July 15
I work all day. We get picked up by the gruber who takes us to SFO. We leave on Virgin at 10:20 to Heathrow. I stay up all flight and watch two series, the dead detective boys on Netflix and dark matter on Apple. The stewardess spills chips and beer over me at some point. Somehow the last episode of the dead detective boys doesn’t download so need to try again. I have a few brew dogs and watch my stuff. Dark matter is a cool concept, but didn’t finish the series on the flight over.
July 16
We arrive and our bags are not on the correct baggage claim . We however manage to get them and make our way to check in of British airways to Venice. We stay at the BA lounge and I have some espresso martinis, 3 of them while we wait 2 hours. Our flight is delayed. Then it says go to gate. However no one is at the gate and takes forever to get to the gate. I think the plane has left so barge in, but am all out of sorts as they have not even started boarding.
We board. I sit with Lawson in row 4 and continue watching dark matter. We arrive. It is HUMID. The wave of heat and humidity is crushing after being awake for 30 hours. We get our luggage and find our driver. He takes us to a boat. The boat takes us to the Ruzzini Palace. We pass by a famous bridge.
We are in room 302 and it is a fantastic room. I take a shower and go to sleep at around 12:30am.
July 17
I wake up at 6. I answer email. We have breakfast at 8:30. I have first Italian coffee.
We are trying to figure out what to do for the day. Think we are off to she the famous Marshall canoe. lol. Breakfast was good if a little expensive. €80 for 4. I had a waffle, granola, yogurt, sugar glazed cream filled croissant, bits of cheese, and another croissant of goodness. Yes, confirmed we are going to try and locate the Marshall canoe.
It is hot. It is humid. We all blow up and we walk around in the furnace called Venice. We amble about and make it to the Saint Mark’s Sqaure. The 24 hour clock is cool.
We head East (right) hunting for the canoe when looking at the water. We see what looks the the right place, but turns out it is the admin building. Art stuff is to the West of Saint Mark’s Sqaure (left) . Back the way you came you scaly wags. We take the narrow steeets in shade on the way back which is nice. It is 9:50am am Lawson is hungry. We literally started walking at 8:30. Really you are hungry? We just finished breakfast? Arggg. Oh, and Lawson lost another hat. We make it down to the art place, but is doesn’t open till 11 and it is 10:07. We make our way to the boat launch and sit down to feed the Lawson. I get a large beer. For food’ we get Lawson a vanilla ice cream cone and instead of eating it he makes a mess out of it on his face, table, and clothes. Super. Really you moan about being hungry we get you a snack and this is what you do? After 15 minutes of have him try to figure it out himself we ask him to throw it away if he doesn’t like it. Anywho, it is past 11 as we continue to broil under the umbrella. The art gallery it is huge. We buy tickets and keep asking people have they seen this canoe?
We did see some cool stuff and some not so cool stuff.
We walked. Walked some more. Did I mention that this place was huge! We went to a different building, some said it was only up a week. We became disillusioned and after seeing cool things and not cool things make our way out to actually have lunch.
I get a giant beer. Lawson actually orders some good food and also eats it. He can’t figure out how to ask for lemonade without bubbles. I’m sure he will figure it out. I have a rocket salad, some of Niamh’s pizza. It was good. I’ve been paying in cash. Time for more ATM visits.
We walk back to Ruzzini Palace and I get on my phone calls. I attempt working. Dumb community.
Off to the evening walk-bout back at Saint Mark’s Square. We meet a wonderful tour guide and learn out Mastercard has been used for fraud. Dumb. (Update – turns out ARCO is not a gas station in Italy, the card is ok. Yippie)
We tour the parliament building which was pretty cool, then we do the church which was better. We break for 40 minutes and proceed to have Lawson’s milkshake and my cold coffee spill over the Fiona. Only got her leg.
The basilica was cool.
We walk back to Ruzzini Palace. I finish my last call at 12. Take shower. It is now close to 2am. Ah candle burning from both ends. Good times.
July 18
I wake up at 7:45. I rouse Lawson from his slumber with his plushy. Niamh managed to wake up, but no time for a proper sit down breakfast. We rush out of the room as we have to be at Saint Mark’s Square by 8:15 for the tour to start at 8:30. We stop by a coffee shop and Lawson and each have a chocolate croissant. I have a cold latte which is quite good.
We finish around 10:30. I’m stuffed. I go to bead around 12 again.
une 27th – Festival of Sant’ Andrea, Amalfi
July 27
We get a pink sticker. Then we pop over to a boat which takes us to Murano. We see glassmakers making a vase and jewelry. We buy a bird, two drinking glasses, and a few jewelry pieces. It wipes out our cash for the day. We take a boat to Burano. We see one of six master seamstress sowing away. There are no new seamstresses in the pipeline. The tower is leaning quite a bit too.
We have gelato, and find some lemon candy. The kids have some chicken nuggets, we all have fries, I eat a very hard cookie and some spiked lemonade. Lawson likes it too. We take a boat ride back to Venice. Our morning tour is over.
We stop back by the hotel on our way to see the northern side of Venice. We walk for 45 minutes while the kids ask if we are there yet. They are hot and hungry.
We make it up to a place with no lunch spots. This what you get when the tour guide says places but we have no idea how to spell them or where they are. We find a spot, but it is too fishy for Fiona. We circle back to a pizza joint, ristorante due fratelli just before 2pm. It is next to TIM. I have a large beer and a margarita pizza. The kids are finally full. I end up in the sun by the end of it.
We make our way back to the hotel and stop back by a famous bridge for another beer, a coffe shop and a shoe store. The owner, Pietro, only made three pairs of men’s shoes, but has other pairs for women. Fiona does not want to put her gross sweaty dogs into a pair, but I walk around in a size 43. Not bad, but cost €250. I could wear them, but already bought a Murano glass to drink from. A beautiful beer glass vs stinky shoes eh. lol.
We chill out in the room for what only seems to be a short time, but is around 2 hours. I work and take calls. Niamh sleeps. Lawson watches YouTube. We leave at 7:30 for our catamaran cruise at sunset. We stop at a snack place near the water. Kids have tomato toast. My snack is beer. We walk the wrong way to try to find the boat. We finally walk back and find it. Not sure why Fiona continues to use Apple Maps for walking? Google maps works for me. We board. We see the sun set. There is a saxophone, music, and cocktails. I have to take a work call. Lawson sleeps thru the entire thing. People sing happy birthday.
The cruise is about an hour. We see arms, but I’m on my dumb call. Lame.
We dock and walk back to the same restaurant we went the day before, La Nuova Perla, with the cheese wheel mixing of spaghetti. I’m not sure why we have to go back to the same place as it is never as good as the first time and I want to try new places. I’m grumpy, whatever. We split the pasta and salad 4 ways. The bright side is that it is cheaper. I have a medium beer. We walk back, but somehow the slowpoke boys make is back before the speed walking girls? Guess my navigation skills are better? Anywho I think I go to sleep around 11 after a shower. My PJ shorts disappeared. Oh, hum.
July 19
I wake up at 4. Then again at 5. Plug things in. Going to take a gondola ride today. it is 8 am. People are still sleeping. Guess I’ll work
Oh, man I didn’t post about what has happened for a bit of time. the first picture I have is of the laundry we found. We left the hotel around 10 am, walked down to a self service place where we could do our laundry for €20 per load for wash and dry. We probably had 2 loads, but this is Europe so it is more like 3. So probably would spend around €60 total. We walk another 30 feet and there is a lady poking her head out with a tiny little dog. Guess what she will wash and fold for €20 per kilo. At 6 ishs kilo was €120. Done. We go back to the hotel and stuff our green backpack with dirty laundry and cart the rest, back we go and hand it off. We wait now for another lady. It takes around 20 minutes to drop off our stuff, but still faster and easier than doing it ourselves. Ha
We booked a 30 minute talking tour for €160 total for all 4 of us the same morning. Book early for a ride in the morning or evening ahead of time or walk up and pay more I suppose. There are so many gondolas how do you know you get a good route, and good person? Is it good by the number of bridges you go under?
If bridges is how you count entertainment then ours was a pretty lame as we literally went out and around, under 2 bridges for 900 meters with a guy who was learning English on unsuspecting tours. It was ‘nice’, but nothing special. Being cheap only gets you so much. I guess we value clean clothes from a laundry person rather than a guitar player, a singer, and a sweaty man? It was interesting to learn that there is so much sun that they get funny striped tans from their shirts.
Our boat ride was 20 minutes if you don’t count to boarding and off boarding. I recommend the hour but am not sure on the best route or how to get a reasonable ride that is also entertaining? Anyway we can say we checked that box, and know have been on two boats where I’ve survived the Fiona (inside joke here).
We walked down the street and the kids are impressed with the crackers and bread rolls. I have a medium beer and a veggie noodle thing. Lawson orders 10 minutes later. He is going to order first from now on, as he can’t make up his mind. He was starving and complaining about being hungry and then refused to order since he wasn’t hungry. Really we have his this phase of being difficult. Have I mentioned I’m grumpy and been awake for a long as time and the weird coffe on the way to to gondola was not going to cut it?
We are all better after lunch and get the public day pass for 24 hours to hop around Venice. We get on the 2 boat around 1:30, and go to Giorgio island. There is some weird ass art of wax legs from some Belgian lady, with pallets of rags? We go up the bell tower and look back on Saint marks square.
We get back on the boat and get to off not too far away and walk to the next stop as the church was closed for a future event that required a giant walkway over the water? We get back on and stop to have a drink. It was around 3:30. We go back to the boat stop and proceed to wait for the right boat before deciding that was dumb after about 30 minutes, so then we get on the wrong boat to take us back to the square where we get on the right boat to make it to Lido.
We make it Lido and a beach around 4:30. We walk the 10 minutes and find the cicadas finally on trees to point out to Lawson they are not speakers hiding. We first heard them at the art place and Lawson was convinced it was speakers playing their song, but no those where the lights. Every place that had chirping cicadas was a ‘speaker’ so he finally was convinced a bug was making this noise since throughout Venice was the chirping. Lol
A couple gives us their beach pass to the bluemoon. We walk in and have a drink as it was been a minute to get here. It is nice. The beach is nice. Old men wear speedos and fanny packs nice. lol. The beach bar has run out of ice but my beer is cold. I took my calls starting at 4 at the beach, and continued them even after we made it back to the hotel by 6:20 after we pick up our laundry! I had to stay awake till 11pm for my last Friday call, but at least got to go to dinner between.
We found a super good place with the best brussechta in town. Ristroante Cuore Veneziano. The 3 meat eaters split a 24 ounce rid eye, bone in. It was the perfect amount. I had the ‘Fiona’ salad with a big boy beer.
I go to sleep after a shower and my call around 12:30am.
July 20
Lawson lost his hat, Niamh hit her head.
Today was the day we leave. We go and find a good little coffee and croissant place. We mossy back and ask laundry lady if she has our blue laundry bag. She doesn’t but has they wayward sock 😉
We take our crap and check out by 10. Luggage and stairs do not mix. Another reason to pack light. Niamh has the heaviest bag with all her junk she does not need of over 20 pounds.
We make it to the station and happily find out our train leaves at 11:04. We leave from track 3 car 3. I sit with Niamh since she has to have a tray. I work on the train.
We make it to Florence.
We at at coco and sons. I have more beer.
We get another hat for Lawson.
We go thru the markets at to the hat for €10. I get a bag for Niamh for €35. She is happy. We see an actor from Outlaws, Darren Boyd. He is tall and fit. I see a car I want to drive.
We make it back to the hotel, and go across the street to Ristorante Alla Griglia, a steak house. They had a wonderful brewery that made great labels. The first beer was super, the second not so much. I couldn’t make to the third. Regardless it went well with my spaghetti and tomatoes.
I walked around after dinner with Niamh in the dark and came back and went to bed after a shower around midnight.
July 21
I was up at 6am typing away on my post, and was walking to our first adventure. Anywho, we made it to Uffizi, which is freggin HUGE! pretty much everything was 10x older than the oldest western relic. Yeah, we have the last 150 years being the new country on the block, but Italy and the surrounding areas have us beat. There was some cool things to see on the way to Uffizi too.
We also saw cool artifacts inside too
Federico da Montefeltro, c. 1472
Then we walked over to a church and it was pretty good. An oldy but goody. Full of body parts like the Egyptians? Fingers, ribs, hands, jaws.
Then lunch. I had a veggie pizza. It had carrots on it. I had a local pint of beer and a Guinness!
After lunch we had an hour so walked around. We walked over Ponte Vecchio.
Then we make pasta and gelato.
We eat our pasta. It was good. Chef Victoria says nothing exploded but am not convinced as there are quite a few deflated ravioli. Ha. But it was good. The tomato sauce was spicy – that was my sauce. lol. We learn about proper gelato shops.
We leave around 7. We go back out for another quick bit around the corner and eat at the square. Guys are shooting light up twirlers, some lady buys two for €10. I look them up and 25 go for $16 on Amazon. I’m sure I can get them off AliExpress for even less, but we talk about profit margin and doing your homework when buying things. Lawson really wants to tell the lady how much she overpaid, we say no, but applaud him for trying but also tell him that it would make them feel dumb. Or they are ok either way it since they have the means and not the time to get a toy for their grandkids. Fiona is grumpy she can’t get the check. I eat my salad and drink my iced tea. We go back and we hear that Biden drops out of race. Guess we are going to stay until 2025 to avoid this drama. Ugg. I go to bed at midnight.
July 22
Am up at 7:30 to get our 2 hour ride that starts at 9. We eat at the hotel breakfast buffet. I have my 2 coffee with cold milk combo, and 2 chocolate croissants with 1 plain croissant. Finish it off with orange juice. We are done by 8:30 so goof around for 30 minutes. Senisha arrives in a merc van and off we go. The kids in the back, mom in the middle and dad in the front. We go 2 hours through fabulous tunnels. It would have been super to take the Maserati through these 5 miles long tunnels. We make it to the Enzo Museum which is around the corner from the Maserati factory. We go through the Ferrari museum, see a video, buy some hats, race in a simulator all in a glorious 90 minutes.
We head off to lunch in town and eat at an outdoor market. I have pasta and beer. Big surprise. 😲
We stop in the Maserati showroom and I pick up a hat, shirt, and a toy car.
We off to the next Ferrari museum 30 minutes away. Before we go we pay €1.50 for 3 people to use the facilities. They only take €.50 pieces.
We see the 12th century church.
We drive a bit and stop to get sorbet.
We make it to the next museum. There are more Ferraris. ‘We’ do another simulator, and it is more amazing. Yeah, I could trade in the Morris, Maserati, and Tesla for one of these babies. The good news is Fiona is ‘considering’ releasing the Morris from our possession
Lawson does another simulator at 4:55 so we are just a bit late leaving at 5. When we leave we see you can tour in various different Ferrari’s. All much more expensive than the simulator.
We will just have to go test drive a few cars when we get home 😉 lol. we eat at a recommended place, Trattoria La Madia, but the bruschetta is poor. The bread is not toasted and the tomatoes are tasteless. I get a margarita pizza and beer. We make it home by 10:30. I take a few calls, but am in bed by midnight.
July 23, 2024
Last day. We pack and bring out stuff down to put into the luggage hold. We go to the church and wait for the tour. The church doors open at 10:15, we started the tour at 9:30 so stood in line under the glaring sun for a good 25 minutes. The church was ok. It was in gothic style and took 250 years to complete with 4 different architects. When we go to Rome we can see where other churches fit inside the massive Roman church eh, including Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. Apparently you can walk inside the church and on the floor are other churches that are smaller. You can see the architecture change in the windows as the church was built front to back.
Anywho, it is a good looking dome but that is it
Niamh’s shorts were too short so we bought a thing to wear around her waist.
We walk back to the hotel and get our bags and walk the 10 minutes back to the train station. The first place we got quoted for 4 tickets was over €2000 which was dumb. We walked over to italo and spent 320 on our own private section. Nice! We even got to hang out in the lounge. While waiting we had to get McDonald’s so we spent a small fortune on fries, nuggets, and an Oreo shake. The nuggets came in handy on our the 3 hour train ride as a snack too. The train was 15 minutes late but we got in at 4:30.
I worked. I drank iced tea. I had the food from the train which was bread and soft cheese with olive spread.
We got in and the taxi man wanted €100 to drive 20 minutes. Dumb. We then walked around and came back 30 minutes later as we couldn’t figure out how to get in the metro to take us out south city center. Dumb. We paid the same man €70 to drive us. At least he got us there. It is stupid to haggle about taxi rides when the fares should be the same. Lame. Anywho get got to the cheapass hotel and it was piss poor. It had a roof top deck, and the dinners/breakfast was good. The room sucked. The bed had sheets that didn’t fit it so the last foot was no sheet. Yuck. Dinner was good I had a cheese omelette, yeah, and a beer. Who knew it was as like a Denny’s at Hotel Marad.
July 24
We got a taxi to take us to Hercules and then down to Ravello for €200. Lawson fell over a glass coffee table, but managed to ever to gracefully fall into a couch. Guess he was not awake. We had the buffet breakfast without the Lawson since he was not hungry. We left at 9am and got to the architectural site in 10 minutes. We walked around and saw some cool stuff until 10:30. We got some drinks at the end and piled back into the taxi. We arrived at Ravello and had lunch at the Garden Bar. Everyone was jealous of my salad. I did have a cool local beer. Lawson left his hat at the garden bar which we (me and Lawson) walked back for after we got to the hotel and had our welcome drink! I had a really good beer with a cool label.
On our way back we got some gelato. Cats are also special here too. I took some calls after the welcome drink and then joined the family down by the pool around 5:15ish. The pool closed at 6pm. Did I mention that Villa Cimbrone is freggin amazing. The view, the pool, the hotel, the room. Yeah we can come back here and am glad we’re here for 3 more days 😉 I swam and played with the Lawson. Then walked back to take another call. We dressed up and ate at the hotel. I had spaghetti and a fancy margarita for dinner. Then another one. Lol. They opened the roof and helicopters flew around us.
After dinner I walked back to town with Niamh. I drank two espresso.
Anywho it is nearly 11. I’ll watch something amazing and fall asleep. I like this place more than Venice.
July 25
Beach day today. We wake up late and leave the hotel at 10:30. We are at the start of the town by 10:45. Do we walk to wait for bus? Bus is in 30 minutes and the walk is 45. We walk. We sweat. We go down 1500 steps. lol.
We get to the bottom and by noon we are in Minori. We eat at Anteres.. We guzzle water and I have 2 iced tea. I split a pizza with Niamh.
We swim in the ocean. We paid €10 per lounge for 3 lounges at Lido California. The ocean is nice. We have a drink at the bar above after our 1.5 hour swim and sun. We wait for the bus. We get a taxi after 30 minutes of waiting and no bus. I talk work calls from the beach all the way back to hotel. Kids swim from 5 to 6. I finally finish my calls. We shower. Dress up and have a cocktail at 7, and are down to dinner by 8. They keep bringing food. We have peach sangria and loads of food.
My last paragraph went missing. But we heard fireworks as there will be a celebration of the Saint of the Revello town tomorrow.
July 26
Boat day! We get a hire car and leave early. 7:30. we take our hired car down and I have a cappuccino and a croissant of some kind. We go and wait for Alfonso. A girl makes sure it is us and we get on the boat at 8:30. Easy. We then swim and look back at the town for 4 hours, and have lunch at La Tonnarella, and then more swimming and we were done by 2:30.
I started my work while looking to get back to the hotel at 4pm. We walked to get gelato, and found a good one. Then we asked a taxi driver how much to get back to Ravello and she said €80, we bitterly pointed to the rate sign behind him which said €55. I luv, love, freggin love (note my sarcasm) haggling over how much it will be to go places in a damn taxi. Lame. We walked 30M to the tourist info desk asked about best way back and we spent €6 for all for of us to get a one way ticket back to the city center. We made it back at 5:45 and Lawson wanted to go swimming in the pool. Lol. I finish my calls, take a shower and we watch the opening ceremony of Olympic Games in Paris at 7:30pm. We have to listen to Italian commentators talking over the Paris intro. I guess annoying commentary is a thing is every country. Lol. We walk to town at 8. And find a table at Cafe Duomo and listen fireworks and the town band. The fireworks are random and loud and scare the crap out of us as we are eating. I have three espresso martini, a ravello beer, and a margarita pizza.
Some how niamh rolls her ankle on way back to hotel, so I give the snotting crying little person a piggy back ride back. Ugh. 100 pounds of cuteness. We get ice for her and I good around till 12:30am.
July 27
There are no freggin taxis to take us to our meeting point!!! Ah! So much for NOT hiring a car to get dropped off on time. Yesterday there was plenty, but that was Friday! Bah! Our alarm went off at 6:30, we leave the room at 7, and then we proceed to freak out as there are no taxi drivers at 7am on a Saturday. Bah! We find one at 7:20 but he wants his coffee, and says another will be around in 10 minutes. He calls, we call, and consider a bus. He takes pity on us and we get in for €60 and get dropped off at 7:50. Our pick up is 8:05. We get picked up at 7:53. Am wondering if they would have waited? Anywho we made the bus. It is now 8:23 on our way to Pompei.
Pompei was cool. We walked 3 miles in 3 hours. It took 45 minutes to get to Pompei, we got off, got our radios, got coffee, got a croissant, did our bio break, and started out walking tour at 9:45. There were so many people and groups. We had 25ish people in our group. The bus that took us was going around and through these crazy narrow and curved streets.
There were so many people. So many. It was one of the best tours and we applied it to the Hercules archeological site we went too before. Snack shops, red light districts, bakeries, lead pipes for water, bath houses, gymnasiums, water fountains with distinct faces (eg meeting points, as they didn’t have ‘addresses’) and amphitheaters. They now think the volcano erupted in October vs August but still around 79AD.
We ate at La Gare. I had pizza and beer. a very nice large beer after being in the sun for 3 hours. We got back on the bus and did a small transfer to a smaller van that took us back into Amalfi. We had gelato and a beer as we got bus tickets back to Ravello. We hopped on the bus at 4pm, and were in the pool by 5.
We swam for 30 minutes and I came back with Niamh to clean up for dinner. We left for dinner at 7:15 and looked around at places to eat, but ended up back in the square. We ate at Caffe Rita? Which is right next to duomo, the place we ate before. All the tables were ‘reserved’ except for this place. The pizza sucked. I mean just bad. The drinks were ok. The salad I had was ok. There was a reason we found a table in the middle next to a pole.
The band played at 8:15, with fireworks to get your attention. Then they came out of the church, walked around and came back into town at 9:15. Then fireworks at 10:15. The fireworks were awesome. They shook you chest and rang your ears kid of fireworks. We were 200 feet from where they were being fired and could hear the thunk when they left their tubes. The air moved when they exploded. It was awesome. Lawson held his hands over his ears and at one point said, oh my god, which was the point since we were celebrating a Saint of the town. Here is a little about what I found out about it.
Festival of San Pantaleone, Ravello
At the end of July, the town of Ravello takes their turn at celebrating in honor of their patron San Pantaleone (St. Pantaleon). The Piazza Duomo is filled to the brim, and the religious procession follows the narrow streets through town. After dark, a fireworks display is set off on the mountainside below the Piazza Duomo. For a wonderful view, head over to Scala and watch the fireworks with a view overlooking Ravello.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/duHChWArSuCkxAxmgxap-Q.bhIrzPlB6m34RoihcDCa2v
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/i5wy1HWcT0yKtfIhyF1smA.DhdUJBqkwss9z9NlqomT2A
July 28
Looks like I’ve finally maxed out my space on WordPress. Today was/is travel day. We sleep in and wake up at 8:30, Lawson sleeps till 9:30. We leave the room at 10 to walk the gardens. We get a map and it is very nice.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/LhsW0vL5QQONHpRTObgJ9w.sOIydwEczbgpPkOChF6m11
Then we are down to the main square where we get a hired car at 11. It is about an hour drive to the train station. Bruno takes us. We took someone else’s van, but our van was there too. Hopefully that person got our van? They were off to the airport. We got in a van that the hotel started putting our luggage? Anyway Bruno has been to CA so recommended a place in Campbell run by Analease(sp)? Fiona took a picture and sent her parents to go try it. We got dropped off, rolled into the Italo lounge and Lawson came with me to scout for food. We found a food court, and I went to a place with pizza and wine, Lawson found a place that sells stupid food, McDonald’s. I asked him what he wanted from the pizza place he said nothing. Really! REALLY. We are in freggin Italy and you want your chicken nuggets, large fries, and an Oreo shake. Really. Lame. Super lame. I had a buffalo cheese pizza with Fiona. Niamh has the traditional margarita. Lawson ate his stupid food. Getting it the first time i thought would be funny, a second time. Dumb.
We got on our train at 1:30 in coach 1, all facing each other. The WiFi refused to work for the hour trip. So I rocked out to my tunes. Lawson was in rare form, I said we had ten minutes and he had no clue what I said. I then started packing my bag. At 5 minutes before we had to get off I said to give him his hat. He told Niamh to put it back? Hello we are getting off. I gave you a 10 minute warning, packed my bag? Argggggggggggg. Oh, right i didn’t know? Arggggggggg. We get off and make our way to a taxi. It is a 20 minute ride from the train to the hotel. The room is a room. As boring as you could make it. The AC broke in the big shared room with 1 queen and 2 twins, so we have two rooms with working AC. I think they got a better rate than what we paid but whatever. Broken or not we have two rooms with working AC. It is around 3:30 so we go explore.
We walk up to the Piazza del Popolo, then walk ina circle back to it and eat a very expensive snack outside of two fat statues with little arms. The are the human forum of a T-Rex. Huge body, little arms. I did like my caffelatte freddo. Then we walked into the general direction of the ‘Big Bus’ and stopped by the Spanish stairs, and then over to the Trevi Fountain.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/uN6Gob80Rhyx6vwN5iq2fw.Bdk3XwfLN1GYIFoCJOce_N
July 29
We we get up early. We stop and get a croissant and a caffelatte freddo for €6 across the street. It is good. We walk 40 minutes to our meeting point for the coliseum at 8:15. It is huge. It is wondrous. It is old. We leave for our tour at 8:45. We walk around for 3 hours again for 3 miles.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/K81p-r0HRJ6FHwmu5_XBbg.I-1bvNFYdWHtyIr-GiUun6
We end the tour at noon. we find a sandwich shop and have a drink with some country potatoes. I have a beer. Then we mossy to a pizza place and I have a salad and beer.
I take my call from work at 2, and we walk back as I listen. I work till 7:30. We eat at a pizza place. I have very yummy pasta, and beer. I take a call at 11:30. I’m asleep by 12.
July 30
Happy Birthday Lawson! Off to the biggest church in the world, the smallest country, this of course is the Vatican. We walked the 1.5 miles ina record time of 40ish minutes to meet our group at 7:45. We then tour so many wonderful and old things. SO MANY!!! Overwhelming amount of ‘stuff’ between sculptures, frescos, tapestries, and art work. A hall of the lands of Italy without everybleqving with a domed ceiling that was 300m long. What to film? What to photo? There is too much? You could get whiplash looking up, down, left right amount the halls. We race thru each section with our beautiful guide (insert name here). We loose Fiona.
We finish in the Sistine Chapel and proceeded to get yelled at for talking photos or videos. Really you can film everything else but the Sistine Chapel? Lame. Oh, and take off your hat. Dumb. We find the Fiona in the chapel. Lawson snuck a photo. So did I. Granted they are crap. Anywho, below are hundreds of photos and minutes of video. It will not be more then 2 hours long as that is about as long as you can film and photo non stop. there is actually less than Pompei .
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/NsjwwVRvQ-aj97qvP9VblQ.Wd1QhKhUfBus9VlfnQ4APA
We also see the bascilla and take off our hat. It is huge. There is some event happening at 12:30? Perhaps Lawson’s birthday? Yup that’s it. We find finish the Vatican around 10:30ish, and walk to a Bottega, the Bono Bottega Nostrana – San Pietro. We have a drink and cool off from the walk. I have a beer. We then have a choice go back to hotel or go to a famous restaurant for a proper lunch. It is a 25 minute walk away from hotel, but we are closer to lunch than hotel, a 45 minute walk. Decision made. We walk to lunch. It is thru a super part of town, no really it is old and unique. We make it to Tonnarello. I have the four cheese pizza, Lawson the cheese and pepper pizza, and Niamh the cheese and pepper Tonnarello noodles. Like spaghetti, but more like Roman style with a thicker noodle. All very good. I have a Guinness to start because why not, and a Morretti to finish. It is reasonably priced. We walk to stop number 7 and wait 15 minutes in the glaring sun for the big bus. My first call is at 4. We get picked up around 3:10 and proceed to go around the city for 40ish minutes. Niamh falls asleep.
I take my calls from 4 to 7. I do my email. We are behind on our project. Things changed. Oh well. We walk to the hard rock. It is Lawson’s birthday and he wants a burger with pickles. Fine. Lame, but fine. We proceed to watch the Olympics and I order 2 espresso martini drinks. Maybe it was 3 as I had one with dinner too. I split the weirdest veggie fajitas ever with Fiona. Niamh orders veggie nachos which we all help eat, except Fiona who can’t do the ballpark cheese. The veggies fajitas were cold. The items of the hotplate of ‘cooked’ veggies was not cooked. Lame. Expensive. Lawson is happy. Niamh is happy. Fiona is happy. I had my espresso martini – Tim is happy. We walk back to hotel around 10:30. I shower. I’m in bed by 11:15ish. Catchup on current US events which are lame. Turn off lights at 12 and proceed to roll around for an hour thinks of bronzed popes, and life. Goodtimes.
