As a traveler I think the most important phrase is “Thank you.” That was what I learned to say before each country we traveled to. Even if you can't speak the local language and talk in English or gestures, it is nice to be able to thank someone in their native language. Second most important for me is “I'm sorry” or “excuse me”. That is very useful when on crowded buses or trains and you have to push by someone to get off. Third is probably “where is the bathroom?” or simply “toilet?” which gets the message across.
Anyway, here is how to say “Thank you”, in every country we visited, at least how it sounded to me. Please don't get too offended if I mangled your native language, I was trying 🙂 :
Taiwan (mandarin), China: Shi-shi
Korea: Gamsameeda
Egypt (Arabic): Shockram
Zurich – Switzerland, Vienna – Austria (German): Danke
Geneva – Switzerland (French), France: Merci
Spain: Gracias
Italy, Vatican City: Gratzie
Hungary: Kusonome
Czech Republic: Dekuji
Poland: Dziekuji (very similar to Czech)
Norway: Takk (pronounced like talk)
Denmark: Tack (like tact)
Iceland: this is the one I didn't learn. Supposedly it is similar to Danish (tack) but they add several syllables to differentiate from Denmark. Just saying “tack” is frowned upon, so I went with “Thank you” which everyone understood.
After lunch we headed to San Gimignano. It is famous for being a well preserved example of a walled medieval village. While other wealthy cities like Florence and Sienna periodically tore down buildings and rebuilt them in the current style (Renaissance, neoclassical, etc.), San Gimignano was particularly devastated by the Black Plague in 1348, losing over half its population, and never really recovered, so they basically didn't change anything in the town for the next 500 years.
Unfortunately our luck didn't hold and it dumped rain on us. The town is very small and there was no tour, we were just given 1.5 hours of free time to explore. It was windy and there was thunder and lightning. The hilly streets became mini rivers. Even with an umbrella my pants and shoes were getting wet. This basically forced us to go into the many tourist shops for shelter.
Finally the rain stopped for a bit and we ventured out. One nice thing is the rain reduced the crowds, so we felt like we had it almost to ourselves in some places.
Town well in the central squareTall medieval tower behind me
Our final stop in Tuscany was Pisa. The rain broke, so that was good.
The leaning tower has fairly recently (2008) completed a restoration, so it looks great, clean and bright.
My favorite shot because the sun came out for a moment. Plus you can see the keep off the grass sign in the foreground and all the tourists on the grass taking hold-up-the-tower photos.We're tourists too, so why not?
The tower is just the most famous monument in what Pisa calls the Field of Miracles.
From the opposite side
Finally we headed back to Florence where we caught a night train to Vienna. As I said we are trying to pack more stuff into our remaining time. 🙂
We've had pretty good luck with the weather so far on our trip. A rainy day on the island of Hawaii (where is rains 300 days a year), a bit of rain in Beijing, and the first night in Paris and Rome, but not heavy in either case. It looked like our luck finally ran out, because as we checked in for our Tuscany tour it was raining heavily.
The first stop on the tour was the town of Siena. In the Middle Ages Siena was a rival of Florence, although our guide (from Florence) said it was kind of one sided with Siena wanting to be a rival but Florence not caring much because Siena was much weaker. He also joking told us not to listen to the Sienese guide, so maybe the rivalry still exists.
Original Monte die Paschi bank
Luckily the rain had stopped by the time we got to Siena, our guide handed us over to the Sienese guide who took us on a walking tour of the town. It only has about 50,000 people so you can cover the highlights fairly quickly. One of their claims to fame is the oldest operating bank in the world is there, Banca Monte die Paschi di Siena, continuously operating since 1472.
Modern branch of Monte die PaschiPiazza del Campo
Their other claim to fame is the Palio di Siena which a horse race that takes place in the city. It takes place in the Piazza del Campo, which is the central square in the city. As you can see from the pictures it is not a flat square and not really square shaped either. The race has been run since the 17th century.
The race takes place each year with one horse representing each neighborhood in the city. However only 10 horses can run and there are 17 neighborhoods, so 7 are left out. The racers are the 7 left out from the previous race plus three of the remaining 10 drawn by lot. By the way the neighborhoods are ancient, all composed of a region inside the old city walls. There are various rivalries and alliances between the neighborhoods. The Palio is the biggest event of the year, so it is a huge deal for each neighborhood participating.
Piazza del Campo panorama
The horses are trained outside the city, then 10 are picked and assigned to the neighborhoods by random lot. The horse assignment ceremony is an emotional event with the contingents from the various neighborhoods cheering or weeping, depending of whether they get a good or bad horse. The horse is then taken to a special stable inside the neighborhood, and the day of the race it is taken into the neighborhood's church to be blessed.
The race is three laps around the Piazza del Campo and takes about 90 seconds. They put dirt down for the track so the horses are not running on cobblestones. There are no starting gates, instead just a rope that is dropped. The starting positions are also drawn by lot, however there are basically no rules. We saw a video of the race and it is pretty chaotic. The jockeys literally jockey for position in the starting area and try to disrupt each other, even whipping each other with their crops. Sometimes horses end up facing the wrong way. There is no waiting until everyone is ready, when the starting judge says “go” the race starts, so if you are facing the wrong way there is no time to recover in a 90 second race. The winning neighborhood has a giant celebration and parade afterwards.
They also have a nice church.
After we left Siena we headed to an organic farm for a tour and lunch. The farm specializes in wine, olive oil and saffron, but they also have some animals. They told us the lunch was 95% from ingredients from their farm.
As expected Yanmei really enjoyed this part of the tour.
In the veggie greenhouse
Lunch started with bruschetta, followed by fresh penne pasta in a ragu sauce, then some meats (cold salami, etc.) and cheeses, and finally cookies for dessert. There was a wine pairing with each course, including a strong dessert wine you were meant to dip the cookies into. It sounds good, but it was just okay to me. Yanmei makes better bruschetta, and the pasta was good but lacking in flavor a bit, maybe they skimped on the seasoning to keep the 95% stat. The best part to me was the cheese. The view was nice though, we had a view of the medieval town of San Gimignano.
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