Declarations of a King

Thursday, June 13, 2013

There is Something Majestic in the Bad Taste of Italy

Amen to that. While Italy was stunning and interesting and magical, it was my least favorite of our countries we visited. I know, I know, how could I dislike Italy? I didn't dislike it by any means, it just didn't quite measure up to the other places we visited. Here are the things that were amazing in Italy

1. The Food

2. The Gelato

3. Watching Italians ignore all traffic regulations in tiny smart cars

4. Mario Enzo - the squat little Italian man who sold me my beautiful leather jacket, said "Mamma Mia" while puffing on his cigarette, told me I needed to start wearing high heels so my butt popped more and kissed my cheeks at our parting.

5. The Pistachio Canoli

6. The Gelato

7. The Sistine Chapel

8. The Gelato

9. Getting an expensive bottle of Champagne and flowers from our amazing tour director, Case, on my birthday. I miss that kind Dutch man with his wonderful history lessons and fantastic accent

10. The Italian countryside

11. The Borghese museum was absolutely astounding. I think Bernini was the best sculptor in the world. The Rape of Persephone and Apollo and Daphne were the most beautiful pieces of artwork I have ever seen. Not even a careless superlative there. It is miraculous what Bernini was able to do with marble. You could actually see light through Daphne's marble leaves. And the emotions were so intense and so real for both pieces. Aw, just spectacular. This was my favorite part of Italy by far.

12. The David & Michaelangelo's Slaves - Sel and I just stared at David for a good twenty minutes and I swear I saw him breathing. Though David and Michaelangelo's slaves were amazing, they didn't quite compare to Bernini's work.

13. Venice. All of it. All of it's beauty and history and none of it's tourism (which is sadly the only thing keeping it alive)

15. The Gelato

From the "Bridge of Sighs" in Venice

Bridge of Sighs

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The Neat, Clean, Quite Solvent Country

I don't know if I can ever forgive Faulkner for writing the painful As I Lay Dying (aptly named by my high school peers as "As I Die Reading), but he had it right about Switzerland. It was one clean, neat, perfect little country. It was so beautiful, it hurt my eyes. The rolling hills of the Alps were so lush and green! The first city we stayed at in Switzerland was Lucerne. Though the Netherlands was my favorite country we visited, Lucerne was by far my favorite city. It is nestled right in the heart of the Swiss Alps (which look a great deal like the mountains of Utah) and it's defining characteristic is the Chapel Bridge built in the early 14th century that spans across a breathtakingly clear lake dotted with beautiful, white swans. Lucerne also has an impressive city wall from the same time period complete with holes in the stone for shooting arrows at attackers. Sel LOVED the city wall as it reminded us a little bit of the wall of Gondor from Lord of the Rings. It helped too that Lucerne speaks German so Sel was able to help us order food and figure out where to go.

Sel shortly after being named King of Lucerne with his fancy little hat.

Too beautiful to be true!

This one is for Grams-she LOVES Patrick Jane. Huge crush.

We also had a bit of a face off between Kit and one of the Lucerne swans. It was one of the best moments of the trip..wait, one of the best moments of my entire life. Mr.Swan was distracted looking at me when Kit ran up behind it and poked it in the back. It turned around looking super confused and then challenged Kit to a duel. She accepted of course and then shouted the battle cry of "Bring it on!"

It started to hiss and walk menancingly toward her and luckily the light changed or that swan would have gotten seriously messed up by Kit. :)

Beautiful Sculpture honoring the Swiss Guards

Totally drank out of this and didn't get any diseases

Playing around in the Swiss Rain. I actually sang "Singing in the Rain" in German...or in some sort of language..

One of the 14th Century murals on the Chapel Bridge.

After our wonderful time in Lucerne, we traveled to the Italian speaking Swiss city, Lugano. We sadly got there right before sunset so we didn't get to see much of the city. The hotel though was AMAZING! They had a magically glass shower that you could push a button and it would tint the glass. Sel and I had WAY too much fun playing with that. That evening we took a boat tour on the lake to a little Grotto restaurant owned by the most eccentric little Swiss-Italian man, Peter. He was such a fabulous host and the food was delicious! Our entire group got totally wasted and were more than entertaining to watch for the rest of the night.

Lake Lugano

This is the cup they drink wine from..or in our case, Coke Light.

I love this one so much! We were lucky to be there on such a gorgeous night.

Lugano Chapel at Sunset. I only took a trillion and two pictures of this

If I had the choice, I would spend the rest of my life moving between Switzerland, The Netherlands, Austria and Germany. Writing this makes me miss Europe SO much. Who wants to fund a trip for me to go back? Or wants to buy me a cottage in Switzerland?

Thursday, May 23, 2013

When Good Americans Die, They Go to Paris

Oscar Wilde got pretty close to how I feel about Paris. It truly is a magical city. I spent hours of my young childhood flipping through my mother's many art books. My mom has a massive crush on France considering she majored in French and lived over there for a little while. She has a serious thing for impressionist painting and I do too thanks to her. As the impressionist movement was based in Paris, it really isn't a suprise that the most renowned works of impressionst tried (and succeded) and capturing the magic of Paris.

They really loved Paris; Monet, Manet, Renoir. It's difficult to not feel the same they did as they did such a remarkable job of convincing you that Paris was the most beautiful city in the world.

The Louvre was everything and more than it is cracked up to be, but the Musee D'Orsay captured my heart. I even teared up a little bit as I stood in awe at how transcendent all of it was.

While we were in Paris, we also go to go to Notre Dame which took my breath away at how massive and elaborate it was. It took 200 years to build. Can you even believe that? America has only been established as a country for that long. I wish as much dedication and reverence was put into buildings here as went into so many of those in Europe.

We also got to go to Sainte Chapelle which is better described in pictures than in any words I could come up with.

The Effiel Tower was also pretty spectacular. I wasn't expecting to think much of it, but I found myself marveling at how impressive it was. The architectural design is pretty genius and going to the top gives you a spectacular view of the city.

The food was not as amazing as I expected, but we really only had a total of five meals there and two of those were in the hotel. I would definitely want to come back and do a better food hunt :) Now here are just a huge smattering of pictures for you