Blogs from Italy, Europe - page 1584

Have been wandering around Pompeii for the past hour. It's amazing archaelogically of course, but also from the perspective of humanity. Everything is so well preserved that it's quite easy to play my little game-all I have to do is duck off the beaten path into a house and I'm in someone's yard, someone's kitchen. I've been wandering in the rich part of town, where the houses large and airy, full of beautiful mosaics and fountains and deep wells against the dry season. A lot of the really amazing things have been taken to the museum, so everything's a bit more bare, but you can still imagine the lords of the city commissioning these artisans to spend hours beautifying their houses. It's also a bit sobering to compare the tiny cells of the poor to these ... read more

Il Papa- “I have looked for you and now you are here for me” (with reference to the thoughts and opinions in email corrispondence with several people, Italian and not, on this topic) Shamefully, I am one of those Americans that does not have more than the basic understanding of US History, no less the complicated relationships within the story of world history that have changed and modified our understanding of human civilization (and of truth). I cannot, however, skip touching upon a very historic event which has occurred in Italy this past month, just because I am not confident or well-versed in politics, theology and history. We all admire these grandiose and magnificent architectural and artistic monuments, churches, fortresses, palazzos. We walk in with our heads already tilted, hushed, some sign the cross in front ... read more

Still in florence, have slowed down abit i was feeling so trashed when i arrived here so caught up on sleep and now feeling great. The lonely planet says that florence can seriously overhelm and its true there is something to look at on almost every block, tons of museums and cathedrals and monuments. The weather was so windy and rainy for the first two days so i didnt do much, this hostel is great and i have meet two nice american girls and we went for dinner and drinks. Yesterday morning i went to Pisa just for the photo opportunity at the leaning tower and then in the afternoon to a beautiful little town called Lucca, it was great walking around in the middle of the day all the shops are closed and everyone is ... read more

I didn't die! Seriously though, we were probably climbing steadily for 20 minutes. I wasn't a wuss and biked the whole way, with a few stops for pictures. When we finally reached Fiesole, we found a museum and archaelogical site of Roman ruins on top of Etruscan ruins. We wandered through the museum and then had lunch overlooking the ruins, surrounded by flowers and cherry blossoms and the cypresses. Minus the barbarian hordes against which the place was built, the countryside was awe-inspiring. We could see the Duomo we had climbed earlier. It kind of minimalized the 400-odd steps. The way back down we passed a few houses - ok castles - that I decided I had to own or at least stay in. These weren't hotels, or agriturismo's, they were just houses that people lived ... read more

It's been a bustling, bang-up couple of days, and now I admit I'm just plain tired. We're in the London Stansted airport waiting for a 2:20PM flight to Shannon (it's 9:15AM now). And I'm EXHAUSTED. We went to Pompeii for the day yesterday (Sunday) and didn't get back to our hostel in Rome until 2AM. That wouldn't be so bad except that this morning we boarded a bus for the Rome Ciampino airport at 4:30AM. No sleep for us, except for maybe a 30-minute nap and any broken periods of sleep on the Rome-London plane! So, a re-cap of what's happened since our first day in Florence: Saturday morning, of course, we were in Florence. We slept in in our comfy beds at Hostel Pio X (just a brief walk from the city centre), which was ... read more