Note: Unfortunately, the harddrive that had all of our pictures on it from this trip died. These are the only ones I happened to have in a different location.
May 12 - May 21, 2005
It was a relaxing morning, waking up relatively leisurely, and packing to leave without too much of a rush. We get to my parents' house at 12:30pm so that they can drive us to the airport. That was an easy trip, no problem there. Get to Dulles, check in with Air France for our 5:05pm flight, and go forage for our last bit of crappy American food before we get on the plane (Bugger Thing). The plane had us seated together in one of the middle sections so we were packed in like sardines but it wouldn't have mattered to be anywhere else except in first class. The cool thing about the plane was that each seat had its own entertainment touch screen where you could choose the movie you want to watch, the game you want to play, or track the plane's flight, etc... The uncool thing about the plane was the fact that the French are annoying. Their French is easier to understand than their English, which sounds like they've got so much cotton packed up into their sinuses that they have no head cavities. Needless to say, we were thrilled to get to Italy, where the English, although still with an accent, is much easier to understand. We didn’t really sleep on any of the plane rides; the Ambien that Steve took didn’t work because he was so nervous. Probably that and the caffeine, but who knows.
We landed in Paris, booked it to our connecting flight because we thought we were late according to the monitors in the airport, and then found that the plane was delayed due to mechanical errors. An hour later, we boarded and left for Pisa.
Here officially begins Sal’s Death March Tour of Italy. Yes, looking back, this was a death march. So far, Steve and I have been the only family that can keep up with Dave, but only barely!! In our one trip, we have seen more than any other family member combining all their trips, if that indicates anything!! So we’re proud of that.
Friday: Arriving in Pisa, Seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Arriving in Lereci
When we arrive in Pisa (as in, the Leaning Tower of) at 10:30am Italy time (4:30am U.S. time), we are greeted by Dave, Steve’s brother. After hugs hello, he hands me a birthday card and present (as I’d spent my 30th birthday on an airplane): a handmade glass necklace pendant from a local artist that he knows. Very cool stuff. We pack our stuff into Dave’s MINI cooper, and off we go to the Leaning Tower. For most U.S. drivers, driving in Europe is quite traumatizing due to all the small spaces, small cars, and the mopeds/motorcycles that lane split at an alarming rate. For Dave, Steve, and me, we love it. Living in Europe makes you want to ride a motorcycle like there’s no tomorrow because unlike in the States, Europeans are acutely aware of mopeds/motorcycles. I have a picture of Dave’s speedometer… it was reading at least 90mph, and that was just an average speed for over there.
Upon leaving the airport, we drove straight to the Leaning Tower, which was on the way to Dave’s place. He parked in one of his favorite out-of-the-way spots, and we walked 15 minutes to the Tower. Once inside the gates, we barreled through all the group tours, people trying “to hold up” the tower, etc, etc, to the ticket office. You can only go up the tower for 35 minutes, and you need to have a reserved time to go. Because we didn’t ooh and aah at first, we got tickets for a time less than an hour away. So we went to get a beer at a little café to pass the time, and then headed up the tower. Truly, this thing leans.
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| Yep, it leans! |
The stairwell inside to go up to the top leans, too.
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| Steve visually showing how much the tower leans! |
Once up top, you find that a) the number of stairs to go down to the balcony on the one side of the tower is less than the other side, indicating that the engineers knew the tower was leaning when they were finishing it!! The view from the top was beautiful, and we could see almost all the way to the coast. Pretty cool stuff.
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| View from the top of the Leaning Tower. |
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| View of the very top of the Leaning Tower. |
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| Pretty cool cloud pattern! |
Once we got to the bottom, we bypassed the cathedrals and stuff you can go in (also tickets required and more money) but as is true in Europe, you can see tons of cathedrals and at some point, they all start looking the same.
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| Cathedral on the grounds of the Leaning Tower |
We hop in Dave’s car, and head to his place in Lereci (pronounced Léh-reh-chee) which is on the Italian Riviera (oh darn), over looking a harbor and an old castle. This place is as absolutely picturesque as it gets. He has an ENORMOUS flat; 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room, kitchen, and office. The balcony overlooks the water… incredible. We went out for lunch (pizza, and yes, pizza is an incredibly popular food in Italy), grabbed cash from the ATM, as was standard practice instead of carrying around traveler’s checks, and then came back to crash on the couch. Instead of crashing, we watched The Incredibles (Honey? Where is my Super Suit?) and enjoyed the cool breeze and a beer. Went out for dinner kind of late, but we met one of Dave’s best buddies in his town, a restaurant owner named Enrico, who treated us like gold. It was off to bed early (despite the wine with dinner) as Sal’s Death March Tour of Italy was getting us out of bed at 5:30am to head out to Rome.
Saturday: Leaving Lereci and Arriving in Rome
Oh boy did O’Dark-Thirty arrive quickly. It was rise and shine in a hurry as the light switches for rooms are on the outside, and Dave decided to flick the lights on-off until we mumbled something about maiming him if he didn’t stop. We showered, grabbed our bags – keep in mind, this is everything we packed to bring on this trip, and caught a taxi to the train station one town over from Dave’s town (La Spezia). We had to dodge the trash truck which required Dave and the driver to pull in the mirrors so that the car would fit between the trash truck and a building wall, but this is a normal occurrence in Europe in general. The cabbie dropped us off, and we learned our first train know-how: you have to get your ticket stamped at a ticket machine before you get on the train. This will come into play with each of our train rides, and we nearly miss a train out of Florence because of it!
The train came at 7am, and frankly, I don’t remember much of the train ride. In fact, I don’t remember many train rides in general because I slept through most of them. Of what I do remember, the country side was very picturesque. For entertainment Steve and Dave traded Steve’s golf game on his Playstation Portable (PSP) and Dave’s Treo phone for solitaire and text messaging. This was a regular occurrence on train rides and downtime in the hotel. Steve and I got an enormous kick out of listening to Dave mouth off when he missed a put by a few inches. LOL
We arrived in Rome about 10:30am, and walked to our hotel about 5 long blocks away. They actually aren’t long but when you’re carrying your own bag which is getting heavier with every step, they’re LONG. Checked-in, foraged for food (pizza at a small café nearby), and then, the Death March Tour kicked into a higher gear.
We took the Metro (beware of pickpockets!) to the Coliseum, and paid a little extra to hop into an English-spoken tour because the tour would get us into the Coliseum immediately instead of waiting an hour and a half. And I quote from Dave, “Time is of the essence! We can’t waste time standing in line!” Uh-oh. This does not bode well for those not in shape for Sal’s Death March Tour of Italy.
The Coliseum itself was a huge; it rivals Ravens Stadium in size and capacity. The guidebook we brought with us said it could hold 60,000 people in it at the time for the killings and such that went on there. What I found amazing is that they could build something that big with the mathematics and the pulley systems they had at the time. Once the Coliseum was not used anymore, people started pillaging the marble seats to make other buildings, so there is only one section of seats left (barely). It was a pretty impressive sight.
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| Roman Coliseum |
Then we walked to the old Senate ruins, which were not all that exciting as they are just ruins and you can’t go in them. Nonetheless, you can see the shells of what was there and how impressive it would have been during that time. All the while, Dave had us “stand here” and “stand there” to take the obligatory pictures and then keep moving as standing around was not an option. We had much more to cover!
We kept walking from there to other sites, including The Typewriter, as the Italians affectionately (?) call the current Senate building.
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| The Typewriter |
After taking the obligatory picture there, we moved on to find ice cream (yum!), saw a bride and groom leave a church just married (woohoo!), passed a couple of statues that are supposed to be important but I have no idea what they were at this point, and stopped at the Pantheon when we got to it to look around. The Pantheon, a place where all the gods were worshipped before the Christians, has a perfect half-sphere of a ceiling with 18ft hole in the center of the ceiling. Yes, it gets wet when weather happens! We happened to read that on Pentecost, rose petals are dropped from the hole into the church. That got us thinking… when was Catholic Easter? So we did a little calculation based on my memory of when it was, and we figured we were in Rome on Catholic Pentecost, or at least close to it. Problem is, we weren’t sure, so we didn’t pursue the idea of coming to see this event any further.
Then we checked out the Trevi Fountain (the famous one with Poseidon and the horses) which was MOBBED with people and peddlers of junk).
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| Trevi Fountain |
It was a neat fountain, and we followed Roman custom: toss three coins with your right hand over your left shoulder into the fountain. This will guarantee our return to the Eternal City.
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| Steve and Evanthe, following tradition! |
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| Dave, our favorite Goofball |
While we were taking a load off our feet, we saw the same bride and groom we’d seen earlier come and sit right in front of us to take pictures. The photographer shooed everyone away so they could take their pictures and lo and behold, they were Americans getting married in Rome. She was a beautiful bride, and it was cool to see that go full circle.
