Rome

I went to Rome from Nov 20th to Nov 24th to recover from a very stressful period at work.

I had some trouble pacing myself, so I rushed through all the main sights in two days, leaving me slightly bored for the last two days. At least I felt like I had properly explored the Eternal City, having spent the last two days just walking around, looking beyond the run of the mill touristy stuff.



Wanting to save some money after the insanely expensive hotel I stayed in in NYC, I had decided on staying in a cheap hotel in the center of Rome. What I didn't think about before ordering was that "cheap hotel in the center of Rome" translated to a backyard hotel, so I spent almost half an hour trying to find my hotel, until I finally found a doorbell with the hotel's name. I had to push the doorbell, say the magic password, knock three times, and then they would buzz me into the courtyard. OK, maybe not the password and the knocking, but you get the general idea.

These are some of the sights I visited:

Basilica San Pietro: The largest church in christianity (The dome is even bigger than Hagia Sophia, although smaller than Pantheon's), this is probably the main tourist attraction of Rome. It was also the only place where I had to wait in line to get in. I spent 45 minutes in line before I was inside, so it wasn't a long wait. That's one benefit of visiting out of season, I guess. While waiting in line, I saw some Nuns queue jumping. I bet they have to do a lot of hail Marys to make up for that. Inside, they have spent a lot of money on decorating the church, although in some places the donors have left calling cards to show who paid for the decorations. The bronze baldachin over the papal altar and Peter's tomb is decorated with bees, to show that the Barberinis paid for this. Sort of like a medieval sponsorship deal... I also walked up to the cupola which was less strenuous than a lot of other big churches. Up topside there is a great view of Rome and St. Peter's square.

Vatican museums: The private art stash of the popes, made available to the public. Mostly famous for the Raphael rooms and the Sixtine Chapel. The museum is so huge that it is hard to see it all in one visit. Also, I can imagine it is really crowded in the tourist season.

Fontana di Trevi: The biggest fountain in Rome. Lots of tourists at any hour of the day. According to tradition it is also a wishing fountain, so if you throw two coins over your shoulder into the fountain, the first is for your return to Rome some day, and you're supposed to make a wish upon throwing the second.

Scalinata di Spagna: A large staircase leading from a church to the Piazza de Spagna. My impression is that it is famous for being famous, so there's always a crowd of tourists on the steps.


Colosseum: Apart from the Vatican, this is probably the biggest tourist attraction of Rome. It's nice to have been there, but I got bored after half an hour or so. Basically, the site has been plundered and used as a quarry for palaces and churches elsewhere in the city, so there's not that much left to see. I was fooled by the audio-guide scam. You can rent audio-guides almost everywhere, costing 4-5 euros per two hours. I made the mistake of renting one at the Colosseum, and it had almost no content. What little content was there was exactly what you could find in any guide book. After my experience in Colosseum, I started noticing that they had audio-guides at a lot of smaller sites, like Terme di Caracalla and Castel Sant' Angelo. I wonder how many people fall for this.

Forum Romanum/Palatino: A big park of ruins from Roman times. This would probably have been more interesting for me if I had read up more. I was having trouble understanding what I was looking at. To me it was just a bunch of ruins, and one temple basement looked the same as the next one.

Museo Capitolini/Capitol: Nice museum with lots of famous works of arts like the she-wolf feeding the twins and the mounted statue of Marcus Aurelius (The oldest preserved mounted stature from antiquity). It was fun to see the actual Tarpeian Rock, which is just south of the museum. Also, the piazza outside the museum has a very cool pattern, designed by Michelangelo.

Terme di Caracalla: Ruins of Roman baths, able to service 1600 people at a time in its day. The site has been plundered and the artwork and decorations placed in palaces elsewhere in the city. Huge ruins, but not all that much to look at.

EUR: City part to the south built during Mussolini's reign, containing numerous examples of "fascist architecture" - huge white buildings with arches and columns housing museums and ministries.


Castel Sant' Angelo:
This is a very good vantage point. Too bad you have to pay 11 euros to use it. The rest of the building is really uninteresting except for the treasury room, where the popes kept their money. The bridge leading to the castle is lined with some fairly cool angel statues.

Trajan's Column: Huge column with decorations going in a spiral from the base to the top, celebrating the accomplishments of emperor Trajan. This design was so well received that it was also used for the column of Marcus Aurelius later on. It also inspired the columns of the Karlskirche in Vienna. I remember being very impressed by the Karlskirche, so it was nice to see the original column. To me this was the most interesting thing I saw in Rome.

Other places visited: Villa Borghese, Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Piazza del Popolo, San Giovanni in Laterano, Santa Maria in Cosmedin

On the last day, I walked along the river Tiber, visiting Isola Tiberina and Trastevere. I found it funny how different the city was once I got outside the touristy part.


In general I liked Rome, how there's fountains everywhere and cool details on the walls if you stop to look. Also, I had great fun going obelisk-hunting, chasing down the different Egyptian obelisks that have been erected all over the center. I also found the narrow, cobbled streets charming, but I suppose it's a different story in summer when there's tourists everywhere and everything's crowded.

Annoyances in Rome were the crazy people on scooters and the street salesmen, selling umbrellas, toys, watches, whatever. In some of the more touristy areas, like Fontana di Trevi and Campo de Fiori , they were almost outnumbering the tourists.

Pictures are here

New York City

I went for a ten day trip to NYC between Oct 10th and Oct 19th, the main reason for going being to visit my sister, who was living in New York taking part in a student exchange program.



Some of my impressions from the trip:

Top of the Rock: The top floor of the Rockefeller building. I had this recommended to me by a colleague. The view is slightly different from the Empire State Building, but usually the queues are shorter. Also, the elevator was nicer, with a glass ceiling so you can see the elevator shaft, which is decorated with blue leds at every floor. I went with my sister at sunset, and the views of the city and Central Park were very nice.



The WTC site: Not much to see here. They're currently building a new skyscraper to replace the towers (called "Liberty Tower"), so it's interesting to see a skyscraper being born. I was more moved by a friend showing me the building she was working in on 9/11 and the diner where she was hiding out after the attack. Sure made the event seem closer, with one of my friends being caught up in it.

Circle Line: boat trip around Manhattan. A friend recommended I do the semi-circle tour instead of the full circle, as the top half wasn't all that interesting. You get to view Ellis Island, The statue of Liberty and Downtown Manhattan from the sea. There is a guy giving a running wisecracking commentary on what you see as the boat goes down the Hudson and up the East river. I found it entertaining.




Metropolitan Museum of Art: Very big museum on the eastern edge of Central Park. They had an impressive collection of arms and armor, including some stuff you don't see all that much in European museums, like Persian armor, Chinese armor and Japanese armor, masks and swords.

Museum of Natural History: Big museum. Parts of this museum seemed very familiar to me, and I had no clue why, until I remembered that this museum was featured in "A night at the museum" (Ben Stiller movie). Nice museum with lots and lots of displays. I found the marine exhibition in the cellar to be quite cheesy, though. My sister liked the dinosaurs.

JFK International Airport: A fairly messy and inefficient airport. I spent an hour and a half waiting in line at immigration, and the security checks and boarding procedures were messy.

Brooklyn Bridge: Famous bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Most guidebooks recommend walking across it, so it's pretty crowded. Once I got to the Brooklyn side I walked down to the DUMBO-area, which has very good views of the bridge, and it's also a very good spot to take some photos of the downtown Manhattan skyline. For some reason half the pedestrian part of the bridge is reserved for bikers, which doesn't help the congestion.

Central Park: This was a lot bigger than I imagined. I didn't really get a feel for the scale of this park until I watched it from the top of the Rockefeller building. It has green lawns, lots and lots of trees, some lakes, a small castle and a lot of roads going through it. It was also fairly busy, especially in the weekend.



Empire State Building: The most popular of the big buildings. I hate wasting my time standing in line so I had initially decided to skip this one, but the final day the weather was very nice, and I had a couple of hours to kill before my plane left. I thought I'd try to see if I could make it up there. For some reason there were almost no lines this day, so I only spent 20 minutes or so getting up to the top. I probably saved a lot of time by running up the stairs from 80th floor to the 86th rather than wait in line for the elevator. It is really a great view from up there, possibly only beaten by going up in a helicopter. I had decided against doing the helicopter tour because my sister told me she spent almost a whole day hanging around the helipad waiting for her turn when she did it. It was fairly windy when I got up there, though, so it got chilly fast. My tip: Bring a windbreaker.



Seeing a show in the theater district: You can't really go to NYC without going to see a show at Broadway, so I felt compelled to go. In London I saw the Spamalot musical, so this time I wanted to see one of the classics. I decided to go see "The Phantom of the Opera", and it was a nice show, although I got stuck in the middle of a big group of Japanese tourists, and the guy next to me had cranked up the volume of his simultaneous translation headset to the maximum, so whenever there was a quiet scene you could hear the Japanese dialogue louder than the voices of the actors. Still, it was a good show, and a nice way to spend the evening.

In addition to all of these things I have been walking around, getting to know the city with my feet, looking at the attractions like the Flatiron Building, Times Square, Wall Street, Chinatown, Grand Central station, the UN Building, the 24 hour apple store at 5th avenue (ObGeek). I also visited a Tarawa-class marine amphibious assault ship (USS Nassau).



