I spotted this recipe in the front of Bon Appetit and made my own version of it.

Malt Vinegar-Glazed Chicken Breasts

Glaze:

1/2 cup malt vinegar

1/8 cup dark molasses

1 tbsp honey

1/4 tsp ground coriander

pinch cayenne pepper

pepper to taste

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 bay leaf

Chicken

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/8 cup salt

1/8 cup malt vinegar

4 sprigs fresh thyme

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

Glaze:

Combine ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, then set aside

Chicken:

Mix sugar, salt, vinegar, thyme and 1 cup water in a large pot and bring to a boil. Stir in 6 cups cold water. Allow to cool. Add chicken breasts to the pot. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours (or up to overnight).

Remove chicken from brine and grill over medium high heat. When it is close to done, brush with the glaze. Cook until it reaches an internal temperature of 165.

We loved the rich, dark flavor of this chicken that was not overpowering at all. You should use all of the glaze when basting the chicken. It cooks to a lovely golden brown and malt vinegar gives it a nice gentle tang. I marinated only 4 hours and it had lots of flavor. I’ll be making this recipe again. The leftovers were fantastic in chicken sandwiches and in salads!

I spotted this recipe in the front of Bon Appetit and made my own version of it. Malt Vinegar-Glazed Chicken Breasts Glaze: 1/2 cup malt vinegar 1/8 cup dark molasses 1 tbsp honey 1/4 tsp ground coriander pinch cayenne pepper pepper to taste 1/4 tsp cinnamon 1/2 bay leaf   Chicken 1/4 cup brown sugar … Read more →

Are you drowning in tomatoes? I am, so I’m looking everywhere for ideas! I came across a recipe for tomato cobbler in Food Network Magazine. I made some tweaks to it, so here’s my version:

Tomato Cobbler

filling:

3 tbsp butter

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp fresh thyme

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

3 large tomatoes, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 tsp brown sugar

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

5 tbsp flour

Topping:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp sugar

3/4 tsp salt

pepper to taste

1/3 cup shredded smoked cheddar cheese

2/3 cup skim milk

2 tsp whole grain mustard

Preheat oven to 350 and spray a 2 1/2 quart casserole dish with cooking spray. Melt butter in a large skilled and cook onion until soft. Add garlic, thyme and cayenne and cook another minute. Add tomatoes, brown sugar, and salt. Bring to a simmer and cook until the tomatoes soften (about 5 minutes). Remove from heat and stir in flour and cherry tomatoes. Pour into casserole dish.

Place flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, pepper, cheese and butter in a food processor and process until it resembles coarse meal. Add the mustard and pour in the milk with the machine running until it is just combined. Drop dough by spoonfuls over the tomato mixture. Bake 50 minutes to 1 hour then allow to rest about 15 minutes. Serve this in small bowls since it is like a stew.

I really enjoyed this. It’s essentially dressed up stewed tomatoes. It smells great. You could make this in individual little casserole bowls if you wanted (I would adjust the cooking time down for this). The biscuits on top are wonderfully tender and the smoky cheddar goes really well with the tomatoes.

Are you drowning in tomatoes? I am, so I’m looking everywhere for ideas! I came across a recipe for tomato cobbler in Food Network Magazine. I made some tweaks to it, so here’s my version: Tomato Cobbler filling: 3 tbsp butter 1 medium onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 tsp fresh thyme 1/8 tsp … Read more →

I’ve titled this post SPQR, which stands for Senātus Populusque Que Rōmānus (the Senate and people of Rome), and is an abbreviation you see on manholes all over Rome and which was used in ancient Rome. My husband and kids all bought t-shirts that say this. Rome was really about history for us and we really enjoyed this city immensely.

Spanish Steps

Spanish Steps

We started our visit by walking to the Spanish Steps. They’re interesting, but really, it’s just a big bunch of steps (if you go, plan so that you emerge at the TOP of the steps and can walk down them. You will definitely enjoy your visit here more: this is what we did in a burst of genius because there are a LOT of steps). There is a lovely fountain in a piazza at the bottom of the steps that is a big tourist gathering place. If you go at night, beware of the aggressive vendors trying to sell roses. They were literally hitting my daughter with roses saying, “You are so special to me,” trying to get her to take one so we would have to pay for it. This is a lovely area though and a nice photo op. The streets surrounding this area had some shops and we stumbled upon one of the best restaurants of our entire trip in this area (coming soon in a post about the food on the trip!).

