Month: October 2017

When I used to live in New York City (which I did in between Dallas and Minneapolis), they had standing room only tickets for $10 for most of the Broadway shows.  For $10, I got a ticket with a designated place to stand.  Although I had to stand, I was young and saw a lot of great shows that way.  When Mom would come out to visit me, I would get some real tickets to a show or two where we could sit in seats.  Later, when we would go to London, we would pick up some tickets at the Half Price Booth in Leicester Square.  We often managed to get very good seats and saw many great performances by talented actors.  Sometimes we would seek out a particular actor, like on our first trip to London when we went to see Roger Rees and Felicity Kendall in “The Real Thing”.

In 1999, Mom and I decided to take a tour that began in NYC and meandered its way down the East Coast to end in Orlando.  We chose to arrive in NYC a couple days ahead of the start of the tour and see a couple of plays.  I had long had a crush on Matthew Broderick, who was starring in a revival of the 1930s thriller “Night Must Fall” along with British actress Judy Parfitt.  So I got us two tickets for that play for the second night.  For the first night, I managed a couple tickets to the revival of “The Iceman Cometh” starring Kevin Spacey.

“The Iceman Cometh” was at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre and was a four hour long production.  We were both mesmerized for the full four hours.  In addition to Kevin Spacey, the cast included Tony Danza, Robert Sean Leonard, Michael Emerson, Paul Giamatti, and Tim Pigott-Smith.  We were seated about 2/3 of the way back and over to the side.  We could still see everyone’s faces pretty well and felt we were fortunate to get in at all.  The play was a transfer from a successful and award-winning run in London and had opened only about a week before we got there.  If I remember correctly, I think it was a special deal through American Express that allowed us to get the tickets.

The next day we explored the Intrepid aircraft carrier and the Edison destroyer.  The Intrepid was my first aircraft carrier and was both enormous and fascinating.  There were several planes on the deck to look at as well as climbing all over the aircraft carrier.  Most of it was open to the public.  So a lot to see.

Then we took the 3-hour Circle Line boat tour around all of Manhattan.  It was a beautiful day.  That night was “Night Must Fall” at the Helen Hayes Theatre.  This was a much smaller theatre than the Brooks Atkinson and we had front row center seats.  Not only could we see the actors’ faces clearly, but we could see every freckle or bead of sweat.  Matthew Broderick was the bad guy in this one — a deranged serial killer, who seemed so charming.

The following day we visited Ellis Island and planned to do the Hop-On-Hop-Off Trolley tour after.  Most of my ancestors arrived in the US prior to the existence of Ellis Island.  But I do have a great-grandmother who would have come into the country through there with her brother and sister in the mid 1890s.

Once back on Manhattan Island, we barely made it onto the trolley when the rain came down in torrents.  It was what we used to call in Texas a “gully washer”.  It was raining so hard and had gotten so cold that we weren’t inspired to get off at any of the stops.  We could barely see anything out of the windows.  So we rode around through the entire route, shivering, until we got back to the hotel.  Then we made a mad dash inside and holed up for the rest of the afternoon.  This was the one and only time on any trip that either of us ever allowed the weather to dictate our plans.  We met up with the rest of our group that evening and began the tour the following morning — well rested, dried out, and warm.

After leaving New York, we headed for Philadelphia.  Mom had been there before when one of my cousins lived there for a couple years while attending school.  It was my first trip.  I was very excited about seeing it.  The Liberty Bell was included in the guided portion of the tour.  Then we were set loose to get lunch on our own and do whatever else we wanted while waiting for our specified time to enter Independence Hall.  We had a couple of hours to kill, so we got some lunch and headed for the house that Thomas Jefferson rented while he was writing the Declaration of Independence.  It was very much as it had been when he was living there, giving us a pretty good feel for life in 1776.  Once we had thoroughly explored the house, we stopped off at a couple other sites on the way back to Independence Hall.

At the time on our ticket, we were herded into a large room with several busloads of schoolchildren.  Before we could enter Independence Hall, we all received a long lecture regarding what took place there.  Even I, who love history, found it boring.  The children weren’t listening at all, but tussling and talking among themselves.

Next we were herded into the courtroom.  The children were all given precedence with all of the adults made to stand in the back.  Being only 5’3”, with some of the children taller than me, I couldn’t see a thing.  So Mom and I left the room and crossed the hall to the room in which the Declaration of Independence was signed.  We were told by the woman who barred our way that we were to stay with our group just before she slammed the door unceremoniously in our faces.  Pretty soon the mob came across the hall, the door was opened and we were herded into the room I was really there to see.  Once again, adults had to stay in the back, so I couldn’t see a thing.

Mom said she had not been treated so badly when she had been there before, but that there weren’t hoards of children at that time either.  We inched our way to the back corner of the room so that, when everyone else swarmed back out, we could linger, get some photos, and hopefully soak some of it in before we got kicked out.  As the others left the room, the same friendly lady as before barked at us again to stay with our group.  But we moved very slowly, stopping to take photos and trying to absorb this very important and historic room internally.  She kept yelling; we kept moving slowly.  The next day we left for Washington, D.C.

Our first night in the nation’s capital, we had dinner at a nice restaurant in Union Station.  It was a very pleasant location and atmosphere.  Then we took a night tour, visiting the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  I was awestruck by the statues of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln — especially lit up as they were.  Mom had been here before too when she traveled to DC for business.

The following day we started out with Arlington National Cemetery, the Korean War Memorial, and the Vietnam War Memorial.  A neighbor of ours back in Dallas had been killed in the Vietnam War, so we looked for and found his name.  We circled the White House, had some lunch, and then were dropped off at the Capital to do our own exploring for the rest of the day.  Mom and I immediately got in line to tour the Capital.

After standing in line for nearly an hour (and getting quite sunburned — it was a warm and sunny April day) we were finally let in and discovered the same situation as back in Philadelphia.  Busloads of school children who were ushered to the front while the adults were relegated to the rear.  This taught me that, if I wanted to see anything historic in the US, I should go in early fall when school was just starting and no field trips were underway.  A more recent trip to the Historic East that took place in the fall and returned me to both Philadelphia and Washington, DC allowed me to see everything I wanted to see easily.  I could even hang out without being yelled at or herded.

We took a break after the Capital and got some ice cream (our favorite afternoon pick-me-up) before heading off to Ford’s Theatre.  Unfortunately the theatre itself was closed due to a performance that evening.  But we could see the museum down in the basement.  They had both the pistol that Booth used to kill President Lincoln and the boot that was cut from Booth’s broken leg by the doctor who set it.  Booth’s diary and several other items were there as well.  So it was well worth seeing.  That later trip gave me plenty of time to spend in the theatre.

From Ford’s Theatre, we ventured across the street to the Peterson House where Lincoln had been carried after he was shot and where he died.  Mom and I were alone in the house and could spend all the time we wanted looking at everything.  We could also talk with the person who worked there.  He pointed out several things we might not have noticed on our own and told us little tidbits of information about the house, the theatre and the neighborhood back in the 1860s.  It was a very informative visit that we both thoroughly enjoyed.  What he told us about poor Mary Todd Lincoln was very poignant.

My mom was not the history buff that I am, but she had majored in sociology and psychology when she went to the university, so she has always been fascinated by the human behavior side of things.  Of course, that’s what fascinates me about history.  The fact that it is “his story” and “her story” and “their story” and “our story”.  That’s also why I like genealogy.  It is cool to me to get an idea of where my own ancestors might have been when different things happened — especially if they had possibly been involved.

If I visit a battlefield, I wonder if I have an ancestor who might have fought there?  Did I have an ancestor who might have been injured there or died there or was taken prisoner there?  If I visit a castle someplace near where an ancestor lived, what was my ancestor’s relationship with that castle?  Did they just view it from outside?  Did they ever enter?  If they did enter, in what capacity was it?  A servant?  A noble?  A knight (who was essentially a type of servant)?  A tourist like me?  Did they dine there?  Were they imprisoned there?  Or were they executed or murdered there?  From what I have been able to find out so far from my research, the answers have sometimes involved many of the above.

Next time, the tour continues.

When I first saw Pompeii, I was somewhat surprised at just how intact it really was.  Yes, there are a lot of ruins.  But there are also several buildings that are very recognizable as to just what their original function was supposed to be.  There were a couple of villas that looked very close to having people currently living there.

Back in 79 AD when Vesuvius erupted, there were roughly thought to have been 11,000 to 11,500 people in Pompeii.  There was very little warning, and so a large number of people were caught unawares.  Numerous earthquakes struck Pompeii in the days before the eruption.  Some of the damage to the buildings found during the excavations is from the earthquakes rather than the eruption of Vesuvius.  Since earthquakes were relatively common there, not too many people took them as a sign of something worse to come.

Then there were the bodies.  Apparently the archeologists found voids in the ash where the bodies of the people and some animals had been.  The archeologists poured plaster into the voids, creating some very detailed and poignant casts of the people and animals who had perished when all of that ash and pumice descended upon them.  Back when Pompeii was initially being excavated, it was thought that the people and animals had been suffocated by the ash.  But now it is thought that it was the heat that killed them and that most were likely to have been killed pretty instantly.

One thing that I found interesting was a place in one of the streets where there were stepping stones to cross the street (as it would have been somewhat of an open sewer).  There were spaces between the stepping stones for the wheels of the chariots and wagons.

There is a bakery where you can see the ovens and the prep spaces and where the baked goods would have been sold.  Some of the bread had been found still there.  A brew house was also found in pretty good shape along with some remains of the grains used in brewing.

In a bordello and in some of the villas, plenty of erotic wall art was found.  Since the first excavations were in the 1700s, much of this was covered up or hidden.  In later years, some of the more portable items were removed and placed in a secret collection in Naples.  Now much of it can be readily viewed either in Pompeii itself or in a museum in Naples.

After several hours spent walking around Pompeii, we headed for Sorrento for the night.  Sorrento was built on the cliffs on a ledge between the mountains and the Mediterranean beginning in about 600 BC.  Views of the Mediterranean and of the island of Capri from Sorrento are quite beautiful.  The next morning, we took at boat to Capri.

Once we arrived in Capri, we were essentially on our own.  So Mom and I and a couple from Pittsburgh who were on our same tour decided to go in on a cab together to take us around to see the sights.  We agreed on where we would go and the price ahead of getting into the cab.  It was well worth it.  We went all over the island — to the Blue Grotto, the Marina Piccola, the town of Anacapri, the Villa San Michele, the Church of San Michele, the garden of Augustus, the town of Capri — we covered it all.  We also had time for a nice, leisurely lunch before returning to the Marina Grande to get the boat back to Sorrento.

We could only see the Blue Grotto from the outside as it was a rather rocky sea at the time.  But that was fine.  By the time we got to the Marina Piccola on the opposite side of the island, there were still waves, but the sea was a startling shade of blue that photographed well.

The Villa Jovis, built by Tiberius in 27 AD, was a ruin and rather inaccessible at the time, but we could see it clearly from the plaza where we had lunch.  I went for a walk around the area a bit after we ate.  An American couple commented on the “fact” that “we” Italians loved to dress in all black.  I was dressed in all black — black top and trousers, long black all-weather coat (with the lining taken out), black cap, black shoes and socks, sunglasses on my face, my hair pulled back into a black scrunchi, a black purse across my body and a black bag (containing my camera, a map, and other items) slung over my shoulder.  How someone as fair and blonde as me could be mistaken for Italian was beyond me.  But they were quite startled when I spoke to them, saying “I’m an American,” in perfect English.

The Villa San Michele had amazing views from every side.  It was built on one of the highest points of the island in the early 1900s, using bits and pieces of ancient palaces and such found on the land by the owner.  It was a favorite of ours as was the Church of San Michele Arcangelo in the town of Anacapri.  The church was built in 1719 and contains a beautiful floor painted with a scene of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden on ceramic tile.  They have a raised walkway around the outside edge of the floor against the walls of the octagonal church so you can see the floor without damaging it.  The colors are vivid (my photo doesn’t do it justice) and the images fanciful.

Back at the Marina Grande, while waiting for transportation back to Sorrento, Mom was dive-bombed by one of the sea gulls.  I can’t say that I often heard my mom swear, but that was one of those times.  Fortunately, it hit her coat, which was much better than her head or the outfit she had on under her coat.  Cleaning off the coat was still unpleasant.  We had the time to do it before the boat arrived, so we paid the fee to enter the ladies restroom and scrubbed it all off fairly well at the sink.  We laughed about it later once the evidence was gone.

The next day, we left Sorrento heading back to Rome all set to have a free afternoon in Rome before our farewell dinner that night.  Along the way, we we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a snowstorm!  It was supposed to be spring.  It had been quite warm for much of the trip.  We had been without coats most of the time, except when we were in high altitudes and had some cool breezes.  The day before in Pompeii it had been quite warm.  That day we had worn our coats (without the linings) because Capri was quite mountainous and it could be very breezy.

