cafegoddess

"tranche du Spam" coming from a spam loving state, I appreciate your humor. Thanks, I am enjoying your trip report.

annhig

It’s the same good food – we ate and drank and had a great time. Trattoria Quattro Leone http://www.4leoni.com/index.php.

lol, italy, we ate at this place on our first trip to Florence with our kids about 5 [or was it 6?] years ago. we sat outside, and about 1/2 way through our meal, this long line of elderly italians started to emerge from the inside of the restaurant, and just kept coming! there must have been at least 30 of them. of course we hadn't been inside so didn't realise about the space in there. it was very funny - like watching loads of people coming out of the Tardis. My italian tourist guide friend says that of all tour parties, elderly italians are the worst - they get bored after an hour and the women start agitating about where they are going to eat - for their husbands, you understand!

how is the empty nesting going? we are a couple of months into it now and i can hardly wait till they come home for christmas!

italy06

Annhig - harder than I thought! I too am looking forward to having my son home at Christmas. And next year, my daughter will be on her honeymoon so my husband, son and I are looking to spend Christmas in a foreign city. Taking all suggestions!!

and cafegoddess - Hawaii perhaps?? Spam is big on the fast food menus when we visit there.

edhodge -what a big compliment. I checked out bloggess' stuff - she is hilarious. I do have to curb my inner David Mamet when I am on Fodors!

taconictraveler

This is so good! Well written,clever, funny, informative. I love it. Even the "followers"and commenters are hilarious. What a pleasure this report is.

cafegoddess

Italy06,

Yes, spam masubi is very popular here.

I completely agree with taconictraveler, your trip report is funny and clever.

tdk, thanks for the heads up about Grom.

TDudette

More, please.

italy06

Thank you so much for your thoughts - as we all probably wish, wouldn't it be nice to make a living doing what we love best? As it is, I feel very lucky to be able to travel and can't wait for my next trip!

italy06

After the food and drink of the night before, we decided a brisk morning constitutional was in order. We walked over to the Duomo around 8 AM, had a cappuccino and watched as the street vendors began to set up for the day. We walked around the cathedral just as they opened a door on the north side. We initially thought it was to go into the church but it was to go up to the top of the dome. There was literally no one in line so we thought, why not? Well, that is until we saw about 4 or 5 signs warning the weak hearted to turn back now while they had the chance. Weak hearted, not us! 463 steps? Bring it on! 98 steps later, I said to my husband, “we have climbed 300 steps already, right?” Wrong. Coat and scarf tied around my waist now, I felt like Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters just trying to make it to the top of Devil’s Tower before the helicopters showed up. My husband was ahead of me, reaching for my hand like Melinda Dillon, encouraging me, but my quads were telling me to go back home to Teri Garr. Suddenly, as we saw a sliver of light, my husband stopped dead in his tracks. We were now inside the dome on the bottom band of the ceiling frescos looking down on the chapel below. All of the color drained from his face as he said, “What was I thinking? I am afraid of heights and don’t think I can do this.” Relief washed over me until he said, “but of course, you should continue.” Of course I should! Really? He graciously took my coat and scarf and beat a fast path back down as I faced the looming 250 plus steps ahead of me. I forged ahead. Did I forget to tell him I was claustrophobic as the stone walls closed in the higher I got? Made it to the upper inside ring and then began to climb in earnest. Steep steps turned into steeper steps on a curve until I was pulling myself up with the railing. I then got to to a ladder and climbed up through a hatch and out onto the cupola. Good thing my husband turned back; he would have had to be airlifted off. As safely caged in as we are at the Empire State Building, the top o’ the Duomo is decidedly the opposite. A little metal fence, no higher than 4 feet and a sloping floor that sort of catapults you to the fence. And did I mention it was 463 steps up? Needless to say, the views were absolutely breathtaking (although most of my breath had already been taken by the climb) but I did find myself hugging the wall. I took some pictures with my phone as proof to my kids, gazed out for a while and then as a breeze blew up, I decided I needed to head back down…just as a tour group climbed through the hatch and pushed and shoved me ever closer to the teeny fence. I literally had to stop them from pouring through the opening so I could go down. In all, about 85 people filled the small space – I was glad I beat them up the stairs. Down was hard as well and the staircase is even narrower. I made it out, kissed my husband who told me that when he bailed, he told the ticket taker in Italian, “I have fear of tall.” I then had my first glass of wine of the day… at 9:30 AM. Worth it? Yes. It is an engineering marvel. Would I do it again? Probably not. Saving myself for K2…

Now for my first real complaint. If you are coughing up anything green or if your bones ache or if you are nauseous and have the chills, can you do me a favor and not fly on my plane? Or at least wrap a scarf around your germ ridden face? I know this is a battle that can never be won because no one ever wants to cancel their trips but planes are flying disease factories. Recycled air and hacking coughs are never a good match. I have tried every trick in the book short of a gas mask (saline mist, Zicam in my nose, EmergenC), but somehow I always get sick on part of a vacation or after. I thought I had a headache from the trek up the Duomo but I got a lingering cold that flared up off and on for the next week but tried to not let it deter us from any plans. And no, I did not get on another plane while I was sick.

