This time I am in Egypt – YAY!  Getting back to my ancient roots, hoping to meet a few Mummies and perhaps a Pharaoh or two along the way.

Of course my first stop was an obvious one.  Let me give you a guess, it’s big and it’s really, really old!

Got it yet?  (I kind of guess it’s pointless trying to make you guess since there is a big photo just below – hehehe)

Well, here I am at the Pyramids of Giza!

Ok, so the run down on the awesome, good, and not so good….

First with the awesome; as you can imagine the blocks are huge (although anything is huge compared to me), and I did get VERY excited when I saw them from the taxi to the hotel.  The area is bigger than I thought, and the great thing is everyone seems to see the pyramids in tours all the same way so there are a few areas that I had all to myself, which I wasn’t expecting for such a popular site. Lastly, they are the pyramids, need I say anymore?!?

The not so good is having the locals follow you everywhere and that the pyramids are right up against the city (including a pizza hit and a KFC straight across the road), however, if you look at the pyramids with the city to your back, you can still imagine them as they were so many years ago!

If you are planning to go, here are some ‘Chicken’s handy tips’ so you don’t pay too much while inside the complex:

1. If you are offered something as a ‘present’ do not take it, they will demand money for it, and much more than it’s worth!
2. Same happens if they offer you to just sit on a camel, if you do, they will walk you around and charge you 4 times the amount for the privilege.
3. Make sure you agree to a price first, and keep in mind, once you pay that price you will be asked for additional money (the reasons will vary ie “To make my camel happy”, “did I make you happy?  Then I should get something extra”), so you might want to factor that in too.

Having said all of that, if you politely say no thank you, they get the hint after a while. Oh and don’t walk over the pyramids…hehehe, I saw someone walking over one of the satellite pyramids, so I thought I would do the same….Oops, not allowed, I had people yelling and blowing whistles at me (although not before I got a nice view and a couple of pictures!).

Anyway, back to more photos!  Down the road a little is the Sphinx, make sure you don’t miss it!

Do you see any resemblance?

and here I am again…say cheeeeeeeeeese

So that was my first little adventure, next I am out of Cairo to see some temples!!

Yay!

It was time to say goodbye to Italy and on to Switzerland.  For some reason we got into ‘the zone’ when it came to driving, we continued to drive, over the border and kept going until realising it was 2am, and there was no chance of finding anywhere to stay.  Just at that time we stumbled upon a rest stop, so we pulled over and made ourselves comfy in the back of the car.

We awoke early to a lot of fog on the windows, jumped out and it was freeeeeezing and SNOW (well, a little anyway)!  Can you believe it?!?  I will certainly make sure I remember to take a bit of notice before launching myself out of bed in the morning (of course we didn’t park near the toilets, so it was a very cold walk).  Ready to go, and off to Brig….

Brig, such a great place, we walked around, found a nice restaurant and a very nice place to stay (well, I have to admit anything is probably nicer than the back of a car and a bathroom that you have to get through snow to visit!).  The next day found us on the train heading to Zermatt…..Being the silly people we are, we didn’t plan on staying over night (If you go to Zermatt, make sure you do!), so we had the choice, go up on the cog railway for awesome views of the Matterhorn, or ride the ski lifts?  We really wanted both, but didn’t really have the time, so of course we went up the cog railway.  Here is me now on it:

Once up the top we had some lunch, and walked around, the small amount of snow melting….but I still made sure I got some photos:

Matterhorn

More Matterhorn, with its very unmistakable shape

Making the most of the snow (which at this time had hardened up, but it was still snow)!

A close up shot, hoping that it would look like there was more of it, but alas, I think I failed!

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]]> http://chicken.travelunearthed.com/switzerland/out-of-italy-into-snow/feed/ 0 http://chicken.travelunearthed.com/switzerland/out-of-italy-into-snow/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TravelChicken/~3/J2NQoAko8_Y/ http://chicken.travelunearthed.com/italy/is-that-all/#comments Mon, 25 Oct 2010 11:19:08 +0000 Chicken http://chicken.travelunearthed.com/?p=472 After a break,  I am resuming my travel updates….apologies to anyone that might have thought the leaning tower of Piza did lean that little too far and ended this little chicken.  I am alive and well.

So, getting back into it, Florence….First stop was the Cathedral (or specifically The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore), must see while you are in the area, great dome, and fantastic views from the top…but as per usual I spent all my time taking photos that I forgot to get in them myself!!

From there I spent some time in the botanical gardens (very pretty), then a visit to David.  Now I must admit, I am not a big fan of sculpture, but there really is something special about this piece of work, it’s captivating.  I can’t quite think of why, it’s one of those things you just have to see for yourself.  It’s quite humbling (and bigger than I thought).

