porta fino boats

this is lynda and i in the yacht pen at porta fino....more later!

levanto its hot!

Well we are here in levanto now....i will just skip capri and sorranto since barrett covered them well i am sure.





lynda and i drove to porta fina a super upscale hill town next to the ocean. it was filled with the rich and beautiful...much like a mini capri.


we enjoyed the drive there...we took the back roads on purpose.

yesterday we took the train to a couple of nearby towns here in the cinque terra and all jumped off rocks into the blue water....at least most places it was blue......

we are going out to eat as a group most nights and find the food good...but expensive.


7 has been the most daring ordering things with fish and other things from the ocean in it.
we all eat a lot of pizza!

this town hops until 2am, and our apartment is right over the town park. even young kids are out riding their bikes and kicking balls etc until 2 or even 3am .....there is a sign which says no bikes balls running on the grass etc which is ignored by EVERYONE.....its italy...

well off to the beach ...kids are already there.

jim

Sorrento!!

Ok, so it has been a while since I have had extended internet access, but i still want to write about Sorrento and the Amalfi coast, our stop after Rome. We stayed for 4 nights, and it was an amazing time with beautiful weather. Here is Trillion and I with some of the coastline in the background. Part of it is the city of Sorrento, where we stayed. Our place was about a two minute walk to one of the few sand beaches in the area. There was also a decent sized harbor there with fishing boats.

On our first day we drove down the Amalfi coast, which is on the south side of the peninsula (Sorrento is on the north, and across the bay from Sorrento is Naples). It was a crazy drive with the road mostly not wide enough for two normal sized cars. Then it was onto Paestum, some Greek ruins further down south, and then Trillion and I got dropped off at Pompeii. Pompeii, as you may well know, was a Roman city buried under ash from mt. Vesuvius after its eruption almost 2000 years ago. The volcano is still very much active, and many scientists believe a major eruption could occur soon. The roman city is incredibly well preserved and really interesting. This is me in the forum with the volcano ominously in the background.

The next day was our Capri day, and what a day it was. We rented a boat and drove it to the famous and Luxurious island, which is just off the end of the peninsula I discussed earlier. It took us about an hour to get there, but much longer if you factor in trying to find a place to port. Then We took a funicular to the city of Capri, bused to Anacapri, and took a single seat chair lift to the top of mt. Salerno for a stunning view.

We left port and boated around the island for a while to find good places to swim. Thanks to our spectacular captain and navigator (see my facebook profile picture) we were successful. Jim actually did most of the boat driving and did a great job. This is my first video upload onto here, so I hope it works.

Finally on our last day we stayed around Sorrento. It was a much needed day of relaxing after a bunch of busy days in a row. Sorrento is a great city with lots if interesting shops. The whole area is famous for its lemon trees, and Sorrento in particular is known for lemoncello. There are even a few shops that offer free samples! I found a good looking restaurant online called da Giginos, and it turned out to be a great place. They served us prosecco when we sat down and had great pizza and lasagna. All around it was a great time. I can't wait til I come back on my yacht in a few years!

sorrento/capri vacation central

We arrrived here a few days ago and picked up our keys at a house on a back "street" that was being gutted. The workers there called a guy who arrived on a scooter and said "follow me".....

He took us down a narrow street and then through an alley so skinny that i drug my mirror on the building.....

It is a nice place that is once again large enough for all six of us.

the first day here we drove down the amalfi coast....its known as a white knuckle drive...tight curves, narrow road. fantastic views.

four hours later we were at an ancient greek ruin place called pasteum that lynda has always wanted to see.

the next day we rented a boat and boated over to capri. docked for 10 euros and walked the city for a while....then rode a single chair lift to the top of mt salerno. then back down for a run around the island...with a few swims here and there. we also drove the boat straight through one of those big famous rocks.....well there was a hole there of course, but it was really neat.

lynda though we were going to die when a large boat wake came into the boat to visit us while we were stopped and changing fuel tanks. overall it was a fun memorable experience.

hopfully the kids will post some boat photos...i was too busy driving....

more later..off to tuscany next....

Rome!

I've finally got a chance to write about rome, so here is my take on it for those who prefer paragraphs and no ellipses.

I would have to say rome is my favorite city we have visited so far. It's an amazing mix of ancient, old and modern. We stayed right by the Colosseum, as Jim already talked about, which seems like it was dropped into the middle of a modern city. The drive in was crazy, but we managed to get to the place with no wrong turns thanks to our awesome navigator, and a little help from the GPS.

The first day Trillion and I got up early and took the incredibly busy subway to Vatican city. We had bought tickets ahead of time to the museum (which is supposedly one of the best collections in the world) and that allowed us to skip the line which spanned two city blocks. There were tons of statues of everything from animals to emperors. The coolest part was the map room. It was a huge room with big maps all along the wall. Here I am gazing at one of the many maps.

The museum ended with the Sistine chapel, which was packed with tour groups. We exited through the tour group exit that took us out by the entrance to the cupolo, which is the gigantic dome on top of st. Peter's basilica. There were over 500 stairs to climb, but it was definitely worth it as we got the most spectacular view of the city.

Walking down left us inside the basilica. I wish i had a picture that showed how big it was, but there's just no way to capture it in a photograph. We did the Vatican in less than 3 hours! leaving us plenty of time to see more of the city. After meeting up with everyone else, we walked to the Borghese gardens, kind of like the central park of Rome, except on a big hill. One the way was one of the best meals of the trip. I got a rigatoni carbonara, but trillion's pasta pesto was the best. And the portions were so big that I couldn't finish everything even though i wanted to. At the park we rented big pedal carts. It was really fun to ride them all around, and it makes for a funny picture.

The next day was the Colosseum and Roman forum. They are really old, and it's weird to think this was once home to the most powerful civilization in the world. The Colosseum was very impressive, but the forum was mostly fallen or taken apart. On our last day trillion and I went to the ruins of the nearby port of ostia antica, which was much better preserved and really neat.

In the evening we spent a lot of time at piazza Navona and the Trevi fountain. Piazza Navona is a huge square (though actually a rectangle) full of fountains, artists, and street performers. There are also tons of great looking restaurants just to the west, we ate at a couple. The Trevi fountain is weird because it is right up against a building. It was always packed. Also in that area is Pantheon, which is one of the best preserved roman buildings, mostly because it was converted to a church. It is so strange to come around the corner and right in the middle of the city is this ancient building.

We did much more in Rome, but there just isn't time to cover it all. We saw more churches, museums, piazzas, and all kinds of great food. The best was Navona Notte. The four cheese gnocchi was delicious, as was the pasta alla vodka. They also had the best chocolate mousse I have ever had. Trillion even liked it better than the tiramisu.

Time to say goodbye to Rome, until next time, that is.

Rome...we like it!

well we have been here for a while, eaten a lot of pizza and gelato

The last couple of days we split up and go our own ways because lynda has sore feet and walks

a bit slower. Its wild but we have run into each other out in Rome a couple of times. Seems like our family tends to wander around the same places

...here are some pictures of the street performers at Piazzia Navona....both the puppet guy and mr freeze guy were there last time we were.
Our family talked to them both, the puppet guy is on year 17! wow..what a way to make a living.

7 has been in pizza heaven eating at all the best places in the world...buffeta etc. while some of the rest of us have ventured out and had a pasta, etc. I even tried a steak here.....which was different to say the least.

I have taken a few car, machine, ape, motorscooter etc shots.

Tommorow we take off for sorrento...

I am not sure how the connections will be so this may be my last post for a bit. Traffic here is WILD so pray for us as we brave the traffic circles on the way out of rome. Ask barrrett about left left..no right! ooops.....

he has been a great help for all of us!

as always....

jim/j

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All roads lead to rome!

So I know Jim has been posting about Rome already, but I want to talk briefly about a few of our stops on the way to rome. After leaving Venice, we drive about an hour to Verona, where obscure play Romeo and Juliet was set. It was actually a very pretty city apart from the whole Romeo and Juliet thing, but I don't think that's what draws in the crowds. Here you can see me in the crowd with the supposed balcony where Romeo wooed Juliet.

There are a few interesting things to note. As Romeo and Juliet is fiction, this whole thing was really just put on to bring in tourists to the city. But on the other hand, the house shown above has been owned by the Capoletto (not sure on the spelling there) family since the 1200's, and that's of course where Shakespeare got the name Capulet, so the site is not without history of meaning. Also there is a statue of Juliet right below the balcony. There bronze has substantial wear on the right boob, I think you can guess why.

After getting some of the best Gelato in Italy, we drove about three hours to where we stayed for the night. It was this very strange camping resort in Tuscany with spectacular views of the Tuscan countryside. It was kind of like the beach resorts they have in the Caribbean, except not all-inclusive or on a beach. It was full of Europeans though, and they told us the tap water wasn't drinkable, possibly mimicking the resorts in Mexico, except there it actually is dangerous to drink the water.

The next day we went to Assisi in Umbria on the way to Rome. If you are like me and not familiar with Catholic history or hill towns in Italy, you wouldn't know that Assisi is famous for being the home of St. Francis. He brought the message of the gospel to the commoners (the bible was only in Latin in the middle ages) gave all his riches to the poor, and started a radical evangelical movement. Soon after his death, a cathedral was built in his honor and to house this remains. No pictures inside, but here is a shot of it from the outside.

Other than that there wasn't really much to Assisi. We then spotted a cool looking town up on a hill near the road we were on, and decided to go take a look. It was fun exploring the town, called Trevi, and it had a really weird playground. It was nothing like you see in the states. Here I am doing the rope swing. It was kind of like a zipline, but you sat down.

Finally on to Rome, which is seems you have already heard a lot about. More to come from me on that soon I hope. By the way, if you would like to see more pictures, Trillion has been posting them on facebook as we go, so if you friend her, you will be able to see more than just the few I put up here. One last thing. I want to talk about at least one meal each post, but the food at these places was subpar at best, so I am going to cover a place in Rome because the food here has been spectacular. At dar Poeta Pizzaria I got the pizza with spicy salami and chilies. It was the best pizza I have had so far on this trip. They also had excellent bruschetta. It's off to Sorrento tomorrow!