The Mountain View Kwik-E-Mart is expecting a new shipment of Buzz Cola on Wednesday. Squishees still available. Krusty-O status unknown.
Archive Page 4
We had to be up fairly early today, because after chocolate-milk-fortified breakfast I needed to retrieve the car so we could get to Panzano by noon. Given our tribulations thus far with driving, we weren’t sure how much time to allow. But as it happened, I was able to find the underground parking garage without too much trouble (though it wasn’t much more visible in the daylight) and navigate my way back to the hotel to pick up Sara and our bags. Now that we had a feel for getting in to cities, getting out was accomplished without too much drama. Here’s the secret: find a large road on the map, get to it and try very hard to stay on it. It was tricky, but we navigated a main road to the river, and then we were able to count bridges. (Mostly: we were still off by one.)
Once out of the city, the roads make a bit more sense, and we got to Panzano easily enough. There are only 3 roads in Panzano, but we still couldn’t find our B&B, the the locals pointed us in various directions. It was actually in a field, about one mile down a mud road, but Fagiolari was definitely worth finding. We checked in with the housekeeper, dropped our bags off, took a couple of photos and then went through the winding countryside to Siena for the rest of the day.
Siena is almost like a smaller, quieter Florence. It doesn’t have the big draws, and is very compact, but does have a dimished tourist presence, which was welcome. Using our ever-improving knowledge of driving, we picked one of the many diversely orientated “Centro” arrows to follow and crossed our fingers. We could tell we were getting close when we spotted lots of complicated car prohibition signs right where we wanted to go. Luckily, we found a strange parking garage in the side of a hill, and ambled into town. I say strange, because the attendants, after cheerily waving us in, handed us a number and told us to go to the second floor. All the parking spaces there had numbers, so we diddled around, could not quite get into number we were handed, so parked nearby. We figured we could use the excuse, “We’re foreign!” if questions arose. The English instructions on the ticket said to leave the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked; which we ignored.
Imagine a gigantic, steep sided dessert bowl. Now build a stone city there. That’s what we found: very narrow, very inclined, very tall streets, but opening into a wonderful semi-circular piazza in the middle. So one minute you’re walking in this maze:
and the next you find your breath taken away by this.
We also had to compare the Duomo with Florence’s. Verdict: not as big, but the huge music books make up for it. There were four areas to see though: the dungeon (interesting discovery, but not much to see), the lower chapel, the main area (the floor was interesting) and the museum next door.
The museum would have been interesting, but lunch was [not] pressing and there were a lot of stairs. I climbed to the top of the ruined arch to see the full spectacular view. Sara, in deference to a few hundred years of staircase advances made since construction, opted stay where the handrails were.
We took lunch on the Piazza (where else?) and had mediocre sandwiches and excellent gelato. There was a neat pen store on the way back to the car, and at the parking lot we paid the attendant, and he gave us a funny squarish coin. We found out that it operated the exit barrier, so everything worked out.
Our next foray was to Cortona. The only reason for this was because we had seen the movie Under the Tuscan Sun, and thought it might be interesting. It was, but was also very small—enough to walk around in a half hour. It was getting late, and very little was open. Not even restaurants! Cortona is perched on a rather pointy hill, so it’s streets are even narrower than Siena’s.
Now our quest was for dinner. Basically, we drove around, mostly randomly, first towards Arezzo, then back to Siena, with the hope of finding Panzano again. Arezzo was also closed for winter, but we did find a restaurant off the main track. We think it was probably in Lucignano, but we’re not quite sure. Anyway, we managed to find the freeway from Siena to Florence, and the tiny cut-off dirt track back to Panzano, and the mud lane back to Fagiolari where we flopped into bed, exhausted.
Pilgrim arrived at a neighbor’s house around Thanksgiving in 1999. They could not find his owner, so they named him Pilgrim and asked around the houses. Pilgrim came to live with me in December of 1999.
He loved racing people up the stairs and had a disdain for cat toys other than string. When I woke up he would be stretched out along my legs. In the winter he would snuggle up inside the covers.
Over the last year he suffered gradual kidney failure, and finally became very weak. He was a good cat. R.I.P.
Since Iolanthe closed (to great reviews, though mostly by the cast) Sara’s been busy in the garden planting flowers. So I planted a lamp post in the front yard and installed irrigation. To retalliate, she erected a gazebo in the back yard and removed the hedge. Now I have to figure out how to get more irrigation to the new flowers. It looks very pretty with the new patio furniture, which Pilgrim likes too.
We’re busy getting ready for the end of season concert with the chorale, which will be Carmina Burana (the one that always turns up in movies when something big is happening). A lot of people have sung it before so it’s already sounding pretty good. Our choir will be about 150-strong on May 11th.
I’ll post a picture of fairy wings in action, when I can find one. In the meantime, here’s 18 of them.
Also, the transformer for the lamp post (24VAC) makes a high pitch whining noise at about 1kHz, and prevents the garage door from opening. To counter this I put a ferrite core around one of the wires, but with 3.5 turns it got too hot to touch! Back to 1.5 turns and it’s a little cooler, but the system is still radiating a lot of RF. I’m thinking I’ll have to find some braid and shield the cable to where it goes underground. And put the transformer in a soundproof metal box. Bwa-ha-ha!
Still thinking about the yard, our cherry tree, after putting on a spectacular show, has decided that trunks are optional and so it will fall down soon. I’m hoping that the city permit I applied for a month ago will get here before someone sneezes nearby.
There comes a time in everyone’s vacation when one must put down the camera and go shopping. My breakfast supplemented with chocolate milk had given me great strength for my first quest: power adaptors. While most hotels in Rome had had euro-style power outlets, we were now in real Italy, where they use Italian sockets; and we were running pretty low on camera and phone juice. Sara had to sort out some sheet music with Amazon, so I ventured out through the streets of Florence.
The mobile phone store was pretty busy, but didn’t have as much as the Termini store. (And all the really neat Samsung phone were only tri-band: not great here.) I also wondered down to the Mercato to see what they had. Answer: lots, but not what I was looking for. Eventually I found a health-food-and-hardware store tucked down a tiny alley, and picked up a few adaptors.
But I had to show Sara the Mercato, so after midday we strolled the mile or so down to the market. Unfortunately, the food court had closed for the day, but the whole of the district’s streets were lined with hundreds of stalls. They sold ties, scarves, leather jackets, little leather things, and not a lot else. This lack of selection made for excellent pricing competition though, and I picked up 3 (very good quality) ties for €10, and some local scarves for gifts. Sara also picked up a smart scarf which she wore a lot; and then lead me back to the vinegar store. We spent so much money there that we had to buy a little more so that we could get the VAT tax form. It took a long time to fill in (apparently each vinegar and trinket has its own tax rate, depending on how luxurious it is) but that also gave us the opportunity to find out that the storekeeper was another ex-pat English woman (like our hotel manager). Florence seems to be a popular career destination. In the end we never used the tax form because:
- The tax refund office in the gigantic Amsterdam Airport on the way back was tiny, with a long line.
- You have to present the merchandise you purchased in sealed condition to the officer.
- All liquids (i.e., vinegar) must be in checked luggage.
- You cannot quickly uncheck checked luggage amd recheck it.
- We had to remove the packaging to fit the stuff in our bags anyway.
So much for that. But the balsamic was excellent.
Anyway, we were tired, loaded with goodies and Sara was coming down with something, so we went back to the hotel and read. Later on I went for take out, finding a Greek hole-in-the-wall with some excellent donner kebabs (for me) and chicken & potatoes (for Sara). I’ve been in the US so long I’d almost forgotten what real donner tastes like (we only have gyros here). Mmm.
We awoke hungry, to a brisk morning. This was our view out of the window.
In actuality, it was quite a bit prettier, because there was a balcony with potted plants and steam pipes on. The Hotel Cellai, while not quite living up to the photographs on their web site, was nonetheless a pretty neat place. And breakfast was nearly as good as in Rome, but the setting was much nicer. Since we were running a bit behind, we had the front desk call us a taxi. I had barely turned around when it arrived outside, and we jumped in to go to the offices.
Not any old office, of course, but The Ufizzi. The offices of the old Medici family, now housing a bunch of pictures, including the Birth of Venus (Botticelli), numerous Annunciations (da Vinci et al) and Madonna of the Harpies (Sarto). We dutifully wondered round, admiring the stirring artworks, and feeling much better about ourselves culturally. I should mention a tip for the off-season here: reservations are recommended during the summer, but they cost €8 at the reservations door instead of the €6.50 at the regular door. We didn’t know this until after we had trekked around the courtyard past the vacant entrance to the reservations desk and back again. We also rediscovered that monster art galleries are very hard on the feet, and this one was up a lot of stairs. The Uffizi also has the strangest and most wonderful restrooms: at the end of a long, secret basement crypt tunnel, there is an expansive marble-tiled bathroom.
Just outside was Palazzo Vecchio and the rather nifty Piazza della Signoria. It had a copy of Michelangelo’s David, as well as some sculptures of early italian baseball players and escape artists. Or something like that.
We ate lunch in a pleasant tourist pizzeria behind the Uffizi, and despite the faces made by nearby gargoyles, quite enjoyed it. (The waiter was quite apologetic as he kept forgetting our water every time he walked past.)
Our feet were still sore from being cultured, so we ambled around and found the Duomo. I don’t think you could build a cathedral like that today: not the cost aspect, but the critics would tear it down visually before anyone could appreciate it. And it is quite a sight—if it were an html tag, it would be a <blink>. It’s impressive and subdued on the inside though: mostly empty and the antethesis of St. Peter’s gaud.
Walking slowly back, we stopped, or rather Sara stopped, at the Balsamic Vinegar store. I’ve never seen her so excited, brooding over the 6-year or 36-year vintages. Fascinating. Anyway, lured by the the tempting delights of a nap, I prised her away and back to the hotel. Well, almost. We had to stop and see the real Michelangelo’s David, now housed in a hard-to-find museum where photography was not allowed. It was the only thing really worth seeing there. Back at the hotel, I finished my prequel-to-the-next-book part of my book and investigated the ethernet cable in the lobby. It had Internet. It was good.
In the evening we wondered around town a bit, down to the river, over the Ponte Vecchio bridge, and more Piazzas. We ended up by the Mercato Centrale and ate at a cafe on the square. The only other people nearby were two Americans, who were having a great girls’ vacation in Germany, and thought it would be fun to have a day-flight to Florence. They were somewhat regretting the “one hour flight with three hour waits”, but seemed cheerful despite that, and got more cheerful as the wine went down.
Inside a hole by the road, we found a supermarket, where we discovered interesting things like healthy cereal, chocolate milk powder and Fanta. Buoyed by our fortunes, we watched the colonel give the weather report and went to sleep.
Some of you may be wondering what’s been happening, since it’s been a while since the site has been updated. Never fear!
- I’ve installed a new toilet downstairs. This would have been a snap, except the previous owner forgot to install floor underneath the old one, so I had to run to the store and pick up some cement. The new toilet doesn’t flush as well as the old one—I though they’d fixed all the low-flow problems these days.
- Tax time.
- Fairy wings. This might be a good one to explain. So I won’t until they’re finished.
- Rain. It’s been pretty miserable here the last few weeks. The sun did come out a few times today.
- Pilgrim the cat has been needing a lot of attention. Since he went on the blood-pressure medication he’s been a bit more active. But this, surprisingly, is something of a problem, because now he can jump over the barrier to leak after he’s had fluids pumped into him. I now have experience with three products that don’t prevent him from leaving wet spots in the kitchen. Grrr.
- Lights! Lots of pretty lights have now been installed in the media room. Ask me for a picture.
