Rome: a visit to the Protestant Cemetery

Finally, after years that I watched from outside along the way back home from college , I finally visited the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, which is located in the district of Testaccio . It is a small cemetery where were buried non-Catholics people (I'm not sure if it is still possible to be buried there). There are also some famous people: Keats, the English writer, Goethe's son, Gramsci and Miriam Mafai (the first was an Italian politician and journalist, Miriam Mafai was an italian writer). As "entry ticket", who is responsible for the maintenance of the cemetery asks for a donation of 3 € and groups are asked to go to '"information office" before starting the visit to the cemetery. As soon as you enter, you realize that the cemetery is quite small, but to visit it well it takes (at least) an hour. There are several graves which are truly special and deserve to be seen. For example, there is one on which the flowers aren't placed in a vase on the floor or directly on the grave, but they are placed directly in the hands of the statue I was looking for especially one statue: the statue of the “angel of grieft”, which I had seen in a video of TG2 (the news program of the second channel of Italian public television) dedicated to angels of Rome After that I found it, I went to search the graves of famous and important character, as Antonio Gramsci (the italian politician and journalist) and Miriam Mafai and also John Keats (his tomb is located in the old part of the cemetery, which looks more like a park than a cemetery!) There are still many things to say, even if the place is really small. But I prefer to leave a few more photos: This is one of those cases in which the images say more than words!

A trip to Nicosia

I restart the story of my holiday in Cyprus telling you something about Nicosia, a city "divided in two" and always full of tourists, despite the heat. From the Karavella station, in Paphos, me and my mum we take the bus at 07:30 in the morning. Once we arrived in Nicosia we descended along the main road of the city and we climbed up to the "observatory of Leda street" to see the city from above. Then we enter into a very small church, but very nice: the church of the Archangel Michael Trypiotis We continued our walk and we passed a small mosque closed to tourists due to the presence of the faithful We stopped at the Cathedral of Agios Ioannis, close to the archbishop: very small, but really nice. Beside it there is also the Ethnographic Museum of Cyprus. We decided, therefore, to climb on the walls (built by the Venetians when Venice was one of the Maritime Republics) and arrive at the "Famagusta Gate", the best preserved, before we go to lunch. After a quick lunch, we passed the controls to enter in the Turkish part of Nicosia and we stop to take a ride in what once was a caravanserai So we went to the mosque, but we watched it only from outside. We leave the "Turkish Nicosia" and, after a brief visit to the handicraft center in Cyprus, we take a coffee along the main street waiting to go back to Paphos.

Travels and good intentions for 2014

I want to dedicate the first post of 2014 to what lies ahead for this new year... I speak in the plural because, by now, we are a bit like a big family and we move forward together: I write about my own experiences and you read (hopefully with pleasure) my stories. The events for this year are really a lot and I'm very happy. As for the destinations in Europe, the ideas are many and those that have taken shape, or are substantially taking it, are three: The first goal in the old continent will be Berlin. I'm going there in March and it's only the first trip of the year to be confirmed: flight and hotel are already booked and I can not wait to leave. For too many years I have said that you want to visit Berlin and, finally, the moment has arrived. Another goal that is getting closer is a journey in Dublin. I do not know the dates yet, but the itinerary is ready and will be the destination of my summer holidays! It is another city that I want to see for a long time, and I decided to go this year, possibly in late June, early July. I will keep you updated and if you have suggestions recommended to me as well! There is also the idea of ​​going to see Prague, braving the cold : the idea is to go in the Czech capital on New Year's Eve 2015 (Yes, I decided long time before... I know it). Maybe I come back to London... (I know not that I love this city , right?) In the middle of these European trips there will be many others trips in Italy: I will spend, at the end of January , two days in Abruzzo. When it gets a bit ' warmer and the days will be longer , I'm going to walk through the "SnowWhite forest" (I find that is in the Tuscia thanks to a National Geographic's article). I have a gift box to use (but I will talk about it further), and probably I'll use it to go somewhere in the region of Marche, a region that I have never visited. There would also be many other places that I would like to see and visit , but I would avoid to make an endless list of places: we are not here to do your shopping list ! I hope I can still give many useful tips for traveling ... What do you say , you will be traveling with me this year?

