Relax, Eat Gelato

Saturday June 10^th

After several days in a row of high intensity sightseeing, we needed to take a step back today.  We went to see one last church, and then took it easy.  The last church we wanted to see was the Basicila San Paulo, which was interesting for Paul to see. The church is informally know as St. Paul’s outside the walls, and is just outside the old walls of Rome.  The church looks very middle eastern with palm trees and desert imagery. I really like how these old churches retain more of the middle eastern influences on religion, and I also really like how many of them were built on old Roman temples and just sued the same basic structures.

San Paulo has the sarcophagus of St. Paul with his body inside, although his head is across twon at San Giovanni. Poor St. Paul.  The church also has great mosaics, again with the cool sheep with halos, and also 265 circular mosaics – one of every single pope. They ring the church.

After San Paulo, we hoped off the metro briefly at the Pyramide stop to se the large pyramid that an odd Roman nobleman built to bury himself.  Then back on the metro and off for lunch.

We ate a restaurant not far from the Trevi fountain, but down some side streets and around into a relatively quiet neighborhood.  We loaded up on appetizers (antipasta) again because they are so good. Today we had the fried zucchini flowers again, bruschetta and prosciutto. So good. Then we had pasta for the main dishes – I think Katie won out, her was the best hands down.  Paul had eggplant parmagian, I had fettuccine with mushrooms and Katie had spaghetti with a slight spicy tomato and pork sauce that made your tongue tingle.  Delicious!

After lunch we did a little shopping, finding a Roman gladiator bobble-head doll for Katie.  The Pope Benedict bobble-heads were very tempting to me, but I resisted. The we headed to Villa Borgehse park, the one area in Rome where there are trees and shade. The park was very nice with walking paths, old Roman ruins and a lake (actually a very small pond) where people could rent rowboats. A small offshoot of this pond seemed to be a turtle sanctuary. We saw one turtle, then another, and we soon counting them in dozens.  We saw more than 50 turtles swimming, sunning themselves and crawling around.  It was so cool. I have never seen so many turtles in one place before.  Some were teeny tiny, while others were huge. We stood there for a while and gazed at them. We found a shady place nearby and rested and read until early evening.

We then headed home and got our dinner before heading up to the apartment. We picked out a nice assortment of pastries at the local bakery, including regular and chocolate cannolis, and all got big gelatos. Katie was in heaven with pastry and gelato for dinner.  My mango and coconut gelato was super!

Later tonight we plan to head out to see the Colosseum all lit up and night and tomorrow will be our LAST DAY IN EUROPE.  I can’t believe our adventure is coming to an end, it has been an amazing ride.

Urban Hiking

Friday June 10^th

Today we spent most of the day just walking around/across Rome in what I call an urban hike. All three of us love hiking and we all have a lot of strength and stamina for extended walking, which is good because by the end of the day today we had walked 11.5 miles! We prefer our hiking in the woods or at National parks, but an urban hike was a nice way to see a lot of Rome.  The metro system here does not come into the city center at all, but just skirts the edges of the city, so if you want to see al lot of the city, walking is the way to go.

We started our day in the far southeastern edges of the city at the old Roman city wall.  We walked through the gate where the Appian Way entered the city. We walked for a few blocks along the “new” Appian way, which now looks like any other urban street. The sprawl of the city of course has now extended far past the original city walls, so what was once quite rural is now just a part of the city.  You can actually go out in the countryside to see parts of the original Appian way and some aquaducts and catacombs, but we did not chose to go outside the city today.

Once you pass through the city gate, an interesting church is immediately off to the left.  This church is legally part of Vatican City, even though it is far from Vatican City itself.  There are three main churches in Rome that are part of Vatican City due to their historic and religious significance.  This church is San Giovanni in Laterna and it is the first legal Christian church in ancient Rome, established by Emperor Constantine just after he legalized Christianity. It is the home church of the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) and houses the cathedra (bishop chair) that the Pope must actually come out to the church and sit in once elected to actually assume the papacy.  The church is stunning with gorgeous floor mosaic and an incredible decorated ceiling.  There are amazing mosaics, my favorite of which is Jesus and the 12 apostles depicted as sheep. The sheep that is Jesus is in the center of the flock with a halo.

Across the street from San Giovanni are the Scala Santa (Holy Stairs). These are the stairs from Pontius Pilate’s house in Jerusalem, brought here in the 300s by Emperor Constantine’s mother.  Jesus climbed these steps on the last days of his life.  Allegedly there are blood stains from Jesus on the steps. Regardless of what you believe it is interesting to see the faithful pilgrims ascending the stairs on their knees, praying with each step forward. The stairs were actually closed when we were there around lunch time, but we went back later in the evening to get a peek.

