Firenze

We've done a lot of stuff in the last two days. Unfortunately, the Accademia Museum and the Uffizi Museum didn't allow any pictures. You'll have to trust us that everything in those two museums is worth seeing. After seeing those two museums Kate and I had a great dinner. The next day we decided to do a small view tour of Florence including going to the top of the Domo! Here are some pictures we took over the last two days:

Cool fountain in front of the Uffizi Museum.

This sculpture is called the 'Rape of the Sabine Women'.   The sculpture is on a perfect axis.  You can walk around it and allways feel the same balence in it.

Davinci!!!

We started our walk the next day across the Ponte Vecchio bridge.

Lots of people and jewelry stores.  We walked through the crowds and headed toward the old Firenze city walls.

Here's the old south entrance to the city.  We were happy to find out that we were alone in exploring this section of the walls.

Kate in some old olive groves next to the wall.  Again, no other people were around!!!  From here we headed to Michelangelo Plaza.

The steps up to the plaza. The steps are actually set up to perform the stations of the cross. The bottom is the first station and there's a church at the top where it ends. The metaphor is pretty easy to get here.

View of the Domo from the top.

Bronze David. 

Kate heading up the passage way.
From here we headed to the Domo to go to the top.

It's not that far up...

We made it!!!

What a view!!!

Time to go back down.

All in all it was another couple of great days in Florence. We are enjoying the food and wine. We plan to do a specific food and wine post soon. We have enough pictures and information to share now. Hope everyone’s ok back in the States. Arrivederci!

Welcome to Italy

Well we left Provence on the 5th of April and headed towards Italy.  Our plan was to make a pit stop in Asti and Pisa on our way to Florence.  We made it just fine and have even started to see some of the sites.  Here are some pictures:

Kate sitting out on our hotel balcony enjoying some wine in the Asti afternoon.

Here's the mountain range inbetween NW Italy and Pisa.  Andrew Holman, get over here and climb this stuff will ya?

Welcome to Pisa!  There are really only 3 things worth seeing in Pisa if you're just being a tacky tourist like us.  They are the Baptistry, Cathidral, and of course Pisa's leaning bell tower.  Here are all three.

While everyone else tries to hold up the tower, James tries to push it over!

Welcome to Florence!!!  We checked out the Domo right away.

Here's a picture of inside the church.

Here's a close up of just one section of a wall outside.  Lots of detail.

The inside of the dome.

After the domo we went to the Galileo Science Museum.  It was a very cool, not very crowded museum that went over a lot of the technology used/created for navigation, keeping time, and the beginnings of chemistry and engineering as we know it today.

Kate infront of an old star and solar chart.  Notice the earth is still the center of the universe.

A recreation of what Galileo used for his research.

Kate enjoying some globes that were created for Louis XIV.

Here's one of the first machine tools ever created.  It's a lathe.  This allowed replaceable parts to be made which ushered in the modern manufacturing process.

Italy is molto bella! There is blue sky and sunshine and great food. The city is full of tourists and there are venders everywhere. We are so happy to be here in Florence the capital of Europe. More pic's to come!

Arles - The City Tour

The city of Arles has been one of the most interesting places we've been to.  It has such a history, we devoted a day to get to know what this city is all about.  Here's a short summary: humans lived in the area before the bronze age, Greeks came here, then Romans, then it was a city state, then it was bombed durring WWII, and now it's a sleepy town with a very unique feel.  It's hard to tell were old Arles ends and new Arles begins.  Here are some pictures of the town and its antiquity museum:

This Lion head sculpture stood at the entrance through the city walls durring Roman times.  The lion represents the City.



Here you walk through pastel colored homes to find Arles' Notre Dame church.

Here's Roman mosaics found under the Rhone River next to Arles.

Walking through the streets you'll find examples of how old melds into new.  Here homes are built into an old church wall.

Some of the old gargoyles still stand.

Here we see a model of one of the grain grinders the Romans made in the hills by Arles.  Water was used to power the grinders that made wheat into bread for the Legions.

One of the more complete Roman statues found in Arles.

A statue of Cesar himself is a good indicaiton of how important Arles was to the Romans.

All in all we really liked the feel of this city.  It goes at its own pace so you just float along with it.  We're in Italy now safe and sound in Florence.  Get ready for some awesome Italian pictures.

Pont du Gard and the City of the Dead

Sunday in a Provenctial town can be very slow, so we decided to do some site seeing in the area.  There are a number of very complete Roman ruins so we got into the car and drove out of the maze that is Arles to see them.  The first site we saw was the Pont du Gard aquaduct.  Here are some pictures:

Here it is.  Those tiny dots underneth it are people.  It's big!

Here's James checking out an arch.  This structure is held up by nothing more than stone and pressure.  No morter binds the stones together.

Here's Kate from a look out point on the otherside of the aquaduct.  There are lots of little trails that you can hike around the structure.

This structure brought fresh water to the city of Nimes.  You can see the path the Roman water system took that traveled around a large mountain range.

Hike further into the hills and you'll find a number of small ruined structures that were part of this large water system.  It was a fun hike.  Around every hill there was something that looked like it was out of a Tolken book.

From Pont du Gard we traveled south east to Les Baux or the 'City of the Dead'!!!

Enjoy the pics:

Les Baux is carved into, out of, and on top of a rock 650 feet above the valley floor.  The area dates back to Roman times but the majority of ruins that now exists were used in the Middle Ages when Lords ruled the land.

Kate in the twisty streets of the village below the ruins. It is full of peoples homes, ceramic stores, and restaurants.

Once in the ruins, you're free to wander about and explore or watch some of their 'entertainment'.

They had a dog show for us in the square.  Four knighted border collies battled eachother, the evil 'Le Chat' (the evil cat), and jumped through hoops of fire all in the effort to become the crowned king.  You are witnessing the crowning in this picture.  We've never laughed so hard in France.

Here's a cool view from the top of the castle looking through the ruins at the village.

Here's a view of the agriculture in the valley below.  The olive trees you see growing here have their own AOC whch is how the French seem to categorize their agriculture business.

One last look and then we went back down off the cliffs and back to Arles.

All in all it was a pretty fun day.  The dog show was actually fun to watch and the history of everything was fun to discover.  Since we didn't have access to the internet for four days there's going to be a lot more coming quickly so stay tuned in.

Arles - Wine Adventrue

Kate and I went on a wine adventure guided by a nice dutchman named Mike.  He gives wine tours of the Cotes du Rhone region of Provence.

Here are some Pictures:

Kate and James in front of the chateau of the pope.  The Germans blew it up when they were pulling out of France.

View over looking the villiage.  This is Cote Du Rhone central.

This farmer is making a new row for some vines.  Notice large smooth river rocks.  These rocks will continue to bake the grapes at night once heated by the sun.  Grapes from these soils will have a stronger tannic kick.

These vines are just over the hill from the last picture.  The soil becomes a lot sandier which mellows out the tannic taste in the grapes.  You can tell these vines are Grenache grapes because they are grown in the traditional 'goblet' style.

Only Syrah grape vines are allowed to be trellised in the Cote Du Rhone. All wines are usually a blend of Grenache and Syrah in the southern CDR and a blend of mainly Syrah in the northern CDR.

 This is the first winery we went to, Domaine Le Pointu, is in the chateauneuf du pape appellation.  This winery uses grapes grown from the sandy and rocky soils to create awesome wines.

This winery had some old school fermentation tanks that they used for the chateauneuf du pape label.

We had lunch at this great little place in the hills of Provence.  There's no way we would have found this place on our own.  Thanks Mike!!!

Next we went to Domaine Les Goubert in the Gigondas appellation for a tasting.

Mike showed us the owners private collection of wines that he has accumulated over the years.

Notice some of the years - '78, '79, '80 ...  good stuff.

View from Domaine Les Goubert.

All in all this was one of the best days we had in France.  Almost all of it is thanks to Mike Rijken from Wine Safari.  He really knows how to mix history, food, science, and of course wine into a great day enjoying Cotes Du Rhone wines.  Mike, we hope that we become adequate Cotes Du Rhone wine 

ambassadors.  If you're in the area please look him up through his website http://www.winesafari.net/ or email him directly at mikeswinesafari@wanadoo.fr.