Italy Day 9: Last Day in Rome

This is a repost of my 2007 trip to Italy with my mom, brother, sister and Aunt.

We woke up this morning in completely disbelief: This would be our last day in Italy. I was both sad to leave and anxious to get back home. I really missed Matt by this point. I'd only been able to send scattered e-mails and make two phone calls. It was the longest time we'd been apart, and I had so much I wanted to share with him.

But we enjoyed the hospitible, pastry-filled breakfast at La Pace in Sorrento before we left for Rome. It would be a long drive, but broken up by a stop at the Commonwealth Cemetery, a HUGE cemetery that held the graves of English (mostly) soldiers killed on Italian soil in WWII. It was a tense time, for Katherine particularly: Her boyfriend, Jason, was slated to return to Iraq for his third tour with the Marines shortly after we got back. I know it was a tough place for her to visit, and she was back on the bus before me.

There were hundreds of graves, and about 10 enormous memorial slabs with names of hundreds of soldiers on them. Next to each grave was a plant native to the soldier's homeland, and red roses from England were in bloom. The epitaphs were beautiful, and the simple headstones that just said "An Unknown Soldier Killed in WWII" were moving. And, like Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.

Back to Rome, we stayed in the EUR, the part of the city built by Mussolini to showcase Italy for the 194X Olympics that were never held there because, uh-oh, world war II broke out. It was very corporate, stark square buildings, lots of concrete ... exactly what you'd think someone like Mussolini would build. We dropped our stuff off at the Sheraton, had enough time to enjoy a hazlenut candy bar and some relaxing reading, before going on a final tour of Rome.

We started by driving around, trying to find a parking space close to the center of town, because it was coincidentally an enviornmentally-friendly day all across Europe where center streets were closed down all over the continent to encourage using city transport. Basically, a day made to annoy our bus driver.

Finally, though, we got to the Presidential Palace, and then walked to the Trevi Fountain. It's funny, but it looks just like the one in Las Vegas, only you know it's a bigger deal because there are thousands of people crowding around it, jostling for their turn to wish for a return to Rome. The story of the fountain is that it was fashionable to build these spectacular monuments back in the day, but the man who owned the building the fountain butts up against wouldn't agree to any work on his house to accomodate the fountain.

No problem, said the architect. He simply built the fountain against the wall, and even added a facade to the side of the building. Pretty crazy!

The deal with the fountain and throwing coins is this (we were told): One coin means a return to Rome. Two coins means finding love in Rome. Three coins means getting rid of an inconvenient love. For some reason, Vincenzo said that those on an unhappy second honeymoon trip would want to throw six coins in the fountain. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

So I threw my one coin. Anthony was proud: He threw two. Katherine threw one coin. I don't know how many Sugar threw, but mom threw two. The second one was for a picture, though, so she said it didn't really count. :)

Then we saw more sights in Rome. More beautiful churches, with beautiful perspective paintings. More priests. More nuns. More gypsies. More Parthenon. More Piazza Navona. Frankly, at this point, they're blurring together entirely too much. It was just lovely to be in the city one more time. At the end of our tour, we climbed on our bus one last time for a trip to the Casanova, our final restaurant of the trip, for a farewell dinner with free-flowing wine and Opera singers.

The food was OK, but the wine was good, and while I swear I had no more than three glasses, they were enough to turn my head. Between that, the rich food of the days before and the excitement of going home, I was sick all our last night, and didn't get much sleep before our 5 a.m. bus ride to the airport.

And here's where those upgraded seats come into play from the beginning of the trip. We were able to upgrade again for half of our second leg, but were stuck in Economy from DC to LA. You should have heard this final flight: A symphony of coughing, sneezing and nose-blowing. There was no way we were getting off those planes without getting sick.

When we landed in DC, though, as tummy-tender as I was, I was so tickled to see a Wendy's, and be in a place where I didn't have to translate every interaction before acting. I've never been so pleased to see fast food and rude people in my life! We had a couple hour layover before our flight, and then trooped onto our plane, into seats so small that just sitting regularly forced me to wedge my knees uncomfortably against the seat in front of me. I decided the only way to survive this claustrophobia was to sleep, and I did for as long as I could. I picked at the dinner they left, and started to watch a movie to distract me from the motion sickness and subtle panic.

About halfway through my movie, the screen shut down and I had to stifle a scream ... I could not endure that flight without the distraction of a movie. My feet were numb from the tight fit against the seat in front of me, I was in the middle of a row of five, which was in the middle of a row of nine, and rubbing shoulders with my seatmates on all sides. Everyone was sick, and I was running to the airplane bathroom as often as possible, just to breathe normally. But thankfully, the pilot came on and announced that we'd be landing soon in LA, and to get ready.

"Thank God!" I said, and Anthony looked at me funny. He told me I'd slept for about three hours. Wow! But when I started doing the math, I realized that we'd gotten up in Rome at 5 a.m., and I'd probably gotten about four hours of sleep the night before. It was 10 p.m. in LA, meaning it was 1 a.m. in Rome. By the time we got to bed that night, we'd been up for 24 hours.

Oh, I thought, as I sank into the air mattress my mom had provided in the exercise room that used to be my room. THIS is Jet Lag!

I had enough time the next morning to share pictures with Mom and Anthony before catching my (sigh) plane to San Jose. Luckily, it was about an hour's flight, and Matt met me as close to the gate as he could. Except for being sick and so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, everything was back the way it should be. We ate at one of our favorite restaurants that night, and I fell asleep by 6, and struggled through two and a half days of work before calling in sick, and sleeping the weekend away.

Matt called it my Italian Malaira. Katherine, who also had it, named it the "Chunga-Chunga Fever."

After two weeks of getting well, unpacking, doing laundry, getting through some tough deadlines at work and enjoying some R&R, I really (almost) feel back to normal. Except I miss Italy. I miss being abroad. I miss being on vacation. I miss being able to turn my head and see history. I miss Italian food and Italian wine.

But Matt's cooking sure tastes good.

Italy Day 8: Positano and Capri

This is a repost of my 2007 trip to Italy with my mom, brother, sister and Aunt.

This was when I was starting to realize that the trip was almost over, that in two days, I'd be on a plane back home. We got up not too early, enjoyed another hotel buffet breakfast (really great pastries at this hotel, if I remember correctly. Terrible eggs, per usual, but great pastry!) and loaded up in minibus that would take us along the Almalfi Coast to Positano.

If the name of the town sounds vaguely familiar to you, you'd know it (as I did) as the town where Diane Lane found her first Italian boyfriend in "Under the Tuscan Sun." Remember? She had dinner with his family on the beach, drank limoncello and -- some months later, professed her love to him under his balcony while he was with another lady. I swear we saw that balcony!

Anyway, the Almalfi Coast drive was beautiful. It reminded me of home, which is one reason I particularly liked it. Another reason was the startlingly clear blue water. The seafloor at that point is made of limestone, which reflects the sun, turning the water these brilliant sapphire blue, emerald green and turquoise color. I swear to God, I took more pictures of the water than of my family on that drive!

But, a coastal drive is a coastal drive wherever you are, and the only other thing that really stood out to me were the roads. They were built by the ancient Romans, and only very recently have guardrails been added to the sheer cliff drops. A little scary when you're hurtling through space in a minibus. But even more frightening were the drivers. It was a very narrow, two-lane road with a cliff on one side and a drop on the other. Regardless, there was illegal passing, driving three or four abreast and even some fools parking on the razor edge! I was secure in the fact that since I'd made it through the streets of Rome, I was probably entrusted to some above-average drivers, but still!

