Wednesday May 15th Rome, Italy- Day 2

Walked around to the Colloseum and saw all the sights there and then went inside the Roman Forum and walked there. We learned that the Christians were never fed to the lions there. This was a Hollywood-ized version of things, but the gladiators did offer a greeting to the emperors saying to them "Those who are about to die salute you." After all this drama we went to the local internet shop for lunch and to use their internet connection but we were not able to do the upload of the blog yet for some reason. Will try again. Lynne is still jet-lagged so we are taking it slower today than yesterday. Then after Lynne had her jet-lag nap we went out and met a friend of ours in the gianiculm hill area which is probably the high-point of Rome. This area was the site of heavy fighting in the 1860's as individual states of Italy tried to form their own government separate from the Pope so the other governments of europe sent their armies to fight the revolutionarys. Eventually in 1870 Italy formed their own unified government. The fighting had occured where we were per historic plaques and momuments we came across. We had a nice dinnner at Il Vecchio and had pasta fried Calamari which was great, Octopus salad, pasta with seafood, spaghetti with Bottarga and a slice of Ricotta pie for desert. It was very good. Then we hopped back on the bus to our rental apartment. The Roma pass has come in handy for using the local transit and going to the head of the lines as well.

Got up late and Lynne was still jet-lagged so she only got two hours of sleep so we slept in a bit later than usual. Went out to the Traejan's market which has just been renovated and set up for display only in the past few years. This was a food market 2,000 years ago and it is pretty incredible in that still stands today and is open for people to come see it. We looked around here for a few hours and then came back to our room and hung out for a bit and then went out again to the Scudda Museum display of the Titian (also known as Tezian) painter from the 1500's. The museum has collected almost all of this artists works and put them on display in one place. Think of Botticelli's work and this artist has similar works at least in the way he uses colors. We both really enjoyed this and we had a museum lunch there as well which was pretty good.

Thursday May 16th, Rome, Italy- Day 3

Come here with me says Zeus

Traejan's market in restored condition

Friday May 17th, Traveled from Rome to Firenze, Italy Day 4

Took the train from the Roma Termini to Florence on this day and met the apartment owner named Duccio and he showed us the apartment and gave us the info we needed to stay there.

Saturday May 18th, Firenze, Italy Day 5

Today we went to the Ufici museum and saw so much I can't even remember it all now. Lots of paintings particularly my favorites of Botticelli and Lippi who were both painting in Florence around 1500. Apparently Botticelli was a student of Lippi so some of their works are very similar. A lot of halos and madonnas and child. We also went to the Palazao Vecchio and saw the apartments there and got to go part way up the tower for a good look around Florence. We stumbled into a local slow food event also called "Wine Days" which consisted of outdoor food vendors with porcetta, spanish ham, small pizzas and focaccia bread and lots of wine. We tasted some of the porcetta like dish again (this time it was called a bulbetta) and it was really good. Apparently they put some cottage cheese inside some pork with spices and then grilled it and was really good and just melted in your mouth and was just really good. We wandered around until we found the restaurant row of the area and then finally settled on a place to eat.

Dinner was Porcetta and pasta with some grilled vegetables and had some excellent Chianti wine which we will try to get when we are home again.

Sunday May 19th, Firenze, Italy Day 6

Got up really late because we didn't get in until 1am the day before. Went to the Petit Palais and toured the apartments (Palace really since they were a full city block long.) and enjoyed viewing the endless number of paintings of the depositions, risings and annuncions of Christ. Then we went to see the Boboli gardens at the same palace. (Note not related to the pizza crust maker as seen on TV in the US.) The gardens were very nice although not described as ornate. We were lucky enough to see a Heron of some type land right in front of us in a fountain and I enjoyed photographing him before a short rain shower came in and pelted us all with some rain and wind.

Then we found the Lemon House who function escaped us and stumbled into an outdoor event called the Perfumes of Boboli event which was a plant and perfume scented event that we walked around and looked at but didn't buy anything. And lastly we went to the Museo de Argenti at the Petit Palais as well which is the museum for all some of the Medici family riches such as amazing gold serving ware, rings, asian pottery, paintings by the famous painters of the day. These people were the plutocrats of their day. It was interesting that some museums allow you to take photos and some did not. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason. It was also interesting (to us at least) that the Medici were the reason why many busts of the Roman emperors were kept undamaged since so many of the antiquities were destroyed by non-pagan people after the Romans were no longer ruling.

Porcetta sandwich shop getting sandwiches

For lunch we found a place online that made fantastic Porcetta sandwiches. They had foccacia bread that was a little crispy and a bit of salt on the top. We ended up buying 6 sandwiches (Lynne pretended they were for her extended family) but they were really for the long train ride to Nice, France the next day and for the current day. We both decided we would try to make Porcetta (Roasted pork in a roll shape with herbs in the middle.) at home since it really didn't look that hard procedurally to do. Will see how that goes. And for dinner we ended up eating late and eating at a place very near the apartment called Za Za and this place has it's own cookbook, it's own brand of wine etc etc. So we had a Margharita Pizza that was abominable, tagliatelle with proscuitto and crema and risotta de mare (seafood Risotto) and spinach and mixed vegetables. (Contorni) The food was good but I decided to not buy the cookbook after tasting the pizza. We've had excellent pizza in Tuscany at the Saloon pizzeria on a previous trip but that was not to be this time.

Florence was very beautiful and we were glad we went. It is an absolute treasure house of middle age antiquities. Lynne didn't find anything to get on the Ponte Vecchio.

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