We weren’t allowed to take photos inside, however there is a replica of the statue in the square (Which I can’t remember which one it is)!

So, for your viewing pleasure it’s David and Chicken!

Oops too much chicken and not enough David

and now not enough Chicken and too much green stuff

I will be back later on with more Chickeny goodness

Ohhhhh, I must have been in Italy for too long because I actually was meaning Piza, well, actually Pisa (close enough to make the very lame joke work though, surely)!  But for the record, this Chicken quite likes pizza too!

After a bit of a mammoth drive from Pompeii, we arrived in Pisa in the afternoon, we drove around for quite sometime looking for a car park (ended up finding one a fair way away, but after all that driving the walk did us good!).  Speaking of driving, the drive around the streets was really interesting, the buildings houses and structures were not as I expected and were really interesting and cool, I think it’s worth visiting just for the drive around!

Anyway, oh, just incase anyone hasn’t picked up just yet why we were looking for a car park, it was, to see the great Leaning Tower of Pisa.

So we stretched our legs and headed off, on the way we stopped and made a new furry friend, a very cute dog that was tied up outside in the sun looking very thirsty, so we gave him some of our water (well, ended up being the whole bottle, since we didn’t have anywhere to pour it into and he slobbered all over it), a pat and some attention, which he seemed to like and continued on (he tried very hard to follow us, however the lead just got in the way!).

Finally reached the Leaning Tower (I am making it sound like it was the world’s most mammoth walk….it was actually only about 3 blocks!), and just to be like everyone else, we posed in the usual way – where you pretend to hold up the tower, however for me it was a little difficult without any arms to speak of, so I went for the “giant chicken” pose:

Giant Chicken!

and here is another of me:

Yay, look at me, I am at the Leaning Tower!!

I will probably shock some people when I say we decided against going up inside the tower, something I will probably regret (although I prefer to see it as an excuse to go back – hehehe), as the wait was over 3 hours, and we were keen to get to Florence so we could spend some quality time there (TIP: Get your tickets to go up the tower before you walk around and see everything, they only let a certain amount of people go up at a time).   I have since seen some night shots of the tower (I am a sucker for pretty buildings lit up at night!!), and kind of wish we did stay, oh well, next time.

We did spend a fair amount of time soaking up the atmosphere, I was very impressed with the grass, it was very comfy and soft, nothing better than sitting on the grass outside a great building enjoying the sun….not too much can beat that!

Anyway, back to the tower, I must say hats off to the crappy soil and less than perfect foundations on which it was built, it is certainly much cooler with the lean.  And it actually leans more than I thought (photos just don’t do it justice!)…..it really looks like it is leaning just that little bit too far

What some people may or may not realise, is that the tower is part of the Cathedral of Pisa complex, and I must say, the cathedral and baptistery were equally amazing.  As a site, it surely is impressive (Even if you have been through Europe and seen every Cathedral known to man)!  So, I was one happy chicken….

So just thought I would quickly log on to let people know I haven’t died, just been resting…..hopefully will be back to normal in a couple of days

Finally, made it to Pompeii and it was a bit more special than I thought it would be.   For those who might of heard of Pompeii and don’t know what it is.  Pompeii is a coastal town in Italy (about 2 hours south of Rome), and in 79 AD Mt Vesuvius erupted, burying the town in 30 ft of ash, volcanic mud and debris.  It was left for around 1700 years until it was excavated, leaving what was left of it really well perserved.

I must admit I severely underestimated the size of this place, it’s seriously big!  I only got a couple of photos, below is the Forum.

If you look closely you can see Vesuvius in the background, and if you really use your imagination the cloud above it kinda looks like a big cloud of smoke or steam…

Above is the forum again, don’t you just love ancient sites that let you touch and walk on the ruins?

Walking around is amazing, it was quite the sophisticated society, with bars and bakeries (although i wasn’t sold on the open toilets that are located right on the side of the streets).  The Amphitheater is pretty cool, but I just love walking down the cobbled streets, kind of eerie really.  The most surreal thing was seeing the casts of the victims, you could clearly see their expressions and most were of complete and utter horror, not the way I want to go, that’s for sure!!

But the best bit?  It was raining a little, and while I was wondering around I met a very nice security guard, who actually let me go behind the scenes, into places that were roped off and behind gates.  It was pretty cool, I did get photos, but didn’t get any with me in them.   We saw some amazing tile work and detailed wall paintings, it was pretty awesome, I must say.

Next we decided to go up and see Mt Vesuvius, we drove as far as we could, the last 200m is done by walking.  We weren’t sure whether we should, but once we got there we were pretty excited, this chicken certainly has never been up close and personal with the mouth of a volcano before, especially one that manage to bury it’s surroundings!!  We were told there was a little wait, but it was cool, we were more than happy to.

