A day with Holly

We spent the day in Florence today. Holly and I visited the studio where she will be teaching her class and we went collecting supplies. Holly's Italian is great and it was a treat to watch her interact with the shopkeepers. We ended the shopping at Zecci's which is the art store in Florence I too bought supplies at while studying in Florence, so some nestalgia there. This is the studio above.

While Holly and I shopped, Michael and Tim took to the boys to the science museum to view Galileo's finger. A real treat! 

We then met up and went to see the inside of the Duomo. Wow!

Is this boy in awe or just tired? Maybe a little of both.

Holly and Tim went to dinner tonight sansa ragazzi Michael and I did what the Italians do and took the kids to the local Piazza. We, well... Michael ordered us 2 beers from the park bar...ha ha ha...yup, right there in this tiny square a block away from the apartment, a gazebo sized bar... open only at night...we sat, watched the kids play tag, kick a ball around and did what kids do best, oh and I suppose we did a little people watching on the side. La vita dolce. So fun!

We should just stay

Monterosso al Mare

This town made my heart beat very fast! Around every corner. 

Jake doing a little exploring on his own.

Rock play

More train riding

4 very goofy photos

Happy panini boy

Train riding

Stamping the biglietti

Train hopping

Wow, what a day. We had a little wrong way turn and missed our early morning train to Cinque Terre. So...instead of waiting 2 hours for the next train we hopped on one heading for Pisa and would catch the train going to Cinque Terre at a later time from Pisa. This worked out perfectly. We were able to go to Pisa, take lots of goofy pictures at the tower and made it back to the station in time to catch the train. Holly and Tim turned out to be on that train, they had left at a later time, and we were all able to travel to Cinque Terre together. To get to Cinque Terre, which means 5 lands because it is 5 towns that are built into the cliffs of the Italian Riviera, you must take the train that goes from La Spezia to Monterosso al Mare. This train travels mostly through tunnels in the cliffs. every few minutes the train lets you peek out an amazing view of cliffs and big water. Very perfect. So, we spent the day on the granite, pebbled shores, swimming in warm blue water and playing on the rocks. For dinner we went into town, truly out of a coffee table book and took a late train back to Florence. We finished our day with cafe and warm milk at the bar. We are truly loving Italy. 

Santa Maria del Fiore

Down from Piazza Michelangelo

Views

Florence with a view

Via Cavour

This morning we have woken up earlier to leave for Cinque Terre and I have some time to catch up before our train leaves. 

We arrived in Florence after a fine plane ride and a very nice train ride to stay with our dear dear friends Holly, Tim, Gulliver and Eisen. Their apartment on Via Cavour is lovely. Our room is quite spacious. The windows, three across, sans screen, are hinged and open the entire way horizontally. Along with a vape for the mosquitos, mornings are cool. The night...a bit warm. There is a little terrace out back with a bit of borrowed internet! Clotheslines abound! I do love it here. 

Yesterday we hiked to the top of Piazzale Michelangelo for some truly amazing views of Florence. We are in Italy and it was Sunday, so I made a red sauce, which we had for dinner. We visited the Duomo for the  first time and did our fair share of walking. Needless to say, bedtime was early last night.

We are off to the train...Addison is dying to jump off of some Cinque Terre cliffs! 

A walk in Florence

We walked around Florence today. It really is amazing to be in an old city. The structures, the architecture, the life, so much different from America. The streets are more narrow, many more people out and about. Some are out to see the sights just as we were, but some were just out doing there day to day. There is a life to a place when people are out and about that you don't experience when you are just driving from one place to another. Urban design in America could learn a lot from Italy. One of our stops today was at an open air market that had fresh fruits, vegetables, bread, meat, and people; lots of people. Life is different when you interact with the people who grow/raise/cure the food that you eat. There seems to be a huge disconnect in America between the Land/farmer and the people who depend on it, but yet don't recognize their dependence on this relationship. I'm going on a bit too much now, but we just finished listening to Michael Pollen's Botany of Desire before leaving for our trip. An excellent book, highly recommended.
More about Florence. There are a lot of bicycles, Vespas, and small cars. Every one to seems to be very conscientious about their choice of transportation. Many of the sidewalks are paired with bicycle roads which granted makes it much easier to get around on bicycle. We have been here for 2 days, and this city is amazing. -Michael
Ah Firenze, we are sitting on the outdoor terrace blogging while across the street where there is some sort of a music practice hall, tonight, amazing piano music, last night, an orchestra...Today was great. We started the morning with..what else but a trip to the mercato. Not just any.. the antique mercato..where I found an amazing glass wine bottle I have to figure out how to get home. Jake found a table of books and declared he wanted to learn enough Italian to read an Italian book... by the end of our trip. He also tried to do much of the purchasing in order to learn the euro system. I am losing battery power, so to sum up here is a list:
Michael has traded his afternoon Starbucks for standing at the bar for a shot and is loving drinking large bottles of Heineken walking down the street.
Addison is thrilled with the gelato and the allowance of soda for a sugar pick up....it's very hot here
Jake is digging the salami
I am digging everything
enjoy the photos!
bacio! -esther

Flight

Flight. Finally. I had fogotten the Italian way. Our flight was schedualed for 6:30, moved to 6:00, boarding pass said 5:30 now it is 6:03. They are just loading the luggage now. Oh well. So here we are. We traveled to NY last night, spent the night with my grandfather for some last minute Italian lessons. This morning I couldn't resist Lord and Taylor yogurt and a quick stop at Grand Central. . Jake and Addison were happy happy jumping up and down excited, until they needed to wait so long and Michael is missing his afternoon Starbucks.
Alas. We are still pretty excited and hope to board soon. It sounds like they are starting. I think we'll wait until they do the English call.
Ciao.