Arrivederci, Italia! Bonjour Paris!

We made our way downstairs 10 minutes before our shuttle arrived, not thinking we had time for breakfast. We were corrected by the desk manager (“In Italy there is ALWAYS time for a cappuccino!”) and sat down for a quick breakfast before getting onto the shuttle. The flight from Milan to Paris is not long, and we soon found ourselves navigating the French train/metro system to get to my great-aunt’s apartment on the Ile-St.-Louis.

Arriving in Paris from Italy was the reverse of arriving in Rome from Germany. It was twenty degrees colder, grey, and drizzly. Brrr! The train/metro ride was fairly long, but we were soon lugging our bags across the Seine to get to the apartment. We had the keys to the apartment, but what we did not have was the front gate entry code. We couldn’t figure out who to call, and weren’t sure what to do next until a kindly neighbor who lived across the street let us in. (Why she knew the code was a mystery to us, but we thought it best not to ask and just be thankful she did.)

We greeted the landlady of the building with flowers and let her know we were there, and hauled our bags up four flights of steep, windy flights of stairs before letting us into Rosamonde’s charming artist “garret”. It was very “La Boheme-esque”. We took a walk around the neighborhood and bought some bread, cheese and wine for dinner at a local grocery store, and some lovely dessert at a local bakery, including a crepe. Thus started Eric’s Paris-long crepe fixation, echoing our” gelato-at-two” Italian fixation. From this day forward, Eric had to have at least one crepe per day.

Last full day in Italy

This morning we packed up our bags and caught a street car back to the Duomo to take some pictures of the fashion week preparations before a street car to the main train station. Once at the train station, we had to catch a bus to go out to the Milan Airport, which is far outside the city. From there, we had to take a little airport shuttle to finally find our hotel, which took a good chunk of the day. We ended up relaxing in our hotel room for the rest of the afternoon and updating our blog, waiting for the restaurant to open in the hotel. We were really out in the middle of nowhere. The whole time that we had been driving through Tuscany, I was trying to get a picture of a run-down farmhouse, but since we were in a moving bus the whole time, we had a tough time getting a clear picture. I looked out the window of the hotel in Milan, and low and behold, a run-down farmhouse. Unfortunately, there was also a thick screen in the window that we had to shoot the picture through.

We were starving by the time the restaurant opened, so we ate quickly, confirmed our booking on the airport shuttle for the next day, and rolled into bed. Italy had been amazing, but our last two days in Milan had made us ready to get to Paris.

Milan - Welcome to Pre Fashion Week

In the morning we packed up our bags and took a train for 45 minutes from Como to Milan.  We wanted to have one day in Milan before flying out to Paris.  We arrived around 2 pm and found our hotel, a little dinky place that unfortunately did not have a map of the city, so we decided  to wing it and make our way to the Cathedral and what we hoped would be the center of town.

The Cathedral was beautiful, one of the largest in Italy and a great example of Gothic architecture.  An organ recital was in progress as we walked in, and we were able to sit and listen to the organist for a while.  It is a fantastic experience to hear such beautiful music in such a setting. but my favorite part was watching a young boy, fifteen or so, play the organ there.  He played a number of pieces, but the best one was one by Enrico Morricone from the soundtrack of “The Mission”.  It’s a wonderful piece, at the same time very modern and very fitting for the space.

After the Cathedral, we wandered the city for a bit until we found ourselves in a crowd of people and paparazzi.  It was then that we realized that Fashion Week is beginning in Milan tomorrow, and we were in the middle of the group of people exiting from the Alberta Ferretti runway show.

Milan is not only fashion, though.   A few blocks later we encountered several large black men wearing suits, sunglasses, and passes for something.  They all went into a building with a sign proclaiming a conference for treating Hepatitis C. 

As we rounded a corner, we ran into Guido Montaldo, an industrial economics student who had just moved to Milan from a small town outside of Rome.  He was looking for the Duomo, as he had just arrived a few days ago.  We helped him find it, and then he agreed to show us a few more highlights of Milan (and get a gelato!) before all of us headed home.

First, we walked through the Galleria (a large mall) where we stopped to see the preparation of the stage for the Dolce and Gabbana fashion show.  In addition to Fashion Week starting, a conference on Digital Media and a music festival were both just ending.  We caught the tail end of a digital media exhibition before getting down to the serious business of finding some ice cream.

Guido walked us to the Castello Sforzesco, which was unfortunately closing when we arrived.  Still, it was great to make a new friend.  We enjoyed learning more about why the south of Italy is so poor, the role of Mafia in politics, Berlesconi’s mysterious popularity.  (None of the native Italians seem to like him, and the guides constantly made fun of him, but he’s been re-elected three times.  Perhaps the fact that he virtually controls all media here has something to do with it.)

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We found our way back to the Duomo and said goodbye to Guido, who was going home via the Metro while we were riding the street car.  (Ciao, Guido!  Multo Grazie!)    No dinner for us, we were too tired and called it an early night.  We will be up in the morning to check out a fashion show or two before heading to the airport to fly to Paris.

Como, we like it! We really, really, like it!!!

Day Two in Como was a pretty quiet day for us.  After sleeping in, we did mounds of laundry.  We have mastered the art of doing laundry in our hotel sinks. (If you ever get the opportunity to try this out, I highly recommend it.)

We finally left the hotel a little bit after noon and went to the local supermarket to shop for a picnic lunch, which we ate by the lake.  We shared some of our lunch with several local ducks, who were quite happy to lend a “helping bill”.   After lunch we made our way to the Funicular, a cable car that takes you up the side of a mountain to a small town named Brunate.  On our way up the mountain, we sat across from two Italian nuns, who seemed to be enjoying the ride and looking forward to the view at the top.

Once at the top of the hill, we wandered the old town a bit before finding a good outlook from which to take pictures.  Two beautiful Russian girls were also taking photos (Eric was jealous of their camera) and took one of us as well.  We had the option of taking a bus around the top of the mountain, but decided instead to come back down and have a leisurely afternoon.

We sat next to the water for a while and looked at the passersby and the lake.  Eric also reviewed all of our journal entries so we could be ready to post them.  We again strolled through Como, this time during the day, to get a closer look at the cathedral, and to check out some of the shops.  Back at the hotel, we caught up on some paperwork and emails from home until we realized that it was 10 pm and we needed to eat!  We went to the local pizzeria, ate and left without incident to come home and post some additional photos.  Tomorrow we are on our way in to Milan for a day before flying to Paris.  Suddenly, we are present to the possibility of our trip ending.  No, no!  Italy has been fantastic, but we are excited for our week in Paris to begin.

Slowing it down in Lake Como

Eric did a heroic job of finding us reservations in Como and Milan, and we were able to have half a day in Rome to catch up on emails before taking a cab to the station and taking a 6 hour train ride to the San Giovanni station at Como. 

Lucky us!  Tuscany for a second time – this time by train!  It is so difficult to describe how stunning the scenery is here.  We have tried to take pictures but from a moving train or bus it is impossible to do the landscape or the crumbling yet highly photogenic farmhouses justice.  The train took us the same route as our bus tour, through Florence and Bologna.  We then changed trains in Milan for another train booked for Zurich, with a short stop at our station ½ an hour in. Suddenly, we no longer heard Italian, but rather Swiss German.  I could recognize that it was German, but couldn’t understand a word.

We arrived at the station at 5:45 pm, in time to help two ladies from San Diego with their luggage.  Eric was a trooper, helping both of them plus one other random passenger with their bags up two flights of stairs before carrying ours up.

Our hotel, the Park Hotel is close to the train station and just a few blocks from the lake.  Although Eric had not slept well the night before, we took a leisurely walk around the beautiful lake, watching a family feed a swan, before trying to find a restaurant for dinner.

We had walked through the main square and had taken a side street when we found It. The Restaurant.  The one we had been sent to Italy to find.  Ristorante Nerochina.  Italian-Asian fusion.  Eric’s first thought was that it sounded weird, but we figured, where better to try Italian-Asian fusion than in Italy?

Let me tell you, everyone should try this place.  To start:  appetizer with fish tartare on a seasoned rice cake, with shrimp.  Delicious, light, with complementary flavors.  Then, the piece de resistance, as Eric would say.  Antonia’s gorgonzola pasta with pears, and a hint of vanilla, served in a baked cheese bowl made out of Romano and Pecorino.  Crazy, crazy good.  Eric had the sea bass with tomatoes, potatoes and olives, which was also fantastic.  But, the gorgonzola pasta was really the best.  Eric was in ecstasy!

For dessert, Chantilly cream and strawberries in a dark chocolate bowl.  We had lovely service – a great waiter, and a brief, complementary chat with the chef.  We took two cards – one to give to the hotel for referrals, and one for us!

Check out their website here:  www.nerochinacomo.com.  If you are in Como, you must, must go here.

Rome 3.0

The next morning, we packed up our stuff and headed from our second Rome hotel (the Hotel Polo – bah!  No good!) to our third, a short distance away.  (The Best Western – much better!)  As we mentioned previously, we were bound and determined to see the Meridian Line at Santa Maria degli Angeli, and we knew that it was going to go off at 1:03 that day.  We dropped off our bags at the hotel, and hightailed it down to the church, using a cab for the first time in Rome since we had been there. 

We had missed this Meridian line three before, once by only a few minutes.  Today, we saw it.  And it was worth it.  It was a lovely sunny day, and the church had beautiful light streaming in.  An organ recital was just finishing.  A fantastic experience all the way around.  We made sure to email Sam, our friend from our first day in Rome, with the pictures.

From the church we made our way via city tour bus to the Campo di Fiori, an old marketplace dating back to the Romans and still in use today, although there was no market that day.  We also passed by the Area Sacra, another huge ruin of what they think are three temples, before heading to a shopping district we had discovered during our first few days in Rome.  Unfortunately, everything was closed, but it was fun to window-shop.

We had a quick Panini and waited forever for our bus to come again.  We finally got back to our hotel (far away on the other side of the Villa Borghese), where we changed for dinner and caught a cab back to the center of town, the Piazza Barbarini.  I had been planning to surprise Eric with dinner with our friends Dustin and Megan from Austin, who were also in Italy, but we had a mix-up in scheduling and unfortunately they did not get our message in time, so they did not meet us.  We made the best of it, going back to the Da Olympio Restaurant which was close by  and had been such a success our second  night in Rome, and sat next to a couple (obviously recently engaged and already stressed out about planning the wedding) and a group of tourists from Whittier (really, the SoCal contingent is out and about on the Continent in September!) who were groaning with pleasure over the pasta, just as we had the first night.

One crazy but exhilarating cab ride later, we were back at our hotel ready to update our blog and make travel arrangements for the rest of our trip.  We had reserved three days to either revisit a location if we wanted more time there, or to go somewhere new.  By now, we had spent almost a week in Rome, which was fabulous, but we had seen more than we thought we would get to.  We liked Florence and Capri both equally, but for different reasons.  Frankly, we were too monument/museumed out to go back to Florence, and Capri was too far away from Milan, where we were flying out of on the 23^rd.  A few days of rest and relaxation were definitely called for.  We had had a wonderful time, but our feet are (literally) swollen and our eyes are tired from taking in so many sights.  We opted instead for two days at Lake Como, followed by one day in Milan before flying out the 24^th to Paris.

The beautiful island of Capri.

We had a relatively late start time for Capri – 9:50 am.  Yay!  We needed the sleep.  We took a bus down the perilous hill to a boat and headed for Capri.  Our guide, Sascha, was quite” fabulous” and really on top of things.  He had great hair and a good sense of humor.  He was wrangling 46 people speaking English and Spanish, so it was a challenge! 

It’s a 45 minute boat ride from the mainland to Capri, and Sascha told us that we would try to see the Blue Grotto immediately upon arrival.  We had to make sure that we were all lined up at the front of the boat so we could get the heck off of it and get to the front of the Blue Grotto line.  Trying to be first in a group of Italians is tough to do, but we managed it. 

Unfortunately the Blue Grotto was closed in the morning, so we took another precarious bus ride to Anacapri, the village at the top of the island.  Once there, we rode a rickety chairlift to the very top.  The view was amazing, the steepness of the hill energizing, and the ability to stare into people’s gardens strangely intimate.  It was a much needed respite from seeing so many buildings and artwork, and to just look at nature and beautiful scenery.

Then it was back down the hill, hurry hurry, to catch a boat to the Blue Grotto, a small cave discovered in Augustus’s time and used by the Emperor Tiberius as his private swimming pool before being rediscovered in modern times.  We waited for 45 minutes to get in.  Finally, a small rowboat pulled up and took me, Eric, Anders and Lauren in.  We thought that having Eric and Anders in the same boat would be smart (they are about the same height), but in retrospect it might not have been the best idea, because there were a lot of long legs in this small rowboat.  To get into the grotto, you have to lie all the way down in the boat, and the boatman hauls you in using a rope.  They have to bend all the way backwards, because there is just enough room for a small rowboat to fit, and not enough room to stand up.  After our trip in, Eric and Anders know each other on a much more personal level.  LOL 

Despite the wait and the short boat ride, the Blue Grotto is really worth it.  The water is electric blue and otherworldly.  Antonia’s grandfather had told us that there wasn’t much worth seeing in the south of Italy, and we would agree, but Capri was definitely worth the trip south for us.

On the bus on the way back, we had a great time with Zoe, Jennifer and Dora, who were telling us wild tales of bachelorette parties. (Zoe’s mother-in-law’s battle cry during Zoe’s bachelorette party:  “Feed the penises!”)

Once in Rome, we spent the last night with the tour in the Polo Hotel. (Thank God!)  Tomorrow we have one day Rome before deciding what to do with the rest of our days in Italy.

Naples, Pompeii and Sorrento

The morning came rather early today.  We had to be up by 6:45am to meet up with the rest of the tour group.  Today we were headed to Naples, Pompeii, and Sorrento. 

As we were checking out, we realized that our transfer bus was already in front of the hotel.  Even though we were on time, we were concerned that the rest of our group was waiting for us.  Thankfully, we were on time, but it was the start of what was to be a number of hiccups, the first that we had experienced on the tour. 

Our transfer bus  took us to the tour office, where we boarded another bus bound for Naples.  We assumed we would be on the same bus as those people from the first leg of the tour who were going  south (some people, like Michel, Lou, Rosey, Marie and Joan, ended their tour in Rome), but ended up on a different bus with people from a different tour altogether.

We stopped quickly at a roadside “Autogrill” (something we were getting used to seeing on tour) before ending up at the port of Naples, where we had a quick walking tour.  For those of you who have never been, Naples is not a pretty city at all.  It was disappointing and I think shocking for those people who were starting their tour here.  In addition, there was plenty of tour bus/luggage confusion, really the first and only breakdowns we had on the entire tour.

From Naples, we went on to Pompeii, which was an excellent site to visit, but we had a guide who was difficult to understand, and whose audio kept going in and out.  But, really, Pompeii did not disappoint.  After a week of seeing ruins that were more or less only the foundations of buildings, Pompeii gave us a sense, for the first time, of how people actually lived during ancient times.  Of course we took a tour of the ancient brothel and the erotic frescos (a Scottish woman on the tour called them the “naughty paintings”), but the most moving images had to be the casts of the people who had suffocated from the ash.

While in Pompeii, we fell in with three women from Oregon, Zoe, Jennifer and Dora, all former college friends who were taking this trip together, and Anders and Lauren from Chicago, a married couple visiting Italy before going off to visit Anders’ family in Norway.  They were tons of fun, and we were happy to make some new friends. 

From Pompeii we drove up an incredibly steep hill with a gorgeous view of Sorrento, a beautiful city up on the cliffs by the Adriatic Sea.  We arrived at dusk, and realized that George and Michelle from our earlier tour were in this hotel with us, but no one else we knew.  We had dinner together, and then went out to walk the main square and to look at the shops of this lovely resort town.  When one goes out on the town, there are many things to see.  Some things are commonplace and some are rather noteworthy.  While the four of us were walking, George and Eric got into a conversation about the street vendors that sell glow in the dark toys at night, all over Italy, but mostly in Rome.  We were curious how someone who was doing this as a job could actually survive, as the demand for the toys that they were hawking was pretty much nonexistent.  We also passed a street performer that sits really still and acts like a statue.  You may have seen these types before, but this one was exceptional, because it had no head.  We felt that it was so clever that it deserved a couple of Euros, simply for the creativity.  As we tossed in our coins, we were thanked with a wave of the hand.  Out of nowhere, a very short, old, curmudgeonly man admonished us in Italian.  I expect that because he was a local and probably saw this performer every day, he felt that we shouldn’t be tipping.  I don’t speak Italian, but It seemed that he was either saying, “Don’t feed the animals” or ”That’s not art and does not deserve a tip.”

Rome, take # 2

I never would have guessed that doing a tour would be so involved.  We have been having a great time, however, we have not been getting a great deal of sleep.

We were scheduled to do a walking tour of Rome, which was interesting because we got some historical background information about some of the things that we had seen for ourselves two days prior to the start of the actual Italy tour.  Antonia and I also decided to take a tour of the Vatican Museum later in the day.

During our walking tour of Rome we visited St. Peter’s Basilica, Piazza Nivona, the Trevi Fountain, and the inside of the Pantheon, which we had walked by on our second night in Rome.  This was a world-wind tour of many things that we had already seen, but we were happy to go again because there are so many details that one misses the first time through. For example, the tour only gave us about twenty minutes in St. Peters Basilica, but we learned a lot about the history and artwork.  Still we were happy that we had spent at least an hour in the church by ourselves earlier in the trip.

Once finished with the walking tour we quickly made our way to the Basilica St. Maria degli Angeli to see if we could catch the sunlight falling on the Meridian line.  I had mentioned that I really wanted to see and photograph this event, so Antonia really wanted to make it happen.  I don’t know if there is anything cuter than to see Antonia jogging up the street trying to get us to the basilica in time.  It was very sweet of her.  This was our third attempt and unfortunately we were two and a half minutes late.  Bummer….I guess we’ll try again on the 19^th when we get back to Rome.   After our failed attempt, we decided to grab a quick bite.  We  did the total American thing  and went to McDonalds in the Piazza de Republica.  I thought perhaps we could take advantage of free wi-fi so that we could do a little comparison shopping for hotels and update our travel journal.  Alas, I was wrong.  I found that one needs to set up an account and in Italy you need an Italian SIM phone to take advantage of free MacDonald’s wi-fi, as they text message your password to you upon account setup.  The trip to McDonald’s wasn’t a total wash though.  We tried an Italy-centric  McD’s burger (the “Mozzarillo”) that had a focaccia type bun, lettuce, tomato basil sauce and mozzarella cheese.  It wasn’t bad, but I won’t disappoint any of you by visiting McDonald’s for more food while in Rome.

At 3pm we met up at the tour company, boarded the bus and headed over to the Vatican Museum.   If you ever get an opportunity to go to the Vatican Museum, go and definitely do it with a guide.  One of the many things we saw was the Sistine Chapel. It was so beautiful and awe inspiring.  To think that one man painted all of it was just amazing.  It was also interesting that Michelangelo, who was an amazing painter, but disliked it compared to sculpting, dropped all of his sculpting projects to work on the Sistine Chapel for nine years.  Imagine nine years of painstakingly detailed painting  on the ceiling of a structure like the Sistine Chapel. MADONNA!!!  But, when the Pope says jump, I’m not sure that there are too many people in Italy who would ignore him, especially in Michelangelo’s time. 

One of the funny things that I experienced on the tour was witnessing our tour guide, a fantastically knowledgeable and beautiful woman, deal with a nagging American tourist.  Our tour guide handled this other woman with such grace and ease and even though the American tourist complained the whole time about the speed of the tour, and the accent of the tour guide, she ended up tipping our tour guide at the end of the day. I guess patience is rewarded.  (The other interesting thing about our guide was her extraordinarily long eyelashes, which she was constantly grooming.  We sat next to her on the bus and watched her stroke and separate them constantly.  She had beautiful blue-green eyes and dark hair in a sleek bob, and was wearing a lot of eye makeup.)

We closed our day out by visiting the Spanish Steps  and going to eat with some friends from the tour, George and Michelle.  We ate at the restaurant that we visited on Day One with Sam.  I had a wonderful carbonara and Antonia had a chicken and mushroom dish.  Here’s to new friends, good food, and a great day.  Buena  Norte Tordos!

Lunch, a serenade, and wine tasting, in Montepulciano

We left Venice today for the long bus ride back to Rome, with a quick stop in Montepulciano.  We were lucky enough to sit with Michel and Louise on the bus ride as well, and they joined us for lunch along with three Filipino women, Rosey, Marie (two sisters), and their friend Joan.  These three women have been so much fun on tour, taking silly pictures of each other and making truly hilarious comments, especially in the bus.  They were always cheerful and easy-going, and they inspired us to take more pictures of ourselves and people, rather than just landscape, building, landscape.  

Lunch with Michel, Lou, Rosey, Marie and Joan was so much fun.  We found a little restaurant whose prices were reasonable, and walked in, taking a seat at a large table close to the end of the restaurant.  At the front of the place, a TV was playing “Pavarotti and Friends”.  As we sat down, Pavarotti began to sing with Celine Dion.  We already knew that Lou LOVES Celine Dion, so she was really into the music.  Our proprietor noticed her interest and proceeded to serenade her, over the sounds of Pavarotti and Bryan Adams (he was a better singer than Bryan Adams, for sure!)

 Lunch was amazing.  I had cannelloni with ricotta in a truffle cream sauce, topped with pecorino cheese and an Imperial prawn.  Antonia had vegetables in a pecorino cream sauce.  Antonia thought her meal was more of a side dish, but it was good nonetheless. 

After lunch, we had a quick wine and cheese tasting at a local winery.  The wine and cheese was good, but it was more interesting to explore the basements of the building, which you could wander at leisure.  At first, you saw all of the wine barrels of different shapes and sizes, but as you got further under the building, it appeared that they had a little exhibit of torture implements as well.  Hard to tell, because all the signs were Italian, but the various things in the cases (one looked like a bear trap) looked sufficiently ominous.

Then we were back on the bus, and heading back to Rome for a one-day whirlwind tour.

Florence

Today we opted for a morning tour of the Galleria dell’Academia, one of two large art galleries in Florence.  The tour was led by a guide, who showed us a number of famous artworks by Caravaggio and some lovely Byzantine art. 

The Galleria houses the largest collection of work by Michelangelo.  Here we saw his unfinished sculpture work, as well as the Statue of David.  There is a copy of the original statue outside the museum, but he original is in the Galleria to protect it from the elements.  The “David” is really impressive.  First, it’s huge.  Second, it is carved out of a single block of marble.  Third, they have never discovered any drawings or plans for this statue, so it appears that Michelangelo did it without a dry run, which is incredible.  It’s anatomically quite correct – our guide told us that Michelangelo secretly dissected cadavers at night to master bone structure and musculature – except that David’s right hand is slightly larger than it should be in proportion to his body.  No one knows why this is, but our guide said it was definitely not a mistake, since the rest of the body is not only perfectly proportioned, but also perfectly balanced so that it can stand on its very small pedestal without falling over.  The expression on David’s face when you look at it straight on is quite intense, but when you look at it from the side, he looks quite peaceful.  It was fantastic to see.

Somewhere along the way we lost Eric, who was sidetracked by an art exhibit that was placed off of the beaten path in a small grotto- type area.  It was an exhibit of triptychs depicting  stories from the Bible.  The interesting thing about this particular exhibit was that it seemed to be painted during the point in time where artists were moving away from Byzantine style art and moving into three dimensionality and the Renaissance.

In the afternoon, we decided to explore Florence by ourselves.  Our hotel had provided us with a map to the “Top 10” places to see in Florence, and we hit 9 out of 10 that afternoon.  Of course, Florence is known for its art collections, but if you have only 1 day your options are either to go to museum after museum, or to explore the town on foot.  We chose the latter.

From the Galleria, we made our way to the Duomo, the Cathedral.  All of the churches were closed that day, so we couldn’t go into any of them.  We did look at the Giotto Bell-Tower and the Baptistery of San Giovanni with its beautiful golden doors.  (The original Golden Doors are in a museum and took the artist 7 years to make.  We asked how long it took to make the copies and the guide shrugged and said, “It’s Italy – six months.”)  We then visited the Piazza della Signoria and walked past the Galleria degli Uffizi, which has a fantastic art collection we did not have time to view. 

We then crossed over the famous Ponte Vecchio, or covered bridge, that spans the Arno river.  The bridge itself is not actually covered, but instead has shops lining the bridge on both sides that are enclosed, giving the allusion that the entire bridge has a roof.  Most of Florence’s jewelry merchants have stores along this bridge.  (We didn’t buy any jewelry, though I did buy a handbag earlier in the day.)

Once across the bridge, we passed the Palazzo Ponti, the local palace-cum-Museum, but eschewed walking through the Boboli Gardens (the only thing on our top 10 list we skipped) to walk along the Arno to the Piazzale Michelangelo, the highest view of the city.  We finally made it up what seemed like two thousand stairs, and rewarded ourselves with a gelato and the view.  (We suspect that all of our petty cash has gone to gelato, bottled water, and restrooms, which you have to pay to enter everywhere.)

After our photo session, we went back across the bridge, passing the Church of Santa Croce on the way back to the hotel.  (Fans of the book or movie “A Room With a View” will be familiar with this church.)

¾ of the way back to our hotel, we stopped for a coffee and eavesdropped on two British tour guides, who were gossiping about their fellow co-workers (one was having an affair with another) as well as some of the people on their tours.  They told a great story an American woman who had gotten gallstones while in Rome, ended up in the hospital for five days (her husband was very attentive, going to sit with her every day), but who still wanted to rejoin the tour in Naples when she got out, much to the guides’ amazement.  Given that we were on a tour ourselves, it was fun to hear the other side of it.  I was dying to ask who the most problematic people were on the tour, what it  was like taking Spanish speakers and English speakers on the same tour, cultural differences, etc. , but refrained.

Back at the hotel, we had a lovely dinner with Barry and Sue from Australia.  We learned the differences between the UK and Australia, how the two of them met, then Eric and Barry discussed “Top Gear” while Sue and I talked about working in Hollywood.  

So this bus full of tourists goes to Asisi...

We woke early so we could meet our tour at 7:40 am in the lobby of our hotel.  We joined several other tourists on our bus, and headed out of Rome towards Assisi.   While we were in Rome on our tour of the Palatine, we learned that tour guides need to have 3 years of experience and to pass a state test.  Our guide, Maria Consuela, has been working for 10 years.

At our first rest stop, we met Barry and Sue, a couple originally from England and now living in Sidney, Australia.  Barry and Sue were great fun.  Barry has many colorful stories to tell and we are looking forward to getting to know them better over the next several days.

Maria has a lot of knowledge about the surrounding countryside, and regaled us with facts about olive oil and wine exporting (each small city in Tuscany has their own type of wine).  She also gave us some background on St. Francis of Assisi, who was born into a wealthy family, and was a “playboy” before hearing the voice of God in a church and converting to a life of poverty and chastity.

Assisi is the home of the St. Francis Basilica, and the resting place of the Saint.  It is an important pilgrimage location for devout Catholics, and one of the few areas we have been so far where there were actually more Italian tourists than foreign tourists (though I must say the Germans, Japanese and Americans are the most ubiquitous.  While looking at the ground so you don’t trip on a cobblestone, you can tell each group by their socks and shoes without looking up.)

The Basilica is quite large, with three different stories.   Franciscan monks and nuns roam about in significant numbers, with a surprising (at least to me) number of Asian monks.  As you walk through, you see scattered about small glass-enclosed booths with a Franciscan monk inside, usually reading.  It’s crowded in the Bascilica and can get noisy, so periodically a deep voice booms out over the crowd:  “Shhh – Silenzio – shhh”.  It sounds like the Voice of God, but is really the monks in the glass booth over the P.A.

The Bascilica is famous for two reasons:  1) it is one of the few examples of Gothic architecture in Italy (A good example of Gothic architecture is the Notre Dame in Paris – pictures to follow in about a week and a half!  - and is characterized by large stained glass windows and vaulted ceilings.), and 2) The frescos painted by Giotto, which detail the life of St. Francis and which also ushered in a more realistic painting style after the Byzantine period.  The buildings are painted in a true-to-life 3D way, and the faces of the people look like they are made out of porcelain.  We were not allowed to take pictures inside the cathedral, but you can google all of the images.

On our way out, Eric and I sat down on a bench to let a large tour go by.  We were able to look at the seats for the monks to sit during services, which were intricately detailed with carving and inlay, in a way that made the inlay look three-dimensional.

In Rome and also here in Assisi, we saw several beggars with clubfeet.  Since clubfeet can be corrected fairly easily with surgery these days, it did make me wonder what the background of these beggars were, especially since many of them were not old.

Siena

Cheering crowds greeted us.  I thought it was because of my great hat, but no, they were cheering a soccer game in progress.  (Crowds of police were managing the crowds on the way back to the bus.)

Siena is famous for its ceramics, for which they invented the color “siena”.  You can see it in the walls of the buildings and the tiles of the roofs.  It is also famous for the Basilica of St. Catherine of Siena and the Piazza del Campo.  Siena also has a square called the Piazza del Campo, where for  approximately 200 years they have been having a famous horse race.  Each neighborhood in Sienna has its own flag, and all of them have one representative in the race.  The winner is allowed to display their flags in the Piazza del Campo and around the city hall for 6 months.  (All of the flags for the different neighborhoods are in the Basilica.)

We paused to eat a snack at the Piazza, which looks like a dry lake bed.  There were lots of attractively dressed Italians attending what may have been a Saturday evening wedding at the town hall in the Piazza del Campo.

On the way back to the bus, we paused to take a look around St. Catherine’s Basilica.  St. Catherine’s body is in Rome, but her head, in a glass box on an altar, is in the church.  Eric found it a little creepy.   Personally, I didn’t find the head nearly as disturbing as I did the perfectly preserved, but exceptionally large, bronzed “finger” of St. Peter in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. At 8pm, we rolled into Florence, had dinner, and were off to bed for an early morning.

Classical Rome

We were up early ready to check out of our hotel by the train station and transfer to our next hotel by the Villa Borghese, where we would start our 10 day tour. We decided to do “Classical Rome” today since I did not want to be creamed by my dad, the ancient history professor, when we returned.

Leaving our bags at the hotel, we first made it back to Santa Maria degli Angeli  to catch the Meridian Line for Sam.  We thought that this would happen around noon, but in September the phenomenon occurs around 1 pm, and we did not have time to wait another hour.  Foiled again!  We will be back in Rome once during and then at the end of our 10-day tour, so we were confident that we would see it.

From Santa Maria, we made our way via metro to the Coliseum.  As we exited the metro, we found a reasonably-priced tour that took us throughout both the Coliseum and the Forum.  We had two good  guides, and enjoyed both locations.  The Forum is one of the other Seven Hills, and is considered to be the birthplace of Rome.  The oldest ruins of the city can be found there.  In addition, almost all of the Emperors of Rome had their residences there.  I wanted to take a tour of the villa of Augustus while we were there, but it was getting dark and we had a long walk back to our old hotel so that we could check out and get across town to check into our new hotel, north of the Villa Borghese.

At 4:20, we were back at the Metro station, experiencing the Roman Underground.  In Munich, we used the undergrounds all the time, and they were fantastic.  In Rome, everyone shoves into the cars as tightly as possible, and the smell is, frankly, profound.  We missed our first train by not being aggressive enough, but squeezed into the second train 10 minutes later.  I was concerned at first that I couldn’t reach a pole to support myself, but you are squeezed in so tightly that it doesn’t matter if you are holding on to something or not; you don’t move.

We emerged, relieved, two stops later and stopped for a pizza before picking up our bags and climbing onto a city bus at the train station to make our way uptown, basing our trip on the vague directions to our second hotel which we found online.  Our trusty map, now pretty worn out, did not show us this neighborhood.  After a moment, we realized that Italian buses do not announce their bus stops, and the bus stations are not well marked, so we had no idea where we were going.  Fortunately, three women from Belgium were sitting in front of us and overheard our conversation.  They introduced us to a Philippine woman who lived in the area, who not only told us where to get off, but got off the bus with us and walked us to our hotel.  Thank God, because we would never have found it otherwise.

Our intention was to check into the hotel and go back into town to our little shopping street, but we were too exhausted.  Instead, we repacked our bags for the next four days (we are going to Assisi, Siena, Florence and Venice, and then coming back to Rome for a few days, so we only took our small bags with us), and then Eric went out to see if he could scrounge up some food.  He was gone for quite a while, because this second hotel (Hotel Polo) is in the middle of residences and, it appears, people who do not need to eat.  He finally returned with a Panini and gelato. (Our favorite combination so far is pistachio – but not the bright green stuff! – and cherry.)  Technically, the Hotel Polo is a three star hotel, but we missed our Hotel Ariston, which was cheaper, friendlier, and in the middle of everything.

Onward to Vatican City

After a late start (hey, it’s a vacation!) we decided to go to walk to Vatican City via the Palatine.  We made it to the Palatine and looked at the ancient Roman ruins from a distance, but somehow got turned around and ended up by the Circo Massimo.  We crossed the river quite far south of the Vatican City, and made our way north along the Tevere River.  We figured that if we just keep going uphill, we would eventually make it to St. Peter’s Basilica, and elected to take side streets, which took us through a small university area (John Cabot University, an American liberal arts university)  It was nice to be away from tourists and making our way up the narrow streets.  We also stopped for some excellent gelato, sold to us by a vendor that did not speak English.  Fantastico!   (We had the real pistachio, a light green, not a bright green one.)

For part of our journey, we walked behind a young couple, obviously just getting to know each other.  He was British, she American.  He was doing his best to impress her with contrasts between U.K. and U.S. culture, and we caught the moment when he brushed her hand in the hopes of holding it, but was, alas, rebuffed.  A subtle transfer of his water bottle from his left to his right made the best of the awkward moment.  Still I hoped that a beautiful September day, lovely surroundings, and his accent would lead to success for him later in the evening.

While lost on our way to the Vatican, we found a great view behind the Children’s Hospital, across the rooftops of Rome. 

Finally, we arrived at the Vatican (terribly complicated, have to go through a parking garage, blah blah.  If you go, we recommend going with a tour).  St. Peter’s Basilica is exquisite.  Every single surface is decorated with bas-relief, mosaic, painting, etc.  The detail is overwhelming and you could look for hours, which we did.  Two and half hours, to be exact.   Still, I preferred Santa Maria degli Angeli, which is more intimate.

Unfortunately, we did not have time to go to the Vatican Museum on this visit, so we headed back down the hill and over the river, crossing the bridge at the Castel Sant’Angelo. There was an opera performance going on which we could hear but not see.  As we crossed the river and looked down, we saw that the Rome Film Festival will be starting in a week or two, and they were hard at work setting up meeting places along the banks of the river. 

As it got dark, we made our way down the Via del Giovanni Vecchio, which had some intriguing stores.  They were closed as we passed them, but we resolved to come back that evening and take a look (we later discovered in our guide book that this was THE place to go for good deals).  We also took the time to see the Piazza Navona and the outside of the Pantheon, which we will also see on our tour in a few days.  They were both lit up at night and were quite striking.

Walking up the Via Corso towards the Trevi Fountain, we passed a small covered side street with an altar to the Madonna built into the wall.  It is thought-provoking to be in a country where religion is so integrated into daily life.  As you can see from the photo, people light offerings to the Madonna on a daily basis.  While we stood in the alleyway, trying to get our camera to focus properly, a man came down the cobblestone path, crossing himself as he passed the altar.  I have never felt more like a dorky tourist then in that moment.

Desperate with hunger at this point, we ducked into a small restaurant just off of the main street.  Inside, we were greeted by a cheerful Asian man, who ushered us into a back room.  As with many things in Italy, one often struggles with the concern that you might be taken advantage of as a tourist.  However, the presence of one other young Italian couple, clearly on a date, made us feel more confident.

While waiting for our food, I looked around the restaurant at a few newspaper articles.  One small clipping was a letter from Gourmet magazine from 1979 saying that one of their readers had visited the restaurant and had written a letter to Gourmet extolling the virtues of “squid ink pasta”.  The magazine was requesting the recipe.   Unfortunately, we had already placed our order and couldn’t try it, but our food, when it came, was delicious.  Eric had the gnocchi gorgonzola (it beat Trader Joes hands down, with a much smokier flavor), and I had the waiter’s favorite dish, a pasta with tomato sauce and ham, among other mysterious but delicious things.

Ahhh Roma.

We were up early in the morning to take the train to the Munich Airport to catch our flight to Rome.  We had to take the U-Bahn to the main train station, and then transfer to a train to the  Munich airport.  After a week abroad, we were already running out of travel toiletries, so my brother Sam suggested that we buy some in the Hauptbahnhof (main train station).  We found a treasure trove of cool European toiletries. (Eric particularly liked the Nivea deodorant we bought.)  All of our purchases ended up in my carry-on, which elicited a search at the security checkpoint in the airport.  (We learned after that to divvy the toiletries up in four plastic bags, one for each carry-on, and we were ok after that.)

We arrived in Rome’s airport from Munich and were immediately struck by the comparison (to Rome’s detriment) between German and Italian transportation.  The Munich airport has been voted “the best airport in Europe” for the last 5 years.  It is spotless, efficiently laid out, with well-marked locations.  In Rome, we had to find the train to the center of town.  A train station in the airport – should be easy, right?  Ha!  Finally, after wandering through multiple levels, “directed” by uninterested security guards, we found the correct train, which stood in stark, grimy contrast to the German U-Bahn and StraBenbahns.  An unshaven, rumpled conductor took our tickets.  As I said to Eric, the Germans gave us the freeway, and Italians gave us spaghetti.  Basta!

We arrived at the main train station, and, after getting turned around a few times, found our first Rome hotel, the Ariston, which was modern, hip and comfortable.  After getting settled and receiving a cheap map (now our well-worn “bible) from our hotel, we set out on our first Rome adventure, around 1 pm. 

We made our way down one of the main streets, Via Cavour, learning early on that it is easy to find your way around Rome as long as you consult your map every two blocks or so.  Just past the Santa Maria Maggiore Cathedral, we consulted a street map posted on the corner of the block, and met our new friend Sam, an Armenian by way of Glendale.  Sam is a media artist and was in Rome for a few days before he went to the south of Italy for an exhibit of his works. (Check out his website at www.samsaga.com!) Sam had to go to the Armenian Embassy in the Piazza della Reppublica, and then find the Geghosian gallery in the Quirinale, and he graciously allowed us to join him and explore the city together.

We took a circuitous route to the gallery, passing first the Santa Maria degli Angeli, one of the four main Basilicas in Rome, along with St. Peters.  Mass started while we were there, and the singing was beautiful.    Inside, the cathedral had a very interesting exhibit of the relationship between Galileo and the church.  We spent a considerable amount of time here, looking at the frescoes and the exhibit. Santa Maria degli Angeli also has a meridian line in the floor, which captures the light at a certain time each day and illuminates a design on the floor (those of you who have read the Da Vinci Code will be familiar with this).  We were too late to see it that day with Sam, but we promised to come back to the church and photograph it for him.  Little did we realize what a commitment we had made…..more on that later.

From there we made our way down the Via del Quriinale to the Quattro Fontane.  At the intersection of two streets, there are four fountains, one on each corner.  We also found the Fontana del Tritone, a fountain of Triton, which we came back to several times during our wanderings.  Rome really is “the City of Fountains”, with one seemingly on every corner – each one beautiful.  We also passed the Trevi Fountain, and resolved to return at night, when it was lit.

Eric and I have become dependent on having a cappuccino around 4 pm – essential after walking all day.  We stumbled upon a small café in an alleyway around 4:30. My stepmother had given us strict instructions NOT to sit down at any cafes or the prices would double, but we were so exhausted (it was raining) that we found ourselves sitting down with coffee and a Panini before we could help ourselves.  The price was very reasonable, fortunately, and we were able to see some of Sam’s artwork, which he had with him and which was lovely. 

We ended our day with a walk down the Via Corso, a main eating and shopping drag, and had a delicious dinner at the one outside table at a café.  At the Piazza del Popolo, we said good-bye to Sam, but are looking forward to seeing him again in L.A. and having one of his famous Armenian omelettes!