Florence Italy

I really didn't know what to expect from our visit to Florence. Diana was super excited about going back (I think she's been everywhere in Europe) and that the city was pretty amazing. In spite of my lack of expectations, the visit was kick-ass and way better than I could have imagined.

We arrived to our airbnb-rented room (more about that below) just north of the city about 8pm after having visited Pisa and Siena earlier in the day. Our host gave us the name of a local Tuscan restaurant to try. It ended up being a family-style place with no menus and a 100% local clientele. They weren't really equipped to handle non-Italian speakers but our kind waitress was exceptionally patient. Let me just say that the food was awesome and that I'd eat there all the time if we lived nearby. Olive Garden this was not!

Our only full day in Florence started with visit to the Uffizi art museum in the city's historic core. On the way there from the train, we passed by the starting line of a marathon that was just about to begin. We immediately thought of our friend Victor who has run in marathons all over the world.

Our visit to the Ufffizi, where we got to see work by relative-unknowns by the likes of Michelangelo and da Vinci, took about three hours or so. I didn't take any pictures of artwork inside the museum (it's mostly prohibited) but I did sneak a shot of the nearby famous medieval bridge, the Ponte Vecchio, from one of the museum's windows. It's the only bridge in Florence to not be destroyed by the retreating Nazi forces at the end of World War II.

From the museum, we headed over to and just made the twelve o'clock mass at the city's cathedral. Mom, are you watching???

After mass, we climbed up the tower to see the city from above. The weather cooperated for our entire time in Florence and it made the city even that much more appealing.

The downside being such a great city is that it's full, Full, FULL of tourists like us! Barcelona is similar in that it's always packed with tourists but, for some reason, I don't notice it as much. I was thinking that the tourists might be different types of folks but I really have no idea.

Random architectural scene in the streets of Florence. How many different designs, materials, and perhaps, eras are present in just this one photo?

We wandered all over town that day and eventually ended up at the Basilica of Santa Croce. This mostly-nondescript church is the home of the funerary monuments for many famous Italians such as Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Galileo.

Here's Diana in front of the Galileo monument along with one of my pet peeves - people taking photos with their iPads...

We hung out in the city until about 6pm when we took the bus back to where we were staying. It's worth mentioning some details as we were super lucky on this trip. See, Diana and I generally use airbnb when we travel to a place where we don't know someone that we can stay with. It tends to be way less expensive (than a hotel, for example) and, many times, it's a great way to get to know some locals who are interested in sharing their place with people from far-away lands. We've been using it for about two years, including for family to stay in during our wedding, and have never had a bad experience. It's definitely not for everyone but we recommend it. Oh yeah, it's also how we ended up meeting our awesome German roommate when we moved to Stuttgart last year!

While in Florence, we stayed in the lovely spare bedroom of Chiara and Francesco who are big travel fans like us. Francesco's brother was moving to the Canary Islands (not to Lanzarote - but one of the other islands) the next day so they were having a dinner for him. The invited us to join them and proceeded to win our favor (in reality, not too tough to do!) with a local organic Tuscan wine, an amazing homemade risotto, and incredible hospitality and friendship. It reminded me a lot of when we met Lena and Toni through couchsurfing a couple of years ago.

Anyway, dinner was SUPER WOW!!! Thanks to Francesco (standing) and Chiara (between me and Francesco) for your hospitality and beyond-airbnb friendship.

If you haven't picked up on it, our visit to Florence was really great for a bunch of reasons. I can definitely understand why so many tourists stop by the city while in Italy. Oh, and in case you're wondering if there are American restaurants in Italy like we have Italian restaurants in the United States, yes they do! The "American 1950s Diner" was about a mile from where we stayed. We didn't get to check it out but our hosts, who are big Americana and Canadana (just made that one up) fans, said that it was great. Next time you're at Olive Garden eating bread sticks with your family, think about your Italian counterparts slurping down milkshakes half a world away!

Thanks again to Chiara and Francesco for having us at your place. Diana and I can't wait to hang out again!

Pisa And Siena Italy

If you didn't fill in the blanks from my story about going to Como and Lugano, Diana and I rented a car for our trip to Italy. Pau did the hook-up for us and got us this sweet Fiat 500 for a fairly low price:

Yeah, look again at that photo. There are two 500s. Those things are like the Toyota Corolla/Honda Civic of Italy. They're everywhere. It was a fun car to drive around but I can't imagine ever owning one. I'll leave it at that.

