Channeling Mr. Rogers' "Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood"

This will be a longer post than needed to get to the point, but I'm going to do it anyway.  We thought we'd be gone about 2 hours start to finish to IKEA.  Wow -- be glad for IKEA in Draper!  We left at 11:30 and returned at 5:00.  Jeff & Shay had found some stuff they wanted to buy so Jeff made this quick trip to go pick it up.  IKEA is located in a huge shopping mall --it's like going to the old ZCMI Center (only much much larger) parking underground-hoping you are somewhere in the vicinity,  standing on a moving ramp that slowly moves you from the underground parking to the floors above.
There is a reason that it is a ramp instead of an escalator--I'll explain later.  I guess Jeff was in the mood to shop and to accessorize so we walked the entire store. By shop I mean making sure he had seen everything the first time they were there and made the correct decisions.  By accessorize I mean figuring out what to put on the shelves that were just purchased and in the huge vases as well.  Then the lines to check out and arrange for delivery....took forever.  We had a shopping cart of goods to take home and 2 carts worth of goods that were going to be delivered.  We and our shopping cart went to the ramp to begin our journey down, down, down and what was so interesting as we moved our cart onto the ramp we soon learned that it was magnetized and completely held the cart.
Well as it turns out they would only deliver on Sunday and only between 8-1:00...Jeff asked if it could be later. (so we could go to church, but no can do-so darn we had to go to the park after they delivered)  It was such a gorgeous day and a beautiful park in downtown Roma.  We found some fun play grounds for Noah to explore, there was music (acoustic guitar, accordion, sax-guitar-bongoes, people on roller blades doing amazing things, many forms of transportation for rent to explore this huge park.  So we rented a self-propelled-4 wheeled, bike.  Noah and I sat while Jeff pedaled--it was quite nice

View of Roma from the Park - St Peter's Basilica in the background.

A Day With Noah

Shay is finishing up her semester in school and so Noah and I take off everyday to give her some time to study.  We go to the grocery store--if I did it alone it's about a 5 minute walk--with Noah it's 15.  He finds new things to look at and wonder about each time we go.
We also try to go to the park everyday.  Noah has quickly learned to take toys to share and that way he lures little people to stick with him.  They can't understand each other, but really is there a need?  The language of play is universal.  On our most recent trip to the park I met an au pair from the Bay Area of California.  It was so nice to speak English to someone and I think for her too because we sure found a lot to talk about.  She was a very pretty young woman and I asked her if she thought the Italian men are just so good looking?  Her response was yes BUT she continued to say they all look like they spend more time getting ready for the day than she does and that was so unappealing to her.  An observation I had totally missed.

Sangimignano

This medieval town dates back to 300 BC--to me the fun thing about its history was the reason for the towers which at one time numbered 72 and some were as tall as 230 feet.  It grew to be a competition between families to see who could build the best tower.  Today there are still 14 original towers standing.  Can you say legoland?  What boy/man wouldn't have fun building a tower.

Florence

Ponte Vecchio

Ponte Vecchio is one of the most photographed spots in Florence.  For many years this was the only bridge over the Arno river.  It was destroyed a flood in the 1300s and was rebuilt 12 years later.  There are many jewelry shoppes making it a nice leisurely stroll.

After walking quite a ways from our parked car, this was the jumping off point for our day in Florence. Have I told you how much walking we seem to do on our site seeing days? --it's all good--it makes for a good night sleep.

Upon entering the city there were church bells ringing everywhere--I don't know if they do this every Sunday or if this was special because of it being Easter-but it was loud and fun. This Duomo (cathedral) was truly magnificent.  Pictures can't begin to do it justice.  It was huge and so ornate--every inch was sculpted, carved or ornately decorated and I'm referring to the outside.

I can't forget the beautiful very old statues/sculptures that are all throughout the town.

Just a few

Me and Obama and Dante just hangin' out.

Gelato shoppes everywhere

After a great day-it's back to our villa in the beautiful countryside.

Siena

We wasted no time--I got into Italy at 12:30 PM Thursday and had one day to unpack-get my jet lag under control (8 hour time difference) and pack for a 3 day trip. We started in Sienna a town with a medieval feel. If any of you have seen the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace the scene of the plaza of spectators with the horse race around them was shot at this plaza in Sienna. This tradition is held twice a year--can you say claustrophobia.  It also rained- a lot and come to find out from the local newspaper the old record for March rain has held since 1784 until March 2013--Yay I was here for that! 

Il Campo

By the way I need to mention one of my favorite songs "I Would Walk 500 Miles"  I've only been here a little over a week and am sure that I have walked 500 miles.  We visited the Duomo of Siena another great tourist attraction and so beautiful.

                                    

In this town somewhere (and I can't recall where) there was an opportunity to climb 500 stairs to have a great view of everywhere--I'm NOT kidding.  I got to the top and appreciated the great view and wanted to find a bed and wake up tomorrow to begin my trek down the 500 steps...not to mention the 500 miles we were going to have to walk to where we left our car.  I'm seeing a trend here.

Jeff is  quite the planner and has a great ability to find the right places to site see and the right places to rest our bones.  He found a quaint little villa in the countryside (about 10 miles outside of Florence).

We are rested, washed and fed and ready to walk another 500 miles--I'm not kidding.  Florence was our next stop--Holy cow--I am still in awe and trying to wrap my brain around the spectacularness.  

Some of my impressions of Italy:

-It's beautiful--everywhere you turn it is a picture moment

-They don't have carpet in their homes--floors are tile, marble or wood with area rugs--I hate carpet so this really appeals to me.

-There are mostly teeny cars and they drive crazy on very narrow roads.  I could drive the freeways and would never attempt the city.

- Showers seem to be the norm and they are sooo teeny.  I'm trying to figure out how to get soap on my loofa to clean my body without it getting rinsed off first.

-When the sun is out and 60 degrees the Italians are still bundled up in their puffy down jackets or coats and boots

-The cities don't smell very good to me--I don't know if it's because there are a lot of smokers and I'm 

smelling 2nd hand smoke--not sure.

-People are pretty friendly and we have an extra attention getting device everywhere we go and that's Noah.  I don't ever see very many kids and people just love him

-Gas is a lot more expensive than I thought and food isn't as expensive as I thought.

-This list will grow and I will post Tuscany part 2 later.  

Yay--Finally taking off

I landed at JFK at 8:30 PM and navigated through the construction outside in the dark to find a different terminal--looking for Air Atalia.  I found a place to sit for a few hours while waiting to leave--the lady sitting at the entrance of the aisle I was trying to maneuver my carry-on, me and my back pack into was an immoveable object.  I sized her up and affectionately named her Donna (Prima-Donna).  Had I had known the impact this older, stately, cherubic, long blonde haired woman would have had on me I would have secretly snapped her picture.  Our plane was huge and full.  I was in the middle row of seats (one of 4).  Lucky me--seated right next to me was Donna.  There was a metal box where my back pack would go, but Donna had a wide area that I knew was to be used for my backpack and her purse.  When asked if she could scoot hers over to make room for mine she said "but then where will my feet go"?  I grabbed the Kindle out of the bag and up went my backpack.  When I had to visit il Bagno she reluctantly moved to accomodate me and when I came back and tapped her on the shoulder, alerting her that it was time to move again so I could get in she gave me the finger signal to wait.  In the short time I was gone they had brought breakfast and I was to stand in the aisle while she ate her meal...really