Trevi Fountain

We also visited the Trevi Fountain, which is within walking distance of the steps. This is a

Trevi Fountain

mob scene, particularly at the height of summer when we were there, but if you are patient, you can get a spot on the edge of the fountain where you can toss two coins in and take a nice picture. People tend to move in and out of this area pretty quickly, so even though it looked really crowded, we didn’t wait very long. While we were there, some star (athlete, movie star, we don’t know!), walked through the piazza, followed by screaming girls. It was quite a site!

Pantheon

Pantheon

While we were on our own, we went to the Pantheon, which is a beautiful round temple, originally Roman, and converted to Catholicism. The architecture was stunning, as was the scale of the building (we also found some great shopping nearby).

Capuchin Crypt

Beneath a church in Rome, there is a museum of artwork made of human bones. Can you tell I have a teenaged son? This was a must-see on our list. (photos were not allowed, so you can watch this video if you’d like to see it). This little unassuming church has a museum you pay to get into, filled with religious artifacts and some religious history. Underneath the church are rooms where the bones of monks are used to create designs and art. Each little “room” used a specific type of bone, so there was a femur room and a skull room, etc. The idea was to remind us all that we will all be reduced to bones one day. I found it to be quite creepy, but the rest of my family thought it was fascinating.

Bus Tour

We had not planned to take a bus tour of the city, but after we arrived and were blown away by the architecture we were driving past (not knowing what any of it was), we decided to pay for a hop-on-hop-off bus tour with a recorded message telling you what everything was. It helped us get our bearings in the city and it identified a few buildings, but overall, it was a waste of time and I wouldn’t recommend it. The headsets did not work sometimes and it seemed they spent a lot of time giving too many details about some buildings and then not identifying other places we were passing by. So, I don’t recommend the Trambus for this, unfortunately.

Le Domus Romane di Palazzo Valentini

Another bit of the trip that was lacking was this new museum that seems to be run by the tourism department for this region of the country. It wasn’t in any of my guidebooks and I happened upon a mention of it on TripAdvisor.  The web site is a bit deceiving. The general idea was supposed to be this: they found an actual Roman villa (home) underneath another building and it was pretty well preserved. They excavated it and you get to go in and using virtual technology, they show you how the rooms used to look, so you can experience a real Roman home. That’s what it was supposed to be. In actuality, they built glass floors over some ruins. They shine lights on them and use lighting to complete some mosaics that are partially destroyed. It did not bring it to life for us very well at all. The tour lasted an hour and a half and we simply stood on glass floors the entire time (not a bench or chair in site at this place), until 15 minutes before the end, when we were shown a movie about a nearby monument that seemed completely unrelated. The tour didn’t make a lot of sense. If they had shown us a map or given us information about the layout of the home it would have made more sense. At this point, I just don’t recommend this museum.

The Vatican

St Peter’s Square

We took two guided tours that we greatly enjoyed. The first was of the Vatican Museums. We decided to go with this tour because it allowed us to skip the line to get into the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. It also took us to see some of the art in the Vatican, which frankly, we weren’t that interested in. I did enjoy having someone tell me what to look for when I was looking at the Sistine Chapel and in the Basilica.  Of all the art we saw, I enjoyed the tapestries and maps the most. A lot of it is a blur: it was incredibly hot and crowded in the museums and just keeping up with the guide was a challenge.

The Sistine Chapel was impressive, but was somehow smaller than we thought it would be. The room was packed with people. There were no signs directing people to be quiet, yet there were guards who would say “shhhh” and “silence!” occasionally – then the noise level would slowly build again until they would say it again. It seemed a bit silly. We were pleased to be able to see this important work of art. The Basilica was beautiful and I thought the Pieta was moving.

We did walk around the Vatican area and shopped and had lunch nearby. We saw lots of nuns, but only one priest in a cassock. The grounds of the Vatican looked gorgeous from what I saw of them and St. Peter’s Square was fun to see in person.

Ancient Rome

Collosseum

Our other guided tour was of ancient Rome. We started at the Collosseum. It may have been one of the most impressive things on the entire trip. It was fascinating to stand inside it, gaze down at the stage, and imagine the stadium filled with Romans, an emperor, and gladiators. To be in such a place with such a deep history was really a moment I won’t forget. And our guide allowed us to skip the line to get in, which was also terrific (he said people wait 2-3 hours often just to get inside). This was a not-to-be-missed stop in our trip.

The tour then took us into the Roman Forum, which is not as well-preserved at all. To walk

Roman Forum

down roads that the ancient Romans walked on was quite a feeling! We saw the tomb of Julius Caesar (which gave me chills, because he has always seemed like such a fictional person, but to feel his humanity was really something), the Arch of Constantine, and the remains of many buildings. It was a remarkable place to walk through. I took 4 years of Latin in high school and so did my daughter, and my son will also. Being able to walk through an ancient place that you learned about in school makes it so much more real and important.

Rome Overall

We really loved Rome. It had this great quality of delivering the unexpected. You would turn a corner and there would be ancient Roman ruins next to (and in some places actually built around) modern buildings. It had the feel of a very cosmopolitan city, yet it felt completely accessible (we felt this way about London too, perhaps because it is not filled with skyscrapers like American cities?). We found the people to be friendly and the streets to be very walkable. We loved the sense of history, coupled with the feeling of a very modern and with-it city.  I would have loved to see the Appian Way and to find more shopping, but we used our time well here. It was a beautiful city with a deep history that spoke to me.

Still to come: posts about Pompeii, Capri, Sorrento, FOOD, and hotels in Italy.

I’ve titled this post SPQR, which stands for Senātus Populusque Que Rōmānus (the Senate and people of Rome), and is an abbreviation you see on manholes all over Rome and which was used in ancient Rome. My husband and kids all bought t-shirts that say this. Rome was really about history for us and we really … Read more →

Ornaments and egg cups from Rome

I’m halfway through my posts about all of our stops in Italy, so let’s take a rest stop and talk about shopping (don’t worry, there will be lengthy foodie posts to come as well!)

Pre-Shopping

Before I leave on a trip, I try to find out what the specialty items of the area are. For Italy, I determined that I should look for handmade glass and lace (and locally made lace is hard to find and expensive since most of it is just made in factories in Asia now) in Venice, handcrafted paper and leather in Florence, and lemon products and custom-made sandals in Sorrento. Cameos are another specialty in Italy. I also read about glass or stone mosaics throughout the country.

I have several specific collections I am always looking to add to: bookmarks and magnets are the cheapest, although bookmarks can be hard to find. I always am looking for Christmas ornaments, Easter eggs and cups, handmade baskets, locally made soap, fun food items to bring home, and watercolor paintings depicting the area. It helps to have specific things to look for.

Venice

The shopping in Venice was fantastic. There were so many stores, it was hard to focus. This was also our first city, so we were jet lagged and trying to adjust to the terrible heat! We took a vaporetto to the island of Murano which was

Murano glass

an amazing place to visit, but they had so much glass that is made there on the island that it was hard to choose! Some of the glass is very expensive. One shop had a few glass mosaic pieces, but none were right.

I found two great bookmarks in Venice, one with a tassel (which they sell many of in Venice) and one with Murano glass.

We bought our Venice painting from an artist in the campo right in front of our hotel, next to a canal. It was one of those perfect settings.

Florence

Tray from Florence

There was a lovely shopping section in Florence on the far side of the Arno, just past the Ponte

Bookmarks

Vecchio, but I wish it had been bigger. This area had some terrific artisan shops where we bought leather items and a beautiful painted tray. My husband bought a wallet and we got the leather trays I photographed. I found bookmarks here and little books of paintings from each city which will hang on my book tree in my office.

I bought my painting in Florence (the long narrow on in the front of the photo below) in a small courtyard outside the Uffizi where artists were selling their work. Artists were also selling things in the Plaza Repubblica at night. I find that areas where

Paintings

tourists gather in the evenings are good places to find local paintings that are inexpensive. I rarely pay more than $20 for paintings like these.

I looked at gorgeous stone mosaics in Florence, but could not bring myself to spend a minimum of 250 Euros for one. So those have now taken up residence in the museum in my mind (all the things I wished I had bought and didn’t on all of my trips!).

