Month: September 2011

It’s Sunday and Florence is overflowing with people. The streets are narrow and the sidewalks are uneven and many streets have cobblestones making walking an adventure in and of itself. This morning we made our way to the Ponte Vecchio which spans the Arno River and is the only Florentine bridge to have remained standing since the 1300’s. Once home to a foul smelling market, in the 16th Century, the Grand Duke replaced the butchers, whose offal discards caused the foul smell, with goldsmiths. I splurged there and found myself a pair of lovely 18k gold hoops, the only thing I will probably bring home from my Italian adventure.

I should note that from the start of my “Two Broads in Italy” posts, I am no longer making any pretense that my blog is about improving my photography. It has evolved into a travelogue of sorts. I still try to take photos with the correct exposure and composition but I have resorted to Auto settings on more than one occasion and I am using the iPad Photoshop App to tweak most of the pix.

We won’t be going to the Uffizi Gallery to see the marvelous paintings I studied in college or to the Accademia to see Michelangelo’s David because I screwed up and didn’t make reservations in time. But I have had my own David replica that i have cherished for more than 40 years and my own copy of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus so I won’t be too sad to miss then here. Next time I’ll do it right. This time it’s all about the food and the wine.

Here are a few of the pix I took today.

Today we spent traveling. It took three trains to get to Florence from Vernazza. When we arrived we were hot, tired, and hungry. Our hotel is close to the train station and has nicer amenities than those we experienced in Vernazza. We found a nearby trattoria for a small, early dinner and when we returned to the hotel we were awestruck to see the Duomo looming large between the buildings not far from our hotel.

Tomorrow we start to experience Florence!

I love to photograph people in their daily lives. The people watching here in Italy is fascinating and we have been able to do lots of it in Vernazza. We spent the day wandering around the tiny village and sitting in the several bistros with their brightly colored umbrellas, sipping cappuccino or vino and enjoying the parade of wonderful local Italians going about their business.

In addition to the locals, we met some other tourists and enjoyed getting to know them. This morning, we were delighted to encounter an Israeli couple we had met Thursday on the train to Monterosso and enjoyed lunch with them. In yet another bistro at dinner, we had a mouth watering seafood dinner, enjoyed an evening of conversation with a newlywed couple from Cincinnati, and were generally raucus.

Here are just some of the many interesting people who passed in front of my lens today, some more scenes in Vernazza including the street leading to the 50 some steps and sloped passageways that took us to our room.

We were sad to leave the Hotel Castello di Sinio and the beautiful views in the Piemonte region this morning but the rest of our Italian adventure awaits us. We drove to Genoa where we returned the rental car at the airport. The two hour drive was not uneventful but it went a bit smoother than our trip to Sinio; only a handful of extra trips through the Round-Abouts and we were both much calmer; well, I should say I freaked out only about a half dozen times and Linda managed to keep me calm(er) and found the correct route and redirected me to them. We were once again impressed with the Italian road system and the many well designed and maintained tunnels that led the road through the mountains down to the sea.

A short bus ride from the airport to the Genoa train station, then another short train ride to Monterosso, the first of the Cinque Terra, then a 3 minute train ride brought us to Vernazza. I think my photos will best show what we discovered when we arrived. And my favorite thing about this village? The laundry hanging from windows everywhere. Even the window outside our room had a clothes line. We were tempted to “do as in Rome” and rinse out a few things, then hang them from our window but our curiosity about the town won out and we went exploring instead.

We had an extraordinary seafood dinner on the balcony at Belforte, a restaurant on the edge of the sea in an ancient fort and were treated to an incredible sunset to end our first day in the Cinque Terra.

The first two photos are the doorway of our flat with the upstairs neighbor’s laundry hanging aboce. The seoncd is the view from our tiny veranda to the steps leading down to the square. We never bothered to count the steps or the steep pathway between the steps but the trip to the room got us breathing hard. The rest show the charming village.

We are in love with Castello di Sinio and spent the day exploring the area and enjoying the ambiance of the ancient castle, built about 1400, and the quaint, quintessential Italian village. And this evening, despite my trepidations about driving again, Linda, our new friend
Jan from Down Under who took a test drive for us to find the balloon launch site so we wouldn’t get lost later, and I, took off in our rented Volvo and wound around the curving roads and through the Round-Abouts to the soccer field launch site in Barolo.

By 6:30 we found ourselves floating over the Barolo Valley with Pietro, the balloon guy, and a family from Greece. We were awestruck by the views. The balloon basket was sturdy and stable. After about an hour wafting over the gorgeous and breathtaking vistas, we landed. Pietro told us they never know where they will land and he radioed the ground crew to tell them about the harvested corn field where the “controlled crash landing” would be. After we came to rest and the ground crew had corralled the balloon, deflated it, and put it away, everyone, even the two young Greek children, got glasses of Prosecco to toast the successful landing. Offering Prosecco is a traditionfrom the 18th century when the inventor of the hot air balloon discovered that if he gave the farmers in whose fields he landed a glass of champagne, they would believe he was human and not the devil coming out of the sky.

Here are a few shots from today’s adventures.

We woke up in Milan anticipating our trip to the Castle in Sinio. We got on the road about 11 after programming the GPS and with a backup Google map I’d printed and additional instructions for finding the highway from the hotel people. We were scheduled for a hot air balloon ride over the Barolo region at 5:15. It was a 2 hour trip so we had plenty of time.

