Im behind on blog writing.  Just exhausted from our trip to Milan.  The day after the Dolomite tour that lasted over 12 hours, we went to Lake Como.  We took the bus to Como and had a tour of a beautiful public garden.  The garden was part of a palace estate.  There was a beautiful fountain in front of the palace that had just been restored and water had started flowing just the day before, so we didn’t get to see the full effect with a filled fountain.  It has giant Dolphins being ridden by cherubs.  We spent some time in town, going through the Cathedral and checking out the shops.  In this cathedral, the life sized statues of Mary and Jesus have real hair…from the nuns. And it has two huge and beautiful organs.  One is being played and the music is awesome.  There was a man in the cathedral piazza playing a grand piano.  You never know what you will see!  Lots of beautiful flowers and trees in bloom.  As we were meeting our guide to board the boat, the sky opened up and the rain poured down.  Hope that piano was able to be covered or moved.  We all bought umbrellas.  We then boarded our boat for a two hour boat ride on Lake Como to the town of Bellagio.  The lake is shaped like an upside down Y. We boated along one part of the Y and then continued along the base to Bellagio.  The Lake is surrounded and split by beautiful mountains.  All up the mountains and down to the shore are the beautiful homes and villas.  We saw George and Amal Clooney’s villa.  First, there are two large guest houses, then a huge garden that looks like a forest, then a gazebo close to the Villa where they live.  The boat was large, with a covered upper deck, and inside room and the. A covered lower deck.  The rain made the floors and stairs slick.  A young mother with a baby on one arm and her cell phone in the other fell on the stairs.  It was obvious she hurt her back, but the baby was ok.  We arrived in Bellagio and immediately climbed a huge flight of old stairs to find a restaurant for lunch.  Shops and restaurants line the stairs.  We went to one our guide had suggested and I ate a local dish.  Rissotto with lightly breaded perch filets.  Very good!  After lunch, we had time to sightsee and shop.  The local church was small and mostly sweet with a very strange altar.  To one side of the main altar was a small chapel with a lovely mosaic of St. Anthony with the Christ Child in arms.  The altar on the other side had a beautiful mosaic of Mary.  The main altar had a mosaic of men surrounding a saint (as noted by gold halo) who was prostrate and getting ready to be hit in the head by a man wielding a huge wooden mallet.  There are beautiful silk shops in Bellagio with exquisite scarves and silk ties and some clothing.  While waiting for another boat ride, we got to visiting with a family of three.  Big brother, sister and brother’s wife.  They were from Altlanta and had come to Milan for the wedding of the sister’s son.  Also met two ladies from New Jersey.  One had just gotten her Master’s Degree.  She has three almost grown children and her oldest is thinking about attending SMU.  I offered to be her ‘Dallas Mom’ if she did.  Show her the sights and help in an emergency if she got sick, etc.  Nice ladies.  We had a short boat ride to catch our bus for the ride home.  Picked up sandwiches when we got back.  To tired to go out to eat.  Suzanne didn’t get her own room this night as the convent was full.  We are jammed in the tiny room.  Not very pleasant.  But, we sleep like the dead.  More travel tomorrow.

Today we got up early, checked out of the monastery hostel.  I asked the desk clerk if the hostel was really attached to the monastery and he took us thru a door and showed us the corridor that went to the church and the big cloistered garden.  Just beautiful and very much attached to the monastery.  

