Lost under the Tuscan sun...and moon!

May 1st-I'm not even sure where to start with this post because we were literally all over the place today. I guess I should start with we rented a car from Hertz and decided to drive to some of the small Tuscan hill towns. This was our first time to have a car during our trip. Well, let me first start with the car...it was a small (very small) FIAT. It worked though. Amy was crammed in the middle of the back seat and the kids were on both sides of her. Brent started off driving because I (Mike) wasn't that comfortable with a standard, therefore; wasn't comfortable driving out of Florence. Brent did a great job driving us out of town and I did the job of navigating us. We got on the A1 which is the main interstate that heads south between Florence and Rome. We had decided that we were going to take the A1 to Montepulciano and then travel through some of the small hill towns, stopping at various ones along the way until we reached Montalcino. Well, as we exited the A1, and entered the windy Tuscan roads, we were immediately struck by the beauty of the region. We stopped to take some pictures and I decided to test my standard driving skills. We continued for a bit before we started entering Montepulciano. Almost immediately, we started noticing cars parked on the side of the road. After a little bit the traffic started getting heavy. We then came upon a huge town fair / carnival area. Today was Labor Day in Italy, and by the looks of it, we had wandered into a large regional festival. We initially had thoughts of going to the festival until the traffic became overwhelming. It took us over 30 minutes to go a mile or so to get through the town. No where along the way was their parking and once through the traffic, we decided we didn't want to park on the side of the road and walk a couple of miles back to the festival. We decided that we would skip over the town and head to our next village. We headed out of town and started trying to navigate to the next village. After a couple of traffic circles and turns, we realized we were heading right back into Montepulciano and the traffic. We convinced ourselves that there would be a road around the village as we drove, but upon hitting the traffic again, realized this was not the case. I did a u-turn in the road and headed back away from the crazy traffic. I should have mentioned that from the moment we left Florence at 9am, Brent was talking about how hungry he was. I had told him that we would grab something in Montepulciano because we would be there in about an hour. It was now almost 12:30 and he still hadn't had anything to eat. So we came upon what looked like a house on the side of the road that said "ristorante" and decided to head in. It turned out to be a local winery that had a restaurant and small hotel. It was great food and perfect Tuscan ambiance. Once there, we asked the waiter for directions. He pulled out a more detailed map of the area and marked the key roads we should take. Unfortunately, we would have to go through Montepulciano to get to the other towns. I guess a full stomach gave us some confidence that we could navigate thru the area without getting caught in the traffic. We headed into Montepulciano only to hit traffic again. Since it was such a beautiful day, we just rolled down the windows and enjoyed the sights. Once we finally made it into the town, the police had a road block that detoured us into the narrow streets of the town. At this point, we were literally squeezing between cars and people, trying to find our way out of town. At one point, we were the only car driving in an area filled with people and market booths. We came to a dead end on a street and had to turn around. Unfortunately, it was back up a very steep hill. As mentioned before, my standard driving skills are not that greatest and so at one point, I got stopped on the hill and could not get going. After about 3 times of stalling out (and the car behind us honking & the smell of burning clutch), I hopped out and traded places with Brent for him to drive. He got us up the hill but then promptly got us trapped again on a dead end street. However, this one did not have enough room to turn around. He backed down the street until he thought he had enough room to turn around. It turns out that while I can't get up a hill, Brent can't turn a car in a tight location. We were going back and forth, back and forth trying to turn with minimal success. He finally tried to back into a driveway only to drop the car off a small ledge and drag/scrape the front end. Finally he got into the driveway enough to turn the car around. We then found a main road and headed out of the city thinking we had finally made our way through. At the next road circle, we looked at the signs only to realize we had somehow gone back the same way we came in. We were dying laughing about how this town had sucked us in, spun us around and then spit us out. So at this point, we decided to go a long way out of our way back to the interstate and make a big circle around Montepulciano to get to the towns on the other side. While it turned out to be a big detour, we were rewarded on the other side. The drive between the small hill towns on our way to Montalcino was beautiful and very scenic. We stopped in one small town of Chianciano for gelato. From here, Brent and I had had our fair share of driving so Amy took over. She successfully got us to Montalcino about 4pm. The town had a huge castle that sat on a hill overlooking the valley. They were having some type of labor day festival with a live band playing. We bought a bottle of wine and sat at a table enjoying the beautiful day and music. The kids were able to run around and play so it was a great time for all. After a few hours, we headed back for Florence. We took the "back" roads up through Siena towards Florence. It was another great drive, enjoying the scenery at dusk. As we began to enter Florence, we realized that we had directions out of the city, but not back to the apartment. However, we were confident that we could make it back with no problem. As it turns out, I think we made a key mistake. I (Mike) was driving with Brent navigating. Given, this was his first time in the city, we should have reversed that and let me navigate. So, we quickly found ourselves lost coming into Florence. Luckily, we somehow ended up in Plazza Michelangelo which is an area up on a hill that overlooks Florence. We got out of the car and took some pics of Florence at night. We then got back in the car with our goal to get across the river to our apartment. We thought it couldn't be that difficult. Well after about 30 minutes of driving and not crossing the river (and actually somehow ending up at Plazza Michelangelo a second time) we were getting pretty exhausted. Just as we were about to go try to find someone that could direct us, we found a bridge across the river. At this point, we were close to the apartment. We still had to navigate through horrible traffic to get to the apartment and circle a few times because of one way streets, but finally made it back a little after 10pm. We were exhausted from driving and glad to be out of the car. Amy actually had a friend (Tina Young) and her husband in town that we were meeting for drinks. So we left the kids with Brent (was that smart?) and took off walking to meet them. It turned out great as we sat at a table on Plazza Signoria and enjoyed catching up with them and hearing about their Italy vacation. This was our first night out together without the kids and it was great to be able to have a "grown-up" conversation! We finally left them and headed back to our apartment. It was a long, but enjoyable day in Tuscany.

