Just back from Italy

[HelenM]

This was our annual get-together-with-my-extended-family vacation - this year 25 of us spent a week together in a villa in Tuscany.

I wrote about it and linked to my photos (on flickr) from my blog (http://www.mildenhall.net/). We were in Rome for a couple of days, then the week in Tuscany. We didn't make it to Florence although that was our original plan - but we really liked the places we did go.

[Leesifer]

Good lord! 25 of you? Nice pictures in your blog Helen. And also very good to see you here. :ciao:

[Dingfod]

Welcome back, Helen.

[livius drusus]

Wowsa, what a gorgeous villa! Great choice. You got some great pictures of St. Maria in Trastevere, too. I love the wall o' inscriptions.

About the siesta, I remember taking ages to get used to shops being open all day when I went to college. You really have to plan for shopping in Italy. :grin:

Thank you for sharing the link, Helen. I'm glad you had a good Italian experience. :thumbup:

[Ymir's blood]

:bigwave:

[cappuccino]

I miss Italy...

What a gorgeous villa you found there, it's always been my dream to have an Italian villa to share with other people who come to enjoy Italy.

I'm happy to hear that you and your family had a wonderful time there :)

[livius drusus]

It was sad to see the post-Friday detritus. That's a recent phenomenon. I read an article (http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F70B15FC345B0C758EDDAF0894DF404482) about it recently (NYT select subscriber only, I'm afraid).

There is a struggle under way, taking place in plain view, for the soul of Rome's historic center: in one corner sit the forces of restraint, etiquette and cultural preservation, in the other the unswerving desire for just one more round of drinks. [...]

The place is soaked in booze, and a growing number of Rome's residents are fed up with what they see.

''It is unbelievable,'' said Flaminia Borghese, president of a homeowners' group in the historic center that is demanding greater noise control measures and police patrols. ''There is a total lack of control.''

Ms. Borghese seems uniquely suited to lead the charge for decorum: she is a descendant of the House of Borghese, a family of noble and papal background. She faults the city for issuing far too many restaurant and bar permits and the police for failing to enforce noise control ordinances. ''The foreigners come here because they know that they can do whatever they want,'' she said. ''Nobody says anything.''

Rome remains a very safe destination for tourists and the rowdiness of its night life is on par with, and often does not match, that of other major capitals. But the fact that loud, drunken behavior is a relatively new phenomenon in Rome's staid historic center has prompted a growing level of concern.

''There's been a change in the style of drinking,'' said Dermot O'Connell, who runs The Almost Corner Bookstore on Via del Moro, a main thoroughfare of Trastevere and a popular nocturnal destination because of its many bars. ''It is now socially acceptable to walk around with an open bottle of beer, and that was not the case five years ago.'' [...]

On its face, the issue would seem to be a case of too much of a good thing. Tourism in Rome is booming and has been steadily growing for the last five years. In May alone, two million people visited Rome and the city predicts that more than 20 million tourists will pass through in 2007. But there are other transformative forces at work as well -- some social, some economic -- and in sum they shine a light on the state of modern tourism. ''Why would you come to Rome to drink beer when you can do that anywhere else in the world?'' said Giuseppe Strappa, an architect and professor who has written extensively on the changing face of Rome's historic center. ''The value of Rome is its urban tissue.''

Mr. Strappa says the issue started more than a decade ago when the city decided to transform the historic center, which he considers the best preserved in the world, into an entertainment destination, leading many ancient palazzos to be gutted and turned into restaurants and bars.

''If it continues like this for 10 years, we will no longer have a historic center,'' he said.

Chris Felts, who owns a tourist agency that markets to backpackers and offers night tours and pub crawls, disagrees.

''I don't think it is any more out of control than in any other European city,'' he said. ''It just sticks out more in Rome because the Italians don't have that sense of nightlife that the tourists do. It is a juxtaposition of the traditionally calm Italian nightlife and what tourists and those few Italians want to do.''

[Leesifer]

Mr. Strappa says the issue started more than a decade ago when the city decided to transform the historic center, which he considers the best preserved in the world, into an entertainment destination, leading many ancient palazzos to be gutted and turned into restaurants and bars.

I hate this! It's happened (still happening) in London too! Turned old and beautiful buildings into bars and restaurants.

[Shake]

Great pics! Welcome back!

[HelenM]

Thanks everyone :)

It worked out really well with the villa; basically it was the only one big enough that we found and I wasn't sure what to expect from the website information. It turned out to be awesome, but we didn't know it would be until we got there.

That's interesting about Rome - I didn't realize there was a recent push to make Rome a nighttime entertainment center. Certainly I've never seen litter like that on Saturday morning, resulting from a 'regular' Friday night, anywhere else. It looked like places look after a huge festival, but presumably this happens every week in the summer when the weather is good enough for people to be out and about.

St Maria in Travestere was my favorite church, because I loved how they used all the Roman bits to make their church. I would have liked to see the church in Tuscany with the Etruscan sacrificial altar found at the same site but, oh well, maybe next time.

My husband said he didn't want to go around the Vatican because it was religious :giggle: - we didn't really have time to anyway, but when my son got home and saw a photo in a book of a famous painting there he said "What??? That's there and we didn't go!"

We saw some famous early art in a museum in Cortona and my husband was quite into that so it's not as if he doesn't like art.

Being there really brings home how much power and money the Roman Catholic church had (still has?) - no wonder Henry VIII wanted that for himself...

[livius drusus]

I'm not religious and I love the Vatican! You miss out on a giant pile of great stuff when you exclude the Vatican from your trip, including some of the best ancient Roman art and sculpture. The Vatican is simply the premiere museum of the city.

Did you go to St. Peter's at least?

[HelenM]

Yes, I know it's not a good reason to avoid the splendour of the Vatican :)

We walked to St. Peter's square, but that's all. We were only in Rome about 48 hours and we had to choose what to see - and we chose Roman stuff (and churches we could just walk into) except for our evening walk to the outskirts of Vatican city.

[livius drusus]

Oh okay, 48 hours is very short indeed. The Vatican would have gobbled up a lot of that.

[HelenM]

Right...plus we had our children with us, who probably wouldn't have been happy about a long guided tour. They have limited tolerance for art and sculpture. Although I was pleased that Esther (who is 12) showed more interest in sight-seeing this time than I can recall (i.e. a non-zero amount). She loves these family get togethers because of the cousins she gets to see rather than because of where we go. But her social studies curriculum last year covered ancient history, including Rome and she was quite interested to see it. Also, she liked the decorated insides of the churches.

So did I see what your picture is of? I've forgotten where it is (sorry about that)

Oh, yes, I was going to respond about the siestas. It's quite something that even gas stations close! Is there an Italian word for 'siesta' - is it the same as Spanish?

[livius drusus]

Siesta is Italian!1 :giggle: Ya, it's the same word. I have no idea which came first, but the languages are so similiar that sort of thing can be hard to track.

My avatar is of the Colosseum at night during a lunar eclipse. You can't have missed it during your Roman center stroll.

That's great about Esther getting a kick out of seeing in person the stuff she studied. :aww: I hated being dragged along to museums and such when I was a kid, but began to appreciate it somewhere in my adolescence.

[HelenM]

Ah...I thought I remembered it was the Colosseum but I didn't exactly recognize that slice of it and I was afraid of getting it wrong :blush:

My son is in his adolescence (14) and he expressed a little interest in the Vatican - and more when he realized what is there (although it was too late then) - so maybe there's hope.

I should say, my kids are great. They just aren't great to bring along on extended art viewing ventures!

[viscousmemories]

Hi Helen, good to hear from you. :wave:

[Stormlight]

Welcome back, Helen! :ciao:

[HelenM]

Thanks vm and stormlight :)

[JoeP]

Hi Helen! Thanks for the news. Sounds enviable!