Day 6 - Lazy Day in Monterosso

Ciao! Jason is running back to our room for an umbrella and has left me in the lobby of our hotel to post our daily account. Another rainy day here, so we are happy we chose to hike yesterday...can't wait to post our pictures!

We slept in late this morning and enjoyed a nice breakfast out on the terrace overlooking the bright blue Ligurian Sea (it wasn't raining and was actually reasonably sunny at 9:30 a.m.). Then we decided we'd go ahead and do some laundry here (we're at the halfway point now!), so we took a couple of books and relaxed awhile. A couple hours later, we left with sweet-smelling clothes - ready for another week of use!

We enjoyed a nice lunch at Ristorante Miky with some very tasty pasta dishes. Jason actually ate something with FISH (a sea bass ravioli with a tomato cream sauce) - and he LIKED it! I had spaghetti alle vongole (spaghetti with clams). The olive oil was also quite good.

We had intended to take a ferry ride to a neighboring village this afternoon, but the rides were canceled this morning (likely due to the impending weather). So we strolled around town window shopping and enjoying the atmosphere.

It's raining fairly steadily now, but we will head out for dinner soon and try to take in as much of this beautiful coastal scenery as we can. (I know I am going to miss the waves...) The area is so colorful and unique. I keep commenting on the houses, the little alleys, the stone arches...there's just so much character in everything. We hope our pictures will help convey this better than our words can.

Tomorrow, we're off to Florence, and with luck, we will be able to supply pictures for the past few days. With only a couple of days to spend there, we will likely be on our feet a lot - so it's nice that today has been a take-it-easy kind of day. Buona sera!

Day 5 - Hiking the 5Terre

Just an update - the internet situation here in the Cinque Terre is unfortunately fairly dim. Rome spoiled us a bit - we had wireless internet right in our room. Florence may be similar, and I believe we'll have wi-fi again in Venice. The Cinque Terre is stuck somewhere around 1982 - when it comes to the lifestyle and atmosphere of the five towns, it's great. When it comes to the technology, not so much. I can actually dial into an internet connection using my laptop, but the hotel charges us as if it were a pay call, so I'm on dial-up and being charged by the minute. Not a great situation. If you're reading this before we've made it to Florence, then we figured out a way to post. Otherwise, sorry for the lack of posts. Just think - ten years ago this would have been nearly impossible.

So today was our first full day in the Cinque Terre, and what a day it was. We got up this morning still in Vernazza, staying at La Mala. We had the window cracked all night long, the sea air and sound of crashing waves lulling us comfortably to sleep. Jill called it the best night of sleep she's had in weeks. I didn't want to get out of bed, even at 9am. We had to get breakfast and get checked out and over to Monterosso, though, because today was our first full day of hiking the Cinque Terre trails. There's a whole network of trails here, running between the five villages, and several others heading up into the hills to many smaller other towns and villages that aren't part of the "Cinque Terre", at least not officially. Our goal today was the main coastal trail - trail #2, starting from Monterosso and passing through Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.

I mentioned yesterday that the villages are basically carved out of the sides of mountains, and the trails are too. The trail leading from Monterosso to Vernazza is definitely the toughest, so it was serendipitous that we started with it. Heading out of Monterosso we climbed through lemon groves and grape vineyards, walking on stone trails that had been laid into the sides of the hills. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but the trails were typically in good shape and we had no real trouble. The only hard part was that the trails, at least at first, are just that - HARD. Huge climbs up one or two hundred steps, followed by steep descents, followed by a couple hundred more steps up, then the same back down. The trek from Vernazza to Corniglia was easier than the first hike from Monterosso, and Jill still counted 738 steps that we climbed up (that doesn't include any of the steps down - there were probably 738 of those too.)

The good part was that the views were simply breathtaking - high up on the hills, you can see out over the water for miles. We're lucking into some great weather too - yesterday (a travel day) it was overcast and rainy, but today the skies were clear and a brilliant blue, and there were just enough cool breezes to keep it from being too uncomfortable. The hike to Vernazza took just over 90 minutes, and when we got there in mid-afternoon it was a great time to stop and have some yummy pesto pizza and a couple cans of cold Coke. We've mainly had water to drink since we got here, so the Cokes were a nice treat. After lunch we hit the trail again, heading down to Corniglia. The trails got progressively easier, to the point that the last trail between Manarola and Riomaggiore was only about 20 minutes long, and flat the whole way. After reaching Corniglia we had to stop and get our daily gelato fix. Jill had a cone with part chocolate mint and part vanilla, and I tried a cup with part frutti di bosco (mixed berry) and part honey. One of the local products is miele (honey), so the gelato was not only handmade, but with local honey. Quite tasty.

