The Vatican

March 23, 2012

Our second day in Rome stareted with a nice breakfast in our room of bacon and eggs with toast, cereal, yogurt, peaches, hot chocolate, orange juice, cereal, milk, prosciutto and cheese! We tried to eat as much as possible so that we wouldn't be hungry so quickly. It worked since we didn't have anything else to eat until our delicious gelato at the famouse Old Bridge gelateria right outside the Vatican! That his been our favorite so far and we ate two huge scoops around noon. We walked over to the Vatican by way of campo di fiori, the way of flowers, where there is a huge market every day. Booths of food, flowers, weird shaped pastas, trinckets, dishes, clothes, etc... It's pretty fun to walk through and see what people are selling. We crossed over the Tiber river and veered to the left where the street takes you right up to St. Peter's Square. It's really huge and bed amazing. We didn't go in right away because we wanted to make sure we had a enough time to do the stairs up to the Cupala and we had a reservation for the museum at 1. It was just after twelve and we had to walk around the vatican walls to get to the museum entrance. That's where we found the yummy leeks to place. Else actually told me about it and then they talk about it in one of the books I brought as well. It was only €2 for two huge scoops! Much better then the gelato we got outside of e coliseum that was €4 for one really small scoop from some Italian roach coach! Of course around h coliseum, there are not man shops since its mostly archeological stuff. Oh well, we live and learn.

We had to go through security to get into the museums itself, not a big deal. We also bought our tickets online because we heard the ticke lines could be very long....nope, we walked right up. There are tons of rooms in the museum with all different kinds of things. The first one we went into was the Pinoceca where they have lots of art. We saw some of Raffael's work, as well as some leaonardo da Vinci, lots of paintings of saints and Christ and the Madonna. A couple of the crucifixion of st. Peter. It's interesting how they seem to revere their saints more then the savior. The art was beautiful.. We then followed the signs to the Sistine chapel, of course where the masses are going. Even heading in there, there are hallways filled with painted maps, the ceilings are painted and we got a neckache from looking up so much! The Sistine chapel was very beautiful, filled wit noisy people and guards going around telling people not to take pictures and to be quiet since it is still a chapel. I still can't believe how much work went into this place.

After leaving the chapel, we wandered down through more hallways of stuff, oil lamps, brass pitchers and other antiquities like that. We had also passed through rooms of sculptures as well. We grabbed a piece of pizza from the pizzeria on sight and the headed to St. Peters Crichton after that. The security line was soooo long, but it moved really fast. I think it only took about ten minutes to get through. We went straight for the cupola where we had to pay five euros each to climb the 515 steps to the top! It took us about ten minutes and we were tring too go fast, but with lots of people also climbing and narrow steps, we had to go slower. The view was amazing! 360 degree view of the whole city and it overlooked the gardens of the Vatican. The weather has been in the seventies here and up on top there was a nice breeze. I think had it been a bit clearer, we could have seen the ocean.

We descended the stairs and Jeremy had his second wind and momentum and sizzled right down. We were going around and around these big spirals and a couldn't see him any more. I said where are you as we are both running down and all I hear is this cackle of laughter! When I get down, he's waiting by the door like he's been there forever! The stairs took us right into the church. W ease michelangelos La Pieta which is a sculpture of Mary holding the dead christ across her lap. Its behind glass which is still at least ten feet away from it. The church has several smaller chapels off the sides, then a huge bronze arch in the middle that marks st. Peter's tomb. I guess the pope gives his addresses from there as well. It was all very ornate, very big and lots of sculptures and things going on. It's inscribe how much talent and money was used for this! It did leave me feeling a little empty. It's all very interesting.

We say outside to rest our feet for awhile and eat an apple and then started back for our bed and breakfast. We rested a bit and then got ready to go out again for dinner at 8:30. We walked into Trastevere for dinner at a place where Francesco recommended. He is the owner of the bed and breakfast we are staying in. The restarant was a nice warm, atmosphere. We sat out on wha looked like a patio where the had an old brick oven used as a fake fire place. Warm table line and a nice Italian lady welcomed us in. We had roman st,e artichokes which were probably steamed, then put in a bath of olive oil and parsley. The cut off the outer rough leaves and everything they served, you could eat. It was soooo yummy! We dipped our bread in the remains of the oil. Jeremy got some grilled lamb chops and I ordered a pasta called butini that was a bigger spaghetti like pasta, but a tube instead. Funny how I ended up getting a spaghetti type dish tip nights in a row. It was very yummy along with Jeremy's Caesar salad.

By the time we were through it was about ten o'clock. I know what you are thinking! Dinner over by ten and then we had to walk back a mile? Yep! And it's totally normal! People are everywhere! The places we were walking, we felt very safe. We made our nightly walk over to the Trevi fountain which was very crowded! Of course we had to get some gelato again on the way. :). By this time, we had walked over seven miles! We got back and crashed! Thankfully our bed at this place is memory foam, so it is very comfy to sleep on.

Today, Saturday, we are hoping to find some rental bikes and go up to villa borgehese which has a beautiful garden and nice museum with lots of renaissance art in it. Our last day!. We start out bright and early tomorrow around six and will be heading home!

Roma!

March 22, 2012

We left Introdacqua today with a little sadness because of how authentic and relaxing it was. Jeremy and I finished the Hunger Games, which was a lot of fun to read together, so on our way down to Rome, while I was driving, he quizzed me on muscles of the body. I have to say I did pretty well for jus learning some of them a few days ago. I drove most of the way not Rome, bu decided for Jeremy's sake, I better let him drive. I knew he would be more stressed out in the passenger seat. Not that I'm a bad driver, but he is better. Thankfully Rome was not nearly as bad as Naples, but we were relieved to get rid of the car since parking is a big pain. There are lots of parking areas, but they are all full!

After driving around the train station trying to find where to return the car, we took the metro over to circus massimo, where they used to have chariot races. Stacy Jensen, Kelly's sister was nice enough to put together an itinerar for us. It took is up some little hills overlooking Rome and the Tiber river. We could easily spot st. Peters at the Vatican. One spot even had us looking through the key hole of this gate and it had the dome of st. Peters perfectly framed, but it is a couple of miles away.

I think we walked about 5 miles toda, but my watch died around 3 miles. We even had a guy approach us, trying to give us some Girogio Arman things in exchange for a little gas money. Needless to say, had to remind Jeremy of the dangers of talking to strangers! We also saw this really hideous guy dressed as a woman and tonight on our nightly walk, we saw another one!

Our walk took us up to the colosseum which was so cool! We walked around on the different levels, trying to imagine what it used to look like when it was whole. Parts of it were taken down over the years and "recycled" for other buildings. Right next to it, they are whole bunch of ruins which include the Roman forum some temples and old streets. We walked all the a through and as we were walking, we think we heard guitar playing from the monastary that is in the mix.

Right next to palatine hill is capitoline hill where there are some really beautiful buildings. One of them is this huge, and we are talking huge monument celebrating Italy's independence. The just had their 150 ear celebration last year. Mussolini had the area around it changed up for him so he could have a straighter road in front of it! We picked our way down the street and found the Trevino fountain! It was super crowded, but everyone there is just as eager to see it. It was fun to get close and tr and get a picture of it and throw our coins in. We were supposed to put the coin in our right hand and throw it over our left shoulder. It means you will come back to Rome. Neither one of us did it right since we didn't know about that until later! Oh well. We then walked through the neighbor hood back toward our bed and breakfast, and yes, the do serve a full breakfast, until we fond the pantheon. It is about two blocks away and we didn't even realize we had actually passed it twice when we were trying to find a place to park this morning! It's so a amazing how some of these things are just tucked in between all these buildings!

So far we love it! W enjoyed face timing with Cristin and mom since we have wee-fee in our room! We also got to face time with jeremys folks as well. Dinner isn't usually served until bout 8, so we changed and got ready to go out again for dinner and our nightly walk. Dinner was sooooo good! I had bruschetta first, then spaghetti, which was a first! We also had some yummy roasted veggies and Jeremy's lasagna was so good,that he cleaned his whole plate! I probably would have drank the such if I could. It was so creamy and delicious!

We r pretty pooped and can't believe we are coming home soon! It's been very enjoyable having three very different experiences so far on this trip. We look forward to some more tomorrow. Bono Notte!

PS. Jeremy has out a few pictures up on Facebook.

