Heat in Rome

Today we woke up in the Hotel Felini in Rome.  We went to a special breakfast around the corner from our hotel.  It was the usual items...pastries, cereal, yogurt, and YEAH more tea.  BTWs Mom and Dad have really liked this hotel...the front desk has been very helpful from directions, to dinner reservations, take away pizza recommendations, and more.  

After we were finished we walked about 20 minutes including through a long tunnel to a place called the Colosseum.  In case you were wondering what the Colosseum was they would put things in a ring from animals to people called gladiators and make them battle.  Usually to the death, but if someone failed to die the people in the audience would be asked to decide the fate of the gladiator.  Those who fought valiantly were allowed to live and normally those who were cowards were executed.  They had all kinds of animals that would participate from lions, bears, porcupines, elephants, and even hippos. They would have many "acts" to the days events.  Acts you say?  Yes, as they considered many as plays and would have scenery for the battles and costumes for the gladiators.  In fact they generally acted out old Roman legends, such as Hercules, and the gladiator would die the same death.  Under the floors of the ring there were over 80 elevators that could lift props, animals, and humans to the stage/arena.  Watching these "shows" were everyone from the people in cheap seats to the members of the senate and the Vestal Virgins who are selected before the age of ten....that could be me. YIKES!  Other than sitting and looking pretty in the Colosseum and keeping some pools filled with water and a flame constantly lit they seemed to lead a boring life, never marrying or having children.  But if they messed up they were buried alive.

 I really enjoyed the Colosseum as our parents had downloaded audio guides on their phones to save us some euros.  Mom's comment: Rick Steve's Rome Audio Tours.  They had great stories and had us follow very easy directions.  There were audio tours available for purchase or if you wanted to hire a guide there were a lot who would approach you before entering.  Dad was also good and purchased our tickets in advance and we got to bypass a really long line.

We went up a hill over to the Forum next.  It was getting really hot so we sat in the shade where we could and listened to more audio talks.  It was filled with lots of large marble columns from ancient roman government buildings.  We also saw a large arch which starts to tie our journey together. Remember David from Florence.  The shepherd boy who defeated Goliath.  He would go on to become King of Israel.  The Romans went in and defeated Israel and destroyed much of the Temple of David that he had built to honor God in Jerusalem (we will go there in a couple of weeks).  The Romans brought back more than 10,000 Jewish prisoners and made them build the arch that honored their own defeat.  This made me sad.  It was getting hot and we had a long, difficult walk back to our hotel.  But we rested for a couple hours and were off again.

This time we took the Metro to Vatican City.  Did you know Vatican City is the smallest country in the world.  To me today it was the most crowded.  Luckily again we had tickets and skipped right to the front of the line for the Vatican Museum.  Dad picked us up an audio guide, but the numbers on the map made no sense, so every time we saw a red number we punched and listened.  That worked.  The Pope sure has a lot of art.  By the way the Pope is the highest person in the Catholic Church.  There were room after room of sculptures, tapestries, paintings, vases, and even bath tubs.  But we didn't really enjoy this place.  It was very crowded and as Mom said kind of felt like being stuck in IKEA. You had to go through every room before you reached what you were there for...at IKEA the cash registers...here the Sistine Chapel.  In the Chapel the boys have to wear pants and the girls wear something that covers down to their knees and their shoulders.  Shew...we made it and it was amazing!

Tonight is our last night in Rome and Italy in fact.  One last scoop of gelato, one last pizza, and then tomorrow we are off to Athens and Israel.

Oh heads up to kids and parents when visiting Rome....there are lots of street vendors and performers. They will try to put the item they want you to purchase in your hand.  If you actually grab hold you are in for a battle to get them to take it back without you paying them.  Luckily a friend had prepared us and our fists were clinched and we said "no grazie" a lot.  And even the guys dressed up like gladiators outside the Colosseum for photos would try to place their toy sword in your hand.  So tighten your fist. And anywhere in Italy carry bottles for water as there is potable/drinking water spickets everywhere for you to refill or have a water fight.

Mom's Comments...also our first evening we arrived we went to the Spanish Steps, but it was hot, lots of vendors, and hari krishna around, and the fountain was down for repair, so a little bummed.  And then we went to the Trevi Fountain...very similar except the fountain was operational, but barricaded so you could not get very close.  We read it has just occurred in the last couple of weeks and will be that way for repairs for at least a year+.  But we had a wonderful dinner at Trattoria Tratone.

A Full Taste of Florence

Today we had a wonderful breakfast made by Adriana, our hostess.  It included wonderful pastries, tea, chocolate milk for Alec, coffee, and red orange juice made from blood oranges.  