Before we went to Positano proper, we stopped for a photo at a tourist viewpoint (I can still hear a vendor shouting "Postcard! All these, 3 euro!") for a look at the ever-present statue of Mary, a fruit stand with the biggest lemons I've ever seen (Sorrento lemons can have a rind that's INCHES thick, and they're good for nothing but marmaldae) and that eye-popping view of Positano.

Then Vincenzo told us a little something about the city. It seems there is only one road for cars. If you live along it, great. But if not, it's a major hike for you, buddy! Houses are piled up the mountainside like Legos, and I wonder what happens when the people at the top decide they want to stroll down to the beach for an afternoon swim. No stairmasters required there, I guess! Take a look at the pictures and you'll see what i mean. We then proceeded to drive along that one road (as best we could, with the one-road traffic) and stop halfway down.

Frankly, our walking tour that morning (from the middle of town to the beach below) is a blur because right after Vincenzo said that Positano was known for handmade leather sandals and very unique peasant clothing, all I wanted to do was shop. And give me some credit: I had just spent 7 days taking in history, culture and relgion. I was spent, and deserved some good old fashioned capitalism!

Actually, what was funny was that the Positano peasant clothing are the flowy cotton skirts and tank-tops made from linen that you see all over now. I had a few a couple summers ago. It seems that the fishing town was "discovered" by some rich Italians looking to get away from the spotlight. To blend in, these folks decided to dress like the natives ... and loved it! So they invited their friends, who invited their friends, and eventually the town was taken over and made into a fancy vacation spot. Now, Vincenzo said, the natives wear Armani while the rich visitors wear peasant clothes!

So, we walked to the beach, which was made of black volcanic sand and these black, really light and smooth pebbles. The water was so clear, and so blue that Katherine and I thought about buying the first bathing suits we saw and spending the morning at the beach. When Vincenzo mentioned a mutiny and spending the rest of the trip there, I said I was in! No question, it was one of my favorite spots of the whole trip.

Really, the town was a fantastic combination of beachtown, boutique mecca, foodie heaven and historic site. The guy that invented the compass was from there, and to keep safe from invaders, the townspeople built a "hidden" Positano ... small streets that ran behind facades. When "pirates" came, they found the real streets deserted and couldn't find the Positanos, who were safely tucked away in streets just narrow enough for one or two to slip through.

Now that "hidden" area is full of stores, and it's frankly where my favorite souviners were from. Katherine and I went a little crazy with leather sandals. At 45 to 50 Euro a pop, and on our last real shopping day, we each bought three pair. I bought a pair that reminded me of Rome (leather t-strap with a brass ring), of Positano (strappy leather like a pair of sandals that Ally stole from me in college, even after dubbing them the "Jesus" sandals); and a pair with leather laces that just wrap around my foot because they were cute and the man who was selling them was on a Travel Channel special. He's made shoes there for years, for all kinds of celebrites. He made a pair for Katherine, but for me, he just adjusted the laces and made fun of how white my skin is. In turn and in good spirits, I compared his tan to the leather of the sandals he worked with. He laughed, but said some things I didn't understand. But I'd already gotten my shoes, so who cared?

And the beautiful, breezy Positano wear? None of it was really "me," so I decided to be happy with my sandals and not spend too much time wishing wistfully that I were a petite blonde who could get away with breezy island wear. And my sandals are really that cute. So it's OK!

On the way back to the bus, we picked up some ENORMOUS Vincenzo-recommended bag lunches (mine was a tomato and mozzarela sandwich, with a fresh peach, a bag of crouton-like garlic chips, and a water) and stopped into a bakery to try my first cannoli. I do not think that is an appropriate name. I don't know what it means, but only something like "a dessert so good it could very well kill you" would fit the bill. I bought two: one to eat then, and one to eat at lunch. If I had access to them regularly, I would not care at all about my figure, only about eating them constantly. I'm not joking.

Then, it was back on the bus and back to the hotel, where we grabbed all the people who didn't want to go to Postiano (puzzles me to this day) and went to hop on a ferry to take us to the Isle of Capri.

Incidentally, here's a guide to pronunciation so that when you hear me talk about it, you won't think I've adopted a snooty Madonna-like accent. It's Pause-e-TAH-no and CAP-ree. In Italy, the accent is generally on the second-to-last syllable.

On the ferry, we ate lunch. That simple meal just cemented the fact that Positano is one of my favorite places in Italy ... in the WORLD! The sandwich was as big as my head, and stuffed with fresh buffalo's milk mozzarela, fresh huge tomatoes and basil. That's it! I wish I were still eating it. I saved the chips for Matt, just took a couple bites of my peach, and savored my last cannoli. This gives me an idea: If I'm ever on death row, that is my last meal. A sandwich and cannolli from Positano. I would die happy if those were the last things I ever ate. Seriously. Even the perfect summer peach paled in comparison. Maybe I should have gotten the grapes.

OK, so we're on the ferry, we get off the ferry, and about half of the group has paid to go to the Blue Grotto. So we meet our Capri guide, a new Vincenzo (Enzo) and climb into a wooden motorboat and head out for a tour of the island. Which I didn't hear much of, it just felt too good to be skimming the open water on a warm day while on vacation in Italy in a beautiful boat. I'm sure he said something interesting about the Island, but I just took pictures and reveled in the perfect moment of life i was in right then.

We had about a 20 minute wait at the Grotto itself. Here's the deal: The Blue Grotto is a cave in the side of a limestone cliff. To get in, you climb out of your transport boat into a small wooden rowboat, helmed by the swarthiest Italian seamen alive. Think as stereotypical as you can possibly get of Italian sailors, and you'll have it about right. They'll row up to the side of your boat and grunt and motion for you to get in. You don't try to talk or negotiate with them. As soon as you're in, they scream at you to LAY DOWN, FOR GOD'S SAKE LAY DOWN! and you do. Then they row you over to the entrance to the cave, probably three feet above the water, which has waves, as the ocean does. When the moment is right, he yanks you inside using a chain bolted to the cliff, and at the last possible moment he flings himself down on top of you, and welcomes you to the Blue Grotto.

In the time of the Romans, this was used by the Emperors for orgies. They'd bring their hoochie mamas and their buddies, and blindfold some musicians on a little perch inside the cave, and go at it to classical music. The reason they picked there is because the floor of the cave is also made of limestone (duh) which reflects the light of the sun coming through the small mouth of the cave quite uniquely: It glows neon blue.

Anyway, so there we are, waiting for our swarthy Italian row boat guy to scream at us. In the meantime, we puttered around the little inlet, watched the other boats crammed with tourists, and watched the rowers get into shouting matches. I amused myself a little bit by seeing exactly how terrified my mom and my sister were. My mom is scared to death of small boats: She nearly had a heart attack on our gondola ride in Venice. And Katherine is scared of the ocean, small boats, big boats, enclosed spaces, caves, bats and just about everything else. Really, I do not know why the agreed to the adventure, but I applaud them for doing so.

Eventually, our burly sailor came and grunted at us, and we obligingly got into his boat. He rowed us right over to the grotto and we waited. And waited. And I watched the boat trying to come out (the same way they get in) get attacked by the waves. The poor guy in the front of the boat (like I was) was soaked by the time they got out of there. And before I knew it, we were scrunching down as far as possible, our rower was yanking his chain (ha!) and we were in. I videotaped this whole thing, and was very disappointed that the water wasn't iridescent that day ... until the rower gently told me I was looking in the wrong direction.

There it was: The rest of the grotto was complete blackness, but for about 20 feet around the mouth, this incredible neon blue water. We couldn't see anything else, just hear the other boats and our rower quietly told us what we already knew about the grotto. Then, he started to sing. "Santa Lucia." It was beautiful, even though he wasn't a great singer. And then, just as fast as we'd come in, we were out again. He kindly told us that if we liked what we did, we could tip him and we did, since he was the one going to help us back into our big boat.

So back into the boat, where there were two new people: Asian tourists who got seasick. We transported them to shore, and then dashed for the Funicula, a sort of train that takes you from the harbor to the top of the Island, to Capri Town. Which is just a lot of shopping. We took a little tour to a scenic vantage point, admired the colors of the water yet again, and about ran for the stores once Enzo dismissed us. Mom and I wanted to check out a perfume store, as Capri is known for it's perfume. The monks used to make it. Since the perfume was too expensive, Matt doesn't like potpourri and I don't use scented soaps, I didn't get anything there. But it smelled very, very good. Anthony managed to break Mom's vice-like grip on us and went to shop on his own, returning with some Dior shoes. There rest of us looked around, tried granitas (whew, sour!) and exhausted ourselves until it was time to climb back on the Funicula and go home.

In line for the train, I was jostled and bumped by the hundreds of people also hoping to get on the train. A little old Italian woman smiled very kindly at me and said something in Italian that I didn't understand. This was my chance to interact with a local!

"I'm sorry," I told her in my limited Italian. "I'm American. I speak very little Italian."

And just like my lessons on CD said, she smiled and, in Italian, said "No, you speak Italian very well!"

Her friend ask me, in Italian, "Where in America are you from?"

"California," I answered. "San Francsico?"

"Oh, I know San Francisco!" the friend said in Italian, showing me how well. She took her hands and mimed going up and down very high hills. It cracked me up and I showed her that I agreed. Then I took a deep breath and tried:

"I live in Santa Cruz, do you know it? It's like Capri, on the ocean." In Italian. Thank you very much. They told me they didn't know it, but asked how I liked Capri Town. I told them it was beautiful and i liked it very much (It's really amazing how far a 20-word vocabulary will get you). Then, as my mom was trying to talk to me, I introduced them to my mother, my brother and sister, and aunt.

"Oh, the whole family!" they said, smiling. They thought we were the cutest things.

And that was how I spread goodwill from America to Italy, defeating the stereotype of the Ugly American, at least for those two. I am remarkably proud. :)

We took the train down, and scampered through the harbors gift shops to find a sweatshirt that Katherine wanted. We took the ferry back and collapsed until it was time for dinner. Really, being on the ocean is very tiring!

Dinner was, ironically, at the hotel we'd eaten at the night before. We'd sampled most of the menu, and decided the dinner from the previous night was better. We went right to bed after eating, despite the fact that we were sad that the next day would be our last in Italy.

Italy Day 7: Pompeii, Sorrento

This is a repost of my 2007 trip to Italy with my mom, brother, sister and Aunt.

Another not-so-early morning, as we got up and boarded the bus at 8. Notice I haven't mentioned breakfast the past couple entries? That's 'cause they were mostly unmemorable. Nothing to write home about. But free!

We drove to Pompeii (six hours away) and for some reason took a whirlwind tour through the ruins. Honestly, it was so fast I didn't have much time to be impressed. It was neat to see that they had pocket doors, fast-food, shops, and ... vomitorium. Yes, I saw one! What I did appreciate were the murals on the walls. That paint could last centuries ...

Also ... penises everywhere. On walls, chiseled into floors, you name it. Apparently the Pompeiians were very perverted people. I didn't see any, but I guess there were naughty drawings everywhere back in the day. Hedonists, you see. The interesting fact I learned about living in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius (which, by the way, people still do! There are cities halfway up the side of the still-active volcano! You'd think they'd learn!): There are dogs everywhere. Animals sense catastrophic events, and when the dogs start to go crazy, people know to get out of the way.

Actually, that was a slow day for me. After leaving Pompeii, we drove to Sorrento, along the Bay of Naples. Naples has a reputation of being rife with the mafia, and it looks like that. It's dirty and run-down ... but still quaint. If that makes sense. The bay was pretty, but the most striking impression I had was a feeling of relief to be back on the water. Like some of my homesickness was relieved just because I was breathing ocean air again.

When we got to Sorrento (after about an hour on the bus), we stopped for another "demonstration." They started to get funny, as this chick had obviously "demonstrated" inlaid wood (something Sorrento is apparently famous for) 5,000 times that day and was done. No expression, bored monotone and an extremely fast-forwarded speil. Then we were let into the showroom, where I saw exactly how expensive inlaid wood is: Very. An extremely small travel chessboard was 75 Euro. But since I don't personally care for inlaid wood, it didn't matter much.

Those shops must rake in the dough, though, because everyone else on the tour couldn't seem to get enough of the wood. People were buying furniture, music boxes, pictures ... it was crazy! Remember that show "Supermarket Sweep," when women would get a limited amount of time to run through a grocery store solving clues and grabbing products? That's what it looked like!

We got to the hotel, La Pace, which was one of the most opulent hotels I've ever seen! Check the picture. We got to our rooms, freshened up and tried to decide what to do for dinner. Everyone had spent a long day on the tour bus, so moods were obviously not too high. Anthony really wanted to go into town, Mom seemed to not want to do that, so we ended up eating with a couple other tour members in the restaurant hotel. It was very nice, three courses including a vegetable buffet (oh, the cheese! The olives! The fresh tomatoes!) and dessert.

Sorrento is known for a dessert modeled after ... believe it or not ... the breasts of St. Agatha. A local gal, Agatha was rich and beautiful, and was engaged to a gent until she found the Lord. She told him that she couldn't marry him because she had a vocation, but he didn't believe her and thought she'd been messing around. So he went to the church and they tortured her. She didn't die, however, until they cut off her breasts.

If that weren't gross enough, one of her galpals had the presence of mind to grab one of the boobs and hide it away. It's now on display in a church. And they say we live in warped times!

The dessert is a sort of cake, round, covered with frosting and topped with a red candy. It's pretty good, but only if you're not thinking about its namesake.

After that, we flopped into bed. Katherine insisted on not using the elevator, even though we were on the third floor. She hear someone get stuck in the elevator at the Montecatini hotel, and it traumatized her. She took the stairs every time, no matter how tired she was. It was pretty impressive.

Italy Day 6: Florence

This is a repost of my 2007 trip to Italy with my mom, brother, sister and Aunt.

A sleep-in day, yay! We had to be at the bus by 8 because, believe it or not, streets in Montecatini close. All of them in the center, to let the kids walk to school. That's what our tour guide said anyway.


It took two hours to drive the 65 miles to Florence ... commuter traffic. We were given the day's itinerary on the way in: Gold demonstration, leatherwork demonstration, guided tour to the Accademia, then free time (yay!).

