Venice (Feb 3 - 7, 2005)

Cerita tentang Venice agak susah. Karena, we stopped writing in our diary since we arrived in Venice. But I’ll try.

Thursday, Feb 3, 2005. Kita berangkat pagi dari Rome. Kali ini kita sengaja pilih kereta yg lebih murah, lama perjalanan 6 jam. Soalnya emang Rome-Venice tu jauh, dan kalo pake kereta cepet, jatuhnya mahal banget. Segerbong ama 3 abg cewek, mau ke Venice dengan tujuan yang sama ama kita; lihat Venice carnival.

Nyampe Venice sore. Dijemput Yonny (yap, he joined us again here). Diterangin gimana cara beli tiket buat naik kapal dsb ama Yonny, sementara kita masih terbengong-bengong dan kayak setengah mimpi ngeliat pemandangan Venice…

Di Venice ini, kita nyewa semacam studio gitu buat 5 hari. Jatuhnya jadinya lebih murah daripada tinggal di hostel. Sebenernya yang paling semangat di sini tentunya Yonny yang fotografer, soalnya dia mau foto-foto Carnival. Wah, as I remembered, this part of the trip was the most surreal. Bayangin deh, ngeliat mask carnival, tinggal di apartment, di Venice… Ngerasain belanja di Supermarket, masak pasta di apartemen, having a canal just outside our window… that is what I called surreal…

Begitu nyampe malem, ternyata Yonny dah belanja buat makan malem kita. Ih, baru nyadar kalo kompor kita ga nyala, but we still have our microwave :)

Second day, nongkrong di gereja Santa Maria della Salute. Di sana udah banyak orang2 berkostum dan bertopeng ngumpul. Wah, jadi ga pede mau ngeluarin our pocket camera, di sana orang2 yang moto pada pake kamera profesional semua… Huhu… jadinya aku dan Novi cuma foto2 bentar terus menghangatkan badan dalam gereja. Dan selebihnya, nunggu Yonny yang kayaknya lagi in fire moto2in orang2 berkostum. Dari sini kita pindah ke Piazza San Marco di pusat kota Venice. Di sana lebih rame lagi ama orang2 bertopeng dan berkostum.

Wah, ternyata ini toh yang namanya Venice Carnival. Sejarah tentang Venice Carnival salah satunya bisa diliat di sini. Sepertinya bagian dari carnival yang aku liat waktu itu emang bener2 untuk konsumsi turis sih. Waktu kita ke sana itu, Venice lagi rame banget, penuh ama turis. Kalo pas siang, saking ramenya kita kesusahan kalo mau jalan2 di gang-gang di kotanya. Bahkan, beberapa gang sempet dibuat satu arah lho… Gila juga ya. Tapi, coba deh kalo malem-malem. Venice sepi banget. Gedung-gedung di sana rata-rata keliatan kayak ga dihuni. Bangunan2nya terlihat ga terawat dan cat-catnya udah terkelupas.
(Although that makes the city looks more exotic to me :P)

Berdasarkan info, banyak juga turis yang tinggal di Mestre, satu stasiun sebelum Venezia Santa Lucia. Dan, sepertinya banyak juga orang2 yang kerja di Venice memilih untuk tinggal di sana. Abis, Venice ribet juga sih, ke mana-mana musti naek kapal. Harga barang2 mahal. Dan kayaknya tuh kota kalo ga ada turis ga ada kehidupan. Malem-malem sepi banget!

Aku ga bisa cerita our daily activities chronographically, Ga ada catatan yang bisa direfer. Setiap hari kegiatan kita diisi dengan menemani Yonny berburu foto di pusat-pusat keramaian Venice. Kalo bosan, aku ama Novi jalan2 bedua ngiter2in kota.

