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In 2003 I began what I hope will be a series of annual overseas trips.  This year's trip in that series was my February trip to Chile, Antarctica and Argentina.  About a month later, I was approved to attend the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Law for work, to be held in early June in Bologna, Italy.  I had purchased an extra week of vacation this year for some planned long weekend getaways, but Italy was on my list of countries I wanted to visit someday, so I decided to tack some of that time onto the conference trip (along with a couple weekends and the Memorial Day holiday) so that I could spend some time in Rome and Florence before heading to Bologna for the conference.  I also plotted out day trip plans for the Vatican, Pisa and possibly Ravenna, a pretty ambitious plan given the travel and conference days.  But I managed to fit it all in, along with plane changes in Amsterdam and a great window seat view of Greenland on the way home.

I could have used a couple extra days in Rome, especially after a transit strike messed up my plans for a day trip to Ostia Antica.  I probably had just the right amount of time in Florence, although I could have put a couple more days to good use with museum visits and regional day trips.  I probably saw a lot more of Bologna than most tourists visiting Italy do - it's not really a tourist mecca, which I actually appreciated as I think I got a better sense of a more real, everyday Italy as a result.

All in all, a very good trip.

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Photo Links

I have created some entries on Worldisround where you will find pictures from my trip:

Highlights

On My Way

Thursday May 26 -

An unexceptional start to the trip.  I got an early start to the day at work, including a 6AM meeting (9AM for my Eastern Time Zone colleagues), so that I could get my hours in before leaving.  No point in wasting a vacation day sitting around the apartment waiting for my flight.

But it was finally off to the airport.  Northwest Airlines, this time, the same carrier I took to London a couple years ago.  That was a pretty cramped seat, so I wasn't looking forward to it this time, but I actually had a bit more legroom and a person in front of me who kept her seat upright, which was especially nice of her since I was smack dab in the middle of the plane.

I had a direct flight to Amsterdam - technically giving me my first visit to the Netherlands on this trip - and a connection from there to Rome.  We left Seattle an hour late due to plane weight distribution problems (luggage or passengers, it wasn't made clear), making for a tight connection at Schipol Airport, especially given that I had to pass through customs there.

It was considered an overnight flight, but with time zone differences our 8AM arrival in Amsterdam was just 11PM in Seattle, so I did not attempt to sleep on the plane (as if that would have been successful, anyway, given my record).  I did rest a lot, though, so I could take advantage of the day in Rome.  I also tried to learn a few things in Italian, writing up some cheat cards for taxis, hotel check-in, restaurant ordering, and bar conversations.

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Arriving in Rome

Friday May 27 -

In spite of our late departure, we made up some of the time en route, but with customs it was still a tight connection.  Fortunately most folks in line seemed to be pros when it came to passing through customs, so the line moved quickly, and I ended up with a half hour to kill while waiting for my Alitalia flight to Rome's Da Vinci airport.

For this flight I had a window seat, but cloudy skies obscured many of my views.  I got a few glimpses of the Netherlands and the Alps.  Clouds finally cleared out when we were over Italy's Emilia-Romagna region, where I'd be attending a conference in Bologna.  No customs in Rome.  Just pick up my luggage and head for the train station.  I relied on trains for my inter-city travel in Italy, and got my first taste of it here.

The train took me to Rome's central train station which was just a couple blocks from my hotel, the Hotel Columbia.  No need to cab it here.  A small boutique hotel, somewhat basic but certainly nice enough, and very well-located for my purposes.  The sites of Rome are spread out quite a bit, but I walked everywhere - and actually enjoyed the walking as a chance to see the real Rome that surrounds the common tourist stops.

I dropped off my stuff, freshened up a bit, and headed out for a walk.  It was basically my standard "let's get acquainted" walk that combined initial sightseeing and checking out the neighborhood with scouting nightlife locations and assessing the relative nighttime safety.  As in Chile and Argentina, Rome's gay bars were pretty obscure.  In fact, for most of the locales I checked out, I couldn't even confirm that there was a functioning bar there.  I'd eventually find a pair of bars close to my hotel, and I'd end up sticking with one of them for my Rome nightlife.

It was plenty warm but sunny, good for pictures.  We would have late afternoon thundershowers my first couple days and once in Bologna, and the weather stayed pretty warm the whole time I was in the country, but all in all I'd have to say that I had good weather for the whole trip.  My run of luck with good weather for my overseas travels continues, I guess.

During my walk I ran into some ancient Roman ruins right off the bat, at the Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, across from Piazza della Repubblica.  The basilica - designed by Michelangelo - is built on the Baths of Diocletian (they were the largest thermal baths in the world), and across the street is the Aula Ottagona.  I didn't really realize I had found some ancient Roman ruins at first because I guess I was expecting marble rather than brick.  But for the most part what I would see was brick.  Lots of brick.  "I found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble", said Augustus Caesar, who was responsible for the transformation of Rome into the marble-clad city we see in the movies.  But after the fall of Rome, a lot of that marble was scavenged and re-used in other projects.  The brick re-emerged as a result.  One false preconception of Rome disposed of.

I continued to explore that area of town, eventually making my way first to Largo di Santa Susanna and then to Piazza Barberini, which featured the Fontana del Tritone and Fontana della Api fountains.  I would pass through Piazza Barberini several times during my stay in Rome - it was about halfway between my hotel and the Scala di Spagna (the Spanish Steps).

I was looking for the next gay bar on my list (not much luck so far in finding any of them) when I realized that I was about a block from the Trevi Fountain.  Not really in my sightseeing plans because the fountain is primarily famous for being featured in the movie Three Coins in the Fountain (which I have never seen), but I was close so I figured I'd take a look.  I laughed when I rounded the corner and the piazza where the fountain was came into view.  It is a rather pretty fountain, but the piazza was utterly packed with tourists.  Except for the security line to enter St. Peter's Basilica, there were more tourists per square foot here than any other place I would see on the whole trip.  All for a fountain whose primary claim to fame is that it was featured in an old movie.  Ugh.  (Don't get me wrong, though, as it is actually a very interesting fountain.  But it's beauty is hard to appreciate when it is surrounded by a mob of tourists.)

Next up was the Piazza del Quirinale and the Palazzo del Quirinale.  Built on the highest of Rome's seven hills, it first served as a summer home the popes, with its view of the Vatican in the distance.  It would become the official residence of the Italian king when Italy was unified in 1870.  In 1947 it became the official residence of the president of Italy.  In addition to its great view, the piazza features a fountain created using an Egyptian obelisk taken from the Mausoleum of Augustus and statues of the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux, taken from the Baths of Constantine.  Only a couple blocks from the the mobs at Trevi Fountain, the piazza was nearly deserted, with just a couple tourists and some security people.

I then found my way over to the Colosseum.  Not so much for any serious exploration.  That was on the agenda for tomorrow.  But just to help me get my bearings and to check out the last couple nightlife options before heading back towards the hotel.

On my way back I stopped at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, an interesting-looking basilica not far from my hotel on Via Cavour.  I'd pass it several times during my stay in Rome.

I stopped at the restaurant across the street from my hotel for dinner.  I figured I'm in Italy, let's order a pizza.  What I got was a crust that had the flavor and texture approximating that of a large saltine cracker.  A smear of tomato paste spread so thin it did little more than paint the crust a shade of red.  Four slices of what looked like summer sausage.  No seasoning other than salt that I could taste.  And this cost 15 euros, or about $19.  My first sampling of authentic Italian cooking was rather underwhelming.

I also got my first experience with our restaurant cultural differences.  When I'm done eating, I want the check so that I can get on my way.  But I didn't find any wait staff on the whole trip who brought the check unless I specifically asked for it.  And even that required trying to get their attention.

I headed back to the hotel.  By this point it was 9AM in Seattle, so I had been awake for well over 28 hours.  Time for a nap before checking out some nightlife.

It was about 10PM when I woke up.  I headed for the Hangar, but it did not seem to be open, so I headed for a gelateria on Via Cavour where I got some ice cream, what would become a nightly ritual.  There I ran into an American gay couple who was looking for the Hangar.  We chatted a bit and I gave them directions.  I would run into them there later.  Turned out to be a nice enough neighborhood bar, with separate smoking room and backroom.  It was the closest bar to the hotel, well within walking distance, so it ended up being the only gay bar I'd visit when in Rome.

It was late when I got back to the hotel.  I found that I was locked out and the lights in the lobby were turned off.  All three hotels I would stay at on this trip expected me to leave my key at the front desk when I left, so there actually was someone still inside waiting for me to return - he just had the lights off as he got some sleep.  As for me, I didn't realize this, and didn't find the obscure doorbell button for a few minutes.  The hotel folks insisted that this was okay, but I'm the kind of person who feels guilty about such things, so I didn't stay out as late any night the rest of the trip.

My first day in Italy was behind me.

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Ancient Rome

Saturday May 28 -

If you only have time for two sightseeing goals in Rome, one will likely be the sights of ancient Rome, and the other will likely be the Vatican.  Today I targeted ancient Rome.

My first stop wasn't so ancient, though.  I checked out the Monumental Cemetery of the Capuchin Brothers, just of Piazza Barberini.  These folks had the peculiar habit of taking the bones of deceased friars from their group and using them to decorate their chapels.  Almost mosaic-like in how they created patterns with different kinds of bones, but different bones dominated the decor of different crypts, such as the crypt of the skulls and the crypt of the pelvises.  Fascinating, peculiar and more than a little macabre all at once.