Our last stop of the day was going all the way down to the Spanish Steps. The Spanish Stairs were covered in people, not just tourists but also locals, as it’s a popular hangout. We took the obligatory pictures there, too.
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| Flowers on the Spanish Stairs |
At that point, we were done our tour for the day, feet and backs hurting respectively, having walked what was probably the equivalent of 5 miles or more. Dave relented and let us take the Metro back to our hotel (ha ha). We collapsed on our beds (3 singles) for a couple of hours, and then went out to dinner. Came home, and collapsed again as Sal’s Death March Tour of Italy would resume again at 6:30am on Sunday.
Sunday: The Vatican and the Castle of Sant’Angelo
We got up early on Sunday (6:30) to be out at the Vatican by 8am. After an attempt at a shower with no shower curtain, we left at 7:30 as planned. We were hoping to go to the Dome (Cupola) first thing in the morning as Dave says that typically the line is long and takes forever, but the view is fantastic and so it’s worth getting there early to try and be up there first. All knees and shoulders had to be covered for the Vatican, and we were reminded that the Vatican is it’s own entity by the Swedish soldiers protecting it. When we arrived by Metro some ½ mile from the entrance gates, people FLOODED out of the metro station. It was like watching people going to a Ravens game or something. When we arrived, the Cupola was closed until 1pm, which Dave thought was weird, even for a Sunday. So we decided to wander around inside St. Peter’s Basilica instead. Dave noticed the barriers and curtains and stuff were up, and then it dawned on him. The last time he was in St. Peter’s Basilica and all this was going on, the pope was going to grace everyone with his presence. Yes, it was, in fact, Pentecost Sunday, and we were blessed by the German pope, Pope Benedict XVI. Being that we were in the church around 8am, we didn’t realize that they closed the entrance to it, and that we were lucky to even be in there! We stood around in a crowd for an hour and a half, waiting for the Pentecost mass to begin with the processional of a) Swiss guard in their summer uniforms, b) dozens of alter boys c) the cardinals in their white robes and red skull caps d) the pope’s equivalent to the secret service and finally, the pope himself in red robes and his gold hat. Steve was taking video and Dave was taking pictures so we think we have some pretty good footage. Meanwhile, there were the Italian little old ladies that decided that they were going to push their way through the crowd to get to see the pope. They were insistent, using their entire body weight against me to try and shove me out of the way. Good thing I’m a Taurus else Dave and Steve would have had trouble getting non-shaky footage. We did not stay for the entire mass as standing for that long without really moving was really reeking havoc on my lower back and feet, so we trekked over to the Castle of Sant’Angelo. Before we left the square, we noticed that the Vatican had huge screens in which they were televising the mass which was nice.
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| Everyone out watching Pope-vision! |
The Castle of Sant’Angelo is connected to the Vatican by a raised brick viaduct that allowed the pope movement between the two. So we walked around that, looking at it as the papal military stronghold and it had some nice views of Rome, the Vatican, and the Tiber river. That didn’t take us very long, so we went in search of lunch (spinach and ricotta ravioli – YUM!) as we had about an hour and a half before the Cupola would be open.
We arrived at the Vatican again to find a line as the Basilica, John Paul II’s tomb, and the Cupola would be opened to the public for the afternoon. It was a gaggle of people, an Italian line, as Dave would describe it. We stood there for another half an hour before they started letting people in. The mad dash for John Paul II’s tomb was a sight to see. The problem was that we had to go stand in the same line until the Cupola line split off from the Tomb line. Dave was shocked: he’d never seen the line non-existent, but everyone else was there to see the tomb but us. The beautiful thing about the Cupola (450ft high) is that you can take an elevator up through most of it, and then you have to climb 320 stairs thereafter to get to the top. Because we are on Dave’s Death March Tour of Italy, we walked the whole thing. We did stop at the two separate balcony’s to look down into the Basilica, but it was quite the climb. For as much as it hurt quads, calves and ego (out of shape!) to walk up all those stairs (figure a steep 450 feet-worth of stairs), getting to the top was an incredible reward. We got to see the entirety of Rome from the top of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican with just about nobody else. That sight was breathtaking, and I can’t do it justice here.
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| Dave! |
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| Steve, Dave, and Evanthe overlooking another part of Rome |
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| Overlooking Rome |
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| Overlooking the Vatican |
We came down and toured the rest of the Basilica, including taking pictures of the Pieta, Michelangelo’s most famous sculpture, and the only piece he ever signed. It is of the Virgin Mary, holding a full sized Jesus in her lap after the crucifixion. Her lap is oversized to hold a full grown man it is but it’s so deceptive… it just looks… right. It’s an amazing piece.
