Viva Italia: Day 2 - Florence

Florence was amazing!!

We wandered into the city and stopped at the sweetest botanical gardens to enjoy the view.





There was so much to see here, including the fantastic marble cathedral. We parked and walked until our feet ached-- literally hours-- and left so much of the city unseen. It was gorgeous though. Sunburst was especially taken with the statues and the art students busily sketching them. Moonshine, meanwhile, kept stopping to smell the roses.




Cathedral:














The golden door:




Statues galore. I especially love how the lion looks frightened that there is a pigeon on his head.






We walked along the river, soaking up the views there, before meandering along and discovering an little international bookshop. What a delight!! We left with our arms full of treasures-- including some materials for Grade 6 Ancient Rome lesson prep. Yay!







Next stop: Siena

Viva Italia: Day 2 - Pisa

The drive to Pisa from the western coast of Italy wasn't much. Welcome to Tuscany! It was hot, dry, and all I could think of was the Arizonan desert. Though honestly, it's hard to be homesick when you're in Italy.

Rhonda, our GPS, couldn't quite figure out how to get us into the city of Pisa. She kept leading us to the other side of the tracks-- and indeed there was a train there, both coming and going. It was desert, grunge, and graffiti-- aside from the train and litter there was not much there. I'm not sure where she thought she was taking us, but it certainly wasn't the heart of Pisa.

This is what the travel brochures don't show you:



The heart of Pisa looked like more like this:






We parked, paid the meter, and walked about a mile in the terrible heat to see two buildings: the leaning tower (Duomo) and the Baptistry of St. John (Battistero di San Giovanni). Did you know that kids under eight can't go in the leaning tower at all, without exceptions? We were a little bummed by that, so rather than leave Kitty Bill out-- honestly, not an option-- we opted to admire the outside together.









If there's one thing I've learned from traveling around Europe, you can't see it all. You just can't unless you have unlimited time, unlimited funds, and no kids. Even then you probably couldn't pull it off. There is just so much to see. And some things are actually online-- like the Baptistry of St. John. You can visit it from the comfort of your computer chair. (Be sure to click on the video to hear the acoustics. The folks in this video are quite amusing, too.)











For all the trouble it took to get into the city of Pisa, our travel book said there really wasn't much more to see. The main sights are just all there crammed together, so it's really a one-stop destination: Get off the bus, take a picture or twelve, and get back on the bus. The little walkway around this center is also crammed with trinket sellers, so you really get a good touristy experience.



Here are a couple videos I found online featuring the Leaning Tower:

Wonder why the tower leans and how they've "fixed" it?

Hear the bells at the top of the Leaning Tower.

Next stop? Florence...

Viva Italia: Day 1 - Getting there

The drive from Switzerland to Italy is one of the most picturesque routes we've driven. The mountains rise up majestically on both sides of the road, and the views filled me with such joy and wonder. It was a fantastic feeling.











There are tons of tunnels on this road-- some have windows on the side where you can glimpse the scenery. The largest tunnel is St. Gotthard, named after a Catholic bishop. It's the third longest road tunnel in the world. It's 15 km or 9 miles long, which is fine, really, unless you're claustrophobic. I took this opportunity to do some carschooling, so I told the kids the story about St. Juniper-- one of my favorites, and I was hoping we'd run into him in Rome. I like to think of him as the naked Saint, because as legend has it, he took the vow of poverty so seriously that he gave away his own clothes.

The kids also kept themselves busy in the car reading, singing, snacking, and apparently carving carrots with their teeth. Honestly, it was a talent I didn't know my children had.


Moonshine's candlestick (ala St. Juniper story); Sunburst's fox and bird

We stopped at some stores near the Swiss/Italian border to do a bit of shopping, and our GPS got mighty confused and turned us in a bevy of directions. Ever since she tripped us up in England we've given her the moniker "Wrong Way Rhonda." We even have a little song we sing to tease her when she gets lost, fully knowing it's our fault that we choose to follow her directions. With her guidance we couldn't find our way out of a teacup, let alone back onto the highway out of the shopping center. Somehow we entered Italy through a back door, hardly knowing we were at the border until they were staring confused at our license plates and then waving us through. American license plates are pretty handy in this part of the world, as no one quite knows what to make of them. Those days will be behind us soon enough, I think, if we can finally pass our inspections. But that's another story.



The path we took through northern Italy was mountainous and curvy-- kind of a hold onto your hats deal. Italian drivers are nuts!! They took these curvy mountain paths at ramming speed, so it was no surprise to us when we came upon an overturned semi in the road. The traffic slowed down out of necessity, but once it passed the wreck, traffic was cranked back up to dangerous speeds. Accidents are just a roll of the dice, I guess, to Italians. To us, having survived one a few years ago, I have to say we are a bit more cautious.





Onto Genoa, which we saw through the windows of the car. Beautiful city! It seemed appear out of nowhere through the nooks and crannies of the mountains. Here they build everything close together in amazing pastels, crammed right down in the valleys next to the sea. Every time we came upon a valley it was a feast for our eyes.











We camped that night in a small village on the Mediterranean. The campsite was nestled into a rocky outcrop in the hillside. The architecture was wonderful, but the terrain reminded me a lot of growing up in the southwestern US.





There's something laughable about setting up your tent on the only available patch of dirt-- which wasn't really dirt at all. It was mostly gravel and burrs. But we were tired, it was late, and we wanted to take our dinner down to the beach to catch the last glimpse of the sunset. Amazing! Truly, truly amazing! We had finally arrived at the Mediterranean Sea!

Viva Italia

We took a homeschooling field trip to Italy over a month ago. We took a week, our camping supplies, a camera, and just went. It was wonderful and fantastic and breathtaking.

The real problem with trips like these is the documentation. Somehow, in one week's time, we took over 1600 pictures. Poring through them is a full time job. Paring them down to just a few to share with you is near impossible. It just takes time and gumption-- both of which I have been seriously lacking in the last month. I've been occupied with other things, which I'm excited to tell you about, but first... Italy.

We went, we saw, we conquered. I think I'll take you through it one step at a time, one post at a time. It's the only way to do it justice. And perhaps the only way I'll ever get through it.

I hope you enjoy the ride.