Days 10-11, our first days in Florence

Our days of rest in Verona were brief, and were exactly the recharge we needed before the flurry that was Florence. We arrived in Florence in the afternoon and while dad and Curtis returned the rental cars (a job made much more difficult by street closures for an annual bike race we knew nothing about), the rest of us met our landlord of the week and got checked into our new digs. Something I haven't talked about much is how we secured our accommodations, and if you enjoy traveling but haven't perused the VRBO (Vacation rental by owner) site, you might be missing out. It was a new on on me, but not to the rest of our group, and Julie and dad secured used it to secure most of our stays, all of which were very enjoyable. In Florence, our apartment was just a block away from the Ponte Vecchio, and had a wonderful view of the Arno. In addition to the excellent location, the apartment provided us with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a gathering room, a dining room, and a kitchen. Sure, a hotel will change your bed and give you clean towels, but staying in these apartments allowed us a place to be together, and overall it saved us money. 

Back to Florence...after our brief country stay it was a bit overwhelming at first, this definitely having something to do with the bike race that closed so many of the city roads, and so many of our planned crosswalks. The race lasted the entire week that we were there, and it forced us to make a few detours, but while this was a serious issue for our drivers when they were returning the cars, it really wasn't that much of an inconvenience for the rest of the time. Plus the tourism office gave us a really great map of the city with the bike route and open crosswalks clearly marked to help us out.

Back to Florence again, I really thought it would be my favorite city of the trip, but in the end it couldn't beat Rome. Florence was the seat of the Renaissance, if such a thing existed, birthing front runners like Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, and Galileo. It is still home to many key Renaissance pieces and landmarks, and I loved these. Seeing the home, offices, and sanctuary of the Medicis was top on my list. But Florence as a whole was a little too carnival for me. Where Rome seem integrated, with ancient and Renaissance sites spread throughout blocks of bars, shopping, and offices, Florence was everything in one place, and everything was a site hawking its desirables to the passersby. 

That being said, I loved everything we saw in Florence, and every minute of every day was full. 

Day one was really only a half day, and we spent it checking in and picking up up our Firenze Cards, which were worth every penny, not only for the savings, but for their line skipping powers. A big tip for visiting families: we purchased Calvin his own Firenze Card, and though it probably wasn't necessary at every site, without his own card we'd have had to wait in line at several sites, including the Academia and the Uffizi, and not having to wait was worth it by far.

Day two of Florence was our first real day in the city. We spent with Brunelleschi's dome (the dome of the Duomo), Donatello's David at the Bargello, the Palazzo Davanzati (a medieval tower house), a merry-go-round in the Piazza Republica, the Casa di Dante (in the building that might have been Dante's house, but probably not, with items that could-have-might-have-but-probably-didn't belong to Date, yadda yadda), the Duomo Museum (closed for construction except for two or three pieces), and the Palazzo Vecchio. It was a full and busy day that was as exhausting as it was rewarding, and just the start of a long few days in Florence.

A short side story: Calvin had long since finished the book he was reading on our trip, and since I'd underestimated the time he would have for reading, we'd packed only the one. So on our first day in Florence we looked up book stores that would sell book sin English as well as Italian. In this way we scored copies of a few interesting books set in Italy, or written by Italian authors, and while we waited for the rest of our party he sat outside the Casa di Dante and read Pinocchio, much to the delight of several tour groups, who paused to take his picture along their way.

Asleep on the drive from Verona to Florence...

The Arno in the morning

Ghiberti's doors on the Baptistry

Climbing the Duomo

Inside the dome
Brunelleschi's brick work

The steep climb over the dome to the top

Giotto's Tower from the top of Brunelleschi's Dome

The Bargello

Donatello's David

Palazzo Davanzati

Merry-Go-Round in the Piazza Republica

Casa di Dante

The ceiling in the Palazzo Vecchio (as made famous by Dan Brown)

Cosimo il Vecchio Medici

Lorenzo "The Magnificent" Medici

Dante's death mask

The Uffizi and the Galileo Science Museum, across the Arno from our apartment

Days 8-9, Verona (9/21-22)

Verona was the breath of fresh air that we needed. After our exciting water taxi ride to the airport we picked up our cars and drove through the foothills to Verona, where it turned out that our next stay was in a bed and breakfast on the very top of one of those mini, rolling mountains. The very top, and it had lots of grass, and trees, and an olive grove, and vegetable and fruit patches, and being on top of the mini-mountain, the view went on forever. It was an abrupt change from the narrow streets and tall buildings that we'd been enclosed by for a week by that time.

