Frankfurt with a Side Order of Heidelberg and a bit of Rhine

I decided to pop over to Frankfurt, Germany, for a week right after I finished volunteering at the World Junior Hockey tournament in early January to visit Marie (my wife) and to see what Frankfurt is like.

Winter travel is always challenging with bulky coats, boots and other paraphernalia that one has to wear, but these inconveniences pale to the power of Mother Nature. The weather is the biggest factor in Canada and other northern countries subject to snow, blizzards and freezing rain. So of course the night before I was to leave, the Weather Network was displaying a red severe snow and winter storm warning for eastern Ontario with up to 15 centimetres of snow forecast for Ottawa on my departure date. But as weather forecasting is usually only 60% accurate, I hoped for better conditions on the day I was to leave.

I woke up the morning of my flight and rechecked the forecast before even getting out of bed. I was right, the forecast the evening before was wrong. The snowfall warning had changed - to 30 centimetres of snow, heavy at times for Ottawa, with snow and freezing rain for Toronto which I had to go through. So I immediately called the airline and changed my flight to Toronto from 6 p.m. to 1 p.m., figuring that if I could get there, I would have no problem getting the flight to Frankfurt scheduled for 10 p.m. I could always sit in the lounge in Toronto and drink Air Canada’s booze and eat their food while I waited, rather than be stranded in Ottawa.
Now it was time to finish packing, eat a leisurely breakfast and do last minute chores before leaving for the airport. Imagine my surprise (no, not really, as sometimes I think my last name changes to Murphy when I travel) when the thermostat indicated 16 degrees inside the house. I checked to see if the furnace was working – and of course it was not. It is a new furnace, just three months old. I reset it, and it started up so I went to cook a hearty breakfast. I checked the thermostat a few minutes later, and it had dropped a degree. The furnace was off again. It would not restart so now the panic set in as I was supposed to leave in a couple of hours, it was snowing heavily and my furnace was dead.

Just then, my daughter Kerri called to ask me if I knew a different route from Stittsville for her sister to take to get Kerri to work on time. With the transit strike and the deteriorating weather, they were stuck on the Queensway. I suggested Hunt Club Road, and mentioned my furnace problems. Heather immediately volunteered to come to over and wait for the furnace repair man who had said he could be there between noon and 5 p.m. I turned on the space heater in the TV room in the basement so she would be warm as the temperature was still falling in the rest of the house. She arrived with her kids at 10 a.m. and I left the house in her hands at 10:45 a.m.

The normal 25 minute drive to the airport took almost an hour. I checked in and was assured the 1 p.m. flight to Toronto was on time, so I went to the lounge to relax. We boarded the aircraft at 1:30 p.m. as it was late arriving from somewhere because of the storm, then went through de-icing and finally took off for Toronto at 2:30 p.m. Not bad, considering the circumstances. After arriving in Toronto (the storm had passed the Big Smoke by now), I went to the lounge to wait the 5 hours before the Frankfurt flight. Heather called to let me know that the furnace repair man found something loose in the furnace and the house was now a balmy 22 degrees. When it came time to go to the gate, I heard my name called and realized I had lucked-in to an upgrade to business class, probably because other people had been weather delayed, so things were finally looking up. Or so I thought.

We waited at the gate and the departure time came and went. Finally, the gate attendant announced that the crew had been delayed on their way from Montreal (I guess Toronto crews do not know how to fly to Frankfurt) because of the storm, but that they would be boarding momentarily. Thirty minutes (momentarily in airline speak) later, we boarded. The captain announced that he was sorry they were late, but that we would be underway in about 15 minutes. Twenty minutes later, he came back on to announce that all the baggage had not yet been loaded (surprising since the aircraft had been sitting there for a few hours and no other people had boarded), but that they were now loading it and we would be leaving in ten minutes. And in ten minutes we did, right over to the de-icing area where we lined up. An hour later, we were de-iced and finally on our way.

Business Class sure has got better in one respect – the large seats now form lay flat beds at the push of a button. This makes up for the food that has unfortunately gotten worse since I last flew business class on Air Canada a couple of years ago. It was around 2 a.m. Toronto time that I finally pushed the lay flat button and tried to get some sleep. The crossing over the Atlantic was rough as the pilot tried to make up time and flew through storms instead of around them, but I managed to get 3 hours sleep. We arrived in Frankfurt only an hour and one half late, and as I was the second one off the plane, I quickly made my way through passport control to the baggage area to get my bags. We waited about forty minutes before the carrousel started up and bags started to come out. All four of them. All of them carry-on sized. Twenty minutes later an announcement was made in German and I could see by the faces of the German speakers who were on the flight that the news was not good. Five minutes later, an English announcement by a different person had the rest of us looking like our German colleagues. Apparently the baggage door on the aircraft had frozen shut and could not be opened I have never heard of that before - airliners routinely fly at altitude where the temperatures are minus 50. So we would have to wait. Which we did. For two hours. So now, being almost four hours late, I decided to grab a cab to the hotel Marie was booked into instead of taking the subway since it was now close to the late afternoon rush hour.

