Cultural Differences #2: Italians x Germans

Va bene!!! To close the Subject La Bella Italia, I would like to post a video from the Goethe-Institut that my former Italian teacher sent to us last year about the cultural differences between Italians and Germans. It's a very funny video and I'm sure you'll like it, especially if you're one of them. :-)

I just feel like I should make a small comment here... I have to admit that Brazilians are just like Italians in most of the examples given on the video! humm maybe a tiny little bit less messy... As most of the Brazilians have an Italian relative on their Family History Records, it's not to wonder why we're so similar!

Hope you enjoy it!

In time, for those who haven't been in Italy, don't speak any Italian but still wish to visit it, my advice is to be prepared! Don't count that they will understand and talk English to you, as they don't appreciate it and are really proud of their language. As an example on how "good" their English can be, please watch the following video, which, in my opinion, you can consider yourself lucky already if you find someone that talks like this there!

Hope you had some fun watching the videos! Bis zum nächsten Mal!!

La Bella Italia: Venezia

As most people know, Venezia (Venice) is a city located in north of Italy, in the Veneto Province and it's famous for its architecture, canals and gondolas. Some people consider it one of the most beautiful cities in the world. 

Well well, as I have been there already last year, I decided to go again this year and try to get to know it in a different perspective. I have to say, for the people that have never been there, it's absolutely mandatory to go by boat through the Grand Canal (Canal Grande) and have a view of the beautiful Palaces, the Rialto Bridge, until you finally reach the Piazza San Marco. As I've seen this perspective before, I decided to go on foot from the Railway Station to the the Piazza.

First thing I did was to get a map at the tourist Info center, after struggling with the Italians cause - no matter where in Italy - they will always try to squeeze themselves in the queues before you, and pretend they haven't seen you. As I became too German in some senses, I couldn't let that happen and as a good Brazilian that I am, I complained a loooot. "Scusaaaaaaaaaa, Signore!"

The map can be helpful when you want to check where you are, if you're close or not to the Piazza, but you can live without it. There are signs everywhere pointing to the Piazza San Marco or to the Rialto bridge, so you can't really get lost, unless you decide to take another very different way. And you can just follow the tourists and you will eventually end up there! To go back to the Station is the same, just look for the Ferrovia signs. 

The walking way is not as beautiful as when you take the boat through the Grand Canal because you see the back of the houses and palaces and they are not the same as in the front, but it's still interesting if you wanna get to see the little canals and get to know the city as it actually is. It took me maybe one and a half hour to reach the Piazza San Marco and one hour to go back to the Ferrovia. Of course you can go faster when you don't take lots of pictures and eat a peace of pizza on the way!

Here are some pictures I made... I hope you enjoyed reading this post!

 Canal Grande

 Ponte di Rialto

  Basilica di San Marco

 Palazzo Ducale e Basilica

Canal Grande

La Bella Italia: Vicenza

Vicenza is a lovely city located in the Veneto Province, north of Italy. My cousin Mirian lives in the outskirts of it, in a town called Altavilla Vicentina. In the end it's more or less one big city cause you don't really have a division between the two of them. 

Mirian and I went on Sunday to visit the historic Vincenza. It is a very cute and preserved place. There were no people walking on the streets that day, except us and a few tourists. The shops were all closed, except for the ones selling Ice Cream, which by the way, was a great thing to help against the 35°C of that day. 

            

There is not that much to visit in Vicenza, but it's quite nice to walk on the streets and to admire the houses - their beauty and architecture. But there's one place to visit in Vicenza that is truly unforgetable: the Teatro Olimpico (Olympic Theatre).

The Teatro Olimpico was constructed in 1580-1585 and it's one of only three Renaissance theaters remaining in existence (the two others are located in Sabbioneta and in Parma). The theatre was the final design by a famous Italian Renaissance architect called Andrea Palladio but it was not completed until after his death. It is built in an old fortress, and the rests of it can be seen right at the entrance. As I read somewhere (and I think it is one of the best ways to describe it), it is a roman theatre in a converted medieval building. When you enter the place, you have goose bumps because of the geniality of the work. It's just like if you are in a roman arena, with lots of marble statues around you. The most remarkable thing is the stage. Behind the white arches, a city can be seen, with houses and streets, and in the very back a painting to give the perspective that it continuous further. The city is perfect, the beautiful houses have detailed facades, with doors, curtains, windows, statues, etc. Try to look at the picture of the stage below, what you see of the city on the stage area is not a painting... It's truly an amazing place to visit. 

