Day 272 - 23 Mar '24 - Rome, day two. We were lucky to be staying in Rome for four nights, so sightseeing on a Saturday with even more masses than yesterday, was not on our plans. Sore legs plus sore hips plus sore heads equals staying in bed until 10am and not doing anything more strenuous than trying to find something for lunch.
That being said, trying to find lunch turned into an exercise unto itself! The first place we went to had gluten free pizza but not gluten free pasta, and pasta was what we were after.
The next place had gluten free pizza AND pasta, so we sat down. However, once we'd read the menu, we got up and left. Abi couldn't eat the meatballs that she wanted, there was no spaghetti bolognese for her second choice, and her third choice of Alfredo (butter and parmesan) was €18!
What had started as a quick 'not much walking' excursion, turned into another 18 minute walk back to the train station to go to a gluten free pastry shop (where Abi selected a small pizza, an arancini ball, a salami cake, and a profiterole). Then we all had to walk a further 20 minutes back to our accommodation past a couple of other bakeries, where the rest of us finally got some pizza slices at 2:30pm.
We'd left the house at 12:30pm.
The rest of the day we spent back inside the apartment. Dan had a nap while Alex and Abi worked on their blogs, and I played games on my phone.
That's what everyone does when they visit Rome, right?
Right??
Anyone???
Back into sightseeing tomorrow. Our plan: up early to get to the Colosseum for 8:30am, fully prepared for a couple of hours of queueing just to buy a ticket!
Day 273 - 24 Mar '24 - Rome, day three. I'd set my alarm for 6:45am, but there wasn't really any point, as both Dan and I were awake and had been for some time. We'd had a really shit sleep; there was a protest March going past around 11pm, the upstairs neighbours came home around 1am, we tossed and turned until around 5am, and the street sweepers went past at 6am. Fun times!
We're getting really tired - repetitive nights of bad sleeps on different beds, and moving lots, is starting to take its toll. We've been travelling again since 19 January, and our three week break at Killearn seems like a lifetime ago!
We were out the door at 7:50am, and walked to the Colosseum as it was only a 35 minute walk. It was super quiet, with hardly any cars and even less people.
Until we got nearer the Colosseum!
The ticket office opened at 8:30am, and the queue for it was already 50m long. We decided to 'divide and conquer', as there was a second ticket office further up the road. Abi and I walked there quickly, and were amazed to see just 10 people in the line!
"Quick," I said to Dan when I called him, "you need to come to this queue, as we can only buy one ticket per person."
Dan and Alex arrived a couple of minutes before the booth opened, and they, too, were amazed that there weren't more people in the queue. By the time the second person had bought their tickets, the ones for the underground section of the Colosseum had sold out. We kept our fingers crossed for the ones we wanted...
...yes! Four tickets to the arena floor! This was the same area the tour operator was charging €80 per adult and €20 per child, and we got the tickets for €22 per adult and the kids were free! No tour guide, but that didn't matter.
We walked back to the main Colosseum entrance and tried telling a few people in the queue there (which was now over 100m long) about the second ticket office. One man just shook his head, but a group of French girls and a second Japanese group took our advice.
"I'm surprised more people don't go there," I said to Dan. "I'm also surprised there isn't someone from the Colosseum telling them about the second ticket office."
"They've got it on their website, quite clearly," he replied. "They probably don't care, as all the tickets will sell anyway."
We didn't have long to wait for our 9:15am entry, and we walked out onto an almost empty arena floor.
Oh my goodness! I'd been here before 20 years ago, but seeing it from this angle was incredible. The size of it was fantastic, and we could only imagine what it must have been like for the gladiators, with all the spectators baying for blood.
We had a great view of the underground area, which we hadn't realised was two storeys high. Here was where the animals were kept, and where the slaves and gladiators would wait.
There were 80 entrances to the Colosseum; 76 for the spectators to enter, and four for the emperor, senators, officials, and gladiators. One of the gates was called the Gate of Life, and this was where the gladiators would walk through onto the arena floor, and back out of if they survived. Otherwise, they'd be carried out of the Gate of Death.
