Is this really only Day 3?

I feel like been on vacation now for about 6 months.  Not complaining; that's a good feeling.  I'm just amazed at how quickly we got our sea legs and can find our way around this city. 

Today we visited the Uffizi Museum, touted as the most frequently visited museum in Italy.  It's big, it's full of art.  After a while, you get dizzy looking at all the art.  But we did see "Venus on a Clam Shell", uh, sorry, "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli.  And the portraits of the Duke & Duchess of Urbino, which I felt needed a little pick-me-up.  So I added my personal touch while Gene took a photo:

Just doin' my best Cumberbatch.  Kind of adds to the whole atmosphere, I think.

 

After our museum visit and a swell lunch outdoors at a café on the circumference of the museum square, we refound the pasta shop and bought some spinach & cheese ravioli, some meat sauce and some pesto sauce.  Cost us a whopping 7.70 euros (about $8.35), so our local meal in is set. 

 

Then we were off to a wine tour of two Chianti vineyards.  Wine tours are fun:  drive for a half-hour, drink 4 samples of whatever, drive 15 more minutes, drink 3 more samples of whatever and enjoy some lovely countryside scenery:

 

 

Then we drove another 15 minutes and were able to spend 20 minutes wandering around the small Italian village of Greve, where Gene bought two more t-shirts combining bicycling & evolution and I found a new mortar and pestle carved from the wood of an olive tree.  A splendid addition to what will eventually be my new kitchen.

 

When the tour bus returned to our starting point, we were off to the grocery store.  The good thing about staying in an apartment instead of a hotel is that you get access to a full-kitchen and can cook breakfast and have evening snacks.  You also get to shop in a local grocery store to stock your kitchen.  And stock up we did.  We also learned that in Italy, you are supposed to weigh your vegetables and fruit and get a label from the machine that you put on your vegetables and fruit with the price, so when you get to the check-out counter, the cashier just punches in the number and everything moves along nicely.

 

Instead our poor cashier had to keep going back to the weighing machine and looking at us with exasperation.  We just kept apologizing and he was nice enough to say "it's okay" -- in English even.

 

We arrived at the apartment after a pretty long day.  Not a whole lot to report, but a lot of fun was had. 

 

We're off to Venice tomorrow.  No tour.  We're just planning to go to the train station, buy a ticket, ride the rails to Venice and walk around.  See what we can see, maybe get a gondola ride, have a meal and take the train back.

 

Steps today:  17,964

Total to date:  49,932

Hello, Gorgeous!

I know that's what Barbra Streisand said to the Oscar when she won, but puh -- that was only a meh statue.  Today I got to see THE STATUE that is Michelangelo's David.  I'm so glad I heeded the on-line suggestions of every travel site and got tickets ahead of time because that put me in a nice short queue and we were inside the Gallerie Accademia within 10 minutes of our arrival.

Before we entered the Gallerie, we were greeted with the new warning that museums are now using. 

Even as an owner of one, I don't blame them.  There are selfie sticks all over various tourists spots now.  They are apparently de rigeur with groups of young people (okay, and oldsters with short arms).  And they are hawked everyone there is an outdoor market.  But I really haven't seen anyone or any group abusing them.  They aren't being waved around and accidentally hitting people as seems to be the fear.  Just used by people who want to take good photos of their trip.  No biggie.  But I disgress. 

We wandered around in the small Musical Instrument Museum and saw a few pieces of note (hey a pun).  These were my faves:

 

This is a tenor viola made by Antonio Stradivari !!!  Wow

 

And what was described as "probably the first attempt" at producing the pianoforte in an upright position.  Very interesting.  Very cool.

 

 

But the real thrill was yet to come.  Seriously.  I saw the Mona Lisa and was very impressed.  I saw Venus de Milo and was very impressed.  Ditto the Winged Victory.  This was the first time I actually let out a gasp when I walked into the room and there was the statue at the far end.  The gasp was partly for the beauty of it, but mostly for the enormous size (no, not that.  get your mind out of the gutter).  It is much bigger than I ever imagine (okay, stop!).  The statue just captures your attention and you are mesmerized.  

 

There are pictures of the statue everywhere there is an art book and here in Florence, it is more than everywhere.  You can even get an apron with the strategic parts of the statue placed on strategic parts of the apron.  Gene is still toying with the idea of buying one, even though he is rarely seen in the kitchen except to boil water for his tea.  So I present, the unseen photos of David:

 

 

The statue may be perfect in many ways, but his right hand looks disproportionately large, compared to the rest of his arm, imho.

 

 

No comment is necessary.

 

 

It is official:  David is an inny.

 

 

After the Museum, Gene & I headed to the Mercato Centrale, the big open-air market here in Florence, aka "leather central".  Every other kiosk is full of the most beautiful Italian leather you can find.  I got roped into putting on a lambskin car coat that fit me like a glove and was sooo heavenly to touch and to wear.  The guy was making me a deal I couldn't refuse, but Gene stepped in in the nick of time and pulled me away.  I also reminded myself that Phoenix hit 90 degrees yesterday and cooler heads prevailed.

 

I followed him into a shoe store -- he was determined to buy leather shoes while here -- forlorn, but knowing I made the right decision to walk away from that leather car coat (omg, it was fabulous).  He was having a great time trying on a pair of leather shoes he said felt like slippers.  And suddenly, I was distracted by a fabulous pair of open-toe, wedge sandals that also fit me like a glove.  And so there we were, husband and wife, married almost 20 years, in shoe heaven together.  I KNOW!!!

 

We walked out, both with a new pair of shoes, feeling fulfilled.  We almost needed a cigarette.  We settled for a local pizza.

 

Tonight, we took a walk to, and then over, Ponte Vecchio.  It's lined with store after store of jewelry.  I broke into a sweat often during the walk from all the bling, but managed to come out the other side unclad with any new baubles.  We stopped in the middle of the bridge and noticed this:

 

                             

 

Oh man, someone needs to tell them how sorry they're gonna be in about 5 years to have allowed this.  Maybe the Mayor of Paris is the one to issue the warning.  At any rate, not our circus, not our monkeys.

 

On our walk back, we had gelato for the first time while here (it seems like we've been here forever, rather than just over 36 hours) and probably said goodbye to our local frozen yogurt place for a while.  Once you've had good gelato (is there such a thing as bad gelato in Italy?), you can't really settle for anything less and we'll have to get the taste of gelato out of our heads before we can again enjoy the frozen yogurt.  It's a price we must pay.

 

The walk along the Arno is lovely at night:

 

 

 

We wound up back at our apartment loaded with lavender (see my Facebook post -- three times the amount I get through a mail order from Seattle at half the price) and a bunch of David souvenirs.  How can you resist?

 

15,713 steps.

Total to date - 31,968

 

 

 

 



Vacations are not for the faint-hearted

You think "I'm going on vacation.  Piece of cake.  Nothing but fun fun fun".  But it's actually hard work and the first day can really kick your butt!

We are in our cute flat in Florence and are looking forward to the next 4 1/2 days but oy it was not easy getting here.  And today was a bitch.

The journey was smooth in that everything took off on time and landed on time etc etc.  But that still means we were traveling from 4:45 AM Sunday morning until 9:45 (Phoenix Time; 2:45 local time) Monday, a full 29 hours in the same clothing, lugging the same 4 suitcases and (for the last hour) in a rain.  But we did manage to get to our new home for the next 4 days and it looked just like the photos on Air Bnb:

We're the 2nd set of windows on the top to the left of the window that is open.  Someday, we'll remember that "2nd floor" means 3rd floor because the ground floor is considered "0".  But we managed to lug everything up there.  Didn't manage to lug the suitcases up the small stairs inside the apartment.  Oh well

We did some walking around this evening and found out that everywhere you look you see great sites like this:

                                 

and swell buildings like this:

and got hopelessly lost several times.  And Florence has the tiniest sidewalks eveh!!!  Not even big enough for a small adult and so you wind up walking in the street and hoping the cars don't clip you.  Tired, hungry and wet = not a good combo.

