I apologize in advance for the length of this post! Also, sometimes, Google lets me edit the locations of the pictures, not always.
Erin & Ryan had an eleven day fall break. Tuesday,
October 29, we left for
Italy.
We flew from Düsseldorf to
Pisa
for the first leg of our trip. We flew Ryanair, for about €65 (or
$85). CRAZY cheap! No, there were no in-flight meals or snacks, and
yes the inside of the plane was plastered with advertisements, but who
cares? It’s an hour and a half trip!
In Pisa,
we saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa (obviously). I’m sure Pisa is a wonderful city, but we didn’t take
the time to see it. Straight to the Tower and back to the train
station. It really is leaning, like a lot!
From Pisa, it was only a
short and cheap train ride to Florence.
We had a beautiful apartment minutes from the train station. After
unpacking and regrouping, we headed out to see the sights. First stop,
Gelato. Ryan ordered his in perfect German, the girl behind the counter
had no idea what he was talking about, but the German tourists behind us
thought he was hilarious! It’s amazing how much German I feel like I know
after knowing NO Italian.
The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore is amazing (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Cathedral).
Such details. I also liked that it isn’t in a huge plaza that you can see
for blocks and blocks. It feels very personal. Our first night was
topped off by a delicious Italian dinner. We arrived about 7 o’clock
thinking that we were good. Nope, all the employees were still finishing
their dinners. Only after we had our entire (like 1 ½ hour long) meal,
did others people start showing up for their dinners.
Wednesday morning, we arrived at the Accademia Gallery,
which houses David, promptly at our pre-purchased time of 10 o’clock.
Unfortunately, I had bought the tickets for Thursday at 10 o’clock.
However, they did let me change the tickets. Italy is very casual about these
things. The kids were not impressed with being dragged through an art
museum. But it was a small museum and well worth it to see the original
David.
Next up, climbing to the top of the Duomo. Ryan LOVED
climbing every thing he could. He has been on a “being a man” kick and
apparently climbing things is manly. He also eats ‘man food”, mostly meat
and bread. In all it is a 463 step climb to the top, very manly.
The first section is a climb up a normal back and forth stair case. The
staircase takes you to the bottom of the interior dome. From there you
walk around the inside, protected by Plexiglas, to the other side of the dome,
where you continue to climb. This walk did not sit well with Mike who is
deathly afraid of heights. He really didn’t like later when I commented
that I wished the Plexiglas wasn’t there because it is very hard to take
pictures through! The view from the top was well worth the climb.
Lunch was a restaurant that MJ found on trip advisor that
had the best paninis in Florence.
It just a little tiny place, think “Soup Nazi”. You choose your bread,
your spread and your meat. Yes, Ryan would consider this ‘man
food”. As you are waiting in line, the baker across the street is
bringing the fresh baked bread through the front door. Outside they
had a help yourself wine section which you pay for on the honor system.
After lunch we visited the Baptistry. The Baptistry
and the doors to it play a prominent role in Dan Brown’s recent thriller Inferno.
And I can see why Robert Langdon (wait I mean Dan Brown) spent so much time
describing it. Then we decided that we hadn’t had enough
steps for the day, so we climbed to the top of the bell tower at sunset for
some extra exercise. Another 414 steps.
We decided to cut our
Florence
time short and head to
Rome so that we could see
my Grandmother, Uncle and Aunts, who were on a tour of
Italy. We
grabbed a hotel room in the city and changed the date on our train
tickets. We traveld on the super high speed train from
Florence
to
Rome.
260 km an hour and no stops in between. Complete comfort with wifi and a
nice table. Very enjoyable way to travel and the high speed trains in
Italy are significantly
cheaper than the ones in Germany/France. When we arrived at the hotel, we
made the mistake of all of us going into the lobby.
Europe
has a very serious policy against having more than 2 or 3 people in your room,
even if they are kids that have no problem crasing on the floor or in bed with
you. You have never seen a more flustered person than the guy who was
working the desk. “How many people do you have!!” Seriously there
are only 4 of us and we literally spent like 13 hours in the hotel. But,
he made us buy a second hotel room for the night. It was too late to
cancel the room without still having to pay for it anyway. Grrrrrr.
Needless to say, I don’t suggest the Holiday Inn Express in
Rome to anyone. Also, we will never all
enter a hotel at the same time from here on out. I don’t think it is
unreasonable for a family of 4 to be able to stay in one room. Stepping
off my soap box now…
We met my Grandma, Bobby, Brenda & Kathi for dinner at a
great Italian restaurant (is there any other kind?) It was so nice to be
able to talk to them and hear how their trip had been so far. They also
had some useful suggestions for
Rome
as they had been there all week.
Friday morning we headed to our rental apartment (
www.homeaway.com).
Again, a great place in a great location. We walked out the front door of
the building and were 2 blocks from the wall of
Vatican City. We headed to the Roman
Forum for the day. MJ was very excited for all of it and the kids enjoyed
it too. Especially The Coliseum. While we were standing in line to
buy our tickets, one of
Erin’s classmates was
2 families behind us. What are the chances?
So there are plenty of Gelato stands, but there are also Fresh Fruit stands too.
How crazy that this floor has been sitting here for like 1000 years, just
sitting out in the elements letting everyone walk over it!
Ryan drinking from one of Rome's fresh water fountains.
