Holy cannoli, can it really be December?? I am so behind in blogging, it is embarrassing! But I do have a lot to catch up on because we have been BUSY!!
Where to begin...
Back at the end of October, our dear friends the Hoblet's (who we met in Jacksonville) came to visit us. They currently live in France and we were SO excited to have them here!! It was lovely to catch up with a good friend all while watching our kids have a blast together. Lincoln and Zack played cars for what seemed to be 3 straight days before they started having typical 2-year old meltdowns over sharing. Riann and Lily picked up from where they left off. Lily joined Riann at preschool for their Halloween party, practiced with Riann's soccer team, and attended Riann's ballet class. They had such a wonderful time at school that the rest of the time they were often found playing Miss Donna and Miss Echo (Riann's teachers names). Sarah and I also had fun doing a few fun things sans kiddies like going down to the town of Vietri (along the Amalfi Coast) for some ceramics shopping and a quiet lunch, and going to a typical Italian dinner in Monte di Procida, a really cute, nice part of Napoli. We also visited Caserta Palace and the amphitheater in Pozzuoli. But I think the highlight of their visit was Halloween, especially because the French don't celebrate it and well, here in "Little America" we do!
Unfortunately, Lincoln ended up sick with an ear infection and in bed for the night before trick or treating even began (but he dressed up earlier in the week for his preschool class's Halloween party). Lily, Zack and Riann had a ton of fun being out in their costumes among the hundreds of other kids on base. We were sad to see them head back to France, but we did make some plans to meet up in Germany in February.
Lincoln and I ended up being sick on and off for several days after all our fun with the Hoblet's, so on November 7th, Jamie and Riann went on an adventure with some friends to harvest olives. Riann and Jamie picked olives from a tree, learned all about the olive oil making process and headed home after a day of fun in Benevento with a huge jug of freshly produced olive oil. One more reason to love Italy!!
Thusday November 11th, Jamie's parents arrived in Italy. We met "Gigi & G-Daddy" at the Rome airport and continued driving on to Florence where we spent 4 wonderful days exploring. We spent our first afternoon just walking from our rented apartment over the Ponte Vecchio and eventually to a restaurant to eat dinner. We tried to have an easy evening before we had two very busy days sightseeing.
Friday morning we woke up to rain, we started walking in the direction of the Uffizi Gallery but didn't expect to get in since we did not have reservations, but with no waiting line we walked right in and spent the next two hours among the works of di Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo and many others. It proved to be a little challenging with Lincoln, but overall the kids did great! We ate lunch at a tiny sandwich shop, I Fratellini, that has been opened since 1875 - 29 different sandwiches on the menu to choose from, so delicious and easy and inexpensive!
Over to Santa Maria del Fiore (duomo), we climbed the duomo's dome, all 463 steps up to the very top. Riann did awesome, walking up all 463, Lincoln slept through most of it while I carried him in the the baby carrier... all 463 steps with an extra 32 lbs strapped to me: awesome workout!! The views from the two landings (for lack of a better word) up in the dome were amazing on the inside of the duomo, being able to see the paintings in the dome in great detail was pretty fascinating, seeing everything from angels, to skeletons, to the devil... But the view from the top of the dome outside - amazing!!! Even on a cloudy day you could see all of Florence, though it was a bit terrifying being up so high. Jamie looks down for me, I just like to enjoy the view looking out. Back down 463 steps, and time for a reward... gelato, of course!!
That evening, we had a walking tour for the Accademia to see the David. Jamie was concerned that we got scammed with the price and not really knowing what to expect, but the cost was totally worth it and we were certainly not scammed!! The highlight of the tour was learning that the original David was supposed to be in a certain spot on the roof of the duomo when it was built, as we walked to the Accademia, a replica of David was in the spot where the original was supposed to be! The tour guide, a former sculptor himself, said the replica had never been there before, probably never would be again and would be down by morning. Even the tour guide was in awe!
We arrived at the Accademia, learned about the other statues by Michelangelo in the museum (and that some may not have been done by Michaelangelo afterall). A friend told me we HAD to see the David... I am SO glad we did and had the walking tour guide!! The David was amazing to see in real life, such incredible detail, and so much history and knowledge of how David came to be in the Accademia. Lincoln slept through the entire walking tour, and Riann did amazing once again, so we treated them, well, really ourselves, to another scoop of gelato. Thanks to my wonderful husband who I have nicknamed Human Mapquest, or JamieJamie (as in TomTom), we found our way around Florence to a restaurant a friend of mine recommended, I Ghibellini (thanks, Blair!!) which was fantastic!
We did a little shopping on Friday, which included a few "Made in Italy" purchases... my no-longer-have-boot-envy Italian black leather boots, Jamie bought shoes and a jacket, and Jane (my mother in law) bought a leather jacket.
Saturday, it was noticeably busier in the streets of Florence. Jamie noticed the night before his shoes were mismatched so we went back to the leather shop... Problema turned into Non problema: Francesco righted Jamie's shoes then had us follow him to a local bar (cafe in America) and treated us to cappuchino, cioccolata calda (hot chocolate) and pastries for our "inconvenience". That's Jamie with Franceso...
We walked over to the Duomo where they had rolled out sod over the entire piazza for what looked like a royal parade of some sort.
We also saw a man that seemed to be an Italian celebrity, so I made like the paparazzi and took a few photos. Can anyone tell me who this is??
We went to Piazza della Repubblica where Lincoln napped in the stroller once again while Riann rode on the carousel a few times, then we walked through the market where a ton of leather goods are sold.
We did a little more shopping which included Gigi purchasing a nice, unique, hand made in Florence handbag, and I bought a few little items for Christmas.
We headed back to the other side of the Ponte Vecchio, back to our apartment and then out to dinner to a restaurant called Borgo Antico, where the food, once again was delicious!
Sunday morning, we had to leave Firenze. We made our way trying to find Piazzale Michelangelo but ended up at San Miniato church which was up further on the same hill across from Florence. We had some stunning views, so we took some photos and then piled back into our rental minivan.
On the way to the autostrada, we drove past the bronze David (another replica) and Piazzale Michelangelo... Next time, next time. We had a wonderful time in Florence, there is still so much to see that we missed, I expect we will be back a few more times, at least!
With the G's in town, Jamie & I took advantage and booked a trip, just the two of us, to get away to Venice for a long weekend. It was just what we needed!! We had 2 full days and 2 full nights to explore as much of Venezia as we possibly could. It also meant that we had many uninterrupted, unrushed meals as we could fit in too, what a luxury!
The forecast in Venice was not a pretty one, but the weather ended up being fantastic and our hotel was fantastic too (Palace Bonvecchiati)!
Friday, we walked and walked and walked and took pictures... and walked. We started at the Rialto Bridge to Piazza San Marco, past the Bridge of Sighs (that was covered for renovations, unfortunately), we walked to "Sandwich Row" where we ate a pretty good lunch, went by the church of San Zaccaria, walked along the San Marco basin, we crossed over the Grande Canal, we walked by La Salute (big church you see from the San Marco area), we stopped for cappuccino and cioccolata calda to give our feet a rest, we walked over the Accademia bridge, and of course this whole time I was taking pictures and window shopping!! We decided to make like the locals and begin our own little pub crawl before dinner, starting out at Osteria al Portego - a terrific little place where you can grab wine or other beverage, and a bunch of tapas-type snacks, or you could sit down for an entire meal. The food was great, the drinks were fabulous, and it was just nice to have zero responsibility! After Osteria al Portego, we walked back to explore a few sights at night, checking out San Marco Piazza again, then finally we headed to dinner. The restaurant we ended up had an interesting, strange devilish theme to it, but our meals were good and the vino was even better.
Saturday after breakfast, I put on some galoshes and we headed out to see the high-tide-flooded areas of Venice. We went to the fish market - yum!! So much fabulous looking produce and, well, fish of course! Jamie didn't have cool rainboots like me, so he took some pictures of me wading in the high tide waters. It was fun just to be shin-deep in water in places we had walked the day before!
We headed back to San Marco, the lowest laying area in Venice, most prone to flooding and high tides. We toured San Marco (duomo), we were fascinated by the Golden Alter which is quite a piece of art containing over 2000 precious stones - Pretty amazing!! We also toured the Doge's Palace which was pretty cool before heading back to Piazza San Marco to put our feet up at Quadri (restaurant/cafe) and enjoy frothy, hot, really expensive beverages... the ambiance and the people/pigeon watching was worth the pricey snack! We walked over to grab a vaporetto (like a water metro) and headed to Murano, famous for its glass blowing and production. We took in some great sights on our 40 minute boat ride which included a practice race for a gondola ragatta - every team's gondola was one color and all the gondoliers on that gondola wore the same color shirt. I think we got suckered into taking a detour once on Murano to one glass blowing demonstration, afterward we left and felt like we were in a ghost town - there was nothing and nobody around! When we finally made it back to civilization, we walked along a canal and many, many Murano glass shops. We took the vaporetto back to Venice, getting off at a different side of the islands so we could walk and see things we had not already seen. We decided to be like tourists and find a gondola. Romantic and fun, touristy and so cliche of Venice, but we had a good time seeing Venice from the canals, it certainly gave a different perspective and gave our feet another rest!
We walked some more and stopped for gelato, I saw a spot the day before that I just had to try the cioccolato nero - dark chocolate - holy yumminess!! It was so, so delicious that I made Jamie take a few pictures of me with my gelato. That was our appetizer, then we did a little shopping before finding another restaurant, Rosso Rosa, for dinner to celebrate our weekend and last night sans kids. Dinner was great as was the wine, and a little too much maybe too... Back to our hotel for the night.
Sunday arrived and we had to make our way back to the airport and fly home. Our last ride on the vaporetto down the Grand Canal, back to the bus, and to Marco Polo airport. It was great to get away but it was also nice to get home!
The week of Thanksgiving was a short work week for Jamie but a busy week all the same. We decided to take the train on Thanksgiving morning up to Rome for an overnight. Lincoln and Riann loved taking the slow train and watching out the windows.
Once we arrived in Rome, we checked into our hotel (IQ Hotel, great place!!!) and headed out with some new umbrellas that we quickly invested in. We grabbed some quick sandwiches while it down poured, then we headed out on an adventure to see the Colosseum,
where we also came across what I originally thought was a parade... It was a protest/demonstration. The protesters rushed into the Colosseum, made their way up to the upper levels and were chanting something in Italian, and lit flares that had red and blue smoke pouring from them.
the Forum, (with a quick stop in a store that I found a beautiful coat in and quickly fell in love), then on to the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain
and on to the Spanish Steps. This visit, Lincoln was awake and headed up to the very top on his own with Jamie next to him, no hand holding necessary - What a way to spend your last day of being 1!! Here is Lincoln with Jamie on their way back down...
Once again we treated the kids (and the adults too) to gelato, a stop in a toy store and then finally headed back towards our hotel stopping for dinner as the rain kept falling.
Friday was Lincoln's 2nd birthday! How many 2 year olds get to spend their birthdays at the Vatican?? Lucky little guy! We started our day hopping on the Metro over to Vatican City.
(My grandfather went to Vatican City back during World War II and met the Pope. It was pretty neat to be somewhere where my Grampa had been so many years ago!) We dodged some more heavy rain while we stepped in to eat some breakfast at a little Bar (for pastries and cappuccino) near the Vatican Museum. The Museum was amazing, so much beautiful detail on the ceilings and the floors, the statues and the walls. And yes, we did go to the Sistine Chapel... Wow!! It is amazing that Michelangelo was able to paint the entire ceiling, the colors, the detail, unbelieveable!! But San Pietro Basilica was amazing too.
We saw a nun praying in the Basilica, the Pieta, and also the Swiss Guard in their colorful uniforms outside of the Vatican and Basilica.
We must be seeing the churches in a good order because I am always impressed and in awe even from the last church, I don't know how you can top San Marco in Venice and San Pietro in Vatican City... (Well, there's always Westminster Abbey... I'm always looking for tickets to London so I'm sure it won't be too long before we are there!!)
We took the Eurostar (fast train) back from Roma to Napoli, took the bus from the train station to the airport where we parked on the base Jamie works at, then drove home. We had enough time to celebrate Lincoln's birthday, letting him open presents, having dinner and then eating cake. I still can't believe my little man is already 2.
Lately, Jamie and I have been spending a lot of time researching our next trip. Riann requested to spend her birthday in Paris but Jamie is really concerned about the weather and it being too cold to enjoy. On our list of possibilities: Paris; Koln, Germany; Barcelona; Sicily; Milan; France; Budapest, Hungary... Where we will actually go, who knows, that's half the fun of living in Europe!!
