The Week Leading up to Easter Sunday in the land of Catholics, the Mafia, Great Food and Perfect Weather, (yes we missed the earthquake as we were in Venice at the time). (I've also spared you the 3 gigs of photos we have from this trip and just picked those that would represent a few destinations. JT is a brilliant photographer and I've done him very little justice by choosing the following.)
Day One -- Milan
Armed with a map of Italy and JT's blackberry mobile for GPS (no SatNav...nails no longer have whites), I experienced my first toilet trip with a hole (avoided them all last summer in France), walked around Milan, took in the 21* weather...gorgeous, the narrow, posh streets with Prada, Tiffany's and D&G, a meal on the street with a view of Milan's Duomo and all of its gothic magnificence and splendor, inside the cold catholic ceilings wreaking of church incense while sage was distributed by the bundles, and a jaunt around toward the local castle as the weather began to blow raspberries at us suggesting rain. Leave by 430pm to drive to Venice.
Armed with a map of Italy and JT's blackberry mobile for GPS (no SatNav...nails no longer have whites), I experienced my first toilet trip with a hole (avoided them all last summer in France), walked around Milan, took in the 21* weather...gorgeous, the narrow, posh streets with Prada, Tiffany's and D&G, a meal on the street with a view of Milan's Duomo and all of its gothic magnificence and splendor, inside the cold catholic ceilings wreaking of church incense while sage was distributed by the bundles, and a jaunt around toward the local castle as the weather began to blow raspberries at us suggesting rain. Leave by 430pm to drive to Venice.
Day Two -- Venice
Island of beautiful canals, sunshine, gondola rides, lego-stacked bridges, stalls of masquerade faces and beaky-nosed, crystalled & feathered creatures awaiting a face to perch upon, narrow streets, charming buildings, romantic scenary pumping me with Disneyland-like-stomach-churning happiness, floating seagull amongst passing boats, delicious gelato, sun, sun and more glorious sunshine, JT's replacement necklace chain for his egypt charm, my favorite city of the trip...I could've never left Venice ever and spent the rest of my days content amongst the beauty and charm of this strange floating city. (I had waterproof baby sunscreen on my face...which is why I look green in the pictures btw.)
Scored a hook-up of 50 euros a night for a room in a villa overlooking the Tuscan valley, gorgeous.
Scored a hook-up of 50 euros a night for a room in a villa overlooking the Tuscan valley, gorgeous.
Day Three -- Florence and Pisa
Crowded, narrow streets (theme here?) while motorbikes pass you on all sides zipping along, Michaelangelo's David, Da Vinci's Museum with wooden recreations, more gelato (I'm likin this place), some huge duomos amidst buildings, too many whiny American chicks, and the best pear I've eaten in ages.
On to the Leaning Tower sitting in a square of roped-off lush grass and reclining tourists bathing in sunshine, too many pushy African watch-sellers, and a half-assed attempt at a seafood risotto and carbonara finished off with Nutella crepes (I thought Italian food was meant to be tasty...should've searched for some place less touristy for dinner).
Days Four and Five -- Rome and Vatican City
Massive, huge, grandeous, big, big, and BIG! A bit overcast but 20* and shorts weather. (As a huge Audrey Hepburn fan, I was really looking forward to this city.) Saw the Coloseum (and had a tour with the same tour guide JT had 2 years ago), Pantheon, Bocca di Veruti, Trevi Fountain (of course we made 2 wishes to return and the 2nd...I'll tell when it comes true), huge wide-open streets big enough for parades, pockets of parks along the way, pistachio gelato with a view of the Coloseo, multiple languages, the only equal-access city I saw in Italy, dirty and dark metros, rickety buses plowing through traffic, JT remembered all the cats from 2 years ago (we only saw a few), and a supermarket dinner for less than 15 euros killed last night's restaurant dinner by comparison.
Gaudy, ornate Vatican museum, Hand of God, Egyptian mummies and Roman representations of Egyptians, musty air, Benedicto on a flat screen in St. Peter's Piazza giving mass (is it just us, or does he seem creepy in comparison to John Paul II?), a quick trot down to the nearby castle before taking off.
