Finally in Venezia

Well, we had a good train ride up from Rome (about 4 hours and the A/C worked almost all the way up). Our hotel in Venice is great and in a wonderful part of town. There are not that many tourists here for some reason (it seems only 2/3rds full). Anyway, here are a couple of shots...

2 more of Rome...

A small dome in the Vaticann and Piazza Navone...

One last shot of Firenze and 3 of Rome.

It;s been very hot here for the past five weeks but they promise relief soon. At least we are not getting the 5 weeks of rain that the UK is getting. Sorry for the rush of postings - we finally found a decent Internet connection.

A couple of shots of the Tuscany house

Of the pool and of the view...

Some photos from Capri, Positano, Pisa, and Firenze

Here they are...

From Positano, Tuscany, and Rome

It’s been over a week…

Sorry, it’s been awhile since we last posted an entry but Internet connections have been hard to find. Anyway, we’ve spent some time in Capri, Tuscany and Rome and have been having a great time - though this heat wave is getting a bit tiresome. From the kids:

K3

Hello, everybody, I am in over 100 degree whether. I am having a good time. In Tuscany we got our house that had the swimming pool. It was so big. We didn’t really stay in Tuscany that much. But we were in other towns a lot. Like we went to Pisa and saw the leaning tower of Pisa, too. My mom never came because she needed to go to Rome and pick up my grandma and then still come back. But, now we’re in Rome having a good time. Today we went to the coliseum and saw where all the gladiators, lions, and, slaves fought.

K1

‘Ey. The last thing we did in Positano was go to Capri, a series of islands. We went open ocean swimming in grottos there. We also saw some towns on Capri. Then we left to go to Tuscany where we had rented out a small house. The house had a pool and a large number of bedrooms. In Tuscany we went to see a large town that was divided into many neighborhoods and had a large horse race every year. We also saw some medieval towns with castles and towers. Then we saw Vinci, the town where Leonardo de Vinci was born and where in the museum they showed some models of his designs. We also saw the Leaning Tower of Piza. And we saw Florence and got the 7^th Harry Potter. After Tuscany we went to Rome where we are now. We’ve seen the coloseum and the Vatican. The coliseum is the place where they pitched gladiators and animals in close-combat. The Vatican is the largest and most grand cathedral in the world.

K2000

Here, here, listen to me, um...yes…right…I get it… (sigh)wait, I’m not supposed to type this. I got the peventh hotter karry boos, no wait it is the “seventh Harry Potter book”. We came to Rome. We saw the sixth Harry Potter movie in Rome. We saw The Leaning Tower of Piza. We checked out the coliseum were the gladiators and lions fought. A bunch of people were dressed up as gladiators and taking pictures with people for money. We saw a bunch of medieval towns each with their own flag for a horse race that takes place once a year called the “Polio”. We went to the Mass, the Vatican, and the pantheon. We went to the Roman forum.

Trip to the New(er) World of Italy

This is another belated update from Positano (after our stays in Athens, our ferry ride to Bari, our stay in Matera, our stay in Paestum, and our trip here). From the boys…

K1

To start this off, I’ll start in Mykonos which had a beach, some ruins and a nice town. We stayed in Mykonos for 4 days. They had nice food and a good beach. Then we went back to Athens and stayed there for 3 days. There we saw the Acropolis and Parthenon. We also went to Delfi where the Oracles, the Greek future-tellers were born. Then we went to Italy on an overnight boat trip. The ship was relatively large with cabins and lounges. It even had a number of restaurants onboard. Then w got off at an old city built into the mountains. Then we went to a fancy ***** hotel. Then we went to Positano, a town built on the mountain. It has beaches and restaurants with very good pizza.

K2

Hello viewers, here’s your favorite god that you should be worshiping with today’s news. We go to this 5 star hotel with a gigantic pool with a fountain, a restaurant, two queen size beds in each room, and a pizza place right across the street. After we left that five star hotel we went to a 4 star hotel. It took about one hour to get to the 4 star hotel. The waves here are amazing. Good thing we are staying here for a week.

K3

Hheelllloo, I am Kerrick , I think the “vacation” is going very well. Kind of, well I am very good , I am very unhappy to. The hotels are great. We have been good. The food (especially the pizzzzzzza) is good. when we got to this town we saw a family of cats. We saw they had a rope near then so we swung the rope around and they would chase it like the were chasing there tails. One parent had part of its ear bit off. The pizza also uses real mozzarella. The best pizza in Bethesda is as good as the is as good as the worst pizza here. The,e pizza isis amazizing.

Photos from Greece

These are:
1) Acropolis
2) Sunset from our hotel room
3,4,5) Scenes from our trip to Delphi

Santorini, Mykonos, Athens & Delphi

Hi --
Sorry, we've been slow in making posts.

We'll try to catch up a bit, since tomorrow we leave Greece.

Santorini
We went to the famous Santorini village/town of Ia (sometimes spelled Oia), because it is supposed to be THE place from which to view sunsets. Besides having as many charming restaurants and cafes as Fira, Ia has quite a bit more charm.

To my nieces: This is the town you want to bring any rich boyfriends you acquire to! Shop after shop of adorable stuff, much of it handmade or otherwise unusual and desireable. Choosing is the big problem.

Fira was chock full of high-end jewellers on the main pedestrian street, but the back streets feel sort of congested, claustrophobic.
Ia has lots more charm -- it resembles a white-washed version of the walled streets of Venice (on the edge of a volcanic crater and without the canals, of course.)

Wind: The other interesting thing that happened on our last two days in Santorini was that the heat wave broke and the winds returned. I had been reading before our trip of people finding Santorini unexpectedly windy, making it too cold to want to swim, etc. During our first two days, a wind problem was hard to believe -- and then normalcy (the winds) returned. And you realized why so many chairs, tables and umbrellas were bolted down, and why most restaurants did not bother with airconditioning, but made sure they had two layers of wind protection (lockable windows AND well-anchored wooden shutters)


Mykonos
We stayed at a lovely 2-star hotel with a pool near the town. We hadn't planned on having a car, but it turned out that the evening walk back was uphill and too hard when you're tired, and taxis are really scarce on the island. So we got a car, and had a great visit.

Delos: We visited the important island of Delos, revered as the birthplace of Apollo and his sister. No one is permitted to live there now, but it was a thriving crossroads of ancient trade in the Mediterranean for centuries. The site was great, but what the kids really liked was the 20 minute boat ride out and then back.
The winds we'd had in Santorini were still in evidence here, and the sea had become so choppy that the tour operators declared that the 2-3 hours we were supposed to be spending on the island was being cut to just 1 hour because the last boat back to Mykonos was going to depart at 12:30. Both the trip out and the trip back had 5-10 minute stretches of rollercoaster ride.

Despite the winds, Mykonos still had great beach days for us because a bunch of their beaches are in coves sheltered by high hills. We went to the beaches of Ornos, Platis Yialos, and Elia.
We even discovered a new and wonderfully uncrowded restaurant in town (behind Coo): Bourazza at the Kouneni Gardens (ph:). "Nouvelle Greek" cuisine, very modern furnishings, spacious tables, elegant ivory decor with floral and gingham(!) accents, upholstered seating -- pretty incongruous for Mykonos, or anywhere in Europe! Great food, prices not any worse that the prices at the blah harborfront restaurants, really sweet, attentive and competent service.

Delphi
We took a bus tour to Delphi Wednesday. It was about a 3 hour trip each way -- a long day. We passed through the adorable town of Arachova, which looks like an Italian village, for some reason, peaked terra cotta roofs, stone exteriors, pretty wrought iron balconies. It is a ski resort town in winter.
Delphi was a challenging climb because of both the heat (we had hoped for chillier mountain temperatures, or at least wind!) and because the ancient marble slab pavement stones of the path are really smooth and slippery in a lot of places. But the site and the museum (containing the artifacts excavated from the site) were fascinating.


Athens
We finally got to see the Acropolis today, hallelujah! It was warmer than we had hoped for (hotter than normal -- in mid-90s) But we fortunately took a taxi to the entrance which cut our climb in half, because the residential & business area below the Acropolis is already up a hill. The site is spectacular, and really worth the effort.



So -- tomorrow we take an overnight ferry to our next destination. The kids are excited because these ferries have cabins with beds like cruise ships, (though probably more spartan -- we'll let you know!).
The first town we will visit at our destination is one in which the inhabitants had traditionally lived in homes which were caves carved into the limestone hills.