Italy/Greece : Day 8 - Florence -> Venice

We are now half way through our vacation!

We got our wake up call a little late today. There was a little mix up with bags and rooms yesterday. I think they put us in the wrong room and forgot about us. So, we were a little rushed. At least Cheryl is feeling better today.

We boarded the bus. We left minus 4 people and had to go back to find them.

We finally arrived at the Gallery of Accademia where our local docent took us in to see the original statue of David. It was much more impressive than its copy; standing in its own special built alcove!

Now, it's back on the bus for the 3 hour ride to Venice! We had lunch along the way and it was wild! So far we hadn't met any people who didn't speak English. The place where Fabrizio usually takes his groups for lunch was closed, so the bus driver took us to a truck stop... and they didn't speak English. People PANICKED! It was so funny to watch! Since Fabrizio was busy translating everyone's sandwich order, that left the Aus-talian (Australian-Italian) lady to resolve the bathroom problem. The lady who cleaned the room didn't want to open all the stalls... if no one uses the stalls she doesn't have to clean them. Well, she still charged 50 cents per person to use the bathroom AND there was NO paper!

The optional excursion for the day was a gondola ride in Venice. It cost 60 euro per person... which is around $90. We saw that and thought it was outrageous for riding a little boat through the canals, so we decided to skip it. When Fabrizio did the reservation for the boats, he ended up with two extra seats (each gondola holds 6 people). Well, it turned out that we were the only family that didn't sign up for the gondola ride, so he let the kids go along for free.

So we went our separate ways... the kids took the water taxi into Venice...


... to Saint Marks Square...

... for a gondola ride....



AND Jim and I went across the ferry with the bus. Taking a tour bus on a ferry is wild! It's a good thing that Samual is such good driver. He and the ferrymen had to work to get the bus in the exact middle of the ferry for balance, and then pack all the cars in around it.



Speaking of Samual... He doesn't speak English... You know when they say that Italian and Spanish are not far off, they are right. I could actually figure out what Samual was saying. For example, "Piccola borsa nel bus?" is very close to "Pequeña bolsa en el bús?"; which I translated to Jim, "Do you have a carry-on bag under the bus that you want to get out?"

Back to the kids... They weren't on your everyday gondola ride. They were on a gondola ride with a singer and accordion player. There were 8 gondolas and the singer and accordion player were on their gondola. Cheryl said it was very weird how people kept taking their picture and video-ing them from the bridges. TAKE a LOOK!




I thought we were going to Venice too and would meet the kids there, but it turns out that our hotel is on an outer island, Lido Island. So Jim and I set out to explore Lido Island. Which has it's own canals and a beach.


Remember how I told you that the mini-cooper is considered a big car here? Look at this!

And how about this one! LOL!

After messing around, we met up with the rest of the group at the hotel.

We had a nice dinner on the patio; enjoying the sunset with Mario and Carol from San Marcos. That's Venice there off in the distance...

We ended up closing the place down... and Chris found out what it feels like to drink too much wine.

Wisdom of the day: When crossing the street in Italy, be agressive and never show fear...

Italy/Greece : Day 7 - Assisi -> Florence

Hi did you miss me? I've been trying to get rid of this pesky cold. Yes, I'm still sick, but not as bad as I was. I've also managed to give the cold to Chris. Poor Chris... he starts school on Monday...

Anyway, back to the trip =oD

We had a 6:15 wake-up today, and it's back on the bus again for a 3 hours bus ride to... Florence!

On our way, Fabrizio got a call from our last hotel. Jim left his money belt at the hotel. The desk guy at the hotel volunteered to drive it to our hotel in Florence. How nice is that? Jim paid him for his trouble, of course.

Welcome to Florence!

We took a 1 hour walking tour of Florence. Our radios which have been wonderful up to now, failed us... or maybe it was the tour guide. Anyway, it was very hard to understand what she was saying...

This is a church. I looked up the name later, and it's called Santa Maria del Fiore. It's in the Duomo plaza.

Now here is a door from the building across from the church. Dante was baptized here and the door has special significance, but it's not the real door. We couldn't understand the guide, but she talked about the door for a long long time, so it must be important.

We walked to another plaza full of statues. This plaza was PACKED full of people! The statues were amazing, but most of them were plaster copies of ones in museums. Oh, that lady with her hand up... that's our guide.

Here's the Neptune fountain. The Italians call him the "Fat Man." Does he look fat to you? Maybe he's only fat by Italian standards. Remember the elevator incident? hahaha!


