Dave & Meredith's Travel Blog

The first day in our villa in Umbria, all we did was chill out and do laundry.  It was so nice not to be racing around, and we really needed to wash our clothes.

Macchina Lavanderia

– Meredith

Here is the view from our window in our villa/apartment in Umbria:

– Meredith

We haven’t had a scale in any of the rooms or apartments we’ve stayed in (thank goodness!), but there are mirrors.  I’m clearly gaining weight.  At least we’re walking a lot, or it wouldn’t be pretty.  I would be remiss in sharing my Italian experiences if I left out how great and how copious the food is here.  Also, there’s the gelato.  At least once a day.  I’d say we’re averaging about 1.75 per day since we arrived (those two days when we had gelato three times were a bit over the top).

– Meredith

We’ve finally had the right combination of time and Internet access to prepare and upload a few galleries. You can click here for a few pictures from Rome, here for a few in the Sorrento area (Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Positano), and here for Florence. As usual, the Photo Galleries page has also been updated with the same links. Stay tuned for pictures from Umbria and Tuscany…

– Dave

It’s kind of bumming me out.  I would like to practice the little Italian I’ve learned and also try to learn more by actually speaking it.  But almost every time I say “Buongiorno!” or “Due bigletti, per favore,” (two tickets, please), the person I’m speaking to recognizes that I’m English-speaking and starts speaking to me in English right away.  We’ve had few exceptions, and we definitely have more fun when that rare exception comes up.

For example, we went to dinner at a trattoria in Florence and our waitress spoke to us only in Italian.  She knew we were struggling a little (I think she actually enjoyed watching it), but she let us struggle.  And that was more fun.  We kept taking out the Italian phrasebook to look up words and then when our waitress came back to the table, we’d make a joke or tell her that the fagioli (beans) reminded me of my grandma’s pasta fagioli (pasta fazool).

We ordered bistecca fiorentina (grilled T-bone steak with olive oil and lemon), which is the thing to do once while you’re in Florence.  It’s obscenely large.  We asked our waitress before we ordered how large it would be (in Italiano!) because it’s priced by the KILO.  She said it would be more or less 1 kilo, but that includes the bone and it’s for two people.  Now, for those of you who are challenged by the metric system, 1 kilo is 2.2 pounds.  Anyhoo, when our bistecca arrived, it was enormous.  We looked up the Italian word for cow (“mucca”), and then when our waitress came back to ask how we were doing, we told her that she gave us a half cow (“mezza mucca”).  She laughed.  Obviously after all that food (we also split pasta with pesto, ribollito and a side dish of beans with tomatoes), we were stuffed.  But we still had room for tiramisu for dessert. Of course.

– Meredith

It hasn’t been difficult finding Internet access here, but Wi-Fi has been a little tougher to come by, so we’ve been somewhat challenged to post pictures to the blog. So, to get you somewhat caught up, here is a list of things we did in Florence:

• Accademia (Michelangelo’s David)
• Duomo (Santa Maria del Fiore – church with 3rd longest nave in the world); we also went below the church to see the foundations of earlier churches
• Giotto’s Campanile (13th c. bell tower climb for beautiful views over the city)
• Bargello Museum (lots of renaissance sculpture)
• Ponte Vecchio (only window shopping)
• Santa Croce (church where lots of famous Florentines are buried, including Gallileo and Michelangelo)
• The Science Museum (small and mostly about the evolution of the telescope, but also included some mechanical devices and musical instruments from the 14th – 18th centuries)
• Piazza della Signoria and the Loggia dei Lanzi with wonderful statues

While walking around, we saw the Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi Gallery and the Pitti Palace. We couldn’t get tickets for the Uffizi Gallery while we were in town (there was a holiday in Italy and apparently they were sold out long in advance), so we’re going to go back to Florence for a half day while we’re staying in Tuscany (next week) so we can see all the artwork there.

On top of the bell tower near the Duomo

– Meredith

I have a confession. I am a Rick Steves fanatic. You know who I’m talking about – he has a travel show on public TV (NOT Rudy Maxa; the other guy). His travel philosophy is to get away from big hotels and really touristy places (Sorrento excluded, because he loves it too), and get more of a local flavor and save money while traveling in Europe by staying in B&Bs, going to local family-run trattorias, etc.

Rick (I’m on a first name basis though he has no clue who I am) has guide books, runs tours throughout Europe, offers free MP3 audio tours for the big churches and museums in Italy, and hosts a web site and community of travellers with lots of helpful tips (www.ricksteves.com). He even sells his own luggage and travel accessories (he has built up quite an empire).

His advice has helped us save a lot of money, helped us not get pick-pocketted in the major cities (I carry my passport and credit cards in my Rick Steves moneybelt!), and has also given us great restaurant recommendations so that we actually enjoy the process of gaining weight while we are here in Italy.

It seems that there are many others like me. We’ve seen many people walking around with Rick Steves guidebooks, and at several of the restaurants he recommends, half the people in the place had the book sitting on their tables (the other half were locals). If you’re going to Europe and are interested in getting opinionated advice from someone who wants you to save time, money, and get an authentic travel experience, I highly recommend his books.

Meredith and Rick (in Book Form)

– Meredith

Here is the view from our window in our B&B in Florence. We were in a sweet location, less than one block from Florence’s Duomo. We’ve also added a picture of the view from the roof terrace that all the guests could use.

View from our Window #4

View from B&B Roof Terrace (toward Duomo)

– Meredith

We used Sorrento as a base for our day trip to Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as Positano on the Amalfi coast. We got to come back to the wonderfully friendly town of Sorrento each night. Yes, it’s touristy, and I *loved* it. One night we ate dinner a fuori (outside) and a musical trio consisting of an accordian, a guitar and an upright bass played the hit parade of Italian and Italian-American songs (they even threw in “When the Saints Go Marching In” for some reason). It was cheesy and fantastic.

I have done some research for the trip online, and there’s a traveller’s message board I have used for tips, accomodation reviews, etc. One person posted a negative comment about staying in Sorrento as a base for Pompeii and Herculaneum, because they were “disgusted” by the toursty kitch of Sorrento. They said that they would never recommend staying there if you were “well educated and sophisticated” (the implication was that the person who posted this was both of these things). He or she just sounded like a snob to me who didn’t know how to embrace the atmosphere and have a good time. I delighted in the fact that this “well educated and sophisticated” person had a grammatical error in his or her post. 😉

On Wednesday, we took the public SITA bus from Sorrento to Positano on a twisty, turny, “white knuckle” ride along the cliffs of the Amalfi coast. Positano was a beautiful town in a beautiful setting. We spent a lazy day walking around town, sitting in cafes, enjoying snacks, coffee, wine and lunch by the beach. And we might have eaten gelato twice, but who’s counting?

Here are some great pictures Dave took of Positano:

– Meredith

We went to Pompeii and Herculaneum in one action-packed day trip from our hotel in Sorrento. As we walked among the incredibly well preserved villas, apartments, bars, and temples of people who lived (and died) almost 2000 years ago, I found myself saying over and over again, “Wow, this is so amazing!”. I said it so often, that I got tired of hearing it, but every time I promised I would say something more descriptive and/or demonstrative that I have *some* grasp of basic English vocabulary words, I’d see something that blew me away, and out would come those words again.

For example, when I saw THE ACTUAL “Cave Canem” mosaic in Pompeii that I’ve seen in books, I opened my mouth and said, “wow, this is so amazing!”. Same thing when I saw incredibly well preserved statues, frescoes, clay jars, graffiti, etc. You get the idea. Below are some great pictures Dave took of some of the sights in both Pompeii and Herculaneum. We didn’t do either site justice by going to both in one day, but I did do myself and Dave a favor by limiting my incessant chant of “Wow, this is so amazing!” to only one day.

For those with delicate eyes, you’ll want to avoid the pictures of the frescoes found in the brothel in Pompeii, as well as the fresco found in the entryway of a villa showing a man weighing his schwanz on one side of a balance (there’s a money bag on the other side of the scale). For those of you who *don’t* have a delicate temperament, make sure you check out the frescoes found in the brothel in Pompeii as well as the one from the villa with the man weighing his schwanz on a scale. 🙂

THE Actual “Cave Canem” Mosaic in Pompeii

A view of Herculaneum with Mt. Vesuvius in the background

A beautifully preserved mosaic in Herculaneum

Statues from a Bath in Pompeii

Looking down a Pompeii Street with Mt. Vesuvius in the background

Pompei Mosaic of Birds

Fresco from a Pompei Villa (Schwanz on a Scale)

Fresco from a Pompeii Brothel

Fresco from a Pompeii Brothel: Canem Style

– Meredith