Day 7- Day Trip Part 1- Siena and Wine Tasting Lunch

This was probably the day we looked forward to the most the whole trip. We took an all-day bus tour of Tuscany called the Best of Tuscany tour. We had breakfast at our hotel and then had to meet a bus at the nearby train station around 8:30 AM. Our guide was a native Italian in his late 20s named Stefano, and he was very endearing. Our first stop of the day was a walking tour of Siena where we met with a separate guide to show us the sights. Siena is a charming old town with a lot of history. One of the first stops we made was here in front of Monte Dei Paschi Bank. This particular branch is the oldest operational bank in the world. There were businessmen coming in and out of it while we were there:


Here are a few more pics of this area:



I like the different public figures sticking their heads out of this building:


Here I am in the Siena town square:


This square is the venue for the annual horse race. This square is full to the brim with people in the summer heat, and they all go bonkers cheering for their municipality’s horse. It’s a pretty big deal. We watched a video about it on the bus. The race is usually fixed or people are paid off to lose on purpose, and that’s just all part of the tradition. Here are a few more views of the square:



Here is a random picture of one of the countless narrow streets:


And here is a pretty view we found:


One of the last things we did on our Siena visit was see an old hospital that had been converted to a museum, called Santa Maria della Scala. Directly across from it was this beautiful church:


We had some time to kill before we had to meet up with our group again in the square, so we once again decided to get a hot chocolate...this time with a cookie to dip into it. This hot chocolate was nothing special, but it was a nice little treat. Here I am enjoying it in the square (look for the red jacket in my lap):


Next, we got back on the bus and headed to the winery for lunch. The drive was very scenic, and we had a great time just staring out the window. Once at the winery, we couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. Pictures really don’t do it justice:



We had a quick tour of the actual wine-production parts of the winery, and then we entered the dining room where our first course was waiting for us. We were told that the food was all organic, and each component was grown and produced at the estate with the exception of one type of cheese. The first course was garlic bread with olive oil, paired with a white wine:


We sat right there on the end, and this was our view:


Those little shrubs peeking in through the fence are rosemary. The next course was a pasta with meat sauce, paired with a red wine. Here is happy wine-induced Ang getting ready to sop up olive oil and/or pasta sauce:



After the wine was flowing, everyone stopped being shy and started talking to the folks around them. We chatted with a young couple from India, another couple of honeymooners from Texas, a single woman from Australia, and another single woman from New Zealand. The next course was a salad with some really nice meats and cheeses, paired with a second red wine.


The dessert was almond cookies paired with a sweet wine. Our guide Stefano was kind of funny about this. A few times on the bus before we got to the winery, he talked about how we simply MUST dip the cookies in the wine. He begged us over and over to make sure we dipped the cookies. I realized on this trip that I really enjoy dipping things, and I was more than happy to dip a delicious cookie in delicious wine, with fingers daintily poised as always:



After lunch we had about 20 minutes or so to soak up the beauty of the winery and take some more pictures. Everyone on the tour was VERY wine-soaked at this point. Giggles galore!





Stay tuned for part 2 of our day trip!

Day 6 - Walking Tour and Wanderings

On the sixth day of our honeymoon, we woke up and were excited to compare this second hotel’s breakfast with that of the first. The Rome hotel definitely won out, but it was pretty decent at the second hotel. There was just regular coffee and no cappuccino machine, which was where they lost the most points. The spread had a little less variety, but we were always able to fill up for a long day of sightseeing. On this day, we had a morning walking tour of the city scheduled. Our guide was American, but was in his late 50s and had lived in Italy as an art student and sculptor most of his life. He was very thin and hunched over, with bad teeth, a beard, and a speech impediment, all of which combined to give him a drunk homeless guy vibe. I was pretty convinced he was actually drunk (at 9:30 AM) and the only thing I could find to convince me otherwise was that he didn’t smell of alcohol, and he remained the same level of “drunk” over the entire 3 hours, even though I didn’t see him drink anything. All that aside, he was a nice guy and gave a pretty decent tour. You’ll find that by now we were a little burnt out in terms of picture taking.
This tour talked a lot about the famous Medici family which plays a large role in Italian history. Here is a picture of a statue of a guy holding a scale. I forget the relevance of it, and can’t figure it out by googling, but I want to say that the scale was used to symbolize the Medicis (by the Medicis). Maybe some history buffs can help me out here.


