Churches

Here are a few photos I took in some churches of various elements that caught my eye. Some ceilings, some floors, some columns, some arches, etc. Remember you can click on any photo to enlarge it.

Paris pics

Okay, it's been a week and a half that we've been back, and I've finally gotten around to picking out some photos to post of Paris. We had only an afternoon and the evening in Paris, but we were able to wander around the Notre Dame/Marais area to get just a little taste.

Notre Dame, of course.

But my favorite was Sainte-Chapelle - No, that's not a Washington State winery, but a stunningly beautiful chapel on the same island in Paris as Notre Dame. In the 13th century, the Gothic church builders realized that the buttresses they were using allowed for the removal of the stone walls between the supports. What to fill that space with? How about stained glass?

The chapel has 360 degrees of stained glass panels that reach from just above the floor to all the way to the ceiling -

And a rose window that dates from the 15th century.

And then our last view of Paris - Charles DeGaulle Airport:

Paris - like Rome with more room

We're in Paris now. My summary - It's like Rome with more room.

No time to post pictures. We did the Rick Steves Historic Paris Walk (with minor edits), and saw Notre Dame (not the football team, but the cathedral), and St. Chappelle (sp?). The latter was mind-blowing, as it's a chapel with an interior that's almost entirely stained glass windows, about 40 feet tall. Built in the 13th or 14th century. (John is out right now and he has my notes, so this is from memory.) Huge long line to get in, but we made it in before it closed (whew!). It was John's favorite church on this trip. I'd say it might be tied in my book with San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome.

The language barrier in Paris is bothering more than I had expected. They do indeed have a different word for everything, as Steve Martin once observed. After spending more than two weeks in a country where I'm pretty comfortable with the language, I'm now in one where I feel I should know more of the language than I do. (I studied French for a couple of years in college, but that was back in the Truman Administration.) And I hate having to resort to "Parlez-vous anglais?"

Oh, and get this. What's the very first thing we saw in Paris when we came up out of the subway stop? A Starbucks. A freakin' Starbucks!! Mon dieu! (Okay, so I remember a little French.) One thing that I like about Italy (don't tell Howard Schulz) is that there are no Starbucks there.

We'll be flying back to Seattle tomorrow on one of those miracle flights that lands in Seattle only an hour after it leaves Paris. It'll be just like flying to Portland, apparently. I don't know how they do that, but I'm not going to ask. I'm just so glad it's not going to be a long flight.

I hope you have all enjoyed this blog. I'll do an update in a few days with a selection of more photos, if you want to check back.

Arrivederci and au revoir.

Venice and the Lido

To save tons of money, and to experience a different side of Venice, we had booked a hotel on the Lido - the long sand bar that forms the beach resort part of the Venice lagoon. When I say "resort", think Long Beach, Washington. It's actually a lot like Ostia, the blue collar beach resort place we stayed for our first night.

Here are a few photos from the Lido:

This next one is to add to my Escher collection. It's from inside the stairwell leading up to the crow's nest seen in the previous picture.

And it has some pretty villas.

Our hotel does not look like that. :-)

And there are some lovely views back toward the main islands of Venice proper. This is actually a lightning storm well to the north. We watched it from the banks of the Lido.

We went into Venice to wander around the Dorsoduro district and had a great lunch at a hole-in-the-wall off Campo Santa Margherita, bypassing all those waiters standing in front of their restaurants trying to get people to come in. One thing we've learned is that if the food is good, they don't have to do that.

The next day I went wandering around looking at some of the minor churches by myself. I'm including this picture because the sky was so pretty in it.

I ended up in the beautiful Cannaregio district where I found another great hole-in-the-wall place for lunch. I was the only non-native Italian speaker there, as the locals kept streaming in. It's called Paradiso Perduto (Paradise Lost). Here's my plate of grilled shrimp, onion, zucchini and fried zucchini flowers when I started.

As I was halfway through, one of the staff came by with a plate of fresh sardines that had just been battered and fried. I had one. Then two. Absolutely delicious. The whole lunch (including a full liter bottle of water) came to 6.30 Euro. That was about half what I would have paid at one of the tourist restaurants. (The bartender keeps track in his head of what you've eaten, then tells you how much you owe once you're done.)

Here's what the restaurant looked like:

The sign means "No docking",

And now for Mimi and Mungo's entertainment: Back on the Lido, there was one cat that I kept trying to get a picture of. She would pose for me, but she was so friendly that whenever I squatted down to take her picture she came running up to see what was going on, hence the blurry photo.

Finally some smell caught her attention, so I was able to snap this. Not very dignified, but what are you gonna do?

Dinner tonight at the same good restaurant we ate at two nights ago and then we're off to Paris tomorrow for a 22 hour layover and a whirlwind Rick Steves Historic Paris walk. Then it's home to Seattle.

Last night in Verona and on to Padua

Dinner at the tennis club was great! Wonderful (and cheap!) food with a wonderful view over Verona as the sky turned dark. The owner of the B&B, Giovanna, drove us up to the club. We though we could walk easily back down to the city after dinner. I did a Google maps search and saw that it would be only 1 1/2 miles from the club to our B&B, so we were up for it. So after that great dinner, we walked out the front of the club only to find that it was almost pitch black, none of the very winding roads were lit, there was no room to walk along the side of the roads AND there were tons of cars driving by in both directions. We decided to take a cab instead. We walked back into the tennis club, and told our waiter that we had thought about walking into town but had now changed our minds and would he mind calling us a cab? You should have seen the SHOCKED expression on his face when we said we had been thinking about walking. Crazy Americans, no doubt.

Anyway, we absolutely loved Verona and Giovanna and will highly recommend Residenza Carducci in the Veronetta section of Verona to anyone who is traveling here. Huge suite, kitchen, large bath, free WIFI, and a washing machine for her guests to use whenever they want. And the breakfasts are the best we've had so far.

Here we are with Giovanna.

And here's another pretty photo from Verona.

　

We left Verona the next morning and caught the train to Padua (Padova, to the locals). When we arrived we were fortunate to get reservations to see the Scrovegni Chapel, the main attraction in this charming mid-sized city. The Chapel is decorated with frescoes by Giotto, and groups are limited to 15 minute viewing times.

We wandered around Padua viewing some amazing buildings

including the Basilica of Sant'Antonio. The most striking this about this visit was a HUGE construction crane to the right of the main altar, stretching way up to a high stained glass window. Because this church is so dark anyway, this had the effect of turning the crane into some huge alien spider monster.

This basilica is also famous for the twin nuclear reactors that can be best seen from the cloister.

　

Not really.

Then on to Venice and the Lido, which will be the subject of the next posting.

A little more Verona

This is such a photogenic city:

There's a fairly small church just around the corner from where we're staying. It's famous in part for the wood inlay panels in the sacristy and the choir area. These are flat panels below, done with false perspective to create a three dimensional look.

The two doors that look like they're opening out in the following photo are actually flat, and part of the panel itself.

Here's a beautiful inlay of a music book, on the choir director's music stand:

Here's another photo from the Giusti Garden, in case you're wanting some new ideas about adding something to your garden. 

We're about to head out for dinner at the tennis club where John played yesterday. It has a view out over the city as the sun sets and the lights of the city come on. We're hoping they also have halfway decent food, as we've been getting some mixed results.

Last night's entertainment during dinner was a HUGE fight between the waiter and the chef, conducted about ten feet away from us, through the sometimes open door into the kitchen. I couldn't keep up with what they were saying, but I know that a lot of the words were very bad words. It went on for at least 20 minutes - maybe 30. I believe the chef was accusing the waiter of being lazy.  :-)

Verona

A few photos and comments about Verona and some of the sights. (Remember you can click on any of these for a close-up.)

The Adige River runs through Verona.

 The Giusti Gardens are amazing:

The church of Sant'Anastasia is very impressive, although there are some curiosities, as you'll see.

Here's an unnamed naked guy with snakes crawling up his legs, visiting Mary and the baby Jesus. I don't blame Mary for looking in the other direction.

Here's an interesting trio of saints. Sebastian with a bunch of arrows, the guy in the middle with an Excedrin headache (click on the picture), and the guy on the right flashing a little leg while Toto does a little dance at his feet.

Jazz hands Jesus.

And even though the picture turned out fuzzy, I had to share this one of Our Lady of the Hair Rollers.

Here's some sweet love graffiti we found on a wall. It reads: "The world changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curve of your lips rewrites history." Awwww. How appropriate in the hometown of Romeo and Juliet.

Orvieto - The Well of St. Patrick

One of the main attractions in Orvieto is the Pozzo di San Patrizio, or the Well of St. Patrick. This well was dug deep enough to ensure a water supply to the city if it came under siege. The unique thing is that the fairly wide passageway down to the water is constructed as a double-helix, meaning that the donkeys going down to the bottom could continue on up without having to turn around and pass the ones coming down. There are windows in the interior of the well all the way to the bottom (175 feet deep, 45 feet wide). 

Here are a few photos.

Across to the other side:

from the bottom looking up

Looking down from the top:

Here's Wall-do

Okay, some of you were stumped by this one, so here's the solution.  Here's Wall-do.

That gives you an idea of how big the reinforced Cliffs of Orvieto are. Pretty amazing, isn't it?

Orvieto

Here are a few pictures from Orvieto. We leave tomorrow for Verona and I wish we had planned an additional night here.

Orvieto is most famous for its duomo, or main cathedral:

If you look closely, you'll see where Lady Gaga got her idea to be carried on stage at the Grammys in a giant egg:

Orvieto is a hilltop town, sitting on top of cliffs that are reinforced. If you want a sense of the scale, play "Where's Waldo?" (or maybe "Where's Wall-do?"), looking for me in the picture below.

Not surprisingly there are some amazing views from these walls:

And here's what I'm thinking might be an old abbey. I haven't asked yet.

The place we're staying (B&B Garibaldi) is becoming famous for its breakfast spread. Check this out. The owner, David, comes by with a breakfast cart and sets up this amazing feast on a table in the room:

Not surprisingly, we highly recommend this place. The other guests (it has only two rooms) got stuck in Orvieto today for a few hours because of a train strike. Train strikes in Italy are so civilized - They actually announce them weeks in advance and they usually start Saturday at 9 pm and go to Sunday at 9 pm. Since we weren't traveling today by train, it didn't affect us.

Yesterday afternoon, we got caught in a brief but intense thunderstorm. When the raindrops started, I couldn't believe how large they were. As a Seattleite, I'm much more used to drizzle. I took a picture of the first few drops hitting the pavement, with my shoe in the frame to provide a reference. It was light being hit by lots of little water balloons. 

Tomorrow we're off to Verona. It's a long train ride - switching trains in Bologna, where we hope to grab a quick but tasty lunch.

And finally, here's a picture for Mimi and Mungo to enjoy.