Ciao Bella Firenze!

I wrote this months ago and never hit the "publish" button. If anyone is still reading-- enjoy. It's free. . . and like most things in life, you get what you pay for.

Leaving Florence was bittersweet. We felt very at home in sweet Firenze, although of course the knowledge that family and friends were on the other end of the journey home made parting much more bearable.


My last day there I ate lunch at our favorite restaurant (Trattoria Nella), ordered my favorite dish (ravioli with walnut cream sauce), went on a walk on my favorite road (behind the Arno that leads up to San Miniato), and ate my favorite gelato (pistachio). We didn't even mind the drizzling rain and our wet feet. Erika and I reveled in our last Italian delights as the sky darkened on a hill in the ancient wood outside the cathedral walls.



We ate spaghetti at a friend's house, then went for one last late night walk around the city. I think I love Florence best at night. When all the crowds are gone, and the streets are at rest, and it is just me and some cobblestone and old buildings is when I feel like I belong there. The Dumo is transformed into something ethereal as light from the moon drips from the gold spire and melts onto the warm brick dome.


We experienced a "secret bakery" for the first time, which is an unmarked shop that makes pastries in the middle of the night for local shops to sell the next day. These bakeries don't have licenses to sell to the public (hence the "secret" part). You simply follow your nose to a door with a "keep quiet" sign posted, knock on the door (Italian mafioso style), and order bomboloni (doughnuts), brioche, or whatever else you may fancy. And of course they are hot out of the oven. All for 1 euro a pop. Too bad we didn't know how to find these until our last night in Florence.


At the risk of sounding as cheesy as Parmesan, I treasure my memories from dolce Firenze and look forward to returning to the hills of Tuscany that have so ingrained themselves upon me. It will be a delightful "home-away-from-home" coming.

The End

It's past midnight here in London which means that I am coming home TODAY!

If I am feeling particularly inspired when I get home, perhaps I will blog about my last 2 weeks of travel. If not... I can tell you about it in person ;)

Thanks for reading.

Katie

Svizzera

Last Tuesday, we enjoyed appetizers with a group of friends followed up by a couple hours of BBC Pride and Prejudice. Lovely.

During the course of the evening:

Me: "So what are your plans this weekend, Erika?"

Erika: "Actually, I am going to Switzerland."

Me: "No way! That's awesome! Before we came to Italy I kind of had Switzerland tourettes-- every time we talked about weekend trips I would throw it out there. "Switzerland?! Please please please can we go to Switerland?" But Sydney and I decided to wait and see if we could fit it in. And it was one of those things that didn't happen."

Erika:"I'm going by myself and was looking for someone to come along, if you want to join in. . ."

Me: "Let me think about it. I'll get back to you."

. . .

*2 seconds elapse*

"Ok, I really want to go."


Then Friday rolls around. We had friends over for dinner at 7, which was fun. Erika and I left for our train at 1am. We switched trains twice in the wee hours of the morning, and arrived in Switzerland around 8 or 9am. As tired as I was after a nearly sleepless night, I could not close my eyes as the train wound through the Alps. The sun was new and the clouds were low. Peering through the fog, I beheld a perfectly still azure lake which lay like carpet around around the imposing mountains. White fluffly clouds stood suspended between the water and sky, and the train serpentined right up to the edge of the water. And I knew already that I was going to love this country.
Our train pulled into the station in Bellinzona, we took a few minutes to freshen up, then we immediately set out to accomplish our goal for the day: castle visiting. Right off the bat we noticed that Switzerland is not Italy. It is impeccably clean. The trains and buses are new and well kept. Everything is pristine, and almost everything is expensive. There are however, two wonderful free things that we enjoyed: the castles are free, and the city is full of potable water spouts (free Evian!).
The first on our list was Castelgrande. It is grande. . . quite large. It has a very Scottish highlands vibe to it. Not that I have ever been to Scotland.


The green ways lead to turrets and would make the world's finest putt-putt golf course. We walked all around the walls (and tunnels) and took an insane amount of pictures. Then we climbed the tower and took some more pictures.


