Barb and Dave's Holiday in Italy
The back of the Capitoline museum looks down onto the ruins of the forum, the temples to the gods, the senate, the house of the vestal virgins and more important runis per hundred yards than any other place I can think of.
posted by Barb and David @ 7:18 p.m.
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We left Barberino Val d'Elsa after a wonderful week and drove down to the big city. We parked the car at the airport there and caught a cab to our apartment. It was a white knuckle ride down the Appian way. We found ourselves at our Rome apartment and (as before) it was very nice and right in the heart of medeival Rome. I read that our street was created during an Urban renewal project in 1425. The picture at left was taken in a neighbourhoood a ten minute walk from our apartment. In one picture you can Rome in several periods. The amptheatre was built for Marcus Aurelius. Those are people standing near the base. It's been housing for a millenia now and those are condos along the top (Sophia loren owns one, I hear). At the right of the photo is a medieval church. That's not a hill between it and the tower, the rubble of a thousand years is why the two buildings are at different levels. Apparently that church was packed with Jewish attendees every Saturday because this was also the jewish ghetto. the pope ringed the ghetto with churches and made attendance mandatory. The yellow building in the background is the synagogue of Rome. In a small piazza between the collumns and the synagogue, the Nazis rounded up the jews in 1944 and gave them an ultimatum. They needed to gather 50 Kg. of gold within 24 hours or they would all be sent to concentration camps. They and many other citizens of Rome worked together and they amassed the gold. A few weeks later the Nazis began deporting them anyway.
posted by Barb and David @ 6:42 p.m.
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Not as big but much more art. No camera flash allowed so a small tripod was realy handy.
posted by Barb and David @ 2:33 p.m.
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Barb and Wayne behind a wedding party that was leaving the town hall and heading to their wedding dinner. Bride and Groom were at the head of the pack.
posted by Barb and David @ 2:21 p.m.
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The rival of Florence, Siena has much of the art and was not nearly so crowded as Florence.
posted by Barb and David @ 2:18 p.m.
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But an exact copy that stands in the same place the original occupied for hundreds of years. Compare it to the Venus beside it.
posted by Barb and David @ 2:12 p.m.
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...and you'll see the amazing art of the renaissance. You can see bigger images if you click on them. This one's worth it to see the mastery of 3D perspective and how some of the angels and saints appear to let their feet dangle over edges.
posted by Barb and David @ 2:03 p.m.
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Good thing that Barberino was such a cozy quiet place (except for the church bell every half hour), it was good to come home to. Florence was hot and swarming with tourists. Florence has amazing art, but if that's what you're going for, I recommend going in the Winter unless you want to sweat while jockeying into position to see what you're looking for.
posted by Barb and David @ 1:52 p.m.
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I took this from a bedroom window. It's the picture I'll put on my wall at work.
posted by Barb and David @ 1:28 p.m.
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If you walk across to the other side of town, this is the view from the other side of the ridge line. That's Tavarnelle de Pesa on the next ridge over. The bushes are olive trees and tightly lined crops are the grape vines.
posted by Barb and David @ 1:04 p.m.
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There's another tiny hill town in tthe center of the photo.
posted by Barb and David @ 12:53 p.m.
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This was a sunrise. spending our mornings and evenings relaxing out here was a highlight of our trip. I took a buch of pictures and I'll post a few of them.
posted by Barb and David @ 12:48 p.m.
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On the table is the Palm and foldable keyboard that I used to blog (when I could find wireless internet)
posted by Barb and David @ 12:41 p.m.
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Looking southward, this gate is called the "Sienese" gate because it points toward Siena
posted by Barb and David @ 12:33 p.m.
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As promised in the description, our apartment was part of the medeival wall of Barberino Val d'Elsa. Our apartment was on the top two floors and included the middle part that sticks out and the two windows to the right of that. Our narrow balcony is just visible above the power line.
posted by Barb and David @ 12:25 p.m.
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We caught the bus out of Venice to take us back to the airport. That's where our rental car was waiting. I was extremely nervous about driving in Italy, having heard many stories about maniac drivers there. However to their credit, they were fast drivers with great discipline, and I never saw any of the multiple lane changes or passes on the right that are common around Toronto. With a brief stop at the Ferari factory (Bill's goal of his vacation) which entailed getting completely lost twice, we made most of the trip on an ultra-modern expressway. Since I've spoken so much about this little village where we spent our middle week, I'll describe it and put up a bunch of photos. The old walled village of Barberino is what you can see in this photo. Since the town runs along a ridge line, it is narrow (Only three "streets" wide). The road in the foreground is the Via Cassia (the 2000 year old road from Rome to Florence. The photo doesn't show the hundred yards or so of the town to the south, but the taller tower to the right in the distance is about 30 feet tall and is at the North end of the town. In all, the village is an oval shape one quarter mile long and one hundred yards wide at the most.
One more thing, our apartment is in that building almost directly about the blue pedestrian sign.
posted by Barb and David @ 12:19 p.m.
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It's Sunday night in Rome and we have just returned from a long day at the Capitoline Museum. Tomorrow we walk through the ruins of ancient Rome including the Colusseum. The internet connection in Barberino was turned off due to the new requirements for anti-terrorism. That was okay because it was wonderful to relax and not do too much. I took lots of photos and have lots to write about the town as well as Florence, Siena, and now Rome. Since no-one has WiFi here, I can't attach pictures, and I will probably wait until later and focus on the touristy stuff for a few days.
posted by Barb and David @ 1:04 p.m.