From San Giovanni we walked across the ancient regions of Rome, past Palantine Hill and the Circus Maximus and past the Mouth of Truth to the Tiber River and the old Jewish Ghetto.  One of the popes actually forcibly relocated all the Jews of the city here in a region of town where the Tiber floods repeatedly, and built a walled ghetto to keep them in.  They were free to move about during the day, but were locked in at night.  At each of the two gates into the ghetto, Christians built large churches to try to convert the Jews, and at times in history the ghetto residents were required by law to attend weekly masses, Despite this, the community thrived and is actually now an increasingly trendy region.  There are a lot of excellent restaurants here, including our destination, Sora Margherita.

Sora Margherita is a small hole in the wall restaurant without a sign or a menu, recognized only by its red curtained doorway, and it is not even technically a restaurant but a cultural association.  It was highly recommended to us by our veterinarian (of all people) and it sounded interesting enough to give it a try.  We are really glad that we sought it out, because it was an incredibly fun eating experience.

We were seated at a small wooden table near the kitchen. The walls are plastered with write-ups about the restaurant in all different languages.  The hostess spoke to us in Italian and a bit of broken English, indicating that she was going to bring us some artichokes.  Two whole fried artichokes soon arrived on our table. The leaves were all crispy and dripping with oil, while the heart was softly fried.  She saw that we had never seen anything like it before, and broke off a crispy petal crying “Totale, mangi totale!” and popped it into my mouth.    It was delicious, and unlike anything I have ever eaten before.  The heart was even better, soft in the center and crispy on the edges. 

We weren’t eating fast enough for our hostess though, and when she saw we had not yet started on the heart since we were still eating the leaves, she began pointing and crying “the heart, mangi totale!!!”  Ok – we were trying to pace ourselves as more food kept appearing.  Soon the artichokes were joined by two plates of fried squash blossoms, which were filled with a dab of cheese and something else I couldn’t identify. I’ve never had squash blossoms before, and now I highly recommend them, at least these, which were delicious.  Before we could begin to make a dent in the squash blossoms, and we still working on the artichokes, a giant ball of buffalo mozzarella appeared, surrounded by small cherry tomatoes, cut artistically.

We really needed to pick up the pace now!  We began carving into the mozzarella, which was larger than a softball, and it melted deliciously in our mouths. At the same time we kept working on the artichokes and the squash blossoms, eventually cleaning those plates which were quickly whisked away.

I bit into one of the cherry tomatoes and turned to Paul eyes wide. “Did you taste this?” I asked in amazement. “Yes, it’s delicious,” he sighed in return. The tomatoes had some kind of very light dressing on them that made them just burst with flavor. We quickly devoured the tomatoes and kept working on the enormous mozzarella, our bellies beginning to fill.  Katie kept right us with us on everything but the tomatoes, which she didn’t like (unbelievably).  She really liked he squash blossoms though.

We finished everything except for a small section of the buffalo mozzarella, but our hostess refused to bring anything more out until we had cleaned our plates. “FINISH!” she shouted pointing at the sliver of mozzarella.  So we slowly carved it up and enjoyed a small bit more each.

Now satisfied, our hostess brought out the first course of pasta.  We received a family size bowl of gnocchi in light tomato sauce, and fettuccine with oil, ricotta cheese, pepper and grated parmesan cheese.  The gnocchi was good but I’m not a huge fan of gnocchi so I can’t say how it compares with others. Katie loved it though, surprisingly because she doesn’t like potatoes. The fettuccine though was amazing.  It was freshly made and scalloped along its edges giving it a wavy appearance. The waviness gave it a funny feeling in your mouth, almost a kind of tickling that amused you as you ate it.  The sauce was simple, but absolutely delicious. The two bowls of pasta slowly but surely disappeared, the fettuccine first and then the gnocchi as we parceled out the last few soft pillows of dough evenly.

At this point I was completely stuffed, but the secondo course of meat was yet to come. “Please tell her we are finished and can’t eat any more,” I begged Paul.  As our hostess came around, he got her attention and told her “finito”.  She began to clear our plates in preparation for the next course.  “Finito, no more.” Paul tried again. She looked sternly at us hand on hips.  “FINITO??” she shouted, “But the meat!!”  “No, no Finito,” Paul reiterated.  She looked very disappointed in us, but agreed.  As she was arguing with us over the meat, I saw platters of well-seasoned lamp chops headed to other tables and knew we made the right choice. No matter how delicious they would be, there was no way I could eat lamb chops on top of the five courses we had already eaten.

We soon headed out blinking into the sunlight, happy that we had followed up on this recommendation.

From the Jewish quarter we walked across the Tiber river into the Travestare section of town and followed a small walking tour, then headed along the banks of the Tiber through St. Peters square, then along the walls of Vatican City to the backside and up the hill to our apartment. All told, this section of our urban hike covered over 7.5 miles and took four hours, but with a couple of those hours for lunch!

We rested in the apartment for a few hours and then headed out again in the early evening. We went to see the Holy Stairs which we didn’t see earlier, to see a church that claims to hold the remnants of the Holy Manger (the relic area was disappointingly closed so we can’t comment on what it looked like) and a church that was built on the remains of a roman baths. 

