The Vatican!!!

ya' know...i knew we we're going to go to the Vatican so I should have been prepared and all but then I found myself at The Vatican and inside one of the most ginormous churches I have ever imagined being inside and I was still "Holy Moly!!!! It's the Vatican!!!"

Or the church is St. Peters to be specific and it is ever! It's huge!!! The front is huge and then you walk and and it's giantttttttt! I think I thought it was pretty damn cool.

Here's some pictures!

oh just the front door to the giant church!
and the front yard to the Vatican.
(there is a back yard fwiw, it's the pope's gardens- you can see them from the roof of the dome and they look sooo perfect.

did i say roof of the dome!?!

yep, that's right folks...you can climb a bajillion stairs to the very tip top of St. Peter's.
but more on that in a moment.
this is the inside!!! see how big it is!!!

naw...you can barely tell how big it is. but that thing in the middle of the picture is SEVEN STORIES TALL!!! and it looks like a tiny hut in the pictures.here we are looking up it to the ceiling of the dome!and here's a sculpture that guarded the entry to the crypt's below.
It's a whole life size skeleton covered in a giant swoop of marble carved to look like fabric.so about that dome and climbing it!
here we are about half way up.
we cheated and paid 7 euro to take the elevator up to the base of the dome, which isn't that much of a cheat considering you still have to climb 4oo something stairs!!!

little tiny stairs that loo like this. ok- all of the stairs don't look like that...but a buncha them do. i took a lot of breaks while climbing. it's just my way- climb a little poke my head out a window and take a picture-then climb some more.eventually i got to the top! and what a view!!! everything looked so tiny because we we're so freaking far up!!! and it was raining! a lot! here i am with rain on my camera trying to stay out of the wind. i hung out up there for a bit and then hoofed it down all the steps back to the base of the dome.

and here's where it gets a bit blurry...see it was raining a lot...and the roof of the Vatican is a might bit slippery, what with being made entirely of bricks. so yes- i fell....hydroplaned actully while protecting my camera. it was a bit funny till i realized people were watching me but alas i think that was the low moment of the trip so all in all - not to bad. to drown my sorrows and uh...get out of the rain for a minute i wandered into the Vatican gift shop on the roof. it was by far the best church gift shop ever! after the rain didn't let up i made a dash for the elevator.

whoo...after all that we required a lunch break and another bottle of wine. we wandered to some place from one of our guidebooks and waited for the massive storm to pass up a bit.

after lunch we went to The Vatican Museum! which was pretty cool but you'll just have to take my word for it as alas, also no pictures allowed. We got in to see the Sistine Chapel relatively uncrowded- one of the awesome benefits of traveling in the winter!

Here we are leaving the Vatican Museum and realizing just how long the lines get in the busy times. There were a couple of these big cattle herder's to keep people from wandering into the street while they wait in line. Hooray for traveling in winter with no lines!!!
after all of that we took the subway home and chilled out and a bit later went out for a delicious meal at a restaurant called Matricianel. It was super yummy and I would highly recommend it. I had a lovely salad with fresh cheese and super yummy Saltimbocca. Clynne had fried squash blossoms, gnocchi, and baked fennel. Check out my flicker for more pics of the food!

bones and stones and stuff

Day Two in Roma!

after another delicious filling breakfast at our B&B we hit the road to wander around Rome some more and see some more sights!

first up the Baths of Diocletian- a very cool church built on the ruins of ancient baths. This church was interesting because it had so many science exhibits in it, also this really cool sun dial calender. They basically carved a whole in the wall and then marked on the ground as time went by to commemorate special events. You can barely see it but up in the left is a gold blob and that's where the hole is. We kinda stumbled onto this church while on the way to our next stop.

Santa Maria Della Vittoria with it's fabulous Bernini sculpture "Ecstasy of St. Theresa" the whole church was fantastic. Covered from one end to another in Gothic Baroque details.

From there we walked to the Cappuccin Crypt's which was a bit intense. It's basically 5-6 rooms of large sculptural assemblages created entirely out of human bones. They ask that you not take pictures and as a good little tourists I followed the rules (which i followed most of the trip except for that one time i took a picture in the subway and was threatened with arrest!) I bought some postcards so you'll just have to take my word for it (or google it) it was way weird! so carefully assembled, you would be looking at all the patterns and suddenly realize ohhh...those are jawbones...because it was hard to tell with all the patterns.

After staring at bones we refreshed our minds by tackling the Rome subway system! It's was actually pretty easy and they have machines that will switch to English so i highly recommend it if your trying to get around rome and save you some walking.

We took the subway to THE COLOSSEUM!!!

and yes, it really does need to be in capitol letters like that!
it was so much bigger than i thought it would be, sometimes things end up smaller but no...it's pretty damn big!
we wandered all around it and checked out the special exhibit of art. It was all about stolen works and how some parts of them have been returned and what's still missing.


here we are looking all travel like- this might be one of the few pics of us together as miss connielynne is a notorious picture evader. After tromping all over the Colosseum we took a break for lunch- some wine, sandwiches, and gelato. Pretty tasty!

It was getting on dusk after our late lunch but my guidebook mentioned that the Capitolini museums were open later so we climbed this big hill and went to that museum. Pretty interesting as well- i really fancied how thye displayed their ancient sculptures- all of them were set against polished steel backdrops. it provided a really nice contrast to all of the marble. It was a pretty big museum so we wandered around till we were tired and then trekked down the hill to find a cab to take back to out hotel.

After a chill out we walked in our neighborhood to a tasty place called La Gallina Bianca. It was filled with locals and we had a tasty dinner of wine and pastas. By the end of the day it's quite a blur after a whole day of sight seeing but I really enjoyed the casual ambiance of this place and the friendly service.

Tomorrow THE VATICAN!!!!!!!!!

i can't promise to stop doing that...everything was so awesome!

i've returned

woohoo! i'm home!
my trip was super grand!!!! amazing and breathtaking in more ways than i can describe!

the sights!
the food!
the language!
the people!
the scenery!
the company!

it was all a bit overwhelming and kinda like being at home! Italy has so much in common with some of the best parts of california. everyone was so kind and generous to us and we had the best of times!

i'm not quite sure where to start telling you about so i suppose i'll start at the beginning and post a little bit at a time...

let's see.

my traveling companion- my friend connie lynne who lives near me and loves all things yummy and also enjoys prowling through random fancy shops. she likes kitties, wine, talking Italian and was an awesome traveling companion!

the plan- Rome for three days- Florence for seven days- Venice for three days. take trains from city to city. eat Gelato at least twice a day!

Roma!
we arrived in rome early the morning of tuesday and took a taxi to our b&b near the tremini station. our host at Giovy house Giovanna greeted us very warmly and fixed us breakfast of cappuccino, brioche, juice, yoghurt and fresh fruit. she fed us like this every day, it was the first bit of awesomeness!

our first yummy breakfast!the courtyard at Giovy House

we took a bit of a nap to get ahead of the jet lag and then set out for a walk-about Rome!

we saw the trevi fountain- the pantheon- the spanish steps and generally wandered around trying not to stare open mouthed at all the awesomeness. we saw so much more that first day as well- some churches- had some amazing coffee- wandered around in the rain- got lost in the rain- walked down a super fancy shopping street- learned how to discouraged street vendors- lots of plaza's and piazza's.

Trevi Fountain

the pantheon which was one of the most amazing things to see on the whole trip!
having seen pictures of this since i was young in every art history class ever it was amazing to jump right in and see it on our very first afternoon

inside! where there was a puddle of water because of that great big amazing window to the sky!

the ceiling!

fancy coffee at Sant' Eustachio

me standing in the rain at Piazza Navona
walking home in the rain watching all the lights come on while the streets reflect and glow!

it was all amazing and it was only the first day!!!
we went out for dinner later at a quiet place near our B&B for a great chill meal. some great mozzarella with prosciutto - great house wine- what a great way to end our first day in Roma!

more to come soon!

the big one!

big vacation that is!
it's right around the corner!

i put the etsy shop on vaca a little while ago but check back at the end of January for it to be back online.

We'll be leaving on Monday in the early early morning to fly to Rome- then it's 3 nights in Rome- 7 nights in Florence- and 3 nights in Venice and we'll be back around the 27th

I'm super excited and can't wait to go!
I may blog from the road as my traveling companion will have her computer with her- what! you don't really think we could go cold turkey do you???