Our coach driver said that he was thirty and had never seen snow anywhere other than up in the mountains.  So he was pretty well surprised.  The traffic was down to a crawl.  They had no equipment to deal with it, so there were actually people out on the road tossing salt around by hand.

In an attempt to keep us entertained, the driver put a video on of the film “Cliffhanger” with Sylvester Stallone.  It was dubbed in Italian, so it was pretty funny.  I have never seen it in English.  I had thought at the time that “Rocky” might have been fun dubbed in Italian.

Our return to Rome was delayed by a couple of hours, essentially ruining our plans for the rest of our final day in Italy.  We did still go out for a final dinner.  The restaurant had a large Mouth of Truth, like the one in the film “Roman Holiday” that Gregory Peck used to frighten Audrey Hepburn by pretending to lose his hand.  Although I’m a pretty truthful person, I wasn’t interested in sticking my hand in its mouth.  I didn’t think it would be bitten off, but I wasn’t too sure about any possible snakes, rodents or large and aggressive insects that might be lurking inside.

Next time:  a trip to the East Coast of the US from NYC down to Orlando, Florida.

Once upon a time there lived a girl named Juliet who fell in love with a boy named Romeo.  There isn’t any evidence that either one of them actually existed.  But there is a house in Verona that does date back to the 14^th century and was purchased by the city of Verona from the Cappello family in 1905.  Cappello was close enough to Capulet.  So a balcony was cobbled together from pieces of a 17^th century sarcophagus and Casa di Giulietta (Juliet’s House) was born.

Over the years tourists have had a habit of sticking love notes to the walls of the courtyard where you can see the balcony and a statue of the non-existent Juliet.  The city of Verona has had enough of all of these notes and the gum, glue, tape, etc. used to stick them on the walls and now will fine anyone they catch leaving such a note €500.  The house has been furnished in the style of the 14^th century and contains some costumes from the most recent film version, so it could be fun to visit anyway — just keep those love notes to yourself.  When I visited in 1998, I don’t remember going inside as an option.  It was simply a matter of standing in a very crowded, very small courtyard while trying to get a decent photo of the balcony.  To my mind, it was a house of the right era in Verona, and that was good enough for me.

Having most of a day in Verona was great.  In addition to the balcony, there were several Roman ruins and fairly intact Roman buildings.  The Roman Arena, which once held 30,000 spectators in its heyday, can still hold 22,000 and continues to be used for concerts.  There is also a Roman Theatre by the river that is still used for things like opera performances.  The theatre had been built over at one point, but a wealth Veronese bought all of the houses and had them torn down in the 18^th century.

Back in the day, each of the main cities of what is now Italy were ruled as “city states” by powerful families, such as the Medici family of Florence, the Visconti and Sforza families of Milan and the Scala family of Verona.  I found it very intriguing that one of the important rulers of Verona was named Cangrande I della Scala.  “Cangrande” essentially means “Top Dog” (literally “Big Dog”).  He was born in 1291 and was a patron of Dante.  When he died in 1329, he was placed in a tomb in the courtyard of a church in Verona.  Over the years, he was joined in that same courtyard by several members of his family.  Some of the tombs are quite elaborate.

We also had a good, long visit in Venice on this trip — multiple days.  One of the highlights was an evening visit to St Mark’s Square to see the Doge’s Palace and the Basilica San Marco all lit up.  Behind San Marco, on the other side of a canal, was a music club called Ai Musicanti.  It was an opera club.  We heard three talented opera singers plus a violinist and a pianist performing all of the Italian opera greatest hits while munching on appetizers and sipping champagne.

We had a completely free afternoon one of the days.  So Mom and I decided to explore San Marco from top to bottom.  Up to that point, San Marco was pretty much the oldest building I had ever been in where we had the freedom and time to explore most of it.  The original building was completed in 832, in the form of a Greek cross.  But, in 976, the Doge at that time was locked inside of San Marco by a rebellious mob and the basilica burned down with him in it.  They must have really hated that guy.  San Marco was rebuilt in 978, but the present Byzantine-style building (complete with five domes) dates from roughly 1063.  Some parts of the building, especially down in the undercroft, were part of the older versions.

Mom and I decided to start at the top and work our way down.  After entering the center door, but before leaving the Narthex to enter the main part of the Basilica, is a very old, steep staircase leading up to the museum at the top of the building.  This is where the originals of the horses on the exterior of the building are kept.  There is also a gallery from which we could see the entire Basilica from on high.  We were a little closer to the glistening, golden mosaics up there.  Then we stepped out onto the part of the roof next to the replicas of the horses and looked out over Saint Mark’s Square.  We would go up the Campanile (Bell Tower) later and get some spectacular views of the entire Venice area.  That tower at least had a lift (elevator).

There seemed to be loads of places throughout San Marco where we could pass through a door, climb some stairs, venture down a corridor, and see a uniquely different part of the building.  We ended up in some rafters at one point, where we could see the structure of the building [see photo below].  We also wandered around in the undercroft for a while.  We were both just fascinated by the place.

Back in 1094, the Doge at that time found the remains of Saint Mark encased in a pillar in the aisle on the right side of the Basilica (when facing the high altar).  You would have thought he would have been in a special tomb instead, being that he is the Mark of “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John”.  His remains were taken from the pillar and reinterred in the high altar.  In the Cathedral in Kirkwall, Orkney (in Scotland) the relics of Saint Magnus were found in a column in 1919.  Maybe that’s what they did with the remains of a saint that they wanted to protect back about a thousand years ago.  Nobody would know where to find Saint Whoziss and therefore couldn’t steal the remains.  In Mark’s case, I believe the Venetians stole him in the first place.

There is a rumor that the body that was stolen from Alexandria, Egypt, by the Venetians wasn’t Mark at all, but Alexander the Great.  This is partially because Alexander’s body seems to have gone missing and partially because there are claims that Mark’s body was cremated after death.  First of all, the cremation story is not even remotely the accepted story.  Also, from what I have read about Alexander, I would think that he would not take it lying down to be called by another name.  He had a humongous ego.

After Venice, we headed for Ravenna on our way to Assisi.  We had thought that San Marco was old, having originated in the 800s.  The Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna was begun in 526.  In 554, Ravenna became the seat of the Byzantine government in Italy, so the basilica there became quite important.  It is also highly decorated with mosaics.  Some panels of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and his Empress Theodora are especially treasured.  They date to 547.  But the oldest mosaics in all of Italy are in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, who was the daughter of the Roman Emperor Theodosius.  She died in 450.  So the mausoleum took the prize for the oldest building I had been in up to that point.  I would end up in much older structures on later adventures.

The next stop was Assisi.  This was the end of March in 1998.  In November and December of 1997, there had been some major earthquakes in Assisi.  Four people had been killed in the upper part of the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi (13^th century), which was still closed for repairs.  We could visit the lower part which contains St Francis’ tomb.  There was quite a bit of damage there too, but not so much that it had to be closed.

We also visited the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels.  This is a very large cathedral that contains the site of St Francis’ hut, the cell in which he died, and the rose garden.  Sort of like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which was built over the sites of the Christ’s death and tomb, this one was built over and around several of the places featured in St Francis’ life.

At the very top of the cathedral was a statue of Saint Mary, which had fallen off during the earthquake.  Miraculously, it wasn’t damaged and had been set up near the front entrance of the cathedral [photo below].  It was nice, really, to see her close up instead of several stories away.

In our hotel in Assisi, we had a compact little bathroom where you could sit on the toilet, brush your teeth and take a shower all at the same time.  Handy.  But it could be disconcerting if you were really tired and pulled the wrong chain after using the loo while fully dressed.

From Assisi we went to Pompeii and Capri, plus experienced a snowstorm on the way back to Rome!  More about all that in the next post.

The European trip we took in 1984 convinced us that we needed to return to Italy.  It took us until 1998 to do it, but we had a full 16 days in a country where we had only spent a total of three days before.  We flew into Rome and were surprised at how casually the passport control agent greeted us.  He just glanced at our passports, didn’t ask any questions, said “you’re okay”, and waved us through.  I’ve had more scrutiny in the US, where I was born.

I wasn’t feeling too great at the time.  I had tried to allow myself to get some sleep on the flight over by drinking several glasses of red wine.  All I had managed to accomplish was a hangover and still didn’t sleep a wink.  Decided after that experience that I wouldn’t concern myself about whether or not I slept and would just relax and rest my eyes.

