The Vatican City

Our second day in Rome we headed to the Vatican City.

We had reserved a time online for the Vatican Museum, and boy are glad we did.  The line to get in was huge, wrapped all along the outer wall for the City, and had to have been a few hours wait time at least.  Since, we had a reservation, we were able to by-pass the line and go straight to security.  There was a line there too, maybe 15 minutes long.  As we were standing there a guard saw us (with our 5 kinder, double stroller and all...we were quite the scene in Italia), he says "oh no, this will not do".  He motioned a janitor over, spoke with him in Italian, and he motioned us to follow him.  Through the line barriers we went, past security and straight to the front of a the ticket counters.  This was not the last time someone helped us bypass crowds and lines in the Vatican.  We truly felt like the red carpet had been laid out for us!

 Anya thought this mummy was the coolest of all the exhibits in the museum.

I like this photo because of Cora's reflection in the glass.

A cool room with some neo-classical sculptors.  I just thought it was pretty.

 Wait, didn't the boys sleep through the Louvre too?  This must be how they like to spend their time in musuems!

 So, in this picture you see the mad crush of tourists fighting their way towards the Sistine Chapel, trying not to fall and get trampled.  We were in this crush of people, until we passed a door with a guard standing next to it.  The guard comes over to us and asks if we want to see the chapel.  We say yes, and he says follow me.  Through some doors, a back hallway (could it be the pope's hallway???) and voile, we are in the Sistine Chapel past the crowds.  It was seriously the best treatment we have ever received ANY place we have EVER been.

We were not allowed to take pictures of the Sistine chapel, but it was as amazing as I thought it would be.  Someday, I hope the girls appreciate having been there and seeing it!

 After the museum, we went through a little side door we learned about from Rick Steve's and we ended up in front of Saint Peter's Basilica.  We went inside, and were awed of course.  Behind the girls you can see the pulpit that the Pope uses.  According to lore, it is above Peter's tomb, which is below it in the "basement".

Saint Peter's square, plaza or Piaza as Italian's say.

By this time of day it was raining quite steadily.  We walked around for a bit, go some lunch.  Found the best Gelato in Italy (Pisa's comes in to a close second).  It was this little Gelato cafe across from the Vatican Museum.  It is called "Over the Bridge" Gelato.  So good, for 2 euro, we could pick three flavors, so basically three scoops, and they were massive Scoops.  That was the SMALL size.  So very yummy!  There Nutella flavor was sinful!

After all that we decided to head back to the hotel, dry off, and get ready for the next day when we would see ancient Rome.

Second Birthday in this Season's line-up

I am taking a break from the Italy, Spring Break, posts to post about my birthday.

Spring gets hit hard by Birthdays in our family.  Starting with Anya in March and ending with Matt in June.  Mine is the second birthday of the season.  This year was interesting, different, but very fun!  I think it probably started for me on Thursday.  Probably because I made a cake to enter into the annual dessert contest for Matt's work.  Making cakes always brings the feeling of celebration I think.  Anyway, I made a yummy chocolate cake for the contest, and "hello", I won!  So much fun, and I got another Army coin to add to our collection.  It was a very serious competition too...they patterned it after those cooking contests on the Food Network.  So we had three judges, two of which are professional chef's.  The dessert had to be plated, and were judged on presentation, taste, and complexity.  Mine did pretty well it seems.

The next day, Friday (my actual birthday), Matt took me out to lunch, brought me flowers and then LEFT me for the evening (sigh).  He had a work function that evening that was strictly soldier only, no family members.  They went to a castle and had dinner, while I sat at home.  I ordered some Italian take-out from St. Lucia's, watched "The Help", and when Matt came home he surprised me with a red velvet cake he had made earlier and presents.  Even though it was almost midnight, we rousted the kids out of bed, sang "Happy Birthday", ate cake and opened presents.  So, all was not lost!  He did pretty good at keeping the sacred, special feeling a Birthday brings, around.  I got a fabulous Vera Bradley bag from my brother and his awesome wife (She too, shares my obsession!), and a necklace, a favorite book series from my Mom and Sister (so now I can stop checking them out from the library over and over).  But, what I had really asked for, for my birthday, was Polish Pottery...

I didn't really even know what Polish Pottery was until we joined the Army.  Then, I have to admit, I wasn't that crazy about it at first.  But, after years and years of seeing it, being around it, and now living in Europe closer to it, It has grown on me.  Now I love it.  I got some awesome new dishes a while back, but they are white.  So I decided that I wanted to get serving dishes in Polish Pottery to bring color to the table when we are entertaining.  Some women decide on one pattern and that is all they get, but I like too many different ones to only pick one.  So, to go with my eclectic personality, I am picking all different kinds.  None really go together, but I am trying to only buy patterns that have some red in them.  That way I can still use them in my red and apple kitchen.   So, back to my birthday, Matt felt horrible for being gone on my actual day, so Saturday we did a make-up birthday.  He took me to Poland, and let me pick out some Polish Pottery.  Is that a cool gift or what!!  Yes, I took a man pottery shopping, but we actually had a lot of fun together.  I got some really pretty pieces at some pretty good prices, with only one real splurge on a pattern that wasn't discounted.  Matt, getting into the shopping spirit, even picked out a new mug for himself.  Can you pick it out in the picture?  Yes, it is the brown mug there behind the salt and pepper shakers!  He makes me laugh!

After shopping we stopped in Dresden(pictures to come in a later post) and did Rick Steve's baroque blitz walking tour.  It was a fun way to end the day, strolling the streets of a European town eating cones of gelato.

This birthday will be hard to top next year :)

First day in Roma

Our hotel in Rome was right on the coast.  In fact, it had a view of the ocean from our room windows.  It was pretty awesome.  However, While it was right on the beach and incredibly close to a metro stop, we did not feel it was in the best neighborhood.  If we had gone up the street half a mile, the neighborhood looked so much safer.  It was kept up better, cleaner and less graffiti, then the area we stayed.  That being said, our hotel staff were amazing.  They went out of their way to helps us navigate around Rome, giving us tips, maps, snacks for the kids.  They were wonderful.  

 Our first day in Rome, we arrived just after lunchtime.  So the first order of business was finding lunch.  While exploring the beachfront resturaunts, we came across this wonderful pier.  My family loves to walk along piers, so we walked out.

 With the Sun out that day, and rain with cooler temps in the forcast, we decided to make this our beach day.  Staying in a hotel, with the ocean as a view, it was just too much temptation to pass up.  We HAD to go to the beach.  I don't know why we didn't take more pictures.  There were all these cool lava rock formations in the ocean, not many shells to be found, but a lot of smooth rocks.  The coolest part, was that it was a black sand beach.  The first we have seen, and pretty cool!

 After cleaning up from our jaunt in the ocean, we took the train into Rome.  We got some dinner, and then we went on Rick Steve's Rome night walk.  I think this was our favorite day in Rome.  There was no rain, it was pretty decent temp., and there is just something magical about seeing all these awesome sights lit up at night.

Here we are sitting on the Spanish Steps.

 In front of the Trevvi Fountain.

We all made wishes, maybe we will find ourselves in Rome again someday?

 Matt and I being goofballs in front of the fountain

 The Pantheon

 Victor Emmanuel Monutment

 The highlight of Rome for Anya...

The Colosseum

or 

Flavian amphitheater

After this we hopped on the metro at the stop right across the street and headed back to our hotel for the night, to rest up for our next day in Rome!

What's a vacation without a Beach?

Our family loves the beach.  It is always a highlight of every vacation we take near a coast.  Beach days offer many pros, but the best is the much needed kid tax.  They can only handle so many museums before it gets "old and boring"

This beach was literally down the road from where we stayed at near Pisa.  It is a resort town called Tierrenia.  It was not a super warm day, but that did not stop the kids from jumping in!

 The coolest part about this beach is One it was empty!  We hit it before tourist season.  And two, there were piles and piles of shells washed up on the beach.  My kids were sifting through the shells like they were sand.  We found some really great ones!

 Looking through all the shells to find the best ones.

 Oh look, there is a hermit crab inside this one!

 Look here, I found a star fish.  

This was actually one, of two star fish we found and rescued.

After playing at the beach for a couple of hours, we got cleaned up and decided to check out a town near where we were staying.  It is called Lucca.

This was a pretty neat town. It was not full of tourists, so we felt like we had the place to ourselves.  we got to partake a little bit of normal Italian living.  The town center is still walled, and it went virtually unscathed by bombs during all the wars.  Eventually they increased the size of the wall from the thin medieval wall to a thick wall (which is almost like a hill) to withstand attacks by cannons.  Napoleon's widow (who eventually inherited Lucca) decided to make the top part of the ramparts a park.  There is now a running path, benches and trees all along the top of the ramparts.  It was pretty neat to walk around.  A lovely evening stroll!

 Outside the main Duomo of San Martino 

We have to go inside churches in shifts, because the boys are so loud and irreverent!  They love to yell and hear their voices echo.  So half will go in, while half wait outside with the mischief makers, and then we switch.

 In the center of Lucca is the "bones" of an old Roman amphitheater.

Here we are going inside.

 Here we are in the center.

It has been converted to shops and apartments.  I thought it was ingenious.  I have never seen anything like it before.

While in the center of the amphitheater, we picked a cute Bistro to eat dinner at.  I think this was one of our best meals in Italy.  Not only was the food fabulous, the service wonderful, but the ambience was incredible.  It was a really fun night, and one of my favorite towns that we saw while in Italy.

Lucca was also the birthplace of Giacomo Puccini.

Pisa, it is really leaning!

Our Second day in Italy we did a lot, mainly because we got an early start going here, the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  It really is an amazing thing to see.  I was skeptical, but once I saw it, I got it.  You just kind of stare at it and think "It is going to fall any minute...it has too".  I had to laugh because when I looked at most of our pictures afterwards, the tower doesn't look like it is leaning.  I think that is because we were lining up with the tower and not the landscape, so you don't get the magnitude of the lean you would in real person.

This is practically the only photo took, where you can really see the tower leaning.

 For a long time I didn't realize that it was a bell tower for the basilica here.  In Pisa, this area is called the "Field of Miracles".  You can see the milestones of the Pisa Citizens life here at the Field.  As babies they are baptized in the baptistry.  The Bells of the leaning tower mark the passing hours, days and years of their lives.  They are married in the Basilica, and eventually the buried in the cemetery behind the Basilica.  I loved this tribute about Pisa...it really brought this area to life for me.

 Of course we had to do the tourist "thing" and try to get a picture of pushing or holding up the tower.  My kids picked pushing...nice of them!  It was hard to get a good picture, my kids do not like to hold still for long.  This was a good one of Hannah "pushing".

 Matt and the girls were able to climb the Tower of Pisa.  The boys were too young, so I elected to wait with them while the other's climbed.  For the sake of time (I am all about time management when on vacation) I decided not to make them all wait, while I climbed it.  It was fun just sitting in the square and waving to them when they made it to the top.

 There they are, on the top of Pisa.

Off to the left, waving to me down below!

 I tried to get one of all the girls holding the tower up...boy was that one a challenge.  Trying to line up all their hands and angle the camera just right, and then making everyone hold still...near impossible.

This was the best we could come up with, but we had fun doing it anyway.

While we were sitting in the square, just basking in the presence of so much History, a sweet, elderly Italian woman approached us.  She started rattling off in Italian, and Matt could understand most of what she was saying due to his Spanish training.  He would talk back in spanish, she would correct him in Italian, and they were holding this huge long conversation.  They exchanged the time, talked about families and she showed us pictures of her grand babies.  The Italians have loved our boys so far, and she was no exception.  She also kept going on about how big and beautiful our family was, and how big!  When we said goodbye, she gave the boys each a little wooden whistle carved into Pinnochio.  Then I got my first European salutation, the infamous two cheek kiss.  It was awesome.  

Such a wonderful woman we met.

Venezia (Venice)

Our first real day in Italy we spent in Venice.  It was a very fun day, but very busy with people swarming.  Venice is a big cruise port, so we saw gazillions of people strolling along in Venice with their suitcases in tow.  I thought it was comical.

 We had no clear plan for Venice.  We mainly just wanted to wander around and get "lost" in Venice.

 At some point in the day we ended up in San Marco square.  That was breathtaking with all the ornate buildings.  What did the kids like the most?  Feeding the pigeons!

 Our first Gelato in Italy.

So yummy!

 Getting lost....

 One of the few things the girls really wanted to do in Italy was ride in a Gondola.  This was even something Hannah wanted to do (and it is hard to find things that Hannah wants to do).  We were skeptical and weren't sure if we would do this activity.  We had heard that it was expensive.  However, as we reached Rialto Bridge, a Gondolier approached us and started talking to us.  He gave us a price range and we picked what we thought was an acceptable tour and price.  Before we knew it, we were seated in his Gondola and shoving off on our way.

I think it was a highlight for all of us.  It was so peaceful and relaxing, and we saw some of Venice we wouldn't have seen by walking.  Definitely  worth doing!

Over all, Venice treated us pretty well.  When our day came to a close, we hopped on a water bus and made our way to the garage where we had parked.  The bus took us around the outer Island, so we got to see most of Venice...that was a nice surprise!