Getting out of Milan proved harrowing . The Round Abouts seem like good ideas until you get in one and the GPS voice tells you to take the fourth exit when there are just streets that aren’t exits. So we traveled through Milan, taking the wrong round about exits and getting more lost. We discovered the parts of Milan that are not considered tourist destinations. We made sure our doors were locked. Suddenly, though, the highway appeared before us and we were off. The highways are in excellent condition and are well marked.

After traveling about an hour I noticed that the GPS showed our destination as being 5 hours away. I had misprogrammed the address. So we relied on the Google map. More Round Abouts and more missed exits and toll booths with Italian only instructions. After driving about 3 hours I pulled over and called the Castello. Denise, the owner from whom Linda and I took a cooking class a couple of years ago, informed us that we had overshot our destination and were an hour away. She instructed us how to find them and we got back on the road. We retraced our steps and reentered toll booths we’d already passed through but by then we were old hands at working the toll booths. As we got closer, the scenery turned into the gorgeous views we had been anticipating for the past year as we planned this trip.

Another hour and we called the Castello again. And again. And again as we missed turns again and again. When we finally arrived at the castle the second time, well after 6, having driven right by thinking the sign pointed up the hill, Denise and David, the hotel clerk, greeted us with much needed glasses of prosecco.

We missed our balloon ride but we are finally here.

It rained all night in Chur. We boarded the Bernina Express at 8:30 AM and chugged over the Alps into Italy. The views were obscured by low clouds and rain but what we saw was breathtaking.

We detrained in Tirano in time to catch an earlier train to Milan, after barely making ourselves understood and ensuring that the train was going to Milan. An hour into the trip, a conductor checked our passes and informed us that we had first class tickets and were in the second class car. We had wondered about the rather pronounced difference in the appearance and comfort from the Swiss trains and thought that the marked difference between the trains in Switzerland and Italy had to do with the fact that we were in Italy not that we were in the wrong car! We stayed put and arrived in Milan by mid afternoon. It was warm and we were hot and sweaty after our second class trip.

Looking for the car rental place took us onto the cobblestones and our second attempt at butchering Italian as we tried to ask directions. Streets aren’t clearly marked so it took another 30 minutes to find it. But good news when we found it. We got upgraded to a Volvo with GPS that guided us through the narrow Milan streets crowded with scooters and bicycles and, yes, Italian drivers. How we came through unscathed is anybody’s guess. After a few wrong turns and puzzling over Round Abouts we arrived at our Hotel. Parts of Milan are incredibly beautiful and picturesque with narrow streets and old buildings with flower covered balconies but graffiti is everywhere.

It was Linda’s birthday so we visited a small bistro across from the hotel and celebrated, then we dined on pizza at another nearby restaurant. We are in Italy at last.

We validated our Eurail Pass today and this afternoon, we took the train to Chur. We learned a little about the trains today. The Eurail system is quite efficient but we discovered our limited knowledge of German (limited to danke, gesundheit, and Gewurztraminer ) really hampered us in the Zurich train station. The station is huge and bustling and there is not a sign in English to be found. Luckily most everyone speaks some English and after a few wrong turns and a few wrong queues, we found where to validate our passes. We also managed to find an ATM and extract a few Swiss Francs so we could rent a couple of lockers to stow our suitcases while we spent a few more Swiss Francs on glasses of wine and German hotdogs.

Then Linda and I boarded the train to Chur. The countryside is lovely. Very Swiss, but what else would you expect in Switzerland? Now I’ve seen where Heidi lived!

A one hour flight delay out of SFO, a couple of crying babies on the plane, a half hour trying to find how and where to buy train tickets from the airport to Zurich, an hour and a half of trying to find our way from the Zurich station to our hotel, no phone or wifi access at our hotel, and a walk past the train station again in search of someplace to eat. Our introduction to Zurich was unpleasant but we happened across Cafe Kränzlin und Simplon Bar and everything changed. Our delightful waiter, Hans, brought us margaritas, a complimentary broccoli quiche with saffron threads and balsamic reduction, a bottle of excellent Italian red wine, local Swiss fare: Zurich veal with mushrooms with Rösti (hash browns) and wiener schnitzel, complimentary after dinner drinks and yes, more wine. Hans predicted rain within 15 minutes and we enjoyed the refreshing evening downpour from the safety of the restaurant awning. Eating dinner al fresco was a delightful change from the cramped confines of the airplane. Despite a questionable introduction, we have decided we love Zurich and Hans made it possible. We told him to keep an eye out for us in three weeks.

And then we’re gonna take a train;
Oh, Babe, can’t wait to go. . . .

With apologies to Peter, Paul, Mary, and John Denver.

For the next 22 days, it’s planes, trains, and automobiles with a hydrofoil, gondola and balloon thrown in here and there. Watch this space for updates on Two Broads in Italy.

Focal Length 50mm
ISO 100
f/10
6 sec.
SOOC

Hallelujah! That’s what I thought this morning when I noticed the morning glories climbing my neighbor’s fence. Indeed, glory, glory, hallelujah! After fourteen months of planning and research, the time has finally come. My friend Linda and I are leaving tomorrow for Italy (actually flying into Zurich and taking a train over the Alps into Italy). And this morning as I headed to the gym for my last workout for a month in preparation for eating and drinking my way through Italy, the morning glories seemed an appropriate send-off photo.

Focal Length 38mm
ISO 200
f/5
1/160
SOOC