"Anchovies and Little Squids"

A quick breakfast at the hotel and then we will be off to the train station – or so we thought. Except on the one morning we want to leave quickly there are all kinds of friendly folks at breakfast who want to talk. And since we both like to talk Ian chatted up the couple who were scared of ghosts in the 600 year old convent- he was from Italy, she was from Brazil and they now live in Monte Carlo. I made friends with Coco, the Australian girl who is in between jobs and staying in Florence for a month while doing a lot of day trips. (Before I knew it Kitty was off showing Coco our room and Coco was showing Kitty her room and all the funky little nooks and crannies of the converted convent… lots of character. Coco and Kitty, they were destined to meet with names like that.) Needless to say, we missed our train. But no worries- there was another one an hour later and it worked out just fine.

PS- best part of Florence….Coco asking me if we were on our honeymoon. (Best? C’mon!)

Florence to Pisa- change trains- Pisa to La Spezia- change trains- La Spezia to Monterroso al Mare. (I can’t believe how many and how long the train tunnels are here. Italians don’t like to go around mountains, they go through them. Probably boring note, but we passed by Carrara, Italy, where the marble comes from. In one of the photos you can see (barely) that the whole mountain is marble and they are slowing chipping the whole thing away. It's been an active quarry for hundreds of years.)
Arrived in the beautiful beachside village on the Liguerian Sea. Because it was a national holiday and also a Saturday, the place was hopping (a continuing theme on our adventure.) We walked along the beach boardwalk admiring all of the sunburned tourists and the grey clouds rolling in. We easily found our hotel, but – once again- had a harder time finding the door to the hotel. Finally Albergo Pasqual came out and found us. (I knew where it was the whole time, but sometimes I have to let Kitty make a mistake or two to help balance things out a little more… usually it’s me.)

The hotel was literally built into the side of a cliff. Some of the rock cliff walls were left exposed on the different floors of the hotel.

Up in our room Chiara opened the large windows, green shutters, and tah-dah….the beautiful sea in front of us. (no screen or bars, just open air. I'd be nervous if Taitum, the climbing monkey was with us). But enough about the view, it was 4pm and we were hungry. Up to a little restaurant perched on a cliff over the sea for some focaccia sandwiches and water- no gas. (No-gas is the way they say non-carbonated, not that it was a special type of water to get rid of gas problems.) A little exploring in the tiny town – 2 small alley ways and a few passage ways in between and that was pretty much it. Charming, relaxing, quiet.

Quiet because there were no cars, no sirens, and NO scooters. It was such a nice break for our ears following our crazy days in Milan and Florence. (Especially compared to Blanca Notte the night before)

We slept through our 8pm reservations for dinner and showed up about nine to sit at the sidewalk table – just as the rain started. So we both sat on one side of the table so we didn’t get wet.

When you’re in a seaside town in Italy, you have to go with seafood for dinner, right? I had the something-something and calamari. A house specialty. About an hour and a half later (all the dinners are super long/slow here. I don’t think we’ve eaten a sit-down dinner in less than 2 hours on this trip. It’s not bad service or anything, just a more casual pace to eating) our waiter brought out a basket of "fried anchovies and little squids” as he called them. I couldn’t get Kitty to try any of the anchovies. The calamari was good, and the anchovies were ok, but I couldn’t eat them all. Especially with Kitty groaning and “eeww”ing every time I popped one down the hatch.

Back to our room to get a solid night’s sleep in preparation of our big hike in the morning.

Ciao Ciao

The Loader
The Washer

What the what!?! Blanca notte.

We woke up to the peaceful sounds of chirping swallows this morning. Ok, it felt more like a screeching alarm clock. Swallows shouldn’t be allowed out of their nests until at least 9am, especially when we keep getting in around 1am.

Thank goodness I travel with a trusty sound machine that helps masks most unwanted sounds, including, but not limited to: swallows, loud hotel neighbors, crazy yelling guy in the piazza, Italian gospel choir and snoring husband.

After a quick breakfast at the hotel we ran off to the Ufizzi Gallery, which I’m told houses the best collection of Italian Renaissance art anywhere. I’ve decided I’m not a huge fan of Italian Renaissance art. The early stuff is all one dimensional and looks like cardboard cut-outs with a lot of gold leaf and halos. I’m sure a more cultured person would appreciate it more. They were not very good with scale. I guess depth perception didn’t exist in the 1300’s. Good sculptors, but painting took a while to catch up. I will admit the stories about the artists were interesting though.
I am pretty sure Ian tuned out the audio guide after about the 4th of 40 rooms. Did he mention he failed humanities twice? (I only failed it once, the second time I got a D... the third time I got an A though.)

After Ufizzi (which has been a museum in Florence since before the USA was even a country) we visited some other overpriced museums to look at more old crap. We visited the Medici cathedral (or something like a cathedral) (NO it was a Capelle= chapel) and their residence. The cathedral (capelle= crypt, tombs, and sacristy for the wealthy ruling family of Florence. Girlies- there will be a quiz when we get home. You’ll for sure score better than dad) had all these fancy little displays (they looked like elaborate trophies) that we realized were either made out of or housed old bones, teeth, hair, etc. of their family members or friends.
Yeah- it was freaky, but gave me decorating ideas on how to always keep a little bit of a loved one around after they are gone.

Next we played around in the local outdoor tourist markets for a while (not my favorite part so that’s all the description it gets).
Ian shopping is the most miserable part of life with him, but he was actually pretty good about it – until he decided to try to use it as leverage as in, ”I didn’t complain when I went shopping for you today.” Funny thing- we were not shopping for me at all, but for his girls. What ev!

After shopping and lunch we rented a scooter for a little adventure. We were headed to a little town called Fiesole in the hills about 15 kilometers north of Florence. By the time we were ready to head out of town it was the beginning of rush hour. Just a mad mess of tiny cars and thousands of scooters and no lane lines. Actually, let me back up. We got stopped by two street police on the second street we drove on. Turns out it was pedestrian only. Told them we were from Canada and they let us go with a warning.
The rest of the trip out of the city was a little tense, but we’ve both since apologized for the mean things we might have said to each other when we were afraid for our lives.

Lets just say Ian had a lot more apologizing to do.

Once out of town, the scooter ride was awesome. Fiesole is exactly what you’d picture a little Italian town to be. Population around 400 and three large churches. But in case you were concerned, they did have three gelaterias as well. The ride back to town was without incident and we both still love each other. Great views and perfect weather.

We love each other thanks to the Michelangelo Lookout over the city at sunset. And the slightly lower number of cars and scooters on the road. Lets just say at some point I saw my life flash before my eyes.

It was about 8pm when we finally got back to the hotel. There was a choir set up across the courtyard from our hotel singing… wait for it… southern gospel music (with a slight Italian accent) of course. We asked the lady at the front desk what that was all about, she said it was Blanca Notte (white night), some once a year mega-party throughout the entire city center of Florence with bands, street performers, people and partying. We were totally wiped out and debated whether to go check things out a bit or get some take out and call it a night. Our curious side won out, (and the fact that we didn’t know where to get any take out) so we joined the groups of people walking. All we can say is… What the what?!! Turns out everyone and their dog from miles around attends this all-night festival. Words can’t do it justice. But he’s going to try. Just picture an entire city center (about 10 blocks in every direction) all closed to vehicles and people filling every street. It didn’t matter what street, every street was packed. Bands playing here and there, street performers and vendors, bars and restaurants open all night, lots of dinking, and lots of groups just wandering. They said it lasted until 6am. We checked out about 1am.

We fell asleep to music and bands playing in the distance. (I fell asleep to the sound machine) The noise didn’t matter a bit. (it would have mattered huge, but thanks to my trusty sound machine) We were totally beat and couldn’t stay awake. Very fun day.

We called the girls tonight- got to talk to 2 of the 4. Sorry T- dad said I fell asleep while talking to you and asked you the same thing three times. Bummed we missed Q and S! We’ll call you again on Monday. XOXO

Ciao

The Washer The Loader

Trams, Taxis, and (superfast) Trains

We were ready to leave Milan. We felt like we’d seen all we wanted to see in Milan and were looking forward to setting out on our Italian Adventure. So woke up and rushed through breakfast, scurrying out the door, down the street and onto the wrong tram in the middle of morning traffic. Of course we didn’t realize we were on the wrong tram until it didn’t stop at the train station. So we hopped off at the next stop, joined the hoards of rushing people, and weaved our way to the Metro making it to the train station just in time to catch our train to Firenze.

So there’s no way I’m adding much to Kitty’s War and Peace novel on the first day of Florence.

Just a word about this train. It was awesome. I think for our first train experience in Europe we may be ruined. It was clean, hi-tech (desks with lap-top plug-ins), and FAST! We felt bad (not really) for all of the cars on the Autostrada we zoomed past. It made it seem like they we only going 30 miles an hour. In reality they were going 75 mph and we were going 186mph! (Quincee, you would love how fast this train is. This is where they make Ferraris too, I guess Italians don’t like to go slow). An easy 105 minutes later and we unloaded into Florence.

There’s a serious graffiti problem in Italy. The graffiti in Florence is much better than in Milan.

We were determined this time to find our hotel using directions and public transportation. We would not be weaklings and use the help of a taxi. So I dragged Ian on a bus, got to our stop, and walked a quick 3 minutes to the Piazza Santissima Annunziata where our hotel was. Then it took us just as long to find the actual door that lead to our hotel, Loggiato dei Serviti.

Getting to our room was the best. For some reason we had a 2 room “suite” in this 600 year old former convent. It was the coolest hotel. Once in the room the bell-hop showed us around then threw open the large double windows and explained our view. “Dat es de David en the Accedemia. You no Michelangelo, no? Es David es dare. Dat es the Conservency of de music of Florence. Dat es de mus beautiful priveet garden in all of Firenze.” It went something like that. The single room in the suite had a window that overlooked the square. And we stayed in the room with the view. (I thought Kitty might make me stay in the single room). After the bell boy left we were giddy with our Loggia, we relaxed on the bed and then this heavenly mixture of music started floating over from the music school. Some classical piano, and then a little flute, and finally a beautiful soprano dueling with a tenor. It was like we were being punked.

We were hungry, so we set out to find some grub. Ate at the recommended Robigilio around the corner while sitting at an outside table to people watch and be approached by begging gypsy teen age girls. At the end of the road was a Duomo. But this was Florence’s Duomo and very different from the Duomo in Milan (except that it was HUGE too.) (That's what she... ) I need to adjust my thinking here, I am learning. I expect these cathedrals to be on large expanses of land were you roam and enjoy the view. This is not the case. The buildings are only divided by a road from all of the surrounding buildings. You walk around a corner and then BAM – a huge cathedral that makes you get vertigo when you look up straining to see the top.

If we thought Milan was busy like San Francisco, Florence is busy like Disneyland during Spring Break. There were hoards of people all over the place. Tour groups from Spain, Japan, China, Germany, Japanese speaking Italian and Italians speaking Dutch. Plus all of the Italian school tour groups with kids from 6-16. And we talked to an American girl who lived in Florence and said “oh- you think it is crowded now. This is nothing. You should see it in the summer.” No Thanks!

So of course we had to climb the Duomo’s domo. (Milan’s Duomo does not have a dome) It was the first ever built on a cathedral and proved to be the blueprint for St. Peters dome in Vatican city. It was and incredible 467 steps to the top. Luckily there were a few places along the way where you had to traverse between staircases so you could give your legs a rest. The coolest part was going from the staircase to very small walkways on the interior of the cathedral about 7 stories up. We were looking down on all these people inside the cathedral looking up at the amazing painting on the inside of the dome. Reaching the top was awesome. A great view of Florence and all of it’s terracotta roofs and hills beyond.

Climbing the Duomo was my favorite part of Florence. The exercise gave me an excuse to double up on gelatos. What they accomplished without modern equipment totally blew me away. The narrow internal passage ways (inside the walls of the dome) and the catwalk inside the top of the cathedral were awesome. No way the lawyers in the US would let all these people play around up here. (Stupid lawyers.) Getting up close to the murals on the ceiling was also fun. It was a bit weird, though. A bunch of naked people and some demons… Demons shoving flaming pokers in people’s bums-seriously… I guess it was meant to deter people from wanting to go to hell.

Going down was easy, except you felt like you were on a Sit-n-Spin with your head down. Dizzy was the word. Back out onto the streets, we were walking with no where to go. Just wanted to wander. The best stuff happens when we have wandered on this trip. Looking down a small lane I saw a large crowd gathered around two stopped cars. This had to be the “someone has to get hit by a car/scooter every day here” I was waiting to see. “Look Ian- an accident.” We looked and tried to make out the scene. Why wasn’t anyone screaming? Oh wait – it’s just gelato. So we turned down the lane and tried the local gelato. We will for sure let you know who has the best gelato by the end of our trip.

Wander, ohh, ahh, lick, wander, lick, ohh, lick, wander…. You get the idea. As we were walking down the main pedestrian road a man passed by us and said, “You must be American’s. You are both wearing flip-flops.” Ian’s decision to wear flip flops proved (once again) that Kitty knows people everywhere (I figured it would happen somewhere along our trip, just not this soon). So we started to talk to this couple and tell them how we weren’t going to wear said shoes because nobody wears such trashy shoes here. Ian struggled with his decision, but because it was a very warm day and we were both wearing shorts, the flops won. So we start talking to this couple, and get into the:
- Where are you from?
- California.
- We are too. What part?
- Auburn – near Sacramento (because who knows where Loomis is?)
- Oh – we know where Auburn is. We are from the Central Valley, near Modesto.
- Yeah, yeah. What a small world.
- We have friends in Auburn. What school do your kids go to?
- Well actually, we live in Loomis. They go to Placer School.
- Oh we know where Loomis is.
- (to each other)I wonder if they’d know Kris and Dawna.?
- What did you just say?
- Kris and Dawna
- HUBERRRRRR oh my gosh! Ahhhhh!! Are you Diane (screaming and hugging commence- again and again!!)

Turns out I had talked to Diane before we left for Italy because my good friend Dawna said she had a friend going to Italy who’s flight had been cancelled due to the volcano. Although I had never met Diane in person, here we were in a foreign city on the other side of the world meeting for the first time because Darryl just had to comment on our flip flops.

Life is amazing!

We made plans to hook up for dinner because we couldn’t just walk away from that and not hang out! But as we did walk away, I was having a weird kind of chemical reaction in my body. I don’t know how to explain it, but the chances of that happening are incredible. And my body was reacting accordingly. I will never forget it.

We then headed to the Accedamia around the corner from our Hotel to see Michaelangelo’s David. Quincee, Taitum and Sutton, close your ears. :-) Nothing like a twenty-foot statue of a naked man for people to sit and gaze upon for hours on end, they balanced it out with some sculptures of nude women as well. I now understand why there are catholic churches everywhere here, it’s because they need lots of confessionals. All they did all day long was paint and sculpt naked bodies. I’m suggesting a quick trip to Florence for all the sixth-grade classes at Placer Elementary instead of sex-education classes.

We wandered some more. Fell in love with Florence the more we got into the back streets and away from the teeming masses, and eventually made it back to our hotel where we proceeded to immediately fall asleep to the sweet music floating through our windows from the school.

We met up with Diane and Darryl for dinner and proceeded to walk for 35 minutes in search of the restaurant that was only a 7 minute walk from their hotel. Once we finally found the small sign pointing the was to the restaurant we had passed at least 5 times, we ate one of the best meals I have ever had in my life. Cantinetta Antinori was delicious and luckily they have 3 other restaurants in locations around the world. So next time you are in Zurich, Vienna, or Moscow, be sure to look them up.

The restaurant served wine or water, nothing else. I think there was a bit of a scowl when we ordered water. No, really, we did order water!!

A leisurely stroll home after conversation on the corner was capped by the perfect ending to the evening. As we arrived at our Piazza we found two younger guys playing the guitar for the enjoyment of their friends and any others who cared to listen. They were so talented! I felt like we were at t private concert of Rodrigo y Gabriella (our girlies know this music well.) I asked them if we could sit closer (I was a little worried that Kitty might run off with them) and we started talking and met some of their friends. Brazil, Italy, America, and Spain were all represented in that small group. Love this world!

I don’t know if I was more tired that night or now, after writing this post! Whew! But our Camden, Quincee, Taitum and Sutton are loving every word and we are loving keeping a record of this amazing trip! (PS- we are writing this on our train from Florence to La Spezia and have the time)

Ciao Ciao

The Loader and the Washer

****see pictures in previous post. with advice from our blog expert molly, we might have text and pictures together. but no promises!

Cinque Terra is Italian for bad Internet connection (because the lady with the password is asleep!) soooo- until tomorrow. We hope!

Firenze!

Ok, so we promised more posting yesterday. But we lied. It's 2am again so we'll give more detail on the train from Firenze (Florence) to the Cinque Terre tomorrow. Here are some pics. Details to follow.

Cam, Q, Tait, Sutton... and the rest, we miss you.

Firenze is fabulous! But we're too tired. Details tomorrow. We love You CQTS

Wrapping up Milano

Ok, since we didn't get to bed until 2:30 am last night due to blogging of all things, I decided I'd take over the daily update and make it brief. We saw more old stuff and ate more yummy food, missed a few tram stops and went to the opera. The end.

Really, he just should have stopped, but noooo...

That's not going to due, so here are some more details. After breakfast at the hotel (it was good, but who includes coconut in cereal, c'mon?), we headed back to the Duomo for a tour inside and a hike to the top. Amazing marble building that took 500 years to build (no exaggeration). They must have hired CalTrans workers. The detail is ridiculous, and it was built to hold all 40,000 Milanese (which was the population when they started construction). There's a few old holy people entombed inside (again, not good with names and I figured it probably wouldn't come in too handy in the future).

In other fashion news, we didn't feel so lame today because we wore black. Plus there were at least 65% more tourists here today. And the east Europeans got nothing on us. Although we did have fun secretly snapping photos of fancy people we passed.

We then grabbed a quick tasty lunch which I can't name (best I can describe it is prosciutto and mozzarella fried in a doughnut). I'm sure they're super good for you... all foreign food is.

We have had luck while wandering in Milan. First, we smelled it. Then we saw the commotion out front. so we knew we had to go in. I should have taken a photo of the display before us. It was bee-you-tee-ful! So we ordered something to share and at it as we wandered on. Something baked in a donut that looks like a small calzone. . . i hope we meet again!

Next we waited to put our names on the list for the local opera. Day of the show they release some tickets in a lottery. They told us that the opera was a big deal here. Some dude named Placido Domingo (ok, sometimes I do remember a name or two) decided not to sing tonight, so we got some other guy who sings very loud. Placido is back on tomorrow night (I understand that he didn't want to compete with the football game tonight (Milano International, or something close to that was playing Madrid).

The La Scalla Opera House is one of the oldest most respected opera houses in the world. We were so lucky to get in, but when we got to our seats- 7 stories straight up, we realized why they were only 12 euro instead of 235 euro. We didn't care, it was an experience we won't forget. And since the tickets were so cheap you can't blame us for ducking out a little early - we were hungry and it wasn't even close to ending. (If you know how Simon Bocanegra ends, please advise!)

We thought we'd head back to the hotel for a nap before the opera, but it took us about an hour to get back during rush hour traffic, so we showered, changed and went right back to the opera house. We were up in the nosebleed seats, that you couldn't see very well from unless you stood up, but you could hear great. It was fun, but I don't see myself joining a fantasy opera league or hosting Monday night opera parties at our house anytime soon. We left the opera about 10pm, but still hadn't eaten dinner yet.

We did have more gelato earlier in the day. Just thought you'd like to know.

We wrapped up the night with dinner at some fun little restaurant off the beaten path. Kitty saw it when we were riding by on the Tram so we just jumped off at the next stop and walked back. There were only women eating in the restaurant. Turns out the football (soccer) match was a big deal and the guys were all at home or at the bars watching it. We about jumped out of our seats when the guys in the kitchen all started screaming, jumping around and dancing with each other part way through the meal. Turns out that Barcelona won 1-0, but because they didn't win by 2 goals or more, Milano gets to go to the championship. So they lost, but everyone was happy (we can still hear people driving by honking their horns in celebration and it's after midnight).

Mmmmm- more gnocchi, but no pulp of crab this time. Risotto Milanese, and Insalata Mista too. No pictures. We need to be more thoughtful bloggers and take more photos.

We did a much better job of ordering food tonight. Best meal we've had so far. We left stuffed, so we walked the last 6 blocks or so to our hotel.

Seriously tired, eyes burning, feet sore, can't think clearly. We love you girlies! be good for Grandma! We love her too. Do you have any questions for us? no- we haven't seen any kids as cute as you here.

That's about it for today, I need to sign out.

Ciao Ciao

The Washer.

The Loader