Wednesday, September 17, 2014

In Stride

All blissed out
at the station...
I shoved us onto the train to Venice as the doors were closing. I'd checked the correct platform, car, and seats (it says right here...) but maybe not well enough.  So we had to throw some money at the problem and switch trains in Bologna.

Finding our B and B in Dorsoduro, the backbone of Venice, wasn't too much trouble, maybe a little. There are no cars in Venice and you take cheap vaporettos (us) or expensive gondolas (not us) to the nearest stop, then wind through narrow passageways between buildings.

Accessible, along with jazz and post-its, is an American invention. There are no wheelchair ramps in Venice, no free wc's, very few buildings with lifts. Venetians must have great cardiovascular systems, with an enormous number of stairs from the station intoVenezia, stairs over each of the 400-plus canals and Grand Stairs over the Grand Canal.

All this means you can't really take anything in stride, but still, it's Venice.

Ca'Santo Spirito locked out.
When we arrived at Ca'Santo Spirito, our little family-run hotel behind the church of Santa Maria della Salute, the doors were locked, no sign of life. Entry took a while but it was no-drama compared to The Uffizi: A German couple with a local phone helped us learn that our key was taped behind the mailbox.

Our room was only three floors up. The stairs were narrow and wooden but--most important--the keys worked and we had a view.

We hit the waterways and earth canals of Venezia as soon as we could throw our bags in the door. A little later than we'd planned, just when the light was perfect, breathtaking, beyond compare.





Sta. Maria della Salute

Monday, September 15, 2014

Exteriors

Just one more night in Firenze.  After two weeks in our little apartment with no view (which we've loved) there's only one keen disappointment:  We haven't had an exterior clothesline.  Almost everyone in Florence has one, but we're had to make do with hanging our (you name it) from lamps, curtain rods, and window sills.  Just one more reason to appreciate the Emma House, where we can always get online.

Street shot in Cinque Terre Friday

Friday, September 12, 2014

Cinque Terre


By the end of the day, we'd walked and climbed almost seven miles.

Cinque Terre (Five Lands) is a string of villages on the Mediterranean side of Italy, a couple of hours northwest of Florence.   These settlements date from 800 AD, early middle ages, and they're connected by high stone paths.

Groves of olive trees border these paths; crops and vineyards line the terraced hillsides above the paths.

We bussed to Manarola from Florence. Then uphill steps from Manarola to Corniglia, and a seafood lunch in Corniglia.

The big push was long, winding hike from Corniglia to Vernazza...where most of these photos were taken.  Then one train stop to Monteresso, a short boat ride to get us back to Riomaggiore, and back to Firenze.

Looking back on Corniglia from the trail.


    

Vernazza, the end of the longest hike.












Thursday, September 11, 2014

Snaf-izzi

It started with the tickets.  No, let's back up.  It started with the early morning thunderstorm, the kind that makes you want to lie in bed and listen to rain on the third story roof. Then the alarm going off, okay, okay. No coffee, just hopping puddles.

And then finally at the Uffizi one snafu after another.  Our early tickets weren't tickets, but vouchers for tickets.  So I go get in line 3, to change our vouchers for tickets.  Meanwhile Ira stayed in the entry line since this is what we got up early for.





Let me just say that a few things were stacked against us from the getgo.

Like you can't exchange vouchers for tickets until 10 minutes before ticket time.



But the exchange line opened late. And the entry line opened, well, on time.

So somehow in this age of enhanced security Irie got into the Uffizi without a ticket.

I realized this when he saw me looking for him, opened the NO EXIT door and shouted, "Lizoid!"

As the guard was pulling him away from the door he mouthed, "I got in!!"
So don't even ask about the 45 galleries, Botticelli's Birth of Venus, or the Medici Family's personal bling.  Just know that ultimately I got in.  And yes, Ira did get out.


Wednesday, September 10, 2014

We can walk the walk, but can we...

Our waiter confesses that he can't stand the way Americans pronounce gnocchi, that little dumpling pasta covered with cheese.  So he instructs me.  Here goes:

Nokey.  Rhymes with okey dokey
Nochi. With a nice "ch" in the middle.
Ok, one last time:
nyo - che!
Got it!!
Now can I have some?


Tuesday, September 9, 2014

The Big Dawg


Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo hung out in Florence, but really,
the Big Dawg was Brunelleschi.

The massive Duomo in the center of the city sat without a dome (or shall we say duome) for 150 years until Fillipo figured out how to engineer it in the early 1400s.

So now, thanks to Brunelleschi, The Duomo has a lid on top, and it roughly measures the size of...um....Connecticut.

Like they say, it's hard to miss it.






Brunelleschi constructed the dome like two eggshells, one nesting inside the other.  Then he capped it with a lantern.

You can wind upward between the shells to the lantern any day you feel like getting up early, standing in line, and climbing 431 steps.

Orthopedic footwear not pictured.


And here is the biggest thing:

Ok, yeah, we took a selfie at the top.
 Everybody did.
At the end of THAT day you can consume all the bread, red wine, and pasta that you could possibly want.



View from the lantern early this morning.   Really.  Wow.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Fantastico

Our apartment in Florence is rustico, primitivo, and fantastico.
About 50  meters from the Arno River, it's on an alleyway just large enough for foot traffic.

Our alleyway.  Usually there's hanging laundry.
It's on the third floor with no lift, so we're mainly eating salad, since arugula and radicchio are easy to carry up sixty steps.

There is no view, no dishwasher, no television.

This is exactly what we had in mind.

The landlady's grandmother once lived here. Now she is away, having left behind her lamps and electrical appliances, her old walnut dresser, her chipped dishes, her little drawings, and her extra hot chili peppers on a string.

Oh, and yes, her clothespins for hanging things out the window to dry.

Seriously, it is charming.

Salad, bread, wine. Repeat, repeat, repeat.


Should we try to use this?
Today we walk-ran down the Arno at 8am, circled the historic center, and found cheap coffee.

The tourists weren't out so that gave us space to walk briskly on the narrow ledges that pass for sidewalks.

We're in training to climb to the lantern of the Duomo, which will be another day's story. Or not.


The Arno at the end of our alley.

Then we came home, put on respectful clothes, and spent a couple of hours at The Church of Sacre Coeur.  Everybody and his brother is buried here including Dante and Michelangelo.  Best part, the amazing Giotto frescoes and the abstract patterns in the marble.

Peaceful to just sit, wrapped in history and beauty, and to think of my sons during this first week in September.

Floor at Sacre Coeur.  In my heart I'm painting.



Friday, September 5, 2014

Waterworld

Yep, Venice is just out there floating on the Adriatic Sea.

I was expecting a few canals, then a big land mass, a "joke's over" kind of place.  But the big  (and little) waterways just go on and on.  No cars are allowed in Venezia, and the footpaths here and there are referred to as "earth canals," a term that suggests that ours, in fact, might NOT be the only reality.

Using our day pass we rode the vaporettos up and down the grand canal and out to Murano after dark, which is a whole-nother story. Besides the gondoliers in their edgy black and white t-shirts, we were crowded by a lot of buff men in racing shorts out polling down the canal for exercise.  And, yes, we were impressed.

The Venetian homes, of course, sit right in the water.  No one seems concerned about ants, termites, mold, mildew, or a little dampness in the basement.