Pompeii

In January 2002, shortly after my first miscariage, Jeff decided what we really needed was a trip. He picked Pompei as our destination. We rode the trains from where we lived in Pordenone to Pomepei. Picture northeast corner of Italy to mid to lower west coast of Italy. This train trip took us through Rome, the only time in my two years living in Italy that I saw Rome, was out the train window. I guess our time in Italy was spent taking the road less traveled. We kept putting off Rome and then we were gone.

Pompeii was completely destroyed in the year 79, by a volcanic erruption of the nearby Mount Vesuvius. The entire city of Pompeii has been escavated and you can go there and see an entire Roman city. There is so much detail. It is not a couple of buildings but blocks and blocks of buildings, an entire city. There is so much detail, the paintings on the walls inside the homes and shops. The address outside each house along the street. Sidewalks, billboards, two arenas, fountains, so much detail. We were the only people there that day, the whole city to explore on our own. It was amazing. The hotel we stayed at was phenominal. We didn't have the opportunity to stay in hotels very often during our time in Europe. We lived there. When we did stay in hotels it was always on a budget, and our rooms were always so small you would not believe it. In Pompeii our hotel was lovely. Our room was good sized. We even had a balcony.

We hoped on the train from Pompeii and explored a bit of the northern portion of the Almafi Coast. We had a lovely dinner and bought some lovely jewlery. I think that I had the best lasagne of my life on this trip. As luck would have it I was able to find photos of this adventure. Enjoy.

Assisi

Another of our day trips while living in Italy was to Assisi, which is also located in the Umbria region. Assisi is the birth place of St. Francis. We went to Assisi on a tour bus instead of driving there ourselves. We discovered on this trip that we preferred to travel with our own car. Tours are nice, you get to sleep instead of drive and you get a guided tour. Jeff and Mandy do not like the guided tours, too much talking, and I don't like to ride on buses so much.

We arrived in Assisi on a very cold, rainy day with extremely cold and strong winds. The town of Assisi is full of hills, so imagine us walking up steep hills in the rain with 100 mile per hour wind blowing toward us. This is how I remember Assisi. Whenever we got to a location of interest and took shelter inside. We got to see the church that St. Francis attended as a child. We got to sit in the pew and look at the cross he was looking at when God spoke to him.

My favorite part of the day was at the church built after his death a monument built to him. Inside this enormous cathedral was the small home that he lived in during his adult years. St. Francis was born into a wealthy family and grew up as a playboy of sorts. He enjoyed spending money and having fun. When he was fighting in the army and then held prisoner for over a year he contracted a fever and almost died. During this time of extreme duress he found a deeper meaning to life. He began a journey of discovery and eventually became a saint. During this journey of discovery, at one point he was feeling that he wasn't close enough to God, or that his spirituality wasn't enough and he decided that perhaps if he were to go outside and roll around naked in the brambles, that the pain and duress would help him to journey even closer to God. When he began to roll in the brambles just outside his house they were miraculously changed from brambles to roses, but roses have thorns and would hurt just as much, not these roses, these roses were thornless roses. He found himself rolling around in thornless rose bushes.

Inside this cathedral made as a monument to St. Francis is his old home, a tiny brick house no bigger than a closet. But, also there is a garden, a garden filled with those thornless roses. Which have been carefully and lovingly tended for over a century by the people of Assisi. Within this Cathedral, you go down a hall and you look through a window, and through that window you can see the rose garden. You cannot go into that garden or touch those roses but even on a cold and blustery winter day there were a few blossoms on the very truly thornless rose bushes. I felt an enormous spiritual connection to St. Francis that day. I believed the miracle of the rose bushes. I don't normally believe in the supernatural aspects of religion all that much. If I hadn't been in that church I would have thought of that story as a fairy tale like that of Cinderella, but having been there I have to tell you it felt very real to me that day. I am most certain that a miracle happened, the miraculous thornless roses.

I like to think of God in this way, I take that thought of a loving God who would not want his child to suffer, I take that with me everyday. I don't believe that people need to suffer to learn or to grow.

Turn that frown upside down

This post is brought to you today by the word SMILE, lol-I crack myself up-too much Sesame Street I suppose...

We did eventually make it over to Pisa. It was a bit of a drive from our home in Pordenone. If memory serves it was a 5 or 6 hour drive? We left our house at 0'dark early and arrived at around 10AM. We were of course hungry, but there is no food served in Italy until 12:30PM therefore we stopped at Camp Darby, an Army Post, and grabbed a quick bite at the Burger King.

