So for Spencer's birthday he decided that for his present he wanted to go somewhere that neither of us had been. On my end that gave us a lot of options but not quite as many on his end. Anyway we decided to go to Italy for a short trip. We went through more countries in one day than I have ever been in. We drove through 5 countries in one day on our way down. We went through, Germany, Austria, Lichtenstein, Switzerland and Italy.
This map shows our trip. We went down through Milano (the left side of the map), down to Pisa and back up past Verona (the right side of the map)
The following pictures are the castles we saw along our driving. We only stopped to see one that I will show you farther down but no matter where you drive there are castles to see.
The next pictures I took while we were driving down the first day. They are in Switzerland before we entered Italy.
This is a common street in villages of Switzerland. This is a two way road although it looks like little more than an alley way.
We left at about 4:30 am so that we could get a chunk of driving in before Elise woke up. Such a cutie!
This is Legano, Switzerland although it is Italian speaking. We made it almost this far before Elise woke up so we stopped here and finally found a spot to eat breakfast. So this is our breakfast spot.
We thought this was very cool looking. A giant rock "bath tub".
Elise enjoying the water.
This is the hotel we stayed at the first night. It is in Montecatini Terme, Italy. Just outside of Florence.
I think this was Elise's favorite part about Montecatini Terme. She loved saying yee haw and giddy up and of course waving to dad.
If you look really close the horse's name is on its neck. We just stepped on and Elise chose one she wanted to ride and when we were getting off Spencer pointed out that the horse she chose was named lisa.
Before she rode she climbed up in a chair and wanted to just sit and watch the horses.
We thought these trees were very cool. To me they looked like a big pineapple.
Sites from the city-
We liked this bench. It looks like it is all made from stone.
The opera and theater house that still has regular performances.
The old city and ruins on the hill.
Pictures from driving the second and third day-
If you ever want to visit the city of Bologna we found it, although we never did go.
Elise was holding the blanket over her face to block out the sun and singing herself songs but of course when I got the camera out she stopped but it is still a cute picture.
To us this looked like an apartment building on the edge of the mountain cliff. Wouldn't you like to live there, especially with kids. Especially in Northern Italy you would look at the mountains and find houses perched in places that looked impossible to get to.
The city of Pisa- Our second day.
I never knew there were buildings around the tower of Pisa. I wasn't sure that I was really impressed with the pictures of the Tower of Pisa but when we went it was really neat. All the buildings are white marble and it just looked really neat.
I don't know if you can tell or not but when you are there and look down this wall the tower of Pisa isn't the only thing leaning. This long buildings wall seemed rather bowed in places.
The city wall around the edge of the complex of the Tower of Pisa and the other buildings.
The big cathedral.
Spencer and Elise taking a break in a spot where Elise decided she must sit.
There was one dead spot in the grass and Elise decided it was her spot to stand. She loves to find spots like these to stand or sit in.
One of Elise's favorite pass times no matter where we are. Chasing the pigeons or other birds. But today was especially funny because she would walk or run after them with her arms folded.
There were beautiful and elaborate carvings on the buildings.
Our visit to the Mediterranean.
Elise loved walking in the sand and wiggling her toes in it.
Although she was not so sure about the water suddenly rushing around her feet. She liked stepping in it until a big wave came crashing in.
Our footsteps in the sand-
These are my footprints. I guess I should have stuck a foot in the picture or something but there are only three of us so it isn't really that much of a mystery.
Elise preferred throwing sand into the water instead of standing in it. We weren't there very long and it was getting cool so she never got time to get used to it.
We loved visiting the beach. I guess Spencer and I are kind of kid like at heart because it was just so fun to wade in the water and squish your toes in the sand and look for seashells. I started picking up seashells and Elise quickly realized that you could find things and loved helping.
Our hotel close to the Mediterranean. There were hotels right on the beach but we decided they weren't really worth 3 times the amount we payed for this one which was only about 2 blocks away anyway.
Spencer thought Beka would really like this floor. It actually was pretty with the white marble in between.
Elise thinks that she should drive and every chance she gets she sits in the driver seat and pretends she is driving.
In Verona, Italy there is a big Arena where they still preform operas during the summer months of the year. Granted it isn't as big as the Colosseum in Rome but since I have never seen that this was still fun to see and pretty impressive.
Elise wanted to sit in every single seat and would have if we had let her.
Pictures of the city of Verona, Italy.
For fifty cents more we could get admission to a museum as well as the arena so we decided that for fifty cents a piece it was probably worth it. It is a small museum with Greek and Latin carvings. There were some pretty intricate carvings. There were also some that made you wonder why that event would inspire someone to carve but whatever. (a lot of focus around someone who had died)
I love how Elise finds simple pleasure no matter where we are. There was s storm drain dripping and she thought it was the best thing in the world to catch the water.
The following pictures are in Waidbruck, Italy of the Castel Trostburg. Waidbruch is in the area of Italy that they call Südtirol. It is the Northern part of Italy but is German speaking. When we got back to this point we didn't feel like a fish out of water so much.
We hiked up to see this castle but we only got to see it from the outside. They weren't doing tours when we got there. This is just after we passed most of the houses. Spencer had went back for the stroller shortly after we started because it was just a cobblestone road and we decided we could easily take the stroller. As we turned the next corner this is what we saw. We decided that we had better abandon the stroller because there was no way we would get it up this. The trail was like this the whole way. Switch backs but always really steep. As my mom would say "it's only 4 miles". Just kidding mom it wasn't that far it only took about 30 minutes but it definitely was just as steep.
After we made it to the castle we decided to continue on to the tower, however, the rock path just kept going up and finally there was one that went off to the side and it looked much easier so we took it and found out that we were actually above the tower. We don't actually think a trail exists to the tower anymore but that sure would have been nice to know before :).
The next two pictures was were we came to the crossroads and had to decide whether to keep going up or go on the dirt path and see where it went. The dirt path looked a lot better.
Elise loved chasing the chickens too.
Soooo cute!
This was where we left the stroller. Pictures don't completely do it justice but it was very steep and not conducive to strollers.
Where we ate our lunch when we first got here.
Pictures on our drive home-
I knew my mother would love this picture :).
Spencer had to tell me what this thing was. It was one of the ski jumps when the Olympics were in Innsbruck, Austria.
We had a very good trip. There is always some good as well as some bad but we were glad we went. Besides coming to Germany this was probably our first major road trip. We learned a lot, somethings we would do differently, things we would do again and how to plan and have back up plans so when you don't make it as far as planned or just change your mind. We really enjoyed ourselves. On Thursday we thought we would be home at about 10:00 pm but when the windy roads couldn't be traveled as fast as the speed limit, so according to our gps time frame we ended up not getting home until about midnight. We were very ready to be home and then 5 km from home we got stopped by a police check point that took at least 10 minutes but luckily didn't wake Elise up. Interesting place and time for a check point but I suppose they had a reason. Anyway now we are getting excited to plan our next excursion to somewhere else fun.
