Day one Rome
Today Kara and Rikki flew into Rome and met me there, my flight arrived one hour earlier and I sat next to a very nice gentleman named who was a teacher in Switzerland, I found my bag and went to wait for my wife and sister, big day I was so exited and thrilled to have family here. We went to the train station from the airport and paid for the train to take us into rome, when we arrived we got lost and ended up walking for about 6 blocks, we could not find our hotel, and as I had been awake all of the precious night and was wearing long pants (to conserve weight in my suitcase) we were all sweating like CRAZY it must have been in the 90's and I don't know if you have been or not but Rome is a BIG place. We Finally arrived at the 1909 bed and breakfast to find there were.... and I am not making this up 9 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS and NO elevator..... so we hiked the stairs, our hosts were very gracious, but the room was very small, no air conditioning, next to a busy street, and the shower in the bathroom across the hall from us (our private bathroom) was one and a half feet by one and a half feet...... needless to say, for the first two days, I could not wash my feet. also, I got in the shower to find that the drain was completely plugged and I had to stop my shower, and get out before I was finished to make sure I did not flood the 1909, ( it may sound like I am complaining here, I am not, I am just telling you how things happened). That first day we walked across town, and over to the collosseum (after stopping for some pizza) it was pretty amazing, we then walked by the Arch of ....(We can't remember, maybe Titus?)and walked through the ruins of the forum and then up around the museums and the "wedding cake" monument. We had some gelato and walked home for an afternoon cesta, and then had an italian pizza and spaghetti dinner and then back to bed for the night.
Day Two Rome
We got up early had some breakfast and ran to the train station, where we got a taxi to take us to the Vatican, we walked through the museum saw many of the ancient masterpeices and the really cool ceiling in the grand hallway of the museum, then we saw some of the modern art, before we ended up in the Sisten chapel, where the famous painted celings done by Michelangelo are way cool, then we snuck throught tour doors and got to the front of St Peters Bacillica without having to walk around the whole thing saving us an hours walk! We went in and WOW that place is HUGE, there are sections of the building that other whole cathederals can fit into, it is truly an awe enspiring place. We then walked down a side street had a grilled panini brunch. Then walked over to the Castle of the Angel, which was kinda cool, but we paid 8 euro for it and I thought would have enjoyed doing something else for 8 euro, because it was kinda run down, But the views from the top were awesome. We then walked the street markets, and over to piazza Nivoana and then to the Pantheon. After this it was time to go back to the hotel for a needed rest before nightime walk over to the Trevi fountain and dinner at a nearby resteraunt, pretty good food, but kind pricy ( I think we were too close to the monument)
Day Three Rome/Florence
We got up got dressed and got things in order before getting some lunch checking out and heading over to the train station, we reserved tickets and we were on a train bound for a little city you may have heard of..... Florence, we go lost a little looking for our hotel but found it and IT HAD A CELING FAN!!!! Big bonus I know, but if you had been there it was a really big deal. It had rained the night before and cooled Florence down a bit. Of the places that we have been, I liked Florence the most, it was a small town (you could walk it easily in 15 min and there are lots of things to see, that first night when we arrived and put our stuff away we went for a walk over to the Duomo.... PRETTY AWESOME it is green and white and pink marble and it took over 500 years to complete. The Duomo is the largest Renaissance dome in the world. it is really cool! After checking out the Duomo we walked around until we found the famous bridge were all the gold and silver shops were. Here we found most of the locks ( in Italy it is tradition, or rather it has become tradition for travelers to leave a lock locked to a chain or bridge or other lock to secure for yourself a piece of Italy as it were, we thought it was a cool tradition so we planned to do this the next day with a lock we were already trying to get rid of, we forgot and so instead it is on a bridge in Venice.) We found an H&M on our leisurely stroll back through the leather markets, we found the Florence Boar statue, and we found the Uffizi gallery that we would be attending the next day. Also the FDavid (fake David replica of the David by Michelangelo) we ate some delicious dinner and then retired to bed.
Day Four Florence/Piza
We got up and showered (the bathroom was a combined bathroom,meaning there was no separation of shower and toilet... so when you showered the toilet got wet, prompting a discussion about being able to take a shower while doing your business.... interesting concept, but I don't see it working out). Also Rikki Discovered a bidet (The separate toilet like contraption that shoots water up your butt.) She was freaking out about wether or not she wanted to try it or not (you can check her Facebook status for more details). Then we had a Crasnack(pre-packaged crossiants) breakfast and got lost on the way to the Academia, the Museum that houses the real David Statue, (for a laugh download the Rick Steves Audio tour and listen to it, it is Awesome and very funny). We walked through and admired the masterpieces, even though you are not supposed to Kara even got a souvenir shot of him. He is an amazing piece of art intended to stand atop a church his head and arms are larger, so that if looking up at him he would seem proportionate from below. in the rest of the Academia gallery are busts and marble statues of the famous elite. They were also doing a exhibit on altarpieces that was quite nice. When we were done there we planned to go and hike the Duomo, but since none of us had clothing appropriate to enter we walked around and then had some lunch and purchased our train tickets before heading to the Uffizi Gallery. I really liked it there, we saw many famous pieces that I had studied in my art history classes like the Birth of Venus which was huge but very beautiful. It was a large museum, and we had, had enough at this point, so we went and picked up our bags and headed for Piza. the train ride was about 2 hours but it was hard to get oriented in Piza so we got a cab to take us to our hotel the Lucky House Bed and Breakfast which we totally could have walked to and saved 7 Euro 80. But as the hotel had a locked gate it was lucky we had the cab driver to call the hotel operator to let us in (we waited outside for about 10 min). The Lucky House was pretty cool our room was on the main floor (no stairs is a plus) and the B&B let us have free water bottles which we totally took advantage of. It also had the nicest Bathroom, even though it was a shared bathroom it was big fairly private with a full sized tub. After we had a nap, settled a bit we took a bus (with the intention of going to dinner but we found the leaning tower of Piza and we were smitten, it was SOOO COOL. We, of coarse, took the stereotypical photos and some jumping photo's and walked around the church looking back it would have been fun to hike the tower, but it was late and we were tired and hungry, so we set off for dinner. We found the greatest little place (the best food and friendliest people up to that point in italy) and we had a fantastic dinner then it rained and stopped, then we walked home (Piza is not a big town) we were all tired an ready for some rest.
Day Five Piza/Cique de Terra
We got up and got on a train headed for La Spatzia (where we could make a connecting train for the smaller cites in the Cique de Terra and headed up to the fifth one called Monterossa and found a little cafe for lunch (seafood pasta, it had little octopi in it) it was a great lunch. We changed in the bathroom there and then headed for the beach, we found a spot on the public beach (no sand only gravel) next to the wall with the road on it, it was good, we went swimming and tanned on the beach.... it then became evident that we were not in America anymore as many of the women around us began to take their tops off, and suntan...... We walked around and took some pictures of the scenery and decided because it was kind of late that we should take the train back to Piza (we should have stayed and taken the boat to some of the other cities, but we decided to come back in the morning). We could not find any storage lockers for our stuff so we were not able to make it back to the Cique de Terra, which is a shame because all of us wanted to spend more time there it was so beautiful. We got to change in the bathroom of the train station and Rikki and Kara got their first experiences with turkish toilets. We came home had some Kababs on the way and cut my hair, did some laundry and then went to bed.
Day Six Piza/Milano
This seemed like kind of a waste of a day, we got up got our stuff re-packed and organized checked out and caught a train to Milano it took about 3 hours and most of it was standing up because we had no train reservations, all of us had planned to check into our hotel in milan and then head back to the beach but the trip wore us out and our hotel in milan was quite far from the train station, I am glad we got a taxi. Instead of going back to the beach we just got some dinner and planned our next days events, then walked to the Duomo and through the old town had some gelato, and to celebrate the 4th of July American style we ate dinner at McDonalds (and were sick the next day) before coming back to the hotel to sleep, (btw first hotel with the bathroom in the room, not in the hallway, ... also had Air conditioning and a ceiling fan that had a power serge at about 12 A.M causing about 2 hrs of no sleep because it was SOOO HOT!)
Day Seven Milano/Verona
Got up showered breakfast (actually pretty good breakfast) we walked to the old town and ate lunch near the Ferrari shop, we looked around the shopping district, and then we waited for our tour. Our tour was pretty cool, we went into the Duomo which is really big, and almost qualifies as gothic architecture, it had recently been renovated outside so the true (white) color made it really stand out against the beautiful blue sky, our tour guide informed us that there where no pigeons on the building, and asked us why we thought that was.... we were amazed to find out that there were radio signals set up to annoy the birds that were low enough frequency that humans could not hear it, protecting the cathedral from pigeon poo... good Idea I thought, the cathedral is the third on the spot, constructed by a wealthy family connected to the allied with the savoy family, and it took over 500 years to complete (hence its style had changed over the years and is not true gothic, we walked into the cathedral and saw the beautiful stained glass,(because there was not public access to the bible in the dark ages, they made pictures of the bible stories in stained glass,) they were awesome, but out of order because durring world war 2 the glass was removed because milan was heavily bombed, it was put back after the war but the stories where in the wrong order, so you see the mismatched bible stories and there is a LOT of glass, also the Duomo claims to host a nail from the cross of christ, as one of its holy relics, in the Duomo currently, is an exhibit of the bodies of some of the saints that they are currently paying tribute to, it is kind of strange to see the dead bodies in class coffins displayed for all to see, also in the Duomo is a beautiful, but grotesque statue of ST. Bartholomew, who apparently lost his skin, or was skinned alive, the statue is one of the coolest statues I have ever seen, it was really different, but really a national treasure and a work of art. after the Duomo, we walked through "Milan's living room" the first indoor mall of its kind and really cool there is a place on the floor in the center of the mall that stands 4 symbols of the 4 ruling cites, the person who built the place was rejected in his time because the building was very modern, he committed suicide and died near the place on the floor that had the bull picture, so locals,in order to not have a similar fortune, do a little spin on the bulls testicles for good luck, each spin is supposed to be a years worth of good luck. Next our tour took us to the old fortress that housed the old royalty of milan, it was taken over by the spanish at one point and then Napoleon who built triumphant arches to pay tribute to france, I wished we could have explored the castle a little more, but it was under restoration, as the world fair is to be held in milan at a future date. (2015 or 2o I think), we then stopped for a light snack and had a little break then we had an appointment with leonardo davinci's Last Supper painting (my favorite in milan) we walked over to the church (it is part of a monastery, and once was the cafeteria for the monks. the painting by leonardo was AMAZING, on account of modern-day restoration techniques, over the years the painting (fresco-like technique) had deteriorated quite a bit until the monks thought it was finally lost, so they cut a door through the bottom of the wall, for easier access to the kitchen, so we are not able to see Christ's feet under the table, but, as I said before thanks to modern day techniques we are able to see most of the painting in its restored glory, in the second great war, the church was bombed and the only surviving walls miraculously where where the last supper, and on the other side of the room a paining by a lesser known artist was painted (of the crucifixion, in a different style) before entering the room with the last supper there are two small decompression chambers, one is for heat, the other is for humidity, you are not able to take pictures of the work also because of the deteriorating condition of flash photography. When I turned the corner and walked into the room the painting took my breath away, it is big, and the colors are vivid, it is really cool to be able to get right up close to it, and our tour guide was knowledgeable and told us all about the last supper it was really cool, if you get a chance to go to milan book with Dark Rome limited tour group, they are really good, and you can get tickets to the last supper through them, (they book a year in advanced, so the can make sure they have tickets to the last supper, on account of them being so difficult to come by otherwise. After our tour we went and grabbed some dinner, a cab to the hotel, and then we booked a train to our next destination, (Verona) and sat and ate our dinner in the famous train station designed by Mussolini himself. we then had a 2 hr train to verona, got lost trying to find our hotel, but then walked around on a back street until we found it, checked in to a really nice hotel and had a really nice room with air conditioning and great breakfasts/dinners in the hotel restaurant, but I am getting ahead of myself, we showered, and went to bed.
Day Eight Verona/Venice
We got up pretty early, went and had a fantastic breakfast and headed off to Venice, our train took about an hour, and we sat across from a cute young family with three kids from Texas, after getting off the train and into Venice, we wondered (which I think is the way to visit venice) it was nice not to have to worry about a specific time we had to be some place, we looked around at some shops got some money from the ATM and did a little shopping, some pringles and yogurt, outside we met Lorenzo, a nice young gondolier driver, who gave us a pretty good deal on a gondola ride through the grand canal and past the local markets, it was really fun, and as we were there early and we were one of his first fairs for the day we got an excellent cheap ride for about 45 min. then we said goodbye to Lorenzo and headed off to see the local markets, we found an Avocado, (which ended up going bad, because I carried it around in my pocket the rest of the day) and some cool shops selling glass, (Venice is famous for its glass work) we bought some souvenirs took pictures off of the famous Realto bridge, and went to the famous squire and ST. Marks Cathedral, we did not have tickets as I said before, so we did not go in, but it was still really cool, we took lots of photos, but the square was packed (being July it was at the height of tourist season and it was crowded) and hot, so we went for some lunch, more wandering, to a place called the snail shell (a beautiful spiral staircase on the outside of a building) and lots of canal/gondola pictures, we then walked to the other side of venice, and put a lock on the academia bridge, to symbolize we would return one day for our piece of venice. checked out a exhibit/ tribute to Salvador dali (really cool) and the church on the end of venice then we went in search of masks and found a couple, (I think Rikki was bummed because we found a mask earlier,that she liked, but she could not decide if she wanted one or not, so she ended up not getting one. we returned to Verona and had one of the best meals I can remember (I had Squid ink noodles with seafood and garlic butter on top, it was fantastic!,) then we went to bed.
Day Nine Verona/Bologna
We got up, had another lovely breakfast, and headed out to see the lovely city of verona, we walked to the old town and took some photo's of a medieval fortress along the way, we stopped and shopped at the flea markets and got some raspberries for Kara and Rikki, and some warrior figurines for Rikki and a great pin for me. then we went to the famous statue/balcony/wall/home of Juliet ( the mythological character in William Shakespeare epic tragedy Romeo and Juliet) it is a mecca for lovers, and for those seeking romantic/love advice, we wrote on the wall and on Band-Aids on the wall and rubbed Juliet's boob for good luck (the statue of course) Rikki left a letter to juliet in the crack of one of the walls, and then we started wandering and taking pictures, that is when our camera of 4 years suddenly broke, the lens would not go back in, so we wandered ( in a not so good mood and explored/looked for somewhere to fix my camera, I went into a church and took some photo's with Rikki's camera, and we went over and had a little rest in a park overlooking the river, I met and talked to two really nice german gentlemen who were on vacation, biking around the continent. We had lunch( Rikki got a seafood pesto that she did not care for), and we found a shop the sold camera's (kinda like a best buy) we decided to buy a new camera, because we found one on sale for 69 Euro, and then we went and explored the amphitheater still running since roman times (they were doing Aida, and had just had Rikki Martin the night before.) we had some gelato and headed back to the hotel to get our stuff and to head to Bologna. we our train to bologna was pretty short about an hour, we took a cab from the train station to our hotel (which is nowhere near the city) and stayed in probably the nicest hotels we have stayed in, in italy. it had Air conditioning, Wi-fi.... (Sort of ) and a really cool glass bathroom. we had dinner and wondered a little, then went to bed. (this is when we found out via email that Grampa Ray Ray, had passed away (Kara's Grandfather, he will be sorely missed, and was a great man.)
Day Ten Bologna Rimini
This day was one of my favorites, we got up had an AMAZING breakfast with BACON and EGGS, and other delicious things to eat, then we went and got on a train headed for Rimini ( a small resort town on the Adriatic sea side of Italy just a few hours south of Bologna, we wondered down to the beach, found a place that would rent us 3 lawn chairs, and umbrella, a safety deposit box and a good spot on the beach as well as a shower and dressing rooms for 20 Euro (for the three of us we thought that was a great price, we had fun playing on the beach, and even though I tried to stay out of the sun, I still got sunburned, Rikki is still white after having laid out in the sun all day.... I think she is albino.... anyway, we swam and just chilled on the beach, it was a well deserved rest after having run, run run for so many days in a row, when we were done in Rimini we went to a local supermarket grabbed some stuff to eat on the train and rode back to Bologna, we decided that we were all still hungry and since Bologna is supposed to be the "Bread Basket of italy" ( Where all the good food is supposed to be) we would find a place to get some great food.... we found a restaurant that looked good, but nobody was really satisfied with the meal and we ended up paying too much.... this started our bad experience in Bologna. we caught the next bus to the hotel and got re-oriented, packed and ready for the next days adventures, and then went to bed.
Day Eleven Bologna/Rome
This was a bad day, it started out ok, we had a good breakfast and headed to the bus that would take us into the city so we could catch the city red bus ( a sightseeing double decker bus) that cost a lot, was outside, un-air conditioned in the hot sun, the bus drove two fast for pictures, and the audio tour, though interesting was either fast or slow and you could not tell what they were trying to point out before it had already passed. we stayed on the whole route, and got off in the flea market, this was the first real flea market, I think kara and Rikki had ever been two and I think It was a little overwhelming, we got some stuff and then decided it was lunch time, we went to a restaurant we saw while waiting forever for the bus, and had a pretty good meal ( probably the best thus far in Bologna (not hard to beat) and headed over to the trainstation to catch the bus back to our hotel, so that we could grab our bags, and come back and catch a train to Rome. So, on our way to the train station Kara tripped in a big whole in the ground and twisted her ankle, she was feeling over heated (from our long hot bus ride) and feeling sick from the food we had just eaten and decided at the last moment that she wanted a place to sit down, she instructed Rikki and I to run, grab the bags, and meet her at the train station, so we reluctantly jumped on the bus...... heading the wrong direction. it took us an hour to get back, and by this time I was nearly hysterical, because I kept thinking about, what if kara passed out,or got mugged, what if she needed something and I was not there for her, I was pretty panicked, so Rikki and I finally decided when we got back to the train station, that we would all stay together, take a cab to the hotel, get our stuff and come back in the same cab, .... after we found Kara, we got off the bus and eventually found Kara, luckily not harmed resting in the train station, I was very happy to see her, and glad to know she was not mad at me for abandoning her in her greatest time of need in a dirty train station with a twisted ankle... ( I love my wife.) we proceeded with the plan and got on a long train to Rome..... Bad Day.... we actually were doing better when we got to rome our hotel was close to the train station, and we decided to get some dinner at a fast food type place nearby and walk to the spanish steps. (This was all well and good until we got to the spanish steps and now it was Rikki's turn to be sick.) I think she was not feeling well earlier that day also, but the train ride, I think gave her a bit of a headache and some vertigo, and she was not having fun, so we headed back to the hotel, for some sleep, at this point we decided not to do pompeii the next day as Rikki was sick and Kara had a Twisted ankle... probably a good plan... the hotel was kind of gross and really hot, I was overheated and sweating bullets and started to hallucinate a bit.... like I said before.... Bad Day.... We went to bed
Day Twelve Rome
