» Venice - Simon Lau

Europe Trip 2008 Photo Collection

Here’s a handy little post with a list of all the photo albums I’ve uploaded for my 2008 Europe Trip.

Panoroama – Self Stitched
Panoroama – Adobe Photoshop Photomerge
London
Vence
Milan
Florence
Pisa
Rome
Paris

Tags: Europe 2008, Florence, London, Milan, Paris, Pisa, Rome, Venice

. 28 Jul 08 | Photography, Travel | Comments (2)

Venice Travel Pictures

Venice is an incredibly beautiful city, it doesn’t take very long to get lost or to walk through the entire city. The best way to get around is via Vaporetto, basically the public transportation system of Venice. People hop onto one of the water buses and get off where they need to. The Vaporetto’s cover the main island (Venice) as well as the outer islands in the area.
We arrived in Venice early afternoon and took the time to wander around. On our first full day we took the Vaporetto across the island to San Marco. Here’s the view:

Here I am sitting on one of the many bridges that dot the city.

From San Marco, this is the famous Bascili. There are a ton of pigeons and people love to feed them and have them crawl over their body. Not my cup of tea.

If you looked at my panorama photos, you will have noticed a bunch taken of Venice. Those were all taken from the bell tower and here’s a view of the piazza from the top.

Back on the vaporetto, we kept passing by this museum with a skull made of our different pieces of metal, a photo just had to be taken.

The Grand Canal during sunset is truly a beautiful sight, here are a few pictures during dusk.

This picture was taken on the way back from Lido, one of the islands near Venice. Many of the workers in Venice don’t actually stay on Venice because it is too expensive, instead many of them live on the islands like Lido.
We spend one day on Murano and Burano, two other islands near Venice. Murano is famous for their glass work and Burano is famous for their colorful houses and lace factories. There are very few lace factories around these days.

No trip to Venice is complete without a Gondola ride so we took one. It cost 60Eur for 30 minutes but our Gondola guy also sang and give us a history lesson of the area while he rowed us around.

Tags: Burano, Europe, graduation trip, Lido, Murano, photos, San Marco, Venice

. 04 Jul 08 | Photography, Travel | Comment (1)

London Travel Pictures

I promised I would share some pictures of my Europe Grad Trip, so let’s finally begin. The journey begins in London so that’s where the pictures will start.

After arriving in London around 7PM we made it into town and wandered with our bags until we could check in. Our first stop was at Piccadilly Circus:

We then moved onto the Big Ben where I observed how the clock was a few minutes fast.

Wandering along the waterfront we were able to see what the London Eye looked like, we didn’t actually go up.

From here, we continued wandering through St. James Park and made our way to the front of Buckingham Palace where we watched the guards changed. This is an hour long event and not a 2 minute job that I thought it was!

By this point it was approaching noon and we had been up for most of our flight and walked around for a few hours with our bags. After a quick lunch at Cheers we checked into our Hotel – Hilton. Outside the hotel was this yellow Lotus so I took a picture.

The next day we went down to the Thames Rivers and checked our the Tower Bridge, Tower of London, looked at HMS Belfast and a random piece of artwork in the area.

We also walked to the Globe Theater which we went back to later in the evening to watch King Lear from the 5GBP standing area.

On our way to dinner we passed by the Court house.

Our on next day we went to Regents Park.

We also stopped by at Camden Market and picked up panoramas of London.

Here’s a view looking down one of two elevators required to get to the tube from our station.

The day after that we went to Hyde Park, the Orangerie (where I stole an orange off their tree) and the Science Museum.

Early the next day we made our way out to Stansted Airport and flew with Ryanair to Venice.

Tags: Buckingham Palace, Changing of the guards, Europe 2008, graduation trip, Hyde Park, London, London Eye, Lotus, Orangerie, photos, Ryanair, Shakespeare, St. James Park, Venice

. 03 Jul 08 | Photography, Travel | Comment (1)

Europe Trip 2008 Panoramics

I have finally pieced together photos of our Europe Trip that covered London, Venice, Milan, Florence, Pisa, Rome and Paris between May 7th and June 10th. The photos were taken with a Casio Exilim EX-Z1050 (10MP) digital camera and pieced together using Adobe Photoshop.

London was the first city we visited but we did not visit any high points in the city that would allow for panoramic city photos.

Venice was the first Italian city of our trip and from the Bell Tower in San Marco (Campanile di San Marco) you get a wonderful view of the city, the water and the islands that dot around Venice.

Leaving Venice we took the train to Milan but like London, there were no good free high points that allow you to take panoramic photos. From Milan we went to Florence, where the blue skies, green grass and small city made for breathtaking views. The photos below was taken from Cimitero Delle Porte Sante on our way to Michelangelo Piazza.

From Michelangelo Piazza the city is a bit closer.

Karen and I both believe that Florence had the best view during our trip.

Leaving Florence we went to Pisa for one day where the most obvious thing to do is to visit the Leaning Tower. However, going up the Leaning Tower is quite the experience. I think it is the best way to fully appreciate the lean. You also get a great view from the top.

The final Italian city for us is none other than Rome. Rome is full of history and two of the most popular places include the Vatican City and the Colosseum. At the Vatican City we went to the cupola (top of St Peter’s Basilica) and I had enough photos for 2 panoramic, possibly more if I wanted to put the rest together. In addition to those two sites, I compiled a panoramic photo of some ruins along Via dei Fori Imperiali between Colosseum and Victor Emmanuel II.

The final stop on our trip was Paris and the most obvious place for panoramic photos would be at the top of the Eiffel Tower. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that the view from the Eiffel Tower was spectacular but at such a great height (300m above ground) some of the detail is lost. However, it is the only monument open late into that night allowing for pictures of the “City of Lights”. Before revealing the photos from the Eiffel Tower, we first went to Notre Dame, the site Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame. From here you can see large portion of Paris and its surrounding area.

The night of our boat cruise we also went up to the Eiffel Tower because the weather was finally starting to clear and we didn’t want to miss the opportunity. When we arrived at the top, the sun was setting.

That’s a wrap for all the panoramic I currently have. I am still selecting which photos from each city I will upload and share. Expect that to happen in the coming weeks.

Tags: Europe 2008, Florence, Grad Trip, panoramic, Paris, photos, Pisa, Rome, Venice

. 19 Jun 08 | Photography, Travel | Comments (3)

Back in Toronto

After 36 days in Europe for my graduation trip where I covered London, Venice, Milan, Florence, Pisa, Rome and Paris, I came back to Toronto yesterday afternoon in one piece. The flight was smooth until the last 20 minutes when we hit some very choppy air. To make matters more interesting, they made us sit in the plane for another 20 minutes while Peel police escorted someone off the plane. Why? Who knows!

Over the coming weeks I will slowly upload a few of the photos I’ve taken. In total there are over 2200. I’ll likely break it down by city and share a few comments about why the photo is special.

Tags: Europe 2008, Florence, Grad Trip, Itinerary, London, Milan, Paris, Pisa, Rome, Venice

. 11 Jun 08 | Travel | Comments (0)

Final Itinerary for Europe Trip

Here’s our final itinerary for Europe. I’ll be back in Toronto in June!

Date	Depart	Arrive	Location
Wednesday, May 07, 2008	18:25		Depart Toronto
Thursday, May 08, 2008		6:25	Arrive in London
	7:15		Liverpool Finsbury Square
Monday, May 12, 2008	11:25		Depart London (Stansted)
Monday, May 12, 2008		14:20	Arrive in Venice
			Bus to Venice
		16:00	Arrive in Venice
Friday, May 16, 2008	10:30		Depart Venice
Friday, May 16, 2008		13:05	Arrive in Milan
Tuesday, May 20, 2008	11:50		Depart Milan
Tuesday, May 20, 2008		14:32	Arrive in Florence
Saturday, May 24, 2008	10:00		Depart Florence
Saturday, May 24, 2008		10:35	Arrive in Pisa
Sunday, May 25, 2008	8:55		Depart Pisa
Sunday, May 25, 2008		12:14	Arrive in Rome
Thursday, May 29, 2008	3:00		Bus to Airport
Thursday, May 29, 2008	6:45		Depart Rome
Thursday, May 29, 2008		8:50	Arrive in Paris
			Bus to City
	8:00		Train to CDG Terminal 2A
Tuesday, June 10, 2008	11:40		Depart Paris
Tuesday, June 10, 2008		14:05	Arrive in Toronto

Tags: Europe 2008, Florence, Grad Trip, Itinerary, London, Milan, Paris, Pisa, Rome, Venice

. 07 May 08 | Travel | Comments (0)

Europe Trip Planning – Where We’re Staying in Venice, Italy

Venice, Italy is the second stop of our Europe trip. We’ll fly to the Treciso airport just outside of Venice via Ryanair and we’ll hopefully get into the city by about 4PM local time. That actually doesn’t give us too much time in the city as we’ll be taking the train out at noon the following Friday (May 16th). While in Venice, we’ll be sleeping at Hotel Adua, a place we found on Priceline for $112/night.

hotel adjus

The hotel has family operated with a total of 13 rooms. We’ll be in a double room with a shared washroom/shower. Online it states the double rooms have a bathroom, so we’ll see what happens when we arrive. If we’re lucky, maybe the room we get has a water view instead of a city. There are not many amenities included which is fine given the number of things we want to cover in the city. There is no internet but it says on request we can use the reception computer.

hoteladua1

The general consensus about the place on Venere.com, HostelWorld.com and TripAdvisor.com has been fairly good. No major security or cleanliness issues. One of the biggest pluses about this place is that it is located a short walk from the train station. It’s not directly beside it so we won’t hear the late trains rolling in but it’s not miles away where we would need to get up early to catch our train.

hoteladua3 hoteladua2