Wonderful New Apartment

I moved! While my old place was very adequate my new place has many pluses like reliable hot water, very close to the bus stop, a modern kitehen that includes all that is needed. a convenient washing machine, and a second bedroom for guests. I am so blessed to have this place. It is very convenient for Ron. It has an elevator and is close to school so he can walk over and eat lunch with me whenever he wants. The apartment was in pristine condition when I moved in and now the challenge is to keep it that way. - Nancy

Sunday in Assisi

Sunday it was raining hard in Assisi when we decided to go the 10:30 am English mass. I called the taxi driver who had driven us around Assisi on Saturday. We managed a good way to communicate. He spoke Italian and Portuguese. His wife was from Brazil I spoke Spanish and English so we figured out that that he would understand me when I spoke Spanish and I could understand him if if spoke Portuguese. It all worked out and we got to where we wanted to go on time. The Mass in English had 12 in attendance and was held in a small chapel in an area not open to the public. After the service we entered a back way into the public area whee the tomb of St. Francis is located. I found Assisi to be a lovely place. We enjoyed walking in the town. It was a relaxing two days. Ron and took a train back to Rome on Sunday evening while Ray and Marianne stayed another night and then took a train to Naples to continue their travels in Italy. - Nancy

Touring in Assisi

We took a morning train from Florence to Assisi which is the birthplace of St. Francis, who founded the Franciscan religious order in the town in 1208.  We hired a taxi driver to take us around to see the major sites of the area.

The Rocca Maggiore dominated for more than eight hundred years, the citadel of Assisi and the valley of Tescio, constituting the most viable fortification for their defense. The first documented date for the  fortress is 1173. You can only view the outside of the fortress.

 One of the churches that we visited was Santa Maria degli Angeli. It was not allowed to take pictures on the inside of the churches in Assisi.

In the caves on the slope of Monte Subasio just outside the walls of Assisi, St. Francis  (1181-1226) and his followers established their first home at the Eremo delle Carceri (Carceri Hermitage). He often returned here during his life to pray and contemplate. The word Carceri is from the Latin carceres and means "isolated places". St. Francis first began coming to this beautiful place in the forest in 1205. At the time, the only building here was a tiny 12th-century oratory. Francis lived alone in a cave, where he prayed fervently and did penance. Soon other men followed him to the mountain, finding their own isolated caves nearby in which to pray. - Nancy

Best of Tuscany - Stop 4 Pisa

The daylight was fading when we arrived in Pisa for our final stop. By the time we walked from the bus to the Leaning Tower of Pisa it was dark. I really enjoyed seeing it with lights on it. It was beautiful. - Nancy

WHY does the Tower of Pisa lean?

The leaning of the Tower of Pisa comes into the story in 1173, when construction began. Thanks to the soft ground, it had begun to lean by the time its builders got to the third story, in 1178. Shifting soil had destabilized the tower’s foundations. Over the next 800 years, it became clear the 55-metre tower wasn’t just leaning but was actually falling at a rate of one to two millimeters per year.

Today, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is more than five meters off perpendicular. Its architect and engineer tried to correct this by making the remaining stories shorter on the uphill side – but to no avail. It kept leaning more and more. The lean, first noted when three of the tower’s eight stories had been built, resulted from the foundation stones being laid on soft ground consisting of clay, fine sand and shells. The next stories were built slightly taller on the short side of the tower in an attempt to compensate for the lean. However, the weight of the extra floors caused the edifice to sink further and lean more. From: http://www.towerofpisa.org/tower-of-pisa-historical-facts/

Best of Tuscany - Stop 3 San Gimingnano

San Gimignano is an Italian hill town encircled by 13th-century walls. Ron is standing its old town centers on Piazza della Cisterna, a triangular square lined with medieval houses. It has a skyline of medieval towers.

Ray and Marianne are standing at the scenic overlook in
San Gimignano.

There is no rule against having 2 servings of gelato in one day if the second one comes from the world champion gelato shop. - Nancy

Best of Tuscany - Stop 2 Chainti Vineyard

Lunch was at an organic family run wine estate. We had an informal wine tasting lesson and a traditional Tuscan lunch in a gorgeous location overlooking the surrounding countryside. In the distance you could see the towers of the medieval hilltown of San Gimignano which was stop 3. - Nancy

Best of Tuscany - Stop 1 Siena

Ray, Marianne, Ron and I went on an all day tour called the Best of Tuscany. The first stop was the Siena, one of several Tuscan Hill towns. The historic center of Siena has been declared by  UNESCO at World Heritage Site.

The exterior of the cathedral is impressive. Built between 1215 and 1263 on the site of an earlier structure, the cathedral is in the form of a Latin cross with a slight projecting dome and bell tower. The exterior and interiors are decorated in white and greenish-black marble in alternating stripes, black and white being the symbolic colors of Siena.

The most impressive and beautiful of the treasures the cathedral holds are on the floor, where the pavement is decorated with the art of mosaics (using various techniques) to create storytelling masterpieces. The 56 etched and inlaid marble panels were designed by 40 of leading artists between 1369 and 1547, all from Siena

Piazza del Campo is the principal public space of the historic center of Siena and is regarded as one of Europe's greatest medieval squares. It is renowned worldwide for its beauty and architectural integrity.

We had time for a stop at a cafe on the Piazza del Campo for some gelato and coffee.

More of Florence

After lunch we continued on a walking tour to see more of the highlights of Florence. The Church of Santa Croce is the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo and the composer Rossini, thus it is known also as the Temple of the Italian Glories. The Basilica is the largest Franciscan church in the world. Piazza Della Signoria is where the Medici Family had one of their many "homes". The Medici family owned banks and by some estimates were the wealthiest family in Europe for a time. They, along with other families of Italy—fostered and inspired the birth of the Italian Renaissance.

The final hours of our tour were at the Uffizi Gallery a prominent art museum located  in the historic center of Florence. One of the most important Italian museums, and the most visited, it is also one of the largest and best known in the world, and holds a collection of priceless works, particularly from the period of the Italian Renaissance.

The Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge) is a medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno River, noted for still having shops built along it, as was once common. Butchers initially occupied the shops; the present tenants are jewelers, art dealers and souvenir sellers. It is the only bridge in Florence that was not destroyed during World War II. - Nancy

My Brother Arrives

I will add a few more posts to supplement Ron's entry about our trip over US Thanksgiving with my brother Ray and his girl friend Marianne. They arrived in Rome on the 21 and toured on the 22nd and then we met them at the Termini which is the central train station in Rome after I finished work. We took the train to Florence.
After an late by US standards but early by Italian standards dinner we header to bed for a day of touring the highlights of Florence. First stop was an overview of Florence at the Piazzale Michelangelo.  The highlight of a visit to Florence is seeing the statue of David by Michelangelo.  It is a masterpiece of Renaissnace  sculpture created between 1501 and 1504 by Michelangelo. It is a 17.0 ft. and represents the Biblical hero David. It is truly magnificent to view. - Nancy

Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower is the central church in Florence. Construction began in 1296 in the Gothic style and was completed structurally in 1436 with the dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi.

Our guided tour included a set lunch.  - Nancy

The 4-day Thanksgiving week-end

On Wednesday evening we met Nancy's brother, Ray, and his friend, Marianne, and took the train to Florence where we spent three nights and had signed-on for tours of Florence, Siena and Pisa. We had good weather most of time time until we arrived by train in Assisi and spent most of Saturday and Sunday night there. We attended a Mass in English at 10:00 a.m. Sunday and encountered the first rain of the trip. Some of the scenery is pictured below. -rw

Ron arrives in Rome

Ron arrived in Rome at noon on Sat. Nov. 18 on a KLM flight from Amsterdam after a long Delta flight Portland to Amsterdam. He had barely gotten some sleep when we headed out Sunday morning to a colleagues' apartment in central Rome for a Thanksgiving meal. Ron had told me before he was coming to Rome that he felt sad because he could not cook a turkey this Thanksgiving. My friend graciously told me that she would be pleased if he cooked her turkey because she had little experience cooking a turkey. Ron arrived in Rome with a turkey cooking bag and dressing mix to use to stuff the turkey. We arrived at my friend's apartment in plenty of time to for Ron to stuff and fix the turkey. Luckily the oven was big enough for a 15 pound turkey. My contribution was mashed potatoes and gravy. Others furnished plenty of other food and we had a feast.



On Monday Ron walked to the school and ate
with me and other faculty members on the patio

next to the cafeteria. It was a sunny winter day and very pleasant to eat outside. Ron come to the library and checked out a book so he is set for reading. He even got a picture of me at work just to prove that I do normally work five days a week. But this week we celebrate American Thanksgiving so I only work 3 days. It is good to have Ron in Rome. - Nancy

Saw and heard the Pope

On Sunday we headed to St. Peter's Bascilica. We were going to explore the area and visit the church when it opened. I had not checked the schedule but Pope Francis was giving a short speech at noon. We joined the crowds and waited in line to see him. It was a chaotic mess. People were pushing and cutting the line to merge and there were not enough police to monitor the lines. We did see the Pope in the upper window although I really could have used some binoculars. (He is the small white dot in the window with the banner hanging below it.) There were large TVs set up and and they offered a better view of the Pope. The speaker system was good and his talk was naturally in Italian and was quite short. It was an experience we had not planned on having but now I can say I saw the Pope in Rome. We went to lunch and then waited in line again to enter St. Peter's. Again it was a chaotic mess and we waited for and hour and a half because they only had 3 security check point open. -Nancy

Permisso Business

To be legal in Italy I need to get an official Permisso card which I think is like an ID card. The school made arrangements for 5 of us new teachers to go to the office where ID cards are processed. We had a 10:30 am appointment and arrived at 10:20. It was a 40 min. drive from school and in a part of Rome where I had never been. We presented our papers to the guard and after waiting for some time we realized this was going to be quite a wait. They were allowing people who had 9 am appointments into the building. It was a cold, windy day and there was not enough room in the tent for all who were waiting. We were finally allowed in at noon and it took about an hour to get finger printed and for our documents to be checked. We had provided our own passport pictures. At the end of the procedure we learned that we are to go to a police office in about 45 days to pick up our official ID cards. I figure that I will be gone from Italy before I am an official resident. The picture is or two of my colleagues as we waited. - Nancy

Colosseum

Sunday November 5 we headed to the Colosseum and took a tour of it, Palintine Hill,  and the Forum. We walked alot, learned alot, and on the way home got very wet in a downpour. On Tuesday Ramona and Ella headed to Florence and Venice for the week while I was at work. - Nancy

Hop-on Hop-Off Bus

Saturday November 4 was a beautiful fall day in Rome. Ramona, Ella, and I headed out for some sightseeing. We did a Hop-on Hop-off tour and enjoyed the upper deck of an open topped bus. We explored on foot the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain and went into the Pantheon. - Nancy

Guests Arrive

My Dad's wife Ramona and her grand daughter, Ella, arrived the evening of Nov. 1. They walked around my neighborhood Nov. 2. Friday Nov. 3 they took a taxi to town to go on a tour of the Vatican Museum. I went to the bus stop to meet them after work and kept waiting for them and they did not arrive. I did see a beautiful rainbow. They finally arrived at my place via taxi because they got lost coming to my place and got on the correct bus but going the wrong direction. I was worried not knowing where they were and having no way to reach them. It was a relief when they arrived home. I had purchased a blow up mattress and new bedding for Ella. The red couch is a sofa bed. All ended well for their first day exploring Rome. -Nancy

An Italian Holiday

November 1 is All Saint's Day and a national holiday in Italy. It was the first school day off since school started in August. I met a friend for a walk and lunch at Borghese Park in the central part of Rome. Borghese Park is simliar to Central Park in NYC. We went to the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Modern Art Museum). It was a delighful day. -Nancy