After the gelato we did the last two legs, then hopped on the train back to Monterosso. Final tally was 7 miles in about 6 hours, with stops for pictures, lunch, gelato, and shopping.
We finally made it to dinner at about 9pm. We ate at Ristorante Via Venti which, according to Rick Steves' Italy, was supposed to have a strawberry risotto that Jill wanted to try. They didn't unfortunately, but we did have a pasta with pear and cheese sauce that was just spectacular - imagine little bags of pasta with a sweet, almost cake-like pear filling, covered with a silky,creamy cheese sauce. In Jill's words, it was "just divine". Dinner was followed by dessert, where Jill got the closest thing to a brownie yet that she's found in Italy - a chocolate souffle. It was just as scrumptious as dinner, and possibly her favorite dessert so far - the fresh strawberries our last night in Rome were right up there too. (Note: Jill cannot bring home a chocolate souffle, either. Sorry.)

So now we're back in our room, hopefully able to post this in a bit. We'll have pictures again when we get to a place where we have high-speed access (Hopefully by Friday). From today, it's mostly just pictures of trees, water, and mountains, so nothing really fancy.
Hope everyone is doing well there - we know the boys are in good hands and are keeping busy. More to come...ciao!

Day 4, Heading North - Seaside in Cinque Terre

It was a rainy morning in Rome. Too rainy. Our minds have had a little history and art overload, so it was with pleasure that we left Rome for an entirely different slice of Italy - into the north, past Tuscany and into Liguria. Our first destination was La Spezia, the entry point into the Cinque Terre, or "five lands". In La Spezia we basically never left the train station - we bought tickets to Vernazza, the Cinque Terre card we need to hike the trails, and had lunch at McDonald's. Not our first (or second, third, etc..) choice but it's all there was. We had a couple of Italian sandwiches that actually weren't too bad. AFter 45 minutes or so we jumped on the train to Cinque Terre.

Train travel here is surprisingly simple, once you figure out how the routes work and how to get tickets. We'd read that there's no real need to reserve tickets in advance, as trains rarely sell out and even if one does there's likely another coming along in another hour or two. We bought tickets in Rome, on an automatic ticket machine - very simple, and even in English. Riding the train, although not exactly posh comfort, was actually pretty nice. It's one of the more enjoyable and relaxing four-hour trips I've had, but it might just have been the relief of not walking constantly after 2 1/2 days of sightseeing in Rome.

Once in Vernazza, we found or hotel (La Mala) and called to get someone to meet us and let us in. So far we've only stayed in B&B-type accommodations. They give us the key and we come and go as we please. It turned out that our reservation for La Mala didn't actually exist, at least not for the day we'd requested (even though we were able to produce an email saying "Your booking is conferm Room 26 for 29 May"). Luckily, the room was still unreserved so we got it anyway. It's a nice little house, converted into four guest rooms. Hardwood floors, solid white decor, a nice marble shower - it's all crisp and clean and feels like a spa - particularly with the ocean nearby.

Vernazza (and all the five towns of the Cinque Terre) are perched basically on the side of a mountain range, right at the edge of the sea. It's not obvious why anyone would want to settle a town here, other than the fantastic scenery. Getting anywhere usually requires either a steep climb or a steep descent - the countryside is covered with sharply terraced olive and lemon groves. Just getting up to our hotel took a pretty strenuous ascent up several flights of stairs.

After getting settled in, we relaxed on the balcony behind our room for a bit - it overlooks the Ligurian Sea and rocks below. Our room has several windows that we can open to let in the sound of crashing and booming from the surf below. It's quite relaxing. We finally headed out to check out Vernazza. There's not a lot to it - the entire main street is about 200 yards long. There are a few touristy souvenir shops, and a lot of restaurants. We made the climb up to Ristorante Castello, situated near the Vernazza Castello, a lookout tower from the days when pirates were an issue. The restaurant is high on the cliffs overlooking Vernazza, and has a magnificent view of the harbor and breakwaters coming in from the sea. Dinner was relaxing and rather drawn out. We had wine, some great pasta, and a couple of almost too-sweet pieces of cake for dessert. After dinner we strolled downtown for a bit, then returned to our room to write this post. And that's where we are now - just finishing up a relaxing, fairly carefree day. Tomorrow we head up into the hills to explore the hiking trails in and around the five villages. Hopefully we'll have a chance to see all five over the next two days before heading to Florence on Friday.