We then walked across town past the Trevi fountain, which was a mob scene, past the Pantheon and to the Piazza Novona with the fountain of the four rivers.  A huge concert stage was being set up right next to the fountains.  We got some gelato at Tre Scalini and ate it as we watched tour groups coming and going, and people browsing around the artists in the square. We finished the day by walking up to the Spanish Steps past all the designer boutiques and watching the people there for a while. Our feet were exhausted by now and we had logged 11.5 miles of walking.

 All in all I prefer the Trocadero in Paris to the Spanish Steps.  My main complaint about Rome is one of its charms for many people – it is so busy and bustling and crowded.  There is little open space, as can be expected in such an old city, but I prefer the open green airy spaces of Paris. Even in one of the main open areas – Piazza Navona - there is little space to sit unless you are in an overpriced restaurant ringing the edges, and you are even blocked from approaching the fountains by metal railings.  Contrast this to Paris’s urban spaces, filled with trees and liberally sprinkled with chairs for you to sit in and relax. The Parisian fountains are open for all to sit on the edges and relax and children sails wooden boats across them.  Rome is a wonderful place to visit, but overall it is not my kind of city.

Eat, Pray, Love, Pizza

Thursday June 7^th

Today we got up early and headed to Pompeii.  We took the high speed train to Naples, which took about a hour and then transfer to a little commuter train that travels down the coast past Mt. Vesuvious. It was a pretty easy trip, just over 90 minutes in all.  It was pretty exciting to be headed to Pompeii. Last time I was in Italy it was my biggest regret that we didn’t make it there since we were so nearby (we were in Sorrento).

The train dropped us just about 100 yards from the entrance to the Pompeii archeological site and before we knew it we were walking up the original roman road (which was quite steep) and through the city gate into the walled city of Pompeii.  Pompeii is now a few miles from the coastline, but before the eruption it was actually a port city and we could see the iron rings dangling from the walls that were used to tie up boats. 

The city was quite well preserved from all those years it spent buried in ash, and there were a lot of interesting sights to see.  The roads were all original and made of large cobblestones.  Every so often there were cylindrical stones raised above the road surface about 12 inches which were for pedestrians to use to cross the road since the roads were flooded regularly for cleaning. The road stones themselves had very deep ruts from chariot wheels.

The town center had a courthouse (basilica), a temple to Jupiter, a fish market, a granary and several other large buildings. As we wandered deeper into the town we also saw a bakery, many well-preserved houses, the Roman baths, a theater, and a lot of fast food places.  Seriously – ancient Roman fast food counters.

Although the wealthiest citizens had large houses, most of the people lived in very small apartments with little room for cooking. Most people ate their meals at “fast food” places which had soups, wines, cheeses, breads and other foods for takeout.  In fact, there were over 80 of these establishments in Pompeii.  They had marble slab counters facing the roads for easy service.  One of the most popular was across the street from the baths.

Pompeii was really fun to wander around in, imagining the life of an ordinary Roman citizen. Pompeii was a standard middle class town until the eruption.  Looking at Vesuvious is it easy to picture the amount of devastation. The mountain blew its top off, just like Mt. St. Helens, and you can see the spot where the peak is missing, where it became nothing but just and ash that rained down on Pompeii.  Several plaster casts of human bodies and one of a dog were on display, captured in their final moments of despair, hiding their faces from the flying ash.

Pompeii was a very interesting trip and well worth the effort to get there. As in other places the tour groups are annoying, but if you get off the beaten path and jut explore, the city is quiet and peaceful.  We stayed in Pompeii for about three hours and then took the train back to Naples.

Once in Naples we had a quest – to find the pizza place mentioned as the best pizza on earth in the Eat, Pray, Love book.  I have wanted to eat at this pizza place since the very first time that I read the book, and I have now read the book more than 20 times.  The pizzeria is Pizzeria da Michelle and it is only about a 10 minute walk from the station if you don’t get lost. However it is hard not to get lost in Naples which is full of very small winding twisting streets that change their names around every corner.  It makes it even harder when the free map from tourist information only labels about 1/4 of the street names.

We did finally find it though and it was a buzz of activity. It was hard to tell if it was a line to get in, or people waiting to pick up takeout pizzas.  We soon determined (by asking around) that we needed a number that would then be called for us to order our pizzas. So how to get a number? Easier said than done. I tried first, muscling inside the door and asking.  The old man who worked the cash register didn’t speak English but indicated that I need to get the attention of the loud busy Italian man in the chef’s hat wandering around and making jokes with everyone, and sporadically calling out number for people to come inside.  I tried to get his attention for a while but he walked past me several times before Paul caught my eye and wanted he wanted to try. I hate to give up so easily, but was getting tired and frustrated.  So I sent Paul in and he soon had a number.  He’s pretty big guy and tough to ignore so that may have been it, or they Italian guy just has trouble with women. I’m not sure which one.