Stage

Audience

Walking through the old city, we could see many messages on the glass window of the stores, informing that their owners and workers are out for vacation. That is a very common thing to do in Italy by August, when everyone wants to have their holidays...

Mirian and I took the car and she drove to a church up on the hills, where we could see Vicenza and the nice landscape. My cousin showed me a castle from far away and she expressed her desire to go check it out, and that was what we did. We drove then all the way to Marostica and visited the castle ruins and its thick walls. 

The nice day ended up with a very pleasant meal. As we've seen too much of Italy that day, we decided to go to a chinese restaurant! :-)

La Bella Italia: Milano

Last Saturday I decided to make a day trip in Milan. Milano is the main city of the Lombardia region. It's quite big, it has around 1,5 million inhabitants.

It took me around 2 hours with the Eurostar train to get from Altavilla to there. Once I arrived, I got instantly excited because the Station itself looked so beautiful, so I wondered how the rest of the city would look like. 

I bought an underground tkt and went straight to the most famous place to visit in Milan: the Duomo (cathedral). You see it right after you leave the Duomo station, slowly walking up the stairs and it sort of hypnotizes you. Well, it is amazing, I have to say. It is the largest Gothic Style cathedral in Europe. It is also very beautiful on the inside, with some huge panels hanging between the pillars, which I found quite unusual for a cathedral. A small red light bulb in the dome above the apse marks the spot where one of the nails reputedly from the Crucifixion of Christ has been placed. 

                                        Duomo                                               Inside of the Duomo

Beside the Duomo, there's the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Basically, the street was covered over by an arching glass roof and the result was this beautiful Gallery. After taking a few pictures, I walked a few blocks until I reached the Castello Sforzesco, a huge castle with a nice fountain in the front. You buy one ticket and you can spend the entire day walking around the museums located inside of the Castello. 

                       Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II                               Castello Sforzesco

As I had only a few hours to get to know a little bit more of the city, I bought one of these tickets for the Sight Seeing Bus, which in Milan, have two different routs and each one lasts around one hour to be completed. In the end of the second ride it was slowly time to leave and I went straight to the Train Station, where I took the Eurostar back to Altavilla. 

As I always wanted to visit Milan, I thought it was a great day, as I could see a lot of it in my opinion. But I have to warn the readers that haven't been there, that it is a city that you see most of it in one or two days, so staying there a week would be already too much time, except if the person wants to get to know more of the area around it as well.

Thank you very much for reading and I hope you enjoyed this post!

La Bella Italia: Padova

This week I'm in Italy visiting my cousin Mirian. I arrived on Monday but it seems like I've been here for a longer time, as so much already happened.

On Tuesday we decided to go to Padova to search for some of my family documents in the Commune (City hall). At the city hall they told us that birth certificates from 1853 (my relatives birth date) are not in the Comunne, but in the historical archive. So after grabbing a delicious Italian pizza we asked around and found out that this archive place was quite far and we took a bus to get there. At the Archive is quite cool because they gave us the book with all the birth registrations of the Province and we could actually open and read ourselves these really old stuff. I discovered many new details about my relative, exactly when and where he was born, the name of his parents and where they lived. So with the name of the town, we have to go to the church there and ask for the certificate. So really cool stuff, I didn't really expect to find out much but I did it. 

After that we decided to go see more of the city. Padova (well, Padua in English) is a very cute city in the Veneto Province. Home of very friendly people that sometimes speaks a dialect that I could hardly understand a word. We walked through some famous square, saw some beautiful historic buildings and afterwards we walked to the Basilica of Saint Anthony. Its a really beautiful Basilica but somehow different. They found the coffin where the Saint from the XII century was, and opened it in 1981. Then they took out his organs and made a exhibition at the Basilica with all his stuff cause the body was so preserved, so u can actually see all in separate little jars, his tongue, vocal cords, robe and etc. Its really weird... But definitely worth the visit. 