As I emerged from the baggage area in a rather foul mood, another surprise awaited me. Someone grabbed my hand from behind and when I turned round to tell them something not too polite, there stood Marie who had been waiting at the airport for me. What a great welcome to Germany. She drove us back to the hotel, I got cleaned up, we went out and had a typical German meal of schnitzel, potatoes, and beer, and then I packed it in, tired but finally in Frankfurt.

On Friday the day after arriving, we moved hotels to one downtown. We checked in and Marie left for work. I set out on my first foray into central Frankfurt. But I did not go far. It was really cold, about ten degrees below normal. Compared to Canada, minus 10 is not too cold for January, but it is too cold to have a digital camera exposed to the elements for any length of time. And it is not a great temperature to be touring unless one is using a dog sled. I did manage to go by the Dom (the cathedral) but not in since it was closed and to the area called Römer (so named because it is the site of a Roman settlement when Rome was in its imperial glory). I stopped at a small grocery store on the way back and bought six half litre bottles of beer (for about $3 Cnd – gotta love the Germans for keeping beer prices low). I spent the afternoon napping to get over the jet lag (and I also had to sample some of the beer).

One thing about Frankfurt; because it is the financial capital of Germany, many foreign businesspeople visit the city and all restaurants have English menus and most service people speak English in case your Deutsch is not up to snuff. And the variety of cuisines is also extensive. We ate Thai, Indian, Russian, Italian, Chinese and of course German food during the week I visited.

A note on what you see in the photos of the city of Frankfurt. Almost every building in Frankfurt was completely destroyed during the Second World War. Original plans were used to reconstruct many of the “old” buildings to make them look old, but for the most part, most apartments and houses in the centre of the city are 1950s and 1960s designs. Modern skyscrapers are concentrated in the financial area.

Saturday, my third day in Frankfurt, was a beautiful winter day, albeit still cold for Germany. We decided to take a drive up and down the middle Rhine. The Rhine is about a thirty minute drive from downtown Frankfurt (which is on the Main River – thus Frankfurt am Main). We turned off the autobahn at the town of Bingen and headed down river on the left bank of the Rhine through the area called the Rhine Gorge. In the 50 kilometres between Bingen and Koblenz, and then the 50 kilometres on the right bank back to Wiesbaden, we passed no less than 40 restored medieval castles. Several more ruins of castles also exist on this stretch of the river. This is probably the highest concentration of castles in the world. This part of the river is also a World UNESCO designated area because of the number of castles, a couple of medieval walled towns and the odd monastery.

Marie, who was driving, stopped several times so I could take pictures of the castles. After travelling with me for over 35 years, she senses when I want to take a picture. The castles were spectacular, but the famous river, the seemingly endless line of ships going up and down the river, and the trains passing by on each side of the river every ten minutes or so, was equally photogenic.

This area also has lots of vineyards. Some are open even in the winter, but of course the best time to taste the wine is in the early fall. I recall my first ever trip to Europe in 1973. I learned to like wine as we travelled up the Rhine River through Germany and stopped in several towns for the Wine Festivals.

Several of the castles had fallen into disrepair; however, many of them had been restored and in the summer, are open to the public. Only one on our tour was open in the winter, but we did not have enough time to visit and according to the literature I read about it, the tour was only given in German. This picture is of that castle, called the Mouse (der Maus) because it was across a small stream from another castle that is much bigger, called what else but the Katz (cat).

If you ever are in this area and want to see the castles and towns, I suspect it would take three days minimum to do it justice. Unless it is cold and most of the castles and museums are closed as they were on the day we were there.

On Sunday, we decided to drive the hour south to Heidelberg. The autobahns in Germany have no speed limit for the most part, although around major built up areas, the speed is usually 110 kph. Germans do not drive as fast as Italians. Germans tend to keep it under 150 kph. And Germans do pay attention to the rules of the road, so driving there is not as harrowing as in Italy.

Heidelberg is a university city. This was the second time I had been there, the first going back to my 1973 Europe trip. Back then, the guy we were travelling with almost ran over a couple and their baby carriage as we entered town. When I got out of the car to apologize (being the only one who could speak a few words of German), I noted that the baby had on a Montreal Canadiens sweater. We found out that the couple were medical professors who had taught at McGill. When they learned we were Canadians, they invited us to their house for dinner and spent two days showing us around Heidelberg.

Hoping to repeat this episode, I kept looking for another couple and a baby carriage, but to no avail, so we drove into the Alte Stadt and parked near the castle. We walked up the 325 steps (all numbered to let you know how far you are away from the top as you gasp for air) to the castle for magnificent views of the city and river below. The castle itself may not be worth visiting; I vaguely recall there was not much to the inside the last time I was there, and Marie had no interest in visiting another ‘pile of stones’ so we just walked around the grounds before we took a path back down to the old part of the city below. Despite the cold, several people were milling about in the pedestrian friendly streets around the church and Rathaus (city hall) and square. We stopped at a Gasthaus (tavern-inn) and had a typical German lunch of bratwurst (sausages), sempf (mustard), boiled kartoffeln (potatoes) and sauerkraut (sauerkraut). Oh, and of course, bier (beer). It warmed us up and we went back outside to wander down by the Neckar river and the Alte Brucke (old bridge). This bridge used to be the way into town from the road that wandered along the opposite shore. Modern Heidelberg, including the industrial area, is now mostly found on the “opposite shore” further down river.

