Category: Italy (Page 1 of 4)

Our final destinations of the trip were brand new for all of us. We took a high speed train from Florence Station into Venice on Thursday morning

We were dropped off at a station just 1-2 minutes’ walk from our hotel. This hotel was sooo nice compared to the other two. Nice marble bathroom, a gorgeous canal view out the window, but the mattress was actually the worst of the trip I would find. lol

It was amazing when we left at 10pm from the restaurant, Venice was all to us. No one around, empty alleys and streets, calm water… it was really cool.

When we got up Friday, it was back to normal with the typical bustle of a city.

Next we stopped by the Museo di Palazzo Grimani, which is a museum…but was once the home of Antonio Grimani, who became the Doge of Venice in 1521.

Venice is unique in that it was historically always an oligarchy. It was founded and grew to be a city of wealthy merchants. These wealthy families shared power and elected a “doge” to be the representative leader for life. Therefore, since they never would want anyone to have power too long, usually the Doge was much older and would only serve a few years….and it was usually from very prominent families. The Doge had to furnish the palace for himself during his reign…as well as entertain guests and foreign visitors… so it wasn’t cheap to be a Doge… they had to be rich. Venice had the Doge system for over a thousand years… crazy… from 698 to 1797 when the last Doge abdicated to Napoleon.

What makes this house special, is that it was a home of a very wealthy Doge and stayed in that family through the late 1800s. It was restored as a museum in recent times… and there are temporary exhibits and some long term art and sculpture housed here- but really, the architecture is the real attraction- to see the high class life of a 1500s Doge.

After that we made our way back down to the Museo Correr in St Mark’s Square. It was 4 museums, in theory, but you had to buy all 4 together and they were sequential along the path… so to me- that’s one dang museum with different sections 🙂

There was sooo much more I didn’t photograph. Tons of exhibits on the history of Venice and building, shipyards, the arsenal and navy, navigating, ports… renaissance art, ceramics… definitely worth a few hours here.

After the museum, I had to promise Norah some fried seafood- her favorite thing – to get her to make it through the boring museum, so we trekked across the city via water bus for 20-30 minutes to the Frito Inn for some cones of fried seafood.

She was very pleased. So were Kegan and I. We got the mixed fish that had little anchovies and big sardines as well as shrimp and squid. It was greasy, but it hit the spot.

After a stroll back by foot, we rested for a bit in our hotel and I took a nap, prior to our guided night tours- an after-hours small group tour of the Doge’s Palace and St Mark’s Cathedral after closing. SO WORTH IT.

We just about bailed on the tour because the tour guide was all over the place, repeating herself, taking forever on silly stuff, rushing everyone through the areas we wanted to look… and then wanted to take a 20 minute break before we even went into St. Mark’s. (2 groups bailed, it wasn’t just us haha) But we decided we didn’t have anything else to do, let’s stick it out… what if St. Mark’s is amazing inside?? Spoiler alert… it was.

First, when we entered, the church was empty expect for a couple security guards and the lights were all shut off except for a few “emergency lights” and I was like, well of course, they are getting ready to go home… we’re not even going to be able to really see the ceilings… what a crock… We were guided to the chairs in the center of the church and they shut all of the lights to darkness…then slowly in silence started turning them all on, set by set, until the entire cathedral was illuminated bright in all its gilded glory.

I have to say, annoying tour guide or not… that felt like a VERY exclusive experience… and that alone to see the church lit up JUST for you was worth the tour.

All in all, the best and most amazing church I’ve ever been in. Glad we went.

It was almost 10pm when they kicked us out of the church for the next group, and we knew we had to head to Milan fairly early so we didn’t want a 2 hour dinner- so we grabbed some sandwiches at a corner shop/bar and ate them in our room.

Our last view of St. Mark’s Campanile before we left the city.

Saturday morning, bright and early we departed on a train for Milan to fit in one last city in a quick whirlwind visit. We had never been to Milan and there wasn’t enough on my bucket list to justify a whole trip there in the next few years, so hitting the few things we wanted to see in this trip just made sense. So off we went on a water taxi back to the main train station

Arriving in Milan, I didn’t really have a good plan- maybe walk, maybe ride the subway? wander around? Maybe grab lunch- the morning was a mess until our pre-booked appointment to see DaVinci’s Last Supper painting and a walking tour of the city.