Next we walked through the main street of Bellinzona and checked out the booths in the marketplace. We ate lunch at a little cafè next as a large golden retriever sat on the floor while its owners sipped cappuccinos. We found it interesting that although the official currency was the Swiss franc, we could pay in euro. I found out later that Switzerland isn't even part of the EU. Interesting. We finished lunch and headed into a supermarket for some Swiss chocolate. Caramel and pear chocolate is one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth.
Then we climbed up a hill to castle number 2, Montebello (beautiful mountain). It was properly named.


The clouds cleared away, the sun shone, and I chuckled an "I can't believe this is real" laugh. We had to burst into "The hills are alive" even though Sound of Music is set in Austria. I then had to lie in the grass taking pictures, because you have not had a successful day of photography if you haven't lain in the grass. We sat on the wall on the edge of the hill/mountain to consume Swiss chocolate and wondered if it gets any better than that.

[notice the castle to the top right, this is castle number 3.]


We had a look around the castle. It has a drawbridge (!). If only there were a moat with alligators my childhood notion of "castle" would have been complete.


We then filled up our water bottles at a handy dandy spout and began the trek up to Sasso Corbaro Castle.

As we came upon this castle, we heard bagpipes (which seemed quite fitting), then clapping, then we saw bubbles. Our best guess was that a wedding was going on up there. A wedding in a castle in the Alps= not too shabby.

We walked down back into Bellinzona, grabbed a few more bars of chocolate, and caught a train for nearby Lugano. Erika's father met a pastor from Lugano and we stayed with his wife and 2 children. They were very hospitable and it was so nice to stay in a home. Annaliese cooked us some chili for dinner and her daughter, Gabriella, showed us around Lugano that evening. I figured out that Lugano is the location of the lake and the mountains that I had seen that morning from the train.

We went to church the next morning with the Anzalones, ate a lovely Italian lunch with the family, then walked around Lugano. We enjoyed the beautiful park along the lakeside despite the threat of rain and, of course, we ate more chocolate.

Rome again, Rome again, jiggety-jig

[I blame my father entirely for any corny sense of humor I may have.]


There is always something more to see in Rome. And so, we made our way back to the Eternal City. Our previous tour was lacking one major element: The Sistine Chapel. We shuffled through the Vatican Museum's overwhelming display of treasures (my suggestion is: share the love. No one even notices the heaps of ancient sculpture lining every wall and corridor. Send just one of those bad boys to Mississippi, and we would build an entire museum for it.) I digress. We (along with a veritable hoard of other tourists) followed an endless maze of signs leading to the crowning glory of the Vatican's collection: La Cappella della Sistina. Photos are strictly prohibited, Sydney.



Vasari writes that Michelangelo's contemporaries (such as Raphael) advised the Pope to commission Michelangelo with the painting of the Chapel because they wanted to make him look bad. Michelangelo was a sculptor, not a painter. According to Vasari, he had never painted a fresco. He didn't even know the technique. His not so nice artist friends thought that it would help their own careers if they could expose a flaw in Michelangelo's seemingly perfect artistic skill. Clearly, his fellow artists completely ruined his career by creating a task too difficult for him to execute.


I also had a great desire to visit the Appian Way. Sydney and I took the metro to the stop "Via Appia" and found ourselves in the part of Rome that looks like Mexico. Strange, but true. We stumbled upon a random archeological site, but had a difficult time locating the old Roman road. We asked for directions and found ourselves in the middle of a huge park, in the boonies. Yes, Rome has boonies. There were sheep, chickens, streams, and of course some ancient ruins thrown in for good measure.



It was difficult to believe that I was still in Rome. Amazing, no?


"To come again on Rome by moonlight is a fitting close to such a day. . . Crossing from these thick patches of darkness, out into the moon once more, the fountain of Trevi, welling from a hundred jets, and rolling over mimic rocks, is silvery to the eye and ear. . .


I had seen it [the Coliseum] by moonlight before (I could never go through a day without going back to it), but its tremendous solitude that night is past all telling." -Charles Dickens, Pictures From Italy

Bologna... in a nutshell.

Seas of white tents,
Full of cheap goods.

Heavy brick architecture in shades of warm umber.


Medieval town square.

Miles of arcades.


Proud inhabitants.

A man on a bicycle noticed that we were clearly not Bolognese (the camera and map were dead give-aways). As he rode past he cheerfully exclaimed, "You are visiting the most beautiful city in the world!" To which we replied, "Yes, yes! Of course!"
I don't know that I can entirely agree that it is the most beautiful place, but I wouldn't dare disagree with a Bolognan on a bicycle.