Day Six--Naples
Massive, huge, grandeous, big, big, and BIG! A bit overcast but 20* and shorts weather. (As a huge Audrey Hepburn fan, I was really looking forward to this city.) Saw the Coloseum (and had a tour with the same tour guide JT had 2 years ago), Pantheon, Bocca di Veruti, Trevi Fountain (of course we made 2 wishes to return and the 2nd...I'll tell when it comes true), huge wide-open streets big enough for parades, pockets of parks along the way, pistachio gelato with a view of the Coloseo, multiple languages, the only equal-access city I saw in Italy, dirty and dark metros, rickety buses plowing through traffic, JT remembered all the cats from 2 years ago (we only saw a few), and a supermarket dinner for less than 15 euros killed last night's restaurant dinner by comparison.
Gaudy, ornate Vatican museum, Hand of God, Egyptian mummies and Roman representations of Egyptians, musty air, Benedicto on a flat screen in St. Peter's Piazza giving mass (is it just us, or does he seem creepy in comparison to John Paul II?), a quick trot down to the nearby castle before taking off.
Day Six--Naples
Napoli-ans are insane! We got into Naples via a bit of meandering through coastal towns and indirect routes to find the sun setting, having no accommodation and no dinner to a land with no rules of the road, no free space, no lanes, and motorbikes and small car madness...no one paying attention to traffic lights, blocked intersections, passing on the right, left, passing diagonally in front of us, double parking, one way roads, and back alley madness, honk, honk, HONK....JT drove like a champ, and I just kept my head down and eyes on the GPS saying, "I think it is the next right if that's not a one-way street." In the end we sorted ourselves out and if you ever need accommodation in Napoli...I have a great recommendation for the place we stayed with the lovely little Italian man who spoke no English and yet never hung up on me while I tried speaking some Italian to get us a room.
Urine and smeared-dog poop scented streets, filled with people, motorbikes, and dirt (the train station side of the tracks). Shade on side of the street with sun on the other, laundry drying on racks on the sidewalks, women having a chat by shouting to one another across the street and three flights up, intersections with no rhyme or reason, manic motorbikes absorbing themselves into spaces on all sides of traffic, no pedestrian right-of-way, warm and very kind locals (finally a place in Italy where most people didn't speak English too), a pimp in a carnation pink suit where we parked our car, the BEST meal to date - A-mazing, and the seaside city with the most energy of any city I have been to ever (more than New York even, which I didn't think was possible before this), with a tiny little ritzy area of restaurants set into a cliff overlooking the sea. Manic, mad, and stressfully exhausting.
Day Seven--Palermo via the Ferry (and sleeper-cabin) from Naples
Beautiful sunrise over Sicily to greet us as our boat docked into port, half-assed cappuccinos and over-buttery croissants from a super nice Italian man playing Jamiroquai at 7am in his little bakery who gave us directions in Italian to our hotel (I'm getting the idea that maybe 7 years of Spanish should be helping me out a bit with this), an ocean-side hotel with metal garage doors that have to be pulled up to get our view, 2 hours spent finding the last of the souvenirs after spending 20 minutes idling in the cherry-red fiat behind a procession for the mob boss's son that was being buried in the cemetary that day, a little restaurant with fresh seafood (awesome) for lunch while we blackberried "mafia info in Sicily", crappy gelato with strange money/cigarette exchanges going on in the parking lot (did we wikipedia too many mafia stories at lunch?), a long nap between Law and Order episodes dubbed in Italian, before dinner at the hotel with "The Family" (swear to gawd not just imagining things this time), a random visit from a dog with one brown eye and one blue, a quick checkout on Easter Sunday morning followed by an indirect route to Palermo airport, cappuccinos with the last of our euro cents (we were scraping), and made it past security with our kilo of Italian coffee hidden safely in my backpack carry on...nothing to declare thank you except an exceptional trip!
