April 12th - after a quick breakfast, we squeezed in a little more in Florence before we had to catch the train. Stacey had done some price comparing on a nice leather jacket and got one for a good price. Then we went over to the History of Science musuem, a very cool collection of Renaissance scientific instruments, telescopes, clocks, etc.

Then it was off to Vernazza on our first ride on Italy's second class trains. If you can, ride first class as much as possible. Second class is a lot more crowded and lacks air conditioning.

Vernazza is one of the five towns in "Cinque Terre" on the west coast of Italy. It's a small, semi-isolated sea side town with a bunch of tourists and a nice little beach. Very colourful and relaxing after the last week of running around big cities looking at monuments and museums.

April 11th - Almost missed the train to Florence today. Stacey had trouble finding a bathroom and then it turned out to be a pay toilet and she didn't have any change. We made it on the train with just a minute or two to spare.

Once we got to Florence, everything was good. Found the hotel OK (Hotel Spagne) and wandered around Florence for the afternoon. Florence has the best food so far in Italy - both meals we had here were quite good. Florence seems smaller and a little more relaxed than Rome and the people are the nicest we've met so far.

We didn't have reservations for some of the important art galleries to see but we decided to see if we could get in anyways. After a stop in the market by San Lorenzo, we went to the Acadamie where Michelangelo's David is located but the line was 2 hours in the hot sun so we walked around checking out the churches and architecture.

We went to another open air market, had gelato by the Arno river and then wandered over to the Ufizi gallery. The expected wait was only 45 minutes (in the shade) so we stuck around. Inside were paintings by Boticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, etc. Very cool, "best of the best" kind of stuff. My favourite was Boticelli's Birth of Venus.

When we got out, we dashed back across town to the Acadamie just before it closed and there was no line. Michelangelo's David is one of the few pieces of art I've seen that lives up to all it's hype. It was very moving and beautiful.

After that, we re-crossed town, crossed the river at Ponte Vecchio for a nice dinner.

April 10th - Today we had a pre-booked half day tour of the Vatican. They took us quickly through one wing on the Vatican Museum to the Sistine Chapel. Unlike the Coliseum/Palatine Hill tour we did, this tour allowed no free time so we didn't get to see a lot of things in the huge Vatican Museum, particularly some of the works by Raphael that I would have liked to see.

The Vatican was a zoo. There were tons and tons of people there, particularly tour groups. The floor of the Sistine Chapel was crowded like a cattle car. The art itself was glorious. After that, we went straight into St. Peter's Basilica, which is massive. We didn't end up being able to go the part right in the center (above where Peter is supposed to be buried) due to it being set up for some kind of papal visit. Afterwards, we mailed some postcards from the Vatican post office.

After we left Vatican City, we grabbed lunch in the neighborhood and then walked around to check out the areas around it, like the Parti neighborhood. Then we took the Metro back to the Spanish Steps in order to visit the Keats-Shelley Museum. This is located in the apartment next to the Spanish Steps were Keats died of tuberculosis. It has a recreation of the furniture in the room where he did and a lot of memorabilia (letters, paintings, etc.) of everyone related to Keats and friends - Shelley, Byron, Polidori, etc.

From there we made our way back to the Pantheon to check out the interior we missed yesterday - very impressive. Too bad it was converted into site honouring Christian martyrs but it did result in it being preserved better than a lot of similar sites from the same era.

After a break at the hotel, we had a fixed-price, fixed menu meal at a local restaurant - a semi-traditional 5 course Roman meal and some of the best food we've had on the trip.

On the way back to the hotel, we stumbled across some ruins of a couple of temples where historians think Julius Caesar was killed. Then we stopped by the Coliseum to see it at night.

Rome is an interesting city at night since a lot of the tourists are still hanging around with people peddling little toys and some Roman teens.

April 9th - We started out today with laundry - we washed everything we have worn so far. Then we walked over to the Pantheon but it had already closed early due to Easter holiday. We had lunch in that area then walked south, crossed the Tiber and checked out the Trastavere neighborhood, a less touristy part of the city, walked over to a suburb on Aventine Hill and then grabbed some supper before back to the Spanish Steps and checking out Rome's first (and probably fanciest) McDonalds. A low key day due to the holiday.

April 8th - Got up late after our late night out last night. After breakfast, we caught the Metro over to the Coliseum. The Coliseum is as stunning in person as you would think from the pictures. While we were figuring out the lines, a guy approached us selling tours. It came in two parts - the first half covering the inside of the Coliseum and the second half covering Palatine Hill.

The tour was definitely worth it. It added a bunch of new info I didn't have as well as a added context to a lot of info I already did have. It also gave us free time to walk around the sights during the tours. Each half had a different guide and the second one was a little more personable but they were both good.

After the tour ended, looked around Palatine Hill some more and the descended to the Forum area where we spent the rest of the afternoon. It was very interesting seeing all of the ruins from various periods of Imperial Rome.

At the end of the afternoon, it started to rain so we went inside the Capitoline Museum, which has a ton of great sculptures including an amazing equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius.

For supper, we walked across the inner city to the Pantheon/Piazza Navona area to get to a restaurant recommended by one of our guide books. It turned out to have good decor, a very tricky location to get to, and only mediocre food.

April 7th - Took the train from Naples to Rome, checked into our hotel (Hotel Alius) and then walked around to check out the shopping areas. Once we got near the main shopping drag, the streets got incredibly crowded. The high end shops had some clothes that were interesting for Stacey so we stopped and she looked around in a bunch of them.

After that, we went to eat and walked past the Spanish Steps. Our first choice was closed but the second, Ristorante Aurora, was the best food so far in Italy, but a little more expensive than we thought. They price some things (fish/shellfish) by the 100g and it added up to more than we expected.

After that, we walked to Trevi fountain which was an amazing scene, lit up for night and mobbed be people. After that we walked back to our hotel (past Trajan's column, one of the things we will check out tomorrow).

April 6th - We took the train from Sorrento to Naples, stopping at Pompeii along the way. At the Pompeii station, we made our way through a short guantlet of tourist traps to the actual ruins.

Seeing the ruins was amazing. The ruins cover approximately 160 acres are are around three quarters excavated. We didn't have all day so we followed the recommended route in Rick Steve's book and saw the highlights, including the House of the Faun, the brothel, the temples of Isis and Apollo, the theater and the Forum. Some of the sections were closed off for renovations and there seemed to be a ton more to see so I would definitely go back. We ate at the Pompeii cafeteria and the food was actually pretty good. Then we got back on the train and continued on to Naples.

The ride to Naples was through some very dumpy/scruffy looking areas. A lot of the homes here appear to be big boxy apartment building.

Once we got to Naples, we caught an over-priced taxi to our hotel, Hotel Neapolis. The driving around the train station was like what we had seen around the airport. Cars, and pedestrians, came from every which way and intermingled according to no rhyme or reason. I think the only reason they don't end up with a ton of hurt people is because everyone pays attention at all times.

Our taxi had to stop and ask directions because our hotel was on a very short street in one of the oldest parts of Naples, all one narrow one way and pedestrian only streets. After we got to the hotel, we got a nasty surprise - there was a problem and they couldn't give us a room. They paid for the taxi ride to another hotel that could accomodate us and paid for the other hotel as well, since we had pre-paid through a travel agent.

The new hotel, Hotel Cavour, turned out to be right next to the train station and the driver who took us there was the one who gave directions to our first taxi driver. It was quite nice - we got a room on the top floor with a balcony, presumably to make up for the screw up earlier.

After a brief rest, we went out to go see one of Naples attractions, the Archaeological Museum. The neighborhood around the hotel/train station was quite seedy and a little un-nerving. We had gotten walking directions to the museum from the hotel but Naples is so confusing that we couldn't even find the right street out of the square the hotel was in! We had to go back and ask for directions again. It turned out that one of the streets we were supposed to take changed names partway down so we couldn't find it under the name we were given.

The museum was started in 1777 and contains a lof of the frescoes and statues that were removed from Pompeii so it was a good companion to our earlier visit. It also includes a number of erotic works that are kept in a "secret room" that used to require a special pass from the government to get into.

After the museum, we walked back to the hotel through a roundabout route through the center of the city to see a few more sites. I don't know how one could live with the chaos here everyday. At the end of the day we had supper in one of the classic pizzeria's (invented in Naples) and gelato from the oldest gelateria in town.

April 5th - Today we took a bus down to Positano and Amalfi on the Amalfi Coast. The drive down the Amalfi Coast is wild - very curvy, hilly and narrow. Vehicles often have to slow down or stop to make room for vehicles coming the other way.

Positano was cool - it is built in a ravine leading down to the beach and is more vertical than horizontal. Almost all of the streets are pedestrian only and there are lots of winding stairs that connect the streets between buildings. The bus stops at the top and and we walked down to the beach through the town, stopping at the many fashion shops. The beach was small but nice and we ate lunch at an open air section of place called Bar Mulano Verde. Then we walked back up to the bus stop at the other end of town and rode down to Amalfi.

Amalfi was more car (and therefore more tourist) friendly. There were some interesting back streets and a a huge cathedral that claimed to house the bones of St. Andrew, Christ's first disciple. Afterwards, we caught the bus back to Sorrento, which turned out to be a nightmare. Due to a road being out, the ride back ended up being almost 2 hours long and we were some of the last people on so we ended up standing for most of the ride. In addition, either the AC was out or the bus driver didn't want to use it so it was sweltering. One kid on the ride ended up being sick from the winding ride/heat.

We had dinner at Ristorante Caruoso in Sorrento's central square. The food was mediocre.

April 4th - Our flight from Rome to Naples was delayed, forcing us to re-book a driver we had scheduled from Naples to Sorrento. At one point we thought we might have to shell out for a 150 Euro cab ride but the B&B we were staying at helped us get a driver. The driver turned out to get the father of the family who runs Mami Camilla. the B&B/cooking school.

Traffic in Naples near the airport seems insane. There don't seem to be actual lanes/stop signs/traffic lights most of the time. People just inserted themselves anywhere they could. Things calmed down when we got away from the center of Naples but it was crazy (in a different way) when we got to Sorrento. Sorrento has old, narrow, winding streets, some inter-locking one-way, some just big enough to be two way if both cars are accomodating.

After checking in, we walked into the center of Sorrento to check it out. The center area has some pedestrian only streets (some are only big enough for pedestrians!) and a real old-world feel. According to our guide book, at least one of the streets has been here for more than 2000 years.

We also stopped in a nice cathedral, Stacey went into some shops and we saw the Sorrento's Men's Club. We also got soaked on the way back to the B&B. I had decided to not bring an umbrella when we went walking and it rained.

We had dinner at Mami Camilla - every night they have the students and the staff cook dinner and the guests can join in. The dishes were good but not great. The conversations with the other guests was interesting - a lot of them were from the UK.

I'm back in California. The next few posts will be from a day log I kept while in Italy. Then I'll post some general thoughts and summaries of books I read while on vacation.

I'm off to Italy for 2 weeks so no new posts here till at least Apr. 19th.

This morning I finished Uncatalogued by Julie Kaewert. This is part of a series of books called The Booklover's Mysteries, set in the small run/antiquarian publishing industry in London. The main character comes from a long line of publishers and runs a small publishing company. In each book, he stumbles into a mystery involving some historical work that could lead to modern problems.

These are enjoyable books. The mysteries are particularly engrossing but the characters and setting are fun, particularly if you are interested in either publishing or English history.

Amazon Link: Uncatalogued

Last night I finished Eifelheim by Michael Flynn. Part of Eifelheim is set in a medieval village in the Black Forest and part is in some un-specified near future. The main body of the novel is about some mysterious occurences in the village that possibly resulted in the village dying out and nothing being re-built where it existed. The "near future" part of the book is very small in comparison and could easily have been edited out.

Flynn doesn't write a lot of books, only nine that I am aware of, but he is one of my favourite science fiction authors. His early books started out in a definite Heinlein/Asimov mode - lots of good ideas and interesting plots but wooden characters that were mostly mouthpieces for ideas/plot points and not easy to distinguish from each other - but he has grown a lot as a writer.

This new novel is a little lighter on plot but has nicely developed characters and an interesting historical aspect. Flynn has been careful to have the characters act, and think, like actual medieval people. The strange occurences lead to some religous discussions that are quite interesting in context.

While I would rate this novel very highly, I think the mix of medieval viewpoints and modern storytelling might be a little offputting for some casual readers. I'm was not surprised to hear this morning that it was nominated for a Hugo award but I would be surprised if it won.

Amazon Link: Eifelheim

Last night I finished The Aeneid by Virgil. Back in college, I had read a number of the classics for classes but didn't enjoy them and only did the minimum amount of reading/comprehension to get by. This changed a few years ago after I saw Troy . It's not a very good movie but after seeing it I was curious how closely it matched up with The Iliad. After reading Homer, it surprised me to find out that a lot of things I assumed were Hollywood add-ons were actually fairly close to the source. Contrary to what some critics wrote, Brad Pitt's portrayal of Achilles as a petulant, spoiled athelete is actually pretty close to the source material. I really enjoyed The Iliad and I went back and re-read some of the other classics I had neglected during college.

Since I know enjoy the classics, and I'm heading to Italy in a week or so, I decided to check out The Aeneid, Virgil's sequel to the Iliad where Aeneas leads the survivor of Troy around the Aegean looking for a place where the goddess Juno won't harass them. Eventually the gods guide them to Italy and they start the ball rolling that will eventually become Rome.

It's particularly interesting to read the little asides in the text where Virgil throws out praise to Aeneas's descendants, in particular the Caesars who were coincidentally running Rome at the time of the writing.

I have to admit that I cheated a little in reading both The Iliad and The Aeneid - I read prose versions. There is something about the visual structure of narrative poetry that makes it difficult for me to read. I don't consider this much of a cheat since these works were meant to be spoken, not read, and so the form of their writing is actually arbitrary. Some might argue that poetry best preserves the cadence of the lines but I don't see a lot of value in that, particularly since I am also not reading either of them in their original languages.

Amazon Link: The Aeneid

I finished The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman last night. Pullman's works are usually published as kid's or YA (young adult) books, but they go beyond that simple qualifier. Often YA books are simplified and softened for their target market - in contrast, Pullman's books are often challenging and dark. For example, The Ruby in the Smoke, is set in Victorian London and features opium abuse, implied child abuse and multiple killings.

I've been a fan of Pullman ever since I read his His Dark Materials trilogy a few years ago but I hadn't sought out his other books. Finding this one in the library reminded me of how much I enjoy his books and I will look for the sequels.

Amazon Link: The Ruby in the Smoke

This morning I finished We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. It's an epistolary novel - told in the form of letters from the narrator, the mother of Kevin, to her husband after their son has committed a Columbine like school shooting.

The characters, particularly that of the narrator, are well drawn and interesting. Since it is epistolary, you only get the single viewpoint and so it is sometimes hard to tell if her interpretation of events or other people's thoughts are correct. For example, many times she feels she knows what her son is thinking but other interpretations seem possible.

I had mixed reactions to the narrator - at times I agreed with her, at times I sympathized with her and at times I disliked her. By the middle of the book, it was clear that neither she nor her husband should ever have been a parents, whether or not they were responsible in some way for the things their son did.

It was the most thought-provoking book I've read in a long time. And disturbing, in some ways as well. Just a few of the issues raised:
- is everyone capable of being a good parent
- what do you do if you don't like your own child
- what do you do if a person will not behave in an acceptable fashion
- are there things that are unforgivable?

Amazon Link: We Need to Talk About Kevin

This morning I finished Omega by Jack McDevitt, the sequel to The Engines of God. McDevitt is one of the best of the current crop of science fiction writers. He would probably be classified as "hard" science fiction but I think it would be more accurate to describe his style as "classic" science fiction, similar to the writings of Asimov, Heinlein or Simak. His work often deals with mysteries that are so old that his characters constantly struggle with very incomplete information and his readers may have to struggle with lack of resolution.

Amazon Link: Omega

On Friday, I finished The Geographer's Library by Jon Fasman. The eastiest way to think of this book is as a more erudite version of The Da'Vinci Code. It has the same mystery tied to history tied to a secret society kind of feel but without the dime novel thriller quality.

Amazon Link: The Geographer's Library

I finished my first fiction book in a while yesterday - Amazonia by James Rollins. This is your basic techno-thriller. The model for this type of book was laid down by Michael Crichton - a group comprised of scientists, soldiers and businessmen go in pursuit of a previous expedition in some forbidding, and still primitive, part of the world. There is the standard romance, betrayal and pursuit by a psychopathic rival tied in with some interesting sounding, but dubious, psuedo-science.

This is an OK light read - good if you're going to be stuck on a plane or just want to escape for a litte while.

Amazon Link: Amazonia

I finished two non-fiction books over the last week. The first is Hitler: A Study In Tyranny by Alan Bullock. I had read that this is the definitive biography on Hitler, so I picked it up from the library. It's pretty interesting and not only covers a Hitler but gives a lot of high level background on WW2 as well.

On a side note, I read a quote from Kurt Vonnegut last week as well. To paraphrase, he said "George Bush is exactly the same as Adolf Hitler, except that Hitler is elected." While I am no fan of George Bush, before I read this biography I would have dismissed this as a foolish exaggeration. After reading the biography, I think it is either appalling ignorance or a very deliberately dishonest slur. In reality, there are almost no similarities between Bush and Hitler - not in their backgrounds, methods, goals or in their sins. I'd go into more details but I don't really want this to be a political blog. All people do when they speak like Vonnegut did is to hurt our opinion of them.

The second book I finished is Astronomy: A Self-Teaching Guide by Dinah L. Moche. I was inspired to read this by a visit to Chabot Observatory. They have open telescope viewing every Friday and Saturday night. A few weeks ago, we went and great views of Saturn and the Orion Nebulae. I was inspired to go back and re-learn some of my basic astronomy.

Amazon Links:
Hitler: A Study in Tyranny
Astronomy: A Self-Teaching Guide