A hike on the Amalfi Coast and farewell to Italy

The view from the little restaurant we ate at. Great ravioli!

Just one of the amazing views along the trail.

Sentiero Degli Dei.

It was about 5 km each way wrapping around the cliffs, overlooking small towns, vineyards, and various rock formations. The path of the gods did not disappoint (the Amalfi coast rarely does). We left the house at about 8 AM and met up with a few friends. About an hour or so later we were at our starting place, Bomerano. No problem parking and we were pretty much at the trail head. I am glad we did this now and not mid July or August. It was probably about 80 F but the hike is strenuous enough that we were all soaked through from sweat. You pretty much have to stop to look around. If you try to look and walk you will likely trip or slip on the loose rock and tons of steps. Beautiful all around though. We stopped in Nocelle for lunch at a trattoria that was right on the cliff overlooking Positano. Simple menu. Very good. Then the hike back the way we came. Definitely more up hill. Total altitude went from about 1600 ft to about 2100 ft. Up and down; up and up; down and up... Big hills like my parents "mountains." The return hike was late enough that the sun hit some of the cliffs different and we could see the stuff that our back was to in the morning. We finally got back to Bomerano at about 3:30 and rewarded ourselves with gelato.



Two years living over seas. What an amazing opportunity. Anyone that gets the opportunity should jump all over it. International travel is expensive but hopefully we have given enough tips in this blog to save some money and make it more affordable.
Two years ago when I stepped of my boat I told someone "Now I need to and get to reconnect with my family." There is always more you can do but, I think I did, and I hope they think so too.
I should start by saying we really had the best of both worlds. I have a steady job. We lived in the perfect spot for our needs. We had some American conveniences that living out in town wouldn't have provided. And most importantly we LIVED here. Flights or trains from Naples were cheap, convenient, and plentiful.
We were concerned when we first got here about living on base and getting stuck in Little America. 15 different countries. All over Italy. Four trips to Germany. A couple trips to Greece. We averaged getting out of Italy once a month. I think we did a good job not getting stuck behind the gate.
You learn a lot being displaced from your own country. Obviously there are great history lessons that take on more meaning and occupy a larger part of your memory when you are in it vice reading about it.
You start to think in terms of 500 to 1000 years. Settling the NE in the 1600's isn't that impressive anymore...
You learn that just because it’s not American doesn't mean it’s bad. Just because it's done in Europe doesn't make it right in itself either.
You can't compare individual European countries' ways of life to the US. At the risk of sounding republican, I can see why there could be a push to transfer more power back to individual states. European countries are all different sizes, have different populations, have different resources available. They are more like states could be. Each country needs to be able to make their own decision based on their population and resources (some of the European countries aren't making wise decisions but this really isn't political). To compare any single European country to the US is like comparing Alaska to Florida.
I still laugh a little when I go to an airport and there is no ramp to the plane. You take a bus from the terminal to the plane. That really makes sense. A small airport like Naples probably does 5 times the business because they didn't need to build huge buildings just so you don't have to go outside.
I am convinced more than ever that Americans in the states are the worst drivers in the world. For 2 years we have driven as fast as we think is safe, stopped at stop signs only if we were going to hit someone else, shared lanes while on the motorcycle, passed even if there was on-coming traffic, and have even driven on the shoulder to make an additional lane when traffic backs up. No accidents. Why? Because God gave us all two wonderful tools to keep us safe. EYES.
We need smart engineers to design and build useable public transportation. All those trips and we only rented a car three times.
I am looking forward to being able to go to an Autozone. It won't take long for us to go out to dinner to have an American burger. American beef is great. The Germans still do pork better though. I never thought I'd say I'm looking forward to a company (cable, phone, etc.) saying we'll be there between 8 and 12, but at least they mean it and chances are they are going to look to fix the real problem not just try to "make it work."
We've made some incredible friendships here. People I'm sure we will keep in touch with for years to come. I will miss Saturday nights at the neighbors. I know Carey will miss going to the markets and trips to Vietri with the ladies.
Finally, everyone will ask, "What was your favorite trip?" All of them. That sounds like a cop out but each was unique. Our definition of interesting and fun changed the more we traveled. Churches and museums were great when we first got here. Sitting on the beach in Santorini was just as great an experience two years later. We leave with fond memories and a desire to come back. You can't ask for more.
Ciao
The Stacks

A long weekend in Santorini Greece

The northern 2/3 of Santorini

The red sand beach. I have another picture of the sand (smooth red and black rocks) that Carey will probably put on facebook.

The beach 50 feet from our hotel...

Here we are at the end of our two years. Wow the time has flown by...

Santorini was as good a place as any to pretty much end it.

We got up real early on Thursday to catch a 7 AM flight out of Naples to Athens via Rome. We got into Athens at about 11:30 and caught the train into the city. After a big, late lunch/ early dinner we got back on the metro to figure out were the port was and to get our ferry tickets for the next day. Time well spent since the ferry was leaving at 7 AM Friday. It worked out to be good timing too because by the time we got back it started to rain and a thunder storm was brewing. So much for the Akropolis that day... It was fine though we played Phase 10 and then got to bed early.

Friday. Another very early morning. When is the vacation going to start? We haven't slept past 4:30 yet!

The ferry got into Santorini about 11:45 and the hotel shuttle picked us up with no problem. I say hotel. I think it was a high end hostel. That's not meant to be bad... The room could have slept six, the kids had the loft, our own bathroom and a balcony. I say hostel because it was dirt cheap and they had awards up for "Best hostel of the year." Other wise I wouldn't have guessed. Did I mention we were about 50 feet from the beach...

We spent the rest of the afternoon laying by the beach (a lot more of that to come). Beautiful water. So blue. So clear. It was like being in the bahamas (the water was a lot cooler though). Black sand.

It really is a small word. The woman waiting on us that night for dinner didn't have any accent so we asked her where she was from. Albany Oregon (where we lived while at Oregon State)... She was born and raised there, moved to Chicago were she met her Greek husband. Three years ago they moved back to Santorini and opened the place. There were several people we came across that we were pretty sure were Americans living and working in Santorini.

Saturday we rented scooters. Fun. We went out to a light house on the south western tip of the island. Amazing views. After that we went to a red beach. Very different. A bit rocky. We laid around there for about an hour and a half and then got some lunch. Next off to another black sand beach on the eastern side of the island. Again, really good timing. When we left the red sand beach clouds rolled in. By the time we got to the black sand beach it wasn't long before the clouds were gone. After a couple hours there we headed back to our hotel for some dinner and then watched the Manchester United/ Barcelona game.

I think Austin ate some under-cooked chicken Saturday night. We woke up to him coming down the stairs to get into the bathroom... By 8 AM he was done throwing up but still felt bad. We got breakfast and let him sleep for a while. Once he took a shower he said he felt better so we got back on the scooters to explore a little more. The first place we stopped was on one of the highest peaks on the island where there was a monastary and amazing views of the entire island. Next, we went to the small town of Fira where we were going to walk around and go through a bunch of tourist shops. You could tell Austin still felt bad though so Carey and Brianna did some real quick shopping and then we went back to the hotel. Guess we'll just have to spend another day on the beach. Yes waiter, you can get me another beer... He eventually felt good enough to come down and sit in the shade. That night Carey and I got back on the scooters to go to the north tip of the island to see the sunset.

Monday we had to catch the ferry back to Athens but not until the late afternoon so... You guessed it... Yes waiter I will have a fruit smoothy... Austin still had an upset stomach but was up and about without much issue.

We got back into Athens at about 10:15 PM and made it back to our original hotel.

Tuesday we had plenty of time before our flight so we went to the Akropolis. You can't really say you went to Athens and didn't see the Akropolis. It is pretty impressive coming through the first set of columns. The Partheon is big and has had a lot of restoration done (still on-going). The whole site was pretty neat and dated back about 2500 years. Several temples, work areas, amphitheaters, and of course the Partheon.

We had lunch at a small restaurant and then got our luggage and headed for the airport. Again, good timing. We had beautiful weather from Friday to Tuesday and then as we were getting on the metro to go to the airport the clouds rolled in and it began to rain.

It dawned on me the other day that my sense of time has changed considerably since being here. A couple hundred years time difference between something like the Akropolis and Pompeii doesn't seem like that big a deal once you have seen Stone Henge (5000 years old), the pyramids in Egypt (3000+ years old) and then all the local stuff ranging from 2000 to 1000 to 500 years old. A couple hundred years is just a drop in the pot...

One of the last things I want to do before we leave is go back down to the Amalfi coast. Just to have lunch and/ or dinner and take in the views. That really is the prettiest place in Italy.

Right before we leave I'll make a close out entry.

It really has been an amazing two years.

Amsterdam for Spring Break

Part of our bike trip through the Netherlands countryside.

Carey's camera can take some cool pictures. The flowers at Keukenhof made great subjects.

This shot was right outside our bedroom window on the house boat.

We flew out on Alitalia. Good flights and we made sure we had nothing but carry on luggage. Alitalia flights aren't bad. Their luggage handlers are.

So we landed in Amsterdam Tuesday afternoon. We quickly figured out how to catch the train from the airport into central station. Once there we bought a 120 hour metro (metro, buses, and trams) pass. Its nice because it really is 120 hours, not 5 "days." So we got to use it from Tuesday afternoon all the way through Sunday morning when we flew out.

We stayed on a house boat on the Amstel river. Small but very functional. Nice quiet neighborhood with lots of good restaurants within walking distance. There was a super market near the metro stop so breakfast and lunch (we packed sandwiches and stuff each day) was nice and cheap.

Wednesday we got up and found our way to the bike shop where we started our country-side bike tour. I thought this was really interesting. We knew all of Amsterdam and most of the Netherlands is reclaimed land that lies below sea level but going into the country side let you see the different levels and the canal, pump, and dike system. Some of the land is 6 meters (~20 feet) below sea level. We stopped at small shop where they make cheese and clogs. Making clogs is ridiculously easy now. They basically put a chunk of wood on a lathe and then with a metal clog serving as a key the lathe spins and cuts in the same manner that a guy at Walmart would make a copy of your house key.

About 13 miles and four hours later we got back into Amsterdam. From there we had lunch and then did a short city walk. Finally we ended up at the Anne Frank house. We watched the diary of Anne Frank not long before we went so the kids understood what they were seeing and it was nice to hear them describing the rooms as they went in.

Thursday we went on a long city walk in the morning. After that we went to the Van Gogh Museum. For some reason I really like Van Gogh. His work is different and you can see an evolution as he got a little older and had different experiences. And it still looks like legitimate art. Not like the dumb stuff in modern art museums where someone can put a streak of paint on a 6 x 6 foot canvas and call it "art."

After Van Gogh we went to the Red Light District. There is definetly a little something for everyone... The funniest part was we were getting ready to go down one of the small, skinny, alleys were the girls stand in the windows. The kids new they would be in the window (we had already seen one girl in a window across a street). Living in Naples we have couple different stretches of commonly traveled roads that are referred to as hooker highway so they have some exposure. As soon as we stepped into the alley the window was there and the girl was right in front of it. Austin jumped and let out some noise in surprise (probably some embarrassment). One of the funniest things I've seen in a while... Shinny girls, big girls, white, black, asian... They're all there.

Friday went outside Amsterdam again. We took a regular train up to the town of Hoorn. From there we got an impromptu tour of a shop that rebuilds steam trains from ~1900 - 1950's time frame. We got on one the these trains and took an hour and a half ride up to Medemblik. Everyone loves a steam train. I think it is the whistle. You can't help but smile when ever you hear it. All the locals stopped, smiled, and waved as we went by. From Medemblick we took a boat ride up the a lake to Enkhuizen. There we walked around an outdoor museum.

Saturday we went to Keukenhof. It is about 80 acres of flowers. Its only open 2 months a year. Very pretty flowers.

Communications and getting around was never a problem. Everyone we ran into spoke english. The metro and tram system was real easy to get around on.

Pretty good trip.

Next stop, Greece. Time is running out but we should be able to squeeze in Greece one long weekend and Croatia some other weekend.

Napoli Calcio (Soccer)

Not sure why I'm squinted.

Yes those are flares! All around the stadium. Near the bottom left of the picture you can see the "retaining wall."

So we all went to a Naples Soccer game last night. Like most sports its even better in person.

Picture college football enthusiasm with a lack of common law we enforce at games. Top it off with the fact that Naples has a good team, and it was a great experience.

The two end zones are the cheap seats that the rowdy fans get and crowd into. On each side of the sections there is a big plexi-glass wall keeping them in. There are no cheerleaders as we know them to be. Instead there are a couple people at the front of the groups leading/ coordinating various chants, cheers, etc.

The visitor section is completely enclosed in a protective screened area.

If the fans see something they don't like or want to have the crowd noise be a factor they ALL whistle. It turns into this thousands strong, high pitched, ear piercing noise...

I didn't look for it, but I don't think they serve beer in the stadium...

Naples won. 1-0.

Istanbul

Blue Mosque at night. It was drizzling so there is a spot or two...

Down in the Underground Cistern.

Continuing with our trips that we don't think we would have otherwise taken from the states... Istanbul, Turkey.

The tickets we found were cheap but they were out of Rome so we had the added adventure of the train and Rome International vice easy Naples. The train was fine and on time. I'm glad we gave ourselves plenty of time though because getting through security at the airport took about 50 minutes itself. I've mentioned before that the Italians don't know the definition of a line. This is true even for airport security. Flights were fine though. That night we stayed at the airport hotel since we got in late.

Tuesday. Carey got us a nice little apartment right in the middle of the old town Istanbul. First stop, Hagia Sophia. It started as a huge church when the city was Constantinople. I didn't read it anywhere but thinking about it and looking at dates, this would have been the largest Christian church in the world for ~1000 years. It was built in 537 AD. The new St Peters wasn't built until the 1500's. In 1453 the Ottoman's captured Constantinople and converted it into a mosque. It is now a museum. A lot of the mosaics were plastered over in the conversion from a church to a mosque, but some have been uncovered and restored. Either way, it is huge inside and the dome is amazing.

Next was the Blue Mosque. Very big, beautiful mosque. The outside is not blue. The tiles inside are... I don't know why I am surprised, but the level of disrespect from some people amazed me. Most women, including Carey and Brianna, covered their heads with a scarf, the same as they would have covered their shoulders when entering a church during the summer. A number of women did not though and the noise level was louder than I would have expected... Turkey seems to be a pretty liberal Islamic country but I was surprised they didn't enforce it. The churches here would have.

