Day 3

Day 3 found us departing via train to Florence while Ann and Skip headed to the Vatican. The Aerostar train went 435 miles in 90 minutes!






Upon our arrival in Florence we dragged our rolling suitcases across the cobblestones for about 20 minutes to our hotel. Even more beautiful than the digs we had in Rome, the Hotel 'de Medici was super fancy for $200/night.

Deb and I strolled down to the main piazza where the Duomo was. The Duomo is the cathedral church (Duomo) of Florence. Construction of the Cathedral begun in 1296 and was completed in 1436 with the dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi. The exterior of the basilica is faced with polychrome marble panels in various shades of green and pink bordered by white. The cathedral complex, located in Piazza del Duomo, includes the Baptistery and Giotto's "Campanile" AKA "bell tower". The basilica is one of Italy's largest churches, and until the modern era, the dome was the largest in the world. It remains the largest brick dome ever constructed. The architect, Brunelleschi, went to Rome to study the Pantheon to check out how to build a huge dome made of concrete and brick. If you are taking notes, we went there with Ann and Skip on Day 1. :-)

We should point out something that, perhaps, you already know. Between the time that the Duomo was first started and the time it was completed a significant event occurred in the history of Man. It was called the Renaissance! and the origination point of the Renaissance was none other than Florence! Drum roll!!

Michelangelo, Leonardo de Vinci, Brunelleschi, Bernini (remember him from the Borghese Gallery?), Galileo, all rose to positions of influence kbecause of financial backers like the Medici's of Florence and the Borghese's of Rome. Of course let's not forget the influence of the Church's Popes who came from the families of the Borghese's and Medici's. How convenient!!



Debbie in front of the Duomo



Bill took this picture from the bell tower after climbing 414 steps to a height of 276 feet.






I was very proud of this photo that shows the tourists who had climbed to the top of the Duomo. We did that four years ago when we were on our Rick Steves tour. I am pictured at the top of the campanile which appears in the video game Assassin's Creed II as part of the landscape of Florence. In this video game it is possible for the player character to scale the building by jumping from the back of the Duomo (catching a window ledge), and performing a Leap of Faith off a beam jutting out from the ledge of the campanile. Executing this move gives the player a PlayStation 3 trophy. I did not make "the leap of faith". However, I was proud of my ability to climb the 414 steps straight up while maintaining my heart rate at less than 170.




Following our jaunt down to the Duomo we stopped at a wine bar for dinner and drinks before turning in for the evening.

Day 2

The hotel where we are staying has an awesome spread of breakfast food each morning as part of the room rate (124€). After we filled our faces the four of us took the city bus to the Borghese Gallery. We had ordered tickets weeks before on the Internet and were looking forward to seeing something that was not a part of our Rick Steves tour four years ago. The bus ride gave us a chance to ride with the locals to their employment or schools in the city. While we missed our exit by a couple of blocks an older lady guessed where we were going and advised us how to notify the driver to stop and how to exit the bus. Everywhere we went, people were helpful even if they spoke only Italian.
The visit to the Borghese was stimulated by our viewing of the HBO series, The Medici, who were the most powerful family in Florence. The Borghese family was the power in ancient Rome. While we missed seeing that series, we knew that both families had a passion for money, power and great accumulations of art and sculpture. Both families were also intertwined in the Catholic Church hierarchy that "facilitated" their rise to power. The Gallery in Rome is a respectable display of gorgeous pieces of art where money was no object. I use the adverb"respectable" because it wasn't the size of the Louvre in Paris or the New York Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art. However, the quality of what was on display was enough to meet anyone's expectations for an over-the-top gallery of fabulous pieces of art!