On our previous visit to Rome, we had just been driven among the ruins of the Roman Forum, although we did get to spend a little time in the Coliseum.  This time, we had quite a bit of time to wander around among the ruins and drink it all in.  I really enjoyed it, despite getting a sunburn on top of my hangover.

I remembered the Shakespearian play “Julius Caesar” pretty well from high school.  Our teacher thought it would be a good idea to read it out loud with class members playing the various roles.  Since I had already been in a few plays (Juliet in “Romeo & Juliet”, Abigail in “The Crucible”, Maggie in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”) he had me play Brutus.  This meant that, instead of Brutus being a tall, strapping, swarthy Italian man, he was a small, blue-eyed blonde high school girl.

I was tempted to give the “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” speech when standing at the podium from which Marc Antony eulogized Julius Caesar, but was afraid of that being too much of a cliché.  Good thing.  There were several others who gave that first line in succession.  I actually could have gone for a few more lines (“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.  The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones; so let it be with Caesar.”), but that might have been showing off.

The first time I had seen the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, it had been very dark from centuries of dirt and smoke.  The ceiling had been cleaned between 1984 and 1998 and was absolutely glorious.  The colors were so vibrant and the whole ceiling now had a 3-D quality to it.  Figures were climbing out of the painting and coming towards me.

My mom had a balance disorder, so looking up was difficult.  There wasn’t any place to sit down either.  So I steered her to the center of the room, had her hold on tightly to me (and me to her), and told her to look up.  We were directly under The Creation of Adam.  She was so overcome that she cried.

This time in Rome, we didn’t have any road accidents.  In fact, traffic seemed to be moving more smoothly than it had in 1984.  We had a female tour director this time, who had been born in Bosnia and had immigrated to Italy when the conflicts began.  She was a huge fan of Andrea Bocelli, and played his music when we were on the road between cities and towns when she wasn’t telling us about something.  This was my mother’s and my first exposure to his singing.  We ended up buying CDs before we left Italy.

Our hotel in Rome had about the thinnest walls in any hotel anywhere.  We could actually hear the guy in the next room snoring.  Since we could hear conversations next door as well, we knew they could hear us too, so we were careful not to say anything we would have possibly found to be embarrassing — “did you see the toupee on that guy?”  It was after that trip that I bought a sound machine that I still take with me on every trip.  At least we didn’t get locked in the hotel room this time.  Of course we might have been able to get out by tearing through the wall to the next room.

After spending a few days in Rome, we left for Pisa and Florence.  London Bridge might not be falling down, but in 1998, the Leaning Tower of Pisa was.  They had closed the tower and were desperately trying to straighten it back up enough to keep it from toppling over.  They had the area around it completely blocked off so that, if it did fall, it wouldn’t land on anybody.  Cables were holding it up and counterweights were on it to help it to slowly shift back to a safer angle.

Begun in 1173, the tower had starting sinking in 1178 after the completion of the second floor.  Instead of starting over with a stronger foundation, the builders at the time opted for a change in the design to accommodate the tilt.  It took a long time to build.  The seventh floor wasn’t completed until 1319.

We had a fair amount of time in Pisa, so we explored the Cathedral, the Baptistery and the Cemetery.  Both the Cathedral and the Baptistery were older than the tower and fascinating to explore.  We also had lunch in Pisa.  Then we continued on to Florence.

This trip we had quite a bit of free time in Florence to explore on our own — a whole day.  Before setting us loose on the marble streets and sidewalks, our tour director took us to the Piazza de Michelangelo from which we could see the entire city laid out before us.  The piazza also contained a copy of Michelangelo’s most famous statue, the David, in green marble.  The museum containing the original was closed that day, so we were going to have to make do with this green David and the copy that stands where the original used to stand in front of the Palazzo Vecchio.  This made two trips to Florence without being able to see the actual David.

Once we were dropped off with the return time established, Mom and I were off and running.  Our first stop was Casa Buonarroti, which had been owned, but never lived in, by Michelangelo.  It was now a museum containing drawings, models and his early works.

Nearby was the Museo Nationale del Bargello, which was a medieval palazzo (1255), housing a museum devoted to sculpture.  They had a very early version of David by Michelangelo plus both Verrocchio’s and Donatelli’s Davids.

