Napoli field trip

Sorrento Day 4 Fri 4/9/10
This day bright & early we shuttled to town to catch the Circumvesuviana to Naples to visit the National Archeological Museum where I’d read that many of the prized frescoes & artifacts from Herculaneum & Pompeii are stored. We bought tickets & tried to get through the turnstile at the station only to have our tickets spit back out at us. Steve went back to the window where the guy told him the tickets wouldn’t work until 9:30am. Ok, that was just a few minutes away but in the meantime we watched many nationalities of tourists confused about the same situation. We imparted our 9:30am wisdom to our fellow travelers & all of us just got out of the way of the natives while looking like dumb tourists, which we were. 9:30am came & the floodgates opened for all of us neophytes. Along the journey we connected with 2 college students heading to Pompeii. We urged them to go to Herculaneum in addition to Pompeii. It was a pleasant chat all the way to their stop asking all the usual fellow English-speaking traveler Q’s..Where are you from? What are you doing here? How long are you here? What have you seen…blah,blah,blah? It was fun. They were roomies in London…one from Minnesota & the other from Toronto doing the semester abroad thing.

I had read a TripAdvisor review of the museum, which said that it’s only a 10 minute walk from the station to the museum. No prob I said! Steve had been forewarned that it’s a dangerous place, that Napoli station, & one shouldn’t linger long near there. So he checked his trusty iPhone for our coordinates & found out we needed to take the metro to the Cavour station in order for it to be a 10 minute walk to the museum. Ok, when in Italy you cannot get metro tickets in the train/metro station. You have to find a Tabacchi recognized by a big blue sign with a white T on it to buy your dang ticket. Done. We were on our way! Reminder: we’d taken the 9am shuttle from our hotel to get to town/the Sorrento Circumvesuviana station to catch the 9:37am train to Naples…by the time we got off the metro at the museum stop it was 12:15pm. Man, that’s A LOT of overhead! We were thinking this place better be spectacular! And, it was, in a way. Read on.

There were splendid displays of frescoes, art, sculptures, household items (some melted glass vessels, pans for cooking 24 eggs at a time, lots of stuff you see now from Calphalon & their competitors), surgical & dental instruments that eerily resemble today’s instruments, a cool model of Pompeii made of cork (in the 1920’s maybe? I may need to check my facts on this), charred remains of foodstuffs, explanation of where pine nuts come from, add’l sculptures unrelated to Pompeii & Herculaneum but equally awesome. (Hercules…mmmmmm) Unfortunately, the Etruscan exhibit was closed due to some needed restoration or something. Tom told me that exhibit is a ‘must-see’. Sucks to be me.

We trained back & on our way through the streets of Sorrento who did we see? Those college girl travelers we encountered on the way north to Napoli. They had seen Pompeii & were as wowed as we were. Small world, eh? Anyhow, I had in my mind that I needed some cookies in order to make it through the night, as the hotel was barren. I’d seen a market somewhere along our various walks through Sorrento & magically found it again. We bought bread, cheese, cookies, bananas & a boatload of chocolate bars to bring back to our fam & friends. We dipped in to a café & bought some calzones for dinner on the balcony. Mine was rappini & cheese. Steve’s was prosciutto & cheese. His def won that contest. It was ok…I had cookies! We had some time to kill before the shuttle pickup so we took a walk to Marina Piccola which is actually the big marina where all the ferries to & from Capri & Naples, etc. come & go. Marina Grande is teeny tiny & is used by fishing boats. I need to figure out how to post more pix on here. We shuttled back up to the hotel & ate our calzones on the balcony as the sun went down. I took a gazillion pix, one of which might be to the left. We caught up on emails & crashed. A lovely day.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Sorrento: Day 3 4/8/10 Thu…
What an awesome day this was! We took the Circumvesuviana commuter train to Herculaneum & Pompeii. I strongly recommend they be seen in that order. Herculaneum was spared the destruction Pompeii suffered due to the nature of the pyroclastic rock that rained down upon the town, encasing it in a solid mass ~16 meters high, preserving organic artifacts such as fabrics, plants, furniture & structural parts of wooden building materials & even a boat recovered from the ancient marina. Many of the frescoes & household articles were intact when the site was ‘discovered’ in the 1730’s. The maps & info booklets for both sites were superb. I kept them. It took several hours to see all of Herculaneum even though it’s considerably smaller in area than Pompeii. It was easy to imagine the beauty & opulence of life there. After reading nearly all the signs, as is my compulsion, & seeing everything at Herculaneum we traveled south to Pompeii. It’s a vast and breathtaking site. You walk through the gate & a completely different feeling comes over you. As far as your eye can see there are ruins of people’s lives, livelihoods, hopes, dreams, ambitions. Reading about the owners of the houses & business you visit makes it all come to life. There was even a sort of YMCA (near & dear to my heart) next to the stadium. We spent several hours there in nonstop awe. Location #39 is the brothel with frescoes on the walls depicting the various ‘menu options’. It was arguably THE most popular attraction at Pompeii. The other buildings could be accessed from at least two doorways but the brothel was in one out door, out the other…with a line at the entrance. It was fun. A pic of the ‘bathroom’ is posted. It was the only toilet in the whole place…oddly. The details of both of these amazing (in the truest meaning of the word) are still swimming in my mind. You won’t ‘get it’ until you go there. And you must!