We told the kids about the movie Gladiator, and about how the men would fight to the death for entertainment. Somehow, this conversation segued into Jaws and then about the USS Indianapolis! Go figure!
We climbed the stairs to the second floor, and walked through a museum of artefacts (including graffitied panels of marble from people watching the gladiators), then around the seating area.
This gave us another fantastic view of the size of the theatre. So many floors of what once held seats, and it was free for the citizens to enter! The positions of the seats were based on their standing in society, with officials near the front and the poorest up the top.
By this stage, the number of people in the arena had increased dramatically, as had the number of people waiting outside. Hundreds of people thronged the plaza, and the queue to get tickets was longer still.
Our ticket gave us access to the Forum and Palatine Hill, which is where we went next.
Palatine Hill was a massive section of land atop two hills, that once housed the wealthy of the city, and eventually became exclusively the dominion of emperors.
Augustus', Tiberius', and Domitian's palace ruins are visible there, and we were awed at the size of them. They just kept going and going and going. Every corner we turned, there was another gigantic building, some walls over 30m high.
There was a long stadium-like garden, with lots of broken pillars lining the length and an oval structure at one end. This was the garden where the emperor would take his walks.
Palatine Hill also overlooked the Circus Maximus, once a famous chariot racing ground, but now just a long gravel area with grass embankments.
On the other side of the Palatine Hill were the Farnese Gardens. From there, we were afforded an astounding view over the Roman Forum. The vastness far outstripped that of the Roman Forum in Athens, as one would expect!
"Do we still have to walk through all of THAT?!" Abi complained. "This is BORING!"
Not only could we see the Forum, but also the back of the Vittorio Emanuele monument, and at the other end, the Colosseum.
We walked through the Forum for a while, again marvelling at how so much of it was still standing 2000 years later, and wondering what it must have looked like when it was new.
Time for lunch! This time, we were determined to eat at lunchtime and not 2pm, and I'd found a completely gluten free restaurant (with better prices) beside the Pantheon, so we headed there.
The main road from the Colosseum to the Vittorio Emanuele monument was closed to traffic and filled with pedestrians (so many more than the other day), with lots of wooden games set up for children. It was wonderful to see all the families playing together!
We made it to the restaurant, only to be turned away as we didn't have a reservation, and there weren't any spaces until maybe 2pm.
"It's okay," said Abi, "I'm not even hungry."
"Okay, let's just grab a slice of pizza from the pizzeria there, as I'm not waiting until 2pm!"
So that's what we did. We sat on a wall and ate some tasty slices of pizza, then carried on with our sightseeing.
The Pantheon was right around the corner, and we were super lucky with our ticket queue - Dan saw there was a line for cash only, that was about 10 times shorter than the other two queues, and also shorter than the queues of people who already had booked tickets! No more than 10 minutes, and we were inside.
The Pantheon has the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome (a title held for 2000 years), spanning 43m, with a 7.8m oculus. It's not very glamorous inside, and is in fact a replacement temple of one built by Marcus Agrippa. When Hadrian had this one built, he kept the inscription on the front honouring Agrippa.
From there, we walked the short distance to the Piazza Navona, a long public plaza with a large, beautiful fountain in the middle, flanked by two smaller fountains at each end.
We had come here not only to see the piazza, but to go to a specific gelateria that was gluten free.
"I don't want one of the waffle cones," Abi complained. "They're small."
I swear to god...
"That's the last time we're going to make a special effort for you, Abi," Dan said.
"If you were just going to have the gelato in a cup, we could have gone to any other gelateria," I exclaimed.
In the end, our gelatos and sorbets were very tasty, but not worth the €28 we paid for them.
"That's more expensive than the ice cream at the Mount!" Alex said, shocked.
We had one last sightseeing stop for the day, the Spanish Steps. We decided to do this today, as there was a metro station right beside it, and we could buy our tickets for the metro tomorrow.
We walked past some rather high-end stores, the type that had security guards standing inside the door, impeccably dressed in black tie dinner suits. That type that probably wouldn't even open the door for us, in our tshirts and tracksuit pants!
The Spanish Steps, so named because it connects the Trinità dei Monti church to the Spanish embassy to the Holy See, has 135 steps, that you aren't allowed to sit on, eat on, or even push a pram on, or you face a fine of up to €400. Those regulations were put in place in 2019 in an attempt to get ill-mannered tourists to behave!
At the top of the steps, we found out the metro station was closed. Not just for today, but for 80 days, as part of wider Rome 2025 Jubilee preparations. I also discovered the metro station closest to the Vatican was closed for 50 days for the same reason. Bugger! We'd need to amend our travel plans slightly.
We got the train at the next subway station, and after that, hopped on a bus to take us most of the way home. This was a good route-finding experience for when we leave, as nobody wanted to walk back to the train station with our rucksacks.
The rest of our afternoon was spent relaxing with our feet up on the couch. Both Dan and I still had sore hips, so getting home at 3:30pm and taking it easy for the remainder of the day was ideal. Alex and Abi did some schoolwork and I did laundry. Fish finger burgers for dinner, because incredibly, the tiny little market under our apartment, had some gluten free ones!
Day 274 - 25 Mar '24 - Rome (and Vatican City), day four. An even earlier start today. Nobody liked the alarm going off at 5:45am, after yet another rubbish sleep. But we had to get up this early, as we were going to the Vatican Museum and it would take about 50 minutes to get there!
We walked to a nearby bus station, then changed later on to the subway, then walked the last 10 minutes, and joined the queue of plebs like us that didn’t have a reservation.
Tickets were fully sold out online (right through until the end of May), so it was either stand in a queue or pay for an expensive tour.
We started queuing at 7:20am, and the museum opened at 8am. Not too bad. There were about 100 people in front of us, which included four large tour groups. Okay. Shouldn't take too long.
Then the tour groups that had reservations started filing past us and gathering out the front. Holy crap - there were a lot of people waiting to get in.
The sun was on the other side of the street, and we were not dressed for 9°C weather with a breeze. I was shivering, Alex was doing star jumps to keep warm, and even Dan, the human-sized hot water bottle, was starting to feel cold.
At 8am the queue moved. Yay! Only about 10 people got through, then the queue stopped. Boo! We timed it, and every eight minutes or so, an official would open up the barrier and let some people into the museum before closing it again.
We eventually made it inside at 9:10am - one hour and 50 minutes of queueing. Could have been worse!
The Vatican Museum is a rather sprawling complex, filled with antiquities from Egypt, Rome, and Greece, and a phenomenal amount of marble and stone sculptures.
Unfortunately, all the sculptures had been ‘sanitised’ under the decree of Pope Clement XIII in the mid to late 1700s. He demanded all the penises be removed or covered up with fig leaves. All those glorious carvings forever desecrated. Strangely, women’s breasts were left unadorned.
We periodically got stuck behind large groups of people, moving in a shuffling mass through pinch points. A number of times, we would duck off the main path into empty side rooms, and when we got out of one of the other museum rooms, we would be back in a gap again.
At one point, the custodians shut off the main route as it was getting blocked up by people, so everyone was getting redirected to side rooms. This worked in our favour, as we had a much quieter visit to two of the most stunning parts of the museum, the Gallery of Tapestries and the Gallery of Maps.
It’s hard to know where to look - the floor, the walls, or the ceiling. The floors were decorated with elaborate designs in multiple types of marble, with each type of marble having its own vein patterns.
The walls were painted with topographical maps of the various regions of Italy; massive panels with towns and churches marked on them.
The ceiling was covered in gold frames and paintings as far as the eye can see, and was glistening from the sun shining in the windows.
We were kept moving by custodians telling us not to stop, and tour groups that would only pause momentarily before carrying on. The next room was the Gallery of Tapestries, which contained gigantic floor to ceiling depictions of biblical events.
