And the Floor Was Paved with Gravestones

We stayed in Haarlem for three nights, taking two day trips into Amsterdam (stay tuned for a future Amsterdam post!).

In Haarlem, we checked out a very interesting church, the Church of St. Bavo, which had an enormous organ that inspired both Handel and Mozart.  It has over 5,000 pipes.  I would have loved to hear it played, but sadly, the regular concerts were not on days we were in Haarlem:

The ceiling of the church is made of neat wooden arches:

And the floor is composed entirely of gravestones:

We stayed in a lovely little Airbnb apartment in Haarlem, located down this street:

It had a crazy lamp.  Yes, all those light bulbs work - on a dimmer switch, thankfully.  We never turned it up all the way:

Paul was amused and mildly surprised that this Haarlem store accepted bitcoins!

And finally, random legs:

23 Hours in Paris

On our way from Spain to Switzerland, Paul and I spent 23 hours in Paris on June 15.  This followed a night train from Barcelona to Paris, which was rickety and less than comfortable, so we weren't running on the best night of sleep.  I mention that to preface a little accident I had in Paris, which I'll get to later.

We arrived in Spain before 10am at the Gare d'Austerlitz train station and walked immediately across the river to the Gare Lyon train station where there is a Eurail ticket office.  We needed to make reservations for a train from Switzerland to Austria, and apparently all the Eurail aid offices in Spain have been closed.  I reported this to the Eurail folks, who had no idea and are still looking into it (Eurail passes are truly a mixed bag, but perhaps that's info for a future post).

Over two hours later, we had our tickets.  A large chunk of this time was spent waiting unnecessarily in the long distance train line because the folks at the information desk did not know of the existence of a Eurail ticket office in their own train station.  And it's not like we were being confusing, we held up the pass and asked specifically for that office because we knew there was supposed to be one in the Gare Lyon.  The long distance ticket lady was able to point us to it, which is good, because there is no way on earth you will find that place without help.  It was tucked downstairs away from just about everything else.  Then, we waited in line for ages while two British girls tried to get out of Paris that day.  At that time, Paris had just completed a 36 hour train strike, so I'm amazed that they managed anything at all.

After that, we caught the metro (man, do I love public transportation in Europe - it's wonderful!) to our hotel, checked in early, and then went for a food hunt.  We found a market where we bought falafel, some sort of large pita stuffed with spinach and cheese (it looked like a ginormous pierogi), and fresh strawberries.

Next it was back to  Gare d'Austerlitz to join up with the Blue Bike Tour folks for a 4 hour whirlwind tour of Paris.  We were turned on to this company by the Canadian folks we met in Carcassonne who couldn't speak highly enough of it.  The bikes all had fun names - Paul chose Blaise Pascal.  I forget who I had.  We saw Notre Dame:

with its nearby bridge covered in an insane amount of locks (Paul and I wondered how much weight this added to the bridge):

the Eiffel Tower:

along with the Louvre, bridges, statues, the golden flame sculpture the US gave France as a thank you for the Statue of Liberty (to which the French were apparently like "what are we supposed to do with this?"), and more.  The sights were great, as was the information provided by the guide.  The tour is intended as an intro to Paris where you can get a sense of all the sights you want to go back to later, so we only paused briefly at the sights - not enough time to walk around or anything.  But it allowed us to see most of the important things in just 4 hours, which will be helpful in deciding if we'll pass back through Paris later, or just skip it in favor of crashing in Belgium with cool peeps for a while (the latter is more likely at this point - we are travel weary).

However, I'm not sure I recommend this tour as highly as others do.  It involved an insane amount of pedestrian dodging while trying to keep up with the other 10 folks in the tour,  look at all the sights around you, AND keep an eye out for all red lights so as not to run them and be smushed by a car.  It's a level path but you go over a lot of curbs and around a lot of sharp, blind corners.  So, as you can probably guess, this is where my little accident comes in.  While rounding a corner and trying to dodge a pedestrian at perhaps too high a speed for little old me, I wiped out.  Gracefully, I'm told.  Honestly, it even felt graceful and rather slow motion to me.  As far as bike accidents go, I am very lucky.  Just a bit bruised and scraped - scraped a knee (didn't even tear the pants - woot!), scraped my chin (less than desirable for pictures, wish I had some makeup with me...), and have a few bruises on my right thigh.  More embarrassed than anything, really.

You can see the mark on my chin from my fall.  However, the 5 bruises on my legs are much more colorful.

Moral of the story?  Be careful on bike tours.  :)

After the bike tour, we went back to Notre Dame so we could get a view of the famous flying buttresses:

The cathedral was still open (it was past 7pm at this point), so we poked around inside.  Definitely neater on the outside.  At this point, we've seen so many churches that they all start to look the same (minus the Sagrada Familia, of course).

