Italy'08

I am finally back from my holidays in Italy. Well, I have been back for a couple of days now, although I wish I wasn't! I have been trying to write up something coherent about my trip, but I am really not managing, and that is making me a bit sad. It was a great holiday, and nothing I write seems to be able to covey the awesomeness of it. I'm afraid you are just going to have to imagine that. I do have, however, some pictures, and I am hoping they will help pass the message across.

We were in the Tuscany, based in Pisa. We did the obligatory visit to the Piazza dei Miracoli, checking that the tower was, in fact, leaning, and then we went to the two lesser-trodden sights there: the Museo dell'Opera and the Museo della Sinopie. The sinopie are the preliminary drawings/sketches for the frescoes, only discovered after WW2, when everything got bombed and they had to take away the frescoes. They are now housed in their own museum and are amazing, capturing the art of the painters without all the colourful distraction. The Museo dell'Opera is a museum of cool old stuff. I would certainly recommend a visit to both of them (they are also a lot emptier!).

Most of our time of holidays, however, was spent ambling around the little streets, seeing pretty things and looking for small local restaurants. Life in Italy goes slightly slower than here in England, and it was very nice to slow down to that speed and see the sights. In our quest for tasty food to bring back, we found one of the most awesomestest shops evar, run by a little old lady. We bought some saffron from her.

Florence is only a train ride away from Pisa (about 1 hour), so we went there a couple of days. In our tourist mode, we saw Santa Maria del Fiore, Il Duomo. It was very pretty, inside and outside, and it featured a 24 hour counter-clockwise clock. I have one in my living room, but only 12 hours.

We went up to the top, which gave us a beautiful view of the city and of the construction of the cathedral. The top does have, however, some very narrow passages, to the point that several people had to be turned back because they were too fat to fit through (and we are not talking about horribly fat, either). It was a rather narrow passage!

As we ambled through the city (our feet ended the holiday very tired, including blisters), We also saw a football ball, a random street argument and a pedestal held by four turtles! It wasn't quite four elephants atop a turtle, but it was fun nonetheless.

We visited the town of Lucca, surrounded by a full wall. We happened to be there on the day of the 64th anniversary of the liberation of the city by the Americans, so we saw an army parade of the time, and on the day of the Wall Market, so we saw Prize Pumpkins. The Wall Market also had hand-dyed yarn, but it was made of sheep, so I had to let it go.

On our last full day, we decided to go to the beach for a couple of hours, to dip our toesis in the water, so we headed out to the town of Viareggio. We showed off our light tan on the beach (I've haven't had this much colour for a while!), while lots of other people were ugly shades of red. We then found huge park in the middle of town, and we strolled with the locals in the shade, cooling down from our escapade to the beach.

Now, as I said, I am back. It is, of course, pouring down here, and many degrees lower (Italy was soo hot). I do wish I could still be away, but it was nice coming back home and, after all, I still had the rest of the week off.

I like holidays. Is it can be holidayz tiemz again nao, plees?