We waited until after a couple of hours, we realised  we weren’t going to get to see it, part of the track had been ruined in the rain, and we were told it could take days to fix.  It’s always the way, you always want to do something heaps more when you are told you can’t.   I had to let this go, we didn’t have days to wait, infact we planned to leave the next day.  So,that was that, 200m from seeing the top of the volcano…

Back on the road tomorrow.

Well, this chicken got a little bit too excited about Pompeii and completely forgot about this little place called the Vatican City!!!!!

Big Oops!

Soooo,  we have a full day looking around (which, is not nearly enough time), so many great things all in the one spot (well, one very big spot!), first up was St Peter’s square, and it’s big, much bigger than I thought, it has a stage where the pope talks, I tried to get a photo with me talking on it, however, they wouldn’t let me (I was even thinking up a very inspirational speech to go with it).

We checked out St Peter’s, very impressive indeed, the strange thing is that this place is big, it’s impressive, great decorations, lots of things to see and just check out the only photos that I got inside……I think this chicken has a subconscious morbid side:

went for a little walk up some stairs to check out the dome:

Awe pretty!  Next we went onto the roof for an awesome view.  Actually the roof was pretty awesome in general, especially the statues:

Next we went to the museums and checked out the Sistine Chapel, that man can sure paint!  I especially loved the 3D effects.  I didn’t get any photos as you weren’t allowed to take them, plus it was soo busy in there that you could hardly move!  All in all a pretty good day I must say!

Ok, so I can say for certain that Pompeii is the very next stop!

Did a huge amount of walking around Rome, deliberately getting lost to see what I could find (oh yea, and got not so deliberately lost too!!).

I went and saw the Pantheon, which is such an interesting shape, and I learned that when it was built you used to have to get to it by a set of stairs, however the ground level around it has risen so much that they are not needed anymore – how cool is that!  I wonder if future traveling chicken will need steps going down if the surrounding ground continues its rise?

Next, I checked out the Trevi fountain, I had no idea that it was in such an enclosed space, it was during the day so I didn’t get it to myself (and I was running out of mornings!). This was all my camera was able to capture (oh and it’s not straight because Yas was holding the camera up as high as she could, she’s not the tallest person in the world, and there were people infront – I am just glad that she actually got some of me in it – hehehe):

The next day I went on the archeological bus tour, too much to fit in a day, however, I did see the aqueducts, and while cool and important, they weren’t as impressive as I thought they would be (I am sure I had seen photos of better than where we went!), anyway it was a bit rushed and I forgot to take some photos…. the last photo I took in Rome was of a very important place, a place that once you have been too you will never forget……… Yay, the best Gelato place in the world!!!! (actually I took this photo because this was recommended to me, and wanted to make sure it was noted that I had been. There was a very long line, a billion different flavours, it was very hard to make important decision like that under pressure – but I did and it was goooooooooood!):

So that was my trip to Rome in a couple of posts….oh yes, last night we decided to have dinner in town (pizza, we were sticking with the Italian theme), followed by a movie, completely forgetting we relied on a train to get back.  As complete luck would have it, we got to the station just in time for the very last train (and when I said just in time, I mean running to the train).   That was a lucky one….

I am going to stick my neck out and say I will be back to Rome, while we saw as much as we could in the week we were here, we didn’t get many relaxing days and there still was a tonne of things to see.  I am still deciding about my favourite ‘really big’ cities – the big ones at the moment being Paris, Rome, Moscow and Vienna (which scrapes in).   I think I felt the most attached to Vienna, something about it I just loved…but for sightseeing Rome and Paris are neck and neck….. we will be going back to Paris to drop off the car, so I will think about that some more.

Tomorrow we head further south to Pompeii, which is somewhere I have been really looking forward to, so am excited about that.

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]]> http://chicken.travelunearthed.com/italy/roman-chicken/feed/ 0 http://chicken.travelunearthed.com/italy/roman-chicken/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TravelChicken/~3/ih6pZ1rEdGo/ http://chicken.travelunearthed.com/italy/chicken-in-roma/#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:52:44 +0000 Chicken http://chicken.travelunearthed.com/?p=417 Well it certainly isn’t tomorrow as I promised however, I will try make up for it in photos! (apologies all round for my lateness).

We traveled down to Rome on the toll roads, which I realised was a big mistake. First because they arn’t the cheapest, and secondly we were in a country known for it’s scenery and we took the biggest road we could find. I guess the good news is that we will be coming back up so we have a chance to fix it.

