Do as the Romans Do (and the Florentines)
Our first stop in Florence was of course Il Duomo, the Basilica of Santa Maria. The line was so long it wrapped halfway around the structure, and if you’ve seen the Duomo, you know it’s a giant building. The wait was from 1-2 hours so Ashley secured our spot in line, and I went in search of a brick of pizza bigger than my head. I was drooling over my sausage pizza prize when I found Ashley in line. She had found a tour that allows you to skip the line and get a guided tour. These tours are mostly a rip off, but at this stage our options were to waste time or waste money, and we decided we couldn’t come up with more time so we went for it. We were inside in less than 20 minutes and we had headphones connected to a radio device so we could hear our tour guide as we ascended the 100s of stairs to the top of the dome. Our tour guide seemed to be in quite a rush, and we didn’t get a ton of history about the cathedral, but she did remind us several times to return her radios.
It’s incredible to think that something built in the 13th century can support thousands of people walking up and down the stairs all day. We stopped midway to marvel at Vasari’s frescos painted on the inside of the dome depicting; the last judgement, the beatitudes, and my favorite: capital sins and hell. That’s one way to get your parishioners to pay attention during mass, paint a giant fresco of the devil eating a human on the ceiling.
This UNESCO World Heritage Site took 200 years to complete construction of the entire cathedral, baptistry, and campanile. The dome itself took 16 years to build. It’s understandable to see why it took so long when they could only lay bricks at a height of 30cm per day in order to let the bricks adequately dry before stacking more on top. Brunelleschi pioneered many new techniques while building the dome, and it is a particularly incredible feat of engineering considering he (and many other artists) built it centuries before mathematical tools existed to calculate stress points. It remains the biggest dome in the world built before modern architectural tools.
We walked over the Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in Europe and up the hill near the botanical gardens to get a better view of the city. We got up to Piazzala Michelangelo as the sun was setting for a spectacular view of Florence and watched the city begin to light up as the sunset colors faded. We had really worked up an appetite for some pasta again. We ended up at a restaurant back in our neighborhood where we tried some new dishes. We had one with red sauce and lobster and another with a lemon cream sauce, but the best part of the meal was fresh burrata with thinly sliced prosciutto and shaved black truffles. We’ve been averaging between 18,000 - 23,000 steps per day, so there’s no guilt whatsoever with the pasta-cheese-meat-repeat routine.
Our favorite place we ate was as much because of the food as for the servers. Pensavo Peggio was another neighborhood find. We waited for 30 minutes to be seated and we waited right next to the kitchen so we got to see all of the food be served up, and we decided it would be worth the wait. We went there specifically for the mushroom ravioli in cream sauce with truffles, and it did not disappoint. We also tried the lasagna and Ossobuco, both of which were delicious. We figured they’d want to get us out of there quickly since we were the last table seated, but our waiter became very friendly as the place started to clear out and he didn’t have so many tables to wait on. He brought us some complimentary limoncello and drew us a map of Italy showing us some lesser known places to visit and taught us a bit of Italian. When he asked how our food was I attempted, “molto bene” he said, “No no. What you mean is buono not bene. Anything you put in your mouth is buono.” That’s up for debate, but it was a learning moment. He also told us about Stromboli, which is an active volcanic island off the north coast of Sicily. We both said, “oh like the food, that must be where strombolis come from?” He looked at us like we had two heads. “No I don’t know what this is. There is no food Stromboli, only an island.” Turns out strombolis were invented in Pennsylvania, thanks Google. The best part of the night came when he was trying to remember the name of a restaurant in Stromboli that we should go to. He gestured with his forefinger and thumb on his upper lip around his facial hair and said, “it is like your word for… it is like a mistake?” We tried to hold our laughter in as we realized he meant to say mustache. It is like a mistake. We never did get the name of the restaurant. If we end up in Stromboli I guess we’ll ask around for the mustache and see where that gets us.
We had one more adventurous eating opportunity before we departed Florence for Rome. We sat down to order some pizzas and I was eyeing one that had capers and olives, but it didn’t have cheese. So I asked our waiter if I could get that one but add cheese to it - I could feel the cringe coming before I even asked. He winced and said, “why you want to add cheese to this? It’s better no cheese. You want cheese you should have the Sicilian style one.” The Sicilian style one came with capers, olives, anchovies, and cheese. I still don’t understand why it’s ok to have cheese when there are anchovies present but it’s not ok to have cheese without the anchovies coming to the pizza party. So I did as the Romans do - er Florentines - and I ordered the one with anchovies. Despite my initial declaration that I wasn’t terribly hungry and would probably only eat half my pizza, I finished the whole thing. It was some of the best crust I’ve ever had, and the anchovies weren’t bad either. They added a hint of salty sea flavor. Ashley had a tasty one with prosciutto, pine nuts, and honey. Of course that one came with cheese, no questions asked.
