advertise it at Target, Walmart, and Best Buy, these stores hardly carry any.  You could order online, but it'll take you 3-5 weeks to get one.  Maybe I should have done that anyways.  But just last Wednesday, I called up the Apple store on Michigan Ave. in Chicago a little before noon, hoping to find out about a shipment the next morning.  Surprisingly enough, the dude on the line told me they had a few iPad 2's currently in stock.  I hopped on the bus and arrived there 15 minutes later.  No line, no hassle - and I suddenly had my hands on a 32GB black wifi iPad 2!  Praise the gods!

To celebrate this momentus achievement, here is my Flava Flav hip hop pose, with an iPad clock around my neck. This goes out to Dan S., who originally came up with the idea :)

If you are curious, here are some of my favorite apps:

• Angry Birds: Forget World of Warcraft or Call of Duty.  This simple little app would be my vote for the game of the Decade!
• TD Ameritrade's iStockManager: Powerful, fast, responsive app for stock trading.  It puts a lot of info at your fingertips for trading, and it's easy to use.
• Netflix: Netflix streaming movies + iPad app were a match made in heaven
• Air Video: Allows you to stream videos from another computer.  This gets you around the 16/32/64GB limit of your iPad.  I have many gigs of TV shows and movies on my main PC's hard drive.  I installed Air Video Server on that PC (works on Mac too).  Then I run Air Video on the iPad to stream movies over wireless from the PC.
• Dropbox: Sync files between your iPad and other machines.  Apple tries to force you to use iTunes for everything, even though it sucks at managing anything besides music.  Ideally, iOS should have its own file manager like Windows Explorer or Apple Finder.  But no.....
• Keynote: Great way to display Powerpoint presentations, even thru a video projector.  Now I take my iPad to present at customer meetings, rather than my laptop :)
• Piano Accordio: The main app that sold me on the iPad originally.  It may be the most playable music instrument app on the market today.
• Pro Keys: Piano/keyboard app.  There are lots of these, but this one is pretty solid.  I used this app the other day in my "New Wave Ensemble" class, in which we played some David Bowie, The Cars, and The Replacements.