We went on our tour to the Dolomites, the mountain range near Venice and Germany.   Milan is set up for Expo 2015.  This is a 6 month World’s Fair featuring food from around the world and different venues.  We are coming back next month to see the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit that is supposed to be fabulous.  We passed by an apartment complex of two twenty story buildings, each with a balcony planted with trees and plants and vines.  The apartments were built for Expo.    We go for awhile and then I find out we have to take a cable car for twenty minutes to get to where we’re going and lunch.  I am deathly afraid of riding a cable car and never have and never wanted to.  Passed up going to Massada in Israel because you had to ride a cable car.  But, I didn’t want to miss the tour- or lunch – so I got on.  Andy said my face was beet red and she thought I might have a stroke or faint. I was shaking and tears were leaking out of my closed eyes!  A lady next to me asked if she could touch my shoulder to make me feel better.  What a sweet thing to do.  Every time we crossed a tower pole or whatever and it lurched, I would jerk and lurch too.  But, before the ride was over, I started calming down and opened my eyes and even took a picture.  When we landed, everyone cheered!  And Suzanne bought me a gelato as a prize!  I might be able to do it again, but not anytime soon.  We went to a beautiful area that had natural pyramids that were created by wind and rain.  They have a big rock on the top of these pyramids. It the big rock falls off, the pyramid starts disintegrating due to the elements.  We went to a German restaurant and the food was good.  The Dolomites have trails that the Nazis used to escape Italy when the Allies arrived.  Then we went to Bolzano and spent about an hour.  Went to a beautiful church that has huge carved wooden altars.  Very different from other churches I’ve seen.   We got back to the Hostel, grabbed our bags and moved to a convent hotel.  The Hostel was full the rest of our time.  Get to the convent and we have three beds (one a rollaway) jammed into a tiny room.  Suzanne got a single room for the night…and we are all hoping she can continue to get her own room.  A late dinner and off to bed.

Today, we went to the Duomo in Milan.  A gorgeous building with hundreds of spires reaching toward heaven.  Inside are about 36 huge columns and it is massive.  The stained glass windows are amazing.  Huge bronze doors with the lives of Christ and the saints depicted.  We got a ticket to go to the roof and walk around.  Fantastic views and photo opportunities.  The spires are carved with saints, angels, fruit, animals.  There are gargoyles that are water spouts.  Workmen are in the process of cleaning the marble of the spites and outside.  There are some modern art statues on the roof that look like giant blobs…and to me look very out of place among the delicate, lace-like spires.  After touring the Duomo, we walked to the church where we thought we were to start our Last Supper tour.  Our confirmation voucher didn’t print well, and my phone wouldn’t show it due to lack of wifi.  The ticket people at the Last Supper were the rudest and least interested and least helpful of any people we have encountered in Italy.  We finally went across the street to a bar to get wifi.  We called the tour people and found out we should have met in the Duomo Square.  We missed about an hour and a half of the tour.  The guide did call us and we met when the group got to the Last Supper church.  We had a short tour and got to see Leonardo’s Masterpiece.  I saw it in 1996 and the restoration was still underway at that time.  Then the tour was over, but the guide was kind enough to give us a map and mark places we should see when we come back next month.  We returned to the hostel and picked up Suzanne and went to lunch.  I had a risotto with saffron and was a bit disappointed as it wasn’t as strong as I was expecting.  Andy had a Gorgonzola pizza and it was great as was Suzanne’s four cheese pizza.  Then we went to the design district.  We had seen a cute coat on a lady on the train and Andy was interested in it…until she saw the 1400 euro price tag.  There was a small beaded jacket for 15,000 euros with matching knee high, stiletto heeled boots for 6,000 euros.  The beaded jacket must have weighed 30 pounds and anyone small enough to wear it couldn’t have moved….very far!  Came back from the fantasy clothing stores to the reality of our hostel and rested before a short walk and back to read and go to bed.  Busy day tomorrow.  We take a tour of the Dolomites and return to Milan and change to a convent hotel for the rest of our stay in the Milan area.  Good night!  Oh, after all of the excitement about screens on our window…we had at least one mosquito in the room last night.  Nasty little creatures!

Yesterday we had an entire day tour of Cinque Terra.  There were 7 of us and our driver, Claudio.  We drove to the first town and walked the length of it to the barca…the ferry boat to take us to the next town of the five hugging the coast.  From the first town we went to the next and had a delightful and delicious seafood lunch sitting outside under big colored umbrellas.  We had decided we only wanted to go to three of the towns instead of four to be able to spend more time in each.  One of the towns is inaccessible by boat due to landslides a few years ago after heavy rains.  One of the amazing things about these towns is the terraced farmland surrounding each town.  They grow the olives and grapes for wine and everything else they grow straight uphill.  It would be impossible without the terraces…but how they do it even then looks impossible.  After lunch, we drove to the third village and had yogurt with honey, gelato and lemon granita.  There is a hillside walk between the five towns and there is a small train between them all, as well as the barca.   I can’t imagine walking the path between, or how far uphill to even get to the path.  I flunked Mountain Goat 101!   The trip to Cinque Terra is one and a half hours from Florence and Claudio told us about all the small towns we passed and what they were famous for…either a person or a product.  We also passed the Carrera marble mountains where it is still mined today.  The David is carved from one piece of Carrara marble.  The hills are all in bloom and the small red poppies are everywhere along the roads.  

