So We Meet Again

Like I said, Vanessa and I talked about going to a whole bunch of places but we ended up deciding on the Cinque Terre. Our plan was to spent one or two nights there and then take an overnight train to Rome. I e-mailed the Roma Inn (our accomodations in Rome) about canceling for two out of the three nights and they said it would be fine. Then I called Hotel Souvenir in Monterosso al Monte to see if they had any rooms available for the next two nights. The woman who answered did not speak one word of English which made things difficult. I got one of the hostel workers to translate for me. Apparently, the hotel was closed but the woman had an apartment with a kitchen available for €50 a night. I'LL TAKE IT!! That's the same price we paid for that itty bitty hotel room in Venice. So we went to the train station and bought our tickets. They were only €10 or so which was good.

Before we left, I had one thing that I really wanted to do (more like 10 but I only had time for one) which was climb up the Dome. There were 463 steps to the top. That's a lot by the way. About halfway up, there is a viewing platform of the painting on the inside of the ceiling of the dome called the Last Judgment. Needless to say, it did not paint a very happy picture for the people going to hell. There was one part with a dragon biting a person in half (picture 1). The painting went from Hell on the bottom, to Purgatory, and up to to Heaven. I didn't like it much but I don't really like the Apocalypse so that would make sense. Also on the way up, I saw the herringbone brick laying scheme Brunelleschi used to create the dome. Very impressive. There were a few tight spots but I made it to the top. As soon as I poked my head out, someone headed me a camera and asked me to take a picture for them. Lo and behold!!! It was the same Canadian family as the day before. What a crazy coincidence! We talked for awhile and they took my picture again (picture 2 of me at the top with the bell tower behind). The dad told me that when I was traveling I had to go to Crete and hike in the gorges on the southern coast. He said its his favorite place in all of Europe. We said goodbye and I went into the actual church. The views from the top of the dome were far reaching and amazing to see (picture 3).

The church was just massive (4th biggest in the world, picture 4). The part of the church under the dome was blocked off because they were having some kind of event in there so I couldn't walk under the dome which was a major disappointment. I walked around and looked at the stuff I could. Then I left and went back to the hostel. I really enjoyed Florence, Vanessa not as much. I want to come back some day and visit all the art galleries we didn't go to. We got off the train in La Spezia and bought panini sandwiches at a McDonald's. The sandwiches were actually really good. Next we hopped on a train to Monterosso. It is just fantastically beautiful there.

The Cinque Terre are five small towns along the cliffs of the Italian Riviera (the towns are along the cliffs you see behind me in picture 6). They are major tourist hot spots in the summer. February, not so much which is fine by me. Monterosso is divided into two parts, the New Town and the Old Town. They are separated by a cliff with a tunnel through it. We waited at the Hotel Souvenir for Pay (the boss of the place) but she didn't show up for a while. While we waited, Vanessa practiced (I suck at Italian but it was hilarious listening to her try). One of the workers who was doing repairs (this was happening all over the city, gearing up for the big tourist season) could hear us and probably got fed up by the poor Italian so he called the boss and she brought us to the apartment. It was so cool. A kitchen, dining table, big bed, bunk beds, bathroom, towel rack with warmer, dishes, and a tv. We were so excited. The wife left for a minute but sort of communicated that she would be back soon. Her husband came and showed me how to turn on the hot water for the kitchen sink and some other stuff. He didn't speak any English either so it was interesting trying to communicate. There was a LOT of hand signals and showing. He would say OK? all the time. They were both extremely nice.

They left and Vanessa and I walked down to the beaches. We walked along the beach of the Old Town (have to pay in summer) and the beach of the New Town (from the Old Town to the New is picture 5 and from the other side of the New Town is picture 7). Very pretty. It was cloudy so there was no sunset but that was ok. We stopped and got groceries which were cheap and a nice change of pace from eating out all the time. I had my usual spaghetti with sauce and Vanessa had lentils and mixed vegetables (I still say that's weird). I read and had some Almond Apricot Cookies which were out of this world. I slept in the big bed which I must say was the best sleep I have had in a long time.

Birth of the Re-Birth

Because of how early I had fallen asleep, I woke up at 7 and showered and then met Vanessa out in the hostel's restaurant area. The hostel has a restaurant that serves free breakfast (with one night's stay) and has dinner that is pretty cheap. I got scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. Vanessa got cereal and yogurt. It ended up being the best breakfast of the whole trip. It was so delicious. I left to go climb the Campanile and the Medici Chapels (Vanessa didn't want to pay and just plain wasn't interested).

I was super excited about visitng the Medici Chapels. For those who don't know, I did a project on Lorenzo "Il Magnifico" Medici in 11th grade. The Medici Chapels are connected to San Lorenzo which is the oldest church in Florence (which is saying something). Directly inside the doors is the crypt which is where are all the lesser Medici's are buried. There weren't any real tombs here and apparently when the crypt was built a bunch of the bodies were just thrown in haphazardly. Next up is the Capella dei Principi where 6 Medici are buried but only 3 have completely finished tombs. The room they are in is incredibly lavish with green, pink and black stone and gold everywhere. They are in an octagonal room that has a dome really high up too. Even the scaffolding in the room was painted black and had gold joints. Finally, the Segrestia Nuova where Il Magnifico and 3 other Medici are. Il Magnifico (so named because of how magnificent he was and because there were a ton of "Lorenzo Medici"s so he needed a nickname) did not have a finished tomb. Michelangelo had a plan for it but left for Rome and never came back to finsihe it. Two other guys though have incredible tombs. One has two statues, Dusk and Dawn and the other has two statues as well, Night and Day. They are worth a google search just to see them.

I headed on to the Campanile. There were 414 steps to the top. It wasn't too bad of a climb because there were 3 or 4 terraces where you could catch your breath and take some pictures. The views were amazing and it being Sunday, church bells were going off in the city. At the top of the bell tower, I met a family from Canada (Western Ontario to be exact) who were super nice and took my picture for me (picture 2). The views of Brunelleschi's dome with Florence behind it were really amazing (picture 1). It really is an engineering marvel. He created it with no scaffolding. Amazing. I went back to the hostel and Vanessa and I went on a free walking tour that left from the hostel. It was not very good. The tour guide talked really quietly and was hard to understand through her strong Italian accent. Plus whenever we were walking she would talk to these three people in Italian and walk SUPER slow. Add to that that we always walked in the shade and it was cold out (for us) and it was a pretty miserable experience. Vanessa lost her gloves so she wore mine which meant I didn't have any so I had to make due. We walked by all the major sites of the town. The highlights were Piazza della Santissima Annunziata (where the Accademia is and picture 3), Piazza San Croce (where San Croce, a church, is) and Piazza della Signoria (where a bunch of statues, the Uffizi Gallery and Palazzo Vecchio are). The tour ended in Piazza della Signoria and I took a bunch of pictures of the statues that were there. David by Michelangelo was in this square until 1850 or so (only a copy outside now). There was Perseus which I liked a lot (picture 4).

I tried to find us some sunlight to warm up in and found it along the Arno River. We walked along the river to the Ponte Vecchio (picture 5). It's a bridge over the narrowest part of the Arno that has a bunch of gold and jewelry shops on it. It's very famous and was fun to look at all the gold shops. From there, we walked up the ridge on the other side of the river to Piazza Michelangelo which has greats views back over Florence and the hills surrounding it (me and Vanessa picture 6 with Duomo and Palazzo Vecchio sticking out behind us). It was a pleasant walk through trees and it made us warm again. In the Piazza, there were some American Indians singing traditional music which was nice. My PCCC sweatshirt had some wine from Venice spilled on it so I bought a zip-up Italia sweatshirt. Just above the Piazza, is San Miniato al Monte, a church. It was built at that spot because when Saint Mitius was killed, apparently his ghost brought his head up here so they built a church. His bones are in the crypt below the church. I took a picture of the candles in the crypt (picture 7) which is definitely one of my favorites of the whole trip. The mosaic floor in the church was cool. There was a pulpit with an eagle above a man above a lion. Which signifies man's place between the divine and real world. Inside the church, there is green and white marble like from the outside of it.

We went back down the hill and across the Arno to the church of San Croce. We went inside and saw all the famous people's graves. The most important tombs we saw were Michelangelo, Ghiberti, Dante, Machiavelli, and Galileo (picture 8). All of them were very cool and it was super convenient to see them all in one place. The pulpit had reliefs of St. Francis's life. On the way back to our hostel, we stopped by the Baptistery. I took some pictures of the doors for my sister Amy (picture 9). I wished she could have been there to see them. She did a project just like me in 11th grade but her's was about Ghiberti, the guy who designed the doors. It took him 27 years to finish them. Now that's commitment. I went to the Accademia to see David by Michelangelo (alone again, same reasons as before). It was totally worth it. I loved the statue. It was truly mesmerizing. The statue weighs 19 tons and was outside for 300 years before being brought here. We ate dinner at the hostel. We got a bacon burger and spaghetti with meat sauce for €4 which was fantastic. I went online and stuff. Vanessa and I spent the rest of the night discussing what we wanted to do next. She didn't really want to stay longer and I sort of agreed. We talked about renting a motorbike and seeing Tuscan towns but it was too cold. We also discussed going to the Cinque Terre. We didn't really decide anything before we went to bed though.