Our number was 66 and they were on 48, so we had to wait for a whlle. I stood right outside the door clutching our number in my hand for about an hour as I waited for our number to be called.  About an hour later we heard him call “sessantacinque” and hen finally “sessantasei”. We were lead inside, pointed to the next room over and more or less abandoned to find a table.  ... Of which there were none.  But it looked like a gorup ws leaving – was this what he meant? Pounce on their table?  I sent Paul back to try and check and while he was gone the table cleared out and Katie and i sat down. Paul soon came back confirming that this was our table.

The pizzeria was very basic, with white tiled walls and basic woded tables.  There were photos of Julia Roberts with the restaurant staff, but not of Elizabeth Gilbert who actually wrote the book that made them famous world-wide. That doesn’t seem right.

There are only two types of pizza here, margherita (with cheese) and marina (without).  All three of us ordered the double mozzarella margherita pizza, and Paul and I each got a beer. We settled back to see if the pizza was as good as claimed.  About 15 minutes later our pizzas were set down in front of us hot and bubbling and we eagerly dug in.

OK – I have to say, this was the best pizza i have ever eaten!!!  It was so delicious that every single bite was a delight. You want to moan with pleasure when you bite into it. The pizza in Florence was excellent too, bu the crust here was so much better. It was thin and chewy much like a top-notch Indian naan.  Oh My Goodness!  Conversation slowed aw all three of use ate our way through the pizza. Paul finished his first and then ate some of Katie’s since she couldn’t finish hers.  She did eat all the cheese of it though and Paul had nothing but tomatoy crust to eat – which was still worth it!  I ate all the inside of mine and then cut the crust into smaller pieces. “What are you doing?” asked katie curiously? “I’m wrapping the crust in my napkin and taking it with me since I can’t eat anymore right now,” I replied. With a withering look she said,” Is that really necesary?”  “Of course it’s not necessary,” I replied,” I just WANT to.”  So i wrapped up  the best pizza crust in the world, put it into my bag and we headed back to Rome, full and satisifed.

Pope Postcards

Wednesday June 6^th

Last night we had a wonderful dinner with our friend Cristina.  She planned to take us to a traditional Roman restaurant, but that one was not open so she took us to a Sicilian restaurant instead. It was not far from our apartment, but the ride in her car was long enough that we were pleased that we don’t have to drive regularly in Roman traffic.  We’ll stick to the metro and walking thank you very much. The restaurant was really nice with tables in the garden in the behind the restaurant.  The garden was stunning with a tent over the tables and beautiful flower arrangements everywhere.

The food and conversation was wonderful as was the wine, a top Sicilian wine. We arrived for dinner at the early hour of 8:15 and the place was nearly deserted. When we left at 10:30 though, the place was buzzing with activity. I think I preferred the Silician restaurant to any Roman choice anyway. We avoided any foods that were too strange, although Katie saw the lady at the table next to us eating a whole baby octopus. It was sitting up on her plate looking like a Disney cartoon as she severed its tentacles one by one and ate them before eating the bell of the octopus itself.  It was pretty disturbing. 

I avoided the octopus and had a great tuna pasta dish as my main course. The appetizers were also wonderful – some round fried balls of dough, some flat fried bread with cheese and some stunning delicious cold marinated vegetables that Katie didn’t like, so more for us! The dessert was also awesome – a delicious light cannoli.  I love cannoli and this was easily the best I’ve ever had. Katie’s big ball of chocolate ice cream came on a stick and was coated in even more chocolate. It looked great too.  Paul’s said his lemon sorbet was great, but it looked boring next to the other choices!  By 10:30 we were all dragging, our bellies full and heads beginning to nod.  In true Roman form we asked for the bill three times and never received it. We finally just got up and walked into the main restaurant flagging down someone to pay.

After the late night last night we slept in a little this morning and then headed to Vatican City in the afternoon.  We took our time meandering through the Vatican museums and had a really great time.  The tour groups are terribly annoying, but you can easily avoid them and see some really interesting things in the museum before hitting the highlight of the Sistine Chapel. We love Egyptian artifacts, and while the Vatican holdings in no way compared to the Louvre, they were still fun to see.  The Greek and Roman sculptures were excellent, and the out of the way Etruscan holdings were both interesting and deserted. 

Once through the Etruscan rooms you begin what is called the “long march” through the museum to the Sistine Chapel.  There is a lot of great artwork on the way, and one of my favorites was the “map room”. This long corridor is painted with murals that depicted maps of the different regions of Italy from Silician cities in the south to Milan and Venice in the North.  The colors were bright and the room was fascinating.  I didn’t care so much for all the tapestries in the next room, but really liked the Raphael rooms after that.  About five rooms which used to be the private apartment of the pope were covered on all walls and the ceilings in frescos by Raphael. Stunning!  Katie LOVED the fresco on the ceiling of the Pope’s private study which showed a Roman column crumbling at the sight of a Christian cross. Nothing subtle there at all.

I preferred the fresco of “The School of Athens” which showed a lot of Renaissance personalities depicting Ancient Greek thinkers and philosophers in an Athenian school. Scientists to the right, thinkers and writers to the left.  For example, Leonardo da Vinci is shown as Plato.  The story is that Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel while Raphael was painting this fresco and when Raphael got a sneak peek at it he went back and immediately added Michangelo to his work. He is front and center in the final work.

After the Raphael rooms we went to the Sistine Chapel itself. I had actually been dreading it since the guided tours are usually so obnoxious and the room is so crowded. However, the crowds while bad, were not shoulder to shoulder and we actually even snagged seats along the edge of the chapel allowing us to relax and take our time with the artwork.  Katie was even able to lay down with her head in Paul’s lap looking up to better view the ceiling.

This is the second time I have seen the Sistine Chapel and it has been restored since I saw it last. The difference is amazing. The colors are bright and the artwork simply pops out at you.  It actually seemed to me as through the entire ceiling was moving. The illusion of motion is strong as the figures lean out of their niches into neighboring ones and all the statues seem to be talking and visiting with each other.  Your eyes are drawn here and there continuously as new details pop out at you.  The entire sensation of seeing it is a bit disorienting. We were able to sit there for quite a while nudging each other as we saw new things and take our time discovering the artwork.  EXCELLENT!

Finally done we tagged along with a guided tour through the back exit and shortcut to St. Peter’s basilica.  St. Peter’s is simply over the top.  The size and grandeur simply defies explanation. Statues of cherubs along the bases of the columns lining the central nave are more than 6 feet tall. The main statues of saints just above the cherubs are 15 feet tall. The statues at the tops of the columns are 21 feet tall. I told Katie that if the statue of St. Theresa was next to our house, she could look in Katie’s second story bedroom window with ease.

The altar canopy is seven stories tall and made from bronze from the Pantheon.  The ceiling above the altar is 300 feet high and the top of the dome almost disappears from view.  You could put a 30 story building in there!!!  The altar is built above the grave of St. Peter himself and we were also able to see the sarcophagus of Pope John Paul II and the body of Pope John XXIII.  JP II was originally in the crypt but was recently moved up to the main floor with his beatification ceremony in April.  John XXIII was exhumed for his beatification ceremony in 2000 and his body was in such excellent shape they put him on display in a glass coffin. Interesting, but a little creepy.

The central altar is only used by the sitting pope, but daily masses are held in the Bernini designed rear region of the church. We were lucky enough to finish our tour of the dome (from which there is an excellent view of the private Vatican gardens) just in time to make it to the 5pm daily mass. How often do you get to attend mass in St. Peter’s??  The setting was stunning as the three priests serving mass were right in front of the huge Bernini sculpture “Cathedra of St. Peter” which is four church fathers holding up an enormous throne for St. Peter.  During mass, I was mentally transcribing the priest sitting at the base of the sculpture up onto the throne, and if he was up there he would look like a tiny toddler with his legs dangling freely.  Just above the sculpture is the Holy Spirit window with the dove of peace with bright rays of light streaming out. The sun was lighting this window during the service and it glowed magnificently.

The back half of St. Peters was closed during the service so it was quiet and peaceful. A number of religious attended the service, nuns and priests from around the world, along with faithful and not so faithful Catholics from dozens of different countries.  One of the interesting things about Vatican City is seeing all the priests, brothers, and nuns walking around. We saw a store yesterday that sold religious clothing and church supplies, with a big purple bishop ring in the window. I wonder if you need documentation to buy that??  During the service a toddler girl from India was fascinated with an elderly Italian nun and kept sneaking peeks at her, eyes wide open. I sat next to a young seminarian. The service was in beautiful Italian, but the priest summarized his sermon in English at its conclusion, which was nice. The general theme was that we all have special talents, so use them to better mankind.  I was really glad we had the opportunity to participate in the mass.

After mass we head out and bought Pope postcards for Katie’s grandmas and mailed them right from the Vatican city post office!  It was a lot of fun to write them right in St. Peter’s square and drop them in the Vatican Post mailbox.  There were people all over the square doing the same thing. Lots of Pope postcards are now headed to friends and family around the world.

We were actually able to walk home from St. Peters since our apratmetn is right in the neighborhood. We stopped for gelato along the way, and Katie and I got Nutella fredo  as one of our flavors which ended up being a huge hunk of cold Nutella itself, not nutella flavored gelato. I mean Nutella is good, but I can’t eat an entire cone filled with it. I ate the fruit flavor that I got with it and some of the Nutella but had to abandon the rest!

In search of gelato

Tuesday June 5^th

Today we spent a lot of time touring around the ancient sites of Rome, mainly the Colosseum and the Forum.  We headed first to the Colosseum, not early, around 10am, but we already had our tickets in hand.  The tickets are two day passes with one entrance each to Palantine Hill, the Forum and the Colosseum.  We ordered them online, and today we breezed into the Colosseum bypassing a ticket line that had to be between 60 and 90 minutes long.  Yeah for advanced planning!!!  The funny thing is that there was no line at either the Forum or Palantine Hill so we didn’t any of the people in line buy their tickets at either of the other sites which are only about 100 yards away???  But lucky for us, within two minutes of hopping off the metro at the Colosseum stop we were inside the ancient stadium staring around in wonder.

The Colosseum is simply an incredible sight to see and it was so cool to see Katie’s reaction to it.  She was just wide-eyed looking around and saying “THIS IS SO COOL!”  Paul and I have been before, but it is still so interesting to wander around.  It feels just like you are walking into a modern football stadium except that it is 200 years old, and crumbling in a few spots. You still totally get the stadium feel though.  The best thing to do is simply to stay put and let your mind wander to the days of the gladiators. It is easy to picture the stadium full, people cheering, elaborate sets on display on the arena floor and gladiators dueling to the death.  The views of the area that was under the main floor gives you the feeling of a huge production being managed, “gladiators here, lions there, ready go!”

We stayed there for a while, enjoying the light rain and moderate temperature which unfortunately evaporated as the day went on leaving us once again in Rome’s oppressive heat.  After the Colosseum, we walked through the Forum, which is a bigger site and takes longer to see.  The forum was the nerve center of ancient Rome, home to the marketplace, a ton of temples and the Roman senate.  We walked slowly through the forum, along the Via Sacra, treading the same stones that Julius Caesar trod upon, looking for specific sights, like the home of the vestal virgins. The vestal virgins joined the “team” at age 10 to serve a 30 year “term”. If they were found to violate the chastity pledge anytime during these 30 years they were buried alive!!! That’s pretty harsh punishment. However, their home and gardens were nice, and they got a private box at the Colosseum, fair trade-off or not?

After the Forum we headed up Capitoline Hill to the square designed by Michelanglo and the Capitoline museums.  This was a fun set of small museum that took about an hour for us to wander through.  They were packed full of all kinds of Roman statues, both full and in pieces.  We saw some large feet, hands, and even just a bicep.  We saw the famous Roman she-wolf statue and got a great view out over the Roman Forum.   I particularly liked a statue of a satyr and some centaurs.

We finished our day by wandering across Rome in search of Giolitti’s, Rome’s most famous gelato place.  En route we passed the Pantheon and took a look inside – the dome of the Pantheon is huge in relationship to the building itself.  But our search for amazing gelato could not be slowed and we kept moving towards our destination.  A few blocks from the Pantheon we had found our holy grail – Giolitti’s.  We paid first and headed right for the gelato counter marveling at the beautiful colors in front of us.  I decided to pick my flavors based on color and chose a deep rich red-purple, and a light pink with chocolate chips in it.  The light pink turned out to be watermelon and the dark purple some kind of unidentifiable berry which was oh so delicious.

We wandered past the Trevi fountain (kind of marred by some VERY loud construction nearby) and the spanish steps before catching the metro back to rest and relax ( and blog) before dinner out tonight.

Palantine Hill

Monday June 4^th

We checked out of our villa this morning in Florence and headed for Rome. Of course, nothing is ever entirely straightforward, so there were a few small snags in the process.  We planned to check out of the villa at 8am and then take the bus to the train station at 8:30, arriving by 9am for our 9:30 train.  However, after all the trouble with the buses last evening, we decided we couldn’t risk a bus ride and would call a taxi.  We tried to order one last night for 8:30 this morning, but they said just to call in the morning.  In the meantime I checked the train tickets and the station that the train was leaving from was not the main Florence station.  Good thing I checked! I can just see us showing up, looking for our train and it not being there.  There are two other small stations, and we were booked on a train out of one of the little stations.  I then checked the Italian railways website to make sure it was a real train, and luckily it was, all the info was correct and we needed to get to the little station. So now we really needed a taxi as I had no idea how to catch a bus to that station. 

This morning, as soon as our landlady showed up to check us out, Paul began to call for a cab.  The first company he called said there were none available, call back later. The second put him on hold for a long time and then came back to say there weren’t any available.  This was not good!  The landlady then offered to try to call one, and on the first try got a cab to agree to pick us up in three minutes.  Apparently speaking Italian helps you get a cab much faster in Florence. – keep this mind if you are ever in Florence and need a cab quickly. The cab showed up in three minutes and we were at the train station in plenty of time. 

The trip to Rome went smoothly.  It is only 80 minutes by high speed train, and before we knew it we had arrived.  We easily found our way to the metro, got weekly passes and were on our way to our new apartment.  Katie is so relived to be back in a city with a metro system. She hated those buses worse than any of us.  Every single ride she looked like she was going to get sick.  Between the traffic and the crowds, and the difficulties with the tickets, and the buses not showing up on time, we have had more than our share of bus travel.

We are staying in a nice quiet neighborhood around the back edge of Vatican City. We are on the 7^th floor with a nice balcony and can see the back of St. Peter’s dome. Of course, being a dome, it doesn’t look like the back, so it is a great view.  We picked up a few groceries from the tiny grocery on the corner.  This morning we plucked all the leaves off our Florentine basil plant and brought them with us to Rome, so no issues with basil here.  Plus the store is really small with few choices, and easy to check out – no crazy scanner guns here!

This afternoon we headed to Palentine hill.  Palentine Hill is one of the ancient sites of Rome, the location of the emperor’s palace.  It is one of the lesser visited sights, but comes in a two-day combo pass with the Colosseum and the Forum.   We will hit the other two tomorrow. 

We walked right past the Colosseum and got some great photos.  Katie was completely blown away by it, having no idea that it was so massive!  Palantine Hill was a really nice visit, and using the walking tour in our guidebook we got a great feel for the palace grounds and what it looked like in Roman times. It is so cool to sit down on a fragment of marble to rest and know that it stood in Julius Caesar’s house!

An interesting aspect of Palantine Hill is that beyond the palace there is an excavation of some ancient Iron Age huts that are likely the huts where the shepherd who rescued Romulus and Remus raised them. Romulus founded the city of Rome right here on top of Palatine Hill. In fact, the den where the she-wolf was found with the twins was discovered in 2007 on the side of this very hill.  Almost unbelievable, but the legend seems to actually be true.

After finishing with Palantine Hill we went to visit the Mouth of Truth.  It is pretty hokey, but fun to do.  The story is that if you tell lies and you put your hand in the Mouth of Truth it will bite down on you.  There were some very mischievous little blond boys about 2 and 3 years old in line in front of us, tumbling all around and constantly wrestling. We figured if anyone would get a nip on the fingers it would be them, but they made it through no problem, as did we.

We wound up the day with a visit to St. Peter’s in Chains church. This church has an excellent Michelangelo statue of Moses.  The statue is part of a larger wall of statues, and it is so much better than the other statues, it is unbelievable.  It looks so real that the legend is that Michelangelo himself threw his hammer at the statue yelling, “Speak!! Speak!!!”

The church is also noted for possessing the relic of the “actual” chains that bound St. Peter. In fact, there are two sets of chains – one that bound him in Jerusalem, and another set that held him here in Rome during his final imprisonment in Mamertime prison. Allegedly when the two sets of chains both came into the possession of this church they were brought near each other and miraculously fused together. Today the two sets of chains are displayed in a glass case at the altar.  Rome is full of relics such as these, and they are pretty interesting.  One church claims to have parts of the original manger and another has the stairs from Pontius Pilate’s house with blood stains from Jesus on them. I think we may go see the stairs and the pilgrims that climb them on their knees.

We are looking forward to tomorrow, not only for our visit to the Colosseum and Forum, but also because we are having dinner with a friend of ours from our days in Minnesota. Our friend Cristina who lives here in Rome did a post-doc year with me in Minneapolis.   We visited her here in 1998, and she visited us in Philly in 2002, but we have not seen each other in almost 10 years. Tomorrow evening we are going with her to a “real Roman” restaurant with traditional Roman foods.  But no matter how long it’s been since I’ve seen her, I refuse to eat tripe.

A Sunday Afternoon in Venice

Sunday June 4^th

Having really exhausted the list of activities we wanted to do in Florence, today we branched out a bit and took a day trip to Venice.  By high speed train Venice is only 2 hours away, so it is actually a doable day trip, as long as you just want to get a feel for the place. Unfortunately, because we decided only two days ago to make the trip, the trains that left early in the morning, and returned late at night were already sold out, so we ended up with trains that got into Venice at 11:30 and left at 3:30, giving us just under four hours actually in Venice.  But, we figured that four hours in Venice would still be fun, and we were right.

Before we left, I took care of a nagging issue that I’ve had for a few weeks.  If you remember, just before leaving Paris three weeks ago Katie and I went to Aquaboulevard, a big indoor water park.  It turns out that I took home an unwanted souvenir – swimmer’s ear.  I tried treating it with oral antibiotics that I brought with me on the trip and it responded at first and then worsened again.  I really needed antibiotic ear drops, so I went to an English speaking pharmacy located at the Florence train station.  Conveniently, in most of Europe pharmacists can prescribe drugs for minor ailments and with just a two minute conversation I walked out with antibiotic ear drops.  It cost me less than $12, no insurance to deal with, and easy as can be.  While I dealt with the pharmacy, I sent Paul and Katie to get our tickets validated, and I was done before they were-  easy as pie.  Nice.

Our train soon arrived, and two hours later we emerged from the Venice train station right out onto the Grand Canal.  As a side note – the amount of luggage some tourists were hauling on that train was astounding.  We saw several couples that had four suitcases and two large backpacks. Seriously – what do you need that much luggage for???? We have been in Europe for two months with ¼ the amount of luggage.

 It was a beautiful day in Venice – bright sunshine and large puffy white clouds.  Since we only had a few hours, we decided to head for the center of Venice – St. Mark’s Square.  To get there we took a water bus up the Grand Canal.  It took a bit of effort to figure out which boat to take – first we couldn’t find the right line to go to St. Marks.  The lines are marked on little floating buildings which serve as the loading areas for each boat. We walked up and down looking for line 2, and when we found it, we walked onto the loading area, and when the boat pulled up a minute later we hopped right on.  However, we had forgotten to check the direction and it headed away from St. Mark’s!  Oh Well! Luckily, the next stop was the end of the line, and the boat turned around to head back up the Grand Canal.  Because we started from the end of the line, we were able to secure primo seats up front with a great view for the ride to St. Mark’s.  All set right? 

