Rome

We woke up in Milan to pouring rain. After breakfast at our hotel, we walked the two blocks to the Milan train station where our train to Rome was running about 10 minutes late. Our 3 hour train trip arrived in Rome about 30 minutes late - Amanda and I read a little on the trip and I napped a bit, while a teenage boy sitting with his father seemed eager to chat with us. Unfortunately, we were not feeling that chatty.

Upon arrival to Rome Termini, we took the H bus for about twenty minutes, dropping us off in Trastevere where our AirBnB apartment was located. We met up with our host who led us our cozy studio on the Piazza del Castilo.

After dropping off our bags, we headed to the Santa Maria in Trastevere which is a beautiful church about a block away. Here's a picture of the altar:



We then decided we were going to walk and meander as we didn't have any concrete plans. We crossed the Tiber river below:



And made our way to Campo Del Fiori which is an outdoor market and has a statue of Giordano Bruno, a monk that was burned at the stake - a picture of both below:



We then walked by embassies and government buildings to arrive at Piazza Navona where Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers is located with statues representing rivers from various continents with an obelisk in the middle. The four rivers represented are: the Danube, Ganges, Plata, and Nile. I also had my first flashback to the movie, "Angels & Demons" where Tom Hanks is running around Rome trying to find hostages! I'm sure Amanda enjoyed my questions like, "do you think that fountain is deep enough for people to swim in?" Clearly Dan Brown and the makers of the movie had a creative license to the details of Rome! Some photos below:





We then decided to have ice cream at Tre Scalini known for their chocolate! You can see our happy faces!



Our happy faces harken us back to a picture Amanda shared with me! She was last in Rome at the age of four:



We then walked over to the Pantheon which is an ancient temple converted to a church. This architectural marvel with an amazing dome was originally founded in 27 BC, with single granite columns and the first two Kings of Italy buried here. Also buried here is Raphael and pictured below is a sculpture commissioned by him called "Madonna of the Rock":





There are two Jesuit churches nearby and we decided to go into Sant Ignazio, where there is a fake dome and a 3D baroque ceiling by Andrea Pozzo. Below is the facade and the altar:



It was really difficult to capture the impressiveness of the ceiling, but on the right, you can see how you can be tricked into seeing as if the leg is coming out from the fresco:



We passed by this colonnade which has 2 folks dressed like gladiators. It's the remaining part of the Temple of Hadrian in the Piazza del Pietra. The gladiators make me think of the Sesame Street characters and the superheroes that hang out in Times Square in NY:



We finally made it to the Trevi Fountain which was unfortunately undergoing construction. I vividly remember the gushing waters when I was a kid and my mom insisting we throw coins into the fountain in between the crowds. Here you can see a collage of the scaffolding, coins in the dry fountain, and the workers who are trying to make it look like new:

Unique to the experience, is that they built walkways, so you can actually walk over the fountain and be closer to the statues - here's a lovely picture of Amanda on the walkway:



After the fountain, we made our way to the Spanish Steps! I remember when I was a kid, I had a caricature done of me here during one of the nights of our vacation in 1992. Today, it was raining and there were colorful umbrellas of the many tourists. There were flowers up and down the steps which we enjoyed, and at the bottom of the steps, is the Boat Fountain by Bernini as well as the house of Shelly and Keats. Apparently Byron also lived just across the plaza. Here are a few photos of the Spanish steps as we went up:



Here are some views from the top and on the way down:



Before my childhood trip to Rome, my mom had us watch Roman Holiday with Audrey Heoburn and Gregory Peck. Back then, we enjoyed ice cream walking down as my mom wanted to relive that scene. In honor of Audrey Heoburn and Mama Kim, both classy ladies, I indulged in my second cone of ice cream for the day:



We then walked toward Piazza del Popolo where there is again, an obelisk and a church, the Santa Maria del Popolo. Here in the chapel next to the altar are two Caravaggio paintings: The Crucifixion of St. Peter and the Conversion of St. Paul. You can see they are exquisite:



In the Chigi Chapel, designed by Raphael, are four statues, two of them by Bernini. The chapel pays homage to the Pantheon with a dome. This is also where I had my second "Angels & Demons" moment. A photo collage below of the Chigi Chapel:



As we were hungry and a bit tired, we decided to go to Antica Enoteca where Amanda ordered the Cacio e Pepe, a very Roman dish, and I had the Capricioso pizza. A photo of our meal:



As we sat and enjoyed relaxing, it began to really downpour. We eventually braved the rain and walked over to the Spanish Steps metro. The trains were very crowded, but not as bad as the 6 train on the Upper East side. We were hoping to easily transfer to the H bus at the Republica stop, but apparently you have to be prepared to wave down the bus, practically in the street, and we let two of them pass by! After waiting awhile and second guessing ourselves, we couldn't bear to stand in the rain any longer and hailed a cab. We didn't originally hail a cab as most cabs prefer picking up passengers at stands. I'm hoping our "not for the win" moment of standing in pouring rain will be our lowest moment of the trip! However, it wasn't that bad as I like to chalk it up to adventure.

We made it back to our apartment, sopping wet, but pleased that we saw so much of the city on our first day!

Milan

Last night, Amanda and I met at JFK to fly off to Milan. After a very diluted Bloody Mary, in our matching black leggings and Bose headphones, we were on the plane! Unfortunately, the plane was full and vomiting kids in the row behind us. Also, Amanda's audio didn't work, so she couldn't watch the one movie she was excited to see - hopefully they have Hunger Games on the way back! While my audio was very scratchy - the flight was definitely not for the win. After a few apricot juices and several movies, we arrived in Italy! To celebrate, Air Italia gave us these:



Upon arrival, we took the Malpensa Express train to Milano Centrale station which took about 50 minutes. Our hotel, M Gallery by Accor is a few blocks away. After dropping our bags and checking out our room, we headed out as we wanted to enjoy the day as much as possible.

We took the M3 - Yellow train with our unlimited daily ticket from the Centrale station to Duomo, to see the Cathedral, pictured below with the refinished facade:



The Cathedral inside was lovely with a lavish crypt and baptistry that was unearthed through an excavation. Here are a few photos:







After, we opted for the stairs option in lieu of the elevator to get to the top of the Cathedral and see the terraces. This was particularly painful for me as I had gone to an intense gym class yesterday and was still very sore! Amanda hash tagged in her Instagram, we had "jet lagged delusions of our fitness" - but we made it to the top to see these awesome views of the city and get a closer look of the spires:







There was also a sculpture exhibit on top of the roof:



When we returned back to the ground, I was dying for some ice cream, so a friendly Chinese man sold me a hazelnut gelato and Amanda had a caprese sandwich. We then walked through the famous shopping arcade called the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II to the Piazza La Scala where the famous opera house is. Here's a photo of the shopping arcade's glass ceiling:



The 2nd place I wanted to see was Saint Ambrogio church, who is the patron saint of Milan. We took the metro to get there as it started to drizzle - here's a collage of this 4th century church:



By the time we left, the sun was out and we decided to walk down to the canal district called Navigli where on the last Sunday of the month they have an outdoor antique fair. Today it seemed like one massive block party and there appeared to be some canal races as shown here:



We stopped in Taglio for some lattes and this lovely cheese and meat platter to give us some fuel to power through our jet lag!:



We wandered the block party and the crowds of people, then we managed to meander upward to a park. We were exhausted, but knew we probably had to eat before returning to our hotel. So after some research and a little trial and error, we made it to Piazza San Lorenzo, the location of a basilica of the same name and a Roman colonnade, both pictured below:



In the piazza, everybody was enjoying their appertivo, or happy hour, but we were interested in food. However, most restaurants don't get dinner going until much later, so we walked toward the metro and before getting off at our stop, decided to stop in the "Golden Quad" of high-end fashion in Montenapoleone. We quickly saw the many high-end shops that were closed and caught a tram (our unlimited daily ticket of 4.50€ became very useful!), and ended up near our hotel. As we walked toward our hotel in jet lagged exhaustion, we decided on Il Javolino which was just across the street from our hotel. Despite their happening vibe upstairs, they seated us downstairs where we had spaghetti and I had the famous Rissotto Milanese, periodically feeling the rumbling of a nearby subway.