Next the underground cistern. The romans built this underground reservoir in the 500's to support the demands of the capital city. Long story short, the Roman Empire/ Byzantine Empire expanded and contracted over the ~1400 years. Constantine renamed Byzantium, Constantinople (now Istanbul with the Ottoman take over), and made it the new capital. You can put a couple football fields down here and it has a 27 million gallon capacity. Like the catacombs in Rome, it was completely forgotten about for hundreds of years and then rediscovered.

Tuesday night we went and saw some Turkish dance. Very entertaining. Folk dances and belly dancing.

Wednesday. In the morning we went to the Grand Bazaar. It is a huge, mostly indoor, mall/ flea-market. You can get pretty much whatever you want here. Shoes, scarves, rugs, suitcases, hookahs, clothes... That afternoon we made our way through the spice market and into the newer town. We went to the top of Galata Tower where we got some really good views and shots of Istanbul. We took a tram up to Taksim square and then strolled back down the hill past all the new stores, coffee shops and even a few churches.

Thursday. Topkapi Palace. The home of Sultans and center of the Ottoman empire for some 300 years. There are a couple main attractions here. One, is the treasury. Golden, jewel covered thrones, giant golden candlestick holders, and a few really big diamonds (one is 86 carrots). The second is the Hall of Holy Relics. The Ottomans brought these holy Muslim (and what should be Jewish and Christian) relics here from Egypt, Medina, and Mecca. I'm not sure how you could prove, or disprove some of these but... The footprint and hair from Muhammad, King Davids's sword, Moses' staff, John (the baptist's?) skull and forearm, Joseph's turban... If this is all true that seems to be an even more impressive collection of historic biblical character relics than Jerusalem had to offer. Hard to say...

That night we stayed at the hotel airport again since we had an early flight out.

Turkey claims to be a 98% Muslim population. I'm pretty sure that is the same as Italy claiming 98% of the Italians are Catholic. I'm not so sure many actually practice. The call to prayer still happens five times a day, which is pretty neat, but I didn't see a lot of people stopping what they were doing to unroll their rugs or go to the mosque. The people were VERY nice and friendly. Yes, they are all trying to sell you something BUT they do take no for an answer and will still chat a little with you even after they know you're not going to buy. I think everyone knew a least some english so getting around was easy. We never felt unsafe, even walking though some more out of the way streets at night.

I think I just assumed, because the history around here drops off around the 500-600 AD mark, that the Roman empire fell apart around that time. Really it was a shift of the capital location and the fluctuating of the size that started around that time. Travel really does teach you something after all...

Really glad we went.

This year for New Years we decided to go down to the base in Naples and watch the fireworks from the top of the five story parking garage. WOW!

We got there at about 10:30 and there was already a steady flow of fire works. At midnight, the entire city and all the little surrounding towns lit up. 360 degrees of BIG fireworks being launched from peoples backyards and apartment balconies. You could see as far out as the hillsides of Mt Vesuvius... After 40 minutes they hadn't really slowed down yet but there was so much smoke in the air visibility had been reduced to a couple miles. I have never seen anything like it. Again, these are fireworks our cities buy and shoot off for the 4th or for New Years. I don't know where they get them, or how the Neapolitans can afford them but it was amazing.

Happy New Year.

Bucharest Romania

The Black Sea (black and white photo taken in Constanta)

"Dracula's Castle" If you have ever read Bram Stoker's Dracula you can picture the Count crawling down this wall.

The Orchestra House.

So with just six months left overseas we are starting to look at places you wouldn't normally plan a trip to from the US. Romania came to mind.
With as modern as they have become in the past 20 years they still have a ways to go in some areas.
We ended up going with another family, my boss really. I told him about the great price I found for a direct flight over Thanksgiving and he asked if I cared if he and his family came. The boys played baseball together and went to Poland together so we all knew each other and we all get along so there was no issue. Someone in his family works for Marriott so he hooked us up with a room for $80/ night at the JW in Bucharest. So for less than $800 I've got airfare and lodging for four. Going to Bucharest for Thanksgiving!
We left on Wednesday afternoon. No problem with the flight. The airport is SMALL although I didn't realize how small until we flew out. You go through customs and get your luggage. The dollar rental car was a small stand, really like a podium, next to the Thrifty podium. Who needs computers? All the paperwork was filled out by hand. I think he fished the keys out of a box. We walk out to the curb and he says, "Wait here. I'll bring the car up." It really wasn't that the service was that great, there is no parking garage. He had to run over to the tiny parking lot a couple hundred yards away. He pulls up in a tiny Chevy Spark. It was full of scrapes and chipped paint but I wasn't to worried at that point. It was cheap and temporary. The back tire was a little low. The response was, "Yeah, that's how the last guy brought it back." Fair enough. Welcome to Romania.
The TomTom (ours) has limited mapping of Romania. It kinda knows roads are in place but unless it is a MAJOR road there are no names. We bought a map to get to the hotel...
Thursday. I went out to check to see if the back tire was holding the air we put in the night before. It was holding. Good you may say. Now in the day light though I can see the tires better. The back tires were obviously front tires at one point and the car must have needed an alignment. The outside edges of both back tires were almost, you could see little dents that used to be trend, smooth. No big deal, I remember Carey driving around on bald tires for quite some time went we were teens in Florida. Its when you start to see threads that there is a problem. We were headed out towards to airport anyway.
First sight. An outdoor village museum. They went all around Romania and piece by piece took apart and reassembled traditional old (some hundreds of years old) homes. Actually very interesting. All very simple. Small. Fun to walk around though. We saw a squirrel wit really big ears.
The kids spotted a Hard Rock the night before. It was right around the corner so we all agreed we'd go. The exchange rate is about 3 Leis to one dollar so it really wasn't that bad.
To the airport. The night before the guy gave my boss his cell phone number so that on Sunday we could call ahead and he would meet us out front to return the cars. I didn't think much about it but once we got to the airport it became very clear. He only works when there is an appointment. No one around to care about my bald tires let alone swap out cars (I really don't know if they would have had anything else anyway). Back to the memories of Carey's first car... It’s only a long weekend.
That night Carey, the kids and I went to see an orchestra. Very pretty building. 50+ people in the orchestra. It was a piece used in Fantasia.
Friday. Constanta. A 2600 year old city right on the Black Sea. It is now the forth largest shipping port in Europe. We spent the afternoon just strolling through the small old town. We went down to the water so everyone could say they were IN the Black Sea.
That night we got back kinda late so we had dinner at the Lebanese restaurant in the hotel. Really good.
Saturday. Brasov and Bran. Bram Stoker got the inspiration from and used the castle in Bran as the starting point in Dracula. I got most of the way through the book before we went to it so it was really neat to see the castle as he had described it. The castle itself was great. It was something you could really live in. No over the top rooms or hallways. Normal size rooms, with normal transitions, and normal stairways (and one kinda secret staircase). On the top floor there was a pretty good history of Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) and the myths. Long story short, Vlad really believed in impaling people as punishment for crimes. This lead to comments such as "his taste for blood." That was then carried out further. His father was part of the Order of the Dragon. Dracula is "little Dracul." It was funny to see the light go on in Brianna's head that Twilight wasn't he beginning of Vampire movies... I think she knew that but didn't really know it went back that far and I'm not sure if she had heard of Dracula.
Brasov is another nice old town. Beautiful area on the edge of the Carpathian Mountains. We finally had a traditional Romanian meal there. I had tripe soup. Cow stomach. Delicious.

Driving around Bucharest was interesting. All the old communist apartments are still in place. You never had to worry about people wanting more than their neighbors. Very dreary. Much more of an overwhelming sense of the communist life style than we saw in Berlin or Warsaw.

Oh yeah. The tires held up just fine. When I turned the car in the response was, "Yeah we were waiting because we're going to have to put on winter tires soon."
The major international airport in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, has 4 gates. All in one small area. Sitting there looking around was like something out of a movie. Flights were on time though and our luggage came with us...

Good trip. Glad we went.

Next stop, Istanbul, Turkey! The week between Christmas and New Years.


As a side note. I just got back from a week long underway on a surface ship. We pulled into Split, Croatia. Extremely beautiful area. More small towns to explore. National parks (I took an excursion to see some incredible water falls). It was enough to put Croatia back on the short list of places to go soon.

Two more to go... Stuttgart Germany

The week of Veterans day I had to go to Stuttgart for work. Brianna has a good friend that moved from here to there and we really like Germany (if that hasn't become obvious) so we decided to take the long weekend up there. It worked out well. Brianna and Danna were glued at the hip and gitty the whole time.
Carey and the kids got on a direct flight from Naples to Stuttgart on Thursday and I met them at the airport with the family we were staying with. We couldn't have asked for more really. We had a place to stay for free and we rented a minivan for the weekend so the families could just stay together and travel around. They were still kinda new to the area so it was a good trip for them too.
Thursday night jumped on a train and bus to a little restaurant. As always, good food and wine. I had pig's cheak. It really was good.
Friday we all loaded up and went to Strasbourg, France. How great is that? "I think I'll go to France for the day..." It is a little less than 2 hours away. We spent the day walking around just enjoying the small town. There was a very pretty church. We climbed the 300 or so stairs to the top of the bell tower. Great views of the surrounding area. We took a nice, glass enclosed, river boat tour. That evening we ate there and then headed back.
Saturday we had a pretty fun and laid back day. We saw Mega-mind at the base theatre in the morning, then went on the hunt for "a great skate park" someone told Austin about. Someone was misinformed... Oh well. Later we went to an indoor water park. They had some waterslides, a wave pool, and a big out door heated pool. That evening we left the kids at home and had an enjoyable dinner at a Chinese restaurant. The Skip was the pilot that flew President Bush onto the aircraft carrier during the Iraq war. The story was awesome. Politics aside, Bush seemed like a very personable person and to this day they still get Christmas cards.
All in all a good weekend.

Berlin (starting to get caught up...)

A shot of the Holocaust Museum

Berlin Cathedral. Some kid doing a handstand in front of it...

We've taken family that comes out to different countries. For my parents we chose Berlin.

Honestly, I kinda screwed up the planning on this one but it still worked out pretty good. We had about 48 hours on the ground in Berlin. In my defense part of the "problem" was that Carey and I went to see U2 in Rome the night before. Woa is us... The concert was AWESOME.
The first day (afternoon) we got on the metro and went to a giant outdoor flea market. The walk there was pretty. There is a giant park (Tiergarten Park), nice walkways, statues, etc. The market was neat. Anything from antiques to spare parts, to paintings and furniture. That night we went to a Brauhaus for good German food and beer. I think with enough time here I could convince my dad that Busch beer really is nasty. Probably not.
Normally we don't put to much stock in hop-on hop-off busses but with some proper planning they can be very effective. This will be a little out of order as I go through the Rick Steves book and look at the bus stops on line but I think I'll cover it all...
Reichstag Building. It is the parliament building. Massive with pretty, huge glass dome on top. There is a nice open grassy area in front of it that you can take in the size and get some really good pictures. Of course there is people watching and pretzel vendors too. I think we ate our way across the city!
Brandenburg Gate. The last surviving gate of Berlin's old city walls. When the Berlin wall was up it blocked off right in front of it. Street performers, people posing and taking pictures in US and German uniforms, a make shift passport stamping stand (we have very few stamps believe it or not now that the EU countries have open borders).
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. 2,711 gravestone/ coffin looking pillars all at different heights. It is the first government sponsored holocaust museum. Below it is a fairly large museum that outlines the events of the holocaust. Eerie personnel stories, letters, tell of individual sufferings. As with all things holocaust, moving.
Berlin Cathedral. Huge! I think I read somewhere this was the protestants answer to St. Peters. Unfortunately services, or something, were going on inside so we had to admire from outside. Interesting, yet unrelated, the terror threat through Europe has been a little higher in the past few months so the police were enforcing a no parking, standoff, zone in front of the cathedral. We saw two or three cars towed in 15-20 minutes.
Check point Charlie and the Berlin Wall. All through Berlin there is a brick path following where the wall used to be. At Check Point Charlie there is a long detailed exhibit that tells a really good history of the wall. If you listen to some of the tourists, I got tired of reading, you could here people reliving times that they had spent here (one guy in particular was in the service or something and was telling a story about the procedures and some problems getting back and forth). Detailed in the exhibit were the stories of people trying to get over the wall (was no easy feat since there was a huge cleared area where you were likely to get shot) or smuggled out in the trunk or with fake id's etc. We walked up the street a found one of the few remaining portions of the wall. Amazing to think of what it must have been like to live on either side of the wall and the different lives associated with each.
The final morning we went to KaDeWe's. A huge, high end department store second in size only to Harrods in London. I don't think I will ever understand the logic of spending so much on even common clothing (hats, shirts, jeans) but ,wow, there was some pricey stuff in there. The most amusing part was the food section. "Gourmet" foods from all over. What does America have to offer for the Europeans? Betty Crocker. I don't make this stuff up. You see it here though too. There was an international bizarre at the NATO base here in Naples and that's what the American stand had there too.
So we really did pack a lot into our 48 hours.
Some trips are more "fun" than others, but all of them have something to offer as far as history and culture are concerned.

Still catching up

A couple pictures from Ravello.

I really should have stayed on top of this... Now its kinda painful and I have to remember...

My parents came out in September/ October.
We saw a lot of the same stuff I have already written about but we also took a trip back to Cusana Mutri (the hill town we have family from). My Uncle hired a genealogist to meet us up there and go back further in the family tree. The town records people where extremely supportive. We were, mostly by ourselves, able to go back a few more generations and then go FORWARD. The woman working that day looked at the genealogist and said, "Let me take you all up the street to talk to some people." Condensing the story a little, we ended up having coffee in the living room of some very distant cousins (to be exact, my mom's great-great-grandfather and Antonio's great-great-grandfather were brothers). Not the overwhelming family reunion I think I wrote about with the Retrosi's (they had a get together with 80 of their closest relatives they had never met) but still pretty neat.
We also took the time to walk around the town a bit more and it really is pretty.

Another little trip worth mentioning while they were here was Ravello. Every now and then you go some place around here that you think "This is Italy. This is the beauty that I always thought of." Ravello is one of those places. It is along the Amalfi coast but set up in the hills just a little. Absolutely beautiful ocean views and lookouts. If you ever find yourself planning a trip that involves sothern Italy center your time around the Amalfi coast. Its nice to say you've been to Pompeii but if my time was limited I wouldn't spend much of it looking for things to do around Naples. If you do have time to kill there are definitely things worth seeing, and our guests so far have all had weeks here so we have taken them, but Amalfi really is what people picture.

Berlin to follow...

Need to catch up a bit...

This will probably come in a few posts. Out of laziness I stopped posting trips around Italy but there have been a couple lately (the last few months) that are worth posting.



Labor Day weekend: Carey posted pictures on facebook right after we got back from this one so it may seem a little familiar to some of you.

We went to Pescasseroli which is a small town in the mountains a couple hours north of here. We stayed at a nice hotel that had an excellent resteraunt downstairs. The town itself is nice but the area is really about outdoors activities.

The first day, Friday, after walking through the town, we went to the ski lift area. They had these four wheel cars, no engine, that got towed up the bunny slope and then gravity takes you down. In addition to the four wheelers they had jumbo wheeled skooters. Pretty fun... After that, we went down the street to where they had tubing and trampolines. For the tubing, they built wood ramps on the side of the hill and then covered them with what is essentially inch and a half tall, in-door/ out-door carpet. Then you slide down on a tube. One of the ramps ended by launching you up and out onto a huge airbag. They also had outdoor trampolines. Nice ones. Competition type.

Saturday, we went horseback riding. This time Austin got to do it all by himself. It was funny riding the horses, they were definetly raised in Italy. They were all trying to either pass eachother or get in a better position. Kinda like Italian driving... After that we went back to the ski area. We took the main lift to the top and then hiked back down. About an hour and a half later we got back to the bottom. Pretty area. Pretty views.

Fianlly, on Sunday we stopped at a really pretty lake on our way back to Naples. Lago di Barrea. We rented paddle boats and spent an hour or so just cruising around the lake.

Nice weekend. Relaxing, fun.

Switzerland, Austria, Lichtenstein, Germany, and Slovenia, oh my

Some mountains in Slovenia.

One of the great views from the trail that went up and beyond the Neuschanstein Castle (Austria)

Switzerland near Atzmannig.

The Rope course. Brianna is on the zip line. Carey is in the background on the platform. Judging by her hieight you can see how high up we are.

Hollgrotten Caves. The walls and features look slimey but they are just wet smooth limestone deposits.
If you are on facebook, go to Carey's page and like all the other trips, there are about 70 more pics and a video of the toboggan run.

This was a great trip. We wanted to get in one more big trip prior to the kids starting school. We did… Carey has already posted a bunch of pictures to facebook.
We decided to rent a car for the trip. All the activities were spread out, we were going through 5 different countries, and we didn’t want to put the extra miles on the Jetta. At the last minute (really within hours) we cancelled our original rental because the trunk was to small (we were able to see the car we were going to get on base). I found a bigger car, still a Fiat, online that we went with. After I booked it and we cancelled the first, Carey got a call saying the car wasn’t available. Carey told the guy she was going to go try get our original rental back. That car was already gone (within 45 minutes). But wait. The guy called back while she was gone and said they worked something out! So we go to the airport to get our car, still thinking it’s a Fiat. The guy tells me, “We didn’t have the car you booked so we gave you a free upgrade.” I said, “Great.” Then he looks at what he is giving us and starts to ask where we were going and making sure we were going to have secure parking. I laughed a little and assured him we were not staying in Naples so everything should be fine. Come to find out, we got upgraded to a new BMW 320. Not a bad start.
Saturday morning we got up early and were on the rode by 6 AM. We drove all the way through to Zurich, Switzerland. Long day…
Sunday we slept in a little bit because it was raining. We changed our plans a bit and went to Höllgrotten caves. The caves were found around 1863 by people mining tufa rock for building material. The website I’m looking at is translated from German and the signs at the caves that gave a good history were in German so the best I can come up with is this. After the last ice age as the ice melted the caves were carved out because of the different densities of the rock layers. Same idea of ground water and underground reservoirs. The area is rich in lime stone though so lots of stalactites and stalagmites, along with features I thought looked like a brains were formed. Some of the areas were wide open and very colorful. After we were done in the caves we hiked up along the river for quite a ways. The rain had stopped earlier so it was a nice, cool, hike. At one point we passed a small hydroelectric plant. Did you know Switzerland makes 99% of its electric power without oil? Nuclear and hydroelectric. Also, the Swiss really don’t have their own language. They speak the language of the country the border is closest to (Italy, Germany, or France).
Monday. This was supposed to be the nicer of the days… Not so much. We drove out to Atzmannig (another area in Switzerland) anyway. When we got there it was still raining so we drove a little bit more. Even though it was raining the area is still very beautiful so the drive was nice. We stopped for lunch hoping the rain would stop. It mostly did… After talking about it we decided even if it meant getting wet we were going to Aztmannig and doing the high rope park. What is a high rope park you may ask. I had to ask… It is awesome is what it is! So you have a few acres of land with some really big pine trees. Build ladders and platforms 20 to 40 feet up on these trees. Then connect the platforms with cable, zip-lines, and various daggling objects. You now have a high rope park. You get a harness, really a belt with straps that also go around your legs. Attached to that are a couple cable lanyards and a zip-line roller. You get a quick demonstration and a practice run on a real small, low, course and then you are off to the trees. You always have at least one cable connected to a guide/ safety cable but it is still a bit of a rush being up to 40 feet above the ground trying to balance and step from daggling stump to dangling stump or tight rope from platform to platform… The rain turned out to be a blessing in disguise. At first we were bummed that it was a rainy day but after all was said and done the rain kept everyone else away so, in total there were less than 20 people at this place and we never had to wait to do anything. AND it stopped raining by the time we got our gear on… My Aunt and Uncle like to say we Stacks can fall into poo and come out smelling like roses… So far between the car and the rope park we were smelling good! Three hours later we were worn out and ready to go.
Tuesday. We drove from Zurich to Garmisch, Germany via Lichtenstein. We stopped in a small town in Lichtenstein and just walked around for a while. Just to say we did. For a small fee Carey and the kids got their passports stamped with a Lichtenstein stamp. Nice little town. The whole drive was beautiful. Again, cloudy but nice.
We got into Garmisch and Edelweiss (the US Army’s MWR hotel and resort) and enjoyed the indoor pool and giant hot-tub. They also have a good buffet so dinners were cheap and good.
Wednesday. We drove around a loop of roads into Austria that linked up several of King Ludwig’s castles. We didn’t go into a single one. We did however walk through some of the grounds and hiked to the Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein castles. Above Neuschwanstein castle there is a bridge high above a small river. The bridge is narrow. The floor is wood. There are a ton of tourists on it. You can’t help but think, “I wonder what the weight limit is…” Beyond the bridge is a nice short hike up a bit more. The views from there were great.
Thursday. We went to Area 47. It is at the 47th parallel. It is labeled as the ultimate outdoor adventure. It was awesome. We went white water rafting in the morning. Again, all the rain helped. The water was cold, 7 degrees (about 45F), but they provide nice, new wet suits. There were several spots were it got deep and slower so we could just jump in. Not bad in the wetsuit. Your fingers and head take the shock though! A bunch of nice rapids, just right for beginners and Austin and Brianna. After that we went to their water park. There is a descent size lake, that I couldn’t really tell if it is man made or just a convenient shape. Water slides; come-alongs stretched tight as tight ropes; a ten meter diving platform; another platform that was 27 meters (over 75 feet) high (adjustable down to about 15 meters); giant ramps into the water that people went off on sleds, snowboards, and skis; and a human water cannon. All under a beautiful Austrian sun. The lake itself was about 20 degrees (~69 F). Cold, but not bad since it really was a nice day.
Friday. We drove to Slovenia via Salzburg, Austria. Near Salzburg we found a toboggan run. Totally not planned, we had talked about it because it sounded cool. It was. You take a ski lift up the mountain and then you ride a light weight plastic cart, just big enough for an average adult, down a metal track. The cart is locked into the track kinda like a roller coaster. It isn’t real fast but the combination of the size of the cart, only being held in by a seatbelt, and the jerky turns, it is plenty fast! Carey has a full run video that she took with the camera on facebook. It really was a blast!
We got into our hotel in Slovenia and had a nice dinner. Out front there was a small stage set up and singing groups of Slovenians singing what I can only guess were kinda like folk songs. They were all decked out in old traditional outfits and all.
Saturday. We got up early because our horseback riding appointment was at 9 AM and it was at least an hour away. Slovenians are not afraid to build steep (18% grade at a couple points) and banked roads through the mountain passes. The BMW handled it great. A white knuckle ride later we got to the horse back riding place. At first the guide looked at Austin and said he couldn’t do the planned ride because he was to small. After Carey and I looked at each other and basically said we weren’t going to just ride around a pasture he conceded to using a guide rope from is horse to Austin’s. It was probably a legitimate concern. Horses are strong and if it had started to go its own way I’m not sure Austin would have the weight to change its mind (truthfully I’m the one with the most riding experience and that was a camp in Davie over 20 years ago, so I am pretty sure if the horse really felt froggy or got spooked I would have problems too). All the horses were good though. Carey’s was the one that wanted to do its own thing every now and then. Pretty funny watching her try to pull its head up from eating grass… It was a nice 1 ½ to 2 hour ride through some trails in the hills.
This area of Europe is beautiful. Its kinda a mix between where my parents live (at least when they first moved there) where there are older homes/ farmhouses wide spread on farms/ ranches and then out west where there are real mountains (yes mom I still think you just live on a really big hill). Average peaks were probably 5-6 thousand feet but many were 8, 9000, and Zugspitze is just short of 10,000 feet. They can build some tunnels too. 16 km (10 miles) was the longest we were in. There were several others in the 3 – 5 mile range. The whole area is super clean. You struggle to find an accidental piece of trash on the road. The great thing about all these places… The Europeans aren’t sue happy. They will look at you and say, “This could be dangerous. If you break something it’s your fault. You shouldn’t have done it.” And it’s true. I wouldn’t consider anything we did to be life threatening (I don’t care where you are, a business doesn’t stay open killing its customers) but there was potential for a lot of bumps and bruises… But that’s life and that’s what made it so much fun.