Happy New Years!!!

random artist

this morning i cam across the beautiful work of Melanie Bilenker
she makes jewelry where the lines are drawn with human hair!
check out the link for more!

what a weekend!

whoa! so much to report! it was tons of fun!!!
we saw so many awesome things, old friends and ate tons of delicious food!

we pulled out of town on tuesday, figuring we would get a jump start on things by rolling into town that night. look, it's snow at the grapevine!
hungry on the road, i got the boy to stop at this slightly strange place i've driven by for years. it's right along the I-5, A Taste of India...it was good...i might only pop in there next time to get a wrap to go as those look like the thing to get but it was yummy and we avoided the dreaded fast food. heading over to gilroy and up to san francisco we listened to our book on cd about the human brain, we pulled in around ten that night to the mansion in san francisco! not to late to go grab some drinks and hang out with friends at that beautiful house!

here's the front hall

here's the dining room and many rounds of jim beam and ginger ails.my boy's gig was with The Mutaytor, a great friend of the band Jimmy always offers to let the band stay in his gi-normous victorian mansion on Alamo Square. It is gorgeous, fully restored, 4 floors, 28 rooms of nooks to explore including the amazing 4th floor tower room with a 360 degree view of all of san francisco. wiki we slept in the ground floor ballroom!

here's the outside the next morning when we crawled out from under those cocktails

and wandered down to the Ferry Building for hamburgers from Taylor's Refresher! So Good!!!
The Ferry Building is all kinds of awesome, filled with tons of great snacks and beautiful food.

mmm, onions rings. nom, nom, nom!!!

foggy bay

the boy had sound checks all afternoon so i went back to take a nap as it was gonna be a late evening. we met up with my friend Kristina that evening for drinks at Mini Bar and then got dressed for the big party The Sea of Dreams. Here's some pics! It was dark, loud, packed with people!!! Mutaytor put on a great show and everyone totally loved it!!! We stayed a bit after and then cabbed it home to the mansion for some late night grilled cheese sandwiches.

it's 2009 woohoooooo!

The next day I awoke bright and early and super excited! Penguins! yep, we went to the new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. First though we stopped for breakfast at Magnolia on Height for a super yummy breakfast! Everything was a bit quiet with most folks still asleep so we walked right in and got a table and had a yummy breakfast of house made donut holes and then poached eggs with bacon. Then on to the Academy! It was beautiful!!!

It is totally worth the $25 entry fee! The aquarium is fantastic, the dome with the Rain Forest in it is amazing! Everything is great! They still have the tide pools where you can touch the starfishes which was one of my very favorite exhibits as a kid.

We met up with some friends of ours and wandered around with them, they have membership so they can bring their kid anytime they want to. After the wonders of the Academy a rest was in order and then we went out to dinner with some other friends to a great Thai place on haight and then we all went back to the mansion to hang out in the tower with more folks from the band. It was a great night filled with lots of people I love and a great setting.

Friday Morning we got up bright and early to go load up the truck with gear from the show (but not before I sidetracked us to at Tartine Bakery in the Mission that makes some of the absolute best morning buns, my favorite breakfast treat!) After load out Jim and I hit the road for points north!

Our plan was to find a hotel somewheres and do some exploring around Marin County. We decided on Petaluma which is the cutest town! Lot's of historic buildings, lots of yummy snacks and a great Best Western Hotel that suited us just fine.

back ally in Petaluma

That night the boy took me up to Hop Monk in Sebastopol where The Mutaytor had played a show a few monthes ago. It's a great brew pub with fantastic food and a great place to see live music. I highly recomend it if your in the area. The mussels are delicious!

Saturday! Our last full day of exporing and the plan was oysters! We got some coffee and headed to Pt.Reyes to stock up on fancy cheeses and other picnic supplies before we drove up to Tomales Bay Oyster Company to get oysters!!! They have picnic tables where you can set up and BBQ oysters or just crack and eat them raw! We managed to snack our way through two dozen each and they were so good! Combined with a wonderful selection of cheeses we picked up at the Cowgirl Creamery, a fresh pear, wine, bread and some great chocolate chip cookies it was a delicious feast!

Sunday morning we grabbed coffee in town and then headed down to Oakland for one last adventure. Friends met us at The Lane Splitter for pizza and some beer before we hit the road out of town. They make some awesome pizza and they have Moonlight Death and Taxes on tap!
We covered the tab and as we left my friend handed me a huge box of chocolates from the chocolate store she works at in the Ferry Building! yum!

Here's the sunset from our drive along the coast. It was a fantastic trip and so much fun!
ps. i almost feel spoiled by going to Italy next week on the heels of this fantastic trip but I'll try not to let it go to my head ;)