Italy is very hot and very amazing. Everyone looks like supermodels even though, from all accounts, they literally eat pizza, pasta & gelato all day. Sign me up for that!
After Rome we spent two nights in a town that is Rome's polar opposite - a tiny, dinky little town called San Rocco a Pilli with one market and the "town square" is basically a patio on a corner.
We stayed in this giant building that used to be a fortress in the 1400s and now is designated as a b&b - it was really really Reeeally incredible, until the second day when we realized we were alone there & everything was creepy & abandoned. There's this maze of never ending silent hallways that are dark and winding with dim candelabras on the walls. Everything creaks and there are random thumps that come from deep inside the network of hidden rooms. We were trying to find the b&b lady, & just ended up calling out "Hello?" down dark marble hallways and just getting silence for a response. We got pretty thoroughly freaked out for a few hours before the lady came back from wherever the heck she was. We had trust issues with her ever since.
In that town we happened to stumble upon the "Festa Democratica" - a party being held just that one weekend for the country's democratic party. "Wow, really?" we thought. "Awesome!"
The party consisted of about 100 people in their 80s and 90s sitting in that patio on the corner, eating lasagna and listening to a band croon to cheesy beats on a keyboard. Niiiice.
What really amazed us was that "grandma dinner" here is 9:30pm.
After that town we did a quick stop in Florence where it was boiling hot and the Duomo was amazing and awe-inspiring. We saw a couple getting married in front of it, and the guys had this awesome all-white suit with gold trim and sweet giant sneakers!
Now we're in Venice, where I think we could probably stay forever. Because it's so warm, most days we've been taking it easy until about 4:00 or 5:00, and then we head out in earnest - we've found that locals don't really start eating until about 9 or 10pm, then go to bed around 12 or 1, so our time schedule is definitely shifting!
Our hotel room here has a bidet 2 feet from the bed. Disturbing!
Last night we took a gondola ride while a lightning storm lit the sky. It was surreal.
We also were walking along the sidewalk last night, when we saw two guys get in a fist fight on the hood of a boat! They shoved & half-wrestled each other wildly into a restaurant area, narrowly missing customers eating dinner at tables on the sidewalk. They were shouting and throwing punches, and almost ran into us as we tried to get out of the way.
I swear we felt like we were on a reality tv show. We're like "This isn't real, right..?" but about 8 guys who worked at the restaurant (and one customer) rushed forward to break it up, all shouting loudly in Italian & gesturing crazily. It was ridiculous, to say the least. Oh & one of the fighting guys got so mad, he revved his speedboat into one of the wooden pillars in the water & broke it!
Oh & we've seen some really silly signs like one in front of a playground/park that said "Forbidden to play with ball"
Also, one of our hotels had a sign on the door that said "Please, close this door forever, thanks."
Hahaha
All for now..
PS
Sorry some pictures are blurry. I forget to take pictures on my phone, so most of these are photos of photos off my camera :)
My favorite sign of the whole trip: the inside of our hostel's front door: "Please close this door forever, thanks."
We found that sign at a park. So... basically it's forbidden for children to have fun, is what you're telling me.
There was a bidet 2 feet from the bed!
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