Good Evening from Rome

Here are some highlights from the last few days...

We took the ferry from Naples to Sorrenton on Friday morning - bottom line - we definitely want to go back and visit and explore the Amalfi Coast. Sorrento was truly amazing. I'll post a few pictures now and more when we get home.

Friday evening we had a LOVELY dinner with Val Laurita - she is the Aunt of my boyfriend from college Joshua and has lived in Naples for 40 years. She is just a gem of a lady and treated us to a great dinner at a sidewalk cafe just around the corner from our hotel.

Saturday morning was primarily spent packing our things and getting ready to leave. We had breakfast at the hotel and Chelsey & Lindsey met us there at noon. We definitely didn't want to walk to the train station after our experience when we arrived so took a taxi and arrived at the station in about 10 minutes. The train ride from Naples to Rome was about 3 hours and the kids slept almost the entire way. We arrived in Rome just after 3pm and found our hotel no problem - it is only about a 7 minute walk from the Roma Termini (the main Rome train station).

We had dinner with Chelsey & Lindsey at a decent but very tourist oriented restaurant. The kids sat in the first high chairs we have seen in any restaurant on our trip!

This morning we caught the 6:10 AM train from Roma Termini to Pisa Centrale. The train ride was just shy of 3 hours long. In Pisa we were picked up at the station by Herbert Mulligan. He and his wife Heidi have lived just outside of Pisa for almost 2 years. They have three darling children ages 1 - Luca (boy), 3 - Katrine (girl) and 6 - Loren (girl). Heidi is originally from North Dakota and Herbert is from Ireland. They are part of our world wide fellowship. We had never met them but had been given their name by our ministers in Paris (who we had been connected with via a minister from Washington state who has been working in France (currently in Switzerland)whose family I have known basically my entire life (her twin sister lives in Everett). I had e-mailed with Herbert before we left the states and then called them last evening to make arrangements. We had a lovely Sunday morning fellowship meeting in their home. Herbert's parents were visiting from Ireland and another lady who travels from 2 hours away (Jetta) was also in the meeting. After meeting we had coffee and sweets followed by a lovely soup and bread lunch with Irish butter.

The kids thoroughly enjoyed having the opportunity to play with toys and other kids - it was so sweet to see them all having such a good time.

After lunch and some singing around the piano, Heidi took us to a historic town near by called Lucca - we took in a few of the sights there which included an antiques flea market which was really cool to see. Darin was very interested in all of the antique door hardware but the set we inquired on was 350 Euro so...we definitely aren't bringing that home!

From Lucca we caught the train to Florence and had just shy of two hours to see a few sights. I haven't loaded the photos from yesterday and today yet so won't be able to post them until later. We also had a quick dinner in Florence and some amazing Gelato before hopping on the train back to Rome.

We had hoped to do some laundry tonight but the lavanderia (Laundromat) closed at 10 so will have to go in the morning - we are definitely running low on anything clean to wear.

Here are a couple of photos from Sorrento for your viewing pleasure!

Good Evening from Napoli, Italy (Naples)

It has been quite a whirlwind for the last week - sorry that we haven't posted more but I'll try to catch you up.

On Saturday May 8th we went to Versaille (all 6 of us). The Chateaux there was absolutely stunning and Darin got some really great photos. I'll post a few now and hopefully many more when we get home. On our way back to Paris Chelsey & Lindsey kept the kids and Darin and I got off at the Eiffel Tower stop. It was truly amazing - we stayed until dark and had dinner at a sidewalk cafe with a view of the tower and then did a bit of shopping and had desert at another cafe before going back to the tower to take more night photos and then heading back to our apartment.

Sunday we got up early and travelled about 90 minutes to Sunday morning meeting at Sylvain & Louise's home. There were 19 of us in the meeting - 11 of us visitors. They translate the meeting via whisper microphone so we were able to understand everything. We even managed to sing the hymns in French! I wish we had thought to get a photo of the group. The other visitors were a couple from Canada who are living in the South of France while he is getting his doctorate in Cancer cell research. She is working in Monte Carlo. His parents and Aunt from Canada were all travelling with them and we knew several people in common - it is truly a small world.

