The T3sk3y Defenestrator

When we left Florence on Thanksgiving evening, we only had about a 60 minute journey to get to Siena. We quickly found the free parking lot in the shadow of the Fortezza only to find it extremely full. As I moved to pull in to the lone open parking spot, a child jumped out of a nearby car that was also trying to get that spot. The kid ran right into the spot and stood there to ‘reserve’ it. The problem was that the car he was reserving it for wasn’t even in the correct row to take it. So, I started pulling in while giving a couple of menacing revs of the accelerator – and the spot was mine.

The stairs down to Alma Domus

We checked in to Alma Domus – a hotel run by the sisters from the same order as St. Catherine. In fact, it’s located right next to her original house. Though pretty spartan, it was well-located with a good view of the old city. We dropped our bags and set out into the city to get our Thanksgiving dinner.

Taverna San Giuseppe – the site of our Thanksgiving Dinner

Our dinner that night was at Taverna San Giuseppe – a cool grotto-like restaurant located up a hill from Il Campo. We almost didn’t get in because we didn’t have reservations – but as long as we promised to be out by the second seating, they’d serve us. We got placed at a table with another group of Americans – and after a round of Happy Thanksgiving toasts, we dove in to dinner. Mine was a spiral pasta with wild boar and cheese sauce followed by the ‘mixed grill’. I’m sure the pasta was delicious – but I didn’t get to eat much. William decided it was great and that’s the last I saw of it.

Friday was spent touring Siena. After a couple of false starts with breakfast that started with a really over-sweet creamy pastry and ended with a prosciutto sandwich, we made it to the Duomo. We shouldn’t have been surprised – Rick Steves warned us that the Sieniese take their breakfast as seriously as going to the dentist. It was impossible to find good breakfast there!

The view of Alma Domus – located below and right of the Church of San Domenico

In Italy, it seems like the Sistine Chapel gets ALL the love. Personally – I hate the Sistine Chapel, but I’ll save that rant for when we get to Rome. In my book, the Duomo at Siena with the awesome Piccolomini Library is the real E-ticket ride. It’s spectacular beyond words – and the industrious Sieniese only completed about a fourth of their original plan. I’ve even seen it before (in 2002) – and it still blows me away.

The interior of the Duomo in Siena

We spent the morning touring the Duomo, and the Duomo museum where we climbed the wall of the unfinished nave. I always try to climb to the high points in town – and this was a new one. This actually got me out of climbing the Torre del Magnia – and we got some great shots.

A family portrait overlooking Siena

Lunch was had on Il Campo at Bar Il Palio – named after the famous horse race that happens twice a year in the same square. All I really remember about lunch that day was a very average sandwich with a bowl of pretty good Tuscan bean soup. The view of Il Campo is great, however.

The Palazzo Communale located on Il Campo

After a tour of the Baptistry at the Duomo, we needed to find a laundromat. Fortunately, one was located just a block away from Il Campo. We took an hour of downtime there and ran a quick load through so we had some clean clothes. There’s simply no way to travel for two weeks with a 1-year-old without doing laundry. We had actually dropped some laundry at a dry cleaner earlier that day not knowing if we’d find a laundromat – but when we found it would be 45 Euro to do one bag, we only left the essentials. Another crappy deal was when we learned what William’s third new word would be (after “Thank You” and “Doggy”) – it was “GUCK!” and he used it frequently in the laundromat. When we caught a whiff of his bouquet, we knew instantly what “GUCK” meant.

William and Heather killing time in the laundromat – pre-GUCK

Dinner was simple and fast – we had to stop for an ever-present Doner Kabab. That’s a gyro to my fellow Americans. We got ‘em to go and ate them back in the room while William entertained us with his juggling prowess. Shortly after eating, we discovered that mom left her backpack at the kebab stand. There was nothing of actual value in it – but it’s inconvenient to lose things while traveling. Almost unbelievably – it was still there when we went back.

I wrapped up the night with a trip to the Gelateria to get my new favorite combo – Bacio with Coconut. It’s pretty much an Almond Joy in a cup. I took my yummy snack to the internet cafe’ so I could finalize lodging arrangements with our host in Rome. I left him a bunch of questions with a promise to return to check my messages the next night before heading back to Alma Domus to retire for the evening.

Next up – our road trip to Assisi.

See all the Italy 2007 pictures over at my SmugMug account right here: link

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While digging through some old photo boxes, I came across a funny collection of old pictures from the late-90′s that I had to scan and post.� It was a bunch of pictures from my weekend warrior wedding singer days that needed to see the light of day again.� At this point in my life, I was playing 45+ weekends a year – many of which were 3 or 4 day weekends.� It was a fun time – but I didn’t have much of a life outside of the band.

Jammin’ with the BORN Bombers

Here are some of the best shots from that era.� I’ve got pictures from all four bands I played in at one time or another:

• The Great Impostors
• The Classic Renowns
• The BORN Bombers
• Fat Rudy

Check ‘em out over at SmugMug: link

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Venice is about history. Cinque Terre is about nature. Florence.. is about art. So.. that’s a large portion of “what’s to do” in Florence. After eating a continental breakfast in our hotel, we set off for the Accademia Gallery to see Michaelangelo’s “David“. Since we were centrally located near the Duomo, it was a short walk to get there – including my not normally questionable navigation.

I have to confess.. I’m not the world’s biggest art connoisseur outside of portraiture. Being that photography wasn’t invented for a few hundred years after the Renaissance – I’d see nothing but sculpture and painting. Apparently if you are in to it, you can derive great meaning from the expression of the paintings and how their hands are positioned – but they all kind of look the same to me. The art at the Accademia is no exception. The star of the show is the “Big Nude Dude” himself – David. Since I’ve already heard the tale of how his enlarged hand represents the hand of God – or maybe Michaelangelo just blew his proportions – I could just stand there and think:

Damn, that is one big statue.

Yeah, I’m a heathen when it comes to art. It’s still interesting to see in a “when in Rome (or Florence)” mindset, though.

After the Accademia, we stopped at a little hole in the wall called “La Mescita Fiaschetteria” for sandwiches and pasta. I had one of my favorites, porketta. William got to try a new favorite – cingale. That’s “Wild Boar” for the English crowd. I do have to admit that we didn’t know it was wild boar pasta before we ordered it – we just though it was pasta with red sauce.

La Mescita Fiaschetteria

In the afternoon, we made our way to one of my favorite stops in Florence – the leather markets of the San Lorenzo market. I really didn’t plan on buying anything – but darn if I didn’t come home with a nice brown leather jacket. It’s good fun – but you have to ignore lots of empty complements and boasts about the quality of their water buffalo jackets.

Shopping for leather at the San Lorenzo street market

On the way to the Duomo from the market, we stopped at a baby clothing store with some of the most unique and interesting baby clothing that I’ve seen. It was a challenge to not buy the store out – little William would have been the most stylish 1-year-old in Chaska! We escaped with just a few things including several gifts for others.

Next up was the Duomo – the gigantic Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral. We made it in for about a half-hour before it closed for the evening. For as grand as it was on the outside, the inside is fairly plain – except for the dome. It’s pretty spectacular. Because we weren’t allowed to bring tripods in to the cathedral, I improvised and invented the “Willypod”. I wrapped my Joby Gorillapod around the handle of William’s stroller and was able to take some long exposure indoor shots.

The interior of the Duomo as seen from the entrance

Dinner that night was at the “Ristorante Paoli“. It was described in our guidebook as “wonderful local cuisine served to cheerful eaters by jolly little old men under a richly frescoed Gothic vault”. I gotta say – that about summed it up. We started with their magnificent antipasto and salad, then moved on to our main dishes. I hate to admit that I don’t remember what we had to eat that night. It was good – but I think a bit unremarkable.

After dinner, we made our second gelato stop of the day. Earlier, we stopped at the spectacular “Grom” – where the selections are made on-site and organically. It was fantastic! There were a few varieties that we couldn’t identify – like something that looked like tomato and tasted vaguely citrus-y. It was so good, we went there for dessert after dinner.

The next day was Thanksgiving Day back home – and our last day in Florence. We intended to start the day with a trip to the highly regarded Duomo museum – but discovered when we arrived that it was closed for renovation. Instead, we swung by Dante’s house – which turned out to be less than a block from our hotel. Hmm.. wonder if it was hot in there? We headed down to the Arno River and headed toward Ponte Vecchio – a historic covered bridge now lined with jewelery shops.

