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.