Travel Post II

It's now Wednesday, I think. Was it just yesterday that I posted? Good enough.

I didn't do a very good job of writing about what we've been doing in Florence in the last post, so here goes:

When we got to town on Monday, we mostly just got our bearings. Looked around, did a little shopping, ate a lot of pizza and gelato (ice cream). We walked to a couple sights, but mostly by accident. It's hard to walk here without walking into something of significance. Oh, we also ate at a little Trattoria about 100 feet from the hotel for dinner. I had the gnocchi. It was really good. Not only was the food good, but it cost 1/3 what we were paying in Paris for similar food.

Yesterday morning we slept in pretty good and got started pretty late. That was by design, though. Entering a new country can be difficult. Everything changes (except the money now, fortunately). We got going around 11:00 or so and went to see the Davide statue (Michelangelo's). We didn't succeed. The line was a couple hours long and we decided we'd seen enough naked men for this trip. I offered to pose for Annie if she really felt cheated out of the experience.

Before that, though (are you still following this?) we stopped at the Medici Chapels. It's a church that has some pretty impressive chapels inside. Okay, really impressive. They didn't allow us to take any pictures (or even take in water bottles) but it was neat to see. Lots of statues of naked people. I think I'd have a hard time worshipping with naked statues all around me.

After that we went to the Duomo (D' = of, Uomo = Man, or church of man, for those of you playing at home). Annie and her dad and I climbed to the top of the dome. It was a fun little hike. It starts out with a square spiral staircase for the first couple hundred feet, but then when you get to the base of the dome it changes into a round spiral staircase for awhile. Then you weave back and forth in between the roof and the ceiling (there's just a small gap there that you can walk through), then climb a staircase that might as well be a ladder. Then you emerge from a spider hole (like the one Saddam was found in) out on top of the dome.

There are great views of the whole city from up there, and it was a pretty clear day. There are mountains (I'd put that in quotation marks if I could find how to type them) all around the city and it's really pretty.

After the Duomo we went to an ice cream place called Grom. It's not an Italian word; don't bother asking what it means. It was some tasty gelato. Really tasty.

After that we went to a lesser-known museum called the Bargello. There's nothing too exciting there except for Donatello's Davide, which I've heard sort of kicked off the renaissance. It was smaller than I'd pictured it, but most people seem smaller to me when I meet them. It was pretty neat to see, anyway.

From there we walked a bit farther East to the Chiesa di Santa Croce. Annie didn't believe me that it was named after Jim Croce's sister. Anyway, it was undergoing some restorations (but what here isn't?) but we were still able to see the tombs of Michelangelo and Galileo. Neither tomb is much to look at, but it was still pretty neat to be there.

After all that (it was a pretty long day) we went back to the hotel. Annie and I snuck out later to get some more Gelato and walk down by the river to the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge). It was nice. I'd do it again. In fact we might tonight.

This morning we woke up and took the train to Pisa. It felt good to be back on a real Italian train. We And it was really nice that we knew how to do it all, because there were many people there struggling to figure it out.

We walked to the Field of Miracles (where the tower is) and took pictures, paid to pee, and had a nice sit-down pizza lunch. It was some good pizza. Really good pizza. Still not as good as what we'll eat in Napoli, but not too bad. Then we walked back to the train station and got on a slow train back to Florence. It was only 20 minutes longer and we had most of a whole air-conditioned train car to ourselves.

Arriving back in Florence we bought our train tickets for tomorrow (10:27 to Napoli Centrale) and went to the Chiesa di Santa Maria Novella. Nothing too exciting there, but it's good to be able to say we've been to it. They didn't allow pictures though. It almost seems as though things don't exist if you're not allowed to take a picture of them. Maybe that's just me and my bad memory.

Since then we've been shopping, eating more gelato, internetting, and scoping out places to do our laundry tonight. We're quickly approaching the halfway point of the trip.

Anyway, that's about all I have to say about that. I'll write some more once we get to Sorrento tomorrow, or sometime. I won't promise any updates, and still have no way to share pictures. See you all soon.