We had dinner at the Peroni brewery and stopped by Trevi Fountain to toss in a coin or two. The Trevi Fountain is very cool at night and a popular destination.
Saturday morning, I headed out early to stand in line for
the
Vatican Museum. Not a good plan. After
45 minutes of barely moving 20 meters (see we are picking up the metric
system), Mike and the kids met up with me and we changed our plans and headed
into St. Peter’s Basilica. Erin & Ryan were fascinated with the idea
that
Vatican City
is another country and we just walked under an arch and we were there.
Words cannot describe the scale of the church. The main altar (only used
when the Pop says mass), has a 7 story canopy over the top of it. We have
become somewhat Church experts after Florence Dome, Cologne Dome, Notre Dame,
St. Pat’s in NYC but you might be able to fit all 4 of them in St. Peter’s. The
statues are all very lifelike in their expressions and poses, very different
than your typical Catholic Church. Mass is held several times a day,
and while we were walking around we saw that some security guards were letting
people go up to mass in the front center area(yes probably like 5 or 6 masses
go on at once). Apparently they were only allowing people who looked
catholic enough (not Asians?) up to the front for mass and told everyone that
this mass was in Italian. But we figured why not it’s a good way to take
in the church without being surrounded by tour groups and we got to walk by the
main alter where St. Peter’s grave is under.(they moved in around 1950 to put
it directly under the altar). Of course in the middle of mass Ryan had to
go to the bathroom (why should St. Peter’s be any different than Holy Child?)
and I took him. We were not able to get back in but Mike and
Erin stayed and got their communion from one of the
Cardinals participating in the mass.
We headed back to our apartment just in time to meet up with
our Harrisburg/CD/Holy Name friend Damian Dyckman.
His ship was in port in
Italy and he was spending a few days taking in
the sights of
Rome
also.
He has some great stories and unbelievable
pictures!
Of course, it was Saturday, and that means
Penn State
football. So when in
Rome…find
your nearest Penn State/Steeler Bar and head there quickly! (You were
wondering when I was going to get around to using “when in
Rome”, weren’t you?) It was actually a pretty
cool place (even if it was filled with
Penn State
students and fans). If you are looking for a new career,
Penn State’s
Architecture program requires you to spend one semester of your Senior year in
Rome, not too shabby!
Mike had somehow knew this or that PSU had a campus and googled and found this
bar in a great section of town. We found it and it really did feel like a
Pittsburgh bar
on the Southside.
(
https://www.facebook.com/botticellapub)
Terrible towels everywhere and the bartender was wearing a shirt that said ‘everyone
loves
Pittsburgh’.
Also Mike was happy to find they had a great selection of craft brew.
Mike even had what some people say is the #1 Beer in the world(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westvleteren_Brewery).
The game was good if you cared(I did not) and PSU won in overtime. They
had the game projected on a big TV and Ryan was leading ‘We Are’ chants to the
crowd as we were leaving. Then you walk out and you are on the streets of
Rome.
Very Surreal.
Sunday morning we first reserved our tickets for Monday for
the
Vatican Museum. Then we headed to St.
Peter’s Square to wait for Pope Francis to appear in his apartment window for
The Angelus. It was crowded, but we had a good place to stand. I was most
amazed by when he came to the window, everyone cheered and yelled his name,
then as soon as he started speaking, everyone was silent…immediately.
In the late afternoon we headed back to the Roman
Forum. That night we found a swanky gelato shop. They had 6
different flavors of chocolate. One was called “
Kentucky”. It was a mixture of
chocolate and tobacco. Yes, I just said that. Ryan had it.
Erin stuck to her rotation of Strawberry, Lemon and
Straticella.
After that we went to Irish Pub (we seem to find those
everywhere too) Mike struck up a
conversation with two guys from Britain,
who were happy to listen to his explanation of college football vs. the NFL. I will admit, one of the guys was from Liverpool, and we couldn’t understand of word of what he
said. It was remarkable.
Of course, when we woke up Monday morning for the
Vatican Museum, there wasn’t a line in
sight. Oh well, better safe than sorry. The
Vatican Museum
is also simply humongous. Other than me spilling my Diet Coke inside of
my purse, we had a nice time there. The Sistine Chapel is beautiful, but
there are hundreds of people in there at a time. (I think I would like
some time alone in there, maybe to lay on the floor and look at the
ceiling. How can I get that arranged?) Luckily it is air
conditioned.
Monday night we flew back to Düsseldorf. There is
something very wrong about getting on a plane at 72 degrees and sunny and
getting off at 42 degrees and raining. Apparently Fall snuck into
Germany while I
wasn’t monitoring the situation.
Ryan was super excited to fly RyanAir by the way...
November started off with St. Martin's Day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Martin's_Day). The children of the town parade with hand made lanterns ("laternas"), following St. Martin on his horse along with musicians. The local children have actual candles in their lanters, not battery operated ones like we had. After the parade, the children watch a small play of when St. Martin cut his cape in half and gave half to a beggar. That night God appeared to St. Martin in a dream, revealing Himself as the beggar. After the parade the children go to all the stores, shops and some homes in the town. They are required to sing one of several St. Martin's day songs. See the link here, http://youtu.be/ssm3P9-rpu4 If they satisfy the owner of the shop, they receive candy. Much like our Halloween, except they actually need to do something for the candy! FYI, it's not just candy, our favorite Ice Cream shop was giving out single scoop cones and the fast food place was giving out plates of French Fries. 
