Byzantine Tour 2011 Day Twenty: Istanbul to Rome

We spent three incredible days in Istanbul, but now it is time to leave one capital of the Roman Empire for another.  How often do you get to say that?  To be fair, I am sure that countless people fly from Istanbul to Rome or Rome to Istanbul every year.  But me?  This might be the only time that I ever do it.

But first things first.

Breakfast.  The day after tomorrow we head home.  I look forward to being home, but oh my am I going to miss having a breakfast buffet every morning.

The view out the window from the Ritz Carlton Istanbul restaurant.  To the left is actually the Besiktas Football Stadium.

We took our bags and headed to the airport.

Was I not going to be excited when the highway crossed under a Roman aqueduct?

Look at how the lanes of traffic weave through the ancient aqueduct.  Coolness.

Again, if you want to see ancient Greece and Rome, come to Turkiye.

In the previous picture was an aqueduct that was built around 1,700 years ago.   In this picture you can see high-rises going up.

Entering Istanbul's airport.

If you think about it, it is amazing how every airport is different.  Noticeably different.  You would think there would be more uniformity, really.  Perhaps the land upon which airports are built creates challenges that have to be overcome.  Or maybe cities seek unique landmarks to distinguish themselves.  Either way, you would think that someone would figure out the best way to build an airport and then everyone else would follow.  But no.  Not even close.

Destination: Roma.

Airport lunch self portrait.

A lunch for kings.

Our ride to Roma.

Istanbul Airport Candid,  November 2011.

Leaving Istanbul.

Entering Italy.

Ciao Roma.  You see the sky?  It looks pretty there, but it is about to turn into a downpour.

Driving through Roma in the rain.

We pulled up to our hotel, The Hotel De Russie, next to the Piazza del Popolo.  Yes, our hotel is a few hundred feet from my favorit obelisk in Rome.  This happens to be yet another Rocco Forte hotel.  Very much looking forward to the extra firm mattress that Rocco provides.  

We got into the room and decompressed.

Room service.  Salad and pizza.
We are in Rome.  Feels good to be home.

Byzantine Tour 2011 Day Three: Rome to Amalfi

Ah, the elegance of rail travel.  The only real item on today's agenda is getting on a train headed to Salerno, where we shall hop into a car and head to Amalfi.  But first, breakfast.

To be honest, getting to breakfast was an ordeal.  We tried one, two, three places that were either closed or not serving breakfast.  Members of the crew were getting low blood sugar, and the cushion between the time we had to eat and the time we had to leave to the train station was narrowing.

We ended up walking to the end of Via Venetto, where we have stayed many times and know of a place that serves breakfast.  They were closed.  As we walked away, praise the praiseworthy, a neighboring restaurant had a sign that said, "Breakfast."

When you go through kind of an ordeal just to get breakfast, and then the word OK arrives atop your cappuccino, it makes you wonder.

We made it back to the hotel and soon enough we were headed to the train station.

A panorama of Roma's Termini train station.

Remember the ordeal with breakfast?  We stood in the station watching our train on the board, waiting for it to be assigned a platform so that we could walk in the correct direction.  Soon enough, it was five minutes after the train was meant to leave and still no platform.  Ten minutes.  Then our train literally disappeared off the board.

We had to go get in line at customer service, where we learned our train had been cancelled due to a strike.  A very nice and helpful young woman used a little PDA and found us a train to Salerno that involved no switching, and she wrote with a ball point pen on our ticket that our train was cancelled and our ticket was now good for this new train.

And now we have twenty minutes to kill before train number two gets assigned a platform, and we really, really want to sit down.

Sometimes your order food as chair rental.

After sitting and enjoying more cappuccinos and croissants, our train's platform was assigned and we headed over to it.  Soon enough, we were seated and ready to go.

Seriously.  Am I crazy for referring to the elegance of rail travel?  I think not.  Rail travel is elegant and relaxing.  Look at Barbie.  She had nothing but annoyances in her way all morning, yet sitting on a train she is a portrait of elegance.

