Italy 2011 Day 10 - Milan to Lake Como

Today we took a side tour and hit Switzerland for fun. But more on that in a minute. This morning we were able to get onto a tour that would see the last supper. The main thing to see in Milan other than fashion. So the tour took us into the Duoma, in there they had some dead bishops in glass graves so you could see their hands. They did have masks over their heads, but you could see their hair under the mask. Very interesting. After the Duoma we went to the theater house in Milan, this was super neat most of the seats are mini boxes and even better they were rehearsing an opera but I cant remember which one but its by the guy who did the barber of Seville. Anyway we were able to watch on song by the gentleman practicing, very cool.

After that we hopped on the bus and went to see a castle and some other sites with the last stop being the last supper. Learned some fascinating stuff, I guess monks always have two paintings in their dining hall the crucifixion and the last supper. So this particular monastery (I think that’s what it was) had the last supper by Da Vinci and then the crucifixion by someone else. Anyway when they paint on the walls it is usually wet to the hold the paint better but in this case the crucifixion was done that way but the last supper was done dry. Well I guess at around 80 years the wall started to weep away the colors. Then on top of that during WWII they put up a metal wall in front to attempt to protect the painting and they lucked out because smack in the middle of the eating room a bomb was dropped destroying the ceiling and one other wall. Anyway the painting was real neat. Viewed from this room you can really see the dimensions he put into it. Everything is so proportional and gives a great perception of depth. Real neat. Oh and the pictures from the hall way cause they wont let you take it inside.

So after all that fun we headed up north to Lake Como but on the way decided to go up to Switzerland to check out a well-known outlet mall. Well we made it and walked around but wasn’t all that impressed. Now there was a nice tiny Gucci purse but come on 160 and that’s like half off for something I’m not sure my cell phone would even fit in. I guess I’m too cheap. So not good finds for me. But scenery wise it changes drastically as you leave Milan, its like you go thru a tunnel and then all of a sudden there is a beautiful lake with mountains to the heavens. The only bad thing is it is very hazy so you can’t see real far. The trees are all starting to turn so there is yellow and some red, another week and this place would be very colorful. So we made it to our hotel we have a view of the lake and the town of Bellagio. Should be nice in the morning.

Italy 2011 Day 9 - Venice to Milan

Okay this will get posted a day late because I’m cheap and spent too much on this hotel to give them money for Wifi. Anyway we decided to take in some more Venice this morning and we went in to see the Douma. Two things were kind of neat about this church one the ceiling looked like it was inlayed with gold and it just sparkled. So your standard painting but with dazzle. The second thing that was even better was the floor. Oh my, I wish they would have let us take pictures cause not sure I can do it justice. But it was like a bunch of fancy quilts made out of marble. The colors and details and different patters were amazing. There were rings, squares, even peacocks and other decorations. Going to have to search online for pictures of this cause the patterns were very doable as quilts. From here we decided you couldn’t go to Venice and not take a gondola ride. So we stopped by the Hard Rock, which had a bunch of gondolas out front, but it looked way to businesse, Most of the gondoliers had sunglasses and

baseball caps. Sorry I want the style so we walked around till we found an alcove with just one guy and his gondola. He had the hat and look and all. We had a wonderful 40 minute ride around Venice, it was very nice he hummed a bit, don’t think he could sing but that’s okay he was a very good guide. Learned that the boat is shaped like a banana one side is longer than the other and it always tips a little to the right making it easier to drive. After this we had we ate lunch at a great little place Joe had Ravioli and I had Osso Bucco. Yummy, Yummy. We then took the walk back to the parking garage. That’s something I don’t think I talked much about yesterday. Venice is like a corn maze where the corn is high and the

rows are small so you cant see landmarks to help you out. We somehow only ended up on one dead end the whole time but we sure did walk more than we needed to. They have a bus that is actually a boat and that be the easy way to get around with your luggage but then you wouldn’t see as much Venice and appreciate the bridges. We did see on our trip and ambulance, taxi, mail carrier, and construction carrier. All boats all very similar the biggest difference is they say on the side what they are. So after Venice we drove to Milan. Joe let me drive not sure that is special cause I white knuckled it the whole hour I drove. Although the road was a freeway, the brakes seemed touchy. The car is also a stick so I can’t remember when to downshift or not. Well even with me jerking Joe around in the passenger seat a bit, we made it to Milan. Very nice hotel near the center so we walked down and saw the Doema. It is very different than other architectures I guess the style is gothic. Tomorrow we are going to go inside the Doema before we head to Lake Como to relax for 2 days.

Italy 2011 Day 8 - Venize

Lazy day today. We didn't set any alarms wahoo. Today we went from Florence to Venice. On the way we took an hour and a half detour to go checkout the Ferrari museum. Very cool and I'm not even that into cars. They showed a lot of history in the museum and a fun tid bit was that the only bank that would give they guy a loan to start his business was in Modena. To this day Ferrari still works with this one bank which and its a local bank not a big one. Which is even more ironic because one of their backers, at least according to the uniform, is bank Santander.

From the Ferrari museum we made it to the parking garage on Venice. So the way this place works is there is a bridge that takes you to the island which has 3 parking garages. After parking we started into venice. There are a lot of walking paths. Its a bit bigger than expected and there are only 3 or 4 bridges across the grand canal. We walked around and really enjoyed the evening. But im gonna stop there and go to bed. Lets just say its a beautiful city, another one i really like.

Italy Day 7 - Firenze

Another day but much more relaxing. We had about a 3 hour uneventful drive from Rome to Florence. Italy is very hilly and the other thing I notices was houses are scattered through-out the country side versus all centered around a church as in Spain. This time we stayed on the out side of town so after checking in we took the Bus into florence. Great way to do it, easy drive to the hotel and let someone else drive the streets to get into town. Once in town we headed over to the Duomo which is a church type dwelling in the center of florence. Very different architecture than what we have seen so far. More tile accents on the outside. After checking out the cathedral we headed to the Galleria dell Academia. This was

interesting. You could easily miss the entrance its just down a not so interesting street off the cathedral with a simple door nothing ornate about the entry. But this is where Michaelangelos David is housed, and not sure what I was expecting but after seeing tones of statues I wasn't expecting what it was. It was gigantic, whats amazing is you can get real close to it and looking at him his feet look huge yet they are suppose to be proportional. It is a really big statue. Another neat thing in this gallery was other works by Michaelangelo that were unfinished. You could really see how he works the marble, it is quite amazing. Oh and I guess he was 29 when he created the David statue, wow very ambitious. Anyway they dont allow pictures in the gallery so as we walked toward the river they had a copy made out of plaster so I've posted that one. So after that we went over to the river and saw some more buildings and the Ponte Vecchio which is a bridge of stores over the river. Kinda neat, I must say florence has a unique amount of stores. Well that was basically our day today not super exciting. Our friends Jamie and Dawn showed us a picture of the bathroom in their hotel, apparently the toilet and the shower share the same space. I will have to see about getting the picture from them on that one. It was definitely unique. So the last highlight of the evening was dinner, I forgot to mention for some reason fall decided to show up and it was very very cold today so we found an indoor restaurant that apparently is mostly reservations but they had a table if we could be out by 9. Well it was 7 when we got there

so 9 wouldn't be an issue, guess some people stay awhile. Anyway this was a great little place with every table taken and a menu lots of italian stuff. Joe wanted fish and they had Tripe on the menu, i thought it was fish Jamie said it was stomach well we got it anyway. And yup it was stomach but it was actually very good. It had the texture of calimari but the sauce was superb. Anyway beside that special dish we had Lasagna which was wonderful and a chocolate torte for dinner. I had wanted to get the Florentine steak but it was 1.5 kilos so too much for one person I'm told and no one wanted to share. Guess its a Porterhouse type steak. So that was our dining adventure for the evening. Joes cousin asked if we had had gelato yet and I guess i forgot to mention we did, joe got some pistachio the other day. Its crazy to look at the piles of gelato these shops have and boy is it yummy. Tomorrow we head to Venice, looking forward to another nice easy day.