Before settling in we stopped for our first winery tour of the trip. Verona is the Valpolicella region of Italian wine, and we enjoyed a tour of the Bertani winery there followed by tastings of their ripasso and amarone. For Jon and myself (and Calvin) it was our very first winery tour. I loved the old, dark, brick basement stacked with wines nearly a hundred years old. Calvin was disappointed that they didn't go into details about how the different bottling machines worked, but enjoyed the trip just the same. I think Jon enjoyed the wine.

The rest of our stay in Verona included getting a good rest in the very modern and comfortable agroturismo farm on top of the mini-mountain, followed by excellent breakfasts on the patio overlooking the view, and one day of walking all throughout old-town Verona. Smaller than Venice, old-town Verona offered several ancient Roman sites, like the old bridge, the ruins of a theater, the old gate into town, and an amphitheater that was kept in excellent shape and is still in use today. Castelvecchio is the old fort/castle in town, complete with surrounding walls and a drawbridge, and of course there were churches to wander into. Jon and I also did the extreme tourist thing and stopped by Juliet's balcony just to say we'd been there.

One of my favorite things about Verona, was enjoying meals outside on patios overlooking the city below. We ate both breakfasts this way, fresh and delicious buffet-style breakfast with real coffee served to us by our host, and also one lunch and one dinner at a delightful open-air restaurant just a little ways down from our bed and breakfast with enjoyable table wine and a litter of ferrell kittens scampering about. Also memorable for me was the night that we drove part way down the mountain to dinner: parking alongside the narrow, winding road and we walked up the road a bit looking for the restaurant and instead found the old city walls, surrounded by tall pine trees and being circles by innumerable chirping bats in the deepening twilight. It was beautiful, and it felt like an important moment, something to be held onto forever. 

Lunch on a mountain top

Bertani winery tour

At our foothill top stay

Verona

The house of Capello, purported by the tourist industry to be the inspiration for Shakespeare's Rome and Juliet

The view of Piazza Bra from the top of the Amphitheater

The drawbridge of Castelvecchio

Porto Bosari, the ancient Roman entrance to the town

The old Roman bridge

The spookiest building every, or at least in Verona. It was even surrounded by a cool draft.

Saints (or something) hiding in the doorway of the Duomo

pirate Jesus inside the duomo

The Scaglieri tombs

The sacred rooster on the door of the church

Days 6-7, Venice (9/19-20)

We left Rome by high speed train on Thursday morning and arrived in Venice in the early afternoon. Even through the light stress of maneuvering luggage onto a Vaporetto (the water bus) and through narrow streets to our Venetian home, I was already feeling the awe of being one of those places that you only read about or see in photos, one of those places you thought you'd never, ever see in real life. But there we were.

I'd heard stories about Venice. We'd been warned that it might be dirty, we'd been warned that it could stink, we'd been warned that it would be wet. Aside from some water in the square at high tide on Friday, none of those things really turned out to be true for our visit. The impression I took away was one of winding narrow streets packed with people and over-priced shops. Being short on space, there just isn't that much to go around. 

I think our first afternoon there was my favorite, and I know it was Calvin's as well. After finding our wonderful accommodations (a room with a view overlooking the Grand Canal), we slipped out to grab some lunch and ended up with a fantastic gondola ride that took us not only through the main canals but also down some more narrow paths. We started just below the Rialto Bridge and went through the main island to come out on the lagoon. From there we took the much loved Bridge of Sighs route home. With the sun falling lower in the sky the air was cooler and the quiet of the smaller routes was relaxing. I greatly enjoyed the colors of the buildings, and we had a good time finding pigeons in odd places again. Our gondolier gave us tidbits of information, at least half of which I was unable to understand through the accent, but it didn't matter. The trip was delightful.

On our second day we wandered through the narrow streets to St. Mark's Square to see the Basilica and the Doge's Palace. We'd been warned ahead of time that the Basilica was undergoing a long-term cleanup and repair project and would be mostly hidden behind scaffolding, and in truth very little of the front of the church was visible. Instead, we enjoyed watching the long line of visitors inch along temporary walkways over a growing pool of water as they waited their turn to enter the building. We'd arrived in the square at the beginning of high tide.

Having seen so many amazing churches in Rome we opted to be awed by the external Byzantine characteristics of St. Marks and skip the long line to get inside. We skirted the puddles, took some pictures, munched on gelato (of course), got overtaken by a wave while sitting on a bench near the lagoon, then went to the Doge's Palace, home of the Terrible Ten (think inquisition), the Mouth of Truth (a place to deposit your most accusatory notes where the Venetian inquisition would get them, but don't turn in a lie lest the mail slot bight your hand off), and the Bridge of Sighs. We saw it all, crossed the bridge, sighed at our last view of freedom before entering the dungeon, wandered through the dungeon, and took a big breath of fresh air as we crossed back over the bridge to our freedom awaiting on the other side. Melodramatic, I know.

Both nights that we spent in Venice we all gathered in the dining room of our humble, 300-year old abode to watch the sun sink below the buildings across the Grand Canal. It was relaxing, it was beautiful. We eschewed fine dining and gobbled snacks like prosciutto, cheese, and bread. Thanks to Curtis and Julie's excellent shopping skills we had the perfect ingredients to make good use of the panini maker in the kitchen. And on Friday night, after tucking in those of us who prefer early bed to late music, we headed to a nearby church to take in some Vivaldi (after stopping for gelato first, of course).

Calvin says that Venice was his favorite stop of the whole trip. He love the gondola ride for sure, but I think what tipped the scales for him was the extra time we enjoyed just sitting in the apartment, not having to be somewhere or see something. I loved those moments, too, the evening spent together with good food, good wine, and good company.

On Saturday morning, just about the time we were beginning to dread the walk with luggage back through the narrow, winding streets and the process of elbowing our way onto a Vaporetto to leave the island, mom flagged down a water taxi to find out how much it would cost for a ride to the airport (where we were getting our rental cars for the next leg of the trip). Amazingly, it was a deal, so we all hopped in, luggage and all, and not only saved ourselves the headache of the walk, but cut about an hour of time from the trip as well. Plus the ride itself was a real bonus, and watching our driver talk on the phone with one hand, drive with the other, and shift with his elbow while flying through water traffic was entertaining. Getting out at the airport we watched him back away from the dock amid seven other boats. Jabbering all the while with only feet between them not a curse word was uttered and nobody seemed concerned. We all agreed that if any of us had to do it, we'd have crashed long ago, but it's a way of life on Venice.

And then we were off to Verona.

On the dock in front of our apartment on the Grand Canal

On the Rialto Bridge

The Rialto Bridge from the gondola

The Doge's Palace from the gondola

The Bridge of Sighs from the gondola

The moving boat

A series of what looks like near-misses in the gondola on the Grand Canal:
nearly missing a water taxi...

nearly missing another gondola...

nearly missng a Vaporetto...

St. Mark's Basilica

St. Mark's reflected in the high tide flooding of the square

Pigeons again

The Venetian Campanille

The Stairway of Giants inside the courtyard of the Doge's Palace

St. George and the Dragon in the courtyard

The Mouth of Truth in the courtyard

The Lagoon from a window in the Doge's Palace

From the Bridge of Sighs

into the dungeon

The flood line from April 11, 1966

Taking a taxi out of town

Day 5, The Borghese (9/18)

One that The Vatican Museum did not have that most other museums seemed to have was a camera ban. On our fifth day in Rome we went to the Galleria Borghese, home to several of Raphael's works as well as Titian. More notably, it houses three stunning sculptures by Bernini, including his take on the David theme, as well as my absolute favorite, the Apollo and Daphne. Unfortunately photography is not allowed in the Borghese. Up side? Far less photo sifting and editing for me later. I'll bet they sell a lot more guide books that way, too. I know we brought one home.