When we arrived at Pisa I was very disappointed. The whole thing is a courtyard with the tower and a church and I think there is another building? We did not have a reservation to climb to the top of the tower and it was very expensive if memory serves. For some reason we didn't climb to the top. We walked around, went in all the buildings and an hour later we were looking at each other like, what now?

I had noticed on our way to Pisa that we had driven past the city of Vinci. I looked it up in my travel book and it was the Vinci - as in Leonardo di Vinci (Leonardo from Vinci). It was on our way home, if you think getting off the main road and driving on tiny back streets for a hundred miles is on the way. (that is a really rough and most likely exaggerated estimate). Mandy and I were able to convince Jeff to take the detour. We arrived in Vinci at about 5PM. By this time we had been on the road for a very long time, Jeff was not in the mood to do a lot of museums. I love museums and Vinci has tons of museums all about our dear Leonardo. Jeff made me pick one.

I picked the closest museum and we entered. It was like a house the had been turned into a museum. There was an entry way and then you traveled from room to room. This was the most wonderful and fabulous museum in the entire world. You really have to go. Leonardo kept a sketch pad of ideas. He would think of an invention and then draw out a sketch, he would include dimensions and mechanical jargon. Most of these inventions never made it past his sketch pad. The people of Vinci had taken these sketches and built the actual item from the sketch. The actual sketches are housed in Paris, but copies of the sketch are framed on the wall next to an actual rendering of the object. They also show the year Leonardo made the sketch and then the year that object was actually invented. You see he invented all kinds of things hundreds of years before those things were invented by someone else. I always wonder if the second person who saw his sketches or if it was a coincidence? Some of these items include the bicycle, the helicopter, the machine gun, the hand glider, that is all that comes to my mind. It was so much fun to see all these things.

We also bought a print of one of Leonardo's sketches for only a couple of dollars. It says on the bottom of the sketch that it was printed in Vinci, Italy. So cool. I had it framed and it is one of my most treasured pieces.

By this time we were very hungry, it was around 6PM no restaurants serve food at 6PM in Italy. So we stopped and ate dinner on the way home at a rest stop along the Autostrata, an Auto Grill. It was pretty good.

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I have been tagged for a ton of Memes and I have been so very bad at keeping up. So sorry, I feel like an ingrate. I am going to try and put a meme at the bottom of every post until I catch back up.

This first one is an award given to me by the Nap Warden. This is the makes me smile award. Thank you very much. Be sure to check out her blog, Chronicles of a Stay at Home Mom. Her blog is smart, funny and very upbeat. I am passing this award along to some of my blogging buddies who have left comments that made me smile this week.


meno, I loved your yellow lab comment.
mamadaisy, I loved that you felt about the Colosseum the same way I felt about some of the places I have been-feeling history.
marion, sitting on the stones that told the stories of the ages, I love that you put into words what I was thinking.
luckzmom, I too have been moved to tears by the history of a place, glad to have a kindered spirit.
lorelei, you totally made me smile with your comment about a good meal, "The only thing I can make is reservations."

Gubbio

One weekend not long after our trip to Salzburg, we decided to go to see the leaning tower of Pisa. It had just re-opened and they were allowing people to climb up to the top of the tower again after having been closed for quite some time for renovations. Just as we were about to leave, we found out that in order to climb to the top of the tower you needed to have a reservation. They only wanted a few people per day to climb up the tower and it took awhile to get a reservation. So we decided to go another day. What is the point of driving all that way if you are not going to get to climb up the tower.

Jeff and I couldn't decide where we should go instead. Our gas tank was full, we had snacks we wanted a trip. We decided to give the tour book to Mandy and let her pick where we would go that day. Mandy picked Gubbio.

Gubbio is a little town in the middle of the Umbria region. Italy is broken up into regions like we are broken up into states. Each region has differing characteristics just like our states are very different. For me the Umbria region is my favorite. While Verona is my favorite city, Verona being in the Venito region, Umbria is my favorite region and Gubbio is my favorite city in Umbria. That probably makes no sense to anyone but me.

There is not a train station in Gubbio, this makes it very remote. The Umbria region is mountainous and to get to Gubbio you have to drive and you have to drive along windy roads. It took forever but we finally found the little town.

While we were in Salzburg we bought a Christmas ornament for about $50, we saw one in Gubbio for about $2, you see the difference between being a tourist town and an out of the way town with no trains going through.