Our train car was divided into little rooms, not unlike the European trains you see in movies.  (I know that you Americans do not take trains and only see them in movies.)  A young man with dark skin came into our little room and sat next to me.  It was the three of us with six seats, and we spread out a little.  I did my best to smile at him, and he smiled back.  When we tried to communicate, he threw out some Spanish, we threw out Italian, and English was a no-go.  Finally we understood when he pointed at himself and said, "Tunisian."  At this point I became most disappointed in our lack of common language, because there are few countries with a more critical recent history in world events than Tunisia.  If we had had any way to communicate, Barbie and I could have learned first hand what a native Tunisian thought of the Arab Spring which was launched from his homeland.  What he thinks of dictatorships and the future and yesterday's capture of his neighbor Ghaddafi.

But we could not speak to each other.  At all.

The young man from Tunisia.  He communicated one final way, which was to buy a box of cookies and hold them out to us.  Offering to share food is a universal way to show kindness.  And that is about as far as we got with the young Tunisian man.

The train arrived in Salerno, and soon we were tossed into the back of a car for the windy road to Amalfi.

Look closely.  Do not be fooled. This is a narrow, winding road and that is a full-sized tourist bus moving full speed towards us.  Just a few feet on either side, my friends.  And that is why you do not rent a car and drive yourself.

The Hotel Santa Caterina, in Amalfi, Italy.

We were quite hungry, and sat down for lunch soon after arrival.  This shot is meant for you to see that my menu has prices while the lady's menu does not.  The Hotel Santa Caterina is classy like that.

Barbie got this amazing Home made Ravioli filled with zucchini and fresh buffalo ricotta cheese in lemon cream sauce.  And that crisp up there?  Almost solid parmesan.

For me the Lasagna Napoletana Tradizionale.

I wanted to show you our simple gorgeous room, with Mediterranean facing balcony.

The view from our balcony, looking South towards the town of Amalfi.

The view from our balcony, looking North.

It was time to be productive, and also time for a distorted panorama or our working in bed.  You would not believe this, but our plan to do a thing or two and then have dinner was actually thwarted by sleep.  We crashed.  Crashed hard.  We fell asleep around six o'clock, no joke.  Six.  That was that.  No dinner. Just sleep.

We woke up around 2 AM, watched some television via Slinbox, and then... back to sleep.  Sleep is good.

See you tomorrow.

Byzantine Tour 2011 Day Two: Rome

The plan was to sleep for as much of the flight to Rome as possible.  Sadly, I woke up around half-way there and could not go back to sleep.  Not so sadly, the screen in front of me offered around fifty movie titles to choose from, including almost all of the Harry Potter movies.  Well... you might know this but I have never read one page of a Harry Potter book nor seen one minute of a Harry Potter movie.  My niece learned this fact over the summer and informed that my cool status was revoked until I had seen every Harry Potter movie.

I watched the first hour, fell back to sleep, then watched the rest when I woke up again.  Sure, it was fun to watch.  But the most fun part of watching it was knowing that I was going to get to tell the Pottermaniac niece that her uncle had taken her advice to heart.

Do you remember the hoodie rule?  A hoodie must be worn on all flights.  It not only keeps you warm, but that hood can be pulled over the eyes to help you sleep.  A hoodie is a wonderful thing.

Another sunrise!  This one over France.  Two sunrises in two days on two flights.  Holy rigatoni.

Roma, she is greeting us with a rain.

Welcome to Rome.  Welcome?  We basically feel that we never left.

A few dozen people in matching Brazilian flag safari hats.  Poetry does exist in the real world if you look for it.

I confess.  I took around a dozen pictures from the car, trying to catch a Roma sign.  I never pretend that all the pictures I take are good, but I take enough of them that I am able to present you, the loyal waster, with some quality shots.

I wanted you to see the rain drenched streets of Rome, and I like this picture best because it shows a few intrepid tourists who care more about sightseeing than staying warm and dry.

Rome, she is not so prepared for the rain.  It was coming down in buckets and there was flooding and terrible traffic.  The ride from the airport to the city felt like Los Angeles's 405 at 5:48 PM on a Thursday.  And if you live in Los Angeles, you know that is a terrible, terrible thing.

We arrived at our hotel, the Hotel d'Inghilterra.  Yes, that translates to Hotel of England.

It is always a little annoying to arrive in a city in the morning, knowing full well that the hotel is likely to not have your room ready.  I sat at the end of the hall while Barbie did the heavy lifting with the hotel staff.

Just around the corner from our hotel...

The Spanish Steps.  Now... time for a photographic nerd-out.  Look at the above picture.  One fact about rainy days is that regular photography loses all detail in the sky, because exposure adjust to the main subjects in your photo and the moisture in the air scatters the light.

To correct for this problem, and let you see what I see, I chose to use HDR photography.  You know, High Dynamic Range imaging that takes the same photo twice at different exposure levels an then merges the two.

Voila!  How do you like that?  Beautiful, no?  I take no credit for the magic.  All I did was download an app to my iPhone, Pro HDR and use it.

I figured I would go deeper on the photonerd scale and show you the two exposures that combined to create the shot above.  Yeah.  I think this is about the coolest thing, ever.

Since we had time to kill, and we were hungry, and there sits a McDonald's right next to the Spanish steps...

How is this for innovation?  Have you ever seen this in the USA?  I have not.  How could our country, the land the birthed super-sizing, not have fast food joints with carts to handle multiple trays and drinks?  I may not be able to sleep at night knowing that McDonalds is simply more innovative in Europe.

MFTW.  That means McNuggets For The Win, for those of you too old to dig the acronym.

A picture of people takings pictures of the Spanish Steps.  I am who I am.

Our room at the Hotel d'Inghilterra.  We planned to do a thing or two in Rome today, for tomorrow we hop on a train and head South to Amalfi.  Guess what?  We laid on that bed in the early afternoon and that was all she wrote.  No dinner.  Just a few minutes of CNN International's coverage of Ghaddafi's capture and killing (yay) and we slept straight through the evening to the morning.

See you tomorrow.

Around The World 2011 Day 26: Rome, Italy to Budapest, Hungary

There are very few things one can be completely certain about.  Sure, if you are cocky like me you think you are certain about a lot of things, but deep down you know that you really do not know anything.  But this I know; Barbie and I would be happy spending the rest of our days in Rome.  However, our next stop excites me because it is a city I have never visited and have heard much about.

Time for Budapest.

Actually, time for our last breakfast in Rome.

To the left is our apartment building door, to the right is the entrance to our local bar.  We were going to have breakfast there, but there was a wait and we went a few doors down to a café which advertises an American Breakfast.

I made Barbie and Rebecca pose for this, and let them know that I was painstakingly framing it so that YOU could see the Scarface portrait to the top right.  This café is filled with Americana, including bottles of Duff beer.  Enjoy that reference, nerds.

We each got a cappuccino.

Amusement!  This is the American Breakfast.  We did not have the heart to tell the proprietor that there is not a single breakfast in the USA that resembles this.

Our friend Lavinia came and met us for breakfast.  Last time we saw her was at our Holiday Party in Los Angeles.  We can never see enough of Lavinia.  She is one of the most delightful people we have ever met.  I am not sure why Picasa flipped this pic, but I like the result.  I believe that I look younger upside down.

Barbie and Lavinia got ahead of the pack.  I suspect it was for boy-talk, but I have no proof.

Josh and Rebecca in front of our breakfast spot.  I said something like, "Let me get a last picture of each of you."

We saw Lavinia off and then went up to the apartment to get our bags.  Our ride was on time, and we headed down the elevator.

I said "Wave.  Wave real fast."  They did, but I was hoping their hands would be blurred.  We will likely see Josh again in London, and it is possible we will see Rebecca in Paris.  I would like to inaccurately call this a moveable feast.

A last view of our apartment building's door from the car.