We returned to our hotel to cash in our complimentary welcome drinks that led to tasty wines and snacks with a friendly bartender from Lake Como.

We end the night with much needed showers and propping up our feet as we get ready for more walking in Rome tomorrow. Amanda's Fitbit said we walked 22,714 steps - for once I'm not the only one tracking steps!

Lake Crossing from Chile to Argentina

Amanda and I did not sleep very well last night due to howling dogs and street noise which was so odd as we stayed at a B&B on a very residential street. To top it all off, there was no hot water in the morning. Amanda and Cyn not for the win. But it was bound to happen as I had seen multiple reviews where water seemed to be a problem.

We made it down to the harbor area where we took the 1st bus as part of our scenic lake crossing into Argentina from Chile. It is a mixture of bus and boat rides that take about 12 hours to go from Puerto Varas, Chile to Bariloche, Argentina. Your luggage is entirely handled so it is quite convenient between the transfers. A true bus would take about 6 hours, but with our limited time we wanted to take advantage of seeing both the Chilean and Argentine lake districts.

The bus drove along lake Llanquihue which is the largest lake in Chile and the 4th largest in South America. The lake was beautiful and we learned that Chile is the 2nd largest exporter of salmon. We passed a canola field and visited the 1st national park of Chile called Parque Nacional Vicente Perez Rosales. Here we saw the Petrohue river and some rapids that are created from the glacier water.

We then hopped on our bus that took us to our catamaran at the Lake Todos los Santos which was discovered by Jesuits on November 1st many years ago. The boat ride lasted about an hour and 45 minutes and the view of the Osorno volcano was 90% viewable despite the mist. The sun did manage to peer through and the glistening water was beautiful. We passed a few waterfalls and even picked up a local resident off of their tiny boat. The Chilean government opted to allow the original habitants maintain their homes when they converted the land to a national park. These folks use the waterfalls for energy and take advantage of the lake crossing boats to travel / commute for free.

We arrived in Peulla where we lunched at the Natura hotel for a few hours. There were excursion options which we opted not to take. After lunch we went to the Chilean customs house and checked out of Chile.

Then a 2 hour ride through the Andes and on windy / switchback roads, we reached Puerto Frias where we checked into Argentina and had a hot chocolate with cognac. The boat ride was about 20 minutes. Then a quick 10 minute bus ride for a 1 hour boat ride in a part of Lake Nanuel Huapi which is the lake Bariloche is located. Then a 45 minute ride into the center of Bariloche.

4 buses, 3 boat rides, 2 Argentine lakes, and 1 Chilean lake, over 12 hours we were able to view volcanoes, waterfalls, glaciers, and gorgeous scenery. The forecast had predicted rain, but we got a mix of mist, sun, and overcast. But more importantly we were able to take in the sites as the fog would clear up.

We stumbled upon a fondue restaurant called La Alpina, but ended up not ordering fondue. It is quite appropriate as Bariloche is known to be like a Swiss town that has been transplanted in the Andes. The town is very active and touristy, but would love to come back in the future to soak it all in.

With our flight from Bariloche canceled tomorrow, we take a 5 hour overnight bus to Neuquen to catch a flight to Buenos Aires tomorrow morning. Should be fun! We are currently waiting at the Bariloche bus station and sitting in our cama seats that recline fully in our double decker bus. Buenas noches!