Sunday afternoon Lindsey & Chelsey went off on their own exploring and Jennie Herting flew in for the night and stayed with us at our apartment. We had a truly delightful evening with a guided walking tour that included dinner at a fabulous crepe restaurant followed by fabulous icecream at Jennie's favorite icecream place. It was so much fun to catch up with a wonderful friend that I hadn't spent time with in many years. It was an absolutely fabulous birthday. The only downside was that the twins chose dinner that night to have pretty much their biggest meltdown of the trip. In general they have been amazing little travelers but that night they were just out of sorts and both ended up having a big enough fit that Darin took them out and stood outside while I finished my crepe. Jennie and the restaurant staff were very gracious about the whole scene and they managed to calm down for the most part for the walk home.

Monday Darin and I had the day to ourselves and nearly walked our feet off! We walked from our apartment to the Louvre and thankfully the lines were very short but we only ended up exploring one wing (we did see the Mona Lisa) before heading on out. We had lunch at a cafe in the Tuileries Gardens and then crossed the river to go to the Orsay Museum forgetting that it is closed on Mondays. We walked from there back across the Seine river and up the Champs Elysee to Pont (bridge) Alexandre III and back across to Invalides (where Napolean is buried). From there we walked back to the Eiffel tower and across the river again to sit on the hill looking back at the tower while Darin did some sketching (all artists must do some of that when in Paris!). From there we found a small cafe with a menu all in french (less of a tourist trap) and had a lovely dinner. After dinner it was dumping rain but we braved the weather and walked to the Arc de Triomphe. We climed the 287 stairs to the top and had spectacular views of the city. Then we walked down the Champs Elysee and caught the metro back to the apartment.

Tuesday morning we had to be out of the apartment by 10 AM but were allowed to leave our bags just inside the door until 5pm. It rained pretty hard most of the day but we were able to get to the Orsay Museum which was outstanding! It was so amazing to have the opportunity to be so close to so many famous paintings - Degas, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Van Gogh etc - so many amazing beautiful works of art. Sam and Sydney were fabulous - no fussing at all! We walked a few blocks towards the Rodin museum but it was raining hard and we couldn't find a place big enough to accomodate the stroller for lunch so we decided to head back to our apartment. The twins both fell asleep along the way and slept for at least 2 hours while we ate lunch etc. We found a lovely little cafe with enough room inside for us all to sit and get warm and Darin and I enjoyed a peaceful lunch with sleeping babies. By the time they finally woke up they were both soaked through with overly full diapers so we ended up buying a few clothing items at the Les Halles mall to hold us over until we could get back in to the apartment. It was so cold that day that we also had to buy coats for each of them just after we left the apartment.

Chelsey & Lindsey met us at 4:45 and we got all of our things and made our way to the train station to catch the train to Bercy. From Bercy we took the Artesia night train to Milan. We had sleeping cars - Chelsey & Lindsey in 1 compartment with 4 other travellers and Darin and I and the kids in another compartment with 3 others. We were very thankful to have good "couchette" mates (a set of Grandparents on the way to visit their daughter and grandchildren near Bologna and a lady travelling alone). The Grandparents were very cute playing with the kids and the lady took Sydney up on the top bunk for a while and made her origami to play with.

From Milan (we arrived at 5:30 in the morning) we took the train to Modena and then a bus to Maranello. The Ferrari factory and museum are in Maranello and of course that was a "must" stop for Darin. We had a bit of a challenge with the bus and language barrier but managed to make it there and back to the Modena train station with only a few bumps and bruises! We had hoped to be able to check some of our bags at the train station but there wasn't a facility for that so we had to carry all of them with us for the day. The biggest news is that Darin got to drive a 360 Modena near the Museum - you pay 50 euro and get to take it for a 10 minute drive. Then you pay 20 more euro and get the video of your drive. So - that was definitely a highlight of the day! On our way from the museum back to the bus I stepped in a bit of a hole in the sidewalk (while pushing the stroller) and fell - fortunately the stroller didn't go all the way over on the kids and they were fine and I just ended up with a skinned knee. We had been told that the bus from Maranello went directly to the Modena train station but apparently that wasn't the case as we had to transfer to another bus. That was a bit of a last minute discovery so in our rush to get off the one bus and to the other one my left toe got run over by the stroller wheel and it ripped my entire toenail off...well actually it was still partially attached and I ended up having to remove it myself once we got on the train. So that was a gross bloody mess but we were able to get it cleaned up and bandaged once we made it on the train. (Yay for the first aid kit in the diaper bag!).

