Here we are at the top of the tower, above the fray.
There are lots of kinds of buildings in Florence. Some are orange, and some have stripes. One has a great big half-egg dome on top. Another is a great big block with a tower sticking out of the top that we were able to climb on today.
All of them would be walking around Florence if they had legs. Instead, they’re relatively safe in the Galleria dell’ Academia.
There are lots of kinds of people in Florence. Sure, a lot of them are young college students who look astonishingly similar to Nadia and Lanie, but there are other kinds of people here, too. Tonight at dinner, I heard our watier speak Italian, English and Spanish. He was a good waiter. He had a lot of different people to take care of.
As far as I can tell, there are three kinds of streets in Florence. One kind is big and wide and has lots of lanes for cars to zoom around on. We saw some of these when Nadia took us for a walk along the river to a park on the other side of town from where our apartment is. We needed a nice park to eat our cinnamon roll brunch desserts in. Ironically, to get to a shady park we had to cross several lanes of traffic.
Not likely to block traffic here
Another kind of road we saw today when we were one our way to meet up with Nadia after her cooking class. The class is in this glass-walled classroom right in the middle of the Florence Central Market, which is a fresh food market on the first floor and a food court on the second floor, where Nadia’s class is. We even got to meet her professor. (We were forbidden to take pictures of either class or professor.)
in order to get there though we had to walk on a road choked with vending stalls, most of them selling leather goods. I checked behind the booths and there was usually a leather store right behind the booth. There were many, many booths on both sides of the street. Occasionally, the leather was interrupted by jewelry or soccer jerseys. It was very much a bazaar-like experience, and as Lanie looked at jewelry,
The Gallileo Museum showed his many inventions for detecting approaching traffic.
I could hear other people haggling with, or simply trying to avoid the advances of the leather sellers. I am pretty sure this kind of street is just for walkers. I don’t remember seeing any cars on these roads — and they seem to completely surround the Central Market — but really had my hands full trying to avoid the gaze of the leather salesmen, so if a car came by I probably would have been hit by it.
The third kind of road represents about 90 percent of the streets in Florence, as far as I can tell, and is combination of the other two. That is to say, they seem like they are pedestrian streets, but then all of a sudden a car comes roaming down the middle. It’s not exactly like in Cinque Terre, where it was almost always people except when a special taxi, a garbage truck, or an ambulance went by. Here, it can be any kind of vehicle, even a bus. And it can be on any kind of street, even ones that don’t seem like they can possibly fit a bus.
This is a Florentine car-accessible road. Note the skimpy sidewalks.
Many of these streets are narrow to begin with, and then they have half-hearted sidewalks on eather side that are maybe the width of someone’s body if they kept their arms straight down at their sides. In such a situation, it’s nearly impossible to walk on the sidewalk because there is almost always someone coming your way.
There are lots of people walking around Florence. And yet, they don’t seem to want to commit to having any pedestrian streets. For two days now, I have been lulled into a false sense of safety by crowded, cobblestone streets, only to have a Land Rover sneak up behind me. In fact, now I can’t be comfortable walking anywhere here. I barely looked up at David in the Galleria dell’ Accademia, because I was looking over my shoulder for a delivery truck to come driving down the main hall.
Michealangelo made his David extra tall, so he could spot oncoming Florentine motorists.
White van, having ignored concrete traffic discourager
It may sound like I’m going a little overboard, but it really has gotten into my head. Today, I thought I had finally found an example of a true pedestrian street. There were large round concrete creations in the road that held plants and also offered a people a surface to sit on. I thought it might be a test trail for a car-free zone. Then a van slalomed in between the structures on its way to a quite congested piazza. If it’s a test, they’re going to need some more time for the idea to stick.
Now, Florence does not owe me anything. It’s a great place — if a little nerve wracking — to walk around in. There are many, many interesting things to look at. There are many happy people here. If they want their streets to be mixed-use, then they are entitled to it.
Ancient traffic maps in the Palazzio Veccio Museum
If you can see this, you’re probably blocking traffic.
And I am by no means worried for my life while I’m walking around here. The cars can’t go very fast with people milling all around, but I do feel bad then I turn around to find a carbinieri car coming down the street. Nobody wants to stand in the way of justice. Also, I feel bad for the drivers, having to dodge a bunch of slow moving tourists all the time.
One last note about driving in Florence: Avoid the bridges in the late afternoon. Jen discovered that a large portion of the pedestrian population heads to one of the four bridges to get a good view as the sun goes down. So even the type 1 roads turn into type 3 roads without much warning.
Good luck, Florence drivers.
We’re still not totally adjusted to European time, and the 8am alarm came early today. We had to be up and about to get to our 9am reservation for the Uffizi museum. Last time we were in Italy you could just pay your money and wander in to any museum you wanted, but these days you need to reserve well in advance. Nadia is in class this morning, but the rest of us managed to straggle out a bit later than planned.
arrangement — just a couple of minutes walk from the center of everything (Uffizi, Ponte Vecchio, Palazzo Vecchio) — and her room had a large open
window looking out over the river. (I will never not be jealous of these Europeans who can have wide open windows with no screens, and somehow no bugs.) Her apartment is also fairly close to the Brandy Melville store, which was a big draw for Lanie. Apparently the Brandy Melville store in Florence has different merchandise than what you can find on the Branch Melville website, or the Brandy Melville Boston store. Looking for Lanie in there was a challenge, because the store seemed to a veritable sea of little Lanies, with long straight flowing hair and white tank tops everywhere you looked.
For the afternoon Nadia joined us for a pasta and tiramisu-making class at a nearby restaurant. We learned some excellent Italian cooking tips from our very skilled and entertaining teacher, though there was also a lot of wine involved so we possibly won’t remember them. We’re not sure whether the ravioli and tagliatelle we were served at the end was actually
what we’d made, or whether they’d immediately thrown that away and given us something made by more highly skilled people, but either way it was delicious.
3. It’s not actually super expensive here. This is especially true on Mondays (see #1 above). Our walk from Monterosso to Vernazza was absolutely worth the 7 euro per person we paid. It was my third favorite hiking experience ever (after the Bright Angel Trail at the Grand Canyon’s South Rim and the Franconia Notch loop). It was a strenuous two miles of absolute pleasure. Honestly, it was worth the whole extravagance of getting here. After a few hundred meters of climbing stairs with dozens of other tourists, things spread out and we were able to climb stairs pretty much in our group of four.
Eventually we started getting glimpses of the pink buildings or Vernazza. We began imagining ourselves under one of the multicolored umbrellas in the harbor-side piazza. Soon enough we were there, eating lunch under one of those umbrellas. From time to time we would look up into the hills above us and see the people we had passed on our way over, still making their way along the path. It’s not totally that we’re fine specims of health — I mean, we’re not bad, but there were a lot of people much older than us on the trail, and it was not an easy trail. Lots of stairs to climb along the way, and lots of twists and turns in the trail. It was not as tricky as yesterday’s hike, where there were not dedicated steps and a lot of the rocks were covered in moss, making them slippery. But it was not a total walk in the park, either.
In terms of expense, we ate lunch in a seaside resort, on the main piazza of what most people think is the most scenic of all the town in the Cinque Terre, and we paid about 85 euro for the four of us. I think we would have paid a lot more in the US, and the food was better than it had to be, given the prime real estate. We have found some nice value here. A liter of sangria at a cafe right above the main Monterosso beach — 20 euro. And they gave us snacks. We ordered another round because we still had an hour before our train left. That’s right, we were in a cafe five minutes from the train station, staring our at the Mediterranian Sea, and they didn’t really gouge us for booze. That price includes the tip. Did I mention that?
Cinque Terre has done its best to live up to all our expectations. The town we’re staying in, Monterrosso al Mare, has all the the tourist guides promise — towering cliffs, blue-green waters, 
colorful buildings, copious walking paths. It’s not Monterosso’s fault that we’ve been forced into being preoccupied with a less happy focus — how to reclaim Lanie’s lost luggage.
into a lemon grove. This proved to be a delightful walk along a river with frequent waterfalls, lemon trees overarching the path from the hillsides above. Eventually the path led way, way up the steep hillside, and eventually we got some nice views of Monterosso and the sea in the distance. We were hoping the path would lead back down — and possibly it did somehow — but we hit a fence and a gated road and decided to avoid a potential trespassing situation.
Throughout this time, we’d been checking approximately every 5 minutes for word from the luggage courier. But our emails and calls were going unanswered, and the day was wearing on. After
another email asking them to PLEASE give us advance warning of their arrival, we decided to hop on a train to the village at the far end of Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore. (The train runs every 20 minutes and takes only 11 minutes, so we figured we could get back pretty rapidly if needed.)
Riomaggiore was another lovely little town. There was an area down by the water where you could climb on rocks (or jump off them into the water, if you were adventurous) and take in the views of the brightly-painted buildings rising up the cliffs above. Bob and I were a little more ambitious and wanted to walk to the next town, which didn’t look to be very far. The girls decided to bail on this plan — Nadia’s shin splints were acting up from the morning’s hike, and Lanie was feeling jet-lagged — so they stayed to explore the town and take the train back while Bob and I set off down the path.
