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You can click on the city links to take you to the index page of each city and then click on the first picture and just follow the right hand arrows. On March 31st, Mike, Brittany and I were off to Italy. Like our trip to London that started out as a trip to Washington, DC, Mike's presence this time around was desired in Milan, Italy. So off we went at the last minute. You should have seen me scrambling for hotel reservations during Easter Week in Italy. Unfortunately airline reservations were made for us flying out of here on Jet Blue and connecting at JFK with Alitalia operated by Delta ... After 3 hours of getting our boarding passes at JFK (without seat assignments) and the re-assignment of the gate 3 times we finally found that the flight was overbooked by 15 seats and we were essentially on standby! Our names finally came up on the board and we were on our plane heading for Milan. A bus ride from the airport in Milan and a cab to our hotel - The Hotel Ascot. The first of three nice hotels. The tricky part was finding a place to eat on a Sunday night but we succeeded in finding a local neighborhood ristorante and had a delightful meal. On Monday morning Mike headed off to work and Brittany and I headed for the Duomo and the Galleria. We wandered through the shopping center and then headed for the Duomo. We wandered around inside for quite some time and then finally took the lift to the first level. A must at the Duomo is a visit to the roof. We were able to walk all around the roof of the Cathedral and view at close hand the fabulous stone towers of which there are many. There are some splendid stained glass windows inside the Church and the vaulted ceiling is incredibly high. However, from the outside it's probably the most striking cathedral that we've ever seen. There's currently some scaffolding on the front of the cathedral where the stonework is being cleaned but it doesn't spoil the overall majesty of the building. After taking a quick look at La Scala (come back tomorrow for a tour) we wandered some back streets of Milan and then headed to our hotel for a relaxing interval before dinner with Mike and his hosts. BTW don't lose your reading glasses in Italy... You won't find them in any pharmecy or other type of grocery store ... You need an optical store which is more expensive and harder to find! Brittany and I walked for hours looking for a replacement when Mike's hosts finally came up with a name in the vicinity of where we were at and I had reading glass again! Dinner on Monday evening was at an Italian Ristorante which I couldn't name and the ordering was done by our Hostesses. Brittany had a seafood pasta, I had some sort of stuffed ravioli and I don't remember what Mike had. It was a wonderful meal though and we enjoyed being with the Hosts and sharing our stories of the day. On Tuesday Brittany and I headed to La Scala only to find that while we could take the museum tour but the theatre was "dark" because they were testing the lights. We opted to take the tour anyway and saw lots of the beautiful costumes used in the various productions. We also got a glimpse of the Theatre and Brittany was the star of her Theatre class with a book on La Scala! We had an easy day.. We tried to get into to see The Last Supper but they were sold out weeks in advance. In the meantime Mike spent two hours at the train station getting us tickets from Milan to Florence and then from Florence to Rome. Everything was crowded with it being Easter Week! After very late dinner (My birthday dinner) because of Mike's 2 hour delay at the train station we were once more late to bed and early to rise. On Wednesday morning we were on the train and headed for Florence. We arrived at our hotel - The Kraft Hotel which was delightful and left our bags there to explore Florence. We walked along the Arno River and wandered through the various shops making our way slowly toward the Ponte Vecchio Bridge (Bridge of Gold for all the Gold and Silver Jewelry shops there). We stopped for a writing pen for Brittany and then lunch before heading over the bridge and window shopping and then marble pounded our way through the Pitti Palace. We were allowed to take pictures (I guess - no signs) of the various sculptures but all the paintings had guards and advid watchers for cameras even without flashes going off. Since Mike had been there last the time they had put up false walls to hang the pictures and covered over the cornices and wall coverings and more so we had to be sure to look to the ceiling to see some beautiful mosaics and carvings. On Thursday morning we stood in line for about 90 minutes waiting to get into The Galleria Dell'Accademia where they have The David. No pictures! Doggone it! Brittany sat for two hours and sketched the David without even realizing that two hours had passed. She spent the rest of the day touching up and redoing her picture. You can find it on her web page at http://www.brittany.trest.com. We had our share of entertainment when the illigitimate street vendors with the reproductions were raided by the police. I am sure the legitimate vendors who had boths along the way were glad to see the Police. Boy you have never seen such a group of people move so fast! Once minute they are there with their pictures and the next minute they are gone .. or most of them with the art work but a few were nabbed along with lots of pictures dropped and left behind. After seeing the David we roamed through the streets of Florence, had a gelato, saw The Duomo of Santa Maria del Florence and ended up in Piazza della Signoria - home of the original David. Florence's most noble and famous piazza. Brittany sat and sketched more of her David, and we all wandered taking lots of pictures. If you think we have lots up on our web sites ... it's nothing compared to the number of pictures we actually took.! After all the marble pounding we had already done we opted to skip the Uffizi with it's paintings and just wandered the streets. Thursday night we were on our way to Rome via train and arrived at the Victoria Roma in a slight drizzle (we had drizzle and some wet stuff along the way and at various times and some really nice weather too). We had dinner out and collapsed for the night as we had to be up early on Friday to make our tour of the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Boy it was a good thing I'd booked a tour! We arrived on the steps across from the Vatican Museum on Friday morning before 8am. Our tour was due to start at 8:15am. The museum officially opened at 10am so those already waiting in line had a very long wait. We were inside by 8:21am. Our tour guide handed us our tickets and we were on our own. We wandered down the long corridors toward the Sistine Chapel seeing the sculptures and paintings and watching the frescos on the ceilings. Eventually we made it into the Sistine Chapel itself. What a never to be forgotten site! Since Mike's last visit there, restoration had been done and completed and the paintings were vivid and gorgeous. This was one place where there were no "no camera" signs. We sat in the Chapel for an hour admiring and gazing at all the different parts that make up the ceiling, and walls and listened to the various tourists come and go. Once we finally tore ourselves away from the Chapel we made our way along another series of corridors looking at the various antiques, the closets that held each Pope's robes, buying books, Rosery Beads, and postcards along the way. After leaving the Vatican Museum we wandered back along the Vatican walls and made our way through the maze of people still waiting to get in and it had just turned 10:15am... We figure they probably had a 4 hour wait at a minimum. We finally reached Piazza San Pietro and found an equally long line there waiting to get into St. Peter's and up to the cupola. We wandered around the area and got tons of pictures but opted to be back at 7am the next morning to be first through the doors. So we left St. Peter's soon to return and headed off on another roaming adventure through the city. We finally made it back to the hotel for a brief afternoon respite and then headed up again for the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain. The crowds were unbelievable! I wore my fanny pack and didn't carry a purse so the only thing I had to worry about was the camera and my bottle of water (every evening stop during the trip meant 2-3 2 liter bottles of water). We managed lots of pictures of both and then made our way up to the church at the top of the Spanish Steps for more pictures and a view (somewhat hazy) of the city of Rome. Saturday early morning we were back at St. Peters and walked right in. We wandered through the church with The Pieta first on our list to see and then the frescos, wall hangings, carvings, windows and more to see. From there we took the elevator up to the cupola at the very top of St. Peters and had a 180 view of the area. The only problem was the 320 steps to climb from the elevator to the top! The further up you went the narrower they got until the only handrail was a rope hanging down from above. It was a site to see from up there. From there we went through the burial area of the Popes and saw where Pope Paul was buried. After visiting St. Peters we headed for the roman Coleseum. It stands just east of the Roman Forum. The security was down on the day before Easter so we opted NOT to stand in the long line not knowing when or if security would get back on line. So we viewed the Coleseum from the outside and then wandered through the Roman Ruins of the Forum. We eventually head back to the hotel for our afternoon respite then out again to wander the streets, have a very expensive gelato and finish up the evening with a wonderful dinner. Easter morning found us sleeping in a little bit and then heading for the airport for our flight back to JFK. Not looking forward to our JFK experience with reason! Sailed through security and customs but when it came time to check in at Jet Blue they had no record of Brittany so we couldn't self check in and then we had to stand in another line to cancel Mike's reservation because he was staying over night a couple of nights in New York. Our flight was due to depart at 9:30pm (bad enough) with James picking us up at midnight but due to overloaded runways at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark, our flight was delayed until 11:30am. We finally made it home by cab at 3am Monday morning. Good thing Brittany had Monday off as neighter of us accomplished much. Despite the hassles of the airports and trains we had an absolutely grand time and it was definitely a visit we will all remember. Brittany in particular has forsaken London for Florence and would love to go back there to live with all those paintings and sculptures. She absolutely fell in love with that city. We have so many memories and so many pictures that it's been impossible to share even a small portion of them (and it doesn't look like a small portion) so I hope you have a chance to enjoy them all that we have decided to share. Take care and Love and Hugs From Us All |