Now it was on to ancient Rome.  The largest concentration of ancient Roman ruins stretched along Via del Fori Imperiali from Piazza Venezia to the Colosseum, and then up Palatine Hill.  I started near Piazza Venezia at the Imperial Forums:  Foro di Traiano and Mercati Traianei (Trajan's Forum and Trajan's Market).  The Roman Forum area across the street was free.  This section had a very small entrance fee, barely $4.  But that was enough to keep the tourists away.  Except for security, I had the place to myself for about a half an hour of my visit.

(You can afford to vacation in Rome but won't spring for $4 to get a close look at one of its great sights?  I ran into this attitude expressed by tourists at a few other places, too.  No complaints, as I did get the place to myself for most of my visit, but I just find it hard to believe.  They could always go to Trevi Fountain, I guess.)

Trajan's Forum is the newest of the Imperial Forums, built in the 2nd century A.D.  There are a lot of marble fragments lying around.  More interesting are the marble columns of the old Basilica Ulpia that was also built on this spot.  Beyond that was the Trajan's Column, featuring a pictorial telling of Trajan's conquests spiraling around the column.  From the Forum I had access to Trajan's Market, a multistory arcade that once faced a library.  Arguably the oldest mall I've been to.

It was a beautiful day, and I enjoyed exploring these without pesky tourists around, but I had a lot to cover today.  Time to head over to the Colosseum.  I checked out views of the Forum of Nerva and the Forum of Augustus.  Alas, with preparations underway for an upcoming national holiday, I didn't have good views available of the Forum of Caesar.

One of the most popular destinations in Rome, there were quite a few tourists in line to get into the Colosseum.  But there were some tour guide outside who promised a guided tour with no waiting in line, so I sprang for the extra euros.  Once inside I listened to some of the guide's talk, but he seemed a bit rushed to get from point to point, and so after about 10 minutes I separated from the group and finished exploring the Colosseum on my own.

I suppose that Hollywood helped set some expectations, and all the visible brickwork was still a bit surprising.  After the fall of Rome, the Colosseum was eventually used as a quarry of sorts as a lot of its marble was stripped for use in other buildings.  

It looks bigger on the inside than it does from the outside, and there is enough of it still intact that it was easy to imagine what it must have been like filled with spectators waiting for the day's competition.  Which may have been between slaves, hungry/angry animals, enemies or some combination of these.  But, according to our guide, Very unlikely between Christians and lions.  For awhile, the Colosseum could be flooded for staging "naval" battles.  One surprising tidbit...  The English language word "arena" comes from the Latin word for "sand".  They used to cover the floor of the Colosseum with sand for competitions because it was effective for soaking up the blood.  

I spend a lot of time exploring the American Southwest, and I have hiked out to numerous Ancestral Puebloan ruins sites.  Starting today, and continuing for the remainder of the trip, I often thought about the elaborate buildings I was seeing in Italy and compared them to those I see in the southwest.  There are some pretty impressive ruins sites in our southwest, but I haven't seen anything comparable to the Colosseum, which actually predates most of the sites I have visited in the U.S.  It's fascinating to think about how the different cultures diverged to the extent that they did.

I checked out Arco di Constantino near the Colosseum and then headed down Via di San Gregorio where I found the entrance to Palatine Hill.  Palatine Hill is where Rome got its start.  Today it rises up above the ruins of the Roman Forum.  The Roman Forum is free whereas there is a small entrance fee to Palatine Hill.  Although Palatine Hill was not deserted, it didn't have near the people that were exploring the Roman Forum ruins.  The Hippodrome, Livia's House and Farnese Gardens are the highlights of Palatine Hill, although I also got views of Circus Maximus, a view from above of the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and other nearby sights, all well worth the small admission fee.

It had been ages since I learned anything about the Roman Empire in school, so as I look back on this part of the trip I do regret not having brushed up on more history in preparation for this trip.  I think I would have gotten more out of my sightseeing, especially the ancient Rome sites.  But the signs and my sightseeing notes as I explored Palatine Hill and even more so when I headed down into the Roman Forum brought back more memories than I realized that I had.

Ruins is the right word for the place.  The buildings of the Roman Forum were quarried for their marble and then eventually buried through river floods and the passage of time.  It eventually became a cow pastures, and the top of one of the arches - the Arch of Septimius Severus - once was used to shelter a barbershop.  There are a lot of ruins in a relatively small area, making it easy to envision the center of the Empire in its heyday.  Among the sites was the place where Julius Caesar was cremated, the Arch of Titus, House of the Vestal Virgins, Temple of Romulus, Temple of Saturn, and a number of other sites.

After finishing up at the Roman Forum, I headed up Capitoline Hill where I checked out Piazza del Campidoglio.  The steps and the piazza itself were both designed by Michelangelo.  The piazza is surrounded by museums, including the Capitoline Museum, but time did not permit my exploration of them.

Next I headed over to the Vittorio Emanuele II Monument, which honors Italy's first king after the country was unified.  It is a huge monument and features Italy's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  Inside is a museum.  An upper plaza provides some decent views of Rome.

By now the sky was growing overcast, but I had a couple more things I wanted to see before the rain hit.  I headed down Via di Teatro, passing Teatro di Pompeo, the Temple of Fortuna Virile and the Temple of Hercules.  I stopped at Piazza Bocca di Verita (the Mouth of Truth) at the Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin.  The church features the Mouth of Truth, a disk featuring a face with a hole at the mouth that according to legend (and the movie Roman Holiday, which makes it a tourist draw today) will chomp down on the hand of a liar.

Then it was over to Circus Maximus.  Today it looks like a grassy park area, but the hillside that rises above it was once the seating for a large arena.  A quarter million people could attend games in this setting, although the emperor could observe it from his box on adjacent Palatine Hill.

I followed along the circus until I got to Via di San Gregorio, which I took back to the Colosseum.  I stopped for dinner at a cafe directly across from the Colosseum.  A tourist-oriented place, given the view, but that was fine.  Or so I thought.

Let's try spaghetti and a salad for dinner.  As a diabetic I've got to limit the carbohydrates, but I had been walking all day and still had to walk back to the hotel.  And it was Italy after all.  Well, Italian dinner #2 was as much a disappointment as dinner #1 was last night.  The meatless tomato sauce tasted like it had been seasoned with only salt, more like a thick tomato juice.  Lousy, slow service, too (it took a half hour just to get the waiter to bring me my check).

It started pouring within a minute after I finally left the restaurant.  I could have used the half hour I had waited for the check to get back to my hotel, about a mile or so away.  With the beautiful day that morning I didn't have my umbrella with me, so I waited in a doorway for the rain to pass.  I was actually right next to one of the two open gay bars I found the day before, but didn't take advantage of that.

The rain finally let up, and I made my way back to the hotel, catching some late day/setting sun-lit city scenes.  Back at the hotel, no nap tonight.  I seem to adapt pretty quickly to time zone changes when I travel if I can get a nap on arrival day and then treat bedtime in my usual way.  Back to the Hangar tonight.  A decent Saturday night crowd.  Well, except for the drunk who grabbed my shirt and tore it open, popping a handful of buttons off in the process.

Not a late night, though, as I had a full day planned for tomorrow.  And I didn't want to get locked out of the hotel again.

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The Vatican

Sunday May 29 -

I'm not a religious person, and it has probably been more than 25 years since the last time I went to church on a Sunday.  I figured if I was going to break that streak, it had better be one heck of a church.  So today was my day to visit the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica.

I actually bought clothes for this visit.  I'm for the most part a shorts-wearing tourist, and that worked out fine for me in Australia, New Zealand, and South America.  Heck, even in Antarctica.  But not in Italy.  Well, shorts were fine, I suppose, except that many of the sites I wanted to see were churches and cathedrals, and in Italy shorts are routinely banned in such places.  When I was looking into information on the Vatican in preparation for this trip, I repeatedly came across warnings on what kind of clothing was permissible for men and women, and No Exceptions!  So I had casual dress shoes, khaki Dockers and a nice short sleeved shirt on when I walked the few miles from my hotel to the Vatican.

Yes, it was a few miles, and yes I walked it.  That's how you really get to see a city.

My first stop along the way was the Pantheon.  It is the only building from ancient Rome that is still fundamentally intact.  It's an architectural marvel - its concrete cast dome was the biggest pile of concrete constructed until the 20th century.  Michelangelo came here several centuries after it had been built to study the dome before designing the dome for the Vatican's St. Peter's Basilica (which is actually a couple feet small in diameter).  Its walls are 25 feet thick, and the brass doors at the entrance weigh 20 tons.  Each.  Today it is home to the tombs of two Italian kings.

I continued on my way, stopping to check out the fountains at Piazza Navona.  I reached the Tiber River almost directly across from Castel Sant'Angelo, home to what was Emperor Hadrian's Tomb.  I would check it out later today.

Even as a non-Catholic, I felt a strong sense of anticipation as I walked along Via della Conciliazione towards the imposing St. Peter's Basilica.  When you enter Piazza San Pietro - St. Peter's Square, which is actually oval - you're technically crossing into another country.  I took a few pictures and then got into the security line to go into St. Peter's Basilica.  The line was slow, and as it moved forward it got more and more compressed.  It wasn't long before I was in the middle of this mass of people, experiencing some decidedly un-Catholic encounters with strangers in this pressing crowd.  It was hot out, and even under cooler conditions it is not necessary to press together so much.  At least I was a lot taller than most folks, so I got the breeze and the views.  But I thought more than a few times that these folks were not behaving in a way that I would have expected from people for whom this visit had a lot more religious significance than it did for me.

But I eventually made it through security and found I could get a ticket to go to the top of the basilica's dome.  I hadn't originally planned on that, but by the time I got through security I had missed what may have been an appearance of the new pope, Benedict XVI, so I figured I'd check out the basilica more completely.  My ticket got me an elevator ride up to the base of the dome, and from there I got views of the interior of St. Peter's Basilica from that position.  A service of some sort was getting underway, so I watched that for a bit before heading for the stairs.

The dome is actually two domes - one provides the interior ceiling, and the second provides the visible exterior.  And in between the two are a couple narrow staircases that spiral around the dome, angling as the domes do, leading up to - and down from - the cupola.  Given the angle, I was a bit tall for this passageway, often having to keep a hand against one of the walls for balance.  

From the cupola, I had great views of Rome.  It doesn't have a skyscraper skyline like American cities its size do, but in the distance I could make out the Pantheon and some of the ancient Roman area sites I had visited yesterday.

More interesting were the views I got of St. Peter's Square, the Vatican Museums, the papal apartments and the Vatican Gardens.  Advance reservations are required to visit the Vatican Gardens, so this would be my best look at them.  The cupola was crowded so at one point I stepped up on a narrow ledge of some sort to get a clearer view - and thus for a short time I could say that I was the top man at the Vatican.

After getting my pictures, I took the stairs all the way back down and entered St. Peter's Basilica on the main floor.  I took a quick look around and then got in line to head downstairs into the Vatican grottoes, where several popes are entombed.  This included the grave of Pope John Paul II, who had died less than two months before my visit.  Most folks were interested in seeing his grave and then quickly left, but there is a lot more to see down there.

Back upstairs I explored St. Peter's Basilica in earnest.  It was built between 1506 and 1626, in part under the direction of Michelangelo.  It is the largest church in Christianity, and can hold more than 60,000 people in its 23,000 square meters.  St. Peter was crucified near this spot at what was once the Circus of Nero and he was buried at this site.  Constantine commissioned the first basilica at this site in 324, which lasted for more than 1000 years.  What is generally regarded as the actual Tomb of St. Peter was discovered in the last century, and it is now visible from the main floor of the basilica.

Grand architecture, grand sculptures, great paintings, symbols of the church.  Huge, impressive, and a lot to take in.  Well worth a visit.

But I had one more item on the day's agenda - the Vatican Museums.  And the entrance to that was a bit of a walk, much of it following along the outer walls of the Vatican.  Well, I got to the museum entrance, but it was closing.  Turns out that the Vatican Museums are usually closed on Sundays, but they're open - and free - most of the time on the last Sunday of each month.  Which today happened to be.  I would have to come back tomorrow.  

I headed back to St. Peter's Square and from there I headed for Castel Sant'Angelo, which I mentioned above was a fortress surrounding what was once Emperor Hadrian's tomb.  The cremains of Hadrian were scattered long ago, but the tomb remains, and the whole thing has become a museum.  It was once connected to the Vatican via a tunnel, providing an escape route for popes when unwanted visitors decided to drop by.  In my modern day view of the papacy and the Catholic Church, that the popes at one time needed an underground escape route seems strange to read about.

At one time it also served as a papal residence.  Pope Alexander VI and his mistress had two children, Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, and the family created prison cells and torture chambers here, as politics played as an important role with this pope as religion did.  The papacy has a rather, shall we say, intriguing history, something that comes out when visiting sites such as this.

The displays are interesting, and the top of the castle also provides some nice views.  Late afternoon rains hit, so I waited them out at Castel Sant'Angelo, and then headed on my way.  I followed the Tiber River to Ponte Cavour.  I crossed the bridge there and headed over to the Mausoleo di Augusto (Augustus' Mausoleum), the 2000-year-old tomb of Augustus Caesar, and several other emperors.  At least until the 5th century, when invading barbarians broke in and emptied the golden urns of their ashes.  I walked around the outside of the mausoleum and then headed over to the Spanish Steps.

The Spanish Steps lead up from a retail district to a piazza featuring an obelisk and some decent views of Rome.  Nothing really spectacular, though, but like Trevi Fountain this stop is very popular with the tourists.  Kind of a head-scratcher, if you ask me, but there were more tourists here than at either the Pantheon or Castel Sant'Angelo, which historically and architecturally are much more interesting.

From there I followed Via Sistina over to Piazza Barberini and found a restaurant where I got a good steak dinner.  Nothing fancy, but it really hit the spot, especially after my first two dinners in Rome.  I took another exploratory walk on my way back to the hotel, stopping again at Piazza del Quirinale and also at the Mazzarino ruins.  Back to the hotel.  I'd head over to the Hangar again, which drew a better crowd than I would have expected for a Sunday night.

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The Vatican Museums, the Tiber, and San Giovanni in Laterano

Monday May 30 -

Change of plans today, but it worked out great.  I had missed the Vatican Museums yesterday, so I headed back to the Vatican this morning, taking a slightly different route this time.  I did pass the Trevi Fountain again.  Few tourists early on a Monday morning.  But no water either.  A crew had drained the fountain and was collecting the coins and giving it a good scrubbing.  At Piazza Colonna, I checked out the Column of Marcus Aurelius.  At Piazza de Pietra I saw the facade of the Temple of Hadrian, which had been incorporated into a newer building.  The city is full of places like these that have survived from ancient Rome, places that most tourists miss when they taxi or bus from highlight to highlight instead of putting on their walking shoes.

Once back at the Vatican I first stopped in St. Peter's Square where I mailed a few postcards (getting the Vatican postmark) and picked up a couple souvenirs.  No "My folks visited the Vatican and all I was blessed with was this T-shirt" t-shirts.  The shop sold postcards and religious-themed items, so I bought a couple cross charms and later a set of Vatican coins and stamps.

From there I walked back to the Vatican Museums.  Almost immediately I encountered the back end of a very long line to get into the place.  But unlike yesterday's line, this one was single file, the folks were polite and well-behaved, and it moved very quickly.

I got to the museum entrance, paid my fee, and began to explore the museum complex.  Which is just incredible.  Overwhelming.  Words can't possibly do this massive collection of art justice.  A lot of visitors skip most of it, heading straight for the Sistine Chapel and from there the exit.  A somewhat superficial art lover like me - I know what I like, but rarely know if it's really any good - could spend a few days here just trying to cover all the halls at a fairly fast pace.  A true art lover could spend weeks here and still not be satisfied.

All routes lead to and through the Sistine Chapel, so you won't miss the top attraction of the complex.  I picked a few collections to target at least somewhat thoroughly, picked up my pace a bit as it began to sink in just how big the place was, and then made a beeline for the Sistine Chapel when my watch indicated that my allotted time was coming towards an end.  A piazza near the entrance gave me a view of part of the Vatican Gardens.  I checked out the Pinacoteca (Christian paintings), the Carriage Museum (papal carriages and vehicles), the early Christian stone sarcophagi and crosses of the Chiaramonti Museum, a hallway of busts and sculptures, the Pio Clementino Museum of sculptures, the Egyptian-Gregorian Museum, and hallways filled with floor tile art, paintings, sculptures and fresco ceilings, connecting me to historic apartments and other rooms.

Considering how many people were in the Vatican Museums, some of these areas had very few tourists.  For awhile I was the only person checking out the sarcophagi, and one of only a few people in the Carriage Museum.  But the closer I got to the Sistine Chapel, the more crowded the halls became, as visitors converged into a substantial line.

As the line pushed towards the Sistine Chapel, there were several announcements in several languages instructing visitors that no photos were allowed in the Sistine Chapel, cell phones could not be used, and that visitors were expected to remain silent while in the chapel.  It is a chapel, after all, so the requests were pretty reasonable.  And then we entered the chapel itself.

Which was noisy.  A guard had to shush folks every couple minutes, but the silence would last only a few seconds before someone started whispering, starting a crescendo of noise that would have to shushed once again.  A few folks attempt to take photos while holding their camera's down by their side, although some were a lot more blatant.  People got on their cell phones.  Some Americans near me were discussing shopping plans.  When you consider how much money and effort that most people go through just to visit the Sistine Chapel, and the behavior was especially dumbfounding, not to mention just plain rude.  These folks could now say that they've been to the Sistine Chapel, but you got no sense that many of these folks really appreciated what they were seeing.

In the end, the Sistine Chapel was not the highlight of my visit to the Vatican Museums that I thought it would be.  In most of the museum complex, I could get pretty close to the works that I really wanted to see up close.  In contrast, the Sistine Chapel's ceiling was pretty high, and all the people made it difficult to get around for closer looks at the walls.  Throw in the noisy, generally indifferent crowd, and it is not a great way to experience great art.

There were a few more displays to see as I worked my way from the Sistine Chapel to the museum's exit, but I was beginning to feel art'ed out for the day.  Like I said, the place is overwhelming.  Certainly one of the highlights of any visit to Rome, but plan on a full day.  Even two or three if your appreciation for great art is pretty strong.

I picked up a late lunch from a street vendor, and then I decided to take a walk around the Vatican walls.  I figured, how many times would I be able to say that I walked around an entire country?  In less than an hour?  

The entrance to St. Peter's Square is open and inviting.  The rest of the Vatican is surrounded by fortress walls, reminding me in terms of style and angles of some of the old military forts that dot the east coast of the United States.  But then, it was a fortress at one point, providing a necessary defense for the Vatican that seems alien today.

I finished my walk with one last look at St. Peter's Square, and then I headed over to the Tiber River.  I followed the Tiber River, passing Tiber Island, before crossing over near the Temple of Fortuna Virile and the Temple of Hercules.  I took a Diet Coke break seated along the edge of the remains of Circus Maximus, and then I headed past the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla as I worked my way over to Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano.  Although the pope is most closely associated with the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica, and most papal ceremonies take place there, the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano is the official ecclesiastical seat of the pope, and it ranks above all other churches in the Roman Catholic Church.  An impressive building, but not nearly as interesting at St. Peter's Basilica.

Also interesting was the small Santuario della Scala Santa, the Palace of the Holy Steps.  The building shelters a staircase of 28 marble steps that were brought to Rome from Jerusalem by Constantine's mother, Helen, in 326.  Tradition holds that these steps were originally at Pontius Pilate's Jerusalem villa, and that Jesus climbed these steps on his way to his fateful meeting with Pilate.  The marble steps are covered by a wooden staircase with gaps in it that allows people to see the steps - and dark spots on the marble that tradition holds are Jesus' blood.  Pilgrims can climb the steps on their knees, praying with each step.  Some historians suggest that the steps are a few hundred years too young to be the actual "Jesus steps", as some call them.

I was little over a mile to the east of my hotel at this point, and enjoyed an exploratory city walk as I worked my way back there.  Another good dinner.  Another late day rain shower.  I'd hit the Hangar for the last time tonight.

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Roman Leftovers

Tuesday May 31 -

My original plans had me finding a day tour to visit Ostia Antica, the ruins of an old Roman city along the coast.  But when I visited a tour office on Friday, no one had signed up.  So then I figured I could plan my own trip just as easy - one train ride, followed by a transfer to another train, followed by a walk.  I travel well on my own, after all.

I didn't count on a one-day transit strike.  I got to the station and found that it was closed.  The paper would report that it was one of a handful of transit strikes scheduled for the next month.  Fortunately none of the others coincided with my travel plans.

But today I had to fall back on other plans.  I went for a walk instead.  Over to the Spanish Steps, past the Medici Villa, and on to Piazza Popolo.  The broad piazza features a 13th century BC Egyptian Obelisk, a few fountains, and some surrounding churches.  It would have been more interesting from a picture standpoint if the skies weren't overcast.  

From there I headed up into the Villa Borghese Park.  I made my way over to the National Etruscan Museum.  Housed in what was a 16th century papal palace, the museum features an extensive collection of Etruscan art.  The Etruscans pre-dated the Roman Empire, and dominated the region just to the north of Rome for about 1000 years.  One of my history lesson goals for the trip was to learn more about these people.  This outstanding museum gives an excellent education.  Alas, no interior photos were permitted.

I got lunch from a vendor in the park and then worked my way back to the hotel.  By now it was mid-afternoon.  Too late to target any last museums, so I figured I'd take a walk to the far side of the train station and explore that neighborhood a bit.  Almost immediately I stumbled on a remnant of an ancient Rome city wall, the Aurelian Wall.  I followed it to Porta Tiburtina Augustus, and then to Porta Maggiore, a city gate where the wall meets the Nero Aqueduct.  

I continued on, now heading towards the Colosseum, although this time I headed up a nearby hill to check out the ruins of Domus Aurea, the Golden House of Nero, and the Baths of Trajan.  I found a restaurant for dinner, and then headed back to the hotel.

It was my last night in Rome, so I had to pack for my trip to Florence.  The Hangar was closed, but I did have some evening plans, namely a nighttime photo walk.  Some of the sites of ancient Rome, including some of the forums and the Colosseum are lit at night, making them good subjects, but I also took my standard city walk-type photos, too.  I'm getting better at taking nighttime photos.  I can't hold the camera still for the life of me, but by pressing it against a solid surface or by setting the timer and putting it down somewhere works pretty well.  I got a nice collection of photos out of this walk.

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Beginning Florence

Wednesday June 1 -

Today I left Rome and headed to Florence.  I could have used a couple more days in Rome.  I would have liked to have gone to Ostia Antica, and I missed the Christian catacombs.  More time in the Vatican Museums.  And a visit to at least one other museum.  Certainly enough to fill two more days.  But I'd rather leave a place wishing I had more time there than having too much time to fill.

My train to Florence left Rome after noon, and I didn't have to check out of the hotel until noon, so I had an easy start to the day.  But I checked out early enough to give me time to figure out what train I would be on and also to get a late breakfast/early lunch - there are mall-like facilities at the Rome station, so there were plenty of ways to keep me busy until it was time to board the train.

I had a window seat, so I snapped some pictures of the Italian countryside.  The scenery was mostly low mountains and small towns and cities.  As in Great Britain, the towns seemed to start and end more abruptly than they do in the U.S., and they were more likely to build up, with 4-6 story buildings not uncommon even in small towns.  We did pass a small canyon that looked to me like it was carved into volcanic tuff.  I would find out long after I wrote that in my notes that the area had in fact seen past volcanic activity.

Hotel Mario's, where I stayed in Florence, was barely two blocks from the train station, and well situated for exploring Florence.  It was a very nice place, by the way, with a first rate staff.  I highly recommend it if you plan to visit Florence.

I got settled into my room and immediately hit the streets.  A learn my way around and find the nightlife walk.  But almost immediately I came upon the Galleria dell'Accademia, the museum that had a room built especially to house and display Michelangelo's most famous sculpture - David.  I had plans to see it at some point, but with a fairly short line and grey skies threatening rain I decided that this was as good a time as any.  Signs indicated that they were into a year-long celebration of the 500th anniversary of the completion of David.

There is more to the museum than David, including other Michelangelo sculptures (the reportedly unfinished but still very powerful Prisoners/Slaves) and early Christian art.  But David is the unquestioned reason why people come here.  In fact, the upper level, which features a large collection of Christian art, was nearly deserted when I was up there.

I don't have any artistic training - when it comes to most art, I know what I like, and that's about it.  But then I saw David.  Michelangelo did not sculpt a perfect man.  Instead, he pulled a very impressive and lifelike man out of the marble, capturing the veins in his hands and arms and the subtleties the muscles under the skin.  I would notice this again tomorrow in Medici Chapels at the Tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo, where the exposed knees on seated figures were not perfectly smooth, but instead were perfectly lifelike.  I am a fan of Rodin's work, and am always impressed by the emotional power he creates in his not so lifelike sculptures.  Michelangelo created that emotional power, too, but with a very different style.

Most folks come to see David and then leave.  I toured the whole museum, but I came back to David three times before I left.  What an amazing piece of work.

Next up was Il Duomo, the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, arguably the most dominant building in Florence.  Il Duomo is one of the world's largest churches.  Its outside walls are covered with white, dark green and pink marble, arranged in interesting patterns.  The cathedral shares the piazza with a tall campanile and a baptistery.  I toured the inside of the cathedral today, saving the other two for tomorrow.  The interior was impressive for its size, including its massive dome.  But it was not as impressive for what it contained.  Much of its contents apparently had been removed to a nearby museum.

I located one of my targeted nightlife locations, and I came upon the site of a house where writer Dante had once lived.  The stone surface forming the small piazza at the site has a pattern at one spot that tradition holds is the leftward facing profile of Dante's head.  I thought it looked a bit more like his brother, but snapped a picture anyway.

I finally reached Piazza della Signoria, the tourist heart of Florence.  The piazza is surrounded by cafes and shopping on a couple sides.  Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi art museum are also there.  As is a collection of sculptures, including Fake David.

Palazzo Vecchio is 700 years old.  In the mid-1500s it became home to the powerful Medici family.  Today it is a city government building and museum.  The Uffizi Gallery got its start when the last of the Medici's bequeathed the family art collection to the people of Tuscany.  Although I did not tour the museum (advance reservations are recommended during the height of the tourist season), I checked out several sculptures it had on display outside.

Not to be outdone - well, I suppose it was outdone - in front of Palazzo Vecchio are several mediocre sculptures and the Fountain of Neptune.  The original David once stood out here, too, but it was moved to the Galleria dell'Accademia, and a copy was put in its place.  However, there isn't anything obvious that identifies it as "Fake David", so I suspect that more than a few tourists leave Florence thinking that they saw David.

I got dinner at one of the cafes and then headed over to the Arno River and followed it downstream to Ponte Vecchio, the Arno's only medieval bridge to survive World War II's bombing raids.  The bridge is lined with shops - jewelry shops nowadays - and overrun with tourists.  I walked further along the river for a ways and then explored my way back to the hotel.

I had some time to kill before going out, but I eventually headed over to Crisco, the only open bar I had found in my exploration of the city earlier today.  Overpriced, lousy atmosphere, dreadful music, smallish mid-week crowd.  I did not stay long, and I never went back.

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Florence Sightseeing

Thursday June 2 -

Today turned out to be my primary Florence sightseeing day.  The historical center of Florence is fairly compact, although to see everything does require good walking shoes.  If you don't spend time in the art museums, you can cover all of the highlights in a very full day.  Other than the Galleria dell'Accademia, I did not have any art museum plans.  I am not enough of an art connoisseur, I guess, but I really was more interested in seeing the sights and learning more about the city's history.

I began my day at the train station.  I had plans to go to Pisa tomorrow, so I wanted to try to figure out train schedules and times.  Turned out that I had a lot of trains to choose from.

On to the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella.   This pretty church for some reason seemed to be less of a tourist draw than the other basilicas in the historic district.  It doesn't have the dominance of Il Duomo or the tomb of Michelangelo, I suppose, but perhaps for those reasons it also has a more natural, less touristy ambience.  The 1485 frescoes behind the main altar were created by Ghirlandaio, whom Michelangelo studied under, and he may have worked on these.

As I left the basilica, I stopped at the nearby Croce al Trebbio, a small plaza featuring a small obelisk marker.  Today is a national holiday, Festa Nazionale della Repubblica, or Republic Day, and a small crowd was gathering to watch veterans and representatives of the military and the city place a wreath at the obelisk.

After the short ceremony ended, I headed over to Cappelle Medicee, the Medici Chapels.  This is how people with too much money decide to entomb themselves, I guess.  A somewhat non-descript exterior does not prepare you for what's inside.  The Chapel of the Princes is arguably the grandest, most opulent (or most extravagant) mausoleum I have seen.  It's hard not to wonder how much wealth and labor was spent on something like that during a time when the average life was actually rather difficult, especially when it is considered in the context of the Bible's comments of rich men, camels and needles.  Taken for its architecture and artistry, though, and I found it to be quite impressive.

Much more interesting, and more intimate, was the New Sacristy, featuring the tombs of a pair of relatively minor Medici's, Lorenzo II and Giuliano.  These are adorned with Michelangelo's sculptures depicting the dukes as well as his Night, Day, Dawn and Dusk sculptures, with an apparent self-portrait used as the head of one of the sculptures.  Michelangelo creates sculptures of idealized people, but without losing their naturalness.  Much like with David yesterday, I lingered here as long as I could, examining the nuances of his work.

My next stop was back to the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, Il Duomo, this time to climb the stairs to the top of Campanile di Giotto, the bell tower.  There are also stairs that climb to the top of the dome itself, but I figured that I was only going to climb one of them, and campanile would give me a view of the cathedral dome and nearby baptistery.  

The campanile is gothic style, white, green and pink marble like the cathedral, and 274 feet tall.  There are 414 narrow steps to get you to the top.  You can actually stop at a couple levels on your way up for views of the cathedral, closer views than you can get from street level.

The top provides great views not only of the cathedral and baptistery, but also of the various sites of the historical center of Florence.  That alone makes the climb well worth it.  But I also got a nice look at the hills that surround Florence.  What struck me from this view was how abruptly the dense city gave way to mountains and countryside, and not all that far from the city center.  It occurred to me that I might actually get out there for a walk to get at least a small sample of the Tuscan countryside.

But not today, as I already had plenty on my plate.

I headed over to Piazza Santa Croce, in front of Basilica di Santa Croce.  First thing I did was get lunch.  The campanile stairs had wiped out my blood sugar.  I got a sandwich and then found a seat from which I could people watch while eating my lunch.  The angle of the sun was such that the face of the basilica was shaded, but it would soon be getting the sun.  I'd wait for those photos.

I wish I had known more about the basilica before I had visited, as I did not realize going into it that it was the final resting place for Michelangelo, Niccolo Machiavelli (author of The Prince), Galileo and others of note (the tomb for Dante is empty; his body is in Ravenna).  It is an impressive basilica, with a lot of interesting artwork here.  The adjacent cloisters have museum displays.  I ended up spending 90 minutes here, which was rushing things a bit to take it all in.  Just impressive.

I passed through Piazza della Signoria, stopping for some more photos of Fake David and the other sculptures there, this time with sunlight.  Then back to Il Duomo.  I had forgotten to visit the Battistero San Giovanni, the baptistery, when I stopped here earlier today.

The church buildings may not be as opulent as the Chapel of Princes, but I continued to be in awe of the architecture, the intricate exterior marble work, and the collections of priceless art inside, again constructed and created during a time when everyday life was pretty difficult.  And I again mentally contrasted what I was seeing here to the familiar Ancestral Puebloan ruins of the southwest United States, many of which where constructed at roughly the same time.  One again, impressive.

By now it had already been a full day, and I needed a break.  So I headed back to the hotel to freshen up a bit.  But there are only so many hours of daylight in a day, so I soon headed out again.  I headed over to the Arno River.  My first stop was the Chiesa Santo Spirito, a small picturesque church a few blocks from the river.  From there it was over to the nearby Piazza de' Pitti and the Palazzo Pitti, adjacent to the Giardini di Boboli.  I had heard of the Boboli Gardens before, and thought I might take a look, but it was close enough to closing time that I decided that I'd put it on my "maybe later" list.  The palace itself, once another home of the Medici family (their name actually pops up so often all over town that you might think that they once owned the place), is now an extensive art museum complex, probably second in Florence only to the Uffizi.

I headed for the Ponte Vecchio bridge, and from near there began walking up Costa di San Giorgio, figuring I'd take the back route to Piazzale Michelangiolo.  I got up to the top of the hill, finding an old fortress up there - Forte di Belvedere.  I also found that the fort and the piazzale were atop different hills.  So I headed down Via di Belvedere to Porta San Niccolo, following an old city wall along the way.  Once I reached Porta San Miniato, it was just a short, steep road up to Piazzale Michelangiolo, a plaza named in honor of Michelangelo.

It is from here that you get the classic view of Florence - Ponte Vecchio, the Arno River, and the historic center of Florence, its skyline dominated by the massive Il Duomo and the tower atop Palazzo Vecchio.  The backdrop of this scene are some of Tuscany's hills.  It would be a great place to visit for photos at several times during the day under various sunny conditions.  But if your visit is short like mine was, there are plenty of postcards views from this vantage point for sale that have those conditions covered.  The piazzale also features a bronze version of David, which is worth a look.  Be forewarned, though.  The spot draws lots of tourists, and the tourists draw lots of vendors.  I got there late enough in the day that some of the vendors were already beginning to pack up, so I think I missed the main tourist crush.

I also managed to escape the tourists for a bit.  Just a short walk away was the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte, yet another old church with an intricate green and marble facade.  A spare interior compared to the other basilicas of Florence, and much smaller, too, but this allowed me to focus more on the architecture of the place.  Few works of art, but some impressive frescoes survive on the walls.  And only about a half dozen tourists in the place.

By now it was definitely late in the day, with much of the historic center already in shadows.  But the sun did not set until I had walked back to the city center.  I found a restaurant at Piazza della Signoria, where I had dinner and checked out the day's pictures on my digital camera.

I didn't think much of the bar I went to last night, and I hadn't found Club Tabasco, which was supposed to be near Piazza della Signoria, so I did not have any evening plans.  But not one to sit in a hotel room all evening, I headed out for another walk, this time with my camera in hand.  I explored the well lit piazzas but also a few of the darker streets, places I had seen earlier in the day.

With no plans for this evening, and an early day tomorrow, I didn't stay out late.

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Pisa Day Trip

Friday June 3 -

 There is frequent train service between the two cities, so I had a lot of flexibility.  I got my ticket and then headed for my train and got on, grabbing a window seat for the hour-long trip.

I don't speak Italian, and that became a problem en route when the ticket master came by to punch my ticket.  For these types of local trains, you're supposed to get your ticket validated at one of the yellow boxes mounted on some posts around the platform.  I didn't know that, so I was fined by the officer.  The amount of the fine was equal to the price of the ticket.  Less than ten bucks.  It wasn't a big deal, other than I did not want to make that mistake again.

I arrived in Pisa where the central train station and the Piazza del Duomo are on opposite ends of town.  Maybe just over a mile walk, crossing the Arno River and passing through a commercial district.  

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is instantly recognizable.  But as many times as I've seen pictures of it, I never got a sense of its context.  It is actually the campanile for a 1000-year-old cathedral, the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta. In addition to the cathedral and the tower, the piazza also featured a baptistery and Camposanto (cemetery, actually a collection of sarcophagi).  The collection of buildings has been designated a world heritage site.

It is obviously a tourist draw, so I immediately headed for the ticket seller - I needed one ticket for a scheduled tour climb to the top of the tower, and a second for visiting other sites on the grounds.  At a combined cost of 25 euros, the tickets were the most expensive of my sightseeing stops in Italy.  I heard some grumbling from some Americans around me about this, but the tower was recently restored, and maintaining everything costs money nowadays.  Oh well, the grumbling cheapskates made it easier for me to get up the tower earlier.

I first took some pictures of the tower from several angles.  It really does lean noticeably, but once I got past the fact that I was seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa, I began to appreciate its architectural design and construction.  Its cylindrical design, marble columns and arches were in sharp contrast to the square campanile in Florence with its colorful marble mosaic.  The Tower had some mosaic work, but its columns and carved detail were its more interesting attributes.

I had some time to kill before my guided tour to the top of the campanile, so I headed over to the cathedral itself.  In terms of its size, my guess is that it is comparable to Il Duomo in Florence, but the outer construction does not feature the elaborate colorful marble work of Il Duomo.  Some of the marble pieces had odd letters and word fragments on them.  It occurred to me that was probably the result of reusing the marble from some other structure, something that happened in Rome, too.

The interior was more impressive than Il Duomo in Florence.  It hadn't been as stripped down, which helped, but it was in general more interesting, too.

I spent about a half hour inside.  A bit rushed, but I had to hit my Leaning Tower of Pisa tour, so I headed out and joined a group of people near the tower entrance.  It's about 300 steps to the top of the tower, climbing about 180 feet.  The view from the top was very good.  The highlight, of course, was seeing the other features of the piazza, especially the cathedral dome and the baptistery.  But as with the view from the top of the campanile in Florence, the view here helped provide me with a better feel of the city and its countryside setting.  The land surrounding Pisa is flat, but nearby mountains rise rather abruptly.

