El Escorial (Feb 9)

We woke up early and got to the Renfe train station to catch the Cercanias suburban train out to El Escorial. Well, we missed the first train and eventually got the next one! El Escorial is a fortress/castle commissioned by King Felipe and was built between 1563-1584. (You should click on the link to see photos!!) We saw the Hall of Battles: a long thin room frescoed with major battles of Spain's history. You could easily spend half a day trying to take it in!

We also got to see the Pantheon of the Kings, where 26 kings and queens are buried. There are 3 open spaces, all reserved! No room for Juan Carlos, the current king...

After trying to take in as much as we could, we took the train back to Madrid to see the Royal Palace! It's built on the site of a former Hapsburg Palace that burned down. It's Europe's third greatest palace, including "The Porcelain Room" made of 300 separate porcelain plates on the wall held up by screws and the "Smoking Room" for men modeled after a Chinese opium den! The "Throne Room" was amazing...gold and red. It looked fake it was so perfect!

After the Royal Palace we walked to Puerta del Sol and with Rick Steves' guide, we saw a lot of neat things on the way. One thing is that many of these streets have been the same for hundreds of years. That means that street signs were placed before people could read, so the signs have pictures on them to help the illiterate navigate the city!

Our final stop was the Reina Sofia. The most notable piece of art here was Picasso's Guernica. 11'x26'. Amazing! It was great to learn some history and to have help understanding what was going on in this work. Franco, leader of Spain in 1937, gave Hitler permission to try out his new air force on this town. In doing so the town was leveled. On the lower left is a woman holding her dead baby, and on the right a woman dragging her injured leg behind her. It was powerful in the way I picture standing at the Vietnam Memorial to be. Silence required...

On to Madrid! (Feb 8)

It was a rainy morning so we took a taxi to the train station. We took a high speed train to Madrid, and found our way to "Hostal Isabel", which was at a woman's house. Can you guess her name?? That's right. It was Beatrice! We never figured that one out! Another mystery... we had a bidet in our room, but not a toilet. Oh well...

We were pooped and it was still rainy, so we settled in and took a one hour nap, then headed out to the Thyssen-Bornemiza museum. We used the metro, but we were still soaked by the time we arrived. This museum is filled with major works by minor artists and minor works by major artists. Overall worth a visit, but too much art to cover and too much impressionism for Jen! There were works by Titan, Tintoretto, El Greco, Caravaggio, and Van Gogh.

We ate a lunch of tapas, which was expensive but a great sampling of Spanish classics! Then on to the Prado! The Prado Museum is HUGE! The greatest art museum in Spain. We were overwhelmed, and starting to get museumed out! Enough "Madonna with Child" already! When there is so much great art in one place it's hard to appreciate it all. We did get to see Tintoretto's "Last Supper" which was on loan from the Uffizi in Venice. Funny...weren't we just there?? We also go to see "Las Meninas" by Velazquez.

One Long Day in Sevilla (Feb 7)

Andrew had an interesting night on the train with the worst roommates ever! They were 2 old guys, one who turned the light on in the middle of the night to look at his watch! Hello!! Then, early in the morning before the conductor came around to wake people up, he again turned the overhead light on, got up, folded up his bed and sat in the chair waiting to arrive. It was clear to Andrew there would be no more sleeping!!!

When we arrived in Sevilla, we had a hard time navigating the city. We did as we always do, and our first stop was the tourist information booth for a map. This map had no compass rose, and we finally found our room when we realized that the top of the map pointed West, not North! Who puts West at the top of the map??

We settled in and headed out to the bullfighting ring and museum. For 4 Euros, we got a guided tour from a guide who spoke Spanish, English, French, and was able to communicate with people who spoke Italian. All this for a tourist group of 6 people! At this ring, only 3 matadors have been killed, and when they are, the bull and it's mother are killed out of superstition.

Next we went to Santa Maria de la Sede, the third largest cathedral in Europe and the largest Gothic cathedral in the world! Amazing! It has the largest cedar altarpiece ever made, of course, coated in gold. It tells the story of the entire New Testament. Another reason this cathedral is well known is that it houses whatever is left of Christopher Columbus (after being shipped around the world). We had a great tour guide here, and we climbed the Giralda tower- no stairs, just winding ramps so they could ride a horse to the top to ring the bells. This is a must see if you are ever in Sevilla!

