Marco-YOLO

Florence is a town with a great vibe! Much of this has to do with the huge student population, much of which is international. We checked out the city’s Duomo, the museum that houses the statue of David (which was quite unremarkable except for David) and took in a little nightlife with a group of American students we met one night. I learned that the piano was invented in Florence and that Florence has been called home by more famous Italians than any other city. This group includes the likes of Dante Alighieri (who was the first to write a book in the new language of Italian, his “Divine Comedy”), Galileo Galilei, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, the Medici family, Florence Nighting (pioneer of modern nursing), and the fashion designers Ferragamo, Cavalli and Gucci. The restaurants in Florence were above average. We also spent some time window shopping the jewelery and leather markets in town.

Saw these guys today. Tomorrow morning we are off to Sienna. I will add to these blogs and upload more photos to flickr when we stay at a hotel with internet again. Right now, we are at an internet cafe.

We took a bus to Naples in the morning. On the road between Rome and Naples, we passed a 1st century Roman road, Castle Gandolfo (Pope’s retreat), the second largest palace in Europe (after Versailles and in which scenes from Start Wars had been filmed) and a number of rock quarries.
When we got to Naples, it was lightly raining. We could barely see the outline of the island of Capri. We drove around the city and took a few pictures. After that we drove to the city of Pompeii, stopping at a coral and conch art factory which was ridiculously overpriced. One unspectacular looking broach we saw cost 32,000 Euros and even the tiniest and most basic piece cost about 120 Euros. They did demonstrate for us how the art was fashioned from the conch which was interesting to see.
Arriving at Pompeii, we had lunch and then walked around town. By now the clouds had passed and it was a nice sunny day. We walked to the square which has a church around it and saw a bride and groom taking pictures together. Children were playing by the fountain and locals were walking their dogs. I passed 20 parked cars in a row without seeing an automatic transmission. Italians, men and women, all drive stick. Very nice! I like!
We left the modern city of Pompeii and took a short bus ride to the ruins of Pompeii.

Pompeii has been the highlight of the trip so far. It is simply amazing how advanced the inhabitants of this ancient city were both socially, in the development of their civil institutions and technologically. Surprisingly, there is much to see in this ruined city and it is not too difficult to see what life would have been like for these Romans prior to the eruption of Vesuvius. Gymnasiums, Theatres, Bakeries (very impressive!), Bars/Pubs, Public baths and toilets as well as the Courthouse that also served as stock exchange.

The brothels were the most interesting. Pompeii had 25 brothels. The one we visited had 5 rooms with pictures of sex positions posted over the doorways. You paid for the position and “fun time”with a lady of the night ran about what today would be the price of a beer. On the streets, phallic shapes pointed in the direction of the red light district to help drunk Romans get to where they wanted to be.

Saw Vatican including St Peter’s Basilica, The Vatican museum and ending with the Sistine Chapel. It took 5.5 hours to do all this. Our guide was exceptionally knowledgable and we learned a lot about the progression of Christian Italian sculpture and painting through the ages as well as the broader events that brought about these changes.

Learning the history of the Catholic church was more interesting. The church and its policies evolved through the ages in response to the challenges and changing external power dynamics of the times. We both learned so much.

After doing some damage at the snack bar in the United red carpet lounge in Dulles airport, we took our direct flight to Rome. We watched 2 movies on the plane; Sweeney Todd (w/J. Depp) and Atonement (w/ K. Knightley). We both hated Sweeney Todd and strongly discourage anyone from seeing it (even if you love Depp) and I loved Atonement although Colleen thought it was just OK.

Rome was having beautiful weather. Sunny in low to mid 60′s (F). We took the Leonardo Express from the Fiumicino Airport into downtown. We are staying at the Marriott Grand Flora on Via Veneto. This area used to be the favored building spot of Roman emperors for their palaces and is very expensive today. We used points for our stay, otherwise the room we are in runs 400 Euros a night. The room is nice but has this balcony with an amazing view of Via Veneto and the Villa Borghese Gardens which we are right next to.

We took a siesta after getting into the hotel on Thursday around noon then grabbed an Italian dinner at an outside restaurant on Via Veneto. We then walked around Rome for the next 3 hours, taking pictures in front of the Trevi Fountain and going up the Spanish Steps. We continued walking to Piazza di Spagna and then walked back to our hotel along the perimeter of the Borghese Gardens.

Tomorrow morning we take in the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel.