Italy!

Italy - where to start? Wow. An amazing time. And due to the Iceland volcano, our trip was extended by 9 days to a whopping total of a 24 day holiday in Italy!

Our travels took us to urban and rural and included a few first days in Venice, eight days in the Tuscany countryside, planned 3 days in Rome with 6 added on, and a bonus 3 days back in the countryside just north of Rome as we waited for the ash clouds to dissipate. We took many fantastic walks throughout the grape vines, olive trees, and medieval hilltop villages. We walked for hours in the big cities. We viewed and walked over and between countless ruins and inside numerous churches. We visited Jewish ghettos. We took every form of transportation possible, from buses to trains to water taxis (no bicycles actually). And of course, we ate very well!!!!!

It's a bit hard to capture 24 days in Italy in one small blog posting or even through selected pictures, but here is a small attempt to do so.

We filled the first 19 days with Gelato (strangely, no one requested it during the last five) and some days with two doses. Pizza was also a frequent food item and amazing. We did most breakfasts at home and most days packed a lunch so that we could enjoy the gelato treats and a dinner out (sometimes dinner was just gelato actually).

A point of pride: 24 days, 5 family members, 1 suitcase.


We mostly stayed in apartments, and here is the view from our bedroom window in Venice.


Venice was beautiful and we loved walking around without cars or scooters.


In a strange underwhelming way, though, it looked exactly the way it was supposed to, complete with gondolas and accordions and arched bridges. But still, who can argue with the beauty and tranquility of this:


We then rented a car and headed to the center of the Tuscany countryside about half way between Florence and Rome. We stayed in one quarter of a large house just outside a small town and essentially spent the week exploring different versions of this:


From this base, we also took day trips to Florence and Pisa. Florence definitely felt very busy and crowded, especially given that we had been a few days in a very peaceful countryside. It took a bit of time to get into the urban pace and by the end, with a visit to the top of the Duomo (see Marc below) with outstanding views of the surrounding city, we were glad to have gone. Florence deserves more than a day trip, but our hearts were with a slower countryside pace.



The kids unanimously voted for a day trip to see the leaning tower of Pisa (no surprise on the vote) and it was quite impressive to see in person. Much like our visit to Stonehenge, we were pleasantly surprised and impressed to see the tower in person. It's quite an amazing building and too bad the original builders made such a big blunder.


Off then to Rome, which much like our visit to Florence, felt incredibly overwhelming at first. Rome is a busy place, dirty and full of graffiti, with cars and scooters everywhere kind of dominating the senses. It is also a city with an incredible amount of monuments, ruins, incredible buildings, art, and the like. The first couple of days we weren't thrilled to be in Rome (we missed the countryside), but with our bonus volcano days, we came to be a bit more relaxed and in the groove of the city's pace a bit. We also moved from an apartment on the outside of the city core, to a hotel in close proximity of the Spanish steps, which made our exploring much easier and pleasant.

Here we are at the Trevi fountain, terminus of an aqueduct and, despite the picture, constant home to hundreds of visitors at all hours of the day. The statues here and throughout the city are just incredible.


The kids thew some money in, over the left shoulder, to help make a wish come true. I think they were wishing for the volcano to keep spewing ash so we could stay longer in Italy.


The Colosseum. THE COLOSSEUM!!!!! Right there. Impressive beyond belief. To think of the things that were being built by humans 2,000 years ago (and longer if thinking about Egypt) and compare to what was being built in the U.S. then or even two hundred years ago. It was very hard to wrap your mind around the scale and size and complexity and thoughtfulness of all these ancient sites.


Here is the inside of the Colosseum, now missing its floor. Behind the kids are the underground areas where animals and prisoners were held before being raised up to the stadium floor for their 'competitions'. We were really there. It was cool.


We visited the Vatican, which was impressive of course, but it was hard for us not to contemplate how all the wealth and power embedded in and symbolized by the Vatican squared with their previously forced ghetto-ization of Jews in Rome (including limiting Jews to one, unmarked Temple, and only allowing them to be bankers) or their current appalling response to pedophilia within the Church. Plus we probably got ripped off by a service to expedite our entrance.



On one of our Rome bonus days, we took a day trip out to Hadrian's Villa, which by this time the kids were done with ruins, although the remaining artifacts and grounds were amazing.


With our remaining volcano bonus days, we rented a car and headed back to the countryside. Mindy found an amazing B&B in a small town (Casperia) just 45 minutes outside of Rome, but a world away really. The town was 1,000 years old, pedestrian only, with a population of around 200. One place for dinner. It was a great end to the trip as we could once again take it easy, go for walks around the beautiful Italian countryside, and spend time together as a family.


There is much more to tell (we took 700 pictures), but basically we had a fantastic time. It was warm, the food was great, and we figured if we had to get stuck anywhere in the world for an extra nine days, Italy was a wonderful place. Our only small regret is that we actually over-packed.