23Apr2009: Day 332: Bavaria, Germany

We actually did get up early today and went back towards where we were yesterday. There are a couple of famous castles, Hohenschwangau and the better known Newschwanstein. When we got there it was quite chilly and cold and I was longing for yesterday’s warm sun. Of course, it didn’t help that we were up in the mountains.

We bought a combination ticket for both castles and were debating whether to walk to the Hohenschwangau or take a horse and carriage ride. We opted to walk. You had to be there on time for your tour number or else you’d have to go back to the bottom and start over again, by buying another ticket for another tour time. We headed up after bundling up some more. It wasn’t too bad of a walk up, a bit tiring but not too steep.

When we got to the top, our tour number hadn’t come up yet so I went into the gift shop. I saw a ring or two, I would’ve loved to have bought but resisted. Plus, I had no money…Chris has it all…smartly. When I went back outside, it was raining, and quickly turning to hail. Not hard hail, but not snowflakes. We were under this tent like thing waiting for our tour number. When we did finally get to go, we had to leave our cart behind. Big pain in the butt! Makenna was tired already and had actually fallen asleep while we were walking up to the castle. We carried her up these steps and got a short tour of Hohenschwangau Palace.

This palace was found by the Crown Prince Maximilian of Bavaria. He happened upon ruins and decided to buy it and restore the castle, which he did from 1833-1837. The colour of this castle is the first thing you notice. Like a shade of yellow. Inside was different in that there were a lot of murals painted on the walls. Only very few pictures were actually painted on canvas and hung. Also, a lot of the murals had depictions of battles but no blood which was common at that time. It had a lot of neat things that were left behind in the castle, mostly wedding gifts that were given to the King and his wife, whether it be a desk or a box. This castle also had ceramic stoves which were pretty and usually matched the décor of the room. I wish I could show you pictures from the inside but they didn’t allow pictures or video at either castle. This picture is one of the stoves and it was at the end of the castle as you left so I didn't feel guilty about taking the picture. But you can see how they look more ornate than just a fireplace or a wood burning stove.

Makenna was pretty good here as she was still trying to sleep, unsuccessfully as Chris and I kept trading her off as she’s getting to be bigger now and our arms get tired pretty quickly. The tour guide was a bit hard to understand due to her accent and she didn’t really seem too happy to be giving a tour as she kept sighing.

When we picked up the cart, it was a bit wet as the guy we left it with just left it out. That was frustrating. We walked down the “quick route” back to the main road where we then had a decision again to walk up to the next castle or take the horse &carriage, or this castle also had a bus that went up to it. Chris first thought we’d do a horse & carriage ride, but there wasn’t one available at the time so we headed towards the buss. Unfortunately, the bus was just leaving. We went over there to stand anyways figuring maybe they come every 15 minutes or so. As we were standing in line, a lady from the restaurant came over to tell us that they weren’t doing any more bus rides due to the weather.

Since the horse/carriage rides can’t guarantee that you will be on time for your tour that meant we had to hoof it ourselves. This was a workout and a half. We only had about 40-45min. to get up there before our tour started, and it takes about 40 minutes walking according to the guide. We had to take turns pushing the cart up this non-stop steep incline. We had to stop a few times too as we were getting really sweaty, even though there was snow here and there along the ground, and just worn out. Of course, when we got up there, we had to leave the cart again.

We finally made it up this hellacious hill and had just enough time to drop off the cart, along with our backpack. This proved to be more of a problem this time as Makenna was extremely tired and took every opportunity to let us know by screaming, running away, spitting, etc.

The castle Neuschwanstein was really nice it was built by Ludwig II who was Maximillians son. This is the more famous castle compared to his home of Hohenschwangau. When Max died, his son Ludwig, at the age of 18 became king of Bavaria. Building began in 1869 and went at least until 1880. I guess King Ludwig II actually had five castles built but only one or two were finished before he died of mysterious causes (they believe he was killed).

This castle was very grand and interesting. One room, the Throne Hall, had blue marble looking columns. I asked the tour guide if these were real and she said no. The materials were “cheap” but the work on them to make them look authentic was not. Speaking of the guide, she was a bit easier to understand than the one for the other castle, but since Makenna was in a miserable tired mood, we couldn’t always pay attention to what she was trying to tell us. She also said that Ludwig II only stayed in this castle about 174 days more or less. Chris reminded me that Walt Disney based Cinderella’s castle on this one.

Another interesting part in this castle was The Grotto. This was an area that was built within the castle to look like a cave. It even used to have a running waterfall within the cave. The guide said that Ludwig wanted it built based on some play that the King was a part of. I think he may have been in the play, or he really liked the play, so he wanted something to remind him of it and he had the cave built.

