goodbye Italy, hello Germany

so sorry it has been a few days since we have posted. We have had a whirlwind of a few days! We are now posting from Rothenburg Germany. Here´s a recap of the past few days...

Our second day in Rome was fairly busy. I felt pretty bad from the cold, so Ben started out his day by touring the National Museum of Rome. He saw the discus statue and a few other statues and old coins. He came back to the hotel and we headed out to the colessuem and the roman forum. What an incredible place! We enjoyed a tasty lunch and then headed back to the hotel. I again wasn´t feeling well at all so we decided to stay in and eat dinner at the beehive hotel cafe.

We left early the next morning for our train to Venice. We soon discovered that I was not as sick as we originally thought.. there was a resident cat at the beehive, so we think that about 50% of my sickness came from the cat. I felt a lot better once we left and got on the train. Venice was incredible. We were pretty muesumed out, so we opted to exmplore St. Marks square, people watch, get lost in the city, explore the back alleys, tour St. Marks basillica, eat some more gelato and of course, splurge on the romantic gondola ride. Boy was it worth it. It was so wonderful to sit back and hear nothing but the sound of the paddle moving through the water. We also took a tour of the city on a water taxi while listening to Rick Steves audio guide that went along with it. We were sad to leave Venice, and even sadder when we realized that we didn´t specify which type of cochette we wanted on the night train (a cochette is a room where you sleep) and we were matched up with 4 other people in a tiny cabin. Oh well, it was an experience. of course the best sleeper in the cabin was the one man who snored very loudly. He fell asleep almost immediately. We made it through the night and eventually made it to Munich where we took two more trains to Fussen.

We arrived in Fussen and discovered that the town was in the middle of the fall leaves changing. It was absolutely gorgeous. The red looked like fire, and the gold was incredible. We took a stroll through town and went on a little walk to a local waterfall. We then took a bus up to the big castle that i´m not going to even attempt to spell. We walked up to this beautiful bridge overlooking the castle and river below. We then took a tour of the castle and then went back to town. We were so tired from not getting much sleep the night before that we took a two hour nap, ate a quick dinner, and then went back to sleep. We have never slept as well as we did last night.

Today we took some more trains and arrived in the midevil town of Rothenburg around lunch time. The leaves here are also beautiful. We did a town walk, ate dinner, and then went on a nightwatchmans tour. It was really funny and gave some great information about the history of the city. Jessie, was it the pastry balls here that Rick Steves said not to try, but they looked so good you tried them anyway? Well we are so tempted to buy one, but we haven´t yet.

Tomorrow we head to our last stop, Bacharach. Hard to believe our trip is coming to a close. To add to our flavors of gelato, we tried cafe, peach and we did find apple, and it was quite tasty. We are definitely ready for some American food. Ben has his first meal set on Red Mill, while I am leaning towards a bean and cheese burrito enchilada style.

Well, I am about to pass out from second hand smoke in this internet cafe, so I must go. oh ps- we did forget to mention that Ben got one souvenir in Italy, a bee sting.

Happy Birthday to my wonderful sister and best friend, Jessie, and to our little nephew, James-o (we can´t wait to hear duck)

Ciao from Roma

Well we survived Florence and one day of Rome so far. I was pleasently surprised by Florence, I had some mix reviews before we left. I liked the fact that everything seemed around 10 min. away walking distance. We didn't have to worry about public transportation and did not feel very exhausted by the end of the day. We arrived in Florence around 11 and went and checked in at our hotel. We loved the place we stayed. It was a quaint and cherry place that kind of reminded me of a grandma's house. The room was huge and we got a discount for using Rick Steves.

Once we got settled, we did a Renassiance walk through Florence. We started out at the accademia- i couldn't believe how HUGE David was-- I was expecting that. We then went to the Duomo church and hiked up the 400 step bell tower for an impressive view of the dome. The weather was nice and warm, with a cool breeze at the top. We are definitely getting used to climbing stairs after cinque terre. After the Duomo we walked down a pedestrian only street lined with gelato shops and expensive stores. We saw the Orsanmichle church, palazzo vecchio and piazza republico. After our long tour, we headed back to our hotel for some r & r and then went to dinner at a local pizza restaurant. On Friday we started out by going to the medici chapels (unforuntately there was a lot of construction going on inside, but it was still nice) We then went to the bargello museum which is a sculpture museum. We saw Donatello's David and a cool statue of St. George. We grabbed lunch and then went to the Uffizi gallery where we saw birth of venus and some other neat paintings. We had the best dinner ever last night- we went to this dim, candlelit restaurant on a back alley by a big market and Ben had his florentine steak and I had some yummy tomato soup. After dinner we strolled around the duomo and admired it at night.

We left bright and early this morning. Sadly enough, I now have Ben's cold, so i'm feeling a little tired and sick today. We still had a pretty busy day though. After checking in to our fun little hotel called the beehive, (free internet!!) we took a crazy bus to the Vatican. We toured St. Peters basillica. Some of the stuff we learned was so interesting. It gave us an idea of really how massive the church is. There was a seemingly small stained glass window at the end of the church, but the dove inside the window was actually 15 feet wide. There was some gold letters written across the ceiling that looked like maybe 1 ft. tall, but they were actually 7. After the church, we went to the vatican museum and zoomed past a lot of art. We mainly focused on Rafael's fresco rooms and the sistene chapel. I did not know what to picture for the chapel, and I was so taken back by the beauty of it. We sat there for probably close to an hour and just soaked up all the detail.

It is pretty warm here.. i cant imagine coming any earlier in the summer. We are headed out tonight for a night walk across Rome and a nice dinner and death by chocolate ice cream.

Oh and in case your wondering, here is a list of all the flavors of gelato we have sampled:
pistacchio
cookies
dark chocolate
stracchetelia
mousse nutella
hazlenut
tiramasu
cinnamon
after 8 (mint chocolate)

My favorite was the cinnamon and Ben's was stracchetelia.

Tomorrow we will do the forum, colleseum, pantheon, capital hill area. The following day we head for Venice. We can't believe that we only have 1 week left. It's not time to go back to reality yet!!!

Love you all.

Greetings from Vernazza!

We have had an incredible past 3 days. The first day was fairly uneventful with 8 hours of train rides. The ride from Switzerland to Italy was beatuiful. A large portion of the ride was along the italian coast. We did not miss any of our connections! The day was not without excitement however. Once we arrived in Cinque Terre, we went to check into our hotel (it was 8 pm) for some reason I had written down the wrong hotel, and the only information I had was an email address named Annamaria. Fortunately the town is not very big, so people were pointing us in the direction of an Annamaria that rents rooms. Well apparently thats a very popular name because we ended up going to 4 different places!!!! Finally we found the right place, but Annamaria was gone and only her mom was there who speaks solo italiano. It was hilarious watching Ben try to bust out his italian from college. He managed to confirm the price & check out time.

Yesterday was an incredible day, besides the fact that Ben's cold that he has been figthing since before the wedding set in full force. We ate breakfast at this cute little shop and got custard filled croissonts and fresh squeezed oj. We checked out of our hotel and headed 3 towns away to Riomaggorie where we spent last night and tonight. The hotel is absolutely incredible. It has a huge balcony that is aimed directly at the medeateranean sea. There was a cool breeze all day. We spent a large portion of the day reading & playing cards on the balcony. We also managed to head into town and do a town walk, eat gelato (twice) and have some tasty italian food.

Today was a very rewarding day. We hiked the coastal town from our town to town #4 (vernazza) The first part of the trail was very smooth, wide and easy. Each town got more difficult. The last part had a large portion uphill, which was pretty difficult. The weather was absolutely gorgeous (around 75-80) Once we got to Vernazza we were really warm so ben decided to go for a dip! The water took his breath away, but he said it was very refreshing. We then took a boat back to our town and was able to see all that we hiked. For dinner we headed back in to Vernazza after long showers and had a tasty meal on the waterfront. Have no fear about us working off too many calories on our hikes and walks, we have been eating so much pasta, pesto, and gelato!!!

