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We are in Florence for the last days of our formal tour. In fact, in about an hour we are off to our “Last Supper,” our final dinner with the group. When we made our plans we decided to stay an extra two days here in Florence in order to unwind and perhaps have an adventure or two. We’re glad we did.
Both Patti and I have head colds. Pretty bad ones. My bad day was yesterday when I actually left the group and returned to the hotel early for down time. It’s a bummer because I missed some partially complete Michelangelo statues that I had been looking forward to. Patti told me they were impressive. Her bad day was this afternoon, but fortunately it was free time so she didn’t miss any planned activity.
Florence, like the rest of the trip, is a target-rich environment for photography. Here are a few from our neighborhood. The first is the view from the roof of our hotel. Stay tuned for whatever we get into over the next couple of days. Perhaps we’ll go on a quest!
BTW: I have a great post on Cinque Terra written but it seems to be stuck in WordPress hell. I’ll get it out when I figure out how.
When we first started planning our big 2013 vacation we knew early on that we wanted to try out a Rick Steves tour, the only question was: where? Turkey was in the running for awhile, but when we looked at the Heart of Italy tour and I discovered the Cinque Terra region, which I had never heard of, I was sold. Five extremely photogenic villages connected by a series of panoramic trails, it was made for me. As it turns out, this is a case of the reality meeting the expectations. Wow. I’ll write more, and show more, after we get home, but here are a handful to keep you until then. Ciao!
(This is being posted post-trip. It was trapped in “Draft” mode & I couldn’t figure out how to post it from the WordPress app. We’ll be posting a summary of the trip later this weekend, but I wanted to give you a glimpse of this beautiful area.)
A very brief post, since we have no wifi in the room (ah, the deprivations of travel). We went yesterday from Volterra to Lucca to The Cinque Terra. I believe the phrase I’m looking for is OMG! You will see a lot more when we get home. I’m off to eat my fancy breakfast and then hit the trains.
We spent last night and today in the Tuscan hill town of Volterra. It is a charming small town made for exploring, full of history and good food. We had a meal last night that our guide described as “demanding,” meaning that it demanded a lot of space in our stomachs. It was delicious and, even though we seem to be eating our way across Italy, I’ve had to tighten my belt due to the exercise we are getting.
Today we learned a lot about the Etruscans, saw alabaster being worked and started our shopping. This place is beautiful. I’m just sorry we have to move on in the morning to the Italian Riviera. Between now and then we have to suffer through a wine tasting and search out another decent meal. We’ll probably muddle through somehow.
Here is a very quick post from the Tuscan village of Volterra. We finished out Rome yesterday with a tour of the Colosseum and Forum. It is what you would expect…very impressive.
More later, we’re too busy to type much! (Plus we need to go walk off our huge dinner from last night. I’m eating like a pig, but I need to tighten my belt!)
Ciao!
Today we managed to visit the Vatican without lightening bolts striking us down and we came away with one overriding impression. There were WAY too many people there. We dealt with huge crowds from all over the world for several hours. Don’t get me wrong, we saw lots of very cool art and saw some historic sights, but jeez, we were joined by many people often jammed into a very small area. Without air conditioning. And it was hot. But it was worth it.
At the very end of the guided portion we saw the Sistine Chapel. It made the whole ordeal worth it. It’s quite a sight…exactly what I expected and yet different at the same time. I can’t show you any photos from the chapel because photography is not allowed and boy do they enforce it. I saw a guard make someone delete photos. It’s really ok tho, because photos wouldn’t do it justice.
We saw St. Peter’s Basilica on our own, which was also pretty cool, but we were tired, hungry and cranky so we beat feet to find a lunch and cold drink. We succeeded. Tomorrow it’s the Colosseum and the Forum before a bus ride to Volterra. If we have wifi I’ll post again from there. Ciao!
BTW, sorry for the lack of captions on the photos but we’re doing this on an iPad and haven’t figured out how to add them. The pictures below were all from the Vatican — except the one of cold beer at the end.
We spent the morning doing some slow wander. Although we both slept hard we were still moving a bit slow from the previous days’ travels and we knew that, once the tour started, we’d be going fairly hard, so we simply strolled to a couple of sites, specifically St. Maria de Angeli church (built on the Roman Baths of Diocletian) and the Capuchin Crypt (where the brothers did some strange things with bones).
The tour began this afternoon with a group meeting. We’ll be spending the next week with some interesting folks. We then rode the metro, walked to the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona, and then had an excellent dinner. Wine was served. A bus ride to the hotel and we’re ready to collapse.
Tomorrow it’s off to the Vatican. If we see Francis I’ll try to get a picture.
Here’s some more shots in no particular order.
So, after 21 hours of door to door travel, we found ourselves in our nice little Roman hotel, the Hotel Sonya. We were, understandably, feeling pretty burnt, hungry & tired. After a quick lunch (pizza, of course, and it was pretty good) we showered, napped for an hour and then hit the streets for fresh air and exercise in an effort to beat the jet lag.
It seems to have worked.
We wandered for hours before eating dinner in a very nice little restaurant. Wandered for almost 5 miles according to my GPS, in fact. My injured feet can attest to that. The sights we saw! Old (OLD) architecture and fashionable Italians! I did, of course, take a couple of photos. It’s hard to separate the wheat from the chafe on a mini-iPad, but here are just a couple from our day.
Patti, Nicky & Nora getting organized
9/1/13
We’re doing something a bit different for our major vacation this year, at least for us. We normally like to remain independent and keep flexible when traveling. We’re not big on the thought of taking a cruise on one of the huge ships that we see in Port Canaveral or going to an all-inclusive resort, although we have a lot of friends who swear by them. We can understand the attraction, but we generally prefer to maintain the option of detouring from our itinerary and seeing what lies up a road or around a corner. Some of our best travel memories are as a result of an unplanned activity. We’ve stumbled across ruined castles in Ireland by following a tiny sign on the road, and took a walk in a slot canyon by the side of a road to nowhere in Utah because the locals told us where to find it. I found a beautiful set of waterfalls in North Carolina just a 10 minute drive off of an interstate because I needed to take a break from driving. After reading a flyer on a lamppost in Paris, Patti saw a soprano give a recital in the church the locals used before Notre Dame was built. (I don’t have a photo of that, so here’s one from a department store lit up for Christmas. The enthusiasm for the lights was a surprise to me; all the stores did it.)
This year, a change. We decided to take a tour, of Italy, on a bus.
We are taking a Rick Steves tour: The Heart of Italy in 9 Days. If you don’t know, Rick Steves has been doing Europe-based travel shows on PBS for decades. We decided to give it a try for several reasons: small groups, small, usually family-owned lodging, local guides and plenty of solo time (at least half a day and a dinner on our own everywhere we go). We also thought that it would be nice to have the art, architecture and history interpreted for us. We’re taking a bit of extra time in Rome and Florence before and after the tour, so we’ll still have time to get lost. Stay tuned here, as we’ll attempt to post while we’re galavanting about Italy.
So, hopefully, whether while on the tour, or on our own, we’ll stumble across our next best memory.
Ciao.
Ballcarberry Castle
Ireland, 5/4/03
Slot Canyon near Boulder, UT
8/1/12
Pearson Falls near Saluda, NC
9/11/11
Paris, France, 12/6/05
I spent most of 2005 in Washington, D.C., working at NASA HQ. While there I naturally took advantage of the chance to visit many of the iconic sites around the nation’s capital and, in late May, several days before the Memorial Day holiday, I went to Arlington National Cemetery. Turns out it was the day they placed flags at each and every grave. Sadly, there are a lot of graves. It was quite a moving experience.
They had a lot of flags to deploy.
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
They had a process, place foot against marker, push flag in against heel.
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
There were a lot of soldiers working at this on a very hot day.
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
Tomb Of The Unknowns
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
Tomb Of The Unknowns
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
Columbia Memorial
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
Challenger Memorial
Could this look any worse?
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
The World as We See It 