Rome

Rome was a challenge for shopping, but we did find a nice little grouping of shops near the Pantheon. Everything else was junky souvenir shops or expensive designer shopping. There were several shops with nice pottery in Rome.

I bought a painting in Rome, but it’s a print that I saw lots of street vendors selling. I could not find any artists selling original paintings.

I saw a gorgeous handpainted leather purse I came very close to buying, but the back of it had some scratches. They didn’t have any others. Another item added to the museum of my mind.

Pompeii

We took a tour of Pompeii and I did not expect to buy anything there other than my fun little cheap magnet (I buy one every place we go and they decorate the file cabinet in my office). However, our guide took us into a cameo store, where an elderly man sits hand-making cameos.  They were beautiful and my daughter and I each bought one (ok, I bought two). The artist signed them on the back and also wrote our

Murano glass jewelry and handmade cameoes

initials on the back. I really wanted a blue cameo, but they told us those are always made in factories. The ones we bought are handmade from shells.

Sorrento

Sorrento had a wonderful shopping section, very quaint with narrow

Daughter’s custom-made sandals, hubby’s leather bag and belt from Sorrento; leather dresser catch-alls from Florence

alleys and cobblestone streets, just off the Tasso piazza. It was a shopper’s paradise. There were so many shops selling leather purses that I was dizzy!

My daughter had sandals handmade for her here (you go in and pick out the elements you want on them and they have it ready the next day: they do not actually hand-make the sole however – they just put together the pieces you select). Limoncello is a big product here, but I bought lemon soap and honey since we don’t care for alcohol.  My husband bought a beautiful leather bag and a belt here.

We had dinner one night down in Marina Grande, a tiny little beach area. There was an old woman selling lace just behind the beach. She was sitting and doing lacework, so there is a chance the lace I bought did not come from Asia, so I bought one lace doily.

We also stumbled upon a truly fantastic HUGE store called Gargiulio and Januzzi. They sold inlaid wood boxes and plaques, some glass jewelry and a big room of amazing Italian pottery and linens. Downstairs was a big room with marquetry inlay furniture which was gorgeous. I had to get out of that room or I would have had the entire thing shipped home. I bought some pottery and a table runner, as well as an inlay wood box (all still being shipped home, so no photos). Very high quality items and very good customer service. The shipping was free which was a nice bonus.

Capri

We visited the island of Capri on a tour, but only went to the town of Anacapri where the shopping was rather limited. I had high hopes for Capri, but didn’t buy much, other than the beautiful hydrangea glass plate I’ve photographed with my Murano glass. My daughter and I bought the lace bracelets I photographed with the lace doily here.

I could not find a painting on Capri (there was one shop in Anacapri with paintings and the owner was so aggressive, I could not even really look at his work. We ended up buying one in Sorrento of Capri the next day, so that worked out ok.

Pasta, regional soaps and lemon honey from Sorrento

Not pictured are t-shirts and sweatshirts other members of the family brought home, as well as a couple pairs of earrings my daughter bought and promptly put into use!

We also had to make an emergency suitcase purchase at a train station! My daughter’s suitcase zipper broke. The train station in Rome had a big suitcase shop and we got a nice one for about 50 Euro, which was a nice bargain. We tried to throw out the broken suitcase, but everyone we asked told us to just set it outside the main doors of the station and someone would take it!

Overall, it was a successful trip in terms of shopping and now I am trying to figure out where to put it all! I have to get the paintings framed, which is always a challenge. I can often find frames and mattes at Michael’s but sometimes they are not standard sizes and I have to have them framed.

I always feel as though I am buying a ton, then I get it all home and it really isn’t a lot. It’s always so nice to have lovely little items to remind me of our trips!