That night we went to Flamenco Los Gallos. Each song/dance was about 15 min long and each had different dancers and musicians. The Flamenco started very calm and built to something loud with stomping and clapping and strong, sharp movements. We had a great time! then returned home and climbed into bed.

Our Favorites: Barcleona

1) Hair! We saw a mohawk dating a she-mullet, a 60+ year old woman with intentional bright purple hair that matched her shirt(see in center of photo), a woman with a boy cut with one long spiral curl on each side of her neck, rat tails, dirty dreds and so much more!


2) Weird metros! To transfer ou have to exit the subway, walk a few blocks, and re-enter. You never knew if you'd be charged the transfer rate or the full rate... sometimes you win, sometimes you lose!

A day of recovery (Feb 6 2007)

Well, here it is September and I'm back to blogging about February! Life has been busy, but I want to finish telling the story of all our travels!

We spent the morning catching up on our Journal so it would be easy to Blog when we got home! Then we had lunch, talked with Andy and Carol Larsen's for a few hours, and headed out to an early dinner. On the way back we stopped by Fargo's for more chocolates to bring home for family and friends. If you never received one, don't worry, no one did. They didn't make it home, but they sure were tasty!

Then we packed up and caught our train to Sevilla. Just a fun fact: In Spain, men and women do not sleep in the same cabin, so we were neighbors instead of roommates.

La Sagrada Familia (Feb. 5)

Back to our time in Barcelona...

We were staying with the Larsens, and we got a lot of sleep here! Once we finally made it out into the city, we went to buy a ticket to Sevilla. We just happened to walk by Gaudi's Casa Batillo on the Block of Discord. It is a block with some great architecture! Gaudi built his house and then other architects built houses down the block to try to out do him!

That afternoon we went to see Gaudi's masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia (The Sacred Family). It is a church that Gaudi started late in his life and continued working on until his death in 1929. He always knew that other architects would follow him in the churches construction and design. He left behind his blueprints, and each succeeding architect has made small changes while trying to preserve the original design. Gaudi is quoted as saying "My client [God] is not is a hurry." The construction is funded by donations, and they estimate it will take another 50 years to complete. Every aspect of the church is models after something in nature. For example, the support beams on the interior are like tree trunks, and the ceiling is like leaves in the canopy with spaces to let natural light in. Very cool! One of our favorites, and we plan to return to follow the progress!

That night we took a walk recommended by Rick Steves called "A short, sweet walk." It took us to three different chocolate shops! One was pieces of chocolate that were made on site. Another, in the photo, is "hot chocolate" which reminded me of hot, real chocolate syrup with unsweetened whipped cream on top. It comes with churros for dipping! Delicious! On the walk home, we passed a market with some beautiful peppers hanging! We couldn't resist a photo!

Jury Duty Scam (verified)

We received notification of this in an email. I thought all (any?) of our readers would benefit to be in the know. Check for verification on:

FBI.com
Snopes.com
ScamBusters.org

The phone rings, you pick it up, and the caller identifies himself as an officer of the court. He says you failed to report for jury duty and that a warrant is out for your arrest. You say you never received a notice. To clear it up, the caller says he'll need some information for "verification purposes"-your birth date, social security number, maybe even a credit card number.

This is when you should hang up the phone. It's a scam.

Exploring Barcelona (Feb 4)

We slept in! Ahhh. We needed that.

We showered and ate breakfast and met the Larsen's at the cathedral at noon. Every Sunday at noon, a local band comes to the front of the cathedral and starts to play (the same song over and over) and locals drop their bags and purses, form circles, and begin to walk/hop/dance the Sardona dance. It was a very patriotic moment, but it is patriotic to Catalan not to Spain. Spain is a country composed of regions that have strong cultural and historical identities. It was very neat to see something like this, even though the dance itself was less impressive than we had hoped!

After the dance, we went with Erik to Parc Guell, a 30 acre park that includes Gaudi architecture. It was intended to be a high income gated community, but flopped, so now it is a marvelous park full of artists painting and musicians singing and playing for donations. This was a place full of life. It was easy to spend the afternoon here. Gaudi is a name you will hear again in Barcelona. His architecture looks kind of like colorful melting ice cream cones. Andrew's reaction?? "When did we enter Whoville??"

That evening the two of us visited the Picasso Museum. Picasso was from Barcelona, and this is the best collection of his art in the country. Early in his career he painted the way other people wanted him to paint... like everyone else. He was good, but we may not have heard of him if he had never found his own style. We got to see his "Guernica" and hear the story behind it. There were photos that his girlfriend at this time took of the work in progress. That is worth seeing! This museum is free the first Sunday of every month, which is when we went.