Next up was the baptistery.  The exterior is pretty, but the interior was rather ordinary in its appearance.  However, we were given a demonstration of its outstanding acoustic properties by one of the guides.

I grabbed a quick lunch and then figured out my afternoon plans.  I was one of very few people to take in the medieval wall, just an old city wall tower that provided a few more views of the piazza and its sights.  Then I visited the Camposanto, a 700-year-old cemetery once known for its frescoes, sarcophagi and statuary.  Most of the frescoes were destroyed when a bomb hit the place during World War II, but a few were salvaged.  The funerary sculptures were interesting, and unlike the sites elsewhere on the piazza, the place was almost deserted.  Some folks choose to save a few bucks and skip the things that they don't know anything about, and end up missing out on the chance to learn more about the context of what they do know something about.

I soaked up the atmosphere of the Camposanto and then the whole piazza for a while, and then began walking back to the train station. I had plenty of time, so I took a different route, passing through the university area and other neighborhoods.  It wasn't in my tourist information, so I was rather surprised when I found myself in front of Casa Ammannati, which according to the sign is the house where Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564.

After crossing the Arno, I followed a segment of the old city wall, and then headed over to the train station.  Bathroom break.  Refreshments.  Ticket validation at one of those yellow boxes (can't forget that!).  I was ready to head back to Florence.  Another window seat for more countryside scenery views.

I had beautiful weather in Pisa, but it was overcast by the time got back to Florence.  I dropped some stuff off at the hotel, and headed out for some minor Florence sightseeing.  The Mercato Centrale was mainly a concentration of street vendors skilled at picking tourists out of a crowd.  I didn't buy anything, though.  I can honestly say that most of that kind of stuff just has no appeal to me.

I got dinner at a cafe looking out at Il Duomo, and then I explored some of the nooks and crannies around the city center.  I finally turned up Club Tabasco, so I figured I would have some Friday night nightlife later that evening.

I mostly made an easy evening of it, getting an ice cream cone and enjoying some people watching at the Piazza Santa Maria Novella.  More locals than tourists here, a fact I appreciated.  I'd come back here tomorrow evening, too.

Club Tabasco is billed as the hottest gay nightclub in Florence.  I was underwhelmed by the music and the sparse crowd, and ultimately I was more interested with my Saturday plans, so I did not stay out very late.

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Fiesole Day Trip

Saturday June 4 -

I had a few places I had missed on Thursday, but the view from the top of the Campanile di Giotto at Il Duomo of the nearby Italian countryside had stuck with me.  I figured I'd head out there for a countryside walk, and get back by mid-day in time for a visit to the Boboli Gardens.

I plotted out a route along Via Federico Stibbert to La Pietra and from there along Via Bolognese to Il Cionfo and then to Ponte All Badia.  From there I could head back towards the city center.  I don't know if these places are considered to be separate villages or just small neighborhoods of Florence, but the dense city dropped off very sharply to more open countryside.

Except I couldn't see it.  The narrow country roads were bordered with high rock or concrete walls for the most part.  This hid any view of the countryside for much of my walk.  It also created a bit more dangerous walking experience than I would have liked.  The roads were narrow, there were no sidewalks, and where there was any curve to the road, the high walls kept me from seeing oncoming traffic - and presumably the drivers couldn't see me at those times either.  That slowed me down because there was in fact a fair amount of traffic on many of the roads I took, so I frequently had to leave the road and press up against the wall to leave room for the cars.

But this also gave an unexpected character to the experience, it is the real Italy (I'd find the same thing for the most part when I took a similar walk out of Bologna later in the trip), and I did enjoy the scenery when I could see it.  The neighborhoods were generally small clusters of houses.  Throw in a few small businesses, cafes, and even a small college, and these place really conveyed a sense of being in small villages without a hint of the Florence city center being as close as it is.

I reached Ponte Alla Badia, my planned head-back-to-Florence point.  But I was really enjoying my walk, and along the way I kept noticing some village atop a nearby hill.  Fiesole, according to my map.  I decided to continue on to San Domenico, partway up the hill - it also had a road into Florence, so I figured I could make my decision there.

Along the way I stopped at a 500-year-old church, the Badia Fiesolana, which stands on the site of what was once the cathedral of Fiesole.  An example of early Renaissance architecture, it had a white and green marble facade, reminding me of the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte, but smaller.

I reached the village of San Domenico, and stopped for some refreshments.  It was a steep hike up to this point, and a longer and still steep hike up to Fiesole, but I was still enjoying my day.  By deciding to continue on to Fiesole, I was probably giving up the Boboli Gardens, but on a trip like this you never get to see everything anyway.  I figured that this might be my only real chance to see a bit of the countryside.  Fiesole it was.

Via Vecchia Fiesolana zigzagged its way up the hill, passing more houses - including Villa Medici, another home of that family.  But I was also getting high enough up that I was beginning to get some decent views, even if they were looking back towards Florence.  I was far enough away that it was harder to pick out features in the skyline, other than Il Duomo is such a dominating building.

I finally reached Via San Francesco, which led up to the Convento di San Francesco.  I would find out later that there was more to the convent and church than what I saw, but shortly after entering the church, it was closed to sightseeing because of a midday service.  I found a different way down from the convent, past a cemetery and through a park towards Fiesole's city center.  And that was when I discovered my luck.

I knew nothing about Fiesole before I had set out on my walk.  It wasn't part of my agenda for Florence when I planned the trip, and it wasn't really my plan to hike that far when I left the hotel this morning.  So I was especially pleased with myself when I realized what I had stumbled on.  Around 600 B.C., Fiesole was a thriving Etruscan town.  Later it became a Roman town, and Fiesole - not Florence - was at that time the dominant town in the area.  Near the town center is a cluster of Roman and Etruscan ruins, including a visible section of an old Roman road and a restored 2000 year old theatre.  The Teatro Romano e Museo Civico preserves the ruins site, and the museum has a nice collection Etruscan and Roman pieces.

I was also pleased to discover that the museum allowed photos.  I checked the visible signs when I came in, and openly snapped photos of the pieces, and no one said anything about it.  It wasn't until I was leaving that I saw the No Photos sign on the wall behind the door I had used to enter the building.  It was a warm day, so someone had propped the door open, hiding the sign.  Oh well.  But, like I said, no one said anything, so I ended up with some decent examples of the Etruscan artwork in my trip photo collection.

Fiesole is close to Florence - heck, it wasn't that far to walk for those who may be the least bit adventurous - but there just a handful of tourists around that I saw.  I had the ruins site to myself, and I shared the museum with just one other visitor.

After finishing up there, I explored Fiesole a bit.  Unlike the villages I had passed through on my walk, Fiesole is an actual town, although a fairly small one, given its hilltop location.  In addition to views of Florence, I could see the Tuscan countryside beyond Fiesole.

I picked up a souvenir and some snacks, and then began the walk back to Florence.  I retraced my steps to San Domenico and Ponte Alla Badia, and from there I took what I had planned on as my route back into Florence.  I was soon back in the city, stopping at the Piazza della Liberta before returning to my hotel.  My planned 2-3 hour walk had turned into six hours, but I had thoroughly enjoyed it.

I got cleaned up, made a list of a few minor sightseeing stops that would fill the rest of the day, and headed out again.

Good grief, the city was packed.  While I was off in the countryside, apparently every other tourist in the country had descended on Florence.  The historic center of the city was filled with them.  It wasn't long before I was all the more glad I had spent the day checking out Fiesole.  Not only was it an unexpectedly great surprise, but it kept me away from the masses.

I checked out a couple shops.  I wanted some sort of souvenir of Italy, I hadn't gotten one in Rome, and did not know what to expect in Bologna.  I ended up with a ceramic wall plate, a Christmas ornament and a 2006 calendar.  That was enough.  My experiences, my pictures, what I learn and my travel journals are my real souvenirs.

First up in my remaining sightseeing was the Mercato Nuovo.  The New Market is an open-air market that mostly caters to tourists.  It also features Il Porcellino, a large bronze boar, its snout polished where everyone rubs it.

I headed back over to the Arno, and then followed it to Ponte Vecchio.  It is lined mostly with jewelry shops, and thus draws lots of tourists, but the shops were closing and the crowds were thinning, so I got to appreciate the setting a bit more.

I capped off the walk with dinner at a cafe on Piazza della Signoria.  For all intents and purposes, my Florence sightseeing was over.

I skipped Club Tabasco tonight.  I spent the evening mixing packing with some walks around the city, taking in the sights one last time.  I'm off to Bologna tomorrow for the conference, so the real vacation aspects of the trip were coming to an end.

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Beginning Bologna

Sunday June 5 -

I made the same mistake when booking my Florence to Bologna train trip that I did the Rome to Florence leg.  Figuring I'd enjoy more nightlife than I did, I booked mid-day travel, and thus ended up with some time to kill before my train left.  I made an easy morning of it, finally leaving Florence shortly after noon.  It was a much shorter trip than the one out of Rome.  We pulled into Bologna by early afternoon.

In both Rome and Florence my hotels were close enough to the train stations that I walked.  In Bologna it was far enough that I took a cab.  Rather than risk a struggle with the Italian language, I had a notecard ready that had the hotel's name and address on it.  My hotel was within a few blocks of the conference site and the city's heart, the Piazza Maggiore, so except for the trip from the station, I spent the rest of my stay getting around Bologna on foot.

