Because Delta changed their schedule so many times, we ended up on an 11:00am flight out of Minneaplis even though our flight to Rome out of Cincinnati wasn't until 7:30pm. Uncle Randy and Aunt Maryellen picked us up around 8:30am so we could be to the airport by 9:00am. Once there, we were through checkin in 5 minutes. Typical. We had two hours to kill before getting on our Delta MD-88 to Cincinnati.
In Cincinnati, we had even more time to kill waiting for Marilyn's plane. However, our choice of a long layover versus the 40-minute one Delta originally gave us was justified when Marilyn's plane from Milwaukee was an hour late. We got dinner, walked around a lot, and killed time before our flight [ 1, 2 ].
Our flight over the ocean (on a Delta B-767) was uneventful. The food was decent, and even Ken slept (aided by a long week at work before leaving).
We landed in Rome around 10:30am local time. Mark met us outside the customs area (he's easy to spot, being taller than the average Italian), and we took the train to Termini station in the center of Rome. Once there, we decided to take the 15-minute walk to Mark's apartment rather than the subway [ 1, 2, 3 ].
We got the "grand tour" of Mark's apartment, ate some lunch, started some laundry (with only four shirts and two pants packed, you do laundry when you can), and then went for a short walk around Mark's apartment before getting dinner [ 1, 2 ].
One interesting thing about Europe is where you find restaurants. For instance, you can walk outside Mark's apartment and travel only 15 feet before finding one. We had a huge 3-course dinner with a mix-and-match set of traditional appetizers, and we learned lesson #1 about eating in Italy: you don't have to finish your plate on the early courses (save room for the later ones).
Amazingly, we both slept the entire night through, except for about two hours in the middle. We woke up around 7:00am, well rested, and that was our entire battle with jet lag. Much better than the last time.
Our trip started "for real" with an 8:50am train from Termini station to Venice [ 1 ]. The train took about four hours, and we were fairly hungry when we got off. First order of business was food. We hopped on a vaporetto (water bus) and took it to the Rialto. Then, we found some pretty good pizza nearby before heading off to find our hotel.
The hotel turned out to be pretty nice [ 1, 2 ]. It was a two-level suite with a double bed and bathroom downstairs and two twin beds upstairs.
Once we settled in to the hotel, it was too late to do any particular sights, so we just went for a walk to get a feel for the place. We walked down to St. Mark's Square and up the waterfront [ 1, 2 ] before diving into a "real" neighborhood for a little while [ 1, 2, 3 ]. Unfortunately, this was about the time Julie began to develop the blisters that would plague her for the rest of the trip. Good thing we brought along moleskin.
The next morning, we ate breakfast at the hotel. Breakfast was included, and it was pretty good — muesli, rolls, honey, coffee, yogurt, fruit, etc. We loaded up.
We decided to spend our first full day in Venice on Murano Island, someplace Julie and Ken didn't have a chance to see the last time they were in Venice. We hopped another vaporetto for an hour-long ride to the island [ 1, 2, 3 ]. A transfer in the middle to be transported by bus to another boat stop caught us by surprise, but it was a chance to see a different part of the island.
Murano has traditionally been known for its glass works, and our first stop was the glass museum, which was pretty interesting [ 1, 2, 3 ].
After leaving the museum, we bought lunch at a deli (100g of this, 100g of that, etc.) and fended off the pigeons while we ate. It was a really good lunch [ 1, 2 ]. Then, we walked around the island some and got to see a glass-making demonstration [ 1, 2, 3 ]. We were tempted to buy some things in the shop, but decided not to since we'd have to carry them for 3 weeks. The glassmaker couldn't speak English, but he tried talking to us anyway.
After that, we stopped on a few other smaller islands on our way back to the main island. One stop was the Venetian cemetery, and another was a church which was almost submerged in water [ 1, 2 ]. On our way back, we got to see one of the large tour ships leaving — along with its horde of tourists.
When we got back, we went through the Doge's palace and its museum, which is always enjoyable [ 1, 2 ]. On the way back, we walked through St. Mark's Square again [ 1, 2 ].
We decided to try something different and went out for a fresh seafood dinner at a place recommended in Rick Steves' book. First course was very interesting. Mark and Julie split a bowl of "black pasta" (squid ink?), a regional specialty. Ken and Marilyn split a spaghetti marinara dish which (surprise!) contained lots of mussels and clams in the shell. Then, Ken and Mark had tuna filets while Marilyn and Julie had fish served whole on their plates — head, tail and all. It was a very good meal.
After dinner, we splurged on a nighttime gondola ride (picked up near the Accademia bridge) [ 1 ]. Then, as if our day hadn't been long enough (!) we stopped by St. Mark's Square again to see what it looked like at night [ 1, 2 ].
The next morning, we started our day by snapping some pictures of the hotel room from the outside (wave at Julie!) [ 1, 2 ].
Then, we headed over to the Correr museum, which is in St. Mark's square right near the Doge's palace. Here, we found a manual of mechanical engineering, a woodcutting showing Venice's traffic lanes, and Julie made friends with a large foot [ 1, 2, 3 ].
After lunch, we toured St. Mark's itself. This was much easier than our last time there, since it wasn't raining, but the square was still flooded. At Mark's suggestion, paid the few euro to go up to the balcony [ 1, 2, 3, 4 ]. This was well worth it. We took a break on the roof in the shade while Marilyn and Mark paid to go up the tower across the square, which didn't interest us. While resting, we saw perhaps the strangest sight of our trip: a seagull attacking and carrying off a pigeon. Odd.
We met back up and walked over to the Ca' Rezzonico museum on the grand canal, which was kind of fun [ 1 ]. The museum was in an old palace, so we got to see both what a "trader prince's" palace would look like as well as furnishings and artwork that would have been in similar places.
For dinner, we got pizza at a little place right under the Accademia bridge [ 1 ]. After dinner, we walked some more and Ken got some good pictures of the Rialto at night [ 1 ].
Today, our last day in Venice, we split up. Mark and Marilyn went to see the Accademia museum, while we took the vaporetto around to see a few sights instead (we didn't want to get tired of Renaissance art yet). We went to pay for the hotel and dropped our bags off with the desk so we wouldn't have to carry them.
We would have seen a lot more, if it weren't for poor vaporetto signage. It turns out that just because a "bus" number is on a stop, it doesn't mean that bus stops there. We lost about an hour waiting for a bus that never arrived.
Eventually, though, we did get across the lagoon and find the church we were looking for [ 1, 2, 3 ]. Then, we hopped another vaporetto and went further down the shore (we couldn't walk from the church), where we walked around and caught lunch at a cafe [ 1, 2 ].
While there, we saw another strange sight: a huge cargo boat pulled up to a tall bridge (bow-first!), someone hopped off over the railing, and the boat pulled back and kept station in the lagoon. A few minutes later, the person who hopped off came back with lunch and the boat picked him up the same way.
On our way back to the hotel to pick up our bags, we ran into Marilyn and Mark eating lunch on the other side of the lagoon. After picking up our bags, we decided to walk to the train station rather than taking the vaporetto, which gave us a chance to see some parts of Venice that were completely new to us. (We were glad to have packed lightly for this walk.)
Once back at the train station, we met up with Marilyn and Mark for the 3-hour train ride to Florence.
In Florence, we walked 15 minutes from the train station to Casa Rabatti, a homey place which was unlike anywhere we had stayed before [ 1, 2, 3, 4 ].
Dinner was also memorable. We got fried dough as we sat down (local specialty?), and then Mark and Ken had a Florentine-style steak, which was quite good. We also got our first introduction to the traditional Italian after-dinner drinks (often complimentary), such as grappa. Plus, we got a little scammed into ordering a traditional Florentine Raisin Cake for dessert along with our Tira Misu, which would have been quite good if the raisins didn't have seeds. Eh, at least the espresso was good.
We went to the Uffizi gallery during our first morning in Florence. Because we were smart (or rather, Mark was), we had 9:00am reservations and got to completely skip the lines [ 1 ]. (Some tourists who don't read their guidebooks wait 3+ hours to get in.)
This museum was kind of exhausting, but worth it. The top floor is all art, mostly Renaissance and earlier, plus a lot of sculpture. We spent all morning on that floor before getting lunch at the overpriced cafe [ 1, 2, 3 ].
The highlight for us, however, was the modern Leonardo da Vinci exhibit on the ground floor. This covered the range of da Vinci's work from painting to architecture. One of the most fascinating exhibits was about a large cast metal horse that da Vinci had planned to make. The molding process actually had a control system to manage the flow of the molten metal into the mold. Along the way, hot metal would set off gunpowder charges that would open various furnace doors. Very cool.
After leaving Uffizi, we walked by the Duomo (cathedral), but decided not to go in [ 1, 2, 3, 4 ]. Then, because we wanted to avoid museums, we walked to the gardens outside Pitti palace. These were large and provided a great view of the city [ 1, 2, 3 ]. Along the way, we had to avoid dangerous trees [ 1 ] , and Ken also made friends with a cat who arrived out of nowhere. Then, on our way to dinner, we took some pictures over the river [ 1, 2 ].
Dinner was memorable, but not in a good way. It came highly recommended by Rick Steves', but when we got there, we were seated and then completely ignored for almost a half hour (no wine, no water, no nothing, couldn't even get anyone's attention). The food was pretty good — including fried dough that was better than the night before — but we left feeling kind of ripped off. On the other hand, Julie did get a chance to try curry pasta in Italy, which was sort of interesting.
We started Saturday morning with a visit to the Accademia museum, home of Michelangelo's David [ 1 ]. This museum was smaller than Uffizi, but just as interesting. In addition to David, it had a number of unfinished Michelangelo sculptures [ 1 ]. Looking at these, you can really understand how Michelangelo described sculpting as releasing the sculpture from the stone.
Later, we visited the Duomo [ 1, 2, 3 ]. Since Julie was beginning to get a headache, we took a break while Mark and Marilyn took a short tour beneath the church.
After seeing the Duomo, we headed over to Santa Croce Church. From the outside, this didn't look like much [ 1 ], so we weren't initially sure it was worth the admission. Boy, were we wrong. As a whole, it was probably more interesting than the Duomo. The church was plain on the inside, but we got to see several alter "tychs" on display in situ — up until now, we had only looked at these things in museums [ 1, 2, 3 ]. There were also a lot of famous tombs, including Galileo, Dante, Machiavelli, and Michelangelo [ 1, 2, 3, 4 ]. Then, we also explored the square outside the church, including a chapel [ 1, 2, 3, 4 ]. Finally, we looked around some interesting tombs which were partially under the square [ 1, 2 ]. (Actually, we hid there from a herd of marauding tourists off some bus — good thing we hit the bathroom before they arrived.)
On our way back to the hotel, we passed through the Duomo square and ran into a Chianti-related parade (celebrating the wine harvest or something). That was kind of neat, with drums, flags and even black-powder guns [ 1, 2, 3 ].
Unfortunately, as we were walking around after this, Julie started to feel pretty sick. We took her back to the hotel to sleep it off, and Ken, Mark, and Marilyn went looking for dinner. We ended up getting lost, and instead of eating where we intended, we just had pizza (which was actually pretty good). We brought some back for Julie, who had mostly recovered by the time we got back.