Lace bracelets from Capri; lace doily bought on the beach in Sorrento

Tie, Murano egg, mosaic plate and frame from Rome; tiny books that fold out with pics of the cities from Florence, to go on my book Xmas tree

My cheapest buys: magnets

I’m halfway through my posts about all of our stops in Italy, so let’s take a rest stop and talk about shopping (don’t worry, there will be lengthy foodie posts to come as well!) Pre-Shopping Before I leave on a trip, I try to find out what the specialty items of the area are. For … Read more →

We used to rent a cottage on beautiful Cayuga Lake every summer when our daughter was little.  We had the greatest times there: fishing, swimming, feeding the ducks, and exploring the Finger Lakes of NY. One of our greatest finds was a little store run by Mennonites, called Sauder’s Store, in nearby Seneca Falls (and if you aren’t aware, Seneca Falls, NY is the town used in It’s A Wonderful Life called Bedford Falls in the movie and is also home to women’s voting rights: the women’s rights convention was held here and began the movement to give women the right to vote – they have a museum about it you should visit if you are in the area).

At the time we used to visit yearly while staying on Cayuga, it was a well-kept secret: hard to find if you didn’t know it was there. It was a small little place that sold Mennonite baked goods, bulk items, produce and specialty items from the area. We used to get up early to get there to have the greatest selection of baked goods! Since we stopped staying on Cayuga Lake, we try to drive out every couple of years to the shop. We hadn’t been in a while, and my parents’ house on Conesus Lake gets us about halfway there, so this past weekend we decided to make the trek (about an hour and a half from the lake house, about 2 hours from our house if we drove from here).

The store has expanded over the years and carries more items than ever before, as well as handmade wood furniture, handmade wagons, Amish quilts (they only had one when I was there, but I looked!), and plants. We filled a cart and brought home many wonderful items:

• birch beer (I bought 2 cases since it can be hard to find!)
• sassafrass soda
• Utz potato chips
• bulk spices
• butterscotch peanut butter
• bulk cake decorations
• smoothie mix
• Lebanon bologna (looks like salami, tastes like bologna or thuringer)
• smoked cheddar cheese
• blueberry cheese
• rolled butter (made from whey cream instead of sweet cream; it’s supposed to have an amazing flavor: I’ve never tried it before and will report back when I have)
• smoked pork chops (now you can buy these in the grocery store, but back when we used to come here, you couldn’t, so they were a special treat and I still think theirs has much better flavor)
• German hot dogs with cheese in them
• beef sticks
• cinnamon rolls
• whoopie pies (chocolate and pumpkin)
• pickles
  

  Sweet Corn puff snacks

• jam
• alphabet noodles (I can’t find these anywhere, ever, so I was thrilled to stumble on them)
• shoofly pie
• Himalayan grain mix
• canned vanilla peaches

and much more. The aisles are jammed with bulk candy, spices, pastas, cooking mixes, flours, snacks, baking products, sodas, and it is all very different from what you can find at a regular grocery store.

We also bought an Amish-made basket as a gift for my mother-in-

Baked goods

law (signed on the back and dated, which is nice).

The shop is owned and run by Mennonites (basically Amish-light) and many, many Mennonites from the Finger Lakes area shop there. My great-grandmother was a Mennonite and I recognize the little caps they wear as one she wore in a photo I have of her. They have a huge selection of books about the Amish and Mennonites. They also sell wooden toys, and things like puzzles, sticker books, stationery, and other interesting little gift items. I am always on the lookout for narrow shopping list pads that are magnetic to keep on my fridge. I like to change them out for the seasons and holidays. They had an entire wall of these (I thought I had died and gone to heaven).

Shopping here always feels like stepping into a different world. There are now several

Smoked cheddar, blueberry cheese and Lebanon bologna

stores like this scattered throughout the Finger Lakes, but we’ll always go back to Sauder’s since we’ve been customers for almost 20 years and it reminds us of the wonderful times we had staying on Cayuga Lake. And I love that the foods we bring home are simple country-style items.  I love to make complicated meals, but I also love to eat things that are just simple and delicious, and that’s what we find here.

We used to rent a cottage on beautiful Cayuga Lake every summer when our daughter was little.  We had the greatest times there: fishing, swimming, feeding the ducks, and exploring the Finger Lakes of NY. One of our greatest finds was a little store run by Mennonites, called Sauder’s Store, in nearby Seneca Falls (and … Read more →

Homegrown corn is what it’s all about in August in western NY state. We all have our fave farm stands (my CSA does not grow corn – I wish they did because I can’t find a single stand that sells organic corn) and corn on the cob is common part of dinner at this time of year.

I almost always make a batch of corn chowder, when I get tired of corn on the cob. Here is this year’s version:

Summer Corn Chowder
4 slices bacon, diced

1 large onion

2 celery stalks

3 large carrots, peeled

4 cups skim milk

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

7 ears of corn

2 medium potatoes, peeled, diced

salt and pepper to taste

2 tbsp fresh thyme

2 tbsp fresh chives, chopped

Cook the bacon in a Dutch oven over medium heat until cooked through. Remove bacon, leaving the grease. Chop the onion, celery, and carrot in a food processor then cook in the oil until the onion is translucent. Cut the corn off the cobs, reserving cobs. Add milk and broth to the pot and add the cobs and potatoes. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer for 45 minutes. Remove cobs. Add bacon, corn, salt, pepper, thyme, and chives and simmer another 15 minutes. Serves 8.

Sometimes I add a diced chicken breast to this to make it heartier. Diced red pepper is also nice because it adds color (but my daughter hates red pepper so I never do that!). You can also sprinkle some shredded cheddar cheese on each bowl. This is fantastic with BBQ chicken.

Homegrown corn is what it’s all about in August in western NY state. We all have our fave farm stands (my CSA does not grow corn – I wish they did because I can’t find a single stand that sells organic corn) and corn on the cob is common part of dinner at this time … Read more →

We joined a CSA this year and I have been going every week to pick up my share. While we were away, my mom got my share. We’re now at the point in the year where I bring home bags and bags each week. This week I came home with a quart of potatoes, onions, 14 tomatoes, squash, zucchini, beets, carrots, cucumbers, Swiss chard, green pepper, kale, a big bag of lettuce greens, a watermelon and U-pick beans and cherry tomatoes. I also picked some dill and cilantro.

Our CSA also has a U-pick flower section, which I am taking advantage of every week and am really, really loving. This week I brought home enough for two beautiful bouquets. These flowers last at least a week, so I always have fresh flowers now. I need to buy a nice big basket to use when I go to pick them. It makes me so happy to have fresh flowers in the house.

We joined a CSA this year and I have been going every week to pick up my share. While we were away, my mom got my share. We’re now at the point in the year where I bring home bags and bags each week. This week I came home with a quart of potatoes, onions, … Read more →

I was scrambling to put some dinner together. I had leftover brown rice. I had zucchini, squash and tomatoes. I decided to put it all together and see what happened. It was pretty fab!

2 tbsp olive oil

1/8 cup chopped onion

1/2 small zucchini, sliced thin

1/2 small yellow squash, sliced thin

salt and pepper to taste

1 1/4 cups cherry tomatoes

1 1/4 cups cooked brown rice

4 fresh basil leaves, chopped

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Heat the oil in a skillet and add the onion. Cook until translucent. Add the squashes and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook until they begin to soften. Stir in tomatoes, basil, and rice. Cover and cook over medium for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until tomatoes break open. Sprinkle cheese on top and stir until it is incorporated and melted.

You can change this up adding some garlic or other herbs. It would also be good with goat cheese instead of Parmesan. The leftovers made a great lunch!

I was scrambling to put some dinner together. I had leftover brown rice. I had zucchini, squash and tomatoes. I decided to put it all together and see what happened. It was pretty fab! 2 tbsp olive oil 1/8 cup chopped onion 1/2 small zucchini, sliced thin 1/2 small yellow squash, sliced thin salt and … Read more →

The second leg of our Italy trip was three days in Florence. I was looking forward to this since I had heard the city was very walkable and friends had loved it.

I’ll be doing a separate post about Italy hotels (coming soon!) so I’ll hold off on talking about that here, but let me say the hotel was not as close as we had hoped to the city center.

Tuscany

The train ride from Venice to Florence was stunning. Tuscany really is all it’s cracked up to be. It was green, gold, and blue and the country villas with the fields were just beautiful. I would have loved to get off the train and drive through that countryside!

Ponte Vecchio

Shopping

On our first day, we walked to the Ponte Vecchio, a bridge that spans the Arno River and is made up entirely of jewelry shops. This is the only bridge in Florence that Hitler spared and it has a long and rich history. The Medicis built a passageway on top of the shops on the bridge, so that they could cross the river in private. The shops are really overwhelming. There’s just too many, with too much merchandise. I didn’t even go in one – too confusing! We did window shop though.

