Italy Part 9: Venice

On the last day of our Italy trip, we spent the day in Venice.

The city is built on 110 little islands in a salt water lagoon. Travel is restricted entirely to boating or walking -- no cars are allowed in the city at all. Venice is known as the largest urban car free area in Europe.

We parked near the dock, and took the traghetti (waterbus) in.

Once inside the city, the water is full of Gondolas giving high-priced rides to tourists, as well as Venitians boating about doing their every day errands. (For example, if you dig a hole, you then have to boat the dirt out somewhere. So strange.)

We, of course, had to eat seafood while we were there. I ate my favorite food -- raw oysters. Everything we had, unfortunately, was incredibly overpriced, because we were not able to get beyond the very touristy area during our short visit. (Although the seafood was very fresh and good. The vegetables though...hm. Not so much.)

The bread of Venice, as well as the olive oil, is remarkably bad (the bread pale and spongy and the oil smelling...well, just not good), and was especially a let down after what we had become accustomed to in Florence. From what I hear, their Jewish bread (from the Jewish ghetto or district) is delicious, but it always sells out at the bakeries by lunch-time, so at dinner there's almost no chance of it. Oh well.

The architecture was very beautiful, and we definitely want to go back to explore more. The top two pictures below are of San Marco square.


Unfortunately, the whole place is over run by pigeons, and this is totally played up, complete with little stands selling cones of pigeon food to feed to the hoards of birds (we contributed to the problem with two dropped ice cream cones).





The shopping is extensive, strongly featuring beautiful, artistically handmade Murano glass in countless shop windows.


The entire city feels magical. It was a lot of fun just to walk around and take in the sites. It did get pretty cold as night fell, and we did not manage to get beyond the touristy bits, but we took with us some lovely memories.


One funny fact: as we were looking around for a place to eat dinner, I noticed a heart and cupid on one of the menus in a restaurant window. I turned to Greg: "Hey, what day is today?"
"Ummm...February 14th."
(joking) "Wow! So you took me to Venice for Valentine's day!"
"That's today?!"
Neither of us had any idea until that moment. Whoops! What hopeless romantics we are. :)

Italy Part 8: Parma, Maranello, Bologna

Towards the end of our stay in Italy, we went on a bit of a road trip, hitting three cities in one day.

The first was Parma, where we took a whole bunch of pictures of things that we know nothing about.


We had essentially stopped there to taste Parmesan cheese at it's source, so we got down to the business of lunch straight away.


Lunch did not disappoint, and besides the buttery Parma Prosciutto ham and Parmigiano-Reggiano (which go so well together because the pigs eat the whey by-product of the cheese making), we also had the best tortelloni that we have ever put in our mouths. It was sweet, salty and savory -- each a different kind, each equally pleasing. We wish that we could remember more about what they were actually stuffed with, but we failed to carefully read the menu.

Our next stop was Maranello, home to the Ferrari factory.



The gallery wasn't enormous, but it was cool, because there are no barriers around the displays, letting you get as close as you want -- although heaven help you if you touch any of it! The staff is friendly, but very watchful (and who could blame them?)

Our third and final stop of the day was in Bologna.


Oh, Bologna, we wish we could have had more of a chance to explore you. We also wish that the food we ate there wasn't crap.

Really, it was kind of our fault that we had a terrible dinner here. It was late by the time we got there -- the children were hungry, it was cold outside, and by the time we'd walked around a little, they were more than ready for dinner. We had to stop at the nearest place...on this particular occasion that decision did not serve us well.

However, we did discover two leaning towers we'd never heard of. I found these a good deal more impressive than the much more famous one in Pisa, as the one of them was taller, with more of a lean. I wish that we could have seen them in the daylight.

Bologna is a college town, and seemed full of art, music and life. We hear that there is excellent food on the opposite side of town from the one that we were one. Next time.

Click on any of the above mosaics for more info on the pictures within.