From Modena we took the train to Bologna and from Bologna to Napoli. The directions I had for the hotel had indicated that it was a 10 - 15 minute walk from the train station so we decided to just walk instead of taking the metro. BAD IDEA. It was actually closer to a 20 minute drive from the station and with a few wrong turns ended up taking us almost 2 hours to get to our hotel. We were all exhausted! Fortunately just a few blocks from the hotel we connected with a Canadian woman who was staying at the same hostel as Lindsey & Chelsey and they were able to go on with her. That little jaunt was probably the scariest moments of the entire trip - Naples is so much more "foreign" than Paris and none of us have any of the language, streets are not marked well etc. But - we found our hotel and it is absolutely lovely - a true oasis in the bustle of this amazing, crazy city.

Tomorrow Darin and I will have a free day and are planning to take the ferry to Sorrento for the day. In the evening we will have dinner with Val Laurita - the aunt of my college boyfriend who has lived in Italy 30 or more years. She is the one who recommended the lovely hotel where we are staying.

Here are a few photos:

Versaille:











Eiffel Tower:












Walk with Jennie:








Darin and Jean's Paris Jaunt:











Paris to Modena/Maranello:


This is the couchette - 6 people sat & slept in this space!



This is one of my favorite pictures of Sam & Sydney - this is where we ate lunch in a small little park while waiting for our transfer bus to Modena.







Napoli: \

The first four photos are taken at our hotel - the 5th photo is a street scene nearby.








And - that will be all for tonight - we are headed to bed and will hopefully have as good a night's rest as we did last night.

Paris

After a mostly uneventful (but very long) day of travel we arrived in Paris at our apartment in the Etienne Marcel neigborhood which is about a 10 minute walk from the Louvre.

The biggest event of our travel day was when I left my cell phone on the airplane - it took almost 2 hours to get my phone back. The worst part about it was that it cut our visit with my old friend Ralph very short. He did still meet us at the St Pancras train station but we only got to say hello and have a quick hug before we had to check in to the eurostar train headed for Paris.

The apartment is great - nothing super fancy but very functional and clean with really comfortable beds. There is a small grocery about a 1/2 a block from the front door of our apartment building and several restaurants within a few block radius (including a Subway right across the street.)

Amazingly the kids actually slept almost through the night. They woke up once right about 4 AM and went right back to sleep and didn't wake up until almost 11 AM this morning.

They have had a pretty great 2nd birthday today - after we left the apartment (around 1 PM this afternoon) we bought crepes - Sam especially couldn't get enough. We carried them in our Mei Tai's on our backs and walked to the Jardin du Luxemborg. There is a beautiful very clean playground for children there (it is pay admission). We played there for almost 2 hours and then they got to ride the carousel and to top it off they got to go for a real live pony ride.

Chelsey & Lindsey took the kids from the park and Darin and I got to go for a stroll by ourselves. We went in a few shops and both bought some shoes and then went to the Notre Dame Cathedral. Notre Dame was just beautiful - so cool to see things in person that we've only seen in books before.

Being in Paris is so amazing - we are just really soaking it in. The architecture, sidewalk cafes, shops, and people - soooo much fun.

Here are a few photos for your viewing pleasure!


Sam & Syd still asleep - we thought it was so cute that they were sleeping in the same position.




Sydney woke up first - happy as usual!





Giving sleepy Sam some big loves.




Sam & Syd exploring our balcony




Our family at the Seine River near the Palais du Justice




Jardin du Luxemborg




St Michel



Playing at the playground:








Riding Ponies - Sydney wasn't nearly as much of a fan as Sam!








Hotel de Ville - maybe we should have stayed here!



Notre Dame Cathedral: