Katie and Tommy: Around the World

Since Katie had felt sick again the day we left Florence, we spent our first morning in Venice sleeping late in bed with the hopes that the extra sleep would jump start her immune system. So by the time we had woken up and were finally finishing our late lunch, the Fausts had already arrived back from several hours of walking in the morning hours. When Katie and I finally got dressed and headed out the door, the four of us stumbled along toward the Rialto Bridge. Mrs. Faust commented to me that it was very difficult for her to take her morning run that day because the narrow alleyways rarely went for more than 30 yards or so before dead ending. A few minutes later, we arrived at St. Mark’s Square. Katie was ecstatic. She finally got the chance to partake in her all-time favorite traveling past time: feeding pigeons.

Reluctantly, I joined in as well (though after I had put on my rainjacket). We walked around the square a bit more taking pictures and after stopping for some lunchtime gelato, we spent the rest of the day just wandering around the narrow streets and looking into shop windows. One of the most favorite experiences while in Venice we had that afternoon while sitting at a café and watching people go by, especially kids on their way back from school. I wondered what it must be like to grow up in a place like Venice, with hardly any grass or green spaces, all of these disjointed streets amidst strangely green colored canals, and the realization that if one wanted to make a living here in Venice, it would have to be off the tourists that visited (as evidenced by the fact that 80% of the city’s GDP comes from tourism).

While we were in Florence we enjoyed so much the restaurant that Foder’s had recommended that we decided to go to one of theirs in Venice, as well. We were a bit surprised by how generous the portions were– in the end, everyone was helping each other finish off the last remaining pieces that remained, something that we found to be a rarity during our time in Italy. When we returned to the hotel that night, Katie and I stayed up late finishing up some important emails we had to send to graduate programs and such.

The next morning Mr. and Mrs. Faust walked on their own for a few hours before we met up with them and went walking through some of the calmer and quieter parts of Venice. We walked largely through what used to used to be the old Jewish ghetto. One of the biggest appeals about this experience was how few the tourist were and with the lack, the simple pleasures of peacefulness and quiet. For lunch we got some pizza at a café near the train station and then the Fausts went to mass while Katie and I returned to the room to rest up.

Earlier in the week we had discussed how we wanted to do a gondola ride but were worried about how much it might cost. Fortunately, we were able to negotiate a bit with the gondolier to get a better price. Something that struck me was how quiet the canals were! The streets can become truly deafening and you just get used to it; being able to sit in silence on the river made me realize for the first time just how much I had been missing silence!

For dinner that night we got especially lucky: we went out looking for a restaurant we had seen earlier that day, but upon seeing how abandoned it looked, we chose to go to one just across the canal. That place, Dona Onesta, was likely one of the best places we went in the 10 or so days we spent in Italy. And we stumbled upon it almost wholly by chance!!

While we were trying to buy tickets for the next morning’s water bus, I heard an ambulance siren. I had grown accustomed to their sound so at first it didn’t really haze me, but then I realized that there was no way that the sound could have been coming from a truck! We all ran to the end of the Grand Canal just in time to see a speedboat with sirens whiz by us, evidently in route to an emergency. It is the little things like that that have made Venice so interesting to be in.

The next morning, March 30^th, we had to get up very early to catch a waterbus to the bus station (and then the airport.) We didn’t get much sleep that night because Mr. Faust’s alarm went off an hour earlier than we had thought it would. When we were later on the bus, however, we began to notice that our tickets were all validated an hour ahead of what the time on our watches was showing. When we arrived at the airport, we realized that we had forgotten (though no one had really told us anyway) that the last Sunday in March is when Europe switches to Day Light Savings time! Fortunately, we were still in time for everything and no one had to miss their flights. We told the Fausts goodbye at security and then about an hour later Katie and I boarded our own plane destined for Paris!

We apologize for how long it has recently taken us to update this blog and put up pictures. We’ve been making a lot of major life decisions lately and been trying to enjoy the limited time we have with our parents! More to come in the next few days!

