{"id":1056,"date":"2019-12-24T05:28:06","date_gmt":"2019-12-24T05:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saviowong.com\/travel\/?page_id=1056"},"modified":"2024-02-12T04:58:47","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T04:58:47","slug":"travelog-2019","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/saviowong.com\/travel\/travelog-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

From October to November, I spent five weeks in Europe.\u00a0 Since I took thousands of photos while I travel, I decide to put them together with a short write-up on a particular day.\u00a0 The log is not meant to be comprehensive or profound.\u00a0 Rather, it is a vignette of something that happened that day.\u00a0 I don’t know how many I would do but it is definitely an on-going project.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

European Travelog 2019-11-05\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Vatican City: How much could it be?<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
After spending some time at the majestic St. Peter\u2019s Basilica, my friends and I walked over to the massive Vatican Museum. Although the actual distance \"\"<\/a>between the basilica and the museum is quite short, unless you are part of a tour group, visitors have to take a 20-minute detour to get from the St. Peter\u2019s Square to the entrance to the museum. Since we had purchased the tickets for the museum online and we had about an hour to spare, we decided to have a quick bite at the Caff\u00e8 Vaticano, which is conveniently located right across the entrance to the museum.<\/span><\/p>\n

After we were seated, a waiter came over and took our order.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would like a bowl vegetable soup please.\u201d My friend W told the waiter.<\/span>
\u201cWe just ran out of vegetable soup; how about seafood soup?\u201d He answered nonchalantly.<\/span>
\u201cOkay. Seafood soup then.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After the waiter left us, I told W that a seafood soup was going to cost him more than \u20ac10, the price listed for a vegetable soup on the menu.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow much could it be?\u201d W retorted.<\/span>
\u201c\u20ac25\u201d. He wife M said.<\/span>
\u201cIt can\u2019t be that much, I would say \u20ac18.\u201d I chimed in.<\/span><\/p>\n

Along with the pasta that I ordered, the seafood soup arrived fairly quickly. The soup was more like a bouillabaisse with a rich broth, a good chunk of fish, a couple of shrimps, and some clams. We gobbled down our lunch and then asked the waiter for our bill.<\/span><\/p>\n

We couldn\u2019t stop laughing when we were presented with the bill. We laughed because we were in a state of disbelief. The not-on-the-menu bowl of seafood soup was \u20ac40. Yup, sixty Canadian dollars for a bowl of soup. I think before the days of social media, tourist scams like this were more common because of transaction was usually one off and the consumers had no recourse. A note to self after this incident is to always check the online reviews of a restaurant. If I had done so, I would have read numerous complaints from unhappy diners about Caff\u00e8 Vaticano. In fact, if you search the reviews now, you would be able to spot my warning as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of our visit to the splendid and exhausting museum, we thought we could take a taxi to return to our hotel. Before we hopped into a cab, a driver calmly informed us that: \u201cthis is the Vatican City, we can\u2019t use the meter.\u201d I thought it was the ultimate irony that we experienced both scams at the home of the Pope.<\/span><\/p>\n

Photo Albums:<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n