Nick and Jen Lloyd

Not too far from here (about an hour) is a city that has the best preserved medieval walls in Europe. It’s called Mantagnana. Aneesa and I decided to go check it out. The town itself was pretty quiet…there wasn’t much to see besides the walls. But they were neat walls! For only 1 Euro you can climb to the top of the tallest tower and look out over the town. There were knights’ armors in the stairs on the way up.

Even though there wasn’t much to see in Montagnana I really enjoyed the drive. Italy is so beautiful right now alive with all the fall colors. Even the vineyards change colors, I had to stop to get a photo with this beautiful vineyard on our way home.

So I accidentally volunteered to be in charge of a “trips and tours” club here on post. I say accidentally because I said I would help and then I showed up to a meeting and apparently I was the only volunteer so I was by default in charge. They have a “Vicenza Community Club” here that is actually pretty awesome. They run the thrift shop and donate the money back to the community in different ways. They also have lot’s of social activities and specific “mini-clubs” like the travel one. We had our first event this weekend, it was a tour of a town called Costozza, only a few miles from Vicenza. It was actually very interesting, Italy has so much history it’s overwhelming sometimes.

The tower where Galileo invented the telescope

Neat old church with that has a piece of the Cross on display

Old Tuscan wagon, beautiful!

House built in a cave, built originally for the prisoners who quarried the rock

Big cave, rock quarry where Palladio personally picked his rocks

Neat ceiling in the Villa da Schio

I love festivals in Italy. They are so wonderful. As it turns out, there is a chocolate festival right here in Vicenza the week after Perugia’s big one. It was actually quite a bit different from the one in Perugia. The one in Perugia was very “corporate”, lot’s of big companies. But the one here in Vicenza was very mom and pop local. There were all kinds of chocolate sculptures. You can buy chocolate shoes, chocolate egg, chocolate tools, chocolate cheese or sausage…you name it. Loved it.

We drove up to Lake Garda, intending to ride the gondola to the top of Monte Baldo, see the view and hike around a bit. When we got there there was a sign that said they were closed for repairs until December. Of course there was nothing on their website about this. Oh well, such is Italy. So we decided to go back to a little castle we had passed on the way and check it out. It was in Torri Del Benaco and it was only a few euro to enter the 1383 Scaliger Castle. My favorite part was the Lemon grove, one of the oldest in existence (started in 1753) and still tended to using the old methods. They were setting up for a wedding in the grove, it was beautiful!

Torri Del Benaco was adorable. You can see the cute little port with the sailboats in it, and the beautiful colors of the town. It was fun to just wander the streets and walk along the lake front.

An old Olive press

Jonah is getting too smart. While we were walking around Torri I told him he had to hold someone’s hand. So he gave me a defiant look and grabbed his own hand and said “I got it Mom”. I couldn’t stop laughing, too funny. He now does this on a regular basis and truly believes that it is a great solution…I do not agree as he is very bad at keeping himself out of trouble and traffic.

We still had a little time to spare so we drove to a medieval town just a little further around the lake that had some neat walls. We wandered around a bit, there was a market going on and we bought some yummy local olive oil. The whole area was covered in olive groves and as we drove around you could see lot’s of people up in the trees picking the olives.

When I heard about the Perugia Chocolate festival (supposedly the biggest one in Europe) I decided to plan a girls weekend! I wasn’t sure it was going to happen but then at the last minute everything came together. Me and three lovely ladies drove 4 hours south and enjoyed lot’s of CHOCOLATE!

Yes, it’s real

Chocolate shavings for chocolate kebaps

Yetti dude…something to do with Philadelphia cream cheeses new chocolate flavor advertising

Perugia was up on top of a mountain so we had to take a “mini metro” to get up there. It was so beautiful on top, even if it was freeeezing cold (at least the chocolate wasn’t melting!).

We then spent the night in a lovely little farmhouse near Assisi owned by a wonderfully kind Italian man named Marcello. In the morning we explored Assisi, (as in Francis of…) it is a beautiful city! Complete with lot’s of churches, two castles and even a roman tunnel leading into the parking garage where we parked (my guess is they found it when they built the parking garage, lol).

Last weekend we decided to take advantage of the three day weekend and head up north a bit. We have some friends in Garmisch so the plan was to meet up with them and explore the area. We arrived Saturday night and set up our tent. We put on every piece of clothing that we had and climbed into our sleeping bags preparing for a cold night, and that it was. Bavaria got their first snow that very night and we were juuuust below the snow line. I’m pretty sure I need a better sleeping bag if we intend to do anymore winter camping.

In the morning we still hadn’t made contact with our friends, so we started to explore Garmisch. We went to Partnach Gorge, it was beautiful. Waterfalls everywhere. The place where we parked to get up to the gorge was at the Arena for the 1936 olympics, the very first televised one that Hitler used for advertising.

Olympic stadium 1936

We finally got a hold of our friends and we all piled in their van and headed to Munich. We went to see Dachau Concentrarion camp, which was of course sobering. It was one of the first and longest running camps. It was a school of terror, they taught nazi soldiers how to torture people there. Jonah slept…

“Work brings freedom” written on the gate to Dachau

Then we went and “enjoyed” some German food in Munich. Well everyone else enjoyed it while Nick and I sat there feeling like we were gonna lose it…not sure what happened there. I knew I didn’t like sausage but I didn’t know just the smell of it could make me that sick. (Nah I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the sausage since Nick was sick too…maybe the concentration camp?)

Monday morning Jason and Marianne fed us yummy pancakes and we said our goodbyes. We were off to see the Castles of Crazy King Ludwig. We toured the Linderhoff castle which was reminiscent of a French estate. Ludwig was a bit of a loner and had a table that lowered down for the servants to put food on it and then came back up. So that he never had to see anyone. He also had this crazy “opera cave” built. He wanted to feel like he was part of the opera while he listened to it so he had a fake cave with a grotto in it, complete with a seashell boat that he used to sit in. It even had lights that could change colors to give it different feels, crazy dude. 

Then we did a drive by of his other two castles, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein. The N one is the castle that Disney based his castle off of. I didn’t get a good picture of it but if you look it up you can see pictures that resemble the disney castle.

Then as per usual we drifted back over the Italian border on gas fumes, making it to an Agip (the only gas station we can use with our coupons, and only in Italy) just in time. Home again home again.

Last weekend Aneesa said she wanted to hike. So hike we did. We went up 4,444 steps and then back down. And my calves are KILLING me!

They were actually pretty neat old steps, with a log chute next to them. I guess they used to send logs down the mountain using this trail. We had an interesting time…Jonah threw up right before we got to the top (he was coughing so hard it triggered it) and then pooped, and I didn’t have a diaper. So we used some leaves and hurried back down the mountain. Poor little guy, I need to be more prepared!

Our GPS likes to take us the scenic route. So I’m pretty sure with all the driving between all the places we went that we pretty much saw aaaall of Tuscany. On our way home we had to stop and just enjoy the countryside.

Historically Sienna has always been competing with Florence. As far as I can tell, Florence has beat them at most things. But in some ways I preferred Sienna. It had more of a small town feel and everyone there was so friendly. It is built on some hills and gives the streets a unique feel as you wander around going up and down the slopes of the narrow walkways.

There are 17 neighborhoods in Sienna and each is represented by and animal. Some of the neighborhoods hung banners of their animal, it was festive and fun. Just after stopping to take this picture a little old lady leaned out of her window above us to dote on Jonah. Old people here just looooove kids. I get to practice my Italian a lot thanks to my little man.

You have probably seen pictures of the famous tower in Sienna. It’s in this great amphitheater like square that all slopes towards the tower as if it were a stage. Jonah had a great time chasing pigeons there. There is a bareback horse race around this square two times a year, we might have to come back

I love how a lot of the old cities in Italy still have things from the past just lying around. In Sienna there were tons of “horse parking spot” or metal rings to tie your horse up. You see these things a lot, and also the torch holders for old school street lights.

Sienna is famous for a “fruit cake”. It was pretty good for fruit cake, but it was still fruit cake if you know what I mean.

Sienna’s patron saint is this lady named Catherine. She received the stigmata (basically gouged herself in the hands and feet and said it happened by the spirit), and convinced the pope to return to Rome. The people loved her so much that they now have her head, that’s right, her actual head all shriveled up and gross, on display in this church in Sienna. Oh and also her thumb. I guess she’s pretty important to all of Italy because there are “relics” of her in lot’s of churches.

We stopped on our way to Sienna to see the little town of “Vinci”. The house where Leonardo (da Vinci) was born is still there, but it was being restored so we didn’t get to go in. It was in a pretty little olive grove on top of a hill so we got out and walked a bit.