Category: History

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More Copenhagen highlights

Before leaving Copenhagen, we wanted to share a couple other highlights of our adventure here.

Our stop at the 1847-founded Carlsberg Brewery was both educational and tasty, and it featured some very nice clydesdale horses.

Carlsberg Clydesdale

We enjoyed a slightly more refined evening at the Jazzhus Montmartre, a Copenhagen institution that was lost and brought back relatively recently.  We actually sat next to an older man who had used to come to the old Montmartre back in the day, and he said that it was almost the same today as it used to be.  He also pointed us to another more hidden jazz club in the middle of town that was open all night.  We made sure to check this other spot out as well, but unfortunately, they didn’t have any live music the night we were there.

Jazzhus Montmartre

We had a pair of very traditional Danish Christmas lunches complete with pan-fried filet of fish, slices of pork, smoked salmon, some pickled vegetables, and rye bread.  Although it may not have been our favorite cuisine of the trip, we were happy to be able to walk away from our journey having tasted traditional Danish foods.

Danish lunch

We visited Nyhavn, a 17th century waterfront, canal and entertainment district in Copenhagen.  The canal is lined with brightly colored townhouses that all have fun little restaurants on their bottom floors.  The best way to describe this area is cute.  We enjoyed some lunch, some shopping, and some walking around while in Nyhavn.

Us in Nyhavn

Nyhavn Copenhagen

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Touring Cartagena

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“Your taxi is here!” Olga exclaimed as we quickly decided what to pack for our day trip into Cartagena. Cash, cards, sunscreen, a couple of Cliff bars, both cameras. We came downstairs to find Olga and our driver for the day, Alberto Blanco, stooped over a map bickering over the best sites in the city, plotting our day with a pen and paper.

“Are you on your honeymoon?,” he asked as we cuddled in the backseat, equal parts giddy and anxious about the day’s adventures. Apart from our view of Cartagena in the airport taxi, we’d done almost no research to prepare us for what was ahead.

So we started at the only place to start: the top of the city. “…Si no has subido a la popa, no has vito a Cartagena!” the poster read.  Alberto had taken us under his wing, proudly describing the history and significance of the site. Pointing down toward the city, he explained the day ahead as we oriented ourselves in the heat of Cartagena.

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We ventured back down the steep drive, then up another, landing at Castillo San Felipe de Barajas castle. The audio tour was just 15,000 pesos extra ($5). We were already in a learning mindset, so we splurged, but the headphones hung a half-inch from either ear, making hearing the bombardment of names and dates nearly impossible. (We gave up and read the Wikipedia page instead.) With headphones wrapped around our necks, we stuck our bodies against the cool walls of the tunnels, walking around the castle to capture pictures so that we wouldn’t forget what heat exhaustion threatened to wipe from our memories. (Kinda dramatic, kinda not.)

Alberto swooped us away from the hat vendors (“Don’t buy them here. The price is not fair.”) and into his air-conditioned taxi where he blared jazz music as we drove into the walled city for lunch. Olga had chosen the destination, and we chose platters of chilled rose, ceviche, fish balls, and platters of shrimp served with a coconut rice we had come to love.

Ignoring the suggestion to venture from lunch to the gold museum, we strolled the walled city, popping in and out of air-conditioned stores for reprieve. There was something magic in the liveliness of color set against the suggested safety of the wall.

When we met back up with Alberto, he was eager to show us more, showing us how to sneak in to the most expensive hotel in all of Colombia and introducing us to his mother outside of his childhood home. One of us coaxed the other down from a heat-induced meltdown with the purchase of agua sin gas before Alberto insisted on driving us through the only neighborhood of Cartagena we hadn’t yet seen. We reasoned together that should we move to Cartagena, this is where we’d find our high-rise apartment.

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By 8:00, we were ready to relax over dinner at Carmen where we quickly decided on the extravagant tasting menu with wine pairings. Three hours later, we emerged full, relaxed, and a little bit tipsy. Alberto met us as planned, ready to drive us back to Olga’s, this time with his wife in the front seat. It had started to rain, and they bickered in Spanish about road safety during a rainstorm. “Don’t worry,” he told us. “If we cannot make it back, you will stay at our house. We have an extra bedroom, a bed, it will be for you, no charge.”
We made it back to Olga’s safely, and absolutely exhausted. We tucked ourselves into the mosquito net and drifted to sleep.

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Pompeii

Pompeii is overwhelming.  This city, which was captured because of the preserving ashes of the nearby volcano Vesuvio, shows a very different time of human culture.  Strolling through the maze of stones and rubble, I find myself trying to imagine this other time.  The hoards of tourists do not help, and I am reminded when my dad and I visited Jerash in northern Jordan, which was also an unreal and expansive exhibition of Roman ruins but without a tourist in sight.  Pompeii and Jerash are on two different scales in terms of grandeur; however, given the lack of other human life when walking through the ruins of Jerash, it was a bit easier to transport myself to that earlier time thousands of years ago.

pompeii1

pompeii2

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While in Scotland

We see snow at Loch Ness. It hails during our Glenfiddich tasting. There’s at least some rain everywhere else. But we also get our share of sunshine, and the fleeting ephemeral nature of it makes it that much more special. Here are the a list of the places in Scotland that we visited while constantly being teased by the clouds.

Lodgings:

Cherrytree Villa Guesthouse, East Mayfield 9, Edinburgh

Inch Hotel, Fort Augustus*

Highlander Inn, Craigellachie*

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Food:

The Holyrood 9A, 9A Holyrood Road, Edinburgh*

The Tea Rooms, Edinburgh Castle

The Elephant House, 21 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh

The Piemaker, 38 South Bridge, Edinburgh*

Clachaig Inn, Glencoe, Argyll**

Mitchells, St. Andrews, Fife

Artisan Roast, 57 Broughton Street, Edinburgh**

Ireland-Scotland-002-500pxDrinks:

Kilderkin, 65-67 Canongate, Edinburgh**

The Old Bell, 233-235 Causewayside, Edinburgh

Glenfiddich Distillery, Dufftown, Banffshire*

Fiddichside Inn, Craigellachie, Banffshire**

Highlander Inn, Craigellachie**

The Macallan Distilleries, Craigellachie*

Tomintoul Distillery, Ballindalloch, Banffshire**

Conan Doyle, 71 York Place, Edinburgh

BrewDog, 143 Cowgate, Edinburgh*

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Activities:

Royal Mile, High Street, Edinburgh

Stirling Castle, Stirlingshire

Glenfinnan Viaduct, Glenfinnan, Highland

Loch Ness, Inverness-shire**

Urquhart Castle, Dumnadrochit, Inverness*

St. Andrews Cathedral

The Old Course, St. Andrews

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Joe Brandi

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Joe Brandi is Speyside. As the proprietor of Craigellachie’s famous Fiddichside Inn for the last fifty years and having lived in the region his entire life, Joe embodies everything great about this part of the world. His bar sits in a room no bigger than 200 square feet with a warming fireplace and a constant stream of locals sharing their stories of old. When asked what’s changed in Craigellachie over the years, Joe mentions only the disappearance of the railroad stop. Naturally, we ask when that happened, and he responds in 1968. In other words, not a lot has changed. Prior to tending to Fiddichside, Joe spent some of his youth working as a generalist at the Macallan Distillery and afterwards as a cooper making the beautiful oak casks in which the local Scotch matured. His shaky hands pouring semi-measured drinks, the pictures lining the walls of his family, and the rainbow of scotches from golden to reddish to dark wood, all create a memory of Speyside we will not soon forget.

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A wee bit of learnin’

Today, the tour of the Kilmainham Gaol, the former Dublin prison, enlightened us about the last couple centuries of Irish history. The prison, which was built at the end of the 18th century, housed many an Irishman, especially through the troublin’ times of the potato famine. Also, it wasn’t always a pretty site, as it became the site of many public hangings. Through hearing about the history of Kilmainham Gaol, we also learned of the Irish struggle for independence from the United Kingdom starting mostly in 1916 and the controversial treaty that was signed in 1922 that began a very messy Irish civil war. Ireland hasn’t exactly had an easy history, and the bumps and bruises worn by this prison can tell much of it.

dublin-jail

The other part of our educational day happens at the Guinness Storehouse. We learn of all the ingredients that go into this fine beer: barley, hops, water, and of course the propriety Guinness yeast. The barley is milled and then mixed with hot water and mashed. The grain is filtered out, the hops and barley is added, all of which is followed by the whole concoction being boiled. Arthur’s yeast is added to ferment, everything is allowed to mature for a while, and finally the beer is then packaged, shipped, and drunken. “Guinness is good for you.” ~Guinness’ slogan

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guinness-bar

 

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King’s Highway

Leading from Egypt to Damascus and referenced a couple times in the Bible, the King’s Highway has been traveled at least a couple times over human history.  It served not only as an important passageway, but also as a critical trade route and later as a Christian pilgrimage route.

Today, as we make our way from Amman to Petra, making many stops along the way.  We venture to the top of Mount Nebo, the spot where Moses was allowed to see the Holy Land, but not allowed to enter.  We explore Madaba, the “City of Mosaics” and its very accurate mosaic map of ancient Palestine on the bottom of St. George’s Church.  My dad and I, as to not disappoint, spend a while so that we could memorize this map.  And near the end of the day of driving, we run around the Crusader of Castle of Kerak with its underground galleries, rooms and secret passageways.

View of Israel from Mount Nebo:

In the evening, we arrive at Petra, probably the most famous destination in Jordan excited to spend the next whole day in this ancient Nabataean city.

 

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The Meta Church

Rome is old
Rome is new
It’s tale’s fold
As times flew

By this time of the family vacation in Rome, there is a clear morning routine of showering, breakfast, commenting on how lucky we are about the perfectly cool weather, and so on.  For breakfast, Julie, I, sometimes George, and sometimes Mom would go to a nearby cafe for dopios and pastries.  The dopios we drink immediately and then we return to the apartment with the pastries soon after.

