Florence

Florence…. We caught the Metro to Termini in Rome, walked through the underground shopping center, and took the Italo train to Florence. As soon as we exited the train station we went left up Nazionale, hooked a right on Chiara, left on Panicale and voila we were at the Red Moose. It was easy up until then. Unfortunately the gal who runs it had to finish drying the sheets… we had no way of knowing how long we’d have to wait because I never get data for my phone. A lot of people think I’m crazy, but I feel like I need a social media break when we’re out and about sight-seeing. Anyway she showed up and we got into the most adorable apartment. We even had a terrace.

Our first stop was the giant market for a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and fruit/veggies/eggs for our room. If I’m going to enjoy the pizza, bread and pasta I need the balance. Florence is officially my favorite city in Italy now. Rome is too crowded and busy. Milan is beautiful, but it’s big and expensive. 

Florence is small enough to explore the entire city on foot and in fact is mostly off limits to cars. This is why I prefer to stay on the outskirts of the city… it’s difficult to get to the city center pulling luggage.

Our second stop was Grom. Grom Is my favorite gelato. It’s organic and they use a lot of strong flavors like real coffee from Guatemala and vanilla from Madagascar. As you face the front of the Duomo look to your right and you see the ambulances. As you face the ambulances look to the left and take that tiny street to the end. Grom is on the left corner.

All of the churches are free, including the Duomo. If you go during high season, like we did this time, you will have to wait a minimum of 45 minutes to get in. You have to pay to get up the tower next to the Duomo so I recommend going to the Palazzo Vecchio museum. It’s 14E to see the mansion and also to climb the tower which is 311 feet (95m) tall. You have a great view and you can view the Duomo! Plus it wasn’t a stairwell full of stinky-sweaty tourists. The Loggia next to the palace is a must see, but I recommend seeing it very early or at dusk. Otherwise it’s too crowded to get good photos.

Instead of going to the Academia to see the gorgeous David and all the other statues (which I recommend, but was too crowded for us) we hiked up to the Piazza Michelangelo to see the giant replica of David and the panorama of Florence. A lovely church is up there and if you remember a scarf for your bare shoulders you can pop in to breath in some cool calm energy before heading back down the hill.

The acoustics in Florence are amazing. Be sure to look for all of the local musicians and singers. They’re always good and a play a variety of stuff ranging from opera to rock-n-roll. I’m not sure why but we thought it was highly entertaining to watch the ambulances navigate these groups of people standing in the ancient cobblestone streets. The people would part like the seas, the musician would continue to play, the ambulance would pass with sirens blaring, and everyone would return to their spot in the road. No biggie.

We were wandering around trying to settle on a restaurant that appealed to all three of us when this cute young Italian guy lured us in to his restaurant by handing us wine and asking us to wait a few minutes for a table to become available. We grabbed the wine and waited. He entertained us by explaining that the language of love is an international language (which he apparently spoke very well). When we left he talked Izzy into giving him a hug. Afterwards she laughed and said she couldn’t imagine hugging an American guy that she didn’t even know.

On our last evening in Florence, as we were heading back from Grom, the church bells started ringing… and ringing… for at least ten minutes. A huge crowd was gathered in front of the Duomo. As we walked up, the doors opened and a procession of priests started coming out. A giant gold canopy came next, then more priests and guys dressed in green gowns. We had no idea what it was all about. A couple of ladies asked us if we spoke English. They then handed us a camera and asked us to take their photo with the procession behind them. They were wearing their pajamas they’d come out of their rooms so quickly. It was the celebration of Corpus Christi, and that’s what was under the gold canopy.

Well, back to Roma for the final leg of our trip.

Roma

Roma, a tumbling mass of humanity… It’s also a tumbling mass of antiquity. We were met at the airport by Gianluca and squished into a compact car. As soon as we got settled into their home, we were off for a walk to a nearby restaurant. Izzy and I shared a pizza. I learned from Egle’s plate that it’s possible to order food without bread or pasta. She had fish and a salad.

Wednesday we jumped on the metro and went to Circo Massimo. We wandered around and ended up at a fantastic theater called Teatro Marcello. Not only was it a great ancient Roman site, it had a nearby café with Panini and extremely good red wine which they poured into a paper cup for us. We just carried it over to a stone ledge and munched and sipped. I will tell you about this wine because it has stayed our (Izzy and me) favorite. We went back to this café again just for the wine. Then we went back again to buy a bottle. I have a feeling a bottle will return to California with me. We tried to find someplace with wifi… the pub’s didn’t work, the gelato shop’s didn’t work. We had a problem because Gianluca was meeting us downtown and we couldn’t connect with him. 

It was pouring down rain and we trudged up to the Colosseum past the big white building with the fancy statues… and suddenly the rain stopped and there was Gianluca! That was crazy good luck.

We left the next morning with a new tour company called Italy Indeed. The purpose of this tour was to write about it, bringing attention to the area south of Rome. Vanessa whisked us away in her Alpha Romeo for a three day whirlwind tour of this unknown area of Italy. It was such a spectacular area that I’m going to break it down over several blogs. There’s just no way to squeeze in all of our stops into one blog entry. Stay tuned for great unique places to visit, like Monte Cassino the abbey for the original Benedictine monks, or the 1.5 hour trail between two castles, or the truffle hunt with Spillo the truffle dog.

We returned to Rome to a change in plans. To make a long story short, their puppy (Duca) got very sick before we arrived and spent some time in the hospital. He’s much better now, but imagine his surprise when a house full of guests arrived on Saturday! Trying to keep him calm has been difficult… he’s so excited that he licks our legs compulsively. He sneaks under the table and looks up sweetly with his tooth sticking out (he’s an English Bulldog). Unfortunately Egle had to go to northern Italy to check up on her father… he broke his arm. So Gianluca did his best to entertain us while keeping Duca calm.

Sunday morning we took the metro to Circo Massimo. What we encountered was pure chaos. A major bicycle race was just getting ready to start. There were police everywhere… I mean everywhere; on foot, horseback, in cars, jeeps, helicopters, on rooftops… everywhere. 

We made it to Teatro Marcello for more wine of course. J In the spirit of Gladiators Izzy and I staged a mock battle over the paper cup. The bike race went right past us. We went past the big white building again and Izzy got dragged into a photo shoot with gladiators (they must’ve heard about her skills with the wine cup). We scurried back to the security of our house.

Monday was more of the same, but this time we needed to take the bus. Gianluca warned us that the bus times are more of a suggestion. We got out to the sidewalk five minutes before the bus was scheduled to arrive… an hour later it showed up. 

We tried to find some of the landmarks, like the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. We walked all the way to the Piazza Popolo. That was a disappointment. We had more fun going into every church that was open. We kept thin scarves in our purses so we could enter the churches because we were wearing tank-tops (not Joe of course). After eight hours of wandering around, we met our friend Veronica for dinner at a restaurant right in front of the Colosseum (We met her in the Bahamas, and she was the one we came to visit in Florence the first time here). We were exhausted, but felt triumphant that we learned the name of the big white building—Piazza Venezia. Fortunately we’d packed for our early trip to Florence, so we could just fall into bed.

Arrival in Barcelona

When we arrived yesterday we went through the easiest customs since The Bahamas. Then we dragged our suitcases out to terminal B and grabbed the Aerobus to Placa Catalunya (last stop). After that came the usual bewildering trek to wherever we’re staying, in this case on La Rambla. It wasn’t so bad, just about six blocks pulling 3 weeks worth of luggage. Our room is up 3 flights of stairs (recall the luggage). Ricard, our host, was very nice and recommended a restaurant…  unfortunately it was mostly shellfish. I couldn’t take the risk and get sick from cross contamination. We grabbed a bite nearby and shared a scrawny grilled cod.