Ponte Vecchio

After that, we went to the nearby Uffizi Gallery for another art fix. Every guide book says to get advanced tickets for the Uffizi. We failed to heed that advice and got stuck in a long line. And – like last trip – didn’t end up going to see it. Instead, we hiked over to the much more interesting Basilica of Santa Croce that was a few blocks from there. That was a great stop.. many famous Florentines are spending eternity in Santa Croce. The tomb of Galileo is there, the tomb of Machiavelli is there – and the tomb of Michaelangelo is there.

The Basilica of Santa Croce – resting place of many famous Florentines

On the way out of town, we had a Thanksgiving lunch of – pizza. We scooped up our luggage, got a little more gelato, and went back to the leather markets to buy some belts. After a little haggling in the rain, we made our purchases and tried to find where we left the car two days before. Our navigation was spot-on – we found the car on the first try. We loaded up our little blue wagon, paid the parking, and headed off for Siena.

See the rest of my pictures on my SmugMug site here: link

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Pisa – home of that famous architectural blunder The Leaning Tower of Pisa. I’ve always been told in no uncertain terms “Don’t bother going there”. This time, we decided to ignore that advice and see it anyway since we’d have to go almost right through it driving from the Cinque Terre to Florence. For the most part – there really isn’t much to see aside from the tower. It’s made that much more charming by dozens of sleazy vendors trying to push all manner of junky trinkets at you. Little cars that beep and open and close their doors seemed to be the rage this year. I was also very disappointed not to see a “Leaning Tower of Pizza” anywhere near there.

Hey – that tower isn’t straight!

Actually, it was pretty cool to see – for about an hour. We got there at dusk, snapped some pictures and walked around the site – then returned to the car and headed for Florence.

Driving from Pisa to Florence took a little over an hour and was uneventful. Once we reached Florence, things got very eventful. We made the key mistake of blindly following Rick Steve’s directions to parking in Florence. They went something like this:

Drive in to town on the freeway and take one of the exits. I like Florence Sud. Look for the signs that say “Stadio” and follow them. Park in the municipal ramp. Oh, and be careful not to accidentally drive in to the city center – you’ll be charged 100 Euro.

Not very specific, is it? It also omits the warning about how hard it is to see the dark brown “Stadio” signs at night when they are ten feet up on a pole. It also wasn’t very specific about where the city center boundary was. Ultimately – we found the ramp after a fairly stressful hour of naviguessing our way through rush hour traffic.

We had planned on taking a bus to the area around our hotel (Albergo Firenze) – but we realized it wasn’t a long walk to get there. That walk would also take us right through the historic city center and past the Duomo.

Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) in Florence

Since our last meal was in Monterosso al Mare about 8 hours before, we were starving by the time we got checked in to our hotel. One of Rick Steves’ recommended eateries that didn’t require reservations was only a few short blocks away – and we had one of his handy dandy pencil maps to show us the way.

By 10:00 (when the restaurant closed), we still hadn’t found it. Rick isn’t good at labeling all streets – and this was located on one of the unlabeled streets. This turned out to be one of our luckiest breaks! We stumbled in to a wood-fired pizzeria that was open late and only served three types of pizza – Margherita, one with anchovies (Neapolitan), and one other type. It turned out to be the best pizza we had the entire trip – and we ate a lot of pizza! It might have been the 10 hours between meals – but we all devoured our Margherita pizzas and returned home to retire for the evening.

Next up – Two days in Firenze!

See all pictures on my SmugMug account here: link

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As a ‘make myself a better photographer’ exercise – or maybe just a ‘burn up the free time that I don’t already have’ exercise, I’ve decided to try a ‘Project365‘.� What’s a Project365?� It’s a photo a day – every day.� The idea is that on January 1, 2009 – I can look back at my year and see a little snippet of what happened.� It also has the side benefit of making a person be more creative – I will get bored quickly and try something new.

So – for the next 363 days, I’ll be placing updates in a Project365 album on my SmugMug account.� I won’t get ‘em online daily – I’m hoping for 2-3 times / week.� If you see me falling behind without good explanation – I hereby give you permission to mock me, hassle me, or whatever public ridicule seems appropriate.

Does anybody want to join me?� It’ll be a lot more fun than losing weight!

Here’s a link to my Project365 album: link

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