Still trying to figure out how to blog…
This was the family saying bon voyage

Well, today was our last day in Italy. We started at our beautiful Hotel Malcesine where we took a final shot from our balcony…

Last look from our hotel balcony

and took a little walk along the waterfront where we ran across a badass looking swan…

Don’t mess with this dude!

And a mother duck with her 5 babies…

Mother and her 5 little ducklings

And took a picture of me with a bronze statue by the waterfront…

Lorinda with her new bronze friend

Then we drove to the ‘funivia’-the tram that carries passengers up the mountain side to the top. Our grand plan was to do this from the mountaintop…

Tandem paragliding from the mountaintop

But as you can see from the pictures, the weather was raining and chilly. At least, at the bottom of the mountain it was rainy and chilly…

View of a castle from the tram at the bottom

But as we moved up the mountain…

Moving up the mountain away from Malcesine

And up..

Further up the mountain

And up…

Nearing the top of the mountain

Until we reached the top, where it was positively FRIGID and rainy with a shroud of clouds..

View from the top of the mountain

The weather was so bad that there was no possibility of paragliding, and so we wandered around up there long enough to take a picture of Gary under the sign showing the elevation.. (our tandem paraglide experience would have started at 5,774 feet on Monte Baldo and ended at 300 feet near the edge of lake Garda)

Gary at the top of Monte Baldo

and have lunch. Our traditional “lunch with a view didn’t have much of a view…

Lunch with really not much view at all

And so we got back onto the funivia and headed back down the mountain.

Then it was time to leave our beloved Lake Garda and head north toward Munich. On the way past the last lake-side town we caught a glimpse of this restaurant sign:

Probably the best?

It reads, “Probably the best pizzeria and restaurant in the world.” I guess it’s not really bragging. They did say, “PROBABLY.”

On our way to and through the Alps we were treated to more interesting sites along the highway…

Old church by the highway

And up on the steep sides of the mountains…

Castle on the mountain slope

Seriously, these people are like mountain goats. They seem to think nothing of building a house or a castle or a church so far up the steep craggly sides of a mountain that it must take 45 minutes of switchbacks just to reach a little village at the base.

As we drove we were captivated by the steep rocky mountains still partially hidden by clouds..

Rocky cliffs in the clouds

And the majestic Alps…

Approaching the Alps

When we came back down out of the Alps it was suddenly a nicer day. Part of the highway we were on was literally the border between Austria on the left…

Austria on the left side of the road

And Germany on the right (sorry, I couldn’t get a good roadside photo of Germany that wasn’t just trees whizzing past!

We finally made it to Munich and checked into a hotel near the airport. Everything is quite different in Germany. The architecture, the foliage, the drivers, and of course the language. After two weeks of “Bona sera. Sei aperta? Tavalo per due, per favore” We suddenly had to negotiate in German, and as our official translator I found myself at a loss! We managed, though, and found a little Greek/seafood restaurant a few minutes from our hotel. The woman who seemed to be the only worker aside from the cook was an absolute delight. She spoke only a little English, but she brought us in and made us feel so welcome as we bantered in a broken string of Italian, German, and English. Before dinner she brought us two shots of some vile licorice alcohol, which we toasted and downed in a gulp. Then came dinner, which was profoundly different from the meals we’ve been eating. After dinner and some more Ger-Eng-Ital bantering she brought us another shot of the same vile drink, which we raised to each other and her and gulped down. She was delighted with us, and as we left she gave me a gracious hug as we left with shouts of “Arrivederci! Goodbye! Auf weidersehn!” It was a lot of fun.

Now we’re back in our hotel room and completing a final blog from Europe. We’ll have so many stories to treasure and share. It’s been an amazing trip, and an eye-opening experience. Tomorrow it’s back home to America!

Today was another day where everything seemed to work out just right. We drove into Florence to the parking garage we had identified before hand. (This was VERY important because most of Florence is pedestrian only and inaccessible by car without a permit, and yes, we’re expecting a ticket in the mail when we get home). We walked the few blocks to the Galleria dell’ Academia, for which we had purchased tickets a few days earlier online. (Also important-you don’t get in without advanced tickets). On the way there we saw this quaint little unassuming church….ahem.

Cathedral of Santa Maria Fiore

More Cathedral

Us in front of the Cathedral

Actually, this was the Cathedral of Santa Maria Fiore. One of the doors sported a series of gold panels each depicting a scene from the bible. Here’s God delivering the 15….no, 10 commandments to Moses.

Gold panel on door

On we went to the Galleria, and we got right in with our advanced tickets. It was filled with Medieval and Renaissance art. The very early Medieval pieces, like this one…

Early Medieval Art

were from the 1200’s-1400’s and were interesting because of how stylized and filled with symbolism they were. They hadn’t yet figured out how to accurately represent the human form in painting, and everything about it had significance-the hand gestures, the direction of the gaze, the color of the robes, the division between right/left, for/background. Interesting. The Renaissance art was so profoundly different in it’s fluidity, style, and accuracy of human form, but still virtually every image was Christian in nature.

Renaissance piece

But then came what we had come there to see. The remarkable figure of David…

Michelangelo’s stunning David

I know you’ve all seen 100 pictures just like this one, but I took this one with my own hand!

