Eleven days in Europe: from Louvre to Colosseum I had been planning the tour for years. Europe appeals to me in so many ways that it was a dream come true to land in Paris on August 6, 2014, after a long flight from Beijing with a stopover in Moscow. It was early afternoon when we reached the capital of France, the first leg of the 11-day tour in French cities Paris and Nice and Italian top destinations Venice and Rome. Tough doubtlessly exciting, the trip was not perfect for me because the new football season had not kicked off – I have been a huge fan of Italy’s Serie A for over two decades. After all, we had seven people and the timing was relatively acceptable to everyone. I could still find some unique football elements and postpone my match day experience until next time. Europe is to be visited over and over again. From August 7 to 9, we visited Paris’ attractions such as the Louvre Museum (Musée du Louvre), the Palace of Versailles (Château de Versailles) and the Cathedral of Notre Dame (Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris) and got to the top of the Eiffel Tower (La tour Eiffel), enjoying the spectacular panorama of the city with the Seine (La Seine) across it. You cannot see the real beauty of Paris without climbing the tower. My favourite place is the Palace of Versailles southwest of Paris, about 40 minutes by train from the city centre. It offers a combination of interior and outside splendours. The palace itself is breathtakingly awesome with countless halls decorated by giant paintings in honour of French King Louis XIV. The garden is also a masterpiece beyond imagination. The symmetrical ponds and woods show a clear difference in terms of aesthetics from us: Chinese gardens are typically built with more natural and unordered layouts. An easy conclusion is: Louis XIV and his two successors lived as extravagantly as their Chinese counterparts, if not more. We wish we could have spent a few more hours there. The Louvre is of course marvellous, but it was impossible to see and reflect on the works and relics attentively in such a crowded complex, especially when seven people were together. The museum is so huge that it deserves a whole day visit at least. The painting of Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, the statue of Venus de Milo by Alexandros of Antioch and the Code of Hammurabi (Code de Hammurabi) were among the treasures that we were lucky enough to find. The Cathedral of Notre Dame was the only major church we visited during the tour in France and Italy. You would not be surprised by its magnificence when learning that it had been constructed and enlarged over nearly a millennium. I am not a Christian, but I was a frequent churchgoer in 2007 and early 2008 in Sydney, Australia as a postgraduate student at Macquarie University. I love my church, which is called “Hillsong Church” and known for its lively and touching songs. I made a lot of young friends there and keep a Hillsong album till today. Unlike Gothic-style Notre Dame, my church uses a cinema in a modern shopping centre on Sundays. The Paris cathedral did bring back my memories in the southern hemisphere. We bid farewell to Paris on August 10 and headed to Nice, a Mediterranean resort near the Italian border. Nice looks very different from Paris. In fact, it was the hometown of Giuseppe Garibaldi, a heroic military leader during the unification of Italy. It only became part of France in 1860 when the Kingdom of Sardinia traded the city with French Emperor Napoleon III for his support in Italy’s unification war against Austria. No wonder Nice is renowned for its Roman and Italian architecture, particularly in Vieux Nice, the old town. But it was Nice’s natural beauty that allured me to put it on our itinerary. The city west off Monaco is famous for its beaches along the Bay of Angels (La Baie des Anges), which looks as wonderful as its name indicates from the top of the Castle Park (Parc du Chateau). Yet it brings much more joy when you come closer and indulge in the Angel’s arms. I swam in the sea for about two hours on the afternoon of August 11, completely getting rid of days’ fatigue. There is no metro in Nice, but the tram is amazing with its tracks built on carefully maintained grass. We took the tram to the Railway Station of Nice City (Gare de Nice Ville) the next morning, wishing that we could have stayed in the relaxing seaside resort longer. Fortunately, for me at least, there was something more important ahead: Italy! Leaving Nice, the trained stopped at a few stations including the Principality of Monaco before entering Italy and reaching Ventimiglia, where we had breakfast and took another train to Milan (Milano). After Genoa (Genova), the train left the Riviera and headed to the inland. We made another transfer of trains in Milan and arrived in Venice (Venezia) at dinner time. The journey across Italy from west to east made me emotional, as I looked through the window at familiar station names such as Genoa (Genova), Milan (Milano), Brecia, Verona, Vicenza, Padova and Venice (Venezia), some of which I would not have heard of without following Italian football all these years. Many of them might not be big cities, according to Chinese standards particularly, but they are all prominent on the global football map and in the history of the game. Fans in Vicenza, Milan and Brecia had the privilege to regularly watch the performance of one of the world’s best footballer Roberto Baggio, while Padova can boast about its status as Alessandro Del Piero’s first professional club. Both Baggio and Piero spent their most successful years at MY JUVENTUS in Turin (Torino), where I must make a pilgrimage in the near future. In addition to football, wine was also on my mind – the endless grape fields along the railroad tracks made me thirsty. Finally, we saw sea again. It was not the Ligurian Sea previously seen, but the Adriatic Sea. Yes, Venice! The city of isles and canals is arguably more famous than Italy to many people. Indeed, the Republic of Venice existed for over a millennium, while Italy did not emerge as a unified country until 1870. Even before applying for my Schengen Visa, I had watched a BBC documentary series of the place: Francesco’s Venice, presented by Francesco da Mosto whose family has been living in Venice since the fifth century. I had also watched his other beautiful documentary series about the country: Francesco’s Italy: Top to Toe. Compared with lots of other Italian cities, I am not particularly interested in Venice. Undeniably, it is an astonishing city with impressive history and art works and the Venetian Lagoon itself is a masterpiece by God, but it lacks one thing that I care about most: FOOTBALL. Struggling in Lega Pro (the third tier of the Italian league system) currently, Venezia has rarely been a mainstream football power in Italy. Notable recent former players of Venezia include Álvaro Recoba, Filippo Maniero and Christian Vieri. Since relegation from Serie A in 2002, the club has gone through bankruptcy and rebirth twice. Nevertheless, Venice certainly deserves a stop, if it is your first visit to Italy. People keep saying Venice would be submerged in a few decades. Who knows? We realised the seriousness of the doomsayers’ warnings on the afternoon of August 12 when we returned to the St. Marks Square (Piazza San Marco) after visiting the Doge’s Palace (Palazzo Ducale). There was seawater everywhere and many dogs were wet. Most parts of the square had been flooded due to rising tide. Consequently, we had to make a detour to our preferred restaurant. In early evening, we experienced another uniqueness of Venice by taking gondola. According to the gondolier, a gondola was worth 30,000 to 50,000 euros, more expensive than most family cars. Touring the canals on the gondola, we saw the former residence of Marco Polo, the most well-known Venetian in China. But more interestingly, we found that many buildings seemed to have been abandoned. Where were the dwellers? Were they seeking job opportunities elsewhere? The next morning we got on the high-speed train from Venice to Rome (Roma), the last leg of this journey. Again, I was excited when the train stopped in Bologna and Florence (Firenze), both of which host major football clubs. We arrived in Rome on the early afternoon of August 14. After checking into the hotel, I could not wait for my first real touch with Italian football. Although there was no match to watch, I could at least pay a visit to the Olympic Stadium (Stadio Olimpico) in Rome. Belonging to the Italian National Olympic Committee (Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano, CONI), it was the main stadium for the 1960 Summer Olympics and the 1990 FIFA World Cup and hosted the 1996 and 2009 UEFA Champions League Finals. But for me, most importantly, it is the home stadium of Serie A clubs Lazio and Roma – LAZIO has been one of my two favourite clubs (the other is Juventus as mentioned above) since season 1994-1995. The stadium sits among the mountain and forest area at the northwest of Rome, next to the Palazzo della Farnesina, which hosts the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale). Surprisingly, the area around the Olympic Stadium was very quiet. There were few people, few dogs and few shops, with only several locals running in the Stadium of Marbles (Stadio dei Marmi) nearby. My mom and I were curiously walking and taking photos when suddenly the sign “Curva Nord” caught my eyes. The North Curve (Curva Nord) is the home to the most vocal supporters of Lazio – Lazio ultras. It was hard to image the chanting – occasionally racist – on a matchday in such tranquil surroundings, and even harder to visualise the fascist years under Benito Mussolini, though the Foro Italico sports complex where the Olympic Stadium is located was originally called Foro Mussolini (literally Mussolini’s Forum) and the Mussolini Obelisk (Obelisco Mussolini) still stands there. Rome is a colourful city full of history, which is revealed everywhere, even in terms of sports. Unfortunately, I could only have a glance of the inside of the Olympic Stadium through locked gates. Before leaving that area, I bought two Lazio jerseys at a street stall beside the Tiber (Tevere) opposite to the Foro Italico; one of them was an official replica of Miroslav Klose’s home jersey, which would bring me unexpected attention the next day. There are two attractions in Rome for which you’d better book tickets online beforehand: the Borghese Museum and Gallery (Museo e Galleria Borghese), requiring ticket reservation, and the Vatican Museums (Musei Vaticani), which do not require reservation but tourists are strongly advised to do so in order to skip the extremely long lines. On August 15, we visited the Borghese Museum and Gallery, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum (Foro Romano) and the Trevi Fountain (Fontana di Trevi), which, disappointingly, was under renovation and completely dry. At the entrance of the Borghese Museum and Gallery, a young staff member jokingly said to me, “Now you must change your T-shirt!” “What T-shirt?” I was surprised. “Your T-shirt,” he pointed to the No.11 Klose jersey on me. “This is Lazio. We support Roma.” His colleagues smirked. The inner-city rivalry between Lazio and Roma has been fierce since the very first Rome Derby (Derby della Capitale) on December 8, 1929. In fact, as soon as we arrived in Rome, I started noticing the derby atmosphere. Standing at the balcony of the hotel room, I noticed a large Roma flag outside the top floor of an apartment building on the other side of the street; several floors down in the same building, there was also a large Lazio flag on the balcony. How do the residents get along with each other? The staff member of the Borghese Museum and Gallery was certainly not the only person I met in Rome commenting on my jersey. Both outside the gallery and inside the Colosseum, some people showing me directions said cheerfully, “You have a nice shirt!” The owner of a newsstand was even friendlier, “Forza Lazio!” He said after selling me public transport tickets. Apart from these interesting encounters, I was also impressed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s baroque-style marble sculpture Apollo and Daphne in the Borghese Museum and Gallery and the size and sophistication of the Colosseum, which serves as the ultimate inspiration for all modern stadiums. My mother and two aunts were particularly attracted by Rome’s tall stone pines. We devoted our last day in Europe to Vatican City, the smallest country in the world, first visiting the Vatican Museums and then taking some photos at the St. Peters Square (Piazza San Pietro). There was no time to queue for the St. Peters Basilica (Basilica di San Pietro) because we must get back to the hotel to take our luggage before going to the Fiumicino Airport (Leonardo da Vinci International Airport). And after all, Pope Francis was actually in Asia that day. The Vatican Museums were rather crowded and exhausting to just walk through, especially the Sistine Chapel (Cappella Sistina). I had a picture taken in front of Laocoön and His Sons (Gruppo del Laocoonte), a Hellenistic statue showing the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents. I had learnt about the work from my history textbook many years ago. On the final day, I wore a Juventus home jersey of the 2014-2015 season, which I had bought near the Trevi Fountain a day before. The Turin-based giant is viewed as a rival by both Lazio and Roma fans. When I swiped my credit card at a fast food shop at the Fiumicino Airport, once again the cashier suggested I should change my T-shirt. All Italians appeared to be passionate about football. Reflecting on this, I got on the plane to Shanghai. The most annoying experience during our tour in Europe took place at the metro station of Spagna in Rome. While we were getting on the train, a young woman put an empty handbag on my mother’s handbag and opened the zipper, trying to put her hand into my mother’s bag. Luckily, my mother was alerted by the sound of the zipper being opened and yelled in Mandarin, “What are you doing!” The woman seemed to be frightened and ran away quickly. Meanwhile, a boy behind me put his hand into my butt pocket that only contained a used metro ticket. He also disappeared within seconds. Also in Rome, we encountered extortion just before department from the Eternal City. After buying train tickets from Termini to the airport, I was told by plump man with brown skin that I should validate the tickets through a small machine on the platform. Yes, I should. But he had taken the tickets from my hand before I realised that he was neither a staff member of the train station or Trenitalia (the train operator). Then he got the tickets stamped and insisted on helping us with the luggage. We refused him and carried our belongings onto the train. However, he followed us and demanded a tip. We reluctantly gave him two euros and had spent all our cash by then. He kept asking for five euros, quarrelling with us for quite a while. Eventually, he gave up and got off the train. Rome was not the only place where safety was a concern. Although the notorious 19th arrondissement of Paris where we spent four nights turned out to be safer than expected, its metro stations were not much better than Rome’s. When I was checking the map on a platform, a warm-hearted French gentleman alerted me that someone had tried to open my bag. Like other cities we went to, security at public places in Paris was far from tight. Europe has been suffering economic difficulties for years, with Italy in recession for over a decade. Double-digit unemployment rates are common throughout the continent except Germany. A big proportion of shops were closed wherever we travelled. Abandoned cars rusted in sparsely populated neighbourhoods. Migrants from Africa as well as poorer parts of Europe were wandering here and there, eager to get money, often unscrupulously. Yet authorities in those countries still appeared to be governing a highly localised and civilised society, failing to adapt to the changed economic and demographic situations in the era of globalisation. Nevertheless, they still have what we long for: drinkable tap water, clean air, cheap fruit and wine, well-preserved architecture and certainly world-class football.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 13:56:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015