Liam's Version of "Play Like a Champion Today"

This sign hangs in the staircase leading to the Notre Dame tunnel and the Fighting Irish players touch it for good luck on their way out to the field:



This statue was on the staircase of our hotel in Florence and Liam had his own way of touching it for good luck:

Leaving Italy

No internet access this past week.

Flying home tomorrow. Everyone is sad.

Will fill in posts when we get back.

The trip has been fantastico.

New Posts

Today is our last day in Florence. The Lestina's are here; Jenny and Liam ran into Tom, Jack and Abby at the top of Il Duomo's bell tower. Diane was shopping. We're all heading out to dinner together tonight.

Ali, Dylan and Tim took a side trip via al treni to Pisa. See post below.

We've also just put up several other random posts, about food, St. Peter's, new Italian words we've created, and Dylan's favorite quote (thanks Borat).

Tomorrow we're off to Montalcino for the day and we'll be at Villa Capanne by dinner time.

Ciao!

Ali's Side Trip

Today Alison, Dylan and Tim took a little side trip from Florence to go see the ONE sight Alison had her heart set on seeing while in Italy: the Leaning Tower of Pisa! Here they are:

The three of us headed out from Florence on the 10:57 train. We arrived in Pisa about 75 minutes later at this little train station a few blocks from the Piazza del Duomo and the world’s most famous bell tower (campanile). The grounds and the Duomo itself are impressive, even when packed with tourists.

And the tower itself is just amazing:

After our photo shoot, we stopped for a quick panini at a bar down the street, walked across the street for a gelato (granita for Ali) and headed back to the train station. It was a fun little trip.

Alison Asks, Dad Responds

Alison: How about a little shnaglatte?

Tim: How about a shnagaccino instead?

We're getting this language thing down....

Our First Dinner in Rome

We took our first piece of dinner advice from Sandra Gustafson’s Great Eats Italy and went to Al Fontanone (http://www.alfontanone.com/) in Trastevere (literally, “across the river”), which is something like the Berkeley of Rome. Al Fantonone seems like a little hole in the wall kind of place, but has a great outdoor terrace across a narrow street out front. We decided to wander around the neighborhood for about an hour or so and settled into our table on the terrace just after 8. The terrace adjoins a small piazza which is bordered on one side by the main road that runs along the Tiber. It seems the main hub of activity in the neighborhood, packed with sidewalk vendors and students hanging out in front of the 3 or 4 bars that open onto the piazza.

We started our dinner with antipasti misto, a mixed plate of appetizers which included a wonderful mashed potato with tomato and onion, that while sounding rather plain actually tasted quite exotic. We also had the first of what would become a regular appetizer: prosciutto and melon. We have not had a bad piece of melon while in Italy….each one seems sweeter, colder and more refreshing than the last. Finally, we had the Roman version of the Bloomin’ Onion….except it was a fried whole artichoke, described by our host as artichoke Jewish style, from the Jewish quarter of Rome. (Trastevere is “across the river” from the Jewish quarter). It was delicious. Could we build a chain of restaurants around the Bloomin’ Artichoke?

Our first course include Penne Arriabiato for Dylan, his new favorite pasta. Tim had Fettucine al Fantonone, which was with mushrooms and Liam had ravioli stuffed with spinach. Each was more sublime than the next. Jenny and Ali decided to skip the primi piatti to save room for secondi piatti. Jenny had a house specialtiy, Vignarola while Alison and Dylan had their second pizze of the day: margherita and con salame. Tim had a delicious baked lamb (not the whole lamb) and Liam had veal piccata.

As if that weren’t enough, Jenny and Liam each finished their meal with Tiramisu (Liam has not found a better one, but he’s tried!). Tim enjoyed Vin Santo with biscotti and Dylan had some lemon sorbet.

After dinner, we decided to walk into Rome across the bridge to seek out a gelateria recommended by Ms. Gustafson. Can’t recall what we each had, but it lived up to they hype. Wherelse but Rome do you have dinner, dessert and THEN go find gelati??

We love Sandra Gustafson (thanks Michael for the tip).

Dylan Channels Borat

"Give me your tears, gypsy, or I will take them."

Bird's Eye View of Roma

We took the elevator up as far as it would go and began hiking up to the top of the basilica dome. You can actually walk around the inside of the dome at the level where the dome starts to curve. The wide open space and long drop to the floor of the basilica is a bit scary.

From there you continue to climb up the inside of the dome wall, around the dome to the cupola at the top. The passage is steep and narrow, so not for the claustrophobic or those with a heart condition. But when you get to the top, the view is truly amazing and you immediately forget every painful step it took to get you there. Hmm, there is some life lesson in there somewhere. Here is the view from the top:

First visit to San Pietro

We walked over to St. Peter’s after dropping our bags at the hotel (and getting gelati) to check it out. We were somewhat dazed and confused after not sleeping much on the flight over. On first view, the piazza, Bernini’s colonnade and Michaelangelo’s dome are overwhelming. In person and up close, the scale is just unbelievable.

Ice Cream and Fashion

Two quick posts with photos below about ice cream and fashion. More thoughtful (?) posts to come later, with details on Roma and food and Firenze. Ciao!

GELATI!

OK, you've heard about it, you know you want it, gelati!

First gelato of our trip was right after we checked into our hotel at this little place across the street:

Here's the best place in Roma:

Two major gelati consumers in Roma this week:

Best gelati server in Roma, Franco at the Cut Gem Caffe:

Best place in Firenze:

Three biggest gelati consumers in Firenze this week:

The Death of Italian Fashion?

We all know that Italy is a center of design and renown for trend-setting fashions. But we’ve discovered a hot Italian trend in men’s fashion that we hope never crosses the Atlantic. The thought of American men wandering around the streets of Washington or New York or Des Moines dressed in these is scary indeed:

Man Capris!

Seriously, every third guy we see is wearing these things. We’ve even seen men wearing regular pants with the bottoms rolled up to Capri-length! Yikes!

Dylan models the new fashion….

Benvenuto/Arrivederci a Roma/Benvenuto a Firenze

OK, getting access to the web is not really the issue in Italy....it's finding the time! It has been a hectic 4 days since our arrival. So, this post is a quick....very quick....recap and I'll try to fill in the holes during the next few days since life will be slower here in Firenze and we'll have more time to post. (Not to mention that the internet hot spot is right across the street from our hotel!) Here we go....

Saturday: arrived in Roma about 8:30 a.m. No one got much sleep on the plane, prompting Dylan to coin a new nickname, first applied to Ali, but we've all earned it at one point or another during the weekend: cranky yankee.

After an exciting shuttle ride to Hotel Alimandi, we dropped our bags and headed over to St. Peter's square for a little orienteering. It is stunning from first view. Our hotel is one block from the Vatican museum (home of the Sistine Chapel) and we get our first glimpse of the 2,3 or 4 hour line to get in (depending on whom you ask). Our concierge tells us the best time to get in line is around noon and if you get in line then, you MIGHT get in by the time they close at 4:45. We decide that maybe we won't see the Sistine chapel on this trip after all.

Sunday, July 8

Alison wakes up at 6:10 a.m. Ugh.

Delightful breakfast prepared by Francesco (the breakfast chef) on the rooftop terrace of our hotel.

Mass at St. Peter's at 9 a.m. Got right in, no line. (More people in line Saturday afternoon just to take pictures inside of the Basilica than in line to go to Mass on Sunday. Gotta love the Catholics.)

After Mass we toured the Basilica museum of treasures. More on this later. We got in for free (saving 45 Euros) becuase Tim translated "brochures" for the desk clerk at the museum.

Then it was up to al cupola. 320 steps (after the elevator). Unbelievable views of the Eternal city. Worth every painstaking step. Oh, but we found out the camera was broken. More on this below.

Leaving St. Peter's we caught the tail end of the Pope's Sunday morning blessing. We saw him from his window just as he was ending the blessing. The crowd went crazy.

Sunday afternoon....metro ride to the Colloseum and Palatine Hill. Very hot. Thanks to a tip from Jenny's dental hygenist, we got our tix at the Palatine Hill office, saving about an hour wait at the Colosseum. After climbing around the Colosseum, we headed back to our hotel for showers....peeyew did we stink.

Monday, July 9

Liam, Jenny & Tim head back to St. Peter's for the Scavi tour. This is a private tour provided by the Vatican of the excavations BELOW the area where the Popes are buried. There is much to say about this experience in a later post. Extremely powerful and we learned what is REALLY in the bronze box marking in the area dedicated to St. Peter on the floor above (spoiler alert: it's not St. Peter).

Monday afternoon: Spanish Steps, Pantheon, Piazza Navona and Santa Maria del Vittoria (home to Bernini's masterpiece The Ecstasy of St. Theresa of Avila). Amazing. Closed the afternoon with the best gelato in Rome at Giolitti.

Tuesday (today): Liam and Tim back to St. Peter's for more pics. Sistine chapel line seemed to be the shortest today, probably only 2.5 hours long! Visited the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament and also went to mass in the Chapel of San Giuseppe. Liam took some great pics with the new camera. This afternoon we took the train to Firenze and checked in to Hotel Burchianti. We have a beautiful 17th century fresco on the ceiling in our room!

OK, here's the deal on the (old) camera: it broke. Won't download pictures. SO, we bought a new camera, but of course, the memory cards from the original camera don't fit the new one....AAAGGHHHH. Hopefully tomorrow we'll get this all straightened out and get some pics posted on this blog.

Here's one to whet your appetite from the new camera. More on food, sites, etc to come....

See you later Cody!

We're here in Newark airport awaiting our 6 pm flight and an alarm just sounded. Someone tripped a fire alarm or something. Hopefully we'll still leave on time.

Left home this morning around 10:30. Uneventful trip to the airport. Kids gave Cody a kiss and a hug, we packed the car and we were off!

Next report from Roma.....

Off to Italy

Tomorrow we're off to Italy for two weeks in Roma, Firenze and Umbria. We'll be experimenting with travel blogging while we're there and maybe even post something worth reading. First stop is Rome (Saturday through Tuesday), then Florence (through next Saturday morning), a one-day stop in Montalcino on our way to Umbria, where we'll join up with the Lestina and Leonard families for a week in this beautiful villa. Stay tuned!