October 31, 2010: Halloween in the Chocolate City - A Good Idea

This morning we woke up early (luckily the clocks changed here on Saturday night so we got an extra hour of sleep) to catch our train to Perugia. We took the bus over to save us from schlepping our bags all through town, and it also gave us a chance to see some other parts of the city we didn't see while we were here. We got on the train, and I promptly fell asleep for another two hours (the extra hour wasn't enough, clearly) so I can't tell you much of what we saw except I was awake when we went by a lake so large it could have been the sea - Lake Trasimeno.

When we arrived in Perugia we had to take the "Mini-Metro" from the train station to the historical city center, which is almost 500 meters above sea level (I can't tell for sure but I think the train station is about 250 meters above sea level). The technical description of the Mini-Metro is "adorable". Its consists of one-car trains that carries about 12 people up the hill on what seems like a rollercoaster (without the big drop). The ride only takes about five minutes and the cars arrive at each stop every two minutes. Passengers get a pretty good view of the city along the ride, and then the train goes through some pretty cool tunnels. When the train gets to the end of the line there is a small turntable for the cars to turn around and go back the other way. It seems like it would have been a fun project to design and then see through construction. We'll get some pictures on the way back to the train tomorrow.

Once in the town center we walked over to our hotel. Which is amazing. We're staying in one of the oldest towers in Perugia - an old stone tower. They've done a great job maintaining the "old-stone tower" feel, but with modern amenities. The best thing is to recommend you look at the pictures, at the very least, of the living room/kitchen. Its a shame we'll only be here for one night.

After dropping off our bags we went out to see the town. Since today is Halloween (not really celebrated here) and tomorrow is All Saint's Day (a Federal holiday), there was a big on-street market being set up all throughout the town as part of the celebration (the funny thing is that some of the merchants are the same that we saw at the market in Genoa AND Firenze). Since we don't have a tour book about Perugia we went to the tourist info center to find out what's open and what is going on in town. We found out about a good deal - for a reasonable price we could visit five of twelve museums including two special exhibitions. The odd thing is: the tourist map of the city doesn't show where any of the museums are...so we had to go back to the tourist center to find out where the places are that we wanted to visit.

We started out at the Museum of the City Walls and Gates, stopping along the way to see an Etruscan Arch and the oldest church in Perugia. At the museum we climbed some ridiculously steep steps and found ourselves at the top of a tower, with great views of the city. The museum was all in Italian so we didn't get much from it, but we did see how the city grew over time and how the walls were expanded to surround the growing city.

From there we took a great windy road back towards town. The road that really captured the essence of fall (and Halloween), which we seemed to have forgotten how much we liked - the cool weather, gray skies, leaves changing color and falling off the trees - it was great. Some of the trees here are crazy (I've started calling them tennis-ball trees). They have these huge (bigger than tennis balls) green balls that grow on them and then drop to the ground. At close inspection they seem to look a little like brains. We also saw them in Volterra, but after seeing them twice I've decided they're worth mentioning. We even stopped along the way to help two people push their car into the street so they could get it started on the downhill (not the only time we saw this "Little Miss Sunshine" operation today).

Near the end of the road, we found the old aqueduct which is now a pedestrian path. On either side of the aqueduct there were some amazing stairways (from the pictures you might realize there are stairs all over this really hilly city). At the top of the stairs we were back in the town center.

Next, we went to visit the oldest well in Perugia. For looking into a hole in the ground, it was a pretty neat site to see. The well is 37 meters deep and still has natural springs that flow into it - they have to constantly pump the water out to maintain the water levels. There is so much water flowing in that its hard to believe. The walls are soaking wet, and it sounds like its raining when you walk in to see the well.

We also saw the San Lorenzo cathedral which is unexpectedly beautiful on the inside considering that they still haven't finished the facade (no pictures inside, sorry). Our last museum stop for the day was the Baldeschi Palace which turned out to be special exhibit on Climate Change (from the New York Natural History Museum, no less). We're pretty well aware of the climate change issues and alternative fuel concepts so we didn't learn much and were a little disappointed in how little of the palace we actually got to see.

We stopped at home to do a quick internet search to find out where to go for dinner - turns out the New York Time and Frommers recommended the restaurant that is literally out our door. The place was cozy and the food was good (the eggplant parmigian appitizer was AMAZING).

So far, we are two satisfied customers in Perugia. Its a great place to walk around, there are lots of people out and about, and the food is good. The only thing that is lacking is in the sweets department: the gelato options are negligible, and the chocolate, which this place is famous for, is even more expensive than if we got it in some other town. This requires an explanation.

Happy Halloween, if you've made it this far!

No gelato today...but we got some treats to get us through the day.

And a quick note, we are trying to figure out the internet situation in Rome, so might be a day or two before the next post.

To see pictures from today. click here.

October 30, 2010: Final Day in Florence

Today was our last full day here, and we started out with a morning run. Then we set out to do two final things on our list.

For our first stop, we walked over to the Pitti Palace (Mike says he "Pitti's the Fool"). We toured the palace the last time we were here, so instead today we went to check out the vast gardens behind the palace - both the Boboli and Bardini Gardens. It was a little chilly out, but we walked around looking at all fountains, statues, and paths lined with trees. I'm sure it is more fun to walk around when its warmer out, but we did get some good views of the city.

After the gardens we stopped for some gelato and then went to visit the Braccini Chapel. There is something about this chapel that makes it a serious destination. Reservations are required, and you can only visit the chapel accompanied by a guard. We do understand that the artists who painted the frescoes on the chapel walls were some of the few who started painting in perspective, influencing many Renaissance painters. Besides that, we're pretty sure we missed something - for the following reasons:

1. As a preview to the tour, we watched a 40-minute video about the chapel. First of all, the chapel is only 30'x20'. How are there 40-minutes worth of things to say about these frescoes? Not surprisingly, we both napped a little. Mike took a look around to see if anyone else was snoozing - far from it. Everyone watching the video was totally engaged.
2. Finally we were allowed in to see the chapel. After watching the video we weren't really sure we needed to see it in person - we were practically experts on the subject at that point- but of course we went in. What we didn't do was whip out our tour book for more information. For some reason, we were the only ones that didn't feel that the video provided enough detail. Every single other person had out their tour book, took a copy of the handout provided by the chapel, and some even had tour guides with them. They were all comparing the notes in their books with each fresco, taking pictures from every angle - it was hysterical.

At the end of the day, we will say that the frescoes were beautiful, well restored, and clearly the brightest spot of the church. But if anyone can explain why it seemed to blow everyone else's mind, we'd appreciate it.

Instead, the highlight of our day was dinner at our favorite restaurant. We had some more amazing food (see the pictures for evidence of Plate Cleaner Mike) and then had two funny interactions with the wait staff. First, one of the waitresses started talking to us in English (either we stand out at Americans, or she just heard us talking). Her English was so perfect - no Italian accent - that I had to ask her where she learned. Turns out, she is American herself, from San Francisco. We chatted with her for a while learning about how she ended up in Italy.

Secondly, we've been wondering if the waiters here recognize us - we've been here four times in the last two weeks and its the same wait staff working every night. Turns out, they do. Tonight one of the asked if we wanted dessert and if we even needed to see the menu - clearly we know what is on it. I'm not sure if its a good thing that we know the dessert menu by heart, or not...

Tomorrow morning we're off to Perugia!

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Mike - Cookies e Creme Caramel

Aviva - After Eight e whipped cream

To see pictures from today, click here.

October 29, 2010: Sore Bums

This morning we went out to the Mercato Ambrogio (similar but smaller than the Central Market) to get supplies for dinner. Tonight will be our last dinner at "home" in Florence so we got some fresh pasta, pesto sauce and some vegetables for our final meal. The whole experience was easier than I thought it would be - I was worried about guessing how much food to buy since we have no idea how to estimate how many grams of food we can eat. Instead of making up numbers I just asked them to give me enough food for two people for dinner. Now I know we eat 200 grams of pasta, and about 100 grams of pesto. We also got some persimmons, which we've been missing, and some tasty wild strawberries to snack on during our walk home.

Afterwards, we walked over towards the train station where there is a bike rental shop stopping for falafel on the way. (Side note: why do they put french fries in falafel here? Did I miss some shift in what belongs in a falafel? The last time I asked for hummus with my falafel they threw in some extra fries. I am baffled. Mike, on the other hand, is pretty psyched about this development.) Today was another amazingly beautiful day, and we wanted to rent some bikes for the afternoon. Once we confirmed that the single-gear bike was not a fixed-gear bike (and important distinction, but an Italian conversation fail), we hopped on our "city bikes" and went to see how far the park along the river goes.

I have to say that I don't think Florence gets enough credit for being a "biking city". While actual biking through the streets is crazy (really narrow streets, really bumpy cobblestone pavement), once you get out of the city center, its great. There is a paved, curb-separated bike path that surrounds the city. From there, the path through the park extends for more than nine kilometers (as far as we went). We felt like we were in the Tuscan countryside - almost no one else was on the trail, the grass was a brilliant green, and we hugged the Arno the whole time. Half the time it was a dirt trail, which isn't the greatest, but it was nice to be back on a bike for more than 45 minutes. After (actually, during) our ride I realized how much I miss my bike, but mostly my bike seat. Three and a half hours on those bikes was not the most comfortable experience. Our tuchus' are S-O-R-E.

After dropping off the bikes we walked through town to get some gelato followed up by a piece of foccacia. Then we climbed up to Piazzale Michelangelo to get some sunset/evening views of the city from above. Conclusion: its going to be hard to leave Florence. Back at home we cooked up the ingredients from this morning, had a great dinner, and called it a night. We are beat.

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Mike - Cookies e Banane

Aviva - After Eight e whipped cream

To see some pictures from today, click here.

October 27, 2010: Winter Already? No Thank You.

This morning it was cold. And it stayed cold all day. I whipped out the gloves and double layers, and Mike had on a hat and mittens. We were reminded that the East Coast transition will be difficult, and Mike pondered the idea of sweatpants under his work clothes.

Brilliant ideas like this are the result of waking up really early to catch the 7 AM bus to Volterra. For some reason, what should be a relatively easy day trip is made unnecessarily complicated (by whom, I'm not sure). There are four buses each day between Florence and Volterra (we got the complete printed schedule in Florence before we left). Since it's a two-hour bus ride (each way) that requires a transfer in the small city of Colle Val D'Elsa, we chose to catch the earliest bus. The bus from Florence took us to a random bus stop where the driver said we could transfer. Then we were shepherded onto a small shuttle bus that took us to Colle Val D'Elsa, where we found out the bus we were planning to transfer to doesn't run on on weekdays. We made the best of the hour we had to wait by getting some hot chocolate at a nearby cafe.

