italy thoughts

we went to rome, spoleto, ferrara, castellina in chianti, verona, siena, venice, and back to rome. and maybe i missed a town in there somewhere. rome had the best gelato. castellina in chianti is your prototypical tiny (one restaurant was open as of last week) wine country stop with a fab butcher shop. verona was big and had scarpa buildings. siena had a church with giant illuminated manuscripts, behind plexi, two inches from your nose. venice had the best weather and just about as many tourists as we could deal with. espressos are criminally cheap, as is wine. bar snacks there kick ass. nobody needs a venetian face mask. i didn't bring enough dress up clothes. rugby fans from the UK invaded each weekend, wearing their shirts. college kids still go there for spring break. there is always a hard-boiled egg for breakfast, bad orange juice and those little laughing cow cheeses. old ladies have no ankles. window shopping in rome gives you all kinds of ideas for shop displays. there is some kind of small curly-tailed dog that we saw everywhere. and i still don't understand what's up with san marino.