Florence, Monday

This is our final day in Florence: a chance to do laundry, last minute shopping or view the last unvisited Church. Most opted for the second choice. We ate our meals at restaurants recommended by Rick Steves and for the most part pleased with his recommendations. Often the restaurant he recommended had a line, while the adjoining place sat empty. There were a lot of Americans in Florence, the European schools aren't yet out.

We are now on the train back to Rome. We should arrive shortly after noon, which will give us a pleasant afternoon and evening in Rome. All the Sisters were on hand to say goodbye, more likely they didn't want us to walk off with their keys!

The last couple days have been cooler, with a nice breeze, so it was a pleasant end of our time in Tuscany.

Pisa

Sunday night,

We just returned from Pisa. It was a forced march through the streets. The train station is a mile the campo dei miracoli, the field miracles. It must be called that because every thing is leaning and nothing has fallen over yet. We saw the pulpit carved by Andrea Pisano, which is a masterpiece of renaissance sculpture as well as the lamp that began Galileo thinking about gravity. He should have been thinking about Jesus, but must have been distracted.

We all ate in the area of Santa Maria novella. Kids are tired, as am I.

Assisi

Saturday, June 18

We left the Convent of the Holy Name of Jesus, on the Piazza del Camine in Florence where we are staying at about 7:00 and headed for the train station. Assisi is about a 2 1/2 hour train ride from Florence through many little towns with several stops. It was really beautiful, only most people, including myself had at least a few short naps enroute!

We caught a bus at the train station to carry us up to the top of the old town. Needless to say...Assisi has hills, too. Steep hills, very, very steep hills. We accidentally, found a wonderful little restaurant, il Duomo. Most of the kids had margharita pizza (tomato sauce and cheese), some ventured to the porcini mushrooms, which are awesome here. But the pizzas were baked in a wood-fired oven and were very good.

We then wandered further down hill and had gelato while waiting for the Church of Santa Chiara to open. There we saw the cross of San Damiano, which is the one in front of which Francis was praying when Jesus spoke to to him asking him to rebuild his church. We then went down to the crypt to visit Claire. I told the girls that Claire was about their age when she ran away from her family to follow Francis and give up everything for Christ. That got a response!

Further down the hill is the Church of St. Francis. We visited the lower church first with the image of Francis from Cimibue and wonder frescoes from anyone who was anyone in the 13c. We also went to the crypt where Francis and his first followers are buried. Francis' stone coffin is secured with iron bars, attesting to the value of relics in the proto-Renaissance. A relic was "as good as gold." After visiting Francis we walked through the upper church with the famous frescoes cycle on the life of St. Francis.

Everyone enjoyed Assisi, it is picturesque with beautiful views of the Umbrian landscape below.

Someone in town recommended a pizza place called the Yellow Bar. We took the kids there on the way home, walking with some encumbrance through hundreds of runners. We don't know if it was an evening marathon through the streets or what....there were just a lot of people. The Yellow Bar had lots of people and loud music...the older people in the group ate across the street at the something Lion. Can't even remember the name I was so tired. But the food was good, despite the rather touristy look of the place. It was very close to the Piazza Republica.

Sunday, June 19

Today breakfast was later, so we told the kids they just had to be ready for Church at 10:00. We went to S. Maria del Carmine, just across the plaza from the convent. The mass was in Italian, but the priest, flanked by two Carmelite Brothers, was Indian. His Italian was followable,because I am sure it was his third language. The original church dated from sometime in the 13th c., remodeled in the 14th and 15th, burned in the 18th and redecorated in the 19th. Some of the original frescoes by Massacio still survive.

Most of the kids grabbed an early lunch at McDonalds in the train station. The are getting a little tired of pasta and pizza, but that is probably because the order the same thing every time!

We are now on a very full train to Pisa. The air conditioning is working. So all is good. Tomorrow is our last day in Florence. Still so much to do and so little time. Tomorrow, for the more artsy, I am doing the "nickel" tour of churches: S. Maria Novella, San Lorenzo, S. Croce and S. Spiritu. I don't know how many takers I will have since it is a pretty ambitious plan.

Siena, San Gigminano and Florence

We woke in Siena to yet another beautiful day. We toured the Church of Saint Dominic to give Catherine a shout...or at least her head and finger. I believe the rest of her is in Rome. We then went to the Duomo, which was to be one of the largest cathedrals in the world until the black death altered plans for the expansion.

We then boarded a bus for San Gigminano. I went to the Duomo, the kids ate gelato. The hilltop town has a distinctly medieval flavor.

We arrived back to the convent in Florence for the evening. Sister Rehma was waiting for us.

This morning we went to H & M, the girls wanted to shop. Then we went to the academy to see David and then to the market. I went to mass at the baptistry while the kids were shopping. The baptistry probably built in the mid- sixth century, mentioned in writings from about 867 and re-consecrated in 1029. But I had a moment thinking about the famous feet that had been there: the Medici, Leonardo, Michaelangelo....and the list goes on and on and on.

Tomorrow we are going to spend the day in Assisi. We are taking the train. So they can sleep on the way.

We are trying to expand their eating vocabulary...and some of them are at least trying some new food. I will try to elaborate more on this later. It is 10:00 and we just finished dinner, so my brain is full. The kids loved the fettuccini with trifled white sauce, Jeremy had wild boar sauce. Headway!

Siena

We left Florence on the "rapido" or direct bus to Siena, arriving a little over an hour later. We are staying in Hotel Alma Domus. "The building that is now the Hotel Alma Domus began its life as the drying room of a medieval wool works (hedificum tiratorium), probably dating back to the early 1300s and belonging to a certain Brunello di Brunaccio. It was here that the last important phase of cloth production took place. The wet cloth, once treated with natural agents and transformed into felt, was hung out to dry on purpose built washing lines. The medieval building was transformed into a hotel in 1976 and although it has now been completely renovated, it has preserved its original facade, which is clearly visible from Vicolo del Tiratoio. The facade is five stories high and decorated in typical Sienese style; a row of tall rectangular windows runs along its substantial base, while a series of quadruple loggia with alternating architraves and arches decorate the upper stories and decorative brick battlements complete the picture. Inside some traces of the old factory remain, such as the imposing pillars which used to hold up enormous trusses -infact a sketch from the early 1700s reveals that the building was once open on the side looking out to San Domenico. Even the most recent addition of a small building overlooking the slope from Camporegio down to Fontebranda features in the Leopoldine land register of 1811."

After a brief rest, we walked up and down and up and down and up and down...you get the picture: Siena has hills! We reached il Campo at about 7:00. We speed out and let every one choose the restaurant in small groups. Everyone was very pleased with the food. The kids are getting more adventuresome in the eating.

I have been watching the eclipse, which had totally obscured the moon as we walked home about 10:30. As I write, it is just ending at almost mid-night. The cathedral is lit in the foreground. I tried to take some pictures but without a tripod, I think they will be shaky.

Florence

Tuesday, 14th

Let me try to catch up. As I said in the last blog, we couldn't get the vans. The company we had reservations with simply said, sorry they are not here. The lady found us another company that had one van, they were willing to give it to us for the same price, but wanted an additional 2,750 Euros for insurance, which the other company had already included in our price. But they only had one, but even if they had two, it was almost triple the cost. So five hours later we went home. It Was at that point we decided to head for Florence by train. The cost of the train was the same as staying another night in Rome, and that is what drove that decision. We got to Florence and bought tickets to the train to Vecchio, mysterious there was no train...no explanation, just no train. So, we had to negotiate taxis. Well, with the trains and taxis, that was 1000 Euros, which was what we would have paid for a van for a whole week.

We finally arrived at Brother Jerome's. He had only arrived that week, his house person from Nigeria, hadn't arrived due to work permit issues, so we found ourselves in a 13th century villa that had sat empty and uncleaned and undusted for eight months. Our numbers would have really taxed the hot water system. That was all probably solvable with a lot of cleaning, but the bigger problem was transportation, since it would have cost us four hours a day, just getting there and back using the train from Florence.

We decided we needed to be in Florence, just for transportation, if not for more comfortable lodging! The other ramifications of that is that we can't cook, which will cost a bit more. We are really trying to ration our funds. We are using the last of the van money to buy train and bus tickets to Assisi, Sienna, Pisa, etc. We think we have that all figured out. Last night we took the kids to a cafeteria, where Stefano was very patient with us. Mrs. Julich and I selected a variety of antipastos: fried zucchini, breshetta, octopus, fresh mozzarella and tomatoes, procuitto and melon, and procuitto with cheese, so the kids had a chance to taste something other than pizza. For the pasta course we had gnocchi, Tuscan lasagna, and spaghetti. We ate family style, so that worked pretty well. We covered that. And today for lunch we had a picnic in a park with the pigeons with food from the city market.

Today we did see the Duomo and shopped the are around the market. Last night we strolled the old part of the city, past ORsanmichelle across the Ponte Vechio and environs. We are staying in a convent run by the Dominican Sisters. It is 38 Euros a night, which includes breakfast. It is immaculately clean and located in the piazza del Carmine. At least there are no cobwebs and spiders nor a speck of dust, as you would expect from nuns with white habits!

Tomorrow we have tickets for the Uffizi. Then we will stay over night in Sienna, where we are trying to book another convent. We will stop in san gimignano on the way back to Florence.

Pentecost

Pentecost.

We left the house early for Mass at St. Peter's. We arrived by 8:30 for the 10:00 mass. Already, most of the good seats had filled. I tried to get the kids seated by babies or flocks of nuns: both Pope magnets. There is a lot of anticipation at a papal mass. People get excited over any activity, thinking it signals the arrival of the pope. But if nothing else Benedict is punctual. But cameras start clicking as first the choir processes in, followed a few minutes later by the acolytes and communion ministers. The experienced vatican watchers knows the real procession begins with a cross and lots and lots of cardinals...youngest first. He Holy Father brings up the rear...except for the body guards and the Swiss Guard. Most of the Mass was in Latin, with the first reading in English, the Second in Spanish, the Gospel was sung in Latin. The prayers of the faithful were in French, Tagalog, Swahili and maybe German. I greeted people around me at the sign of peace and am sure there were five different languages. That is the experience of St. Peter's, people from all over the world, celebrating as one family. Pretty awesome. The mass lasted about an hour and a half. Benedict speeds through his Latin! We met in the square after mass and everyone was accounted for. It took 30 minutes to get out of church. The square was already filling with pilgrims coming for the noon Angelus. There was a huge Bavarian contingent with horse drawn wagons with scale models of the various churches in the their villages. They had a band and were in traditional costume. Another day, another parade!

That is when things fell apart. Mr. Julich and I headed for the airport to pick up our reserved vans. Short story...they weren't there. No one could help. They could give us three cars (which made a couple people angry who were waiting longer than we did and were told there were no cars!) The place was a mess and filled with lots of very angry people. And it was every company: Avis, Hertz, all of them. What a mess. I don't know if the problem was Sunday or what. The lady at out place finally was able to talk to another company and get one van. So we decided to change plans, which almost 8 hours later gets us to now. So five hours to and from the airport with lots of waiting around. We decided on plan B.

So it is 8 at night. We boarded the fast train to Florence at 7:40 and will be there about a hour. We are zooming through the Tuscan country side at about 160 miles an hour ...smooth, quiet and comfortable....and I am typing, not driving. AWESOME. Another experience for the kids. The landscape is beautiful. Little villages dot the hills. We are passing everything on the expressway which is a quarter mile from the tracks. It is so postcard pastoral. Flocks of sheep, fields of grain. All is right with the world after a very hectic afternoon. Brother Jerome is going to meet us at the Vecchio train station. We have decided to abandon the vans and take the trains...more local color and no parking.