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  • Day 8: Rome, Part 3

    Day 8: Rome, Part 3

    It’s 1pm Saturday London time. Dan and I are having lunch in the British Airways lounge. He’s playing a video game on his iPad that he’s been obsessed with since Christmas. We have complimentary 15 minute massages scheduled for 1:40pm. (Him = scalp, me = neck and shoulders.) Traveling with Dan has its perks.

    I was experiencing trouble getting on the internet earlier, and wrote the “final thoughts” entry first in Word. Turns out it was a browser issue; don’t why I didn’t think of that. Thanks, Dan :)

    So now I’m back to writing about the last day of the trip – Friday. I woke up a good 95% over my cold; Dan was feeling much better as well. We took our time getting out of the hotel, leaving about 10am. Despite a late-ish start, we intended to pack in as much as we could. And since we were indoors most of the day Thursday, and the forecast was supposed to be generally good, we wanted to be outside as much as possible.

    We picked a route that included a transfer at the train station, so we could get our tickets for the airport for this morning. We took a bus to the train station. We managed to keep the pickpocketers at bay (read the next entry for more info!), got our tickets and got out of there. From there we took the subway to the Colosseum.

    So let’s start with the name. It’s not that because of it’s size. It’s Colosseum because there was a statue of Nero that sat outside of it that was called Colossus because of it’s size, and the name sort of transferred over. We also learned that, contrary to popular belief, there’s no evidence that Christians were fed to lions in the Colosseum. There were primarily two kinds of games: with animals, which could be animals fighting animals or men fighting animals, or gladiators. And sometimes prisoners were used as contestants. And yes Christians were persecuted during this time. But fed to lions? No evidence of that. Historians believe that when (whichever) Pope declared the Colosseum a sacred Christian place in 1750, because Popes could do that, that story got made up.

    As a side note, the influence of popes on this town over the centuries is phenomenal and probably not all that surprising, but more than any other place that we’ve been, you really get here that for the first 1500 years or so of western civilization, there was zero separation between church and state. I don’t remember where we picked up this little tidbit, but somewhere we read that St. Peter’s was largely financed by a bishop put in charge of selling indulgences. His type of salesmanship and success in this area because so scandalous it led to, among other things, Martin Luther’s 95 Theses which is generally considered the kick off of the Reformation. Sorry, I probably shouldn’t be as amused by that as I was. (I found that independently here, which also explains indulgences if you’re not familiar with the term in this context.)

    Let’s get on to photos before I go too much further down that diatribe. The Colosseum.

     We took this as we were leaving, but it seemed odd not to start with a photo of it from the outside. It was built around 50AD, and much used until about 300AD. After Constantine, who legalized Christianity and wanted a more peaceful life for Romans, it’s barbaric practices ceased and was used for other religious and community events. By 500 or so it was completely abandoned. Over the centuries, it was pilfered for it’s building materials and used in other construction around the city – including St. Peter’s.
     A partial wooden stage has been built to mimic would would have covered the entire floor of the arena when it was in use. Arena is Latin for sand, which covered the wood which covered the complex system of mechanics, cages and passageways underneath.

     Underneath the area were cages for the animals, passages for animals and contestants, and a complex system of pulleys, etc., that moved things up and out when needed for the games.

     

     

    Looking out over the Forum, which we went to later.
    It’s wild to think about what it must have been like to live in those times.

     

     

     

     It’s also wild to think about how fairly sophisticated their architecture and mechanical engineering was during this time. Yet somehow we went from this to the Dark Ages and, as a civilization, made very little progress until the Renaissance – which was all based on returning to this level of thinking and progress.
     A senator’s initials. Each had their designated seat.

     

     

     This is a remnant of a man on a horse structure. The cross in the background was put there in 2000.
    Palatine Hill and The Forum are essentially next door and all on the same ticket. The entire area is a study in Roman History, and therefore the history of western civilization, from it’s beginnings around 750BC to the fall of the Roman Empire during the 400s.
    Arch of Constantine, built between 312-315. This sits between the Colosseum and the beginning of Palatine Hill.
    Palatine Hill contains evidence of the earliest settlements in Rome, dating back to 1000 AD. According to legend, the cave where Romulus and Remus were found is on this hill. It’s also the origin of words like palace, plaza and piazza. Today it is many acres of Roman ruins, with a little museum as well.
    This picture in the museum gave an idea of what the area might have looked like around 100 AD.
    This was once a fountain in front of a villa. There are steps on either side leading up to the home, and not too far into it another fountain seen below.

     

     

     

    The Roman Forum was a plaza in the center of ancient Rome that was also the center of life in the city. All significant city events happened there, and important buildings surrounded it. Today all that’s left is pieces but with some imagination you can get glimpses into what it must’ve looked like. In the background to the left – the sand colored building with the tower – is the Capitoline Museum, where we were last night. The building next to it – white marble with the horses on top – is another museum. Whose name escapes me now, again.

     

    Dan really loved this whole area. If you read Thursday’s entry, we’d seen this area at night from one of those arches on the left in the background and wondered how to get here. Now we know!

     

     

    We wanted to be up there with those people but ran out of time. We spent a good 2 hours in this whole area, including the stop in the museum (which was really small).

     

     

     

     

     

     

     They loved their arches.

     

     That museum whose name we can never quite get was next door. It wasn’t on the pass we had and didn’t want to pay to go in. But it did have a café and it was lunch time. We’ve had great luck and back luck with museum cafes. This would fall on the bad luck side. But the seagulls on the balcony were not afraid of people. This photo is not zoomed or cropped. That’s how close we were.
    That museum was high on a hill, at least in the back, and this was part of the walk down.
     Full view of it from the front. It’s pretty impressive.
     The Pantheon is the only building from Ancient Rome that’s still in use. It was built around 125, and still holds the record for having the largest unreinforced concrete dome.
     While originally just a meeting hall, around 700 a church was added – St. Mary and the Martyrs.

     

     

     We had decided early on that today we could get gelato twice and try to catch up before we leave! At the recommendation of a friend (thanks, Meher!) we came here, which was just a few blocks away from the Pantheon. Dan said it was the best pistachio ice cream he’s ever had. We didn’t care for the atmosphere though, which is hard to describe beyond crowded and frenetic.
     Piazza Navona is a large plaza with two fountains in it, and of course a church. This was the first statue we came across, of Neptune. Back above, front below.

     

     This the Fountain of the Four Rivers, a Bernini, constructed around 1650. These rivers represent the world, each from a different continent: Danube, Ganges, Nile, Rio de la Plata.
    As we were making our way via buses to a neighborhood across the river, we ended up at a central bus stop we’d been at several times before. We’d seen these two girls take this picture yesterday and Dan thought we should try it, too.
    This is at the bottom of the steps leading up to Capitoline Museum.
    We had done a lot of walking through various neighborhoods in the central city and realized that’s one of the things that we most love doing and haven’t had time on this trip. We decided to spend the evening in Trastavere, a neighborhood across the river (the Tiber, by the way), which was highly recommended by the hop-on-hop-off bus tour as well as TripAdvisor. We spent a couple of hours walking around and it was very charming. We had dinner there as well.
     Santa Maria
     There was a mass going on.
     These girls did several dances with fire in the plaza outside the church. They were pretty good and had gathered quite a crowd around them,

     

     The view we had from our dinner table outside – until the smokers drove us in!
     Our final meal. Dan had gnocchi and clams, I had lasagna. The foot was great, the place was noisy though,
     Saw this on our way out of Trastavere. Had never seen this before: a restaurant based on toast.
    One final shot of St. Peter’s as we headed over the bridge.
     This is Campo de’Fiori. This holds a daily public market during the day but just restaurants at night. A few blocks from here we found the #1 Gelato place in Rome according to TripAdvisor, for our final fix of the trip: La Gelateria Frigidarium. We forgot to take a picture. Dan said his pistachio there was better than Giolitti’s (a mere 82 of 459 ice cream shops). It was great and definitely satisfying.
    And that ends our 8 day tour of Italy. Four cities and really just 6.5 days on the ground once you back out travel time. Overall the amount of time was great; the number of cities a little ambitious. But it worked for us. We don’t have a need to return to the first 3, but we will definitely come back to Rome.
    There will be one more entry to share some final thoughts and photos from the way home.

    PS: I finished this when we got home, about 10:30pm Sacramento time Saturday. It would be 7:30am in Italy. I got 3-4 hours of sleep on the plane ride home, so hoping that was enough to take the edge off and stay up late enough to get my body back on Pacific time early. Dan is already asleep; he has a 7am flight to Raleigh tomorrow, and we’re doing laundry in between.

  • Day 7: Rome, Part 2

    Day 7: Rome, Part 2

    I got up about 6:30am; Dan about an hour later. He woke up with that tell-tale scratch in the back of his throat. Bummer. He felt worse as the day went on – mostly tired – but it didn’t turn into the full blown congestion, etc., that I had. So we’re hoping it won’t. We managed to pack in a pretty full day and take it slow at the same time. Public transportation helped a lot!

    We had breakfast in the hotel like always and left about 8:30am. The pass we had for St. Peter’s was one of those “skip the lines” things, but there wasn’t much of a line today anyway. It came with an audio guide that was actually very well done once we figured out how it worked. We spent about an hour and a half there.

    St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City. Where to start? If you’ve been following us for awhile you know we’ve become a little snobbish about churches. We’ve seen a bunch across Europe over the last 4 trips and it’s now difficult to impress us. So when I say this one blew both of us away, it’s a big deal. Never in one place have we seen so much art of such great quality, so well placed, being over-the-top extravagant without being gaudy. Architecturally and artistically, St. Peter’s is in a class all by itself.

    It is officially the largest cathedral in the world by length and by volume (length x width x height). It was designed by Michelangelo, Bernini, and a couple of other names I didn’t recognize. There has been a church on this site since the time of Emperor Constantine. The first St. Peter’s was built here around 400AD. This replaced it; construction started 1506AD and took 120 years. St. Peter’s tomb is directly beneath the high altar; and many, many other popes are interred here as well. Much of the art in the church are works done at the time of their deaths.

    For me some of it is personal. While I’m no longer a practicing Catholic, the training I had as a kid kicked in and lots of memories came flooding back. Including lots of conversations I had with my mother over the years about what it means to be a Catholic, the Vatican, Popes, the voting process, Michelangelo and the Pieta, and all the rest. We had picture books of this stuff at home and would look through them and talk about each photo. I saw all the stuff today she never got to but always wanted to. This one was for you, Mom!

    And some of that background was useful to Dan, who doesn’t really know much about Catholicism,  so we had lots of interesting discussions today, including one at dinner about “what does an altar boy do?” So somehow for me today was all about my roots. It’s been interesting to take it all in and weave it into the spiritual practices and understanding I have today. And in some ways, made it stronger. Much of the language in the audio guide was superb. If all of Christianity actually practiced it the way it was described, the world would be a different place. But that’s a whole other blog entry.

    What you really came here for was pictures, so let’s get started. We took somewhere between 120-150 of them today between the two of us. We edited that down to about 70, and as I upload them here I may cut some more. Because here’s the deal: the phrase “the picture doesn’t do it justice” was created for days like this.

    We didn’t take any outside pictures first thing because there was a low mist and you couldn’t even see the top of the church. There will be some later.

     This is after you get past the steps. I’m trying to figure out the audio guide, which was very simple once you learned the trick.
     This is your first view walking in. It’s high, it’s long, it’s wide, it’s very gold.
     This is in the first knave to the right, and the definition of “the photo doesn’t do it justice.” Ropes keep you pretty far from the altar it’s behind, which is also encased in glass, both conspiring to limit your chances of getting a good shot. But in person, it’s pretty stunning. It looks soft despite being marble.
     Oh, and it’s Michelangelo’s Pieta if you didn’t know that :)
     Turning left from the Pieta, this is the way through all the side altars.
     The audio guide had a very long story about this woman; the only part I remember is she was the first of only 3 women to be interred here. (This will be true unfortunately for most of the photos – don’t remember a ton of the detail, mostly because there was so much. Some of them I’m not even going to label unless Dan remembers more than I do!) Here’s what I really want you to notice about this photo anyway: the top of the angel’s head at the bottom. Next picture please….
     That’s the same angel, as part of the holy water vessel where you dip your hand to make the sign of the cross as you enter. That’s a full grown adult standing there, not a child. He was my height or taller.

     

     I took this from the main center aisle, just randomly looking up.
    One of many domes.
    One of many side altars.

     

     St. Peter. This is just to the right of the main altar.
     The main altar, sitting over Peter’s tomb. Surrounding the altar are four huge pillars which support the very large dome, each adorned with a statue of a different saint. It’s interesting to see who got picked to surround St. Peter.
     St. Longinus – holding the spear that he pierced the side of Jesus with.
     St. Helena, holding the cross and nails. Helena was the mother of Constantine the Great. She was a Christian and had a major influence on her son, who as Emperor legalized Christianity in 313AD.
     St. Veronica, holding the veil she used to wipe the face of Jesus as he carried his cross up Calvary.
     St. Andrew the Apostle, older brother of St. Peter, holding the cross Andrew was martyred on.
     The dome above the altar.
    Having my picture taken here felt weird somehow but when in Rome and all that…
     The Christ showing his Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary.

     

     Funerary art for Pope Pius VII.
     This was in a choir chapel. The Assumption of Mary as I recall. (Looks like it anyway!)
     And I so thought I was going to remember who this was! All I remember now is it is the oldest piece of art in the Basilica, dating back to Constantine.
     The kind of detail was on every pillar. There’s very little space that’s unadorned.
    St. Peter’s Square from the steps of the Basilica.
     Swiss guards.
     I thought the history behind the obelisk was interesting. Originally commissioned by an unknown pharaoh and sat in ancient Egypt. Emperor Augustus moved it to Alexandria sometime during this reign (63BC – 14AD). In 37AD, Caligula had it placed in the center of the Circus of Nero in Rome. It was moved here in 1586.

     

    We left the square and went in search of a quick and easy lunch because we needed to be back here by 1pm.

     We found this a few blocks away. It was perfect.
     Only three 2-seaters inside. Dan had a kabob wrap, I had a slice of spicy salami pizza. Both were excellent. With a bottle of water for each, grand total for lunch was €9. Score.
    We had a 1pm appointment to be taken to the Vatican Museum, which also contains the Sistine Chapel. We were not really prepared for what we were about to experience. This place is huge, rivaling the Louvre in size. We decided early on the focus was the Sistine Chapel and we’d see what else we could fit in depending on time and energy. Just off the main entrance there was a “short itinerary” sign for the Chapel, indicating a shortcut. Made for us. However, that was when we got the first real sense of size. All things being relative, shortcuts in this place still took you across quite a bit of real estate.
     This hallway was probably 5-6x what you see here, maybe more. The shortcut. We literally trotted through it, dodging all the slow pokes stopping along every painting and tapestry to take photos.
     Pretty ceiling at the end of all that.
    Just past this were stairs that led you down to the Sistine Chapel. They were militant about “no photos” so we didn’t even try. Every time someone did they got yelled at. I’ll go to sleep hearing “NO PHOTOS” in a thick Italian accent tonight I bet.
    Given that we have nothing to show for it, it’s difficult to explain the experience. Again, you’re not really prepared for what you’re about to see. What you hear about is the ceiling by Michelangelo, and perhaps the Last Judgment by him as well. But that’s just a part of the story. It’s big to begin with, and every square inch is covered. The first layer rises probably 12-14 feet and is painted to look like curtains, changing color, texture and style every 10-12 feet or so. Then a layer of popes. Then a layer of saints. All of this so far has been done by other artists. By this point you’ve reached the curve of the ceiling, and Michelangelo kicks in again with scenes covering the spaces between faux arches and columns. Dan and I had this whole discussion identifying what was real and what was painted. (The molding bordering the first two layers is real, the rest is painted. Even some of the curtains looked real.) Then the famous ceiling, with the Creation of Adam dead center. The wall behind the altar (it is a chapel after all, and in the middle of everything was a little prayer service to underscore that point) is the Last Judgment. The opposite wall is lots of things again, none by Michelangelo. It’s exhausting trying to take it all in. Plus your neck hurts after awhile :) Still, we spent at least 20-30 minutes in that room. This is not something you gaze at for 30 seconds and move on.
    But eventually we did. We went to the lower level that was the same length back as we’d just walked. Lots and lots of stuff to see.

     

     A close-up of the one above.

     

     A view of St. Peter’s from one of the windows. It’s all the same complex.
     The oldest piece of art in the place, of a wedding from about 500BC. It’s in remarkably good condition.
     Those are essentially armoires lining each side of this hallway.
     A map from 1529. Not quite right again. Not surprising considering Jamestown was 1607 I believe.
     The point of this picture was the long succession of rooms through increasingly smaller doorways from this point. But again, doesn’t do it justice.
     Courtyard.
     Opposite view of the courtyard. And if you look carefully you’ll see Dan sitting on the first bench.
    Middle of the courtyard. The point of the above 3 pictures is an attempt to show size. This one probably does it the best. I’m not standing all the way back but you can see this is wider than the other two; but in reality it’s a square, so all four sides are longer than this. Look how small the people in the top left of the photo are and you’ll get an idea.
    We left about 3pm, having spent almost 2 hours there. It wasn’t near enough time, but we were sort of full and ready to move on. We knew when we planned this trip it would be tough to get everything scrunched into what was really just 2.5 days, so we decided early on we’d just skim the surface on some things.
    Our next stop was Capitoline Museum. It was 30 minutes away by bus and Dan was able to sleep most of the way, and that helped a lot. We were saying yesterday we’re getting ready to move on from museums – everything is starting to look alike. Today’s stuff blew our socks off so it’s going to be hard to top that. But, if that’s the plan, it’s fitting that we at least get this one in. Capitoline is considered to be one of if not the oldest museum in the world. The initial collection was donated by Pope Sixtus IV in 1471. It has a wide range of things from antiquity through about the Renaissance, with a nice mix of paintings, sculptures, etc. And well written descriptions in English. In many ways more history than art (and no modern art, thankfully), we really liked this museum.
     Steps leading up to.
     Three buildings surrounding a square; all of it courtesy of our friend Michelangelo again. This is a Michelangelo kinda town.

     

     It had a nice terrace that gave us some great views of the city. That’s the National Museum – had a photo of the front in yesterday’s blog but didn’t know what it was. We are going to try to get to it tomorrow. We want to be on that rooftop! (See the tiny people up there on the right?)
     I have never seen a city with so many churches in my life. Just standing from this spot we counted 12. (Not all in this photo.)
     We stopped for a little pick-me-up in the café. Dan had a pistachio cake with latte. I had an almond cake with “Café Capitolino” which was on the board as just “special coffee.” When I asked what it was he said “espresso with chocolate and cream.” I’m like – oh great, a mocha, I’ll have that.
     Then he starts to make it and we were pretty wowed. Thick chocolate fudge swirled around a martini glass until it’s covered. Add espresso. Add whipped cream. Add a sprinkle of powdered chocolate, a few coffee beans and a cookie. (Yes, it was great.)
     This museum was wild for the Romulus and Remus story – mythology that says these two brothers were raised by a she-wolf. Romulus eventually kills Remus and founds Rome, naming it for himself, circa 800BC. We saw it depicted many times in many forms. If you don’t know it, here’s the short version. And it just so happens to show the same (or close to it) statue!
    This was Dan’s favorite room. A pope on each end (holy cow do the Romans love their popes) and six paintings circling the room, each telling a significant story in Roman history. He really liked the stories in the paintings.
    Closer up:  Look, it’s Romulus and Remus again.
     The opposite wall featured another pope and another popular story in these parts: The Rape of the Sabines. We saw it several times in Florence, too.

     

     Rape of the Sabines again.
     This was about the death of St. Peter’s “daughter” – morally at least, it qualified. Mostly I liked the size so asked Dan to stand in front of it to give it scope.
     The Walking Dead?
     Marcus Aurelius.

     

     Marcus Aurelius again, although this was done in 179AD. It’s been in a few places throughout the city, including on a pedestal made by Michelangelo in the square of this museum until 1976. It was moved here because it was decaying too badly being constantly exposed to the weather. It’s been replaced by a replica.
    I honestly do not remember what this was; Dan liked the lighting and lines of the hallway!
     This was in a sort of courtyard we stumbled across as we were exiting. We were like – this is huge and out in the open, how did we miss this? Same with some Roman ruins that we came across, viewable from a walkway overlooking the side yard. Again, how did we miss that? It looked really cool, we were disappointed it was too dark to get pictures.
    The replica of Marcus Aurelius on a horse – still sitting on the pedestal by Michelangelo.
    We left about 6:30pm and caught a bus back to the hotel. We had dinner at a restaurant across the street, Zero. It was an interesting Italian-Asian fusion place. Excellent food, and Dan was excited it was all rice based and not pasta! We attempted gelato afterwards 3 blocks away, but got there 1 minute after closing. Story of our lives this trip.
    Rome is definitely some place we’ll come back to. We like the vibe of big cities, we like history, and you get lots of both here. We’ll squeeze in a bunch tomorrow and, weather permitting, most of it will be outside. So we’re really looking forward to that.

     

  • Day 6: Florence to Rome

    Day 6: Florence to Rome

    We slept until the alarm went off…the first snooze, actually, which was 6:40am. That clocked me in at about 7.5 hours, Dan at about 6. Pretty good. And my cold is just about gone so happy about that.

    We had breakfast in the restaurant instead of the lounge; about the same, a few more choices. We caught an 8am shuttle to the airport and had hung out for awhile until we boarded our train about 9:40. As we were walking into the train station we saw this:

    I didn’t think any of these were around anymore: a coal powered train. That smoke was hitting the roof of the walkway and drifting right into the train station.

     

    We got into Rome about 11:30, about 20 minutes late, and to our hotel about Noon by bus.

    Rome! Talk about surreal. With a founding date somewhere about 800 BC, this is the oldest city we’ve been in by about 400 years, with Trier, Germany (referred to as “the Rome of the north”), the oldest prior to today. Everywhere you look there’s a photo opportunity: lots of old, majestic buildings, and some others you’re not sure how they’re still standing. But definitely a live city. With over 4 million people, it’s the 4th largest in Europe (by city limits). We’re excited to be here and a little disappointed that we have to cover so much ground in so little time. But oh well. We’ve been known to cover a lot of ground in the past so we’ll see what we can do here.

    The bus ticket we purchased from the train station was good for 100 minutes so we knew we could use that to get to St. Peter’s Square where we would pick up the museum and transit passes we’d prepaid for from Omni, a travel company. We freshened up a bit and made our way out.

    The bus/tram stop is a few hundred feet away from our hotel. This is the closest we’ve ever been to a good stop – you can see it from our balcony window. It was only about a 20 minute ride to the Vatican.

     One of the reasons we went with this travel pass is it combines the Roma Pass – which is transit and a bunch of attractions – with St. Peter’s, the Vatican Museums, and the Sistine Chapel. We made appointments for tomorrow to do all of that so will be back for more. We were hoping to do it today but the Sistine Chapel was closed to the public (January 6 = Epiphany) and it didn’t make sense to split them up. But we had a take at least one photo while we were there, right?
     This is Castel Sant’Angelo, essentially next door to the Vatican. It was started in 139 BC as a mausoleum for Emperor Hadrian, was turned into a fortress in the 400’s, and a castle – fortress and living quarters – for popes in the 1400’s. We came here at night to tour so more on this later.
    One of many pictures we took today just because we thought it looked cool. We ended up only including a few of them because we weren’t really sure what we were seeing.
    Our plan was to do the Coliseum next. We took a bus to get there and snapped a few photos along the way.
     All this time later, archeological digs are still happening – just like in Trier. This photo and the next are the same site. The was from one direction the bus turned left and I got it from the next side.

     

     Pretty sure this was one of the museums but don’t remember now which one. Stunning building, both in size and beauty.
    We got off the bus a little before the Coliseum and stopped for lunch. It was now about 2:30 and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast. We found a place that had a salad/pasta/dessert special for €15. The salad and the pasta was good, the panna cotta was amazing. We both agreed it was the best part of that meal.
     You know what this is. Guess what? Entrance closes at 3:30. What time did we get there? 3:31. No kidding. This will get pushed to Friday.

    The Omni Pass also gave us access to a hop-on-hop-off tour bus. All the traveling we’ve done, we’ve never done one of these. So we figured why not. It was about an hour ride around the city. It started to rain again so it kept us dry, but didn’t make for great photo-taking opportunities. The audio that went with it (they give you a set of earbuds to plug into their system and select your language) was actually decent (when it worked! we had to change seats a couple of times to get a good connection), and we learned some things. We took it from the Coliseum, all the way around once, and then again about 1/4 of the way to get off at St. Peter’s again. The plan was to go to Castel Sant’Angelo, because it was the one thing we could find on the pass that was open into the early evening.

     

     We’ve only been in a few other castles; this is definitely the biggest. And it fit the distinctions we discovered from our first trip: a fortified residence, as opposed to a fortress which is just fortification, or a palace which is a residence but has no fortification.
     A statue of the Archangel Michael. There’s a story about him appearing above the fortress around 600AD, and that’s where the name comes from: Castle of the Holy Angel.
     We went up and down a lot.
     One of two courtyards. That’s the original sculpture of the Archangel Michael that used to be on top. There was a long story about how many times one statue or another of Michael had been messed with somehow, including being struck by lightning, that Dan was quite amused by.
     One thing we found odd is the rooms were all decorated in themes around mythology, which didn’t seem to make sense since they were all commissioned by Popes. Why would popes decorate there residences in art depicting stories about mythic, pagan gods?

     

     Dan was able to get a nice shot of St. Peter’s from the top.
     And a cool one from a barred window.
    This is the bridge leading into St. Peter’s Square. There’s a lot of stopped traffic there and down the right because of an emergency vehicle that was going through.
     A pedestrian only bridge that leads into and out of the castle. You saw it in the earlier pictures from the ground.
     Same bridge from higher up. I liked the frame the columns provided.
     The current Archangel Michael at the top.

     Cannon balls from the fortress days.
     Making our way down.
    Final look back as we were leaving.
     We walked along this pedestrian only street for awhile on our way to the next stop. There were lots of shops and restaurants along the way so we figured we could find dinner somewhere.
    And we did. We came across a place that was doing an 8 course tasting menu for €48. We love doing tasting menus, have done several, and that’s a steal even if the food is just mediocre. But usually it’s not, so either way we figured it was worth it. And that price even included 3 glasses of wine, which would be wasted on us. But we did it anyway.
     The first four courses were all small starters: this really interesting ricotta & pesto thing, smoked salmon on arugula, a Russian salad (which was really a twist on tuna salad) with shrimp, and a sort of vegetable quiche only without the crust. The above pasta dishes were 5 and 6: salmon with pesto, and fresh artichoke with smoked Gouda cheese. Both of the pastas were homemade and cooked perfectly al dente. I’ve never seen anyone serve fresh artichoke like that before.
    This cod dish was amazing. Almost like a stew, it had olives, tomatoes, other stuff we couldn’t quite decipher. Neither this nor any of the dishes were over salty, something we’ve experienced quite a bit since we’ve been on this trip.
     Course 8: a flourless chocolate cake with whipped cream, and panna cotta. Again. But this one was even better than the one we had at lunch. And that cake was so rich it was like eating peanut butter – stuck to the roof of your mouth. Both were excellent. And would have been so good with coffee but it was after 8pm and I didn’t want to chance it. (And I just can’t do decaf, sorry!) Dan had a dessert wine since it was included in the price.
     It was a cute place. Il Ritrovo del Gusto. “The Meeting of Taste” according to Google Translate. I keep wondering if that should be Meaning? Anyway, the owner, Daniela, chatted with us a bit at the end. Everyone was very friendly. Our waiter – at the table behind us pouring wine – was Romanian. He took a picture of us with the starting courses but it didn’t turn out great so we deleted it. We made up for it later.
     This was our destination: Trevi Fountain. Trevi is the name of the neighborhood it’s in. It was built in 1762. And it’s beautiful. We were really glad we came here at night, I don’t think we could have gotten the same effect during the day. It was under restoration from June, 2014 through November, 2015, so it’s all freshened up just for us. The work cost 2.2 million euros. It’s tradition to thrown coins in it because of the 1954 movie “Three Coins in the Fountain.” (We did.) About 3000 euros are thrown each day. The money is used to subsidize a supermarket for Rome’s needy.
     There was another American standing next to us trying to take selfies so Dan took some photos for him and he returned the favor.

     

    We took a bus back to our room, and got here around 10pm. That’s the latest we’ve been out for awhile, and certainly on this trip. So that’s a wrap for day one in Rome. Tomorrow will be Vatican stuff and whatever else we can squeeze in during the late afternoon and evening.
  • Day 5: Florence

    Day 5: Florence

    Dan finally caught up on sleep, getting about 9 hours. I did OK at 6, although they weren’t very restful. The cold is moving on slowly and I still get tired easily, but doesn’t necessarily translate into rest with the sneezing, etc. That didn’t keep us from having the fullest day yet, leaving the hotel at 8am and returning at 6pm.

    First stop was Galleria dell’Accademia. This was one of those places I didn’t think we could get into. It had seemed like reservations were required and when I tried to make them there weren’t any available for today. I’d read somewhere that if you get there early enough you might luck out. So we did. And we did. Apparently they sell a certain number of reservations, with an increased price, but still have a regular entry fee for those who want to stand in line. (You’ll hear this bit a little later, too.) There was small group of people standing around the “Reservations” door; and the “No Reservations” door had no people in front of it but it was blocked. The attendant asked if we had reservations. “No, we don’t.” “No problem,” he says, and he undid the rope and we walked right in. Score. It probably helped that it was 8:45am.

    It’s a pretty small museum. And half or more of the works are pre-Renaissance religious pieces that we don’t care for. (I think the style is Gothic – unnatural looking faces, lots of halos. We love Gothic architecture, paintings not so much.) The rest was OK, not a lot that was special. There’s really only reason to come, and it was the only reason I wanted to come: David. Is it worth €12.50 (each) to see up close what some believe to be the finest piece of sculpture known to mankind? You’ll have to decide for yourself.

    I had actually come out of a side room that emptied out right at the end of the hall leading up to him. I turned and Dan standing there with this big grin on his face. This sculpture really does knock your socks off.
     This is the hall leading up to it, with five other Michelangelo pieces in it. Nothing comparable though, and all of them were still embedded in the marble from which they were being drawn. And from this view you see the scope – he dwarfs everything else in the room.

     

     

     

    This room was full of plaster models of a large number of sculptures, with a video on how molds are made.
    This was also in that room. It’s from mythology, of Cyprarissus, loved by Apollo for his beauty. One day Cyprarissus accidentally kills a deer he was fond of. He’s so grief-stricken that Apollo transformed him into a cypress tree to end his suffering.
    We were only there 45 minutes. We headed to the Cathedral, or Duomo (same as in Milan), which was at the end of the same street this museum was on. The street ended at the side of the cathedral. There was an entry to our left that had no people around it, so we went in. Turns out it was the entry to the steps that take you up to the dome. The Duomo pass we had pre-paid worked, so up we went. This picture below is that entrance, or at least what it looked like when we left. The line was much longer than this photo shows; by 4pm when we were here again it was even longer.

     

    It was a workout. Like several of these we’ve done, it got narrower and narrower and you went up. And more spirally. And towards the top it was two-way traffic in a one-way space, with attendants directing. Ever been on a 2-lane highway when one lane is being worked on, and there are traffic guys that direct, letting a good number of cars go through before stopping them to allow the other side a chance? It was like that :)
     The first stop took you to the first balcony of the dome. Started in 1296, it took about 150 years to complete.
     Dan took this and the one below from one of the windows in the staircase we were ascending.

     

     The misty rain completely destroyed our view. Oh well. When we saw all those people in line when we got down we wanted to say “don’t do it if you’re going for the view.”
    Making our way back down.

    The trip down stopped you at the 2nd dome balcony, which brought you closer to the painting, which is a representation of “The Last Judgment.” There are layers of worlds, starting with evil on the lower, and ascending up to heaven towards the center.

     Once we got back down we went into the cathedral itself.

     

     

     

     A clock over the main entrance. Roman numerals in military time. Never seen that before.

    After we went to a museum about the cathedral. A few interesting things to see.

    This is an altar sculpted in silver. It used to be in one of the side altars in the cathedral.
     From the side. The detail on stuff like this astounds me.
    I’m glad we ran into this. By Michelangelo, also a Pieta, but not as well known as the one that sits in St. Peter’s (which we’ll see on Thursday). This was his next-to-last sculpture. After working on it over 8 years, he mutilated it out of frustration with flaws he kept finding in the marble block. Pieced back together, it was purchased by Cosimo Medici and sat in the Duomo for many years. Although Pieta is traditionally of Mary holding Christ after being taken down from this cross, this one also includes Nicodemus, one of the men who took him down.
    Dan loves these books!
    It was about 12:15 by the time we were done here. We stopped for a very light lunch at a little hole in the wall joint; the guy was very happy to see us. We thought maybe he didn’t get a lot of traffic. We were the only ones there. Then a few minutes later it was packed, with people he seemed to know. Very local. I had a prosciutto/cheese/tomato sandwich, Dan had pizza toast, which he said tasted just like the pizza he got for lunch in elementary school! (And he meant that in a good way.)
    We had 1pm reservations at the Uffizi, “the” art gallery in Florence. Only as I was looking at my printed email I noticed they were for January 2. Today is January 5. Oops. Clearly I knew we wouldn’t be here on that day, I must’ve just fumble-fingered the date when I was ordering. Dang it! We went anyway, hoping maybe they wouldn’t notice or there would be some work around. No dice. We could pay the €12 each again and get a 1:30 reservation, or get in the “no reservation” line and pay only €8. We chose the latter for the time being. As we were standing in the very long, very slow moving line, we started figuring out what else we could be doing. After about 30 minutes and only 1/3 of the way through the line, and looking at the photos of the pieces people had posted on TripAdvisor, we decided it wasn’t worth the wait for stuff that looks very similar to what we’ve seen over the years. So we went on.
    We ended up at Palazzo Vecchio, a palace built in the 1300’s originally for the ruling magistrates. The Medici’s lived there during some of the dynasty; it currently serves as the town hall. It also overlooks the Piazzale della Signoria, the square with all the statues where we were last night, and went again after this.

     

     

     

     

     

     This map room was pretty cool. Most of these were from the 1500’s. There was a not very good map of the Gulf of Mexico, with Florida being drawn incorrectly but the rest of it was pretty accurate – including the now Texas coast, the easy-to-spot Yucatan Peninsula, and the various Caribbean islands. It was in the corner partially roped off so you couldn’t get a good picture of it.

     

     There was something very different looking about this room. I loved the marble all around the door, too.
     This was literally called the “multi-media and relaxing room” so I took advantage.
     These are from the Piazza della Signoria. These were on the porch area that we couldn’t get to last night.

     

    Dan took this from that same porch.

     

     We remembered we wanted to get back to a chocolate place we’d stepped in this morning by the cathedral so made our way back there. Passed this along the way.
     And made a quick pass through the Baptistry of St. John, part of the cathedral complex, and just across the plaza from it.

     

     And a nice photo of Dan in front of the cathedral while we were at it.
     We went to a public market area for dinner, which had this upstairs. I guess the closest thing we have to it is the food court, but this was oh-so-much better than that. Columbus types: think North Market.
     I got a margherita pizza (tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil) from one place, Dan got cheese tortellini with ham and a nice light sauce two doors down. Very good. And I finally got my gelato after. Also very good. Very Good.

     

    It look us longer than it should have to realize Uscita meant Exit. Many things here are in Italian and English, but not everything, not all the time. We probably saw it first in airports and train and/or subway stations, but still it took a minute for it to click. The little green running man, however, we’re very familiar with. I still remember the first time I saw him: the Brussels airport in 2013. It also took me longer than it should have to figure out he was “exit”, but I had it figured out by the time I left that airport.

     

  • Day 4: Venice to Florence

    Day 4: Venice to Florence

    I slept on and off for about 6 hours, Dan only slept 2 or 3. I was up around 5am, did some work until 6:30 or so when we got dressed, finished packing and headed down for breakfast around 7. We caught a boat at 8:15 to the train station, and had about a 40 minute wait until we could board for a 9:25 departure.

    The train ride was uneventful but a little late. Because I’m still fighting a cold in a major way – probably worse than yesterday – we caved and took a taxi to the hotel. It was a good choice. We got there just after Noon and our room was ready so we went on up. The hotel has a shuttle that drops you off at the train station but there was a lunch break and the next one wasn’t leaving until 2:15pm so we went up to the lounge for some snacks then both took little naps. (And had we known that we could’ve saved about €20 on the cab, because it picks you up from there, too! Oh well.)

    We stopped at the pharmacy in the train station to get cold medicine and tissue for me. I saw the shelf that had cold stuff on it and started to walk towards it, not realizing I had entered the pharmacists’ area and got shooed away. Even what we would call over-the-counter drugs here had to go through the pharmacist. So we took a number and ended up with the same guy who shooed me. I asked if he spoke English. “Little bit.” Just like in Germany, everyone’s favorite answer to that question! (In Belgium and The Netherlands it’s “of course” with a shake of the head like “who doesn’t?”) I asked for a decongestant. Of course the box was all in Italian so we couldn’t tell what it was, but it was Johnson & Johnson and somehow that made us feel better. Dan asked him if it would make you drowsy, he says “little bit.” Later I mused: maybe that’s the only English he knows and he uses it for all questions?

    So we were off again. New city, better weather. It was about 43 degrees when we headed out – 10 degrees warmer than Venice this morning or most of yesterday. And it wasn’t raining. Very happy about that. And as soon as we took a walk down our first street outside of the train station we were like “ah, this feels so much better.” Our admission for the day is: we really didn’t care for Venice all that much. I know, blasphemous to some, but for us it was a lot like Bruges: all tourists, all the time. It’s beautiful, it needs to be seen, but like Bruges it felt more like a theme park than a city where people actually live. 24 hours was enough and we wouldn’t go back. The whole time we were there we kept saying: if it’s this crowded in 35 degree rainy weather in January, can you imagine how bad it must be during the high season? Yeah, no. Not our cup of tea.

    Florence, on the other hand, felt great to us from the first block. We like places that feel lived in and have some things to offer tourists to boot. Florence had that feel for it from the beginning: you couldn’t really tell the tourists from the locals, there were businessmen walking about in suits with briefcases (never saw that in Venice for sure!), bicycles, motorcycles, cars, pedestrians, a nice mix of all. And wide streets. Well, relatively wide. I didn’t realize until Florence how much my claustrophobia had kicked in in Venice!

    And Florence is no slouch in the art, history, banking and political worlds: home of the Medici family and Michelangelo, birthplace of Leonardo and the Renaissance. Lots of history, lots to see. So let’s get started.

     You know we can’t pass a church without walking in. This was just tucked away on a simple street so it was hard to get a good angle of the entire front so I took one portrait, one landscape.
    This is San Gaetano, construction funded by the Medici’s, built early 1600’s.

     

     I love the flooring, very different.

     

     Wherever we go we wind up on that city’s version of Rodeo Drive. Florence was no exception. Dan and I were discussing this in Venice, which was flooded with high end stuff even though it’s all tourists. Do people really shop like that when they’re traveling? We never buy anything. I guess we’re just not shoppers.

    Above and below are the same spot from different angles. I just liked the look and feel of this, especially the curved alleyway.

     

    Our first bridge, and from where the next several shots were taken. The statues adorning the entrance reminded me a little of Paris.
     Looking to the right.
     Looking to the left. A bridge called Ponte Vecchio, filled with merchants, not unlike the Rialto in Venice.

    Looking back at the first bridge we were on.
     And the next one! We liked this view better.
    We were making our way to Piazzale Michelangelo, a lookout over the city. It was a decent climb.
     Florence is the capital of the Tuscany region. This is the closest we’ll get probably to a Tuscan hillside. It was very pretty.
     The next few are all of the Florence skyline, with the cathedral as the dominating point. There will be a picture of it later, and we’ll spend some time there tomorrow.

     

     

    The part no one was looking at. We thought it was pretty!
    The trek back down.

     

     This was at the bottom of the hill. We’d checked out the menu on our way up and decided to have dinner here. We’ve been getting by on two meals a day essentially – breakfast in the hotel, a snack midday, and an early dinner.
    We got 4 courses and split each. The best was a homemade pasta with ground rabbit and pecorino cheese. This was both our best meal in Italy so far and the cheapest. Gotta love that.

     

     Since I’m still fighting this cold, we decided on an early night again. We headed back around 5:30 so the sun was completely down. Made for some nice shots.
    We had one other stop to make – Piazza della Signoria – but ran into a bunch of things that at this stage I can’t even quite make the distinctions. Like Bruges and a couple of other places we’ve been, the entire central city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site so everywhere you look is “wow!”

     

     

     I don’t know exactly where this was; we were just walking around, suddenly we looked up and here we were.

    So this was our goal: Piazza della Signoria. A big plaza that has all the masterpiece sculptures bordering it. Pretty amazing. There’s a balcony that has more on it but it was closed for the day already, although free to the public.

     

     

     

    The cathedral. We passed it on our way back to the train. More on this tomorrow.
    I’m going to bed, where Dan probably already is. We came down to the lounge once we got back to the hotel. He went to shower a little bit ago and to get some sleep – he got less than me last night – and I stayed to finish this.
    And I can’t believe I’ve been in Italy for 4 days now and still haven’t had any gelato. I must be sick….
  • Day 3: Venice

    Day 3: Venice

    Since we are supposed to be on vacation, we’re not setting the alarm unless we absolutely have to be somewhere. That resulted in not getting up until 8:30am, a later start than we anticipated. And my body finally caved in to the cold it had been holding off for a couple of days but there was no longer ignoring it was now in full force. And the high today was forecasted to be 38. Joy! Good thing I brought my long johns, and we’re just very glad it didn’t rain today.

    Breakfast in the hotel was OK – fairly standard Hilton European buffet fare, although we agreed Milan’s was better. They did have congee, an Asian style rice sort of soup with ginger and peanuts. It was good but not for breakfast.

    We missed the 10:20 bus shuttle we’d planned on taking so had to wait another 30 minutes. That combined with getting a late start just sort of solidified it was not going to be an aggressive day for us and several “if we have time” items quickly fell off the list. We figured that was probably the way it should be; take it easier and hopefully I’ll get better faster.

     Dan took some shots around our hotel while we were waiting for the next boat.
     This is just after we got off the boat. This walk along the canal is much prettier than my expression would lead you to believe.

     

     You’ll see lots of pictures of gondolas today. When in Rome and all that. Or Venice I guess I should say. We did, however, long ago nix the idea of a ride. It was a ridiculous price as I recall (€85 a person I believe). I get how it would be worth it to some; not us :)

     

    Our first stop was Doge’s Palace. Venice was a Republic from about 700AD to 1800AD, and the Doge was the supreme authority. The heyday of the Republic was 1200-1500; this palace was constructed in the mid 1300s, with surely some of the artwork done later. The line to get in was long, but we had pre-paid tickets so swooped right in. This courtyard was the first thing you see. That’s St. Mark’s Basilica in the background.

     Nice shot Dan got of the sun coming through over the canal.
     This place is one of the most ornate we’ve seen anywhere.
    Old Venice loved festivals and acrobats were a big part of them. This pyramid of men was fascinating to me, because of the use of wooden boards for stability and so many layers. How did they get up there?
     I took this from the side. Notice how the support guys are planking backwards, with the men on top standing on their legs and shoulders. Ouch? I guess it’s better than all that weight being on your back.
     We’ve seen a lot of ornate halls over the years, and both agreed this boots Bruges off our #1 spot as the most ornate. It’s huge, and every square inch is a work of art, filled in with gold, or both.
     Different room, smaller, same style. There were several of these.

     

    An outside staircase we couldn’t go up but we liked the two statues at the top.

     

     This was the exit from the Palace, with St. Mark’s to our immediate left as we’re looking back at it. The winged lion is the symbol of St. Mark, and is on the Venetian flag (both the Republic and the current one).
     St. Mark’s square. Or here, Piazzo San Marco. We’re went straight ahead to the opposite end, where another series of museums were available on the same ticket we bought. There were 3 of them and they all flowed together, we couldn’t really distinguish them. The surprise was when we were done, we came out way on the other side to the left of this picture, sort of parallel to where we’re standing now, essentially crossing the square again from the inside. We had no idea we’d walked that far.
     Dan loves pre printing press books because every page is a work of art. It’s actually bigger than it looks in this picture, but still about the size of my palm.
    The Venetians loved their ornate rooms.

     

    St. Mark’s was next. Admission was free, and they kept the line moving so even though it was long it went fast. We figured from the way it looked that it’s older than Cologne; turns out it’s older than Notre Dame even, built 1084-1092. Style is Italo-Byzantine.
     Photos were prohibited but Dan managed to sneak a few in.

     

     We don’t think we’ve seen color painted on the outside of a cathedral before.

     

    Next was the bell tower, or Campanile. It’s 323 feet high. Original design from the 1514, but this version was constructed in 1912 after it collapsed in 1902. We did it solely for the views. And were disappointed that it was an elevator and not stairs!

     

     

     That’s St. Mark’s in the bottom right.

     

    Santa Maria delle Salute. We tried to get to this church but essentially ran out of time because it’s not easy to get to. That’s the Grand Canal running between us and it, and there aren’t a lot of bridges over the Grand Canal (which we find odd for a string of islands, but who are we?).

     

    This is the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. It’s supposed to be a lovely retreat away from the throngs of San Marco island (where we spent most of the day), with a bell tower as well. Again ran out of time. But it’s pretty! Back in the day, those buildings housed a church and a monastery. Now, among other things, is a theater for performing arts.
     That’s the Doge’s Palace on the left; this plaza leads into St. Mark’s Square.
      The domes of St. Mark’s.
    More winged lions. I loved the blue, which you hardly ever see. We went down this passage way in search of lunch.

     

     Who knows.
     Much better.
     This is the same spot where we took the photo last night, came across it from another angle.

     

    They’re kinda opulent.

     

     

     Random church we stumbled into.

     

     I see a new cover photo coming.
     We found a cute little place for lunch that didn’t feel all that touristy. It was good. But not as good as yesterday’s and more expensive. Oh well. Dan had a seafood spaghetti dish, I had carbonara (which was pretty yummy I have to say).
     Another random church.
     St. Mark’s Square at dusk. Pretty, ain’t it?
    We were hoping for a nice dusk shot of this island as well but the sun was setting fast and there wasn’t enough light by the time we got there, so it’s a little grainy.

    And that’s a wrap for Venice. I asked Dan as we were heading back to the boat if he felt like we’d done and seen enough and he said “yes” very quickly. I wasn’t sure; but as I looked through TripAdvisor’s Top 10 just now, we did 6 of them (several are all related to St. Mark’s); and others in the top 15 we didn’t need to do (like more churches or the modern art museum). This was mostly a visual trip for us and we felt like we saw everything we needed to in what wasn’t more than 24 hours. It’s definitely one of the more unique places we’ve been and we’re happy to scratch if off the list.

    We got back to the hotel about 6pm. We stopped by our room briefly then brought our laptops down to the lounge where Dan did some work and I did this. I will get to bed earlier than any night so far which is probably good given my condition. We have a 9:25am train ride to Florence tomorrow so will get a fairly early start. Of all of the cities on this itinerary, Florence is the one I’m the most excited about. So we’ll see!

  • Day 2: Milan to Venice; The Last Supper

    Day 2: Milan to Venice; The Last Supper

    Dan did not sleep well at all last night. But he’s sleeping now (it’s 11:17pm local time as I start this) so that’s a good thing. Hopefully he’ll catch up. I finished posting the rest of yesterday’s pictures to yesterday’s blog since we’ve got no internet problems today. Our room In Venice has it hardwired so I’m liking that a lot.

    So on to today! We went down for breakfast about 8am despite Dan’s lack of sleep. I offered to do the first thing without him because it was definitely “my” thing so he could get a little more sleep. But he was a trooper and in the end he was glad he joined me.

    What was this thing? Leonardo’s Last Supper. If you’d asked me before we started planning this trip where it was, I couldn’t have told you, and would probably have guessed Rome or Florence, Naples maybe. Never did it occur to me it was in Milan. And once I learned that I was like “oh yeah, we’re going.” It was my first experience with “you MUST reserve a specific time in advance.” They only let people in for 15 minute increments, and only about 25 at a time. You have to make an appointment and if you miss it, oh well. It was closed yesterday, we are leaving for Venice today, so early morning was the only option. We had a 9:45am appointment and they were clear about getting there 20 minutes ahead of time.

    So away we went after breakfast. It was about a 30 minute subway ride away, in a could-be-anywhere-in-Europe sort of neighborhood, nothing special about it, although quiet and well kept.

     The church is Santa Maria delle Grazie. He painted it on the wall of a refectory of the convent in a side building.
    We’d gotten there right at 9:25 as instructed, so had a little time to kill after we collected our tickets.
     It was actually pretty dark but iPhone does wonders. It was a nice church, normal sized.
     Because it attracts so many tourists, the actual parishioners use a side chapel. There was a mass in progress.
    Beautiful side altar.

    At 9:40 we went into the room where we had to wait for our appointment. There was some history there that was interesting. Leonardo used a different style of painting with this work than a typical fresco, one that didn’t require him to work so fast. Starting in 1495, it took him 3 years to complete it. However, it’s probably the style that he used that lead to such early decay, which was evident as early at 1522. They’ve been trying to save and restore it ever since.

