11.12.11

Post #17: Four Generations in Italy by Sally Kassman


This week, I asked my grandmother, the bisnonna-to-be, to share our experience from Italy. I couldn’t think of a better person to craft a description of this once-in-a-lifetime adventure than the very woman who creates such expressions as “crapanoonie!” and who innovatively turns salutations into verbs with such phrases as “they arrevederci-ed us!” And so I leave you with the words of my known and loved Grandmomsa… Enjoy!

Here we are, four generations together in Italy. We make up 156.4 years of age combined including Baby R’s time in utero. Bisnonna (aka Sally) is my Italian name to baby-to-be R. I am at the top of the maternal side of my coming great-grandbaby. We four toured Bolzano, Torre Pellice, Pinerolo, Florence, and Rome, the last two by Trenitalia’s high speed rail which travels at 280-300 km per hour. The countryside here is very pastoral and the cities are very urban. The antiquities and museums are unbelievable in understanding what the Roman people did and built ages ago.

In Florence, we walked 463 steps up to the top of the magnificent Duomo, strolled about the Piazza of Michelangelo and even had a Chianti burger and wine at an Austrian-inspired Christmas market. The Galleria degli Uffizi was full of all the paintings and sculptures of Italian master artists.

From Rome, I am especially proud of my picture with two Roman centurians outside the Pantheon. A once-in-a-lifetime highlight was seeing the Pope in his Pope-mobile blessing the crowd.  We had a good picture-taking position on the Spanish steps amongst a crowd which Ginnie believes to be significantly more than the crowd at Patriot’s Stadium. We spent a day at Vatican City touring the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Ginnie and Sarah walked up the 554 steps to the top of St. Peters Church, but I opted out after climbing the Duomo on my three-quarters of a century legs!

Every day and everything in Italy was a fabulous treat and I am so grateful that Ginnie and I had the opportunity to come!






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