The Galleria Borghese houses a substantial part of the Borghese collection of paintings, sculpture and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese who, coincidentally, was the nephew of Pope Paul V (reign 1605–1621).
Scipione Borghese was an early patron of Gianlorenzo Bernini-one of the greatest sculptors and artists of all time. Bernini's Apollo and Daphne is one of the centerpieces of the Gallery and shows the chaste nymph Daphne being turned into a laurel tree, pursued in vain by Apollo god of light.
The life-size marble sculpture, begun by Bernini at the age of twenty-four and executed between 1622 and 1625, has always been housed in the same villa, but originally stood on a lower and narrower base set against the wall near the stairs. Consequently anyone entering the room first saw Apollo from behind, then the fleeing nymph appeared in the process of metamorphosis: bark covers most of her body, but according to Ovid's lines, Apollo's hand can still feel her heart beating beneath it.Thus the scene ends by Daphne being transformed into a laurel tree to escape her divine aggressor.
The presence of this pagan myth in the Cardinal's villa was justified by a moral couplet composed in Latin by Cardinal Maffeo Barberini (later Pope Urban VIII) and engraved on the cartouche on the base, which says: Those who love to pursue fleeting forms of pleasure, in the end find only leaves and bitter berries in their hands.
In modern terms I might suggest that the lover coming up short in his lust for love might simply Tweet "nuts!" meaning he is left standing with those bitter berries.








Bernini is also responsible for sculpting his rendition of the vision and Ectasy of Saint Teresa in which a Spanish nun swoons in heavenly rapture at the point of an angel's arrow. Deb and I saw this piece of work the last time we were in Rome. On that tour there was a bit of a twitter among our fellow American tourists as they reflected on the symbolism of all of this.

Lest we forget, Bernini is the guy who was the architect of St. Peter's Basilica. No small task! He set the stage for Michelangelo and other artists who have adorned this Holy place over hundreds of years.

Bernini was also responsible for transforming the small existing piazza in front of St Peter's into the largest and grandest square in the world, or rather a key shaped device of colonnades, which branch out from the church in a narrowing stem, then form into two halves of a circle, which encompasses an obelisk and two fountains. During his long and intensive service to the Church, Bernini effectively completed the setting and interior of St Peter's. Indeed his contribution to the church as we see it today is greater than that of any other artist, including Michelangelo.

We got our first Italian rain coming out of the Gallery as we walked through the gardens. The thunder and lightning changed our minds about walking in the rain. We hailed a cab for the ride to the Piazza de Populo. There we dashed from the cab and into the closest restaurant to wait out the storm. Here is a photo of the Americans drying out.









Outside we took in views of the piazza originally intend to greet ancient travelers to the city center.





Folks came through this gate and looked straight ahead to the road ahead between two symmetrically- shaped churches.





We made our way down to the Spanish Steps and past some of the most expensive shopping in Rome. Gucci, Jimmy Choo shoes, Hermes, Visache and Fendi purses were but a few of the classy shops along the way. Right in the middle of the riches was a basilica. I prayed in the church while Ann tried (unsuccessfully) to enter Fendi's. Skip found the gelato shop.







The Rome Basilica (not the Pope's place in the Vatican)






Spanish Steps






Gelato

More Day 1 "Activities"

I would like to add a couple of things to my Day 1 posting. I was committed to avoiding the extraordinary cost of using AT&T overseas to access the web for email, post to my blog and follow the news on line. After doing a ton of research on line, I went to an Italian telephone store at the train terminal near our hotel and asked about replacing my AT&T "SIM" card for my iPad with one that would access the Italiaan phone system. It cost me 8€ for unlimited access to the Internet (like a cell phone - not Wi-Fi). That is about $10. With AT&Y it would cost $159 for the same amount of data.

Ann replaced the SIM card in her US phone with an Italian one and can now call home for $0.30/minute instead of $1.29/minute with AT&T or Verizon.

Debbie and I are finding our return visit to Rome to be more comfortable than our first with the Rick Steves tour and we are both enjoying the return visit more than we had expected. The guided tour with Rick Steves was one of our best European visits. However, we had little sense of how sites we visited were connected (geographically). This time we poured over maps and made mental connections in advance of our arrival. As a result we were able to move about the city without taking time to review maps and try to figure out where we were. I think Ann &Skip will attest to our facility for knowing the city in a manner much like our recent visit to NYC. Having a hotel across the city from the main train station means we can ride the city bus to ANYWHERE in Rome and take the Metro (subway) as well. The same station gives us access to the "Obama" bullet train that will whisk us to Florence Thursday afternoon in 90 minutes. For our Chicago friends it's like having a single station for the CTA buses, Elevated trains and the METRA. It is totally cool!

