13 Weird Things about   (plus some extras)

1. Bide  (need i say more?)
   
2. TP Protector – in all hotels that had a little metal cover over the top of the tp holder
3. No peep holes in hotel doors
4. No plain jeans – all jeans have some large design on them
5. Prego means everything – it’s the universal word, hello, ok, come here, come on in, sit down, are you ready to order, thanks for paying…
6. No screens on the windows – we got eaten alive by misquitos in Florence and Venice
7. Nylons are like another pair of pants – everyone wears ones with patters, colors etc. Never bare legs
8. Hoochie skirts are ok – since they wear nylons!
9. Hi-heels on the cobble stones – I have no idea how they do it
10. They wouldn’t dream of drinking tap water, but will drink from public water fountains on the street
11. Restaurants basically open for 1 sitting.
12. Cappuccino prices – 1.50 – 4 euros…
13. Turn down usually includes setting out slippers
14. No alarm clocks – all rooms had a TV and that had the time on it
15. No secure locks on the hotel doors. No way to lock out everyone, maids, etc could get in at will
16. Vespas - again, need i say more?
    
17. Parking – why use the street when the sidewalk is right there!
18. Ch,ch,ch, caio  - they said goodbye at least 3, sometimes 7-10 times
19. The 24 hour clock. I never know what time things close.
    

13 Best Things about

1. Gelato
2. Great Wines
3. Gnocchi
4. Cabonara
5. Salami
6. Buffalo Mozzarella
7. English at upper crust hotels
8. Old Fashioned Stair Climbers
9. History comes to life
10. Cappuccino
11. Panini
12. It’s not
13. Public Transportation

Traveling back in time…

Is terrible!

The flight back to state side takes forever! You leave at noon, and get home at 8pm… but there is a whole lot of day time between those 2 activities!

We arrived at the airport with time to spare. The printing of the boarding pass was fabulous! Saved us quite a bit of time in line!

We bought some snacks and European chocolate, nothing at the gift store was worth the 3% hit on the credit card – although the pepper grinder with hot peppers in there was a cool idea – I might have to do that myself!

The security process in is a joke. This is Rome – Capital of the nation, yes? We cruise thru x-ray – no info on what all they want to see – nothing about shoes, no info on laptops, nothing about liquids til you get to the ity bity sign right in front on where the belt that goes into the x-ray machine is….  Grrr…

The next “security” is when we board. They take everyone’s bag and hand search. Which was really a joke. Fully unclear and they almost poked my eye out!

We got on board and then sat. Then the pilot come on and said that someone had attempted to board without their passport. WTF? How did you get from main security to the gate without it? The most important document known to man these days and you lose it in under a mile? So what does that mean to me, this person’s stupidity? It means I might miss my connection cause they have find this dimwits luggage and remove it from the plane… Grrrrrr!  They have him a little while to go retrace his steps and attempt to find it. Say what? I’ve been left at the gate 10 minutes before flight time and this fella gets buy to go find his dang documents? Man is life not fair some days.

He eventually comes back and can’t find it, so then they start the luggage search process…  And you know what else this means? IT means we lose our take off and landing window and do you know what that means? I means we have to wait another 25 minutes before we can take off! HOLY GUACAMOLE! If I could have gotten my hands on that stupid little poop….

It all worked out. We landed with enough time to go thru Heathrow Security – BTW – did you know that they do not require you to remove your laptop from your bag? Why? Do they have better xrays than in the states? Seems kinda weird to me!

Our flight to Denver was delayed so we cruised around the terminal. There were about 15 different duty free stores – and 2 food options. Sigh. As we had managed to get 12 gates away we noticed our flight status changed from delayed to boarding. HOLY CRAP!

Speed walking time! We made it, and we kept the middle seat between us free. We watched the last Pirates of the Caribean movie on Hubby’s I-Touch, read, napped, attempted to eat some seriously crazy food – cheese, tomato, and red pickle relish… ewwwwwwww!   

We landed, the baggage all arrived and quickly, no stopping at customs, and out to our waiting towncar! Did you know that SuperShuttle had a branch called ExecCar? Same as a limo but cheaper and the tip is included when you book on line! Sweet!

We made it home in one piece, the bubbahs were excited to see us, and the mail was stacked 10 feet tall!

It was nice to be home, eating frozen “real” pizza, sleeping in our king size bed with our fluffy pillows… Ahhhhhh….

Day 16 – Rome

We got sleep in a little, after the early morning business the day before, that was nice!

We headed to breakfast and it was very crowded! It seemed weird, the vibe was not friendly from the other guests which was weird! We ate up and headed out!

It was going to be a long walking day!

We started with the Arc of Peace – looked thru the windows!Then down to walk by the Tiber, it was niceand deserted, no traffic noise, very nice!

Back up for the Castle S’ant Angelo which was a very coolplace. Originally the crypt of another fella in typical Roman fashion theysimply built on top of what was there and modified it for their purposes! Itended up being the last refuge for the popes if anything happened to Rome or Vatican City! Views of Rome were really cool! So many domes!

We left there and headed to the “wedding cake” the Victor Emmanuel Monument. Such a large thing! We went around the side and walked up Michael Angelo’s grand entrance to the center behind. We skirted around the back to the secret entrance to the Victor Emmanuel Monument and had lunch at the Café on the side. It was hot with all the windows and black furniture but the sandwich was good!

After that we skirted to Forum and headed back for a nap!

After we got our rest we walked back down Via Curso to the Victor Emmanuel Monument and the Column of Trajan, and all the ruins on that side. We spent a lot of time making up more stories about what might have been what! This side still had some floors and tiles on some of the walls!

We eventually made our way back to the hotel for aCappuccino and bed!

The trip was over…  Time to head back. 16 days is long, so we were pretty happy to be getting back to our own bed, our own food and English!

Thursday April 17th - Rome


We started our day at the butt crack of dawn!! Time to go on our tour of the Vatican! We got picked up and then dropped off at another bus, then picked up and dropped off by the Vatican Museum! We only got to see some statues, tapestries, and maps. I got some good ideas for handles and covered jars for my pottery, tapestries bore me, but the maps - made with plaster were very cool!!

Next was the Sistine Chapel. The painting was amazing but i always thought it was bigger! We spent about 15 minutes there, we used our binoculars to get a close up view, which was neat! (That was a neat thing that Rick Steve’s book suggested). We learned that Michael Angelo had put his face on the “skin” of St Bartoleme. And that he put the Bishop that had dissed his painting of the Judgement as the fella in hell and when the Bishop went crying to the pope the pope said, sorry, my ability is from Jesus up, down below is out of my control! He He!!! That was a good story!

After the Sistine Chapel our tour "snuck" out the side door and into St Peter’s Basilica! What an amazing church! The coolest part was that any of the “paintings” were not paintings but mosaics! Wowser!! We didn’t get to go to the top of the dome or into the crypt - grrr...

Had we known we were leaving the area and just getting stuck in a gift shop we would have stayed behind - live and learn!
Our guide was very nice and informative but i’d recommend finding another way to see the Vatican or do more diligence on what you are going to go see.

We skipped the free hour at the gift shop and took the Metro back to the hotel and back to bed!

We arose around 2 and headed out for some more site seeing!
The Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Piazza Colonna, Multiple Egyptian Obelisks, and the Cappuccin Crypt

The city was swamped! kids every where! we learned later that this is the time of year that schools in europe “educate” the youth by traveling to other countries. If you don’t like American youth and their attitudes, you wont like this time if year near the big european sites! Moving on...

The Crypt was creepy...  There were multiple small rooms decorated with bones. Spine bones, legs bones, should blades, pelvises, finger bones..  pretty much any part of a skeleton was done artistically all over the walls and ceilings...

We returned to the hotel for a shower and a glass of wine. We were having dinner with one of the gentlemen that helped get 360 to Europe - Raffael and his wife.