And here's David! We'll see the original tomorrow at the Gallery of Accademia. What struck me about all the statues in the plaza is that they are all bigger than life! The statue of David is 17' tall.

I won't bore you with all the statues, but here is one more... They just referred to this statue in the book I'm reading. I was very excited that I had seen the statue IRL!

The tour ended with a trip to a jewelry store and a leather factory. Everything was very expensive. We didn't buy anything... but again, those shopping ladies were in HEAVEN! We left the tour after that and wondered on our own. We've been in Italy for 6 days and haven't had spaghetti, so after looking around, Jim spotted an outdoor cafe in the Santa Croce Plaza. Notice that the plaza is empty behind us? Well, it's raining! We had hot spaghetti outside under the umbrellas in the rain. A perfect meal! YUM!


That church behind us in the picture is Santa Croce. We walked in after lunch and found that they house the tombs of some famous people: Michelangelo's, Dante's, Machiavelli's... Here's Galileo's...

After leaving Santa Croce, we walked to the Ponnte Vecchio. This is an old meat factory bridge that they've converted to a tourist haven! Jewelry shops GALORE!

Oh, and also gelato, hehehe...

On the other side of the bridge, I fell in love with some pictures by water color artist, Adelina Quadri. We bought one of her paintings and she gave us a little painting for free (for Cheryl). It's a perfect souvenir from a European vacation. I still need to get a frame for it. I'm waiting for a Michael's 40% off coupon.

Here's an interesting tradition. All around the Ponnte Vecchio, there are locks left by tourists. They've all got names and dates on them. If we'd known, we would have brought a lock to leave!

Poor Cheryl has a cold. We headed back to the hotel so she could take a nap before dinner... poor girl. She was so much looking forward to seeing Florence. We also got Jim's money belt. All the money and travelers checks were still in it!

We went to dinner at Fabrizio's favorite restaurant. It was good, but our spaghetti lunch was better. Poor sick Cheryl went back to the hotel and the rest of us walked back to the Piazzo Vecchio for a closer look of the statues:


In the piazzo we saw the signature green cross of a Farmacia. That's when we go the medicine that I told you about last week.

We got back to the hotel at 9:45pm... wake-up tomorrow at 6:20!

Tip of the Day: If you are going to leave our money belt at a hotel, do it in a town run by Franciscan monks.

Italy/Greece : Day 6 - Sorrento -> Assisi

Welcome to Pompei! Our day started at 6am, and our first stop of the day is Pompei. Fabrizio changed our itinerary so that we would be there first thing in the morning before it got hot and crowded.

We had a GREAT guide through the ruins! He told us stories and really had us imagine what life would be like in this city.

And it was a city, bigger than 100 football fields and buried under 60 meters of ash.

Actually 10% of Pompei is still buried... Who know what else they will find!

They have some buildings fully intact:


Now this was really interesting... they put all the pottery, statuary and other stuff they find in this gated area. It seems that the highlight for most people were the dead people. It was hard to get close to the fence.

Here is a great view of Mt. Vesuvius. The volcano is still active and people are living on the side of it... what are they thinking?!

By the time we were leaving Pompei, the tour buses from the cruise ships were just arriving... perfect timing again, Fabrizio!

Today is a travel day (5 hours on the bus), which is fine because as we drive back North we are driving into rain.

We did make a stop at the Cassino War Cemetery. I have to admit when we recited what we did this day, we always forget the War Cemetery. It wasn't memorable, even Fabrizio couldn't remember where it was, and the driver got lost.

It was only sprinkling lightly when we got to Assisi. It is a medieval town built on a hill. It is famous for the St. Francis Basilica.



We got a tour of the Basilica. We weren't prepared, so those of us in shorts had to buy a cover-up in the foyer for 50 cents. There must not have been photos allowed, because I don't have any photos of the inside. There are three churches in the Basilica, all built on top of each other. St. Francis is entombed in the bottom. We each left candles there.

Getting back to our tour guide, Marco. He was great! He was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable about St. Francis and the art there. It was a fun tour!

Our hotel was very nice. After Fabrizio kept warning us about the "moderate" accommodations, I expected the worse, but it was one of my favorite hotels.

After dinner, we took a walk in Assisi in the rain.

There are 14 churches in the one little town of Assisi:


It's a good thing all roads lead back to the Basilica, because we were lost! Yes, okay... we should have listed to Cheryl. Anyway, from the Basilica, it was easy to make it back to the hotel for a good night sleep.