Italy and France 2007

Well, we have been seeing and doing so much that, gosh, we’ve been too exhausted to be blogging!  The photo above was taken in the Tuscan town of Montepulciano.

Tour guide and B+B owner Claudio showed us the best of Renaissance Rome on Tuesday and Archeological Rome on Wednesday.  He was truly worth his weight in gold on Thursday when we walked past the huge line waiting in the heat to enter the Vatican Museums.  We simply walked to the head of the line, entered a short queue to buy our tickets and voila, we had arrived.  No need to rent an audio guide as Claudio knew where to go to see the best of the best art, and was able to explain the history and significance of the masterpieces that waited in each room of what was the world’s first museum.

A bit of recent history: the Pope was in a state of limbo from the time Italy was unified into a single country in 1870 until Mussolini signed an agreement with the Pope in 1929.  That agreement created Vatican City as a sovereign country.  At about 120 acres, it is the smallest country in the world.  They even have their own postal system.  I bought a few Vatican stamps and sent some postcards from the post office there.  Besides the million plus Euros taken in daily from the Museum entry fee, and who knows how much more from souvenirs, the Vatican also does OK with people like me who buy stamps for mailing as well as for collecting.

We left Rome on Friday morning and traveled north to Tuscany.  We visited 3 little medieval towns located on hilltops in this hilly country that was very reminiscent of the rolling hills of California: Montepulciano, Pienza and Montalcino.  Tuscany is agricultural country, featuring various wines and cheeses.  The most famous cheese in this area is Pecorino, a pungent sheep’s cheese available fresh (fresco) or aged (secco).  The most famous wine is Brunello, a delicious but unusual red wine.

We visited a winery and got to talk about and drink wines with a German fellow who came by way of Venezuela!  He explained the intricacies of trying to create the very best Brunello using vineyards that dated back millennia.  His Brunello di Montalcino wine made it clear why winemaking is such an art in this part of the world.

Our meals have been consistently wonderful.  We had heard that the best Italian food in the world came from any such restaurant in Italy.  This has been delightfully true for us, and we had the most fun at a true neighborhood restaurant near our B+B in Rome.  Families, young lovers and elderly couples who all clearly lived in the area communed with us.  Our waitress was delightful in her excitement at our menu choices.  A place like this was the true essence of Italy.

We got another perspective on Italy from a conversation I had with a taxi driver as he drove us back to the B+B after dinner in a lively area of downtown Rome.  Speaking excellent English, he said he had gotten his degree in Political Science in 1998 but had been unable to get a job until he became a taxi driver.  He was very thankful for this job, but he longed to come to America since he felt that it was still the land of opportunity.  He described how too many people he knew were unable to get jobs since it took knowing someone on the inside to land a reasonable job, and that this also had the effect of keeping incompetent people employed while others with ambition were stuck in the unemployed line.  Even though it was a difficult conversation, I tried to give him whatever hope I could while visiting his beautiful country.

We  are now in Rome, having just finished our second day of non-stop touring.  The flight was long and tiring as we spent an extra two hours on the tarmac at O’Hare waiting out a typical Chicago thunderstorm.  We arrived in Rome at 10 am on Tuesday and hit the ground running with Claudio, our guide to this amazing, but overwhelming city.

The population of Rome is 2.6 million people.  The streets are filled with a multitude of cars and Vespas and LOTS of tourists.  Yesterday, the air was heavy and muggy to the point where it was difficult to breathe at times. Nonetheless, we managed several hours of site-seeing with stops at the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish steps, and Piazza del Popolo, among others.  All of this was on foot in the oppressive heat.  Still, it was fun, although all four us us fell asleep on the bus back to our B&B as the jetlag kicked in with a vengeance.

Today we took in the Roman section of town with a visit to the Forum, site of all public life during Roman times.  Those of you who enjoy your Shakespeare will remember the Forum as the site of Julius Caesar’s brutal murder and Mark Anthony’s “Friends, Romans, countymen…..” speech.  Unfortunately, I was also plagued with visions of Zero Mostel in a toga as I gazed at the sites.