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| Michelangelo's Pieta |
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| Sunbeams shining inside St. Peter's Basilica |
The walk back to the Metro felt like I was walking on needles; standing all day hurts more than walking. We got back to the hotel and crashed for a number of hours before heading out to dinner. This time, Dave’s Death March Tour of Italy was going to have us out of the hotel by 6:30am. That means a 5:30am wakeup call for us.
Monday: The Vatican Museum (a.k.a. The Sistine Chapel) and Arriving in Venice
Ok, so figure out this logic: get up at 5:30am, to be out the door and checked out of the hotel at 6:30am, to be at the Vatican Museum by 7am so we could sit and wait for it to open at 8:45am. Dave said that it sounds insane but since we had a 1pm train, we couldn’t afford to stand in the usual line which takes nearly 4-5 hours to get through! When we arrived, we were the 8th people in line.
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| Funky overexposure, but it is Evanthe waiting in line for the Vatican Museum |
By 8am, the line stretched at least 2 football fields long. For reference, when we left, the line was over ½ mile long, and that was at 11am. So we’re standing in line at 7am, making friends when we notice that there is a line forming for groups. At 8am, the line for the groups is well over ¼ mile long (that was as far as I could see). The worst part is arriving early, standing there forever, and then watching nearly 1500 people worth of groups get to go into the museum 45 minutes before it opens. Talk about frustrating! As it turns out, the groups tend to get redirected to other exhibits other than the Sistine Chapel so by the time we got in, zoomed up to get our tickets and just “excuse me, pardon me” our way through the groups down the hallway following the signs towards the Sistine Chapel, the Chapel only had about 100 people in it. So we found seats on both sides and just stared. It was truly an impressive piece of work. It was also neat knowing that all the Cardinals had just been in there electing a new pope just a month or so before. No picture or description can do the Chapel justice. It’s amazing.
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| Illegal picture of the Sistine Chapel |
Our guidebook really helped us understand some of what we were seeing, like the entire wall with the Apocalypse fresco on it… there were some political as well as liturgical references in it which were interesting to note.
Once we got our fill of the Chapel, we strolled through other parts of the Vatican Museum. The Museum is enormous; it has nearly 8 ¾ miles’ worth of exhibits to see, and clearly that isn’t happening all in one day. So we checked out exhibits like Raphael’s Rooms (who was painting those rooms the same time Michelangelo was painting the Chapel), and the map rooms (maps of all the various regions in Italy) which was all very interesting.
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| Stairs in the Vatican Museum - Steve and Evanthe are about halfway down! |
We arrived in Venice to find no cars, no mopeds/motorcycles/trucks or any vehicles for that matter. It was just pedestrians and boats. The relative silence was actually really nice. Venice is a very doggy friendly city, with dogs sitting in store shops while their owners work, so it was as much fun to doggie watch as it was to people watch. Venice is crawling with retail stores and carts and such, sporting Murano glass, pre-lent festival masks, and other things. The food is hit or miss in Venice (unlike Florence), but we did ok, thankfully. I also found out that what the Italians call “marmalade” is actually an apricot jelly, not orange. Yummy!
So when we got off the train, we hoofed it to the hotel which was at least a 15 minute walk away. Dave had booked it for us at 80 Euro a night for all three of us; we were so incredibly lucky to find a place for less than 150 Euro, so rock on with the 80 a night! Dave had been explaining to us on the way to the hotel that this was a room with 2 bunk beds and they would slide in a mattress for him at night. Well, he wasn’t kidding when he said the room would be small. It was literally a closet with a set of bunk beds and just enough room to walk between them and the wall. The bathroom was still a “private” bathroom, except that we had to walk down the hall and use a key that only we had. Well, you get what you pay for, I suppose! Just as we were getting “settled”, the hotel owner said he had a cancellation for a room that could fit the three of us and a private bathroom for only 110 Euro. It’s still significantly cheaper than anything else out there, so we were all for it. This room had a double bed and a single, and a bathroom with an actual shower stall. Yaaaay, a semi-normal shower!! So we are good to go.
We took a walk around Venice, got ourselves some beverages, and just chilled. After the hectic pace in Rome, this was a welcome change! The weather was VERY humid, and the wind was blowing cold air, so I was cold no matter how many layers I was wearing (read: long sleeve t-shirt, sweatshirt, jeans, and jacket). But we wandered around, checked out some “famous” bridges that run over the Grand Canal, ate dinner (got lucky and got good food because Venice is not known for its food), and watched some Italian TV (more like Italian MTV) until we fell asleep.
Tuesday: Venice
We got up at a reasonable hour, 8am, took a cramped but at least doable shower, and Dave led us to a Costa Rican coffee house for (European) breakfast. Dave says that it’s the best coffee he’s had in Italy, but I wouldn’t know. I decided to get a croissant that claimed it had “marmelada” in it. I’m not a marmalade fan, but I decided to order it anyway. To the immense pleasure of my taste buds, Italy’s version of marmalade isn’t orange based and bitter, but it’s an apricot jam. YUMMY. We caught the water taxi (the equivalent of a transit bus in a city) to St. Mark’s Square, and attempted to get to the Doge’s palace in time for our Secret Tour appointment, but we were too late. So we rescheduled for later in the day, and walked around St. Mark’s square to window shop. We saw the pigeon “attraction”, which basically allows you to put pigeon food on you and the pigeons are dumb enough to fly up and land on you to eat it. Frankly, I had no interest in being grumpied on, so I passed on that experience, as it were.
We met our tour guide for the Secret (Squirrel) Tour of the Doge’s Palace. She was a little… stiff, but showed us the jails, the torture chambers, the offices, and Casablanca’s jail cells. His story was pretty amusing. We toured the rest of the palace, too, and saw the 24K gold stairwell as well as some enormous rooms (the size of a football field!) with no inner support poles. Although that’s not a feat now, it was for back then.
We snagged some lunch, went to the top of the bell tower to overlook all of Venice, and then shopped the rest of the day. Love the Murano glass!! It was very hard to maintain a sense of restraint since the entire city is effectively retail sales! We walked the entire width of the city back to our hotel, so that was a long day for the feet! The Death March Tour was living up to its name for sure.
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| View from the top of Venice's bell tower. |
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| Dave hanging out at a cafe in Venice |
Dinner was an adventure. I disliked my meal of calamari; I think it was fried mini squid heads, not the traditional calamari that one is used to. Nasty. Dave and Steve liked theirs so as Dave had said, you hit or miss in Venice with meals, and there was our proof. And thus, we were done for the night. Sleeping, however, was a completely different matter. It was incredibly humid that night and of course, no air conditioning. This meant we were sleeping with the windows open, and there’s nothing quiet about a European city, no matter where it is and no matter what the motorized traffic level is. Needless to say, the other two slept like rocks, and I tossed and turned all night, despite the exercise!
Wednesday: Leaving Venice and Arriving in Florence
We got up at a nice LEISURELY time, 9am. That was really nice. We were already packed, so after showers, we went to the Costa Rican coffee house for coffee and pastries to munch on while walking towards the train. Being that we bought TONS of stuff in Venice, the bags were heavier than when we came, and so the trek to the train station seemed longer. It was a gorgeous day, so we had broken a sweat by the time we got there.
It turns out we got on the train JUST in time. Apparently, we cut it closer than we anticipated. We found our assigned seats, and it turned out we were next to an older couple from Denver who were also headed to Florence. Unlike all my other train rides, I didn’t sleep because we all pretty much talked the whole 4 hour train ride to Florence. This couple was quite interesting: their son wrote the software for the Life Alert monitors (“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!), they know the inventor of the snowboard, and they know the President’s personal physician. To top it all off, they HAPPENED to meet Kristin Kruek, the actress who plays Lana Lang on the WB’s Smallville in a random restaurant in Venice. They even had a picture to prove it. The funniest part about that was that they had no idea who she was (“She’s a famous actress, apparently, but we don’t know what show she’s on.”), so Steve and I had to identify her. They even knew about the SCCA. We had a ball of a time talking to them.
Upon arriving in Florence, we had the longest walk YET to the hotel. Dave hadn’t been to this one, so we were consulting a map as well. This hotel had the biggest room yet: 4 single beds and a private bathroom. We checked in, got a recommendation from the matre’d for a lunch place, and headed off to eat. We ate at a restaurant named Za Za, and it was, hands down, the best food we’d eaten in Italy yet. We had caprese, an entrée, dessert, coffee, wine… a full meal as it were! Boy it was good.
