2001 Italian Trip Diary

When I read the announcement that the Museum of Biblical Art would be hosting an exhibition next winter of sculpture by Donatello and his contemporaries from the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence I went hunting for photos from our most recent trip to Italy in June, 2001.

Before I could find any pictures of Donatello's sculptures, though, I found this lovely picture from our first evening in Florence on that trip.

Rowers on the River Arno at dusk from the Ponte Vecchio, Florence, photo by Blomme/McClure

It's an incredible photo that shows the two-man shell gliding on the river with its path and the eddies from the oars still imprinted on the water.  I've decided to use it as my new desktop image.

Anyhow, that's had me thinking that we really love Italy and I have a diary that I wrote shortly after that trip, which day-by-day covers where we went, how we got there, where we stayed and what we ate.  Most of all it describes the fabulous things that we saw all over Italy.

I'm going to post that diary, one day at a time with many of the photos that we took on that trip.  Look for these posts in the next weeks (interspersed with views on ballet and other aspects of our lives, of course).  I've up-dated the diary with current information on websites for hotels, restaurants and attractions and expanded it to include more information about the photos.