Italy 2024

 Montecino to Montepulciano  Phones get a lot of grief these days.  The giddy promise of the Internet in the 1990s turned out to be a double-edged sword, and just about everyone agrees phones are largely responsible for the division and "echo chamber" worlds we now call reality. But this trip, I have gained a new respect for Phone.  Phone has proven absolutely invaluable in guiding us to where we needed to go, translating confusing documents, getting us on the correct train or bus, and letting us know what ancient arficact or structure we happen to be looking at currently.   It also is pretty great about choosing bike routes from town to town in Italy.  It will give elevation profiles, distances, locations of restaurants and other services (and if they are open or not).  But Phone is a fickle God sometimes, and we learned today to give our obedience to the will of Phone.  Halfway from  Montecino to Montepulciano, we had been going along ...

Mostly written from a wine terrace in Siena, and posted from a lovely rooftop terrace in Montalcino:  Day 1- Travel up to Florence, Initial Recon Trains are pretty great.  High-speed trains are even better.  This we took from Rome, with remarkably little fuss, and actually before we knew it, there we were in Florence.  Slight hiccup with the realization that the train station we arrived in in Florence was not in fact the train station I thought the B&B was near, but happily, after a little connector train to our new part of town, we walked a short way, and were excited to find our B&B was even better than expected- a huge room with shared kitchen (where a cook makes you breakfast each morning), rooftop deck, and a nice terrace.   But we still had half a day on our hands, and we knew we were giving Florence short shrift as it was, so we made a big walking loop of the beautiful (if extremely popular) historic area, strolling through a great farmer's m...

 (Written on the delightful high-speed train from Rome to Florence) Travel to Rome, Settling in It takes a long time for a budget traveller to make it to Rome- nearly 24 hours of connecting flights, layovers, and just plain long flights.  Happily, the airline gods smiled upon us and all flights were on time and uneventful.  We also avoided the pitfalls of previous trips- for example, we actually got some (fitful) sleep on the long trans-Atlantic flight and forwent the the cheap free wine.  As a result, we touched down feeling quite a bit less destroyed than we did on our Scandinavian honeymoon 7 years ago.  After a little brain-fogged fumbling, we figured out the train to the part of town our short-term rental, which was in the district adjoining the Vatican.   All went pretty smoothly, and we got checked in by our friendly host and ensconced in our home for the week- a perfectly fine 2 bedroom apartment with perhaps the most secure door I have seen ou...