Italy and Greece: A Narnian Adventure

We came back from Athens yesterday. It was one of the longest days of my life, and while I was glad to get home after fifteen days out of the country, coming back to Lincoln was also depressing. I chalked it up to being exhausted. The two weeks we were gone felt like we'd been gone forever, and at the same time had barely left. It felt like stepping into Narnia through the wardrobe, and then coming back again to find that we had changed but nothing else around us had.

So here's a quick snapshot of the journey. I hope to expand it, maybe in my journal, maybe in more blogs, but here's the short version for now.

Thursday 24 May. Milan, Italy. We flew to Milan by way of Munich, Germany, and were going to head to the Church of St. Ambrose, but didn't have time, so we went on to Verona, saw Juliet's balcony (Romeo and Juliet), were greeted by hot temperatures and Italian gelatto (smooth Italian ice cream made with milk), and then made our way to the hotel
outside of Venice in a town called Caorle that sat just off the Adriatic Sea. I stood that night in the sea, letting the water lap over my feet as I watched the sun set and darkness descend.

Friday 25 May. Venice. We drove to Venice on a bus, passing through towns and seeing Italian homes with tiled roofs and small vineyards and olive groves. Some of the homes looked like little Roman villas, but were definitely different from the American homes we've grown used to seeing. We caught a ferry across the Po River (?) into Venice, and visited the doge's palace, St. Mark's basilica, rode on gondolas and saw the campo (village square) that Giacomo Casanova frequented (to keep the virgin nuns company). My friend Chris decided he could easily live in Venice, though I was happy to move on, mostly because of the heat. We also saw the Basilica of the Friars, and I saw a pyramid sculpted by Antonio Canova (Cupid and Psyche is my favorite).

Saturday 26 May. We left Caorle and headed to Florence, Italy. We took a walking tour near the Piazza del Signoria, and I saw a copy of Michelangelo's David (we'd see the original at the Academie the next day). We passed the the Uffizi with sculptures of a number of Florentine Renaissance figures (Dante, Boccacio, Galileo, da Vinci) and climbed 400+ steps of the duomo and saw images of Hell and Paradise, and then saw a beautiful view of Florence (Firenze) from the top. At first I disliked Florence, but quickly came to love it, even more than Venice. It rained hard that afternoon, which brought cooler weather, and we watched the sunset off the Old Bridge (Ponte Vecchio). I saw architecture here all the way from Roman times to the Renaissance, to present day.

Sunday 27 May. I spent four hours in the Uffizi looking at paintings with Emma and her aunt Cathy. I saw Botticelli's Birth of Venus, work by Giotto and Cimabue (Madonna and Child), and a number of other sculptures and works of art. We also saw copies of Laocoon and Sons, and of Silenus and Bacchus (Bacchus/Dionysius, the god of wine, and usually attributed to festivals, Greek satyr plays, and drunken orgies). That night we had a service in the hotel, and then I watched Shrek in Italian.

To be continued soon . . .