After lunch (which was quite late), we walked around Florence, looking at the wares in the open market which is known for leather and paper products (like books, diaries, etc). Dave went in search of a leather messenger bag of some sorts, and we also went into a watch store. This watch store, named PANERAI, is, um, well, pricey. It is the watch company that supplied the Italian Navy with diving gear back in the day, though now it just supplies watches to the navy. It’s been in business 145 years. When Dave inquired about a particular watch, the answer was upwards of 7000 Euro. Yes, that’s seven thousand. Ouch. The store had a museum with its historical pieces, a blurb about them, and pictures of the Italian Navy wearing the gear. Although not totally intriguing to me, Dave and Steve were very interested. We window shopped the rest of the day, including the Swatch store (Steve bought a watch there), and skipped dinner as Dave and I weren’t hungry, and just made Steve deal with it. Ha ha
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| On a bridge in Florence |
Thursday: Leaving Florence and Arriving in Lereci
The Death March tour resumed when we got out of bed at 5:30 again, to be out the door at 6:30, grabbed coffee and pastries (apricot jelly-filled croissant – YUMMY), and were outside the Uffizi Gallery by 7am which opens at 8am. This is the same principle as the Vatican Museum, but not nearly as bad. When we arrived, we were pretty far back in line, but Dave reassured us that it moves fairly quickly. It turns out, it was one of their “free admission” days, so it was no wonder the line was long!
While standing in line, we watched as a woman, who was trying to eat her breakfast, was being harassed by the sparrows. This sparrow would fly up and hover right in front of her face trying to get food. She tried to shoo it away to no avail. This bird was persistent!! It took a couple of her friends to help her shoo it away! We thought she was safe, but we were wrong! The bird came back about 5 minutes later!!
Meanwhile, I went out in search of food to bring back to my line placeholders (Steve and Dave). I found some crusty bread sandwiches, and tried to feed the birds ourselves for entertainment. As I was trying to get the bird to walk up to me and take the food from my hand, this homeless guy starts approaching me for money. I duck back into the line next to Dave and Steve and then I hear, “Madam, you have a nice @$$.” Sorry, not a compliment coming from a homeless bum in Florence. It took all of my restraint not to give him the one fingered salute, and Steve was just as appalled as I was. Dave, unfortunately, didn’t hear him. When we told him, he wished he’d heard that because wanted to lay into the guy!
We finally get into the museum, and saw the progression of painting styles change over the course of the museum. For example, a halo over someone’s head in an early painting looked like a gold circle with no depth. By the later periods, the halo was see-through and had dimension. We didn’t spend long in the museum as we had other places to see before we left to go back to Lereci.
Our next stop was the Duomo. Dave and Steve stopped for coffee across the street from the Duomo’s entrance to go to the top of the bell tower and outside of a leather jacket store. I stopped in, and saw a jacket that I really liked. The store owner said the price was 180 Euro but that he’d give it to me for 150 if I paid in cash. Done deal.
Up 420 stairs we went to the top of the Duomo and we could see a big chunk of Florence. For perspective, the Cupola (at the top of the Vatican) was a MUCH longer trip to the top. The Vatican’s dome alone was 320 stairs plus having to climb the hundreds of stairs from the bottom floor to the dome’s base. Meanwhile, the Duomo had 420 stairs from the bottom floor to top. A much smaller and more manageable place. An interesting twist to the Duomo is that there was only 1 way up and down making for some interesting congestion and bottlenecks in some tight spaces whereas in the Vatican, there was a way up and a separate way down.
After the Duomo, we tried to see the statue of David, the original, but the line was long, it was quite hot, we were hungry, and the line wasn’t moving. So we bailed on that and went to eat at Za Za again. We had a long leisurely lunch, and then hoofed it back to the train station with all our stuff, down these small side streets, bumping into people… I was really looking forward to not carrying around my bag again any time soon.
We arrived at the train station, and Dave got in line to get us tickets on the next local train to Pisa Centrale. The next train was cancelled, so we waited another hour for the next one. When it arrived, there was a mad dash of people scrambling to get on this train. We were wondering if we’d even find seats!! We were held up further by the ticket stamping machine because a bunch of them were broken, and there was only one to use which was, of course, crowded. Steve was on a mission from God, I think, and he pushed and shoved his way through and found us seats together at the end of the train. The train ride took about an hour and a half because of all the stops we made, and then we caught another train from Pisa Centrale to La Spezia. That train was much more empty and there was no problem finding seats! We arrived in La Spezia, caught a bus to Lereci, and walked up to Dave’s flat, 6 days after we’d left, having seen tons of sights and having walked lots of stairs.
