Italy

The Rape of the Sabine, by Giambologna, in Piazza della Segnoria, Florence


Is it our store? Or a completely different family?


On Ponte Vecchio
Hmmmmm...... what do you notice?


Ponte Vecchio




The Duomo (cathedral) in Florence


This is actually a copy of David, by Michelangelo. It does stand where the original stood before being moved into the museum.

Ponte Vecchio. How cool is that!

Shaunda and I both had a lot to do our last day of work. Shaunda had a teenager with a baby that took her past 6 pm without any of the resulting documentation required afterwards. We got all packed for our 6:30 am flight - which meant getting up at 4! Our cheap airline also required a lot of extra re-shuffling to avoid a £20 per kg charge for luggage over 15 kg (33lbs).

I slept most of the flight, but woke to see flying over the Alps and part of the Mediterranean sea. We took a very crowded bus to our hotel. Once we found the hotel, we also found that there were two and a half flights of stairs up to our room - with our heavy suitcases!

The hotel Shaunda had found was really cool. It is reportedly part of an old castle. It was clearly really old, with a huge room and a very high painted ceiling with heavy beams. They recommended a nearby restaurant we enjoyed after wandering around Il Duomo and the local streets for a while. The food was really good (but not inexpensive!) Afterwards, we wandered some more. We found another piazza with statues - but more to the kids' interests - some gelato as well. Ice cream in hand, we found the Ponte Vecchio bridge! The first shop on the bridge was a jeweler named Gherardi!

Our train the next day was to leave at noon on Easter Sunday. Other options were too much later or involved a lot of changes and more time. So we searched for an early Easter service. 7:30 at Il Duomo - in Italian. The boys were not excited to get up early again! Unfortunately, we did not find the entrance until well after the service had started, so we returned to the hotel for breakfast and checking out. We returned for the 9:30 service - also in Italian. The side chapel was pretty full, but the huge old cathedral was not used for the Easter service. Instead, setup was in preparation for the Holy Fire ceremony. This ceremony originated from the crusades, when rocks from Jesus' tomb were brought back to the church. They would strike them together for Holy Fire. One thousand and some years later, this means fireworks!! We could barely see, but I have some video from a camera held over my head. There was a huge procession involving men dressed in period and decorative garb as well as musicians. Then a huge cart arrived pulled by white oxen. After the oxen were led away, a cable was attached leading from inside Il Duomo. Also, several extensions were added. The place was incredibly packed. The show was to start at 11 - and our train left at 12!! A once in a lifetime show, but would we catch our train? (stay tuned!)

Fortunately, the show did start actually at 11. A 'dove' flew down the cable into the huge cart. Fireworks burst from the cart - St. Catherine's wheels, rockets, loud bursts, etc. followed by flags released from the top and clouds of multi-colored smoke. We pushed through the crowd, hauled the luggage down 2 and a half flights of stairs and tried to negotiate a taxi via broken English and Italian. The streets were choked with revelers - the driver scared me with how close he came to hitting people! We made it to the train station at 5 minutes until 12 - trying to find our line and our car! (All listed in another language - how inconvenient! ;-) We made it!!

Next up - Venice!!

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