The shopping on the far side of the bridge (the side where the Pitti Palace is) was excellent however. Lots of artisans selling wonderful things like paper, leather, jewelry, and ceramics. The shopping on the city side of the bridge is mostly designer stuff I wasn’t interested in very much.

There were some artists set up outside the Uffizi and I bought a painting there (my shopping post will be coming soon).

We visited the marketplace where there is a boar statue you are supposed to pet if you want to return to Florence. The boar was cute, but the market was run of the mill street vendors with cheap stuff.

The View

On our second day in  Florence we took a tour. They took us by bus to the Piazzelle

The view

Michaelangelo. There’s a huge parking lot up in the hills where you can stand and see not only the entire city, but the entire countryside. It was simply stunning and made me wish I could get out into the countryside even more! There is a replica of the David in this parking lot as well.

Duomo and Baptistery

Baptistery doors

The Duomo and the Baptistery are the famous church buildings in the center of the city. Unfortunately, our tour did not take us into these buildings. That was not made clear to us when we signed up at all, so once the tour was over, we backtracked and went into the Duomo, which is a beautiful church with a dome created by Brunelleschi, at a time when the technology for making domes like this had been lost, so it is quite impressive. There was a long line to go up to the top of the dome, but we weren’t interested in doing that. The outside of the church is prettier than the inside, however, with its gold outer dome. The Baptistery is famous for its bronze doors, which are no longer original. We didn’t go inside, but we looked at the doors.

The David

Our tour next took us to the Accademia. We were able to skip the line to get in (and it was a LONG one!), but we still had to wait for our group to be let in. It was extremely crowded inside. We ditched the tour and just went to see the David on our own. It was much bigger than expected and his hands and feet looked

Replica of the David

huge and out of scale. It was beautiful though and I’m glad we got to see it. We looked around a little bit, but really we just wanted to see the David and be done. Not to mention we were given no chance to use a bathroom on the 3 hour tour. It turns out the bathrooms in the Accademia are downstairs and you have to leave the ticketed area to get there, so we just left once we were done. Also, their gift shop was just awful!

Republicca Plaza

The tour had taken us through this plaza in the center of the city, but there isn’t much to

Republicca Plaza

see. It’s just an open square that used to be the Roman forum in the city. There is a carousel there now and at night there were artists selling their work.

Pitti Palace

We went to see the Pitti Palace on our own (no tour) later on the second day. This was a palace the Medici family took over and built out. It honestly is pretty ugly from outside and the entire front lawn is paved or brick, so it was not pretty or welcoming. The pricing was complicated. You had to choose one group of galleries/rooms to see. We didn’t want to pay for both, so we missed out on the gardens, which I understand are gorgeous (my kids would have rioted if we made them walk through a garden though). The rooms were beautiful and ornate, but I think I am desensitized to palaces after our trip England where we saw so many! It was worth seeing though, so I’m glad we went. I would have liked some background info on the place and the Medicis, but we just couldn’t handle another long tour.

Pisa

Leaning Tower of Pisa

The last day in Florence we took a train to Pisa (about a one hour trip and there are trains running every 20 minutes). This is a really cute little city and I wish we had had time to explore it. We took a cab from the train station to the Campo dei Miracoli, which is the complex where the Leaning Tower stands. It’s basically a baptistery and a church and the tower on a giant open square. We had tickets to climb the tower a couple of hours after our arrival, so we spent some time walking around. The immediate area is really junky souvenir shops (yet, as my husband complained, not one had a t-shirt that said “I climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa”). It was pretty horrible. Finally it was our turn to go in the tower. We were stopped because my daughter had a purse. No one told us you couldn’t bring a purse in. There are no signs. It says nothing on the tickets and when we picked up the tickets no one said a word about it. So my husband had to run across the campo, rent a locker and leave it.

Then we started our ascent. It is a LONG way and it winds around and around. One of our group has trouble with heights and that person was not enjoying it at all. I did not like the pressure of trying to go fast enough to keep the people behind me happy. It is a little bit claustrophobic in there, particularly when people decide to go down past you.

We made it to the top and there is a nice view of the countryside from the top. It is nice to be able to say I climbed to the top of that!