Next post: Venice

Italy Part 7: The Leaning Tower of Pisa

The Leaning Tower of Pisa, situated in the Piazza dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles) -- tourist hot spot, and one of the most recognized structures in Italy. One beautifully clear morning, we set off to see what all the fuss was about.

First off, we can say with all certainty: the tower indeed leans.


Why didn't they build the foundation deeper than 10 feet? No one seems to know. Funnier still is the view when you look back across the field next to the tower:



Recognize the poses? Right. Yeah, we didn't do that.



The entire set up is a bit strange. You drive into the city of Pisa and all is normal and fine, then suddenly everything opens up, and there are these wide expanses of grass around several beautiful buildings -- all with at least a slight lean.



(One would think that after the first enormous, expensive structure began to lean, that they would call it quits on the sandy, unstable ground, but no. Apparently that was no setback for these architects -- the tower was the third of the four great religious edifices.)

The foundation of the tower


The tower and all of the other buildings are very beautiful, but there was something sad about the fact that the entire place has become a mere tourist trap. It costs at least 5 euro to buy a ticket into EACH of these buildings. The other side of the street is completely lined with little souvenir tents selling plastic and ceramic leaning towers, shirts, bags, and miniature Pinocchio puppets (present at all tourist stops nationwide).




There is controversy over who it was who actually built the tower, but what is known is that the structure began to lean after only the third floor was built. Construction was halted for about 100 years. Giovanni di Simone, an architect, began work on it again in 1272, and built 3 more floors, tilting them in the opposite direction to try to compensate for the already flawed building (thus, it is actually curved).

In 1319 the 7th floor was completed, and then the bell-chamber added in 1372. I'm really not sure why they decided to add a bell tower, as this just adds to the weight at the top, and contributes to the lean.

The tower leans more every year. In January of 1990, it was closed to the public, because it had acquired a lean of 14-1/2 feet of the center line. They took the bells out of the top of the tower and used cables to pull the building in the opposite direction, while removing some of the soil from the raised side. The tower has now been opened back up to the public (supposedly safe for another 300 years), although children under the age of 8 are not allowed inside.

Our boys were sad because they dearly wanted to go up inside of the tower, but the rules are firm. We, obviously, didn't go up either ("Yeah guys, you know about that tower you've been begging to explore? Well, Mommy and Daddy are going to take turns, but you're not allowed". That would have just been cruel.) I'm not much on heights anyway, so I didn't feel like I was missing out.






We decided to buy tickets to check out one of the two museums. Very unfortunately, the interior of the museum was simply filled with artifacts that had been displaced from there original places in the Cathedral and Baptistry, which are located a mere several hundred yards away. Not only were the things on display poorly set up, but the walls were an institutional whitewash or brick, and the floors plain tile.



We quickly left this place with a bitter taste in our mouth, and decided that it was time for lunch.

Since our little ones were very hungry by this point, we didn't have time to explore the town for something a little further away from the Piazza dei Miracoli. Instead, we stopped at the first trattoria that we came across, and were surprised to eat a rather delicious meal of pizza, fresh salads, and pasta.

Cured beef, arugula, shaved parmesan


Our overall feeling about Pisa was that the tower is something that's worth seeing, but that's pretty much all there is to the place. I've read online that there is actually more to the city, so maybe we'll go back someday to check it out, but for now, I've had enough. Hey, at least the food was great!




To read a more in depth history on this tower, click through to the Wikipedia article.

Next post: Parma, Maranello and Bologna

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Italy Part 6: Piazza Santo Spirito Flea Market

On the second Sunday of every month, a flea market is set up in the Piazza by the Santa Spirito.  A fascinating mish-mash of the good, the ugly, the delicious and the seemingly useless all gather into one place for the local and tourist alike to peruse at leisure.




The entire place is packed with sellers and shoppers, all looking to score the perfect deal, or turn over some old, neglected treasure.

Diver's helmet, anyone?




