A blonde, a brunette, and a redhead travel to Italy...

and have a wonderful time! (The blonde would be Ally, another friend, who decided to join us at the last second.) We flew back in last night, returning to the chill of London after sitting on a beach in Amalfi just a few hours before. After a good night's sleep and a leisurely morning spent reading The Sunday Times and doing laundry, it's finally time to worry about blogging.

I originally intended to just "blog by bullet points," but I've decided to just go for and it do the usual write-up. (Please forgive me if I make more typos and grammatical errors than usual.) I'll do corresponding photosets as well. Feel free to leave questions in the comments; I promise to answer them. And Tim, I'll definitely put together a Top 10 list for you.

SATURDAY: The Day of a Thousand Steps
Backpacks in tow, Laura and I were off to London Stansted at 4:30 AM to catch our flight. We arrived in "near" Bologna around 10 AM and caught the 45-minute bus shuttle to the city. Our first stop? Gelato, of course! Our Lonely Planet (LP) guidebook sent us to the Gelateria delle Moline, where we enjoyed our first of many cones of gelato. Next we walked toward the central square, where we saw the Fountain of Neptune. Particularly noteworthy are the fountain's water jets, which are "cleverly integrated" into the statue. (See my photos for details.)

We then found the Le Due Torri, literally The Two Towers, both of which sport a sizeable lean. One leans so much it had to be cut in half. Perhaps it was the excitement of being in Italy or the sugar-rush of the gelato, but we thought climbing the 498 steps to the top of the taller tower with our backpacks sounded like a good idea. (The Big Ben climb had about 330 steps.) It wasn't fun, but we made it. We were rewarded with a wonderful view of the "Red Bologna". From the tower, we spotted an interesting building atop a hill in the distance, the Basilica Santurio della Madonna di San Luca, which could be reached by bus or on foot. We put it on our list of things to do after lunch and set off to find a recommended restaurant.

Except we didn't really eat lunch. By that time, it was 3 PM, and practically all the restaurants were closing until dinner. "No worries," we said. "We're not that hungry anyway. We'll just head over to the basilica and have an early dinner." Heh.

We took a bus to the base of the portico that leads up to the basilica. With 666 arches the portico is the longest in the world. Now as you'll recall, we could've taken a bus to the top or walked up the portico. Yet for some reason we decided to walk. "It's only 2 km!" we said. Somehow it escaped our notice that it’s 2 km uphill, but we did manage to make it to the top. It was gorgeous up there; the views were spectacular. But to this day we're aren't quite sure what possessed us to walk.

Yet the fun in Bologna didn't stop there! We walked (yes walked) back down to the bottom in search of dinner. Naturally, all the restaurants were still closed until 7 PM! Disgruntled, tired, and hungry, we plopped down in a cheap eatery near the train station and finally got some food. It was by far the worst food we ate in Italy, but it did the trick. Finally, we hopped on our train, arrived in Florence a few hours later, found our hostel without too much trouble, and got some much-needed rest.

Overall, I thought Bologna was definitely worth the time we spent there. Our day would've been more pleasant had we checked our bags at the train station (which we didn't realize we could do until later) and been more aware of Italian custom re restaurants, but Laura and I still had a good time. We laugh about what we call the "Day of a Thousand Steps" now, especially considering what happened a couple days later...

SUNDAY: Heady Times in Siena
We woke up early the next morning and headed to the Galleria dell'Accademia, mainly to see Michelangelo's David. The LP said to get there early, and we were sure glad we did. We walked straight in at 8:45 AM. By the time we left around 10, the line was a block-and-a-half long! The David itself exceeded my expectations; it's much larger (around 15 feet) than I anticipated and beautiful from every angle.

After grabbing a quick bite to eat, we hopped a bus to Siena. I enjoyed seeing the Tuscan scenery from the bus, although I’m sure it’s far more beautiful later in the year. We arrived in Siena and headed for the city center, the Piazza del Campo, a lovely, scallop-shaped space. We had lunch in the piazza (I had a wonderful ravioli) then set out to see the town. The cathedral is a massive Gothic church; highlights included the marble floor and Libreria Piccolomini, with colorful frescoes depicting the life of its namesake. Next up was the Chiesa di San Domenico, where we saw the preserved head of St. Catherine! It looked faked to me until we saw a close-up on a postcard. Gross.

Back in Florence, Ally had arrived at our hostel. After taking a quick siesta, the three of us went out to dinner at a restaurant nearby. Our food was fabulous; my Tuscan roasted pork (ariste di maiale al forno) practically melted in my mouth. The red wine was following as well, ensuring that we were quite giggly by the time we left.

We left in search of gelato. Ally led the way because she had studied in Florence one summer during undergrad and knew a place that would be open. After a few twists in turns, we finally stumbled upon the place she was talking about--Festival del Gelato—which has more than 70 flavors to choose from. It’s never hard for me—anything with chocolate will do. Now cold inside and out, we scurried back to the hostel and turned in for the night.

MONDAY: Duomo and Dumber
As the other two got ready the next morning, I ran off to the station to check train times. On the way, I stopped by the Mercato Centrale San Lorenzo, a large covered market not far from our hostel. I was tempted to buy some of the unique pastas they were selling but settled for just a banana instead.

Leaving our bags at the hostel, ventured out into Florence. After stopping by a patisterrie for some breakfast, we headed to the River Arno. We checked out the views generally and Ponte Vecchio in particular. This famous bridge has housed jewellery merchants for centuries. Unfortunately, the wares were quite out of our price range, but we enjoyed window-shopping nonetheless. After a stroll through the outdoor sculpture gallery that is the Piazza della Signoria (it holds copies of the David and Donatello’s Marcozzo), we finally visited Florence’s famed Duomo. We didn’t have time to climb the cupola (dome), but the interior of it was lovely (see my pictures for a glimpse).

As it was a Monday, many of the other attractions, including the Uffizi Gallery, were closed. So we decided to take an earlier train and make a brief stop in Cortona on our way to Rome. It ended up being quite a memorable stop.

Cortona was the setting for much of Under the Tuscan Sun (remember seeing that, Lori?). It’s set high upon a hill overlooking the Tuscan countryside. Because of said hill, we were hoping to drop our bags off at the station. Unfortunately, the Camucia-Cortona stop has no such service so we begrudgingly took them with us. We took a bus up to Cortona itself, and then the fun really started.

We did as the LP said and “wriggled up through a sleepy warren of steep cobbled lanes” to the Chiesa San Margherita. This stiff climb was made even more difficult by our backpacks. Laura and I were having Bologna flashbacks, and Ally struggled with the ill-fitting pack she had borrowed from a much taller friend. We finally made it to the top, and the views were lovely. After a brief rest, we literally shuffled back down the steep hill, bought some postcards, and caught the bus back down the hill.

Halfway down the hill, our bus picked up a ticket-checker. We showed him our tickets then he proceeded on up the aisle. But on his way back and stopped and started talking to us in Italian. Naturally, we couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Finally, he got out a ticket booklet and pointed to 40 Euros. Instantly, I understood that he wanted to fine us for not having a new ticket. But we were under the erroneous impression that our tickets were valid for a certain time period (I even asked the bus driver if we had the right ticket when we got on), while our tickets were actually only good for a one-way ride.

As Ally describes it, I had this look of utter disbelief on my face and simply stared straight ahead. I honestly didn’t know what to do; I didn’t want to pay that much for an honest mistake! Laura was frantically looking through her phrasebook, and Ally was trying to communicate with him best she could. We made little progress, and I wasn’t quite sure what we were going to do. Finally, a woman on the bus took pity on us and translated. We pleaded our case best we could, and she tried to help as well. We didn’t completely get out of it--we still had to pay ten Euros each. But at least he didn’t call the police like he was threatening to!

After he got off the bus, the woman and the driver talked about what happened. She explained that the driver was mad at the ticket man for doing that to us but there was nothing he could do; we thanked the woman for her help and got off. As we waited for our (late) train, we went through a range of emotions—confusion, anger, and amusement—about the whole affair. But we vowed not to dwell on it and had a rather enjoyable ride through Umbria. We found our hostel in Rome without much fanfare, and then sat down to a nice dinner (I had veal). We’d had an exhausting day--physically and emotionally—so it wasn’t hard falling asleep that night.

Here's the link to the photoset for these days. Stay tuned stories from Rome!