A year-end walking between stations in London

We arrived at the end of this year.. The sums of the'll pull through April, when the blog will celebrate its (first) three years of life: numbers, visits, visitors, inquiries and requests, I will assess all the next "blog birthday". Over the past two years (and a half) I've leaved and returned many times. Often I went by train, a way of travel that I discovered during these years. I traveled by trains in Italy, England and in other European countries. Today, in this post, the last one of 2013, I wanted to take you around in some of the main train stations in London. The train stations, after all, are not just places "where you take a train, perhaps running to not lose it". Train stations are places of passage, in where many people meet and collide leaving or returning. Those are places where people greet each other, only to find themselves a few days later... Or even after months In a train station there are a lot of people waiting for a train or waiting for someone (who knows, maybe boyfriend or girlfriend), or run in order not to lose it. I often pass through these buildings, strange places out of time. Places of thoughts and feelings that you are unable to stop. And, after all, during the last two years (and a half) have been years of train takend and missed, expectations in deserted stations. Years of books read in those long waits and views that ran beside me between one station and another. The stations in London are special: they are not old, but even modern. They are "half and half" , the buildings of the past, the first ones, have been updated, systematic, and integrated with new more modern parts. this makes them special, almost enigmatic

The archeologial part of Paphos

In this post I'm going to talk about the “archeological Paphos”. What does it means? I'll tell you: one thing that I noticed and that struck me a lot is the amount of archaeological remains that we are in this city. Turkish bath of the Ottoman age, amphitheater of the Hellenistic period and tombs of various period of history, which are directly accessible from the street. One thing that impressed me a lot of this city, perhaps the thing that struck me the most, is the amount of archaeological remains that are found in this city: a turcho Ottoman-era baths, amphitheatres and tombs of the Hellenistic period directly accessible from the road. All visible without any entrance fee (or "free offer") you can find these remains just walking along the streets. However, because there is a but, there are absolutely no descriptions that tell us what we're looking at, except in rare cases (for example, the column of St. Paul and the Monastery of Chrysorrogiatissa). You can try to figure out what you are looking at using a tour guide (me and my mom had the Lonely Planet guide of Cyprus), but it is not at all simple. Precisely for this reason I admit to not knowing how to give a precise path to follow to see all these things, but I can tell you what you can find wandering the streets of this village in Cyprus, in addition to all this, it also shows signs of the crisis that hit countries of Greece a few months ago (as he told an Italian girl I met them, it seems a carnival in bankruptcy). Let's start with the remains of a Roman amphitheater: I have not found the entrance, so I took the pictures from behind a sort of fence that separate it from the road Near this site, there are Turkish baths from the Ottoman era: you can't get in, but you can peek inside. We continue with the column of St. Paul and the Monastery of Chrysorrogiatissa, that are near, one facing the other. This is the place where, according to the story, Saint Paul was flogged before starting the evangelization of the area. There are, between the column and the monastery, the remains of several columns. We could not enter the building because of a function (the thing that we immediately noticed, standing in the doorway, was, in addition to the interior, the voice of woman holding the function: there're used to that!). Then there are the (small) Catacombs of Solomon. These are marked with a (small) sign, just because small, it is difficult to notice Then we come across in some caves. We imagined that these were tombs, also on the basis of what the guide said. Unfortunately, due to the fact that things are marked bad (or not) we had to go for exclusion :) The fact that these sites are pretty much left to themselves struck me very much! The town of Paphos is practically an open-air archaeological site that should be taken care of! There is, in these remains, so much (too much) history that should be preserved, because it can then be told to future generations.

Four days in Paris

Today I'm going to tell you about my short trip to Paris. I have already spoken about the useful information in another post so,today, I can talk only about what we saw and we did in my four days in Paris. We walked a lot and we also got tired a lot, but we were in Paris, a very beautiful city (even though my favorite European capital remains London). We arrived on Monday at lunchtime, we took the "OrlyBus" and then we walked to the hotel, with a lunch break annexed. The afternoon of the first day we did what we could call "tour of the churches": after the first stop to the Pantheon (ticket costs 7.5 euro), where there are buried several important person of the French history, we headed to 4 churches close enough to each other and near the Latin Quarter (the area where our hotel was located): Saint Severin, small and very beautiful (in my opinion it must be visited), Sain Julien le Pauvre, evidence of the transition from Romanesque to Gothic style, Saint Germain des Prés with its Romanesque bell tower and remains of the Merovingian construction(visible in the Saint Symphorien chapel), ending with Saint Sulpice, the largest church in Paris after Notre Dame. To conclude the day we went for a walk into the Jardin du Luxembourg, getting close to where we were housed and it really is a place to relax. Of this garden hit the tables to play chess (and the crowd of observers), tennis courts (and yes, there are people who play there) and the area for playing boules. It affects the large amount of chairs made available to the visitors of the park as there is a ban on sitting on the grass On the second day (Tuesday), we woke up early. We started our walk with a visit to Notre Dame. I do not think that this place need many words to be described: beautiful and impressive. From there we moved to the Conciergerie/Palais de Justice. Next to it there is the Saint Chapelle that we have not seen for the long (very slow) queue that was there. The ticket, however, costs 8.5 Euros (with discounts for certain categories). We moved towards the Louvre through the Chatelet and Saint Germain l'Auxerrois (parish of the French royal family since the House of Valois settled in the Louvre). So we go to the Place de la Concorde through the Jardin des Tuileries. We had lunch and then we rested at the hotel (it looks like an easy path, but it is quite long and tiring). In the evening we took the subway and to go to Montmartre, where we visited the Sacre Coeur and we remained open-mouthed in front of the view of Paris (you will see all, or nearly so, the most important monuments of the city). So here we had dinner in Place du Tertre. We started our third day in Paris with a walk to the cemetery of Saint Vincent, the smallest cemetery in Paris. Then we moved to "Montmartre Cemetery" where are buried many important figures of the past (such as Hector Berlioz, Stendhal, Edgar Degas and Dumas fils). So we went to the famous Père Lachaise cemetery, looking for other important characters of the story: in that cemetery there us, among others, the grave of Jim Morrison (and Heloise and Abelard, La Fontaine, Gay Lussac, Balzac and Delacroix). We stopped to have lunch (there were two p.m. passes for a while) and then we went toward the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées. You can go to Paris without seeing, at least once the Eiffel Tower? Of course not! So we arrived to the Jardin du Trocadero, with its fountains, and then we passed under the Eiffel Tower, symbol of Paris. We walked through Parc du Camp de Mars, at the end of which you can see the military school, to take the underground to go back to the hotel. We had dinner in a Japanese restaurant in the Latin Quarter (many of these japanese restaurants offer the fixed price menu for two people), we took something to drink in a pub and go to bed (we were really tired). the day of departure we had the whole morning free before having to go to the airport (our plane was at 17:50). We decided to go to the Musée d'Orsay: there's not much to say, except that it is well worth a visit! If you have less than 26 years, you can enter for free! We had lunch and then we went back to take the Orlybus, with the promise, sooner or later, to came back in Paris(maybe for a slightly longer period of time!). You find all the photos of Paris on Flickr. I remind you that you can follow me on instagram , facebook and twitter.

Some usefull information about Paphos (Cyprus)

Paphos is an ancient port city that is located in the western part of Cyprus. We can say that the city is made ​​up of two smaller cities: “high Paphos” and Kato Paphos , the "lower city". Kato Paphos is the part where is located the port of the city, with a large area that at night became pedestrian and, always in Kato Paphos, you will find all the touristic shops and restaurant, the beach of the town (in this post I talk about some of the beaches I visited in the Paphos area), the biggest part of the remains of ancient civilizations and the two main bus stations in Paphos. The bus stations are those of "Harbor" which is close the port and that of Karavella . These stations are the two bus terminal from where depart the buses that run through the city and/or to the beaches closer to Paphos (almost equally divided between the two ). From the bus station of Karavella also depart the "intercity buses" for those who want to visit other cities (eg Nicosia ) Now I tell you something about the bus tickets. The tiket for the Paphos area ( for example those for the beach), are avaible in three version: "one way" that costs 1,5 € (every time you change bus, you must do it again ), “daily” at 5 euro and “weekly “ which costs 15 € . The one-way ticket costs 2.5 Euros at night. For the "intercity buses" I saw on the website of the company that the price depend on the route: for example, for the bus that takes you to Nicosia the "one way" tiket costs 7 € (for the return you will have to do it again ) and the daily costs 13 €. The buses are always punctual with regard to the departure time and I found a small booklet with all the bus timetables at the station of the port. Some places are, however, difficult to reach by bus and you have two alternatives: the first one is to rent a car in one of the many car rental that you can find in town (remember that in Cyprus you drive according to the left, as in London : Cyprus was a British colony), the other is to contact one of the agencies that organize excursions around the island. I tried the one called “Ruslan Travel” to go to the Troodos Mountains and I can not complain , the trip was well organized , and to visit Famagusta and Ayia Napa I went with the “Eos Tour: I admit that, in my opinion, we spent too little time in Famagusta and Salamina, especially since the city is located in the Turkish part of the island and you have to spent a lot of time to pass customs controls. Between the two I preferred the first one, but keep in mind that I've only tried one of their tour, so I could be wrong :) You can find along Poseidon Avenue, the Tourist Center of Cyprus that will give you all the information you need and also various maps of the area :)