Italy part II -- Florence

A quick train ride from Rome and we were in Florence (Firenza). The first thing you notice is that there are statues everywhere! The most famous is Michelangelo's David, which is housed in the Accademia museum but a copy is on display in it's original location in the Piazza della Signoria. The viewing experience in the museum is quite nice, you really have time to admire the statue, unlike the crowded, noisy experience of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. But back on the streets you can barely turn around without seeing some sort of statue or architectural element, which means it's never boring even if you make the same journey many times like we did.

Pictured: David (copy, at night), Statue at the Orsanmichele church, Monument to the heroes of Mentana

The buildings that define the skyline are the Duomo cathedral, the Campanile belltower, and the fortress-like Palazzo Vecchio. The marble-guilded churches are quite unique; the inside of the duomo is quite plain except for the painted dome.

Pictured: Duomo, Campanile, Palazzo Vecchio

A short walk across the famous bridge, Ponte Vecchio, brings you to the church of Santa Maria del Carmine. A fire in 1771 all but destroyed the church, but miraculously the Capella Brancacci and it's frescos were spared. Started in 1424 by Masolino and Masaccio, the frescos depict the life of St. Peter and is also famous for the depictions of Adam and Eve before and after being expelled from the Garden of Eden. A counterpoint to the horror of the expulsion is the touch of humor of the sleeping soldier. Also at the church is a fresco of the Last Supper, which like many medieval paintings included cats at the foot of the table ... likely meant as an evil representation due to a cat's independent spirit (as opposed to a dog's loyalty).






Pictured: Adam & Eve (before/Masolino, after/Masaccio), sleeping soldier, cats from the Last Supper


One of our favorite statues was this fountain near San Lorenzo. Reminds us of the monkeys from The Wizard of Oz!



We were really surprised at the numbers of Americans we saw & heard -- on the train, in cyber cafes, and at the art school. There's even an English-language theater company, and we took the opportunity to celebrate the holiday season with a performance of "The Reindeer Monologues." It was pretty funny to hear a wide variety of accents tackling a farce about dissension among Santa's reindeer.


Florence is filled with small alleys/streets and you never know what you'll find when you venture down one. On the south side of the river we were drawn by a unique metal dragon. Inside the shop an old man was metalworking, and his friend offered to let us into his workshop to see some of this creations. He pointed to a board of pictures from San Francisco ... turns out that a rich visitor to Florence saw his work and paid for the artist to go to San Fran and design/build a custom metal staircase. We really liked some of his animal sculptures but got cold feet about asking prices. Florence's association with metalworking is also evident in the jewelery shops on the Ponte Vecchio bridge. The bridge is famous for men who declare their love by putting a lock on the lightpost and throwing away the key as an expression of everlasting love.

Florence was definitely one of our all-time favorite stops, not only because of the art but because of the people, the culture, and the food! We'll talk about our culinary adventures in a separate chapter.

Italy part I -- Rome

To say that Italians are passionate people is the understatement of the century. Our tourist experience started with a common Italian sight -- temper! We took a van from the airport to our hotel in downtown Rome. We were barely five minutes on the highway when a car cut us off. With little concern for the 6 passengers, the van driver sped up and harassed the offending driver for what seemed to be 10 minutes by pulling up beside him, rolling down his window, and yelling something that we can only guess we shouldn't repeat here. Once we realized we weren't going to die we found the whole experience hilarious.

Pictured: R&R on the Open Bus in front of St. Peter, the "Wedding Cake" (Il Vittoriano), Trevi Fountain ("3 Coins in a Fountain" fame)

One of our favorite ways to explore a city is by the tourist or "open" bus tour. These double-decker buses let you hop on and off as you tour the major sites. One night we were on the last bus intending to ride back toward our hotel, but halfway through the ride Rich needed to "use the facilities" which are not available on the bus. We were forced to jump off and wouldn't you know it, there wasn't anywhere convenient close by! Just before total panic set in, we saw a combination bookstore/wine bar. As Rich ran for the little boys' room, Rochelle sat down and started a conversation with the bartender and her single patron. Turns out the customer was a Canadian living in Rome who knew seven different languages (but refused to learn Dutch because he thought it was a useless language). He was trying to score with the pretty bartender, who was working her second job ... turns out her first was (of course) an actress and she had a recurring role on an Italian sitcom. It was an enjoyable diversion and it just goes to show that sometimes good things come from bad situations.

Pictured: cats in the Largo di Torre Argentina, starlings in masse above Vatican City, Palazzo Navona

The sights in Rome are incredible -- every time you turn a corner there's another fountain, church, or ruin. One of the things you don't see a lot of is wildlife. Unless you count pigeons (on every fountain & statue), starlings (which do put on a good show when they fly in formation), and cats (living in the ruins)!

Pictured: various in/out of St. Peters including the apostles from the roof and Michelangelo's Pieta

The churches are simply spectacular. At St. Peter's you can take an elevator up to the inside of the huge dome (this didn't sit well with Rich, who got a little disoriented) and walk on the roof. We didn't do the stairs to the top of the dome, but the view from the roof is still amazing. Some of our other favorites were San Pietro in Vincoli (Michelangelo's Moses), Santa Maria del Popolo (mosaic dome and newly restored Caravaggio painting, Santa Maria Maggiore and Santa Maria in Trastavere (mosaic domes), and Santa Cecilia (patron saint of music and 1600 statue of the saint).

Pictured: S.M.Trastavere, S.Cecilia,S.M.Popolo, Caravaggio Conversion of St. Paul

We noticed several recurring themes as we saw the sights. One of our favorites were feet, we don't really know why but once Rochelle snapped a photo from St. Peter's dome, we found ourselves noticing them all over.

Another theme is the legend of Rome's founders Romulus & Remus, who were raised by a wolf. The image pops up everywhere -- a bit creepy at first but humorous the 100th time you see it.

The third is the depiction of Moses with horns -- the result of a mistranslation but pretty interesting to see.


Our other favorite sites were the Capuchin crypt and the Villa Borghese. The crypt is beautiful and creepy at the same time -- the walls are decorated with the bones of thousands of Capuchin monks. The Borghese was our favorite museum. Housed in a former "vacation home," this mansion holds many wonderful Bernini sculptures and other works of art. We took a guided tour with only 4 other tourists, which gave the informative guide lots of time to explain how the Borghese family ingrained themselves in Roman culture.



Other than seeing the outside, we did miss exploring some of the ancient sites like the Colosseum (pictured above) and the roman forum. These will have to wait until the next visit. Ciao!

Fast train to Paris

For our first-time ever in Paris, we took a quick weekend trip with the goal of just getting familiar with the city--we know we'll be back and we didn't want to kill ourselves trying to see everything. The train only takes about 3 hours from Rotterdam. It was packed on a Friday afternoon. We landed at the hotel early in the evening and ventured out to find a place to eat. We had looked up some seafood restaurants and were disappointed to find the one closest to the hotel had closed. Lesson learned: internet reviews aren't always up-to-date! We found ourselves settling for a "portuguese" brasserie ... not the best but it did the trick. We spent the rest of the evening wandering around. The (old) opera house looks great at night! Also, they have Starbucks in Paris so we stopped in to get some coffee beans ... a little taste of home.

Of course, we were still hungry, and as we were walking we came across a very small restaurant with a window open to the street. Through this window was a small oyster bar -- all it took was a quick glance and Rochelle was hooked. We went in and struggled to ask the hostess (who spoke little english) if we could just have oysters-no dinner. After asking the chef for help interpreting, she took us upstairs to a small dining room. There were quite a few people there, including a pair of very posh-looking women with their little dogs. An older couple sat next to us and ordered the seafood tower -- incredible to see people ripping apart crab legs and lobster tails late in the evening (Paris, like New York, seems to operate on a totally different time zone).

Rochelle had noticed a picture of Gerard Depardieu in the stairwell but we didn't think anything of it. The next day when we were asking about dinner reco's at the hotel, we told the concierge where we had been, and he said "Oh, you went to Gerard Depardieu's restaurant!" Not that we're so impressed, but we had no idea that our little "find" was actually one of the most popular spots in town!

The next day we spent doing one of our favorite things -- playing tourist on the double-decker bus. These hop-on, hop-off buses are a great way to get to know a city ... we'd go for a few stops, get off and walk around an area, get back on and do the same. We walked down the Champs Elysee (a lot like the Mag Mile in Chicago) to the Arc du Triomphe and explored the Latin Quarter. We found a great little market area while we were looking for (another) seafood restaurant - this time it was open. We went by Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, but the queues were so long (even in November!) that we decided we'd save them for a different day. It's incredible how crowded it was just walking down the streets during the evening.

Sunday we planned to go the the Musee de Orsay but ... you guessed it ... the line was so long we decided that we'd do some more exploring and people watching. Double decker tours are so much fun, particularly in the rain with some champagne. So it was a nice trip and now we feel like we know the city and are smart enough to do some planning ahead for the sights for the next trip.

Belgian Food Theories

Brugges is a wonderful example of a well-preserved (and restored) town. Some criticize it for being too "quaint," but it really is a beautiful city that gives one a sense of how european life once was.

Belgium is well-know throughout europe for its love of food. We were eating lunch in a nice cafe/wine bar and the locals at the next table asked us where we were from. When we mentioned that we lived in the Netherlands, they kind of chuckled and asked if we thought the food was better in Belgium. We do, and although the dutch would agree, don't tell anyone. The dining Belgians proposed an interesting theory -- that Catholic countries (from Belgium south) have much better food than the protestant countries (from NL north). We won't debate this now but suffice to say we've had a good time telling our dutch and english friends this story. Rochelle thinks the protestant ethic of working toward the afterlife, as opposed to the catholic's ability to be forgiven for their sins (like enjoying life today) explains this theory, but that's for the religious theoligans to debate.

There's a Michelango sculpture (Madonna & Child) in one of the churches in Brugges -- the only one to be taken out of Italy during his lifetime. It's beautiful but frankly the church's interior is somewhat unspectacular and for some reason seems to detract from the experience.

On the other end of the spectrum, a chocolate shop (there are too many to count) had a spectacular chocolate sculpture of a gargoyle. Have to say that the surprise of seeing this huge chocolate gargoyle outdid the centuries-old Madonna!