Rome is old Rome is new It’s tale’s fold As times flew By this time of the family vacation in Rome, there is a clear morning routine of showering, breakfast, commenting on how lucky we are about the perfectly cool weather, and so on. For breakfast, Julie, I, sometimes George, and sometimes Mom would go [...]
I have spent a fair amount of time in Rome over the last month, but it is not until today that I realize what I may have been passing on the street. Behind closed windows and plain facades, some of these buildings house ornate rooms with invaluable art collections. Today, we tour the Palazzo Colonna [...]
Our first destination today is Pisa, where I have the chance to revisit its famous leaning tower. Soon after arriving, the sky opens up and it starts to pour. We avoid some of the rain in shops and some more with a cafe dopio. It does eventually begin to clear and the sun even shows [...]
Our last morning in Oriveto is spent underground. Orvieto hides caves and tunnels in the volcanic rock on which the city is build. In these underground passages that were originally mainly accessible by private homes above, we find wells, stairs, quarries, cellars, pigeon farms, and more. After a tour of the underground and a quick [...]
Almost five months after being dropped off at Los Angeles International Airport, I see my parents again. We try to time it so that we both arrive into Rome’s FCO airport at the same time, and if I hadn’t been flying on the generally delayed EasyJet, our timing would have been very close. After collecting [...]
We leave Sciacca, but before heading to northeastern Sicily, we drive through the Valley of the Temples near Agrigento. Gabe and I really appreciate having Becky here because as she explains what we are seeing, we better understand the importance of the seven monumental Greek temples all constructed in the Doric style during the 6th [...]
“In Palermo dialect the adjective ‘mafioso’ once meant ‘beautiful, ‘bold’, ‘self-confident’. Anyone who was worthy of being described as mafioso therefore had a certain something, an attribute called ‘mafia’. ‘Cool’ is about the closest modern English equivalent: a mafioso was something who fancied himself.” (Quote form Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia by [...]
French wines I knew a little about and Italian wines I knew a little about, but of Hungarian wines I knew nothing before arriving. This may be because their wine export levels are very low, but whatever the reason, Hungarian wines are very historied dating back as far as Roman times from when there are [...]
I am unsure how many famous defenestrations there have been in history, but I did learn about two that took place in Prague. As I remember from back in the days of SAT vocabulary, to defenestrate is to throw one out of a window. However, why a word exists that is so specific is unclear [...]
A couple week ago, I was introduced to Kinsey II, a replacement kindle. I ordered one, had it shipped home, and then my mom kindly forwarded it along to meet me in Rome. That said, I again have been able to easily access literature. While in Amsterdam, I know that I will be visiting the [...]