Think again. This boat only went to Rialto, halfway to St. Mark’s.  So we had to abandon our great seats, hop off, wait again and then crowd onto the next boat to St. Mark’s.  We didn’t get primo seats this time, but we did get to stand next to the railing and had a nice view anyway.

Venice is an interesting city because it is at once beautiful and amazing to look at, and at the same time, so sad and depressing. On a pretty sunny day like today everything looks spectacular as the sun reflects off the water and the gondoliers pole their way up and down. But if you look a little closer, many of the buildings are sagging and decaying in the water, and a fair number are boarded up, probably empty and abandoned.  It is like an old lady who still looks pretty in the right light, but you know her time is coming to an end. I have not spent any time researching if Venice is actually on its last legs, with many of the buildings failing into disrepair, but it certainly seemed like it is the case.  On cloudy or overcast days I suspect that it is not so pretty, but becomes much more melancholy.

We arrived at St. Mark’s Square and admired the basilica. We didn’t wait in line to go in, as we have seen a lot of churches lately.  Instead, we headed up the Campinale (bell tower) to get a nice view of Venice.  Based on the lines for the Duomo in Florence I was worried that the line would be very long, but to our surprise, we were able to walk right in. Not only that – it had an elevator!!  It turns out that it has fallen over and been rebuilt several times, most recently with an elevator.  Just a few minutes after arriving in St. Mark’s Square we were gazing down on it from a pigeon’s eye view.  We got a nice overview of the layout of Venice – one big island and several smaller outlying islands.  It was spectacular. From the top we could see a nice green park at the tip of the main island and we decided that would make a nice walking destination.

We descended into the square and walked slowly in the direction of the park, pausing to admire the many small bridges, winding streets and small intersecting canals.  We slowly wound our way to the park and gazed out to the smaller outlying islands.  We paused for a refreshing snack (gelato of course) and then headed back along a different route to St. Mark’s.  This time instead of walking along the shore, we headed into the many twisting streets in the interior of the island.  It is really fun just to wander these streets, built for pedestrian traffic and not for cars.  These streets, really more of what we might call alleyways, are so narrow that if you stretch your arms out to the side you can touch the buildings on either side.  The passageways twist and meander, and you find something new beyond each curve. Perhaps a small restaurant tucked away or an opening providing a glimpse into a private courtyard, or you might find your way blocked as the little road dead ends into a canal.  We really enjoyed just walking and waiting to see what would appear next.

Finally our time was drawing to an end and we made our way back to St. Mark’s Square to catch our boat back to the train station.  We paused briefly in the Square to watch the many tourists feeding the flocks of pigeons and inducing them to hop into their hands and onto their heads.  It was really something to see – the flocks of pigeons swarming onto people. I saw several people with more than 5 or 6 birds sitting on them, and not a few small children who were afraid of the birds. Honestly it seemed a bit disgusting to me and I thought the kids were right to be scared.  Although I am normally fine with pigeons I draw the line at touching them. A few days ago in Florence, a pigeon flew right into my face!  Its feathers touched my lips and I had a strong urge to drink some Purell.  Looking on in St. Mark’s Square I thought of my brother and sister-in-law who both hate germs in general and pigeons in particular and wondered what they would think of this scene.

As our day in Venice drew to a close, we sat on the steps of the train station looking out over the sunlit Grand Canal, very happy that we had decided to come, if even for a few hours.

Unfortunately, our adventures for the day were not quite over.  It began to pour as we rode back to Florence and the weather evolved into a full-blown thunderstorm as we pulled into the Firenze station.  The crowds at the bus stops were huge, and for some reason, very few buses were coming.  It seemed as though every other bus that pulled into the station was out of service and headed for the depot. I understand that it was Sunday evening, but the small number of buses available seemed to be far too few. 

We waited, and waited, and waited as the rain poured down and the thunder boomed and the lightning flashed.  At least the stop was under cover!  According to the posted schedule, at least two buses on our route failed to show up. After 30 minutes of waiting, we decided to take a taxi, but it turned out the line for taxis was about 45 minutes long, so we returned to the bus stop. After a total of 45 minutes waiting the bus we needed finally showed up and we crowded on with everyone else. The combination of the dampness from the rain and the number of people onboard resulted in the entire bus taking on the feel of an extremely humid sauna. I had to keep wiping the steam off the windows to look out and see if we were approaching our stop. After an interminable wait, we finally arrived and hopped off, happy to breathe in the fresh air.  We then rushed in the rain to the villa, happy to finally arrive, and ready to prepare our ravioli dinner, our memories of warm, sunny Venice propelling us forward.

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.