July 12, 2015

We arrived in Florence on Saturday and immediately got to work checking out the city.  Our first stop after a quick train ride from Rome was to find some lunch!  We let Hayden pick and he chose Hard Rock Café.  I had to laugh since Courtney and I used to ALWAYS want to go to Hard Rock where ever we traveled!  Not surprisingly, he got Mac and Cheese and loved every bite of it, (especially the extra cheese).

Hard Rock Café

Once we were all filled up and ready to go, we started the afternoon at the Duomo.  Unfortunately, the actual dome is closed for restoration, (which kind of stinks), but we still got to go into the Baptistery and climb up the tower to the battlements.  There were a TON of stairs, but it was a good way to work off all of the junk food that we just ate at the Hard Rock.  lol  The buildings in Florence are beautiful.  Inside of the Baptistery, there is a huge and stained glass window that was absolutely beautiful (the picture doesn’t do it justice).  The entire building, including the ceiling, was amazing.  We also climbed a ton of steps (Hayden counted 424, I counted 414) to the top of the tower to stand on the battlements.  From here, the view was awesome.  You could see the entire city.

Stained glass window in the Baptistery

Baptistery ceiling

Baptistery baptismal fountain

View of Florence

Del Duomo

Florence skyline

Del Duomo

We decided to get the Museum Pass so that we could go to all of the museums and just take our time looking at what we wanted on our own schedule.  It worked out good this way because we didn’t ever feel hurried and if we wanted to just spend a few minutes somewhere, it wasn’t a big deal.  That evening, the Piazza Vecchio was open late, so we took advantage of the late evening sunlight and toured through the apartments.  Talk about an amazing place to live!!  The sunset that evening was beautiful and if it hadn’t been for a wrong turn outside of the museum, we would have seen the actual sunset.  🙂

Piazza Vecchio

Piazza Vicchio

Florence sunset

Sunday morning we started out early so that we would have plenty of time to hit everything we planned.  Hayden wanted to start at the Galileo Museum.  The museum was really cool, and he was really into the astromomy/physics exhibits.  Who knows, maybe that was his first step to becoming the next Sheldon Cooper.  It gave us a great chance to talk about physics and to show the importance of math in science.  (He hasn’t been loving math lately, it could be because I’m not the best teacher!).

Galileo Museum

Galileo Museum

Galileo Museum

Galileo Museum

There was also a Paleontology Museum and a Mineral Museum that we visited.  They were both pretty cool and a good way to spend a couple of hours.

Antlers! lol

Dinosaurs at the Paleontology Museum

Mining for gems

In the afternoon, we made our way to the Galleria Accademia where “David” is located.  It’s pretty funny because the actually museum is tiny and the only thing that people really came for was the “David”.  The rest of the museum was just about empty.  We did all of the “touristy” stuff and pretended to pinch and touch his butt.  lol  In all seriousness, it really is an amazing statue.  To think that it was carved out of a single piece of marble and that it was done so perfectly is really crazy and goes to show how talented Michelangelo really was.

“David” in Florence

Pinching “David’s” butt…lol

I touched the butt…lol

On the way back to our campsite, we stopped by the Boboli Gardens, but it was miserably HOT, so we didn’t stay long.  Adam and I enjoyed this because we read “Inferno” not long ago and there is a part of the book where Robert Langdon is trapped in the gardens.  We did find the little hidden pathways that he used to hide, so that was fun!

Boboli Gardens

Seriously HOT day!!

Boboli Gardens

Back at camp, Hayden was in heaven because we found the Italian version of “lunchables” for dinner!  There is a grocery store right near our campsite which makes for great (and cheap) meals.  🙂  This has definitely been one of our biggest money saving tactics!

Italian Lunchable!

On Mondays, Florence pretty much shuts down because most of the museums and monuments are closed for the day.  We decided to take advantage and catch the train over to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower.  We have heard and read that Pisa isn’t much except for the tower, so we just went in the morning for a quick stop.  It worked out great, we left our bags at the train station, walked to the tower, clicked a few pictures (ate an ice cream, of course) and then came back to Florence before leaving for Venice.

At the Leaning Tower of Pisa

“Leaning” against the tower

AHHHHHHH…it’s falling on me!

Holding up the tower

Leaning Tower of Pisa

July 8, 2015

First off, we are so excited to be in Europe and to be using the train system.  We have global Eurail passes and it really couldn’t be much easier to get around!  We left Naples yesterday and just went straight to the train station where we paid a $3.00 reservation fee and jumped on the next train to Rome.  We did have a quick stop over, but it was worth it to only pay $3.00 instead of $10 for the direct train.  The trains are nice (even the Regional trains) and even had plugs so that we could sit and charge up all of the electronics.

Train ride!

We made it to Rome in about 3 hours and found our campsite right away.  Luckily, Adam had e-mailed them ahead of time and got exact directions including the bus numbers!  We LOVE the campground!  They have a huge pool, a super market, and really nice bathrooms/showers.  We have our nice little tent set up for the next few nights, and we are good to start hitting the city!

Camping Picnic

We spent today touring the Northern portion of the city along with the Vatican.  We pre-purchased our tickets to the Vatican because we heard horror stories about getting in, but it wasn’t really that big of a deal.  The security line to get into the Basilica was long (about 30 minutes), but we read about times when it is much worse!  The inside of the Basilica is beautiful…really amazing!  It is definitely a place that anyone (whether or not you are Catholic) can definitely appreciate.  The walls/ceilings/floors/statues/EVERYTHING are absolutely stunning.  I took a ton of pictures, but I’m afraid that none of them do it justice.

Vatican CIty

St Peter’s Basilica

St Peter’s Square

St Peter’s Basilica

St Peter’s Basilica

St Peter’s Basilica

St Peter’s Basilica

St Peter’s Basilica

Inside of the Basilica, you can also go downstairs into the crypt where all of the deceased Pope’s have been buried.  It is really cool to go through a read about when they each served as Pope and to think about all of the history that has happened through the years.  We were not aloud to take pictures inside, but it was very beautiful down there as well.  After going through the Basilica, we went around to go see the Vatican Museum.  This was a separate line, but also not too bad.  We had pre-purchased tickets for 1:00 and we pretty much got in right at that time.  The museum had a really good audio program where the kids got their own guide that had more interesting kid stuff so that we could listen to the adult version.  Hayden was SUPER excited that they had an entire section with Egyptian artifacts and that his audio guide had an “actual ancient Egyptian” talking to him.  🙂  Even for “non-arty” people like us, there were tons of really amazing things that we could definitely appreciate.  The paintings were beautiful and there were tons of really neat sculptures too.  We spent a few hours going through the museum before coming to the Sistine Chapel at the end.  Unfortunately, no pictures are aloud in the Sistine Chapel, but it was certainly amazing.  I have to say (and I’m sure true art lovers will disagree), I was more impressed with the ceilings in some of the other rooms than in the chapel.  While it was really neat and the history of it is amazing, I thought that some of the other rooms (the Map Room in particular) were even cooler.

Vatican Museum

Vatican Museum

Vatican Museum

Checking out the artwork

Mummies in Rome!

Vatican Museum

Perseus Statue

Vatican Museum

Vatican Museum

Vatican Museum

We also walked around the Northern part of the city to check out some of the buildings that we wanted to see.  We started out at the Plaza of the People and walked along the river down to the St Angel’s Castle.  There were so many cool buildings and the bridges along the walk were very nice too.

Egyptian obelisk in Rome!

Piazza del Pepolo

Rome

Piazza del Tribunali

Castel Sant Angelo

Ponte Princ Amedeo Savoia Aosta

After a very long day and lots of walking, we made it back to the campsite where we had dinner from the grocery store.  It’s nice to be able to get some bread, meat and cheese and just have a relaxing dinner by the tent.  Tomorrow we will be going to the Coliseum and spending the day at the Forum and the Ancient Roman ruins.

July 5, 2015

After a crazy, long trip starting in Santorini, Greece and finally ending in Naples, Italy, we are finally here!  It took 55 hours including:  2 ferry rides (the first was 8 hours, the second was 15 hours), 3 train rides, a night spent “sleeping” in a hotel lobby, and 6 hours walking around Patras, Greece, and a bus ride, but we made it without killing each other!  Seriousl, it was a ridiculously long trip and the worst part is that we found out we could have flown directly from Santorini to Naples for about an extra $100 or so…probably would have been worth it, but the journey is half the fun, right?!!  We did finally make it at about 10 pm last night (4th of July) and as soon as we were checked into our hotel, we got out to find some pizza for dinner.  Since Naples is the home of pizza, there are about 100,000 pizza places and they are all fabulous!

