Day 15 - Homeward Bound!!

5:15 AM: Woke up to get ready to go to the airport. It was easier to get up than expected, as we were all ready to get home. Florence to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Washington D.C., then Washington D.C. to Houston. About 18 hours of flights and layovers. Never understood this, but when we were landing in Washington, the flight attendant informed everyone that "in the even of an emergency landing, we were to leave all carry-on luggage and immediately exit the plane." Hmmmm. That didn’t sit well with anyone. Needless to say, it was a very uneventful landing, and we were safely back in the US. We were all home by 8 PM that evening, almost 24 hours after we woke up that morning for the trip home.

It is good to be home, but we will miss Tuscany. Check out the pics here. More will be added as we get to them.

Day 14 - Last day of Travel in Italy

While the Eastmans and Jordan Kindred went early into Florence, the rest of us stragglers hung out in Tuscany to clean up and pack. Did some last minute drives around the area, just to take it all in, and then we all had our last lunch in Radda. From there we drove into Florence, turned in the rent cars at the airport, and checked into the world-famous Eurhotel. Wow, talk about luxury. The air conditioner kept the room at a clamy 80 degrees, and we actually got to see Pimp My Ride in English!! :-) For dinner, we ate at a restaurant that was probably one of the worst dining experiences of the trip. Carol ordered one of the "best" dishes of the night, which was a shrimp dish. Nothing more appetizing than seeing a bunch of up-ended, undercooked white shrimp, legs and all. The service was weird, too, as they wouldn't let us sit down in a particular area until dinner time. We though it was just us, but we saw them moving other patrons from one section to another, after they had just sit down. It was all very strange. Regardless, the fellowship made it all worth it.

Day 12 - Castellina in Chianti & Day 13 - Last full day in Tuscany

Didn't do much today, as the Rome trip took some out of everyone. We went for a short trip into Castellina in Chianti. It was some shopping for more ceramics and food for dinner. Back at the house, the hot weather finally caught up with the pool, and it was finally not too cold to really enjoy a swim.

The last full day in Tuscany for most of the family. Most of the day was hanging out in Radda enjoying one last shopping experience. It was this day that Tyler, Ed, and Ron went into Radda earlier in the morning for a quick cappuccino and pastry. We were all wishing we had done it earlier in the trip, as it was an excellent breakfast time: Cool in the morning, the locals meeting for social time in the morning. It was a great, relaxing time. Later that day, most people stayed at the house, while Pam and Tyler went into Siena to help tie up some last-minute travel plans.

Day 11 - The Vatican and St. Paul's Cathedral

Our last day in Rome, and we were scheduled to meet a tour guide about 9:30 in the morning for our tour of the Vatican City. Something happened, and we did not get a tour guide at all, which was probably for the best as nobody felt like going on a 3+ hour tour. We went through the main museum areas, most of which were marble statues and busts, tapestries, paintings and gold scepters (I don't know what they are really called. Most of the info plates were in Italian. I'll be looking that stuff up later). One of my favorite halls had maps of areas of the European world painted on the walls. There was even a map of the world that had an interesting depiction of the "new world", which included Florida, which ended right around Orlando. Quite funny looking, actually, but I'm sure it was ground-breaking at the time. The entire new world area looked very strange.

After we had gone through most of the museum, we entered the Sistine Chapel. It was really dark in there, but very cool (literally.) It was packed with people, but I'm thinking more because it was a good to get out of the heat. There were guards in there telling everyone to keep moving, not to take pictures, and to be quiet, out of reverence. The painting everywhere was very impressive, although I would think it would be easier to paint the ceiling lying on your back versus the way Michelangelo painted the domes and ceilings in other parts of the Vatican; standing up, looking up, with arms held high.

In and out of the Vatican museum in under two hours, which was about 1 hour too long for the kids. We went from there straight over to St. Peter's Basilica where we were greeted by the Colonnade. Everything was so huge. Seemed like you could fit a few football fields in the whole area. It looked a little smaller than it was, but when you started walking from one side to the other, it took about 5 minutes.

Took the train back to Montevarchi, which we moved from our 1st-class seats at 100 degrees to the 2nd-class car that had working AC. Ah, the Trenitalia.