Brent Arrives...

April 30th--Happy Birthday, Shanda! We wish the title of this blog said "Brent and Shanda Arrive", but we were happy to have Brent come visit us in Florence. Since we knew we had a packed next couple of days entertaining Brent, we decided to just take it easy today and not do a whole lot. Brent was on a business trip in Asia and then was heading to Luxembourg, but decided to spend the weekend with us. He traveled to Florence by train from Bologna. Since the trains left Bologna every 30 minutes, he was going to just catch the first train he could after his flight. He was supposed to call us once he got on the train so that Mike could meet him at the train station, but as it turns out, his cell phone was not working. So, Mike and I sat here for a while wondering where in the world he was. Finally, Mike decided to just head to the train station and see if he was there. It just so happened that the train that arrived while Mike was at the station was the one Brent was on. So it worked out that they found each other in the train station. By the time Brent got to the apartment, he had been up for 24 hours and was exhausted.

Vampires and Volterra

April 29th--Well for those of you that are a fan of the "Twilight" series books, then you know exactly where we went today. I have to admit, had I (Amy) not read the books, the 4 of us would not have taken the 2 hour bus ride to look for vampires. HA! Upon arriving to the city, we went into the tourist information office. The guy working there was trying to get us to get the audio guided tour of the city. My first question was "does it talk about Twilight in it?" So, he proceeded to give me the "New Moon" map of the city. I was pumped then. It mapped out the entire part of the book that took place in Volterra. We were able to follow the map and take pictures of where all the action took place with Alice, Bella, Edward, and the Volturi vampires minus the underground lair. We got to walk through the Piazza dei Priori, the main square with the clock tower. Speaking of the clock tower, while we were there the clock tower struck noon and I anxiously looked around for Edward to come out and "sparkle". Anyway, we walked down the alleyway (Vicolo Mazzoni) where Bella finds Edward and toured the Palazzo Viti which was Alice, Bella, and Edwards way out from underground. In the real world, the Palazzo Viti is a palace that was once used by the Viti family. There is an underground cellar at the palace where we got to sample some wine, cheese, salami and olive oil. From there, we walked down the street to the dark stone archway where Alice, Bella, and Edward exited Volterra. The archway is called the Porta all' Arco gate. This Etruscan gate is Volterra's most famous sight and was built of massive, volcanic tufa stones in the 4th century B.C. After taking the "New Moon" tour of the city, we saw the Roman Theater, grabbed a quick sandwich and did a little shopping. I bought a"New Moon" necklace made of alabaster that has the beautiful flower from the front of the book painted on it. Alabaster is mined in the district of Volterra and alabaster workshops are all over Volterra. With all of this said...no vampires were spotted today. If for no other reason, probably because it was too sunny!

Eating, shopping and churching...

April 28th--Today we took it easy until about lunchtime when our stomach's started growling for some more Italian food. We ventured out looking for a good place to eat and we found it. We all enjoyed a pasta lunch and left the restaurant with our bellies full...well at least we thought they were full. We walked over to Santa Croce Church and there was a big food market in front of it. We walked through it and found the biggest canolis we've seen in Italy. We (or should I say "I") couldn't pass them up. So, before visiting the church, we sat on the steps of it and enjoyed a dessert. After our stomach's were full, we went into the Santa Croce Church. This church houses the tombs of Michelangelo and Galileo and Giotto's frescoes. In the back of the church, is a leather school. After WW II, the monks created a "Boys Town" here to give war orphans a trade: making leather products. It was the first shop of a now popular leather district. With that said, the church is surrounded by lot of leather stores. So, after leaving the church and having my first limoncello, we did some leather shopping. It is just so much fun to look at all the leather products. On our walk back to the apartment we passed Bartolucci, a wood workshop store. We had gone into this store about a week ago and the kids really wanted to go back in there. We got to see a man making a Pinocchio. All the products in the shop are children's wooden products like clocks, picture frames, hangers, and much more. It is a really cute store!

The "Bending" Tower of Pisa

April 27th--We decided to take a day trip today since we didn't do much yesterday except go to church. We found an English speaking church only a few blocks from the apartment. It had a children's church for the kids so it was good for us to have our time apart. So today we decided on a trip to Pisa. Per Miss Abigayle, we took a trip to see the "Bending Tower" of Pisa. It was so cute...she just kept saying it over and over again. We kept correcting her and saying "no, it's the Leaning Tower of Pisa". Anyway, everybody kept telling us that all that is in Pisa is the leaning tower and today we were able to confirm that. We took an hour train ride to Pisa and then hopped on a quick city bus to the Field of Miracles. The Field of Miracles has 4 large buildings that make up Pisa's religious center--the Duomo, its bell tower (Leaning Tower), the Baptistery, and the Camposanto Cemetery. Upon entering the Field of Miracles, we immediately saw the Leaning Tower. As we walked towards the tower, we stopped to take the goofy "push up the leaning tower" pictures. I mean, come on...you have to do it! Watching all the other people do it was hilarious. The kids really got into it, especially Austin. He kept wanting his picture taken over and over again. We walked past the Leaning Tower to a deli shop to pick up some food for a picnic. We got our food and sat on the steps of the Duomo, facing the tower. It was at this time that we discussed our knowledge of the Leaning Tower's history. For one thing, we've always heard of the tower, but never realized that it was the Cathedral's bell tower. The Tower is nearly 200 feet tall and 55 feet wide, weighing 14,000 tons and currently leaning at a 5 degree angle. It started to lean almost immediately. There have been many attempts to correct the lean or stabilize the tower over the years. The most recent major stabilization repair was done in the 1990's. After eating lunch, we did go up close to the tower, walked around it and examined the leaning effect. Then, there really wasn't much left to do so we decided to go into the Duomo. We were glad we went in there because we witnessed another beautiful European church. They are all just magnificent! All in all, we are really glad to check the Leaning Tower off our list and are amazed that we stayed in Pisa for 3 1/2 hours when the Leaning Tower of Pisa is what makes Pisa!

Florence is a winner!!

April 25th--Today we experienced 2 of Italy's biggest highlight's: Michelangelo's David and Fiorentina (Florence) vs Roma in football. We got up this morning and headed over to the Academia to see the David statue. When we got there, the line was a little long, so we headed one block over to the San Marco Museum. This is the former monastery that has the best collection of Fra Angelico paintings. Fra Angelico, both a monk and a painter, did much of his work directly on the walls of the monastery, creating some beautiful frescoes. This is probably a museum that would have not been on our list had it not been free admission during culture week. It was great to wander through the monastery and see the building with the former rooms for the monks filled with artwork that blended the medieval faith with Renaissance realism. From here we headed back to the Academia. The museum is fairly small and primarily serves as the house for David. As you enter, you almost immediately come to a long hall with the statue at the end. We had been told that the work is amazing, and it truly is. Standing at 14 feet tall, it is a massive sculpture with amazing detail. We sat down with the kids and retold the story of David and Goliath so they would understand the background of the statue. Abby remembered the story from her children's bible story book and Austin was just excited that this big guy had a rock in his hand. One of the ways that we have created interest in the sculptures by the kids is to have them think about how impressive it is that they started as a big block of stone. This was made even more "real" in the Academia as there are also the Prisoners by Michelangelo. These 4 unfinished sculpture are each in various forms of completion. They clearly show the original stone and the chisel marks. It really helped all of us visualize how amazing it is to see a finished sculpture; especially one as impressive as David. After a quick visit to a musical instrument exhibit inside the Academia, we exited to find some lunch. Nearby was a little hole in the wall place with cheap pasta that was recommended in the Rick Steves' book. The 2 guys working there were really nice and helpful and made some great recommendations, with one exception. They asked if we wanted to try a true Florence dish. We, of course said yes, only to be brought crackers with chicken liver pate. We both tried it, but only one bite each. It was not very yummy. Luckily, the rest of our lunch was great. While in the restaurant, Austin noticed a poster of the local Florence football team, Fiorentina. One of the guys came over and started explaining who the various players were and talking about the team. He told us there was a big game tonight against Roma (Rome). That was all Austin needed to hear. He started saying he wanted to go to the game tonight. We weren't sure if we could get tickets or not, but headed back to the apartment to find out. After a little research on the internet, navigating through a lot of Italian language sites, I finally figured out the tickets are authorized to be sold at certain tobacco shops around town. One of them was close to our apartment, so I set out on a mission to get tickets. I found the place and also found it interesting that Amy, as do all woman, received a reduced price ticket like the kids. We left the apartment and headed to the train station with the intentions of taking a taxi to the game. However, once at the station we ran into an American college student studying in Florence who showed us the bus we could take to the stadium. Once arriving at the stadium, we were quickly aware that this was going to be like no other game we had been too. We made our way to our seats which were in the corner of the stadium, but high enough up to have a good view of the action. It seems that the "rowdy" sections are behind the goals so we were right near the action. They were singing and clapping like crazy. This is a relatively small stadium with only 45,000 capacity, but it was the loudest crowd we had ever experienced. We also noticed in the far corner from us, was a section with the Roma fans. What made this interesting was the section was surrounded by tall, barbed fence like you would see in a prison. Also, the two sections on either side were empty and the police had created a human wall along each of those sections. We're not sure this is normal (don't remember seeing a section like this at the Madrid stadium) but it definitely highlights the passion of Italian football. The crowd only seemed to get louder as the game went on. I got up early in the game to get drinks for the kids. I found it interesting that when I went under the stadium, I only saw 2 other people. Hardly a single person was out of their seats missing the action. Luckily, we were able to see a Fiorentina victory and one where they scored 4 goals, so lots of excitement. Count us in as fans off Italian football. Amy is already talking about wanting to see another game!

Cinque Terre

April 23rd & 24th--We spent the past 2 days in the Cinque Terre (The Five Lands) area off the coast of the Ligurian Sea. This area is part of the Italian Riviera. The Cinque Terre consists of five villages built into the cliffs overlooking the sea. Hiking paths, boats and trains connect the villages and cars can not enter this area. It is probably the most beautiful, scenic area we have seen in our travels to date. We ultimately visited 4 out of the 5 villages during our 2 days, only missing the 3rd village, Corniglia because of the steep climb required to reach the town center.

