Parma and beyond: Part II
This is one of the many waterfalls we saw driving into Switzerland.
All during this drive into Switzerland and Germany we kept stopping because it is so beautiful and there are so many things you want to try and capture on your camera. The mountains are absolutely majestic and huge and surprisingly still covered in snow. Once we left Italy and headed into Switzerland the road construction began. We're driving up through the alps and the two lane road is under construction in all different places. It wasn't too bad but then there came a part where the road went down to one lane. Here in America we have guys on each end with stops signs and walkie talkies telling each other when to let one side go and the other. But over there they use the basic light system. One side will be red and the other side will be green so the cars with the green light can go until it turns red. Then it's the other side's turn etc. Well we're waiting our turn for the light to turn green and when it does I stall. So the cars realize this and go around me so that they can make the light. I try again and stall the car. So I try again, and again, and again, and again. At this point the light has turned red and I look in the rearview mirror and a big semi truck comes up behind me. The boys are laughing so hard because I can't get the car out of first gear. The light turns green again and so I proceed to take the clutch off and give it some gas and again I stall, and again, and again and now the semi truck is passing me so it doesn't miss the light and the other cars behind him. Now I'm a bit perturbed that I can't get the car out of first and Charles offers to drive but I tell him no, that I'm going to figure this stupid car out. So now it's our third red light and the light turns green again, and again I stall, so I start the car again and now I take my foot of the clutch and the gas and the stupid car starts going on it's own, by now the light has turned red again but Dave and Charles are yelling to go so we speed through the red light hoping that it hasn't turned green on the other side and there are cars heading toward us. We make it to the other side just fine and continue our climb up the mountain laughing all the way!!
Pictures finally
Here's a picture of the Blue Grotto when we were in Capri in Southern Italy. See how beautiful the water is!! It's really hard to describe it but now you can see for yourself.
Parma and beyond
I'm trying to finish posting my blogs about my trip before I really forget what happened. I'm going to try and do a few here and there till I'm all caught up.
Friday morning after getting ready we headed back into Florence to do some shopping, mainly for Charles. I still wasn't in a good mood so the thought of shopping wasn't too appealing. After Charles got his things, we left the city and the tent campground. I spent the morning just looking out the window and reading. I was really frustrated and disappointed at how bad our time in Florence was. Especially because I was so looking forward to it. It just became a huge let down.
The further north we traveled in Italy the prettier it got. I would love to come back and just go around northern Italy. It is so different from Southern Italy, much greener and cleaner and of course cooler. We stopped in Parma for lunch and had some really good panini's and then headed over to Brescia for the night. Our hotel was soooooo nice. I don't know if Charles was trying to make up for the bad night before because this one was fabulous. We stayed in, watched a movie and had donner kababs for dinner, which is thinly sliced meat on a yummy roll with grilled onions and a yogurt sauce. It's kind of like a gyro but I think much better. It was great!!
On Saturday we got up and headed up into Switzerland, Germany ending up in Strausburg, France. But after leaving we made a bathroom/food stop. Dave and Charles wanted me to finally do some driving. Our car we rented in stick because you can get a better rate instead of getting a automatic. I've driven stick before but driving stick in Europe is quite a bit different. The road are really narrow and hilly and you definitely have to concentrate driving over there.
I decided to bite the bullet and suck it up and get behind the wheel. That's where the fun and laughing started. This car we have has a very tricky first gear. Needless to say I stalled about 4 times before I could get going. The boys couldn't stop laughing. I finally got going and we were on the road again. Everything was fine for about the first couple of hours and then we headed into the ALPS!! First on the Italy side we were heading into the lake district. This area is so beautiful. There's a huge lake, surrounded by little cities with these huge mountains behind them. The lake is this incredible dark blue color. It was absolutely breathtaking. Definitely a place to go back and check out.