I have a serious weakness for handmade, hand-cut soaps.  There's something just so perfect about their less than perfect edges, their somtimes craggy exteriers, and their alluring herbal fragrances.  The only problem is, I am in love with the experience of being surrounded by tables of it.  This is clearly not practical, and so, in lieu of buying the whole booth, I moved on empty-handed.




I was truly surprised at some of the things that were up for sale.  Is there really that much of a demand for miniature cacti?




During our long car trip to Italy, I managed to knit (or finish up) three hats and three pairs of mittens for my little ones.  On days like this, they proved to be just the thing for blocking out the chill while enjoying time outside.




I love baskets, but unfortunately, we were packed to our eyeballs in the car with no room to even think about picking up a few of these.




The selection of dried fruit and candy at this stall was rather extensive.




We stopped to have a snack and played around the fountain:




Then we ate a fine lunch of beef intestine sandwiches (Lamprodotto) and thick chestnut crepes filled with fresh ricotta (Necci con Ricotta), before we headed back to the hotel for a much needed nap.



Check out these pictures and more in the photoset: Piazza Santo Spirito Flea Market

Next post: Famous leaning tower.

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Italy Part 3: Ponte Vecchio

The Ponte Vecchio (translated "Old Bridge"), is Florence's oldest bridge.  During WWII when Hitler retreated Florence in 1944, he destroyed all of the city's bridges except this one, supposedly because of it's beauty (not that it stopped him from destroying plenty of other beautiful people and things, but that would be for another blog post).  The bridge has jewelry shops built into either side of it lining the road, so as you are walking across it, you hardly realize that you are actually over water. 



At a point in the center is a place between buildings where you can stop to admire the view, and is a popular spot for tourists to snap photos.






According to our Florence guide book, the bridge used to house the shops of blacksmiths, butchers and tanners, but in 1593 a member of the Medici family (hugely powerful family who basically ran Florence during the Italian Renaissance) became annoyed at the stench and noise every time he had to cross the bridge.  He cleared out all of the "dirtiness", and moved jewelers and goldsmiths into the shops instead.  According to tradition, only jewelers and goldsmiths occupy these spaces to this day.





Ponte Vecchio


For all of these and more photos, go to the photo set: Ponte Vecchio.

Next post: A rock and roll show in Prato.

Italy Part 2: Mercato Centrale

The Mercato Centrale is an indoor market in the heart of the city (as the name might suggest), packed with fresh produce, cheese, meat (with no part of the animals wasted!), fish, pasta, olive oils and more.  Not only a useful stop to pick up something to make for dinner (or eat right there at Nerbone (a lunch stall/counter), but also good for entertainment value. 

Entire pigs heads stare from behind glass, extensive selections of dried beans stretch out in seemingly endless bins, whole prosciuttos hang in clusters from the ceiling, and wheels of cheese are stacked deep and wide.

 The place is teeming with people -- not only tourists, like the rest of the city, but also with native Florentines, doing their daily shopping, catching up on gossip or gathering for lunch.  The entirety of the building seems to be a celebration of all things deliciously fresh and good to eat in Florence.

























They appear to be ready for lunch, no?


Check out the Mercato Centrale photoset to see what we ate for lunch, more interesting animal parts (beef cheek, anyone?), and other highlights of our two visits to the market.

Next post: The Ponte Vecchio

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Italy Part 1: Florence

It has been awfully quiet around here at the bog lately, and with good reason. At the beginning of February we set off for a two-week adventure in Italy, the country of my heart. I am half-Sicilian, and have always longed to visit Italy and Sicily, to discover my roots eat the food, and see whatever there is to see. We didn't make it to Sicily on this trip, instead focusing on Florence, and hitting a few other cities on daytrips during our stay.

At last, all of the pictures are in photosets, titled, and arranged the way that I want them to be. ~Sigh of relief~ When I organize pictures after we get back from somewhere, I always want it to be a little more than "Hey! Here are a few cool things we saw!" and throw a whole bunch of disorganized photos at the blog-reading world. I like to take my time, go back through the guidebooks, look things up on Wikipedia, compare pictures, weed things out.


