Walk Like a Venetian

I’ve often heard that Venice is the most beautiful city in the world, but no matter how many people explain it, no matter how many photos or films or pieces of art you see depicting it, you cannot truly appreciate Venice until you see it firsthand. Not since we left the airport in Sicily have I been so taken aback by what I was seeing. Venice is a city truly like no other – in place of streets and cars there are canals and gondolas. Buildings sit upon the water, some of them sunken so far in that the doorways are nearly fully submerged. Nearly every building is brightly painted and features various stories of balconies, many of which feature lovely little window gardens. Everything is just so precious and picturesque, Venice looks like a movie backdrop. It’s difficult to accept that this place actually exists.

Our train couldn’t take us directly to the part of Venice in which our hotel was located, so we took a water bus through the canals to reach our destination, Hotel Concordia, which is located directly behind St. Mark’s. The square was packed with tourists, pigeons, and tourists actually feeding and holding pigeons. As I wondered why the hell anyone would come all the way to Venice to get a picture with some nasty “rats with wings” as Katie calls them, we moved beyond the square to drop our bags, receive complementary Proseco at the hotel, and do some exploring.

If you have a specific destination in mind when in Venice, you’re likely S.O.L. Venice is the epitome of a labyrinth, minus David Bowie. Twists and turns and alleys and squares and canals and bridges make up one giant, beautiful clusterfuck of a city. (Sorry Gayle – I know you hate cursing. But if it makes you feel any better, I did take my birth control right in front of the Vatican. J)

We found a cute little outdoor restaurant for a late lunch (Katie and I have a cuteness quota that must be reached in order for us to select a place to dine) where I had my first Spaghetti Carbonara of the trip. Delish, but as most of the pastas on this trip, my mom’s is better. We then weaved our way through the city, visiting various shops including a Venetian mask shop where Matt and Katie purchsed a new addition for their home. This is when we truly found our Venetian groove – we spent the rest of the day (and most of the following) at quaint little bars, just sitting outside (and occasionally in), enjoying a few snacks and many, many mysitcal libations. That’s alcoholic drinks for you non-FGITs out there.



Melon made it to Italy after all!



Our two days in Venice basically followed this itinterary – eat, drink, walk, ohmygodletsmarvelatthis gorgeoussightandtakeaphoto, walk, drink, drink, walk, drink, marvel. Our second day did have a bit more culture as we visited St. Mark’s cathedral and the Doge Palace. St. Mark’s didn’t entirely impress me from the inside, but the outside is equisit. I particilarly loved that the clock measured time not only by roman numerals, but also by the Zodiac. The Doge Palace – wowza. This was a legit place of royalty, and much like Venice, was so intricate in its structure that it would have been difficult to navigate if you actually lived there. My favorite part of the Palace was the prison that took up the entire basement of the bullding. Before reaching the actual cells, the prison had what was called “The Bridge of Sighs,” named as such because it is the spot where prisoners cross over into a life worth sighing about.

Outside the Doge Palace

After more beautiful sights, charming bars and restaurants (including an indoor spot that featured cheap drinks and yummy snacks such as stuffed tomatoes and french fries on a skewer), we stopped to enjoy some live music in St. Mark’s Square. Violins, pianos, accordions and more entertained us with classical and modern songs, and Katie was particualrly happy when they played the theme from “Pirates of the Carribean.”

We retired to our room, which was straight our of a Victorian palace (only kind of small for 4 people), resting our wine and beer filled minds and only wishing we had more time in the great sinking city of Venice. Next stop: MILAN!

- Joanna

Tuscany in THREEE DEEEE (actually 2D)

Our tour guide, Giacomo, showing us where grapes go to heaven.



Matt in the cellar



Gorgeous view of the property



The three wines we "tasted"



Under the Tuscan Clouds

So while in Florence, we decided that it would be an opportune time to tour Tuscany and all it has to offer…vineyards, and of course, WINE.  Tim used his connections to hook us up with a tour of the Frescobaldi estate close to Florence.  We took the train about 20 minutes from Florence, a quick taxi, and we were at one of the MOST beautiful sites in the world.  The vineyard had a castle that was about 1000 years old – the Frescobaldi family used to vacation in summer on site.  Our tour was scheduled for 2pm and we really didn’t know what to expect.  We arrived around 1 and started snapping photos.  Pics to follow.  The vineyard was in harvest, we we were able to see everything in action.  Besides wine, the estate also produced olive oil.  I find olive trees to be particularly beautiful. 

Giancarlo greeted us around 1:30 and we started the tour.  The Frescobaldi family has always run the vineyard, and they are currently in the 30^th generation.  I find this to be amazing – a family run business that makes some good money and no divisions in 30 generations?!  Our tourguide said they are very down to earth people and anyone who joins the company stays for quite awhile (perhaps their whole career!) because of how they run the business.  We started with a tour of the de-viner..the grapes are put in this machine and then are put into a stainless steel container.  This container constantly pushes the skins into the liquid – this is where they get all of their flavor.  Rose wine stays for 12 hours, reds stay for 20-30 days.  (Side note – I’m writing this from memory so maybe all of the facts aren’t 100% correct.  I’m close though, at least I think).  They are then put into oak barrels for 2 years.  One year upstairs, and one year downstairs.  Ferment away!

Frescobaldi does something I found to be very interesting when it comes to picking their oak barrels.  Each year, they invite all of the oak barrell producers from France and the like to a dinner.  They each bring one sample of their barrel.  Frescobaldi fills each with their wine.  One year later, each of the barrell producers come back and they participate in a blind taste test.  They rate the wine they drink.  Highest score wins…and Frescobaldi places one big order!

After we toured the celler, we headed in for the much anticipated wine/olive oil tasting.  This spread knocked our socks off.  We first tried Frescobaldi olive oil – according to our guide, this oil was just for dipping bread as it is too strong for cooking.  Well I can tell you it was YUMMY for dipping bread.  Next we had cheese, proscuitto and salami.  Frescobaldi has a farm JUST for their guests meat.  Not kidding.  It was damn good too.  While we munched, our hosts poured three red wines – Nipozzano (12-15 E), Montesodi (35-40 E), and Mormoretto (150 E).   Now it was time to taste!

This is my opinion – so take it as you like.  I thought the Nipozzano was delicious.  I liked how smooth it was.  Not a huge fan of the Montesodi – the smell was really strong as was the taste.  Matt and Tim enjoyed this one.  My fav of the three was the Momoretto.  Very nice smooth flavor, nice smells.   Joanna’s favorite was also the Montesodi.

We finished up our tasting and headed back to Florence – our tourguide offered to give us a lift back, and we’re glad he did – it started POURING.  I must say the vineyard is pretty in the rain – the clouds added a nice photo-op.  Back in Florence, we relaxed a little before heading to dinner.  We made reservations at Giostra – we had tried a few times to get in here and we thankfully were able to score a spot on our last night.  This place came with many recommendations, and it definitely lived up to all of the hype!  Décor, music (all from Joanna’s ipod – we had some Pink Floyd, U2 etc), and of course, food.  Joanna had pear and nut ravioli things that were delicious, Tim had steak with arugula (rocket is how they translate arugula in english??) and parmesan cheese, Matt had Ravioli stuffed with cheese and topped with a yummy meat sauce and Osso Bucco.  I had papperdelli (homemade) topped with wild boar.  DELICIOUS!  Great ending to a great day.  To Venice tommorow!

PICS COMING LATER....

Sienna

We took a train (this Eurotrain pass has really come in handy) about an hour away to Siena.  We took what the book calls an ‘awkward hike’ up to the top of the mountain where Siena sits.  In my opinion, the walk wasn’t all that awkward – we’ve done much worse in our time here, trust me.  It was worth it in the end – Siena is NOTHING like Florence.  Worth the trip if you ever make it over here.  The central Piazza is shaped like a seashell (the whole city references shells, and I’m not sure why because from what I can tell, it is nowhere near water) and there are plenty of little cafés on the outside.  We picked one and settled in for a bite.  We shared a bottle of wine and some good lunch. 

Next, we ventured to the Duomo.  Siena’s Duomo is cool – has black and white marble stripes throughout the WHOLE thing.  See below:

We toured the museum, the catacombs (Rome’s was better, skip this if you’re ever here), had some geleato and headed home.  We headed back to our hotel, asked for a dinner recommendation, and headed out.

Tommorow, WINE TOUR!!

Hustle and Flo(rence) / Go with the Flo(rence)

So we left Rome today for Florence.  We took the train (offered some nice viewing of the Tuscan countryside) and arrived mid morning.  After checking into hotel Gioia (2 rooms this time), oddly adjacent to a serial killer museum, we began our exploration of Florence. 

Hotel:

Joanna and I loved this city – it had a great feeling about it.  Very crowded, but not as obnoxious as Rome.  People were exploring, not elbowing.  The city has life.  We began with lunch (of course) in Piazza del Republica.  We then walked over to the Ponte Vechio.  Very cool bridge selling gorgeous jewlrey.  After we explored some more, we made our way to Santa Croce.   We explored the piazza and the church.  Cool fact – Michaelangelo and Galileo are burried there.  After exploring outside a little more, we made our way to the outdoor market.  Joanna and I each purchased little scarves to wear - You could find everything from leather bags/jackets/belts/shoes to sunglasses.  We headed back to the hotel to shower up and made our way to dinner.  We stopped first for a drink at what looked to be a really cute patio area – it ended up  being the Roberto Cavalli wine bar/shop. 

We each had an absolutely delicious drink, and they surprised us with some munchies.  We had olive tapenade and some other dip with curry on one spread, the other had tomato and mozzarella and some other finger sandwhiches.  Off to dinner – we found a  wine bar in Froders and decided to give it a shot – Cantinetta Antinori Wine Bar.  We each sampled a glass and then ordered the best of the bunch.  Ended up being Matt’s – Badia Passignano Chianti Classico (2006).  We split the cheese and meat plates and then had a fabulous dinner.

The next day we went to the Uffizi gallery.  We also took a photo op with the David replica outside.  I was coming down with quite the cold so I had to take every opportunity to rest on the benches provided.  Why is it that when on vacation, people get sick?  Grr.  Anyway, the gallery was beautiful.  We really enjoyed all it had to offer.  Of particular interest, the Birth of Venus.  I also enjoyed a painting of a young girl in a blue dress.  I know, nothing special, but I found it very interesting. 

After the gallery, we made our way to a piazza up on a hill overlooking Florence.  Yes, it had many steps.  Yes, we (well I was, damn cold) very winded.  When we got to the top though, we realized the whole thing was worth it!  See some pics:

We headed back to the hotel for a much needed nap/cold medicine, and then headed out to dinner.  Paoli was the restaurant and I thought the food was delicious (eventhough I had vegetable soup).

More to come!

Last Day in Rome

So we thought our final day in Rome would be a liesurely one, with perhaps a stop in a café or in one of the piazzas for a few hours. WRONG. We still had lots to see and not a lot of time to see everything. Get ready for a ride!  Our first stop was the Pantheon...

Next - onto the Colosseum. We took the metro over and viewed one of the most impressive sites I’ve ever seen. Side note about the Colosseum..Tim’s uncle travels for work and one of his stops is in Dubai. Apparently to view the ski slope or the new hotel there, you have to pay a viewing fee of 50-60 Euros. One of the lines of the trip – ‘why would I pay 50 E to see your damn slope when I can pay 5 to see the Colosseum? ‘ Can’t argue with that, Vittorio. If you have never been, book your trip to Rome and see this. Our travel book gave this 3 stars – I completely agree.

After the Colosseeum, we stopped at BancoMat for some much needed cash. We then made our way down to the Basicllica di San Giovanni in Laterano. It is the cathedral of the diocese of Rome (not St. Peter’s, weird huh). Anyway – cool church and worth a stop. The one thing I can remember was the back door of this church was HUGE.

Next stop – Tim’s cousin’s bar near the Vatican. For those of you who don’t already know, a ‘bar’ is a place for food and coffee and some wine, but not a bar like in the US. So we stop by to say hi and visit, expecting to sample one of their pastries. We ended up having one of the best lunches of the trip! We started with some panini (I think it was tomato/mozz and another one with tom/proscuitto/another unknown meet) and these were ABSOLUTELY delicious. I could have had about 10 more. Next was what I’m dubbing chicken noodle soup pasta with sausage. I’m going to beg Matt to make this – we need to have it at home. All four of us finished our plates. We thought we were done – we were wrong. You can’t go to a bar that specializes in pastry and not have any pastry! Carlo brought us out a sampling of all of their pastries. SO GOOD. Except for Gelatto, we haven’t had much dessert on this trip (too full), so this was a great treat.

With full bellies, we moved back to the Vatican. We got in line to tour St. Peter’s (last time, when we did our catacomb tour, we only saw the undersaide…we still needed to tour the actual basillica). After St. Peter’s, we headed back to get some gelatto. Yummy stuff. We had to head back to get ready for dinner with our last family member of the trip – Tim’s cousin Claudio.

Side note – I wish I had family in Italy! Everyone we met is just so awesome!

So we met Tim’s cousin in the Campo De Fiori. She gave us a local’s tour of a few Piazzas and pointed out some neat things about the fountains etc. We then made our way over to the Jewish ghetto for dinner. Apparently it was a holiday for the Jewish religion on Friday night (help, Franklin), so only those that lived there were able to get into what looked like a fun celebration. We walked around outside the Jewish ghetto and then were able to get in right near our restaurant. Or at least we thought – took us a little while to find the place even with a local Roman! We then found our destination – Vecchio Romano. Delicous food and company. Pics to follow. Tim’s cousin promised to send me her recipe for Tiarmisu – I’m not forgetting that!!! Great way to say goodbye to Rome. We headed back to our hotel – Florence tommorow!!

Is anyone reading this (besides Kathy and Frank :) hehe...just curious !!

True Life: I'm Meeting my Huge Italian Family

While most of our blog entries thus far have been basic, step-by-step chronicles of our journey, I'd like to use (or abuse) my freedom of blogging to go off on a bit of a tangent about a particular phenomenon that has caught my attention.

I definitely had an innaccurate perception of what Italians look like. I have been assured by various people that Italians, particularly Italian men, would love me as they are very appreciative of a voluptous figure. Color me shocked and disappointed to find that Italy is not crawling with Sophia Lorens. Practically all of the Italian women I have encoutnered (particularly Siclians) are RAIL THIN and wear the tightest clothes and highest heels imaginable. I know I’m going back to Sicily and we’re currently in Rome, but I feel that Sicily was a more accurate representation because it had hardly any tourists. Rome is crawling with them, and I know that any time I see any woman even slightly overweight that she must be an American. How’s that for a workout incentive? Katie and I like to guess a person’s nationality before we hear him or her speak, and the tightness of clothes and percentage of body fat have been dead giveaways.

We have also been playing an original game of Cherubs vs. Couples and counting which we see more of. Cherubs are flying rampant in Rome with all of the churches and Christian art, but for every cherub I run away crying from we see twice as many couples engaging in serious PDA. I’m pretty anti-PDA at home, but here it seems very natural and beautiful to see the possible conception of a child happen on a street corner. Matt feels quite differently.

End of tangent. ANYWAY. Today’s adventure brought us by train to Chivitavecchia, a town about an hour out of Rome that gave me serious Ardmore/Media vibes. What brought us to this unpronoucable town, you ask? Famgilia! Matt and I have been telling stories for years about how we actually do have family members somewhere over in Italy, and today we truly proved ourselves to Katie and Tim. Cousins, uncles, aunts, great uncles, second cousins’ fiances – EVRYBODY showed up for lunch. Every time we became acquainted with a new family member, another would ring the doorbell and join the group. Between the endless courses of food, the inevitable issues with communication and the constant addition of new people, it felt like we were living our own family sitcom. In Italian.

Paola, Matt, Pietro, Me, Keti and Giorgia

One of the few pieces of information I could decipher was that everybody thought I looked like my mother. I’m sure this will please her greatly as she is always upset at the fact that Matt and I got some very strong genes from my dad and that “nobody looks like” her. Also, Matt looks identical to practically every male in the family that we encountered, I bear a striking resemblance to my cousin Giorgia, and Pino, my grandmother’s brother, has my grandmother’s exact same mannerisms and even sits the same way that she does. So bascially, we all have some alternate universe twin over here and I find that equally comforting and creepy.

Matt and I with our Great Uncle Pino and Great Aunt Antonietta

After tons of hugs and even more homemade food (including capponata, spaghetti pomodoro, veal parm, and the world’s greatest tiramisu and cannolis), we bid farewell to our extensive Italian family and headed back to Rome.

Cousins Giuseppi and Giorgia with Matt

The evening was spent in Piazza Navona, a hop, skip and tourist-y jump from our hotel. We managed to stuff down a miniscule dinner and then walked around a bit, enjoying the entertainment of street performers, musicians and artists. What do guitarists perform for tourists in Italy? Dire Straits and Pink Floyd. So… not exactly authentic Italian entertainment, but whateva. I saw the bones of Capuchin priests organized into what could pass for Leatherface’s place of worship the other day. Life is good. - Joanna