Switzerland or bust!

My loving spouse decided he didn't want to travel next year, due to the political chaos in the US as well as in Gaza and pretty much everywhere. To say this made me sad is an understatement. 

I work from home. I've worked from home for nearly six years. I get up, drink coffee, sit on the porch and greet the morning, swing into my chair at my desk, and then sit there all damned day. I do this 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. 

It's harder than you think, to work from home. Companies often put WFH employees through rigorous hoops to maintain security. With the rush of AI use around the world now, it's even worse. Employees are finding ways to game the system, so employers are cracking down: cameras must be on, authenticators must be used, keystroke loggers are in place. *sigh*

It's also hard to sit in a chair in my living room, all day every day, and never escape my "office" in my down time. I'm home 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and I only leave for knitting class and grocery shopping. 

Don't get me wrong: I could return to the office any time. I could go back to commuting 45 minutes each way, paying outrageous gas prices, being distracted at work, struggling to fit into the corporate culture and be a part of the clique crowd. But...whyyyyy? Why would I do that? I wouldn't. I like that idea less than the idea of my weight gain from sitting still 10 hours a day.

WFH has an inherent freedom to it. I drink coffee from home in my favorite mug. I pet my cats while I work. I take my breaks on my porch, sitting in silence and watching the critters on our property. I wear what I want. Some days it pajamas and some days it's a tiara. The temperature is always controlled by me, and lunch is whatever I want. Work/life balance is at least a little more even. 

Here is the dilemma: I rarely interact with the outside world. Sometimes I feel like a character from that cartoon movie where everyone rides around on floating loungers and looks obese.

So I researched "what's the safest place to visit right now?" Whatever AI crap the internet is using came back with Sweden, Denmark, Norway, or Switzerland. 

I chose Switzerland. My spousal unit concurred. Now im spending all my time researching things to do in Switzerland. I rented a flat already, for the trip. It’s a stunning cottage in a perfect location and has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a sunroom, and a gorgeous garden with posh seating options throughout. It is an oasis. 

I just hope it doesn't have a computer desk.

Home again, home again

Being home is a joy. I was homesick. Our kids took incredibly good care of the cats and cars and house and so we came home and started unpacking and putting things away. I made a quickie cholesterol ball because we didn't have a decent breakfast for 19 days. Then I started hanging souvenirs. 

We mailed 3 suitcases home full of souvenirs and we still have one more left to arrive. I can't even remember what's in that one even though it was the most recent to be mailed. We do have about $400 worth of alcohol coming, as well. We got a tad excited at the lemoncello stand. 

We also slept all day yesterday. Probably slept 18 hours, so that's why I woke up at 1am this morning. Today will be an interesting day at work. I can't remember how to do anything except speak Italian and drink cappuccino and walk 10 miles.

I'm amazed our luggage got to Italy and back home. None of us missed any flights. Although it was awfully close in Munich, we did all make it on the plane to the USA. That special shuttle they sent was a miracle.

I think Robert and I will travel alone together if we go anywhere else. I think he really wants to visit the Mediterranean and spend some time on the water, and I would love that. I think it would be so romantic.

I did tell him it's time for us to get married. I don't want to die unmarried. I adore him and I think he likes me a little and it's time. We'll see if he gets it done.

Italy was so amazing. It was the trip of a lifetime. I can never say he didn't take me anywhere. I'm the luckiest woman alive.

Pompeii and Positano

 We knew Anya wasn't going to Pompeii because she didn't feel well, so we got up early, showered and dressed and headed for Piazza con Poppolo. We caught a taxi immediately. 

The Piazza is gorgeous, with a giant Egyptian obelisk brought over by Augustus when he conquered Egypt. Augustus is my favorite. He was intelligent and believed in Ceasar as did the people and he avenged Ceasar's murder.

At any rate, I'd booked a trip to Pompeii with a lunch in Positano on the Amalfi Coast. I wrote a song called Pompeii when I was in a band called 49 Fingers, so Pompeii has special meaning to me.

We found our tour guide, MariAlena. I had set up a day trip from Rome to Pompeii for the three of us. We had an option of visiting Vesuvius or Positano on the Amalfi Coast. I opted for the Amalfi Coast.

So when we got on our tour bus, we were interested to learn that we would drive for an hour and a half and then have a break, then drive for another hour and a half to our Destination. I was still thinking we were going to Pompeii first. That's not what was planned.

To be honest, 20 minutes into our trip I had a panic attack and had to beg Robert to ask the tour guide to find a stop. She did, and she was incredibly gracious about it, too. She said she'd been in my shoes before. I nibbled a tiny corner off one of my strong anti-panic meds and we moved on.

We stopped at a gas station/corner store that had coffee, paninis, sodas, and the weirdest "chochke". (Swag, some call it.) I got a panini for Robert for later and bought a zip-up Italy sweatshirt because it was pouring rain and suddenly cold. 

Because I quit smoking a year ago, I forgot Robert couldn't help me carry drinks; he had to go smoke. So I didn't have enough hands to grab sodas. 

We got back on the bus and continued past Vesuvius. At this point, it became clear they were taking us to Positano first, and we wouldn't even get there until 1pm.

The Amalfi coast is gorgeous. The cliffs are high and the sea is cerulean blue and there's no end to it. It looks like it goes on forever, unlike the Oregon coast that has rocks and islands and commercial ships. 

The Amalfi coast also has bright white buildings all nestled into the hillside with crazy, curvy roads snaking into the towns. I've never seen roads like that except Lombard street in San Francisco. 

So our tour bus guide split us up into two small shuttles to get us into Positano. We were given two hours to either shop or get down to the beach and back.

Positano was a sleepy town but now it's a wealthy person's getaway. The shops in town have this incredible clothing, including men's and women's clothes in linen, silk, cotton, and raw silk. It's all stunning.

They're also known for their pottery and brightly colored Italian plates and bowls, as well as their ocean art. There were also colored gemstone jewelry items that were intensely expensive. 

We opted for finding the beach.

Robert and I hoofed it all the way down to the Mediterranean. He introduced me to it and I of course did a quick rock hounding search. I found sea glass, smoothed terra cotta with a pattern, a smooth red and white rock of some sort that I can't identify but got all excited about, and others. I was happy.

Robert obviously loves the Mediterranean. We talked about doing two weeks in Positano and renting a boat with a captain. What a joy that would be.

We hoofed it back up the crazy walk up the switchbacks among the shops and stairs until we found our shuttle. We still had time so we stopped at a Cafe and ate caprese salad and had apple martinis. Then we got back on our shuttle.

Finally, they took us to Pompeii.

We pulled up, split into two groups, each with our own guide, and our guide showed us about a tenth of the archaeological park. 

The archaic Pompeii is currently about 66 acres of excavated history from the Vesuvius eruption of 79AD. We saw maybe 5 or 6 acres.

Our guide showed us the theater, the homes, the fast food courts of ancient Pompeii, the water systems and the pressure controls, the home water systems fed by open atriums, the brothels, the saunas. It was incredible.

We were able to visit one body contained in a glass case. Because I'm currently reading the history of the Jefferson Bass Body Farm in Tennessee, written by Dr. William Bass, I looked at the body with more curiosity. 

It looked like a younger woman. They had laid down with their face down on the circle of their arms, like they knew they were going to die. There was no lava flow over Pompeii. It was just 10 meters of hot ash and pumice that incinerated everything. The "body" was actually a plaster cast of the bodily imprint in the ash.

The entire site was surreal for me. I walked it. I was there. But it was surreal and magical and powerful and mysterious. I wonder if I will ever see it again.

We finally bought some souvenirs and got back on the bus and got home to our flat in Rome after 9pm. We were exhausted. We didn't even bother to stop for dinner.

Leaving Italy now will be like losing a good friend, or finding a beautiful park or beach in your neighborhood that you can't ever find again. My heart is full but I want to go back. I want to see Germany, The Mediterranean, Switzerland. I have the travel bug. Let the house fall down around us: we can't take it with us when we die but we can make love in Venice by the light of the moon and maybe someday our souls will intertwine beyond this life, too. If not, we'll sure have great memories.

Vatican City on Thursday, September 29th, 2022

I can't write about the Sistine Chapel because we didn't see it.

Vatican Museum was amazing.

Colosseum, Forum, Pantheon, Palatine Hill

 Today was an incredible day. 

Robert and I woke up around five and went for a walk around Rome. We found the Colosseum and the Victor Emmanuel II Monument. We got to watch Rome wake up. Rome wakes up much earlier than Venice or Florence.

Today we got picked up by our excursion driver, at our AirBnB. He dropped us off in front of the Colosseum. There's a US movie being filmed there, so these guys in all black that looked official kept waving us the wrong ways. I finally got frustrated and had enough and said angrily, "Stop waving us the wrong way. We're trying to get to the Colosseum entrance." One of them took pity and explained what was going on and guided us.

Honestly, I can't explain the Colosseum complex. We walked for hours all around the Palatine Hill area and the Forum and the Pantheon and I wept twice. We saw Augustus and Livia's home which was incredible. We saw 50,000 pound columns in front of the Forum. We saw things built by Ceasar.

Palatine Hill is the center of seven hills and the oldest area in Rome. It is the heart of Rome. 

According to Roman mythology, the Palatine Hill was the location of the cave, known as the Lupercal, where Romulus and Remus were found by the she-wolf Lupa that kept them alive.

Another legend occurring on the Palatine is Hercules' defeat of Cacus after the monster had stolen some cattle. Hercules struck Cacus with his characteristic club so hard that it formed a cleft on the southeast corner of the hill, where later a staircase bearing the name of Cacus was constructed.

The Pantheon was built in an unknown year but rebuilt by Agrippa and later rebuilt by Hadrian.

The Colosseum is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world today, despite its age.

I can't describe these locations. The pilgrimage is intense but peaceful, powerful yet slightly sad and full of mystery. To see the thousands of people who walk the trails and paths and black marble stones, it's obvious we are all looking for answers to who we are now and who we were then. We are looking for commonality and meaning.

I found great peace in the Palatine complex. I will look at the photos forever until I die. 

The Lab

 This morning, we left the Twins Boboli House. I was sad to leave that beautifully restored, 18th century flat. Before we left, though, the twins showed us their Lab.

So the twins are Sylvia and Carla. They do look exactly alike, but Carla is more refined looking and chic and Sylvia is more earthy and real. They restore art for a living, and are fond of talking about their father, who is a famous art restoration specialist. They point to his pictures often.

Their Lab is right around the corner from our flat, like literally. We opened the kitchen door and stepped out onto the patio and the first door on the left is their Lab. 

Carla started showing us a console table they are restoring. It's from the 1700's. Restoration includes removing old restoration work that is no longer considered current technique, and might be damaging the original wood. 

They also clean it in sections, fill it, stabilize it, and paint it. They use gold leaf like professionals, and Carla had a long palette knife and was tossing around gold leaf like a goddess! Grab, place, cut, smush, move, all with that blade.

Then she showed us all the colors they use, and she explained "tutti colore naturale" meaning all the colors they use are all natural. The colors are incredible! I asked if I could take pictures for my son, who is an artist!

Look up the Twins Boboli House in Flornce and you'll see what they've done. It's amazing!

Random things

 I love Italy. I love the food. I love the people. I love the art.

I do not understand how everyone lives in these old buildings with chunks falling off and stucco crumbling and nine layers of paint peeling. Everything made of iron, from pipes to window grates to door hinges, is orange and black and crumbling. 

But we are in the oldest part of Florence, the part that draws the tourists. I imagine there are rich people who have new homes or brand new high rises somewhere but I don't see it. 

I did get a taxi driver who talked about how awful uncontrolled immigration is, and lamented the "people coming from Africa" and filling up Italy. That's the kind of sentiment that elected that far right woman in her pastel suit. Bummer.

But for me, what I see is a happy people, an earthy people. I hear them bubble up with CIAO! CIAO! to one another and giggle in the mornings and make jokes and offer to help us tourists with everything. 

I see happy, well behaved children. I see cooler-than-you teenagers, all sitting in a clump on their cell phones, looking just like clumps of American kids. I see gorgeous women and beautiful men. Didn't Sophia Loren come from Italy? That was my father's crush. Easy to see why.

The Italians recycle everything. They separate bottles and plastic and paper. Everyone recycles. It's a national thing. We've not run across one location here that doesn't recycle and separate. And lots of things here say "made with recycled plastic" etc. 

The Italians also smoke. Restaurants give you an ashtray. If someone wrinkles their nose at you for lighting up, you can bet 100% it's an American.

The other thing is time. In Italy, time is different. The Italians have their own concept of time. You can't assume they'll be late, but they certainly aren't ever early. And dinners can take four hours. Anya didn't finish her meal one night and the waiter said "slowly. Slowly. You must take your time and eat." He figured she could finish it if she sat there for another hour!

But if you're a coffee lover, you'll understand this. I will miss the cappuccino so, so much when we go home. It's plentiful, it's strong, it's tasty, and it's cheap. I just paid $1.30 for a double cappuccino at a gorgeous Cafe and drank it piping hot with just one sugar. It was divine. I will miss the cappuccino so much, and I will miss the Italian people as well.

Medici Chapel and Santa Maria Novella

 Today is Medici Chapel and Santa Maria Novella. I'm glad that after today we won't be visiting any more churches or Basilicas, except the Vatican. Which is actually hysterical, now that I think about it. I'm sick of churches but I still have the mother of all church complexes to visit in Rome.

Medici Chapel starts with the darker ground floor with a lot of tombs in the floor and names on the plaques. Upstairs is another matter entirely.

The Chapel is huge. All the Cosimo's are interred here. Only two of them have gigantic statues. We don't know why the others don't. But the floor is complex designs with red, green, white and brown marble. The walls are the same. And the ceiling is painted on the entire enormous dome with colorful scenes in the style of all the churches. 

There are two rooms behind the altar that are open today. They house reliqueries in fine crystal, silver, gold, and gemstones with bones and fingers and skin from famous Medici's. It's creepy as hell. There aren't just a few. There are *dozens*. Bones on display. One looks like half a scalp and skull.

There is a room where two of the most famous Medicis are actually interred. Giuliano Medici, the younger brother of Lorenzo Medici, was nursing a bad knee on Easter Day 1478 and had to be helped to the cathedral—by the very men who were plotting to kill him and his brother during mass. The assassins, members and supporters of the Pazzi family, banking rivals of the Medici, killed him. Lorenzo escaped and later assumed control of the government again. 

Both brothers are buried in this back room, with gorgeous marble statues over their crypts. Each group of statues has Day and Night or Dawn and Dusk, represented by a man and a woman. They're stunning. It's insane to think these two famous brothers are laid to rest right here where I'm standing. 

Next, we walk to Santa Maria Novella. Santa Maria Novella is a church in Florence, Italy, situated opposite, and lending its name to, the city's main railway station. Chronologically, it is the first great basilica in Florence, and is the city's principal Dominican church. Groundbreaking began in the 1200's, but some of the art is from 1100.

The church is obviously one that was designed for actual religious practitioners, not the wealthy. It's stucco and sandstone and cement. The flood in 1966 did a huge amount of damage to anything 12 feet and lower. The water line is marked and commemorated. It's shocking, considering it's a good ways from the Arno river.

We get multimedia guides and each of us wanders the complex and grounds. I can't imagine how anyone remembers everything. There's so much to learn and to know.

It takes us several hours to finish visiting Novella, and the walk back to our flat is exhausting. Robert and I immediately turn around and leave to take another piece of luggage, filled with souvenirs, to Mail Boxes Etcetera to mail home. 

We end our day with dinner at the local eatery close to our flat. Robert is bottomless, as usual, but Anya and I are stuffed full pretty quickly. Robert has two gin and tonic and I have a bright orange "spritz". It tastes like orange peels and nyquil? 

That's fine, because I'm out cold the second I get home. Robert writes a nice letter to the twins who own the flat, in Italian.

This is what's on our celing:

The Duomo

 Sunday dawned lovely and mostly clear so we gathered everything together and decided we would head across the Ponte Vecchio bridge and do our climb of the Duomo, which is 450 stairs. 

We walked to the Duomo and found out we could not get in to see the cathedral because there was a mass happening and it was by invitation and for priests.