Thursday--We left Florence early on Thursday morning in order to maximize our time in the Cinque Terre. After a painless 2.5 hour train ride, we arrived in the 4th village, Vernazza. We had booked a hotel room here for the night. We took the short walk through the village to the harbor front area where there was a restaurant owned by the same couple who own the hotel. Here we picked up our room key and headed up the multiple flights of stairs that cliimb through the village to reach our room. Our room was located high above the village center, right under the castle that used to protect the city. There was a terrace right near our room that looked out over the sea. We dropped off our stuff and went into the town to check out the harbor and beach area. We had decided on this village because it was described as the most dramatic, but also including a natural sand beach. We had decided that would be fun for the kids. Well, when we got to the beach, it was about the size of a large living room (ok, maybe a little bigger, but not much). It was also right in the middle of the town square and looked more like it was used for the fishing boats to land on than for sunning and playing in the water. While it was very sunny out, it was probably still a little cool for true beach/water activities anyway. The next village over, Monterosso, was described as the most like a "beach resort", so we decided that we would eat lunch, grab our bathing suits and then take the boat over to check out the beach scene. We had lunch at a restaurant that was built into the side of the cliff overlooking the water. It was a little pricey, but the great seafood and scenery were worth it. We then headed down to the boat dock to catch the boat. Well, we were a little out of luck, because the next boat did not leave for another 2 hours. This did not sit well with Mr. Austin who thought the boat should be there when he wanted it to be. To top it off, a very dark cloud seemed to be rolling in over the mountains. We decided that a little hike along the trails would be fun for the kids to kill time, so we headed up the mountain. We had heard that the hike between Vernazza to Monterosso was the toughest hike, but since we weren't planning on making the entire journey anyway, we thought it would be fun. Well it stated with a bunch of stairs up through the city and continued with a very narrow pathway up through the mountain along the edge of the seaside. While we were blessed with amazing views of our village, it was very rough and rugged and a little tough for the kids. After making it about a 1/4 of the way, we turned around and headed back towards Vernazza. When we got back into town, we decided to stop for Gelato to reward ourselves for the hike. (You should see how many excuses we can come up with for Gelato stops!) Just as we got our Gelato, it started POURING rain. We were under a table umbrella, but the wind was blowing a little and so we were getting wet. We noticed that there was a hair salon right across from us so we decided it was a good time to get Austin's haircut again. Once inside, Abby decided that she also wanted her hair cut. So when it was all said and done, three out of four Gathright's got their haircut...can you guess who was the lone holdout????? While we were getting our haircut, the showers passed through and the sun came back out. At this point we decided that it was too late to get any beach time so we decided we would take the boat over to Monterosso and have dinner. We changed clothes, caught the next boat and then headed over. It was a very quick boat ride (each of the villages are only a couple of kilometers, at most, from one another), but much enjoyed by the kiddos and provided spectatular views of the region from the water. When we arrived at Monterosso, we walked along the waterfront for little while to enjoy the views. Then we noticed a playground and decided that the kids deserved a little playtime. Amy and I enjoyed a nice glass of Chianti while we watched them play. We then went and had dinner at Belvederes, which was a great Italian restaurant on the harbor. We again enjoyed a great meal of Italian specialties (pasta and pesto) and seafood. After dinner, the boats were not running so our only option of getting back was train. Unfortunately, as we arrived at the train station, the train heading back to Vernazza was leaving and the next train was not for another hour. So we found a little bakery nearby and enjoyed dessert. We then headed back to the train station only to find out that our train was delayed 35 minutes. So we sat in the train station waiting. Austin fell asleep waiting and I must say, it was no fun caring an extra 30 pounds up through the village to get to our hotel! Our room consisted of a king size bed and one twin bed with a private bathroom. It was perfect for us! The kids and Amy got the big bed while I took the little one. We were all pretty exhausted and fell asleep quickly.
Friday--7am. Well, apparently the church bells followed us. While I think we would have all liked to have slept in today, it was good we were awoken so we could get an early start to the day. The sun was shining bright and the temperature was cool...a perfect morning in the Cinque Terre. We went down to the local bakery and picked up some pastries for breakfast. We then took them down to the harbor front and sat on the rocks overlooking the water and had breakfast. The colors of the rocks were really pretty...some were shades of purple. After we enjoyed our peaceful breakfast, we went back to the room and checked out. We decided that we would try to combine hiking and boats today to see the remaining three villages. We took the train to the 1st village, Riomaggiore. We then took the hiking path towards Manarola. This was an easy, flat, paved path cut into the cliffside along the water with beautiful views. It was only about a 2o minute walk and so it was perfect for the kids. The pathway is nicknamed Via dell'Amore: Pathway of Love as in the 1940's it was a meeting point for boys and girls from the two connecting towns. It has continued to be the local lover's lane and has a section with a cluster of padlocks as locking a padlock with your lover is the current craze. While we didn't lock a padlock, we did lock lips and Abby captured the moment for us with the camera! We continued our hike into Manarola. We had originally intended to take the boat to the 3rd village, Corniglia for lunch so we could visit all five villages. However, we realized that Corniglia is the only village not on the water, but instead perched up on the cliffs above the water, so the boat does not stop there. Since the kids were not up to hiking up the hill this morning we decided to settle on a view from the boat. So we stopped off at a deli and picked up some sandwiches. We then hopped on the boat and took the ride past Corniglia to our original home, Vernazza. Here we perched back up on the rocks and ate our picnic lunch. We sat around enjoying the views and the laid back atmosphere of the Cinque Terre. After 5 packed days in Florence, it was great to have this relaxing break. We had some time to kill before our train back to Florence so we stopped off at the playground right next to the train station. Amy decided that she would go mail her postcard at the nearby post office while the kids played. After a few minutes, I see Amy come back "fake crying". Words can not even explain the next few minutes but I will try. At first I couldn't figure out what she was doing but she seemed to be trying to get down to the creek that runs below the street and playground where we were. I finally got enough words out of her to realize that as she was walking to the post office, a gust of wind came and whisked the postcard out of her hand. Amy describes it as the postcard "fluttered around" in the air and ultimately over the rail and down to the river. Well apparently, this must have been a 500 dollar postcard, because she was bound and determined to retrieve it. She was half way down the side of the creek before I could gather up the kids and go after her. By the time we got down to her she had just jumped over the creek and was standing on the other side holding up the postcard like it was some found treasure. The kids were somewhere between laughing and crying as they couldn't figure out what their deranged mom was doing. She made it back to us and we headed back up to the playground. Amy was laughing so hard that it took me a minute to realize that she had not made it all the way over on her "leap" and so her right foot had landed in the water and was completely soaked up past her ankle. So, she sat down with the kids and took off her socks and shoes to dry while I took care of the postcard mailing duties. Let's hope this postcard makes it to its destination! We then caught our train to La Spezia where we were to catch our train to Florence. Amy and Abby went to get the tickets while Austin and I grabbed our suitcase from the storage (we had stored it earlier in the day so as not to carry it around with us.). Well, just as we are getting the bag, I see Amy at the other end of the tracks yelling at us to run. So Austin hops on the suitcase and I take off running with him. She is yelling at us to go to track 3 and that our train is leaving in 1 minute. We hop on the train just as it is taking off. As we are pulling out of the station, I notice that the sign for the train says "Sarzana". Something didn't seem right about that "destination" so I asked Amy why she was yelling for us to get on the train on track 3. She said it is because that's what the lady at the ticket window told her. We did not have a good feeling about this train, but at least knew we were going in the right direction. We decided that we could hop off at some train station and verify we were on the right train. After about 15 minutes, we arrive at a train station and Amy looks out the window and notices that the sign says "Sarzana". The train "turns off" and we realize we have gone as far as this train goes! The station was pretty small, but we found the ticket window and handed the lady our ticket. She writes "15:00 and 2" on it and we realize that the train to Florence arrives at track 2 at 15:00...in 5 minutes. Well, that train had also stopped in La Spezia (where we just were) 5 minutes AFTER the train we RAN for. So why the ticket lady told Amy to run for the train that was leaving and had a train change vs waiting 5 more minutes for the direct train we will never know. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the same bad karma that caused the wind god's to rip the post card from her hand and the water god's to pull her foot into the water! Finally, we were on our way back to Florence was some good laughs to go along with our relaxing trip to the Cinque Terre.