July 31
I eventually fall asleep. I get up at 6:55 to turn off my alarm. We need to get a taxi by 8ish to get to airport to get an 11 o’clock flight to Sicily. We are in taxi now. A small one that can’t take all our luggage so we are sitting with our bags and the windows are rolled down. We have 12ish more minutes. We are leaving from terminal 1 with ITA airlines. It is a short flight. More later.
We landed in Sicily. I had the wrong hotel plugged in, but as the plane was taxiing down the runway to take off it made the flappy sound again and again and Fiona noticed that there was some air freshener that was being sucked up and away by the ventilation system. But to have that and flappy sound at the same time was a bit disturbing. Anywho we are here taking very expensive taxi to Taormina, like €140 expensive. It is an hour drive, but that is crazy since it was the same this morning for €55. I guess this is island pricing. Let’s see how much a coke is… the kids should have their own bed and a pool. Hopefully this is better than the last hotel which was so bland and boring I didn’t even take a picture.
We arrive. The town Taormina is up, and up, wind this way, more up, wind that way. Narrow road. We get to the hotel around 2. The room is not ready but we have not eaten lunch yet. We walk 20 minutes to a pizza place. I have spaghetti with tomatoes. It is ok. The beer is cool and I manage to get the label off the the bottle. Birra Tauro
Then we walk thru town, hit up another ATM, and it is a cool little street with shopping and food that runs about a mile. I start my 4 pm call since it took Lawson 45 minutes to eat his bowl of pasta so only had 20 minutes of walking around time. We got back to the hotel and the kids went to the pool. I had calls until 8:30. Lame. So we had a super late dinner. We found a place down from the hotel at the start of the path thru town. I am tired of the same thing, salad, pizza, pasta. So tried a weird pizza. It had Gorgonzola, apple slices, and walnuts. Instead of a marinara it had a cream sauce. I was so full since we ate a plate of fries to start. Ugh. So full. Had a fun beer. Cyclope Rossa
I walked the town street at night with Niamh. It is 11 when we get back. I take a shower. Finish A Good Person that I started on the plane which is good. I go to sleep at 1 ish. I change my alarm to 8:30 from 7:30.
August 1
My alarm goes off. I turn it off. I answer our door at 9 since housekeeping is checking on us. I put the door hanger out. Last day in Italy. We travel tomorrow. Would like to come back in April or November instead of the peak season I bet this place is nicer like Carmel. We are off to to something lazy if we can work our way out of the room. Our room sucks. The kids have separate beds, but we are all crammed in one big room with the desk ‘moved’ in the hallway leading to the bathroom. I keep coughing so will probably be sick when we get back. Super looking forward to that. Less beer more water? Naw. Not till we get home. lol.
€50 for two chairs, €10 for the cable car back and forth between the beach and our top of hill hotel. We get down and look around. There are blow up chairs that are for hotel guests, yellow/blue umbrellas for those who have made reservations all day, and then there are the blue umbrellas that we got for those lucky enough to get the back row of the beach. We get our chairs, we have drinks, we wait until 12 to have lunch, then we ocean swim from 1:30 to 3:30. Lawson jumps off rocks, one in the middle and then bigger one off the side. We have drinks before we go back up. Did I mention Lawson had a huge bowl of ice cream when we arrive and then again when we leave? Yeah, he likes vacation even if he grumbles that he can’t get up in the morning. I take my work calls from 4 to 7 again. I caught up on email at the beach. Working and vacation really do not mix. I shower between calls as I have a 10 minute break. Oh hum. Niamh and Fiona go shop while I work, Lawson watches YouTube garbage. We meet the girls for dinner. We celebrate our last full day in Italy over pizza and I try the lemoncello spritz which is awful. I switch back to a beer as soon as I can. We are back in the room by 10:30. I proceed to watch the latest dumbness from the land of the free. Our private transfer will arrive at 9:30 tomorrow.
August 2
The alarm goes off at 7:30 and we proceed to pack. Lawson proceeds to grumble, mumble and be a general sloth. Niamh does her 45 minute morning routine of looking into a mirror and smiling cutely. We go down and our guy is here in he panics minivan that is caked with years of smoking. He has not said anything but am sure is very nice. We are 35 minutes away from airport. Let’s see if Fiona or Lawson get car sick. Dum, Dum, DUM… to be continued.