Saturday June 4^th

Today we met up with a friend of a friend, who is here in Florence on an art history fellowship.   He has lived in Florence for the last year, and off and on for three years total.  When he offered to take us on a walking tour of Florence, we jumped at the opportunity.  We met in front of a huge statue of Dante at the Santa Croce church.  We arrived about 15 minutes early and watched as some sort of procession with men in Renaissance costumes carrying banners and playing brass instruments processed up the stairs and into the church.

I gave Katie the camera and asked her to run over and take some photos, then I watched as she was swept into the church with a crowd of people following the procession.  “Umm, where did she go?” I asked Paul. “Into the church,” he confirmed as we ran over to the entrance. Unfortunately, this was not the “official” entrance to the church and since you normally have to pay 5 euros to get in, the church guards had moved quickly to stem the tide of tourists flowing into the church for free and we were stuck outside.

I assumed that Katie was smart enough to find her way back outside again, so I just waited. But when I saw Florence police questioning tour guides who had tried to rush their groups in for free, I began to be worried that she might have gotten in trouble inside.  Paul forced his way to the front of the crowd and could see that she was fine, and signaled for her to come back outside.  Once outside, she confirmed that she didn’t necessarily want to go in the church, but couldn’t fight the tide of people and found herself inside.  Once in, she watched the ceremony before coming back out.

Now reunited, we waited for our new friend, who soon arrived.  He saw the men in costume and told us that they were costumed in traditional clothes of the town where Dante was born, so it was likely some kind of Dante related activity.  He also said that these ceremonies have not been going on continuously since the middle ages, but were restarted in Italy just after the unification of Italy into a country as a civic pride kind of thing.

We walked through some of the small neighborhoods of Florence, stopping at a small building that used to be a confraternity. These were small civic organizations that focused on different types of civic works. This one had some excellent frescos painted on the walls of the different types of works the group promoted – taking care of women during childbirth, helping with burials, and giving bread and wine to hungry women and children.  It was pretty interesting to see and was free (a rarity in Florence). Of course we made a small voluntary donation so that the man at the entrance didn’t give us the evil eye.  As I got ready to drop the coins in the box our friend said, “Not now, wait until he’s looking so we get credit!”

After leaving the confraternity, we passed a lunch truck like the one my brother works on in DC. Zach’s sells BBQ, but this one was  a bit more unique – it sold TRIPE!  Yummy.  Tripe and other really inedible parts of animals are a specialty in Italy, one I’ve eaten before and don’t want to again.  The day before, the man in front of us in the grocery store was actually buying tripe to cook at home, so it is commonly eaten.   So we passed this lunch truck up and headed on.

We passed by Dante’s house, which isn’t actually Dante’s house, but one the government designated as Dante’s house for a tourist attraction and civic pride. It is a nice example of a medieval house, and in Dante’s neighborhood, but there is no evidence that Dante lived there.  We passed through the center of town, skirted around the tourist hordes and near the Duomo looked at another confraternity house.  This confraternity specialized in orphans and their house featured a large front parch facing the Duomo.  In medieval times, lost children would be displayed here for several days in hopes that someone would claim them, but often no one did and they were considered abandoned and sent to the orphanage.  We soon walked past the orphanage, which featured a large “lazy susan” from its outside to inside on which desperate parents could place unwanted newborns and rotate them inside the building.  The inside area was monitored by a nun day and night looking for foundlings.

We soon reached the Accademia museum where our friend left us and we waited to get in with our reserved timed tickets. The Accademia is a very small museum with one big exhibit – Michelangelo’s David.  The wing with David was designed just for him, when he was moved here in the mid 1800s to prevent damage and erosion.  The space is dominated by David, with natural light pouring in and illuminating his dominating presence.  He is 17 feet high and located in what looks almost like a Greek temple with him standing sentry at the center.  The longer you look at him, the more is seems as though he was  a real person simply changed into marble, and is ready to come back to life any minute and stride off his pedestal. He looks posed for action, muscles tensed and ready to move.  It really seems that if you look hard enough you might seem him breathing.

We circled him and examined him in detail for all sides, just gasping at his perfection.  After a while, we finally pulled ourselves away and looked through the rest of the museum.  There are five unfinished Michelangelo statues in the same room as David, and the people within the marble still seem to be struggling to be let loose. 

Otherwise, the museum is unremarkable, with some basic renaissance paintings, some alter pieces, and a collection of musical instruments. We finished this section rather quickly and headed for a pizza lunch.

After a lunch, we went to the Leonardo da Vinci museum, which has no actual Leonardo artifacts, but I fun to see nonetheless.  What the museum has is a number of Leonardo’s sketches brought to life off the pages of his notebooks.   Da Vinci never made the vast majority of things he sketched, so this is a neat way to see some ideas realized.  Each display shows the relevant pages of the notebook, next to a beautiful wood version of the sketch.  All the items work, and many of them you can manipulate yourself.  We really enjoyed turning cranks and lifting levers making all of these contraptions come to life.  The museum is small, but fun.

Once we finished with this museum, it was looking like rain so we headed back to the villa.  Just a few minutes after arriving home it began to thunder, so our timing was great.  After the rain, Paul and Katie went out for gelato, but I was still so full from lunch that I reluctantly passed this time.

The Leaning Tower

Friday June 3^rd

Well, today was a day that Katie has really been looking forward to.  When we first planned this trip, I asked her if there was anything in particular in Europe that she wanted to see or visit.  At first she said no, but soon she came back to me with an excited look on her face. “Can we go to the Leaning Tower of Pisa?” she asked excitedly.  Since Pisa is very close to Florence, this was one request that I was happy to be able to easily meet.  So today we headed off to Pisa. 

Pisa is just over an hour away by train, so it is a pretty easy trip.  The train puts you off about a 30 minute walk from the tower, but it’s not well marked at tall so make sure you have a map!  You’d think that there would be well marked tourist signs, but no…. However, with the help of a small map in our guidebook we did manage to make our way through the town of Pisa, which is quite unremarkable until we could see the top of the tower peaking up over some buildings.

“There it is!” we shrieked, pointing excitedly.   We did not have much time to gawk, but hurried to the ticket office to pick up our tower tour tickets which we had ordered several weeks ago on the internet.  We had missed the train we planned to take, so we only had about 20 minutes until our tour started.  Of course the lines were long, so we split up – Paul and Katie in one line, me in another.  My line reached the counter first and I handed the reservation forms to the clerk.  “I will need your ID,” she said and I handed her Katie’s and my passports.  “Not yours, just Paul’s” she clarified since the tickets were in his name. I waved Paul and Katie forward and asked Paul for his ID.  “I don’t have it,” he said.  “I didn’t bring it with me today.”   The clerk leaned over the counter and waggled her finger in Paul’s face.  “Paul, you are a very, very bad boy!” she admonished him.  Luckily she was smiling and handed over our tickets anyway.

We made our way next door to the bag drop and checked everything except the tickets and our cameras.  You are not allowed to bring much of anything up the tower. We ran outside and made it into line just five minutes before our tour time.  They only allow a small number of people up the tower at a time – something like 25 people, spaced in 20 minute increments.  The Leaning Tower is right outside Pisa’s large church and baptistery and was originally just the bell tower of the church, until it started to lean and began much more famous than the church. 

The climb is relatively easy, the stairs just spiral up and up to the bells, and then a bit more to the absolute top of the tower.  Interestingly, we have climbed many towers with these spiraling staircases, and I am fine with it.  However, the lean of the tower combined with the spiraling staircase combined to make me feel quite off-kilter while climbing. The steps were made of marble, but we very well worn with use, making it even more difficult to get good footing. I actually ended up feel quite queasy and was very happy to make it to the top and into the open air. 

The view from the top of the rooftops of Pisa and the surrounding Tuscan hill side was pretty, and the lean was not quite as bad from up here, although it was definitely noticeable.  The tower had already started to lean but the time the last of it was built, and the top section actually is built tilted backwards  a bit to counteract the leaning. Our time was soon up and we headed down, collected our bags and went out to take the obligatory Leaning Tower photographs.  Everywhere you looked families were taking photos of themselves holding up or pushing down the tower. It was hilarious!  We took a lot ourselves, having fun with it. However, it was harder than it looks because you automatically account for the lean when you take the picture, making the tower look straight! It’s very weird looking through the viewfinder and trying to line it up properly crooked.

It’s interesting that the church and the baptistery both lean as well.  The area is called the “Field of Miracles,” I guess because nothing has fallen over yet.  The buildings are all very close to each other, and I was expecting a big field with them spread out.  The area is very congested though and it’s tough to get your photos without other people or other buildings in them.

Katie then wanted to get a Leaning Tower replica for her room at home.  Looking over at the rows of souvenir stands, Paul remarked dryly, “I think we can probably find one.”   There were thousands of leaning towers for sale, from small to large, in versions including normal, glittered and light-up. At one stand we saw the clerk opening a huge plastic bag full of towers into a bin. “I guess they buy in bulk,” Katie remarked.  Once our souvenirs were in hand we headed to a nearby bus stop to catch a bus to Lucca.

We had a bit of trouble finding the right bus stop, and it was really hot, prompting u to buy ice cream cones while we waited, but eventually we found ourselves on the right bus, in the right direction to Lucca.  Lucca is about a 30 minute bus ride from Pisa, and is an excellent example of a walled city. It’s one of the few medieval walled cities that still has a complete wall around it.  The ride to Lucca through the Tuscan countryside was wonderfully relaxing.  We went through several small villages on the way, picking up and dropping off kids from school along the route. The roads were so narrow that the bus driver had to honk as he went around curves to avoid hitting anyone.

The bus dropped us off right in front of one of the gates of the wall and we walked into the city.  The walls are very wide and one of the main attractions of Lucca, at least for us, is that you can climb to the top of the wall and walk the entire way around the city.  There is even a bike path on top!  We immediately climbed right up to the top and began circling the city.  The top had trees planted along the bike path, the ramparts are now picnic areas and many locals were taking their daily stroll. 

The entire way around the wall is 2.5 miles and we planned to walk about 2 miles around the city then hop off at the train station.  It was sunny and warm, but a slight breeze made it very pleasant.  After the hustle of Florence and the crowds of Pisa, Lucca was a welcome break.  Strolling along the wall was like taking a taking a walk in a pleasant, uncrowded park.  As Katie put it, “I don’t feel like a tourist here in Lucca, I just feel normal.”  She also summed up Florence very elegantly. “Mommy, I like Florence and all, but I think it is like a cup of espresso – small but very intense.”   I think that sums up Florence very nicely.  It is overwhelming being in the city, and best taken in small doses.

After relaxing on the walk around the walls we caught the train back to Florence, did some grocery shopping and made a nice pasta dinner in the apartment.  After dinner we took the bus back to the river and then walked up to Piazza Michelangelo.   This piazza is on the opposite side of the river from the center of Florence and is high up on a bluff overlooking the river and the city. It is an excellent place to watch the sunset, and people gather here nightly with picnics and wine to relax and enjoy the breezes.  We watched the Florence in the golden rays of the setting sun and thought that the city never looked so beautiful or peaceful. 

Museum Day

Thursday June 2^nd

We spent the day today visiting a couple of museums.  In the morning we visited the Musee Galileo, which was just renovated last year.  We loved this museum. It was full of really cool old scientific instruments, some of them actually belonged to Galileo, some of them were based on his original designs  and some were just really cool old stuff. It is extremely hard to believe how little was understood about the world back in Galileo’s day.   Even telling time was extremely complicated back then.  There was an excellent collection of old timepieces, ship navigational aids, globes (both terrestrial and celestial) and wonderful old telescopes.  Several of Galileo’s original telescopes were there – perhaps the ones he used to find the moons of Jupiter, sunspots, and eventually prove that the earth was not the center of the world.

Other interesting items in the museum included the equipment used to prove Newton’s first and second laws, and to explain the laws of gravity. Many of these experiments are now routinely done by middle schools students in science classes, but this was seriously cutting edge science back in the day.  The museum had excellent explanations of all the equipment in English, and most rooms had flat screen TVs with videos of the experiments in action – how they were originally conducted and what they proved.  You could literally follow the evolution of science as you moved through the museum.

Caption - Two of Galileo's actual telescopes!

An interesting side note is that I took a bunch of photographs of the equipment until I got yelled at in the last room by a grumpy Italian woman security guard.  I asked her if there was no flash in the museum, and she clarified emphatically, “NO PHOTOS AT ALL!”  The interesting thing is that I had taken photos in front of several other male security guards who couldn’t care less that I was taking photos with flash.  Honestly – I never saw a sign one way or the other.   Our experience on this entire trip has always been that female museum guards are more diligent than male ones.  I am not sure if this is just our experience, but I am making a blanket conclusion here anyway. Be careful with photography in museums rooms with female security!

Luckily I already had photos of everything I wanted, including the best exhibit of all – Galileo’s middle right finger.  It was preserved by his students so he can give the finger to the Vatican for all of eternity.

After the Galileo museum we bided our time until our reservation for the Uffizi gallery. This is the best museum in the world for Italian Renaissance art, and the premier attraction in Florence. Only 600 people are allowed in the gallery at a time, so the standby line for tickets can be hours long.  You can get timed tickets in advance, which every guidebook and Florence hotel website recommends, so why people wait for four hours in beyond me. Do a little advance planning people!!!  We picked up our tickets 10 minutes before our entrance time and were let in right on time.

The museum had a great collection of Botticelli paintings including the incredibly famous “The Birth of Venus.”  The work was shown in context with other contemporary paintings and it was so fascinating to see how Botticelli’s work was such leap forward. It was simply not at all like anything that come before.

 There were also a number of Michelangelo paintings, including one he worked on at age 14 for another painter that he was apprenticed to.  The main painter did most of the work, but Michelangelo did one angel in the corner. This angel was so clearly superior to anything else in the painting that it was amazing to see.  It is said that the master painter gave up the craft soon after.

However, other than the Botticelli’s and Michelangelo’s, the rest of the works in the museum, were not really my thing.  Most of the work was religious iconography, and kind of repetitive to me after a while. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the art was incredible, but I am not really trained to appreciate it.  With the guidebook tour, I could at least grasp the key aspects, but we really only stopped at one or two paintings per room.  I can’t help wondering, do all the people who stand in line for hours to get into this museum really appreciate it? Or is this something that we feel that we should do, rather than really wanting to do?

Luckily,  when we finished the Uffizi gallery, Pizzaiuolo had not yet finished its lunch hours so we hurried over there for a repeat “best pizza in Florence” luncheon.  Again – wonderful.  Katie had the prosciutto, Paul had the same pizza he had yesterday, and I had one with artichoke, mushroom and ham. Yummy. We waddled to the bus stop afterwards to head home to digest in peace.

The best pizza in Florence

Wednesday June 1^st

I can’t believe that it is June already!  We left home in March, and here it is June.  It has been a long interesting trip.  Today was very exciting because Paul joined us for the last legs of the trip – Florence and Rome.  We have a lot of fun things planned for the next few days, including one of Katie’s picks – going to see the leaning Tower of Pisa.   Florence has only a small airport, so Paul had connect from Newark to Munich and then Munich to Rome.  He left home on Tuesday at 12:30 pm to drive to Newark and pulled up outside our apartment here in Florence at 1pm on Wednesday.

But no rest for the weary, it was too late in the day to let him take a nap.  Literally five minutes after he arrived, I was telling him, “If we leave right now, we can make it to the best pizzeria in Florence before they end their lunch hours.  They close at 2:30, so we need to get there by 1:30!!!!”  He looked at me quite dazed and asked, “OK, but can I at least go the bathroom first?”  Necessities taken care of, we were out the door by 1:10 and on the bus at 1:12.  We jumped off at a nearby stop and pulled him through the streets of Florence to Il Pizzaiuolo.

How did I know this has the best pizza in Florence?  Well of course, each person has their own opinions, but I am relying on the opinion of an art history professor who is a friend of a friend of mine, and has been living here in Florence for a year.  We are meeting up on Saturday, and in the meantime he recommended a few restaurants for us.  I have to say, this recommendation really lived up to the hype.

Il Pizzaiuolo is a relatively small and not at all fancy restaurant in Florence, and off the beaten track.  You definitely would not just happen upon it by accident.  It has weathered wooden table and paper placemats.  We were lucky enough to get a table right next to the brick pizza oven and the pizza making counter.  We could watch the chef take a piece of dough, stretch it into a dinner plate sized pizza and cover it with toppings. My favorite topping to watch him apply was the mozzarella.  He would take a fresh ball of mozzarella and pull hunks off and put them right on the pizza in big pieces.  He used a big wooden paddle to place the pizzas in the wood burning brick oven where they cooked up quite quickly, all warm and bubbly.

Katie had a pizza with sausage, but it turned out the sausages looked like giant pepperonis, all greasy and delicious.  Paul had a pizza with prosciutto and scrambled egg.  Mine had prosciutto and basil. They were so delicious!!  I can’t even begin to describe how wonderful it was.  Every bite you sunk your teeth into you just wanted to stop and moan, “this is sooooo good.”  We dawdled over our lunch finally managing to eat almost every delicious piece.  Six hours later as I am writing this, I still feel full.   We enjoyed talking and catching up with each other. Finally long done and plates cleared away, Paul asked, “Aren’t they going to bring our bill?” Katie and I told him that would be so rude of the waiter to rush us in our meal.  Bring our bill while the conversation is flowing so freely - that would be unthinkable.  Ready to go, we settled the bill and headed on our way.

We headed into the main historical center of town to show Paul the sights of Florence. We headed first for the Duomo.  Katie and I had not gone t the top of the dome and definitely wanted to do that today. The line was not bad at all and we soon set up the 463 steps.  Amazing, you first come out from the staircase not at the top of the outer dome, but at the inside of the inner dome and circle around the interior of the church itself, pressed up against the interior walls of the dome, allowing a bird’s eye view of the murals on the interior walls. You could see the odd pairing of Jesus and Mary with the father of the Greek gods, Kronos with his hourglass.  It was very interesting, but the longer we stayed on the catwalk the more nervous I became.

I was relived to move off the catwalk and into the open space between the inner and outer domes as we continued our ascent.  We could see the inner dome crowning as we got higher and higher, and next thing we knew, we were literally walking on stair cut into the roof of the inner dome itself. We marched right up the inner dome, up another set of stirs and emerged onto the tip top of the Duomo itself. The views were stunning. Only from up here can you truly appreciate the sprawling beauty of Florence set in its Tuscan hillside location.  It takes your breath away.

The walk down was much easier than up, and too soon we found ourselves on the confusing streets of Florence again.  We strolled down to the river for view of Ponte Vecchio and then back up to the market area.  We did indulge in some leather goods this time.  I bought a wonderful new wallet, Katie bought leather bracelets for herself and her friends that read “Italia”. Paul though about looking for a belt, but by now he was starting to fade and quickly gave up, claiming it was too complicated.

We decided to call it a day and headed back home, but with a quick stop for gelato.  Today’s flavors were: Frutti di Bosco and Strawberry (Katie), Frutti di Bosco and Lemon (Paul) and Strawberry and Canteloupe (Amy). The canteloupe was very canteloupey! Overall we had a great day and are thrilled to have Paul with us again.

Viareggio

Tuesday May 31^st

Today we made our way to the Italian coastline.  We visited Viareggio, which is about an hour and 20 minutes via train from Florence.   We walked from the train station directly to the beach, about 10 blocks away.  All of the beach access points seemed to be for private beach clubs, and we didn’t really want to pay for access to the beach today.  So we took a break and had lunch while we tried to figure out how the beach access worked.

Along the beachfront was a pedestrian only street, lined with restaurants, gelato shops and other beach type stores.  We opted for some thick Sicilian type pizza sold by the weight.  We just pointed to the type that we wanted, and the counter man cut off a slice and weighed it.  Katie had a slice with hot dog like pieces on it, and I had a sausage one.  We sat on a nearby bench to eat it.  It was simply outstanding.  Every bite was more delicious than the one before.  Compared to the pizza we had in Florence the day before, it was light years ahead.  Of course, here in Viareggio, there were no American or other tourists to be found, just Italians at the seaside.   This was no tourist pizza, but the real thing.  Plus it was cheap. I paid only 4.50 euros for our lunch, compared to 26 euros in Florence!

After lunch, I decided that our best bet to find an English speaker to explain the beach access was in a nice hotel.  We headed into the Hotel President, and indeed found an English speaking clerk at reception.  He explained that the only public beach access was at the end of the promenade and it was small.  So we set out and found a VERY narrow strip of beach set aside for free access. It was only about 15 wide and made a narrow stripe down to the seas from the promenade.  The fishing pier was on one side, and the other side was marked by a large wire mesh fence that separated us from the paying clients at the adjacent beach club.  The sand was full of cigarette butts, but we found a cleanish section and spread out our towels.

We walked down to the Mediterranean Sea and walked in the water.  It turns out that the 5 meters of beach from the waves up onto the shore are also public access, although you can’t spread a towel there.  The area is for walking and swimming.  So we were not limited to the small section in front of the public beach, but could walk down a bit.  We waded into the water and played for a while – it was not warm, but not cool either, just sort of an in-between temperature.  Katie was perfectly happy splashing in the shallow water.  It was no more than mid-thigh for deep as far as we cared to walk out. 

There were plenty of people in the water, all in our region near the public access.  There was a huge group of 20something girls in tiny bikinis and some boys the same age flirting shamelessly with them.  There were old men in tiny speedos dragging nets through the water and the first layer of sand scooping up some kind of shellfish, and there were several families with small children playing in the water.  A little girl of about 3 was swimming naked, and building sand castles.  Katie was sure she was getting sand in places that it would not be nice to have all sandy.

After swimming for awhile, Katie built some sand castles and then watched the water wash them away.  The waves were very small, and the tide moved in only about 6 inches in the two hours that we were there.  After a while the wind off the sea cooled us enough to get up and go.  We washed off all the sand in the water and went up to the warm towels to lie and dry off.  Once dry we were able to dust off most of the remaining sand, and pull our clothes on over our suits. Not perfectly clean, but good enough for the train ride home. We got some gelato for a snack and caught the train back to Florence.

Tomorrow Paul arrives to send the last 10 days or our trip with us.  I can’t believe that the trip is drawing to a close, yet it is such a long time since we were in Stockholm.  Katie and I have had some amazing adventures and learned a lot about ourselves and each other.  This trip has really strengthened the bonds between us, and although we are both really looking forward to heading home, we will both miss the fun times that we have had together.  We have been incredibly lucky to have this opportunity and we will both cherish it forever.

Pizza and Gelato

Monday May 30^th

Well, much to our disappointment, the curator of our villa checked us into the wrong apartment. We were supposed to be upstairs, and not supposed to have the backyard. I had thought that originally, but figured that Ms. Rita knew what she was doing.  Well, she came and moved us upstairs this morning, to Katie’s bitter disappointment.  There is a family coming in tomorrow for the downstairs apartment. Oh well, at least we had one great night in the awesome downstairs villa. I felt and still feel very badly for Katie as she was so excited at the place.  The new one is “suckish” according to her.

My goal for this morning was to figure out the bus system and get us passes.  I was able to get us apsses with no problem after a quick internet search turned up the Florence bus website with plenty of information in English. I bought multi-ride passes for us at a newstand, and with the info online, I got settled with the lines and stops.

I also solved the basil problem from yesterday.  I couldn’t get my own scanning gun at the supermarket because you need to have a customer loyalty card, which is just too much for me to set up for a week. But there was a street market across from our villa this morning and I bought a basil plant! It was only 2 euros, and is a nice healthy size.  The bunch of basil was 1.5 euros, so I come out ahead this way – more than enough basil for the week!

Katie and I took the bus into town and did a walking tour of the major sights. The Duomo is the main sight in town, a church with the very first Renaissance dome – the one all other church domes are based on.  It was really interesting to see, and the façade of the church was extremely impressive, all gingerbread cakey with tons of intricate lace looking details. The façade was added in the 1870s, so it is not original, and has many detractors, but I liked it.

It was blistering heat – about 86 and bright sun – so we had gelato as we walked through the many outdoor markets.  Katie had two kinds of chocolate and I had coconut and mixed berries.  I really like the fruit gelato flavors, which really make your tongue come alive and leap with joy.  The flavors are so intense! The outdoor markets were fun to walk through – lots of leather stalls (is leather Florentine?) with belts, jackets and wallets, plus the standard tourist fare. Plenty of small replica of Michelangelo’s David, and lot of Pinocchio puppets.

We continued our tour past the old city hall where a replica of Michelangelo’s David stands outside, in the same spot where it stood for 350 years, before concerns about erosion moved it indoors to the Accademia gallery (we go there on Saturday).  It is much bigger than I expected! I thought it was life size, but it is 17 feet tall.  The replica was impressive, so I’m sure we’ll like the real thing.

We saw the Medici family’s palace, and an outdoor sculpture area adjacent to city hall that has housed sculptures since the Renaissance.  Now it houses both sculptures and lots of tourists eating gelato!  There is a gelato stand on average about every 15 feet, and the place is packed with tourists – we haven’t heard this much English in months!!!

We stopped in a shady pizzeria for lunch, and the pizza was good, but not excellent. It’s so hard to tell which restaurants are going to be good or not, so I am emailing some contacts for recommendations. I’m sure we’ll find excellent pizza. It was too hot to eat pasta, but we will at least once or twice, maybe we can find a restaurant with air conditioning.

Tomorrow we are heading to the Italian seaside for the day, we got recommendations for a beach with nice sand and swimming from some locals, so we are really looking forward to it. this time we will use lots of sunscreen!

Ciao from Firenze!

Sunday May 29^th

We arrived in Florence this afternoon after taking the train from Lausanne through the alps to Milan and then from Milan to Florence.  Of course here the town is called Firenze.  Why in the world do we call it Florence if its residents call it Firenze? That doesn’t make any sense at all. I think everyone in the world should refer to the city using its given name. Do people elsewhere in the world call Philadelphia by a different name? or New York City?

We had pizza for lunch in the train station in Milan.  Granted it was train station pizza, but still it was better than most train station pizzas. I look forward to a good sit down meal.

We are staying in an actual villa here in Firenze.  It is nothing to look at form the front – it kind of looks like a standard row home, but on the inside it is all redone, and we even have a patio and a backyard. Katie is so excited!  We both also have our own bedrooms. 

Despite the advantages of having our own nice big place, the main disadvantage is that it forces you to quickly come to terms with navigating in a new culture.  This place is way out in the residential section section of Florence, away from the tourist bustle, which is nice, but again has it disadvantages.  I had to grill our landylady, Ms. Rita on finding the bus stops, buying bus passes, finding the grocery, finding a pizzeria and most importantly, finding a gelateria.

We arrived on a Sunday, and Ms. Rita cheerfully informed us that the grocery store, the biggest one around is just across the street. “But it’s closed on Sunday. There is one in the tourist section that is open on Sunday though.”    Ok, so then, we’ll need to take the bus to the tourist region.

“Where is the bus stop?”

“Just around the corner, very easy.”

“Is there a ticket machine there.”

“No but you can buy your ticket at a Tabac shop.  However, they are closed on Sunday.”

“Does the bus run on Sunday?”

“Yes, just not so very often as the week.”

Ok – so the grocery is closed, and I can’t buy a bus ticket.  Maybe the restaurants are open?

“Is the nearby restaurant open on Sunday?”

“Maybe, I’m not sure. Maybe the gelataria is open”

So, we can’t get groceries, we can’t get a bus pass, and the restaurant may or may not be open.  We can probably get gelato though and I have four big chocolate bars from Broc, Switzerland in my bag. We might get a stomachache, but we won’t starve.

Once Ms. Rita left us, we set out for the gelateria, and walked past the big grocery store, which was very obviously open. So after all, we were able to get perfectly fine and nutricious groceries. We picked up a pizza, some fresh pasta, some tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, but no basil.  The fruit and vegetable section was  bt confusing to me, and I have to abandon the basil! 

You weigh your fruits or veggies on a scale right in the produce section, and then print out a label for it.  But I couldn’t find a code for the basil. So I laid in wait until someone else tried to buy basil so I could copy what she did. I figured this is Italy, someone is going to buy basil soon.  And up someone came, she pulled out a hand scanner, scanned in the bar code on the sign and walked off.  Arrgh!  I ran up to her and asked if she spoke English. Of course she didn’t.  So I pointed to the scale, to the basil in her hand, and the basil in mine, then shrugged.  She showed me the scanned and pointed me up to the front.  I walked up front but still didn’t find a hand scanner, so gave up on the basil.

Katie talked me into a huge tub of gelato and some interesting looking saucer shaped cakes with bright green shiny frosting. I helped myself to a nice bottle of wine.  I hope I can find my wine opener from Paris.

After taking the groceries home, we re-set out for the geletaria.  We saw plenty f people eating gelato so we knew we were close. It was across the street from the grocery store.  For just 1.70 euros, you could get a huge cone with two different flavors.  Katie was in heaven to find out there is nutella gelato. She paired the sweet nutella with a tart lemon.  I had pistachio and asked for melona to go with it, but instead got melagra, due to my poor pronounciation, but was fine with it. it turned out to be run raisin.  Both flavors were excellent.

 We plan to spend the afternoon and evening resting in our garden after the trip and the disorientation of easing into a new culture. Katie pointed out to me that in the grocery store that I kept trying to talk n French to the cashier, who understood neither French nor English and just wanted to see my ID to verify my credit card. Hopefully our pasta dinner will be tasty, but it will certainly be relaxing.