There wasn't a McDonald's or a tourist book at the newspaper stand. We saw a big castle at the top of the hill and decided to start our tour of Gubbio there. Aren't we clever? It turns out that the Castle/Fortress was turned into a cool museum. We had a lot of fun browsing the museum. Around the museum are little shops. We browsed the little shops and bought a ton of medieval weapons. They were very reasonably priced and authentic weapons. Like a ball and chain, a cross bow, daggers, etc. We spotted a suit of Armour. Head to toe, full suit of armour with amazing details. It was only a couple hundred dollars. We decided not to buy it that day. Can you believe that? I have regretted it ever since. Jeff and I often talk about going back to Gubbio, just to buy that suit of Armour. I wonder if it is still there. Probably missed our opportunity. Wouldn't that make the coolest library, a suit of armour and our massive weapons collection. While I collect art, Jeff and Mandy collect weapons every where we go. We have a ton of weapons,which is so weird, for a peace lover like me.

In fair Verona

Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene
-William Shakespeare from Romeo & Juliet

One of my favorite trips was to Verona. We were only there for an afternoon, still it has been with me ever since. Maybe because we got some great artwork and I look upon the scenes from Verona every morning. Maybe because this city is the setting for Romeo and Juliet. Whatever the reason, Verona is my favorite city in all of Italy, maybe in all the world.

This trip was one of the first trips I took with Jeff after we got married. One of my very first adventures. Jeff, Mandy and I drove from our home in Pordenone to Verona. I think the drive was two or three hours, not far. We arrived in the down town section, the older section of town and found a place to park our car. We then found a newspaper stand and bought a book about Verona. The thing about Europe that makes travel so easy is that they take care of the tourists, the bumbling Americans who have no knowledge of the language or history. Every city sells books about their city in a variety of languages. All you have to do is find a newspaper stand and buy a book. They usually only cost a few dollars. The books tell you everything you need to know about that city, big beautiful pictures, history and maps. As soon as we buy our book we find the nearest McDonald's and we get ourselves a lunch and plan our day. This is pretty much how we bumbled our way through Europe. Had a great time. Saw many things. It is nice to live there for a few years, to be able to just show up and look around every weekend was an adventure.

What I remember most about Verona is going to see Juliet's house and standing on Juliet's balcony. At first I was skeptical, because Romeo and Juliet is a work of fiction, not a true story, not a story from a history book, it is a play, made up by William Shakespeare. It is a wonderfully written story, it is world renowned, a story known by all, but it is not a record of actual events. Well, not according to the people of Verona, they say that William witnessed the true and actual goings on between Romeo and Juliet and wrote he play about actual events. So we went and stood on Juliet's balcony. Jeff took our picture. It is in a box in my garage, maybe someday I will dig it out and scan the picture and prove to y'all that I once stood on the balcony of Juliet, where Romeo stood below and said those sweet words. I believe my husband called up to me from bellow, something about hurry up, I am hungry. Just kidding.

While Mandy and I pushed our way through the crowds to descend back to the street, through the house of Juliet, Jeff secretly bought a sketch of the balcony. He later had that sketch beautifully framed and he gave it to me for a present. I cherish that picture still today, it hangs in my dinning room, near a framed poster I bought while we were on the streets of Verona, that I later had framed. I guess you could say that I have a dinning room dedicated to the memory of my trip to Verona.

The other thing that really stands out in my mind is the Arena. It looks like the Colosseum in Rome, maybe a little smaller. It was built in the first century. For two thousand years it has been used. First for the gladiators, now days it is used for Operas and concerts. Elton John played there while we were in Italy, I almost bought tickets, I still kick myself for not going. While we were there that day, we bought tickets and just wandered around the arena. It surprised me how much it is like the coliseums in our modern cities. A big entrance, you follow signs to get to your section, you go through tunnels, the tunnels split, you go this way or that way to get to your section. The only difference is that it is all made of stone, the walls, the ceiling, the stairs, the seats, the stage, it is all stone. The stones were worn. Where you place your feet, walking down the stairs, there stone is worn. The seats are worn wear you sit. How many feet, how many butts does it take to wear the stone. Two thousand years worth of wear and tear. It makes me feel a part of life, all the life that has existed, all the lives that have passed through this arena. All the feet that wore away the footprints on the stone stairs. All those events.

You know how it feels to be at a concert, to be at a sporting event. The excitement of the crowd the pulse of the event courses through everyone there. I think I was able to feel a bit of that history a bit of the spirit of all that excitement, as I sat in the empty stone seat on that warm summer afternoon.

I guess this is one of the reasons I enjoy traveling so much. I enjoy learning the history of places and I sometimes can feel the history of a place, the spirit of that place seems to exist, like the place has a memory of all that has happened. I have felt that way only a few times, here in the Arena in Verona. I also felt it in the concentration camp we visited in Germany, I felt it at St. Marcos square in Venice, and at the Pyramids in Egypt. Have you ever felt that way, felt the history of a place, felt the spirit of the events of the people.