Saint Anthony's Basilica

Altar

Treasury Chapel - Where the rests of 

Saint Anthony can be seen

The Saint's tongue is inside of the Jar

After walking around Padova, it was already 20:50h and we went back to the Railway Station to get the train back to Altavilla, where my cousin lives. We made it to the train station, bought the ticket, and as we rushed and talked so much at the same time, we didn't pay attention on what we were doing, and we ended up taking the wrong train. Well. the thing is, from Altavilla (near Vicenza), we take the train to Venice to stop in Padova. of course we have to take the train in the opposite direction to go back, but as Venice was always on our heads, we accidentally took the train to that direction instead to Vicenza. Then when we realized, there was water on both sides of the train and the guy said on the speakers, "next stop, Venezia Bla" We looked at each other and cracked laughing. Then we thought, "how dumb could we be but good, we take a picture of the canal at night in Venice and take the train back". Ok, then I took the picture and we rushed to take the other train. We bought the ticket just to Padova cause we had already the ones from Padova to Altavilla. Then we took the 22:17h train in the direction of Padova and arrived there. Then, guess what???? It was already 23:05h and there were no trains leaving Padova on that day anymore. So we thought (Well, I did), "there must be a night bus at least to Vicenza". But guess what? We're not in Germany and there were no buses at all. So in the end we realized that we were stuck in Padova and the next train would be only at 06:00h the next day. So we had to stay in the hotel in front of the station. We didn't feel like searching for other hotels at that time because we're two girls and there were just weird man out there. So we bought a Kebab nearby and took to our rooms to eat, took a shower and went to bed at around 1:30 am. I hardly slept and at 5:00 we got up and headed to the station and took the 06:00 train cause my cousin had to work the next day at 07:00h. So in the end we arrived here safe. Oh man, what a trip, I think I'll never forget how we ended up in Venice by accident and afterwards being stuck in Padova. Everything here stops at 23h, its unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but funny afterwards...

Venice by night

So here is my tip: When you come to Italy, make sure to take the last train before 23:00h, or you might ending up stuck somewhere! :) 


Some more pictures of Padova:

 Prato della Valle

 La Torre dell'Orologio

Palazzo della Ragione

Bath - Saturday & Sunday

Ola, here follows the second part of our trip.

Saturday:

After a nice breakfast at 8 o'clock in the morning (And I thought I was on holyday!) we walked into the city center and deceided to take the sighseeing bus to get a first overview. Afterwards we went to the Spa, which was build 2000 years ago by the Romans, and the museum is focused on these times. Nice is that you get a device that allows you just to listen to just the information that interests you... But now a few pictures:

This is the main pool, today open air, and the statues were just added in the 18th century if I remember right.

This is how it has looked like in Roman times:

No, not our cheap telephones, the electronic guide!

Also the wishing well can't be missed:

In the end in turn out that it was a good decision to go early in the morning, because during the day we could see long queues in front of the bath.

Afterwards I was so hungry that we had to try out one of the tips of the women we met in the train, and as I just remembered "roof terrace", we decided to go to the Hall & Woodhouse, something like a 21st century three storey pub.

And voila, there is the roof terrace:

And my massive burger. The only drawback were the 4,20 GBP for a Italian(!) beer...

Mitza got (as always) something completly different than expected, but at least this time it was not a bad surprise.

Then we just walked through the city without a real schedule, something I would like to illustrate with a few impressions:

As far as I know Hänsel and Gretel neither lived in the Alps nor did they eat Strudel... :)

 The famous Royal Cresent, the first of its kind in the world!

No comment!

The cathedral

After that we decided to rest a little bit and went out in the evening to eat at 

Looks like something to, eat at Opa!, a greek restaurant under the bridge on the way to our guesthouse. We felt a little bit underdressed, so we were afraid to take pictures, so just have a look at their page, the location is quite nice!

What seems so yummy here is just soap, but in the shape of food...

 Healthy position for an ATM - an this is Mitza's bag!

The cathedral at night

As Bath is a student city, quite a few people were on the streets, but it was interesting that there were either big groups of girls or blokes, but you rarely saw them together. But as a married couple we just saw the begining of the evening, no clue how it developed during the night... 

Sunday:

We did not do that much that day, because we got caught by rain most of the time. So basically we took two boat tours (One down the river, really cool guide) and one up the river, with a boring guide but Darth Vader's wife went with us:

The bridge you can see in the background is quite interesting, because it was build with shops on it. The reason for that is a land owner on the east bank of the in the 18th century, who build houses there but nobody wanted to live there. So he build this bridge that looks like a normal street when you are on it, so the people wouldn't notice that they change riversides.

The nice outside

The boring inside (Had to place Mitza there to have at least something lovely in the picture!)

Besides that we just went to Sally Lunn's to have a traditional English tea, and to try the famous buns, some special kind of bread.

After all this eating and walking we decided to jump on an earlier train, so we were back in London on Sunday evening around 20 o'clock, luckily not bothere by the riots at that moment.

 So overall Bath is the perfect place for a weekend trip, within easy reach from London, not too big that you have the feeling you miss something, and not so crowded that it is to much. Interesting things to see, and a lot of nice places to eat!