One in particular was the Resurrection of Christ, which we had seen as paintings. Abi was dwarfed by the size of it, and I couldn’t even get the whole thing in one frame!
We then went through a series of apartments, each one covered in beautiful frescoes on the walls and ceilings, and intricate mosaic marble floors. The works or art just kept going and going, and there were even some galleries and corridors closed off.
We eventually made it to the Sistine Chapel, the main drawcard of the Vatican Museum. It was packed, and I mean literally packed with people. Everyone was told to keep moving around the outside, but you could jam yourself into a stationary spot in the middle of the room.
We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but Alex was rather sneaky and managed to grab a couple of shots on my phone. Personally, as amazing as it was to see Michelangelo’s biggest claim to fame, we’d already seen so many phenomenal pieces of art, that the Creation of Adam wasn’t as breathtaking as it should have been.
After the Sistine Chapel, we walked through a few more galleries until we had finally reached the exit point, where we got to go down the incredible double helix spiral staircase.
“So,” asked Dan, “what now?”
“I reckon we go and join the queue for St Peter’s now,” I replied, “and I’ll look online for somewhere gluten free for lunch.”
“There’s a restaurant right there, mummy!” Abi said.
“We’ll go and ask,” said Alex, and off the two of them went.
They came back a few moments later and excitedly said they did have gluten free pasta and pizza and it was only €11!
“I guess we have lunch now,” Dan replied.
We all finally got to have some delicious fresh pasta in Rome! Dan, Alex, and I all had tagliatelle with ham and mushrooms (didn’t look like the picture, but do they ever?), and Abi had spaghetti carbonara, which she ate about one third of before Alex finished it!
We walked the short distance to St Peter’s Basilica, and joined the queue to get in. This queue started from one side of the Vatican City, right round the columns to the other side.
“At least it’s in the sun!”
This queue was much faster than the other one, and was constantly moving; it only took us an hour to get to the Basilica. We then joined another queue to climb up the top of the dome, which also lasted an hour.
€10 to get the lift halfway with 360 steps to climb, or €8 to climb all 551. Naturally, we saved our money and did the full climb. By the time we got to the dome, the people who had queued in front of us and went up the lift, had only just arrived.
We got to see the inside of the church and the dome from an interior walkway around the base of the dome, but it was very difficult to get a good look due to the tightly spaced guard rails.
The next lot of stairs around an interior cavity pathway, got increasingly narrow and curved as we got closer to the top, and made walking rather challenging!
The final set of stairs were only as wide as my shoulders, and in an incredibly tight spiral staircase, with a rope hanging down the middle as a handrail. But the view from the top was worth every single step!
We could see all of Rome laid out before us, sprawling for miles, and had an amazing view of the Vatican Gardens and its structural hedges.
The Vatican City plaza in front of the Basilica looked incredible, with people milling around it like ants, and we could see out to Castel Sant Angelo and the bridge with the passions of Christ sculptures.
Further afield, we could see the gigantic Vittorio Emanuele monument, with the Colosseum partially visible behind it. The Roman Forum was somewhat obscured though.
We descended the stairs again (cleverly done on the other side of the dome to make traffic one-way), and then finally we got to go inside St Peter’s, the largest church in the world.
None of the photos we took accurately portray the size of the building, and no words I come up with can adequately describe how it looked.
The gold, the sculptures, the paintings, the smaller dome ceilings, the marble everywhere…no matter where we looked, there was something splendid to marvel at.
The central area was blighted by scaffolding and netting protecting something under maintenance, but there were still plenty of things to look at.
We descended to the Vatican Grottoes and walked past the Papal Tombs, then walked around the church some more. I’d been here before 20 years ago, but it was still wonderful to see it again.
It was almost 4pm when we left, and I had one last place on my list for the day: Celiachiamo Lab, a 100% gluten free supermarket.