We went inside of one of the Medici chapels and we also got to go inside the Orsanmichele church, which was originally a grain market and still has elements of that past visible in its current state, including chutes in the walls where grain was dropped down for people to fill their bags. I don’t remember what these next two pictures are, but they look kinda neat so I’ll include them:



At the bottom center of this picture, you can see our homeless chic guide:


We paused for a 15-minute break in the middle of the tour, and the guide suggested that we get a hot chocolate at the famous Caffe Riviore. He also instructed us that whatever you get in that cafe, and most of the others in the area, will cost about 5 times more if you get a table and enjoy the ambiance rather than standing at a counter and getting it to go. So we shared a hot chocolate and a little cake and stood at the counter where a grumpy man would clang your cup over to you and then clang it into his dirty dish bin when you were done.


I saw him put someone’s coffee down so hard that about 1/3 of it spilled out, and he didn’t apologize or top it off! Luckily, our hot chocolate came to us unscathed, and it was unlike any I have ever had. It was not too sweet, and it was super dark and thick. It basically seemed like it was melted bittersweet chocolate thinned out with a little cream.
We continued the tour which included the Palazzo Vecchio. This is where there is a copy of the David by Michaelangelo:


You can see the copy at the bottom of the above picture. The original was moved to the inside of the Accademia Gallery, because it was suffering wear from the weather. And also, an angry mob threw a bench from a window in this building and it took off David’s left arm! It has since been salvaged and reattached. Here are a few more shots of the Palazzo Vecchio and surrounding area:


After the tour ended, we stopped for lunch at a sandwich shop and got some nice paninis. By this point, homesickness and sightseeing burnout were setting in, so we went back to the hotel to relax until dinner. We eventually found ourselves taking a nighttime stroll across the Ponte Vecchio:




And from here we had a great dinner at Trattoria Marione on Via Della Spada:

I made sure to have Ilya take a picture of the place as we were leaving, so we could recommend it to others or check it out again if we ever go back. And you can also see the large group of people waiting to get in! Ilya ordered sausage risotto which was excellent. I had been craving pesto, so I ordered the pesto pasta, which they were out of. I quickly decided to get the lasagna instead. However, the lasagna I saw on the menu was a meat lasagna, but the server must have assumed I wanted spinach lasagna since my original pick was vegetarian, so I ended up with spinach lasagna, which was also excellent. I remember tasting quite a bit of nutmeg in it which was really interesting. We of course ended the night with gelato:


I have mint and Ilya once again has something chocolatey. I do believe that this was the night that we also got some roasted chestnuts from a street vendor. They’re all over the place, and we mostly ignored them, but I decided I wanted to give them a try. They were quite good! I liked the taste, and they were nice and warm which made for a nice snack on a chilly night.

Day 5- Arrival in Florence

On our last day in Rome, we enjoyed one final hotel breakfast and said goodbye to the really cool cappuccino machine and array of breads, spreads, and pastries. We then lugged our bags to the train station and had a little time to kill and a few errands to run before catching our train to Florence. We decided that I would stand with the bags in one spot while Ilya wandered around to buy a few things and a snack for us to share. There is really no seating in the Rome train station, but I found a nice spot to sort of lean. I had a very interesting, if somewhat distressing time people-watching for the 40 minutes or so that I stood there. First off, about 70% of the people I saw were smoking. At least! It was definitely a striking difference from the amount of smokers you see on any given day in NJ. A woman came over to the spot where I was and started moving all of her things from one (probably broken) suitcase to another new empty one. When she came upon her bottle of hairspray, she paused and continuously sprayed it all around her head for about 30 seconds. All the while, the woman right behind her, who was smoking a cigarette, gave her a dirty look. Some very creepy people came by and leaned on the same spot and smoked, and I had to inch slowly away from them with my two large suitcases to avoid getting smoke-bombed. Lots of questionable characters were around, though probably not any more than you would see in a New York station. It was just a little more striking/scary because I was an obvious tourist very far from home. I also saw the same faux-hawked girl who sat right near us on our train ride to Ostia Antica a few days earlier. This time she was with a group of friends, and they were fun to observe. I started feeling like a local, recognizing familiar faces in the train station!

Finally, Ilya returned with a burger, fries, and McFlurry for us to share. We found a quiet corner in the lower level of the station to sit on our suitcases and enjoy our snack. We then made our way onto the train, with its aisles just barely wide enough for a big suitcase, and lots of people trying their hardest to be in your way as you try to walk by. We ended up sitting facing an older man who was traveling alone. He was from Los Angeles and had just finished a cruise and was spending a few days in Italy before heading home. He was quite the cruise enthusiast and tried to convince us that cruising is the way to see the world. Also, he had just been pickpocketed minutes before we met him. A woman with a baby stood in his way and wouldn’t let him pass. Eventually, she did. In the meantime, he was unknowingly pickpocketed by an accomplice of the woman. A few minutes later, she approached him with his wallet and asked for a “finder’s fee”. He gave her a few euros and saw that she hadn’t removed anything from his wallet while she had it in her possession.

Once we got off the train in Florence, it only took us a few minutes to walk to our next hotel. We stayed at the Hotel Atlantic Palace on Via Nazionale. Once again, we were very happy with the room, its size, and cleanliness. Ilya had requested a big box of chocolates be sent up to our room when he booked it weeks earlier.

Here I am studying the box, with a nice view of the room (I had already taken the comforter off the bed, because hotel comforters skeeve me).

Here is a shot of the view off our little balcony:

We took a nap for a little while and then headed out for dinner. While we worked up our appetite, we decided to do an audioguide to get us a little acquainted with the city. One of the first things we saw was the Duomo church, which I thought was really beautiful, but apparently it has a historical reputation for being ugly, and people refer to it as “the church in pajamas”:

We also saw the baptistry that is right across from this church which is famous for its intricate doors. I also remember seeing the Orsanmichele church, which has lots of famous sculptures all around the outside. We also walked past the Uffizi and learned a little bit about that, as well as the main square and the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge. I’m including links to all of these things because we were not very picture-happy on this evening. We enjoyed getting acquainted with the main attractions of Florence.

We ate at a nice place that was not in our guidebook, and I forget its name. I do remember that we shared an appetizer of grilled polenta with mushrooms and another appetizer of a seafood salad. We also got some wine and split a pizza that had all sorts of stuff on it including ham and olives. There was a local family with a cute little boy sitting near us, as well as a corny young American couple. There was another couple sitting across from us, and the woman stared at me so much that I had to keep reminding Ilya to place his head in such a way as to keep her gaze off of me. It was very annoying! But, the food was great. Right around the corner as we left the restaurant, we saw a gelateria called Grom. Ilya suggested we check it out, but I said I thought “grom” sounded more like a body part I didn’t know I had than an ice cream shop. After some more wanderings, Ilya looked up Grom in our guidebook. Turns out, it’s supposed to be a really good place, where they only use fresh, local, organic ingredients. So, we gave it a shot. I got half granny smith gelato and half salted caramel. It was a nice combo! Ilya got something chocolatey. After this, we wandered around a bit, and then went back to the hotel to get some sleep. We didn’t remember to take many photos on this travel day, but there are lots more to come!

Day 4- Vatican Museums Tour and Trastavere

On our 4th day in Rome, we decided to let ourselves sleep in. By the time we got up and dressed, we missed the hotel’s breakfast. We had an afternoon guided tour for the Vatican museums, and we planned to take a bus to the general area of the Vatican. On our way to the bus station, we stopped and shared a pizza with sausage at a little cafe. We had a little bit of extra time to kill, so we also stopped and got cappuccinos and a few goodies at a little rip-off cafe (Italy’s answer to Starbucks) with un-friendly staff. Once we made it to the general area of the Vatican, we had a somewhat confusing walk to our tour meeting spot. You can read the specifics about what our tour included here. We didn’t take a lot of pictures this day, probably due to a combination of picture-taking burnout and also, for most of the museum, no photos were allowed. Here is a picture of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica from a spot within the museum:

We came out to the Courtyard of the Pigna (pinecone) which is named for this giant statue which was cast in bronze in the 1st or 2nd century:


Here is a nice view of Rome from some balcony. I spy the giant Victor Emmanuel monument just left of center:


Here is a statue of Laocoon and his sons that was an example of some of the first statues to include emotion on the subjects’ faces:


We saw a TON of stuff on this tour. This place is huge and we barely scratched the surface of it in 3.5 hours. Like I mentioned earlier, there were no pictures allowed for the majority of the tour. We saw lots of old living quarters of past popes which were all richly decorated. I would highly recommend a guided tour of this place. There is such an overwhelming amount of stuff, and it’s nice to have a guide to point out the highlights and explain their significance. We got to go inside the Sistine Chapel, which was a bit surreal. Our guide told us a lot about the frescos and the things that were going on in Italy at the time and little secret depictions of public figures within the paintings. As we were exiting the chapel, our guide told us to turn right and walk down a long hallway. To the left was a large doorway which leads to the current pope’s living quarters. It is guarded by Swiss guards in silly uniforms and is closed the majority of the time. For some reason, this time, it was wide open as we walked out and we got to see the guards and peek into the pope’s current living quarters before the doors were closed. It looked like a lobbyish type area, and it was very colorful and full of artwork. It was a neat bonus!

We eventually made our way to St. Peter’s Basilica, which, in my opinion, was the highlight of this tour. Despite the fact that Ilya and I both lack strong interests or backgrounds in religious history and art history, we both thought that this basilica was breathtaking and fascinating. It’s huge, with high ceilings, and everything seems to be lined with intricately carved and inlayed marble and huge mosaics. Photos, at least the ones we took, do not do this place justice. You have to see it! Here is a picture that shows part of the dome at the top with lots of windows and light coming through. Below that is the altar, which was my favorite part, and doesn’t look all that great in this picture. Then there is the really beautiful stained glass window shining out from behind the altar, and a cool beam of light shining down diagonally behind the altar as well.


Here is another picture of the same thing that I found online and does the place a little bit more justice.

Here is a picture of Ilya frolicking about in the square outside the Vatican, shouting out to his favorite Uncle-In-Law with his Longhorns shirt in Rome!


After our tour, we decided to check out the Trastavere neighborhood which was relatively close to the Vatican. We had a Rick Steves audio tour for this neighborhood, and we had heard that it was a rather cute area. We decided to walk there, which took about 45 minutes, much of which was along the Tiber river. The streets were lined with trees, and many of them seemed to be calling my name. After the 3rd or 4th, I posed for a pic between two trees:


We were really hungry when we arrived, but most restaurants didn’t open for dinner for a few hours, so we decided to stop for a snack. We found this tiny pizza place that had a bunch of little fried goodies on display. Here is Ilya pouring us some Coke Zero, and you can see the display of fried goodies behind him:


Here is one of the ones we got, with the other one peeking out from a napkin in the background:


I forget the exact flavors, but they were filled with rice and cheese and other goodies. They really hit the spot.