Sign inside of the last McDonalds in Germany, just before the Swiss border
It's always kind of funny to me to see something familiar in a foreign country. Here, McDonald's menu is all in German, with a few very non-American items listed.

I do all of this not only because I want you, our readers, to feel like you can travel with us virtually, but also because we are, in essence, using this blog to write our family's history. I want to remember what Italy felt like, what it smelled like, how it tasted on my tongue. There are a lot of pictures from Italy. A lot. Too many to even try to put into one blog post. If you would like to peruse the photos on your own, go ahead. It's all in flick in this collection. If you want to just go through every picture (all 315 of them!!), click here: Italy. Otherwise, in each post for the next few days, I'll take you through different parts of our trip. FIrst, we had to drive down through Switzerland, and then a few hours into Italy, where we stopped at Vicenza for the night. We stayed in a large family suite with a terrible breakfast. The boys and Lavella behaved pretty well for the amount of time that they were expected to sit still in the car. There was some of this:


(Watching videos on my iPod while sharing ear-buds)

And blessedly, some of this as well:


Lavella pretty much just slept the entire time. I don't know how she did that and then managed to sleep through the night as well, but miracles do happen, as it turns out. Finally on the second day after about two more hours of driving, we reached Firenze (Florence), where we would spend most of the next two weeks. Crammed with tourists, studded with beautiful works of architecture, full of art. We were immediately in love with the city.


Ammannati's Neptune Fountain

In 1966 there was a terrible flood in Firenze. As quoted here: "...the skies over Tuscany opened and poured non-stop for 18 hours, causing an unprecedented artistic, economic and human disaster. The River Arno burst its banks, flooded the city and claimed 29 lives.
The River Arno, flowing under the Ponte Veccio, present day

Mud and water swamped the museums, churches and libraries of the birthplace of the Renaissance, ruining many great works.

The damage caused was incalculable but it was a fraction of the devastation the city would have suffered without the efforts of thousands of young volunteers who came from all over Italy and from abroad to save the art treasures and help Florence off its knees.

This week (on the 40th anniversary) Italy is recalling the disaster and the efforts of those volunteers, nicknamed the 'mud angels', who did so much to limit its impact."

In one account, a man recalls walking through halls hung with priceless paintings, each severely damaged by the water. Every painting had a bag hung underneath, filled with paintchips that had come off of that particular work. Later, artists, scholars, and students painstakingly worked to piece the paintings back together, often having to re-create paintbrushes and paints that had been used when the artwork was first created.

The work that these Mud Angels did is fascinating, and much of the recovery work in Firenze led the world to discover many of the restoration and archiving techniques that today we take for granted. There is a blog dedicated entirely to everything about this flood: The Florence Flood.

A reproduction of Michelangelo's David (the real one is inside of the art museum, Accademia, where photography is prohibited)

Giotto's Bell Tower (Part of the Duomo, or the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore)

Facade of the the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Duomo)

Dante, next to the Santa Croce


Santa Croce

Firenze is known, in part, for it's leather goods. This was especially exciting to Greg, who has a deep and abiding love for all things leather. We were, however, somewhat disappointed. We did find leather in abundance, but it was mostly all low-to-mid quality stuff, and although every outdoor market was literally covered with the products, it was all rather obviously produced at the same big factory somewhere across town.


The snout of Il Porcelliono, a bronze boar on the corner of the Mercato Nuovo, stays highly polished. It is said that if you rub it, you will always return to the city.


Enjoying snacks after a trip to the market




The photos in this post are highlights from our flickr set: All Around Firenze. Click to check out more cool buildings, landmarks, and a visit to the catacombs beneath the Duomo, as well as cute pictures of the little guys, as usual. Next post: Shopping at the Mercato Centrale!

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