After a two hour train ride from Florence, we arrived in Venice. We walked from the train station and hopped on a vaporetto boat and rode it to the far end of the grand canal. We got off at the last main stop and noticed right away that there seemed to be way more people out and about than there was in Florence. It would be hard to imagine that there are busier times of the year.

As we walked through St. Mark’s Square, I noticed something a friend had warned me about. Some of the buildings are wrapped in giant ads. This is being done to help pay for building restoration, but it’s a little strange. Some of them aren’t so bad since they only cover a portion of a building with a repeating pattern. It’s not like you’re missing that much. Others cover an entire visible side of a building. The Bridge of Sighs is a good example; compare the shot on Wikipedia with this one obscured with ads.

After getting our bearings on the square, we decided to check our bags and see St. Mark’s Basilica. No photography allowed in there, so not much to show here. This seemed like one of the oldest buildings we’ve been in so far; I’m not sure if that is because it really is older or if it just has not been as well-kept and/or restored as the others. There was a lot of intricate marble work on the floor and lots of mosaics on the walls and ceilings. We did not pay to see any of the extra sites inside the Basilica.

We exited the church and checked out the rest of the square before grabbing our bags, buying a map, and heading for our hotel. Navigating in Venice is confusing as hell. We struggled to orient ourselves with the map, especially since there seem to be plenty of streets not on there at all. For the record: including a map on the back of a business card seems helpful. Leaving out 3 streets so the restaurant looks like it’s around the corner at the end of the block instead of 4 blocks away – not so helpful. Anyway, we found the church closest to our hotel (with the same name), but it still took us another 5 minutes to find the entrance. The stairs in this building leave you feeling like you’re walking into the wall. Here’s the view from one of the three windows in our room:

Later in the day, we started taking Rick Steves’ advice and stopped paying so much attention to individual street names and simply followed the signs in the general direction of major landmarks. I knew there were no cars in the city, but some of the streets here are barely wide enough for two people to pass one another without turning sideways. Add in people with strollers and shopping bags, stopping to look into shop windows and it’s totally insane. We walked a lot more this afternoon and evening; at least it seemed like a lot.

We crossed a good portion of Venice,  including a trek over the Rialto Bridge to see Frari Church. It’s filled with all kinds of artwork and everything has a permanent place inside the church. Again, no photos, so I can’t show some of the coolest statues.

After that, we spent longer than we really wanted trying to find a place to eat dinner. We’re both indecisive at times, and even though we were really hungry, we didn’t think any one thing sounded better than another. Many places open late, which made the choice more difficult. We finally settled on one, but of course we still had to wait for it to open. That place was an experience in itself, but it’s after midnight, so the story will have to wait.

After walking around it and even going inside to stand under it yesterday, we decided this morning was our best chance to actually climb Brunelleschi’s dome. We got there just as they were opening the doors and prepared for a long climb (463 steps). The first part was a series of small sets of stairs like you would climb around the inside edge of a square tower. After a larger landing, we switched to tight spiral stairs not more than two or two and a half feet wide. At one point our path took us out onto a ledge inside the cathedral where we could get a better look at the fresco painted on the ceiling. There are actually two domes, an interior one and an exterior one. Most of the way there were various sorts of windows, some larger ones and some very small, to provide additional light in the small space. The last part of our climb was actually through the space in between the two domes, slanting sideways as we went before moving to the inner dome itself. The last set of stairs were nearly vertical, and then we were finally at the top.

After being inside stone tunnels, the sun was extremely bright. We took a few moments to catch our breath and down some water before taking in the panoramic views of Florence. From up there, we could see every site we’d already visited and most of the rest of Florence and beyond.

I don’t think this is the worst climb we’ve ever attempted by a longshot; the Kansas state capital dome still wins that contest. However, there were some small spaces here that were pretty claustrophobic. Amber doesn’t like heights so portions were intense for her, especially coming back down. The worst part for me was early on the way down. The stairs are built right into the outside of the inner dome, which wouldn’t be so bad, but there wasn’t enough room for me to stand up straight. I had to either hunch really far forward or lean back awkwardly as I descended.

Back on solid ground at the bottom, we headed back to our hotel to check out. Before we left, Amber decided to check the booking confirmation for our next hotel in Venice and noticed that the days and dates did not match up. That was when I noticed that the year on the printout was 2011. Crap.

This was a reservation I’d already had issues with (they originally offered two nights but only listed dates for one), so I wanted to be doubly sure it was correct. I read back through the emails we had exchanged, and all of the details in the final email were good (dates were correct, number of nights correct, but no days mentioned). I decided we better pay the fee to make a phone call and be sure that they were expecting us today and not next year. Luckily, everything was fine and they even had a note about our arrival time I had sent a few days ago. For this particular reservation, I had to fill out a secure form online to send over credit card details to hold the reservation. I must have messed up the dates there, even though they had already marked down our correct reservation on their books. With a crisis averted, we headed for the train station to leave Florence behind.

Some random thoughts on food from Firenze:

• Gelato is good, but too much can get old (we need a few days break).
• Mint is my favorite gelato flavor so far. Strawberry will make a mess on your khaki pants.
• Not all diner sandwiches are created equal. Mine was OK with a combo of ham, cheese, and tomato, while Carson’s kinda sucked. His had salami (that was an accident).
• Italian restaurants open late, so when you get up early it’s hard to wait long enough for supper. So I have decided the best solution is to simply have 4 meals a day.

Our first full blown Italian meal consisted of a variety of cheese samples, a first dish of true fettuccine alfredo, and a main course of veal with rosemary potatoes and cacciatore chicken. We topped it off with a glass of Chianti each, and the whole meal was indisputably delicious. If you are ever in this area, you have to stop at Trattoria Za-Za.

For our next dinner, Carson was more brave than I was. He ordered stuffed rabbit, while I stuck with grilled chicken. However, he did get me to try prosciutto with Tuscan bruschetta (topped with liver patte). The best part of the meal was the full bottle of 13.5% Chianti; we felt pretty good when the meal was over. : ) All in all, the meal was OK, but it did not quite live up to Za-Za.

Today was a very full day!  We started the morning off with a 3.5hr guided walk through Florence. We started with quick history of Piazza della Repubblica and the Medici family.  From here we wound our way down back streets to the Orsanmichele Church where our guide explained the differences in Medieval, Renaissance, and Mannerist architectural eras.

This is one of the things we learned about on the tour. When rich families had a large dinner or a party, they would have leftovers. At the end of the night, they would push the leftovers out through this hole in the wall. Ever eaten at one of those kind of places?

As we made our way to the Ponte Vecchio , we learned about the Queen that didn’t like riding past the butchers on this bridge (they smelled bad and were not pretty to look at) so she had an enclosed path built that lead from one palace, through already existing homes, over the meat market (that she eventually had changed to a gold and jewels market), through more homes, and eventually ending at the Pitti Palace (her country home).

This is the Queen's walkway from one palace to another as it crosses the Ponte Vecchio over the Arno River.

This tour eventually made its way inside the Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) and ended with an education on how Brunelleschi designed and built the massive dome.

After the tour, Carson and I hurried over to the Uffizi Gallery to marvel at the works of Giotto, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Botticelli.

Despite our feet begging us to stop, we proceeded to the Museo Galilei e Instituto di Storia della Scienza (Galileo Science Museum). Even with the really cool science tools and developing technologies, the best part was Galileo’s thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger in jars!

After all of this walking, we eventually made it back to the hotel for a few minutes of resting before heading out for dinner and an evening stroll through town.

Arrivederci!

Amber thinks everything was early today. We got up around 7am and headed down to our first Italian breakfast. <it was served on a nice garden patio but that was probably the best part. We knew not to expect much, but it was still a little disappointing, especially since we don’t drink coffee.