I spent a day going up to Boston by train. New England is famous for its fall foliage, and the trip up there was fairly spectacular. I'm not used to seeing that many bright red trees. Boston itself was OK, I walked around Boston Common and took a walk up to Beacon Hill, famous for its European-looking architecture. On the train back I made plans over the phone with my sister to go to "Amateur night" at the Apollo theater. Unfortunately, trains in the US run slowly, so I arrived late at Penn Station, with only 40 minutes to go before the show started. I jumped on the express metro up to Harlem (where the Apollo club is located) and started running in the direction where I thought the club was located. After 10 minutes I found out I had been running east instead of west. I ran like crazy westwards and finally made it to the club where my sister and her friend were waiting, although five minutes late. It must have been a funny sight, white boy running like crazy through Harlem at night (with 3000 euros worth of camera equipment in my backpack to boot...), but apart from some shouted comments from people hanging in the streets, nothing happened. The show had just started when we got in, and it was a new cultural experience for me. I was mainly about amateurs competing in singing and dancing, and who won was decided by how much the crowd would cheer. It was also possible to boo people off stage, and they had a guy called "the executioner" that would pull people off stage when the booing got loud enough, while wearing various silly costumes. It felt like being in the crowd of a Jerry Springer show or something with the crowds cheering, shouting, booing and generally being loud (although no fighting). It was god fun, and it was nice to see all the parents showing up to support their kids dancing on stage. The whole thing was finished in less than two hours.

My friend Diana was visiting some of her friends in Connecticut, and on Sunday they all came down to NYC, so we had lunch, together with another one of her friends who was living in New Jersey.

In general I was very unimpressed with rail service in the US. I found the trains slow and expensive. Considering that most people need to go outside the city center as well after arriving, I totally understand why most people use their car to get around rather than the train. A trip from, say NYC to DC seems to take an hour longer by train than by car as well. And the railway stations are crowded! Especially Penn Station! And they had this moronic system where they didn't list the track number for the train until five to ten minutes before it would leave, so lots of people were just standing around, looking at the screen, and when the track number came up, there was an avalanche of people and luggage trying to force their way through to the train. Very stressful.

Overall it was a nice vacation, I got to hang out a lot with my sister, but at the end of my trip I was bored with NYC, so I spent the last day of my trip driving around scenic back roads with a friend, looking at fall foliage.

Pictures are here(NYC) and here(Boston)

London

I went to London from Thu Sept 11th to Sun Sept 14th to have a touristy weekend. I have been to London lots of times before, but usually for business, so I have never had time to see the sights properly. The last time I had a touristy visit to London was when I was 15, so I didn't remember much.

I flew in on Thursday evening, going by tube to Earls Court where I had booked a very cheap hotel. It looked really seedy from the outside, with the hotel sign in blazing pink neon letters also proudly announcing that they had a night club on the premises. The hotel turned out to be not that seedy, just really poorly maintained and cleaned.

Friday morning I headed out to look at the London Eye. I had initially planned to go get tickets for Saturday, as I had read in guide books that tickets were usually sold out days in advance. For some reason there wasn't a line at all, so I walked straight in. The view was fairly good, but it's nothing I would like to do again. Been there, done that.



I rushed across the bridge to try to catch the changing of the guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace. I came a bit late so I didn't get a good spot. Managed to get some pictures, but there were always pushy tourists squeezing in front of me whenever I was about to get a good shot. I was amused by the music...they played classic British soldier tunes together with popular culture songs like "Eye of the tiger" and the Star Wars theme. It seemed like an odd combination, especially with the fancy uniforms and all the rituals surrounding the ceremony.



Next I went to look at St. Paul's Cathedral, going up into the "whispering gallery" to have a good look at the big dome. Maybe I'm jaded from looking at so many nice churches in the last couple of years, but I found the church worn and not that interesting. Also, they charged a lot for entrance so I felt slightly ripped off. Usually the fee for entering a famous church is more of a symbolic fee, entering here was 10 pounds.

I moved on to the British Museum. The museum is huge, but so are the crowds, so I didn't care to stay very long. I just checked out the mummies and the Babylonian stuff (the wall paintings are so brutal...it's very fascinating). After leaving I went shopping for books in the specialty bookstores of Bloomsbury. It was good fun browsing around in the shelves of strange books..not at all like the bookstores I am used to.



In the evening I went to see Spamalot - the Monty Python musical. It was essentially a musical version of "Monty Python and the holy grail" with some scenes from the flying circus thrown in. I managed to get a seat three rows from the stage at half price, so I had a very good view of the show. The first act was OK, but some of the non-Python stuff in the second act was not all that great. Still, it was a good way to spend the evening.

Saturday I went to see Tower. I went on a beefeater-led tour, which was more fun than I expected, because the beefeater was making a show out of it, making jokes in a burly voice while explaining the bloody history of Tower. I spent two and a half hours there walking around, before taking the tube to Knightsbridge to go shopping at Harrods. It is a very expensive store, and I spent way too much money there...

in the evening I went to the movies. I watched Pineapple Express - the latest Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow-film (enjoying these types of films is a guilty pleasure of mine). I spent some time walking around Soho after the movie ended, looking at the people partying and giggling at some of the impossibly drunk people in the streets.

Sunday morning I went walking along the bank of the Thames, having breakfast at a cafe with a view to St. Paul's and city. Next I went to see the Tate modern art gallery. It turned out to be not really my thing. Some of the art was fairly disturbing...



I strolled across the across the pedestrian Millennium Bridge, the most recent bridge across the Thames.

I finished off my London visit by seeing the Imperial War Museum. It was a fairly nice museum, air conditioned, with good displays, and some special exhibitions to make things more interesting...like "The Trench Experience" where you walk through a WW1 trench with complete with soldiers, and appropriate lights and sounds, and the Blitz experience where you sit in a bomb shelter listening to the bombs falling and smelling the smoke coming in, before venturing out into the burning ruins to see the damage.

It was a good weekend, but London is an expensive city, so I spent way too much money...

Pictures are here

Slovenia

I went to Slovenia with my friend Łukasz from Wed August 20th to Sun August 24th .

We started off driving at 06.00 from The Hague, still getting into part of the morning rush, so we weren't really making good time until we crossed over into Germany. The GPS told us to use A45 instead of the usual A3, and this seemed like a good choice. Not that much traffic and decent roads. We had a quick stop for lunch and another stop for dinner just before the Austrian border. An hour or so after crossing into Austria we hit the first stau, and it was a proper one. Seems like two trucks had crashed in one of the tunnels blocking traffic in both directions. We were stuck for two hours before traffic started moving again. We made decent time after that, but the traffic jam meant that we used 16 hours rather than 14 to get down there, so we only had a quick beer in the hotel room before going to bed. Łukasz found it very funny that the hotel TV only showed the Olympics, reruns of old news from the 90's and classic Russian movies.




Thursday morning we drove about an hour northwards to get to Lake Bled. This is one of the top tourist attractions in Slovenia and a popular vacation spot. We walked around the lake in just over an hour, snapping some pictures along the way. On our way out, we saw a huge line of cars going into Bled. Seems like we beat the crowds by getting up early. We drove on, skirting the northern edge of the Triglav national park, going up to the Planica Valley. This place is mostly famous for the biggest ski jump in the world. It holds the world record for ski jumping at 239 meters, made by Bjørn Einar Romøren (NOR) in 2005, so naturally we had to walk up there. There were no lifts, so we had to walk the stairs all the way up. The view from the top was very nice.

We drove back into Kranjska Gora, driving on a windy mountain road going up the valley. We stopped at a roadside cafe to try to get lunch, but unfortunately a busload of Spanish tourists stopped at the same cafe and started hassling the owner, so we never got served. After twenty minutes or so without anyone taking our order, we just left. Too bad, I was dying to find out what "Gorenjske Crap" was. According to Łukasz, it was just the Slovene name for pierogis, although they looked black in the picture, so there was definitely something else going on there. We drove on up the mountain, crossing a mountain pass before going down into the Soča valley on the other side. The Soča valley was really beautiful, and we had a very nice drive. The road was very windy, going through all these small villages, there were really nice jagged mountain ridges all around, and there were so many horses on the farms next to the road. Seems like the Slovenes really like their horses. Even for dinner. (More on that later...)




We stopped at a mountain fortress at Kluze, looking at the deep gorge and looking at a museum dedicated to the region. Seems like this area had been a battleground between the Slovenes, the Italians, the French and the Austrians for centuries.

We were sort of unsure about what to do next, since I had not been spending enough time up front researching what to do. We really had no plan, so we were just doing whatever popped into our heads, and at this time I got an idea that we should go to Italy for dinner. Łukasz agreed, so we crossed the border and drove south towards Trieste.



The GPS gave us very specific instructions, so at times we felt like we were extras in "The Italian Job", because we were going down all these very steep, narrow one-way streets, going left and right in a zigzag pattern until we suddenly found ourselves in the center of Trieste. Yay GPS!

We parked the car, walked around for a bit, stopped for ice cream (of course) and had a leisurely dinner watching the sun go down in the Adriatic sea. We walked around the harbor looking at the party people and the boats before driving back to Ljubljana.



Friday was our designated "hiking-day". We drove up to lake Bohinj, got on the gondola going up to the base of the Vogel ski center. From there we walked for a couple of hours up towards a small peak called "Šija"(1880m). Łukasz insisted we walk the whole distance, so I was unable to talk him into cheating by using the chairlift. Always a problem when you bring someone fitter than yourself... ;-). Anyway, the hike was not really strenous or difficult in any way, but it was very hot so we were really sweaty when we reached the top. Upon reaching the top we noticed the kids that beat us up there...and they did not seem tired at all. We relaxed for a bit, eating a hot lunch and drinking tea. I pulled out my hiking GPS, so Łukasz could text home our exact location (and the fact that we were still alive).



The walk down was even hotter than going up, so when we got down to the lake, Łukasz jumped in for a swim. We drove back to Ljubljana, had a quick shower before going down to the party district for some beers. We also tried the "Hot Horse Burger", which is a Slovenian specialty. It was a bit too spicy for us and we were feeling the effects of the horse burger until lunch the next day.

Saturday we drove down to the seaside, to see the romantic fishing village named Piran. Unfortunately, when we got there, the parking guards ejected us, telling us that all parking lots were full. We're kind of used to being ejected, but from a parking lot, that's a first! We had to drive to the neighboring resort town Portoroz to park the car. We spent about 45 minutes walking back to Piran.



We had some trouble seeing what was supposed to be so special about Piran. It looked pretty much like a small Italian village. Obviously, that's different from the eastern European style villages further east, but we didn't really feel that this warranted a spot as one of the top attractions of Slovenia. We had lunch at a restaurant recommended in our guidebook, and Łukasz had a very interesting fish meal. I was stunned to see the waiter separate the meat from the bones with a spoon and serve Ł while he told the story of what type of fish it was. Certainly different from the "shut up and pay"-style of wait service you get in The Netherlands.

On our way back we visited the Skocjan Caves, a famous cave complex in southwestern Slovenia containing a huge underground canyon. The guides were impressive, doing tours in four languages. We spent the evening boozing in the riverside pubs in Ljubljana. We also tasted the "Burek" (a very traditional pastry filled with cheese, meat or apples) and the local döner.

We had to get up at 06.00 for the drive back home. On our way through Austria we did a scenic detour, driving a very interesting road over the Tauern mountains. We were lucky on our way back, not getting into any serious queues and after gently instructing the GPS to use A45, we made very good time. We were back in the Hague at 20.00 in the evening.

Pictures are here

Home Leave August 2008

Between August 2nd to August 18th, I went back home to Lillehammer, Norway.

I had been on a business trip until 20.00 on Friday, so I was very busy packing. I had made a list up front of what to pack, but I had a hard time finding some of the things, so I tore up my apartment trying to find the last items. As I came back late, I hadn't had time to check into my flight early, so when I tried to check in online in the evening, the website told me I was on "Standby" to go to Norway, which meant that I risked being pushed to the next flight, 12 hours later. I wasn't really looking forward to spending the day at Schiphol, so I was pretty pissed off when I went to bed. I was very stressed out when leaving at 06.30 in the morning.

Arriving at Schiphol in the morning, checking in, it turned out they had upgraded me to business instead. My KLM silver card had struck again! Unfortunately, on the flight over, the baggage handlers broke my backpack, so I had to spend some time in Lillehammer buying a new backpack.

For the next couple of days, I was mostly spending time with my brother and sister. I checked out bus schedules to go into the mountains from Lillehammer. Unfortunately they were kind of sucky. For some destinations it was like one bus per day, and sometimes I had to spend the night at some village in the mountains. Luckily I managed to borrow my grandfather's car, so I avoided all the suckiness that would have ensued from using the buses.



On Wed 6th I drove into the mountains, going to one of the most scenic roads in Norway, called "Gamle Sognefjellsveg" which is the traditional route from Eastern Norway to western Norway over Sognefjell. This drive goes next to the national park "Jotunheimen", literally over the roof of Norway, next to the biggest peaks in Norway, Galdhøpiggen, Glittertind and Hurrungane. My plan was initially to go to the Turtagrø hotel in the mountains, and go hiking in the valley next to the Hurrungane mountains, but when I came up there, the weather was rainy and foggy, so I decided to keep going to the end of the road, descending into Sognefjorden. The weather was much nicer to the west of the mountains, and I spent the evening driving next to the fjords, spending the night in Stryn.



The next morning I got up at 06.00, driving north towards a mountain area called "Sunnmørsalpene" which is really spectacular. The mountains aren't that big, but they're really pointy and shapely, and they go straight up from the fjords, so you almost always have a spectacular view. You get to go hiking by the fjords, yet you are still in the mountains. I was fairly lucky with the weather as well, so I was pretty happy hiking up a valley called Habostaddalen, close to Stranda (a bit further down the fjord from Geiranger). I hiked the length of the valley and the first three hours or so I was alone up there,so I had a really good time hiking. On my way back I met lots of people going up Slogen, which is a very popular peak in this area. I spent the rest of the day driving back, going down Trollstigen again, driving back through Romsdalen before going back down Gudbrandsdalen to Lillehammer.

Friday I left by train for Oslo, going down to visit Marcus and Olga, and to go to Øystein and Ingvild's wedding on Saturday.

I spent the next couple of days meeting up with the rest of my family.

Tuesday I had decided to do the Besseggen hike. This is the most popular hike in Norway, and every year around 40.000 people walk this ridge. I had planned to go there last year, but then the weather was too windy.

This year, though, the weather prognosis was OK, so I got up at 05.30, got myself a big cup of coffee and drove the three hours up to the parking lot at Gjendesheim, in the Jotunheimen national park. I almost hit a moose on my way up, but other than that, it's a nice drive up there. I always like driving the Valdresflya road, as you really feel like you're driving in the mountains.




I got on the 9.45 boat to Memurubu, where the hike begins. This is the base camp for the Besseggen hike, but also for people going to the giant Surtningssui-peaks, or simply for people walking cabin-to-cabin (popular vacation variant in Norway). After a couple of kilometers of steep walking I was up on the ridge, having a really spectacular view of Gjende, and the peaks of the other side of the lake. After about two and a half hours of walking I got to the ridge itself. It looked less scary from close up, so I was having some trouble figuring out what the fuzz was all about. I was about to find out, though. About 2/3 up the ridge, it suddenly becomes dramatically steeper, so you have to use your arms as well as your legs to get up there. I'm fairly short, so I also had less options for where to put my legs, so I spent some time figuring out where to climb. I'm afraid of heights, so I was a bit anxious before walking up there, but while I was doing it I was all focused on climbing up in the most efficient manner, so I wasn't all that scared going up there. Slightly elevated pulse, but not really a problem going up there. I suppose that trip to Catinaccio in Italy last year really helped a lot in redefining what feels scary to me.



After I got to the top, the rest of the hike was really boring, except for that you have a nice view of Gjende on your way down, of course. Driving back to Lillehammer, I decided to do what my new Navigon GPS told me, so I got a really strange route going back on dirt roads across the mountain. I suppose the map data for Norway was poor with this model GPS, and that was why it was having trouble distinguishing between paved and unpaved roads.

Wednesday the 13th I drove north towards Trondheim, to go visit my friend Håkon. As I reached the end of the hills going up Ringebufjellet, an alarm bell in my grandfather's car went off, and the temperature gauge was all the way up. Turns out there was no coolant in the tank or the radiator. Luckily I had brought a liter of pure water, so I poured that in. I stopped at a store at the top of the mountain and got a bottle of concentrated coolant to mix with the water, and after bleeding air out of the system, the car was OK again. I learned my lesson about checking for coolant before going on long trips, and the whole incident only cost me an hour or so of driving time.

I spent the evening at Håkon's place, watching movies and some tv series on his 120" projection screen.

The next morning we drove southwards toward a mountain area on the border called Sylan(Sylarna in swedish). Unfortunately, the weather was really bad, foggy and rainy, so we didn't do all that much hiking the first day. We walked for three hours, crossing into Sweden and looking at some grouse and reindeer on the way, before going back to the mountain cabin Nedalshytta for a dinner of mountain trout from the lake below.

Friday morning we started off towards the biggest peak in the area, Storsylen. Unfortunately, the trek up there was very wet and marshy, partly because of all the rain the previous day. After two and a half hours we reached the base of Storsylen, and stopped to stare in disbelief at where the path was going. It seemed to go more or less straight up the mountainside. We also saw other hikers, and confirmed that yes, indeed, the path was straight up there.



We were both fairly out of shape (All the exercises and vacationing this spring/summer screwed up my workout cycle), so we really struggled going up there. We had to take plenty of breaks to catch our breath up the steep slope. The path ascended 700 meters in less than a kilometer, so it was almost 45 degrees inclination in places. To top it off, because of the rain the day before, the rocks were really slippery, so we had to be careful not to slip and hurt ourselves. The top of the mountain and the ridge leading up there was shrouded in mist, but we hoped it would lift by the time we got up there. The weather forecast said "Sunny after 12:00" so we hoped for the best. Unfortunately, it did not lift until we were well on our way down.

The ascent was very strenuous, but our spirits lifted as a gust of wind cleared away the fog for a brief moment so we could see the top ridge. The top ridge was every bit as wet as the ascent, so we were very slow and careful finding a safe route up to the top. The annoying thing was that there was a perfect route to the top, but it would require you to walk within one meter of the edge, and with a drop of several hundred meters we were not very keen on going there. The top had a log book where you could write your name and the date, so we did the obligatory "Klaatu! Verata!" etc. before picking up the book and writing our names.



It started raining more while we were on the top, so the descent was downright scary. We spent probably twice as much time going down the top ridge as we did going up, and still we had a couple of almost-slides. Down at the bottom we were glad to get down without breaking anything. And...of course the freaking fog cleared up as we were halfway down the mountain. We walked the two hours back to the car, looking at reindeer along the way before driving back to Trondheim.


Pictures are here

The Italian Riviera and Cote D'Azur

This year's summer vacation was spent in Italy and France. I went there from July 4th to July 14th. My goal was to make a long trip through Northern Italy and Southern France, finishing off with going with the TGV to Paris. Unfortunately, most airlines are unwilling to sell economy one-way tickets (for some reason), so I had to fly low-cost airlines in order to not pay a fortune just for the air fare. In the end this wasn't a problem, since nothing bad happened except for the usual Easyjet hassle.

I flew Sleazyjet to Malpensa late in the evening Fri 4th. Malpensa was a fairly messy airport with dubious transfer to the city center. There was supposedly a train to central Milan called "Malpensa Express" , but this was not running in the evening. There were no signs to buses to city center, so I spent some time finding the proper bus stop. I saw other tourists running around more confused. The airport also seemed to have a fairly badly planned layout. I could not help myself from chuckling at the policemen frantically trying to stop people from stopping in the bus lane to drop people off. Apparently they forgot to make a pick-up/drop-off zone close to the terminal. It was a long bus ride into the center (50 minutes), so I didn't get to my hotel until very late.



