This is my last posting from Italy. We leave early Tuesday morning for the US and will arrive back there late in the evening. Marco is letting me use his computer to upload this, so I won’t take the time to add more photos here. Look for major additions to the blog starting on Wednesday, wit constant improvements continuing through the next couple of weeks. There are so many more stories, and individual, illustrative photos and videos to add.
Leaving Florence
On our last night in Florence, we struck out a little early for dinner because I wanted to take some “peek-a-boo” shots of Il Duomo from the alley ways the extend away from the piazza. We circumnavigated the general area, taking photographs from as many angles as we could. At times our perspective was blocked or marred by scaffolding either on the dome itself, or on buildings between us and the cathedral. Progress doesn’t wait for tourists here and the old is constantly running up against the new.
For dinner, we circled back into our own area and had dinner at a restaurant called Dante e Beatrice (or maybe Beatrice e Dante) in a small alley between Il Duomo and the Piazza dell Repubblica. At first when we walked up to it, we didn’t think we’d be able to sit outside, then we saw a table in the corner, but every time another group came to the restaurant, the waiters brought out another table from inside, the restaurant grew larger. We wouldn’t have had any problems eating there anyway.
I had a gorgonzola pasta and mom had spaghetti. We had a Chianti that may have been our best yet. It was a Ruffino, which is something I’ll drink at home, but the label wasn’t the same, When I complimented the waiter, and told him about the Chianti Classico I drink at home, he said that that was a big name label here and a well-respected name.
Next morning, Sunday, we woke to ominous clouds, but no rain. Met some nice folks at breakfast before we left Florence and made it to the train station with time to spare. The streets weren’t buys yet at that time of morning, about 10 AM, so we had a leisurely walk.
Venice 1
Beyond the mountains, the sky cleared and we had only blue sky through Ferrara and the Piemonte region toward Venice. We sat across from two Americans who slept the whole way, so we didn’t have any interesting chat on the trip. We arrived about 1:30 PM and caught the Vaporetto to the St. Toma stop without a problem. I guarded the luggage on the boat while Mom meandered from port to starboard taking photos of every house and down every canal. Every angle here is a classic photograph, and the nature of Venice is so unusual that it’s almost impossible not to want to take pictures constantly.
Marco met us at Il Campanile and check us in. The deposit of our bags was probably the fastest check-in and head-back-out-again maneuver we’ve pulled. We started for the Piazza San Marco, but within a short distance the sky quickly clouded over and the skies opened up and we were caught first in a light rain, then in a torrential downpour that forced us into a doorway in order to escape marble-sized hail. We made it to San Marco with thousands of other wet people and were so lucky to not have to wait in line for the Doge’s Palace. We toured that quickly, because Mom isn’t big on that kind of thing but wanted to see it, and finished just in time for another, heavier and more dangerous storm with larger hail.
By the time we emerged from the Palace and Piazza San Marco, it was after 6 PM. We meandered home by another route--the one I remembered that took us past Sermoneta where we each bought leather gloves--that twisted and turned so much across the canal and through the streets that we were convinced we were lost. We stopped for a light dessert and glass of wine (that seemed the least we could do if we were going to ask the waiter directions!) and, as it turned out, we were right around the corner from the B&B. So hard to tell here!
We were both in bed by 9:30 PM last night. As the trip winds down, so do we. As I may have said in an earlier post, I front loaded the trip with the most sight-seeing because I knew adrenalin and excitement would keep us going, and planned more relaxing cities for later in the trip. It doesn’t take much to tire us out now, and with all the walking in Venice, we poop out quite easily.
Today, we are planning to head up into the more bohemian Jewish Ghetto area and hopefully do a little more shopping. We haven’t had to buy an extra bag to schlep things home, so we’ll see what kind of damage we can do today!
Monday, July 14, 2008
Saturday, July 12, 2008
One big update
Hi all, the Internet cafe is jammed tonight and I'm on the slowest computer. Therefore, I'm going to just send this in one big posting and forego the pictures until I get to Venice and try again there. See the individual headings for times and locations! Leaving Florence tomorrow, so except for dinner tonight, this brings everyone up to date!
Because this is all one entry, you can read straight through, top to bottom. It was written in chronological order.
Bella Firenze
Feeling MUCH better after kicking ass and taking names, I led Mom, from memory, directly to our B&B on the Via Roma, and it even took my breath away. Large, wooden double doors open into a simple marble entry way that belies fully and finely restored apartments of Il Salotto di Firenze. Alessandro is only 31 years old, and although he doesn’t own the apartment, he started the B&B which occupies it several years ago and has been wildly successful ever since. For obvious reasons.
The main door opens onto a long hallway off of which three guest rooms over look the Via Roma with a small reception office at one end. Just before the office on the left is the entrance to the breakfast/common room which functions as combined travel library, dining room and kitchenette. On the far side of the dining room are three additional rooms in a hallway identical to ours. Our balcony over looks one of the fanciest shopping streets in Florence and the well-heeled and not-so-well-heeled traffic parades up and down all day and night. Mom sits outside, even in her nightgown, smoking at all hours.
We walked around the old city, stopping to admire Il Duomo and the Battistero, Palazzo Vecchio, and Santa Croce before stopping for a light lunch of various bruschetti then buying tickets at the tobacco shop and catching the number 13 bus up to the Piazzale Michelangelo where I finally got to see the city from the far side of the river. This was a perspective I had only admired in pictures, so I was delighted to see it from above.
