The first few days of our Italian vacation were spent in Florence, or Firenze. We stayed at a comfortable little hotel a block from the famous Duomo. We walked all over the city, including the 414 steps up the Campanile tower to relish the views of Florence, as in the photo above (taken by Kate).
Our first trip was to the fantastic Uffizi museum, where we saw Botticellis (including
Birth of Venus and
Primavera), Titians, Rafaels and more. The picture above was taken in the Piazza della Signoria outside the Palazzo Vecchio. The next day, we headed over to the Pitti Palace, the former home of the Medicis, where we saw another overwhelming collection of artwork. We were amazed by the sheer number of masterpieces that seemed to be displayed more or less haphazardly all over the palace walls.
Earlier in the year, in preparation for this trip, I'd reread E. M. Forster's
Room with a View, which has the wonderful chapter, "In Santa Croce with no Baedeker." So, of course, I had to visit this church, which contains the tombs of Michaelangelo, Machievelli, Rossini, Galileo (shown in the photo above) and many others. Todd, being an electrical engineer, was particularly thrilled to see plaques for Marconi and Fermi as well.
I loved the art and architecture in Florence, and our three days there were way too short. I'll have to find a way to return one day!
I can't end my series of blog posts on our Italy vacation without talking about the food. When we arrived in Italy, we expected the food to be spectacular. The truth is, while the food was always good, it was spectacular mostly when we paid a large sum of money for it. Food seemed mundane and overpriced in a number of restaurants we visited in Florence and Venice. On the other hand, we had excellent meals at reasonable prices in Bologna. Bologna is known for its cuisine, but perhaps the fact that it isn't overrun with tourists in August also contributed to this. We enjoyed pasta with wild boar sauce, Parma ham, grilled Italian eggplant, and other local specialties including pasta Bolognese (Kate's favourite).
Coffee, juice and soft drinks were generally exorbitantly priced. However, beer and wine were always good and easily available. The best value, though, was the gelato, which the kids and I indulged in every single day of our trip. For most of the trip, I stuck with the lighter fruit gelato (SO much tastier than the fruit-flavoured ice-cream we get at home) but on our last day in Bologna, I couldn't resist this marscarpone-ricotta-cocoa concoction, truly a meal in a tiny cup! We also had great food on the Venetian Lido, where we stayed in a suite with a kitchenette. We discovered a little deli with excellent salads, cold meats and pastries. I bought a lot of marinated octopus there.
Just when I thought there was a danger that the kids would turn into snobby gourmands with all this good food, they reassured me by attacking the Haribo display at the duty-free store in the Munich airport. Somehow I ended up having to lug three kilos of this German jelly candy through Munich and Pearson airports. I opted to bring home chocolates from Bologna instead, and Todd is enjoying his bottle of grappa.
