Sunday June 15
Sunday was our first full day in Italy. Needless to say, most of the gang slept in that morning, recovering from jet lag and getting our bodies adjusted to the 7 hour time change. Amazingly, I didn't have that much trouble adjusting - I thought traveling east was harder than traveling west, but I didn't struggle with the change at all. I was dragging a little bit on Sunday, but not nearly as much as I thought I would.
Mac had found an alimentary, which are small markets, the previous day down in town and had gotten some breakfast and snack supplies. After a meal, several of us went to explore a little in Rocca di Papa. We walked to the end of the square and could look out over Rome and some of the surrounding countryside.
The Herzogs finally made it and our group was complete. We took the day, again, to explore the village and the villa. We found a cellar/catacomb under the villa, and in town we discovered that the alimentaries weren't going to cut it as far as supplying 12 Americans with sustenance - food, booze/beer/wine/liquid or otherwise. We did find a restaurant in Rocca, though. They had some of the best fresh pasta and ragu I've ever had, and what made it the best: they had cold Birra Moretti on tap! Four of us went in search of a restaurant, but the owner was quite surprised that we placed as large a to go order as we did (for the remaining 8 people at the villa). After some frustration trying to communicate with him, he finally got his point across that if we were going to need an order that large in the future, we'd need to call ahead. He handed us a business card and sent us on our way.
Monday June 16
Monday was our first foray into Rome. After driving from the airport to the villa - those damned Italians drive like bats straight outta hell, and they get pissed off if you're not going as fast as they would like for you to - we knew we weren't going to be driving into Rome. Crazy drivers, no good place to park, etc. Luckily, there was public bus transportation provided by Cotral from Rocca to Anagnina, which happened to be the eastern-most terminus of the A-line of Rome's Metro subway. So we thought this would give us an opportunity to scout the public transportation options into Rome for our trip to Termini on Wednesday to catch the train to Florence. Everything worked as scheduled, and we were in Rome. Once at Termini, we bought bus tickets and caught the bus to where we would take our Tiber River cruise. Keep in mind here that "cruise" is all relative. We hopped on the boat right next to Castel Sant'Angelo adjacent to the Vatican. We only went upriver (generally north) less than a mile - five bridges over the Tiber - and then turned around and went downriver right past where we had gotten on the boat. We continued down the river until we got to Tiber Island, docked so some people could get on and off, then went back upriver to where we got on. That's it. There was one of those automated, plug in your headphones and select your language narration things that talked about the bridges we were going under and some of the history of the river, but that was about it. Oh, and did I mentioned that the boat was enclosed and not well air conditioned? In short, I wouldn't recommend the Tiber "cruise." After that, it was back to Termini, then on the subway to Anagnina, and then the bus back to Rocca.
Tuesday June 17
Tuesday was a free day, and a day to not only get ready to go to Florence, but also a day to find a cheaper and more abundant source of sustenance. We'd pretty much cleaned out the three alimentaries in town, and we'd decided that buying the 750ml bottles of wine, while yummy, was going to break the bank. Same goes for all of the 66cl (centiliter) bottles of Peroni beer. During our bus rides to and from Rome, we'd all been on the lookout for a better-stocked and larger grocery store, and luckily dad had spotted one. So the hunters and gatherers (me, dad, Jack and Mac) loaded up in the rent car and off we went. Eureka! They had good supplies of fresh meats, fruits, and vegetables, and it was definitely a grocery store - just on a smaller scale than what we're used to here. We decided that most of the locals didn't shop for a group as large as ours, and that when they did shop, they shopped for only a meal or two. We got the strangest looks from them as we were rolling our stuffed-to-the-gills cart around the store. One major score with the store: they had vino da tavola, or table wine, in glass 5 liter jugs or 5 liter boxes! WOOHOO!!! They also had those Heineken 5 liter charged mini kegs, so we picked up a couple of each. €197 (roughly $305) later and we were on our way back to the villa. Mac used some of our newfound foodstores and whipped us up a wonderful batch of fettucini alfredo for supper that night. And the wine flowed!
Wednesday June 18
Wednesday started out early. We had a 10:30 am high speed train to catch in Rome to Firenze (Florence). We did the public transportation thing again back to Termini, and luckily we had enough time to hit the McDonalds there for an Egg McMuffin for breakfast. I usually hate McDonalds, but I was unusually hungry that morning... Anyway, it was time to catch the train shortly thereafter. Before this trip, I had never ridden on a passenger train. I'd seen pictures and read about it, so I kind of knew what to expect, but it was still an interesting experience. We had first class tickets, which made it even nicer, but first class is a misnomer. Yeah, the seats are wider and recline and all that, and the cars are a little nicer, but they only gave one beverage service on the 1.5 hour trip, and beer/wine/booze weren't free. In fact, the beverage carts didn't even have alcohol on them. If you wanted that (which I really didn't at 11:00 am), you had to make your way back to car number 5 where the bar was located. And those cars on the high speed are LONG! My only other complaint about the trip (and it isn't major) was that the route to Florence from Rome is chocked full of tunnels. Yeah, the first one or two were cool, but I think we ended up passing through about 10 of them. Can't see much cool stuff when you're inside a tunnel. Interestingly enough, passing through the tunnels caused quite a pressure change, so several times inside of each tunnel, you had to pop your ears very much like you do on an aircraft.
Upon arrival to Florence, we were a band of lost Americans. Somehow the task of getting us from the station to the office of the guide that was going to take us around Florence fell to me. And I was terribly unprepared. I had been looking around on MapPoint on my laptop the previous day, and I had found what I thought was the proper address (turns out it was). I had transferred the map to my cell phone - it wasn't great - and I wasn't exactly sure how to get us from the station to the office because I had trouble getting my bearings once at the station. Luckily Karl's Blackberry had GPS (or the cellular equivalent of it), and off we went, muddling through and eventually finding our way. We were a little pressed for time, because the literature we'd received from the company said that they'd just go off and leave us if we weren't there by the appointed time. With just minutes to spare, we made it, and were relieved to find out that we were the only members of the group, and they would've waited on us anyway. By the way, the company that did our tour was Artviva - The Original & Best Walking Tours.
For our activity that day, our guide took us on a guided "Highlights of the Uffizi" tour. I hadn't - obviously - done enough research on exactly what the Uffizi was, but I didn't really know what to expect. For those that don't know, it is a massive - and I mean REALLY big - art museum - the first in the world, in fact. As soon as I found out it was an art museum, I knew I was going to be bored to tears because art just doesn't blow my sail. About all I know about art is, "Yep, that's a pretty picture," or, "Ooohhh, that's horrible!" Well, our guide, Freya Middleton, was absolutely fabulous. She was an art history major in college (Sydney), and had been living in Florence for several years. She really knew her stuff, and what made it enjoyable (besides her personality, accent, knowledge, etc...) was that we would only look at one or two pieces in each room, and she would talk about that or those specific pieces for a few minutes, then we'd move on to another room and piece(s). That made the tour pretty enjoyable, and it was cool seeing some of those one-of-a-kind works - especially the only known example of a wall painting done by Michelangelo. Pretty soon three hours had passed and we were finished. There is some magnificent art in there (and that's coming from someone who doesn't really care about art).
Then it was back to the train station to find our drivers that were going to drive us to our hotel in Tavarnelle, about 25km south of Florence. We decided to stay there because we could get rooms for €72 per night (about $112). Everything we found in Florence was at least double that amount. But what a great place to stay! The inn where we stayed was fabulous, the restaurant that Katia also owned provided us what was probably our best meal of the entire trip Thursday night, and the town was a picture of quintessential Tuscany. I like to see and do things off the beaten tourist path (mainly because I'm not a crowd person), and Tavarnelle definitely fit the bill.
Thursday June 19
Thursday was back into Florence and another meeting with Freya. This day, she took us on a walking tour around Florence. Our first stop was Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (the Florence Cathedral). What a magnificent cathedral, building, and achievement! According to Freya, it is the second largest cathedral in the world, second only to St. Peter's at the Vatican. We then continued the tour around the city, hearing tales of how Florence came about and about how the nobles of the medieval and renaissance periods would get into pissing contests regarding the height of their house towers. We eventually made our way back to Piazza della Signoria (also known as Palazzo Vecchio) and the Loggia della Signoria in front of the Town Hall building of the Medici era. In the piazza there is the copy of Michelangelo's The David, Neptune's Fountain, the bronze statue of Perseus slaying Medusa, and lots of other cool sculpture (can you tell I'm with sculpture like I am with art?). She then led us to the Ponte Vecchio. While it is now a footbridge only (no vehicles) lined with shops and such, an interesting fact is that it is the only surviving Roman bridge in Florence, and it was the only bridge not destroyed by the Nazis when they were in retreat in 1944. After that, Freya led us back through town to one of her favorite restaurants off the beaten tourist path: Ristoranti Osteria Zio Gigi. We had some of the best restaurant food we'd had so far in Italy here.
After lunch (and unfortunately, this is where we parted ways with Freya), most people decided to head back to the Ponte Vecchio and environs for shopping, but dad, Jack and I decided to go to the Museo di Storia della Scienza (The Institute and Museum of the History of Science). The main attraction there: Galileo's telescope. We were kind of late getting there, so this turned out to be more of a Tigger expedition, but it was interesting nonetheless. After that, it was back to the bus station to catch a bus back to Tavarnelle. This was the evening we had that magnificent dinner at the hotel. I might add that I had some of the most divine tiramisu I've ever had. It was more like a custard than traditional tiramisu, and it was heavenly.
Friday June 20
Friday was more or less a free day for everyone until we had to catch our 5:30 high speed train back to Rome. Most everyone went back into Florence for more shopping, but dad and I decided to take advantage of the rail tickets and catch a train to Pisa. The train ride was about 90 minutes (no high speed rail here - intercity trains only), and once we got there it was lunch time - and we didn't really know where we were going. After lunch, we figured out which bus would get us to the famous leaning bell tower. Unfortunately, we missed the proper bus stop (again, we didn't really know where the hell we were supposed to be going since this was kind of a spur of the moment trip) and had to walk back from the next stop down the line. Because of train schedules back to Florence (and having to catch a 5:30 train there back to Rome), we didn't have very much time at all to see the tower and the adjacent cathedral and baptistry. So again this turned into a Tigger photo expedition. We didn't have time to go inside the tower, cathedral or babtistry, but we did get some good pictures. Dad bought a few souveniers, and then it was back on the bus to the train station and back to Firenze. We ultimately got back to the villa in Rocca di Papa around 10:30 Friday night.
A side note about Pisa: if you go (and if you're in the area you should), beware that Pisa - and especially the Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square) is somewhat of a tourist trap. The entrace to the piazza is crowded with many vendors of African, Middle Eastern, and Indian descent selling all sorts of junk and fake Rolex watches. Inside the piazza on your right (as you walk towards the tower), the street is lined solid with trinket, sourvenier and junk vendors, while more junk peddlers are on your left. It was disappointing to see that and definitely took some away from the experience, especially since we didn't get to go inside the buildings there. But if you ignore them and walk with somewhat of a purpose, they'll pretty much leave you alone (at least that was our direct experience).
Saturday June 21
Saturday was a relax and recover day, but it was also time to make another big run to the grocery store. Let me tell ya, our group was like a plague of locusts in terms of food and beverage consumption! It seemed like someone was always having to make a run to some store or another to get supplies! Something new would show up from a store, it would be discovered, and then it was gone. Quickly.
Well, this trip to the big grocery store we first visited on Tuesday was the largest of the trip. We had not one, but THREE, heaped and almost overflowing shopping carts full of food and drink! It was crazy - and expensive! The bill that time was €400.85. That works out to $635!!!! Based, of course, on the exchange rate of the time. It was insane, but it got us well stocked at the villa, which was a good thing, because we were there (i.e. not travelling out of town for an overnight stay) for the remainder of our stay in Italy.
The stories related to week 2 will be told in the next article.