We know, we know...we've been horrible at updating our blog lately and we apologize. Seems we got away from all the hub-bub and hysteria of modern-life in Yardley and ran smack-dab into a busy existence in Siena! Well, not really. We're busy, but it's not quite the same, usual grind.
For starters, I thought I'd give you a quick update on our adventures this past weekend. Then, we'll work on catching you up with the past few weeks.
Each Saturday for the past 3 weeks, we've had busy days in Florence. The kids have been taking an art class in the morning and a theater class in the afternoon. During their classes the adults get to spend a little time checking out the sights (that the kids wouldn't want to see anyway). This past weekend, after classes, we headed out to see some sights a little farther afield from Siena. Sunday morning, we set out for the quick trip to Pisa to see the famous tower. We were a little worried because we had heard that they'd spent a few years stabilizing the tower and had "un-tilted" it by about 6 inches in the process. Would it still be a "leaning" tower? We weren't disappointed...it is still remarkably and almost unbelievably tilted. It started tilting almost as soon as construction was first begun a little before 1200 AD. Little by little, it kept leaning over and was only reversed about 10 years ago. Ellie and Ari had a huge grins on their faces as we walked toward the old town wall and the tower came into view...it is a really cool thing to see.
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| Here's a peak through the gate of the old city wall to the cathedral and tower behind...The tower is very obviously leaning... |
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| We had to make these cliched pictures of the kids "pushing" the tower up. Alongside us were a group of about 100 Japanese tourists all doing the same. |
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| The last time Mark and I were in Pisa, you couldn't climb the tower...now you can and it's pretty surreal. The stairs spiral around inside the tower and you can feel the slant as you climb around and around. The stone steps are worn either on the inside or the outside of the step depending on where in the "lean" they are. |
Ellie thought it was so cool that she did an "Ellie on the Scene" video about it.
After this quick stop in Pisa, we headed a little farther north to Viareggio, a small coastal town known for its unique, colorful and festive Carnival celebrations. Viareggio's Carnival is very different than the one in Venice. Each year they have a series of parades that include beautiful, enormous floats, many of which took an entire year to make, have multiple moving parts, and make some sort of political statement. The day we were in Viareggio was very rainy and dreary, so on one hand it was great because there was no one there and we had front row seats to the floats coming down the street. But, on the other hand, we missed out on the famous "festive atmosphere"... everyone was soggy. We did see some people dressed in costume and masks, but it was relatively quiet. The kids did get in the spirit and put on some masks for a while though.
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| Obama must have been at least 50 feet tall on this float touting his efforts at nuclear disarmament. |
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| Anti-pollution and pro-environmental issues were big in the floats this year...this one is a statement against immense global oil usage. |
From Viareggio, we headed up to the Cinque Terre, 5 tiny, towns set along the Italian coast, each perched on a cliff or in an inlet and each picturesque and quaint...next blog entry will be about our visit there (or maybe the one after)...
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