After the tour was done, we headed outside and had to walk back around to the front to get the cart again. It gave me a chance to change Makenna’s stinky diaper (that was another reason she was such a pain, she couldn’t get privacy to go, so she just wanted to be left behind, which we couldn’t do.)

I insisted that regardless how easy it would be to walk down the hill, we were taking the horse and carriage. Chris agreed. We stopped and picked up a pretzel first. It looked like one of the ones you get from Auntie Anne’s in the Mall but it was disappointingly different. It wasn’t hot and warm, and was almost hard, but not stale, thank goodness. We got in to the carriage and I was showing Makenna the horses and the guy offered for her and I to sit up front with him. This absolutely elated Makenna. She kept saying the “horsie is walking.” After we got to the bottom, she got to pet him and thought that was really neat.

We then headed off to find a couple of churches in the area. We got to “The Wies” (aka Pilgrimage Church of the “Scourged Saviour”.) As Makenna was finally sleeping, Chris went into it first while I took the opportunity to rest my weary legs and stay in the car with her. When I went in, it was another bright airy church which is known for its baroque art and architecture. Chris was the first to mention how these churches were much different from the dark churches of England, but he finally mentioned why today, which I didn’t realize…they’re painted white inside. That’s what makes them so bright looking compared to the dark stone of the ones of England. It makes the colours of the frescos and other paintings pop out at you and seem just more eye catching.

We went on to the next church which was Rottenbuch (aka Parish Church of Mariae Geburt) which is another baroque church. We did the same thing where Chris went in first then I went in. This church also had traces of Romanesque sculptures and medieval decoration but in 1262 & 1322 this church was ruined by fire. Over the years different parts were rebuilt. When I went in, there was a guy playing a trumpet along with the organ which was nice ambiance music.

We left and headed back towards the hotel but looked for somewhere along the way to stop and eat. We found this bar/restaurant and knew we were in for trouble when we couldn’t read a thing from the menu as it was all in German or Bavarian (if there’s a difference?) We tried making out some of the words like asparagus and schnitzel. We asked the waiter if he could help us and he brought someone else who knew better English. The lady asked us if we were looking for something specific or if we were up for Bavarian type food. We said we’d try typical local fare. She suggested a sample platter of sausage, and other meats and another meal of pork schnitzel. We were able to get chicken for Makenna, as usual, along with pom frittes (fries). We also got a salad and it had pickled beets on it. I took a chance and tried a small taste of one which wasn’t too bad. It was a bit sweet and went well with the salad and dressing. Our meals were pretty good too. At first I wasn’t sure I liked the schnitzel too much, which was what was put in front of me, but I got to like it more as I continued to eat it. I gave half of it to Chris and tried some of his different meats. He also had this potato looking thing but we’re not sure what it was. It was really salty and had a strange texture. He thinks maybe it was rice and I thought it had a consistency of a matzo ball. Makenna was just happy as usual to eat her chicken.

Off to the hotel for another swim. Luckily this time the pool seemed a bit warmer and there was no one stripping. Chris was swimming under the water towards her again and she just laughed and laughed. When he came up out of the water she said, “Daddy is so funny.” Makenna will be disappointed as we check out tomorrow and none of our remaining hotels have pools that we know of.

Chris has been enjoying driving really fast on the Audubon and I’ve enjoyed that there have been very minimal motorcycles and a lot less people smoking here.

22Apr2009: Day 331: Innsbruck, Austria

Remember how I mentioned a couple of days ago that with the new road system they closed off some of the exits? Well, it’s also a problem when you’re trying to get back on them and the GPS has no idea but to send you down these routes of which one is a dead end. After the third attempt, we finally found the highway and off we were to Innsbruck. It was only just over a few hours away but it took us longer as we stopped a couple of times to stretch and film the scenery.

There is just no comparing the beauty you see of these huge mountains with snow caps on some and houses that just seem random dotted along with no visible roads to them. Plus rows and rows of what I believe are grape vines, and occasional castles and churches on the mountainsides. It truly just makes you appreciate God’s sense of beauty and nature. I wonder if the people who live in these areas truly appreciate what they have. They probably don’t care for it in the winter I would assume but today was just so warm and sunny out, yet cool at the same time. I could’ve lain out to get a suntan it just felt so good. One thing that has also been interesting to see is how the roads are just “S” curve after “S” curve with short bursts of straight road, and tunnels sprinkled throughout. Plus it always seems as though we’re going down hill, hardly ever up.

We finally got to Innsbruck about 2:30ish and found a place to park and headed straight for a couple of churches. These were very different from a lot of the ones we’ve seen as they were well lit and airy, not dark and dismal. The only thing was that you could only peer through a gate. They weren’t open to walk around in. The first one was Stift Wilten as seen here:

Then this one that was right across the street called Basilika Wilten:

We then headed more into town and found another place to park and walked to another church, as we thought it was the Dom Zu St. Jakob (Cathedral of James) but it ended up being another church called Jesuitenkirche which is on the site of the university which was founded by the Jesuits in 1699. After taking a few pictures inside, we walked on and found the tourist area and the Dom Zu St. Jakob (collage below). This church had something inside I’ve never seen and don’t know if I can explain as I have no idea what in the world it was. It was up front and from a distance looked like a tree that was rotting away. When you got closer, it looked as if the top had wax melted on it but the bottom base it was in was wet looking as if this thing was moulting or “bleeding” water. We think maybe it was a strange candle holder but can’t explain the base with water (not water to extinguish hot wax either).

When we left, there was an area just outside with flowers and a fountain. Makenna fed some birds her crackers that she didn’t want and then she saw the fountain. Makenna is a magnet for water if I haven’t already said in the past, and she went over to it. She decided to pick a flower and throw it in the water. I have no idea what ever gave her the idea to do it. I made sure she didn’t pick any more as she wanted to. I think she just wanted to put something in the water.

We stopped at various stores and bought a little horse ornament, a magnet, some candy, and Chris bought a Stein. It was hard to pass up buying a cuckoo clock and even harder to pass up buying this cute little Bavarian dress for Makenna. It was over 80 Euros though and considering she’d only wear it a few times I just couldn’t do it.

While we were in the store, Makenna was looking at a little trinket and she said, “Oh, that’s so pretty.” It’s as if every day she’s picking up phrases and applying them at appropriate times, it’s just amazing to me. Another thing she did today was while she was on Chris’s shoulders, she was sticking her fingers in his ear and he said, “Don’t stick your fingers in daddy’s ear.” She then said, “eeh ah – eeh ah” as if she was a donkey. Chris said, “Did she just make the noise of a donkey at me?” I told him yes and we both started laughing.

We took pictures of different interesting architecture, fountains and buildings we found as we were walking around. We stopped for a sandwich of some sort of salami on a roll. Makenna – chicken nuggets from McDonalds. She better enjoy all these nuggets now because I am not one to stop at fast food places when we’re in the states except for Subway or Wendy’s. I’m already thinking about ways I might be able to cook chicken nuggets at home to make them healthier.

We walked around a bit more then headed to the car and off to our hotel which was another 1.45 away. We luckily didn’t have any issues finding the hotel and this place had a pool. We took advantage of it and Chris finally got to see how well Makenna does in swimming. The pool wasn’t too heated which was quite a shock to me when I jumped right in.

Makenna enjoyed jumping in, swimming back and forth between Chris and I, and us throwing her back and forth in the water. She wasn’t too willing to go under but did a few times. She thought it was funny to see Chris swimming under water at her.

What was nice was that they had separate dressing/locker rooms down here so we could just bring all our stuff down and change. Plus they had a shelf full of towels so it didn’t matter if we used a couple. After we were done swimming, I went over to the shower area to rinse off the chlorine and Chris did the same while Makenna just stayed off to the side. Well, this guy who was down at the pool area with his buddies came over near the showers to go into the sauna and he stripped off his bathing suit! My mouth dropped open and I was looking at Chris and mouthing, “What is he doing?!?!” I only saw his butt in all honesty but still. I was shocked he’d do that with me there but more shocked with Makenna standing there. I don’t think Makenna saw anything as she was turned the other way waiting to go into the locker room with me. Chris said he heard his buddies laughing when he went into the sauna. Well, that’s a way to end the night!

21Apr2009: Day 330: Venezia (Venice)

We actually got Makenna to eat a bit of toast this morning and I finally had some cereal; first time in over a week. It was this granola with chocolate bits and it was really good. The only thing I didn’t like was that for some reason, they don’t seem to keep their milk cold over here. It’s the second hotel that I’ve found that just keeps it sitting out. Not that it’s sour but I really like cold milk with my cereal.

We drove to the train station which was near the hotel, and took it into Venice. Makenna was a real “treat” on the train as usual. What was a treat though was that there truly are no cars or motorcycles on the roads in Venice—which was a very nice change! It looks a lot like you see on tv – lots of gondolas and canals everywhere. There are also a lot of other motor boats as that’s how people get around quickly. Plus, a lot of them are “taxis.” We did a lot of walking and we were already exhausted from not getting enough sleep. We stopped into a church which was small but very picturesque with frescos and other paintings. They wouldn’t let you take any pictures inside as it said that a church is for worship not a museum. So all I have is this picture from the outside.

We kept walking on and found another church with the same rule. It’s a shame in that it would be nice to have a picture memory of the beautiful artwork inside on the ceilings. These churches also seemed to have a lot of medallion hangings which was something new.

After grabbing a bite to eat and stopping at various places along the way to take pictures and video, we made it to St. Marks square. This is the most famous area of Venice due to St. Marks church. Once you got past the guy who insists that all backpacks be checked in (in fact, a lot of the places we went to in the square required that we checked in our backpack,) the church itself is free to go into, but every other little aspect costs money.

We paid to go into the treasury which was very small compared to some of the others we’ve seen but it had some interesting artefacts. Mostly different bones encased in various types of containers. I just don’t get why someone would want to save the jaw bone, leg bone, piece of a spine, a tooth, a hand, part of the skull, etc., of a dead priest or saint, or who even knows whom. All I could think is that they can always have a piece of that person or maybe so that they can worship the remains? I’m clueless here. Chris paid 2 Euro to see a screen with gold and jewels and a whole bunch of saints on it. I forget what they call this type of screen but it’s usually behind the altar. I took the opportunity to sit. I forgot to mention that with all the walking, my foot is getting a few blisters and a callous. We then finished walking through the rest of the church, of which again, no pictures could be taken. I was way too tired to attempt the bell tower. We walked around the plaza a bit and decided to go into the Doge’s Palace (aka Palazzo Ducale di Venezia,) which is a gothic Palace.

For many, many years, the Doge's Palace had three basic functions: as the Doge residence, the seat of government, and as the palace of justice. This was where some of the most important decisions for Venice's, and even Europe's destiny were taken. The Doge was a guy who ruled the area of Venice in old times and it took over 800 years to build this palace to what it is today. He had a bunch of advisors who would come and meet and decide on policy and justice. All I could think of was how people in power have way too much money. This place was huge and it had a lot of rooms that had wall paintings, and ceiling paintings. There wasn’t much furniture left in the rooms so it was mostly looking at the paintings and the fireplaces which were very ornate in some cases with marble and statues on them.

Makenna was still asleep, as she fell asleep just before St. Mark’s church, and unfortunately this place had tons of steps that we had to keep carrying the cart up and down. By the last 15-20 minutes, we were just ready to leave and forget seeing the rest. The last 10 minutes was just seeing the prisons below the palace which were many. They must have had a lot of prisoners at some point with all the cells that they had.

We foraged on to another museum after as the ticket we bought for the Doge’s Palace was good for five museums. This museum had some old books, and some more sculptures, pictures, and busts. We only had an hour before it closed and we did a quick walk through anyways as we were hoping to make it an early night. I was hoping we were going to find the four horses or the quadrangle here that was the spoils from a war with Constantinople, but I guess that was in a section off the church that we missed.

We went back out to the plaza and let Makenna run around. This plaza is filled with pigeon’s who will eat out of your hands and sit on your arms if you have food. It was funny and neat to see this but all I could think about was, I hope they don’t decide to relieve themselves while they’re on your arms and hands. I was hoping to get a film of Makenna chasing the birds but she of course didn’t want to do it as soon as I got the camera out.

We took one of the water taxi’s back to the train station. When we first got on the boat, there were two sides that were going on two different routes. We couldn’t figure out how the boat was going to split in half to do this. Come to find out, we weren’t on the boat taking us; we were on a floating dock. We felt pretty dumb as Chris was trying to ask people how it worked. I was glad we got on the boat that only took three stops to get to the train station. Chris wished we had gotten on the slower one as it would’ve taken us more through Venice instead of the back waterways and he could’ve gotten more video.

Before hoping on the train, Makenna was playing in the train station and she liked the photo booth that you can go into to take silly pictures. She thought the seat was a wheel and kept “driving.” You could hear her say, “Come on stupid thing” as she tried turning the seat/wheel. Makenna was much better on the train ride back as she got to run around on the train for a bit before it left and then she had her own seat some of the time which she jumped on. She also had a pen and paper to write with and when I asked her to do something like move over to be with us, she said, “In a minute, just a second.” It seems as though she’s now picked up another saying of mine that I’m sure to hear for many years to come.

We found a nice restaurant after getting back and it made me long for the days of having a babysitter. Just to sit and eat a nice meal in a nice restaurant without the crying, whining, and general mischievousness of a kid. She decided she didn’t want to eat her noodles with mushrooms and sauce that we got her and would rather walk around and lift up her shirt for everyone to see her belly. Not to mention lick the chair and spit at me. I made her sit in her chair and she proceeded to scream really loud.

