Italy Vacation - Part 4 Pisa & Ferrari

So we bailed out of Roma and headed up the coast to Pisa.  Rome gave way to country side very quickly and we had better views of the Mediterranean Sea.  It was good to be out in the country, but bad for finding breakfast.

We made it into Pisa and really felt like tourists now.  Accosted by watch salesmen and everyone else wanting to make a few Euros from us.  The Tower was okay - the better part was watching everyone else take a photo of the tower.  It was good to go there once.

We then took the long drive up to Maranello to see the Ferrari factory.  This was the worst drive of the trip as the views weren't nice and the traffic was bad.  We made it to the Ferrari factory around 4 and paid the over priced entrance fee to the museum.  We took a look around and let the boys play on everything they could.  We then checked into the hotel where the Ferrari technicians stay when the come to town for training before they go work at some dealership somewhere.  This was rather cool - the best rooms of our trip and reasonably priced even with wifi and breakfast.  It was great to stay in a western style hotel for a change.  We scouted around town after checking in and went to the local grocery to stock up on wine and cheese.  Brian nursed a giant chunk of parmesan from that grocery for a month until it was gone.  We went to the hotel restaurant for dinner and had a good meal including the "Farmer's Fried Plate" for my Dad.  It included a multiple meats, but also fried custard, fried pear and fried strawberry.  It was fantastic.

We then hit the road home.  We took the long way back as we wanted to see the mountains so we went by Lake Garda (foggy) and Innsbruck (snowy)....and never really saw the mountains until we were near Salzburg.  We got off the motorway there to grab lunch as Brian was still preaching about Curry Wurst and he wanted to share it with us.  We ended up finding a roadside Wurst stand in a warehouse parking lot that was run by a nice old Austrian couple who were surprised to have some toursits in.  The special was wurst, covered in a mound of chopped onions, jalapenos, mayo, mustard, ketchup and curry powder.  It has been and will be Brian's preferred European meal.  We even had to save that warehouse parking lot as a favorite on our GPS so we could make it back there.

Long drive back to Bratislava, but it was good to be home for some laundry and hot chocolate.  Great week in Italy.

Italy Vacation - Part 3 Rome

We drove up to Rome Tuesday afternoon after hiking up Mt Vesuvius - the drive wasnt long and it was nice to move further north as the chaos of the road begins to lessen as you get north.

We stopped along the Appian Way to take in one of the old catacombs and peruse the old road.  There were some amazing ruins along this stretch of road in addition to some still lived in houses.  The catacombs were cool though Owen did get a bit freaked out in them once he realized they held bones.  As it was late, we searched for dinner and luckily found a McDonalds.  Now, McD's might not be your idea of good Italian dining, but the boys had done a lot in a few days so we let them choose...and the McDs we found was right next to a crap market.  We looked through the crap, didnt buy any crap and then went to our hotel.

Our hotel was another F&F score and we settled in for the night to plan our assault on Rome the next day.  We got up early (now Wednesday), ate a Nutella filled breakfast at a gas station and bought some transit passes.  We took the bus about 20 minutes down to the Vatican and got off at the Vatican Museum.  Since we were there bright and early, we breezed in, bought tickets and started walking through.  Some of you might be surprised, but Brian rather enjoyed the Vatican and didnt blurt out insults or jokes at any time during our tour or walking through the incessant gift shops (none of which had the Pope hat that Brian wanted).  Only my Mom was chastised for taking an inappropriate picture inside the Sistine Chapel. We went through the tour and walked back outside and the line to get in was huge.  Score 1 for the early birds.

We walked into St Peter's square and walked right back out.  Nice window the Pope has.

We walked across river and to the Pantheon which was stunningly cool.  It had great scenery to it as well as good street musicians.  There is no need to try the overpriced coffee or gellato shops there though.  We had lunch in a small shop in one of the alley ways nearby....more wine and pizza for lunch.

We then walked down to the Colosseum and had a great view of ancient Rome along the way.  A few more Euros and we walked through the Colosseum to learn about gladiators and what not.  The Colosseum is fascinating as it is still falling apart and you can really walk through almost all of it.  Really, really cool.