Jeremy's edition

March 21st

Ditte is doing the dishes so I guess it's my turn to write. Last night as we were hanging out at the bar, which is a lot different than an american bar, and drinking our hot chocolate, an Italian man kept peeking in on us and finally came over and talked to us. In this small village no one speaks English except for maybe a few vocabulary words. So with the limited English he knew and the limited Italian we knew we were able to tell him we had 4 kids and was totally blown away and proceeded to tell the four or five guys in the bar how many kids we had. He was very animated and it was quite hilarious and came back and asked us a few times, "4 bambino's !?". We told him we were from California and his eyes lit up. He asked if it was hot or cold where we lived and we told him we were near the beach. He then asked, "Do you have TV in California?". We answered yes and he just cracked up and made us crack up. I cant help but think that might have been a phrase he learned in some English class he had at some point. It was quite the good time. This village is so small everybody knows each other so when someone new comes in, everybody is looking and staring, but they are all quite friendly and will give a friendly Ciao or buon giorno. We are going to go back up there tonight and see if hes there and get some hot chocolate. Plus as far as we can tell, it's the only place in town that has WiFi (wee fee in Italian).

Ditte made me go running again today. I can't keep up with her long distance speed, like I could at one point. I did beat her at our sprint at the end of our run, but now that I think about it, I wonder if she was just stroking my ego and let me win. Oh well, any which way it worked!. Now I'm really sore and we are going to do even more walking in Rome starting tomorrow and for the next few days. We are going to drop off the car because it would be a pain to have it where we are staying and all the sites are relatively close (a couple of miles:-)". Has Ditte mentioned that EVERYTHING costs here! You have to pay to use the toilette in public places, pay for parking, pay for autostratte (toll ways that connect everything) and everything is just more expensive here, including gas! I don't think we were anticipating everything being so much more money, just some advice for anyone thinking of coming to Europe anytime soon. I digress. . . . . .

We went into Sulmone today for the Wednesday market, which is in essence a kind of swap meet/flea market with clothing, produce, jewelry, etc. Everybody in town was there and it was hard to find a parking place, so we parked not quite a mile away right in front of a school. On our way back to the car, we found a nice looking restaurant and as soon as Ditte saw there were hamburgers on the menu, she instantly didn't trust there food would be good so we got up and left! To her defense thought, I'm not sure if she mentioned the burger I got in Sorrento, but we think the burger was boiled and it was pretty disgusting. I was just feeling like eating some comfort food and it didn't work out very well. There is no fast food here though. We have seen a McDonald's in the major train station in Napoli, but that was it.

So we won't for a drive through the country side to see lake sconno, which was quite small but very beautiful. Both of us we quite tired, so we went and found an empty parking lot, went pee behind the car, then repositioned the car in the warm sun and took a nap! It was quite nice. I love that my wife isn't afraid to take care of business when there aren't any bathrooms around, I'm quite proud of her! Luckily we learned early to always carry toilet paper because even the public toilets rarely have TP. On our way back, we stopped by this donkey farm which apparently has a breed dating back to Romeo and Juliet time frame (you're jealous you couldn't see the donkeys I know!) The donkey farm was closed (a collective ooohhhhhh from the audience) so we did the next best thing and took some pictures of my cute wife in from of the fence that held these ugly beasts that were heeing and hawing their little hearts out and we jumped in the car left!

I really feel comfortable driving over here now. Ditte had a revelation as to why NO ONE stops at stop signs. It's because they are all in English! The exact same stop signs that we have at home. A stop sign is a yield sign as far as they are concerned and unfortunately Im picking up some bad habits.

Off to the gelateria and bar (which has no gelato right now!) and hopefully get to see our friend that loves California!. Ciao!

The Adriatic sea

March 20, 2012

This morning we tried to wake up at a normal time so we can have some normalcy in our lives. We even had dinner last night around six instead of eight and went to bed by ten! After we had watched part two of Harry Potter and the deathly Hallows. We had some muesli for breakfast that was different from the stuff we are used to, but we ate it anyway. We were out of fruit too since we haven't found a little fruit mart in this place.

We decided to take a drive to the Adriatic sea today and check out some rock formations on the way. The hills all around us and going down to the coas are so pretty right now. Jeremy said it reminds him of the hills around ventura near the beach but with more variation of ups and downs. Everything is so green and the trees are blooming everywhere. Popcorn is defiantly popping here! We passed peach orchards and old and new olive orchards with white blossoms mixed in with the pink. As we were driving along the autostrade, which is a toll road, we came across little hamlets up in the hills, usually with some kind of medieval parapet crowning the hillside and the rest of the buildings below it.

We found the calanchi rock formations and thought we could hike down, but it ended up being this gravelly strep road, so we drove down part of the way until we realized we weren't actually going to be able to hike to it. So we turned around next to one of the olive orchards and as Jeremy said, rally car raced back up the hill. The gravel was pretty loose in some parts and steep and there were lots of turns, but it was pretty fun!

We could see the ocean from the hills and the high fog was kind of blowing in and out. W even brought our swimsuits this time, but it was to breezy and the water was very cold like the pacific right now! We of course stuck our feet in but only lasted a few minutes. The water had a few wind waves and is a beautiful turquoise color as well. All along the shore there are beach houses and a train track in between the houses and the beach. There are also these really tall pine trees along the beach that are pruned to look like really tall umbrellas. Between the trees there are some public picnic tables and a few parks scattered along the way. On the actual sand are all these small buildings where tourists can rent boats or lounge chairs, changing rooms, etc... Of course they are all closed because it's not the season, so we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. We put our towels in between a couple of these and read the Hunger Games out loud for about an hour.

We were getting a little restless, so we decided to take a walk along the beach. Since we were walking into the end, it made it even colder, so Jeremy wanted to go for a little jog! We went for about a mile, stopping a few times to check out the cool shells everywhere. We kept finding these cool big corkscrew ones, but there was always something living in it! Keep in mind we are both in jeans and I'm wearing my leaner clogs and carrying a purse! I was not fast, but it did warm us up. We turned around after a mile and headed back, still looking for at least one corkscrew shell that was resident free. We finally found not one, but two! We want to make something cool with all these shells when we come back. The shells are currently soaking in a bath of warm water and dish soap to hopefully get the smell out of them! W don't want any stinky dead creatures in our suit cases! That happened to us in Denmark!

We had a really pleasant drive back, after stopping for gelato at this very nice pasticcierri. I got pistachio with this ciaco fondante that was so rich and yummy! We of course had to buy some pastries for the car ride too! Te drive is about an hour, but it went by really fast as we read more Hunger Games. Jeremy offered to let me drive, but I told him no since I could read to him and navigate and that has worked out really well!

We made a pit stop in Sulmona which is the next largest town to us and found a supermarcato to get some fruit and veggies. I'm sure we bought way too much food here, but we'll have to use it up. I think it is still cheaper then eating out all the time. It has been nice to have meals at "home". We do miss not eating pizza every day and ready for it again when we get to Rome! :)

We drove around Solmona some more, looking for the aqueduct where the market will be tomorrow. We want to see what is there and if there is anything fun! It's going to be tomorrow under this aqueduct in the main square.

So for a quick Italian lesson, any time you see a "ce" or "ci" together, it makes a "ch" sound. If there is an "sce" or "sci" it makes a "sh" sound. If the "c" is with an "h" like in pistachio, it makes a "c" sound. That's why ciao sounds like chow!

Oh and has is about 1.88 euros per liter! Very expensive, but we've only had to fill up once so far. And when you are driving, stop signs and lines in the road are more of a suggestion. But up here in the country it is much better then in the city. There are not as many scooters, too, which makes likes lots better. We love and miss you all!

Secrets of the Italians...

Some things we have learned about the Italians: always carry toilet paper. Most of the bathrooms are out and always carry a little change in our pocket to pay for the bathroom!

-the napkins are like rough paper

-the pillows are like cardboard wrapped in batting. Seriously, you can hold a pillow up and it will stay horizontal. It won't flop down like my nice down alternative pillow at home.

-although the driving is crazy, you really don't see many dings in cars or accidents, even with all of the scooters zipping around the cars and pedestrians

-they are friendly and wiling to help, even if you don't speak their language. They love it when you try.

-so far out of all the pizza we have had, the basil leaves have been sparse! But it still tastes yummy and is like the pizza at Naples near Disneyland

-EVERYTHING costs money, parking, Internet, using the fridge in your room, using the gym, bathroom, getting into a lot of places. We have just come to terms with this and have to be okay with it!

-the love futbol! Go Napoli! There are no other sports here.

-most everything is really old. These stairs we walked up from the beach today were from the 14th century, and by the way, since there is a lack of public bathrooms, Jeremy has found many unique places to go!

-smoking is everywhere, but fortunately they can't smoke inside unless it is their own home.

The land of the sirens...

Since both of us were pretty tired and sore today from all the walking ( I think I'm more sore from my run on a treadmill the other morning and thrusters...) we decided to take it easy and go for a long and very windy drive along the Amalfi coast. Boy was it worth it! I hope that someday I will have more a gift for words so I could describe things better, but for now, this will have to do. When we first left the hotel, our GPS took us down this super narrow, and I'm talking super narrow back road where even our little car could barely fit! I had to pull in my passenger mirror so we could fit through some spots. It was like this mile long alley behind all these homes. At that point we were wondering if our GPS was a blessing or a curse. We found a bigger road and then found the right road that took us first to a great look out spot. Sooooo amazing! And then down to Amalfi. We stopped several times to take pictures. In between Positano and Amalfi, there was Grotta Della Smeraldo! We stopped, paid €5 each and went down this elevator probably at least 100 feet right outside this beautiful sea cave! The water is so amazing here. So clear and hardly any waves! Inside was one man, rowing this rectangular shaped row boat. When his first group got out, it was just Jerm and me, so he said he would give us a special tour, just the two of us! It was his job of course and we just happened to be the only ones there, but we took it. The water was about 30 feet deep inside and you could see the sun coming in and turning the water this beaucitful iridescent blue, although they said it was green. This man sang to us, rowed around, asked us not to forget the driver, meaning don't forget the tip. He was pretty funny and especially loved it when I gave him €5 because that's what I had in my pocket! After we got out of the boat, he thanked me and told me to send any single girls I know over to him since he was single himself! Jeremy and just laughed and laughed! It was nice to be the only ones there enjoying this gorgeous scenery. When we got up from the elevator, we went into this really nice ceramics shop. They are all over the place here since it is one of there specialties. They also had these beautiful oil paintings of the coast. I had been wanting one of those, so I bought one! It isn't very big, but it is sooo pretty and will be such a nice reminder of our trip.

We drove through Amalfi, then took a sharp left up the hill towards a town called Ravello. Think of PCH and the hills strait up from la jolla or sycamore and then make them taller with several story buildings built into the side of it and that's what you have down here. There are also tons of orchards terraced all over the hill. They don't look very pretty since they cover them with the black or the green netting.

In Ravello we were looking for this Villa Ciamprone. At this walking intersection, I asked Jeremy which way he wanted to go since we could take two different ways to get there. To the left he said. This was definitely the long way! We went down for a little while which was hard on the sore legs, then we came to about a hundred stairs again in different sections! At least I could tease Jeremy about it since he was the one who chose that way! We made it back up and walked through these beautiful gardens that ran along this really high cliff above Amalfi. Well worth the drive! It would be even prettier in May since none of the flowers had bloomed yet like the hydrangea and a huge rose garden.

Positano.....

So gorgeous!

Inside the Grotto

Our "captain" took this picture.

Picture stop.  We did a lot of these. The scenery was just so amazing!

There is a little nativity scene under the water.  Naples which is near here, is known for its nativities.  Each family will design their own and put their own characters in it.  It's kind of like our Christmas villages here.  They have a whole area in Naples dedicated to making pieces for nativities. 

The long walk we took in Ravello to get to the Villa.  We took the short way on the way back! It was pretty cool going past people's doorways and wondering how in the heck they unloaded things from the car, etc...

The main square and church in Ravello.  We were eating our gelato and watching these kids play soccer.

more coastal scenery

This is a view looking south from the Villa.

Jeremy was pretty pooped, but we were almost there!

The under side of the Villa.  You can't go inside, at least it wasn't open at this time, but the gardens were and that's what I wanted to see.

The entrance

All those plants trellised up would bloom into wisteria! It must look amazing in full blown Spring!

This was a balcony of sorts called the way to infinity or something like that.  It was part of the hill and it was a pretty steep drop down!

This is looking down at the terraces below the balcony.

David and Goliath sculpture

This is by John  Keates.  Apparently the owner of this Villa lost his wife and had this stone out up in honor of her.

Island of Capri with the three Fraglioni on the end off it (if you look closely).

Positano at dusk on our way back to Sorrento.

Of course we had to stop for gelato on our way out and then we had pizza again for dinner. And tomorrow night we'll have pizza again with mom's cousin Randy. Can't wait! On our way back home, Jeremy was even relaxed and having fun driving, thanks to all his years driving PCH at home. I better sign off since he needs to study. Bueno sera!