Before having lunch, Mom and I needed to exchange some more money, so we went to a bank near the Piazza della Signori.  It had the greatest security I had yet seen in a bank — and it wasn’t a terribly large bank either.  We had to enter one at a time.  After going through one door, that door had to be closed behind you before you could open the next one.  Once you got through the second door, it too had to be closed behind you.  Then you entered a metal detector.  When I came out of the other side of the metal detector, I couldn’t wait for Mom to make it through before approaching a teller.  We still needed to be separated and go to different tellers.  Good thing we had already decided how much money we each wanted to exchange before entering the bank.  We weren’t able to connect again or communicate until we were spit out through the doors on the opposite side of the building.

The whole time we were in there, I was concerned that I might do something stupid out of ignorance and/or lack of being able to fully understand the signs in Italian.  But we managed to complete our transactions without getting arrested.

When we came out of the other side of the bank, we were right where we wanted to be — the Piazza della Signori itself.  This is where the Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi Gallery, and the outdoor sculpture gallery (Loggia dei Lanzi) are located.  There is also a Neptune fountain and several cafes with outdoor tables.  We had lunch at one of those cafes.  Fortunately it was a beautiful day.  We lounged and people-watched for a while after lunch before dashing off to see the other places we wanted to see before meeting up with our tour director, driver and the rest of the group.

The Duomo, which began building in 1296, was a short walk from the piazza.  It is most famous for its dome by Brunelleschi that wasn’t completed until 1436.  It is massive and gorgeous on the outside, but quite simple in its decoration inside.  In 1478, Giuliano di Piero de Medici, ruler of Florence at the time, was murdered inside the Duomo.  His brother, Lorenzo, who was with him, managed to escape.  Lorenzo went on to rule Florence and become the patron of several artists, including both Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buornarroti.

Right across from the Duomo is the Baptistry, which is considerably older, having been constructed between 1059 and 1128.  The doors of the building are quite famous with the doors on the east side referred to as The Gates of Paradise.  The mosaic ceiling inside was done in the Byzantine style and reminded me a lot of the interior of San Marco in Venice.

Santa Croce (holy cross) must have originally had a piece of the cross as it is a basilica — a designation reserved for cathedrals with special relics.  It is the final resting place for several important people, such as Michelangelo, Gallileo, Amerigo Vespuci, Rossini, and Machiavelli.  There are also memorials to both Dante and Leonardo da Vinci, who were buried elsewhere.

The next day, we headed for Milan.  The Santa Maria delle Grazie, where da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” resides, was closed.  So we didn’t get to see that either.  It was in the process of being conserved (from 1978 to 1999).  It isn’t open to the public much anyway as it is difficult enough to keep in good shape without having all of that human breath hitting it.

We did get to see the Teatro de Scalla and the Cathedral (begun in 1386, but not completed until 1805).  The roof of the cathedral is open to the public for the wonderful views of the city it provides.  The main family of Milan was the Visconti family as Florence was a Medici stronghold.

When we got to Lake Como, we drove around to see all of the beautiful villas.  George Clooney did not yet live there or we might have tried to see where he lived.  I understand that, once he did move there, his villa was often pointed out to tour groups.

We stayed in Porlezza, which is on Lake Lugano and explored the medieval part of town, in easy walking distance to our hotel.  We bought some fruit in the market to carry with us on the trip.  Fresh fruit was not something we encountered often in the restaurants on the trip so we were pleased to get some oranges and bananas.

We took a day trip to Lugano in Switzerland.  At the border (Italy was not yet in the European Union), the border guard came on the coach to check the passports.  He didn’t seem to like me or mine for some reason.  In 1993, when I had gotten my passport renewed, they had given out green passports instead of the usual blue.  But there was another woman on the tour who also had a green passport and she didn’t seem to bug him like I did.  He kept looking at the passport and then at me; back at the passport and again at me.  We were becoming concerned that he wasn’t going to let me into Switzerland or turn the entire group away because of whatever reason was that he didn’t like me.  Eventually he gave my passport back to me and left, but not before giving me one last, lingering, nasty look.

Not having learned our lesson back on that earlier trip up Mount Titlis in Switzerland back in 1984, Mom and I went up Monte Tamaro in a four-person cable car.  At least it was just one cable car and it didn’t have any problems docking.  After tromping around in the snow for a while, we went back down and had some lunch in Lugano.  The border guard on the way back didn’t seem to be concerned about me at all so returning to Italy was not an issue.