We trained back to Sorrento & started looking for a place for dinner. We’d gotten in the habit of having a hearty breakfast & then going all day without food until dinner. Ok, so the next part of the story is that Steve & I missed the 6pm hotel shuttle but agreed to hoof it back up the trail that kept pedestrians off the streets (which are very dangerous unless you’re in a shuttle bus or taxi being driven by an Italian) after dinner in town rather than have dinner at the hotel, which would have been waaaay too expensive & not any better than dinner we could find in town. We found dinner at Piazza Tasso at a tourist restaurant. It was actually quite good. I had a mixed greens salad with shrimp. Steve had bruschetta & penne with mushrooms & proscuitto. So after dinner we headed for the trail. Everything was great until we missed the turnoff for the dang trail. We ended walking all the way back up the cliff on that dangerous road to our hotel. All the while, Steve’s asking me if this all looks familiar (he thought we might have missed something) & here I am saying, “Yes this is the right way! I’ve seen all these hotels & landmarks before! We’re going the right way!” Well, of course I’d seen all those things before…from the taxi & shuttle bus! Poor Steve…he started making a list of reasons why it’s so great (haha, NOT) to vacation with me. 1) A walk up a sheer cliff on a dangerous road after a filling dinner 2) Choking smoke rising up the cliff from burning trash 2) Walking along a dangerous cliff road with no shoulder to speak of 3) All kinds of interesting trash to dodge on the side of the dangerous cliff road…in the non-existent shoulder 4) Italian drivers driving at breakneck speeds on a dangerous road with no shoulder to speak of filled with trash, mere inches away from his shoulder 5) An excited wife pointing out various agricultural crops growing wildly beside the dangerous, trash-strewn cliff road with no shoulder to speak of while crazy Italian drivers pass within mere inches from his shoulder. C’mon…there were random lemon trees, fennel plants, artichokes & onions right there growing along the side of that dangerous road. He just didn’t get it.

Siren Song

Sorrento: Day 2 4/7/10

On this day we were up early for a quick breakfast at 7am before being picked up by a tour bus to take us along the Amalfi Coast. Our driver’s nickname was Casanova, what else? Our guide was Bene, a crack up, what else? His tour was given in French & English. His English was very amusing! We set out up into the hills for 1.5 hours until we reached a rest stop-aka: tourist trap. Bene pointed out some primitive houses that were carved out of the side of the cliff that the Italians call Trogolydite houses. We drove by Positano & viewed it from the road. Then it was on to Amalfi where we disembarked for a short walking tour around the town after which we boarded a boat for a tour of the Amalfi coastline. It was such fun! It was kind of like a Hollywood stars’ homes tour mixed in with a history lesson. Bene pointed out homes owned or rented by celebrities back in the day. Heck, he could have told us anything for all I know. But, it was fun to imagine the heyday of the 50’s & 60’s when this area was a big playground for celebrities of my mother’s era. After the boat ride we had some free time to wander & shop for fun touristy stuff. Also grabbed a couple calzones to bring back for dinner on the balcony.
Next stop, Ravello. Throughout the drive, the bus pulled over so we could get better views of the spectacular scenery. The sheer cliffs diving down to the beautiful, azure sea are breathtaking. What’s more breathtaking is watching the poetry in motion as these buses wend their way down the coast on a very narrow road filled with cars, motor scooters & people. It’s just amazing how it all works.

At Ravello we got another little tour as we walked up the cliff to Ristorante Benadies where we all had lunch. The scoop is that Bill & Hilary stole the chef de cuisine for their very own. It was a lovely place in a hotel that apparently does a brisk business with the bus tour companies. Can you spell kickback?! After lunch Steve & I took a walk around the back streets to get a more relaxed feel of the town away from the tourist area. The terraced gardens and orchards of lemon & olive trees were impressive. The terraces are dug out of the face of the cliffs & tended the same as gardens everywhere. These go far up onto the sides of the cliffs. They’re quite beautiful. We look many pictures but of course few of them give justice to the beauty of the place. They’ll remain in the iPhoto album to be viewed nostalgically over the coming years.

The trip back was nearly as spectacular as the ride out. We traveled through the Milky Mountains (Monti Lattari) past tiny towns with stone bridges spanning deep ravines & a fjord. The engineering feats performed out of necessity make me marvel at human ingenuity. All the while, Bene was telling us so many interesting tidbits that my head was swimming in facts. By the time we returned to the hotel it was just after 5:30pm. It was 10 hours of nonstop enjoyment. We chilled, read email, watched the sunset, I stayed up late to read “The Roman Way” by Edith Hamilton & then collapsed.

Maura McKnight…Noooo Reservations

The train trip from Florence to Naples/Sorrento was supposed to be used to write the Florence leg of the blog but we were seated across from a thoroughly entertaining American Mom who was finishing a European journey at the end of her son’s last semester of Law school. She & I ended up talking the whole way to Rome, their terminus. Steve said we could have been sisters. Not sure if that was a compliment? We got here to the Grand Grand Hotel Aminta (www.aminta.it) at ~2pm. It’s located 2.5 miles up in the mountains above Sorrento, a splendid location. Checking in was a snafu. The front desk couldn’t find any record that I’d reserved the room for 4 nights. Well, it was because I hadn’t booked the room. Maura McKnight had No Reservations. I am not a celebrity chef with a camera crew so I had no clout whatsoever. We forwarded the email exchanges from 2/17/10 to present (from the iPhone…love that gadget!) so they would have something to look up. Ah, their emails confirmed availability of the room I requested but hadn’t confirmed that I actually could have it. Steve said it’s like asking, “Have you the time?” & being told, “I’m happy to inform you that the time is available”, & then walking away. I thought he was hilarious! In the end, the room was ours, including balcony w/sunset, Mediterranean Sea & Mt. Vesuvious views ☺ After settling in, we hoofed it down to the town of Sorrento, grabbed a bite, walked around a few hours to get the lay of the land, then took the shuttle back up the hill in time for dinner, which was yummy. Baby squid soup with fennel for me, swordfish & potatoes for Steve. Blog update, pix posted, collapsed.

ALL ART HAS BEEN CONTEMPORARY

Florence (Firenze) 4/3-4/6 2010

This is a neon sign on the Arno River side of the Uffizi Museum in Florence. We arrived at Hotel David from Rome at ~11am on Saturday 4/3/10. We got such a warm welcome! After dropping off our luggage we hoofed it to Florence city center to have a look see. What a charming city. All of the major historic sites are within walking distance of each other making the city easy to negotiate. Given the time constraint of being there over the Easter weekend we had to pack in as much sightseeing as possible. It was a thrill to see & then walk over Ponte Vecchio. As you know, the bridge is lined with gold shops. The storefronts are beautiful & chock full of every style of gold jewelry you can think of. Our first stop was to secure tickets for the Uffizi. The line to get in Saturday was very long & disheartening. Then we spied a separate line for Sunday timed tickets. We hopped right in that one & had tickets in hand for 10:30am in 15 minutes. Passing by the Loggia of Lanzi at Piazze Della Signioria we were struck by the dozens of beautiful sculptures just sitting there. David is everywhere in Florence. Even though we didn’t get to the Accademie Museum to see the original David, there are enough copies around the city that it ended up being ok. Well, except we didn’t see Michaelangelo’s cool unfinished sculptures. Maybe next time. We also missed out on the Medici Chapel but when you read on you’ll see that we missed precious little else in Florence.

There was hardly a line at the Palazzo Vecchio, which I just don’t understand. That place is a must-see. The architecture is beautiful, the rooms are filled with amazing sculptures, artwork & furnishings with inlaid stone forming glorious landscapes & pictures of various birds & animals, the ceilings & walls are painted & ornate & the views from the upper floors are gorgeous. From there we went to the Baptistry to see the famous copy of the Ghilberti doors. They’re much more impressive in person than any picture can portray. We went inside & saw they elaborate gold mosaic ceiling & more beautiful artwork. There was a mural depicting horrendous scenes of Hell. I don’t want to go there.

We tried to get into the Duomo after that but it was closed so we walked on toward Santa Croce. Along the way we stopped to go through the market at Piazza della Repubblica. There were vendors all around the square selling all kinds of foodstuffs. Meat, cheese, honey, olive oil, bread, jellies, wine, much more. There is a pretty merry-go-round in the square decorated with more nice pictures…of bare-breasted ladies. Steve laughed & commented that it could only be in Italy where that would be seen on a kids' ride! Ok, so on to Santa Croce. This is another absolutely gorgeous church. There are more beautiful painted walls, tile on the beams of the basilica, tombs in the niches & on the floor of people you’ve learned about long ago such as Michaelangelo (yes, THE Michaelangelo), Galileo, Dante, Rossini & Marconi. We stopped at a restaurant at one of the Piazzas for a quick lunch. I had a salad & Steve had a pizza. They were ok but not great. The food filled a hole. A lovely walk back to the hotel for heavy snacks & juice ended our first day in Florence. The Hotel David (www.davidhotel.it) was a sweet find on TripAdvisor. It’s an 18th century home that was converted to a hotel some time ago. It’s furnished with antiques & the walls have lovely paintings of little critters & scenes of Florence on them. Very charming. I’ll save the remainder of my review for TripAdvisor. I culled photos, read email & collapsed.

Day 2 (4/4/10)in Florence began with beautiful sunshine & a delicious breakfast courtesy of the hotel. It was yet another sumptuous feast of Italian breads, cakes, eggs, bacon, cereals, yogurt, of course café Americano, fruit, cheese, & the most delicious ham I ever tasted. Strolling over the Ponte Vecchio with a smaller crowd allowed some fun window shopping along the gold stores. Not being much of a jewelry type I saved Steve thousands of dollars, I’m sure. We had an appointment at the Uffizi at 10:30am. It was Easter Sunday but thankfully some of the sights that are usually closed on Sundays were open regardless. The Uffizi (www.uffizi.com) is organized by dates of the items. The museum was begun in 1581 by one of the Medicis. They acquired lots & lots of the goodies the world had to offer. As a matter of fact, their collection is still growing due to active acquisition personnel. There were ancient sculptures dating back to the 3rd century BC right in arm’s reach. You can look into the eyes of these pieces of marble & see the past. It was rather romantic. The wow factor in this place is incredible! Since it’s organized in a logical fashion it was easy to relax & enjoy each successive room without having to regroup & figure out what came next. That may sound really stupid but if you think logically, it works well. A guide book wasn’t necessary but might have been helpful. It took ~3 hours to see ‘everything’…as if we could. Botticelli’s mentor Fra Filippo Lippi’s work is gorgeous. There were several works that I had to pull myself away from. After his room came Botticelli’s room. There were 3 or 4 works that I thought were even more brilliant than Primavera & The Birth of Venus. Those 2 rooms might have been my favorites. There’s a lovely terrace on the top floor that’s great for grabbing a snack & drink as well as snap pictures of the city below. Even though we had already seen a gazillion beautiful paintings, sculptures, ceilings, furnishings, the Uffizi dazzled both of us. You MUST go there!

Later that evening we took a walk to find someplace for dinner but only found one place open. Lunch was ample so we ended up just having a snack & went to Caffe Michaelangelo just around the corner from the hotel for gelato. The place is mainly a bar but the gelato was pretty good.

Day 3 (4/5/10)
After another delish breakfast we strolled to the Duomo. We confirmed the day before that it would be open Monday…again not usual but given the crowds over the Easter holiday someone must have taken pity on the tourists. The wait was only 45 minutes. And man, was it ever worth it! The climb up was thrilling. About 1/3 up there’s a room that looks like an attic for storing friezes, various sculptures of priests & popes and some busts of who knows who. It was as if they had extra stuff they needed to store somewhere. The stairway shrinks the higher up you go to the point that we could go only single-file. The guards had 2-ways to regulate traffic. There are 2 levels that have balconies inside the church for viewing the art on the ceiling. There’s a mural depicting heaven, purgatory, life & hell that can be seen up close. The depiction of hell on the Duomo was the most terrifying scene. I can’t even describe it to you because it’s more disgusting than I can handle. Suffice it to say I REALLY REALLY REALLY don’t want to go there. Once the top is reached you are at the highest observation point in Florence. The view is amazing! The whole city spreads out below in all its red-tiled glory. When it was our turn to descend the guards stopped ascending traffic to let us by. It was a tight squeeze in there. Thankfully everyone was pleasant about the big squeeze & were very polite.

The afternoon led us up to a charming town north of Florence called Fiesole. We took an enjoyable bus trip up that wound through the streets of Florence & on up into the hills. Lunch was adequate but filling. Steve had pizza (no, really?!) & I had a bresaeola sandwich. we walked all around the town looking for interesting sights. We came upon the Etruscan wall that surrounded the village & an Etruscan tomb. See pic of me in the sidebar. We saw as much of the town as we wanted to in a couple hours. Home sweet home to the Hotel David to chill a bit in our room & grab a snack. Later, a pleasant walk along the Arno River led us back to Ponte Vecchio for gelato. It was by far the least tasty of all the gelato we’d had so far but not-so-good gelato is better than no gelato ;-/ Sleep came easily. We had to get up & out early to make our train to Sorrento the next morning…after another delicious breakfast, of course! Florence is so very different from Rome. It’s much quieter although traffic noise & honking horns remain a constant in Italy. Italian drivers are absolutely nuts. Somehow they don’t crash into each other or kill pedestrians. It’s no wonder that Italians win all kinds of road races.

Well, this is it for the Florence leg. More to come from Sorrento…

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your…melatonin. This is a long one...

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your…melatonin.

These next few entries are being produced in Italy! We left Tuesday evening, 3/30/10. Arrived at Leonardo Da Vinci/Fumicino Airport at 8:15am Rome time. The cab ride to the hotel was really neat because we got to see the countryside & environs on our way into town. The folks at the hotel were kind enough to allow us to check in early. After settling in to the room we ventured out to enjoy the rest of out first day in Rome. We walked for hours & experienced the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon (more on that later), Piazza Colonna, Piazza Navona & a lovely walk back to the hotel. I looked through the itinerary & the list of restaurant recommendations from Ken when I suddenly crashed. It was close to 4pm & I simply could not stay conscious any longer. Steve wasn’t far behind me. It was a couple hours later when we finally awoke & got hungry. We hadn’t eaten all day…odd for us. The concierge suggested a small restaurant 4 blocks away that allowed jeans. Coffee was a necessity. We strolled down Via Veneto & found a café. The proprietor laughed at us for asking for coffee. He said, “You mean black water?” I’d heard that expression from Tom so I just laughed & admitted to being American. We joked around a bit before he agreed to make us some coffee. He said next time I need to order marrocchino…will do. After coffee we strolled to the restaurant San Marco on Via Sardegna. It’s a ‘local’ place so we were the only Americans there for most of the dine. A single American dude came in later. The place was lively with families & groups of people having a good time. We both ordered salads which turned out to be so good that Steve couldn’t stop raving about it. They were simple greens with tomato & mushrooms but they were so fresh. Balsamic vinegar & olive oil was the simple dressing. Superb. Probably the best green salad either of us ever ate. The bread was delicious too. For dinner I had buccatini d’amatriciana. Steve ordered a mushroom, prosciutto & cheese pizza. Both dinners were delicious. There was no room for dessert. A leisurely walk back to the hotel, some BBC news, a melatonin tablet a close encounter with a pillow ended the day. Ken suggested the melatonin to aid jet lag. What a fabulous idea.

Day Two in Rome: April Fool’s Day! Rabbit rabbit everyone! Did you see Google’s home page? What a bunch of hooligans…

Thank goodness for the melatonin. Sleep came easily. Neither of us budged all night. It turns out a whole tablet was too much for me. Steve had to ‘kick the bed’ to get me up at 7am. We had breakfast in the top floor terrace dining room. A delightful buffet of American & Italian offerings awaited us. Here’s a partial list:
Croissants, fruit bread, hot cross buns, several more types of bread, raspberry torte, dry cereals, yogurt, mini pancakes & waffles, omelet, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, lox, cream cheese, melons, kiwi fruit, pineapple, blood oranges, stewed prunes & apricots, mixed vegetables (that was odd but oh well), fries (odd as well), 3 kinds of cheese wedges, a tray of condiments-corn, black & green olives, cornichons, cioppilini, giardiniera-fruit juices, still & sparkling water, Coke, Coke ‘light’, Sprite, several types of fruit juices, ‘American’ coffee, Champagne. It was so over the top! After breakfast it was a dash through the shower because we had a looooong day ahead. I had a hard time getting started because of the overdose of melatonin but finally we were on the street around 10:30am. We took the metro from Piazza Barberini to Termini then on to Colosseo. You come out of the station & right there is the Colosseum. Oh my, that’s a moment I shall never forget. I felt the same way when I turned to corner to find the Pantheon right before my eyes. After all of those years of coming home from school only to be met by my dear mother & her after-school schooling I really appreciated her efforts to make sure we all knew our history-all the way back to the ancient Greeks & Romans. Seriously, to see those structures ‘in real life’ was thrilling! Anyhow, hours later we went to Palatine Hill for a couple more hours, then down to the Forum & up to Capitoline Hill. After a quick lunch below the Vittorio Emanuele Monument we went back up the hill to the Capitoline Museum. Several hours & many hundreds of busts, statues & paintings later, we decided we’d had enough. The walk up Via Veneto was so taxing (not really) we decided to stop for coffee & gelato. Yes, we got guff for ordering ‘American’ coffee again. I had chocolate chip & chocolate orange & Steve had chocolate chip & lemon cream. Heaven in a dish. Good god that stuff is yummy! Back to the hotel, download a couple hundred pix, label them, Steve did some work, I worked on this entry. We weren’t hungry for a whole dinner so we scarfed down a bag of trail mix (TJ’s of course), the rest of my cheetos (Beck will never believe that they lasted that long, but it’s true) & I gobbled some chocolates from my pillow. Well, I ate Steve’s, too. Couldn’t help it. It’s 11pm but I’m going to look at email to see what y’all are up to back at the ranch. After that it’s ½ of a melatonin & a good snooze. Chat again in a day or so.

Day Three in Rome: April 2nd
Well, ½ a melatonin tablet was still too much. What is wrong with me? Oh well, I eventually awoke enough to crawl upstairs for another delicious breakfast. Then it was off to the Galleria Borghese at our appointed time. Thanks to Barbara we added that to our ‘must see’ list. It was spectacular. The ceilings & doors are all painted &/or embellished…every room is different. Fabulous sculptures, busts, beautiful paintings & furnishings were crammed in everywhere. There were several by Bernini that were absolutely breathtaking. Seeing them nearly brought tears to me eyes. I'd never before seen such beauty find its way out of a rock. What was so interesting is that some of the windows were opened & fresh air poured in making it seem as if you were in someone’s home without regard to the potential damage to the artwork. It was delightful. Unfortunately no cameras are allowed in the galleries so memories will have to suffice.

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the Vatican Museum with a quick jaunt to St. Peter’s Square. Since this was our last day in Rome on this leg of the journey, we didn’t spend time in line to get into the Basilica. We’ll do that on Saturday 4/10/10 when we return to Rome. The Vatican Museum was unbelievable! It was like going into a hoarder’s house, though a hoarder with very good taste & lots of money! We scurried through the main exhibit halls to get to the Sistine Chapel first since that was the highlight of the visit. Maybe you can imagine the wonder of seeing this magnificent place for the first time. Maybe you’ve felt it, too. No photograph can capture the grandeur or splendor of the room. You can look at books of the Chapel all your life thinking yeh, yeh that’s really beautiful but when you lay your own eyes on it, you simply can’t believe it. There are many, many decorated ceilings in Italy, it’s true, but seeing this one is something really special. This is another memory of a lifetime. I have been wondering if the people who live in Italy’s magnificent cities have a ho-hum attitude about the richness around them. Probably to some extent. But they’re lucky indeed. I feel lucky to live so near D.C. & we’re just a baby in comparison…although we have some awesome treasures of our own. I digress. After taking in the Sistine Chapel for who knows how long (time sort of stood still), we went back around & through the rest of the museum. The other exhibit I had my heart set on was the Etruscan section. Too bad for me, it was closed. Ah well, next time.

We had a quick snack & diet Pepsi then headed back to the hotel to get dressed for a dinner at Al Ceppo, a restaurant recommended by Ken. We were the only Americans in the place. We were put in the back room as if we were meant for the children’s room. I had hoped our rudimentary French would help us with the menu but that didn’t happen! The first waiter had to turn us over to the only other person in the place who could speak any English at all. He was very patient & read parts of the menu we couldn’t decipher. We were welcomed with an amuse bouche of monk fish in a tomato & red pepper sauce. Yummm. For the appetizer we ordered olive ascolane which is green olives stuffed with spicy ground meat then breaded & fried. Oh my, what a treat! Ken suggested that dish specifically. The breadbasket was filled with black olive & Italian bread. Additional homemade bread was served warm. Now THAT was delicious. For dinner I had grilled tilapia in a light lemony sauce with baby greens. Steve had a grilled beef filet with potatoes. Dessert was chocolate gelato for me, chestnut for Steve. His had tiny bits of meringue on top. We asked for espresso with our dessert. The waiter asked us if we wanted it WITH dessert? We said, yes with dessert. I think that was the wrong answer…he looked at us with such disdain. Oops! Oh & when we said we weren’t having wine with dinner I think he thought we must have just landed from another planet. We were obviously so in over our heads! Gulp! Dinner was absolutely marvelous though. A real Italian meal to be sure. By the time we return to Italy I’ll have learned A LOT more of the language. I’ll bet they were happy to see us leave!

Bedtime came, ¼ of a melatonin went down the hatch, I read for a bit & then off to DreamLand thinking of the journey to Florence the next morning. That was yesterday. I’ll tell you about Florence tomorrow night as I have to get some sleep soon. Tomorrow morning we’re off to the Duomo & Giotto’s tower then a quick jaunt up to Fiesole, a little town in the hills north of Florence, for the remainder of our Florentine visit. Oh, I have to talk about this hotel too. And post pix. This place is a charmer! Ok…pix & then sleep. ‘Night.