Tam & Peg’s Excellent Adventure

We’ve completed our last day in Italy and it was perfect.
Our first stop was Trevi Fountain which was really a thrill to see. We both tossed three Roman coins in and made a wish. It would have been great to be there without the throngs of people because a good photo was impossible, but we both enjoyed it very much.
We walked through a very nice area of little shops until we arrived at the Pantheon. WOW! It is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful and ornate. We spent quite a while there before doing some more shopping and having lunch. We were already tired from walking before we showed up to meet our afternoon tour of the Vatican.
We had an unexpected advantage for this tour: because of the late start time, most of the tourists had already completed their visits and left. We were better able to understand our guide because it was so easy to gather around her and there was much less ambient noise than in other tours we’ve been on. It was great.
Everyone told us that we’d be blown away by the Vatican, and we definitely were. Having depleted my cache of adjectives, I can only say it was stunning. Huge collection of art in a most opulent setting and then the Sistine Chapel and La Pieta, the marble sculpture of seated Mary with Christ’s lifeless body draped over her lap. Moving and powerful. St. Peter’s Basilica is HUGE, lavish and beautiful. What an experience! We wandered around in amazement and tried to soak up all of the elaborate detail.
We feel like we crammed in an amazing amount of sights and experiences during our stay here in Rome, as well as in our other stops. Of course, without Tom to lay it all out for us, we’d never have been so successful in accomplishing what we were able to. Thank you so, so much Tom.
We’ve had a great time and we even agree that, although we’d not have been surprised to be a little anxious to go home at this point, we’re still having fun. We’ll pack up and get ready for our early morning departure this evening, and then we’re going to go poolside and enjoy a drink and a toast to close out our Excellent Adventure.
We are looking forward to getting home and seeing and getting hugs from everyone we’ve missed. Thanks to all who shared our trip via our blog (Thanks, Turk!).

Arrivederci!!!

Remembered the calendar in Firenze.
Love you!

Our trip is nearing its end, but in no way is it winding down.
We arrived in Rome last evening and got to our hotel around 9PM, checking in to one of the most beautiful hotels and rooms we’ve ever seen! We have an unbelievable 180-degree view of Rome from our 6th floor balcony, which includes the beautiful and ornate dome on St. Peter’s Basilica, which is quite near. We even had a waxing moon rising over the city last night to top it off.
We had played with our cameras, trying to get an evening picture of St. Peter’s Basicala, but we didn’t have the right tripod for the long lens.
Our 3-hour walking tour commenced this morning at 10, but we left pretty early, not being sure how much time to allow for transportation and for finding our meeting point, which was adjacent to the Coliseum. As we’ve discovered so many times on our trip, the experience of seeing it for ourselves was more than what we expected; there seems to be some “added dimension.” W e had a very knowledgeable guide whose ease and familiarity with her subjects was very impressive. We both wished we could hear and understand her better than we could, but we were able to improve our understanding of Ancient Rome quite a lot as we wandered for three hours among the ruins of the Coliseum, Palatine Hill and along “Via Scara” or “Sacred Way,” the main path through the Roman Forum. It was really very interesting, if a bit exhausting up and down hills and steps all over the place. We took thousands of pictures, but we won’t bore you with too many.
After leaving our tour, we went on another open-air bus that drove around Rome allowing us to get a feeling for the layout of the city and its important sites. Given our short stay, it is a good way to at least see things we won’t have time to visit… this trip. That filled up a couple of hours, after which we returned to the hotel to put our feet up and watch our wonderful view of Rome for a bit. We’ll probably have dinner out tonight and tomorrow night we’ll repeat last night’s plan to eat Italian bread and salami on our balcony.

Ah…. Firenze!!!!
Our trip from Venice to Florence was beautiful and we arrived at the Westin Excelsior at dinnertime and were assigned an absolutely lovely room with a view of steeples, domes and spires all over the place. We decided on room service for dinner and planned an early wake up for Friday morning.
After taking care of some power/batteries/internet issues, we did some local exploring, including a “hop on, hop off” tour to get oriented with the city and then had lunch in the rain under an awning on a sidewalk near the hotel.
At 2 PM, our private car picked us up for a drive into the hills of Tuscany where we visited a castle, built in the 1300’s which now is owned by an Italian family who runs a beautiful winery there and also does special events such as weddings, reunions, etc. They even have “apartments” which are rented per night! It is a gorgeous setting! We had a tour of the winery and a private tasting of their very nice wines. We used our evening to relax and work on our blog.
Today (Saturday), we got an early start with another bus tour of a larger area of Florence which took us up into the hills of Tuscany again and into some villages that were there 700 years BC! This is (among many other things) the area where Michelangelo was a child and is also the home of the beautiful marble was quarried for many of his sculptures, including David.
From around 11am to 4:30pm, we walked around in old Florence visiting cathedrals, plazas, palaces, museums. We were sorry that none of the important museums were available for us to get inside because of the very long lines, so we decided that, rather than stand for 3 hours in one line to see one important attraction, we’d go around and see the outside of many interesting ones. It was a hard choice, but we had a great afternoon.
We’re on our way to Rome for the last two days of our Excellent Adventure. We will arrive late and get away early tomorrow for a walking tour of Ancient Rome and then a “get acquainted” bus tour of Rome.

Our blogs have been a bit out of order as we’ve had some challenges finding internet available… tonight we posted Milan and Venice. We’ll post Florence and Rome from Rome, tomorrow’s destination.

It’s Friday night now and we are thinking of the family weddings tomorrow, knowing that there is much excitement for weddings in Denver and San Francisco. We’ll be thinking of you, with love.

June 11
We feel like we made the absolute most of our very short time (about 24 hours) in Venice.
When we emerged from the train station dragging our 60 pounds of suitcase, carry-on and backpacks (yeah, we travel light), we could see our hotel immediately, just across the canal (about 150 yards away). Our next realization was that, in order to get there, we needed to negotiate the Ponte Scaizi Bridge… 47 stairs up one side and down the other!! When we saw that bridge, Tammy actually inquired about the cost of a water taxi to carry us and our baggage across the canal, but the brute wanted €45,00, so we decided to get some exercise.
After checking in, we departed for a walk to the opposite side of the island (maybe a bit over a mile to walk) where we met our guide for a tour of Venice via the Grand Canal which lasted just over an hour. We heard history and anecdotes about the many old palaces along the canal, most of which were built by wealthy families between the 12th and 14th centuries. Today very few, if any, are privately owned; they house government offices, museums and public facilities.
We had another tour planned for 8:30 (a Ghost Walk), so we walked around, then had some dinner waiting for the time to meet our group, but a very black sky signaled the approach of a significant thunderstorm. Having left the hotel on a beautiful, sunny afternoon, we were not prepared for the cold or the rain, so we headed back toward the hotel and became completely lost and got very wet. (Our return trip was about 2.5 miles!) When we finally got back we decided not to try to go back out for the tour. Instead, we had a visit with Mom on the phone, which was great fun for us!
Today we spent the entire day wandering around the back streets, along the canals and through some important historic districts, markets and shops. Venice is so exceptional and unique, we really loved the experience. It was another beautiful afternoon. We timed our wanderings to get us back to the hotel neighborhood in time for a nice lunch on the canal where we split a pizza and enjoyed the Venice scenery.
After dragging our luggage back over that bridge, we boarded our train to Florence just before the rain started again. Our trip took about 3 hours and delivered us just a bit after schedule, and we got to another gorgeous hotel room right around 6pm.

We left our hotel in Paris at about 6 am and arrived at our train station early enough to get oriented and to shuffle around for a few tense moments in order to be at the right location for our train to Milan. The journey, which was a glorious 7-hour trip, took us across a portion of Switzerland (whose very serious officials came on board to check passports), through the Alps and into Italy. It was wonderful to see the countryside and the villages with old churches and beautiful castles along the way. Just like a storybook!
Our stay in Milan was very short, but Tom was able to secure very hard-to-get tickets for us to view the original, restored painting of “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci which is in a chapel at Santa Maria delle Grazie in central Milan, so we headed off for that right away. We were fortunate to have audio tours available and we enjoyed the tutorial which explained how this painting is different from many others which depict the same event. During WWII, the cathedral sustained substantial damage during bombings and for a period of time, the painting was actually exposed to the outdoors. Its most recent and thorough restoration was completed in the 1990’s.

For dinner, we walked about 5 blocks from our hotel to a very nice dinner in a restaurant recommended by the concierge. We were the only non-Italians in the establishment, but the staff worked with us and we enjoyed an Italian Salad Bar and two terrific pasta dishes – all for about the price of 2 small pots of French coffee.
We needed to leave for Venice rather early, but we made the time to take a taxi so that we could see Milan’s Duomo which is one of the largest Gothic Churches in the world. As is the case with everything we’ve seen so many photos of during our lives… seeing it in person is, literally, awesome.
We write this on our train journey from Milan to Venice. Our train car-mates are Carlo and Pamela, a delightful couple, who have shared insights and travel advice for Carlo’s home town, Venice, and who protected us from the old woman on crutches whose seats we were sitting in. We won.
More later.
We love and miss you all.

Bonjorno!
We’ve arrived in Forenzia (Florence) and we are in an incredible room with a view of about 20 spires or domes on very old structures. Tomorrow we go on a 2 hour tour in the morning, then we have some free time before a tour and dinner in Tuscany. What a day to look forward to!

It’s been a couple of days since we posted because we’re running into some technical problems with voltage converters that we didn’t know we needed to bring. Apparently, there’s a law in Italy that prevents hotels from lending them to guests, so we’re without what we need. So, we are not able to charge our American batteries, including the computer, which is now dead. We have plans to go buy the converter that we need tomorrow morning and we’ll power up, charge up and upload some pictures and trip notes that we’ve already somewhat prepared about Milan and Venice… both wonderful experiences (well, except for the old woman on the train).

We’re sorry that it’s really rainy here tonight, but we have high hopes for tomorrow. We expected warmer weather here than up north in Paris so half of the clothing we packed is unused, the other half is wearing out and badly needs a real laundry room and iron.

We had a very few minutes in an internet cafe in Venice this morning to quickly check comments and-or posts, of which there were several. We LOVE those messages, so thanks.

Until tomorrow (we sincerely hope)……

Father’s Day is next week. Got it.

Sunday at Roland Garros and Monday in Paris

Today we have two days to post about… we’ll start with yesterday’s Men’s Finals Event which was the shortest match since 1973 and so was a huge disappointment for the fans who wanted to watch more tennis,and, well, for Roger Federer too. Nadal crushed him in three painful sets, but it was still great fun to be there.

Before the match, we were guests for lunch at a very special venue for this last day. It was very exclusive, very luxurious and maybe a bit snobby. In fact one older gentlemen actually came up to us to ask us if we play tennis and, if so, where? He clearly thought we’d made a wrong turn somewhere, and, sadly, being of slow mind, we had not a cleaver comeback, but Tam set him straight.,

As we sipped very good wine prior to the luncheon, several former tennis stars stopped in to greet us, including Nicolas Escude (Davis Cup ’93, ’97 and more), Arnaud Di Pasquale (Bronze Medal, Sydney Olympics), and Amelie Mauresmo (won the Australian Open and Wimbeldon in ’06, Semi Finalist at the US Open that year also, and is currently ranked #21 in the world) were all there to say Bon Appétit and to provide a photo op.

This was one magnificent luncheon followed by an even more magnificent dessert creation. What a treat!

After the tennis match, about half of our group split off and headed in a different direction for part two of their tour, which was a 1-week barge trip down the river. We returned to our hotel where we had salami, cheese and bread, watched CNN sports and retired early so we could set out early this morning.

Today began as a lovely, sunny day and it has stayed just lovely. We had an early breakfast so that we could start our day of exploring early. We bought tickets to travel around on the Metro (underground train system) and we headed out for Notre Dame. Even though we were there early, the lines to enter and tour were very long, so we were happy to encircle the entire cathedral, which, of course is breathtaking.

We then crossed the rest of the way over the Seine (Notre Dame is actually on a small island in the river) and we walked without a particular destination for several hours, looking into shops and happening upon the University of Sorbonne, Jardin du Luxembourg (Gardens of Luxembourg), and all around the Left Bank, including the textile, and antique districts. We stopped for our usual ham and cheese baguette and sat beside two very fashionable and chic young ladies here from Amsterdam, sales representatives for an exclusive lingerie line, here to make a call on a nearby shop. (No, we didn’t ask….) We enjoyed their chatter and they seemed to think we were, well, quaint. (Did I mention Tammy’s chartreuse tshirt and plaid Bermudas?)

We crossed back over the Seine and headed north to see the Opera House. Wow! It’s HUGE, MAGNIFICENT…. Well, we’re out of adjectives. Behind the Opera House is the only shopping “mall” we’ve seen, “Galeries Layfayette.” I should have brought some jeans, so I thought I’d see about finding a pair. Couldn’t find my size (or my price range)…. what we did find was €430,00!!! We quickly decided that we could better spend our time elsewhere and headed out for our return trip to the hotel, via the Metro. OH! Forgot to mention a stop along the way…. for a Starbuck’s! (I even managed to communicate my order without Christy to interpret Starbucks-eze” for me).

We’ll be up very early tomorrow to get to an early train for Milan where we will see daVinci’s Last Supper. The following day we head for Venice.

We’re having a magnificent time and we love sharing via our blog. We’ll be back online as soon as possible and we hope to see lots of messages.

Love to all.

Another gray day yesterday, but the rain never materialized except for a very few drops. The temperature was not at all uncomfortable if we wore our sweaters or a light jacket.
While I worked on the blog yesterday morning, Tam took a walk down to the river where there is a beautiful memorial for Diana.
When we arrived at Roland Garros, there was a very large brass band performing near the center of the venue, which was beautiful to see and great to hear. Larry, you’d have really loved it. Their uniforms were very formal, complete with very shiny helmets and long, red “pony tails.” (I bet they have a proper name.)
The match between Dinara Safina and Ana Ivanovic was over much quicker than we thought it would be, but it was wonderful tennis. Our seats were closer in than they have been, so we had a great show. Those young women work HARD for those few hours on the court! After their match, we got to watch the Men’s Doubles Finals, which was really interesting…. Very fast tennis!
After today’s match between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, we will have used up our internet access package, but we hope to purchase enough time to get one more blog in after tomorrow’s day of exploring Paris via Metro before we leave for Italy. We’re not sure what internet access to expect in Italy, but we’ll do our best. We both are enjoying feeling connected to everyone.
It’s our first sunny morning here - it should be a great day.
Happy Father’s Day to the Dads we love!