Italy 2009-pictures, blurbs, and 3 stories

So we are back from being European vagabons .  We got home on Wednesday after 21 hours of travel and it was brutal!  We missed an entire 2 days of sleep to start off our trip. But let me tell you...It was completely worth it!

Notre Dame Cathedral 

 Eiffel Tower   The weather was pretty cloudy and cold but the rain held out.  We took the lift to the second floor and enjoyed the view which was perfect when the sun would peak through the clouds.

After that we found a coffee shop where we enjoyed some hot chocolate at the bar with the locals and then found an open air market where I debated buying some stinky cheese and where we got lunch.

 We got to Rome in the evening"buona sera" 

I understand about 60% and can talk a little so that was much easier than in France! 

The next day "buon giorno" we figured out how to take the local bus to the train station, to take a train to Rome's metro station to Termini train station to catch a train to Florence! Yeah it was crazy.  On the way to Termini we made friends with this Italian guy who spoke spanish and helped us find our way.  When we got on one of the trains the ticket machines did not work so Matteo (our new Italian friend) recommended that we just get on the train and if a conductor were to get on and start checking tickets just to buy from him.  So of course two stops into it a conductor steps on board and starts checking everyones tickets.  He got really mad that we didn't have tickets, especially at Matteo!  Lucky Matteo was able to plead our case and get us off the hook, we only had to pay 1 euro each, no penalty.

3 hours later we landed at Santa Maria Novella Station and out on the streets of Firenze.  We found our bed and Breakfast, Katti House, pretty easily where Maria and Francisco were waiting for us to talk our ears off for about an hour.  It actually was quite fun chatting with them, they are like an Italian version of my parents.  Maria speaks only Italian and Francisco speaks some spanish.  While we were there a funny thing happened.  An American lady who spoke no Italian came to see if they had any vacancy because she was not pleased with her budget hotel (she found Katti House in the Rick Steve's book).  It had not been cleaned and there was no soap!  I had to act as translator.  It was going pretty well until Maria wanted to show us around the upstairs.  She kept saying a word that sounded like Policia, which in Spanish means Police so I just figured that she meant the some of the police men where staying there.  I told the Lady what I thought Maria was saying.  She was impressed that the police where staying there and even mentioned how secure it seemed.  Micah had a hunch that something was off and when we got back to our room he looked up the word Policia which turned out to be Pulizia meaning cleanliness.  Maria was trying to show her how everything was clean unlike the other hotel.  OOPPPSSS

After that we went out to explore.

We hiked the 414 stairs to the top of the Duomo (there is no lift and can be claustrophobic at times-just look at the stair case)

Next it was over to the Arno river and the Ponte Vecchio to watch the couples and soccor players get there game on.

A pit stop to grab some Gelato and Pizza around the Piazza della Republica.

The next day started off with some window spying.  It was soo fun!  People walking by would never look up and notice us.  The neighbors across the street did see us and probably thought we were creeps!

Went to the Accademia and saw Michelangelo's statue of David

(no pictures allowed)

Crossed the Ponte Vecchio again to

hike up to Piazza Michelangelo for a stunning view of Florence.  Here are the pictures along the way.  It was more than a 10 mile walking day. 4 miles where stairs!

When we got up to the top we found 20 Asian Brides and Grooms getting their pictures taken.

I was mad at them because they shot off this confetti and didn't bother to clean up their mess

We came back to the hotel around 2pm and took a much needed Siesta for a few hours!

Then more Rear Window style people watching...this time it was spying on the Gypsys getting into arguments with each other.

More Duomo The next day we were off to Naples.  It was a 180 degree difference from Florence.  It reminded me of the Tijuana Border-dirty and dangerous!  But we were careful and didn't wander too much.  The Pizza was AMAZING! 

We arrived early enough so we took the metro to Pompei .  Along the way we made another friend with a Romanian kid playing music for tips.  He would go up to couples and sing in their language while playing the accordian. He tried to sing us a Richard Marks song, "Right Here Waiting".  The funny thing was that he didn't really play the accordian-he would just kind of play the piano part a little bit and the same note on the button side to open up accordian.  Micah asked him if he could try and play and he said okay.  The teenager asked him to play that Richard Marks song-and for some reason Micah knew it.  Then he requested a song by saying "do you know this song", "Duh Nuh, Nuh, Nuh, Nuh, Nuh, Nuh."-which meant Beethovah's Moonlight Sonata.  The kid was impressed after Micah played it for him so asked for Beatles and of course Micah had to fulfill the request.  Then Micah gave him the instrument back so he could go make some money but he didn't want to leave.  He kept asking, "Do you know this song" and wanted Micah to sing along with him on different songs.  He also had no sense of personal space-which was really funny because he was super close to our faces singing.  Then he went over to serenate an Indian couple in Indian and Micah went to stand by the metro doors to check the stops map.  All of the sudden the kid looks up and realizes what stop we were at and jumps up, and screams "Out of my way" and pushes Micah away and barely makes it out of the subway before the doors shut.  He was quite a character!We made it to Pompei

Bath HousesVineyard by the AmphitheaterIn the AmphitheaterThe forum with Mt. Vesuvius in the background

The Amalfi Coast

Amalfi TownInside the church there was no one-I mean no one-around.  I thought maybe we were trespassing but the door was cracked open and we were there during visiting hours.  This is supposed to house the remains of the apostle Mark who left his fishing to follow Jesus.We hiked up to Atrani, another small fishing town where they grow lemons.  It is the one of the smallest towns in southern Italy and just matches perfectly what I amagined what a hill town in Italy would look like.  The the town has one small plaza ( where we found the old men playing cards-so cute) and you have to climb old stairs to reach the houses.  On the main road you find all the front doors of the homes and the streets are written on the side of the houses and named after the residents.

The next day we traveled back to Rome for our last day of fun.This is the ForumThe Mouth of TruthThe PantheonBirds at Piazza NovanaThe Tiber River with Saint Peters in the backgroundCastel Sant' AngeloView of Mont Blanc from the airplane