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Hello all,
posted by Barb and David @ 11:24 a.m.
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One of the things I saw while wandering lost.
posted by Barb and David @ 11:00 a.m.
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The pictures I'm attaching now are those from early this morning. I wanted to take pictures in morning light so I set the alarm for 7. I crept out into the world of working venetians. It was lovely beyond words. Venice is filled with streets that are barely passageways. I can reach out to touch both walls at once in the majority of these. Look up and you see balconies lush with flowers and, remarkably, weeds growing out of some of the cracks.
These run at every crazy angle and meet up with wider roads that you could actually drive a car on (if Venice allowed cars). Eventually a bunch come together in piazzas, small piazza's (campinos) and almost room sized squares (can't remember the name). If you are trying to get anywhere specific with a deadline, good luck. This morning I started walking and got utterly, wonderfully lost in about 8 minutes. I carried a map but many streets have no names painted on the walls (Venetian street signs) or named on the map. Really, it was only good to remind me of where the apartment was.
I wandered past beautiful old churches. Every 50 meters is another tiny bridge over a canal and a beautiful view. The houses really face the water, the real working roads.
posted by Barb and David @ 10:57 a.m.
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Many houses are painted with these beautiful ochres. The sun hits them right and they just glow.
posted by Barb and David @ 10:53 a.m.
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Posing with the ancestors of Emily and Trudy
posted by Barb and David @ 10:52 a.m.
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Venice is 29 Celsius in the shade. We have been sweating since the trip began and I've chosen a business casual travel wardrobe in a forlorn attempt to "fit in." Even so I feel pity for the local business men walking past me in suits.
Venice really is as lovely as all the postcards. Once the richest city in the wold, palaces lined the grand canal in a riot of colours and gilt. 500 years later, the colours are now pastel and the buildings in elegant decay. Shutters on every window are distressed wood with peeling paint. Plastered walls have lost some fascia, revealing the brick inside. It's like a very, very wealthy Havana.
We've been walking since 11:00 this morning, wandering the streets except for a brief and absolutely steaming ride on the the water buses. The boats are highly recommended in all the guides for a low cost grand canal tour. I imagine they weren't riding them in the stifling heat like we were. It was like a free tour and sauna, all in one.
posted by Barb and David @ 10:50 a.m.
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The description on the left gives sense of the size. This is part of what was a full body statue.
posted by Barb and David @ 12:24 p.m.
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We landed in Gatwick, spent an hour and a half in line for customs then took the train to Farringdon station near our hotel. It's a nice part of the city and I was tempted to take a photo of every street that I saw. Lots of Victorian industrial buildings and the houses for the workers.
Our hotel was about a mile from the British Museum and that seemed like a good place go, if only for four sleep deprived people to stay awake. The Museum however, exceeded all of our expectations.
It seems that the British Museum intended from it's beginnings to be the holder of as many of the great treasures of the worlds civilizations as it could. Since it got its start in the days of the empire, there was much treasure to be had. I got to see clay tablets with some of the worlds oldest writing, the Rosetta Stone, scores of mummies and lots of Greek and Roman statues. What totally awed me though, was the size of many of their artifacts. So many pieces were just frickin' huge.
If you're planning a trip to London, this is absolutely worth a day. In our 3 hours, we only saw the Mesopotamian and Egyptian galleries and the Parthenon sculptures (yes, they took those too). I can't wait to go back, I want to see what they got from the rest of their empire.
posted by Barb and David @ 5:53 a.m.
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Air Transat id conducting a contest for the best travel photo. I'm thinking of sending ths one in...
posted by Barb and David @ 5:49 a.m.
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Sep 4: Us at home ready to hop in the cab.
We were excited and raring to go.
8:30 am GMT: We are now at the 5 hour mark of flying with the least amount of leg room that you can imagine. Fortunately for us, Wayne and Bill are sitting ahead of us so we can joke with them about it. Because it's a row of three, Barb and I would have to make the nice lady on the aisle stand if we wanted out. I held out for about 4:30 before I gave in and begged to get out and free up all the clots in my legs.
I set my watch to London time before I even got on the plane so that I might convince myself to get some sleep. I think I got a couple hours and so did Barb. At Gatwick we'll need to track down the express train that goes straight to Farringdon Station, near our hotel. Once we check in, it's a shower and then out on the town. I am really looking forward to this.
From Barb: I was joking about steerage before we left but, it definitely was steerage. When a 5'2" person cannot move in a seat without hitting her knees you know it is tight. I was thinking of sending a request to Air Transat. Free anticoagulants for all who travel or maybe just a couple of aspirins to thin the blood a little. I should have taken the contortionist class after all.
I am looking forward to walking today after we have a real meal. My lovely carrot muffin has a whopping 380 calories and 17 grams of fat. I am planning on spending those calories on a good British curry.
posted by Barb and David @ 5:47 a.m.
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While we're in Europe, guarding the home will be tough work. Trudy is resting up for the tough days ahead.
posted by Barb and David @ 11:12 p.m.
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David hates sending mail, so consider this your postcard, dammit.
