Nick and Jen Lloyd

Florence, or Firenze as the say here, is a great place to go if you love art. We decided not to wait in the long lines or pay the high price to see any of the museums. It was our first time there and we just wanted to get a good feel for the city. We found free parking up above the city and stepped out of the car to the most amazing view. Plus there was a nice big statue of David in our parking lot, can’t beat that!

We walked through the courtyard of the Uffizi gallery, taking in all the statues. And out into the Signora piazza, where the famous campanile (bell tower) is. The statue of david used to stand right in front of the Campanile, which is a center of politics, one day someone ransacked the building and threw a table out the window, breaking David’s left arm off. So they decided to move David inside for protection for elements and tables. Today a replica of David stands where the real one used to stand.(The real one is in the Accademia…you have to reserve in advance to see it. We did not see it.)

The Duomo in Florence was very impressive. You could climb up to the top of it to see the view, or you could climb to the top of it’s bell tower, Giotto’s tower, for cheaper. So we did the bell tower, since that way we would have a view of the duomo. It was 414 steps up and Jonah did the WHOLE thing by himself. Every time I even tried to hold his hand he’d say “I got it Mom!” He also climbed most of the way down, I picked him up a few times because he kept trying to jump down the stairs and I was scared he was going to miss a step and roll. That kid is tough though. He climbed those stairs better then lot’s of the adults who were huffing and puffing.

Giotto’s tower, Jonah climbed it himself

We stopped for gelato at the most amaaaazing place. Supposedly Florence has the best gelato in Italy. Aneesa and I both had a blueberry flavor that was so full of actual blueberries that our mouths and lips were a nice purpley blue afterward.

There is a bridge in Florence that is very famous. All the little buildings on it are jewelers shops and I guess some of them are very good. I can tell you they were definitely expensive!

Cinque Terre is a string of five villages on the cliffs next to the ocean in Tuscany. There are hiking trails connecting each of the villages and also a train you can take. Overall I felt it was a beautiful disappointment. I have been looking forward to going here for quite some time. I had no idea it was a HUGE tourist destination. There were so many tourists there it really took away from the environment. Especially since most of them were speaking english…I know that sounds weird but American tourists really bug me. They are loud and annoying. Maybe I am too…but I guess I prefer to be the only one 🙂

The “walk of love” between the first two villages

Don’t get me wrong. It was amazingly beautiful. But it was the kind of place that you expect to be deserted and more remote. I know the locals like to say that it deserves a quiet kind of respect that it has not received since being “discovered”.

The houses are built right into, on and around the rock. I wondered if some of them even have the natural rock as part of their walls inside.

Vacations are a but rough on the little man of our family. He doesn’t get naps and there’s always a lot to take in. We try to do things that he enjoys, like stop at every playground we see and eat lot’s of gelato. But by the end of this, our 5th day of vacation Jonah was getting a bit burnt out.

Pictures do not do this town justice. Plus we didn’t seem to take many pictures there, probably because we were too busy enjoying the loveliness of it. Lucca is a walled city and is not very touristy at all, which makes it oh so nice. When we arrived on Sunday they were having their monthly antique market and it was amazing. Further along we found a regular market and they had some of the best Venetian scarves I have seen anywhere…looove scarves.

Big city gate

The walls of the city are so big that there is a path on top of them that you can ride your bike on or just wander around with a great view of the city.

Path on top of city walls

There seemed to be A LOT of churches in Lucca, so pretty. There was also a cool spot that you could go to that used to be a Roman arena but they built houses over it, so when you walk into the square it’s in an oval shape like a roman arena.

At the market we found a twenties style felt hat and Nick said that I absolutely had to have it and he proceeded to buy it for me. Then we found the most adorable pink bike as we were walking (have I told you how much I LOOOOOOVE the antique bikes all over Italy? They are impossibly hard to find for purchase…but everyone seems to have them) and we had to take a picture with it.

Lovely Lucca. I will definitely be back there again. It had a very local and authentic feel to it.

