Category: photography

I originally drafted this post in May ’08—more than 5 month after the trip—and now it’s January ’09. So not only am I a slacker, I’m a world class slacker. But without further sarcastic self-deprecation here is a brief overview of Candice & beggs adventures in Rome [wikipedia.org]!

Rome was the last big stop on our delayed honeymoon trip to Italy. The Eternal City deserves to be the icing on the cake. I mean, this was home to Julius Caesar [wikipedia.org], Cicero [wikipedia.org], a whole list of other famous Romans [wikipedia.org], not to mention The Roman Republic & Empire [wikipedia.org]! Few places rank this high on the history scale.

As with everywhere else we went in Italy the choice to go in November was a bit of a cramp—sun sets too early. But most of the big sights in Rome were within easy walking distance of our hotel on the forum side of the Quirinal Hill [wikipedia.org]: Trajan’s Forum [wikipedia.org], the original Roman Forum [wikipedia.org], The Colosseum [wikipedia.org], The Trevi Fountain [wikipedia.org], The Pantheon [wikipedia.org], and a ton of other things too numerous to mention let alone visit in the short time we were in Rome. (Add to that the Vatican which will be separate post and the amount of sightseeing you can do in Rome is awe inspiring and mind numbing.)

Two slightly annoying things; the Spanish Steps were covered in scaffolding. And, the number of people was amazing, I can’t imagine visiting at the height of the tourist season if late November is so crowded!

On the non-sightseeing side of things; we stayed in a very nice hotel, great view of the tops of the building leading down the Quirinal Hill to Trajan’s Forum. It was the best hotel we stayed in while in Italy, save the best for last. Most expensive too. We found a couple of brilliant places to eat, great Italian food and we at Euro-infected Chinese food at a small place near the Trevi Fountain, but off the beaten path.

Rome is definitely a city I could live in for a long time and not get tired of; the food the sights! Oh man, and the people are not as obnoxious as the Parisians. But I think Florence just beats out Rome in my list of dream cities to live in. Just walking around the streets in Rome is amazing, the palpable history and the wonderful feeling the mix of buildings give you is amazing.

You can see the whole Rome, Italy, November 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

Novosibirsk [wikipedia.org], dead smack in the middle of Siberia, is not some place I think I would normally travel to. So, why did I go to Siberia… in November? Work. Unfortunately I showed up, so I’m told, in the three week gap of “nastiness between the beauty of fall and the beauty of winter.” That means something about the fall leaves color and the winter wonderland of permanent snow. When I was there everything was gray and mud, rain and wind. But it was not all that bad.

I actually spent most of my time in what could be called a satellite city to Novosibirsk, called Akademgorodok [wikipedia.org]. During the days of the Soviets this was the largest of a number of purpose built closed off towns filled with the brightest brains of the Soviet world. Akademgorodok is filled with large academies of every possible discipline; Math, Physics, Geology, Chemistry and the piste-de-resistance the Nuclear research academy. Wide roads, tree lined boulevards and parks must have provided a happy escapist world for the scientists.

Too bad it did not last. Since the end of the USSR Akademgorodok has seen better days. The end of government money funding pure research seems to have hit Akademgorodok hard. Recently foreign money has started to make its way in and local entrepreneurs have started a ‘Silicon Forest’ of high tech companies.

I only spent a single day in Novosibirsk itself—and a winters days is not long enough to see everything I wanted to see. But what I did see is an interesting hodgepodge of a city. I felt the same hectic uncontrolled pace that I felt in Shanghai. Novosibirsk is a city that has grown too fast to keep up with itself.

One of the things I wanted to see but did not get photos of is the Novosibirsk train station—a big stop on the Trans-Siberian Railway [wikipedia.org]. Unfortunately I did not get to take the train to or from Novosibirsk, it takes three plus days to Moscow or Beijing, the bosses thought that was too long. Oh, and it’s not cheap. I did see the big green exterior of the station, but it was after dark in a car on the way back to the hotel in Akademgorodok. So no photos. Maybe next time.

Speaking of the railroad, Novosibirsk has a rail history museum. Everything from steam powered pre-soviet era locomotives to trains make in Novosibirsk in the ’90s.

I did see the Nikolai Chapel, (sorry no link for this one,) once supposedly the geographical center of the Russian Empire. Now, not so much, the Kazakh border is only a few hundred kilometers south.

And what Soviet city would be complete without a statue of Lenin?

You can see the while Novosibirsk, Russia, November 2008 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].