So, after our trip to the winery, which was fascinating by the way, we went to Florence to spend the night. The next day we looked all around Florence. This is where Michelangelo's David is. Beautiful sculpture.
What you see here is actually a copy that they have in the town square. The original was moved years ago to the Academy of Fine Arts. It's incredible to see these works of art that to this point you have only seen in pictures. After the Academy, we went to the Florence Cathedral. The bell tower was designed by Giotto, and the baptistry had the most amazing door I've ever seen.
A quick tour through the cathedral and then we were back into the town and over to the town square, called Signoria Square. The only town square I've ever been to with masterpiece sculptures all over.
Right off the square was the Uffizi Gallery, containing 1200 works of art. We weren't allowed any pictures inside, but it was filled with original Rembrandt's, Botticelli's, etc. It really was too involved to describe it all. Here is a link that you might find interesting, showing some of the Artists and their work that is held in the gallery. Uffizi Gallery
After the gallery, we spent some time shopping in Florence, world famous for its leather goods. They were impressive, and I fell in love with a leather jacket that was unlike anything I've ever seen before. However, the almost $1,500 price tag made me rethink the whole thing.
The next day we were off again, this time to Venice by way of Verona. Verona was a quaint little town that is home to Juliet's house. You may remember her from a little show called Romeo and Juliet. We were unable to actually see the place, since it was under renovation. Too bad. Apparently people cannot stop themselves from putting their graffiti all over the place. It's too bad. We did, however, have one of the best meals of the trip while in Verona. The three of us stopped in this little place for a quick bite, and it turned into this outstanding meal. It was great.
Verona was a pretty town, but unfortunately we weren't able to enjoy it as much as possible as it was very, very cold and rainy that day. So, we spent some time shopping, getting a sweater for me and a coat for Melissa. It was nice to be inside, and it was during that little shopping trip that I realized I had picked up enough Italian to carry out a very simple transaction completely in Italian. Not very impressive, but it was a victory for me.
We left Verona and the drove to Venice. What can I say about Venice except that it is, in all likelihood, the most romantic city in the world. And, as much as I hate to admit it, the only place in Italy that we broke down and ate at McDonalds (shhh, don't tell anyone). Anyway, we got to the hotel and went to our room. It was a maze just to find our room. But, the view out our bedroom window made it worth the trip.
Having two pretty ladies with me didn't hurt either.
Venice was very exciting and beautiful. Of course we saw Piazza San Marco, St Mark's Basilica, Doge's Palace etc. All very cool.
I will skip ahead a little bit here and tell something of a sad story. At least I think it's sad. St Mark's Square is lined with shops. Some very spendy shops actually. Our last night in Venice, we were looking for a place to eat. We wandered around the maze that is Venice and ended up right back at the square. All the stores were closed, which is the sad part, because we found a couple of stores we would have loved to shop in.
Sad. Anyway, after seeing the Doge's Palace, we took a bit of a side trip to two of the nearby islands. Murano, which is famous for its glass works, and Burano which is famous for it's lace and colorful houses.
The glass factory at Murano was interesting. They make all of their stuff by hand.
After watching them make the glass, we went to their showroom and spent our hard-earned money. We actually bought a glass and pitcher set that they are shipping to us. Can't wait until it arrives.
Burano was a fascinating place. Not so much because of the lace, which was neat, but because of the colorful way that they've painted their houses.
After our trip to the outer islands, we returned to Venice proper, ate dinner at a restaurant that had the worst service ever, then got ready to leave again the next day.
We left Venice headed for Assisi by way of Ravenna. How I wish we'd been able to see more of Ravenna, but it was just a short stop on the outskirts of the city to see another church. It was beautifully decorated with Mosaics. One of the most interesting to me was one depicting someone that you don't often see in religious art.
Of course, we couldn't leave Ravenna without at least a glance at the book to see who might be still there.
After Ravenna we traveled on to Assisi, which was a fascinating little town, and of course home to the church of St Francis of Assisi.
After seeing the church ( no pictures allowed, again) we went through the town. These little hillside towns have captivated me.
One of the funny things we noticed throughout the entire trip was the size of the cars. As you can see from the pictures above, Italy does not have nice wide American streets and almost no parking. To put this in perspective, there are 4,000,000 people in the city of Rome on a given day. There are 2.5 million cars and 850,000 scooters. There are 260,000 parking spots. So, as our guide said, "Romans don't park their cars. We abandon them, and pray All Saints that we find them again." Anyway, to help with that, many people drive very small cars that they can park anywhere. The Smart Cars are my favorites. Believe it or not, I think these cars are going to be sold in the States pretty soon. Scary.
After our night in Assisi, we drove back to Rome and had one more dinner together as a group. We had seen many wonderful sights and made some very good friends within the group. Our farewell dinner was very nice, very fun, but somewhat melancholy. Melissa did get a kiss on the cheek from a very handsome Italian waiter. I think she liked it. This last picture was taken at the dinner. It is the Ortolani family with our tour guide, Flavia.
After the dinner we had a night tour of Rome. We stopped again at the Vatican, and as you can see, the lights were on in the Pope's living quarters. Flavia said that meant he was still up. My guess was he was watching a DVD of the Da Vinci Code.
The next day we had a very early morning getting to the hotel. Up at 3:00 am. It was a very long day with a layover in Frankfurt, Germany and one on Houston. Our flight going into Frankfurt was a bit delayed, and everything was delayed on the ground there also. Thus, we ended up missing our flight our of Houston and had to wait for the next one. I think by the time we got home, we had been up for about 24 hours. As you can see from this picture of Melissa in Houston, it was a long day.
All in all it was a fantastic trip. One that we hope to repeat someday. Not the entire trip, but we would like to go to Ravenna and do some genealogy. Anyway, it was an unbelievable time and a great family vacation.