Leonardo da Vinci Airport.  More commonly called Fiumicino because that is the name of city 40 minutes outside of Rome where it is located.

So...  we arrived around three and half hours before our flight, and this was Barbie being a genius.  Alitalia listed the counter where we needed to check in, and then we took care of some business with Air France for the suitcase they destroyed (that I have failed to mention) and when we got back to the check-in counters Alitalia had not-very-logically changed the listings so that around eight international flights all had to check-in at the same counter.  Our counter went from a spot where one hundred needed to check-in to a place where five hundred needed to.  This was madness, and we tried a few options until Barbie used a self check-in kiosk and then we had to get into another line to drop off our bags.

This had all been very unpleasant and time consuming, but then we found ourselves in line behind an older Australian gentleman and his wife and their son.  He chatted us up, and seemed extremely friendly and energetic, and he kept telling me how Australia and the USA get along quite well and he shook my hand around ten times in a row.  His wife was trying to contain him, and push him away from us, but it was futile.  While he kept shaking my hand, Barbie began chatting with his wife because Barbie wanted to let her know that we enjoyed her husband's friendliness and were not put off by it at all.

In a very understated way, his wife let Barbie know that her husband is David Helfgott, the concert pianist on whom the movie Shine starring Geoffrey Rush was based.

Now it all made sense!  We enjoyed his company all along, but then realizing he is the man who inspired the performance that earned Geoffrey Rush an Oscar, well, that made it even more special.  And suddenly we were almost grateful for having killed all that time going from line to line at the airport.

David Helfgott, waving to me.  Honestly, I have never met a nicer person.

He was big on the thumb's up, too.

His shoe came untied, and Barbie did not want his wife to have to bend down and tie it.

Barbie got a warm hug for her considerateness.

All that is left for me to say is, "How cool was that?"

We treated ourselves to a meal at Fiumicino's Irish restaurant, McDonald's.

Soon we will be on one of those things.

There had clearly been a tennis tournament in Rome.  This young woman was, by my guess, sixteen.  Perhaps we will see her in Wimbledon someday and someone else will be carrying her rackets through airports for her.

Arrivederci, Roma.

All the rows behind us were empty.  On the flight I played a game in my head, guessing who was an Italian headed to Budapest and who was a Hungarian headed home from Rome.

My first glimpse of Hungary, ever.  I learned a new word today, exonym.  An exonym is a word a name for a place or a person's name that differs from that used in the language within that place.  To what we call a Hungarian, the name of their country is Magyar.  The name Hungary was given to this place by outsiders, most likely derived from the name of the nomadic Eurasian tribe the Onogurs.

Clearly the Magyars have no problem being called Hungarians by the rest of the world, since this has been going on since the 9th century and I think somewhere along the line they might have said something if they hated it.

Hungarian cloverleaf.

I took this picture as a just in case, because you never know if an airport will have the much-needed Welcome to... sign.

Jackpot!

Budapest was warm and sunny last week, and is cool and rainy this week.  Our driver was great, and shared a lot of information about the city and country.

For the record, I have seen a Samsung billboard outside every airport in every country I have visited.  They really want you to buy a Smart TV.

Outside the city of Budapest you see row after row of ugly, Soviet era housing.  Those freaking Soviets.

This picture is specifically for Barbie's nephew Gary, as this is a proper football stadium.

We got to our hotel, The Four Seasons Gresham Palace, which is gorgeous.  Pics tomorrow.  It has been a long day.

The view out our window of Buda.  Our hotel is in Pest, and our room directly overlooks the Széchenyi Chain Bridge that spans the Danube.

After a long day, you hit the pool.

My feet have been in the Gresham Palace's attic indoor pool.  Seriously.  This room would have been the attic.

My feet have been in the Gresham Palace's attic jacuzzi.

We ordered some room service, even though we were close to skipping dinner.

Barbie's salad.

Paprika chicken and Hungarian noodles, which we shared.

We finish the day with the view from our hotel room at three different times of day.

Until tomorrow...