Then, we went back to the hotel to clean my pants.  And me, too, I suppose, although my scrapes weren't very dirty and barely bled.  Then, out for a view of the Eiffel Tower at dusk:

And a little people watching (this shot is taken from where we were sitting but in the opposite direction from the Eiffel Tower):

It's really cool that this huge lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower is a gathering place at dusk for locals, mostly of the 18-35 age range, I would guess.  Groups of people sat in circles with wine (I wish outdoor drinking in the US wasn't banned in so many places!), picnics with all sorts of random food from grocery stores, and even hippy singing circles.  The one near us regaled those around it with a variety of US songs.

We ended the evening with dinner at a Thai restaurant which was absolutely delicious, due in no small part to the fact that the meal included no bread or cheese.  We are thoroughly sick of bread and cheese and sandwiches at this point, so curry and spring rolls were a welcome reprieve.

The Second Coolest Churches in Europe

The Sagrada Familia is the coolest church in Europe, in my humble opinion, but I also really liked the churches with cloisters, too.  Something about a garden attached to a church just really appeals to me:

Another cloister church also had my favorite cross so far.  So much of the Christian iconography we have seen has been so dark, but this cross seems a bit more hopeful even though it is depicting a rather awful death:

My New Favorite Architect: Gaudí

Ah, Barcelona, where to start?  We did so much in 5 days.  I think I will cluster posts by artist/topic instead of a timeline.  Welcome to the Gaudí post!

I have discovered that I love Gaudí.  I would recommend that if you are in Spain, save the Sagrada Família until after you've seen the rest of Gaudí's work.  Everything else pales in comparison.  Thus, the order of the Gaudí buildings below is not the order in which we viewed them.

We started with the block of Discord, which includes buildings by Gaudí and others.  We did not go inside any of these.  Here's Gaudí's Casa Batlló:

And Casa Batlló among other buildings:

Then, there's Casa Milà, a wavy apartment building

with a crazy rooftop:

The windows you see below the railing in the foreground are in one of the building's two courtyards.

One of the courtyards has a stairwell that is quite pretty as well:

Then, there's Parc Güell, which includes a great view of the city,

mosaics,

crazy structures:

and great benches:

And finally, there's the Sagrada Familia.  I'm less impressed with the outside, although it looks pretty at night.  Perhaps it's all the scaffolding.  When it's finished, it will be have a tower much taller than the church is now.

But the inside is breath-taking:

Ceiling of the cathedral

with lots of incredibly colorful stained glass windows:

There's a museum as well, and Paul was impressed with a technique for devising the correct shape for arches by using hanging strings and weights:

Hands down, my favorite church in all of Europe so far.  I would love to see it when it's finished, which is projected to be in about 2030.

Avignon

Since Avignon was only a short 20 minute train ride away, we went there twice during our stay in Arles.  Avignon is bigger and more popular with tourists than Arles with many more restaurants and shops.  We wandered around quite a bit and were impressed by this huge church:

I think it might have been called the Palace of the Popes or something.  We did not bother to go inside.  It seems a bit shameful but by this point in our trip, we are a bit church-, museum-, and ruined-out, so we aren't spending as much time learning about these places.  My favorite part about this church was the lady who sang opera in the square outside it while her dog wandered around enticing people to throw it a stick.

Part of Avignon (the part we spent our time in) is surrounded by a wall, which is pretty neat:

They also do dreadful things to trees in Arles and Avignon.  And I thought Lake Como was bad!  They left more leaves on those at least.  This just looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.

I have no idea who he is, but I like this shiny, happy fellow:

And I really knew I wasn't in the US when I saw a sign for a happy hour at Subway:

I must say, I really like France so far.  Everyone is super nice here.  Maybe it will be different in Paris, but so far, I have seen no evidence of the whole "the French don't like Americans" thing.  They go out of their way to be helpful, they smile in amusement at our pitiful attempts at French, and they even have an American store (albeit with a rather interesting selection of items - apparently we are all cowboy bikers?):

Paul and I both agree that France, at least the few parts we've seen, feels the most like the US so far, which has been nice.

Venice, City of Getting Lost

Going to so many new places means that Paul and I get a little lost from time to time.  Google Maps has been a huge help with that.  Paul caches local maps, and we can use those without data on his Android phone.

However, Venice is still tricky, even with a cached map.  Streets make sudden 90 degree turns or dead end into canals quite frequently.  That really just adds to the fun, though.  We spent 1.5 days getting lost in Venice - over and over - and it was great!  Paul particularly liked when we stumbled into empty squares like this one:

Most tourists spend all their time in about 20% of Venice, which means that you don't have to go far to get away from all of them.  Paul and I certainly took advantage of that.

The other fabulous thing about Venice is that it has public parks.  In Florence, we tried quite hard to find one in the evenings, but everything was gated off or closed (and had charged admission earlier in the day). Venice has a variety of small public parks, so amidst getting lost, we could stop and just relax in the sun for a while.  The weather in Venice was gorgeous - mid-60s to low 70s and sunny.

St. Mark's Basilica is one of the main attractions in Venice, so we dutifully took some pictures.  You can see the reflection of the Basilica in the water that is slowly coming up from underneath the square in this photo.  Sometimes the whole square floods, but this is pretty much the most water we saw:

Inside, the Basilica is covered in mosaics with gold backdrops.  You weren't supposed to take photos but everyone was, so I cheated, too:

We also made sure to check out the dueling orchestras on St. Mark's Square in the evening.  There are three of these 4-5 person ensembles at restaurants around the square.  You can pay a lot of money to sit at one of the tables - OR, you can join the crowds moving from ensemble to ensemble as they take turns churning out lovely music:

And, of course, we viewed the infamous Bridge of Sighs that convicted criminals crossed on their way to prison.  Supposedly, they sighed as they took in their last glimpse of Venice.  You can also see some of the many gondolas taking tourists on a ride through the canals.  We opted not to take a gondola ride.

But we did ride one of the vaporettos (public transit boats) down the Grand Canal while listening to a Rick Steves audio tour.  It was lovely to see Venice from the water:

And no blog post is complete without a photo of us.  Paul commented that it looks like we've been superimposed onto this photo.  Really, it's just because the camera used flash - I swear!  We're standing on the Rialto Bridge - one of the three main bridges over the Grand Canal.

Odi et Amo, Firenze

I visited Florence (Firenze in Italian) in high school.  I don't remember a lot about it, but I do remember I didn't particularly like it.  I was curious to see what my impression would be this time.

Turns out, just about the same.

We arrived in the train station and found our way to our hotel.  On the way, we discovered that we were in Florence for a gelato festival!  +1 point!

Then, we discovered that the space above our hotel (it's in a large building) was under construction - not particularly wonderful, but they only worked on it from 9-5, so we were not around for much of the noise.  Our hotelier was welcoming and friendly and more than happy to answer our questions.  This equals out = no points.

Next, we went in search of food.  On the way there, I got bird poop on my pants (my best guess is that I walked into it as it was falling out of the sky).  -3 points, Florence.

Rick Steves recommends a small grocery store near the train station for the quick salad/pre-made foods section.  Clearly, the store owner has caught on and has jacked up the prices.  It cost us 15€ for some extra salty, extra al dente pesto pasta; some pickled eggplant; and two small roll things.  We were also grumped at multiple times by the employees, who seemed pretty fed up with foreigners. -4 points. 

To comfort ourselves, we partook in the gelato festival.  For 10€, we got 5 dishes of gelato, a gelato inspired beverage, and a tote bag (the gelato was redeemable over several days).    +4 points

It's always a sad thing when the gelato is gone.

After that, we let Rick Steves take us on a tour of the city and regale us with fun facts and corny jokes.  We started at the enormous basilica:

And checked out the famous baptistery doors:

Afterwards, we wandered around for quite a while, during which time someone dumped bread crumbs out of a window and onto my head.  Awesome.  What the heck, Florence!?  -2 points

It's not quite as bad as being spit on at the Colosseum, I suppose.  Yes, I got spit on - apparently some teens thought it would be hysterical to spit off a high spot, and I was lucky enough to be right below them.  It landed in my hair and on my cheek.  Lovely.

But I digress.

We went back to our hotel and consoled ourselves with some limoncello that we purchased in Assisi.  Limoncello is one of my new favorite alcoholic beverages.  In fact, I'm drinking some now as I edit this post! (Maybe unwise?  How's my spelling/grammar?)

On Friday morning, we found the food market.  Everyone was super friendly, we found lots of great foods for making meals in our hotel room, and had delicious cheap sandwiches.  +5 points  

Here's a sample meal from our food market bounty (I'm peeling an orange).

After dropping the food off at our hotel, we went to the Uffizi.  This was a mixed bag.  Boticelli's Birth of Venus is truly lovely in person, but no photographs are allowed at all, and a large chunk of the museum was closed.  We saw nothing by Raphael, which was disappointing. And it was rather expensive, given how much was closed.  -2 points.  I did cheat and take a picture of the Ponte Vecchio (bridge with lots of jewelry shops on it) from the Uffizi though:

We went out to dinner.  The plates were huge, but for whatever reason, we weren't given free watermelon for dessert like everyone else.  -1 point

Saturday it rained and rained and the high was 59 degrees.  Brrrr.  I won't deduct points for weather, though.  We went to the Galileo museum, which was good overall, although we both would have liked more explanations of how things worked, not just who acquired them and when they were constructed.  +2 points

Some science-y thing from the late 1500s.  More info here. 

Hopefully, Paul will write a more complete post about some of the stuff in this museum - there really were some very cool things, like the above armillary sphere built when people still thought the earth was the center of the universe.  All those wooden circular belts you see would have moved. Really impressive!

Then, with a recommendation from our hotelier, we found a coffee shop where we could actually sit for a while and read, taking refuge from the pouring rain and cold weather. Paul says, "It was super close and awesome!" +2 points

Tomorrow we leave for Venice, city of expensive lodgings. :)

So, odi et amo ("I hate and I love," in Latin, from a poem by Catullus) Firenze. For those of you who did the math, I think Florence came out with a +2 score overall.

I should probably add a few points for the spectacular sunset we had the pleasure of viewing one evening:

A bit darker:

And of course, sunset plus Kate and Paul: