Rome and Florence

We lucked out on our second day of Rome to get a personal tour guide.  A friend of Megan was working as an English tutor for a family in Rome, and had a good lay of the land and some free time to take us around.  

We started at the Trevi Fountain, where we made sure to toss a coin in to ensure we return some day.  Andrew got his first whistle from an Italian policeman for getting a little too adventurous on the edges of the statues.  To be honest, I’m surprised it took him a whole day for that to happen.

From there we walked to the Spanish steps.  Along the way, our tour guide Emma showed us how you could plug the end of the water spigot to make a drinking fountain.  We loved the fountains before, but they were even more fun when they were spurting arcs of water to drink.  It was so nice to not have to carry water around, since it seemed like any time we needed water we’d find a fountain within a couple of minutes.  

In the photos below, I talked three kids into posing for me on the steps.  The other one had better things to do and rolled his eyes at me.

On the Spanish steps, we counted our way to the top and found the “House of Monsters” at the top.  We kept up our walk to the Piazza di Popoli (I think that’s what it was), which was where we found the Statue of Liberty.  Well, sort of.  We also did our best to spot as many obelisks as we could.

We finished our tour by going to the Pantheon.  The size of it was amazing.

I’m not sure how far we walked that day--but for our crew it was pretty substantial.  When we went back to where we were staying, we hit the pool for our one warm day of swimming on this trip. The photos below show our tour guide (on the left), and just how tired we felt (on the right).

Our last day of Rome began with leaving Chloe and Andrew with Ryan and going to Ostia Anitca.  It’s a old Roman city that was basically abandoned over time when the river shifted.  The first 30 minutes of ruins were pretty interesting, and then we realized that we had only seen about ten percent of the city. 

After that we became a little less fascinated by each and every room and put things into overdrive, which ruined things for Mason since he had claimed he was going to see “every nook and cranny”.  That would have been fine had he intended to spend the night there, but since he didn’t, he had to abandon his plan. In another hour we had made it through as much of the city as we could and called it a day.  Compared to the ghost towns from back home in Montana, this was like NYC.

We all agreed that it would be the ultimate hide-and-seek location, but we were too hot and tired to actually give it a try.  Maybe another day.

After getting lunch at home, we all went in to the Vatican together.  We started in Saint Peter’s and saw Michaelangelo’s Pieta.  After that we went on our hunt for the Sistene Chapel (or as Andrew called it, the “sixteen chapel”). For the record, Chloe thought we were going to the “dentist” when we went to Venice--and she still seemed excited to go. But I digress.

The metro rides in were often crowded, and somewhat long.  So Ryan would bring a book to read to the kids, and they would make themselves as “comfortable” as they could.  Yes, it’s pretty gross to think about sitting on the floors of the graffiti-covered trains, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  

The Vatican museum was further away than I had been led to believe, but we eventually made it to where we needed to be to get in.  The best part was that there were NO LINES--hooray!  We had followed the advice in “Rome for Kids” to go in the afternoon, and it paid off.

After we went in, we found out that even though we intended to go straight to the Sistene Chapel, the Vatican had other ideas for us.  It felt kind of like we had gone to IKEA--where they wind you around and around and it feels like you’re never going to get to the end. We kept seeing signs for the chapel, but right when we thought we were going to get there, it seemed even further away.  

I’ll give credit to the Vatican for having a seriously amazing collection of art, which we saw much more of than we had planned.  We eventually made it to the chapel, and enjoyed staying there for the 5 minutes our kids would allow ("Silence Please!").  And then we headed out.  And since I couldn't take photos of the ceiling ("No Photos!"), I added in some photos of other ceilings we saw when we were there.

Our three days in Rome weren’t enough to put a dent in all there was to do, but since we threw a coin in the Trivoli fountain, we know we’ll have another chance to see the rest some day.

We drove from Rome to Florence on Saturday to spend the afternoon in the city.  You could easily spend a week there, but we take what we can get.

We stopped for our daily dose of pizza, and I ventured out and got a Napoli (or something like that) style pizza.  I have always wondered what a pizza with anchovies tastes like, and I figured there was nowhere better than Italy to try it out.  You know how sometimes the first time is also the last time?  Thus it is with anchovies on pizza.  No one else wanted any, so I finished off what I could of my fishy pizza and left the rest.

Then we headed over to the duomo.  The cathedral is beautiful with the exterior designed in green, peach/pink, and white marble.  From a distance it looks painted, but then you get close up and see the amazing detail.  

The kids climbed the bell tower, which was funny only for the fact that Andrew was the one who wanted to climb it, but spent a lot of the time on all fours saying how scared he was to be climbing to the top.  But they all made it up and back down.

We left Megan with the three younger kids in a park while Mason, Ryan and I went to see the David.  Wow.  We couldn’t take pictures of the real David, but they did have this version of it that was available for photos:

Glad to see someone has a sense of humor.  It was amazing to see the array of items for sale on the streets of Florence that have David’s genitals plastered on them.  Enough said on that topic.

Ryan and I even squeezed in a date in the evening, going out to dinner in a lovely restaurant looking out over the Tuscan mountainside. 

And just for fun, here's one last photo.  I think it's to show you where kids are likely to be crossing the road, but I think it's more like, "Quick, sweetie--we need to run across the road because these cars aren't going to stop for us."  Compared to the rule-following order that embodies Switzerland, Italy has been a whole other ball of wax.  

Venice: The Agony and the Ecstasy / Rome

I had high hopes for our one full day in Venice, which should have been tempered by the fact that the weather prediction was 100% chance of rain for the entire day.  I’ll break the suspense of how the day went right away by giving you the subtitle of our day: On How Chloe’s Underwear Gets Left in Venice.  And if you’re in a judgmental mood, please read this on another day.  Because there are some less-than-pretty details.

 We caught the ferry over to Venice in the morning, and were greeted with really long lines at both the Doge’s Palace and the San Marcos cathedral--so they got skipped.  We had been told that “getting lost in Venice” was a great way to see it.  That mission was accomplished within about 2 minutes, so we had plenty of time to kill.  While we were wondering what to do, Chloe gave us a clear direction of where to go:

 No, this wasn’t a puddle she sat in.  Our sweet 3-year-old has only had a handful of accidents since she got potty trained, and she saved one of them for Venice.  So, our first order of business was to find a children’s clothing store.  If I wanted a mask or pizza, I would have fifty choices--but not so much on kid’s clothes.  

I have a husband who is fantastic at asking where things are.  I, on the other hand, tend to just start walking faster if I think I’m lost (that way I can find out sooner if I know where I’m going or if I’m lost).  Luckily, Ryan’s way won out and he asked the owner of one of the mask stores where we could find what we needed and she pointed out the way (“take a left after the bridge”).  It took us a couple of tries, but we found said bridge, crossed it, and turned left.

Our first store that had potential was a Disney store.  Our options were Tinkerbell pajamas or a princess dress.  So we passed on that, and were grateful to see this:

I haven’t shopped in Benetton since I was in high school, but I will forever be in their debt for a new pair of gray stretch pants.  I changed Chloe’s clothes in the store and put her wet clothes into the shopping bag and on we went.

We had some other adventures riding boats and looking for a lost umbrella.  Mostly we were trying to stay dry (a futile attempt) and making the best of things.  We got our first Italian pizza in a restaurant that allowed us to warm up, and then decided that we had done the best we could and headed back to the boat to go home.  

And during the ride home, I suddenly realized that the bag I had put Chloe’s wet underwear, pants, and socks in had been left behind somewhere.  I’m guessing it was in the restaurant, but it could have been on one of the many boats we rode.  Either way, it was a mortifying feeling.  Please join me in a moment of silence for the poor person who had the great misfortune of finding that bag.  I don’t know what they anticipated finding in a Benetton bag lying forgotten, but I’m sure it wasn’t what they found when they opened it up.  Oh, the joys of traveling with children.

Doing our best to make the most of a rainy day, on the Rialto Bridge

Mason and Katie in their masks

So, let us put that behind us and move on past the agony to the ecstasy.  We opted to spend Tuesday morning in Venice to make up for the cold, rainy day we had spent on Monday.  It was three hours of bliss, and all we did was wander around taking it all in.  There might have been some more pizza and gelato involved in that wandering.  Thank you Venice!

Day 2 in Venice--much better!

It was about a six-hour drive from Venice to Rome, with most of the route going through the Tuscany area.  So as far as drives go, it was a great one.  We got to the campground we’re staying in outside Rome, and within the first hour Ryan had almost electrocuted himself when he plugged in his power converter with more than one of the sets of prongs sticking out.  It blew out the power to our house, and Megan had the great satisfaction of whipping out the 3 tea-light candles she had brought along with her.  Luckily they got the power on quickly and it hadn’t destroyed the tablet he was plugging in.

This morning, we opted to tackle the Coloseum.  It involved a lot of walking to get through the Coloseum, Palantine Hill, and the Roman Forum.  I am sure we missed more than we saw, but there is only so much you can hope for when touring with four kids.  And then we made sure to finish with gelato.  I’ll just let the photos do the talking for this one.

Andrew getting a lift back to the metro

Every time Chloe said "I'm thirsty" there seemed to be a fountain nearby.  Not always an easily accessible fountain, though.

Riding the metro home.

And finishing off with gelato.

I am once again back to blogging in the dark while sitting in outdoor restaurants.  This one is outside a gelateria and instead of karaoke like there was in Paris, this one has a “baby disco” going on.  It’s kind of like the Wii dance games, but there are real people doing the actions and the kids are standing on the stage trying to follow the adult’s lead.  And there’s a very enthusiastic emcee on a microphone keeping everything lively. Fun times! My one consolation is that the weather is beautiful and Ryan is here with me.  A pretty pathetic date--but we’ll take it.