Saturday I took a morning train to Como, and continued by bus to Bellagio. I was glad I wasn't driving myself. The road was so narrow that it was only just room for two cars, so before every blind turn, the bus driver would honk the horn like crazy to warn other drivers that they need to brake. Other than that it was a fairly nice, one-hour bus drive with spectacular views of Lago di Como. This lake looks so much like a fjord, it's almost like being home in Norway (except that it's 15 degrees hotter and way more people, of course). Bellagio is located at the point where all the arms of Lago di Como come together, so it's supposedly the best place to see the lake. It's also a resort village with lots of upscale hotels and restaurants and private villas of the rich and famous. I spent a couple of hours there walking around looking at the great views - my pictures do not give them justice.

On the way back I had some issues with the bus driver not accepting my ticket, and not speaking a word of English. He could not tell me where to buy a different ticket, so I searched around the posted timetables and found something about "tickets sold in news kiosk in Piazza Massari". After locating a city map to find this piazza, I found that it was quite far away, so I had to run over there, get a ticket and run back. I made it just in time. On the way back the bus driver hit another car in the side when going around one of those blind turns, so the roads were very narrow indeed.

I jumped out in the center of Como to look at the huge Duomo. Como is a fairly small town, but for some reason they have a cathedral-size church in the center. I struggled a bit to get back, since there were hardly any signs to the railway station, and some people I asked for directions pointed me the wrong way. After asking some more people, I finally found it, but I think I really need to learn some rudimentary Italian. Unfortunately, I missed my train, since the ticket machines were out of order, so there was a huge line at the ticket counters. The cashiers seemed to have all the time in the world, and lots of Italians around me were really angry with how slow these people were. In the end I jumped on a regional rain to a station in the outskirts of Milano, and made my way to the center using the Metro.



I spent the evening walking around in the center and visiting the party district (Porto Ticino). Around two canals they have lined up an endless row of bars, pizzerias and clubs. They were all full, and the streets were incredibly crowded. At times it felt like being at the Koniginnenacht in The Hague (only that the women were way better looking, of course)

Sunday I took the metro to Castello Sforzesco and walked around the whole castle. I found it pretty uninteresting, except for an exhibition of anatomical drawings made by Leonardo da Vinci. I continued over to the Santa Maria del Graze. Turned out they were closed, even though the sermons were finished (Angry priest shouted "Chiuso! Chiuso!" and pushed tourists out. The outside plaques said they should be open, so I don't know what that was all about). Also, in order to see the famous "Last supper"-picture, you needed to book in advance, and time slots fill up two weeks in advance. I went back to the center instead, and climbed the stairs to the top of the Duomo. It had really nice views from the top, but the interior wasn't that interesting.

Monday I was supposed to continue south to Genova. I share my office with an Italian, so he had warned me about there being a train strike on this day. I had printed special timetables before going, to make sure I would find a train which was not part of the strike. What I didn't know, was that over the weekend the strike had been expanded to also include all buses and all metros, so suddenly I found myself staring at a closed metro station 4 km from the central station half an hour before my train was supposed to run. All the taxi-stands were jam-packed with people, so I was definitely in trouble. Luckily, I managed to grab a taxi waiting on a red light, so I made my train to Genova, but only just.



Tuesday I went by train to La Spezia, visiting the nice naval museum and walking along the harbor. I went by regional train back towards Genova to get to the famous national park called "Cinque Terre" (which is on the UNESCO world heritage list). Essentially this is five isolated villages, hugging the cliffs next to the sea. They have kept their traditional character, so it's a nice pointer to how Liguria used to be. I started walking from the first of the five villages (Riomaggiore) walking the "Lover's Path" (Via dell' Amore) next to the sea over to Manarola. From Manarola the path becomes more primitive, before ending in a series of steps (400 or so) leading up to Corniglia. I spent a couple of hours just walking between these small villages before taking the train to Vernazza, which is the biggest one (so...checkbox-wise I got four out of five villages).



The morning after, I took the ferry to Portofino, which is a very pretty small village on a very picturesque peninsula. Supposedly, it's also a hangout for the rich and famous, so they call it the St. Tropez of the Italian riviera. I walked around the pretty streets and gardens for an hour or so before jumping on the bus to Santa Margherita Ligure, a beach resort village further up the peninsula.
I spent the afternoon seeing the rest of the sights in Genova, like the San Lorenzo church, which had a nice relic museum filled with crusader booty. The relics included stuff like "splinters of wood from the true cross", "the plate which was used to serve John the Baptist's head", "John the baptist's ashes" and of course, the holy grail. A bargain at only four euros... ;-)
I finished Genova by visiting their aquarium, which is supposedly the biggest in Europe. I didn't find it all that interesting, since I found the Barcelona one with the shark tunnel nicer. Their penguin tank was kind of cool, though. I also liked the hummingbird forest, since I've never seen hummingbirds up close.



Thursday morning I went by train along the Riviera di Ponente to Ventimiglia, the border station to get to France. Inside the station the ticket machines were broken AGAIN, so I had to get in the long queue to buy a ticket for my train to Nice. I barely made my train, and I was really pissed at Trenitalia for not servicing their ticket machines. Almost every train station I walked into in Italy had broken ticket machines, and overall I think I spent almost an hour every day waiting in train stations. Not my idea of a nice holiday...