But we did manage to find the amazing perfumeria started as an herb garden by the monks at Santa Maria Novella and developed into an amazingly gorgeous store with walls beautifully decorated and the lingering aroma of all its perfumes melded together (without being overpowering).  We needed to find food (fast.  We're not good when we're hungry), but a return trip has been penciled in.  I have 2 perfumes in mind right now. 

There are little vest-pocket restaurants all over the place, each one looking more inviting that the one before it.  But I may have to cook in one night because THIS little gem is about 4 or 5 doors down:

 

This is a store which sells freshly made pasta.  It's displayed in bakery-type cases like so:

 





Different types of pasta and at least two different types of ravioli.  I found a grocery store.  Now I have to get the fixin's to make sauce.  Oh yum.

And we learned that when people are being sooooo helpful to you because you look lost, they will ultimately be asking you for money.  Took us 15 euros to figure that one out. 

And so the first day ends.

Total steps since the journey began on Sunday morning (man, that Philadelphia Airport is huge):  16,255

Looks like we're gonna do this thing

4:40pm local time in Philly.  Arrived without a hitch and we're now seated in the First Class lounge, courtesy of a US Air day pass.  Plane is listed as on-time.  Flight over was completely hassle-free.  Not even a crying baby! 

The Philly airport is huge but laid out in such a way that it's easy to navigate.  We hit the Duty-Free shop, even though we know we'll be shopping in Italy, because we could. 

Gene is practicing how to say "do you have any 'no sugar added' gelato?" in Italian and all is well.  I'm actually starting to get excited, but will reserve full-on hyperventilation until the plane takes off for Rome.

Zero minus 45 1/2 hours and counting

Two full days to pack with 75% of my stuff laid out.  Should be a piece o' cake.  But I am at the stage where I stall and nap and watch TV until about 9pm Saturday night and then I'm up until 1am packing.  Gonna try to do it differently this time since our plane leaves at 7am Sunday, which means we're heading to the airport around 4:30am. 



Maybe I'll have a glass of wine to get started.  It is 6:30 pm in Italy, after all  (actually, I wanted to test uploading photos.  Seems to be working).  Okay, off to pack!

2 cities, 2 weeks, 2 apartments. Our accommodations await!

So the trip is set.  We have airline tickets, we have train tickets, we have a few museum tickets, we have a tour to Pompeii ticket and we have booked two apartments -- one in Florence, our first stop and one in Rome.  We leave behind a demolished kitchen (thank you, black mold), but what the heck.

AirBnB won't let me copy and paste photos of the apartments, so here is the link to the apartment we've rented in Florence:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1293296

2 levels (we had a 2-level in Paris and loved it) and 2 BATHROOMS!!  The one drawback I always face on vacation is having to share a bathroom.  At least for the first 5 days, I can spread all my stuff out in my own bathroom space.  Yay.  This apartment is only a 5-minute walk from the main train station in Florence.  Looks like a wonderfully central location.

On March 21, we take the train back down to Rome and stay here:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1478063

Another centrally located (if I've read the map on the listing correctly) place from whence we will explore the city I've wanted to visit since I took Latin 1 in the 9th grade.  What took me so long, I'll never know, but at least I'm finally visiting it. 

Here we go again!

I hope the trip we've got planned goes more smoothly than creating this blog.  Criminy!  Why does Google make it so hard?  No, I don't want to add people to my whatever list.  No, I don't want to follow other people I've never met in my life.  I just want to create a blog that I can use as a diary of my trip WHICH IS HAPPENING IN 11 DAYS!!!!!!  AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! I haven't even thought about what to pack!