After we left, Andy and I both discussed the trip and we were both disappointed with what our expectations of The Cinque Terra had been.  From postcards, we both expected more colorful houses and more of them.  I think we were comparing it in our minds to Positano…on the Amalfi coast.   These are just tiny little villages, and altho charming, not quite what we expected.  Also, we felt if we go back, we would like a night in each of the three towns to be able to explore them better.  We felt rushed.  With three hours of driving, an hour for lunch, the boat ride and wait for it…we just didn’t have enough time.  And I think if we go back, Andy would enjoy a hike between at least two towns with me meeting by barca or train.  She has more Mountain Goat DNA than I do….

Claudio was a delight for me.  He spoke English and I corrected him and he corrected my Italian as I spoke to him.  When I have these long spurts of being able to speak Italian, I can tell that I improve each time.  Anyone coming to Florence please contact me and I’ll give you Claudio’s contact information.  Not only is he a great driver and guide, but he has his own cooking school in Florence.  He is a fun and charming fellow and I think his cooking class and dinner to follow would be fun!  When we got back to Florence, we said goodbye to our Aussie tour mates and Claudio drove us to our hotel.  We had dinner and went to bed.  Today we got up, had breakfast and took the fast train to Milan.  

As we were leaving the terminal, a man asked if we needed a taxi and we said yes and gave him our hotel address and he said it would be 40 euros.  On the way to his taxi, I got a thought that if he didn’t have a metered cab we weren’t going with him.  Sure enough, he didn’t.  We refused him and he got some “official” papers out of his car, but who knew what they were.  We went to the taxi stand and got a metered cab and a ride to the hotel….for less than 10 euros.   Now, when I made our hotel reservations thru Monastery Stays.com, I thought we were getting a monastery hotel near the city center…except it is a Hostel….but, it is clean and the beds are comfortable.  Andy and Suzanne have a bunk bed…Andy on top and I have a single.  We have our own private bath.  We were issued sheets and a pillow to make our own beds and we have to bring our linens down when we leave!  The room is as big as our hotel the last few nights (altho more room because of the stacked beds) and it has the added luxury of having screens on the window…so no mosquitoes to feast on us.  The Italians in general haven’t gotten the concept of window screens. It is a problem in our Rome apartment…and will be worse  as the summer progresses.  

Tonight we plan on having Japanese food at a nearby restaurant.  Tomorrow we have a tour of the Last Supper and a visit to the Duomo.  And whatever other mischief we can find to get into.  Will report!

Friday night we went to the restaurant Buca dell’Orfeo for dinner.  Had a kilo piece of Florentine steak which is the equivalent of about half a cow.  The waitress had suggested a kilo and a half…but we stuck with the kilo. (2.2 pounds).  The steak was so tender, grilled on outside and rare on the inside.  I have never had this steak that Florence is famous for, because the cut is a kilo minimum and I’ve never been with anyone who could help me eat two pounds of beef.  We also had fried artichoke and zucchini flowers.  Talked to a couple sitting next to us – a forensic pathologist and his wife.  They had a twice cooked beef…sounded like a slow cooked pot roast with Ribollita- a  famous dish here made with vegetables, dark purple cabbage and bread…a reboiled soup.  I have had that and it is very good and hearty.  

Yesterday, Suzanne and I went on a small group tour.  Turns out – we were the only two on the tour with our guide, Francesco.  First, we drove to Siena.  Had a tour with the local guide, Benedetta.  Benedict and Francis…last two popes.  We saw the church of St. Dominic where St. Catherine’s head resides.  She was buried in Rome but a year later she was exhumed and Siena got their patron saint’s head…other parts going to other places in Europe where she is also patron saint.   I seem to remember her heart is in a bucket in another church in Siena. We saw the Pallio where the famous yearly horse race is run.  There are 14 neighborhoods in Siena and 14 horses and bareback riders race three times around the oval track in the Piazza.  The winner gets to display their neighborhood flag for a year in a special place.  This rivalry has gone on for centuries.  Over 50,000 people pack the piazza for this event.  Imagine 50 thousand people in a space smaller than a typical shopping center parking lot at home! Then we saw the Cathedral.  I believe it is the most beautiful inside next to St. Peter’s. 

Next, we drove thru the chianti countryside and went to a small winery for a tour and lunch.  We had cold cuts, cheese, bruschetta, pasta and dessert all accompanied by wines.  I actually liked the wines…maybe Chianti is the only red wine I like.  Now for your next Italian lesson….pronouncing bruschetta correctly.  Americans say bru-shet -ah.  The correct pronunciation is bru-sket-ah….even going so far as saying bru-skate-ah.  Get that K in there.  The ch in a word is pronounced Like a K.  Chianti is Key-an-ti. NOT She-an-ti.  But, it is a very common mis-pronunciation.  By Americans.  The winery has an apartment they rent so if anyone is interested in a beautiful, peaceful retreat, I have the name of the place.  About 2000 euros a month.  

After lunch, we drove to the TINY walled hill town of Monteriggioni.  Another beautiful restful retreat…with tourists during the day.  The entire town circles the piazza.  A few shops, a couple of restaurants and a church.  And a wall around the tiny town that you can walk on to get the spectacular views of the surrounding countryside.  After that we drove to San Gimignano.  There are 13 Medieval towers remaining of over 40 original towers built by wealthy families.  We spent time walking around and having a cappuccino before heading back to Florence.  It is the time of year that the red poppies are in bloom and they are beautiful.  I think of the red poppies and sunflowers as being so Italian!  

I had asked Francesco if we would pass the American cemetery and he made a special loop back to see it, altho it was closed for the night.  I had seen it years ago on a bus from Florence to Siena.  You are driving along the road that is grown up with wild grasses and flowers and all of a sudden you see manicured grass all pointing in the same direction.  It is so different, you take notice.  Then you see the flagpole with the Stars & Stripes and the thousands of small white crosses marking the graves of our soldiers who died during WWII to save Italy from the Nazis.  I would like to tour the cemetery some day.  We returned exhausted and fell into bed.  I spent time reading the news of the new little baby princess born to Kate and William.  Just waiting today to see if they announce her name.  To misquote….Good Night, sweet Princess….

One third of the year is behind me!  Can’t believe how fast it has flown by.  Today is Labor Day in Italy, so lots of stores are closed.  

Wednesday night we went to hear La Traviata.  It was in a beautiful Gothic Anglican Church.  The opera was beautifully done.  We had a wonderful lady cab driver to take us to the church and we asked her to take us on a tour of the city the next day.  Her English was excellent.  I had gone to the Mexican restaurant earlier and then to Quilting group.  Started feeling bad with a headache so I left early.  When it was time to go on the cab ride, I was sick in bed…with a kidney infection….again.  I took a pill given to me by my kidney doctor before I left.  Fever broke in the night,  today, I feel fine.  We went to Termini this morning and caught the fast train to Florence.  When we got to our hotel, we reserved some tours for tomorrow.  Andy went walking, and her friend Suzanne and I went to a school to drop off some brochures she brought for them.  Then we shopped a bit and stopped in a place for a bite to eat.  Then we went to Santa Maria Novella Pharmacy.  It is one of the oldest pharmacies in the world.  Begun in 1221 by Dominican monks.  The pharmacy was opened to the public in 1612.  The building is absolutely beautiful and in the back, opens to the gardens where the monks used to grow the herbs for their pharmaceuticals.  It has expanded since Evan and I were here a few years ago.  Now there is a lovely tea room.  We had cappuccino and a piece of almond cake.  And there is a room where the walls are covered with beautiful, bright frescoes that look like they were painted yesterday.  Something I had never seen before – the paintings of Christ and the disciples…all had gold halos, but Judas had a black halo.  Came back to the hotel to rest up before dinner.  We have dinner reservations where there is supposed to be great Florentine steaks.  Will report.

Must watch the news…evidently there are riots in Milan at the Expo.  It ain’t just Baltimore…