Rome Day 1

We left Tuscany by train that Friday, cursing it for not understanding that there should be no rain on our vacation except in approved locations (i.e. London, where it's inevitable). Rome came through for us, though. Of course, first we took the afternoon off to recover from all the rain.

Saturday, we set out with one goal before all others - find the church that Christina (my sister) told us about that has all the art made from bones. Inconveniently, that was all she remembered about the place. She couldn't remember its name or where it was. Luckily, Lonely Planet Italy is just that kind of book, so it came through for us. So, we were off that morning to the Chiesa della Concezione de Cappuccini to see some "bone art".

Rather than take the direct route, we decided to test just how walkable Rome really is. We were staying at Pensione Paradise, which is fairly close to the Vatican. So, on Saturday morning, we started out by crossing the Tiber and going to the Piazza del Popolo.





From there, we walked down the Via del Corso and then over to the Spanish Steps.



The area around the steps includes what one book called the "most expensive street in Rome". You can't exactly tell in the next picture, but on the left side of the street are, in succession, the Dior store, the Gucci store, and the Bulgari store. Needless to say, we didn't buy much there.



From the Spanish Steps, we walked down to the Piazza Barberini, where we saw the Fountain of Triton, by Bernini.



Then we went to the church with the bone art. The art is actually in the crypt below the church and is made from the bones of 4000 Capuchin monks who died over a several century period. It's almost too weird to describe, and we weren't allowed to take pictures. Pretty much everything there was made from bones, including the light fixtures and picture frames. Some rooms had more scapulae, while others mostly used arm or leg bones. Liberal use was made of vertabrae. I was glad to have Debbie along, so she could identify which bones were which.

I think I'll leave it at that. The whole thing sits somewhere between fascinating, macabre, and gross, and describing it is weirding me out a little bit, so I guess I'll move on.

After a quick lunch, we proceeded on to do some shopping. As always, I won't bore you with the details.

Our last activity of the day was to visit the Trevi Fountain, sculpted by Salvi. It's really cool, in an over-the-top kind of way, but also really, really popular.





At that point, I had a raging headache and our feet hurt (also it was starting to rain, and we'd had enough of that), so we took a break for the rest of the day.

Florence Again

We took our second trip in to Florence on our last day in Tuscany. Unfortunately, that was the day that the weather gods got their payback for all the good weather we had on the trip. It didn't just rain that day - it poured, with thunder and lightning. So, basically, our second day in Florence sucked. Here's a pictures of the plaza of the Uffizi in the rain.



We had reservations at the Uffizi at 5 pm, so we went into town around lunchtime. It started raining hard right about then, so we found a good place to eat and took a traditional Italian lunch (i.e. ~2 hours). We did some shopping in the afternoon, then went to the gallery. Now, I don't know much about paintings, but that was some pretty cool stuff. No pictures of that, of course. After the gallery, we had a semi-harrowing drive in the dark and rain to get back to the agriturismo for one last dinner, which was just about as good as the previous ones.

San Gimignano

First a disclaimer. The two best things about San Gimignano happened after the camera battery ran out, so you're going to have to take my word for it.

We went to San Gimignano on Wednesday. It's a much smaller town than Siena or Florence but (of course) has a long history of its own. It's at the top of the highest hill in the area, so the view was excellent. (A particularly good view from the fortress is one of the things that we missed when the battery died.)

Of course, it has a lovely old section of town.





There's the Museum of the Medieval Criminal. (We didn't go in, but I do love a suit of armor.)



There's a central piazza around the cistern.



Oh, and there's the thing the town is most famous for - the towers. Apparently, the city's medieval families would show off by building them. There were over 70 at one point, but now there are only 13 left.







We went to the local church, which has interior walls that are completely painted with scenes from the Bible. Very nice, but as with all the other cool stuff we weren't allowed to take pictures.



After some walking, we made our way to a punto panoramico and took one last picture before running out of juice.



By far, the best thing about the town was the gelato. The gelaterie that we went to was award winning and has the approval of many famous people (like Tony Blair). The gelato was absolutely the best we've had on our trip and will probably not be equalled in Rome. Even if the town weren't pretty, I would go to San Gimignano just for the gelato. I had a version made with Vin Santo, which is the locally made dessert wine. Just wonderful.

Siena

We went to Siena on Tuesday. In fact, the last set of posts was made from an Internet cafe there. It was about a 50 minute drive from our place and was just a bit harrowing (my first extensive experience with the Italian highway). The drivers are fairly aggressive and don't have the same concept of driving space that we have in the US. But, we survived, so I guess it wasn't that bad.

I'm a sucker for pleasant European towns, so I took a lot of street pictures. The city center of Siena is mostly pedestrian, which has helped to keep it pretty. It's also very steep.





Siena's famous main square is the Piazza del Campo. Twice a year, they have a horse race called Il Palio in the square. The book claims that it's the world's shortest horse race (3 times around the square).







Siena has a Duomo (cathedral) of it's own. It's Gothic, rather than the Renaissance style of the Duomo in Florence.







The interior is very different, too. Love the horizontal stripes.



There's a library with a spectacularly decorated ceiling.



The cathedral has a baptistry that is a couple centuries older than the main church. There's great art in there, too.



We went into the cathedral museum, but pictures weren't allowed. Aside from that, we had another relaxing (i.e. ~2 hour long) lunch at a local restaurant. Oh, and we admired the wares in the shops.



Finally, I took a picture of Debbie in the courtyard of a palazzo. Unfortunately, I don't remember which one. It's a nice picture, though.

Sometimes the Nutella Craving Is Just Too Much

Note the orange added for scale. That was breakfast in Tuscany. Well, there was other stuff, too, but that was the most important bit.

The Winery

On Monday, we got a tour of the winery that they run here at the agriturismo. No pictures, because I forgot to bring along the camera for it, but maybe I'll have a chance to take a picture of the exterior before we leave.

The property has been in use as a winery for over 1000 years. There's a tower in the winery building that was built 1000 years ago. Another major part of the building was built a mere 500 years ago, when it was owned by one of the major families of Florence. The rest was built 300 years ago. The family that owns it now has had it since 1911. 85% of what they make is table wine, which only gets aged for a bit more than a year and doesn't get put into the wood casks. The remainder is aged for varying periods of time in wood casks that are made by a French company that they've been ordering from for about 90 years. They're unusual for a winery in Tuscany because they make white wine as well. Apparently, in the 1930s someone in the family developed an allergy to tannins. Rather than stop drinking wine (horrors), the family imported white wine stock from France and added that to the production. They also make the base liquid for grappa and vinegar, but they send it elsewhere for the final steps (e.g. to Modena).

We concluded with a wine tasting. The good wine is extremely good. Amusingly, one of the best wines they made is from French grapes (the horror). We're currently debating whether to ship some bottles back, even though it would cost more to ship than the actual cost of the wine. We'll see... (Update: We went for it, and yes, it cost more to ship than for the wine itself.)

Home

Yes, we made it home safely and with minimal delay (no thanks to the person in London who managed to check in but got lost on the last hundred feet to the airplane). I'll admit, the thunderstorm with hail as we left the terminal was a little unexpected, but aside from that it's nice to be home. I've watched some American TV, so now I'll try to catch up on all those posts I promised.