The next day, Marie drove off to work (we passed Darmstadt, the town where HerbalLife is located, on the way to and from Heidelberg) and I headed out to see a bit more of Frankfurt. It was still pretty cold and it was interesting to see the Frankfurtians (Frankfurters?!) all wearing toques. Looked like Canada twenty years ago. I even looked for one to buy, but to no avail since the people of Frankfurt had obviously cornered the market. I walked by the Alte Oper (‘old’ Opera House, only 100 years old and rebuilt extensively after the war). I wonder what the good people of Frankfurt one hundred years ago would have thought of the opera playing there today - would it be "beautiful and good" as the message over the front reads? I cut through the old square where the most exclusive shopping is to be had, then looked up Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s house (he was not home). Goethe was quite a guy and wore many hats (not sure about a toque though); he was a poet, a dramatist (Faust), a scientist, a philosopher and a politician.

The next day was my birthday so before going to work, Marie presented me with a talking card and a Mr. Potato Head dressed as an Ottawa Senator (appropriate for this year’s team). Today was warmer, so I did a birthday type thing and walked over to the Frankfurt Zoo. The zoo, while small in area, is pretty good with several species of animals, insects, birds and fish. The Nocturnal displays are particularly good in my view. There was enough English on the signs describing what one was looking at, as well as the Latin name and of course, the German name. I spent much of the day there with my animal buddies. We capped the day off with an excellent Italian dinner. The restaurant had the biggest wheel of parmesan cheese I had ever seen. It was semi hollowed out and much of the pasta was dumped into it to be coated (a layer was taken out each time to keep it clean) before it was served.

On the last full day in Frankfurt, I did as much touring as I could. The weather was a mix of rain and snow so not the greatest for photography, but one has to adapt to the environment when travelling and time is a limiting factor. I toured the Dom (Cathedral) that partly survived the war and was rebuilt. Although not that large, it was the major ‘seat’ of power during the Holy Roman Empire, with Emperors being elected there starting in the 14 century.

I walked across the River Main into the old neighbourhood called Saschenhausen which partly survived the war. Many of Frankfurt’s museums are located here as well as a pedestrian district that equates to the Byward Market in Ottawa replete with pubs and restaurants. The pubs and restaurants do not open until late afternoon, but stay open until 4 or 5 in the morning. Apparently Frankenstein has visited according to the street I was on; maybe he looks like he does after a night of binging.

Upon crossing the river back into Frankfurt proper, I noted that some of the streets were barricaded and there appeared to be an inordinate number of police cars about. But everything was quiet, so I walked down to the financial district, passing a couple of old churches and buildings along the way. The Headquarters for the European Central Bank is in Frankfurt, and I think it is poetic justice in this significant market recession that the Bank appeared to be having a fire sale while I was there.

I walked through the Markthalle (like the Byward Market, but covered) on the way back, marvelling at all the cheeses, sausages, and other German products that we do not see in Canada. This only made me hungry, so I waited with a growling stomach for Marie to return from work. She had said she would be late tonight – around 7:30 p.m. Was she ever wrong! Around 6 p.m. I started to hear lots of police sirens and noticed out the window that caravans of police cars and vans were cruising to and fro on the streets across the park from the hotel. At around 8 p.m., the police started to go by the front of the hotel (Marie still had not arrived back), so I went down to the lobby to see what was going on. I arrived just in time to see several armed police walking along the sidewalks, shortly followed by hundreds of protesters (no idea what they were protesting – they were not carrying many signs). The protesters in turn were followed by at least 30 police cars and vans. The whole parade was moving very slowly, and since they were going down the only route Marie could take to get back to the hotel, I figured she was stuck somewhere. Which indeed was the case. I went back upstairs and made myself a sandwich and waited for her to arrive, which she did close to 10 p.m. after begging a police man to drive her car the 100 metres from where the street in front of the hotel had been closed.

So ended my trip to Frankfurt. To be frank (sorry about that), I would not recommend Frankfurt on a tourist itinerary since there is very little to see there. My advice would be to get out of the airport and head for the Rhine where there are many more things to do, see and enjoy. If however you are there because of the fact that it is the financial capital of Germany, then perhaps you might want to visit the Dom, some of the museums, go over to Saschenhausen for dinner and drinks, or maybe even join a protest.

London Paris and Rome in Two Weeks - Part Three

The train was late leaving Paris which is puzzling because it had arrived from Rome that morning and was returning after 6 p.m. It was a Trentalia train, which is Italian, and although Italian services often go on strike for no apparent reason, we never found out why the train was more than an hour late departing. But we were soon on our way. We had booked 3 beds in a 4 bed couchette car. Couchettes are single beds that are made from the seats, kind of like bunkbeds. You never know who is going to be travelling with you although if a single female, you will be in with other females. Our companion was a gentleman who was heading to Rome to do some research for a book he is writing about an American citizen who was murdered by the Fascists before the Second World War began. He was very interesting to talk to and we did so in both French and English. He was also humorous in manner and stories. When we pulled out our wine to drink and offered him some, he had both a glass and a corkscrew in his backpack (no wine though). The trip by train took about 15 hours.