We are actually really sad to leave tomorrow. We both agree we could stay here at least another week! But it is time to head to Florence. We leave bright and early and will be in the city by 10:30 tomorrow. We'll be there for the next 2 days. It's hard to believe our trip is over 1/2 way over, it has been so incredible!!

ps- our photographer posted two "teaser" pictures from our wedding. Check them out at www.kaceyluvi.blogspot.com

lazy days

Hello from Murren Switzerland

We have had two of the most beautiful days. We left Interlaken yesterday and were greeted by another gray day. We took the scenic route up to Gimmelwald and we were soon in the middle of a snow storm. We got off at Gimmelwald and hiked up to our hotel. Yesterday was complete opposite of our trip in Paris. Instead of rushing to catch subways and speeding from site to site, we laid on a back patio, stared at the mountains, and made shadow puppets to pass the time. We did a small walking tour around the 100 person town, played cribbage on our back patio overlooking the alps, and napped. After we woke up from our nap, the sky had cleared fairly significantly so we went outside again, but didn't last long because it was freezing!!

Our hotel cooked us dinner (which was very conveinent because there are no restaurants in town) We met the other guests staying at our little creaky fire hazard place. There was one couple also from washington state. We are following their almost same travel schedule, so that was fun to swap stories.

Today we were thrilled when we woke up and saw a totally cloudless sky (thanks for your prayers Jessie). We ate breakfast and then took a scenic gondola up to the town of Murren. We LOVE the place that we are staying today. The woman who runs it is from britian and she is so sweet. Our room is incredible. When we first went in, the windows were wide open and we have an awesome view of the alps. We dropped off our stuff and headed up 2,500 feet to the Schilthorn. Again, we just cannot describe how beautiful it was. This was the third time on the trip that i've said "I think this is the most beautiful place i've ever been". It was a 360 degree view of the most incredible snow covered mountains. We took lots of pictures and then watched a short film showing clips from the James Bond movie that they filmed there.

After we got back to Murren, we had a panini and are now here typing to you. We got free passes to the local sports center to we are going to the hot tub after this. Tomorrow we head for Cinque Terre. We are hoping to actually be able to use our capris and shorts..Talk to you soon.

52.00 cheese fondue???

Hello again from Interlaken! We will not have internet access for the next few days, so we thought we'd post tonight instead of trying to remember 3 days of adventures. We were a little disappointed when we woke up this morning and it was very rainy and drizzly. We figured that we would have a lazy day of laundry, etc. but we were happy when the rain stopped and the sun started to come out around 12. We had a picnic lunch and then took a walking tour of the town. It was just beautiful. Old buildings with flowers hanging out all the windows. At one point we walked downstream along one of the two rivers that run through the town. There were some beautiful swans floating around. We then took a local bus to a town about 20 min. away. Interlaken is a town located in between two beautiful glaciar blue colored lakes. The bus trip took us right alongside one of the lakes. Trying to describe this beautiful place is too difficult. It is literally a slice of heaven. There were huge HUGE snow covered mountain peaks, a beautiful waterfall, and this beautiful lake down below. We hiked around, took a ton of pictures and were in awe. We originally planned to take a boat back to Interlaken but we didn't have enough francs with us so we decided to walk back to a closer town to catch a free bus. I'm glad we did the walk because we got to walk along this trail (definitely a Wornick woman type of trail in the middle of the woods and nice and flat) We got back into town and went out to dinner. We went to this one place recommended by our hotel. We were shocked to find that cheese fondue was 52.00 and it only came for bread. We opted for a pizza that was still 18 francs for barely two servings. We topped off the night with getting dessert at a different restaurant. Ben had a macaroon and I had this huge piece of chocolate cake. We did not escape the price gouging however... Ben got a cappuchino for dessert and it cost 4.90! oh well.. we're on vacation as my mom would say. This was truly such an incredible day. There is going to be snow where we are going tomorrow so again, we're glad to have warm clothes. We'll spend tomorrow night in a small town called Gimmelwald and then the next night in Murren. The following day we have another longggg day of trains to Cinque Terre.. we can't wait to be sitting on our private balcony overlooking the water and eating pesto pizza. Love you all. Happy Birthday tomorrow dad..

mmm chocolate!

Hello from Switzerland! After nine hours of train rides, we arrived in Interlaken around 9:30 pm. Before we left France, we went in the morning to the palace of Versailles. Wow, what an incredible place!! We expected it to be beautiful, but were not prepared for how beautiful it was. The kings that lived there were quite into extravagance. I can't imagine having one room for parties, one room for playing cards, two bedrooms, one room for "planning" one room for war, and don't worry, one room for peace. Plus, a HUGE hall full of mirrors, 26 chandeliers and gold statues to hold up even more crystal candleholders. We have really been enjoying the Rick Steves audio podcasts we have been downloading- he is quite the humorous chap. After Versailles, we ate at this delicious crepe place. There was probably 150 different kinds of crepes. Ben had a hamburger, tomato, and garlic. I had ham, cheese, and mushrooms. For dessert we had milk chocolate and pear... yum!! Of course 9 hours of train rides do not come without many stories :) We started off our adventures by trying to use the bathroom in the station in France. I got up there and realized that they charge to use the potty. After getting some euros, I went back up and handed them to a lady. She gave me a token and some change. She was very rude and annoyed at me that I couldn't figure out which one of the like 10 doors to go in. First, I attempedt to go through a turnstile until I realized that there was a man peeing in a urinal right in front of me.. eek! Then I found the "dames" bathroom, and I put in my token, but the turnstile didn't turn. I looked over at the lady for guidance, but she just kept yelling at me in French. Finally she came over and let me in the exit. oh well. Our next adventure came when our first train arrived 10 min. late so we missed our connection. We were running frantically around Geneva trying to figure out where to go. Luckily we hopped on one shortly after. Our last connection in Bern was also an adventure. Because we were running late, we were catching random trains. The one we got on that was heading towards Interlaken was reallly nice and so we thought it might be reservations only. We kept getting on and off deciding if we should stay or not. Finally we decided to risk it and it paid off because it went straight to Interlaken. Today is very cold and rainy, so we plan to do some laundry, do a town walk, maybe go swimming and if it clears up, we will go on a boat trip to some nearby caves. Switzerland is beautiful from what we have seen. Our current hotel/hostel reminds us of being in college again. There is two twin beds pushed together and the bathroom is down the hall. Time to bust out the flip flops! I have banged my head on the wall in the room about 10 times and counting now :) And Mark, we are taking your suggestion and have been eating many desserts. Tomorrow we will head up to Gimmelwald, and it is semi clear, we will take the lift all the way up to the Schilthorn. We are having a great time- many laughs and many more stories. Hope all is well!

Ahhh Paris

What a beautiful city!! After 11 hours of sleep we were ready to go!! We started out the day at the arc de triumph. It was incredible watching all the 12 boulevards ,anuver around the traffic circle. We then "sauntered" (as rick s. would say) down Champs Ulysses and admired all the things we couldn,t afford. We ate lunch in the tuleries garden and then toured the louve. >Our favorite thing in the louve was the apollo room. After the louv, we went to the Orsay mueusm and looked at all this beautiful impressionist work including monet, van gogh, manet, and renoir. It was breath taking. We weren't done yet!!! We then headed back to our hotel and stopped at various markets around it to collect picnic food. We headed towards the Eiffel tower and ate dinner on a bench in a nearby park. We headed up the tower right as the sun was setting. We stayed until dark and watched the lights twinkle on the hour.. After about 300 unsuccessful night time pictures, and saying no to about 400 people selling blinking plastic Eiffel towers and other various trinkets, we finally got a good snapshot!! We finished off the evening with our second banana nutella crepe...

tomorrow we head to the palace of Versailles and then on to interlaken switzerland. So glad we brought our fleece and rain jackets.. its been rainy, windy and chilly both days. We stand out like sore thumbs because all the pairisains weqr tight pants, tall boats and fancy coats and there i am with ,y hooded visor marmont :) Talk to you all soon!!