I got settled into my room and then set out to explore the city.  I was barely out the hotel when I ran into one of my colleagues and his wife.  He was also in town for the conference, so we exchanged greetings and traded a few travel stories.  Then I started off on my planned sightseeing.

Unlike Rome, and especially Florence, Bologna is not a major tourist draw.  Its nearly deserted Sunday afternoon streets were in sharp contrast to the crowded historical center I experienced yesterday in Florence.  I won't pretend that it is a Rome or a Florence, either, but if you are making your way through Italy, I could easily recommend spending at least a couple days here.  Or eight nights - as in my case - if you're spending most of your time at a conference.

The first part of its appeal to me was simply the fact that because Bologna is not a major tourist draw I felt like I was seeing something closer to the real Italy.

Second, while it may not have been the heart of the Roman Empire or the center of Medici-funded arts, it is an old Italian city with numerous basilicas, museums and other historical attractions, plenty to see and squeeze in around the conference activities.

From its extensive porticos to its status towers to its red-tiled roofs, Bologna has a distinctive architecture unlike any place I have ever been.  Torre degli Asinelli and Torre Garisenda, symbols of Bologna, are two of the two dozen or so surviving status towers - during the Middle Ages there were more than 170 of these.  Pay attention to the minor details, too, like the variety of old brass door knockers and key plates, and the way some of the portico ceilings are decorated.

Its leftist politics, liberal social attitudes and college town crowd also create an atmosphere that you rarely find in the U.S., in spite of what some U.S. social conservatives might say.

Bologna's central location and train station makes it easy to explore other cities in the region on day trips.  Alas, in my case I only got over to Ravenna, but you could do Florence and even Venice from here if you wanted.  As a non-tourist draw, it is also easier (and reportedly cheaper) to get hotel rooms here.

Today was church day.  I figured the cloudy Bologna skies were not best for outside photos, so I figured it was a good day for my inside sightseeing plans.  After taking a look at the two status towers that symbolize Bologna - Torre degli Asinelli and Torre Garisenda - I headed for Piazza San Stefano and the Basilica di San Stefano.  It was closed - it would open again at three - so I walked around the neighborhood a bit, returning just as the doors opened.  

San Stefano today is a complex of four churches (there once were seven).  The Chiesa del Crocifisso includes the 1019 crypt of Martin the Abbott and a large painted wooden crucifix.  Originally dating to the 8th century, this was rebuilt in the 12th century and restored about 100 years ago.  The Santo Sepolcro, to its left, incorporates an old Roman structure, the Temple of Isis, dating back to the first century A.D.  It eventually became a baptistery.  It holds the tomb of San Petronio, the patron saint of Bologna, modeled after the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.  The Chiesa Santi Vitale e Agricola is the oldest of the churches in the complex, and contains bits of an earlier Byzantine church built on this site.  The Chiesa della Trinita has ancient origins, but it has been reconstructed through the centuries, with the current structure less than 100 years old.

A courtyard connects the churches to a Benedictine cloister.  A large stone basin is traditionally regarded as the basin where Pilate washed his hands after sentencing Christ to die, brought from Jerusalem to Italy.  However, it is in the Lombard style, dating to the 8th century, and thus there is no actual Pilate connection.  The complex also features museum displays and a gift shop.

I headed over to Piazza Maggiore and from there I continued on to my next stop, the Basilica di San Domenico, built in the 12th century to house the relics of San Domenico.  As a building, it was much less interesting than my first stop.  The interior was not modern but it did not provide any sense of its of history.  The chapel that contains the tomb and relics of the saint was well worth seeing, however.  Michelangelo carved one of the angels and two other sculptures that adorn San Domenico's tomb.

Back to Piazza Maggiore again, this time to tour the massive Basilica di San Petronio.  A gothic brick building, it was originally supposed to be larger than the Vatican's St. Peter's only to have a papal decree derail that plan.  Although it houses several interesting pieces of art and the oldest organ in the world still in use, the interior was somewhat bland except for its size.  As with San Domenico, the interior did not convey much of a sense of history.  Construction began in 1390, and continued for a couple hundred years.  However, even today its facade has never been completed.  It is a grand place, but focus on the artwork.

It was closing time for church tours, so I headed back to a restaurant I had passed earlier in order to get dinner.  Lasagna and a salad.  As a diabetic who manages my blood sugar through diet and exercise rather than medication, I had looked forward to this trip as a chance to cheat a bit on the pasta.  I hadn't been impressed so far, and tonight was no exception.  Once again the food was surprisingly bland, given what I am used to in the states.  I enjoyed it, but by now I was convinced that I was not missing much on the pasta front.

Love it or merely like it, either way, it was a burst of carbohydrates, which meant an after dinner walk to burn off the excess glucose.  I had some information on a gay bar - Cassero - indicating that it was located in one of the gate towers of the old walled city, so I made my way to Porta Saragozza and then worked my way clockwise following the old city wall until I found Porta Lame.  It was too early for the bar, but I was learning my way around town and getting a sense of the neighborhood that it was in.  I then worked my way back to the hotel, figuring out a few places along the way to pick up some Diet Coke.  I ran into both colleagues who were also in town for the conference, along with their spouses, so we chatted for awhile.

I spent part of the evening reading through some conference materials I had brought with me, and then headed over to Cassero.  Cassero is home to Arcigay, Italy's national gay organization that issued the card I had to get and use in Rome.  I would use the card here in Bologna, too.  Between the inside and outside dance bars and other areas, Cassero is a huge complex, but the Sunday night crowd was rather small, and very spread out with all the space.  I didn't stay long.

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Conference Activities and Assorted Sightseeing

Once the conference got underway, my sightseeing was pretty limited to what I could work in during breaks, lunch hours and after the day's conference activities ended.  Fortunately, the conference location was near the heart of the city, so it was easy to switch between conference mode and tourist mode.

Monday June 6 -

The conference started today, so there was limited sightseeing.  But certainly worth noting was the fact that the conference was held at the University of Bologna.  Established in 1088, it is recognized as the oldest university in Europe (and in the world, according to some sources).  

Across the street from the law school building where the conference was held is the Chiesa di San Giacomo Maggiore, so I took a quick look at that.  It was currently undergoing interior restoration work, so there was not a lot to see.  And then a service got underway while I was there, closing the church to sightseeing at that point.

I hit the post office so that I could finally put the postcards that I had picked up in Rome in the mail, but that was about it.

A couple of my colleagues and their spouses were on the trip so I joined them for dinner.

After dinner, I went for walk, taking my camera for some Bologna at night photos.

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Tuesday June 7 -

Today was a pretty full conference day, capped off by dinner with a diverse group of people attending the conference.

During a morning break, I headed over to Torre degli Asinelli, the tallest of the status towers in Bologna, and took the stairs to the top.  Torre degli Asinelli is tall (334 feet, almost 500 steps), square, and it leans seven feet off vertical at the top.  Wooden stairs wrap around the mostly hollow interior of the tower, supported by wooden posts jutting out of the brick walls.  The look does not inspire a lot of confidence, but they felt sturdy enough.

And the outstanding view from the top makes the climb absolutely worth it.  The tower is close enough to the city center that I had an excellent view of Piazza Maggiore.  I could pick out the sights around the city that I had seen during my Sunday afternoon explorations, and I had great views of of the hills to the south of town, including the one a few miles away with the Santuario della Madonna di San Luca on top, connected to the city by the longest portico in the world.

The city center is a jumble of narrow streets, red tile-roofed brick buildings, grand churches and a handful of remaining status towers.  When reading up on Bologna, one guide book noted its unified architecture.  That is apparent both while walking the city's streets as well as the view from Torre degli Asinelli.

Tonight I headed over to a bar on my small list for Bologna.  I did find a bar there, but the name was different - Bar't.  But this turned out to be a gay bar, too.  Kind of a neighborhood bar on the main level, with a moderate crowd.  Signs suggested that they sometimes have shows there, but there weren't any scheduled the week I was in town.

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Wednesday June 8 -

Another full conference day.  And the conference banquet took place tonight.  I notice something a lot at conferences including this one, but I will never understand why conference organizers think they need to bring in a very loud band for entertainment when many attendees would just like to catch up with fellow researchers that they may see only once every year or two.

During the day I did squeeze in a quick visit to the Museo Civico Archeologico, which had an interesting mix of Egyptian, Roman and Etruscan artifacts and artwork.  The ancient Romans made the most of their conquest of Egypt, so even small Italian museums like this one can have an impressive collection.  The Etruscan pieces were the most interesting to me, although I think that the museum in Rome got the pick of the crop.  Still, I highly recommend the museum.

Thursday June 9 -

The main conference finished up this afternoon.  Afterwards, I took a walk through the neighborhood surrounding the university, but that was it for today's sightseeing.  I returned to Bar't later in the evening.

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Santuario della Madonna di San Luca

Friday June 10 -

The conference itself was over, but today featured some workshops.  I attended one on legal argumentation that reminded me of the case-based reasoning work I saw back in 1989.  And what I saw today did not convince me that any practical progress had been made in the intervening 16 years.  Oh well.  That sometimes happens with workshops.

From an architecture standpoint, Bologna is famous for its porticos, the covered sidewalks that line just about every street in the old city.  One of its porticos is the longest portico in the world, leading more than two miles from one of the old city wall gates, up Colle della Guardia to the Santuario della Madonna di San Luca, which has a nice view of the city from its hilltop location.

