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Vatican City museum and the basilica di San Pietro

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Vatican City museum and the basilica di San Pietro

I just have to start by saying that you can´t go to Rome without visiting Vatican City, its museum and the basilica, end of discussion.

There are a few thing that is good to know when before making a visit to either the museum inside Vatican or the San Pietro’s basilica that makes the experience a lot smoother.

Number one and perhaps the best advice that I have, book a guided tour to the Vatican museum. Normally I do not like guided tours because I want to walk in my one pace and skip what I want to skip and not always walk in a straight line so I was actually surprised that the guided tour was really fun. Not only was it good to get a guide that could show you where in the museum that best highlights was located, you were allowed to skip the line at the entrance. BIG BONUS!

Vatican Museum has an official webpage where you can book and prepay you tour by credit card. I booked it two days in advance and I suppose that it is best to booking as soon as you know when you want to visit since there are a limited number of tour tickets.

http://biglietteriamusei.vatican.va/musei/tickets/do

This is the link to the site and I then booked the “Guided tour for individuals”. The hardest part was that I did this on my IPhone (scrolling up and down the not mobile adapted site was a pain…). After everything was booked I got an email with a QR-code that you simply showed to the guards at the museum. They then send directly to the entrance making you skip the two hours que in an instance! The price for the tour and the entrance was €35 and it was money well spent.

Ok, that was tip number one and here is tip number two.

Start early with the Basilica of San Pietro. When I woke up I headed straight out to the Vatican and the basilica, grabbing a coffee and a sandwich on my way there. I think I arrived short after eight in the morning, yarn… Anyway, the que to the basilica was perhaps five meter. It was one family with two crying children, a couple of senior citizens and then it was me. Just like at the airport you have to pass a metal detector. They also scan your bags so I could just imagine the que if it was a lot of people waiting.

The feeling when entering the basilica di San Pietro is hard to describe. I have seen quite a lot of basilicas and they are all more or less architectural marvels, but this played in a completely different league. To summarize it in one word, WOW! When I entered through the doors an in to the main hall I almost started to laugh because it was so surrealistically huge. And the light that comes in through the “small” windows set the scene perfectly, this is sacred ground.

Just by looking up at the dome makes it hard to see how big it really is. It is hard to see in this picture but you can actually walk on a pathway that is located above the text. There is a two meter high fence that on the left and some to the right in this picture. Just take my word for it, it´s there, I walked on it.

So if you have the strength and will to walk some stairs you could walk to the very top of the dome. I have walked the stair of the Eiffel tower in Pairs, but that was a piece of cake compared to this… It was hot, crowded and you have to lean to the side since the dome shape made it impossible to stand straight. If you do have a small touch of claustrophobia, there are a lot of other places to visit…

One up at the top of the dome the view was well worth the sweat. The dome is not by far any of the highest point that you can visit but it is perfect for Rome. You are high enough to see all corners of the city. Everything from the coliseum to the Spanish stairs is visible. Just below the dome is the Vatican museum. Almost all the building contains artworks in form of painting, statues, carpets and other spectacular items.

Piazza San Pietro was according to the guide a piazza that in the beginning was completely surrounded with buildings. The broad street leading up to the piazza was ordered by Mussolini and with that decision the original design idea was gone. The original idea was that everyone visiting the piazza would first walk among the houses that surrounds the piazza and then once entering the piazza, get a awesome wow-feeling.

Speaking of queuing. This is the queue to the security control at the Basilica at noon. This picture makes it hard to see but the persons at the end of the queue has one hour in 35 degree Celsius to kill before reaching the security entrance and then, if they want to go up in the dome another hour…

Inside the Vatican museum I didn’t take so many pictures. It was almost too much to see so I didn´t know what to capture with the camera or just with my eyes. Still, this is the one I really want to share, The Sistine chapel. This is the place where the cardinals gather to vote who will be the next pope and of course the place where Michelangelo’s perhaps mot famous fresco covers the complete ceiling. Another wow moment took place here!

I just have to show this picture of the Swiss Guard standing at strategic places around the Vatican City. The Swiss Guard has been the official guard for the Pope since 1506 and consists of a highly trained group of former Swiss military. To be recruited to the Swiss Guard you must be a Swiss citizen, be at least 175cm tall, catholic, single, have left the military service with a certificate of good conduct and on top of that you need to have a diploma from a higher education… tough, and yes one more thing, you can not be older that 30…

How spectacular this place is during the day it is equally fascinating by night. Every building is lit up and with the black sky as background they look even bigger than during the day. It seems that the piazza is a popular place to visit during the night since it was crowded with people strolling around taking pictures.

Do not miss it!

/Thomas Tanisawa

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September 12, 2015
Stockholm. The city by the water

Stockholm, a city surrounded by water

I love that Stockholm is more or less surrounded by water. And it is not just narrow canals or large busy shipyards. It is water with open spaces, bright colors (when the sun shines at least) and it feels “fresh”. You can stroll down with a bottle of wine and some bread and just relax. To be honest you can do that, but it is illegal to drink alcohol in most public places… When living in Sweden you obviously have to take the good parts and mix it with the some drawbacks.

Either you stroll down on your own…

Or with the one you love…

Or with someone that you could discuss, why your loved one is so not the perfect one…

Anyway, if the sun is shining and you are lucky enough to be here in Stockholm, ENJOY!

/Thomas

June 6, 2015
Cherry blossom in Stockholm

Time for cherry blossom in Stockholm!

On Saturday my two daughters and I took the train into Stockholm to look at the cherry blossom, or Sakura blossom in Kungsträdgården. The weather was nice and the sun was shining so I expected that were not going to be alone in, and I was right…

First we went to the southern part of Stockholm to walk around and have some lunch before the event in kungsträdgården arranged by the Japanese society here in Stockholm.

The girls’ just can´t walk straight without making up some small game to play. This time it was “you can only walk on the lines-game”. I thought it would be harder to play the “don´t walk on the line-game” but I didn´t have anything to say about that.

On the way to Kungsträdgården we went be the castle to look at the guards. There was a small argument about the guards and what the purpose really was to have them standing outside the castle. Guarding the castle was not top of mind for the girls, helping tourist who fell down the steep slope was. The man running in this image was a good candidate for falling down… (He didn´t)

This guard stood completely still outside this small yellow hut. I tried to get the girls to stand beside him for a quick picture, but this was the closest they were willing to go…

This is the bird feeding point at Stockholm Ström. It is always someone that throws bred to the ducks. The girls stood here for quite some time to look at the fight that occurred among the ducks every time someone throws bread into the water.

Just look at it! There is something special about the cherry trees with its small pink flowers. Might have something to do with the short time the flowers are in bloom. One maybe two weeks is the maximum time for the blossom and there are only for a couple of days when all the trees are in full bloom.

Between all the trees there is a large pond where the students always run before graduate. There are no fishes in the pond, only children and their unfortunate fathers who have to step in and pick them up again. Today I only saw one child step out into the water and a not so happy father stepping after.

We were not alone…

This lady was showing of some origami skills a notch or two over my level. To be able to fold a paper into a horse that actually looks like a horse takes some skill.

This day Stockholm was really showing one of its best sides. I it hard to beat a good combination of good weather, spare time and something funny to do with it together with the kids.

Until next time, Love!

/Thomas

April 20, 2015
Clouds from Disney

Sometimes I need to sand still, lift my head up and just look at things that are right there but I often miss or not notice that much.

In this post I have included a couple of pictures showing how the sun transforms the white clouds into something taken from a Disney movie. Just walking around under the fireworks of colors in the sky can make me feel really small or sometimes, that I´m part of something bigger.

This image reminds me of flying. Before take off, just sitting in the airplane when the rain falls down outside and everything is grey. Then just a couple of minutes after take off, as the plane pierces through the clouds and gets above the rain the sun almost explodes. Above the clouds the sky is always clear and the sun is always shining. I have seen it on so many flights but I still get amazed and surprised when I see it. The feeling I get when I look at this image is somewhat similar. That above the sometimes dark and shady streets there is a blue sky with a sun shining. They are just not always visible through the clouds.

I like this house. I have never been inside but I like the way the balcony wraps around the corner of the building. I could easily imagine myself sitting on the balcony drinking my morning coffee in the sun.