After we arrived, we got on the Rome subway and went up two stops to near the Spanish Steps where we had rented our apartment. We had to wait about an hour, most likely because we were late, before someone showed up to give us the keys. After we checked in, we set out to explore our neighbourhood. First up was Piazza del Popolo (Peoples' Square) about three streets north of our apartment. The square is at the north end of the Roman Wall built by Emperor Aurelius in 282 CE around the city. The Porta del Popolo was a ceremonial entrance gate to Rome for visitors who came from the north. Kerri and I went back to the square the following night and climbed up on the portico behind the statues to shoot some night pictures of the square and Rome itself. One can easily see the Vatican to the west and the Vitorrio Emanuele II (king who united Italy in 1861) monument to the south. And the next day, on our way to the Vatican, we stopped in at one of the two churches on the square, Santa Maria del Popolo, to see the paintings inside by Raphael. If Raphael lived today, he would also be an amazing photographer as well as an artist - this guy really understood and used light to draw his audience into his paintings.

Getting back to our first day in Rome, we walked back down the Via Babuino to the Spanish Steps, a meeting place where people congegrate since they were built over 200 years ago. The steps, called Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti in Italian after the church and plaza at the top, are reputed to be the longest and widest in Europe. They get their English name from the Plaza at the bottom, the Piazza di Spagna. The Bourbon Spanish Embassy was located at one time in the Plaza. At the bottom right is the house that Keats lived and died in and in the Piazza di Spagna is a fountain called the Old Boat that dates from 1629. The views from the top of the steps are similar to those from the top of Piazza del Popolo. The church at the top, which is associated with the Bourbon Kings of France, is rather plain yet very old, having been finished in 1585. A caution - don't eat your lunch on the steps themselves; this is against the law. Ice cream and snacks do not seem to be a problem however.

It was a beautiful warm, sunny afternoon so we decided to walk the couple of hundred metres towards the Piazza di Trevi and the fountain of the same name. The Trevi Fountain is the largest Baroque fountain in Rome. Finished in 1762, it lies at the end of the ancient Roman aqueduct Aqua Virgo or Virgin's Aqueduct. (Roman engineers built fountains at the end of acqueducts primarily to relieve the pressure of water running downhill into the city). The Trevi Fountain has some of Bernini's 1629 design elements built into it, although it was redesigned to a plan by Nicola Salvi. Unfortunately for us, a crew was repairing something in the fountain, and a large cherry picker blocked most of the view. However, that did not stop Kerri from following tradition and tossing a coin over her shoulder into the fountain, thus ensuring a return to Rome. (Don't laugh, it has worked twice already for Marie and me as we have both been to Rome three times). Kerri was not alone with her coin toss; approximately 3,000 Euros are thrown into the fountain each day and are used to help Rome's needy. We did manage to get back to the fountain a couple of days later and took some more photos without the modern cherry picker basket in the centre of the sculpture. Because the fountain faces south, whenever the sun is shining so does it to the point that sunglasses help to tone down the bright whiteness of the stone.
We continued our relaxed amble due west, crossing the Via del Corso, one of the best shopping streets in Rome. Our target was the Pantheon, probably the best preserved building still standing from Imperial Rome. On the way, we walked down a narrow alley and passed a gelato shop - sort of. I took one look at all the flavours and my suggestion to get some was quickly accepted. We had gelato several other times while in Rome and Pompei, but we all agreed this shop had the best and we went back another day for more. The Pantheon was made a church in the 7th century and that is what saved it from being demolished. Its current design dates from the rule of Hadian (125 CE) and was dedicated as a temple to all the Roman gods. It has an enormous dome; the inside is made from Roman concrete that was poured in moulds so that the ceiling would be light enough so that the brick walls would bear the weight. The occulus (hole in the roof) is the sole source of light. It is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in existence. During the Rennaisance, the Pantheon became a tomb for the likes of Raphael and Corelli and later, Kings Vitorrio Emanuele II and Umberto I. Still used as a church, the interior walls are decorated with Catholic symbols, paintings and of course an altar. The interior floor is decorated with tourists. It is a very impressive building and as you walk around the outside, particularly at the back, you can see how much higher the ground is today compared to Roman times.
We headed back to our apartment by way of small alleys and streets. In one square, near the headquarters of the Carabiniere, the civil police force of Italy, we came upon a street artist who had created a large chalk drawing of the Birth of Venus by Botticelli. It was well done, but perhaps what was better was the answers he had written beside the drawing to questions he had been asked by tourists, such as "Where is the Pantheon?; Where is the Colosseum?; and Where is McDonalds?"; to which he had asked his own question about why you would eat there when you are in Rome! And speaking of eating in Rome, we found a Trattoria ('country style cooking' restaurant) two streets from our apartment for dinner our first night. The food was simple and very good.

