Arrivederci, Italia!

Tuesday, June 29


We woke up early to catch the 8:15am train to Florence. Since we were unable to go to Florence as originally planned, we decided to stop on our way to Venice. We knew it was going to be a quick trip into the city, but better to be there for a short time than to not see it at all.


We arrived in Florence at around 10:30am and placed our bags in storage. Taking public transportation, we ended up a block away from the Duomo. This church is massive. It is in such a tight space and it is so huge along with its adjoining bell tower, that you can’t get the whole church in the view finder of your camera. This church is very different from the others we have seen in London, Paris, and Rome. While London and Paris can best be described as gothic, this one looks like pieces of candy that have been expertly wedged together to form an incredible church. There are pieces of green and rust colored marble which run all along the surface of the church. In addition, all along the front are beautiful statues looking down at the tourists below. Just as every other city we have been to, there are people everywhere!

From a well experienced traveler (my mother), we learned that she had a guy that she always sees in order to get reservation-only tickets for the Uffizi and Academia Galleries. So we strolled around looking for this mystery man that would give us the tickets we needed in order not to have to stand in line to these two museums. I was expecting some “is this quite legal” transaction…but in fact it was like a ticket booth on the side of a church. So I would like to give a “shout out” to my mom...THANKS MOM for your tip, which pretty much saved us from having to wait in line for over two hours!

So at 12pm we were in the Uffizi completing our task from David R., Kylynn, Brittany, Aaron, and J’nea. We were unable to take pictures in the museum, but we did find Botticelli’s Birth of Venus painting. It is simply beautiful. They have it paired with his Spring painting, and they complement each other so well. We were able to see many other artists’ work including Michelangelo, Raphael, Rubens, Titian, and Di Vinci. We have seen so many pieces of art that there are times when you find yourself just “going through the motions” and following the other crowds of tourists. But there is something about the works of some of these masters that really make you stop in your tracks and take notice. I guess this is why so many of these artists need only be recognized by their first or last names only.

From the Uffizi we moved towards the neighboring Ponte Vecchio. This bridge is so distinctive in its design. It looks like a block of stores just floating above the river. I guess in reality that is exactly what it is. This bridge is well known for the fine jewelry stores which line the street in the middle. You can buy hand-made Italian cameos and ornate rings and earrings. Dotting the streets are amazing artists who display their watercolor and oil paintings. I will share my mission, to find an artist I had purchased two pieces from seven years ago when I was in Florence. His name is Joseph Moussa, and his normal location for many years has been in the front of the Boboli Gardens. In the hot sun, working on an original piece of art, I found him along with several other artists. Ms. Ballard and I ended up purchasing a few pieces from several artists. If you ever find yourself in Italy and know you are going to Florence, save your money for the art. Florence, by far, has the most gifted and unique artists in Rome, Italy, or Venice. Everywhere you turn there is someone new showing you their interpretation of the world around them.

Doing our best to ignore the “fake” David that stands in the Piazza Signoria, we walked along the busy streets of Florence to the Accademia where the real David is housed (thank you Hijab, Cici, Alejandra B., Jennie, and Brandon). We only had to wait about 15 minutes in order to get in. As we were passing the security guard, we heard a tourist complaining about the fact that they had been there for over 2 hours and no one had entered (again thanks mom for the tip). After you pass your bags through a security scanner, you are herded into a few rooms with very old religious, gold-leaf art. All of a sudden you find yourself at the beginning of a light blue colored corridor where at the end stands the David. David is illuminated thanks to the glass dome which allows natural light to fall on the white marble. This almost has a glowing effect and just contributes to the power that exudes from this masterpiece. Again as we saw in Michelangelo’s Moses, you could clearly see the veins in the David’s neck and hands. If you stare long enough, you can almost imagine his fingers curling around the rock he holds. What is most intriguing is his gaze. His furrowed brow is a mixture of confidence and uncertainty.

It was after appreciating the David that we then noticed a display of some of Michelangelo’s unfinished statues. Although these have been left by the master as very unfinished some with no identifiable faces, or clue to what they could have been, they gave us a clear look into what it takes to finish a product like David. They are crude pieces where every chip made from his chisel is visible. There is not a polished arm or face glowing in the afternoon sun, but despite their unpolished appearance, they are beautiful nonetheless.

