Today was supposed to start with an easy walk across Venice to the train station. We left the hotel a little later than planned and soon realized it was a lot farther to walk than we had anticipated. We needed to catch a specific train to make it to Cinque Terre at the right time to meet the person who would show us to our room around 4pm. Amber had repacked our bags and added a few of the items we’d purchased, so everything seemed heavier. I carried the full laptop backpack and I was ready to kick it into the grand canal by the time we made it to the station. We had about 15 minutes before our train left, but we still needed tickets.

We finally found an automatic ticket machine and punched in our intended destination, Vernazza. We found the train we were expecting and pushed the button to select it. No Seats Available. Not good. What were our other options? This leg of our trip was going to be at least two trains long, so maybe we could break it down into pieces? No. Nothing was available going to anywhere near where we needed to be until over an hour later. Not only that, the best solution we could find would put us into Vernazza two and a half hours later than originally planned. We went ahead and bought the tickets without knowing if anyone would be available to take us to our room when we got there.

I had more problems at the pay phone. There were no instructions on how to use it, so I had to guess. I was eventually able to place a call to the main number for Francamaria Rooms. The display told me the call was connected and deducted €0.20 from my credit. I waited. And waited. And waited some more. The phone deducted another €0.10, and still nothing.  No ringing, no voice, no sound whatsoever. I made the mistake of hanging up the receiver, and the phone ate my remaining €0.70 of credit. I tried the cell number I had recorded in our itinerary; this time I got a distinct busy signal and a message “Line is Busy.” After trying multiple times  with no luck and going through about €3, it was time to get on the train. The call would have to wait.

By this time, Amber was visibly upset and I was frustrated that more of our day would now be spent on trains.  Our new route would take us from Venice to Brescia on a Eurostar City train (a step below the Eurostar AV trains we’d been on already, but still pretty nice).  From Brescia, we would change to a regional train (bottom of the line) and head to Parma. There we’d change to another regional train to La Spezia. Finally, we’d catch one more regional train and head for Vernazza.

On the first train to Brescia, there were several people with cell phones, and I was tempted to ask to borrow one. Instead, I waited patiently, hoping to find a pay phone in the station at Brescia. Unfortunately, we ended up with very little time there, and we ran from track to track to catch the next train about two minutes before it left. Not wanting to risk another mad dash through a station, I decided it was time to take my phone out of airplane mode and make the call from the train. After about 2 minutes, it finally picked up a signal from Vodaphone IT and I made a quick call (actually 3) before I finally got someone on the phone and told her we would be arriving at 6:30 instead of 4:00. She said it was ok, but if we were any later there would be a problem (like we have any control over the trains).

At that point, we finally felt like we could relax a bit. We still weren’t thrilled with some of the other characters around us. We quickly realized that regional trains stop at almost every station they pass, sometimes for as little as a minute or so. That first regional train wasn’t air conditioned, nor was the interior in very good shape. Eventually it was time to change again. Starting in Parma, the trains were better.

We made it to Vernazza right at 6:30, but I couldn’t find a pay phone anywhere. Once again, I switched my phone out of airplane mode and made a quick call. Who knows how much that will cost. A guy came down to meet us, and after several flights of steps, we finally made it to our room. I was pleased to see that it looked exactly like the website depicted it (room 6B).

Our full day in Venice started with a tour of the Doge’s Palace. The tour was called the “Secret Itineraries” tour, which is an odd name but basically means, “we’re going to take you to parts of the palace most people don’t get to see.” Our guide was Italian, but spoke passable English. “Photos are forbidden inside. Once we pass the golden staircase, no more. *smile* Sorry.” She was pretty adamant that no one touch, sit, or lean on anything which became quite a challenge as our group of 20 or so squeezed into a tiny half office belonging to the Venetian secret-keeper.

This is a shot in the courtyard of the palace, one of the few places where photos were allowed.

Apparently the Doge (ruler of Venice) chose a single commoner to protect all of the empire’s secret documents. This sounds a lot sexier than it really was; most of the secret documents pertained to contracts or war. This chancellor spent all day in a tiny little office, occasionally venturing over to a room that stored all of the documents in cabinets lining the walls. This room was filled with secretaries and other workers, none of whom actually ever saw the secret documents around them. Each document had just a single copy. What did they workers do? They spent their time making two additional copies of all of the non-secret documents.

Next we found ourselves in the Venetian torture room. Here, they would tie peoples hands behind their backs and repeatedly lift them to the ceiling until they confessed their crimes. There were always three magistrates present, along with other prisoners waiting in the wings so they could hear the agony of the one being tortured.

From there we were led through a tiny doorway (maybe 4’ tall) into a prison cell. This cell would typically hold just one or two prisoners, so it was quite large by most standards, probably 15 x 15 x 6+. It was just tall enough for me to stand up inside. Here we learned the “true story” of a prisoner who was held there.

This guy was quite a ladies man. Venetian law allowed anyone to accuse anyone of a crime by putting a letter in a drop box. As you may imagine, there were many angry husbands accusing him of adultery. He was eventually arrested, but there was no evidence of adultery. Instead, the charge was possession of magic books. He was sentenced to 5 years. He actually got off easy because his offenses had been punishable by death until 6 months before he was arrested.

The prisoner was mostly well liked, so he was allowed to have a chair (he was taller than the cell) and to walk alone in an attic on occasion. It was in that attic that he found a piece of iron and started hatching an escape plan. He slowly created a hole in the wooden floor under his bed. Just as he was about to break through to the office below, the prison-keeper informed him that he was to be moved to a new cell. When the prison-keeper moved his bed and found the hole, he went to the prisoner with his discovery. He was promptly blackmailed; the prisoner explained he would tell everyone that the prison-keeper had given him the tool for his escape. The prisoner was able to stow the piece of iron in his chair to get it into his new cell.

This new cell was different; the floor and most of the walls were made of stone. However, he was near another prisoner, a priest, in an adjacent cell. Since they had only a handful of books each, they were allowed to exchange and started passing messages. They agreed that they would work on an escape together. The piece of iron was passed to the priest inside a bible and he started making a hole in the ceiling of his cell. After gaining access to an attic space, a second hole was made into the other prisoner’s cell. Once both men were free, they simply walked out the front door of the palace.

Who was this prisoner? Giacomo Casanova. The story was apparently written by him, so outside of the escape, who knows how much of it is true.

After the Casanova story, the rest of the tour wasn’t that exciting. We saw a few other offices of judges and magistrates, and then she left us to wander through the rest of the palace rooms on our own. We eventually made it over to another prison and walked across the bridge of sighs. Even from the inside, we could tell it was mostly covered in blue on the outside.

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.

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…

I’ve got the after hours pager this week. While it is usually rare for my team to get paged, I’ve been awoken to the sound of the pager on back to back mornings. Yesterday’s call was frustrating because I didn’t have access to their system. All I could do was ask questions and try to reassure them that we would figure it out.

This morning’s calls (yes, two of them), were a lot smoother. I was able to get in, figure out the problem, and get out in both cases with minimal follow-up required. Of course then I had to spend another 15 minutes each documenting what had taken place. All three calls came in between 6 and 7am, so I guess I should be grateful it wasn’t 3 or 4am.