Back in the heaven that is iSdF, I sat on the balcony while Mom slept, then showered and dressed up for the first time since Pompeii and took her to Ristorante Accademia, the little out of the way place Heidi and I had enjoyed so much when we were here with Daddy and Mary. The food and menu was the same, but the quiet, dark, local atmosphere of the place has been replaced by a large touristy crowd (probably because of its proximity to the Galleria dell’Accademia and its statue of David). This may be because we were here in January 2006, but somewhere, I’m convinced, the restaurant must have been listed in a guidebook which says it caters to groups and families. There were three large tables of American families, two of which had young children, but the food was exactly as I remembered it and we both had spectacular meals and wine.
Key fiasco
Because I had misunderstood the key situation (or forgotten, or just had my head up my butt), I had only taken one set of keys with us to the restaurant--the inside set that allows us to enter the B&B and our room, not the set that allows us to enter the building from the street. As a result, we had to figure out a way to call Alessandro to let us into the building--he lives off site. His emergency cell phone number is printed on the key card we have for the upstairs rooms, but the phone booth around the corner only takes phone cards and all of the tobacco shops that sell phone cards were closed. The time was close to 10:30 PM, Mom’s feet hurt, and we were both exhausted (but looked good!).
Thankfully, the second person we stopped on the street (it’s a busy street until very late at night) spoke English AND had a cell phone, so she called Alessandro for us. He was still out having dinner with his father, but said he would come let us in. We walked around the Piazza della Repubblica, took photos of the carousel, and window shopped for a while, then found a bench within eyeshot of the B&B and waited. About 30 minutes after we called, other iSdF guests, a Belgian couple, came by and we went upstairs with them, using our own keys to get into our room. Now how to let Alessandro know that we were in so he didn’t have to end his evening early?
I tried and tried and tried to figure out how to use the phone in our room, but I couldn’t figure out which combination of numbers I could leave off (the country code) and which numbers I needed to dial (the city code) before the actual number itself. I hadn’t watch the girl dial the phone before, so I had no way of knowing! We waited on the balcony and, apologizing profusely, hollered down to Alessandro when he came around the corner with his motorcycle helmet and messenger bag. He was extremely gracious and just glad we had made it inside okay.
Lucca and Pisa
We slept late on Friday morning and were the last ones in the dining room at 9 AM. This gave us an opportunity to apologize again to Alessandro and pick his brain about how we might best get to Lucca for the day. He printed out the train schedule from the Internet and we were on our way. He is so accommodating; his mother even made a sweet pound cake for the breakfast bar.
When we changed trains in Pisa for Lucca, we decided that if we had time to return to Pisa later in the day, we would. We disembarked the train in Lucca at about 1:30 PM and walked from the train station into the old city. Immediately, we fell in love with the place.
From our guide book: “Despite incessant wars with Pisa and Florence during the Middle Ages, the town has always been prosperous, a happy situation reflected by its splendid buildings. In 1805, Napolean gave it to his sister as a principality, and in 1847, it was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.”
We met a woman on the train who spoke no English, but we communicated as best we could with each other. She asked us where in Italy we had been, and when we said Pompeii, she indicated that lives near there and was on her way to see her daughter in Viareggio. We said words and made hand gestures like Coliseum, New York, Empire State Building, next year, last year, children, travel, flying, etc., but most of the time Mom and I had no idea what she was saying, or what she thought we were saying. It was great! When we took her picture with Headi, she gave us her mailing address to send her a copy of the picture. I think she thought we were nuts.
In Lucca, we briefly watched workmen construct an outdoor stage for the Lucca Music Festival which runs throughout the summer. Last week was Sheryl Crow and next week is Ennio Morricone. Too bad we couldn’t stay for Saturday’s show, but we didn’t know this week’s musician (an Italian) anyway.
We saw the Volto Santo, or Holy Face, in the Cathedral of St. Martin, which is a wooden effigy of Christ on the cross famed for the legend of its journey to Lucca, then tried in vain for about 30 minutes to find the Guinigi Tower, a 14th century palace tower topped with fully grown trees. Of course, we had passed its subtly-marked entrance twice and were only able to orient ourselves to it when we caught a glimpse of it at the end of an alley. Mom sat at the bottom while I climbed the steep and slightly scary stairs. The view of the ancient, walled city was an island of terra cotta roof tops surrounded by an ocean of green rolling hills. I met a lovely older couple fro London on top who offered to take my picture with Headi. They got a HUGE kick out of her.
We had lunch inside the walls of the Roman Amphitheater, which is now the town “square,” but really a circle because of the shape of the theater. I had a grilled vegetable pannini and Mom had her first pizza of the trip. Spoiling ourselves, we each ended our meal with a gelato sundae. She had vanilla gelato with Nutella and whipped cream; I had Amaretto gelato with whipped cream and pirouette cookies. I love the pirouette cookie.
On the way back to the train station, we walked the old walls which overlooked the lush statue gardens of Palazzo Pfanner, the 17th-century villa own by the Austrian who introduced beer to Italy.
Although it was already late in the day, about 5:15 PM, we decided to get off the train in Pisa and go to the tower. It would have been silly to have been so close but not to have made the effort. Instead of walking, which would have killed us, we took an eight euro taxi through the highly congested streets of this bustling little city (not like Lucca at all) and saved ourselves the 2-2.5 mile walk.
Like every other tourist there, we struggled for too long trying to line each other up with the tower in order to make it look like we were somehow holding it up. Easiest, of course, was Headi. She’s just so accommodating, and always takes a wonderful picture too!
Now she has money coming out the wazoo
Florence, Il Salotto di Firenze, Saturday, July 12, 2008, 6:45 PM
The wind is gone. No more train problems. Mom and I are both eating much healthier in Tuscany: more fresh fruit and vegetables, fewer unhealthy carbs, still lots of wine though. Just an update for those who want to know. And I know there are a few of you who do. ;)
Anyhoo…
At one point early last evening, she stretched out in her nightgown on the bed where I had left some euro coins. Unknown to her, they stuck to her thighs, so when she stood up, money slowly started falling from underneath her nightgown to the floor. She had no idea where they were coming from and looked utterly baffled but kind of delighted at the same time. I cracked up, as I am wont to do, and was barely able to chide, “The farting has stopped, but now you have money coming out the wazoo!” We’ve been breaking into side-splitting laughter about that one all day.
San Gimignano
We rose early today, our last full day in Florence, in order to do a few things we had been meaning to do, but hadn’t yet done. We strolled down to the Arno after breakfast and, before all of the vendors had opened, took pictures of the rowing skulls on the river and of the Ponte Vecchio bridge itself. We returned via the Uffizi courtyard taking pictures of the Piazza della Signoria and the Neptune Fountain. On our way back through the old city to the bus station, we walked, drooling, through the Mercato, to the leather district where vendors hawked their decadent smelling belts, coats and purses. We scouted out the items we wanted buy on our way back, noting the location of each stall and the time he or she closed.
After some effort, I found the SITA bus station (Mom waited at the train station and I fetched her when I found it) and we boarded the first of two busses for San Gimignano. We had a brief pause in our journey and changed at Poggibonsi for the remaining 11 km up to the walled city.
S.G. and its 14 towers sit high on a hill surrounded by it ancient walls and might be best known in the States as the setting of the women’s prison in Tea with Mussolini. We had lunch first, at Bel Songgiorno, a restaurant that on three walls is still the old stone, but has all glass on the fourth wall, offering picturesque views of the rolling hills surrounding S.G.
Because we only had 2 hours before our return bus (we wanted to be sure we actually had time to buy things once we got back to Florence), Mom and I split up. She went to the grim Museum of Torture which displays all sorts of horrible little (and large) devices of pain and death that have been used from medieval times all the way, they say, up to today, in Iraq.
I climbed the Torre Grossa, the Big Tower, which has been part of the town hall since the 13th century. Dante argued the case for S.G.’s alliance with Tuscany in its lower chambers in 1300. What amazed me about the frescoes on the courtroom walls was that almost every scene had a dos in it. Sometimes several dogs and several breeds. The Italians love their dogs. An unrelated tidbit of information is that a medieval ordinance in S.G. forbid any other structures in the city from being built higher than this tower. Today, it is the only one open to the public.
I’ll give you 10 euro for that
We made it back to Florence with time to spare and shopped our way back to the center of the city. We each bought little gift items for friends and family and a purse for ourselves. The vendor from whom I bought my bag loved my Obama pin, so I offered it to him if he knocked even more money off the price. It saved me three euro, or about five dollars.
Because this is all one entry, you can read straight through, top to bottom. It was written in chronological order.
Bella Firenze
Feeling MUCH better after kicking ass and taking names, I led Mom, from memory, directly to our B&B on the Via Roma, and it even took my breath away. Large, wooden double doors open into a simple marble entry way that belies fully and finely restored apartments of Il Salotto di Firenze. Alessandro is only 31 years old, and although he doesn’t own the apartment, he started the B&B which occupies it several years ago and has been wildly successful ever since. For obvious reasons.
The main door opens onto a long hallway off of which three guest rooms over look the Via Roma with a small reception office at one end. Just before the office on the left is the entrance to the breakfast/common room which functions as combined travel library, dining room and kitchenette. On the far side of the dining room are three additional rooms in a hallway identical to ours. Our balcony over looks one of the fanciest shopping streets in Florence and the well-heeled and not-so-well-heeled traffic parades up and down all day and night. Mom sits outside, even in her nightgown, smoking at all hours.
We walked around the old city, stopping to admire Il Duomo and the Battistero, Palazzo Vecchio, and Santa Croce before stopping for a light lunch of various bruschetti then buying tickets at the tobacco shop and catching the number 13 bus up to the Piazzale Michelangelo where I finally got to see the city from the far side of the river. This was a perspective I had only admired in pictures, so I was delighted to see it from above.
Back in the heaven that is iSdF, I sat on the balcony while Mom slept, then showered and dressed up for the first time since Pompeii and took her to Ristorante Accademia, the little out of the way place Heidi and I had enjoyed so much when we were here with Daddy and Mary. The food and menu was the same, but the quiet, dark, local atmosphere of the place has been replaced by a large touristy crowd (probably because of its proximity to the Galleria dell’Accademia and its statue of David). This may be because we were here in January 2006, but somewhere, I’m convinced, the restaurant must have been listed in a guidebook which says it caters to groups and families. There were three large tables of American families, two of which had young children, but the food was exactly as I remembered it and we both had spectacular meals and wine.