We quickly found that to walk the path required both the Cinque Terre card (which was what we’d declined to buy that morning) AND a supplemental payment for this leg of the trail, called the Via di Amore. When we heard the 25 euro per person price tag, we walked away — but then weren’t sure what else to do with ourselves, so decided to grit our teeth and pay it. It must be pretty spectacular, right?
gelato (and checking my phone for word from the luggage courier).
There was a lot of traveling necessary for our trip to Florence to see Nadia. I guess, when you get down to it, it’s all traveling when we’re on these trips, but we’ve pretty much spent the last day and a half in constant motion. Also, we’re not actually going to be in Florence for a couple of days. So the traveling will continue.
It all started early Friday afternoon when I skipped out of school during lunch time, leaving the first graders with a substitute for the last 45 minutes of the day. We were facing Boston traffic on the first major leg of our trip, and we wanted to make sure we got an early start. Who knows what might be waiting on Route 1A in Roxbury?
free). It was very close to our gate. We took a special elevator to get there. There was a sign out front that said it was being rennovated and would be closed until this summer. We were disappointed, but not despondent. There was another lounge in Copenhagen that would surely have coffee and stuff for us during our hour-long layover tomorrow morning.
All the running came to a stop when we crashed into the considerable passport control line. It did not look good, friends. Even after Jen informed a woman in an SAS uniform that we had an pressing need to get over to Gate A21, and even after the lady moved us 3/4 of the way up the line (as soon as she did that, EVERYONE started telling her about THEIR pressing connection concerns, and she stopped moving people up — she told us moving up in line wouldn’t make a difference, anyway, and she said they would not be holding flights for people arriving late), it still did not look good. The Copenhagen airport appeared to be expecting 40 people to need their passports checked, and
there were 400 people who needed their passports checked. There were only two booths open! Eventually, they opened two more booths and we got through passport control.
And then, like I told you, we scanned our boarding passes and got on the plane, panting and coughing from our sprint.
dehydrated, our hopes of finding Lanie’s suitcase sank.
airport lounge in the train station, but our credit card company does not offer such perks, even though we pay them extra money. We did manage to get onto our train to Milan Center — actaully, we got on a train that left 20 minutes earlier than the one Jen bought tickets for because the train manager said it was ok.
the place to find it.
we did pass a tiny pickup truck, which must be how they get things around here.
Today it was time to say farewell to Santa Fe, and head off for our last couple of days in Albuquerque. This was heading down in both the literal and figurative sense, as Albuquerque is a couple thousand feet lower than Santa Fe, and correspondingly warmer.
with bright fall colors had taken the place of pinion and juniper. The city itself appears fairly flat, but there are still mountains in the distance everywhere you look.
Our first stop was Petroglyph National Monument, just a little ways outside the city. There are a few different disconnected areas of this park, but we elected to go to the Rinconada Canyon section. We walked through the canyon alongside a steep hillside covered with volcanic rocks, many of which had been decorated with petroglyphs. We learned that in addition to the Native Americans, the early Spanish settlers also copied the technique — so in some cases, it’s not known which culture created a given piece of artwork.
The afternoon turned out to be my very favorite part of the trip. Just outside the city, which is at around 5000 feet, you can take an aerial tramway to the top of the Sandia mountains, at over 10,000 feet. As you can imagine, the ascent is quite dramatic. It reminded me of a similar trip we did in the French Alps, but with a very different landscape.
hike around at the top, then watch the sunset and the emergence of the city lights of Albuquerque. We didn’t get very far on our hike due to the snow, which was several feet deep here. We followed a packed-down path in the woods for a while, but eventually decided that it was becoming too treacherous. So we returned to the safe platforms and viewing areas around the tram to watch the sunset. The views, especially in the light of golden hour, were spectacular — even as the temperature plummeted. We stayed up on the mountain until darkness fell and the twinkling lights of the city emerged. After a delicious dinner at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant, we were both ready for bed.
$5, while the latter, which was larger and much more elaborate, was free.) Both were very text-heavy, so even though the information was pretty interesting, eventually we began to get a bit of the dreaded museum life-suck effect. Fortunately we were able to revive ourselves with a delicious lunch at the noodle house next door.
Turns out they also had delicious street tacos for dinner.
challenged. But we also have a secret ambition to someday compete on The Amazing Race TV show. We know that navigation will be our downfall, so tonight we challenged ourselves to walk back from the town center to our apartment without consulting Google Maps. This was not a particularly impressive feat, given that we were covering ground that we’d been over several times over the last few days, but we still had a few moments of indecision. Fortunately we persevered and arrived back home without incident.
It would be hard to imagine a greater contrast between yesterday’s Meow Wolf experience and today’s activities. The House of Eternal Return was delightful and fascinating, but also tended toward overstimulation. Today’s trip outside the city was the perfect antidote.
basically just involved going straight.)
Bandelier is less than an hour from Santa Fe, and was well worth the trip. The drive there was beautiful, winding through the mountains with a new vista around every corner. We were first to arrive in the parking lot, just as the park opened at 9am. Setting off on the main loop trail, we had the whole park to ourselves.
Unfortunately the section of the trail that is known for its long, steep ladder ascents has been closed since September due to flooding, so we didn’t get that adrenaline-pumping adventure. Instead we took a side trail that climbed steeply to the top of the canyon and through a juniper forest. The views were stunning and the silence was amazing. With only one road (the park entrance road) within miles, and very little traffic on
that, we could hear nothing except the rustle of wind and the occasional bird. It made us realize how seldom we are able to experience that kind of silence in today’s world.
By the time we got back we’d worked up an appetite. Bandelier’s cafe (at which we were the only customers) is supposedly known for having the best burger in New Mexico — the “Doug”, which comes with American and mozzarella cheeses, carmelized onions, green chilis, and a whole chili relleno on top. The lone restaurant worker recommended having the Doug made with an elk burger, so we went with his suggestion. It was delicious. (But luckily we decided to split one, along
with a few other snacks. I wasn’t even able to finish my half.)
be the same). There were two other people there soaking and we decided to go for it despite the chilly air. It was pretty amazing sitting in the warm water, surrounded by snow drifts, with a view out over the surrounding mountains and no signs of civilization. There was a cave on one side that you could barely squeeze into, and one of the guys who were there told us it was like a sauna inside. Neither of us (nor his friend) were brave enough to do more than stick our heads in, despite the chill.
No evening adventures today — we were both too tired to walk into town and didn’t feel like getting back into the car, so a quick board game, Door Dash, and an early bedtime it was.
On our second full day in New Mexico, we visited Meow Wolf’s Santa Fe installment. House of Eternal Return was one of, but not the only reason I wanted to come to Santa Fe in the first place. I was already a fan of Meow Wolf’s Denver exhibit, Convergence Station, which the whole family visited on our trip to Colorado this summer. I had a great time there but it left the rest of the family feeling tired and over stimulated. I felt a little bit bad about dragging everyone along on my whims, but that didn’t stop
Zoe and I are on vacation this week, belatedly celebrating her graduation last May. She had narrowed own destination down to either Ashville, NC (and Great Smoky Mountains National Park), or Santa Fe, NM. Given the recent sad events in Ashville, Santa Fe it was.
tour we’d signed up for was canceled due to lack of participation. So we decided to start out at the Botanical Gardens, a short drive south. It was a little odd being in gardens where many of the plants were dead and/or snow-covered, but it was very peaceful and serene. We saw the giant stalk of an agave plant and learned that these plants put up only one such stalk in their lifetime, after 20-40 years, and that the stalk grows several inches each day. We inhaled the fresh scent of the juniper pinion trees while strolling on a winding path through the forest. And we loved all the sculptures gracefully placed throughout the grounds.
distance from our apartment to Fort Marcy Park and the Cross of the Martyrs, a large white steel cross overlooking the city. Downhill on the other side brought us Santa Fe Plaza, the center of the tourist area of the city. Santa Fe doesn’t exactly have the feel of a city like we’re used to — no tall buildings, not a lot of traffic. There is a fair amount of sprawl, but the city center is pleasant and walkable, and full of independent shops and art galleries. We had a delicious, if decadent, lunch composed of three different types of mac & cheese (out of a menu 
featuring at least 10 types). We did a little shopping around the plaza and from the Native Americans selling their wares in an outdoor market along the edge. We checked out the Loretto Chapel, which has an amazing spiral staircase that appeared on Unsolved Mysteries because no one can figure out how it was built.
for a sunset tour with the Sky Railway. (We’d originally wanted to do the tour that involved an e-bike trip out on the rail trail and a train journey back, but were foiled due to the snow.) The train leaves right from the middle of the city. It has live entertainment and drinks, and travels out of the city through beautiful scenery while watching the sun set over the mountains. There is a “flatcar” that is basically a platform with railings, so you can stand outside and watch the scenery. That is, until you turn into an icicle. We spent a lot of time on the flatcar, with occasional forays indoors to listen to the music and thaw out.
pretty quiet at night, with not a lot of traffic and very few pedestrians — but the restaurants are somehow packed.) By the time we finished dinner and started our long-ish walk back home, we were definitely ready for bed. (Being on East Coast time is great for getting moving in the morning, but does not lend itself to late nights.)