We arrived in Rome pretty much in peak hour.  And managed to get very lost, I think we must have drove around for an hour looking for where we were staying, and when we found it, we couldn’t get to it as it was on the other side. During this time I managed to come up with a few observations about drving in Rome:

1.  During peak hour single lane roads can somehow fit 2 cars

2.  Vesper riders have a serious death wish (they would dart infront of us without notice – and seemed to love it when there was barely enough room)

3.  Parking is seriously done as if on a cartoon….if the space isn’t big enough, you just nudge the car a little infront and behind to fit in (we were told there was a waiting list of up to a year to get your car body repaired), we saw 3 cars do this just on our way to dinner!

4. When approaching a T-intersection to a main road DO NOT STOP and wait for an entrance, you will be met with a lot of angry people behind you.  You just slow down,  drive into the traffic, and somehow people just make room for you.  If you are worried, just do what I did, close your eyes and it will be over in no time – although probably don’t do that if you are driving (hehe)

5.  When you are tired from driving in circles, just do an illegal left turn into where you are staying (oops!)

6.  Finally I can say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do!

The strange thing is, all of the above seemed to work well, so I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad system (although the parking is a little rough), however, it didn’t stop us from unanimously agreeing that the car would stay put until we needed to leave!  Luck had it there was a train station about 15 mins walk from where we were staying. Not to mention a lovely street filled with some food places down the road.  What more could we want?

Ok, so back to the sight-seeing part.

The next day we got up, and caught the train into the city, and of course our first stop was the Colosseum!  We hired a guide to take us around and give us some history. I would give you a snippet of the good stuff, however, he told us so much and I was too busy looking around to notice (hehehe – when the site lists it as a wonder I will link to it – how’s that for laziness?!).  Anyway, it was very big and would have been awesome to goto in it’s glory days and see a show or something. I am not sure about the killing and fighting stuff, but maybe a performance of the chicken dance or something would be cool (or, maybe not! lol)

We enjoyed it so much that after we finished we had a lovely drink across the road so we could relax and enjoy the view.  Ok, I will now be quiet and show the pics:

Pity I couldn’t put the photos next to each other, they would nearly line up and you would get double chicken!!  Coooool.

Next stop was Palatine Hill, and according to mythology,  it’s here where the story of Romulus and Remus begins. I always love a good mythological story, don’t you?

In the below picture, can see the white building with the statue?  Well, that just happens to be one of my favourite places in Rome, the Piazza Venezia, I didn’t get any photos with me in it, I am not sure what it was about it that I like so much, because it happened to be one of the busiest places traffic wise.  I think I visited it a billion times (yes, I might be prone to a little exaggeration!!), however something about it drew me to it.

While we were walking around we found this beautifully manicured pathway that was kind of like a huge maze for this little chicken….so I thought I would have a bit of a play before continuing with our sight seeing:

In the following days we saw the Spanish steps filled with huge crowds, so I vowed to get there first thing to see if things got any better, and I am so glad I did, check it out:

Well, I have some more photos to show, but I will leave it for next time.

Arividerchi!

Where should I start, Venice.  We spent a couple of days in Venice.  The first day, we got off the ferry, walked over a little bridge and on the other side was a building with huge spray painted words saying  ”Kill the tourist”, for a second I pondered and agreed that if I was to live somewhere similar that was crawling with tourists I would feel the same way (oh except the killing part, not so keen on that!!).  But, then I realised that comment was directed at me, and became a little disturbed by it.  lol.

Venice was almost what I was expecting.  It did feel like I was walking around a postcard, everything seemed familiar for some reason, the canals, the bridges, coloured buildings, all very pretty.  Things I wasn’t expecting was the small winding alley ways, lined with shops filled with beautifully made masks and all sorts of stuff.  Secondly, when we arrived to St Marks the entry was flooded, we had to walk along fold up tables, and lastly it was a little dirtier than I expected.

I looked up about the flooding and it’s actually reasonably common, with the city sinking and the water levels rising, you don’t realise how much of a threat the city is under until you can see it actually happening.  I must admit I did love seeing the tiles on st marks floor through water, just made them look even more special…and by the time we finished looking around the flooding had gone enough for us to walk out.

One thing I regret, is that after seeing Ljubljana all lit up beautifully at night, transforming it completely.  We never did see Venice at night, I have a sneaky suspicion that it would look just as stunning at night, however, I will have to wait for my next trip to find out!

Oh yes, here I am on the Rialto bridge (wow it was busy, we had to wait a while before getting to the middle to take this photo – but the good news is that I love the attention, and I always get attention when there are crowds – yipeeeeee)!  See, it was a perfect day, with a great view:

I am actually now in Rome, however, I will come back and post on that tomorrow (I am making a conscious effort to get more photos, so lets see how that goes!).