The Galleria Borghese is in a villa that was once the home of Cardinal Borghese. The villa is surrounded by a large park. We followed our visit to the museum with gelato (in which Calvin lost a tooth), and a stroll through the gently rolling hills and. The park is refreshingly green and wooded. It's big enough to be hiding a theater, a few fountains, and a zoo. We watched pairs of rose-ringed parakeets building nests high in the evergreens near the exit before we continued on toward home. The rest of our walk took us through the Piazza del Popolo and a number of high end shopping streets, plus a stop for some wine before we called it an afternoon.

This was our last day in Rome, and I think at least some of us were reluctant to say goodbye just yet, so after dinner, those of us without a bedtime took one last walk along the Heart of Rome tour walk to see all the sites in their after dark glory. The moon was nearly full, the night was mostly clear, and the experience is one I will not soon forget. The next day we were up early to catch our train to Venice.

Outside our aparment on our fifth day in Rome

Pigeons in odd places

Last picture ever with both top baby teeth

Seconds later with one of those teeth missing

Rose-ringed parakeets building a nest

Senatus Populusque Romanus (The Senate and people of Rome)

Mannequin delivery (looked a lot like statue replacement part delivery)

Spaghetti and clams

Spanish Steps at night

Trevi Fountain at night

Pantheon at night

Day 4, Ancient Rome (9/17)

This was the day that we returned to the classical period of our history. It was also the day on which my camera stopped focusing properly, a state of protest it maintained until the very last day of our trip, of course.

It's a tossup for me between classics and Renaissance. I love them both for very different reasons. Calvin, on the other hand, seems to be most in love with the ancients. On many occasions, this day being no exception, I was exceedingly glad that we had spent so much time this summer studying our Italian and Roman history.

We started our tour of the classics in the Roman Forum. Walking paths between the ruins of what was once the heart of an enormous empire, surrounded by the remnants of marble columns and arches, was an awesome experience, in the true and literal sense of the word. Those remnants are giant, and can give only an impression of what the original span of the forum must have been. Sculptural detail and signs carved out in Latin attempt to carry you back to the past, and if you stand in just the right spot while reading descriptions of historical moments can take your breath away. If you have an active imagination, that is.

But equally as impressive is taking a moment to look around and think about the present meeting the past. It's the little things, like watching Calvin stop to take a rest, sitting on ground once traversed by the powerful and tyrannical rulers of a vast empire, that kind of make my head explode with the complexity of history and time.

After the Forum we wandered around Palatine Hill for a while. Rome-the-current is in the process of rebuilding parts of the palace that original occupied this space. Still surviving ancient times, though, were some floors, a handful of walls, a mosaic fountain, and the indoor arena. The pigeons love it. Heading back down from Palatine Hill provided some of the best views of the Colosseum, our next stop. Of course, the Colosseum being an enclosed space, we found ourselves once again battling massive groups of guided tours, but again the battle was worth it.

Our last stop of the day was at the Capitoline Museum. Calvin was eager to make this last stop and had been awaiting his chance to see the original She Wolf statue (as in Romulus and Remus) and the Hall of Philosophers for months. Running low on time we found ourselves practically running through some of the other wings to get to the far end of the museum and the hall we were looking for, only to find it closed for painting. It was a huge disappointment, but since it was the only real one of the trip, we're finding it easy to overlook. Plus the She Wolf was there, just as we had always imagined her.

It is possible, in retrospect, that this was my favorite day of the entire trip, although it's really hard for me to make a distinction like that. Calvin, on the other hand, is very clear about the Colosseum being his second favorite stop of our entire trip (we'll get to his first favorite stop later).

The Arch of Septimus Severus

The Temple of Saturn
"What's holding the rest of that up? I'm leaving." -Dad

Temple of the Vetstal Virgins

Constantine's Basilica

The Arch of Titus

On Palatine Hill

original palace flooring

Indoor arena

The Colosseum

The Victor Emanuel Monument

Capitoline Museum
The head (foot and hand) of the giant statue of Constantine that was in Constantine's Basilica

Looking at a construction of the original Temple of Jupiter, the foundations of which the Capitoline Museum was built over.

The rememnant of the original walls of the Temple of Jupiter

The Dying Gaul

The Luck Dragon?

View of the Forum from the Capitoline basement

Finishing the evening at a jazz club