P.S.
Just in case you missed our adventure in Verona

A Little Taste of Bologna

Padua

Sydney and I planned to have a "Shakespeare week," touring Padua and Verona, both settings of Shakespearean plays. We planned on going to Verona first, spending the night, then heading to Padua. However, we found out the day before our scheduled departure that the train to Verona was sold out. No big deal, we just decided to see Padua first. We tentatively planned on catching the 9:30 train (yes, we rarely buy tickets ahead of time. Flying by the seat of our pants is so much more exciting). We found ourselves moving rather slowly the following morning (shocking, I know), and ended up taking the 11:30 train instead. We found our assigned seats next to a young, friendly couple from New York City. They were taking a 5 day whirlwind tour of Italy for their 10th anniversary. We talked for quite a while about travel and Italy and how to make the perfect al dente pasta. They mentioned a trip they had taken to Britian, so we asked what they recommended seeing in the London area, and whether they prefer Cambridge or Oxford. They said that Cambridge was prettier, but Oxford is interesting because you can visit the old haunts of the Inklings. "That's odd." I thought. Perhaps the Inklings are more popular than I thought. After throwing around the names of Tolkien, Lewis, and Sayers, Bosco proceeded to tell us about their visit to the place where Bunyan was imprisioned. Then they mentioned Spurgeon, and attending a service at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Then Wesley and the piano on which Charles composed hymns. We were surprised to discover that all four of us were like-minded Christians. Later on in conversation, the topic of education was mentioned. Heather and Bosco mentioned that they had just been to an educational conference in the states. They were thinking about homeschooling their young daughters. Classically. Homeschooling. It was quite an amazing conversation. Very providential. None of us even planned on being on that train. What are the odds? I was reminded of how God orchestrates everything, even the little things. I was encouraged to cross paths with believers in such an unlikely place. He knew that we needed that small reminder of His love and guidance.



We wished our new friends well and alighted in Padua. We stopped by an internet cafe to let our bed and breakfast know what time we planned to arrive in Verona. While internet surfing, Sydney contemplated printing off a map of the city. "Nah," we reasoned. "How big could Padua be?" Famous last words.



We wandered around. All around. Not in the city center. It was lovely though. The only problem with the aimless wandering and getting lost was that we had a very important appointment. We had scheduled a time slot to see Giotto's frescoes at the Scrovegni Chapel. We asked a mother with her two little boys for directions to the Chapel. The boys were excited to know something that a grown person didn't know, so they started telling us all of the landmarks around the chapel, "La Capella degli Scrovegni è vicino la Gardini Garibaldi, e vicino questa e quella. . ." Their mother tried to tell them that we probably didn't know where those things were either, then pointed us in the right direction.


We arrived at the ticket desk just minutes late for our reserved time. I had read on the internet that if you are only 1 minute late, you lose your time slot and have to purchase another one (hoping that there is another open slot). Luckily, we didn't have to pay for another time slot and the lady just sent us on through. Perhaps it was because we spoke to her in Italian. We had to watch a video on the chapel for 15 minutes in a climate controlled room, then we were allowed to view the frescoes for 15 minutes.



Giotto is considered by many to be the very first Renaissance painter. Paintings during the Middle Ages for the most part looked the same. Static. Disproportional. And very gold. Florence is full of these suckers.

Giotto, however began to work out the complexities of human proportion. He also began implementing perspective and placed his figures in a 3 dimensional setting, naturalistic setting (as opposed to the gold leaf background above). All Renaissance painters built on the foundations laid by Giotto. His works may not look as impressive as those of the Renaissance masters, but they really are astounding because he was first. He looked at the world around him and looked at the paintings of his day and thought, "You know what? That's not what people really look like. And that's not what landscapes look like. And that's definitely not what babies look like." And he took major steps to remedy those things. Hence, the Scrovegni Chapel is huge in the story of art. It was amazing to see it face to face.

Note: These 2 pictures aren't mine. Cameras were sooo not allowed in there.


Our 15 minutes were up all too soon. We consoled ourselves with coffee. Here. Yes, this is a cafè. With ice sculptures and a grand piano. I'm thinking Starbucks needs to step up their act.