We could easily be to blame, being the silly tourists that we are. But we quickly removed blame from ourselves when we tried to do the trip in reverse later in the day and things not only were more confusing, but they were confusing to everyone on the bus (locals included). After we arrived in Colle Val D'Elsa from Volterra, we got on a bus to go the strange transfer location. Then everyone got off the bus (before it left), and got on a smaller bus - us and another 25 high school students. Then all the students got off the bus (again, before it even left), and got on another bus. Finally we were taken to the mystery transfer spot, and everything went smoothly after that.

Besides that, we had a great day in Volterra. Volterra is a cool Tuscan town that was a pretty big deal about 2,000 years ago, when the Etruscans ran the show. To this day there are still Etruscan archways that make up part of the city wall - residents think the Romans got the idea for a keystone arch from the arches in this town. Florence ended up absorbing the town into its empire, but today it manages to elude most of the tourists (maybe because its impossible to get here?).

We walked around the town, visiting the main piazza, a basilica, a few museums, and the duomo - where we're not sure if the columns are leaning by design or due to the ground settling below. The duomo was built in the Pisan style - so we think the lean might be part of the design (I'm talking to you Leaning Tower of Pisa). We also saw a Roman amphiteather, some artisans making alabaster statues, and an Italian maximum security prision (the criminals get to stay in one of the nicest buildings in town!). Before catching the bus we got some great views of the Tuscan landscape - in one direction we could see the sea, in the other we saw snow-capped mountains.

Back in Florence we went to a recommended restaurant for dinner and got some serious servings of some seriously hearty food, perfect for a cold night.

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno (for those who are stupid tough enough to brave the cold):

Mike - Amarena e Stracciatella

To view pictures of our day, click here.

October 26, 2010: One Month Left!

We have exactly one month left in Italy before returning to the real world. Its a little hard to believe. We've already done so much and we still haven't been to Rome yet! For our last month I'm going to make a concerted effort to get more of us in the pictures, not just buildings. For Mike, it means sucking it up and having gelato twice a day. We'll see how things go!

After going for a run (we're doing pretty well I have to say) we crossed a few more sites off our list. The first stop was the Palazzo Davanzati, a five-story palace that is one of the best examples of a 14th century medieval home of a noble family in Florence. We kept our expectations low because our tourbook said we might only be able to see two floors of the palace, but we lucked out and saw four floors, plus the basement! It was actually a pretty great place to visit even though there wasn't a lot of furniture or decoration in the rooms. The family had a long chute that was the height of the house that gave them access to well water throughout the house. Many of the rooms were covered in amazing frescoes on the walls - it's amazing how things that you'd expect to be too busy to ever work well in a room actually do work. We also got to visit the kitchen, which was on the top floor (to reduce damage in case of fires, which happened often).

Next, we went to see the Museum of Precious Stones. This museum documented the history of inlaid marble artwork. There were many samples of the artwork over time, samples of hundreds of precious stones, and examples of the instruments used to do this trade. The only thing missing was a video showing someone actually creating a piece - luckily there were few unfinished pieces that we could examine to see how these creations came to life.

We had some lunch at another great cafeteria-style spot, grabbed some really good gelato at the recommended Gelateria Neri, and then went to visit the Borgello (Museo Nazionale). This museum was full of great statues - featuring Michelangelo and Donatello mostly. David seems to have been quite the inspiration for Renaissance sculptors, and everyone had a different interpretation of how he looked. It was fun to compare the results. Besides the statues, there were rooms full of other objects from Florence during the Renaissance. Mike was most impressed by the Goliath-sized ring fit for kings, and I was struck by the Renaissance version of the "spork" (or travel silverware kit) - a fork that came with an attachable spoon piece, that slips onto the prongs of the fork.

At this point we were museumed-out. We walked around to check out some areas of Florence that we haven't seen yet. From the train station we traveled west where we found a huge public park and a new bridge (only for light-rail and pedestrians) that took us over to our side of the Arno. We walked down a great tree-lined street back to the Pitti Palace. After we stopped at the market for some veggies for dinner, we went home to cook. Tomorrow we're going to go to Volterra and need to get an early start so we're getting to bed early tonight.

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Mike - Pistacchio e Cookies & Cream and Arachidi e Stracciatella

Aviva - Liquirizia e Cioccolato all'Arancia

To see some pictures from today, click here.

October 25, 2010: What is the Church to Resident Ratio in this City?

Last night and this morning there were some serious thunderstorms with thunder so loud the windows were rattling. Luckily it was just a light rain by the time we left the house, and pretty much stayed like that throughout the day.

Our first stop today was the Church of Santa Croce, the centerpiece of the piazza we've found ourselves in time and time again. Inside the church is somewhat simple, but there are some heavy hitters buried here: Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Rossini (and 276 others). Dante also has a memorial here but the tomb is empty because he was banished from Florence before he died. Attached to the church is a famous Leather School, where they make all sorts of leather products (jackets, purses, wallets, leather-bound books, etc). It is set up so you can watch the guys working on the leather right in front of you, which we enjoyed. We saw someone put some gold-leaf initials on a wallet someone was purchasing and someone put the leather binding on a book, full of gold-leaf embellishments. However, the most exciting part was watching someone buy one of the purses. For 800 Euros. We just don't know people who do that. The leather felt absolutely amazing, but 800 Euros?! I want to know what else they bought on this trip.

From there, we walked just a few blocks away to Michelangelo's house. The house was actually built after he died and doesn't actually contain a lot of pieces made by Michelangelo (sounds like a tourist trap, eh?) but does have a couple of great pieces that we saw. There was one of his earliest sculptures (Battle of the Centaurs) which for anyone, let alone a teenager, is really amazing. Our guidebook says he kept this as part of his personal collection throughout his life. I hope he didn't have to move to often - a slab of marble has got to be hard to schlep around with you. There were some other sketches he made and another early sculpture he made, but not much beyond that.

We stopped for lunch and then continued on our tour. The next stop was another church - the Church of Santa Maria Novella. Standing at the back end of the church, you can see that it was designed to look larger than it is - the spacing between and the height of the columns changes as you go down the nave towards the altar. Its a pretty cool design effect until, of course, you're standing at the front of the church - when it looks smaller than it is. The other interesting things here were really elaborate frescoes in each of the small chapels surrounding the altar. Michelangelo even had his hand in some of the art here - when he was just 13 he painted some of the figures in one of the frescoes (and made his teacher jealous).

At this point we needed a sugar boost, so we went to find some gelato. It would be a while until any of the other sites were open, so we walked to the apartment to wait it out, and then went out again. To visit another - wait for it - church. We arrived at the Church of Annunziata. Through the main doors we found a great portico with etched glass ceiling panels. When we entered the sanctuary we found ourselves in an odd spot - at the back of the church, but all the pews were facing us - for some reason the back of this church is used as the front. A mass was just starting so we took a quick look and decided to come back when it was more appropriate to walk around. This church is very different than the others we've seen this week, so decided it was worth a second look even though our guidebook doesn't even mention it.

From there, we went to find a gelateria and restaurant recommended by a friend from my Italian class (thanks Jeff!). Since we already had gelato, we would make a point to stop by another day to get a scoop. The restaurant seemed closed on Mondays, so we also made a point to come by another night. During our search we found an area that looked oddly like it used to be a Roman Amphitheater, now just a residential area with an arena-like street grid. We remembered reading about this theater during our first day in Florence, and confirmed the street layout with Google maps. That was a cool discovery!

We ended up having dinner at a small restaurant where the food was good and the price looked right - but the portions were way too small. We left still feeling hungry, which is never a good thing. So, we got a follow-up dinner falafel to fill us up. Then we found a cafe near the duomo where we got some hot chocolate and read our books before heading back to our apartment.

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Mike - Sesame e Santa Maria Trinita (marzapan and nutella)

Aviva - Sesame (you can see it quickly made it up the ranks)

To see some pictures from today, click here.

October 24, 2010: Living Like a Local

The usual author is back for tonight, but don't worry - you will see the guest writer again thanks to the outcry of public support.

We took a vacation from our vacation today (for the most part), and had a mostly non-tourist day. We slept in a little and then went for a run. The rest of our morning involved laundry. The apartment has a washing machine for us to use which makes our lives somewhat easier. [Possibly interesting note: the washers here have all the temperatures in Celsius, which requires us to do some math before starting a load. While this in itself is not interesting, you might be interested to know that temperature options range from 30 degrees to 90 degrees Celsius. We always choose the coolest option - but I want to know who washes their clothes at 90 degrees Celsius - around 200 degrees Farenheit!]

As is often the case, the washer in our apartment does not have a dryer to go along with it. Since our apartment is too cool for anything to dry, we searched for a self-service laundromat while we were running this morning. Mike found a small franchise that claimed to have a location near our house, so we went to check it out before lugging all our wet clothes with us. We ended up finding something closer, but before going home we stopped at another one of the booths for the conference going on here. We found a booth that was giving away food samples, but we had to fill out a short questionnaire first: they claimed that based on our answers we would get a sample suited to our taste preferences. The test was more about whether I could translate the questions for Mike. We worked through most of the questions, got our sampler plates, and enjoyed a tiny sandwich and some thin strips of mystery meat. We still don't know what we ate, but it was pretty good.

After our snack, Mike carried the suspicious-looking sack of wet clothes (Mike claimed it must have weighed 50 pounds) and we finished up the laundry with an industrial-sized dryer.

With clean clothes back at home, we set off to find some lunch in the Oltrano area. I just finished reading a murder mystery that takes place in Florence (Mike is reading it now), and its exciting to know of and visit the places that the author talks about. The piazza where we had lunch today is where one of the murders in the book takes place (this is not a great example, I know).

After lunch we did our only touristy thing of the day. We went to visit the Dante Museum (at the site of his house). It wasn't the best museum we've been to - either the curator took 150 details that somehow relate to Dante and put them in random order throughout the museum, or we don't know enough about Dante to connect all the dots. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see some maps of Florence, Italy, and Europe as they looked in Dante's time, learn a little about the guilds that were so powerful in his time, and to watch a video of someone making a ring with Dante's family shield on it.

For the rest of the afternoon we just walked around the city, doing what seems like the most popular pastime: window shopping (this is a close second to actual shopping - its hard to believe how many people shop here - and buy expensive things! There were so many people in Tiffany's this afternoon it didn't look like any more people could fit in the store). We did find a store that sold violet flavored candy (but not gelato), so we got some to snack on. And we've been looking for the past week for some face soap. This may seem like a menial task, but we cannot find it anywhere! Supermarkets for some reason sell toothpaste, shampoo, etc. - but not face soap. And pharmacies seem too only sell fancy over-the-counter products. The search continues...

Speaking of searches, we are also looking for a missing gorilla:

We made a quick stop at the supermarket for dinner supplies and called it a day. We'll be back on the tourist routine tomorrow.

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Mike - Cioccolato Amarena e Mandorla

Aviva - Sesame (really good!)

To see our few pictures from today, click here.

October 23, 2010: Feel Like We Are Being Followed

Quick note: our regular blogger is taking a break tonight so today's post is brought to you by me, guest writer Mike. So this may not be as eloquent (heck, eloquent might be the most elequent word I use) post compared to the previous 53 days, but hopefully it gets the job done. I will also try to avoid using the work "blog" since I know how that makes some of our readers (Elise) feel. On to the post!!

Waking up today the plan was to take a day trip to the city of Volterra. There is no direct route there and our online searches on how to go from Florence to Volterra proved difficult so we decided to just show up at the bus station and wing it. Normally this tactic works for us, except when it is a Saturday. Bus schedules aren't as regular and it turns out the first bus we could catch would be at 1:00 PM, which, followed by a two hour ride, would result in our day being kaput. We decided to save Volterra for another day. With our plans crushed (or at least postponed), we opted to check out the nearby town of Fiesole (which has daily bus service arriving every 20 minutes) and is only 30 minutes away.

Founded by the Etruscans 400 years before the Romans found Florence, the small town of Fiesole is located on a hill overlooking Arno Valley. Once we arrived we took care of the main town attraction, the view. It was a cloudy day so the view was not as grand as it could have been, but it was still impressive to see Florence and the surrounding Tuscan hills laid our before us (though the view of Florence from the Piazzale Michelangelo is still my personal favorite). After taking in the view we went down the list of sights in Fiesole, first being the Church of San Francesco.

The church itself is pretty small with some colorful paintings, but the highlight of the church was the Ethnographic Missionary Museum located in the basement. The museum presented ancient coins, Chinese clothes, weapons, Buddhas, and an Egyptian mummy (definitely unexpected in the basement of a church). Question of the day was from Aviva, "how does a church even acquire a mummy?" Don't know. There was also an exposed wall that are the ruins of a 3rd century Etruscan wall.

Next, we went back to the main square to check out the town's main duomo. Nothing stood out too much but, like most churches, was nice inside. Leaving the duomo we crossed the street and went to the Roman Theater and Archaeological Park. The park had three main ruin sites (the theater, some temples, and the roman baths) with some other ruins scattered around. The theater itself was well intact (and still in use) while the other ruins were definitely no longer in use. I think the most impressive part was that without even knowing there were Roman baths at the site, we were able to identify them immediately. Guess we learned something from our earlier travels in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Nora.

We then visited the Civic Museum located in the park which displayed some artifacts from Estruscan and Roman archeological sites. While the museum was enjoyable, we were constantly being followed by museum staff - not there to answer questions, just to follow us. This isn't the first time we have been followed around a museum, so it has become quite amusing to us. I guess it did deter us from stealing the 3rd century BC pot shard that we have always coveted.

Leaving the archeological park, we decided it was time for a lunch break to refuel. After a delicious focaccia pizza, gelato, and walk around town, we were ready to hit up the final museum, the Bandini. The Bandini is pretty small with some colorful paintings on wood panels. For the most part it is enjoyable except, once again, we were followed by musuem staff, but this time it was ridiculous. The woman was ALWAYS two steps behind us. Aviva and I couldnt even look at each other knowing we would just start laughing. So we just kept walking as this lady was 2 feet behind us. At one point we tried to devise a plan to split up to see what she would do but by the time it was to enact the plan we finished the museum.

After completing the sights in Fiesole, we headed back down to Florence to check out the Medici-Riccardi Palace, Medici Chapel, and a photography museum. It is safe to say the Medicis knew how to live and die in style. The palace itself, home to Lorenzo the Magnificent (who was, believe it or not, magnificent) with guests of the likes of teenager Michelangelo, Mr. Da Vinci, and Botticelli is full of frescoed walls and ceilings, tapestries, and huge rooms. The highlight was the Chapel of Magi which had the three walls covered in a huge fresco, each wall dominated by a different color (one red, one white, one green...hey! those are the same colors of the Italian flag!!!) and the Luca Giordano Room (similar to the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles) which had an incredible frescoed ceiling of the Medici hanging out with the greek Gods (oh, there is Mr. Magnificent sharing a laugh with Zeus).

Leaving the palace we headed to Medici's private chapel (yup, private chapel) that was divided into three sections: the crypt (not much to say about it, just a cool looking room), the Chapel of Princes, and the New Sacristy. The Chapel of Princes is an enormous domed room covered in beautiful marble from floor to ceiling (including the floor and ceiling). The chapel houses the tombs (also huge and completely made of marble) of six Medici rulers with the coat of arms (a shield with 6 balls representing medicine pills - get it? Medici, medicine, pills) on each wall.

The New Sacristy contains the tombs of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Lorenzo Medici II (grandson of Mr. Magnificent), and Giuliano Medici. Everything in the room was designed by Michelangelo, which you would think would have been incredible, but left me with mixed emotions about it. The tombs were pretty amazing but the rest of the room I thought was rather bland. Aviva thinks it has something to do with his state of mind (he was older, depressed at the time, and was working on tombs for the family that housed him during his formative years) so I can see why it would be pretty plain.

Our last stop was at the Museo Nazionale Alinari Fotografia which is a great photograph museum. Included were photos from different areas of Italy during different eras (including all the way back to the 1850's), a history of cameras (with a room full of cameras showing development over time) and photographs displaying the history of the art of photography (gelatin prints up to pictures from space), including some early photos showing the human body in motion were all on display.

After another full day we headed home to relax before going back to dinner at our favorite restaurant, I Tarocchi. Tonight's menu included a cheese and pear plate, pear and cheese filled ravioli (AMAZING), magherita pizza, a greek salad, and some vino. Full of food and wine we stumbled the block back to our apartment to relax for the night.

Hopefully this post was bearable. (if you wouldn't mind another posting from the guest writer leave a comment so Aviva believes it). If not, no worries, tomorrow Aviva will be back to writing the post and I will go back to loading pictures.

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Mike - Pistacchio e Cookies

Aviva - Mango e Limone

To view pictures of our day, click here.

October 22, 2010: A Festival in Florence

We started out today at the Galleria dell'Accademia. With our reservations in hand we hoped to pass the long lines and feel like VIPs, but for some reason there was no line today.

This museum is famous for Michelangelo's David, although it holds a lot more. We both agreed that the David statue was very impressive - especially knowing that Michelangelo was only 26 when he sculpted it, that he was using a piece of marble that several other sculptors passed up because it was too tall, too narrow, and too flawed, and that he never made models before starting his sculptures, he just started chipping away. Along the hallway on the way to see David, we saw several other Michelangelo statues, called the "Prisoners". These statues were almost more interesting because they were unfinished and looked like they were trying to escape out of the marble.

In the Accademia we also saw a collection of old instruments and were able to play around with a model piano and harpsichord to see how they work differently. There is an art academy attached to the museum and there was a whole room full of the "finals" projects of the students over several years. When there are 15 very similar statues all lined up next to one another, it became easy to tell what the assignments were: sculpt a woman holding a bird, sculpt a woman holding up a strap of her dress, sculpt the bust of a military man wearing his uniform, etc.

The last room we saw was full of paintings featuring Mary and Jesus. We've got nothing against these two or the people who painted them, but we're sort of "Mary and Jesus"-ed out for now. It seems that that duo is all people painted for hundreds of years (understandably), but it can get difficult to appreciate the paintings when they all generally look the same.

From the Accademia, we went to the tourist info center. We have both been seeing signs about some large conference going on in Florence this weekend and wanted to find out more. We picked up a brochure full of information about the "Brainstorming" (or Le Idee Che Ci Cambiano La Vita) conference. We cleared our calendar and went to visit the booths set up all over the city featuring art, design ideas, food, etc., all intended to as Mike said, to "get people's creative juices flowing".

Some of the highlights we saw include:

• student thesis exhibits from the design school in Florence (luckily I didn't see any of my ideas)
• a large room filled with tasty treats - cheese, chocolate, wine, etc. (and some not so tasty looking treats, like blocks of lard)
• a tent with a hands-on activity where people were creating a mini city made of recycled materials and blocks
• an exhibit featuring architectural design contest winners (we had some questions about this one - do architects often win work through competitions with cash prizes?)
• the Marino Marini museum (with free entry) that had some good photographs, some so-so statues, and a lot of cool steps

We effectively walked all over the city today (it was another great day) so we were beat by the time we got back to the apartment to have dinner. There are some nighttime activities going on as part of the conference (its really more like an expo), but we plan to check out some of the more interesting ones that are going on tomorrow and Sunday night.

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Mike - Cioccolato Bianco con Nutella e Novita (cherries with chocolate swirls)

Aviva - Menthe e Vaniglia

To view some pictures from today, click here.

October 21, 2010: Lollygagging in Lucca

Today we took a day trip to Lucca. We arrived around 10:30 AM and what had been a cold morning turned into a perfect day. Given the beautiful weather, our tour of Lucca started from above the city with a walk on the city walls. The city is surrounded by a completely intact wall that has existed in some form for 2,000 years. The current wall is from around 1600. Now the top of the wall is basically a 2.5 mile-long park with a wide path for walking/biking, benches, and is mostly tree-lined.

After our walking tour we went down into the city and walked around, checking out the town. We stopped for lunch at a small kebab place and then went to get some gelato. The price was great - but the serving size was unacceptable. Two tiny little scoops barely the diameter of the cone! We almost didn't consider this worthy of recording...it's been added to the list, but with an asterisk.

We made our way across the city and made our first official tourist stop to admire the piazza and church of San Michele, with the dangerous looking stairway behind the facade. Then we saw the former Roman Amphitheater, now a large amphitheater-shaped piazza with apartments, shops, and restaurants. We made a quick stop at the tourist info center to get a better map, and then continued our tour. First we stopped for another gelato break, hoping the first place we tried was just a fluke. It was not. Seems that gelaterias in Lucca are big on small portions. Its a pretty big biking town - I think we saw more people biking than walking - so maybe they are a "healthier" city, and try to promote good health with smaller portions?

After we finished our cones, we climbed the Guinigi Tower - Lucca used to have a tower at every corner, most part of wealthy family homes (like in Florence). The Guinigi family was one of the wealthiest families, in charge of the silk industry, and their tower is probably the most recognizable in the city, with a tree garden on top. We got some good views of the city and then made our way down to street-level. A few blocks away we found our second tower to climb, the Clock Tower. This tower was not in very good shape - we weren't sure the stairs would survive our ascent and descent. We got to the top for some more good views.

Our next stop was the church of San Giovanni. At a first glance, there isn't much to see here. But it turns out that they did some excavations under the church and found ruins from the 12th century AD all the way back to the Romans in the first century BC. We were able to climb down a flight of stairs and walk around underneath the church to see some of the ruins. Apparently there are the ruins of an entire Roman city underneath Lucca. Pretty neat.

Just down the block, we visited another church - actually the Cathedral of San Martino. They were doing a lot of restoration of the interior of the cathedral so there wasn't too much to see. But the facade of the cathedral was interesting - it was the first asymmetrical facade we've seen on this trip. There was a tower built on the site before the cathedral, so they had cheat a little to squeeze it in the space. They also engraved a maze on the wall of the facade.

After our tour of the sites, we rented some bicycles and did a couple of laps on the ramparts (the city wall). (For those helmet advocates like myself: I was told no helmet was necessary for this bike ride, and they only had helmets available for babies. What kind of crazy person asks for a helmet in Lucca?) When we were done biking we relaxed in the park for a while and then decided we couldn't wait two hours for dinner. Instead we got some snacks in Lucca to satisfy us until we got back to Florence.

We found this great pizza place and tried a local treat - Cecina. Its basically a large pancake (the size of a large pizza) made of a batter of chick peas (ceci), water, and oil. The batter is baked in the pizza oven, and the cut in slices like pizza. Its really thin (1/8th of an inch) and we got a fresh batch that was really good. So many people came in and ordered the same thing - the whole pie was gone in five minutes. Then we ordered some of the pizza that looked so good and ate in on our way to the train station.

The only other thing to mention about Lucca is that they were setting up tents all over the city today in preparation for a big festival and a marathon this weekend. While it would be exciting to visit when there is a lot going on, I'm glad we went today to see the city in it's natural state (although Mike sort of wants to come back to Lucca at the end of the month when they are having a comic book convention).

Back in Florence we still felt stuffed from our "snack" in Lucca and instead of going out for dinner, we just called it a day!

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Mike - Pistacchio e Stracciatella, Amarena e Cioccolato

Aviva - Menthe e Cioccolato

To see pictures of our day, click here.

October 20, 2010: Seeing a New Side of Florence. Plus, What a Cool Date!

In Italy (and other places in the world), today's date is 20-10-2010. That was fun to realize this morning.

Today we attempted to start a tradition which I'm not sure we'll keep too well, although I'd like to try. We got up and went for a run along the Arno. Its a pretty good place for running except for crazy roundabouts that we had to negotiate. And it involved running, which isn't my preferred form of exercise. But its a good way to see more of the city and makes up for the lack of hiking we're doing these days.

It was raining out when we were ready to start our day as tourists so we changed our original plans and decided to visit some museums. We walked by the Accademia Gallery but the line was around the block. Instead, we went to the nearby Museum of San Marco where we got reservations for the Accademia for another day. The San Marco museum was pretty interesting: it has the "world's best" collection of Fra Angelica paintings (as well as paintings by other artists). Of more interest to us, the museum is located in the San Marco monastery and we were able to visit all the monastery's living quarters (no longer in use). Each of the rooms had a biblical scene fresco painted by Fra Angelica which was the source of "entertainment" for the monks living there when they went to their rooms at night, giving them something to think and pray about. No "Jersey Shore" back then...

Afterwards we had lunch at another one of the cafeteria-style places we've been enjoying lately. Its pricier than a panini or slice of pizza, but who can turn down a lunch platter of fresh pesto lasagne, grilled artichokes and eggplant, and fried meatballs?

We went to visit another nearby museum, but it had already closed for the day. Instead, we went to investigate the building with the green copper roof that we saw from Piazzale Michelangelo yesterday. What we "discovered" was the Florence Synagogue (quotations because apparently I've been here before). We took a tour of the beautiful interior (it reminded me a lot of the synagogue I saw in Budapest, with walls entirely covered in intricate hand-painted designs), and then visited the small museum upstairs.

At this point, the sun had come out and the skies were blue. We saved other museums for another day and did some (a lot of) walking. We walked down to the Piazza Sante Croce, got some gelato nearby and found a small public park to sit in while we were in the gelato-zone. Then we made our way around the perimeter of the city, walking along some of the major arterials. On the way we saw the Four Seasons Hotel, which obviously took the space of an old palazzo - maybe more than one. The place is huge (more that an entire city block, it seems), and seems to have its own botanical garden!

Walking along the major arterials might seem like it would be unpleasant, but it was actually nice to be away from all the tourists, and to walk along a bustling street sort of reminiscent of the main street in Geneva or the Champs D'Elysees (minus the fancy shops). Its also a tree-line street with curb-separated red-pavement bike lanes. We made our way through the major Piazza della Liberta where we saw the Arco Di Trionfo and the Porta San Gallo. Further down the road we made it to the Fortezza da Basso and the Giardino della Fortezza. We walked around the garden for a while (couldn't go inside the fort), and then meandered through the city to get home.

We (I) cooked dinner at home, we (Mike) did the dishes, and then we took a walk down to the Ponte Vecchio and to the Duomo at night. We got some good nighttime pictures in and the called it a day. Tomorrow we'll be taking a day trip to Lucca.

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Mike - Creme Caramel e Ferrero Rocher

Aviva - Menthe e Cioccolato Fondente

To see some pictures from today, click here.

October 19, 2010: Florence by Foot

Today we had our first full day in Florence. It was a beautiful day - really warm for fall (as long as the sun was out), so we took advantage of the weather and took the two walking tours outlined in our guide book to get reaquainted with the city. Florence is the first city we've been to on this entire trip that we have both been to before, which is nice because it means we don't have to do all of the touristy things. Instead we can just enjoy the city and pretend we live here.

We started out on the side of town where we are staying, called the Oltrarno (the "other" side of the Arno River). We walked all through this side of town past several towers, churches, the Pitti Palace, a public market, and ended up at a main gate to the city which was part of the old medieval wall. This walking tour was a nice treat - we saw parts of the city that we didn't see last time we were here.

We walked over to the other side of the bridge to take the next segment of our tour. The first stop was lunch at another cafeteria style place where we got a lot of really tasty food for a pretty reasonable cost. After lunch we went to the tourist information center to get some information for the time we're going to be here - local language and cooking courses, museum shows, where to buy soccer game tickets, etc. The Florence tourism bureau really has their act together - we got every one of our questions answered without hesitation and they have printed lists of all the local schools and museum shows by month. I really appreciate when others are organized.

Before starting our next tour, we went to check out a big outdoor public market. Word on the street is that the price of leather goods at this market is the best in town, and Mike tried on a few leather jackets. We're going to sleep on it, but you'll likely see him sporting a snazzy new jacket when we get back to New York.

The second walking tour started at the heart of the city at the duomo, which we both agree is pretty magnificent. We visited the associated baptistry (which neither of us remember seeing the inside of before), and then went in to the duomo for a quick tour ('cause we're here). We walked down the main street to see some of the famous Renaissance buildings including some that we haven't noticed before - having the time to really look at buildings and pay attention to things rather than feel rushed to get a lot done during a short vacation makes a big difference. For example, in the main piazza by the Palazzo Vecchio we noticed an information panel that talked about the ancient Roman city that used to exist in Florence. Just outside the famous piazza there was a roman amphitheater!

Afterwards, we walked by the Uffizi Gallery where we had some great views of the Ponte Vecchio, and then walked back towards our apartment. We climbed up the hill to Piazzale Michelangelo for good views of the city (Mike's favorite spot in all of Italy) during the sunset and to check out the Church of Miniato al Monte. Both times we've been to this church together there has been some sort of live musical performance - last time the organist was playing, and today the benedictines were having a choral performance. Music playing in a church really changes the whole atmosphere for the better.

We hiked down the hill to the apartment, did a little planning for the next few days, and then went to our favorite restaurant. We kept our expectations low, but this was unnecessary. The restaurant was as cozy and the food was as delicious as we remembered. After dinner we took a short walk around the neighborhood but the colder weather sent us home for some hot tea and blogging.

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Mike - Cioccolato e Arachidi (peanut butter!)

Aviva - Liquirizia

To view pictures of our walk around Florence, click here.

October 18, 2010: Siena to Firenze

Today we had our last day to explore Siena before catching the bus to Florence. For breakfast we stopped at a pastry shop and tried a typical Sienses cookie - ricciarelli. These cookies are fantastic - almond flavored cookies with powdered sugar on top. I thought they'd be crunchy, but they are really soft inside, almost like they're not cooked. We got more for our bus ride to Florence.

We walked through town to find the house of Saint Catherine, the patron saint of Europe. On the way to her house, we found a famous fountain - the Fontebranda - once a main source of water for the town for drinking, animals, cleaning, and all industrial needs. Nearby, we found Saint Catherine's house - she was the youngest of 25 children who started having heavenly visions at a young age and then in her twenties, somehow convinced the Pope to move the papacy from Avingon, France to Rome. Her house is clearly not as it was in the 1300's, and now has a church, chapel, and more.

Afterwards we went to check out an art gallery that had a show of photographs of the Palio (the famous Sienese horse race), but were only able to peak through the windows. Then we walked entirely across town again (luckily the town isn't too big, because we didn't really plan our the walking routes too well) to see the Basilica of St. Clemente, which wasn't too interesting. There were some great views of the city and the basilica was right next to a "clubhouse" of one of the 17 neighborhoods.

At this point, we'd basically seen the major sites of Siena and more, so we went to look for a place for some lunch. We found a cafeteria-style place which served some homemade food. You basically pick out what you want, the guy behind the counter serves you, and then you pay based on what you choose (not by weight, which makes the pricing a little suspicious). We had some really tasty food that was not your usual pasta/pizza. Barley with pesto, a chickpea salad, a fennel gratin, some bacon-wrapped roasted chicken and potatoes, and olives. Yum. For dessert we bought another typical Sienese item called panforte. Its sort of like a dense fruitcake, but mostly sugar, honey, fruit and nuts. And covered in powdered sugar. We preferred the ricciarelli, but this wasn't a bad treat.

We went to pick up our bags from the hotel and made the long walk to the bus station. Here we caught our bus to Florence, just over an hour long. The bus stayed mostly on the freeway so there wasn't much too see except the leaves starting to change color on some of the trees (there might have been more to see but I fell asleep).

Once in Florence, we walked from one end of the city to the other with all of our stuff to get to our apartment. We're staying in a great apartment on the side of the Arno opposite the Duomo, for those who know Florence. The owner of the apartment met us here to check us in, and she was really great and chatty which is a nice change from some of the people we've been dealing with at other places we've stayed. We settled in and then went to the grocery store to stock up on some things since we'll be here for two weeks.

There are so many great things about Florence, but one of the reasons we came back here is because of a restaurant where we had a fantastic meal two years ago. Neither of us remembered the name or exact location of the restaurant, but somehow we picked an apartment that is literally down the block from it! We found it as we were making our way to the supermarket. Of course today is Monday, when the restaurant is closed, but now we know where it is, and we plan to eat here several times over the next two weeks.

Tonight we stayed in, cooked some dinner and relaxed. There is something about this apartment that it already feels like home.

We're definitely going to enjoy our time here!

To see pictures of our day, click here.