Italy Prelude

Faithful readers may feel aggrieved by the lack of high-flying action this blog has become so beloved for over the past several months.  Maybe they fell aggrieved over the lack of action of any sort whatsoever.  Whatever the grievance, Alex and I hope to appease you all over the next several months.  You see, we just got back from vacationing in Italy, an adventure aesthetic, culinary, emotional, spiritual, cultural, and many other adjectives besides.

Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing our trip with you, our beloved readers.  We will take you with us as we enter a land where we don't speak the language or know the people, and yet learn to thrive.  We'll share with you the exquisite sites and sounds.  And the food.  Oh, the food.

Our trip will begin by getting up to the Italian Alps, experiencing a far more Germanic/Swiss culture than the Italian one to come.  After the mountains, we'll head down to Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance, then out to the Cinque Terre to experience a provincial life to satisfy the flighty Belle.  We'll take you to Siena, Florence's great rival, to stay at an agriturismo and experience the beauty and history of Tuscany.

Finally, we'll head to The Eternal City, Rome.  There, we will see what time leaves of its mightiest civilizations, and stand beside you amazed yet again both at what rots away and what it preserved forever.  We'll gawk again at the cavernous cathedrals and be moved by the great artist's renderings of the divine mystery of an infinite God laying himself down for his infinitely fallen creatures.  We will stand in awe of what wonders these depraved, fallen beings of long ago were able to achieve without machinery.

The experience has been a very profound one upon me.  It is a wonder do experience another culture, and it is groundbreaking to stand where history was made.  I come from a land with about 3 centuries to be affected by.  Here, the history goes back 25 centuries easily, with the very founding of Rome itself.  You'll hear me marvel at the effect of history, at the my thoughts peering back and trying to think the thoughts of great men after them.

Dear reader, if we can complete the project before us, you are in for a treat.  We want to record these things not just for you but for our own memory and reflection.  So much of what we have seen came at us like drinking from a fire hydrant, and we need to process all of this.  What follows is part of the very experience of this vacation, the remembering.  We hope you enjoy.  As our friends the Romans would say: Omnia Vincit Amore.