I took her out and made her sit outside on a chair for two minutes. Part way through she started yelling, “tell me sorry,” as a way to get out of her two minutes quicker. I still made her sit there, and since it took us a few tries to get the full two minutes we were out there for just about 10. Before we went back in, I told her she had to either sit in her chair, or sit with mommy or daddy. It was as if a light switch went off. She came back, sat down and didn’t hesitate to eat her dinner. She realized that it tasted pretty good as she usually does with much coercion.

Well, needless to say, we didn’t get an early night as we had hoped. We did decide to skip another day in Venice and have decided to head up to Innsbruck, Austria tomorrow. Not that there wasn’t more to see in Venice, but it’s more for the atmosphere than the things they have in our opinion. Plus, I didn’t mention all the steps you have to go up and down in Venice as you are constantly walking over this or that bridge.

20Apr2009: Day 329: Vatican Part II

We had already planned on going back to the Vatican today since yesterday was such a “bust” with Makenna and with a lot of the areas being closed. Our tour bus ticket from yesterday was good up until 10am today and if we could just get up and get moving, we could’ve used it to get back there. Alas, when you have a two year old and have to pack to leave the hotel, you need to add a lot more time. We just ended up doing what we did yesterday and took the metro and switched lines to get us there.

When we got off, we got barraged, as usual, by all these tour groups trying to sell you their package. This one lady was annoyingly persistent and even though we were walking away, she kept walking with us and trying to sell us on the tour. She was good at her job as she convinced Chris that maybe taking a tour was a good idea as it cuts through waiting in the long lines to get in. It was 45€ a piece and we were short of that. We gave them 10£ but we think that we still shorted them by a few Euros.

It was definitely worth the money in the end. It did bypass all the long lines and we got headsets to hear the guy and he was from the States, I believe. He also could speak Italian, and possibly Spanish. Not to mention that the lady who sold us the tour said he looked like George Clooney and I kind of see it. I just envisioned that it was George Clooney taking us on this tour. He was pretty funny and showed us some things in the museum and pointed out how it related to the Sistine Chapel, which he was going to be taking us through. See what you think...he's the one facing the camera.

He took us through the Vatican Museum and explained to us about some of the important statues and he tied his explanations of them into the Sistine Chapel and how it all related. At one place, outside of the musem,

he had to stop us outside where all the tours stop to talk about the Sistine Chapel as you’re supposed to be quiet inside. He did a good job explaining the different sections and why some of the pictures are the way they are. For instance, he said at one end, was a picture of the pope who had asked him to paint the ceiling. What was interesting about this section was that Michelangelo had a falling out with the pope so he painted two kids next to the pope, one kid with his arm around the other. No big deal, but if you see the “sign” that the one kid is giving the pope, it’s as if the kid is “flipping him off,” as the tour guide put it. He put this one other place in the painting too. The tour guide even explained to us how this was done (all in four years) and how Michelangelo almost went blind doing it. It gives you a real appreciation for it.

The only problem was, this was the only place you weren’t allowed to take pictures – all because the Japanese restored the fresco and has rights to it. Isn’t that something! The painting was a bit dark and dingy to begin with, and then the Japanese took 10 years and figured out a method to be able to clean it and brighten it up at no cost to the Vatican. So the way they make their money back is by having rights to any pictures or filming of it. You still saw people taking pictures, but if the ushers caught you, they basically yelled saying, “No photos.”

The other unfortunate thing was that Makenna needed to be changed and I took the in-opportune time to go the bathroom myself. I was able to change her in about two minutes but the line for the women’s bathroom was as usual – long. Plus, this one gutsy lady from Canada, just kept moving her way up in front of people by talking to them and was eventually in front of the line. I was pretty annoyed but she was an older lady and it reminded me of something my grandmother Rafferty would do. So by the time I was done, I only had about three minutes in the Sistine chapel whereas Chris probably had around 15 or so. These photos below are actually from inside St. Peter's Cathedral.
We finished up the tour shortly after the chapel and got one last titbit of information which was that if we looked at this one building as we left, it’s where the pope resides. If the shutters were open, it meant that the pope was “in.” We looked as we left and they were open. He also told us that the pope only speaks from the main balcony a few times – once at Christmas, once at Easter, and once if he’s just been elected pope. Otherwise, he speaks from the window from his residence.

Chris and I decided, since you still couldn’t take the carts inside St. Peter’s Basilica, to take turns going in to finish seeing what we didn’t see yesterday. So he went in first for a half-hour, then I went in. He wanted to go back in and see the treasury and then I could go up the cupola. Unfortunately, both required money to do and we were all out of Euros. So we just went into Vatican city and let Makenna run around.

She was pretty good all day today and it was the best day yet in regards to her. She fell asleep pretty quickly once the tour started and was awake only for the last half-hour to 45 minutes of it. She again relented to sitting in her pushcart until it was done. That’s why we let her run around later. Plus, while Chris was inside the basilica, I sat outside with Makenna and she was just so cute. She wanted some chips and she insisted on sharing with the pigeons. She thought it was just too funny that they would all gather around to eat what she gave them. She would clap and say “yeah” and then one time she even insisted that I clap too.

We took the metro back to the station where the Holiday Inn van would pick us up, but because it was too early for the first bus to come, we actually got on a bus and got off at the right stop and made it back to the hotel. Luckily, Chris asked just prior to the stop what one we needed to get off on. We packed the car, stopped at a grocery store for more granola bars for Makenna and off we were headed to Venice.

It wasn’t too long until we stopped at a rest stop for food as we had no lunch. The place had cafeteria like food and since Makenna wanted chicken bites, all we could do for her was baked chicken. It didn’t take to long to persuade her to try a piece and she realized that chicken without greasy fried coating was just as good. She ate it up pretty quickly. I think it was baked in butter as it seemed a bit greasy so I’m sure that had something to do with her willingness to eat it.

I wish we could say it was an easy trip but it seems that Venice has built all these new highways and closed off the ramps to some of the secondary roads. This caused quite a problem as our GPS didn’t know and against Chris’s better instincts, he didn’t get off the exit that said Venezia. This meant we had to go way out of our way another 16 miles and the “fun” didn’t stop there. Getting back on was no treat and since we didn’t already trust the GPS at this point, we decided to follow our instincts. It seemed as though we would follow the GPS at the wrong times and when we decided to try it on our own, we should’ve followed the GPS. We finally made it close to 1am to the hotel, which was about an hour later than scheduled.

Another thing I need to mention is that it’s these European countries that are keeping the tobacco industry in business. A majority of people smoke over here – no matter what age. Okay, well I’d say the youngest I’ve seen may have been fifteen but still. I go to bed and I swear I still smell it. Maybe our room used to be a smoking room or something but I think that my nose is just all gunked up with the smell. You can’t even sit outside on a nice day to eat as that’s where most of the smokers are. We went into a souvenir shop today and the guy working there was smoking inside the shop. Even yesterday, at the Vatican, I saw someone smoking then throw it on the ground and stomp it out. I was shocked. I saw a priest walking around holding an umbrella and a cigarette. It just seems like these people don’t care about cancer.

Also, as soon as it’s raining, you have four or five vendors standing around with lots of umbrellas in their hands trying to get you to buy one. They see you without one and they immediately are pressing you to buy one. Chris had this really big one that he was using yesterday to cover both him and I and we had a raincoat covering Makenna in the push cart. As soon as they saw that I didn’t have one, they were sure I needed one. I finally said to one, “how do you expect me to push and hold an umbrella?” rolled my eyes and walked on. One in fact made some comment of admiration about the big umbrella that Chris had as if they should be selling those types instead of the chincy one person umbrellas.

Today, it was very lightly sprinkling as we left the Vatican and they were out like flies holding umbrellas trying to sell them. I thought about how I didn’t see them as we walked to the Vatican. It’s as if they are just waiting for one drop to fall out of the sky and “bam” they suddenly appear. I think some of them must be the same vendors that are along the roads set up trying to sell you other things, but then as soon as it rains, they have their buddies mind the store and they run out to sell the latest “fad” to have of umbrellas.

19Apr2009: Day 328: Bus Tour and Vatican (Rome, Italy)

We decided that today we’d do the shuttle from the hotel and then we had to figure out the metro system. Luckily, Chris figured it out pretty quickly and got us into Rome. From there we hopped on a bus tour. We sat on the top and Chris filmed, I took some pictures, and Makenna looked around.

We decided to hop off at the Vatican even though we were going to do this tomorrow as I thought it was closed today. We saw some of St. Peter’s Basillica. A lot of it was closed off and the crowds were surprisingly huge for a Sunday but not because they were trying to go to mass. Makenna was miserable, absolutely miserable. The biggest problem was that she was tired and they wouldn’t let us take the cart inside so she couldn’t sleep. She wouldn’t stay with us, was hitting, spitting (which is a new trick she’s picked up in the past month,) and just all around a pain in the butt! It made Chris and I both on edge towards each other. I finally told him to walk around and film what he wanted, and I would move up front and find a place to sit with her.

I found a “chapel” which was really just an area off to the side not really separate from anything and it was roped off but people were sitting including another family with a child. They got up and left shortly after I sat down and then the ushers were coming and saying I couldn’t really be there but I said that I had a small child who needed to try and sleep so they let me sit there. I had another usher later come up again and I finally said, “Is there a time limit to sitting here?” He finally relented since he saw Makenna. She, shortly after, decided to not want to sit there any longer so the whole misery, for me, began again as she wanted to get out and do what she wanted to do which was to run away. I moved to a more obvious place in the middle and Chris finally found me. He said he had been looking around for 45 minutes.

I figured that he would’ve eventually found me from walking around and filming the various spots as he was filming but he just finished filming the one spot and then left to look for me. Oh well, communication is short and sporadic when you have an unwieldy child. I assumed he understood what I was saying and I guess I was wrong.

To make matters more “wonderful” it was raining outside so we couldn’t really go outside. We decided to head down to the vault area where all the popes are buried. It was a quick 10 minute or so walk through the catacombs and most of the hold up was around the newest internment of Pope John Paul II. No surprise there. You weren’t supposed to take pictures down there but there were plenty of people doing so.

We then left and picked up Makenna’s pushcart and she fell asleep pretty quickly. Chris & I grabbed bite to eat then got back on bus, finished tour back to where we started. We walked to another church which had a display about Galileo. After stopping at McDonalds for Makenna we then went to the National Museum where they had statues and frescos and a lot of old coins from different times and places. What’s nice is that the museum’s are free until April 29th – why until then I have no idea.

We made it back to the hotel and left again to find a place nearby to eat. We walked down the road and found a pizza place that had seating and that was open. We got Makenna some rigatoni which she was very unwilling to eat at first. We had to tell her that if she wanted more water she had to take a bite of rigatoni. She finally relented and found out that we weren’t trying to poison her and that it was actually pretty good. I had a calzone and Chris had a pizza – practically a full size pizza but the crust here is very thin. I then got a dessert which I shared mostly with Makenna, of profiterole with chocolate and vanilla gelato on top. It was pretty tasty.

At the restaurant, there was this red-headed Italian girl (which I think is very different to see,) who came up and was talking with Makenna but she mostly spoke Italian and we understand very little. I was surprised we were even able to get our waitress to understand what we wanted to get Makenna as I didn’t see rigatoni or penne noodles on the menu but mention an Italian noodle and they get it. I could be losing a whole bunch of weight with all the walking we have been doing, if I didn’t turn around and order the cheesiest and greasiest things off the menu.

18Apr2009: Day 327: Rome (Italy)

We debated whether to take the car into Rome or whether to take the hotel’s shuttle bus to a drop off point and then take the metro in. I was for the latter but Chris felt he could find a place to park in downtown. We drove down and again it was a mad house of people on motorcycles weaving in and out of lanes. I swear I don’t know how these people aren’t killed doing what they do.

He did find a place to park and we headed off to the coliseum. It was actually free but we decided, or got talked into, a 10 Euro tour which at first I thought was not going to be very good as it was a guy talking and we had to all crowd around him to hear him. But a few minutes into it he got us all headsets and got us through the line to get in quicker. He did tell us some interesting things and showed us some spots where the movie Gladiator was filmed. He told us a bit of history about how the middle of the coliseum would be flooded and they had “naval battles.” It was later drained and a floor was put over the passageways for the gladiator fights and other spectator sport of killing animals that had been previously trapped for this purpose. They had a 100 day festival during the summer when these events would take place.

The guide tried to tell us we had to meet up with this other guide outside of the coliseum at a certain time but we didn’t do it because we believed we would’ve had to pay again for that part of the tour.

We left and just started walking around to a lot of different areas. We tried to walk to a lot of the famous sights that were close by the coliseum. We saw the Trevi Fountain, and the monument to the Unknown Soldier (picture here,) which was really grand. We saw a lot of different ruins and statues that we are unsure what they were of.

We stopped inside some random churches that we saw that looked interesting and found them to all be very appealing in that most had paintings on the ceilings of the domes or other interesting things of some sort.
We eventually stopped for some gelato and picked one of the busiest stores to do so. I guess because they have a lot of flavours – I couldn’t even see them all as it was so crowded. I again decided on mint with vanilla and got Chris vanilla & chocolate and Makenna a scoop of chocolate which she promptly made a complete mess of all over her face and clothes. She was in very happy mood after that.

She had fallen asleep when we were at the coliseum but was a handful before hand. For the most part, she keeps asking to walk, but when we let her out she wants to be carried. So we kept her in cart and she relented.

Then the frustration really began after our sight seeing trip. We needed to do laundry and we could not find the place that the hotel told us about. When we were driving into Rome in the morning, we happened to see one along our route and we couldn’t find that again. I mentioned to Chris that maybe we should go back to the hotel and then retrace our route, but he was stubborn (in my opinion,) and insisted going up and down this one street. Then he tried looking up on-line on his blackberry but couldn’t find one. So he finally relented and dropped Makenna and I off at the hotel (after more than an hour of looking). He left to find another place and I took Makenna up to the room and cooked her favourite noodles. A few hours later Chris showed up and we just ate a snack and went to bed hoping that tomorrow was going to be better or least a better ending.

17Apr2009: Day 326: Pisa (Italy)

Today we travelled to Pisa which was only just under an hour and a half away from Florence. When we first got there, we found a parking lot that also had a Lidl store (Aldi’s). We decided to stop in the store first and buy some water as we were out – again. We also picked up some other things such as pita-like bread, ham, cheese, some little boxes of orange juice for Makenna and some chips that taste like Munchos that are in the shape of bears also for Makenna.

We walked over to the area where the Leaning Tower of Pisa is along with a cathedral and baptistery. It was a bit windy, but a very picturesque day with the sun shining and white fluffy clouds. I was amazed at how much the tower is really leaning! In fact, it’s been “fixed” so that it’s not leaning as much as it was. We saw a brief film on how they tried to fix it starting in 1990 when things were getting critical. It took 10 years and a few tries at different things until they finally removed some soil underneath the side that it was leaning away from, so that it would start to settle the other way. When it was first built there was a river near by and the land was swampy. Only the first 3 floors were built and then it started to promptly sink and tilt. So it was abandoned for a while until another four tiers were built and it sank and tilted some more. So more time passed and then the bell tower at the top was finally put on.

Chris was nice enough to let me go up into the tower as a “gift” for taking care of Makenna and being a stay-at-home mom for the past year. I got some good video of the area of Pisa. It only had over 200 steps so it wasn’t too bad of a climb. As soon as you walked in you were tilted. Then you could feel the tilt more as you came down the steps in my opinion. I felt the different muscles in my legs getting a work out as the building shifted.

We bought a ticket that got us into 5 different things in the area—the baptistery, the cathedral, two museums, and a mausoleum. We went into the baptistery first. Makenna liked roaming around and especially the phone like devices that you could pay one Euro for to get a bit of history on the building. She would just pick it up and chat away like she was talking to someone—if we could only get her to talk like that when someone is really on the phone. What was really neat was that a guy went to the middle of the baptistery below the dome area and started singing. You could hear his echo on the dome and it sounded as if someone was singing back to him. He kept doing it so that he was then harmonizing with himself. It was the coolest thing to hear as if there were three people standing there singing and it was just him and his echo. Then I left to go up into the Tower and Chris sat with Makenna and actually got her to eat some ham and she absolutely loved the “bread” as she kept calling it. I was able to see them from the top of the tower. I came down and we went into the cathedral. In 1093, the first stone was laid to be build this Pisan Romanesque style church.

Then we went off to the mausoleum (aka The Camposanto ("Holy Field") or Monumental Cemetery). It was constructed in 1278 around sacred dirt brought back from Golgotha during the Crusades. It was later decorated with extensive frescoes, and was the burial place of the Pisan upper class for centuries.

A lot of the frescoes were completely destroyed when in 1944, American warplanes launched a major air attack against Pisa, which was still held by the Nazis. The wooden roof caught fire, its lead panels melted and the hot metal ran all over the frescoes. In repairing the remaining ones, they found sketches underneath called sinopie. They were used as a "preparatory sketch" for the artist to see how it would look before they painted the frescoes. This helped the people who took the frescoes down to see what they were supposed to look like. They took the sinopie & remaining frescoes and put them, into the Museo delle Sinopie, which we also visited.

There were again a lot of vendors all around trying to sell you things. There were guys even selling watches and belts. The hardest thing for me to resist was buying an Italian leather purse. I looked at quite a few but passed on them. If anyone knows me well, they know that I don’t carry a purse around too often. They tend to annoy me and the strap gets caught on everything it seems. Plus you just end up carrying more stuff around that I don’t tend to need and you end up carrying other people’s stuff – like your husband’s wallet. But for some reason, I love to buy purses. I don’t do it very often because it’s just a ridiculous waste of money.

We did stop back at Lidl’s again and picked up more water and pita bread as we could see Makenna really enjoyed it. We then packed up and headed to dinner – McDonalds – again. Out of all the fast food places, I like McDonalds the least but they have the chicken nuggets that Makenna will eat and we needed to get on the road to Rome.

When we were getting off the motorway, we had to stop and pay the toll and the machine says “ARIBA Dirche” and Makenna said, “Uh yeah” like one who doesn’t understand what was just said and you’re just saying “yeah” hoping that’s the right answer. Plus, when we got close to the hotel she wanted her movie changed and I had told her on the way a few times to let the one she was watching finish and then she could have another one. So this time, after she asked, she pointed her finger at me and said, “Let it finish.” I chuckled at that.