This must be one of the coolest places when the weather decides to put on a show. The name is Gondolen and it is a restaurant. Just imagine sitting at the bar, having a drink and just look at the city as it transform as the sun sets in the east.

This post wouldn´t have been complete without a picture of Stockholm in sunset. Words are unnecessary…

I will try harder not to miss the small thing always visible. They are always there so I guess I just have to decide to notice them.

Love to all.

/Thomas

April 17, 2015
Black and whites from Stockholm

Some black and whites from a cold and windy Stockholm.

I thought it was about time to post something new to the site. Hera are some black and white images that I took a couple of days ago. They are all from the central part of Stockholm, or at least within walking distance from it.

Under every tent there is a boat waiting to be put back in the water by its owner. Carefully wrapped in like giant Christmas presents but without the colour full paper they just wait until it is time to be unwrapped. Stockholm is a city surrounded by water and during the summer there are hundreds of small boats trying not to bump into each other while hunting for the best spot to “park” the boat.

This day the weather here in Stockholm wasn’t made for long quiet strolls along the waterfront. The wind was terrible and it was sometimes quite hard just to walk in a straight line. Still, there are always a lot of tourists in Stockholm that just cant stay at the hotel. They of course just have to head out to see what the city has to offer, stormy weather or not. This little group tried really hard to pose in front of Stockholm´s city hall, making it look like the wind didn´t want to blow them into the water. I wonder how their pictures turned out…

They exist in Stockholm as well, love locks. This is on the highest point of the bridge Västerbron and the wind was pushing me towards the fence really hard. After taking this image I almost flew down from the bridge. I hope the people placing the locks didn´t do that during a storm. Might be that their relationships after the lock has been placed here went trough a storm, but hopefully everything in the end turned out just fine.

Sometimes the people managing the city come up with brilliant ideas. This I think is one of them. Under Västerbron they have built a giant skate park, fantastic. The space under the bridge wasn´t used for anything special since it was quite dark and noisy from the cars rushing on top. The skate park however fits just right in and for it, the environment is perfect. The skate pools are made of really hard and unforgiving concrete so this is not a sport for me. I would probably smash into the ground on the first attempt…

More images will soon follow and next time they will be in color.

/Thomas

April 14, 2015
Quick visit to Amsterdam

Back in Amsterdam! I´m here again!

A couple of days have been spent in Amsterdam, Netherlands for some education. The feeling when traveling down was quite good. I looked forward to meeting all new colleagues from all over the world but the trip wouldn’t have any romantic “Fault in our stars”-theme, not planned anyway. What I did have was Charli XCX “Boom clap” in the back of my head and that cheered up my mood enough to get me going.

I have been in Amsterdam a couple of times but every time there is something new you haven´t seen before, something new you haven´t noticed or something that changes the way you feel about the city.

When I arrived to Amsterdam there was rain in the air. It was quite cold and like a wet blanket over Amsterdam the city slowed down a bit. Not much but enough to be noticeable.

I guess that basement is a concept that doesn’t exist here in Amsterdam.

To me this is a typical Amsterdam-view. One of the many canals, the typical Dutch houses on the side, bicycles and cars and in the water small boats. This could have been taken anywhere in Amsterdam. I do like it and can walk for hours along the canals, so there is not criticism here!

Looking to close and you will fall into the water. The are no guardrails so I can only guess how many tourist that they have to help out of the water every day… Since the area closest to the canal is usually reserved for parking, the fire department in Amsterdam has a group specialized on car “fishing”.

Love locks. As in many cities they exists here as well. I kind of like the idea to lock your love on a bridge in a special city. Hopefully it works out and how cool wouldn’t it be to go back in a couple of years to find your lock still in place, still there and still keeping its promise.

The nights in Amsterdam is special, very special. If you are coming from Sweden there are so many things that are just strange. The legalization of smoking cannabis has created a totally absurd industry of coffee shops, selling everything you need to fly home without an airplane. I don’t know if it is most popular among the tourists or the locals but most coffee shops where really crowded.

Still, it is very beautiful to walk through the city at night. There is always a lot of people out walking and there is only like one or two ours just right before the clock hit five in the morning when it´s almost quiet. And yes this is from one of those early (or do you way late) hours.

The famous or infamous red light district is where most of the prostitutes works. I find it strange that it is so in the open. There is no closed door, no hiding behind curtains. Girls are sitting on display in the windows just like fashion clothes, electronics or any other “thing” on special bargain.

First time I visited Amsterdam I thought it was a little bit strange but fun. But this time I got really depressed seeing the girls sitting there with a fake smile waiving at you. I just can´t imagine that the girls sitting there grew up without dreams and ambitions. Dreaming of a life full of happiness, meaning and a will to do things better. Life is not always fair but it must have been a long and really hard way for every one of them before ending up in one of the windows at red light. Once there, how do you then find the strength to dream about something else?

I took the image it in one of the many alleys and the love sign just pops out and signals love, like hope in the darkness. But here in Amsterdam I find it a little bit hard to connect the word love on the sign to the kind of love that have the power to move mountains. Here is has been transformed to something else…

This is the proof that I wasn´t alone on my morning/night walk. I suppose that they were coming home from a hard party night in Amsterdam. When it comes to the seagulls I do not count them as company, yet. They really never sleeps, just like the city.

Time to visit Amsterdam´s famous Rijksmuseum. A truly mind blowing collection of art from Vincent Van Gogh, Monet, Rembrandt and hundreds or perhaps thousands of other great artists. The sign the kids are climbing on says, “I Amsterdam” so now you don´t have to guess that.

And there it is. The “Night Watch” by Rembrandt! But do I like it? Answer it unfortunately no. This is not my favorite at all. Before going here I know how Rembrandt usually paints and to be honest, it is not my cup of tea. However this is such a famous painting so I just thought that I would be more, or should be more, how to put it, amazed. No argue about the painting is an impressive painting but it´s not for me, sorry Rembrandt.

Well out on the streets again during the day the real life of the city hits you. Nothing stands still for more than a second or so. Everything moves, everything makes sounds and everywhere you look there are people rushing by. There are bicycles everywhere, and when I say everywhere I really mean it. You need to know where to look, where not to go and be alert to not getting hit.

I like colors, patterns and the funny small things that not everybody have the time to notice. I usually stops and takes pictures of graffiti, signs or other strange objects. Must guess that I sometimes look quite strange, when I take a picture of something and everybody around ask them self, why did he take a picture of that? Or more correct, they see me as a Japanese tourist and that makes it ok to take pictures of strange things.

Might be hard to see in the picture but this house owner had a sign outside saying “Don´t even think of parking here”. Inside behind the windows he had reindeer head staring at you, should you even thing of parking there…

A store that only sells Nutella! Just walking in to the store and let the sweet smell of chocolate fill your whole body, that is amazing (sorry Rembrandt). So until next time going back to Amsterdam I´ll keep this images and my memories close and perhaps I´m back sooner than expected.

Boom clap
The sound of my heart
The beat goes on and on and on and on and

Boom clap
You make me feel good
Come on to me come on to me now

LOVE!

/Thomas Tanisawa

February 27, 2015
First flight of the season

It´s not that often you got the chance to fly balloon during the winter season but then all of a sudden the opportunity appears!

Peter, one of my friends is complementing his US flight certificate with a Swedish one and that includes (luckily for me) some “training” flights. We headed out to the town of Örebro to meet the instructor and prepare for the flight. The weather was really nice. Scattered clouds, a shining sun and the ground covered with snow set the scenery for this very special flight.

Time to fill the balloon with air. A lot of people think that you use the burners on the basket to fill the balloon with hot air. That is correct but to begin with, you start to fill the balloon with “normal” cold air from two large fans. The purpose is to give the balloon its initial shape and also to give room for the hot air from the burners.

And now it’s time to add some heat! Since it’s the temperature difference inside the balloon compared to the outside air temperature that creates the force to lift, it goes very quickly to make it fly in the winter. The air temperature outside was -2 and the heat from the burner is far from that. It took under a minute to get the balloon to rise from the ground!

Just like magic. Upwards and onwards!

Seen from above all the ordinary things not even noticed from the ground, creates the most amazing shapes and patterns. Just to see how the color changes with the season, time of day and weather is spectacular. It makes you feel very small and acts as a reminder that there are so much out there. Sometimes it is just under your nose, you just have to lift your head to be able to see it.