We stayed in Bergamo for three nights before taking off on a little bit of a road trip. Our plan was to head south for a few hours to see the tower in Pisa, head even farther south and check out the medieval town of Siena, and end up at our next digs in Florence. All in all, it would be like eight or more hours of driving but we figured that it'd be worth it as we wanted to be able to stay in Florence for the remainder of the trip. I'd love to say that the drive was uneventful but it rained hard. Actually, really hard for most of the trip. The car handled it well even if I got a bit tired. Oh, and it ended up more like ten hours of driving...

Some Germans doing a road trip and a coffee break the right way (as if they don't do everything the "right" way). These two vehicles are some serious hardware (especially that RV-camper thingy) but what I love most are the coffee cups on saucers sitting on the Land Rover's hood.

We got into Pisa about 1pm on a cold and blustery day. There's really nothing there, except the tower obviously, and it's a place I probably wouldn't have ever gone to if I wasn't already "in the area". If you know Old Town in San Diego, the whole thing is about that big. There's a church (of course) and a baptismal building (domed building to the left of the church) just across from the famous tower and all around the area are the required knick-knack stands selling everything you can imagine.

Interior shot of the surprisingly nice church at the leaning tower complex:

But, of course, the highlight is the leaning tower itself, which is smaller than you might expect but a lot cleaner. It really reminded me, though, of some crazy wedding cake or something.

Diana said that the last time she was there many years ago that the tower was supported by cables to help keep it upright. It seems that they've managed to stabilize the lean as the cables are no more. Think about that. How does one stabilize a building that's leaning so that it keeps leaning (and generating tourist dollars) but doesn't lean more thus threatening said source of money???

Whatever. Just like seeing the pyramids in Egypt, it was cool to see the tower in person. I still wouldn't recommend making a trip to Italy to see it but, if you're in the hood...

Diana and I walked around the not-too-exciting town for about 45 minutes or so stopping to check out a small church located on the side of the river that runs through town.

You may or may not know, but I take lots of photos of street art, aka graffiti. I particularly like stencil art of which I probably have about 500 different photo samples. What grabbed my attention on this trip was all the political graffiti I saw. In case you didn't know, places like Spain, Greece, and Italy aren't doing too well financially right now and I guess that young people are expressing their frustrations through their art. These two samples are a good taste of what I found:

After 1 hour and 59 minutes, according to our parking pass, we jumped in the car and drove another couple of hours farther south to the town of Siena, which is located just about one hour south of Florence. Like Bergamo, Mont Sant-Michel, and Carcassone, the town of Siena's built on top of rock outcropping and is surrounded by a fortified wall. What I didn't expect was that you could take escalators up from the lower parking lots.

If you've been on the Palm Springs tram in California, you know that when you arrive at the top of the mountain you find completely different scenery. This was the same. We left a normal parking area, took the escalators up, and exited on the curvy streets of a medieval village:

Siena's lovely but, again, not something to plan a whole trip to Italy for. I think it most reminded me of Toledo in Spain but with a church decorated with white and greenish-black marble at its center:

There is a main plaza too but what's cool about this one is that twice a year they do a crazy horse race event where the horses run around the outside edge of the plaza. We didn't get to see it but the photos of the event make it seem very surreal and something that I wished we could have gotten to check out. Oh well, you'll just have to imagine the whole plaza stuffed with people and horses with riders running full out around the gray cobblestones that surround the plaza:

Okay, but the best is saved for last. Just as in Barcelona you can find lots of Sant Jordi (Saint George) imagery, for some reason, the whole town of Siena was full of sculptures of wolves with children nursing from them. I immediately recognized this image from back when my mom asked me during my entire childhood and beyond if I had been raised by wolves. It wasn't until seeing these statues and writing this story that I ever connected it with the Romulus and Remus story. Turns out that Romulus supposedly founded Rome and his brother, Remus, founded Siena. What a small world.

Oh, and one final note, or, actually, a bit of *a rant*. If I read again on facebook from someone in the United States complaining about gas costing like 25 cents more, take a trip over to the other side of the pond where it costs just under $90 U.S. to fill Fiat 500 and you'll feel better right away! *Rant over.* Carry on...

Lake Como Italy And Lugano Switzerland

Imagine if you were wealthy and you could have a house anywhere you'd like. Maybe you could have multiple houses in different places. Where would you go? Well, peeps like George Clooney and Madonna at some point decided that they liked the area known as Como enough to buy houses there. Como, Italy is less than an hour north of Milan and is almost on the border with Switzerland. Diana had been there before but I was curious why they'd chosen to have houses there so we went to check it out.

Como's a small town located on Lake Como. The old center was a walled city at one point and some of the towers and fortifications can still be seen around town.

The weather on the day we went was really crappy, complete with driving rain and even some hail. Still, there's something about walking around a medieval village when it's cold and rainy. I think it's much easier to imagine what it was like "back in the day" when sewage ran down the middle of the streets and people were dying of the black death...

...just kidding. But it is charming and filled with little cafes and shops like this one:

Like 100% of the cities and towns in Europe, Como's got a church at the center. Like 98% of the churches, it's nice, it's peaceful, and it's full of old art depicting people with spears through them or dismembered heads. But, even with my preconceptions of what I'd find in "another church", I happened across this diorama of hell, which I fell in love with. The detail, the imagery, the colors, the whole thing is beautifully well done and all in the space of a large fish tank:

Before we left town and against my better judgement, Diana got me on another boat for a one-hour tour of the lake. Remember how I said that the day was stormy? Yeah, the lake had white caps and there I was on a boat. Again. The reality was that it wasn't too bad and I got some nice pictures of the fresh falling snow on the hill tops (yes, it was cold out too).

From Como, we got back into the car and decided to drive up to Lugano, Switzerland, which is a lake-side town about 30 minutes northwest of Como. Crossing the border between Italy and Switzerland wasn't like crossing from Tijuana into San Diego but it's more involved than crossing between Spain and France for example - you actually have to stop at a checkpoint but they basically wave you through without saying a word.

If you haven't been to Switzerland, it's probably exactly as you imagine it. Expensive. Clean. Well organized. Lovely green mountains topped by snowy peaks:

When we got to Lugano, we parked the car and Diana immediately jumped out and ran over to this bus-stop advertisement with a picture of roasting corn on the cob. See, Diana's a big fan of corn on the cob and eats it whenever she gets the chance.

Towards the center of Lugano, Switzerland, from across Lake Lugano. Not too bad, right?

We hung out for about an hour and then drove around a little bit more before heading back to Italy. We decided to go check out some of the smaller towns outside of Como and stopped at Cernobbio. They were having a classic car rally sponsored by BMW so there were lots of flowers and decorations placed by BMW as well as lots of "well-off" folks walking around. I loved this building-sized map and distance list on the side of this house. The brownish-gold spot at the bottom center of the map is Como and below the map is a list of nearby places along with the distances:

Diana and I went to happy hour and got drinks at a place right next to the lake. It's worth mentioning how nice and cool the folks were at the place we went (sorry, I don't remember the name). They brought us a couple plates of snacks and made a special drink for Diana then charged us almost nothing. Combine that with the beautiful setting and it was a very cool way to end our visit. I think I can understand the appeal of the area. Next time, maybe we'll hang with Clooney!

Selfie at Lake Como, Italy:

Milan And Bergamo Italy

Diana and I got to spend a whirlwind few days in Italy because of Diana's work. Our trip began in Milan the first morning after our arrival from Barcelona. After Diana's meeting and business lunch at the Politecnic University Of Milan (and, yes, lunch involved pizza), we spent a few hours exploring the center of Milan starting with a visit to the city's beautiful and highly-detailed cathedral (or Duomo in Italian):

One of the highlights of visiting the cathedral is being able to climb the stairs to the roof to check out the city's skyline. On the way up, you get to see the church details up close and the view's nice too.

About all I knew about Milan was that it's known for being a design hub and that it's often thrown in with the likes of Paris, New York, and Tokyo (no link, I went there before starting this blog but here's a link for all my Japan stories). I didn't really know what to expect in terms of the architecture but it ended up being surprisingly nice. Every city's got its must-see sights and Milan's no different. In addition to the cathedral, the glass-and-steel covered streets of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele is another.

I probably could have posted about 20 different photos of beautiful buildings but the photos don't do them justice. I'll throw this one in as the huge statues out front are definitely unique and very cool:

Our first day ended with a fabulous Italian dinner (of course) at a restaurant in the nearby suburb of Bergamo, which served as our base for the first part of our trip. The next morning we headed over to the University of Bergamo where Diana led a seminar. It's always awesome when trips have a "sponsor". Diana leading the discussion:

After Diana's rockstar performance, we spent a couple of hours exploring the medieval-walled-town-on-a-hill Bergamo. I really ended up liking Bergamo as it's a lovely small town but still close enough to the big city of Milan (like 45 minutes) to be convenient.

Although the Italian surroundings were different, in a lot of ways it reminded me of other medieval towns that I've been to like Carcassonne (probably my favorite), Mont Saint Michel (in France), and Toledo (in Spain). The views of the "lower city" (downtown area) of Bergamo from the much-more-exclusive "high city":

Our second night in Italy ended uneventfully back at our rented apartment as we were both tired and had a busy next few days planned.

A quick note about the food in Italy. Yes, it's good. Yes, there's lots of pasta. And, finally, yes, almost every meal involves pizza or pasta or both. A friend in Barcelona said that I'd gain a few pounds in Italy and he may have been right. I'm not checking though.

Trifecta: Vatican, Sistine Chapel, And Pope Sighting!

No first-time trip to Rome would be complete without a visit to the Vatican. After my twelve years of Catholic-school education and twenty-plus years of recovery, I was surprisingly excited about going. In a way, it reminded me of going between the U.S. and Canada in that you're crossing an international border but in most ways it doesn't seem like it (I'd apologize in advance to any Canadians but no one reads this anyway).

It was impressive to enter Saint Peter's square and stand in the middle looking around at something that I had seen in photos a million times but had never thought that I would actually see in person. I could tell that there were people from all over the world in that square and that they were all super excited to be there. I saw several groups of pilgrims carrying various sculptures and, honestly, I didn't feel that I fit in with the crowds since I'm no longer religious. Fortunately, one group adopted me as one of their own; that's me just to the right the Brazilian flag with my hand up:

Kidding aside, I read that a tour of the Vatican should start by going to the Vatican Museum. It's a large museum that houses an impressive collection of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art in addition to a bunch of Renaissance stuff. I really wanted my tour guide friend from Egypt to be there with me to explain all the Egyptian stuff but it was fun anyway. It's funny but to hear the story as they tell it there, the Catholic church pretty much was the savior of all pre-Renaissance art and culture. I'm not sure if that's true but they do have a pretty good collection of booty. treasure. art.

After going through the museum, you go directly over to the Sistine Chapel, which was pretty much the highlight of the tour. (I guess that's why it looked like 90% of the people visiting that day ran through the museum to get to the chapel.) Going into the chapel, you enter through a door in the corner of the room and you're immediately overwhelmed with what you see above you:

In case you're not familiar, the roof is Michelangelo's interpretation of the old testament starting with creation and ending with Noah being drunk. I'm guessing he stopped there because he ran out of roof...

On the front wall of the chapel is Michelangelo's The Last Judgement painting. Much to my surprise, it had nothing to do with the Terminator movies like I thought. Apparently, he did this one a bunch of years after he did the ceiling and the style is different--more serious and dark I guess. The three things that I liked were that he painted one of his critics in one corner with a snake eating his privates, that he painted himself as an empty "bag" of skin, and that when they renovated the painting, they left two small squares in the corners to show what it looked like before. Hint: very dark. You can see the squares if you look above the Last Judgement painting to where the arches of the ceiling curve towards the outside walls and meet in the corners.

After hanging out with about 18,000 of my closest friends in the Sistine Chapel, it was time to leave and go down to see the Basilica. Umm...wow again. The place is huge and having the opportunity to be in such an important religious place was amazing. I hadn't felt that way since my trip to the Holy Land in Israel.

Like I said, the place is huge. To give you some concept of scale, look into the cupola in the photo above (where the windows in the dome are). Below the windows is a gold-colored band that goes from one side to the other. On that band are letters that are about seven or eight feet (2-3 meters) high. Yeah, big. On the floor of the main space, they have information that shows the actual sizes of a bunch of other churches in the world as measured from the front door. They all seem so small when you're standing on the markers and comparing them to the interior of the Basilica. Some of the things that are worth seeing are Saint Peter's tomb and the Vatican Grotto where many popes are interred.

I've always seen photos of Vatican City taken from the roof of the church so I definitely had to do that too. They charge like 7 euros to take the elevator up to the roof, which is cool but not nearly as cool or with nearly as good of a view as up on the very top. Getting there from the roof where the elevator stops was crazy (note: if you're not wild about small spaces or can't climb stairs skip it) because of the narrow stairs that run between the outside of the dome and the inside of the dome but the view is awesome:

On the way out of the church I saw some Swiss guards over on the side. I definitely had to have a picture with them because of those crazy outfits. Oh yeah, by the way, Michelangelo didn't design them contrary to what many people believe. I think I know what I'll be dressing as next Halloween!

Finally, I got lucky. The pope apparently does public audiences twice a week when he's not out traveling the world, once on Sunday for mass and once on Wednesday just because. After arriving into the city mid-day on Wednesday, I figured that it was too late plus when heading over to check out St. Peter's square massive crowds were walking out. About 10 minutes after arriving and having taken about 150 photos or so, I looked up to the front and saw a guy in his bathrobe...oh wait, maybe that's the pope...and IT WAS! He was getting into his Popemobile preparing to leave. I maxed out the zoom on my trusty Canon camera and got about six photos or so. This was the best one I got but you can definitely tell it's him. Score!

I hit the trifecta! The Vatican and views from the roof, the Sistine Chapel, AND a pope sighting! I better play the lotto tonight.

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*Travel Tip*: If you're going to the Basilica, the Vatican Museum, and the Sistine Chapel, it's best to do them all at the same time. Make a reservation for the museum online so that you can skip the scary-long line that wraps around the building and, as a bonus, you get to enter up to one hour before the people who didn't make a reservation. When you get there, bypass the people waiting in line and go all the way to the front door--no waiting! Go through the Vatican Museum and check out the displays. Once you're done, follow the crowds over to the Sistine Chapel. It's crowded but, since the display is on the ceiling, it's not really a problem.

When you're done at the chapel, (this is the important part) exit through the door with no sign in the far back right hand corner (with your back to the Last Judgement painting). You'll see another door on the left wall with a big sign that says something like "Exit Here" but that takes you outside via the museum whereas the other door leads directly into the Basilica. This allows you to bypass the lines and security because you're already inside. Doing this gets you the museum, the chapel, and the Basilica without having to wait in line twice. Let me sleep on your couch to pay me back.

Once inside the Basilica, to get to the Vatican Grotto, stand in front of the giant red/brown structure above Saint Peter's grave. From there turn left and walk towards the nearest corner of the room that'll be just in front of you. You'll see a large sculpture in the corner. Just to the right of the sculpture there's a small door with stairs that lead down to the grotto. It's not marked but go anyway...it's easier than going back outside and then finding it. Have fun!

Colosseum And Roman Forum

Like other European cities, Rome is an interesting mix of the old and new but in Rome's case, it's more like a mix of the ancient and the new. You've got new modern office and apartment buildings, "newish" middle-ages buildings in the historic core, and ancient ones like the Colosseum and Roman Forum. This was the view of the Colosseum and some of the surrounding neighborhood from the hop-on hop-off tourist bus on the way to the Colosseum:

The area near the Colosseum gives you the opportunity to see and feel how things probably were a couple of thousand years ago. The Roman Forum, which sits next to the Colosseum, was the center of Roman government and life for almost 1,000 years. There are remains of temples, public and government buildings, as well as a handful of other monuments. It's super cool to be able to walk between buildings and other structures that have been around for thousands of years.

In some cases, the things you're looking at are just a few stones left from earlier buildings but in other cases they've rebuilt things back to how they were in their prime. I felt humbled while there imagining back to when Julius Caesar walked along these very same streets two thousand years ago and how he probably enjoyed eating his signature salads in one of the local cafes during his lunch breaks from running the empire...

Right next door to the Roman Forum is probably the most famous stadium ever built. The Colosseum is big, surprisingly big, when viewed from the outside. It's amazing to me that this place was built 2,000 years ago and is still standing today. Some of the it has collapsed due to earthquakes and has been carted off over the years to build other things so only some of the original exterior wall, which can be seen on the left below, remains. In other words, even though it looks really big now, it probably looked twice as big back when it was built. It must have been an impressive sight.

Inside the stadium feels even bigger than it does on the outside. Originally built to hold somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000 people (estimates vary), I could imagine what it looked like back then. Seating ran from the platform up to the top outer edge of the building. I read that it once had a large fabric cover that could be moved into place to block out the weather. During its history, it has been used for all types of public events such as gladiator battles, exotic animal "hunting" displays, and even for the martyring of Christians during their repression.

The "floor" of the Colosseum was a large wooden platform with passage ways running below it. Using trap doors, animals could be released at random places during shows that the gladiators would have to kill. In some cases, the animals were released to attack people who were "part of the show". I imagine that it was quite a spectacle to see unless you were one of the people in the show.

Like I wrote before, what I find most interesting when seeing sites like these is how long they've been around and how many generations of people have passed in that time. It makes me reflect on how little time we get to enjoy this world and that we need to take advantage of every minute of it. I'm reminded again and again how lucky I am to have this opportunity.

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*Travel Tip*: The entry lines at the Colosseum are crazy long. You can avoid them if you go next door to the ticket office at the Palatine Hill, which is much less popular with tourists. The same ticket works for the Palatine Hill, Roman Forum, and the Colosseum. On the day I visited, there were about six people in front of me in the line at Palatine Hill and about 1,000 in line at the Colosseum. Enter the complex through the Palatine Hill and do a quick pass there (probably like an hour or so unless you're spending the whole day at the complex). You can then go directly into the Roman Forum, which is between Palatine and the Colosseum. The Forum takes about another hour or two to see. When you go in the Colosseum (I recommend seeing it last), you get to bypass the ticket window there and enter with your combo pass saving probably an hour or more in line.