Siena and Out and About in Florence...

2 days ago, we took the bus to Siena. The weather seemed a little iffy but we decided we would take our umbrella and go anyways. We located the bus station after a little confusion got or tickets and were off.

Once on the road it started raining. I thought for sure we were in for a very wet day of sight seeing but... 20 minutes in to our 1 hour 15 minute ride the rain stopped, the sun came out and the sky was blue. The bus ride was beautiful. We wound through hills covered with vineyards with villas perched on the hillsides.

We made it to Siena right on time (who says Italian buses don't run on time). The bus dropped us off right outside the pedestrian area (Siena was the first city in Europe to ban cars in the city center). The city is nothing but winding medieval streets and almost everything is made from brick... it's where the color name Burnt Siena comes from. The city itself is enough of an attraction but indeed there is more to it than a bunch of twisting streets and bricks!

Sadly we only had time to see the Duomo but, it was rather beautiful.  The floor was amazing.  It had many mosaic/relief sculpture-like scenes.  There was also a Michelangelo altar at one of the side chapels but sadly (for us) it is currently being refurbished.  They did at least leave an opening where you could see the women working on it... that was pretty interesting.

After that we didn't have much time left until the bus.  We got a cafe and a pannini and had a nice conversation with a girl from Lago Como.  She didn't speak a lot of English and we don't speak much (if any) Italian but, it's amazing how much can be communicated with an Italian-English dictionary and gestures.  

The next day... we stayed in Florence.  We slept in a little and then we headed off to see some of the museums.  We went to the Bargello,  the Uffizzi and the Boboli Gardens.

The Bargello consists mainly of sculpture.  It is a rather small museum but it has some great works by Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello and Michelangelo.  The most famous being Donatello's David (small bronze nude guy with a hat).  Sadly... again... he is being refurbished.  Only this time no window to view the progress.  This was one of the works of art Mark was excited to see so it was a little bit disappointing that it wasn't available.

The Uffizzi has many... many... many.... famous works of art in it.  All of the great Rennaissance men are represented here (Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Bottocelli and more).  Mark and I thought this would take quite a bit of time so we sort of flew through it... at the end we realized that it is no where near as big as the Louvre in Paris and we wished we had maybe slowed down a little.  Unfortunately, they only allow you to move through the museum in one direction.

We didn't have too much time in the Boboli Gardens as the weather was starting to deteriorate.  What we did see was beautiful.  It is attached to the Pitti Palace.  The construction of the palace was begun by the Pitti Family (great rivals of the Medici Family).  Sadly for the Pitti's they ran out of money when building the palace and the Medici's bought the palace from them and completed it.  I don't know if they were too lazy to change the name or if they kept the name Pitti as a slap in the face.  Either way the gardens are lovely and they offer a great view of Florence... even if it is raining.

Today... our friend's Long and Kim arrived.  They will be with us for the rest of our travels.  We had a pretty low key day with them.  Their flight arrived here at 9:30-ish this morning.  Our task today was to keep them awake so they don't get too jet lagged.   We started with coffee and then Long decided he was going to eat all of Florence.

He had a pannini for breakfast.  Then we walked them around the city to show them some of the sights.  We then went to lunch at the smallest restaurant I think we've ever been to.  There were only 3 tables.  It was a recommendation from our Rick Steve's guide book (we just call him Rick though).  Rick gave us a fabulous recommendation.  I had some pasta with a zucchini sauce, Mark and Kim had some beef rolled up with cheese and something else, Long had some tortellini with meat sauce.  I think all the pasta was made when we ordered the food.  Delicious.

After lunch we went to visit David at the Academia.  What an amazing work of art.  I was also very impressed with several unfinished Michelangelo sculptures.  They just looked like they were emerging from the rock.  They are called "the prisoners" and they were intended for Pope Julius II's tomb but he got called away to paint the Sistine Ceiling and never got to finish.

After David... Long was hungry again and required some gelato... mmm.  I can't say that I blame him... all I need is someone else to mention gelato and I am ready to have some.  Then after the gelato Long decided he was ready for some pizza. 

Now we have just returned from dinner/apertivos (buy a drink get a bunch of food free).  We are stuffed and tired from our day of keeping Long and Kim moving and ready to sleep!

Tomorrow we are hoping for our long awaited ascent of the Duomo!

Blah!

Anyone who says you can't get bad italian food in Florence hasn't been to the place we ate today! Sarah and I went to a little pizza joint on a sidestreet near the Ponte Vechio for a snack after a day of Florence sight seeing. We ordered a 6.5 euro pizza to tide us over until dinner time. The pizza had 3 ingrediants: dough, cheeze and oregano. The cheese was disgusting!!!!! It tasted like a very bad version of mozeralla flavored cheeze whiz. We really should have just left and ordered something else, but we were hungry. So... We scraped most of the cheese off and just ate it anyway. Shortly thereafter we had to buy a gellato to take away the horrid cheeze whiz aftertaste. This experience actually topped the gross breakfast sausage we ate in Spis on our roadtrip through Slovakia last year!

We're off to get our water bottle filled with wine now---which (unlike this particular gross pizzeria) is an amazing thing they do here. For a few mere euro, they will fill your water bottle (or other vessel) with flavorful Italian wine! We'll be back later to update on some of our other adventures including our trip to Siena! Bouna Sera!!!

It's about 8:45 in the morning and, like usual, Sarah is still sleeping. I can't say that I blame her because it is cold here---which makes it more difficult to leave the warm comfort of bed. Actually, to better describe our sleeping arrangements, we are sleeping on the floor of the kitchen, living room, dining room, and guest bedroom of Jessica and Andrews apartment. The apartment is actually quite nice and apparently large by many European standards. I like the advantage of being able to grab a glass of milk while staying within the warmth of bed (or futon)!

Yesterday we spent our time on the Florence "Santa" tour. We visited Santa Maria Novella, San Lorenzo, and Santa Croce churches. The San Lorenzo church was pretty cool since they had the famous Medici Chapel by Michelangelo. We also both liked Santa Croce a lot too. It has the tombs of Michelangelo, Michiaveli, Gherberti, and Galileo. It also has a neat group of pictures showing how the 1966 Florence flood filled this gigantic church with 8' of mud and how the workers toiled to salvage the church and items within. We visited the Science museum too, that has many of Galileo's telescopes and other scientific devices. Yes, we did get to see Galileo's middle finger which they have in a jar!

So far we've found the people of Florence to be quite friendly. We both find it funny when people assume we are not Americans before we speak to them. Sarah has been spoken to in Italian on many occasions. I think it is due to the black clothing (with mandatory boots) she has been wearing and her crazy hair. The slight humidity here has made her hair very entertaining! If you've ever watched the HBO move "Sopranos", just imagine Adriana and you've got what Sarah looks like! Ok... that might be a bit overstating things... As for myself, one of our cashiers started talking to me in French yesterday before realizing my eyes were glazing over and moved to English.

We have enjoyed heading out for evening walks around the city. It is quite a bit less crowded than during the day because many of the tour groups have gone back to their boats. It's completely different to walk around the Duomo and Ponte Vechio at night than during the day.
It's a little safer too... fewer people, fewer scooters and fewer buses.

Ahhh! Sarah is finally out of futon! That means I need to wrap this up! Today we are taking the bus to Siena--at least that's where we hope to end up. Obviously, as we head to the bus station, we'll be needing to stop by one of the cafe's for a cappucino or macchiato!! Ciao!

Cortona and Perugia!

We drove to Cortona Saturday afternoon... after our bags finally arrived. YAY!!! It took about an hour and a half. The drive was beautiful... rolling hills dotted with cypress trees, towns perched on top and the best part is that the sun seems to turn everything gold... it is absolutely stunning.

First we had to find our hotel... which I believe would have been a very frustrating procees if we had not had a GPS in our car. The only difficult part about finding our hotel... Casa di Betania... was getting down the steep narrow driveway. It is surprising that our tiny, yellow European car was able to navigate the hill! Once there we were delighted to find that the Rick Steve's guide was right again. Our room was 48 Euro and had just re-opened 2 weeks ago after rennovations. Everything was new and clean, the rooms definitely big by European standards and the view was amazing.... this morning after breakfast we went out on to the terrace to see the the valley below, hilltops and steeples peeking out through the fog. Before leaving we wandered over to the small art museum which has famous early Renaissance paintings by Fra Angelico.

We could have stayed longer but we were anxious to get on the road to Perugia... which is actually in the Umbria area... not Tuscany. The 2 cities a very different from one another. Cortona small and quaint. Perugia is much bigger, the streets narrower and steeper and the architecture much more grand. We only had a short time to meander throught the streets before we had to hurry back to Florence to return the car.

This definitely was a nice laid back start to our trip. Unfortunately... Jessica seems to be getting sick. Hopefully she will feel better tomorrow. Tomorrow Mark and I will be on our own to explore Florence--or perhaps take a train to Seina. I suppose we'll see what we feel like doing tomorrow when we wake...

We made it to Florence and we are happy to be with Jessica and Andrew.  We would be a little happier if our bags had arrived too but c'est la vie!  We were told they were still in Paris and they should arrive tonite with the 9:00 flight... our fingers are crossed. 

Tonite we went out for appertivos... fantastic!  It is a great way to have some food and a cocktail and not spend too much money.  It was 8 Euro for the drink and then there was a buffet of fresh Italian fare.  The food was delicious and the cocktail welcomed after 30 some-odd hours of travel (and bags that prefer to stay in Paris).  

After appertivos we walked Andrew home (he had some work to do) then we walked over to the Duomo (huge cathedral with Brunelleschi's magnificent dome... an engineering marvel).  We sat at a sidewalk cafe, had a pint of beer and marveled at the Duomo.  Not too bad for our first night!

Now we have to figure out how the futon works and wait for the fine people at Air France to call (keep your fingers crossed).  Tomorrow we rent a car and head out for our Tuscan road trip!  We'll get back to you Sunday night.

Back to Europe!!!

Hi Everyone! We are about to embark on another European adventure. We figured with the election over we needed something else to occupy our time. So in order to ease ourselves back in to non-election frenzied life we are heading to Italy to visit our friends Jessica and Andrew (we stayed with them in Slovak republic last year... they cannot figure out what country they want to live in!) for 10 days and Amsterdam for 3 days.

We will have internet access almost the entire trip and we are very excited to share our impending journey with you all! If you're interested in our blog bookmark this website and check every couple of days. We will not have access to our email addresses and typing them all in everytime we update is rather tedious after a full day of walking on cobblestones :)