Since I was in the area, I decided to visit Monaco with the city of Monte Carlo. This is a tax paradise on the riviera, having an expat population of a whopping 80%. I stayed overnight in Nice, a fairly uninteresting travel destination. In general there wasn't all that much to see there, except the Promenade des Anglais which is a long street that runs next to beach. Definitely only for the party-crowd. In the evening, I had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant, finally being served some good food. For some reason I only found bad restaurants in Genova.



The next morning I jumped on the train to Aix-en-Provence. It was a very nice train journey. The railway hugs the coastline most of the way and you get a really good look at the Cote D'Azur. Also, the French trains were nicer than the Italian ones. Aix-en-Provence itself was a very nice city with a compact city center full of outdoor restaurants. It looked typical Provencal with all houses in the same colors and narrow streets. Lots of quaint little shops selling wine, confit and foie gras added to this very French atmosphere. Definitely a very touristy city, without it being over the top in any way. I really liked Aix.

Saturday I took the TGV-train to Paris. The TGV was very nice, but extremely expensive (The price was the same as my flight ticket Paris-Rotterdam). It was a very fast, comfortable train and a good way to get to Paris. It only spent about two and a half hours to get me from the coast in the south all the way up to Paris in the north, so I found that impressive. The scenery wasn't as interesting as I had hoped for, except for the first part through a very typical Provencal landscape with yellow sunflower fields and deep purple lavender fields.

My hotel in Paris was in the lively Marais district, very close to the Bastille-area.
On this visit to Paris, I wanted to do stuff I didn't have time for the last time I was there. That was mainly Versailles and the Louvre.

I took the metro over to the Louvre without any real plan for what I wanted to see. As luck would have it, I didn't have much choice in what to see anyway, because there were so many people there that you just had to more or less follow the stream of people floating through the museum. It was fun to see the Mona Lisa room where people were pushing and shoving and jumping up and down to get close enough to take pictures of the painting. Almost like watching fish jumping in a fish farm. I just walked past, threw a cursory glance from the side. Been there, done that. Check.

Overall, I didn't find the Louvre all that interesting. Probably I was jaded from looking at Italian church art for a week before. In addition, some of the older stuff, and the Egyptian stuff were way better in the museum in Berlin.

I spent the evening having drinks in different bars in the Marais. Some of the bars were really nice, with good clientele, good music, good themed decor and very nice drinks. Too bad they were really expensive compared to the bars in Milan or the Hague, but you can't have everything.




Sunday I took the RER-train to Versailles. Immediately I got caught up in the Shitloads of tourists streaming towards the palace. That's probably what I get for trying to do this in a weekend in the high season. Good thing I bought my ticket up front from the ticket office at the Louvre. The line for the ticket office in Versailles was amazingly long, so it felt really good to be able to skip the queue and go straight to the palace. Unfortunately, it was really crowded inside. I do not like big crowds, and I like even less to pay to be in one. I've been in my share of palaces by now, so it wasn't that interesting anyway. It wasn't that easy to see anything, with people in the way everywhere, so after an hour or so of being frustrated in the palace, I walked out to the formal gardens. They were nice, in a way, except that they hadn't turned on any of the fountains and they had hidden speakers blaring out loud baroque music everywhere. I found the end effect somewhat cheesy, really theme-park style. "Welcome to Cultureland! We have palaces with nice paintings! We have gardens which play classical music!". I escaped the crowds by taking the train back to Paris, going to visit the industrial park called La Defence. Lots of nice buildings and strange modernistic architecture.
In the afternoon I went by tram to the park called Buttes-Chaumont. This is a very nice park in a fairly central location with lakes, bridges, caves, waterfalls and good views of Paris.




The 14th of July is the French national day, so the night before they have live music performances and dancing in the streets at various locations in Paris. The police had closed off the streets leading to Place de la Bastille, so the whole area was turned into a giant open-air concert with different bands playing various styles of music.

I got up early on the 14th to try to get a good spot for watching the military parade at Champs-Elysees. I was there an hour early, but still I didn't get a very good spot. Lots and lots of people had turned up to see the parade, so it was really crowded. There was also a lot of waiting involved, so overall it wasn't that great an experience, although the overflights were nice. I tried to leave early to try to get a head start out of the crowd, but suddenly everything clogged up and no-one could get anywhere. Then some people started behaving like cattle and started pushing. It was like being at a really crowded rock concert, only with lots of screaming police officers failing to get people to move. It took almost ten minutes for the crowd to move in any direction...

I escaped to the subway and went to Jardin du Luxembourg to get away from the worst crowds. I spent the rest of the day exploring other areas where I had not spent that much time, like Ile de Cite and St. Germain before flying out from Orly to Rotterdam in the evening.

Milan pictures
Genova pictures

Cinque Terre & Portofino pictures

Nice & Aix pictures
Paris pictures