Day 3 - I Went to See the Pope and All I Got Was This Lousy Blog Post

Wrapping up our last day in Rome, and it's been another whirlwind day. Today we slept in until about 8am, then we slept in some more until about 9am. We were still groggy at 9, but figured we'd better get up if we wanted to see Vatican City.

So, we hit the Metro over to the west side of town to see Popetown. There were two big things we wanted to see - St. Peters Basilica, and the Vatican Museum. The Vatican makes it extremely hard to get any sort of reservation at the Museum (even though it's technically available), so instead of waiting we joined an English tour group led by a local American studying in Rome (I'm not sure what she studies - probably history or archaeology). It turned out to be totally worth it as she provided a lot of information and the Vatican Museum is huge on content and very minimal on explanatory info. It's almost like they grudgingly allow people to view their collection.

The Vatican Museum has an enormous collection of treasures -

all for the Pope's enjoyment

Once inside the Vatican Museum, our tour group went from room to room and we got various descriptions of the artifacts and statues. Most of it was very informative, our tour guide was very good. The museum was very crowded, moreso than anything else we've visited so far. It's rather remarkable that the collection was never intended to be a museum per se - it was solely for the appreciation and enjoyment of the Pope and clergy at Vatican City.

Some of the rooms had a theme - tapestries, busts, Egyptian artifacts, animals - the picture below is of the hall of Maps - a room over 125 meters long and the longest room in the Vatican (probably longest in Europe).

The Map Room - really, really long

The highlight of the Museum was, of course, the Sistine Chapel. We got an exhaustive overview of the paintings inside, the process by which Michelangelo painted the chapel (standing, not lying down as is commonly thought). Inside the Chapel there is no photography allowed - they don't even want people to talk. Naturally, lots of people took photos and talked, but we didn't want to be one of those people. Suffice to say that it's a pretty amazing room - nearly every surface is covered in a painting by some of the greatest Renaissance masters, and it's astonishing to see everything together and think about how long it took. The ceiling alone took Michelangelo 4 years to complete.

After the Chapel we left the Museum and went to St. Peter's Basilica next door. We ventured down into the Papal Tombs, where all of the more recent Popes are buried, including John Paul II. It also includes the Mausoleum of St. Peter. After the tomb, we went inside the church proper.

The exterior of St. Peter's Basilica, which is impressive...

...but the interior is even moreso.

St. Peter's Basilica is simply the largest, fanciest, most awe-inspiring church on the planet. Nothing else really even comes close. The interior space covers 6 acres, and is large enough for 95,000 worshippers to be inside at once. That's ginormous. The inside is covered in marble, and statues and paintings are everywhere, including Michelangelo's Pieta sculpture, which sits behind bulletproof glass. He completed this when he was only 24.

Michelangelo's Pieta

Also within the church is the spot where Charlemagne was coronated in 800AD, the spot where St. Peter was crucified (upside down) and a mosaic replica of Raphael's Transfiguration. Once again, words and pictures simply aren't adequate. It's dumbfounding to behold.

After leaving the Church we had a light pizza snack nearby and did a little souvenir shopping. We headed back to our room for a little rest, then had dinner at "Al Varesino", a local restaurant recommended by our hostess. The food was quite good, even though Jill thought she ordered scallops and instead got veal. The fresh strawberries and ice cream made up for the mistake.

So now we're headed to Cinque Terre tomorrow, assuming we can figure out the trains. We're not sure about the internet access while we're there, so the blog may go on hiatus for a day or two. We'll keep in touch by phone if we can.

Day 2 - A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum..

..probably. But not to us.

So it's day 2, still in Rome, and today was jam-packed full of sightseeing. Honestly, it feels like the day was about 35 hours long. Of course, we were up before 7am and it's now after 1am, so it has been pretty long.

We started with a visit to the Borghese Gallery, which contains a lot of art. It's one of the finest collections of sculpture and paintings anywhere in Italy, probably rivaled only by the National Museum. Wish we could show pictures, but cameras were vietato. Suffice to say that it's incredible what some of the sculptors could do with a block of marble. Our favorites were Gian Lorenzo Bernini's David and Apollo and Daphne. Look 'em up.

After the Borghese we had lunch at Gran Caffe Roma, then headed back to our B&B for a little R&R. Once a quick nap was out of the way we took the Metro down to the Colosseum for a guided tour. Once you get inside and think about what the Colosseum must have looked like back in the day, it's a pretty impressive sight. The monument has been almost completely stripped of its original marble facade, and most of the seating in the arena has been removed, so it's hard to get a visualization of exactly how everything worked. Apparently, the system of levels and stairways was such that all 70,000 spectators in attendance could exit the arena in 5 minutes. Modern stadiums are still using the Colosseum as inspiration.

After the Colosseum, we headed up Via Sacra, beneath the Arch of Titus and into the ruins of the Roman Forum. The forum area contains a lot of stuff, and it's really far too much to describe in a single blog post. Particularly at 1 in the morning. Take a look online at some of the descriptions, it's really fascinating. We walked the basalt paths that Caesar Augustus once strolled along, over 2,000 years ago. We climbed to the top of the Palatine Hill, where Rome's emperors lived in splendor. There are remnants of the temples of Castor and Pollux, the Basilica Constantine, the Temple of Vesta, Rome's most sacred spot, and the House of the Vestal Virgins, who tended the eternal flame within. Nearby we managed to squeak into the Mamertine Prison, where St. Peter was chained to a column in the basement dungeon (remember the Church of St. Peter in Chains from yesterday? Same guy.). The original cell and column are still there, and it's not a pleasant place.

After the Forum we headed to the Campo di Fiore, a popular square in the heart of Rome. We had a great dinner at Ristorante Bacchanus, then took a walk up through the city to the Spanish Steps. Along the way we hit the Piazza Navona where Jill sampled the tartufo or "death by chocolate", a chocolate truffle gelato, at Tre Scalini. I had the tiramisu gelato which was pretty good too. After that we stopped by the Pantheon, which is really impressive at night. Imagine a gigantic Greek temple dropped right in the middle of a modern city, and you've got the idea. We also made it to the Trevi fountain, which Jill has been wanting to see at night, and she tossed in a couple of coins to ensure a return trip to Rome someday.

After that we were tired and came home. The end.

We took approximately 125 photos today. Here are a few to give you a taste of our day:

Statues at the Borghese Gallery

Jason climbing the stairs to the Palatine Hill...

in the steps of Caesar, Augustus, and Caligula.

Ruins of the Temple of Castor and Pollux (left) and the Temple of Vesta (right)

Dinner at the Campo di Fiore

The Pantheon, in the heart of Rome. Once again a photo does not do this justice - it dominates the piazza I took this picture from.

The Trevi Fountain, lit up at night

The Parents of Cobapple in Italy - Day 1, Rome

So, we're hijacking the adventures of two small boys to bring you the adventures of their suddenly-not-so-boring parents. We're in Rome at the moment, at the start of a 12-day, ten-year anniversary vacation in Italy. So far so good, we made it to Rome mostly on time after some rather trying airport escapades.

Our flights were from Kansas City to Dallas, Dallas to New York, NY to Rome, with some cushy layover time. Should have been easy. What happened instead is that American Airlines decided we really didn't need any free time outside of their airplanes. We sat in the plane at KCI, then got off the plane and onto a different one. By the time we made it to Dallas, we had just enough time to walk to our next gate and get on THAT plane. Then we sat around for about an hour and a half, finally took off, and arrived at JFK ten minutes before our Rome flight was supposed to depart. We (quite literally) ran from one gate to another, got on the Rome flight, and then sat on THAT plane for 2 hours before they finally took off. All told, I believe we spent 16 1/2 hours sitting on our butts in planes yesterday. I'm actually looking forward to the 10-hour flight back, because it'll technically be shorter.

Anyway, made it to Rome, figured out the train, got to our B&B and got settled in...wow, sometime earlier today. Feels like more time than that. Our hostess here is quite friendly, speaks great English, and had lots of good suggestions around town. We managed to get out and have a pizza lunch, see the Church of St. Peter in Chains and Michelangelo's Moses scultpure, then take a stroll down to the Roman ruins for a view of the Colosseum (after some delectable chocolate profiteroles. We should have taken a picture, but nothing chocolate lasts very long around Jill). We braved the Metro to head north to the Spanish Steps, then strolled up to the Piazza del Popolo to see the obelisk that Augustus brought back from Rome after conquering Egypt in 30BC. After that we walked down the Via Del Corso, one of the swanky shopping avenues in Rome. We stopped in to take a peek at a mass in the Cathedral Santi Ambrosio (the Romans freaking KNOW how to do churches, let me tell you) then went behind it for a look at the Mausoleum of Augustus (Augustus was previously known as Octavian, was the first emperor of Rome and was grand-nephew of Julius Caesar).

Finally, we found the Trevi Fountain, had some gelato and called it a night. It was a long walk back to the B&B, but overall a very good day and good first start to the trip (the plane stuff doesn't count).

Enjoy a few pictures:

The interior of the Church of St. Peter in Chains

Michelangelo's Moses sculpture - front and center

Jill and a view down the Spanish Steps

The obelisk Augustus returned from Egypt in 30BC (it's old)

The sour face is from crema di limone - lemon gelato

I'm Not Bad - I'm Responsible

Logan had another classic quote for the memory books this weekend. On the way back from the zoo, he got into a long conversation with Matt about Star Wars and his video games (a conversation that ended up being one-sided when Matt fell asleep - hehe). At one point, we overheard this exchange which cracked everyone up:

Logan: "So Darth Maul fought Qui-Gonn and beat him, didn't he?"

Matt: "Yes, that's right."

Logan: "He beat him and he killed him, right?"

Matt: "Yes, he did. That wasn't a very nice thing for him to do."

Logan: "But he's a BAD GUY, he's supposed to do that. It's his RESPONSIBILITY."

Touche'.

Love, Exciting and New...Come Aboard, We're Expecting You...

Unfortunately nobody wins the prize. Grandma Sue was probably closest with the guess that there was a Star Wars guy in there somewhere. There isn't, but that's close to the mark.

Logan's picture below is a "love alien spaceship". At first apparently he wanted to draw his grandmas just a plain alien spaceship, but Jill explained that for Mother's Day you typically want to do something that expresses the love you feel for your Mom or Grandma, so he modified it slightly and went with the love alien spaceship. I think he did a pretty good job.

I should note that he picked up this lesson right quick. When he illustrated the card we got for Jill for Mother's Day, he went straightaway to drawing a "love shark", not just a regular shark.

Happy Mother's Day

Logan sends a special Mother's Day greeting out to his grandmas:

Fun side activity: 10 points to anyone who can tell me what this is actually a picture of.

On the Road to Chefitude

For dinner last night we really didn't have any ideas, and when that happens I often turn to the old staple of homemade pizza. Logan and Liam both really like it, Jill likes it, I like it, what's not to like? The boys wanted to help with the pizza last night, in Logan's words, "to make it go faster." Ah, irony. Anyway, Liam had a pretty good time helping roll out the dough, even if he really only rolled a 2-inch wide strip of the dough, and then tried to poke holes in it. I think he probably would have enjoyed playing with it more than actually eating it. He certainly seems to be having fun. Thankfully I didn't show them how to stretch the dough by tossing it in the air. That would have been...interesting.

Nope. Mm-mm.

That's how Liam tends to say no these days. It's not just "no", it's "no, mm-mm." Just to be very clear on the matter, I guess. Liam's also started telling knock-knock jokes. We're sure it's just to emulate Logan, but whereas Logan knows maybe one actual knock-knock joke and then just makes up nonsense for the rest, Liam's knock-knock jokes all follow a sort of theme. For example:

"Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Dinosaur - in the SPRINKLES! Ah hahahahahaa!"

or another favorite:

"Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Giraffe - in the SPRINKLES! Ah hahahahahaa!"

or the perennial:

"Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Alli-GAY-tor - in the SPRINKLES! Ah hahahahahaa!"

Yeah, we have no idea either.

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Logan was looking at some of his kindergarten question and answer cards this morning, and he was trying to figure out in which order you eat the soup, then the dinner, then the dessert. He guessed dinner, soup, dessert, but they wanted the soup first. He said "oh, man, I shoulda thinked harder in my mind about that."

Another one asked him to tell the time, looking at a regular analog clock. He thought about it for a minute, then told me it said it was five o'clock. "See, cause Mommy told me that if the big hand is on the twelve, and the little hand is on a number, that's how much clock you have. It's on the five, so you have five o'clock." He was right.