Day 3 in was in Firenze (or Florence as we know it).  Pictures are here.

In what was rapidly becoming a theme, I got us lost in Florence as well.  This is more excusable than in Rome (where I’d been twice before), but still frustrating.  Shortly after we got to Florence, Ed started having camera issues.  Turns out the nice, shiny new lens he had bought (and I brought from the US) was having ‘ERR99′ issues… which in Canon parlance is ‘take two aspirin and call me in the morning.’ (otherwise known as ‘generic error’).  But as you can tell, Ed get’s slightly frustrated by this.

Florence is beautiful… but it’s much more of a ‘cultural’ destination, than a ‘religious’ or ‘pilgrimage’ destination.  We took this first day to just hoof it around Florence.  Unfortunately, Florence decided to surprise us.  We’re in the Piazza dela Liberta, and the sky opens up, and quite the rain storm begins.  Thankfully, there’s a nice arch for us to hide under.  We spend an amusing 45 minutes or so dancing with rain drops (wind would blow one way, we’d move to once side of the arch… wind would blow the other way, we’d go towards the other entrance…).  After that, we walk down past San Lorenzo.  Ed then finds an internet cafe, and starts researching his ERR99 problem, while I poke around elsewhere.  I find the Duomo, hang around for a bit, and then go take Ed over to the Duomo.  Photography ensues.

After the Duomo, we meander down to what we end up calling the Piazza de Fake David, because the REAL David (statue) stood there for centuries.  Though it was just moved a few years ago to a spiffy (20 Euro admittance) museum.  This casting of the real David was put in it’s place.  There are also a TON of other amazing statues in this Piazza.  See the pictures for some other ones.

And after that we found the river, and it was nearly sunset, so more fun pictures came into being…  I really like this one of Ed at Sunset, this one of the reflected bridge, and this one of the setting sun.

 Day 4 (day 3 with Ed) Pictures are here.
First, we went to a nice museum of sculpture (which didn’t allow cameras).  There were some stunning statues in here, but you’ll have to take my word for it.  There was one memorable one of Moses placing the serpent on the cross of wood.

After that, we went inside the Duomo.  We set up the tripod out of the way, to get some pictures of the dome of the Duomo.  We find out later that tripods aren’t allowed, but we weren’t bothered at this point… (probably because we were behind a very large column).  After poking around a fair bit, we then go under the Duomo, for the ‘old duomo’ tour (what archeologists are figuring out about the church that was there beforehand).  And then we go into the Baptistry for the Duomo, which is ALSO stunning, and has a very impressive dome in a Greek style.

After this, we’re scouting out places to get pictures of sunset.  We get to the other side of town to Piazza Sancto Spiritu, and hear thunder.  Realizing it’s going to rain, we hustle back to the Duomo, hoping to catch the Coupla tour.  Once we get there, an enterprising street merchant (who Ed chatters with in some Asian language) is selling umbrellas, and get’s 5euro from us for the privilege.  We get to spend an amusing 30 minutes crowding around the entrance to the Coupola tour, and loaning said umbrella to people who aren’t under the awning along with us.

Finally, we get inside, and start climbing 463 steps to the top of the dome.  Here’s the interior of the duomo from the coupla tour.   It was hazy and rainy, so I didn’t get many good pictures from up there, but it was a great view, and a good place to relax a bit, before we have to climb down.  After this, we go in search of cheap bottled water (always buy from a supermarket, and don’t bother with refrigerated).  Though I must say that 6 liters of water is VERY HEAVY… I was happy for Ed’s hands to help carry the weight… I had done something similar in Rome, and it wasn’t pleasant.
After this, we grabbed a lackluster meal (for me… Ed’s was good), and then crashed.

Day 5 (Day 4 with Ed) Siena Pictures here.

We took a day trip to Siena.  We took some great pictures here, but it was pretty uneventful.  The biggest thing was my frustration in finding an internet Cafe (so I could get Tracy Morkin’s Italian Cell phone number), and then finding a phone place where I could call her (to see if she was in Siena still).  Turns out, she had left the night before.  D’OH!  I was kinda frustrated at this point, but eventually calmed down.  We went to the Piazza de Campo, then Santa Maria dela Scala museum (which had a HUGE display of historic walking sticks of all things), and then to the Duomo in Siena (not to be confused with the Duomo in Florence… or the Duomo in Milan…).  Then there was the Metropolitan Museum dela Opera (I think), where we got some nice arial views of Siena.  We then hustled back to the train station (pausing briefly to see (gasp) people praying in San Dominico (which was a novel sight)), and back to Florence, where we found this amazing osteria near our hotel.  Great food was had.  After that, we crashed.

Teaser for next time: Assisi.

… Is Carmen Sandiego!

Well, I just created a shiny, new category for travels, which will be closely linked with photography, if I had to guess.

Ed and I went to Italy for 2 weeks (well, I was there 15 days, he was only there for 10, but oh well). It was an amazing trip. I arrived on the morning of Saturday, July 22nd, and promptly went to my hotel to drop my luggage off. After fighting with an elevator (lift) even smaller than this one, I went off to San Pietro to chill for a bit, and try to catch up with Laura Newman who was in Rome for the same day. I was running too late to catch her, but I tried in the two most obvious places:

1. The Blessed Sacrament chapel in San Pietro
2. The gelato place nearest to San Pietro

But that was to no avail. So I chilled in the Blessed Sacrament chapel for a while, and then went home to crash. There weren’t any pictures of this day, mainly because I’d been to San Pietro several a few times before.

Day 2:

Ed Arrives. I catch up with him at Stacion Termini (Rome’s Central train station), and we go through the same luggage song and dance. This time though, we start heading over to probably my favorite church in Rome, San Giovanni Laterino (St. John Laterine), which is actually Rome’s Cathedral. Here I grabbed Sunday Mass (in Italian no less), while Ed shuffled around taking pictures. I did get a few before this of the statue of St. Francis ‘holding’ up the walls of St. John Laterine.

And then we decided to head towards the Colleseum. But there was a small snag in our plans: I got us lost.

Have I mentioned that Rome was FREAKING HOT? It was around 95-100 F in the sun.

It turns out that there is a huge difference between Via San Geovianni Latrini and Via San Geovanni Latrino, which happen to intersect 2 blocks from Basillica San Laterino. I chose the wrong one, and we get quite lost. Turns out we were walking around the outer walls of what’s now called ‘inner Rome’ or ‘Tourist Rome’, and eventually meander by Circus Maximus, and the temple of Hercules, before we make it to the Colleseum.

But we did see a burned out “Smart” car, so that was something.

We hooked up with this organization called Romaround Tours to jump ahead in the queue to get into the Colleseum, and to get a guide to boot. They were a little expensive, but they did a really good job. Turns out that only one Christian died in the Colleseum… St. Ignatious, the Bishop of Turkey. All the ‘other’ martyred Christians were killed in the Circus Maximus, or the Circus Calligula (where St. Peter was killed).

After this, we broke away from the tour for some extra pictures, meandered to the Roman Forum, and then back to our hotel for dinner, and a well deserved rest.

Here are all of my pictures from what I called Day 1 in Rome.

I’ll blog some more later about this. But as a teaser, we went to Florence next, and Ed has some camera trouble.