After a short setback involving a broken bottle of wine and some seriously stained luggage, we headed out in our rental car on our way to Florence: me, Tommy, and my parents. Apparently Easter Monday is the day that Romans take off and flock to the small towns in the neighboring countryside to visit churches, sightsee, and have picnics. We thought this sounded like a lovely idea, so we did basically the same thing, joining the throngs of Italians driving through the picturesque countryside. Unfortunately, we didn’t take into account the added traffic on narrow country roads and town streets (or a spontaneous light snowstorm). We drove to Assisi and found it filled with visitors. Still, we managed to squeeze our oversized Fiat into a parking lot of SmartCars, grip our much-used umbrellas against the falling snow, and walk into the city walls. Our first stop was the Basilica of St. Francis, a really beautiful church built of simple, stark white stone with a red tile roof, perched on a hillside overlooking rolling green hills and vineyards. Below the newer basilica is a smaller one that was built just after the death of St. Francis and houses his tomb. From there we wanted to see the monastery and the original church St. Francis built himself, as well as the church of St. Clare, but the streets were growing more and more crowded, and after one attempt to steer our Fiat through the winding town streets and find parking, we realized it was getting late and we ought to head on to Florence.While the distance to Florence is not great, the roads are small and winding, and Italian street signs are not intuitively understood, at least not by us Americans. Signs indicating to go straight appear to say to turn; signs saying to turn are positioned anywhere in relation to the indicated turn except where one would expect, right before it; roundabouts are painfully common; and signs often point to the next town, and not to the major roads or cities. The roads into Florence were clogged with traffic, and we began to grow concerned about making it to our hotel before reception closed at nine. Finally we entered the city proper–only to be stumped at every turn by one-way streets and dead ends. We were basically entirely lost when suddenly we came upon a huge, black and white marble building. “Um, I think that’s the Duomo,” Tommy realized. One glance at a map and we realized that we were somehow miraculously a short two blocks from our hotel. We checked in, managed to drop off our rental car, and finished the day with a delicious Italian dinner right down the street.Due to our location and the walkability of just about everything in the city, we took to Florence immediately. Mom and I had come to the city with a long list of Rennaissance art to see, and we began checking them off first thing with a visit to the Baptistry in front of the Duomo where Ghiberti designed the “Gates of Paradise,” a set of reliefs for the doors. Copies are kept out in the weather now. We went in the Duomo and were surprised by its starkly bare interior in contrast with its elaborate and lovely exterior. We did recognize a painting of Dante on the walls that we had seen in books many times. Even though he was exiled from Florence the city still holds him as one of their biggest celebrities. Ravenna, where he spent his exile, seems to see this as unfair, and so refuses to move his tomb to Florence. He was one of the reasons Mom was particularly excited to go in the Baptistry, where he supposedly broke the baptismal font to rescue a dying infant.After some really wonderful hot chocolate (Switzerland needs to get some advice from Italy on the hot chocolate front) we went in the Museo Opera del Duomo, which houses many of the sculptures that previously adorned the cathedral before its many rennovations. Ghiberti’s original doors are there, in special nitrogen-heavy air chambers, as well as an unfinished Pieta by Michelangelo and some works by Donatello. There was some information on how Brunelleschi built his huge dome (before his design, no one could construct something big enough to cover the overly-ambitious cathedral) although we opted not to go up in it because of the line. Florence, perhaps because it is smaller, seemed significantly more crowded with tourists than Rome.We walked north next to the Palazzo Medici, the architecture of which I had studied in my art history class. In fact, just about every Renaissance piece I studied in my art history class is in Florence, so I was having a very good time. We went next to the church of San Lorenzo, which houses the Medici Chapel. Whatever the word “chapel” brings to mind, strike that and multiply its size by about twenty times. The upper chapel was a huge, high-ceilinged, octagonal room covered in green marble and elaborate decoration. On each wall was a Medici tomb: a large stone sarcophagus and a sculpture of its occupant standing above. Unfortunately half of the room was covered in scaffolding; however, perhaps for this reason, entry was free. Besides, what I really wanted to see was two more tombs, in the lower chapel. This room is much smaller and plainer, but it was designed by Michelangeo, and contains some of his spectacular sculptures. The church itself was also lovely and filled with art.By that time it was after five, and most other churches and museums were closed. We rested a while and then took a night walk. The streets were still very much alive. We passed through the Piazza della Repubblica, where musicians were performing, saw the statues of Orsanmichele (another art class destination), and went to the Piazza della Signoria to be greeted by the Palazzo Vecchio and the many statues surrounding it, including a copy of David in the place where the original stood until 1873. We ate dinner at a Fodor’s-recommended trattoria called Cibreo, which was far and away the best Italian food we had sampled so far (perhaps because it shares its kitchen with a pricey ristorante of the same name). We wandered back to our hotel via he Piazza del Duomo, full and happy.Day 2 began with a visit to the Casa di Dante, a museum with information about the poet and Florence during his time. It was small but informative. Mom bought a print of a portrait of Dante that the saleswoman (who did not speak English) seemed to indicate was by Giotto and housed in the Bargello. A quick glance at the map said it was nearby, and the museum was free to enter. (We would later find out it was some kind of week during which all the major national museums were free.) We were also surprised that we hadn’t planned on going there in the first place; inside we saw Donatello’s David (albeit on his back in the midst of restoration) and the panels by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi which were entered in the contest to design the Baptistry doors. There are also countless other Donatello and Michelangelo pieces. It was a nice museum–the only thing we didn’t see was the Dante portrait, which one of the museum employees told us was in the Uffizi.Then we visted the church of Santa Croce, which contains the tombs of such greats as Machiavelli, Galileo, Michelangelo, and Ghiberti. There was a big monument to Dante and some smaller ones to other Italians, including Enrico Fermi. We walked along the river to the Museum of Science, which was mostly under rennovation, but we did get to see the exhibit on Galileo and the invention of his telescope. From there we walked across the Ponte Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti and hen over to the church of Santa Maria del Carmine to see the Brancacci Chapel, fantastically decorated with frescoes by Masaccio which were revolutionary when they were painted. To finish off this busy day, we caught a train to Pisa to see the leaning tower.First thing Thursday morning, we went to the church of Santa Maria Novella. Since it was right by our hotel, we had neglected to visit yet, but I was very eager to see Masaccio’s fresco the Trinity inside, considered the first painting to demonstrate perspective. After that, we had two museum reservations to keep, the first of which was at the Galleria dell’Accademia, where we saw Michelangelo’s David and unfinished Prisoners. After lunch at the central market, we went to the Uffizi Gallery, which contained so many famous works it would be dificult to list them all. The two that draw the biggest crowds are Boticelli’s Primavera and Birth of Venus.After that we picked up our luggage and headed to the train station. We ate a small feast of food we had picked up at the central market earlier: bread, cheese, salami, pesto, and wine. Two trains and one waterbus later, we were in Venice.