Key fiasco
Because I had misunderstood the key situation (or forgotten, or just had my head up my butt), I had only taken one set of keys with us to the restaurant--the inside set that allows us to enter the B&B and our room, not the set that allows us to enter the building from the street. As a result, we had to figure out a way to call Alessandro to let us into the building--he lives off site. His emergency cell phone number is printed on the key card we have for the upstairs rooms, but the phone booth around the corner only takes phone cards and all of the tobacco shops that sell phone cards were closed. The time was close to 10:30 PM, Mom’s feet hurt, and we were both exhausted (but looked good!).
Thankfully, the second person we stopped on the street (it’s a busy street until very late at night) spoke English AND had a cell phone, so she called Alessandro for us. He was still out having dinner with his father, but said he would come let us in. We walked around the Piazza della Repubblica, took photos of the carousel, and window shopped for a while, then found a bench within eyeshot of the B&B and waited. About 30 minutes after we called, other iSdF guests, a Belgian couple, came by and we went upstairs with them, using our own keys to get into our room. Now how to let Alessandro know that we were in so he didn’t have to end his evening early?
I tried and tried and tried to figure out how to use the phone in our room, but I couldn’t figure out which combination of numbers I could leave off (the country code) and which numbers I needed to dial (the city code) before the actual number itself. I hadn’t watch the girl dial the phone before, so I had no way of knowing! We waited on the balcony and, apologizing profusely, hollered down to Alessandro when he came around the corner with his motorcycle helmet and messenger bag. He was extremely gracious and just glad we had made it inside okay.
Lucca and Pisa
We slept late on Friday morning and were the last ones in the dining room at 9 AM. This gave us an opportunity to apologize again to Alessandro and pick his brain about how we might best get to Lucca for the day. He printed out the train schedule from the Internet and we were on our way. He is so accommodating; his mother even made a sweet pound cake for the breakfast bar.
When we changed trains in Pisa for Lucca, we decided that if we had time to return to Pisa later in the day, we would. We disembarked the train in Lucca at about 1:30 PM and walked from the train station into the old city. Immediately, we fell in love with the place.
From our guide book: “Despite incessant wars with Pisa and Florence during the Middle Ages, the town has always been prosperous, a happy situation reflected by its splendid buildings. In 1805, Napolean gave it to his sister as a principality, and in 1847, it was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.”
We met a woman on the train who spoke no English, but we communicated as best we could with each other. She asked us where in Italy we had been, and when we said Pompeii, she indicated that lives near there and was on her way to see her daughter in Viareggio. We said words and made hand gestures like Coliseum, New York, Empire State Building, next year, last year, children, travel, flying, etc., but most of the time Mom and I had no idea what she was saying, or what she thought we were saying. It was great! When we took her picture with Headi, she gave us her mailing address to send her a copy of the picture. I think she thought we were nuts.
In Lucca, we briefly watched workmen construct an outdoor stage for the Lucca Music Festival which runs throughout the summer. Last week was Sheryl Crow and next week is Ennio Morricone. Too bad we couldn’t stay for Saturday’s show, but we didn’t know this week’s musician (an Italian) anyway.
We saw the Volto Santo, or Holy Face, in the Cathedral of St. Martin, which is a wooden effigy of Christ on the cross famed for the legend of its journey to Lucca, then tried in vain for about 30 minutes to find the Guinigi Tower, a 14th century palace tower topped with fully grown trees. Of course, we had passed its subtly-marked entrance twice and were only able to orient ourselves to it when we caught a glimpse of it at the end of an alley. Mom sat at the bottom while I climbed the steep and slightly scary stairs. The view of the ancient, walled city was an island of terra cotta roof tops surrounded by an ocean of green rolling hills. I met a lovely older couple fro London on top who offered to take my picture with Headi. They got a HUGE kick out of her.
We had lunch inside the walls of the Roman Amphitheater, which is now the town “square,” but really a circle because of the shape of the theater. I had a grilled vegetable pannini and Mom had her first pizza of the trip. Spoiling ourselves, we each ended our meal with a gelato sundae. She had vanilla gelato with Nutella and whipped cream; I had Amaretto gelato with whipped cream and pirouette cookies. I love the pirouette cookie.
On the way back to the train station, we walked the old walls which overlooked the lush statue gardens of Palazzo Pfanner, the 17th-century villa own by the Austrian who introduced beer to Italy.
Although it was already late in the day, about 5:15 PM, we decided to get off the train in Pisa and go to the tower. It would have been silly to have been so close but not to have made the effort. Instead of walking, which would have killed us, we took an eight euro taxi through the highly congested streets of this bustling little city (not like Lucca at all) and saved ourselves the 2-2.5 mile walk.
Like every other tourist there, we struggled for too long trying to line each other up with the tower in order to make it look like we were somehow holding it up. Easiest, of course, was Headi. She’s just so accommodating, and always takes a wonderful picture too!
Now she has money coming out the wazoo
Florence, Il Salotto di Firenze, Saturday, July 12, 2008, 6:45 PM
The wind is gone. No more train problems. Mom and I are both eating much healthier in Tuscany: more fresh fruit and vegetables, fewer unhealthy carbs, still lots of wine though. Just an update for those who want to know. And I know there are a few of you who do. ;)
Anyhoo…
At one point early last evening, she stretched out in her nightgown on the bed where I had left some euro coins. Unknown to her, they stuck to her thighs, so when she stood up, money slowly started falling from underneath her nightgown to the floor. She had no idea where they were coming from and looked utterly baffled but kind of delighted at the same time. I cracked up, as I am wont to do, and was barely able to chide, “The farting has stopped, but now you have money coming out the wazoo!” We’ve been breaking into side-splitting laughter about that one all day.
San Gimignano
We rose early today, our last full day in Florence, in order to do a few things we had been meaning to do, but hadn’t yet done. We strolled down to the Arno after breakfast and, before all of the vendors had opened, took pictures of the rowing skulls on the river and of the Ponte Vecchio bridge itself. We returned via the Uffizi courtyard taking pictures of the Piazza della Signoria and the Neptune Fountain. On our way back through the old city to the bus station, we walked, drooling, through the Mercato, to the leather district where vendors hawked their decadent smelling belts, coats and purses. We scouted out the items we wanted buy on our way back, noting the location of each stall and the time he or she closed.
After some effort, I found the SITA bus station (Mom waited at the train station and I fetched her when I found it) and we boarded the first of two busses for San Gimignano. We had a brief pause in our journey and changed at Poggibonsi for the remaining 11 km up to the walled city.
S.G. and its 14 towers sit high on a hill surrounded by it ancient walls and might be best known in the States as the setting of the women’s prison in Tea with Mussolini. We had lunch first, at Bel Songgiorno, a restaurant that on three walls is still the old stone, but has all glass on the fourth wall, offering picturesque views of the rolling hills surrounding S.G.
Because we only had 2 hours before our return bus (we wanted to be sure we actually had time to buy things once we got back to Florence), Mom and I split up. She went to the grim Museum of Torture which displays all sorts of horrible little (and large) devices of pain and death that have been used from medieval times all the way, they say, up to today, in Iraq.
I climbed the Torre Grossa, the Big Tower, which has been part of the town hall since the 13th century. Dante argued the case for S.G.’s alliance with Tuscany in its lower chambers in 1300. What amazed me about the frescoes on the courtroom walls was that almost every scene had a dos in it. Sometimes several dogs and several breeds. The Italians love their dogs. An unrelated tidbit of information is that a medieval ordinance in S.G. forbid any other structures in the city from being built higher than this tower. Today, it is the only one open to the public.
I’ll give you 10 euro for that
We made it back to Florence with time to spare and shopped our way back to the center of the city. We each bought little gift items for friends and family and a purse for ourselves. The vendor from whom I bought my bag loved my Obama pin, so I offered it to him if he knocked even more money off the price. It saved me three euro, or about five dollars.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Stop Thief!
Given that I have already explained my experience of the corruption in Italian government, I think I can now say I clearly understand the Italian working person’s response to it: getting as much money as the can from people they can sucker into giving it to them. Loredana, for example, who processed the one night we didn‘t stay there on my credit card so I couldn‘t refuse to pay her in cash. If I spend too much time recounting the experience we had on the train from Rome to Florence here, I’ll just get upset again (at myself as well as the conductor), despite the fact that I was vindicated in the end by a patient and generous customer service representative in the Firenze SMN station.
When the conductor came through the car to check tickets and stamp Euro rail passes, he targeted four English-speaking travelers and found “errors” on our passes and demanded 50 euro from each of us or he would call the police. That’s a shit load of money; do the math. Mom and I were two of the people he pursued, along with Naomi and Heath, two Aussies in their twenties backpacking through Europe who got engaged last week in Scotland. But, we didn’t find that out until several hours later--they were further down the car.
The scam he ran on us was a little different that the one he ran on N and H; he said our validation stamp was missing (which it was, but we had been told on the platform by another Trenitalia conductor that it would be stamped on the train) but that he would “validate” it for 100 euro and “give” us another day on our pass--which he clearly thought was a win/win situation, but he didn’t use that phrase.
After all four of us had given him our money--complaining all the time and arguing with him that he was wrong--because we saw no other way out of the situation, a group of Americans sitting behind us in the far end of the car told us that they had been on the receiving end of the same scam the day before but had no money to give, so the conductor just walked away. Naomi and I went after him and heatedly demanded our money back, but suddenly he didn’t understand us and said, in broken English, if we had a problem, we had to speak to the authorities in Florence. We screamed a little while longer, took his badge number and went back to our respective seats.
The four of us rendezvoused on the platform in Florence and made for Trenitalia information, which sent us to their customer service office. Naomi and I went in alone and, on behalf of all four of us, I made our case to Signore Franco. An hour later, I had convinced him to give us our money back. Because we each had proof that our passes had been tampered with (a change of date on ours, a validation stamp on theirs) he helped us fill out complaint forms, approved our refund, made several sets of photocopies of passes, reservations, receipts, and we will all get our money mailed back to our home addresses.
Really. Don’t laugh. I believe him. I really think we will, because if we don’t, we still have copies of our approved request to take it further once we get home.
Seriously, I don’t like that look on your face.
I heard that.
When the conductor came through the car to check tickets and stamp Euro rail passes, he targeted four English-speaking travelers and found “errors” on our passes and demanded 50 euro from each of us or he would call the police. That’s a shit load of money; do the math. Mom and I were two of the people he pursued, along with Naomi and Heath, two Aussies in their twenties backpacking through Europe who got engaged last week in Scotland. But, we didn’t find that out until several hours later--they were further down the car.
The scam he ran on us was a little different that the one he ran on N and H; he said our validation stamp was missing (which it was, but we had been told on the platform by another Trenitalia conductor that it would be stamped on the train) but that he would “validate” it for 100 euro and “give” us another day on our pass--which he clearly thought was a win/win situation, but he didn’t use that phrase.
After all four of us had given him our money--complaining all the time and arguing with him that he was wrong--because we saw no other way out of the situation, a group of Americans sitting behind us in the far end of the car told us that they had been on the receiving end of the same scam the day before but had no money to give, so the conductor just walked away. Naomi and I went after him and heatedly demanded our money back, but suddenly he didn’t understand us and said, in broken English, if we had a problem, we had to speak to the authorities in Florence. We screamed a little while longer, took his badge number and went back to our respective seats.
The four of us rendezvoused on the platform in Florence and made for Trenitalia information, which sent us to their customer service office. Naomi and I went in alone and, on behalf of all four of us, I made our case to Signore Franco. An hour later, I had convinced him to give us our money back. Because we each had proof that our passes had been tampered with (a change of date on ours, a validation stamp on theirs) he helped us fill out complaint forms, approved our refund, made several sets of photocopies of passes, reservations, receipts, and we will all get our money mailed back to our home addresses.
Really. Don’t laugh. I believe him. I really think we will, because if we don’t, we still have copies of our approved request to take it further once we get home.
Seriously, I don’t like that look on your face.
I heard that.
Lost in Translation?
Florence, Il Sallotte di Firenze B&B, Thursday, July 10, 2008, 6:24 PM
Because we never really know who’s listening, like we have always done in my family (or at least Heidi and I have always done), Mom and I have developed a vocabulary of our own. I will try to recount them here, but suddenly I can’t seem to remember all of them:
“Fine Italian design.” Inspired by our discussion of great artists like Bernini, Michelangelo, Armani and Lamborghini. Today’s meaning: Handsome man. Hot guy. As in, “Mom, check out than fine Italian design on the far corner.”
“General _____ vicinity.” Origin unknown. Vague Americanism deflecting specific clarity of action, location or thinking, as in “Mom, I think I lost my earring in the general toilet vicinity” and “I don’t find myself in the generally hungry vicinity yet.” Now becoming overused.
“Poughkeepsie(?) (!)” From Sex and the City (the movie). Used when we don’t want to offend a host or proprietor, but when we suspect the food or water might cause intestinal difficulty and want to ask or warn the other one. We clearly have had enough of intestinal difficulty already and don’t want to risk anything worse. Capisco?
“Breast your cards.” An expression used when playing gin or poker meaning one should hide beware of others’ wandering eyes. Contemporary usage means “Keep your purse/camera/belongings close at hand. I suspect pickpockets nearby.”
“Because Americans are repressed, that’s why.” Repeatedly used to explain why Italians scream at each other in public, haggle over prices, bunch up at bus tops and don’t form straight lines, don’t hide their mistresses, don’t say excuse me on the street when they bump into you, and steal your money on trains when Americans don’t. It’s a cultural thing.
Because we never really know who’s listening, like we have always done in my family (or at least Heidi and I have always done), Mom and I have developed a vocabulary of our own. I will try to recount them here, but suddenly I can’t seem to remember all of them:
“Fine Italian design.” Inspired by our discussion of great artists like Bernini, Michelangelo, Armani and Lamborghini. Today’s meaning: Handsome man. Hot guy. As in, “Mom, check out than fine Italian design on the far corner.”
“General _____ vicinity.” Origin unknown. Vague Americanism deflecting specific clarity of action, location or thinking, as in “Mom, I think I lost my earring in the general toilet vicinity” and “I don’t find myself in the generally hungry vicinity yet.” Now becoming overused.
“Poughkeepsie(?) (!)” From Sex and the City (the movie). Used when we don’t want to offend a host or proprietor, but when we suspect the food or water might cause intestinal difficulty and want to ask or warn the other one. We clearly have had enough of intestinal difficulty already and don’t want to risk anything worse. Capisco?
“Breast your cards.” An expression used when playing gin or poker meaning one should hide beware of others’ wandering eyes. Contemporary usage means “Keep your purse/camera/belongings close at hand. I suspect pickpockets nearby.”
“Because Americans are repressed, that’s why.” Repeatedly used to explain why Italians scream at each other in public, haggle over prices, bunch up at bus tops and don’t form straight lines, don’t hide their mistresses, don’t say excuse me on the street when they bump into you, and steal your money on trains when Americans don’t. It’s a cultural thing.
Last Supper in Rome
From the Indian jewelry dealer, we crossed the street and look at the menu at Ristorante Alfredo. Unlike some of the other places on our street recommended by Loredana, and probably in cahoots with her, Alfredo had a larger menu with FRESH FRUIT on it. I had an omelet with cheese, mushrooms, and red pepper, with a sweet and succulent fruit salad for dessert. My mom had veal. Both of us were eminently satisfied that we had had a balanced, “clean,” whole food kind of meal for the first time in days. And, I am still a vegetarian.
So much of the food we have been eating has been carbohydrates: bread, pasta, pasta and bread, occasionally supplemented with some kind of cheese and always accompanied by wine. Two glasses a piece for lunch. Two glasses a piece for dinner. I think they are substantial glasses, but my mother thinks they are small pours. We are splitting a half liter, so I will let the reader decide.
The music coming from the small sound system--we sat outside--was 80s music: Paul Young, Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush duet, Howard Jones. Heidi, you couldn't have made your presence known any less subtly if you had been sitting on the table. Wish you were here!
So much of the food we have been eating has been carbohydrates: bread, pasta, pasta and bread, occasionally supplemented with some kind of cheese and always accompanied by wine. Two glasses a piece for lunch. Two glasses a piece for dinner. I think they are substantial glasses, but my mother thinks they are small pours. We are splitting a half liter, so I will let the reader decide.
The music coming from the small sound system--we sat outside--was 80s music: Paul Young, Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush duet, Howard Jones. Heidi, you couldn't have made your presence known any less subtly if you had been sitting on the table. Wish you were here!
Rome in Review
I am writing this entry on the train from Rome to Florence. It is great to leave Rome. We have been overwhelmed by heat, inconvenience, expense, among other things. I wrote this post on: Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:02 AM.
When we arrived on Tuesday and checked into the B&B, Loredana bean to attack us for Ione’s phone call on our behalf the previous morning. She said that Ione was rude and yelling at her, which we know isn’t true because we were sitting there the whole time. Loredana insisted that we had to pay for the previous night because we had booked through a service, but that if I had emailed her directly to book the rooms, she wouldn’t have had to charge us. I had, however, emailed her early this spring as our plans were coming together to inquire whether or not she had a special rate for returning guest. I never hear back. I told her that, but she said that my letters must have gone into her spam folder. Yeah, right. Anyway, there wasn’t a scene, but she was aware that I wasn’t happy.
We dropped our bags in the room and headed out for the Coliseum. We took an easy stroll down through side streets and came upon the stadium from the side, a view that offered a nice surprise to Mom.
We had to wait in line almost an hour before we could get in, maybe more. Then in another 2 lines for Mom to get the audio guide. New on this trip is the combined charge for the Coliseum, Forum and Palatine. On previous trips when I have been Rome, the Forum has been free--one could walk directly through it after exiting the Coliseum.
Because Mom’s feet hurt terribly from the uneven travertine [later found out it's not travertine], we hopped on one of the “hop on/hop off” Rome city buses that gave us a panoramic view of the city while also getting us back to the station and near the B&B.
On the bus, we saw St. Peter’s, the Quirinale (Italy’s White House?) the Via Veneto among other things. The extended period of time in the Coliseum set us way back on time, so we didn’t get back to the B&B until close to 8 PM. At that point, Mom was done for the day, so we didn’t go back out to eat, but I went to the Internet café to upload those first several posts.
Next morning, we lit out for a shoe store at 9:30, but were waylaid by the lack of selection in Mom’s size. While she shopped, I browsed an eyeglass store (like Pearle Vision) and an amazing bookstore that had a vast literature, poetry and drama section. We hopped back on the open top city bus at a little after noon and stayed on back to the Coliseum, where we disembarked and headed up to the Palatine (which is also the new entrance to the Forum). Because we had paid the combined ticket, we were supposed to get in without waiting in line, but Mom accidentally threw her ticket away. Instead of both of us waiting in line, I gave her mine so she could see the Palatine alone, thinking I’d buy another ticket and walk directly to the Forum and we could tour that together.
After waiting in line close to 45 minutes, two young men came by selling their tickets. I jumped at the chance to skip the remain 30 mins or so in line, and walked directly to the ticket holder entrance. Turns out that the tickets were no good, and if I wanted to get in, I would have to go to the end of the line--which was now 3x as long as it was when I had gotten in it. ARGH!!!!!!!!!
Thinking fast, I turned around and made for the Palatine exit/Forum entrance, a point where the two come together but are separated from the public by an iron fence. It was at this point, on the inside, that we were supposed to meet. I found Mom there sitting in the shade waiting for me, explained what happened and told her I’d meet her when she was finished. She toured the Forum alone (albeit with Headi) and we reconnected at about 2 PM, hopped back on the bus.
Our next stop was the Bocca della Veritas (am I getting the chronology right?), the Mouth of Truth that was featured in Roman Holiday, with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. Back on the bus, we got off at the Trevi Fountain, had lunch at a nearby café where we had our first Chianti of the trip, then walked (first in the wrong direction) to the Spanish Steps. Along the way, we did a lot of window shopping and had some gelato.
We are hearing much more English in Rome than we heard in Naples/Pompeii, and encountering American students of a more down-to-earth sort. We are both fascinated by the number of times English is used as a second common language between Italians in the tourist industry and Russian, German, Asian, Indian travelers. I don’t remember that happening before--perhaps because other world economies are stronger now, non-Westerners are traveling in higher numbers?
[I stopped writing before the train pulled into to Firenze SMN without giving full details of that train ride--that is to come later--and have restarted at 5:21 PM. Mom is napping; I am typing on a balcony overlooking Via Roma. I swear to God I think I just saw Colin Firth walk down the street in khakis, white shirt and blue blazer.]
After showering and cleaning up in the late afternoon, we headed back out for dinner, stopping first at small Indian vendor whose windows I had been eying for two days. I knew he closed at 8:30, so we walked in at about 8:10 tried on a number of bracelets necklaces and earrings before I asked him a price.
All of the pieces were sterling silver, some with inlaid turquoise, so he weighed them and gave me a price per item. He was charging 40 cents (multiply that by 1.69 for US dollar) per ounce but insisted that was 10% lower than what he would normally charge. I was hoping for something lower, so we started haggling. All I really wanted was the bracelet, but I know that he’d give me a better price the more I bought. I offered a price that was too low for him; he said no. I said refused the three pieces on the ocunter and kept looking. I found something else I liked, hen asked him a price for the bracelet and the new piece, without the two pendants. It was getting close to 8:30 and as I suspected, he was eager to close on time and still make a sale. I didn’t save much, but I got him to come down $6 on the price.
When we arrived on Tuesday and checked into the B&B, Loredana bean to attack us for Ione’s phone call on our behalf the previous morning. She said that Ione was rude and yelling at her, which we know isn’t true because we were sitting there the whole time. Loredana insisted that we had to pay for the previous night because we had booked through a service, but that if I had emailed her directly to book the rooms, she wouldn’t have had to charge us. I had, however, emailed her early this spring as our plans were coming together to inquire whether or not she had a special rate for returning guest. I never hear back. I told her that, but she said that my letters must have gone into her spam folder. Yeah, right. Anyway, there wasn’t a scene, but she was aware that I wasn’t happy.
We dropped our bags in the room and headed out for the Coliseum. We took an easy stroll down through side streets and came upon the stadium from the side, a view that offered a nice surprise to Mom.
We had to wait in line almost an hour before we could get in, maybe more. Then in another 2 lines for Mom to get the audio guide. New on this trip is the combined charge for the Coliseum, Forum and Palatine. On previous trips when I have been Rome, the Forum has been free--one could walk directly through it after exiting the Coliseum.
Because Mom’s feet hurt terribly from the uneven travertine [later found out it's not travertine], we hopped on one of the “hop on/hop off” Rome city buses that gave us a panoramic view of the city while also getting us back to the station and near the B&B.
On the bus, we saw St. Peter’s, the Quirinale (Italy’s White House?) the Via Veneto among other things. The extended period of time in the Coliseum set us way back on time, so we didn’t get back to the B&B until close to 8 PM. At that point, Mom was done for the day, so we didn’t go back out to eat, but I went to the Internet café to upload those first several posts.
Next morning, we lit out for a shoe store at 9:30, but were waylaid by the lack of selection in Mom’s size. While she shopped, I browsed an eyeglass store (like Pearle Vision) and an amazing bookstore that had a vast literature, poetry and drama section. We hopped back on the open top city bus at a little after noon and stayed on back to the Coliseum, where we disembarked and headed up to the Palatine (which is also the new entrance to the Forum). Because we had paid the combined ticket, we were supposed to get in without waiting in line, but Mom accidentally threw her ticket away. Instead of both of us waiting in line, I gave her mine so she could see the Palatine alone, thinking I’d buy another ticket and walk directly to the Forum and we could tour that together.
After waiting in line close to 45 minutes, two young men came by selling their tickets. I jumped at the chance to skip the remain 30 mins or so in line, and walked directly to the ticket holder entrance. Turns out that the tickets were no good, and if I wanted to get in, I would have to go to the end of the line--which was now 3x as long as it was when I had gotten in it. ARGH!!!!!!!!!
Thinking fast, I turned around and made for the Palatine exit/Forum entrance, a point where the two come together but are separated from the public by an iron fence. It was at this point, on the inside, that we were supposed to meet. I found Mom there sitting in the shade waiting for me, explained what happened and told her I’d meet her when she was finished. She toured the Forum alone (albeit with Headi) and we reconnected at about 2 PM, hopped back on the bus.
Our next stop was the Bocca della Veritas (am I getting the chronology right?), the Mouth of Truth that was featured in Roman Holiday, with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. Back on the bus, we got off at the Trevi Fountain, had lunch at a nearby café where we had our first Chianti of the trip, then walked (first in the wrong direction) to the Spanish Steps. Along the way, we did a lot of window shopping and had some gelato.
We are hearing much more English in Rome than we heard in Naples/Pompeii, and encountering American students of a more down-to-earth sort. We are both fascinated by the number of times English is used as a second common language between Italians in the tourist industry and Russian, German, Asian, Indian travelers. I don’t remember that happening before--perhaps because other world economies are stronger now, non-Westerners are traveling in higher numbers?
[I stopped writing before the train pulled into to Firenze SMN without giving full details of that train ride--that is to come later--and have restarted at 5:21 PM. Mom is napping; I am typing on a balcony overlooking Via Roma. I swear to God I think I just saw Colin Firth walk down the street in khakis, white shirt and blue blazer.]
After showering and cleaning up in the late afternoon, we headed back out for dinner, stopping first at small Indian vendor whose windows I had been eying for two days. I knew he closed at 8:30, so we walked in at about 8:10 tried on a number of bracelets necklaces and earrings before I asked him a price.
All of the pieces were sterling silver, some with inlaid turquoise, so he weighed them and gave me a price per item. He was charging 40 cents (multiply that by 1.69 for US dollar) per ounce but insisted that was 10% lower than what he would normally charge. I was hoping for something lower, so we started haggling. All I really wanted was the bracelet, but I know that he’d give me a better price the more I bought. I offered a price that was too low for him; he said no. I said refused the three pieces on the ocunter and kept looking. I found something else I liked, hen asked him a price for the bracelet and the new piece, without the two pendants. It was getting close to 8:30 and as I suspected, he was eager to close on time and still make a sale. I didn’t save much, but I got him to come down $6 on the price.
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