They Knew We Were Tourists When…

we posed for these pictures in Pisa!

The Colosseum

The Colosseum was one of my dad’s favorites from the trip. At first we got very turned around and couldn’t figure out how to get to the second level. The audioguide tour was terrible and things were poorly labeled but it was an impressive sight to see. The only prep work that I had done for the trip to Italy, besides making the hotel reservations, was to watch the movie Gladiator. I was ready to see this place after watching Russell Crowe in action. It didn’t disappoint.

The David

A highlight for me on this trip was a return visit to the Accademia, to see the original David by Michelangelo. Matt and I visited the Accademia when we went to Florence last year. I thought it was something that Mom and Dad should see. We got to the museum about a half hour before closing. We walked right in and were the only people in the museum with the exception of the security guards. It was like our own private showing of the David! We were able to stand in front of it and look without throngs of tourists crowding us. It was an incredible way to view Michelangelo’s masterpiece.

Pompeii

Visiting Pompeii was one of the highlights of the trip. I was proud of us that we even got there! We took an early train from Rome to Naples. And then once we got to Naples, we took a local train to the town of Pompeii. Some pushy guides offered to take us on an organized tour but we decided to do the Rick Steves’ tour on our own. By the end of the day my dad was calling me, “Rick” as I was the one navigating us around the ruins, which included “storytime” where I would read aloud the details of the different points of interest.

The ruins were impressive and it was amazing to learn how these people lived so many years ago. In AD 79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted, the people had no idea that it was a volcano. Within minutes, the city was covered in 30 feet of ash and lava. As you walk through the city, you can still see the grooves in the cobblestone roads from the chariot wheels. A brothel was another point of interest. This building consisted of a series of small rooms with stone beds in each room. (Sidenote: We thought the beds in our Florence hotel gave the stone beds in Pompeii a run for their money.) On the ceiling of the brothel was a “menu” of the services offered. Dad missed the menu on the first time through, so we sent him back in to see it. Mom thought he might be confused and be looking for a food menu but he figured it out.

After walking through the ruins, our plan was to take a bus to the top of Mount Vesuvius. Unfortunately, we missed the last bus going up for the day. Instead we decided to explore Naples before returning to Rome. That was a bust. Naples, at least the part of town by the train station, was a very shady place. We wandered around for a half hour before Mom said it was time to turn around and go back to the train station.

Cinque Terre

We took a day trip from Florence to Cinque Terre, which is an area along the coast. It is often referred to as the Italian Riveria because of its beauty and climate. Five, little towns are built into the cliffs and a walking path high above the sea allows you to hike from one to the next. Although this tends to be a tourist spot, it was not on the day we visited. This was most likely due to the weather.
We had pouring rain, which then turned into a thunderstorm and bitter cold temperatures. The views were still beautiful, and I would love to go back and see it on a sunny day.
None of the little shops were open in the towns. I guess they didn’t think anyone would be crazy enough to be hiking in a thunderstorm. They underestimated the Thoma family! Luckily, a train connects all of the towns, so after hiking in the rain from town #2 (Manarola) to town #3 (Corniglia), we took the train back to the first town (Riomaggiore).

Mmmmm, the Food

We had some wonderful meals while in Italy – pasta, pizza, seafood and more pasta and pizza. My favorite meal was pumpkin ravioli, which I had in a small Tuscan town called San Gimignano. We weren’t very good at pronouncing things in Italian, so we shortened this town’s name to San Jimmy. Jimmy is my dad’s nickname so that worked for us. Mom’s favorite meal of the week was a pesto gnocchi dish that she had on the first night in Rome. Dad was the most adventurous of the group. He went for the local specialties, which in Florence included cinghiale (wild boar). Here he is eating his wild boar sandwich.

The Gelato

Gelato deserves its very own blog entry. I was expecting that we would have gelato every day on our trip; however, we only had it twice. The cold weather probably had something to do with this. We sampled quite a variety though including pistachio, banana, cream, mint chocolate chip (which is hard to find in Europe), coconut, nutella and several variations of chocolate. We also learned that if you agree to sit down and eat your gelato in the little cafes that they call gelatterias it costs triple what it normally costs! We did this once and learned our lesson quickly; however, that was the day when we literally walked Rome, so it was nice to sit down for a bit.

Italy

In mid-February the schools here have a week off. I think it’s meant to be for a ski holiday. Since I’m not a skier, I used the time to travel around Italy for seven days with my mom and dad. We had a great trip despite the cold and rainy weather. As it was the off-season, we never had to stand in a line to see the sights. We squeezed a lot into a week. It was one of those trips where we needed a vacation after the vacation. It was great to hang out with Mom and Dad for the entire week. Matt had to work, so he missed out on the adventure.

Balloon Bust

Matt wanted me to title this blog entry, “A Waste of an Afternoon” but I thought that was a bit harsh. It really didn’t turn out how we expected. On Sunday afternoon we ventured out to the town of Château-d’Oex for the Hot-Air Balloon Festival. This is an international festival where “pilots from all over the world gather to create bright spots of color in the blue sky with their amazing vehicles.” I took that directly from a tourism website. Doesn’t it sound like a lovely way to spend an afternoon? All these beautifully colored balloons floating around in the sky with the snow-covered Alps in the background. This is only the case if the weather cooperates, which it did not on Sunday. The weather was overcast with a few flurries. We got there in time to see them blow up a balloon and then as soon as it was inflated, they started to deflate it. Then it was over!

The real excitement came at the end of the trip as we attempted to get out of the parking lot. The road leading out of the lot had a slight hill just before you reached the main road and it was one big patch of ice. We watched as each car in front of us got stuck trying to make it up. Luckily, we parked close to the exit so we didn’t have too many cars in front of us. When it was our turn, we had enough of a running start and we made it on the first try. There was a long line of cars behind us waiting to get out. I’m glad we weren’t one of them; otherwise, Matt would have been really crabby on the drive home.

That’s More Like It

Ahhhh! We’re finally in the right French class. We knew five minutes into the lesson that this was the place for us. How did we know? We saw the panic in our classmates’ eyes when the instructor told each student to introduce themselves to us in French. We can relate to the panic-stricken look, so we felt right at home with this group. I really like the teacher. She uses a nice, slow rate when speaking and is very patient. If we keep up with the homework, I think our French will definitely improve.