Tourism is My Industry

You know what's awesome about living in Italy? People actually want to come hang out with me! Ok, it's probably more because not paying for hotel (and sharing costs on trips away from my area) makes the trip across the pond a lot more doable, but still... I am also finding my guests to be tremendously beneficial as I gain education and experience along the way.

So for spring break this year, my Aunt Deb and Uncle Wayde came to visit. Their two week vacation was well planned and covered four countries. The ten days they spent with my family were a whirlwind adventure that I wouldn't trade for the world!

With the express intent of conquering jet lag as quickly as possible, on day one we made a point of remaining in motion as much as possible. It never hurts that I can't seem to get to the airport on time to pick anyone up. I tend to be there within 30 minutes of arrival, but I haven't yet been on time. Luckily, I  was only about five minutes late. Unluckily (if you're the party waiting) their flight arrived early. Once we were all together, things moved much more smoothly. I find the autostrada less and less terrifying every day and with people to amuse me along the way, the ride is much less tedious. I took them first to the house to unload luggage, then Felix acquainted Aunt Deb with his favorite park while Rob and Uncle Wayde had a relaxing conversation/nap on the couch. After some mild panic about wardrobe issues, we drove down to Ristorante Due Torri where we had the best service and the best food I've had since living in Italy. So glad I live just a few blocks from this place! It helped the jet lag annihilation  process that Rob still had work for a week and Felix still had school. We all went to bed at a reasonable time to maintain the schedule for the remaining few days before leave began.

Tuesday morning, I got up and took Rob to work at the usual too-early hour, then returned home to wake the rest of the family for the adventure ahead. Felix was off to school and the rest of us had a date with a chapel. The Scrovegni Chapel in Padova requires reservations to be seen, so I reserved us a spot well in advance so we wouldn't have to worry about anything but getting there on time. The travel guide that Aunt Deb and Uncle Wayde had been consulting for the trip was adamant that being on time for this particular attraction is imperative because the chapel is maintained at a certain temperature and with a special air filtration system that requires patrons to sit in a room and acclimate for fifteen minutes before entering the chapel for fifteen minutes. The website for the chapel confirmed this, so we naturally took it seriously. I made the reservations for 1015, a time that would allow us twice the amount of time needed to drive to Padova, park centrally and walk to the chapel itself. I even made it a point to scout the area prior to their arrival so I could find the best parking without paying a ridiculous fee. We left the house at 0830 and all seemed to be smooth sailing, until rush hour traffic brought us to a crawl. I had anticipated traffic and took measures to avoid the worst of it, but as it turns out it's basically impossible to drive anywhere in a timely manner between 0800 and 1000. I think this may be true for at least 98% of Italy, though I can't claim having visited that much of it yet. It just seems to be a recurring theme everywhere I have been in this amazing country. Naturally, panic sets in as we consider the possibility of not arriving on time and having paid for entrance to a museum we won't get to enter. Fear not, my friends! I have become quite adept at navigating the streets here... I'm a much more aggressive driver now than I ever was in the States and it turns out that I'm kinda great at this whole Italian driving thing. We make it to the parking garage with only about fifteen minutes to get in, square away our tickets and get to the chapel doors before we're locked out. My aunt and uncle are both considerably taller than me and while I'm good at moving through crowds, I simply cannot match their strides, so I send my uncle ahead with the reservation info and my aunt and I follow behind as quickly as possible. When we get in, we have about five minutes remaining and there's a short line at the desk. The man in front of us is kind enough to let us ahead when he learns that we're so close to our reservation time and we get our tickets squared away and race to the chapel. We do have to ask directions on the way in, but it's a straight shot so it takes only about a minute to get there. When we arrive, there's a large group in the decompression room and we're locked out but according to our watches, we still have two minutes. Not having lived in Italy for the past year, my aunt and uncle are too accustomed to American procedure and assume that we've missed our opportunity and wasted our money. I have a feeling we can go back and ask to change the time, so I suggest that's what we do. As we head back, we pass the man who let us in front of him. He sits down calmly on the bench in front of the chapel entrance and I think maybe we'll be good to go after all. Then we talk to the man who gave us directions and he confirms that, like absolutely everything else in Italy, the precise schedule is not as precise as advertised. The group in the chapel when we arrived was the one reserved in the slot prior to ours... the chapel was behind schedule by about fifteen minutes. Crisis averted, we wait patiently for our turn and truly enjoy the experience in the chapel for two reasons: one, we made it! and two, the only other member of our group is the man on the bench... this is a much better scenario than being grouped in with a bunch of middle school students (slotted both before and after us) who were guaranteed not to respect the solemn atmosphere within the church.

Piazza della Erbe

Following our time in the chapel itself, we toured the museum with TONS of cool stuff to look at (I dare say Felix might have actually liked this one) then moved on to find food before checking out the other museum across the street. We walked asked people on the street for a good place to eat and were rewarded with a specific piazza to look for that would cater to all tastes. Following the map and only asking the Caribinieri for directions once, we found it and a lovely place that was reasonably priced fairly quickly. The market vendors were breaking down their stalls by the time we arrived, so we didn't get to check them out but the weather was great and the view was worth the walk... and there was music as well! Love it when the right place and the right time collide like that. Just when you think the stereotype will reinforce itself in your favor, you find a place where that doesn't happen. We sat down outside the little cafe for lunch and waited a few minutes for the server to approach us. We ordered drinks and by the time she was back, we were ready to order lunch. Aunt Deb and Uncle Wayde decided to go in search of restrooms while waiting for the food because it's Italy, so it's gonna take forever. They walked away and there was only enough time for one of the beggars to come by and ask for money before the food was arriving and I was still the only person at the table. Aunt Deb returned shortly thereafter, but Uncle Wayde was nowhere to be found. We covered his plate while we pondered his location. I called him and got no answer because he had turned his phone off. He was gone only about 10 extra minutes, but it felt much longer because we were sure he was lost... and it turned out we were right. He had gotten turned around in his quest, but all was well in the end: the food was quite good and the atmosphere was perfect. After lunch, we had enough time to head through Palazzo Zuckermann (the other museum) before returning to my routine of mommyhood and wifedom. I'm definitely going to take Felix to Zuckermann Palace before we leave Italy because the collection of coins alone will have him fascinated for hours. I have to right now strongly recommend that anyone visiting the Veneto region of Italy make sure to take a day to see Padova. I've only seen a small part of it, but I'm sooooo glad I did!