Vacationing with the Fausts largely means, I have recently discovered, lots of good food and great wine, but that wonderful combination along with having nearly three months of conversation to catch up on has left us unable to keep up with the blog! Almost an hour after we posted our last blog in Dubrovnik, we boarded a ferry bound for Bari, Italy. Several weeks ago, we had a difficult time choosing an appropriate seating accommodation on the ferry. Our decision basically came down to a private room, or what was simply referred to online as “deck.” Our minds had been filled with terrifying images of frozen, wet lawn chairs so we ended up choosing the private room; we later learned that the poorly defined and translated “deck” really just meant sleeping on plush benches in what was basically a dining room/cafe.

The next day, Wednesday, was a bit of a long one for us because we had to spend 5 hours in the Bari train station as we waited for our trip to Rome, 6 hours of actual travel, and then about another 90 minutes traveling to the small town of Tarquinia from Rome Termini. A colleague of Dr. Faust’s is a native of Tarquinia and offered us her home so that we could live a bit more comfortably during our stay in Rome. Her aunt even met Katie and I at the train station and took us to the apartment; it felt wonderful to be back in a home environment once again. The next day, Katie’s parents arrived shortly after noon but to our horror as much as theirs they came without 2 of their 3 pieces of luggage! The irony is particularly biting when one considers how much Katie and I have been flying over the past year and our bags have been never been lost! Since Tarquinia is almost an hour from Rome by train and much of the day had already passed us, we chose to spend it driving around the Umbria countryside in the rental car, seeing a number of small towns, including Tuscania, Marta, Montefiascone, and Civita during our afternoon tour. Not only were they spectacularly beautiful, but they were pleasantly empty of tourists as well! The only downside to staying in Tarquinia was that this small village was nearly a ghost town after 6:00 or 7:00 in the evening, and so that severely limited our possible dinner options. But for our first dinner in Italy together, the restaurant attached to the hotel down the street proved to be quite delicious; we stumbled back to the hotel well after 11:00!

When our alarm clocks rang on Friday morning at 5:45, however, we admonished ourselves for having stayed up so late the night before as we downed one cup of coffee after another. Arriving in Rome around 8:30, our first order of business was to stop by the Jesuit curia outside St. Peter’s where I met Fr. Adam Zak, a Polish Jesuit who was able to secure for us tickets to nearly all of the Tridium celebrations presided by Pope Benedict XVI. The curia’s location can’t be beat. Their meditation gardens buttress up against ruins of the home of Emperor Nero’s wife. Similarly, from the 5th story roof, nearly all of Rome is visible. Fr. Zak was gracious enough to give us a small tour from the rooftop, but we had to cut it a bit short because we had timed tickets at the Villa Borgese which we were risking being late for. I have only visited a few art museums in my life that I would say truly moved me. However, the Villa Borghese is likely the newest addition to this list. Though all the Bernini sculptures were spectacular, my particular favorite was the Rape of Persephone. After a light lunch, we felt it might be prudent to arrive early to St. Peter’s for the Passion celebration. We were glad we did as the entrance for ticket holders was not clearly marked. My only interaction with Italian Police has been limited to those I have asked for help or for directions in St. Peter’s; even when I have the help of a native Italian speaker, they are amazingly unable to provide any semblance of helpfulness, useful information, or security (nearly everyone sets off the metal detectors but no one is further inspected). However, once we had found the correct line for ticket holders (which an American priest assisted us with), the gates were shortly opened.

Though enthusiasm abounded, civility did not! Poor crowd-control planning on the part of police did not make for an orderly flow of people and we soon found ourselves on the losing end of an enormous shoving contest with seminarians, nuns, and fellow tourists. The scene can best be summed up by an exchange of words I later witnessed in the basilica, over who was the rightful “owner” of a seat: with a face that is difficult to describe other than one filled with the highest expressions of annoyance, anger, and frustration, one tourist argued vehemently, “First come, first serve,” to another. I certainly hope everyone in the Basilica that night was at least Christian as it felt quite embarrassing to see such blatantly rude behavior. Nevertheless, the ceremony of the Passion itself was truly beautiful and gave me, and I imagine the Fausts as well, time for reflection and prayer.When we were leaving the Basilica at the ceremony’s conclusion, we were surprised to see it raining. Unknown to us at the time, it would not stop for the next three days and we find ourselves permanently living in our rain gear! We had really hoped to go to Stations of the Cross in the Coliseum but opted to skip it due to train times and rain. Though it took us an hour once again to return to Tarquinia, once we arrived we were so glad to have such a sizeable and comfortable apartment to our disposal!

When we arrived the following morning in Rome, our first course of action was to go see the Vatican Museums. It ended up taking up a bit more of the day that we had anticipated; we stood for three hours in the pouring rain just to get in and then spent an additional 2.5 hours seeing what was sadly just a small percentage of its immense collections. My personal favorites from here were the Raphael rooms and a wall-sized painting of Jan Sobieski liberating Vienna. Though it was still raining when we emerged, we decided we had dried out sufficiently to try to go see the Coliseum in the ancient quarter. We had originally planned to enter the Coliseum but when we finally arrived and saw the long line snaking around it, our thoughts immediately turned to our harrowing, wet morning at the Vatican and we came to grips with the fact that we simply did not have the morale to wait in any more lines. The Roman Forum ruins complex had just closed, so before we began our trek back to Termini station we simply walked around the perimeter of the complex and observed the ruins. We also stopped by Santa Maria della Vittoria so that we could see Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Theresa. When we arrived in Tarquinia almost an hour later we stopped at a grocery store so that we would buy some food to eat Sunday night as we predicted that everything would be closed.

Easter Sunday began, naturally, in St. Peter’s Square. Easter mass was scheduled to begin at 10:30, and like usual, we had to arrive early to ensure good seats so we showed up right around 8:30, which, a bit surprisingly, did not even allow us to get in the first tiered block of seats. Unfortunately, we had a bit of a repeat of the previous day because it started raining less than an hour after we arrived. I couldn’t help but think about how Fr. Than once gave a homily about how people stood in the pouring rain during LSU football games, yet whenever it rained heavily during Sunday evenings, the amount of people attending mass was significantly smaller. Regardless, I think Pope Benedict felt sorry for the thousands of people in attendance because the homily was skipped and final blessing was given while communion was still taking place for many people. Though Katie and I were dressed in full rain gear, the Fausts’ pants were really beginning to get soaked so we decided to skip the Urbi et Orbi message that was apparently held after mass. After warming up with hot soup, we tried to finish out those last things we had planned to do in Rome; specifically those we thought were most likely to be accessible on Easter Sunday: the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, Piazza Novana, and the Victor Emmanuel Monument. Having gotten up every morning at 6:00 AM and spent so many countless hours in the rain, we were really exhausted by the late afternoon so we headed back to Tarquinia at 6:00 and enjoyed a peaceful night at the apartment, while we eat a home cooked dinner and finally got to see Joey win on Crosswords! We went to bed at 10:00 and slept in the next morning till 9:00! Internet is a bit slow, but we did manage to get our pictures from Plitvice up!

After one month in Africa, we arrived two days ago in Europe. Getting here was no picnic, actually. As Tommy mentioned in his last post, since all the train tickets from Luxor to Cairo were bought up by hotels and tourist agencies who would only sell them for some extra baksheesh, we took an uncomfortable and loud overnight bus, leaving both of us a little sleep deprived. Our flight from Cairo to Berlin the next night was from 2 am-6 am, followed by a six-hour layover in Berlin Tegel (which, I must say, has the least comfortable airport seats for sleeping I’ve ever encountered) before our flight to Milan, leaving us even more sleep-deprived. To make matters worse, I came down with the same 24-hour illness that had affected Tommy two days prior and spend much of the journey in a nauseous haze.

However, I’m happy to say that after collapsing upon our arrival in Milan and sleeping until the next morning, we both woke up feeling wonderful. We had only one day in the city, but it was fantastic. It was such a lovely place–and, perhaps it goes without saying, but so different from anywhere we visited in Africa! The streets were charming and filled with the most interesting stores. There were bookshops everywhere, some that only sold books on theater or art. The city is also a fashion center, and everywhere we went we passed expensive and beautiful clothing stores. All of the people were so stylish and well-dressed. While we don’t speak Italian, we have been able to communicate with most people we have encountered in either Spanish or English. Spanish has been particularly useful, and we’ve enjoyed speaking it and being able to interact better with locals. Coming from Luxor, it was like night and day, and it was a nice change of pace.

The first thing we did was visit the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie to see The Last Supper. Visits are very controlled to help preserve the painting. We purchased tickets and returned at an indicated time, when we were ushered into an antechamber with a group of about 25 people. From there, some automatic doors opened to let us into another glass room. When everyone had stepped through, the entry doors closed and another set opened. This process was repeated twice more before glass doors actually opened the way into the church. It’s a very small, plain room. Most of the walls are white, but as you enter the first thing you see is the painting to your right. It’s very large, much larger than I imagined, and restoration efforts have left it in extremely good shape. We had about a half an hour to study it, and it remained fascinating the entire time. We even took out my binoculars to examine its texture from where we were standing, which worked really well. There are also some Andy Warhol works based on The Last Supper that are currently on display with it, which made for an interesting contrast.

Next we walked east to the Duomo, an immense Gothic cathedral. Tommy said that of all the churches he has seen in Europe, this one struck him in particular, and I can see why. I’ve never seen a church with such an elaborate exterior. It’s like every possible inch of roof space was covered with Gothic speirs and crosses. Its interior was similarly breathtaking. Immense columns support a roof so high I could barely believe it. There are many lovely altars and statues lining the nave, and an organ on the altar with hundred of pipes, covered by elaborately painted panels. Tall and elaborate stained-glass windows illuminated the interior.

From the Duomo, we passed through the immense Victor Emmanuel II shopping plaza, where we finally found an item we had been hunting for all day: the international version of USA Today. In case you don’t know why, click here. And here. We took a quick stroll through the fashion district and gazed in the windows of Prada, Chanel, and Armani stores. Then we picked up our bags and headed to the train station for a half hour ride to Como in northern Italy, just a stone’s throw from Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Como.

It seems as though whenever a movie includes a beautiful mountain lake scene, it is invariably filmed at Lake Como (Casino Royale, Ocean’s 12, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, etc). The area is a ritzy vacation ground for all of Europe, and we could only afford to spend a couple of nights on the lake’s shores. But it has been well worth the trip. The bus ride from Como to our hostel outside of Menaggio alone was unbelievably lovely. We arrived near sunset, and had dinner at a pizzeria nearby.

The next day, we took a ferry across the lake to Bellagio. It was an absolutely charming town, with many tiny cobblestone streets lined with restaurants and shops. Because it is the off-season, many businesses are not open, and most hotels are closed and undergoing renovations. We still had a wonderful time wandering around all day and taking in the scenery.

Italy has been absolutely lovely, and we look forward to returning in a few weeks. Tomorrow: Switzerland!