Upon arrival to Dave’s flat, we were greeted by Carole, my mother-in-law, and her two friends Joyce and Shirley who had arrived earlier in the day. The ladies were exhausted with jet lag, and we were exhausted from Dave’s Death March Tour. As is par for the course, Steve, Dave, and I hopped on Internet-connected computers and checked email and such. The ladies showered and prepared for dinner at Enrico’s restaurant down the hill from Dave’s flat, and finally we were ready to go.
Enrico treated us like gold – again! We had wonderful seafood: steamed oysters, cold marinated salmon, and more that I can’t remember now (I’ll explain why in a minute), and gnocchi in pesto alfredo sauce. YUMMY. Of course we had 4-5 glasses of table wine with dinner, and then the fun began. Enrico somehow found out that my birthday had just passed (Dave, Steve, and I had kept that quiet as we weren’t really thinking about it the first night we went), and busted out a bottle of champagne. Next thing I know, Dave and all the locals start emptying bread bowls and grabbing plates to put over their heads in protection. It wasn’t like Enrico was shaking the bottle, but we found out that if the cork (when let loose) hits a single guy, he’s the next to get married. If the cork hits a married guy, his wife is going to cheat on him (or something like that). POP goes the cork, and it was deftly deflected with a bread bowl by one of the U.S. Customs guys that were sitting behind us. Champagne was served and down it went. Next came the Grapa, alcohol’s equivalent of jet fuel, made from the skins of grapes. Ok, it’s not that bad, but it’s pretty brutal. Enrico pours Steve, Dave, me, and himself a triple shot of it. One, two, three!!! Down it goes. My eyes start to water, Steve starts to cough, and Dave and Enrico laughed at us as we, apparently, weren’t supposed to shoot it but they wanted us to think that we were (so we did). Light a lighter in front of my breath… and I could have blown fire that alcohol is so strong.
At that point, Enrico brings a tray of hot espresso, hands the tray to Dave, and has an extra coffee cup, saucer, and spoon in his hand. He starts to walk over towards Steve… and trips. The coffee cup is flying towards Steve, Steve is backing up as far as the wall would let him as fast as he can go, and lo and behold, the coffee cup is empty. Enrico had put the spoon through the handle of the coffee cup and was holding the coffee cup that way, making it look like he was dropping it on Steve’s lap. Enrico and Dave melted into laughter, noting that no one had ever moved that fast before for that prank! And Steve wasn’t exactly sober at that point either, so that was pretty good! Definitely a memorable moment!
So as if that weren’t enough, Enrico brings out the Limoncelo and shot glasses . This stuff I can’t even drink. The flavor is a delicious lemon, but it’s an after taste! The first thing you taste is whatever the alcohol is that’s in it, and I couldn’t even swallow that stuff. So I only put down like half a shot, and stopped. Yes, I was having trouble walking straight. Yes, I was pretty toasted. What I didn’t notice because I was toasted was that Steve was putting down the Limoncelo shots like they were water. When we left the restaurant, he had surprisingly little trouble walking straight, but would openly describe himself as schnockered to the point that he couldn’t lay down else the room would spin. I’ve never seen him so bombed and frankly, he’s a happy drunk to the point where I couldn’t stop laughing at him. Too funny.
Since the ladies were exhausted, they went to bed, and Dave, Steve, and I stayed up, playing with the camera on a tripod, playing Xbox, and just chatting. Dave took us to go see the roof of his flat (he’s the only one with keys to the roof), and we could see all of Lereci, and the island across the bay from Lereci. It was a GORGEOUS night, and just slightly cool. I wish I could say I remember more than that, but I, too, wasn’t exactly sober, though I was getting there, unlike Steve. We went to bed, and I slept like a rock for once despite all the liquor which usually keeps me up! I did wake up every once in awhile to check on Steve, but he was out like a light.
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| The castle overlooking Lereci |
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| Lereci's harbor |
Friday: Lereci and Portovenere
Steve, as you can imagine, had some issues the next morning. We were supposed to go to Cinque Terre with the ladies and Dave, but Steve was seriously hung over. So the two of us stayed back… Steve was crashed out, and I spent time writing this blog (though I didn’t finish as this has taken me hours to complete). At noon, the phone rings. Thankfully, Italy has caller ID and Dave subscribes to it. It was Don, my father-in-law. We chatted for awhile, firmed plans for our arrival the next day, and recounted some memories of Italy. Steve, by this time, had gotten out of bed, dressed, and then crashed out on the couch.
