Ciao!

Where to begin? My time at the Clarkston Independence District Library, the place where I’ve worked for the past fifteen years, has come to an end. It’s been a fun ride, and considering we’ve all lived through a pandemic for last seventeen months, I’m going to say it’s going out with a bang. 😊

When I started in August 2006, I began as an intern in the Children’s Department at what was then called the Independence Township Library. I was still going to school at Wayne State, working on my master’s degree in Library Science and Information, when I got started here. But I jumped right in, and my adventures in story-time-world began.

I did the Wee-Wigglers story time for seven years! Trying to get two-years old to sit still while reading books is sometimes like wrangling cats, but I sure had fun trying.

Summer months brought summer reading programs. It was great fun to be able to work with the “older” kids as well. Sometimes that meant K-2nd grade and other years it was 3rd-5th grade. I used to say that I liked the 3rd-5th graders better because they knew how to use scissors and didn’t cry! 😉

We did many, many holiday parties and entertainment programs of all sorts, but two really stand out to me from my time in children's.

One summer we had Jim Gill come to our library and perform for us. For those of you who don’t recognize Jim Gill’s name, let me just say he is the Bruce Springsteen of children’s music! He is seriously good, singing and dancing to his own tunes. He has six albums out now, and I can say with 100% certainty, I hands down used more Jim Gill music in my story times than any other artist. I’m going to say his “Silly Dance Song” is my all-time favorite. (Some of the pictures below were taken of silly dancing fun by all!) To this day, there are a couple of his tunes that dance through my head occasionally, and I’ll find myself humming or even singing out loud.

Who's Jim Gill's biggest fan?!?!

If you’d like to learn more about Jim Gill, here’s a link to a good article about him:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/oak-park/ct-xpm-2013-09-09-ct-tl-oak-park-jim-gill-0912-20130909-story.html

My other favorite program was the night Dan Dickerson, the Detroit Tiger radio announcer, spoke at our library. I am a big Tiger fan and getting Dan to speak at the library was a big “get” for me. I was super excited for this event and created a cool display of my Tiger memorabilia. I had door prizes, a couple of books about the Tigers, to give out to two lucky children that would be signed by Dan. The local paper, the Oakland Press, did a front-page write-up the day before to help publicize the event, and I was convinced we’d have a great turnout.

And then it snowed. The program was scheduled for a winter's night in January, as we had to make it happen before Dan headed to Florida for spring training with the Tigers. And as it tends to do in January, it snowed that day; it snowed all day long! But the library remained open. Conveniently, Dan lived in Clarkston, and said he could get there, and so the show went on. He was a really good speaker and told great stories and was charming and gracious. It was everything I’d hoped it could be. But we only had six people in the audience. Six! I even went out into the library and tried to pull more people in, but there was no one to pull in.

Ah well, as I said, Dan was a great speaker, and I was still tickled pink to meet him and listen to him talk about his career as a radio announcer for the Tigers. If only Mother Nature had cooperated. C’est la vie.

Pivot! In 2013 I pivoted from working in our Children’s Department to the Adult Services Department. I’ve been crafting with the “big kids” for years now and am very fortunate to be able to combine my love of creating with being a librarian. The name of my program has changed over the years, but together we’ve been making craft magic for six and a half years!

This mom & son have been crafting with us from the very start and my, how he's grown. 😊

In 2017 I headed up the Friends of the Clarkston Independence District Library committee to introduce the unveiling of our Michigan Author and Illustrator quilt created by three local women, Gini Schultz, Betsy Travis and Ellen Rimar. The event was a big success with nine of the authors in attendance and 185 visitors. We raised money through a silent auction and the sale of posters of the quilt. The quilt is beautiful, and I enjoyed learning about the authors and illustrators featured on it as I prepped for the event.

By the way, that's Kirk Gibson's mom in the middle, filling in for her baseball player son.

Over the years, I’ve had fun creating displays in the library. I started with decorating the showcase and endcaps in the Children’s Department.

And then segue-wayed to creating table displays by our information desk.

My favorite all-time display was the book tree I put up one Christmas, and ended up leaving up for two years! I changed it out each month, focusing on holidays like Valentines, Halloween, Christmas, etc. I would also decorate it for summer using whatever the theme was of our summer reading program.

I even created special decorations for the tree for the open house celebrating our Michigan Author and Illustrator quilt.

A couple of times I asked my co-workers for their creative help in decorating the tree. One year they made feathers for our Tom Turkey Tree.

And they went crazy creating “ugly sweater” ornaments for the Christmas tree. Wow! They had a lot of fun crafting, and our tree got the best ornaments!

For five years I helped host tea parties at the library. We served scones with clotted cream, traditional tea sandwiches and yummy miniature desserts. Along with a delicious pot of tea for each table. The first year I made all the food myself! How crazy was that?!? Thankfully, the next year we found a good source for frozen scones we could bake up the day of the tea party. And the last year Sister Pie bakery supplied the treats, but I always made the tea sandwiches. 😊 Our tea parties were a lot of work, but also a lot of fun and were very popular with our patrons. And I always had the support of fellow librarians who helped with set-up and would then put on party aprons and helped serve our guests. It was a great team effort!

2020. What a year! What can I say about last year? The pandemic shut us down completely for a while, and then when we reopened with limited capacity, all in-house programming went on hiatus for awhile. Which, of course, meant no tea party last year. My Maker Magic craft program became a Take-it and Make-it craft bag for creating at your own kitchen table. We went from a program that 25 crafters attended in the library to 45 bags for crafting at home.

And as I pivoted (again!) to help provide programming to our patrons when our doors were closed, I began to write Beth’s Blog. It too is a lot of work. But I must say it’s become a labor of love. Writing does not come easy to me, but I have learned to appreciate the process. And the positive feedback I've gotten from my readers has kept me going.

And now, 43 posts later, it is time to say good-bye. I thank you for reading. I thank you for keeping me going. I thank you for being here. I hope you've had as much fun as I have. 😊

Take care. And stay safe. Ciao!

P.S. I wrote of our dog, Baxter, from time to time in the blog, as well as sharing the occasional picture. I am sad to report we had to say good-bye to Baxter in early July. He was truly a good, good boy. It was so cool when we made bookmarks of CIDL pets, and he got one of his very own. It is my most treasured bookmark.

Italy: Cinque Terre

It’s time to go back to Italy for the third leg of my July 2015 vacation with my daughter, Janelle, to this wonderful, beautiful country. We started in Milan, made our way down to Florence, and then headed to our last stop, Cinque Terre, in the Liguria region. Cinque Terre translates to “five lands” in English. After the hustle and bustle and museums of the big cities, Cinque Terre was our chance to unwind and relax – for a short while at least – in the quaint villages along the rugged Italian Riviera coastline.

Cinque Terre is a string of centuries-old villages that seem to just hang onto the side of the coast. In each of the five towns, colorful houses and vineyards cling to steep terraces, harbors are filled with fishing boats, and trattorias/restaurants offer up seafood specialties. Many people travel to this area to hike the Sentiero Azzurro, the cliffside hiking trail that links the villages and offers sweeping views of the sea.

With just a day and a half slated for this portion of the trip, we chose to spend most of our time in Vernazza, considered by many to be the most picturesque of the five villages. It also came highly recommended by my elder daughter, Laura, who visited here several years ago and walked the Sentiero Azzurro.

Picking up where I left off in the previous installment of this journey, we are now on Day 7 and traveling to Vernazza. It took us three trains to get there, and having to switch trains twice was a bit nerve-wracking for me. Our first stop was the Pisa station, and we had all of 19 minutes to catch the train to La Spezia. There we had a “leisurely” 33-minute wait for the train to Vernazza. That said, we made great time and pulled into their tiny train station shortly before noon.

The first thing we did was find our hotel room. There are no real hotels in Vernazza, but rather groups of rooms rented out by locals. Ours was clean, newly renovated and quite a climb up from Piazza Marconi, the plaza the small town radiates around. We got our key from their Francamaria office off the Piazza and then made the climb to our room. There were actually two routes to the room. One was more direct but had more steps; both involved walking through rather narrow, back passageways.

That's our room, on the right, at the top of the stairs.

Quite lovely inside.

Check out this map that shows where our room, Giai, was located. You can’t really tell from this map, but it was rather high up, and we chose it for its windows and view.

