Travel

Visiting the Vatican

/ Greg / 1 Comment

Our trip to Italy had started on some high notes – a Sunday soccer match and a great first meal.  After a deep, long, wonderful, jet lag induced sleep, our Monday in Rome got off to a planned later day start.  We had entrance tickets for 1pm at the Vatican Museums to give us plenty of time to sleep.  On that note, take it from me (and a host of other easily found information online) – buy your Vatican tickets in advance online.  There’s a surcharge, but it saved us from at least two hours standing in line waiting to get in.  We walked past an enormous line the likes of which I had never seen before, and right into the museum.

My art and painting interests lie more toward the modern end of the spectrum, so the trip through the Vatican Museums was more about seeing a few of the high points and not getting too bogged down in the details (of some truly amazing art… just not my particular cup of tea).  One of the first stops was these three Raffaelo works, in particular, the middle one – “Transfiguration”:

Inside Vatican Museums

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Rome: Let the eating begin

/ Greg / 4 Comments

Our Italy trip was, of course, going to be about eating and drinking well for two weeks.   We got that kicked off right away on our first night in Rome.  Knowing we would be jet lagged and coming from a soccer match earlier that afternoon, we planned ahead and made reservations at a restaurant near St. Peter’s Basilica.   If there’s one thing I’ve learned from a decade of serious traveling, it’s that you should plan your first meal post-arrival.  There’s nothing more frustrating as being in a new place, tired and hungry.

Armed with great recommendations from some gluten-free bloggers (thanks!), we arrived at La Soffitta Renovatio about forty five minutes after leaving Stadio Olimpico.   Not personally in need of their gluten free menu, I opted for an Italian beer, a Peroni rossa, to quench my thirst from sitting in the sun all afternoon:

First beer in Rome

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Sunday in Rome means football

/ Greg / 7 Comments

After a long day traveling and an overnight flight from Montreal to Rome, my body’s natural inclination was to get to the hotel and lay down for a nap.  But on this trip to Italy, there was one and only one chance to participate in the most Italian of traditions.  A tradition bordering on religion to many Italians was to take place at 3pm on this Sunday afternoon.

Calcio.  Football.  Soccer.   It was something I wasn’t going to miss.   After a remarkable cultural experience watching my first European soccer match last year in Prague, weary body and mind wouldn’t keep me away from joining 30,000 others for the afternoon’s Lazio-Sassuolo match.  From touchdown of our plane through train and subway to our hotel, then subway and tram to Stadio Olimpico, we made it just minutes before the match was to start.   The Lazio supporters and ultras had already taken up their traditional place in the Curva Nord and were warming up their voices as the players were introduced:

Stadio Olimpico in Rome for a Lazio match

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Exploring Boston’s North End

/ Greg / 2 Comments

After spending a morning walking through Boston’s urban park, the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, it left us just across the street from the city’s famed North End.   There are many attractions in this area, the oldest residential neighbourhood of Boston.  It’s well known for its Italian American population (which means outstanding food and drink!) and it’s also a great area for some picturesque urban exploring:

Boston's north end

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When the moon hits your eye…

/ Greg / Leave a comment

Rome, then Naples, then onto Sorrento, and then back to Rome for the flight home.  For the better part of two weeks, this stretch of Italy dazzled me.  My wife and I saw so much on this trip that it will take a while to process it all.   The Roman Forum, Pompeii, St. Peter’s Basilica, the isle of Capri, the Colosseum, the Amalfi Coast… there was almost too much natural beauty and history to comprehend in two short weeks.

This trip had more than its share of pleasant surprises and great moments, and it didn’t hurt that not a drop of rain fell the entire time we were in Italy.  We enjoyed a Sunday afternoon at a Lazio soccer match with the home team emerging victorious.  We drank wine overlooking the Bay of Naples as the sun set.  We hiked up Mount Vesuvius to look in its crater and to soak in the views from its peak.  We sailed around Capri and along the Amalfi Coast.   This was a trip of postcard views everywhere we looked:

Capri

In addition to the natural beauty, the eating on this trip was outstanding.  A simple pasta dish in a small restaurant in the Monti neighbourhood of Rome was the best thing I’ve had on any trip this year.  Pizza in Naples has spoiled me for what we call by the same name in Canada.  I had the softest, most perfect gnocchi in Positano, spaghetti and clams in Sorrento, Trippa alla Romana in Rome, and the flaky, creamy concoction called sfogliatella in Naples which I will crave until my next visit.

More to come over the weeks and months ahead as I sort through thousands of photos and put words to what was a remarkable exploration of a beautiful slice of Italy.

Where once a highway stood

/ Greg / 1 Comment

When Boston went through their “Big Dig” project to bury highways cutting through the core of the city, they had a great idea for some of the above ground land that would be freed up.   Instead of building up an already densely populated area, the city converted the reclaimed space to a varied and beautiful park, the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, that snakes along the path of the former John F Fitzgerald Expressway.

On what can only be described as a perfect Sunday morning back in July, my wife and I took the subway to South Station and started exploring the Greenway from its southern tip.   I’m a city dweller, an unabashed fan of big cities and I’m particularly fond of the beauty in the interplay of an urban cityscape and parkland.  There’s no shortage of this along the Greenway:

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway

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A summer night at Fenway

/ Greg / 3 Comments

This has been a great baseball year for me.  At the time of visiting Boston in July, I had already been to a Cubs game, White Sox game, and three Blue Jays games.  All of those were incredibly fun, but I think I saved the best for last for my first visit to Fenway to see a Red Sox game.  I’m a baseball fan and will always go to a game if I’m visiting a city during its team’s home stand, but seeing a game at Fenway is something particularly special that I had wanted to do for a long, long time.

On a very humid July evening, my wife and I arrived at Fenway to get inside as early as possible.  Lots of others had the same idea:

Waiting outside Fenway Park

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Getting into Harvard

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Maybe it’s the lifelong student within me, but I’ve always had an affinity for college campuses and feel that the new year starts in September rather than in January.   So there was little doubt that a visit to Harvard was going to be on the itinerary on my recent visit to Boston.

A short ride from the centre of Boston via the subway and you’re in Cambridge, a world that feels far different than the fifteen minute trip it took to get there.   Here I am standing just outside one of the majestic sets of gates allowing entrance to Harvard Yard:

Entering Harvard at Holworthy Gate

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Looking ahead to Italy

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My wife and I each keep  a “top 10” list of the places we most want to visit.  It’s a list of destinations that is the answer to the question, “If you could only make ten more trips in your life, where would they be?”  Once or twice a year, usually fueled by a bottle of red wine, we pull out scraps of paper, recreate our lists, then compare them.   Where they intersect is usually where we focus some planning for an upcoming travel adventure.  A couple of years ago, it’s how we ended up touring Scandinavia for two weeks.  It’s here I have to make a confession – although our big trip this fall is to Italy, that country or any of its charms has never made any of my previous top ten lists.

Flying in and out of Rome, this trip will combine the Eternal City, a quick stop in Naples, and a stretch of time based in Sorrento to explore the Amalfi Coast as well as Mount Vesuvius, the ruins of Pompeii and the island of Capri.  As I’ve been planning this trip, I’ve come to realize the error of my earlier thinking.  I’m giddy at the thought of visits to the Roman Forum, Colosseum and Vatican as much as I am for simply exploring Rome’s neighbourhoods and piazzas.  I have starting creating what seems like a never ending list of food and wine to sample and am wondering how much pizza a man can eat in 24 hours in Naples (I can almost assure you it will be one too many).    I’m practically trembling with anticipation for the Lazio football match on the Sunday afternoon we arrive as a novel way to work through the effects of a red eye flight.  In my mind, I am imagining sitting on patios high up above the Amalfi Coast and Gulf of Naples sipping limoncello and local wines while looking out to sea without a care in the world.

So Italy, I’m sorry you hadn’t made my previous top ten lists.   But I’m coming to visit you anyway and couldn’t be more excited for the experiences I’m about to have.  Here’s to seeing you in October and to a couple of weeks of la dolce vita!