We arrived in Milan, stored our bags at a local luggage storage for $20 for the day and headed out (we ended up taking our bags with us so that we could exit the return train one stop earlier than we boarded and save ourselves the taxi fare back off the island of Venice since we would be staying at the Marco Polo Airport for our return flight that night.)

We did end up using the subway and buying tickets- Norah thought it was awesome because we each had to pay for our own fair with our own phones (a weird rule) and so she was getting to use her Apple Pay that I just recently turned on for her. Real grown-up stuff 🙂

We arrived at the Duomo station and took a look around the square and walked through the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II – a double iron and glass dome shopping arcade from the 1800s.

We chose to pass a couple hours at the Leonardo DaVinci Museum of Science and Technology. We didn’t allow NEARLY enough time to see everything there and grab lunch before our tour… so we did the quick pass through, but I’d highly recommend it.

We arrived at our tour spot, at the Santa Maria del Grazie church which is the site of the Last Supper painting.

You have to buy timed tickets in advance (they were all sold out for the day when we went in) you have to leave all food and drink and bags in a locker… and only 35 people are allowed in at a time for 15 minutes. The doors are also coordinated to not open more than one set at any time so that the humidity and temperature stay at as near constant as possible.

Its important to note that really we aren’t seeing DaVinci’s Last Supper. He painted it in the 1490s and decided to try a new technique of painting on top of dry stucco instead of wet stucco like all frescos were previously done… and it did not go well. It is said that within 20 years of completion the colors had faded and pieces were flaking off. Over the years, with it being in such absolutely terrible shape, they knocked a hole in the wall to create a door, it was used an an armory during the French invasion in the 1700s and soldiers scratched out the apostles eyes.. it was used as a prison in the 1800s… and some guy even messed more of it up trying to remove it to a better/safer location before realizing it wasn’t a real fresco. During World War II the church was bombed heavily and half demolished, so it is a wonder the wall even exists at all…

So, as expected, there have been multiple restoration projects on this painting… and now what we see is as close as can be replicated of DaVinci’s art… but with a lot of documented detail now missing. The feet of Jesus crossed under the table are gone forever. The food and decor on the tables is no longer painted. Even with that, it is a very well-known and maybe the most famous painting around the world (maybe Mona Lisa beats it? also DaVinci…) so it was an awesome opportunity to get to see it in person before it is potentially gone forever. It wasn’t even open to the public from the 1970s to around 2010… so who knows when the next long window of time for restoration will be.

After our time in the Refectory with the paintings, we took a quick pass through the inside of the church.

Our train back was supposed to be 1.5 hours… ended up being 3 hours due to a rail strike and diverting down to Bologna and then back to Venice… which gave us a bit of a scare we got on the wrong train for a bit lol Nothing was mentioned, no info was displayed, it just kept saying “15 minutes delayed” and we were over an hour into the wrong direction. All in all, it was fine. We got off at that “earlier” train station on the mainland that I mentioned earlier… and we got a taxi straight to our Marriott Courtyard American hotel bed for all 4 hours we had before we had to get up for our final flights home.

In bed around 11:30pm, up at 4:10, flight at 6:10am to Paris, then 2 hours in Paris, a 10.5 hour flight to Houston… followed by Malaysian crawfish with Tim and Jen again and then a 6 hour drive back home.

1/10 stars, would not recommend 24 hours of travel on very little sleep to end with a 6 hour after dark drive home! haha

Our 10.5 hour flight didn’t have wifi- we got a text that is would be out of service the night before which added to the dissatisfaction with this flight along with the stress that we couldn’t print our boarding passes ahead of time and had to go to the counter in the luggage drop off line to assign our seats, even though I had pre-selected seats and working with customer service for days prior had ended with “nothing we can do”. But overall, all of our trip was very non-dramatic… everything worked out the way it should and we had a great week. Just be weary of AirFrance promising wifi on their long haul flights- research informed me this is common and very often the “wifi isn’t available” which I’m thinking they just don’t want to pay for the usage for that many people on all of their flights and selectively don’t allow it. The silver lining- I do now know I CAN go 11 hours without the internet if I have to. 🙂

We’re going to do a quick trip to Colorado in April and then we have a week in UK/Ireland in late May. More blogs coming soon.