La isla da Capri

Last night we decided to go tote island of Capri today. It's about a half hour ferry ride away and has this really cool cave that you can go into called the Grotta aurora. There is another one on the other side called Grotta Esmeralda since it is green when you go in. W weren't very Smart about planning and didn't check what time the ferry was this morning. When we came down from upstairs, we realized we had just missed one at 9:50 and had to wait for the 11:45 one. Okay, no big deal, we'll just walk around sorrento and check out what we haven't seen yet. It just so happened that we walked by a church that hadn't been open yet, so we got to look inside it, small, clean and simple. On the way out I thought I would drop a coin in the collection plate only to realize the it was the holy water tray! Good thing I didn't drop it in! W had our ost inexenpensive breakfast this morning! Two bananas and some milk we mixed with protein powder for €1.60. Since they charge for just about everything here, that feels so cheap and I was grateful I brought some bars and protein powder. After the church, we came upon this lemon and orange orchard that is right in the middle of the city. And it's about ten feet above the street as well. The street that we walk down every day is very busy and very noisy, so it was nice to have a little quiet spot to walk through. The wa they surround their orchards is very unique as well with these really tall posts that wrap around the orchard that they put up a kind of fence about fruit level. They sometimes even have a screen covering on the top as well. Maybe it's to keep birds away or something. From the outside it's kind of an eye sore, but inside it was really pretty. They also don't really cut the trees like a bush like we do. They let them grow tall. This area is known for its limo cello, in inch we tried b accident last night at a gelateria. It's a lemon flavoring that would be equivalent to vanilla in alcohol. Needless to say, it burned a little on the way going down!

After the orchard, we coninued to meander down toward the port where the ferry was. We had to go down these stairs that were about 100 feet down. I'm not sure how many stairs there were, but it was probably about 150. If you drive down it, it is very steep and very windy. We gt to the ferry and waited a few more minutes for what was supposed to be the hydrofoil. We couldn't really tell lid it was a hydrofoil, but they charged us like it was. Jeremy did very well and did not get sea sick! I'm glad he didn't since the sea could not have been more glassy. The water is sooooo clear and blue, it's amazing. We were wishing we could go snorkeling or something. It was pretty nice today as well in the 60's. You have to be prepared for anything, though because in the sun it's nice, but if you go in the shade, you get cold. We did fine in our long sleeve shirts and sweaters.

When we got there, we wanted to avoid the crowd at the blue grotto, so we decided to take the bus which was literally packed like sardines, at least we were in the front....to anacapri, a smaller town up the hill from the port. From there we could take another bus to the blue grotto or we could have taken this ski lift thing to the top of this mountain that is in the middle of the island. We waited a minute for the bus, then decided to walk through the pedestrian area. We saw some pretty churches, awesome yummy cookies and then kept walking. We saws sign the said it was about 3km to the blue grotto, so e thought we'd hoof it over there. The buss ever came anyway. W thought that was a bit strange. As we were walking down these narrow roads, the homes reminded me of the estates a little bit: lots of gated driveways, lots of property and rich looking old houses.i don't think we could have appreciated that from a crazy bus. Keep in mind that these buses are mini since they are in an island. Jeremy found some stairs and we thought, what the heck we are on an adventure, we'lltry it. They took us straight down towards the water and then on to the right which was the direction of the grotto. They then walked us right along the edge of a cliff where there were some old forts built out of the natural stone from the 1700's. By the time we got to the blue Grotta, wehad been walKing for about an hour and half. You have to go down about a hundred more stairs where there are supposed to be row boats going into the grotto. We got all the. Way down there only. T find out from some very nice French people, the the boats weren't going to be there until April! We just had to laugh! Even though two different people told us it was open, including a woman at the tourist info desk! Pretty disappointing since the was all wehad time for since we had gotten over there s o late. We looked atte bus schedule and the bus wasn't supposed to come for about another forty minutes. By the point we had walked over 3miles down hill and were running out of water. Luckily, not very far up the hill, we found some secret stairs that shaved off at least two miles! We kept walking and found another short cut up a ten foot wall. We got a few looks scaling this wall jus to shave off another quarter mile! We were pretty pooped by this point and trying not to bummed.esecially since we didn't get to see any other parts of the island. Se la vi....we still had fun and ate some delicious food. Jeremy and I both fell asleep on the ferry after we fought our way to being one of the first people on. It was so crowded. We got to see the sunset, then walk back up those first stairs back to our hotel which is probably a mile or so away from our hotel. I haven't tracked that yet n my garmin.

We rested for a little while, waiting for at least 7:30 to come around. If you try and find place for dinner earlier then the, you will find a lot of places closed. Our desk clerk this evening recommended this yummy place away from the center of town called filipos. Itwasvery nice and they even sent a car to come pick us up. The gnocchi was sooo yummy and Jeremy's steak was delicious. We even got dessert: I had a yummy crispy thing with nutella and creamed risotto on to and. Jeremy had this yummy English soup gelato that tasted like the homemade ice cream mom and dad used to make. It also had chocolate chips in it.

We are now down in the lobby watching a very crucial Italian soccer game where Napoli is unfortunately losing. When we were driving home from the restaurant, the streets were bare! Normally there are people alla over the place in their cars or walking, but tonight, everyone is watching the game. Sorry for all the typos. For some reason on the iPad, I can't get the cursor backup to a word to fix it. Ciao!

I hope you can see these ones. This first one is the secret stairs that saved us the two miles. The next one is the water. So pretty! We saw lots of kiddos today and were missing our kids. W love you Cozette, Atalie, Wyatt and Scotty! Xoxoxo

Pompeii

Jeremy and I visited Pompeii this afternoon! We got into Naples yesterday after a four hour flight to Cincinnati which really was northern Kentucky, then from there we had an eight hour flight to Paris, where, sniff, we had to leave, but then ended up in windy, chilly but clear and beautiful Naples! We rented a car since it came with our package, but today it is sitting in the hotel parking lot for a meer 16 euros a day since we didn't feel like risking our lives driving to Pompeii when we could take the train. If there are mis spellings it's because of the iPad.... After waking up leisurely this morning, I went to work out next door at the gym while Jeremy studied. We felt pretty good after a good nights sleep and were ready to go on an adventure. Who knew that trying to find the train station would be such an adventure. We walked in the direction of the train, but ended up missing the little street it was off of and found the big Tuesday market here in Sorrento. We walked through all the stalls of clothes, shoes, undies, socks, plants, etc...and kept on going. The map we have doesn't have every street on it, so it was pretty confusing. We walked I think at least a mile and found it right after we stopped for our first gelato, that was so delicious. We still can't believe how busy these little streets can be with all these little cars and mopeds every where. It took us about 30mins by train to get to Pompeii and 4€ but well worth it. We could see the ruins from the train stop. Jeremy and I had no idea how big this place was and how old it is! So cool! After starting out with no map and no guide, we decided we better get the audio tour and map which was much more informative. We walked about 4 miles all the way from one end to the big amphitheater on the other. On our way back, we were trying to find the bathroom and this guy who appeared to work there, attached himself to us and was showing us all these cool things, even the stuff behind ropes and things. Of course we thought he was expecting some kind of money, especially after he took us up to a new dig where they found some more bodies that had been freshly unearthed next to a vineyard. It was very cool and worth the money he asked for in the end. Riding the train back proved to be very fun with tons of people literally crammed onto it since the train before it just decided not to show up! Only in Italy! We made some fast friends with some other Americans that were there from Texas. There were also street musicians who got on at one point and were playing and asking for money.

Looking at Mt. Vesuvius through an archway in Pompeii.

The house of the Fawn

Wondering what those big rocks were for in the middle of the street.

The coloseum of Pompeii.  We walked around about 4 miles and only saw about 1/3 of Pompeii.

The man who took us "behind the scenes" showed us these big wine cisterns and the bodies below.

Casts of bodies not seen by the mass public.

One of our first views of Sorrento.  We forced ourselves out of the hotel that first evening to stay awake so we could get over jet lag better.  And it worked!

Finally figuring out the those big rocks were "cross walks".

Our actual first view of beautiful Sorrento!

After leaving the train, we walked further into sorrento with our friends looking for their hotel and wanting to explore some more. We ate dinner at around 7 which is closer to the more normal time of eating here. The place was not so great....smoking everywhere, dinner not so good and service not so great. Ah well. The girl at the next gelato place was great and made me some delicious hot chocolate. We are now unwinding and ready for bed! Goodnight!