wil and kris (and gracie and ava)

after a day of much needed rest yesterday, we were back on our feet to see some more interesting things. i don’t know if i said it already but we have the most time, with the least amount to see in florence, so we were excited to end our trip with some relaxation, florentine style.

we slept in a bit, and leisurely left the room to our one and only site for the day…florence’s duomo, or rather the cattedrale di santa maria del fiore. an outstanding representation of renaissance architecture from the 14th and 15th century (the renaissance basically started and flourished in florence)… with a very ornamental exterior or pink, green and white marble and a grand dome. inside contained one of the longest naves, amazing inlaid marble floors, and an intricate painting within the dome. the outside piazza around the church was crazy- tourists flocked everywhere (i can’t imagine these sites in the middle of summer at the peak or tourism…yuck!).

we grabbed a couple panini and ate before perusing more of the city on foot. on our way past the duomo, we came across a small stand of original watercolors of florence and tuscany. we made our first big tourist purchase on a watercolor for ourselves…i told wil i’d much rather spend the money on a local original artist’s work (that can’t be found in the us) than a printed tshirt or plastic figurine of the david. we both find ourselves chuckling at what some people get sucked into buying.

with the whole day on our hands we decided to keep walking and see where the streets led us…continuing south we passed some interesting buildings and piazzas (at the time weren’t really sure what we were looking at; will probably find out later as we continue to discover the city). we ended at the river and found ourselves looking at ponte vecchio (”old bridge”)…the most famous bridge in the city, and a unique one at that. the bridge is covered in shops of gold and silver jewelry and has beautiful views up and down and across the river.

with the day starting the increase in temperature, we turned around and walked back to our room. so far we’ve enjoyed the “siesta” schedule that much of the city follows… resting indoors and taking a break from the day during the late afternoon (the hottest part) until dinner. listening to the bustle of the street below us (man, the motorbikes are SO loud!), we rested and hung out playing some soduko together…just taking it easy. we have a couple fuller days ahead of us again so we were trying to take advantage of not doing anything.

around 7 or so (most restaurants don’t open until about 6:30 or 7 here) we stepped out and had a great dinner at a place we had passed once or twice before on our previous walks. probably the big meal splurge for the trip, we had a great dinner of pasta (wil with pesto, me with a house sauce), florentine steak (we split it), a great bottle of chianti, and dessert (wil with a cheesecake…not new york style! and me with some custardy chocolatey creamy thing). we took the meal slow, as you’re supposed to here, and enjoyed sitting on the street, watching people pass on foot, bike and scooter. we even dreamed about all the other countries we can’t wait to visit in our next adventures throughout our lives.

currently, back in our room, wil is watching some italian soap opera (giving me a play by play based on what’s happening, even though he has no idea what they’re saying). we thought we might catch an american movie with italian subtitles, but no luck…everything here is dubbed over in italian. oh well. we’ll probably head out for yet another gelato run!

love and miss you all!

We miss our dog

It’s her birthday in 4 days and we won’t be there to celebrate with her. Hopefully she’ll understand.

well, as wil said below, he did forget a huge chunk of site seeing that we did later in rome after dinner. we saw so much, how could he have missed it!

well, to pick up after saint peter’s, we opened our guide book and picked a recommended restaurant- a small family run business with yummy proscuitto, mozzarella, linguine, risotto and wine.

we also used our guidebook for a planned walk across rome at night. this was perfect for us because it hit all the additional places that we wanted to see but couldn’t, due to trying to catch the two biggies (colosseum and st peter’s) before they closed. although it’s basically impossible to catch a taxi in rome, we caught one after walking a bit to take us to our starting point.

we started in “campo de fiori” (field of flowers), a bustling square around a large statue, of cafes and restaurants, spilling into the middle. we enjoyed our first gelato as we watched the square crawl with hoards of people out enjoying the cool roman night.

passing by other interesting piazzas and buildings, we stopped at the pantheon… originally built as a temple to all gods, this (later changed to christian) church was so majestic at night. i only wish we could have had more time to see it during the day to go inside (one of the most interesting and best preserved domes of ancient churches), but the sight coming around the corner and seeing the massive columns and pediment was pretty astounding. (*note: the columns were made with one solid piece of marble each, and the structure holds the record of the largest unreinforced concrete dome!)

after a couple more less exciting stops, we made our way around a corner to be shocked by the trevi fountain. one, because of the impressive sight of stone, water and light; two, because of the impressive sight of people! the square was filled to the brim of hundreds of people trying to get close enough to toss their coin into the water. scammers with roses and silly toys were at every turn as well…but the sculptures coming out of the stone and projecting water were as cool as i had hoped they would be.

after throwing my coin, wil and i came near to the end of our night walk, ending at the spanish steps…i had heard they weren’t that exciting, were dirty, etc. but wil and i both agreed that it was a pretty fun spot (at least for an evening). this place too was filled with people sitting all along the massive steps (up towards the spanish embassy, thus the name), chatting, taking pictures, smooching and just enjoying being alive and in rome…so we thought we’d join in on the same mentality as we savored our last few moments in this bustling city that we unknowingly had to rush through.

back to the hotel we went, which brings me back to the end of wil’s post.

wil forgot to mention that the reason we had to rush through rome so fast was not only because of the train but of checkout…we figured the train would get there midday (not 4 though) and we’d have the afternoon and the next half day to split the main sites between. until we discovered that check out was at 9:30am!!! i was so sad to come all the way to rome and miss out on some things, especially the sistine chapel (i mean, come on!) but i guess we’ll just have to come back…