Dienstag, 17. Juni 2014

Wherever I May Rome

I visted Rome from June 6th to 9th, 2014. This trip was organized by the local travel agency Springer Reisen and it started from the airport in Graz/Styria on June 6th, 8:30 p.m. We arrived at the airport Fiumicino about 1.5 hrs later with Blue Panorama airlines, but still had to wait for the luggage about an hour and it also took some time to get from the airport to the hotel via bus, so I went to bed after midnight. My hotel was the **** Hotel Archimede, Via dei Mille, 19, close to the train station Termini.

Airport Graz/Rome Hotel Archimede
   

I also ordered me the RomaPass, so I was able to use all the public transport systems for free during those days and for the first two sightseeings the entrance was also included and I didn't had to queue, which was pretty comfortable.

On Saturday morning my first way after breakfast at 7 a.m. was straight into the city with direction Colosseum and Forum Romanum. The weather could not have been better, but it was also pretty hot, so I had to drink a lot of water throughout the days. There are many public fountains in the city, where you can fill up your bottles with fresh and tasty water, so keep an eye on it before you're running dry. The water quality is excellent, coming straight from the moutains around Rome!

Saturday Colosseum/Forum Romanum/ Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele/Villa Borghese
  

As I exited the Colosseum the queue was like 300m long, so I think the RomaPass is really a must have. Instead of waiting hours you can walk straight in. After being hours out in the hot sun, where I've seen a lot inside the Colosseum and Forum Romanum, I wanted to cool down a bit, so I used the metro to finally find a shady place, the park around Villa Borghese. Had my dinner on this first day in the Hard Rock Café, where else, one of the best places to let a day end!

On Sunday morning I went with the metro up to station Lepanto and from there first to Piazza del Popolo. I took a walk down the river Tiber. There are many trees besides the river where you can walk in the shadows and it's not so hot. I visited the park around the Castel Sant' Angelo, where I just sat down and listened to some quitar player on the street and then went on to St. Peter's Basilica. Basically I've spent the whole day by just strolling through the city and the streets. Of course also went down to the Fontana Di Trevi where close by I got me some delicious ice cream. There were some many people and decided to come back later this day before sunset to take some photos of this place. In the evening I went to the Pantheon which is extraordinary. A dome with a hole in the middle, wherelse to see something like this?! Nearby to the west there's also the quite famous Piazza Navona. There's a lot going on at this place and some entertainers try to keep the crowd happy. On my way back from Piazza Navona to the Pantheon I already felt pretty hungry so I decided to eat something at the Piazza della Rotonda in the restaurant Napoletano's opposite to the Pantheon. Had Spaghetti Carbonara and Tiramisu as dessert.

Sunday Piazza Del Popolo/Castel Sant’ Angelo/Corte Di Cassazione/Vatican/Fontana Di Trevi/Pantheon
     

On my way back to the hotel I stopped by once again at the Fontana Di Trevi to have some better light conditions. Handheld panorama consisting of 4 single exposures. A few days before I've read that the renovation work already started so I didn't expect to get any good shots but this worked pretty nice, though I had to shot through the fence.
Especially for the next few shots I disassembled my tripod at home to fit into my bag and assembled it again in the hotel. Didn't use it during the other days, cause it was too hot to drag it with me all the time. Always important to have a tripod with you, to take some long exposures at night. Perfect timing, right at blue hour I arrived down there in front of the Colosseum to take the photos I wanted.
It was a starry night with also the moon at the right position to enhance the photo a little bit. As I went around the Colosseum a bridal couple and phtographer came across as well a big family of Japanese with professional photographer were down there to make family portraits!


At the last day, on Monday, I took the metro up to station Cipro and took a guided tour through the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. The tour took from 9:30 a.m. till 01:30 p.m. First I thought, maybe it works for getting to top of the dome, but I had to be at the hotel again at 4 p.m. and the queue in front of the entrance was too long.

Monday Vatican Museum St. Peter's Basilica
   
For these few days, not even three full days in Rome, I have seen quite a lot from west to east, north to south, of Rome and maybe, who knows, I'll be able to see some more things once again in future, cause it's absolutely impossible to see everything on a weekend!

A selection of my best-of photos I've taken during those days is also available to be downloaded in high resolution online on my stock photo portfolios. Feel free to share if you like!

Dienstag, 3. Juni 2014

4 Days In Italy/Cinque Terre/Pietrasanta

My parents heard about a bus tour to Italy from some of their friends in early 2014. As I took a closer look on the information written in the travel catalogue and seen some photos of the area there, I wanted to see all this on my own and decided to come with them too. In the following two images you can see the route as well as a topview of the area around Pietrasanta.

This represents the shortest path from home to our hotel there in Pietrasanta, not sure if the busdriver exactly took this route .

A Topview from the area around Pietrasanta as seen in Google Earth
Our Hotel, the Hotel Milton, was located in Marina di Pietrasanta very close to the sea, from where we started our daily tours. The weather was pretty cloudy and also rainy, but we were able to do everything what has been planned for us. Been the first time for me to be so close to the sea for a longer time and we have really seen a lot during those days. We started our trip in Radenthein with a bus from the local travel agency Bacher Reisen on Thursday, May 1st 2014 at 6 a.m. in the morning. Our busdriver was Heller Bernd, who knows everything about this region. It took us ~10 hours to reach our destination, but on tour we had two stops for about an hour each. As we arrived in Marina di Pietrasanta a big market was going on in all the streets, where one could find everything one wanted, starting from flowers to food and craft.

Marina Di Pietrasanta Street Market, took place all the days we’ve been there.
On Friday we took a ship tour from La Spezia to Porto Venere and onwards to Cinque Terre. In Porto Venere we had a stop for an hour and took a look around. We went up to the Chiesa Di San Pietro and down to La Grotta Di Lord Byron. Was pretty exciting, sadly no sound on the photos, but mabye you get a feel how the waves crushed to the coast.

La Grotta Di Lord Byron, as it was a rainy and windy day some breakers rolled in, that’s where my facial expression comes from :) Not felt that safe, cause didn’t want to get washed away!

I’ve never been on a ship at sea before and this one had the full power mode on. Really had to spread my feet into the planks to be able to take sharp photos and to compensate the shake of the ship. Our tour guide, named Anna, showed and told us all we need to know. From Riomaggiore we took the train back to La Spezia and with the bus back to our hotel. I’ve never been on a train with so many people. I was surprised the train had the power to transport the masses, a lot of tourists were visiting these cities.

Monterosso & Riomaggiore, we stopped in Monterosso where we had ~3 hours, time enough for lunch and sightseeing
On Saturday we visited the marble quarry in Carrara and had a local guide named Mario who was an police man before he retired and he turned 90  three days before. For that age he was in fabulous shape and a really funny guy, who told us about the quarry and the people there!

Marble Quarry Carrara, pretty impressive there. also took some presents with me from the shop up there. Our guide told us a lot about history and that decades ago they delivered a marvle block 600t heavy to rome pulled by oxen.
In the afternoon we visited Lucca which was also quite interesting, we took a two hour guided tour through the city and we’ve seen a lot of churchs and all the  architecture there.

Lucca, impressive architecture everywhere
On Sunday morning it was the one and only day with more or less blue sky so I used an hour in the morning, before we were leaving, for taking some shots of the Pontile di Marina di Pietrasanta.

Pontile Di Marina Di Pietrasanta, at least on Sunday, the day we left, the weather got me some blue sky for taking some beautful seascape photos, taken right before breakfast
Hope with these pics you can enjoy a little bit as we did and if so feel free to share the links or download photos from my stock photo portfolios and maybe I can show you something more soon.