Italy 2011 - Day 6 (Rome)

Ah Rome... I like this place. The people are friendly the food is wonderful. Its all around neat. Normally i would show pictures in the order we did our day but I gotta start with the last one of the day. We ended the day by hitting a grocery store and then walking back to the apartment with our friends Jamie and Dawn to make dinner. The lights were on the moon was near full and the streets were buzzing with people yet calm. So on our walk across the river we took this lovely picture. So now back to the not so calm stuff. We started the day out taking the Metro to the Colosseum. They have a tour that is suppose to take you to the top and lower sections of the colosseum, unfortunately since I'm not the smartest when it comes to verifying that we are on the right tour we missed that one but we did have a great lady with lots of tidbits show us around the place. It sat approx. 50K people, dang

thats a lot. The gladiator games were considered a gift to the people from the government for the peoples entertainment. Many times there were animals from all over the world fighting the gladiators. She also mentioned they would release prisoners with animals and watch them try to survive. Luckily Romans are a little nicer now days. After that we tried out some more italian food, darn we have to eat to have energy. Anyway today i tried a spinach and cheese panini. And well it was yummy but when it came it was a hamburger bun with cooked spinach and melted Mozzarella. I guess panini's are not the grilled things like we have at home. Im fine with that it was good. After lunch off to the Roman Forum, which i guess was the main part of the city back then and where the emperor lived. This place is right across from the colosseum. What is interesting to me about it how far down everything is. So you climb this hill but then you are looking down into a

lot of the ruins. And apparently due to fires and earthquakes (yikes) the city was destroyed many times. All I can figure is infill, level it out and build on top. Because it seemed like the architecture changed as they dug farther down. Anyway from here it was a coin toss walk or metro. Metro won.. so we headed to the spanish steps. But this metro station apparently has 6 exits. Top of the hill, bottom of the hill (steps) and somewhere in the middle. Well my wonderful directions dumped us at the top of the hill. After much starring at a map near the subway we figured out how we may get to the spanish steps. We had a few wrong turns but then found our way thru a beautiful park and a wonderful view of all of Rome. Very cool. Anyway we walked our way down the spanish steps. From their we headed back via a shopping area we wanted to hit. Did a little browsing around and I found an italian suit that fits great. So I bought it, guess I'm done shopping for me on this trip. Well our day ended with Jamie making us a pasta with home made sause, some wine, salad and good company. Off to florence tomorrow.

Italy 2011 - Day 5 (Vatican)

Walking was the theme for today. Rome is a great city, heels are not recommended thought because of the cobble stone streets. Anyway we started the day at the Vatican. So the Vatican's kinda unique you are not allowed in it and there are huge walls all around it. What we did do it the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. The big part of the museum was statues, and some of them were creepy especially when they do weird things with the eyes.

But beyond that what I did find fascinating was that most of the statues are made up of multiple era's of parts. So at some point over the years whoever owned that statue would have it "restored" which may require new parts. So while reading the information on each piece it would say but the head is from years later or but the body was added and the heads older. Very strange, and some even seemed like male bodies but ladies heads. The sistine chapel was neat, very colorful and detailed. Its amazing the information they have in the vatican is very heavy greek gods. A lot of history before Christ versus just focusing on Christianity. I also didn't know there have been so many pope's, more than we have presidents but they got a head start the first one i think was 64AD or something like that.

After the Vatican we went over to St Peters cathedral. It was very impressive inside, nice paintings more statues this time of saints and popes. I also tried to find some Euro's because the vatican has their own set. But for public circulation apparently this year they have only released the 50 cents. Everything else has to be in a collector set, its also interesting to note that since its introduction to the Vatican in 2002 they are on their 3rd image. I'll have to see but didn't know they were allowed to change them so often. On our way out we were able to see the changing of the guard. Their guards wear almost jester like outfits in orange and blue. From the cathedral we came back to the apartment and rested a bit. Feet were tired. So then we setup to find dinner that was at 5:30, and we just got back now which is 11pm. Anyway we asked about a good place to eat so we started walking the suggested location. Great walk into old rome we ate at a nice place in an outdoor plaza and enjoyed some music in the background. Have not really mentioned the food, tonight I tried Fettuchini Alfredo, it had peas and bacon and I liked it. Yesterday I had Gnocchi, this I was not a big fan, it was just dough balls with some sauce. Not impressive. Oh something else very odd, salads come with a big round chunk of buffalo mozzarella, and I mean the size of a normal tomato chunk just on the salad. Yummy but different.

