May 18th
We did email for awhile this morning after breakfast and then left around 10:00 am to head to the market where my parents bought lots of scarfs. We did some more shopping in the market, I love that place! We made our way towards Santa Maria Novella train station as my Mom wanted to visit one of the oldest Pharmacies that is nearby it. It took us some time to finally find that place, and along the way shopped some stores inside the train station, where my mom bought a cd of organ music as a souvenir, and I bought a live Radiohead cd as well as an Eels cd. We finally found the pharmacy and it was room after room of history of herbs and remedies and even some fresco’s. It is one of the oldest businesses to still exist with the same name, having started around the 1600’s.
We ate lunch next door at a curbside cafe and had a pizza.
We went back to have our 3 hour tour, via segway, of Florence. I was really excited about this. I have heard so much about them, and how much fun segways can be, plus I am a fan of Gob and his segway riding ways. I thought this was going to be an awesome way to travel around from site to site and see the city. Plus, with a tour guide, I was happy to perhaps be learning something new.
I love traveling to places I went back in 1997, because I learned so much before, and it is nice to share the little tidbits that I have learned, with those that I travel with now. I really feel that the history, the cities, the architecture, and the overall travel experience comes to life when you know just a little bit more about a church, about a work of art, about a time of life. When it isn’t just a painting anymore, but about a cultural struggle to find relevance and to survive harsh times. And although I learn a little bit more on these trips, most times its just a rehashing, or a remembering of things I have already learned. So I was really looking forward to the time with the tour guide.
The segway tour did not start well though. My Dad was the first one to get the little training session, and he was very shaky and hesitant at first. He would push and tug on the segway and move really herky jerky like around in a little circle. The tour guide stood next to him to make sure he didn’t get out of control at all.
So now that my Dad got it down, it was my Mom’s turn to step onto the segway. She had noticed my dad’s hesitations, and decided to go balls out in learning. She was much more convicted in her pursuit, and went for it. However, the trainer did not stay near, and did not give her proper verbal instruction, and before we knew it, she was bailing off the back, twisting her body, falling on the hard cobblestone with a segway almost falling on top of her. It was a very awkward fall with a twisting knee and body, and a painful thud on the stones that were laid in the street thousands of years earlier.
We lifted her and her bloody cut open knee of the cement, and my Dad walked her back to the hotel while the rest of us did our training. My dad came back and we then took off for our tour. There was another couple, then myself, Dad, and Lisa. We started at the Duomo and the bapitstry doors. The square was filled with people, and I thought to myself “I’ve had a hard enough time walking on two legs in this square, how am I supposed to control a segway.” But I managed. It’s really like Lisa told me. She said that you just stand there and merely think about which direction you want to head, and the segway magically takes you in that direction. We hit major stops, learning new things along the way. Every new stop, my Dad would ask our tour guide a question. Even though she corrected him every time, every time he would mis-pronounce her name. And his question at every stop, was about jewelry stores, angel pins, and cross necklaces.
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We went by church’s, the river Arno, the ponte vecchio, the uffizi. We were showed the flood lines when the city has flooded in the past. Ironically, the last two major floods in the city, both occurred in November. So don’t travel there in that month.
We were shown the fashionable district, we passed the ferrari store where I took a picture for Juan (though, I don’t think I ever sent it to him). I learned about the Strozzi family, and the opposition they had with the Medici’s. Our tour guide showed us these “wine windows” that were about a foot or two off the ground, on some of these palaces. Apparently, when the palace owners had had enough wine for themselves, they would stick the bottle out these little wine windows, where the peasant waiting there, the citizen waiting there, could then have some wine of their own.
I want a wine window.
We also learned, that the Piazza Republica began as the Jewish ghetto, and a flower and food market. That it is the exact center of town. And that the Arch building and the saying on it, is hated by most Florentines.
We learned that in the Piazza Signoria, that most of the statues are still, in fact, the originals. Even though yesterday at the Accademia, we saw “the rape of the sabine woman,” that that one, inside the museum, was actually the copy. The original still stood in the square.
We learned that at the top of the Santa Croce church, there is a star of david, and that the architect was jewish.
We also went by the little studio where Michelangelo carved his david statue. By the way, on this trip I read the wikipedia entry on David, and learned a whole lot about it. For instance, did you know that the 26 year old Michelangelo beat out Leonardo Da Vinci, to carve the statue?
After our great tour (surprisingly, dad’s and my legs were rather sore), we went back to the hotel. Our hotel was one of the stops along the tour. Apparently they had renovated it and found that it used to be a look out tower, it used to be a roman bath, and it used to be a prison. Part of it was now a museum and you could climb down the stairs to see it. It was rather cool. I liked this hotel a lot. It was perfect location and had great service. You can read my review of it…if I ever finish these journal entries and write my reviews.
We changed and cleaned up for our dinner reservations. We had made reservations for the open bar, golden view restaurant again, even though Lisa and I had eaten there 2 nights earlier. The view was unbeatable, and the food was delicious, so we thought it would be a grand evening. With live music starting at 9pm, we made reservations for 8pm.
We took our time walking there, taking pictures on the ponte vecchio, looking at jewelry stores for my mom, and enjoying each others company and the beauty around us.
We arrived at our reservation, and they had a window seat prepared for us, and glasses of champagne. The windows were open and we were basically in a little open terrace, with the river and the bridge right next to us. It was breathtaking. We took many pictures, and got started on the first of what became three bottles of the vino della casa rossa. Yum.
The meal and our time was very precious. My mom would remark the next day that it would be one of the half dozen meals that she remembers for the rest of her life. We laughed, we told stories, lisa told some great jokes (who tells jokes about organ musicians, and funnier yet that my mom would know it), and we drank and ate till we could eat and drink no more.
Black truffles were in season, and our waiter told us how they train dogs to retrieve truffles. We decided to give them a try in our appetizers on top of crostini. We also had a cheese plate with different melon, a pear and honey spreads. Had a great and weird pasta noodle with bits of octopus. I’m getting hungry again thinking about it. I think I better wait to show the food till I do my food picture review post soon.
We enjoyed all of our foods, including the steak florentine that my Dad had longed for. We lingered. We finished 3 bottles of wine, had desert, enjoyed the live jazz music. It was a gorgeous night. We lingered over 3 hours there, telling stories, getting to know our waiter, enjoying the food, the fun, and the company.
Just Her Type
Afterwards, around 11:30 pm or so, we walked back to the area of our hotel. We laughed. We stumbled. We fed a pig a coin. We looked at the chalk drawings on the ground.
Lisa went back to bed (after our gelato stop), but Debbie, Steve and I found ourselves in a street, where a street performer was trying his trade. However, the best part of his act was when a garbage man came down the street he was working. Obscenities ensued.
We grabbed walked back to our hotel. It was a beautiful night.
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It was kind of odd, being in a big city again. It kind of felt like I was in civilization again. That isn’t a good or a bad thing, it just felt like there was a large town now, and lots of people.
We followed this up with lunch near Piazza Della Signoria. This piazza is near an old fortress/palace which is now a governmental building and a museum. In this piazza are replica statues of David and many others. We had a pizza and it was one of the best yet.
We were still sore from our hike a couple of days ago, and still interested in finding a massage to work those kinks out. We asked our concierge and the best they had to offer was having the masseuses come to our room. I’ve never done that before, and it was a little weird having it in our own room, but of course once I slipped off into relax mode, I forgot all about that.
For dinner tonight, we went to the 
Went to 
After checking in we took a little stroll to 
We had a short conversation and then continued on our ways. Why is it, when travelling on trips like this, that it is bound to happen that you run into someone that you know? That has happened to me frequently. When has it happened to you? and with whom?
9 hours of travel yesterday, today we had planned what eventually became a 7 hour hike. That is right, we are officially crazy.
Our first walk was about 20 minutes of length,from Riomaggiore to Manarola on the edge of a cliff over looking gorgeous blue water. It was really pleasant. In Manarola we sampled a couple of different focacia breads. One with olives, and one plain. The walk between Manarola an Corniglia was about 45 minutes. In this town 3: Corniglia, we had to walk up 400 stairs as this town is high above the water on the cliffs.
The italian man kept turning over, eventually facing himself directly towards us. I didn’t fully trust him, and therefore unfortunately, had to keep my eye on him. He was definitely trying to show off for the ladies (or was it me), and I decided to call him the Italian Sausage.
We didn’t traverse the entire town of Vernazza, since this is the town we were sleeping in and had already explored it. However, we did stop at Il Pirata (the much famed Il Pirata-at leas the owners “the Cannoli Brothers” would tell you). Here we refreshed ourselves with some fresh granita: half strawberry, half lemon, with a touch of cream on top. Refreshing, delicious, and just what we needed before beginning our final 90-100 minute hike to town #5.
We ordered the antipasti mare which was a cold and a fried plate of seafood appetizers. There was octupus, swordfish, prawns, mussels, anchovies, fried anchovies, and many other strange looking items, most with bones or eyes still attached. All this to go along with, of course, some wine and a terriffic view.
We had a lovely time and as the rain started to go down, we walked up to the other side of town to Il Pirata and ordered 2 cannoli for take away. Took them to our rooms, ate them, and slept peacefully.
We walked a few blocks and then realized that we needed another water bus, and found our way to San Giogore church. Lisa enjoyed the beauty of this one more than the last. It is a gorgeous church with a large campinelle. It housed great works of art, and we could take pictures more freely, and explore more depths of the choirs and main basillica. We took the elevator up the campinelle for great views of Venice. As Dr. Carlander would have said, “beautiful.” Lisa must be getting at least slightly annoyed, as I keep reminicing about when I was here last, travelling with school, enjoy the friendship of Andrew. Some things that we are doing, such as visiting these 2 churches, were things that I did and enjoyed so much before.
We traversed over bridges, through alleys, across squares and then more bridges and found our way back to our room. I did some Snide prep work and we rested. Then, we went back to the itnernet cafe where I spent a frustrating 2 hours trying to publish my Snides. The attempt to upload a video to youtube kept failing, I would get typed and insert a bunch of photos and tags, and then the computer or server would freeze and when I would re-enter into the right page, I’d find that I lost 20-30 minutes of work. We kept buying 30 minute increments, and eventually I completed (all but the youtube video) of my posts up until Venice.
The gentleman took us to our room which was around the corner. We were given a keychain with 4 keys on it: the street-side door, the hallway door, the bedroom door and one to stick into the light socket to power the lights. Our room was funky and colorful with bright burnt orange curtains on 3 windows that overlooked the street and would become noisy at night. It was a cozy room and we didn’t see the landlord again. It had a bidet, and this time I used it, but mainly as a refreshment from long days of walking and getting lost.
We came across a street vendor, and I bought a pair of joke boxers for Cameron–the statue of David’s genital area.
Woke up around 6am this morning after about 4 hours of sleep. I felt smokey, and grimy and sweaty. It was a gross night of sleep. Packed up our things, and then had some breakfast. Hotel complimentary breakfast’s sure do beat the continental breakfast’s in the US. We checked out of the hotel, and caught a cab to the train station. Got in line at 8:20 am to catch the 9:30 train to Venice. However there was one leaving at 8:35 so we got that instead. Pulled out our slick tiny computer and have been typing in notepad these journals, for website postings later. Its a great way to spend the 2.5 hour train ride. Too bad there isn’t wireless on this train in order to streamline the process. But I am grateful for the chance to catch up on some journals. I am caught up now,for now, and we just passed the Vicenza train station. We have approximately 30 minutes left of this train ride, and then a walk to our hotel in Venice.
We found our seats and they were awesome. We were just north of the penalty box. The stadium was much different and better than I ha expected. On TV, you see these glass walls and a lot of fencing behind the goals, but this was not bad in person. We had wondered if they had stadium food, and what it would be. Would it be hot dogs and cokes? Pizzas and pastas? It ended up being a lot of panini’s. Lisa was disappointed in the women’s bathrooms, as it was just a hole in the ground. I didn’t make it to the men’s to find out. We sat in our seats for 2 hours before the game. The stadium still had a ton of people in it, and they were all ready chanting away and lighting their flares, and loud booms of gunshot like noise filled the stadium. It was quite a spectacle. The stadium was filled with banners, and people wearing red and black. There was one section of Juve fans, behind glass walls, and when they would chant, fans would stand up swearing and cursing and flipping them off. You’ve gotta love European football.
Eventually the players came out for warm ups, for announcements, and then the game began. I was saddened that Del Piero-one of my all time favorites-was not in the starting 11. As well as that Inzaghi was for Milan – not one I like. There were a few series of tricky passes in a row, but not a lot of opportunities. I was disappointed in Kaka’s play, but Beckham was delivering some nice balls. Milan easily could have been up if Inzahgi could finish. The score was 0-0 at halftime, and then all the fans around us started lighting up their cigs.