I'm so proud of myself
I feel like I've been going crazy for the last month with my blog because I see on everyone else's blog that they have titles to their posts and I could never figure out how to post a title on my own. I even had Libby on the phone before I left on my trip trying to help me figure it out. Now I have another friend starting a blog and he even emailed me to show me where the title box on his was. I was so frustrated because I want to have a title box too!! Well I finally sat down and went through all the different options and figured out that the title box wasn't checked. So long story short, I checked the title box and now I can start posting them and feel like I'm a normal blogger like everyone else. It's so nice how sometimes the simple things like being able to post a title seems to make my day.
I'm still here
Just a quick Hi here. I haven,t been able to get to a computer these last few days. I was in France and the keyboard is all screwy and it took forever just to try and check my hotmail. I,m on my way down to Friberg to see the Gunther,s and maybe I,ll be able to post some more there. Check back in a little bit.
Just wanted to say
Just a quick post to let everyone know how much fun it is to get your comments and emails especially from my nieces and nephews. It cracks me up to hear their comments. Hope you keep posting them. Most times I don't have enough time to respond except for my blogs but I love getting them. Keep them coming.
Florence - A room with a view
Thursday we headed from Rome up to Florence. I love Northern Italy and especially Florence. It's such a great city with so much to do and see and loads of great shopping. We got into Florence pretty late in the afternoon and had to find our campground where we were staying. I wasn't too sure about this at the beginning but it's hasn't been too bad. Until now. When we got there I realized that we were to be staying in tents!! I was a little irritated because I don't want to be in Florence camping in a tent. I had a little moment where I needed to just be by myself because I was hugely dissapointed. I'm in Europe and in Florence and I'm staying in a tent!! I admire all the people who like to do that but I'm not one of them. I like having my creature habits like a bed, a floor, a roof over my head, a bathroom that I don't have to hike to and don't have to share with 50 other people.
After we got situated we left for town to go look around. We were all a bit hungry and so we set out to find some dinner. We found this really cute outdoor cafe in the Piazza Ufesi and were enjoying ourselves when it started to rain. We all kind of looked at each other and starting laughing because we felt like it was our Sorrento dinner all over again. And wouldn't you know it Charles was the one exposed again. The rain kept coming and getting harder and the wind started up and was blowing in our direction. We asked the waitresses if we could get an umbrella to put over us becuase there were other umbrellas up but she told us that if we were exposed than we ran the risk of getting wet. So much for sympathy!! Then to add insult to injury our food was a huge dissappointment too. Dave got the pasta and they brought out about 3 scoops on a salad plate. It looked more like an appitizer. Charles and I had ordered a three course meal and our first course was soup which was really good. They brought us some bread to go with our soup but it was pretty tasteless. It was super soft and moist but it really had no taste. Then we had to wait in the rain for our second and third course. Our second course was the main meal and I had ordered the salmon which was pretty good but they served it on a bed of wilted lettuce. Charlese got the roasted turkey and it was like two slices of sandwich turkey with some gravy on it and it was cold!! They said that they serve it cold on purpose. With closer inspection he's was also served on a bed of wilted lettuce. They our third course was a salad which also had wilted lettuce and both Charles and I didn't even bother to each. We just paid our bill and got out of there. So much for a good meal in Florence.
We walked around and went to the Duomo but it was closed so we couldn't go in out of the rain so we walked to a gelateria and got some gelato. Afterwards we decided to head back to the campsite and play uno. We were trying to find the bus that would take us back and we're having any luck and were getting rained on so we were going to take a taxi but of course everybody else was trying to do the same. We decided to head back over the ponto de veccio to see if we could catch a bus there and sure enough we found one. Once back at the campground everybody was at the same covered patio area drinking and smoking and socializing. We decided to try and find what city we were going to go to next and Charles was trying to get a hold of his cousin.