Also in this building was a musical instrument museum. They had a 1-string bass that was played with a bow, and by thumping it with your foot…

One string wonder

And a couple of hurdy-gurdy’s…

Hurdy Gurdy

As well as this collection of wind instruments that we though Dennis would find interesting!

Wind instrument collection.

This museum also sported dozens of marble statues and the plaster casts used to make them. One display was like the outlet mall of marble busts…

Buy two get one free?

We left the museum and walked back toward the car past some artwork by the famous graffiti artist, Banksey….

Banksey art

and past a Medieval era McDonald’s…

We didn’t realize how old these were…

And past the tiniest yet, of all tiny cars….

Go ahead and try to get in, Gary

And had lunch where we got our traditional lunch-time photo of Lorinda with a cool building in the background…

The traditional lunchtime photo

We got back to the car, paid, pulled out of the garage, and it started to rain. Perfect timing!

Our next plan was to head way north to a village on the shore of Lake Garda in Northern Italy. Our intention was to 1) get a lot closer to Munich for our flight home, and 2) take advantage of an activity in this village that we’ll either surprise you all with in our next blog entry (weather permitting), or we’ll have to write to tell you the disappointment of not being able to do it (weather not permitting). Upon arriving in the village of Malcesine we got a room from one of the nicest hotel clerks yet, and discovered this view out from our balcony…

Our balcony view

Then we went down to have dinner on the patio overlooking the lake. Near the end of dinner this polite guest joined us…

My poor broken little friend

She had a badly broken leg, and was brave enough to hobble up to my chair. The broken leg bought her most of two rolls of bread, which she was willing to take right from my hand. Whenever I paused too long from feeding her she would remind me with a QUACK! To get me back to the important business at hand.

Tomorrow we’ll enjoy our last day in Italy, and our last full day of our honeymoon. What an amazing adventure this has been.

Well, our honeymoon is beginning to wind down. In preparation for our flight home we began the trek northward today, and spent about 5.5 hours driving north from our beloved little resort hotel of Il Nido in Sorrento back to Florence.

Here is a short video from the rooftop parking lot…

View of Sorrento from Il Nedo Hotel:

Before we left we took a couple more photos of the view from our hotel room…

Last view from our balcony

And from the parking lot on the roof…

The view our car had

Then one more of Vesuvius as we drove past it…

Bye bye Vesuvius

The area around Sorrento was so beautiful it was hard to leave. On the way out I held our video camera on the dashboard to film the drive across the mountainous peninsula out to the mainland. Gary will try to make this video available later to give our friends a little taste of what it’s like to drive in Italy.

Throughout the drive we were treated to a series of castles on the tippy top peak of passing mountains. Every now and then we managed to get a good shot of one…

One of many castles on hilltops

But in general we got a “teaser” view from far away, and then by the time we were close enough they seemed to do everything in their power to block the view of the castle from the highway, like this…

Missed it by this much

For the first time on this trip we arrived at a hotel that told us they didn’t have a room for us. To make things really hairy we lost our internet connection, and our only means of finding a hotel (short of wandering randomly looking for hotel signs) was unavailable. So we drove back to the hotel that had no room and sweet-talked the girl into giving us the address of another hotel, which she did, which we found, and which had a room for a reasonable rate.

Before dinner (the Italians don’t even begin to THINK about having dinner until 7:00 pm), we went for a walk to stretch our legs. We came across a little central park area and found several elderly people sitting on park benches. One of the women got up and walked toward us speaking in desperate-sounding Italian. “non capisco,” I told her to let her know that I didn’t understand, and we kept walking. But we were both really disturbed by the scene. She didn’t look like a homeless beggar (and we’ve seen a few of those), but something was obviously very wrong. After a few minutes we turned around and I gathered a few Euro in my hand to give to her if that was in fact what she needed. As we approached she came walking back to us again speaking in very distressed Italian. I told her, “Non capisco. Io non parlo Italiani. Io Americano.” She pointed to herself and said, “Italiano,” and I replied, “Englese. Io parlo Englese.” then I asked her, “Money? Euro? Do you need Euro?” She grabbed my hand and squeezed it, pointed to a closed up building and moaned, “Italiano.” and said some other things in Italian I didn’t understand. Then she turned away. She didn’t seem to want my money, she needed something, and unfortunately there wasn’t a thing I could do for her.

We’ve seen a few things here that have tugged at our heartstrings. Some homeless people. Plenty of stray dogs and cats. Lots of abandoned buildings. Lots of migrant workers trying to eek out a living selling their wares on the sidewalk. The touristy places are raking in money, and the highways are well tended from the large tolls they collect. But a lot of this country seems to be barely scraping by. Hopefully we’ve done our part to boost the economy a little.

When we first got here we had the naïve illusion that we could hide the fact that we were American tourists. Ha! What a laugh! It turns out we’ve had a neon sign on us this entire trip reading “American tourists here!” Even when I walk up to a hotel desk to ask for a room and say, “Bona sera. Camera per due, per favore?” They respond, “For one night?” So it’s obvious we speak English. They’ve all been polite and helpful, and even in situations where the other person spoke essentially no English we’ve been able to make ourselves understood. It’s been an adventure!

“What did you do on your honeymoon, Gary and Lorinda?”
“Mostly climbed mountains.”

