Umbria, you are my new fave.

What I picture Italian countryside when I picture it.

What I picture small Italian towns to look like when I picture them.

What I dream about when I dream about Italy.

Assisi

Sunday evening passigiata. One thing I has always loved about Italy is the Sunday ritual of walking around to meet and greet the friends....I am guessing these guys hang out every day---not just Sunday----and they have for many years. At least.....that is the story in my head.

I miss my boys, but Aschila, laying there in front, gave me a puppy fix. She is 10 and gives really sweet hand kisses.

Assisi was was wonderful visit...medieval town with narrower passages built up on the hill. Again, it wasn't really what I expected. I don't know what I expected but I liked it even more than than I anticipated.

Maybe it has something to do with how much I love Italy in general; I already have a background, underlying love of almost everything. So when I see somewhere or something new and I like it, it gives me a little jazz.

Or maybe it is reconfirming with each novel experience, that I do really love this country quite a bit. I know I won't, and don't, like everything about Italy, but it is a good feeling to not be disappointed by something that holds such a special place in my heart.

Venice...the place of people.

No place like it on earth....not even the Venetian in Las Vegas. Which is why everyone and their sister seemed to be there the day we were there.

So crowded. Venice at Carnivale right before Lent....my first hand experience with the power of a crowd of people. We were there and I was 75-ish pounds heavier. The surge of the crowd picked me up off my feet and moved me from my place where I had been standing to a spot that was maybe three or four feet away. I was powerless to do anything about it.

I can't imagine being short and not being able to see or get air as the bodies press against you---it is enough to make you agoraphobic.

It was like this on Saturday. All the cruise ships vomit forth their passengers, all the loud student groups like ours descend like locusts, all the backpackers lounging on the steps, and bridges and piazza.

We didn't have time to break away from the crowds that infest the route from the train station, over the Rialto bridge to Piazza San Marco. The kids had gondola rides scheduled and I had a half hour to cop a squat on the step of a small chapel to wait for them and call my baby back home. Away from crowds, sitting in the sun, by the canal and quietly watch the gondolas drift by......Venice is a magical place...but sometimes you have find you own Venice to enjoy in your own way.

Verona.

Ah Verona......a sleepy little town famous for the roman arena that is better described as a Mini Me version of the colosseum in Rome. Now it is used for opera performances and concerts.

Verona's other big deal is the balcony of Juliet----from Romeo and Juliet. The kids really didn't appreciate the small town quality, they had to entertain themselves during free time rather than be awed and stimulated. Plus, it was stinking hot--unusually so for that region and time of the year.

For me, I remember going to visit a nanny named Meg that worked for some relation of the family that I or Marta worked for....the exact connection has long been forgotten. She lived in a beautiful home that was converted from a monastery. It was gorgeous and historic and modern at the same time. But I can see why that whole scene wouldn't really play well with teenagers of 2012.

Having said that, there were some students in whom I can seen myself at their ages. Walking along the streets older than their baby country in terms of time and history, taking it all in....and for all outward appearances, seemingly bored. Like they might be composing a tweet about some cute guy they saw or thinking about how hot it was and when their next gelato feeding would be.

And then they would ask a question that would explain what wheels had been turning. They had not been brain tweeting, but rather contemplating time and history and wondering how many people had walked the same streets they were walking or what it might have looked like in Shakespeare's time when he was writing Romeo and Juliet and was he actually here....

Their thoughts, questions, observations, and comments help me see the trip through the eyes of newness and wonder, but also through what I have already experienced.

So......we went and got gelato. It WAS hot and we WERE in Italy after all.

Underestimation.

I had always heard that Pisa was kind of nothing special...it is just the tower and then that is it.

Pisa. I apologize; I underestimated you. The tower that leans, yes....It is there. And, yes, it leans. But there was some kind of fab mojo going on.....great weather, good kids to chaperone, no problems to deal with, a wonderful tour guide named Lettizia, and then the baptistery.

The Baptistry. We got there for the acoustic demonstration. We had our tour and happened to be in the Baptistry at 5:30 when they closed the doors and one of the security/door keepers came and stood at the center by the baptismal font and started toning....not really singing, just more of tuning up or singing tones on the scale. I am sure there is some sort of terminology for it but I am not a singer is I don't know it.

The echo and the acoustics on the room were like nothing I had ever heard before; it was like she was singing in a chorus with herself. It was her voice, but she would change notes....tones, really because there were no words or anything....so that it was a call and response with herself. Really quite splendid and those of you that know me will not be surprised by this next statement. I got teary as it was just such cool experience. I get like like when I feel overwhelmed by something. And in this case I was just so overwhelmed with the unexpected uniqueness if the experience.

I realize that they do thus everyday at 5:30, but for going into it with low expectations and just getting wowed.....this is why I love travel.

Delightful.

Here....qui.

We are here with this as the piazza we face in our hotel. Florence was sunny and the kids are all amped up adrenaline and no sleep. Good night's sleep tonight should put the world right.





























The beverage and snack in the sun in the Piazza Palazzo Vecchio didn't hurt.

Anti-Garden.

So.

I didn't plant the cold crops this year.  I delayed, the seedlings didn't take off for some reason under the lights, it was hot...then it was cold, and I never got around to it.

The chiropractor sealed it.  I thought I pulled a muscle last fall taking out the kale stalks. December and January brought doctor visits, "almost positive it is your gall bladder" conversations and expensive gall bladder-y tests only to confirm, it wasn't my gall bladder.  It's "probably a muscle issue..."  Lovely.

So.  Off I sent to the chiropractor.  Who told me it was in fact my shoulder, massive scar tissue and some other business going on.  Long story short, no lifting, no pulling,.....no vacuuming.  I asked about roto-tilling the garden.  

Nope.

So.   This is the garden this year so far.  I do have tomatoes and peppers coming up under the lights.  I will be gone for at least three weeks with Italy and Turkey and we decided that the tomatoes and peppers would be more at home and easier to deal with in the self-watering pots that can be up closer to the house.

But at least I have some volunteer lettuce coming up.   And the asparagus in the corner at the far end.