We couldn't play uno because we're in tents and have no light or any access to a candle or flashlight so I opted to go to bed. But I don't know how much sleep I really got. It pretty much rained all night long and it made my bed and sheets damp which really suck to sleep in. YOu feel like you're sweating or something. During the night I had to go to the bathroom really bad but it was still raining super hard and I risked getting really wet if I tried to do it. So I opted to just do my business on the side of my tent and try to stay out the rain as much as possible. Somehow I fell back asleep and woke up again at 6:00 to go to the bathroom again. By then it had stopped raining but was muddy. Fun. By the time I got back to my damp tent I was trying to fall back to sleep. A few minutes later the driver and some other guys of a Cech bus group came over and stated having a conversation like it was mid day or something. During this they kept trying to clear their throats and cough up all their smoker flem and so trying to get back to sleep was pretty much lost at that point. I was so irritated that at one point I even yelled at them to shut up I was so frustrated.
Needless to say I unfortunately didn't enjoy my time here is Florence and couldn't wait to leave. Hopefully next time I'm here it will be under better circumstances.
Capri and the Blue Grotto
So today is Wednesday. We got up early and made several treks up to the bathrooms to shower and brush teeth etc. We got to the bus stop in time to catch it to the boat to head over to Capri. We had a really nice ride over and they did a little tour of the island and showed us different locations etc. One of the stops we made was this big cavern that someone had found a rock formation of the Virgin Mary!! I love how they can find the Virgin Mary in everything!! We were dropped off on the opposite side of the island called anticapri which is the little capri town on the opposite side of the big capri town. The island of Capri is really amazing in and of itself. The whole island is basically a big rock jetting up from the ocean. It has very little beaches and the beaches it does have are all pebble rocks. There is hardly any flatland and so everything is built into the sides of the clifts, houses, roads etc. There is a bus that will take you from anticapri over to capri which we took. Our main goal for going to Capri and staying here an extra day was to go to this place called the blue grotto. Charles has always wanted to go there so we were doing this for him. You,ll have to google pictures of it cause it is pretty amazing. We found a boat taxi that would take us over there and so we took it over. Before we found the boat we were in capri trying to find where to go and we happened to stop and ask this american couple directions. they told us where to go and when we were walking away I said to Charles "they looked almost like they could be mormon." He agreed and said I should ask them where they were from so I did. I went back and asked them and they said they were from Layton, Utah. I responded that I knew that they were mormon and they laughed and said "do we look that obvious?" To which I said yes, because you,re the only ones fully dressed and miserably hot like we were. We chatted for a few minutes and said our goodbyes.
We found our boat to take over to the blue grotto. When the boat got there I was still trying to figure out where this grotto was because all you could see was a wall of rocks. But then you saw these guys in little rowboats taking people in and out of the bigger boats they were in. Then you see them row over to this one point in the wall and then you see the little hole. It seriously is not wider than a row boat and to get in there is a chain that the men pull the boats through, but it,s not very high and so everyone in the boat has to lay down to fit underneath it, even the rower. Once inside it,s pitch black and you have to wait a second for your eyes to adjust but when you look back at the opening where you just came from you see the bluest of blue water you can possibly imagine. The further back in the grotto you go the bluer the grotto gets. It was absolutely amazing. That,s the one thing that will keep me coming back to Capri and southern Italy is how spectacularly blue the water is. It,s almost like the color of saphires or how blue the girl got in Charlie and the chocolate factory and I,m not even doing it justice in my description. It,s one of those things you have to see for yourself because I,m not even sure my pictures I took can describe it completely.
After seeing the grotto we caught a boat back to Sorrento, grabbed some lunch, went to get some gelato and ran into our mormon couple again of all places. We tried to find a biscotti bowl for Charles mom and couldn,t find anything so we headed out back up to Rome where we are for the evening. We,re catching up on our email, laundry, will head out to get some dinner and then another rousing night of Uno. Tomorrow we are off to Florence!!
Sorrento
Well last night we went back to our American Cafe for dinner becuase it was so good from the night before. We got there and about five minutes later it started to rain, lightly at first and then it started coming down really hard. It was lighting and thundering and then zap, the power went out. We had just gotten our appitizers (mine was the procuitto, which is a cured ham and really tasty and mozzeralla, Charles got fried mozzeralla and Dave got these fried rice balls). We laughed because it seemed like one bad thing after anther was following us that day: missed boat to capri, couldn,t find a hotel room, etc. In Sorrento they have a siesta where at 1:00 pm pretty much all of the shops close for lunch and they don.t reopen until 4.00 sometimes 5:00 pm. So we had to wonder and could shop in the stores that were open but we couldn.t use the internet and were pretty much wandering. The stores that were open we did find some really nice things. Charles got his mom this really beautiful nativity scene that.s set in a Naples setting. But back to dinner, after our appitizers we ordered our meal and needless to say it wasn,t as good as the first night. I got shrimp scampi. I figured that since we are so close to the ocean the shrimp would be really fresh and yummy. When I got my plate it was full of pasta kind of like linguini with these two kind of small lobster looking like things on each side. Now mind you we.re trying to decipher our meals in the dark with only a little tealight candle on our table to see things. I was a little freaked out by these "shrimp" on my plate. I fine with eating things as long as they don-t have their heads still attached which wasn.t the case this time. Plus in the dark I couldn.t figure out how to eat these things. We had to keep moving our table in under the canopy becuase the rain kept coming down harder and was getting us wet. We finally had to move inside the restaurant because there was no further place for us to move without getting wet. What a night. We were going to drive to Positano but cancelled that idea because we didn.t want to be driving the roads with the weather. I.m kind of bummed that we weren.t going because ever since I saw "under the tuscan sun" I.ve wanted to go there but I.ll just have to do it another time over here.
the next goal for the evening after dinner was to find a place to say. We decided to go back to the campsite and see if we could sneak into one of the bungalows since they don.t lock the windows. Wouldn.t you know it they were all full so we went and did the honest thing and paid for a bungalow. Unfortunately they didn.t have any that had a bathroom included and so we had to hike up to the bathroom and showers. It.s not so bad except when you have to go in the middle of the night like I did. One of these days I.m going to only stay in hotels and be spoiled when I.m over here, like being in europe isn.t being spoiled!!
Right when we go into our room the power came back on and so we whipped out uno and played that the rest of the night. It was so much fun because Dave and Charles kept cheating with each other and calling each other on the carpet that I just laughed at the both of them and silently laid my cards down and won quite alot. It turned out to be a fun night after all.
When in Sorrento eat gelato
Monday we got up and I finished drying our clothes and then we packed and headed out down to Naples. It only took about 2 hours to get here but we actually are a little further south of Naples in a town called Sorrento. It,s a really cool town that,s built right into the mountain side. Around the bend is the town called Positano and there is also the isle of Capri off the coast. We stopped along the way and took pictures because it is so beathtakingly beautiful here being right on the coast. The water is so clear (but a little cold) but so tempting that you want to jump right in.
Once in Sorrento we had to find our campground that we were staying at. It,s built right into the mountain and has a little beach (but it,s rocky) and the boys said that it is a nudie beach when they went down to check it out. I took a nap because I had gotten up so early to do laundy that morning. We found a great little restuarant for dinner and I had the best pizza and also got for an appitizer the procuitto ham and mozzerella with bread. Yum Yum!! Our waitress was super nice and freindly and she gave us some good info on where to go to take a tour of Capri. We ended the night we some gelatto (strawberry and coconut - my favorite) and headed to bed.
We must have been more tired than we thought because we slept in and missed taking the boat to Capri. We ended up walking around Sorrento and doing some light shopping today. We had another great lunch (lasagna and some more gelato) and just wandered around the city. We met a lady on the street that told us where to go for our trip to Capri and we decided to stay another night so we can do Capri tomorrow. We,re going back to the same restaurant for dinner tonight (for some more procuitto and mozzerella) and of course gelato!! When in Italy........
This is one of the many waterfalls we saw driving into Switzerland.