Today was no exception. From our nice hotel on the hillside above Sorrento we caught a bus down to the town, then hoofed it down to the Marina. While waiting to board the jet boat to the Island of Capri Gary noticed the “seaside boulder cat.”

Seaside Boulder cat washing up after a meal.

The ferry ride was about 40 min long, and thanks to my patch didn’t upset my motion sickness at all. We landed in Porto Grande (large port) on the Isle of Capri, where a bustling little tourist town has cropped up. As we disembarked we noticed this sign…

Warning. Don’t swim with your car.

Which we took to mean, “don’t do this” and which was very good advice.

We then jumped onto a tram car that cabled us up to the mountainside town of Capri, which was a gorgeous, quaint, and unique little town. All of the streets were like this:

Streets of Capri

And far too narrow for an actual car. Here in the distance you can see one of the little buggy trucks they used to get around.

What passes for a car in Capri

The place is filled with restaurants and shops that range from touristy souvenir shops to high-end fashion or jewelry shops. Even off-season this place was crawling with tourists, but it was impossible not to enjoy the quaint nature and gorgeous views.

The view from above Capri overlooking the port town.

From the town we climbed to the top of one of the ridges on the island where an ancient Roman villa “Villa Jovis,” which means “Jupiter.” This was an expansive villa built by the emperor Tiberius (actually by his slaves). Many of the 4-foot thick stone walls still stand, but almost all of the marble veneer has been stripped out. It was still an impressive place.

Roman Baths at Villa Jovis

Villa Jovis

Selfie at the Villa

Just in front of the villa was this view down to the sea over 300 meters below.

Yes, it really is that far down there.

On the way up to the ancient villa, we noticed some modern villas that were incredibly striking.

Modern villa on Capri

After the villa we walked back down towards town to have lunch…

Lorinda’s view

Gary’s view

And then back UP the mountain on an alternate trail to see Villa Lysis, which was a huge modern villa. We couldn’t get into that private property, but we found a nice cliffside trail

Cliffside wooded path

that wrapped us all the way around one side of the mountain and back up to Villa Jovis for a second time. There, we were confronted by the indigenous “guard goats,” who plopped down from a 5-foot high stone wall above us, trotted across the road, and popped up and over the wall on the downward side of the trail.

Caution. Beware of Guard Goats

By now it was time to head back down to the marina to catch our boat back to the mainland. So it was a walk down to Capri, a tram down to the Port, where we saw this chair…

Would you care to sit?

and then the boat back across to Sorrento. The boat was massive, and very comfortable, and looked very much like the inside of a gigantic airplane.

Return trip in style

Here is the view from the boat of the port town of Sorrento. This picture gives you a little bit of appreciation of just how vertically these people live.

View of Sorrento from the boat

Then we lucked out and found an elevator to the top of the cliff in Sorrento, and managed to get back to the meeting place exactly as the bus was getting ready to leave, so we hopped on the bus which shuttled us right back up to our hotel. It was nice today to have a destination already waiting for us, and we’re here now resting our tired feet!

Upon waking this morning we packed and headed up Mt. Vesuvius. The roads were ridiculously narrow and winding, which is to say they were actually wider than the mountain roads leading out of La Spezia into Cinque Terre. It turns out that the reason the roads here are wider is because they have dozens of busses going up the mountain to drop off their passengers for a hike up the mountain to the gaping crater at the top. We parked at the highest point we could reach and hoofed it up to the rim of the crater. Here we could see down into the caldera which ejected a mountain’s worth of ash and volcanic rock down onto the towns below.

Where do you think all this rock went?

The volcano is mostly dormant, although we saw a little stream of steam rising out of one of the edges.

Steam coming from the cone

After a couple of selfies on the summit overlooking the surrounding Italian countryside…

At the top of the mountain

On top of the world

We headed back down the mountain to the village of Herculaneum, where a lovely gentleman with almost no English was able to direct us to a paid parking spot on his property. (Legal paid parking is always preferable to the “do you think it’s OK to park here?” game). Once there, we got to see the best-preserved and best-excavated ancient Roman village in existence. Pompeii is better known, and was also destroyed by the eruption of 79 AD, but in Herculaneum you can actually see a large part of the intact city, which was buried suddenly and completely by the eruption, and therefore preserved for 2000 years. The site includes roads and sidewalks,

Herculaneum road and sidewalk

many fragments of fresco paintings,

Surviving frescos

Fresco details

decorative tile floors,

Detailed mosaic tile floor

Incredibly well-preserved tile floor

the potties,

These are potties

Villas lined with Roman columns,

Gary standing outside a once-wealthy person’s home

Arched decorated ceilings,

Original surviving decorated ceiling

and even surviving charred wooden beams and shutters.

Original wood shutters charred by the eruption in 79 AD

The view from the bottom of old Herculaneum looking up to the mountain allows you to see the ancient city on the lowest level, the modern Herculaneum sitting on top of the foundations of the old city, and the volcano looming over both of them. The foundations of the modern city were set on the volcanic ash and stone. The city underneath was discovered in the 1700’s during the digging of a well, and they’ve been excavating downward ever since. The ancient city sits about 3 stories underneath the new city.

Two levels of city and the mountain overlooking them

After pretty much exhausting ourselves climbing a volcano and exploring an ancient city we jumped back into the car and headed out to the jut of land that leads to the island of Capri. As the crow flies we’re probably less than 10 miles from the volcano, but it took over an hour of insane twisty mountain driving to get to the outskirts of the little seaside town of Sorrento. Once here we parked out car on the roof (which was even with the road coming in), and got this view from the parking lot…

Looking back at the Bay of Napoli

The sweet young girl behind the counter gave us a super-cheap room with a view of the bay, and complimented me on my Italian! After getting to our room and seeing this view off our balcony…

The view from our balcony

We marched right back downstairs to ask for a second night here. Actually, that’s not true. Our room here is #121, which is on floor 1.5 (not 1, not 2). But it took us an elevator ride and a confused expedition up the stairs to realize that the hotel goes DOWN 3 stories into the mountain, not up 3 stories above the ground! Had we been thinking we would have gotten this right away since our car is parked on the roof level with the incoming road. In our defense, we were tired!

After getting our bearings, it was a lovely seafood pasta/risotto dinner, and now we’re settling in for the night.

Tomorrow is Capri!

Rome. We’ve all heard so much about it, and seen lots of pictures, right? In reality we were absolutely BLOWN AWAY. We had literally NO idea of the extent and grandeur of this place. It is huge, and expansive, and utterly breathtaking to be able to walk in amongst buildings on stones that were laid by Roman hands 2000 years ago.

The day started with a walk to the Metro station, where we saw one of the many ways you can park a Smart Car.

Is this really Smart?

On the train we were treated to a violinist serenading the cars with some impressive music. Gary got a video of him, and you should be able to watch it below. It was pretty cool.

When we got the the Colosseum there were of course a million people there, including a few Roman Centurions in full uniform. We headed over to the “bagglietto” office to buy tickets and got accosted by a young man speaking fairly fluent English. He offered us a full English tour of the Colosseum plus the Roman Forum plus skipping the 2h line waiting to get in plus then being able to wander around inside to our heart’s content for 50 Euro. We knew we were dealing with “scalpers” of some sort, but it was a bargain and we went for it. In the end we had zero regrets about spending the money. The tour was fun and informative, and what we saw was breathtaking.

We began with the Colosseum itself…

This incredible structure once seated 50,000 spectators at Roman games. The outer structure is pockmarked with holes that once housed the iron pins the Romans used to hold the blocks together. These pins were stolen in Medieval times because they wanted the metal. Several earthquakes have struck over the centuries and knocked part of the outer walls down, and it turns out that the Popes took to stealing the interior marble facing from the Colosseum for the decoration of the Basilica of St. Peter. Mussolini and the Nazis also managed to get their digs in on this structure. In spite of all of that there is a lot of the original structure still intact. Here you can see the little boxes they used to hold caged lions for the games. The floors of the cages were lifted up on winches to bring the animals up through trap doors in the floor and into the arena for the Gladiators to fight.

The bowels of the Colosseum.

And by the way they believe there were surprisingly few Gladiators actually killed here, although they did execute criminals here, and probably some Christians early on, and the animals were universally killed and eaten. It was a brutal place. The side that still stands has 3 levels of seating and rooms for various purposes. The men of Rome sat in the bleacher seats. The women were forced to stand on the upper floors. They also apparently had rooms up there that made use of those women and were referred to as “fornicariums.” Use your imagination. Today, it just makes a good backdrop for a selfie.

Selfie backdrop

After the Colosseum it was on to the rest of the area. We walked for a couple of hours and took about 340 pictures. There was so much to see! Together in this area are Palatine Hill (the site of the founding of Rome nearly 700 years before Christ), the Senate, the Imperial Palaces of the Caesars, the Forum, and various temples, arenas, shops, rooms, fountains, roads, political offices, and all the other little places that make up any city of 1.5 million people. These buildings were built to last with walls several feet thick filled with concrete and stone or brick, and veneered on the outside with brick, then either plaster and/or marble. The marble has all been stolen, but many of the buildings remain. I’ll let some pictures do some talking for me…

Imperial Palace with arena

View from one end of the Forum

Several temples and buildings

Roman temple spared destruction by converting to a church

Temple of Romulus also converted to a church and spared.

Gary with the Forum in the background

Hopefully you can get the idea of how awe-inspiring this place was.

After our long walk we were ready for a late lunch, and our requisite picture with an ancient building in the background (this time a stranger took the photo so we were both in it).

Lunch picture with an ancient ruin in the background

We finally peeled ourselves away and hopped back onto the train to find our car, and headed on south to Naples (Napoli). On the way we got to see Mt. Vesuvius, which we plan to climb tomorrow (provided it doesn’t erupt).

Gee, where’s the top of this volcano?

We landed another good pick for our hotel. It’s a resort hotel in the “off season” and therefore they have rooms for us and lower rates. At first they offered us a 45 Euro room with a view of an interior hallway, then they managed to talk us into a 120 Euro suite that is just gorgeous. It’s our honeymoon, after all! So here is where we are sitting and writing tonight’s blog.

Our grandiose hotel room.

And now it’s bedtime once again.

