Starry Wisdom

In the Villa – We got to Florence at 11AM yesterday. We parked and then walked over to the plaza near the Uffizi. We took some pictures before heading in to the Museum. We spent about 2 hours before we were arted out. I mean, it’s full of some really good art, but, especially the first series or rooms, are very skewed to early religious art… so you can get burned out on that.

Afterwards, we walked towards the Duomo, making a stop for lunch at a pizzeria. There was an unfortunately confused fellow American sitting near us, who I think really wanted to ask us for help but couldn’t quite screw up the courage. Oh well. After lunch we got gelato. Oh man, delicious! The tiramisu that Fred got might have been the winner, but they were all quite good.

The Duomo (Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore) is a magnificently grand cathedral. The main hall is humongous and open, and pretty much like nothing I’d seen before. It was crazy to think of the generations it took to build it, and that it had been standing for over half a millennium. After we looked around the inside of the church, we headed back outside to go up to the top of the dome.

The climb up is quite interesting, with a series of spiral stair cases and switchback staircases. There is an interlude where you walk along a balcony just below the dome itself, and get to see the fresco up close.

And then you climb up a staircase leading over the the inner dome itself, and ascend through a hatch on to the roof of the dome, and are treated to 360 degrees of views around Florence.

After we descended to ground level, we went to the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, which is filled with original artwork from the Duomo itself, which is either being restored, or under preservation. Included in their treasure are the actual panels of the doors of the Baptistry, in nitrogren class cases, and the Pieta del Duomo, one of Michaelangelo’s last works. The cashier at the museum was a particularly fantastic gentleman, so great in fact that he was immortalized with his own statue:

We then did some minor shopping. We crossed over the Ponte Vecchio, the only medieval bridge left spanning the Arno River in Florence (thanks Hitler). In our wandering, Joan and Chris found the honey grappa they’d been searching for.

After a while we took a break in the plaza in front of Santa Croce, where we discussed dinner. We weren’t quite hungry yet, but we knew our best bet for food was in Florence, plus it was our one chance for Tuscan food! We found a small restaurant not too far away from where our car was parked, with a handwritten menu out front. The food at this mom and pop place was delicious and inexpensive. We eschewed wine and went through 3 liters of aqua con gas, much to the consternation of the proprietor, but it was what we needed.

On the way back to our car we found the spoor of the poor dog JFK, a dog who can poo at either of two settings, and was stuck on both. He looks something like the Agip logo, with the proper number of legs, and the fire moved down and to the left:

We left the city around 9:20PM, arrived home at 11:30 and promptly were done for the day.

Galleries:

Florence

In the car between the Villa and Firenze – DRIVE BEER.

Villa – So today the french toast was a failure, but that’s OK. We still were able to eat breakfast. We left a bit before 10:00AM to go to nearby San Sisto for the Perugina Chocolate Factory tour. This tour was rather great. The guide was happy that I’m from SF, and she was also super straightforward about their nefarious marketing practices – In the 1980s teenagers weren’t eating chocolate, so they finely tuned a commercial to have them start buying Baci. The tour of the assembly lines was neat, and smelled nice. We saw them making Baci and the Easter egg – some of which were being filled with Disney’s Cars – but don’t worry, there were also Disney Princesses for the girls! The workers were all smiling, because really, do you HAVE to work in a chocolate factor, or do you GET to?

The museum had some great art, and the store was nice too, we all bought a bunch of chocolate loot. We were also given a bar of chocolate as a parting gift on the way out.

Then it was off to Gubbio. We got there around 1PM, and we quickly found ourself a nice Umbrian comfort food restaurant for lunch, and then wandered the wrong way a while before zeroing in on the main sites of the town. It’s really a very pretty city (wow, they all seem to be, don’t they?). After we saw some buildings and churches and a cat and a cask, we got coffee. In the plaza near the coffee shop there were some young kids dressed up as a king and a jester playing, very amusing. Afterwards, Joan bought a coat, satisfying a quest she had been on for a while, and making the proprietress’ day. I got some stamps so I could send out some postcards which I had bought at Perugina.

We stopped off at Pam for some more provisions on the way home and are now relaxing a bit before dinner.

Galleries:

Perugina
Gubbio

In Car – WE DEFIRTED!

Villa – Today’s plans did not go quite as planned – misses Assisi’s exit on the highway, so we kept driving until we reached Citta di Castello (we had planned to go to Assisi first, then perhaps Gubbio, then perhaps Citta di Castello). The Citta is a weird place, there is no actual castle there! We saw some towers,

had a nice Trattoria lunch (which made the trip to the city worth it) and then saw some more medieval sites.

After that we drove down to Assisi, since seeing the Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi was one of my highlights. The church was very nice, and I saw some monks in the tomb chapel.

After the Basilica we saw some cats eating pasta

and had some TOO SWEET pastry and coffee. It was a nice time in a nice, scenic city.

One the way back we stopped at IperCoop for some groceries after trying to find an FM modulator at Mediaworld and failing and just getting some CDRW so we would have music on our drives (hence the iPhone hacking). IperCoop was sort of like a Meijer, with both food and non food items. The food choices were amazing, multiple refrigerator cases full of fresh pasta and the deli section was incredibly impressive. Unfortunately the bottles of olive oil were too big to pack and bring back. The prices, however, were great.

Back at home we cooked up dinner. Orecchiette in tomato sauce, steak and procuitto wrapped pork cutlets grilled over the fire, and some mediocre wine. We had gelatto for dessert.

Galleries:
Citta di Castello
Assisi

At the Villa. Yesterday we ended up going to Spoleto instead of Perugia. We walked around a while before deciding to go get food. We wandered down a windy, shoddy stone staircase and found the city wall:

We followed it around a bit until eventually we found Il Tartufo, perhaps the finest restaurant in Spoleto. We had a very impressive truffle based meal, and the wine spider made an appearance in Joan’s glass. What a tricky creature he is!

After lunch we headed back to the car to drive down to the Cascata delle Maremore, a Roman made waterfall that only runs when the power company feels like turning it on. At 165m tall, it is amongst the tallest in Europe.

After viewing the waterfall, we pulled off the road to take some pictures of the urban decay:

We drove back to the Villa, and were unable to buy a newspaper. We decided that there must be a guild that controls the selling of them, and that you need special powers to get one. Or perhaps there just are no Sunday papers in the Catholic country?

When we got back we pretty much crashed. We ate some of the Pecarino we bought in Spoleto (so delicous) and sat in front of the fire, and headed to bed around 10PM. I woke up around 8:00am today.

Galleries:
Spoleto
Cascatta delle Marmore

At the Villa – We spent an hour or so in downtown Perugia wandering around. I took some pics, and saw some great views and the pastry snake:

Then we found our way to the villa a bit before our 4pm check-in time. Miss Teodora, the keyholder, was already there, so we dropped off our deposit, and learned that gas was 4 Euros per m^3 since we were so far out of town. We decided we would try to limit our gas usage, and we got some extra wood for the fireplace.

After we settled in we decided to go grocery shopping, and then we would decide if we would go out to eat or eat in that night. We found a PAM grocery just a few km down the road. We bought some food and such and then went back up the mountain to the Villa.

We bummed around for a bit and then decided to cook in. We had strangozzi with a tomato sauce with some turkey and chicken sausage in it, spinach and some bread. Unfortunately we did not construct a potato robot with the extra selenium potatoes we bought – well maybe some other day. The dinner was simple but quite nice and filling. The 2 Euro wine we had with it was quite nice with it. After we finished we did the dishes and lit a fire, at which point it was 9PM and Fred and I had been up for more than 30 hours. We sat around talking for a while, and at about 10:30PM we decided to call it a night. Under the blankets in my bed it was quite warm!

I woke up at 3AM and layed around before deciding to play DS for a while. I then slept from 5AM to 6:15 or so, waking up hungry. I ate a little banana loaf thing I had gotten on the plane and drank from Aranciata. At 6:45 I decided to shower, which was exciting because the stall was tiny and moving around moved the lever that controlled the pressure and temperature! After I got dressed I went out and took some pictures of the area:

I found Joan’s wallet on the driveway near the car, luckily we were in a remote place, so nothing was missing! Fred made french toast and soon we will head back out to Perugia.

Galleries:
Perugia
San Lorenzo della Rabatta

1050 CET. In the Fiat, heading out of rome – Fred and I landed at 7:20 then were quickly out of passport control, just a quick scan of our passports, a stamp, and we were on our way. Cool. After we got our bags we found the aweosome Leonardo Express to Termini station, where we were to meet Joan and Chris. It took us a few minutes to figure out how to buy the tickets, and soon enough the train arrived, and we piled on and were on our way through the outskirts of Rome, towards the city center.

Once there we found Joan and Chris, after a bit of up and down with our heavy bags. We took a stop at Cafe Moke for coffee and a pastry, and then grabbed a cab to the Hertz location. The cab driver was quite awesome, driving at incredibly fast speeds, weaving and dodging and honking – very exciting! Eventually he put the radio on the local English language station (for our benefit?) but then started singing Italian songs. Soon enough we arrived at the rental location, safely. We rented the car,then went to the hotel where Joan and Chris had stayed the night before to pick up their bags before heading north to Perugia. There were 5 hours before we were supposed to meet the keyholder for the Villa, so we had plenty of time.

Oh, as we were driving along the Roma loop, we saw a FIRT lose its hubcap. So exciting!

1540 EST Dulles – The flight from SFO was perfectly cromulent. The next leg is considerably longer.

Trying the Iphone wordpress app. I’m at SFO on the way to Umbria, Italy: