From our base in Florence we ventured out to two additional cities in Tuscany: Pisa, and Siena. You could call this part of our trip, coming in the middle as it does, the Two Towers.
First, Pisa [wikipedia.org]. Of course there was one goal in Pisa, the Leaning Tower [wikipedia.org]. We took the train from Florence and walked to the Piazza del Duomo. The tower is fun to see and to hike up to the top. The slanted stairs make you feel like a drunk as you circle the tower, first leaning to the inside then to the outside of the corridor. After enjoying the view from the top for a while we went into the cathedral.
As I said, the Tower was the only attraction we went to Pisa for. So, after visiting the Tower and Duomo we had an early dinner. Then we took a slow walk back the train station and headed back to Florence.
A few days later we took the train to Siena [wikipedia.org]. As Siena is at the top of steep hill from the train station we took a bus to the old city. Other than just exploring the well preserved midieval city we wanted to climb the Torre del Mangia [wikipedia.org]. To be honest my knees were not looking forward to the 400 or so steps to the top. But, I wanted the photos from the top. Unfortunately, or fortunately if you are my knees, the tower was closed due to high wind.
We didn’t really notice how strong the wind was in the Piazza del Campo where the tower is located, it was a bit windy. But as we made our way to the Siena Cathedral [wikipedia.org], it was obvious why they closed the tower. In the piazza around the Duomo it was almost like a cartoon, leaning into the wind to avoid being blown over; the slight drizzle was turned into horizontal darts of water.
The Duomo in Siena is, I think, one of the more beautiful interiors in Tuscany. It’s just the right blend of the gothic and romanesque styles. It has that multi-colored marble stripes on the columns, and the gothic vaulted ceiling. I love it’s completely not circular dome. But the most interesting part, historically if not visually, is the uncompleted expansion you can see half built in the piazza, the attempted size is stunning. The nave of the current building was going to be the transept of the new one. The plague put an end to that building work, and it was discovered that it had some flaws in it anyway and most probably would have fallen down, so they never finished it even after the plague was over.
Anyway, we wondered around Siena a bit more, saw the home of the oldest surviving bank in the world, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which isn’t much of a tourist site but we did have to walk by it anyway as we wondered around trying to find here to get a bus back to the train station.
So, that was our Tuscany excursions. We didn’t go to San Gimignano or Arezzo or just wonder around the country side. Winter is not really the time to wonder around, Tuscany is justifiable famous for the beautiful countryside but that is more suited for a summer visit.
Continuing our journey from Venice [confusion.cc], our next stop was Florence, capital of Tuscany and of the Renaissance. With the exception of not spending a night in Milan before going to Venice this holiday followed the same plan my wife and I took on our honeymoon in 2007 — Venice [confusion.cc], Florence [confusion.cc], Rome [confusion.cc], including Vatican City [confusion.cc] and Milan [confusion.cc]. The side trips were a little different: we didn’t visit Verona [confusion.cc] or San Gimignano [confusion.cc] or Como [confusion.cc], but Pisa [confusion.cc], Siena [confusion.cc] and even Pompeii (which I never posted about?) were all on the itinerary again this time.
Anyway, enough of itineraries. What did we do in Florence [wikipedia.org]? In addition to being the base of operations for our visits to Pisa and Siena, among the many, many things to see in Florence, we visited:
The Uffizi Gallery [wikipedia.org], where we saw; The Birth of Venus [wikipeida.org] by Botticelli —one of Victoria’s favorite paintings— Primavera [wikipeida.org] also by Botticelli, Medusa [wikipeida.org] by Caravaggio, and many, many, more. Some of the most celebrated paintings in history (full list [wikipedia.org]), including works by three of the four Ninja Turtles.
The Ponte Vecchio [wikipedia.org]. It’s pretty, a great backdrop for photos. The most interesting thing, to me, is that London Bridge once looked like this, only bigger as I understand.
The Duomo, formally Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore [wikipeida.org]. As far as cathedrals go, this one, which marks the end of Gothic and start of Renaissance styles (no buttresses!), has, I think, the most beautiful exterior. The green and white gives it character. The interior is much brighter than most other cathedrals and the dome is amazing. We climbed the dome, 463 steps for the amazing views. We also climbed the bell tower; another 414 steps for more amazing views.
Galleria dell’Accademia [wikipedia.org], housing Michelangelo’s David [wikipedia.org]. Probably the most famous sculpture in history. It’s monumental and technical amazing. But I think I prefer La Pieta among Michelangelo’s sculptures that I have seen.
Basilica di San Lorenzo [wikipedia.org], which is notable as it has no grand façade, just the raw, naked brickwork. Michelangelo designed a facade, even built a wooden model but it was not built. This makes San Lorenzo look rather plain on the outside, hiding how beautiful it is on the inside. Donatello is buried here.
Medici Chapel [wikipeida.org]. Which is attached to San Lorenzo but a seperate tourist site, because, Michelangelo designed it and it contains several celebrated sculptures or his and some charcoal sketches attributed to him.
Basilica di Santa Croce [wikipedia.org]. Yet another magnificent church in Florence. The interior, is very different from either the Duomo or San Lorenzo but beautiful. This place is notable for the many important tombs found in the nave —from midieval knights, to some of the most famous people in history; Michelangelo, Galileo, Dante, Machiavelli, and more.
One thing we were not able to do this trip was to visit the Vasari Corridor [wikipedia.org] as it was closed. As I recall from last time it’s interesting, but not a make-or-break thing. C’est la vie. We. Also didn’t visit the Palazzo Pitti [wikipedia.org], or the Bargello [wikipedia.org]. I think the kids were tired of paintings of Madonna and Child, Christ on the Cross, the Adoration of the Magi, and statues of naked men and women. Livi had an app on her phone to keep count of different themes. It can be mind numbing all the renaissance and pre-renaissance art day-after-day in Florence, indeed, in Italy.
We did stumble upon a decidedly not renaissance exhibit that we decided to go to. In the Palazzo Strozzi there was an exhibit of Anish Kupoor’s works called Untrue Unreal [palazzostrozzi.org]. Including early, colorful works like To Reflect an Intimate Part of the Red [anishkapoor.com], and Endless Column [anishkapoor.com], as well as the more grotesque Three Days of Mourning [anishkapoor.com] and First Milk [anishkapoor.com], some of his mirror work and even a bunch of his newer Vantablack works. Lots of things I didn’t catch the name of and didn’t find for sure when searching online. I would not say I’m a big fan of Anish Kapoor in general but it was a nice departure from renaissance and pre-renaissance art.
And if you are keeping count, we saw the tombs of two of the four ninja turtles in Florence.
I first visited Venice in 2002, I spend a long day tramping around the city with a college friend. We didn’t stay in Venice, that was too expensive.
I returned to Venice in 2007 with my Wife, part of our honeymoon tour of Italy.
The Grand Canal from The Rialto in the morning light
This time my daughters and my mother and youngest sister joined my wife and I. We spend three nights. We flew into Milan and took the train directly to Venice, choosing to see Milan as our last stop so we didn’t need to rush to make a flight on the last day.
We visited all the important sights —the Doge’s Palace [wikipedia.org], St. Marks Basillica [wikipedia.org], The Rialto [wikipedia.org]— spent lots of time walking around the streets and squares, at a lot of good foot and gelato, and took a trip to Murano [wikipeida.org] —for the glass— and Burano [wikipedia.org] —for the colorful houses.
St. Mark’s Basillica in the late afternoon sunlight
We were lucky to get into St. Marks at just the right time of day, to have brilliant late afternoon sun steaming in the windows and giving all the cold mosaic walls and ceilings an amazing glow. St. Mark’s is inspired by the Chruch of the Holy Apostles [wikipedia.org] in Constantanople which no longer exits. But the influence of the Byzantium style of churches and church decoration is obvious. St. Mark’s reminds me of Hagia Sofia [wikipeida.org], it’s nowhere near as big and it actually has a lot more golden mozaic everywhere you look (thought in absolute terms maybe Hagia Sofia has more, it’s so damn big…). Hagia Sofia is one of my favorite buildings in the world, and I get a similar feeling in St. Mark’s just based on the decoration, the mosaics and the marble and the domes. It was absolutly beautiful in the golden light.
Mask at Ca’ Del Sol
We also visited a shop, specializing in masks and costumes for Carnival, called Ca’ Del Sol [cadelsolmascherevenezia.com]. We did buy a couple of masks but this place is like a wonderland. The floors, walls and ceiling and many tables are covered win masks. Manikins modeling full costumes stand in the corners. The old guy working there was a total character too, playing it up. Few things say Venice like a fancy carnival mask and Ca’ Del Sol, had the most fancy ones your can imagin.
Of course, the girls also needed their required Gondola ride. It’s just a thing you have to do when in Venice.
Did I mention gelato? Having discovered Gelato at Amarino’s in Paris in 2022it was a must to have actual Italian Gelato. (I didn’t write about it but we went back to Amarino’s every night after we found it, no matter how cold it was in Paris.) I even got to show them where I first had Gelato (that was in Milan). My older daughter made sure she knew where an Amarino’s was in every city we were visiting in Italy so she could have Amarino’s every day. (We did try a few other placed, but the quality of Amarino’s was consitent and higher than most easy to find tourist places).
It was not a long stay, Vinice is still expensive, and while it might be nice to spend a few more days to see everything, a few days is enough. Enought to wonder though the streets and allyways, over the bridges. Enought time to get a feel for why Venice is so famous. From Venice we took the train to Florence, but that is another post…
I posted photos from my 2022 trip to Paris almost a year after the trip, just at the end of September. I had intended to post about the other part of that trip, to Strasburg and Colmar, soon after and definitely before this years trip.
I failed.
So, here it is, almost the end of 2023 and I’m posting a link to my photos from the 2022 trip to Strasburg and Colmar. More than a year after the trip. Sad. I hope to do better.
In any case, my family and I spent five days in Strasburg as a break from Paris. We spend most days wondering around the old Alsatian part of town, visiting the Christmas Markets.
Between glasses of vin chaud, the local mulled wine, or hot apple cider, we browsed the market stalls and climbed to the top of the Strasburg Cathedral. And we spend a day in Colmar, checking out their markets and drinking vin chaud there.
While Paris was all about visiting museums and churches, something to do every day, Strasburg was for sleeping in and relaxing, no scheduled ticket times.
Oh, and we waked to Germany. We took the tram to the closest stop and then walked over the Pont de l’Europe, crossing the Rhine and into Germany just far enough to catch the tram back. Just to say we did it.
I’m setting a new record for delay in posting my travel photos. normally it takes me six months, this time it’s closer to ten. In my defense I had to replace my external storage and, twice, send my Mac for repair. But, anyway. Yea, I went to Paris last year with the family.
Since my first visit, more than twenty years ago, before this blog existed, I have loved Paris. Not the first of course, but I really feel a je ne sais quoi. Walking the streets, sitting in the cafes or visiting the museums. This feeling survives the rude people, the stink of the Metro, the homeless, and the bitter cold we had on this trip. London, New York and Tokyo are the only other cities that I have spent a significant amount of time in that have a similar sort of presence and mystic in my mind.
I’ve seen just about everything there is to see in Paris over my many visits, but this was my daughters first trip. So, we marched our way through all of the sites I think are worth it:
Arc de Triomphe
The Arc [wikipedia.org] was our first stop. Seemingly every flight from Singapore to Europe lands at six AM and the hotels don’t want you until two or three in the afternoon. So after dropping our bags at our hotel in the Latin Quarter we hiked down to and across the river, and then up the Avenue des Champs-Élysées to the Arc. It was cold and windy and the sky was overcast, parils of winter travel, but the Arc is as good an introduction to Paris as any; a Napoleonic monument seated at the intersection of grand boulevards with views of the Eiffel Tower, Sacré-Cœur atop Montmartre, the hideous Tour Montparnasse. Notre Dame was hidden by the renovation works.
Tour Eiffel
You have to, the only reason not to visit is just to be contrarian, the Eiffel Tower [wikipeidia.org] is Paris, dispite the fact that the parisians hated it when it was first built. No one wanted to climb the stairs. There is a new (to me) glass wall that goes all the way around the base of the tower so they herd people through security screening. It ruins all the photos. C’est la vie.
Musée du Louvre
We went to the Lourve [wikipedia.org], twice in fact. It’s much too big for one visit. We got really lucky on the first visit, it was on a Friday, they have extended hours and when we made our way to the Mona Lisa [wikipedia.org] there were surprisingly few people. Even with two visits the Louvre is overwhelming. We checked off the majors: Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo [wikipedia.org], Nike of Samothrace [wikipedia.org], Liberty Leading the People [wikipedia.org], the apartments of Napoleon III, and much more. So much more…
Musée de Cluny/Musée du Moyen Âge
The Moyen Âge is a smaller museum, less crowded. You feel like you can take your time. But really you go for one thing: ze tapestries. The Lady and The Unicorn [wikipedia.org], six large tapestries that are always linked in my mind with opening titles of The Last Unicorn [wikipedia.org], the 1982 Rankin/Bass animated movie. Though younger people may associate them with the Gryffindor common room in the Harry Potter movies.
Musée d’Orsay
The Orsay [wikipedia.org] is my favorite musum in Paris. I love the collection, focusing on art from the late 19th and early 20th century. There is something about the transition from classical painting and sculpture to fully modern art that just works for me. I love the impressionist and post-impressionist; the Orsay has a huge collection: Monet [wikipeida.org], Van Gogh [wikipedia.org], Cézanne [wikipedia.0rg], Degas [wikipedia.org], and many more. I love also the sculpture of Rodin [wikipedia.org] his student Camille Claudel [wikipedia.org], and those of Carpeaux [wikipedia.org]. The Orsay is the right size, not as massive as the Lourve, not so small as the Cluny. A long lazy afternoon wondering among great art. This time there was a exhibit on the works of Edvard Munch [wikipedia.org], we got to see an early hand colored lithograph of The Scream [wikipedia.org].
Musée de l’Orangerie
The main attraction in the Oragnerie [wikipedia.org] is eight massive paintings by Cloude Monet in his Water Lilies [wikipeida.org] series. If you’ve never seen these or the other large format ones that are in other museums, you will be shocked at how large they are. While many of the Water Lilies in museams like the Orsay are ‘normal’ size, typically around 1 meter by 1 meter or so, the eight that hang in the Orangerie are two meters high and range in width from six to seventeen meters. The museum also houses many more other impressionist and post-impressionist paintings.
Musée Rodin
Rodin [wikipedia.org] is my favorite sculpture (Dalí comes close), and the Rodin Museum [wikipedia.org] in Paris is wonderful place. A quiet garden and manor house that once housed Rodin’s studio, set not too far from the Eiffel Tower. It’s a great escape from the city without leaving the city. You can spend hours wondering around the garden and inside the house. Among hundreds of Rodin’s works; including The Thinker [wikipedia.org] and The Kiss [wikipedia.org] as well as a cast of the full The Gates of Hell [wikipedia.org] (both The Kiss and the Thinker were orginally part of the Gates).
Espace Dalí
Dali Paris [wikipedia.org], is a small private museum in Montmartre, devoted to Dalí. There are a number of casts of various images from his surrealest paintings —melting clocks from the Persistance of Memory [wikipedia.org], a long legged Space Elephant from The Elephants, Alice jumping rope and more. It’s small, but if you like Dalí it’s a great stop.