Poland!

Warsaw Uprising monument.

Shot a shotgun lately?

Torun. Lots of buildings like this.

Old town hall in Plock.

Some kid trying to hit a ball...

So Poland was on our list of places to go but all of a sudden, about a month ago now, the MWR baseball league decided they were going to try to field a team for the European-Middle East-Africa Little League championships. So off to Kutno, Poland we go!
Kutno is about 120 km east of Warsaw. Why baseball in Poland you may ask? (That’s your cue to ask…) About 15 years ago Stan Musial, a major leaguer and Pole, decided he wanted to bring baseball to Poland so he went to Kutno and now there is a very nice baseball complex. The whole adventure was short notice so the coaching was shaky at first, it was me and another guy (neither of us knows baseball) covering while the real coaches were on travel for work. Then the boys had about two weeks to try to come together as a team, get brought up to speed (the MWR coaching is less than average…), and fund raise. We went in knowing we were likely going to loose but hoped it would be a positive and memorable experience for the boys. It DEFINETLY was. They played and interacted with kids from S. Africa, Ukraine, Moldova, Italy, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Bellerose, and Ireland.
Most of our trip centered around baseball and we had games 4 of the 7 days we were there but we did make time to take in some sights. So here we go…
Even on about one weeks notice we still found a non-stop flight from Rome to Warsaw for $135 each. Cheap airline so you have to pay for luggage; Rome so we needed to take the train… Still way cheaper than Lufthansa this time. Be careful with cheap airlines… So for the FORTH flight in a row… As a re-cap: volcano strands us in Paris, French air traffic controls holds us up in Milan, mechanical problem reroutes us in Madrid. This time… Couple versions to the story, probably most of everything is true. The plane had maintenance that had to be done (delay 1). There was a piece of electronics that needed to be replaced (delay 2). The airline didn’t pay the Rome airport their parking fee (delay 3). Eight hours later, 11:30 at night, we are finally boarding and headed to Warsaw. We land in Warsaw around 2 – 2:30 AM and get a room at the Marriott at the airport. Nice and very reasonably priced. So now Saturday is Sunday and we get our rental car and we are off.
I found a rental, again a week out, that was probably a little pricey by Polish standards but was awesome. It was really like a guest house on these peoples’ estate. The nephew of the owner, also lives on site, spoke English and the family went out of their way to make us happy and keep us entertained and well fed. As we were checking in there was bread, bear, and homemade soup waiting for us…
Monday: Baseball game. Played Ukraine. Got spanked (they actually won the tournament). Good eye opener and settler for the boys. They got the point and started to focus. That night Carey, Brianna, and I went into Plock to find dinner. Delicious. The Polish do meat right. Plock is a nice little town too. No “major” attractions, but we enjoyed just walking around.
Tuesday: Baseball. We played S. Africa. We got spanked. They went to the semi-finals… Tuesday night back to Plock for dinner. This night the restaurant we picked didn’t have an English menu and the waiter didn’t speak much English. I have been happy to just point at the menu and hope for the best ever since Carey’s dad and I did it in Munich last Christmas. This was Carey and Brianna’s real first time doing it (other times we had an idea of what they might be getting). Brianna played it safe and picked something out of the pierogi section (filled with blue berries, covered with yogurt, very good). I just pointed at a soup and something in the meat section. Delicious soup and an amazing, what I think was a, pork chop and potatoes. Carey points and gets… chicken wings and french fries (I can’t make this stuff up!). We saw more of Plock after dinner, including a walk over looking the river.
Wednesday: No baseball. We went to Torun. Torun is known for a few things. One, it is the home of Nicholas Copernicus. He was one of the guys who said, “Hey, we got it all wrong. The earth is not the center of the universe! In fact, I’ll draw you (a pretty accurate, circular vice elliptical orbits) picture of the solar system.” Pretty neat seeing the limited resources he had to come up with that HUGE leap in 1543. Thing number two, pierniczki. Gingerbread! And it was good. Finally, the architecture. Big beautiful old brink buildings. Wednesday night our land lords cooked for us. The woman serving us didn’t speak much English so we just went with it and tried to guess what we were eating. I can’t express how good it was. My mouth is watering now… As we were finishing up Eryk came in. Turns out the soup had quail, the steaks were deer, and the patties were wild boar. Next we were introduced to Polish tradition. We did shoots of Vodka and Eryk’s homebrew for the next hour or two. Even Brianna got a shoot (or three…they were small). Did I mention this all cost us nothing extra?
Thursday: Baseball. Moldova. The also beat us. It was a better game, and afterwards we figured out they cheated a bit and went out of batting order a few times to get their better hitters up. The coaches realized it to late. We went back to the house that evening and Eryk stops by. “You ready?” We’re going shooting! He takes Carey and me out to an awesome range that he and 24 others own and built. Professional range. Disks being launched from all competition angles. No charge. Just shot his shotgun and his ammo for an hour and a half…
Friday: Baseball. We played Ireland and we… won. It was a morning game and our last so finally we gathered up Austin and his stuff (this whole time he and the rest of the team stayed on the complex. Free room and board.) He was exhausted and emotionally drained at this point. He actually took a nap. That evening they cooked dinner for us again. A bunch of different types of pierogies. Again, very good, homemade, and no charge… After dinner a horse drawn carriage ride through the forest.
Saturday: Warsaw. Warsaw has an amazing history. Poland in general has an interesting history. Poland sandwiched between Germany and Russia was once Europe’s largest country and also became non-existent for a period of time. The Nazis did everything they could to wipe Warsaw off the face of the earth. The entire city was leveled during WWII. At the beginning of WWII Warsaw had a population of 1.3 million. 800,000 were killed in WWII. That is more than the total number of US and UK troop casualties. After the Warsaw uprising in 1945 the Nazis took revenge by killing 180,000 civilians. Today the city is completely rebuilt. A major city and the historical areas are all put back together. As you walk through the old town square you would swear the buildings and palace are a couple hundreds years old, because that is the way they restored them. If you see pictures at the end of the war you are absolutely amazed. We went to the Old and New town Squares. Next to the Warsaw uprising monument and soldiers cathedral. Warsaw uprising was what started off as a somewhat spontaneous group of insurgent troops trying to take advantage of the Nazis getting pushed back by the Soviets. The troops grew to 40,000. They were anticipating the Soviets, who were JUST ACROSS THE RIVER to help. Stalin said, No. Instead they let the Nazis regroup and crush the rising so it would later be easier for the Soviets to walk in and take it. 40,000 troops and 180,000 civilians were killed and Hitler ordered Warsaw to be razed. Finally, a trip to the Polish Army Museum. Tanks, planes/ jets, old uniforms and weapons. Kinda neat, and different.
Flight home… Success. Train ride back from Rome, not so much… We made it though, the same evening.
Great trip.

Madrid 24-28 June

From the tram ride in Toledo.

Just a cool sculpture in the train station...

El Tranparente in the Cathedral in Toledo.

Sorry for the delay. Been busy…
So we left Naples early afternoon. Checked in no problem. Took our first flight to Milan. As we go to transfer flights we look at the status board and, our next flight is canceled. One counter to find out its due to the French air traffic controllers striking, one counter to find out luggage, and yes, another to re-book. Lufthansa did alright though. They put us up in a nice place and feed us a nice meal and we were on a flight first thing in the morning. Still a hassle and it was EARLY. We got into Madrid and found the apartment. Once again, the way to go.
So Friday. A trip to the Prado Museum. Another really big art museum filled with a lot of paintings. The time period covered is later in history though, 12th to early 19th centuries. I’m sure the artists on display are “famous” but they aren’t names that I’ve heard much of prior to going (I had to look up El Greco, one of the most famous ones prior to going so I would maybe have some appreciation). At the risk of sounding spoiled or ungrateful, it’s getting hard to go to museums to look at art when we’ve been to Rome, Naples, and Paris. Also on Friday we got a little oriented with the city and its metro and picked up our bull fight tickets. Then to bed early, to end our early starting day.
Saturday: Toledo. Everyone we know who has been to Madrid and Toledo has said you have to go to the Cathedral. It didn’t disappoint. The Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo is a very large gothic cathedral. After a few periods of Catholic then Muslim then Catholic rule the cathedral, as it is now, was started in 1226. It took a couple hundred years but was all the way done in 1493. Huge alter. Huge separate choir area. Several large naves, side rooms, including a small much more enjoyable museum. The pictures here by El Greco were actually very interesting. He was born in Greece, trained in Rome, and made a living in Toledo. He is credited for starting the break from Michael Angelo Renaissance style painting and started the move toward realism. Longer features, such as faces and fingers. I’ll steal this next description from wikipedia but this was fairly amazing and they had an English narration in which the parts it was talking about were illuminated. “One of its more outstanding parts is the Baroque altar called El Transparente, several stories high, with fantastic figures of stucco, painting, bronze castings, and multiple colors of marble, a masterpiece of Baroque mixed media by Narciso Tomé enhanced by the daily effect for a few minutes of a shaft of sunlight striking it through an appropriately oriented hole in the roof, giving the impression that the whole altar is rising to heaven. The fully Baroque display makes a strong contrast with the predominant Gothic style of the cathedral. It is from the play of light that this feature of the cathedral derives its name. The cathedral also receives its light through more than 750 stained glass windows, from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, the work of some of the best artists of those times.” So yes, if you find yourself in Toledo, stop by the cathedral… Also in Toledo, we took a small tram ride around the outside of the city to take in the sites of the river and gorge that surround the city. Relaxing, easier and COOLER than walking. Pretty area.
Sunday: We started off on the hop-on hop-off bus. Our first stop was the Retiro Park. Once a royal park for a palace, it was opened to the public in 1868. Fountains, statues, ponds, trees, and a large pavillion. That morning we paused to hear the Madrid Orchestra put on a free concert in the park. Back on the bus, touring the city, it was time for lunch. Simple lunch at a sandwich shop and then we walked to another square close by. About that time is when I realized, I no longer have the hop-on hop-off tickets… Oops. We jumped on the metro and then walked over to see the outside of another palace. Nice area. Nice gardens. Again though after Versailles, and even the palace here in Caserta, its hard to go into palaces… Plus, we had a BULL FIGHT to get to!
There were six fights. The first one we all sat there and let the shock/ awe pass. I read plenty about it before going so I knew what was coming in all the different parts. I also let Carey and the kids know prior to buying the tickets. You kinda have to desensitize yourself from the repeated stabbings of the bull and then you can focus on the traditions and art of the fight. The crowd definetly gets upset when the matadore screws up and can’t put the bull down in one good shot in the end (unfortunately we saw a case of that). They also get rowdy when all the rules aren’t followed. Thanks to a man behind us who knew english we got the translation of the guy yelling at the judges. When the horses are in the arena they are supposed to get seperation between the bull and horse each time to “test the bull’s bravery” (i.e. will it keep charging the horse). That wasn’t happening all the time and the man was basicly calling the judges out. I’m glad we went, and I think even Brianna had an appreciation for the culture aspect. Having said that though, I don’t think I’ll go out of my way to see another. The bull never really has a chance…
So Monday we head back to the airport and as we are going to the terminal Austin spots a screen and says, “Its canceled.” I kid you not… I think this was a mechanical problem. Again Lufthansa came through and re-booked us on a direct flight (before we even got through the line to re-book ourselves). No time lost. A lot of rushing but we made it.
Highlights. Definetly the Cathedral and bull fight.

A few weekend trips...

The inside of St Mark's in Venice. The whole interior was this bright.

This is an older picture I took from the parking garage at work. The snow is gone now but you can see the ridge we hiked to the left of Vesuvius' cone. That whole thing is Mt Somma and Vesuvius National Park.

The colorful water ways of Burano.

The wonderful blue grotto. The bright spot is the small entrance.

Capri.

22, 23 May
Hiking Mt Vesuvius
So most people, including the Navy people we know here think, “Hike Vesuvius? That’s just a silly tourist road “hike”, a few hundred meters from the top…” Yes there is a “trail”, that may as well be a road, that cruise ships take the tourists to “hike” the last little bit of the cone. However, the whole mountain (Mt Somma is the original volcano that Mt Vesuvius is coming out of) makes up Vesuvius National Park and there are eight other trails. So while the girls went to Ischia to be pampered, we guys hiked all day, ate big steaks, and drank good German beer… The trail we took goes along the ridges along the left side (of the picture I’m attaching). Highlights… Of the 9 trails only the tourist, cheesy, trail was open. But we noticed the trail head for the trail we really wanted to hike on the way up AND we noticed there happen to be a few cars parked along the road outside the locked gate… Like any good Neapolitan, after confirming the trail was indeed closed, and after noticing the guy working didn’t seem too concerned, we drove back to the trail head, parked, and climbed through the cut out hole in the fence… The trail is closed because they haven’t done any clearing this year yet. Most of it was fine but there were a couple hundred meters that we just put our arms in front of our faces and pushed through. Amazing views. Unfortunately the women were in Ischia and they normally remember stuff like cameras… As you move along the rim you can see old lava flows from over the years (1906, 1929, and 1944). We had a very clear day and could see from Sorrento, in the south, all the way out to Ischia, to the north.

Capri.
So after the women were done pampering themselves we all met out in Capri. It is a very pretty little island. A tourist trap worth doing at least once. If anyone is planning or thinks they want to go to the famous “blue grotto” I’ll save you the time, and more importantly, the ton of money. It’s a cave on the very steep coast that the walls don’t go all the way to the bottom of the water so the sun reflects off the bottom up into the cave… Pretty blue color. That’s about it. Not sure why it’s a huge attraction but whatever. I’ll attach a picture. You all owe me 10 euro.
Like I said the island is very pretty. We followed the sign to the “centro” thinking how bad a walk up can it be. 750 meters and A LOT of steps later… We took in the view, had a good, relatively cheap lunch, and then went to the Augusta Gardens. The gardens are very nice and colorful and over look the back side cliffs of the island. We’ll definitely go back because there is more to see, we’ll just skip the grotto…

29-31 May
Venice
So we waited a while to plan the Venice trip, so airline ticket prices shot up. Carey had to work until 4 PM on Friday so… The perfect opportunity to experiment with a night train. Maybe it would be better if we actually paid for a sleeper compartment (probably not though since then it would have bee close to the airline tickets). Long story short, it was cramped, Carey and I only slept a few hours each, temperature control in the cabin was non-existent, and Carey got a new hair treatment, water della mozzarella de buffalo, as the cooler above her head very slowly dripped down. We did get to have a very broken, all Italian, conversation with the couple in the cabin with us (they owned the cooler and ended up giving us their name and address in Naples. Something about, we'll have pizza! Very nice people...).
We arrived in Venice at about 6 AM and got on the water bus to the stop near our apartment. The woman helping us was very nice, came and walked us to the main office, and set up breakfast for us. The apartment itself wasn’t ready until about 1 PM. A great two bedroom apartment with plenty of room, kitchen, etc. for half the price of most hotels (half the price of any hotel that had consistent good user ratings).
Most reviews of Venice say just try to get lost and wander. Definitely the way to go. It is nothing but tourist based so you will pay a ton for everything. Food, public transportation, sites… We spent that first morning walking around near Saint Marc’s square and the surrounding area just admiring the back alleys and canals and bridges. Its really neat to see boats for every normal automobile job (barges for delivery trucks, refrigerated barges for frozen stuff, garbage truck barges, taxis, buses, personal vehicles…) After settling into the apartment we went back to St Marcs and went into the church. Very pretty. I’m glad we waited for the lines to die down though. Through the day we went into a few churches and were impressed. Unlike other places we’ve been there was always something playing in the churches; either live pipe organ practice, choir practice, or just a recording.
The next day we went to Murano and Burano. Murano, famous for glass blowing, was a nice small set of islands. We got a real quick demonstration in a shop. Amazing how fast and precise the guy has to be. Screw it up the first time and it’s a waste… Burano, famous for lace work, was great. All the apartments are painted different bright colors. Still touristy in the main square, but small town touristy. Just pleasant to walk around.
We ate at the Hard Rock, twice. One, great American style (tasting) burgers! Two, 15% off military discount made it the cheapest place in Venice to eat!
All in all, I’m glad we went to Venice. Two whole days was just right, but I can see how people do it in a day. Probably wouldn’t be a bad place to stop on a cruise (don’t do the pricey cruise package, just buy a 12 hour water bus ticket and explore!) I’m glad we didn’t do a lot of planning and we just wandered. Most importantly, I’m glad we got out to Murano and Burano.

Rome Underground

We started just outside Rome and visited the Catacombs of San Callisto. In the first 300 years or so of Christianity people were not allowed to be buried within the city walls. The pagan religions had no problem with cremation so for them, no big deal. The Christians wanted burial though, expecting a second coming any time now, therefore waiting for resurrection. And by the way, Christianity goes against the current Roman rule and religion so you are persecuted if found out… So, being buried outside and underground was really the only good option. The land where the catacombs are, ultimately ended up belonging, and still belongs to, the Vatican. This site, if I heard the guide correctly, has about 20 km of tunnels and is four layers deep. There were about 500,000 buried here, including 9 popes. Rome sits on top of volcanic tufa rock. It is soft and easy to mine until the air hits it, then becomes hard. Perfect for an underground cemetery… We spent most of our tour in the second layer. There were individual and family tombs. Sadly, about 40% were small, for children and babies. It’s hard to say how tall each layer was. The tombs were abandoned around 800 AD when barbarians started to pillage the tombs. In the following 1000 years earthquakes filled in some of the ground. Where we were was about 10 feet tall (anywhere from 5 to 8 tombs high) but you could see the tops of some arches (entrances to family tombs) at foot level, so there had to be another 5 feet below us for that level. So doing the rough math and making some assumptions based on how far we walked down just to get to the second level, these catacombs had to have been 80- 100 feet deep. You can see the early “secret “ Christian symbols here. The fish, a Shepard carrying a sheep, and an anchor (the ring on top, not for tying a rope to but… for God, the never ending or beginning circle; the stock and shank, the cross…; and the crown, arm, and fluke at the bottom, not for digging into the sea bed… the wings of the holy spirit.)
Next was St. Clemente Basilica and the levels beneath including a Mithraism Temple. This was a church built on top of a church, built on top of a church and other, older, city remains. The top church was built around 1100 AD. The lower church was built in the 300’s (The beginnings of legalized Christianity). There were two pulpits. The tour guide explained this to be so teaching debates, or questions and answers, could be used to teach early and uneducated, Christians. The alter has an anchor on the front. Below that church was an old pagan church to Mithras. Also down here though were old apartments, a coin minting shop, and still running water from an old aqueduct. 2000+ year old, very well preserved, ruins.
Finally, on to Basilica of St. John and St. Paul (Constantine time frame John and Paul, not Jesus’). Again you see the layering of old to new. On the bottom you had market shops and the small lofts for living above. Then someone came along and built a house or two behind the stores. Then someone else came and combined it all and kept building up to make a huge house, then church. Then finally, a church built on top of it all.
We see the same type of archeological “problems” here in Naples too. When you have thousands of years of civilization you can see the effects of volcanoes, earthquakes, and floods. Stuff gets buried and forgotten about. People build on top. It all happens again and again. Not to say that Rome was buried three times but as things crumpled or were destroyed in a battle, or some combination of all of the above, layers developed and are still uncovered today. Just another interesting side of Rome and a day well spent…