Vatican City on a Saturday Afternoon

Saturday, March 19, 2011 (Part 3)

On Saturday afternoon, after a pizza lunch at a cafe just north of the Piazza Navona, Katherine and I parted company with Dad and headed for Vatican City. We entered St. Peter's Square and took our bearings. The security line to enter the Basilica was very long, so we decided to go to the Vatican Museum first.

And so we made the long trek around the walls of the Museum to the north entrance. We were almost there, and we were approaching our final left turn at a street corner when we came upon several tour guides (or hustlers for tour guides) who told us that the Museum was closed! Apparently, the Vatican had closed the Museum in recognition of St. Joseph's Day. We hadn't even heard of St. Joseph's Day! What a disappointment. Katherine was unable to see the Sistine Chapel and I missed seeing (again) the Raphael Rooms. Ah well,I suppose this just means that we will have to visit this great city again some time in the future.

We pretended not to be disappointed and headed back to St. Peter's Square. We found the end of the very long security line. Security was a non-event and,within about 20 minutes, we were entering the Basilica. And since we now had all afternoon at our disposal, we took our time.

Although I was here just 18 months ago, I was still in awe. And we spent a lot more time searching out every corner and reading the wonderful details provided by our guidebooks. We are using two guidebooks in our tour of Rome: (1) DK Eyewitness Travel's "Rome," and (2) Rick Steves' "Rome 2011." They are similar but different, and they compliment each other very well. DK is strong on maps, diagrams and photos. Rick Steves' is strong on walking tours and details.

Some of the highlights within the Basilica include (i) Michaelangelo's Pieta (behind glass), (ii) the bronze statue of St. Peter, (iii) the Dome of St. Peter's, and (iv) Baldacchino's gilded bronze canopy over

the altar.

An Oft Overlooked Section of Ancient Rome

Saturday, March 19, 2010 (Part 2)

Also within the Campi di Fiori section of Rome, you will find the Jewish Ghetto of Rome and some interesting sections of the ancient Roman ruins that, I think, are probably ignored by most tourists. We walked from the market, down Via dei Giubbonari and through the Piazza Cairoli, to the Portico Octavio and the Teatro di Marcellus.

The Jewish Ghetto is not very distinct. The only signs that we were in a Jewish section of the city was an occasional Star of David on a building or the word "kosher" on a store sign. We did

not spent much time searching out areas of interest in the Jewish Ghetto and so the area was a bit of a disappointment. Our primary goal, however, was to get to the Roman ruins in this area.

Our first sight of interest, and delight, was the Portico of Octavia. The portico and surrounding columns and walls are the remains of a rectangular portico to a massive 1st century AD piazza that housed markets and temples. Although a mere shell of the entryway is still standing, it gives a good indication of the massive scale of the complex of buildings that once stood here. What is more amazing is the way in which other buildings have been built arou

nd the remaining ancient walls. The Romans obviously believed in recycling. They were environmentalists long before their time!

A small walk from the Portico of Octavia is the Theater of Marcellus. Remeniscient of the Colosseum, the remaining walls are and curved and contain numerous, large archs. This building, building between 27 BC and 47 AD, was a huge amphitheater. As we had also seen with the Portico of Octavia, the ruined walls of the Theater of Marcellus have been used by subsequent generations of Romans as support walls for additional, "new" structures. These old walls are incorporated into other buildings, some of which are still in use today. It is an odd, but very interesting, complex.

Our First Morning in Rome

Saturday, March 19, 2011 (Part 1)

What a day! We landed at the Rome Airport at 6:40 a.m. (a few minutes early). We met up surprisingly easily with my Dad. But then it took an inexplicably long time for our luggage to come off the baggage carousel. Perhaps the delay was a tiny reminder that we are, after all, in Italy. Once our bags arrived, we then sought out the taxi driver Dad had arranged in advance. How nicely that worked out! It was very nice to have a ride waiting for us and for a fair price that had been agreed to in advance.

Additionally, he knew exactly where we were going so we didn't have to worry about effectively communicating directions to him. He was a very nice man, and Dad enjoyed speaking with him (in Italian) about his family.

We arrived at our hotel, the Fontanella Borghese, fairly quickly. It is located in the Rotunda quarter of Rome not too far from the Spanish Steps (due east) and the Pantheon (due south). I chose this hotel because it is the sister hotel to the Hotel Due Torri where we stayed in September 2009, and I liked its location. Unfortunately, we arrived so early in the day that our rooms were not yet ready for us. So we had to leave our bags in the lobby and "hit the streets." It was still early -- only about 8:30 a.m. -- so we sought out a cafe where we could get a light breakfast and we used the time over breakfast to regroup and develop a plan.

We decided to head towards the Campi di Fiori, which means "field of flowers." The Campo di Fiori is the site of a farmers' market most mornings of the week, and today was no exception. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we enjoyed moving through the stalls and admiring the flowers, fruits and vegetables, including lemons the size of grapefruit, and many other strange but wonderful produce I could not even name. Also on display were olive oils, vinegars,

spices, dried fruits, pastas, olives, and much, much more. It was a lively, fun place.

Italy Revisited!

Friday, March 18, 2011

How blessed I am! I am returning to Italy for another visit, and we are on our way. We (me, Katherine and Dad) all started out from different cities this morning, and we all experienced delays. It was particularly stressful for my Dad, who had a 5 hour delay in Sarasota and then had his flight there cancelled entirely. Happily, he was able to get on another flight, and he made his connecting flight to Rome in Atlanta. He is now in the air!

Meanwhile, Katherine flew from Raleigh-Durham and I flew from Pittsburgh, and we met in Newark. We are now sitting together

on our plane to Rome, and it is 15 minutes to take-off.

