New words coined by Angie on this trip:
Grawesome – When something is both gross and awesome at the same time. It was used first in Venice after visiting Saint Mark’s Church and the Tesoro room (treasures room). In this room there were body parts of saints and other important religious people….It was definitely grawesome.
Terawesome – When something is both terrifying and awesome. First used in the cab ride back from Trevi fountain to the hotel. The taxi driver knew how to accelerate, turn and slow down with race car driver like precision.
We’re a few days behind on posts as we were out late last night and too tired to figure out internet when we got back to the hotel. Angie will likely cover today’s tourists activities tomorrow but we’ll post pictures from today now.
Tomorrow we go to the Vatican (no shorts allowed!) and see all the splendor that it is. It will mark an important milestone in the trip for me as I will have seen original works of art by Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael and Leonardo. That’s right folks, all the artists that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are named after. We saw a few of Donatello’s pieces in the Duomo museum; he had a few scary looking statues that I could respect. Today we saw a few of Raphael. If there was ever a 5th turtle he should be named Bernini although the rare art snob + TMNT fan would know that he is considered to be from the baroque not renaissance period. But Bernini had some impressive skills.
Food updates:
Nothing of real note about food, we’ve had some decent meals but nothing I would say are of the level that I’d recommend you definitely go to if you ever come to Rome/Florence. Although last night Angie was disappointed that the pasta dish brought to her had a face (a whole prawn was brought to her as a decoration for her dish).
The last night in Florence we sat in the Piazza Signoria (where the bonfire of the vanities happened) and had dessert. We had been in search of Tignanello wine to try as someone had recommended it to us. This restaurant listed it as available by the glass and everywhere else we went it was by the bottle or half bottle and was at least 35 euro. It was 12 euro just for a glass but we thought we should try it. 1 of 2 things happened; we either didn’t know what we were ordering or the guy charged us for one and brought us something else. What we got was basically straight clear alcohol, and not tasty either. We paid 12 euro for it so we drank it but it was not what we were expecting. We double checked the menu and it was listed in a section that had other non wine listed so we weren’t sure. Maybe the wine experts can tell us what the heck it was we had.
We are reasonably sure we are going to miss our connecting flight to Seattle in Cinccinati as it's only a 1 hour layover and I think we have to go through customs. We're going to see what other options we have but we might be stuck in Cincinnati for a few hours while we work it out.