Italia trip!!!

Like last time we went to Italia, I didn't want to come back. When I get a chance, I'd like to also get our pics on here from four years ago when we went to Italia the first time. It'd be interesting to compare, partly to compare Bob's old camera with our digital camera. Weather was mostly in the 50s, getting cooler at night in the 40s. Felt good to have a break from extreme winter in Chicago and be able to walk around. Like last time in the Cinque Terra, we had to strip down to our knit shirts while hiking in the mountains the first day.

First stop was Firenze (known as Florence for some reason to English-speakers). Near the Ponte Vecchio statue on the main bridge, Bob stands near an OLD door. The street used to be a butchers' street a long time ago, but nowadays, the shops sell gold jewelry. Tons of stores selling gold jewelry to tourists--I'm not sure why so many tourists were looking. Was the gold cheaper than in America, Japan and other countries? Or were the women just mesmerized by all the gold? I was only interested in the river views and the ancient buildings and doors. The stores also had wood that would roll down over the whole shop front or slide from the left and right and close together in the middle. Many doors were short in Italia, probably because of the average height of the people. I was, like last time, amazed at the shortness of the Italian people. Lots of teeny tiny young Italian women and men who were Bob's height. I think I could have bought clothes that fit well there! But clothes in Firenze were expensive, this being an artsy and touristy area of Italia. Anyway, the wood covers and doors were all different along the street, which I found fascinating, because they were used long ago to house butcher shops. And no, I don't know how old. Italia is not a country of information. They largely take historical things for granted and hardly anything has a plaque or sign. The ancient Colloseum and forum stands in Roma, afterall. I suppose I could do some Internet research.

Are you taller than Bob? Then you need to duck to get into this shop!

The first time we meet up with Sharon. I caught a fantastic pic of her running to greet us:
The other door phenomenon in Italia is super-tall and ornate doors. Many of the high-ceiling buildings in Firenze, Milano and Roma have these types of doors, all unique and ornately created and super heavy:

The bridge in this pic is where the gold stores are and where we met up with Sharon:

Typical Firenze street:

Sitting outside of a cafe, eating those yummy caprese sandwiches:

Santa Croce Church that houses the tombs of the most famous: artist Michaelangelo, astronomer Galileo, and author Dante are a few.

Michaelangelo's bones lie inside this tomb:

Dante's tomb:

Galileo's tomb. The statues fittingly look to the sky:

San Miniato Church at the top of a mountain on one side of Firenze, above Piazza Michaelangelo. Behind the church is an amazing cemetary, which I named the city of the dead, because there is a whole town of little houses/elaborate tombs for dead people, along with tombstones. Perhaps people with money had houses built for deceased family members.

Firenze countryside view near this church, right outside of the city:
Firenze city view; different direction but same location as previous pic.

The city of the dead. This is only a small section:

There were rows and rows of houses along walkways in other areas. A town of the dead.

We peeked inside many of these houses/tombs through the doors and saw that it appears their descendants enter into the houses and leave flowers and candles. There were places to sit inside, old paintings, paintings depicting Jesus's mother Mary, etc. Italia, like Mexico, is into worship of Mary. There are little areas carved out in the facade of buildings everywhere for statues and pictures of Mary, with flowers and/or candles set on a small shelf before the picture or statue.

A beautiful angel frescoe above one of the tombs' doors:

The glass to this door was broken, allowing me to take a pic of the inside of the house. This is probably a statue of the deceased:

Leaving the ghostly city on the hill:
There are many cats that roam free in Italia. They all look well-fed and most are friendly. It seems that the Italians believe cats should be allowed to roam outside. We saw bowls of cat food and milk and rugs for them outside of doorways. Many Italians were also walking dogs. Sometimes they were on leashes and sometimes they weren't. It was amazing how well-behaved some of the dogs were.

The first night in Firenze, Sharon and friends tried taking us to an aperativo, which is a bar of snacks that people eat from after ordering an alcoholic beverage. Some aperativos have enough food to be a dinner. It was a hip place, but it was the night we got in (we had traveled for 24 hours and had been up for even longer!), it was really packed, and we were waiting for a long time to be seated. Bob and I were exhausted and finally just went back to our room, leaving Sharon to socialize with her friends.
The following pic is our second night out. Not all those bottles are wine! One is water and one is olive oil:

Okay, this was our waiter during our third night out in Firenze. We asked him to take a pic of us and he accidentally took a pic of himself first. Ha ha!

On the right, Sharon and her boyfriend Antonio:

This is Marco, the owner of the restaurant. He made the night very bizarre, bizarre like a Pulp Fiction-type scene:

What the ______ ?! After Marco wound up a miniature musical carousel and set it on the table, he pulled out a marti-gra-like mask and if my memory is correct, he told Sharon, "This is how you be sexy, Sharon." I didn't know masks with feathers and beads were so seductive. Ha!

I give it a try. Bob is seduced:

These are doors in our hotel room in Firenze. Ok, so I have a weird fascination with doors, which Bob finds boring. But Italian doors are so old world and neato. The open window/door is part of 4 top doors that you open to let in sunlight. The bottom part of the doors are connected to glass and open up to go outside:

The next day, we entered the magical little village Vernazza in the Cinque Terra, where I always leave part of my heart when I leave Italia. We walked up 113/114 steps (counted 114 four years ago and 113 this time). Looking down in the middle of the journey. People don't have dryers in Italia, so as you can see, they hang their clothes and linens outside of their windows. People lean outside of their windows to chat with each other or look out:

It's hard to explain how the village works, visually, without seeing it firsthand, so I tried to take a couple of pics this time. There is one main street with most of the restaurants and shops that leads from the town's tiny train station. However, the town starts to go uphill on both sides of that main street. Over time, buildings were built adjoining previous buildings, going up the mountains. If there is any room between buildings, it is because it's a narrow alley, which usually goes up or down with steps. The alleys curve around here and there, left and right, and are not flat for very long before they go up or down. Almost all alleys lead to more alleys. Along the way are many doorways to homes. It's like a climbing maze; obviously, cars can only drive down the main street in town.

This is a pic coming down from a restaurant we ate at four years ago but isn't open until March. You can't see them but behind me are doors on both sides to people's homes. In front of me, the alley curves around to the right and goes down:

View from the La Torre apartment we rented (Anna Maria's):

See that large building toward the top? It's the government building of the town. You have to take winding steps up through alleys to get there:

A Vernazza cat who came to visit us and who wanted to rub by Bob's legs:

The second day we were there was cloudy and rained a little, but the views were still stunning:

This old church was being restored the last time we were there. Now the steeple looks great and is a nice shade of yellow. The windows make me think this church is from medeival times. Again, no plaques of info. to let us know:

See the tall open area in the pink building to the right? That is an alleyway--an amazingly long and steep alleyway of steps that leads to a path that goes very high up a mountain:

Lemon trees!!! They were all over. I think they grow well in Italia in February:

Our first day, hiking, on the way to the town of Manarola:

Our second day of hiking; it was drizzling and the hike was a bit slippery and dangerous; this is Vernazza:

Aren't we high up?! It took a very long time to get that high--an hour, I think:

And then around the mountain and down the mountain, climbing through hillside vineyards, on the way to Monterosso:

On Wednesday afternoon, we headed back to Roma on the train and then spent the evening in Roma for our 9-year anniversary. The next morning, we left for home:

This pic didn't really turn out--you can't see the background. We were at the Spanish steps. We ate in a nice restaurant and then stopped by a wine bar near the Spanish steps to celebrate our anniversary: