To celebrate Zach's graduation from the UC Berkeley MBA program, we flew out to Italy for a week.
We hit Rome, Florence, Siena and Venice. Zach's favorite city was Venice due to its beauty and charm and the "old-timey-ness" of the canals and narrow, stone streets. In a stunning reversal of her prior sentiments, Tiffany also loved Venice. We determined that the sunny, warm but not hot May weather, combined with the pre-summer tourist season, made for the perfect visiting environment.
For one, glorious week we wandered the classic, cobblestone streets of the Old World, never knowing if the next corner turned into a quaint piazza or reveal a beautiful cathedral. And if we got lost? Invariably there was a gelato and an espresso to comfort us until we found our way.
We also sighted a number of Chinese tourists and had the distinct role reversal pleasure of watching them lost in a foreign land for once, after three years of the Zach and Tiff comic relief show in China.
Here their group scrambles to touch the holy grail of Chinese retail, a non-knockoff luxury handbag. It was accompanied by many oohs and aahs filled with awe and amazement.
A typical evening out in Venice would entail dinner along the Grand Canal, accompanied by a bottle of wine, some cheese and pasta. We couldn't imagine a better ending to a long day of exploring and sight-seeing!
Chinese tourists in Piazza San Marco in Venice, balancing the classic desire to engage the famous pigeons without getting pooped on. The end result? Italian pigeons 1 : Chinese tourists 0.
Here Tiffany finds that the tiny people have fallen out of her pocket. Oh, you didn't know about the tiny people? She never travels anywhere without them.
Outside the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Tiffany found a long-lost cousin, perhaps?
A typical two-toned marble construction reminded me of Michael Keaton's costume in Beetlejuice.
Oh, did I mention the gelato? It was everywhere, we ate two a day, and it was sublime!
Zach experimented with flavors like melon, milk and frutti di bosco (which was just blackberry, I think, but so much fun to say!), while Tiffany stuck with strawberry and lemon and compared city to city (one in Rome was the best).
The non-stop activity even late into the night outside at Trevi Fountain in Rome.
One of our best meals was at a mozzarella bar in Rome, called Obika. I think they have a branch in New York, and it was a great meal and a lot of fun tasting different fresh mozzarellas side by side. With the accompanying bottle of wine and salumi platter, of course!
Senatus Populusque Romanus - the acronym SPQR now proudly serves as the seal on all the Roman sewer grates. One of us thought it looked really cool and spent the night taking pictures of "Gladiator"-emblazoned sewer covers. The other thought I was a nerd. Can you guess?
Tiffany had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enter a confessional in the Vatican church and have all her sins confessed and then expiated clean forever. Unfortunately she slightly misunderstood the instructions and spent the entire time advising the priest on which Perricone MD skin care products would work best for him.
Nevertheless, the whole visit inspired her and she felt a great light shining down on her, imbuing her with a holy glow. Or it could have just been the Perricone MD Cold Plasma lotion that she's been using religiously... (get it? "religiously"?)
Even though the lines are long at the Vatican, there was great people watching and always the chance of spotting the Pope Mobile.
Tiffany descends a very spiraly spiral staircase.
I have no idea what this picture represents, but we couldn't stop cracking up at this picture. Completely inappropriate, by the way, to be caught laughing inside the Vatican...
Not to mention imitating the holy papal sculptures. Yeesh, do we have time for another visit to the confessional?
We did find Tiffany's ancient Latin name, however, Tifernas. It means "the goofy one" in old Latin.
Of course, the food was one of the main highlights, and we ran into a number of open air markets that had great looking produce, including these purple artichokes. One of the great realizations was just how many restaurants would list on their menu some variation of "fresh vegetable of the day" or "whatever fresh thing we can find at the market".
We also noticed early on, while putting away a 3-4 pound bone-in steak monster, that the all-natural, grass-fed beef in Italy left us feeling pleasantly full and not the usual "ugh, I feel disgustingly ill" post-steak dinner sensation.
Italy beef makes Tiffany smile!
One of the ridiculously ornate hallways in the lead-up to the Sistene Chapel. Unfortunately no photos are allowed inside the Sistene Chapel, and a strict silence is requested. Ironically the guards are constantly calling out, "Silencio! Silencio! Silence, please!" way louder than the crowd whispering.
We examined the massive Colusseum and read about its violent history of pitting animal against animal (like bear vs. lion), and man vs. man and/or animal in epic battles to the death.
Tiffany was not impressed.
A solid brick wall is the only safeguard against whatever vicious beast the gladiator soon finds himself up against.
Small holes in the cement cage reveal the gladiator's deadly foe to be.... oh no! It's the dreaded Tifernas!
We also witnessed a protest march through the streets of Rome. It didn't seem particularly passionate, though, more like taking a day off to join a casual stroll through the city. We continued to see lazy stragglers for another five or ten minutes after we'd walked past the main "protest".
And so, happily stuffed with a week's worth of wine, pasta, gelato and espresso, we rolled ourselves onto a train to head back to Berkeley. We'll be back!