With freshly filled bellies it was time to maneuver our belongings to Rome. Simple right? We boarded our train and saw that the only place for large luggage was overhead. Dread filled me as I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to lift a 60 pound suitcase above my head, and neither was Ashley. But there was no other option, and people started to pile up behind us as I stared at the overhead bin then back down to my suitcase. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me and I hate being the one to hold up a line of people while boarding a plane or train. I grabbed it and heaved it up so one wheel made it inside the bin. I dug in and put all my weight under the bag and miraculously shoved it into the bin. For a half second I puffed out my chest I thought to myself, “good thing I had the anchovies, it was the extra bit of protein that made that possible.” Then I saw the man behind me removing his hands from luggage and I realized he had lifted most of the weight of the bag. I gave him a sheepish, “grazi” and a smile. I looked at Ashley’s bag and looked back at him. Without speaking he picked hers up and loaded it above us. Thanks friend! I’ve always traveled with the rule that you can only bring as much luggage as you can carry by yourself. Lifting it above your head doesn’t count.
We have both been to Rome before but it’s been 11 and 19 years since we’ve been there. We wandered around to see a few sights at night like Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. After getting out the touristy area and reading many menus we found a charming place for dinner. Our rule has been: if it has burgers on the menu we’re not eating there. It’s guided us pretty well, and we’ve had some incredible food. We ordered the Roman staple cacio e pepe which is a simple pasta made with Romano, Pecorino (sheeps milk cheese), pepper, and water the pasta was cooked in. The waiter stood over me and grated both cheeses from an 18 inch cheese grater and cheese rained down onto my pasta, the table, and my lap and it was glorious. It’s raining cheese, Hallelujah, it’s raining cheese amen! Ashley got squash ravioli with truffle cream sauce. Truffles are in season this time of year in Italy, and we weren’t going to let them escape us at any turn. After our meal, our waiter brought us the obligatory limoncello and asked if we wanted to go see the basements which were part of the original aqueducts of Rome. We wandered down and he showed us the ancient brick that has been underneath Rome for centuries. After coming up from the cellars he brought us even larger glasses of limoncello. We received extra attention from all of our Italian waiters. I know, it’s a shock.
Trevi Fountain
The next day we thought we could squeeze in the Colosseum, the forums, and the Pantheon, but we needed to make sure not to miss our train to Civitavecchia where we would board our ship. We opted in for the skip the line tour at the Colosseum due to time constraints, and we did have a very knowledgable tour guide, albeit very tardy. He showed up 30 minutes late cutting into our already short amount of time in Rome. Ashley enjoyed learning about the history of the amphitheater originally known as the Flavian Amphitheater and later renamed the Colosseum after the massive gold colossus that used to stand next to it. I had fun wandering away from our tour and trying to take photos that didn’t have a thousand tourists in them. One of the more interesting things we learned was that before the Colosseum was there a fire demolished the neighborhoods that once stood in the same place. Emperor Nero was blamed for starting these fires so he could build a lake and palace for himself on the centrally located area where the neighborhood used to stand. After Nero died Emeror Vespasian drained the lake and as a show of good will for the people they built the Colosseum as a free public gathering place for Roman citizens. The Colosseum still stands today because the empty lake bed allowed for supportive structures to be built that are now underground. Those supports have kept the structure from crumbling into the ground for the past 2800 years. Because our guide Gianpaolo took his sweet Italian time showing up we did not get to join the tour for the second half of walking through the Roman Forum. But we didn’t let that bother us since we knew we would have to get used to being in places for very short periods of time and not get to see everything we want. We had a ship to catch!
It was a beautiful time of year to visit Italy because everywhere we went was decked out with lavish holiday lights, and Christmas decorations. One funny thing we noticed is that in Europe, Santa climbs up the side of a house, he doesn’t descend down the chimney. All of the decorative Santas we saw were climbing up ladders hanging from patio railings. Although winter is generally the off season for tourists throughout Europe, Christmas time and New Year’s Eve are very crowded times throughout Italy. We experienced summer-like crowds at many of the well known museums and attractions. There were also many things closed because the holidays, but we had a good taste of the 3 cities we passed through before getting on our ship.