Back at home, we decompressed from our day and prepared for the next: VERONA!!! I truly do not get tired of visiting that beautiful city.

The Golden Vatican

Bright and early on December 27th, my alarm went off and I gave myself five extra minutes. Then I dragged myself out of bed at 7:16 and got to work on getting Felix up and moving. By 9 we were all eating and by 10 we were checked out and headed to the car with our luggage. We packed everything in, secured the car and headed back to the bus. Luckily, Italian time is on our side and the 10am bus has not left yet (it's only about 10:15) so we jump on it and shortly it heads out. As we come up to the Colosseum stop, we see that the line to get in is about a mile long (yes, an actual mile, not a figurative one)... for this reason, we decide not to get off at that stop. Instead, we get off at the Piazza Venezia where the museum is free because of its anniversary and the monument to the first King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II, is always open to the public (being outside and all). We begin wandering through the museum and are almost immediately separated by impatience and miscommunication. My moment of panic occurred when Felix was not with Ana, who I thought had him, and Rob was nowhere to be found... then suddenly I was the only one of our party in the museum at all. I call Rob and confirm that he has Felix and I relax, confident in the knowledge that I have the only set of car keys so they'll have to rejoin me if they intend to return home. Yes, sometimes that's just how it is with me. We all link up again outside where the monument is and Felix is having a blast pretending to control the eternal flames in front of their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It's quite beautiful there and if I had more time, I could definitely stay there a couple hours taking everything in and trying to read the plaques. Felix really enjoyed the freedom of imagination here and was disappointed to leave again, but sitting on the open part of an open-air bus took his mind off of leaving imagination land.

Our next destination was Vatican City to see the Sistine Chapel (and all the cool stuff that comes before it) in the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica. We arrive at the same stop we were stranded at the night before and wander around looking for bathrooms and tourist info. We find both in a bookstore and across the street I find my Vatican City shot glass. We walk into the piazza in front of St. Peter's and break to discuss how we're going to go through the Vatican when a girl who was strategically placing herself in the piazza to offer tour services to contemplating tourists walked up to us and did her job. We decided it was a good idea and took the tour. Well, most of us thought it was a good idea. Felix was not even remotely happy about going on a tour through "another boring museum"... can you tell?

Despite my misgivings about the tour, it turned out to be a pretty great idea. We were not really prepared to guide ourselves through the Vatican and our tour guide was pretty funny and highly informative. I learned a lot, especially at the beginning as we walked through the Greek museum. Felix got over his frustration when he saw that there actually was cool stuff to look at... when we were told that the gold color in most of the paintings was made using actual gold, he was truly impressed (so was I!). There is a ridiculous amount of art to absorb in the Vatican and I really think there is not enough time in anyone's life to truly study it all. As we made our way through, the halls became steadily more crowded and our tour guide more of a challenge to follow. He was very good at moving through the rooms, though and made it a fun sort of obstacle course plus history lesson. I really enjoyed the tapestries and Felix loved the map room. By the time we got to the Sistine Chapel, we'd already been on the tour for two and half hours. We were given very serious warnings before entering the chapel: no talking, no pictures, expect massive crowding, expect horrific repercussions if you talk or take pictures. They were not kidding. Our guide took us to the entrance then told us where he was going to meet up with us inside because there was no way we were going to make our way through as a solid group. We pushed our way through the intensely crowded room to arrive at the corner our guide indicated, then listened to him whispering in our headsets the somewhat more important details about the paintings in the room. It was pretty amazing just to be inside the Sistine Chapel... it is absolutely beautiful. Fortunately, our guide kept us inside for a good amount of time so that we could really take it all in. While we were inside, people would talk and be shushed by the guards. Some were loud enough to be removed. I saw a couple people take pictures with their phones and have no idea if they were caught, but there's a good chance they got terrible pictures because of the crowding.

Naturally, my camera battery was dying as we exited the Vatican and entered St. Peter's Basilica. The lighting inside was a no-go for my poor camera anyway and I'm grateful that Rob and Ana were both taking pictures also because I had the utmost pleasure of becoming Felix's tour guide while Rob and Ana split off to see everything without the annoyance of a frustrated and overtired ten year old boy. Upon exiting the basilica (with everyone else in Rome!) we had the distinct pleasure of seeing the Swiss guards in their fabulous uniforms. Rob wants one for Christmas next year... just so everyone knows!

Rob's dream uniform...

We left a little later than anticipated (what else is new?!) but fortunately did not have to wait long for transportation back to our car. It was decided that the best option would be to eat at the little restaurant we liked so much the previous day before heading back, which turned out to be a great idea... I had LOTS of mushrooms, which I love and we all were able to take advantage of free restrooms before hitting the road. We left after sunset, but in the winter that's not hard to do and arrived home exhausted but grateful we made the trip! I learned a lot of what not to do on such trips and am determined to return to Rome at least once to get my Trevi Fountain experience!