While in Florence last night we decided to head elsewhere by this evening, and come back through Florence so we could see the Ufizi gallery (They require tickets bought a couple of days in advance). We did, however, spend the morning in the Giardino di Boboli-a fantastic area of gardens in Florence. Here’s the gate to the gardens…

Who left this door open?

The gardens were huge and gorgeous with marble statues, topiary, and water features everywhere.

The beautiful Giardino di Bobli gardens.

And this odd item. At first I though it was a large fallen tree branch that for some reason they had cordoned off rather than take away. Then I realized that it wasn’t a tree branch, but rather a sculpture of a fallen tree branch! Now that’s weird!

This is NOT a fallen tree branch!

Inside the garden walls were a couple of museums filled with Italian fashion…

Italian fashion

Typical Italian decorated ceilings…

Decorated ceiling

And ceramics…

An array of gorgeous ceramics.

After the gardens we made a stop at a Roman amphitheater. It turns out this site was variously built on by the ancient Romans, the Etruscans, and the Longbards, as well as later medieval construction. The stone walls had a pretty fascinating variety of building styles from many different areas.

Roman amphitheater

Roman baths and pools

Roman temple

Later construction including the potties

They also had a museum dedicated to the archeology of the site. Almost none of it as in English, but it was still fascinating to look at the relics.

We then took our tired feet back to the car to head south to Rome. We’ve learned that driving in the big cities is basically terrifying. I haven’t touched the driver’s seat because I’m scared to! Here’s a pic of us leaving Florence. Note the jumble of cars all vying for the next slot in the roundabout, and also note the two scooter drivers squeezing past us on either side between lanes. This is typical. I can’t believe they survive!

Nutty drivers and death-defying scooters

Then it was off to Rome, where we are now. Throughout our driving we’ve been taking pictures of scenic towns and castles in the distance. Basically, the rule is, “for every hilltop there is a castle.” Here is one example out of hundreds.

Yet another castle and town on a hill

Tomorrow we’ll do the Colosseum and Roman Forum. We’re starting to have to consider our itinerary more closely now, because we need to end up back in Munich in less than a week!

Good night for now..

Day 8 already! We spent today in the stunningly, jaw-droppingly gorgeous Piaza Del Duomo in Piza. This is the walled medieval cathedral area that includes the Leaning Tower of Piza, the Cathedral of Piza, the “Battistero” or Baptismal of San Giovani, as well as a museum and the cemetery. We took our time and took a couple of hundred photos of the site. Every time we turned a corner and found ourselves looking at the Tower again we were struck by HOW MUCH it LEANS!!! So of course, like every single last other tourist in there, I stopped to help hold it up…

Thank God for tourists holding this thing up!

So of course we took the tour to climb to the top of the tower. When you first walk into the base of it I swear you have a hard time keeping your balance. The marble floor is profoundly out of level and you have to consciously work to keep yourself standing upright. They have a plumb bob suspended from a central point high up in the tower with the weight hanging to the lowest level. The bob is nearly touching the lowest wall, to show you how out of true the Tower is. We were just amazed that the thing remained upright. Directly in the path of the tower’s slow fall is a large building that may someday become rubble under a falling pile of beautiful marble. Anyway, we climbed the circular stairs to the tippy top. As you circle the tower your center of gravity easily tells you which side of the thing you are on. When we got to the top, this was our view…

View from the top of Tower Del Leanio.

I should mention a word about “selfies” here. Everywhere you go you are accosted by immigrants trying to sell you “selfie sticks.” This is apparently the newest rage, and practically everyone has one. This is a handheld device of varying lengths that you attach your phone to so you can hold it at a distance and press a button to take a selfie. Everyone from middle-aged Chinese women to young Italian dudes has one, and as you listen to the foreign language babble around you you can occasionally pick out the word, “Selfie,” which I find hilarious. But it turns out that my new husband’s arm is quite sufficient, and he’s figured out the correct angle. We don’t need no stinkin’ Selfie Stick!

The view from the tower was gorgeous, but I SWEAR I felt the thing move, and so I was a little grateful to get my feet back on solid ground. The entire site was beautiful beyond belief. With pictures we could only begin to capture the essence of it. Here’s one that gives you a bit of an idea of the beauty of this site.

Baptismal, Cathedral and Tower of Piza

After the Tower, our ticket let us into the Cathedral. The words “breathtaking,” “stunning” “gorgeous” and “indescribably beautiful” don’t even begin to scratch the surface here. Here are several photos to give you a glimpse…

Cathedral Inside

More Cathedral

And more…

And more…

By this time we were hungry, and so we stopped at a local food vendor for our lunch and requisite daily photo of Lorinda Eating Lunch with a Castle in the Background (actually, the ancient walls surrounding the site)…

Requisite Castle in the Background

And then we went back in to see the cemetery building filled with sarcophagi both in the floors and along the walls….

