Europe Trip- Day 4: July 1, 2012

AMALFI COAST
By Joshua

Today began with a ride from Rome to Pompeii.  En route to Pompeii, we saw the World War II cemetery of Monte Cassino.

Monte Cassino
 Pompeii followed on the heels of Rome and was 35 degrees Celcius.  The tour of Pompeii was great and the tour guide's name was Genaro.  Genaro was about 70 and was excited to brag to us about the Sicilian Style Macaroni and Mozzarella his wife was making him for dinner.

Outside the uncovered city of Pompeii
Among the highlights were seeing the people that died during the eruption, the shock about how perverted the Pompeiians were, and the Roman style bath. 

Genaro showing us a street in Pompeii.  
It was a lovely little street with a school, stores, bakeries, brothels, and "quicky" rooms.
I see dead people!

Us, ready for the soccer game tonight
and also hoping Mt. Vesuvius is not going to erupt while we're here.
(see it in the background?) "It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when"

From Pompeii we traveled to Ravello.  Sitting 1,000 feet up above the Amalfi Coast, this offered the most amazing views we have ever seen of both the coast and the surrounding mountains. 
It is NOT safe for a tour bus to drive up 3,000 feet. 
These cars are going to opposite direction of us and trying to squeeze through.  YIKES! 


What do you even say here?

Only God can create something this spectacular!

During the time at Ravello, we went to an Arab style villa build during the 8th century BC and saw a wedding take place in the town's church. 

Dear bride: Sorry 40 people snuck into a church before your wedding. Thank you for being so nice about it and still smiling and thanking us when we clapped for you.  Love, Trafalgar Italian Concerto Tour Group
The entrance to a restaurant...this place is just ridiculous. 
After Ravello, we went to our hotel on the Amalfi Coast.  Unfortunately, our hotel is different from, and presumed to be not as good as, the hotel we were supposed to stay at.  We are not at the hotel San Pietro instead of the Panaorma Hotel. 

We ate dinner at the hotel and then watched the soccer game at the hotel pool bar with people from our group.  Unfortunately Italy lost to Spain in the Euro Cup championship in a massacre 4-0.

Literally, the whole country of Italy shut down to watch this game. 
SIDEBAR FROM KRISTIN:  Since we've been in Italy, I've been asked for directions THREE times.  I hope it's because I looked Italian :)

Kristin's Favorite Thing of the Day:
Ravello...views, views, views

Josh's Favorite Thing of the Day:
Ravello

Kristin's Biggest Surprise of the Day:
views were even more beautiful than any picture could show and the Pompeiians were perverts...who knew?!

Josh's Surprise of the Day:
We didn't stay at the Panerama

Gelato Count:
Josh: 2
Kristin: 2
Triple chocolate and chocolate cream
pistachio and some vanilla that had raisins or maybe apricots in it?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dear School Board Members

My name is Kristin- I am a teacher, a learner, and a global citizen. I have four sons going through this public school system. I thought I might enlighten you to what a day looks like for one of my sons.... He wakes up over two hours before school starts. This gives him enough time to take care of regular routines like getting dressed, making his bed, and eating breakfast. This early morning start allows him to spend a bit of time relaxing and gives him some much needed time to work on homework. When you get 6-8 pages of math homework per week, the expectation of reading every night, and spelling/vocabulary work, sometimes you need the mornings AND the evenings to stay caught up. The school day starts. My son is in school for more than four hours before he eats lunch. During this 4+ hours he is experiencing a very long literacy block. He needs to sit still, he needs to listen, he needs to work fast. My son does not work fast- he has always taken his time. I love that about
Read more

Bikini Body Mommy and Diastasis Recti

I did not exercise while I was pregnant at all out of fear. I am usually a runner and from someone who had two miscarriages previously, I would have been content with lying with my legs in the air for nine months if someone would have let me do it; I wasn't moving any extra than I needed to. I know that exercising is safe and this was an irrational fear, but I wasn't taking the chance. When I was pregnant with Nolan and Judah, I gained almost 65 pounds.  This is very much within normal, healthy, range for twins.  You can imagine what that extra weight plus having two babies in my uterus did to my body.  Towards the end of my pregnancy, I could barely walk around my house or to the mailbox or up and down stairs without being winded, tired, and incredibly sore.  My ankles, knees, and thighs were literally giving out from the extra weight in my abdomen area. After the boys were born, I had to reteach myself how to move and exercise.  The pregnancy combined with my C-Section
Read more

Drugs AREN'T funny

Over the weekend I made one of the biggest To-Do lists I've ever made.  I am in one of those states where it feels I have so much to do that I can't even start.  Where you wander around from room to room knowing there are things you need to take care of so you clean a little, organize a little, grade a little and nothing actually gets completed.  It's overwhelming and makes me feel heavy.  My need to control things aka "my crazy" really gets out of wack. I say that because I should not be writing this right now.  I'm supposed to be grading papers, but I saw something today that made my To-Do list go out the window and compelled me to write this blog right this second. I read an article posted on a former co-worker's facebook page about a Saturday Night Live skit.  It was poking fun at medicine's like NyQuil, but it was called "Heroin AM."  I found myself frustrated, saddened, disappointed, but especially angry reading the article and seei
Read more