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| going to Dallas to meet up with my parents this weekend.. also, seeing an old friend in Dallas and the people I stayed with in Australia...
hope all are well....
Cheers,
Scott
ps- the boat is still wonderful!!
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| Rome was good and we had a great time. Turns out that Dad had a broken bone in his foot the entire time we were in Rome.. crazy!!! he complained of sore foot the whole time and we thought it was his diabeties.. but now we know the real problem..
i feel a bit bad "encouraging" him to keep going and not fall behind!!! :)
Other wise, life is going pretty good...
Hope you are too....
Cheers,
Scott
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| Well, we went. .we saw... we WALKED!!!
Our trip was really good and full of wonderful scenery and exciting events.. (Dad leaving his medicine on the city bus and me leaving me camera on the hotel curtisity bus on the first two days of our trip) just to name a few...
Here is a short recap of what it was like..
The first day we flew in Milan airport and made our way to the train station (50 minutes) by the Malpenzia Express bus (5 euro each)...
The Milan train station surrounding area was very dirty and smelled of wee, but the train station was beautiful.
From there we made our way by train to La Spezia, a beautiful coastal town on the "Italian Riveria" We found our hotel, after a ride on the city bus, and checked in. A nice cozy place with friendly people.
The next morning we had breakfast and made our way to Cinque Terra, the "5 villages" nestled in the hills along the coast. There is a trail, more like a track, that links all 5 villages, and I hear it is beautiful. Dad and I did the first one, a 30 minute walk, and he was pretty tired after that one. We tried to do another, but it was way too much for my dad and his sore feet!
Beautiful place to see and I recomend going to this place if you are in Italy! There is a train service that stops at all the 5 cities as well so you can explore without doing the track. (WARNING!! if you take the train in Italy, make sure you VALIDATE your TICKET!!! The trains do get checked and there is a 20 euro fine if not validated... well, we played dumb, and the guy let us off, but he tore up our tickets and we had to spend 5 euro to replace them....)
That afternoon, we caught the train to Rome.. Passing through Pisa and Florence.. It was a nice train ride, even though we were in the wrong coach...
Around 8 pm we rolled into Rome and after some short debate as to which way to go..we found our hotel, a short 10 minute walk from the train station.
That night we rested. The next morning we awoke and made our way to beakfast (cereal, breads, meats and cheese) after that we waited for out tour bus.. However, it was a walking tour and we were to meet the group at the Vatican, NOT at the HOTEL.. we realized this very late, hailed a cab, and missed our first tour in Rome.. however, I think it was good because we ended up with a guy who was giving "private" tours and he was excellent. 4 hours later, we were outside the Vatican and well informed of Raphael, the popes and the tails, the truths and some untruths, and pretty sore feet... It was cool to see the Sisten Chapel and all that..
Our next walking tour was across town, so we hopped in a cab at the vatican and the cab driver had no idea where we were going. He let us out (10 euros later) and we were as lost as ever.. walked for a few minutes.. found a info center.. and we had to walk about another 15 minutes to the place we were going....
Found it ok and had an our to kill so we saw a Indian restaurant and had some wonderfull food.. Lamb rogan josh for me and dad had chicken marsala...
The walking tour was trevi fountain. the pantheon, narvona plaza, and some other places.. it was good and we enjoyed it.
After that tour we were in the middle of the city and dads feet were killing him.. after an attempted bus ride (you can't buy tickets on the bus... remember to validate them too..) we hailed a cab and made it back to the hotel.
The next day we had a 7 am depart (from the hotel this time.. we made sure) to Pompei and Naples. This was a 13 hour day trip and we pretty good. Naples wasn't too exciting... very crowded and dirty, but pompei was nice and relaxing. It was a very cool place... the city was covered by 30 feet of ash and sut after mt. vasuvsus errupted in like 75 AD. Cool. When they were excavating, they found bodies and "life" just like it was when the volcano blew. They way they made these cast were, they found the place where the bodies were, (they were hollowed because the flesh had rotted away, but left an impression in the soil) and injected it with a liquid that would later harden, then they dug away the dirt and had a perfect replica of the site.
Pretty cool... they were very advanced with roads, and all kinds of places like bakeries and even a brothel. (there are erotic paintings above the different rooms to show what pleasures could be found in that particular room)...
After we left pompei, it was back on the bus for the 3 hour trip back to rome.
The next morning we slept in, had a late breakfast, made our way to the train station and headed back to milan for our flight out.
 This is the toilet at the train station!
At milan, we found our bus to the airport, at the airport we called our hotel and they sent a van for us. The hotel didn't have a restaurant, but they had an aggrement with a local place and when we wanted to go, they would take us, and bring us back. well. that all worked just fine except the people spoke no english and we didn't speak italian.. needless to say we had pizza that night!
good nights sleep, back to the airport, and off to Atlanta with nothing else exciting to mention.
We had a grat time, however, when I return to Italy, I wil stay up the north end with Venice being my favorite spot, La Spezia, and Florence!
Good food and fun,..
ps- Sadly, I lost a day somewhere.. we did tour the collasium... and we did see other stuff including the circus maximus.... at which I found my first solo geocache!!! exciting times..
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| So, dad and I are going to Rome on Monday.. yep.. this Monday the 12th.. we are flying into Milan.. catching a train to the italian rivera then on to rome on the 14th... should be wonderful!!!
Hope you are all doing wonderful...
cheers,
Scott
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