For Tuesday morning, we woke up, packed up and headed to the Rome Train Station where we were booked on a high speed train to Florence, arriving around noon. The train was on time and just a few minutes from our hotel in Florence, so we dropped our bags and headed out to see the city.

The hotel had a terrible odor of sewer and after looking through reviews online there were a few other people complaining of the same over the months… so it wasn’t a new problem. Kegan diagnosed the problem the evening when we returned, that the toilet was syphoning the water from the trap of the bidet right next to it every time you flushed because it was installed wrong, causing sewer gas to permeate the entire hotel room and floor. So, every time we flushed, we refilled the bidet and covered it up with the thick bathmat and didn’t have any more problems…. but like, how hard would it have been for the hotel to figure that out after multiple bad reviews over a year timespan?? They just kept posting annoying responses to everyone that it was sometimes the city sewer and they couldn’t stop it and their staff worked hard to keep the hallways and rooms fresh… so was that lip service?…or are they really not smart enough to figure out the source? I thought about telling them…but then decided a language barrier and the chance for them to gaslight me and tell me it wasn’t their problem (when I knew I’d never stay there again anyway) wasn’t worth the potential frustration. ha Long live the sewer smell at the Market Urban Hotel Florence! ha

Anyway- out and about the town!

Our first attraction in Florence was timed entry tickets into the Galleria dell’ Accademia where the Statue of David is displayed.

In the hall leading down to the David is one of Michaelangelo’s unfinished Pieta sculptures

After the David, we caught the last few minutes of a small obscure museum nearby that was a Museum of Pietre Dure – a craft of cut stones placed together and sanded smooth to create pictures and inlays.

Norah. was. hooked. She loved it. I’ve never seen a kid so into something like that. She looked at every picture, she looked analytically at all the old time tools to do it, sat and watched the 15 minute video showing a craftsman working on a piece. She walked away decidedly that she absolutely wanted to do that. We talked to her about starting small….not being THAT good at first, etc… haha So….we’ll see. Kegan and I are now on a path to figure out how you help a kid get started making inlay stone art….I’m 100% open to any ideas 🙂

Next up, we were due for some food and we walked past a wine window. Ironically, these windows were started in plague times as a way to still serve wine and products while slowing the spread of diseases.

So its no surprise that during Covid, a lot of restaurants unblocked their wine windows and they are making a comeback around the city.

We chose to have a full meal down in their actual restaurant instead of just wine and snacks outside.

So, so good. And 2 glasses of Chianti at lunch never hurts 🙂

After a full filling and long lunch, we headed to the Leonardo DaVinci museum dedicated to all of his inventions and experiments. Norah said it was her favorite museum of the trip because she could interact with everything.

After the DaVinci museum, our walking path took us past the Duomo for the first time. Words cannot describe the grandeur of this structure. The sheer size, the volume of marble, the intricacies of the statues, the alcoves…it is just unbelievable standing there in person.

After admiring the outside of the Duomo and the Bapistry for a while, we continued on to the Piazza Signoria and got our first glimpse of the Palazzo Vecchio we would be touring later. A copy of the David statue still stands in front because the David was originally commissioned for the Medici family and stood in front of this palace.

We backtracked towards the Palazzo Vecchio and explored the sculptures in the Loggia dei Lanzi, including the famous Abduction of the Sabine Women by Giambologna for Cosimo the 1st de Medici

I thought I had pre-purchased a guided tour of the Palazzo Vecchio so I didn’t do a lot of research ahead of time, only to arrive, be called 15 minutes before my time to be told we were late and she was waiting for us (we weren’t late- double checked) and be handed tickets quickly, given a QR that she acted like I was too dumb to know how to work and then ran off. ha We just joked that she must have had to go to the bathroom. lol So… we began our SELF-guided tour of the Palazzo Vecchio- or “Old Palace” of Florence.

The people of Florence in 1299 decided to build a palace that would be safe in times of turbulence and worthy of the city’s importance.

Duke Cosimo 1 de Medici moved his official seat to this Palazzo Vecchio in 1540.