Everyone has to go to the leaning tower if they are in Italy…I think it’s one of those mandatory things like Rome. Frankly, I wasn’t that impressed. The town of Pisa itself was alright but not my favorite. And the square where the tower and duomo are is soooo crowded that it’s not super enjoyable to me.

The leaning tower is the bell tower to the duomo, even without leaning it is an impressive bell tower. It was built over two centuries by at least three different architects. About five years after the first stones were laid they noticed it was a bit crooked due to the fact that the foundation was only 13 feet thick and the tower was large and heavy. Each architect attempted to straighten it out a bit so when you look at it it’s not just a straight building that is leaning, it sort of curves where they tried to correct it a few times.

After completion there were many attempts to slow down the steady leaning of the tower. Some worked, but some made it worse like in 1838 when they decided to pump all the groundwater out and it actually increased the lean rate to a millimeter per year. So in 1990 they closed the tower and spent $30 million dollars trying lot’s of ways to fix it. What eventually worked was digging fifteen foot holes on the north side and allowing the tower to sink more on that side to straighten it by about 6 inches.

Due to erosion and weather damage 135 of the 180 marble columns have had to be replaced.

For 2 Euro you can go inside the duomo. I wasn’t super impressed, but it was pretty.

Near Volterra is another fun city called San Gimignona. It is a very medieval town as evidenced by it’s walls and many towers. There used to be over 60 towers but today there are only 14 left. Back in the day before city walls people made towers to protect themselves. Then they built the city walls and people held on to their towers as feuds among different families within the city walls (i.e. Montagues and Capulets) were prominent.

Does Volterra sound familiar to you? Probably from the recently popular Twilight books. When Bella goes to Italy to save Edward from stepping out into the square in daylight…that was in Volterra. Aside from Twilight though this town is so lovely. It is a walled Etruscan city (which means it’s older than Roman times!) with so much charm and a lot less tourists then a lot of places in Tuscany.

The walls of the city used to be twice as big as they are today. There is one remaining city gate from Etruscan times. A lot of the wall was destroyed by the Nazis, but this one arch the Volterra people took up all the stones from the street that led to it and filled it to the top so that the Nazi’s wouldn’t blow it up. After WWII they took all the stones out and put them back down on the street. Really neat story.

Etruscan Arch

Beautiful streets of Volterra

Of course Rome came in and took over Volterra at one point so there is a Roman theater that was later mostly taken apart to make some baths.

roman theater on left, baths on the right

The town square…the one Edward almost stepped out into for you Twilight fans

Overall I really loved Volterra. It was fun to just wander the streets and take it all in. Walled cities are nice because you can wander as much as you want and know you’re still in the city as long as you haven’t gone out of the walls.

On Wednesday we attempted to make our way down to Camp Darby, we made it all the way there before realizing that we had left an important document (namely a passport) and needed to return to Caserma Ederle (home base) to retrieve it from the gate guards there. When a visitor comes on to post they have to leave their passport at the gate and retrieve it before they leave. We drove off without retrieving Aneesa’s and not a single one of us thought about it until we were three hours away at our destination and realized we couldn’t get onto Camp Darby (another military post) without her passport. So we drove home. Thursday morning we woke up and tried again.

We got to Camp Darby and set up our camp. Then we headed for the beach. When we arrived Aneesa casually said, “I’ve never been to the beach”. I couldn’t believe it, so we gave her the full beach experience and buried her. Jonah decided he wanted to be buried too. Speaking of Jonah, that kid is fearless, he went right out into the waves and a few times the waves went over his head and he just held his breath, no problem.

In the Dolomite mountains of Italy not too far from where we live there is a series of tunnels that where cut into Mount Pasubio by soldiers during WWI in order to safely transport supplies. Work began on February 6, 1917 and was concluded in November 1917. It is considered to be an engineering masterpiece for it’s day and is one of the few remaining structures from WWI.

The road is 6,555 meters long, of which 2,280 is 52 rock galleries, each gallery is numbered and marked by its own name. The minimum width of 2.20 m was originally intended to allow the transit of contemporary two mules with their baggage. My favorites were the 19th, because besides being the longest (320 m), it had a helical path to 4 turns, within a giant tower of rock. The 20th is excavated in a rock tower, and is screwed on itself like a corkscrew.

