Last day spent in Italy to blog about...Florence

Matt does not like to drive in small, narrow Italian towns.  

Added to the stress of small and narrow are the ZTL restriction areas that pop up all over.  Basically it stands for "Town center traffic limitation"  So, you are driving around...trying to find your way, when all of a sudden a small ZTL sign pops up (looks like a little bullseye), and you think...wait, are we in the center, did we pass the barrier, ahhh!  There are cameras, police, all manner of ways they catch and charge you with a hefty fine, because you don't have a special permit to drive in the town center.  We have heard stories about unsuspecting individuals who have racked up a few of these babies as the wove in and out of ZTL areas.  Then when they got home they received nice farewell gifts from Italia in the mail, in the form of hundred Euro fines.  So, this made us very nervous to drive in Italian cities.  Florence was no exception, and one of the worst we had heard.  We were tempted to just train in from Pisa, but many locals we talked with assured us it was easy to drive too, faster to drive too, and no headache at all.  So we tried it, and it wasn't so bad.  We parked up at the Piazzo di Michelangelo, another tip from our friend Rick, because it was free, and it gave a wonderful over view of florence.

 Firenza

Most of what we did in Florence was museums, and not many photographs are allowed in the museums.  So, we don't have many pictures to document our stay in Florence.  It rained, like we had never seen rain before.  This was torrential down pour that soaked us all through in a matter of minutes.  So, luckily, most of our sight seeing was indoors.

Above is this cute little elevator inside the Ufizzi museum.

There we saw such great works as "The Birth of Venus", several Di'Vinci's and Rembrandt (surprisingly) along with some Donatello.  It was awesome,   I am so glad we took the time to go.

 eating a snack after touring the Ufizzi (which claims to be the first art museum in the world)

 Next on our stop was the small, often overlooked, Galileo museum of Science.

Anya really wanted to go hear, and it was really interesting to see a piece of how this great mind worked.  He definitely was a great visionary.  Plus, it got us out of the torrential rains...

 Galileo

 Galileo's finger on display...interesting.

Anya doesn't think it is real :)

 The Duomo

We didn't stop inside, we were wet, hungry and on our way to our appointment to the Accademia before it started raining again, so we just enjoyed the outside during the brief break in the rain

I want this door knocker, I think he is very majestic

 Getting lost in Florence...

Goodbye Florence,

the sun decided to shine right as we made it back to our car and getting ready to head to our hotel.

Oh, well, it was still a great trip, and we got to see so many amazing sights and pieces of history.

I really enjoyed touring the Academia, and seeing Michelangelo's "David".  I didn't realize how huge the statue is.  My favorite part was seeing all the marble statues he had started, but never finished.  It was really intriguing to see humans forming out of blocks of stone.

We could have done without the rain, and probably would have seen more of Florence without it, but I think we still did the best we could have and enjoyed it!

Hannah turns double digits!

We now have two kids in double digits!  Hannah celebrated her 10th birthday in style.  This year she chose to have one friend sleep over, so that will take place Friday night.  We had a raging family party for her last night.  For her birthday dinner she picked Popeyes chicken...makes it easy for mom :)

Dad picked up the chicken on his way home, and then we had cake, ice cream and opened presents!

This year Hannah wanted a chocolate cake with blue frosting and lots of sprinkles!

I tried to tier it, but I needed to make the bottom layer a bigger size.  You couldn't really tell that the top was smaller after it was frosted.  It still tasted scrumptious though!

And Hannah loved it!

 10 candles, jeesh, blow them all out daughter of mine.

 She got a blue ipod shuffle, she has been wanting one for a long time.  Right after she opened it she had dad create a playlist and sync it for her.  Then she was "plugged" in for the rest of the night.

What have we started?!

(awe, look at that baby Hannah in the background.  She was eating her first meal of rice cereal in that video)

Some of her other favorites were the matching jammies her Aunt made her for herself and her AG doll, whom she named Elise (which is her middle name).  Her other Aunt (and Uncle) sent her Pepper, a pet dog, for her doll.

I think she had a really fun birthday.  Plus we had let her stay up almost until 10pm on a school night (big mistake?  quite possibly!)  She was just so excited to get all her new things set up, and then started a new book from the wonderful pile she got from Grandma J...it was very hard to deny her.

It was her birthday after all...

Happy Birthday Hannah!

We are so glad you are in our family.  There is never a dull moment with you around and we wouldn't have it any other way!

The Caesar Shuffle, or Ancient Rome

To start off the day, we walked along Rome towards the Colosseum.

I love how you can be walking along, and there amidst modern day buildings are ancient day ruins.

 Anya LOVED this.

The other kids thought it was cool and all, but they didn't really "grasp" it.

 I was a pretty constant wet and dribble sort of day.  I love how "done" with being wet, Hannah looks in this picture.  With the magnificent Arch of Constantine in the back ground.  

 The Colosseum.

or Flavian Amphitheater

roughly 2000 years of magnificence.

 Jack found something funny.

silly boy!

 After walking past the Colosseum (we would tour that bad boy later), we headed over to Palatine Hill.  We had read that the lines for tickets are much shorter there, and it is a combo ticket that includes the Colosseum.  The line at the Colosseum was horrendous...so we decided to take this advice.  Sure enough there was NO line at the Palatine, we walked right up to the ticket counter, and then right in to climb the hill of palaces.  Bonus was, now that we had our tickets, there would be NO line waiting for anything the rest of the day!

Here, above, is the imperial Palace.

 This is the ruins of the stadium on Palatine Hill.  They couldn't just go across the street to the Colosseum, no, the people in this elite neighborhood needed their own stadium for their own entertainment.

 Anya loved this day!  They are studying ancient Rome in her Social Studies class.  So she was throwing out little tidbits of information all day.  She loved that she could touch so much history.  Could she be like her mama?

 Constantine's Basilica

This was not a church, but a mammoth hall of Justice.

 Temple Romus

now used as a library for the Archeologists.

I found it interesting that these doors are the original doors...very unique to this area.

 Temple of Saturn, Arch of Septimius Severus and the modern capital Hill in the background.

I loved the mix of Old and "new" that was all over.

 Inside Julius Caesar's Temple.  This is the spot where he was cremated after his assassination

 The Column of Phocus

Oh Forum Hill this was the last monument.   It was a last gift from the Byzantine Empire to a dwindling Rome.  It was the symbolic ending of a great empire, a last nail in it's coffin (Rick Steve's)

 The Temple of Saturn

This was the Forum's oldest temple, estimated at 497 b.c. 

Basically this is where Rome's national treasury was kept.

 Now we are back to the Colosseum.

After standing in NO lines, we are inside this great structure.

 Anya is so HAPPY.

This was her favorite day by far.

 This shows the maze of the underbelly of the Colosseum.  That is where the gladiators were kept, along with whatever they were fighting.  They were led through mazes of hallways until they came to the lift that would bring them up to the fighting arena.  the partial wood floor is modern, built to give us an idea of what it would have looked like.  Of course, back then it would have been across the whole arena.

 

 The Arch of Constantine

This marks the victory of Constantine in the battle of the Milvian Bridge.

Basically this battle eventually led to legalized Christianity.

 When a boy needs a bum change, he needs a bum change.

What better place then an ancient, roman, Column

 Jack having fun in the puddles.

We could not get him to hold still.

He was a little blur the whole time!

One last shot of the Colosseum

This one shows the different columns used on each level. 

Anya could tell us what each kind where and what they symbolized.

It was fun having our own personal tour guide!

That concludes our trip to Rome.  It was fun, and packed with activities.  I am sure we didn't uncover even half of Rome, but we saw all the things we had planned to see.  So that was a success in our book!

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!