Historical sites in Prague

Visit sites for Werner von Braun in current day Poland ( old Germany) many concentration camps near berlin and Leipzig

Train to Frankfurt to see two European space agency astronaut sites and Patton accident and death sites

Also birth sites and museum for Bach, Beethoven and Peter Paul Reuben

We had booked our air canada flight from Rome to lax via Toronto.

At Toronto there was a delay of 2 hours after one of the three generators failed on the ground. After about 2 hours in flight the second generator failed. So the pilot announce we have to land immediately at the nearest airport which was Minneapolis. It took about 3 hours after midnight to book all of us at the 7 am delta flight. We are about to board that flight after another 3 hours wait.

What an end to the vacation.

We had a pleasant surprise ( almost a jackpot) with reference to Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins. He had given us the street name 2 years ago. When I checked the street had 5 different locations in different areas. We just took a bus and went to one near us. In fact we missed the first bus in a different bus and ended up taking a different one stopping at a different part of the long street. Walked for a few minutes and saw the marker showing the birthplace. How lucky we were!!!!. We were all thrilled and Bharat was really happy.

Modern art museum was very different in the sense that they had sculptures from Canova. Though look classical now, were modern in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

Looked very different and interesting compared to other modern art museums I have seen.

The Etruscan museum is a must see for everybody. Huge unique collection from from different necropolis ( place of burial) around Italy. They are from about 500 years before the romans ( 500 BC).

Barberini museum of ancient art had many painting from famous artists such as Rafael and Caravaggio.

The museum of Roman bath was again amazing with huge structures ( multi story high) with bathtubs pool area etc.

We took a bus to go to a location for the Marconi obelisk. A huge obelisk in his honor. We were surprised to see a completely different area with bid roads modern building and offices. Must have been a newly developed area.

We could not visit the Marconi area near bologna ( his museum, burial place etc). May be next time.

There is Marconi artifacts everywhere: Marconi radio station in Vatican, museum and burial near bologna, exhibits in science and technology museum in Milan, obelisk in Rome etc.

we go through so many art museums in a day. We should take a class on art appreciation back home so that we can better appreciate it next time. But we have taken thousands of pictures and so we can still understand and appreciate.

The second day trip was to Florence which is only 90 minutes away by train from Rome.

We could not get the tickets to see David ( acedemia) and the archeological museum closed at 12.30!!. But we have seen them before and also gave us more time to spend on others.

The churches:

Santa Maria novella, duomo , Santa Croce ( where famous people such as gailileo and michaelangelo are buried and also has memorials for Marconi, fermi and Leonardo da Vinci)

The piazza michaelangelo is on a elevation and away from the town and so you can see a beautiful view of Florence from above.

Piazza del signoria was the original location of David which was moved to acedemia.

Both these piazzas has replica David statues.

One interesting fact is all these museums have changed the policy for taking photos: allowing photos with no flash. A big change from last time. Sistine chapel is the only exception.

Since we had two more days on the railpass, we decided to go on a day trip to Milan from Rome!!. Three hours drive each way.

But the train journey was very pleasant: reserved first class seats with free snacks, coffee etc and also gave us time for updating the blog etc.

Since we did not have enough time to explore Milan during our stay there ( due to visits to Turin, Brescia and bologna) this worked our very well. The first two museums were amazing.

Pezzoli has a collection of everything: paintings, jewelers furniture, sculpture etc.

Brera was an old art school and had unique art paintings from sculptures from very famous artists: Rafael, Peter Paul Rueben etc

Took early morning train from Rome to Naples.

Instead of combining amalfi coast with pompei we took a tour of amalfi coast separately from Naples, that is why we were able to visit 4 towns spending an hour to walk around for an hour in each. I’m glad we did and I strongly recommend doing this.

Each town was uniquely different and were really scenic with house on slopes with beautiful coastal areas excerpt for Ravello which was interior on an elevation with beautiful garden. All the towns had very artistic churches. While everybody talks about Amalfi the other towns were more beautiful. We also had pasta with no cheese for lunch.

There were only six of us in a minivan which was almost like a private tour.

The train museum was about 8 KMS away. It was amazing that the whole road was with stones in an extremely busy part of the city.

The train museum was a real surprise. It is located near the Pietrarsa rail station which was the first rail line in Italy. They had about 15 old steam locomotives. We saw some early 1900 electric locos ( Italy takes pride in their electrification very early ie 1902). We saw the cars one used by the king and other used to transport criminals ( jail train – I haven’t seen this before).

Next we went to the archeological museum ( this is a national museum and so had artifacts from different parts of italy).

It was interesting to see so many artifacts from Pompeii which explains why we did not see artifacts inside the building during our visit to Pompeii.

We finished the day with a visit to the duomo. There is a world of difference between Rome and Naples in terms of streets. Naples is absolutely chaotic with chairs outside the restaurants covering the whole street with hundred of people walking . It was scary since we were warned about the pickpockets.

We were going to Naples area on three consecutive days first to pompeii, next to museum and lastly for the amalfi coast tour

We had a wonderful guide again who kept us engaged throughout the tour. I was happy Bharat was able to climb all the way near the top and be back. It was lot steeper than I had thought and was not an easy terrain to walk. We got a good view of the crater and also great views of Naples and the sea on the way up and down. We were given just 35 minutes up and 35 minutes down.

We had a delicious pizza marinara ( no cheese pizza ) close to Pompeii. Pompeii was a lot more than I had expected ( during our last trip we were advised to go to Ostia antics near Rome instead of Pompeii). It was amazing that the whole city wS under 8 meters of ash for about 1700 years.

Some of the structures were amazing and the houses ( we were able to see the inside contents of the houses in the Naples archeological museum the next day)

With the help of a guide we were able to see the highlights in about 90 minutes.

We had some time before the Vatican tour. Walked to the beautiful Santa Maria della vittoria church famous for the Bernini sculpture Ecstasy of saint teresa and also beautiful baroch style decorations.

Took subway to Vatican (got help from somebody that the nearest metro station was closed and so walked to termini station).

The Vatican tour was very crowded. Since started raining all tour groups went inside at the same time. Using the latest digital display ( usually reserved for very special tours but was available and so the guide was able to use it. For almost 10 minutes went through every aspect of Michaelangelos Sistine chapel – American guide studied Italian history in Italy and giving tours for 17 hours).

First to the Vatican museum through sculptures, tapestry rooms and map rooms.

Next onto St. Peter’s basilica. Saw the basilica with the michaelangelos pieta.

Took metro to San Giovanni Lateran church. In some ways this is considered one level above St. Peter’s.

Next we took one of our best tours of the trip by a guide who had studied archeology ( 3 hour nonstop tour) – Oldest part of Rome ( Roman forum), palatine hill and finally the colosseum. Fortunately the rain stopped for the duration of the whole tour. We were able to see part of the columns made with pufuri, temples and huge structures and walls.

Recently they had excavated the on of the training houses for the gladiators. There was also a special exhibit on excavated artifacts from colosseum showing marble carvings of men fighting animals.

This is about 50 Kim’s away so I had to be creative about how to use taxi and train. I wanted to avoid waking up very early. Also we had to come back to Rome for the 2.30 pm Hadrian villa and estate tour.

So we took taxi to another train station Roma Tiburtina to take a direct train to bracciano then took a taxi from there to the museum. There was no taxi at the stand but a young lady helped to call a taxi. We used the same taxi for coming back to the station.

The museum was amazing with original one of a king Italian planes from world war 1 2 and later from companies like macci aeromacci fiat Caprioni and also American fighters.

There was also a space suit from astronaut Roberto Vittorio which made Bharat really happy. Bharat was really happy since he went on the last Endeavour space shuttle mission.

We requested the taxi to stop for a few minutes to take a picture of a castle from outside. (currently privately owned – where Tom cruise and Katie Holmes wedding took place).

The train was again on time back to Termini station. We took a 4 hour tour to Hadrian villa which was constructed in the second century AD. He wanted to have a villa outside the palatine hill in Rome. You can still see a lot of of ruins fairly intact with big structures.

The Tivoli gardens ( villa d’este) was constructed by Pope Paul iii in the 16th century with beautiful fountains, garden and falls over multiple levels. The small villa also well decorated rooms.