We also walked to the Forum and the old Roman baths where Hayden and Brian laid down under a tree for a siesta.   The afternoon was getting cold and windy (still sunny) so we found some solace inside the subway and took a train up to the main Rome train station.  We walked around the neighborhood a bit and finally ran into a nice Italian restaurant.  The limoncellos this time were not very good.

We hopped back on the subway to ride out to the hotel.  This involved a train out to a station (the boys were really dragging by now) and to catch a bus (#247) back to the hotel.  When we got off the train, we found the right exit to catch the bus and went to the bus stop.  By now, it's about 8PM and traffic is a stand still and the wind is howling.  We waited probably 30 mins in the cold for our bus - this was the only time the entire week we were all frustrated.  We then got on the bus and slowly crawled our way to the hotel for showers to warm up.

On to Pisa and the home of Ferrari the next day....

All the pictures are here and here.

Italy Vacation - Part 2 Sorrento

We left Venice in the morning for a full day of highway food and Italian highway taxes.  We were driving south along the coast of the Adriatic Sea.  We only got a few glimpses of the sea though, not as many as we would like.

We noticed a couple of things on this day:

- Italians like road construction.
- Italian road construction crews like tunnels.
- Brian wants a divorce so he can travel with Italian football hooligans full-time.
- You will lose your retirement savings if you buy diet coke in Italian gas stations.

One shock that we had was that Italy's mountains aren't the only big, snow capped Alps.  The whole country north to south is mountainous and we had several views of large, snow capped peaks as we worked south.  We cut over from Vasto towards Naples and crossed this divide.  This area of Italy is desolate and relatively poor.  There was also a difference in middle ages defensive strategy.  In Slovakia, castles are built on top of hills with the town down below.  In Italy, the entire town is built on top of the hill.

Once we crossed the country, we entered the chaos that is Naples.  We drove all the way through Naples (not necessarily the nicest of towns) and wound our way up to Sorrento which is out towards the Isle of Capri.  The roads got incredibly small and crowded with scooters.  Across two days in Sorrento, we personally were hit by two pedestrians and saw one pedestrian get hit.

Our hotel was a B&B we found which was excellent....our first turn into it was pretty poor though.  We turned into a dark garage entry under the sign of our hotel and this turned out to be the basement of another hotel.  It was so tight that we had to send everyone out of the basement to move the van back and forth to get out.  That poor clutch smelled for days.  We checked in and explored the grounds - lots of fruit trees.  We took the hotel's recommendation for a local family restaurant that was pretty good - though the waitstaff was more interested in the Napoli football game on that night than us.  We wrapped up dinner with a limoncello which was perfection in a shot glass.

It was raining and raining hard when we woke up the next day (a Monday morning).  We ate our breakfast and decided to take the long way to Pompeii which was our primary destination since it was raining.  We then drove to Almafi which was breathtaking.  Lots of great views and unique houses.  By now, Brian was putting Slovak driving skills to good use and taking advantage of the slow, polite (not) southern Italians.  Pictures barely describe the landscape along the coast.

We went up to Pompeii, in a somewhat sketchy part of Naples as we began to get flagged down by gentlemen who didnt really want to get us a great parking spot.  We found the pay parking for Pompeii and after a quick lunch, went in.  We nearly had Pompeii to ourselves as it was a Monday afternoon in February even with good weather.  Pompeii stretched on forever and we took our time looking around.  The boys liked it very much as we learned how the ancient Roman empire lived (hot tubs, cooking pots, stepping stones in the street and lots of prostitution).

After a long few days traveling - we hit up a grocery store for some bread, meat and cheese for dinner and met Brian's need for parmesan cheese.  The hotel had some great common areas for us to use as well.

The next day (now a Tuesday), we packed up and checked out and headed out into Naples' rush hour traffic.  We commanded the road in our French minivan with Austrian plates, or not.  We tried the one road up Mt. Vesuvius we knew of and were turned back about halfway up...apparently there are two roads and we chose poorly.  We then had to go into Torre del Greco and look for signs...a few mintues of turning down streets that we were sure only going to end with 6 missing American tourists, we found the road up to the top.  We drove up and hiked the last bit (300 meters elevation gain) to the top.  The caldera was a lot deeper and more active than what we expected.  Great views of Naples, Sorrento and Capri too.

After hiking down, we did road side grill again for lunch and hit the road to Roma...to be continued

To see our complete pictures, click here and here.

Italy Vacation - Part 1 Venice

When revolutions happen, lives change.  When Egypt held their revolution, our Egyptian vacation had to take a break.  So, with a few days to prepare, we set out to explore Italy.  Our primary issue was that we have a 5 seat station wagon, but needed to take 6 passengers...so we went the rental route.  We got a 7 seat, Peugeot,  MANUAL mini-van with lots of big windows.  You may ask yourself, why didnt you guys take the train to get everywhere?  Well, we wanted to be as flexible as possible and not get trapped on a late Italian train with whining kids....the van turned out great though, good mpg, good top end on the Autobahn, lots of French-ness.

We set out on a Friday morning and had breakfast south west of Vienna and lunch even further south west.  We stopped mid way to see the village where Arnold Schwarzenegger was from.  It was way off the beaten path outside of Graz.  There were no signs except for an "A" and "S" on the door.  Apparently, only a few tourists come this way in Austria.

As we were taking the motorway southwest into Italy, we crossed the Alps and once over the crest, the sun came out and the air dried out.  The Italian side was very interesting in that there are significant erosion control issues that they must plan for.  The valley floors are all river beds with very few flat places to build.

Once we got down into the plains east of Venice, we got smoked on the motorway by a black Lamborghini as a welcome to Italy.  Turned out to be one of only two really good sports cars we saw the whole trip.  You see more supercars in eastern Europe than in Italy.  We also began to pay the incessant Italian road tolls ending up giving Silvio Berlusconi a couple hundred Euros (at least we know he puts it to good use).

We got into Venice late in the afternoon at our hotel (scored a great Friends and Family rate at a Holiday Inn).  We got a recommendation for a local family pizzeria a few blocks away and went to check it out.  Of course, it being now roughly 6 or so, the restaurant wasnt yet open.  So we hit a gellato stand instead for the first of many ice creams while on vacation.  When we finally hit the pizzeria, we got great pizza and bread and ordered a litre of house red which was on tap.  All was good in the world.

The next morning, we skipped the hotel breakfast (11 Euro each) and ate at the gas station across the way.  For 11 Euro total, we all had something good.  We walked a few blocks away to catch the bus to Venice proper.  Literally we waited one minute and hopped on the bus (the first of very well timed uses of Italian mass transit)....and about 10 minutes later, got off at the main terminal on Venice.  Brian favors punctuality and being a morning person - hence we landed in Venice by about 830 along with the rest of the commuters.

We walked a couple of blocks and purchased 12 hr water transit pass for unlimited use of Venice's boat bus system.  After walking a short bit, figuring out how to get to Murano, we hopped aboard the Murano direct boat and quickly had a nice view of the Alps from the sea.  We stopped in Murano and spent the morning exploring the island of glass makers.  It was sunny but a bit chilly so we stopped for coffee and hot chocolate a few times.  Lots of glass was purchased.  We didnt see much being made (it was early) but the next time we go, we'll definitely explore some of the glass furnaces.  We had a quick few baguettes for lunch and hopped another boat back to Venice.

This boat trip wasnt on a direct boat so we got a good tour of the islands on about a one hour boat ride.  It was a good time for Hayden to take a nap too.  We pulled into San Marco Square and were met with hoards of tourists.  Where we had the sidewalks to ourselves in Murano, we were now surrounded by stereotypical Venice.  We walked for a bit through the tight alleyways, had some more gellato and saw some of the sights.  We hopped back on a water bus to go up and down the Grand Canal as the sun was setting.  Finally, we took the bus back over towards our hotel and found our pizzeria from the night before.  The waitress smiled at us as she was surprised to have the American tourists back two nights in a row.  Another litre of house wine (white this time) and we went to bed.

If you want to see all of our pictures, check them out here and here

Vienna, Austria

Brian wanted a day of rest from traveling, so he stayed home with the boys while I took my parents to Vienna for sightseeing.  We walked up the 343 steps of the south tower of St. Stephens Cathedral.  It is a spiral, stone stair that begins about eight feet in diameter and ends about 6 feet in diameter.  One gets dizzy ascending or descending; and it’s two-way traffic, so it’s really hard to maneuver on the narrow inner part of the tread.  


We then walked the Kranier pederstrian mall to the opera house and on to the Burggarten.  We walked from the gate of the Hofburg through the courtyards and into the area where the Venna Boys Coir performs an on past the Spanish Riding School into the Michelerplatz where the Roman ruins are displayed.  We had a wonderful lunch at the Chamaleon restaurant, bought Lipizzaner torte to bring home, and drove around the ring road before steering homeward.


More Pictures of Vienna

Zetor Plant Tour

I drove my parents to Brno, Czech Republic for a scheduled tour of the Zetor tractor factory which was one of the only things that my Dad had requested.  After the rain yesterday and last night it had gotten below freezing so there was a rime covering on all the fields and plants.  It was beautiful in the morning sunlight.

On the way, we saw our first tractor in the fields, plowing.  They use hillside plows even on flat ground.  This was a brand that I hadn’t heard of – non-articulated four-wheel drive with a six-bottom plow.  The landscape is relatively flat to the Czech boarder and then becomes rolling with large vineyards on the hillsides.  

This was my first foray into the Czech Republic, and even though Brian’s car already has an annual Czech toll sticker, I wanted to stop at the first gas station and get some Czech crowns (they are not yet on the Euro) to buy lunch for our tour guide; and, even more importantly, for paying an immediate fine in case we were pulled over by the police.  We stopped at three gas stations before Brno and didn’t find an ATM.  

At the factory, I think my dad had a good time questioning our guide Petr Novak and translator Dagmar Dziadkova.  Again due to the poor world economy, this factory is only producing about 5000 tractors per year, is only about one fourth its former physical size, and now employs only 800 rather than 10,000 in its heyday.  Petr and Dagmar declined a "thank you" lunch that we would have liked to take them to, perhaps because they would have lost pay for the time they were away from the plant.  

From the Brno billboards it appears that Bauhaus is the big home improvement store there, but they have all the other names familiar in Bratislava: Ikea, Tesco, Nay Electronics, etc.  We passed a Caterpillar dealer that had more Challenger equipment on display than I have seen at any dealer in the States.  There was a combine and five tractors of differing sizes, all with tires and none with rubber tracks.  We thought we saw a paper plant from the highway.  There were evergreen plantations around, but there was no smell like from the Westvaco plants in Luke, Maryland or Covington, Virginia.  We had made this comment also when we saw what we thought might be a paper plant on our trip to Donovaly.

Modra Pottery

My New Brie Pottery

Brian is traveling a lot while my parents are here for the month of February so that I can have the car to do things with them.  Today we accompanied another car of women parents from the American school to the pottery, Slov Ludova Majolika, in Modra.  Modra means “blue” in Slovak, so a major theme of the hand-painted pottery there was blue.  We went to see what was there, and ended up all buying gifts like the stated purpose of the other women.  I did buy a couple of things for myself too.

After making our purchases they also gave us a tour of the plant.  The downturn in the economy has crippled this plant.  Where they had seats for nearly 20 painters, today only two were working.  They have huge electric kilns that would take at least a couple weeks of production to fill each one for economical firing. 

Modra is also a famous wine region.  We found a very nice restaurant for lunch.  Luckily some of the women were more fluent in Slovak so that we could order, because no one at the restaurant spoke English.  Both the meal and the company were great!

Dog Sledding

Although the wind and moisture made it uncomfortable in the open yesterday, the temperature was in the high 30s Fahrenheit, and it apparently was never below freezing during the night.  We awoke to a heavy drizzle.  We packed the car and were ready for the group breakfast at 8:00.  

Instead of the standard European breakfast buffet of meats and cheeses, we were served a "special" breakfast – two hotdogs, mustard and bread.  The whole group was dumbfounded, but gamely nibbled at or heartily ate the wieners.  Of course any liquid was extra and very slow to arrive, we ended up going back to our rooms for our water bottles.  

When we all left the hotel lobby at 9:00, the drizzle had turned to light rain.  We split again into two groups, and I was feeling well enough to go dog sledding.  The dogs were mixed breeds, and not large.  The snow conditions were not good for sledding, especially on the uphill jogs.  There were three mushers who first took us on rides with six or eight-dog teams.  

Not long after we started, the rain ceased and the sun tried to peek through the clouds.  After everyone had rides, we could drive the sleds, first with the mushers as passengers; and, if deemed talented enough, alone with a four-dog team and lighter sled.  We did this for nearly two hours until it began to rain again, so we went early to the lunch rendezvous point, the Koliba Goral.  

This restaurant was a replica of traditional construction with hewn logs and roped shavings chinking.  We had traditional Slovakian country dishes for lunch.  Mom had cabbage soup and Halusky, which looks like macaroni and cheese, but is really tiny potato dumplings in a sheep cheese sauce and evidently bacon grease for extra flavoring.   The big meal in Slavakia was traditionally lunch and a big part of that meal is soup.  

We all hoped that the weather would turn in Donovaly, because they are to host the world dog sledding championships next weekend.  They are expecting over 800 dogs from all over Europe.  Without more and dryer snow it will be a disaster.  After tourism, forestry seems to be the largest industry in the mountains.  There are very large agricultural fields in the mostly flat area all the way back to Bratislava.  

There were many vineyards, a few larger than 100 acres.  All rural houses are in villages, rather than scattered with the land holding as in America, and each village house usually has its back yard plowed for a garden of partial fruit trees/vineyard and part garden.  Although the fields are very large and most have been plowed (there is some corn stover exposed, and a few fields look like they have winter wheat planted) all farm equipment is stored out of sight.  

We did see two equipment dealers at Nitra, and Dad had to stop to take a picture of the “foreign” combine and tractors.  There is a good deal of road construction around Nitra, and limited crews were working on Saturday and Sunday.  Caterpillar was heavily represented, as were Volvo, Kamatsu and Hitachi.  There was a Caterpillar dealer in Branska Bystrica.  It was 52 degrees Fahrenheit when we got back to Bratislava.

Snow Shoeing & Thermal Pool

It was a cloudy day, but we left early for a Boy Scout outing to the Tatras, the mountains near the border with Poland.  My parents had come on 2/2 (my birthday) and were also going with us.  It was a three-hour drive and since our Volvo holds only five, my mother rode with another family from the American school.  We drove to Donovaly through Nitra and Branska Bystrica.  Donovaly is at about 3000 feet elevation and once the road started into the mountains it looked a lot like being in West Virginia.  There was about three inches of very wet snow on the ground.  

We reached the central parking area at noon and after a picnic lunch that we had packed, the tour service Tara Well split the group in to snowshoeing and dog sledding.  I was recovering from the flu that I got on 2/3, so our family opted for snowshoeing because I was hoping to be able to participate the next in dog sledding.  

Brian, both boys, and my parents snowshoed for 13 km and 3 hours through the picturesque town of Bully.  The houses there are now rented for winter tourists and the trails were groomed much like U.S. Forrest Service roads that are utilized for cross-country skiing.  I had no idea it would be that long -  I am still so proud of them for doing it!

After their super long hike, we left directly from the parking lot where everyone was gathered for a mineral pool spa in Bessenova.  The waters in the outside pools were of different temperatures, but we liked the two pools at 38 degrees C. The air temperature was seven degrees C, but the coldest part was walking on the wet pavers around the pools.  

After two hours in the pools, we went to a buffet dinner (it’s now 8:30 and very late for all these small kids) at Koliba (Chalet) Greta with traditional fare and traditional music.  Then it was back to the Hotel Donovaly by 10:00 to find only tepid water to wash off the minerals before retiring.  Needless to say many chose not to bathe in the tepid water.

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(Ghost Writing Provided by Carl Winters - Thanks Dad!!)