Viva Italia

Hello again,

Our last night in Rome was lovely; we went on a short walk past the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain, then back to the hostel.

We got up at the ass crack of dawn on Friday morning to board the train for Florence. I grabbed some peach yogurt in the train station and ate it as we settled in for our 2 hour journey. We got there about 10, got our train tickets for the next daz, grabbed a map at the TI, looked in horror at the 70 cent fee for the bathroom and held it as we set off to find our hostel.

We dropped our stuff, used their bathroom and set out for the day. We went on a nice walk through Florence, and quickly discovered it to be a much more charming and much less overwhelming city than Rome. Our first stop was to get some lunch. We opted for pizza, which we ate in a dining room that was empty except for some birds that had squeezed their way in.

Next we went over to the Accademia, where we spent a half hour in line reading the graffitti scrawled by the (mostly Spanish) travelers. After making it to the front of the line and getting over our outrage that there was no student discount, we went on to enjoy the museum. While the Accademia houses a varietz of other paintings and sculptures, the main event is clearly Michelangelo's David. As Danielle observed, he is much bigger than expected and, yes, rrrrripped like Jesus.

We continued our walk through Florence, pausing to look up at the Duomo, which, because of the strange, candy-like color of the stones it was built from, didn't look like any cathedral I've ever seen. We kept walking until we hit the Arno river, ate some gelato in the piazza outside Palazzo Vecchio, then decided it was time to tackle the Uffizi. Another long line.

The biggies in the Uffizi are basically the works by the Renaissance artists that have names like the Ninja Turtles (plus a little Boticelli thrown in there). It was a big museum but not overwhelming, and it included an impressive exhibit on The Mind of DaVinci, which we wandered through at the end.

Our next quest was to locate the international bookstore, as I was about 100 pages away from finishing East of Eden and needed a backup. The English selection was pretty good. Danielle bought The DaVinci Code and I bought Freakonomics, a suggestion of Megan Sherman's. We brought our purchases back over Ponte Vecchio and to the hostel, where we had a little rest before dinner.

We then walked to a piazza nearby where the food looked good and shared a long table with a British couple and their little boy. They told us they wanted to do a little traveling before their son turned 2 and thez had to start paying for his plane tickets. Danielle and I had fun watching him. Also (of course) Danielle and I were stupid and ordered a pizza each, and they turned out to be huge. They were good--white pizza with 4 cheeses--and the waitress was nice and wrapped them up.

Ever since I saw a little kid eating them in Rome, I'd wanted to have strawberries for dessert, preferably with a big scoop of whipped cream on top. We bough what we thought was whipped cream at the market on the way home, and I was able to ask for strawberries in Italian by applying my gelato ordering skills (Vorremo fragola, per favore). We brought them back to the hostel and discovered that our whipped cream was just cream, but we ate it anyway and it was quite good. We took showers and went to bed.

Another early train ride to Venice. We found our place on the train across from 2 Canadian college students also heading to Venice. We had a breakfast feast of peanut butter crackers (thanks J.J.!) and giggled all the way to Venice. We parted when we arrived, promising to see each other on the Facebook (bless it).

Danielle and I picked up our tickets and got on the vaporetto boat heading to St. Mark's Square. I'm surprised the boat didn't sink, there were so many tourists (and their luggage) crammed onto it. We instantly knew we were going to like Venice, not just because of the noveltz of canals for roads, but because I think Minnesotans just feel better when there are water and boats around.

After a surprisingly long search for beverages, we dropped down on a couple of steps in the square to eat our leftover pizza and take in the scene. St. Mark's was packed with tourists, pigeons, the sound of the orchestras playing. We were fans.

Next we dragged our bags up the winding allezs to our hotel, where we were greeted by the tiny little Italian owner lady. Danielle and I took advantage of having our own room by turning the place over to our laundry operation. While the clothes dried, we set off to explore Venice.

I think we were immediately comfortable not just because of the water which reminded us of Minnesota, but because of the winding alleys that reminded us of Toledo. We spent the day wandering up and down and sitting next to the quiet canals. After a 'quick & easy' dinner, we decided to take a little boat cruise. It didn't take us down the Grand Canal like we'd hoped, but instead swung way outside the island and dropped us off at the car park. But it was still fun.

We got up not to early, not too late on Sunday, ate a little breakfast and set ouf for another day of getting lost, feeding the pigeons, and seeing the same accordian playing guy all over town. We also managed to et on the right boat and had a nice cruise down the Grand Canal (well, except for the part where the dirty barefoot guy lay down in my lap). At the end of the day, we got another 'quick & easy' dinner and enjoyed our last gelato before we had to head back to the train station and leave Italy behind.