I love stuff. I’m happy when I’m surrounded by it. I eat it. I make it. From time-to-time I buy more of it. However, Sara was nonplussed when it was the answer to her question about what I wanted to see in Italy. So she made me do it. And it was a wonderful day.
Our funky hotel had a neat self-service breakfast bar, with a machine dedicated to making hot chocolate (latte or strong). I picked up a newspaper. Hmm, new Ferarri F1 car announced. Neat. I thought of it no more as we found an ethernet cable hidden behind the television back in our room.
Our first task today was to get out by 9am, so that we could visit a balsamic vinegar factory tour at 10am. After all, this was Bologna, the backstreet alleyway to Modena: the Balsamic Vinegar Capital. After Sara had tackled a particularly thorny bureaucratic problem with music books from Amazon many time zones away, we noticed that our own time zone had passed to 9:30 without asking us first. Oh well. We left for our second destination.
We took the back roads. Not intentionally, but because we were still coming to grips with roadmaps and signposts. I think the planners’ thought processes went like this: “if a sign on a post helps you get to your destination, then 20 all on the same post would be even better; but we’ll have to make the writing smaller to fit them all on.” This was the first time we’d driven in sunlight, and it wasn’t much easier to navigate than in the dark. A lot of the countryside looked like this.
But we were headed towards stuff. The kind of stuff found in Maranello—very expensive stuff! So expensive, that the people to make the stuff dress like this:
So expensive, that people who visit here, can’t even buy the stuff, except in miniature in little chintzy stores like this:
Yes, high-performance Ferrari stuff! This was where the newspaper should have tipped us off. The Ferrari Museum had a huge, empty, parking lot. There was a youngster guarding the entrance, shooing people away. Every street parking spot was taken. In the end Sara dropped me at the entrance while I went in and breathed castings, engines, valve trains; and just simply gorging in the aura of the place.
There was a press junket inside one of the rooms. The new F1 car was being unveiled here today. Back outside in the parking lot, this was now making more sense.
Anyway, wonderful stuff; even if we couldn’t get into the factory. On the way out of town we tried not to run over the flash of photographers that were milling on the road bridge by the racetrack, scampering from one side to the other as the new red car screamed nearby.
We took a quick peek at Modena, and found where we should have been in the morning. We didn’t find any Balsamic Monster Marts though. To make up for it, we did find the most prestigious school in the area.
We were heading back to Bologna. No, our navigation skills were improving—my darling and wonderful wife had booked me in to see the stuff at the Ducati Factory!
Unfortunately, they don’t permit photos inside the factory. Something about thousands of pictures of workers appearing on crazed motorcycle fans’ web sites not being proper. But it’s a wonderful tour. I was the only English speaker that day and I got two rather tasteful female tour guides all to myself. Here’s what I gleaned (you can skip this next paragraph if you’re not interested in making motorcycles: Sara read a book).
Ducati, since the refinance, orders most of its parts from other suppliers. We entered at the CNC machines that take head castings and turn them in to cylinder heads. This was the only specific on-site manufacturing. From there, we went to engine assembly (and my guides didn’t seem too upset when I kept stopping to look at stuff). Each engine is built by one person, who grabs a shopping cart, a list and a bunch of engine stuff. Then he (a few ‘she’s were building them too) would find a wonsole and build an engine for the next two hours. I wonsole is a word I made up for walking console. It’s like a desk, with an engine jig, that moves very slowly, so you have to keep walking with it (and pulling your cart) while you build the engine. It actually seems quite a nice way to do it—like an assembly line, but you stay with your stuff. By the time you need a specific tool, you’ve more-or-less walked up to it. And you get to keep moving, rather than staying flat on your feet. After that, the engine goes on a cool-test for several minutes; where the crank is spun and various metrics checked. (Presumably stuff like compression and whether any large pieces of metal have come out in the oil or exhaust.) Then it’s on to the bike assembly line. It’s the same type of thing (except there are four or so lines for each model of bike). We walked down the Monster aisle (half the bikes built by Ducati are Monsters), but I kept my eye on the 1098 line. The 1098 is a gorgeous bike. Sigh. After a few hours, the bike is assembled and it goes onto the emissions test, then on to the dyno for a few minutes. Imagine getting to ride a hundred 1098s a day, yet never going outside. Tragedy. I also got to see the new enduro-style Multistrada. Neat. My guides dragged me out of the factory and into the museum (which was interesting, but the factory was better; for example, did you know that Ferrari bought the “prancing horse” logo from Ducati?). Also I got to debate the merits of Honda’s V-4 versus the Triumph Triple with an Australian guy who was dragging his wife around the museum after having seen the Lamborghini factory earlier (she was trying to be into it and was putting on a cheerful face). Ducati, of course, favors the 90-degree V-twin. I clearly need to understand the merits of this layout; perhaps I can persuade Sara to support me in this venture? All too soon it was time to leave.
