EuroTour 2010, Day 17, Florence to Rome

Our final morning in Florence was all about efficiently getting ready, eating breakfast, and catching a train.  But efficiency does not mean we cannot do it with style.  

Barbie having her last breakfast in our suite's library.  We have a friend in Los Angeles, Jean-Francois from Montreal, who put in quite a lot of effort to turn part of his living room into a library.  I think he is onto something.  Libraries are simply wonderful rooms.  

Instead of leaving from Florence's central train station, we catch the high-speed train to Roma from a smaller satellite station, less crowded and closer to our hotel.  I must have a great travel agent.

Empty tracks offer the promise of movement.

First class all the way, baby.  Those suckers in the other cabins do not get complimentary tea and crackers.

I took this pic of a stopped train at the station, and before I started watching DVD's on the iPhone I messed with it on the Glowing Art app.  I kind if like the result.  I am tempted to say that this picture is unaltered, and somehow the iPhone picked up traces of a supernatural or alien presence.  But no.  My fingertips placed those specs.

Pulling into the Rome station, one is immediately greeted with the presence of the ancient.

Checking into the Westin Excelsior, one is immediately greeted with the presence of the modern.

After getting our bags, and Sean & Lon's bags, into our room, we all agreed that the mood was right for the Hard Rock Cafe.  Sixteen days of authentic, Italian food earns you a burger and nachos.

Jeff's burger, a bit eaten.  I left all the fries in an attempt to moderate the fat intake.  A pittance, I know.

Barbie's pulled pork nachos.  For those of you who followed with us last year, in this very Hard Rock last year Barbie ordered this very dish, and after some delay the waitress came to our table and said, nervously, "There is a problem with the pig meat."  It took a few exchanges for us to understand that they were out of pulled pork.  To commemorate this, Barbie said to the waiter, "I'll have the nachos with the pig meat."  It was a poetic moment.

The Hard Rock Roma.

My wife is THERE.

Our hotel, the Westin Excelsior.  I adore this Renaissance-style building.  And it does not hurt that it has great rooms, heavenly beds, heavenly showers, and an indoor pool.

Did I mention it is over 100 degrees in Rome today?  It is.  Insane heat.  That indoor pool is going to get used this visit.

Sean wanted very much for me to take a picture of the Prada shoes he bought in Florence and include them on The Waste.  He has friends who need to see these shoes.  Who am I to stand between a man and his dreams?

Sean & Lon got their bags and headed to Benedetta's apartment, Barbie got some work done and I checked email.  Soon, Barbie joined me napping, and soon enough after that we were awake and needed to get ready for dinner.  Brooke, the lovely Montanian we met in Rapallo, is here in Rome, staying down the street at the same hotel we stayed at in 2006.  (Last year we stayed here, and I have hunch we will always stay at the Excelsior in Rome, forever more.)  Brooke will be joining us for dinner, as we meet up with Sean & Lon and their hostess, the wonderful Benedetta, whom you got to see us eat dinner with last year.

Piazza Trilussa, an excellent meeting point.  As you can see, lots of people are meeting here.  We planned to meet up with our friends a half block away, where it is less crowded.

Benedetta cruising up on her scooter.  There are smiles and there are Smiles.  Benedetta's always deserves to be capitalized.

Googling this restaurant proved difficult, as it turns out the owner opened a second restaurant and renamed this one, Miraggio Club.  I barely looked at the menu.  Grilled calamari and eggplant parmigiana shall be ordered.

Never before have we seen a glass Coke bottle is this large.  One litre.  That much sugar in one place, the beast in me wanted to grab it and run up a tree to consume it in private.

Brooked was telling a story of her time in Florence, one that happened while we were in Rimini and that cannot be retold to an all ages crowd, and I thought I would take a picture of Sean & Lon's happily impressed faces.  But then Lon caught me, pointed and asked if I was video recording, which made for a much better photograph.

Calamari alla grilla.  

Melanzanne parmigiano.  Should I be embarrassed that eggplant parmesan is one of the Italian phrases I can pronounce best?  No.  This is quite practical.

Barbie presents to you our home away from home, the Westin Excelsior Roma.  This being our third visit to Rome, and second time at this hotel, we are feeling very at home.  In fact, next to New York, Rome may be our most visited city.  Ours as in Barbie and I together.  Oops, Vegas.  I am quite sure that the list of cities we have most visited together goes; Vegas, NYC, Rome.  Not a bad list.  Bonn will catch up soon, based upon the fact that my brother and his family live there.  In fact, Bonn will tie Rome this trip at three visits.

Do not expect too many pictures or sight seeing.  We have seen quite a bit of Rome, and considering the 100 degree heat, we may opt to recharge our batteries and do very little here.  But I promise a few sunsets and such.

Time for bed.

EuroTour 2010, Day 16, Florence

We were up insanely late last night, and yet we woke up fairly early.   Never a good combination, but what can you do?  Regardless of how much sleep we did or did not get, we will stick to the plan; grab breakfast, hop onto the hotel shuttle into town, and hit the one and only site in Florence that we have never visited.

Before breakfast I had a chance to take this picture of the hotel's garden.  See the stairs in the center?  They were in the picture yesterday that featured the face of the hotel.

Sean and Barbie ready for breakfast in the shade.

Double cappuccino.  Amusing how perfect a coffee can look.

I ordered the eggs benedict.  If IHOP served these, there would be a nose and mouth painted onto the plate with some sort of goop.

Sean got the eggs florentine, which makes more sense in Florence, but I owe it to the boys back home to eat as much ham as possible.  Sean & Lon stated that the poached eggs here at Il Salviatino are the most perfectly poached eggs possible.

I got a citrus plate in addition to my eggs benedict.  Yes, that plate does scream, "I am healthy and good and will make you a better person."

What, you might ask, is the one site in Florence that Barbie and I have never visited?  That would be Palazzo Pitti, residence and palace of the Medici family.

Inside the courtyard of Palazzo Pitti, you get an idea just how well they did financially.  This Tuscan family started the Medici bank, which became the biggest in Europe during the 15th century.  What I recall learning in Junior High is that the Medici's were among the greatest patrons of the arts in history.  Now that I am old, I kind of see them as a disturbingly wealthy "new money" family that compensated for their lack of status by purchasing royal titles and as much art as they could.  But you know what?  The why and how do not matter here.  This family was the wealthiest in Europe during one of the most important periods in European art.  Had they not thrown their money at people like Michelangelo and DaVinci, one has to ask if there even would have been a Renaissance.

By the way, the Palazzo Pitti was built by Luca Pitti in 1458.  Pitti was a Florentine banker, but by 1549 the Medici family stepped in and purchased the palace.  Clearly the Medici Bank had surpassed the Pitti Bank.  The Medici's amassed much of their art and jewelry in the Palazzo Pitti, and King Vittorio Emmanuel III donated the palace and all its contents to the Italian people in 1919.  

I always mention it.  It was not until Vittorio Emmanuel II, grandfather of the aforementioned Vittorio, united Italy under his rule in 1861, that the nation of Italy existed.  Until that time, the Italian peninsula was a collection of separate and sometimes warring states, speaking different languages and occasionally living under the rule of foreign Kings from places such as Spain and Austria.  It blows my mind; the thought that "Italy" did not exist when the USA was born.

Barbie in the amphitheater, magically in four places at once.

Obelisk THERE!  (Obelisks always make Barbie and I think of our friend Michael Lynn, as he always commented last year when obelisks were on the Waste.)  Nice to see that the Medici's purchased Egyptian relics as well as supported the Renaissance masters. 

Barbie presents you with the Boboli Gardens.  The gardens are vast and beautiful... but if you want to see the most beautiful gardens we have ever seen, take a peek at the Powerscourt Gardens outside Dublin.

The Palazzo Pitti, seen from the Boboli Garden.

There are statues throughout the garden.  I do not know their names.

You do not get many views better than this one from the Boboli Garden.  I wanted to point out our hotel on the hillside across town, but trees blocked the way.

When we came across this modern statue, I was smitten.

This intentionally incomplete and fractured work reminds me of Winged Victory and Venus de Milo, who made it clear in Paris that being broken or incomplete does not diminish the artistic value of a work.  Then again, praise all the deities that Michelangelo's David was never broken.

Seeing the statues at the end of this path, I was drawn like a moth to the flame.  And Barbie the trooper went with me.

At the bottom of the path was a pond surrounding a garden with a Neptune statue, which was disappointingly gated.  And this super-creepy sea creature dude seemed to be guarding the fence.

You can see the central Neptune in the background.  No clue at all who the statue in the foreground is.  

A rather un-colossal David copy, with the pose slightly different and the tree stump even in the wrong place.

You know, you have decide if you are a pegasus person or a unicorn person.  Until you do, you will never truly know yourself.

Barbie on the Ponte Vecchio.

These teenagers are using the Ponte Vecchio for its most logical use, a make-out spot.

We stopped for a light lunch.  I got a cheese plate with sliced apples and honey.  The honey is on the lettuce leaf.

Barbie got the... prosciutto and melon.

We came back to the hotel and...  did I mention that it was over 90 degrees today?  I felt about as salty, sweaty, and dirty as I can get.  Time for a shower.

The rain shower in action.  How beautiful is that square of rain?

When it came time for dinner, we headed into town to a restaurant that we ate at in October, 2006 and absolutely loved.

Italian graffiti with Japanese and internet inspiration.  Florence has entirely too much graffiti.

A Florentine street, on the south side of the Arno where the younger, hipper people live.

Barbie especially liked that this happy face graffiti was, "For Elizabeth."

The restaurant we loved three years ago no longer exists.  Truly tragic.  To save the evening we went to the nearby restaurant where Sean & Lon enjoyed a wonderful meal the previous night.

Barbie entering Napo Leone Trattoria. 

The house presented us with a taste of potato soup.

Porcini pizza.

A meat, cheese, and fruit plate.

Barbie's steak with porcini mushrooms.

My eggplant parmigiana.

Back at the hotel, it is time again for Barbie to work and for Jeff to Waste.