Better Scenery...

In the spirit of taking advantage of every opportunity this year to get out and see, do, and be, we decided to go to Italy for 10 days during the French holiday of "Toussaint". For Toussaint (which is a one-day holiday), school closes for a week and a half. Which could reasonably be seen as more vacation than you strictly need or want 5 weeks into the school year, but again, we are here to see the world, so we're not complaining.

(We took the overnight train from Paris to Florence - here Chris and I are at the station in Paris)

(And here is Chris and the kids after we arrived - Loki was so excited he literally could not stand still!)

(And here is the hot chocolate, one with milk added to show the contrast,

we indulged in at the cafe Rivoire the moment we arrived in Florence)

We were determined to make the most of our trip to Italy. And by that, I do not mean we would go to museums, visit churches, and learn about the Renaissance - oh no. We are pretty modest with our goals when traveling with children, and our main objective was to get the kids on a late enough schedule that we could eat dinner in a restaurant. This doesn't seem like too much to ask, but if you have young children or have had young children, or are familiar with young children, then you know that this is occasionally a challenge when dinner starts at 8 pm.

So we set off on our journey with modest aims - dinner in restaurants (at least a few times), check out a few towns, spend some time in the country, eat an obscene amount of pasta, practice our Italian, and relax. When traveling with children, it is critical to keep your expectations low. So low. So very low. As a friend pointed out to me a few years ago (and it was a real "a-ha!" moment for me), "Traveling with children in not vacation, it's just relocation" (If this is your quote, please let me know so I can give proper credit!) Or as my friend Cheryl just shared in describing her travels with children, "Same stress, better scenery".

So when I sit down to describe our Italian voyage, I feel the need to point out how different this kind of a trip is from what any reasonable adult might expect from a 10 day trip to Italy. I'm just saying. In Florence, where people wait in line for hours to visit the Uffizi galleries, and queue for an eternity to climb the Duomo, we were happy to have (as pictured here), enjoyed a peaceful lunch (this is our MO traveling these days - books and drawing supplies on hand at all times...)

Florence clearly boasts some of the most phenomenal museum and church action there is to be found, but outside of these huge attractions, the main part of the city has been transformed into a shopping mall, essentially, with tourist shops and designer boutiques vying for tourist dollars. The shopping energy is so significant, that the city of Florence (this was happening while we were there) has decided to divert all traffic away from the center of town and transform it into a pedestrian district. Which will make it very pleasant, but also reinforce the feel that it is one gigantic shopping center (albeit with a few great museums tucked in there).

Our kids were definitely not interested in going to the museums (not after an overnight train, anyway - too loopy) but were fascinated by these workers painting the sidewalks to reflect the new limits of the pedestrian zones. This is a good example of how, when traveling with youngsters, you never know what they may find fascinating. You gotta keep yourself open to the experience!

Day two in Florence we decided to go in search of the open green spaces on the south side (rive gauche?) of the Arno. We skittered over to the Boboli gardens with our nerf football, ready to run the kids a bit after our day of wandering and eating the day before. The security guards immediately confiscated our football (no giocchi in the giardino, I guess), but we enjoyed our time there, anyway. We had a picnic fresh from the Mercato Centrale; parmesan, pecorino, pomegranates (Jonah's obsessed with these), and then these crazy crackers made with wine instead of water which we dipped into a jar of tartufata, that insane black mushroom paste which comes from Umbria and which we fell in love with on our last trip to Italy when Jonah was a baby and we never once ate dinner in a restaurant (not that I have an issue with that). Yum.

(Our picnic was tasty, but we had really wanted to stay and eat at this bustling food counter in the Mercato Centrale... That is to say, Chris and I wanted to stay and kibbutz with the Fiorentinos, but the kids said it "smelled funny" - jeez, so picky!)

We even got the kids to walk through the Pitti Palace Silver Museum. This is a museum kids can get into, because eveything there is "treasure". Jonah, especially, responded to this, and ogled and coveted all the precious gems and old silver. But the best part of the museum is the elegant entryway, which has three grand rooms with murals and ceilings painted in the "Trompe L'oeil" style, so it seems like the ceilings are open to the heavens. Very over-the-top, and therefore, pretty kid-friendly. Here they are lying down to take in the view.

Leaving Florence, we snagged a rental car to head out into the Tuscan countryside. Chris was very pleased to see that the Hertz gods had smiled upon him and (thanks to that Kana Gold membership from 1997) had upgraded him to a styling, enormous, and fuel-efficient (turbo diesel) Mercedes (pronounced "Mer- che-des", which I love). Later in our trip I would come to appreciate "das boot" as the Merchedes kept us alive in the most driving (ha ha) rain I think I have experienced on the road ever, but that's a later episode...)

The kids tolerated the road trip pretty well, and though we

did not have an easy time finding the "Castello di Vicarello",

it was certainly worth the journey. A working wine and olive farm, the inn was built on top of 11th century ruins, so the walls are 2 feet think stone, and the interiors are cozy and warm - a wonderful contrast. We didn't leave the grounds for the two days we were there. The kids watched the olives being harvested, we ate magnificently, and we went for long walks down the country lanes finding all kinds of treasures as we explored; sticks for carving, deer antlers, and porcupine quills.

A few more photos from the Castello di Vicarello:

(The boys carving sticks (with their new Opinel knives...). Actually it looks like Jonah's abotu to cut his leg open. Oops.)

(Jonah in a tree)

(Sunset - it was difficult to leave...)

But leave we did, headed north to a whole new region of Italy; Liguria. We stayed in Rapallo, just north of Portofino and thoroughly enjoyed our explorations of this region. Being in Cinque Terre and the Portofino peninsula at the end of their season was a real gift, as the energy of the towns seemed very authentic and "local" - there were relatively few tourists.

We took a train to Monterosso al Mare and reveled in the sunshine and warmth that came our way as we took off our shoes and dipped our feet into the Mediterranean Sea. We bought chestnuts and fried bread from the Monterrosso al Mare volunteer fire department at their annual "Castagnata" (chestnut festival).

We didn't hike from town to town as you are meant to in Cinque Terre, but I think the kids were happier with the mellow approach. We did scramble around on the amazing rock formation on the beach.

That was big. And we ate more pasta - Have I mentioned all the past we ate? What a fabulous indulgence.

We left Rapallo on our first and only rainy day of our trip. But boy did it rain. Buckets and buckets. The kids didn't complain once, and we sneaked in a trip to a wonderful aquarium in Genoa which we would have otherwise missed...

The final destination on our itinerary? Pisa, to sleep close to our flight home and to satisfy the kids' curiosity about the tower. Loki and Maya were totally motivated to climb the thing (go figure?!), so Chris took them up and aquired the proof shots, while Jonah and I cruised the tacky gift stands at the periphery.

All in all, we just completely fell in love with Italy. But we were tired of being on the road and ready to head back.... Where? Going "back" to Paris felt so strange, and we worried what our re-entry would feel like. Would it be comfortable and familiar the way it should feel when you come "home" from a trip? Would the kids be upset at the realization that we were "home" but we were not "home"? It seemed like returning from our first big trip away from Paris would be a major milestone and it would either cement our presence here or make us feel more adrift...

Luckily, we all seemed to absolutely melt back into our apartment here. Ooooh, a kitchen. Ahhh, Legos. Ohhhh, school (I was happy about that one, as QT with kids is best appreciated in relatively small-ish doses, but the kids were a little more lukewarm about it). They rallied at the re-entry and so far (with 3 days under their belts) seem to be resigned, and even content, if not elated. It is, after all, a kind of home, and that is enough.

(A slightly more wintry landscape in our backyard now that it is November, but so lovely...)