After an excellent frittata made from our groceries of the day before, I did lay low for while to shake off my cold symptoms. Since I was a little under the weather and had climbed Mt. Duomo in the morning, we headed just down the street to Palazzo Strozzi to check it out. Built for Filippo Strozzi as a sort of “in your face, Medici family” palace to assert his wealth and power, it is a gorgeous four sided palazzo that faces on one side, Via Turnabuoni. It is considered one of the finest examples of Renaissance domestic architecture. Sadly Filippo died before it was finished in 1538. It is now Florence’s largest temporary exhibition space. The exhibit we saw was fascinating. It is called “Money and Beauty. Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities.” It will be there until January 2012. Go see it if you are there. It includes paintings, artifacts, coins, jewelry and manuscripts that “explores the links between that unique interweave of high finance, economy and art, and the religious and political upheavals of the time.” (from their website: http://www.palazzostrozzi.org/Sezion...idSezione=1214) There is so much I didn’t know about the relationship between bankers and artists of the time and how modern art patronage was born. It’s a very clever way to showcase some amazing paintings.

For lunch, we headed down Via della Spada to the aptly named La Spada where we got a to go order of their tasty rotisserie chicken and roasted potatoes. We took them back to our place for our first lunch under 15 Euros. Fantastic!

A little nap, a little Dayquil washed down with a little glass of Orvieto Classico and I was ready for the night! We met our friends at the Skytop bar at the Hotel Continentale for a pre-dinner drink. It was a little cold but I could definitely see myself hanging out there on a warmer night and enjoying the views of the city. We trekked over to Buca Lapi (http://www.bucalapi.com/home-eng.htm ) for our first and only steak Florentine of the trip. Second big lesson learned in Italy: FLORENTINE STEAK FOR TWO MEANS IT TAKES TWO PEOPLE TO CARRY YOUR FLORENTINE STEAK FOR EIGHT TO THE TABLE. Seriously! I really don’t know what we were thinking. And medium means raw-ish. Along with our delicious rocket salad, this one with pears, we ate what we could and took the rest back to our place where we had steak and eggs for breakfast until we left Florence and STILL there were 8 pounds of meat left in the fridge. We had lots of laughs over that steak and took many pictures and drank a lot of red wine before I crashed and burned into a stuffy nose coma for the night. Loving Florence!

Next: Underground Florence and Overindulgence at the Gucci Museum

annhig

Second big lesson learned in Italy: FLORENTINE STEAK FOR TWO MEANS IT TAKES TWO PEOPLE TO CARRY YOUR FLORENTINE STEAK FOR EIGHT TO THE TABLE>>

lol - DS and I shared a similar bistecca alla fiorentina; luckily he is a great meat eater [ie he eats a great deal of meat] and we both like our meat on the rare side [really anything goes so long as it's not still mooing] so we were in heaven. and there wasn't much left.

but I wouldn't want to/couldn't eat it very often.

love your description of climbing the dome - we never got up there due to the queues but we did climb the campanile, which you might have found a little easier.

italy06

That's funny, annhig. The aspect ratio when you're on the ground makes the Campanile look like it would be more difficult But I realized when I was on top of the Duomo looking DOWN at the Campanile that I could have made my life easier!

annhig

italy - apart from anything the campanile doesn't go round and round in ever decreasing circles so it's an easier climb from that point of view too.

having climbed the dome of St. Peter's I have no particular desire to climb one anywhere else and when i was there in May, the queues were so bad that it wasn't an option. perhaps if I'd been able to walk straight up i might have felt differently.

jmct714

I love your duomo story. A few years ago, my sister and I flew into Rome from NYC, took the train to Florence, and by 4 that afternoon were making our way to the top, bleary eyed and groggy from jet lag and lack of sleep. I still don't know how we did it (or how we thought it would be a good idea), but we still laugh at 'powering up the Duomo' and, of course, remember fondly the marvelous views.

Enjoying your report!