We did quite a bit of walking.  Our first stop was the Duomo.  "Duomo" means Italian cathedral church.  The Duomo is the fourth biggest church in the world with a gigantic dome.  We did an audio tour and learned a lot about the place.  They gave us a map with numbers.  We would punch in the number and hear about what we were looking at.  For example it is the first dome built during the Renaissance.  It was built by a local architect named Filippo Brunelleschi.  Filippo first built ribs for the dome and then filled them in with brick.  The dome would then grow upward and in.

Next we stopped at the Accadamia.  This housed many statues, but the most famous was the statue of David.  The back story behind David was he was a shepherd boy and when the giant Goliath asked anyone to challenge him.  David stepped forward and with only a sling and a stone he defeated the giant.  He was carved by Michelangelo when he was only 27 years old.  He was supposed to be on the roof line of the Duomo, but instead was placed on the Ponte Vecchio.  By the way "ponte" means bridge.  Later on he was moved inside to the Accademia for protection.  We also saw many statues and paintings and a video about how some of the statues were made.

Next we took a rest at our bed and breakfast after five hours of walking.

We rested for two hours and then went back into the city center.  This time our first stop was the florencetown.com office.  There we waited for our chefs as we were having a cooking class where we learned how to make pizza and gelato.  Two men showed up named Paul and Giovanni explained where we would be going and led us through the streets for what felt like thirty minutes after all our early walking, but was really only 10-15 minutes.  

Into the building we went and found tables with bowls of flour and olive oil.  We put on aprons and washed our hands and sat down.  Giovanni showed us how to make the dough.  We made our own dough using flour, olive oil, sea salt, and yeast.  We kneaded our dough until it was soft and in the shape of a little ball.  Paul covered the dough balls with a damp towel and we let it rise for the next 15 minutes.  During that time Paul showed us how to make gelato.

Gelato was created during Catherine deMedici's reign.  She loved having cooking contests and during one gelato was created.  Most of the recipes in Italy are very simple.  When Catherine married the King of France, Henry II, she took all her chefs with her and that resulted in French cuisine (cooking).  We learned to find a good geletaria you should look for 1) not fancily decorated 2) no huge mounds of gelato and 3) a line of people.  

We made chocolate gelato.  First we started by heating cream and milk.  Then I helped him mix in sugar and cocoa.  I whisked away.  After it was all combined Paul put it into a machine which would freeze it and stir it and the same time.

 

 

While we waited for the machine to do it's work we got our dough which had doubled in size and we shaped it using our fingers into a crust.  It was very important that we kept the dough floured so it would not stick to the table and also the right size so it would fit on the paddle.  Then we added our ingredients on top...I choose light sauce and a lot of cheese.  We put them in the oven and chatted while it baked.  We met other people in the class including three college girls traveling...one from Australia, one from Germany, and one from USA (Seattle to be exact).  When the pizza came out the girl beside me had no sauce...that looked pretty good to me.  We had Coke and the adults had wine. After pizza we had our chocolate gelato along with some vanilla the chefs had made earlier in the day. With our tummies full we said goodbye to our new friends and walked home.

Leaving Gabbianuzzo, Entering Florence

At the end of Gabbianuzzo Mom and Dad went out to dinner with their friends to Osteria alla Piazza. Alec and I stayed at home with our new Aunties, Suzanne from Paris (originally from the US, has lived in France for 14 years) and Jo from London (originally from Cypress).  We ordered take out which in Italy is called "take away"...more pizza and more gelato.

On our last day we woke up, had breakfast, and painted just outside the dining room.  We made caterpillars out of egg cartons with grasses for antennas and fairy houses out of recycled boxes from the kitchen.

  Then we went a short drive to a hotel/winery/restaurant, Castello La Leccia.  There were mazes we could play in until the staff asked us to stop.  Also beautiful views.  We played hide and seek with our friend, Georgia.  After a lunch of breads, cheeses, melon, and salami for Alec we drove back into town for some shopping and more gelato.  We got to go in the grocery, Coop, where I got to help weigh the fruits (fruta) and vegetables (verdura) using a scale and a computer screen and it would print out a sticker with the cost and weight.

After dinner and sleep we got up early to pack, said goodbye to our friends, and drove to Florence.  We think we get to see them next year.  They are moving from London to St. John's after Christmas and invited us to visit.

After a 40 minute drive we arrived in Florence.  Wow, parking is tough.  The entire city center is a Z(ona)T(raffico)L(imitato) which means only drive with a permit and tickets for breaking the rule are VERY expensive.  We spent about 20 minutes trying to find parking and then had to walk 15 minutes to find our bed and breakfast.  We passed it once, but found it just before we lost Alec.  We buzzed in and were met by Adrianna, the owner of Piazza Del Carmine B & B.  Wow! We have our own apartment with 2 bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, and pretty (FRAGILE) antiques.  Alec and I had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the terrace before we went to town.

Since we will be seeing lots of art Mom and Dad decided to take us to the Galileo Museum. Some stuff was neat, some boring and we just looked for a couch to sit on while Mom and Dad looked around. But at the end there were two rooms where we could have hands-on with some of the theories and inventions.  For good behavior in the museum...more gelato and then we walked through the walkway by the Uffizi Gallery.  Mom and Dad said we will not go because they said the Louvre in Paris will be our one major art gallery to go through.  But outside the Uffizi in the piazza we saw many of the statues that were inside that were really cool.  And since I've been reading Percy Jackson I liked Perseus cutting off the head of Medusa, Hercules battling a centaur, and the King Tritan (Neptune) fountain. Then we walked across the Ponte (Bridge) Vecchio the oldest bridge in Florence which used to have the butchers, fish mongers, etc of Florence because they could just toss scraps into the river below...now it is lined with jewelers.  I wish my ears were pierced.

An early dinner, which is 7, in Italy, right across the piazza we are staying in at Trattoria Napoleon. They had french fries, but we decided not to order them.  We tried a carrot soup and I actually found a new vegetable I like...cucumbers I tried from my Mom's salad.  Then to bed because tomorrow we get to see all the big sights and tomorrow evening take a pizza and gelato making class.

The Leaning Tower

This post is a narrative by both Alec and Ally.

 After a day of relaxation where I went into the bakery and got breakfast breads and then we enjoyed a drive to a hilltop town of Lamole.  The food was more pasta…getting a little tired of pasta, but the view was pretty and the waiters and waitresses very nice at Ristoro di Lamole.  The waitress offered ALL of us a lemon drink after lunch.  Limoncello….but we took and sip and YUCK!  Apparently kids are allowed to drink this in Italy.  Mom also really loved stopping at Villa Vignamaggio where some Shakespeare film was done with some actors she thought were cute were in (Avis' comment: 1993 Much a do About Nothing with Kenneth Branagh, Denzel Washington, Michael Keaton, Keanu Reeves, & Michael Keaton). 

The next day we went to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  It was about 2 hours from where we are staying.  We had to walk in from a parking lot and we entered the walls through a porta (large door) in the wall.  We went in and there three buildings inside on the Campo dei Miracoli or in English the Field of Miracles; the baptistery, the cathedral, and the Leaning Tower (bell tower for the cathedral).

I felt great when I got to see it because I studied Italy in first grade.  It was much greater than I imagined….because it really was leaning and bigger than I actually imagined.  Everyone else was taking pictures pretending like they were holding the tower up, so Ally and I both took pictures like that too.  We walked all around it…some fields were sectioned off and we couldn't walk on them, but some were open to run on.  You can go up on the tower for 18euro or over $20US a person, so we decided not to.  Mom and Dad said the view from the Eiffel Tower in Paris would be much better at the end of our trip.

After walking around we went for lunch about five minute walk outside the walls.  On our way there were lots of people trying to sell us watches, sunglasses, and everything with the Leaning Tower.  Lunch was great…it was the best pizza yet at Pizzeria Al Bagno di Nerone.  We talked to the owner about a picture on the wall of a horse and jockey…turned out it was his horse and the son, the jockey.  The horse is winning a lot.  We told him about California Chrome and the Kentucky Derby.  He knew about the Triple Crown.  We also tried a local appetizer called cecina.  Mom and Dad told us it was an overcooked grilled cheese....NOT!

 After lunch we walked back into the “field” and then went into the church that we had a reservation for and it was free.  Inside the church we paid 2 euro to listen to a video and speech about the history of the church.  Then we went on a seek and find looking for the things we saw on the video.  We saw lots of crypts or graves…some were golden and some were plain wood.  There was a beautiful chandelier named after the famous Galileo because when he saw them light the camdles and raise it by a rope it would swing and that is what led him to make pendulum clocks.

We got out of the church and returning to our car our Dad bargained with the seller and got two Italian fedoras for the price of 1 and a half.  Then in the car we headed for Lucca, another walled city.  Lucca also had porta…with three gates.  If intruders made it past the first gate, another gate dropped and there were holes in the wall where archers would fire arrows at the intruders, and then there was another gate if they broke through that one.  Lucca is very proud of their city because they are one of the few that has not been bombed in a war. So they have kept their walls and many people live inside.  So many it was very hard to get around the narrow streets because cars kept coming by, but they had a fun playground.

Tomorrow is going to be an easy day as it is our last here before we leave our friends and head to Florence.

City of Beautiful Towers

Today we got into the car and drove to a walled city called San Gimignano.  This town actually started with towers and is known as the "City of Beautiful Towers."  The towers were for protection of rich people during medieval times.  When attackers came they went into the towers by ladders and pulled them inside and then burnt any wooden stairs.  This left no easy entrance for the attackers.  Originally there were 72 towers and now there are only 14 remaining.  We could see the beautiful towers from over 30 kilometers away.

When we arrived we had to take a elevator to get up and over the wall.  From there we entered through one of the historic gates.  The streets were very narrow, but there are few cars inside the walls, and we had to squeeze against the buildings if one came through.

There were many street performers.  The first one we saw was a flutist that played songs that sounded like lullabies.  There were also a few guitarists, but my favorite were two people acting together.  One was a puppeteer and the other was a marionette who played a violin.  I put a euro in her cup and she blew me a kiss and took a photo with me.

There were so many shops, including two gelato shops.  We were actually able to get scoops after our touring.  We purchased ours from a Gelateria Dondoli who had entered the Gelato World Cup and won several years in the early 2000's.  Today the flavors we tried were mango, lemonade, pear, nutella, chocolate, raspberry, and melon.

Our friends had told us about a mask shop.  The masks were hand made from leather.  After Alec's reading of a Magic Tree House book Carnival in Candlelight about a carnival in Venice we knew what we wanted for a souvenir.  I chose a blue cat mask and Alec choose the King of Carnival.  They were made by local artist Arnaldo Doriana, whom we met.

We had lunch at Locanda San Domenico that had a outdoor patio that sat above one of the city's walls and looked out on the vallies around us.  We ate under olive trees that was quite peaceful.  Alec and I ate tomato pasta.  Mom had raviolis and Dad had an animal that lives on the property we are staying...wild boar stew (poor animal).  We also had a cheese platter with bread and honey.  YUM!

That was one amazing day in San Gimignano.

Italy At Last

On May 31 we arrived in Rome. I heard many different languages including Spanish and Italian. We had to get our passport stamped and the line took at least 30 minutes to get through.  This is always my most hated part of traveling. We got our rental car and were on our way to my Mom's friends, Foe and Justins', rented Chateau just a few kilometers in Castellina in Chianti, named Gabbianuzo.  Here they use the metric system, so kilometers, Celsius, ounces instead of miles, Fahrenheit, and cups.   It would take us about 3 hours so we stopped at a service station for a snack.  There are exits all along the "A" freeways, which are the same as our interstates, but are also toll roads that are only on and off with gas stations and market with snacks, coffee and sandwich bars.  They are marked "stazione di servizio" translated is service station. Guess what I got, a Nutella snack pack with Gatorade...no new foods yet.  Dad started to groan and explained to Mom that we lost our GPS signal. It's OK, because we found the dirt road. I saw a tall building in the distance. Mom said it was a castle. We saw many houses with ivy on them. Ivy is my favorite plant.  All of the towns are built on hills so in the olden days they were better protected from attacks. We came to a steep hill and it started to rain. We inched down the hill. I saw a house that was all stone. 

We parked and we walked to the door. We went in and saw Foe with her 3 year old daughter named Georgia. Foe hugged us and asked Alec and I if we wanted cookies. On the way to the kitchen we saw a dining room where in the states would have been closed here it is completely open to the outside. The house was totally exposed to the wind and bugs (right now a fly is buzzing around me). Justin showed us our room. It was wonderful and even had a library. We took a dip in the pool and played outside. Soon it was time for dinner and we had pizza...yeah, no new foods yet. Soon all the little kids went to bed. Alec and I were still awake and allowed to have some gelato (very creamy ice cream).

I'm looking forward to our next adventure.

We're Off!

Oppss, Dad made a mistake.  

We thought we were leaving at 11AM, but Dad checked and found we were leaving at 8AM.  So we packed quickly drove to San Francisco, booked a hotel while driving, and stayed at the Quality Inn for a five and a half hours.  We had a yummy breakfast and the lady working there helped us make waffles.  

To the airport, we dropped off our rental car and took the train to the international terminal.  Bags checked, through security, and we boarded our first flight on Air Canada.  It was a five hour plane flight on which I got to watch The Lego Movie and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  We landed in Montreal and enjoyed a quick dinner at Cabine U where the waiter, Maurice, was very nice and helped us order stuff my brother and I would like. Then off to the Maple Leaf Lounge, where Dad had to sweet talk Alec and I in as he is allowed only one guest.  The lady was very nice and only charged us for one, $25.  We found a kids' room with Legos, Play Station and outlets for us to play Mind Craft and read books on my Kindle.  And there's yummy snacks including fresh baked cookies and juices.  Next up a 8 hour flight to Rome.