So I’m in my train waiting at the station for it to leave, and all the normal fears that I have are surfacing. You know, am I on the right train, what about the car, or for that matter the seat? Actually I know that I’m in the right seat, it’s the train that I’m concerned about. I guess we’ll find out eventually.

This time around I have to say that I feel completely different about Rome than I did three years ago. The last time I was here I felt that it was a little too ghetto for me. It seemed too dirty, too big, and had all the negatives that any big city had. This time though I started to like it. The architecture is the biggest draw for me, it was simply beautiful in most situations. The only thing that I don’t like, and this goes for most of the places that I’ve been in Southern Europe is that it’s way too expensive. I can’t imagine ever living here unless I made twice the money than I do now.

The train leaves in about four minutes and I’m ready to go. Where? I guess we’ll see. It’s kind of funny, there is a young girl on the train that must be curious about me. She’s staring, almost like she wants to talk to me but doesn’t speak English. Kids are cute.

Naples? I wasn’t prepared for this! I guess that I just thought it would be like all the other Italian cities that I’ve been to. You know, old buildings, lots of tourists, a typical European city with an Italian flavor. What I found out was this place is a madhouse. I don’t think that I’ve been to a city quite like it this summer. There are people everywhere, there seems to be no rule of the road, to cross the street you just start walking and hope that the car stops. I saw a Westerner almost get plowed by a scooter just a few minutes ago. It’s so hectic that it is similar to something that you’d expect in Cairo or Mumbai. Cars are double and triple parked and everybody seems to be in a hurry, that is except for the shopkeepers who are just hanging in the doorway to their shops.

I set out to get a map and then see some sites today, so after checking into the hotel, I headed back to the train station to find a tourist center. There really isn’t anything that I know that I “need” to see here in Naples, but I would like to see Pompeii or/and Mt Vesuvius so a tourist center was the best place to get that information. I think I’ve decided that tomorrow I’ll head to Mt Vesuvius, since I didn’t find any information about Pompeii it must either be too far away or there isn’t anything to see.

After that I headed out to see some of the sites that were listed on the map. It seemed pretty straight forward, go straight from the train station and eventually you’d hit the first site on the map. Geez, after about two minutes of walking I realized that there wasn’t anyway that I be able to find my way back without my gps, so I headed back to the hotel. Can you believe it, I got lost just about five blocks from the train station? Instead of backtracking to the station, I went in the direction of the hotel, and after making a few wrong turns, eventually I ended up at the hotel by accident.

Today started as a day to not really much of anything day. I walked so much yesterday that I was still stiff and really wasn’t up for another 15 mile walk. To be honest, I don’t know how far I actually walked yesterday, but I think it was around 10 to 15 miles.

There weren’t any sites that I planned to see since I think I covered most of them at least once already, and with the Vatican out of the way today was more or less a free day to explore. So at about 8 this morning I was out the door. The first stop had to get a coffee. Since I’ve been here I haven’t had a coffee in the morning, in fact I don’t think I’ve had a coffee at all. It’s not like I haven’t wanted one, it’s just that the coffee here is really strong, too strong for an instant coffee kind of guy like me. Nevertheless my first mission was to score a coffee and find someplace just to sit and watch people. I’m embarrassed to admit where I found a coffee, but I did and found a nice place on the steps of a Medieval looking church. It was the perfect way to officially start the morning.

One place that I saw on the map that I wanted to see was the Pantheon. I don’t know why I put it so low on my “must see” list considering it was in my art history book in undergrad, so that was going to be my starting point, or first stop. So I’m following the map on my way to the Pantheon, when I turn a corner and there is a mass of people all taking pictures of this really impressive building with a fountain. It was really impressive too. The first thing I do is take a panorama of the square and walk over to a corner to take a one-shot and that’s when my camera turned off. Ugg! The batter was dead. So I head back to the hotel to get my spare battery, and while I’m at it I decided to see how far it was to the square from my hotel. Turns out it was 1.6 miles, almost 2 miles that I walked to, then back to the hotel, and then to the square a total of about 5 miles and it was only about 930 in the morning, my day hadn’t even gotten started. That’s really all I wanted to talk about, three photos and my battery dies…. ☺

From there I walked everywhere in the area taking photos and generally follow the streams of other tourists. They led me to areas that I’m glad I got the chance to see, and if not for them I wouldn’t have. So today was a good day for seeing things, completely the opposite of what I was expecting.

I finally made it home, err, hotel at about 3, and although I turned my gps off, I figure today was about the same as yesterday, about 15 miles. I spent the rest of the day nursing my tired legs, doing laundry, and watching a movie. Yeah, I know, lots of fun huh? Tomorrow morning at about 930 I leave for Naples for two nights.

This morning was my first full day in Rome this time around. I started somewhat early, about 830 or so. Since I’d seen The Coliseum last night I decided to go see the Vatican and along the way I’d go by as many of the tourist spots marked on my map. It probably took me somewhere around two hours to finally get to The Vatican, but the wandering to see the other spots was worth it. Finally though I arrived. I’ve mentioned this before in some of my posts over the years, but I’m not a religious person, never have been. Having said that, I had regretted not seeing the Vatican when I was here before. So I was excited as I turned the corner and saw the long road leading up to the courtyard that has been so prominent in both news and so many movies. The line to get into the main building was ridiculously long, but it flowed fairly quickly. I think it took maybe 20 minutes until I breached the doors of the church. I know that without a doubt that I can explain the church, it was huge, it was filled with beautiful and famous artwork, and it was simply awesome.

