That is the question our vast following here on the web must have been asking.  Alas, we were unexpectedly stranded without internet access.  And it often seemed so close!  While our hotel in Venice had internet access, we have an older computer that could not connect with their system.  They even had an older system but our computer did not have a strong enough wifi receiver to make it work.  Ahh, the challenges of travelling in the internet age!

Since our last post we've been to Venice, returned to Florence, seen Tracy off to her workshop on the Spiritual and Art Practice, and Richard off to Pisa where he writes this on the hotel PC (with its European keyboard) shortly before heading back to SF.  Much ground to cover and little time.  In short:

Venice is wonderful, marvelous, amazing, and many other over the top positive adjectives.

Light, color, sky, architecture, art, and history are some of the dimensions of the above.

We got to spend an afternoon and evening with the Grubbs-Rider clan!

St.Marks is a wonder of the world.

The Biennale was so wonderful Richard dropped all plans to sightsee and spent all day for for two days at the show.  The exhibition spaces alone were incredible and much of the art just amazing.

On the day we left we saw a separate exhibit, Infinitum, that knocked our socks off.

Food highlights were our first italian pizza, lemon-basil gelato, and a seafood-green bean salad.

Technology caused Richard a small heart murmur when the GPS on his iPhone told him his train was headed to Rome instead of Pisa – fortunately it corrected itself before more serious health consequences ensued.

Pisa has a botanical garden that allows you to photograph the leaning tower emerging from jungle vegetation much like a Mayan temple at Tikal.

There you have it!  There may be some more reflective posts after a few days.  We shall see. 

Thanks for reading!

     Today we broke out of the museum pattern and spent the day
wandering around town.  Our initial
destination was the produce (and meat, and fish, and grappa) market at San
Lorenzo.  It is a massive hall that
dwarfs the SF Ferry Plaza.  It is
always a wonderful thing to look at fresh produce and is even better when it’s a
just a bit different as it is here. 
Everything was gorgeous!  In
one shop we spoke to a very helpful young Florentine who hails originally from
Oregon.  She is in school here and
says the job market is way better than Oregon.  We made or way home zigzagging through town succeeding in
keeping most of our shopping to the window- variety.  We had a bit of rain today which blessedly dropped the temp
below 90.  It made walking about so
much more pleasant (there may be a short essay on the heat in a later post).

Dinner tonight was again wonderful.  Nice simple bruscheta with the ripest
melt in your mouth tomatoes you can imagine, an anchovy salad, and a slow
braised beef with peppercorns and various secret ingredients.   We’ve been asked if the meals are
expensive and the answer is yes, but only because everything in Florence is
expensive!  The prices we’ve paid
have been reasonable by Florence standards.  We’ve found most places through our guidebook and we’ve
limited ourselves to places that are a 1 or 2 on their 4 point scale.

Tomorrow we are off to Venice where we hear things are even
more expensive than Florence – we shall see!

Our reservations for David were even earlier than for the
Ufizzi so we already had a bigger challenge compounded by having had even more
wine (a very big Sicilian albo de vevera) than the night before.  Still we made it in plenty of
time.  The David matched the
build-up of the hype.  I found
myself just gazing first at a foot, then a hand, then a muscle on the leg, a
vein on the arm, all perfect.  The
museum has a show of Mapplethprpe’s work going on right now that provides an
exquisite match helping the viewer to become immersed in form and the artists’
fascination with form.  I’ve always
enjoyed M’s work but seeing it the context of David and other sculptures at the
Accademia took it to a new level. 
The rest of the day we spent wandering town, napping, washing clothes,
and catching up on the blog. 
Spending time in our room I was reminded of Florence’s textile heritage
– I love our drapes!

 Dinner was a simple affair just down the
street.  Though I’ve never ordered
steak and eggs at home, seeing them offered with asparagus and truffles was
irresistible and it was 
a tasty affair indeed!      

Evening 2 – Update

When we last posted, we had not yet had dinner.  It was magnificent: fresh buffalo
mozzarella, fish ravioli with fresh macerated tomatoes, salt-roasted duck
breast with mushrooms and fresh fennel, and crème brulee that puts the Hayes
Street Grill to shame – or perhaps better said, a different class.  The custard in this dessert was
unbelievable.

But this post is headed Day 3, so:

Having such a magnificent lingering meal posed a challenge
as the next day we had to be up early for our reservations at the Ufizzi.  We discovered that it is cooler in
Florence if you leave the hotel before noon . . .

This advantage was lost upon entering the
Ufizzi as it is filled with people, many, many, stairs, and no climate
control.  The art though quickly
removes any awareness of outside conditions as you become immersed in the
passions of artists and patrons past. 
I prefer medieval works with simple forms and stark images and had much
to delight in as we wandered the first galleries.  Technique becomes more and more refined and I found myself wondering how many more variations on Christ’s story I could stand and
there, like a breath of fresh air is Botticelli’s Venus – the first featured
woman who is not Mary or a saint. 
Not that she is that racy – that come later with Titian.  Still, it was great to get the variety
provided by the mythological subjects. 
I wonder it the artists were feeling as confined by the subject matter
as was I?

 Intending to wander back to the hotel we found ourselves
instead in the Bargello (I wondered if this was an LDS alternative to the
gelato bar  but it was another
museum) with Donatello’s Davids including his first: as far as we know, it was
the first male sculpture made in over 1000 years!  From there it was on to Santa Croce home of still more
frescoes (my favorites of the trip), and the tombs of Dante, Michealangelo, and
Galileo, inter alia. Santa Croce has the added benefit of cloisters with a bit
of green space.  There are very few
trees or public squires in Florence except for the massive gardens associated
with the private palaces.  While
the Town certainly does not want for civic pride, it all went in to churches
and art and not much in the way of open space.

Today we wandered the Oltrano neighborhood, south of the
Arno and made our way to the Santa Maria della Carmine, home of the Masaccio
frescoes Cappella Brancacci then over to the Pitti Palace for some
post-Rennaisance art.  The
relationship between art, its patrons, and their motivations is constantly on
view here.  We are fortunate that
the feuding families chose art as a battlefield and had such a magnificent set
of champions. But art is not all that 
Florence has to offer. 
There is food!  Yesterday’s
highlight was the gelato – we limited ourselves to canteloupe, apricot, and
extra dark chocolate but only because we were too late for that day’s special:
caramel and red Himalayan salt.  We
are going to continue sampling this regional delight!  We had a great meal last night at Mama Gina’s which may or
may not be the wonderful place Steve & Michele stumbled upon 8 years ago
when our trip to join them was interrupted by 9/11.

Our hotel is near the Ponte Vecchio with an amazing tower
where we can unwind a bit at the end of the day and enjoy views like this:

If you like travel blogs (or our extended family) be sure to
check out the Grubbs/Rider clan’s blog on their trip this summer: http://3generationsontheroad.wordpress.com/

Richard