A new blog...

To the millions who read this blog...

I am writing about physical therapy now. This new blog is at:

http://themboneshurt.blogspot.com/

-Paul

Areva Derche!

Our final day in Italy we spent in Florence seeing a couple final sights. We took a bus to Piazza Michelangelo which has a beautiful overlook of the Florentine skyline. We walked back across the Arno and took a tour through Santa Croche which was one of the most interesting churches I have ever toured through. It houses the tombs of Dante, Machiavelli, Galileo, Michelangelo, and Donatello.

One brief note about my favorite piece of art in Florence. At the center of town next to the Duomo is the Baptistry (an ancient Roman temple turned into a church). Adorning one of the doors is Ghiberti's low relief's depicting events in the Old Testament from creation to the reign of Solomon. Ghiberti spent 27 years creating these bronze gilded doors. I could have spent at least 27 hours getting lost in all the detail and wondering about the techniques he might have used to create the masterpiece in front of my eyes. Absolutely amazing.


So that brings me to the end of our trip to Italy. I enjoyed our time journeying through the country and am eager for another international trip.

Fiesole...

Our last trip in Italy was to Fiesole, a small hill town overlooking Florence. Days of little sleep and traveling from city to city had caught up with us in Florence and we needed a break from city life. Fiesole was just the right remedy for our weary souls. Unfortunately we were unable to recharge our digital camera battery so we have no digital pictures of Fiesole (I pulled these pictures off the web).

The bus from Florence to Fiesole runs up a winding road and stops at the center of Fiesole by the cathedral and clock tower. Center of town is quaint but not quiet; Fiat's buzz around the circle in all directions. We meandered on to a side street where we found a beautiful view of the countryside from a park bench. The wonderful thing about vacation is that when you find a park bench with a view you can just sit there and do nothing for as long as you want (or until your butt goes numb). And so we sat.

Daily gelato treats are a must when Italy. After we had our gelato break we felt filled with super human strength and decided to make the climb up toward the Franciscan chruch located on the very tippy top of the Fiesolean hill. Midway up the climb is a park of rememberence which is in part dedicated to 4 men who gave up their lives to save the inhabitants of Fiesole from Nazi soldiers. The view is panoramic and entirely quiet. This was Kristin's favorite part of our whole Florence portion of the Italy trip. We savored the view for quite a while on another park bench and then hiked up to the beautiful Franciscan church and monastery. On the way back down the hill we stopped at a purse shop and Kristin purchased a nice leather purse. I purchased a leather walet (only to find out later that it was made in China!).

Across the Arno River

Kristin and I made the trip to the Uffizi Gallery on day 2 in Florence. The Uffizi houses some of the most famous Renaissance art. I am clueless about art and so the gallery was less than meaningful to me. But we did see some famous works by Botticelli, Michelangelo, DaVinci and Rafael.Next to the gallery is the Vecchio palace pictured above.

This large square leads to the Ponte Vecchio which is the oldest bridge crossing the Arno river. Jewelry shops housed in old wooden and plaster rooms line the bridge. So we crossed the Arno and had a delectable lunch and then headed to Boboli gardens.

We found Boboli gardens to be a much needed break from Florence's exhausting auto traffic and endless maze of streets. Click on the picture to the left to get the full view of down town Florence from Boboli gardens. On our way back across the Arno we discovered our new favorite gelato stand--Innocenti‎. We ordered delicious gelato in cones and ate them on the walk over the Arno river. Priceless.

Automobiles, trains and steak.

Traveling from Montepulciano to Florence (Firenze) was tricky. We made arrangements with Hertz to drop off the Fiat in Chiusi which is about 20 minutes away from Montepulciano.One slight problem, though. When we arrived in Chiusi we couldn't find the Hertz. So we called the English line with Hertz and asked for the phone number to Hertz in Chiusi. Just as I was dialing the local number an older Italian man asked me something in Italian with the distinctive word "Hertz" in it. I had no idea what he was asking but at that point any local person talking about Hertz sounded like a good bet to me. I answered "Si" (always answer "Si" or "Prego" when you don't know what an Italian person is saying; you never know what that will get you). He took us out to a Hertz representative who just happened to be dropping a car off for someone right where we were. There was no official Hertz rental office in town, but he was able to receive our car.

We caught the train to the Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence. A ten minute taxi ride through Florence brought us to our nice hotel (the biggest room we had while in Italy, and warm showers too). After settling in briefly we went out for lunch near the large marble Duomo at the center of historic Florence. At the restaurant I had my second unsuccessful encounter with the metric system. I noticed beef steak Florentine style on the menu..."(for 100gr.) €. 3,90." Not sure what that all meant I decided I would just order it and find out. The waiter looked at me and said, "It is almost one kilogram. Do you know how much a kilo is?" I couldn't remember the conversion so I looked at him and sheepishly said, "No." He was annoyed and told me, "There are 2.2 pounds per kilo. Do you still want the steak?" It was like being quizzed by my old high school chemistry teacher. "Si, prego," I said to him. Minutes later an exceedingly thick steak came out. Minutes after that an equally large bill came out.

And that is the story of how I ordered the tastiest and most expensive steak I have ever eaten in my entire life. You can check out my steak at:

http://www.pepo.it/statiche/index2.asp?idlingua=2

At home in Tuscany

Moving to Italy is not something I would ever plan on doing, but I like to imagine myself settling into the places I have traveled. Doubtless I would pick Tuscany and I would think Montepulciano would be a suitable home town for a fashion conscious wife and agrarian oriented husband. It felt like a place I had lived in before; or maybe it is just the sort of place after which I have longed. Driving up the road toward Montepulciano we caught glimpses of the town nestled into its ancient Etruscan hill and I felt my heart running out ahead of our Fiat eager to plunge into this wonderful bit of compagna Italiana.

On our second day in Montepulciano we slept in and then breakfasted in the dinning room at a table next to a young, laughy American couple. Cappuccinos and tasty salted eggs made to order, toast and Nutella, home made breads and pastries, Fresh squeezed orange juice from blood oranges. Yum! And then we ambled through the quiet streets with no pressure to be anywhere; the very essence of vacation. Kristin and I wanted some time to pray so we would occasionally duck into a cathedral, pull out our Bible and draw close to God. My favorite cathedral in town was Chiesa di Sant'Agostino. In college I read St. Augustine's The Confessions. Sitting in this cathedral named in honor of Augustine I reflected on his conversion and listened to the child's voice echoing down through the ages singing, "Pick it up and read, pick it up and read." I opened the Scriptures to Psalm 150: "Praise the LORD. Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in his mighty heavens. Praise Him for His acts of power; praise Him for His surpassing greatness." Hanging above the alter was a wooden crucifix by Donatello. Pouring over Donatello's detail of Christ's agony I was reminded once again that God's greatest achievements in my life do not always occur the way I expect.

We strolled on to a local organic Enoteca called Croce di Febo. Here we had our first oil tasting and it was fun. We tasted three different oils in small shot glasses with bread and red wine. The oil had a surprising grassy flavor to me. It is now my favorite. That afternoon we set out for a drive through Tuscany. We stopped briefly at Pienza for some of their delectable goat cheese. Unfortunately the town was crowded and we found no goat cheese. We were there long enough for Kristin to snap a couple pictures of the town. Pictured to the right is a Pienza building very typical of the architecture in Tuscany. From Pienza we went to Montalcino--home to the mighty red wine Brunello. The people in the enotecas were snooty and uninviting. We did pay for a tasting at the town castle and decided that Brunello was not our favorite wine.

Back in Montepulciano that evening we sat on the steps to Chiesa di Sant'Agostino eating rosemary bread sticks, sliced pepperoni and cheese. After our snack we walked up the hill and stopped in a pastry shop just as it was closing, but in time to purchase Cannoli. Cannoli is an Italian pastry-tube filled with vanilla flavored ricotta cheese. How good was it? Well, if I were to conduct a search for evidence of God's goodness the search would quite possibly stop at this particular Italian pastry. Seated on a bench at the top of town, I consumed the cannoli in a fit of gustatory ecstasy. All the while Kristin and I happily watched the Tuscan countryside go to sleep.

Oh the wonders of a Fiat

While in Italy our morning cappuccinos became a ritual breakfast experience. And perhaps our best cappuccino was the morning we woke up in Assisi and strolled over to a local cafe. An inviting barista took our order and encouraged us to take a table. We watched Italians stop off at the counter for a quick cafe on their way to church or work. That morning we realized that Italians do not linger over coffee like I had imagined; for Italians it is a brief stop en route to work where pleasantries and gossip are briefly exchanged. Ritualistic, but not drawn out.

We headed to the train station and caught one of the morning trains to Perugia (once again Kristin navigated the Italian language in purchasing the tickets). Our end destination for the day was Montepulciano, but we had to stop at the Perugia airport to pick up our rental car. The drive to Montepulciano in our Fiat was easy to navigate. I had envisioned us getting hopelessly lost in Tuscan countryside, but the signage in Italy really is terrific. Once we arrived at Montepulciano I couldn't figure out how to get into the city except by driving on ultra-narrow cobblestone roads. Very quickly I found myself navigating on streets that could hardly fit my Fiat. Italian pedestrians were looking at me through my windshield and saying things; I have no idea what. Eager to get off the narrow street I turned down a side street that turned out to be a dead end. And that's when I discovered that I had no idea how to put the Fiat in reverse. So Kristin sat at the wheel while I pushed the Fiat around and we managed to get back out of town.

Montepulciano was without a doubt my favorite stop in Italy. A picturesque hill town chalk full of Enotecas (wine shops), gelato stands, and quaint grocery stands with local cheese and peperoni. Our hotel, Albergo il Marzocco, felt to me like the most authentic Italian experience. The main attendant was a hospitable Italian woman who showed us where to park our car and took our breakfast orders in the morning. After morning cappuccinos we could stroll from one end of the town to the other hand-in-hand window shopping or wine and cheese tasting.

Montepulciano has sprawling tunnel systems under its buildings. Some of the Enotecas bill these tunnels as Etruscan tombs and offer free tours. Now these "tombs" are used to store large barrels of wine and showcase collections of ancient novelties (one Enoteca even had a chastity belt).