Finally, I have to comment on our first night's meal. After falling into our hotel rooms (after miles of walking the streets of Rome) everyone showered and headed up to the roof top lounge where we sipped wine and had some snacks with the cool breezes in our face and a view of the city lights down below. We were pinching ourselves with delight over our accomplishment of the last 48 hours and were unexpectently refreshed as we headed out to a recommended restaurant for dinner at 10:00pm. This restaurant added to our pleasure by being a small (again, roof top) Italian place that made us feel like we were in someone's home. We took great interest in watching the waiters zip between the tables serving food but mostly engaging the diners like folks they knew intimately. What was particularly noteworthy was the waiters were all men in their 60's wearing white jackets and sporting graying facial hair. They engaged the diners with passion and attention to detail. While not meaning to sound sexist I was struck by how they multiple-tasked and were always moving! You could tell this was not only their occupation but their vocation! While we couldn't understand what they were saying to each other and to the guests it was obvious that their expression-filled remarks were about the beauty of the food they were serving and the enjoyment they were getting out of waiting on people. It was something to watch and added to the pleasure of our evening. Mind you, this was not an expensive high-end restaurant! It was simply a representation of how the Italians love their food and how they enjoy sharing that love with others.

I think we finally all crashed about midnight.

Location:Rome

What's Not To Like In Italy?

Despite the 7 hour time shift and the 3 hours delay in our arrival time due to mechanical difficulties at OHare we easily navigated our arrival at Rome's Leonardo de Vinci airport and soon thereafter were checking our bags at our hotel destination. Friends had recommended a lovely hotel near the central Rome train station that positioned us nicely to take public transportation to every possible tour site. Fares were 1€ to ride anywhere for 90 minutes - a good deal.

We headed immediately to the Metro and were quickly whisked away to the old Roman world as we exited the Metro station and were immediately confronted by the amazing and humungeous Coliseum - right there before our very eyes. It was a little like a time machine experience where we went from 21st century Rome to 531 AD.




We strolled along the ancient cobblestone streets past the Arch of Constantine - the warrior emperor who added "Holy" to the Roman Empire to please his Catholic mother, Monica. We viewed what is referred to as the Roman Forum. Here the archeological digs show remnants of Buildings that represent the earliest days of the Republic. It was amazing to see the place where representative government was born in 509 BC.







After climbing to the top of the Capitoline Hill we found our way up to the roof of the Capitoline Museum where had a most enjoyable lunch while the breeze refreshed our souls and the views of the city provided us with such a heavenly treat.



From there we pressed on past the Victor Emmanuel Monument - the first President of Italy and considered to ne the "father" of Italy. See below!



We still had energy to move forward to the Pantheon - a building in Rome, commissioned by Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome. The building is circular with a portico of three ranks of huge granite Corinthian columns. A rectangular vestibule links the porch to the rotunda, which is under a coffered, concrete dome, with a central opening (oculus) to the sky. Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.


It was a jaw-dropping experience even though Debbie and I saw it when we visited here on our Rick Steves tour three years ago. Somehow we convinced Ann & Skip to drag themselves forward to Trevi Fountain where the traditional coins were tossed in the fountain.



With no sleep for almost 40 hours and 7 hours of walking the streets of Rome we took the Metro back to our hotel to shower and unpack.

The evening was still not complete but more about that later!

GOODNIGHT!!!!

Location:Rome

Monday, July 25, we join Ann & Skip Harsy at O’Hare airport to board our flight to Rome. What began as a celebration of Ann’s retirement from teaching by vacationing in Cinque Terra, Italy, has been expanded to include a few days with them in Rome and Florence. Their married daughter, Kathleen, and her husband will follow us to Rome three days later. Their son, Peter, will meet up with the six of us in Pisa on Saturday, July 30, and we will all take the local train into the Cinque Terra. We have reserved a villa for the week in the town of Manarola. This is a picture of the town where we will be staying in the Cinque Terra.