Roman Forum

After we figure out a way for all of us to get out of the apartment close to on time, we again meet up with Alessio to tour around ancient Rome.  The idea that these monuments are more than two millennia old takes a little time to register.  In California, if there is a building that is more than two centuries old, it is considered ancient; however that designation requires another order of magnitude of years in Rome.  The coliseum, the pantheon, and the forum are in such good condition despite their age, many still stand tall.  Because the factor of safety in those buildings’ columns is high, the main thing missing from them are materials that have now been “recycled” around Rome in palaces, homes, and the Vatican just to name a couple.

Ancient Rome

After a morning filled with Rome’s antiquities, we explore the Basilica of Saint Clement, which I have renamed Rome’s meta church because it is a church made of churches.  The structure is three-tiered with each tier serving as a religious building in its time.  The bottom tier was home to Roman nobleman with rooms set aside for worship.  The middle tier was a 4th century basilica.  And the top tier, built around the year 1100 is St. Clement’s Basilica.  This is the clearest demonstration that we see during our time of Rome that Rome is a city of layers that have been built on top of each other over the ages.

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Palazzo Colonna and the Villa Medici

I have spent a fair amount of time in Rome over the last month, but it is not until today that I realize what I may have been passing on the street.  Behind closed windows and plain facades, some of these buildings house ornate rooms with invaluable art collections.

walking through Rome

Today, we tour the Palazzo Colonna and Villa Medici with Filippo, a fabulous guide introduced to me by Gabe.  The Palazzo Colonna is in central Rome and has belonged to the Colonna family for about 900 years.  In that long history, the Colonna family had a Pope (Martin V) as well as many distinguished family members.  Every generation, the family picks four individuals to reside in the house and monitor its upkeep, and to their credit, the current condition of the palace is immaculate.

We walk through the Colonna Art Gallery, which is a series of rooms that grow in grandness as the tour progresses.  The last room can only be described as overwhelming.  The art, the furniture, the marble statues, the frescoed ceilings, and the chandeliers all create this masterpiece that is the final room of the art gallery.  This gallery is considered one of the largest private art collections in Rome.

After a short walk through the streets of Rome, we arrive at Villa Medici.  The Villa Medici is now property of the French State and houses the French Academy in Rome, which is used as a home for winners of a prestigious art prize.  The villa’s gardens and especially the view they provide of Rome will be my lasting memory from this visit.  Standing literally on the edge of the city, all of Rome is presented before us and we start to piece together all the different sites we had thus far seen.  Not only is today’s tour beautiful in its own right, Filippo and the sites we walk through help provide a context for the rest of our adventures in this historied city.

I also cannot forget to at least quickly mention that Charlotte decided to join us for today’s adventures.  At the young age of only 10 months, she also seemed to enjoy herself when she wasn’t hungry or tired.  Italians love their bambinos (babies), and this was made obvious on several occasions by how the rest of us were treated when accompanied by our newest family member.  Navigating through the supermarket was easier, finding places to sit was easier, getting attention in almost every endeavor was easier.  Charlotte, after all, is pretty cute with all her waving, clapping, humming along cobblestones, and giggling.

Villa Medici

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Tuscany Driving, Part II

Our first destination today is Pisa, where I have the chance to revisit its famous leaning tower.  Soon after arriving, the sky opens up and it starts to pour.  We avoid some of the rain in shops and some more with a cafe dopio.  It does eventually begin to clear and the sun even shows itself.  The area around the tower, duomo and chuch is a zoo– the zoo’s animals beings tourists and the cages being ropes.  Although not long after my last visit just a couple weeks ago, being back in Pisa feels a little like walking around my college campus well after graduation.  I am there in a new context, with new people, with new goals, and places with attached memories seem changed.  I enjoy being back, but everything seems strangely familiar.  After all, I was only there for 24 hours the time before.  Pisa is our main stop of the day, but we still have more of Tuscany to see before returning to Lucca.

The Arno in Pisa

Our next stop is the Marina di Pisa, a small town on the water that is logically close to Pisa.  The town feels like it used to be a hotter vacation spot than it is today, and in fact, the town was mostly built in the late 1800’s and then more in the 1930’s.  That said, our quick visit is not the best judge of Marina di Pisa’s popularity because the wind is strong, the sky is still cloudy, and the temperature isn’t warm.  People may be hiding from the elements.  After Pisa, we do a drive through of Tirrenia and a gelato stop in San Giuliano Terme.  San Giuliano Terme, according to Frommer’s, is a reminder of the 18th and 19th century golden age, when its hot springs were renowned throughout Europe and drew some famous visitors.  Today’s drive features more windy mountain roads, more tunnels, and more bridges, picturesque enough to encourage me to try to snap a couple photos from behind the wheel.

San Giuliano Terme