After dinner we decided to walk some sites and find some desert. First desert, of course, I had what is considered a traditional desert it was a pastry made of ricotta and chocolate. It was supper yummy but very sweat. Anyway we walked over to the St Angelo Castile (pix) and the Pantheon. We then headed to the Trevi fountain. My first thought as sad as it may be was are we in vegas? I think a similar fountain is in the Venetian. But this one was much nicer. We also found out that the kings really like the egyptian totems and they brought them over and had them placed as street markers all over rome. So we saw a bunch of old fancy street signs. Anyway tomorrow we will go see the colosseum and other roman architecture. If my feet hold up it should be a good day.

Italy 2011 - Day 4

So we started out the day with beautiful views but death defying roads. We drove from our hotel, which was on the bluff above Sorrento to Solerno via the Amalfi coast. This road was small if two cars were passing, so image the fun when two busses tried to pass each other. They also had two way mirrors on a lot of turns to see if someone was coming, cause if they were you better hug the side. On top of that since apparently in each town there is nowhere to park but on the side of the road the small road is also a parking lot. One thing I noticed is if you don’t put your mirror in and you parked your car say bye bye mirror. Anyway the views were great, if you had time to look from all the twisting and turning. They even made gardens in the cliffs they looked like steps just a little wider and they grew stuff on each step.

We saw one pebble beach and the water was so clear at the end of the dock you could still see the ocean floor. And on the pier was a fisherman fixing the wholes in his net with some sort of stick. All the houses had balconies and seemed suspended on the cliffs.

From here we headed over to Mt Vesuvius. More twists and turns thru some lush evergreen forests then you kind of pop out on top. From there you hike and as your walking up you get a view of the huge city of Napoli. And then you remember being in Pompeii a few days ago and thinking. Active Volcano, huge city right below… hmm doesn’t sound like a good combination. Anyway we made it to the top of the volcano and never seeing one I was impressed. It was a large whole with some sulfur coming out in spots. The rocks are very unique so I picked up some of those for Quinn. The views of the coast were spectacular you could even make out the Island of Capri. Next stop was Herculeum… but we couldn’t find it. Tried a couple people for directions but no luck so we headed to Roma. At a rest area we picked up a map and I connected to Wi-Fi.. set google maps to get to the hotel and it took us thru the heart of Rome. Not feeling up for adventure I randomly picked a longer route that took us around Rome then in from the other side where our hotel was. Although way outta the way traffic was not bad and we made it. The place we are staying the next three nights I think is gonna be great. It’s a one-bedroom apartment right next to the Vatican in a residential area. We have a kitchen and everything so we hit the grocery store and picked up some fruit. Anyway tomorrow we go to the Vatican, should be interesting.

Italy 2011 - Day 3

Okay we took the shuttle into Sorrento then booked it to the hydrofoil to get to Capri. We lucked out and found a seat but the ride was only about 20 minutes anyway. Big boat lots of people. It was like opening a can of sardines getting off the boat. Then you get dumped right into tourist craziness. So we took the funicular which is two cars one goes up the other comes down on a cable. So we went up to upper Capri, again very crazy but then we went down a road and it all changed. Calm nice walks thru tiny roads, great views of flower, grapevines, citrus trees in peoples yards. View of the water. Oh and we saw what must be the smallest garbage collector existing.



We walked quite a while not really knowing where we were going but we ended up on another side of the island where there is a natural arch with the turquoise looking water below it. Very cool. After that we went back and found a small restaurant off the beaten path and had a very quiet lunch. After lunch we decided to go check out some shops and wow the difference, you come out of one of the side streets and the calm is gone and the people are back. So different.