I like long stretched shadows and snow makes the perfect backdrop!

Swooping in over the rooftops at the same time as the suns final effort to glow is just epic.

I wonder what the cows thought of the balloon. If this was a movie you would have seen them running from one side to the other while staring at us…

Finally after over two hours of flight it was time for us to land and get our feet back on the ground again. Luckily we didn´t land among the trees in the picture… Well on the ground again, after wrapping up all our equipment a long day had come to an end and we headed back for some well deserved food and sleep. Hopefully we will be back up in the air as soon as possible!

/Thomas

January 27, 2015
Cold and Sunny

Cold and sunny

Already a new year, 2015. The “old” 2014 feels suddenly so far away and I hope this year will bring lot of happiness and perhaps some new experiences along the way.

The weather has been shifting from cold and sunny to not that cold and windy. Not that cold is for me somewhere around zero and cold is in the region of minus 10. I totally prefer the cold and sunny but can´t wait until it turns to warm and sunny. That will probably not happen until April or so, always something to look forward to.

Anyway, here are some of the snaps from one of the cold and sunny days out on the lake. The girls wanted to go ice skating so of we went down to the frozen lake close to our house. The ice was almost 20 centimeter thick so the risk for it to brake felt quite small. You could probably drive a car out on the ice without any risk and since there were so many other out skating we decided to get out and hope for the best.

Location, location, location. The one thing you can´t change one you bought a house. To me this house ticks a lot of boxes, except it isn´t mine.

Sisters, sometimes they love each other and sometimes not…

My youngest one has quite recently lost both her front teeth and is patiently waiting until the new ones grows out…

Catch me if you can!

/Thomas Tanisawa

January 6, 2015
The pail winter sun

Walking in the winter sun

The winter is closing in here in Stockholm. It is not that cold, somewhere around 0 but there are subzero days and this day was one of them.

I went down to the lake that is close to where we live to see if the ice is starting to take shape. To my surprise the whole lake was covered with ice. The ice was not that thick but it was ok for me to walk on it. Sure there was some open water left but not much and I guess if you want to go ice skating you probably have to wait a week or two just to be sure.

When I look at this photo it feels like the water is moving but it was completely frozen. The small curly waves looked like they had been frozen in an instant.

Around the ice edge there was a thick layer of ice flakes that formed a constant changing frame. The wind took the flakes and showed them around on the ice piling them on top of each other.

Only small rays of sunlight hits the ground so most of the beautiful crystals remains intact forming a sparkling white layer on the ground.

While walking among the trees it was quite dark even though it was around noon, but as soon as you look up you could see where the sun was. Only the highest trees had the fortune to take in the suns last weak beams before it sets in a couple of hours.

In the winter up here in the Nordics the sun kind of stops to feel warm. The burning heat from sunny summer beaches feels distant and instead it is glowing with a pail white- bluish tint that can look amazing, but without the real feeling of warmth.

For today the sun is starting to fade away but not before sending out a bright reminder to everyone that tomorrow is a new day.

/Thomas

December 22, 2014
Late summer in Budapest

Together with my colleges I spend a weekend in Budapest as a great ending of our much appreciated summer here in Sweden. Just as my mindset was setting in for a long and cold winter it felt nice to have a quick reminder of the summer. It was +20 and the sun was really shining, lovely! This was my first trip to Budapest and it was also a quite short one, so I definitely need to go back to see all the things that I missed.

Our hotel was located on the opposite side of the square next to the great market in Budapest so of course we went in to have a look. Lots of small shops selling everything from meat, vegetables to langos and t-shirt with “I love Budapest” printed on the front.

I just loved this cast iron staircase. I guess a lot of effort went in to this.

Crossing one of the many iron bridges over river Danube. This is the Széchenyi Chain Bridge build 1849. Normally this two lane bridge is jammed with cars but this day there was a special “car free day” in Budapest so you were able to walk in the middle when crossing.

From the Budapest castle there was a nice view over the city.

Three is a crowd…

Here you can see the Budapest castle from the other side of the river.

October 2, 2014