this Day was a Sunday and we decided to get some better pictures of the four fountains, and we walked to the bones church, it was really cool when we found it, all of the bones from all of the monks who had served in the church were arranged in really cool designs all over the crypt, It was really something else, and really worth the one euro, donation to get in, Kara was kinda creeped out but Rikki and I thought it was really cool. then we decided to walk over to the Borgese Gallery and see If we could not get in, (The Borgese gallery is a very famous building that houses many great works by Famous Artists of note, I REALLY wanted to see The statue of the David by Bernini, I had studied this work, and really wanted to be able to see it in person, we were out of luck however, as you had to make reservations months in advanced and we did not have one... SAD DAY :( anyway we wondered in the park, and Rikki Spotted something we had to try.... so we paid to rent a 4 person bike/golf cart it was supper fun and we could really tell it was one of Rikki's favorite things, we had a chariot race and drove all over the park for about 45 min of our hour, but our tire was going flat from all the off roading, and so we took our magic ride back. we had some lunch went walked through Piatsa del Popolo and toward the pantheon, we decided it was too hot, went the other way to get some gelato, we walked through some name brand shops, and back over to the spanish steps before heading back to the hotel for a bit of rest, we stopped at a restaurant (la famila, REALLY GOOD FOOD AND SERVICE) later for dinner and went on a quest to find a jacket that I liked. then we bought some souvenirs and went to bed.
Day Thirteen Rome/Napoli
got up early and went and found some shirts, got shafted on our free breakfast so instead we bought some pastries and fruit from a nearby shop, we then got some reservations for a train to Naples, ( I was a bit concerned so we only took 1 bag between the three of us) we got to naples in one piece, but wondered because we did not know where we were, we eventually found a subway train headed in the direction of Pompeii ... or so we thought , we found some Americans to hang out with ( they were headed to the same place) and then we found out we needed to switch tracks, after the scary train we walked to the entrance of Pompeii, we paid and went into the park.... IT WAS HUGE 500 acres of land destroyed by Mt Vesuvius , really cool to wander around in all of the ruins but it was really hot and only one store in all of pompeii, we had brought stuff so it did not matter too much, but still it was kind of annoying we walked everywhere explored almost everywhere (it is huge) we walked through and amphitheater, ancient forum, ancient temple complex and saw some of the artifacts and mummified ceramic people and a dog who was killed instantly when Vesuvius Erupted, we were really tiered about 3:00 and decided to head back, after we left the park we had lunch at a lemonade stand with the biggest lemons I have ever seen and then got on a train back to naples, on the train we met a really nice Australian family that had traveled all over europe we got reservations on the next train for 9 Euro total! and we came back to rome had some dinner looked for some last minute souvenirs, paid for our hotel and checked out, Rikki now has a fiance named Fugo and we went to bed on our last night in Italy.
Day Fourteen Rome/Home we got up early and went to the train station, that took us to the airport, we had a little time after going through customs, to get something to eat ( we had Pizza for breakfast, and then got on our flight (about 11:10 am) and it was a LONG flight, we were dead center, two people either side all of them asleep, it was cramped the movies, were not that great and the landing was really rough in D.C. In D.C. we went and got subway YAY Welcome back to AMERICA and got ready for our flight back to Salt lake. we asked the lady at the ticket counter if we could make sure we were not in the middle again, and she was really nice and put us in the emergency exit row lots of legroom and Just Kara and me. (good deal) watched the lincoln lawyer on the way home, good show, got in and to baggage claim about 9:00 P.M. Utah time and rode straight to Cafe Rio to get some good food. then we took Rikki home and slept at Dave and Carol's house. This was the end of our European Adventure.
Tune in next time..... Pacific adventures perhaps... or Europe part 2!!!! only time will tell
for more info or questions, help, maps , call me (Jeff Olson 001-801-554-8006) or email at JeffOlsonDesign@yahoo.com
