CLICK ON PHOTO FOR SLIDE SHOW.
Email from September 5, 2007:
We have internet access at the hotel but it is hard to find it unoccupied.
Success at last.
Sept 4 we went to the Vatican. Nice thing about our tour is we were able to enter the Vatican museum an hour earlier than the masses and get through the galleries and Sistine Chapel before the hordes. We found that same tapestry that freaked Mary and I years ago where the table follows you as you pass by it. I loved seeing the Sistene Chapel, especially after reading so much detail about the painting of it from the book MICHELANGELO AND THE POPES CEILING. I was a walking art history book for Ken. We left the chapel for the crypts under St. PETERS Basilica to see tombs of the popes, including John Paul II. We saw the bronze casket that sits over St Peters tomb and directly below the canopy inside the basilica. I was awed, once again, with the Pieta and all the beautifully detailed mosaics. Then we toured some of ancient Rome, the Arch of Constantine, the forum, Via Sancta, The Colosseum. Later we walked from Trevi Fountain to Piazza Spagna (Spanish Steps), and Piazza del Poppolo. We went into the church at the Piazza to see 2 Carravaggios - the crucifiction of St. Peter and the conversion of St. Paul. We later had a very lovely dinner and celebrated our anniversary. 13th.
Sept 5 we saw Catacombs, the chains of St. Peters, Michelangelos Moses, Vatican again for an audience with the pope, Piazza Navona and pantheon. Picnic at the hotel garden. Had the tartouffe gelato at Tres Scalini in the Piazza Navona. yes!!!
bye,,,bus is loading.ken and jeri
Email from September 12, 2007:
Dear Friends and Family from the canals of Venezia. We just haven’t been able to find an internet café to write from but finally here we are. I think we last left off in Roma. Along the way south we stopped at the first ever abbey at Montecassino, the site of a famous WWII battle site. This is the abbey that St. Benedict founded when he was tired of all the corruption in Rome. He and his sister, Scholastica founded it. She was instrumental in creating schools (thus, Scholar, Scholastic, etc). Our next adventure was the Greek ruins in Paestum, south of Salerno. These are the best preserved Greek ruins, even ahead of Greece. Ken was excited the most about this because he loves the mythology and history. We then rode the bus along the Amalfi Coast…..whoooboy…what an experience. It was VERY narrow and VERY windy and all of it on the cliff edges. I just don’t know how Guiseppe, our bus driver did it. Sometimes we had to stop traffic just to make some of the curves. But it was absolutely beautiful and picturesque. We arrived at our hotel in Maiori (the major side of the Regina River….the town on the minor side is Minori) Our hotel was located across the street from the Mediterranean sea. The hotel had a private beach, as well as a rooftop swimming pool, which we used. A thunderstorm greeted us the first night, but we all went to the roof top bar anyway and had some drinks and watched the rain. The first morning we walked into town and went through the weekly market where all the vendors bring items not typically found in the stores in this tiny village – clothes, shoes, soaps, TP, linens, towels, household goods, plants, yarn…etc. We found our limoncello here and bought a few bottles. In the afternoon we took a boat to the little town of Amalfi, also on a hillside at the water’s edge. We shopped, ate lunch in the outdoor café in the town square and returned home. Amalfi is famous for it’s hand made paper and I found some to bring home. Instead of joining our group for dinner, we chose to pick up stuff from a deli and have a picnic at the beach…marinated prawns, local cheese, local wine and black olives… all in the best of the Chaitin tradition. The owner of the deli made us feel so welcome…he gave us samples and helped us choose our dinner…then when we settled up he brought out a bottle of limoncello and served us a little cup and had a drink with us. His wife showed up with his baby and we played peek-a-boo with him. Because the local wine is bottled there, the owner asked us to bring back the unlabeled bottle to the store, which we did the next day. Saturday Sept 8 we took a boat to Capri…oh my gosh what a beautiful place. We went to the gardens, shopped, had lunch, and took a boat around the island to the Emerald Grotto and the Coral Grotto. I love boats. The best thing about Capri??? NO cars, NO buses, NO trucks, NO Scooters…only walkers. It was so quiet compared to other places we’ve been.
Sun Sept 9th….Pompeii. Wow! I was just a bit disappointed we couldn’t go the brothels where some of the best wall paintings are. I understand that in the last few years quite a bit of Pompeii is limited from viewing because so many tourists do not respect it and vandalize it or steal from it. That is so disappointing. Nichola, our tour guide in Pompeii was the best. What a cute little older man. After Pompeii, Guiseppe used his magic bus to get us to Florence in time to see David at the Accademia before it closed. I am in awe of Michelangelo. He did David when he was still in his 20s. We saw a couple of other MIchelangelos’s including the slaves/prisoners he had intened to use for Pope Julius’s tomb. We finished the day with dinner at a Pizzeria where we got to sample about 6 different types of pizza. It was yummy. Then, en masse, our group went to the Vivoli Gelateria for some of the best gelato in Italy.
Monday Sept 10th, I got up very early to take pictures of the Duomo (2 blocks away) before our 8 am walking tour of the city: The Duomo, the golden doors of the Baptistry, Sante Croce and all the tombs inside (Michelangelo, Galileo, Rossini, Machiavelli). We then hoofed it to the Cathedral Museum for lots of Donatello, the original baptistery door panels, and Michelangelo’s other Pieta with his face on the statue of Nicodemus. Lunch in the Sante Croce square before going out to the Chianti hills for wine and olive oil tasting. Evening found us again in the hills for an Under-the-Tuscan-sun dinner with music and dancing.
Tues Sept 11th on to Venice with a stop in Ferrara. Our hotel in Venice looks over a bridge over the Grand Canal. This morning a tour of a glass factory, this afternoon…on to Burano and a tour of the Doges Palace.
Bye everyone. More later.
Ken & Jeri
Email from September 14, 2007: Two whole days in Venice by ourselves, no groups. Yesterday I did something I haven’t done in two weeks....I slept in. Ahhhh. We started out by wandering around in our neighborhood, Canneregio. We found ourselves in the Ghetto but all the shops were closed because of the holiday the next day. My good Jewish husband forgot, we think it might be Rosh Hashanna. We did see some people all dressed up, men in Hassidic garb and women in outlandish hats and high heels who were partying. Maybe a Bar Mitvah. The Museo Ebraico was also closed. From there we wandered some more through picturesque alleys and came to the Rialto Bridge where our dogs were barking pretty loud. We then took the Vaporetto back to our station, Ferrovia, by the train station. After a nap (I love naps) we had cocktail hour at the roof top garden where we sipped limoncello, wrote in our journal, watched the sun set and listened to the church bells all over town. We had dinner in a place across the alley from our hotel, with a table on the Grand Canal. We had cute little lamps and a flower box full of geraniums. We finished it off with melon and berry gelato at a stand further down the street...it was to die for. The flavors just popped in your mouth. Today we got up and took the vaporetto to Piazza San Marco for a trip up the campanile (bell tower) for the great view of the entire Venice area. Great photos. We then went to the Museo Correr for archeological exhibits and Venice history. They also had a John Singer Sargent show of his works done in Venice --- mostly watercolors --- which, of course I loved. We took the real slow vaporetto back to the hotel so we could admire all the palaces on the Grand Canal. We will have to go to bed early tonight because our flight leaves Venice's Marco Polo Airport at 6:40 am. that means we have to get up at O'Dark Thirty just to get there on time. Because public transportation doesn't exist at that time, we have to take a private water taxi at about 120 Euros.......hooooweee. But we gott get home to make more money to pay for this trip. ha. Next time you hear from us we will be home.
Ciao.
Ken and Jeri
Bye everyone. More later.
Ken & Jeri
Email from September 14, 2007: Two whole days in Venice by ourselves, no groups. Yesterday I did something I haven’t done in two weeks....I slept in. Ahhhh. We started out by wandering around in our neighborhood, Canneregio. We found ourselves in the Ghetto but all the shops were closed because of the holiday the next day. My good Jewish husband forgot, we think it might be Rosh Hashanna. We did see some people all dressed up, men in Hassidic garb and women in outlandish hats and high heels who were partying. Maybe a Bar Mitvah. The Museo Ebraico was also closed. From there we wandered some more through picturesque alleys and came to the Rialto Bridge where our dogs were barking pretty loud. We then took the Vaporetto back to our station, Ferrovia, by the train station. After a nap (I love naps) we had cocktail hour at the roof top garden where we sipped limoncello, wrote in our journal, watched the sun set and listened to the church bells all over town. We had dinner in a place across the alley from our hotel, with a table on the Grand Canal. We had cute little lamps and a flower box full of geraniums. We finished it off with melon and berry gelato at a stand further down the street...it was to die for. The flavors just popped in your mouth. Today we got up and took the vaporetto to Piazza San Marco for a trip up the campanile (bell tower) for the great view of the entire Venice area. Great photos. We then went to the Museo Correr for archeological exhibits and Venice history. They also had a John Singer Sargent show of his works done in Venice --- mostly watercolors --- which, of course I loved. We took the real slow vaporetto back to the hotel so we could admire all the palaces on the Grand Canal. We will have to go to bed early tonight because our flight leaves Venice's Marco Polo Airport at 6:40 am. that means we have to get up at O'Dark Thirty just to get there on time. Because public transportation doesn't exist at that time, we have to take a private water taxi at about 120 Euros.......hooooweee. But we gott get home to make more money to pay for this trip. ha. Next time you hear from us we will be home.
Ciao.
Ken and Jeri
No comments:
Post a Comment