final thoughts

Some final thoughts and reflections on our trip to Italy.

We ate amazingly well throughout our trip - we usually enjoyed one restaurant meal per day and then the other meals were either at home, picking up a slice or sandwich, or replaced with gelato and pastry. It's so silly to say, but really, the pizza and pasta were truly amazing. But by the end, we were a little full of bread and pasta, and Steve and I were definitely finished with the daily gelato. It was good! But I can't eat like that regularly and am looking forward to more vegetables.

Given the amount of food we ate, it's probably good that we averaged 7 miles a day of walking during our two weeks in Italy (according to my inaccurate phone, anyway). My feet were certainly sore at the end of most days. Plus, we climbed so many hills and towers - all the Tuscan cities are on hills! - making even my legs tired. Our kids are such troopers.

Liesl has definitely gotten the taste for travel - we've sown the seeds of future wanderlust. She loved the castles and towers, loved seeing new things every day, loved the food in Italy. We talked (jested) about moving to Italy for six months, and she was all in for that, and for learning the language. And then we started dreaming about our next vacation, and where we would go and what we would see, and she was full of enthusiasm and ideas. She's also become a food snob, which tickles us immensely - talking about how the pizza, pasta, and ice cream in Portland just can't compare. 

We did not plan out much of our trip ahead of time. We picked our locations in March, but then didn't spend very much time after that deciding exactly which sights to see and when, and which restaurants or gelaterias were recommended, etc. But that just meant that we enjoyed a nightly ritual in Italy: Steve sat on his computer, researching and figuring out the next day’s itinerary, including food destinations, and I sat on my computer, culling the day’s photos and blogging about our adventures. I think he did an amazing job of finding us fabulous places to see, adventures to have, and food to eat. The swimming pool in the mountains near Bagni di Lucca stands out as a particularly amazing find.

I am so glad to be back in Portland, enjoying the clean air here - so many people in Italy still smoke cigarettes, and I was tired of walking through a cloud of it on the streets, of smelling it in some of our apartment buildings, of people puffing e-cigs in restaurants. What a dreadful scourge cigarettes are. 

Steve and I were so happy to walk into so many lovely old churches. He is particularly fond of the more simple ones, with less ornamentation and pomp. I love the feeling of being in a vaulted space, and looking up to see the ceilings. We had some good conversations about the amazing things that people can accomplish when they work together and are collectively committed to a project, and some sadness about the current state of infrastructure and collective action in the United States.

We were amused by the many tour groups in the most prominent sight-seeing areas, shuffling along as a pack, each person with their headphones on and thus collectively silent, looking like a zombie horde. The lack of chatter was the most distinctive thing - these huge groups, all silently listening to the voices in their heads.

We saw many dogs, but for the most part, they looked different than dogs here in Portland - different breeds, possibly, or the same breeds and yet somehow still different in appearance. Also, compared to Portland, many fewer big dogs, but that makes sense given size of dwellings and density of neighborhoods.

On a less happy note, there were a lot of mosquitoes in some areas - particularly Florence - and no screens on any of the windows in any apartment. So we got bit, especially Sebastian, which added an unfortunate itchy element to our first week.

At lunch on our final day, I asked everyone what their top 5 favorite experiences had been from our Italy trip. No one could limit themselves to only 5, which I think is a totally accurate summation of our amazing trip, so we decided on no limits - 

Sebastian's list:
Ferrari museum
high speed trains
climbing towers
seeing Sistine chapel
bike riding (family ride and Lucca ride)
gelato

Liesl's list:
family bike ride in Rome
swimming (both lake and pool)
climbing towers
looking at castles
the cats in Montepulciano
Lucca apartment and city
gelato

Stephen's list (making a guest appearance on the blog):
*Churches (never got tired of walking into them, loved how many there were, how different they were, how beautiful, old, grand...)
*driving through beautiful landscapes (around Montepulciano, the Alps, Emilia-Romagna)
*walking around hill towns (Montepulciano, Cortona, San Querico, Rocca D'Orcia, Barga)*Michelangelo piazza (first awe-inspiring experience of the architecture and beauty/grandeur of Florence)
*Meal at Bistro 3 Tavoli
*Cortona lunch, walk up to church, evening drive home to Montepulciano
*Montepulciano (the walks, alleys, views)
*San Querico, Rocca D'Orcia
*San Gimignano sandwich shop
*Biking in Lucca
*Barga: lunch, views
*Alps
*ease and comfort of train travel
*Rome - diversity, life (similarity to NYC), differences from NYC and Paris, Rosciolo, geography hall at the Vatican, Le Levain bakery, Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, dinner at home during thunderstorm, the walk I did alone (stopped in unknown but beautiful neighborhood church, Piazza Navona, Steelers bar, live music in each plaza, pedestrian bridge across the Tiber to/from Trastevere with live music and a bunch of people hanging out on a beautiful evening)
*Driving thru Emilia-Romagna
*lunch in Maranello
*gelato
*how much everyone enjoyed being in Italy and exploring

Brianna's list:
climbing towers
biking the wall in Lucca
exploring Montepulciano's side-streets and back-ways
driving in Tuscany, especially to Cortona
the geography room in Vatican City
jumping from the high diving board in Bagni di Lucca
the morning and evening light in Rome
Castel dell'Angelo
the lunch in Maranello