The picked us up and brought us to one of their old haunts by Campo di Flori. Our reservation was valid but the table was not yet free, so over for some drinks. We enjoyed some sparkling white wine and finger foods for the alloted 20 minute. Then back to the restaurant with still a 5 minute wait. Then we waited inside, the wife indicated that you reservation was as good as someone else that looked better or that they knew walking in the door. We chuckled!

Eventually we sat and had a great meal - Spaghetti Carbonara for me, Hubby had a different kind of Cabonara with red sauce that is typical Romanesc. Second course I went with the recommended veal saltimbanco and hubby did his Carpaccio!  They picked a great white wine from the Alps region and desert was strawberries romanesco for me and tirameso for hubby!  We were stuffed!

We walked over to the Plazza Navona for a coffee nightcap!

It was a great night!

“You are beautiful girl, you alone? are you with a group? you come have drink with me now?” 

(big fat old italian to young asian girl)

Tuesday April 15th - Last full day in Florence

We slept in, some more than others! It started like every other day - blue skies - but that was simply a tease! More rain!

We headed to Ponte Vecchio - gotta see the old butcher shops and the “new” jewelry shops! Great views, and we saw where we wanted to have lunch! After crossing the bridge it was Pitti Palace - Bolobli Garden time! It was sprinkling on our walk there...
We waited to go thru the metal detector... Then 10 acres of gardens! As we exited into the garden it started to rain harder...  Not too much fun cruising thru a garden with your hood up and the your peripheral vision limited! The main alley way up the hill was pretty cool though. We saw some cool sculptures and the porcelain museum. Probably only interesting to me since i do pottery!

After the Garden we headed down by the river and over to Fake David #2 - the one is green!  :)

It was up a substantial staircase, but nothing like the Duomo or the Tower of Pisa!!
Very good views from the top! Then we continued up to the Chiesa di Sa Miniro al monte.

I love the story,

    version 1 when he was killed he flew to the top of this hill or

    version 2 - the better version, he carried his head under his arm and walked up to the top of the hill.

I mean really, gotta stop by and check it out. Again, great views, church was free and the Priest and some others were chanting. Really great sound! Not sure if it was funeral or just blessing the holy water but it was neat!

We headed back off the hill and I was determined to find the Bardini Gardens - the allusive things! Florence is lucky the romans got here first and gave them the grid pattern for streets, made things a lot easier for me this time!

We had just started up the hill to explore when guess what - it started raining! Sigh!

So we gave up and headed for that sandwich shop! Great focaccia squished sandwiches - salami and cheese! And we were out of the rain!
I think all the grease is killing my complexion, but dang is it yummy!
We waited out the storm, and when it was a little lighter of rain drops we made a run for the hotel and the Gelateria near by!

Nap time! Then snacks in the bar and bed time!

Monday April 14th - First full day in Florence!

We had a very nice breakfast here!  Then it was time to huff it!
We headed to the Duomo and to the stairs!  We went up, and up and up! The dome within the dome architecture was really amazing and the paintings on the ceiling were disturbing, fascinating and amazing as well!  The view was amazing! We could see all the locations we had seen the evening before, the hillsides, and the places we wanted to go see! Going back down made you a little dizzy, but it was really amazing! We ran across a group of American kids - ugh! Loud, annoying, typical! By the time we got back down my legs were all gooey! We walked around a saw the Capinilla and the Basilica Doors. We might try the Capanilla later tomorrow - but hubby didn’t want to do another set of 400 stairs right after the dome! Woose!  ;)

We headed to Pisa for the afternoon! On the train we enjoyed a British family of 5 where mom attempted to keep control and Dad took a nap. Ugh!! They were the only ones making sound on the train. Ugh!! And me without my ipod. We were very happy to reach Pisa! We huffed it down to the Duomo area, we got tickets to climb the tower at 3:20, so we had time to burn. We walked around, took pictures of all the pieces, did the holding up the tower pictures, and had cappuccino at a sidewalk cafe!