Let me rephrase that - every single thing in the supermarket was gluten free. And it was FILLED with stuff! Bread, crackers, biscuits, chocolates, cereals, flours, dried pasta (of an incredible variety), fresh pasta, filled pasta both fresh and frozen, frozen pizza and bases, desserts, cakes…and on every day apart from Mondays, there was also fresh baked pastries and pizzas and breads!
We bought Abi some cereal and crackers, and also some tomato and mozzarella ravioli. Fresh gluten free ravioli! Outstanding!!
It was then time to go home. We got the subway, then walked to the bus stop that only had 11 minutes to wait for the bus. We waited 13 minutes. Then another five. The traffic was practically at a standstill, and we couldn’t even see the bus coming.
“My feet are on fire!” I sang, to the tune of Alesha Keys.
“There’s no way this bus is coming soon. Shall we just walk home?” Dan suggested.
“Yep,” I reluctantly agreed. “There’s no point in waiting any longer, when it’s just a 19 minute walk. We could already be halfway home by now. But we’ll pop in to the pharmacy on the way for some paracetamol.”
By the time we stopped walking (after a brief trip to a supermarket for normal ravioli), we had done somewhere between 18,000 and 21,000 steps. I say ‘somewhere between’ because my and Dan’s phones record them differently, plus the kids had been running around with them.
Lying in our horrible bed never felt so good! A looong day of walking and sightseeing, plus a couple of paracetamol to stop the pain in my hips, meant tonight’s sleep should be a good one...
Day 275 - 26 Mar '24 - Rome to Venice. ...And it was! Well, it was the best out of the four nights we’d had there. Abi in particular had an excellent sleep on the floor all night (yes, you read that right, the floor). Plus, with an alarm set for 8am instead of Sparrow Fart, we got to sleep for around 9 hours!
It was raining when we left the apartment, so we all had our raincoats on and the waterproof rucksack covers out. It was only a short walk to the bus stop, thank goodness.
“It’s going to be a busy bus!” I said, as five other people joined us at the bus stop.
“Yeah, and it’s raining,” Dan answered.
After a few minutes, the other five people walked off.
“They said something that sounded like traffico,” Dan said to me. “I think we should walk. We don’t have enough time to wait for the bus any longer.”
So, off we went! 15 minutes of walking in the rain with our rucksacks.
“The best laid plans…” Dan said.
We had enough time at the station to grab some sandwiches and baby carrots (for Abi) from the shop, then boarded the train to Venice. We were in the business class quiet section for four hours, which was a challenge with the kids.
We’d been in this section twice before, and is one Dan has tried to avoid where possible. We’ve found our children manage about an hour before the near-silence starts to be a problem, and they feel obliged to make annoying noises.
One definite benefit of this section, however, is the free snacks and drinks! I’m all about the freebies where I can get them!
It was about four hours to Venice, and it was raining there too. Obviously, we can't control the weather, but I don't know many people who enjoy sightseeing anywhere in the rain.
Once we'd made it to our apartment and dropped our gear off, we went back out in the rain to go to a supermarket. This supermarket must have been something else at some point, as the ceiling was beautifully painted, and what looked like stage lights were at one end.
Alex and Abi made nachos for dinner, then we watched Captain America Civil War. We closed all the shutters, Abi had her bed in the lounge, Alex had his bed in a bedroom, and we had a lovely big bed with a good mattress.
Good night!
Day 276 - 27 Mar '24 - Venice. It was drizzly when we woke up and opened the shutters. Alex and Abi had both slept soundly until after 8am, which was a huge relief.
The rain was forecast to stay all day, so out came the waterproof trousers and trail shoes to go with our raincoats.
“I don’t want to get my trousers!” Abi complained. “I don’t know where they are. Mummy put them somewhere at the bottom of my bag, and I told her not to, and it’s her fault I can’t get them. It’s always her fault when my bag gets messed up.”
“They’re at the bottom of your bag because we haven’t needed them for ages,” Dan pointed out, "so mummy's been right."
“Yeah, well, I need them now and they’re at the bottom of my bag!”
Miraculously, Abi found them very easily, but decided not to get her trail shoes because they, too, were at the bottom of her bag. Also my fault.
Suitably attired for the elements, we left the apartment to explore Venice while we made our way to St Mark’s Square.
There were a lot of people out walking with their ponchos and umbrellas. I guess, once you’ve paid the money for your holiday to Venice, you get out and walk around regardless of the weather.
Venice is famed for beautiful masks and stunning Murano glass. And boy oh boy, did we see A LOT of masks and glass. Almost every second shop had either or both, and they kept getting better and better.
“When we win Lotto, I’m coming back to Venice and buying a whole shop’s worth of glassware,” I boldly stated.
“The win from all those Lotto tickets you’re not buying?” Dan cynically replied.
There were gorgeous wee animals like turtles, foxes, frogs, crocodiles, and cuttlefish, that could fit in the palm of a baby’s hand. There were bigger animals like sharks and octopi and whale tails. Sculptures of men and women, clowns, and Picasso-like faces. Large fish tank blobs, with lots of tropical fish swimming in water, surrounded by seaweed and bubbles. Not to mention all the artistic sculptures of various shapes, vases and bowls, wine and cocktail glasses, and freestanding chandeliers!
The masks we saw were also incredibly varied and elaborate, ranging from half-face filigree lace, right through to huge feathered headdresses! I’d wanted to buy one when I was last here 20 years ago, and I’d wanted to buy one today as well, but transportation logistics (plus the price) meant they stayed on the shop wall, just as they did all those years ago.
We walked over lots of little bridges, and watched a few brave souls having a gondola ride. It’s a regulated industry, which is fantastic, so all the gondoliers charged the same rate (a rather pricey €90 for 40 minutes during the day, or €110 at night).
“Are you sure you don’t want to go on a gondola, Dan?” I asked.
“Yep,” he answered. “It’s cold and raining. Look! Do those people look like they’re having a good time? We’ll just have to come back, the two of us, on a sunny day, and really enjoy it with some wine and chocolates, and not have to be telling the kids to be quiet.”
“Or sit still, or sit still, or sit still.”
"That's not fair!" piped up Abi.
"It's eminently fair," I replied.
We eventually made our way to St Mark’s Square, which was mostly empty due to the rain. Nobody was sitting on any of the restaurant seats in the middle of the square. The tide was also coming in, so the water across the square was slowly rising up out of the drains, and walkways had been put up across the main thoroughfares.
At the end of the plaza was St Mark’s Basilica, a striking domed church built in 1071. In front of it was the Bell Tower, and next to it was the Doge’s Palace.
We decided not to go inside to see more grand buildings, having just seen the Vatican, and walked alongside the Grand Canal, where we could see the Bridge of Sighs. This was the bridge that took prisoners from the palace interrogation rooms into the prison, and got its name from the prisoner’s sighing as they got their last glimpse of Venice through two small, barred, square windows.
At this point, Dan lost the plot with the kids. Both of them had been frequently hitting each other and arguing, and we had both told them, more than once, to leave each other alone, and had also separated them on multiple occasions.
They were apparently made of magnets, and had cloth ears, as no sooner would they be told off than they would be back doing it again.
“How many times must you be told the same thing?” he yelled. “HOW MANY? I am sick and tired of you. LEAVE EACH OTHER ALONE! KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF! You’re being a little shit, and I’ve had ENOUGH!”
They are ruining this trip. We are both mentally and emotionally exhausted by them. The constant arguing and complaining and disobeying. They are disrespectful and rude. The happy and joyful moments are few and far between.
Sending them to boarding school is increasingly tempting.
We stood under the eaves outside the prison (which had incredible woven iron bars) while Abi ate a gluten free tuna sandwich that we’d found in the supermarket last night. The rain got heavier, and the water in the square had risen a bit more. Time to call it quits and go back to the apartment.
We took a different route back, past loads more glass and mask shops, over more bridges, and at one point ducked under an awning when the rain got really heavy.
We quickly popped into a supermarket to buy food for lunch and dinner, and while Dan took the food back to the apartment, I took Alex and Abi to one of the shops for them to buy some glass animals with their spending money. Alex bought a cuttlefish, and Abi bought a hedgehog, frog, turtle, and super cute fox.
Unfortunately, when she unwrapped them back at the apartment, she discovered the hedgehog was missing a spike.
“Oh no!” I sympathised. “And you can’t even take it back.”
“Why not?” Alex asked.
“Because we’ve no way of proving it was bought like that, and not damaged by Abi.”
“That’s okay,” Abi said. “I’ll just pretend he’s been injured!”
It was only 2:30pm, but there wasn’t anything else we wanted to do in Venice, so we just stayed inside for the rest of the day. If it had been sunny, we’d have spent much longer walking around the streets, and of course, gone on a gondola.
Both kids have had all electronic privileges revoked; no movies, no games, and no kindle, until they can show us they can behave. We’ve completely run out of options for consequences.
After an hour of 'stay in your room and be quiet', which was eventually responded to with 'I'm bored', we played a game of Canasta. Abi has picked up the basics pretty quickly, but Alex was still rather confused. He even quit the game a couple of times in fits of pique, so we ended up playing his hand for him, much to his annoyance.
We had some oven pizza for tea and Abi had pumpkin soup, and for dessert I had some paracetamol for my thumping headache. The rain also finally stopped - hopefully it's still dry tomorrow when we walk back to the train station!
Day 277 - 28 Mar '24 - Venice to Zurich. Alas, it was raining again.
“Aw man, my backpack’s going to get wet again, after it’s been drying all night,” I said to Dan when I looked out the window.
All our shoes had also spent the night by the radiators, so hopefully we wouldn’t stand in any deep puddles. We covered our rucksacks in their waterproof bags, put on our wet weather gear, and once again walked out in the rain.
It was only eight minutes back to the train station, where we shook off the water as best we could, and packed away our waterproof gear. We didn’t have to wait long to board our first train, which was a three-hour trip to Milan.
We played a couple of games of Canasta, and then we were once again treated to Trenitalia’s business class benefits - a free drink and a box of snacks each. Yummy! And there was even a gluten free option for Abi - bonus!
We were very impressed by the Milan train station when we got there; it was very grand, with beautiful mosaic floors, stone carvings on the walls, and a very high arched glass ceiling.
We wouldn’t get in to Zurich until almost 7:30pm, so Dan took Abi to find something for her to eat for dinner, and came back with the only option in the entire station: a McDonald’s cheeseburger.
“She might as well eat it now,” I said after we boarded the 20-carriage long train that would take us to Zurich. “It won’t be nice by dinner time, and then she’d complain about it being horrible, and not eat it at all.”
“What are we going to eat for dinner, mummy?” Alex asked
“That’s not a major concern,” I answered. “There’s bound to be something we can find.”
We left Milan at 3:10pm on the Swiss network, but there were no free drinks or food on this one. Oh well!
It was a beautiful trip through the mountains of Italy and into Switzerland, and we were surprised to still see lots of snow on the ground. I even spotted a couple of kids having a snowball fight!
“It’s quite a bit different from the tshirt and shorts we were in a few days ago,” I said. “I may need to dig out my hat and gloves!”
We walked the 19 minutes to our apartment rather than get the tram, as I felt the kids (and me) needed the exercise after sitting down all day.
“Are you alright?” Dan asked me after a while. “Do you need me to take one of the bags?”
“No thank you. The food bag is actually the lightest it’s been in a long time. I think my backpack might even be heavier for once!”
We dropped our gear off, and after a quick trip to the local supermarket for breakfast supplies, put the kids to bed. It was a sofa bed, so Dan dismantled it and put half of the cushions on the ground for Alex to lie on, and Alex stayed on the folded up couch.
Alex’s head was, unfortunately, next to the shoes. And his boots STANK!
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Day 278 - 29 Mar '24 - Zurich. One of the best things about travelling, is not paying attention to days and dates. One of the worst things about travelling, is not paying attention to days and dates. Like today being Good Friday. Which meant all the shops were shut. Including the chocolate shops and the Victorinox shop. And most of the supermarkets. You know, just the ones we really wanted to go to!
On the positive side, we did get to have a mostly deserted walk through the streets to get to the waterfront, which was also relatively quiet.
"Everyone must have gone away for the long weekend," Dan said, as we enjoyed the view across the water to some snow-capped mountains in the distance.
We walked through a large public plaza in front of the opera house, and were delighted with all the chairs put out for public use. The seats were chained together in pairs, and placed randomly around the square. People could move them as required, and by midday, the area had filled up quite a lot with families enjoying the lovely weather.
Across the other side of the square, Dan had found a supermarket that was still open, so we went in to buy some lunch. Food in Switzerland was exorbitant, and Lindt chocolate (made in this city) was more expensive here than in New Zealand. Dan and Alex bought a large pizza slice each, but even that cost almost $8NZD for each one. We also bought some Swiss chocolate; we figured that since we'd had quite a lot of Lindt, we'd try a different brand, Cailler, made in Switzerland since 1819.
Five 100g bars cost 9.95 Swiss francs, which equated to $18.40NZD! And that wasn't even the most expensive Swiss chocolate. We could only afford to admire Sprüngli from afar...
While eating our lunch, a lady sitting on a nearby park bench handed Abi a single white rose, which was very sweet of her. Abi didn't know quite what to do with it, so we suggested maybe she'd like to pass it on to someone else.
We walked along the river bank, admiring the bridges and buildings. We didn't want to go in any of them today, and instead just enjoyed the quiet day.
While standing next to a bridge, we saw a group of Asian ladies, so Abi very bravely went up to them and handed one of them the rose, saying "Happy Easter". You should have heard the squeals of delight, and seen the smiles on all the ladies' faces! One even gave Abi a massive hug, and then they took a picture of her. There was even a bit of laughter when they pointed to one of the husbands - we assume they were pointing out the fact she hadn't received any flowers from him!
"See? You've just made her day!" I said to her when she came back. "They've got a lovely story to tell their friends, when they get back to their home."
We walked with no set route through some old buildings, and came to a small public square, where we could see a large group of people gathered at one end. We initially thought it might have been a tour group, but when we got there we discovered a large fountain filled with rose heads of lots of different colours. It was simply beautiful!
I read online it was "no thorns without roses" as part of an Easter beautification of a number of fountains in the city. It was very pretty and colourful, and we could only imagine the cost of all the roses!
We next walked along one of the most expensive streets in the world, the Bahnhofstrasse. This street was lined with designer shops of clothes and jewelry, all closed of course.
"This is the type of shopping we like," laughed Dan. "Not very many people, and just looking in the window and not going inside!"
At the end of the road was the train station; we needed to book our train tickets to Montpellier for tomorrow (which we couldn't do online), so while Dan did that, the kids and I looked around the station and spotted a giant Lindt bunny, and a queue of people going into a large cubicle.
Of course, they joined the queue, and they were very excited to each get a handful of mini Lindt eggs and a mini Lindt bunny. Unfortunately, Abi couldn't eat milk chocolate Lindt because it's not gluten free, so we gave her some extra chocolate from the bars we'd bought earlier. Not quite the same, but better than nothing.
As quickly as possible, we went to the supermarket at the train station to get food for dinner (us and everybody else), then we headed back to the apartment. Dan spent the next hour or so trying to sort out our travel plans to Montpellier for tomorrow and Toulouse the day after. The original ones had been changed at the train station, and had become quite complicated.
By the time we had dinner (stirfried veges and rice with no sauce), Dan had thought of a new travel plan that was much easier - we were no longer going to Toulouse, and would instead stay in Narbonne. We still had four trains to get tomorrow, mind you.
"It will be a fun travelling day!" I said at dinner.
"And the best part is, we don't have to get up at 6:45am anymore," Dan replied.
Bonus - I can go to the Victorinox shop after all...
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