Unlike the other cities in Italy we visited earlier, Venice mahal. Jauh lebih mahal. Jadi untung juga kita nyewa apartment, jadinya kita bisa masak (yah, walaupun hanya mengandalkan microwave hehehe) Seneng banget, tiap 2 hari (or was it everyday? Udah lupa, yang jelas kita hedon banget) kita belanja ke supermarket. Beli bahan buat pasta pake seafood. Di sini pasta dan seafood relative lebih murah dibanding di Hamburg. Beli susu, buah olive, kopi,… nyamm… enak dan berkesan banget. Masak-masak dan foto-foto di apartment…

Yang perlu dicatat nih ya, ternyata setelah dilihat secara langsung, cowok Itali itu ga cakep-cakep banget kok… :P Iya, ternyata modalnya cuma idung mancung dan a cool sunglasses. Udah gitu doang, dan kita bisa ketipu deh… hehehe…

Oh iya, Novi sempet membuat “affair kecil” ama Mas pengemudi bis kapal :P Sampe didadahin gitu sama Mas pengemudi kapal… hehehe…

Acara puncak Venice Carnival sendiri itu pas Sabtu malemnya. Wah, seharian itu kota rameee banget. Sampe-sampe kita yang udah enek ama keramaian memutuskan untuk pulang dan istirahat. Malemnya kita makan di luar, di satu restoran pizza yang direkomendasikan ama yang punya apartment. Wah, ampe lupa ada berapa macem rasa pizza yang ditawarin di menu nya. Pokoknya, banyak bangett!! Kita masing2 makan 1 plus 1/3 pizza… hihihi…

Hari minggu malem, aku inget kita bertiga sempet jalan-jalan pas malemnya, menyusuri the Grand Canal. It was our last night in Venice. Suasana udah jauh lebih tenang dibanding malam sebelumnya. Di Piazza San Marco juga udah ga terlalu banyak orang. Iseng, kita bertiga ngintip/merhatiin ke salah satu hotel/restoran yang ada di sekitar itu. Wah, pemandangan di dalam indah banget. Jadi, mereka itu kayaknya lagi mau ada pesta kostum/topeng gitu. Ruangannya didisain kayak jaman dulu, pelayannya juga pake kostum, tamu2nya apalagi… Kayak ga real deh ngeliatnya, kayak di film2…

Jalan sedikit lebih jauh, di tengah jalan lagi ada orang main2 musik di pinggir Grand Canal. Eh, mungkin lebih tepat dibilang a play kali ya, soalnya campuran antara ngomong ama musik. It was in Italian, so we continued walking. Di Ponte di Rialto, kita ketemu segerombolan orang, dengan kostum juga, tapi kostumnya tipenya lain dengan tipe kostum yang kita lihat sedang berpesta di Piazza San Marco. Ini tipe kostumnya lebih ke kayak orang yang kerja di circus, jugglers, etc. Nah mereka gotong-gotong radio gitu sambil jalan, sambil nari-nari dan nyanyi-nyanyi. Another surreality. :P

Anyways, besoknya kita cuma punya waktu setengah hari di Venice. Spent our time foto-foto di daerah Jewish Ghetto, difotoin Yonny. Wah, bener-bener berasa kayak model sehari deh :)

Yonny bilang: “Sini gue fotoin. Mumpung gratis nih. Biasanya sih gue ga pake nih gratis2 gini..”
Hihihi… thanks ya Yon…

So, some additional info about Venice can be found here, such as map of Venice, about the city, and about the Venice carnival...

Rome (Jan 31 - Feb 2, 2005)

Our Italy trip started in Milan, then Florence, then Rome, and ended in Venice. My hun-bun has written the story in Milan and Florence, so I guess it’s my turn now to write the story of the two other cities. Hope I still can remember the important details :)

1st day

We took a train from Florence to Rome, the train lasted about two and a half hours. Arrived in Rome at midday. Experienced a situation which can never be explained better than by the old saying: “Ada banyak jalan menuju Roma” (quoted from Novi). To which this time we were really are going to Rome. :D

So, found our hotel, located really close from central station, and shortly we were off again to the bordering area of Vatican and Rome. My first impression of Rome, well well: crowded, unorganized, especially the traffic. Saw two policemen crossing the street when the traffic light for pedestrians was red. :P

Planned to go to Piazza Navona, but got a little bit lost and ended up in Vatican. After wandering around and taking some pictures of sunset in the Pontes (bridges) nearby, finally we found that Piazza Navona. Disappointed. The fountain doesn’t look as beautiful as in the travelling book. Perhaps because it was in winter. Our condition: starving and cold. Found a restaurant just around the corner and we ate pasta and ice cream there. Delicious!
*strange fact: I asked which menu doesn’t contain pork, and the guy in the resto suddenly asked: are you from Indonesia?* ha!