We wasted no time in going back out and headed down to the harbor on the far side of the Piazza. I’m not sure how many times I’m going to say this about Cinque Terre, but the sights were simply beautiful, and the blues of the water were amazing. We had a light lunch in a breezy café by the sea, underneath maize and blue umbrellas. 😊 Our lunch included pesto tomato bruschetta. This region is the birthplace of pesto, using the basil that flourishes in the temperate Liguria weather, and many meals feature pesto.

After lunch we strolled along the harbor. We took lots of pictures. We watched the little kids play on the beach and in the shallow waters. Then we sat by the deep waters and watched the swimmers jumping in and diving off the dock. What a delightful way to spend the afternoon. And yes, we eventually treated ourselves to gelato.

We ate a late dinner in a lovely restaurant on the backside of the cliff beyond the harbor. Getting there was pretty crazy. We went inside one door off the Piazza and then just kept following the signs to Ristorante al Castello. Of course, it involved a lot of stairs. We just kept walking till we got there. Turns out the restaurant is just below the ruined Medieval castle that guards the coast. Well, at least it did centuries ago when it was built to watch for marauding pirates.

In the picture to the right, that's the castle sitting high on the hill, in the middle of the picture.

We were very excited when we were seated in their outdoor dining section that's tucked in on the side of the cliff. It offered a great view of the sea and the sun when it set.

We started our meal with the anchovy appetizer, pictured above. Never a fan of the canned variety we have back home, these were delicious, and most likely caught earlier in the day, right off the coast, and served fresh.

I ordered shrimp as my main course. Not a fan of the fact I got the whole stinking shrimp. I am not an adventurous eater, and I had a hard time getting past the attached heads and claws. Those are my shrimp below, on the left.

Janelle enjoyed her mussels and shrimp!

And we enjoyed our dessert as we watched the sun set.

Day 8

As I’ve mentioned previously, many people come to Cinque Terre to hike the Sentiero Azzurro that goes from village to village. It’s a very strenuous venture, and I will freely admit I wasn’t up to it. My feet were not in great shape because I had some really bad blisters from the combination of new sandals and all the walking we’d been doing. I was nervous to have Janelle hike the entire trail on her own. but she wanted to at least make the trip up to the cliff that overlooks Vernazza and from there, get all the great pictures! As a compromise, we agreed she could tackle that on her own.

So, this morning we got up early, and I walked with Janelle to the start of the trail up. And while she took her walk, I found a bench in a small park where I waited her return. I was actually able to watch her go quite a way up, as that part of the trail zig-zagged back and forth as it went upwards.

And she got all the great pictures! 😊

On her way...

Back down!

Of the five villages of Cinque Terre, the one with the best beaches, by far, is Monterosso, with its long sandy beachfronts and crystal-clear waters. And, so that is where we headed for our beach day, after the early morning hike. We took the Cinque Terre Express train and were in this village just northwest of Vernazza in about four minutes.

We spent more time waiting for the train than it took us to get to Monterosso.

Monterosso is the largest of the five villages. It is surrounded by hills that grow lemons, grapevines, and olives. And beautiful beaches that attract both tourists and locals alike. We had lunch and then headed to the beach.

What a great afternoon we had! I am not really a beach person, and I try not to spend too much time in the sun unless I’m coated in sun screen. Therefore, I slathered it on, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time in the sun. We mostly stayed under our big, colorful umbrellas anyway, as we played cards, did a little reading, drank a cold beverage or two, and just relaxed.

Janelle went in the water and cooled off, and I wanted to go in the water as well, but I was worried that the sea salt would sting my blisters. But the blue waters were calling me, and I couldn’t resist. I decided to just go for it and waded in. I’m very glad I did! The water felt cool and refreshing, and more importantly, the sea salt did not hurt my blisters at all. And to be honest, I think the water actually was good for them as they seemed to begin healing shortly after being in the sea.

We ended staying at the beach longer than we had planned and finally took the train back to Vernazza at about 5 p.m. Dinner that evening was in another cute little café in Piazza Marconi, Gambero Rosso, with the normal gorgeous views of the harbor and sea. We decided to order their seafood risotto as reviews said it was amazing. They would only allow you to order it if at least two people would be sharing it. And we soon found out why, as the serving was enormous! We did our best, but we barely made a dent in in the risotto, teeming with mussels, squid, and shrimp.

We took our final stroll around the waterfront before we headed back up to our room to pack. We would be heading out first thing in the morning on the train back to Milan. We really enjoyed our time in Cinque Terre, and our only regret is that we didn’t plan to stay longer in this lovely, scenic area.

After strolling for awhile, there is always room for gelato. 😊

Before we “leave” Vernazza, I want to share with you an important backstory of recent history for the town. It was hit by tragedy on October 25, 2011, when an intense rainstorm ripped through the region and inflicted serious damage on both Vernazza and Monterosso. Torrents of water rampaged from the surrounding mountains into town, carrying with it tons of mud and debris. Massive flooding destroyed homes and businesses, and landslides filled the streets with rocks, dirt, and debris up to 12 feet deep. Entire ground floors were buried. Three people died when they were washed out to sea. Life in Vernazza came to a standstill.

Pictures of the flood from the Francamaria website.

Until they dug in and dug themselves out and set about cleaning up and rebuilding. And here we were, five years later, visiting Vernazza and things looked good. If you didn’t know about the mudslides going in, you’d probably be none the wiser, as the city has come back strong. "Viva Vernazza": Vernazza lives!

The watermarks from the flood are still visible by the reception door of Francamaria's.

If you’d like to read more about the October 2011 flooding and mudslide devastation, here is a link I found on the website of Francamaria, the proprietor of our rooms; it is their first-hand account of the tragedy:

https://www.francamaria.com/25th-october-2011.html

Day 9

In the morning, we were up early as we had to take the train back to Milan, from where we’d fly home the next day. Before we boarded the train, we made the short walk to Il Pirata delle Cinque Terre, the “pirate” bakery we had discovered the previous day. We each bought a takeaway breakfast to eat on the train, as well as a couple of cannoli to eat later. When in Italy, eat the cannoli! 😊

Back in Milan, we spent the last night of our trip strolling the area around the Duomo including wandering through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Italy's oldest active shopping center. Janelle does PR work back home, and Laura Mercier cosmetics was one of her clients. Nonetheless, when asked to pose in front of their shop at the Galleria, she was not amused and only halfheartedly smiled. 😊

We had a lovely final meal at Il Kaimano. We started with tasty stuffed zucchini blossoms, followed by our main courses: black truffle pasta and shrimp & asparagus pasta. We were so full, believe it or not, we had no room for dessert.

Sadly, on Day10, we did indeed fly home. Our wonderful, hot and sticky, spontaneous trip to Italy had come to an end. And so have my postings about our Italian fun. I thank you for sticking with me to the end, and I hope you had the chance to read all three posts about my vacation with Janelle. Our trip was one for the ages, and I’m grateful I was able to share it with you.

I’m going to leave you with a #BookfaceFriday picture of Janelle. #BookfaceFriday is another one of those hashtag things, popular on Instagram, created to stir up buzz for libraries. Kind of like the #librarycardadventures I posted about in July of last year. Back when we took this trip, I ran the library’s Instagram account, and I had already posted a few of those adventures from Italy:

Here are two samples of #BookfaceFriday from our Instagram account to give you an idea of what it's all about:

Before heading home, I really wanted to do a #BookfaceFriday posting. We had not brought any books with us on this trip though that could be used. But, Janelle had been reading on her Kindle. I decided to go with her and her Kindle, and a vacation version of #BookfaceFriday was born.

Thanks again for reading. Till next time, I’ll see you at the Information Desk. 😊

Italy: Firenze

This steamy, hot weather we are currently "enjoying" (well, that’s just a saying, I really don’t enjoy hot weather!) reminds me of my 2015 trip to Italy. And so, it’s time for Part II of Italy, 2015: Florence. Or, as the Italians call it, Firenze!

I traveled to Italy in July that year with my daughter, Janelle. Deciding to vacation in Italy in July may not have been the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but what can I say, it was a spur of the moment trip. I knew going in it would be hot in Italy during the summer, but I really wasn’t prepared for how hot it got.

We had a full week of high 90s and low 100s. It was hot. It was sticky. It was so hot I even wore a sleeveless dress a couple of times. That might not sound like a big deal to you, but believe me when I say I always cover my arms. Call me vain, but they are not my best feature, and I don’t do sleeveless. Normally I would throw a light sweater over this dress. Nope. Not this trip. Too hot. Too sticky.

