Palatine Hill and Forum Romanum

We successfully navigated the Metro during rush hour.
Yay, us!

Have I mentioned how beautiful and green everything was?

Who wouldn't love getting flowers from
this cutie?

Olive grove on the Palatine hill.  

At the Roman Forum, listening to the audio tour and loving
the sunshine

One marvelous thing about the Palatine hill and Roman Forum is that there are lots of trails to follow (or No to run on), beautiful gardens and cool ruins.  Even the huts where (maybe) Remus and Romulus were raised.  Did you know our word palace comes from the schmancy homes on Palatine Hill?

Città del Vaticano

Zak's favorite exhibit

I do believe I should get a retrospective 'A'
in Humanities 101 now.  

How much do you think he spends
on that uniform?  The tassels are
cute, though.  

Outside St Peter's

We're lucky the iPods have really good batteries

First thing Monday morning Ben picked up our Roma passes to allow us to use all the public transportation in Rome.  We squished ourselves on the express bus to the Vatican city and managed not to lose anyone or any wallets on our little trip, despite Ben getting felt up a couple times.

It was a mistake to go to the Vatican City museum on a Monday.  Since so many other sites were closed, the line to get in was loooooong.  From the moment you get in line there are people trying to sell you a tour--so you get to skip the line (so temping. . . .too bad we couldn't afford what they were asking).  I don't know how many times I kicked myself for not remembering to reserve our tickets online, but it was a lot and I had plenty of time to feel stupid for not doing it.  It also seems strange that the Vatican is located in its own country, but not as weird as the uniforms are for the swiss guards who man the borders.  Once we had wended our way through the horrendous line the guards at the x-ray machines let us and our 'bambino' go to the head of the security line.  And, then the ticket guy told us Isaac didn't need to pay, yay for Italians loving big families!  We shuffled our way to the cafeteria, around all the exhibits (to which the kids were in large part completely indifferent) and then into the Sistine Chapel.  We listened to our downloaded Rick Steve's tour and followed his advice to get from the Sistine chapel into St Paul's without waiting another few hours in the security line there, so at least we did that one part of our day exactly right!

Via Cimarra

Noah and I walking home after purchasing fresh pasta

'our' window is on the top

A favorite occupation for the kids was watching the traffic.  I'm fairly
certain the street was just as dirty AFTER the sweeper came by

From the back balcony

defending their castle

Doing laundry the Italian way

As near as we could tell, there is no way to get to the
tree area, except across the roofs?

Captain No

Driving through Toscana

First off, I loved driving in Italy.  We'd heard all sorts of horror stories about the crazy Italian drivers that made us a little worried, but I had a great time.  Nobody uses turn signals, or follows the lane markings (unless it's convenient, of course) or follows the speed limit (unless there is a speed camera) and I thought it worked remarkably well all told.  It reminded me a little of driving in CA (the speeding) and a little of UT (lack of turn signals) and was not at all like driving in Deutschland.

Aquaduct near Viterbo

ocean near Civitavecchia

Our first meal in our rental apartment
Note the fabulous chandelier

We failed to throw money into the Trevi fountain, I guess
this means we have to go back to Rome!

Ben got tired of me comparing Tuscany to California, but with all the cherry trees in bloom and the big fields, it really looked a bit like CA.  Except for the mountains.  We saw the marble mines from a distance and drove to the ocean to let the kids play for a while.  Too bad the beach was more trash than anything else.  Italy is a little dirty with litter, which was quite a nasty shock coming from very clean Germany and super clean Switzerland.

We parked the van at the airport and took a taxi into town.  Our first night after feeding the kids we walked around to see the Emmanuel monument, Trajan's column, Trevi fountain and the Spanish Steps.  I was worried that our big group would have a hard time staying together, but we did just fine.

Italia

We went on a family trip last week, in search of the sun in Italy.  Driving though Switzerland in the rain and grey was interesting, even if we couldn't see the tops of the Alps.  Because we took the snow tires off the van before the trip we started to worry when the snow started and we saw plows in the road.

Just before the longest tunnel (16.9 K) this was how the weather looked.

  Luckily, by the time we came out the other side it had completely cleared up and the sun was shining.   Must have been a magic tunnel.

Also possibly magic was the boy single handedly holding up the tower of Pisa.  The fact that he was smiling is simply a miracle.

Leelleeloyu

Who needs money to pay for college when you can blow it all on
braces?

For Darren

Roman Bridge, Trier

Rothenburg

Playground along the Rhine river

Keeping Noah entertained along the Rhine

Luxembourg, military museum 

Walking the streets of Rothenburg at night

Rothenburg

Walking the wall in Rothenburg

Child catcher's cart

Luxembourg American cemetery
(where Patton is buried)

Loraine Cemetery, St Avold, France

He doesn't really take pictures of people, and I am too busy chasing after Noah to take many. .

So.