* Friday, Oct. 10: Sue and I left Madison for Rome (via Chicago).
* Saturday, Oct. 11: We arrived in Rome. Our hotel reservation fell through, and we had a really hard time finding a place to stay because of the England/Italy World Cup qualifing match being played in Rome tonight. (We probably called or stopped at 20 places before finding a place with any openings). We ended up staying at a youth hostel, and didn't sleep very well (it better than sleeping in a park, though, especially with English soccer fans around!). We are very tired and jet-lagged.
* Sunday, Oct. 12: We walked around the outside of the Colusseum and Forum. They're closed because it's a Sunday, though.
* Monday, Oct. 13: We saw inside of the Colusseum and the Forum/Palace of Augustus. When we were in the Colusseum I tried to imagine myself as an average Roman c. 1900 years ago, coming to the Colusseum for some kind of entertainment (e.g., gladiators vs. lions -- lovely).
* Tuesday, Oct. 14: We saw the Sistine Chapel and other stuff in the Vatican. Went to St. Peter's Square and Basilica, saw Michelangelo's Pieta in St. Peter's. Saw Castel S. Angelo (outside only), Pantheon, Spanish Steps. Also walked down Via Condotti (really fancy shopping area -- fashions, etc.). Didn't buy anything there.
Marvelled at controlled chaos of Roman traffic, also stylish Roman women navigating cobbles in high heels.
* Wednesday, Oct. 15: Didn't do to much today -- feeling kind of crappy (getting a nasty cold).
* Thursday, Oct. 16: Took train from Rome to Milan (about 6 hours), Milan to Stresa (about 1.5 hours). Stresa is a small town (a few thousand people?) next to Lake Maggiore (northwest of Milan).
The area around Stresa is really pretty. It kind of seems to be a tourist area for Italians (and maybe Swiss, too). Maybe Stresa is for people from Milan or Rome what northern Wisconsin is for people from Chicago.
* Friday, Oct. 17: Walked up hill just behind Stresa -- probably about 1000 foot elevation gain -- pretty good exercise -- feet and knees okay. Walked on little tiny roads -- many just barely wide enough for one small car. Got barked at by lots of dogs -- it seems like everyone has a dog, for security, I guess.
We rented a car to drive to the bike race tomorrow. It's good that I can drive stick shift -- it turns out that the car has a stick shift, and the rental person didn't mention that. A lot of American's would be in trouble. The car is a Fiat Punto. It's probably smaller than the smallest car you can buy in the US.
* Saturday, Oct. 18: Drove to Varese and Bergamo to see the beginning and end of the Giro di Lombardia. Saw riders like Jalabert, Brochard, Francesco Casagrande before the race in the start area. Should have tried to get Jalabert's autograph -- oh, well. Sue should have some good photos.
Jalabert won the race -- kicked butt in a sprint of leading group of him, Bartoli, Casagrande, and Lanfranchi. Boy, what a super breakaway group -- three of the top ten riders in the world! Bartoli just rode for the World Cup, didn't worry about trying to win the race (he knew that if the break stayed away he would win the World Cup, so he just killed himself to keep the break away and didn't save anything for the sprint). The race was super-fast -- 42 or 43 km/h, with lots of big climbs (it turns out that this was the fastest-ever Giro di Lombardia).
About 300 km of driving -- pretty stressful. Italians seem to take a lot more risks than Americans -- passing with minimal clearance, etc. -- especially motorcycles -- they just shoot down the middle of the road on a narrow two-lane road with traffic coming both ways. You really have to pay attention every second while you're driving. Navigating is harder, too. They hardly seem to have named or numbered roads outside the cities, so you just have to follow signs directing you to a town in roughly the right direction. It's easy to get off the right road and not realize it for a while.
* Sunday, Oct. 19: Drove around the mountains near Stresa -- tiny little roads -- lots of cyclists. The roads here would be just a blast to ride on -- winding up and down through the mountains. There are also lots of people out apparently picking up chestnuts. In some of the places we walked there were chestnuts all over the place.
Walked around at Mottarone -- some kind of park up in the mountains. Would have been great mountain biking -- we saw some bike (and motorcycle) tracks, but didn't actually see anyone riding. About 1000 m elevation. Great views out to the lake.
We saw many more "serious" cyclists around Stresa than in Rome (or Florence). Sitting by the main road through Stresa, there were many packs of five or ten guys, all on very nice bikes with full pro-team clothes. Many looked fairly old (say, in their fifties or sixties). (Many of the people at the race were pretty old, too.) There don't seem to be many female riders.
Boy, Jalabert has just been flying recently. A week and a half ago he won the world ITT championship, on Wednesday(?) he won Milan-Turin, of course he won the Giro di Lombardia yesterday, and today he won both stages and the overall of the Montjuich Hillclimb in Barcelona! (saw a little blurb about Montjuich on EuroSport TV).
* Monday, Oct. 20: Took train from Stresa to Milan, Milan to Florence.
At dinner, shared a table with a couple from Texas. When we got there, the restaurant was almost empty, but they plunked us down right next to these other people. About half an hour later, the place was totally packed. It was fine, kind of fun actually, having someone to talk to in English.
* Tuesday, Oct. 21: Kind of worried about a possible train strike -- how to get back to Rome to catch the plane? I don't want to have to drive in Rome!
Visited Uffizi Gallery, Pitti Palace (garden's baptistery). I really liked some of the stuff in the Uffizi (like Bottichelli's Birth of Venus and Allegory of the Spring), but by the end I had seen plenty of versions of Madonna and Child with <n> Angels.
Shared a table at lunch with a couple from Chicago. Ironically, both of them also do computer-related work. We ended up seeing them again the next day at the Gallery of the Art Academy.
* Wednesday, Oct. 22: Went to: Giotto's bell tower; Duomo of S. Maria d. Fiore and went up to the top of the dome; Gallery of the Art Academy (Michelangelo's David); Palazzo Vecchio. I think that David is probably the most impressive piece of art I've seen on the trip. When I look at it, I wonder how the hell Michelangelo managed to make it...
The views from the top of the bell tower and Duomo were really good. It's really impressive that they managed to build those structures without power equipment. When we were going down the little tiny stairs from the top of the Duomo, I wondered whether any fat person has ever tried to go up there and gotten stuck... You wouldn't want to go up there if you were prone to claustrophobia.
* Thursday, Oct. 23: Took train from Florence to Rome (EuroStar -- the fanciest kind of train -- I think). We probably should have taken the EuroStars more -- they are really nice -- clean, etc.; you don't have to fight for a seat; and they seem to be faster (it only took about 1.5 hours from Florence to Rome, with no stops at all).
Went to National Gallery of Modern Art.
* Friday, Oct. 24: Flew from Rome to Madison (via Chicago). 10 hour flight from Rome to Chicago -- got pretty long. At least we managed to listen to the movies in English instead of Italian this time.
* General observations: People in Italy have generally been really friendly and helpful, and don't seem to get offended by my butchering of Italian. Guys on the train from Rome to Milan shared their food with us, for example.
Life in Italy seems in general to be much less rule-based than in the U.S. For example, traffic is much more just a matter of squeezing through wherever you can; also the train conductor letting us get away without paying the fine for not having our tickets validated.
There didn't seem to be any vending machines (other than for train and bus tickets) in Italy. I think maybe this is a reflection of a general tendency to do more things by hand. I was wondering if this is some kind of intentional policy to try to provide jobs, or if it's a more basic cultural thing.
Italy is pretty polluted, both in terms of air pollution and litter. In the cities there are zillions of diesel trucks and two-stroke scooters. Also, they still have leaded gas, which really surprised me. In Stresa, there was generally kind of a haze over the lake. We weren't sure whether this was a natural phenomenon like some kind of fog, or pollution blowing up from Milan (the way pollution from the big cities blows into Sequoia National Park in California). What also surprised me was the amount of trash lying around, even out in the country. I figured that in such a small, crowded country people would have to be careful about dumping stuff all over the place, but it doesn't seem like they are.
It seems like people in Italy are more worried about property crime that in the U.S. For example, even in Stresa, it seems like most of the house have metal shutters that can cover up the windows. And in the big cities, just about every scooter and motorcycle you see has a big lock on one of the wheels, in addition to the ignition being locked, of course. On the other hand, I figure you're less likely to get attacked in Rome than in some place like Chicago or New York. There are signs all over the place in the subways warning about pickpockets, though. As far as we know, no one tried to pickpocket us. I wonder if the pickpockets do something else when it's not peak tourist season.
We had originally though of going to Venice, but we decided to skip it because it would have meant spending too much time traveling. I think that probably was a good decision, but in retrospect we wish we would have spent more time in Florence and less in Rome. We want to go back some time, though!
Last updated 2000-04-26.