The Colliseum was also on our list today.  Standing on the upper level one can look down and see the underground passages and cages which housed the animals used in combat with the gladiators.  Just to make the whole thing more challenging for the gladiators, the Romans would starve the lions, etc for a few days prior to the contest and hold them in the dark. Once a gladiator was in the arena, a trap door was opened and the half crazed animal would be released into the blinding light and the deafening roar of the crowd.  Fun!  Those Romans were a blood thirsty bunch, not unlike Americans in some respects.

All and all not a bad start.  The weather has improved. While still very warm, the humidity is markedly lower and we are now enjoying the soothing breezes of the Ponentino.

Ciao!

That is how long we have until the taxi comes by to take us to the airport.  True to form we are still packing; it’s 12:45 am and it’s beginning to look like sleep isn’t in the picture tonight.  This is the second all nighter in the last four days for me.  Elizabeth graduated from Saratoga High on Thursday and I volunteered to work the 9 pm to 6 am shift at the grad night party! 

We are flying to Rome where we will meet our guide, Claudio. He will show us around Rome and Tuscany before leaving us off in Florence.  From there we venture on our own to visit friends in Parma for a few days.  Finally, after a couple of days in Venice, we fly to Paris for five days before heading home on July 4.

Above is a photo of the Millennium Bridge across the Thames River, connecting the area next to the Tate Modern Museum (where this was taken) and Globe Theatre with the other side, including St. Paul’s Cathedral. The Tate Modern is housed in an old power plant facility. It is seven stories tall, and has some very tall rooms.

We went to the Tower of London yesterday. We started early enough to be able to cover it all without being rushed, and it takes a full day to see it all at a comfortable pace. The Bloody Tower was of particular interest since we visited York’s Richard III Museum last week, and have seen Shakespeare’s Richard III in Ashland and Santa Cruz. The Bloody Tower is the place where various killings have occurred over the years. The two young brothers Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, were said to have been smothered to death in this tower on orders of Richard III, although the authenticity of this allegation will never be known. The Tower included other wonderful sights such as a room with implements of torture that included a rack.

The history of the Tower includes a trail of blood, but it also encompasses the history of England. I last visited the Tower in the early 90s, but this visit was much richer and more informative due to the audio tour devices that we rented, as well as films that were shown in the Medieval Castle area.

Here is a photo of the Tower Bridge as viewed from one of the inner walls:

The weather has been a mixture of sun, clouds and rain. The rain has always been brief, and it has kept the temperatures very mild - perfect vacation weather.

We’ve been busy!  The flat we rented for the stay in London is on Berners St., right off Oxford St.  We are within easy walking distance of Soho, Piccadilly, the West End, Marylebone, etc.  It’s a wonderful location, and having the convenience of a kitchen and washer/dryer has been great.

The usual sites have all found a place on the itinerary, but I won’t list them here.  Our travel around town has been either on foot or the Underground.  One thing we have noticed is there are cameras all over London.  It seems like everytime I turned around in a tube station I was staring at myself on a monitor.  Oddly, yesterday at the British Museum, the security was amazingly lax.  No one asked to look in my bag, there were no metal detectors, nothing at all. 

Yesterday, we took a Beatles “Magical Mystery” walking tour and visited all the notable Beatles related sites, including the London Palladium, the recording studio where “Hey Jude” was recorded, Paul’s office (no we didn’t see him) and, of course, the famous Abbey Road Studios and crosswalk.  Check out the photo below:  unrehearsed and unchoreographed!

Today we’re off to visit the infamous Tower of London which has figured prominently in English history.  Perhaps we’ll see the ghosts of the young princes, supposedly murdered by Richard III in his ruthless quest for the throne, or at the very least, we can take a look at the crown jewels!