Day 10 - Roma!!

We left the house at 8:30 this morning to take a 9:45, three-hour train ride to Rome. The countryside on the way to Rome was the usual; all beautiful. We were amazed to see how much graffiti there was at all of the train stations.

We first checked into our hotel, which was actually quite nice for European inner-city standards, from what I understand. Our room had no built-in A/C (necessary in Rome this time of year, IMO), so we had a little portable unit with an exhaust tube that connected to the window (the whole thing reminded me of R2-D2). We then left for lunch at a little pizzaria around the corner from our hotel. Good stuff, and they the restaurant staff took a liking to Mackenzie (apparently, Italians have a thing for blonde-haired, blue-eyed kids. You would have thought she was the golden child the way she was treated (got a free hat out of the deal). After that we headed over to the Coliseum. That was really cool. Many pics were taken (what do you expect from shutter-happy me?), and the guide (really the way to go) was great for providing historical information. Interesting that the order of seating was women up top, men next foreigners next (they were the rich ones who did all of the gambling), and then royalty and dignitaries, including heads of state and other government officials. The reality of what it must have been like 2000 years ago was really quite humbling, even with the sickening amount of cheesy touristy things around.

After that, we stopped in for light dinner, where after too much pizza at lunch, and not enough water in the near 100-degree heat, most of us were good for only soup. The minestrone was excellent; not spicy, but extremely flavourful. We got back to our hotel room where our R2 unit had cooled our room down nicely, and we slept better then than anytime during the rest of the trip (talk about being addicted to cool air…)

Day 9 - Two Arrive, one leaves, and some last-minute site-seeing

Today was another day of rest, as Mike Kindred had to leave us at the end of the day to get back to the States, and Ron and Ryan Eastman flew in to join the crew. A few of us went into Castellina in Chianti to check out some of the sites (mostly closed, being a Sunday morning) and a surprise showing of the "March of the Volkswagons". Apparently the members of a VW club, or something like that, processed through the town, close to 100 or more VWs of all sorts parading by. Although not that Italian, still fun.
The rest went back into Siena again to check out more of the sites.

From Castellina, Tyler and Chari drove into Florence to pick up Ron and Ryan. Yeah, it takes more than just one time out to the airport in Florence to get it right. Driving in Italy is always a challenge, directionally-speaking, no matter how well you think you know the area. This guy, however, enjoys the nutty and frantic driving; for some reason I feel like I just fit in… :-) Later that evening, Mike was shuttled by some other family members to the airport for his flight back.

Day 8 - Pisa and shopping and Siena, again

Today was a little more spread out for everyone. Chari Eastman, her son Ian, Johnathan and Tyler motored over to Pisa to check out some bad foundation work on a bell tower, most everyone else went the opposite direction to see if they could score some low-cost Italian fashions, and Mike and Jake Kindred went into Siena to check out some more of the city.

The shopping was at an "outlet" mall where many famous Italian brands were represented: Gucci, Prada, and, well, that's about all I know. It was not too successful of an outing as the prices were still very high (even though very discounted.) Carol Jensen did score a nice pair of shoes for about 80% of the original cost, and Ed found a nice jacket.

Siena site seeing landed Mike and Jake mostly under the city. There is a series of tunnels that connect much of the major areas of the city. Apparently not a well-known feature of the city, but maybe there will be more to tell about if the rest of us get to go (here's hoping…)

The Pisa outing was a little more successful, although it had the potential to go very wrong as it was a little more adventurous. There were a thousand ways to get there, so we took the way that was recommended by our tour guide from Monday. There was potential for some traffic, but all was OK as we got there in a little over 2 hours. We saw everything that was contained in the Field of Miracles: The Baptistry, the Duomo, and the Bell Tower. We didn't go into the Baptistry, and we were not able to climb the tower (4 hour wait - sheesh!!), so we went into the Duomo, which was quite impressive. Their were paintings everywhere, along with some mummified remains of some patron saints, which Johnathan informed, quite loudly when questioned; "That? Oh, yeah. That's a dead body in there…" The tower was quite impressive, and you could see, just barely, where they tried to correct it with each major construction attempt over the centuries. To this day it continues to slowly fall over. Sinking sand, I tells ya…