So after catching the hydro jet back to Sorrento we walked around a bit checking out the town. It was actually great unlike Naples the feeling was calm, clean and so friendly. I really like that town. We ate dinner at the hotel because we were pooped. I really need to get a pedometer I swear we walked 5 miles at least. Tomorrow is a lot of driving, we are heading down the Amalfi coast then gonna stop to checkout the volcano Mt Vesuvius. Time permitting we may hit another ruin called Herculeum. Then off to Rome. Should be a busy but fun day.

Italy 2011 - Day 2

Started the morning by being on a weird schedule so checked email at 4am but then was able to go back to sleep. So the one thing about italy is most places include breakfast so we had breakfast, fresh squeezed orange juice, frittata with fresh roles and cheese. Yummy breakfast. After breakfast we walked over to Pompeii which was across the street from our hotel. So for me I was thinking Pompeii, frozen people frozen life, just a small area. Boy was I wrong... this is a huge town with tones of streets. The streets are made up of large stones kinda like cobble but gigantic lava stones. The stones have ruts for where the carriages went. There were large stepping stones to cross each street, guess the streets were like sewage so people didn't walk in them. Then you have in the close background Mt Vesuvius, and I thought people living on the california fault were insane pompeii has a new giant city still right at the base of this not so dormant volcano. Crazy I tell you. Any way back to the buildings, so apparently the town was covered in ash but due to the pyroclapic (sp?) cloud. Many roofs were destroyed and everyone was killed about 10,000 people. We saw some casts of people as they died. This is pretty wild.. to preserve them the determine a body is buried under the ground and they dump plaster thru a small whole. This captures the cavity where the body decomposed and the bones are just kinda hanging there. The molding of the body shows noses, faces all kinds of stuff. Pretty amazing.. they have taken the technology one step further and use fiberglass now (although they didn't have any examples) so you actually see the bones in the moldings. Pretty wild. Anyone some other interesting stuff is they had these counters with basins that served as fast food, they had a sauna room that had hot water in the walls to really finish the effect. The theater was huge and pretty amazing.
The auditorium is suppose to be the oldest of its kinda and that was cool where the gladiators versus animals occurred. This is a G rated blog so I wont go into the fancy art work. Lets just say they really like the goddess of love, Venus. Hmm lets see was there anything else interesting... trees over here are kinda odd they trim em up to the top so they are kind canopy like.

So after pompeii we headed to Sorrento on the coast opposite Napoli on the bay. Anyway if you have ever driven thru Malibu or any of those town on Highway 1 you know what the Sorrento coast highway is like. It was insanely busy bumper to bumper the whole way. Our hotel however is up on the bluff, wonderful view at night cant wait to see it in the morning. We ate dinner overlooking the bay Joe had fish and me Cannelloni. Gotta try all these italian dishes. For desert had tiermasu (sp?)... don't like coffee so although good i wont get it again.

Tomorrow the bus down to Sorrento then the hydrofoil off to Capri Island.

Italy 2011 - Day 1

Flew from Phoenix to Philadelphia then Philadelphia to Rome. Flew US Airways this time which I cant recall ever doing in the past. Leg room seemed real cramped, dinner didn't include alcohol you'd have to pay for it, and breakfast was a danish nothing else. Flight was fine food just seemed lacking for an international flight.

Rented a Car in Rome and headed south, didnt realize it take us 2 hours to drive down to naples. Traffic wasnt bad but definitly not is AZ anymore. Drivers have no patience and if your nose is out front you better move it. Driving in Naples was insane, Joe did a great job we survived.

Naples... humm thats an interesting one. So we parked by the train station and walked to our friends hotel. Trash on the streets everywhere. You would think they'd have to clean it up once in a while cause it wasnt piled up but Id say a month or so worth of papers and trash all on the same side of the road based on the wind blowing. So we stopped and had a Pizza, wow it was 4.40 EUROs and the pizza was huge. I wanted one with olives so got one that didnt look too bad but then it was tomato sauce, olives, anchovies and capers. Little too out there for me but not bad. I ate more of Joes.

From naples we got back to our car and drove to Pompeii for the night. Each of the emergency pull outs on the mini express way we took was a mini garbage dump. Very strange. Pompeii was happening last night, the hotel is quaint but convenient to the ruins. Its 4am and my clocks a bit messed up. Breakfast starts at 7.30.