Florence to Padua

Medici Chapel*Lauretian Library*Ferrari Museum*Scrovegni Chapel

15,548 steps

Today we made the short 2:45 minute drive from Florence to Padua.  We took our time leaving Florence visiting the Medici Library and sat at a cafe eating a very gooey chocolate croissant.  We then hauled our luggage the 25 minute walk to the parking garage and gratefully our car was still there and undamaged.

We made a 1 hour stop in Maranella - the home of Ferrari and visited the Ferrari museum.  I didn't think I could be enticed by such a fancy car, but wow - I might just be able to drive a Ferrari around town!  The entire museum smelled like new car smell - there were Ferraris dating from the 1950s, cars that raced, one of a kind cars, and luxury cars you might see driving around Hollywood California.  It was a nice break from looking at art.  Charlie was in heaven and when we went to the gift shop and there was a Lego Ferrari, he just couldn't resist purchasing it.

We arrived in Padua by 5:30 (just in time for Maren to skype in on Senior Class Officer meeting - (the joys of modern technology!).  Padua is quiet, sleepy, and smaller than Florence and not a tourist in site!  We are staying in our first Hotel - a family room with 5 twin beds (2 pushed together to make a "master bed"). At the moment Charlie is sleeping on the crack of the "master bed" and Sydney is enjoying her first bed without Charlie next to her.  I'm not sure who's going to get kicked out of the master bed first, me or Charlie - Sydney might just find one of us in her bed come morning.

Tonight we visited the Scrovegni Chapel - a chapel painted in frescoes entirely by Giotto.  It has a brilliantly blue ceiling with white stars.  Around the walls are stories from the Savior's life.  We had a fun time figuring out the scenes.  Before entering the chapel we had to sit in a room to dehumidify for 15 minutes.  Emma thought the oxegyn was being sucked out and complained that she was getting faint because all the water was being removed from the room - funny girl!

Dinner was a HAMBURGER!  We found a great Italian hamburger joint that would rival Smashburger (or we've just eaten too much pasta in the last 18 days).  This is a student town with one of the oldes Universities in Italy (1200s), Galileo was a prof here and Copernicus was a student.  Cheap eats are abundant!

Oh - I should add, Emma, Sydney, and Charlie all wore their soccer jerseys today that they bought in Florence. We have teams Barcelona, Madrid and Chelsea - we were stopped a couple of times by Italians who wondered how we could pledge allegiance to so many different teams.  A huge European cup soccer tournament is going on right now, and soccer is on everyone's mind.

Scrovegni Chapel

Scrovegni Chapel

Museums with kids

Leonardo DaVinci Museum * Museum of Precious Stones * Bargello * Uffizi * 

Piazza San Michelangelo

21,500 feet (9.23 miles)

Florence is a city of Museums.  We are leaving tomorrow morning and there are several top rated museums we could still visit - but, there are only so many museums a 9 year old can stand.  Today we did 4 museums, that was about 3 more than Charlie could handle.  Maren on the other hand could have spent all day in the Uffizi - we might have to drop her off at the Louvre several hours before we arrive with the rest of the family.  Sydney is easy going enough that she'll do anything.  Emma and Charlie on the other hand turn into 11-year old scouts - touching and poking, (the art work and each other).  In fact, we hadn't been in the Uffizi 5 minutes when Charlie pointed too close to a painting and the alarm went off.

Actually, we knew it would be a long day so we picked a few kid friendly museums to get us going.  We started with a small interactive museums - touching was good!  A museum where Leonardo DaVinci's inventions had been built and the kids could play with them.  It was fascinating.  Then we spent 30 minutes in a precious stones museums (The kids get in free to most of the museums, so 30 minutes was no problem).

After lunch we went to the Bargello - the best statue museum in all of Florence.  We found our favorite statues and tried to pose like them.

Finally we met Eric's family at the Uffizi.  (We sat in the Piazza Della Signoria first to have a sweet just to get our sugar buzz and energy level up). Our first stop was the book store where each kid picked out a postcard of a piece of art they needed to find in the museum. Then we dove in.  The postcards helped the kids "own" a piece of art and they were excited to learn more about it.  We used our Rick Steve's audio guide to pick out the more famous pieces and learn more about them.  Actually, the Uffizi is manageable, not over crowded, and pleasant.  The art work is comfortable and familiar.  Next to the Louvre, Maren had studied more pieces of Art from this museum than any other for her AP test.