Then it was back to the Larsen's. We talked with them until midnight, when Andy turned on the Superbowl and the rest of us went to bed! We loved talking with these guys!

Our "Day" in Paris (Feb 3)

We took a night train Salzburg to Paris EST. We got the bottom bunks in a room where the heat was out of control! We tried several times to turn it down, but it was HOT and the heat was right next to our bunks. Also, these were the shortest bunks we saw on our trip, so Andrew was not in for a good nights sleep!

When we arrived in Paris we had to take the Metro from the EST station to the Lyon station, and that was our experience in the city of Paris! We waited in the station and it was very cold! There were great pastries, croissants and apple torte. Probably good we didn't spend more time there!

Our next train was a high speed, double-decker. We had seats on the top level, so we had a great view of the BEAUTIFUL terrain of southern France. This was the nicest first class we saw, and it was relatively empty so we spread out and rested. We cruised along at 300kph, so it didn't take long for us to arrive in Montpelier where we transferred to the train that would take us to Spain. This was in a first class car too, but it felt more like a commuter train! It was old, the seats were broken, and it felt like we would never get there, but eventually, we did.

There was a group of 4 Canadians in their 50's or 60's in front of us so we ended up talking with them. They sounded like they had a lot of traveling experience, but when we arrived in Spain they weren't quite sure how to get to their hostel. Andy Larsen and Erik Amundson were at the station in Barcelona waiting for us and offered to help the Canadians get to their hostel. It was a good chance for us to see a glimpse of the city at night. We went back to the Larsen's and talked for a while. It was great to be with other people and share some of what we'd seen. It was the start of processing for us. The Larsen's were so welcoming, and will continue to be great friends to us.

Back to Life!

Thank you to everyone who showed support and concern for Andrew with his lung collapse! He is doing very well now, especially since his scab fell off a few days ago! What is it with guys and scabs anyway?? He is planning to start running again this week, slowly at first. He still hopes to join me in the 2007 Chicago Marathon in October.

He is still working with the Department of World Mission until Greek starts in early July. We are thankful for that job and he continues to get to know more people in the Covenant. I just finished my first week off orientation at the hospital. My biggest challenge is getting to know people there. I trained with the day crew, now I work with the evening crew, so I have to learn names, who I can ask questions of, and how people work. All in good time.

The weather here has been wonderful! We have gone downtown and walked around and to a street festival. There is always something going on, we just have to pick what we want to go to the most!! We like our small apartment and we are trying to keep life simple. We have joined a CSA, which is Community Supported Agriculture. It is a share in a local farm, and each week we pick up a box of vegetables. If the farm does well, it's a big box, and if not then it is a small box.

As life goes on, I become more and more thankful that we traveled when we had the chance to. It has been great fun to talk through memories together and look at our photos. Everyone once and a while we talk about a story we remember and finish with "What city was that in again??" I'm going to continue to blog and continue to process all that we saw in our travels. Hope you enjoy reading it, or at least looking at the photos!

Collapse of the Lung (May 12)

"Jen, I'm afraid to even speak this out loud." "What?" she replied. "I think my lung collapsed again." So began last Saturday morning, getting out of bed at my mother-in-law's in Wisconsin. With her massive surprise birthday party that evening, we wasted little time in taking me to the University of Wisconsin Hospital.

The ideal location, timing, insurance, and connections all were in place when my lung collapsed, forcing me to credit God yet again for taking good care of me, even when it seems like a collapsed lung is more cause for complaint than compliment. Our health insurance had started on the first of the month through Jen's job, so we were covered. Through two connections, one through Jen's friend who works at the hospital and the other through doctors my mom works with in Michigan, the cardiothoracic surgeon instructed us to inform ER he was expecting us. Talk about an in.

The ER folks were nice and not too busy, quickly confirming my lung was indeed collapsed and probably moreso than when it first collapsed last July in Texas. I was not in great pain, only a little short of breath and more sore from my back and shoulder muscles trying to compensate for the lung's limitation. No trauma caused the spontaneous pneumothorax; being a tall, lanky young male increases one's odds. Better than heart disease or cancer I suppose.