So we decided to climb Giotto's Bell Tower, which is only 414 steps. Ho. Ho. Ho.

We started up and it's this tiny stone stairway that everyone has to go up and down in, so you're constantly stopping and shimmying past people coming down. And as you climb, the stairs get tighter and smaller and it's hard to see because it's dark. 

Anya, Robert, and I all made it to the top and took photos of the whole city, but we all agreed our Duomo excursion was right out as none of us could do a climb like that again. Climbing down was almost as hard.

We wandered Florence and bought leather and t-shirts and textiles and plates and souvenirs for our kids. We had an American breakfast at one Cafe and a Florentine dinner at another. Robert had lasagne, which was more like ghoulash, Anya had Gnudi, and I had filet mignon again.

We got a note from our tour operator that's said our balloon ride was canceled due to rain and lightning expected. Robert was bummed.

We bought new luggage which was very inexpensive and we made it home by 8pm and swapped out all our things into the new luggage. We will be mailing the old luggage home with the souvenirs. 

I was in bed by 8:30.

Monday is Santa Maria Novella and Medici Chapel. Then Tuesday we hit the train for Rome. Woohoo!

Santa Croce

 It's finally happened. We visited Santa Croce and The Barghello National Museum yesterday and I just could not go to one more church. I had hit the proverbial wall. 

Santa Croce is beautiful and grand, but more to the point, it's where the world's most famous minds are buried. Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Galileo, Marconi, Dante, and a plaque for Da Vinci. There are Bonapartes and Princes' wives.

I found each one of the most important ones in turn and took photos. I spent some time with each one. And upon approaching Galileo's tomb I burst into tears. I imagine it would be like visiting Jerusalem for a Christian. 

Standing at the tombs of all the greatest thinkers, scientists, and mathematicians, it was not lost on me that they are all entombed in a church. Except Da Vinci is actually buried in France.

Barghello was a bit more exhausting, and by the time we were done with three floors of antiquities, I just couldn't do anything else. 

We ate gelatto while we walked. We stopped and had ceasar salad and pizza and then when we started walking home, it started raining. We tried to get a taxi but that didn't work so we walked home in the rain. It was POURING. We were all partially wet when we got home.

We needed to rest so we could go to our La Giostra dinner at 10:30 pm. At around 8, Robert called and found out our reservation was for Sunday night. Not Saturday. So we walked in the rain to where we had eaten the first night and ate inside. I had filet again.

Sunday is the Accademia and the Duomo and we have to decide if we keep our La Giostra reservation considering Monday morning is the early early balloon ride.

What day is it??

The bells are ringing in Florence

 This morning, the bells are ringing in Florence. 

This AirBnB is 1000 times better than the one in Venice. The Twins Boboli house. It's an apartment in a building that was a wedding gift to someone from Cosimo Medici! The twins Carla and Sylvia restored this portion and turned it into an apartment. 

We are directly across from the Boboli gardens. So yesterday we visited the Uffizi, the Boboli gardens, and the Pitti Palace. 

How do we describe the Uffizi? We paid a grand sum for a private tour guide who taught us the history as well as the art appreciation details and stories of the artworks by Botticelli, Rafael, Michaelangelo, and DaVinci! Robert was terrifically pleased to know the stories behind each painting and the secrets they hold, that would have been obvious to everyone at the times they were painted but get lost hundreds of years later.

La Primavera is Anya's favorite art piece but mine was the unfinished DaVinci and the first painting by Michaelangelo. We saw both in person.

The Uffizi had some lovely art. But the Pitti palace was the shocker. There were thousands and thousands of paintings from the Byzantine Era through the 1700's that the Medici family had collected to show off. It was more intense than the Hapsburg palace in Vienna, and Robert said it rivaled the Louvre.

The Boboli gardens were beautiful and there are renovations going on all throughout the grounds. I loved the little turtles and koi in the pond. I found two small bits of pottery with pink and green art on them, in the gravel dirt on a pathway. They may or may not have found their way into a pocket.

We came home and ate meat and cheese and sandwiches and fresh fruit and chips and were in bed by 8pm!

Today is Santa Croce and San Miniato and Barghello!