Italy Part 4: Florence - The Duomo

Florence's skyline is dominated by the Duomo, a 14th century cathedral in the heart of the old city. It is massive, and it's nearly impossible to get the whole thing in one picture!

l-r: Baptistery, Duomo (well, the top of the dome, anyway), and tower

The bell tower

Evening at the Duomo

Side view

The front is so ornate!

The doors

An old man carved into the door

The dome. See the people near the top? We climbed up there.
It was something like 460 steps up a narrow spiral staircase.

The view!

Italy Part 3: Florence - The River

After Cinque Terre, we took the train to Florence (or, Firenze, as the Italians say). We stayed there for five nights and saw many beautiful sites!

The Arno river runs east-to-west through Florence. We stayed in a 5th floor apartment right at the north end of the Ponte Vecchio, a bridge which was built in 1345.

Here's the view from one of our windows:

That long white "building" in the center is the Ponte Vecchio.
This was taken facing southwest-ish.

And here's the view of the other side of the river (Oltrarno),
looking to the southeast-ish.

The rest of these were taken from street level:

Looking to the east in the late afternoon.


A church across the river.



Bridges at dusk, taken from two bridges east.

Ponte Vecchio at night (taken from the next bridge west).

Italy Part 2: Vernazza

On Monday we hopped the train and went to Vernazza, the next town over. I think the train ride was all of 3 minutes. :)

Waiting for the train...

Vernazza town square, with my back to the sea

Another view of the town square, with the harbor (and Gus!) in the foreground


Enjoying the view

The waters were turbulent!


And this guy was kayaking!

We walked up the trail next to the town for this view.
See the castle at the top?

Vernazza's castle

Gus found a friend! I know it looks like he's pulling the castle cat's tail,
but he was just petting him and the cat decided to hop down!

The view of the square and harbor from the top of the castle

The view to the east

And to the west
(that's Monterosso in the middle of the picture)

:)

Italy Part 1: Monterosso al Mare

We went to Italy May 13 - 27, and here - finally - are some pictures of our trip!

We flew from Dallas to Paris to Rome, arriving in Rome around 3pm on May 14th. Then we hopped on the train from Fiumicino airport, through Rome and Pisa to La Spezia, and then changing to the regional train to go the last few miles to Monterosso.

Monterosso is one of the villages of Cinque Terre, an area of five small fishing villages along the northwestern coast of Italy. We arrived around 9pm on Saturday, and while we could hear the sea, we couldn't see it because it was dark. :)

Sunday was overcast and a little rainy, but in the afternoon it cleared up. We spent the day wandering around the town, admiring the sea, and eating great food.

(As always, you can click on a picture to make it bigger.)

There weren't many tourists at the beach on Sunday.

This is a view of Monterosso from the hills at the edge of town.


On our way up the trail, we encountered a cemetery:

Each of the cubby holes in those walls is a tomb.

And each tomb has the name of the occupant.
Many of them also had a photo or engraving of the deceased (as can be seen in the upper-left).
It was kind of creepy!

Monterosso has two sections: the older east side (where we stayed)
and the newer west side, where the train station and more modern housing are.
This is the west side, taken from the breakwater.

Another view of the west side, taken from the trail that connects the two.

Standing at the far west side, looking back to the east.
The old part of town is hidden by the rocks.


On the left side of the photo (and in the center of the previous photo)
you can see the old (16th century) fort.

Just below it, on the rocks, there is a round cement WWII bunker.


Here's Gus checking it out! We went inside, and then sat on top of it for a while.

Moonrise

Sunset

And my favorite photo:

Night time in Cinque Terre. If you look closely, you can see the four other villages.
From left: Vernazza, Corniglia (up on the hill), Manarola, and Riomaggiore.

Next up, Vernazza!

Aha!

So that's where all the birdseed is going!

Bathroom "Before & After"

When we bought our house last month, here's what the downstairs bathroom looked like:

Left side of the room...

...and right side of the room.

Lovely wallpaper, eh? We pulled all the wallpaper down one evening, only to discover that the drywall behind it had...issues.

Exhibit A: Mold along the tile at the top of the shower

Exhibit B: Weird patchy plaster and red wallpaper glue residue.
(Maybe...I'm not sure what that red stuff is.)

So we hired a painting company to come in and kill the mold, prep the drywall, texture the walls, prime, and paint.

Then we bought new accessories: curved shower curtain rod, new extra-long shower curtain, rugs, towels, etc.

Here's how it looks now!

:)

Neighbors

So, now that we've been in our house for a month, we've gotten to know a few of our neighbors a little better:

These two neighborhood cats were hanging out under one of our trees this evening. The grey one on the left is very shy and hyper-alert. When he realized he'd been spotted, he quickly made his exit. It's a shame, because he's so pretty!

The black and white one hangs around a lot. Although he won't let us get closer than 5 feet from him, he has been known to sit in our driveway and meow at us when we get home. He even helped me paint the kitchen cabinets! :)

(Poor quality photo taken with my cellphone)

He didn't mind me taking his picture through the screened-in porch screen.

And then I tried out my new camera's zoom, and even through the screen, the picture turned out pretty nice!

(Psst! Hey, cat - let me pet you!)

Kitchen Before & ... Intermediate

I painted the kitchen cabinets over Spring Break! The kitchen walls are awaiting a crew to come in and remove wallpaper, fix flaws, and paint. That'll happen next week. In the meanwhile, here are photos of the freshly painted cabinets.

First, a "before" shot:

From "Eew!" ....

Now:

... to "Ooo!"

Note the shiny new cabinet hardware, too. It's so pretty!

I'll post more when the walls are finished. :)