Italy trip report (long, with pics)

[Peter Harris]

oh yeah forgot - i am subscribed to a Rick Steves podcast thing, is he good? haven't listened to any yet, get em once a week, just thought i'd get a heads up.

[StevieG]

This is a great trip report, and reminds me of everything I liked about Rome: Trevi Fountain, Castel Sant'Angelo, St. Peter's, the food, random amazing sculptures on every other street corner.

Great stuff, keep it coming.

[Oski]

[ QUOTE ]
oh yeah forgot - i am subscribed to a Rick Steves podcast thing, is he good? haven't listened to any yet, get em once a week, just thought i'd get a heads up.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've gone to about 5 countries following his recommendations. My wife and I are very happy/impressed with the recommendations. We first learned about him through his television shows, but we have purchased a number of his travel books.

One thing I am curious about: One of his main attractions is finding attractions, lodgings, etc. of the beaten path. For example, Cinque Terre is presented as a good alternative to the Amalfi Coast and it is less "touristy." However, (and Steves would probably acknowledge this) some of his places have fallen victim to the very publicity he gives. I have heard that Cinque Terre is now like going to Disneyland, unless you are willing to take your chances and go after Sept. 15 (I was there in 2001 and it was a little crowded in early September).

So ... I wonder if he removes locations/add new ones to reflect this phenomena.

[ClarkNasty]

Eccezionale!

(Outstanding!)

[wuwei]

Nice report so far! I spent two weeks in Italy this past May. It was the best trip of my life.

Comments:

- Oh, the cheap wine and booze. I expected the cheap wine, but I was dismayed to find the scotch prices so low. $35 for a bottle of Oban? $39 for lagavulin? Dammit, I came here to drink wine, not scotch!

- You have to love that can walk into any decent restaurant, order the house wine, and obtain a lovely glass of wine incredibly cheap.

- pictures in the Sistine. In my experience, the picture taking was pretty much rampant, not limited to just the Japanese tourists. It made me sad.

- Did you miss the Pantheon in Rome? This was one of the big highlights of my trip, it was so very cool to come around the corner and all the sudden you're confronted with this huge building that's almost 2000 years old and incredibly well maintained.

- I wish I had made it to the Borghese.

- meat on a stick? standard in MN.

- that strip of shops along the walk to the spanish steps... my wife decided to go look at purses along there. While I'm waiting outside, they come up and lock the door. Hmm... this doesn't bode well for me. It was only unlocked when it was time for me to come in and pay [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

- Siena duomo, the marble floors were uncovered in May, and they were incredible. I didn't explore every duomo we came across, but that one was my favorite by far. Was the big ass crane still on top of the building?

[andyfox]

What a great place Siena is! We too had trouble figuring out how to get into town on the bus, but managed to do it somehow. Your pictures are great, but don't do the piazza justice (no picture can); it's one of the great public spaces in the world.

[AK Fisher]

Ready for next part , Great so far ...

[Apokrupto]

CMON ALREADY!!

[nolanfan34]

Florence

So, with the migraine behind me, we awoke on Thursday morning and hopped a bus to Florence. Bus is much easier than train apparently, because the train schedules out of Siena are limited, so the bus is actually faster.

The ride to Florence was smooth, takes about 75 minutes. Or at least it was smooth until we got into the city, and discovered the joy of Florence traffic and streets. It was incredible, the streets are so narrow and the bus driver is taking us down alleys, side streets, barely making it around corners with this thing, like it was an F-1 car. But, we managed to make it to the station and headed to our hotel.

Our hotel was south of the river Arno, about a 10 min walk from the station. Stashed our bags in our room, and headed out to check out the town.

Couple of early shots:



Another view of the Ponte Vecchio, from the other side:



The Ponte Vecchio was pretty packed, with tons of merchants selling the same gold jewelry stuff. Had to navigate a ton of flocks of sheep here - Florence seemed to be the busiest city for tours while we were there.

We had a reservation for the Uffizi Gallery for 1:30, so we searched out a place to eat while we walked around and waited. Florence is a great city to window shop, as we saw row after row of big name fashion designer or clothing line. Everything from Dolce, to Hermes, to Tiffany, to whatever, it seemed like every high-end store we've ever heard of was there. Again I thanked my luck that the mrs isn't really into shopping.

For lunch, we found this little hole-in-the wall place that Rick Steves mentioned. And it was really a hole-in-the wall - just two guys behind a small counter, making 27 different kinds of fresh sandwiches for 2.50 euro. They also sold small glasses of wine, so we grabbed some sandwiches and a spot on the curb, and sat down to people watch for a while.

Smallest. Restaurant. Ever.



After lunch we hit the Uffizi Gallery. The Uffizi is a huge gallery, with some key Bottichelli's, Rafael's, and other Italian greats. Reservations are key - this helps you avoid the long lines to get in, and like the Borghese, they only let in a certain number at a time. Our hotel made the reservation for us, and did the same for the Accademia, where we went the next morning.

The Uffizi is pretty cool, although it's larger and a little more impersonal than the Borghese was. Specifically, the audio guide was not as good, and I think we wish we had brought along a book or something to follow along with, to pick out the key items in each room.

So while the art was once again great, the real highlight occured in one of the last rooms. I was checking out some paintings (madonna and child, obv), when I turned around to see AFRODREDMULLET MAN!!!!!

We were pretty excited by this development, and since you can't take pictures inside the gallery, we did what any rational person would do. We followed him outside when we left.

Behold, kind of a crappy pic on the fly, but you get the idea.



Better shot.



Buoyed by this exciting development, we got a second wind and headed over to check out the Duomo di Santa.

Just your average church from the outside:



Seriously though, the church was once again amazing. You could run a few full court basketball games in the thing it seemed. The highlight of the Duomo is of course the large dome. Legend has it that when they built the church, back in the 1100s or 1200s, they didn't even know how to build a dome of that size yet, but they built the church anyway, assuming that some Italian would figure it out. Gotta love that confidence!

Here's a pic of the inside of the dome.



After checking out the Duomo, we wandered back across the water to our side of the river, and searched out a place to eat.

Found an awesome little neighborhood place, I think it was called Trattoria Sambino, or something like that. Handwritten menus if I remember correctly, and incredibly cheap prices - pastas were 3 or 4 euros, with secondi's being essentially the same. 1/2 litre of house wine for like 3 euros. The food was really simple, but fresh, and fast, and we had a great time.

Friday

Friday morning, we got up for an early date with The David. Headed out from our hotel and hit a little cafe for the standard Italian breakfast - coffee and a croissant or brioche. We were certainly starting to get used to Italian living. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

The Accademia, where The David is housed, is another place that you're better off with reservations, which once again our hotel set up. I really recommend that, obviously.

The museum itself starts out slow, with a couple of rooms with some paintings, etc. Then, you enter this long gallery hallway, and BAM, there's David down at the end. The hallway gallery contains Michaelangelo's Prisoners, 4 unfinished sculptures that look like people trying to escape from the marble blocks. The whole thing is really impressive, and seeing David at the end of the hall was a lot more impactful than I had expected.

By the time you get down to the end of the hall, you're pretty amazed when you see the statue up close and personal. Or at least I was.

First, the statue is huge - much larger than I expected. And the level of detail is pretty incredible, much like the Bernini scuptures we saw. Overall, I really found myself awed by the work, and can certainly understand - OK, I see what the hype is about.

The rest of the gallery is impressive as well, but after that seeing another 20 Madonna's and child paintings just doesn't have the same impact.

After we left, we went and checked out the Science Museum. This was pretty cool, it was nice partially just because it wasn't busy, so you don't feel as rushed to move through the rooms. Specifically they have some cool early telescopes from Galileo, along with all sorts of different scientific equipments. Certainly worth checking out if you're a science nerd at all.

Next we crossed the river and headed south to Michaelangelo's plaza. This is a plaza overlooking Florence, which has some nice views. Not a bad hike up the stairs at all, and a good place to relax and take it all in.

Florence:



The ol' nolanfans (note me rocking the awesome tourist white tennis shoes):



That night we went out for our one and only organized tour of the trip. It was a small walking tour through a group called Context Travel, who specialize in smaller group tours that are a little more informal and off the beaten path.

For our tour, we actually toured south of the river a bit, into the Artesan district, and learned all about the history of the Medici dynasty in Florence. One of the tour draws was that it ended at a local wine bar for a glass of wine.

While walking around, we found a great example of the skill needed to park your car in Florence. Not for the parallel-parking-faint-of-heart:



That last one is the best, haha.

Tour was fun, and we actually spent a while at the wine bar, chatting with some of the other couples. One of them, a couple of Australians, had on some Ironman gear, so we got talking about running, and my upcoming marathon. These folks were on quite a trip themselves - after Italy they were going to Croatia, for some sort of a tour where you SWIM from island to island in the Adriatic. Sicko's! We had a great time talking though, and it once again confirmed my theory that in social situations, you basically can't go wrong with people from Australia.

Afterward, we headed out to find something to eat again. The problem was, this time around we were out somewhat late, and most places were pretty packed. We did find Borgo Antico, which Daryn recommended, because he used to live above it. Couldn't get in for a while, but we did snap a pic.

Just imagine one of the many faces of Daryn peering out the window!



Next, we hit the sack and I set the alarm for a nice and early 4:45 am. Wait, am I on vacation or not? Well, unfortunately, my long run of the trip - and last one for my marathon training - awaited.

Saturday

So the alarm went off, and I got up, prepping myself for a nice 18 mile run around Florence. I had mapped out a basic route around the city, loaded up my Camelbak, and headed out.

The first loop around the back end of the city was pretty easy. Then I crossed south again, and started climbing the back hills south of the city. Probably had about a mile and a half stretch of uphill running, which was tough, but OK. Eventually the sun just started to creep up, casting this awesome hue of light over the city, which I could see through my run in the hills. Very cool.

Well, things were cool until about mile 12, when I ended up back in my neighborhood, with 6 miles to go, and no route left to run. Hence my approximation of my route on this map:



I ended up stopping just short of 18 - one, because the uneven roads, sidewalks, and cobblestone streets were just beating the [censored] out of me, and two, because we had more important things to get to - like the Cinque Terre.

So, limping my ass back to the hotel, we packed up and headed out for our next destination: Riomaggiore.

[ThaSaltCracka]

gogogogogo NolanFan!