Rome

Rome - Sunday

Quiet day, we took an open top bus tour of Rome and then got off at the Vitorio Emanualle II monument and walked back to the Colloseum down the Via Imperiale with the ruins of one of the Forums down below on either side. We then walked up a little hill to the Arch of Titus but could not get near it to see the best face.

Back to the Hop-on bus and returned to the B&B.

Rome - Monday

Today we had hoped to visit one of the Nazionale Museo near us in the Palazzo Massimo but it was closed (contrary to the web page), so we bought a ticket for the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel with the plan to visit on Wednesday. Because the entry times for our tickets are quite specific, we decided to go over to Saint Pete's and spy out the lie of the land, where we were to meet etc.

We went by ATAC bus at 1.5euro per per each way and inspite of the directions, although the bus was correct, it terminated at a slightly different place. But we found our way to St Pete's and to the place we need to be on Wednesday.

Saint Peter's 

We loitered around St Pete's and marvelled at the queue to get into the Museums and Basilica with the security scanning of everyone and made our way back to our pied-à-terre.

Rome - Tuesday

This morning we headed out for the Palazzo Massimo and the sculpture of Greece and Rome as found in Italy or perhaps more accurately, in Rome.

The lack of my Pentax means the pictures are shaky and few.... (but I have found a suitable set of batteries and I will be taking better snaps tomorrow)

The Boxer original Roman bronze,
cast by the "lost Wax" process

The Athlete, original Roman bronze

Melpomene

The fishing scene for Andrew

The detail in this mosaic is astonishing, every thing is mosaic, hop pairing.

The battle scene from a sargophagus

Looking into the first room of sculpture

Tomorrow the Vatican.

Pisa - Rome

Pisa - Rome

In Pisa my camera batteries ran out and the next set, although lithium batteries, did not work. Checking the Pentax forum I found that the Pentax istD is extremely sensitive to battery voltage and one battery not up to the spec can cause the camera to show dead batteries. So the photos of the insides of the Baptistry and the Duomo in Pisa are from the iPhone 4s and they are not the best.

the baptismal font (6 positions) in the Pisa Baptistry

The interior is very plain compared to the Florentine
Baptistry

But two of the windows looked like gold glass
which did not let light in.

The nave of the Duomo in Pisa

Across the nave, you can see where they ran out of black marble
for the arches

The chandelier in front of the marble pulpit was quite amazing.

The supporters for the pulpit,
here we have Eve somewhat embarrassed by her state

The northern transept

This looks like a Greek Icon

This chusrch was built when Christ was depicted as the King
not an effigy nailed to a cross.

The ceiling of the nave, very similar design to the one at San Miniato.

 Oh well, after our brief stay in Pisa we set out for Tarquinia our next night stop. Again we went  for non-autostrada travel and when the Selma, remember her?, wanted us to go that way we deliberately went another. So we saw a lot of countryside, some Mediterranean and one toll booth where misinterpreting the signs :) we ended up in what appeared to be an automatic lane. We could not get out because there was an irate Italian driver behind us and someone behind him. He pressed the get attention button and shouted into the microphone and eventually the boom lifted and we went on. None the wiser about where we should have gone but determined to get off this road.

We had lunch in a little village in a grape growing area, with the locals, in the back of the restaurant and a waitress who had no english. Good meal though.

Our drive to Tarquinia should have taken a couple of hours but with our peregrinations around the countryside took 6 hours.

We thought that Tarquinia was going to be a small town. What we discovered was a large town of very ancient lineage. The Etruscans had lived here and there is a large Etruscan Necropolis just outside town. Like all the important towns of the area, it sits on top of a hill and has a significant fortress wall with an old town crowded inside. When we went out for dinner we ended up going through the narrow streets until we came to a street where someone had just parked in the entrance to the street (typically italian) we had to exit from. No chance to back out but there was a cross street that I managed to get into and out of the mess. We gave up looking for the restaurant we had been recommended and finding a parking spot  we went into a pizza trattoria. They did not offer anything besides pizza so...

The Pinot Grigio was good though. Then it was back down the hill to our B&B, the Tarchon

We had found the Tarchon on the web and the price was very good, the room was large, we had a Triple, but the Breakfast part was abysmal. So a good nights sleep and we were off to Rome.

Again the back blocks which took us through a number of ancient towns, Casole d'Elsa, Vetralla, Sutri, Bassano Roma, Prima Porta Roma then Rome Centre.

A view of the countryside from Casole d'Elsa

At lunch time we turned off the main road to Rome at a place called Olmeti where we found an excellent restaurant. We sat under an apple tree full of apples and once again had an excellent meal. A quite hour (this was a large restaurant opposite a huge industrial area, but we were just a little earlier than the general lunch time so had the place to ourselves for the first part and then some other patrons began to dribble in.

Off again this time to get to Rome between 2 and 3 which is when we told the B&B Rosmini we would arrive. Selm got us there with a minimum of fuss and the parking angel that Marguerita has found us a paring spot immediately in front of the B&B.

I am glad I don't have to contend with Roman driving and parking. They are mad, park anywhere it seems and seem to ignore driving rules, they do seem to have them but... When we returned the car to Avis we got to the office, a tiny hole in the wall with no apparent car yard. We got there after closing but luckily the guy was still there, I think he was waiting for us. Nowhere to park so I double parked and put the safety lights on. He came out and checked the car over and then left it there while we took the tram back into the city. It was supposed to take us al the way to the Stazione Termini, which is only a few hundred metres from our B&B. We got to  a large Piazza and a official sort of guy got on the tram and shouted out something. A number of people got off and the tram set off again, but it was going back up the Via Prenestina that we had just come down. We hurriedly got off at the next stop and walked back.

Well, the Carabinieri blocked all streets into the centre of Rome, there were hundreds of police of all varieties (and believe me the Italians have a whole lot of types) in fatigues and flak jackets. Streets were blocked with police vehicles but there was no indication of what was going on. We could not get transport and so we walked into ever more heavily policed streets.

We finally got back to the Via Cavour which the Rosmini is off and saw the end of a demonstration going up the street near the Stazione with a phalanx of police in riot gear advancing up the street on foot, followed by a bank of police people movers filled with reinforcements. But we still had no idea what was going on.

Back in our roomy room we turned the TV on and I found the news, as we watched there was a riot happening a couple of blocks away, tear gas and chaos. The demo/riot seems to have been objecting to the austerity measures that have been put in place to prevent the Italian economy imploding.

An hour or so afterwards wet went out for dinner at a ristorante right next door to the door from our building, all was quiet, there were no more police in evidence than normal (that is far more than we would see in the heart of Melbourne.)

Florence - Pisa

Florence Day 7 

This morning we packed and then in the early afternoon went out with the hope that a Museum which focused on the daily life of the Florentine in the 14th C would be open - in spite of the web site ay it would be closed when we got there.

On the way we saw an entry to Orsansmichele and went in....

The right hand Alter with an Icon in the centre.

 The church was originally a loggia for a market. Then it became a grain store and finally it was converted into a church which was patronised by a number of important (Wool, Lawyers and Judges and not some not? so important guilds, masons etc)

The beautiful windows behind the left hand alter.

Another view of the Duomo as we walked back from the Orsansmichele

Off to Pisa

The next morning we checked out of our apartment in Firenze and got a taxi to the Avis office. Into our diesel Audi A3, set the tomtom to take us to the centre of Pisa and we were off. managed to get out of Florence without a) having an accident in the narrow streets and b) without causing an accident, only got cursed once.

The outer suburbs of Florence are pretty dreary but we were soon in the countryside. It looked like Selma (our name for the voice on our tom-tom) was going to take us by a sort of AutoStrada to Pisa, so at a random, well we saw a hill castle near an exit labelled San Miniato, so we took the exit and drove up the hill and discovered San Miniato, a hill town with its origins lost in paleolithic history and documented with the Legions of Augustus who settled there before the current era.

Some of the houses in San Miniato from the car park for the town
  (Part way down the cliff face.)

The town gate in ages past. Still blocks the main street below the castle.

From the top of the wall looking west

The church plaza with the remnants of the castle to the left. It was destroyed by the Germans as they retreated north, so the Americans could not use it as an artillery sighting tower. It has been re built. The main church is to the right of the round tower in the centre.

The inside of the Church of San Miniato. It was magnificent,
and out of  keeping with the current town.

 In medieval times, San Miniato was on the via Francigena, which was the main connecting route between northern Europe and Rome. It also sits at the intersection of the Florence-Pisa and the Lucca-Siena roads. Over the centuries San Miniato was therefore exposed to a constant flow of friendly and hostile armies, traders in all manner of goods and services, and other travelers from near and far.

Archaeological evidence indicates that the site of the city and surrounding area has been settled since at least the paleolithic era. It would have been well known to the Etruscans, and certainly to the Romans, for whom it was a military post called "Quarto".

The first mention in historical documents is of a small village organized around a chapel dedicated to San Miniato built by the Lombards in 783. By the end of the 10th century San Miniato boasted a sizeable population enclosed behind a moat and protected by a castle built by Otto I, from which an Imperial Vicar ruled all of Tuscany.

The first walls, with defensive towers, were thrown up in the 12th century during the time that Italy was dominated by Frederick Barbarossa. Under his grandson, Frederick II, the town was further fortified with expanded walls and other defensive works, including the Rocca and its tower.

During the latter years of the 13th century and the entire 14th century, San Miniato was drawn into the ongoing conflict between the Ghibelline and Guelph forces. Initially Ghibelline, it had become a Guelph city by 1291, allied with Florence and, in 1307, fought with other members of the Guelph league against the Ghibelline Arezzo.

By 1347 San Miniato was under Florentine control, where it remained, but for a brief period from 1367-1370 when, instigated by Pisa, it rebelled against Florence, and for another brief period between 1777 and 1779 during the Napoleonic conquest. It was still part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany when the Duchy was absorbed into the newly formed Kingdom of Italy in 1860. (extract from the Wikipedia article on San Miniato)

The view from San Miniato

The tower is one of the earliest examples of a crenelated castle tower.
It is now part of a hotel and Restaurant that sit on top of the old wall.
We had a very good lunch in the restaurant overlooking the plains below.

This was a convent and hospital. There is still a hospital here at the end nearest us.

The hotel and Restaurant. The restaurant windows are at the left ubder the sloping roof.

On to Pisa

After lunch we set off down the hill and wound our way to Pisa by country roads getting a good view of the old towns and farms.

The distance from Florence to Pisa is only about 50 km but it took us the best part of a day the way we went and, of course our lunch stop was well worth it.

Selma was invaluable, she took us through the narrow streets, most one way, from our entry into Pisa, across the Arno and through the lanes and piazzas of Pisa to the Hotel Stefano where we had a room not much bigger than a postage stamp. Nevertheless we were there for just one night and they had parking (somewhere near, we don't quite know where because they parked the car for us).

We immediately went out to the Duomo and the Tower. The hotel was a 5 minute walk from the Piazza del Duomo. The first glimpse of the tower came as we rounded a corner from the lane leading to the hotel.

First glimpse

It towers over the houses

Does not look to be leaning now. I gave it a bit of a push and.....

The side of the Pisa Duomo.
Looks like they ran out of marble

The complex of the Baptistry, the Duomo and the Tower
are just inside the old city wall which is still extant around a lot of the old city.

The front facade in the late afternoon light

The Columns of the Baptistry are
beautifully worked

The Baptistry of St John in Pisa

Looking from the Baptistry to the Tower

The Duomo and Tower

It has slipped again :)

The tower working is magnificent

Local wildlife. This cat knew exactly where it was going.
It looked neither left nor right as it marched through the crowds

A last look in the fading light.

Some greenery in a piazza in Pisa, as we walked
down town looking for a suitable hostelry for dinner.

We sat down at a small restaurant on the main drag of Pisa and waited. Then we got up from this small restaurant and looked for another where the staff might be interested in our custom and we found a pleasant little trattoria where the spagetti was good and the Pinot Grigio excellent and the prices half what they were in the other plasce and so to bed in our postage stamp.

Tomorrow we will look at the inside of the Baptistry and the Duomo.

Florence 5

Florence - Day 6

Today we booked in for the Uffizzi. Entry time was to be 10-10:15am. The queues were long but in fact once the long line in front of us started moving we were in the gallery within the time.

There are no photos from the Uffizzi because they are not allowed so I did not bring my camera.... The Uffizzi spaces were fantastic and we saw some of the works we were looking for. We did over all the busts of the Emperors and marvelled at the Niobe Room and the ceilings of the connecting passsages.

We had  lunch at the Uffizzi Cafeteria on the roof of the loggia next to the Palazzo Vecchio and I took these with my iPhone!

Looking at the view from the roof of the Loggia

A fountain on the roof.

The Palazzo Vecchio from the roof of the Loggia. 

and of course the Duomo is visible too

Today is our 36th wedding anniversary and we had an excellent dinner with a delicious bottle of local Pinot Grigio at B - Gallo on the Piazza del Duomo opposite the Baptistry.

But before we went to dinner we did a selfie...