Believe me, and take my words: If you go to Italy, be sure to taste the food. Have a culinary adventure. Try pastas, pizzas, ice creams. They taste really good, much much better than the ones I had anywhere else.

After taking some rest, we continued our walk to the Pantheon. Pantheon is built before Christianity exists in Rome, and its original purpose is to worship Roman Gods. But, later on in history it was turned into a church. As I remembered, Raphael the artist is buried there. The interior is very beautiful. Btw, there are a lot of small shops around Piazza Navona and Pantheon, and one shop that we will truly recommend you is Bartolucci… It sells many things made from wood. Very cute and well made. :) We started losing control. Novi bought a sort of musical box for her new-born nephew and I bought a photo frame for… er… myself.

2nd day

St. Peter’s church. Amazing. Very beautiful. I was standing on the middle of St.Peter’s square and the view was totally breath-taking. The big church in front of me, the pillars, the statues. It’s just incredible.

Humm… if only I could make some pictures with the Swiss guards :P But they didn’t look that friendly. And since at that time I just finished reading Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons where it is described that the Swiss Guards can be very offensive too, …well better give up that idea. In the end, I am quite satisfied by having a picture with them in the background… hihihi :)

We would like to go inside the church. We saw people queuing, cleverly decided to join the queue without reading the signs carefully (or maybe there were no sign after all :P), thinking: “why else will people queue around here???”
Paid 6 € each, and realized that we were wrong. First there’s this elevator, going up. We did end up inside the church, above it, to be precise. And then there were stairs, going up, and up, and up, and up… The thing is, once we decided to go up, we reached the point of no return. Since the stairs are very narrow, they are meant only for going up, sort of one way. More or less, there were 320 steps. Novi almost fainted, and so did I…

Finally, after such a devastating climb :P, we reached the top. Oh my God, we were at the roof of the church… Wow… very nice… I was at the same level as the statues I saw from the square down below.

Here is what I wrote in the diary:
“Gue nyaris pingsan… Novi juga… Katanya begitu nginjek tanah, dia mau cium tanah, kocak banget deh… Sampe atas, untung pemandangannya bagus. Bayangin ya, di beranda luar St.Peter’s church, Novi berpose gaya2 tidak senonoh… untung ga diangkut keluar ama Swiss Guards…”

And at last, we managed to go inside the church. Very very beautiful, it’s art everywhere, in every direction I set my eyes on. Statues, paintings, made of stones, of wood, etc.
At first we plan to go to the Vatican museum, but it was already closed at that time, so we had to change our plan for the day.

And, hihi, I would like to go to Colosseum. Ga tau ke sana gimana caranya. Nyoba2 naik trem akhirnya malah nemu restoran buat makan siang (highly recommended! Relatively cheap and very delicious)

Brek Ristoranti
Cibis S.P.A
L. 60 Torre Argentina 1
Roma (telp nya juga ada lho, just contact us if you need it :P)

Setelah bingung-bingung naik trem beberapa kali (plus agak2 nyasar) akhirnya kita nyampe juga di Colosseum… tapi udah tutup… huhuu…

Written by Novi in our travelling diary:
“Sampe sono, Collo dah tutup. Ena BT banget, buat mengobati kekecewaan, dia makan Tuc sambil duduk di atas batu. “Aaaa… aku mau masuk.” Kata Ena dengan gaya Tita.”

(Itu lhoh, Tita di film Eiffel I’m in love… hihihi… ah masak sih aku pernah kayak gitu? :P)

Oke, lanjut ya, karena Colloseum dah tutup, kita jalan2 deh di Palatine Hill, seberangnya Colloseum. Menurut cerita, asal muasalnya kota Roma berawal di bukit ini. Bukit ini sekarang berisi reruntuhan2 gitu, peninggalan Romawi. Agak bingung juga, kata buku panduan, itu bekas rumah Caesar, itu bekas tempat mandinya, aih… perasaan sih semua reruntuhan keliatannya sama aja. :P Pas lagi di sini, kita sempet ga behave juga sih, such as bela2in manjat pager buat moto dan difoto… hihihi…

Kita jalan jauh banget seharian ini, Sempet ke Capitoline Hill (another reruntuhan) ama Trajan Market (ngeliat dari luar). Makan malem di central station. Capekkk…

Novi’s writing that night:
“Tepar, ngantuk…zzz…zzz… Ena bela-belain mandi malem-malem sebelum tidur, supaya besok bisa berangkat pagi biar sempet masuk Colloseum…”

3rd day

Paginya, ke Colloseum. Senaaang… hihihi

What Novi turned out to think about at that time, as written in our diary:
“ke Colloseum, Gila man 10€, NO STUDENT FARE!!! 10 € just to see piles of stones!! Tried to avoid stairs, but we have to accept the fact that all Italian buildings are contaminated with stairs… :(“

(Pada waktu itu, aku ga tau lho kalo dia sebenernya rada keberatan buat pegi masuk Colloseum. Huni… :*)

Abis dari Colloseum, kita ke Vatican museum. Kali ini ada student fare, bayarnya 8 €. Bagus banget deh. Masuk Sistine Chapel. Mengagumi “The Creation of Adam” di langit-langitnya. Bagus banget, gambarnya terasa hidup. Truly a masterpiece. Sayangnya Sistine Chapel kok kayak pasar ya, kebanyakan orang gitu di dalem, trus rame banget pada ngobrol. Trus bener-bener ya, tiap ruangan digambarin, dilukis… wah bener2 deh…

Abis dari Vatican museum, we were almost finished with Rome. Tinggal Spanish steps. So we went there, foto2, and ngetem di McD. Setelah makan kenyang, dan didiskusikan, akhirnya kita memutuskan untuk balik ke Bartolucci, pengen belanja2 oleh-oleh…

Since Spanish steps rada jauh, jadi kita musti naik bus. Mana kita sempet ga tau gimana jadi stranded di daerah yang agak slump gitu… uh serem deh. Naek bus, busnya penuh banget… eh, tau ga… tas ranselku kejepit di pintu… trus kejepitnya keras banget, ampe aku ga bisa gerakin badan…

Me : (tampang super panik) “Aduuuu…. Huniiii…. Tasku kejepit…
Novi : (ketawa-ketawa)
Me : “Huniiii… jangan ketawa…. Ini beneran… serius…”
Novi : (ketawa makin kenceng)

Huhuhu… katanya Novi tampangku waktu itu lucu banget, panik2 gitu… Huhuhu… dan tadinya aku sempet berpikir ntar kalo pintunya kebuka, gimana kalo aku kepencet coba??? Huhuhu… kan sakit tuhhh???!!

Akhirnya, kita nyampe juga dengan selamat ke Bartolucci. Lumayan juga, since biasanya di tiap item ada capnya: Bartolucci, Italy. Hihi, kan bisa jadi oleh2 tuh… :P
Dengan semangat aku beli gantungan kunci 3 biji buat oleh2…udah bayar…dibungkus rapi… eh, pas aku liat lagi… ga ada tulisan Italy-nya… gara2 gantungan kuncinya belinya yg kecil, tempatnya ga muat buat ngecap 2 kata… Akhirnya minta tuker sama Mas-nya sama yang gedean... Another episode:

Me : ”Huniii… ga ada tulisan Italy-nya…”
Novi : (ketawa-ketawa) „Hun, kamu tuh cacat deh… beneran…“

Got the stuff. Pulang. Musti naik bus sekali. Ugh, rush hour, busnya penuh banget. Sebelum masuk, sempet ga sengaja nginjek kaki orang…

Di Bus, karena busnya penuh banget, aku ama Novi berdirinya musti jauhan. Desak-desakan. Lama-lama walau busnya mulai sepi, tapi orang disebelahku kok berdirinya deket-deket banget ya?? Mencurigakan! Aku ngeliat sekeliling, Novi berdirinya jauh banget. Trus, busnya sepi! Lah ini orang sebelah kanan gue ngapain sih. Berusaha optimis berhubung tas ku mustinya cukup aman dari copet. Arrgh!! Baru menyadari kalo dia bermaksud pegang2!!! Waaaa, menyeramkan!!! Panik, jadi terpaksa nyender2 en desek2 pak item di sebelah kiri… Untung ga lama kemudian nyampe di central station sebelum sempet terjadi apa-apa.

Begitu turun, buru2 nyari Novi… terus ditegor “Bella” ama si orang serem itu…
Huuuu… sampe sekarang ya, kalo denger ada yang ngomong Bella, aku jadi merinding karena inget kejadian itu!!

Kesimpulan: That day is not my day!!! Not my day at all!!!! :D