Keeping with the clean water gift, right behind the Neptune fountain was a public drinking fountain that had the option of still normal water and water “gassata” – carbonated bubbly water!

We ended our night seeking out a good restaurant to splurge a bit and have Florentine steak while we were in Florence. The restaurant we found did not disappoint and we had the entire place to ourselves! Trattoria La Faltorona. If you go to Florence, I’d recommend to put this on your list.

Wednesday we got to sleep in a bit as our first tickets didn’t start until 10am and the major Duomo and sites don’t even open until 10:30am. My kind of city 🙂

We grabbed our skip the line tickets from a guide standing in the Piazza and went first to see the Baptistry at his recommendation while we waited for the Duomo to open.

While waiting in line to enter, a gypsy woman approached us asking for money. Very persistent and glaring at Kegan in the eyes. He grabbed a 2 euro coin from his pocket and dropped it into her cup expecting her to move on… Except she didn’t. She started tapping him on his pocket asking for more! haha but it wasn’t aggressive, it was like cute grandma annoying… so I laughed. That made her laugh and she asked Kegan again, what else he had. He frustratingly was like, all I have it a piece of candy” (a lemon tea flavored hard candy that he likes to carry). She sees the candy, her eyes light up. “I take??” hahaha uhhh, sure, knock yourself out. She pops it in her mouth and walks away to harass other tourists. ha Enjoy your Arnold Palmer candy. ha

The Baptistry of St John was originally exactly that- where Florentine infants were brought to be baptized on Saturdays in the center of the building.

I missed being able to enter the baptistry on our last trip because I didn’t buy tickets in advance… and they were sold out. This trip I got the tickets, only to walk in and find the ENTIRE CEILING was covered in a tarp printed to look like the giant domed and gilded mosaic ceiling! errgghh. Why even have the dang thing open?

Annoyed, but understanding, we headed into the main Duomo and decided to explore the crypts first before they got more crowded.

In the 1960s, archeologists worked to excavate the remains of many earlier churches on the same site including the original Roman temple and earlier christian churches, the most recent being the Santa Reparata Church, Florence’s first cathedral. Many knights, popes and other famous folks are buried here in the crypts including Filippo Brunelleschi- the designer and builder of the famous dome on top of the Duomo that towers over the city of Florence, 50 years before Leonardo DeVinci was even born…

Back upstairs in the main Duomo cathedral, we explored its gigantic basilica- one of the largest churches in the world.

After walking around the church, we headed behind the church to the Museum of the Duomo to see all of the original works of art that have been removed from the elements over the years and are being handled in a more controlled environment to preserve them for the future.

Finishing up at the museum- which housed 3-4 floors of statues, relics, Pope robes, dome models and just SO much history, it was lunch time.

We spent the rest of our Florence afternoon at the Uffizi Gallery.

Kegan thought this one looked like me…so I made him walk all the way back through the museum to get a photo of it for me. haha

We didn’t even go out for dinner after the Uffizi, we drank wine and ate biscotti in our hotel room and chilled, packed up and to be ready to head to Venice the next morning.

Hello everyone! This year for Mardi Gras Break, we took a whirlwind of a week trip to Italy. It started before Christmas, Norah said “I reallllly want to go to Rome… can we please go to Italy? I was too young to remember it”… and I can be EASILY persuaded to book trips out of the country if the price is right. 🙂 So, I started searching and I was able to find flights for a decent amount of credit card reward points… and some decent price hotels… so, it was planned.

The flights were from Houston to Rome via Amsterdam… so that meant the second Norah was out of school on Thursday afternoon- we hit the road to Houston, TX. The next day for lunch before the airport, we met my friend Tim and his wife Jen for sushi at a new place I have had my eye on since it opened in October- Katien Ginza Onedera – it is the first of the chain in the US, originally in Tokyo, its a very high end fresh nigiri conveyer belt sushi experience.

This salmon lunch set was legitimately the BEST salmon I had ever had in my life. And that’s a LOT of salmon in my life. ha Can’t wait to return.

Tim and Jen took us on to the airport and our car sat at their house (I wish everyone amazing friends who on one day’s notice are like- heck yeah! let’s get lunch! and no, you don’t need to Uber, we’ll take you to the airport!) *anyone who will drive you to the airport means they are a true friend. No one likes an airport run 🙂 ha

Norah was all geared up. We all packed for the 9 day trip in backpacks since we were changing flights twice, changing hotels 3 times and taking 2 train rides as well as hoofing it through Venice and other cobblestone uneven European streets. I had to repack my bag 3 times to fit everything! ha

Overall, Norah was super impressed, as I had assumed.

With some food in our stomachs, we set out to just walk around the city for the day exploring some sites.

Castel Sant’Angelo was originally designed and built to be a mausoleum for the emperor Hadrian and his family, beginning around 134-139 AD. Hadrian’s ashes were placed here after his death in 138AD… and all following emperors through Caracalla in 217AD. However, when the Visogoths sacked Rome in 410AD, it was looted… again in 537AD when the Goths came back for another round of sacking Rome they removed all the hundred or more statues from the monument and all the bronze decorations.

It got it’s modern name because legend has it that the archangel Michael appeared over the Castel in 590AD to signal the end of the plague.

The popes converted this ransacked mausoleum into a fortress, incorporated it into the Aurelian walls of the city somewhere around the 1300s. There is even a secret path from the Vatican underground where the Pope could reach Sant’Angelo for safety in times of need. Supposedly they are working on converting that old underground path into a tourist path between St Peter’s Basilica and the Castel.

Since 1901, its been a museum… and we got the last entry tickets in for the night to explore.

Dinner was Ok, but nothing to write about really.. we just wanted to pay and go to sleep at that point 🙂

Our Sunday morning started out at the Basilica of Saint Mary Maggiore- a REAL surprise and gem that I had never heard of, but am so glad we saw!

The original church was built in the 400s AD and retains a lot of the same shape from the original building. The floors are all Roman mosaics, original to the church. Absolutely unbelievable.

There are at least 6 popes buried in this church already…and it will be the future burial place of our current Pope, Pope Francis… who at the time of our visit was hospitalized for a respiratory illness…but seems now to be improving.

One thing I didn’t know before our visit is that this is a Holy Year for Catholic pilgrimage- once every 25 years.. and for pilgrimage to Rome and to be forgiven for all of your sins, you must walk through the Holy Doors (which in the major basilicas are only opened every 25 years) of the 4 major basilicas in Rome. This is one of them. The other 3 being St Peter’s in the Vatican, St John Lateran’s and St Paul’s Outside the Walls. We did pass through the gold Holy Doors of Santa Maria Maggiore, but I didn’t take a photo as there was a nun entering alongside us and she was actively praying and kissing the doors and it felt invasive to photograph her…

We decided we needed some breakfast after that. Stopped at a little cafe with some great pastries, coffee and sandwiches.

After our Roman Forum and Colosseum exploration, it was time to meet our guide for our afternoon private golf-cart tour out along the Appian way.

Also beside this park is the Basilica di Santa Sabina all’Aventino (on the Aventine Hill)- a church that dates from 422AD as maybe THE oldest church in Rome… back in Christianity’s infancy.

One of the smaller top panels, depicts the crucifixion of Jesus and 2 other figures in front of a Roman style portico’d building – this is the VERY FIRST known publicly displayed image of the crucifixion of Christ. These doors are from the original church in 432AD.

Tuesday was an early start because we had purchased an early entrance private tour into the Vatican to see the Vatican museums and Sistine Chapel before opening time.

The interior of the Vatican museums had way too many items to write about… just mind-blowing history and art…

The Raphael rooms were next along the way to the Sistine chapel.

Finally we were able to get our 15 minutes in the Sistine chapel- where of course they don’t allow any pictures or talking, so I have none to show.

Our tour also included a back entrance visit into St Peter’s and our guide got special permission to pass through the Holy doors here as well

After an entire morning of art and history at the Vatican, it was time for some lunch and we just went inside a little pizzeria along our walk. It was good for just randomly choosing but we ordered entirely too much food.

So much so, that we decided it was time to go back to our hotel and chill for a couple hours and take a nap. Norah enjoyed some time on her phone out on our tiny little balcony.

After a couple hour reset, it was time to go back out for some last sights.

I was able to reserve tickets into the Pantheon as the last group in for the day…which was great because it was hardly busy by that time.

Hadrian ordered the Pantheon built in 126AD after an earlier temple by Marcus Agrippa burned down

The painter Raphael is buried here. two kings of Italy are, too- Vittorio Emanuele II and Umberto I

After killing a bit of time to have spritzes and snacks at a little cafe right by the Pantheon, we grabbed a taxi from the queue and headed away from the tourist center out to our first international escape room! It was themed V for Vendetta and it was super fun. I thought it was one of the best we’ve done- but Kegan just thought it was better than average.

Of course, we escaped 🙂

The girl from the escape game recommended a close by place for food- trattoria pizzeria da simonetta- so we took her advice and headed there since we had been underwhelmed by our meals in Rome… this one was worth it- very good food.

After Rome we headed to Florence by train and I’ll post about that in my next post!

“All roads lead to Rome”. In ancient times, they did. The very first and longest road built by the Romans was in 300BC, called the Appian Way. Much like our modern interstate system was built to quickly mobilize troops and military vehicles, this was the basis for the Appian Way. The Roman troops fighting the Samnites in the south around 300BC needed supplies and Rome needed a quick way to deploy troops should new uprisings in the south occur again. Between Rome and the south lied the Pontine Marshes which were wet and infested with malaria. No one liked crossing the marshes and it was a hinderance to troop and supply movement.

It is also said according to the bible this is the road St. Peter was travelling to escape the persecution of Emporer Nero when he saw a vision of Jesus. He asked,”Where are you going?”. “To be crucified anew” which convinced St Peter to return to Rome to face his own martyrdom.  

Today the oldest sections of the road have large stones laid together that would had a smooth like cement over them which has now eroded away. Writings say that the surface was so smooth you couldn’t see the joints at all. They raised the center of the road for runoff and had drainage ditches running along both sides. 
  

The Appian Way didn’t even become a preserved park until 1988. Although, various people and groups have worked to protect and conserve it for hundreds of years. Pope Puis VI ordered the conservation of the road in the 1500s

The road is dotted with monuments and mausoleums that have been reconstructed as best a possible from ruins found along the road.  
    
    
    

To think that we were walking the same stretch of road travelled by the Roman armies for almost a thousand years, the same road 6000 slaves were crucified on as a warning to all of the other slaves of Rome during the Dlave Uprising of 73BC led by Spartacus. The same road as St. Peter, thr same road antiquities from Egypt would have been transported on after the defeat of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, the same road as allied and German troops in Word War II as they fought in the area for 4 months…. It gives you chills and really does make you realize how small and insignificant we all are in the grand scheme of things. 
    
    

A dog keeping watch from his 15ft high patio over the road.    
    

A guy at Capo di Bovi, excavated baths and villa along the road, gave Norah a pomegranate out of one of the trees.     
  

We stopped and got lunch from Cafe Appia Antica which was the first thing we found in our way towards Rome along the road.  

   
   
Norah ate her pomegranate.    

Artsy upside down trees by Norah.

Cat. By Norah.    
    
    The Circus of Maxentius. A compound of Ancient Rome. There were chariot races through this field at one point in time.
Sketch of what it looked like back at its height. 

 The Church of San Sebastino supposedly marks the spot where St Peter had his vision and the catacombs there supposedly are very big, but they are closed for the month.    
    
    
    
    
    
  
So many beautiful views and awesome history. We walked until I couldn’t walk any more.   I wanted to walk more… But my feet were screaming at me after about 7 miles over these big rocks in ballet flats 🙂 (in my defense, I planned on renting bicycles and just cycling 10 miles or so of the road but the closest bike rental station was at the Cafe which was less than a mile from where we ended and turned around.)

We got back to the apartment and decided to try to order pizza since the host had left a brochure for us and we needed to pack everything for our flight tomorro.

I managed to struggle through a pizza delivery in mostly Italian and our pizza showed up right on time.  

We packed our suitcases, cleaned out bags, booked our taxi for the morning and drank that 14 year old bottle of Montepulciano. Truth be told- it was good but I would take a 3 year old bottle of Fratelli Parrata from Paso Robles any day of the week 🙂

I’ll do one more post tomorrow as a trip wrap up. Thanks for reading about our trip!