Rome and Saying Goodbye to Florence

Our other adventure last week was a day trip to Rome.  Now, those of you who have been to Rome (or lived there!) might be thinking, a DAY trip?  Are you people crazy?  Well, perhaps we are.  We tried to pack in the top highlights, realizing that there is so much more we would like to see if we had the time.  We did make it to the Sistine Chapel (fortunately with the line-skipping passes, or we never would have seen anything else), but found the Vatican grounds and museum extremely difficult to navigate. 

Once we left the Vatican, we took the metro to the Spanish steps and had lunch there.  Then it was on to the Trevi fountain, the Pantheon, the Forum, and the Colosseum.  Sadly, we arrived at the Colosseum too late to go inside, so we had to settle for the views from outside.  We gave ourselves a mediocre grade for our tour of Rome.  We'll just have to go back another time and do a better job!

Trevi Fountain is back there, but not so easy to see through all the tourists.  This is about as close as we could get.

Back in Florence, we enjoyed our last two days.  We revisited the Duomo, meandered the streets, now much warmer and more crowded with tourists, returned to our favorite gelato spots (Gelateria De Neri and Santa Trinita Gelateria, for those of you planning a trip to Florence any time soon), took in the amazing views from Piazzale Michelangelo and had our last dinner at our favorite restaurant, Trattoria ZaZa (highly recommended!).  We look forward to returning to this beautiful and vibrant city in the future.

Siena and Cinque Terre--LOTS of photos!

Our last week in Italy was a busy one, with trips to Siena, the Cinque Terre, and Rome.  We also saw an opera!  Today is our last day in Florence.  We are excited about our upcoming time in Barcelona (including visits from the grandparents and one of Jonah's friends), but we will miss Florence.  We have had a wonderful 3 1/2 weeks here.

Our day trip to Siena was fun.  The literal and figurative high point was our climb to the top of the tower at City Hall in Il Campo, the center square of the town.  We were warned (by Rick Steves, of course!) that the climb is narrow and the lines are long, but that "the reward is one of Italy's best views."  Fortunately for us, we found only the third part of his statement to be true.  Yes, the steps are narrow in places, but as there were absolutely no other people on them at the time, it didn't matter.  We were able to easily climb to the top and enjoy the view for more than 30 minutes, despite signs at the bottom warning that there is a 15 minute time limit.  As we finally prepared to descend after a blissfully peaceful and beautiful stay at the top, we were greeted by the sounds of a large, exuberant group of students on their way up.  Our timing couldn't have been more perfect.

One of the amazing views from the top of the tower.

The kids liked the little turnouts on the way up to the top.  Notice the graffiti on the wall that says "non-violenza."  A policy we are trying to enforce daily on this trip between the loving siblings.

Tom stayed up at the first landing to get this shot of us down in Il Campo.  Despite appearances, there were actually quite a few other people there at the time.

The Duomo--Siena's imposing and ornate 13th century gothic cathedral.  A beautiful church, full of sculpture, painting, stained glass, and the vivid and remarkable Piccolomini Library.

Jonah the energizer bunny waits while the rest of us make our way up the steps.


The next day, we broke out our Italy railpass again and hopped on the train to the Cinque Terre, blissfully ignorant of the train strike that was taking place that day.  We were a bit confused by how many trains were canceled, and our train was running about 10 minutes late, but we got there just fine, and were surprised to see the notice of the train strike at the information desk in La Spezia.

Our day in the Cinque Terre was one of my favorite days of the trip so far.  The weather was perfect, the scenery was incredible, and everyone was in good spirits.  We have so many amazing photos of that day, it was hard to narrow it down to the ones here.  If you notice that some people appear in the photos more often than other people, keep in mind that some people much prefer being photographed than other people.  And, while it's hard to capture the majesty of the Cinque Terre on film (does that phrase still work?  should I say in pixels?), I think our two photographers did a pretty fantastic job of it.

How could I miss these?

Just returned from a very long and wonderful day in the Cinque Terre.  I hope to post photos of our recent adventures tomorrow.  Until then, here are a couple of Jonah that I missed in my last post.

Random Trip Photos

We've had a little down time this week so I've been looking over the photos from the trip.  Here are a few of my favorite funny ones.

Why bring just one Jonah when you can bring two?

The day Tom ordered the 4 euro size of gelato when 2.50 was the largest size they had

Feeding the poor guy a pretzel

Jonah the winter ninja with his icicle sword

Pisa and Lucca

On Thursday, we took a day trip by train to Pisa and Lucca.  Our adventure got off to a rather inauspicious beginning when, after cruising along comfortably for 40 minutes or so, the train came to an abrupt halt and we were assaulted by the smell of burning brakes.  We sat, and sat, and sat.  And sat some more.  Finally, after about 15 or 20 minutes, the ticket taker came to our car and made a lengthy announcement.  In Italian.  Luckily, we were able to catch him before he moved on so we could ask for an English translation.  "Train crashed.  With a horse.  Get different train at the next station."  Soon, the train began moving slowly toward the next station, and continued right on through.  Hmm.  Weren't we supposed to get a different train there?

We did stop at the next station and we all piled off the train.  Then we stood on the platform listening to a litany of instructions blasted over the loudspeaker.  In Italian, of course.  Despite our lack of proficiency in Italian, all four of us were able to decipher something about the train to Pisa and 70 minutes.  Then something about the train to Pisa and 90 minutes.  Assisted by a kind Italian gentleman who took pity on us in our obvious befuddlement, we shuttled around with the hordes of people waiting to go to Pisa.  Suddenly, the train was there and we all crammed in as best we could.  I had visions of one of those European concert stampedes, but we managed to get on without injury.  20 minutes later, we were in Pisa, just an hour and 45 minutes later than scheduled. (For those of you worried about the horse, we watched carefully out the window as the train began moving and didn't see any evidence of a mortally wounded horse, so we decided it must have survived the crash and been able to continue on its way).

Pisa, aptly described by Rick Steves as a "tourist quickie," doesn't have a lot to offer other than the leaning tower and the "Field of Miracles" but the tourists (us included) milk it for all it's worth in the photo department.  It's quite entertaining to watch the tourist ritual involving holding up or pushing over the tower repeat itself endlessly along the perimeter of the field.  Like this:

Comparing the masses of people in the photo queue with the smattering of people up at the top of the tower, it appears that most visitors opt to forego the climb at 15 euros a pop.  We decided to skip it as well.  Jonah was refusing the climb on principle anyway, indignant at the rule that requires all children under the age of 12 to hold the hand of an adult the ENTIRE way up and down.  "That's the stupidest rule in the entire world," he was heard to mutter multiple times throughout the day.

We did enjoy a nice picnic lunch on the green grass, however.

After our lunch, we returned to the train for the short ride to Lucca.  For those of you unfamiliar with Lucca, it is a small city in Tuscany completely surrounded by one of the largest, most impressive fortified walls you've ever seen.

The wall is so large, in fact, that it currently serves as a wonderful city park, complete with a walking and biking trail. 

We loved our few hours in this quiet town.  We strolled the streets and  popped in to a couple of churches as we made our way to the bike rental shop on the other side of town.  When we arrived, we handed the woman Tom's drivers license and off we went with our four bikes.  No deposit, no multi-page liability waiver, no oversharing of personal information.  No helmets either, but we decided it was ok for the mellow cruise around the ramparts.

Lucca is definitely a town not to be missed.  We wish we'd had more time here, as we've heard that there are many good restaurants, in addition to the cultural sites and lovely outdoor spaces.  Very nice little break from the constant activity in Florence.

Jonah brought along his pedometer for our adventure today.  Step count:  22,854.