Sainte-Chapelle
Standing in Sante-Chapelle [wikipedia.org], one a sunny day, the stained glass windows filling the room with all colors of the rainbow, is one of the most peaceful and beautiful experiences you can have. Of all the churches and other places filled with stained glass I’ve visited around Europe (and other places), there is nothing that compares with Sainte-Chapelle.
Sacré-Cœur
Sacré-Cœur [wikipedia.org] is beautiful building, a mix of muted orthodox churches —massive ceiling mosaics and almost onion domes— and the classical revival styles. Nothing gothic about it, but, while it is pretty, it doesn’t do it for me, I prefer the gothic architecture of Norte Dame. The best part of visiting Sacré-Cœur is going up to the dome and getting the view of Paris from the very top of Montmartre.
Shakespeare & Co
There are other, larger, book stores just around the corner from Shakespeare & Co [wikipedia.org] —though sadly Gibert Jeune closed due to the COVID19 pandemic— but Shakespeare & Co’s focus on English books means I can actually read a book I buy there. And it just feels more cosy. The shops along Boulevard Saint-Michel are massive, Gibert Jeune was 6 stores and Gibert Joseph stretches across multiple locations. Shakespeare & Co is cosy, you can barely turn around in the used book shop. The new book shop is bigger, but still just five irregular shaped rooms, packed with shelves of books. I know this is not the original Shakespeare & Co that published Ulysses, that one closed during the Nazi occupation, but it has the ambiance. I picked up a used copy of Chaucer, The Pardoners Tale edited by Nevill Coghill and Christopher Tolkien.
Catacombes de Paris
“I see dead people”… Well, their bones. Bones everywhere. Millions of bones. I’ve been the theCatacombs of Paris [wikipedia.org] before, twice. This trip was all about taking my teenage daughter. She likes horror movies so this was right up her alley. My wife and younger daughter declined to join us, they went shopping and dinning.
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier or Paris Opera House, is the very definition of over-the-top architecture. Wikipedia says it’s Second Empire or Napoleon III style, which is not technically baroque but includes many elements of baroque as a revival… But the basic principle seems to be leave no surface unadorned. Statues, carvings, mosaics, gilded mirrors… it’s all there. And somehow it works. Even if you don’t appreciate the aesthetic the exterior and, especially, the interior of the Palais Garnier are awesome and worth the visit. And don’t forget this is where the Phantom of the Opera lived.
In addition to all the sights we visited in the city, we made a few trips out to the surrounding areas. We went to Versailles [wikipedia.org] to see the opulent palace of the Sun King [wikipedia.org] and Marie-Antoinette [wikipedia.org]. Actually we had to make two trips, the first day we went we arrived late and the last tickets for the (short) day were sold out. Fortunately we had a few free days so were able to get tickets online for one of those days towards the end of our trip.
We also visited Chartres to see the cathedral [wikipedia.org]. The idea was to make up for not getting to see Notre Dame, since it was still under renovation and repair after the fire. You can’t go to France and not see a proper gothic cathedral. Unfortunately, Chartres is undergoing restoration and cleaning and the tour of the tower and upper floors was closed. C’est la vie. So we had to settle for the main floor and outside views.
So, yea, a long, packed trip to Paris. We marched back and forth across the city, averaging 16 kilometers a day. We rode the Metro nearly every day; using the old school little blue tickets and enjoying the, um, unique, smell of the Paris Metro while navigating the maze-like passages and stairways and braving the overly aggressive doors on the older trains. We ate fresh baguettes and crescents from boulangeries (I will fight you for the last baguette from Maison d’Isabellein Place Maubert!); Comte cheese and yogurt, raspberries and apples for from the markets for breakfast. We wondered the Latin Quarter and Montmatre. I love Paris.