When it was our turn for the stair climb, the weather had turned, the clouds had come in and the wind was whipping around! Our luck of poor family behavior continued - an Irish father with 3 kids were pushing us up the entire tower. Screaming within a marble tower is less than appealing. Gotta love great parental control. Besides the terrible children, the trip up was crazy! You could feel the lean and see the wearing in the steps at different angles. It was crazy! We made it to the top and then to the tippy top - the belfry. I was feeling less than secure at the top!  :( My grip on the handrail was pretty white knuckled! The view was indeed amazing, and you almost felt as if the clouds were on your shoulders!  Hubby made sure i made it down the stairs - there was no hand rails at that point!

We took a different route back to the train station, and ran into a rain storm!
Seems to be our weather this trip!

We had sandwiches for dinner - i went with a meat and mushroom type thingy, hubby did sausage pizza! We then popped into the hotel bar for some wine and a couple appetizers! I love me the green olives! There were also some marinated caper pods - mmmm - looked like okra inside! We had a relaxing evening in front of some english TV, listening to the rain!

Tomorrow is Pitti Palace, Boboli Gardens and Fake David #2!!

Wednesday April 16th - Florence - train to Rome

We spend the morning in Florence getting one last stair stepper workout in! We headed over to the Campanile to climb the 414 stairs to checkout the bells and the view of Florence the Duomo! Hubby was a good sport and joined me!

The view was great and it was neat to see where we had actually been on the tippy top of the Duomo!

After we came back down we returned to Queen Elizabeth Cafe for some Focaccia sandwiches for the train ride!

The train was pretty good - EruoStar! Fast as can be! Our pick up fella was typical guido - i had a tough time not laughing right at him. He was very nice and told us to take care with hailing a cab, so that was very nice!

We arrived a bit late into Rome, but we  were checked in and back out for tourist  stuff by 4pm!

We headed over to the Colosseum and the Palatino hill! Funniest thing about the Colosseum was the xray machine guard. He had a cigarette hanging out of his lip and a  attitude that needed some seriously adjustment. He was completely pissed off that anyone would consider putting their jacket thru the xray as opposed to just their bags! We chucked at the sight! The Colosseum was simply amazing! I want to compare mom’s photos of when i was 2 and here vs now a days! Wonder what all had changed!

Hubby and i could have spent all day at Palatino! So many ruins - so many stories to decide on what all was there, what was, what could have been! Unfortunately we were a bit pooped, overwhelmed and hungry!

We managed to brave the metro at rush hour - good lord! We pushed and squished and made our way onto the cars!

We picked a local restaurant and had an amazing meal! I started with caprese salad - surprise there! Hubby started with procuitto brushetta! Next was gnocchi and pesto, pasta arabiatta. Secondo was veal for me, and proccuito and cheese. It was a great, great, fabulous meal!


Tomorrow morning - 6:30am we are off to the Vatican! Ugh!

(oopsie - this is out of order - i've been putting in all my entries at once when we get internet, i hit post a little to quickly on this one, you'll get the other day inbetween starting tomorrow! enjoy!)

Sunday April 13th - Last morning in Venice and off to Florence

We slept in again - ahhh vacation!
I managed to still get up early enough to get in an hour of yoga with Rodney Yee (i-touch)
We took a walk around to find some sandwiches for the train ride- but apprently on Sunday of the weekend of voting there is no sandwiches to be had!
Our guide taxied us back to the station and we got to see the new bridge over the grand canal. It isn’t done yet, but looks pretty cool! She brought us all the way onto the train! Nice car, we had seats along and facing each other! The first class service was great! Kind of like a plane, they come thru with a little cart with beverages and a snack!

Our neighbors in the car were 2 couples - one from England, one from Canada and they did not stop talking the ENTIRE time! Ugh! I eventually put on my ipod to block them out!

We arrived in Florence at 3:30, met by a little fella with a sigh - I Love that part!  :)

Our hotel was around the corner, so we got there pretty quick! We were staying at the Hotel Adler Cavalieri - 4 stars, oh my! As we were heading up in the elevator our bellman looked at our keys and said - “Ohhh...  Big room!” I think that is similar to the conference attendee's comment of - “oh, you rich people!”

We dropped off the luggage and headed out to see what we could see!

We started at the Plaza dela Republica - with the belly button of Florence! Then over to the New Market with the “x” on the floor where people that went bankruptcy were “dropped” from the roof. Also saw the bronze piggy fountain where you rub the snout for good luck! We decided we needed to try the great gelato here in Florence! I did the strawberry and coconut, hubby stuck with Chocolate. I enjoyed my choices immensely!

We headed toward the Orsanmichele Church - but i wasn’t able to see the “wheat shoots”. Then over to the “fake” david - it’ll be the closest we get, and that’s fine with us! We saw the other statues in the Piazza della Signoria. We headed down thru the Uffizi gallery. There was a great pantomime doing a egyptian mummy! We took a gander at the Ponte Vecchio! Can’t wait to cross it and check out the stores! We wandered some more and saw the courtyard at the Palazzio Vechio and some other older buildings!

We got in a quick nap before dinner time!

Dinner was at La Grotta di Leo - Mmmmmm!
I started with Caprese Salad - i just can’t get enough of this buffalo mozzarella!
Hubby started with a meat plate!
I ended with Veal Scallopini, hubby did Gnocchi 4 cheese and omelette 4 cheese.
We enjoyed them both!
Finally we had some cappuchinno! Definitely a cute little place, pretty good english and happy to let you no follow the rules of first, second course!

On the way back to the hotel and laundry we got some treats! Anything made with butter and filled with nutella is yummy!  We found a “wash and dry” that worked out pretty well! 30 minutes wash and a 25 minute dry that really dried!

It was a pretty darn good way to start the Second week of our trip!

Saturday - April 12 - last full day in Venice

We slept in and I got in a 1/2 hour  of yoga! It was overcast! We headed over to the Chiesa du Santa Maria Glriosa dei Frari.  We stole a ride on the vapparetto - for one stop! We tried to figure out how to get a gondola ride across but the maps are terrible and we had spent an awful lot of time lost over the last 24 hours! But in the church was an amazing painting matching the marble wall design. Pretty amazing and seeing both from one location was cool.  It was a very interesting a beautiful church. There was also a cool fresco with black marble and wear marks specifically put onto the kneees of the black marble fellas “holding” up the higher part of it!

There was also a lovely example of American stupidity and arrogance. To get an audio guide you need to turn over your passport - pretty good guarantee that you will return it. Upon entering the church there was an older gentleman completely not attempting to understand what the people were asking for - cause “id” was a little to vague.. sigh. Also all over the church and in the guide books it states that no photos are allowed. What do we see later - this fella in front of the Bellini madonna taking a picture with a frickin flash! ARG! I was soo annoyed and embarrassed.

We decided to try and work the map and get over to the Academia. We ended up getting lost - no surprise there!  But we did make it to the other side of the island and seeing the water on the other side was great!

We took a walk around between the Academia and the Peggy Guggenheim museum. There were some amazing art shops around there! We skipped Peggy’s since i don’t like modern art, but the courtyard was neat!

We headed back to the hotel, grabbing some Salami sandwiches for lunch! After that we took a lovely nap! Then up and at um, and heading to the Basilica!  We got in a rather short line and made in into the church in about 12 minutes - that was great! The church was indeed amazing but following my book i couldn’t find the ark nor the Adam and Eve expulsion from heaven, but the post cards sure did look neat! We also paid to go to the museum up top to be able to see the Horses and the view from the Balcony!  The view was great!

After that we stopped for some Gelato - i did strawberry - not that great. Hubby stuck with chocolate!

Next stop was over at the Rialto for some Cappachino! We chose the “bar” to the right of the bridge - it has the Paulaner sign over it!  The staff was very helpful and friendly! It is a great place, good people watching, good coffee!