The time zone had caught up again, and it was now dark and I found Sara patiently waiting in the car for me. Now we were heading to Florence: seat of banking power in the middle ages. We drove off. A few minutes later we were back at the factory: I think I’ll call it confogna: the confusion of driving in Bologna. Little did we know….
The Autostrada is quite interesting. The lanes are narrow, which doesn’t really matter because the Italians don’t seem to be bothered by the lines between them. The road to Florence is quite twisty and scary at night. Even stopping for gas was a challenge (but a challenge with pretty good restrooms). Sara slept, I gripped the steering wheel. Eventually we popped out of the toll booth at Fiorenze Certosa.
A explained about driving in Italian cities didn’t I? The guide book had a helpful section on driving in Rome. I reproduce it here in its entirity.
Don’t.
This applies to Florence too. After an entertaining few hours of driving in circles (“hey look, there’s the railway station again!”), and drawing on the map which way the streets go so that we could systematically exclude streets that couldn’t get us to our hotel, we did eventually find the road. (The name the hotel gave, which was also marked on the map, was not the same name as on the street sign.) So I made an illegal right turn on to it. (The police seem to understand the visitors’ problems: when they stopped us earlier while going the wrong way down a cycle lane, they just held traffic and helped us to turn around, then waved us away.)
But if you think that’s the end of the story, I still had to find overnight parking after double parking to unload the bags. After another hour of going round in circles, I eventually found Christoph, who spoke a little English, and he guided me to the parking lot by walking me there. I was not surprised I hadn’t found it. There was a tiny barrier in a non-descript piazza. There was a ramp past the barrier. I would never have suspected that the tiny outpost would be the largest parking lot I think I’ve ever seen. All underground.
Anyway, back in the hotel we munched on croissants, which was the only thing to be found to eat at that hour. We slept. I dreamed of stuff.
Our last day in Rome, so we had to get an early start. The breakfast server beamed as I finally got our room number pronunciation comprehensible. There wasn’t any really fresh bread (it was Sunday), but we were still adjusting to eating restaurant meals every day anyway. We dropped our bags at the bag-dropping room (they were obviously prepared for tourists) and walked, yet again, to the Termini. This time we wanted to try the subway system. We had more-or-less figured out how tickets work from when we did the Leonardo Express incorrectly, but finding the correct line to go on was more of a challenge. This may sound unlikely, as there are only two lines: orange (line A) and blue (line B). The problem exists in that on the orange line there are only blue signs, and on the blue line there are only orange signs. That is, when you get somewhere, they only tell you where to go and not where you are. Despite Roman city planning, we went to Barberini.
To see some funky monks, or their artwork at least. The Capuchin monks glued a few thousand human bones to the walls of their catacomb at Santa Maria della Concezione. A picture would explain everything. No pictures were allowed, but hopefully Sara will post the postcard.
While we were there, we tried to find the church Santa Maria della Vittoria. (Sidenote: if you see a church in Rome and you want to look smart, point at it and say “Santa Maria”. You’re more than likely to be correct.) We wanted to go there because Sara was ahead of me in reading “Angels and Demons”, a guide book in thriller form that was recommended to us. Lamentably our ambivalence about the famous sculpture there was thwarted because, it being Sunday, the church was busy. The Triton fountain next door garnered rave reviews from, well, everyone, but it wasn’t much to look at.
Back on the underground to Termini. Switch lines to blue or orange or whatever. Fend off my second pickpocket (who gave me an intense indignant stare when I hustled her away—the locals made sure I checked for my wallet, although it took a few minutes to work out the translation). Then we burst out back at the Colloseum.
Rome’s tourist board cleverly combined the Colloseum ticket with free entrance the following morning to the Roman Forum next door. I’m sure the old palace grounds are very interesting and historical. They’re also somewhat ancient and run-down. They look something like this, and you’re not missing much if this picture doesn’t give you goose-bumps.
So we headed back to Termini and jumped on the Archeobus. This is an open-top bus that takes a leisurely tour through the “historical” region of Rome. This is a kind of green-belt area full of ruins, catacombs, and tour guides engaging in serious relationships with bus drivers because there’s not a lot of excitement around. Worth seeing, if only for the aquaduct, but we ended up rather cold after three hours of driving up and down the Appian Way.
Back at the Termini, we caught a taxi to the hotel for our bags, brought them back to the station, thought about eating more Italian fast food but reasoned that McDonalds was better. Luckily, the cellphone store distracted me from philosophizing about this too much. We were heading off to Bologna by train. It took about three comfy hours sat at a neat folding table. I finished my book (“Lost in a good book”, Jasper Fford, recommended). There was some confusion about where to sit, because the seats were numbered in random order and nobody nearby spoke English. We weren’t the only ones confused, because someone got on and tried to claim a seat, but his ticket was for the day before. We hopped on the shuttle to Bologna airport, and Sara drove us out of the parking structure basement in our rental car. At this point, I think I can best illustrate what happened next by showing you the cover of the map we bought of Bologna.
It was dark. The streets were very narrow. All the one-way signs pointed away. Our hotel, glimpsed fleetingly from a nearby one-way street, looked pretty scary. We never found it again. Tired or driving in circles and polygons for hours, we gave up and drove in a convenient direction, found a freeway, and eventually the Hotel Zola. Even better, it had parking. Remarkably, there was a restaurant attached. Astoundingly, the restaurant was open late. Astonishingly, the restaurant had a family-chitzy theme. Impossibly, it even had a bald lounge singer. Aside from not being able to figure out how to flush the toilet, it was a happy end to a busy day.
Saturday, and you’d think Rome would be a bit calmer. Nope. Anyway, we decided to jump on the bus again (and grab a 2-day pass) and head over to the open market. Sara went ga-ga over the fruits, vegetables, flowers and spices.
After that (and a small footwear-related expenditure) we wondered the back streets for a while. I helpful native saw us taking pictures and lamented the state of graffiti. I couldn’t actually tell whether she was sad that there was so much, or sad that there wasn’t any on the adjacent street (where a notable politician lived, with continuous police guard).
We forgot to do something on Friday at the Vatican—get Bob some stamps! It was very busy, but that’s no excuse not to put pen to paper in the post office.
Back around the bus loop to the Termini station, searched for lunch (only McDonald’s Very Fine Restaurant held any appeal), ate lunch (McDonald’s appeal rapidly vaporized) and back on the bus to the Colloseum. I took a lot of pictures, but basically it’s just like in the movies. Except without the lions, or any wood. Interesting, but you’ve seen it before. We ran to the exit. Or would have, had we been chased by lions.
Pushing through pushy vendors dressed as centurians (but, notably, not as slaves) we caught a Taxi back to the hotel. My luggage still hadn’t arrived (and despite our best washing efforts, my shirt wasn’t getting any more pleasant). I called the airline again, and they were overjoyed to tell me that they’d found my luggage and had put it in storage. They’d get it to me in two days. Great. I went to the airport and got it before they lost it again. On the positive side, there was a cellphone store at the Termini. A really good one. I took some photos of it with my cellphone camera, but they didn’t turn out.