After breakfast, we decided to go right to the train station and see when the next train left for Florence. It was a pretty nice ride and only took a little over an hour. Amber grabbed a quick nap, while I figured out where we should go once we got there. With this kind of transportation possibilities, we’re not sure why so many people are fighting against high-speed rail in Wisconsin.

We decided to check our bags at the station and go explore for a bit before checking into our hotel. It didn’t take us long to find the massive duomo (cathedral) with it’s bell tower and dome. We walked for an hour or so, then grabbed a so-so lunch in a small bistro.

The Duomo's dome is larger than it looks in this shot. Everything is so close to the duomo, it's hard to get a good shot from here.

Side Note: we didn’t want to pay for WiFi, so we’re on the lobby computer. It has an international keyboard so some of the keys are in weird places, making it very difficult to type this. It’s also really slow. We will have to add some pictures later (pictures have been added now). There’s an American Country song on the radio currently. Bizzare.

I never realized how much I depend on the left shift key and the enter key being extra wide until they weren't. Notice the shift characters across the top don't match, nor do any of those on the right side.

We checked into Hotel Centrale and found that this room has a much larger bathroom than the last one, but the shower is still pretty small. Otherwise, the room seems nice (we’ll see about the bed in an hour or so).

Next it was time to see David at Galleria dell’Accademia. The statue itself is pretty remarkable; the rest of the gallery was not. To be fair, there were a series of unfinished statues by Michelangelo that were gave a pretty clear picture of how he got from a block of marble to the final product. They didn’t allow any photography, so we don’t have any photos to share.

The Rick Steves book mentioned a museum where they had recreated some of Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions and we thought it sounded pretty cool. It was, but you could tell some of the exhibits were suffering from the encouragement to play with them. We were through it pretty quickly; I resisted the urge to buy a Vitruvian Homer T-shirt.

From the museum, we wandered back through the city and down to the Arno River. Rick Steves had an audio tour to tell us what we were seeing, which was pretty nice for being free. We grabbed some gelato and enjoyed our walk past squares, churches, and lots of statues. We got to the river and decided to checkout Ponte Vecchio which is a bridge covered in small shops. Almost all of them sold jewelry of some kind, and most seemed ridiculously expensive.

Yum!

After crossing the bridge and wandering a bit more, it was time to choose a restaurant for dinner. We picked one that was quite a ways from where we were, but not far from our hotel. It turned out to be a great choice – 3 courses, two glasses of wine – for €60. We started with an appetizer of mixed cheeses, shared some fettuccine alfredo (the real stuff), and finished it off with veal (Amber) and chicken (Carson).

Amber is about done with this post, and I’m getting sick of typing on this thing. Stay tuned for another update tomorrow.

After our marathon day of flights, we made it to Rome early – about 11:30am local time. Our flights were all uneventful, though it was a bit warm on the last leg (the long one). We both managed to get enough sleep to keep us going until a decent hour (almost 9pm currently). We took the Leonardo Express train from the airport to the main station in Rome and decided to try out the new Gorillapod. We had some trouble getting it to stay up straight and the next thing I knew, Amber had hung the camera upside down and was taking a picture.

She thinks she's funny.

After getting to Termini and walking to our hotel, we decided we had plenty of time left in the day to start exploring. We picked a direction and went wandering. The first major sight we came to was the Victor Emanuele II monument. This thing is massive. We climbed a bunch of steps, and then took an elevator to the top for some nice panoramic views of Rome. We stepped off the elevator and the camera died. Of course the batteries were in the other backpack – rookie mistake. Luckily, I had my phone so we were able to get a few nice shots anyway. I may include them later.

Amber managed a shot from across the square with almost no traffic.

After realizing how far we’d walked from the hotel, we decided we might as well keep going and find the Pantheon. We’d been struggling to find a good spot for it when we come back to Rome at the end of the trip, anyway. That place was pretty busy  for the middle of the day on a Monday, so I’d hate to see it during the high season.

