Days 16 and 17 - Florence, No Photos Allowed!

Day 16 - Venice - Florence - Pisa

Alas, our time in Venice was at an end, so we jumped on an early morning vaporetto to the train station, and then a fast train south to Florence. The ride was long, but the Handlers listened to a book on iPod and had a nice conversation with the American couple across from them, who travel in Italy all the time and had some good advice to impart.

We arrived in Florence, caught a quick taxi to our hotel, dropped off the bags, and then immediately left to get some gourmet Florentine food.

The reason the Handlers stooped to Americanized fast food was that they had yet another train to catch. This time to Pisa. What's in Pisa? I think you know.

And...well....that's pretty much all there is to see in Pisa, so we walked back to the train station and caught the next ride back to Florence.

Upon returning to Florence, Handler 1 had no real plans for the rest of the evening, so we took to wandering the old city. There's much to see in Florence, like the magnificent Duomo (cathedral).

And the equally spectacular Campanile!

As the grandhandlers had been so specific in mentioning it (repeatedly), Handler 1 wanted to make sure they know we did find the water dispenser.

We continued wandering the city, and eventually found ourselves crossing the Arno via the famous Ponte Vecchio. Being now quite far from the hotel, but near to the place where the nice couple from Palo Alto that we met on the train from Venice said their favorite Florence restaurant was, we decided to try to find it. We did locate it down an alley and had quite a lovely dinner.

Day 17 - Florence

Today we got an early start by heading straight to the Accademia museum. For those not in the know, Florence is big on art, and the two main museums (the Accademia and Uffizi) are famous for long lines full of pickpockets. Luckily, the Handlers had purchased tickets that got us in immediately on our arrival. The Accademia's claim to fame is the statue of the David. It's lovely. It's amazing. It's not appearing in this blog because you're not allowed to take photos in the museum and there are eagle eyed docents hanging in every doorway.

Oh well, on to the Uffizi. This is a much larger gallery, filled with many famous works of art including The Birth of Venus. Once again, no photos, so you're just going to have to imagine the picture is in here (you know it, it's the one with the mostly naked chick on the clam shell) and Handler 1's itchy photo finger.

As a point of pride, Handler 1 would like me to note that we coasted through the Accademia and the Uffizi before noon. That, my friends, is planning.

Florence: Look how beautiful it is on the outside!

Handler 1 really wanted to see the Michaelangelo sculptures at the Medici Chapels, so we headed there next. This was probably the least impressiver place that we visited in Florence, as there really wasn't much there. Handler 1 would love to show you the statutes of Night and Day, but photos weren't allowed inside the chapel.

Sensing a pattern.

We grabbed a quick lunch near the Duomo, then headed through some less nice parts of Florence, to get to the church of Santa Croce which, miracle of miracles, lets you take non-flash photos inside!

Santa Croce is sort of the Westminster Cathedral of Italy. If you're Italian and famous, you're buried there (or at least memorilized there, and is in the case of Dante, who was banished from the city of Florence and died in Ravenna...). Anyways, here's Galileo's tomb!

Having been now inspired by the famous dead,we decided to check out the fruits of their labor. We headed to the National Science Museum, which in Italy is more of a "The History of Scientific Effort" museum. The highlight of the museum are itemsowned and used by Galileo during his experiements. Sadly, this museum also prohibited photography, so we couldn't get a photo of Galileo's telescope.

The Handlers practice social dissidence.

There was one morething Handler 1 wanted to check off her Florence list, and it required hopping a bus to the top of a nearby hill. Unfortunately, the Handlers were about to have their bad luck with Italian mass transit continue. They were completely unable to find the correct bus stop, and ended up trudging the entire way up the hill. Handler 2 did notfind the view quite spectacular enough to justify the effort.

Although we're staying in Florence, tomorrow will be spent hiking in the Cinque Terre (which consists of five small villages clinging to the western coast.

Quote of the Day: "I never realized how much Michaelangelo did. Painting...sculpting...fighting Shredder..."

Days 18 - The Cinque Terre (Translation: Land of Unending Staircases)

The Cinque Terre (pronounced Cheen-kwah Tear-ay) are a collection of 5 very small towns on the West coast of Italy, a little south of Genoa. They are famous for being nearly inaccessible and, as such, somewhat untouched by the advancement of time. The towns are connected by one rail line and a number of hiking trails, and it's considered something of a mark of pride to have hiked through all five villages. This was our goal for the day.

However, the Cinque Terre is some distance from our home port of Florence, and so we had to get up pretty early in the morning and get on a 7:00 am train to (once again) Pisa. From there we took another train to La Spezia, and finally, a local train to the town of Monterosso, where our hike was to begin. We got there at about 10:30 am.

As a side note, you might be wondering what the Handlers and I did during these long train rides to entertain ourselves. Well, Handler 1 had downloaded a number of books to her iPod and we listened to those. In particular this trip, we listened to The Hunger Games, which is really good. We give it three thumbs up. But I digress...

The Cinque Terre are absolutely picturesque little hill towns, arranged on cliffs hanging out over the Mediterranean Sea. The place is beautiful.


No seriously, it's absolutely stunning. The Handlers couldn't get over how crystal clear the water was.

Here's where we had lunch!

But it's not the easiest hike in the world to get to all these places. We passed a number of tourists who were intending only to go between two of the 5 towns, and heard them complaining that they hadn't though it would be this bad. They were generally surprised when we told them we'd be hiking the whole way, and then returning all the way to Florence in the evening. It was a bit ambitious, but certainly not out of the realm of possibility for what I and the Handlers have done in the past.

There was quite a bit of climbing involved, oftentimes over poorly tended paths. Here's Handler 1 at a convenient stopping place about 1 hour from the town of Vernazza (and 2 hours into our hike).

No really, there are a butt-load of steps.

Unfortunately, we would not be able to hike the entire way as a rock slide had closed the path between two of the cities. We had to take a train for that portion, but otherwise we walked the whole darn thing.

We finished up our hike with the famous "Lovers' Walk", which is a very level paved path where folks who are in love for decades have affixed locks to any place they can along the walk and then throw away the key, showing metaphorically how the the lovers are bonded forever. Knowing this tradition, Handler 1 had purchased a small lock. She had even gone so far as to engrave the Handlers initials on the lock and drag it with us all the way to Italy...only to forget it in the room earlier this morning.

Yes, Handler 1 is an idiot sometimes.

Locks could be purchased nearby, but the Handlers didn't feel that their affection for one another was quite strong enough to support the 9 euro pricetag (Hey, in their defense, that's like $13!). However, they looked for something else they could leave in this spot and determined to attach one of the carabiners they had been using as extra protection against potential camera thieves. They found an out of the way place to hang it and took this picture to memorialize the spot.

We took the first train (well, trains) back to Florence and, arriving late (on a Sunday), were unable to find a good place to eat. Luckily, we'd had a big lunch, and there were gelaterias still open! Once again, Handler 1 was forced to pack up as we were heading to Rome the next day.

Quote of the Day: "Our love is like a carabiner...bought in a two-pack at the Dollar Store...not for use in climbing."

Day 15 - Wait....There's More to Venice?

Before I jump into today's post, I thought I should point out a few things that more properly belonged in my first post about Venice, but which I forgot to mention. The first is that, as you might imagine, Venice is very much a city of twisty, tiny streets. Knowing this, and knowing our hotel was just a few blocks from the vaporetto (it's a bus-boat) stop, Handler 1 took off with her baggage down what seemed a rather tiny street. Handler 2, dragging the big suitcase behind him, questioned if she was sure it was the right way (as we appeared to be going down a dark alley). Well, actually, Handler 1 wasn't sure, and soon determined that we needed to be going down an even smaller street, one block down, which Handler 1 had initially dismissed as being way too small for a street. Then we turned down a still smaller street to the place where our hotel was located. And here's the street!
Luckily, there are little niches with creches and images of the Virgin Mary all over Venice in random places. There's quite a few hiding out in these tiny streets, and Handler 2 dubbed them "Our Lady of Dark Alleys". As such, we always felt protected.

The other thing I should mention is Handler 2's "condition". About the time we finished our gondola ride the prior evening, Handler 2 started getting the hiccups. At first it was amusing, then it was annoying, then it became rather painful for Handler 2 and totally ruined the Handlers' dinner. Although it went away while Handler 2 slept, it returned with a vengence the next morning.

Despite this setback, the Handlers and I took off after breakfast to some of the less touristy "wilds" of Venice. This required navigating a number of those nrrow back-alley type streets, which Handler 1 found rather difficult to do, even with a good map. We ran across a number of less touristy gems, like this leaning tower.

Finally arriving at the vaporetto station we were looking for, we began our trip to some of the smaller lagoon islands associated with Venice.

The island of Murano is much smaller than the main Venice islands. How small? It makes Grosse Ile look big. But it's got lots of pretty bridges and is famous for its glassworks.

Strangely, although they saw many glass shops, the Handlers didn't manage to catch any glassmaking demonstrations. They did, however, go to the Glass Museum...which was about as interesting as a museum full of glass (where you can't take photos!!!) could be.

We were then scheduled to visit the even smaller lagoon island of Burano. Burano is famous for two things, lacemaking and technicolor houses. The houses, were quite fun to photograph.

However, once again, you couldn't take photos inside the lace museum. So, instead, here's an actual lace-maker at her craft inside a local shop.

It was also here that Handler 1 decided she wanted some gelato. Both Handlers got some (and didn't share, the bastards!) and afterwards, Handler 2 noted that his hiccups seemed to go away (they came back a few hours later). This is where the Handlers first became aware of the magic healing powers of gelato.

We were burning daylight, and there was one last place Handler 1 wanted to go to (partly because she was interested in the subject matter, and partly because it would make her purchase of the Venice Connected museum cards cost effective). So, we jumped on the first boat back to the main island, then raced through more tiny streets to another vaporetto, which led to a slow boat trip down the Grand Canal, and finally terminated at Ca' Renzzonico (a neato old Venetian palace).

Once again, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the beautiful furnishings inside, so you'll have to be content with this outside photo. We also stopped for yet more gelato, hoping it would again cure Handler 2's hiccups (It totally did! All hail gelato!)

Then as we made our way back towards our hotel, we spotted some art on disply for a nearby gallery. The art caught our eye because it was made of awesome, and we just had to stop by the gallery. The artist (Guiseppe Veneziano) is one of our new favorites.

Just how awesome is his work?

This awesome.

In conclusion, we had a really great time in Venice.

Tomorrow morning, an early train to Florence! (Yes, yes...okay, we've been in Firenze for two days now. So I'm bit behind. Deal!)

Day 14 - Venice, The Only Place in Italy Without Vespas

Sorry for the delay, there was yet more slow wifi issues to deal with.

When last we blogged we were about to get on a train to Italy, but first the Handlers wanted to explore Dijon a little. Because there was no place to check their luggage, however, they were stuck with wandering the city one at a time (at night). They managed to find a few interesting things in the old city centre, and competed to see who had discovered the most.

Then the train arrived, we hopped aboard and found our cabin which was...cramped. Let me just say, if you have ever had thoughts of the magic of overnight train travel, with the motion of the train rocking you to sleep like a boat....yeah, that doesn't exist. It's rather uncomfortable, and you keep getting jerked awake whenever you pull into a station. Regardless, the train did its job and deposited us all at the Venice train station bright and early the next morning.

If you hadn't guess already, there was a lot of beautiful stuff to photograph along the Grand Canal. Handler 1 was in her element.

Rialto Bridge

After quickly checking into our hotel, we began by wnadering the city and trying to get away from the crowds of tourists. We eventually made our way across the Rialto to the quieter side of Venice. There we had pizza lunch near a famous old church.

We saw a number of interesting things on our walk, like this neat old building.

Then there was this modern art piece in a random church comprised entirely of thousnds of painted Russian eggs.

We also stopped by the fish market, which is more of an "all foods" market, and watched Venetian merchants ply their trade.

This one's just for Carolyn.

We then headed over to St. Mark's cthedral, notable for its Byzantine styling. The Venetians built this monstrosity to hold the body of St. Mark, which a number of enterprising Venetian traders had smuggled away from its resting place (amongst heathens) in Alexandria. The initiative of these model citizens is immortalized in mosaic inside the church.

Here's a view of the horses (well, replicas anyways) that Venice stole from Constantinople. And yes, if you haven't figured it out yet, Venice is very proud of its pillaging past.

Handler 2 was impressed that he ran across this "wall art" which is by a famous graffiti artist (and no, I'm totally not kidding about that).

Look, we're on a gondola!

Next it was off to the Doge's palace, which was open fairly late and was able to accomodate us.

The Doge's Palace was not nearly as impressive and overbering as some of the places we went to in France, which may be a reflection of the Doge's actual position (Handler 2 discovered that they were basically powerless and couldn't even leave the city without express permission).

And for anyone who ever played Final Fantasy VIII, an honest-to-God gun-sword.

Having now hit all of the "highlights of Venice, we would now be able to move on to the "lesser lights". However, first the Handlers went back to the room for some rest, wherein they cracked open their bottle of vouvray and headed up to the porch on top of the hotel. There they st overlooking the Doge's palace and watched the stars come out. Later, when it got too cold, they moved inside and watched yet more televised fencing, before heading out to a nice local dinner.

Days 12 and 13 - Meh, They Weren't That Interesting

Days 12 and 13 were a lot of driving. There was supposed to be more, but the driving for the past week was starting to get to Handler 2, which made him angry...which made Handler 1 unhappy...which made for much unhappiness best left forgotten. Also, there was a lot of high bridge driving, like this:

Finally we made it to Lyon, and the worst hotel we've stayed at so far. There were spiders. Well, one spider. Still, uncool. It was literally a zero star hotel.

We did get to see a little of downtown Lyon and had dinner at a nice litte cafe. It took a while to find a place to eat, though, becuase Handler 2 refused to eat anyplace that listed horse, calf's head or pigs feet as one of the major menu items. Unfortunately, this eliminated much Lyon cuisine.

The next day we tried (and failed) to get the car fixed and drove to Dijon (stopping for some wine tasting along the way). Nothing much. So,in lieu of detailed descriptions of two rather boring days, please accept this retrospective of ambiguous French signage.

First up, this sign is for my Kitch peeps (hope you're reading)!

And here we go with the "What the heck does that mean, signs?!"

Handler 1 thinks this means that a smaller road is about to intersect the larger road on which you are already traveling...but she's not 100% certain about that.

But the Plucky Pugeot is beige? Where do we go?

All right, now, that's just racist.

?

Ummm....one up, two down?

The Handlers actually do know what this one means, but it took a bit to figure out.

And of course, abosolutely no yellow squares. The French just despise yellow squares.

Anyways, we only have a few more hours left to deal with France before we hop our overnight train to Venice, Italy. The accomodations can't be worse than the Premiere Classe hotel Handler 1 booked us at last night! So au revior, when next we see you we'll be saying bonjourno.

Quote of the Day: "Non cheval?!" - Checking to make sure Handler 2's suasages were, in fact, pork.

Thoughts on Forbach and Normandy

(First of all a quick note: I may very well get dates, locations, times, names, etc. very, very wrong. Please forgive me, I'm working off raw memory here).

So, we went to Forbach.

For those of you who don't know, the town of Forbach, situated near the German/French border in northeastern France was liberated by my grandfather and his company in WWII during the winter of 1944/45. It's a small town in a region known more for mining and blue collar workers than wine and cheese, and probably has more in common with nearby Germany than it does France.

In fact, it's a town that you're unlikely to visit as a tourist, much less an American tourist. Oh, it's a pleasant enough place, but compared to the more spectacular regions of France, it's nothing particularly special.

Well, to most people it's nothing special. I, on the other hand, made a special point to make sure we visted this small town on the German border so that I could try to get a sense of what it was like some sixty odd years ago.

I suppose what struck me the most was...how un-special everything was. When trying to locate certain locations, I showed old pictures of these places to the officials in the tourist office; they had no idea what I was talking about, even though the location I wanted was literally two blocks away. When walking up the Avenue General Passaga (an important street during the battle of Forbach--members of my grandfather's company had to advance down this street, battling the Germans step by step), school let out for lunch; the pre-teens and elementary school kids walking down that street likely had little idea that they were walking down the site of a pitched battle. A house that once sheltered my grandfather's platoon was indistinguishable from the other houses on the block. The building that once held a machine gun nest which nearly killed my grandfather (who managed to survive a head shot from said nest), was now a bank, and barely recognizable. The doorway in which they took cover before running across the square from that nest was now the doorway to a video game store. A jungle gym stood on the hill above the town which the company descended from. People ate lunch, conducted business, or otherwise went about their lives, no thought given to what came before.

Even the tourism office was more concerned with the trains of the region then some old battle. It was a typical small town day, in a fairly typical small town.

Normandy, was, to be completely honest, the same. Utah beach was fairly empty, and could have passed for any beach, except for the small museum, monuments, and the "June 6th 1944 Bar and Grill" (get your D-Day souvenirs here!!!) right outside the entrance. Omaha beach was empty, except for a monument, and Sword Beach was a collection of cheap gift shops, bars, mini golf, and museums. The entire area seemed to be dedicated more towards the idea of WWII, than what actually happened there (though I should point out that none of these criticisms apply to the Normandy cemetary which is an austere, majestic, and holy place). For all of the trappings of rememberance, I was honestly skeptical that many of the people who lived and worked there truely remembered or particularly cared what happened when they were selling calvados to the latest throng of tourists descending from their bus.

In fact, as we were walking back to the car from Sword beach, I distinctly remember saying, both jokingly, and with a little bit of cynicism, "I'm glad to know that so many people fought and died here to preserve the right to sell cheap souvenirs to gullible tourists".

And yet...

I have to ask myself...isn't that exactly right? Didn't our men and women, and the men and women of England, Canada, France, and all the allied forces, fight and die specifically for this? For the right for life to simply go on? Kids walking down the street probably didn't know or care that a battle had been fought right under their feet...but isn't that a good thing? Thanks to people like my grandfather, the people here and across Europe can go on with their daily lives, and sell their video games, their cheap souvenirs, their calvedos brandy. Life goes on, freedom endures, thanks to their sacrifice. For all our talk of lofty ideals, I think, at its most basic, that the war was fought, that so many people died, so that the kids could go to school, so that jungle gyms could be erected on battlefields, and people could have lunch in a town square where machine gun fire once rang out.

It was a thought that stuck with me as we went to the American cemetary at Normandy, and I looked out on the thousands of graves, all marked with a simple white cross or Star of David. All those people, who sacrificed so much, so that life could go on. It was, quite simply, an amazing experience, and put so much of what I had seen in the last few days into perspective. An amazing achievment, the likes of which have rarely been rivaled. A triumph of strategy, logistics, bravery, and sacrifice. I admit I even got a little teary at the sheer magnitude of what humanity was able to overcome, thanks to people like my grandfather.

But most importantly, life goes on. And I think that's the highest compliment I can pay.

Day 11 - Of Castles and Cave-Men

Sarlat and its surrounding areas are famous for the cave systems inhabited by cro-magnon people, some of which have continued to be inhabited through modern day. Here is a picture of one of the many houses that are built into the limestone rock hillsides.

The first cave we went to, Grotte de Font-de-Gaume is the only cave in the world with polychrome (colored) cave drawings which is still open to the public. They only allow 180 people a day entrance on very carefully controlled explorations. Handler 1 made reservations in December. We managed to snag an English language tour too, which was very helpful. The Handlers appreciated being able to understand the scientific and cultural aspects pointed out by the guide.

Photos aren't allowed inside the caves (apparently, some UNESCO copyright issue is involved), so this picture of Handler 2 just outside the cave entrance is the best you're going to get from us.

Since we didn't take any photos of what we saw inside the cave, I stole this one off the web.

This shows two reindeer facing each other. The one on the left is licking the red one on the right on its head. It's kind of a famous picture.

We then headed to another cave, which the Handlers belatedly realized was closed for lunch. So, we found ourselves an open cafe in the closest town and sat down for a very unimpressive (but, thankfully, cheap) meal of cheeseburgers.

Similarly, no cameras were allowed at the Grotte de Rouffignac. This cave had no colored paintings, but it did have more of them. It was quite deep in the earth, such that you had to take an electric train down to the pictures and engravings. We were very lucky to manage to accidentally tack ourselves onto the only English language tour of the day. This place was absolutely fascinating. The picture below (also from the interwebs) was just one part of a ceiling covered in similar line drawings.

Last on the day's agenda was the fortress of Castlenaud. This picture of me doesn't really do it justice, because it's perched on the top of a high cliff. Handler 2 just loved driving up those switchbacks.

They're all about warfare at Castlenaud. The whole place is filled with ancient weaponry, like this big crossbow.

Here's a photo of the Castle of Beynac (traditional rival of Castlenaud) as seen from the ramparts.

James really needs to come here:

After returning to our Sarlat digs, an exhausted Handler 1 took a nap, while I stayed up with Handler 2 watching French TV. In particular, we were fascinted with the French version of The Price is Right, which Handler 2 proclaimed "Awesome". Somehow, it involved cheese. We then again made our way into the town, and can I just say, Sarlat is a completely amazing place to get lost in. There are about 1,000 corners and dark alleys, and something interesting down each one.

Tomorrow we really will try to find someplace to fix the car, and will otherwise be taking a long drive across the breadth of France to the cosmopolitan city of Lyon.

Quote of the Day: "Quack" - as heard from the kitchen of the restaurant where the Handlers had dinner....Handler 1 still thinks it was a chef making a joke, but then she had already finished her duck plate and had a vested interest in that interpretation.