The descent was easier than the ascent, however my husband managed to sprain his ankle coming down (he was trying to be careful of his knee and ended up hurting something else!). We got to the bottom and asked the people who worked there for medical attention and they were unhelpful. He hopped all the way to the ticket office where we were given one of those instant bags of ice (you smack it to activate it). Since it was about 99 degrees, it didn’t last long. We asked for another and got it, but were told it was the last one they had. Great. We saw an ambulance parked on the other side of the campo and he hobbled over there, hoping to get an Ace bandage. It turned out not to be an ambulance, but a police van, with no police anywhere to help us. Really, really frustrating.

We waited and waited for a cab, which took us to a restaurant I had read about. It turned out to be closed so we ate at a pizza place in an alleyway where they spoke no English. We got back to the train station and that was the end of our day. On the way to the train station, we saw where some decent shops were, but were unable to stop. So Pisa was a bit of a bust for us.

Florence at Night

We did have a nice dinner near the Duomo one night and came out to find lots of people wandering around the piazza. There were people selling toys that shoot up in the air and light up (we bought one for my son). We wandered a bit and on a street just off the Republicca  Plaza, came upon a street performer we watched for a bit. It was nice to walk around the city at night and see other people out and about. It was a relaxed feeling.

Florence Overall

Overall, I was not in love with Florence. The city felt dirty and cramped to me. There wasn’t a lot to see or do compared to Rome and Venice. Tuscany is a place I could fall in love with, but Florence itself did not thrill me. I did like the vibe the city had of being a home to artists and creative people.  I’m glad we went, but I don’t think I would plan to return to the city itself.

The second leg of our Italy trip was three days in Florence. I was looking forward to this since I had heard the city was very walkable and friends had loved it. I’ll be doing a separate post about Italy hotels (coming soon!) so I’ll hold off on talking about that here, but let me … Read more →

I picked up the first book in this series by Beth McMullen last year (Original Sin) and had been waiting for the second book, Spy Mom: The Adventures of Sally Sin (you can now buy them together as a two-book set as well). It was out in time to take on vacation, which was just perfect. These books are a fun combo of mom lit and spy lit. Sally Sin is a Bay Area semi-sarcastic stay-at-home mom with a toddler (who becomes a preschooler in the second book) and a husband. She also has a past as spy. Which she has never quite mentioned to her husband. She left her past behind her to have a normal life, but things from her past keep sneaking into her present, requiring her to find people or things so that the world can be saved. The book is liberally sprinkled with flashbacks to her spy days when the real action happened, and these sections are fast and fun. The past is always intertwined in her present somehow, so the flashbacks help you understand the story.

Sally never takes her herself very seriously and is very open about her flaws as a spy (there’s one character who constantly kidnapped her, over and over, when she was in the field, and there’s some sexual tension there as well). She’s also slightly flippant about the agency she worked for her and former boss. What she’s not flippant about is how much she loves her son, even if one day he hates cheese sticks and the next day treats her like a lunatic for thinking he hates cheese sticks.

What I love about these books is that Sally really is a regular mom, with stained mom jeans, sippy cups, healthy snacks, a dirty house, Legos, and worries about her child’s safety – and a sense of humor about her entire situation. The books take those very realistic mom worries and mix them with international intrigue. Sally, like many moms, has to try to balance her home life and her professional life, but her situations are just slightly more dangerous than those most moms face. Her thoughts and her routine feel so supremely real that you almost think you could lead a double life as well as she does.

On top of the intrigue, the books are also slowly exploring Sally’s childhood. Her parents were killed or left her when she was very young and she is only beginning to remember who they were, what happened, and how it might be connected to her life as a spy and to international issues. I’m looking forward to seeing this thread unravel even more in future books.

If you’ve read and liked any of the Ayelet Waldman’s Mommy Track Mysteries, this book will feel like a perfect fit to you. McMullen has a created a really wonderful blend of international intrigue and mommy tribulations that is funny and compelling at the same time. I’m now going to be impatiently waiting for the third book in the series!

I picked up the first book in this series by Beth McMullen last year (Original Sin) and had been waiting for the second book, Spy Mom: The Adventures of Sally Sin (you can now buy them together as a two-book set as well). It was out in time to take on vacation, which was just … Read more →