After a quick dinner, we went to bed so that we could get up first thing in the morning and set off for Pompeii.  We took the train out there which was only about 45 minutes or so.  It was Sunday, so of course, it was crowded, but it was fine with us.  It was insanely hot…felt just like Florida!  When we got to the ruins, we were pretty excited to find out that the first Sunday of each month is free, so we didn’t even have to pay…YAY!  Pompeii was pretty cool.  It was completely covered in ash when Mt Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, and everything was very well preserved until it was dug up centuries later.  We spent a couple of hours walking all through the town (which was much bigger than I imagined) and saw lot of cool stuff.  They had some of the buildings open that you could walk through to see the remaining artwork on the walls and the pottery that has been recovered.  They also had a couple of petrified corpses of people that died in the eruption.

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Pottery from Pompeii

Pottery and crafts from Pompeii

Petrified person from Pompeii

Petrified child from Pompeii

The bath in Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

In tact artwork in Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Theater in Pompeii

Theater in Pompeii

Theater in Pompeii

Artwork in Pompeii

Temple of Isis in Pompeii

After a few hours in Pompeii, we went over to the next town, Herculaneum.  This town is much smaller than Pompeii, but because it was covered in lava, instead of ash, it is much better preserved.  There were quite a few less tourists, so we were able to walk through lots of the buildings and check everything out for a while.  We didn’t spend too long here because it was HOT and we still had to have time to make it up to Mt. Vesuvius.

Ruins of Herculaneum

Mt Vesuvius and Herculaneum

Mt Vesuvius over Herculaneum

Ruins of Herculaneum

Ruins of Herculaneum

Ruins of Herculaneum

View of Mt Vesuvius

Following Herculaneum, we found a shuttle that took us up to the “base camp”: for Mt. Vesuvius.  From there, it’s about a 1 km hike to the top of the mountain.  1 km doesn’t sounds like much, but at a 14% grade and over 90 degrees, it was tough!  (or maybe I’m just really out of shape!)  We did make it to the top (eventually) and it was totally worth the climb.  The view of Naples and the Bay were beautiful.  We could see the entire city and the surrounding area.  After a quick loop around the caldera, we came back down (much easier than us) and caught the shuttle back into town.

Crater of Mt Vesuvius

View from Mt Vesuvius

View from Mt Vesuvius

Mt Vesuvius

We made it back to our hotel in time to go out for dinner (pizza, of course!) and gelato for dessert.  Every place we have eaten here has been fantastic.  The pizza is so good and I had a Caprese salad for lunch today that was amazing.  I really hadn’t ever been a huge fan of tomatoes, but I swear I ate an entire plate of them and what must have been a pound of mozzarella!  Anyway, tomorrow we are doing the super touristy, Hop On Hop Off bus to see the sights in Naples.  They are kind of cheesy, but it’s really the easiest way to hit all of the highlights of the city.  🙂

July 2, 2015

After a long 8 hour ferry ride from Athens, we made it to Santorini.  I have to say, I’m pretty much in love with Santorini!!!  The landscape is beautiful, the food is amazing and the beaches (although a little cold), are very nice.  We got here on Monday afternoon and got right on the shuttle from the port to our campsite.  The campsite was nice with plenty of room for tents and a view of the water.  We got set up in our “home” for the next few days and decided to go check out the town.

Tent Sweet Tent!

We stayed in the town of Thira (Fira) just outside of the city center.  It ended up being a perfect place to stay.  We were only a 5 minute walk from the center of town with tons of shops, restaurants, and a fabulous view!  We walked around town for the evening and stayed to watch the sunset.  We also stopped by a travel agency and signed up for a volcano tour for the next day.

Town of Fira, Santorini

View of Santorini

Santorini Sunset

After a good night’s sleep, we slept in a little (it was hard to sleep in since the sun was up and the tent doesn’t block much light!), then got up to get ready for our excursion.  We took a wooden boat out to an active volcano just across from the island of Santorini.  The volcano was really cool, we hiked to the top and saw both of the craters.  Hayden has been into volcanos for a while, so he really enjoyed getting to see it.  The volcano is active, so you could even see steam coming out of the crater (although it’s hard to see in the pictures).  We looked at some of the volcano monitoring equipment and hung out at the top for a while enjoying the view.

Wooden boat ride to the volcano

At the top of the crater

Smoke in Nea Kameni (active volcano)

At the top of Mikri Kamini

Once we finished at the volcano, we got back onto the ship and sailed across the volcano to where the water is heated by volcanic hot springs.  We swam here for a couple of minutes before taking off again.  From the hot springs, we came back around to the island of Santorini again to see the view from the water.  It’s even more beautiful than the pictures show!  The water is so blue…it’s like the color of sapphires…really pretty.

Volcanic Hot Springs

Oia, Santorini

View of Santorini from the water

View of Santorini from the water

After a long day of hiking up volcanos and swimming in hot springs, Hayden and I were too pooped to climb all the way back up to the town, so we hitched a ride on a donkey!  lol  It was fun, but our donkey was very stubborn and didn’t want to be told where to go.  He kept running into other donkeys and stopping in the middle of the road, but it was fun.  🙂  We had super yummy Gyros for dinner with baked feta cheese and pitas…it was SO GOOD.  I am planning to try and make all of this food when we get back home, but I’m afraid I will never get it to taste as good as it does here.

LOL

Donkey ride up to Fira

Wednesday we didn’t really have any plans, so we walked down to the black sand beach to go swimming for a while.  Unfortunately, the water was freezing and there was a pretty strong undertow, so we spent most of the morning making sand castles and tanning.  Hayden and Adam were brave and got in the water, but I was a big weenie and stayed on land where it was nice and warm.  We finished off the day with another dinner of Gyros and ice cream (of course) for dessert.   I think that our favorite part of the island is that there is an ice cream shop every 10 feet…definitely our kind of place!

Playing at the beach!

Black Sand Beach

Ice Cream time!

We are taking the ferry back to Athens this afternoon and camping out in the train station for the night so that we will be there for our train in the morning to Patras.  From Patras, we will catch another ferry over to Italy and be in Naples by the 4th of July!

June 28, 2015

We made it to Europe…YAY!!! We have just finished our second day in Athens and we are loving Greece. It’s only been 2 days, but I think this is pretty close to the top of the list on places that I would like to live. The food is outstanding, the coastline is beautiful and the historical monuments are really cool.

We got here yesterday morning at about 6:00 am. By the time we got through customs and found the train, it was about 7:30 am, so we decided to go straight to our campsite and hope for an open spot. After a long train ride and an even longer walk (about 3 km), we made it and were able to set up and get settled. About 30 seconds after the tent was set up, I was asleep. We got up around noon and figured we had better get moving if we wanted to get into town. The camp ground is right on the main bus line, so it only takes about 30 minutes to get in to the center of town. We went straight to the Acropolis to visit the Parthenon and all of the sites around the area. Lots of really cool stuff to see!! Right near the same area was the Temple of Zeus, which was also very cool.

The Acropolis and the Parthenon

The Acropolis

Dionysis Theater

Dionysis Theater

The Parthenon

The Erechtheion

The Erectheion

The Acropolis

The Acropolis and Parthenon

Parthenon at the Acropolis

At the Acropolis

Temple of Zeus

Temple of Zeus

Temple of Zeus

After a full afternoon of touring, we were STARVING!! We got a little off of the main tourist route and found a spot to sit down and eat…the food was fantastic. We had pita bread with Tsaziki, a Greek salad, Lamb, potatoes, rice and Hayden had a margarita pizza. Everything was really great. We were stuffed and decided to make our way back to our campsite before it got dark.

We got up this morning and got ready a little early so that we could catch the bus down to Sounion where the Temple of Poseidon is located. The bus ride was about 2 hours, but we drove along the coast line, so there was a beautiful view the entire way down. The temple itself is mostly destroyed, but a few of the columns are remaining standing, but the view from the top is totally worth the bus ride! We walked around the area that used to be a town back in the 3^rd – 2^nd century BC. Those people certainly knew how to pick a spot for their town…I think the view alone would make those million dollar properties now-a-days!

Temple of Poseidon

Temple of Poseidon

Temple of Poseidon

View from the Temple of Poseidon

We caught the bus back to town and hung out in Athens for another couple of hours so that we could go to the Archeological Museum and to see the Agora where there were more temple ruins located. Hayden has decided that he is going to be an archeologist, so he was enjoying the museum. He has decided that he’s going to live in either Egypt or Greece when he grows up so that he can discover treasure! J   The temple of Hephaestus inside of the Agora was probably one of the best that we visited here so far. It was in pretty good shape and even still had most of the columns and the roof intact. Many of the statues have been moved to museums, but a few are still in place.

Archeological Museum

Archeological Museum

Archeological Museum

Archeological Museum

Temple of Hephaestus

Temple of Hephaestus

Temple of Hephaestus

The Agora

Now we’re sitting at the campground and hiding out in the restaurant to stay out of the rain, but I think that tomorrow we are going to catch the ferry and go to Santorini for a few days. We found a campsite that looks really nice and we are all looking forward to some beach time!!