The few hours of waiting for my inpatient room were well worth it. I had the room to myself, a flat screen TV, cable, DVD player, cell phone coverage, room service (that's what they called their dining options), and best of all, wireless internet. I misspoke and told someone, "This hotel, I mean hospital, is pretty nice." Exceeding expectations, the surgeon called that evening to explain things and answer a few of my questions. The surprise birthday party went off without a hitch. Jen even came to visit with me that evening and was back bright and early for the pre-op with the surgeon at 6:00 am.

The minimally invasive VATS (video-assisted thoracic surgery) procedure involved two small incisions, one on the front and the other on the back of my chest, as well as a chest tube between the middle ribs for a total of 3 holes. I was under general anesthetic the whole time and didn't feel a thing. The surgeon cut and stapled off the part of my lung that was weak and causing these spontaneous pneumothoraces. Then a pleurodesis was performed to fuse the lung to the chest wall, thereby making it difficult for a pneumothorax to develop again (4% chance of recurrence). The chest tube withdrew bad air, allowing the lung to re-expand. The procedure took about an hour.

I came out of surgery like the last Fruit Loop floating in the bowl of milk, thanking everyone in sight for their good work, proclaiming how good I felt and how thankful I was that my lung was fixed. I vaguely remember the words I spoke; hopefully my hearers quickly forget as well. I slept a lot that day and didn't eat a thing. They set me up with on demand morphine (at the touch of a button) that was kept under lock and key. It made me thirsty, which made me drink and throw up. My throat was sore from the breathing tube used during surgery.

The worst part of the day was trying to suck up a ball of mucus that would not dislodge itself from my throat. I even asked the nurse for suction akin to what they use on you at the dentist's office. After about five minutes and my sore throat worsening, I asked the nurse to take a look. She said she saw nothing. Jen solved the mystery, exclaiming, "It's his uvula!" (translation: the hangy ball in the back of your throat). It was swollen to the size of a quarter. I nearly cried and hit the morphine button again.

I spent the Monday and Tuesday taking things easy and working to regain my strength. Friends and relatives from Wisconsin ate meals with me and visited after work. My mom and grandparents made a surprise visit on Monday. I spent the evenings watching the NBA playoffs as I fell asleep. The Pistons finally won their series after I was discharged.

The surgeon removed the chest tube on Tuesday in one swift motion, revealing the bloody snake that had been inside my chest helping my lung to stabilize. Jen estimated eighteen inches were actually below the surface. I hit the morphine button as much as I could before it was removed. To my surprise, it felt like a gentle thud. I thought something had gone terribly wrong, but all was well.

I was discharged on Wednesday. Fresh air never tasted so good! My chest was sensitive to the bumps in the road. We spent that night in Wisconsin. Thursday, we returned to Chicago. I slept long hours at night and took naps during the day. The pain wasn't much. I felt sluggish, timid, weak and out of sorts in the days that followed. I'm told it's all normal after general anesthesia and a hospitalization. Walking outside, having friends visit and showering in the morning all seem to help. I will return to work this week and see how it goes.

My concluding thought is gratefulness for God's provision, family and friends who supported me through it all, especially Jen, and the wonderful advances in medicine that fixed me up so amazingly. I have to give my compliments to my surgeon and all the other doctors, nurses, aides and staff that cared for me so well at the UW hospital. I hope it never happens again!

To the Salt Palace (Feb 2)

Happy Groundhogs Day!!

Okay, so the Salt Palace is not really a palace. It is what Saltzburg means in German. We got on an early morning train from Vienna to Saltzburg and shared a compartment with 3 guys (Austrian and German). They were all wearing suits, seemed very well educated, and worked for a company called CARBON Climate Protection. Cool cause to work for! These guys were one of the highlights of the trip for us! We had great conversation, and they were not bashful in telling us what they thought about everything from cars, to politics, to Ukranian women, to history and travel and general US/Europe situations like the Iraq War and the European Union. The main talker of the group said he has one book that he would like George W. to read about how great civilizations/empires fall: they spread their borders too far and neglect matters at home!! He even told us his predictions for the future of Europe, the U.S. and China.

We arrived in Salzburg and our travel companions continued on to Munich. We immediately liked Salzburg. It was a breathtaking city to walk through, and after lunch we made our way to "Bob's Special Tours" for our Sound of Music Tour!

We saw the back of the house that is used as the VonTrap family home in the movie.


We saw the avenue where the kids are climbing/hanging from trees.


We saw the gazeebo where the scene occurred that my family refers to as "the horse trot scene", and the 16 going on 17 song is sung.


We saw the mountain that the family escapes over into Switzerland (but it is really Germany on the other side of the mountain. NOT where you want to go when being chased by Nazis!)


And, Andrews favorite, we saw the international headquarters of Red Bull. It's built on a lake that the founder dug so that he could build his building in a lake.


It was really nice that they took us out into the lake district. The water here is still so clean you can drink from it safely! Many of the lakes are around 300 feet deep and lie between mountains! Beautiful! Anyone considering retirement should consider this area of Austria! Everyone speaks English and it is one of the most beautiful places on Earth! Our little digital camera could not capture the splendor.


We ended the day by buying some Mozarttafel (Mozart Chocolates) and heading to the train station. Tonight we sleep on our way to Paris.

Our Favorites: Vienna

1: Everything closes at 6pm! Supermarkets, jewelry, clothing stores, souvenir stands, everything! The streets are dark!

2: Most people speak English, and speak it well! The don't stumble over vocabulary OR grammer! More than I can say for us here in the U.S.

3: WARM APFELSTRUDEL!!!

4: we've learned great history here! Wow Austria!

Which Palace Today? (Feb 1)

February already? Only 13 days of Europe left!

Our first stop today was Schonbrunn Palace, the only European palace to rival Versailles. It used to be the summer residence of the Hapsburgs....located conveniently 4 miles from their winter home in the city center. We took the Grand Tour and saw 40 rooms. That sounds like a lot, but there are over 1400 rooms in this Palace!!! During WWII only 1 bomb fell on it, and it was a dud. The ceiling has since been repaired and all is well.

We saw there the "Secular and Religious Treasury" that included (Jen is dripping with disbelief and sarcasm and she writes this) a piece of the cross of Christ with a nail hole in it, the nail that pierced Christ's right hand(see photo), a bowl that caught Christ's blood (see photo), and the ever important unicorn horn. Okay, it was neat to learn more about Catholicism and the process a relic goes through to become "Pope certified".
I just had already had enough with relics on this trip. History is neat, relics are not.

For lunch we went to a place recommended to us by-you guessed it-Rick Steves! It was "Restaurant zum Scherer". Andrew got Hieferschwanzl (boiled beef) and Jen got Hungarian Saftgulasch (Gulash) and a pretzel. Cultural, but expensive for lunch. It also seems that indoors in Austria is a smokier place to be than indoors in Italy was.

We planned to go to the Opera House (Photo) for a tour, but then discovered along with some other baffled tourists that it was closed today! There go our plans! Being the flexible tourist we are, we decided to go see the "New Palace" that was never lived in because the empire was defeated before the buildings completion. They had quite a collection of musical instruments and armor. Not really our thing, but fun to see as a back up plan. We went to Demel, a high class sweets shop/bakery in Austria, to sample some Sacher torte. It is dry chocolate cake with a layer of apricot jam in in covered in a hard chocolate coating. Not our thing, but a good cultural experience.

Finally from about 6:30 to 9pm we went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum that the Hapsburgs built as a museum for their art in 1888! It was huge, and "no expense was spared" according to the audioguide. Wow. Our favorite part? The audioguide had a button to push that would remember all your favorite art, and at the end they would print out a small book with the art and the discription/history. Nice! We did it, and now have a great collection of art we were not allowed to take pictures of! :)

Arrival in Wien (Jan 31)

The conductor woke us about an hour before arrival in Vienna. We were served tea and hard rolls with butter for BREAKFAST, in caps because it meant we were no longer in Italy. A general rule is that the farther north you go in Europe, the bigger the breakfast gets! We arrived at Westbahnhof and walked about 10 blocks to our room. We stayed with a lady who rents out rooms in her home, Budai Ildiko. She spoke English, and our room was spacious, clean, and she gave us a key so we could come and go as we pleased. Highly recommend her!

We walked 10-15 min to get downtown, visited the tourist info office and bought tickets for tonight's concert, and took a tram around "The Ring". It used to be a wall until 1860 when Emperor Franz Joseph had it knocked down and turned into a 190ft wide road! The tram took us by a whirlwind of sights, all built after 1860. We saw neo-renaissance, neo-gothic, neo-baroque. All kinds of neo's! (See photo neo-gothic city hall by night.) We also saw the Opera House and the Sacher Cafe, home of the famous Austrian Sacher Torte!

We walked down Karntner Strasse, a pedestrian only major shopping street where 12th century crusaiders walked toward the Holy Land. That lead us to St. Stephan's Cathedral, the National Church of Austria in the center of Vienna. The pulpit is on of the most intricate carvings we've ever seen.

As we walked through the old city center, we came upon the Hofburg Palace, the winter home of the Hapsburg rulers. The Hapsburg's were in power right up until WWI. We toured the Imperial Apartments and the Sisi Museum. Sisi was the nickname for Empress Elizabeth, who has been compared to Princess Diana. From ordinary to extrodinary, full of trajedy along the way. She is worth looking up!

We finished the night with a concert at the Kursalon, where Johann Strauss conducted his orchestra & waltzes. It turns out the concert was primarily for tourists, and there was more English than German being spoken, but it was still a great cultural experience as well as a history lesson! Some music was familiar and some was new, and we went to bed that night with new melodies dancing through our thoughts.

Our Favorites: Venice

1. Majorly uneven ground and sidewalks! Our theory is that it is because Venice is sinking, and it is doing so unevenly! Watch your step!

2. Pigeons. The city has added bird birth control to the bird feed it sells to tourists in order to control the population. We think they may want to increase the potency a tad!


3. To navigate, there are signs to many locations. There really aren't street signs because there really aren't really that many streets.

4. Expensive! 1 Euro is about $1.30. One cup of tea was E3, which is about $3.90! To keep our luggage at the baggage check for 11 hours was E15! To use the internet, E8/hr!! I'm glad we didn't pay to stay here overnight! :)

Venezia: Venice (Jan 30)

We awoke after our first night train and got oriented to the Venice train station. We checked our big bags at the luggage check for the day. Expensive, but convenient. We walked outside, were shocked by the cold weather that day, and bought a ticket for the #1 Vaporetto. A Vaporetto is a bus-boat, much like a long pontoon boat that seats many passengers. Instead of sitting in an enclosed space in the back, we chose to sit in the front seats, with the wind in our faces to get the best possible view of the Grand Canal! Our first impressions of Venice: COLD & EXPENSIVE!

We took the Vaporetto from the train station at one end of the Grand Canal to St. Mark's Square at the other end. On the way we got a view of the old Jewish Ghetto! In 1516 it was where all the Jews of the city lived, and they worked at the foundry. In Venetian, "geto" means foundry. This is where we get our work "ghetto" today. We also saw the Turkish Fondaco, the oldest house in Venice, and the Casino. In the 1700's, "Venice was Europe's Vegas" according to Rick Steves. "Casino" means little house, and this was the worlds first in 1638. Not part of any organized tour but also worth mentioning, we saw a UPS boat, an ambulance boat, and a boat with 5 new windows and 2 men that were going to install them!


We got tea to warm up, and went to the Doge's Palace. The Doge was the Duke of Venice, which we learned was it's own country/empire for much of history because of it's rich trade routes with places like Turkey. Inside the palace we saw the largest oil painting in the world by Tintoretto: Jesus and Mary surrounded by 500 saints! There was a lot of art of a lion with large wings. This is the symbol of St. Mark, whose bones now rest here after being stolen out of Egypt. The Venetians actually seem proud of this! The armory here was excellent with over 2000 pieces! We saw things like horse and child armor, fuse burning rifles, swards that also fired bullets, 1.5m long 2 hand champion swards, a chastity belt, and the predecessor to the machine gun!

At lunch we sat by an old man that liked to talk (and may have been emboldened by a moderate amount of alcohol). He got 3 tables of us all engaged in conversation: us, a Japanese girl, and his friend from England. It was enjoyable to chit chat, and at the end he bought a round of Grappoling drinks for us (like a Limoncello smoothie). By the time we all left, the waiters were all standing by the door in their coats waiting for us to leave so they could close until dinner!

After lunch we went to St. Mark's Basilica. It had a strong Byzantium influence, so it was unique among the ones we had seen. The entire walls and ceiling were mosaic gold...breathtaking! Scenes in the mosaics told the story of Jesus' life and death...and life. From creation, through Noah, through the birth and death of Jesus. Pretty amazing!


We spent the rest of our time walking through the sinking city, enjoying our last gelato on the way to the train station. We wondered if there was any land on this "island", but even if there is no grass, it was very beautiful. Our last Italian interaction was with the police when they approached us waiting for our train and ran our passports. Once we were cleared, we boarded the train for Austria and heard German being spoken by the conductor. This was our second night train in as many nights.

A Couple of Rough Nights (Jan 29)

We had both been exhausted from the hike the day before, and were sleeping in a room in which we could see our breath, AND were both not feeling totally healthy. So, we didn't sleep too well.

We woke up and had some time to spend in Riomaggiore. We walked all through the town, and down to the water for the last time. Another beautiful day!

Then we cought the train to La Spezia and found a laundromat! This was the first time our clothes had seen a drier since the US! Our undies fit again!! It's amazing how differently clothes fit after being line dried!! We found a corner store and bought some snacks for the night train we were about to take...Focaccia bread, fresh raisins still on the vine (huge! See photo), bananas & apples, yogurt, and fruit cookies. Yum!

We could not take a night train from the Cinque Terre area to Venice because the distance was not long enough. So, instead we went to Savona, which is the opposite direction (west) of Venice. There we waited for 3 hours until midnight to get on our night train. Savona was deserted! There were literally no other people there. It was really cold, and we wandered a while before we found a waiting room where we had to turn on the heat. There were only dirty squatty potties, which is really hard for a gal to do when she's wearing jeans, a long scarf, a long wool coat, and a money belt! But we settled in for the wait. We boarded the train at midnight, found our room, caused a small commotion getting into our top bunks, then finally fell asleep. We arrived in Venice at 7:30 the next morning.

One of Italy's best secrets... (Jan 28)

We boarded our train at 6:30am and arrived in the Cinque Terre at about 10am. It is a series of 5 small towns that thrived here shielded from the rest of Italy by the mountains. It has remained mostly the same for hundreds of years! We stayed in town #1, Riomaggiore, and LOVED it there. There is one main "street" that sees only pedestrians and emergency vehicles. The rest of the town is navigated by a series of "secret" stairways and passageways. Andrew and I couldn't even walk side by side they were so small!

That afternoon we took the Dolce de Vita stroll, a path the connects the 5 towns. We started out wearing coats and scarves and Jen ended up in a tanktop! It turned out to be a great day and a harder hike than anticipated. I think our photos say it all here...

Terraced Vineyards:


Manarola on the cliff:


The Mediterranean:


View of Riomaggiore from our balcony:



Our only downer of this place was the room we stayed in. It looked huge and nicer than we expected... it was actually a 2 bedroom apartment with a full kitchen and bathroom. The temperature at night was... well, we could see our breath. Only one heater in the whole place worked, and it didn't work well. Our toilet leaked. Freezing, in many layers, and exhausted, we snuggled into a twin bed together to stay warm. We were in bed with lights out by 8pm!

Florence (Jan 27)

Florence is a big city (400,000), but it feels like a small town. It's a lovely day trip from Siena. The train ride from Siena to Firenze (Florence) is beautiful...more of the Tuscan hillside. Have you ever seen the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun"? It looks just like that, and I found myself having an inner dialogs just like the main character.

This was a day of walking and museums. Some of the streets still had Christmas decorations up, and that was fun to see. The first museum was the Museo del Bargello. It was a nice layout and easy to follow. There were descriptions of the art in English, so you definitely do NOT need to purchase the guidebook here. Also, you only need about 1.5 hours to see everything. There was a Michaelangelo room and a Donatello room. The bronze statue by Donatello was from around 1450, and was the first male nude statue in over 1000 years! That must have caused some commotion!

The next stop was the Galleria Dell'Accademia. This one is famous for Michaelangelo's David, which we estimated was about 5 meters tall! That's 2.5 Andrews!! He's known for a part which is disproportionately small, but he, as a whole, is huge!! :) Michaelangelo worked on this piece of marble that 2 other artists had started on and rejected! There were other things here worth seeing, so this is a must see when in Florence!

Then we followed Rick Steve's "Renaissance Ramble" which took us past the famous Firenze Duomo (photo) ended near the Uffizi Gallery and the Ponte Vecchil (Bridge-see photo). The bridge was pedestrian only and had shops lining both sides. It was like an outdoor mall, with mostly jewelry shops! Hope that bridge never collapses or it will be quite expensive!





Outside the Uffizi are statues of some of the famous Florentines. Among them were Donatello, Leonardo DaVinci, Michaelangelo, Dante, Macciavelli, Amerigo Vespucci, and Galileo.

Our final stop was the Uffizi. It was home to more work by Caravaggio, which is dark and sometimes troubling. This museum also had a great layout and is worth about 1.5 hours. Then, back to Siena for the night.