    That said, the only way to describe what happens next is we were taken through a series of locks. The next set of doors don’t open until everyone is in and the doors you came in through are shut. The building is temperature controlled and kept humid. As soon as we walked in my glasses fogged up. It’s actually pretty impressive the effort they put into managing the maintenance of this thing.

    I’ll also add that the reviews on this are definitely mixed. Everything from “greatest spiritual experience of my life” to “what a complete rip-off!” We were prepared for the worst.

    And were completely and very pleasantly surprised.

    Unlike the Mona Lisa where everyone goes “it’s only ‘this’ big” (and it isn’t; it’s a decent size but not massive), this is an impressive size. Literally the entire wall of a good sized hall. You can see the people in the photo below for perspective. And, having dealt with the chaos that is the viewing of the Mona Lisa, we were very grateful they only let in 25 people at a time. 15 minutes is more than enough.

    The colors were in much better shape than we had anticipated, too.

     

    Something we learned in the history room that made this interesting was Leonardo painted this as if Christ had just said “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.” He wanted to capture the expression of each apostle after that moment. “Who is it? Is it me? It’s you! It’s him!” It all makes sense now.

    We just watched “The Da Vinci Code” again a week or so ago, so of course all we see here is Mary Magdalene. You can’t unsee it once you do.

     

    And similar to the Mona Lisa, here’s a painting on the opposite wall that gets hardly any attention at all, despite being impressive in it’s own right. In the Louvre it’s The Wedding at Cana by Paolo Veronese. This is The Crucifixion (obviously) by another artist you’ve never heard of, Giovanni Donato da Montorfano. The Wedding at Cana is better, but this ain’t exactly shabby.

    Mission accomplished. We were very glad we did it and that it turned out much better than expected. Low expectations are a good thing.

    We went back to the hotel to get our bags and headed to the train station. Milan’s Central Railway is a “real” train station – massive building, beautiful architecture, mall-like shops and restaurants. Just the way we like train stations.

    Venice is a 2.5 hour train ride from Milan. It was a pleasant ride. It snowed most of the way. The train was pretty crowded until the stop just before ours, and then it looked like this. Very comfortable ride and it was pretty fast.

    As we walked out of the train station, this was the first thing I saw and I literally started laughing. This is so wild. We’re in Venice! And not Venice Beach! This is more surreal to us than Paris was.

     Also from the steps of the train station.
    Dan went to get tickets for the boat ride we would take to the hotel. It was cold – about 30 degrees – but I stood on the outside of it for most of the trip anyway. It was too hazy and choppy to get very good pictures though.
     The gray lines just above and to the right of “Venice” is the train station. the blue dot is us on the boat at the time I snagged this. We are going all the way to the bottom then right to the Hilton.

    The one good shot I got from the boat. Just thought it was a cool building. Shortly after I took this I was able to read the sign on it that says “Stucky.” This is our hotel!

     View from our room.
    We dropped off our bags in the room and went down to the Executive Lounge (perks of traveling with Dan) for free snacks and something to drink since it was now about 4:30pm and we hadn’t eaten lunch. We explored the rest of the hotel a bit then picked up a 5:20 boat ride the hotel provides to San Marco island.
    St. Mark’s Square. When we got here we were like “oh wow.” We’ve seen this in So Many paintings since we’ve been traveling we can’t even count. It was great to see it in real life, and of course we will be back tomorrow.

    We’d downloaded a walking tour online and sort of followed that around the island. Mostly we were just wandering, checking things out.

     The top of Rialto Bridge, which is covered in retail. It’s undergoing a huge renovation now so not much to look at. Notice the umbrellas. It was raining the whole time we were out. We didn’t care.

     

     There were So Many people in the shopping areas we were happy to find a quiet street. We ended up finding a hole-in-the wall restaurant for dinner that had a very local vibe to it. Just the kind of thing we like. There weren’t a lot of tourists there and the menu was not in English (something we look for). The food was great, simple pasta dishes cooked perfectly. We were so into it we forgot about pictures.
     We got back to the hotel about 9pm. This is the bar area off the lobby, and behind is where we’re sitting is the Executive Lounge.
    We stopped for some hot chocolate before going up to our room.
    First time you’ve seen me without a jacket all weekend.
    It was a great day in Italy today. Looking forward to more….
  • Day 1: Milan

    Day 1: Milan

    We were still awake last night when midnight struck and got to see lots of fireworks from our 6th floor hotel window. Fireworks were being lit from the tops of many buildings and it was quite a show. And a little noisy. And lasted a fair amount of time, maybe 15 minutes. After we went to sleep pretty quickly, slept pretty good and both got up just after 8am.

    We are staying at Hiltons everywhere on this trip, mostly related to Dan either wanting to use or acquire more points! Plus it’s predictable, we get treated well, and breakfast is always included. So that’s what we did. Nothing remarkable about the food, pretty similar to what we typically see when traveling over here. But it was good and we were happy with it.

    I worked over an hour after breakfast, we headed out about 11:20am. So here’s the thing about Milan on New Year’s Day: every travel article we came across essentially said “don’t do it!” We were warned over and over again about nothing being open, streets being dead, nothing to do. All of this really surprised us because Milan is the 2nd largest city in Italy and the 5th largest urban area in Europe – certainly you can find something to do even on a holiday, right? And if all the travel advisors were correct, we were looking forward to that in an odd way, and had prepared ourselves for just walking around all day, being the only ones out and about, stopping at the cathedral which would be easy since there would be no lines, and having dinner in the hotel (breakfast is one thing, but anything else is against the rules) if we had to. Dan even looked at the menu on our way out from breakfast and I said “let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

    We had even convinced ourselves at one point in the planning that it was going to be so bad, based on the warnings, that we should just skip it and use today as the travel day to Venice or, better yet, just fly into Venice in the first place. But by that time the seats we booked the vouchers on were all taken so we stuck to our plans, and looked forward it to being a relaxing day. We like cathedrals, so if that’s all we did, we could live with that. Just keep all that in mind as you look through the photos.

    Our hotel is just a couple of blocks from a subway entrance. We headed towards the city center, and 15 minutes into the ride the train stopped. They made an announcement in Italian and everyone got off. We were just about a 30 minute walk from our destination so figured why not; we could easily be waiting that long for it to get moving again.

    We ended up on Venezia, a Street that reminded us a little of the Champs-Elysees in Paris: a broad boulevard with lots of high end stores. Milan is the country’s business center and a global fashion center. So by definition it’s not the tourist destination that the remaining cities on our itinerary are – and why we mostly didn’t care about all the warnings that we ignored.

    Right away we noticed that there were way more people about than we anticipated, and way more things open, too. We had about a 1.5 mile walk into Duomo Piazza, the square in the center of the city where the cathedral is. We passed this on the way. Not sure what it is but it certainly looked old. We love happening upon random old building. We were joking about – do Europeans get as excited about everything being new in America as we do about everything being old here?

    Over a mile into it we noticed the entry of a pedestrian shopping district – a staple of every European city we’ve visited, something we’ve come to expect and definitely enjoy. We came across this Church right away and stopped in for a peak. There was a mass going on. (If you’re not familiar with Catholicism, you might not know that New Year’s Day is a “holy day of obligation” and mass attendance is a requirement.) It’s the Church of San Carlo or St. Charles. Built in 1844, not very old by Europe standards.

    Shortly after we got our first glimpse of the cathedral. It is the 5th largest in the world (and in Rome we’ll get to see #1). We agreed right away it’s probably more intricate and ornate than Cologne, a favorite of ours, and is about 2000 square meters bigger as well. Started in 1386, construction went on for almost 600 years. (And for Dan: the Cologne spires are about 150 feet higher, which might explain why this one didn’t feel as massive despite actually being larger.)

    We couldn’t believe they put advertising essentially on the cathedral. More on that later. It gets worse.
    The cathedral from the front. It IS pretty.

     

    We also love public markets and enjoy seeing what the locals are selling. We picked out a couple we would return to later in the day.

     Believe it or not, that “fruit” is actually marzipan.
    Those balls front and center are the arancino I describe later. Wonderful.

    Once we got to the cathedral, we stood in line for over 30 minutes to get onto the Terrace, or Duomo Rooftops. Definitely something I hadn’t done before, although Dan did the same thing in Strasbourg. You get some perspective on the building and the surrounding area you couldn’t otherwise get.

    First view we got from the top.

     

     

     

    A random beautiful roofline on what was clearly just an apartment building across the Street.

    It was after 2pm by this point. We weren’t ready for a full meal but went back to the market and got some Italian snacks. Dan got something tasty we can’t remember the name of – pastry filled with White cheese and something tomatoey – and I got an arancino – a fist sized pastry-like item that was meat ragù wrapped in risotto wrapped in cornmeal and deep fried. And hot. It was great, and Dan enjoyed his, too.

    After we went into the Cathedral (another line, probably 20 minutes), and the archeological dig beneath it (which we could have skipped – but at least there wasn’t a line!).

    OK yea I guess it’s pretty big.

     

    One of the many side altars.

    We both agreed we hadn’t seen that kind of work done at the top of columns before.

    The front of the church was closed off to visitors, only parishioners allowed.
    This and below is the front door. So intricate.

    The square from the steps of the cathedral.

    Dan was standing on 2nd story steps from across the plaza to get this one.

    And this monstrosity was on the side of the Church: a stream of ads playing to those standing in line and/or walking by, some related to the cathedral, the Others all Samsung. We wondered how much they paid to put that up there. At least it’s clever: that’s not actually on the cathedral, but a facade that sits in front of it. Still, tacky as hell in our opinion. When we walked into the square at night this was so bright the Whole area took on a “Times Square” sort of feel. Would be a shame if anymore went up.

     

    On the left side of the plaza as you’re facing the cathedral – the entrance to what we learned is essentially a mall. Dan says I look like a babushka in this picture. I don’t care, it was Cold.

     

    Nothing but random walking around after that, which eventually landed us in a huge park that we enjoyed, with museums in the middle (that we skipped as well).

    A square in front of an art museum with a tribute to Leonardo da Vinci. He lived in Milan in the earlier part of his career.

     

    I love that it’s just Leonardo.

    Forgive my stupid expression, I like the shot I the background. This was the beginning of Castello Sforzesco, a huge complex of museums and park.

    Just behind the walls of from the shot above.

    Not exactly chestnuts roasting on an open fire, but these were pretty good. We ate these as we made our way through the rest of the park.
    It just kept going.
    I’m sure you’ll get to enjoy many a goofy expression, just like every blog. I leave the truly horrific ones out.

    We got some nice pictures in the evening as we headed back to the center to look for something to eat.

    We picked up some goodies from the public market to eat on the train to Venice tomorrow. For dinner, we decided on something just off the square – typically less expensive and less touristy – and did pretty good. Dan got a bolognese dish, I got Milanese Risotto – apparently that’s a thing because it was on the menu of just about every restaurant we looked at. It’s essentially a plan risotto with saffron. Risotto is one of those things I will Always get when it’s on the menu. Can’t say I was disappointed. A nice rich flavor of saffron, cream, butter. Simple and satisfying.

     

    After we came back to the room to unwind. I spent a frustrating 90 minutes trying to get an internet connection, only to find out that the general wireless router was out. I wrote this downstairs on a business center computer, and will upload the pictures from Dan’s phones once the wireless comes back..

    Did you notice, by the way, that all the travel advisors were wrong? We’re glad we didn’t skip it.

  • Departure: Sacramento to Milan

    A pretty typical travel day with no curve balls thrown. Grateful for that. And I’m always amazed once we get to that first destination – in this case a Hilton hotel in Milan – how long the day actually is. It hit me when I realized I was wearing the same clothes I wore to work yesterday – yesterday, can that be right? – morning. Seems like a Long Time Ago.

    I had a lot to try to pack into my last day before vacation so went in about 7:15am. Dan had the day off and he managed plumber and handyman visits who were doing stuff in the downstairs unit. I left work about 3:30pm. I didn’t get everything done and had resigned myself the day or two before that it would actually be less stressful to take my work laptop with me and do some work while I’m here. That breaks a cardinal rule of mine but there really wasn’t a way around it this time. Too much going on at work and that’s a whole other story.

    We had rented a car the night before to drive to San Francisco one way. We left about 4pm; got to the airport a little before 6:30pm. Not horrible for that particular drive. Our plane left on time at 8:20pm.

    So the really good deal on seats I mentioned in the initial post was essentially business class, round trip for both of us, for just a little more than we’ve paid for one round trip economy in the past. I will admit, made for a pretty comfortable 10 hour flight over.

    Dan actually sat behind me, but on the way back, he’ll sit across from me, so with the privacy screen down we’ll be essentially facing each other.

     Not a bad way to fly. I’m about to watch “The Gift”, a slow-burn thriller starring Jason Bateman. The trailer made it look like it would be pretty predictable, but I picked it anyway, and it wasn’t really. It was slow but has some twists and a nice good-vs-evil-is-really-gray sort of theme. I enjoyed it.

    We had guessed things wouldn’t be very crowded today and we were right. Heathrow customs and security was a breeze. We had time for Dan to take a shower in the lounge, and grab a quick bite for lunch before we made our connection to Milan. That flight was just 1.5 hours, we landed about 7:30pm local time. Milan is an hour later than London (9 hour total time different from home).

    The Milan airport – Malpensa – is about 30 miles outside the city center. It took a little over an hour probably to get to our hotel, but all pretty easy to navigate. How did people travel before Google Maps?

    The first leg was a train ride that, as you can see from the photo above, wasn’t crowded at all. Then we connected to a subway and took that the rest of the way. That was a little more crowded but it kept getting thinner the closer we got to the hotel because we’re north of downtown. Some regular folks going home, lots of well dressed (and heavily perfumed!) people going out for New Years Eve.

    We, on the other hand, are not. We got to our room about 9pm and started settling in. It’s approaching 11pm now. Dan’s working and I may do some myself, or just see if I can sleep and do it in the morning. We’ve both only slept about 4 hours in the last 36 or so. (That’s on purpose – part of the manage jet lag strategy…)

    With tomorrow being New Year’s Day, there won’t be much open here, and that’s OK with us. We’ll head to the city center (“centro storico” here in Italy: historical center) and see what there is to see. We’re looking forward to a relaxing day.

    Happy New Year everybody!

  • Pre-Departure

    Why Italy in January? This trip was created out of a variety of circumstances. The airline tickets have been booked since April because Dan had upgrade vouchers he needed to use before they expired. They allowed for a really good deal on really good seats so we had to go Somewhere. We spent weeks discussing where and when. “When” was tricky because in my new job I have less than half the vacation time I used to have so we needed to take time adjacent to holidays. But because it was my first year in the job, I didn’t feel I could take the week in between Christmas and New Year’s – just didn’t feel right – so we landed on the first week in January by process of elimination.

    So where to go in January? We’ve had a loose plan about working our way counter-clockwise around Europe. Italy fit that bill as well as being somewhat warmer than other places we could have picked. We’d always talked about leaving Italy until we could take at least 2 weeks to do it. This trip only allowed for 9 nine days. Oh well. We’ll pack it in!

    We take an evening flight out of SFO on Wednesday, 12/30. We will get to Milan New Year’s Eve evening. Two nights there, two nights in Venice, two in Florence, three in Rome. Home Saturday 1/9; Dan has to turn around on 1/10 and go to Raleigh for two weeks. That seems to be the way it goes these days. He got home from his last trip to Raleigh on December 11. We would have had a full month together by the time he leaves again and it seems like it’s been a long time since that happened!

    This trip is remarkable in that it’s the first trip to Europe for us that’s pure vacation for Dan – not attached to a business trip. So we’re happy about that. We’ve been so busy this last quarter with the move, remodel, and both having an awful lot going on at work, we’ve had very little time to plan the details of this trip. So every minute of this one isn’t quite as planned as others have been. And that’s OK, too. Because we are ready for a vacation. So hanging out in Venice, just people watching, drinking coffee and eating gelato sounds very OK to me.

    Lack of time to spend planning the details aside, the plans we do have are very scheduled, more so than any other trip we’ve done. Things must be very popular because more often than not, you need reservations to get into things – whether it’s to see the Last Supper in Milan or a particular museum in Florence or Rome. And while we like to have clear plans, we don’t like to be scheduled to the minute while we’re meandering. So we’ll see how all that goes. I still have some work to do in that area in Rome, although the earlier cities are pretty well thought out.

    And I got an odd sense of nostalgia once I started to work on Rome. I almost forgot the Vatican was there! As I child, I had a great deal of fascination with all things papal, as well as Michelangelo, and Da Vinci for that matter, so it will be fun to get to be to close to their great works. Seeing pictures of the Pieta in St. Peter’s and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel brought back vivid memories of conversations I would have with my mother as a kid. This is a trip she would have loved to make. I will be thinking of her often.