The next day we went off to see the Pope. Well, not the Pope himself, but his home. We arrived before the huge crowds and immediately went to the Vatican museums. These are huge, so if you want to see as much as possible, prepare to spend most of the day touring them, but leave at least two hours to see St Peter's unless you have more days to spend at the Vatican. By the time we had toured the museum wing on early Roman history, the bus crowds were charging into the museums and pretty much taking up all the space as they jockeyed to take photos of everything they could see. As at Versailles, they pretty much go on a direct line and stick to the main corridors - from the entrance to the Sistine Chapel - so to get away from them, peel off to the side wings whenever you need some quiet time.

The Vatican Museums, for a religion based somewhat on a vow of poverty, are extremely opulent. I remember reading that the Vatican had been "sacked" 5 or 6 times by invading groups, yet after each time, more treasures are trotted out in a seemingly uninterrupted supply. Almost all the corridor and room ceilings and walls are covered with art whether paintings, tapestries or even a magnificent collection of rare and very old maps in one hall. The buildings themselves are 'museum' pieces in their own right, some dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries. We flowed along with the current of humanity once inside some of the narrower corridors, past the rooms painted by Raphael in the early 1500s, through various apartments of previous pontiffs all of which are highly decorated, to the Sistine Chapel which as everyone knows, contains Michelangelo's ceiling and altar wall paintings. The Sistine Chapel is the only place in the Vatican Museums where security guards keep telling (in very loud voices) the crowds to be quiet and to stop taking flash pictures. Their success rate is of course limited as everyone today is armed with a cell phone and a digital camera. Although we probably should not have taken any photos, we did so without using our flashes, holding our cameras at waist level and pointing them to the ceiling and end walls. Which made for a couple of interesting shots of nostrils as well as of the art on the walls and ceiling. The Sistine Chapel today is the room used for the conclave of Cardinals whenever a new Pope is needed.

After exiting the Sistine Chapel, there are still several more corridors to navigate and rooms branching off but we were getting hungry so we headed for the exit. On the way out, Marie and I both noticed a large painted glass screen that we had both remarked upon the last time we were at the Vatican in 1999. I do not recall who the artist was, but this is one of the few pieces of glass, stained or otherwise painted, in the museums. The photo does not do it justice, for when the sun shines through it, it almost comes alive. At the entrance/exit one has to walk down a long circular staircase and pass beside a large urn that has a flared top on it. And this is where we encountered a seemingly new and bizarre pastime for Italians. From the top of the staircase (4 stories up), several people were trying to toss coins into the flared top of the urn, as if they were at a coin toss at the carny games of a fall fair. Of course most missed the target, bouncing on the hard floor below. People were crossing that floor and were dodging the falling and bouncing coins as they exited the museum. We also had to run the gauntlet. This tossing of coins into urns/pots and in fact anything circular (they had to be at least 5 metres below the tosser) also was a pastime at Montecassino and Pompei. Perhaps the Italians have tired of throwing coins into wells or fountains. Maybe the current recession in Italy will slow this practice - one can only hope.

After leaving the Vatican proper (we went outside the walls) for lunch, we headed back into one of the world's smallest independent states to tour St Peter's Basillica. The security issues have certainly changed what one can see at St Peter's. No longer can one see the crypts where many Popes are buried. Nor can one climb up to see the dome, which is the largest in the world. And of course if you are female and try to visit St Peter's in a short dress, (I noticed this woman being rejected by security), shorts or with bare shoulders, you won't see anything at all. (Men in shorts above the knee are also not permitted entry). The Pope himself has been protected by the Papal Swiss Guard since 1506 - not the same Pope or soldiers, mind you, who are still soldiers for hire or mercenaries. And yes, they do come from Switzerland. Their uniforms, although designed in 1912, are patterned after those from the Rennaisance. Marie and Kerri had a good laugh at my expense as we were leaving St Peter's. I was trying to take a close up photo of a Swiss Guard in all his regalia, had focused the shot and was busy fiddling with my camera settings since the exposure was somewhat tricky, it having started to rain. Unknown to me, the Guard had stepped into his hut and emerged with a beige raincoat on. I raised my camera to take the shot and was startled by his transformation. Kerri and Marie had watched this whole episode without saying a word to me.

