My Home in Rome

When I stayed in Rome two weeks ago, I rented this cute little apartment:

kitchen

bedroom

bathroom

seating area

 It was located on the Via del Boschetto:

within walking distance of many of the major sights of the city, only 2 blocks away from the nearest subway station and a mere 15 minute walk from the train station.

It was right on the ground floor (yay, no dragging my suitcases up flights of stairs!)

the door on the left

It didn't take long for me to make myself at home!

Many thanks to Marida at the Nostromondo rental company, who was so helpful and always quick to respond to my questions about the apartment.

Sunday in Florence with Taylor

As it happened, my friend Taylor Shapiro and I were both in Florence at the same time last Sunday.  She had just spent a week touring Tuscany and I was preparing to head home after my two weeks in Italy.  We met at 2 pm near her hotel, which was near the beautiful Santa Trinita church I had visited a few days before.

She took me to a perfume store she had heard about. It turned out to be something like an old fashioned drug store, situated in several beautifully decorated rooms and filled with lovely scents of every description.  It was a bit pricey so we just looked and didn't buy.

As we were walking about, I got excited when I saw this sign, thinking it said "garage sale":

We both were quite amused at this condom dispenser installed in the doorway of a (closed on Sunday) pharmacy:

We thought the jeans "flavour" of condom was a bit odd (Taylor wondered if they would be more comfortable if you washed them a few times before wearing them?) but who knows what the kids are up to these days!

After a quick stop at my apartment, where we had fun in the elevator that doubles as a photo booth:

we headed off to visit the Pitti Palace.   We stopped to check out a sidewalk artist set up in front of the palace and both ended up buying artwork from her.  In the end, we decided we didn't want to pay the higher than expected admission fee to look at the art in the palace so we headed off on foot again.  Took photos of ourselves on the Santa Trinita bridge looking down river at the Ponte Vecchio.

Ended up at Taylor's hotel, which was old world stunning.  The hallways were filled with statues, artwork and antiques galore.  They have guest books from years gone by lying out on tables to flip through.  I resisted the urge to take one home with me but I was sorely tempted.

We sat on the rooftop terrace there, got out our art supplies and started recording our surroundings.  It was rather hot up there, I must say, but the view was so distracting, we hardly noticed.

We had dinner at the Golden View restaurant, one of Rick Steves' recommendations.  It is located right beside the Ponte Vecchio, with a lovely view of the bridge and the river Arno. 

After a tasty dinner (I had a saffron risotto that was delish), having crossed the same bridge in time to get this fabulous sunset view:

we treated ourselves to gelato and walked around to try to find somewhere to watch the big soccer game - Italy vs. Spain in the final match of the 2012 Euro Cup.  Every restaurant, pub and tiny take-away store with a TV was jammed full of people:

Eventually we got a seat (following a blown fuse which caused the screens to go dark, alarming the patrons momentarily and causing some to leave, freeing up seats for us), only to watch Spain run away with the championship.  No cheering or honking of horns in Florence that night, just a lot of disappointed sports fans.

After that, it was time to part company and head off to our respective accommodations. What a lovely way to spend my last day in Italy!

Italian Street Art

One thing I noticed about Italy is that around every corner, on every street, there is something of interest.  Whether it is stylish architecture, a statue or an obelisk, an enchanting vista or random graffiti.

Street art in Italy takes many forms, from painted recycling bins

to stencilled images

Sometimes it's an inspirational message

other times, it's a piece of marble of an unidentified individual.

It's there in the shop windows

and painted on the pavement.

There are Madonnas tucked into alcoves on many street corners

and once, surprisingly, there was even a space monkey in an alcove.

The streets of Italy may be dangerous (I am proud to have spent two weeks in the country without being run over by a scooter, a bicycle or a car, in spite of the valiant efforts of many) and more likely to be cobblestoned than paved

but one thing is for sure, they're not boring!

Where To Start?

I didn't feel too jetlagged yesterday. At least, not until about 7:30 last night, when I realized it was 2:30 in the morning in Italy and if I was there, I'd be sound asleep by then and suddenly I was tired.
I can feel it a bit more today. My brain just wasn't processing information quickly or correctly.  Nothing major, just silly things that made me realize I wasn't quite firing on all cylinders, like printing out a floor plan for the wrong building and then copying the right plan without outlining the space I was meant to be outlining.

Now, as I'm downloading photos and thinking about blogging, I'm having trouble focusing on what I'm doing and what to write about. Thought I'd post photos from my trip chronologically or maybe go back and insert images to the posts I made while I was there.  I'll still probably do that, just not tonight. In fact, I'm thinking I'll just stop doing what I'm doing altogether, as I'm more likely to make mistakes, like put files in the wrong places or accidentally delete them, and that would be tragic.

So for tonight, here are some photos of very amusing pieces of street art I found on my last evening in Rome. Someone had laid out all these little vignettes along a fence on a street as I walked along from the Piazza Navona (where I had dinner nearby) to the Piazza del Popolo (where I was going to catch the subway).

I was walking behind this woman, admiring her little black dress, fashionable gladiator sandals (so appropriate for Rome!) and funky tights.  Wishing I had that sort of fashion sense, hoping I might somehow develop same by the time I got to be her age.  For you might not be able to tell from this photo (the hair doesn't look as grey as it did, the slender arms not quite as wrinkled as they were in person) but she was actually several years older than my 50 and for that reason alone (but more so because of those tights!), I was very much in awe.

Then I noticed this chalk outline on the ground, with a pair of shoes beside it.  CSI Rome, perhaps?

Then I realized the outline had a name.

And that all along the fence for the next block, there were similar exhibits, which seemed to be made out of found objects.

Such as the earpieces they hand out on the hop on, hop off tour buses so you can listen to the commentary.

Tourist Guide

and a broken plate.

But it was usually the clever little signs that I enjoyed the most.

I believe this particular piece, entitled "Roma", explains the reason for this artist's display:

Unfortunately, there was no sign of the artist. I would have liked to have thanked this person for providing this whimsical artwork for we passersby to enjoy. 

Home Again

As much as I enjoy travelling, there is something to be said for coming home to four friendly little felines and your own bed.  Alas, only Katrina will actually sleep with me and even that is usually sporadic, but last night, my first night home, she stayed close by my side all night.  I like to think that means she missed me.  I know I missed having all four of them about.  As nice as the two apartments were that I rented, in Rome and Florence, I kept feeling like something was missing in each of them:  there was no cat to welcome me home at the end of each day or to keep me company while I was there.

Of course, there is also more practical side of the reality of being home again to deal with, once a trip is over.  Things like going back to work, sorting through an inbox full of emails, grocery shopping to fill an empty fridge, litter boxes to be emptied, laundry to be done.  Not to mention, photos to be downloaded!  I took about 2,400 pictures in total - approximately 500 in Rome, 1000 in Fabriano and 850 in Florence.  Now they all needed to be sorted, edited and/or deleted.  Which I am quite looking forward to, as it happens, since I will now have the pleasure of looking at all of them on a bigger screen with better resolution.  As I work my way through the photos, I'll be sharing them here along with the stories that go with them, so stay tuned.

While I was away, I was also tracking my travels by way of a Fitbit, a little device that clips onto your bra or the waistband of your pants to keep count of your steps (I picked one up in January when I was in Seattle, thanks to Teesha Moore).  I wasn't able to download the information daily while I was away so I only have about 15 full days worth of data - it stopped counting after that, presumably because the memory was filled by that point, so I don't have stats for the last day and a half of my trip but that's okay, since I spent most of the last day sitting on trains and a plane anyway. It was still interesting to discover that I walked approximately 199,000 steps in total over that time, with the highest day's count being 19,114! 

Whew, it makes me tired just thinking about being that active right now! Probably because as I write this, it's going on 3 in the morning in Italy.  If I was still there, I'd be sound asleep right now!  No wonder I'm tired. 

For now, I'll leave you with this photo I took of the Santa Trinita bridge in Florence on my last night there: