Blogs from Tuscany, Italy, Europe

Wow, so, a lot has gone on since the last blog. Where to begin... Last day of Rome, this past Tuesday, was spent at the Colloseum and surrounding ruins. Amazingly, to us, Rome's weather is more horrrid than houston's! What had begun as a sunny day instantly became a stormy nightmare the moment we stepped out of the house. It was pouring, so we quickly dove into the Colloseum and chose a pretty good tour. It was incredible to us all to see the famous arena. Afterwards, we had a slightly less impressive tour of the ruins of Ceaser's house and the old Forum. Our tour guide was... Interesting. He was quite passionate about somethings, such as the pronunciation of the Palatine hill, PAl-ah-teen, by the way, never pal-an-tine. It only got worse when the man ... read more

Geez, seems like forever since my last message. First off however our Internet connections have been a bit hit or miss pluss I'm just lazy! We flew from Prague to Venice no probs. arriving in Venice we took a water taxi to San Marco square which is the major piazza in Venice. Talk about a confusing place - no cars or scooters, just tiny lanes going every which way. Pretty cool though as I have always wanted to see all the buildings just rising up from the maze of canals, islands and water. We spent 3 days traipsing around, a lot of shops and touristy stuff as well as the history. First night we were blowing €6 a beer so I starteddrinking red wine which is a lot cheaper. When we left Venice I hired a ... read more

Claude was a bit of a weak act - he's French speaking and sung a few Charles Aznavour and also some Spanish songs but I was on the upper circle and I don't know if it was him or the sound system but he was very quiet and therefore not very enjoyable. I walked out after 20 mins and went to watch the football which was more appealing! There was a good atmosphere for the match especially the penalty shoot out as there were quite a few Germans there. It didn't finish till gone 11.00 so there was a bit of a party afterwards and Neil had a midnight feast from the buffet - we were the last people to go to bed I think! We woke up in La Spezia which was a bit of ... read more

Sunday may 20th Uffizi time! Bless you. It turns out Uffizi is a very popular museum here. It's on all the tourist must see lists, and thus we bought tickets in advance, for eleven o'clock this morning. Breakfast today was cappuccini (the plural of cappuccino, see how Italian I've become?) and croissants, though Andre the coffee giant needed to follow hers with an espresso. Things at the Uffizi are confusing. There are three different doors in three locations to form lines, without any obvious indication as to which line meant what, and in addition at each of these doors there were several separate lines. It turns out people with prepaid tickets go to door three, so off we went. A tiny gypsy lady approached us for money while we were in line, and we declined, and ... read more

This story actually begins on Tuesday April 24thbut unhappy events don’t begin until after the chime of midnight. Since I’m in Florence and church bells actually ring the hours there are actual chimes, although I didn’t hear them that evening. So Tuesday evening was the farewell event for the AIFS group from California, and to celebrate a karaoke evening was planned. Everyone from the Washington group was going to go and Michelle was even going to sing, if accompanied, because performing karaoke was one of the items on her bucket list. The basement of the Old Stove in Palazzo Vecchio was packed full of rambunctious college students ready to celebrate the end of finals; their teacher was not as kind as ours when it comes to school work. To start off the singing were three girls ... read more

While I'm starting to get the bug bad for visting the rest of the country, on Tuesday I set off with my cousin Arianna to visit the local town of Lucca by foot and on bike. Lucca has, among its narrow, narrow streets, once protective walls, and many piazzas, famously 100 chaese, or churches. Its history goes back a long ways, as you can imagine, and I will get into the walls and some of the history as I learn to translate the local story from Italian. I learned a little about the history of the competitive development of churches in Lucca. As some of my pictures show the size of churches and especially their connected torre (towers) were a sign of power, and of course wealth. Over the years, when local people of power got ... read more

Ooooohhhh...tonight I was told by la mia cugina Ari' that "stasera" I have finally arrived in Italia; mid-festa! I joined my cousin Arianna for a quick giro (tour) of the Piazza di Miracoli, which includes the "piu famoso" leaning tower of Pisa. Since our destination this evening was the birthday party of a friend of hers, I did not bring much more than my pocket camera, although I have plenty of time to revisit the site to take all the pictures I want...NONE of which, mind you, will be of me trying to hold up the towner from the foreground! ':~P I've included some pictures of some of what this looks like, and I'm pretty sure some of you may have partaken in the very same poses! After discovering that it would cost me nearly $100 ... read more