Christmas in Italy: Rome in pictures

We tried out our pizza skills.... 

...our yoga poses... 

...and our honesty. 

We ran on the Appian way almost every day. And down by the river. And around Circus Maximus,and up to orange-grove garden views of the city on the Aventine Hill.

We looked up. And up, and up again. At the ceiling of the Pantheon at freezing-cold midnight mass....

At looming buildings and columns and obelisks of all descriptions (here is St. Giovanni, near our apartment. Lots of popes hanging out on the roof)....

At lights on Via del Corso...

....at meat displays....

And (sometimes) at oddly-placed door knockers....

The excitement was a lot to handle.

We found wrong churches, Christmas organ recitals, hidden squares....

....and favorite frescoes, populated with sea monsters.

We gawked lazily at vistas of the city, glad to take a rest.

  There were other vistas, too. Here, of pastries.

And here, of pastas....

Merry (late) Christmas!

Christmas in Italy: Florence

Florence is a golden city. Honey golden. A potter we met (whose nook of a studio sent Margaret dreaming of leaving grad school and moving to Florence) told us that this was one of the first colors used on ceramics in the region.

We stayed at a lovely, peaceful apartment near Ponte Vecchio, an above-ground piece of the enclosed passageway that the Medicis constructed in order to reach the Uffizi. We discovered that we had to reach the museum outdoors.........but it was lovely outside.

And just about as cold inside! Here is Nick, wearing his coat for the first time in months.

We spent a good deal of time craning our necks, looking up: at ceiling frescoes, at the gorgeous blue sky, at the hillside. Here Margaret is, looking the wrong way - she had been searching for what Michaelangelo called the Gates of Paradise the whole trip.

Found them.

We got a chance to rest our weary necks with a lesson in pizza and gelato making, which has radically changed our philosophy of pizza. Here we are, being converted.

We loved being outside in the clear, crisp cold, surrounded by our beautiful golden city. At Palazzo Pitti....on our morning runs up into the hills and down by the river....

we stumbled upon beautiful nooks and hidden surprises: delightfully rotund statues....

Solemn, grand statues....

....film projections onto a church....

 ....a sudden glimpse of the soft, rolling hills of Tuscany.

We wandered, were chilly, and took frequent breaks in search of hot drinks and hot pizza.