4.25.08
Getting to Venice was our adventure today. Our stupid heavy bags and huge crowds made it difficult to navigate Venice.
LOOK UP THE DEFINITION OF OVERPACKED IN THE DICTIONARY AND YOU WILL SEE OUR FACES. Brooke makes a good arguments though.....We are gone for 32 days across different climates, which involves more clothing, that is heavier and bulkier.
The train ride to Venice was two and half hours and pretty nice too. Getting on and off the train was the hard part. Traffic to Venice was so busy today all the trains where booked until 12:30, putting us in at 3. Local trains are dirty, but the regional trains are really comfy. The regional trains have drink service, a regular Euro power plug in at each seat, overhead storage, and even an electric window sun shade!
Because it was the weekend and a local holiday, Venice was crazy busy today making it even harder to figure out a city with water for roads. There are water taxis and water buses/ferrys. Water taxis are really expensive so we opted for the water bus which carries about 75 people. It was really confusing trying to figure out which one to take and in which direction. The language barrier didn't help either. We have found that Italian streets are poorly marked...compared to say, Frisco with huge illuminated signs at intersections.
Anyways, we made it off the jam packed water bus and found our hotel pretty easily (other than lugging around our kitchen sinks).
After dropping off our stuff we ventured out to find dinner. We found a place with reasonable pricing and cover/table/bread fee, we sat down and ordered some water. The waiter came back after we starting drinking and mumbled something in Italian and then "5 Euro". We said we wanted to order dinner and he mumbled something about no chef.......no dinner...... So we had 2 bottles of water to finish for 5 Euro with no dinner. We finished them and found a place that had a chef.....and served food.... That pissed me off, but hey where in Venice so I got over it fast.
4.24.08
Today we went to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower. The weather was perfect to take the trip, and only about an hour from Florence. It was kind of strange being there in person after seeing so many pictures of it.
We took the local bus to get to the Tower since there is no subway. Good news is that it only cost us .95 Euro each.
Anyway, construction on the Tower was started in 1173 and started leaning before they even finished the third story of it! Despite the bad foundation they continued, finishing it in 1350. Because they lacked money and the understanding on how to fix the leaning problem it took them almost 200 YEARS to build it!
The Tower has attracted many people, including Galileo. He visited to conduct his experiments on the velocity of falling objects.
We had dinner in Pisa and came back to re-pack our bags for our trip to Venice tomorrow.
4.23.08
Uffizi gallery was the first thing we checked out in Florence. It has a huge collection of art. It consisted of works from Michelangelo , Leonardo Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Bernini, Carravagio, Botticelli, and more. I had taken some decongestant medicine that made me really drowsy so I was ready to go after about an hour.
Michelangelo's sculpture of David(1504) was another thing we saw. It was in a different, smaller museum called the Academia Gallery. We didn't have a pre-purchased ticket so we had to wait in line for an hour to get in. I almost suggested we skip this museum because it feels like we have already done so many museums but I'm glad we didn't skip it. In my opinion the Uffizi could be skipped over this one because I think sculptures are more interesting than paintings, at least in person. The David statue was really really impressive. It stands 17ft tall and took Michelangelo 3-4 years to complete. Other than the David, the other highlight would be his Four Prisoners which shows figures struggling to free themselves from the stone, also from Muchelangelo.
We took a walk to a church called the Santa Croce where Galileo, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, are buried. We also looked inside the nearby Duomo which was extremely ornate and enormous.
Florence is much more laid back than Rome. Not that people in Rome are bad, here they are more patient and happy. Brooke and I also noticed there are SO MANY more Americans in Florence. I don't have many pictures from Florence because we were mainly in museums where you can't take pictures.
Laundry finally got done this evening at a local Laundromat. It was pretty expensive....I think I pumped in 20 Euro. We ended up chatting with a guy from Canada basically doing the same thing we are but in the opposite direction.
We stayed 6 nights in Rome which was absolutely perfect and 3 nights in Florence. I think 2 full days in Florence would be fine, there isn't a ton to do.
We had to do it......
^ MMMM PISA TASTES GOOD!
Streets of Pisa
