30 May 2013 Florence
This weather is so strange. Yesterday a fierce and very unpleasant wind.
Arrived Florence about 11 a.m. – Hotel Santa Maria Novella, easy to find and beautiful, walked here from Santa Maria Novella train station.
We are tired. Walked forever but not so productively as usually. Walked a route through Piazza della Signoria (Michealeangelo’s David and zillions of tourists), past the Uffizi, over Ponte Vecchio to Pitti Palace, and the Boboli Gardens.
& back. Battling wind around the Duomo. Overwhelming.
Tea
The overwhelm came from getting sick, admitting to being sick. A bug – Tuscan or Alaskan or who knows what nationality – took residence in my upper chest. I don’t think I’ve ever had a virus quite like that one. Nothing more boring than telling cold symptoms, but it hurt.
Yet what’s one to do? Florence is the best of the best. I knew this would be just a quick visit – a return for us, a taster for the young people who will be back – and I kept going, because of tea (and Italian pharmaceuticals).
Most often tea came in a white china teapot full of really hot water from an espresso machine. Tea bags, yes, but generous amounts of hot water, making such a difference to a tight chest!
It was also cold – really cold – making the tea even more welcome.
31 May/1 June 2013 Trastevere, Rome
A very different feel on this side of the Tibur, more a neighborhood, the routes and ways the trail boss finds are less touristed. In a hotel that used to be monastery, rooms were monk’s cells.
To the Borghese Gallery yesterday which we loved completely – a thrill. Bernini sculptures stop your heart.
So cold. The outdoor tables here are optimistically set with yellow cloths and flowers each morning and then dismantled when rain threatens.
Trying to ignore the throat and chest and soldier on. Still really fun. Don’t want to infect the others.
Grateful for this weekend without obligations, be late for breakfast.
Doing a bad job of writing about this.
Footwear
Only one’s passport matters as much as footgear on a long trip with much walking. Sandals and hiking boots, of course, and at the last moment leaving home, I traded running shoes for little shoes made by Jambu. They have unnecessarily beautiful soles – an incised pattern one never sees.
My sandals spent the trip in the suitcase, but those Jambus pounded miles and miles of cobblestones without a complaint from my feet!
The trail boss and his sweet bride did a little shoe shopping in Rome – blue suede for the trail boss – and the latest fashion in Europe (maybe here also, I am not up-to-date) short, cute, leather boots for the sweet bride.
The best shoe purchase provides a transition to Istanbul next week – shoes from there for Lady Baby!
her spirits rose... 
It is such a happy thought to imagine Lady Baby’s instant love of those Turkish shoes! I can hardly wait to hear about that.
I hope you’re feeling well again.
Hi Jane. Waay better, thank you, but did take a long time!
I really like these collage drawings, and your descriptions of adversity. Good for you for soldiering on. I had the same cold and am not sure I could have done what you did. But, like you, I drank copious amounts of hot tea to help me weather the storm of the illness.
I haven’t heard of Jambu shoes, but will now always picture them looking like Lady Baby’s little slippers.
Thanks Carol!
Katy, hope you are well now and enjoying the smells around you. Lady Baby will wear those shoes as only a little princess can!
Hi Netzy. Nope. Not these shoes for Lady Baby! In truth they are really stiff and almost impossible to keep on. They look good, though!
You create quite the picture with your words. Love the umbrella imagery. Glad you’re getting better. Take care.
Thank you Cynthia! A summer cold is a strange thing – seems very out of place!
I like your Turkish sleepers – you know in French we call them “babouche.” When my mother and I went to Istanbul to get my grandmother my mother had shoes made, sur mesure – I think you might say – custom made? She had maybe 3 or 4 pairs made for her and a couple of me, the softest kid. I bet it would be very expensive now.
Hi Vagabonde, those slippers must have been amazing! Far more comfortable than the ones pictured – and Istanbul a true adventure in those days. It’s very good to hear from you!
I love those slippers — when Lady Baby outgrows them, they’d make charming wall pockets.
A great idea!