In Paris. Enjoying the typical French experience of being hassled by security requirements. Hour+ line to walk into the Louvre despite buying timed tickets weeks ago.
We gave up. Then had the symmetric French experience of talking to Louvre security a few hours later and them just waiving us through immediately because we had missed our time slot. There are rules, but there are also accomodations.
Quelle cuisson?
Eating our way through Paris, albeit the French version of American heavy meals. Lyonnais salad (with a quarter pound of bacon), steak frites, cassoulet. Perhaps lunch today will be Parisian salad, coffee, and cigarettes.
Ken wanted to visit Montmartre because they did on Heartstoppers. So we braved the maddening tourist hordes. Best thing was the Musée Montmartre, a modest museum about 19th century life in the urbanizing village. Worth a visit!
Btw if you are ever at Montmartre and need lunch, go down the hill towards Abbesses where there are Parisiens.
Paris has been visiting old favorites. Today we head to Firenze, a place completely new for us.
I've been a fan of the street artist Invader for a long time. But there's so many of his pieces up in Paris now, so elaborate they look like they were commissioned. Street art benefits from an edge of illicitness! Now they seem like part of the tourist infrastructure, not an invader. Still they are fun to find.
For a great walking city Paris has always had terrible pedestrian affordances. Tiny crowded sidewalks, lots of traffic. The recent changes for bikes in favor of cars have been good in general but may have made walking even harder. Now bikes are coming silently from all directions and cars still creep through. IMHO they should close some streets like Rue Lepic or Rue des Archives entirely to cars. Maybe that's impossible.
American making the best of it.
Ciao Firenze!
Buena sera!
Feeling kind of overwhelmed by all there is to do in Florence. Not well organized.
Firenze, from the Piazzale Michelangelo
Four Duomi.
It's that time of the European trip where we miss spicy food like in America. Thai is our usual choice when travelling but there's few options in Florence, so we're going Indian.
Well that worked out very well. Deliciously spiced Indian food, inexpensive, a nice break from Italian.
Some tourist shots from Firenze
Florence is also a great walking city with bad pedestrian infrastructure. The city center is intensely crowded with tourists. The streets are closed to most cars. But they are open to taxis and local cars. So every road has to be kept clear for a car every 2-3 minutes and meanwhile hundreds of walkers are confined to the narrow sidewalk occupying one tenth of the street. It's a bad bargain.
Taking the train from Firenze to Venezia. Sprung for the Executive car which is very spacious and comes with a promising looking meal.
The American ladies in the rest of the car are Very Excited about the train and are using their American voices to discuss every detail. I suspect Italian Executives don't use the executive class.
Our 2h15m train is 1h26m late. My impression is Frecciarossa is serious about being a good train company but today was not a great day for them.
Huh, Frecce has a mostly-automatic discount for trains that are late. Have to make a call or press a button but then they refund either 25% or 50% of the price of the ticket with no further hassle. That's kinda great.
Rocking the eccentric floral print + houndstooth tonight in honor of Ken's birthday.
Comically large wine glass
Contents of said glass
All of this birthday joy was at Ristorante Quadri, fine dining in Venice. Not just excellent food and service but fun and light hearted. A good time.
Venice is a great city for walking, the tourist city center is entirely closed to all wheeled vehicles. But the particular pedestrian affordance is the percorsi pedonali in caso de acqua alta, special raised walkways when the tidal surge submerges the lowest roads.
Excellent dinner in Venice at Vecia Cavana. Venetian food for me: spaghetti with shrimp and tomato, then cuttlefish with white polenta and black squid ink. The city is a bit of a puzzle: it's a total tourist trap but then also it has a lot of history and culture still on offer. And good restaurants, if you have a little guidance.
An ATM in Venice offered to convert my Euro withdrawal to US Dollars for a 14,95% conversion fee.
Last day of our trip. I really liked the Most Serene Republic of Venice. More relaxed and genuinely hospitable than I expected. And of course great beauty and charm.
@testastretta@mstdn.social as requested!
Left Venice at 0815. Water taxi, walkways, plane, walkways, train, walkways, probably 2km walking in airports. And now 5 hours later we are sitting in a plane from Zürich to home. Just 12 hours to go. 🥺
We have a ritual where we order trashy American pizza for our first dinner home. It always tastes great, a particular irony after coming from Italy.
34 hours dock to door from Venice to Grass Valley. (With a rest in San Francisco). Totally wiped out today, always takes me a week+ to recover from jet lag coming home.