At 2:15pm, the phone rings again. It’s Dave. He tells me to get Steve off the couch and down to the pier by 2:30pm to catch a ferry to Portovenere to meet him and the ladies. There was no other ferry after the 2:30 one, so we had to get there. We rushed out of the flat, bolted down to the ferry and then realized, uh-oh, no cash!! Luckily, the ATM is across the little square, so I ran to get cash. Of course, someone was already using it when I got there (precious time, ticking away!), and I heard the bell tower toll 2:30 when I was leaving the ATM. We could see them packing the boat to leave, and we rushed up and asked for tickets. The ticket person told them to hold up, and we got on. Talk about making that boat by the skin of our teeth!!
We arrive at Portovenere and wait for the others to arrive on their own ferry. When they did, we walked through this picturesque town, got gelato (ice cream, though mine tasted like really good cool whip with caramel flavor), and walked to the castle. Lucky us, we got to see a wedding in the castle! That was pretty neat, and the view was gorgeous.
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| View from the castle on Cinque Terre |
Dave explained to us that his team runs through the town to this castle as part of his physical training for work. Well, it couldn’t be a more beautiful view when on a run like that.
On a side note, Steve and I asked Dave how many of the cities in Cinque Terre they had seen earlier that day, and Dave said 1 of 5… the ladies were taking forever and that there’d be no way to run the pace that we had earlier in the week. And thus, Dave’s Death March Tour Lite was born.
At 5:30pm, we headed back and got ready for dinner. For dinner, we went to Mateo’s restaurant, Dave’s good friend that lives in a flat below him in the same building. His family owns a restaurant that serves only one meal, but it’s multiple courses. It was YUMMY. Then again, I didn’t have anything in Lereci that wasn’t YUMMY. Like Enrico, Mateo speaks excellent English, and we talked to him during the course of dinner as well. Unlike Enrico, Mateo didn’t try and get us liquored up (though we did have wine with dinner), so we went home with a happily full stomach and a clear head.
We packed that night, and set an alarm for 5:30am. Yes, Dave was going to do with the ladies what we had just finished, starting with a train for Rome leaving at 7am. Packed and bummed that we were leaving Dave the next morning, we went to bed.
Saturday: May 21, 2005 Leaving Italy and Returning to the U.S.A.
Yes, 5:30am came way too early, but there was no light flicking this time, only an alarm clock blaring in our ears. We shower, finish packing, and head off with the ladies and Dave to meet the cabs at the bottom of the hill. It turns out that the cab that came for Steve, Dave, and me was the same cab that picked us up last Saturday! It was serious déjà vu when we went up the same alley and found the same trash truck in the same part of the road, and we had to pull in the mirrors of the car to squeeze through, again.
We arrived at the train station with the ladies right behind us. Of course, the first class car of the train was at the extreme end of the platform, opposite of where we were. We get on, settle in, and after 45 minutes, Pisa Centrale arrives. This is Steve’s and my stop as we are catching a local train from Pisa Centrale to the Pisa airport. We say our goodbyes, wished Dave luck, wished everyone else a safe trip, and off we went.
Steve and I found our airport train, 5 minutes later we arrive at the airport, check in, find some grub, and got on our little flight to Paris. We arrived in Paris, found our flight, realized that the Paris airport hasn’t banned smoking in it (ugh!), and hopped our plane home. The one thing we noticed about the Paris airport is that it’s so incredibly spread out that you have to take a bus to your plane for almost every flight. There are so few flights that dock directly at the terminal and the bus rides aren’t exactly short! Ours took us nearly 10 minutes a ride! Anyway, we arrived in the U.S. went through Customs, grabbed our bags, and Don was waiting for us at the exit.
We walk out to the car, and I sighed. For as much as I love Europe, I was glad to be home. I missed my car, driving, CLEAN bathrooms that have toilet paper as a standard feature, wide roads and sidewalks, and a normal shower. This is not to say that I don’t miss the laid back lifestyle of Europe as I wish that could translate here but alas, it doesn’t. I truly missed the gluttony of the U.S..
We drove to Don’s to pick up Radar, who was so excited to see Steve that he couldn’t decide what to do with himself. It was cute. We packed his stuff, and off to the house we went. Boy it was good to be home. It was 7pm EST when we arrived, and my body thought it was 2am, but who cares… I had my couch, my electronics, my car, my stuff… I love American Gluttony. Home sweet home.