The inside of St Peter's is enormous. It is probably the largest church in existence, having an area of over 2.3 hectares and can hold upwards of 60,000 people. The day we were there, the church was almost empty with only about 1000 people wandering about within it. It is built on the traditional (and probable) site where Peter, one of Christ's disciples, was crucified by Nero in 64 CE and his tomb sits under the high altar. The current Basilica was built throughout the 16th century and contains tons of stone from the Colosseum. Several architects worked on the building, but Michelangelo's designs are the ones primarily seen today even though he did not want to work on the building and was forced to do so by Paul III. The dome, although smaller in circumference than that of the Pantheon, is taller, reaching a height from the floor to the cross on top of 136.5 metres. Although St Peter's ranks second in the Catholic Church's hierarchy of churches (St John Lateran also in Rome ranks first since it is the Pope's personal cathedral), it is used the most by the Pope for services and ceremonies. And it is decorated accordingly. The Basilica is huge, ostentatious as major western religious sites tend to be, on a scale that dwarfs the pilgrim or visitor. All major works of art are huge with one exception. It is perhaps one of the most famous, and to me the most beautiful sculptures I have ever seen (his David in Florence ranks a close second) is Michelangelo's 1499 Pieta (he did two others). It is located in a chapel behind bulletproof glass after some idiot, who thought he was Jesus Christ, tried to destroy it with a hammer thirty years ago just inside and to the right of the entrance doors. The colour and patina of the finely finished marble, the expression on a very youthful Mary's face, and the detail in the sculpture are simply amazing. Apparently, this is the only work that Michelangelo ever signed having overheard someone remark that another artist had sculpted it.

As we left St Peter's it started to rain. This was only the third day of rain on our whole trip so perhaps we were blessed having visited so many churches in London, Paris and now Rome. But we were getting wet, so Marie bought three umbrellas from a passing street entrepreneur who obviously had paid attention to the weather forecast. We walked through the Piazza di San Pietro (St Peter's Square with its Baroque columned porticos on each side) and then down the long street leading to the Vatican from the Tiber River. For most visitors who walk to the Vatican, this is the first view of the street, St Peter's Square and St Peter's one gets. We had entered the Vatican on the north side, however, so we stopped to get the 'approach' view as we left. At the Castel Sant'angelo, which was built by Emperor Hadrian as his mausoleum and also used for the same purpose by other emperors, and as a fortress and castle by the Popes when Rome was repeatedly sacked in the middle ages, we crossed the Tiber on the Pons Aelius, a pedestrian only bridge today that was also built by Hadrian. After we crossed the bridge back into the hustle and bustle of Rome proper, the rain stopped and the sun reappeared. We were not far from our apartment and since it was late in the afternoon, we walked along the Tiber past the mausoleum of Agustus Caesar (which was being excavated and therefore inaccessible) for a rest. That night, we ate at an outdoor restaurant on a cobbled street where taxis (the only cars permitted) and motorbikes passed by less than one metre from our elbows.

The next day, our third in Rome, was spent at the sites of Ancient Rome. In my previous visit, the original Roman Forum could be toured free whereas other areas (the Palatine Hill where emperors lived and the Colosseum) had an admission charge. This has now changed so that all three major areas are covered in one admission charge. I had never climbed up to the Palatine Hill before. With all three now included in the admission charge, it is well worth making the investment. However, renting an audioguide is not; after 2 hours the cost gets progressively higher and it takes more than 2 hours to tour the Forum area alone. Instead, take a tour book with you since very little of the ancient sites are well marked and when they are, it is only in Italian. Prepare to spend a whole day at the three sites and take water with you (even in late October it was quite hot). We entered the Forum part way down Via dei Fori Imperiali, a large avenue created by Mussolini which has on the one side the Forum of Trajan (closed because of archeological digs) and on the other, the Forum of pre-Emperor Rome (Forum Romanum) and of Augustus, the first real Emperor. It may seem difficult to imagine the splendor and glory of Rome that has been portrayed in movies and in writing from the ruins that exist today in the Forum. However, the Curia, where the Senate met, was rebuilt several times in the same location and the current building dates from 305 CE. One can almost see the Senators entering the building today. Incidently, this is not where Julius Caesar ignored his wife's plea (There is no historical evidence of the phrase 'Julie, don't go' that has been widely attributed to Wayne and Shuster) and kept his date with Brutus one mid March day; in fact Julius Caesar was assassinated at the Theatre of Pompey, the temporary Senate meeting place while Caesar was rebuilding the Curia. The remains of several Arches, Temples and other buildings are strewn throughout the Forum. I have walked in the Forum on three separate visits to Rome and each time I walk down the original stones of the Via Sacra, the main street of the Forum, I can easily envision what it was like on a typical day in Imperial Rome almost 2,000 years ago.

After wandering among the ruins of the Forum, we climbed up the Palatine Hill (the Beverly Hills of its day) where the ruins are more spectacular, given this is where Augustus built his palace in Republican Rome. Tiberius and Domitian also built their humble abodes on this hill and several other Emperors enlarged, enhanced and improved upon the real estate started by their forebearers. This is also the place where Rome started circa 750 BC; the cave where Romulus and Remus were supposedly raised by the she-wolf was on the hill and archeologists believe they discovered it in 2007, 16 metres deep and under the house where the future Augustus Caesar was born. There is a small, but interesting museum on the top of the hill that contains the history of the Bronze Age settlements (circa 1000 BC) to the founding of Rome around Republican Era. It also contains washrooms, the only ones we saw in the Forum or on the Palatine Hill. The Hill provides great views of the Forum, the Circus Maximus on the opposite side, the Baths of Caracula in the distance and the top of the Colosseum. The size and scope of the Emperors' palaces takes your breath away. Several stories tall (and these are just the remaining foundations), one of them even contains a small arena within it. Much of the stone from the buildings, the marble, as well as the stone from the Forum and Colosseum was seen as a quarry by people who lived in Rome; by the Church and by the wealthy, so throughout the city, many buildings contain bricks and stones originally erected by the Romans during the glory years of the Empire.