Heat aside, we had a wonderful time in Florence! So much to see and do, so let’s get started…

If you recall, when I left off in the first blog post, Italy: Milano, it was late afternoon, and we had just hopped a train for the trip down to Florence. It was a two-hour trip through some very beautiful country, but I may have dozed off once or twice. 😉

After arriving in Florence, we walked to our hotel and checked in. It was getting late in the day, and as we were very hungry, we headed back out for dinner. We chose a restaurant highly recommended by a friend of Janelle’s who had recently visited Florence, il Gatto e la Volpe (the cat and the fox.)

This meal was a great start to our time in Florence. As I wrote that night in my travel journal, “Prosciutto and melon—yum! Bread and balsamic vinegar—yum! Spaghetti carbonara—yum!” Yes, indeed, everything was delicious, and to me the real eye-opener was the prosciutto and melon, a food combination I’d never tried before but really enjoyed! We split tiramisu for dessert and ended the meal with a few sips of limoncello, on the house. At this small, family-run restaurant, we certainly enjoyed our first meal in Florence, courtesy of the folks at il Gatto e la Volpe!

Day 3 (See May 18 blog post, Italy: Milano, for Day 1 and Day 2)

As luck would have it, our first full day in Florence happened to be the first Sunday of the month, a day when all museums in the city are free. So, we made sure to get up early and be ready to head out in order to try and beat some of the crowds that would be taking advantage of the museum freebie that day.

On this day we visited the Palazzo Pitti – AKA, the Pitti Palace, and the Boboli Gardens. The Pitti is a huge palace that today houses five separate museums. But when construction started began in the mid-1400s, it was just a “smallish” palace, at the foot of the Boboli hill beyond the Arno River, built by Florentine banker Luca Pitti.

In 1550, the palace was purchased by Cosimo I de’ Medici and his wife, Eleanor of Toledo, and it soon became the symbol of the Medici’s power over Tuscany. The Medici’s were a powerful banking family that ruled Florence, and later, Tuscany, from 1434 to 1737, except for two brief intervals. The family’s support of the arts and humanities transformed Florence into the cradle of the Renaissance, and they produced four popes: Leo X, Clement VII, Pius IV, and Leon XI.

Today the Palace is divided into five museums: the Treasury of the Grand Dukes on the ground floor, the Palatine Gallery and the Imperial and Royal Apartments on the first floor, the Gallery of Modern Art and the Museum of Costume and Fashion on the second floor. We wanted to see it all, but let’s face it, it was a scorcher of a hot day, it was a huge palace, and there were way too many museums for us to properly visit, so we just buzzed around and did our best to see what we could see.

The lion is a symbol seen frequently in Florence and represents

the "Free Republic of Florence."

If you’d like to read more about what’s inside these five galleries, here’s a link to a great Uffizi website, that features the best art, etc. that the Pitti Palace has to offer:

https://www.uffizi.it/en/pitti-palace

And then we headed outdoors to wander around in the Boboli Gardens, doing our best to stay in the shade when possible. It’s an interesting garden with a lot of quirky statues sprinkled here and there. Janelle made the climb up to the top of the hill, where she had a great view that looked back down on the whole palace. I chose to stay in the bottom garden and waited for her return. 😊

Janelle at the top

And her view looking back down at the Pitti

We split a pizza for lunch, and then purchased gelato, which we ate in the cool confines of our hotel.

In the afternoon, we decided it was time to journey up to Piazzale Michelangelo. This piazza, with its breathtaking views of Florence, sits on a hill just south of the heart of the city. To get there on foot, one must walk a long and winding road up, up, up. My daughter, Laura, who spent a summer studying abroad in Florence, advised us to take a cab up and then walk back down. Seemed like the thing to do to me, but Janelle thought otherwise. She said no big deal, we can make the walk, it’ll be fun to do. And off we went.

It did not go well. Have I mentioned how hot it was that day? We started out by crossing the Ponte Vecchio bridge over the Arno River and then headed up. The distance we had to walk was 3.8 KM or roughly 2-1/3 miles. We had to climb a lot of stairs as our route wound up the hill. I had to take frequent breaks. I didn’t think I was going to make it to the top. I got angry with my daughter for making me walk up the hill. Unkind words were said to each other. Yes, this was definitely the lowlight of the trip for us gals. But we did it and finally found ourselves dragging into the piazza. (OK, only I was dragging.)