I decided to make the walk to the church.  The Portico di San Luca begins across the street from Porta Saragozza.  For the first part of its 3 1/2 kilometer length it covers the sidewalks in front of a number of small businesses and residential buildings.  It crossed the main road at Arco del Meloncello, where it finally left the city buildings and began its ascent up towards the church.  Along this stretch of the walk, one side of the portico was a wall, the other a seemingly endless series of arches.  Construction of the portico began in 1657, with church-goers donating money for the construction of specific arches, 666 arches in all along the route.

Although the walk was taking me uphill into the countryside, views were limited because of the wall on one side of the portico and trees and shrubs along the view side.  It was not until I reached a small cross at the end of the portico that I got my first decent view of the church.  Salmon in color and round in shape, it was certainly different than the great basilicas and cathedrals that I had visited elsewhere in Italy.

The interior may have been the least interesting of the churches I had visited on this trip.  Not that it wasn't interesting, but I was comparing it to a rather impressive set of other churches.  However, walking around outside gave me some nice views of the Italian countryside.  The view of Bologna I had from this angle was  lot different than the one I had from Torre degli Asinelli.  In the heart of the old city, shorter buildings are jumbled together in a maze of narrow roads.  To the southwest of the old city, however, Bologna was dominated by blocks of apartment buildings and a stadium.  I walked along the road for a ways to sample more views of the area, then stopped at a restaurant for a snack before heading back into the city.

I worked my way back to Piazza Maggiore, where I explored a nearby area of narrow streets lined with vegetable, meat and cheese markets that I had somehow missed all week.  I also came across the Santuario di Santa Maria della Vita.  Although much smaller and more nondescript on the outside, this church reminded me of San Luca on the inside.

I found a place for dinner and then headed back to the hotel for awhile.

Italy was getting ready for a vote on whether to loosen laws regarding in vitro fertilization, and they were setting up for a rally in Piazza Maggiore when I arrived there just before dinner.  After getting some work done back in the hotel, I headed over to the rally to see what was going on.  Bologna is a very liberal city - home to both Italy's communist party and Arcigay, the country's national gay organization.  Condom and needle dispensers were mounted on outside business walls along Bologna's main streets.  A book store window featured titles by Chomsky, about Stalin, and by Michael Moore (quite a trio!).  Given Bologna's politics, it was no surprise that the rally was in favor of a woman's right to in vitro fertilization.

Although it can be hard to discuss politics with people in other countries, and not just because of the language barrier, I was taking note of the pending election.  There were signs about the referendum all over the country, some posted by both the communist and socialist parties, which is not something I see much of in the U.S.  The rally itself featured the usual assortment of speakers - and a live band.

I finished the day with a visit to Bar't.  Surprisingly, the Friday night crowd was small, about the same size as crowds the other nights of the week.

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Ravenna Day Trip, Performance Art Festival

Saturday June 11 -

The final workshops of the conference were held today, and they ended shortly before 1PM.  At that point, a group of us boarded a van we chartered for the hour-long drive to Ravenna.  Ravenna at one point was the capital of the Western Roman Empire.  Today it is a quiet city with an impressive collection of Byzantine-era mosaics, the focus of our visit.

Our first stop was the Mausoleo di Galla Placidia, a 5th century mausoleum that features the earliest wall mosaics in Ravenna.  Next up was the adjacent Chiesa di San Vitale, a 6th century church that had impressive mosaics, an interesting painted dome, and some of its original tile floors (which someone's uncontrolled toddler walked across while we were there as her parents looked on).

We then took a short walk through town, stopping for a snack break at Piazza del Popolo before heading on to Battistero Neoniano, the Neonian Baptistery, which features Greco-Roman mosaics.  Next door was the Cappella di Sant'Andrea, which featured a few items from the Archiepiscopal Museum, including an ivory throne that belonged to the Bishop Maximian back in the 6th century.

We passed the tomb of writer Dante Alighieri on our way over to our last stop, the Basilica di Sant'Apollinare, a 6th century church that features some of the largest wall mosaics to survive through the ages.  Then it was a short walk back to our van - I made quick photo stops at the Cosiddetto Palazzo di Teodorico (the so-called Palace of Teodorico) and the Basilica di San Giovanni Evangelista - and then we had a bit of a delay for our departure as we needed to find someone who got separated from our group.  But soon we were on our way back to Bologna.

We were dropped off near Piazza Maggiore when we returned to the city.  But instead of heading back to my hotel, I headed for the piazza to find out why it was crowded with people.  It turned out that there was a performance art festival underway.  One group after another put on some sort of a show, most featuring music and dancing (or at least dance-like moves), costumes and so on.  Some were pretty good, others amateurish but fun, and a few just puzzling.  I stuck around to watch the performances for about an hour and a half before leaving to find some place for dinner.

It was Saturday night, so I figured I'd give Cassero another try, but the open-air space was nearly deserted when I got there, so I decided to skip it and head back to Bar't for my last bar night in Bologna.  Actually the crowd there was a lot less than what I would have expected for a Saturday night, too, but it beat sitting in a hotel.  With a full day of sightseeing planned for Sunday, I didn't stay out too late.

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Monte Donato and Miscellaneous Bologna

Sunday June 12 -

Today was my final sightseeing day.  I didn't know enough about Bologna when I planned the trip, but figured I'd find some way to fill the day.

I drew inspiration from my Fiesole day hike when I finally planned out the day's activities.  Bologna, like Florence, is surrounded by countryside - flat to the north, but nicely hilly to the south.  I planned out a route (that I would change en route) taking me up to Parco di Forte Bandiera by one route and back by a different route.  A pretty walk, but nothing like my Fiesole discovery this time - the village of Monte Donato that I passed through along the way was small, with little to it other than a church.

As I headed back into town, I stopped at Giardina Margherita, where I took a break and enjoyed an ice cream cone while watching the locals enjoy their park on a warm summer day.

Then back to the hotel, where I made departure arrangements - I'd need a taxi to take me to the airport extremely early in the morning.  I had time for one last city hike.  I visited a few churches, including Chiesa del Salvatore, Basilica di San Francisco (the first example of French-like Gothic style architecture in Italy) and Cattedrale di San Pietro (home of a lot more interesting artwork).  I also visited Museo Civico Medievale, the city's Medieval arts museum, Porta Nuova, the ruins of the Porta Galleria gate from the old city wall, the train station, and Parco della Montagnola.  On my way back to Piazza Maggiore I found a crowd of folks on the street out front of some hotel, hoping to catch a glimpse of some famous person as he left the hotel and got in some vehicle.  I got there shortly before the famous person did indeed leave the hotel, and lucky me I caught a glimpse of the famous person.  Darned if I know who it was, though.

I got dinner at a restaurant on the piazza.  An Argentine restaurant.  Yes!  As I learned this spring, the great people of Argentina like beef, and they know how to grill a steak.  If my steak tonight was any indication, this restaurant was authentic.

I capped off the day with a last bit of people watching before I headed back to the hotel to pack.  I'd make an early night of it because I had to get up early, but I couldn't resist one last ice cream cone at the gelateria across from my hotel.  I got a few more night time photos, but I was back in my room shortly after 10 PM.

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Heading Home, Final Thoughts

Monday June 13 -

I was up by 3AM so that I could get to the airport by 4AM for my 6AM flight.  The Bologna airport is small enough that I could have arrived later, but I needed to get my seat assignments, and I wanted a window seat for crossing the Atlantic - which I got.

We left on time for Amsterdam - I had a window seat for this leg of the flight, too.  I had enough time on the ground in Amsterdam to pick up a small souvenir, but that was about it.  Then it was across the Atlantic and home to Seattle.

Our flight route followed the curve of the earth, so we skirted the northeast coast of Scotland and then crossed over Iceland and the heart of Greenland.  I recognized Iceland's Vatnajokull Glacier from my 2003 visit to that country, but clouds obscured my views of the rest of the country.

Fortunately the clouds broke as we approached Greenland.  This would be the third time I have flown across Greenland but the first time with a window seat.  As much as I fly, I never get tired of seeing the world from an airplane's perspective, whereas lots of folks seem content to close their window shades.  I got several pictures from the east coast of the island, but then the person in front of me decided to shove their seat all the way back and immediately ran into my knees.  After bouncing back a few times to try to shove the seat back further, she raised a big fuss about my knees being in her way, and I thought I would lose my window seat.  Instead, the stewardess had her swap with her seatmate - and five minutes later, she put her seat back up, and kept it upright the rest of the flight.  And I got to see the west coast of Greenland.  And great views of the glaciers and fjords of Canada's Baffin Island and after that the Nunavut mainland before we hit more clouds that would last until we approached Seattle.

The usual slow wait for luggage at Sea-Tac and then home.  No vacation day today.  I grabbed a quick lunch and started working.  The end of another trip.

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Nightlife

I found gay nightlife in Italy to be pretty underwhelming.  Most of the places near my hotel in Rome looked like they were closed, so I stuck with just one of the two clearly identifiable bars I discovered there.  I checked out two bars in Florence and chose not to return to either of them.  The places I checked out in Bologna drew small crowds.

Many gay bars expect you to be a member of Arcigay, the Bologna-based Italian gay association.  I got my Arcigay card at the Hangar in Rome and used it at the Bologna bars, too.  Florence bars never asked to see it.

Rome

Florence

Bologna

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