The columns are actually shorter than originally intended.

After we finished at the Pantheon, we made our way back to the hotel with our feet starting to complain. We picked a place to eat dinner, only to walk over there and find that they didn’t open for another 30 minutes. At that point we were both pretty tired and hungry and didn’t really want to wait. In the end, we wound up at an Irish Pub for dinner. Our first real meal in Italy and it was from an Irish Pub. It sounds strange, but I don’t think there was much of an Irish touch on the menu. We ordered pizza and lasagna to share and both were quite tasty.

Now it’s time for a full night’s sleep before we head to Florence in the morning.

After putting in almost 50 hours this week, it felt great to walk out of work before 5:30 and know I wouldn’t have to think about any of it again for two and a half weeks. We’re getting everything in order for the trip; our first flight leaves Madison at noon on Sunday which gives us a little less than 40 hours. On the agenda for tomorrow: mowing, garden and flower bed cleanup, cleaning, laundry, packing, and other errands. And we’re trying to meet up with friends for dinner. Here we go…

Flashback: May 14, 2010

Well, we did it! We survived our first 2 night camping expedition! Although I wouldn’t count it as “roughing it,” we managed to enjoy 48 hours of no computers, no internet connections, and no television.

We all arrived at Devil’s Lake State Park Friday night with enough time to pitch our tents and eat a hot meal of brats and dogs before the sun went down and the s’mores and bats and black cat came out.  Yes, that’s right, we didn’t see any raccoons or snakes, but we did have a cat wander through our site and later munch on the chips that were left open on the table, all while we were cuddled around the fire.

That first night was a bit rough on everyone. From the bathroom being down the hill and through the wet grass, to laying on the hard earth in bags that didn’t allow you to roll over, to the sound of a cat vs. raccoon (or cat or small child) fight around 2am in the woods beside our camp, I would have to say that we all managed a few extremely interrupted hours of sleep.  However, it was still enough to get us going with the rising of the sun and the awakening of the 2 chatting crows in the trees above us (at 5:30!)

Saturday morning brought with it superb weather and the need for a good hike.  We started at the visitors center on the north side of the lake and hiked the west trail along the water front. About half way down the path, we stopped for our first geocache of the morning and found it with little difficulty. As we proceeded along the waterfront and made it to the main road, we made a hairpin turn and started hiking up the hill. Up the stone steps. Then more hill. And more steps. And more hill… Until we came to the first look-out point.  While here, we paused to absorb the breathtaking view and watch as five turkey vultures circled the trees and glass calm lake below.

After the required group shot at the top, we continued our way along the top of the hill, past the EMS repelling training, and on to our next geocache.  This one, however, was not as easy as the first.  After a while of hunting with 5 people, we decided that this one would have to wait until another day.  So, we made our way back to the trail and started down the hill.  And down the stone steps. And down the hill… Once back to camp, it was time for lunch, knitting, games, and a desperately needed nap!!!

3 hours later, I was up, refreshed, and ready to start on supper.  Now, I do have to mention that several people were not keen to my idea of doing steak fajitas for supper as it would be too much work.  AH HA! All that it took was a few extra minutes of prepping peppers and steak at home to create a meal that is better than burgers and brats (again).

After dinner, we pulled out the s’mores and popcorn to enjoy another relaxing, cozy evening.  We all retired early and slept hard, only to once again wake up early.  As we all started to migrate back to the fire, we enjoyed a quick breakfast and promptly started to break down camp. The weekend was over as quickly as it began…

Thank you all for a successful weekend!

Last summer I got tired of working around all of Carson’s t-shirts, so I finally did something about them… I cut them up and turned them into a quilt.  I started in October and had it ready for Christmas.  When all was cut apart and reassembled, it turned out to be a bit wider than a queen mattress and 8ish inches longer.

This got me into wanting to try another quilt.  So, when some friends of ours announced that they were pregnant, I jumped on the opportunity to make another, smaller quilt.  I think they both turned out pretty cool.