We descended from the Palatine Hill close to the Colosseum and the huge Arch of Constantine, but before we visited the Colosseum, we climbed up the hill on the other side of the Via dei Fori Imperiale and had lunch at a pizzeria. A short note about prices in the area surrounding the Forum and Colosseum. If you want to eat or drink where you have a view of these areas, or eat at the first restaurant you see, the prices are about 50% higher than if you go back a street or so.

After lunch, we went back down to the Colosseum and entered this spectacular building which was built by Emperor Vespasian and his son Emperor Titus, from whose family name Flavius came the original name of Amphitheatrum Flavium. The amphitheatre was constructed in about ten years in a former marshy area that had to be drained. It was built originally of brick and travertine stone, with much use of marble.
However, much of the original stone and marble from the interior and exterior walls was removed over the centuries and it was not until 1749 that Pope Benedict XIV consecrated the building as a Christian Martyr's shrine (althought it is debatable how many Christians died in the Colosseum at the hands of the Romans) and the stone robbing stopped. In any event, we spent about two hours wandering around the two levels of the Colosseum that are accessible to the public. I actually met one of my ancient ancestors there if the similarities in our hands are any indication. Since the last time Marie and I were there (1999), a small portion of the wooden floor has been recreated. The Latin word for sand, which covered the wooden floor to provide better traction and to soak up the blood from the games, is harena from which we derive the name arena. Another English word, vomit, comes from the Latin vomitoria, which was the name given to the 80 Colosseum entrances/exits - it meant that the 50,000-60,000 spectators could be seated or leave quickly in a rush. Of course the gladiators, the Emperor, and the Vestal Virgins could enter (and some could leave) at their own pace through dedicated tunnels. Under the floor of the Colosseum was a busy area of animal cages, workshops, props storage and ingenious elevators that could raise and lower objects through trap doors in the floor. Apparently the Colosseum could also be flooded for mock naval battles although this is debatable.
After spending almost the whole day in Ancient Rome, we wandered back to our apartment via the Trevi Fountain and the Piazza Navona, with a quick stop at the gelato shop near the Pantheon that we liked. The Piazza Navona is similar to the Place des Vosges in Paris in that it is a large enclosed rectangle. The Piazza Navona is located where Domitian had built his Circus Agonalis in the 1st century. It is a beautiful spot frequented by artists who sell their paintings, drawings and photographs on the square. Bernini's famous fountain, la Fontana dei Fiumi (Fountain of the Rivers) is located in the centre of the square, but was undergoing restoration when we were there. Two other fountains are located in each end of the square. A church is also a major feature of Piazza Navona, as are restaurants in the buildings that surround the open space. We were now dragging certain parts of our anatomy as it was very hot, so we called it a day and went back to the apartment. We needed to rest because in the morning, we were going to do something daring and risky. We were going to drive in Italy.

We packed up and were out the door early and caught the subway to the Termini station where we bought train tickets for the airport and the location of the car I had rented. We got to the airport at 9 a.m. and by 9:30, we were in the car (a Smart diesel) and heading out to the major highway that is the ringroad around Rome, looking for the Autostrade to Naples and Pompeii. Now, a note for those of you who are contemplating driving in Italy. First, car rental is pretty expensive (probably because of all the accidents - our car had more than 10 dings and dents in it), the major highways are toll roads and the tolls are expensive, signs are far and few between and can be wrong (and of course are in Italian), and in the small towns we went through (involuntarily - see mistake by Bob), traffic lights were all turned off and stop signs and yield signs meant 'ignore me'. Speeds on the Autostrade (417 like roads) are very fast; our car started to shake at 120 km/h but even at this speed it seemed like we were sitting still (people routinely drive at 170-190 km/h - by the way, the speed limit is 130 km/h. There is no such thing as a safe distance between cars; cars passing us (and everyone seemed to be doing so) would cut back in front of us with less than a metre separating our two cars. In any event, we were doing OK until I screwed up and missed our turn near Naples. We ended up heading for Salerno, but the rental company map we had (should have got a better one) suggested that the Autostrada we were now on would get us to Pompei. So when we saw a sign marked 'scavi di Pompei' (or Pompei excavations), I exited the Autostrade. This is the last sign we saw for Pompeii or the excavations until we were actually in the city. So about every 5 kilometers, I would stop and ask someone how to get to Pompeii. And I am sure the kind people whom I asked would tell me the correct route to get there. I know that sinistre means left and adestre means right, but after a person has said several sinistres and adestres in a row, combined with various hand and body gestures, we were not much further ahead. So we did not go very far in between asking for directions. And of course we had to try to find signs while playing chicken at every corner (except when we were parked in the slow moving traffic of Scafati, the sister city to Pompeii). We made a few wrong turns, but eventually Kerri spotted the Church in Pompei and the sign to our hotel. Our two hour drive to Pompeii had taken three hours plus.

We checked into a lovely hotel (Hotel Diana) and then headed to the excavations, about a 5 minute walk from our hotel.
Pompeii, a fairly wealthy city of probably 20,000, was completely buried by the August 79 CE Vesuvius eruption which, while killing thousands, ensured that it would be well preserved. Excavations started there in 1748 and are still continuing today. We entered by way of the Amphitheatre end of Roman Pompeii and walked past several ancient tombs before entering the ancient city by way of the Porta di Nocera. For the next five hours (in summer time, it would take a couple of full days to see most of the site) we wandered up and down the streets, slipped into and out of houses, bars, restaurants, workshops, a laundry, two villas located just outside the ancient walls (most people do not wander down this way, but if you go, make sure you see the Villas since they are well restored and the paintings on the walls are magnificent), the Forum, temples to various gods and Emperors, the baths, a garden, the large open air theatre, the Games Amphitheatre and gladiator training centre. Plaster casts (plaster was poured into the hollow spaces left in the volcanic rock after the bodies had decayed) can be seen of the people and animals that were caught in the eruption. Some show people resigned to their fate; others are of people and dogs that struggled to breathe before succumbing to the ash and pyroclastic flows that came down from Vesuvius (which is still active and overdue for another eruption). Most of the statuary, any surviving house furnishings (made of stone only), and other objects were removed from Pompeii long ago. If you want to see them, you have to go to the museum in Naples. Pompei is huge and it is only 70% excavated. The Italian government is finally investing several million euros into maintenance and restorations which is good in that some parts of the city have deteriorated over the past few years and the art on the walls, the Latin grafitti (some of it profane) on the face of buildings in the streets is in danger of being permanently lost. Speaking of the streets, Pompeii is laid out in a square grid pattern, many of them being one way in Roman times. Archaeoligists know this from the way stepping stones to get across the sunken streets are worn as cart wheels ran into them. On some of the small hills, the tracks that carts wore into the streets' paving stones speak to the 1000 years that Pompeii was occupied before being destroyed. Providing details about Pompeii would take another whole blog chapter, so suffice it to say that is well worth visiting. We did learn one thing after we had left the ruins that we wish we had known earlier. Several of the houses and buildings where wall paintings or other valuable artifacts are found were locked when we were there. We did not know that if you ask one of the wandering attendants (which we took for security guards), he will open any house that is not under actual restoration. We saw lots of houses, but there were two that our guidebook highly recommended and of course they were padlocked. I guess, Kerri, you will have to go back since your Mom and I saw one of them the last time we were there. There were not many people touring the excavations the day that we were there since it was getting to be off season. The absence of people made the ruins that much more evocative. We took lots of photos and since each one is worth a thousand words, I have included a few.

We had a great dinner that night in Pompei and afterwards joined the locals in the city square in front of a very beautiful church. The next day, our last in Italy, we were heading for Montecassino and then our hotel at the Rome airport. We were up early (very early, since the Italians had gone back to standard time the night previous, but we did not know this), had breakfast and arrived at the Montecassino Monastery well before the tour groups. This Monastery, which is very high up on a hill (perhaps the best part of the visit is driving up and then down the hill with narrow switchback turns), is famous because of World War II. The Allies, thinking the German army was occupying it (it was not) for its strategic and tactical position since one can see the for kilometers into the valleys around the mountain, bombed it flat. Only after it had been bombed did the Germans use it for defensive purposes. Canadians fought at Cassino (the town below) but it was a Polish Brigade that finally captured the hill and the Monastery ruins. The Polish war cemetery of the soldiers who died taking the hill is located on a sister hill, close to the Monastery and can easily be seen from the Monastery courtyard. After the war, the Monastery was completely rebuilt to the original plans, using some of the stone from the original.

After leaving the Monastery, we went in search of the Commonwealth War Cemetery in the town of Cassino in the valley below. (Marie and I never did find it the previous time we were there). Again, the lack of signs made it very hard to find even though we had directions from the Internet from someone who had been there before. But we persevered and eventually we saw a sign for the war cemetery that pointed further down into the valley. After a couple of more turns, we found it. Marie and I thought it very important that Kerri visit a war cemetery; all Canadians who make it to Europe should seek one out to pay their respects to the soldiers, sailors, aircrews, nurses and others who never came home from the two World Wars. This cemetery held the graves of Canadians, New Zealanders, British, Indians, South Africans and Gurkhas. There may have been other nationalities buried here since it is quite large and we spent most of our time among the rows of tombstones of the Canadians who died in the Campaign in the area.

Then it was back unto the Autostrada, and after another wrong turn because of poor signage, we made it to our hotel where we rested, had dinner and prepared for the trip home to Ottawa the next morning.

Thus ends the third and last part of this travel blog. We had a blast travelling together and I look forward to more trips with my kids and grandchildren. And to trips without my kids and grandchildren :-). To travel is to learn. It's a big world out there. Stay tuned.....