Frankly, I wasn't overawed by Florence when we arrived. I was amused that we walked past a Florentine high school, where all the kids were smoking! We trooped into a gold shop run by a woman from San Francsico (former model did some work in Florence, fell in love with a man there, and just stayed). The "demo" was more a sales pitch for a lot of things I couldn't afford. Booooring! Then we trooped to the leather shop, where we got another "demo," but at least this one told us a tiny bit about leather.

The streets in Florence were tiny, just one car's length, crammed with tourists and cars that don't really care too much about the tourists. It was an adventure getting from Piazza San Croce to Piazza Signora, but frankly our tour guide that day was less than fascinating. The Piazza that we spent about 45 minutes at was filled with statues, the Pallazo Vecchio ... but I just didn't care much. I was glad to finally leave the square, and was about to give up on Florence all together when we turned a final corner and saw the Duomo of Santa Maria del Fiore.

It's enormous, with beautiful white, pink and green coloring. There are so many facets, designs, towers, domes, statues and paintings on it that it's had to decide what to look at. Directly across from the Duomo are the Gates of Paradise, golden doors carved with Biblical scenes from Ghiberti that Michaelangelo described as fit to be the gates of Heaven itself. Didn't care. Barely interested.

First thing, I tried to figure out why they'd paint a church those particular colors. Then my jaw literally dropped as I realized it wasn't paint ... the building was constructed out of three different colors of marble. There were carvings all over it, but my favorite was the one of Mary holding a chubby-cheeked baby Jesus, who reached out to bless ... who? The expressions in the faces were incredible: judgemental, somber, sad, resigned. The burden of the whole world falls on this woman and her baby, and they handle it with dignity.

Inside, the dome was spectacular. The entire church was built with a hole where the dome would be, because nobody knew how to build one yet. How optimistic! Brunelleschi figured it out, and when Michelangelo had to build St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, he studied the Duomo. When he left for Rome, he bid adieu to his building, saying he was off to build her sister; bigger, but not more beautiful.

How nice!

Anyway, back to the painting on the inside of the dome. Paintings of heaven, hell and pergatory. "The Last Judgement," a striking study of perspective and dimension. Breathtaking.

I don't know if it's obvious yet, but Florence zoomed from being my least-favorite city to one I'd visit again, on the strength of art and architecture. I fell in love with the city on the strength of its cathedral. But we had to eventually leave, and we skated right into the Accademia and into the arms (eyesight, anyway) of David.

OK, we stopped and saw some Botticellis first, and the plaster model of The Rape of the Sabine Woman (what is it with men and rape in the ancient world?). But I am among the tens of thousands of people every year who just visit the Accademia to see Michaelangelo's sculptures. Lining the wall of David's room were the Slaves, a series I highly recommend you look up. They're beautiful figures wresting themselves out of blocks of marble. They look just like unfinished scupltures, but was that Michaelangelo's idea? Are they unfinished, or carefully designed to look that way?

And David. Oh, David. You've seen it, but until you've been there, you haven't seen it. The perfect physical form, the defiant and exasperated expression is one thing. But seeing the veins in his arms, and the small bones of his feet, his perfectly chiseled ankles make you want to cry, because no one is that good. It makes you glad that Michelangelo was a sculptor, and sad that his genious will never, ever be equaled. And I'm probably the seven millionth person to think that in the past year.

After seeing David, we left. It's sad to say, yes, but I wasn't with people who were into art. Also, frankly, I had been seeped in culture for five days. I wanted some shopping! We argued a bit over where to go--Anthony desperately wanted to shop for clothes, and thought that an Italian department store would be the palce to be. Snobbily, I argued strongly against the Italian Macy's. Then I felt bad, and got us there. I mean, who am I to deny the boy the one thing he wanted?

First, we stopped for lunch. Not for the delicious pizza that Vincenzo recommended, but at the first self-serve cafeteria we saw, bizarrely. Not my idea, but whatever. Not every meal I eat in America is fantastic. I had some kind of cheese-stuffed pasta with meatballs that was pretty good, if expensive. Then we went to the store, and walked out minutes later. We visited Coi, a gold warehouse where we realized how expensive gold in Florence was (duh!), and then wandered the back streets, stopping every once in awhile to shop.

Katie, my sister in Seattle, had been to Florence the year before, and brought back a wonderful leather purse from a store called Leonardo's. I was curious about it, and halfheartedly looked, but didn't expect to find it ... until we turned a corner, and there it was! Full of beautiful leather goods, ones that were actually made in Florence, not designer goods plopped in a store. It was there that I was inspired for a souviner for Matt: Leather gloves. Not exciting, I grant you, but warm, supple and useful. After visiting two more stores (and spending an hour trying in vain to find myself a purse), I finally settled on a pair of wool and leather outdoorsey-looking gloves. I picked up a belt for myself before mom hustled me out of the store.

We simply had to try this gelato place Vincenzo recommended before meeting up to go back to the hotel. It was staffed by women who were obviously very tired of tourists, so we made a few snap decisions instead of asking which flavors went well together. I picked chocolate and hazlenut (not great), orange (really bitter!), and rice (my absolute favorite flavor, I should have gone back for more). I liked riso so much that I didn't have another gelato in Italy. I also bought a cute touristy shirt, a white T with Florence's symbol on it (a fleur de lis looking thing) and the word "Firenze" blazoned across the top. Too cute!

Well, it was time to go back after that, and take a rest at the hotel (one of the few times I actually did) before walking into downtown Montecatini to find a place for dinner. I was very relaxed, having changed into jeans, flip-flops and my new t-shirt, and was halfway across the piazza before I realized what I looked like: a tourist. I was in a suburb (sort of) of Florence wearing a t-shirt that said "FLORENCE" across the top, and a purse that had patches with the names of other Italian towns on them. For all the precautions I'd taken not to look like a tourist ...

We ended up eating at a local restaurant, where Katherine, Anthony and I exercised our new language skills, and we got to see the local cuisine. Pizzas (yum!), whole crabs in spaghetti, and squirmy looking calamari. Not really so different from home, when I think about it now. No dessert this time, since we all just wanted to go home and go to sleep. The next day we were moving on, and visiting Pompeii.

Italy Day 5: Pisa, wine-tasting, Montecatini

This is a repost of my 2007 trip to Italy with my mom, brother, sister and Aunt.

Another wake up, buffet breakfast (as I'm writing this, I'm realizing that I did not appreciate fully the delicious pastries laid out for me every morning), and long drive.

We paused for a while on the bridge nearby our hotel overlooking the Grand Canal before heading out of Venice ... on foot, if you can believe it. I didn't know it could be done, but there you go. On the way out of the city, we passed a public park that looked like it belonged in London or New York (two places I've only seen in Julia Roberts movies, to be honest). It was walled and gated, but with beautiful pathways, trees and benches ... not to mention a playground or two. If only we had more time!

But we were off to Pisa. Another long, long drive, another Autogrill lunch. I came to love these half-pizza sandwiches called Rustichella, with tomato sauce, cheese and usually a kind of meat. But I also enjoyed a sandwich called Icairo, or something like that, which was ham, spinach and a creamy cheese.

Pisa is one of those places that can't help but live up to expectations. Everything you see in pictures, it is. It's the Leaning Tower of Pisa, one of the seven wonders of the world, and it is just as striking in person as you'd think. It's on this beautiful green lawn that you're supposed to stay off of, but nobody does until the police make a half-hearted effort ever quarter hour or so. In front of it is a cathedral, one of the very few that I didn't see, and in front of that is the baptistry, one of the random stops I did want to make.

So we took the requisite cheesy Pisa pictures, holdng it up, leaning against it, etc. There was much frusteration trying to get these shots, a lot of snapping and shouting at each other, but you'd never know it from the photos! Hundreds of people are on the lawn all trying to get the same shot, and it cracked me up that everyone got it!

Then, of course, we had to make a bathroom stop. After that, I noticed we had about 10 minutes before the event at the Baptistry, the one I really wanted to see. The Baptistry in Pisa was built for real baptisms, the full-body immersion in rainwater, types. It's a circular marble building that just happens to be twice as tall as it is wide. The roof is built half out of iron, and then (because of cost cutting measures) half out of terra cotta tiles. There's a hole in the center of the roof for rainwater to come through and fill the marble basin in the center of the floor. And just by sheer coincidence, it is one of few buildings in the world with acoustics perfect enough for a 15-second echo. And every half hour, a guard sings. Because of the echo, the notes blend together and it sounds like an entire chorus. Definitely something not to come halfway around the world to miss.

Or so I thought. But my family decided it wasn't worth five euro, so I dashed into the ticket office and paid for my entrance. Sugar followed me, and we ran inside just in time. After a minute to marvel at the all-marble building, the guard came to the center, clapped for attention and effect, and started to sing. No words, just notes, and that made it all the more haunting. It lasted less than five minutes, and Katherine smugly informed me that they heard it sitting outside, but it was totally worth it. If you're ever in Pisa, just consider it a once-in-a-lifetime experience, pay the 5 E, and do it.

Then it was cheesy souviener shopping, time for some gelato (my favorite combination was pistachio, coconut and pineapple), and then back to the bus. I bought Matt a bottle of olive oil shaped like the tower, and it's one of my favorite souviners of the entire trip. It's way cheesy, but adorable.

We drove on to Montecatini (a sort of suburb of Florence, for lack of a better geographical description), where we were immediately taken to the evening's optional excursion: wine tasting at an agritourismo. It was a little farm, and we had a LOT of wine. Three reds, three whites, with the promise of grappa (80 proof alcohol!) and a dessert wine to follow.

While we drank (tasting is such a wrong word to use for the number of bottles we had at our table!), they brought us appetizers: bread, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, meats, cheeses ... so delicious, and a perfect dinner! As the bottles were finished, everyone got pretty rowdy, and there was one gent in particular who cracked me up. His name was John, or Jack, and he and his wife were just the nicest couple. I'd been helping her with her digital camera the whole time, and found her a disposable one when her batteries died.

Anyway, knee-deep into bottle no. 8, I'm sure, Jack started to get social. We started to hear "Let's hear it for California!" about every 10 minutes (we were just about the only ones from California). It was hilarious! He toasted the waitress, Vincenzo, Italy ... but not as many times as California!

After the wine, Mom and I went to the gift shop for some agri-shopping (olive oil, olive spread, limoncello), and when we came back out it was time for the grappa. Now, grappa and other liquers are digestives in Italy. You take just a little after eating, and it aids in digestion. But we were warned that it would also put hair on our elbows, because it was so strong. I looked at mine for a few minutes (never being great at taking shots) and almost dropped it when my very non-alcoholic mother slammed hers back, gave a shout and pounded the glass, upside-down of course, on the table. I was in such disbelief that I drank mine without even really noticing it. Then we egged everyone else on, clapping and cheering as shot after shot went down.

After the grappa, they brought out the Vin Santo, a very syrupy, sweet delicious apricot-tasting wine usually reserved for priests (or at least it was, I just remember that that was part of it). You drank it by the glassful, like scotch or something, than dipped almond biscotti into it. I could had spent days eating that happily. I think it's what dessert is like in heaven. I wanted to run back into the store to buy the biscotti, but knew it'd be gone before nightfall.

After that, I decided it would be much better to sleep than to be drunk and have the spins, so I started wolfing down bread and water like it was going out of style, and was appropriately sobered up. Anthony, however, did not take such precautions, and got drunker and drunker as the night went on, even hours after we left. That grappa is powerful stuff, not to be messed with! We finally had to put him to bed in order to keep him from propositioning the waitresses and keeping the other guests awake by playing Ding Dong Ditch.

I tried to eat dinner that night, but was overstuffed from the wine tasting. I even skipped the ice-cream cake dessert. I just hoped that I'd have my appetite back for the next day in Florence, where I'd heard they'd perfected the art of gelato.

Italy Day 4: Venice

This is a repost of my 2007 trip to Italy with my mom, brother, sister and Aunt.

Sounds like a long time, right? In actuality, our time in Venice was about 5 hours. Not nearly even a fraction of a time period I'd call long enough.


First, we had about a five hour bus ride down from Assisi. And since (despite my comfortable-shoe precaution) my feet needed a break from the hours (upon hours) of walking we were doing, I welcomed the change! We slept on the bus, stopped at another Autogrill or two, and I made what would be a futile attempt to journal what we'd done so far.

It's kind of cool that before you can go to Venice, if you're a visitor, you have to buy a ticket. An extra step, but one that's fair, as it's the tourists that are overloading the city's very limited infrastructure.

People keep asking me a single question about Venice: Was it smelly? Here's the deal with the canals: When the Venetians constructed the city, they used the area's natural tide structure as a sort of ecological sewer system. The natural ebb and flow of the tides over the years created a suction that pulled all the garbage out of the canals, which were around eight feet deep, if I remember right.

Then, one of the many groups that conquered Venice decided that they didn't like using boats to get everywhere, and dammed up several canals to build streets. This interrupted the natural flow of things, and for a few hundred years, nobody cleaned out the canals.

In the 1970s (again, I think .... all my info is sort of a blur), that meant the canals were about six inches deep, completely filled with muck, sewage and garbage. That's when they started dredging, and that's when it was royally smelly.

Now the canals are dredged regularly, and it doesn't smell at all. So there you have it.

It was absolutely surreal to board that water taxi and motor our way into the city. It's one thing to say "Every building in Venice is built on the water," but it's another thing altogether to see it. We went on a muggy, rainy day, so there was a bit of a haze in the air, and it made everything look that much more unreal. There are beautiful, enormous cathedrals everywhere you look, and homes (now hotels) right out of the movies.

We pulled in a couple blocks from St. Mark's Square (Well, I don't know about blocks. We crossed four bridges.) and made our way through crowds that made Disneyland lines look reasonable. As soon as we'd get to the crest of a bridge, I'd push my way to the railing, and get a quintessential view of Venice. Then to the next one ... and the next one. To look at the Bridge of Sighs (more on that in a minute) and know that's where Casanova was, hundreds of years ago. Wow.

We didn't have much time to marvel, because our tour guide was waiting for us at the Doge's Palace. That was an optional excursion we had to pay for ... either a couple hours of free time in Venice, or a guided tour of the Doge's Palace, Bridge of Sighs and St. Mark's Basilica. The palace was cool (had the original "Rape of Europe" painting), but what I found remarkable was the cold-hearted Venetian justice system. Within the palace are several courtrooms, and the Supreme Court (wherein lies a painting featuring more than 500 faces, one of the most populated works in the world). When a prison is convicted in the Supreme Court, they don't even leave the palace. They go down some corridors and stairways, and all of a sudden: You're on the Bridge of Sighs, called such because it allows views of Venice, and the prisoners would sigh as they were led inside ... or out.

So one side of the bridge led to the prison ... such an Alexandre Dumas sort of prison, too. Dark, damp, stone and iron, that sort of thing. Not like our namby-pamby jails! This kind of prison killed you if your sentence didn't.

The other side the of the two-way bridge was equally sigh-worthy. It led to St. Mark's Square, and is designed so that prisoners could see their families on their way there. I personally think that this side is where the bridge got its name, because when the condemned stepped out of the bridge onto the square, they were beheaded.

It was pouring down rain while we were touring the bridge and the prison. Great for atmosphere.

We had a great guide there, a very Italian woman who called herself "Mama" and said we were her children ... and that if we were good, we'd get an ice cream after the tour. And if we were very good ... two. She had some interesting stories about the lives of the Doges (rulers of Venice) and their families. For instance, the first sons got all the glory: the title, the money, the property, everything. Score, right? Except that they also got to take care of their brothers families ... money, help, position, everything. Their problems became the oldest's problems.

And, while the women married who daddy told them to, they also got to keep up to three playboys on the side ... but no more than that, otherwise people would talk. Pretty scandalous times back then!

So after the Doges Palace and the Bridge of Sighs, we were off and running to a whiplash-inducing tour of the basilica. It was very cool (after awhile, Vincenzo told us that Austrialians who go on this particular tour of Italy call it the 'ABC' tour: Another Bloody Church tour.), particularly the marble flooring. All hundreds of years old, of course, all in different colored marble, and all in designs so intricate and 3D you'd think you were looking at a drawing by Escher. Some of the pices of marble were no bigger than a pencil eraser.

Then we dashed into a glass-blowing shop for a demonstration (I don't care how many times you see it, glass blowing is always really cool!) and an opportunity to buy some real Venetian glass. We were forewarned by Vincenzo that we'd see a LOT of glass in Venice, but that copyright laws weren't the same in Italy than in the US. Anyone can call their product Venetian glass, even if it's made in India. The only way to tell the difference? The price. Yeah, whatever, I thought. All I wanted was one of the small round necklaces. How much can it be?

A lot, as it turned out. That small necklace ended up being my most expensive souviner, even more than the beautiful but modest vase I picked up as well. Itw as nice, because even though I wasn't buying the biggest pieces in the store, I had an attentive salesman at my side, displaying goods I could actually afford, and helping me choose. My vase is heavy, about the size of a pillar candle, and glass with an amber coloring. I just have to figure out a use for it so I can keep it proudly displayed and not in a cupboard, waiting for flowers.

After that business, we had barely enough time to walk a few feet around the square before we had to race to meet our gondola. Anthony let a few pigeons land on him (they're damned smart birds, as soon as they figured out he didn't actually have any food, they were gone ... even the ones that didn't land on him to begin with!).

The five of us climbed into a gondola for an hourlong ride. Most of the time we were taking pictures, but I had to stop after while just to soak it in. About halfway through the ride, our gondolier started to whistle opera songs, almost absentmindedly. It was languid and quiet and, of course, romantic. I'm so glad we had the chance to do it.

And as soon as we stepped out, it started to rain. We had to run to catch another water taxi to our hotel off the grand canal, and were absolutely soaked through by the time we got there. And at the hotel, we had just enough time to change clothes before Sugar, Anthony, Katherine and I headed down to dinner. Mom, believe it or not, had to interview a chef for her new hotel that night. He took her to the Ghetto while we were eating. I totally would have skipped dinner for that. The Ghetto is where the Venetians banished their Jewish population ... literally. There were no bridges to the Ghetto, and no Jews were allowed to own boats. The only time they could leave was when a Venetian wanted them to. Now it's a big spot for celebrities.

Ironic family statement: My mother hates boats. Is terrified of them. The gondola ride almost did her in. Can't get anywhere in Venice without a boat, though!

After dinner, we met Mom and Gianluca, and walked around for a few minutes before throwing in the towel and going to bed. I couldn't believe our time in Venice was over before it seemed like it had even begun. It's definitely a place I want to visit again, for a few days. It was extremely crowded and hectic in the main tourist areas around St. Mark's Square, but it seemed that once we got away from there in the gondola, the crowds thinned to almost nothing. We even passed a playground, which was awesome. Just imagine growing up in Venice. Very few people actually do anymore, so it was neat to see.

It was the first place that I was very, very sad to leave.

Italy Day 3: Sistine Chapel and Assisi

This is a repost of my 2007 trip to Italy with my mom, brother, sister and Aunt.

We were warned on Day 3 that we'd be getting up early and bolting from the hotel to avoid lines at the Vatican Museum that can get up to around two miles long! After setting our bags outside for the porter to take to the bus (thank you, Insight!), I very much enjoyed what was to be my last Nutella-ful breakfast in Italy.


When we got to the Vatican Museum, the line was only a block or so long, so we waited while Vincenzo taught us about the history of Vatican City. He also warned us to be vigilant in line: Unethical tourists and tour groups would either try to join us or push past us. On the way in, one group did try to cut, and Vincenzo got into an Italian argument with their guide and a member of the Swiss Guard ... a real Italian argument, shouting over each other within inches of each other's faces, then clearing it up with no warning.

And then, once we were almost to the front of the line (about an hour after we got in it), a couple snuck under a rope and stood within our group! I looked at Katherine and asked her if they were in our group (I'm so bad with faces), and she said no. We looked at each other for a minute, wondering what would happen. No one else noticed ... would they just get in? Should we tattle?

But we didn't have time to decide. As we stepped up, a Swiss Guard pulled them smoothly aside, and let them know that their antics bought them a ticket to the back of the line ... two miles back. HA! It was so great!!!

So we basically bolted through a couple halls of the Vatican Museum. A sculpture gallery, where we witnessed the result of the Great Castration ... the overzealous pope who thought the male statues were too lifelike, had their genitals removed and covered discretely with fig leaves. Legend has it that there's a room somewhere in the museum filled with marble penises.

Then we went through the hall of tapestries (ever seen a woven eviscaration? I have!), and the hall of maps (pretty cool), and finally ... the Sistine Chapel. It's funny ... down several flights of extremely narrow stairs, almost like the basement of an old school. Then you step into this enormous room, and realize several things all at once:

This is where Conclave is held. This is where they choose the new Pope, where hundreds of cardinals gather and are locked in tight until they make a decision.

This is also when you make a sub realization that it's not that large a room, and pretty stuffy. And that it can take weeks to choose a pope. And that cardinals were a hell of a lot of layers.

There are paintings everywhere, on every surface. I mean, yeah, that's the idea, but still ... it's hard to picture until you're there.

If you're me, you realize that the ceiling is not as big as you think it is. It's magnificant, particularly the "Creation of Man" panel, (or whatever it's called, you know ... the fingertips), but somehow just not as big.

Then you realize in all the hoopla of the chapel's ceiling, no one ever told you how awe-inspiring the Last Judgement painting on the entrance wall would be. Truly, this was my favorite part of the chapel. It's magnificent. Grand in scale, absolutely perfect in expressive detail, and beautifully brilliant colors. Look it up.

They pulled us away after 20 minutes or so, and we made one of many, many, many bathroom stops. Here's time for another side note about things I learned while vacationing with my family: My Aunt Sugar is a bathroom freak. She had to locate and use just about every restroom in the country. We spent more time waiting in line for the bathroom than at some of the sights. Katherine is about the same way ... I called it the Bathroom Tour of Italy.

After the Vatican Museum, we had a five hour drive to Assisi, punctuated by our first stop at an Autogrill.

Oh, Lord, the Autogrills. They're basically rest stops, with cafes in them. Stuffed with delicious food. Honestly, you pony up to a counter and choose from pizza, panini, fresh (tasting) sandwiches, and pastries. Then you pick up your single-serving bottle of wine and a hazelnut chocolate bar ... and swear to miss your flight back to the US, where the only rest stop cuisine is Taco Bell.

We stopped just outside of Assisi at St. Mary of the Angels church, which is actually St. Francis of Assisi's church ... where he lived and died. There's a golden statue of Mary at the top, with a crown of stars and (you can't really see it) her feet on the ground. The idea is she connects the heavens and the Earth. In other words, she's the conduit to salvation.

Of course you know that St. Francis was the son of a rich man, who had a vision and decided that the true path to God didn't lie in wealth, but in humility and common living. He wanted to bring the message of Christianity to everyone, not just the super-rich. Hence the brown robes, rope belt, and lack of personal posessions. His original church on the site was a small, simple one. He slept in a cell (saw it!) that was about four feet high, five feet deep and wide, and had just branches for his head.

Now there's an opulent church on the site, with beautiful works of art, lapis luzi and gold ceilings ... just about everything he'd hate. But it was built for a Pope, not for Francis. The decendents of the miracle roses are still in the garden (seems one night St. Francis woke up aroused from a dream, and threw himself in the thorny rosebushes for punishment. But at the moment he landed, the thorns fell off the roses, and to this day remain thornless), and the gift shops sells hundreds of rosaries. And rose soaps. But interesting fact: this is where ROSaries come from. St. Francis and his gang wanted to make praying easy, so they created a beaded circlet to help peasants keep track of their prayers. They made these prayer beads out of the roses that grew nearby ... rosaries!

I first noticed the ceilings here. Beautiful blue ceilings, painted with gold stars, trimmed in red or orange or yellow. Fantastic. I'd love to have an outdoor room sometime with a ceiling like this.

Then we drove on to Assisi ... on and up, I should say! It's a hill town, and they don't joke! But it's an amazing town to visit, because it's truly medival. You enter through a rode paved under what looks like a drawbridge gate. The streets are one-lane only, and the stone walls almost completely block out the sun. Our hotel window opened completely onto a market street, and when Katherine and I peeked out to watch people shop, a German tourist took our picture.

The standout part of St. Francis' Basilica to me was his tomb. It's completely silent down there, lit by candles in offering. He's buried in the center, where a stone, uh, tomb, rises from the floor. His four closest friends are buried in the four corners of the room, and there are small chapels on every side, for prayer and reflection. Actually, the tomb was hidden for centuries, in fear of bandits (relics equal power).

OK, the art on the walls was incredible too. Also, the fact that during Nazi occupation, the entire town hid its Jewish population in the lower chapel, then a sort of basement. Nazis tromped all over the upper chapel none the wiser, but peeved that none of the Jews were home. When it was safe, they gave the Jews fake documents and sent them out into the countryside. Our guide told us that one of the Nazi captians caught onto the scheme, but didn't say anything (which was a lesson to us, he said, during a time of widespread hate in the world, that you can't make blanket judgements. Good people are good people, he said, and bad people are bad people, and it's important to judge that way, and not by nationality, religion or political affiliation).

After that, we walked around a bit, until Katherine, Anthony and Mom decided they wanted to go back to the hotel and rest (again, I don't get it!). I wanted to walk on and find the Temple of Minerva, a first century BC temple converted into a Catholic church. Sugar came with me, and we walked (and walked, and walked) through town. We found it, and I thought it'd be a good time to turn around and get a shower before dinner, but then I'd see something in the distance and want to check it out. So on and so forth, we ended up running back to the hotel with just enough time for a quick rinse.

Which we needed, because I was hot an exhausted. Rome and Assisi were hot, muggy cities. Rome was crowded and overwhelming, we'd spent half the day stuffed into a bus, and I'd spent the other half trekking up and down hills looking for (extremely cool, surprise-around-every-corner) ancient ruins. I was droopy, cranky, sore, tired, hungry, thirsty ... exhausted.

When I stepped into the tub, I checked out the taps, C and F, and cranked on F to let the hot water warm up ... but it didn't. Whew, that was a refreshing ice-cold shower, but what could you expect from a first-century town!

Dinner was fine, a great local pasta dish with sausage, veal (I'm not a fan, but Italians don't have room to raise full-grown cows, so they eat a lot of veal), and the strangest dessert ... ice cream in a plastic cup! We had a great laugh about that one ... coming halfway across the world to eat an elementary school lunch barbeque dessert! But the wine was great. GREAT!

After that, sleep. Blissful sleep! And the knowledge that the next day, we'd be in Venice.

Italy Day 2: St. Peter's, Coloseum and Spanish Steps

This is a repost of my 2007 trip to Italy with my mom, brother, sister and Aunt.

We had an early wake-up call on Day 2, and enjoyed very much the breakfast buffet laid out for us. Me, particulalry, because while there were eggs, bacon and pineapple juice, there was NUTELLA! I had toast with nutella, and was a very, very happy girl.

Immediately after breakfast, we got on the bus, and were told the "seating arrangement." Whoever we were sitting with was our partner for the trip, and every day we've move two rows ahead or back, depending on what side of the bus you were on. Katherine and I had discovered the previous day how well we travel together, so we buddied up.

We went to Vatican City, to St. Peter's Basilica. It's an overwhelming building, decorated on the outside with some of the most exquisite statues I saw during my whole trip. I think I even preferred the statuary at the Vatican to David in Florence. All along the outside of the square are statues of popes and apostles, and we learned that you can always tell who St. Peter is because he's depicted with keys, the keys to heaven that Jesus bestowed upon him (in reality, the church).

My favorite statues, though, were on top of the basilica itself ... Jesus and the diciples. It wasn't just any Jesus, it looked like a bad-ass Jesus, ready to do some hard work on earth with his guys by his side. It was very moving. Almost as moving as when we stepped in the building, and saw how grand the church is. It was my favorite sight in Rome. And one of the first things I did inside, once I caught my breath and my heart started beating again, I made a beeline to Michaelangelo's Pieta, his first and most beautiful.

Since it was a Sunday, we didn't get to see St. Peter's statue, or his tomb (marker?) because there was a church service going on ... but we got to see a church service in the Vatican. Wow.

After that, it was time to move on to Palatine Hill, the Forum and the Coloseum. I was so glad to see all that ... I didn't think we'd be able to. To be utterly honest, though, the Coloseum was somewhat underwhelming to me. Incredible feat of enginering, yes, but so many have depcited it so well in movies, documentaries ... or maybe it was just freakishly hot and humid that day (true story). Just to think of how it was created, though, and for what purpose sent me into a tailspin mental rant on violence in entertainment then and now.

