After a long day of working myself silly so I could take friday off I boarded the night train for Venice in Geneva Airport Station. I thought, "hey, its a thursday, the night train is not likely to be all that crowded"... I thought wrong. The train was packed and my cochette was more than completely full, one lady in my cabin had a kid that kept coughing all night. Don't get me wrong, kids are great, but in a cochette jammed full of people, having extra organisms soaking up the little available oxygen is not something I look happily upon.
I arrived friday morning at Venice Main Station and was greeted by a relatively cheerful but semi-comatose Muppet (not like my higher brain functions were in all that great of shape, I never can sleep properly on night trains). He led me back to the slightly less than glorious hotel I had booked (the only reason I could afford to stay in luxury in Barcelona was because I booked a classy business hotel through CERN way in advance figuring I would need some sort of rest by this point in my travels, I expected to do the hosteling thing in Venice, but due to some general lack of communication/procrastination, the minor detail that I am going soft, and the fact that all of the hostels were quite far outside of central Venice the lodging situation got kind of muddled). Anyhow, glorious or not, I got a nice hot shower and more importantly an "all you can eat" breakfast.
Being intrepid fellwanderers we ignored all of the notes in my book that strongly encouraged using the ferries and walked to central Venice. Not a small feat, we did get "just lost" on several occasions, but eventually found the Il Freri Monastery with some really nice paintings by the Venetian painter Titian. More than anything, the place was a good location to see a clear transition from the medieval to the mannerist art periods.
We had a rather nice lunch a little cafe. They were playing some fantastic 1920's music. I got lasagne that looked vaguely like baby vomit and Pete had a salad. Portions were very small though. After lunch we entered San Marco Square, the central section of Venice, and it was almost void of activity. There were some people around, but from what I had read this area was supposed to be a total zoo. Anyhow it wasn't and I'm not complaining one bit. We went through the main city cathedral and stood in awe under the building's vast golden mosaics. Because Venice was a European gateway to the far east its development had a lot of byzantine influence in its art and architecture, and the central cathedral really showed this. It had a remarkable mixture of medieval, rennaissance, and even baroque works in it reflecting the hundreds of years that it must have taken to create such a series of masterpieces. After spending a lot of time in the church we went to the Duke's palace which was equally stunning. I could go on and on about the artistry of the keep, but I will limit myself to the map rooms and the dungeons which were the highlights for both of us. The map rooms had globes from the the 1500's that showed the world with remarkable accuracy (I had no idea that Rennaissance mapping of South America had been so unbelievably accurate). The dungeons were cool, literally. I expected Venice to be considerably warmer than Geneva, and this was simply not the case, the dungeons were particularly cold. Totally exhausted we returned to our room and slept through the rest of the afternoon. Around 8 we went off for a brilliant dinner.
The following day we got up and decided that we would purchase all day passes for the ferry system. After catching a ferry in the wrong direction we caught one that was heading towards the centre of town. We got off at the central Venice art gallery and wandered around there for quite some time. I don't know if it is me or if it was the gallery, but it didn't seem like the collection was all that wonderful. The collection was entirely Venetian, which I suppose is reasonable considering the fact that we were in Venice, but a lot of the galleries I have been to over the past months (particularly those in the north) have had really nice collections that represented movements all around europe. I find these diverse collections much more interesting. Anyhow, the Venice gallery occupied us for an hour or so at which point we went wandering over to San Marco Square again where we caught a ferry to the island of Murano.
Murano itself, while really close to Venice, had a very different atmosphere. The island is actually known for its glass making history, and this was blatantly obvious as we got to walking around on it. Not too much to see though, just a few restraunts, slightly larger water passages than those on venice, and even fewer people. We had a late lunch on the island and on our way back to Venice we came to conclusion that we were bored with the city. Muppet suggested that we go to Verona and I suggested Milan for several reasons. One, I knew Verona would have art collections quite similar to those of Venice and two, I knew I could catch a high speed train our of Milan on Sunday evening (which meant I wouldn't have to suffer through yet another sleepless twelve hours aboard the night train from Venice to Geneva.
After several horrid miscommunications with the train station staff (which by the way are totally useless when it comes to customer service) we finally worked things out with a travel agent working the station and figured out exactly what we needed to ask for from the train station staff. Somehow it all worked out alright in the end and we had arrangements to go to Milan for the day the following morning. The train station conflicts and some hotel payment issues left both muppet and myself rather brain drained so we returned to our room, yet again to rest. And some how, some way, I ended up attempting to play my flute with my feet... as I said I was pretty tuckered out. Muppet must have been rather tuckered out too since he asked if he could attempt holding my flute with his feet (to which my abrupt answer was absolutely not). Whatever, we were tired.
Milan was good. We went to the the Sforza castle immediately after getting swindled by a restaurant in central Milan which charged us exhorbitant prices for cokes (I've never had my beverage cost more than my food before). The castle was ok, the collections were nothing special at all though. The only thing worth seeing in the whole place was the Sala de l'ase which was painted by Leonardo, but it was VERY MUCH worth seeing. As a matter of fact, I think I speak for Muppet as well when I say that the Sala de l'ase alone made the journey to Milan completely worth while. And what's more, is the fact that the Sala is not even mentioned in Michelin's Green Guide (yet another reason why my faith in these books is slipping). Anyhow, after marveling at the magic of the Leonardo we went in search of his Last Supper painting. After getting a bit lost in our search we found the small church where the painting is kept and were promptly confronted with a sign reading "sold out". They actually sell tickets that require reservations to go and see the painting. We asked if there was any way to get in and the lady at the desk said simply, you could wait an hour or two and see if anyone who has a reservation doesn't show up. Obviously, with our Milan time so limited, this was not going to be an option, so we continued on to the Milan Pinacoteca de Brera, the city's main art gallery. I was vastly dissappointed. Milan is supposed to be the capitol of Northern Italy, you'd think it's core art gallery would have some at least some pieces by Italy's great master artists from the Rennaissance. No Bernini, no Michaelangelo, no Leonardo, no Raphael, one Titian, no Donatello, I was totally annoyed. In fact the only master works they had were by by Rembrandt, Ver Meer, and Rubens, and they are Dutch! (actually Rubens might be German, not sure, but you get the point). Anyhow we finished off the day with a cataleptic walk over to the city cathedral, the Duomo. Which is not original (it got the crap bombed out of it in WWII) but was still impressive. I was really too tired to care all that much and more importantly I was too tired to figure out where we were going. I will never crack jokes about Pete's sense of direction again, I started taking us in the totally wrong direction and he was able to figure out immediately that I was going the wrong way. So, valiantly led by Muppet, we made it to the station and parted company.
Going South is so much easier than having to go North or East. Gare Cornavin, Geneva's main station, IS the station from which all southbound trains start - and this means I just got to wait around at my place until around 23:00 at which point I walked the half kilo over to the train station. Really nice train too. Unlike all of the night trains I have been on so far, this one was a Train Hotel, a difference that was reflected in two ways. One, I had a real bed (which makes all the difference in the world when trying to sleep on a train). Two, I paid two and a half times more than I would for any other night train cabin (and what I had to pay were only the extras for the sleeping cabin which I shared with four other strangers, if I didn't have a Eurail Pass the price for the train would have been exhorbitant). If I didn't have the Eurail, I would have just booked a flight. Anyhow, all costs aside, the weekend was fantastic. As soon as I boarded the train the conductor came up to me and (in Spanish) asked me for my ticket. I cannot tell you how fantastic it was to hear and understand everything everyone was saying so clearly. As I sat down in my cabin and started tuning in to all of the conversations around me I realised something. My french is terrible. Well, it is all a matter of perspective I suppose, but in comparison to my Spanish, my French needs a ton of work. Anyhow, after a long night (I did actually sleep, just not particularly well) I arrived in Barcelona. We were over an hour late due to delays on the Spanish border where several folks with invalid passports were found by the EU police and had to be removed (apparently forcibly) from the train. The conductor either wouldn't say or didn't know any more than that.