To say good-bye to Florence we hiked up to the Piazza Michelangleo for an amazing view of the city.  At the top of the hill we wandered into a church and listened to their evening service (a Gregorian chant) for 20 minutes.  It was relaxing.  On our bus ride back to the city, we ran into a political rally from the communist party and the bus drive told us all the streets were blocked and we'd need to get out and walk.  It was a peaceful rally, but just to be sure, there were police and swat teams everywhere.

Our final dinner was with Eric's family at the apartment they are staying in.  They had a nice roof top terrace and we enjoyed a late evening of dinner and talking.

Piazza Michelangelo

Bargello

Leonardo DaVinci Museum

Bargello

sweet treat on the Piazza della Signoria

Up and Down and all around Florence

Walking tour of Florence*Metal Workers shop*Baptistry*Bell Tower*Market*Fancy Dinner

7.84 miles, 46 flights of stairs

This morning we met up with Eric's entire family that happens to also be traveling in Italy right now - 14 of us!  We hired a fabulous American guide who has lived in Italy for the past 17 years to give us a walking tour of some of the lesser known sites of the city.  We started out in front of the Palazzo Vecchio and had a history lesson on the Medici Family, we visit Orsanmichele and the Financial District of medieval Florence.  I have been to Orsanmichele a couple of times and had no ideas that it was first a granary and then it was converted into a church and the granery moved upstairs.  People could come get their grain and it would fall down a shoot from upstairs into baskets below in the church.  After that we crossed the Ponte Vecchio to visit the Oltrarno neighborhood and the Santo Spirit Church which houses an early sculpture of Michelangelo - a crucifix in wood.  It was at Santo Spirit where Michelangelo probably got his first anatomy lessons watching surgeries and dissections.

After Santo Spirit we visit a Metal artisan in his shop doing his trade that he began at the age of 15.  He is probably in his 60s now.  He designs metal sheets of brass and copper that he then makes into boxes, compacts, cuff links, napkin rings, charms, etc.  His clients include Cristain Dior, Gucci, Nieman Marcus he even made a pill box for Bill Clinton - he sells things all over the world!  He pressed one of his designs (the Lilly of Florence) into a Euro coin the kids gave him (like the machines we have in the states).  The kids got to watch the big wheel press the coin flat onto the steel plate with the design imprinted on the now flat coin.

After our morning walk we visited the Brancacci Chapel and walked back to the Duomo to climb the Bell Tower (so that we could actually admire Brunelleschi's Dome) and visit The Gates of Paradies at the baptistery (copper doors by Ghiberti).   We needed a nap today! So we did just that and read and relaxed until just before dinner.

On our way to dinner we did some shopping in the San Lorenzo market that is just a block away from our apartment.  Prices are soft and bartering is expected.  The kids got bracelets and necklaces and Charlie got a soccer jersey.

We decided to splurge on dinner tonight and eat out with Maxfields and have a typical florentine steak.  It's about 2" thick (no lie) and as big as a plate.  We split it between all 6 of us and couldn't even finish it. The waiter brought us the raw cut of meat for us to inspect before preparing it for us.  After the steak was cooked the meat was so red on the inside it was cool - hot on the outside and cool on the inside.  It reminded of sushi Tuna that is barely seared before serving.  It was a bit too raw for the kids to handle, but they did their best.  It meant we had to get gelato after dinner (we'd already had one after lunch).  Heck, it was a 2 gelato day - we walked almost 8 miles today and climbed 47 flights of stairs!

View from the Bell Tower

Gates of Paradise

ALL the Maxfields

Sunday in Florence

Church in the park*San Marco Museum*The David/Academia*Palazzo Vecchio*Ponte Vecchio

16,700 steps

We arrived at the Florence ward house this morning at 9:30 only to find out it was Stake Conference. There were about 40 other tourists (38 from America and 2 from England) gathered around as well and one lone member originally from Peru that had forgotten it was Stake Conference too.  Because the conference was an hour away by bus we decided to hold our own testimony meeting in a nearby park.  It was really sweet to listen to the testimonies of complete strangers and then feel like they were all your best friends by the end of the meeting.  It was all in English except the Peruvian sister who shared her testimony in Spanish.

After church, prosciutto sandwich lunch, and a few hands of Rook, we ventured out again to the San Marco Museum, a monastery converted to a museum.  Savonarola is one of the more famous Monks who lived here.  The top floor was cool because we got to see the tiny rooms where all the Monks lived and studied.  After San Marco's we went to The Academia to see the David.  It was crowded today, but we still enjoyed our time with Michelangelo's prisoners and the impressive David.  The David is an amazing piece of art.  It was evident that everyone needed a nap after this so we headed back to the apartment.  Thank heavens everything in Florence is only a 10 minute walk away - including our apartment (which is actually 2 apartments combined and feels huge compared to anything else we've stayed it).

After dinner of homemade pasta all'arrabbiata we walked down to the Palazzo Vecchio for a secret passage tour we had reserved.  The tour guide was excellent and led us through several of the secret stairways the Medici family used to get around and hide their treasures.  I was completely surprised when he opened a paining to reveal a hidden stairwell.  We even went up to the rafters of the great assembly hall to look at the Vasari trusses - a 140 foot span trusses system to support a 40 ton ceiling.  (If you've read Dan Brown's inferno - Robert Langdon (I.E. Tom Hanks) falls through the center picture while trying to escape through the ceiling).  It was an informative tour and the kids liked the interesting element of the secret passages.

We meandered back to our apartment after visiting the Ponte Vecchio as dusk in a light drizzle of rain (it poured the second we walked through the the day) - a lovely view.

Improve sacrament meeting in the Park

Palazzo Vecchio secret passages tour

Palazzo Vecchio secret passages tour

San Marco Museum

Pizza and Gelato Cooking Class

Duomo*Orsanmichele*Piazza della Republica*Ruccelai Palazzo*Cooking Class

7 miles of walking

Today we made the short 2 hour drive to Florence.  We easily found parking and our apartment is on a quiet pedestrian only street about 400 meter from the famous Duomo.  The apartment is the biggest yet with 2 kitchens because it is actually two apartments combined together.  Eric and I practically have our own suite - yeah!  Each time we've arrived somewhere new there's some orienting that takes place 1) is there toilet paper? 2) laundry and dishwashing soap 3) locate towels, drying rack, and other necessities 4) head to the nearest grocery store for food.  Today we didn't get to the grocery store until later so the kids had oranges, gelato, and left over foccacia for lunch.  However, dinner more than made up for our strange lunch.

We wandered the streets of Florence and ended up at the fun San Lorenzo market where the kids enjoyed looking at trinkets, soccer jerseys, purses, wallets, ties, etc.  I think everyone except Emma bought something.

The highlight of our day was the Pizza and Gelato cooking class we had tonight.  The teachers were fun to listen too and had tons of personality.  We were in a group of 20 with only 1 other child, Charlie, especially, got a lot of attention which sometimes embarrassed him.  I even learned a few things - pizza dough does not contain salt (yeast, water, flour), add the oil at the end to keep moist.  The pizza sauce is only tomato sauce, olive oil, salt, and pepper.  You can sprinkle the oregano on at the end.  If using fresh Mozzarella add just seconds before taking out of the oven.  He also taught us how to make homemade gelato without a gelato machine, it can be done but takes a long time.  I think I'm better off investing in a gelato machine if I want to add that to my list of cooking items.  The kids really liked our class tonight and are all pumped to start cooking homemade pizzas when we get home.

Ruccelai Palazzo

Day 12 - Florence - Vernazza

            Our first stop this morning was the Medici Chapel, only minutes from our hotel.  We had already passed this building several times in the past couple of days.   We especially enjoyed the carvings of dawn and dusk by Michelangelo.  Then we went to the Bargello Museum, which was first an old fortress and then the civic center of Florence.  It houses statues and artifacts, among which are famous statues from Michelangelo and Donatello.

Michelangelo's Dawn and Dusk

Bargello Courtyard

Dontallo's David

            We gave ourselves a few minutes longer to shop and linger in Florence and Eric and I returned to the Mercato Centrale to get our prosciutto sandwich. 