We walked along and saw the Arch of Constantine, which I still can't decide is the Arch of Constantine or the Arch of Titus. We saw a sweeping view of ancient Rome, from Palatine Hill to ... well, I don't know exactly where we were looking, but there were broken columns, ruins, statues in marble and bronze ... incredible. Then we walked back toward the Coloseum alongside the Forum, where I LOOOOVED the contrast between the impressive granite columns and the delicately beautiful, glowing white marble columns. They looked fresh and cool, and I very much wanted to touch them. But they frown upon that in Rome. Go figure.

So instead, we stopped at a kiosk for lunch (pizza e acqua) and shopped for some tacky souviners. We were very weary and sore (not to mention overheated and sweaty!) by the time we met the bus, which was to take us to our final destination of the day: The Spanish Steps. We started up top, and made our way down to the bottom (pausing along the way for photo ops, of course!).

I have to stop here to add a note about the group we were with. We went on the "Best of Italy" tour with Insight Vacations. There were 39 people on our tour, mostly retirees, and most of them adored Anthony, who (it has to be said) looked like a rock star the whole time, complete with hats and mirrored sunglasses. They couldn't hear enough about his band, and wrote down the Web site so they could listen to his music. Katherine was a huge hit too. She was "battery girl," doling out fresh pairs for the headsets we wore so that we could listen to our guides and look around at the same time. She was also a huge hit with Italian men. Hmmm, can't think why!

At the bottom of the Spanish Steps is a fountain, depicting a sinking ship. It was actually commissioned by a Pope, to show the troubles of the church, and that unless something were to be done, the ship would indeed sink. Most of the fountains in Rome are run with fresh water, not chlorinated, and so you can drink from them. This fountain in particular supposedly had sweet-tasting water that had "miraculous" health-bestowing qualities. Whatever the legend, I drank from it--as did most of the people in the group--and the water was good. Sweet or not, it was hot and the water was cool! Anthony did not drink, no matter how we pleaded. I shouted "Come on, Anthony, conform!" which made Vincenzo laugh and suggest that conforming is something Anthony did not do often.

Finally, though, we were back on the bus, which was blessedly air conditioned, and en route to the hotel, which had a wonderfully cold pool that I jumped into immediately. I should say jumped into and immediately out of, because that puppy wasn't heated, and it was really cold! I laid with my book in the sun on a lounge chair, fully intending to read, but woke myself up snoring. How embarassing! Until the naked lady came out, that is.

When the sun went down, I took a nice shower and we had to decide where to eat. Here's another lesson I learned about my family: They don't make decisions well. In fact, on this particular night, they all looked at each other and then off into the distance, avoiding making a choice about where to eat dinner (in Rome? At the hotel?) until some other people in our group reminded us of the compromise: The restaurant next door to the hotel. We had pasta, bread and olive oil, caprese salad and tiramisu. mmmmmm.

Then it was a tumble into bed, because we were EXHAUSTED!!! Rome is a very crowded, hectic city, thick with tourists and crazy with foreign languages (duh, but still ... it's intense). It's like being in New York, but not speaking the language. My head was spinning and my nerves were frayed by the end of Day 2, and I was very much looking forward to the next day's trip to Assisi, and the rural refuge it provided!

Italy, Day 1: Airport and Rome

This is a repost of my 2007 trip to Italy with my mom, brother, sister and Aunt.
I slept on the couch at my Mom's house ... for about five hours. I had to get up at 3:45 a.m. to shower so we could be at the airport by 5 a.m. to catch our 7:30 a.m. flight to Rome! OK, to Dulles in Washington, DC.

Mom upgraded us from Economy to Economy Plus, a fact that will come into play in about, oh, 11 days. But for now, we were sitting in the International terminal, eating McDonald's breakfasts and getting ready for our first leg of the trip on the biggest airplane I've ever been on! It was a 777, and we had a comfortable extra 5 inches of leg room and a TV set in the seat in front of us.

I watched movies and read my Rick Steve's guidebook until we landed in DC, where we had a comfortably short wait until our next flight ... to Rome! We climbed aboard in the same comfortable seating and were served a delicious (well, for plane food) dinner. Katherine and I played Yatzee until we lost a die. Anthony spent the flight learning Italian--he's a language genious! Then everyone tried to get 7 hours of sleep, fairly unsuccessfully.

When we landed, I learned my first lesson about traveling with my family: No one knows what they are doing. Apparently it's not in their genes to read signs. I led the way to the first of many, many, many bathroom stops, and to passport control. Where I learned my first lesson about the Italian people: If you're nice to them, and make an effort, they'll be nice to you. Case in point: When the passport control guy handed me back my passport without a stamp, I smiled at him and asked him in pidgen Italian if he could please give me a stamp. He smiled back and gave me my stamp. When my Aunt Sugar didn't get her stamp, she said "What, I don't get a stamp?" and the same guy threw it back at her without a glance.

When we landed, we boarded a tour bus to our hotel (I promptly concussed myself by banging my head against a freakishly low ceiling on the bus, prompting a stream of curse words that the little old blind woman behind me had probably never heard before). We drove on to our hotel, me grinning like an idiot the whole time. I was in ROME. Everything was the same, but different: The cars were smaller, the graffitiw as in a language I couldn't understand, and all the stores were only slightly recognizable in my minimal Italian.

At the hotel, we stopped for lunch at a poolside bar (I had a delicious bruchetta ... mushroom, olive and tomato spreads on fresh toasted bread, yum!), and then the inexplicable happened: Mom, Katherine and Anthony decided to go take a nap. TAKE A NAP! I talked to the concierge and got a map from him, along with an estimate for a taxi downtown, grabbed Sugar and VERY excitedly headed to see the Pantheon. And as we were driving there, through streets and alleyways that looked like a Hollywood movie set of Rome Sidestreets, I marvelled at the fact that I could just decide, on a whim, to head to an ancient monument.

We walked around the Pantheon, the Piazza Navona, and the Campo d'Fiori. We walked down alleyways and sidestreets and stumbled on more ancient ruins. Finally, we called it an afternoon and took another taxi back to our hotel ... and I was able to negotiate a price completely in Italian with the driver! Those who know me may not be surprised that I had to rub our afternoon adventure in the faces of those who stayed behind. But come on! You can sleep at home!

That night, we had our first optional outing with the tour: A five-course dinner in a neighborhood of Rome called Trastevere, kind of an artists neighborhood. We had free-flowing wine, antipasti (meats, cheeses, the "pizza donuts" from Girls Next Door, a rice and potato dumpling sort of item, and lots more!), two kinds of pasta, three kinds of pizza, salad and dessert (the Italians sure know their ice cream. That's all I have to say). Then we had a walk through town and a moonlit drive through Rome, seeing all the sights lit up after dark. It was incredible, so beautiful (my favorite was a monument they call the "Wedding Cake," look it up, it's worth seeing), but I had been up for about 20 hours, and couldn't help nodding off between sights.

Oh, and I should say that on Day 1 we met our tour guide, Vincenzo. He was incredibly knowledgeable, about politics, hisotry, geography, culture, language ... everything! Plus, he was funny.

I'm pretty sure I blogged that day, and e-mailed Matt. Little did I know that was the last hotel with free internet access for the whole tour!