I had a lot of plans for getting ready for this trip. Most of them fell through. I was going to listen to Italian language CDs in the car and try to improve on my Italian speaking skills. I got through one CD. I was going to listen to and watch the Rosetta Stone Italian language DVDs. The DVD drive on my computer broke. [How convenient.] I was going to listen to a 48-CD lecture series on Ancient Rome. And I did! At least that, I was able to do -- although I only got up to lecture 40 That's ok. I learned a great deal, and I'll finish them up when I get home. I am enjoying them alot.

And so, now it is time to settle in for our long flight. We are, of course, flying through the night. Unfortunately, I do not sleep well on planes. So we shall see what kind of flight this turns out to be.

Included here is a miscellaneous set of photos -- just to get started. The first one is a picture of me and Katherine standing in front of the Fountain of the Four Rivers in the center of the Piazza Navona. The second photo is in front of another fountain, this time in the Piazza della Rotunda which is where the Pantheon is located. The Pantheon was closed for a religious service when we first stopped by, so we returned there the next day. The third picture here was taken inside the church Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. It shows a beautiful fresco by Filippino Lippo depicting scenes in the life of St. Thomas Aquinas. This church has a lot of wonderful art work, including a Michaelangelo statue of Christ Bearing the Cross.

Buona notte.

Breckenridge - Day 5

Wednesday, December 29, 2010:

Today was our final day of this great ski trip. During so much of this trip, we have been blessed with great weather. Today, however, the weather did not cooperate. It was an overcast day and it was cold. It was also windy and there was snow falling at the top of the mountain, which caused us to change some of our plans. We had been thinking that we would try one of the highest (expert) areas of Peak 9 today, and Chad and Chris were hoping to try one of the bowls, but the highest lifts on the mountain were closed because of the high winds and low visibility.

So we contented ourselves with traversing the different peaks and revisiting some of the trails we had enjoyed most earlier in the week. This included one of the terrain parks where Chad and Chris tried out some of the jumps. We were able to cover a lot of terrain, but we were definitely slowed down today by the crowds. As the New Year's Eve weekend approached, the resort was getting more and more crowded. We found ourselves waiting in several long lift lines today.

Given the crowds and the cold, windy conditions, we decided to ski through the lunch hour but call it a day in the early afternoon. It was a good last day, but definitely not the best skiing day this week.

On this our last day in Breckenridge, we enjoyed a late lunch at the Breckenridge Brewery and a great dinner at a restaurant called Embers. Both of these restaurants had been recommended by a friend, and the recommendations were excellent ones. We ended our vacation having been very well fed.

Our Day at Vail

Tuesday, December 28, 2010:

Today was a beautiful day. Not only was it a clear, beautiful, blue sky day, but we were surrounded by some gorgeous Colorado countryside. We got up early to make the 45 minute drive to Vail. Today was our day to explore a new mountain resort.

We arrive at Vail before the lifts even opened. So we had plenty of time to adjust our equipment and, as soon as the lifts were ready for passengers, we were in line. With Chad as our guide (once again), we managed to get the most out of this mountain. We were also joined this day by Chad's girlfriend, Cara.

Vail is a huge resort. It is comprised of several mountains and a series of "bowls." And we covered most of it. We started on the eastern face of one of the mountains and tried out several of Chad's favorite runs. They were marked as intermediate trails, but on just about any other mountain, they would be considered advanced-intermediate. They were wide, but they had a serious pitch to them. And we flew down. The conditions were excellent - a combination of fully groomed slopes and several inches of fresh powder.

After our warm up period, Chad then proceeded to lead us all over the resort. We hardly took the same lift twice as we traversed from mountain to mountain and slope to slope. Our goal was to get to one of Annette's the bowls -- called "Blue Sky Bowl." A bowl is a wide open expanse of slope that has very few trees on it. There are no real trails. You basically ski anywhere. And the pitch of the slope can be relatively steep. It is a very unique skiing experience.

We skied a really full day at Vail. We took a mid-morning break (which was helpful for those of us with chilled toes) and a lunch break, but otherwise we skied pretty hard and we were exiting the mountain just about the time the lifts were starting to close -- which was between 3:00 and 3:30pm. What a great day.

I had never skied Vail before, and I fell in love with this resort. I definitely need to go back -- soon!

Breckenridge - Day 3

Monday, December 27, 2010:

Our third day in Breckenridge was our second day on the slopes. We now had our ski legs, and so we decided to head to Peak 10 and take on some of the black diamond slopes. They weren't bad at all. In fact, they were a nice challenge, but we managed them quite well.

This was a colder day than the previous day -- in part because the sun did not shine much this day. But we still got in a very full day of skiing. We also had fun this day taking turns taking pictures of ourselves skiing down the mountain.

Chad provided us with an interesting way to track how much skiing we were doing. He has a season's pass to Vail and the surrounding ski resorts and there is a computer chip buried in his ski pass which is tracked as he travels across the slopes. This chip works much like the "easy passes" on state toll roads. There is a monitoring device at each ski lift that electronically senses and records Chad's ski pass every time he boards a lift. At the end of each day, Chad was able to log onto one of the resort sites and get a report on how many vertical feet he traveled that day based on the lifts he rode. Based on these reports, we had some very concrete proof of the considerable distances we were covering each day.

On Sunday, we covered 17,625 vertical feet. On Monday, we exceeded that figure by almost 2,000 - covering 19,541 vertical feet. On our third day of skiing (Tuesday) - which we spent at Vail - we skied the greatest distance -- 20,695 vertical feet. And on our fourth day -- which was only a half-day for us -- we skied 11,880 vertical feet. All tolled, in our three and a half days, we covered 69,741 vertical feet. That's a lot!