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
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