Brescia: A Lackluster Finale

After being dragged away from Venice, the final stop on the tour was Brescia. Brescia on the whole is a normal Italian city, which means it kind of sucks for tourists yet somehow still managed to have some aggressive flower- and badly-copied-CD-salesmen. To its benefit, it does have a grand castle on the hill where you can easily spend a few hours wandering, enjoying the views, or lazing about on the grass. And its Santa Maria delle Grazie with its accompanying sanctuary and courtyard easily beats the pants off the more hyped Duomo.

Overall, Italy had good food, nice weather, non-sucky trains, and non-disgusting cities. It far surpassed my expectations, and I completely understand the expats who lasso themselves old, wonderful houses and vineyards there. Hopefully sometime I'll get to make it to Rome!

Venice: Where the Streets (Sometimes) Have No Name

Proxima fermata on my Italy trip was Venice. What can I say, except that I love Venice. I don't love all the little salesmen trying to hawk roses, fake Gucci bags, or light-up flying helicopter things, but I do love the absence of cars, the crazy winding streets, and the old stone buildings.

Contrary to popular belief, Venice doesn't really smell. Sure, there were a few spots where the scent of sewer managed to waft its way out of the ground, but on the whole Venice just smelled like a city (although it might have helped that I was there in spring and not summer and also that there hadn't been any recent garbage worker strikes).

Venice has its own tower, which I didn't pay to go up in, the royal Palazzo Ducale, and the Basilica of San Marco, which is absolutely incredible, covered in gold paint and tile mosaics. (Oh, and also free. Take a lesson, Verona.)

I wouldn't have minded too much getting lost in the streets of Venice and never making it to the train station. After all, there's no being-emo allowed in the Piazza San Marco, and anywhere with that as a rule can't be too bad.

... Where We Lay Our Scene

The rumors are true: trains traveling between Switzerland and Italy really do break down the second they reach the Italian border. Possible scenario for the commuter returning to Switzerland after a week's trip in Italy: your replacement Italian train will show up 20 minutes late, covered in graffiti, and with no working air conditioning. Since Switzerland is so keen on keeping its trains running according to a tight schedule, that super-late train you're on might be required elsewhere, so instead of taking you to your promised final destination, you get dumped off at Arth-Goldau and are expected to wind your way back to Zurich via Zug (the place) and Zug (train). Actual experiences may differ.

Speaking of "differing," never trust Kayak to show you an accurate depiction of the location of a hotel you're booking. I accidentally ended up staying in a 4-star hotel about 10 kilometers southwest of Verona in a little town called Azzano, which incidentally has a pizzeria with the best 4-cheese pizza I've ever tasted as well as some mafia-looking houses surrounded by razor wire. Getting from Azzano to Verona and vice versa was easily accomplished with the Verona area bus system, but the only catch is that the stop names are neither announced nor shown on the electronic signboards (which are forever plastered with the message "Buon viaggio"), so you have to do a little homework beforehand to know when you should expect your stop. (You can ask the busdriver, but he might drop you off about a mile away from where you actually wanted to go.)

I was a little worried that Verona would end up being pretty lame, but I really enjoyed it. Verona has a nice mix of tourists and locals. As it's home to the renowned Shakespeare play, most of the school children and tourists swarmed over to the Casa di Giulietta, but it was easy enough to avoid that location. The Torre dei Lamberti belltower provides a great view over the city and has the added bonus that you can go deaf on either of two different platforms within it when the clocks strikes noon! Neary by the Torre is the Piazza delle Erbe, which is a nice place to stroll through when it's not overcrowded for lunch.

Across the river is the Teatro Romano, perched on the hillside, which also provides a nice view over the city and houses the old theatre ruins and sculptures. The only real disappointment in Verona was that all the churches charge money for admission. Having seen lots of awe-inspiring cathedrals in Bavaria and Austria for free, I couldn't find it in my heart to cough up money to go into the Sant'Anastasia or the Duomo. Plus, there were plenty of interesting sights to see outside, like this artsy lump of locks on a bridge.

The Arrival of Spring and Foraging Adventures

The weather has warmed up, the sun is out, and it's clear that Spring is here to stay in Zurich. The first hints started popping up a few weeks ago in the form of cheerful little purple and yellow flowers in almost every patch of grass, city-wide; it looked like the Flower Fairy had come around and sprinkled seeds everywhere. (I haven't entirely ruled out the possibility that Zurich does in fact have official Seed Sprinkling night workers.)

Every year, I always get excited for the arrival of Spring; it's warm, sunny, and beautiful! Life is great! Yay! But then, every time without fail, I'm reminded why it's actually my least favorite season. One word: bugs. They're everywhere, in the air, on the patio, on your leg, and the worst part? There's no escape. At least not until the weather changes, be it for the hotter or the colder.

Most recently, lots of dandelions have been popping up, and since dandelions are both easy to identify and [allegedly] highly nutritious, I got really excited about the idea of foraging my own. So one day, I collected a handful of dandelion greens and a few blossoms from a nearby field (possibly owned by a local university and/or grazed by cows), washed them enough times to make someone with OCD proud, and cooked them as part of a pasta sauce.

A word of advice: don't do this. If you absolutely must eat dandelion greens, then you should HIGHLY consider blanching them first, as they're very bitter and gross if you don't. Doesn't matter if you sautee them with onions and cheese or anything else, just blanch them first, trust me. My experiment might have deterred me from dandelions.. for the moment. But I'm still trying to learn about edible plants, and I think the next up might be lavender. Stay tuned!

Geneva, Geneve.. Genf

The German name for Geneva sort of conveys my impression of Geneva... Genf. It's not that there's anything wrong with Geneva in particular; in fact, it looks like a regular modern European city (think Munich). It's just that it doesn't match the expectations I had for it.

Since Geneva is home to the UN as well as dozens upon dozens of international organizations, I was expecting the city center to be abuzz with diplomats and embassies. However, it turns out the United Nations buildings are actually located a good bus ride away from the city center, and as the complex was closed to tourists on a Sunday, all I could see was a row of flags and a nice mural on its external wall.

Downtown Geneva has a few nice attractions, including the Jet d'Eau water fountain, some sort of inflatable Kraken coming out of a nearby fountain, and a flower clock.

And of course, like any good European city, it has a renowned cathedral: in this case, the Sainte Pierre, located in the heart of the Altstadt (Old Town).

The Saint Pierre is a fairly standard European cathedral, the main attraction being its colorful attached Chapel of the Macabees. Despite its somewhat stark appearance, the main hall did have a unique, funky-looking W-shaped set of organ pipes.

And also a pretty great dragon duck statue.