This is what I have to deal with…

A “well” made to blow up if need be to make the path unpassable

The tower that the 20th tunnel comes out of.

From Luzern, we headed to Interlaken. The drive was gorgeous, pretty much anywhere you drive in Switzerland is breathtaking. There is always a lake, a waterfall, a river and a mountain within view. It’s so beautiful it seems fake.

Interlaken is on a river that runs between two lakes. It is the capital of extreme sports. There are companies that will take you rafting, bungee jumping, sky diving, paragliding, canyoning…you name it, they do it. There are also lot’s of mountains to hike, and of course very expensive gondolas to help you see the view without having to hike. The first evening there we found a little mountain to hike, Heimwehfluh, just a short 20 minute hike up and it had an awesome view and a fun park on top.

Next we went to watch Aneesa jump to her death. She did a “canyon swing” where you jump off of a platform and instead of springing up and down like bungee jumping, you swing back and forth between canyon walls. Scarey!

The next day we went up just past Lauterbrunnen to the Trummelbach Falle. A series of waterfalls in caves. They are the run off of the glaciers up on those big mountains and they have carved out these awesome caves that you can walk through and stare in awe at the power of water.

 Then while Aneesa went white water kayaking, we went for a peaceful kayak ride on the lake.

We went for a little walk near Lauterbrunnen, and found a very old sign, see how old fashioned the car on it looks? I think if I had lot’s of money I would rent a place in Lauterbrunnen next time we go. It was such a cute little town and felt less touristy then Interlaken. The waterfalls in town are said to have been J.R. Tolkien’s inspiration for writing.

Lauterbrunnen, see the waterfall?

Awesome car at the campground

Our plan was to head to Zermatt next. We needed gas though, so we decided to drop down into Italy, get some gas (buying it on the economy is $9-10/gallon, I have no idea how anyone affords to drive here, the price of oil puts an oil change at at least $100). When we got to the border the gas station was on the swiss side and wouldn’t take coupons, so we drove further. The next station was closed (this was Saturday, I’ve heard of them closing on Sunday or Monday and every afternoon for reposo but not Saturday), so we drove on. By the time we found a gas station that was open we had discussed the possibility of going home and all decided that we were tired and just wanted to go home, so we did.

Getting down into Italy we passed through an amazing mountain pass, it was beautiful! And there were all these crazy road bikers going up it, it was insanely long and steep too. Some of the bikers were at least 70, I was impressed.

Jonah on top of the mountain pass

Sept 6th we headed up the Switzerland. We stopped at Lake Lugano and ate out lunch, then continued on to Luzern. Everything in Switzerland is super expensive, (the swiss are rich!) so rather then pay $200 for a cheap hotel, we paid $50 a night to camp.

The city of Luzern is beautiful, lot’s of half timbered buildings, next to a lake and surrounded by mountains. The first morning we walked around town looking for tourist info to decide what to do. Chapel bridge in Luzern is the most photographed monument in Switzerland. Built in 1333 it has 17th century paintings depicting Luzern’s history.

Near Luzern is Mount Pilatus, there is a gondola that goes up to the top but they charge an arm and a leg for the ride so we decided to hike it. We wanted to get up to the view and to Switzerland’s longest summer toboggan run. After over 3 hours of UPhill, I think we were regretting that decision! It was a beautiful day, you could hear the cow bells ringing from the pastures all around.The view from the top was amazing and the toboggan ride was a thrill, Jonah even got to ride down with me. But we were totally exhausted and we still had a two hour walk down the mountain. We pretty much killed our legs for the rest of the trip.

Here we are starting our hike….we had no idea.

At the top.

There’s the stupid gondola.

The toboggan ride

Coming back down a steep part

The next day we decided to take it easy. We ate some swiss Chocolate, walked around town and saw the Dying Lion monument commemorating the hundreds of Swiss Gueards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when the mob stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris.

Interesting fact for you…in an attempt to maintain neutrality Switzerland has strategically placed explosives around the borders that when activated, because of all the mountain passes would make access to Switzerland impossible by road.