The views we found were as promised! Looking across the city we were able to see the Arno River; the Duomo Florence and its iconic Dome, Tower, and Baptistry; numerous other churches and towers; and all the way to the gentle hills that surround the Florence. It is indeed a breathtaking view, one very worth seeing; just believe me when I say, take a cab ride up and walk back down!!!

I’m happy to report, Janelle and I got past this awful moment

and all was well between us the rest of our trip. 😊

Right next door to our hotel was the Venchi chocolate shop. They are one of the premier chocolatiers in Italy, and we walked by this shop several times each day and were continually tempted by chocolate smells wafting out. So, after our workout walk up the hill, we treated ourselves to freshly made chocolate crepes before we headed up to our room for the night. Yum!

Check out the wall of chocolate behind the back counter!

Day 4

Today we headed out of the city as we went on a wine tasting tour in the nearby Chianti wine region. Matteo was our well-informed tour guide as well as being a certified sommelier. We made stops at three different facilities on our tour.

Our first stop was at the Antinori Winery. This family-owned vineyard and winery was established in 1385, and 26 generations later is still proudly run by the Antinoris. Even though this business goes back over six centuries, what we visited was a very modern and sleek facility, designed to have a low environmental impact and maximum energy savings. It was a fascinating structure, and I enjoyed walking through the facility and seeing what goes on behind the scenes of a working winery.

A little taste-testing of the Antinori wines.

On one wall is painted this beautiful family tree that covers all 26 generations of Antinoris!

On to our second stop, Castello di Gabbiano.....

The next stop, Castello di Gabbiano, was a much smaller winery. Our stop here was mostly about learning about wine tasting. Matteo shared his sommelier knowledge with us as he explained some of the finer points of wine-tasting with us.

The last stop of our tour was not about wine, but olive oil. Fattoria di Maiano is a farm with almost 20,000 olive trees. Their olive oil is sold under the brand name of Laudemio. It was at this location that we ate lunch with our fellow tour group members.

Back in Florence, dinner that evening was in a lovely restaurant, La Goistra. In my travel journal I called this meal “divine.” We had delicious food, drank some wine, and did a lot of talking. A wonderful, quiet evening connecting with Janelle.

Day 5

Today was a very full day! We started at the Galleria dell’Accademia Museum. We had pre-booked our tickets online and so breezed right in, past the long line of those waiting to enter who had not done the same. Silly tourists. 😊

The statue of David, by Michelangelo, is the masterpiece that attracts most visitors to the Accademia. In 1501, Michelangelo was only 26 years old when he began work on the sculpture. He used a large piece of white marble that had been previously rejected by other sculptures as having too many imperfections. Working almost nonstop for over two years, he created a 17-foot statue of David, the hero of the Biblical story, David and Goliath.

The statue had been commissioned as a piece to be placed high up in the Florence Cathedral. But when finished, it was deemed too perfect, too beautiful, and it was decided David should be placed at ground level to better be admired. After much debate, the statue was placed in the political heart of Florence, in the Piazza della Signoria. David stood in the piazza until 1873, when it was moved into the Accademia to protect it from further weathering.

There is so much more to see at the Accademia, and we spent the next few hours wondering the halls, gazing at the works of other important Italian artists, as well as lesser-known pieces by Michelangelo.

The Four Prisoners by Michelangelo. These pieces are "non-finito" or unfinished. Apparently he was known for not completing all his sculptures.

All the art in this hall are the work of Lorenzo Bartolini.

The Palestrina Pieta. Originally thought to have been done by Michelangelo,

but now scholars aren't really sure who created it.

This painting was done by an unknown Italian artist between 1290-1320. What I remembered about works of this period from my art class was that at this time painters didn't know how to paint baby bodies, and so instead they painted miniature adults, baby-sized.

Our second stop that day was at the il Mercato Centrale, their central food market. Housed in the historic San Lorenzo market, the current format opened in 2014. But the beautiful iron and glass building has been in business since 1874. Today, market wares can be purchased to take home and eat, or you can eat at the many on-site food stalls where local restaurateurs create tasty food that has been locally sourced. As we strolled the first floor we saw fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, baked goods, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, candy, trinkets. etc.

Wherever you go, go blue! 😊

We went up to the second floor where we found all the mini-restaurants. After checking out the various offerings, we settled on a fresh salad with mozzarella cheese, and we split a pizza Margarethe. It was a great choice for a fairly quick lunch so that we could get on with our scheduled afternoon activities.

Lunch! Yum. 😊

And we were very eager to see our next site: la Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, or simply, the Duomo. This is the largest and most important church in Florence. It’s big, it’s beautiful and to me it screams, Florence!

Construction began on the cathedral at the end of the 13th century, and it took 200 years to be fully completed. The cathedral’s octagonal dome was added between 1418 and 1434. It was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi after he won a competition to be the designer. His masterpiece has proven capable of withstanding lightning, earthquakes, and the passage of time.

That's Janelle waiting in line to go in and climb to the top of the cathedral.

Janelle got quite the workout at the Duomo. First, she climbed the 463 steps to the top of the dome for some fantastic views of the city. At the top, a fellow climber took her picture as proof she made it up there. Right next to the Duomo is Giotto’s Bell Tower. And then she climbed the 414 steps to the top of the Tower! The Tower is not nearly as busy as the staircase to the top of the Duomo, making the climb up less stressful. Plus, it offers the best up-close look at the famed dome of the Duomo. And it looks right down on the Baptistery.

From the top, you look back down into the cathedral.

The frescoes in the dome of The Last Judgement were designed by Giorgio Vasari but painted mostly by his student Federico Zuccari.

Looking down on the Baptistery from Giotto's Bell Tower.

Looking up at the Tower from in front of the Baptistery.

By the way, the exterior of the Baptistery was wrapped while we were there, because it was being cleaned, a $2 million restoration that took 21 months. I was disappointed when I first caught sight of building to see it covered in scaffolding.

While Janelle climbed all those stairs, I went next door and visited the inside of the Baptistery of St. John, the oldest religious site in all of Florence, consecrated in 1059. I was very excited to see the outer doors of the Baptistery as I had learned their history in a college art class. Two of the sets of doors were designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti after he was chosen over the aforementioned Brunelleschi in yet another contest. You win some, you lose some. 😊

The Gates of Paradise as named by Michelangelo.

Ghiberti immortalized himself in his doors; that's him in the upper left.

Up until the end of the 19th century, all Catholics in Florence were baptized here. Today, young children can still be baptized here on the first Sunday of the month, but as space is limited, parents have to make the request early.

The baptismal font.

St. John the Baptist sculpted by Giuseppe Piamontini.

On the left, stunning 12th century mosaics.

On the right, the restored stained glass oculus of The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was on display in the baptistery the summer we visited. That fall it was moved back to its permanent home inside the Duomo.

The apse with altar.

Like all medieval religious buildings, the Baptistery contains tombs of prominent individuals. This one is the tomb of the Anti-Pope John XXIII, who died in Florence in 1419; the tomb was made between 1421 and 1427 by Donatello and Michelozzo.

As you can see, I was really fascinated by this octagonal shaped building that is beautiful on both the inside and out, and took a lot more pictures here than I did of the Duomo.

After Janelle’s double stair workout, we headed back to our room so she should shower and get ready for dinner. I however, felt the need to check out one more museum this day; one of the smaller museums that was just two blocks from our hotel: the Bargello. It actually houses the largest collection of Renaissance sculpture in the world, yet it is not nearly as well visited as some of the other museums in Florence, and there is almost never a line to get in.

So, after making sure I knew exactly where I was going, I set off on my own. My time was limited so I had to be quick. This was another case of wanting to see a few things I had learned about in my college art history class. First off, this museum has the original two pieces that Ghiberti and Brunelleschi submitted in 1402 for the competition to determine who would design the Baptistry doors. I was in luck; I got right in to the museum and was standing in front of the competition panels in no time! The inspiration for their submissions was from the Bible, the Sacrifice of Isaac. So, what do you think of the two different visions? As a reminder, Ghiberti, below left, won the competition. I think they’re both very good.

Before Michelangelo created his masterpiece of David, two other famous sculptors had created their own versions of David. Donatella, in 1440, and Verrocchio, in 1466-1469. As you can see, they are so very different than Michelangelo’s muscular and manly David. They are also much smaller (Donatello’s David is just over 5 feet while Verrocchio’s is just 4 feet tall. Michelangelo’s David is 17 feet tall) and both were made of bronze instead of white marble.

Donatella's David

Verrocchio's David

Being able to compare the Bargello Davids to Michelangelo’s David was the second reason I really wanted to visit this museum. With this done, I spent the little time I had left buzzing around and checking out the things that caught my fancy.

St. John the Baptist by Donatella

Bronze Birds created for one of the Medici palaces.

Bacchus by Michelangelo

Two more lions!

The "Pitti Tondo" on the left and two examples of ceramic art.

There was plenty of art to see outside in the courtyard.

Day 6

Today we visited the Uffizi Gallery, considered one of the world’s most important art museums, home to the largest collection of Italian Renaissance art in the world. We had again booked our tickets in advance for a 9 a.m. entrance and arrived early at 8:45. Sadly, we did not get inside until 10:15 due to an impromptu workers strike. Strikes are a common occurrence in Italy, and you never know when one will be called. As the heat continued, sitting/standing around outside for an hour and a half, waiting and wondering when the museum would open was not a fun thing to do, so we were quite relieved when the doors finally did open!

The Uffizi is one of those museums where you really could spend weeks, probably months or even years studying the staggering number of masterpieces in its many long halls, but of course we only had a few hours. Armed with our Rick Steves’ travel guide, we looked for the “not-to-be-missed” pieces and just kept moving. 😊

Birth of Venus by Botticelli

Madonna with Child by Filippo Lippi

Adoration of the Magi by Botticelli

Dwarf Morgante by Bronzino

Holy Family a.k.a. "Doni Tondo" by Michelangelo

Venus of Urbino by Titian

Roman art, Sleeping Ariadne (3rd century B.C.)

The octagonal room of the Tribuna

Last but not least, Medusa by Caravaggio

Leaving the Uffizi behind, we walked across the Arno River and headed towards our next destination, the Brancacci Chapel. But first, we had to eat lunch. We were kind of off the beaten path, and we weren’t seeing many places to eat. We finally came across a restaurant called Trattoria Pandehohio and went in. It was so quiet we weren’t sure they were open, but they greeted us warmly and showed us to a table.

It was a family-run establishment, and “Mama” waited on us. We shared a melon, mozzarella, and basil salad, followed by two kinds of pasta and half a liter of a delicious white wine. We may have just stumbled upon this little restaurant, but it really was a great find! Yummy food, extra friendly service and a quiet, but charming atmosphere. We left Pandehohio feeling refreshed and ready for the second half of our day.

The Brancacci Chapel was yet another stop I had to make to fulfill a “bucket list” item from my art history class. As a little sidebar, let me just say I had to take a humanities class while at Oakland University, and I chose Western Art History, Renaissance to the Present. Going into this class, I really had no idea what to expect or whether I’d love or hate studying the history of art. But, as you can probably tell, I ended up loving it, soaking up all the facts and stories behind the great art we studied.

The Brancacci is a small chapel reached through the cloisters of the Santa Maria del Carmine Church. Most of the church was destroyed by fire in 1771, but the Brancacci Chapel survived, as did the frescoes at the front of the chapel that are Renaissance masterpieces. Spread over three walls, they depict scenes from the life of St. Peter. They were commissioned in 1424 by Felice Brancacci, a wealthy Florentine merchant and statesman.

In my art class we spent a lot of time going over the detail found in the frescoes, including the differences in style, found in them as they ended up being painted by three different, important Renaissance painters: Masolino, Masaccio and Lippi. I thoroughly enjoyed gazing at these beautiful frescoes, and Janelle was kind enough to go along for the ride. 😊

That evening, our dinner was one we helped make ourselves as we went to a pizza and gelato making cooking class. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but somehow my pizza ended up looking more like a calzone than a pizza pie. Didn’t matter, it still tasted really good, and we had a lot of fun learning and doing with our cooking group.

Then, back to our hotel to pack and get to bed early, as in the morning we would board the train and head to Vernazza, one of the five centuries-old villages that make up the Cinque Terre, on northwest Italy’s rugged Ligurian coast; the vacation part of our vacation. 😊

But that will be for a future blog post, and you’ll just have to come back and read again.

Till then, I’ll see you at the Information Desk. Take care!

A preview of the next leg of our trip: Vernazza!