Cemetery outside

One of the sarcophagi

And the Baptistry, an entire building devoted to the rite of baptism…

Battistero

After one final stop at the ruins of a Roman Bath…

Roman bath ruins

We headed back to our car and off to Florence or “Firenze” Italy. (We haven’t figured out why the rest of the world insists on calling these cities by names that the Italians don’t actually use). The drive to Florence was scenic but uneventful. The drive within Florence to find a hotel room is one that we’re pretty sure will net us at least one traffic violation likely to show up in the mail. You see, they have roads that aren’t wide enough for a couple of donkeys, but they merrily take their cars down them to compete with the foot traffic. Then there are other narrow city streets that are closed to everything but authorized vehicles. Perhaps we should have studied the traffic signs just a little more, and it would have been nice if the lady in Gary’s phone had been aware that no, those streets are meant for walking, not driving. In any case, we found ourselves several times at the end of a narrow one-way street with no place to go but down a pedestrian only area. We had to give up on our first hotel choice because it was literally unreachable by car. Our second hotel choice was reachable, and we landed a protected parking place, but our hotel room is actually in an attic.

Our attic room

It’s actually the biggest room we’ve seen so far, and will comfortably sleep 4. The bathroom is recessed down several marble steps that we hope we won’t kill ourselves on tonight, and it’s hot and stuffy up here, but at least we’ve got a place to roost for the night.

Our treacherous bathroom

The end for tonight!

Today’s chapter heading should read, “Be Careful What You Wish For,” or perhaps, “More than We Could Chew.” It was Lorinda’s wish that we do some hiking around the National Park of Cinque Terre (5 villages). How hard could it be? And besides, we had days of seafood pasta to burn off!

The day started with a finding a parking space at the marina. A nice gentleman came up to us as we were trying to figure out where to pay for the parking and in broken English/Italian we negotiated the price. Near as I could figure the parking was complimentary, but he would keep our car safe if we gave him a donation. I plunked a few Euros into his hand and he seemed pleased. “More?” I asked, and he sort of shrugged, so I have him another Euro, and he seemed delighted. So either we’d just paid a legitimate parking attendant for a space, or paid a scam artist to keep our car safe, OR paid the thief who would break into our car the moment our ferry disembarked. We boarded the ferry and took a beautiful ferry ride from the port town of La Spezia to the coastal village of Porta Venere.

Ferry to Porta Venere

There we saw our first ever pasta curtain…

Pasta Curtain

There were two ancient churches built on this point, the newest of which was almost 1000 years old. The “modern” village was build directly into what was once a walled town. We got some great pics of the village and surrounding paths down to an incredible view by the sea.

At the Grotta

Behind the grotto

before the hike

Then we set off on what we figured would be an invigorating hike to the first of the famous 5 villages. So we climbed…

in the beginning

And climbed…

higher still

and climbed…

looking back at where we came from

And climbed until we thought for sure we had to be close to the end. We weren’t even close! The trail was downright treacherous in places. Unlike lawsuit-happy America, here, if you slip on the gravel and plunge to your death to the rocks hundreds of feet below it is considered your own idiotic fault. So in spite of our quivering muscles we pressed on cautiously. After several hours of this we did reach some open roads, and we thought for sure we had to be getting close to the first of the 5 villiages, “Riomaggiore.” It was wishful thinking! Finally, after HOURS of some of the most difficult hiking and climbing either of us had done we reached the inland village of Campiglia. They did have bus service back to La Spazia, but not for another 3 hours, and so we decided to try to take our exhausted bodies on to Riomaggiore rather than sit in a tiny little village in the middle of nowhere for 3 hours. And so we trekked and climbed for a couple more hours past treacherous trails, terraced vertical vineyards…

terraced vinyards

And gates with signs on them that read in several languages, “Please close the gate behind you to keep the wild boars out.” Wild boars??? Are you kidding?? So by this time “exhausted” doesn’t even begin to cover how we felt. We’d been going for 5-6 hours through really rough territory and when we pulled out Gary’s phone to try to see our progress on a satellite map we learned something kind of horrifying. We were literally only about halfway to the only village that could possibly offer us public transport back to our car in La Spezia. In fact, where we stood was equidistant between Riomaggiore and La Spezia. That distant town behind me is where we needed to go.

ce

La Spazia in the distance

So we gave up on the idea of Riomaggiore, and asked the nice GPS lady in Gary’s phone to direct us by main road back to La Spezia. She mapped out the route, and the good news was that it was about 10 more km by paved road. The bad news is that it was 10 more km on top of what we’d already done. So off we trudged, and little by little the city got closer…

closer still

And closer until we finally saw the city limits sign, when we still had about 5 km to go!

the city limit at last!

Now, about this time I began to seriously wonder if our car would still be there. Our parking scammer hadn’t mentioned a return time, and we weren’t even sure he was legitimate! I began to have visions of us dragging ourselves back to an empty parking space, which was better than my earlier visions of having to spend the night curled up on an Italian mountaintop trying to ward off the cold and the wild boars. And then at last we came upon this most beautiful of sights…

home sweet home

Our tiny car exactly where we’d left it and intact! We jumped in, and set course for a hotel in Piza, which is where I’m sitting now with my aching feet on our nice soft hotel room bed. Good night!

Today we had two failed excursions, which didn’t bother us in the least because we’re spending the night on the shores of the Mediterranean! Our first trip was out of La Spezia and north into the mountainous region of Cinque Terre (5 villiages).

La Spezia

First view of one of the villages of Cinque Terre

We were in the midst of our first truly rainy day, and so weren’t terribly inclined to get out of the car to hike down the cliff face to where the villages are. So we drove and drove, and twisted and climbed, and inched past oncoming cars on a route that was barely fit for a pack mule, only to reach the end of a line at a paid parking lot. It’s not that we minded paying to park. It’s that it was rainy and cloudy, which made the prospect of hiking into a zero visibility cloud not very inviting. So around we turned and drove and drove, and twisted and climbed, and inched past oncoming cars again to get back to La Spezia. Virtually the entire way was lined with vertical grape farming cooperatives. They actually have little mechanized chair lifts on a rail that they use to lift themselves up and down the mountain face.

When we got back to La Spezia, we found an impressive fortress on the far side of the city overlooking the sea, and so we headed there.

Fortress in La Spezia

After being turned away from virtually every road we tried to enter, we found paid parking just up the mountainside from the water’s edge where the resort area is on the Mediterranean. So we decided to walk to afore-mentioned fortress. We got there to find it looking rather closed. I asked a nearby vendor in terribly broken Italian, “Sei aperto, la Castello?” her response was a simple, “no,” meaning, no, the castle is not open. Bummer! So we turned back around and walked back along the beach (did I mention that this was by the Mediterranean?) and back towards a little spread of pricey hotels on the water front. We managed to get a 130 Euro per night room overlooking the sea. Yes they had parking for our tiny car, and by this I mean they have three spaces, and we got one of them. Here’s the view from our room (complete with enclosed patio) looking out over the Mediterranean.

View from our room

On our walk along the waterfront we stopped for a gelato, and to take a selfie with a view of the fortress behind us.

Selfie with no selfie stick

Having a gelato to tide us until a late dinner

This place is Lilliputian-esqe. If there’s enough room to put a small coat closet it turns out there’s enough room for a bathroom. You can easily find yourself on a road so narrow that you have to pull in your mirrors to avoid breaking them off. If we were driving an American size car here there would be places we simply could not go. Rather than spreading their residences out geographically into suburbs like we do, they build right on top of one another. Many people drive scooters, and for those that have cars you’d be AMAZED at the little cliff-side matchbox-sized spaces they park their cars on.

We’re still figuring out how to eat here. Dinner doesn’t start until 7:00 pm, and you’re expected to sit for hours. Each Ristaurante has a menu for appetizers, first course, and second course, plus dessert and drinks. Since the first course is always a huge plate of pasta, a second course is unthinkable. Fortunately we’re doing a lot of walking! Tomorrow we’re hoping for nicer weather, and we’ll hike down the mountains into one of the villages of Cinque Terre.

Gary started day 5 with a 6:00am 4.9 mile  run along the peninsula of Sirmione, see Endomondo link https://www.endomondo.com/workouts/504614035/4632988

We ate breakfast at the hotel and then toured Castello scaligerow which was only a block from the hotel.  The castle was expanded several times over the centuries and included a drawbridge:

and a large protected waterway:

The weather was overcast with intermittent light rain unlike the gorgeous weather we have had until now. After touring the castle we spent a couple of more hours walking around absorbing the local charm.  Here is a lakeside selfie using the  camera timer:

(notice the swan attacking the shoe  of a gentleman behind us!)

We got permission from the policeman at the checkpoint to drive through the Castello scaligero onto the narrow streets of Sermione driving slowly into the sea of pedestrians to get to our hotel and pick up our luggage.  Gary managed to scrape one of the side-view mirrors of our brand new Citreon squeezing between some people and a building.  We made it back out otherwise unscathed after yielding and backing up for another oncoming car trying to get through the castle gate.

The weather forecast for the next few days is supposed to be rainy but we decided to drive toward Cinque Terre anyway.  We drove into the mountains on the Western side of Northern Italy and on to La Spezia which is a large port city on the Mediterranean thinking that it would be easier to find lodging there than closer to Cinque Terre.  La Spezia has the  most nightmarish parking situation we have ever seen; narrow streets packed full of cars and not a vacant parking spot in sight.  We managed to find a reasonably priced hotel that had a parking garage about three blocks away, but at least we didn’t have to fight for the parking spot.  We were pretty sore from the walking we had done and so had a nice dinner in the downtown shopping area of La Spezia and then crashed for the night.

What a day! We thought yesterday was amazing. Today really took the cake. In Montavo we checked out of the hotel and found parking on the other side of the city nearer to their historic sites. Still, we had to walk a couple of miles through the quaint but narrow cobblestone streets to get to the Castello di San Georgio and the Palazzo Ducalle. These were incredibly impressive medieval residences filled with authentic Renaissance art.

Courtyard of Castello di San Giorgio

One of the exquisite halls in the Castle

After a couple of hours we dragged our already tired feet to a cafe for lunch. We pulled out the smart phone and searched for “Roman Ruins,” and up came the peninsula of Sirmione which sports not only the medieval castle of Castello Scaligero but also the ancient Roman villa of Grotte di Catullo. This is the biggest and best preserved Roman Ruin in Northern Italy. It’s difficult to imaging how huge and impressive this place was, and of course all built by hand stone by stone. I’ll let some pictures to the talking for me…

Roman Grotto ruins

More Grotto ruins

And still more!

After dinner in front of the castle…

Gary’s view at dinner in Sirmione

we decided to stay on this peninsula for the night, and managed to get a reasonable hotel right in the heart of the most charming and beautiful place we’ve seen so far. Our hotel has a rooftop terrace that looks directly out onto part of the Castle, lake Garda, and a snow-capped mountain in the background.

The view from our hotel terrace

Tomorrow, we’ll spend the day drinking in this incredible place and visiting the castle. So far the language hasn’t been much of a barrier. We did run into one Italian tourist who seemed to think I was one of the castle guides, and who got really peeved with me when I responded, “Non capsisco. Parle Englese? Mi dispiaci, non capisco” to his rapid Italian question. He just glared at me! With each passing day, though, we’re getting just a little bit more competent with the language.

Day 3 already! This time is going to fly by, but we’re both trying to savor every moment. We have yet to run into someone who doesn’t have enough rudimentary English to combine with our rudimentary Italian to be understood. I’m embarrassed that so far every one of them (even the ones who respond, “no,” when asked, “Parli Englese?”) still have better English than my Italian! But they mostly just smile at my attempts and spare us by speaking English. I’m determined to get a little better each day.

We began our day back in Venice. We hoofed it all the way from the parking garage on the north end zig-zagging diagonally across to the Basilica San Marco at the extreme south end. What a crazy unique city! Many of the allies between buildings dead-end at a canal. Everyone who lives there owns a little boat, and the houses sit right down in the water. In some places you can see water lines all the way up above the ground floor. On our way to the Basilica we stopped for a gondola ride. It amazes me how those guys can perfectly control such a long boat with a single oar on one side.

The view from a gondola

The inside of the Basilica was breathtaking, but there were signs all over forbidding photography. I think we were the only two in there abiding by the signs, so we had to buy a postcard of the interior. But we did take several of the exterior.

Outside of the Basilica where we were allowed to photograph.

After the Basilica we walked down to the water’s edge and sat for a while gazing out at the islands of Venice that form a breakwater from the sea. It was so nice to sit that we did just that for quite a while.

At the waters edge

After that we got a water taxi to take us back to our starting point. The rate was 60 Euro for the trip. A nice Swedish couple came to ask if they could share the ride. The driver was peeved about it because he wanted to make 60 Euro off of us, and then another 60 from them, but the Swedish man prodded him into it and we and our two new friends shared the cost.

Enjoying a boat ride together.

After thoroughly wandering through watery Venice we got back into our tiny car and headed west. We stopped for the night in beautiful Montavo. We just had a fantastic dinner, and tomorrow morning we’ll begin exploring this historic little city.

Today was a full day of European adventure! We woke up in the Austrian Alps in the little town of Telfs. After breakfast we went downstairs to our car to find this little thing in the garage…

Yes, even though it is not really much bigger than me, this appears to be a very real truck with a very real payload of stones. We then took a little walk around the town to see some of their architecture and unusual traditions. The little museum of Telfs had some information (that was in a funny language) on the place. They apparently have a festival where everyone dresses up in masks and extremely silly hats. The principal figure was a clown carrying a large spotted lantern. We’re still not sure why.

Telfs clown with lantern

After Telfs we got into the car for an amazing 3 hour drive through the Alps. Around every corner was another stunning view.

Austrian Alps

Not far into Italy, and just as the land turned flat we ran right into La Citadella (The Citadel), an amazing and HUGE medieval fortress surrounded by a 14 meter high brick wall and a moat. Inside is an entire city. We spent a couple of hours walking along the top of the parapet all the way around the wall. It was breathtaking.

Citadel wall from below

Along the parapet

Most of the buildings inside the walls of the Citadel were actually privately owned houses or apartment buildings.

Citadel City

This dilapidated little theater was for sale. I wonder if Aeverling should buy it and start giving monthly outdoor concerts in the Citadel? Hmmm.

Aeverling Theater for Sale

From the Citadel we drove to Venice to have a delicious seafood dinner on a patio overlooking one of the main canals. After dinner we had to walk off the small bottle of wine we were each served with dinner (not a glass, a bottle!) So we walked for several miles throughout this ancient and unique city.

Lorinda at dinner in Venice

More adventures tomorrow!

We arrived in Munich at about 9:30 am on Monday, April 14 after an extremely uncomfortable night on the plane. I think maybe I got a little more sleep than Gary, but that means that I might have gotten 3 hours, and he probably got 2! We headed south towards Neuschwanstein Castle. King Ludwig was apparently a very gay man, and he died under “mysterious circumstances” before his dream home could be finished. Still, it was a pretty extravagant home!

Right before taking the tour of Neuschwanstein

Here’s our teeny, tiny little rental car. I took a picture of the license plate with my phone so we don’t try to steal someone else’s teeny tiny little car.

Believe it or not, they make smaller cars!

Everyone around here carries “selfie sticks” to take their selfies. We did this one the old-fashioned way. It’s a little scary.

Scary Selfie

We ended the day in the little Austrian town of Telfs. The view to the left is snow-capped mountains. The view to the right is snow-capped mountains. We think this is a little ski-resort town. Most hotels are still closed for the season, but we found a nice little hotel room near a few restaurants and across from a little museum. We had dinner in a Pizzeria and had some delicious seafood, and then participated in an apparent local tradition by sharing an after-dinner shot of schnapps with the restaurant owner. Then we had to consult with the nice ladies at the table next to us to help us understand the bill and the tipping process. So far almost everyone has enough English, and I have just enough German to get by.