After I left the Vatican, actually I didn’t plan to leave, I took off for the back buildings only to find myself outside the walls of the city-state and just decided to keep walking. I walked enough to realized that I was about to get lost, so I backtracked to The Vatican and then headed back to the hotel in roughly the same route as I had come earlier in the day.

After a few hours of resting from the sightseeing I did in the morning I headed back out again to see if I could get some good night shots of the famous sites. Nope, there just wasn’t any really good shots to be had, although I did get some of me in front of the Coliseum

After spending the afternoon in Pisa I headed to Rome for three nights. I got to my hotel within twenty minutes and after setting my bag on the bed, putting my computer in the safe, and grabbing my camera I went out for some sightseeing in Rome. I’ve been to Rome before, but when I came here in 2008, I only had one day to sightsee, so this trip I’m hoping that I’ll get to see everything there is, or at least enough of what there is to see.

I just spend the late morning and early afternoon in the town of Pisa, Italy. The train ride there was probably one of the best, only one other passenger in the cabin with me. I had decided earlier that an afternoon in Pisa would be enough to see the leaning tower, I decided this because so many people have told me that the tower was pretty much the only thing there. I’m glad that I took their advice. I got into Pisa about 11 and the way my mind works I’m always stressed over time. I mentioned something last summer about me being an hour earlier for the two-hour early that airports have. It’s just something about the way I think, and today I was all stressed with only four hours to do the sightseeing that I had planned. I rushed to drop off my backpack, fought for a map of the city, and almost ran to the tower. When I got there I was rewarded with probably the best thing I’ve seen this trip. It’s not only a beautiful building made out of white marble, it’s leaning almost to the point of being an optical illusion. There are other buildings there along with the tower, and they were just as beautiful. All buildings are in a square of sorts, complete with grass in the middle. It was an almost perfect location. I took dozens of pictures of all the buildings, the people walking around, and some of the statues that were scattered around the square. It was funny to see all the tourists doing the “holding up the tower” pose. Since I was traveling alone and the place was so packed with people there wasn’t anyway that I could set the camera up on a time to take my own picture, so I asked about five or six people to take my picture. Each did, but damn they weren’t very good photographers. Most either cut the tower off, put me right under the tower, or anyone of series of mistakes. Out of about twelve photographs that they took, only two were any good. I’m not complaining at all, actually I’m glad that I have so many photos of me standing in the front of the tower. One person even had me try to place my hand like I was holding the tower up.

I headed back to the train station as quickly as I left and I ended up being two hours early for my next train. Damn, two hours. So I walked around a little bit more, which killed another hour and then sat in the train station for the last hour. I’m on the train right now for Rome, should be there in about two and a half hours.

It’s Monday and I got into Genoa yesterday without any problems. It seems that all the stressing that I did because I wasn’t convinced that I was on the right train was a waste. Every time the train stopped and new passengers walked on, I was sure someone was going to tell me that I was in their seat, then I’d find out that I was on the wrong train. Like I said though it all turned out okay.

After arriving I found my hotel and then headed out to see a part of the city. The weather was cool, overcast, and dry, though later that night it would rain very hard. The city is different from most others that I’ve visited this year. I think a good description is, it’s dirty, it’s got huge ornate buildings, and narrow winding roads. The city just feels dirty, not dirty by litter, but dirty by soot. I don’t know if that makes too much sense, but the streets are clean, but there isn’t anything that I’ve seen that is white, everything I see, whether it’s buildings, streets, signs, everything seems to be gray and dreary. Even if it seems dreary the buildings are beautiful. Imagine huge monolithic structures with columns, gargoyles, and all made out of stone. About the only problem is that the streets are so narrow that I can’t get far enough away to get any good photographs. Note: After writing this morning I went outside and realized why it looks so dreary, the problem is, is that no sun gets down to the streets. The buildings are too large and the streets are too narrow for sun to reach them. So maybe me saying that the city feels dirty isn’t fair… who knows though, maybe it is.

Today I’ve got to decide where I’m heading to tomorrow. I know that I need to see Pisa, but I figure that’s a half-day stop and then I’ll head to either Rome, or who knows where. The problem that I have is the hotel that I’m staying doesn’t have wi-fi, so I can’t get to google maps or book a hostel.

I spent most of the day in my hotel room doing laundry and resting. I’m just tired today. Earlier though I walked around the city to see as many sights as I could. I managed to see all the sights that were listed on the tourist map that I got earlier. Most of it was really interesting, but to be honest it only took me about four hours to make a complete loop of the sights. I’m also not including the things that I saw yesterday either. So I guess it would have taken a few more hours if I were to have seen all the sights today. Right now it’s about 8:30 on Monday night and I just got back from dinner. I usually try not to complain too much on this blog mostly I don’t want anyone reading it to think I’m a complainer, because really I’m not. Tonight though I kind of hit a wall of sorts when it comes to the prices of things here (as well as every other town I’ve been to in the EU). I won’t go into details but it cost me $30 dollars for a plate of spaghetti bolognaise and a beer. It was an okay meal but not nearly worth the amount I paid for it.