Time for shopping! We found a murano glass wall hanging that is a faucet with a water droplet with a fish in it! Great for our bathroom! Yeah!  I found a wonderful square glass pendant enclosed in a silver droplet! It is really a great piece!

It started to rain! We popped into a bar so a glass of wine - it wasn’t letting up!
Time to make a run for it!

We grabbed a bottle of wine and flew thru that in our hotel room (it was a bottle with a saint on it, how could we go wrong!)

It stopped raining so it was time for dinner. We ended up back at A La Teatro - moments before the Theater let out. So the service was pretty bad and we didn’t get wine, so that added to the disappointing service! Sigh. I chose the Lasagna Forndo - it was ok. Hubby did pizza and it was ok.

Tomorrow we head to Florence!

Friday - Venice!
I forced hubby to get up early so we could be guaranteed a ticket to the Accademia. The hotel breakfast was pretty good. I had some muesli with plain yogurt - hubby did his croisant with nutella - he loves that stuff!

We huffed it over to the Accademia and enjoyed the Tintoretto exhibit. The x-rayed examples were pretty neat. But kind of unfortunate for the poor guy if he made a mistake or decided to paint it differently!

Luckily hubby and i  do museums the same way - quickly!

Then we headed to the Doges Palace to see if we could grab a ticket for the SEcret Itineraries tour. We were in luck! 12:25! We wandered around the area checking things out! We stopped by the gardens near the vaparetto stop - cute! Eventually we popped back into the palace to see what there was to see since our tour would not go there! Some pretty amazing paintings and the one room where they “erased” on of the doges just cracked me up! He was found guilty of treason and crimes against the rebublic so they blacked out his painting in the room with all the portraits. Soo funny! We saw the prisons and the bridge of sighs.

It was time for our tour - which was in English - whew!

It was really a fun tour. We got to see a whole bunch of items that were not available otherwise. We got to see where Cassanova was held, almost escaped from, finally escaped from and how! We also saw the attic where they show you how the suspended ceiling is help up and how the huge room is able to stand up without any columns supporting the big beams. No photos allowed, so no info on that! I’d say that was my favorite thing of the day!

We left the Palace starving and went in search of Sandwhich row! We picked the Bar Verde - Green Bar and had toasted salami. Nummy!
After that it was nap time!

Later we took a jaunt to the Rialto Bridge. Really a neat bridge! We took some photos and traded photo taking with a japanese couple! Gotta love an island full of tourists!

We decided to take a load off and enjoy some cappachino while watching the boats and gondolas cruise around! It was relaxing and kept us dry during the rain storm!

We moved on after a while and explored the shops a block back. Some really amazing glass work. I’m still trying to decide what i want to get. Perhaps a glass pendant?

I talked hubby into doing a cruise of the Grand Canal! I read the book and found things while the boat cruised along! It was fun, but i’m not sure it was worth the multi hour taxi ticket! It is definitely amazing to see the “front doors” on the canal! The book said that building could not be modified, but there were a number that appeared to be being worked on, which is good to see since having them disintegrate into the sediment would be quite a loss! Prior to the cruise we popped into the Self Service Cafe at the Rialto for some American Style pizza slices! I did the everything - nummy! Hubby did the pepperoni! It was tasty, nothing to write home about but filled the hole in our bellies!

We took a round about way back to the hotel - aka we got lost and hubby got pissed. But we did find a laundromat, internet cafe and a couple snack shops! I call that a success!

I popped into a hotel to get my bearings and asked them to find where we were on our map - they looked at our map and said - well no wonder you are lost, and proceeded to give us a new map! I guess that explains why we kept not being able to find out where we are. It is rather disconcerting to not be able to see any landmarks to set you in the right directions. The canals don’t help, the buildings are tall, the streets are tiny...  I still find it fun. We will have to get hubby to relax more!  :)

We ended up at the self service part of the A LA Teatro for late night snacks. I had some of the wine again, and we ate 1/2 sandwiches with the crusts cut off! Very fun!

Tomorrow should be another full day!