We hit the streets again after a stop at a chocolate booth in the local market. Joe was hankering for a beer, so when I saw an Irish pub with a Guinness sign we went in. What an experience! It was so loud and there were so many drunk guys, we almost left. But Izzy had never been inside a pub before and she was fascinated (and Irish). As we were hunting for a table, this drunk guy, wearing a giant dinosaur costume, staggered back and Izzy and she almost stepped on his tail.

She said, “Wow, I’m in Barcelona/Spain, in an Irish pub and I just almost stepped on a dinosaur’s tail.” This has now become our private joke. Then we ordered fish and chips to share. Apparently when Joe held up one finger and said one fish and chips, the server took him literally. We got a plate with French fries and one mushy fried fish. Oh well, we were starving and the wine was good…

Jet lag woke us up at 4:00 am. It gave us time to get ready at a slow pace I guess. We put on our finest church clothes and set out for a 35 minute walk to church. I’d decided the best way to experience the Gaudi Cathedral (La Familia Sagrada) was to visit under the purpose it was built for… a place of worship. A place to connect with God and the essence of his creation—nature. I hadn’t factored in the beauty of the choir. Wow! To go to mass you have to arrive 15-30 minutes in advance through the north-east side (on Marino).

You go through airport-level security and are guided to your seats by an army of guides. Once seated we sat respectfully listening to the music until I broke all protocol and snuck out my phone, put it on video, and lay it in my lap recording the music. Now in retrospect I should have flipped the direction to selfie-mode so that it would have been facing up towards the lofty columns that give you the feeling of being in a heavenly forest.

It was Pentecostal Sunday, so the service was more elaborate than usual. If you go to mass, you are the first to have access to the cathedral. As we were leaving (after going under the church to the museum) large tour groups were being led in. Lucky us, we went early.

We walked for several hours trying to find the Guell Park. We finally gave up and sat in the shade with a beer and a glass of wine. It’s nice having Izzy with us, because I’m a painfully slow drinker of wine. I don’t like to reach that liver-overload where you can feel the alcohol. Believe it or not I drink wine for the taste J Anyway, Izzy shares my wine with me. This is her first experience with actually drinking it. She had only tasted it. Now she’s learning how to drink and not get drunk. Not an American skill for sure.

We napped back in our room for a couple of hours and hit La Rambla. We were energized and ready for another couple of hours of walking. This time we headed to the sandy beach. We didn’t find it. We did find a bridge going to a giant shopping mall. It was cool to be on the bridge when they stopped us and spun it to allow a couple of sailboats to enter the marina. We walked the outskirts of the little spit of land and detoured to the sound of a live band. It was a no-charge concert next to one of thousands of McDonalds here. It took us a minute to realize it was a Christian band! That was awesome to be in a crowd of people singing and dancing with little children on their shoulders. So fun. Anyway, I was too hungry to stay. I didn’t want to shift to hangry!

We stopped and photographed a giga-yacht. It even had its own helicopter. We went to a nice restaurant (with a giant disco ball) and had three meals, one wine, one beer, and a glass of champagne that only came to 45 Euros ($55). For a restaurant on the most popular street in Spain, this was a big surprise. I guess coming from overpriced California has is benefits.

Monday Joe and Izzy went for a run in the morning while I wrote this blog and then we wandered the back streets. We stopped at a traditional tapas restaurant and piled up the toothpicks (you snag a little snack from a tray on the counter or passed around by a waitress. Each one has a toothpick in it. Each toothpick has a value.

At the end of your meal you simply count your toothpicks and pay the bill). Then we headed back to the streets to the local farmers markets and then an antique knick-knack market in front of a massive cathedral. One of the tables had a little bowl of coins from various countries… 3 coins for 1 euro. Imagine our surprise when we found American pennies in there! I could buy 3 pennies for a euro… what a deal.

Sadly, every church we came to was either closed or charged money for entrance. Definitely not like Italy. Anyway, Izzy got to choose dinner Monday night. We ate a lovely little restaurant on a side street and had Paella. It was excellent and relaxing. Did I mention our airbnb is next to a gelataria? They have this amazing coffee flavored gelato.

Well today, Tuesday was our last day in Spain and Izzy has already decided to move here… hehe. We dragged our suitcases back through the streets to the bus stop. Caught a plane to Rome and now I’m sitting here in cramped little seats writing my blog again. Tonight we will be in Roma with Gianluca and Egle.

The Eleven Hour Flight

We got on the road on time, but an accident on HWY 50 put us at a snail’s pace, which meant the rest of the drive to Oakland Airport was like a high speed chase scene. We barely got to the gate on time. Thank goodness it’s a small airport. After checking in and security we only stood at the gate for 5-10 minutes… just long enough to shoot off a few texts to rub it in that we were going on vacation. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Norwegian Airlines, but they fly these enormous 787’s out of Oakland at rock bottom prices. It’s so much cheaper than regular airlines that we are flying first class and it’s still less expensive… and we don’t have any stops, none!

Have you ever flown first class? We did it once a long time ago when Joe’s mom gave us some air-miles. We used them to upgrade. That was amazing, so we were pretty stoked about flying all the way to Barcelona in the fancy-pants section. What a difference. No wonder people do this. Firstly we got to go straight up to the check-in counter (I’ve seen people do this) and we went through a separate line (actually no line) to get to the security checkpoint. In other words we probably would’ve missed our flight.

Then you get to board first and they bring you juice before the plane even takes off. And the seats! Wow, talk about roomy. They tilt all the way back almost flat and have legs rests that go up. Right now I’m sitting here with my legs stretched out straight and I can’t touch the seat in front of me with my toes (I can already hear the jokes about how that’s not amazing because I have short legs!).

The flight attendant brought me a glass of wine before dinner. This deserves its own paragraph. It wasn’t good wine, but still. Dinner was good, but I’ve never seen such a small salad in my entire life. Honestly, it had less lettuce than you’d find on a hamburger.

Each seat has a little flip-up TVs hidden in the armrest. You should’ve seen us trying to figure out how to get them up without looking like country bumpkins. I was trying to pry it out because it had a sign that said LIFT. Izzy lifted up on that and I almost lost a finger! The second time we pulled it out we just lifted the handle thingy and it leaped out and scared us both, lol. We couldn’t stop giggling. Then we tried to sleep, but I kept sliding out of the seat. Later when I went to use the restroom I saw that there’s a flap at the bottom of the leg rest—a place to put your feet! That would’ve been good to know four hours ago.

Barcelona Here We Come!

Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved to play on swing-sets and dance more than she liked to study. Her grades weren’t very good, but she didn’t mind a bit.

Along came a crazy lady who whispered in her ear, “If you get straight A’s in your senior year of high school I will take you to Italy.” (Yeah, I’m the crazy lady)

Little Izzy began to dream of Italy. She began to study harder and even decided to take her most difficult classes before her senior year to improve her probability of getting straight A’s.

The crazy lady began to worry.  She would try and distract Izzy from her goal, but nothing worked. She even tried to change the promise to Mexico (cheaper), but this teenager put her foot down, and said no, “I’m not getting straight A’s just to go to Mexico!”

Well, she did it… and now we’re taking her to Italy. First we’ll go to Barcelona on the way, then Rome, up to Florence, and back to Rome. Our friends Egle & Gianluca are letting us stay with them in Rome. They got to know Izzy when they were at our house in 2016 for a couple of months, so they are excited about seeing her again. Joe is her running coach, so look for short videos of her running past landmarks like the Roman Colosseum.

Moral of the story? Don’t make promises you can’t keep… I promised her little brother (who would rather swim than study) that I’d take him to Mexico!