Four days in Florence

View of the Duomo from the Campanile.

Part 2 of my Italian vacation -- on to Florence, where we spent four days, filled with art, gelato, and climbing hundreds of steps (therefore justifying all the gelato, of course).

I took this photo just off the Ponte Vecchio. I like how the buildings are reflected next to the gelati.

We had mostly good weather, except for the first day when it was scary and overcast just as we were about to climb the Campanile, or tower, in the main square by the Duomo. (We had to make a reservation to climb the Duomo another day). Naturally, it started to rain (with thunder AND lightning) when we reached the top of the tower. It made for some good photos, but it was a little scary. 

Not the tallest tower, but the best views in Florence. 

Like the tower in Pisa, there are several different levels where you can stop and admire the view, plus catch your breath, so the climb wasn't as difficult as I thought. Plus, I think I'm much more used to walking stairs and hills than my last trip to Italy; living in a four-story house, in a hilly neighborhood, you tend to get better at it. 

That's the Piazza Vecchio in the foreground, and in the far left you can see Santa Croce (famously visited by Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View.)

The next day I went inside the Duomo, which is surprisingly plain -- apparently they used up all the money and resources to decorate the outside. Inside the actual Dome it's quite elaborate, with all kinds of Biblical images, especially hellfire and damnation. 

At the opposite end is this amazing clock, which is clearly not telling time how I learned it. Here's an explanation if you're curious.

We did climb the Duomo a couple of days later but it was less fun than the tower because it was really narrow and crowded, because people are climbing up and down the same staircases (some towers have designated up and down routes, in different stairwells. Also, the Duomo is the most beautiful thing in Florence, and obviously, you can't see it when you're inside. But the views of the countryside are pretty spectacular. 

Naturally we had to visit a couple of museums. My daughter isn't a huge art fan but even she found David to be pretty impressive. 

Her favorite thing was to take photos of statues and give them snarky captions on her snapchat account. I was able to save a couple of them.

Aside from towers and museums, my other favorite place in Florence was the Boboli Garden, part of the Palazzo Pitti, the mansion of the Medici family on the opposite side of the Arno. It's a bit of a walk from our hotel but it was worth it. It's a huge, beautiful garden (supposedly the inspiration for the gardens of Versailles) and it's on a hill, so the view is amazing. 

As you'd expect, the food was amazing. I am eternally grateful to have children who will eat just about anything. My daughter discovered she loved one of the local specialties which is crostini with chicken livers. We had crostini almost every day. 

At this restaurant, it was more of a DIY crostini, but it was really good. 

I only had pizza once the entire trip. It was pretty amazing.

We also enjoyed the Florentine steak, which is served in a large piece by weight. The smallest we could get was 600 grams -- for you non-metric readers, that's about 1 1/3 pounds. We shared but it's still a big portion, especially if you've already been eating crostini. 

Nearly every restaurant in Florence has Vin Santo and Cantucci on the dessert menu. Vin Santo is a traditional sweet dessert wine and cantucci are twice-baked cookies that Americans call biscotti (technically, biscotti just means any cookie in Italian; cantucci are always twice-baked). These had chunks of chocolate baked into them and they were the best I had in Florence.

And finally, here's one of my favorite photos, a view of the Ponte Vecchio from the Uffizi Gallery:

It was my second trip to Florence and I loved it just as much as the first time. Next up: Siena!

Vacation Sneak Peek

Going on a pretty wonderful vacation tomorrow.  Here's what I'm going to see:

And eat lots of this:

And of course, plenty of this:

Yes, those ARE giant mountains of gelato.  

Yep, I'm going back to Italy!!  A week in Rome, but this time we're bringing the kids.  But less books than last year -- I packed SIX books, of which I only finished three (plus I downloaded an ebook on my husband's iPad).  That was waaaay too many (my suitcase was small but heavy; my husband was a saint and didn't say a word).  This year, I'm only allowing myself three, plus we're sharing a Kindle and the iPad.  

I had to pack at least one Italian book:

And I'm also bringing a Victorian novel described as "a ripping good yarn":

I don't plan on taking a two-month break from blogging before my next post!  Ciao!!

Back from a Blogging Break

If anyone is actually still following this blog, I apologize for my long absence.  As noted in a previous post, nearly two months ago (!!!!!)  I was about to go on a wonderful Italian vacation, which I did.  No, I didn't go to Italy for two months -- only twelve days, but soon after my return, some personal things came up and I just couldn't blog for awhile.  I had to take another week off from work, and the library has been incredibly busy.

But at long last, here are a few photos from my vacation.  We did three days in Rome, four in Venice, and four in Florence -- not nearly enough!!  It was probably the best vacation I've ever taken, and I can't wait to go back to Italy.

The Colosseum in Rome.  Just breathtaking.

Trevi Fountain.  It's jammed with tourists all the time, and it's really crowded -- you'd think this would be in a big plaza with plenty of space.  It's not.  

I always take photos of random things.  I love architecture, especially doorways.  

This one was on a street near the top of the Spanish Steps in Rome.

A group of gondoliers, just hanging out in Venice.  No big deal.

The Grand Canal in Venice.  That's the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute.  

I think it's the most beautiful thing in Venice.

This is the oldest restaurant in Venice, from about 1500.  It's around the corner from our pensione.  We ate dinner there the last night and had the best lobster gnocchi in the world.  There are framed letters from the 1700s and 1800s hanging on the walls.  

The Arno River in Florence.  

A giant head of David in the Boboli Gardens in Florence.  Different than the more famous statue of David in the Accademia Galleria, but still beautiful.

Our hotel in Florence, just down the street from the Duomo.  

It's a converted monastery, originally built in 1527.  

View of the Duomo in Florence from the Campanile (tower) of the Palazzo Vecchio.  I didn't climb up to the top of the Duomo but the view from the Palazzo Campanile was amazing.  

I'll post more photos later, and then it's back to blogging as usual. 

My Upcoming Vacation

Who wants to guess where I'm going next week?

Here are a few literary clues:

Anyone????

Recent Acquisitions

It's already February and I never posted about my holiday acquisitions!  Not only did I receive some nice books for Christmas, I also did a little shopping, both online and in a post-holiday trip to New York.

Here's what was under the Christmas tree:

Two audiobooks:  Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen AND A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin;

Two books I really really wanted:  Life Below Stairs by Sian Evans (to feed my Downton Abbey addiction); and The Earth by Emile Zola. . . . and (drumroll, please. . . )

The Great Penguin Bookchase game!!  I've been coveting this ever since I read about it on Thomas' blog My Porch.  Thanks for telling me about it, Thomas!   I haven't played it yet but I've had a lot of fun putting all the tiny little stickers on the books.

The week after Christmas I took my parents up to my favorite bookstore in the Lone Star State:  Bookpeople in Austin!  We had a lovely day and I bought two more books (for which I paid full price, supporting my local independent bookstore!):

Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin and Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner

And a few days after Christmas I took my youngest on a her first-ever girl trip to New York City!!  One of the highlights was visiting Tom, one of my dear friends from college whom I hadn't seen in ages!  We were invited to a book exchange party -- everyone brought their favorite book from 2011 and we all talked about our books and swapped.  My contribution was The Annotated Persuasion by Jane Austen.  Here's what I brought home:

Operation Mincemeat by Ben MacIntyre.   I haven't read much nonfiction lately but I am interested in WWII.  Also, this book is actually related to one of the Persephones I read in 2011, Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper.  I don't want to give anything else away but if you plan on reading all the Persephones, don't read this book until you do, because it would give away a major plot point.  That's all I'll say.

But back to the New York trip!  Aside from visiting friends, museums, and the fashion district, we did a little book shopping -- honestly, I can't think of a single trip I've taken in the past few years when I didn't come home with at least one new book!  Naturally, we had to visit The Strand Bookstore in the Village.  I managed to keep my purchases down to only two books from the sale table in the basement:

Two more NYRB Classics to add to my collection (mostly unread!):  Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford and My Dog Tulip by J. R. Ackerley.  And to my delight, my daughter bought a new book for the airplane ride home -- one of my all-time favorites, Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones!

On the way back to our hotel, we also stopped by Books of Wonder, the amazing children's bookstore, where I bought two more books:  

The Story of The Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit and a Welsh-language copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone!  This brings my total of foreign language Harry Potters to twelve in all.  

And by the end of the month I had broken down and made two more online purchases:

I had to buy The Last Chronicle of Barset because I finished the third book in the Barsetshire Chronicles, based on my reading of the wonderful Doctor Thorne (most of which I read while flying home from New York, because my flight was delayed).   My library doesn't even own a copy!  The fact that it's almost 900 pages long and there are two more books in between shall be ignored.

Finally, one of my online groups is reading one of the latest Persephones: 

It's Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple.  I've read two other books by her so far and loved them both.  We shall disregard the fact that there are three more on the TBR shelf unread, right?

Good thing I didn't sign up for the challenge where you don't buy any more books for the first three months of the year.  I would have utterly failed again!

A Few Vacation Photos

Other than books, my other big obsession is food.  I did go to cooking school years ago, and worked for several years as a professional pastry cook.  When I'm on vacation, if I'm not reading, I'm usually looking for something wonderful to eat.  If you have not been to Disney World, there are many, many wonderful places to eat.  And our hotel was pretty cool too.

First, the view from my balcony at the Animal Kingdom Lodge:

Could this be a zebra book discussion group?  Or are they planning a hostile takeover?

Of course the animals weren't there all day every day, but still, it's pretty awesome to sit there and have a giraffe walk by!  And much cheaper than flying to Africa with a family of four.

We lived in Tampa for three years, so I've actually spent a lot of time at Disney and don't take that many photos any more.  This time I was mostly inspired to record some of the amazing meals we ate:

Roast duck from the Yak & Yeti restaurant at Animal Kingdom

And here's some seared tuna which we ate before riding Kali River Rapids three times in a row at Animal Kingdom  -- it was right before closing and they didn't even make us get off the ride in between, we just kept on going.  And getting wetter.  I did not think to bring a change of clothes, so it was a pretty uncomfortable bus ride back to the hotel.  Oh, well, it was worth it.

Our last day at Disney we went to Hollywood Studios (aka MGM) and had lunch at The Brown Derby:

By far, the best crab cake I have ever eaten in my life.  And those three wineglass stems are from a Champagne flight.  Delicious!

My dessert, a delicious layered confection of toffee, caramelized bananas, and banana mousse.  Afterwards it was time for a nap.

More on vacation and my vacation reads later!