Next, we started wandering towards the bridge which was the starting point of our audio tour. Suddenly, things got a little weird. People were running around with their maps covering their heads as if it was raining. Except it wasn’t raining in the traditional watery sense, it was raining BIRD POOP from the literally thousands of small black birds flying around and squawking overhead. We figured that people were overreacting so we tried to just be on our merry way, but no...it was clear that it was nearly impossible not to get pooped on. After each taking a hit in rapid succession, we pressed ourselves up against the side of a building to just barely shield ourselves with its overhanging roof. We stood there for 10 or 15 minutes trying to wait out the madness. After a few more minutes, the birds hadn’t stopped, but we realized we had to get on with our lives, and Ilya decided he was prepared to face the birds and their poop head-on. I wasn’t quite that bold, so I asked him to buy me an umbrella at a nearby vendor tent. We ran to the bridge, the starting point of our audioguide, past other running tourists trying to avoid being blessed by the birds of Trastavere, and bickering about umbrella positioning (“I don’t want to share! You said you didn’t want one! You should have gotten two, I’m not getting one whole side of my body pooped on because you’re too cheap!”). After a few minutes, the birds inexplicably disappeared, and things calmed down. We finished our charming walking tour and used our guidebook to try to pick out a restaurant.

On our search for a restaurant, we got a little lost searching for a certain street, Via della Scala. Ilya went into a bar hoping to ask for help, but no one seemed to want to approach the wandering tourist to offer help, and he was too shy. We continued on and stopped to ask someone on the street. The original guy we asked had no idea, but he turned and asked the older man nearby. This man seemed to be a local, and was bald, with a beer belly, smoking a cigar, with a chain sticking out of his shirt. He got VERY excited when he heard that we were looking for della Scala, as he knew how to get there. He proceeded to excitedly give us directions completely in Italian. At the end he looked at us as if to say, “Ok?” and we nodded and thanked him despite understanding zero of the words he said. We walked off in the direction he had pointed, and eventually made our way to Via della Scala with the help of his pointing alone.

The first place we chose was full and told us to come back in several hours, so we ended up eating at Trattoria da Olindo on the corner of Vicolo della Scala and Via del Mattonato. We couldn’t tell if they were serving dinner yet, but we saw an old woman in the kitchen and who appeared to be her daughter inside. I made Ilya poke his head in and ask if they were open for dinner. They said yes, and the old woman in a floral apron came out from the kitchen and sat us. Her daughter took our order, despite not speaking English at all. The menu was one page and had Italian on one side and English on the other, and it wasn’t very hard to communicate by pointing and using our limited Italian vocabulary. We got some house wine and an appetizer to start. Here is a picture of the appetizer, which we thoroughly enjoyed:

It may not be the most appetizing looking plate in the world, but it was really good! The pinkish whitish stuff at the bottom of the plate looked very suspicious to me at first. I thought it was some strange mystery meat, but it was actually delicious cauliflower cooked in wine. Above that are some peas, potatoes, and some kind of eggy thing in the middle of the plate. You can see our pitcher of wine on the right. Here I am enjoying a potato, harried by a long day of walking and unexpected precipitation. You can see the homey decor behind me.

Ilya got chicken with butter and sage, and I got chicken with tomatoes and olives. Both were delicious. We shared crema di zabione for dessert. That was ok, but I would have enjoyed it more had it not been slathered in what seemed to be Hershey’s syrup. All in all, this restaurant was a great, authentic Roman experience that I would recommend to anyone. But, as Rick warns in his guide, “don’t expect any smiles”. The staff are nice but very serious.

After dinner, I believe we got some gelato to correct the dissatisfying zabione experience. Next, Ilya, who must have had more of our litro of wine than I did, was not in any condition to properly navigate. So, I had to get us to a spot where we could catch a bus back to our neck of the woods. I remember us feeling a little more isolated on the quiet dark streets than I would have liked before finding the busier area with the bus stop. But we quickly made our way back to our hotel, where we took some very well-deserved showers and quarantined our shirts and the poop-brella.