At 1:00 we met at the hotel and headed out of town.  I’m sure our group looked a bit funny as we rolled our suitcases down the street to the main train station.  We’ve been lucky enough that in every place we’ve stayed we can walk from the train station to our hotel.  Walking is the best way to get around these Italian cities.  We took a longish ride to La Spezia on our way to Vernazza.  In La Spezia, I’m ashamed to admit, we had McDonalds for an afternoon snack. 

            We finally arrived in Vernazza around 6:00.  This is a 1 stop, 1 street, coastal down on the hills falling into the Mediterranean.  Our guidebook said that’s is easiest to just find a room to rent when you arrive in town.  What the guidebook didn’t say was that finding 4 rooms is a bit trickier and that one should arrive before 6:00 p.m.  Needless to say it was a scramble to find 4 rooms. 

Leaning out the window of the Real Estate Office trying to find rooms

Our first night in Vernazza

Lara started at the top of town talking to store owners and such working her way down to the end of town.  By the time she headed back up the street the store-owners were helping her look as well.  People were coming out of the woodwork and letting her know that their friend might have a room.  With the help of Francesa, the owner of the Gelateria, and a local travel agency she managed to get 3 rooms for 2 nights and then another 2 rooms for us for the 2 nights.  We would have to switch.  It was a bit of a panic, but something we laughed about the next day.

            We managed to get in a quick walk to the top of the city over looking the ocean.  The lights, in combination with the colors of the buildings, were amazing and just like a postcard.  Our dinner that night was an adventure that proved to be really good.  The specialty of the area is anchovies, which ended up being really tasty and milder than one would think.  We also had a seafood risotto that was really good.

            Our room for the night was a small room, tucked away up a narrow ally, that’s more like a walkway than a street.  You walked right into the 1 bedroom area directly from the alley.  It was quaint and fun.

We got the perfect night lighting for these pictures.

Day 11 - Florence

            We had our nice little breakfast that morning in the Graham’s apartment.  It was lovely for us, but probably not so lovely for them since they felt they had be dressed, pressed, and have their bed made.

            We took the short walk to the baptistery and looked at the Ghiberti’s bronze doors. It was these doors that issued in the Renaissance.  After that, we got in line to climb the dome.  It was an amazing view, first of the inside of the Cathedral, and then second of the city itself.  The inside of the cupola has art that just makes one wonder how anyone could be up that high painting.  The view from the top was amazing and the red tiled roofs are the perfect picture of Florence.  The day was gorgeous. 

Looking over Florence from the Duomo

We spent only a few minutes enjoying the chapel then excited to the piazza lined with artists selling their products.  We enjoyed looking at their art and even purchased a small piece to take home.  Lara had to translate the artist’s technique to Eric which was a very rough translation at best. 

View from the Cupola of the Duomo

After our time at the Duomo we headed to San Lorenzo’s library.  This library was designed by Michelangelo and was awesome; from the staircase that lead into the library, to the reading benches, to the wood work.  What an amazing craftsman Michelangelo was.

            We gave ourselves a little bit of free time to grab lunch at the Mercato Centrale  and then we meet up again to rent bikes and see the rest of Florence on our nifty purple beach cruisers. 

A little treat after our picnic

Don’t get the wrong idea, these were very run down beach cruisers and only cost us $5 to rent for the afternoon.  Lucky for us there were 8 of us so the odds of being hit by a car were 1:8.   We also could just lock all 8 bikes together wherever we wanted without fear someone would take our bike.  This was a great way to speed up our afternoon in the city.  We first road to the Palazzo Vecchio and enjoyed a short visit there.  Then we cruised by where Michelangelo’s home would have been, marked today with a small plaque.  After that we went to the Santa Croce church where Michelangelo might have gone at night to perform disections.   We saw the burial places of Rossini the composer, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Galileo.  After our visit to Santa Croce we took our self-guided tour through the city streets, of course we stopped for Gelato first.  Then we crossed the Arno in search of the Piazza Michelangelo. 