I got off the train, wandered into the train station, and was immediately struck by the omnipresence of Harry Potter. Goodness, the Spanish certainly take Potter seriously! There were posters for some Potter movie coming out everywhere, and the books were being sold at every store in the station (even the carneceria!). I may go and see the film now just to see what all of the hullabaloo is about. So, after marveling at the Spanish Potter craze I managed to get myself quite lost on the streets of Barcelona. Now, keep in mind there are really two types of "lost". There's "just lost" meaning "I don't know where the heck I am, but I can certainly get back to where I came from" and then there is "hopelessly lost" meaning "I don't know where I am, I don't know how I came to be here, and I haven't the foggiest on how to get back to where I came from". I got hopelessly lost. The sky was entirely clouded over and I could not even determine north, south, east, or west. Fortunately I have none of the typically macho issues with asking for directions and I wandered about asking these very unhappy looking guards outside what looked like a prison for directions. Anyhow, they helped me find the main road and one hour later I arrived at my hotel. Yes, a hotel, and it was a four star one! Well worth the slightly higher cost too, I really needed a rest.
Once I was settled I grabbed a tourism information booklet from the concierge and made my way to the nearest bus station (there is a special tourism bus that circles Barcelona and lets you on and off at multiple points). On my way I stopped at a lunch place and ordered what I thought was going to be a fairly straight forward meal, tacos de queso y una cerveza. Well, the cerveza (beer) was exactly what I was expecting, the tacos were anything but. I got lot of chopped up cheese and bread smothered in olive oil and tomato sauce. Strange as it was, it was very good. I finished off the meal with a flan, a dessert I have a serious weakness for.
So I caught the bus and made my way to the first stop that interested me. Barcelona is a bit like a European San Diego; temperate environment, lots of botanical gardens, zoos, and aquariums. So I go off at the botanical gardens (which the book called world famous) and planned on walking to the top of the nearby cliff to take the gondola over the bay to the opposite end of the city. Sounded pretty cool but didn't turn out as well as I had expected. As I started wandering through the gardens I suddenly realized I had to pee. And there were no toilets around, so I was forced into common vagrancy. Shortly there after a police officer found me in the garden and told me that if I valued my health I would leave the gardens since they are apparently a big drug smuggling area and not safe for tourists. When I asked about the gondola he explained that the only way to get there safely was to drive... total silliness.
I caught the next bus (which took forever to arrive) and got off at the maritime museum. The museum was just fantastic. It was actually built inside the old Spanish yards and you could board a bunch of preserved gallions. The displays and audio tour were all very impressive, although I must admit that a lot of the modern shipping displays were rather dry, the old boats with hundreds of cannon were what really held my interest. After my wander through the maritime museum I paid a short visit to the "Ramblas", a walkway with lots of shops selling all sorts of illegal goods. Really reminded me of the bad areas of New York. Lots of street games that looked deceptively easy to win at, I sensed that there were loads of pick pockets working the area and made my way to the aquarium (which was awesome).
Along the path to the aquarium I passed lots of candy vendors and hot food stands, typical tourist area type stuff. What I passed that was not typical at all was the "condom wagon". Yup, a wagon identical in shape to a candy wagon, but selling sex toys - and its queue was longer than any other on the block! Whatever, I got to the aquarium and... wow! Very different from any aquarium I have seen before, but very creative. Rather than have a bunch of seperate tanks displaying different critters, the aquarium had huge tanks with clear tubes running through them that had moving walkways in them. I took lots of pictures of this which I will post soon.
I returned to my hotel totally exhausted and collapsed for a brief nap. Around 8pm I wandered out to look for a place to eat some dinner, and you know what no supper places open before 9:30pm. So I had to wait for ages to eat, oh well, patience is supposedly a virtue. The following morning I went to the "Spanish Village" which is supposed to be a reconsctruction of what a rural spanish village would have looked like. Rubbish, it was a gargantuan tourist trap, the place had no educational value whatsoever and hundreds of stores selling goods that were said to be hand crafted but had the look of mass production. The day didn't improve much. I paid a visit to the Barcelona zoo, which is supposed to be one of the best in Europe (this isn't saying much though). The entire experience was utterly depressing. All of the visitors at the zoo were tossing junk food to the animals which just stood around begging. They did have a very impressive crocodile hall with some enormous specimens of salt water crocs (on the order of three times my size). I left the zoo and went to see the Picasso museum and then Gaudi's Sagrada Familia (a big 20th century modern art church). The Picasso museum had a lot of his early work and I must say I was really impressed by the amazing attention to detail that Picasso had during his early years. I am used to seeing his much later (and rather avant garde) works that presented people with bizarre deformations, but his early stuff was very controlled and in some ways almost impressionistic. The Sagrada Familia was a dissapointment. The whole thing was under repairs (while Gaudi's ideas may have been artistically brilliant they weren't exactly structurally sound). I climbed one of the towers and got some soso photographs, but the experience was not one that I thought was particularly wonderful. And then the heavens opened up and sky poured down upon me. It rained really hard for the remainder of the afternoon and by the time I made it to the train station I was drenched. I was astonished to discover that my train actually was listed as going to Milan and then Zurich, which was a bit disturbing since this route does not go anywhere near Geneva. I asked the conductor and he explained that the train would disconnect in the middle of the night and half of it would go north while the other half would go south. After that little moment of terror I found a nice corner of the station to sit and shiver in.
Ok, I'm starting to get really tired of taking these stupidly long journeys, but in all honesty this one was really worth it. I was originally supposed to meet friends in Milan and Genoa to the south, but plans changed at the last minute and I ended up traveling north, way north. Friday night I caught an evening train out of Geneva to Basel, Switzerland's north-western border train station. This alone took well over three hours and then I caught the night train from Basel to Koln (Cologne) at some dark and treacherous hour of the night (in actuality it probably wasn't all that that treacherous, but with the relentless north wind and snow flurries it certainly can't be called a pleasant hour of the night now can it). Anyhow, I got on the night train (I treated myself to a four person couchette this time, rather than the slightly cheaper 6 person couchettes which are really smelly and crowded) and got into a conversation with a nice couple traveling north to Duseldorf (about an hour beyond Koln). They only spoke German and French, but my french has gotten strong enough for me to hold my own in most conversations, so communication problems were a non-issue. However, while my french is good enough to hold conversations with, I still frequently have to ask for phrases to be repeated and for people to explain slang - I also speak french with a British accent apparently (not like I can tell, but it wouldn't be suprising since my teacher this past year was british and all the people who I speak with on a regular basis speak british english). Anyhow, the conductor came by to collect tickets and passports (they do this on night trains so border control doesn't have to wake you in the middle of the night) and the couple saw my American passport. That was the end of the friendly relations, all I got for the rest of the evening and the following morning were icy stares. I really ought to change my first sentence in this entry, it isn't the long journeys I am tired of, it's the anti-american sentiment that I am exposed to. Don't get me wrong, America as it currently stands has got a lot of problems, A LOT of problems. I hate our president with a passion, and don't care how good a military leader he is, the man still pulled out of Kyoto without even a suggestion of some sort of compromise, has cut family planning support to the third world, and is slicing apart civil liberties with little (if any) restraint. But America still stands for a freedom that is truly unique, in many ways I think it is a freedom that its own citizens are not mature enough to truly use and appreciate. The Gore/Bush election as sorry as I was to see the final outcome go in the direction it did, was a remarkable statement at the strength of the American Representative Democracy, almost any other government on the planet (with the exception of a few western European ones) would have collapsed under such political chaos. Anyhow, I digress, it really stank that I got the silent treatment for the rest of the trip just because of my passport, but such is the situation for Americans traveling abroad these days. Germany is rather split on the issue of supporting the Afghanistan situation, the greens do not want to send in solidiers and the socialists (i think this what they call themselves) want to send in troops. Anyhow, I can only guess at this couples political views.
So I eventually arrived in Koln, eight sleepless hours laters (after my accidental trip into Hungary I didn't sleep very deeply). I got off the train into an absolutely frigid station, not suprising considering it was 5:30 in the morning in the middle of November. I wandered over to the platform that Kris told me to meet him at and waited for his train to arrive (he was traveling from Aachen to meet me). Caroline, another friend from the Fellwanderers wanted to meet up with me in Koln (she too lives in Aachen) but she mangled her leg somehow a few weeks ago and the crutches are limiting the distances she can travel. So Kris and I grabbed some coffee and pasteries and then got started doing the typical fellwandering thing... we walked. We wandered up to and through the Dom (Koln's cathedral) and then went on to walk north along the Rhone river. We went quite a long way and crossed one of the city's major bridges. I got some fantastic photographs of the waking city (must try to post them soon). We then wandered south and crossed yet another bridge after a long walk through a lovely park that had wild parrots. Yes, wild parrots! I couldn't believe it, nor could Kris, but Koln does indeed have a population of parrots living in its city park.
Frozen and starving we made our way to breakfast place and while I was away at the WC Kris went ahead and ordered the most amazing waffles. They were topped with scorching hot berries and cream, completely brilliant. The hot coco was pretty good too. When we left we headed over to the Koln museum of Roman and Egyptian history, which got a great review in my guide book. All I can say is that my faith in the Michelin Green Guides is falling rapidly, their commentary and advice was rubbish. The museum was terrible. Poorly organized and not much of a collection. So an hour later we emerged and went to the Koln art museum, MUCH better. They had a great collection that clearly showed the transition from medieval northern european art to the Renaissance, something that is not always all that well displayed. The best part of the museum for me was really the Durer collection, although I was a bit bothered by the fact that they had not a one of his woodcuts on display, and these are really the pieces of his that I appreciate the most.
After the art museum we met Nichole (yet another fellwanderer) at the train station and she proposed that they take me to a proper Koln beer garden, so off we went. The restraunt was really loud and full of energy, I've never experienced anything like it. When the time came to order, Kris and Nichole both warned me that I would not probably not like typical German food (apparently most foreigners don't) but I was resilient and insisted on trying it. I had Weiner-Shnitzel and ate the Coleslaw off of my compatriots plate (to their amazement). It was all really good, I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I think I prefer british lager to German lager. When the meal was all done we all headed for the final stop of the day, Koln's Chocolate Museum! Again, this was another instance where the Michelin Green Guide seemed to be utter rubbish. The guide gave the museum only one star (which means, soso) but Nichole (whose opinion we trusted since she is a native of Koln) made it clear that a visit would be good fun... and she was right. The museum was essentially a giant chocolate factory with much of the machinery open for visitors to look at, really interesting stuff. Although the highlights were definitely the tropical greenhouse where they actually have coco plants growing (never seen them before) and the chocolate fountain (yup, a fountain of chocolate it was really fantastic).
By the end of our journey through the chocolate museum I was having a near death experience as my body suddenly realized that it had not slept for well over 36 hours and we decided (actually Kris and Nichole did the deciding since I was not in a mentally competent state) to go to the train station and travel to Aachen where I could crash for the night. We bid farwell to Nichole in the station and boarded the train at around 7pm. Kris and I talked about the yellowstone trek I am planning for the fellwanderer september 2002 summer tour as the train went along its merry way, until it abruptly stopped. After thirty minutes the conductor announced that we would have to disembark and have a bus take us the rest of the way to Aachen. Well that was utter nonsense, because an hour later everyone was standing at the side of a country road freezing and.... not a bus in sight. To make matters worse, so annoying morrocan from the train had learned that I was working for CERN and trying to get me to explain some of the principles of relativity to him in the form of analogies (can anyone say bad timing). Really, had I the strength I would have strangled him out of frustration, but I was dead on my feet so the possibility of strangling him seemed rather impossible. Anyhow, taxis started arriving from the west and the whole scene was vividly reminicent of Titanic as the ship sank. Crowds from the train mobbed the taxis desperately trying to squeeze as many people as possible in. After watching this occur several times my few remaining brain cells suggested that it might be in our best interest to walk 100 metres to the west, and that is precisely what we did. Within five minutes we had a taxi and were on our way to Aachen (the Germans had better not EVER complain about the British rail system again in my presence).
Aachen was... well, dark when I got there. And I was nearly delusional with exhaustion by the time I crashed on his flat's floor. We were supposed to go out with Caroline for dinner that night, but changed it to a sunday breakfast considering my comatose status. Sunday morning, Caroline limped over to Kris's flat for a lovely breakfast. She had stopped by a bakery on her way over and brought a whole bunch of fresh rolls and pasteries. We talked for hours and eventually strolled (Caroline limped/crutched) through Aachen. We walked through very peaceful park and then through the Aachen cathedral, apparently built by Charlemagne (a bit of trivia of which Aachen folk are quite proud). But all good things must come to an end, and such was the case with my stay in northern Germany. So I bid Caroline and Kris and warm farwell, hopped on the train and started my long and arduous trip back to Geneva.