Wow - can't believe it's over already.

• Hugoanddenis's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Rome

Trip Start Jun 11, 2009 Previous
Entry Trip End Jun 27, 2009

  Rome, Lazio, Italy
Thursday, June 25, 2009

So we are back in Dublin. because of the very strange travel arrangements I made (you know - save a buck and forget the reality on the ground). WE spent last night in a very seedy neighborhood in the back of the Rome aiport. The day had started promisingly enough. Breakfast with Iain and Chris in Barga - one of those impossibly cute, lovely , real Italian mountain top cities here in Tuscany. The old woman leaning out of the window shouting, "Ciao" as the white cat crosses your path and meows, leaping through the thicket of rosemary and caper bushes. We went into a 10th century church (despite Hugo's ban on such places. He has announced that he will no longer go in them since they depress him and remind him of all the blood of all the peasants that went into building these monuments to God and money and power -- ooops, back to the travelogue Denis). The church survived all the various invasions and the powerful, crushing thumb of the Medicis only to be partially destroyed by an earthquake in the 1920's

Yup, that's it

. Still very beautiful. Hugo and I bade Chris and Iain goodbye (pictures soon!!!) and drove down thorugh Lucca and then Pisa (which we saw yesterday - pictures soon) and then onto Volterra - an ancient Etruscan town on the the highest mountain in the middle of the flattest plains. Volterra (pictures soon) was charrrrmming in the way that all these amazing towns (except for Pisa) are charming. Siena is perfect and posh. Lucca is rustic and rough and beautiful. Barga is just too cute. Volterra is a little touristy but there are real people living there and it has the feeling of a vital place despite the countless Alabaster stores.

A little side note about the pictures. We've travelled all over the world. I've maanged to upload pictures in a little Vietnamese village. In India, despite the chaos of plugs and converters and blackouts, I got pictures into my travelpod blogs. Only here, in the western world, in a EU country, have I been defeated. I can't explain. It boggles the mind. Never mind that I've used mobile phones here and even read mobile phone Italian now, i can't get pictures uploaded. It'll just have to wait till I get home.

We leave tomorrow. We were going to go out tonight in Dublin but it is just too late, too far, and because of an Italian work stoppage in Rome, we are just too tired. Also, oddly, when we arrived in Dublin, I was met by the costume designer and assistant for a movie I'm going to be doing in August. We came in with our bags, saw them in the lobby and then went up and the next thing you know I was down to my skivvies having most of my body measured. Ahhhh glamour. All for now. maybe I can convince Hugo to write some closing thoughts later.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures & Videos

Medici statue in front of sgraiffo building	Pasta vending machine	Demonstration of the Bapistry acoustics	Stairway inside the Pisa bapistry
Hugo contemplates the baptistry	Hugo contemplates the basilica	Dneis contemplates the end of vacation	Pisa poses
Everyone was doing this	Iain cleans the terrace	Hugo sets the table for our BBQ	Our efforts
Post dinner on the terrace	Gates to Barga	Barga palazzo	10th century chiesa in Barga
The view from the top of Barga	Iain prays outside the chiesa	Hugo and the Barga skyline	Denis, Hugo and Iain at lunch in Barga
Ummm, can you believe this sugar packet?	Caper bush in Barga wall	View from atop Volterra	Alabaster shop in Volterra
One of the main piazzas in Volterra	Volterra cafes	Streets of Volterra

Slideshow Print this entry Share Rome hotels

Previous Entry