Picking up our bikes from the train station

Over looking Florence for Piazza Michelangelo

We climbed to the top of the hill and enjoyed another perfect look of the city, this time with the river and Ponte Vecchio in the foreground.  We made it back to the Galileo science museum with only about 30 minutes to spare so we did the race through version of the tour.  Lucky for us we had time enough to see Galileo’s finger that has been preserved and is on display next to his inventions.

            Before dinner tonight we enjoyed a big shopping spree and loaded up on cheap scarves, leather purses, soccer shirts with a splurge on a leather brief case for Eric.  On our way to dinner we ran into the Sister missionaries in the area and their investigator.  Other than at church it was the only missionaries we saw.  For dinner tonight we had the best dinner of the entire trip.  The food was melt-in-your-mouth good and everyone agreed that their dish was exceptional.   With the exception of the pizza in Naples, this was the only time we walked out of dinner and had no critical comments about part of the meal.  It sounds like we are turning into food critics.  I guess that’s what Italy does to you.  No day would be complete without a night cap of Gelato.  On our way back to the gelateria by the Duomo we poked our head into a chapel that was having an amazing organ concert.  It was relaxing to sit and close our eyes for 15 minutes and listen to someone play this amazing instrument.

Day 10 - Florence

            After our experience with a forgetful Italian tour guide in Rome, Lara decided a reminder call to our tour guide for the Uffizi would be appropriate.  Unbelievably, he was in Rome and would miss our appointment for the morning.  Lara felt like she was relieving her mission all over with cancelled appointments and flaky contacts.  Lucky for use we had the Florence pass that would get us into the Uffizi without the line so we headed out anyway and rented an English audio guide and gave ourselves our own tour of the museum.  It was general conference Sunday this day so we gave ourselves a church “bye” with promises to listen to all the talks when we got home.  The Uffizi is one of the best art museums in all of Italy.  We easily spent 2 hours in there enjoying the art and gratefully it wasn’t extremely crowded.

            It was a double dose of art museums today as after the Uffizi we headed to the Pitti Palace.  To get there we had to cross the Ponte Vecchio, however, because it was Sunday many of the shops were closed. 

We paused to look at all the locks of love that had been put on the bridge gate and locked forever (until the city has to cut them off for the next round of tourists, because there are too many). 

Once again it was our good fortune to go to the very front of a LONG line.  It was free day at the Pitti, but lucky for us because of our passes and Lara’s Italian we made our way to the front.  In Italy especially, lines are optional, and if you waste your time in line, there are plenty of others who just elbowed their way to the front.  Today we did just that.  The Pitti palace was amazing.  We saw lots of Rubens, Titian, Caravaggio, Lippi and other well-known painters.  After a couple of hours of art we exited into the amazing Boboli Garden that seemed to go on forever.  With a bit of huffing we made it to the top of the hill and were rewarded with an over look of the Tuscan countryside.

Boboli Gardens

Countryside from the top of the Boboli Gardens

            Lunch today was at a tasty pizzeria.  Not as good as the pizza we had in Naples, but the second best pizza we had on our trip.  It was crowded which was a sure sign that it was good.  Lucky for us we found a very little round table to squeeze the 8 of us around.

            After lunch we enjoyed a short walk around the Oltrarno neighborhood.  The Santo Spirito church was closed so we made our way to the Brancaccio Chapel. We enjoyed looking at the 3-sectioned frescos by Masaccio.  It was comfortable to sit down on the steps, inside the chapel and on the benches and just relax for a minute.  After all our art sight seeing today it was time for gelato.  We found a nice gelateria located near the Ponte Vecchio.

            On our way back to our hotel and central Florence we decided to take advantage of our Florence museum pass and see a Picasso exhibit that was in town.  It was fun to look at such dramatically different art than what we had been seeing thus far in Italy.  We also took a quick peak at the Orsanmichele Church.  It was fun walking down the main shopping drag in Florence and seeing all the fancy people out for an evening of strolling, window shopping, and eating.           

            We actually had a little bit of time before it would be dinner time, so a few of us found a laundry mat to catch up on some laundry and write our missionaries.  The Brunkens, Grahams, and we all have missionaries out right now so we needed to get our letters done.  It was nice to have underwear that was dried in a dryer and not on a string in the bathroom.

            After dinner that night we found an all natural gelateria right by the duomo.  We are now pretty much expecting to have gelato twice a day.