by Lufthansa Flyer | Nov 20, 2011 | Trip Reports |
During our stay in Rome last month, we had the opportunity to visit Vatican City for several different experiences. In all there were 4 different things that we were fortunate enough to experience over 2 days. First, was the rare and hard to book tour of the Necropolis (also known as the Scavi). I’ll talk more about this later but this was VERY IMPRESSIVE. Next, was the visit to St. Peter’s Basilica where one is simply awe struck of the beauty that is inside. On the second day, we were fortunate enough to get tickets to the Papal audience which is a weekly address by the Pope in St. Peter’s Square. Then finally, was our tour of the Vatican Musuem which was a showcase for a significant part of the Vatican’s collection and included the Sistine Chapel. The Vatican Musuem deserves its own dedicated report so I’ll work on that over the next couple of days.
Our first day’s visit to Vatican started with an early morning tour of the Necropolis. Tickets for this are extremely difficult to come by if you do not book well enough in advance. For our October trip, I had reserved the Necropolis tour directly through the Vatican in February. The Necropolis tour is not open every day and is limited to only 150 visitors spread over 10 groups daily. The Necropolis is significant because it is actually a Pagan Cemetery that was left intact as Catholic churches were erected directly on top of this cemetery. The first Churches started to appear in the 4th Century with Constantine (first Roman Emperor to Convert to Christianity) building them. The current Basilica dates back to 1506 when construction began. 120 years later, the Basilica as we see it today was completed. Unfortunately there was no photography allowed in the Necropolis due to its frail condition. The Humidity is maintained a 95 percent to keep the frescos from fading. The Necropolis is a series of streets and passage ways that hold the interred remains of those of the Pagan faith back when the Pagan faith was the dominant religion in the Roman Empire. Today you see the chambers and the shelves where marble caskets and other various items are in place holding the remains of those that passed away 1800-2000 years ago. Constantine, being the first Christian Roman Emperor felt the need to send a message, decided to build tributes to his faith in the form of Churches and Cathedrals directly on top of this Necropolis and so began the path to what is today known as Vatican City. When touring the Necropolis you see the ancient foundations of the Churches that pre-dated St. Peter’s Basilica. You also see the foundation of the current Cathedral as well. The absolute key highlight to the Necropolis are the remains of St. Peter. During the tour you see the bones laying on an ancient temple that is directly beneath the altar of the modern Basilica about 10-15 meters above. During our tour, there was a special mass in the Vatican and the singing of the Choir lent an eerie feeling as we looked over these ancient artifacts. If you plan to visit the Vatican, you absolutely should try to get tickets for the Necropolis. In my opinion, touring the Vatican and Necropolis transcends religious beliefs and can be appreciated by anyone.
Now that my poor attempt at a brief history lesson has mercifully come to a close, I can move on to the pictures. Below are pictures of the exterior of St. Peter’s Basilica including St. Peter’s Square.
The interior of the Basilica is worthy of its own separate report, but I’ll cover a few of the highlights here. The Basilica contains several altars and literally hundreds of statues paying tributes to the Apostles, various Saints and former Popes especially those dating back to the first years of the Basilica. For me, there were two overriding highlights that ranked above everything else.
The Basilica is home to Michelangelo’s interpretation of a Pieta. A Pieta is an example of a sorrowful Virgin Mary. Michelangelo’s edition is for obivious reasons the most famous one. Several years ago someone decided to attack this statue with a hammer so unfortunately it has to be displayed behind glass, but it is still spectacular (click on image for full view):
The other highlight for me is The Papal Altar & Baldacchino designed by Bernini. Bernini’s works are prevalent through out the Basilica and Vatican City. The Papal Altar and Baldacchino were his first works inside the Basilica:
Another Masterpiece by Bernini that compliments the Altar is his “Throne of St. Peter”:
Of course there are other wonderful masterpieces founded everywhere within the Basilica. I could list hundreds of statues, and trust me I have the pictures to back that claim. But here are a few of the ones that stood out to me. So many of these look like they could come to life at any moment. Their details are simply amazing. I never knew you can carve stone so beautifully that it looks like the statues are draped in cloth.
A unique display of interred Pope Pius X:
The Basilica also has beautiful mosaics that cover virtually ever inch of the interior walls. I’ll add those images to my “Vatican Gallery” that I will create in the next few days. Please check back in a few days for that addition to my site.
Another unique opportunity that presented itself to us was to be part of the Papal Audience that is held each week at the Vatican. Tickets are free, but you have to request them through a Church or a Catholic Organization such as a Bishop’s office, Diocese, etc. There are agencies that can arrange for the tickets but they will charge you a fee. We requested our tickets online through the Bishop’s Office of The Pontifical North American College located in Rome. CLICK HERE for a link to their website for more information on obtaining the tickets. Keep in mind that on the days of the Papal Audience the Basilica is closed to visitors during the Audience. It opens at 2pm on those days.
The Audience lasted for about 2 hours and St. Peter’s Square was full of Visitors and Pilgrims from all over the World. The Pope addressed the Audience with his message in several languages and acknowledged many of the groups that had traveled to see him. Groups from as far as Australia, Ghana, East Asia, etc. were in attendance. The Pope entered in his “Pope Mobile” and was driven up and down the aisles so that most of the Audience could get a good look. Its recommended to get there 2 hours prior to the start of the Audience to get the best seats since they are first come, first serve. Here are a few pictures:
Security was present, but not obvious. The Swiss Guard is responsible for Vatican Security. Don’t let these individuals fool you. There are “significant” automatic weapons beneath the uniform:
We arrived early, so we had a good view:
A large crowd:
As I stated earlier, a visit to the Vatican does not have to be based on religious beliefs. Granted, its the “Capital” of the Catholic Church but the experience can be enjoyed by anyone. The history and the priceless works of art are reason enough to visit. The Vatican’s Museum that I’ll cover in another report is also reason enough to visit. There are not many places in the world that you can visit and see works by Bernini and Michelangelo almost everywhere you look. To me, this was one of the best parts of our trip. Things that I had only read about in textbooks or seen in movies came to life.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Nov 18, 2011 | Trip Reports |
You have probably already figured out based on the title of my blog that I am a fan of Lufthansa. Over the course of the years flying with them, the reasons for my loyalty have grown with just about every flight. Most recently, I added yet another reason to my list. We had something happen to us that had never happened before, and again Lufthansa demonstrated why they are among the elite airlines of the world.
It all started on our return journey from our visit to Italy in October. On the morning of our departure when we arrived at the airport we proceeded to check in with one of their check-in agents at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport.
The agent had informed us that our flight was extremely full and even though we were flying a business class segment to Frankfurt, asked if we would mind checking our bags to our final destination in the USA to alleviate their concern of too much carry on luggage for this flight. Mrs. LufthansaFlyer and myself pride ourselves on our ability to travel without the need to check bags, but in this instance it actually sounded like a good idea. I figured I can save the dreaded ” :)Do You Know Who I Am 🙂 “conversation for another time and we wouldn’t have to roll our trolleys through Frankfurt or Chicago. The only downside was the fact that we would have to wait for our bags in Chicago after completing immigration through the Global Entry Kiosks.
Since we had to spend the night in Chicago anyway before flying home the next morning we figured it was not a big deal so we checked our bags. No problems with the bags getting to us Chicago and everything was going smoothly.
Once we checked in at the Hyatt Regency near O’Hare, my wife opened her case to get out a few items and discovered that a travel purse that she had packed was no longer in her luggage. Needless to say, she wasn’t happy, especially since in that travel purse were copies of our passports and credit card data. The credit card part was easy, a couple of calls to Amex and Chase solved that problem. My wife however still had that sense of being violated by the fact that someone decided to help themselves to her stuff. In all of our years of travel, we’ve never had anything removed from our luggage, so that sense of vulnerability was new.
I suggested that I’ll contact Lufthansa when we get home to let them know what happened and determine if there’s any recourse. I suspected that someone in Rome screening the luggage either forgot to put the purse back, or decided it would be a nice addition to a wardrobe for someone. Since the screeners in Rome were not Lufthansa’s employees, I was expecting a response suggesting that I had to take up the claim with with Fiumicino since their employees would have screened and handled our luggage.
After communicating to Lufthansa what had happened to us with our lost/stolen item, I received an email a couple of days later profusely apologizing for our inconvenience and experience. The email also informed us that a check will arrive at our home shortly to cover the cost of the missing item.
I was honestly quite surprised. I know that Lufthansa provides an excellent passenger experience but this just adds to their resume as far as I’m concerned. Even though technically it was not Lufthansa’s fault that our item was removed from our bag, they still extended the offer to compensate us for the value of the item.
While no airline is perfect, its an experience like this along with others over the years (holding planes for us, automatically rebooking flights when they anticipate delays, booking hotel rooms automatically when connections to the states were missed, etc. etc. etc.) that continues to reinforce my loyalty to Lufthansa.
We’ve had other experiences with other carriers, both US based and foreign, that do not begin to come close to the great care that we receive from Lufthansa. Because of these experiences and being treated so well by them that I will often fly out of my way just so that I can sit on one of their aircraft. Job well done Lufthansa and Vielen Dank!!
by Lufthansa Flyer | Nov 16, 2011 | Trip Reports |
The next installment of our trip to Italy looks at Sorrento. Sorrento’s roots date back to 600BC where it started life as a Greek Colony. Obviously over the years as the Roman Empire spread, Sorrento, or Surrentum as it was know 2500 years ago, was folded into the Roman Empire and today is a major tourist destination for those visiting the Amalfi Coast of Italy.
We spent 3 days in Sorrento and stayed at the Belair Hotel. The location was brilliant, the accomodations very nice, but the restaurant was something that can be skipped. We found far better food in the local restaurants. 3 days in Sorrento was plenty of time for us to see everything we wanted to see. In reality, we spent one of those days in Capri (click here for that report) and still had plenty of time to take in Sorrento. The main attractions including their shopping areas, historical monuments and churches are all within easy reach of each other allowing you to cover a lot of things quickly. Mrs. LufthansaFlyer and I consider ourselves to be “hit-and-run” travelers. We do not spend hours crawling through musuems and galleries but rather visit the spots we want to see, take them in for a little bit, and move on to the next place that draws our attention. For those of you familiar with National Lampoon’s “Vacation” that stars Chevy Chase, you could almost compare my travel habits to the scene where “Clark” and his family visit the Grand Canyon. His idea of seeing it is to stare at it for a few seconds, arm around his wife’s shoulder, nods in appreciation and off they go. I’m not that dissimilar. But I digress.
Sorrento is a beautiful place. Its filled with many alleys, cobblestone streets and pedestrian boulevards that are brimming with cafes, restaurants, tourist souvenir shops as well as some higher end boutiques. The crowds in my opinion were not bad at all. Perhaps it was due to the time of year that we were there (mid-October) or the fact that not many cruise ships were making port calls at the time.
Part of Sorrento From Our Hotel
View of Part of the Harbor From Main Road
Scenes from the various streets and alleys that make up a fair amount of Sorrento:
Sorrento is also known as a hub for Limoncello. A very,very good Lemon based Liqueur that is absolutely best served cold. And because of that Limoncello is for sale virtually at every shop along the way. Due to the popularity of lemons in the region, we saw lemon “everything”. Lemon soaps, toiletries, toothpaste, gum, chocolate etc. Anything you can make taste like a lemon, or look like a lemon, you can find in Sorrento. Here are a couple of examples:
These lemons are were not quite as big as bowling balls, but close
One of the funnier things that we saw was a local begging for that day’s lunch. This is a smart native:
Step 1: Stare down your Adversary:
Step 2: Do not take your eye off said Adversary:
Step 3: Be humble in Victory:
As it turns out, we would run into this same dog about 30 minutes later walking in a different part of Sorrento, and he still had the bone in his mouth. Must have been quite the trophy for him that day.
In all honesty, I do not have that many more words about Sorrento. Its beautiful. Its set on the edge of a sheer cliff that gives it a sense of Power and Majesty. The construction of its buildings are impressive as many are carved into parts of the cliff. For example, the stair case in our hotel still has exposed rock face showing where it was built into the cliff. Sorrento is set in a beautiful location and is one of the most photogenic cities I’ve ever visited (second only to Venice). We ate well at all the restaurants we tried, but I do recommend skipping the ones that advertise a “tourist pre-fixed menu”. They tend to not care too much about the quality and diversity of menu. But do try the Gelato’s at any of the Gelato Shops. Its the best Gelato I have ever had.
Sorrento is close to other beautiful parts of the Amalfi Coast. Positano is only a short bus or ferry ride away and is a must see (though we didn’t go). The Ruins at Pompeii are also just a short train ride away. So if you plan on visiting Sorrento keep in mind that there are other great places to visit that are nearby.
Sorrento is very easy to reach as well. From Rome, you can take a non-stop Bullet Train to Naples, and then a local train to Sorrento. The trip from Rome to Naples takes 1.5 hours, and from Naples to Sorrento, about 45 minutes to 1.5 hours depending on whether or not you were on the express train. Naples has an International Airport so flying is an option as well.
If you’re interested about visiting Sorrento, please contact me and I can give you additional information to help with your trip.
I’ll end the report with additional pictures: Enjoy!
UPDATE: Thanks Katherine for “reminding” me of the handmade leather sandals that are custom made while you wait. My wife had no problem picking out her favorite pairs as did the ducks that seemed to follow us everywhere:
