In the Alps

Monday night - We are in Castelrotto, near the Austrian border, and we are hearing much more German spoken than Italian. We were starting to understand a little Italian, but the German is hopeless. We just say "danke schoen" a lot. All of the signs are in both languages, and sometimes we can recognize an Italian word, and a German word from a different part of the sign, and put them together to figure out what it says.

After a long driving day Friday, from Bomerano (above Amalfi Coast, near Naples) to Verona, we spent Saturday in Venice. For part of the day, we were in Murano, looking at amazing glass decorative art pieces and going to "Glasstress 2011," a modern art exhibition of incredible glasswork. Back in Venice, the walks and waterways were very crowded and very fun.

Sunday was an easy day, walking around Verona in the morning and making the short drive up here in the afternoon. We stopped in Bolzano and went to a museum featuring Otzi, the ice man from about 3200 BC found near here. They're celebrating the 20th anniversary of his discovery, and while the exhibition was a little corny (video of someone saying "right here, in this kitchen, is where I thought up the name 'Otzi' to call him"), overall it was pretty cool.

Today was a long hike past cows and up a mountain, finding more cows at the top and wondering how they got there. It was Claire's first experience with cows around (and in) the trail. The hike started and ended the proper Alpine way, with a chairlift, and we had an apple struedel at one of the huts partway along the trail. We had to race back to get to the chairlift before it stopped running, to avoid an additional mile-plus of downhill hiking beyond what we wanted to do, but we made it.

Tomorrow, more Alpine experiences, but maybe an easier hike.

P.S. This is Claire--a highlight of our time in Verona was seeing the (fake) balcony supposedly belonging to Juliet. The small courtyard was crowded full of tourists like us and the walls were absolutely covered in graffiti, most of which involved two names and a heart. When we got to Venice and Murano, I was very disappointed that there was no actual glassblowing going on, but some of the glass pieces we saw in the stores were gorgeous. The little town where we are staying now feels very Alpine. Yes, there were cows wandering across the trail in front of us, and tonight there was a Knodelfest (dumpling party) in the town square. I have had songs from The Sound of Music stuck in my head all day, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Two days above the Amalfi Coast

Quick update - we had a fantastic hike yesterday above, and down to, the Amalfi Coast. Starting with steep terraced farmland and open rocky terrain, we ended going through forests, into towns built into cliffs, and down 1,221 steps to Positano and the beach. Luckily, the return was by boat and bus, not a hike back up.










Today (Thursday) was Vesuvius destruction day - walks through Pompeii and Herculaneum, a smaller site with remains of a town destroyed by mud and lava, rather than the ash that buried Pompeii.







Tomorrow we might drive and hike up to the crater of Vesuvius, then a long drive north to Verona.

Hi again,

We arrived last night on the Amalfi coast, in a small town high above the Golfo di Salerno. A short walk from our hotel last night brought us to a spectacular view of the coastline down to the island of Capri, and our hike today will be through the hills and eventually down hundreds of steps to the water. Photos to come.

We were in Rome until mid-day yesterday, spending one day underground and one above ground. The underground day (Sunday) was a visit to two cool sights. One was a church near the Colosseum, built on the foundations of a church from the 300's, which itself was built on buildings from the 100's. So you go one level down to see the original church , and another level down to walk through the original buildings at the original street level, maybe 30 feet below today's ground level. Later that day, we took a bus down the original Via Appia to catacombes, ancient burial sites from before the 300's when Christianity was made legal. The coolness of both places was nice although the weather has not been as hot as usual, so we were not in desperate need of relief. But we could see how they would be popular mid-day diversions on especially hot days.

Monday was our day in Vatican City (new country for us, but no passports required) and St. Peter's. We visited the Vatican Museum and walked some of the 5 miles of exhibit space, ending up in the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo and Raphael everywhere. St. Peter's itself was almost incomprehensibly large, and we were amazed at the thought of its actual construction. But even the Colosseum and some of the other buildings from the first few centuries A.D. were astoundingly large.

Otherwise, we wandered the streets, alleys, and piazzas; looked at buildings everywhere that were older than anything at home but just part of the landscape in Rome; and limited ourselves to one gelato per day. Dinners were late, as were bedtimes. One of our restaurants didn't open until 8:30 (we were in the first seating).

So we're now on our short jaunt south of Rome, for hiking today and Pompeii tomorrow, then we head to the north part of Italy for the next week. Hope to write more soon.

P.S. This is Claire: Rome is full of fountains--famous ones like the Trevi fountain, but also little fountains of drinking water on street corners. Potable water continually flows from a pipe into a drain underneath. You can fill up a water bottle there, and if you use your hand to block the end of the pipe, the water shoots out of a smaller hole on top and you can drink as though from a normal water fountain. The picture included is of me discovering exactly how to do that, and getting very wet in the process.

When in Rome... :)

Hi everyone! This is Claire.
It's been thirty-six hours since we landed in Rome, and we've already seen and done an incredible amount. When we arrived yesterday, we crashed for most of the afternoon, but took a great walk after dinner, which took us from the Pantheon (an incredibly well-preserved Roman temple-turned-church) to Piazza Navona (a square with an abundance of artists and street performers) to Gelateria della Palma (an unbelievable gelato shop with one hundred flavors!). This morning it was raining--yes, raining, in Rome, in July--but luckily we were taking a car tour of the city, stopping at the Spanish steps and throwing two coins into the Trevi Fountain. One unexpected highlight was a not particularly famous Jesuit church (St. Ignatius) that we stopped at. The ceiling was vaulted, but a masterful painter had painted an optical-illusion fresco that gave the appearance of a much taller ceiling with columns going straight up. In the afternoon, we went on a tour of the Roman forum and the Colosseum. When you picture how these ruins must have looked two thousand years ago, covered in marble that has since been lost, it almost makes you wish you had been born in Roman times.

But enough about what we've seen! Now the important part: what we've eaten.
The most difficult thing about this trip so far has been choosing what flavor of gelato to try. We've been to two different gelaterias so far. One was the aforementioned Gelateria della Palma, with one hundred flavors. We pointed to a few random flavors and ended up with some gelato and quite a bit of mousse. We also found a delicious gelato place right near where we're staying.

We've been to two restaurants for dinner, and we have discovered that in Italy, it is very hard to request tap water. When you ask for water, the waiter brings out a glass bottle and graciously opens it for you. Both of our dinners have been very good. For lunch today, we got some bread, cheese and meat from various small shops, and ate on our own private rooftop terrace, which you can access from our apartment via a very, very steep staircase. Not for those afraid of heights.

Our apartment doesn't have wi-fi, so we'll post again when we find another connected cafe.

Heathrow Airport, London, Wednesday night

But wait, you say, you’re supposed to be home Wednesday night. True, but we’re in the Premier Inn, Heathrow, instead, which must mean – we were bumped! It isn’t the Four Seasons but it’s just fine. We’re eating a surprisingly good buffet (Indian food), and extending our stay overseas until Thursday. The latest plan is to fly to Toronto tomorrow morning and back to National tomorrow afternoon.

(To Audrey and Barbara, Erica’s companions-in-bumping from years ago … this proves she hasn’t lost her touch. And as upset (!) as Jim is about missing an extra day of work, the thought of a future journey, courtesy of Air Canada, makes it worth it.)

We thought the previous post would be the last from the trip. Maybe this one will be.

If it's Tuesday...

...it must be London. We have been in the London area since Saturday night, based in a beautiful cottage in a tiny town in West Sussex. The view from the back of the cottage - as Claire would say, OMG! Fields and ponds and rolling countryside going on forever

Sunday was our medieval/Roman day. We started by driving to Fishbourne Roman Palace, a site discovered in 1960 when workers digging for a water pipe began turning up mosaic tiles and other artifacts. After years of work, they recovered some mosaic floors almost intact, and they've dated parts of the palace to the first and second centuries (they've identified several phases of the building). The exhibit displays some of the walls and mosaics exactly in situ and then outlines some of what they have learned about the rest of the palace - about half the site was already built on with modern houses when it was discovered. A must-see for archaeology enthusiasts.

We next drove up to Salisbury to see the cathedral and one of three legible contemporary copies of the Magna Carta (and the old section of town, which is very pretty), then to Stonehenge and Avebury. Avebury is a stone circle site not too far from Stonehenge, with smaller rocks but circling a much larger area (and you can walk up to and among the stones).

Yesterday, we came in to London and spent the afternoon being tourists (with more tourist-being on the schedule for today). The highlight was seeing Henry VIII performed at the Shakespeare Globe Theater last night. We also enjoyed a river cruise on the Thames and a trip up the London Eye. Today, maybe the Crown Jewels and the British Museum before heading back to West Sussex. And tomorrow, we fly home.

Nessie

[This post was written by Claire]

Hello there, everyone! Here I am in bonnie Scotland! Yesterday, our bus tour took us right up to Loch Ness. So now, along with the gargoyles, I have become close friends with Nessie the Loch Ness monster. She is really delightful and sweet, and not at all vicious. Actually, she kind of looks like a gargoyle--except her scales are plaid patterned.

In other news, I continue to be amazed at the sheer audacity of those fluffy white creatures I mentioned before, sheep. In Skye, there are several VERY narrow one-lane roads, and navigating them in a big blue bus would be difficult enough even without the sheep that randomly cross the road right in front of you. They're not scared at all, and they just plod right across barely a foot from the front of the bus, causing the driver to slam on the brakes and honk. I don't really see why they enjoy doing this so much. They simply chew their grass on one side of the road, then solemnly cross to the other side, ignoring the honking, lower their heads and continue chewing grass. Frankly, it baffles me.

Well, that's all for now! Farewell! And Nessie sends her regards! By the way, she apologizes that she could not be in the photo above, but the flash of the camera bothers her eyes, which are sensitive after centuries spent in the murky loch.