Bologna Sandwich

We woke up and got packed and ready to leave Venice in the morning. Before we left we went and had some breakfast and I wanted to go for a ride on the water bus one last time but they were actually checking tickets for once so that plan was foiled. So went back (picture 1 is of the balcony of our hotel), got our bags, and walked to the train station. We talked to the guy about how much going straight to Florence was (€30) or how much a ticket to Bologna was (€8). So we went to Bologna and then went to Florence. It worked out really well because I wanted to go to Bologna anyway.

Bologna is located about an hour train ride north of Florence and is a major transportation hub because it is in the middle of Italy. It is known as "the red city" because of all the red bricks that are used in the buildings. The other kind of big thing about Bologna is that it has over 40 km of arcades in the city (picture 2 has both of those characteristics, the red brick and the arcade beneath the building). I don't mean the arcades with video games either. Almost all of the sidewalks are covered with arches along the side and on the top, that's the kind of arcades I am talking about. They are probably really nice in the summer because of the shade they provide. Besides the fact that they just look cool. We only left Vanessa's suitcase at the train station. I lugged my big and small backpacks with me all day. Not a good idea. My shoulders were killing me almost the whole time. I should have just paid the €4. Oh well, live and learn.

Anyway, so we started walking around. When we left Venice it was really cloudy but in Bologna, it was bright and sunny which was good. We went to the Piazza Maggoire and Piazza Nettuno first. They are the two main squares in Bologna. In the Piazza Nettuno, there is a fountain with a sculpture of Neptune. Right below him on the fountain is 4 sirens which have water coming out of their breasts which I thought was quite strange (picture 3). The church at the center of Piazza Maggoire is Basilica di San Pietro. It is the 5th largest church in the world. It also is not finished. The outside of the church is still only half done and will probably never be done (picture 4). It makes it really ugly because there is a line all the way around the church of white marble and the rest of it is ugly brown bricks. We didn't go inside the church just yet. Next, we found a small cafe to eat lunch in. Eating was always a little tenuous for the two of us because Vanessa wanted something more healthy and cheap usually where as all I wanted was something with meat that was cheap. In Italy, that usually led to a difference of opinion. We ended up finding a cafe and had (what else?) panini sandwiches. Next, we walked to the Le Due Torri, or the Two Towers (picture 5). Not the World Trade Center. They are two square skinny towers that lean. One tower is 95 m tall and leans 1.5 m. The other tower is 48 m tall and leans 3.9 m. The 48 m tower was supposed to be just as tall as the other but during construction, it leaned so much that they quit. You can climb to the top of the 95 m tower but we didn't.

We walked into the University District and went inside a small chapel called Oratorio di Santa Ceilia. There were 10 frescoes along both walls telling the story of St. Cecilia's life. From there we walked back past Le Due Torre and to the Basilica. There was a trio of guys playing guitars in the square out front (picture 6) so Vanessa watched the bags while I went inside the Basilica. It was MASSIVE. Along each side of the nave were probably 10 smaller chapels, each with a different theme and look to them. The columns were white and pink marble. Vanessa and I switched places and she went inside. Then we walked back to the train and got on.

The sun was setting over the Tuscan hills while the train sped along the tracks. It was very pretty. The hills with the green pine-looking trees reminding me vaguely of Oregon. We arrived in Florence and got to our hostel. My reservation didn't work apparently but we got a room anyway. It was a 4 bedroom that we shared with two Asian guys. They seemed nice enough but we never talked to them. We got settled then went out in search of food which took a while (for reasons mentioned before) and eventually settled on pizza. My pizza had bits of hot dog on it. Too weird. I wish I would have taken a picture of it. While we were out walking around we walked past the Duomo and Campanile which were just spectacular. It was love at first sight. I had read about them in ALP and in preparation but that didn't make me prepared for actually coming face to face with them. We came back and I read a bunch of books about Florence in preparation for out next day. I found out that I have 5 books that discuss Florence. I might have gone a it overboard but that's ok. I ended up going to bed a little early but woke up later when the two guys came back. One of them ended up snoring which sucked. I just can't get away from it. Another thing to mention about Florence is that it was quite a bit cooler there than London. Venice was the same way. Not good.