We finished our day in Florence trying to make it to Santa Croce Church, the resting place of Michelangelo and Galileo Galilei. We missed the final entrance to the church by about 3 minutes. It was a bit disappointing, but with as little time as we had in Florence, I think we did pretty well. We made our way back to the train station passing stall after stall of leather purses, clothing, and other typical souvenirs.

After a two hour train ride…including an “I can’t believe the woman next to us has been talking for two hours straight,” we made it to Venice. Under an orange-red moon, the water bus or vaporetto took us to St. Mark’s Square via the Grand Canal. We had to walk down a very dark and narrow street to find our hotel. The hotel overlooks a small piazza that even at such a late hour was busy with dining tourists. I think what we liked the most about our hotel besides its great location and Venetian décor was that the air conditioning was superb!



Wednesday, June 30

Venice. The peace in this city after the craziness of Rome is very much welcomed. Now don’t be confused, there are tourists everywhere, but our groups allowed us to pretty much get lost in the city. When we rode over to the hotel we were able to see much of the Grand Canal. Paige, Francisco, Abi, Nicolas, Ximena, Sammy, Hayden, Khalil, and Ricky, we were thinking of all of you while on the boat. McKinzy, Carla, De’ja, Enrique, and Andrew sent us to St. Mark’s Basilica in St. Mark’s Square. This is the first thing we did our first morning in Venice. We were a bit disappointed to see so much of the Basilica and its surrounding buildings…including the Bridge of Sighs…covered by scaffolding and, get this, advertisements! Yes, advertisements! Now I understand the need for restoration. These buildings are old and they need to be preserved, but to cover the Bridge of Sighs with advertisements for watches is awful! Madonna, or at least we think it was Madonna, is glaring at you behind two-story high sunglasses for Dolce and Gabana…seriously?!?! I could hear the mumblings from other tourists as we passed. There have been other buildings under restoration while on our trip, and their scaffolding has either been covered by fabric which has a print of what the building actually looks like, or just nothing at all. There is almost a beauty to the scaffolding because it lets you know how precious these treasures are and the amount of care needed to take care of them. But the advertising just takes away from the beauty of everything else. What’s next? The Colosseum draped in a huge ad for Nike and Gatorade! Irritating.

But moving on. We were able to spend the day walking through a maze of streets in Venice. There were times when we really had no idea where we were but getting away from all of the crowds and finding a nice little pizzeria was a welcome break. We were able to catch a glimpse or two of what real life was like for Venetians. We saw a woman hanging out her laundry, another one sweeping her porch which drops off straight into the canal, three teenagers sitting on a side street looking at their cell phones and listening to their iPods. I especially liked seeing two little old ladies sitting across from each other down a narrow passageway just having an everyday conversation. There are so many layers to Venice.

We were asked to take a Venetian ghost tour by Hoan, Darius, Hector, Jessica, Oscar, Alejandra G., Ariella, Yadira, and Yahaira. We met our tour guide Christina on the top of the Rialto Bridge (which by the way has a huge ad down the middle of it as well…sell-outs). Although not very scary, the tour was quite informative. She also took us down some of the “hidden from tourists” shortcuts only used by the local Venetians (however we were a bit pleased that we had actually stumbled on a few of these passageways ourselves earlier in the day). We learned about the wells that were in the middle of many of the campos. These wells were once used to collect fresh rain water since Venice is surrounded by salt water; many even had little bowls beside them for the local pets. We learned about the tragic death of Marco Polo’s wife who was an Asian Princess and unfortunately never accepted by the Venetians. There were a few ghost stories in the story telling but overall nothing that scary, we think she kept it tame because there were several small children on our tour.

Thursday, July 1

Our last day in Venice was spent with a morning doing some very expensive laundry! One of the challenges on this trip, especially with it being so hot in Italy is to keep a decent supply of clean clothes available. These past few days we have found ourselves making our way into shops not only because of the merchandise but for the promise of a few moments in air condition. I think we have also eaten more ice cream these past few days than we have in the past few months!

We took a water bus to Santa Maria della Salute which is just across from St. Mark’s Square. We were quite surprised as to how peaceful it was over on this side of the island. There seemed to be a lot more shops with fine art work as opposed to some of the reproduction work you see closer to St. Mark’s. It was a nice surprise.

We are currently in the lobby of our hotel cooling off and getting ready for our 10:51 night train to Munich, Germany. The night train is going to be an experience…so stay tuned for that blog! Hard to believe we have only one week left.



***Due to our limited access to Internet, we can’t post any pictures at this time. We apologize and promise to have them on here as soon as possible!