The Lowdown on Travel with a Eurail Pass
Our Itinerary The hardest part about traveling with our Eurail pass, good for 15 travel days within two months, was deciding where to go. We studied the maps, solicited ideas, … Read more
Italy
A Context Travel Tour in Venice
Travel, at its best, is a lot like the our best college days: sit back and take in a ton of information from people who know what they are talking … Read more
Lion and Saints, San Marco, Venice
The winged lion is the symbol of both Saint Mark the Evangelist and the city of Venice. You see it pretty much everywhere. There is some dispute of the origin … Read more
Grand Canal at Dusk, Venice, Italy
We’re staying near the Rialto Bridge in Venice, a very nice neighborhood to just walk around and enjoy the view. There’s a lot of architecture and painting and sculpture here, … Read more
Ceiling, San Marco Basilica, Venice, Italy
We arrived on the train from Ljubljana in Venice late afternoon, when the sun was already low in the sky, and the lines to get into San Marco Basilica were … Read more
Four views of The Matterhorn, Zermatt, Switzerland
From Montreux it was an easy train ride to Zermatt, which we visited just to see the Matterhorn. It was worth it. From Zermatt, which is pretty much a ski … Read more
Saints in the Basement, Siena, Italy Cathedral
They’ve removed the original statues from the facade of the Siena Cathedral and replaced them with reproductions. The soft marble originals certainly suffered from the pollution and elements over hundreds … Read more
Bend Over, Baby
This is out of the normal realm of the travel blog, but I sort of feel I must comment on the current economic situation of Spain. As anyone who pays … Read more
The Ruins of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Oplontis
I posted about Rome six days ago, and at the time promised to go on endlessly about our subsequent visits to the sites that were destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 AD, or as the secularists say, 79 CE. Since I’m a Latin guy though, I’m sticking with AD.
So, here goes. First there was a train ride from Rome to Naples, then a change for Pompeii. We had decided to stay in Pompeii, instead of Naples, for a couple of reasons. Number one is that Naples is pretty much of a shit hole, and I can’t remember the second one.
A Quick Visit to Rome, But Not the Churchy Stuff
I’ve been pretty lax in writing lately, at least for this blog. I keep telling myself I’ll write a long post when I get an internet connection, but they’ve been harder to come by lately it seems, and when I do get one, I have to spend an hour making train and hotel reservations, and, of course, screwing around on Facebook.
Kris and I just finished a 40 minute forced march across Rome (did you know we were in Rome?) to the train station. There was a hell of a lightning storm here this morning, and it took out the taxi dispatch system evidently, so because of that and because it was raining there were no taxis to be found anywhere. So, we were damn glad we’re in shape from having walked across Spain, because if we hadn’t been, we’d be dying somewhere on a Roman sidewalk and have missed our train to Pompeii.